by Lynn Viehl
What was happening in the room faded as the sound of water rushed inside Nick’s ears, and a green darkness filled her eyes.
What will you be, little thief? a deep voice asked. A queen, or a pawn?
Nick felt a touch of the same madness that had made her put a hole in her own throat. The thing was back in her head, and while it wasn’t trying to take her over this time, she still came out swinging. You get out of my mind, you son of a bitch. I don’t play games.
You will, little thief. The alien presence winked out, like the flame of a candle being snuffed.
“Why did she come to you?” she heard Korvel say.
“She did not confide her motives to me, vampire.” He smiled. “Perhaps she tired of your company.”
Nick jumped as Korvel punched his fist through the glass and grabbed the assassin by the collar, hauling him across the desk. The scent of larkspur on fire flooded the room. “You will tell me what I wish to know.”
Lechance’s eyes lost their focus. “Simone came to me for my car and money so she could pursue Pájaro. She also humiliated me into betraying my master, but she already knew he was Padrone Ramas. They spoke on the phone.” He sighed. “He is going to be very angry with me.”
“Repeat exactly what Simone said to Ramas.” Korvel listened carefully to every word Lechance said before he demanded, “Where is this cross?”
“No one knows but Pájaro and Helada.” He frowned. “Why didn’t she blind me? Her father would have, if he let me live. Which he would not have done. He was quite ruthless about such things—”
“Shut up.” Korvel released him.
Nick looked over at the world map hanging on the wall. “Korvel, hang on.” She went over and took down the frame, removing the back and taking out the map. The flimsy print was nothing but a cheap reproduction, but along the margins of the map each grid line ended at a number.
Nick carried it over to the desk, brushing off the shattered glass before she laid it out. “Korvel, look at this. What if the scroll isn’t a map, but directions on a map? Like a GPS, but with longitude and latitude?”
“How could it be, my lady?”
“Psalms are numbered,” she reminded him. “Six psalms would equal two sets of map coordinates.”
“I think that is unlikely, my lady,” Korvel said. “At the time Cristophe forged the scroll, the modern world’s methods of mapping were unknown.”
“That is not precisely true.” Gabriel came over and pointed to the numbers in the margins. “After we broke with the Templars, the high lord began assigning territories. First he had to divide up the world, and he used a system created by Babylonian astronomers, who used number systems of sixty.”
Korvel looked outraged. “Why was I never informed of this? I am a Nautonnier.”
“The high lord shared it only with the seigneurs who governed the territories. This was to prevent the Brethren from discovering how to locate our strongholds,” Gabriel said. “Much later, when mortals began searching for a more accurate method of mapping, Richard changed his mind, and made certain that they used his. I cannot say why.”
Nick rolled her eyes. “I can. His ego. He knew humans were going to be mapping everything, and now every time he looks at one, it’s laid out the way he wanted.” To Korvel, she said, “Tell me the numbers of the psalms in the order they appeared on the scroll.” As he did, she wrote them on the margin of the map. “All right, this only shows degrees, so we use the first and fourth numbers, right?” When Gabriel nodded, she studied the margins. “Psalm eighteen by psalm seventy-seven. Some compass headings would be nice.”
“There are only two possibilities. The center of India.” Korvel studied the map. “Or Jamaica.”
“It’s Jamaica,” Nicola said at once. “I know it is. That beach I saw could not possibly be in the middle of India.”
“I will contact our people at the airport and have them prepare a jet,” Gabriel said, taking out his mobile. “We should leave as soon as possible.” He glanced at Lechance before he said to Korvel, “This man can never go free, Captain. Not with what he knows about us.”
“We are not killing him,” Nick said flatly.
“That will not be necessary, my lady.” Korvel sat down in front of Lechance. “When I leave this room,” he told the guild master, “you will give the Interpol agents a complete confession for every murder you have committed. You will also inform them of the names of the clients who hired you to carry out the killings.”
“Confess. Murder. Clients.” He nodded.
“You knew Simone’s father was Helada, and that he died ten years ago,” Korvel continued. “Who took his place, and where is he?”
Confusion passed over the guild master’s face. “But you know where she is, vampire.”
“I am not talking about Simone.” He put his hand on the other man’s neck. “She said she had many brothers. Which one of them became Helada?”
“They were not her brothers,” Lechance said. “They were orphans her father adopted from different countries. He brought nearly seventy of them to the château, but Simone was the only natural child he ever sired.”
Korvel stalked out of the room, and when Nick caught up with him she saw how angry he was. “Captain, what was all that about? What has Simone got to do with Helada?”
“Everything,” he told her. “Simone is Helada.”
Spending ten hours feigning sleep didn’t trouble Simone. As a child she had been taught surveillance tactics that required her to remain unmoving and alert for an entire night. Until the plane landed she had nothing to do but sit alone and think, so she closed her eyes and thought of Korvel.
The high lord would expect his captain to bring the scroll to Ireland immediately, so Korvel was likely on a plane himself right now. He might even be thinking of her, although she doubted it was with any pleasure. He had asked her to be his human wife, and for a Kyn warrior of his rank that was no minor honor to extend to a tresora. Flavia had told her that such relationships happened only rarely, and from the beginning were doomed to end in tragedy, for a human wife always died a human death.
