Eric van Lustbader, page 11
More than anything now Bravo needed air. He rose up, but even in death Rossi kept his grip on the front of his shirt. He tried to pry the fingers loose, failed, began to frantically tear off his shirt, but the oxygen in his lungs was giving out, the silty floor of the lake was sucking him down, and he knew he wouldn’t make it.
Then, at the last possible instant, hands reached down from above, plunging through the murk, grasping him, hauling with relentless strength. Bubbles streaming from between clenched teeth, he grasped the hairless forearms, female forearms, capable and powerful, and he knew that Donatella had found him and that now that he had killed her lover nothing could save him.
* * *
Chapter 6
He had the presence of mind to use the only weapon at his disposal. But in his depleted condition Rossi’s gun seemed as heavy and unwieldy as a refrigerator, and even as he lifted it, a blow to the inside of his wrist defeated his wavering aim. It was not a hard blow, and he wondered at that even as he heard a voice.
“Bravo… where is Rossi?”
A female voice, Donatella. Of course she wanted to know where her lover was. If he told her… He began to fight and was restrained. A familiar voice—had he heard Donatella speak before? He could not remember, but he must have because she was shaking him now. He wanted to see her face, to look into the eyes of the woman who was going to kill him, but there was water streaming across his face, and bits of mud and debris from the lake. Still he fought, though pinned, because it was the only thing he could think of to do.
“Rossi, Bravo… Bravo!”
A hand wiped across his face, clearing his vision, and that voice—of course it was familiar. He found himself staring up into a face as familiar as the voice.
“Jenny,” he said. She was straddling him, fingers curled around each of his wrists, pinioning him to the ground. “I saw Rossi shoot you. You fell and…”
She leaned over, her eyes fever-bright. “Bravo, where is Rossi?”
“Dead. Rossi’s dead. But you…”
“That’s right, I’m bruised but unhurt.”
He stared, wide-eyed, as she opened her blouse partway so that he could see the puffy bruise, already turning livid, around her collarbone.
“I… I don’t understand. The bullet should have torn you apart.”
She took Rossi’s gun from his hand, ejected the ammo from the chamber, and held it out to him. “Not if it was a rubber bullet.”
He sat up then, coughed as she scrambled off him, gave him a hand up. Taking one of the bullets from her palm, he rolled it between his fingers, as if the tactile sensation would help him to understand. “But why would Rossi use rubber bullets?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said, “but let’s not debate the issue here. We’re too exposed and Donatella can’t be far away.”
Donatella! He looked around. Splashes of light drifted through the leaves of the weeping willow. He looked back up the slope toward the mausoleum, hidden by the trees and underbrush. At any moment Donatella could appear. It was a miracle that she hadn’t already. He nodded, then allowed Jenny to lead him around the northern edge of the lake, through a thick copse of beech trees to a low stone wall over which they clambered. His head felt as if at any moment it was going to explode, and he could feel every blow Rossi had delivered like electric shocks running through him with each step he took.
Once on the other side of the wall, they were confronted by a narrow line of river maples beyond which was a road. They could hear the whirr and hiss of two-way traffic, reminding them of the normal world that existed all around them. For a moment, Bravo leaned back against the rough stones of the wall. He felt their age seeping into him, and he listened, as if they had a tale to tell him.
“Bravo, we have to keep moving,” Jenny said with some urgency.
He knew that, of course, but he remained where he was. It was imperative that he regain his inner equilibrium, but he was gripped by despair. He had just killed a man. Whether or not that man was also trying to kill him was, in a way, beside the point. It came to him that he had crossed some profound moral boundary, and now, belatedly, he wondered whether his father had had to kill a Knight of St. Clement to protect himself or the Order’s cache of secrets. Now, an idea that would once have struck him as unthinkable did not seem in the least shocking. In fact, it seemed probable, and somehow this notion was like a beacon piercing the black despair. In his mind, this connection to the other, secret world that his father had inhabited was like a lifeline, and the moment he grabbed it he felt himself stand up straight. Seconds later, he was following Jenny through the grass and hedges, through the thin line of the flaky-barked maples to the verge of the road.
At last, Donatella emerged from the wellhead. Because of the mechanism that hermetically sealed the interior of the crypt, it had taken her far longer to get through the bronze casket door than she had estimated. Precious time when her quarry was moving farther away from her. She consoled herself with the thought that every step they took brought them closer to Rossi, but, truth be told, she didn’t want Rossi to get to them first. She wanted that pleasure all to herself. She’d known it as soon as she had flirted with Braverman Shaw on the street. Drawing attention to herself had been a stupid thing to do, she’d known when she’d smiled at him, but she couldn’t help herself. There had been something in him, some deeply suppressed animal part she had recognized instantly and responded to. There had been something profoundly intimate—primal—in that moment, two animals scenting each other in the forest, that she now carried around with her like a photo in a locket.
Just as she carried Ivo’s essence with her wherever she went. Her isolation was what made him so vital to her existence. Nothing else mattered but Ivo—and, of course, their prey. She and Ivo had sacrificed for one another, tended one another when they were ill. They had killed together, and when they came together it was with the incandescence of the sun.
