He straightened. Such blasphemy tempered his admiration. “What of the witch who created all of this?”
With clear reluctance, Mendoza glanced over to the iPad sitting next to the laptop. “According to the signal, the two women are moving quickly. They likely found a taxi.”
“Keep tracking their route while you secure everything for transportation.”
“Si, Familiares.”
Todor studied the laptop screen one last time. He knew the Inquisitor General’s plans for Xénese and the abomination within. While acquiring the witch would have been a boon, she wasn’t an essential element for what was to come.
As he stared, he was again captured by the splendor found on the screen. It was indeed maravilloso, as Mendoza had extolled. Still, Todor refused to be deceived. He stared at the woman in the garden. Her eyes were open again, seeming to stare straight at him. He knew what hid behind the glow of those eyes.
Without breaking that unearthly gaze, he repeated the line from Second Corinthians, both to remind himself and as a warning to Mendoza to be cautious with his admiration.
“Ipse enim Satanas transfigurat se in angelum lucis.”
It was something they all had to keep in mind from here.
He silently repeated the quote one more time, translating the Latin in his head.
For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
3:22 P.M.
“Looks like they took the bait,” Carly said.
Mara nodded, momentarily relieved. She and Carly hid in the smoky confines of a basement bar. The air reeked of tobacco and patchouli. As the tin chords of a Christmas carol rasped from an old jukebox, they stared out a grime-encrusted window.
Earlier, Carly had lifted to her toes and used the elbow of her jacket to wipe clean a corner of the glass, enough for them to spy across the rosy-hued pavement of Pink Street to the front of her former hotel. After securing the taxi, Mara had the driver take them a couple of blocks, then stop. They abandoned the cab, but not before snugging the coin-sized GPS tracker into a seat cushion. As the taxi took off with the tracker, they had carefully circled back on foot, traversing narrow alleys to enter the bar via its back door.
Through the smear in the window, Mara watched her life’s work being hauled into a van parked at the hotel’s front door. She could do nothing to stop the theft. Even if she could have convinced the bartender to allow her to use the establishment’s phone, the authorities would never have responded in time. And the two of them certainly dared not use their cell phones, knowing such an act might expose their earlier ruse and again put them on the enemy’s radar.
Instead, Carly held a bar napkin against the stone wall and jotted down the van’s plate number. She elbowed Mara to move over and peered intently through their spyhole, then swore under her breath.
“What?” Mara asked.
“From this angle, I can’t make out the last three numbers.”
Mara frowned. “Maybe what you already have is enough.”
The plan was to wait until the others left, then alert the police and hide here until the authorities arrived. Only then would they come out of hiding. After that, hopefully the police could track the van by its plate and grab the men responsible for the murder of Carly’s mother and the other four women of Bruxas.
Still, Mara knew that wasn’t the most important outcome of their plan.
She pictured Eve in her garden.
“They’re leaving,” Carly said. “C’mon. I need the rest of that plate number.”
The two of them exited the bar but hovered near the open door. Six steps led up to the level of the street. As a precaution, they remained below, peering up just enough to spy the full plate of the van as it sped away.
“Got it,” Carly said and waved Mara back.
As her friend rechecked her scrawl of letters and numbers on the napkin, Mara retreated backward into the bar. Crossing the dark threshold, she felt a stir in the smoky air, sensed a shadow looming behind her.
She tried to duck away. “Car—”
A huge hand clamped over her mouth. A thick arm hooked her waist. Someone else pointed a pistol at Carly’s chest. Her friend’s eyes went huge and scared.
“No te muevas,” they were warned.
Don’t move.
12
December 25, 11:02 A.M. EST
Plainsboro, New Jersey
Exhausted and heartsick, Monk held Kat’s hand, in yet another hospital room. Her skin had turned pallid, her lips bled of color, even the single auburn curl peeking from under a hospital bonnet looked drab and flat, its hue no longer bright and sleek.
He reached and freed the stray hair from where sweat had plastered it to her forehead. He wrapped its length around a finger, accentuating the whorl before laying it gently back.
There you go, beautiful as always.
He continued to keep one ear on the tick, thrum, and beep of her vitals. He tried his best to reconcile himself with both the diagnosis and prognosis. The team in the MRI lab had stabilized Kat after the seizure and rushed her to ICU. For an hour, he could only pace, waiting to find out if he’d lost the love of his life, the mother of his children.
Lisa kept him company as best she could.
Finally, Grant and a handful of other doctors delivered the verdict. Kat was stable for the moment. The brain hemorrhaging had slowed, enough that they thought operating on her would be more risk than benefit. They also reported the grim news that Kat was no longer breathing on her own and was now totally dependent on the ventilator. Worst of all, the moments of wakefulness noted in the EEG had ceased, suggestive that Kat was no longer aware of her surroundings.
Maybe that’s a blessing, the ICU doctor had intoned solemnly.
Monk had wanted to sock the guy in the nose. As if sensing this, Lisa had taken Monk’s prosthetic hand, squeezing it tightly. Just as well. His hardware packed more than a simple punch. Beyond the array of advanced tech built into his hand, a small packet of plastic explosives had been wired under his palm as a failsafe, for those special occasions when a simple handshake wouldn’t do.
Lisa kept hold of his hand, comforting him as much as restraining him, as the medical staff finished its report. The consensus was that Kat had deteriorated from the pseudocoma of a locked-in patient into a full coma.
There’s nothing else we can do, Grant had concluded. From here, it’s a waiting game.
Monk sensed the waiting he was referring to had less to do with Kat’s recovery and more with the expectation of her death.
Or maybe they’re just waiting for me to accept the inevitable.
He patted Kat’s hand. “But you know how stubborn I can be. When do I ever give up?”
Monk’s phone rang and vibrated on the bedside table, indicating an urgent call. He grabbed it, saw it was Sigma, and quickly answered.
As soon as Director Crowe came on the line, he blurted, “What have you learned?”
Monk had already forwarded Kat’s intel—possibly the last she’d ever share, one that was mission critical. A single name, Valya Mikhailov. The former Guild assassin had kidnapped his children, taken Seichan.
Painter answered, his voice worrisomely terse. “Monk, I need you to brace yourself.”
His heart stuttered in his chest. A thousand scenarios—all brutal—filled his head. He could barely get enough breath to ask, “What is it?”
“We received a video file ten minutes ago. The source untraceable. I’m sending it to your phone.”
Monk clutched his device harder, his vision narrowing as he stared at the small screen. “Are they dead? Just tell me.”
“No. Watch. You should have the file by now.”
A folder popped up on his phone, and he tapped it open. His screen darkened as a video started. The view was into a featureless space, all draped in black. Three figures were present. Two were hidden under hooded, formless cloaks, masking any hint of features or gender. One stood closest to the camera; the second sat on a stool farther back. Balancing on the second one’s knee was a small figure wearing green footie pajamas, her auburn curls a few shades lighter than Kat’s hair.
“Harriet . . .”
The closest figure spoke, the voice robotic, mechanically distorted and modulated, eerily changing constantly. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to secure and deliver Mara Silviera’s Xénese project. Both her neuromorphic sphere and the program inside. A drop-off location in Spain is encrypted within this file. Failure to do as instructed—” The speaker turned to Harriet, the child’s ears mercifully muffled by headphones so the girl couldn’t hear what was said next. “After that deadline, we’ll start with a finger and send it to you. Every six hours thereafter. Ears, nose, lips. We’ll whittle this girl down to nothing.”
The speaker returned to the camera. “Then we’ll start with the second child.”
The video ended as abruptly as it started.