“I can’t wait any longer,” Jack said as he shoved past the man toward the gaping hole, the roots of the upturned trees hanging low across it like a rope curtain.
“Hey!” the man yelled. “You die, it’s on you. At least take this.”
Jack Gray turned around, throwing his hands up just quickly enough to catch the hard hat the man had tossed to him. As Jack lifted it to his head, he pushed back long locks of white hair that fell across his eyes. He was getting used to it now, and Mrs. Ayres had been right—it made quite a statement when he wore dark clothes. Black was Jack’s new favorite color.
Of course, none of that did him any good out here in the muck in the middle of nowhere, but the Reverend had given him no choice. Excavation crews had been at work on the ruins for a couple of months, but the site had only recently been identified as the Podlažice monastery, long believed to be the birthplace of the Devil’s Bible. The Reverend had confirmed the news the same day Jack found the amulet and had immediately started pulling strings to acquire private access to the site before a cadre of scholars and preservationists took over. The Reverend wanted Jack on hand to make sure the excavation crew was careful not to destroy anything that might be useful to the Novus Rishi. He wanted Jack to be the first to search the site. But in a few days, the scholars would descend.
Jack knelt, parted the curtain of roots, and crawled into the dark, pausing to turn on the light on his hard hat. Several hydraulic jacks lined the crawl space, their bottoms sinking into the soil as their tops pressed against the upper shelf of debris. The sour smell of the mud made it hard to breathe, and the sharp edges of exposed stone cut into Jack’s knees as he snaked his way lower into the monastery ruins. There were a few short tunnels peeling off from the main pathway that had been cleared, and Jack shined his light back into each of them, searching for signs of anything interesting. It all looked like rubble to him.
“If there’s anything here,” he muttered to himself, “no one’s going to find it for years.” But he kept crawling forward anyway. He wanted to sound convincing when he told the Reverend he’d searched as well as he could.
Nearly two hours later, he pulled himself past another hydraulic jack and twisted to look down another dead end, swearing that this would be his last—he’d look here, then crawl out, call the Reverend, and head back to the hotel at Prague.
But as he inched his way farther into the deep nook, something almost familiar tickled his senses, like a smell triggering a memory. Jack took a deep sniff of air, but it was all mud and dirt and made him sneeze. He realized it wasn’t really a smell that had caught his attention. It was a feeling—like the wind before a storm, charged with some mysterious energy.
Where had he felt that before?
And then his mouth dropped open and his eyes grew wide. He crawled farther into the dark crevice, smiling, his heart thrumming with excitement and a little fear. When he could go no deeper, he tugged at the bulky steel-lined work gloves he wore. He had meant to take no more risks like he had with the amulet, but the power he sensed here wasn’t unknown. He’d met it once before.
Jack Gray’s work on the Devil’s Bible had led him to a clinically clean room in the National Library of Sweden. The librarian had splayed open the book like it was a dead thing on an examination table. But Jack had felt how alive the book was, coursing with power. He’d been wearing gloves then, too—thin cotton museum gloves meant to protect the historic artifact, meant to shield the Devil’s Bible from body oils and grime. But the Devil’s Bible had called to Jack; it wanted to be touched by him, skin to parchment, just as whatever lurked in this dark crevice now called to him.
A lost ghost of Podlažice was aching to be found.
CHAPTER SIX
Angelo climbed out of the jeep, laughing.
Mouse stood watching, half her face lit by the firelight. The other half stayed cool in the shadows. She waited as they unloaded supplies, and then Angelo made his way to her. She saw the levity slip from his face as he neared, but he kissed her on top of the head anyway.
“I missed you,” he said.
Mouse felt the phone in his pocket when he hugged her.
She pulled away and headed back to their shed.
“You’re still mad at me?” Angelo asked as he matched his step to hers.
“No.” And she wasn’t, but she realized that she’d held out some hope that she had been wrong—that Angelo had just gone to Parngurr with the guys to get away for a bit. The hard truth that he had indeed called the Bishop burrowed into Mouse’s chest like some fat tick sucking away at her spirit. But she couldn’t give in to it. If the Novus Rishi were on the way, she and Angelo needed to be ready to go at first light.
Mouse already had their backpacks on the bed waiting for them. Angelo followed her into the small room, but she said nothing. Instead, she moved quickly from the shelf full of trinkets the Martu children had given them to a pile of books by the bed to the stack of clothes in the corner, grabbing items here and there. After a year of calling the outstation home, they’d accumulated too much, and now she had to choose what to take and what to leave behind. Mouse hated choosing.
“What’s going on?” Angelo asked as he saw the backpacks.
“You need to get your stuff packed. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Angelo, don’t.”
“Don’t what? What’s happened? I have a right to know why we’re—”
“You have a right?” Mouse scoffed and then turned to look at him. “Why’d you go to Parngurr?”
“I wanted to—”
“Call your Father?”
He sighed, dropped into the chair behind him, and closed his eyes. “I didn’t do it, Mouse.”
“Sure.”
He pulled the phone from his pocket. “Check for yourself. No calls. No texts.”
