Black Madonna

25

They decided not to move elsewhere in the city. Though their whereabouts were obviously known, it would be easy enough to trace them if they moved. Michael also pointed out that Claudio was someone they could trust, and he could alert them if strangers came snooping or asking about them. Serrin decided to conduct some rituals to protect them against magical assault. They didn’t know who’d attacked them that morning, but the Jesuit fundamentalists were the most obvious possibility and their mages would hardly be weaklings.

“Now we’ve got to make an active move. Do something to show our man we’re playing his game,” Michael said.

“Like what?” Streak asked. “This is your kind of thing, Michael matey. I just shoot people.”

“Speaking of shooting people” Geraint said with a wince, “when do Juan and Xavier get here?”

“Any time now,” Streak said. “I was right, eh? We’re going to need ‘em.”

“Looks like it.”

Before Michael could return to his deliberations, there was a knock on the door. Streak had his Predator in his hand at once, but Michael waved him away.

“For God’s sake, no assassin is going to knock, Streak.”

“Don’t you sodding believe it,” the elf said, but sat down and reluctantly picked up a magazine and kept the gun leveled behind it as he pretended to be reading. To his disgust, the magazine seemed to be full of lavish illustrations of Italian gardens. Streak had many interests, but gardening was definitely not one of them. If the magazine didn’t have guns, military hardware, or members of the opposite gender in states of undress, he was definitely not interested.

Lucrezia popped her head around the door, her mane of flaming curls as prodigious as ever.

“I come to see about your costumes, Mister Michael,” she said. “And there is a card for you.”

“Thank you very much,” Michael said. He took the card, read it, and his eyes widened. He passed it to Geraint without comment.

“I take the lady separately from you gentlemen?” the woman asked, clearly a little puzzled to find them all crammed together in the same room.

“Perhaps you can measure me and my wife,” Serrin suggested, seeing that Michael obviously wanted to discuss whatever was on the card. The two of them left with Lucrezia for their own bedroom.

“Please be in the square at midnight, when a most interesting event will take place,” Michael read aloud for Streak’s benefit.

“Signed by one ‘Salai’,” Geraint said, looking over his friend’s shoulder.

“Very neat. He was the closest to what might be called an apprentice of Leonardo’s. Traveled with him for many years. As I recall, he was something of an asshole. According to the history books, that is.”

“That seems about right,” Geraint said with feeling. “So this is when he makes another move. The question is what we do until then,” Michael said.

“Whatever it is. it’s got to communicate with our target,” Geraint said.

“That means something public.”

“Post a message on the BBS?”

“That would be logical. I suppose. What do we say?”

“ ‘Mona Lisa wishes to meet Leonardo’?” Streak suggested. “Thats the kind of thing I usually browse.”

“I’m sure it is,” Michael said disapprovingly, “but I hardly think-”

“Maybe it’s not so totally off the wall,” Geraint said. “I mean, it probably should be something like that. It’s got to be jokey, I think. That damnable farce out in the square was supposed to be some kind of entertainment.”

They started to throw ideas around without really getting anywhere, and it was almost a relief when Lucrezia arrived with her catalogue and measuring tape. She dealt with the elf last.

“Watch that inside leg, Signora,” Streak said slyly. “I’m a red-blooded elf in my prime.”

Grinning, not taking offense, she slapped him playfully in the ear. The elf reeled back, a shrill singing tone ringing inside his head.

“Frag me, missus, I wouldn’t want to argue with you for real!” he complained and became as meek as a lamb, politely accepting the costume she suggested for him.

When Lucrezia left, Geraint and Michael burst into the laughter they’d been choking back after the elf’s chastisement.

“Serves you right. I warned you,” Michael sniggered.

“Rakk it, what a right hook,” Streak said as Serrin and Kristen rejoined them.

“Everything gets delivered after lunch,” Serrin said. “What happened to you?” He peered at the elf’s deep red ear.

“Nothing,” Streak mumbled.

“Our Lucrezia disciplined him for being a cheeky bugger,” Michael told Serrin with a smirk. “He’s going to be awfully well behaved for a while.”

“Right.” Serrin grinned. “Now what about business?” They told him what they’d been discussing, then picked up the thread where they’d left off.

