Black Madonna

20

“It’s a girl, I think,” Streak said doubtfully.

“No, it isn’t. Look at the nose,” Kristen said. “It’s a young man, not much more than a boy.”

Serrin moved the sheet of paper away from the body of the image. He’d occluded most of it, leaving only the enigmatic face for the others to see.

“Oh, it is a bloke,” Streak said. “Them shoulders give it away. Funny. I could have sworn it was a woman’s face, honest.”

“But…” Kristen said, hesitantly.

“Yes?” Serrin waited.

“It looks just like the other woman. The smile. It’s her smile.”

“What other woman?”

“The picture you showed me before. The Mona Lisa.”

“My God, it is an’ all,” Streak said, screwing up his eyes. “I tell you, mate, that’s a really weird painting.

“Isn’t it?” Serrin said softly.

“So what is it then? Who’s our geezer?” Streak said.

“Our geezer, as you so charmlessly put it, is John the Baptist. As painted by Leonardo da Vinci.”

“And why’s he pointing his finger up like that? I mean, it’s not as if he knows cricket umpire signals.” Serrin and Kristen gave him the same look. “Sorry. So what does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Serrin admitted. “But this is, well, strange. I don’t know why. But something tells me it’s important. We’re in his city-the Baptist’s, that is. We’re chasing some freak with a Leonardo fixation. His only statue is here too, so I think we should go take a look at it. Coming?”

“Mikey and his nibs are still up to their arses in electrons,” Streak said, picturesquely if inaccurately. “I think a stroll into town is on.”

They approached from the east gates and stood before the remarkable work, the ten beautifully etched plates of biblical scenes that hung there. Above them a stone angel stood watching John baptizing Christ, Porphyry columns flanked them as they walked through the doors and made heir offering of coins and notes at the small box placed just inside.

In the cool interior, Serrin consulted the little guide-book. searching for an illustration of the angel and directions to where it might be found.

“You are looking for something in particular?” a young, fair-haired Italian youth asked in perfect, barely accented English.

Serrin turned to look at the fresh-faced young man. He was handsome, slightly feminine in appearance, with high cheekbones and full lips. He smiled at the elf and looked expectant.

“Verocchio’s angel, actually,” Senmn told him.

“I think that if you head for the north gates and walk out there, and mingle with the crowds, then you should be able to make it very difficult for the three gentlemen in the piazza to shoot you as they intend.” the youth said equably. “Get into a taxi and tell the driver to drive like crazy, I should think.”

Serrin’s jaw dropped.

“Jesuits are very resourceful. I will be seeing you later, I expect,” the young man said with a pleasant smile. The trio were too stunned to grab him as he walked out the east, doors and disappeared with startling rapidity into a knot of tourists enjoying the early-morning sunshine.

“I think we’d better do what he said,” Serrin said, glancing around as calmly as he could manage under the circumstances. Kristen’s nails were digging deep into his arm.

“I couldn’t risk bringing any heat in here,” Streak said, “though I’ve got a little something in my pockets.” He patted his jacket and there was a dull plastic clunk.

“I’ll never be able to cast a spell in here,” Serrin fretted.

“On the way out?”

“We’ll be sitting ducks in the doorway,” Serrin said.

“How about claiming sanctuary?” Streak’s eyes darted this way and that, taking in the scene outside. He couldn’t pick out any potential attackers amid the milling crowds, but finally he caught the man in the suit eating ice cream.

“Ah, got one, I reckon,” he said, “But who the frag was-”

“I have no idea,” Serrin said with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t feel well,” Kristen said.

“This is no time to-” Streak began.

“I said, I don’t feel well,” Kristen insisted, tapping foot irritably on the floor. “Do I have to wink too?”

“Go on, girl. It’s now or never,” Serrin said. Kristen suddenly dropped onto the floor in a very convincing faint. Serrin fell to his knees beside her and Streak finally got the game. He jabbered in passable Italian to a young cleric who’d hurried over to see what was wrong, asking the man to call for an ambulance. It probably wasn’t serious, but it wasn’t the first time and…

The priest hurried away but was soon back, reassuring Streak that an ambulance was on the way and asking if there was anything else he could do. Streak reassured him, and gave him a small sum, asking him to offer a prayer for the afflicted. The young man bobbed his head and went off to light a candle, still keeping a wary eye on the apparently stricken woman. A small knot of people was beginning to gather around them. Streak noted the dark-haired man in the plain gray suit who hovered at the doorway. He guessed that there must be some kind of detection and alarm system at the doorway, and the man did not dare cross the threshold.

The man looked around him, then suddenly reached into his pocket.

Streak reached into his own.

In a split second, a Predator would have been fired into the Baptistery and a molded plastic throwing knife would have cut deep into the gunman’s face.

It didn’t happen.

