The Delphi Agenda Read Online Free

Defago opened a door on the far side and entered an antechamber with two doors. One belonged to a small but efficient elevator. The other led him into a short corridor lined with cement. He walked along it, avoiding the deepest of the puddles, and stepped through another door into a narrow, warm room, simply furnished with two modern chairs and a desk against the wall. On the desk sat an older model computer, a bound paper agenda, and a set of Tarot cards laid out as if interrupted in the middle of a reading. There was no one at the desk. Defago sniffed at this apparent breach of security, not to mention theology, until the man who had opened the door followed him into the room, sat down and turned over a card, the four of cups: time to re-evaluate an all too familiar environment.
    This bordered on heresy, but Defago compressed his lips and said nothing.
    The door on the opposite side swung open. He stepped through and carefully closed it behind him.
    A heavyset, middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and neatly pressed designer jeans contemplated the river and the town on the other side through a barred window. The dawn light colored his face gunmetal gray. When the door clicked he turned. His face was wide, with cheekbones that jutted to sharp ridges. His prominent nose bent slightly to the left, clearly broken and badly healed long ago. The dark eyes were nearly lost in their pouches of fat. His lipless mouth twitched into something like a smile.
    He lowered his right hand. Defago dropped to one knee and kissed the plain gold ring. “Well?” the Prior General of the Secret Order of Theodosius purred. His smooth, liquid voice throbbed with power.
    “Consummatum est,” Defago said. “Foix is no more.”

5.
    Lisa paused on the threshold of Raimond Foix’s apartment. Aside from the detective in shirtsleeves examining the parquet near the stairs the apartment appeared unchanged from the first time she set foot here four years earlier. She had expected disorder, things broken or out of place, blood and destruction, but the expensive reproduction of a Greek amphora near the entry door sprouted three ebony umbrella handles as always. The parquet that Marie, the housekeeper, kept so polished still perfectly reflected the harpsichord in the nook of the window overlooking Rue du Dragon. Propped on its music stand was, as before, a facsimile of the 1591 edition of William Byrd’s
My Ladye Nevells Book
open to
Sellinger's Round
, one of Raimond’s favorite pieces. Behind it was a collection of Dowland
Ayres
for voice and lute. Was it only Tuesday she had been standing in this very spot, her hand on his shoulder, singing,
In Darkness Let Me Dwell
? He played his improvised accompaniment and looked back over his shoulder at her. He had been smiling at her, nodding when she reached for the high notes, when she repeated a phrase and he perfectly adapted to her own improvisation.
    The lyrics came back and she froze: “Thus, wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb/O, let me, living, living, die, till death do come.”
    He was gone, leaving only this eerie stillness: no music, no bustle from the kitchen. She would never again hear the modest cough he made when he wanted her attention. The twinkle in his eye was extinguished; his spirit had left the apartment. There would be no more tricks, no more wordplay, no more – love was the only word she could find.
    It was a place of death, and it returned, black opening in her heart, the ache in her belly. She had been Foix’s student, colleague and friend for nearly half her life. That emptiness, knowing he was gone…. Thirty-two years old and she felt like an abandoned child.
    Yet she wondered: had he known? Had he chosen that particular song?
    No, it was ridiculous. She was imagining it. He couldn’t have known.
    She wanted to dismiss the thought, send it away. She tried, while at the same time she found she was not surprised, as if she had known all along it was coming. This must be why