Curse the Dark, page 6
His fault. He knew that. He’d spent so many years in stasis, emotionally. Intentionally. Trying to avoid repeating the one impossible mistake that had driven him from the Silence. And still she’d managed to get under his skin. Into his heart in a way that couldn’t be safely packaged up by “friend,” or even “partner.”
Time for denial is over, old man. Over, gone, kaput.
He was hoping that this trip, away from the preexisting patterns their partnership fell into, they would be able to stop overthinking everything and just feel. For good or ill, but the fiddling about was going to kill him. And he didn’t think she was doing much better.
Feeling his shoulders start to tense up he forced them down, extending and flexing his fingers toward the ground, trying to remember the basic grounding exercises Wren had taught him back in the earliest days of their working relationship. Grounding was essential to a Talent, who routinely drew the magical essence from electricity and sent it back out again through their bodies. For him, it was a way to destress, forcing the anxiety out of his pores the way Wren said she handled current.
And thank God she’d been able to handle it on the plane, he thought, not for the first time. In the airport, he’d only been worried that they would be delayed if something blew up spectacularly, or if she sent the airport into a blackout. In a plane…
But he had kept his fears tightly to himself, and she’d managed admirably. Although he suspected that the entertainment system going on the blink two-thirds of the way through the movie had been her fault.
He’d seen the film before, anyway.
“Where are you, Ms. Fabrizio?” he asked the airport at large. “I don’t like it when things go wrong this early in the plan.” A good Handler prepared his agents for all probabilities. The information Andre had given them was far sketchier than he had let on to Wren, and not up to the old man’s standards, as Sergei remembered them. So it was time for him to stop being Sergei the businessman, or even Sergei the Retriever’s partner, and become the Handler. Keep control. Maintain confidence in the active agent.
Checking his watch only informed him that he’d forgotten to change it when they got on the plane. Unfastening the slender gold timepiece from his wrist, he moved the hands forward, all the while looking around to see if there was anyone who looked like they might be looking for them. Or, better yet, holding up a sign that said Silence Operatives, Report Here.
He didn’t think they were going to get that lucky.
By the time Wren returned, balancing two small paper cups and a handful of sugar packets, he knew they weren’t going to be lucky at all.
“Did we get stood up?”
“Looks that way.” He took the smaller cup from her, took off the lid and dumped four packets in without tasting it first. Wren, more cautious, sipped hers delicately, then reached over and snagged two unopened packets out of his hand.
“That’ll put hair on your everything,” she said, stirring the sugar granules until they dissolved and then trying it again. “Oh yeah. Way better. So?”
“So?” Maybe he was more jet-lagged than he thought, but he’d lost track of what she was talking about. Perhaps he should have gotten two coffees.
She gave him a wide-eyed look of impatience. “So how late is our alleged contact?”
Oh. Right. Sergei checked his watch again, needlessly since the hands had only moved five minutes since the last time he’d checked. “Two hours from the time we landed, minus the time it took us to actually make it through customs, including the time I’ve been waiting for you to get back—”
“Yeah, I stopped in the bathroom, okay?” She bared her teeth at him. “No more fur. Anyway. I’m voting this chick isn’t going to show. Ya think?”
He thought so as well, but was hesitant to agree too quickly. It wouldn’t do to blow off their Silence contact on their very first assignment. Wren was cheerfully, aggressively able to ignore anything that wasn’t in the process of attacking her. But he was supposed to be the business guy, and part of business was dealing with the political aspects of it all. Maintain confidence in the active agent. But be cautious. “There might have been a delay….”
“Two hours’ worth? And she couldn’t delegate someone else to meet us, or maybe, y’know, call us about the delay?” He flinched, and reached for the mobile clipped to his belt. No, it was turned on, and still working. Good. Carrying a cell phone in close proximity to Wren was always a risky thing, but staying in touch was more important. And she was pretty good about warning him before a major current pull so he could turn it off in time. Mostly.
“Sergei, is there anything she could tell us that they couldn’t have given us beforehand, or called in? Or, maybe, have waiting for us at our hotel?”
He shook his head. “Unlikely, no. I mean, it’s unlikely that they, or rather she—” He gave it up as a bad job and took another gulp of the coffee, finishing it off. The brew was heavy and bitter, and even the sugar didn’t make it easy to drink, but he could practically feel it slapping his neurons into firing properly.
“Then screw this, and screw her.” Wren said, crumpling her coffee cup and looking around for a convenient trash bin. “Let’s go.”
It galled him to abandon a meet, even if the other person had flaked on them, but she was right; the contact was probably only a courtesy. And they had waited. The important thing now was to get to the monastery where the manuscript had disappeared from, and start their search. Anything the Silence needed to tell them—well, the Milan office had made the damn hotel reservation, too, so they could pick up a phone and call the hotel, or send a fax. Although it would probably be a good idea to find an Internet café somewhere if he could and check e-mail, even before they got to the hotel.
He took the cup from her, and threw it out with his own, then looked around to take his bearings.
