The King of Plagues

“Do you pretend to know the mind of the Goddess?”

“No, I do not. But if you do, then help us. Tell me something that will allow me to protect the innocent.”

Nicodemus chuckled and then repeated the word “innocent” as if he could taste it. His tongue wriggled over his teeth and lips. “I can only repeat what is whispered in my ears.”

Rudy sat back. “I do not believe you are telling me the truth, Nicodemus. I believe that you do know more than you are saying.”

Suddenly, like the flip of a switch, everything on the little man’s face changed. In a flash his face lost its sinister cast; the feral intensity in his eyes dimmed like a fire someone had doused with cold water. His mouth worked to speak, but there was no sound. He looked shocked and suddenly stared at Rudy with a deep and terrible desperation.

“Who … who … ?” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Rudy, rising to his feet.

“Who am I?” Nicodemus looked around the office as if seeing the people and the furniture for the very first time. “What … where am I? What is this place?”

The guards stepped back in confusion. Even Nicodemus’s voice had changed. It was the croaking voice of a weak and sickly old man.

“G-God … help me!”

Then Nicodemus stiffened and looked down, but it seemed as if he was looking down into his soul rather than at his body.

“What’s happening to me?”

The scream was so immediate and so shockingly loud that Rudy squeezed his eyes shut and clapped his hands over his ears. The guards staggered backward, both of them crying out in fear. The warden and the prison psychiatrist reeled back, feet kicking at the floor to push them deeper into their seats and away from the tearing sound of that voice.

Then silence.

Rudy could barely breathe and he slowly realized that he was holding his breath. Slowly, slowly he exhaled, and for a moment his breath misted in the air as if the room were frigid.

Cautiously, almost fearfully, Rudy opened his eyes. The little prisoner sat calm and erect in the chair. He was smiling. A cruel and secretive smile, a smile brimming with an awful amusement.

He was Nicodemus again. Rudy looked around. The others in the room wore the expressions of people who had witnessed horror. He had seen expressions like those on the faces of the people at Ground Zero and in Thailand after the tsunami and in Haiti. No one spoke.

Before Rudy could say anything, Nicodemus spoke in a voice that was as soft as a whisper but as grating as teeth on the tines of a fork. “I am looking over water to a dark and pestilential place. From this place a new river of blood will flow, like the Nile flowed with blood when Pharaoh defied the will of God and refused to free the people of Israel. Oh, woe to the enemies of the Goddess. May their bones bend and crack like wheat straw in a hot wind. Stand not in the path of the Goddess’s righteousness and wrath.”

Rudy licked his lips. “What was that?” he said. “A minute ago—what was that?”

“Why, nothing at all happened a minute ago, and if it did, I was not here to behold it.”

“Who are you, Nicodemus?”

The little man chuckled. “Maybe I’m that in which you do not believe, Dr. Sanchez.” He stared at Rudy and would say nothing else.

Rudy tried several times to elicit further comments, but the prisoner might as well have been a statue. Minutes stretched and snapped and still Nicodemus merely sat there and looked at Rudy.

“Very well,” Rudy said at last. He turned to Warden Wilson. “Warden, I think it would be in the best interests of national security for this prisoner to be kept in complete lockdown. He goes nowhere alone, he is allowed no contact of any kind with other convicts, and anything that he says to the guards is to be reported to me or my office right away. Are we agreed on this?” His voice was mild but pitched to accept only agreement and cooperation.

Wilson nodded and then jerked his head to the guards. The prisoner rose without being touched and turned toward the door. But at the doorway he paused and turned back to Rudy.

“I will leave you with one last thing, Doctor, since you are a Bible-reading believer in the Holy Word.”

Rudy waited.

“Your friend has stepped into harm’s way.”

“What do you mean?” Rudy asked.

“When the Sword of the Goddess falls, it is better to stand with the righteous rather than with those who allow the wicked to prosper.” He did the slow, reptilian blink once more. “You and yours fight to defend the house of bones and that path is impure and filled with snakes and thorns. The river of blood will sweep your friend away.”

Rudy stood. “You accused me of being disingenuous, Nicodemus, and as far as I’m concerned this is a con game. Everyone has friends and a case can easily be made that at any given time one or more of our friends are in some potential danger. Car accidents, plane crashes, take your pick. Scare tactics are cheap theatrics, and frankly, I expected more from you.”

Nicodemus smiled. “Well now, sir, I would not want to be compared or confused with carnival barkers and sideshow tricksters. No sir. Yet my comment stands. Your friend is walking in harm’s way.”

“Which friend?”

The smile became degrees colder. “The killer,” he said. “The one who has lost the grace of the Goddess. The one who walks with ghosts.”

Rudy’s mouth went dry. Nicodemus laughed and fell into his intractable silence, and after several minutes he allowed himself to be led away.

“What was that all about?” demanded Wilson in a ghost of a voice.

Rudy’s throat was so tight he could not speak to answer.

Interlude Nineteen

T-Town, Mount Baker, Washington State

Two Months Before the London Event

Hugo Vox roared at her, “You did what?”

Circe winced. “Grace was a good friend, Hugo, and I thought that she might be able to use MindReader to —”

Vox slammed his open palm down on his desk hard enough to make everything jump. A dollop of coffee splashed onto the blotter. “God damn it, Circe, why the fuck did you do that?”

“I thought—”

“You thought? You thought! Jesus H. Christ, talking to your pals at the DMS is one thing, but everything—everything—official that is going to land on Church’s desk gets vetted by me. Every goddamn thing. We live and die on federal goodwill. We piss them off—and breaking protocol is the fastest way to do that—and suddenly they forget where their checkbook is. You know that, too.”

“I—”

“I don’t care what connections you have there. You could bring down ten kinds of shit on my head. What were you thinking, kiddo? You trying to kill me here?”

His booming voice was so loud that it rattled the windows and hit her like shock waves.

“I … I’m sorry, Hugo.”

He made a disgusted noise and pivoted his chair to face the wall. He seethed in silence for a long time and she let him. She didn’t dare say anything else.

Finally he drew in a deep breath and let it out like a hot-air balloon collapsing. Without turning, he said, “I give you a lot of slack, Circe. Because of your dad, and because you do good work, exceptional work, and I’ve got nothing but praise for it.” He turned back to face her. “Except for crap like this. It’s not the first time you’ve jumped