Black Madonna

26

Getting out of the city was a nightmare. Panic radiated out from the square like a tidal wave, and they were trying to outrun it. The mayhem was fueled by the trid broadcasts from on-the-spot camera crews expecting to be showing the proud Doge to his people. The drunkenness of the carnival added to the propensity for hysteria, and the lurid trid report of the blood spirit even had wild rumors of the return of the Red Death and numerous variants on the same theme circulating within minutes like wildfire through a tinder-dry forest in August. Venetians and tourists were running everywhere. In their costumes and masks they made the streets, bridges, and canals of the city look like a labyrinth peopled by the escaped, deranged inmates of an immense asylum.

They couldn’t just take Streak’s advice and run like the blazes. Michael had a million-nuyen cyberdeck at Quadri’s and much of their research notes were there. Sneaking in through the kitchens at the back of the building, they got in without being seen and stuffed everything into bags faster than they’d ever done in their lives. Michael gave Claudio a vast tip by way of thanks. At the sight of all of the money, the man’s eyes widened and he grew suspicious.

“Are you a part of this? What has been happening to our great city?” he growled.

“I think we were intended to be victims of what happened to your great city,” Michael told him, “and we’re running for our lives, and that’s no exaggeration.”

That disarmed Claudio immediately. He kissed Michael on both cheeks and wished him good luck.

“You, too, and when this is all over we’ll come bark for some quieter times.” Michael said.

Streak was impatient to get moving. “Look, bugger the sweet goodbyes and let’s just get in the car.”

“Oh, God, we don’t have one,” Michael suddenly remembered.

“Yes, we do.” Streak was dangling some keys on a Lancia keyring in Michael’s face.

“Thank heavens you had the sense to hire one,” Michael said with a sigh of relief.

“Who says I hired the fragger? Come on move your hoop. There’s no telling if we can actually get through the bloody streets,” the elf said.

“I’ll just hang my arm out the window and they’ll get out of the way,” Juan said laconically.

“We can get seven people in the car?” Geraint wondered.

“It means some people sitting on others’ laps in the back, but don’t waste my time and yours making no jokes. Now move your rakking arses!” Streak yelled at him.

Geraint might be the employer of the pair, but he wasn’t going to argue. They ran out the back of the cafe, piled into the car, and started what was obviously going to be a tortuous and uncomfortable journey to the airport.

“Just exactly where are we going?” Serrin asked. “I don’t know, and it doesn’t much matter!” Streak said. “Nnnngh,” he added suddenly, wrenching the wheel sharply to avoid a stray pedestrian who fell into their path from one of the packed sidewalks. “We can hop across to Padova, it’s only twenty klicks or so, and collect our thoughts there.”

Geraint nodded. “We’ll find an airport hotel and figure out what we’re going to do.”

And that is what they did, though a drive that should have taken a few minutes took almost an hour, with some streets so jammed with hysterical people that backtracks and detours became inevitable. The longer the journey got, the jumpier everyone became.

“I think we’re being followed,” Michael said anxiously, looking out the back window for the umpteenth time.

“No, we aren’t,” Juan informed him. “I’ve been watching in the mirrors. It’d be impossible to follow anyone anyway. In all this, I mean.”

“We could be astrally traced.”

“I don’t detect anything, and believe me I’ve been trying. I’m actually quite good at that sort of thing,” Serrin said, grim-jawed. “Years of practice.”

“Sometimes paranoia can be a definite advantage,” Michael said more happily.

“Its only paranoia if it isn’t real,” Serrin grumbled and said no more about it. Kristen was looking dubiously from one to the other as they spoke, but made no comment of her own.

“Poor Raoul,” Xavier chuckled. “Boy, did he catch it in the hoop. What a frying.”

“You know,” Streak said, “we were amazingly lucky he Azzies turned up.”

“Yeah, right, their bullet missed Kristen’s head by a hair. Real lucky,” Serrin shot back.

“Nah, think about it, you pillock. If they hadn’t been there the Inquisition would have had you on toast. We didn’t have a line of fire and you didn’t see them. But the Inquisition boys saw the Azzies and they came first in the firing line-before us.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Serrin said.

“To those guys that blood magic stuff is real heresy. Big-time bad stuff They wanted the Azzies even more than they wanted us. Or you.”

