Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

A loud rapping on glass made his fingers fumble, and the smoke fell to the tiled floor. He jerked his head around to see a figure at one of the French doors. At that angle, the pane’s many bevels prevented a clear view. Only a journalist would be so bold as to broach the walls and gates around his property and make his way around back after receiving no answer at the front door.

“Go away!” he yelled.

More rapping, loud and sustained.

He sighed and rose out of the lounge chair. He pulled his robe closed and tied the belt, then picked up the revolver that had been under his leg. Holding it behind him, he approached the doors. A beautiful woman smiled at him from the other side. Long black hair, finely chiseled cheekbones and nose, exotic dark eyes-pretty enough to be the on-camera talent for any number of news agencies. But she was less modestly dressed than the ones who’d been shoving microphones in his face recently: tight black slacks, what appeared to be a matching bodice that accentuated her hourglass figure. A long black trench coat, open in front, fell below her knees. He glanced past her, saw no one else, no cameramen or sound guys lurking behind a topiary.

Hope goosed his heart. A fan, maybe? A going-away gift from one of his attorneys? He stopped in front of the door, only thin panes of glass between him and what he now realized was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Perhaps thirty-five, she was one of those rare wonders whose appearance had obviously refined with age.

He shook his head. “No interviews,” he said.

She pouted and said, “Do I look like I’m here to interview you?”

Behind his back, his finger slid over the trigger. His other hand unbolted the door, and he pulled it open. A breeze pushed her scent to him, overpowering the pool house’s chlorine and tobacco. It confused his imagination-not altogether unpleasant, but dusty and old, with a touch of sweetness, an orchid ground into dirt. “What do you want?” he said. “This is private-”

Her hand came out of the trench coat pocket, holding a piece of paper, which she unfolded with the same hand. He saw a printout of a newspaper article, his face prominently displayed. She looked at it, then at him. “You’re more handsome in person,” she said.

He fought a smile. “What is this? Who are you?”

Her features hardened, as if solidifying into a statue-just as beautiful, but unattainable now, someone else’s vision of beauty cast forever in stone. “Justice,” she said.

“What?” He began to pull the gun around. Someone slapped it out of his hand. He spun. A man glared at him with wild eyes, a big crazy grin. Twin white wires snaked from a bulge in his shirt pocket to his ears. Midtwenties, short-cropped hair, patchy facial fur: Philippe immediately pegged him as a punk and realized the situation had exploded into something horrible. The young man lifted a flat blade, replacing half his face with the reflected image of Philippe’s stunned expression. Squiggles of blood cracked the image like veins through marble.

Philippe looked down at his gun on the floor and saw his hand still clutching it. Blood pumped out of the stump of his wrist. For the briefest moment, all he could think about was how sharp the knife must be to slice through flesh and bone so easily. He reeled back and felt a sharp pain in his lower back and the solid form of the woman pushing against him.

The punk’s blade flashed toward him.

When it was over, Nevaeh gazed down at the bloody corpse.

Phin bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet, absently shaking blood off his blade. He tugged out his earbuds and let them dangle over his shoulder. “Like a cold glass of water in a desert,” he said. He bent, dipped two fingers into a pool of blood, and held them under his nose. He stopped fidgeting long enough to cast a puzzled expression at her. “What’s wrong?”

Staring at the body, she said, “I just keep thinking, This is it. This is the one.” She looked into Phin’s eyes. “But it never is.”

“Someday,” he said, his head nodding like a bobblehead. “He can’t ignore us forever.”

“Can’t he?”

With that she spun around, sending her hair sailing behind her like a cape, and strode through the backyard toward the gate.

“You see on this page,” Gheronda said with more excitement than should be legal in a man his age, “the artist put a representation of each of the four evangelists in the corners.” Under his cotton-gloved finger was a colorful and intricate illustration of an angel. “This one is Matthew.” He pointed to a lion: “Mark.” An ox: “Luke. And the eagle is John.”

Tyler stood beside him, in front of the table on which the thirteenth-century book lay. He held his hands up like a surgeon stepping into an operating theater and continuously flapped them, making his oversized gloves wobble like ghosts.

Beth stood on the other side of Tyler, rubbing his back. She could tell Gheronda was losing her son’s interest under a barrage of technical terms. Tyler had temporarily perked up when Gheronda described the process of making vellum from animal skins, but then it was back to rubrics and drolleries and insular majuscules, which elicited from Tyler yawns, roving eyes, and fidgetiness. It hadn’t helped his enthusiasm when Gheronda asked him, despite the gloves, not to touch the delicate manuscripts. Don’t touch was as grating to a nine-year-old as the word bedtime.

Trying to help, she said, “The illustrations are so detailed. It’s incredible.”

“Yes, yes,” Gheronda said. “The transcribers fancied themselves artists-and certainly they were-but many of them abbreviated words to accommodate more illustrations, making translating the text a chore, to say the least. Look here…” He began methodically turning pages.

Tyler backed away, and when he was clear, turned to check out other parts of the library. He glanced back, seeking tacit approval, which Beth gave him through a smile. He stripped off his gloves and shoved them into his back pocket.

Beth scanned the long, two-story hall of the library-clean and white and modern looking, utterly at odds with the ancient dusty jumble of buildings beyond its doors. Nor did it resemble the Vatican’s archival libraries she’d read about, with their hermetically sealed, temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms. Here invaluable books, manuscripts, paintings, and icons were stored on shelves and in cabinets and hung on walls. Apparently the dry desert air was the perfect preservative.

“Oh,” Gheronda said, drawing her attention. “I believe we have a truant.” He watched Tyler stroll past shelves of books to a window, onto which he pressed his palms and then his face. Instead of the admonition Beth expected, Gheronda laughed. “If I had his energy, I wouldn’t spend an ounce of it on an old man’s ramblings either.”

She put her hand on his arm. “It’s very interesting,” she said. “Please go on.”

The long hairs of his mustache and beard rustled into a grin, and they turned back to the book.

A few minutes later Tyler said, “Hey, what’s this?” He was standing at the far end of the hall, where a door led to the icon archives. Beside the door was an antique sideboard, and on that stood a large painting with an arched top and heavy frame.

“Ah, that,” Gheronda said, heading down the hall. “It’s a diptych. Do you know what that is?”

“It looks like a dartboard,” Tyler said.

As Beth approached, she saw what he meant. The painting was split down the middle: It had been painted on two panels that apparently opened to reveal something behind. That and the curved top resembled the dartboard cabinet they’d had in their den in Virginia-except instead of an old-fashioned Coca-Cola logo, this one displayed a baroque painting of what appeared at that distance to be an angel rising from a crypt. It was also at least three times larger.