Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) (49 page)

Caro touched the edge of her shattered icon. “I suppose these symbols are undying, just like the immortals.”

“Some of the images are mini history lessons,” he said. “Pick up the magnifying glass. Study the castle walls on that large shard. Do you see the embedded symbol?”

“Barely.” Caro squinted. “What is it?”

“A figure eight.”

“The mathematical symbol for infinity,” Caro said.

Raphael pushed up his sleeve and pointed to his tattoo. “Supposedly the symbol was invented in the 1600s by an Englishman named Wallis. But the real story is, he saw it in
Historia Immortalis
.”

While he rattled on about this quirky bit of history, Caro picked at her nail polish, barely listening. Normally she loved historical gossip, but the nausea was creeping back, reminding her of her condition and her perilous relationship with the baby's father. Would Jude stick around if he knew she was pregnant? Even if he didn't reject a quarter-vampire child, she probably couldn't carry the baby to term.

“Caro?” Raphael tapped her arm.

“Yes?” She glanced up.

“Am I boring you?”

“I'm trying to work up my nerve to tell you something.”

“What requires nerve?”

“I can't believe you haven't pulled it from my thoughts.”

His brow wrinkled. “What's wrong?”

“Oh, God, this is too hard. I need whiskey. Only I can't drink that.”

“Are you still nauseated?”

She shook her head. “Worse. I'm pregnant.”

Raphael leaned back as if a bee had flown into his face. “You aren't pleased?”

“I love this baby already.”

“And Jude?”

“He doesn't know.”

“You must tell him immediately.”

“That's why I'm worried. He won't want a child with me.”

“Quiet,” Raphael whispered. “He is coming.”

Arrapato's ears tipped forward and he let out a muffled woof. Footsteps clattered down the tile hallway, and a moment later Jude poked his head into the room. His face brightened when he saw Caro. “There you are. I've been looking everywhere. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes.” She smiled.

Raphael gestured for him to sit. “I suppose you've heard about Demos?”

“Shocking, isn't it?” Jude pulled out a chair and sat down beside Caro. “I'm thinking of hunting down that lousy monk.”

“That would be a mistake,” Raphael said.

“He stole Caro's property.”

“But that is the nature of
Historia Immortalis
. It will not stay put. The monk may sell those ten pages, but their new owner won't have them for long. The book possesses a type of kinetic energy.”

So does the triptych
, Caro thought. “But my ten pages were locked up in a bank vault for twenty years.”

“Twenty years is nothing.” Raphael leaned over the shattered chips, sorting them like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“You're acting like the book has a will of its own,” Jude said.

“A consciousness, perhaps,” Raphael said without looking up. “But not a conscience.”

Caro raised out of her chair to examine a large chunk from her icon. Eggshell cracks ran over the painted surface, and the corner was shattered. She examined the mitered edge. The joints had spread apart, giving a teasing glimpse into the icon's interior. It looked as if a sheet of paper were wedged inside. She picked at the gap with her fingernail. A piece of wood snapped, and the joints gaped open. She reached for the magnifying glass.

“What is it?” Raphael asked.

“Paper.” She pinched the edge with tweezers and tugged until a tiny scroll appeared. It was bound with what appeared to be human hair. She handed it to Raphael. “It looks old.”

“It's not.” Raphael grasped an edge of the hair, and the scroll creaked open. As he unfolded it, lint wafted across the table. Spiky black handwriting was sprawled in the center of the page.

“This is Philippe's handwriting. Latin vulgate.” Raphael's eyes softened.

“How do you know if the paper is old?” Caro asked.

“After your mother won the icon at Sotheby's, she left Harry Wilkerson. She and Philippe hid in my villa. He dismantled his icon and slipped something inside. I didn't see what, nor did he explain. I assumed it was some sort of love note.” Raphael pointed to the hairs. “Those are Vivi's. Philippe was leaving a clue. In case something happened to him, he didn't want
Historia Immortalis
to be lost.”

