“And what sickness do you suppose he has contracted from doing God’s work?” asked the priest with asperity.
Sir Guy chose his words carefully. “Ibrahim and all of his Tariqa are very religious.”
Nicodemus paused to cut him a quick look, then continued to poke at the fire. “Can that not be said of all of us, my son? Did not the two of you conceive this as an expression of your faith and concern for the future of our respective churches?”
“Yes, Father, but when I have doubts and fears about the spiritual cost of this, I have you to turn to. You are the church to me. Ibrahim has no such guide or refuge.”
“Islam has Istighfar,” countered Nicodemus. “It is one of the five pillars of that faith. The Tariqa confess their sins directly to God—not through man. Have you not heard your friend say ‘astaghfirullah’? ‘I seek forgiveness from Allah?’”
“I understand that, Father, but when the Saracens pray for forgiveness they often cite specific sins that were made and the passages of their bible which speak of forgiveness of those sins. His struggle comes from the fact that we have essentially written new pages into the Koran and the Bible.”
“Ah,” said Nicodemus. “I see. Tell me then, what sins can he not find forgiveness for?”
“Murder of others of his own faith—”
“‘Sacrifices,’” corrected the old man. “Murder is an act of hate. We do not hate those we kill. We love them, and in loving them we sacrifice them for the preservation of the church and the glory of God.”
Sir Guy took a breath. “Of course, Father. Ibrahim is troubled by having to sacrifice those of great faith. Clerics. Their imams. His heart likewise rebels at the desecration of mosques.”
“And yet, my son, this is the heart of our Agreement. We will each tend to our own flock and sacrifice our own lambs at the altars of God.”
“Yes,” said Sir Guy with passion, “and have you not seen how this also hurts our own people? I mean no insult by this, Father, but you do not go into the field with us. You do not see the wounds we open in the flesh of true believers. You do not hear their voices as they cry out to God for protection against monsters; and you do not hear the weeping of our knights in the night, in the dark. Many of our stoutest knights weep like children for the countless lives they’ve taken. Ibrahim is not the only one who fears for his sanity and his soul.”
Nicodemus gave the fire a final jab and then turned, still holding the poker whose tip now glowed dark red. The blaze in his eyes was hotter still. “Is that what you’ve come here to tell me? Has everyone on both sides lost their nerve, then? I thought our knights were true soldiers of God. Are we to fold our tents so quickly, leaving so much sacred work unfinished?”
“No, Father. I proposed a solution to him that I believe will work to strengthen everyone’s resolve.”
Nicodemus narrowed his eyes. “What solution?”
“What we are doing now is all about, as you so rightly put it, sacrifice, and we have agreed that many sacrifices need to be made in order to inspire the people and remind them of their spiritual duty. We call it the Agreement, and we label each death as a sacrifice because we do not make war on each other. But what if it were otherwise? What I proposed to Ibrahim is a second Agreement that would permit a brand new kind of war. One that has never been fought upon the earth. One which would allow each side to feel the strength of holy purpose in their arm every time they draw a sword.” He stepped closer to the fire and the old priest. “Father, I am saying that we turn our swords against the enemies of God.”
“You are talking a holy war,” growled Nicodemus, “and again I say that we already have that.”
“We have an open war that is doing no one any lasting good. The Crusades have become a business venture to see who possesses the most land and the best trade routes, and for every enemy killed in the name of God there are a hundred slaughtered in the name of profit. I propose a limited war. A quiet war. A war fought in the shadows.”
“Wars escalate. What would prevent this ‘shadow war’ from escalating into random killing, or killing for profit as we have now?”
“We would impose limits and restrictions. This would have to be managed carefully and regularly. Representatives from each side would have to meet regularly to agree on how many deaths would be allowed, how many castles or churches or mosques destroyed, and so on. And we would have to agree on the value of each death. Just as we now select our sacrifices for their importance to the masses, we would share that information with the other side, thereby transforming the process from self-sacrifice to mutually created martyrs.”
