Cover Him with Darkness

by Janine Ashbless

  chapter seven

  CONFESSION

  Oh crap,” I said, backing off.

  “Okay…” muttered Egan, and as he started to retreat after me I turned tail, dropping my basket as I scurried up the aisle.

  That was the moment that the missing third stranger stepped out at the top end, cutting off our exit route to the tills and the door.

  “Milja!” said Josif loudly behind me. “Come here!”

  No way was I obeying, but I didn’t see a way out. I looked wildly up and down the lane as the men started to close from either end. The lone man was nearly on top of us.

  Then Egan stepped in front of me, brandishing a mop from a display stand of Wonder Cleaning Products, and he swung it and smashed it with all his strength across the side of the man’s knee. The guy folded with a hoarse scream. Egan reached out, grabbed me and practically threw me up the aisle in front of him; I only kept my feet by running. I piled through the queue at the till, shoving people left and right. A glance behind told me Egan was on my heels, still brandishing the mop and taking rearguard action, so I belted across the parking lot in the direction of our rental car.

  There was an odd cracking noise.

  “Run!” Egan roared, appearing to my right and pointing the remote key. The car sidelights flashed twice. I could hear Uncle Josif shouting too, though I couldn’t take in the words. I bundled into the passenger side and Egan gunned the engine before I even pulled the door shut, and we lurched forward. I thought we were going to hit a post for one heart-stopping moment, but he wrenched the wheel right and we spun away, scraping against some innocent’s rear spoiler.

  “Ah!” I howled, trying to hold myself down on my seat as we hurtled out into the traffic lane. The Orthodox prayer for beginning a journey leaped into my mouth; “Oh Savior who hast journeyed with Luke and Cleopas to Emmaus, journey with thy servants as they now set out upon their way, and defend them from all evil!”

  “Amen,” Egan growled, spinning us abruptly through ninety degrees and down a side street that was far too narrow for the speed he was accelerating to. A child on a bicycle barely made it out of our way.

  “What’re you doing, you lunatic!”

  “They’re following us.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the silver SUV through the rear window—but I only got a glimpse because Egan grabbed my head and shoved it down into his lap. “Head down!”

  “What!” I wailed, my face bouncing off his hard thigh and then the steering wheel.

  “Get down in the seat well!”

  I shoved myself back onto my own side and crouched in front of my seat, knees jammed against the dash. We were going down a long straight slope; I could see a lot of sky and the tops of buildings and a distant set of traffic lights over the middle of a big junction. They were lit red.

  “Ah, shite,” said Egan grimly.

  Go green, go green, I thought. Let us through!

  They went green. Egan jerked the car over a lane and we shot past a queue of traffic, underneath the lights and back into lane. I shut my eyes and tried not to get impaled on the gearshift.

  Three minutes and several switchback junctions later, Egan slowed the car. “We’ve lost them.”

  “What, what, what,” I mumbled stupidly. “What the hell? You could have killed us both!”

  “Who were those men?” he countered.

  “I don’t know! I mean…one was my Uncle Josif. I’ve never seen the others before.”

  “They shot at you.” Egan’s eyes were still alternating between the road and the rearview mirrors: for once there was no gentleness in his face. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “What?”

  “Your man who recognized you—he called them off, I think. But there were at least two shots. So yeah—what the hell? Good question, Milja. They wanted you bad.”

  I crawled back onto my seat and stared around us, but the roads looked peaceful and nonthreatening. I didn’t know what to think. “Where are we headed?”

  “Back to the house.”

  “No!” I grabbed his arm. “They followed us from there—they know where we’re staying—God knows how—the taxi driver I suppose—” Words tumbled out as the thoughts spilled through my mind. “We can’t go back there: they’ll be waiting for us!”

  He flicked a look at me sideways. “That’s grand,” he said, turning into the lane for the city center.

  “What? What’s happening?”

