The Demon Code (48 page)

She and Rush had been all but forgotten in the rapid retreat from Gellert Hill. The assassins had become removal men, taking up everything they could find – including the fallen, the few dead and the many wounded on both sides – and running flat-out with their heavy burdens back to the old print shop through which they’d entered.

From there, with the evacuation still in progress and the sound of sirens rising on all sides, Diema had had them taken back to the safe house in one of a phalanx of ambulances – real or fake, Kennedy couldn’t decide – driving with their own sirens full-on, against the swarms of emergency vehicles converging on the Buda side of the river. Earthquake or not, the fact that Gellert Hill had just shrugged massively and shaken down some of the houses on its slopes was being taken in deadly earnest. Kennedy prayed that no one had been killed as a result of the blast – then realised how futile that prayer was, with a million lives hanging in the balance.

Or were they still hanging? Thinking about the expression of peace and calm on Avra Shekolni’s face when he died, she had to wonder whether they’d just blown their last chance to stop Ber Lusim from turning Toller’s three-century-old visions into cold, hard fact.

At the safe house, Diema requisitioned a room and went into conclave with Nahir and his deputies. But at the last moment, just as she’d done down in the tunnels, she indicated with a flick of her head that Kennedy should come along too. Rush was led back to his cell, protesting bitterly.

But Kennedy’s presence at the crisis meeting mattered about as much as a fart in a windstorm, because the Judas People locked her out anyway – not with a door but with their language. And listening to the increasingly urgent and furious exchanges between them, Kennedy yielded to her own impatience at last and stepped in.

‘I’m not following this,’ she said now. ‘If you speak in English, I can be part of the conversation. Believe it or not, I might know something that will turn out to be useful.’ Nobody answered. The assassins all stared at her with a mixture of longing and hatred.

‘Why is she here with us?’ Nahir asked Diema. But he said it in English, allowing Kennedy to get the full benefit of his scorn for her. ‘Why must we endure this again?’

Diema stared him down. ‘For the reason she just gave you. She was involved in the earlier stages of this hunt. Her knowledge is relevant. I thought it was sensible to keep her close to hand.’

Nahir raised his eyebrows, politely sceptical. ‘If she has knowledge, I can have my people interrogate her.’

‘She worked as a detective. Her insights have been useful to me.’

‘Yes,’ Nahir said. ‘So you told me. And I wait, enthralled, to see that wonderful mind in action. But that doesn’t mean I want to sit at the same table as her or have her speak to me as though we are equals.’

Diema turned to Kennedy. ‘Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,’ she ordered her.

‘And I won’t use her gutter tongue just so she can hobble along beside us.’ Having made his point, Nahir reverted to Aramaic and continued to talk to Diema in a loud, hectoring tone for a further minute.

When he was done, Diema glanced at Kennedy once and – seemingly with bad grace – nodded. Two
Elohim
rose and approached Kennedy.

‘They’ll take you back to your cell,’ Diema told them. ‘We’ll talk later.’

Kennedy stood, bowing to the inevitable as the girl had just done. But at that moment the doors opened and a man she’d never seen before walked in. He was a little on the short side but very solidly built, his upper arms bulging with muscle to such an extent that they slightly spoiled the lines of his light tan suit. His bald head gleamed with sweat, and he wiped his face with a linen handkerchief. Two women had entered with him and took up their stations to either side of him. Both were about six feet tall, dressed identically in dark grey pinstripe two-pieces that were probably intended to make them look like lawyers. But they didn’t: they looked like the angel of death and her sister. They watched the room with eyes that defied anyone to move.

But the
Elohim
moved anyway. One by one – starting with Nahir – they pushed their chairs back and sank to one knee, bowing their heads. Diema was last.

‘Bless us,
Tannanu
,’ she murmured. ‘And give us your counsel.’

Kennedy wondered why she’d switched back to English, and who the VIP was. But the second question was answered at once when the stranger’s gaze, sweeping the room, came to rest on her.

He didn’t speak, but it was obvious that he recognised her. And from that, her mind made the leap. This must be Kuutma, the
Elohim
’s supreme commander – the man who sometimes took the name of Michael Brand. The angels were scowling at her, eyes narrowed. Probably it was some kind of
lèse majesté
to look Michael Brand in the eye, but Kennedy was damned if she was going to give him a curtsy. She owed this bastard nothing but harsh language.

