The First Face of Janus

by Valentine, Phil

  “I need to get a message to the Custos Verbi,” Crow said.

  Father Simonin tried to hide his shock. “I am, uh, I am not sure what you are talking about.”

  “Delacroix told me you’re an expert on them. I need to let them know what’s going on.”

  Father Simonin rose. “I am afraid you have come to the wrong place.”

  “No, I’m sure I’m at the right place, Father. Delacroix was very specific.”

  “Monsieur Delacroix was mistaken,” Simonin said sternly.

  “Would you be more open to listening if I were in the confessional?”

  The father reflected on the question.

  “Father, I’m begging you,” Crow said. “I need your help. I’m afraid time is running out. In just two days the prophecy will be fulfilled unless somebody stops it.”

  “Monsieur Crow, you are putting us both in grave danger just by being here.” He wiped his brow.

  “I’m not the threat. I’m determined to stop the next prophecy, just as the Custos Verbi is trying to do, but I can’t stop it if I’m dead. I need their help. I need their protection.”

  “Monsieur Crow, you must go now. I cannot help you.”

  The father moved from behind the desk toward the door. Crow rose and touched his arm. The father stopped and stared at him.

  “All I need to know is if they’re headquartered at the palace,” Crow said.

  Simonin’s voice was low and grave. “You have no idea who you are involved with.”

  “Maybe not, but someone has to stand up for what’s right.”

  “Someone has been. For almost 500 years. If you are smart, you will let them do their job without interference.”

  “Just like all the other times they’ve tried to stop them and failed? I’ve been placed in a unique position to do something, Father. I don’t know why or by whom, but I have to see this through.”

  “You do not understand the bigger picture. No one ever sees the bigger picture until it is over.”

  “I can stop this,” Crow said. “I just need to figure out where the prophecy is taking place. We’re fighting the same fight, but I’m afraid they think I’m working against them. I have to let them know that—”

  “I am not one of them,” Father Simonin interrupted.

  “But you know what I’m talking about.”

  The father walked to the door, cracked it open, then shut it again. Crow sat back down and Simonin resumed his position behind the desk.

  With her hair in a towel, Rosenfeld exited the bath and checked the clock beside the bed. She took her hair from the towel and began to brush it, staring off in the distance. She was growing concerned that Crow wasn’t back.

  “I am a student of the Palais des Papes,” Simonin told Crow. “I have studied it most of my life. I have spent a lot of time there. Many years ago I began to piece things together. I was warned not to ask too many questions, but my appetite for the truth was insatiable. I discovered the legends. I learned about the society of Nostradamus.”

  “The First Face of Janus,” Crow said.

  Simonin nodded. “And the Custos Verbi. How are you involved?”

  Crow produced the quatrains from his breast pocket and handed the paper to Father Simonin. He read the verses.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  “Long story. It was given to me in Montreal.”

  “By whom?”

  “A man. I don’t know who he was or why he gave it to me. He died for the cause. Now somebody’s trying to kill me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. The CV, maybe. I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. It’s possible that Delacroix may have sold me out. If he did, I want to know to whom.”

  Simonin looked at him with disbelief. “Jean-Claude? That is preposterous.”

  “Why is that preposterous? If he’s a First Facer or Custos Verbi then—”

  “He is neither,” Simonin insisted.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. Jean-Claude and I are very close. We are curious outsiders. We study the prophecy wars. We are students, not activists.”

  “He was the only person who knew where we were staying and they came for us.”

  “Was he? There must be another explanation.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Crow said.

  “I cannot help you.”

  “I need to reach the Custos Verbi,” Crow said. “Something big is happening. And soon. In just two days. This is urgent, Father. Innocent people will die. I need to figure out what the prophecy is and stop it. The Custos Verbi can help me. You can help me if you’ll just tell me how I can contact them?”

  The priest smiled. “You do not contact them. This is a centuries-old battle between good and evil. It is one thing to be a spectator. It is quite another to meddle.”

  “But I can be the difference this time. If I can join with the Custos Verbi, we can stop them. I’m already halfway there.”

  “Monsieur Delacroix is an intelligent man, but he is wrong about one thing. The Custos Verbi is not here,” Simonin said.

  “Where then?” Crow asked.

  “I cannot say.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  Simonin said nothing.

  “Do you believe in coincidence, Father?”

  “I believe in providence,” he answered.

  “As do I. It’s no coincidence that I was given the quatrains, and it’s no coincidence that I sit here before you today.”

  The father gazed out the window.

  “This whole affair started thousands of miles away,” Crow continued. “I happened to be in Montreal at just the right moment. I had no connection to any of this, yet I was chosen. I have followed the trail, and it led me from Montreal to Boston to Washington to Salon and now here.” He leaned forward trying to catch Simonin’s gaze. “To you, Father. You’ve been praying for guidance. You’ve been praying for answers. Delacroix is your friend, but you’re not like him. You’re more than a student or a casual observer. His is a secular fascination. Yours is much more. You believe in the cause of the Custos Verbi. You’ve been praying for the First Face of Janus to be stopped, and now I come walking through your door? Coincidence, Father,” Crow leaned back in his seat, “or providence?”

