The Mona Lisa Sacrifice (28 page)

Then Edwards turned to me and slowly clapped his hands together again.

“Well played,” he said. “Very well played.” And then he dropped the sleight and he was just Edwards again. There was no sign of Judas at all.

Well, fair’s fair. I wasted no time dropping my own Judas masquerade. And then there were none.

Mona Lisa howled when she saw our true natures, and the snakes threw themselves at us, uncoiling and lashing out across the distance to score our faces with their burning fangs. The very air itself began to burn in places, scorching my lungs until I couldn’t breathe, and the flames from the floor leapt up all around me. The walls began to melt. The Da Vinci painting we were in was turning into a Dali painting.

The other angels finally let go of the mummy and took flight, screaming. But it was no good. Their wings were melting and there was nowhere for them to go.

Edwards seemed more philosophical about the whole thing. He shook his head at me. “You can stop me, but you can’t stop the Risen,” he said. “We are legion.”

Then the snakes wrapped themselves around him like a hundred fiery constrictors and I couldn’t see him at all anymore. When the snakes snapped back to Mona Lisa’s head, there simply wasn’t anything left of him anymore, not even ash.

I’ll give him credit—he didn’t scream.

Mona Lisa turned to me then and I held my arms open to welcome my fate. I was getting tired of this century anyway. But before she could do to me what she’d done to Edwards, another angel came hurtling through the window, from outside. Cassiel. He was naked like the others, and his wings were smoking but they weren’t burning yet.

He landed between Mona Lisa and me, facing her, and kept his wings up out of the flames.

“The river Styx,” he told her. “The river Styx is where we kissed for the first time.”

She stared at him for a moment, and then his wings crumbled into dust and blew away. His skin melted, turning white and then ashen, like a corpse’s. And his body took on a gaunt, not-quite-human shape that was all too familiar. . . .

Oh, for Christ’s sake.

Mona Lisa’s snakes reached out to caress his face. He didn’t flinch away from them, just held out his hands to her. The flames faded from her skin—but not the rest of the room—and she stepped into his embrace.

“A boat of bones,” he whispered. “The songs of the dead. The end of time.”

“Judas,” I swore. There is no other way of describing how I said his name.

He turned to face me. It was him all right. I’d been played like I’d never been played before. I was too disgusted with myself to even attack him right away. And too near death. I could barely stand.

“I told you I would deliver you Judas,” he said. “And I have kept my end of the bargain. Just as you have kept yours.”

I thought about maybe picking up one of the fallen weapons and killing him with it. But instead I just rested my burned hands on my scorched legs for a moment. I took note of the black spots marring my vision, but I wasn’t sure if they were ash or just my eyesight starting to fade.

“As you might expect, I have a few questions,” I said through gritted teeth and charred lips. “Like why the hell you dragged me into this. Why didn’t you just rescue her yourself if you knew where she was?”

Judas smiled as Mona Lisa embraced him. Her snakes caressed his face like Penelope had stroked my hair when we lay together. “How could I have succeeded where even you have failed?” he said.

Fair enough.

“I’m going to die here,” I said. “But I’ll die trying to take you with me.”

And the snakes hissed at me as Mona Lisa straightened and pushed Judas behind her.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” I said and grabbed a knife off the burning table. The blade and handle were both white hot from the fire, but whatever.

“Wait,” Judas said and pulled Mona Lisa back before she could annihilate me. Damn him. “I have met the terms of our bargain, but I feel perhaps that is not enough.”

“Perhaps not,” I agreed, continuing on. I threw a jab at his face, but it was just a feint to cover the knife thrust to his stomach. I sank the blade in deep, to the hilt. And then it kept going. My hand erupted out the other side of him, and ash poured out. Mona Lisa screamed, but Judas waved her off.

