The 34th Degree

96

Aphrodite was swimming in the Chalikiopoulos Lagoon while Peter watched her from shore. Beyond the SS bodyguard was the Achillion on its hill, the sun setting behind it.

Everything had changed, she realized, and yet nothing had changed.

Chris had come to Athens and left without her. Her parents, whom she had stayed behind to protect, were dead. Her brother, for whose freedom she had slept with the Baron, had been released. She was all that remained, abandoned to live the rest of her days on this island prison with the man who’d stolen her virginity and murdered her parents. Better off if she were dead than to live in this tropical purgatory, she thought. She had already decided to drown herself before the sun set.

There was only one thing left for her to do.

She looked across the rippling waters to the islet of Pondikonissi, with its whitewashed Church of the Pantokrator. The church looked strangely dark and forbidding this evening.

She glanced back at Peter, who was watching her with hateful eyes. He blamed her for Hans’s death, she realized; he knew that it was only by a stroke of good fortune that he hadn’t been the sentry Chris had killed in Athens. He wouldn’t mind if she drowned herself. Indeed, it almost seemed as if the Baron and his staff expected her to take care of this final unpleasant task-getting rid of Aphrodite Vasilis. She wouldn’t disappoint them.

“I’ll be back before dark,” she told Peter, and swam toward the church.

This time there were no shouts for her to come back, no concern about her welfare. There were also no robe and slippers for her at the foot of the steps. She found it chilly as she climbed to the top of the hill and entered the tiny church.

It was even colder and darker inside. No candles, no warmth, no life. The Orthodox priest who had told her to trust in the Lord with all her heart was gone. With rising fury, she wondered if Ludwig had carried out his threat against Father John. She couldn’t even confess her misery and bitterness to God before she killed herself. She had never felt more alone in her life and began to cry in the dark.

“What’s the matter, child?” asked a voice.

She turned to see a bearded face hovering behind the flicker of a candle. “Father, it’s you,” she said, and told him everything that had happened in Athens. About Chris, the Maranatha text, and the death of her parents.

“Truly, the Lord is merciful,” said the priest. “He has spared his servant, and now he has spared you.”

“Spared me?” she asked. “What about my parents? What about Chris? He’s probably dead. What is there for me to live for?”

The priest looked at her with sad, knowing eyes, strange eyes that seemed to comprehend her pain all too well. Aphrodite looked away. Through the church’s tiny stained-glass window, set in a rotting wooden frame, she could see it was dark outside. It was time for her baptism.

“I’ve got to go, Father.”

“You most certainly do.”

His response startled her and she looked at him curiously. “I do?”

“You must complete what your love began,” he told her, and put his hand on her shoulder. “You must steal the Maranatha text from the Baron.”

His voice resonated with a depth that stirred her soul, and when she looked up into his dark eyes, she could see her own face dimly. And then in the candlelight, she could see that this priest was not the one she used to confess to, but somebody else.

“Where is Father John?” she asked, voice trembling.

“Killed by the Baron, I’m told.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “It’s my fault. I brought him to ruin just like everybody else I’ve loved.”

“There’s no need for you to bear the sins of the entire world, child,” the priest said. “Our Savior has done that for us already. Rest assured, the Baron will receive his reward in due time.”

“Who are you?”

“I, too, am a survivor, of a different sort. My brothers faced the same end as your family-at the hands of the Baron.”

He ran his hand down the long gold chain draped around his neck and then held up his large, ornate cross in the candlelight. In its center was a glittering sapphire, though the cross’s beauty was marred by a large indentation on one of its arms.

“My name is Philip.”