Vigil (34 page)

“He did,” Russo croaked.

“And that we also know his name?”

“We do,” Ezra said. “It’s Arius. And he is one of the Watchers.”

“The what?”

“The Watchers. An order of angels who existed before time as we know it even began.”

It was a lucky thing Carter was already sitting down. He looked from one to the other to see if this was in fact some kind of a joke they were playing, but he could instantly tell they were not. Russo’s expression was unwavering, and Carter suddenly realized that a new alliance had been formed. He had been outvoted. Joe had at last found someone who accepted his account, who believed that what he’d seen had been more than the hallucination of a desperately injured man, and Ezra had found a comrade-in-arms to listen to his outlandish biblical theories.

It was up to Carter to get on board, or bail. “Okay. If, as you say, he’s an angel,” Carter said, trying to sound open-minded about it, “let me ask you a couple of questions. First of all, why is Bill Mitchell dead? And second, why is Joe lying here waiting for a skin graft? Aren’t angels supposed to watch over us and protect us from harm?”

“No, not necessarily,” Ezra said. “There are all kinds of angels, and some of them were friends to mankind, and some of them weren’t.”

And how many can dance on the head of a pin?
Carter thought. Russo must have read his mind.

“Bones, please,” Russo said, earnestly. “Ezra knows . . . about these things.”

Out of deference to Joe, Carter swallowed his skepticism one more time. “So, this angel you’re talking about—this Arius?—is a bad one?”

“I’m not necessarily saying that, either. The Watchers were appointed by God to oversee the affairs of men, and to teach them things—everything from agriculture to archery.”

“They gave us bows and arrows?” Carter said.

“Along with language and literature, astronomy and art,” Ezra went on, refusing to take Carter’s bait. “And it explains how he’s been able to survive here, how he’s been able to get along in present-day New York.”

Another leap for Carter to take. “Oh, so now he’s not only alive, after a few hundred million years, but he’s a regular New Yorker? With a job and an apartment?”

Ezra glared at him. “It explains,” he said, in carefully measured tones, “how he is able to master and absorb our languages and customs and manners at an unimaginable rate. You could say that he invented these things. Without what the Watchers imparted to us, without that spark of the divine fire that they gave us, none of us—and I mean humanity—would be what we are today.”

“And so now, what?” Carter asked. “He wants his gifts back? He isn’t happy with how we’re using them? Is that why he’s here?”

Ezra looked over at Russo. “We’re not sure what his plans are. We were discussing that. I need to do some more work.”

“On what?” Carter said, though he could guess. “The scroll? You think that something written untold ages ago and bottled up in a desert cave is going to tell you that?”

“It may. And it may tell us what happened to him, and why he fell, so long ago.”

Carter ran a hand through his thick brown hair. He felt like he’d entered Bellevue and was trying to make sense of the inmates’ chatter. If you wanted to dismantle the train of illogic, to take it apart piece by piece so that even they could see and understand how irrational it was, where did you start?

“What makes you think,” Carter finally asked Ezra, “that he hasn’t hopped a flight to Paris, or a Greyhound bus to Florida? What makes you think that this Arius is still here in New York?”

“Oh, that one’s easy,” Ezra said, leaning back so far that the front legs of the chair came up off the floor. “I’ve met him.”

Down the hole, Carter thought, and all the way to Wonderland. “You’ve met,” he said, slowly, “this angel?”

“He came to a fund-raiser for the mayor at our apartment.”

Carter couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“And I have a strong suspicion that he badly injured my stepmother. That’s why I said I don’t yet know what his intentions are. I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

Carter shook his head, ruefully. “I doubt that.”

“Bones,” Russo said, his voice barely audible, “you are a scientist. Look at the evidence.”

“Joe, I would—but I just don’t see any.”

Russo raised his hands, as if to say
Look at me. Look at everything that’s happened. How else do you explain it?
“Tell me you have not had . . . your own thoughts?” Russo said, tellingly, and Carter felt as if his friend were looking right inside him—right inside his head. It’s true, there were things Carter couldn’t deny, even to himself. He thought back to the night before, when he had found the lines about Avernus in the pages of the
Aeneid.
And that morning, at the library, when his research had uncovered the rest.

