The First Face of Janus

by Valentine, Phil

  Crow took his time walking toward the front of the church, each step reverberating against the stone walls. Without looking back, the monk pointed with a thumb to the row behind him. Crow took a seat. After a moment, the man knelt down and prayed. He crossed himself then sat back in his seat, continuing to look up at the painting.

  “Come with me,” he whispered at last in a thick, guttural French accent.

  The man rose from his seat. Crow followed him past the altar and out the back door into a courtyard with a garden. The man sat on a concrete bench facing one way, his face obscured by the hood. Crow sat next to him facing the other.

  “I need your help,” Crow began.

  The man said nothing.

  Crow tried again. “I need to get a message to the Custos Verbi. We’re on the same side and I don’t think they understand that.”

  “You have reason to believe they would do you harm?” the monk said.

  “I was given an early copy of The Prophecies by a stranger in Montreal. In it was a piece of paper with two odd quatrains. He was killed for it. When I visited a Nostradamus expert in America he was murdered right in front of me.”

  “And you believe the Custos Verbi killed them?”

  “Yes. I think they killed both men and now that I have the quatrains, they’re trying to kill me.”

  “Why would they want you dead?” the man asked.

  “I think the guy in Montreal was an agent of the First Face of Janus. He passed the quatrains to me.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. Maybe he knew the Custos Verbi were closing in on him and he gave them to me thinking he could come back later and get them.”

  “And you believe the Custos Verbi killed him once they discovered the quatrains were missing, then came after you?”

  “Unless you have a better theory,” Crow said.

  “Perhaps he was a First Facer who grew a conscience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is this man you met in Montreal was maybe trying to expose the organization. He knew what the next prophecy would be and was trying to stop it. When he realized his mission had failed, he charged you with completing it.”

  “But if that’s true,” Crow said, “why wouldn’t he just come right out and tell me everything?”

  “Did he tell you anything at all?”

  “He said I didn’t have much time. He said before the sun rises on Sunday it will be done. Whatever ‘it’ is.”

  “The prophecy, naturally.”

  “Then the CV shouldn’t want me dead. I’m on their side.”

  “Precisely. The very reason it must be the First Face of Janus that is trying to kill you. You find yourself in the eternal struggle between good and evil, monsieur. Between right and wrong.”

  “And which one’s which?”

  “That should be easy to determine. The First Face of Janus is all about one thing. Total control through the predictions of a third-rate con man. The First Face of Janus hides behind Nostradamus when their true aim is world domination. They merely twist the quatrains so they fit their agenda. They say there is more detail in the Unriddled Manuscript.”

  “And you don’t believe that.”

  “Monsieur, I am not so sure the Unriddled Manuscript even exists.”

  “But the Custos Verbi, they kill people just like the First Facers do.”

  “Only when absolutely necessary and only to stop the First Face of Janus.”

  “And they call themselves Christians?”

  “You are not a religious man.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of organized religion,” Crow said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Killing in the name of God.”

  The monk shifted on the bench then said, “The Church was certainly overzealous in fulfilling the Great Commission during The Inquisitions, if that is what you mean. We have had popes who have turned out to be scoundrels.” He thought for a second then added, “And worse. The Church has certainly seen its dark moments. The molestation scandal was a travesty, a body of leaders simply in denial that something so wicked could have happened under their noses. But there are the countless millions who have been fed and provided with clean drinking water. One Mother Teresa counters a multitude of wicked priests. We have built villages, provided health care, alleviated suffering among the poor, joined with the secular world to bring down an evil empire. We have commissioned unfathomable works of art, contributed unimaginably to the world of architecture, financed exploration and scientific research, and, most humbly and most importantly, we have brought billions to know Jesus Christ. You are not a perfect man, Monsieur Crow. None of us is. There are probably things in your past that you do not wish anyone to know. Does that override your positive contributions to this world? The Church is no different. We are a body. A body that sins. A body that learns. A body that stumbles and falls and then gets back up and tries to do the right thing. And a body that is hopefully judged on the totality of its work rather than the negatives that detractors want to focus on.”

  “And the Custos Verbi?”

  “They may just be our most important contribution of all. Their goal is noble.”

  “Noble? They’re killers.”

  “Do you remember how World War II ended?” the monk asked.

  “The atomic bombs dropped on Japan.”

  “And it was one of the most horrific acts ever committed by man. Why did the Americans do it?”

  “To save lives and end the war,” Crow said.

  “Precisely. More lives were saved by the bomb than taken by it.”

  “The lesser of two evils?”

  “Necessary steps, Monsieur Crow. The Custos Verbi takes the necessary steps to try and stop a society that has been manipulating death and destruction for half a millennium. The First Face of Janus gave us Hitler, 9/11, and countless other tragedies. When a life is taken by the Custos Verbi, it is taken with great deliberation and with great regret knowing that, in the end, it is necessary.”

