The Lady in Blue

by Javier Sierra

  But that success turned out to be a sentence for her as well. Now Jennifer Narody could never again escape the shadow of the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense. She finished her training as a lieutenant. But the feeling that she was being watched by her own government had a debilitating effect, and she found herself in a deep depression that soon led to a series of strange dreams in which a mysterious “lady of blue light” appeared in a place she had never heard of before.

  Peculiar dreams. As if in some way her mind was capable of traveling outside of time in order to be present at remote events that always began at a specific time and geographic location.

  THIRTEEN

  GRAN QUIVIRA

  When the three stars in Orion’s belt, which the Indians called Hotomkam, were shining directly over the village, the great Walpi, chief of the Clouds, called the leaders of his group together for a secret meeting in the kiva. Never before had a meeting inside the huge circular room, whose floor was dug deep in the earth and whose wooden roof was supported by the “four columns on which the earth rests,” claimed such a large audience.

  Before descending into the central, deepest part of the enclosed space, the participants took one last look toward the horizon, in the direction of the Canyon of the Serpent. They had heard rumors of what had happened there. Now, Walpi had called them together so that he could explain what he knew and ask for their help.

  At the established hour, the ten chiefs of the tribe sat down in the sand in the innermost part of the kiva. Their leader was ready to speak to them. His demeanor was serious and his bearing did justice as never before to the name his mother had given him at birth, for Walpi means mountain. The old warrior indeed resembled a towering totem, and the lines on his face seemed deeper than usual, like the furrows of that fearful canyon.

  “The world is changing very quickly, brothers,” he said in a hoarse whisper once the door to the kiva had been closed overhead.

  His men nodded in unison. The familiar smell of the enclosed kiva had given way to an air of dense expectation.

  “Today marks thirty winters since we received the first sign of that change,” he went on. “It was another day of Hotomkam, just like today, when the men of fire entered the plains surrounding our village. Today there are but few of us left who witnessed the horror of which they were capable.”

  Walpi lifted one of his trembling arms toward the round opening in the roof, through which it was possible to see the three pulsing lights in Orion’s belt.

  “Those men with pale skin, who brought with them arms that spit out sounds like thunder, who wore protection like the shells of turtles that made them immune to our arrows, brought great suffering to our proud village. They set our fields on fire, slaughtered our animals, took our women hostage, and poisoned our wells by casting the bodies of the dead into them.”

  The old warrior cleared his throat.

  The memory of those cruel days overwhelmed the men congregated there. The tale of their forefathers’ sporadic encounters with an expedition of Spanish explorers still incited terror in the Indian lands. The great Walpi himself had fought them, and was one of the few who had withstood the gaze of Juan de Oñate—the Clouds hesitated even to say his name—and the only one to survive his summons. As it turned out, Walpi’s ability to convince Oñate that there was no gold in the lands of the Cloud tribe not only won peace for his people, but earned him his current place of leadership.

  Nevertheless, fear that the Spaniards might return had never left his mind.

  “Killers! The strangers murdered our brothers with their magic!” one of the men gathered for the meeting shouted from the other side of the great bonfire.

  “We lost three battles in three winters,” another said quietly. “How could it have happened?”

  Walpi looked the young warriors in the eye. None of them had ever seen the silver breastplates of the invaders. None of them had ever felt the visceral fear that washed over a warrior the first time he saw the Spaniard’s horses. They had never experienced the stench of unbridled terror, but that could change at any moment.

  The old warrior stared into the kiva’s fire as he pondered his next words.

  “You should know that the foreigners are about to return.”

  No one spoke.

  “Last night,” he went on, “the sign that I have feared for so long appeared again. I no longer have any doubt that the end of our world is near. And I want you to get your families ready.”

  Murmurs spread through the warriors.

  “Will Juan de Oñate return?”

  The great Walpi shook his head.

  “Tell us what sign has convinced our chief of these things.”

  Nikvaya, who was counted among the wisest of the warriors, had stood up while posing his question, his eyes tinged with alarm. He knew that the weapons in his possession were useless against the strangers. His father had died from a bullet fired from a Spaniard’s harquebus when Nikvaya was only a year old. Walpi, who had seen the warrior die, now turned to face the man’s son.

  “Sakmo, my youngest, the father of my only grandchild, met someone in the Canyon of the Serpent, close to the cemetery. It was a ‘mother of the corn,’ a Chóchmingure. She came down out of the sky enveloped in a blue light to make this terrible announcement: that the white-skinned strangers will soon arrive in our lands, bringing with them a new god.”

  “The spirits will stand in their way!” shouted another warrior who was standing in the deepest part of the kiva.

  “No, my son. It is too late now. Our spirits have spent many years telling us about this arrival. We must see to it that this change does not spill the blood of our families.”

  “Can we trust Sakmo?”

  The leader fixed a severe expression on the warrior, who stood a few feet away.

  “He is blood of my blood, Nikvaya. He has inherited my ability to see into the world of the spirits. Furthermore, I have not yet told you that his encounter coincided with a mysterious presentiment I had before nightfall.” The warrior paused to take a breath, and then continued. “I prayed before our guardian kachina, in this very place, when I heard a voice speaking to me from inside myself, a voice as clear as the song of the blackbird.”