“It needs to be something more pointed,” Serrin said. “Oh, by the way, here’s that thing we saw in the square.” He opened the book at the appropriate page and showed them the design for the military machine, which did indeed look extraordinarily like a primitive First World War tank.

“I wonder if we might not try something like asking Salai to attend a supper,” Serrin said. “And maybe call it ‘Mary’s supper’ ”

“You’re thinking of the painting in the square,” Michael said.

“Yes. I’m convinced that the Magdalene is actually the subject of that picture. It’s so obvious when you really look at it.”

“It’s certainly not what it appears to be,” Michael agreed.

“And if we included a line from that apocalyptic essay by Leonardo, the one about the floods, for good measure, we’d show that we understood more now than maybe our man thinks we do.”

“It’s worth a try” Geraint offered.

“We need to post it on as many BBSes as we can and leave a drop,” Michael said. “We can’t know if he’ll be monitoring, but-”

“Surely he must be. If what he does for fun is wipe his traces clean from the Doge’s system, routine BBS scanning ought to be pretty simple,” Geraint said.

Michael sat down with his deck. “Okay. Consider it done. I’ll leave Smithers to plant it.”

“Smithers? Who the frag is Smithers?” Streak demanded.

“One of his frames,” Geraint told him. “This one does the routine clerk stuff so he calls it Smithers.”

“Don’t ask about Tracey,” Serrin said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Streak replied. “What a weird bloke he is.”

“I won’t take that to heart,” Michael said cheerfully. “Better than being boring, eh?”

It took less than a minute to post the message they finally composed, make the nominal payment transfer, and arrange the email drop. Now all they could do was sit back and wait.

“Now what?” Streak was becoming restless, agitated because he was still feeling the adrenaline rush that shooting people always gave him.

“Apart from this I’m not sure that’s much else we can do. We know something’s going to happen in the square tonight, so-”

Michael’s words were interrupted by a signal from his deck that Smithers had observed and located a reply to his posting. Eagerly, he downloaded it.

“Slot, that was fast,” he said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” They all crowded around.

“ ‘Your understanding is superior to what we had expected. We look forward very much to further developments. Yours respectfully, Salin.’ Hmm.”

“Respect, indeed,” Geraint growled.

“Don’t be touchy,” Michael said. “look, he’s pleased with us.”

Are you a toy poodle or something?”

“It seems to imply that we’re being invited to get closer to him. ‘Further developments’.”

“We should post a reply to his reply,” Serrin suggested.

“Good idea, but what?”

“The flood. That apocalyptic flood.” For some reason, the idea suggested itself to him. “Thats so final. I think that’s a key, somehow. Maybe it’s just because he’s been here and been doing weird stuff with the canals, I don’t know. Let’s post a chunk about the flood. Maybe ask if it can be averted.”

“All right.” Michael settled to work with Serrin’s book open at the right page of text.

Again the reply came back within minutes. Michael read it aloud.

“ ‘Salai and his master congratulate you on making an intuitive leap that is beyond your understanding at this time, and express their admiration. They respectfully suggest no further communications are necessary at this time. Wail until midnight,’ Well, thank you, gentlemen.”

“Midnight tonight doesn’t leave us much time,” Geraint said.

“Look, we’ve got our channels open now, he knows about us and he’s said we understand some stuff. We’ll have to live with that for now.”

“It’s the best part of twelve hours until midnight in the square. What do we do until them?” Streak was pacing up and down the room now.

“Look, when Juan and Xavier get here, why don’t you take off and get some exercise?” Geraint told him. “I can see you need it.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m just getting a bit stir-crazy. Too much banging around and I start to seize up,” the elf said with a grin.

Right on cue, a loud knock at the door announced the arrival of the samurai pair. Streak opened it to find them already kitted out in full carnival regalia. The gold masks made them look even more sinister than usual.

“Ludicrous” Juan snarled. “But it covers the arms up.”

“Juan mate, good to have you on board again. And Xavier, my man,” Streak greeted them. “We’ve already had some unfriendly fire this morning.”

“Great” the ork said, cheered up no end. “Just tell me who we’re here to kill.”

Kristen sighed. Serrin Look her by the hand, off to their own room.

“Bleeding hearts,” Xavier growled.