  “If they’re waiting at the house, we’ll head for the Hotel Mimosa. This is our best chance to get your passport when there’s no one around. Do you remember the combination to the safe lock?”

  “Uh. Yes. If she hasn’t changed it.”

  “You’re such a pessimist, Milja.”

  He was the second man to accuse me of that today. I opened my mouth, shut it again and went quiet. The city scenery hummed and beeped and growled past us. I sat watching, but my mind wasn’t on what was in front of my eyes. In my head I replayed the events in the drugstore, trying to make sense of the chaos.

  I hadn’t seen much. It all seemed unreal, except for the feeling of panic and nausea. Nothing much was clear—except the absolute lack of hesitation with which Egan had smashed that man’s knee. I saw that over and over again.

  “What the hell was that with the mop?” I said as we turned in front of the hospital and pulled up in front of the hotel.

  “Pardon?”

  “You broke his leg. I saw. You broke it. Just like that!”

  Egan pulled a face. “Ah, well…you see, I grew up playing hurling.”

  “What’s hurling?”

  “It’s a game for men with iron balls and no teeth,” he muttered, squinting up at the hotel’s multistory facade. “Come on.”

  We walked round to the back and then into the hotel via the service parking lot and the swimming pool area. No one stopped us; no one so much as glanced at us. As we crossed the lobby I tried to see if Vera’s key was hanging on the board behind the desk, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “They might have checked out,” I warned Egan as we climbed the stairs to the third floor. He’d refused to take the elevator.

  “Well they certainly haven’t left the city yet.”

  He insisted on taking the lead as we emerged into the corridor, but there was no one in sight. We padded down the carpeted hall to room 312.

  “What’s Montenegrin for room service?” he whispered.

  I told him, and he knocked and made a reasonable go of reproducing the syllables. But there was no answer. He tried again, and pushed the handle, in vain.

  My shoulders drooped a little. My next plan was to go back down to the check-in desk, ask for the key and hope that the receptionist remembered me accompanying Vera.

  I didn’t get the chance, as it turned out. Egan stepped back and looked the door up and down. It wasn’t an upscale hotel, and the doors on this floor were faced in cheap veneer and carried an old-fashioned lock. Without warning, he slammed his boot sole hard into the wood. The noise made me cringe. He had a kick like a mule: on the second blow the jamb splintered and the door flew inward.

  That was the moment I really stopped pigeonholing him as a “nice I.T. guy.”

  And when he stalked into the room I followed, praying that we had the right occupants and that nobody else had heard.

  We got half of what I asked for, anyway.

  Inside, the hotel room stank of incense and hot wax. The curtains were drawn tight, so that it took us a while for our eyes to adjust, because apart from the open door the only illumination came from ranks of candles weeping wax all over a dressing table loaded with icons. My cousin Vera knelt at the foot of the bed, her face buried in the quilt cover, her shoulders shaking.

  My feet felt like they were made of lead.

  Egan scanned the visible area, went to check that the en-suite bathroom was empty and then said to me, very softly, “The safe?”

  Wide-eyed, I jerked my head to indicate the built-in wardrobe
. He pointed a finger at me, and then at Vera, his expression grave. As he went for the cupboard, I took a deep breath and closed on her hunched form.

  “Nana? Are you all right?”

  I’m not sure what I expected her response to be. To ignore me, probably, or perhaps to fly at my face in fury. She didn’t do either. She lifted her head from the bed, and I glimpsed the big dark stain she’d left on the duvet. Then she turned her face toward me and I saw where it had come from; there were encrustations all over her lips and lower jaw that looked black in this dim light but that I knew, with a sickening lurch, should be red.

  Her eyes were sticky and swollen half-shut.

  “Oh my God, Vera, what did they do to you?” I gasped.

  “She did it to herself,” said the man behind me in the doorway. Silhouetted against the lit corridor, he was nothing but a bulky shadow. “She took a knife to her tongue in horror and repentance at the things she had to confess to us. Such foul secrets and such black sins. A burden unbearable.”

