CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Without exactly saying that they would probably not save the world, Darrell explained their mission to the projectionist, whose name was Quirita.

She listened intently, then told them her story.

“My great-grandmother was the last Guardian in Cuba. She died two years ago at the hands of a vicious agent of the Order. Now I am alone here. I have been waiting for someone to come.”

“We’re alone, too,” Lily said.

“Only a couple of people know we’re here,” Darrell added. “I hope only a couple. I saw a car before. I think I did, anyway.”

Quirita nodded. “The Red Brotherhood spies on everyone. They are everywhere. But that is not the worst part. The man who killed my great-grandmother is suddenly back in Cuba. I saw him just this morning with my own eyes. She called him Gafas de Sol before he killed her. He is a beast.”

“De sol,” Lily said. “Of the sun? Something from the sun? What does gafas mean?”

Quirita swallowed hard. “Glasses. This man always wears sunglasses.”

“What? Sunglasses is here?!” gasped Darrell, sharing a worried look with Lily. “His name is Bartolo Cassa. He kidnapped my mother and put her in a coffin. I hate him!”

Quirita nodded slowly. “If such a killer is here, it means the Brotherhood knows you are on the island. They know a relic is about to be transferred. You must be careful.”

“And fast,” Lily said. “So Corvus . . . is it here?”

Quirita stood and pointed through the projector opening into the theater. “When the Ponce de León museum closed some years ago, my great-grandmother took pains to protect the relic that had been stored there. It has been hidden in that upper-balcony box ever since she placed it there. She guarded it her whole life. I have done the same since she died.”

Darrell peeked out the opening.

The balcony appeared held up with wires, chains, and metal rods, and was taped over with yellow CAUTION tape. There was a plastic net slung beneath it to catch falling debris. Plaster from the ornamentation below the box had already chipped away. Wallpaper surrounding it had peeled and hung curling over the seats.

“Clever,” said Darrell. “It looks like the box will collapse the moment you set foot in it.”

Quirita nodded. “Oh, it will! It really is unsafe. But that’s where the relic is.”

“Oh.”

“How will Darrell get up there?” Lily asked.

He turned to her. “Me? You’re the gymnast.”

“And you’re the tough guy.”

“I am, but still . . .”

“While you two decide, come with me.” Quirita led them out of the booth to the end of the hall, then up two floors to the upper boxes. She removed the strip of yellow tape from across the entrance to the uppermost box and unlocked the door.

They looked inside. The box was a mess. Most of the floorboards were missing, and those that remained sagged. Darrell could see the audience below through the gaps.

Quirita told them that the relic was hidden in a secret niche under the balcony railing at the front of the box. “There is a lever there, and it must be flipped once for each year of the Magister’s life. No more. No fewer. Or a small bomb will detonate.”

Lily’s jaw dropped. “Seventy times? What if you lose count?”

Quirita smiled. “You see? My great-grandmother’s idea. It’s the perfect way to hide something precious. No one wants to risk his life to get to it!”

Darrell could practically watch the movie through the open floor. “I so get that. . . .”

“I knew it,” said Lily. “Stand aside, please.”

Lily took off her shoes and crawled on all fours from one floorboard to the next, slithering across the open parts to the gallery railing. The box was so near the ceiling of the theater, she heard heavy rain battering the roof like it was the top of her head.

Running her fingers beneath the railing she found the lever Quirita had told them about. Holding her breath, she slid the lever slowly from left to right, then back again, counting out loud as she did. The movie, full of crazy gunfire and explosions and roaring trucks, was distracting. Finally, she stopped.

“I hope that’s seventy—”

“If it’s not,” Quirita whispered, “say good-bye. . . .”

A length of railing split open suddenly like a narrow door hanging upside down. A heavy object slid into Lily’s waiting hands. It was a finely crafted little machine made of black iron. “Darrell, oh my gosh, you have to see this—”

All at once, the floorboards squealed and began to crack.

“Lily!”

