by Wilson, Eric
“What is it, darling?”
“I . . .” Beneath her mother’s scrutiny, she vacillated. “I’m not even sure what I want to ask. Did you get a visit a few weeks back from Cal? You know, Cal from Romania—or wherever he’s really from. He told me he stopped by the house, but you weren’t too thrilled to see him.”
“He stopped by, yes.” Nikki crossed an arm over her stomach. Her hair was coiffed and colored. She was in a business skirt and pumps, with a pale pink top that matched her lips. “I didn’t think it was wise of him to be drawing attention our way.”
“Attention from who?”
“Regina, please. Let’s not revisit the past.”
“If it’s the past, then what’s the worry?”
“There’s no reason to go digging up trouble. That’s simply not for you and me now, is it? You have a son to care for, and we’ll keep marching onward. We are survivors.”
“Immortal? Is that what you really mean?”
“Excuse me?” Nikki crossed the other arm.
“Well, don’t stand there trying to think of the right answer. True or false?”
“Wherever did you hear such nonsense?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Dear, I’m—”
“Yes or no, Nikki.”
“Yes, if you must have an answer. We all share a measure of immortality.”
“As in, eternal souls. Heaven and hell.”
“Of course. Now, may we return to the matter at hand?”
“My son’s heritage, his purpose,” Gina said, tilting herself away from the bed. “This is the matter at hand, don’t you get that? Just tell me, are we descendants of the original Nistarim?”
“Cal put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“Just give me an answer.”
“This is a lot for an old woman to process.”
“Old woman, huh? So you’re denying that you’re immortal?”
Nikki’s pink top expanded beneath her jacket as she sighed. “The Nistarim,” she said, “are sworn to celibacy. They were not meant to have genetic descendants. They were given an assignment, a God-given task, and after they rose from their tombs, there was to be no giving or taking in marriage. That stipulation was very clear.”
“Cal left that part out.”
“Yes, I suppose he would. Listen, dear, this is talk for another time.” Nikki reached out a hand with painted fingernails, while tragic beauty carved age lines into her face—reminders that she might be human after all. “I can only wish I was something I am not. As you know, I turned fifty this year. Though I must say, I do have my ardent male admirers.”
“I didn’t mean to yell, Mamica.”
“It’s okay.”
“Just tell me, is Jacob in some kind of danger? Are there . . . creatures out to hurt him somehow? Are they the same ones we were trying to avoid when we left Romania? Is that why you got upset with Cal for coming here?”
“Which question first?”
“Start with Jacob. Is he in danger?”
Nikki’s eyes flickered to the side, and she gave a reluctant nod.
“From the Collectors? That’s what Cal called them.”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Gina, “why didn’t you—”
The bomb blast rocked the entire ward, shattering glass and deafening ears, shaking walls and temporarily knocking out circuits. The swaying floor that Gina had been standing on moments prior became the anvil for a mind-numbing hammer blow. The explosion’s physical force lasted mere seconds, but the overload of the senses imprinted each damaging, nail-slicing, metal-bending sound into Gina’s memory, where they would screech and roar for years to come.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
Mid-October—Chattanooga
The second-cruelest part of the whole matter was that the three other infants in the nursery had been gathered up for bathings and feedings, while Jacob Lazarescu Turney remained within the bomb’s primary blast zone.
Drywall dust, and slivers of glass, and . . .
Gina had rushed to the nursery, brushing past a wounded nurse, kicking past a toppled gurney. She’d stumbled into a chamber of hell.
Buckled subwalls were surrounded by sparkling shards; blood was spattered across sections of mangled aluminum; scraps of shrapnel were embedded in wood and plastic. Panicked cries. Screams of pain. In the incubator, her baby was lifeless and punctured by nails, his teacup-sized cap still in place.
Five weeks had passed since that day. Media outlets still trolled the town for sporadic updates, hoping for new handheld video footage or anything else that might spike the ratings. Already, though, attention was shifting to the next spate of bad news.