  I stared as he closed the room door behind him and came forward into the circle of candlelight. It was the big priest with the gray-and-black striped beard, the one I’d seen with Father Velimir, and I could only think Don’t look at Egan, Milja, don’t give him away.

  Hidden behind the open wardrobe door, in the half dark, Egan was momentarily unnoticed as the newcomer entered the room. The priest’s attention was all on me, hunkered down over my shaking cousin.

  “Now we have you, witch,” he said lifting his hands.

  Egan stepped out—and the cupboard door creaked. The priest moved faster than I’d have expected, turning to the new threat—and then he took a step back, face slack with fear.

  “Is that him?” he asked, starting to cross himself. “Jesus Christ have—”

  Egan took that advantage. He kicked the priest in the gut, grabbed his beard as he folded, and punched him in the side of the head. The big man went down like a stone, without another word but nearly taking Egan with him.

  What the—? I thought.

  “Get the light!” my companion hissed.

  I scrambled for the switch by the bed. The electric light dispelled some of the claustrophobic ecclesiastical atmosphere, though it didn’t make the scene any less crazy. I stared as Egan used a dressing-gown belt to tie the priest’s hands behind his back.

  “Don’t just stand there!” he told me. “The safe’s locked—get it open.”

  I had to climb over the bed to reach the wardrobe without trampling people. But once I was there I hesitated, unable not to look at the priest laid out alongside the bed.

  “He’s fine,” said Egan, checking the pulse at his throat to demonstrate. “Hurry up, Milja.”

  I took his word for it. What else could I do? Vera made a horrible moaning noise as she watched us, and I wanted to echo the sentiment. I felt sick with confusion and horror. The four-digit code I punched in on the safe keys winked redly at me from the interior of the wardrobe, like the eyes of a devil.

  The safe did not unlock.

  I tried again. I tried a different combination of the numbers, in case I’d misremembered. It made no difference. I turned to Egan, standing astride the unconscious priest, and shook my head.

  He went over to Vera and knelt down to face her. Just for a second I felt a scream of protest rise in my throat—but it was the normal, familiar Egan who looked her in the eye. His expression was mild and when he spoke his voice was soft and sympathetic.

  “We need Milja’s passport. Where is it?”

  Vera shot me a venomous look and a red trickle ran from the corner of her mouth. She shook her head.

  “Will you open the safe for us?”

  He was so cute and warm and gentle. Any middle-aged woman would trust him on sight.

  Vera looked him in the eye and bared bloody teeth in a snarl.

  “Please, just open the safe. We’ll go, and you’ll never see us again.”

  She spat full in his face. I saw the crimson splatter across his cheek.

  Egan’s expression didn’t change. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder though, and I saw the weight of it press her down.

  “No!” I cried, launching myself across the bed. “Egan, don’t! Don’t!” I grabbed his shirt and pulled at him wildly. “Stop it! Just leave her alone!”

  He glanced up at me. I couldn’t read his face at all; I was just hypnotized by the patina of blood flecks. “You need that passport.”

  “And what are you going to do—beat her up? You can’t! For God’s sake Egan, she’s my cousin!”

  “She’ll open it if we make her.”

  “No, she won’t!” I could see the rage in Vera’s eyes and I knew she’d rather die. She’d always had a thing for the Holy Martyrs. “And you’re not going to try!”

  He stood up. “Your choice, Milja.” His voice was still mild, but there was a gravity to it. “You know what it means. Your choice.”

  It meant I would be trapped in the country with an armed gang after me and no route out. I shook my head. “Just leave her alone. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

  He stooped and reached for Vera again. For a moment my heart was in my mouth, but he only snagged the lace handkerchief she always carried in the pocket of her cardigan. Taking my arm, he helped me off the bed. He was wiping his face as he headed for the door.

  Vera made a noise behind us as we left: a noise of pain and pure hatred.

