City of Dark Magic

by Magnus Flyte

  “I think you will enjoy this program,” the minister said earnestly, pocketing the mint. “Of course, of the nine symphonies, the fourth is the least celebrated, and really more in sequence thematically with the second, but I think it a very great work. Complicated, almost perverse at times, yes, but rich and very profound.”

  “I very much look forward to it,” Charlotte said. What the hell was he talking about? Oh, the music. She glanced down at her program. Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. Christ, she was in for a boring hour or two. A line from the program notes caught her eye. The Fourth had premiered in 1807 at Lobkowicz Palace, in Vienna.

  Lobkowiczes, Lobkowiczes, everywhere Lobkowiczes. Charlotte was sick to death of the name.

  And tomorrow night she would be attending the opening of Lobkowicz Palace Museum. The last time she had set foot in that place had been the day Yuri was murdered.

  Charlotte half-shut her eyes, permissible since she was ostensibly listening to the racket on stage, and shifted through her memories.

  She remembered the last night they had made love. She hadn’t known then it would be the last time, obviously, or she wouldn’t have elected to do it in a chair covered in cheesecloth at Nelahozeves Castle. They had argued that night, too. Yuri had deliberately incensed her, in his maddeningly Russian way, by lording over some secret knowledge that he had. He had dangled a trinket in front of her, a golden key that was presumed to unlock a treasure. She had immediately assumed he was presenting her with one of the seven keys that unlocked the chamber of the Crown Jewels of Bohemia. This chamber, located in St. Vitus Cathedral, was famous for its door, which had seven different locks requiring seven different keys. The Crown Jewels included the actual crown of St. Wenceslas, a royal scepter, a fabulous jeweled apple, a crucifix, and royal vestments, including a belt and some kind of cloak. The jewels were almost never seen, and legends had grown up around them, the usual bad-luck-and-curses type of thing.

  But Yuri had insisted the key had nothing to do with the Crown Jewels. He had even tried to throw her off the scent by insisting the key opened something entirely different, and gabbled on about the Order of the Golden Fleece and a door that must never be opened. Their lovemaking had been more violent than usual, and they had parted almost angrily.

  A few days later she had received a strange phone call from him, using one of their many secret codes, asking to meet “as if by accident” in the middle of the day. When he gave the location as St. Vitus Cathedral, she felt sure뀀face="Mini that she had been right about the Crown Jewels. She was hoping he had managed to collect all seven of the keys. Superstition be damned, she wanted to get her hands on the Crown Jewels. Not to steal them, of course. That wouldn’t be ethical. But would anyone really miss a golden apple that only a handful of people had seen in the course of six hundred years?

  It was winter, bitterly cold, and with her cover as a humble art historian she had only a thin coat. In Prague, in the 1970s, practically everyone had only a thin coat, although at certain kinds of parties women would display their furs. She arrived at the cathedral half-frozen and irritable, and Yuri was nowhere in sight. She loitered about for fifteen minutes, then stepped inside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark shape darting up from the steps that led to the Royal Vault. She walked quickly over to investigate. She thought she could smell Yuri’s cologne.

  She peered down the nave and caught sight of the figure. Yes, it was Yuri. Charlotte caught up with him at the south doorway. He pulled her into sunlight and kissed her fiercely, although anyone could have seen them.

  “I need to see you,” he said, into her ear. “Go to the palace and wait for me. It’s important.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but he shook his head, frowning, and stepped back into the cathedral, where the gloom seemed to swallow him whole.

  And Charlotte had gone to the palace, and waited for her lover for hours, but he never came. The next day’s paper included an announcement that the director of the National Museum, Yuri Bespalov, had returned to important work in Moscow and his successor would be named shortly. Her division chief at the CIA was the one who showed her the photographs of Yuri’s lifeless body being pulled from the Vltava River.

  “Suicide,” sniffed the chief. “They’re trying to cover it up, of course. Not only is he an embarrassment to the Party, we now think he is pretty high-ranking KGB.”