Kuutma turned his attention back to his own people. With a brusque gesture he signalled to them to stand. ‘I’m sorry I arrived too late to take part in your recent action,’ he said. ‘I’m also sorry that its outcomes were mixed. You seem to have comprehensively derailed Ber Lusim’s operations – and that was very well done – but I gather that the man himself evaded you.’

He crossed to the table, where Nahir instantly and without a word surrendered his place at its head. ‘Please bring me up to date on what’s happening now,’ Kuutma said. ‘What steps have been taken to find Ber Lusim?’

Nahir looked profoundly nervous, but spoke clearly. Kuutma had followed Diema’s lead and spoken in English, so he did likewise. ‘We’ve closed Ferihegy airport, by planting a small explosive device there and phoning in a warning. Follow-up threats were phoned in at Debrecen, Sármellék, Györ-Pér and Pécs-Pogány, so we’re assuming that flights have been grounded there, too. We’re also watching the mainline stations and the roads out of the city, but it’s impossible to stop all traffic there. We’re backtracking from phones and ID found on Ber Lusim’s
Elohim
to addresses in the city to which they were registered. We’re hoping we might find a safe house where he has gone to ground.’

Kuutma nodded. ‘And you’ve questioned the
Elohim
you captured in the caves?’

‘They refuse to speak,’ Nahir said. ‘We considered torture, but —’

‘But that’s out of the question, for anyone of the bloodline,’ Kuutma finished. ‘I agree. The precautions that you’ve taken are good ones, but we have to assume he’s been able to escape from the city and is now on his way to wherever it is he’s going. So where is he going?’ Not waiting for an answer, Kuutma turned to Diema. ‘You believe he’s still working his way through the prophecies in Toller’s book?’

‘As far as we can tell,
Tannanu
, yes,’ Diema said. ‘Leo Tillman’s intervention in London bought us a little time, but there’s no reason at all to think that it derailed the overall plan – which is to enact all the prophecies in sequence and force God’s hand.’

The blasphemy, so bluntly spoken, sent a frisson through the ranks of the Messengers.

‘And how far has he got?’ Kuutma asked calmly.

‘That’s what we’re trying to determine,’ Nahir said. ‘I have people looking at the book now.’

‘People?’ It was Kennedy who spoke. She was sick of standing by and listening – and she didn’t even try to keep the sardonic edge out of her voice. Nahir gave her another look of dyspeptic hatred, but Kuutma laughed – long and loud, throwing his head back. The
Elohim
, including Diema, stared at him. Twice Nahir seemed about to speak, but hesitated, waiting for Kuutma’s huge amusement to run its course.

‘She makes a point,’ Kuutma said, still smiling, and wiping the corner of his eye. ‘What people do you have, Desh Nahir? Put the lady’s mind at rest.’

Nahir clearly didn’t get the joke and just as clearly hated having to explain himself to an outsider, a
rhaka
. ‘Interpreters,’ he said, his gaze glancing off Kennedy before returning to Kuutma. ‘Priests. Textual exegesists. People who might be expected to have some skill in navigating a book of prophecies. But the prophecies were deliberately written in opaque and elliptical language. They support many different interpretations, and it’s hard – impossible, even – to say which if any is correct.’

‘So you don’t know,’ Kennedy concluded. ‘You don’t have any idea how long you’ve got or which prophecy Ber Lusim has reached. Which prophecy he’ll be looking to fulfil.’

‘This pains me,’ Nahir said to Kuutma. ‘
Tannanu
, I was about to exclude her. Please permit me to do so. I don’t see what we gain by letting her hear our proceedings. If you want to interrogate her later, I’d be happy to provide a room and some suitable—’

‘It’s the last prophecy,’ Kennedy said.

‘—some suitable implements for—’

‘He’s reached the last prophecy. Didn’t you see what Shekolni did down there? Did he slip it past you while you weren’t looking?’

Nahir was forced to acknowledge her now. He snarled what was presumably a curse word in ancient Aramaic, then swivelled to face her. ‘You’re talking about things you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘There are mysteries that will never be revealed to you – even if you were to spend a lifetime studying them.’