Mouse turned back to packing. “It doesn’t matter. We need to go.”
“Why?”
“The dreams, mine and yours, the bone—” She shoved a shirt into the backpack, shaking her head, not wanting to have this conversation. “It’s just time to go.”
“I already know that. I mean why doesn’t it matter that I didn’t call?”
“You went to call.”
“Don’t you want to know why I didn’t?”
She shrugged.
“I realized it wasn’t my decision to make. Not alone.” He walked over to her, tried to put his hand on her back, but she pulled away to the other side of the bed.
“You’re damn right it’s not your decision to make.”
“It’s not yours either.”
“He’s my brother.”
“You don’t know what he is.”
Mouse spun around, her eyes sparking and her mouth taut, ready to attack.
“No—wait. Listen.” Angelo put his hands up and sat on the bed so he could look her in the face. “I am sorry I went to Parngurr. It was wrong. I was wrong.” His eyes were fierce with regret, pleading for her to understand. “I don’t want to fight. I want to talk—we need to talk, Mouse.”
“No, we need to go, Angelo.”
“Fine, let’s deal with that first. Where? Where do you want to run this time?” Bitterness sharpened his tone.
“You just said you knew we needed to go. And you’re the one who’s been pushing for us to leave. Where were you planning to run?”
“I know we need to go—soon—but I haven’t been pushing for us to leave, Mouse. I’ve been pushing for us to get ready. If we’re finally going to do that, here is as good a place as any. Better than most because we’re so isolated.”
“The Martu aren’t safe with us here. I see that now after Ngara said . . .” Mouse’s earlier anger at the old woman had dissolved into sadness and shame. “It’s like you said—I’ve been a fool, a child playing make-believe. I just thought we could be happy here.”
“What did Ngara say?”
“That something’s coming and . . . and that running
won’t change anything.”
“She’s right.”
Mouse was shaking her head. “Being on the move, hiding, that’s the only way to—”
“That might work for you, Mouse. But I think we both know it doesn’t work for me.”
She sucked in a breath, drawing courage with it. “You’re right. You should stay here and figure out your next step. I’ll go and draw the trouble with me.” Mouse heard the whisper of Father Lucas at her ear: Have you found trouble, little andílek? She could hear her own voice, bright and innocent, answer: It’s found me, Father. So it was again, she thought wearily. And so it would always be.
“That’s not what I meant, Mouse. If you go, I go.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice shook. “I know you love me—so surely that it sometimes feels like the only truth I can hold on to. But there was no way you could know what this kind of life is like. You think I do it better than you, but you’ve forgotten how you first found me. I was so tired of running and hiding, so broken and lost, that I was desperate to end it any way I could. I don’t want that for you. And there’s no shame in saying—”
“I’ve been an ass, Mouse,” he interrupted. “Too afraid of being weak or useless instead of just doing whatever you need me to do. I won’t lie—I wasn’t prepared for being on the run. I overestimated what I could do and underestimated what you’d already been through. But, Mouse”—he took her hand in his—“I don’t want any life that doesn’t have you in it. I don’t care whether we’re running or hiding or living in an icy hole in the ground in Antarctica. I want to be by your side.”
Mouse dropped the shirt she was folding, gratitude washing over her and resurrecting some hope as she bent and kissed him, hard and long. “So, sidekick,” she said with a smile as she pulled back, “what do we do next?”
“I’ve been thinking about that on the ride back from Parngurr. If we let your cryptic vision or my fuzzy dream or some mythical gift from the gods set us off like a starter pistol, we’re running blind—like Oedipus. We might think we’re getting away, but what we’re really doing is running headlong into trouble.” Angelo sat up straighter. “So, we figure out what we can—how to use your power and how to use that bone. We come up with a battle plan, then we make a strategic decision about where to go—find high ground to make our stand.”
Mouse looked toward the darkening window. “Ngara didn’t say what was coming. It could be my father, but it could be—”
Angelo sighed. “Let’s focus on what we know. The only thing that’s new is that your father has what he’s always wanted.”
“Which means he might not want me anymore.”
“Or that he’ll want you even more, now that he’s got his last piece in place. Or that his coming has nothing to do with you—he’s just ready to make his move now that he has a powerful ally.”
“That’s still guessing—you said we needed to focus on what we know. We don’t know what my father wants. But your Father’s made it clear. He wants me, and nothing has happened that would change that. Maybe Ngara’s warning was about Bishop Sebastian.”
“I’m less worried about the Bishop and the Novus Rishi than I am about your father.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t want to turn you into some kind of Armageddon weapon, do they?” Mouse pushed away from the bed and started pacing, picking up items and cramming them into the backpacks.
“I wouldn’t let the Bishop do anything to hurt you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
Angelo shook his head, dismissing her worry. “The Bishop cares about me. If I put myself between you and him—”
“I don’t want that any more than you want me to protect you.”
“I’m just saying we have some leverage there. But with your father . . .”
Mouse knew that what Angelo said was partly true. Her father didn’t care about her. Especially now that he had a son, her only value to him, if any at all, was the same as the Novus Rishi’s—as a possible weapon to use against his enemies.
