Zazo was moving slowly, refusing to lean on anyone, so their group was among the last to leave the church. From the archway Elisabetta squinted into the high sun.
The piazza and its fountain looked particularly pristine and lovely. There were children playing outside the café and lovers holding hands. Father Santoro approached to give the family his Sunday wishes and he put his hand on Zazo’s shoulder.
Suddenly Elisabetta saw Zazo’s face contort and a single word bellowed from his mouth.
‘Gun!’
She turned to see a man pushing through the crowd of parishioners with a pistol pointed directly at her.
Matthias Hackel had the wooden expression of a man who had simply come to complete some unfinished business.
A shot rang out.
Elisabetta waited to feel the bullet piercing her heart.
She was ready. Far from willing, but ready.
Hackel’s head erupted in a splash of red. He pitched forward, his big body thudding onto the cobblestones.
Micaela dropped instinctively and pulled Elisabetta down to the ground with her.
Lorenzo was standing over Hackel’s body, his gun drawn, ready to fire a second round. It wasn’t needed.
He saw Elisabetta and ran to her.
‘Are you all right?’
She looked up at him. His head blocked the sun but its light spilled around it, creating a very real halo.
She saw his face clearly enough, but she also saw the face of Marco and the face of Jesus Christ.
All of them had saved her.
‘Yes, I’m all right.’
The limo driver pulled into the circular drive of Stephanie Meyer’s secluded Georgian mansion.
Evan Harris was beside her in the back seat.
‘It’s good to be home,’ she said.
‘Indeed.’
‘Won’t you come in for a drink?’ she suggested. ‘I can run you back to your house in a bit.’
Harris agreed.
‘Don’t forget the book,’ Meyer said. Harris’s briefcase was by his feet.
‘No fear of that.’
Inside, they left their bags in the hall and went into her sitting room.
‘It’s a terrible blow that it’s come to nothing,’ Meyer sighed.
‘Don’t you know Pope Celestine VI’s full name?’ Harris suddenly asked.
‘I believe it’s Giorgio Aspromonte,’ Meyer said.
‘Giorgio Pietro Aspromonte,’ Harris added quickly.
‘Petrus Romanus!’ Meyer hissed.
‘See?’ Harris said. ‘Don’t be so gloomy. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’
She poured them both large gins.
‘Why not get the book?’ she asked.
He removed it from its bubble wrap and put in on her mantel, opened to the frontispiece. Old Faustus seemed to be looking down at them from his place within the magic circle.
‘Tomorrow we’ll start making calls,’ Harris said. ‘K is gone. But there are others.’
‘Why not you?’
‘Indeed. Why not me?’
They clinked glasses.
‘This is what we do,’ Harris said.
‘And this is who we are,’ Meyer replied.
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Copyright © Glenn Cooper 2011