by Nancy Madore
Will drew back reluctantly, his eyes never leaving her face. “Either that or we’re falling,” he whispered.
Chapter 49
Nadia paced the floor of her apartment anxiously. She felt like she should be doing something but was strangely incapable of action. She supposed she was probably suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress, and wondered if she should have taken them up on their offer to have a trauma specialist stay with her until all of it was over.
If only she could think of something constructive to do. Here she was, the CEO of a relief organization that specialized in first response (not to mention that she knew ahead of time what was about to happen) and she was completely useless. She couldn’t seem to focus. She looked at the clock again: 2:37 p.m. Their cell’s flight to LA was scheduled for takeoff at three-fifteen. Assuming they were correct about the cell ‘escaping’ the attack, she supposed it was also safe to assume that the jihad cells would wait until then to inject themselves with whatever deadly plague Lilith had decided to unleash on mankind this time.
What was happening? Had they recovered anymore of the syringes?
Nadia sighed in frustration. What she needed was to get back to her office, but she knew the operative they had sitting outside her apartment would never allow that. She was still a prisoner, and couldn’t help wondering when it would all end.
It was strange being alone in her apartment again after spending (was it only three days?) in the constant company of her kidnappers. She wondered what they were doing at that moment.
She decided to take a hot bath, but wandering distractedly into her bedroom, she was suddenly drawn to her closet instead. There, behind the clothing and shoes, in a dark corner, way in the back, was a box that had been placed there without ever having been opened. She fished around until she found it and then opened it now, right there on the floor beside her bed. It was the box containing her mother’s ‘personal effects’—a cold description, Nadia thought, for the bits and pieces leftover from a life.
The first thing that caught her eye was the picture of her grandmother—the very one that she’d spent so many hours examining as a girl. It was worn and frayed, and she picked it up carefully to examine it again, going over every detail just like when she was young. She could almost hear her mother’s soft voice, like a distant echo, describing Lilith as she rode into Kiriath Arba; victorious and beautiful and proud.
Nadia set down the picture and picked up Gisele’s old scrap book. She opened it with mixed feelings. She loved her mother and was proud of her accomplishments—but—Nadia couldn’t help wishing that she had been given a bigger part in Gisele’s life. She didn’t expect the leading role, just something better than a stage hand. This wish, which always left Nadia feeling a little guilty, seemed justified as Nadia flipped through the most significant moments of her mother’s life.
Gisele appeared in every picture, of course. There were shots of her with famous people at parties and with politicians at fund-raising events. Some of the pictures were professional photographs of her modeling or even, on a few occasions, being cast in small parts off Broadway. She rarely faced the camera without her signature smile. To Nadia, Gisele seemed exotic, glamorous and mysterious, and she couldn’t help comparing her to Lilith. Were the two women somehow connected? It seemed more probable that Gisele had simply been influenced by the stories of Lilith that her mother told her.
There was a picture of Gisele and Edward when she was still very young. Gisele was gazing into Edward’s eyes, unaware of the camera for once. There was something in her expression that Nadia had never seen before. Adoration? Desire? She looked innocent and in love. Had Gisele and Edward grown apart, or had something come between them? It was hard to tell with Gisele. She was flirtatious with everyone. She loved attention. But was she unfaithful? There’d been rumors, but…
Nadia couldn’t help noticing that there was only one picture of herself in her mother’s scrapbook. She and Gisele were standing in the middle of Rockefeller Center. Nadia appeared to be about fifteen years old. She couldn’t remember the event; probably she had gone into the city to see one of Gisele’s shows. She seemed thrilled to be there. She had hold of her mother’s arm and was smiling from ear to ear.
Nadia set the scrapbook aside and picked up a thick pile of letters. She opened one and began to read. She recognized her mother’s handwriting at once. It was fluid and larger than life and a little reckless, just like her. “Darling,” it read. “Forgive me! You know I will make it up to you! Enta malaki! xo.”
Nadia was once again struck by how much Gisele and Lilith were alike. Their confidence—their audacity—it never occurred to either of them that they might not get what they wanted.
Enta malaki. 'You are my angel'; a peculiar choice of words.
But Nadia stopped herself there. There was nothing peculiar about it. It was a term of endearment used by thousands—maybe even millions—of people. Gisele was obsessed with angels after the stories Helene told her. It would have been more peculiar for her not to use the term.
As Nadia browsed through her mother’s letters, it occurred to her that Lilith might still be trapped inside the ring. Why else would they have left Helene alive? This was no mere robbery of an archaeological discovery—significant thought it was. Someone was looking for Lilith. Or maybe they were looking for the tablet of the Qliphoth. Maybe Lilith’s Book of the Dead was nothing more than bait to draw out the tablet.
The Bedouin who gave them Lilith’s book could have had other Books of the Dead in his possession. How did they know, for that matter, that the book even came from the cave in Qumran? There were no other books like it found in that cave. The Bedouin—or someone he was working for—might have had the book—or books—all along.
