Monks had brought a chair for Sir Guy and helped him into it, lifting his legs onto cushions and tucking a rug around his spindly limbs. The knight felt empty, like a suit of clothes stuffed with straw and sticks. No longer a vital man, not yet a corpse. Tottering in the gloom of a cancer that was consuming him from the inside out.
The figure closest to him was both death and life in Sir Guy’s mind. Father Nicodemus, wizened but unyielding. He had been old when Sir Guy was a boy, but the man had not changed. Not a line, not a day. In his cups, Sir Guy comforted himself with the thought that it was God’s own grace that touched this man with a lighter hand, sparing him so that Nicodemus could serve heaven on earth. Sir Guy needed drink to believe it then, and now, sober and loitering at the edge of the grave, he knew that it was sophistry of the weakest kind. In truth, he did not know how to think about the old priest. To do so conjured dreams, and his nights were already troubled.
“You have done so very well, my son,” murmured the priest. “You have served Almighty God with a fealty and a zeal unmatched by any in the Red Order.”
Sir Guy said nothing. He had so little energy that breathing was a herculean task that required all of his powers. Father Nicodemus patted him on the shoulder and his slender fingers lingered to stroke the dying knight’s neck where it was exposed above the soiled collar of the Hospitaller doublet. It was so strange a thing, a pretense of tenderness that felt like a violative caress.
Then the priest took a few steps forward and held his arms wide as if to embrace the other deathly figures who stood in silent stillness.
Three men. They stood in a row, shoulder to shoulder, like brothers. Hollow faces that gave them a starved appearance. Thin-lipped mouths like knife slashes. Three shapes that pretended to be men. Three creatures Sir Guy had brought here from different parts of Europe and Asia. From Newburgh, from the Carpathian Mountains, and from a destroyed town in Turkey. They shared no common language, no sameness of culture, no drop of familial blood. And yet they were cut like poisoned fruit from the same blighted tree. Slender, pale as wax, with dark hair and eyes that burned like red coals. And teeth. Christ Jesus and all His saints, those dreadful teeth. Even after all this time that was the thing that continued to haunt Sir Guy, awake or asleep. Teeth like dogs. Like wolves.
Nicodemus spoke a word and it hung burning in the air.
“Upierczi.”
Three pairs of red eyes widened, filling with fear, filling with wonder.
“The children of shadows,” Nicodemus said to them. “Yes—I know you. Born of cold wombs, shunned and hated. Slaves to a hunger that you have been told is an affront to God. Reviled and condemned. Excommunicated and driven out to hunt in the night.”
Three pairs of red eyes studied him. It was the only thing about them that moved, shifting slowly to follow Nicodemus as he paced across the burning expanse of the fireplace.
“The Upierczi have been called monsters, sons of Judas. Pariah. Demons.” He stopped and fixed them with his own stare and it was darker and more fell than theirs. “But that is not what you are. Not demons. Not creations of Satan or fiends from the pit.”
They watched him. Sir Guy watched them as they studied the priest. Now there was uncertainty on their faces.
“When Sir Guy asked you to come with him, he promised safety. He promised you a place where you would be free, and be protected. He extended the arm of the church to you, offering to bless and sanctify you, to forgive you your sins and let you walk once more in the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ.”
They watched. One of them bowed his head and began softly to weep tears of blood.
Father Nicodemus stalked over to him and used one clawlike finger to lift the creature’s chin. “Listen to me, child of shadows,” he murmured in a gentler tone than Sir Guy had ever heard him use. “The Lord God has not forgotten you. You have not fallen out of His favor. You have not been barred from the grace of heaven.” He leaned close and licked the bloody tear from the weeping monster’s cheek. “God made you!” he whispered. He reached out his hands to touch the other two creatures, tracing lines across their wax white cheeks. “God is all and He makes all things and He made you. Therefore you are God’s creations. Whoever tells you otherwise is a heretic and will burn in hell.”
