Twilight Prophecy

by Maggie Shayne

Chapter 20

 

  "J. W. ! Get your ass up. King Louie's gone. "

  "What?" James came awake slowly, having been carried into sleep on a wave of utter bliss. He was lying on the soft, luxuriously plush carpet, Lucy's head resting on his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her naked shoulders. The throw they'd borrowed from the sofa was the only covering either of them wore. Somewhere along the way night had fallen.

  He flashed alert as he focused on his sister's voice, coming from beyond the closed door. "Brigit?"

  "Will you get up? We have a problem. "

  Lucy was coming awake, too, by then, and as she sat up and began pulling on her clothes, James got to his feet. He yanked on his jeans, sent a quick glance Lucy's way and then, as soon as she was decent, he opened the door.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Utanapishtim's gone," Brigit said. "See for yourself. "

  She waved a hand toward the open door of the cabin where the old one had retired. James surged past Brigit, noting the mussed bedcovers, and then a bag, dumped out in the center of the mattress. Lucy's bag.

  "Oh, no," Lucy whispered. "It wasn't even in this cabin. I'd tucked it into a closet in another room. No, no, no, he couldn't have. . . "

  "What the hell?" James sorted through the pile of her possessions, picking up the object she seemed intent on as she drew near. Her phone, still turned on. Frowning, he picked it up and looked at the screen. It was filled with text, and as he scrolled upward, he found headers and realized what he was looking at. An electronic version of that damned book.

  Lifting his gaze, he met Lucy's stricken eyes.

  "You had this? This whole time?"

  "I was going to tell you but-"

  "When? Dammit, Lucy, I told you how I felt about this. How could you keep this from me? Much less keep it around, running the risk Utanapishtim might get his hands on it and take it as gospel before we've had the chance to-"

  The roar of an explosion split the air, cutting him off midsentence. All three of them went silent, staring upward.

  James pushed the two women aside and raced up the steps to the deck above, only to discover that the boat had been docked. "Who the hell piloted us to shore?"

  "I don't know," Brigit said. "The vamps we brought with us were gone, too, when I woke up. Probably rose at sunset and were eager to get to the island. They could have done it. "

  "Either them or Utanapishtim. If he touched the damned boat, he'd instantly know how to operate it. " He was at the gangplank now, which linked the yacht to an outcropping of rock on an unfamiliar part of the shore.

  He raced down it, searching the horizon for the source of the explosion, and was just in time to see the flash of another, followed by screams and sensations of the pain and anguish of his people. His family.

  "What the hell is he doing?" James raged.

  "It's my power!" Brigit shouted, racing to join him.

  Lucy was right behind, struggling to catch up as another explosion rocked the ground they stood on, and then another and another.

  Brigit's eyes were wet, her face twisted in fear. "He has the same power as I do. I can feel it. God. . . " Her eyes fell closed, body arching forward, hugging in on itself as if involuntarily. "Stop it!"

  They were running then, all of them, even Brigit, still clutching her middle as if in pain. Across the rocks that guarded the island, racing along paths through the woods and on toward the ruins, where the refugees had been encamped. But when they got there they saw only wreckage and ruin. Burned-out campsites and vaguely familiar shapes burned into the grass-people-shapes. Utanapishtim had turned a mighty power against his own people. Smoldering ash was all that remained.

  "Some of them got away," Brigit whispered, moving up beside James, clutching at his arm.

  Lucy was on his other side, trembling, tears flowing like rivers down her face. He was constantly aware of her there, of everything she felt. And yet he was furious with her for this.

  Brigit nodded, pointing toward the far side of the island, the thickly wooded end. "They went that way. "

  "He didn't, though. " James tried to pick up a sign of the man, to sense him. "God, why did he do this?"

  "We have to go after the survivors," Lucy said.