  After a moment, Simonin pulled a small slip of paper from his desk not much larger than a fortune cookie paper. He used these slips to write Bible verses for the children to look up. He scribbled something on it, rolled it up tightly, and placed it in Crow’s hand.

  “Do not look at it now. When you are far from this place, please.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  “I am only going to say this once, so remember it,” Simonin said. “Understood?”

  Crow nodded.

  “Behold the cup and follow the choir. The straight path ends for the non-believer. Can you remember that?”

  “Behold the cup and follow the choir. The straight path ends for the non-believer,” Crow repeated.

  Simonin said, “You must have faith. No man is an island. Find the defender of the rock by the sea and you will find your answer.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rosenfeld wondered if this was what it felt like when a teenager was two hours past his curfew. She was frightened and angry all at once. If she could just know he was OK, she would stop worrying. She hated not knowing. What she really hated was not being in control. He was brand new to all this, a novice off on a lark. He had no idea who he was dealing with. She tried to tell him. Everyone tried to tell him. He was careless. Reckless. Case in point, booking a room directly across from the Palace of the Popes. A bold move that would surely evoke a response if they were there. Anything could go wrong, and she would be responsible if something happened to him. She remembered the name of the priest. Father Simonin. She did an Internet search on Crow’s tablet and found it. Church of Saint-Agricol. She wondered if he’d thi
nk she was overreacting. Probably, but she always erred on the side of caution. In her line of work it was an asset. She reached for her phone and dialed Crow’s number again. As before, it went straight to voicemail. He had turned it off again to save his battery.

  Father Simonin began the long slog up the wooden steps of the bell tower. He’d made that particular trek hundreds of times and paced himself to save his breath. He allotted ample time for the task. Inspecting the belfry was one of the necessary tasks in the upkeep of a structure dating back to the fourteenth century. He could’ve hired someone to do it, but he took pride in it. The truth is he enjoyed it, and he appreciated the exercise. He wanted to think it kept him young, but who was he fooling? He tired a little more easily with each trip these days. He wondered when he might have to give it up for good.

  Rosenfeld felt vulnerable leaving the hotel by herself. There were dozens of other people around in broad daylight, but she had no way of knowing if that even mattered. The Custos Verbi had killed in more brazen circumstances. She checked the map on her phone, stepped out into the warmth of the morning, and followed the blue line.

  The father stopped for a brief moment and looked down to the bottom of the tower through one of the openings placed at intervals along the stairway to allow maintenance workers to make repairs to the inner wall of the tower. He peered up the shaft and figured himself to be halfway there. He continued the climb.

  Rosenfeld glanced up at the towering walls of the palace to her right. She turned left and continued to weave among the tourists, holding her phone out in front of her. Her anxiety increased with each step. She looked over her shoulder every few seconds.

  Father Simonin stopped at another opening and looked up at the floor of the belfry. He could see the rope extending through a hole in the floor and followed it all the way down to the bottom. Just a few more steps and he would reach a landing and a door that led to the belfry.

  The church had appeared closer on the map. The tangle of small streets was confusing, but Rosenfeld plodded forward, relying entirely on the accuracy of the map. The crowd was getting thicker. She heard the bell and knew she was almost there.

  The large church bell up close in the belfry was deafeningly loud. The wheel that was attached to the headstock from which the massive bell hung turned a quarter revolution. The clapper struck the inside of the bell and the sound reverberated out of the tower. Kinetic force turned the wheel in the opposite direction once the bell reached its peak and the clapper clanged loudly again. The rope was attached to the wheel, which then led down the assembly of the frame through an open trap door in the floor that, when closed, allowed the rope to pass through a hole. The trap door was opened on either side of the hole.

  A slight breeze blew through the sycamore trees that cast shadows on the pastel sandstone buildings with their bottom-story cafes and their apartments and offices up above. Red canopies jutted out from the buildings with the names of the cafes and souvenir shops printed in white. Menus locked behind glass frames just outside cafes topped black chalkboards with yesterday’s specials erased into a dusty-white memory behind the more vivid lettering of today’s. On the arched third-story windows were weathered green shutters, some pulled shut, others left open, some with flower boxes, some with off-white wrought iron railings. In the large courtyard below, white umbrella canvases were pulled tight across teak ribs that shaded tourists who drank their drinks and nibbled at their sandwiches between conversations at bright blue metal tables with wood-framed wicker chairs. A Frenchman sat on the edge of a concrete fountain serenading the crowd with his acoustic guitar for tips. He turned his head in the direction of the ringing bell tower and frowned. Just feet away, the bald man with the black patch over his left eye sat at a shaded table sipping an espresso. He looked down at his watch. 11:17. He took a final sip of his coffee and rose from his seat.

  The rope jerked from side to side in the opening of the trap door. Up and down it went to the sound of the bell. Down several yards of rope below the floor of the belfry hung a grisly sight. There, with the rope wrapped around his neck, swung Father Simonin, his head unnaturally turned to one side, his eyes ghoulishly open, his lifeless corpse bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the ringing bell. The black-robed figure twisted violently at the bottom of each cycle then rose like a rag doll as the bell’s weight swung it in the opposite direction only to fall downward to snap and twist again. And again.

