The Cathari Treasure (Cameron Kincaid) (6 page)

A white passenger bus with the word
‘Lucky’ written in bright red letters across the side pulled up to the curb
outside the restaurant.  Cameron went out first to confirm the passage and
pay the fare for the three of them and then went back into the restaurant to
get Marie and Nicole.  He led them out of the restaurant and directed them
to get on the bus with the group that had gathered by the door.  Near the
bus an old man and his fruit cart stood in the shade of a large umbrella. 
Cameron bought bananas, apples, and blueberries then joined the others on the
bus.  He sat in the seat behind Marie and Nicole and then from the bag of
fruit he pulled a banana.

“Nicole,” said Cameron.

“Yes,” said Nicole. 
Cameron offered Nicole the bag of fruit.

“There is some fresh fruit in
the sack,” said Cameron.  “We’ll be ok now.  I’m going to rest my
eyes, you may want to do the same.”

 “Thank you, Mister
Kincaid,” said Nicole.

Cameron smiled and tilted his
head forward.  Nicole returned the smile.  He slipped his sunglasses
on and let his headrest back on the seat.  Marie tapped Nicole’s shoulder
and gestured for her to turn around.

* * *
* *

Cameron lifted his head off of
the bus seat.  The back of Cameron’s neck was damp from sleep.  An
old woman in a red vest uneasily made her way to the back of the bus.  She
placed her hand on the edge of Marie’s seat and then, helping her balance,
moved the hand to the back of his seat.  Evergreens silently slid past the
window.  The tires of the bus hummed in a droning tranquil rhythm that was
easily tuned out leaving for the most part silence with the exception of a
tinny noise from the too loud headphones across the aisle and the soft murmurs
of an elderly couple behind him.  Nicole’s head was against the window and
Marie, not trying to sleep or having napped already, flipped through one of the
magazines that had been left behind in the seat pocket in front of her by some
earlier passenger.

Cameron folded his arms over the
back of Marie’s seat and rested his chin near her ear.  “She’s sleeping?”
said Cameron.

Marie looked over to Nicole,
placed the magazine back into the seat pocket, and then moved from her seat to
Cameron’s.  Cameron slid over to the window to make room for her. 
Marie sighed as she sat and then pinched the bridge of her nose between her
thumb and index finger.

“Are you alright?” asked
Cameron.

“I get a little motion
sickness,” said Marie, still squeezing, “it caught me for a moment when I
stood.”  She released her nose and sat upright, inhaling a large
breath.  “I’m fine now.”

“That works?”

“So it seems.  It’s an old
trick my grandmother taught me.”

Marie turned to Cameron and
smiled.

“That’s a nice smile,” said
Cameron.

“Thank you Mister Kincaid. 
I am not a cold person.  You have to understand the responsibility I
have.”

“If the last twenty-four hours
is any impression, it would be easy to underestimate.”

“It is not always like
this.  Sometimes yes.  She knows nothing different.  Nicole has
lived her life in hiding, hunted.  She is very strong, but I am saddened
for her.”

“Why is she -- are you -- in
hiding?”

“I told you, we are Cathari, the
pure ones.  Hiding has become our way.”

“Yes, you told me she holds the
key to a treasure that will transform the world.”

“You are skeptical.  Why
wouldn’t you be?  The Rex Mundi believes the treasure will transform the
world.  I told you they are wrong.”

“That’s what I mean.  Why
do they think she holds the key to this treasure?”

“She is destined to be a
Perfect.  The Rex Mundi, somehow,
know
this.”

“She is to become perfect?”

“A Perfect, Mister Kincaid.”

“A Perfect?  What does that
mean?”

“The woman we are going to
meet.  She is an elder holy woman.  She is a Perfect.”

“Like a Priest?”

“She is among the holiest, but
no, not a priest.  More like a very holy monk.”

“And Nicole is to meet this
woman to --,”

“-- To become a Perfect. 
Yes.  Nicole has been trained in discipline her whole life, and when she
meets the Perfect, she herself will become a Perfect.”

“Why now, has she come of age or
something?”

“No, that is not how we do
things.  The Perfect is old and her time to pass back to the spirit realm
comes soon.  We travel to meet her before…” Marie held her hands up,
“before it is too late.”

“That makes sense.”

“What does Mister Kincaid?”

“If the Rex Mundi know this,
they probably think the old woman is going to pass on some secret.”

“They believe this to be
true.  New York was the first time they surfaced in quite sometime. 
They will not stop until they have Nicole.  She has been trained for this
too.”

“Hmm,” said Cameron.  He
gazed at Nicole, softly sleeping in her seat, “That is a lot for the two of you
to have on your shoulders.”

“It is worth the price. 
Nicole is very special.  To be her guardian I too have trained all of my
life.  We are prepared.”

Marie placed her hand on
Cameron’s shoulder and smiled at him again before rejoining Nicole.

* * *
* *

The first buildings of the US
immigration naturalization complex absorbed the southbound lane of interstate
87 followed by a series of gated sentry booths holding back long lines of cars,
trucks, and utility vehicles.  Cameron leaned into the middle aisle of the
bus and saw the northbound sentry booths entering Canada clotted with as many
cars and trucks.  Before falling in behind the queues, the bus veered to
the right, trailing an eighteen-wheeled livestock hauler full of hogs. 
Interstate 87 switched to autoroute 15 at a large sign bearing the word
‘Quebec’ in large letters between two equally large fleur de lis.  Below
read a bilingual French and English welcome.

The bus drove into a staging
area filled with cargo haulers and other buses.