Overwhelmed by constant calls for empathy, the public had turned pragmatic: One dead? Eleven injured? What a relief. It could’ve been so much worse.
It couldn’t be worse.
Gina Turney hadn’t slept more than two or three hours any one night since the bombing. Her imagination was her foe. It crept at the edges of darkness and painted images she wanted no part of. When she tried to make it her ally, it flitted off.
Engrossing novels? Creepy movies? Side-splitting sitcoms?
They had all lost the power to sweep her away.
Gina was now staked to good ol’ terra firma, surviving from one moment to the next. That’s what she did. At heart, she was a Lazarescu. She couldn’t bear, however, the thought of meeting with her mother, and she was unable to meet her husband’s eyes for fear of falling to pieces.
The cruelest part of the whole matter was that the earth continued spinning. Either Jacob hadn’t been what Cal and Nikki thought he was, or there had been others already in place to fill the spots of any vanquished Lamed Vov.
Either way, her son had been killed for nothing.
She blamed the Collectors, and she didn’t even know what they looked like. Were they fang-toothed beasts? Erudite Old World blood-suckers? The only picture she could pop into the frame was the face of the almond-eyed brunette who had harassed her down in the caverns.
She also blamed her mother.
And Cal, who had failed her. What were his words? I’ll be there . . . I’ll make sure your baby’s safe and sound.
Then again, she had told him to bug off.
Mostly, she blamed herself. She’d told Jed she would keep an eye on their baby, but she hadn’t. She had planted a kiss of betrayal on Jacob’s little cheek, then cowered from the vision of a miserable child and fled to the comfort of her bed. She’d stranded Jacob there in his incubator.
If only she had stayed at the nursery window . . .
If only she had heeded Cal’s words . . .
In these weeks after the bombing, Gina asked for more hours at Ruby Falls, extra shifts. Anything to stay busy. The tourists kept coming, and she kept guiding them into the womb of the earth.
Womb? Not quite.
More like the bowels of the earth. A place for her to hide, to forget, to slowly process and digest. She was a survivor. She would press on.
Hi, my name is Gina. I’ll be your guide as we descend . . .
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
First Week of November—Buckhead
It was a dark and stormy night.
Erota had always loved that well-worn phrase, and she thought of it now.
Lightning was arcing over the skyline of Atlanta, and thunder rumbled through black clouds like the sounds of Civil War cannons being rolled into position and fired at random. In the spacious Tudor-style manor, lights flickered, and Erota started setting out candles. For her husband’s sake, more than anything.
She had no trouble with the dark. After centuries in the tomb, her eyes had ballooned back into their sockets with an unearthly clarity of vision. Her ears, too, were keen to sounds, especially as she’d been fine-tuning her senses to the pleasures all around.
Ray-Ban would curse her, however, if she failed to take this precaution—as if he couldn’t
do it himself, as if it was so hard to light a wick.
The man was too busy, of course, with his Internet distractions.
Well, there was something to be said for that. Erota had infested him with the thorns of her own lust, so why not allow him a few entanglements on the side. It gave her a sense of accomplishment. Anything to boost her confidence, after her failure at Erlanger East.
She was still baffled by that. She’d ridden along with the pipe-bomber, seen for herself the tiny infant who was wailing as though the world already sagged heavy upon his shoulders. Then she’d encouraged her host to set down his satchel of goodies. She could not control his mind—the Power of Choice was inviolable—but it had been a good test of her abilities to persuade and possess.
She’d heard the click as he set the timer on the bomb.
Fifteen minutes later, from the parking lot outside, they’d watched the building shudder, saw the eruption of light and smoke, and the shower of glittering glass that hissed down upon the shrubbery.
Why, then, had the world carried on?
She had done as planned, finding a link to the Nistarim and meting out destruction. Yet the planet kept rotating. Humans still scurried here and there.
Where was the Master Collector’s promise of peace from these infernal beasts?