“This way,” he said finally, leading her to the elevator, down two floors and then through a covered walkway to where the car rental offices were. “Stay put,” he told her, depositing her in the corner with their luggage. “If I remember anything about Italian bureaucracies, this will take forever.”
However, his expectations were unfulfilled, and the registration went smoothly enough. He collected Wren and the luggage, and they found their way without too many problems to the car assigned to them. He unlocked the doors, then did a double-take. “Damn. I had forgotten about that.”
“Forgotten about what?” Wren dropped her carry-on into the back seat of the battered, dark blue sedan and looked at him. “BMW. Sweet.”
“They’re like Chevrolet over here, don’t get too excited. And I haven’t driven overseas in so long I forgot to request an automatic transmission.”
Wren’s brow creased, and she reached up to tug at the short braid she’d gathered her hair into at some point. “I can’t drive stick,” she admitted.
“I can. But it’s been…a while.”
“Oh boy,” was his partner’s only comment as she got into the passenger seat and strapped the safety belt on. “Oh boy.”
Chapter Five
The drive from Malpensa to the monastery in the hills just north of Siena took five hours, most of it on an endless winding highway where driving under one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour got you flashed lights and eloquent hand gestures as they zoomed past. Finally Sergei had gotten the hang of changing gears, and they’d moved up to speed themselves.
“So how does the Silence end up with this gig, anyway?” Wren asked, more out of idle curiosity than anything else. “Do they hand out flyers on street corners? ‘Lose something magical? Call us!’ Hey, there’s an idea. Maybe—”
“Nothing quite so crassly commercial,” Sergei said, cutting that bad idea off at the knees while shifting to pass a double-axle truck going one hundred kph. “The Silence is a watchdog organization, for the most part. Think of it as analogous to the United Nations.”
“Yeah, so you’ve said before. ‘Always on the lookout for things gone wrong to set right,’ like the Marines meet Quantum Leap.”
“I never said that.”
“Close enough. But what you never said was how the Marines got called.”
“Networking, mostly. ‘Someone knew someone who was helped in that sort of situation, let me put in a call’ kind of thing. And then they parcel out the assignments, based on who has the best skills to handle it.”
“And how many of those someones are actually Silence employees?”
“Cynical woman. Not as many as you would think. The Silence does do good work. The fact that the rest of the world hasn’t imploded yet, from means magical and otherwise, is proof of that.”
Privately, Wren thought her partner was still showing signs of Silence brainwashing. But saying that would probably be poking the bear with the grumpy stick. Fun, sure, but ultimately a bad idea.
“So. Where are we going, anyway?” she asked, in order to move the conversation on.
“A small town in Umbria called…something or another in Italian. The monastery where the object was kept is there. We’ll take a look around, see what you can pick up, and go from there. Okay?”
He was making plans without her. Normally that would lead to some harsh words—she was the Retriever, not him, and she knew what needed to be done—but the need for a nap was winning over the planning portion of her brain, and the yawn she could feel coming on overruled anything else. For now.
“Yeah. Okay.”
The rest of the trip was a blur, to her, of speeding cars, rolling green and yellow hills, and Sergei’s muttered curses forming a melody that finally sent her off into dreamland.
“We’re here.”
Wren opened her eyes to afternoon sunlight bathing her vision with a soft golden tinge. She got out of the car and stretched, then looked around. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sleep all the way.” She paused. “Where are we?” The car was parked on a small patch of gravel surrounded on three sides by tall, narrow trees. It all looked the part of a scenic destination, but the low stone building on the rise of hill behind them didn’t look like any hotel she’d ever stayed at before. She sniffed the air. It was fresh, clean, filled with allergens, and…off, somehow. She sniffed again. No, just your ordinary fresh air. Then why was there this weird trickle of unease down her spine? Jet lag. Italian coffee. Could be anything. Where the hell are we? “Sergei…”
He reached into the back seat for his jacket, but didn’t put it on right away. The expression on his face was one she knew all too well: him about to try and talk her into a job that he knew she wasn’t going to like. Except that they were already on a job she didn’t like. “I thought it might be a good idea to stop in and let the monks know that we’re here.”
Wren thought of a few particularly good comebacks, but settled for an unhappy grunt. She had fallen asleep and left the driving to him. That put him in the decision-making seat, and his instincts were pretty damn good about stuff like this. Even if she was still in dire need of that shower and a candy bar.
“Besides…” He looked down at the view, but his attention was clearly elsewhere. The breeze ruffled his hair slightly, and made her wish she were wearing a long-sleeved shirt for the first time in weeks.
“Besides?” she prompted him.
“It’s nothing. I just wanted to get started, is all.”
“You sure they’re going to want drop-in visitors?” she asked mildly. “I mean, monastery, monks, isolation, etcetera, right?”
“We’re hardly unexpected. And I don’t think it’s a cloistered monastery in the way you’re thinking—according to the sign we passed on the way up, they have a gift shop.”