Nadia sighed. There were so many possibilities. She picked up another picture of her mother. Supposing, for a moment, that Gisele was possessed by Lilith. Where did Lilith go when Gisele died? Gordon said they ordinarily moved on to their offspring but, then again, neither Lilith nor Gisele were what anyone would call ordinary. Maybe Gisele—or Lilith—loved Nadia too much to rob her of her own life. But Nadia couldn’t help rejecting this idea the moment it surfaced. Lilith aside, the woman Nadia knew as her mother would probably have eaten her young if it meant she could stay young and beautiful forever.
Nadia was filled with remorse the instant the thought was out. She shamefacedly opened another letter—this one was from her father to Gisele—and her hand instinctively rose to her heart as she read the first few lines. It was a love letter! She couldn’t help admiring how eloquently her father wrote, though the letter was much more passionate than Nadia expected. She suddenly felt a little like a Peeping Tom, snooping where she had no right to be. She put down the letter and turned her attention to an envelope stuffed to overflowing with cheap stationery. At first glance Nadia thought it might be something she wrote—the stationery was like that of a young girl—but she saw at once that the paper was much more aged than a letter from her would have been, and then, upon opening the letter she saw that the handwriting was completely unfamiliar. Curious, she began to read the letter, but she didn’t make it through the first line before she stopped. She could feel the blood draining from her face. She tried to resume reading but light-bulbs were flashing like fireworks in her head. She skipped to the last page and managed, somehow, to read the signature line before her hand was trembling so badly that she had to let the letter drop.
You never saw it.
Nadia went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Reaching for a towel, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. It looked like someone else entirely staring back at her. Her eyes were so dilated that they appeared to be entirely black. They made a frightening contrast to her skin, which was suddenly white as a sheet.
She walked numbly through the living room and out the front door of her apartment.
It won’t make any difference now anyway. It’s too late.
Sh
e stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to the lobby.
Don’t do it.
Hardly knowing what she intended to do, she found herself standing next to the operative’s car beside the driver’s side window. The man sitting inside the car looked up her at in surprise. Slowly the window came down.
“Is anything the matter, Ms. Adeire?”
She stared at him for a minute, reminding herself that she hadn’t thought this through.
“I need you to contact Mr. Gordon,” she said, only half aware that what she was about to say didn’t make any sense. “Tell him that Nadia needs a favor from Gene.”
Chapter 50
Nadia came in through the side door of her father’s beach house like she had hundreds of times before, but this was different. This time she felt like an intruder.
“Nadia!” he announced happily when he saw her. She watched him approach with a sudden wave of remorse. Everything about him seemed to radiate decency and integrity. His expression was trusting and sincere. No corruption appeared to have touched him, for though he was over sixty he was still a handsome man. His thick brown hair, which was streaked with gray, still fell in youthful waves over his forehead. Nadia supposed he hadn’t changed much from the day Helene found him in her college library. Had that moment seemed as peculiar to her as this one did to Nadia now?
Edward kissed his daughter loudly on the cheek and then crushed her in one of his bear hugs. “You’re early!” he observed, clearly pleased.
“Hi…Daddy,” she said. She felt strangely detached, like in a dream. “…Or would you rather I call you Asmodeous?” She couldn’t believe how casually the words tumbled out. She had the urge to cry but couldn’t seem to muster the energy.
Her father stiffened and slowly pulled away. His face was pale, his smile rigid. He was clearly taken aback, yet he remained calm and self-assured. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Nadia handed him the letter. He accepted, but didn’t open it. He just stared at it, nodding slightly, his lips tight. “Where did you find it?” he asked.
“Mother had it,” she told him.
“Hmph!” he said, genuinely surprised. “I’ll be damned!” He looked at Nadia with interest and even a little admiration. “But how did you get from this,” raising the letter—“…to Asmodeous?”
She was amazed by his composure. It seemed to be rubbing off. The sense of unreality increased while they spoke to each other as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “I put two and two together,” she told him. “It never would have occurred to me if I hadn’t found that letter—Helene’s last letter to Edward,” she said—“It puts you at the scene when her father was killed. In order to be in Qumran then, and to be Edward now…you’d have to be one of them. The djinn.” She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. “From there, I just had to figure out who would want to avenge Lilith. It had to be someone who knew about her past. Someone who cared about her, maybe even loved her. Someone who survived the flood with the other Anakians of Kiriath Arba. Someone with access to BEACON. And someone who cared enough about me to get me out of harm’s way by insisting I come to Long Island during the attack. There are only two ‘someone’s who come to mind. You and Asmodeous.” She paused, thoughtful, then pointed to the letter. “Why’d you save it?”
He made a sound that was half cry, half laugh, as if to say, ‘why indeed!’ His eyes, when they met hers, were filled with regret. “Lilith was always my weakness. I almost lost my mind looking for her during—and even after—the flood. I searched for her for centuries. Helene’s letter…and Helene; they were all I had left. And, of course, Edward kept the door open, just in case.”
Nadia couldn’t help thinking of Gisele. “Did you even love my mother?”