“Why didn't he just tell you or Mother?”

“Philippe trusted no one. Except for Vivi. I'm sure he confided in her.”

“I don't understand my father's secrecy. If these artifacts are so important, he should have left a record.”

“He'd lived two thousand years. Death wasn't part of his mind-set. Then, after he met Vivi, Harry Wilkerson had put a fatwa on them.” Raphael clasped her hands. “The truth is a force of nature. Philippe knew this. He trusted this force. Now, you must trust it.”

Jude edged closer. “What does the note say?”

Raphael's hands lingered on Caro's a moment, and then he moved away. “It's a verse from Exodus. ‘And Moses said: I will go, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.'”

“Why did Philippe put a Bible verse in his icon?” Jude said.

“It's a geographical hint.” Raphael turned to the bench, slid out a thick, tattered book, and flipped to the middle. He pointed to a sketch that showed a steep mountain in the middle of a desert. The rounded hills were shaped like a woman lying on her side, her shoulders covered with a rumpled blanket. A walled fortress, the color of sand, lay nestled at the base.

“This is Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mt. Sinai,” Raphael said. “The Burning Bush is inside these walls. Not to mention icons and illustrated manuscripts. Philippe was a genius. It's the perfect place to hide
Historia Immortalis
.”

He slammed the book shut and stood. “We're going to Egypt.”

 

Aeneas walked down the aisle, gripping the box, his footsteps echoing along the church's domed ceiling. He pulled the cornerstone and the door creaked open. Cold air stirred his robe as he walked down the steps. The box felt unbearably light, but its contents would annihilate humanity. He placed the container on a broad step, then he crept up the stairs and pushed the cornerstone. The door shut with a grating noise.

God will forgive me,
Aeneas thought. He shut his eyes and pictured Nigel Clifford lifting his fedora, the wiry hair sticking up like bits of wool in a flokati rug. All those years ago, the professor had arrived at Varlaam with a tiny girl. Caroline had played in the cloister while the two men had opened a bottle of ouzo. Clifford had come to discuss
Historia Immortalis
and the triptych that glorified it.

“How did you find me?” Aeneas asked Nigel, bristling with suspicion.

The professor's knapsack rustled as he pulled out the icon and photocopies of ten vellum pages. “That's what I do—uncover things. I'm an archaeologist. I made a few inquiries about icons. A vampire in Istanbul told me you'd been his physician. Apparently you saved the vampire's child? He said he gave you an icon.”

“We will need more ouzo,” Aeneas whispered, repressing an urge to cross himself, and left the room. The professor had brought the devil into Varlaam; but even if vampires had walked the earth during the time of Christ, it would not shake Aeneas's faith.
Historia Immortalis
wasn't the only historical record of vampirism. Other texts had vague references to immortality. The Gospel of Thomas had a startling line:
Jesus said, Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.

Aeneas returned with a bottle of ouzo and the icon and set both on the table. He gasped when the professor gently pressed the icons together. The images leaped out at him. A blue-black night sky, sharp mountains, a stone sarcophagus, bees and fire. The red-robed figure with an ostrich egg. The professor's voice rose and fell as he explained how the artifacts—and the child—had fallen into his life. Aeneas shifted his gaze. The little girl sat on her haunches, trying to lure a striped kitten out of the cucumber patch.

“She is a hybrid?” Aeneas said. “The offspring of a vampire and a human?”

Tears streamed down Clifford's face. Aeneas leaned back, his heart drumming. The girl was an aberration. She should have died with her parents. A half-vampire child had no place in this world. But all he said was, “You must shield her from those who will wish to harm her.”

Clifford's face whitened and he reached for the ouzo. “I'll put Caro and the artifacts in a safe place.”

“No,” Aeneas said. “Hide the girl. Burn those ten pages. They are a sacrilege. They draw the darkness out of men. Immortality is blasphemy. Man is supposed to die a mortal death. He is not supposed to live eternally without God's judgment.”

