The Golden Vendetta

  Becca shook her head. “It’s so late. My eyes are tired.”

  “All of me is tired, but what else is there to do?”

  The two friends were sitting cross-legged on Becca’s bed in the bedroom they shared in their two conjoined “suites” in a so-so motel on the outskirts of Tampa. The Copernicus diary, Becca’s red notebook, and Lily’s secure tablet were spread out between them. Becca’s parents were sleeping in one of the second suite’s two bedrooms, her sister Maggie in the other.

  This was the latest hiding place Terence Ackroyd had moved them into because of the Order’s threats against their families. The truth was, however, that there hadn’t been a direct threat against the Benson family (which was who they were now). His witness-protection program was working well. Maybe too well.

  Terence called it Code Red whenever they had to pack up and move. Each time they did, Becca hoped it would be because the relic hunt had started again. Each time, she was disappointed. She’d waited for something to tell them that Galina Krause was blazing across the world searching for the next relic. But the creepily young and kind-of-beautiful murderer had simply vanished.

  There’d been no Code Red in the weeks since they’d come to Tampa. Becca felt she was hanging in midair, waiting for something. What she’d learned in London from Copernicus himself—that time travel caused unimaginably horrible events to happen—seemed more and more like an old memory.

  Still, the worst part of the last two months was the Lily situation.

  Her parents had totally broken apart, and her family was angry and silent and in shreds. It tore Becca’s heart to see her friend so hurt. Lily was damaged much more, of course, but she wouldn’t show it. Lily was Lily, bright and perfect, and that’s all she wanted people to see. Becca would have been crying all the time.

  You’d actually never have expected them to be able to stand each other. They were as different as lobster and peanut butter. Becca was overly booky; Lily was way too electronically connected. Becca was moody and quiet; Lily was totally out there and quick and talky and funny. At least before her parents started throwing things.

  The breakup of Lily’s parents—after fifteen years—was inconceivable to everybody. Becca didn’t know what to say or do for her friend except to be with her as much as she could. And that was the best part of the Lily situation.

  To keep both their minds off the breakup and the slump in the hunt for the relics, Becca had delved deeper and harder into Copernicus’s secret diary, trying to decipher several coded passages dated directly after Nicolaus left Serpens with Maxim Grek in Russia.

  Lily, meanwhile, had created a database of all the tragedies that had happened around the world since the beginning of March, when the relic hunt began.

  Because she and the others frequently had to discard their phones, they’d all begun storing critical data remotely on one of the secure Ackroyd computers in New York. This newest database contained data on several strange incidents of suspected time travel in Florida and Spain, the destruction of an office building in Rio, the murder of a Swedish diplomat, the sinking of a tanker in the eastern Mediterranean, and no fewer than three midnight thefts from famous art museums in Europe and Asia.

  “All right,” Becca whispered. “Eyes refreshed. Let’s get back to it. Maybe this time, we’ll discover something real.”

  Grateful for any distraction from the divorce, Lily dragged her tablet over, swiped it on, and wiggled her fingers, ready to enter search terms. If she didn’t have what it took to keep her family together, at least she was good at this.

  Trying to sound as eager as possible, she said, “Go.”

  “Okay, so. Remember I said that the diary pages right after the last Serpens entry were written in English? Well, I passed over it before because it’s way too odd if you read it straight, but now I think there’s a code here. Just listen.”

  While packing I watch Hans bundling up the books and maps of Russia that I no longer need. “Hans, go in the downstairs cupboard to find the map of Italy, if you please. And on your way collect my red shaving bowl. My poor beard’s too long.”

  “Will we ship the bowl, too?”

  “Perhaps later. In one short hour we meet with those who battle for the rights of the poor. We have our orders, Hans. We must be fleet to make it there.”

  “It goes on for another page like that,” Becca said.

  For a secret diary, it wasn’t what Lily expected to hear. “It’s so not relicky.”

  “Is that a word?”

  “I’m a groundbreaker. What’s that mark?” Lily pointed to a tiny blot of ink positioned under the last word of the last line of the passage.