  “What kind of voice?” asked one of the tribal chiefs, an Indian of slight build whose eye had been burned in a sandstorm.

  “The voice foretold that our village would be visited by a great spirit, a presence from far away that not only those with the gift would see, but all those present on the night of Hotomkam. And it has happened! My son has seen it!”

  “Did the spirit say why it came?” the man asked.

  “No,” Walpi replied, as his hand made rapid, violent movements through the sand at his feet. “That is why I have called you together. As chief of the Clouds I am required to do everything possible to communicate with the spirit. It is my duty to receive its message and inform the community of the fate that awaits us.”

  “You have called us, Master, so that we might invoke this spirit?” All eyes were on Nikvaya as he asked this last question.

  “That is so, my son. Hotomkam will shine above us for the next eight days. We have just enough time to prepare the ritual and to wait for the blue spirit to manifest itself.”

  “The last man who conducted such a contact ceremony was Pavati, the warrior who preceded our leader. And he died doing so. To invoke a being like that can cost you your life.”

  The warning came from the very deepest part of the kiva. Another old warrior, the only one whose age and experience were on a par with Walpi’s, got to his feet and approached the center of the kiva.

  “I know that story well, Zeno,” Walpi replied. “And I have no fear of dying. Do you?”

  Zeno, too, had nothing left to lose. Moving closer to the crackling fire in the center of the kiva, he raised his voice.

  “The spirits leave us no choice. I will help you in this undertaking.”

  FOURTEEN

&nb
sp; ROME

  When Father Baldi, or Saint Luke, turned the corner of Via dei Sediari, he became extremely cautious. Sediari is one of the narrow streets near Agrippa’s Pantheon, which is nearly always full of visitors and tourists. And despite the fact that no one had ever seen him there, he wanted to be sure he passed unnoticed. His conversation with the surly voice had filled him with doubts.

  Thirty seconds later, Baldi was poised across the street from his goal. Building number 10 was a solid structure of gray stone, with wooden cornices, tiny windows, and a large front door that led into a gloomy courtyard. At first glance it was difficult to say whether this was a substantial apartment building, a student dormitory, or the residence of a religious order. Especially if one took into account the two Fiats, belonging to the Roman police, that were blocking the large entranceway.

  Father Baldi’s face darkened. Police?

  “Well, at least it isn’t the black Citroën the secret service is so fond of,” he muttered in relief. “They could be here for any number of things.”

  Saint Luke tried to remain calm. Once he had gathered his wits, he crossed the street and, taking a shortcut between the police cars, arrived at the building’s front door. A quick glance was enough for him to see a small corridor window from which there issued a thin stream of light. “Santa Gemma Residence” announced the plaque on the wall.

  “Buona sera . . . Very busy around here! Did something happen?”

  Father Baldi, looking as innocent as possible, had cleared his throat before formulating his question. He stuck his head into the porter’s office, whereupon he discovered a middle-aged man, his head topped with a few strands of blond hair, his face deeply lined, dressed in the brown habit of the Franciscans. The friar was killing time by listening to a dilapidated old transistor radio.

  “Yes . . . ,” he answered after lowering the volume. “If by that you mean the police, this evening one of the residents went to the trouble of killing himself. Looks like he threw himself into the courtyard from the fourth floor.”

  The Third Evangelist identified the man from his voice. He was none other than the man soured on life who had answered the phone whenever he called Saint Matthew. He would never have imagined him to look like this.

  “A suicide?” Baldi was distressed. “Santa Madonna. And when did that happen?”

  “About five o’clock this evening,” the porter answered defensively. “They were just talking about it on the news.”

  “And you . . . you saw it?”

  “Well, I heard a loud noise,” the friar said with a smile that revealed rotting teeth. When I looked into the courtyard, I saw him with his head split open, in the middle of a pool of blood. I think he must have died on impact.”

  “God rest his soul,” Baldi said, crossing himself. “Is there any way you can tell me who it was?”

  “Naturally, Father: it was Luigi Corso. A professor and writer—brilliant man. Did you know him?”

  Baldi turned pale.

  “We are . . . we were old friends.”

  Baldi ran his hand over his silver hair, as if that gesture would in some way help him to think.

  “Are you sure that Father Corso committed suicide?”

  The porter was silent. His dark eyes, almost diabolical, looked Baldi over from head to toe as he tried to make sense of this suggestion from a man he had never before laid eyes on. He was reasonably certain that Corso was alone in his room when he leaped out into the open space above the courtyard. His last visitor had left more than a quarter of an hour earlier. Yes, he believed it was a suicide.

  “Listen,” he said in conclusion, “the police are upstairs in his room trying to reconstruct what happened. You can ask them yourself if you like. They arrived over an hour ago and have been going through his things ever since. They asked me to reroute any calls that come in for Father Corso to them. I can call them right now—”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Baldi cut him off. “I just wondered. So they’re rerouting his calls?”

  “Just routine, so they said.”

  “Of course.”

