Day Of Confession

133

Friday, July 17, 12:10 a.m.

Palestrina woke from his sleep with a cry. He was soaked with sweat, his arms out in front of him in the darkness, still trying to push the thing away. This had been the second night in a row when shadowy spirits had come toward him in a dream. There were many of them and they carried a heavy, unclean blanket to cover him, a blanket he knew was filled with disease, the same disease that had caused the fever that killed him before, when he was Alexander.

It was a moment before he realized that what had waked him was not only the terror of his dream but the ringing of the phone at his bedside. Abruptly the ringing stopped, then started again, the multiline phone lighting up a private number only one person had, Thomas Kind. Quickly he picked up.

'Si…'

'There has been a setback in China,' Kind said evenly in French, deliberately trying not to alarm Palestrina. 'Li Wen has been detained. I have taken care of the situation. There is nothing to concern yourself with other than the business of the coming day.'

'Merci,' Palestrina said, aghast, and hung up. Suddenly he shivered, the coldness real and reaching deep inside him. The spirits were not a dream, they were real and getting closer. What if something happened and Thomas Kind failed to 'take care of the situation' and the Chinese found out? It was not impossible – after all, it was Thomas Kind who had failed to kill Father Daniel.

Suddenly a new horror stabbed through him – that Father Daniel was still alive not out of luck but because the spirits had sent him, and sent his brother as well. They were Death and their appointment was with Palestrina. Not only that, as the moth comes to the flame, Palestrina was bringing them right into his own lair.

12:35 a.m.

Harry opened the door to the kitchen and turned on the light. Crossing to the counter, he double-checked the battery charger, making certain life was being pumped into the ultra-slim batteries of the cell phones. They had two of them, the one that had been in the apartment and the one Adrianna had given Harry. In the morning when they left for the Vatican, Danny would carry one, Harry the other. It was how they would communicate when they went in after Marsciano, trusting that between the masses of tourists and Vatican personnel, random conversations would be difficult, if not impossible, for Farel to monitor, even if he knew they were there.

Satisfied the charger was working, Harry turned out the light and started back into the hallway.

'You should sleep.' Elena stood in the open doorway of her room, directly across from the bedroom Harry was sharing with Danny. Her hair was brushed back and she wore a thin cotton nightshirt. Farther down the darkened hallway was the living room, and they could hear Hercules snoring loudly as he slept on the couch.

Harry moved closer. 'I don't want you to go with us,' Harry said, quietly. 'Danny and I and Hercules can handle it alone.'

'Hercules has his own job, and someone has to take Father Daniel in the wheelchair, and you can't be two places at once…'

'Elena… It's too unpredictable and too dangerous…'

The light from the beside lamp behind her shone through the material of her nightshirt. She was wearing nothing at all underneath. She moved closer, and Harry could see the rise and fall of her full breasts under the nightshirt as she breathed.

'Elena, I don't want you to go,' Harry said definitively. 'If something were to happen-'

Reaching up, Elena gently pressed her fingers to his mouth. Then, in almost the same motion, slid her fingers away and brushed her lips against his.

'We have now, Harry,' she whispered. 'Whatever happens, we still have now… Use it to love me…'