“Yeah, but they did want me,” Serrin said, “and that isn’t paranoia. I heard the mage’s words.”

“Yeah, that was big-time,” Streak replied. “Some stunt, that barbecuing across the square. Now why don’t you frag people like that?”

“I don’t have years of training with the Inquisition, if that’s the right term. It still seems odd to me.”

“Oh, you can call them the Inquisition all right,” Xavier declared with some feeling. “We know those guys, yes. Don’t forget they got their start in our back yard. Nadal, Acquaviva, all those guys with Ignatius. The Jesuits got damned near ninety per cent of their membership from Spain in the early days. It was policies that said they had to go to the Pope and have their central place in Italy, but it was originally a Spanish deal.”

“You do know these boys,” Streak said.

“Yeah, and not just in Aztlan. Seen ‘em in the South American states too, Xavier grunted. “They don’t care much for the Amazonians either. And they don’t care for their own brethren.”

“Nothing like a bit of that ole-time religion for making people kill each other in exciting, brutal, and deeply imaginative ways,” Streak declared gleefully.

“I thought that was your number,” Serrin said.

“Hey, be fair!” Streak protested, absolutely seriously. “The name of our game is to lake out your enemy as quickly as possible-before he does the same to you. With these Azzies, its torture and outright bloody sadism. Take a look at some of the stuff those people invented as torture instruments sometime; there’s a museum in Amsterdam where they’ve collected a lot of it, Makes me shudder just to think about it. Sick frags. Real gratifying to know God guided their hands as they crafted them so exquisitely.”

“Point taken,” Serrin acquiesced.

At long last they managed to reach the outskirts of the airport. Despite the lateness of the hour, the place was flooded with people panicking to get out of the city. If they’d been wanting to book a regular flight out of there they wouldn’t have had a prayer, but with their own aircraft all they had to do was dispense several large sums to the officials by way of flight clearance and get themselves whisked out of the VIP lounge and on to the runway verge.

“You wanna make the hop to Padova or just frag off somewhere else?” Streak asked. He was almost the only one, save for Juan sitting next to him in the front of the vehicle, who didn’t have to stretch his legs from the discomfort of being crammed into the car, which was not really designed to take seven adult passengers.

“Let’s take the shortest option,” Geraint decided. So they stayed within the Veneto and made the short haul, Michael booking rooms in an airport hotel as they went, and the journey was a lot faster than the car ride through the narrow streets of Venice. But with the clock showing a quarter to two, fatigue was beginning to catch up with them. There had certainly been enough excitement for one day. But though tired, they wouldn’t get to sleep easily and they knew it. Adrenaline was still coursing in veins too fast.

“Tomorrow’s May Day and another bloody public holiday,” Michael lamented. “And the deadline’s fast approaching.”

“So, let’s order up fifteen gallons of java and start chewing the rag.” Streak said cheerfully. “We’ll listen, eh, boys?”

“For what you’re paying us, you can talk about collecting postage stamps and we’ll listen,” Juan said, a grin on his face.

“Yeah, I’ll even take notes,” Xavier agreed, adding a few mineshaft-deep chuckles.

The combination of relief at being away from the threat of imminent danger, some light-headedness from tiredness and travel, and a swiftly delivered caffeine rush had them more bright-eyed and lively by the time the clock had passed two. The hotel room was small, Michael having booked the first on the list without worrying about details, and the air quickly grew stale from the scent of bodies and cigarettes. To Streak’s delight, Juan had also brought some rather fine export produce of Jamaica, and he knew how much could be inhaled without feeling useless in the morning. He settled back happily and breathed out with an expression of sheer delight.

“I think I have that munchies feeling,” he said. “What do you say? Let’s order a bucket of choccy biccies.”

“I don’t think Italian room service would be quite up to that. But the airport’s full of malls,” Michael said. “I bet you could find something.”

Slowly and more languidly than usual, the elf got to his feet and almost glided to the door, to search for the essential sustenance he craved.

“We haven’t really discussed what happened in the square,” Serrin said.

“Just a bunch of assassins fried alive and we had to run our lives,” Geraint said Sarcastically.

“I didn’t mean that. I meant the point of it,” Serrin replied quietly.

“The point of what?”

“Not them, not the idiots and fanatics with the guns and the spirits and the death wishes. I meant the demonstration.”