The silent creatures said nothing.
“I know what you feel, my children,” continued the priest. “I, of all who walk upon the earth, understand the fires that burn in your hearts and the need in the pit of your stomach. You kill because you cannot prevent yourself. A power greater than your own will compels you to hunt, to tear open the flesh of your prey, to bathe your face and lips and tongue in the heat of the blood. And afterward you revile yourself because this is against God. This is what you have been told. Yet what does Deuteronomy chapter twelve, verse twenty-three say? ‘The blood is the life!’ Did not Jesus shed his blood to redeem all? Does not His blood wash the world of its sins? Does the wine of communion not become blood as it touches the lips of each Christian?” He pulled them all closer still, and Sir Guy had to strain to hear. “You are not sinners, my children. You are merely lost. All your lives you have been seeking to understand why God would strike you with so heavy a hand and force you into a life of sin. I tell you now that God has not shaped you to be monsters or sinners. God has forged you into weapons.”
They stared at him, and the room—perhaps the world—was utterly silent.
“You have been brought here to be the holy weapons of God on earth. Do you hunger? Then know why: you were meant to feast upon the blood of the pagan and the heretic and the infidel. Do you seek shelter in the darkness? Then understand this: the darkness is yours. Use it. Let it heal you and hide you. Become the darkness and let it become you.”
He stepped back from them and signaled to one of his monks who came hurrying over with Sir Guy’s sword laid ceremoniously across his folded arms. The monk knelt and offered the handle to Nicodemus, who drew it with a ringing rasp. The priest turned and held the sword aloft, letting firelight flicker along its wicked edge.
“This sword,” he intoned, his voice deep and grave, “has drunk the blood of countless enemies of God. In the service of the king of France, in the cause of the Knights Hospitaller, and in the war of shadows we have fought with the Saracen and the Jew and other enemies of Christ.”
He turned and offered it to Sir Guy. “My son, my friend, take your sword.”
Sir Guy’s trembling fingers closed around the handle of the weapon he had thought he would never hold again. The touch of it lent some power to his withered hand and he held it out toward the Upierczi. The tip dipped for a moment but it did not fall to the ground.
“Sir Guy, Grand Master and Scriptor of the Holy Red Order, defender of the faith, servant and soldier of God, I entreat you to bestow upon these sacred warriors the title and privileges of knights of Ordo Ruber.”
Sir Guy flicked a surprised glance at Nicodemus. This was nothing they had ever agreed upon. This was unexpected and strange, and he knew that it was wrong.
And yet, Nicodemus stood there, eyes burning and mouth smiling.
“I…” began Sir Guy. But he could not endure that stare, that will. “Y-yes,” he gasped. “Yes.”
One by one the Upierczi came toward his chair and knelt before him, and one by one Sir Guy LaRoque touched their shoulders with the sword, blessing them in the name of Michael the Archangel.
When it was done, so was the last strength in Sir Guy’s arm. Nicodemus took it from him and handed the sword to a monk, who bowed out of the chamber.
Nicodemus ran a fingernail along Sir Guy’s cheek. “You have served me well for many years, my son.”
Sir Guy looked wearily up into his face, and his heart seemed to freeze. The old priest stood with his back to the Upierczi so that only the knight could see him. The priest’s eyes underwent that process of change which Sir Guy had seen before, the colors swirling and changing, but this time the process did not stop until
all color was completely gone, leaving eyes with no color, no whites. Eyes that were totally black. And the face also changed. It was not the wrinkled countenance of a priest grown old in the service of his God and his church. This face was both younger and older, timeless, endless; and endlessly wrong. It was a mask of a bottomless corruption and deception. The nose was still long and hooked, but the nostrils were more like slits; the mouth was lipless and lined with scores of needle-sharp teeth. Even the skin was mottled to an ophidian texture like a diseased toad. Worst of all, Sir Guy knew this face. It was the face of all the evil in the world. The face of the trickster. The enemy of God.
