After ten minutes, Father Paul began to wonder if Allen was coming back. When twenty minutes had passed, he knew something was wrong.
Father Paul touched the throat microphone hidden under his priest’s collar. “Are you monitoring, Finnegan?”
“Right here, Boss,” came the voice in his earpiece.
“I think I’ve lost Cabbot.”
“Did he rabbit?”
“I don’t think so. I think something happened.”
The priest twiddled his thumbs a moment, smoked the remainder of his cigarette down to the butt. “Finnegan, how many can you round up without jeopardizing our surveillance?”
“Let me see.” Ten seconds crawled by. “Five.”
Father Paul thought about it quickly. Five was enough. “Where’s the van?”
“Two blocks north of you.”
“I’ll see you in five minutes.”
The priest pushed away from the table, made his way through the Globe’s crowd and checked the restrooms. He circled the café once on the off chance that Allen had been caught in a conversation with some girl, but as suspected, Allen was nowhere to be found.
Father Paul went outside and turned north.
He stuck another cigarette in his mouth and considered. Somebody had gotten their hooks into the Cabbot boy. Father Paul thought he’d arrived early enough to preempt any sort of action by the opposition, and it irked him that he’d figured wrong. He’d planned to make Allen Cabbot his link to Evergreen. Father Paul could deal with Evergreen without the boy, but he didn’t want to have to try. A lot of careful thought had gone into the plan.
The black van came into view, and Father Paul broke into a trot. It was a large, nondescript van, parked in an alley. The priest reached it and knocked on the back door. It opened, and he entered, pulling the door closed behind him.
The interior of the van hummed with electronic equipment. Father Flynn Finnegan was a giant pale Irish block of meat with a headset perched on his fat noggin. It looked like some children’s toy headset. His black frock bulged with thick muscles. His red hair was growing gray at the temples. He nodded at Father Paul as he entered the van.
“Blake and Santana are on the way,” Finnegan said. “What’s the target?”
“Give me a quick rundown.”
The big Irishman swiveled in his chair and tapped at a laptop. Pictures of buildings and houses flickered on various monitors. “Target zones alpha and beta are quiet,” Finnegan reported. “But our people watching the house in Zizkov say a sedan pulled into the driveway six minutes ago. The lights are on, and there’s activity.”
“That’s the one,” Father Paul said. “Start the van.”
“Right.” Finnegan took off the headset, went to the front of the van, and squeezed into the driver’s seat, cranking the engine.
Father Paul opened the weapons locker under one of the bench seats and withdrew a flak jacket. All the Battle Jesuit flak jackets had a small emblem over the heart-a golden cross, the bottom of the cross in the shape of a sword blade. He shrugged into it, looked at the other two young priests in the back of the van. They looked of the same mold: young, athletic, a steely-eyed appearance that seemed to indicate a cool, calculated readiness for action. He’d seen their files but had yet to speak with them in person.
He nodded at the tall black man sitting across from him. “Father Starkes?”
William Starkes shrugged into his own flak jacket. “Yes, sir.”
“Good to meet you.” According to Starkes’s file, the man had served a hitch as an Army Ranger before earning a degree in religion from Princeton and then joining the seminary. Father Paul’s outfit had only recruited and trained him three months ago. He was a good man on paper, but he looked nervous.
The priests strapped on nylon shoulder holsters, checked the magazines of their 9 mm Glocks. Finnegan punched in the security code on the gun locker’s keypad and handed each priest a fully automatic H &K 9 mm submachine gun with laser sight and collapsible stock.
Father Paul shifted his attention to the short man sitting next to Starkes. Emile DeGaul had joined the French Foreign Legion at age seventeen and had already served eight years when his older brother-a priest-had been killed in an automobile accident. DeGaul had made some private deal with God that Father Paul didn’t completely understand, and DeGaul had answered the calling a month later.
“Are you ready for this, DeGaul?”
“Absolutely!” His French accent was thick, but his English was good.
Father Paul saw that Finnegan was strapping on a flak jacket also. “Where do you think you’re going, Monsignor?”
“You don’t think you’re going to keep an old warhorse like me out of this, do you, Father?”
“Didn’t you just celebrate your fiftieth birthday, Finnegan?”
Finnegan flexed, and muscles rippled beneath his frock. A grin spread across his ruddy face. “Would you like to arm wrestle?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Father Paul’s mouth. “No, I don’t think I would. Call off Blake and Santana. I don’t want to wait for them. Finnegan, take us to Zizkov.”
“Right.” The Irishman crammed himself into the driver’s seat and drove toward the target house.
The three priests in the back of the van checked one another’s equipment and made sure their gear was properly secured. They checked and rechecked their weapons. Father Paul handed out headsets. They put them on, plugged them into the compact radios on the shoulders of their flak jackets.
“Remember, this is an extraction,” Father Paul said. “I want Cabbot secured and out of there as fast as possible. Let’s try to keep casualties down. But never forget these are dangerous people. You see a threat, shoot to kill.”
