Bullard wondered how Machiavelli would have reacted to this predicament. The great courtier would no doubt have felt the same things he did: dread and resignation How do you make a choice when faced with a problem that has two solutions, both intolerable? He corrected himself: one was intolerable, the other unthinkable.
You accepted the intolerable.
He turned from the window and looked across the dim room at the clock on the mantelpiece. Ten minutes after three. He needed to make his final preparations.
He moved toward a table and lit a huge, ancient candle, whose glow illuminated an old piece of parchment: a certain page from a thirteenth-century grimoire. Then, taking up the ancient arthame knife that lay beside it, Bullard carefully began to score a circle in the terra-cotta floor of the room, working slowly, taking the utmost care to make sure the circle remained unbroken When that was done, he took a piece of charcoal, specially prepared, and began to inscribe letters in Greek and Aramaic on the periphery of the circle, stopping now and then to consult the grimoire. He followed this by inscribing two pentagrams around it all. Next he inscribed a smaller circle-this one broken-beside the larger. He did not worry about being interrupted: he had dismissed all the security and the help. He wanted no chance of witnesses and-above all-no chance of interruption When you were doing what he was about to do, raising what he hoped to raise, there could be no disruptions, no mistakes, nothing left out. The stakes were greater than his life-because, it seemed, the consequences would not end with his death.
He paused, preparations almost complete. It would not be long now. It would be over and then he could begin again. There would be, of course, minor loose ends to take care of: the disappearance of Pendergast and D'Agosta, for example; the Chinese and what had happened in Paterson. But it would be a relief to return to business as usual. Those problems, as tricky as they were, belonged to the real world, and he could handle them. They were small potatoes compared to this .
He went over the manuscript page again, then yet again, making sure he had missed nothing. Then, almost against his will, his gaze shifted to the old rectangular box sitting on the table. Now it was time for that .
He reached out, undid the brass latch. He caressed the polished surface of the box and then-with a terrible reluctance-opened it. A faint scent of antique wood and horsehair wafted upward. He breathed it in: this ancient perfume, this priceless scent With a trembling hand, he reached into the darkness of the box, stroked the smooth object inside. He did not dare take it out-handling it had always frightened him a little. It was not made for him at all. It was made for others. Others who, if he was successful, would never see it again .
A sudden rush of regret, anger, fear, and helplessness staggered him. He was almost overwhelmed by the sheer force of it. Incredible that a thought could virtually bring him to his knees. He gasped again, breathing hard; took a firm grip on the heavy table. What had to be done, had to be done.
He carefully closed the box, latched it, and placed it on the ground inside the smaller, broken circle. He wouldn't look at it again, wouldn't torture himself further. With a troubled heart, he glanced over at the clock. It responded by chiming out the quarter hour, the bell-like tones a strange counterpoint to the oppressive darkness of the room. Bullard swallowed, worked his jaw, and finally, with a supreme effort, spoke the words he had memorized so carefully.
It was the work of ninety seconds to complete the incantation
At first, nothing happened. He strained, listening, but there was not a sound, not a sigh; nothing. Had he said it incorrectly? With the help gone, the place was as quiet as the tomb.
His eye drifted back to the manuscript page. Should he recite it again? But no-the ceremony had to be performed precisely, without deviation Repetition could have disastrous, unimaginable consequences
As he waited, there in the faint light, he wondered if perhaps it wasn't true, after alclass="underline" that it was all hollow superstition. But at this thought, such a desperate mixture of hope and uncertainty rose within him that he forced himself to push it aside. He was not wrong. There could be no other answer .
Then he felt, or thought he felt, a strange shifting of the air. A faint smell came to him, drifting across the alone . It was the acrid odor of sulfur
A breeze shifted the curtains of the window. The room seemed to grow dimmer, as if a great darkness was encroaching from all directions. He felt himself go rigid with fear and anticipation It was happening. The incantation was working, just as promised.
He waited, almost afraid to breathe. The smell got stronger, and now it almost seemed as if tendrils of smoke were drifting in the lazy air of the room, tendrils that licked about the windows and curled in the corners. He felt a strange sense of apprehension, of physical dread. Yes, it was a physical sensation, a harbinger of what was to come, and the air seemed to congeal with a rising warmth.
Bullard stood within the greater circle, his heart pounding, his eyes straining to see beyond the darkened doorway. A vague outline . a lumbering, slow-moving shape .
He'd done it! He'd succeeded! He was coming! He was really coming . !
{ 57 }
D'Agosta felt numb. The shot, the silence, and the final splash-this was really it.
"Come on," his minder said, giving him a push.
D'Agosta couldn't move; he couldn't believe what was happening.
"Move!" The man jabbed D'Agosta in the back of the head with his gun barrel.
He stumbled forward, mechanically trying to keep his footing among discarded pieces of stone. The moldy breath of the open shaft washed over him. Six steps, eight, a dozen.
"Stop."
Now he could feel the foul air tickling his nose, stirring his hair. Everything seemed abnormally clear, and time had slowed to a crawl. Jesus, what a way to go out.
The gun barrel pressed hard against his skull. D'Agosta squeezed his eyes tightly closed behind the blindfold, prayed for a quick end.
He took a shallow breath, another. Then came a deafening gunshot. He fell forward into space .
. Vaguely, as if at a great distance, he sensed a steel arm shooting out from behind and hauling him back from the utter brink. The hand let go, and D'Agosta collapsed immediately onto the rock-strewn grass. A moment later he heard a body-not his-hitting the water far below.
"Vincent?"
It was Pendergast.
A snick and his blindfold was removed; another snick and Pendergast had cut off his gag. D'Agosta lay where he had fallen, stunned.
"Wake up, Vincent."
Slowly, D'Agosta came back. Pendergast was standing to one side, gun trained on his own minder, binding him to a tree. D'Agosta's man was nowhere to be seen.
D'Agosta stumbled woodenly to his feet. He felt a strange wetness on his face. Tears? Dew from the grass? It seemed a miracle. He swallowed, managed to croak, "How . ?"