“Not after I work over the house here. The only thing left to find will be my signature.”
“So that’s it?” said Iris. “We disappear? All of us?”
Bogdan nodded, grin gone. His barely out-of-acne-age face looked apologetic.
“For how long?”
“Hello,” a small voice said behind me. Bogdan grinned.
“Annie!” Grace screamed before he could return the greeting. “Come here, baby!”
The girl ran towards her. “Sorry, mommy. Uncle Paul is mumbling in his sleep. Can daddy run on water too?”
Grace dropped to her knees, clutching the girl close, as though she was the only thing left real in the world. Brome put a hand on his wife’s shoulder, then removed it. Bogdan turned to him.
“For now. Then you decide.” To me, it sounded like he said, “Forever.”
“Paul is hurt,” I told him. He nodded again.
“I know. I brought a good doctor with me. Come, we must hurry.”
“Are we going on a cruise, daddy?”
“Yes, baby. A good long cruise,” Brome replied. As he did, Grace started crying.
We arrived at the island on the second night. Bogdan’s doctor — a smiley young man who looked not a day older than Bogdan himself — turned out to be good, all right. As we approached the unfriendly piece of barren rock jutting out of the foggy ocean, Paul stood on the deck beside me, and the hand he had placed on my shoulder did not feel hot. Under that hand, my broken collarbone throbbed, but didn’t really hurt.
“Underwater lair or a secret cave leading to a lagoon encircled by sheer cliffs, what do you think?” asked Paul.
“Neither,” Bogdan’s voice replied before I could place my wager. “Just cheap smoke and mirrors. Look.”
He pointed and we looked, and suddenly the barren rock was out of focus. As we came close it melted and disappeared into thin air, replaced by a different island. A small picturesque beach greeted us, from which a narrow stairway wound up the slope of a mountain towards a solitary house built on top of and seemingly into the rock. The disguise might have been smoke and mirrors, but it certainly didn’t look cheap.
We docked at a short, sturdy, wooden pier. Bogdan and the doctor came ashore with us, leaving the third member of the crew, who had identified himself only as Davy, with the yacht. We climbed the stairway in single file and silence. Brome carried Annie, asleep on his shoulder. Grace, calmer now, gazed around in wonder.
At the end of the stairway was an iron gate in a wall made of limestone. There was no guard, and the gate hung open. Inside was a fruit garden, which in twilight looked dominated by apple trees.
Through it our procession reached the front door. The huge, two-story house was built in swank, modern style, but still managed to suggest serious regard for functionality. Somehow the weird angles and spheres made sense.
The main doorway was also unlocked. Bogdan led us in without knocking. We found ourselves in a high-ceilinged hallway, illuminated brightly by a crystal balustrade. Despite the modern construction, the interior décor was decidedly retro, with curvy-legged furniture and carved banisters. Several portraits in thick ornamental frames lined the walls.
“Dr. Livesey will show you to your rooms,” Bogdan said. “You are safe here. Get some rest.”
“Please, follow me,” the smiley young man said, starting up the stairs. Brome took another look around and nodded. Everyone moved to follow.
“Not you,” Bogdan said, stopping me. Brome, four steps up, also stopped and turned around, frowning.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“I have to meet him,” I replied, suddenly queasy. This, now, was the end of my road. What had started with a plastic bottle tossed out of the window was going to end here, today, in the crooked house on the island of Nowhere. Bogdan nodded, and I had a queer feeling his nod responded to what I thought rather than what I said.
“We can all meet him then,” said Brome and took a step down. “There’ll be plenty of time to rest afterwards.”
“You’ll meet him, don’t worry. But tonight is reserved for Luke alone.”
“Who the hell is the guy, anyway?” Paul asked.
“Tomorrow, Paul. Tonight you rest.”
“I’ll go with Luke,” said Iris, taking my hand. Bogdan considered it and gave another nod.
“This way. We’ll see the rest of you tomorrow.” With that Bogdan started down a narrow corridor. Squeezing Iris’s hand I followed.
The library we entered would feel right at home in any upscale house with triangular windows. There was your fireplace, your redwood desk with drawers, your leather armchairs, your velvet curtains, your bookshelves filled with books. The room was two stories high, which, together with the triangular windows, made the walls seem to slant inwards. Here also several paintings decorated the walls; the one above the fire place caught my attention immediately. A skillful reproduction of it hung in my study.
A tall, black-clad man was leaning on the windowsill of an open window. In the darkness outside strange shadows moved and shifted. The man’s youthful face was clean-shaven, thin, had a prominent Roman nose and high cheekbones. Curls of his charcoal hair moved with the breeze. He studied us, a hint of amusement in his small, deep-set eyes.
“Two steaks, one well done, one medium rare, just like you ordered, sir,” Bogdan announced with a flourish.
“I’m joking,” he hastened to add with a grin, seeing my face. “Good night.”
“He’s still new at humor,” the man said when the door closed. He spoke with a distinct British accent. “As I am. By the way, the walls do slant. This study is actually within a pyramid. I’ll show you later from the outside.”
Still not altogether comfortable, I turned towards “Scream.”
“So that’s where the original has been all these years.”
“Hmm? Oh, ‘Scream?’ No. That’s a fake. Not the slightest idea who has the real one.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a good fake,” Iris said.
“You give me too much credit,” the man replied with a chuckle. Both Iris and I grinned, and I breathed a sign of relief. The man pushed away from the windowsill.
“Enough of the small talk,” he said. “Go ahead, Mr. Whales.”
I stared at him, relieved no longer. He nodded encouragingly.
“It’s you,” I blurted out. A small smile appeared on his face, but he didn’t reply. Iris gave me a raised eyebrow.
“You are the Antichrist.”
There was a minute of silence, shattered abruptly by a burst of laughter. Iris’s look said I was completely off the simplest truth ever. I stood and bore it. I figured it was just one of those days. The man, meanwhile, circled the desk and lowered himself in the armchair behind it.
“You have it all wrong, Mr. Whales,” he stated finally.
“Then who the hell are you? Aside from Lloyd’s employer that is. I know that.”
“I am what they like to call Satan, of course!” he exclaimed.
I grunted in righteous indignation. “How is that different?”
“I am an alien, Luke. The Antichrist is human. Which makes the commonplace disinformation about the Antichrist being the son of Satan impossible to be true. All that talk about the mark of triple-six is nothing more than a primitive numerological code for human. Father, mother, child. We, the ‘divines,’ are seven.” He chuckled and reached down into the drawer. I turned to Iris. I knew she was about to say it. The room was suddenly stuffy. My heartbeat became the sound of a speeding train. Paralyzed, I watched her lips form the phrase.
“You are the Antichrist.”
“That is correct on more levels than one,” the man, the creature who called himself Satan, confirmed cheerfully.