Though she could scarcely allow herself such impertinent thoughts, she saw no evidence of the new earth he promised—a planet seeded with the blood of dead two-leggers; a Collection of Souls producing vegetation and sustenance for eons to come.
Erota would have to keep seeking out her own meals, thank you very much.
In the den down the hall, Ray-Ban was moaning. Erota moved that direction, drawn by his restrained, guttural sounds. Almost primal in their urgency, they spurred something in her own loins.
She turned the door handle, eased into the den, and glided toward him on tiptoes. His eyes were glued to the computer screen. She wrapped her arms around him in his office chair, becoming one with his desire and feeding off of it. As her lips grazed his ear, she found her own arousal growing, and then she was teasing his thorns from within.
The thick, crusted cord of netherworld brambles inched about his waist, down both legs. Triangular talons clawed over skin and cloth, restricting circulation while causing his muscles to tense. His right hand clutched the mouse. His other was entwined in that taproot of ancient venom.
Erota flashed back to her days as a temple prostitute. Men had come to exorcise their demons of the flesh, and she had allowed them that banal deception. She beckoned them one by one, enduring the midday heat and the presence of fleet-footed lizards on the stone walls.
Ah, but this was so much easier, was it not?
The cushioned chair. And his monitor, this rectangular device of lurid hues and sounds.
“What we do in our own home is our business,” she purred into his ear. “As long as it’s not hurting anyone.”
He snapped his head back. “Erota.”
“It’s okay, Ray-Ban.”
It wasn’t, of course. Yet he seemed oblivious to the pernicious vine that now encircled his chest. He seemed unaware—or maybe just didn’t care in this moment of mounting lust—that the dry, withered vine was rooted in a part of himself that he seemed to enshrine.
Erota was no longer able to resist the elevated heat from his body, the pounding pu-tatta-putatt . . . pu-tatta-puttat of his bloodstream. She feathered the pale-green daggers of her fingernails up through his hair and lowered tapered teeth toward the back of his neck where his tie still hung, rather loosely now.
She sank her fangs into his flesh. She drank.
The doorbell crescendoed, breaking through her singularity of purpose.
Ray-Ban started in his chair, pushing back and sending Erota reeling. He punched off the power on the monitor. The vine slithered back into its place of hiding. Erota windmilled her arms for balance, then slunk beside the armoire as her husband gathered himself and went to answer the still-clanging chimes.
She licked the blood from her lips and followed after him.
Megiste’s arrival was unannounced.
Erota welcomed the woman into the house, took her fur coat and folded it over the banister—Ha, if you would be so kind, Ray-Ban, to put that away? There was no doubt in Erota’s mind that her own days of philandering were about to end. Had Ariston sent the priestess after her? Was there a traitor here in the United States? A spy from the Consortium who had reported her renegade ways?
“Come in, come in,” Erota said.
“Thank you.”
Megiste eased into the vaulted entryway, her willowy form catching the eye of Mr. Raymond Pace. He was still red faced, his pupils still dilated.
“My friend Megiste, from Kiev,” Erota told him.
“Hello. Good to have you.”
“I’m sorry to drop in so unexpectedly,” Megiste said. “But I simply had to see my dear, uh, Ukrainian friend while passing through your wondrous city. She’s sent e-mails about this new husband and life of hers. To be honest, I’m rather jealous.”
Erota saw her husband eating up every word. It was disgusting, in the extreme. She hooked her arm into Megiste’s and told Ray-Ban that they would be on the screened back porch, watching the storm. His lascivious glances followed them with all the subtlety of a goggle-eyed teenage boy.
The female revenants sat with hips touching on the swing made for two. Wind curled through the yard, shaking leaves from the trees and spit-ting them against the fence, while the storm’s electricity flashed above the quivering branches.
“What’re you doing here, Megiste?”
“More appropriately, Erota, what are you doing, here in this new land of yours? Ariston suspects you’ve been busier pursuing your own pleasures than staying true to the goals of our cluster.”