What Streak saw, and afterward he wasn’t at all clear just how he did see it, was the youth who’d warned them standing well behind, and slightly to the left, of the man in the suit. The youth had a broad grin, and was reaching inside his own powder-blue jacket. lie drew a weapon from inside it with astonishing speed.

It was impossible. Not the speed of it, though that was swifter than Streak had seen even a move-by-wire cyberzombie move. It was the weapon itself that was impossible. It was utterly bizarre, an anachronism. What’s more, it could never have been concealed inside the jacket and, even if it could, them was no way it could have been drawn, aimed, and fired with such precision.

The weapon looked like a huge laminated crossbow, but instead of the usual bridge for bearing the bolt there were perhaps a dozen smooth, very slender metal barrels spread out in an arc of maybe thirty degrees. Faster than was possible, the screw mechanism at the base of the barrels sank down into the weapon and a swirl of bubbles flew from the barrels.

Streak gazed at them like a helpless, paralyzed viewer watching a slo-mo film. The bubbles meandered lazily toward the man in the suit, who was frozen in mid-gesture, the emerging gleam of imminent metal just visible inside his barely open jacket.

The bubbles swirled around the man’s head and back. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground like a sack of vegetables dumped on a larder floor. The young man replaced the weapon inside his jacket and raised his left index finger to his lips. He blew on it, smiled at Streak, and then he wasn’t there anymore. Streak felt a roaring sensation in his ears and everything seemed to return to normal.

The sound of an approaching siren came from somewhere along the piazza as Streak struggled to stay on his feet. He couldn’t think straight. As yet, no one had noticed the man who’d collapsed behind the group of people around Kristen.

Streak kicked himself into action. It occurred to him that the man might get bundled into the same ambulance as Kristen, which wouldn’t do at all. He shouldered his way through the crowd and knelt down beside the fallen man. As he bent over the body, he pulled a leathered flask from his jacket, thanking providence that he never traveled without some form of alcohol on his person.

The other men in suits were closing in, and people were turning to look now. Streak flicked off the cap and poured the whiskey over the man.

“Get rid of this drunk,” he said loudly and with a fair semblance of disgust. “At this time of day and at the door of a house of God. What a disgrace!”

Tutting rose among the crowd. The two advancing figures halted, unsure of what to do. A moment before they’d been ready to blow the elf away. and their hesitation was fatal. The paramedics were within a dozen paces now. One of the men gave the other a look, then both turned tail and headed quietly away. Streak exhaled with relief. His Italian suffered a little as he thanked the paramedics just a bit too profusely.

The elves piled into the back of the ambulance and began to ask whether there was a paramedics’ retirement fund to which they could make a serious contribution.

Michael’s face was drained of blood by the time the three of them returned from the hospital, where the doctors were stunned by Kristen’s miraculously swift recovery. A little implausible nonsense about witch-doctors and curses had soon persuaded them they were probably dealing with nothing more serious than a case of hysterical fainting… Kristen hadn’t found Serrin’s impromptu story terribly amusing, but all that was forgotten as Streak managed to gabble out what he’d seen.

They were excited as they rushed upstairs back at the villa, but the sight of their two white-faced and obviously exhausted companions immediately told them something was wrong.

“We didn’t exactly blow it, but it was pretty bloody close,” Geraint told them. A cigarette hung from his fingers, the smoke spiraling upward. “Mitsuhama wasn’t a problem, they don’t have much. But Fuchi-Fuchi’s got something, and they’re not letting anyone get close. Not even Michael could cope with the ice, and that means it’s thicker than the walls of the Tower of London. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Metasculpture,” Michael muttered. “Sculpted system with covert implant viruses. Very neat, a constant assault and nonresponsive to anything I’ve currently got. It’s going to cost me a lot of money to buy cover against that drek.”

“We’re only three days away from meltdown,” Serrin observed. No one seemed to care.

“So tell us, how was your day?” Geraint asked eventually, stubbing out the cigarette. Gray circles were beginning to form under his eyes after days of strain, irregular sleeping habits, and constant adrenaline rushes.

“The NOJ were out as a welcoming committee,” Streak him.

“Fragging great,” Geraint moaned. “How’d they get on to us so quickly?”

“Maybe they didn’t,” Serrin suggested. “They may have followed leads of their own and simply arrived in same place. Interesting that they had goons around the Baptistery. Though.”

“Michael, could you crack their system?”

“Who knows? I have no idea where it is. It’ll be a PLTG for starters.”

“Pardon me?”

“A private local system. Just finding the bugger will be bad enough. I’ve got to admit I don’t exactly feel up to right now. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen ice sculpted as a tank when it wasn’t just a macho gesture. It wasn’t kidding.”

“We’ve got to get into something, somewhere, that belongs to someone who knows more than we do,” Serrin said.