Grim faces nodded back at him.
“Shall we say a quick prayer?” DeGaul asked.
“Lord, aid us in Your work and help us to triumph over evil in Your name. Amen.”
They all crossed themselves.
“How about grenades?” suggested DeGaul.
“Definitely not.” Father Paul wanted to keep the number of things exploded to a minimum.
“There’s a shoulder-based antitank missile in the storage compartment on top of the van,” Starkes said.
“No!”
“We’re a block away,” Finnegan shouted from the front of the van.
“Put us someplace dark,” Father Paul said.
“There’s an alley up here. Give me two seconds.”
Finnegan pulled in, the big van blocking the narrow alley. At this time of night, it probably wouldn’t matter, and Father Paul didn’t want to spend the time looking for a better parking spot. It would have to do.
“Stick to the shadows. Get into position. Wait for me to give the word. Go.”
They spilled out of the back of the van, scattered, then ran in the shadows toward the target house. Finnegan and DeGaul broke off for a back alley to take them behind the house. Starkes trailed behind Father Paul. It was late at night in a quiet, residential section. So far nobody had seen them, but they couldn’t count on luck for long. Best to get under cover as soon as possible.
Father Paul scooted under the low branches of a small tree in the front yard and signaled for Starkes to head down the narrow driveway to the side of the house. Father Paul then waited for everyone to get into position. The light was on in the front window. In a moment he’d need to creep forward and have a look.
“Where is everyone?” he asked in a low voice.
The earpiece crackled, and the priests reported in one at a time. Finnegan and DeGaul were in the rear, and Starkes was along the side. Father Paul covered the front. Nobody covered the other side because the target house was almost slap up against its neighbor.
“I want a quick scan. Tell me what you got.”
“One window downstairs. Two up,” Starkes reported. “All dark.”
“The lights are on back here,” Finnegan said. “Lots of movement. I see three people, no, make that four. Maybe they can-gun! I just spotted a weapon. They’re definitely armed, boyo!”
“That decides it for me,” Father Paul said. “We’re going in hot, safeties off. Just watch out for Cabbot. Pick your entry points, and wait for my word. Finnegan, is that one with the weapon upstairs or downstairs?”
“Upstairs. There’s a drainpipe. I can shinny up there, pop in, and handle the situation no problem.”
“It’s an old house, Finnegan, and you weigh ten tons. Send DeGaul up the drainpipe.”
A slight pause. “Understood.”
“Get into position and stand by.”
Father Paul checked his weapons, then slowly approached the front window, crouched over. The first-floor window was big and low, very easy access. He looked inside, saw the back of a man’s head, his chair back against the window. Beyond the man sat Allen Cabbot, looking tired and anxious. The priest wished he could get a better look at the other man. It was difficult to tell the exact situation. Father Paul had assumed that Allen had been abducted, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. Maybe there was a more subtle way to handle this.
Father Paul saw Allen’s eyes get big. Allen sat up in his chair, pointed at the window. The other man turned. There was a pistol in his hand.
Hell.
“Go!” Father Paul yelled into the headset’s microphone. He took three steps back, then leaped through the big front window.
Glass shattered and rained, sparkling fragments spraying the man with the pistol. The priest tucked and rolled, came up in a shooter’s stance.
The man with the pistol took a panicked step back and shouted, “Vatican thugs! Run!”
And then he pointed the pistol at Father Paul.
The submachine gun bucked in the priest’s hands, sprayed the man with lead. Red blotches sprouting across his chest and belly. The man jerked and fell, a pile of dead meat. Father Paul was simultaneously aware of more gunplay elsewhere in the house. His team was in.
Allen was up and running out of the room. The priest couldn’t blame him. People tended to flee from gunfire.
“Allen, wait!” Father Paul cried as he ran after him.
He ran into the kitchen, saw a young blond girl standing before Allen, her hand flung up in a Halt! gesture. Father Paul didn’t halt; he charged at her, machine gun raised.
He stepped on something, his foot sliding along the linoleum floor and out from under him. He went into the air, drifting backward, the kitchen a spinning blur in front of his eyes. He landed on his back. Hard. The air went out of him with a whuff, and his mouth worked silently, trying to find breath.
He glimpsed Allen and the girl dashing out a side door into the night.
There was a long three seconds before Father Paul could catch his breath again. He groaned into a sitting position, then scanned the kitchen floor and saw a small, delicate teacup turned upside down. He’d stepped square on top of it, and instead of crushing the thing into dust, he’d slid across the floor on it, as if it had been an ice skate. His back ached in several places.
A bearded man in denim rushed into the kitchen, screaming, “Damn Papist!” He leveled a shotgun at the priest. The shotgun blast shook the room as Father Paul rolled to the side. Buckshot scored the cabinets behind him.
Father Paul flattened to his belly, swung the H &K, one-handed, out in front of him and squeezed off two quick bursts. A slug smacked into the attacker’s shin, sprayed blood. He screamed, high-pitched and ragged, then collapsed on top of himself, the shotgun sliding out of reach.
