‘That’s insane,’ Lourds said.
‘Believing in Lucifer?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you said you believe in God.’
‘God’s existence doesn’t depend on Lucifer’s. Just because you have a Great Saviour doesn’t mean that a Great Enemy also exists.’
‘No,’ Joachim agreed. ‘God never planned on one of his angels falling from grace. Nor the other angels that fell after the first, all of them drawn by fascination to God’s greatest creation: man. But it happened. And the Joy Scroll will correct some of the evil loose in the world.’
‘You’re saying if we find this scroll it has the power to create world peace.’ Lourds tried to keep the sarcasm from his voice but he was certain he failed.
‘Again, no. All the Joy Scroll is supposed to do is drive Lucifer from his fortress and the power he has built in this world. These are perilous times for us all. Wars threaten globally. The economy is in disarray. Many people feel we’re only one short step from the end of the world.’
‘And Lucifer is to blame for all of this?’
‘No. That has always been man’s choice. But Lucifer has taken advantage of the confusion and fear that’s going on. That’s always been the Great Deceiver’s greatest strength.’
‘You talk like Lucifer is real, a person. Not a fallen angel.’
‘He is real.’
‘As a divine force, you mean.’
‘No. He has manifested himself in this world as Jesus did. At this point, he is flesh and blood.’
‘Just showed up one day?’
‘He was born to a mortal woman and took his place among men.’
Lourds made himself calm down. His head spun with the implications, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe. It was all too incredible. ‘Do you know who Lucifer is?’
‘In his present mortal guise?’ Joachim shook his head. ‘Doesn’t the scroll you translated mention something about Lucifer revealing himself at the time the Joy Scroll is found?’
‘Yes. But it didn’t say how.’
‘Think about it, Professor Lourds. Since you first arrived, since you began searching for the Joy Scroll – even though you didn’t know that’s what you were doing – you’ve been beset by opposing forces.’
‘Coincidence.’ Even as he said it, Lourds realized how weak the answer sounded.
Joachim smiled. ‘Do you really think so? After all these years, my sister tells me of you. You met her some time ago, but I hadn’t yet told her my secrets. Then when I did, she suggested you could help. You are asked to come here. Suddenly, a search for the Joy Scroll is escalated by everyone, including the United States CIA and a military force we haven’t yet identified and weren’t known to be involved. And you are the only person who has managed to translate a scroll that even its protectors could not translate for the last eight hundred years.’
As incredible as it all sounded, Lourds knew he didn’t have an answer or a rebuttal. The only true break in the link would have been if he had failed to translate the language. But he hadn’t failed. And now he knew what Joachim and his predecessors had been trying to learn for the last eight centuries. Still, even with everything he had found out, Lourds didn’t know what the eventual prize would be. The Joy Scroll had to be more than just some kind of document to ward off the Devil. If nothing else, he knew his own curiosity would be much too strong to resist.
Taking a deep breath, Lourds took the beer bottle from the counter and rubbed the chill, frosted side across his forehead. The coolness felt welcome to the throbbing headache that was just beginning.
‘You do realize what you’re saying, don’t you?’ Lourds asked after a bit. ‘If we get caught by any of the law enforcement agencies looking for us, our only excuse for doing everything we have done is simply: the Devil made us do it.’
‘Maybe we should plan on not getting caught,’ Joachim suggested.
‘Given where we have to go, what we have to do, as well as who’s looking for us, that’s not very bloody likely, now is it?’ Lourds snorted in frustration, took another beer from the refrigerator, and returned to the balcony.
Cleena trapped her pistol between her thigh and the car seat as she sped through traffic. ‘If you do anything stupid,’ she advised the man she’d taken prisoner, ‘I’ll kill you.’
He said nothing but continued trying to work some feeling back into his numbed hands by squeezing them into fists. His gaze was hot and defiant, but fear lurked there as well.
‘You’re going to have to lose the car,’ Sevki advised. ‘They’ll have a GPS locater on it. That’s standard operating procedure.’
Cleena hadn’t thought about that, but she hadn’t planned to stay with the car for long anyway. ‘What is your name?’
‘Kidnapping me is going to get you a life without a parole sentence,’ he told her viciously. ‘I guarantee that.’
She glanced at him. ‘Then shooting you isn’t going to make my situation any worse.’ Lifting her pistol, she shot him through the meaty part of his left thigh. Trapped inside the car, the harsh crack of the pistol rolled like thunder. Dawson howled in pain and surprise and gripped his wounded leg. Blood spread through his fingers but there was no arterial bleeding.
‘I left you the use of your leg,’ Cleena said. ‘The next shot will require reconstructive surgery on your knee. Maybe you’ll be a cripple.’
He cursed her.
‘Any signs of pursuit?’ Cleena asked Sevki.
‘Yes.’
Her stomach clenched and she smelled the hot, fresh iron of the man’s blood.
‘Ten blocks back and closing fast,’ Sevki advised.
Cleena estimated that with traffic conditions she had at best a couple of minutes before her pursuers caught up to her. She swerved into the first alley she came to and felt the seatbelt squeeze into her flesh as she bumped over the curb.
She parked the car in the middle of the alley, got out, then walked to the passenger side of the car and yanked her prisoner out. He feigned helplessness that wasn’t entirely faked.
‘Walk,’ Cleena said, ‘or I’ll make sure you never can again.’
Dawson started to walk favouring his wounded leg. He left a blood trail on the cracked stone.
At the end of the alley, when the pursuers were still two blocks away, Cleena turned right and walked into a parking lot. A young attendant came out of the kiosk to greet them.
‘May I help you?’ he asked.
Cleena pointed to the nearest sedan. ‘I want the keys to that car.’
‘Do you have your ticket?’
She showed him the pistol. His eyes widened and he reached inside the kiosk to retrieve the keys. Cleena reached inside as well and yanked the phone cord from the wall.
‘There will be men after me,’ Cleena said. ‘American. They’ll be hard men and you won’t want to talk to them because they’re not going to be friendly. Understand?’
The young man nodded and looked panicked. ‘Sometimes my English isn’t so good.’
‘They’ll probably beat good English into you if they have the chance.’ Cleena indicated the blood trail her prisoner had left. ‘Maybe they won’t follow me here, but I think they will.’
She opened the sedan’s passenger door and shoved her captive inside. Dawson groaned and slumped into the seat. Cleena walked around the car and slid behind the steering wheel. The engine caught immediately. She backed out of the parking space, then headed back out into the alley and drove away from the vehicle she’d left behind. In her rear-view mirror, she saw a car arrive and stop behind the abandoned vehicle. Before she cleared the alley mouth, a second car had arrived.