Death Masks

I drew back the hammer on the revolver and said, "I’m sure that we can’t."

His face went white. "No, wait!"

"I’m getting tired of playing pretend. Three."

"But I don’t know-" He choked, and I heard him trying not to retch. "You have to tell me-"

"Two," I said. "I’m not going to elaborate about the other number."

"You can’t! You can’t!"

"One," I said, and pulled the trigger.

In the instant between the word and the deed, Vincent changed. A sheath of green scales appeared over his skin, and his legs twined together into a serpent’s long and sinuous body. The eyes went last, changing to vertically slit yellow orbs while a second set of glowing green eyes opened above the first.

The trigger came down on an empty chamber. Click.

The snake twisted to bite me, but I was already getting out of the way. Michael came through the door, his unshaven face set in grim determination, Amoracchius blazing with its own white light. The snakeman whirled to face Michael with a hiss. Michael tried for a clean horizontal cut, but the snakeman ducked under it and went for the door in a streak of gleaming green scales.

When the snakeman went out the door, Sanya brought a four-foot length of two-by-six down on its head. The blow drove the snakeman’s chin flat to the ground. It twitched a couple of times and then lay still.

"You were right," Michael noted. He slipped the sword away into its sheath.

"Better get him back inside before some maid sees him," I said.

Michael nodded, grabbed the snakeman’s tail, and hauled him back into the hotel room.

Sanya looked in, nodded, and set the end of the length of heavy board down with a certain amount of satisfaction. I realized he’d used the thing with one arm. Good grief. I needed to get to the gym. "Good," the big Russian said. "Let me put this back in the truck, and I will join you."

A few minutes later, the snakeman woke up in the corner of the hotel room with me, Michael, and Sanya standing over him. His tongue flickered out and in a few times, and his two sets of eyes darted around the room.

"What did I miss?" it hissed. The last word came out with an extra large helping of S sounds.

"A tattoo," I said. "Father Vincent had a tattoo on the inside of his right arm."

"There was no tattoo," the snakeman insisted.

"Maybe it was covered with all the blood. You made a stupid mistake. It’s understandable. Most criminals aren’t all that bright, so you were working uphill from the get-go."

The snakeman hissed, shifting its scales restlessly, a cobralike hood flaring around its neck and shoulders.

Michael drew Amoracchius. Sanya did the same with Esperacchius. The two blades threw pure white light over the snakeman, and he subsided, flinching back from them. "What do you want?"

"To talk," I said. "See, the way it works is that I ask you questions. You answer them. And as long as you do we’ll all be happy."

"And if I don’t?" the snakeman hissed.

"I get a new pair of boots."

The snake’s scales and coils twined around on one another, rasping. Its eyes remained on the two Knights. "Ask."

"Here’s what I figure happened. Somehow, your glee club heard that the Churchmice were being hired to find and take the Shroud. You thought you’d just nip it from them on their way out of town, but you missed. You caught Gaston LaRouche, but he didn’t have the Shroud. So you tortured him until he told you everything."

"And after he told us everything," the snakeman said, "Nicodemus was indulging his little bitch."

"I think it’s sweet to see a father and daughter doing things together. So you found out what LaRouche knew, killed him, and left his body where it would be found, pointed at where the Shroud was going. You figured you’d let the mortal authorities do the work of finding them for you, and take the Shroud when they did."

"Drudge work. Unworthy of us."

"You’re gonna hurt my feelings, snakeboy. You found out who the Church was sending over. Then you grabbed poor Father Vincent at the airport. You took his place."

"Any infant could reason as much," the Denarian hissed.

I pulled up a chair and sat. "Here’s where it gets interesting. Because you decided to hire me on. Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"To keep tabs on the Knights," I said. "Or to distract them by making them try to keep me out of the search. Or maybe you thought I could really turn up the Shroud for you. Probably all three. No sense doing things for one reason when you can fit in a few ulterior motives for free. You even gave me a sample of the Shroud to make it more likely I’d find it." I leaned back in the chair. "That’s where I started seeing something wrong. I talked to Marcone about his new thug gunning for me, and he blinked."

"I don’t know what you are talking about," the snakeman said.

"Marcone was the buyer."

A cold laugh slithered out of the snakeman’s mouth. "A mortal. Nothing more."

"Yeah, well, the mortal figured out that Father Vincent had been replaced, and he sent an assassin to kill you. The new guy wasn’t shooting at me outside of Fowler’s studio. He was after you."

"Impossible," the snakeman said.

"Pride goeth, legs. Marcone wasn’t born yesterday."

"I am sure you have pleased yourself with your cleverness, wizard."

"It gets better," I said brightly. "See, Nicodemus didn’t let much drop, other than that he was on a deadline and he needed someone savvy to the supernatural. His daughter did, though. She asked if he didn’t want a silver bowl. That’s a ceremonial bowl, and if I was guessing, I’d say it was meant to be used to catch lifeblood. Fuel a ritual."

The snakeman’s tail lashed around restlessly.

"I think Father Vincent was a warm-up. A test for the ritual. I think he came over here with two samples from the Shroud, and you used one of them as the focus for the plague curse that killed him. Once you knew it would work, you went after the Shroud itself."

"You know nothing, wizard," said the snakeman. The glowing sigil on his forehead throbbed in time with the extra set of eyes. "You are pathetic."

"You’re hurting my feelings. Don’t make me get the baseball bat," I said. "Nicodemus covered his tracks this morning by burning down the building you’d been in. I suppose he sent you to cover everything up nice and neat with the cops and with me. I think he’s got something in mind, and I think it’s tonight. So why not make this a comparatively pleasant discussion and tell me all about it."