Waking the Moon (3 page)

A Sign.

Without looking up, Balthazar took a step into the void. His foot fell through empty air and his chest tightened as he felt himself start to tumble forward. The last thing he heard was, very faintly, the sound of the wind slamming shut the door behind him.

At the top of the main steps of the Shrine Francis Xavier Connelly waited, just as impatiently as Balthazar had imagined, for his mentor to arrive. Below, the daily flood of tourists poured from a seemingly endless stream of buses, the women fanning themselves with folded maps and brochures, the men loosening ties and cuffs and gazing back yearningly at the air-conditioned vehicles. People still got all dressed up to visit the Shrine, although some of them would get no farther than the gift shop.

Watching them Francis snorted in annoyance and glanced at his watch. Nearly two o’clock. Someone bumped his elbow, apologizing in a shrill voice. Francis looked down to see a group of tourists armed with fearsome-looking cameras, trying vainly to encompass the vast expanse of domes and minarets and bell towers that made up the Shrine.

They don’t know the half of it,
he thought. No one would ever know a fraction of what went on around and beneath—and above and below—the University of the Archangels and Saint John the Divine, and the Shrine that stood at its heart.

“Come
on,
Balthazar,” he said beneath his breath.

He turned and looked out to the long white driveway that led from North Capitol Street into the Shrine parking lot. A tiny utility building stood near the entrance, plywood and molded blue plastic. A Gray Line Tours bus pulled in from North Capitol and careened past the shed, trailing exhaust. When the smoke cleared a slender dark-haired man stood on the curb in front of the shed, coughing and flapping his hands.

“About time,” muttered Francis to himself. He leaned back on his heels and dug in his pockets for a cigarette. “About goddamn time.”

In the parking lot, Balthazar Warnick tried to catch his breath. He groaned and smoothed the front of his shirt, already damp and heavy with sweat, then crossed the parking lot and headed for the steps.

“Balthazar! Kirsten gave you my message, then.” Francis’s Harvard-Yard voice rang out stridently as Balthazar staggered the last few feet toward him. “I was starting to worry …”

“Ye-es!” gasped Balthazar. He stopped and dabbed at his face with his handkerchief, then, catching his breath, added, “Sorry to take so long. So damn
hot
—”

Francis nodded and peered irritably into the hazy air, as though waiting for someone more interesting to arrive, perhaps by helicopter. Looking up at him, Balthazar smiled wryly. His protégé was exceptionally, almost grotesquely, tall, big-boned, and stooped, with an air of supercilious hauteur that Balthazar associated with certain breeds of camel. Like Balthazar, he was terribly nearsighted, but too vain to wear glasses. So Francis was always peering impatiently into thin air and complaining about inattentive companions. His cigarette twitched between nervous fingers with nails bitten to the quick. He was one of the youngest of the
Benandanti,
and Balthazar’s most promising protégé—except for the archaeologist Magda Kurtz, who had first arrived at the Divine nearly a decade earlier and had long since left to pursue her career elsewhere. Though now Magda was back at the Divine for the summer, as a visiting scholar, and Francis had never left.

“It’s
always
hot,” Francis muttered, as though it were Balthazar’s fault. “Diplomats used to get paid hardship wages for being posted here.”

Balthazar smiled. As an undergraduate Francis had been Balthazar’s golden boy and, like Magda, an archaeology student, though Francis had never strayed from his original love of classical Greece and Mycenae into the muddier territory of Old Europe.

“Anyway, it’s not the heat that gets you,” Francis added. “It’s the humidity.”

Balthazar nodded, sighing. In addition to being head of the Divine’s renowned Department of Anthropology, his formal titles included that of Provost of Thaddeus College, as well as 144th Recipient of the Cape of the Living Flame of the Gjnarra of Transbaikalia in the Gobi Desert, a title that was less honorary than some of his colleagues in the Explorers’ Club might think.

And, of course, he was the chief of the
Benandanti
at the Divine. Here his duties consisted of a certain type of surveillance, an eternity of watching and waiting for an enemy who never seemed to arrive. An enemy who might no longer exist at all. Balthazar did not in fact like everything about his job, but the
Benandanti
were in some ways like the military. You were often born to the job, and once indoctrinated you were indentured for life, and presumably beyond. For the last six years, Francis had been as close to family as Balthazar had here: a melancholy thought.

