ARKANE Thrillers Books 7-9

Chapter 7

7

"PLEASE." SISTER ROSALIE STOOD, moving away from the rest of the Sisters. "Just take the vial and leave us now."

The man's eyes were manic, pain turning him into a wounded animal, desperate to lash out. For a second, it seemed like he might relent … but then, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the room.

A surprised sigh escaped Sister Rosalie's lips.

She saw the panic on the faces of the nuns as they looked at her and a coldness spread through her body. She looked down to see the hole in her habit, the blood on her side. She dropped to her knees, hands clutched at her ribs as the pain blossomed. She gasped, her breath ragged.

The man stepped forward, pressing the muzzle of the gun to her head. Sister Rosalie looked up at him, but she couldn't hate him. The love of the Lord pervaded her now and she whispered a prayer of forgiveness. They know not what they do, Lord. The man's eyes flickered, as if he saw beyond her physical form.

He hesitated and then turned away.

"She's finished," he growled, looking around at the rest of the nuns. "If the vial is fake, we'll be back for the rest of you."

The men backed out of the room, and then turned to run towards the rear of the building, taking the vial with them. Some of the nuns crowded round Sister Rosalie, taking her hands and praying as one ran to call an ambulance and others tended to the shocked Sister Mary Clare.

Jake and Naomi stepped into the Church of the Guardian Angel just as a gunshot rang out in the rooms beyond.

They both pulled their weapons and ran towards the sound. Jake hesitated at the arched doorway, listening for an indication of what was within. Several pairs of footsteps rushed away from them, and they heard the sound of voices raised in prayer and weeping. Jake pushed open the door and ran down the corridor with Naomi behind him. She pulled her phone from her jacket, calling for backup from the local police.

He glanced into one of the rooms, seeing the group of nuns crowded around one of their own, several on their knees swaying in prayer. They looked up at him in alarm, instinctively bunching together.

"It's okay," he said. "We're friends. Which way did they go?"

Naomi stepped forward into the room, and the nuns relaxed as they saw another woman.

"Out the back," one of the nuns said. "They've taken something. Please – help us."

Jake turned and sprinted towards the back of the convent, his weapon held low in front of him. Ahead, he heard the revving of a vehicle and men's voices. He peered around the corner of the back door as two men pulled a wounded third man into a minivan.

He shot at them, firing twice, hitting one man in the shoulder while the other bullet pierced the side of the vehicle.

The men returned fire and Jake ducked back behind the doorway, hearing the chip of bullets into stone. The van accelerated away and Jake ran out after them, firing at the van, hitting it a couple more times before it pulled away, screeching around a corner and out of sight. Police sirens wailed in the distance but it was too late to follow now. There were no plates, but there were enough cameras downtown that they should be able to track it.

Jake turned and headed back into the convent, pausing at the doorway to the room within. Naomi knelt with the nuns in the center of the room, where one woman lay in a pool of blood. Naomi looked up, her eyes filled with tears.

"This is Sister Rosalie," she said. "They shot her and took the relic of the Guardian Angel."

Jake knelt next to the woman as the prayers of the gathered nuns rang loud around them. The wound in Sister Rosalie's side pulsed blood onto the marble floor of the chapel, despite the wad of bandaging that one of the other nuns held against it. She gasped for breath, her eyes unfocused.

"It's OK," Jake whispered, tears pricking his eyes at her suffering. So often he survived the aftermath of violence, arriving too late to stop it. "We've got you now. You're going to be alright. The ambulance is almost here."

Naomi reached forward and stroked the hair from the nun's forehead.

"God is with you," she whispered softly to the nun, with a faith in her voice that Jake didn't have. He felt a pang of something like envy that Naomi could believe and find comfort in something beyond this earthly life.

The nun lifted her hand towards the light above her, reaching for the coffered ceiling. Her eyes were fixed on a point beyond the physical realm and Jake hoped she could see a better life ahead. Then she turned her head, her eyes clear as a summer sky after rain, a realization dawning in her eyes.

"Follow the angel," she whispered.

Her eyes closed and Jake felt her body sag, the life leaving it even as her physical remains lay still in his arms. He laid the nun gently on the ground, putting a prayer cushion under her head as the other Sisters gathered around to mourn.

Jake and Naomi rose to let them tend to her body, walking to the doorway.

"At least she wasn't afraid of death," Naomi said. "Her faith gave her strength and a hope for the afterlife."

Jake wanted to voice his lack of belief, his surety that there was only the void after this. This minute was all they had, this day the only one they could live and there was nothing beyond. But he just nodded, feeling a sense of isolation at his unbelief in this house of God.