“You have earned that, or I have deserved it,” he said. When he spoke, cobwebs spilled out of his mouth and drifted through the air around us. Other than that, he showed no signs of being affected by the wound. “And now I will give you what you deserve. The answers you have so long sought. The secrets of your existence.”

I paused in pulling the knife back out of him for another shot. It was the only thing that would make me stop.

“I’m listening,” I said.

He chuckled. “I thought you might be.” He leaned close, so that when he spoke the cobwebs floated out onto my face when he whispered the words I had waited so long to hear.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said. “And I don’t know why you came to be. I don’t even know how.”

I swore a handful of forgotten curses at him. “This is not the time for your tricks,” I said and ripped the knife free. More ash filled the air. I rammed the knife deep into him again, through his heart, through him, before Mona Lisa could kill me.

He cried out in pain but didn’t try to stop me. He just stood there and shook his head. “You can’t kill me any more than I can kill you,” he said. “That’s because you don’t know me any more than I know you.”

And now Mona Lisa shoved him aside and cast her fiery gaze upon me. The air was a howling firestorm, but it wasn’t so loud that I couldn’t hear his words.

“I am not the one to blame for your existence,” he said. “I am not the one who put you in that body. I suspect the body made you all on its own. A programming error perhaps. Maybe it sought to heal itself when Christ’s soul departed for the happy never after, and it created a new soul to fill the void. You.”

And then he grew wings again, this time made of smoke and bone, and he caught Mona Lisa in his arms and leapt out the window before she could destroy me. All I could do was scream my rage at them as they disappeared into the burning sky outside.

And then there was more screaming behind me and I turned to see the other angels completely aflame now. Gabriel threw himself out the window after Judas and Mona Lisa, to who knows where, but the others just battered themselves against the ceiling like moths.

And there was still the mummy. He stumbled across the room toward me, burning like a torch as he came. I had to give him credit for persistence.

And I decided then that I was going to make one good thing come out of this unholy mess. Everyone else had been making sacrifices. Morgana, when she had freed me, although she had taken much in return. Aigra, who had given everything to me. Hell, Judas had even sacrificed Remiel to me, if you wanted to look at things charitably. And maybe he
had
told me the truth about myself, as unpleasant as it was to hear. Now it was my turn. I wasn’t going to use the last of my grace to try to find some way to escape. I was going to use it to free the mummy from its curse. I was going to let him die a man. I was going to use the life my body had given me to give him life. It wouldn’t be much of a life, considering the circumstances, but what life is?

So I resurrected him.

It took the very last of my grace, and I dropped into the flames in exhaustion after I did it. I had nothing left. But the mummy stopped coming at me and then gasped for breath. Then he started tearing off his burning bandages. I saw the fresh skin underneath, saw his young face with glistening new skin when he ripped the fiery strips from his head.

Then the world flickered around me and started to go dark. I thought I was finally passing out, until I realized it was just the flames dying. I looked at myself. My skin was scorched black, but I wasn’t burning anymore. The floor wasn’t burning. The walls had frozen in mid-melt.

I looked around. The angels lay moaning where they’d fallen from the air, smoke rising from them, but the fires had been extinguished on them too.

As for the mummy, he was now a naked man with gleaming bronze skin and golden circlets around his arms. A pattern of diamonds I didn’t recognize was tattooed around his neck. His eyes were the same gold as the circlets. I could see grace radiating from him, more than I’d ever seen from angels. It was a shame I was too hurt to do anything about it.

He stood above me and smiled.

“You may have resurrected a dead man,” he said, “but in doing so you have birthed a god.”

“If you say so,” I said, or something equally as eloquent.

“It was my destiny to join the ranks of the lords upon my death, as it was for all the pharaohs,” he said, and I remembered the sign on the sarcophagus case in the British Museum, which had said pretty much the same thing. “But I was cursed with the undeath by a priest,” he went on. “I could not rule the afterlife. I could do nothing but watch my realm crumble into dust, until the ghosts came and made me their slave.”