“Oh, fucking shit. You shot my leg off. My fucking leg!” He writhed, tried to reach down and staunch the blood flow.
The priest lurched to his feet, went to the door, and looked outside. No sign of Cabbot or the girl.
“Damn.”
He heard somebody come in behind him. He spun quickly, bringing the machine gun to bear.
“It’s me.” Finnegan held up his hands. “The rest of the house is secure. Three more Society fanatics. They’ve been terminated.”
“Vatican scum!” said the bleeding man on the floor.
“Put a sock in it, boyo. We’ll get to you in a minute.”
“Fuck you!”
“Did you get Cabbot?” Finnegan asked.
Father Paul sighed. “I missed him.”
“He’s out of your reach now,” said the bearded man. “Kill me and ten more will rise to take my place.”
“Then I suppose we’d better patch you up and keep you alive,” Father Paul said. “I’d hate to have ten of you cluttering up the place. Plus it’s damn difficult to interrogate you if you’re dead.”
“Tough shit, priest. You won’t get anything out of me.” He dipped a thumb and forefinger into his shirt pocket, came out with a pill, prepared to put it in his mouth.
“Suicide pill!” shouted Finnegan.
Father Paul and the big Irishman dove on the wounded man, grabbed his wrist as he strained to get the pill into his mouth.
“You can’t stop me, you bastards!”
“No, you don’t.” Finnegan engulfed the man’s fist with his own hammy hand and squeezed. The fingers popped open, and Finnegan grabbed the pill. “Got it.”
“This is taking too long,” Father Paul said. The local authorities would soon respond to the commotion. He touched his throat microphone. “Gather up the strays and meet back at the ranch. One minute.”
“Hold on a second.” Finnegan held the blue pill close to his eyes. “This is an Aleve.”
“No, it’s not,” the fanatic said.
“The hell it isn’t. I take them for my knees. It’s an Aleve with the writing scratched off.”
“It’s a suicide pill. We’ve sworn not to be taken alive.”
Finnegan grabbed the fanatic’s face, squeezed until his mouth popped open, then shoved the pill inside. The fanatic squirmed, tried to spit it out, but the Irishman clapped a hand over his mouth. “Swallow it.”
The fanatic swallowed it, and Finnegan removed his hand.
“You son of a bitch!” the fanatic shouted. “You’ve poisoned me.”
“It’s not poison, idiot. It’ll probably make your leg feel better.”
“That’s enough,” Father Paul said. “Finnegan, throw him over your shoulder. We’ll fix his leg in the van. Let’s move.”
Somehow Father Paul would have to find the Cabbot boy. He was out there roaming Prague by night without the faintest notion of what was about to happen to him.
A my held his hand tight, pulling him along so fast that Allen almost tripped and fell flat on his face a dozen times. The ra-ta-ta-tat of distant machine-gun fire still followed them. Her blond braids streamed behind her. Allen huffed and went red in the face, a large quantity of pilsner sloshing in his stomach.
“I’ve got to stop,” Allen said.
“Not yet. Keep running.”
They ran through the residential area to a small park at the foot of a hill. Allen jerked his hand away from hers and threw himself on the first park bench they passed.
“Got to… stop, okay?” He gasped for breath. “I’m going to… puke.”
She took his hand in both of hers and tried to pull him off the bench. “Come on! We can rest later. We’ve got to get under cover.”
“Just one minute. I’m not kidding. I’m going to spew beer all over this fucking bench.”
She sat next to him, put her hand on his forehead. Her palm was soft and cool. She smelled like cinnamon.
Both their heads jerked up at the sound of the sirens.
They saw the lights washing through the street a split second before the two police cars came into view, driving fast. Amy threw her arms around Allen and kissed him hard as the police cars sped past.
“What was that for?” A faint strawberry flavor lingered in his mouth from the kiss.
“Haven’t you ever seen them do that in the movies?” she asked. “A man and woman trying to look inconspicuous when the cops go by?”
“I don’t think it was necessary. They were probably too worried about the gunfight to care about a couple of people sitting on a park bench,” Allen said. “Not that I minded.”
She stood, grabbed his hand again. “Come on.”
They headed for a narrow path on the other side of the park bench. It led uphill.
Allen groaned. “Can’t we escape downhill?”
“We don’t have to run,” Amy said. “Just keep moving.”
The narrow path zigzagged uphill and joined a wider path. It was steep enough going to wind Allen after five minutes. He got sweaty, puffed for air. The path led into a road, which they took to the top of the hill. A blocky gray building sat at the top.
“This is Zizkov Hill, isn’t it?” Allen recalled the description in The Rogue’s Guide. “The Monument.”
“The National Monument, yes. We’re approaching it from the back.”