"They took the relic," Naomi said, turning to look back at the nuns. "And the people who did this must also have the Cloisters Cross."

Jake nodded. "I'm going after them …" He left the opening for her, unsure as to whether a deskbound agent with little field experience would want to dive further into this mission. Morgan would have jumped at the chance, but she was halfway across the world.

Naomi crossed herself, ducking her head towards the altar and then turned. There was fire in her eyes and Jake saw echoes of an ancestry riven with conflict. This woman wouldn't run from a fight.

"This is my patch, Jake, but you're welcome to join me on the hunt." She walked towards the convent door, Jake following as their footsteps echoed in the nave. "I know where to start. Here in New York, there's only one famous angel that springs to mind."

Across the city, in a lab buried deep under the Chrysler Building, Gilles Noiret paced back and forth. The men had brought the vial straight to the underground carpark, and he had rushed it to his private lab. They had been trying to find a cure for his illness for years, and now the equipment would be used to test what was in the vial.

The Monseigneur would hear of the theft all too soon and would demand access. Gilles had to be quick. He had wanted to drink the liquid then and there, take the risk on what it might do. But his fear of poison was so great that everything had to be tested before it reached his lips. This vial was no different.

A scientist in a lab coat used a pipette to extract several samples of the dark red liquid, putting it into test tubes and one on a slide to examine under the microscope.

"How long will this take?" Gilles barked at the scientist. "I must know what it is."

"Of course," the scientist whispered, his concentration fixed on the liquid. "The preliminary tests won't take long."

He loaded the test tubes into various machines, starting the processes to test the blood. Then he bent to the microscope, putting the slide under the lens.

"Hmm," the scientist said, standing up straight again.

"What? What is it?" Gilles demanded.

"It's definitely blood. It looks to be from some type of animal though. I don't see any obvious anomalies that would make it anything special."

One of the machines beeped and the scientist went to check the computer screen next to it for the results.

"As I thought. The DNA shows that the blood is from a type of goat that is only found natively in France. It's certainly old, several centuries in fact. But I'm sorry sir, I can't see what efficacy this would have if drunk."

Gilles spun around, fists clenched. He felt the tightness in his chest begin to spasm at the onset of a coughing fit. Desperation rose within him, a faith born of a belief that he could cheat death – that he would not be subject to the laws of humanity. His wealth ruled this city and he would not go out with a last rotting breath.

He snatched up the vial on the bench, ripping the glass top from it. He lifted it to his lips and drank the contents, gulping the coppery taste down, forcing himself to swallow the thick liquid.

The scientist gasped, his eyes crinkling with disgust.

Gilles turned to grab a tissue and caught sight of his own face in a mirrored flask on the bench, a hideously scarred and puckered visage with a mouth painted in the blood of a long-dead animal. He pulled a tissue from a pack and wiped his mouth, the crimson stain all that was left of the so-called relic.

There was still hope that the blood had some power. He would not let this be the end.

Gilles sat down heavily, waiting for some kind of reaction, hoping for some kind of miracle. The threatening cough subsided but the blood sat heavy in his stomach. Nausea made him want to retch it up, but he kept swallowing to keep it down, breathing deeply to calm himself.

"Water," he barked. The scientist grabbed a bottle from the fridge and handed it over wordlessly. Gilles chugged the liquid down, washing the metallic taste from his throat. There was no feeling other than his own revulsion at drinking the blood. After several minutes passed with nothing, not even light-headedness, Gilles put his head in his hands. He massaged his temples, willing his rising rage to subside.

"What else are you working on?" he asked the scientist, his voice tightly controlled. "Do we have any other options?"

The scientist walked briskly to his desk and pulled out a few printed pages.

"There's an experimental therapy that we can look at. It shows a muted but still positive response in some subjects."

Gilles stood. "Get it, whatever it costs."

He went to his private lift and headed back up to the penthouse, disappointment flooding him, anger at his own stupid hopes of a miraculous cure. He would send the Monseigneur and his pathetic Confessors packing, their myth turned to ashes in his mouth.

But as he walked into the apartment, a ray of sun peeked through the clouds, illuminating the Cloisters Cross. The sunlight hit the empty shaft, where the corpus of Christ should hang. The legends told that the corpus was the true home of the relic, and the vial had been found alone, with no ivory body of Christ as its resting place.

Perhaps the nuns had lied or perhaps they didn't even know that what they'd had was the blood of an old goat. But the corpus was still out there – as long as that was true, there was still hope.

Gilles took his phone out of his pocket, dialing quickly.

"Follow whoever leaves the convent. This isn't over yet."