The Broken Sword Page 22

  Zack sat back and drove in silence.

  "Well?" Kate asked. "What happened then?"

  "Nothing. The student understood, and bowed to his teacher for making him understand."

  "Understand what? That he had to spend the night there?"

  "No. The student went home."

  "Did the teacher at least give the guy a match?"

  Zack laughed. "No."

  "That's the dumbest story I ever heard! What point is there in giving somebody a candle if you're going to blow it out before he can use it?"

  "He didn't really need it, Kate. That's the point. The candle made the guy believe he could find his way home. So once he had that belief, he didn't need the candle anymore. It's like Dumbo and the magic feather. Don't you see? Aubrey was trying to teach you the same lesson he was trying to teach the group—that the magic we're looking for is inside us."

  "He didn't take your souls," Kate argued.

  "And he didn't take yours, either," Zack said, smiling. "He was just blowing out your candle."

  She inhaled sharply. "So that I would..."

  "So that you would believe in yourself," Zack finished for her. "Aubrey was telling you that you didn't need him anymore." He kissed the top of her head. "And then he left."

  Kate thought about that for a long time. Finally she sighed. "You make everything seem okay."

  "Everything is okay," he said.

  "Even Aubrey Katsuleris."

  Zack grinned. "An agent of God. Just like the rest of us."

  "I wish I could believe that." Kate sat up with a start. "Oh, no, I mean—"

  Zack laughed. "Try wishing for another pizza. I'm getting hungry."

  Two weeks later, Aubrey came back into her life. Zack brought him. "Look who just breezed into town," he said.

  Kate could only stare.

  "Aubrey wants to do some work in the basement," Zack said.

  Neither of them said anything.

  Zack turned to Aubrey. "You're so famous now, having your studio here will put our center on the map."

  Again, there was no response. Kate and Aubrey were doing battle in each other’s eyes.

  Zack cleared his throat. "Well, I guess I'll leave you two alone. I've got some things to do." Quietly, he let himself out.

  When the door closed, Aubrey spoke. "Did you miss me, Kate?" he asked softly.

  "No."

  "Good." He took her in his arms, and for Kate, it was as if no time at all had passed since the last time the evil bloom inside her had stirred. He pressed her downward to the floor, to the same place she had submitted to him the first time, and with a moan of shame, she opened her legs to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "Kate," he whispered afterward, inhaling the fragrance of her hair. "Sweet, sweet Kate."

  "Get out." She pulled herself up, straightening the rumpled folds of her skirt. He had not bothered to undress her.

  "Don't you like my company?" he asked, smiling.

  "Please leave," she whispered miserably.

  "Zack tells me you're concerned about your soul." She turned away, but he grabbed her by her hair and forced her to face him. "It's a little late for that, Kate. That part of you belongs to me."

  "Zack... says..." She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. "He says that you were trying to teach me ... to believe in myself..." Tears coursed down her cheeks. "You blew out the candle... so that I could find my way in the dark." Still weeping, she began to laugh, high and hysterical. "He thinks you're an agent of God." She shrieked with wild laughter.

  "An agent of God?" The idea amused him. "Well, perhaps I am, at that." They laughed together, two hyenas crouching on the floor.

  Then Kate started to scream. She screamed without point or purpose, shrieking the sound of her unnamable fear and her knowledge that all along, Aubrey had been telling her the truth.

  Her soul was gone.

  Calmly Aubrey locked his hands around her neck until the scream quieted to a gurgle of panic. His nostrils flared. With his thumbs he stroked the tender indentation at the base of her throat. "Does death excite you?" he asked conversationally. "Of course it does. Death and sex—both are natural and fundamental to all living creatures. Yet for human beings, these two occurrences are at the vortex of our fears. They have become the origin and consequence of sin, inextricably entwined. They make up the forbidden zone of our psyches, that place of guilty delight where you've found such contentment, Kate."

  Kate kicked her legs futilely. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

  "If I were to crush the life out of you, I expect I would experience a magnificent orgasm."