It looked like a big, squat concrete bunker. They circled around the side, then ducked into a breezeway that ran through the middle of the structure. The whole place was lit poorly by scattered streetlights. Amy stopped in front of a large, dark set of wood doors chained together with a thick brass padlock. She fished into her shirt and brought out a small key on a string, then unlocked the padlock and opened one of the doors just wide enough for both of them to slip inside. She closed it again, padlocked it on the inside.
The room was bare, gray stone, with a single Soviet-looking lightbulb sticking out of a utilitarian fixture. A gray block humped up from the center of the floor-the tomb of the unknown soldier, which The Rogue’s Guide said was now empty. There was nothing else in the chamber, and Allen was forced to wonder what they were doing here.
Amy reached around the side of the tomb, depressed a small square of stone. The tomb rumbled; the squeal and clink of chains, the hum of machinery. The top of the tomb slid halfway back. Allen stepped forward, looked inside.
A metal ladder descended into a tunnel below.
“We can lie low down here,” Amy said. “Follow me.”
She swung her leg over and into the tomb, went down the ladder.
Allen hesitated, then followed.
The bottom of the ladder let them off in an old service tunnel, where water pipes and other conduits ran along the floor and ceiling. The stone tunnel was barely four feet wide and less than six feet tall, again lit by low-watt bare bulbs every twenty feet. Allen had to bow his head slightly as he followed Amy.
Abruptly they came upon a man-sized hole in the side of the tunnel. They ducked inside.
The chamber, a large area full of pipes and valves, stretched ten feet high. The room was obviously some sort of central crossroads for all the plumbing and electrical wiring for the Monument and other buildings on the hill.
But the room had been recently altered.
Three double beds with matching pillows and comforters spread around the room. Beads and tapestries had been hung in an attempt to make the chamber seem livable. There was a desk with a computer. An easy chair with a lamp standing next to it. A few books on a footstool. A table set up with kitchen stuff, hot plate and microwave.
The Harry Potter poster over one of the beds just looked… wrong.
The girl on the bed with the camouflage comforter and matching pillowcases sat up, startled, setting aside a book she was reading. “What are you doing here? What’s he doing here?”
It was one of the other girls from the Globe. The tough-looking one with black spiky hair and the heavy, dark eye makeup. She’d kicked off the combat boots and had put on torn jeans and a Clash T-shirt. The Clash? Was that some honest bit of retro or some kind of put-on? Allen’s mother had listened to the Clash.
“Basil is dead, Clover,” Amy said.
The Tough one-Clover-went blank, then her face slowly softened and her shoulders slumped. “Shit.”
“I think they got the others too,” Amy said. “I don’t know what to do. Can we handle this, just the three of us?”
“To hell with that,” Clover said. “I say we call for reinforcements. Get everyone in here, guns blazing, and put a lid on this fucking shit pronto.”
“That would be rash.”
Allen jumped at the new voice behind him. He stepped aside as she entered the room, the third one from the Globe. In the crowded café, Allen had only seen her sitting. Now he could see how tall she was-at least an inch taller than Allen, with a broad back, short hair, and tightly muscled arms, making her look like a cross between a phys ed teacher and a Navy SEAL. Her voice was deep and flinty.
“Sam!” Amy put a gentle hand on her arm. “Basil is dead.”
“I know,” Sam said. “I just came from there. The place is crawling with local fuzz.”
Amy’s eyes went glassy, on the verge of tears. “What do we do now?”
“Counterstrike,” Clover said.
“That doesn’t get us anywhere.” Sam looked at Allen. “How far did Basil get with him?”
Amy opened her mouth, but Allen said, “Ask me, why don’t you? I’m standing right here.”
“Okay, sport. What did Basil tell you?”
“He didn’t get very far,” Allen said. “He started talking about alchemists.”
“Did he tell you what Evergreen is doing?”
“No.”
Sam nibbled her bottom lip in contemplation. “We need to call for help. They need to know back home what’s happened to Basil.”
“What about Allen?” asked Amy.
Clover scooted to the front of the bed, grabbed her combat boots, and jammed her feet into them. “Tie him up. Try the mind probe on him.”
One of Allen’s eyebrows went up. “Mind probe?”
“Do we have to? Allen’s on our side now.” Amy grabbed his arm. “Tell them, Allen.”
“I’m not on anybody’s side. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know who you are!”
“I’m Amy.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“We are The Three,” Sam told him. “And we’re members of the Society, an ancient order dedicated to preserving and protecting the balance of magic. The balance that Dr. Evergreen is about to throw completely out of whack.”
Allen frowned.
“See how easy that was to explain?” Clover stuck a cigarette in her mouth. “Magic balance out of whack. Aren’t you glad you asked?”
Allen could not think of anything he was glad about.
“Don’t smoke,” Amy said. “I hate it when you smoke.”
Sam unwrapped a thin cigar, put it in her mouth, and lit it.
“You’re doing that on purpose to irritate me. You know the smoke bothers my eyes.”
“Clover’s right.” Sam inhaled, held it, then blew a long gray stream toward the ceiling. “We can’t let you run to Evergreen and tip him off.”
