Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) (54 page)

“I will not leave without you,” Raphael said. Before she could protest, he lifted her into his arms.

“Set me down.” She slammed her fist against the vampire's chest. Her knuckles stung, as if she'd hit limestone.

“You cannot see this.” His grip tightened.

“You're hurting me, dammit. Let go. Jude's by himself. He needs me.”

“He isn't alone. The monks will anoint him and pray.”

A bald monk leaned over the desk, burning something that looked like wheat. Another monk smeared oil on Jude's forehead. Others knelt in blood and traced crosses in the air, speaking in a dead language. Each man bore an infinity tattoo, identical to the one she'd seen on Raphael's arm.

He turned to her. “He would not want you to stay,
mia cara
.”

Father Konstantine opened the blue door and beckoned Raphael to follow him into the wide, torch-lit hall. Raphael stepped over the blood spatters and carried her away from Jude, into the winding maze. As she pushed against his chest, a fury burned in her throat, a pyroclas-tic flow that threatened to dissolve everything in its path. Her head jolted painfully against Raphael's chest when he followed Father Konstantine into a brightly lit, square room.

Raphael set her down but held on to her shoulder. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw red altar candles burning on a table. Beyond the candles, monks were seated around a long pine table. At the far end, Haji bent over a cup of blood. A bulky bandage covered his shoulder.

“The tourist police arrested Wilkerson,” Haji said.

“Arrested him?” Caro cried. “Why didn't you shoot him?”

Haji's eyes widened as he caught the edge in her voice, then looked away. “The police are tracking his vampire—he will be in custody before dawn.”

“No one will chase you now.” Raphael led her to a chair and draped a blanket around her shoulders. “And your father's artifacts will be returned.”

The monks began whispering. Father Konstantine flashed a basilisk stare. “That might be difficult,” he told Raphael. “The antiquities police will need to establish provenance.”

“There is no way to show provenance.” Raphael sat next to Caro. “Sotheby's had a damned hard time proving it.”

“What is the history of these pages?” Haji asked. “Who owned them before the auction?”

Father Konstantine rose from his chair. Before he tucked his hands into his sleeves, Caro saw an infinity tattoo on his wrist. “During World War II, ten vellum leaves were found in the basement of the Louvre and were taken back to Berlin. A Munich collector bought them. Not long afterward, his only son hanged himself. The pages were sold to an Austrian violinist. Days before her murder, she sold the pages to a South American dictator who couldn't get rid of them quickly enough. Before he could find a buyer, the pages were stolen. Decades later, they ended up at Sotheby's.”

“How many people have died because of your damned book?” Caro flung off the blanket.

Father Konstantine glared, but the others began whispering. The murmurs changed into a strident hum, like bees getting ready to swarm. She thought they might attack and sprang from the chair.

“Where are you going,
mia cara
?”

“You know where. He's all I have. I'm going. Don't try to stop me.”

“The brethren are with him.” Father Konstantine looked alarmed.

Raphael steered her back to the chair. She gaped up at him. “We shouldn't have come to Egypt. I shouldn't have been born. Then my uncle and Jude would be alive.”

“You don't know what you're saying,” Raphael whispered. “You're in shock.”

“I'm in pain. I want the pain to end.”

“Sometimes there
is
no end.”

“When Wilkerson and the vampire snatched me, I screamed for you in my mind. But you took so long to come.”

“I didn't hear.” He shook his head. “I am sorry.”

“I'll never forgive you.”

Father Konstantine's eyes narrowed. “Signore Raphael was too worried to hear your thoughts. He was waiting for you in the library. All of us were waiting. Blame yourself for the young man's death.”

“Death?” Caro released a shuddering sob. Jude had died? How did the monks know? Maybe they were in telepathic contact.

She clasped her hands. “Jude was still alive when we left him.”

Father Konstantine crossed himself, then turned to Raphael. “She is agitated, Signore. This could have dire consequences.”

“For whom?” Caro frowned. She hated the way he was glaring, as if her skin were covered with oozing sores.