The way ahead of her sloped downward toward a veil of weeping willows beyond which was the lake. There were three sets of footprints, prey followed by hunter. She followed them down the slope until she saw something that gave her pause.
Squatting, she ran her hand over the muddy surface where, she was certain, there had been a struggle. Immediately, her head snapped up and with narrowed eyes looked all around her. Then, her body tense, her gun cocked and ready, she rose, following the rolling trail down to the edge of the lake.
There she stood, the water lapping at her boots, while she stared out at the placid vista. A pair of ducks quartering in from the southwest landed with a small flurry, began to paddle across the water toward a group of nesting mallards. There came across the lake a brief quacking, and then all was still. The last of the afternoon light was reflected in the water, giving it a ruddy hue.
Suddenly, her attention was directed toward a disturbance just where the water was reddest, a stirring as of fish nearing the surface, preparing to feast on water spiders and gnats. A moment later, a curved shape broke the surface, wheat-colored and slick-looking. Then it rolled; a Roman nose appeared, then lips and cheeks.
Donatella stood absolutely still, but it seemed to her that the thunder of her heart must shatter her into pieces. No, she told herself, it couldn’t be. But then the face turned its blank eyes toward her and she ran, unmindful, into the water. The muck of the bottom pulled at her, slowed her down, making her powerful thighs work all the harder. At length, she reached him, cradled his battered head in her hands. When she kissed his cold and rubbery lips an ice pick pierced her heart.
She opened her mouth and threw back her head. Air filled her lungs and his name was ripped out of her.
“Ivo!”
A void yawned inside her that could only be filled by blood vengeance.
Bravo and Jenny, on their way toward the cemetery’s maintenance building, heard the animal howl, and their blood turned cold. They looked at one another but could not bring themselves to utter Donatella’s name.
Hurrying along, they arrived without incident at the low brooding building. While Bravo stayed out of sight, Jenny went to reconnoiter. Bravo leaned against a huge chestnut tree and, despite the heat, shivered. Now that the shock was wearing off, the pain rushed through him like a tide, pulsing stronger with each beat of his heart. It was difficult to get Rossi’s rage-filled face out of his head. He had never before encountered someone with the will and desire to kill another human being. A chilling memory he would take with him to the grave.
At the sudden throaty roar of a large engine his head snapped up. He saw a hearse moving slowly toward him, and he shrank back. Then the driver’s side window rolled down—it was Jenny who was behind the wheel. The hearse slowed, and he loped out from behind the chestnut tree, opened the heavy door and slid in beside her on the bench seat. The moment he slammed the door, she took off in a spray of gravel.
She maneuvered the unwieldy vehicle out of the cemetery precincts. He did not ask her how she had managed to steal the hearse; he didn’t want to know and, oddly, didn’t much care. She had once again found them a means of escape, that was all that mattered.
“You said that Rossi was dead. What happened after he shot me?”
“I ran,” he said. “I ran and like an idiot I fell. He came after me and I tripped him. We went into the lake. He was going to kill me, I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it with every blow.”
Jenny let air out of her pursed lips. “Rossi’s a trained killer. And yet you survived…”
“Maybe I was lucky, I don’t know. I killed him, that’s the bottom line.”
“You did what you had to do. Your father trained you well.”
He was sickened by the look of admiration she gave him, so he turned away, gazed out the smoked window. What was he doing here? He had been pursued, beaten up—he had killed a man. For what? This was his father’s battle, but was it his? He realized that he could walk out of here now, buy some new clothes and fly back to Paris, resume his job as if nothing had happened. Everything appeared dark, behind a veil, part of another country through which he seemed to be shooting like a meteor. He wondered whether this feeling of separation was something his father had ever experienced. That was when he understood that something had happened, not only to his father but to him, as well. Strange as it might seem, he was no longer the person who had met his father in the Village for coffee.
“I told you this was urgent.”
“I heard you, Dad.”
But he hadn’t heard his father, not really. And now, even from the grave, his father was again talking to him.
“The first time is always the hardest,” Jenny said, misinterpreting his deep silence.
He stiffened. “I don’t intend for it to happen again.”
“An admirable sentiment, but did Rossi give you a choice?”
“Those were extraordinary circumstances. I don’t foresee—”
“No one in his right mind foresees the taking of a life.” Her eyes were focused on the road ahead. “But consider this. In the outside world there would be no reason to even have this conversation. You’re no longer in society—the world everyone else inhabits, Bravo. You’re in the Voire Dei, for good or ill, and believe me the sooner you come to terms with that, the better your chance of surviving will be.”
He stared blankly out at the ribbon of landscape whizzing by. He did not want to think about that now—he simply couldn’t process it yet, despite Jenny’s warning. Instead, as was his habit when he was upset, he set his mind a specific task—that is, to understand why Rossi’s gun had been loaded with rubber bullets. And almost immediately a memory popped into his head: Rossi pushing down the gunman’s arm as they sped away from Jenny’s house. He had not wanted them shot then, and he hadn’t wanted to kill Jenny, either. And yet there was no mistaking the set grimace on his face as he’d grappled with Bravo in the lake—had Bravo pushed him over the brink?