“It was the priests that broke in on us,” Amy said. “They killed Basil. They tried to kill us. Allen saw them. He wouldn’t be on their side. Not now. Would you, Allen?”
Allen opened his mouth. Shut it again. Amy had a point. It had been Father Paul. With a machine gun. Allen had seen his face clearly. On the other hand, Amy and this Basil guy had shoved him in the trunk of a car, had questioned him at gunpoint.
“Look, I don’t know what to think. All I know is I don’t want any trouble.”
“Well, trouble is what you got,” Clover sneered. “You’re in this up to your ass, so deal with it.”
“Leave him alone,” Amy said. “He’s overwhelmed.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo.”
“Enough.” Sam puffed the cigar. “Let me think.”
Allen pointed at the easy chair. “Can I sit there? I feel like I’m going to fall over.”
Sam puffed the cigar, nodded.
“I’ll get you a drink,” Amy said. “Some water.”
Allen collapsed into the chair. How long since he’d slept?
“Take this.” Amy handed him a glass of water.
He drank, realized how parched he was, gulped it all down.
Sam stood next to his chair and placed a warm, calloused hand on his forehead. Blurry syllables spilled out of her mouth, too fast and strange to understand.
He blinked up at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep if you’re tired.”
He put his head back. Maybe he’d close his eyes. Just for a minute. Just a… quick… forty… winks.
“Allllleeeeeen.”
Somebody was calling his name through the fog.
Cobblestones under his feet. Allen wore boots, high, hard, and black. Gray breeches and a ruffled, cream-colored shirt. Some kind of period costume.
Oh, hell. I’m in a Brontë novel.
The sound of rushing water came through the fog. Allen wasn’t on a road. It was a bridge. He looked over the side, saw the Vltava flowing beneath him. He glanced back over his shoulder where Prague Castle would be on the hill, watching over the city below, but the thick fog obscured everything, blotted out the stars.
He jogged along the bridge, but it stretched on and on with no end in sight. The voice in the fog called his name again. “Allen. Alllleeeeeen.”
“Who’s there?”
She floated out of the fog like a ghost. Red velvet dress dragging the cobblestones, tight bodice pushing up white breasts. A black cloak with the hood thrown back revealed luxurious waves of dark hair.
“Allen.”
Allen gulped. “Mrs. Evergreen?”
“This is a dream, Allen.”
“I know.”
“It’s a dream, but it’s real. I really am here in your mind. I’m inside you, Allen.”
“Uh… thank you?”
“I’m calling to you, Allen.”
“I’m flattered, but I’d like to wake up now.”
She moved toward him, seeming to glide, as if there had been unseen roller skates beneath the billowing dress. She circled him as she spoke, trailing a delicate finger along his shoulders and back.
“My husband needs your help, Allen. He’s been looking for you. Waiting for you.”
“I was delayed.” Allen felt guilty, ashamed. Like he’d disappointed her. “I’ve had some trouble with-”
“I know that you’re with the witches,” she said.
Witches?
Allen said, “There’s a priest, too.”
She hissed and stepped back from him. “How many?”
“I don’t know.”
She was suddenly in front of him again, blue eyes locked onto his. Allen stood paralyzed, a chill all over his body, a feeling like cold, stone hands holding his heart. He wanted to flee, yet he could not stand the idea of being away from her. He had to serve her. Please her.
“Tell me of this priest,” she said.
Allen told her everything he knew. He reached into his ruffled shirt, pulled out the crucifix. “He gave me this.”
Cassandra Evergreen flinched, took a step back. “It’s not important. Put it away.”
He put it away.
She forced a smile to her face, stepped close to Allen again, touched his cheek. The fog swirled in around them, clinging cold and damp.
“I will come to you again,” she said.
“When?” The raw hunger in the single word embarrassed him.
But she was gone.
The ground left his feet. He was falling backward through the fog, a long, deep drop into nothing. Allen opened his mouth to scream.
“Knock it off.”
Allen started, lifted his head, blinked.
The tough one stood over him. Clover.
“Where am I?” His voice was a hoarse croak. The easy chair in the witches’ lair. He tried to lift his arms, found that his wrists had been duct-taped to the arm of the chair. More tape around his ankles.
“We’d prefer you stay put for a while,” Clover said.
“Where’s Amy?”
“Your little girlfriend’s not here. And I don’t trust you. Sorry if it’s not comfortable. I think our Amy has a little-girl crush on you, so we thought it better if I stood guard.”
“We don’t even know each other.”
Clover shrugged. “No, I guess not, but she’s the nice one. She’d probably feel sorry for you, and we can’t have you sweet-talking your way out of here right now. Not until we get further instructions from our people.”
“What if I have to pee?”
“Hold it.”
“Let me rephrase that. I have to pee.”
There was no warmth in Clover’s smile. She sucked hard on her cigarette, blew smoke into Allen’s face. “What was all the noise about?”
“What noise?”