“I’m guessing by ghosts you mean the British,” I said. I figured I might as well make small talk while I waited to die.

“Do not speak unless told to speak,” he said, although not in an unkind way. Fair enough—he had stopped the flames. Now all I had to contend with were my burns and stab wound and deep, insatiable longing for Morgana. And I had to face all that without any grace. I kind of wished he had let the flames kill me so I could have some peace.

He looked out the window and his eyes turned black. “It was a curse with a hidden blessing though,” he said. “The afterlife is gone. The afterlife itself has died. I would have died with it. And now I am free to live as a god where I will, for as much time as this realm has left to it.”

Okay, he could be a problem. But I vowed he wouldn’t be mine. I was going to stay clear of gods and angels for a time. And gorgons.

He looked back at me and put his hand on my shoulder. It felt cool and soothing on my tortured skin. “I owe you a favour,” he said. “You have freed me from my curse and given me a new realm, a new time to rule. I will give you a blessing in return. I will give you the gift you have given me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to resurrect me after I die,” I said. “Because I can manage that on my own.”

“No,” he said, “I’m going to resurrect you before you die.” And then I felt more of that coolness flowing through his hand and into me, spreading throughout my body, and it was unlike any grace I’d ever felt. It didn’t make me feel any more alive—it soothed the pain and made me feel light and insubstantial. And then I realized it was because I was actually becoming insubstantial. Either the room was fading away around me or
I
was fading away—I wasn’t sure which. Either way, I hoped I was heading back to Morgana’s court. I really needed a drink now.

“We will meet again before the end of time,” he said before I drifted away completely. “Remember who spared you then.” And then everything was the familiar white glow of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Only rather than this glow fading into black like it usually did when I died, it faded away into a regular spotlight overhead. I squinted against its glare. I felt cold metal on my back. On my naked, unburned skin. I felt the chill of air conditioning. I felt no pain at all. Other than the usual existential kind, anyway. I saw Anubis and Osiris and the other dead gods looming over me, welcoming me to wherever the mummy had sent me. I tasted blood in my mouth.

And grace.

I tasted grace in my mouth to go along with the blood.

A fresh drop of blood landed on my lips and I sucked it in, savouring it. I felt a shiver of electricity flicker briefly through the screaming emptiness that was my longing for Morgana.

I saw the angel perched on a pipe hanging from the ceiling overhead. Cassiel. A cut on his wrist. The blood dripping down from it to my mouth.

Where was I?

I sat up and looked around. I was back in the British Museum. I was in the same room the mummy had been displayed in. I was lying in the case he’d been in. I was in a healthy body again, showing no signs of burns or stabs or bullet wounds or any of the other treats of the last few days. Except for the black ring on my finger. I guess that Egyptian god didn’t want to do anything about that. Or couldn’t do anything about it.

A drop cloth that had been covering the case was pulled partially away. A sign beside the case said This Exhibit Closed for Maintenance. Anubis and Osiris were just statues on pedestals. There was no one else in the room. I didn’t need someone to tell me the museum was closed. The bastard had sent me back to where our relationship had started.

I chuckled my appreciation and then looked up at Cassiel. He flicked his wrist and a fresh drop of blood landed in my open mouth.

“Is it really you this time?” I asked.

“It would appear to be me,” he said.

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“I am aware of your meaning,” he said. “But what I am or am not is of little relevance to the matter at hand.”

“It’s of relevance if you’re Judas,” I said.

“I am not Judas,” he said. “I have never been Judas.”

“What if I don’t believe you?” I said.

He flicked some more blood into my mouth.

“Do I taste of Judas?” he asked.

The truth is I didn’t know what Judas tasted like. But whatever his flavour was, I doubted it was the grace of the seraphim. And I doubted he would willingly give me strength. Which did raise the question of why Cassiel was doing it. So I went for the obvious question.

“Why are you giving me grace?” I said.

“There is a need for your services,” he said.

