“Maybe it’s not. Not every crime, no matter how appalling, is my father’s fault.”
“No, but there’s something . . .” I muttered, thinking and going over it again. . . . There’d been two priests. . . . No. There’d been three. “Hang on,” I said as my mental pieces fell into place. “The priest this guy robbed was walking with a man in a black suit and clerical collar. They met another man in the same sort of outfit—black suit and clerical collar. An older man. I would swear that it was the same man who was in the middle of the circle last night—Griffin’s master. I didn’t see him well, but the general description and the aura were the same. Even if it wasn’t the same man, it was one of the bone mages—they have a fairly distinctive aura. We were that close to them!”
“How does that make a positive connection to the robbery at Jerónimos?”
“I’m not sure, except that it has to have been them—who else would want to break in to a tomb and disturb the dust of a fake king? But . . . it’s a monastery, isn’t it?”
Quinton was puzzled. “It’s mostly a museum now—but there is a secularized church and members of the old royal family were buried there.”
“Carlos said a lot of the bone mages come from the religious community. They wouldn’t be much noticed coming and going from a church of any kind and in this case, there would have been people in and out all day.”
Quinton took back the laptop and looked at the report again. “Witnesses around the area said they saw a priest near the building about the time the vandalism must have happened, but . . . there are a lot of those in Lisbon.”
“Black suit, clerical collar, old man . . .” I listed.
“Sounds right.”
“No way to prove it, but it has to be the same guy—or another bone mage.”
“I didn’t think they were that common. It’s hard to maintain a low profile when you’ve got a large group.”
“But it’s not a large group. It’s the same thing your dad is doing: He breaks his men up into smaller units and plants them in strategic places. The fact that they have—or had—a bone church here in Lisbon must be significant, but it doesn’t mean they’re high profile.”
“Small, discreet units, spread over Europe?”
“I’m thinking they’re modeled on religious organizations instead of military ones. It’s more likely there’s a handful of chapter houses near significant ossuaries and a moderate number of mages who move around.” I was speculating, but it fit and I spoke as the ideas formed. “Your father has some kind of deal with them—that’s how he got the shrine he brought to Seattle and how he’s been able to continue advancing the Ghost Division after you destroyed his lab. They know how to make those ghost boxes and how to pack a spell into something that allows a mage to use a dissimilar magic—that would be how Griffin produced a Night Dragon when that’s not within her normal powers as a bone mage, according to Carlos. But it’s likely that the Kostní Mágové’s physical resources are thin. Their wealth is in knowledge that your dad wants. But they want something, too. Last year, Carlos implied that they didn’t care about your dad’s goals, but had plans of their own and would use the Ghost Division and your father’s obsession to their own ends. What if this . . . thing they’re making is part of their price for helping your dad?”
“That would imply it’s at least part of their own long-term goal.”
“And therefore worth any price.”
“That doesn’t explain why Dad would give them Soraia.”
“What if they have persuaded him that this thing is useful for his goals as well? Necessary, even? Carlos said . . . What was it . . . ? Something about scorched earth . . .”
Quinton looked grim. “I remember what he said. ‘They will starve and burn Europe to scorched earth.’ They lost Limos, so the starving part’s out, but there’s more than one way to start a fire.”
“All these little actions . . . little horrors—riots, bombings, disease, uprisings—they’re the fire.”
“But if what these guys are building can make it burn faster or hotter, they’re only a spark.”
“That’s got to be what Carlos was after. Can you summarize all these incidents for him? Even the ones you think aren’t as likely to be connected?”
“Yes. I’ll have to start on it right now—it’s a lot of material if I go back over the past eight months.”
“I think you can just stick with what’s happened since you traced your father to Portugal.”
“I hope this helps Carlos figure out what Dad and his cronies are up to.”
“And I hope he shows up soon so we can discuss this business. This just gets worse.”
“It does look pretty bad. But you’ve had dire cases before.”
“They were mostly boring until I got killed.”
“The first time.”
“Actually, it was the second time. Didn’t I mention drowning when I was a teenager?”
Quinton was appalled. “I think I’d remember that conversation and I don’t.”
I blushed with shame. “I’m sorry. I should have said something before now. I think I’m up to death three or four, depending on how you count them.”
Quinton swore. “How many times can you expect to bounce back?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s not many—if at all.”
He pulled me into a too-tight embrace. “No more dying, OK?”
“I can’t promise that if you keep squeezing me like a boa.”
He winced and loosened his grip only enough to keep from suffocating me. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t make that promise, but . . . just don’t die for a long time. I want to be an old, grizzled curmudgeon with you.”
“So, you’ve been practicing?” I asked with a grin I didn’t feel, trying to lift the moment out of the deadly track it was heading into.
“I am not a curmudgeon. I’m socially maladroit.”
“You are not maladroit at anything,” I said.
“Oh, you flatterer, you.”
“I’m only trying to get you into bed.”
“Then why are we still standing up?” Quinton made a bad imitation of an evil laugh and dragged me backward onto the bed he’d only just left. Somehow, neither of us landed on the laptop.
“You know, this is going to be really embarrassing if Carlos comes in,” Quinton observed.
“That won’t happen,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
“If you were more than three hundred years old, would you really want to watch us tumbling around like two squirrels in a knapsack? Besides, I’d kill him.”
“You would never kill a friend.”
“OK, no. But I might threaten him with sunlamps.”
Quinton laughed, which was the most perfect sound I’d heard in eight months. We did our best squirrel impression and unmade the bed in spectacular fashion until I fell asleep, snuggled into the crook of his arm.
I was so tired that I didn’t notice him get up and leave the room a little before ten o’clock. I was startled to wake in an empty bed to the sound of a woman sobbing, the room lit only by the dim glow of the laptop screensaver.
Socorro, ajude-me! Help me! Help me!
It is a concept so universal that the words needed no translation, carried as they were on the throbbing strains of panic. I sat up, looking for the speaker, but the words were in my mind, not in the air, and it took a moment to recognize that the damsel in distress was Amélia.
“What? What do you want now?” I could barely see her, so faint was her manifestation. Even sinking toward the Grey, she remained as transparent as mist. She was in full panic, rushing from side to side in the room, whipping up an uncanny wind by her passage.
Resgata-lo! Carlos precisa de sua ajuda. Ajuda-lo, eu lhe imploro! She spoke so fast, I couldn’t follow the exact words, only that Carlos needed help—a notion that seemed completely ridiculous at first.
But he had needed my help in the past, more than once. As powerful as he was, Carlos was not invincible and with enemies from his past—not to mention the night before—still around and angry, it was possible that even he could be in danger.