  “Was,” Charlotte corrected, stonily. “Was KGB.”

  “Right. Well, I guess we’ll never know for sure now.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  She waited for someone from the KGB to get in touch with her, but no one ever did. She left Prague a few months later, covered in commendations from her chief. She was a credit to the Agency, an exemplary agent. They predicted she might go far.

  They were right about that. She had gone very far.

  Not far enough. Not yet.

  •

  • •

  After the concert, Charlotte returned to her suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. She paced, unable to sleep, and made lists, chewing viciously on the straws Madge had thoughtfully packed, and reviewed tomorrow night’s timeline. Not the official version, of course. That was simple enough. She was attending a private event, honoring Czech national heritage by gracing a museum opening with her presence. She would go, pose for pictures, and come home.

  Unofficially, of course, things were going to go quite a bit differently.

  How many birds could you kill with one stone? Quite a few. One little bomb planted in one little museum and you not only destroyed dozens of annoying loose ends, sent what were probably some not very nice people to whatever afterlife God in His wisdom had reserved for them, but reminded the world of the perils of terrorism and the need to devote large amounts of the budget to fighting it. You could spend a lot of time making fancy plans and mucking about with subtle twists and turns, or you could blow something up. Sometimes it was just better to blow shit up.

  There was something romantic, too, about destroying the place where she had waited for her murdered lover. That day she had waited with fear in her heart, but now the fear was gone. Soon she was going to be beyond fear. And then, perhaps, everyone would see what a caring and compassionate person she really was. Brave, brilliant, steadfast, patriotic, and decisive. A true American. A true American hero.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  “Imagine a mansion with a secret room—the perfect setting for a mystery. Now imagine that the room is vastly bigger than the mansion itself—and contains more mansions.”

  A dirge was playing, and soft Latin chanting floated on the air.

  The voice was so familiar. . . . When Sarah opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was an apple-cheeked woman in a white wimple. Great, she thought, I’m back in the Middle Ages.

  A man she couldn’t see was speaking Latin. “Aperi Domine os meum ad benedicendum nomen sanctum tuum.”

  Nico was sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed reading a newspaper. Or was it Jepp? It wasn’t clear to Sarah if this was a vision, a dream, or . . . something worse.

  “ ‘That would make the mystery pretty bizarre. But it’s very much like a story that many scientists are beginning to tell about the universe. In what amounts to a real-life episode of The Twilight Zone, physicists have realized that nature may be concealing extra dimensions—not of sight or sound, but of space itself.’ ”

  Sarah looked around. She was in a whitewashed high-ceilinged room with a large window that looked out over trees. She could see telephone poles and electric streetlights, which was somewhat reassuring. She felt, well, hungover.

  “Where am I?” she tried to ask, but only a croak came out. Nico/Jepp looked up and smiled at her.

  “She speaks!” he said.

  Wimple Woman held a glass of water to her lips and she drank. That’s odd, she thought. Am I drinking water from the Middle Ages or is she holding water from now? Thinking made her brain hurt.

  “Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctif
icetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra . . . ,” intoned a male voice.

  She shook her head a little to clear the cobwebs, which made it feel like her brain was rattling inside her skull.

  “What is that sound?” Sarah asked as the Latin chanting resumed.

  “Ave, Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum . . .”

  Wimple reached up and turned a dial and the chanting stopped abruptly.

  “What time is it?” Sarah asked.

  “Noon,” said Nico. “How do you feel?”

  “I’ve been asleep all day?” Sarah said. “I have to get back. The museum opening . . .”

  “You’ve been asleep all week,” said Nico. “And I’m not sure you’re ready to get up now. Why don’t you just lie there and I’ll read to you about dark matter. Did you know that according to current calculations, dark matter and energy account for ninety-six percent of the universe, while atomic matter accounts for only four percent?”