He licked his lips, said to Jenny, “I don’t think Rossi and Donatella had orders to kill us.”
This comment caught Jenny’s attention. “What makes you say that?”
“The rubber bullets for one,” he said. Then he told her what he had seen as they had sped away from her house.
“Of course!” Jenny said. “They think you know everything your father knew. They want to capture you and get the information out of you.”
“But I don’t have any information.”
“You know that and so do I,” she said, “but it’s clear they don’t.”
“Then we have to find a way to tell them.”
Jenny laughed harshly and shook her head. “You heard Donatella back there. Do you really think she’d believe you?”
“But it’s the truth!”
Jenny glanced over at him, her eyes hard. “In the Voire Dei, there is no truth, Bravo. There’s only perception. Donatella and those who control her will believe what they want to believe, what best fits their perception of reality.”
Was there another way out for him? he wondered. Or was he fated to continue on with this nightmare?
You’re no longer in the world everyone else inhabits.
With the words echoing in his head, he rolled down the window and stared out at the passing landscape. Over the white noise of their passage, he said, “How do you bear such a terrible burden?”
She knew precisely what he meant. “Some like it, you know. The Voire Dei is the only place they feel safe. Others revel in it. In fact, they know of no other way to live. For them, society is pale, indistinct, of minimal interest. They feel privileged to be part of the Voire Dei.”
“What do you feel?”
They had left the Falls Church area far behind. Jenny took a turning to the left, went perhaps a half mile into an area of increasingly large and luxurious houses. The hearse navigated a long, snaking road that rose toward the crest of a hill. A half mile on she made a right into one of a number of sweeping streets of large Colonial houses with slate roofs, formal English gardens and impeccably manicured lawns. She pulled into the driveway of a cream-colored two-story house with front columns and an imposing porte cochere. Past that, on the side of the house, was a three-car garage, on the other side of which was a small windowless gardener’s shed. She stopped on the concrete apron directly in front of the garage doors and got out. To one side of the leftmost door was a small plastic box. Swinging up the protective panel, she punched in a number and one of the garage doors opened. She got back behind the wheel, drove the hearse into the garage and shut the door. Next to them was a Mercedes convertible.
“My father’s house,” she said, leading him inside.
“Isn’t this the first place Donatella is likely to look for us?”
“The neighborhood is patrolled by members of a private security firm. All the men are ex-cops and they know every face in the neighborhood.”
Bravo was astonished. “You can’t seriously believe that will stop Donatella.”
She heard the edge to his voice. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make that decision.”
“After what we’ve just been through I sure as hell wouldn’t put us in more danger, if I were you. I say let’s get out of here.”
She put a key into a lock and opened a door. “As a Guardian it’s my duty to protect the Order and the members of the Haute Cour.” Stepping into the darkened room, she turned to face him. “I promised your father I would protect you, but if you renounce the Order, renounce the role your father trained you for, then my obligation to him is done.”
A swath of harsh light banded her face, turning her features hawklike, almost predatory. Her eyes were steady, her expression determined. If she was bluffing, Bravo couldn’t detect it. He made to turn; it was important to see how far she would go.
“Have you forgotten your father’s glasses? If you leave now, how will you find out what he left for you?”
He turned back. “Where is the Order now that we need them, where are its resources? The Order must have any number of safe houses we can use to hide out in.”
“I think you should concentrate on the business at hand,” she said coolly. “Leave the rest to me.”
“If I left Rossi to you,” he said unkindly, “I’d be dead.”
“Then surely you don’t need me.” She turned, but not before he saw the hurt in her eyes. He waited as she disappeared into the darkness.
“Why won’t you tell me what I want to know?” he called out.
“Why do you think?”
He could turn now and walk away, but would that put Rossi’s death behind him? What’s done is done, he told himself. I go back to Paris now, back to my old life. It would be so easy.
But it wasn’t easy. He felt rooted to the spot, unable to turn around, let alone walk away. He thought of his father, thought of the way in which he had misjudged everything about him. He’d allowed his own selfish emotions to blind him to the truth. His father was involved in something so important Bravo felt himself enveloped by it. But he also knew that the biggest mistake he could make now was to fight his father’s fight out of guilt. He’d end up dead, like as not. No, he had to do this because he wanted to.
Without even consciously realizing what he was doing, he crossed over the threshold and entered the gloom. In darkness, he passed through a small mudroom whose walls were ribboned with wooden pegs on which hung various caps and hats, windbreakers and golf sweaters, before reaching a large country-style kitchen with its center island of blond beech-wood and pale granite. There were acres of cupboards and an old-fashioned bay window, beneath which was a padded window seat. They stood in shadows, listening to the small creaks and hums inside the pipes and ducts of the house.
Outside the multipaned window twilight had descended, cobalt shadows clinging to the flagstone steps, weaving themselves into the shrubbery of the garden. Lights had come on, lemony, haloed in a grainy mist that rose from the ground like a specter. Not far away a dog barked; headlights flashed as a car turned a corner. Cicadas shrilled.
