Book of Stolen Tales (19 page)

“
W
ait!” I called up to her. “How can I get over there? I don't want to lose him.”

I may as well have been talking to the wind. Dina pulled herself over the rim of the parapet and ran toward the pebbled path. When I caught up with her, she was quaking with fear.

It was too dangerous to go straight back to the car. I persuaded her to take a circuitous route off the worn paths. We veered off through underbrush and along rock walls, keeping to the shadows and taking care not to make the slightest noise. Security lights flicked on when we came too close to a gated villa. “Is that where Ewan lived?” I asked.

Dina shook her head and led me to a cluster of cedars above where we'd parked. We could see the car's shimmer of metal just as we'd left it beside the other vehicles. Nothing seemed out of place. I picked up a fist-sized rock and heaved it toward the car. It bounced off the asphalt with a sharp crack but I couldn't detect any motion in response, no one alerted to the noise, no voices.

We waited another ten minutes to be sure. “Time's getting short,” I said. “We have to risk it now.” We scrambled down the slope as quietly as possible. Dina started the car and drove back down the narrow lane. When we reached the main road, we both sighed in relief. I was amazed we made it out of there alive. And yet just as my heart rate returned to something resembling normal, questions once more crowded my brain. Had Alessio killed Ewan himself, or were Mancini's men involved? If so, where were they? Perhaps they'd attacked Ewan at home and thrown his body into the sea without learning of the meeting. Had Ewan passed out or died before they found out about the plan to meet with us? It didn't matter what Ewan had told them, I realized. Alessio had seen us. And he'd be coming for us. How had he survived the freezing undercurrents of the Thames?

Dina gripped the wheel tensely and fixed her eyes straight ahead, her face wet with tears. I kept checking the mirrors to see if we were being followed, and tried unsuccessfully to rid my memory of Ewan's hideous image.

I broke the silence by saying gently, “We can't just leave Ewan there. We should call the police.” I handed her my phone. “My Italian isn't good enough.”

She took a few minutes to compose herself and without slowing down, made a brief call, hanging up without mentioning our names. Dina kept one hand on the wheel while she reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “Now do you believe me?” she said, her voice sullen. “Look what Lorenzo did to Ewan. He tortured him—murdered him—to find out who our buyers were.”

She was right about that and I felt indebted to her. “You saved my life by warning me to get out of Naples. It was brave of you to waste precious time to find me.”

Dina glanced at me. “I wouldn't have. But this has all happened faster than I ever thought. Someone had to help me and you were my only choice.”

She spoke bitterly but truthfully, I supposed. The headlights of an oncoming car illuminated her tear-stained face.

“Have you ever met Charles Renwick? An English publisher who commissioned me to bid on the book.”

“I've never heard of this person. Why should I?”

“He took your picture, or at least he had a photo. Of you and Mancini.”

“Impossible. The conte is very careful. He hates having his photo taken.”

“From your expressions, neither of you realized you were being photographed. Maybe it was at a party or something and you were caught unawares.”

“Perhaps. What does it matter?”

“I just wondered why Renwick would be interested in you. He must have known Mancini owned the book he desired.” I chose my words carefully, seeing how distressed she was and not wanting to upset her further. “Tell me about Mancini. Where does his money come from? Was it inherited?”

“Yes. He's from an old aristocratic family. His title is the Comte de Soissons.”

“Isn't that French?”

“It is. The family had many ties of marriage with the French court centuries ago. He owns an investment bank now.”

“What kind of businesses is the bank associated with?”

“I'm not really sure. He has quite a few Middle Eastern clients; I think he finances a lot of Iraqi oil contracts.” She took her eyes off the road for a moment to glance at me again. “Please, I'd rather not speak of him now. I just want to forget him.”

The car had been climbing steadily through a landscape increasingly devoid of trees and bushes. We seemed to reach the top of whatever hilly terrain we were traveling through. We turned a bend and I nearly did a double take. “What the hell is that? The ground's on fire!” My eyes hadn't deceived me. Smoke rose directly from the earth. A noxious odor filled the car.

Dina answered without even blinking. “We're in Pozzuoli. There are many ancient volcanoes here.”

We were on a lonely stretch of road dotted with dilapidated, abandoned structures.

“What happened to these buildings?” I asked.

“An earthquake struck thirteen years ago. The land rises and falls even now. It's very unstable. No one wants to build on it again.”

Perhaps Dina had ventured here to best avoid Mancini. We'd soon know, I thought, whether that was the right move.

A little farther on she parked beside an old commercial outlet shut up for the night. Turning off the ignition, she put her arms on the steering wheel and sank into them. The harsh glare of floods at the side of the building lit up her hair and the shape of her body hunched over the wheel. I wanted to console her, but remembering the little knife, thought it best to just give her some space.

After a few minutes she said, “I didn't think we'd make it this far. I've been planning this for months but needed a few additional things to fall into place. Tonight when the conte discovered I was the one who'd taken the book, I could wait no longer.”

“How did you get the car?”

“It's my friend's. Luisa knows what I've suffered. We made an arrangement for me to get in touch with her when I decided to leave him.”

“And you're using the money from the sale to escape.” “Lorenzo owes it to me—and much more. I'm entirely dependent on him and have no resources of my own. He keeps the jewelry my mother left me in his safe.” Her words caught in her throat.

“What about your other relatives? Couldn't they help you?” “My father's family was aristocratic although in name only. Through hard work and some good connections, Father built up a business in shipping. One of his boats foundered at sea and the other burned due to arson. The insurance company refused to cover either of them so he lost everything. We had to leave Naples and settle on the one piece of land he still owned, a poor farm outside the city.”

“How did you meet Mancini?”