“I must honor Vivienne's wishes. She'd told me what to do if Wilkerson and his men found her. She put the icon and those pages into Caro's knapsack the night of the fire. If she'd wanted to destroy those artifacts, she would have let them burn. But she didn't.”

“She was in love with a vampire. She wanted to preserve his book. You must destroy it.”

Clifford rubbed his chest. “I can't.”

“I will do it for you.”

“No.”

“Then learn to live in peril.”

After Clifford and Caroline left Meteora, clouds formed a dark wall over the mountains. It rained for ten days and nights. Water surged through the valley and covered the bottom steps that led to Varlaam. God had spoken, commanding Aeneas to find and destroy the pages.

On the eleventh morning, Aeneas awoke in the half light. The rain had stopped. From the stone ledge he heard a dove cooing. He ran to the ledge, startling the bird. It rose up, white against the blue. A peregrine falcon sliced down, a dark speck moving two hundred miles per hour. Feathers boiled in the air as the hawk struck the dove and broke its back. The falcon's talons closed on the limp body and flew toward the mountains.

Another sign. Aeneas had sent the dove to its death. He should not meddle in others' lives.

That same day, a scrawny man came to Varlaam and waited for the tourists to leave. He was pale and sweaty; his shoulder blades poked through his shirt like gull wings.

“My name is Demos,” the man said. “My wife and children are dead. Murdered by vampires. My house was burned.” Tears gathered in Demos's eyelashes. “I stole bread in the Trikala market, and the police chased me out of town. I am seeking asylum for the night and I will leave in the morning.”

Aeneas fed the man goat cheese, figs, and honeyed bread but remained skeptical. The next day, while Demos scrubbed the stone hallway outside the church, Aeneas went to Trikala and spoke with the priest. Vampires had attacked a family and burned their house. Demos had narrowly escaped. “He is a good man,” the priest told Aeneas. “His loved ones perished, but Demos's life was spared for a reason. Help him find it.”

Aeneas took Demos under his wing. He tutored him about the holy word and about vampirism. Together they studied Aeneas's icon, trying to decipher its symbols and secrets. Twenty years passed, eighty seasons of light and darkness. Demos spent five hours a day in prayer, begging God to forgive him for not saving his children. He fasted one day a week to atone for his theft of bread. Yet he was not without faults; he could not overcome survivor's guilt or his hatred of vampires. Each time he looked at the monk's blasphemous icon, Demos shook his fist in the air, vowing to find
Historia Immortalis
and destroy it.

Years later, when Caroline Clifford had shown up with her icon, Aeneas had thought it was God's hand. This was a chance to find the vampires' bible and destroy it. But Caroline's boyfriend had keen, suspicious eyes. The monk had offered his hospitality to the young couple, and then the police had swarmed up the mountain. The couple had followed Aeneas to the cave the way lambs scamper behind a ewe. After the police left, Aeneas shuffled to the church. Demos was waiting in the nave. He nodded as Aeneas explained about the girl and her connection to
Historia Immortalis
.

“She will lead us to the evil book.” Demos made a fist. “And we will destroy it.”

“I must gain her trust,” Aeneas said. “But her boyfriend watches me.”

“God will provide,” Demos said.

And He had. After Aeneas led the couple out of the cave, he raised the subject of
Historia Immortalis
. The boyfriend's jaw tightened and fire leaped into his eyes.

He despises the immortals
, Aeneas thought, and studied his body language. Defensive and angry—not on the girl's behalf, but for himself. His eyes held old wounds. Demos had acted that way when he'd first arrived at Varlaam. Father Aeneas was certain the boy had tangled with vampires. The boy would run if he knew the truth about his lady love.

Aeneas told the girl the truth, that she was half vampire. The boyfriend had fled, just as Aeneas had hoped. Later, he heard the rise and fall of voices. Aeneas crept out of bed and peered into the room. The boy had returned. He sat at the table—the fire and suspicion had left his eyes, leaving behind sorrow and confusion.