“You were sound asleep in the chair, and then suddenly you screamed.” She blew more smoke at him.
“Could you fucking stop that please.”
Clover smirked.
“It was just a bad dream,” Allen said.
“No fucking shit, Sherlock. What was it about?”
Allen opened his mouth, closed it again. What had the dream been about? He strained to remember but couldn’t. He couldn’t recall a single detail; he retained only the vague feeling that there was something dreadfully important he was supposed to be doing. Being tied up only added to the sense of urgency.
And Dr. Evergreen. He and his wife would be wondering where the hell Allen was. Had they arrived in Prague yet? He needed to go to them, find them. It occurred to Allen he didn’t know the time, how long he’d been sleeping. He didn’t even know if it was day or night.
“Dreams can be dangerous things,” Clover said. “Some must be taken very seriously. I don’t mean the Freudian crap, or the ones where you show up to school in your underwear. The other dreams, the strangely vivid, disturbing ones. You need to be careful who and what you let into your mind.”
She dropped the cigarette butt on the cement floor, smashed it out with the heel of her combat boot.
“I wish you’d dispose of those properly,” Amy said from the doorway.
The grin on Clover’s face was half snarl. “I was just chatting with your boyfriend.”
“Stop saying that.”
Clover made exaggerated kissing noises and flopped back down on her bed.
“I hate that you’re so rude,” Amy said.
“Better than being fake nice.”
“It’s, like, called courtesy, okay?”
Clover said, “Fake nice, courtesy. Just two ways to say the same thing.”
“I really do have to pee,” Allen said.
Clover grunted impatience. “Just spell him back to sleep.”
“Spell?”
“Man, you really are slow on the uptake, aren’t you?” Clover slid to the edge of the bed, a fresh cigarette between her fingers. “We’re witches, man. Don’t you get it?”
Witches. For some odd reason, this revelation didn’t surprise Allen. It didn’t even seem like a revelation.
“I went to sleep,” Allen said slowly, “because I was exhausted. That’s all.”
“Wake up and smell the Ovaltine,” Clover said.
“I also cast a spell to help us get away from the Vatican troops,” Amy said. “Remember in the kitchen? When we were running from the priest? That was a hindrance spell.”
Allen shook his head. “No, no, no, no. He tripped on something. There was a cup on the floor, and he stepped on it. I saw it.”
“Well, like yeah,” Amy said. “Because I spelled him to do that.”
“Oh, come on. He tripped, and we got away.”
“Fuck him.” Clover lit the fresh cigarette, puffed it hard. “He’s just another nonbeliever.”
“Remember when you came out to the alley and we put you in the trunk of the car?” Amy asked Allen. “The luring spell.”
Allen rolled his eyes. “A gorgeous blonde asks me to meet her. Yeah, that’s some complicated magic there.”
Amy frowned. “You really don’t believe us?”
“Don’t waste your time with him,” Clover said.
Amy pouted. Clover smoked. The silence stretched.
Allen cleared his throat. “Are you going to let me pee, or what?”
Father Paul was not the sort of person who enjoyed throwing his weight around, but on the phone in the wee hours of the morning with an angry bishop, the priest had to remind the man how upset the Vatican might be if Father Paul was hindered in the pursuit of his important mission.
So the bishop pulled some strings and got Father Paul and his unit access to one of the interrogation rooms in a suburban precinct and a sympathetic police captain willing to lose the paperwork and look the other way. Finnegan escorted a bearded radical to the room, put him in a chair, and closed the door. They’d let him stew about a half hour while they watched him from behind a two-way mirror.
“A bit of a punk, isn’t he?” Finnegan said.
“Still dangerous,” Father Paul said absently. He watched the kid’s knee bounce up and down. They’d had a doctor patch up the boy’s shin after an X-ray had revealed that the bullet had only nicked the bone. Lots of bright red blood and screaming, but mostly sound and fury, signifying a fairly minor wound. The kid would limp for a while.
“We’ve sent his fingerprints through the system,” Finnegan said. “We should have something back soon.”
“We’ve let him twist long enough. I’m going to talk to him. You watch from here.”
“Right.”
Father Paul went into the interrogation room, the kid looking up with a start. Father Paul sat across from him, shook a cigarette loose from the pack. Lit it. Puffed. Sat back and smoked.
Give him a chance. See if he talks first.
“I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of me.”
The priest shrugged. “You want a smoke?” He held out the pack.
“Those things will kill you.”
Father Paul put the pack away. “In my line of work… well, cancer sticks are pretty far down on the list. So, you’re not European. No accent. What part of the States are you from?”
“Nice try, Priest. I’m not telling you dick.”
“This is just routine, really. Small fry like you doesn’t know much probably.”
There it was. Just barely noticeable, a frown and a flinch. The kid wanted to think he was important. Not many revolutionaries aspire to be pawns.
“Let’s just keep it simple,” Father Paul said. “What’s your name?”
“You can torture me all night, and I’ll never tell you.”
