Morgan
“Are my ears deceiving me?” Cain whispered in amazement as he poured imitation maple syrup on his pancakes. “Did you impart to my shell like protuberances that you have designed an artifact of small puissance using naught but Botanical Magic?”
I nodded. “My belt buckle alarm. Took me six years.”
“And you undertook such an endeavor without the benefit of the Word Create? With such an utterance, that commission would have cost you but a few minutes.”
A plump middle-aged waitress arrived to refill our coffee. Cain gave her one of his brilliant smiles that had her blushing like a schoolgirl. The man was far too handsome for his own good. He may have been an eternal wanderer, but I had the sneaking suspicion that he hadn’t lacked for company.
That morning he’d woke me up by whistling a merry tune. He was far jollier than a person ought to be at six a.m. and it took every iota of willpower not to curse him up one side and down the other. Despite the loan of too-big clothes, forgiveness came only with the first cup of coffee at the Dove’s Egg in downtown Gunnison.
I tapped my head. “All twelve Words known by the Sicarii are nestled in here, big man, and Create isn’t one of them.”
“All twelve, you say?” Cain grinned into his steaming cup. “All twelve?” He began to laugh.
“What’s so funny, Methuselah?”
Cain shoveled a good heaping of pancake into his mouth and chewed noisily before answering. “The very world teems with amusement for my pleasure, my young friend, but what tickles my fancy to the extreme is the knowledge that the Sicarii have a paltry twelve Words when there are total of twenty-five.”
I choked on a piece of syrup-drenched buttermilk pancake. Twenty-five Words? The concept was mind blowing! How could there be twenty-five Words when the Sicarii magi only had access to twelve?
“Ponder upon the origins of these Words of power, these pale reflections of the Word God employed to bring reality as we understand it into being. Now consider … what magus created these verbal instruments? How did he or she create such wonderful utterances?”
“She?”
“Ah, are the Sicarii so gender-biased? By your question it must be so; however, very little could surprise me when it comes to your kinsmen. Let’s us harken back to the topic at hand. Consider this, the Lord created the world and all therein, so if magic is part and parcel of creation …” his voice trailed off.
“Then magic comes from God? The Words, too?”
“Indeed there remains hope for you, yet. When my legendary parents partook of the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, the Words sprang new born into their minds, a mighty power they were unable to appreciate or utilize with sufficient wisdom. It was Pandora opening the box of lore, or Prometheus bestowing fire upon a shivering mankind. It was not only for disobedience that God banished man from the fruitful Garden, but for tapping into a power they were not ready to wield.”
My whisper was fierce. “Adam and Eve were the first … first … magi?”
“Yes.”
“And they passed these Words off onto you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are the Twenty-Five less powerful than the Thirty provided by the Silver?”
“My young friend, God employs a screwdriver, not a sledgehammer.”
I would’ve commented further, but I saw a man at a booth across the way reading a paper, the front page facing me and featuring a large color photo.
The photograph was of me; taken so long ago I almost didn’t recognize myself. “We have to leave, man,” I said slowly, peeling off a couple of twenties for our breakfast. “Now.”
To his inquiring look, I said, “Trust me.”
Fortunately, there was a newspaper dispenser outside the diner, so I purchased the DenverPost and read the article while Cain peered over my shoulder, a big grin on his wide face:
Swiss billionaire philanthropist Julian Deschamps announced yesterday that his son, Olivier, has disappeared while on vacation in the U.S.
A spokesperson for the Deschamps family announced that longtime friend and spiritual advisor, Father Michael Engle of St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska, flew to New York to meet Mr. Deschamps to offer spiritual and emotional support.
Although no ransom demands have been made and no group has taken credit for Olivier’s disappearance, authorities are not ruling out foul play.
There was more, but it didn’t matter. It was a message meant for me, confirmation that they had Mike.
And they were taunting me.
Before I could crumble the paper in my furious hands, Cain deftly snatched it from my grasp. “Look here, Mr. Heart, an 800 number, a hotline for information as to your whereabouts.” A long finger stabbed the paper under the number.
I muttered a spiteful curse that caused Cain to raise an eyebrow. “They want me to call in. They’re messing with me, man.”
“If that indeed is their nefarious plan, perhaps you should establish communication to ascertain what it is they desire.”
“My Family is rich and powerful enough that they could trace even a cloned phone, and Avoidance doesn’t work on tech.”
Cain just smiled and led me back to the Wrangler, fired it up and started out of town. Before too long we passed the turn to his cabin, and before I could comment, he reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and tossed me a cell.
“What your father and his Dagger Men fail to realize is that I am the oldest man in all of history, which has not only given me a unique perspective on life, but has allowed me to, with a touch of foresight, amass a fortune of almost inconceivable magnitude.”
I looked at the phone, the newest and best from Apple. “So what you’re saying is that you’re bucks up?”
