Century #4: Dragon of Seas (20 page)

T
HE CHURCH IS CALLED
S
T
. I
GNATIUS
C
ATHEDRAL, NAMED AFTER
the founder of the order of Jesuits: St. Ignatius of Loyola.

It’s a stately red church with two tapered bell towers. A large white Christ stands over the entrance with statues of the four evangelists to his sides. The library is next to the church in an old building that seems protected by a giant, age-old tree.

“A ginkgo biloba,” Sheng cheers when he sees it. It can’t be a coincidence: he’s following a trail with deep roots.

Standing in the doorway to the library is a small priest. He has an oval, geometrical face, gold-rimmed glasses and a short salt-and-pepper beard.

Ermete and Sheng cross the courtyard, dashing toward him and what is now useless shelter from the rain.

“It’s very kind of you to let us in!” Ermete says, almost shouting as he climbs the stairs that lead to the door.

“It’s a pleasure, Dr. De Panfilis. The cardinal told me you’d be coming.”

A simple, warm handshake.

When the priest turns to him, Sheng realizes he’s seen the man before: he’s one of the people who spoke to him in his dream last night. Along with the gypsy woman from Rome, the mailman from New York and the museum guard from Paris.

“Father Corrado,” the man introduces himself.

“Sheng,” the boy replies, shaking his hand just as cordially.
Here’s the Shanghai guardian
, he thinks, grateful.

“Welcome to the Zi-Ka-Wei Library.” The priest smiles. “Also known as the
Reservata Bibliotheca, Biblioteca de Mission, Bibliotheca Major, Xujiahui Tianzhutang Cangshulou
or, more simply, the Great Library.”

Once the introductions have been made, Father Corrado leads them into the building. “The cardinal told me you were coming to do research. What is it you need, exactly?”

Ermete points at Sheng. “He’s the expert.”

As the boy briefly describes the painting, Father Corrado nods more and more gravely. “That’s rather unusual, I must say. And where is it you saw the painting?”

“It’s hanging in the teahouse in the Yuyuan Garden.”

“Is it?”

“Do you know of this Giuseppe Castiglione?” Ermete asks.

The Jesuit smiles. “Naturally. Who doesn’t know of Giuseppe Castiglione?”

“Of course … Who doesn’t?” Ermete mumbles, joking.

“Giuseppe came to Shanghai when the great Qianlong was emperor, the one who had the garden and teahouse built. In those times, relations between the Jesuits and China were excellent and
offered a mutually beneficial cultural exchange. Giuseppe was such a wonderful painter that he soon became the court painter for the emperor, who preferred him over many Chinese artists. In China, he went by the name of Lang Shining.”

As he speaks, Father Corrado delves farther into the old library.

“I didn’t know there were Jesuits in China,” Ermete says.

“Few people do. And yet, I believe we were the first Westerners to establish solid relations with the empire. We had a court delegation starting in the sixteenth century. We were the ones who reformed their calendar. We were also the first to translate the Chinese language into letters that could be understood in Europe.”

“So it’s your fault there are four different street signs for every road?” Ermete jokes.

Father Corrado smiles. “If you want to put it that way, yes. In any case, our presence wasn’t always appreciated. But despite many difficulties, we’ve managed to preserve these books, which are now one of the most important collections in the country. Especially for those who want to track down information about children riding a dragon, which otherwise would be impossible to find.”

The Chinese books section they’ve just walked into has red lacquer bookcases and occupies a long hallway leading into five side rooms with white wooden lofts around the upper shelves.

“There were six rooms once,” Father Corrado says with regret, “and the number wasn’t by chance: the library was a perfect copy of the Ming dynasty’s Tian Yi Ge private library and the perfect balance between sky and earth, between horizontal and vertical.
But due to the metro line construction, the last room became part of the sidewalk outside.”

“Naturally,” Ermete says under his breath, pretending to understand what the man just said.

Father Corrado stops by the door to the fifth room. “This section is called Cang Jing Lou, meaning—”

“A building for a book collection,” Sheng translates.

“And it looks like there are lots of books,” Ermete says with admiration. “There must be at least … what, a hundred thousand?”

“Oh! We’ve never cataloged all of them, particularly the Chinese ones. Still, we think that, newspapers included, there might be over five hundred thousand. Subdivided into thirty-six main categories and two hundred eighty-six subcategories. Or perhaps I should say thirty-seven main categories and two hundred eighty-five subcategories.”

Father Corrado looks at the two with a hint of a complicity. “That is, if you count the ‘books-that-shouldn’t-exist’ category, which we keep on our … ‘non-bookshelf.’ ”

He removes two massive leather-bound books from a lacquered shelf and presses on the back wall, making the painted panel slide open. Inside, in a small niche, are some old books. Father Corrado picks up a booklet bound with leather strings and holds it out to Sheng. Then he quickly slides the panel in place and puts back the two books, smiling. “Not even the men from the Communist Liberation Army found this when they decided to come here and burn all the books.”

Sheng turns the leather volume over in his hands.

“What I’ve just given you is one of Giuseppe Castiglione’s
journals, which he wrote the year he came to Shanghai and kindly left to our mission.”

“A journal?” Ermete exclaims, peeking over Sheng’s shoulder.

The priest leads them into a small, secluded room. “No one will disturb you here. The photocopier is down there, if you need it.”

