The Book of Fate (16 page)

“Of course. Good to hear your voice, Eric.” I purposely use his old codename instead of
Carl Stewart.
He doesn’t need to know I’ve figured that one out.

“You alone?” he asks as Claudia’s lips purse even tighter and she lowers her chin with a burning glare.

“Sure, I’ve got Claudia right here—”

“Stay away from this, Wes. This isn’t your fight. Y’hear me? It’s not your fight.”

The line goes dead. Boyle’s gone.

He hung up.

“No, that’s great,” I say to the now-silent line. “See you soon.” I’m not the world’s greatest liar, but I’m still good enough to convince Claudia nothing’s wrong.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“That was . . . it was Manning. He said he’d be another few minutes . . .”

Her eyes narrow as she processes the news. Behind me, the fax machine grumbles to life. I jump at the sound, which hits me like a bullet.

“What?” she asks.

“No, it just . . . it startled me.” For almost a year after the shooting, every car that backfired, every loud door that slammed . . . even action scenes in movies . . . the loud noises echoed from Nico’s attack. The doctors said it would fade over time. And it did. Until now.

Knowing that look on my face, Claudia pauses and softens, but as always, reverts to her one priority. “You should still be out there,” she says.

“I will . . . just let me get this. Y’know how he likes knowing names,” I add, selling it as a benefit for Manning. That alone buys me a few more seconds.

By the time I spin back to the fax, the cover sheet is already through. So is half of the final page.

I grab the left-hand corner of the sheet as it churns out of the machine, then tilt my head, struggling to read it upside down. Top corner says
Washington Post.
From what I can tell, it’s from the comics section of the paper.
Hagar the Horrible
. . . then
Beetle Bailey.
But as
Beetle Bailey
rolls out, there’s something handwritten in the open space of the comic strip’s second panel: boxy and clunky cursive lettering that looks like it was written on the dashboard of a moving car. It’s almost unreadable to the untrained eye. Fortunately, my eyes’ve been trained for years. I’d know Manning’s handwriting anywhere.

Gov. Roche . . . M. Heatson
, I read to myself.

On the next line, it makes even less sense.
Host—Mary Angel.

Roche is the former governor of New York, but Heatson or Mary Angel . . . nothing rings a bell.

As the rest of the fax shimmies from the machine, there’s nothing but more comics.
Peanuts
,
Garfield
, and
Blondie.

This was the final piece of Boyle’s puzzle? I look back at the handwritten note.
Gov. Roche . . . M. Heatson . . . Mary Angel.
Doesn’t even make sense. Three names with no information? I study it again, reading each letter. This is the last page Boyle found before coming out of hiding. Eight years dead, and
this
is what lured him back into his life?
Gov. Roche . . . M. Heatson . . . Host—Mary Angel.
Still means nothing.

“Wes, he’s here,” Claudia calls out, disappearing up the hallway.

“Coming,” I say as the final lines of
Beetle Bailey
scroll out from the machine. As I spin around to take off, the cover sheet drops to the floor. Pausing to pick it up, I glance at the line that says
Number of Pages.
To my surprise, it says
3.

The fax machine again hiccups, and a final sheet of paper crawls toward me. The librarian called it a one-pager. And it is one page . . . with two sides. Front and back.

I hunch down to the fax and try to read the document as each line of fresh ink is printed on the page. Like the comics page, it has the light gray tone of photocopied newsprint filled with more of the President’s handwriting. But as I read it to myself, the picture in the darkroom feels overexposed, foggier than ever.

“Wes . . .” the President calls from the front door.

“On my way,” I say, picking up my travel bag, ripping the sheet from the fax, and darting into the hallway. I give it one last glance before shoving it into my jacket pocket. It doesn’t make sense. What the hell could Boyle possibly be doing with
this
?

27

H
e’s the one I shot, isn’t he?” Nico whispered, staring down at the recent photo of Wes. “The innocent.”

“In every war, there are innocents,” The Roman said. “But what I need to know is—”

“He’s older . . .”

“It’s been years, Nico. Of course, he’s older.”

Nico pulled the picture close to him. “I broke him, didn’t I? He’s broken now.”

“Excuse me?”

“In his eyes,” Nico replied, focusing even tighter on the photo. “I’ve seen that look . . . in battle . . . kids in battle have that look.”