He screamed.
Sir Guy screamed and screamed and screamed until spit and blood flew from his mouth.
The trickster laughed.
Then Father Nicodemus turned away, his face once more that of a wizened priest. He swept a hand toward the screaming man.
“My knights,” he said softly, “my Red Knights. Sir Guy offers up his blood as a sacrament to seal our new covenant. Show respect for his sacrifice. Quick, while he still cries out for God’s own mercy.”
The Red Knights smiled with their jagged mouths. Their eyes were filled with tears and the light of joy as they rushed forward to partake of God’s mercy.
Chapter Sixty-Three
On the Street
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 1:23 p.m.
Violin was on the move, getting closer to Joe Ledger, and finding terrible wreckage along the way. It annoyed and angered her that Ledger wasn’t taking her calls, but it also frightened her.
Oracle provided her with the locations of likely safe houses where Ledger might go to ground. She had gone to the first one too late. All she found were Ledger’s footprints in the blood of a living room awash with dreadful pain.
The Red Knights had left their signature on every inch of that small house.
Seeing the carnage, Violin had braced herself against the possibility that one of the mangled figures was Ledger, but neither was. An old man and his son. She could tell at least that much from their faces.
Standing in the living room, Violin considered pulling the old man down from the wall, but it would take more time than she had.
She ran out the back and got into the car she used while in Iran. The car appeared to be sedate and slow, but that was all exterior illusion. A much fiercer creature dwelt under the hood, and the suspension was rigged for high-speed pursuit and hairpin handling.
Even so, she stayed within legal limits as she navigated the traffic toward the second safe house. One run by the CIA. She passed it and saw nothing untoward. Around back there were two parked cars. She circled the block looking for backup and found it.
Violin parked her car in the shade thrown by a tall stuccoed warehouse. Across the street a pair of white vans sat in the shade. She recognized them. Not those specific vans, but the type. And she knew what they signified.
Sabbatarians.
Her lip curled in cold contempt. Those maniacs should have died out years ago along with their blasphemous Inquisition. It offended Violin to her core that they continued to prosper and had even found some private source of funding in recent years. Their numbers were growing and the threat they represented was no joke.
She accessed Oracle.
“Oracle welcomes you, Violin.”
“Quick field update. Please mark this urgent and make sure my mother sees it right away.”
“Noted. Please proceed.”
Violin explained about the slaughter rendered by the Red Knights and the Sabbatarian strike team she was currently observing.
Instead of the placid computer voice responding to her update, a very similar but far more intimidating voice barked, “Do you have Captain Ledger under active surveillance?”
Violin froze and had to take a moment to find her own voice. She looked down at the small screen on her computer and saw a face that was as ageless and beautiful as it was stern and humorless. Black hair shot with snow white streaks, cat green eyes, a full-lipped mouth compressed into a stern line.
Lilith. Cold as the moon and equally remote. It was difficult enough speaking with Lilith on the phone, seeing her on the computer made Violin instantly feel like a naughty ten-year-old again.
“Hello, Mother,” said Violin, her voice immediately small and contrite.
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me. Answer the question, girl.”
“No, Mother. Ledger went into the wind after leaving his hotel, though I think I know where he is.”
One eyebrow arched high on Lilith’s forehead. “You ‘think’?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Why are you wasting time talking to me instead of verifying his location?”
“Because there is a Sabbatarian strike team positioned near—”
“Did I ask for an excuse as to why you can’t accomplish a simple task?”
Lilith’s tone was subzero. Colder even than usual.
“No, Mother, I—”
“And are you about to apologize instead of taking appropriate and immediate action? Is that the end result of everything I’ve taught you?”
“No, Mother, it’s just—”
“Do I need to send a trainee instead? Someone who understands how to follow a simple order?”
Violin took a deep, steadying breath. It was that or put her fist through the monitor’s screen.