Russo must have seen something in his expression. “There
is
something you want to tell us,” he said, “something that you know.”

“No, it’s nothing,” Carter said, trying to brush it aside.

“It
is
something,” Russo insisted. “I saw that look, years ago, in Sicily.”

Ezra waited. “The crazier you think it is, the more I want to hear it.”

But Carter felt that if he so much as mentioned it aloud, if he put even one toe into this muddy water, he would never come out of it safely again. Every fiber of his being resisted going into this dismal swamp.

But hadn’t he already done that, he thought? Hadn’t he taken the first step, however unheralded, the moment that the impossibly strange suspicion crossed his mind? Or certainly when he’d followed up on it that very morning in the stacks of the university research library?

“It’s just a strange coincidence,” Carter said.

“Maybe it’s something more than that,” Ezra said. “We won’t know until you tell us.”

Russo’s labored breathing was now the most noticeable sound in the room.

“It has to do with the place the fossil was found,” Carter confessed.

“Lago d’Avernus,” Russo volunteered, “near Napoli.”

“What about it?” Ezra said, impatiently.

“Well, according to the Roman poet Virgil, that’s a very interesting spot. In the
Aeneid,
he wrote that a passageway existed there . . . a passageway to the underworld.”

Ezra and Russo reacted with a stunned silence.

“And for thousands of years,” Carter reluctantly continued, “in local legends and lore, there have been stories about how the portal was made.”

“How?” Russo croaked.

Ezra simply waited.

“When St. Michael vanquished the rebel angels, he threw them from Heaven,” Carter said, hardly believing he had gone this far, “and they plummeted through the sky.”

“According to the scriptures, for six days and nights,” Ezra added, softly.

“Yes. They hit the ground like meteors and they were buried in the bowels of the earth. Right where we found that fossil.”

Russo closed his eyes, mumbling a prayer under his breath. After a few seconds, Ezra stirred in his chair. “It doesn’t sound crazy to me at all.” But he fixed Carter with an appraising gaze. “How does it sound to the man of science?”

And Carter was no longer sure; he was no longer sure of anything. Fumbling in his briefcase, he took out the crucifix, got off the radiator case, and handed it to Russo.

Ezra, he noted, smiled, as if he’d gotten his answer.

If Beth hadn’t promised Abbie she’d help her pick out
these last few things for the country house, she might have gone straight home, locked the door, and taken a long, hot bath. But she hated to disappoint a friend, and since they were scheduled to go up there on the coming weekend, tonight would be their last chance to go shopping.

So as soon as Raleigh was out the door of the gallery, Beth added one more name to the list of invitations that had to be sent to the printers the next day and logged off her computer. The night watchman, Ramon, was already setting up downstairs when she left.

“Good night, Mrs. Cox,” he said, as he poured some coffee from a thermos into his plastic Yankees mug. “Don’t forget your umbrella.”

“It’s raining?” Beth said. She’d been cooped up in back all day and had no idea what was happening in the outside world.

“Not yet, but they said it was going to.”

She was sure she’d left her umbrella at home. “I guess I’ll have to take my chances.”

Outside, it was cold and windy, and Ramon was probably right—the evening air smelled damp. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her ears and set off for Blooming-dale’s, where she was supposed to rendezvous with Abbie at six sharp. The sidewalks were crowded, as always, and more than once she had the odd sensation that someone was following her, that she was just about to feel a tap on the shoulder. But each time she turned, there was just a sea of strange faces, some of whom were quite unhappy with her impeding their progress.

“Happy holidays,” one man growled, “now move it along.”

Overhead, gold tinsel stars and red aluminum candy canes were swinging from cables strung between the street-lights, and the store windows were flocked with fake snow. Normally she enjoyed all these signs of the season, but this year, she just hadn’t been able to get into the spirit. Tonight, in fact, she felt so weary and strung out that it was all she could do to put one foot ahead of the other. It didn’t help that she’d had a follow-up call from Dr. Weston’s office to tell her that she should increase her iron intake, and to remind her that her blood type—AB negative—was very rare.