Darrell rushed to her, his arms outstretched, while the few remaining floorboards simply crumbled under his weight. He dragged most of the theater box down with him as he reached out. He’d got hold of her arm when his foot snagged on a supporting rod. Lily flew through the floor, then jerked to a stop, hanging upside down, while Darrell’s foot unhooked, and he dropped past her into the empty box below. Its balcony collapsed, and he landed in a heap on the aisle floor like a dead puppet.

The audience shouted at him. “Hey! Silencio!”

“Darrell!” Lily cried. Untangling herself, she jumped to the empty box, then to the floor. “Darrell! Are you dead?”

“Yes!”

All at once, the back doors of the theater burst open. In the light from the screen Lily saw a large man wearing sunglasses race down the aisle toward them.

“Cassa!” Lily shouted.

“Gafas!” Quirita hissed. “Behind the screen. I will meet you!”

Grabbing Darrell’s wrist, Lily tugged him up from the floor and rushed onto the stage. They slid behind the screen as a shot tore through the fabric and pinged off the rear wall. The audience started to scream. Quirita ran down a hall to the kids, urging them through a door, locking it behind them.

“There’s only one way out of here,” she said, hurrying down a short corridor. “You’ll be in the piazza behind the theater. Go left, and there is a market open all hours. It is small, but you can go through to the next street and lose yourselves there. If you need to lie low, go to the Floridita, a club in the old city. Say you know me.”

The hallway behind them thudded with gunshots.

“This way!” Quirita threw open one last door. Rain splashed in from the street. “Before you go, listen. Four years ago a boy came here. He was alone, filthy. He had come to see my great-grandmother. Maybe he knew she might not live much longer. He told me never to tell until I knew it was time. You are the Novizhny, so now it’s time.”

“What did he say?” asked Darrell.

“‘Go to Paris,’ he said. ‘Find the clock of Floréal Muguet.’ He said that. ‘Floréal Muguet.’ I don’t know who it is, but I have never forgotten the name. Remember it.”

The theater’s back door splintered, and Cassa was outside, sprinting across the stones to them. He tossed Quirita aside like a doll and ripped Corvus roughly from Lily’s fingers before pushing her down.

Quirita’s pistol glinted in her hand. “Killer!” she cried. She fired.

Cassa hurtled backward and fell. Before they could do anything, he was up, scrambling for his weapon and Corvus and stumbling away into the hammering rain.

“After him!” said Lily.

“Take this!” Quirita thrust her pistol into Darrell’s hand. “Go. I am fine.”

“No,” he said. “I—”

“Darrell!” said Lily, dragging him. “Before he gets to a car. He has Corvus!”

Darrell had the gun in his hand and rain was pounding his face. He saw Cassa limp quickly from the shadows at the far side of the piazza. He remembered Papa Dean’s words—as swift and ruthless as Galina—but he couldn’t become like her. He had a gun but didn’t know the first thing about firing it, and he wasn’t a killer. He turned back. Lily was twenty feet behind him, staring at him.

No, Darrell couldn’t hurt anyone, but surely he could wrestle the relic away from a wounded guy. Maybe it was possible. All right. Be tough.

“Lily, hide. I’ll find you—” The sky thundered, and he didn’t hear if she said anything. “I’ll find you!” he yelled. “Meet me at . . . that place!”

Stuffing the gun into his pocket, he raced after Cassa through the drenched streets into the depths of the old city. The gun was heavy, uncomfortable. It scraped his thigh. It was evil. He thought for an instant about the path that had brought them here. From Nice to Gibraltar by ship, then a flight to Florida, then a motorboat to a movie theater in Cuba.

And now he was armed and chasing the evil man who’d tortured his mother.

He stopped short.

Thirty feet away, across the rain-blasted avenue, Cassa paused against a column in a series of arches, clutching his calf where Quirita had shot him. The wound had slowed him just enough for Darrell to keep up at a distance. Cassa pushed away from the column and stumbled down the flooding street but soon stopped again, this time outside a mostly dark hotel. Darrell watched Cassa glance up through the rain at the flickering neon sign, then slip under the arch into the lobby.

Waiting three long seconds, Darrell crossed the street, completely soaked now, and entered the hotel. The lobby was little more than three walls, a desk, and a staircase.

The floor creaked overhead.