“We found your passport in your back pocket. Says you’re Thomas Varley.”
Varley looked away. “Shit.”
“Where are you from?”
“You go to hell. I said I’m not talking.”
“Your driver’s license was in your wallet. Home address, Waco, Texas.”
Varley slapped the table. “Damn it.”
“Look,” Father Paul said, “this’ll all be a lot easier if we can just have a nice conversation.”
Varley crossed his arms, sat back in his chair, his face stone.
“You put up quite a fight when we busted in on you,” Father Paul said, putting a hint of grudging admiration in his voice. “Eight or ten of you guys were almost more than we could handle.”
“Eight or ten? Man, there was only five of us. If we’d had ten guys, you Vatican motherfuckers would be toast.”
Father Paul took a small notebook from his jacket pocket, scratched a brief note. “Five. Thanks for clarifying.”
Varley slapped the table again. “Damn it!”
“Let’s see.” The priest tapped the pen against his chin. “Three dead, then you. That’s four. Let’s talk about number five.”
“Let’s not.”
“A young lady. Blond and pretty. What’s her name?”
“You’re not tricking me into saying anything else, man,” Varley said. “So just. Fuck. Off.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Father Paul turned to face the mirror. “Father Finnegan, I think we’ll need to go to the next level of interrogation.”
Ten seconds later Finnegan’s enormous bulk squeezed into the interrogation room. He carried a little black bag in one fist. He set it on the table, opened it, and pulled out a syringe.
Varley’s eyes went big. “No way, man. You’re not doping me. To hell with that.” He started to rise from the chair.
“Stay put.” Finnegan took hold of Varley’s shoulders and pushed him back into a sitting position, like a giant manhandling a ventriloquist’s dummy. “It’ll go easier if you hold still, lad.”
“Oh, shit.” Panic edged Varley’s voice.
Father Paul filled the syringe with clear liquid from a small vial.
“I think this will pave the way for that nice, friendly conversation I was hoping for.”
An hour later they put Varley on a cot in one of the holding cells and left him snoring there.
In the precinct break room, Father Paul and Finnegan hunched toward each other, discussing the interrogation in hushed tones. They each sipped tepid, bitter coffee from Styrofoam cups.
Father Paul would need sleep. He felt fatigue tugging hard at him around the edges. Somehow the big Irish slab of meat had the power to go on and on, but if Father Paul didn’t find a bed soon, he’d simply keel over.
“He didn’t know much, did he?” Finnegan said.
“Enough. A thread to pull. I want our people on this girl.” Varley had known that her first name was Amy. It was a start.
Starkes entered the break room, put a short stack of papers on the table in front of Father Paul. “Just got these faxed. Not much on Varley. Pretty much stuff we know already.”
“Thanks. Rotate those on surveillance. Everyone else should grab some shut-eye.”
“Right.” Starkes left.
Father Paul flipped through the faxed pages. Not much to work with. Varley was twenty-one years old, a college dropout. He’d drifted from one radical cause to another, looking to fit in someplace and stick it to the man. The definition of “The Man” seemed to shift as the wind blew. Corporations, the U.S. government, oil companies… and now the Vatican. Fighting the good fight against magical oppression. Didn’t these people realize that Father Paul and his people fought twenty-four/seven to keep the world from plunging into chaos?
A simple thank-you would’ve been nice.
No. Stupid to think that. People like him and Finnegan and the rest labored in anonymity, and that’s how it should be. The world didn’t need to know what went bump in the night.
Something in Varley’s file caught Father Paul’s attention. The kid had dropped out of college right after a semester abroad in London. A transitional period, one cause to another. Father Paul sifted the information in front of him, but he couldn’t find what he wanted, so he flipped open his cell phone and called the direct number to his support team back at headquarters. They said they’d have the additional information within thirty minutes. Father Paul sent Finnegan out to the van for his notebook computer. The big man brought it in, and Father Paul booted up. Twenty-three minutes later, he had the information he wanted.
Varley had attended university at a minor school in South London called St. Sebastian’s. The school was unremarkable in every way except for a minor professor of folklore, who, unbeknownst to the rest of the faculty and student body, was high councilman of the Society.
So a young Varley had been recruited by Professor Jackson Fay, one of the most powerful warlocks in the past century.
Father Paul sighed, lit a cigarette. “Great.”
Starkes stuck his head back into the break room. “Surveillance has picked up Cabbot. Location Beta.”
Father Paul stood, gathered the loose papers quickly, and tucked them under his arms. “Find Finnegan and tell him to meet me at the van.”
“You want me to gather everyone else?”
“No. Tell Finnegan if he’s not in the van in ninety seconds, I’m leaving his ass here.”
Relief.
Allen stood pissing in the cramped bathroom. He wanted to weep, the relief was so profound. His hands had been taped together in front of him. His ankles were taped together as well. They’d let him hop in like that to use the toilet, but Clover had insisted on the precautions.
As he pissed, he glanced around the small bathroom. There had to be a way out of there. If he could cut himself loose, he might simply dash past them.
