Skin of the Wolf (21 page)

“I understand that. As does my Shifter friend. But many delicate issues will have to be involved in that deliberation.”

“As you say. So we will proceed with an attempt to resolve the current situation. But Livia Pietro, sending someone to Il Gesù is unlikely to serve your purpose.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s true there are Jesuits among the Noantri, and two, I believe, with access at a level high enough to penetrate the secret archives. Neither of them is at the moment in Rome. I can call them here, and will. But the urgency of your situation indicates you haven’t time to wait. However, there is another way.”

“What way?”

“In 1497 a ship sailed for the New World from Bristol, in
England. Her captain was a man whose name has come down through history as John Cabot, but who was by birth an Italian called Giovanni Caboto. He had been some time in England then because he was Cloaking.”

“He was one of us?”

“Yes. And he took with him on his voyage another Noantri, an Augustinian friar calling himself Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis. Carbonariis’s Change came about in the second century, when he was a monastic in a Christian hermetic order near Jerusalem. By the time he sailed with Cabot he had begun to feel oppressed by both the collective nature of the religious society in which he lived, and the growing communal aspects of Noantri life. John Cabot returned to England within a year, later feigning death in a shipwreck. He has since taken other identities in succession. But Carbonariis remained. He is still there.”

S
tanding on the shoulder of the highway, Livia drew a breath, digesting what Rosa Cartelli had just told her. Michael stood some distance away, outlined against the sky. “Signora Cartelli,” Livia said, “this man, Father Carbonariis—he was here when the Indian nations were thriving? He was here when this Ceremony was regularly performed?”

“If there ever was such a Ceremony, yes. If there is a mask such as the one you describe, and if it was last seen in the hands of a Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois, chances are good that Carbonariis can shed light on its travels.”

“Can you put us in touch?”

“Why would I have mentioned him otherwise? But Livia Pietro, take care. Carbonariis’s dedication to his Church and his loyalty to the Noantri are both intense, but they are matched—overshadowed, possibly—by his devotion to the peoples he first encountered in the New World. In today’s parlance one might say he had ‘gone native.’ I’ll contact him and order him to speak with you and he will obey, but he will not thank me. Carbonariis is a recluse, living in the dwindling but still untamed forest of what is now Canada. He has never embraced the joys of Community.”

“Never embraced—he’s an Old Way Noantri?” Livia said in wonder. “They do exist, then? I’ve only heard stories.”

“As always in this world, some stories are fabrications and others are true. There are indeed Old Way Noantri. As to the story you’ve just told me, I’ve no idea into which category it falls. I’ll have Carbonariis speak with you. But know this: Carbonariis will help only to the extent that he believes what you want will benefit the native peoples. If he sees a threat to them, he’ll disappear. That would be a cause of great dismay for the Conclave. Old Way Noantri are not required to come into Community but they are forbidden to feed as they did before the Concordat. If Carbonariis feels it’s in the best interests of the native peoples for him to vanish, he may break off contact with the Conclave and return to his original ways. Under various circumstances other Old Way Noantri have done the same. This exposes us all to an unacceptable danger of discovery. If he chooses that path, Carbonariis will be dealt with in whatever way the Conclave deems necessary. That danger to the Noantri, and the consequences to Carbonariis, are things for which you, Livia Pietro, would be answerable. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Livia shivered in the cold wind; then, in a voice that she hoped sounded stronger than she felt, she said, “I do understand, and I’ll be very careful how I approach Father Carbonariis. Signora, how soon can you reach him?”

“He has no modern conveniences, of course. I’ll call the intermediary who delivers his provisions. She’ll have to go to him, but once in the woods she can travel as fast as she might. It should not take long.”

