She was about to squeeze his hand, but he pulled away. She let her hands drop to her lap. ‘It would be foolish of us not to be concerned. We’re working against our hearts. But Luca has the lyre and we’re trusting that he won’t hand it over. Orion has the Sacred Chord safely hidden in Scotland. According to your last meeting with Vaughn, the Conjuror is safe too. And of course, the Inquisitor is still bound in his painting in the Vatican’s secret vault.’
‘That’s what’s worrying me,’ signed Zach. ‘If Cecilia is planning to open Chaos and raise the Watchers during tonight’s concert in Rome, then she needs everything in place. Right?’
Orianna nodded.
‘So she either believes she’s going to get everything together in time, or she has something else planned.’
Something flashed across Orianna’s face. Zach tasted pineapple and vinegar and for the first time ever felt a soupçon of fear from his mother.
‘Perhaps we need to alert Vaughn,’ Orianna said. ‘Just in case I’m wrong about the First Watcher still being bound in his portrait.’
‘We can’t risk another meeting,’ Zach pointed out. ‘Especially after what Cecilia did to Victor.’
Orianna sighed. ‘We also don’t really have time for another meeting. Cecilia expects us at the Vatican’s private salon in four hours, and we still have to get to Rome. All we can do is warn Vaughn online.’
Zach swiped fast to another hologram and sent an encrypted message to Vaughn.
First Watcher may be unbound.
He looked back out the window, and focused his attention on the family on the Segways. They’d made it to the entrance of Kensington Palace, but were just realizing that it was closing for the day. Even from this distance, their disappointment tasted like rancid butter.
His phone vibrated.
‘That was fast,’ said Orianna in surprise.
Zach pushed his blond hair from his face and stared at the screen. ‘It’s Matt. Again.’
Orianna sighed. ‘Tell him to meet us in Rome in three hours. We may need all the help we can get.’
Zach sent the email, wondering how Matt would respond. They hadn’t spoken in months. He glanced down at Luca on the hologram.
‘Shit,’ he said in alarm.
The hologram flickered for a second. Zach wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his jeans and keyed in a string of code that ran across the hologram in a mash-up of Latin, Greek and Asci. Instantly, a paragraph of similar code fluttered in the centre of the screen, as if an imaginary source of air was blowing on it from inside. Orianna stood behind Zach and they watched the lambent line of code move around like quicksilver.
‘What’s he done?’ Orianna said sharply.
‘I don’t know,’ Zach signed after a moment. ‘But air traffic is being diverted to Dublin and Glasgow. I think Heathrow just went into lockdown.’ He checked another screen and frowned. ‘Callum’s on the move too.’
‘Find him,’ Orianna ordered.
69.
From a Window
A couple of hours earlier, Callum had dropped from his second window in as many days, sprinting across a manicured garden and through a gate with the names Violet and Anthea Kitten on a brass plate. He raced down Raphael Terrace until he saw a familiar Underground sign and headed in that direction.
Outside Earl’s Court tube station, Callum looked in his wallet. He had no cash, but he did have an emergency credit card his parents had given him when he left for university. He hoped they’d kept it active. At an RBS cash machine, he maxed out what he could withdraw. He knew it was risky, but he needed to get back to Rome. He would not be cut out of whatever shit was going down in the Eternal City just because he wasn’t some kind of Harry Potter.
He took the Piccadilly Line directly to Terminal 5 and headed upstairs towards the archipelago of check-in counters. Since he had no luggage, he went directly to security, hoping that news of Victor Moretti’s murder had stayed in Rome.
August was peak travel time for Brits to Europe. Callum tucked himself into the line behind a chatty family, and used their exuberance to lose himself while still keeping his eyes on the police and security personnel watching the slow-moving lines. When he came out the other side of the line, he headed straight to the gate.
Inside Terminal 5 Callum threaded his way through the crowd towards the great glass walls that looked out on to the gates and the runways beyond. He paused before taking the escalator down to the gate, and dropped into Waterstones to get a book for the flight. That’s when he noticed a vast shadow sweeping over a nearby runway. It moved like a plane that was coming in too low and too fast to make its landing. A few travellers screamed. One or two began to run back towards security. The silhouette blocked out the sunlight as it swooped closer, drenching the gates in darkness. It was coming towards the great glass wall, and it showed no signs of stopping.