  "James, they may need help. "

  "I have to go after Utanapishtim," he told her, his tone low, his heart as much an ashen ruin as the vampires Utanapishtim had destroyed. "I did this. " His throat closed up on the words. "I did this. "

  "You couldn't have known," Lucy told him. "If he. . . absorbed all the information in that book, then he might assume that what it says about vampires is the truth. Hell, that's even the title. The Truth. How can he be expected to distinguish the difference? He'd believe everything he read, believe he'd spawned an evil, bloodthirsty race of undead demons. That's what he'd believe, because that's what the book said about them-about you. "

  James tilted his head sideways, searching Lucy's eyes. "And yet you kept it. In spite of my warnings, you kept it-and you didn't even tell me. "

  "I knew you'd destroy it," she whispered. "I wanted to finish reading it first. I thought there might be information that could. . . "

  He stared at her in disbelief, wondering how he had let himself believe there might be something between them. How could he not have been aware that she considered him a different species? Something inhuman. She didn't even trust him enough to tell him the truth. And that had gotten people killed.

  "How could you betray me-and my people-this way, Lucy? I thought you were on our side. "

  "I am. " The hurt flashed in her eyes; he saw it and felt a spasm of remorse ripple through him. "I didn't mean for this to happen," she said, eyes lowering, tears glimmering on her lashes.

  They'd been moving rapidly as they talked, but they paused now, as Brigit said, "There!" She was pointing dead ahead, and they all looked that way just as Utanapishtim stepped from the shadows and sent a blast of white-hot energy beaming from his eyes into a clump of brush.

  The brush exploded, but James felt no pain in its wake. Thank God.

  "'May all praise him duly when he lifts his eyes, and his glance flashes like lightning,'" Lucy quoted. "It was part of his prayer that first day on the ship. "

  "He's just like me," Brigit whispered. "That's what he meant when he said he knew of one other person who shared my particular power. He was talking about himself. God, he's just like me. "

  And as she said it, Utanapishtim turned, spotted them and ran back toward the shore. He sprinted up the gangplank and boarded the yacht. Within seconds he was at the helm and powering up the ship as if he were an expert, backing the yacht straight out from the harbor.

  "We can't let him get away!" James shouted. "He's completely out of his mind!"

  "We have to know what else he read," Lucy said. "We have to know what set him off. "

  As she spoke, she was tapping the screen of her phone.

  "What we have to do is find the survivors. God, my parents were on this island," Brigit shouted.

  "It's all here," Lucy said slowly. "I didn't know, because I never finished reading the damn book. But it's in here. " She lifted her eyes to James. "The missing segments of my tablet, and someone translated them. James, Utanapishtim isn't only the one who can save your people. He's the only one who can destroy them. "

  She shook her head slowly, staring at the phone. "It's all right here. According to Folsom, the government removed those segments of the tablet back in the fifties, when it was first recovered. They must have had teams of translators. They read the whole thing, then removed key phrases, just breaking them away, then planted the rest at my school and waited, knowing that someday someone would translate it. Finally I did. And they also knew how you would interpret what remained. They knew you would find and resurrect Utanapishtim, and they knew what would happen when you did. They tricked you, James. They used you to bring about the destruction of your
own people. And they used me, too. "

  "I. . . resurrected the only being who could destroy my entire race?" he whispered. He fell to his knees. To go from being his people's savior to their destroyer in a single hour was more than he could bear. "God, no. "

  "There's more," Lucy said softly. And then she read aloud.

  "'There is no redemption for the Ancient One, unless he undoes all he has done, beginning with the eldest one. '" She shook her head. "Obviously the translator has taken liberties here. It probably wasn't meant to rhyme, but I imagine it's close. "

  "He breaks his curse by undoing what he has done," James said. "He believes he must destroy the race he inadvertently created. Undoing his sin against the gods by destroying his own kind. 'Beginning with the eldest one,'" he said softly.

  "He's going after Gilgamesh," Brigit said. "But I thought he was here, on the island. "

  "He must have left. Either way, I have to go after him-them," James said. "Brigit, take Lucy and go after the survivors, see if you can find out where Damien is. Do what you can for them, and then catch up with me. I'll stay on Utanapishtim's trail. "

  "I'm the one who should go after him," Brigit said softly.