“Oooookay….” For some reason, Wren had the sudden visual of pasta in the shape of the Crucifixion, with red sauce, and shook her head violently until the image was gone. She was already probably going to Hell, but why make it even worse? “But monks and prayers and bell-tolling, right?”
“Indeed. And we even wear robes occasionally.” They both spun around to see a middle-aged man in a pale grey robe that should have looked silly but didn’t, standing in the grass to the side of the parking area, smiling at them. “Forgive me. I heard the car coming up the hill and came down to see who it could be. I am Brother Teodosio. And you, obviously, are our visitors from the States.”
“Sergei Didier,” Sergei’s hand was engulfed in the other man’s. They were about the same height, but Teodosio had at least fifty pounds on him, and very little of it was muscle. His face was round, but not jolly, and Wren didn’t think many people challenged him twice.
“Wren Valere,” she said, and had her own hand swallowed in turn. His skin was warm, and a little moist, but nothing unpleasant. His eyes were surprisingly blue, under the black hair peppering into grey, and Wren noted that he didn’t have a tonsure like she’d always thought was required style for monks.
And he’s wearing jeans under that robe. And sneakers. Another fine myth shot to…okay, maybe not hell, for a monk.
“I hope that your drive down was a pleasant one. Welcome to the Sienese, and specifically to I Monaci delle Sante Parole—better known to some as the House of Legend.”
“House of…?” Sergei’s ears practically perked up, probably hoping it had something to do with artwork he could cart back home and make a nice chunk of change on the side.
“Legend.” Teodosio’s attention went back to Sergei, promptly dismissing—forgetting about—Wren. That was a side effect of her particular blend of skills, and part of what made her so effective. And why her mentor, Neezer, had nicknamed her Jenny-wren. Because nobody ever saw the small brown bird—but she saw them.
“Indeed,” the monk continued, “as with any building over a century or two old, there are stories attached to it. And the House is quite old, indeed. It is our heritage, our reason for being here. And, indeed, the reason for your being here as well, sadly.”
“As to that—my information said that you would be able to fill us in on the specifics?”
“You were not told?” The monk seemed taken aback by that, then shrugged as though asking why the works of man should be any less obscure than the works of God.
“To understand, you must first understand who we are, and what we do here. The story is—” and he made a gesture to indicate that they should walk with him along the path Wren now saw leading through the field and up the rise to the building she had noted earlier “—that in the early years of the thirteenth century, four monks came north, fleeing the aftermath of one or another of the endless squabbles between the city-states and the papacy.”
Sergei fell easily into step beside their guide, leaving Wren to take up position behind them on the path.
“Their abbey had been destroyed?” Sergei was in smooth mode, she noted. She kept her ears open and took mental notes, in case anything seemed relevant—or might become so, later on.
“They kept no records of where they came from—we don’t even know their names, as they simply referred to themselves as, how would it translate?” He shook his head as though searching for something inside. “As ‘the brothers of the gathering word’? Close enough. And that is the assumption, yes. Destroyed, or taken as spoils of victory by whichever princeling had control of that town on that particular month.”
Sergei was nodding, drawing the monk on to tell the rest of the story.
“With them, so the story goes, they had little money, no supplies, and two chests filled with manuscripts they had taken from their abbey when they fled. That, we assume, is why they took the name they did, referring to the gathering of the manuscripts into a library of sorts. They arrived here, and with the permission of the local Ghibelline nobility and the local bishop, built the House first, not for their own protection, but for the books they carried with them. And so it has been ever since; we are the caretakers of learning, of the wisdom established by those who have come before us.”
“Librarians, you mean.”
Rather than looking offended, Teodosio smiled and nodded. “Exactly.”
Somehow Wren doubted that it had been anywhere near as simple or neatly tied up as that. From what little she knew of history, the rivalries he mentioned had been pretty nasty, and making an alliance with the wrong person could be deadly. So what had those four monks offered the local bishop that he gave them—homeless, with no money or military strength—permission to build their own independent housing on what looked like some seriously prime property? Sergei’s notes said, for all they were Catholic monks in name, there wasn’t any direct control of the order from Rome. She was just a nice lapsed Protestant girl, but that seemed really odd to her. Wasn’t there a whole chain of command thing, orders of obedience, ad extreme nauseum?
She made a mental note to follow up on that particular question, when she had time. It might be nothing—or it could be everything. You never knew.
They came around a bend in the path, and were on a cliff overlooking a valley town that could have come out of a tourist’s guide.
“Wow,” Wren said, taking a step closer to the edge. Absolutely prime property, yeah. You could see for miles, the horizon a smudge of sun-yellowed fields intersected by the occasional ribbon of black road and dotted by random buildings that were probably either barns or farmhouses.
“Indeed. It reminds one of the glory around us, every morning, when I come out here.”
Not to mention being totally defensible, Wren thought, casting a look over her shoulder to where the low stone building was revealed to be a more elaborate structure than it had first appeared. Yeah, red stone fortresslike building put on the top of a hill, near a cliff, sure they’d just hand that view over to a couple of rabbitting monks, no questions asked, out of the goodness and charity in their hearts.