“When and if you do decide to pursue some alternative means of pregnancy,” the doctor had said, as tactfully as could be managed, “we’ll want to have you bank a pint or two of your own blood in advance, just in case it becomes needed at delivery.”

Right now she didn’t feel like she’d ever be able to spare even a drop.

At Bloomingdale’s, predictably, the aisles were nearly impenetrable. She took the elevator to the home furnishings department and found Abbie already in the middle of an intense deliberation with a stylish young salesgirl.

“You really think that cushions in this color—and I’d call this fabric yellow, more than peach—won’t clash with the curtains we’ve already ordered?”

“No,” the girl said, shaking her head firmly. “These are all in the same design family; they’re meant to complement each other.”

Abbie looked up and saw Beth. “You think this material complements the dining room curtains we ordered?”

Beth had to think about it. “Yes, maybe,” Beth said.

“Yes, or maybe?” Abbie asked.

The salesgirl looked chagrined; now she’d have to win two votes on each purchase.

“No,” Beth finally concluded.

Abbie laughed, and the salesgirl smiled through clenched teeth before pointedly excusing herself to go and help another customer.

“Thanks for that opinion,” Abbie said, under her breath. “I wanted to get rid of her.”

Beth smiled.

“And thanks for coming out on such a lousy night.”

“No problem.”

“You sure about that?” Abbie asked solicitously, laying a hand on Beth’s sleeve. “Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look so hot.”

“That’s okay—I don’t feel so hot either.”

“You think you’re coming down with something? Did you get your flu shot?”

“Got the shot, and no, I don’t think I’m actually getting sick.”

They drifted off down another aisle, past counters piled high with expensive linens.

“I just haven’t felt like myself for the past few nights. I can’t get to sleep, and when I do, my dreams are so bad that it’s hardly worth it.”

“Listen, Beth—if you don’t feel like going out to the country this weekend, don’t give it another thought. We can do this some other time.”

“No, no,” Beth protested, “I’m looking forward to it. I think the change of scenery might do me good.”

“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get Ben to think that way.”

“He’ll come around,” Beth assured her, even though, in her heart of hearts, she thought Ben had a point. While the pictures of the house had looked so cute, there was something vaguely forlorn about the actual place, something that all the bright curtains and colorful wallpapers in the world wouldn’t fix. It had an isolated, even forbidding air about it.

Without intending to, they found themselves at the end of an aisle in an area devoted to nursery furnishings. Everywhere Beth looked were sheets and pillowcases adorned with merry-go-rounds, gamboling seahorses, and a wide variety of Disney characters.

“Ever notice how, when you’re trying to conceive,
without
any luck, you trip over kids and kids’ stuff everywhere you go?” Abbie remarked.

Beth had noticed. And ever since the last appointment with Dr. Weston, at which they’d received the bad news about Carter’s potency, it had only seemed to get worse. Everywhere she went she was reminded of nothing but babies, children, and expectant mothers.

“Ben and I are thinking of doing the in vitro thing next year. Are you and Carter making any progress, so to speak?”

“Nope,” Beth said, trying to act unconcerned about the whole thing. “Not so far.” Although Abbie was her closest and oldest friend, she still hadn’t shared the latest and in some ways final setback. Even with Carter, it was as if the whole subject had become mysteriously and silently tabled. “Would you mind if I just wandered over to the model rooms for a while?” Beth said. “I always want to know just how far behind the fashions I am.”

“No, go on. Maybe I’ll go and find that bitchy sales-clerk and make her check up on the delivery date for my curtains.”

 
Beth put the children’s wing behind her as fast as she
could and went to the opposite end of the selling floor, where the Bloomingdale’s design staff regularly set up a series of model rooms, each one done in a different fantasy style. She was always amused at the juxtaposition of English drawing room and hip-hop crib, island hideaway and Colorado cabin, and usually a lot of other people were, too. But tonight she found the area almost deserted; she was able to stroll past the sleek, high-tech den and the Hamptons beach house, before stopping, all alone, in front of the last model room in the row.