“Disgraceful, ain’t it? And it was her they shot at,” Streak informed the troll, obviously somewhat embarrassed of the company he was keeping these days. “Anyway, guys, I need some fresh air. I wanna take off for an hour.”

“Now that Juan and Xavier are here, we all could,” Michael suggested. “I’m not sure I need twelve hours cooped up either.”

“I’ll go off alone if it’s okay. Meet you later,” Streak said.

“Sure, but-”

“Unless you really want to meet some ladies with highly nuyen-soluble virtue,” the elf said bluntly.

“Oh, right, well, no I don’t think so,” Michael spluttered. “Thanks for the offer, I suppose.”

“We could take Serrin and Kristen down to the Rialto, Geraint suggested. That’ll be the liveliest part of the city right now.”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s hire a gondola and just do the Rialto for a couple of hours.”

“If you don’t sink it,” Geraint said to Juan, laughing The ork had enough metal to sink something less fragile than the gondolas appeared to be.

“If you’d seen those Texans loading up this morning,” Michael recalled from observing a tourist group heading out of the piazza, you wouldn’t worry. They had to be two hundred kilos each, and that was without all the vids and cameras.”

They spent the whole afternoon sampling the city from their vessel, and if anyone was watching or following, they caught no sign of it. Even the Spanish mercenaries apparently unused to leisurely sightseeing, seemed to impressed by some of the sights. The cafes and Street theaters were in full swing as they sailed past the House Desdemona, the palatial dwelling named after Shakespeare’s character, past the monumental baroque church of Santa Maria with its vast dome and million-timber supports, past the royal gardens built by Napoleon, beneath bridges both tiny and magnificent, until they had gorged themselves on the colors and textures and shapes of Venice. It was after six in the evening when they returned, hungry for dinner, having resisted the dubious pleasures of canalside stalls that all offered an extensive range of remarkably poor fare.

“We’ll take a corner table,” Michael said diplomatically. “Juan’s arm will be less obvious in such shadows as there are.”

“Bad news for you, having to eat with an ork, huh?” Juan growled.

“No problem with that. It’s all that metal that’s the problem. Scares the customers, old chap,” Michael grinned.

Streak didn’t share the general good humor.

“Raoul’s been here,” he told them.

“Huctzlipochtli?” Juan asked. It was more of a teeth-baring snarl than a question.

“The very same, large as frag and twice as ugly.”

“We know him,” Xavier said, his tone leaving no doubt at previous meetings hadn’t involved sipping cocktails and discussing the latest developments in modem theater.

You guys will wear body armor underneath those costumes,” Streak told Geraint and friends.

“A fat lot of good that will be against the head shot any sensible hitman will want to take,” Juan observed.

“Yeah, so let’s reduce the size of the target,” Streak replied.

You could fit them with head shields if they wear the cowls with their cloaks. I saw lots of people doing that,” Xavier suggested.

“Good one. Then we can’t see much because of the masks and we’ll be able to hear bugger all. Then they can sneak up behind us and give us an APDS enema from five fragging meters,” Streak said. “I seem to remember discussing this with you guys somewhere else. Was it Swazi?”

“Yeah,” Xavier said in a bored voice.

Kristen’s ears pricked up. It wasn’t that far from her homeland, though the bandit- and warlord-infested petty fiefdoms of the Trans-Swazi Federation were a very different place from Cape Town. She’d known some escapees from the Swazi, as most people called it, and they’d been hard, mean souls.

“So we’ll skip the headgear, right?” Streak said.

“No, man. Better if they wear it and we keep watch from different angles,” Juan offered. “Then we can cover them.”

“What do you reckon, Your Lordship?” Streak appealed to a higher authority.

“I think” Geraint said, that Kristen should wear headware. She was the one shot at this morning. I’ll take my chances. I can use a Predator. Not as well as you chaps, of course, but I can use one.”

“I can’t,” Serrin said. “And I won’t use headware. I’ll have to see and hear if there’s any need for magic.”

They debated the pros and cons and finally decided that, of all of them, only Kristen needed the additional protection. Juan had brought the appropriate item with him, though it was far too large for her.

“It’s too heavy and I look ridiculous,” she complained.

