The Eternal Ones (29 page)

“It can’t wait, Marta. Let me in, or I’ll let myself in.”

“Where’s your fire escape?” Haven asked as Marta pressed the buzzer that unlocked the front door.

“There,” Marta said, pointing back at the room with the paintings. “But be careful or they’ll see you go out that way. Don’t let yourself be followed.”

“Who’s going to see me? Iain’s driver?”

“No, the gray men,” Marta said. “I know you think I’m crazy, but believe me, they’re real.”

At the bottom of the fire escape, Haven crouched and jumped down to the street below. She inched toward the end of the alley and peered out at the street. A man waited patiently while his dog relieved itself on the hubcap of a black Hummer. Taxis cruised past with bankers in their backseats. A class of day-care students in matching yellow T-shirts waddled behind a teacher like a group of tiny ducklings. It was nothing more than an ordinary New York City scene, until one by one Haven started to see them. The two shadowy figures in a gray sedan parked across the street from Marta’s building. The woman standing in the window of the Laundromat. A neatly coiffed hot-dog vendor. Marta had been right. There was no way to leave the alley without being spotted.

Haven remembered the man on the train from Johnson City. The men who had found her in Gramercy Park after she fainted. All the bland, unremarkable people who faded into the background and went unnoticed. Were they gray men, too? If they were after her, they’d had countless opportunities to grab her. Why hadn’t they taken them?

Then, as she watched the watchers, Haven saw the gray men’s heads shift in unison. From where she stood, Haven couldn’t see the action that had drawn their attention. Whatever it was didn’t last long, and within moments, the sedan departed, the man in the Laundromat was heading down the street, and the hot-dog stand stood deserted.

Just as Haven stepped out onto the sidewalk, a woman in a figure-hugging charcoal gray dress emerged empty-handed from a boutique. Haven needed only to see the mane of dark hair swishing across the woman’s back to identify the president of the Ouroboros Society. Keeping a safe distance, she followed Padma Singh as she began to walk east. It meant something to see her there—Haven knew that much. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Hanging half a block back, Haven watched groups of tourists part for Padma. Men dropped their girlfriends’ hands as she approached. Women snuck peeks at her over their shoulders. Mixing among the average people, Padma appeared more than human. Even her businesslike stride seemed impossibly sexy.

Past City Hall, on the edge of the financial district, Padma crossed Pearl Street, heading toward the East River. The surrounding buildings shrank and aged, and cobblestones emerged out of the asphalt. A few blocks away lay all that was left of the city’s old seaport. The streets in the area had once been some of the most dangerous in the world, crowded with rambunctious sailors from around the globe and the hardened New Yorkers who preyed on them.

Padma took a left on Water Street and stopped in front of an old brick house that sat in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge overpass. Barely three stories tall, with two sweet dormers peeking out of its pitched roof, the structure was dwarfed by the larger buildings that squeezed it on either side. Padma rang the bell and waited impatiently on the sidewalk until a door opened and she vanished inside.

Haven crept closer. With each step the sun seemed to dim. She could hear the sounds of men laughing, glasses clinking, horses’ hooves clopping. Standing in front of the little brick house, she knew she had seen it before. A plaque was bolted to the building’s brick wall.

 

 

Haven peered up at the Rose House. It was so small, so unremarkable. Yet she sensed there was something hidden inside. Something watching her from the windows, waiting to pounce. The door was still open, she noticed. Its lock hadn’t caught. But she felt that if she dared set one foot inside, she might never come out. Haven stood mesmerized, like a mouse waiting for a snake to make the first move, until the sound of footsteps on cobblestones drew her attention away. A figure stopped and stood halfway down the street. She slumped to the ground before she could get a good look at its face.

 

Haven was lying on a couch, staring up at a speckled white ceiling. A head suddenly appeared in her line of vision. The woman who was bending over her wore her hair in a style popular among the men in Snope City’s barbershop, and there wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face.

“You’re in the staff lounge at the Ouroboros Society, Miss Moore. Now that you’re feeling a bit better, maybe you would like to take a seat in the waiting room? You have a little more than ten minutes before your eleven o’clock appointment.”

“My
what
?” Haven said as she pulled herself upright.

“It’s Monday, Miss Moore. You have an eleven o’clock appointment with Ms. Singh.”

“Wait a second. How did I get here?” Haven demanded.

“I’m not authorized to answer these questions,” the woman said pleasantly. “You’ll have to ask Ms. Singh.”

HAVEN’S STOMACH SOURED as she sat in the waiting room, observing the latest batch of children who had come to the Ouroboros Society for past-life analysis. Beside her, a little blonde cherub with pigtails was busy kicking her heels against the legs of a leather chair. The girl’s mother sat on her other side, filling out an endless form. Every few minutes, she leaned over to whisper questions to her hyperactive offspring. Haven wondered if the girl might one day find herself at the top of the Society’s ladder. Or maybe she would end up a drone. It was impossible to tell. Haven wished she could warn her, but she couldn’t imagine the child’s mother would listen.