  With a smile of regret, he released her. The air rushed into her lungs with a honk. For several minutes she choked and coughed.

  "Your nose is running," he said, dabbing at it with a linen handkerchief. "Now be a good girl and keep quiet for a bit. I have to talk to you, and you have to listen. Understood?"

  Kate's chest heaved once, then she nodded.

  "I suppose I should begin by telling you that I've been asked to kill your father. A political matter, you understand. Now, now—" He held up an index finger. "You're not going to speak, are you?"

  Kate felt the muscles in her neck cording, but she forced herself to lean back against the wall.

  "That's fine. You're doing perfectly," he said. "Needless to say, I haven't killed him yet. And I won't, so long as you cooperate with me in another matter." He raised his eyebrows. "Yes?"

  "What... what is it?" she asked, her voice raspy and hoarse.

  "A simple task. In three days' time a ship, the Comanche, will dock at the Port Authority in the early afternoon. There will be three stowaways on board that ship, an old man and two children, a boy and a girl, both young teenagers. The old man and the girl will be killed. You are to bring the boy back to the center."

  A look of horror crossed Kate's face.

  "The boy will have in his possession a cup. I want you to get it from him, preferably without his knowledge. You may replace it with this." He took a knobby, spherical metal object from his jacket pocket. "They're identical." He pressed it into her hands.

  "The cup," she said, nearly inaudibly.

  "Incidentally, if he doesn't have it, he'll want to go back to the bodies."

  "Stop it!" She slapped her hands over her ears, letting the cup drop to the floor.

  Aubrey yanked her hands away. "He'll want to go back to the bodies to retrieve the cup," he said deliberately. "If that is the case, let him." Aubrey let go of her hands. "As soon as you're in possession of the cup, bring it to me immediately. I'm back in my old apartment. Now, repeat back to me what you're going to do."

  For a moment, Kate said nothing. He slapped her.

  "I'll tell you what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to watch you kill two—"

  He slapped her again. "I can be at your parents' house in an hour," Aubrey said.

  "So can the cops."

  He laughed softly. "How sheltered you must have been during your White House years," he said.

  Kate knew what he meant. She remembered her mother's constant worry whenever Marshall had to travel as President, worry so severe that on several occasions the First Lady was rendered too sick to leave her bed. She had begged her husband not to seek a second term, and though she pretended to be disappointed when he lost the election, it was obvious to everyone close to Mrs. Marshall that she was secretly ecstatic about the outcome.

  Even after Marshall ostensibly retired from public life, his safety was never a thing taken for granted. Secret Service agents continued to tail the family for five years, until Marshall could no longer bear their presence in the small town where he had grown up. Kate's mother had wanted them back after the incident in Morocco, but Marshall had been adamant on that count.

  "Four Secret Service men were with me in Marrakesh, and they didn't do a damn bit of good," he argued. "If someone really wants me dead, nothing we do is going to stop them."

  He was
right, Kate knew. She could alert the local police, the FBI, and the Secret Service that her father's life was in danger, and it wouldn't make any difference. If someone wanted William Marshall dead, it was just a matter of time.

  And accusing Aubrey Katsuleris before the fact would elicit nothing but scorn from the authorities. Aubrey was a famous man. Kate was just another woman he'd slept with and then abandoned. Even Zack would tell them that.

  "Did you shoot my father in Tangier?" she asked.

  "Please don't bore me with tiresome questions, Kate."

  She set the cup down. "How do I know you—or someone else—won't kill my dad after I bring you the cup?"

  "Because it's no longer necessary that he die. The peace mission in Tangier was thwarted, and your father's reputation is in disgrace. My employers are content."

  "And you?"

  "I will be, too. After I get the cup." He touched her face. "And so will you."

  Only if you die by tomorrow, she thought.

  "Now, Kate, that isn't nice." He stood up. "But you'll change your mind, I promise you."

  "How are you going to arrange that?" she asked drily.