“But this isn’t just about me and my father now, Angelo. It’s about my brother.” Her voice grew quiet. “He’s just a little boy.”
Angelo lowered the backpacks to the floor. “When you imagine your brother, what do you see?”
Mouse stood in front of him, her eyes closed. Her face softened and a smile grew without reservation, full of joy.
“It’s Nicholas you see, isn’t it?” Angelo asked gently.
Mouse looked at him sharply, the smile gone. “What do you mean?” But the truth was already pricking at her eyes.
“You see golden hair and big blue eyes and tiny hands reaching for you. You hear a laugh you know well and a cry for Mama.” Angelo pulled her down to the bed beside him. “But it’s not your son we’re talking about, Mouse. He’s gone. This boy belongs to your father.”
“He’s still just a boy.”
“But he isn’t. Like you aren’t just a girl.”
Mouse kept her head down, the tears now blurring her vision.
“He’ll probably have powers like you, won’t he?”
She nodded.
“But he doesn’t have a Father Lucas to teach him like you did—a loving and kind and good soul to guide him. To warn him about the dangers that come with that kind of power. To show him the beauty and love in the world. Where would you be without Father Lucas?”
Mouse ran her hand across her face, wiping at the tears.
“What will your father raise this boy to be?”
She turned to look at Angelo. “I don’t know, but would you have your Bishop train his crosshairs on a little boy?”
Angelo stared at her for a moment, silenced, then shook his head. “No.”
The buzzing hum of a didgeridoo vibrated though the night air as the Martu began to celebrate their hunt. Mouse looked down at the woven basket she held in one hand and a carved lizard in the other—both gifts from the children. How could she choose which to take and which to leave behind?
“What do we do?” Angelo asked.
“I don’t know.” Mouse lay back on the bed. “But even when I’d forgotten almost everything that happened on top of Megiddo after my father attacked me, the one thing that rang clear and true in my mind was that I had the power to choose what and who I was. And I chose, Angelo. I don’t want to be anyone’s weapon or warrior. Not even yours.” She balled her hands into fists. “And I won’t think about my brother that way either.”
Angelo eased back beside her and was quiet for a long time. “You’re right,” he finally said. “We’re talking about a boy, regardless of what your father means to do with him. You’re also right about us needing to go. My dream and yours—they sure seem like someone’s trying to get our attention. If something’s coming, I don’t want to bring it down on the Martu. They don’t deserve that.”
“Do we go now? Or stay long enough to figure out our next move?”
“What move? I thought we were just running.”
Mouse turned to him, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. “No, you were right, too. We need a plan. I’d really like to not be Oedipus.”
Angelo chuckled. “Well, I bought the phone with cash and haven’t used it, so there’s nothing there to trace. The Novus Rishi haven’t found us out here yet, so there’s no reason to assume they will now. A few more days won’t hurt, right?”
Mouse lay there, silent. She had something else she wanted to say, an idea that had been growing despite her efforts to quell it. She knew it was impossible. “Since we’re planning where to go next, I have something else I want to consider. It’s complicated, and I don’t even know where to start—”
“You want to go get your brother.”
Mouse nodded, smiling at how well he knew her. “We could be his Father Lucas.” Her voice cracked at the rush of emotion.
Angelo brought her head down to his chest. They lay listening to the didgeridoo.
“Let’s do it,” Angelo said. “Let’s go get him an
d bring him home.”
Mouse propped up on her elbows to look at him. “It’s a crazy idea.”
“Good thing we do crazy well.” He smiled and she leaned down and kissed him, easing her knee between his as he ran his hand under her shirt at the small of her back, pressing her closer.
They took their time, letting each kiss, each soft touch, each sigh of pleasure wash away the residue of the day’s anger and fear. Even the didgeridoo had gone silent when, later, Mouse found the courage to ask about the one worry their lovemaking couldn’t erase.
“Angelo,” she said, so softly it was like the beat of a moth’s wings. “What if it’s not your Father or mine that’s the dark thing coming? The thing Ngara says we can’t outrun?”
“What else would it be?”
“What if it’s me?”
Mouse felt him go still beside her. “What do you mean?”
“In my dream, I became my father. In yours, I stood side by side with him.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Angelo said.
“But if these are prophecies . . .”
“Maybe they’re warnings about what’s at stake, inspiration so we keep fighting.”
Mouse played with the thought for a few minutes—it didn’t feel true to her. She wasn’t inspired. She was afraid.
“Is God toying with us?” she asked as sleep curled around them.
“Something is.”
They woke rested and eager.
“Any dreams?” Angelo asked.
“No. You?”
“Nope.”
They settled on staying one more week so they could plan their next steps and wrap up loose ends at the outstation. Angelo had already promised to go to Newman with a couple of the men to get irrigation equipment that day and to help install it in the lot where the Martu were trying to grow a small garden. Mouse still had work to do to prepare the clinic before she left, but she was scheduled to spend the day with a ngangkari, a native healer, visiting Martu families who lived several miles out from the rest of the community.
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