Francis took another quick drag on his cigarette. “Thank you for coming, Balthazar,” he said. For the first time he grinned. “But wait till you
see!”
Turning, he gazed up at the bulk of the Shrine, his face shining. “It’s incredible, Balthazar, incredible—”

Balthazar shook his head and followed Francis’s gaze. “Well, perhaps you’d better show me,” he said mildly.

Above them reared the heart of the University—the Shrine of the Archangels and Saint John the Divine. A fabulously immense Byzantine folly, completed early in the twentieth century after nearly two hundred years of construction. Minarets and mosaics and Gothic sandstone buttresses, crenellated parapets and winding stairways that led to no visible doors: all of it surmounted by a dome of gold and lapis lazuli that threw back to the sky its own gilded map of the heavens. Seven different architects had designed and built disparate aspects of the Shrine. Inside, no less than fifty-seven chapels, some no larger than a closet, others the size of bowling alleys, had been consecrated to saints of varying rank and degree of holiness. The upper level alone was so crowded with ghosts that in the predawn hours the nave was filled with their hollow whispers. In the crypt chapel near the catacombs, icons routinely wept blood, and in dim corners lustful teenagers lagging behind on class trips often glimpsed Victor Capobianco, known as
Damnatus,
the Doomed Bishop, kneeling on the granite floor and weeping as he recited the Stations of the Cross. Francis’s Sign would have to be quite original to merit even this minor investigation.

For a moment Balthazar let his gaze rest upon the stone triad above the entry-way. Callow undergraduates had christened the trio The Supremes. They actually represented Michael and Gabriel and Raphael, the Archangels who guarded the Divine. Balthazar waited, just in case they had a message for him, but there was nothing.

“Come on.” Francis tugged at Balthazar’s elbow and steered him past a noisy flock of nuns. “You’ve
got
to see this.”

It was like stepping from a subway platform into the arcane circle of some immeasurable cavern. “I saw it in the Tahor Chapel,” said Francis. His voice, always too loud, boomed so thunderously that a number of tourists turned to stare. Balthazar followed him down one of the wide side aisles, stepping in and out of spectral pools where light poured from stained glass windows onto the floor. Everywhere banks of candles shimmered behind kneeling figures. As they passed, Balthazar could hear the soft sounds of weeping and whispered invocations.

Saint John, pray for us. Saint Blaise, pray for us. Saint Lucia, pray for us …

Balthazar paused as Francis raced by a tiny chapel, with a solitary penitent and single guttering candle. A painted statue stood in an alcove, its plaster robes flecked with dust: the image of a young woman holding out a gilt tray from which a pair of eyeballs peered mournfully. For a moment Balthazar stared at the disembodied eyeballs, then hurried on.

Wilting flowers, donated by wealthy alumnae and the grateful beneficiaries of successful cardiac bypasses, filled other alcoves in front of more exotic images of marble and glass and wood, steel and plaster and humble plastic. The main altar was a glowing curtain of gold and silver rippling in the distance. Balthazar followed Francis down a narrow staircase, around and around and around until finally they came out into a dimly lit indoor plaza. Everywhere you looked you saw high stone archways opening onto other corridors or chapels. Some were closed off by iron grilles, others guarded by still more statues or the occasional noisy air-conditioning unit.

“Almost there,” Francis sang out.
“Here we go
—”

Balthazar hoped there would be no one in the Tahor Chapel; and blessedly it was empty. They stepped inside. Francis pulled shut the high iron grille that served as door, and for good measure dragged out the CHAPEL CLOSED sign and set it behind the threatening spikes and bars. Then he fished a key from his pocket and locked the gate behind them.

“Okay,” said Francis. “Okay okay okay.”

His voice broke and he looked anxiously over his shoulder at Balthazar. “It’s—well, I was here this morning, and I saw it then, but—well, I hope—”

Balthazar made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Not to worry, Francis.” Smiling expectantly, he tilted his head. “Please—show me—”

The Tahor Chapel was a tiny L-shaped room, its walls of smooth black marble veined with gold and pale blue. Ambient light spilled from small recesses in the ceiling, but the prevailing illumination came from thick white candles set into crimson glass holders, dozens of them, flickering in front of a narrow stone altar. There was a faintly spicy smell, like scorched nutmeg. In spite of himself Balthazar felt his spine prickle.

