“Frankie, one of the Fae told me that they think the Knights may be connected to the disruptions in the ley lines.”
She stared at me, her expression not changing for a long time. Finally, she said, “I’m going to show you something that I probably shouldn’t. It’s from the Arcane Investigations Section at the FBI.”
A minute before, I had never suspected the existence of an Arcane Investigations Section anywhere but possibly as part of a UFO fruitcake society. Definitely not the FBI.
She went to a filing cabinet and unlocked it. Pulling several pieces of paper out of a folder, she walked back to her desk and laid the pages in front of me. On official FBI stationary was an alert about the Order of Knights Magica. It said that the group was known to Interpol, but in the past few months, it had spread its operations to North America. Most of what the three pages revealed was information about the Knights that I already knew.
“That’s because the Knights have figured out that something happened to the Illuminati,” I said after I finished reading. “They’re moving to fill the void.”
Frankie handed me several more pages. “You have such interesting observations. Maybe I should try bartending one night a week.”
On the same letterhead was a report speculating on the possible disappearance of the Illuminati. Evidently, the FBI had managed to subvert a few members of the Order, who had divulged a lot of their secrets. Then their most important spy had suddenly disappeared. A number of members he had identified had also disappeared. Others reported that all lines of communication had been severed. I recognized a couple of the names.
It was fascinating reading. When I finished, I looked up at Frankie and handed her the papers.
“You said, ‘something happened to the Illuminati,’” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to know what that was, would you?”
I shrugged. “I’m just a kid. A bartender. How would I know about the world’s deepest secrets?” I leaned forward. “Frankie, those Hunters we saw here last fall and winter were running from something. They didn’t know what happened or what they were running from. Now the Knights Magica—the Illuminati’s foremost enemy—are moving into the Illuminati’s stronghold.” I shrugged again.
During the previous week, a number of high-profile government and corporate leaders had died. The U.S. Secretary of State died in a plane crash. The head of the World Bank suffered a heart attack. The chairman of one of the largest investment banks in New York died in a boating accident. A member of Congress died in a car crash, and another died when he was mugged coming out of a restaurant in Washington, D.C. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have cared, but I knew that all of them were members of the Order of the Illuminati. Too many accidents to be a coincidence.
The FBI letter that Frankie showed me mentioned two of those deaths as being ‘suspicious.’
The evening after I met with Frankie, the big story on the news was the assassination of the Prelate of the Universal Church. Six of the Swiss Guards who provided his protection were killed in the attack, along with two archbishops and several lower-ranking Church officials. Dozens more were injured in the bombing.
I stared at the TV in shock as the Archbishop of Venice announced to the world the Prelate’s death. The men surrounding him were not members of the Swiss Guard but wore the uniform of the Knights Magica.
Lizzy and Trevor came into the bar shortly after that. Trevor hadn’t been around much recently.
“How’s the hand?” I asked Trevor. He had lost one hand to a Hunter a couple months before.
“Okay. My doctor tells me that as soon as I stop hating it, I’ll learn to love it.” Trevor and I had dated, but that was long past. Jolene told me that he recently broke up with the girl who took my place, and was dating a new girl. I stopped trying to keep up with his love life, and we had settled in as friends.
“Have you got your computers with you?” I asked when they sat down at the bar.
“I have mine,” Lizzy said. I knew that she always carried her laptop with her.
“Of course,” Trevor said. “Michaela would have a cow if I couldn’t respond immediately to someone forgetting their password.”
“Can you look up suspicious deaths among high-profile government and corporate leaders since the first of the year?” I asked.
Both hauled out their laptops and set them on the bar as I got their drinks and put in their dinner orders. Rosie’s had excellent wi-fi, and Sam encouraged students and others to come in and use it—and eat and drink while surfing the net.
Over the next couple of hours, I saw my friends put their heads together several times and show each other their screens. When the dinner rush tapered off, I went to check with them.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Trevor asked, turning his laptop so I could see the screen.