“I’m sure they do,” The Roman said, snatching the picture and fighting to keep Nico on track. “But I need you to tell me if—”

“We relieve them from duty when they have that look,” Nico said, almost proudly. “They lose sight of the cause.”

“Exactly. They lose sight of the cause. Let’s focus on that.” Tapping Wes’s picture, The Roman added, “Remember what he said about you? At the hearing a few years back?”

Nico stayed silent.

“What’d he call you again? A savage?”

“A monster,” Nico growled.

The Roman shook his head, well aware of Wes’s description. But like any interrogation, the key was hiding the big questions. “And that’s the last you heard from him?” The Roman asked.

“He blames me. Refuses to see what I saved us from.”

The Roman watched Nico carefully, now convinced that Wes hadn’t been in touch. Of course, that was only part of the reason for his visit. “Speaking of which, do you think about Boyle?”

Nico looked up, his eyes angry for barely a second, then calm. The hatred disappeared almost instantly. Thanks to the doctors, he’d finally learned to bury it. “Never,” Nico said.

“Not at all?”

“Never,” Nico repeated, his voice slow and measured. He’d spent eight years perfecting his answer.

“It’s okay, Nico. You’re safe now, so—”

“I don’t think of him. I don’t,” he insisted, still on his knees and staring straight at the fiery red of the rosaries. “What happened to . . . him . . . he . . .” Swallowing hard, Nico reached for the beads, then stopped himself. “He put me in here. He . . .”

“You can say his name, Nico.”

Nico shook his head, still eyeing the beads. “Names are fictions. He . . . Masks for the devil.” Without warning, Nico’s arm shot forward, snatching the rosary beads from the center of the bed. He pulled them to his chest, his thumb furiously climbing from bead to bead, counting to the rosary’s small engraving of Mary.

“Nico, take it easy—”

“Only God is true.”

“I understand, but—”

“God is true!” he exploded, climbing the beads quicker than ever. Turning away, Nico rocked back and forth . . . slowly, then faster. Gripping each bead, one by one. His shoulders sagged with each sway, and his body hunched lower and lower, practically curling into a ball at the side of the bed. He kept trying to speak, then abruptly cut himself off. The Roman had seen it before. The battle internal. Without warning, Nico looked back over his shoulder. The Roman didn’t need 20/6 vision to spot the tears in his eyes.

“Are you here to redeem me?” Nico sobbed.

The Roman froze, assuming it was all about Boyle . . . and it was, but—

“Of course,” The Roman said as he moved to the other side of the bed. Putting a hand on Nico’s shoulder, he picked up the violin from the floor. He’d read enough of Nico’s file to know it was still his best transitional item. “That’s why I’m here,” he promised as Nico embraced the neck of the violin.

“For redemption?” Nico asked for the second time.

“For salvation.”

Nico eked out a smile, and the crimson beads sank to the floor. From the way Nico studied the violin with his half-closed eyes, The Roman knew he had a few minutes of calm. Better make it quick.

“In the name of The Three, I’m here for your cleansing . . . and to be sure that when it comes to Boyl— When it comes to the Beast, that his influence is no longer felt by your spirit.”

“Who increases our faith . . . Who strengthens our hope . . . Who perfects our love,” Nico began to pray.

“Then let us begin,” The Roman said. “What is your last memory of him?”

“At the Revolt,” Nico began. “His hand up in victory . . . preening for the masses with his white teeth glowing. Then the anger in his eyes when I pulled that trigger—he didn’t know he’d been hit. He was angry . . .
enraged
as he gritted his teeth. That was his first reaction, even in death. Hatred and rage. Until he looked down and spotted his own blood.”

“And you saw him fall?”

“Two shots in the heart, one in the hand as they tore me down. Sliced his neck too. I heard him screaming as they clawed at me. Screaming for his life. Begging . . . even amid the roar . . . for himself.
Me . . . someone help
me . . . And then the screams stopped. And he laughed. I hear things. I could hear it. Through his own blood. Boyle was laughing.”

The Roman rolled his tongue against his teeth. No doubt, it was true. Laughing all the way to freedom. “What about since?” he asked, choosing each word carefully. Regardless of the risk, he needed to know if Boyle had been here. “Has he haunted you . . . recently?”