“Signora Cartelli, thank you. For your help, and for believing me. As I say, I know asking you to keep a secret like this—”

“As you say, you’ve said that. I shall be in touch.
Salve.
”

Driving down the highway, Livia turned the heat up in the car and told Michael about Cartelli, the Conclave, and what little she knew of Father Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis. “You heard from Spencer how we feel most comfortable when we live in physical proximity to each other. But as with anything, there are exceptions. Certain Noantri—no more than a few dozen, I think—who were made hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years before the Concordat allowed for the possibility of Community, have never given up their solitary lives. They live as recluses, as hermits. They’re required to abide by the provisions of the Concordat and so they’re supplied with . . .” She faltered, wondering if Michael’s reaction to her reality, to Spencer’s, was anything like Thomas Kelly’s had been when he’d first learned.

“Blood.” Surprising her, Michael grinned. “I’m a biologist, I’m a doctor, I’m an Indian, and I’m a shapeshifter. You think a little blood is going to bother me?”

She smiled back. “They’re given supplies of blood and they’re forbidden from feeding as they used to or making new Noantri without Conclave permission. Beyond that they’re left alone and their identities and locations are closely guarded. I’ve never met one of them and I don’t know anyone who has.”

“When was this Father Carbonariis—the word is ‘made’?”

“In the second century. He was a hermit even then. By the time he came here he was an Augustinian friar, and apparently he’d made it clear he had no interest in Community.”

“And he’s been here since? Your process of going somewhere else, changing identities—he hasn’t done that?”

“I suppose if you live deep in the forests of Canada you don’t have to.”

Michael said nothing in answer to that, just sat and watched
charcoal clouds slip through the iron sky. Livia, used to his silences by now, stayed quiet as she drove, feeling the soft shifting tugs as the road curved and curved again against the rocky hillside. As they started the descent to the river Michael said, “Carbonariis would have been here at first contact. Before the diseases, before the slaughter. He’d have heard the lost languages. Heard the songs, and seen the dances.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe, when this is over . . . Do you think he’ll sit with me? Tell me what he remembers?”

“I don’t know. All we can do is ask him.”

Michael nodded. Livia watched the river come closer, saw Manhattan rising in steel cliffs to answer the stone ones of the Palisades. As they reached the George Washington Bridge Livia’s phone rang. She slipped the earpiece in and answered it.

“Professor Pietro,” came Rosa Cartelli’s dry voice. “It seems there may be some truth to your story after all.”

“Carbonariis says that?”

“Carbonariis says nothing. I reached his contact in Halifax. Carbonariis has gone to New York.”

“To New York? A recluse from the woods of Canada?”

“It seems so. His contact was quite surprised and asked him why. He told her there was a mask he wanted to see.”

C
harlotte threw her pen down on the scratched steel desk. She’d rather have punched out the computer but the Department didn’t like it when you broke the technology. She and Framingham had spent a frustrating morning running down the list Brittany Williams’s furious father and tearful mother had supplied of their daughter’s ex-boyfriends. Ostrander and Sun had been in the same business; among the four of them they’d been out on half a dozen interviews covering all five boroughs (Brooklyn twice) and made dozens of phone calls. The first set of calls was to ascertain that some of these exes lived far away and the second set, more roundabout, was to make sure they actually were far away right now.

“Before goddamn cell phones,” Charlotte said to no one in particular, “when a cop called a guy in Buffalo and he answered the phone that was all you needed to know.”

“Scuse me, child, but how do you know that?” Ostrander asked mildly, not looking up from his computer screen. “You and Matt were born with cell phones in your hands.”

“She was,” said Sun. “Matt was born with the tricorder to call the mother ship.”

Framingham hurled his pencil across the room and Sun, with a practiced move, ducked.

Charlotte got up and poured herself the burnt dregs of the coffee. She dropped behind her desk again and scrolled through the preliminary forensics report, hoping something would jump out at her. Nothing she saw was any more useful than it had been the first four times. All the blood was Brittany’s, and though the room was plastered with fingerprints, the ones they’d checked so far all belonged to Sotheby’s personnel or consultants. Which didn’t mean someone with a right to be there hadn’t killed her, but it did mean if that’s what had happened you couldn’t prove it by fingerprints. One of the ME’s people thought he had some anomalous DNA in the rip in her throat, but he couldn’t even tell if it was human, and Charlotte was ready to strangle him when he admitted that a musk perfume, or sloppy kisses from her poufy little dog, would have left those kinds of traces.