Geraint looked incredulously at him.

“The figure that appeared,” the elf said impatiently. “The woman.”

“I thought the severed head was pretty gross,” Michael said with some disgust.

“A very potent image. Outside the church of St. Mark, our man creates an image of real blasphemy. The Magdalene with the head of John the Baptist, that’s who she was. No wonder the Jesuits were so stunned.”

“I don’t get it,” Michael said.

“That figure was the Magdalene. I’m certain. I saw her in the painting outside, the Last Supper. It’s her, and there’s something very, very strange about that painting.”

“That’s for sure,” Michael said.

“And the painting of John is so odd. So androgynous. It’s the same thing as the icon he left: the Shroud with the black woman’s face. These images are highly powerful,” Serrin said deliberately, as if admitting something to himself and being surprised in the process. “I just don’t understand what they’re actually saying. They’re obvious I blasphemy. But it’s not being done just for shock value, There wouldn’t be any point in that, and I don’t think our man is up for pointless demonstrations. I just wish I could fathom exactly what it is he’s saying.”

“So he maybe has a thing about the Magdalene,” Michael pondered. “I certainly agree that she’s the central figure in the Last Supper painting.”

“And unless I’m much mistaken, there are references in the Bible to the disciples being jealous of her and disliking her,” Serrin said, reaching for the bedside table, “And for the first time in the history of this planet, someone somewhere is about to find the Gideon Bible in here of some actual bloody use.”

He leafed through the pages for a moment, found the relevant passages, and nodded a couple of times.

“They protest to Christ that she’s a whore and a bad woman, and they clearly don’t like his consorting with her. Read,” he told Michael, tossing over the flimsy book.

“It’s a long time since I did this,” Michael admitted as he scanned the New Testament references.

“All right, so they do, and the painting shows that. But why have her show up with the head in the square?”

“That’s what I can’t figure,” Serrin said. “It was Salome who brandished the head, as I recall. But our man has something about heads. The head on the original Shroud was separate from the rest of the body. And our man replaced it with another severed head, if you will.”

“The Priory,” Michael said slowly, clenching and unclenching his fist in an effort to reclaim a memory hidden deep inside his subconscious. “I remember something from my research on them. The Priory of Sion, our chummers back in Rennes. They claimed some descent from the Knights Templar, and the Templars were accused of worshiping a severed head that talked to them. At least, that’s one of the things they were accused of.”

“Along with sodomy and tax evasion, insider dealing and breathing in and out in a heretical fashion,” Serrin said with a grin. “I rather think the Pope drummed up every charge he could-possibly think of apart from lesbianism.”

“They were men!” Michael protested.

“That’s what I mean,” Serrin said dryly.

“So what’s our man doing playing with these images, and why is he so fixated on Leonardo?”

“That’s the million-nuyen question,” Serrin concluded. “And we don’t know the answer.” He paused while another thought slotted into place. “We also don’t know where he is.”

“Blondie was in Venice yesterday morning.” Geraint reminded him. “If he was, then so was whoever he refers to as his master.”

“That’s logical.”

“And I bet they aren’t there now,” Geraint reasoned.

“That also seems pretty likely.”

“So where have they gone, and have we any clue as to where and how they’re going?”

“Nope.”

“So we have to stay passive and wait for another move in the game, dammit!” Geraint growled. “I really don’t like this. We’re back where we were again.”

Michael flipped open his laptop. “Now that they’ve made a move, I wonder if there might be some information for us. Ah, right. Good one.” His face broke into a smile. Then he looked puzzled, even a little angry.

“Consider the Hejira,” he read from the email drop. “That’s it. Drek.”

“The flight of the Prophet,” Serrin said. “Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you got it, but what’s that got to do with all this? Don’t tell me he’s convened to Islam all of a sudden.”

“Think metaphorically, Michael,” Serrin said exasperatedly. “Mohammed left one city of divinity. Our man has left Venice.”

“So he’s saying he’s some kind of prophet?” Michael sounded as if he disapproved.

“Maybe he is.”

“And maybe he’s suffering serious delusions.”

“Maybe,” Serrin smiled. “But we know he can sure as hell move mountains.”

“All right. So he takes a flight and-” Michael looked astounded at the idea that had just leapt unbidden into his brain. “No, it can’t be as simple as-”

He was already reaching for his traveling cyberdeck.