  “So you understand the gravity of these prophecies.”

  “I do,” the monk said, “but these matters are best left to those who understand them better than we do.”

  “I’m not sure how well they understand them. As far as I can tell, the First Facers are running rings around the Custos Verbi.”

  “If all you see are the prophecies that come true,” the monk said.

  “Meaning?”

  “The attacks in America in 2001. They were foretold.”

  “But the Custos Verbi wasn’t able to stop them.”

  “They tried. Two Custos Verbi went down on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. They saved its target but were unable to save the others. They have gotten better at figuring out when the First Facers are on the move. They just have not figured out how to stop them yet.”

  “I can help,” Crow said. “I have the quatrains that point to the next prophecy. They need to know that.”

  “Perhaps they already do.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  “Custos Verbi?”

  “Yes,” Crow said.

  The man laughed. “If I were a member of the Custos Verbi, I would not be sitting here talking to you.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I have nothing more to offer.”

  The man started to rise.

  “Wait a minute,” Crow urged. “How do I find the Custos Verbi?”

  The monk turned toward Crow, almost revealing his face, then turned his head forward again. “Monsieur, you do not find the Custos Verbi. The Custos Verbi finds you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Crow waited until they arrived back at the farmhouse to unpack the details of his conversation with the monk. Rosenfeld wasn’t buying the rogue First Facer theory.

  “What did this man in the church look like?” she asked, chopping the ends off green beans.

  “I never actually saw him
. The hood kept his face covered.”

  “Mm-hmm. A monk in a church telling you the Church’s secret police force had nothing to do with it?”

  Crow’s attention was drawn to the fluffy white clouds of the summer afternoon that were slowly being replaced with darker ones. The clouds hastened dusk. Lightning flashed on the horizon. “Looks like we’re in for a nasty one.” He looked over at Rosenfeld busy in the kitchen. “What is it you’re making?”

  “Pork Chops au Poivre. It’s an old French recipe.”

  “What can I do to be helpful?”

  “You can get out of my kitchen,” she playfully pointed with her knife.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  Crow took the opportunity to explore the house. He was a snoop by nature, the kind of guy who’d look through your medicine cabinet while pretending to use your bathroom. He was never satisfied with taking things at face value. The house, he discovered, had four bedrooms—two up, two down. A hallway connected the large den with the two downstairs bedrooms. Two bedrooms on either side of the landing at the top of the stairs were large with sloped ceilings and exposed beams. On the landing were a couple of shelves and an armoire. He peaked inside.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Rosenfeld yelled from the kitchen.

  The chops dripped with a sour cream and brandy sauce and were served with roasted sweet potatoes and green beans. Crow poured the wine. The two sat at the large wooden table in the kitchen, Crow at the end and Rosenfeld just to his right. He cut into his first bite and marveled out loud at how delicious it tasted. Rosenfeld followed and, for a time, they concentrated on their meal.

  “This monk you met with,” she said, “did you ever consider he might be trying to throw you off the scent?”

  “I know. I thought about that. He could be Custos Verbi himself.” He stabbed a morsel of the pork chops with his fork. “But what he said made sense. What if the old man in Montreal was trying to expose the First Facers?” The piece disappeared into his mouth.

  “Then why would he go to you? Why wouldn’t he just go straight to a news network?”

  Crow finished chewing and laid his fork down. “I don’t know. That’s the thing that keeps bugging me. If I were—”

  A loud clap of thunder hit. The lights flickered then went out.

  “I thought that might happen.” Crow rose from his seat. He grabbed a candle and candlestick he’d found in a closet and set aside just in case. He lit the candle with a kitchen match and placed it between them.

  “Did you plan this?” Rosenfeld asked with mischief in her voice.

  “No, I swear to you,” he chuckled. “I was a Boy Scout. I’m always prepared.”

  The thunder and lightning continued as the rain poured down.

  “You were saying?”

  Crow frowned. “I forget now.”

  “You said it keeps bugging you and if you were…” She took the last bite of her meal and moved her silverware to the center of her plate.

  “Oh, yeah, if I were that guy in Montreal and I wanted to expose the First Face of Janus, would any reporter at a news network believe me? Probably not. Then you’ve got a guy like me who writes about bizarre things. I mean, my last novel was about a time-traveling cyborg from a thousand years in the future who comes back and assumes the identity of Neville Chamberlain to stop World War II from happening.”

  Sidney struggled to swallow her sip of wine as she laughed. “Oh, my God.”

  “Yeah, I know. For the record, that was my publisher’s idea. I didn’t want to do it, but after five books, I was out of ideas.”

  “I thought Destiny Raider was very good, actually,” Rosenfeld said.

  “That was the book before this last one. Yeah, I probably should’ve stopped while I was ahead. You really read it?”