  Becca reached for a second pair of reading glasses—the girl had, like, a dozen of them, all bought since she experienced those weird blackouts in London—and slid them on over the first pair.

  “Not a look, by the way,” said Lily.

  “Thanks for the warning. I don’t know what this thing is, but I’m thinking it’s just an ink blot or defect on the page.”

  “It could be more,” said Lily. “We live in Code World, after all.”

  “I’d need a magnifying glass to make sure.”

  “Really?” said Lily. “Or you could just snap a picture of it on your phone and enlarge it.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Gosh, you people need me!” Lily took a photo and enlarged it. The “ink blot” turned out to be nothing of the sort. It was a triangle, with numbers inside it.

  “Five-five-five,” said Becca. “Better than six-six-six, the devil’s number.”

  “Is it the cipher?” asked Lily. “If I’m using the word right.”

  “You are. What do you mean?”

  “Well, maybe the number’s a key to the passage above it. Maybe Nicolaus isn’t writing about packing junk for a trip at all.”

  “How is it a key?”

  Lily sighed. “I don’t know! What are five and five and five? Fifteen. So maybe the fifteenth word means something. I’ll do it.” She scanned the passage. “The fifteenth word is I. I did it!”

  “Girls!” Mrs. Moore hissed through the open door from the other suite. “It’s midnight. Go to sleep!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Benson,” Lily said, then whispered, “I did solve it, didn’t I?”

  “You didn’t,” whispered Becca. “But maybe you have something. Maybe it’s not every fifteenth word, but it could be the fifth, then the tenth, and then the fifteenth, like that. Or maybe every fifth word, just repeating five, five, five all the way.”

  “If that turns out to be right, I still solved it,” said Lily.

  Becca underlined every fifth word in the passage as written in her notebook.

  While packing, I watch Hans bundling up those books and maps of Russia that I no longer need. “Hans, go in the downstairs cupboard to find the map of Italy, if you please. And on your way collect my red shaving bowl. My poor beard’s too long.”

  “Will we ship the bowl, too?”

  “Perhaps later. In one short hour we meet with those who battle for the rights of the poor. We have our orders, Hans. We must be fleet to make it there.”

  Every fifth word yielded something quite different than a story of books and bowls and maps. The text appeared to break into two distinct sentences.

  Hans and I go to Italy on red beard’s ship. Later we battle the orders fleet.

  “Whoa!” Lily said. “Bec, this could break the hunt wide open.”

  On the surface, the next passage appeared to be about a set of horseshoes for Hans Novak’s new horse. Put together, the underlined fifth words told a very different story.

  I visit my old friend in his workshop and we talk.

  “The sun does not move?” he says. “Hmm. I learn something every day.”

  I beg him to be the silver relic’s Guardian.

  “I am far too old,” he says. “But I’ll craft a beautiful place to hide it!”

  “Becca, we are getting so close!” Lily whispered
. “Who’s this old workshop guy? Hurry up, decode the next passage!”

  “That’s just it,” Becca said. “The next several pages are scribbled over with some kind of silver stuff—ink or paint or something. There are no words at all, just lines going in every direction. Except that the pages are worn and smudged, as if someone read them over and over, but you can’t see any words.”

  Lily leaned over the diary. The page shimmered under the nightstand lamp. “Whoa. I feel a little dizzy just looking at it.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  “So maybe there are words written in invisible ink—”

  There was a sudden screeching of tires in the parking lot below.

  Then the sound of several doors squealing open at the same time and the thump of quick footsteps across the lot.

  “Lily!” Becca whispered. “It’s Code Red! I can’t believe it—it’s Code Red!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lily slid all the books and papers from the bed into Becca’s new super-tough go-bag, then snatched up her own while Becca flew into the other room to wake her sister.

  “Mags, we’re moving again.”

  Maggie slid out of bed half-asleep and pulled on the clothes that Becca had gathered for her. “Has Galina Sauerkraut come back?”

  “We don’t know,” Becca said. “We just have to go.”

