Страница 121 из 122
The Quintessence.
All he had to do was open it, apply the tiniest amount to Je
Open it, apply a small amount to her wound. She would live-absolutely, no question. If he didn't, there was only faith to go on, faith that he could get her to the clinic, that he could save her.
His fingers curled around the stopper.
And then what? What would happen to her afterward? Would she live to be 150 years old? two hundred? four hundred, like Fra Leoni? Would she want that? Had he the right to do it, to change the natural order? Surely, his father had had the same agonizing decision to make when Steffi grew gravely ill…
And then his father appeared beside him.
"Dad, what should I do?"
"It's your decision now, Bravo."
"I love her, I don't want her to die."
"I loved Steffi, I didn't want her to die."
"But you betrayed her, you slept with Camille."
"I'm human, Bravo, just like everyone else."
"But you're not like everyone else, Dad!"
Dexter smiled. "When you were a child, it was good for you to see me that way, it gave you comfort and security, that's the way of the world. But now you're an adult, you have to accept me as I really was, you have to provide your own comfort and security…"
Bravo, blinking away tears, found himself once again alone by the seething Cauldron, Je
Faith. Was his faith strong enough?
He carefully replaced the Quintessence in the chest. But it was as if the phial were alive, it was so difficult to let it go, to pull his hand away. With an extreme effort he did, closed the lid and lowered the toy chest back into the hole his father had made for it.
The buried Quintessence nevertheless beat like a telltale heart as he replaced the soil, tamped it down, replaced the bed of pine needles and forest detritus. Then, with a fervent prayer to the Virgin Mary, cradling Je
Eight hours later, in the middle of the night, Je
"Where am I?"
"Macka," he said. "Next door is the clinic's surgery."
"The cache?"
"It was just where my father buried it," he said. "Breathe easy, Je
"I want to get out of here." She tried to rise, moaned. With a rattle of tubes that ran into her, carrying blood and saline, she sank back against the rough pillow.
"Tomorrow or the next day," Bravo said, "when your fever is completely gone, we'll move you to Trabzon."
"We?"
"I called Khalif. He's out of the hospital and is all too happy to come get us with an ambulance. I wasn't going to trust you to a car for the three-hour drive out of the mountains."
He gave her some water, waited a moment while she swallowed. "Go back to sleep now, you need your rest."
"And you don't?"
He laughed, but all she could muster was a smile. For the moment, it was enough.
"Bravo, what will happen now?"
"Now that I have control of the cache, you mean?" He watched her eyes, large and serious. The time had passed for joking, he saw. She needed answers, no less than he had, which was why he hadn't slept a wink since he'd brought her to the clinic at Macka. He'd been too busy thinking, then making a series of calls.
"I've spoken to my sister, Emma," he said. "She's the net-worker, in touch with all the members of the Order, at every level. They have voted. I'm the new Magister Regens."
Her eyes opened wide. "And what of the Haute Cour?"
"It will advise me, just as it advised the Magister Regens centuries ago. New members will have to be nominated, of course. The first one I'll nominate is you."
"Me?"
He laughed again, more softly.
"Then you must also nominate a Venetian nun named Arcangela."
"The Anchorite-yes, I know about her." He nodded his assent. "It's past time the valuable women of the Order were recognized, their ideas, schemes and insights brought fully into the fold."
"And where will we go from here?"
"Sleep now, Je
"Not for me. I won't sleep until you tell me."
He sat in the semidarkness contemplating her question. It was a good one, the only one that counted, and he had pondered long and hard through the night as to what needed to be done.
"First, you and I will move the cache to a safer place. I'm going to need time to evaluate its contents, determine what our power really is. The Order needs to continue my father's work. Even as we talk here, the world is changing, and not for the better, I fear. There is a new war coming, Je
"No," she said. "We can't."
"Then you'll help me." His excitement rushed out of him like sparks from an engine. "The first order of business is to make contact with all the elements of the Order's ancient religious network my father kept alive and ru
Je
Khalif did not arrive alone. With him when he drew up in the ambulance were two paramedics, who immediately jumped out with a stretcher and went to get Je
"Your call was ma
They embraced was if they were long-lost brothers.
Khalif's face turned sober. "How is she?"
"She'll be okay, she's tough."
It was only then that he noticed another figure standing in the shadows across the street. At first, he seemed unfamiliar. Then Bravo recognized him as the old priest he had first given the coin to at the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo` in Venice. He remembered Je
The electric blue eyes watched him as they had in the church, with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. But now there was something else in them: he no longer felt a child in the old priest's eyes.
The paramedics appeared with Je
"I'll be right next to you," he said, "all the way home."
The paramedics put her into the rear of the ambulance, and Khalif climbed in after them. The driver sat behind the wheel, picking at his nails. A dog barked somewhere along the sun-blasted street, otherwise all was still. Not another soul in sight.
The old priest crossed the street.
"You didn't use the Quintessence, did you?"
Bravo felt the weight of the priest's solemn gaze on him. He had spoken in Trapazuntine Greek, but Bravo suspected it could just as well have been Latin, or Greek or any number of ancient languages.
"No," he replied in the same language.
"Why not?" the old priest asked. "You had cause."
"But not just cause."
The old priest's robes were black, his long, wild hair pure white. Around his neck was a short chain that held a key-a key, Bravo saw now, that was the twin to the one his father had left for him, the key that opened the original chest that had for centuries held the order's cache of secrets. It was the key held by Jon Molko, Dexter Shaw's backup. Dexter must have given it to the old priest for safekeeping.