“I’d just like to talk to Blondie,” Streak said pointedly. “That vanishing act was something else, real smooth.”

Michael blinked wearily. “What are you talking about?”

Serrin looked at Streak, who proceeded to fill them in.

“It was that rakking gun,” he said in conclusion. “The weirdest bloody thing I’ve ever seen. Straight up. It didn’t fire bullets and it had about a dozen barrels, like I said, I mean, that’s impossible. I’ve only seen things like that in museums, and then the barrels were all together, not spread out in an arc. There’s a few in the Royal Armories, right?”

Geraint nodded. Among the exhibits at the Royal Armories at the Tower of London were some of the first German multi-barrel pistols and rifles, ungainly and unwieldy things. They hadn’t been a notable landmark in the history of gun design.

Serrin’s eyes gleamed and he suddenly left the room, apparently with some strong purpose. He was only gone a moment, returning with a book open at an early page.

“Did the weapon look anything like this?” he asked Streak, pushing the book out in front of his face. The other elf pushed it back so that he could focus his eyes properly on the illustration. His cybereyes could have compensated, but the reflex was ingrained.

“Shee-it! That’s it,” he said wonderingly. “Well, I mean, it’s as close as makes no difference. I didn’t have very long to see it, don’t forget. But, yeah, it did look just like that. Bugger me. What the frag is it?”

“Leonardo da Vinci’s design for the scoppietti,” Serrin told him, “I guess someone’s really starting to play serious games with us now. It’s begun.”

“What’s begun?” Geraint asked.

Serrin gave him the beatific smile of someone who thinks he’s noticed something of major importance that has passed everyone else by.

“A game is being played out here,” Serrin said. drawing up a chair and swinging his good leg over to sit on it straddled, his elbows draped over the chair-back. “Our target has a real fixation with Leonardo, right? The Shroud icon, The date of the Matrix meltdown. This weapon, whatever it actually was. And more as well.”

“We knew that already,” Michael reminded him.

“Okay, right. Now, Leonardo was the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, and the current Priory has an interest in our quarry. Leonardo faked the Shroud of Turin at the behest of Pope Innocent-I forget which one.”

“The eighth,” Michael completed.

“Right. Thanks. And the hardline Jesuits out there serve the Vatican and they’re certainly stirred up about what’s happening. And there’s an extra layer of depth to this. Leonardo may or may not have been gay, but the androgyne recurs again and again in his work. Mona Lisa is Leonardo as a woman, okay? His painting of John the Baptist is extraordinarily feminine-our man Streak here actually took the face for a girl’s. There’s more too. Verocchio’s Baptism of Christ has an angel painted by Leonardo. and it’s another androgyne-the figure is male but has a very, very feminine face. I looked at that after we’d seen the statue downstairs.”

“Blondie was an interesting looker,” Streak said.

“Wasn’t he? Put him in a cocktail dress and a wig and he’d make an excellent petite jeune fille,” Serrin said wryly.

“Are we even sure he was a bloke?” Sneak suddenly asked.

“Yes, he was,” Kristen put in firmly. “His voice was too deep for a woman’s. Just. And his posture was a man’s. That can’t be faked.”

“You haven’t been to San Fran,” Serrin told her. “Yes, It can.”

“We have cross-dressers in Cape Town too, dear,” she countered icily.

“Whatever. Anyway, look at the Matrix icon. It’s the Shroud, with the face of a woman. It’s Leonardo’s androgyne all over again, in a more shocking form.”

“So?” Michael demanded.

“So I think that’s at the root of it,” Serrin said. “It recurs too often. And there’s something about this we haven’t worked out yet: why is the woman in the icon black?”

“Tell us,” Michael said.

“I don’t know,” Serrin replied. “I’ve tried some digging but there’s so much bulldrek about this kind of thing that without expert advice I couldn’t begin to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I mean, we’ve both been through the How do you know ‘God isn’t a woman’ drek and that kind of thing enough times.”

Kristen looked pointedly at him.

“Sorry, lover. It’s just that the people who make that argument are ninety-nine point nine per cent screaming flakes,” Serrin said impatiently. ‘You spend a couple of days reading nothing but and you’ll agree, trust me.

“There has to be something more than our decker merely adopting Leonardo’s persona and having a Leonardo fixation. Otherwise, the Priory and the NOJ wouldn’t be involved.”

“I’ll buy that,” Michael said.

Serrin shrugged. “We can’t know that. But I wonder. The official line on the Priory is that they serve to protect the bloodline of Christ, right? The old myth that Christ wasn’t crucified but came to Europe, maybe with Joseph of Arimathea, had children and some still survive? The Gnostic gospels have stuff on this and there are almost as many files suggesting conspiracies along those lines hogging the Matrix as there are on Trekker drek. But even by the standards of flake theories, it’s weak. I’m not buying into it as the Big Reason behind all of this. But they’re protecting something. I just wondered if-”

“If this is a descendant of Leonardo?” Michael said doubtfully.