  It was frightening to move in the middle of the night, and although Lily and Becca had signed on for it, the others hadn’t. Lily switched off the nightstand light and peeked out the shades. A large black Escalade was parked sideways in the hotel lot. Terence? She waited by the hall door for the signal. A minute went by, another half minute . . . Then it came, a persistent tapping on the door.

  Five knocks, two knocks, four knocks. A pause. Then again.

  The sequence—five, two, four—meant the fifth month, twenty-fourth day: May 24, the day Copernicus died. Becca had wanted to add the year—one, five, four, three, for 1543—but Lily had argued that by the time someone got all those knocks out, the bad guys would be all over them. So they’d settled for five, two, four. Lily answered with five slow taps, one for each of the occupants in the suite.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Benson,” she hissed, “time to move again—”

  “Please let Terence in,” Becca’s mother answered.

  Lily pulled open the hall door. A familiar middle-aged man stood there, rumpled but alert and friendly. Terence Ackroyd had dark hair that was graying at the temples and a pair of bright green eyes blinking behind glasses.

  “You’ve been tracked down,” he said softly. “And there’s something else.”

  Becca came out of Maggie’s room, slinging her sister’s extra bag over her shoulder.

  “We’ll be okay,” Lily said to Maggie. “We’re pros at this, and I am seriously ready to move on. The AC here is not what I call AC.”

  “Terence?” said Mrs. Moore, carrying a large satchel. “Is it—”

  “Serious? Yes,” he said, lending a hand with the bags. “I’ve just received a message from Roald. The Kaplans, excuse me, the Parkers, are on the move to France. Down the stairs quickly.”

  “Are they all right?” asked Becca.

  “Tell us they’re all right,” Lily added.

  “They will be,” Terence said under his breath to the two of them, “once you two get there.”

  Just the way those words sounded made Lily want to burst into a shout, or a scream, or a sob, or something to show how eager she was to get away from her own life, no matter how serious or dangerous it might be.

  Terence trotted down the outside stairs two at a time, tucking his shirt in as he went. The night was warm and breezy, and the air sweeping in reminded Lily of Uncle Roald’s house in Austin. It was where Wade and Darrell and she and Becca had put together the first clues about the Copernicus Legacy.

  Crouching low between the cars, they ran across the parking lot to the Escalade. An armed man popped out of the front and opened the doors and closed them as soon as the family was inside.

  They were soon passing through streets of houses that reminded Lily of her old neighborhood, where she and Becca lived before the Teutonic Order started harassing them. Lily tried not to look, but she caught sight of a house that looked like hers. She cringed to see it. It was dark and appeared empty, like hers was now. Was that because of the Order? Sure. But it would have been empty anyway.

  Twenty minutes later, Becca watched the van pull into the parking lot of the John F. Germany Public Library. The dark bulk of the building, lifeless in the middle of the night, would have been intimidating, frightening, even, but in the few weeks the “Bensons” had been in Tampa, Becca had come to know nearly every room in the library, from the book repair on the bottom floor to the most isolated study carrel on the top. She had already spent many hours in it and had come to love it as her second home, like her favorite, the Faulk Central Library in Austin.

  There was a faint glimmer of light coming from one of the windows on the ground floor.

  “What’s going on?” Becca’s father asked. “Terence, we have a right to know.”

  Terence turned off the engine of the Cadillac. “You do. I wish I could tell you. But I don’t know much myself. It looks like Galina is on the move again.” He motioned to the light coming from a ground-floor window of the library. “A woman, a very old woman, has crossed half the world to get to you.”

  “To us?” said Becca’s mother.

  Terence shook his head. “To the girls.”

  “Who is she?” asked Lily. “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know, and she wouldn’t say or can’t say. Not to me, anyway. As near as I can determine, she made her way here without any sort of legal identification. How she did that, I can’t tell you. How she knew you were here, I can’t tell you either. She was ambushed in Tampa by agents of the Order. My men intervened and brought her here on the way to a hospital. We think she might be a Guardian, but there’s no proof. All she said was ‘Becca. Lily. Becca. Lily.’ So I fetched you. I pray she’s still alive.”