A flash of teeth. “Bucks up? My good man, such a term does not do justice to the resources available to me. Why, if Julian were to know the true extent of my resources, no doubt he would suffer from an immediate and quite fatal stroke.”
“If you’re so damn rich, why haven’t you taken out the Sicarii long since? You could have hired thousands of mercenaries.”
We drove in silence for so long that I thought he wouldn’t answer, but finally he spoke. “I have beheld your kin and have been content to let them be. It is not for me to steer mankind in the right direction as End Times approach. Besides, throughout the millennia, I have been responsible for enough death and am not eager to add to that burden on my soul.”
“Then why help me?”
“I pondered that very question as I lay in repose last night. I have come to one inescapable conclusion.”
“You don’t really know?” I guessed.
“I don’t really know,” he agreed. “Despite the reasons I disclosed earlier. Perhaps my curse tugs at its leash and I must again go a-wandering. But that is neither here nor there. It is imperative you use the cell phone. Not to worry, I have invested quite a sum of capital to obtain a phone that not a soul on this earth has the wherewithal to track.” His grin almost blinded me. “It is good to be rich.”
Why not? I dialed the 800 number, the phone rang and an androgynous voice answered, “Deschamps tip line; what do you have for us?”
“I’d like to speak to Julian Deschamps, please.” In my mind’s eye, I saw a voice recognition program chugging away in an effort to study and verify my vocal patterns as well as tonality from the sample taken when I was younger-compensating for the differences that age and environment would have wrought.
Must have been a match, because the androgynous voice asked me to “Hold, please.” Less than a minute later a voice I never wanted to hear again came on the line.
“Hello, son.”
I licked my lips. “Hello, Julian. The newspapers, very subtle, so what do you do for an encore? Set fire to the Pentagon?”
“We needed your attention and subtle does not do the job. Your priest is here.”
“Funny, I don’t have any ownership papers. Must not be mine.”
“Very droll, son. If you want him back, you must come to me.”
“You know what, Julian,” I smiled savagely into the phone. “Keep him, man.”
“How American you sound, son. Do you think you sound like John Wayne? Gary Cooper?”
What a perfect straight line. What? He never saw Die Hard? “Everyone wants to be the Duke, but I kind of like Bruce Willis. You know, yippie-ki-yay, motherfu-”
“Enough!” shouted Julian, his normally calm voice thrumming with anger. “You are beginning to tire me. Come back and I will let your Liar’s pet go. Stay hidden, and I will hand the white collared boy-lover over to Boris for some face-to-face time.”
I could feel the phone-casing tremble in my clenched fist, but eased back before the glass facing could shatter. “Go ahead, give him to Boris. I hope that Russian maniac chokes on him.”
“You are quite serious, aren’t you?” Julian asked in surprise.
“As a heart attack.”
“I do not believe you.”
“And I don’t believe you will let the priest go if I turn myself in, so it looks like we’re at an impasse, Julian. Oh, and don’t bother to trace this call, you won’t be able to.”
“You have some impressive technology, boy, and a bad attitude.”
“Keeps me young. Tell you what, Julian, you let the priest go and I don’t come and kill you, Boris and everyone else. Just like I killed Burke.”
There was silence for a few seconds and when his voice came back, it was low and dangerous. “You did surprise me by killing Burke, son. He showed so much promise, but there are more. There are always more.” I heard a long breath slide over the connection. “Today is Tuesday. Thursday evening I will give the priest to Boris and he will die horribly. You have until then to come to New Hampshire to turn yourself in.”
It was time to hang up, so I did. “Bastard,” I growled.
Cain plucked the cell out of my hand. Without taking his eyes from the road, he touched an icon and said, “Dial Otto.” After a few rings he said, “Otto, this is Evan. Get the plane ready.” With that he disconnected.
At my look, he grinned. “Let us depart to plan mischief upon the enemy.”
Sounded damn good to me.
We drove to a private landing strip housing one plane, a Beechcraft Baron. There an old man took the keys to the Wrangler, and soon I found myself airborne, with Cain at the stick.
“I can only imagine having the wings of angels,” he said as we headed east. “The freedom of flight has been my utmost joy since the invention of the hot air balloon.”
“What’s the plan, Cain?”
“The plan is, my young friend, to assail the mighty fortress, rescue the advocate of our Lord, and wreak such havoc upon your estranged family that they will hesitate, nay, quake at the thought of ever assaulting their most wayward member again.”
I gave that some thought. “I can live with that. Only problem is, how are the two of us going to pull it off?”
“Simplicity itself!” he said after a spot of turbulence shook the plane like a maraca. My stomach thankfully kept the pancake and sausage breakfast secure. “We will build an army. The only question that remains to trouble us is: where on earth have they secreted the priest?”
It was my turn to flash him a grin. “That’s easy!” I said over the roar of the engine. “In the New York Grand Hotel.”