Quite a peculiar juice is blood.
“A cup filled with the blood of an innocent child,” he whispered.
“Have we ever truly asked ourselves who Viktor von Lahnstein really is?” said Johann. “What if Tonio managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Vatican? What if the devil is going to be summoned right in the center of his greatest enemy?”
“At . . . at Castel Sant’Angelo?” breathed Karl. “You think Lahnstein might actually be Tonio?”
Back in Nuremberg Karl had met this frightening man once, but there had never been any evidence that he was still at large.
Until the moment Karl had found the piece of paper in the dead alchemist’s hand.
Karl no longer knew what to believe, but he had to concede that it was more than strange if Lahnstein’s closest confidant murdered an alchemist for a bunch of mysterious sorcery ingredients. Was Lahnstein perhaps more than just a papal delegate?
“This is about the blood of my grandson,” said Johann with a trembling voice. “He is supposed to die, and soon. Question is, Where and when precisely? For the ritual, they’ll need room for a large pentagram, and there’ll be much smoke and noise, but it can’t be too conspicuous.”
Karl flinched.
Smoke and noise.
“The fireworks,” he murmured.
Faust stared at him. “What?”
“There is going to be a fireworks display! Up on the terrace of Castel Sant’Angelo. I heard people talk about it in the streets. The pope is celebrating the victory over France with fire and smoke and spectacle, just the way Leo loves it. Apparently he holds such feasts on a regular basis.”
Johann grew pale. “Fireworks would provide the perfect setting. They could conduct the ritual beneath the starry sky and no one would suspect a thing. With the right constellation . . .”
“What is it?” asked Karl.
Johann shook his head. “Something doesn’t fit the picture, but I don’t have time to mull it over now. I must warn Greta.” He was already walking to the door. “She can help us get into Castel Sant’Angelo. Lahnstein trusts her and gave her the keys so she can visit the child whenever she likes.”
“It’s night,” said Karl. “The hospital is closed. Like it or not, we’ll have to wait until morning.”
“Damn it, you’re right.” Johann stopped dead, his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll use the night to think. We need a plan to stop Lahnstein, and with him, Tonio.” Faust’s eye gleamed, and Karl thought it looked like it was filled with joyous anticipation.
“The end is near,” said Johann. “Finally! I can feel it.”
24
JOHANN LEFT FOR THE HOSPITAL BEFORE SUNRISE.
He hadn’t slept a wink. Instead, he had sat by the window the whole night and gazed into the fog. He had hardly seen any stars, but even if he’d seen any, it wouldn’t have been much good. The stargazing tube he used to own had stayed behind in Bamberg, along with his astronomical notes. But even so, he knew something was wrong.
Back in Nuremberg, Tonio’s followers had waited for the arrival of a certain star before attempting to summon the devil. The star had been called Larua, the harbinger of ill fortune, and it returned every seventeen years. But only nine years had passed since its last appearance. And that time, the ritual had been different from the one in The Sworn Book of Honorius. If Viktor von Lahnstein truly was Tonio del Moravia, then what was his plan?
Whatever it was, they had to act fast. There was no time—Johann had to save his grandson. And the only way to get inside Castel Sant’Angelo was with the help of Greta.
An icy north wind swept through the lanes, but Johann didn’t feel it. He hurried on until he reached the gate of Santo Spirito in the first reddish light of day. Down by the river, beggars huddled around a smoldering fire, but no one was lining up outside the hospital yet. The gatekeeper was just unlocking his little hut. He knew Johann by now and waved him through.
“The good German pilgrim,” he droned. “Eager to wipe some more asses. Must have a good deal to atone for.”
“More than you can imagine,” muttered Johann too quietly for the gatekeeper to hear.
He hurried on and walked through the wealth of corridors and courtyards, which, after all these weeks, were nearly as familiar to him as the halls of Heidelberg University. The few nuns and physicians he passed in the dim light didn’t take much notice of him; a deceased man was carried out on a stretcher. Johann searched for his daughter.
He found Greta outside the spezieria, where the apothecary was just handing her a bowl with freshly made pills.
“I must speak with you,” said Johann in a low voice behind her.
Greta jumped and almost dropped the bowl.
“Didn’t I make it clear that I do not want to speak with you again?” she whispered, trying not to attract the apothecary’s attention. “It’s bad enough that you’re still sneaking about here, frightening me.”
“Believe me, if this wasn’t about life and death, I wouldn’t be here.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Life and death—whose? Yours?”
“It’s about the life of Sebastian.”
He pulled Greta aside and told her what had happened the night before. He told her about the brutal murder Hagen committed and the list of alchemy ingredients. “It is just as I feared,” he finished, waving the scorched piece of paper in front of her face. “Lahnstein is planning something with little Sebastian. There’s going to be a ritual, in two days, during the fireworks. They are going to invoke the devil—with the blood of your child.”
“And you actually thought I’d believe you?” mocked Greta. “A half-burned scrap of paper? What a pathetic attempt to drive a wedge between me and Lahnstein.”
“Please, believe me, Greta.” Johann gave her a pleading look. “I didn’t make all this up. Karl can confirm it—he saw it with his own eyes.”
“Then why isn’t Karl here?”
Johann regretted not having brought Karl. But he’d had his reasons.