  "I did this. " James took his sister by her shoulders, and stared into her eyes. "Please, give me a chance to make it right. " And then he faced Lucy and, his heart in his eyes, he said, "You were right. Even though you broke my trust, betrayed me in a way I don't know if I can ever forgive, you were right, Lucy. My ego did this. My blind determination to fulfill what I thought was my destiny, to be my people's hero, so my fucking life would finally make some kind of sense. "

  "There's more. " She held up her phone.

  "I don't give a shit what that damned book has to say. " James turned and began running back toward the shore, no doubt in search of a boat. Brigit was already running off to find the survivors of the brutal attack.

  Lucy raced after James. "Wait!" she cried. "I'm going with you. And if you argue, you're just wasting time. You can't stop me. " There were tears in her eyes.

  James nodded, feeling too broken, too defeated, to argue. He hadn't saved his people. Instead, he had brought about the end of his race. God, he'd been such a fool. "All right. " Then he dragged his eyes from her determined expression and stared after his sister.

  As if sensing his eyes on her, Brigit stopped, turned and called out to him, "Be careful. And you, Professor, make sure you don't do something else stupid and get my brother killed, okay?"

  "I'll do my best. "

  With that Brigit turned and ran off, following her senses to the vampires who'd escaped Utanapishtim's deadly gaze.

  James raced along the shore, Lucy following him, until he came to a small motorboat, checked that it was full of gas and, as soon as they were both aboard, fired up the outboard motor and aimed the bow toward the mainland, following the still detectable wake of the departing yacht. Still detectable to his eyes, at least.

  "It's not your fault, you know," Lucy said. She sat near the bow, facing him as he sat near the stern to steer. The boat was no more than a supersized rowboat with an outboard attached.

  He looked heavenward for an answer. "In what universe is this not my fault? Tell me, will you, because I'd really love to know. "

  "Don't be sarcastic, James. I'm not the enemy here. "

  "You could have fooled me. "

  She lowered her head. "I know. I know I screwed up. God, if your family aren't okay, I don't-"

  "They're all my family. And they're not okay. "

  "You had no way of knowing. The translation was. . . incomplete. So it was my fault," she said. "If I'd refused to publish what I had until the missing segments had been accounted for. . . "

  "No, this. . . this war still would have started. Folsom's book is what kicked all this off. And you had nothing to do with that. "

  "Neither did you. " She held his eyes. "Say it. Say this wasn't your fault. "

  He took a breath, nodded twice. "This wasn't my fault. " His lips thinned. He swallowed what felt like bile. "I can say it, but that will never make me believe it. "

  "We have to get to the university, James. We'll find what we need there, I know we will. The solution must be in the remaining pieces of the tablet. There are so many parts that have never been translated. One of them must explain how we can stop Utanapishtim. "

  "I have to stop him from getting to Damien first. "

  "But you don't know how to stop him. What other powers might he have? What can kill him?"

  "We know something can. He was killed once. "

  "But he wasn't!" she argued. "Not really. His body was destroyed, but his soul remained trapped, imprisoned-"

  "Unable to do any harm. If that's the best we can do, then-"

  "We can't return him to that. God, James, that would be inhuman. "

  Her words rang in the air between them. He didn't answer, but he knew they were at odds again. To him, the end-removing Utanapishtim from existence to protect his people-justified the means. Even if those means condemned a man to an eternity in a living hell. Buried alive.

  To her, he knew, nothing justified that. Nothing. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, but tears wet her lashes all the same. "When we get to the mainland, I'm going home," she said softly.

  "You're wanted, Lucy. They'll arrest you. "

  She shook her head. "I'm not going to stay. I just. . . I need to go back there. One last time. " Then she met his eyes. "Besides, I've been taking care of myself for a lot of years now, so, you know. . . "

  He had no business worrying about her. That was what she was saying. He got that. So he just nodded and said nothing more.