  Crow emerged from the church and felt the unevenness of the small brick pavers underneath the soles of his shoes. A block or so away he pulled the phone from his pocket and brought up the two photos he had just taken. He had watched Father Simonin’s secretary leave her office. He took the opportunity to ease back into the father’s inner sanctum. Rummaging through his desk, he found a coin about the size of an American half dollar. The coin was silver with a unique double effigy, a conjoined observe portrait of Nostradamus in the foreground and the Roman god Janus layered behind him. No inscription, just the two portraits. On the reverse was a coat of arms. On its upper left and lower right were wheels almost resembling a Ferris Wheel. At the upper right and lower left were identical birds with hooked beaks. Below the shield were the words ‘Soli Deo.’ He brought up Kyle O’Hara’s number and typed ‘Looks like Nostradamus and Janus on the front. Any idea what the shield and words on the back mean? BC.’ He turned the corner into Clock Square.

  Sidney Rosenfeld was just before calling out to Crow across the cobblestone plaza when two men in suits approached him from behind. Words were exchanged. Crow was grabbed by the arm and hustled to a waiting van. Another man opened the back. The first one pushed Crow in then followed. The man holding the door looked around and shut it behind them. He hurried to the driver’s seat and drove away.

  Panic paralyzed Sidney Rosenfeld. How had they found him so quickly? She and Crow had just arrived this morning. Crow’s appointment with the priest was made at the last minute, yet they seemed to have been waiting for him. She scanned the crowd to see if anyone was looking at her. Suddenly it felt like everyone was looking at her. She tried not to be so obvious, vacillating between a quick walk and a run back to the hotel. But if they knew where Crow was, did they know where she was, too? Damned fool. Crow wanted to provoke them and he had. If the Custos Verbi were headquartered in Avignon, as Crow suspected, they surely saw them when they checked in right under their noses. Which meant they would have their hotel under surveillance. But she would have to take that chance. Everything she needed—passport, purse, travel bag—were all in that room.

  Crow rumbled along in the back of the nondescript van, his wrists handcuffed together and the cuffs attached to a metal railing between his legs. The Frenchman opposite him refused to make eye contact. The driver kept his attention straight ahead on the road.

  “Where are you taking me?” Crow asked.

  It was as if his voice had no volume. Neither man gave even a hint that he had spoken. Crow ran through the options in his mind. They were limited. Escape was unlikely. Lying would be an option, but if they picked him up, they certainly knew who he was and where he’d been. Survival wasn’t likely. He wasn’t blindfolded, so they didn’t seem to care if he saw their faces. Not a good sign.

  Rosenfeld walked through the entry hall of the hotel as calmly as she was capable taking care to read each face she passed in the large atrium. Catching the elevator up, she reached her suite, made one more sweep of the hallway with her eyes, stepped inside, and locked herself in. She pulled all the curtains closed and fidgeted as she paced. She could run but where? She couldn’t just leave Crow. She could look for him but had no idea where to start. After a moment, she pulled back one of the curtains ever so slightly to see if anything suspicious caught her eye on the street below.

  The van came to a stop inside a parking garage. The driver opened the rear door. Crow’s French companion unhitched him from the metal bar and gestured for him to go first. He exited the van and was escorted through a door and down a narrow hall
way of tile flooring and gray walls.

  Rosenfeld paced back and forth, chewing on her fingernails. She peeked out the window once more then sat on the edge of a chair in hopeless frustration. There was no one to call. There was nothing to do but wait. And hope.

  Crow sat alone at a metal table inside a dark, sterile room. It smelled musty like the air inside was old. Every movement he made reverberated off the barren walls. He looked around. Right in front of him was a long glass mirror he assumed was for observation by those on the other side. He massaged his wrists to get the blood circulating where the cuffs had been. The door of the dark interrogation room opened and a man in a khaki suit strutted in followed by two plainclothes armed guards. The man’s dark hair was graying at the temples. His jacket was unbuttoned. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he had a shoulder holster and a gun.

  “Monsieur Crow, I am Capitaine Legrand.” He took the seat opposite Crow and added, “Of the Gendarmerie Nationale.”

  “The federal police? Am I being arrested, Captain?” Crow asked.

  He ignored the question. “We want to ask you some questions. You called a man on the telephone this morning named Jean-Claude Delacroix. Why?”

  “Why?” Crow was stalling for time. He tried to remember what he’d said in the message.

  “You were angry with him, no?”

  “Yeah, I was a little miffed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he had arranged a house for me to stay in. I wasn’t happy.”

  “You told him you had visitors.”

  A light flickered in Crow’s head. “Yes, that’s right,” he said. “Roaches.”

  “Roaches?”

  “Cockroaches.”

  “And that is why you called him?”

  “Yes. I can’t stand the damn things.”

  The police captain leaned forward across the table. “What is your relationship with Delacroix?”

  “He’s helping me with some research for a book. I’m an author.”