Nico stopped, looking up from the violin. “Haunted?”

“In . . . in your dreams.”

“Never in my dreams. His threat was stopped when—”

“What about anywhere else, in visions or—?”

“Visions?”

“Not visions . . . y’know, like—”

“His power is that great?” Nico interrupted.

“No, but we—”

“To be able to do that . . . to call from beyond the ashes . . .”

“There’s no such power,” The Roman insisted, again reaching for Nico’s shoulder.

Scootching back on his rear, Nico pulled away from The Roman’s grasp. His back slammed into the radiator and his violin again dropped to the floor. “For the Beast to rise . . .”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t deny it!” Nico said, his eyes zipping back and forth in full panic. Clenching his fists, he swung his hands wildly, like he couldn’t control his movements. A thick vein popped from his neck. “But for him to be alive . . . the Great Tribulation lasts seven years—my time away—followed by resurrection of the dead . . .”

The Roman stepped back, frozen.

“You believe it too,” Nico said.

“That’s not true.”

“I hear your voice. The quiver! I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Nico—”

“He is! With resurrection . . . the Beast lives!”

“I never—”

“He lives! My God, my Lord, he
lives
!” Nico yelled, still on his knees as he turned toward the shatterproof window, screaming at the sky.

The Roman had been afraid it’d come to this. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his cell phone, an old, thick model. With a shove of his thumb, he unlatched the back of the phone and unveiled a lead compartment holding a small syringe and a loose razor blade. His fake ID and Secret Service badge allowed him to bring in the gun that was tucked into his ankle holster, but syringes and razors? Not in a mental hospital.

“Nico, time to calm down,” he said as he slid the syringe between his pointer and middle fingers. The fentanyl would easily knock him out, but it’d take the razor to make it look like a suicide.

“Y-You attack me?” Nico asked as he turned around and saw the needle. His eyes grew dark and his nostrils flared. “He sent you!” Nico shouted, pressed against the radiator and trapped in the corner. “You’re of them!”

“Nico, I’m with you,” The Roman soothed as he stepped closer. There was no pleasure in putting an animal down. “This is just to calm you down,” he added, knowing he had no choice. Leaving a body would certainly bring questions, but it wouldn’t be half as bad as letting Nico scream for the next month that The Three existed and that Boyle was still alive.

Nico’s eyes narrowed, focusing on The Roman’s gun in the ankle holster. As if he’d spotted an old friend.

“Don’t think it, Nico. You can’t—”

The door to the room whipped open, slamming into the wall. “What’s all the hollering abou—? What the hell you think you’re doing?!” a deep voice asked.

The Roman glanced back just in time to see two orderlies burst inside. That was all Nico needed.

Like an uncoiled snake, Nico sprang toward The Roman’s legs. His right hand gripped The Roman’s kneecap, twisting it like a bottle cap. His left hand went straight for the gun in the ankle holster.

“Gaaaah!” The Roman howled, crumbling backward toward the floor. Even before the impact, Nico was tearing the gun from its holster.

“Nico, don’t—” the orderly with the hoop earring threatened.

It was already too late. Like a virtuoso painter reunited with his long-lost brush, Nico grinned as the gun slid into his palm. Still on his knees, he bounced his hand slightly, letting the gun wobble in his grip. “Built-in silencer . . . neither muzzle nor butt heavy,” he said to The Roman, who was still writhing on the floor. “Beautiful work,” he added with a handsome squint as he smiled at the orderlies.

“Nico—!”

Four muffled shots hissed out. Both orderlies screamed. The first two shots pierced their hands. Just like he did with his father. And with Boyle. The stigmata. To show them Jesus’s pain. Both slammed into the wall before they even realized the final two bullets were in their hearts.

Climbing to his feet, Nico didn’t even watch as the orderlies wilted to the floor, their bodies leaving parallel red streaks down the white wall. Spinning around, he turned the gun toward The Roman, who was on his back, clutching something close to his chest. The shot would be quick and easy, but as Nico’s finger hugged the trigger . . .

“Man of God!” The Roman shouted, holding up Nico’s red glass rosary beads. They dangled down from his fist, swaying like a hypnotist’s pocketwatch. “You know it, Nico. Whatever else you think . . . Never kill a man of God.”