The monk ignored her. “We heard what the criminal Wilkerson said about her blood. She is tainted, Signore. Please, remove her from our presence or we cannot be responsible for our actions.”

Dizziness spiraled through Caro, and she shut her eyes. Now she'd be hunted by Wilkerson and vampires. She was the genetic bridge to the immortals' extinction.

“Signore, take the whore to her room or I shall be forced to sedate her.”

Father Nickolas stepped into the room, clutching Jude's leather coat. “What shall I do with Mr. Barrett's belongings?” he asked.

“Save them, Father,” Raphael said. He led Caro into the corridor, and the torches along the wall flickered, casting shadows over the stone floor.

“Where are you taking me now?” she asked.

“To a safe place.” He squeezed her hand and pulled her toward a bright circle at the end of the tunnel. Beyond the tunnel lay a small courtyard and a staircase that led to the guest quarters.

“Stay here,” she said. “I know the way to my room.”

“I'm going with you.”

“But the sun—you'll burn.”

“Fuck the daylight. I will not leave you alone.”

“Why not just—” She felt the pull of gravity, the whoosh of cold air as he picked her up and sped toward the courtyard. Why in bloody hell was he always carrying her—a remnant of loyalty he still felt for her family? The courtyard and stairs blurred together, and then a door flew open and everything went still.

They stood in the center of her room. Sunlight blasted through the arched window and hit the crucifix on the far wall. As he set her on the bed, she smelled incense, heard the creak of a mattress, and her shoulders sank into a scratchy woolen blanket. Through the thin muslin curtain she saw the basilica and mountains beneath a cloudless, whitewashed sky.

Tears gathered in her lashes, and the room blurred.
Oh, Jude. Please don't be dead.

Raphael shut the curtain and the room darkened. He walked to her bed and sat down. His hands and cheeks were covered with blisters.

“You should put salve on those burns,” she said.

“I'll be fine. I'm more worried about you,
mia cara
.”

She dug her fingers into the blanket and scraped her nails over the wool. “Did Father Konstantine tell the truth? Is Jude dead?”

Raphael's brows drew together. “I do not know. He was shielding his thoughts. But I will find out. I will also talk to the antiquities police. Perhaps they have recovered your vellum pages.”

“I don't want them.” Her gaze held his. She hoped he read her mind. She could summarize the book in three parts: death in the beginning, death in the middle, death at the end. Especially at the end.

“Those pages were your father's,” Raphael said. “Now they are yours. The rest is here at Saint Catherine's. Your father brought
Historia Immortalis
here for safekeeping, just as he indicated on the scroll. I have listened to the monk's thoughts. I know where they hide the manuscript. It's in a room behind the altar.”

“Keep it. And while you're at it, hang the triptych on your wall. Use it for kindling.”

“But these artifacts are your legacy. Your father—”

“Do you think he'd still want me to protect objects that killed him and Mother?”

“Yes.”

“I don't want a reminder of that bloody book. It has cost me everyone I've ever loved.”

“You are overwrought,” Raphael stood. “And
il bambino
needs his rest. You, too. Sleep,
mia cara
.”

Caro dreamed in fragments—pottery shards, torn gilt pages, scattered bones. The images coalesced into dogs with monks' heads. She awoke with a gasp. For a panicky moment, her lungs contracted and she couldn't get a satisfying breath.

Jude. Oh, no. She hadn't dreamed it.

She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. Through the window, lights wound up the hulking black mountain. It was night again. And she was alone. Raphael had not returned. She yanked off her bloodstained clothes, then slid off the bed and unzipped her bag. She had to find Jude's body before the monks took him away. Before Raphael returned. She pulled out a chalk-colored
galabiyyah
and an ivory pashmina, heavily fringed. White, the absence of all colors, the symbol of purity, traditional desert garb to reflect the sun, but her grief was hard-edged and black.

Tears hit her arm and slid to her wrist. Jude had saved her in downtown Kardzhali. Then he'd attacked the vampires in Momchilgrad and Varlaam. Here at St. Catherine's, he'd sacrificed himself to protect her and their unborn baby from Wilkerson's bullets.

