Carl Sargent - Black Madonna

“Why would you think that?” Geraint asked.

“You’re a member of the British government and you ask me that?”

It was true, Geraint thought. Even his own boss seemed to jump at their call. It wasn’t so surprising that Gianfranco should think that.

“We have to get him out of here,” he told Streak.

“There’s no rush” the elf said. “There aren’t going to be swarms of French police or army up here for a while. This is the back of beyond. Slot, there are even border bandits in this region. It’s virtually Sardinia up here. Ain’t that right, guys?”

“Sure is,” Juan said laconically, picking at his teeth with a match.

“Just do it,” Geraint said wearily. Streak looked resigned and flipped open the top of his Comm unit.

“Let’s get the ears up here,” he said. “It’ll be faster that way. He’s in no shape to be carried three flicks or more.”

“Who are you calling?” Geraint asked. “There’s no one left outside, only Xavier, and he’s no nearer the cars than we are.”

“No, but he’s got the remotes and you didn’t travel in his car” Streak grinned suddenly. Computer mapping, topology analyzers, autopilot, and his machine’ll be here in five minutes. We can put the sleepers on the roof rack until we get back to ours.”

“Like I say then, just do it,” Geraint said. Though it was still not yet midnight, his body said it was five in the morning after a very, very bad day.

The car turned up, gliding driverless up the hill, as swiftly as Streak said it would. As they shambled out toward it, Geraint’s eye was caught by a flash of color among the blackness of shattered stone under the lightless sky.

Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, staring down at the statue. Incredibly, it had somehow survived among the ruins of the conservatory. Knocked from its pedestal by the force of the blasts that had demolished the building, it seemed remarkably pristine and unmarked. The paintwork was oddly gaudy, and it looked like a cheap Curio sold in those shops that vend plastic icons and bottles of Lourdes water to the faithful and those bereft of intelligence or aesthetic discernment.

“That’s the very figure. lust as we saw her.”

He remembered the spirit who’d invaded his flat and delivered the warning to them. Lying at his feet was a replica of that figure, staring back at him as if defying the might and brutality of all those who had destroyed her shrine.

“Joan of Arc.”

He almost crossed himself. He felt somehow compelled to make an apology to her, a sign of appeasement, but he stopped himself because he knew it was wrong. Not wrong to make an apology, but wrong to make the sign of the cross.

He didn’t understand that, and he knew it mattered; and when he turned away, he was troubled by it. But Streak was trying to squeeze everyone into the car, and he had to walk away and involve himself with that.

But he did not forget it.

They decided to risk staying in Clermont-Ferrand for the night, not least because they didn’t want their unconscious and injured to have to make the trip to Toulouse at this hour, and arriving in a major city in the shape they were in would surely attract attention. The risk was that those who’d raided the chapel-or their companions-might come looking for those who’d defeated them, and Clermont was too close for comfort.

“We can’t move this guy,” Streak said. “We probably shouldn’t move Michael either, not with a bump to the head; and I always get uncomfortable around mages who get drained. They always tell me not to frag around with them. I don’t like staying here, but I reckon we have to. Until Michael comes around, at the very least.”

Geraint left the elf to organize matters here and went to tend to Gianfranco. A second painkilling shot had left the man dazed and confused, but it was obvious he needed serious medical help. He would be permanently crippled, or even die, if he didn’t get expert medical help shortly.

“Gianfranco, we’re going to get you to a hospital,” he said quietly to the Italian. The man nodded and clutched Geraint’s hand again to express his thanks.

“But look, you owe us, really you do. You would have been killed like the others if we hadn’t turned up here tonight. And we really only wanted to talk peaceably. You turned us away.”

The man said nothing for a few seconds, and then looked up in absolute torment

“I cannot talk,” he said wretchedly. “You don’t understand”

“I understand quite a lot. I understand that you had me tracked and sent a spirit to warn me off, smashing its way into my own home. Just for starters.”

“We didn’t harm anyone,” the man protested. “You killed Serrault, our mage.”

“That was an accident,” Geraint said, aware that the man had a fair point. “Serrin says he was heavily drained from ritual magic and shock killed him.”

It wasn’t true, but he had to lie. Time was short.

“We saved your skin. You can give us something.”

The man said nothing. Geraint thought of another tack and guessed that this time, he just might have some luck.

“And look, Gianfranco, Streak would have made you talk before the shot. And you would have talked. Yes, you would.”

The other man’s eyes met his and confirmed the truth. “So, you owe me twice over. The Inquisition came after us. Kidnapped two of us, drugged them and took blood for ritual magic, threatened to kill us. We need to know why. They killed your people, and they’d have killed us too. We want to know how to stop them when they try again. It’s not an unreasonable thing to ask.”

The man groaned again, the last residues of pain numbed by doses of the drugs that were weakening his resistance. Geraint hoped they weren’t also making him unable to explain himself.

“I’m not a senior figure,” he pleaded in a cracked voice. “Them is much I don’t know.”

“The book. You sent the book,” Geraint guessed. “Why?”

“As a message.”

“How was it a message?”

“It was a clue. To the nature and location of the man Seratini was seeking. The one you seek,” Gianfranco managed to say.

“How was it a clue? I don’t understand,” Geraint said plaintively.

“The topic. Water…” Gianfranco’s eyes were beginning to flutter now, the drugs obviously taking over his mind and senses.

“Who is he, Gianfranco? I have to know” Geraint pleaded.

For a second, the man’s vision cleared and a mixture of base cunning and intelligence shone out at the Welshman.

“There is one statue left in the city,” he grinned, and his grip of Geraint’s wrist relaxed as he fell into a narcotic slumber.

“Damn,” Geraint cursed. He got back to his feet and turned away. The scent of coffee greeted his senses. It wasn’t his newly discovered favorite, but at this time of night it smelled awfully good.

“If you want to get him to a hospital now, we’ve got to leave at once,” Streak said. “We go to Toulouse, dump him at the airport, ring security from the plane, take off and get home. We can’t risk anything else. If I drive him to Toulouse they’ll ID him, get a trace to Rennes-le-Chateau, and then the police will descend on Clermont.”

“Actually, given what’s happened up there they’ll be doing that anyway,” Geraint said. “Think about it. There’s a village up there. Someone must have noticed that the place has been flattened by now, not to mention all that magic lighting up the night sky and a few score corpses littering the farmlands.”

Streak’s eyes widened. “Frag me! I never thought of that. These bloody French villagers. What a damned nuisance they are!”

He was absolutely serious. Geraint almost doubled up in laughter, and the elf saw the funny side and laughed himself.