“As simple as what?” Geraint asked, puzzled.

“As simple as taking a flight,” Michael muttered, stabbing keys.

“Well, of course not, you wouldn’t mention the Hejira just to tell us that,” Serrin said.

“Maybe not, but maybe it actually is something as simple as that and then something more, so Let’s find out. And maybe we can get a proper look at our man. God bless them, the Italian states routinely keep photodata on all arrivals and departures at their airports for a year after the flights. Originally for security reasons.”

“Would that have included us?” Geraint fretted, implications tumbling into place.

“Sure would,” Michael said. “So let’s have a look.”

“Its going to take forever to scan every passenger into and out of Venice today,” Serrin lamented.

“Not necessarily,” Michael said. “He’d have been with Blondie, right? I feed a description of Blondie into Smithers and he rattles through, checking for anyone similar, and presto, all done in a couple of minutes. Smithers is very good at this sort of thing.”

Juan and Xavier, who’d been quiet up until now though clearly engrossed in a discourse they didn’t fully understand but whose logic they could appreciate, gave each other mystified glances.

Serrin threw them a grin. “Don’t ask.”

Just then, Streak came through the door, a pair of huge paper bags stuffed with snacks cradled in his arms.

“You greedy pig,” Kristen said happily, snatching one of the bags as he passed her. “You had a huge dinner.”

“So why are you stealing my food?”

“I stole some of your dope,” she explained with a giggle.

“Oh, well then, help yourself,” the elf said cheerfully, depositing himself on a bed and wrenching open a large bag of chips.

Michael sat back and drummed his fingers on the table as he waited. Then the image began to form on the screen, increasing its resolution with every split-second pass.

“Actually we may not even get him. Remember how he fragged the Doge’s scanners?” Serrin said.

Michael shook his head. “Not this time.” He watched the screen carefully. “Oh, very clever. Very amusing. You bastard.”

The ID was on the screen now, the unmistakable pony tail and cheerfully smiling young face of the man they knew as Salai, accompanying an older, equally slender but taller figure.

It was a serious face: a furrowed brow beneath a rather incongruous beret, an aquiline nose, and a chin neither weak nor exceptionally strong. The gray eyes were gentle and academic in appearance He had that ageless look some middle-aged men acquire when their heads turn to silver or the gray of his long, flowing, slightly wavy hair. Around his lips a slight smile seemed to be playing. For all the world that smile reminded them at once of the Mona Lisa, the smile that had intrigued and bemused scholars of the ages.

Which was not surprising, since the face was unmistakably that of Leonardo da Vinci, younger than his surviving self-portrait showed him in his old age, but him nonetheless. Michael leaned back and laughed, to all appearances on the verge of clapping his hands and stamping his feet.

Very clever, very good. So he decked the ID archive and changed the image. Neat, neat. I like it, my dear fellow. And now let us see where you’ve gone, on your Hejira.

“To Ahvaz,” he said, mystified, after a few moments. “Our man took a flight to Ahvaz, on a chartered plane. At just after midnight.”

“Tonight?”

“Of course tonight.” Michael said testily.

“So where the frag is Ahvaz?” Streak asked through a mouthful of Growliebar.

“In southwestern Iran on the border with Iraq,” Michael said, having already referenced the archival data.

“That’s real bandit country, chummer,” Juan informed him from across the room. “A hundred petty warlords and half of ‘em still shoot last-century guns off horseback. Really damn primitive.”

Serrin was staring closely at the printout that had now appeared of the image on the screen, but no one was taking much notice of him, apart from Kristen, who stood doing her best to peer over his shoulder. He was looking for something, or, rather, he knew something was in the image and he couldn’t see what it was, where it was, what it meant.

She showed him.

“Ah,” he said, with a low sigh of enlightenment. “Yes, of Course.”

“What is it?” Michael asked, breaking off from trying to find out more about Ahvaz and what kind of airport it had, if indeed it had one at all.

“His finger. The index finger on his right hand. Look.”

“It’s pointing upward. So what?”

Serrin struggled through his bag, cautioning an impatient Michael to wait, and extracted the book of paintings he was looking for.

“Look, John the Baptist, look. The picture is just his face and this image. Of the raised finger.”