“That possibility has occurred to me,” Serrin admitted “But it doesn’t feel right either. I still think there has to be some link to the real Leonardo. This isn’t just a flake doing impersonations”

“Whoever pulled that stunt with the gun Blondie had was no flake, that’s for bloody sure,” Streak said. “I have no idea what took that guy out, but trust me, I’d give up all the dosh I’ve got stashed to be able to buy one, If someone can invent something like that, we’re not dealing with an idiot.”

“Not to mention the minor matter of crashing the entire fragging Matrix,” Michael reminded them.

Serrin smiled weakly. “We almost forgot about that for a moment, didn’t we?”

“What we desperately need to do,” he went on, “is somehow get one step ahead. So far, we’ve been following leads and there always seems to be someone waiting for us around the corner. We have to find some way, just one thing, for moving ahead of the game. And this is a game, albeit a game with seriously high stakes.”

Serrin hesitated. The pause told Geraint there was something he wasn’t revealing.

“Come on, Serrin, what is it? It’s Hessler, isn’t it? He told you something you don’t want to tell us. I guess I understand why, but-”

“No, it isn’t Hessler. It’s Merlin,” Serrin said, gently and sadly. The change in his voice was obvious. They all fell silent and looked at him.

“Merlin is a better ‘human being’ than most people are, I think,” he said. “Well, elf, human, what the frag. He’s a spirit of people, I think. I don’t know much about his history, he hasn’t told me about it. But he genuinely likes people and he’s troubled. He knows who we’re after, and can’t tell because he’d be destroyed once people figured it out that we got it from him”

“Then Hessler must know,” Michael pointed out.

“Yes, I think he must,” Serrin agreed. “He’s obviously a member of some powerful hermetic order. His cormmand of metamagic is something else, I can tell you. He can snap his fingers and do things I’d need a week of preparation to even risk attempting. He’s impressive. And he’s especially impressive because he doesn’t make a show out of it, and he doesn’t do things in ways other than are absolutely necessary. I’ll never be anywhere near that good.” He shook his head, but not sadly. “He’s simply in another league. Whatever that is. I think there’s some kind of game afoot among them. And our target is part of that game.”

“So what’s the point of the game?”

“Our target wants the money,” Serrin said. “I do know that. He genuinely wants the money, though I don’t know what for.”

“You could buy a fair-sized country with it,” Geraint observed. “So he could want almost anything. With that much, you could do almost anything, let’s face it.”

“Look at it from the other side,” Michael said. “What could you want to do that needs that much money?”

“Settle Mars?” Streak said, shrugging his shoulders. “Frag it, you’re talking that kind of scale.”

“What would you want to do if you were Leonardo?” Kristen asked. They turned and looked at her. “Sorry, was I being stupid?” she said meekly.

“On the contrary,” Michael said. “Serrin, can I borrow your wife for a while? Would you mind, Kristen? You have more common sense than I do and I think I have a lot of data you ought to be looking through.

“If this is deeper than just a Leonardo-fixation, then we should test the idea out. What would Leonardo have done next? What did he leave as an unfulfilled ambition? At least if we work on this theory we could do something. Something that could be a signal to that someone, out here, who’s playing this deadly game. And we might just get a response.”

“You’ll have to continue this discussion without me,” Geraint told them. “I have to go and bathe and change. Luncheon awaits.”

“We won’t expect you back too soon,” Michael said sweetly.

“Frag off,” Geraint said tartly.

“Actually. Geraint,” Michael said as seriously as he could muster, “if the drek hits the fan and you go broke, the Countess has a lot of property holdings. She’s a very rich window indeed. And a marriage to a de Medici too. It would be so utterly, utterly romantic.” He gave a horribly twee grin and then his face broke into a playful smirk.

“Welsh-Italian children. Imagine the tantrums they could throw!”

Geraint decided, on balance, not to throw the marble ashtray at him, but it was close for a time. He stalked out of the room.

“Kristen, my dear, you just made more sense in one line than we’ve managed in several days,” Michael said with relish. “Now let’s see what we can do on the basis of it.”

“There’s just one final thing,” Serrin said hesitantly. “About the bloodline angle. And the androgyne.”

“Mmmm?”

“I wondered, just wondered, if it might not be a woman, you know. Putting her face on Shroudman. Doing what her great-great-as-many-greats-as-you-can-count great-grandfather did when he painted Mona Lisa. Wouldn’t it fit?”

Most chains of reasoning break down somewhere. Serrin’s just had. But as Geraint toweled himself dry after his shower and mentally checked the list of purchases he wanted to make on the way, and as the others discussed their options, it was a woman, somewhere, who looked down on all this and smiled.

But she was smiling upon someone else, and he was in another city.