“Oh no,” I said, climbing out of the case. “I’m not falling for that again.”

I looked around for the exit. I had to get back to the faerie pub and Morgana.

Cassiel watched me from his pipe but made no move to follow. His blood dripped into the empty case. It was all I could do to not throw myself back in there and lick it up. Anything to distract me from thoughts of Morgana. I tried to pull the ring off my finger again, but it was really stuck on there. Yeah, this wasn’t good.

“There is nothing to fall for,” he said. “The need is as genuine as it may have been with Mona Lisa. But this time I am indeed Cassiel, not Judas.”

I stared at him. “You
knew
about all that?” I asked.

“I am a watcher,” he said, studying me without blinking. “I know much that others do not.”

“And you didn’t try to stop Judas from pretending to be you?” I said.

“Judas has taken on many forms over the millennia,” Cassiel said. “None of them have been of any import to me.”

“What about the Mona Lisa?” I asked. “Is she of import to you?”

“The painting or the gorgon?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. “Did everyone know she was a gorgon but me?” I asked.

“I appreciate the artistic merits of the painting,” Cassiel said. “And of course the rituals of binding that were involved in its creation. But it is of no matter. The gorgon and I were once lovers, so yes, she is of personal interest. But that has nothing to do with you or the matter at hand.”

“But it did,” I said.

Cassiel paused. “It did what?” he asked.

“The fact that she was of personal interest to you did have something to do with the matter at hand,” I said. “Only it was Judas’s matter, not yours.”

Cassiel finally blinked. Maybe it was his way of showing surprise. Or confusion. Or maybe impatience. Or maybe he just had to blink every few thousand years to keep his eyes moist.

“I am . . . unclear as to your meaning,” he said.

“You know everything that happens, right?” I said.

“I observe,” he said. “I undertake the sacred duty of documentation.”

“To hell with your sacred duty,” I said. “Just tell me if I’m correct.”

I waited for him to blink again, but he didn’t. Ah well. I’d check again in a thousand years.

“Judas pretended to be you for two reasons,” I said. “One, so I wouldn’t kill him outright. The other because he knew about your fling with Mona Lisa.”

“Fling is an inaccurate way of describing our relationship,” he said.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, carrying on. “He chose to be you because he knew I would go to Victory for help once I was in the Louvre to check out the painting. Victory knew about your fling with Mona Lisa because of that sisterhood thing she and the other gorgons have going on. He probably figured because you were involved Victory would feed me a few details about Mona Lisa that maybe she wouldn’t have told me otherwise—like the fact that Mona Lisa is a gorgon. Only it wasn’t you who was involved, it was Judas. But she didn’t know that.”

“Again, fling is the wrong word,” Cassiel said.

“After that, he knew he just had to sit back and keep an eye on me,” I said. “Once I learned about Mona Lisa’s secret, I was able to start figuring things out for myself. Judas only stepped back into the scene when I got stuck, like when I was in the faerie pub and he pretended to be you again, or when I needed a nudge in the right direction, like when he pretended to be the art dealer and told me to go to America.”

Cassiel didn’t say anything, just studied me.

“It was all low-risk stuff for him,” I said. “Nothing where he’d have to stick around for long and chance me figuring out what was really going on. And I’m betting he knew where Mona Lisa was all along, right? He just didn’t know how to get her out. Not until I got all Philip Marlowe on the case.”

“That is an acceptable version of events,” Cassiel said. “Except for your description of the relationship I had with Mona Lisa.”

I still had questions, of course. Like how Judas had been able to follow me so effectively without me noticing him. I’m usually better than that at picking up tails. But that wasn’t the real important question. The real important question I asked Cassiel.

“Were you there in
The Last Supper
with Judas and me?” I asked.

“I was not there,” he said. “I will never be there.” Whatever that meant.

“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “Do you know what he said to me there?”

“What he said is history,” Cassiel answered.