“So? One picture and-“

“It’s in his painting of St. John-Bacchus as well. Look,” he pointed out, as he flipped the page over to the following plate.

“All right,” Michael said, taken aback now. “What’s he Saying?”

“Remember John?” the elf wondered aloud. “I’m not sure. But I know he didn’t make this gesture by accident.”

“A raised finger, eh?” Streak said. “I know what I mean by that.”

“It’s the index finger not the middle one,” Serrin said impatiently.

“Ahvaz,” Michael read. “It has a small airstrip built by an exploratory team from an oil company late last century. It’s apparently reasonably stable at the present time, which means that the same bandits have held it for a year or more and no one has actually been shot out of the sky during that time, and I think we have to go there.”

The samurai looked at each other and smiled, the lizard-like leer of all hired hands that says, “The price has just gone up!”

Geraint read the looks and the minds.

“Yes, you’re on overtime and bonuses” he told them. “We’re going to need you.”

“We sure are,” Streak said cheerfully. “Yessir, mad guys with big guns.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“I meant them,” Streak said. “Out there in the desert. By the way, you guys got jabs for all the diseases you can catch?”

“Drek,” Michael groaned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“We professionals get regular shots all the time,” Streak said happily. You never know where you might have to go next.”

“We haven’t got time,” Geraint fretted. We’ll just have to buy several gallons of insect repellent. And water purifying tables. And-”

“Don’t worry, Your Lordship. I was only pulling your pud, a wind-up, We’ve got all we need. Don’t we boys?”

“Sure do,” the ork grunted.

“Well, then, that’s it. It’s now three-twelve AM, and I for one need some sleep,” Michael said wearily. “Tomorrow we go to Ahvaz and we get our man.” He flipped his deck off.

But, for once, Michael hadn’t been secure enough. It would have appalled him at the time as it did later when he realized it, to know that he’d been decked himself. The saturnine man responsible gave the information to his master without emotion.

“Then it is so,” the man said as if expecting what he learned. “He has gone back to the heart of heresy. Like a dog returning to its own vomit. It is always so.”

He considered his options. Of his best men, half were still recovering from the events in Venice. He doubted now whether hermetics or assassins would do the job for him. They had pursued their quarry long enough, and it had eluded them every time. He could no longer trust to the work of his juniors.

He reached for the private line and told the Vatican secretary that, despite the lateness of the hour, he would have to speak with His Holiness in person on a matter of most Unique urgency.

Across the Mediterranean, in a fertile land spreading over the wide, lazy valley of the Karun River, a young man was shown through the underground part of the building. having already seen for himself the dome and the observatory above, extraordinary constructions for so poor a people in such a ravaged place. He smiled, and hugged the dark-eyed man who had showed him around so nervously, obviously desperate for his approval.

“It is so fine,” Salai said. “It is exactly as it was designed. You have done so very well. This is a wonder to me.

The Arab smiled with relief, his beautiful, even white teeth gleaming in the soft light.

“And the Prophet will be here soon?”

“Within the hour, Tariq. He has only stopped to attend to one or two pressing matters along the way.”

“This is such a great day for us,” the man said with real fervor. “We had never thought to see such a day.”

“And he will bring such great riches, and the greatest artists and scholars in his wake,” Salai said cheerfully.

“We have been downtrodden long enough,” the man said with some feeling.

“Indeed you have, and no longer. The Great Work will be done here and you will be exalted among men,” the youth said soothingly. “You have already been rewarded for your faithfulness-”

He was cut short as Tariq sought to prevent any suggestion of ingratitude or impatience.

“We could not have built this without the money you gave us,” he said at once, and we have a fine hospital and school for the children. We know the Prophet’s generosity to his people. it is simply that to have him among us-” His face was literally one of rapture.

“And here is the center,” Salai said as he turned the final corner. “Ah, Tariq, this is a fine rendition.”

The mosaic must have taken the men of the place many years of painstaking work. Untold thousands of tiny fragments of gleaming, polished stone and crystal shone in the gentle light from the alcoves. The strange, haunting androgyny of Leonardo’s John the Baptist was perfectly reproduced in the round shrine a the heart of the labyrinth.

“Wonderful. And then there is the deeper mystery, Tariq, but we shall not speak of this now.”

“We await,” the man said simply.