Chapter 20
We were fucked.
I'd survived living in a cage and plane crashes and Judas coins just to end up bleeding out in a field.
My shoulder was screaming and my vision swam in and out like I was underwater. I pushed upright anyway because lying in the grass bleeding while armed soldiers surrounded us seemed like a poor strategy, and Dionysus had beaten better survival instincts into me than that.
Two of Constantine's men hauled me to my feet while others did the same to Rafael. They weren't gentle about it either.
The burning plane wreckage cast an orange light across the field, painting everything in shades of hell. Dawn was just breaking on the horizon, gold and pink meeting the smoke and fire. It would have been beautiful if I ignored the part where I was about to die.
Constantine stood fifty yards away, adjusting his gloves. Behind him, more men were unpacking something from one of the vehicles.
They were setting up a goddamn table.
White linen appeared, snapping in the dawn breeze as two men spread it across the folding surface. Then chairs appeared, followed by what looked like a full tea service, complete with delicate porcelain cups that caught the firelight.
Rafael made a sound beside me, and it took me too long to realize it was a laugh. Blood streaked his face in patterns that looked like tear tracks.
Constantine seated himself, adjusted his position slightly, then gestured to someone I couldn't see. A man appeared with a teapot and poured a careful stream of amber into Constantine’s teacup.
Constantine lifted the cup to his lips and took a long, slow sip. He set the cup down with a soft clink that carried across the field. Then, he carefully selected a pastry before waving us forward. "Come, come. Don't be shy."
The men holding us half-dragged, half-walked us across the field. My legs kept trying to give out, but the hands on my arms were relentless. Rafael stumbled beside me, and I ached to reach for him, but all I could do was match his pace.
Constantine took another sip. "Please, sit." He gestured to the two chairs across from him.
The men pressed us down into the chairs. The white linen was spotless, making the blood on my hands look obscene.
"I apologize for the informality of the setting." Constantine's voice was cultured, his Austrian accent turning the words into something almost musical. "One hopes the accommodations are acceptable, despite the... rustic circumstances."
He poured tea into the two cups in front of us, the stream of liquid perfectly controlled.
"Melange," he said. "A Viennese tradition.
Do you know it, Father Oliveira? Coffee and steamed milk, though I prefer to take mine as tea in the morning.
" He smiled. "But given your posting in Rome, perhaps you're more familiar with espresso.
The Italians do have their preferences, don't they? "
Rafael said nothing. His hands were shaking on the table, leaving small smears of blood on the white linen.
Constantine's eyes tracked the movement.
"Ah. How unfortunate." He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the stain closest to him, though it did nothing except spread the blood into a wider pattern.
"No matter. Linen washes." He refolded the handkerchief and set it aside.
"Please, have some tea. I find it helps calm the nerves. "
Neither of us moved.
"No? Well, I can hardly blame you. It's difficult to maintain proper etiquette when one is.
.. shall we say, under duress." He selected a pastry and took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed.
"These are Sachertorte, traditional Viennese chocolate cake.
My grandmother's recipe, actually. You really should try one, Lorenzo. I know you appreciate your sweets."
My jaw was clenched so tight my teeth ached.
Constantine smiled. "Ah, the silent treatment. How stoic. Dionysus trained you well." He took another sip of his tea. " You're both wondering why, yes? Why the ceremony? Why the tea? Why I don't simply put a bullet in your heads and be done with it."
He lifted his cup, inhaled the steam, eyes never leaving my face.
"The answer is quite simple, really. It's a question of civilization.
" He set the cup down gently. "You see, any thug with a gun can kill.
Any beast with teeth can tear flesh. But what separates us from animals, gentlemen, is the appreciation of ritual.
The acknowledgment that even necessary violence deserves. .. context."
He gestured at the tea service between us.
"Without these forms, these small observances, we're just dogs fighting in an alley. Wouldn't you agree, Father?" His attention shifted to Rafael. "Surely the Church understands this. All that pageantry. The incense, the vestments, the Latin. Theater, yes, but theater with purpose."
