by Simon Toyne
‘You will find,’ the Prelate’s dry voice rustled from somewhere in the nest of white linen, ‘that I am in charge here. You would do well to remember that.’
‘Forgive me, Father,’ the Abbot said, ‘but I have urgent news. . regarding the Sacrament.’
The Apothecaria continued to hover, waiting for further instruction. ‘Then you may leave,’ the Prelate said. The Abbot watched them check their machines then glide from the room, shutting the door behind them.
‘Come closer,’ the Prelate called out to the dark. ‘I want to see your face.’
The Abbot moved towards the bed, stopping by the machines the phantoms had just deserted. ‘I’m sorry to call unannounced,’ he said, turning down the volume on the life-support monitor. ‘But there is something happening with the Sacrament. Something extraordinary.’ He arrived at the Prelate’s bedside and was immediately skewered by his sharp black eyes.
‘And does this, have anything to do, with three Carmina, who cannot be found in the mountain?’
The Abbot smiled. ‘Ah, that,’ he said.
‘Yes, that.’ There was surprising energy behind his anger.
‘That is what I wish to discuss.’ The Abbot looked down at the old man. He had aged even more in the few hours since he had last seen him, his life energy was almost gone, his regenerative powers almost spent. ‘I have just received word that they have found Brother Samuel’s sister,’ he said, watching the Prelate, waiting for his reaction. ‘I have instructed them to bring her here, to the Citadel — to me.’
The merest hint of heat coloured the gelid skin of the old man’s face. ‘It is customary to wait, until one is Prelate, before one starts acting as such.’
‘Forgive me,’ the Abbot said, reaching over as if to tenderly brush some lank hair away from the Prelate’s eyes. ‘But sometimes one must act like a leader, in order to become one.’
He grabbed a pillow and pressed it down hard on the Prelate’s face, smothering it with one large hand while the other seized his wrists, holding them tightly so the taloned fingers couldn’t scratch. Behind him he heard the faint sound of an alarm from one of the machines registering a dangerous change in the old man’s vital signs. The Abbot glanced at the door, listening for the arrival of hurrying steps. There were none. He held the Prelate until the fight faded from the struggling sticks of his arms, then removed the pillow. The Prelate’s eyes stared up towards the darkness above his head and his mouth hung open, forming a circle. The Abbot moved across to the life-support machine and turned up the volume on the alarm, giving voice to his final, silent howl.
‘Help! Come quick,’ he yelled, leaping forward to the bed. Footsteps scurried across the stone landing outside and the door flew open, bringing the Apothecaria into the room. One swept over to the machines, the other came to the Prelate. ‘He started choking,’ the Abbot said stepping back. ‘Is he all right?’
The alarm continued to howl through the room and the Apothecaria by the bed started pounding the old man’s chest while the other dragged over a defibrillator.
‘Do what you can,’ the Abbot said, ‘I’ll fetch help.’
He slipped through the door and into the empty hallway, heading not for help but to the lower chambers of the mountain. There would be no inquest, for the Abbot was now acting Prelate and he would not request one. Besides, his sad death would be greatly overshadowed by what was still to come.
The Abbot had removed his final obstacle. Now he could fulfil his destiny.
Chapter 123
Gabriel came round gradually.
At first his eyes refused to open and he lay where he’d fallen, breathing in air that smelt of explosive and scorched wood — and something else. It was a smell he’d last encountered in the Sudan after guerrilla forces ambushed one of their aide trucks. When Gabriel went to inspect the site with government troops the same smell had hung in the air like a greasy cloud. It was only when he saw the blackened body of the driver fused to the steering wheel that he’d realized what it was. His eyes flew open as he made the connection and remembered what had happened.
He looked around. Saw he was lying on the floor against the wall of the warehouse, his mother slumped on top of him. He slapped her face a couple of times. Pressed nervous fingers against the side of her neck and felt her pulse. It was strong and regular.
