One Day In Budapest (9 page)

“The souls of the táltos could travel between the realms, drenching the ghosts and interceding for humanity with the gods, some say preventing the destruction of all by the ravaging of demons.” Zoltan paused, running his fingers down one branch of the tree. “But their strength has disappeared along with the people’s faith in them. And where were they in the dark days of the ghetto?” he murmured.
 

Rounding a corner, Morgan saw a massive head emerging from the earth, his crown a grotesque bulk that pushed out of the ground. It was a giant buried by the mountain, a fallen king, perhaps representing the fall of Austro-Hungary, Morgan thought, a once-mighty empire that struggled to rise from the dirt of history. In her mind, she saw the figure shake itself free to rule again. At first he would be noble and just, dealing fairly with his faithful subjects. But this king had twisted plans, and soon after he emerged, he would bring his giant club down upon the people.
 

Zoltan stopped suddenly, putting his hand on Morgan’s arm, his fingers clutching it with a tight grip. He flicked his torch off and she followed suit. They stood in the dark, barely breathing. Then Morgan heard it too, a pair of voices raised in argument ahead of them. Zoltan slipped off the backpack and pulled out the camera case Georg had given them. Carefully, he inched the zipper down and freed the device, pressing a button so that a tiny red light glowed in the dark.

Morgan felt the cool stone on her back, her breath ragged in the air. She strained to hear the words, but they were muffled in the angular acoustics of the cave, deadened by the tons of stone above them. She felt Zoltan squeeze her arm and pull her forward, moving his hand down to hers so that they could inch along the wall together towards the sound.
 

There was light up ahead, the warm glow of candles. As they paused at a bend, hidden in the shadows, Morgan could see two figures, hands raised as they argued with each other. A warped stone cross with stumped ancient limbs stood at the end of the corridor and the walls were flanked with stone pillars topped with spiked metal roundels. It seemed like an altar to a pagan hybrid of Christianity and the ancient Magyar faith.

The voices were clearer now, an argument in fast Hungarian and a sub-text of gesticulation. One man grabbed at the other and his face angled towards the candlelight. With the sharp nose and shining black hair, Morgan recognized Hollo Berényi, the Raven, the man she had chased from the bridge. She felt Zoltan tense beside her, bracing himself for action, but they had no weapons and a frontal assault up this thin corridor would be suicidal. Recording the encounter would be far more valuable for their cause and Zoltan silently held up the camera, his hand obscuring the red light.
 

“They’re arguing about when to reveal the relic,” Zoltan whispered by her ear. “Berényi wants to take it to the rally, claiming that it will escalate the violence tonight if they announce its recovery from the Jews who stole it. He wants to leave now, but the other man talks of using it for some kind of ceremony first.”
 

A third man stepped from the shadows behind the altar, his voice halting the argument with authority. Morgan recognized László Vay from the political posters and felt Zoltan draw in a sharp breath at seeing his former friend in this dark place.
 

Berényi seemed placated by the words, shrugging as László spoke, but clearly uncomfortable with losing the argument. He made a final comment, then spun on his heel and stalked away down a tunnel away from the altar cavern.
 

“He’s going ahead to make sure everything is ready at the rally,” Zoltan whispered, and in his words, Morgan could hear his indecision as to whether to go after the man. Berényi was the blunt instrument of neo-nationalist wrath, a Turul with hooked claws and a beak that could disembowel its victims, a mythical creature of violence and blood. He had to be stopped, but they both knew that László Vay was the more dangerous in the long run.
 

László placed something reverently on the ancient altar, wrapped in a white cloth. Zoltan was transfixed by the object and he raised the camera again. Morgan dared to hope that it would capture the detail of the scene in the semi-darkness.

The other man started to chant, his hands raised to heaven in supplication as he moved behind the altar. The intonation was strange: not just the words but even the rhythm of his prayers was off-beat somehow. The words rolled through the caves, echoing in the long corridor, as if he was calling the ancient spirits to bear witness. In the flickering candlelight, Morgan suddenly saw his face, tattooed with intricate patterns of leaves that seemed to morph into demonic visages as his mouth twisted with entreaties to the spirit world. She saw that he had missing teeth and those remaining had been blackened and sharpened, like a maw of Hell. This man made her flesh crawl, and Morgan itched for a gun.
 