“If it saves your life you’re not going to bloody care.” Listen to your Uncle Streak,” Streak said playfully. “He stopped you getting your bonce shot off this morning. He knows what he’s doing. He says the little girl should wear the funny thing on her head.”

He dodged her punch easily.

“Come on,” he said. “Really, you should. No bollocks now. We’ll take our chances, this is our profession. You’re not like us. You’ve got to take care now.”

There seemed to be genuine concern in his voice he looked a little embarrassed for a split-second before quickly resuming his normal sarcasm.

“And as for you, gray-head, you’d better make sure you’ve got us covered magically. If Raoul’s in town he bound to have some poxy combat mage or two in tow, and what those guys can do isn’t pretty. I’ve seen a blood spirit, and you don’t want to get one of those fraggers your face. One of us will stick real close to catch you you drain-and-drop, but you give any heavy spell you need every ounce of juice or we could be fragged senseless.”

“We’ve been there before,” Serrin reminded him. “On the hill.”

“This is different,” Streak insisted. “Blood magic. It’s like, I don’t know, it’s like biological weapons. Below the belt, right? Good clean firefight, that we like. Biokillers stink. Combat mages, they treat blood magic like its bio.”

“I get the picture,” Serrin said. “So let’s go eat”

The hours before midnight passed easily. They ate well, and avoided drink, but the throng of customers packed around them drank themselves silly, Everyone was resplendent in the costumes of the carnival, with silk and satin and velvet and gold threading, masks of silver and gold and bronze, cowls and capes and cloaks, everything whirl of color and texture and the mystery of it all, with everyone masked and few who they appealed to be. “Just don’t chat up the women, Michael,” Streak advised him: “Half of ‘em will be transvestites with a sausage surprise you don’t want to get your teeth into, know what I mean?” he leered.

“It hadn’t occurred to me to do so,” Michael replied evenly.

“You should have come out with me this afternoon,” elf said cheerfully.

“Perhaps not,” Michael said.

“God, you’re a joyless bugger sometimes,” Streak groaned.

“I enjoy myself in different ways,” Michael informed him.

“You’re about the only person you will enjoy,” the elf said tartly.

“It’s ten before twelve. Let’s go,” Juan told them. “What are our positions?”

“I’ll cover left, you behind, Xavier goes right,” Streak said. He leant over to Kristen and lowered his voice. “Now, little lady, go powder your nose and put your hard on,”

Kristen disappeared into the ladies’ room and returned three minutes later, looking distinctly large-headed.

“I don’t think it’s going to make the runways of Paris this season, but it'll do the job. Come on, everybody, I’m dying to see what our man has arranged for us at midnight,” Michael said. They pushed their way slowly out into the crowd.

Trumpets were already giving periodic fanfares to announce the imminent arrival of the Doge and his wife as they stood among the multitudes. Their watches showed five minutes to midnight.

At four minutes to the hour, as the crowd began to hush slightly in expectation, a slim and lithe, dark-haired South American man and half a dozen servitors idled toward the basilica from the south, pushing past indignant people in the piazzetta to get where they wanted to go. Xavier, his line of sight partly blocked by the campanile, did not see them. They had covering magic anyway.

At three minutes to midnight from east of the basilica half a dozen Spanish men in costumed attire pushed their way forward in like manner. Streak saw them first. He didn’t know who they were, but he knew they weren’t coming to enquire why he hadn’t posted tax returns for the past five years. He coughed to alert Juan and rubbed the nose of his mask to direct the ork’s attention in front of him. The ork saw the men and began to edge forward. Their attention locked on the men from the east, they too did not see the imminent arrivals from the piazzetta.

At two minutes to the hour the Doge’s Council began to troop through the central doorways of the basilica. The crowd cheered, realizing the Doge himself would soon appear.

The Jesuits from the east had no clear line of fire. Neither did Streak or Juan, and neither did the men to the south, but that didn’t bother them. They’d have been perfectly ready to kill everyone between themselves and their target if necessary. But it wasn’t. All they needed for their blood magic was to kill one person, and that victim had already had his throat slashed.

Serrin got an instant shiver of warning and knew instantly that a magical assault was upon them. He threw up the barrier just as the thing began to shimmer into form among them.