“Well,” Sun said, looking up, “I might have something. Charlotte, don’t take this wrong.”

“Screw you.”

Sun nodded as though she’d agreed to be reasonable. “I was going back through these guys. Her exes. Her father can’t tell them apart but he says one of them obviously did it and since they’re all goddamn leeches they should all be shot.”

“It’s good to be the king,” Framingham said.

“Her mother, though, seems to have memorized each one. If it were my mother that would be because she was already naming the grandchildren. She gave me a complete roster.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been working from?”

“Yes, but get this. In college Brittany dated a guy named Stan Miller.”

“I called him,” Ostrander interrupted. “He’s in Omaha.”

“That’s not the point. He’s Chippewa.”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

“According to her mother, that’s where her interest in Native art started. And here’s the thing: two of the other exes are Indians, too. Enrolled tribal members. A third, he’s not enrolled, but I Facebooked him. He’s got long hair and that round face, like Nanook of the North.”

“Hey!” Framingham complained. “How come he can say shit like that and you’re not breaking his balls?”

“He’s Chinese,” Charlotte said. “Steve, you’re telling me she had powwow fever?”

“That’s what you call it? With us we say she liked rice.”

Charlotte swung her legs off her desk. “That’s what we call it. You know what it means?”

“I do! I do!” Framingham raised his hand. “It means we get to take another run at one of the last people, who also happens to be an Indian, to see her alive. Michael Bonnard. I should ping again?”

“You bet.”

A few minutes and the rest of the coffee dregs later, Framingham looked up to announce, “We are pingless. His phone must be off.”

“How about that? Who turns their phone off?”

Ostrander and Sun said together, “Bad guys.”

“Okay. Come on, Matt.”

“Where?” To her glare Framingham said, “Though of course I’d follow you anywhere so I don’t need to know, do I, I’ll just trail along puppy-dog like and worship at your—”

“Oh, shut the hell up. This is right up your upper-class Brit alley. We’re going to see his Brit pal, Spencer George.”

I
was not expecting so many.”

Livia, Spencer, and Thomas stood in Spencer’s parlor, facing the glowering man who’d stopped short in the arched entryway. Thomas found himself fighting not to flinch as the dark eyes swept over them.

At Spencer’s suggestion it was Michael who’d gone to greet Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis at the door. “If the good father’s identities as priest and Noantri are secondary to his love for Michael’s people, it might put his mind at ease to be met by—listen to this, Michael, I’m learning to say it—an Indian.”

Michael had smiled and they’d all settled in to wait.

Thomas himself had a hard time staying still. The man on his way to them had passed through Thomas’s research on Kateri Tekakwitha, though like Père Ravenelle he was what Father Maxwell referred to as “far afield.” In the other direction, though. At the dawn of the sixteenth century Antonio de Carbonariis had been involved in the establishment of a Christian settlement in Newfoundland, the first in North America. After a few years the settlement had foundered and the monks, it was reported, had returned to Europe. Thomas had searched for more information but hit a puzzling
wall: the Scottish scholar whose life’s work had been that expedition and Carbonariis had ordered all her research destroyed when she died. At the time he’d wondered why anyone would do that, spend a painstaking lifetime adding a piece to the puzzle that was human knowledge and then remove it and throw it away.

If her research had led her to Carbonariis’s true nature, though, he understood.

Even Livia and Spencer, it seemed to Thomas, engaged in an uncharacteristic level of banter and bustling: making coffee, straightening pillows. Only Michael didn’t speak, barely moved. He drank the coffee Spencer brought him, and after that leaned back in his chair. Thomas wondered if he’d fallen asleep; yet he sat up, alert, and stood to walk to the door a few seconds before the bell sounded. Spencer and Livia also lifted their heads; it was only Thomas who needed the doorbell to know their guest had arrived.

