“You can torture me all night, and I’ll never tell you.”
“We found your passport in your back pocket. Says you’re Thomas Varley.”
Varley looked away. “Shit.”
“Where are you from?”
“You go to hell. I said I’m not talking.”
“Your driver’s license was in your wallet. Home address, Waco, Texas.”
Varley slapped the table. “Damn it.”
“Look,” Father Paul said, “this’ll all be a lot easier if we can just have a nice conversation.”
Varley crossed his arms, sat back in his chair, his face stone.
“You put up quite a fight when we busted in on you,” Father Paul said, putting a hint of grudging admiration in his voice. “Eight or ten of you guys were almost more than we could handle.”
“Eight or ten? Man, there was only five of us. If we’d had ten guys, you Vatican motherfuckers would be toast.”
Father Paul took a small notebook from his jacket pocket, scratched a brief note. “Five. Thanks for clarifying.”
Varley slapped the table again. “Damn it!”
“Let’s see.” The priest tapped the pen against his chin. “Three dead, then you. That’s four. Let’s talk about number five.”
“Let’s not.”
“A young lady. Blond and pretty. What’s her name?”
“You’re not tricking me into saying anything else, man,” Varley said. “So just. Fuck. Off.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Father Paul turned to face the mirror. “Father Finnegan, I think we’ll need to go to the next level of interrogation.”
Ten seconds later Finnegan’s enormous bulk squeezed into the interrogation room. He carried a little black bag in one fist. He set it on the table, opened it, and pulled out a syringe.
Varley’s eyes went big. “No way, man. You’re not doping me. To hell with that.” He started to rise from the chair.
“Stay put.” Finnegan took hold of Varley’s shoulders and pushed him back into a sitting position, like a giant manhandling a ventriloquist’s dummy. “It’ll go easier if you hold still, lad.”
“Oh, shit.” Panic edged Varley’s voice.
Father Paul filled the syringe with clear liquid from a small vial.
“I think this will pave the way for that nice, friendly conversation I was hoping for.”
An hour later they put Varley on a cot in one of the holding cells and left him snoring there.
In the precinct break room, Father Paul and Finnegan hunched toward each other, discussing the interrogation in hushed tones. They each sipped tepid, bitter coffee from Styrofoam cups.
Father Paul would need sleep. He felt fatigue tugging hard at him around the edges. Somehow the big Irish slab of meat had the power to go on and on, but if Father Paul didn’t find a bed soon, he’d simply keel over.
“He didn’t know much, did he?” Finnegan said.
“Enough. A thread to pull. I want our people on this girl.” Varley had known that her first name was Amy. It was a start.
Starkes entered the break room, put a short stack of papers on the table in front of Father Paul. “Just got these faxed. Not much on Varley. Pretty much stuff we know already.”
“Thanks. Rotate those on surveillance. Everyone else should grab some shut-eye.”
“Right.” Starkes left.
Father Paul flipped through the faxed pages. Not much to work with. Varley was twenty-one years old, a college dropout. He’d drifted from one radical cause to another, looking to fit in someplace and stick it to the man. The definition of “The Man” seemed to shift as the wind blew. Corporations, the U.S. government, oil companies… and now the Vatican. Fighting the good fight against magical oppression. Didn’t these people realize that Father Paul and his people fought twenty-four/seven to keep the world from plunging into chaos?
A simple thank-you would’ve been nice.
No. Stupid to think that. People like him and Finnegan and the rest labored in anonymity, and that’s how it should be. The world didn’t need to know what went bump in the night.
Something in Varley’s file caught Father Paul’s attention. The kid had dropped out of college right after a semester abroad in London. A transitional period, one cause to another. Father Paul sifted the information in front of him, but he couldn’t find what he wanted, so he flipped open his cell phone and called the direct number to his support team back at headquarters. They said they’d have the additional information within thirty minutes. Father Paul sent Finnegan out to the van for his notebook computer. The big man brought it in, and Father Paul booted up. Twenty-three minutes later, he had the information he wanted.
