Eric Lustbader: The Testament

He crouched down beside Bravo, who lay on the cavern floor, hands behind his back, wrists and ankles tightly bound. "Go ahead, by the way, try as hard as you can to work your way out. It won't do you any good."

"Why are you doing this, Jordan? What happened to you?"

Jordan laughed. "You make it sound as if I'm suffering from a blow to the head. Poor Bravo. I never was the helpful, straight-shooting lad I pretended to be. I did a good job lying to you, don't you think? No, don't bother to answer. It doesn't matter what you think anymore." He patted the top of Bravo's head, as if he were an old pet who'd sadly but inevitably come to the end of his life.

"Happily, that phase is over, along with pretending to listen to my mother. While she's been out here, keeping tabs on you, I've staged a coup d'etat of sorts. The Knights tied to that disgustingly inbred cabal at the Vatican, the Knights my mother has been desperate to take over, the Knights of St. Clement are no more. They're my Knights now-the Knights of Muhlmann."

"That will be enough."

Jordan's head whipped around and Bravo strained to get a look, though he recognized the voice well enough.

Camille stood, training the Witness on her son. "Untie him."

Jordan laughed. "Mother, you can't mean it."

"But I do, darling, I very much do."

"Are you still pretending to be his friend? I've already told him you're not. You're every inch his enemy, just like me."

"Fortunately, I'm nothing like you, Jordan. I killed the Albanian, by the way, and judging by the amount of blood dripping down that shaft I'd say Bravo put away your Russian, what's his name, oh, yes, I remember, Oberov."

"Did you sleep with him, too, Mother?" Jordan said bitterly. "Have you slept with all the Knights of the Field?"

"You're not jealous, are you, darling?" Camille waggled the business end of the gun. "Now do as I say. Untie him."

"Really, Mother, it's unnecessary because, you see, I've already-"

"Now, you stupid child! And not another word!"

Blood rushed into Jordan's face in direct proportion to the amount that fled his heart. As he mechanically undid the knots he'd so painstakingly and lovingly tied, it seemed to him as if his heart had ceased to beat. He was still breathing, still moving, still thinking, but on another level whatever had been left of his heart had vanished beneath a shell as hard, as immovable as the black rock of this mountain. Cocooned within the organization of the Knights he'd always felt separate, apart from the rest of humanity-and grateful for it, too. But now, for the first time, he felt the chill of the space he occupied, as if his aloneness had taken on another, altogether baleful quality, as if he had misread it all along, hadn't realized until this moment that it was, in fact, a vacuum, greedily absorbing light, connection and emotion.

"There." He stood back. "It's done." He turned to his mother, to the woman who he despised most in the world. "But toward what end?" He held up the key for her to see. "I already took it from him. I did what you dreamed of doing."

"No, Jordan. I'm your mother, you will obey me."

"My time of servitude to you has ended. And do you know why? I'm no longer willing to be bound by your secret."

A look of horror marred Camille's beautiful face. "Jordan, no! You can't!"

"But I can, Mother, and I will." He turned to Bravo. "Here it is in a nutshell, my friend-my very good and faithful friend-the short story of the lie your entire life has been. My mother was your father's mistress. That's right, he was shacking up with her for years, while you and your siblings were growing up and, in one case, dying. Your mother never suspected and you were too young. In any event, he was so good at keeping secrets, wasn't he? And then, when you were just past your fifth birthday, she became pregnant with his child."

"Wait," Bravo said.

Jordan laughed harshly. "Oh, look at his expression, Mother, isn't that the look you've dreaded? Yes, yes, I think so! I, too, am your father's son, so that makes us, what, brothers, yes? Well, half-brothers, if you need to be technical. Not to worry, it's all relative under the skin." He laughed again.

"Wait," Bravo repeated. His head was pounding so hard, he felt as if his brain would explode at any minute. He turned to Camille, "Is this true?"

Jordan continued, relentless. "He betrayed your mother, he would have betrayed you, too, so Camille believes. She says he had agreed to leave you-leave his family-to live with her, with us. But then your brother Junior died, and he couldn't bring himself to make the break."

Bravo stared into Camille's face and for the first time saw naked emotion. It was so raw, so devastating that he had the urge to turn away, as if from a terrible injury. And so the truth burst in on him with the force of a grenade blast.

Jordan shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't believe that fairy tale. Your father never would have left his family. He didn't want my mother, he didn't want me, either. He proved that over and over when I tried to contact him."

Camille's head swung around, her eyes open wide. "You did what? I expressly forbade you to contact him."

"Did you really think I'd listen to you? Jesus Christ, he was my father. Of course I tried. But he wouldn't see me, wouldn't even talk to me. You see, Mother, if he never wanted anything to do with me, why would he leave his family for you?" He laughed. "Dexter Shaw played you just as you were playing him."

"You're insane. Dexter never knew a thing."

"You're right, Mother, I have no proof, except what was once in my heart, and now I can never reach it again. C'est la guerre." He shrugged. "It's of no matter now, is it? We planned Dexter Shaw's death and now he's dead. End of story." He pointed. "What matters is that we've succeeded. After we tortured Molko to no avail we knew Dexter wouldn't talk, no matter what we did to him, so we had to find another way to the cache. And that way was you, Bravo. We knew from our man inside the Order that Dexter had trained you to be his successor. We realized what we needed to do was take Dexter out. Difficult, almost impossible, but in the end we did it. We banked on you leading us to the cache; we knew we could control you, we'd had so much experience at it.

"And we were right. You solved every cipher your father threw at you. Because he had trained you, you knew him better than anyone. You had the knowledge he'd given you, locked away inside you. You see, Bravo, you've never stopped working for me. Don't you find that ironic?"

Bravo wanted to curl up and die, he wanted to lash out. An inchoate shrieking filled his mind so that he could not speak, could not think clearly. He could only listen to the horror that came pouring out of their mouths: the lie of his own abominable existence.

Jordan moved slightly, a twitch of long-held expectation. "Now, finally, the time has come to open the cache; everything inside will be mine."

"Alors, that was always what you longed for, wasn't it?" Camille fairly spat out the words. Her mind was still reeling at the possibility that Dexter had seen through her lies. No one else ever had, how could he? "You didn't care about my revenge, about the destruction of the Order. You wanted their secrets for yourself."

"Oh, yes. Especially the Quintessence. With it, I can rule the world."

"No." Jenny moved into one of the circles of sunlight, the Albanian's gun aimed at them. "You'll never get the chance now." All at once, chaos. Everything happened simultaneously, in the blink of an eye. Camille turned, aiming the Witness at Jenny, Jordan grabbed Bravo who had managed to get to his knees. Jenny squeezed off two shots, both of which struck Camille in the chest, taking her off her feet.

She slid across the floor, fetching up against the far rock wall. Not that she felt the impact; she was already dead. But by the time Jenny swung the Albanian's gun back to Jordan, he was standing behind Bravo, Lorenzo Fornarini's dagger poised across Bravo's throat.