“Those are Magyar ritual prayers,” Zoltan whispered. “He’s a táltos, a shaman.” Morgan heard the undertone of shock in his voice. “I’ve heard of this tattooed man. He channels dark magic back to this country, allying himself with the Far Right who can give him the blood sacrifice he needs.”
 

László leaned forward and, with reverence, unfolded the cloth, as the prayers of the táltos grew more frenzied. Inside was a brown, leathery object that reflected the candlelight in dull hues, its patina like a horse chestnut at the end of autumn. It was the size of a clenched fist, and in that second, Morgan realized that it was the Holy Right Hand of St Stephen.
 

László fell to his knees in front of the altar, like a king waiting to be anointed. He sang out resonant words, pausing as the táltos echoed each phrase.
 

“He claims the Right as his own,” Zoltan whispered. “He claims Hungary as a new Empire under his rule. He entreats the Gods to accept the blood sacrifice offered today in their name.”
 

As the táltos chanted louder, he picked the relic up with both hands and began to wave it in a figure of eight in the air, the symbol of eternity. Morgan could see that László’s eyes were shining with fanaticism as he watched it circle, as if this Hand bestowed on him the right to rule. The táltos touched László’s face with it, stroking the living flesh with the thousand year old relic in a grotesque blessing. A shudder ran through László, but Morgan could see that it was ecstasy, not revulsion, that shook him.
 

Placing the Hand back on the altar, the táltos took up a ceremonial knife. Strange symbols were carved on the handle, evoking the myths of the Magyar war gods. With his chants growing more guttural and violent, the táltos cut a sliver of flesh from the mummified hand. He placed the slice into a chalice and filled it with dark liquid from a flask, swirling it around as he intoned ancient words.
 

László opened his mouth for the tainted host, closing his eyes in prayer as the táltos tipped the chalice.
 

CHAPTER 11

Morgan watched László swallow, chewing a little on the long dead flesh, and she felt a rush of nausea at his cannibalism. The camera light still glowed under Zoltan’s hand, and she realized that this footage would show the politician as a madman. Where people would tolerate racist violence, bigotry and hatred, they would not accept superstition and desecration. Eröszak was standing for economic revival in a greater Hungarian Empire, not the resurrection of myth and dictatorship.
 

“Enough,” Zoltan whispered, pressing a button on the camera. They slipped back around the corner and he handed it to Morgan. “You need to get this out of here so that it can transmit above ground to Georg. It’s the evidence we need to stop the rally. I’ll deal with these two and then I’ll bring out the relic.”
 

The look in Zoltan’s eyes was that of a man defending his family from invasion. Morgan knew that he wouldn’t stop until Hungary was free from these fanatics, when it was a country where all Hungarians could live together, whatever their beliefs. She nodded and touched his hand, leaning in close.
 

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Your people need you alive.” Then on light feet, she ran through the cave, back the way they had come.
 

***

Zoltan watched Morgan go, sending up a prayer that she would make it in time to stop further escalation. He pulled the tire iron from his pack, rounding the corner as the prayers of the táltos reached a crescendo. László knelt in front of the altar facing the twisted cross. As his mouth opened again to receive the final libation, Zoltan stepped from the shadows, crashing the weapon against one of the metal roundels as he ran towards them. The noise resounded through the cave and the táltos fell silent as both men spun to face the sound.
 

“No,” László bellowed with rage, leaping up, his ritual of power interrupted. His hand fell to his belt for a weapon but as his fingers closed around the butt of a gun, Zoltan was upon him, swinging the tire iron. László rolled away and the blow glanced off his shoulder as Zoltan swung back for another strike. The táltos backed away, his tattooed face showing no fear, only a curiosity at this development. His prayers changed again and Zoltan heard the beginnings of a curse, words that had echoed down the centuries as a harbinger of desperate suffering.
 