  “Father,” the porter leaned over toward Baldi with a certain solemnity. “You ought to know if suicide is a mortal sin.”

  “In principle, yes.”

  “In which case, do you believe God will save Father Corso’s soul?”

  Baldi was caught unprepared.

  “God alone knows, my son.”

  Baldi made an awkward farewell and spun around, pushing his glasses against the ridge of his nose. He retraced his steps down the street, overwhelmed by the news. If someone at that moment had punched him in the stomach, he would have felt nothing. The First Evangelist had died over an hour before their planned meeting, and, to make matters worse, with him went Baldi’s only base of support in Rome before the tribunal. Or almost. The departed “saint” was his only friend in Chronovision. He certainly had no faith in Saint John. Furthermore, Corso’s death had come about just when someone in the Vatican had decided to close the door on the project. Someone who perhaps knew how much Baldi and Corso esteemed each other.

  Or was that just his paranoia?

  FIFTEEN

  SIERRA DE CAMEROS

  The following day, April 14, dawned with intermittent clouds and sun.

  It was ten minutes to ten in the morning. Carlos’s field book, a cork-covered notebook where he scribbled down information from the trip, held the day’s itinerary. He and Txema had left Laguna de Cameros behind, intending to return to Madrid as quickly as possible. With a solid breakfast and their hostess’s strong coffee in their bellies, they had everything they needed to make their exit from that labyrinth of secondary roads and small towns. Or so they thought.

  Carlos and Txema realized something had gone wrong an hour after they started on their way. This time they blamed the cloudy conditions. Father Félix had warned them. He knew that when the low-lying clouds covered the crests of the Cameros, it would be difficult for them to find their way in the valleys below. As if that weren’t enough, the narrow asphalt strip they were driving on was still covered in ice. Going faster than twenty miles an hour in such conditions was a reckless act. With all that, Carlos found himself obliged to pull the car over and open the hood to let the motor cool down while he gave a few swift kicks to all four tires, to dislodge the sheets of ice.

  “What happened to your sudden inspirations today?”

  Txema had calmly rolled down his window before spitting out his question. The mischievous smile had yet to leave his face since the night before. He would never have predicted that they’d be forced to spend the night in a town of less than a hundred inhabitants, with no hotel, no restaurant, and a bar that was open only in the summer, or that they’d end up sleeping in the private house of a local octogenarian. And at that hour he seemed amused that while they were stopped in the middle of a deserted roadway with his words bouncing off the nearby cliffs, their situation was far from resolved.

  “Stop nagging me! Luck is like the weather: it changes suddenly, for better or worse.”

  Another kick rocked the car.

  “Probably for worse today.”

  Carlos did not answer.

  What was he going to say? That he had been mistaken? That his decision to travel there had been the fruit of an irrational impulse, far from professional? Was he going to give that pleasure to Txema so he could continue to laugh at his expense for the rest of the trip?

  No way.

  A clearing in the mist ahead allowed them to distinguish the outline of a highway sign. It was as if it had secretly come closer to greet the two men and lend them a hand. It stood there, a mere two hundred feet from where they stopped, indicating that there was an intersection ahead, one impossible to discern until this moment. It felt like an apparition, but it was real.

  “What if . . . ?”

  The photographer never finished his sentence.

  Carlos jumped behind the wheel and drove the car slowly forward with the heat
pumping at full blast, until he was able to read the words on the sign through the windshield. It revealed the mere minimum, along with an arrow: “Carretera N-122. Tarazona.” The journalist turned left and headed down the road that opened before him, gunning the engine with joy.

  Moments later, he was able to see through the fog a second time. A fleeting vision, but enough for his brain to process the content of another sign. This one was almost buried beneath the snow, jammed unevenly into the road’s shoulder, but with its head supported proudly on aluminum poles. The single word on the sign electrified the journalist: six large, black letters that turned out to be very familiar to him.

  “Did you see that?”

  His sudden stop tore through the ice on the road and thrust Txema forward.

  “Are you crazy?” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Did you see it or not?” Carlos asked again, his pulse quickening.

  “What? The highway sign?”

  “Yes, did you read it?”

  The photographer cursed as he undid his seat belt and felt around inside his camera bag, to make sure nothing had been damaged. “Sure I read it: Ágreda.”

  “Good Lord!” Carlos shook his head, incredulous. “It meant nothing to you? That name doesn’t sound the least bit familiar?”

  Txema looked lost in the woods.

  “Jesus, it’s the nun’s name!”

  Txema’s round, unshaven face was incredulous.

  “The nun who traveled to America whenever she liked?” he said, almost whispering.

  “Exactly.”

  “Calm down, will you? You’re going to get us killed. And keep your hands on the wheel. Shit! It’s just a coincidence.”

  “Coincidence? What a joke! You don’t get it, do you?” Carlos’s eyes were opened wide, and he paid no attention to anything other than his companion’s reactions. “How could I have been so stupid? In the seventeenth century and earlier, many famous people were known by their place of birth . . . in the case of María Jésus de Ágreda, that ‘de Ágreda’ could be her last name, or the town where she was born.”