  They piled out of the SUV, and Terence sent a text from his phone. A few seconds later, the rear library doors buzzed and clicked. He pulled them open, and everyone entered a yellow-lit hallway.

  In the repair room at the end of the hall, a woman dressed in a swirl of black robes, the lower half of which were wrinkled and smeared with blood, lay supine on a worktable. A hood obscured most of her face, but Becca could see that the woman was pale, thin-lipped, and very old, more than eighty, possibly more than ninety. She had a bandage taped hastily across one side of her face. Her hands and skin were as white as snow, except for a lot of blood smeared on her fingers. Blood, and what looked like silver paint . . . or ink.

  Attending her was a young man in scrubs. Terence introduced him as a friend whose name they didn’t need to know. He wore a stethoscope around his neck. He looked at them all, then shook his head. “Not much I can do here but keep her stable. She needs to get to the hospital, stat.”

  “Five minutes,” said Terence. “Girls.”

  They moved to the table and bent down to the woman.

  “Hello?” said Lily. “We’re here. Lily and Becca. It’s us.”

  The old woman opened her wrinkled eyelids. Her lips trembled. She mumbled something softly. Both girls bent down closer. “Carlo told me . . . you are here.”

  “Carlo?” said Lily. “You know Carlo Nuovenuto?”

  It was Carlo who had given the Copernicus diary to the children. He was one of the very first Guardians they had ever met, though his whereabouts right now were a mystery.

  “I . . . Guardian,” she said. “Mother . . .”

  “Mother?” said Becca. “Are you Carlo’s mother?”

  “No! Mother!” the woman croaked. “We stay, we always stay!” It didn’t make sense, but Becca vowed to remember every word, every syllable. The woman shook, then held the girls by their wrists, lifted her head up, and through her convulsive coughing shouted as loud
ly as she could:

  “La harrrr! Ghh . . . harr!”

  As soon as the sounds left her lips, she fell limp to the table, and her hands loosened their grip. Her eyes lost their fire and flickered closed. The doctor leaned over, pressed his stethoscope to the woman’s sunken breast, and pulled out his phone. “We need to go. Now.”

  Terence nodded to the armed man who’d ridden with them. “Please help her into the doctor’s car.”

  Becca let out a long breath, felt her chest heave. Maggie was whimpering in the corner, cowering with her parents.

  “What did she mean?” Lily asked softly. “She’s a mother and ‘la har’?”

  Becca had learned—from Copernicus himself in London—that the hiding of the relics for hundreds of years had depended on a complex, and sometimes seemingly random, collection of codes and riddles and hints. Most Guardians had to be kept in the dark, for the greater security of the Legacy.

  “That’s a mystery for later,” Terence said. “Look, the Teutonic Order is closing in. I have a plan to throw them off, but it requires that you split up—”

  “No!” said Maggie, lunging at Becca, wrapping her arms around her. “No.”

  “Maggie, I’m sorry,” Terence said. “The girls are suddenly needed, and our escape will work only if we send you off in different directions. Not for long—”

  “No, not again,” said Becca’s mother. “We won’t allow it.”

  Becca wanted to feel the same way, but she honestly felt she couldn’t afford to. As much as she loved her family, if Copernicus had taught her anything in London, it was that nothing was more important than finding the relics of his Eternity Machine. If only to keep them from Galina Krause.

  “Lily and I are getting these clues for a reason,” Becca said to her parents.

  “I know, dear,” said her father, “but you’re not leaving us again. You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s very dangerous, I agree,” said Terence. “And I know it’s difficult to hear, but I’m afraid we don’t have a choice.” He gave the girls a grim glance. “An hour ago, Paul Ferrere called me. Apparently, the theft of an old Polish manuscript two months ago may be directly related to a fatal plane crash in Poland at the same time, both of which are connected to the search for the relics. The Order is hatching something very big. The Copernicus diary is vital to stopping them, and Becca and Lily are vital, too. I will personally accompany them both to Paris. You’ll all meet up in a matter of days, I assure you. Becca and Lily are necessary to the success of this project. They are, in a word, needed.”