László pulled his gun and turned, firing just as Zoltan slammed the tire iron down on his arm. The shot went wide, ricocheting off the stone walls and the gun fell clattering to the ground. As László clutched at his arm, Zoltan shoved the metal back into his stomach, driving the wind from him as he fell to his knees, coughing. After all the years of politics, the man was soft, relying on others to fight his battles. Zoltan stood over him with the metal bar raised, muscles tense.
 

“It’s finished, Laz. I’m taking the relic back to the Basilica.”

László laughed through his wheezing attempts to draw breath, looking up at Zoltan from the ground as he clutched his damaged arm.
 

“You just don’t get it, do you? Always the brawn, never the brains, eh, Zoltan. Even your father knew that I was the better man.”

Zoltan gripped the tire iron harder, wanting to slam it down and destroy this man, responsible for so much violence and capable of so much more.
 

“You can’t stop the march of progress,” László continued. “This country wants change, it wants the fucking Jews and Roma out. We will finish what Hitler started and the Soviets continued.”

Zoltan felt a strange sensation possess him. It was as if he stood at the pivotal point of a chain of history, violence repeating itself throughout generations. He was alone, standing against the tide of hate, but he felt the weight of history buoy him up. The Jews had survived unceasing waves of brutality against them, and he would survive this. To bring the tire iron down and finish László would make him a martyr, killed by a Jew, sparking further cycles of retribution. Zoltan stepped back towards the gun. He needed to get László out of there to face some kind of public reckoning. But then the prayers of the táltos stopped and Zoltan heard the rasp of the gun, and a faint click.

He dived for the shelter of the nearest stone pillar just as the tattooed man fired. Zoltan felt a burning sensation in his arm and heard László laugh as he clutched at the wound, feeling warm blood pulsing out.
 

“You see, Zoltan, even the Magyar ancestors reject you. But I will be a hero today, wounded in action while killing the Jew who stole the relic and returning it to the people myself.” László looked briefly at his watch. “I will produce you at the rally, the perfect scapegoat, a Jew with a personal grudge against me.”
 

Zoltan heard László get up and walk across the cave towards the táltos, knowing that if László got the gun, he was finished. What did he have to lose anymore, he thought, and launched himself back out of the shelter of the rock, hurling himself at his old friend. Zoltan slammed into László, using his bulk to smash his body against the altar and knock them both into the táltos, who dropped the gun in his haste to back away. They ended up on the floor, a tangle of bodies, each scrambling to grab hold of the other, a snarling mass of aggression, reduced from men to beasts.
 

Zoltan landed a blow to the tattooed nose of the táltos, and blood gushed immediately. Zoltan saw the hatred in his eyes as the man scrabbled away on hands and knees, before standing and running off down the corridor.
 

His attention momentarily diverted, Zoltan felt László roll out of the grip of his damaged arm and lurch for the tire iron lying close by. He spun quickly and grabbed the man, slamming his head against the hard ground, pinning the searching fingers with a tight grip. László groaned and Zoltan felt his blood lust rise, aware that he had only to carry on smashing the man’s head and it would be over. He thought of Srebenica, the moment he had seen the truth of his friend’s heart. He slammed once more and then stopped, lying panting against László’s prone body, trying to catch his breath. He spotted the gun a little way from them and stood, shaking with the effort.
 

Zoltan fell to his knees by the gun, wanting to rest now, to lean against the wall and just close his eyes. He reached for the weapon, and as he did so a sound came from behind him, a scream of rage, almost inhuman in its ferocity.
 

CHAPTER 12

Zoltan reacted quickly, grabbing the gun and spinning towards the shriek. László held the tire iron high, its arc heading straight for Zoltan’s head, his eyes a berserker’s, crazed with savagery. There was no choice in that moment and Zoltan fired the gun, almost reflexively, as if he were under fire in enemy territory. It was kill or be killed, and here, under his great city, it had finally come to this most basic of human drives to stay alive.