She looked at her husband.
“But serving as a priest is all you have ever wanted, Dmitri!” Sophia objected.
“If a priest kills, even accidentally, he can longer serve at the altar,” he reminded her. “You know the rules of the Church.”
“But you also know that the rules are not always strictly applied,” she reminded him. “If we explain to the bishop…”
“Explain what? That a magic sword jumped from my hand to kill a Jesuit practicing black magic and then a lion from a tarot deck jumped from the sky and carried the body to the river?” Dmitri chuckled. “If we explained that to the bishop, he might want to remove me for a great many more reasons!”
“No one else was there,” his wife protested. “No one will ever know that you were the one wielding the sword when it killed George.”
“I will know, Sophia,” Dmitri answered quietly. “And I will be unable to stand at the altar knowing my hands were stained with blood.”
Sophia thought a moment. “Well, if you must surrender the priesthood, it was a sacrifice that saved… well, nearly everyone! Yes?”
Dmitri wiped away a tear that had slipped down his cheek. “If Svetovit had been set free, who knows what damage he would have wrought. Yes, that vision at Loreto did imply that modern civilization would fall.” He wiped away another tear with the back of his hand.
“Do you remember the tarot readings we each had after the Ghost Tour on the first night of the conferences?” Sophia asked him. “Your reading ended with the Ace of Cups and mine with the Hanged Man. The reader said we would be leaving Prague with a new spiritual life, with clear knowledge of what is truly most important.
“Do you see? This must be the new spirituality the cards promised. But we are safe, the world—that we know—is safe, and we have each other,” she gently reminded her husband. “But you will miss the priesthood. I know.” Sophia pulled her husband’s head down onto her shoulder and he sobbed like a small child who had lost his mother.
Over the next few days, they made their plans. They were able to move Magdalena back into her own apartment. She was badly bruised, tired easily, and was occasionally confused or nauseated, making Dmitri think she’d suffered a small concussion. But she was growing stronger each day. Victoria and Sophia stayed with her in her flat while Theo, Sean, and Dmitri remained in Victoria’s apartment. Magdalena promised that she would see to the safe return of the rabbi’s staff to the synagogue attic when the flood had receded enough to cross the bridge to the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. She and Victoria both promised to go to Loreto when Magdalena was able and would bury the bedraggled yew bouquet under the shrubs at the cloister. By Saturday morning, the streets of the Old Town had been reopened, allowing residents to return to their homes and survey the damage done by the flood. Chaos had erupted as the displaced rushed back to see what was left of their homes. The residents of the New Town were also being allowed home by the police. The residents of Kampa could only stand on the bridge and look down on the upper-floor roofs of their homes, sprouting like mushrooms from the deluge still covering the area.
The airport finally reopened, and there were reports of untold numbers of tourists standing in lines, hoping to board planes to take them home.
“I have to get back to Ireland—now,” Sean announced when Victoria related the reports on the airport. “I need to find out what happened the night Elizabeth was put back in her grave.” He told them about the e-mail he had received from the Irish police and his fears for his missing nephew Donal and Donal’s friends in Waterford. “I have to find the truth—and find a way to help the boys, if at all possible.”
“Yes, you must go,” Sophia urged him. Dmitri and Theo promised to come to Ireland and help, once Sean knew what had gone on and had an idea of how to proceed.
“I’ll come with you to the airport,” Victoria said. “To help with translations, or anything.”
“No! Please don’t,” Sean answered. “I may be in lines for days to book a flight back to Dublin. I wouldn’t want you wasting precious time loitering around the airport with me. But I do appreciate your help. I will let you know what I discover as soon as I can.” Less than half an hour later, he had set out for the airport and was gone.
Victoria and Magdalena housed their remaining new friends until they heard that the airport lines had become somewhat manageable. Victoria went to the airport with Theo, Dmitri, and Sophia to help with any issues that might arise.
But no difficulties arose, beyond standing in long lines. They saw no sign of Sean and decided he must have already boarded a flight to Ireland. Finally, all the visitors stood at the security checkpoint, ready to board their flights. Victoria promised to keep them informed by e-mail about the recovery of the city.
“We can all meet again at next year’s conference!” Theo announced. “Before we heard the airport was open, Sean and I spoke about Dublin being the perfect place to hold the next conference on Evil—or the conference on Monsters. Or both.”
“And if Sean needs help sorting out the trouble with his nephew, he will e-mail us and we will meet him in Ireland long before that, yes?” Dmitri spoke up. “After all, his nephews and their friends did save us from the Dearg-due, so we must go to help them if we are needed.”
“Well, when the announcement is posted online,” Theo resumed, “I will expect all of you to submit abstracts to attend! You too, Victoria—you and Magdalena! We’ll find some way to get you both there and be part of the conference team!”
They all hugged and kissed and shook hands and clapped backs, shedding a few tears. Then the academics were gone and Victoria stood as the crowd of other travelers surged around them, eager to return to their lives that had been interrupted by the flood.
Magdalena, accompanied by Victoria, retraced her steps as best she could recall and recited the verses of the Gospel as Fr. Dmitri had instructed at each of the places she had anointed with the toad venom or sprinkled with river water.
That evening in Magdalena’s apartment, the two women were sitting at the kitchen table, leaning forward on their elbows. A steaming cup of tea awaited each of them. In the center of the table sat a tarot deck.
“Oh, Victoria,” Magdalena objected. “I don’t know if I can do this. Not again. Dabbling with magic… with tarot… that’s how this whole nightmare began. That tarot reading back in New York. If only I hadn’t…”
“I know, Magdalena,” Victoria soothed her friend. “But now that we know how real magic is, how can we ignore it?” She paused. “And how better to be sure the whole thing is over with than by having another reading, like the one in New York that started it all?”
Magdalena thought about that while she sipped her tea.
“All right,” she announced at last. “I’ll do it.”
Victoria picked up the cards and shuffled.
“How else can I help to repair the damage I have caused?” Magdalena asked the deck. Victoria drew a card and set it face down on the table. It was the depiction of Death.
The card of Death in the Major Trumps of the tarot deck was rendered as it most often was, a skeletal knight wearing armor and riding a great white stallion, with a white rose emblazoned on the banner hanging from his lance and flapping in the breeze. The horse was walking over the corpse of a king and the broken crozier of a bishop. A woman and child were about to be crushed under its hooves. The bishop, whose fallen staff lay broken under the horse, stretched out his hands to plead with the knight for a reprieve. A river flowed past in the background and the sun was peeking over the battlements of a castle on the other side of the river.
“That could have been Svetovit on his horse,” Magdalena whispered. “Trampling us all up at the castle or down alongside the river.”
“But it wasn’t!” Victoria reminded her. “He didn’t! The card does not mean defeat, Magdalena! It can’t!”
“What does it mean, then?” Magdalena closed her eyes and waited, biting her lip.
“
Grow. Change. Life goes on and is transformed,” Victoria interpreted the card, checking her words against the text in the guidebook she had set out to consult.
Victoria looked at Magdalena. A tear slipped down Magdalena’s cheek.
“I hope I can,” she whispered.
“I know you will!” Victoria promised.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 126