He grabbed her shoulders and gently rolled her off him and on to her side, his head pounding as he shifted position and put her in the recovery position. He listened through the painful pulse for sounds of movement elsewhere in the building. Heard nothing.
His gun lay on the concrete floor where it had been knocked from his hand. He scooped it up and pulled the slide back, checking the gun was undamaged and the action still smooth, then he slipped from behind the crates. He did not look towards the office. He didn’t want to see what he knew was there, not until the area was clear or he was sure the bastard who’d done it was good and dead.
He ducked into the tunnel between the rows of crates, and made his way quickly towards the front of the warehouse, keeping low all the way. He had no idea how long he’d been out, which was a problem. When the firing started, the Inspector had been calling for backup. Airport security also patrolled the perimeter every twenty minutes. If he got trapped in a security clamp-down of any sort he’d be put out of circulation and that just played into the hands of the Citadel. He reached up to the back of his head and felt a lump swelling where his head had struck the wall. The hair around it was wet with blood from a deep, swollen tear on his scalp. He glanced at the blood on his fingers. It was bright red, not dark, not too sticky. It hadn’t started to coagulate. He can’t have been unconscious for too long, which was good, but he still had to move fast.
He reached the end of the tunnel and squatted low to the floor. Holding his gun out in front, low and close to his body, he glanced round the edge of the crate in a rapid darting movement, out and in, his gun following the direction of his eyes, ready to fire if he had to. A man lay sprawled between the open hangar door and the first stack of crates. His eyes were fixed open. The back of his head was missing. Gabriel moved towards then past him, his eyes scanning for movement as he headed for the open door of the warehouse.
Outside, all was quiet — no police cars, no airport security. A white van was parked by one of the neighbouring warehouses. He was pretty sure it was the same one he’d followed earlier. There had been three men inside it then. So far he’d found only one. He grabbed the edge of the door and rolled it shut, dropping a thick metal latch across to keep it shut. With his back now covered he returned to the dead man.
The bullet that killed him had entered at the intersection of a Tau drawn on his forehead in blood. There was no blood around the wound. Death must have been instant. Pity. He blew out a long stream of air to disperse the emotion tightening his throat and pricking the backs of his eyes. He needed to stay focused. Two men were still unaccounted for and cops couldn’t be far away.
Gabriel dropped down and searched the dead man, his hand hissing over the dry surface of his red windcheater, avoiding the wet pulpy sections round his neck where the blood had soaked through. At least he’d suffered before he died.
He found a set of van keys and a blank plastic rectangle the size of a credit card. He remembered the van waiting at the end of the alley by the old town wall. The driver had swiped a card then. He slipped it into his pocket with the van keys and picked up the dead man’s gun. A silencer lay nearby, next to a canvas bag. Gabriel crabbed over, picked up the tube of black metal and used it to lift the cover flap of the bag.
Inside were four full 9mm clips, two grenades and a plastic box containing preloaded hypodermic syrettes, the same type soldiers carried into combat. There were also a couple of spare ampoules of clear liquid. He glanced at the label. It was Ketamine — a heavy-duty tranquilizer usually used by vets to knock out horses. He dropped the Glock into the bag along with the silencer, swung it over his shoulder and slipped between the sta
cked crates heading towards the office at the back of the warehouse.
As he approached the end of the passageway he smelt the burnt-air bitterness of explosives and saw the shredded outer wall of the office. On the floor in front of it a sooty circle showed the point of the blast. There was another on the underside of the steel roof above it. The reinforced concrete of the floor had obviously reflected most of the explosion upwards, undoubtedly saving his life. He reached the end of the passageway and took a deep breath to dampen his swelling anger, then moved forward.
What was left of Oscar lay by the office door.
Gabriel had seen battlefield casualties before, flesh torn and shredded by the teeth and claws of modern weaponry — but never someone he was related to. He moved towards his grandfather, choking down his grief, trying not to look at the red mess of his body, focusing instead on the face that had somehow remained remarkably untouched. Oscar was face down, his head tilted to one side, his eyes closed as if resting. He looked almost serene. A bright splash of blood stood out against the dark mahogany of his cheek. Gabriel reached down and gently wiped it away with his thumb. The skin was still warm. He leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, then stood and looked around for something to cover him with before his emotions dragged him further down. He still hadn’t secured the area, or found Liv. He dragged a tarpaulin from one of the crates, carefully draped it over Oscar’s body, then ducked through the door and into the office.