Michael and Carbonariis had exchanged words at the door, words Thomas heard but couldn’t understand. A Native language, most likely. Now Carbonariis stood in the parlor entrance, a tall, thin figure in the loose black wool habit and shoulder cape of an Augustinian friar. His gray hair was cut in a tonsure, a style long abandoned among most orders—including, Thomas was sure, the Augustinians. Around his neck hung a silver crucifix and a small leather bag.

Carbonariis spoke to Michael, again words Thomas didn’t understand. At Michael’s response Carbonariis snorted, said something more, and in waves of cloth strode into the room. The upholstered furniture earned a scowl of disdain; he chose a wooden side chair. He turned to Livia and said, “You are Professor Pietro?” His English carried a slight accent, an odd guttural roll. Not of the native Italian
speaker, for of course Carbonariis wasn’t that. The tongue of his youth, Thomas realized, would have been Aramaic.

“Yes, I’m Livia Pietro.”

“I’ve been ordered to speak with you. Who are they?”

“Dr. Michael Bonnard—” Livia began.

“Gata. We have just met. These two.”

“I am Spencer George. This is my home. I—”

“Your home is grand. I wish you great joy of it. And you, Jesuit?”

Taken aback, Thomas answered, “Thomas Kelly,” in a voice less forceful than he might have liked. “I’m very glad to meet you, Father.”

The Augustinian’s response was a sardonic gaze. “Gata tells me you are all to be trusted. Fine. Let us proceed. Why have I been called?”

“Will you have coffee?” Spencer asked. “Or a brandy, perhaps?”

“I prefer to keep this encounter as brief as possible.” Carbonariis had not taken his gaze from Thomas, who was doing his best to meet the glinting eyes.

“As you wish,” said Spencer. He looked from one priest to the other. “Father Kelly is a friend,” he said, and added, “of the Noantri.”

Now Carbonariis glanced at Spencer. “Is he? This is new. And disquieting. We are Unveiling to priests, now? And,” he added, looking at Michael, “to the Haudenosaunee?”

“No. Father Kelly’s position is unique. As is Michael’s. As is yours, Father Carbonariis.”

“Unique, because I am both priest and Noantri? You delude yourself. There are many.”

“No, Blackrobe,” said Michael. “Because of your memory of my people. And though my language is Mohawk and my home is
at Akwesasne, the Haudenosaunee are my father’s people. I’m Abenaki. Wolf Clan.”

Carbonariis nodded to acknowledge the correction. In the silence that followed, Thomas realized he alone was still standing. He took to the armchair again, but perched on the edge, eyes on Carbonariis.
There are many.

The friar turned to Livia. “All these men have spoken, yet you are the one to whom I was sent. Why?”

“Why have they spoken?” Livia smiled. “It’s their nature. Why are you here? About the mask.”

“The Ohtahyohnee
.
”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Little surprises me.”

“But some things impress you. You traveled a long way to see the mask.”

Carbonariis made no answer.

“And have you, Father? Have you seen it?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of it?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because it’s a fake.”

A pause. “You’ve brought me here to tell me that? Nothing like this Ohtahyohnee has been seen for centuries. I’ll make my own judgment. I doubt you would know.”

“I’ve seen it,” Michael said. “I know.”

Carbonariis regarded Michael for a long, silent time. He said slowly, “You were able to tell?”

“Unmistakably.” Michael switched to Mohawk. Thomas watched the exchange, saw the Augustinian’s eyes widen as Michael
spoke. Carbonariis asked sharp questions. Michael responded calmly. Finally Carbonariis settled back and gave a cold smile.

“New, indeed,” he said. “The Noantri Unveil to a Jesuit, and a Shifter reveals his identity—and to white people. The world is changing.”

Thomas saw Livia and Spencer glance at one another. “You know?” Livia asked. “About the Shifters?”

Carbonariis didn’t answer.

“You know?” she repeated. “You knew the Noantri weren’t alone?”

“You pronounce that as an accusation.”