T
WO MEN GO UP TO THE TOP FLOOR OF
C
ENTURY
P
ARK
’
S TALL
, black building. They’ve walked down a long hallway full of childish drawings, across a small bedroom, up a staircase and through an airtight door.

The first of the two men walks rigidly, his hands clasped behind his back. The second has short, gray hair and is clutching an old violin.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Heremit Devil repeats obsessively.

Behind him, Jacob Mahler prods him with the violin bow. “It’s over, Heremit. Don’t you realize that?”

Helicopters are roaring outside the picture windows, trying to find out what’s happening inside. News of the swarm of insects has traveled fast, as has news of the explosions on the lower floors. The skyscraper has been divided in two: in the office on the second-to-top floor, it’s no longer possible to learn what’s going on below. The security system’s television screens have gone out, shutting down one by one.

The room on the top floor is almost completely bare. It’s a
large office without furniture. The painting of a world map covers the entire floor. The two men are soon walking over its continents. Before the building’s electrical system went dead, the map would produce a series of ticking noises, its tiny lights blinking on and off.

“Your old office,” Jacob Mahler hisses. “How much longer did you think you could rule the world, hmm?”

“Why did you make me come up here?”

“Because I know how much you hate this room. This is where you were when they gave you the news, isn’t it? When was it? Five years ago? Four?”

Heremit Devil’s face turns ashen.

“It was devastating, wasn’t it? Even for a heartless man like you.”

Outside, sirens and bright beacons that look like Christmas lights. Heremit can’t stand the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going on below. And not knowing what Mahler intends to do.

“If you even try to lay a finger on me, Jacob, Nik will kill your little American friend.”

“And how’s he going to find out? Were you thinking of calling him?”

“He’s on his way up.”

“He’ll go to your new office. He’ll wonder where you are. And by the time he decides to come up here … I’ll already be done.”

“Done doing what, Jacob?”

The killer rests his bow on the violin strings. Rain lashes against the windowpanes, along with swarms of mosquitoes trying to get in.

The bow screeches against the strings, producing a shrill note. Heremit Devil backs up, irritated. “What are you doing?”

The violin produces a second and a third note, which reverberate against the infrangible walls like a wave of razor blades. Some of the otherwise indestructible windowpanes crack imperceptibly. Then the cracks grow longer and the glass finally shatters in a cascade of shards.

“It’s time to let in a little air,” Jacob whispers as the rain, insects and wind burst into the hermit devil’s former office.

Gunshots. That’s what Elettra and Mistral hear whistling over their heads.

“Get down!” Elettra shouts, diving to the floor.

Mistral stops singing, and the moment she does, the insects fly off every which way, slipping into every office, opening, room.

People are shouting. More gunshots. The two girls are belly-down on the ground inside Heremit Devil’s building, in what seems to be a massive restaurant.

Up to this point, they’ve encountered few obstacles: Elettra short-circuited all the doors and detectors they came across while Mistral caused panic and confusion with her swarms of grasshoppers, mosquitoes, flies and dragonflies.

They did everything they could to try to get down to the underground level, but they didn’t find a single staircase, so they climbed one instead and looked around. And now the security guards, after their initial disorientation, have sprung into action.

“This way!” Elettra shouts, crawling between the tables.

“Where are we going?”

Mosquitoes, flies, dragonflies are everywhere. Their buzzing fills the air.

“To the elevators!”

They run, hunched over, as other gunshots shatter the nearby aquariums.

“Summon the insects!” Elettra shouts when they reach a long hallway that provides no cover.

Mistral starts singing again and, as if enchanted, a buzzing black mantle forms around her and swarms into the hallway.

The two friends dive into the first available elevator. The only underground level is one with a parking lot. Elettra presses the button. The elevator plunges down.

Underground parking lot. Cement. Cars with tinted windows.

Is this where Harvey called her from?

Elettra looks around, frantic.

“Get out!” she shouts to Mistral. Then she rests her hands on the control panel, concentrates a second and lets her anger explode.

The gold elevator lurches to a halt halfway between the fifty-third and fifty-fourth floors. Nik Knife presses the button several times, but nothing happens. The lights go out, replaced by the glow of the emergency lights.

“You’d better let me go,” Harvey says, next to him.

With two swift moves, Nik Knife flings open a hatch in the ceiling, pulls himself up out of the car and stands on its roof. He’s less than a meter away from the doors to the fifty-fourth floor. He reaches them with a leap, takes out a long knife and wedges it into the crack between the doors.

Once they’re open wide enough to get through, he jumps out and shouts to Harvey to follow him.

“Forget it!” the boy replies from inside the elevator.

A hiss.

Harvey feels a burning sensation in his arm and a moment later he sees that a knife has pinned the shoulder of his sweater to the elevator wall.

“Next time I aim at your arm!” Nik Knife shouts, above him.

E
RMETE AND
S
HENG ARE SITTING AT A GNARLED WOODEN TABLE
with old, handwritten registers stacked on it. Sheng unwinds the journal’s strings and opens the little book, in which the ancient Jesuit painted illustrations.

“The dates might fit,” Ermete murmurs, trembling with curiosity. “The seventeen hundreds is when they lost track of the Pact in Asia.”

“Yeah,” Sheng says, nodding, “but there’s no telling whether it’ll explain the clues we have: a box of coins and a red lacquer tile with four knives on it.”