Young OS workers dressed in identical white-and-black outfits picked out individual kids from the crowd. With the same blank smiles on their faces, the employees led the little boys and girls down the hall, away from their proud parents.

“Hello.” Haven turned to see the little girl staring at her intently. “What’s your name?”

“Haven. What’s yours?”

“Flora.” She resumed kicking the chair before another thought occurred to her. “Did you used to be someone else?”

“Yes,” said Haven. “And you?”

“Yep.” The girl’s head bobbed up and down. “My name was Josephine. I lived in Africa, and I was a scientist.”

Given Flora’s childish lisp, it wasn’t the most convincing announcement.

“Really?” Haven said. “What kind of scientist were you?”

“I was an epidemiologist. I studied diseases.”

“That’s nice,” Haven told her. The child had clearly been coached. She could barely
pronounce
“epidemiologist.”

“Excuse me, miss,” the girl’s mother interrupted. “I just need to ask my daughter one quick question. Flora, what was it that you called Ebola the other day? It sounded a little like hemorrhoids.”

The little girl glanced over at Haven and rolled her eyes. “Hemorrhagic fever, Mommy. That’s what I died of,” she told Haven. “And I was
this close
to finding a cure.”

“Miss Moore?” The receptionist was hovering over them. His uniform—comprised of a white, shortsleeved shirt, crisp black trousers, and thick-framed black glasses—gave him the appearance of a cartoon scientist. “Ms. Singh can see you now.”

With a clipboard clutched protectively to his chest, the receptionist guided Haven down a long beige hall. Along the way, they passed a half-dozen rooms with observation windows set into the doors. Inside each room, an adult dressed in the Society’s colorless uniform appeared to be examining a child. Just before she was deposited in an enormous office, Haven saw a young redheaded boy burst into tears.

“Have a seat,” Haven was instructed. “Ms. Singh will be back in a moment.”

The room, like the Society’s lobby, looked as though it had been decorated by robots. The floor was the glossy white of an ice-skating rink and the sofa upholstered in snowy suede that had never been sullied by human skin. There were no knickknacks, no paintings, no artifacts from the past. Only vases filled with white flowers. The place was as promising and as terrifying as a blank canvas.

Haven recalled the vision that had brought her there—Rebecca entering the same old building that Padma had visited. Why hadn’t she realized that they were one and the same? Now, after ninety years, Haven was about to meet her rival face-to-face. She was almost looking forward to it.

 

“I’D SAY IT WAS quite a coincidence—finding you on the street like that—if I believed in coincidences.” Padma had entered the room. Up close, there seemed to be too much of her. Too much hair, too much hip, too much cleavage straining against the neckline of her dress. She reminded Haven of an overripe fruit, plump and delicious but just short of rotten. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?” the president of the OS inquired, gesturing to a silver coffee service on a console table near the door.

“No,” Haven said through clenched teeth. If she were any more wired, she might act on her urge to leap up and strangle the woman. Never before had she felt such an intense hatred for another human being.

Padma poured herself a cup of thick dark liquid and carried it with no noticeable caution across the white expanse. She placed it on a fragile-looking table and settled into a plush chair across from her guest. Haven stared at the cup, its contents capable of staining everything around it. All it would take would be one tiny tremor.

“You’re Constance Whitman.” Padma kept her violet eyes trained on Haven as she sipped her coffee. She didn’t disguise her dislike for the girl. “I found you in the street and had my people bring you back here. They told me you spoke while you were unconscious. You should really try to work on that. Goodness knows what you might give away.”

“And you’re Rebecca Underwood.”

Padma smirked. The statement hadn’t surprised her. It was almost as if she’d been expecting it. “What on earth were you doing at the seaport?”

“I saw you downtown,” Haven said. “I followed you to the river.” She began to sift through the long list of questions she wanted to ask. Why had Padma and Rebecca been down at the docks? Had Rebecca and Ethan been lovers? Why did so many OS members disappear? But Padma spoke first.

“Are you back to avenge Constance’s death?” She seemed to enjoy the shock that registered on Haven’s face. “I always knew she’d fight back. I just didn’t expect her to return quite so soon.”

“You know the truth about what happened to Constance?” Haven asked.

Padma regarded her coolly. “You don’t?”

“That’s why I came to New York. To find out.”

Padma hesitated. “Are you sure you want to know? Sometimes it’s best not to delve too deeply into the past. We’ve all had lives that would best be forgotten.”

“I’m sure,” Haven confirmed. “And don’t bother pretending that you give a damn about my feelings.”

“Fine. Constance was murdered,” Padma stated bluntly. “By Ethan Evans.”

Haven had tried to prepare herself, but the answer still stung. “But
why
?”

“Because she got in the way.”

“Got in the way of what? Your affair?”

Everything in the room was still. Haven could hear someone admonishing a crying child outside in the hallway. A smirk began growing on Padma’s face.

“What do you know about reincarnation?” she asked, ignoring Haven’s question. “Why do you think we keep coming back?”

“Dr. Strickland believed that we’ve come back to help mankind,” Haven said.