******
New York City: To St. Dympna’s
On the way down from the Tower, Cameo, said to Nighthawk, “I don’t think I like the sound of St. Dympna’s.” She paused momentarily. “Whatever it is.”
Nighthawk shook his head. “You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s a charity hospital for crazy folks. It’s been shut down for years, but the Church still holds the deed and Contarini uses it as his sort of unofficial headquarters. It’s where the obsequenti have their barracks and Blood his kennel.”
Cameo frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s an awful place,” Nighthawk agreed.
The elevator came to a stop and Nighthawk politely waited for her to exit, holding the door for her and then following her into the lobby with Usher and Magda still at her side. He paused for a moment to look around. Whenever he stood in the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby, it made him feel as if seventy years had fallen off the age of the earth. And off him.
She gazed at him.
“So,” she said, “you’re not taking me there. Right?”
Nighthawk looked around the lobby. So many memories. There was a maid he’d loved, lived with, and lost to a younger man who’d been a flashier dresser and had better prospects. She was young then, when he was old, but now she’d be ancient, if she’d somehow managed to survive. Nighthawk suppressed an introspective sigh. The past had been weighing heavily on him lately. He had to rid himself of it, one way or the other.
He looked at Cameo, wishing he’d gotten some really useful ace ability, like telepathy. But that, he thought, would have just made things too easy. “I have no choice,” his voice said. His eyes pled, Trust me. Just trust me for a little while longer.
“What if I scream?” Cameo asked conversationally.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Usher said.
Magda just smiled.
It was the nun’s smile, Nighthawk thought, that decided her. For now. Her gaze withdrew. Her eyes became hooded. It wasn’t exactly as if she lost all interest in her surroundings, but she acted as if she were preoccupied with something else more important, as if she were conversing with unseen spectres.
Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.
Usher went to the parking garage while Nighthawk, Cameo, and Magda waited on the street. It was late, and almost quiet. Cameo looked at Nighthawk, ignoring the silent nun.
“Can’t I go and find some place to go hide until this is all over?” she asked. “Whatever this is.”
Nighthawk nodded approvingly. “That would be the thing to do.” He paused, frowning. “Unfortunately, this will only be over, one, if Contarini dies, or, two, when Jesus Christ again walks this earth. I ain’t saying which is more likely. At this point, I don’t know.”
“Contarini is that determined?”
“He’s a fanatic. Fanatics are usually fairly determined.”
“And you’re not?” Cameo asked him. “A fanatic, I mean?”
Nighthawk laughed. “Not like Contarini. I have faith, but I’m not blinded by it. I have... questions. That’s why I took this job. I’d done some work for Contarini’s Allumbrados in the past—”
A big black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, Usher behind the wheel. Nighthawk opened the rear passenger side door and gestured for Cameo to enter. She got in gracefully and slid across the seat. Magda started to follow her, but Nighthawk took her forearm with his gloved left hand and shook his head.
“In the front,” he said, “with Usher.”
She stared at his gloved hand on her arm, then looked up at Nighthawk as if she were going to dispute his order, but dropped her gaze after a few moments. She pulled her arm away and got into the front passenger seat, obviously perturbed.
Nighthawk got in the back and toggled the dark glass panel into place between front and rear seats. Magda twisted backward to glare at them as the panel slid into place. Usher pulled away from the curb, melding easily with the light stream of traffic.
“She doesn’t like you,” Cameo observed.
“No,” Nighthawk said. “But, even better, she fears me.”
Cameo looked him over coolly. “Why?”
Nighthawk smiled. “Pray you never find out, missy.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded.
”All right,” she said. “You mentioned ‘Allumbrados,’ what does that mean? Who exactly are they?”
“It means ‘the Enlightened Ones.’ They’re an ancient brotherhood within the Church. Cardinal Contarini is their current leader, but they’ve been around since medieval times. Some say back to the time of the Inquisition, to which they had tight ties.”
“Contarini’s a Cardinal?” she repeated, half to herself, as if not totally surprised. “I’m not totally surprised,” she said. “The stink of sanctimony clings to him like cheap aftershave.”
Nighthawk smiled. That was a pretty fair assessment.
“But these Allumbrados, what exactly do they believe in?”
“They believe in the Millennium,” Nighthawk said. “They believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth. That after casting Satan and his minions into the pit He’ll establish a Kingdom of Peace and reign for a thousand years. Then He’ll fight the Devil one last time, and in this final confrontation will be victorious. Then the world will end and the righteous will go to Heaven to spend eternity praising God.”