“I won’t deny I’ve pursued happiness. It’s the American way.”
“Happiness. A fleeting concept, don’t you think?”
“I found one of them,” Erota said. “One of the Nistarim. That’s what I’ve been up to, if you must know. I trailed the mother of this unborn male, after verifying the presence of the Letter on her head. She gave birth only last month.”
“Why didn’t you speak of this to us?” Megiste said. “I could’ve helped you.”
“I took care of it myself.” Erota pushed herself to her feet and let Megiste sway beneath the creaking chains. “I planted a bomb.”
“And yet we’re still here? I’m sorry, doll, but these excuses pale in light of the troubles to which I’ve been attending. While you’ve been playing at your charades, our cluster has fallen into disarray.”
“What’re you saying?”
“First, both of Ariston’s sons are gone, and that means he is without a successor. Sol has been banished—deservedly so, I might add. It happened on a night back in August. And Natira, well, he would be next in line, but as you know, his ossuary was empty and his whereabouts unknown.”
“If a successor becomes necessary, I’m sure my dad would fill that role.”
“Eros? No, that’s also out of the question.”
Erota turned to face the swinging chair. “What?”
“For a short time now, the House of Eros has been without a leader.”
“You mean . . .”
“Your father, yes. I’m sorry.”
Megiste recounted for Erota that terrible episode in the vineyard warehouse. She told of the human casualties, which Barabbas had been quick to bury in the foothills—deep enough to evade not only digging animals, but the suspicious local constabulary as well. She told of the spike through Eros’s temple. Of the child who had escaped.
Erota pressed her hands back against the screen room’s white aluminum framing and swayed on her feet, her head split apart by the oppressive humidity and buzzing of insects. The pain was physical. Tangible. She clung to this undeniably human experience to avoid the even more cutting sensations of sorrow and dread.
Her father? Removed from
this earth?
Yet he was only a shell, a carbon casing for a nameless Collector. There was no reason to be enslaved by any emotion. Give and take. Die and let die.
So why this knot of anger in her breast?
“I’ll find the child,” she said. “I’ll wrap him in vines and tear him apart, thorn by thorn.”
“This boy, Dov, he was only protecting his mother with the implements on hand. I don’t believe he attacked with any foreknowledge of the specific devastation he could inflict.”
“I remember him,” Erota said. “Quiet. No backbone to speak of.”
“Although he did use a mallet and spike with great effect.”
“Hmm.”
“Not that you should concern yourself with him. He’s grown very quiet now. Barabbas and I found a tent a few days ago, in the forest five kilometers north of the vineyard. We believe he was hiding out, fearful and undoubtedly heartbroken. There was evidence of a struggle, perhaps with a wolf. Those mountains are rife with carnivores, the largest collection anywhere in Europe. Barabbas also found shreds of bloody clothing, a torn shoe, even a toe—a child-sized toe, mind you. Too grimy, in my opinion, to belong to a girl.”
“It could’ve been a runaway. A gypsy child, perhaps.”
“No,” Megiste said. “We found an old photo in the tent. Mr. Amit and son Dov, side by side, holding up fish they had caught on the Sea of Galilee.”
“Kinneret? Don’t even mention that lake.”
“We’re now thinking of regrouping back there. In Israel.”
“We? Meaning who?”
“Our household. We’ll form our own cluster, free from the restrictions of Ariston and his paltry crew. Barabbas has agreed to come along and lead us.”
“He’s a mindless acolyte.”
“A puppet, yes. What more could we ask for? Dear Erota, I know all this comes as a shock, but I believe it’s for the best.”
“I guess, then, you won’t be any further away than you are already.”
“You fail to see my point.” Megiste stood and joined her at the screen, where flies and bugs were clinging to the mesh. Beyond, the storm was moving eastward, herded by high winds. “You will be going back with me tomorrow so that you can join us in our return to the Negev, in Israel.”