Callum felt as if he was underwater. Everything was muted and distant. The terminal lights flickered. A row of light bulbs on the roof exploded, showering sparks and glass on passengers below, who covered their heads and ran.
70.
Freebird
Luca swerved before hitting the glass wall and landed on the roof of the terminal. He adjusted his position so that he faced the runway, and dropped again. His feet hit the tarmac three times before he began his transformation, his massive wings opening behind him like a black cloak stitched with silver threads of light, lifting him off the ground, his body expanding mid-air, morphing into his angelic form. Directly ahead of him, a wide-body four-engine Airbus A380 was accelerating into its take-off.
Luca laughed as the backdraft from the Airbus rushed over him in a fine mist. The plane’s nose tilted and its engines roared. There was just enough space between its tail and the runway for Luca to swoop beneath it. The plane banked into a shockingly steep turn, rolling left and right before stabilizing and climbing into its original flight path.
Luca roared, the sound like thunder as he shot above the plane into the heavens, the smell of burning fuel and hot rubber filling him, invigorating and intoxicating him.
Who had his loyalty? His father and the Camarilla? Or Sebina and Orion?
No more games. Time was running out.
71.
Leaving on a Jet Plane
At Heathrow the power went out and the emergency lights kicked in. The entire terminal shook violently, knocking a decorative steel beam onto one directly beneath it, leaving both balancing precariously in the air. The space became a log jam of people, all fighting to get out. Airport workers caught outside had either rolled under luggage carts or crashed through the ground floor doors. Alarms were blaring and the lights at every gate were flashing red. A plane that had been taxiing towards a nearby gate had screeched to a stop, impaling itself on the tail of another plane.
Callum stood, transfixed by the great swooping silhouette, which was growing smaller by the minute. Whatever it was had moving wings that fluttered in the dimming light.
Two strong hands grabbed Callum’s shoulders and pulled him back. Callum pivoted on his heels, lifted an elbow and jabbed at his attacker who ducked, missed the point of Callum’s elbow, and used his own to stab Callum’s throat. On his knees gasping for breath, Callum looked up. It was the young man from Villa Orsini. Zach.
Callum opened his mouth, but Zach simply glared. The message was clear.
No time for talking.
He yanked Callum to his feet and rushed him through the rapidly emptying terminal. Making a sudden swerve, he pulled Callum through an unmarked door into a stairwell. The door alarm started up, fighting to make itself heard above the general cacophony.
‘I’m going back to Rome,’ said Callum stubbornly.
Zach shot him a look of mingled amusement and pity. How exactly? his gestures said. It was a problem Callum was trying not to think about.
The stairwell was empty and smelled of petrol and piss. Zach dragged him down the stairs in leaps and bounds. At the bottom of three flights
of stairs, they barrelled through a door. The petrol-scented air hit Callum like a blow. They were out on the tarmac, on the far side of the terminal. The loading zone was empty, the sky lit up with the glow of emergency vehicles surrounding the airport. A handful of helicopters were strafing the scene with searchlights. Callum managed to keep on Zach’s heels as they crashed through two more locked doors, setting off more alarms as they went, until they exited four gates away from where they started.
They were in a hangar with two private jets parked and empty. One of the jets was taxiing out of the open hangar doors with its own door hanging open like a loose tooth. A woman with long black hair swirling around her head was beckoning at them from the slowly moving plane. Zach reached the lowered steps first and scrambled inside without a backwards glance. Callum jumped, hitting his shins on the steps. The woman grabbed his hand, her upper body strength surprising Callum. She pulled him inside before hauling up the door and locking it. She thumped hard on the cock-pit door. The plane accelerated, bounced out on to the nearby runway and took off.
Breathless, Callum scrambled up from the floor of the tiny galley. ‘Are we going back to Rome?’ he demanded.