Live with me, Simone, and I will kiss you every night.
If her life had been her own, Simone knew she would have gone with Korvel to Ireland. She would have learned to be a good wife to him, and devoted the rest of her days to seeing to his pleasure and comfort. Long after she died, he would remember how much she had loved him.
How much I love him.
How that had come to be, Simone didn’t know. Love had never been part of her life. Her father had not been interested in or capable of any emotion. Flavia and the sisters had been affectionate, and had allowed Simone to regard them as her surrogate family, but their hearts belonged to their duty and their God. For all his pride and reserve, only Korvel had shown any real love for her. A very physical love, perhaps, but given time it would have grown. Simone felt sure of that. Just as she knew she was on this plane because she loved him.
He will never know. But that, too, was as it should be.
The flight attendant gently touched her shoulder twice during the flight, and Simone ate the food she was served without tasting it, but the airline’s bland dishes didn’t agree with her. An hour away from Kingston she finally went to the lavatory, where she emptied her stomach as quietly as she could.
After she rinsed out her mouth, Simone studied her reflection. Thoughts of her father and the bargain she had made with him always made her feel sick, but this was different—as if she had picked up some sort of bug.
In a few hours it won’t matter. She washed and dried her face.
“You are feeling unwell, mademoiselle?” the attendant asked as Simone passed her in the aisle. “You look very pale.”
“Just a little airsickness.” As she continued toward her seat, she noticed two men sitting on opposite sides of the first-class section; both looked out their windows at the same time.
Simone made note of their unremarkable clothing before s
he turned around and walked back to the attendant. “Excuse me, but may I have a soft drink?” She pressed her hand to her waist. “It may help with the nausea.”
The attendant nodded. “I’ll bring it to your seat right away.”
Once Simone sat down she checked the interior of the cabin, measuring the open areas as well as the obstacles around her. The attendant promptly delivered the small can of soda along with an ice-filled plastic tumbler and a packet of crackers, which she suggested might also help calm her stomach.
While she munched on a cracker, Simone placed the sealed can in her pocket. By the time the plane began to descend for landing, Simone handed the empty tumbler back to the attendant, who by that time was hurrying to clear all the tray tables, and didn’t notice the absence of the can.
The landing occurred without incident, and over the intercom the pilot welcomed the passengers to the island, and thanked them for flying the airline. The moment the seat belt sign switched off, passengers began rising and crowding the aisles, but Simone remained in her seat, waiting and watching every man who passed by her. The two men who had been so interested in the view from their windows did not exit with the others.
Two other attendants walked up from the rear of the cabin; both stopped by Simone’s seat as one said, “We have arrived, mademoiselle. Do you need a wheelchair?”
“No, thank you. I can walk.” Simone got up and moved quickly out of the plane, eyeing the empty ramp in front of her before she ran for the gate.
Two sets of footsteps thudded rapidly behind her as the men hurried to catch up.
She turned to stop on one side of the gate entrance and looked around, listening to the running steps until they were only a few strides from the end of the ramp. She turned the corner and ran at them, striking both in the rib cage with the heels of her hands, snapping bones. As they doubled over she struck a second time, snapping up her fists into their jaws and knocking them flat on their backs.
She took the can of soda from her pocket, opened it, and removed the tab ring in such a way that a small triangle of the thin metal from the top of the can came with it. She poured the soda onto the bottoms of their shoes and the floor in front of their feet before she dropped the can.
“Monsieurs,” she said in a loud, horrified voice as she bent over one of the gasping men. Quickly she jabbed the sharp end of the tab ring on her finger into his hairline. “Mon Dieu, you are hurt.” She turned to the other and inflicted the same injury before she turned and called, “Can someone help, please?”
Two security guards promptly arrived and surveyed the men. “What happened, miss?”
“I don’t know. I heard a terrible crashing sound and found them like this.” She watched as the guards pulled the men into sitting positions, at which point blood from the scalp wounds she had inflicted streamed down their faces.
One of the men tried to speak, but fell silent as his companion glared at him.
“There’s a puddle here on the floor,” the second guard said to the first before he noticed the empty can nearby. “Someone dropped a soda. They must have slipped in it.” He took his handheld radio and called for medical assistance before he said, “Thank you for helping, miss.”
“Oh, it was nothing.” She made eye contact with the man who had not spoken. “Such a bad way to fall, but I think it could have been much worse.”
The silent one inclined his head.
Simone took advantage of the gathering crowd of terminal employees and onlookers to slip through customs and change her money at the international exchange counter. From there she walked outside, squinting in the powerful sunlight as she studied the long line of taxis and hotel shuttles. She ran the gauntlet of hawkers and down the line of vehicles until she found an empty, ramshackle white van with a bored-looking young black man sitting behind the wheel. He had on a Bob Marley T-shirt, but the tinny radio in the van played Debussy.
She ducked her head to look in the open passenger window. “Excuse me, but do you know how to get to Runaway Bay?”