Driven by revenge for the pain Cassa had inflicted on his mother, for the way he’d struck Lily and Quirita, he made his way quietly up the stairs two at a time. His heart was pounding hard. He didn’t know what he would do; he only knew that Cassa couldn’t—wouldn’t—be allowed to steal the relic. He put his hand in his pocket and clutched the pistol tight.

When he reached the landing, Cassa was halfway down the hall, facing him, his gun pointed at Darrell’s head. “Little fool. Why won’t you just die?”

“You kidnapped my mother. You jerk.” Darrell knew he should move, raise his own gun, but he was frozen. “Give me the bird.”

Cassa snorted, then pulled the trigger. Darrell’s heart stopped when the handgun clicked. Once. Twice. Three, four, five times. It was emtpy. Cassa threw the gun at Darrell, turned, and hobbled into the nearest room. There was a crash of glass. Darrell bolted after him, his own pistol in his hand now. Cassa had broken out a window and was climbing across the balconies on the front of the building.

“Oh, come on!” Darrell knocked away the remaining glass with the barrel of his pistol and was out there, too. The rain was battering, a hot, hard, loud thunderstorm, pelting and stinging him. He couldn’t see. Pocketing his pistol, he climbed up to the balcony railing.

Cassa was several windows away. Darrell steadied himself, then jumped to the next balcony like Lily had forced him to do in Nice. It was slick. He wiped the rain from his eyes. Cassa tried the windows of the room on one balcony. They were bolted. He jumped to the next. He was nearly at the corner of the building. He would get away. Cars roared down the street, splashing huge wings of floodwater.

Darrell tried not to look down, but there was Lily. Her face was stark white and ghostly under the rainy streetlight. He scanned quickly for black cars, but Cassa was jumping to the next balcony. Then he was at the corner but stopped there, looking up and down. So, the corner wasn’t an escape? Darrell jumped to the next balcony and the next.

“Darrell, don’t shoot!” Lily yelled.

Cassa swung back, staring. He didn’t know Darrell was armed? Now he did. His left calf and foot dangled as if they were useless. Quirita’s shot had damaged him.

“Give me the relic,” Darrell grunted, out of breath as the rain pummeled him. He tensed the muscles in his legs, his arms. He searched for a foothold on the next balcony.

“You can’t win,” Cassa said. He held up the stone bird. “Even if you get this relic, Galina will kill your friends, your mother, all of you, everyone. Now that the deadline nears, she’ll kill us all. She’s mad—”

That was all Darrell could take. He pounced through the air right at Cassa’s chest, knocking him to the floor of the balcony and cracking his head.

The crow spilled out of Cassa’s hand and across the flooded floor. Darrell swiped the relic. Cassa lurched back up, swung out a long arm for Darrell’s gun, but the hard rain spat into his face. Darrell arched back, fell against the railing, and would have gone over if he hadn’t grabbed it in time. The relic slipped from his wet hands, fell to the street. There was no crash. Lily must have caught it! Cassa swung at him once more, tore his pistol from him, but Darrell pushed him back with both hands.

Cassa slipped, struck his head on the railing. He toppled clumsily backward, hands clutching the wet stonework, then Darrell didn’t see him, hearing only a sickening thud.

Horrified, he looked over the balcony.

The body of Bartolo Cassa was sprawled awkwardly in the flooding street. There were sirens now. Lily ran away across the plaza with the crow under her arm. She stepped back into the shadows beyond the streetlights just as a black sedan and a pair of Cuban police vans entered the plaza. One of the vans opened its doors quickly, and four men in Russian military uniforms jumped out. Without looking up in his direction, they rushed to the unmoving body of Bartolo Cassa and carried him, dripping with water and blood, into the back of the van.

“The Red Brotherhood,” Darrell said to himself. He was shaking all over. Then the two vans roared off out of the plaza, while the sedan pulled away slowly and stopped down the street.

“What? Why aren’t they coming for me?”

The rain continued to pound and pound.

Darrell searched for his pistol. He found it on the floor of the balcony. He slid it into his soggy pocket and sloshed back through the room to the hallway and down the stairs to the street. He nearly collapsed with each step. He searched the streets until he found La Floridita, the club Quirita had told them about.