She dressed slowly, as if a cup were trapped inside her chest, its contents sloshing over the edge. If she rushed, the cup would overturn and unbearable sadness would spill through her. On her way out of the room, she lifted a red robe from the hook on the wall and pulled it around her. The cold stones shocked her bare feet as she stepped onto the veranda. The night wind smelled of baking bread with faint undertones of curry. The aromas made her queasy, and she held her breath as she rushed down the stairs.

When she reached the main courtyard, she moved into the shadows. The monastery looked deserted, but she heard clanging from the south corridor. She turned toward the sound, into a tunnel with a low ceiling. The dark, cool air hit her face as she groped her way along the rough walls toward a circle of light. She passed into a moonlit courtyard where a silver-haired monk squatted beside a rectangular pine box. His robe puddled around his feet as he hammered nails into wood.

“Father, what are you building?” she asked. But she knew. She clasped her hands, trying to stop them from shaking.

The monk looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. “A coffin.”

At the far end of the courtyard, she saw the Burning Bush. A Bedouin man pushed a mop over the stones, leaving a film of suds and blood-tinged water. She followed a trail of dried blood into an arched tunnel that reeked of copper and petrol. The spatters led her down a maze of narrow halls, around corners, and ended in a familiar T-shaped passageway with the blue door. It was heavily carved, with an egg-shaped knob.

She grasped it, then let go as a shivery panic seized her. She hugged herself, cupping her palms under her elbows. She didn't want to know what was in that room. Why in God's name had she come?

Yet the door seemed to hypnotize her, pulling her closer, as if whispering secrets. An image rose up, and she saw herself sitting in the library, surrounded by illustrated manuscripts, studying the images and colors. This door held meaning to the monks at St. Catherine's. It was lighter than the blue in a Greek talisman, the one that repelled the evil eye. Blue represented the throat chakra. Blue was sad, serene, cold, and sheltering. Blue had been made in the antiquities by fusing copper, iron, and calcium—components of blood.

On the other side of the door, she heard a bang. She pressed her ear against the smooth wood. The noise was erratic, as if someone were slamming dresser drawers. Her hand molded around the cold knob, and the metal instantly chilled her skin. She opened the door and her pupils constricted painfully in the candlelight. Shadows undulated over a freshly scrubbed stone floor, rippling over an iron bed and pristine white linen. A small table held a candle, and the flame bent sideways as a breeze rushed through the open window and banged the wooden shutter against the wall.

She swallowed. She was too late. The room had been cleaned and emptied. She started to leave when she saw movement at the other end of the room. A crop-haired monk rose from a pine desk, his white
galabiyyah
stirring around his bare feet.

“I'm sorry to bother you,” Caro said. “I was looking for—”

Her throat clenched as she stared into the man's blue eyes. She studied them the way the Egyptians did. The eyes told the truth. But the shorn hair told another story.

“I've been waiting for you, lass,” the man said.

Her hand flew to her lips. The hair might be gone, but Jude's soft Yorkshire accent was intact. Oh, thank God. Thank God. “You're alive,” she whispered.

“In a fashion.” He grinned.

“But they said—” Her vision blurred. Tears gathered on her knuckles. She extended her other hand, fingers shaking, and then her knees buckled. Jude vaulted from the chair and grabbed her. She fell against him and pressed her damp cheek against his neck. Cold, so cold. His neck smelled spicy, but there was a muskiness surrounding his body.

He pulled back, eyebrows slanting over the pale skin. “I kept asking for you,” he said. “Didn't the monks tell you?”

She shook her head. Why had Father Konstantine lied? Or had she dreamed it? Questions darted around her, each one a silvery minnow that flitted through black water, just out of reach, but they could wait. A deeper want rippled through her, the need to merge with him physically, and then she would be ready to hear those elusive answers.

Jude's fingers tangled in her hair. “Caro, you were the thread in the maze. I lost my way for a bit. But I followed the thread and made my way back.”