The eye of the lion

Cole took a sip of his hot chocolate as he listened to me. Night had fallen and the sky had clouded over suddenly, making the temperature drop.

We were the only clients of “Via Poussin,” a small restaurant not far from L’Eglise St. Géraud, the beautiful church with the steeple of Aeesha’s vision. The clientele had dropped substantially due to the latest news. I was surprised that the place was still open, but as Pierre, the owner had said, closing his establishment wasn’t going to change things, so the best thing would be to keep doing what he’d done for 35 years without missing a single day: Work.

Mark and Jessica had gone to cash the check and buy provisions, insisting that I stay in the care of Dr. Cole. It was still an effort for me to walk, even with the stick, and I only would have slowed down the shopping. In any case, I wanted

to talk with Cole and he had a lot of things to ask me. Marina and Aeesha were in the church, just three hundred feet from the restaurant. They wanted to be alone for a while and it seemed like a good idea to me. We all needed to relax a little.

Over the course of an hour I told Cole most of the story, only omitting details I considered pertinent and that only concerned me. I told him all about Waiss, Voquessi, Netgen, what we knew about Kratz and his men, and what we knew and suspected about Marina.

Cole was religious, let’s say a non-practicing believer, but he was also very educated, with a scientific mind and a classical education. The things I told him clearly worried him. For a long while after I’d finished my tale he looked at me, lost in thought. Then he shook his head.

“Are you saying that that girl is going to give birth to a clone of Jesus Christ?!” he whispered between his teeth. “Oh my God! Now it all makes sense, this whole business of the persecution and the escape...”

“I can’t be a hundred percent sure, Doctor. I can’t confirm anything categorically. After the experience with Edward Kelly, the note-book with his account has no value. His annotations are no longer trustworthy. But the data from Waiss’ experiments is, and everything seems to point towards the

genetical material he used, wherever it came from, being authentic and having exceptional qualities.”

“So you believe it...” nodded Cole. “You think that child...?”

“I only know...” I interrupted him. “...That those people, the “Templars” believe that what Waiss created, what Marina carries in her belly, is real. And they believe it enough to kill whoever gets in the way, whoever knows what happened, all so that they can get their hands on her and the child.”

“To what end?” Cole asked himself, looking at his half-full mug of hot chocolate. “Why go to so much trouble to get a child who, when all’s said and done, is the result of a strange experiment, nothing more?”

“Is he?” I asked, searching him.

Cole looked at me, his expression serious. He shook his head. I could sense the old doctor’s internal conflict. The feelings it brought up, his fascination and repulsion for a business that surely seemed to him to be pure sacrilege.

“It can’t be anything else. What that man Waiss did is an aberration...”

I took a sip of my hot chocolate and looked out of the window at the black clouds gathering in the sky.

“I don’t know what to think any more, Doctor,” I sighed. “Now with the business of Aeesha’s visions, I’m not certain of anything any more. Plus, we have the damned nuisance of the war... Complicating everything.”

The Doctor nodded in silence.

“It will sort itself out...” he nodded. “People are stupid, but not THAT stupid...”

I silently prayed that he was right.