John Connolly - The Black Angel

I stared at the document, and at the small demonic character Bosworth was pointing at. Now that I looked more closely, I could see from its skull that it was a very crude version of the bone statue that Stuckler had shown to me, barely more than a stick drawing. There was lettering visible around it, forming a circle that enclosed the figure.

“Quantum in me est,” said Bosworth. “As much as in me lies.”

“I don’t understand. It’s just a drawing of the Black Angel.”

“No, it’s not.” Bosworth practically seethed at my inability to make the connections that he had made. “See here, and here.” The trembling index finger of his left hand brushed the page. “These are human bones.”

Bosworth was right. It was not a stick figure, but a bone figure. More care had been taken with the illustration than first appeared.

“The whole illustration consists of human bones: bones from the ossuary at Sedlec. This is a depiction of the re-creation of the Black Angel. It is the bone statue that conceals the actual location of the vault, but most of those who have sought the Angel, wrong-footed by their obsession with the fragments and dismissive of this fragment because of its relative ubiquity, have been unable to acknowledge that possibility, and those who have correctly interpreted its message have kept the knowledge to themselves, while widening their search to include the replica. But I made the connection, and if this man Brightwell is clever enough, then he has made it too. The statue has been missing since the last century, although it was rumored to be in Italy before World War II broke out. Since then, there has been no trace of it. The Believers are not looking merely for the fragments, but for those who possess the fragments, in the hope that they may also have in their possession the bone sculpture.

That is why Garcia re-created it in his apartment. It is not just a symbol, it is the key to the thing itself.”

I tried to take in all that he had said.

“Why are you telling us this?” said Louis. It was the first time he had spoken since we entered Bosworth’s apartment.

“Because I want it found,” said Bosworth. “I want to know that it is in the world, but I can no longer find it for myself. I have money. If you find it, I will have it brought to me, and I’ll pay you well for your trouble.”

“You never explained why you dug up the floor of the monastery at Sept-Fons,” I said.

“There should have been a fragment there,” said Bosworth. “I traced its path. It took me five years of hunting rumors and half-truths, but I did it. Like so many treasures, it was moved for its own protection during the Second World War. It went to Switzerland, but was returned to France once it was safe to do so. It should have been beneath the floor, but it was not. Someone had taken it away again, and I know where it went.”

I waited.

“It went to the Czech Republic, to the newly founded monastery at Novy Dvur, perhaps as a gift, a token of their respect for the efforts of the Czech monks to keep the faith under the Communists. That has always been the great flaw in the Cistercians’ stewardship of the fragments over the last six hundred years: their willingness to entrust them to one another, to expose them briefly to the light. That is why the fragments have slowly come into the possession of others. The Sedlec fragment auctioned yesterday is, I believe, the fragment transported from Sept-Fons to the Czech Republic. It did not belong in Sedlec. Sedlec has not existed as a Cistercian community for nearly two centuries.”

“So someone put it there.”

Bosworth nodded eagerly. “Someone wanted it to be found,” he said. “Someone wants to draw attention to Sedlec.”

“Why?”

“Because Sedlec is not merely an ossuary. Sedlec is a trap.”

Then Bosworth played his final card. He opened the second folder, revealing copies of ornate drawings, each depicting the Black Angel from different angles.

“You know of Rint?” he asked.

“You used his name as a pseudonym. That’s how we found your bell. He was the man who redesigned the ossuary in the nineteenth century.”

“I bought these in Prague. They were part of a case of documents linked to Rint and his work, owned by one of Rint’s descendants, who I found living in near penury. I paid him well for the papers, much more than they were worth, in the hope that they would provide more conclusive proof than they ultimately did. Rint created these drawings of the Black Angel, and according to the seller, there were once many more than this, but they were lost or destroyed. These drawings were Rint’s obsession. He was a haunted man. Later, others copied them, and they became popular among specialized collectors with an interest in the myth, but Rint made the originals. The question was, how did Rint come to create such detailed drawings? Were they entirely products of his own imagination, or did he see something during his restoration that allowed him to base his illustrations upon it? I believe that the latter is the case, for Rint was clearly greatly troubled in later life, and perhaps the bone sculpture still rests in Sedlec. My illness prevents me from investigating further, which is why I am sharing this knowledge with you.”

Bosworth must have seen the expression on my face change. How could he have failed to do so? It was all clear now. Rint had not glimpsed the bone sculpture, because the bone sculpture had long been lost. According to Stuckler, it spent two centuries in Italy, hidden from sight until his father discovered it. No, Rint saw the original, the Black Angel rendered in silver. He saw it in Sedlec when he was restoring the ossuary. Bosworth was right: the map was a kind of ruse, because the Black Angel had never left Sedlec. All those centuries, it had remained hidden there, and at last both Stuckler and the Believers were confident that all the information they needed to recover it was within their grasp.

And I knew also why Martin Reid had given me the small silver cross. I rubbed my fingers across it, where it rested alongside my keys. My thumb traced its lines, and the letters etched on its rear in a cruciform shape.

S

L E C

D

“What is it?” said Bosworth.

“We have to go,” I said.

Bosworth stood and tried to stop me, but his weak legs and wasted arm made him no match for me.

“You know!” he said. “You know where it is! Tell me!”

He tried to raise himself, but we were already making for the door.

“Tell me!” screamed Bosworth, forcing himself up. I saw him stumbling toward me, his face contorted, but by then the elevator doors were closing. I caught a last glimpse of him, then we were descending. I got to the lobby just as a pair of uniformed men emerged from the doorway to the right of the elevator bank. Inside I could see TV monitors and telephones. They stopped as soon as they saw Louis. More precisely, they stopped as soon as they saw Louis’s gun.

“Down,” he said.

They hit the ground.

I went past him and opened the door. He backed out, then we were on the street, running fast, melting into the crowd as the last minutes ticked away and the Believers commenced the slaughter of their enemies.

They first appeared as shadows on the wall, drifting with the night clouds, following the moonlight. Then shadow became form: black-garbed raiders, their eyes distended and their features hidden by the night-vision goggles that they wore. All were armed, and as they scaled the walls, their weapons hung down from their backs, the combination of mutated eyes and slim, stingerlike black barrels making each seem more insect than man.

A boat waited offshore, sitting silently upon the waters, alert for the signal to approach if required, and a blue Mercedes stood beneath a copse of trees, its sole occupant pale and corpulent, his green eyes unencumbered by artificial lenses. Brightwell had no need for them: his eyes had long been comfortable with darkness.