“So you do know,” I said.

“History is the known,” he said. “That is what makes it history.”

Right. I tried not to grind my teeth right out of my head.

“Was he telling the truth?” I asked.

“The truth is an unstable element with Judas,” Cassiel said.

“Was he telling the truth when he said he didn’t put me in this body?” I asked. “Was he telling the truth when he said this body created me?”

Cassiel stared at me for a long moment. He flexed his wings. He looked away, then back. It was the most flustered I’d seen him get.

“Yes,” he said. “Judas told you a truth in that instance.”

I closed my eyes and waited for a while. But it didn’t work. When I opened them again, the world was still there. Cassiel was still there. I was still stuck in that body.

“So it’s true,” I said. “I am nobody.”

“You are Christ,” Cassiel said.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

“It is also true that you are not Christ,” Cassiel said.

I sighed, because there was nothing else to do. Two thousand years after I was born, I finally had an answer to who I was, and whether or not there was a reason for my existence. And that answer was I was an accident. I wondered if God even knew I existed.

“One more question then,” I said. “Where can I find Judas now?” I still wanted to kill him. He had it coming, after all.

“There is no time for that,” Cassiel said. “There is only time for feeding on my grace and growing strong again. And then there is only time for the return to La Sagrada Familia.”

“Remiel’s nest?” I asked. “Why would I want to go back there?”

“Judas did not lure you to Remiel’s nest,” Cassiel said. “Judas lured you to Remiel’s station.”

I had a sinking feeling at the sound of that. “Station?” I asked. “Like stations of the cross?”

“La Sagrada Familia was Remiel’s guard station,” Cassiel said. “When you slew Remiel, you slew the guard of the crypt.”

“The crypt,” I said. That sinking feeling kept going.

“What lies in the chamber underneath La Sagrada Familia,” Cassiel said. “What La Sagrada Familia was constructed to contain.”

“No no no,” I said, backing away until I bumped into a wall. “This is not my fight.”

“With no one to guard it, it has awoken,” Cassiel said. “It is breaking free of its prison. It must be stopped.”

“Call your friends,” I said. “Summon the Risen. Appeal to the Faithful. I don’t care. This has nothing to do with me. I’m going after Morgana. I mean Judas.” I didn’t even want to know what lay underneath Gaudí’s church.

“It has everything to do with you,” Cassiel said. “You slew the guard. You set the awakening into progress. It is your responsibility.”

I considered his words in silence for a moment. And then another one. Hell, I may have thought about them for the rest of the night.

“Judas will always be there,” Cassiel said. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me to be patient or if he was getting metaphysical.

Finally I nodded at the blood in the case.

“Get me a goblet or something,” I said. “A coffee cup. Anything.”

“A grail awaits you,” he said, nodding at the drop cloth. I lifted the cloth and saw a thermos sitting in the foot of the case, amid the shards of broken glass. I pulled it out and unscrewed the lid. It was full of Cassiel’s blood.

“How did you know I’d agree?” I asked.

“I see all the deeds that are and all the deeds that have been,” he said. “I see all the paths that can be from those. In no path did you refuse.”

“Do you see me kill you in any of these paths?” I asked him.

“I see you kill me in all of them,” Cassiel said without changing expression. “But not until many years from now.”

I looked down into the thermos, at all that grace waiting for me. I thought about Judas and everything he had done to me. I thought about what I’d learned about myself, that I was nobody and there was possibly no reason for my existence. I thought about Morgana and how much I missed her. I thought about my vow to kill Penelope’s father, who was still out there somewhere, waiting to be found. I thought about how much I loved that Gaudí church, and about how much I loved Barcelona. I thought about all the people sitting in cafes around the city right at this very moment, drinking their good wine and enjoying their good lives while something they couldn’t imagine woke from slumber beneath their feet.

“Damn you to hell,” I told Cassiel and I drank down his blood.

Damn you all to hell.