Nicodemus pursed his lips and turned away, walking slowly and thoughtfully across the room to the shadowy wall and back again, passing Sir Guy and crossing to the opposite wall. Sir Guy stood in silence, watching the old priest as he paced. Five long minutes passed as Father Nicodemus thought it through, and his seamed face was etched with firelight and shadows. The priest stopped a few feet from the hearth and stared into it for another moment, and then nodded to himself.
“A war of shadows,” he murmured as fire danced like devils in his eyes. “Yes. But your knights, skilled killers that they are, are too clumsy for the kind of killing you propose. This war would require stealth. Spies, who could steal into the strongholds of an enemy and kill them in their beds. That would strike fear into the hearts of the faithless and that would drive them back to God.”
Sir Guy nodded. “Ibrahim said that he could make a deal with the fida’i, those Sufi killers who cause so much trouble for the Templars. The cult of assassins run by Hassan ibn Sabbah. Ibn Sabbah is a great friend of Ibrahim’s. Would that we had their like in Europe. We will have to invent what we need. We will have to find a way to train candidates to become a new breed of warrior. Not knights but assassins like Ibn Sabbah’s fida’i.”
Nicodemus suddenly straightened and walked a few steps away. He stood staring into the shadows a long time and his body was so rigid with tension that Sir Guy dared not interrupt.
Finally, Nicodemus turned, but his face was in shadow.
“Do not be afraid, my son,” murmured the priest. “God Himself speaks through me and He has whispered a word to me. The answer to what we need to wage our shadow war.”
As Nicodemus stepped forward into the firelight Sir Guy gasped and took an involuntary step backward, for once again a strange and inexplicable change had come over the priest. His brown eyes swirled with colors—leprous yellows and greens, mushroom white, and the mottled brown of toad skin. Sir Guy touched the heavy silver cross that hung around his neck.
“What word?” asked Sir Guy with a dry throat.
The priest smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth.
“Upierczi,” he whispered.
Part Three
The Blood of Angels
Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life …
—DEUTERONOMY 12:23
Chapter Fifty-Seven
CIA Safe House #11
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 12:53 p.m.
I sagged against the door frame.
“Ah … Christ…”
The Mouradipours had been stripped naked and tied to wooden chairs. On a nearby table were pliers, a hammer, matches, wire cutters, and other tools. Everything in the room was covered with blood and wrongness. They were both dead. I didn’t need to search for pulses to figure that out. It would be nice to believe that they had died quickly and with some shred of dignity left, but that would be an absurd self-delusion. The team downstairs had torn information from them and then continued on to tear away their humanity. And the bastards had used burning matches to sear crosses over their hearts.
The Mouradipours were Muslim, so if it hadn’t been for the stakes and garlic and all that vampire hunter bullshit I would have figured this for some kind of anti-Islamic statement.
And why kill the Mouradipours and then try to take me captive? Or, was capturing me a prelude to a trip up here
to this makeshift torture chamber?
Probably.
Even so, why set up this hit at all? Just to get the flash drive? Or to keep its information out of someone else’s hands? Hours had passed, surely they had to know that I would have passed along that information by now. What was the point of targeting me now?
And how many teams was I facing here?
The Red Knights were one faction, and they were top of the line. I would like to think that I would have won the fight in the hotel without Violin’s help, but I’m not sure I can say that with conviction. I can say without fear of contradiction that I have never faced anyone as fierce or capable as that knight.
On the other hand, the fearless vampire hunters—though clearly organized and violent—were Triple-A ball compared to the knight’s major league status. Sure, the team downstairs was brutal, but they were absurdly clumsy. I’m pretty good in a fight, but I was unarmed when I stepped into the house, and I won this one too easily. They were not exactly amateurs, but they sure as hell weren’t very high up on the professional food chain. If they hunted the Red Knights I wonder what the win-loss ratio was. If this was Vegas I’d bet the farm on the knights for a shutout.
