She touched her necklace again. "And perhaps…if giving this up will allow the Great Wheel to keep turning…perhaps this deed will undo all the others. Perhaps this act will purify my karma of its stains."
Jack nodded his understanding. Glaeken, too, thought he understood: Kolabati was making a deal with her gods—forgiveness of her karmic burden in return for the necklace. Glaeken wondered if truly there might be a Karmic Wheel. He doubted it. In all his many years he had seen no evidence of it. But he was not about to say anything that might dissuade Kolabati from surrendering her necklace.
Without warning, she reached both hands behind her neck, unfastened the necklace, and handed it to Jack.
"There," she said, her voice husky, her eyes glittering. "This is what you wanted."
Then she turned and headed for the door.
Jack stared a moment at the necklace in his hand, then started after her.
"Bati, wait! Where're you going?"
"Outside. It will end quickly there."
Glaeken leapt to his feet and followed Jack. He passed him and caught up to Kolabati at the door. He grabbed her arm and stopped her.
"No," Glaeken said. "I cannot allow you to die like that. Not out there. Not alone."
Her eyes were frightened, terrified of what lay beyond, waiting for her.
"Everyone dies alone," she said. "I'm used to being alone."
"So was I. But I've learned to draw strength from companionship. Let the years take you. It will be gentle—far gentler than out there."
"I'll stay with you, Bati," Jack said. "I'll sit with you to the…the end."
"No!" she said, her voice rising. "I don't want you to see me—I don't want anyone to see me."
A proud woman, Glaeken thought. And vain, too, certainly. But that was her privilege.
He loosened his grip on her arm and clasped her hand. It was cold, moist, trembling.
"I know a place where you can be alone and comfortable. Where no one will see you. Come."
As he began to lead her through the door, Jack stepped forward.
"Wait."
For the first time since Glaeken had met him, Jack looked awkward. His cat-like grace was gone. The necklace hung in his hand like a leaden weight. He seemed at a loss for words.
"Please, Jack," Kolabati said, turning to him, "I haven't much time."
"I know. I know. I just wanted to tell you that I've thought some awful things about you for the past few years, but what you're doing now…it takes courage. More courage than I think I'd have if positions were reversed. I think you're the bravest woman I know." He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips. "I…we all owe you. And we won't forget you."
Kolabati nodded slowly. "I know I don't have your love, so I guess I'll have to settle for that." She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek. "Goodbye, Jack."
"Yeah," Jack said, his expression stricken. "Goodbye."
Glaeken lead Kolabati down to Carol's apartment—former apartment. Carol would not re-enter it. He guided her to the bedroom but did not turn on the light.
"It's quiet here. Safe and dark. No one will disturb you."
He heard the springs squeak as she sat on the bed.
"Will you stay with me?" she said in a small voice.
"I thought—?"
"That was Jack. I couldn't be comfortable with him here. But you're different. Your years stretch far beyond mine. I think you understand."
Glaeken found a chair and pulled it up beside the bed.
"I understand."
His sentiments echoed Jack's: this was a brave woman. He took her hand again as he had upstairs.
"Talk to me," he said. "Tell me about the India of your childhood—the temple, the rakoshi. Tell me how you spent your days before you came to wear the necklace."
"I seems that I was never young."
Glaeken sighed. "I know. But tell me what you can, and then I will tell you of my youth, what little I remember of it."
And so Kolabati spoke of her girlhood, of her parents, of her fear of the flesh-eating demons who roamed the tunnels beneath the Temple-in-the-Hills. But as she talked on, her voice grew hoarse, raspy. The air in the room grew moist and sour as her tissues returned their vital fluids to the world. Her voice continued to weaken until speech seemed a terrible effort. Finally…
"I'm so tired," she said, panting.
"Lie down," Glaeken told her.
He guided her to a recumbent position, gripping her shoulders and lifting her knees. Beneath her clothes her flesh felt wizened, perilously close to the bone.
"I'm cold," she said.
He covered her with a blanket.
"I'm so afraid," she said. "Please don't leave me."
He held her hand again.
"I won't."
"Not until it's completely over. Do you promise?"
"I promise."
She did not speak again. After a time her breathing became harsh and rapid, rising steadily to a ragged crescendo. Her bony fingers squeezed Glaeken's in a final spasm—
And then relaxed.
All was quiet.
Kolabati was gone.
Glaeken released her hand and stepped into the hall outside the apartment. Jack was there, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the door. He looked up at Glaeken.
"Is she—?"
Glaeken nodded and Jack lowered his head.
"Collect both necklaces and the blade fragments and be ready to leave as soon as it's light."
Jack nodded, still looking down. "Where?"
"I'll tell you later. I must remain with her a while longer."
Jack looked up again. His red-rimmed eyes questioned.
Glaeken said, "I promised I'd stay until the end."
Back in the bedroom, the scent of rot was vague in the air. He resumed his seat and found Kolabati's hand again. The skin was cold, dry, as flaky as filo dough. He clasped it until it crumbled to dust and ran through his fingers. And when the sky began to lighten, he drew the curtains, closed the door, and locked the apartment.
THURSDAY
The House at the End of the Road
MONROE, LONG ISLAND
"You sure these are the directions he gave you?"
Jack stopped Glaeken's old Mercedes in the middle of the road and peered about in the gloomy light. Bill Ryan sat in the passenger seat, a pair of shotguns propped between his knees. The two necklaces and the blade fragments sat between them in a carved wooden box. Bill peered at the hastily scribbled note in his hand.
"Positive," he said.
Jack would have preferred to have Ba along on this trek but he'd possessed neither the heart nor the nerve to ask the big guy to leave Sylvia and the boy again. But Bill seemed different today. There was a odd air of peace about him that Jack found strangely comforting.
"You grew up in Monroe, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but I've never been out here. I don't think I ever knew there was an out here. This is nowhere."
Nowhere. Perfect description, Jack thought. They were in the far northeast corner of Monroe, on a dirt road leading through the heart of a vast salt marsh. To their left, under a low, leaden, overcast sky, Monroe Harbor lay smooth and flat and still and gray as slate. Somewhere dead ahead was the Long Island Sound. Nothing moved. Not an insect, not a bird, not even a breeze to stir the reeds and tall grass lining the road. Like being caught in the middle of a monochrome marshscape.
The only break in the monotony was the file of utility poles marching along the east flank of the road and what looked like an oversized outhouse near the water at its far end.
"That's got to be the place," Bill said.
"Can't be."
"You see any other place around? We're supposed to follow this road out to the house at its end. That's the place. It's got to be."