“Why did you ask?”

“No special reason,” Serrin lied. He was still mulling over that interesting fact. and remembering something he wanted to check out. There was a painting, wasn’t there?

Geraint let it pass. The mage seemed even more absentminded than ever this morning. He wondered if the months in the lonely wilds of the Hebrides had accentuated the trait. He wiped the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin, then he and Michael made for their decks awaiting them upstairs.

Serrin quietly asked one of the maids who came to clear away the table where he could find a particular kind of store, and learned to his satisfaction that one was only a few minutes’ walk away. He squinted a little in the now-brilliant sunlight as he stepped into the street, and followed the simple directions to his destination.

A little later, he walked slowly back, looking at the picture.

Ah, now, isn’t that wrong? he thought.

And doesn’t it have an extraordinary beauty?

20

“It’s a girl, I think,” Streak said doubtfully.

“No, it isn’t. Look at the nose,” Kristen said. “It’s a young man, not much more than a boy.”

Serrin moved the sheet of paper away from the body of the image. He’d occluded most of it, leaving only the enigmatic face for the others to see.

“Oh, it is a bloke,” Streak said. “Them shoulders give it away. Funny. I could have sworn it was a woman’s face, honest.”

“But…” Kristen said, hesitantly.

“Yes?” Serrin waited.

“It looks just like the other woman. The smile. It’s her smile.”

“What other woman?”

“The picture you showed me before. The Mona Lisa.”

“My God, it is an’ all,” Streak said, screwing up his eyes. “I tell you, mate, that’s a really weird painting.

“Isn’t it?” Serrin said softly.

“So what is it then? Who’s our geezer?” Streak said.

“Our geezer, as you so charmlessly put it, is John the Baptist. As painted by Leonardo da Vinci.”

“And why’s he pointing his finger up like that? I mean, it’s not as if he knows cricket umpire signals.” Serrin and Kristen gave him the same look. “Sorry. So what does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Serrin admitted. “But this is, well, strange. I don’t know why. But something tells me it’s important. We’re in his city-the Baptist’s, that is. We’re chasing some freak with a Leonardo fixation. His only statue is here too, so I think we should go take a look at it. Coming?”

“Mikey and his nibs are still up to their arses in electrons,” Streak said, picturesquely if inaccurately. “I think a stroll into town is on.”

They approached from the east gates and stood before the remarkable work, the ten beautifully etched plates of biblical scenes that hung there. Above them a stone angel stood watching John baptizing Christ, Porphyry columns flanked them as they walked through the doors and made heir offering of coins and notes at the small box placed just inside.

In the cool interior, Serrin consulted the little guide-book. searching for an illustration of the angel and directions to where it might be found.

“You are looking for something in particular?” a young, fair-haired Italian youth asked in perfect, barely accented English.

Serrin turned to look at the fresh-faced young man. He was handsome, slightly feminine in appearance, with high cheekbones and full lips. He smiled at the elf and looked expectant.

“Verocchio’s angel, actually,” Senmn told him.

“I think that if you head for the north gates and walk out there, and mingle with the crowds, then you should be able to make it very difficult for the three gentlemen in the piazza to shoot you as they intend.” the youth said equably. “Get into a taxi and tell the driver to drive like crazy, I should think.”

Serrin’s jaw dropped.

“Jesuits are very resourceful. I will be seeing you later, I expect,” the young man said with a pleasant smile. The trio were too stunned to grab him as he walked out the east, doors and disappeared with startling rapidity into a knot of tourists enjoying the early-morning sunshine.

“I think we’d better do what he said,” Serrin said, glancing around as calmly as he could manage under the circumstances. Kristen’s nails were digging deep into his arm.

“I couldn’t risk bringing any heat in here,” Streak said, “though I’ve got a little something in my pockets.” He patted his jacket and there was a dull plastic clunk.

“I’ll never be able to cast a spell in here,” Serrin fretted.

“On the way out?”

“We’ll be sitting ducks in the doorway,” Serrin said.

“How about claiming sanctuary?” Streak’s eyes darted this way and that, taking in the scene outside. He couldn’t pick out any potential attackers amid the milling crowds, but finally he caught the man in the suit eating ice cream.

“Ah, got one, I reckon,” he said, “But who the frag was-”

“I have no idea,” Serrin said with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t feel well,” Kristen said.

“This is no time to-” Streak began.

“I said, I don’t feel well,” Kristen insisted, tapping foot irritably on the floor. “Do I have to wink too?”

“Go on, girl. It’s now or never,” Serrin said. Kristen suddenly dropped onto the floor in a very convincing faint. Serrin fell to his knees beside her and Streak finally got the game. He jabbered in passable Italian to a young cleric who’d hurried over to see what was wrong, asking the man to call for an ambulance. It probably wasn’t serious, but it wasn’t the first time and…

The priest hurried away but was soon back, reassuring Streak that an ambulance was on the way and asking if there was anything else he could do. Streak reassured him, and gave him a small sum, asking him to offer a prayer for the afflicted. The young man bobbed his head and went off to light a candle, still keeping a wary eye on the apparently stricken woman. A small knot of people was beginning to gather around them. Streak noted the dark-haired man in the plain gray suit who hovered at the doorway. He guessed that there must be some kind of detection and alarm system at the doorway, and the man did not dare cross the threshold.

The man looked around him, then suddenly reached into his pocket.

Streak reached into his own.

In a split second, a Predator would have been fired into the Baptistery and a molded plastic throwing knife would have cut deep into the gunman’s face.

It didn’t happen.

What Streak saw, and afterward he wasn’t at all clear just how he did see it, was the youth who’d warned them standing well behind, and slightly to the left, of the man in the suit. The youth had a broad grin, and was reaching inside his own powder-blue jacket. lie drew a weapon from inside it with astonishing speed.

It was impossible. Not the speed of it, though that was swifter than Streak had seen even a move-by-wire cyberzombie move. It was the weapon itself that was impossible. It was utterly bizarre, an anachronism. What’s more, it could never have been concealed inside the jacket and, even if it could, them was no way it could have been drawn, aimed, and fired with such precision.

The weapon looked like a huge laminated crossbow, but instead of the usual bridge for bearing the bolt there were perhaps a dozen smooth, very slender metal barrels spread out in an arc of maybe thirty degrees. Faster than was possible, the screw mechanism at the base of the barrels sank down into the weapon and a swirl of bubbles flew from the barrels.

Streak gazed at them like a helpless, paralyzed viewer watching a slo-mo film. The bubbles meandered lazily toward the man in the suit, who was frozen in mid-gesture, the emerging gleam of imminent metal just visible inside his barely open jacket.

The bubbles swirled around the man’s head and back. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground like a sack of vegetables dumped on a larder floor. The young man replaced the weapon inside his jacket and raised his left index finger to his lips. He blew on it, smiled at Streak, and then he wasn’t there anymore. Streak felt a roaring sensation in his ears and everything seemed to return to normal.