“It was here this morning,” Francis repeated as they approached the altar. “Jeez, I hope …”

Atop the stone altar rested the chapel’s famous icon, the so-called “Black Madonna” of Tahor found in an Anatolian cave five centuries before. It was over a thousand years old, the image of its central figure dark and shiny as an eggplant. A halo of gold chips radiated from her head. Piled in front of the wooden likeness were heaps of rosary beads. Very carefully Francis removed them, the beads spilling from his fingers in jingling strands. Then, with exquisite caution, he took the icon itself and moved it to one side.

“Ahem,” said Balthazar. He wondered what had driven Francis to move the icon in the first place. This was forbidden, of course, and anyone besides a
Benandanti
who tried such a thing would have been quickly and quietly dispensed with. “Francis, is that really—”

But before he could say anything else Francis grabbed him and pulled him closer.

“Balthazar.
Look
—”

Inside the altar was a figure, thumb-sized and roughly thumb-shaped. Dull black and slightly gleaming, it appeared to be of stone, but it was not: it was carbonized wood smooth as a chunk of polished quartz. It had been discovered at the same time and in the same place as the Black Madonna, and from the first its significance was recognized by the
Benandanti.
For hundreds of years it had been closeted in Ravenna, and later in Avebury, in one of their countless holdings of rare and arcane objects. New initiates to the
Benandanti
often expressed amazement at the seemingly careless handling of such artifacts. But the
Benandanti
had many such secrets. And, as Balthazar had once told Francis, “These things have a way of looking after themselves.”

It was the figure of a woman. The very crudeness of its execution told how ancient it was. An eyeless, mouthless face; twin inverted triangles for breasts; a slit to indicate the vulva. A Goddess image, precious as the Venus of Willendorf or the Paphian Aphrodite. The
Benandanti
called it the Tahor Venus.

“Look,” Francis exclaimed. In the flickering light, the Venus cast an eerie shadow across the altar. From his breast pocket Balthazar withdrew his glasses. For a long moment he held them, as though unwilling to see what they might reveal; finally he slid them onto his nose. Beside him Francis pointed at the figure.
“Balthazar!”

Balthazar nodded, his throat tight. He had seen the Venus before, had even handled it, for the sheer wonder of touching something that was twenty thousand years old. He would not touch it now.

From the breasts of the Tahor Venus, and from the nick between her stolid legs, sprigs of greenery protruded: brilliant as the first spears of hyacinths thrusting through the cold earth. At the end of each frond was a starburst of deep purple, tiny petals slender and frail as cilia. As Balthazar and Francis stared, the minute flower heads moved, so slightly they might have been stirred by their breathing. A moment later and a musky smell perfumed the air, the faintest breath of sandalwood and oranges.

“Francis,” Balthazar whispered. “Did you—what did you—”

The young man shook his head and stepped backward. “It didn’t do that this morning,” he said, his voice shaking. “I mean, that smell—”

From behind them echoed a dull clang, so loud they both jumped.

“When will it be open? Father—Father—?”

Turning, Balthazar saw a young woman in a nurse’s uniform peering at them through the locked gate.

“Damn,” Francis breathed, but Balthazar quickly ducked behind him, moving the image of the Black Madonna back into place and sweeping the heap of rosary beads in front of it.

“Yes—right now, we’ll be right out,” he called, pushing Francis in front of him. Just before they reached the gate Balthazar glanced back at the altar. Then, smiling apologetically, he fumbled for his keys and opened the door.

“Cleaning,” he explained, letting the young woman pass. She nodded, wiping her eyes with a tissue, and went inside. A moment later they heard a soft thump as she settled onto the kneeler in front of the altar.

“Well?”

They walked quickly, slowing only when they reached the main corridor. Balthazar stopped at a doorway and leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead and trying to calm his thudding heart.

“It’s a Sign, isn’t it?” Francis was saying, his tone low and urgent. “I mean really, nobody will deny it—it’s a Sign, a
real
Sign! When you show the others, they’ll see—”