  Aubrey raised his eyebrows. "Have you made any wishes?" When she didn't answer, he smiled. "They didn't turn out the way you'd thought, did they?" he asked with mock pity. "That's because you haven't yet accepted the loss of your soul. But you will. After you get me the cup, it will be easier for you." He pulled her upright. "I'll help you to embrace the darkness, Kate," he said softly. "I'll take you fully into the forbidden zone."

  He kissed her then, and her blood coursed wildly, her arms longed to encircle him, the place between her legs grew damp. She hated herself.

  Woodenly, she opened the door.

  "It will get easier," Aubrey said in parting.

  That night Kate tried to pray. It was difficult. She hadn't prayed since her mother had stopped dragging her to church for appearances' sake, and even before that, she had never prayed with any conviction.

  "Please help me," she began. "Let this all be some kind of nightmare. Let my family be safe. Let Aubrey leave me alone..."

  Mother bring us life from death

  "... alone…"

  Mother bring us life from death

  She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the strange words that rang in her mind. "Don't let anybody get killed…"

  Life from death

  Life from death

  She buried her face in her hands and wept.

  Mother bring us life from death . . .

  Aubrey shook with rage and contempt. The ancient gods were calling. After sixteen hundred years, the useless deities of the druids were crying for life. They screamed so loudly that even ordinary people like Kate Marshall could hear them.

  The blood with which he had smeared his body—a vagrant's blood, spilled with a sharp knife in a remote area of Central Park—rose rank to his nostrils. Aubrey sat in a pool of darkness within the basement of the building where Zack and Kate lived.

  The Center for Cosmic Consciousness—Aubrey had nearly laughed aloud when Zack proudly announced his plans for the place. If the fool had possessed any Cosmic Consciousness at all, he would have known what sort of spirits dwelled here.

  In the earth beneath the building's foundation were scattered the ashes of a colony of druid priests and priestesses, killed by the first black magicians in Europe. These had learned their art from masters in Arabia, who had learned from the Egyptians, who had been practicing magic for three thousand years.

  Beside him in the circle of darkness that Aubrey had created with his mind was an ancient femur, grown brown and brittle with age. It was the leg bone of one of the druids, a necessary relic to conduct the rites of his order. Saladin himself had brought it to New York from the forgotten island of Mona, where the massacre had taken place.

  According to him, the initiator of the holocaust that wiped out the druids had himself been one of their number, raised among the holy ones since birth. His name, Saladin explained, had been Thanatos. Aubrey had been given his name at his own initiation into the coven in Tangier as a mark of honor.

  To whom did that first Thanatos give his soul, Aubrey had often wondered, this druid who, in the midst of a community devoted to serving the ancient Celtic gods, had discovered the bright flower of evil within himself? What did he get in exchange for his monumental betrayal?

  Perhaps it was the sheer thrill of killing. Aubrey understood that. Murder brought with it a certain exultation. The moment of inflicting death was an evanescent treasure to be savored like fine wine, or the scent of sex.

  But there must have been something more to make this born druid turn against his own, to destroy the seat of his religion.

  Whatever it was, Aubrey's namesake had done well, this ancient ancestor. By killing the druids, he had destroyed their gods. Their power was gone, even in the hidden repositories their followers had set aside to keep their magic until they rose again.

  Even in the sword of Excalibur, now reduced to a handful of metal fragments.

  No, those gods, for all their noise, could do nothing to Aubrey. They were powerless, their droning song no more than ancient echoes of their death-cry.

  Holding the druid's leg bone in both hands, Aubrey turned his mind into the darkness. He produced an image for himself of the old man. There was not much to begin with; Aubrey had only caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared into the hold of the ship with the two children. But he would try: first, the eyebrows. Yes, he had a good fix on the eyebrows, bushy, white, high-arched. And the eyes, blue, intelligent, now an aquiline nose, long and aristocratic, the nose of a nobleman. Bony fingers, long and graceful, yes, yes, it was coming... The fingers played an instrument, they plucked strings, and now Aubrey heard his voice. Ah, it was young; the old man was remembering his youth. Good, good. He was singing.