Dina wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of the light top she wore. “Lorenzo and his wife persuaded my father to let me come live with them. They preyed on his hardship and paid him to stay away. Now that Ewan's gone I have nothing left. No friends. No money.”

It was a shocking story. True? That was another matter. Elements of her story didn't hold water. “Why split up the book? It would have been worth a lot more if you'd kept all the volumes together.”

“I hated to. It almost seemed sacrilegious to break the anthology apart. But I had to.”

“Why?”

“The book is evil. I can tell you no more.”

“You must. People are dying, Dina! Charles Renwick was robbed and probably murdered for it. You saw what happened to Ewan. The book may be rare and valuable. That doesn't explain why a rich man like Mancini is willing to kill people for it.”

“You won't believe me if I tell you.”

“Try me.”

“The book possesses secrets. Terrible secrets that, if discovered, would lead to unthinkable consequences. Lorenzo wants to unravel its mysteries because he's convinced they point to something of great value. I don't know exactly what he seeks, but it has to do with his ancestor in the seventeenth century, Baron Lorenzo Mancini. He was an occultist and a necromancer—do you know what that means?”

“Raising the dead to predict the future, right?”

Dina looked away for a moment as if trying to decide whether to reveal any more. “The conte studied the ancient Italian practice of necromancy. He learned how to summon a demon who can raise the dead. In French the demon's name is Frucissière. It's also called Frulhel or Frastiel. The painter—José de Ribera—you've heard of him?”

“Yes. He illustrated Basile's book.”

“He was a follower of the dark arts too. He left papers in the book with instructions on how to raise Frucissière. Lorenzo found them and followed them.”

Tye Norris had said that Renwick feared a demon pursued him. We'd both scoffed at the idea two days ago. Now I wasn't so sure. Was this what Renwick's warning about the book meant? “A hardheaded businessman like Mancini actually believes in necromancy?”

“Not all things in this world can be easily explained away.”

“I know, Dina, but isn't it more likely just another ruse to scare you into submission? Those old stories are just cultural curiosities now.”

She frowned, affronted I'd challenge her beliefs. “If only it were that simple. The well-ordered world you think you know doesn't exist. There is a universe beyond our limited thoughts, things that live beyond our imagining. Forbidden knowledge.”

“They're just old legends. Not really true.” Even as I said the words, my certainty began to erode.

“Believe me or not. I don't care,” she said disdainfully. She fished in her purse and pulled out a folded paper. “Here's an eyewitness account involving Basile and de Ribera. It's more proof I'm telling the truth. You can't let Lorenzo reassemble the book! I don't care what you believe. What matters is that Lorenzo does.”

I stuck the paper in my jacket pocket. “Okay. Let's leave this for now. I'm going to track down those other volumes with your help. All right?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her hands together as if trying to dismiss her bizarre statements.

I'd had enough of superstitious talk. “Does anything else motivate Mancini?”

“He's scrupulous about keeping track of his lineage and belongs to two of the oldest noble families in Europe: the Savoys and the Mancinis. They go back over one thousand years. He has pretensions to the throne of Italy.”

That explained the Savoy coat of arms on the cedar box. But her last words rang in my ears. “That hardly seems credible.”

“On the surface maybe.”

“How would that even be possible? Italy's been a republic for almost sixty years.”

“Yes of course, I know that. The king was exiled and all his property confiscated because he supported Mussolini and the Fascists. Just this year the heir to the throne was allowed to return, although not as a monarch. Two branches of the House of Savoy have made claims to the throne. The conte believes he, too, has a legitimate right, and in the coming climate of uncertainty thinks he may have an edge. He is, in fact, much wealthier and more powerful than the Savoy family.”

I'd heard of aristocrats challenging one another for titles, even when those titles lost the relevance they once held. Usually that took the form of prolonged court battles that only made their lawyers richer. “Fighting over a throne that no longer exists. Talk about delusions of grandeur.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Now, yes. But Lorenzo has said many times that great financial and social upheavals lie ahead. Under such conditions, people yearn for stability and structure. Royalty stands for that, if nothing else.”

“Why does he think he could be a claimant?”

“He says his ancestor, a son of Olympia Mancini, by rights should have inherited the title that led to the establishment of the royal family but it was denied him. That's not actually true. You've probably never heard of the Ordine civile e militaire dell'Aquila Romana—the Order of the Roman Eagle?” she asked.

“Is it a medal of some kind?”

“There is a medal, yes. It's an aristocratic order, like an elite society. Benito Mussolini founded it in 1942. The Italian government quickly terminated it after the Second World War ended. The conte is part of a small coterie of nobles who swear their allegiance to that order.”

“All Italians?”

“No, only him, although they all possess true hereditary titles. What they have in common is they're disaffected. Some lost their property and fortunes generations ago. They know the aristocracy has been terribly weakened and seek to restore it. Lorenzo thinks the time is coming to reassert aristocratic dominance. When the Western economies crumble, states will fall apart. And all these men, except the conte, have ties with the police and the military.”

“Why not him?”

“He doesn't need them. He has the Camorra. He finances them and washes their money to make it legitimate. They're an army in waiting.”

Dina shifted in her seat, rested her forehead on her hand, and sighed, giving me a glimpse of the great burden she carried. “At the time Giambattista Basile lived Naples was one of the most important cities in Europe. It can be so again. Criminal organizations often seize power when societies fragment. That's what happened in Kosovo. Lorenzo's group of nobles share his passion for power and the art of necromancy.”

“It's still difficult to fathom,” I said slowly.

“I would agree, except it looks like he actually achieved it.

He brought Alessio back from the dead.”

“Alessio? You can't be serious!”

“I watched him do it.”

Nineteen