Lily was waiting for him inside, soaking wet, cradling Corvus.

“Thank God you’re safe!” she said, hugging him tightly. The sharp edges of the iron crow scraped and scratched the nape of his neck, but he didn’t say a word, just hugged her tight and tried not to cry or laugh or do anything stupid.

“Darrell—”

“I know, I know. But we’re here,” he whispered. “We’re both safe.”

“Out the back,” she said.

They wove through the tables, mostly empty now. The bartender, an older guy with long white hair tied into a bun, nodded as they passed.

“Gracias,” Darrell said.

When they opened the back door, he saw a black sedan idling at the curb.

“That’s the Russians, the Brotherhood, I saw them. Oh, man, Lily.”

“No,” she said. “There’s a Russian officer in there, but she’s not with the Red Brotherhood. She’s a friend of a friend.”

“A friend of . . . of Chief Inspector Yazinsky?”

Chief Inspector Yazinsky was a member of the FSB, the Russian secret police. He’d helped them find Serpens in Russia and worked with them in Italy. He was a friend.

“He instructed his agents to get us safe passage to wherever we need to go next.”

Darrell took a long breath to try to calm down. Cassa was out of the picture, at least for now. They had Corvus. “I guess we did all right today,” he said.

“We did good work. Next stop, Paris, to find Floréal Muguet and her clock. Or his clock. Either one.”

They darted to the black sedan. The rear door opened and out stepped a middle-aged woman in a Russian military uniform. “Greetings. The chief inspector has asked me to help you. Please get in. Time is fleeting.”

After a brief few words, during which the friend of the inspector showed them a handwritten note from him, they were driven to the Havana docks. The rain pounded even harder as the two kids lingered in the backseat, and saw their safe passage. It was one of the Russian ships they’d seen when they first passed the harbor.

Король Владимир Второй

“And that means?” said Lily.

“‘King Vladimir the Second,’” the officer said. “Now, please understand. The Red Brotherhood has new orders to kill you with or without the relic. However, if you agree, because I have diplomatic immunity, I can deliver the relic to the inspector within hours. He owns an impenetrable private vault and will hide the relic there until it is needed.”

They shared a look. “Agreed,” they said together.

“There is a single small cabin on this Russian freighter,” the officer said. “It leaves Cuba tonight for the North Sea. The journey will not be the fastest, but the first mate will hide you for a price. The inspector has already paid this. In the meantime, he asks you to call your friends on this phone. It uses an old Soviet encryption channel not even the Brotherhood is aware of. Completely secure. Call your family. Sara Kaplan also possesses such a secure phone.”

Her fingers quivering, Lily dialed the number the officer gave them, then put the phone on speaker. Sara picked up right away, screaming to hear their voices. Wade and Becca were there, too.

“We’re okay!” Lily shouted. “We have Corvus!”

“We’re okay, too!” Wade yelled. “We’re hiding with Isabella, tracking down her husband’s clues about the twelfth relic!”

“There’s another relic in Paris!” Darrell said. “Meet us there, all right? There’s someone we need to track down. Also, Thomas Cook travel agencies are hot spots for British intelligence. Simon told us they were.”

“Good! Great!” said Sara. “The sooner you’re with us, the better. Meet us at . . .”

“A café,” said Becca. “A museum?”

“No,” Sara said. “A park. The Square du Vert-Galant. Ten p.m.”

“But what day?” Wade asked.

Lily glanced at Yazinsky’s colleague. “At least a week,” the woman said. “Maybe longer.”

“You heard that?” said Darrell. “It’ll be a while, I’m sure. Come every night, and we’ll get there eventually. What about Dad and Terence?”

There was a heavy pause before Wade spoke. “No news. See you at Vert-Galant.”

The phone clicked off. The call was short. Even with a secure line, it had to be. Darrell wanted to tell his mother about Cassa, and that the killer might even be dead. But he wasn’t sure how his mother would react, knowing her son fought with a brutal thug, so he saved it for later. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long before they were all together. But when he looked again at the dented and rusty Russian freighter that would take them to Europe, he knew it would take days.

Many slow days.