  “Quickly.” It was the only word Egan said to me as we clattered down the stairs. Until we got almost to the front door and, looking out through the glass, saw a man lounging against our rental car, smoking.

  “Oh hell. Is that—is that one of them?”

  “Out the back,” Egan announced. He had hold of my elbow and he wasn’t letting go. We marched back through the lobby and the bar and out through the pool area. There was no one waiting out the back so we hustled down a side road and hailed a cab.

  “I don’t think you’re getting your rental deposit back,” I said shakily.

  “Huh.” He shrugged, opening the door for me. “It’s on the business account.”

  We took the taxicab right to the busiest part of the town center, paid it off and went for a long, random walk. We hardly spoke. Everything I felt when I looked at Egan was so conflicted—gratitude and anxiety and guilt all mixed up together—that I didn’t know where to start.

  “We should go to church,” he said, suddenly.

  That shook me from the dumb contemplation of the hot dog in my hand. I realized I hadn’t been tasting it anyway. “What?”

  “If it’s priests that are after you, like you say, then where’s the last place they’ll expect us to hide?” He pointed across the street at a church facade where people were drifting in and out, then added, “And we need a place to talk.”

  I clenched my jaw, girding myself inwardly. It would not, I imagined, be a very pleasant conversation.

  It made me nervous to approach the church, to ascend the stairs past the beggars and slip inside. Once upon a time the brightly painted interior with its lush frescoes and warm banks of candle-glow and its gleam of gold would have felt embracing, like entering bodily into a familiar story-book from childhood. It would have closed out the outside world with all its rush and complexity and grime, and instantly put me in a place of serenity. Not anymore.

  I steered us to the first and most obvious icon near the door and kissed the picture of St. Basil. “Cross yourself,” I muttered to Egan. He followed my example clumsily and I winced. “Wrong way round—right to left,” I hissed. “And three fingers.”

  “Oops.” He did it again, properly this time.

  We were lucky—this was an Orthodox church that had pews, something I hadn’t seen before outside the States. Traditionally the people of my faith stand for services. Egan and I settled ourselves in at the back, well away from the iconostasis screen before the altar. I tried not to look around us too suspiciously. And I kept my voice as low as possible as I spoke. />
  “Who do you really work for, Egan?”

  He was pulling up the knees of his jeans to get more comfortable; he stopped moving as my words sank in. “What do you mean?”

  “This stuff you do. The kicking in doors and the evasive driving and the beating people up at the drop of a hat. Don’t tell me you learned to do that by playing too much Call of Duty.”

  “Well, no.” Egan wrinkled his nose sheepishly. “I haven’t always had a desk job, you know.” He sighed. “I went into the armed forces straight from school.”

  I glowered at him. “In Ireland?”

  “Ah…”

  “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  “I am not.”

  “I see.”

  He smiled, to mollify me. “But I do work for a bank now, honest.”

  “Would you have hurt Vera?”

  His eyebrows met in the center as he looked pained. “No, of course not. I might have…scared her, that’s all.”

  I wondered if I believed him. I really wanted to.

  He shook his head, ruefully. “It would have solved a lot of your problems, getting that passport back. Now we’re stuck looking for alternatives.”

  There was a tap on the bench beside me and I jumped.

  Proot said the tiniest voice. A fuzzy gray kitten stood on the pew at my side, looking up at me with big amber eyes. I’d never seen a cat allowed inside a church before, but I’m a sucker for them in any situation. I put my hand out to pet it and it wound itself enthusiastically in circles, starting to purr. I could feel its small bones under the soft fur and I wondered if Suzana was feeding Senka properly.

  “I’m assuming you don’t have an alternative plan right now,” Egan said, recalling me to the matter at hand.

  “No.”

  “Right, well then, before we go any farther, are you going to be honest with me?”

  I felt cold creep along my spine. I kept my head down, watching the kitten. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me about this.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The priest. He said, when he saw me, ‘Is that him?’ And I swear he nearly peed his pants.”