Of Saints and Shadows (1994) by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page B

He sighed, letting his breath out slowly, so slowly. “A good friend of mine—you’ve met her actually, Janet Harris, the paralegal who works with me—she’s disappeared. Just gone. Thin air. And nobody knows where to even begin looking.”
    “How awful.”
    “I’m sorry, Father, I guess the collar brings out the confession in us old Catholic-school boys.”
    That damn collar again!
    “It’s not like we were dating or anything, but, well, I was pretty taken with her. Sorry, I’ll shut up now.”
    “No, Daniel,” he said sincerely. “Please don’t shut up on my account. You’ve every reason to be upset.”
    “Well, let’s get to work so I can stop thinking about her.”
    The waiter arrived, giving Henri a chance to take a good look at his friend. He was overworked and under stress, but a good man. He began to wonder whether this business would cause trouble for Dan, but his involvement had been unavoidable. After all, how much trouble could there be in setting up a nonprofit church organization? Of course, that might depend on what that organization was preaching . . . or publishing for that matter.
    “What can I get you, Father?”
    “Hmm?” Guiscard smiled up at the waiter. “Oh, I’ll have whatever he’s having.”
    The hostess led Liam Mulkerrin to his table, two away from the renegade Guiscard and the lawyer Benedict. He sat with his back to them.
    Benedict’s appearance was deceiving, he thought as he sipped his water. The man was of medium height, only about five-eight or nine at the most, yet stocky and muscular from lifting weights, and his sandy blond hair was clipped in almost military fashion. His smooth skin would have given his face an almost boyish appearance had it not been for his square, jutting jaw and gravely serious eyes.
    He looked like a man of action, Mulkerrin thought. But looks are nearly always deceiving. He had been following the man for several days, in court, in bars, listening to him argue and simply converse. Benedict was a thinker, a general among common soldiers.
    Which made it necessary to kill him as quickly as possible.
    The cardinal, on the other hand, had to be kept alive at least long enough, just long enough, to reveal where he had hidden the book. Though Mulkerrin had sworn his fealty, it was not the wishes of his Vatican superior that nurtured his dedication. No, more his own power, his own plans. These were pushing him on. He was the only living being to have mastered the skills taught from that book, to have memorized its every word. Certainly there were others who had begun to train, whom he had begun to tutor, but they had far to go and the older masters were long dead.
    His acolytes, his pupils, his disciples (if he allowed himself that small sin) must finish their training. He could not by himself command all the forces described in the book. But by commanding his disciples, who in turn would command the darkness, he would be power. Power incarnate.
    The Blessed Event, which he had so carefully coaxed his superior, Garbarino, into orchestrating, was only the beginning of Mulkerrin’s plan. The prelude to the Blessed Event was already taking place in many locations around the world, but before that wondrous day arrived, he had to recover the book.
    As he waited for a waitress to take his order, his fingers drummed a soft rhythm on the table. Any of the restaurant’s patrons, glancing at him, would have seen a man deep in thought. And indeed, he was concentrating, but his appearance was a facade. Mulkerrin listened very carefully to the conversation two tables away.
    Much of what he heard he already knew, but he was still angered by it. Guiscard’s plans were moving faster than he anticipated. Benedict was partly to blame; in a nation of idiots, Guiscard had found a competent lawyer. Mulkerrin reminded himself of the need for expediency in the attorney’s termination.
    Perhaps the mist-wraiths, he thought, and smiled to himself. Sorcery, it once was