Now, my friend the rat-bastard Rasouli was a third team.
Violin and whoever she worked for were a fourth.
Could I make an argument for any of them being the same team? Hard to say, because I had no idea who was lying to me and who was telling me the truth.
The knight clearly wanted the flash drive and had no love for Rasouli. That seemed obvious. Violin was willing to work with Rasouli to set up the meet this morning, but she said that she considered him to be a spitty place on the sidewalk. She knew about the knights. The knight knew about Arklight, and so did Violin, and she tried to scare the bejesus out of me by saying that my even knowing that name could be fatal. She also warned me away from the knights. The bastards downstairs knew about the knights but so far they hadn’t mentioned anything about Rasouli, the flash drive, Arklight, the Book of Shadows, the Saladin Codex, or the nukes.
And on top of all that, were any of these teams the ones who planted the nukes?
If the nukes were even real.
My head was starting to spin. What would help me fill in the blanks?
I thought about Krystos and the Romanian guy. I looked at the dead bodies and the tools that had been used on them and some very ugly thoughts began forming in my head. The Civilized Man in my head cried out in protest. We didn’t do that kind of thing. The Warrior was grinning and sharpening his knife. He was all for it. I looked to the Cop for the voice of reason, but he kept looking out of my eyes at the innocent couple who had been torn apart.
There was a clean sheet on the bed, and I pulled it off and covered the murdered couple. I don’t know why: it wouldn’t matter to them; it wouldn’t make any of it better. I tried to tell myself that it was out of courtesy and respect, or a token act to afford them some measure of dignity even after this kind of death.
That sounded nice, but it was bullshit.
I couldn’t bear to look at them. If I turned away I knew I’d still see them that way in my mind. If I covered them, then that would be my last memory of them. Or so I hoped. Any lingering regrets I might have had for shooting Iñigo drained away and left no trace.
I turned away and searched the upstairs for weapons and found nothing that provided any answers. So I stole one of Mr. Mouradipour’s clean shirts from a hall closet. In the bathroom I washed the blood off my face and throat, ran fingers through my hair, and took a moment to look at the blue eyes in the mirror. They were filled with doubts and questions.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked the man in the mirror. He had no answers at all, so I went back downstairs.
I found Ghost standing in the living room staring at Krystos, who stared back as if mesmerized. I clicked my tongue and Ghost looked at me with a strange expression in his brown eyes. He was not trembling as much as before, and there was more wolf than shepherd in the look he gave me. Maybe it was the smell of fresh blood or the sight of wounded prey. Or maybe the stress had pushed him into a different head space.
“Ghost,” I said, and for a moment he did nothing except stare.
I took a step toward him. It’s a pack leader move, challenging and demanding. He would either back down or go for me.
“Down!” I ordered.
And, with only the slightest hesitation, he lay down. He didn’t roll. I wasn’t asking that of him. But he obeyed my order.
I squatted between Ghost and Krystos. I don’t know if the Greek had participated in the horrors upstairs, or if he even knew about it, but he was part of this team. Apparently the leader of the team, and that put the whole thing on him as far as I was concerned. He could read those thoughts from my expression. He read other things too.
He began to cry.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
CIA Safe House #11
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 12:59 p.m.
I stared at Krystos for a long time without speaking. Twenty, thirty seconds. It always feels longer when you’re holding the low cards. He may have been a tough guy when he had a gun and a crew, but when it came to toughing it out with me, he was holding four low cards and a joker.
Silence and patience were my cards while I waited for him to break.
“P-please…” he said in a hoarse whisper. “For the love of God.”
“Is that what you are, Krystos? A man of God? A true believer?”
“Yes.”
“Your friends, too?”
He glanced around at the dead. “Yes.”
“What’s that mean exactly, being a ‘man of God.’ To you, I mean.”
The word was a tough one for him but he came up with him. “Ordained.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re a minister?”
He shook his head. “Priest.”