“Your travel agent book you there, lady? That’s on the other side of the island. I don’t go that far.” He nodded at a bus. “Shuttle to Ocho Rios get you there in about an hour, and it won’t cost you two hundred dollars.”
“Money is not a problem.” His British accent made Simone smile a little as she produced enough cash to make the young man gape. “Would this help change your mind?”
He hooted and reached over for the door handle, and then sat back and sighed. “Ah, I still can’t do it. My sister needs me to pick up her girls from school. If I take you, I won’t get back in time.”
“I can wait until after you take your nieces home,” she assured him.
“Then, beautiful lady, I take you anywhere you want to go on the island.” He grinned and opened the door for her. “Half price.”
Once she had her seat belt on, the driver held up a scratched CD. “You want to listen to Bob Marley’s greatest hits?”
Simone glanced at name on the operator’s license hanging from one of the A/C vents. “If you don’t mind, Jamar, I prefer Debussy.”
“So do I.” He tucked the CD into his sun visor, and eased into the stream of cars driving by the loading zone.
Jamar’s nieces turned out to be three very polite little girls who sat together on the bench seat behind Simone and told their uncle about their day at school. As Simone listened to the children, she watched the side-view mirror, but saw no one following them.
Jamar stopped in front of a small house, where the girls’ mother was waiting at the curb. She gave Simone a curious look as she helped her daughters out of the van and then herded them inside.
Simone felt better as she watched the girls disappear into their home. You will be safe, too, little ones.
“So where are you staying in Runaway Bay, lady?” Jamar asked once they were back on the road. “The SuperFun, the Gran Bahia, or Club Ambiance?”
“I’m going to Winter Cove.”
“You really need to fire this travel agent, lady.” He shook his head. “Winter Cove isn’t a hotel. It’s a big ugly old house back in the woods.”
“I know what it is.”
Jamar didn’t seem to hear her. “My cousin Denisha, she drives a shuttle for the SuperFun, and she go past the road to that house ten, fifteen times every day. Nobody ever stays there. She heard that as soon as he built it, the owner left the island and never came back.” He reached over and patted her hand. “I’ll take you to the SuperFun. Denisha can get you a nice room for a good rate.”
“Thank you, Jamar, but I don’t need a room,” she told him. “I’ll be staying at the big, ugly old house.”
He gave her a startled look. “You know who owns the place, lady?”
She nodded. “Yes. I own it.”
Chapter 19
O
nce the excavation equipment had been unloaded, the men Pájaro had hired to transport it gathered in a circle on the beach to share a blunt. He watched them as he injected himself with the last of the morphine. It barely took the edge off his pounding migraine; he should have taken all the vials from the drug dealer he’d killed thirty minutes after landing in Montego Bay. At least he’d had the sense to search the dealer’s car, which had provided him with three fully loaded machine guns.
Another lung spasm gripped him, and as he coughed the needle slipped from his hand and rolled under the seat.
His driver glanced back over the partition. “You don’t look too good, boss. You want to go to your hotel now?”
“Later.” He wiped the bloody mucus from his mouth and pocketed the handkerchief before he picked up the GPS unit. “Call the surveyor again. Tell him if he’s not here in fifteen minutes he’s a dead man.”
The driver looked uneasy. “You mean he’s fired, right, boss?”
To keep from blowing the man’s brains out sooner than would be convenient, Pájaro climbed out of the limo. At once clammy, salt-riddled heat engulfed him, adding a layer of b
riny sweat atop his chilled flesh. Whatever infection had invaded his system seemed to be sinking into his bones; his very limbs felt like they were grinding into his joints.
The illness aggravated him, but he knew it was only a temporary annoyance. He had taken back from the old man’s brat the legacy that belonged to him. Once he unearthed the Trinity cross, the sickness would vanish along with all the other mortal weaknesses that plagued him. He would never again have to endure a single moment of suffering.
Pájaro walked down to the edge of the beach and surveyed the snowy white sands. That the old man’s family had managed to retain ownership of three miles of pristine shoreline for all this time impressed him. Now that it was to be his, he would build his first palace here. Perhaps he would have the old man’s brat brought here to serve as some entertainment. With all the time and power and wealth in the world at his disposal, he could make her suffer for decades.
“Mr. Helada?”
He turned to see a nervous-looking man carrying a leather case. “Are you the surveyor?”
“Yes, sir.” He put down the case and took out a note from his pocket. “I checked the information you gave me, and I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Why not?”
“Sir, whatever you’re trying to locate isn’t on this island.” He gestured toward the sea. “According to the coordinates you provided, it’s about halfway between here and the island of Cuba.”
Pájaro glanced out at the vivid turquoise water. “There is nothing between here and Cuba.”
“There is the Cayman Trough, sir,” the surveyor said. “If these numbers are correct, that is your site.” He offered a feeble smile. “It’s the deepest point in the Caribbean. Whatever you’re looking for is three miles under the ocean.”
The man’s nervous chatter had at last exposed the true reason for his anxiety. “Why do you believe that I’m looking for anything?”
“Oh, I don’t,” the surveyor said quickly. “I just assumed you were.”