Chapter 124
The moment Gabriel saw the open fire door at the back of the room he knew something was wrong. He raised his gun, crunched towards it and looked outside. The Inspector was lying on the ground. Liv had gone.
He stepped out, checking along the perimeter fence for the patrols then grabbed the Inspector under his shoulders, leaned back to drag him inside, and nearly dropped him again when he let out a low, ragged moan.
He hauled him inside, closed the fire door and felt for a neck pulse. He found one, and frowned at the two bullet holes in the front of his shirt. They were ragged and closely grouped. He poked his finger through one of them and touched warm metal. He dragged his finger towards the second hole, tearing the shirt material between them and revealing a black body armour vest beneath with two flattened bullets at the spot where the heart should be. The impact would have been enough to knock him out, crack the ribs maybe, but not kill him.
‘Hey,’ Gabriel said, slapping him sharply on both cheeks. ‘Come on, wake up.’
He slapped him harder until Arkadian’s head finally rolled away to one side and his eyes struggled open. He looked at Gabriel. Focused. Tried to get up.
‘Take it easy,’ Gabriel said, resting a hand on his chest where the bullets had struck. ‘You’ve been shot. If you get up you could pass out again and crack your head. I need to know what car you came in.’
‘Unmarked car,’ Arkadian rasped in a dry voice he didn’t recognize.
‘It’s gone,’ Gabriel said, reaching into his pocket and taking out his mobile phone. ‘Whoever took it is probably the same guy who shot you and left you for dead. I want you to call it in as stolen. It’ll be on the road somewhere between here and the Citadel. But advise caution. The girl’s in the car with him.’
Arkadian looked at the phone and remembered the officer he’d left sitting behind the wheel. ‘The driver?’ he said.
Gabriel looked at him, his face blank. ‘He’ll be in the car too.’ Arkadian nodded, his face darkening. He reached out with his good hand and took the phone. He started to dial the number for central dispatch but managed only the first three numbers before both men froze as something moved, outside in the warehouse.
Gabriel surged forward, moving low across the floor towards the open door, keeping below the line of the windows. The sound came again. Like electrical static, or the crinkle of heavy plastic. He realized what it was a split second before he reached the door and a terrible sound tore through the air — the banshee howl of pain and lament.
His mother was standing just outside the door, holding the tarpaulin in her hand, and staring down at what was left of her father’s body.
Chapter 125
Cornelius headed up through the rising mountains keeping a steady few points below the speed limit, wary of his broken wind-screen and the two corpses stashed in the boot. The tail end of the rush-hour traffic still leaked out of the city. Very little was heading in his direction. He made it all the way up the Southern Boulevard and on to the inner ring road before Arkadian managed to report the car he was driving as stolen. He was already easing down the slip road and headed into the Umbrasian Quarter by the time the dispatcher called it out on the radio and instigated a search. Following the daily exodus of coaches and cars after the old town closed its portcullises for the night the Quarter was practically deserted. Cornelius turned into the alley, and brought the car to a stop by the steel door. He tapped a message into his phone explaining where he was, and who was in the car with him.
Then he waited.
After a long minute a deep thunk sounded inside the steel door and it started to rise, gradually revealing the dark tunnel beyond. The headlights swept across smooth concrete then rough stone walls as he eased the car forward, following the curve of the tunnel away to the right. Behind him the steel door sank back towards the ground. Cornelius listened to the soothing rumble of the tyres on the uneven floor. It occurred to him that this was possibly the last time he’d ever drive a car or set foot outside the Citadel. He found these thoughts soothing. He had no love for the modern world, or the people who inhabited it. He’d seen enough hell on earth during his time in the army. Salvation lay ahead, away from the world, high in the mountain — closer to God.