“Bullshit. What about going to hell for torture and murder?”
Krystos raised his bound wrists and nodded toward his left arm. “Sleeve,” he said.
I pushed his sleeve up and there was tattoo of a cross with Latin words written in an arch above and below it. Above was
AD EXTIRPANDA
Below the cross
EXURGE D ET JUDICA CAUSAM TUAM
“What’s that?”
“Permission,” he said.
When I did not respond, he said something that I pretty much never expected to hear anywhere outside of a Dan Brown novel or an old episode of Monty Python.
“The Holy Inquisition.”
Interlude Six
Fortress of Alamut
Alborz Mountains, Northern Iran.
June 1192 C.E.
Hassan ibn Sabbah sat on a couch that was draped in rich fabrics. Pillows littered the stairs of the dais on which the couch sat. Two warriors stood at the foot of the dais, naked swords laid across their naked arms, their faces as hard and unmoving as stone. The scent of hashish wafted through the chamber and out onto the breeze where it was whipped away high above the mountains.
A carpet lolled out like a great tongue, rippling down the stairs and stretching across the long reception chamber. Sewn into the fabric with delicate skill were fantastical battles. Eagles attacked dragons and tore them to pieces; desert djinn ripped the hearts from crusaders. It had been a gift from Ibn Sabbah’s much missed old friend, the mathematician and poet Omar Khayyám. How Ibn Sabbah wished that his friend had lived to see this day. To see what Ibn Sabbah had accomplished.
He accepted a cup of juice from a servant who then bowed himself away from the dais, and as he sipped Ibn Sabbah studied the fifty men who stood in silent rows on either side of the runner carpet.
His fida’i.
His assassins.
His sacred killers. Guardians of the secret shared with him by his cousin, Ibrahim al-Asiri. Guardians, too, of the faith. Men who would be used to spill the blood of the infidel in the cleverest plan Sabbah had ever heard. Preserving
the word of God through the spilling of blood.
A door at the far end of the chamber opened and Ibn Sabbah’s chief advisor entered, followed by six bare-chested guards. Between each guard staggered a man in shackles. The prisoners were freshly washed and wore simple but clean clothes. Ibn Sabbah did not allow prisoners to be mistreated, and he absolutely forbade any unwashed person to enter this room or draw near to that precious carpet. The rows of assassins watched dispassionately as the prisoners were brought to the cleared space to the right of the dais and well away from the carpet. Ibn Sabbah nodded to his advisor who produced a key and unlocked the shackles.
Ibn Sabbah studied the three men. Two of them stared at the floor, terrified, confused, and lost. The third stared up at Ibn Sabbah with the defiance sometimes seen in the eyes of a man who is doomed but who wants to spit in death’s eye. A brave man, which was doubly impressive because this man had seen other prisoners taken from the cells, day after day, and probably heard their screams. This man knew that none of those prisoners ever returned to the dungeons. This one has heart, Ibn Sabbah mused.
The advisor nodded to the guards who trotted over and laid their swords at the feet of the prisoners.
“Pick them up,” ordered Ibn Sabbah.
Only the brave man raised his eyes to Ibn Sabbah. The man was a Sunni with a full beard and gray eyes. “Why? So you can snigger as fifty men cut us to pieces? I spit on such cowardice.”
He made as if to do so, but Ibn Sabbah’s voice stopped him.
“You have a chance to live,” he said. “Do not squander it on an insult that you cannot take back.”
Ibn Sabbah snapped his fingers and a single fida’i assassin stepped out of the line and padded silently to stand facing the prisoners. He carried no sword and had only a small curved dagger in his sash. The brave prisoner stood with lips pursed, but he did not spit. He eyed the assassin and then looked again at Ibn Sabbah.
“This is not a trick,” said Ibn Sabbah. “I make you an offer. Take up those swords and face my man. If you kill or incapacitate him, then you may go free. I will give you each a camel and a pouch of gold coins. Before Allah I swear that I tell the truth.”