“No, no. Just—that knowledge, it means so much. If we’d known . . . The Noantri—”

“Are Europeans!” Thomas recoiled as Carbonariis’s roar struck the room with physical force. Lowering his tone, the friar went on, “Not all, of course. Even when I came to this land there must have been Noantri in Asia and in Africa. But the Concordat was signed by Europeans. The Noantri are governed”—he smiled thinly—“like the Holy Mother Church, from Rome. But there were no Noantri here. None that I met. None that were rumored. None, among the native people.”

“I told you that,” Michael said to the others, his eyes still on Carbonariis. “There are no blood-drinkers in our stories.”

“Each of us,” Carbonariis said, “when he becomes Noantri, remains the man he was. What reason did I have to expect that my eternal brethren would love the people of this land any more than my mortal brothers did? As for the Church, her love for the native peoples was such that she held learned debates to determine whether they even had souls. I had been here forty years before
Sublimus Dei
,
and I saw that papal bull and its radical idea that the natives were human given lip service and immediately ignored. For centuries I watched priests and Noantri land on these shores and, side by side with the unchurched and the Unchanged, wantonly destroy all that was beautiful and sacred. In the hands of such people, knowledge is a weapon. Why would I give them such a powerful one?”

“A weapon,” Livia said, “but also a tool. Knowing this could have changed our people.”

“Our people? The twin hierarchies in Rome, you mean? No. Those who welcomed me half a millennium ago to lands they inhabit but do not conquer, forests they use but do not destroy, seas they fish but do not poison—they are my people.” He stood. “If I’ve been sent here by the Conclave to be berated—”

“No,” said Michael, standing also. “You’ve been sent to help your people. Please, Blackrobe. Sit with us.”

The air sparked with tension. Thomas searched for pacifying words. Before he could find them, Livia said, “I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No. You meant to criticize and expected me not to be offended.” Abruptly, Carbonariis sat again. “Shifter,” he said to Michael, “why are you here?”

“To help my people.”

“By living in the white world? Your Power was given to you for a purpose.”

“Everything I am, and have, was given to me for that same purpose,” Michael said. “I’m a scientist. I study the Power.”

“Study?” Carbonariis’s words dripped with acid. “White science teaches nothing but how to destroy.”

“Science teaches nothing at all. As Livia said, knowledge is a tool. Its use is what you make of it.”

“And what use do you, Shifter, make of your studies?”

“The Power is genetic,” Michael said evenly. “If I can trace the gene I might be able to identify the Shifters.”

“That’s not for a Shifter to do. It’s the work of a medicine man.”

“It’s not being done.”

“Perhaps there are reasons.” Carbonariis narrowed his eyes. “How will you do it?”

“I study smallpox. The virus killed Shifters out of proportion to their numbers among the people. If I can find—” He stopped; Carbonariis was shaking his head.

“Smallpox did not kill Shifters.”

“The Shifters fade from the stories in the same pattern as the disease swept through the nations. My work—”

“Is white man’s work!” The friar gave a sneer of triumph. “Smallpox was a potent weapon. It helped destroy the nations. But not Shifters. Not the way you think. Shifters survived the disease. Almost always. But the Power was gone.”

“I . . .” Michael trailed off. He began again, “The historical record . . . I can see the virus—”

“You look through white eyes! You can see the virus? Can you see the people dying, warriors, women, children? Can you see the helpless medicine men as they weep? Can you see Shifters, desperate to summon the Power—as though the Power would turn the battle against white man’s filth!—but trying because their oaths demanded it, and achieving nothing more than a pitiful, partial Shift, an interrupted Shift they could not reverse? You say you can see Shifters vanishing as smallpox spread. Yes, they vanished. The medicine elders stopped performing the Ceremony! It was too dangerous. Infected children could not complete their Shifts and the elders had no way of telling whose blood was poisoned. And Shifters also vanished
because many walked into the forests and killed themselves, rather than let their identities be revealed by their failures to return to man-self or woman-self. In that last act they honored their oaths, as they could not in any other way. As you, Gata, do not.” He glared around the room. “If I have knowledge that will be of use to what is left of the people I love, let me employ it. If not, I will be grateful to be gone.”