“Hurry up in there,” called Clover.
Something. A nail file. Anything would do. Maybe he could chew through the tape.
He finished, zipped, and flushed.
He hopped back into the other room, flopped into the easy chair again.
“Feel better?” Clover asked.
“I’d feel better if you’d cut me loose and let me out of here.”
“Tough shit.”
Yeah.
“Why are you doing this?” Allen asked. “I just want to go home. I don’t care what you people are doing.”
“Well, you should care, man. That’s the whole reason I’m hooked up with this outfit, right? Usually I’m kind of a loner.”
“Really? Someone with your social skills?”
Clover went on like she hadn’t heard him. “You might not care what’s happening in the world, but a lot of us do. A lot of us want to do the right thing. Politics and world leaders and the United Nations and all that bullshit. That’s nothing. Window dressing. If you knew the real forces tugging at the fabric of the universe, you’d shit your pants, man. So I do care, okay? I’m part of something bigger than myself, and I’ve never had that feeling before in my life and I’m not giving it up, okay? I’m one of the good guys, and what I do matters.”
“That’s a good speech. You rehearse that in front of a mirror?”
“You’re kind of a smart-ass motherfucker, aren’t you?”
“Spend enough time in duct tape, and the courtesy goes out the window.”
“Yeah, well, we need you to stay put,” Clover said. “If the bosses say you’re valuable, then that’s good enough for me.”
“I’m flattered, but how could I possibly be valuable?”
“Standard Society MO,” Clover said. “Get a guy on the inside. You’re in with the Evergreens, and they’re key to all this shit that’s coming down.”
“I really don’t know anything about that.”
“What you don’t know could fill a fucking barn, dude.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Allen said. “I’ll stop being a smart-ass if you stop being a bitch.”
“No, I’ll make you a deal. You shut the fuck up and I won’t put out cigarettes on your scrotum.”
The heavy door to the chamber swung open, and Amy rushed inside, flushed and panting. “We’ve got to go.”
Clover leaped to her feet. “What is it?”
“They’re coming.”
“Shit.” Clover grabbed a black backpack, started shoving in her possessions. “How many?”
“It wasn’t clear,” Amy said. “I think something’s obscuring the magic. We’ve got to get out of here and then spread the word. This location is over. Nobody can come back here.”
Clover slung the backpack over her shoulder, motioned at Allen with her chin. “What about him?”
“We’ve got to scatter. He’ll come with me.”
“Bullshit.”
Amy spun, met Clover’s hard gaze. “I said he comes with me.”
Clover stepped back, nodded. “Okay.”
Amy bent over Allen, touched his cheek softly. “The priests are on their way. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Okay,” Allen said.
She produced a switchblade, flicked it open in front of Allen’s face. He flinched. She cut him out of the duct tape, then put the knife away. He rubbed the circulation back into his wrists.
“Clover, go out the front. Maybe you can lead them down the hill. They have a car, so stay off the road. You know the footpaths better than they do. Be well, sister.”
“The Lady be with you, sister,” Clover said.
They kissed quickly, brief and ceremonial.
Clover left.
“Come on.” Amy took Allen by the hand, led him to another tunnel. No lights. Amy flicked on a flashlight. They jogged, the tunnel angled steadily downhill.
“Are we going deeper underground?” Allen asked.
“No. This leads to the bottom of the hill.”
They jogged for three minutes, then slowed to a fast walk. The tunnel was narrow and dry, the floor covered with dust. The passage had clearly not been used in years.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“Theoretically,” Amy said.
At last they came to a rusty iron ladder leading upward. They climbed, came up against a heavy metal manhole cover. Amy shoved against it without luck. “Help me.”
“Move. Let me try.”
They traded places on the ladder, and Allen heaved himself against the manhole cover. Just at the point he thought he might rupture himself, the lid lifted and he moved it to one side, spilling fresh air and weak daylight into the tunnel. He climbed out, sat panting on a cement slab surrounded by bushes. It was just daybreak. Amy climbed out behind him.
Allen glanced around. They were behind some building, a walking path visible through the bushes. “Where are we?”
“Bottom of Zizkov Hill, I think. The other side of where we climbed up.”
A strange tour of Prague, Allen thought. He’d been all over the place and hadn’t seen a damn thing.
Allen followed her around the corner of the building and came face-to-face with a large tank, the gun barrel aimed right at his nose.
“The military museum,” Amy said. “Yes, this is where I thought we were.”
Of course. Allen was losing his mind. The tank was old, a museum piece that clearly hadn’t budged in decades.
“We need to get out of sight,” Amy said. “We can head toward City Hall and blend in with the tourists, but we’ll eventually need to lay low someplace, and I don’t know which of the safe houses have been compromised.”
Allen thought about it a moment, then said, “Follow me. I think I know a place.”
Do you remember what Clover said about the MO of the Society, how they like to have a spy on the inside? She’s right. Even hundreds of years ago. Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.