testimony. According to your recollection of the events at Corcovado, a boy
had been transformed into the image of Lucifer himself. Your grandfather ordered you to kill him,
but you missed. Lawrence then struck the fatal blow, mistakenly killing an innocent and unlocking
Leviathan’s prison, setting the demon free. The demon then murdered him. Is this all correct so
far?”
“Yes,” she said
quietly.
The Inquisitor consulted his
notes for a moment. Schuyler had met him once before, when her grandfather had hosted a few
members of the Conclave at the house. His name was Josiah Archibald, and he had retired from the
Conclave years ago. His granddaughters were her classmates at Duchesne. But if he felt at all
sympathetic to her plight, he masked it well. “He was right in front of you, was he not? The
boy?” the Inquisitor asked, looking up.
“Yes.”
“And you say you were holding
your mother’s sword?”
“Yes.”
He snorted, looking pointedly
at the assembled Elders, who then leaned forward or shuffled in their seats. The only active
surviving member of the Conclave was Forsyth Llewellyn, who sat in the back, his head covered in
bandages and his left eye swollen shut. The others were emeritus members like the Inquisitor.
They sat clustered in a semicircle, looking like a group of shrunken elves. There were so few of
them left: old Abe Tompkins had been fetched from his summer home on Block Island; Minerva
Morgan, one of Cordelia’s oldest friends and the former chairwoman of the New York Garden
Society, sat gargoyle still in her knit boucle suit; Ambrose Barlow, who looked like he was fast
asleep.
“Gabrielle’s sword has been
lost for many, many years,” the Inquisitor said. “And you say your mother appeared to
you ?, poof! Out of nowhere, and handed it to you. Just like that. And then
disappeared. To go back to her bed at the hospital, presumably.” His voice
dripped with sarcasm.
Schuyler shifted uncomfortably
in her seat. It did seem fantastic and amazing, and unreal. But it had happened. Just as
she had described.
“Yes . . . I don’t know how,
but yes.”
The Inquisitor’s tone was
condescending. “Pray tell us, where is this sword now?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t. In
the chaos afterward, the sword seemed to have disappeared along with Leviathan, and she told them
so.
“What do you know about
Gabrielle’s sword?” the Inquisitor asked.
“Nothing. I
didn’t even know she owned a sword.”
“It is a true sword. It holds
a special kind of power. It was forged so that it always meets its target,” he grumbled, as if
her ignorance were a sign of guilt.
“I don’t know what you’re
getting at.”
The Inquisitor spoke very
slowly and carefully. “You say you were carrying your mother’s sword. A sword that has been lost
for centuries and that has never failed to strike its enemies in all its history. And yet . . .
you did. You failed. If you were indeed holding Gabrielle’s sword, how could you
miss?”
“Are you saying that I wanted
to miss?” she asked, incredulous.
“I’m not saying that: you
are.”
Schuyler was shocked. What was
happening? What was this? The Inquisitor turned to his audience. “Ladies and gentlemen of the
Conclave, this is an interesting situation. Here are the facts of the matter. Lawrence Van Alen
is dead. His granddaughter would like us to believe a rather outrageous story, that Leviathan, a
demon that Lawrence himself buried in stone a millennium ago, has been released, and that that
same demon killed him.”
“It’s true,” Schuyler
whispered.
“Miss Van Alen, you had never
met your grandfather until a few months ago, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You barely knew him from a
stranger on the street.”
“I wouldn’t say that. We
became very close in a short amount of time.”
“Yet you harbored bitterness
against him, did