Rafael's voice came out hoarse. "This isn't the same."
"Isn't it?" Constantine's eyebrows rose slightly. "You perform the Eucharist. I perform this. Both rituals acknowledge that certain acts require ceremony to maintain their meaning." He took another bite of his pastry. "Of course, the stakes are rather different, but the principle holds."
He dabbed his mouth with his napkin.
"I refuse to live like an animal," he said quietly. "To kill without appreciation for the moment, without proper acknowledgment of what's being ended. Don't you think that would be rather... disrespectful?"
"Dionysus understood this once. He was a man of culture, of refinement.
" Constantine's expression turned almost mournful.
"We had such interesting conversations, he and I.
Did he ever tell you about our discussions on Stoic philosophy, Lorenzo?
No? Pity. He had quite a mind before sentiment made him weak. "
He picked up his cup again, eyes never leaving me.
"You, though. You're a different story entirely." He tilted his head, studying me like I were something fascinating under glass. "Dionysus took something raw, something beautifully violent, and shaped it into art. An instrument of such exquisite purpose. Tell me, do you remember the cage?"
My blood turned to ice.
"Of course you do. How could you forget?
" Constantine's smile was almost kind. "A child, feral and biting, locked in a cage like an animal.
And look at you now. Sitting at a table, drinking tea.
Well, not drinking, but the offer stands.
That transformation is remarkable, don't you think? From beast to weapon to... this."
He gestured at me, at Rafael, at the space between us.
"Though I wonder if all that training, all that refinement, really changed what you are at your core.
The wild dog that will always need a master's hand, a clear voice telling it when and where to bite.
" His smile widened slightly. "It's not an insult.
It's simply what you are. A perfectly bred weapon that knows, deep in its bones, the comfort of serving something greater than itself. "
He took another careful sip of his tea. “Which brings me to an interesting point." He set the cup down. "Do you know why you're here, Lorenzo? Not philosophically. I mean, specifically. Why you, of all the considerable assets available to me, received that particular Judas coin?"
The words took a second to land.
"Ah, there it is." Constantine's smile was genuine now, pleased. "That beautiful moment of comprehension. Yes, Father Oliveira. The Judas coin wasn't Cardinal Azevedo's idea. It was mine. I gave it to him with very specific instructions."
Rafael made a small, broken sound.
Constantine leaned forward slightly. "Zeus was keen to let Dionysus stay on as the South American Director at first. It was unfortunate that he became so inspired by Director Aleksandar’s rebellion in North America.
When Dionysus defied Zeus’s orders to keep the Icharus Project going, we determined he had to go.
And I, being the helpful right hand that I am, provided the solution.
So elegant, really. Lorenzo would kill his creator, you would kill Lorenzo, and all loose ends would be.
.. resolved." He sat back. "Two birds, one Judas coin, as it were. "
"Why me?" Rafael's voice was barely there. "What did I do to you?"
Constantine looked at him for a long moment, then laughed.
"Do to me? My dear Father, you did nothing to me.
Nothing at all." He shook his head, still smiling.
"You were simply... available. Azevedo's best student, already assigned to Rome, easily redirected.
The perfect instrument." He said it like explaining why he'd chosen a particular fork from the silverware.
"Surely you don't think this was personal? "
The casual cruelty of it made my stomach turn. Rafael went very still beside me.
"It wasn't personal, Father Oliveira," Constantine continued, and now his voice held something that might have been sympathy if it weren't so clearly manufactured.
"You were collateral. A means to an end.
Really, if you think about it, you should be flattered.
I chose you because I believed you capable of executing the task. That's a compliment of sorts."
Constantine picked up a napkin and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. "And now, you will die as the Pantheon's enemies have always died. With ceremony. With acknowledgment of what you were before you chose sedition."
Sedition.
Constantine stood and walked around the table, teacup still in hand, stopping behind Rafael, looking down at him.