The materializing spirit stank of decay and rotting entrails, and it had only a partial form, vaguely humanoid in shape. It was composed of semi-coagulated blood, or at least it appeared to be. From the center of the thing, fountain of purulent gore squirted hotly at their faces.

Serrin’s barrier barely held it, The liquid corroded the mana barrier like acid dissolving metal, hissing and releasing a reeking cloud of toxic gas. People on either side of them began to panic and scream, some fainting, others being trampled down.

The men to the east pushed forward and drew their guns.

Streak and Juan did their damndest to get a line of sight on them, not realizing the direction of the real bleat. Xavier had, at last, done so, seeing the bloodied victim of the Aztechnology mage’s sacrifice. His SMG was already beginning to chatter.

Streak saw the gun barrels ahead of him and thought, Oh frag, I can’t stop them in time. No, not head shots. Come on, you sods, aim low, aim low. You’re going down.

He reached for a grenade. Above his head, one was already arcing toward its target. But it wasn’t the guns that mattered. They were mostly for self-defense and they weren’t being used yet. One among the crowd of Spanish arrivals unleashed a streak of blue fire that raced south and exploded among the Aztechnology crew.

When it hit the ground, it burst like a nuclear cloud, rising up and around the heads of the men like a gaseous, electrified halo. The brilliant fire burned the flesh from their heads down to the bone, and incinerated the upper halves of their bodies, smashing through the mana barrier of the Azzie mage like it wasn’t even there.

Serrin, reeling back from the blood spirit even as it sputtered out of existence with the death of its summoner, saw the devastation left behind by the Jesuit mage’s spell. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the mage’s next target was them.

Then the grenade burst among the Jesuits, paralyzant gas surrounding them. But they didn’t stop moving.

The bastards have internalized respirators, internal air tanks, nose filters something, Streak thought, his combat-hardened brain assessing the situation coolly. Okay, frag you, guys. Here comes the acid. If it isn’t too late.

Of course, it was.

Serrin could see the mage clearly, impossibly. The man was, after all, shrouded in gas. And yet somehow he could see him. The mage was saying, quite clearly. “And now you die, heretic.”

The spell was one-tenth of a second away from doing to him what it had done to the Aztechnology samurai and mage.

And then everything stopped. Stopped dead, and everyone was absolutely still. Everyone was seized by an emotion somehow unknown to them, and their heads were turned to the doorways of the basilica as if gripped by hands they could not resist.

A figure moved forward through the doorways. Whether it was a real person, or a spirit, or an illusion, was not obvious at first. It walked in midair, perhaps three meters above them, shining slightly. It was a woman, and Serrin saw her at once as the Magdalene. In her hands she held out to the crowd, on a gold platter, the severed, bleeding head of John the Baptist. A terrible cry of lamentation went up all around, a soul-scouring wail as if from hell itself, and it was all they could do to stay upright. Geraint managed to put his hands to his ears as if to try and force out the agonizing sound.

In a panic the Jesuits looked as if the devil himself had just appeared among them. They were utterly unable to move or act. They were virtually catatonic.

Streak recovered his senses first and pushed through a crowd of fainting and screaming people and grabbed Serrin.

“For frag’s sake, let’s get out of here!” he screamed. Serrin grabbed Kristen and began to run. Geraint had to be half-dragged away by the elf, Juan moving in to help him, Xavier getting to Michael. The Jesuits were still standing utterly stunned. They looked as if they were going to be completely beyond the help of the best psychiatrists money could buy for a very long time.

Despite the urgent need to flee. Serrin couldn’t resist the urge to turn and look back. He still couldn’t identify the image as real or illusion or spirit, but he was astonished to find an intense feeling of grief welling up inside him, as if some terrible wrong had been done, and the woman was there to face everyone with the tragedy and awfulness of that wrong. And although he did not know what that was, the grief was painfully real to him and he did not want to run away from her, to abandon her. But his wife was in his care and people had tried to kill her twice today, and he turned away to Streak.

“Where to?” he asked.

“I don’t fragging care,” the other elf said. “Out of town. Get to the airport, get on a plane. Let’s just get the frag out of here before any more drek starts. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not something we can handle right now.

“Lets just get out, frag it!”

It really was all they could do.