The car bounced on its springs at the bottom of the dip then rose up towards the chamber at the end of the tunnel. As the headlights swept down at the top of the rise they lit up two figures standing like phantoms in the centre of the vault. Cornelius pulled the wheel to the right, steering away from the apparitions, before coming to a halt in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes. He killed the engine but left the headlights burning, the bounced light from the beams illuminating the two figures drifting towards him through the gritty fog. Both wore the green cassocks of the Sancti. Cornelius opened his door, stepped out, and found himself crushed in an embrace.
‘Welcome back,’ the Abbot said, holding him out again at arm’s length and inspecting him like a father greeting a long-lost son. ‘Are you hurt?’ Cornelius shook his head. ‘Then you must change quickly and come with us.’
The Abbot snaked his arm round Cornelius’s shoulder and lead him towards the doorway in the back wall. He stepped through into the small ante-chamber and noticed something on the floor. The Abbot smiled and gestured towards it. Cornelius felt tears prick his eyes as he bent down to pick up the wooden Crux lying on top of the dark green robes of a fully ordained Sanctus.
Chapter 126
The phone went dead in Arkadian’s ear. He looked at the display. The signal had vanished. He frowned, partly in frustration, partly because of what the dispatcher had just told him. He looked down at the red mess of his shoulder. He needed to get to a hospital, he needed to call his wife too so she didn’t hear about all this second-hand, but all he’d managed to do was report the car stolen. He rose painfully to his feet, holding the phone in front of him as he cast about for a signal. He heard another fit of sobbing echo through the warehouse and realized he was probably not the only one who needed a hospital. He picked his way across the glass-pebbled floor towards the splintered office door and looked out.
The scene that greeted him was a tableau from a renaissance painting of biblical grief. The broken body of the old man lay on the floor shrouded in a thick plastic sheet shining like silk under the soft glow of the overhead lights. Gabriel was kneeling beside him, his arms cradling his mother’s head against his chest. She wept and wrung the material of his jacket with her hand. Gabriel looked up.
‘The car?’ he asked, in a voice stretche
d thin by grief.
‘They know where it is,’ Arkadian said. ‘All squad cars have a transponder fitted so they can be found quickly if a radio goes down. The dispatcher said this one must be faulty. She said it looked like it was moving in a straight line across the buildings and streets of the old town before it stopped — right in the middle of the Citadel.’
Gabriel closed his eyes. ‘Then we’re too late,’ he said. ‘No,’ came a ragged voice. Kathryn lifted her head and stared straight at Arkadian. ‘The seeds the monk swallowed! You need to make sure they’re safe,’ she said. Arkadian frowned. No one was supposed to know about them. ‘We think they may be the Sacrament,’ Kathryn explained, sensing his confusion.
Arkadian shook his head. ‘But they’re just common apple seeds,’ he said. ‘We tested them.’
A heavy silence hung in the wake of his words. Nobody moved for long seconds. Arkadian watched Gabriel and Kathryn line up this new information with what they already knew. Then Gabriel leaned forward, tenderly kissed his mother on the top of her head and rose to his feet.
‘If it’s not the seeds,’ he said, moving past Arkadian and into the office. ‘Then it’s the girl. She is the key to everything. She always has been. And I’m going to get her back.’ He crunched across the floor, picked up the black canvas bag from the floor and placed it on the nearest desk.
‘Let me handle this,’ Arkadian said, glancing back down at the phone which now showed one bar. He pressed redial to get through to central dispatch. ‘If she’s been kidnapped and taken to the Citadel they can’t just deny it. We can get the commissioner involved, bring political pressure to bear. Force them to cooperate with the investigation.’
‘They’ll deny everything,’ Gabriel said, opening the bag and reaching inside. ‘And it’ll take far too long. The girl will be dead before any politician gets involved. You said the car was still moving when you spoke to the dispatcher. That means she’s only about twenty minutes ahead. We need to get there fast and get her out.’