“No, Mother, but—”
“Then follow your orders,” barked Lilith. “Rasouli gave Ledger a flash drive with information on where as many as seven nuclear bombs have been hidden. Four, at least, are in the Middle East. Find Ledger and get that drive. Is that order simple enough for you?”
“My God! Wait—how do you know what Rasouli gave—?”
“How do you think?” snapped her mother. “I used common sense and asked the right question of the right person.”
Ah, so that’s it, thought Violin. Mother spoke with St. Germaine.
No wonder she’s so angry. On a secret level, Violin was pleased to see her mother discomfited.
“Mother, I’m trying to understand why the Order sent a knight after Ledger. How could they have known about the flash drive?”
“I … don’t know,” said Lilith, her anger dropping down several notches. “That’s a good question, too.”
“On the other hand, this seems to confirm one of my theories—that Rasouli is not planning on accepting the role of Murshid.”
But the screen had already gone dark.
Violin clenched her teeth. She considered taking the computer outside and backing her car over it a few times. It might make her feel good. Instead, she turned off the engine and got out of the car.
She was dressed in a traditional Iranian chador and headscarf, which made her shapeless and faceless. The eye makeup she had applied would fool anyone. She took a net-covered cloth grocery sack from the back seat and began walking slowly across the street. Not directly toward the white vans, but at an angle so that she would have to pass them. They appeared deserted.
As she approached, she could hear the squawk of a walkie-talkie and the hushed voice of a man speaking awkward Persian with a European accent, though she could not make out the words. The man was inside the second van. From his tone, though, he sounded agitated, concerned. He kept repeating a word, or perhaps a name, and got no replies.
“Krystos! Krystos!”
Then the rear door of the van opened and four men stepped out. They were dressed in ordinary clothes, but they held their sports coats closed in the way men do when they are trying to conceal something. Violin had seen it a thousand times. It amused her.
She needed to be amused. It was that or let the memory of her conversation with her mother turn her into a screaming wreck.
The men saw her and paused. They said nothing to her but their eyes were on her as she walked past the van. They were only pretending to be Iranian, but their stares were frank and impudent by Muslim standards. Invasive and rude.
No way to treat a lady, she thought.
Violin let herself trip over a crack in the sidewalk. She stumbled and dropped the grocery bag. One of the men made a reflexive move to catch her.
And he died.
The other three men never saw the blade. All they were aware of was a flash of black cloth and the sparkle of sunlight on steel, and then the man who had reached to help the woman was sagging to his knees as a jet of impossibly bright red geysered from his throat. Violin gracefully sidestepped to avoid the spray.
The men were shocked, but they were professionals. Even without understanding what was happening they knew something was wrong, that this was an attack of some kind. They went for their guns.
And then Violin was among them.
Her chador flapped and popped like laundry on a clothesline. Her hands became a blur as she moved into the center of the group, a blade in each hand, her body twisting with a dancer’s grace. The steel wove patterns of light around her. Rubies of blood filled the air and splashed along the side of the van and on the front of the building. One gun cleared its holster but the hand holding it was no longer attached to its owner’s wrist.
The men had no time to scream.
Violin cut their faces and throats and mouths and eyes. She slashed tendons and muscle and bone and then she suddenly froze in the center of the storm of blood. The men collapsed around her, their many parts creating a grotesquely artistic pattern on the ground.
From the first cut to the last it took four seconds.
Violin stared dispassionately down at the carnage.
Four seconds.
Beneath her scarf her mouth twitched in disgust.
It should only have taken three.
She looked up and down the empty street, then opened the back door of the lead van and examined the interior. In the back, one side was given over to a large and clunky array of surveillance equipment that looked like it might have first seen service during the Cold War. The other side was a weapons rack, with pistols and automatic rifles in metal clips, rows of tapered stakes hanging in rings mounted to the inner wall, and a sack filled with pouches of garlic.
Assassin's Code Page 28