“Yes, I loved her! She reminded me of Lilith, you see. But she was her own woman too, and in many ways very different from Lilith. I can’t believe she knew about that letter! Lilith would never have kept that to herself. That was one thing about your mother; she was always full of surprises.” He sighed heavily. “I loved her, but just like Lilith, she too is lost and I can’t get either of them back.”
Nadia was suddenly filled with regrets of her own. What was she doing?
“I can understand everything, Da…Asmodeous,” she said—“Except this attack. Why?”
“Because quite frankly, the West has to be stopped,” he said. When he saw her expression he waived his hand dismissively, almost as if annoyed. “I’m not talking about religion! You know that. This is me you’re talking to, Nadia, and like it or not, I am your father.”
A lump was forming in Nadia’s throat that made it impossible for her to speak.
“It’s not the morality of the West,” he continued—“that’s just propaganda for the extremists, to get them to do what has to be done. It’s the earth that’s the issue. The Western way of life is threatening to destroy it. This isn’t a concern for most people. They know instinctively that they’re leaving here when they die. That’s fine for them. But we are here for eternity, Nadia. We don’t want to kill anyone, but this is our home. Can’t you see why we might want to protect it from people who would destroy it simply so they can get a little richer now?”
Nadia could see, actually, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say so. “But why this? Why now?”
“Those meetings are pushing the Western objectives onto the rest of the world. Every year more countries climb on board. I’m all for progress as you know, but they aren’t doing it to benefit these countries. They’re doing it to get around environmental restrictions. These corporations move their manufacturing plants into third world countries—not just for the cheap labor, although that’s another incentive—but even more importantly, to evade being environmentally responsible. It’s expensive to clean up the waste that manufacturing leaves behind. The rate at which the West is manufacturing and consuming cannot be supported by the earth. And there’s more. Things you don’t know. Things you can’t imagine. We’ve reached the tipping point. It has to stop now!”
Nadia had heard much of this from her father and other environmentalists already, and she agreed with them—to a point. “But…two wrongs don’t make a right! Anyone can twist an argument to suit their own personal wishes.”
“By going to war with the West, yes, we are killing people, but we are killing the bad guys.” He put up his hands to stop her objection. “Yes, I’m talking about your friends over there in Washington, and yes, even those so-called ‘innocent’ people who just happen to be there when the attack takes place. Hear me out! The lowliest among them—the poorest, most downtrodden person—even he is living at too high a standard to pretend to be oblivious to what’s happening to the earth. Even he is responsible because he’s supporting the destruction of the earth by going along with it. Everything from the clothes on his back to the shoes on his feet could be made without destroying the earth—if only he was willing to pay a few dollars more, or make due with less. These manufacturers moving into China, India, Mexico…they bring pollution, disease and death with them. Who are you to decide that it’s okay to harm people in India, but not okay to harm someone in DC?”
“I never said it was okay to harm anyone…”
“Yes! You did! Every time you buy products made in those countries that’s exactly what you’re saying!” He laughed. “And frankly, I don’t care if humans kill each other—if the Western world thinks it’s acceptable to injure others so that they can have a better life who am I to interfere? But they’re destroying my home. And I’m sorry, but I can’t let that happen.”
“But…wouldn’t you get further by just coming out with the environmental argument? Why create religious extremism to execute your attack?”
He laughed. “We don’t create religious extremism, Nadia. Extremism has been around since day one. The sons of men are born with it. It stems from their need to feel superior to everyone else around them. Extreme beliefs, extreme greed…they’re both the same. ‘I’m bet
ter than you and therefore my life is worth more than yours.’ Look at corporate greed. Corporations kill as many or more people than religious extremism every year. Take your average oil spill—something that happens all the time—people die, the earth is damaged, and why? Often it’s because the protective measures to prevent it would cost the billionaires who run the companies a fraction of their profits. Getting richer is more important than the lives of the people they kill. Isn’t this every bit as extreme as the guy who thinks his religious views are more important than the lives of the people he kills?”
Since Nadia couldn’t come up with a response to this he continued.
“We can’t wage a direct war, Nadia. We’ve tried to influence people through environmental awareness but they don’t care. They’re too short-sighted to concern themselves with anything further into the future than their grandchildren—if that. And there’s another reason too.” He paused here, and Nadia could see that what he was about to tell her was painful for him to admit. “We know we aren’t the ones the earth was made for. We know we have to tread lightly. To declare open war, to blatantly try to influence mankind…we would be inviting the angels to come back and wage another war on us. By using the extremists—by re-directing their desire to kill where it will do the greater good—we’re not necessarily killing more people, we’re simply killing the right people—or I should say, the people whose deaths will bring about the right kind of change.”
Nadia was becoming frustrated. “Can’t you see how wrong this is? You can rationalize it any way you like, but…”
“All I care about is preserving the earth,” he said. “All I want is a place to live.”
And bodies to do it in, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Her father must have detected something in her expression, though, because his demeanor suddenly changed.