  “I told you. On the train down to Washington. I’ve read some sci-fi, but this was different. Very insightful.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” She rested her chin on the palm of her hand and caressed the stem of her almost-empty glass of wine. Thunder roared again outside and lightning illuminated the kitchen like the flash from a camera. “I don’t know if it’s the candlelight or the wine or your stories of cyborgs, but this is rather romantic.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Crow cleared his throat. “Tell me about you.”

  “Not much to tell.”

  “Well, let’s start with family. Siblings?”

  “Four older brothers. I couldn’t help but be a tomboy. They needed me to complete the basketball team.”

  “Center?” Crow teased. “Power forward?”

  “Point guard. Killer with three-pointers. Why do you hate people so?”

  Crow took an awkward sip of wine. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Because you don’t seem to have people in your life. I mean, you have necessary people like your publisher and your ‘caretaker,’” she said with air quotes, “but I don’t hear you speak of much else.”

  “Maybe I’m just a private person.”

  “Maybe you’re hiding something.”

  “Hiding something?” Crow asked. “Like what?”

  Sidney leaned back and held her wine glass with both hands. “You use people.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I don’t mean that in a sinister way,” she said. “You don’t like people because people have always let you down. You’ve obviously been hurt. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Do I look like I want to talk about it?”

  “The irony is you need people. At arm’s length, but you need people. You need people to buy your novels. You love to write, but you hate what you’re hired to write. You hate New York because it’s brimming with people, and you’re not comfortable around people. People remind you that you haven’t been true to yourself. They remind you that, in your mind, they’re just consumers. You need people to buy your books to keep you in the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.”

  “Is your doctorate in psychology?” Crow asked.

  “History, but I minored in psychology. Comes in handy when I’m dealing with people wanting to part with so-called priceless artifacts.”

  “And you think you have me tied up in a nice little psychological profile.”

  “Not really,” she confessed. “You’re complicated.”

  “Am I now?” He placed his wine glass on the table.

  “See? Like that. You try to act as though you’re easy to read, but you’re not. Can I take another stab at it?”

  “Like I can stop you,” Crow said.

  “This subject, this Nostradamus thing, it fascinates you because you view it as important. Not like your cyborg novels, which make you cringe when you write them. This is the kind of subject you feel you were meant to write about, only you’ve been typecast. You’re trapped and you’re looking for a way out, and fate has led you to a way out, only your publisher is blocking the doorway. He’s telling you to go back, that you made a wrong turn, and you know you haven’t. You know you’ve finally found the right path. The path you’ve been looking for your entire life.”

  “Sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?”

  Crow adjusted himself in his chair. “Delacroix,” he said changing the subject. “There’s something odd about him.”

  “He can’t help his appearance.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Crow said. “He seemed too eager to get back to town.”

  “He’s a busy man,” Rosenfeld said.

  “Really? The guy does nothing but study a man who’s been dead for nearly 500 years. Where’s the urgency?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying there seemed to be something pressing, something he had to do.”

  “He’s probably got a life beyond Nostradamus. Maybe his wife wanted him home.”

  “He’s not married.”

  “I know he’s not the most attractive man in the world but
—”

  “No wedding ring,” Crow said.

  Rosenfeld smiled. “Usually it’s the woman who notices that kind of thing.”

  “Only if she’s interested.”

  “Good point.”

  “He said he couldn’t meet us for dinner because he had an engagement later tonight.”

  “Maybe he has a date.”

  “No, he said he’s preparing for something that happens later. Something at midnight.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “The calendar blotter on his desk. He had the number 12 written on this date.”

  “That could mean anything,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like…” She couldn’t think of anything.

  Crow rose from his seat. “Well, I’m not going to just sit around here in the dark. I’m going back into town.”

  “At this hour? What in the world for?”

  “Just to look around. See if Delacroix is still in his office. Maybe see what’s happening at midnight. I’m curious about what seemed to be occupying his mind. Care to join me?”

  “No, thanks. Not in this weather. I’ll stay here and clean up.”

  “Suit yourself. There’s another candle in the drawer,” Crow said, grabbing the key fob off the table. “Don’t get scared here all alone.”

  Rosenfeld frowned. She cleared the dishes from the table with just the light of the candle and set them down in the sink. “Wait.”

  Crow paused at the door and looked back at her.

  Rosenfeld quickly ran her hands under the faucet then wiped them on a dish rag. “I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The cobblestone streets of Old Salon were wet from the recent rain, casting a reflection of silver and black. The tourists were all gone. The shops were all closed. Crow and Rosenfeld stood on the corner opposite the modern bronze statue of Nostradamus with no light except the moon that shown between the remaining clouds. She tightened the plaid scarf around her head that protected her from the winds still blowing from the passing storm. They were gazing up at the only window illuminated on the dark street: Delacroix’s office.