When the bus stopped, a
potbellied border agent with a white beard and spectacles came aboard.  He
made his way down the aisle asking each passenger for their passport and their
reason for coming to Quebec.  The questioning shifted from English to
French depending on the passport, which he stamped before hearing the
answers.  A couple of times he came across Canadian passengers and shifted
his line of questioning to accommodate.  Once he spoke in Polish. 
Though Cameron could not hear all of the interactions, he was able to make out
by the bursts of laughter coming from the border agent that they were cordial.

Marie clutched two passports in
her hands.  Cameron recognized them as French.  He had French papers
of his own, French citizenship was a fringe benefit of serving the first five
years in the Legion.  Marie closed her eyes, whispered a prayer Cameron
did not fully hear, and then put the passports to her lips.  When the
border agent got to Marie and Nicole he did not give their passports a second
look, quickly stamping them while he asked his questions, and then with a
fraternal smile he nodded and offered the passports back before moving across
the aisle.

Cameron had only his US passport
to offer the agent.  Cameron decided his French passport would have been
preferable.  The border agent looked Cameron up and down.  What had
not occurred to Cameron before was that he was overdressed for the Chinatown
express in his blazer and
slacks,
most of the
passengers were dressed very casually in jeans and khakis.  When the
border agent asked Cameron if he had anything to declare Cameron said no. 
The P226 was stowed safely in the bathroom where Cameron had hid the gun soon
after boarding.  Cameron was now certain that the handgun would be safe
there.  The border agent smiled, stamped his passport, and moved on to the
next passenger.

Outside the bus, the driver
stood by as two uniformed men inspected the baggage compartment while another
circled the ‘Lucky’ with a mirror on the end of an extended pole to inspect the
underbody.

After speaking to everyone, the
border agent went back to the front of the bus and filled out a logbook while
he waited for the driver to board.  When the driver stepped up into the
bus the two spoke briefly.  The border agent let out another brief laugh
and then left the bus with a wave to a small girl in the front seat.

The bus drove around the
immigration building at the north of the staging area to a queue lane made up
of other buses with Greyhound and Peter Pan logos decaling their sides. 
Without ever fully stopping the bus slowly rolled through the queue and passed
the checkpoint.  Clear of the immigration complex the ‘Lucky’ sped up to
continue the journey to Montreal.

Cameron leaned forward and again
folded his arms on the back of Marie and Nicole’s seat.  “Easy peasy.”

“Easy peasy, Mister
Kincaid?”  Marie raised an eyebrow toward Cameron.

“We should be in Montreal in no
time,” said Cameron.  He then sat back into his own seat and slipped his
sunglasses back on.

* * *
* *

Montreal

The ‘Lucky’ pulled up to a city
bus stop at the edge of Dorchester Square.  Cameron walked up the curb
past the front of the bus.  He fixated on the green dome of the building
across the square, the girth of which towered over the park.

“King of the world,” said
Cameron.

“Excuse me,” said Nicole.

“Cathedrale
Marie-Reine-du-Monde,” said Cameron.  He pointed at the columned
structure, the statues lining the parapet.  “I always thought of this
church as a mini Saint Peter’s.  It’s basically Saint Peter’s on a smaller
scale.”

“What do you think of it now?”

“Its name.  It is the Mary,
Queen of the world Cathedral.  The Rex Mundi cathedral.”

“Ah, I see,” said Marie gazing
at the basilica.  She braced her elbow in her hand and tapped her chin
with the fingertips of the other.  “The name means nothing.”

“All cathedrals are creations of
Rex Mundi,” said Nicole.

“You don’t say,” said Cameron.

“As are all things in the
material world.”

“Ok,” said Cameron.  He
shifted his body away from the park to Marie.  “So, do you know where we
are to meet the woman?”

“The person we must meet will
not be available until this evening,” said Marie.

Still early, Cameron suggested
they eat before the meeting.  They went around the corner to a large hotel
and entered the restaurant.  After eating only fruit all day, he had
worked up an appetite.  He ordered the salmon with a glass of wine. 
Marie and Nicole asked for the same.

“You really do eat fish?” asked
Cameron when the waiter stepped away.

“I told you it is part of the
old way,” said Nicole.

“How is that?”

“We do not eat meat or
byproducts of reproduction like eggs, milk, cheese.  The old beliefs are
that fish spontaneously appear in the water.  So fish is allowed,” said
Marie.

“So the vegan thing is --”

“A religious practice concerning
physical reproduction.  The soul could return.  We are more so
vegetarians, though some such as Ms. Lacroux are vegan.”

“And wine?”

“We are also allowed wine.”

When the food arrived, the women
prayed.  Cameron waited for them to complete the Lord’s Prayer and then
they ate without conversing.

* * *
* *

By the time they finished the
meal the daylight through the window had turned amber from the streetlamp.

Cameron paid the bill and his
companions went to freshen up.

The meal had given them new
vigor and when they walked out into the warm air the three felt at ease for the
first time since New York.  Along the sidewalk they passed others
strolling leisurely on their way to dinner, clubs, and the late night shops of
the avenue.  Cameron and the two women beside him easily blended as
denizens of Montreal.

They walked a few short blocks
and then stopped in front of the last building on the block, a small solitary
building that sat near a corner, surrounded by a parking lot.

“This is the place,” said Marie.

Cameron lifted his eyes to the
blue neon sign above the door.  The sign portrayed a blue mermaid, her
tail flashing intermittently to the left then to the right.  Next to the
mermaid, in fancy stylized script were the words, La Sirène Bleue.

“The Blue Mermaid,” said
Cameron.  ‘Live Jazz Tonite, featuring Glenda Johnson’ was scrawled on a
chalkboard in the lower corner of the window.  “This ought to be
interesting,” said Cameron.  He opened the glass door and the three
entered the club.