  A maid from the north sighed from her sad heart

  And the wind grieved low to mourn

  Aubrey sighed in disappointment. The old sod must be feebleminded, or drunk.

  "Think, fool. I want to know who you-are."

  He was no one of consequence, most likely. A kind-hearted stranger whose help the American enlisted to keep the boy out of harm's way at the dock in Tangier. The old coot had probably been more surprised than the rest of them when the ship he'd been hiding in with the children pulled out of harbor.

  Still, it was best to be sure. From Saladin's private writings, Aubrey knew who the boy was, and knew it was of utmost importance not to kill him yet. Aubrey would not repeat Saladin's mistake of taking the cup while Arthur Blessing still held the spirit of the Forever King.

  He was quite sure of what to do with the boy.

  The girl was another matter entirely. She had merely stumbled into Arthur—if the workings of fate could be couched in such terms—and had delivered the cup to him, however accidentally.

  So the girl had fulfilled her function in the scheme of things. She was expendable.

  And Hal Woczniak was probably dead, although Aubrey had heard no reports of a body being found in the waters around the docks in Tangier. The bullet-ridden corpse of an American ex-FBI agent would have attracted some attention, and Aubrey had eyes and ears within the Moroccan government as well as the police department. Nevertheless, the current had been strong that day, and the man may well have washed out to sea to become a meal for the sharks.

  In any case, the American was not in New York with the boy. The old man was.

  Zack had told him the stranger's name was… Taliesin. Taliesin, yes, like the ancient bard.

  Aubrey added this piece of information to the picture forming in his mind. Taliesin... and he was singing ancient songs. The tonality of the music was...

  Suddenly the melody stopped. The old man was thinking of something else.

  "Yes, yes," Aubrey purred. "Let me in, Taliesin. Bring me into that foggy old head of yours."

  Suddenly there was an image, scattered as a dream, of twelve
arrows streaking across the sky above a castle on whose grounds a lone figure walked.

  He is your destiny, a voice speaks to Taliesin.

  And he follows that image blindly, travelling all night on horseback, guided by the moon, until at last he reaches an island, a sacred island rising in the mist of dawn.

  Mona...

  "Mona!" Aubrey whispered, nearly dropping the relic in his hands. "Who are you, old man?"

  Mother bring us life from death

  Mother bring us life from death

  The yellowed legbone seemed to vibrate in Aubrey's hands. "A druid?" he asked aloud. "But that cannot be. They've all been dead for more than a thousand years."

  Can the gods die?

  A beating of drums. The flesh of a woman. Ecstasy, and then release, his spirit spiraling upward, toward a crystal mountain where a king waited to be born. A king with a magnificent sword...

  When they go, they will take their magic with them.

  The bone fell from Aubrey's hands. He knew. Saladin's letter had mentioned a magician. A king's magician.

  "The Merlin," he said softly.

  It would take more than a bullet to end the old sorcerer's life, with the cup or without it. The Merlin had died before, "died" in the way that men perceived death. But this was not a man, but a creature born of magic. To destroy such a one, nothing less than magic as powerful as his own would do.

  An hour later, Aubrey contacted a man he had met six years ago at a coven in Madrid. The Spaniard was a simple man; he had embraced the Dark Power to become wealthy. He had never been troubled with Aubrey's scruples about exchanging his soul for the life he wanted on earth. He was a good second man.

  Once Aubrey had determined when the ship carrying Taliesin and the children would dock, he prevailed on the Spaniard to collect the same twelve magicians who had assembled to destroy the sword Excalibur. They were in place now, and would assist Aubrey when the time came.

  It would cost him, he knew, probably many millions. Men who had forsaken eternity did not work cheaply. But with the cup, money would always come easily. Money and everything else, for all time.

  "Call them together," he told the Spaniard. "Tomorrow we shall kill a wizard."