No one answered. Callum shot a look at Zach, who had already buckled himself into a cream leather seat. Zach grinned back, unperturbed. Slowly, Callum took a seat as far away from Zach as possible, clicked his seatbelt and closed his eyes.
The plane was almost vertical as it rose into the evening sky. After a few minutes it levelled out. Callum glanced around. The cabin had seating for six in swivelling reclining seats, a flat screen TV and a private bathroom at the rear. Everything was accessorized with mahogany and silver accents, including the woman staring at him. Her skin was brown, sweat beading across her sharp cheekbones, a cuff of silver bracelets half-covering a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. She was about his mum’s age, Callum guessed, and she was pissed off.
The woman leaned forward and put her hands on his knees, squeezing her fingers under his kneecaps. Callum flinched from the pain that shot up to his groin. She released the pressure briefly.
‘You shouldn’t have run,’ she said.
Callum felt like his brain was running two minutes behind his body. He turned to Zach, leaning over his laptop watching some kind of hologram weather map with a storm front moving quickly across it. Zach didn’t look up, so Callum turned back.
‘Who are you?’
‘Orianna.’
The woman let go of his legs and sat back. The plane lurched in turbulence and Callum gripped the armrests as the jet steadied itself.
‘What the hell was that?’ he said. ‘Back at the airport? It had wings.’
‘That was the reason we needed you to stay hidden in Raphael Terrace.’
Callum’s brain was a waterfall of questions. ‘You both work for Signora Orsini?’
Orianna poured two fingers of whisky from a crystal decanter. She handed one to Callum, who shot the liquid and refused another, taking up a bottle of water instead. Zach hadn’t lifted his head from the storm front he appeared to be tracking on his screen.
Orianna sipped the whisky, a disconcerting smile on her face. ‘You got yourself involved in a world of crazy, didn’t you?’ she said presently.
‘What happened back at the airport?’ Callum repeated.
‘A Nephilim happened. A creature, half-human, half-angel, named Lucius Ferrante. Likes to call himself Luca.’
Callum thought about what Signora Orsini had told him, about angels and portals to Chaos. This was a world of crazy for sure. ‘I’m thinking he’s not on our side?’
Orianna sighed. ‘Luca’s on his own side, and that makes him as dangerous as the men and women he purports to serve.’
‘The Camarilla?’
She looked a little more approving. ‘Glad you’ve been paying attention.’
The plane banked into a steep turn before correcting itself. Callum spilled his water. He glimpsed a series of rapid hand movements from Zach. Orianna’s face paled.
‘What did Zach say?’ said Callum, his gut clenching. He was afraid of the answer.
‘Luca has noticed that we are following him.’
‘Why the hell are we following an angel?’ shouted Callum.
‘A Nephilim,’ said Orianna, her eyes back on Callum. ‘There’s a difference.’
Zach was intent on his laptop again, a faint flickering glow rising from its screen. The plane rocked violently, popping open the overhead bins. Callum looked anxiously out at the sky aglow in pink and orange.
A great emerald eye appeared in the porthole window. Orianna ducked as Callum reared back. The plane flipped into a roll, sending anything not fastened down flying around the cabin. Callum slammed back, then forward. He ducked seconds before the decanter flew against the headrest of his seat. He glimpsed an impossibly vast black and silver wing.
‘He’s playing with us,’ said Orianna.
‘Can’t you cast a spell, or draw, or whatever you do and get us out of here?’
‘I am not a witch.’ Orianna seemed amused. ‘Besides, what would you have me draw?’
‘Parachutes?’
Zach looked ghostly, his body wraithlike and surrounded in the glow of his computer screen. The plane creaked loudly, dipped again. Callum bit his tongue. Tasted blood. Outside the window the sunset was a screaming orange.
Suddenly the plane pitched again. This time it didn’t pull up. Through the fear and nausea, Callum glimpsed Zach. He was completely engulfed in the light from his computer, man and machine as one.
72.
Wind Beneath My Wings
To get through the gut-wrenching terror of the plunging plane, Callum summoned an image of Pietra smiling at him, a pencil stuck behind her ear, her reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, a mug of coffee raised at her lips. Grief swelled through his panic. He let his tears flow.