  Sarah just looked at him. Trying to remember. Why did that sound so familiar?

  Wimple spoke. “You were in a partial coma,” she said. “It was quite serious. We’d like to do some more tests now that you’re awake.” She looked into Sarah’s eyes and felt her pulse. “I’ll get the doctor.”

  Sarah realized that Wimple was some kind of nurse. A time-traveling nurse who came with her own Latin sound track? Was that going to involve bloodletting and leeches?

  Wimple left the room and Nico picked up the newspaper again. “ ‘If so, the known universe may be just one of many “mansions” residing in the secret room—space’s hidden dimensions.’ ” Sarah saw it was the Dallas Morning News. “ ‘It’s just really frighteningly weird,’ says cosmologist Rocky Kolb. ‘It strikingly flies in the face of everything we thought was true.’ ”

  “Wait a second,” Sarah interrupted. “Did you say I was asleep for a week?”

  “We had to feed you intravenously. Now rest. Don’t you just love all this talk of dark matter? When Tycho talked about it, they called him a heretic, but now it’s science.”

  “Tycho knew about dark matter?”

  “And black holes and parallel universes. Sure. But we called them ‘hell portals.’” Nico read something about gravitational lensing and branes, but Sarah was not paying attention. She had slept for an entire week? How was that possible?

  “Jesus,” she said, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “What day is it?”

  “Saturday,” said Nico, looking up from the paper.

  “Saturday? The museum opening is TONIGHT?!”

  Sarah leapt out of bed, and almost fell over. Wobbly was an understatement. “Where are my clothes?”

  Nico pointed to a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on the side table. Sarah noticed flowers, beautiful flowers. Vases and vases of them.

  “Max,” said Nico.

  Sarah disappeared into the bathroom to get dressed. Max. The marchesa. Charlotte Yates. She splashed cold water on her face. Her tongue fel>TONIGHt like steel wool, but she emerged from the bathroom feeling somewhat steadier.

  “Welcome back, milady,” Nico said with a bow.

  “Cut the crap. What happened?”

  “You passed out in Žižkov and Max had you brought here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Sisters of Mercy Hospital. Three blocks from the castle. It’s privately run, so Max was able to secure you your own room, which under the circumstances seemed preferable.”

  “Am I okay?”

  “Do you feel okay?” he asked cautiously.

  “I don’t know. I’m hearing Latin. Was Wimple Woman really here or not?”

  Nico laughed. “The hospital is run by nuns. That is Sister Berta. And—” He flicked a switch and the Latin resumed. “There’s a live feed from the mass next door.”

  “Of course there is,” Sarah sighed.

  “I have been a bit worried,” the little man said. “As you have learned from my current condition . . . Tycho’s formulae were not always accurate. And he did hold to his theory that the sun revolved around the earth. But,” he tapped the paper, “it seems like he nailed the whole hell portal thing.” Sarah looked at a clock on the wall.

  “Is it really noon? I have to get out of here. What’s happening with the opening?”

  “Everything is on schedule. Max finished your display himself according to your notes. The caterers and florists are at the palace now setting up.”

  “My backpack,” said Sarah, her thoughts flying to the Beethoven letters.

  Nico pointed to a chair in the corner.

  “Did you look through it?”

  “My dear,” said Nico with dignity. “Of course I did.”

  Sarah heard sirens and looked out the window to see a huge motorcade going by.

  “The senator from Virginia,” said Nico quietly.

  Sarah felt a surge of anxiety. Charlotte Yates was here. Sarah had seen in the vision at Nela that Charlotte knew about the key. Did she somehow know where the Golden Fleece was hidden? And if Charlotte Yates and Marchesa Elisa were working together . . . between them they had killed Andy, Eleanor, and nearly herself.

  Sarah shuddered. She’d have to be on her game tonight. Well, at least she was well-rested. A little weak and wobbly and, she realized, starving. But alive.

  “What did you tell everyone?” Sarah asked.