And that was meant to be a killer put-down
, Kennedy thought: if there hadn’t been so very much at stake, including her life, she might have laughed in Nahir’s face. He was only a year or so older than Diema, Kennedy realised now. Of course, the
Elohim
tended to be young. Apart from Kuutma, she was probably the oldest person in the room. ‘And that’s your problem, right there,’ she said to him, her tone of condescension matching his. ‘You’re looking for revealed mysteries. All I’m looking for is an evidence trail.’

‘And you found one?’ Kuutma asked. He was staring at her keenly, expectantly. ‘Share it with us, please.’

‘Has someone got the text?’ Kennedy demanded.

Diema had learned it by rote, and to Kennedy’s surprise she recited it. ‘And the stone shall be rolled away from the tomb, as it was the time before. Then will a voice be heard, crying “The hour, the hour is at hand” and all men will see what heretofore was hidden. The betrayer will condemn a great multitude with a single breath. On the island that was given for an island, in the presence of the son and of the spirit, he will speak the names of the thousand thousand that will be sacrificed. And from his throne in the heavens, the Lord Jesus who is our glory and our life will speak the names of the few that will be saved.’

The words were met with a faintly awed silence from the other
Elohim
. Kennedy just nodded. ‘Avra Shekolni used his last words to name a time. Midnight on Sunday, GMT. He was being the voice – fulfilling Toller’s prophecy. And he roped us in, too. When we blew that door, we all became part of the scenario. Rolling away the stone from the mouth of the tomb. That’s the only reason why he waited for us.’

‘That place was not a tomb,’ Nahir said angrily. ‘It had been used as a granary.’

Kennedy turned to stare at him. ‘Wow, you got me there. Unless it became a tomb when he got a whole lot of his men to cut their throats in it. What do you think?’

‘And the door was steel. Not stone.’

‘Steel filled with poured concrete. You’re going to argue semantics with a dead prophet?’

‘No,’ Nahir said. ‘With a live whore.’

Kennedy shook her head in sorrowful wonder. ‘Did you skimp on your research, sweetheart?’ she asked. ‘Or are you scared you won’t be able to say
dyke
without blushing?’

She returned her attention to Kuutma, but she was speaking to the room at large. ‘Shekolni was pulling a trigger,’ she said. ‘We’ll probably never know, now, whether they had it planned this way all along or whether he killed himself rather than let you take him and question him. But by dying, he lined everything up – he fulfilled the conditions that would let Ber Lusim enact the last prophecy. And wherever he went when he left here, the place he’s heading for is the island – the “island that was given for an island”. Find that, and you’ll find him.’

She paused and looked from face to face, meeting an endless gallery of hostile stares and one quizzical frown.

‘And how,’ Kuutma said, ‘are we to do that?’

‘I’d suggest doing it fast,’ Kennedy answered.

A hubbub of voices arose, with Nahir and a dozen of his
Elohim
all shouting out at once. Kuutma held up a hand, calm and commanding, and the voices died away.

‘Enough,’ Kuutma said coldly. ‘I need to be completely briefed on your recent actions.’ Diema began to speak, but he continued over her. ‘Desh Nahir has rank and oversight in this city, so I’ll speak with him first – and then with my special emissary, Diema Beit Evrom. Time is short. We’ll speak in your command room, Nahir, and then we’ll meet again here immediately afterwards. The rest of you will wait for us to return.’ He glanced at Kennedy. ‘Except for the
rhaka
, who can be placed in whatever receptacle you deem appropriate.’

‘Take her back to her cell,’ Nahir said. The two Messengers who had started to close in on Kennedy earlier, and had stopped in their tracks when Kuutma entered, took hold of her now.

They turned Kennedy around and led her to the door. Their grip on her shoulders was tighter than it needed to be: one of them also had a fist jammed against her lower back, presumably prepared to get her in a full lock if she stepped out of line. Nahir looked away, done with the whole business. So did Diema.

If I wasn’t dead before
, Kennedy thought,
I’m sure as hell dead now
.

62

For about a quarter of an hour after he was thrown back into his cell, Rush just sat on the cot bed with his head sunk onto his raised knees. But gradually, boredom and frustration won out over fear and unease.

He whiled away some time carving obscene graffiti on the walls with the edge of a coin. Then he hammered on the door for a while, demanding something to eat and drink – until he remembered the apple that Diema had given him, and ate that. It quenched his thirst a little, but mostly just reminded him of how much he wanted a hamburger or a chicken madras.