He had put together a list of forty-five men and women from all over the world. Twenty were in North and South America, twenty more in Europe, and five in the Middle East. As I scanned the list, I saw government officials from more than a dozen countries. The rest were top officers of corporations, philanthropic organizations, or research foundations. From my time working for Master Benedict, I recognized eighteen names as being members of the Illuminati.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow, and Lizzy propped her chin on her hand, giving me a wide-eyed invitation to explain.
Gesturing to the TV in the back room, I said, “The guy who seems to be in charge at the Holy City is the Archbishop of Venice.”
Trevor shrugged. Lizzy said, “And?”
“He’s a member of the Order of Knights Magica, a rival of the Illuminati.”
“And the people on this list?” Trevor asked.
“At least twenty-three of them were Illuminati.”
“How interesting,” he said.
“The Well of Magic,” Lizzy said, her voice almost a whisper.
I nodded. Trevor gave both of us a puzzled look.
“You explain,” I said to Lizzy, and walked away to take a drink order from one of the waitresses.
I wondered how many accidents had happened to enemies of the Knights who weren’t as prominent as the people on Trevor’s list.
Chapter 7
I started paying attention to the news, in particular looking for people of influence who suffered untimely deaths. The governments in Washington and London seemed to have a sudden rash of vacancies, as did the ranks of those working for the European Union in Brussels.
In Westport, the reports of murdered vampires and werewolves increased. Three Universal priests were killed in an automobile accident. Unless one was paranoid about the Knights, the events might seem to be unconnected.
Oriel stopped by the bar on Sunday evening and flirted with me. I assumed that’s what it was. He was very direct.
“Is this the night you’re taking me home?” he asked.
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“In affairs of the heart, you should be more spontaneous.”
“I prefer to consider whether a decision is wise beforehand, rather than have regrets afterward.”
“When you get older, you’ll find that you regret things you didn’t do more than those you did.”
“Says the ancient philosopher who wants to get in my pants.”
He gave me a grin so lascivious that my mouth went dry. Without another word, he reached for a menu.
I tried to ignore him as much as I could while taking his order, and remembering how he affected me when he touched me, I stayed out of his reach.
After he finished his meal, he asked, “You don’t work tomorrow night, do you?”
“No, I work Thursday through Sunday.”
“Go to dinner with me tomorrow evening.”
“Oh? Where?”
“In the Village. I’ll come by and pick you up at seven.”
And that would leave me at his mercy to get home. “I can drive out there.”
“That would be unchivalrous. I’ll pick you up.”
Oriel stood and fished in his pocket. Then he put a silver pendant on a chain on the bar. I leaned over to look and saw it was set with a star ruby cabochon the size of my thumbnail.
“What is that?” I asked.
He grinned. “Your tip. It’s a synthetic ruby.”
I peered at it closely.
“The ruby came from the sword pommel of a member of the Knights Magica,” he said. “We think it’s imbued with magic, but a kind of magic I can’t wield. Roisin says that it feels similar to Fae magic, but it isn’t Fae. We thought you might be able to figure it out.”
When I picked the ruby up, I could feel the magic in it, but I couldn’t pull on the magic to use for anything. I looked up and saw Oriel going out the door. So much for bargaining about dinner and who was driving. It struck me that he hadn’t asked where to pick me up.
And where did he get a Knight’s sword? After thinking about it for a minute, I wanted to slap myself. If the Fae thought the Knights Magica were a threat, they would act, and human qualms wouldn’t affect them. I assumed the Knight who supplied the ruby hadn’t survived their investigation. The Fae didn’t believe in coincidences, and they didn’t give me that ruby because they thought I was cute. They expected me to do something with it.
The next break I got, I called Cindy Mackle.
“Cindy, did you recover the swords of those guys you arrested the other night?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Were there red rubies set in the pommels?”
“Yes, there were. Star rubies.”
“Do you think I could see them?”
“They’re in evidence. You’d have to ask Frankie.”
“Okay, thanks.”
It was too late to call Frankie, but I put it on my to-do list for the next morning. In the meantime, I put the necklace around my neck because I couldn’t figure out what else to do with it.
“Frankie, was there anything unusual about the swords your people confiscated from those guys who attacked Shawna and me?” I asked when I called her the following morning.