“Literally?”
“Oh, yes. They believe this to be the pre-ordained fate of the universe. They believe that they can help this process along and hasten the coming of Parousia.”
“Parousia?”
“Sorry,” Nighthawk said. “You hang around these people enough and you forget how to talk like ordinary folk. Parousia is just a fancy word for Jesus’ Kingdom on Earth.”
“So, they hired you to help them?”
“I got them the Shroud, didn’t I?” Nighthawk asked with some indignation. “I found you to channel Jesus’ spirit so the Cardinal could discover how exactly they could help bring about Jesus’ return. Is it my fault you got Cole Porter instead?”
Cameo had to fight back a smile. “No.”
“Anyway,” Nighthawk said, “that’s only part of the plan.”
“The other part being?”
“The other part being destroying the Anti-Christ, who Contarini believes has already appeared on Earth, as Scripture has predicted.”
“That’s crazy,” Cameo said. “Just who is this supposed Anti-Christ, anyway?”
“The Spawn of the Whore of Babylon and Satan himself.”
Cameo shook her head. “I’m still in the dark.”
Nighthawk sat silently as Usher drove with quiet, sure skill through the empty streets. The Mercedes windows were all blacked out so Cameo could have no clue where they were going. That was part of the reason why he had activated the barrier between the front and back seats. He also didn’t want Usher or Magda to hear their conversation. He slouched back on his seat.
“The Whore of Babylon is a famous television star and documentary film producer who has dared to oppose the Church on pretty much every social issue imaginable. Abortion rights. Ordaining women for the priesthood. Homosexuality. Even the doctrine of papal infallibility which, it turns out, was invented in the nineteenth century. Plus, she’s a wild carder.”
“Peregrine?” Cameo hazarded.
Nighthawk nodded. “That’s right, missy. Now, Satan himself: He’s also a wild carder. He deals in sex, drugs, and violence. Or at least used to. He’s black—”
“Fortunato! But,” Cameo said, “he’s been in that monastery in Japan, what, it seems like forever now.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nighthawk said. “If he doesn’t come out when things start happening, Contarini will send someone after him. And,” Nighthawk added significantly, ”things have definitely started to happen.
“And the Anti-Christ,” Cameo said thoughtfully. “Their son, John Fortune.”
Nighthawk nodded again. “You got that right. The only known offspring from the union of two aces. That’s important to Contarini. Wild carders are equivalent to demons in his theology. He believes we’re all damned from birth. That we’ll all suffer the agonies of Hell for eternity.”
“Yet you work for him,” Cameo said with an edge of disgust in her voice.
Nighthawk shook his head. “I don’t work for him. I take his money. There’s a difference.”
“A vague one,” Cameo said.
“No. An important one. I told you before—I took this job for a reason.”
“The money?” she asked.
Nighthawk shook his head silently. His gaze turned inwards as if he were reliving memories of old, unforgettable, unpleasant events.
“No. I took this job because I wanted to see if you were the real thing, or just some kind of fake.”
“It wasn’t my fault that I got Cole Porter, either—” Cameo began, but Nighthawk interrupted her.
“No, I believe you. You’ve convinced me that you can channel the dead.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Your trust, for now.” He frowned. “We’re probably all right, here, now. If we’re being taped, we’re both dead if the Cardinal ever hears this conversation—”
Cameo snorted. “I thought you weren’t afraid of the Cardinal.”
“I’ve lived a long time, missy,” Nighthawk said, “and I didn’t do it by being stupid. Of course I’m afraid of the Cardinal. If you had any sense, you’d be too. I can’t afford to openly oppose him. I’m one old man. He has the Allumbrados. Aces. Money. More thugs with guns than I could kill in a year.”
“All right,” Cameo said in a small voice. “I believe you.”
“You better,” he said. “St. Dympna’s now, is not a nice place. It will be hard for you there. But you’ll only have to endure it for maybe a day, no more, then I’ll get you out. Trust me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because,” Nighthawk said softly. “I swear on the honor of my immortal soul.”
They looked at each other for a long time, and then Cameo finally nodded.
“All right,” she said in the voice of a little girl.
“Thank you,” Nighthawk said.
She nodded again, and they rode the rest of the way to St. Dympna’s in silence.