  “Food poisoning from some bad chicken you had in Old Town. Fortunately, everyone has been so occupied with preparing for the opening that your absence has caused less notice than it might have a few weeks ago.”

  “Did you stay with me this whole time, Nico?”

  He gave her a half-smile.

  ace="Sarah was somehow not surprised to be discharged from the hospital by Oksana, Nico’s wife, who made the filling out of forms and the signing of release papers a very smooth process.

  “How is Bernard?” Sarah asked.

  “I would say he is very repentant,” Nicolas smiled. “Would you not agree, my darling?”

  “Will he tell the police that the marchesa killed Eleanor and tried to blackmail him into killing me?”

  “I fear he is not the most reliable witness,” said Nico, staring at a distant spot on the ceiling. “He will be discharged from the hospital after the museum opening and sent home.”

  Sarah was not sure she wanted to know why Bernard was not a reliable witness. Oksana looked quite capable of removing large parts of people’s brains, or bodies.

  As Sarah and Nico passed through the main gate to the castle, hurrying back to the museum, she glanced up at the massive stone figures who had greeted her upon her arrival in Prague. The naked colossus she had dubbed the Sexy Stabber, with his sword poised over a wretch with bowed head, and the Mad Batter who was clubbing a man to death. She had had no idea that day what they actually portended, what violence she would witness in this century and previous ones. And it wasn’t over yet.

  She had arrived in this very spot with Nico, and it had been Eleanor who rushed out to greet her. Sarah averted her eyes as she followed Nico through the arch into the second courtyard. She did not want to see the cage where poor Eleanor’s body had been stuffed.

  As they passed out of the second courtyard, she glanced up at the spiky ornamentation of St. Vitus, a porcupine among churches. Nico must have seen it when it was half-finished. She turned to him. “What’s it like, to have been alive for so long?”

  “Let’s cut through here,” said Nico, avoiding her gaze.

  She blinked in the gloom as the door shut behind them. Tourists moved around the aisles, heads craned up to see the stained glass. Everyone murmured out of respect, and shuffled along the stone floor. Sarah could smell incense, suntan lotion, and body odor.

  “If you’re not seeing ghosts in here, then you are cured,” said Nico.

  Sarah looked around. No ghosts. And yet, her perception had been altered by the drug. Her consciousness had changed and it couldn’t be unchanged
now. Nico had the formula for the drug. If they could find the necessary ingredients, they could in theory make more. With small doses, she could visit Beethoven anytime she liked. She could take the drug back to America and see her father. She could go anywhere, see anything.

  I see only darkness ahead on the path you are choosing.

  That’s what John Dee had said.

  Max emerged from a carved wooden side door in the church, followed by a man in scarlet robes and several bodyguards. Max was wearing a gray suit that made him look exactly like his grandfather, a fedora under his arm. Her heart leapt and she longed to kiss him. But was that—?

  It was. Marchesa Elisa, impressive in stiletto heels and a linen suit, appeared at Max’s side and took his arm.

  “Miss Weston, I am glad to see you are better,” said Max. “We’ll need you to discuss the Music Room exhibit this evening with the patrons and our honored guests.” His tone was cold and formal, but his eyes were alive with things to say.

  “Please let us know if you do not have suitable attire,” said the marchesa, looking Sarah up and down.

  “Oh, and Sarah,” Max said. “There is a copy of Atalanta Fugiens from Nela that I have included in the music exhibition. Please make an appropriate card for it.”

  The marchesa pulled Max firmly along with her, but Sarah caught Max’s meaningful quick glance.

  “Atalanta Fugiens?” she said to Nico, when they had gone.

  “It was published in 1617 by Michael Maier, an alchemist at Rudolf’s court. We rather liked him. It’s what you might call the first multimedia book ever. Fifty woodcuts, or emblems, each illustrating an aspect of alchemy, with an epigram and a discourse for each, plus a piece of music created from the mathematics of the symbols.”