”Did you brought your furniture with you?” Nighthawk asked.
“Some,” Porter allowed.
“Like the chair you’re sitting on?”
“Yes,” Porter said. “It’s a very comfortable reading chair. Naturally, I brought it along for my library.”
Nighthawk looked at Contarini and spread his hands in a silent, there-you-have-it gesture.
“Are you saying,” the Cardinal said in his low, dangerous voice, “that somehow the spirit, the soul, of this, this sodomite jingle-writer—as expressed in his chair—somehow overcame the potency of Our Lord Savior’s soul—as expressed in his Shroud?”
“No,” Nighthawk suggested quietly. “I’m saying that the scientists and skeptics have been right all along.”
“Che?” Contarini’s anger made him slip into his native language.
“Like the scientists and skeptics have said all along, maybe this isn’t really the burial cloth of Jesus. Maybe it’s a fake.”
For a moment Nighthawk thought that the Cardinal was going to have a stroke. The churchman’s face turned white, then a dangerous-looking red. Veins stood out on his forehead and he swayed on the sofa as if tossed by unfelt winds. Finally he steadied himself and stared at Nighthawk like a malignant demon or a righteous angel. Nighthawk couldn’t decide which.
“It isn’t,” he hissed. “It is real. It is the burial cloth of My Lord and Savior. My faith tells me so.”
“This is all so fascinating,” Porter said, eyeing them closely, “but what does it all have to with me?”
Nighthawk shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, and thought silently to himself, and everything. Nighthawk knew that he had to end this farce soon. Magda was picking up on the Cardinal’s distress. There was no telling how she’d react if the Cardinal made a hasty, unfortunate decision.
And if she reacted badly, his chance to learn what he’d hoped to learn when he’d accepted this mission would probably vanish. It was clear, whatever the Cardinal’s faith told him, that the Shroud was a fake, but this little comedy had shown Nighthawk one thing: the undeniable durability of the soul. There was life after death. The soul did transcend the death of the body. What had been a matter of uncertain faith had suddenly become a matter of certain fact.
He had so many questions he wanted to ask Porter, but he couldn’t ask them now. Not in front of the Cardinal. He hated to see the revenant go, but Porter had to go back to wherever he’d come from before the situation blew up in their faces. There’d be other opportunities to get answers to his questions. Now, for the benefit of all involved, Nighthawk knew that he had to end this scene as quickly and quietly as possible.
“Mr. Porter,” he said in polite tones, “would you come here for a moment? There’s something I’d like you to see.”
Porter looked at him from across the room. “I’d love to, but you see—” He interrupted himself, laughing. “Of course. I have legs that work now. One forgets after doing without for so long.” He glanced down at Cameo’s limbs. “Such slender, pretty ones, too. I would have been quite the popular chap in the old days. But, no, of course, I suppose it wouldn’t have been the same.”
He stood with a sigh, and Cameo swayed as her body broke contact with the chair. She reached out as if to steady herself against the chair’s arm, then snatched her hand away before touching it. She looked from Nighthawk to Contarini, ignoring the two who stood behind her like door guards in a medieval hall.
“It didn’t go as you expected.” It was a statement, not a question.
Contarini stared at her, frowning. “No. It didn’t. Not at all.”
Nighthawk didn’t like his expression, or the inflection of his voice. It didn’t take a revelation to realize what the Cardinal was contemplating. The only question was how far the Cardinal dared to go.
“Nighthawk.” The churchman snapped the ace’s name without looking at him, his terrifying gaze reserved solely for Cameo. “Take this... take our... visitor... out of my sight.”
Nighthawk suddenly relaxed. Whichever way Contarini wanted to go, he, Nighthawk, would actually be in control of Cameo’s destiny. And he’d find a way to work things out.
Nighthawk went to her side. “Come with me,” he said quietly.
She looked at him, made a move to her handbag. Nighthawk shook his head briefly, almost imperceptibly, but she noticed. She looked at him for what seemed a long time, and then she finally nodded.
“Take her to St. Dympna’s,” Contarini said in detached, almost uncaring tones. He gestured vaguely. “Usher and Magda will accompany you.”
“I don’t need—” Nighthawk began, but Contarini interrupted him with a lion’s roar.
“Don’t tell me what you need or don’t need!” he shouted. “I tell you what to do. You obey. Capice?”
Nighthawk bowed silently. Usher moved as quietly as a jungle cat on a deep pile carpet, and before Cameo had a chance to react, he grabbed her handbag away from her. She made a single convulsive motion toward snatching it back, but Usher just shook his head and held it out of her reach.
“Uh-uh,” he said. He looked inside, and frowned. He reached in and took out a battered old fedora that had definitely seen better days. “What’s this?” he asked, bemused. “I thought you were lugging a hand cannon around with you, and it’s just an old hat?”
“Don’t let her touch it,” Nighthawk said warningly.
“Whatever you say, boss,” Usher agreed.
Cameo glared at Nighthawk, who offered her the slightest of shrugs.
Nighthawk glanced at Contarini. The Cardinal stared with eyes wide open at nothing at all but the scene of loss and devastation playing in his head. Nighthawk could almost feel sorry for him, if he didn’t dislike the stiff-necked old bastard so much. Magda, taking her cue from her beloved leader, wore a lost-soul expression that also would have been touching if Nighthawk hadn’t known her better. She looked as if she wanted to comfort Contarini, but was stopped by the fact that human emotions were so foreign to her that she just didn’t know how to do it. Only Usher looked cool and composed, and openly wondering as he observed the by-play between Nighthawk and Cameo.
Nighthawk could do nothing now. He could only get the girl away from Contarini as quickly as possible. And then see what he could do about St. Dympna’s.
“Come with us,” he said quietly, and for once something went right. She nodded, and followed him without a word, Magda and Usher bracing her like prison guards on death row. Nighthawk looked back as they left the library to see Contarini still staring fix-eyed at nothing.
Christ’s supposed Shroud was tossed carelessly over Cole Porter’s unoccupied reading chair.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Las Vegas, Nevada: The Mirage
The blood had been the hardest thing. That, and the screaming. The Angel couldn’t decide which was worse. She also didn’t like the memory of the Witness’s lips grinding against hers, but she was a warrior for the Lord and she could deal with wounds and indignities. It was the suffering of the innocents that bothered her so.
She’d fought for The Hand before, but never in a battle this intense. It wasn’t so much her and Ray fighting the Allumbrados. The fighting had been fine. Thrilling, even. Except when it came to the Witness. The Angel knew that she hadn’t acquitted herself well with him. But she realized she shouldn’t dwell on that. Or on the blood. Or on the screaming, especially of the innocent tourists caught in the indiscriminate firing. Of Kitty O’Leary, screeching like a maniac behind her desk. Of Peregrine and the bloody sheet wrapped around her as they took her off on a gurney. She shouldn’t dwell on all that, she knew, because it was part of the Lord’s plan. But the blood—