The plane was in a steep dive. The engines were squealing. And then – they were not. Everything shook for a minute or two before the plane levelled out. Callum inhaled deeply and opened his eyes, his nail marks visible on the leather arm rest.
Zach was trembling, teeth chattering, fingers limp on his computer. Both he and his machine were covered in a sheen of pixels as if someone had dropped a glitter bomb on them.
‘What happened?’ croaked Callum. ‘How—’
‘Zach became the plane and out-manoeuvred Luca.’
It was such an extraordinary reply that Callum almost laughed. ‘How is that possible?’
‘His supernatural imagination speaks to him in numbers and codes and in patterns even I don’t understand and I’ve known a lot of powerful beings in my day.’ Orianna reached out and touched Zach’s hair, stroking it back from his damp, spangled forehead. ‘It is how he animates.’
Callum rubbed his aching temples. ‘You still haven’t said where we’re going.’
‘Rome of course.’
Something sparked through Callum. He thought perhaps it was relief, but it was hard to tell. Leaning forward, Orianna put her hands on his knees again, and squeezed.
‘Someone will meet us when we land,’ she said. ‘You’ll take them to where you’ve hidden the map of the Tree of Life so we can destroy its roots.’
Callum flinched from the pressure. ‘What about you and Zach?’
‘We are expected elsewhere. More whisky?’
*
Sparring with Zach and the Orion plane had given Luca an unexpected thrill. He liked to improvize. It was one of the abilities where he felt his humanity and his Nephilim nature intersected with grace.
He landed silently, cloaked in dusk in his courtyard in Trastevere. He had a concert to prepare for. He headed inside, thoughtfully rubbing the almost imperceptible bump under the skin on his forearm where Zach had implanted the tracking device. Not for the first time in recent days, he was impressed at the young man’s ingenuity and courage.
Rome
73.
Little Red Corvette
Inside a private hangar at Rome’s da Vinci airport, Callum spotted two men: the younger one dressed in torn jeans hanging loose on his hips and a vintage Dylan T-shirt, and the older one in leather trousers and thigh-high boots, looking like he’d stepped out of a Rembrandt painting. Callum eyed the Rembrandt guy with some misgivings, noting the dagger tucked under the waistband of his trousers.
The two men started towards the plane, but the younger one stopped as Zach emerged from the cabin. The air bristled with something indefinable before they walked into each other’s arms.
‘I wouldn’t mind being part of this,’ remarked the Rembrandt guy.
‘In your dreams, Michele,’ came the reply from the dude in the Dylan T-shirt.
‘Callum, meet Matt Calder and Michele Merisi da Caravaggio the artist,’ said Orianna. ‘Close your mouth,’ she added in an undertone. ‘The flies in Rome are a menace.’
Callum recovered himself. ‘Caravaggio?’ he said, a little weakly. ‘As in, you know, Caravaggio?’
The artist bowed. ‘You’re adorable,’ he said. ‘A little stupid, but adorable.’
Orianna reached for Matt, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘You’re very like your father, you know.’ Callum saw Matt wince. ‘Before you ask, your sister and our Conjuror are still in America. I’m hoping they’ll stay there until this is all over. You know what to do, Matt?’
Matt nodded. ‘Vaughn filled us in on everything.’ Orianna seemed satisfied.
‘Come on, Zach,’ she said, gesturing. ‘We need to go. We’re expected at the Vatican.’
Callum rubbed his eyes when a Range Rover and a sleek red coupe materialized from nowhere. Matt tucked a sketchpad back into his jeans and opened the passenger door of the SUV, motioning for Callum to get in.
‘Where are we going?’ Callum managed to ask.
‘To wherever you hid the map.’
Zach and Orianna swung away from the hangar towards the Vatican in their low-slung red car as Callum directed Matt to the fastest route to the Spanish Steps and the church where he’d hidden the illustration. Caravaggio was in the back. They drove the SUV as close to the church as possible before the three of them jumped out. The church door was locked, but with a quick animation they were inside.