Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"I need an answer," Bravo said, turning back. "Is there a building in Trabzon with a spiral staircase?"

Khalif, sucking at his teeth, thought for a moment. "In fact, there is. At the Zigana Mosque. Why do you ask?"

Why? Because vice, the first of the words Dexter had written on the velvet scabbard lining, was derived from the French word vis, a vine. In medieval times, a vice was a spiral staircase, as in the twisting of a vine's woody tendrils.

"Come, come," Khalif said, "you've stopped eating. It's a sin with such fine food."

The clear note of affection in his voice caused Bravo to turn back to him. "On the matter of faith, ever since I started on this journey, my father has come to me in dreams and at… other times. At first, I thought little of it, putting the visions down to a symptom, an aftershock of his violent death, but now I don't know, I feel as if… as if in a way he's still with me."

A huge grin spread across Adem Khalif's face. "On the matter of faith, my Bravo, I believe you're on your way to finding yours."

"Secrets," Camille Muhlmann said. "We all have secrets, God knows I have a fistful of them."

She and Jenny rode in a jouncing taxi on their way into Trabzon from the airport, having caught the evening's last flight out from Venice, via Istanbul. High up, the sky was still indigo, but below the dark undercurrent of the night held sway, pierced here and there by lights, glimmering sickly yellow, as if irradiated.

"I had a lover who treated me badly-very badly." Camille shook her head with a grim and rueful smile. "What woman hasn't? One-at least one. But what I can't make out is why-why do we choose these men who will abuse us physically, mentally, emotionally? Is it because we feel we deserve to be punished, Jenny, or is it cultural, passed down from oppressed female to oppressed female? Is it true we can't help but feel the same way our mothers and grandmothers did?"

Jenny shook her head. "I don't think it matters. What's important is that we can change, that we make different decisions, braver decisions."

Camille raised her eyebrows. "Really? How do you propose we do that when men stand in our way no matter which way we turn?"

"It might be that we walk away from them, from everything they've built, everything they stand for." Jenny stared out the window for a moment, watching the fast accretion of concrete spreading over the green countryside like a pernicious skin disease. "I used to think that, anyway." Yes, she had, in the aftermath of her disastrous breakup with Ronnie Kavanaugh. In fact, she'd been sure of it. Then she had met Dexter Shaw, and everything in her life had changed. Or had it? Wasn't Dexter another of her male crutches? Arcangela would no doubt pity any woman with such a psychological need.

"But now, obviously you don't." Camille held up a pack of cigarettes, and Jenny nodded.

As Camille lit up, she said, "I would very much like to know what happened. Will you tell me?"

Jenny took the cigarette from between Camille's lips, took a long drag, let the smoke out slowly, then handed the cigarette back. "I discovered that the way to change things is to do all the things men do, only better."

"Beat them at their own game."

"In a way," Jenny said, "but only in a way. Their game is the only game, that's the hard thing to get set in your head because it's just not the way you want it to be. Then you have to learn to skin the cat another way."

"Pardon?"

Jenny smiled. "Sorry. 'There's more than one way to skin a cat.' In American slang the saying refers to a catfish, which is always skinned before cooking. What it means is that there's more than one way to get the job done."

Camille held out the cigarette and Jenny took another drag before giving it back. "I don't want to ever again be attracted to a man who can abuse me."

"What kind of abuse was it?" Jenny asked, as casually as she could with her heart pounding hard in her chest.

"Psychological," Camille said after a moment. "And I fell right in line with what he wanted. Mon dieu, what an obedient little girl I was!"

So was I, Jenny thought.

"It's humiliating to think of the traps we fall into, isn't it?" Camille observed.

"Especially because we fall so willingly, because it's so difficult to get out."

"And even pain isn't enough to extricate us."

"No. Often, it isn't." Jenny turned to Camille. "There was a time I applied to a convent. Can you imagine such a thing? For eight months I studied to take the veil. I was very young, I didn't understand, I had no friends, I was afraid of men, I was sure I didn't fit in."

"But, my dear, it's clear from what you say that you had no calling."

"That's what the Mother Superior said when she called me into her office."

"Lucky for you she was so discerning." Camille shuddered. "What a place to end up!"

"I was devastated," Jenny said. "I saw it as another failure."

Camille smiled. "The failure to understand God is the mark of a clear-eyed pragmatist."

Jenny laughed. She sat in silence for a time while the taxi rattled on and the radio blasted out staticky music that sounded like two people clashing ash can lids together while screaming at the top of their lungs.

"Down deep," Jenny said, "we're all obedient little girls."

She turned to Camille and, as if on cue, they smiled at each other.

What a perfect idiot you are, Camille thought through her smile. And we have our lovely Dexter to thank for that, don't we? He's the one who picked you up like a bad penny and made you shine again after the abortion-but to what end, darling? So you could be my plaything, so you could assist in the last phase of his destruction: the death of his son. And there were those-Anthony included-who were convinced that Dexter had the gift of second sight, that he could see the future. Her smile widened and a tiny laugh escaped her.

"What's so funny?" Jenny asked.

"I was thinking that we are also bad girls, that we want what we want, that we should have what is due us."

"Yes, Camille, indeed we should."

Camille was quiet again, smoking her cigarette down to the end. The taxi had no windshield wipers but the driver, reclined casually in his seat, seemed not to notice as he peered through the rain-stippled windshield. Camille thought briefly of Damon Cornadoro, who had been seated behind them in the last row of the plane to Trabzon. Jenny had seen him, of course, on her way to the bathroom, and had told Camille on her return that she felt that much safer against the forces of the Knights of St. Clement massed against her. Little did she know that it had been Cornadoro who had obtained news of Bravo's next destination from the late, unlamented Father Damaskinos.

Now she was heading into uncharted territory. The Knights had no one in Trabzon-it was not part of their territory. That was when she had phoned Jordan.

"It's all right," he had assured her. "Cardinal Canesi and his cabal are using every ounce of influence at their disposal. That means all the priests in the city and its surrounds will be our eyes and ears. I'll download a list of their names and contact numbers to your phone when we're done."

Crushing out the butt beneath her heel, Camille turned to Jenny and said, "I know you have secrets, as we all do. Alors, it's your expertise-and quite possibly your contacts-that will enable us to find Bravo and keep track of him now," she lied. "I've done as much as I can through Lusignan et Cie's resources, but here in Trabzon, I'm frankly blind."

She took Jenny's hands in hers. "In this crisis, we have only each other, we must trust each other or we'll fail Bravo, and we cannot let that happen, n'est-ce pas?"

Jenny leaned forward, delivered instructions to the driver that Camille could not hear. A moment later, the taxi swerved to its left. They zipped past the stripped-out carcass of a car, accelerating in a new direction.