Varley had attended university at a minor school in South London called St. Sebastian’s. The school was unremarkable in every way except for a minor professor of folklore, who, unbeknownst to the rest of the faculty and student body, was high councilman of the Society.
So a young Varley had been recruited by Professor Jackson Fay, one of the most powerful warlocks in the past century.
Father Paul sighed, lit a cigarette. “Great.”
Starkes stuck his head back into the break room. “Surveillance has picked up Cabbot. Location Beta.”
Father Paul stood, gathered the loose papers quickly, and tucked them under his arms. “Find Finnegan and tell him to meet me at the van.”
“You want me to gather everyone else?”
“No. Tell Finnegan if he’s not in the van in ninety seconds, I’m leaving his ass here.”
NINETEEN
Relief.
Allen stood pissing in the cramped bathroom. He wanted to weep, the relief was so profound. His hands had been taped together in front of him. His ankles were taped together as well. They’d let him hop in like that to use the toilet, but Clover had insisted on the precautions.
As he pissed, he glanced around the small bathroom. There had to be a way out of there. If he could cut himself loose, he might simply dash past them.
“Hurry up in there,” called Clover.
Something. A nail file. Anything would do. Maybe he could chew through the tape.
He finished, zipped, and flushed.
He hopped back into the other room, flopped into the easy chair again.
“Feel better?” Clover asked.
“I’d feel better if you’d cut me loose and let me out of here.”
“Tough shit.”
Yeah.
“Why are you doing this?” Allen asked. “I just want to go home. I don’t care what you people are doing.”
“Well, you should care, man. That’s the whole reason I’m hooked up with this outfit, right? Usually I’m kind of a loner.”
“Really? Someone with your social skills?”
Clover went on like she hadn’t heard him. “You might not care what’s happening in the world, but a lot of us do. A lot of us want to do the right thing. Politics and world leaders and the United Nations and all that bullshit. That’s nothing. Window dressing. If you knew the real forces tugging at the fabric of the universe, you’d shit your pants, man. So I do care, okay? I’m part of something bigger than myself, and I’ve never had that feeling before in my life and I’m not giving it up, okay? I’m one of the good guys, and what I do matters.”
“That’s a good speech. You rehearse that in front of a mirror?”
“You’re kind of a smart-ass motherfucker, aren’t you?”
“Spend enough time in duct tape, and the courtesy goes out the window.”
“Yeah, well, we need you to stay put,” Clover said. “If the bosses say you’re valuable, then that’s good enough for me.”
“I’m flattered, but how could I possibly be valuable?”
“Standard Society MO,” Clover said. “Get a guy on the inside. You’re in with the Evergreens, and they’re key to all this shit that’s coming down.”
“I really don’t know anything about that.”
“What you don’t know could fill a fucking barn, dude.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Allen said. “I’ll stop being a smart-ass if you stop being a bitch.”
“No, I’ll make you a deal. You shut the fuck up and I won’t put out cigarettes on your scrotum.”
The heavy door to the chamber swung open, and Amy rushed inside, flushed and panting. “We’ve got to go.”
Clover leaped to her feet. “What is it?”
“They’re coming.”
“Shit.” Clover grabbed a black backpack, started shoving in her possessions. “How many?”
“It wasn’t clear,” Amy said. “I think something’s obscuring the magic. We’ve got to get out of here and then spread the word. This location is over. Nobody can come back here.”
Clover slung the backpack over her shoulder, motioned at Allen with her chin. “What about him?”
“We’ve got to scatter. He’ll come with me.”
“Bullshit.”
Amy spun, met Clover’s hard gaze. “I said he comes with me.”
Clover stepped back, nodded. “Okay.”
Amy bent over Allen, touched his cheek softly. “The priests are on their way. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Okay,” Allen said.
She produced a switchblade, flicked it open in front of Allen’s face. He flinched. She cut him out of the duct tape, then put the knife away. He rubbed the circulation back into his wrists.