“Damn,” I said. “What are the other plagues?”
“They vary in type and severity. If the Kings are using weaponized versions of them, we’re not seeing them unfold in the same order. The third and fourth were plagues of gnats and flies. The fifth was a terrible disease that targeted the Egyptians’ livestock. Cattle, oxen, goats, sheep, camels, and horses. The sixth was a plague of boils on the skins of Egyptians. During the seventh plague fiery hail fell from the sky and thunder shook the land. The eighth plague was locusts and the ninth plague was total darkness, so that’s the London Hospital. The tenth was—”
“Whoa, whoa!” I said. “Did you say locusts?”
She looked alarmed. “Yes, why?”
“Christ!” I leaned close. “Area 51. Son of a bitch!”
“What do you mean? They use a bomb to destroy—”
“Metaphor, Doc,” I said. “The R and D team out at Area 51 was working on a brand-new stealth fighter-bomber. The craft’s designation was Locust FB-119.”
“Locust … ?” Circe’s dark eyes widened. “Oh my God … .”
Interlude Twenty-seven
The Seven Kings
Three and a Half Months Ago
In the days following the “Ritual of Seven” Toys kept to himself. When asked, he said that he was meditating on the mysteries of the Goddess. The others actually accepted that as a valid answer, which both amused and appalled Toys.
The only person on the island that he could bear to be around was the American. All interaction between them had so far been wordless eye contact during Kings meetings. However, on the way to a planning meeting Toys found himself in the elevator with the King of Fear.
The American smiled like a grizzly. “How are you settling in?”
“It’s a bit much at times.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
The American studied Toys for a few seconds, and the genius mind behind the oaf was clearly there in his eyes. “If I were a betting man,” said Fear, “I’d put the whole wad on the fact that your King doesn’t really know the first thing about what goes on in here.” He tapped Toys with a thick finger. Not on Toys’ head, but over his heart.
Toys didn’t dare respond to that. He smiled as the elevator descended into the heart of the island. Then, apparently apropos of nothing, the American said, “You know, some people don’t think that Judas was a traitor.”
Toys blinked at him in surprise. “What—?”
“Some people think he tried to keep Jesus from fucking up a good thing.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened silently.
Before the King of Fear got off, he turned and said, “Some people need to be saved from themselves. Even Kings and goddesses.” He chuckled. “Funny old world.”
Interlude Twenty-eight
Jenkintown, Pennsylvania
December 19, 9:01 A.M. EST
Whenever her cell phone rang Amber Taylor’s heart spasmed as if she’d been stabbed in the chest. She wished she could have set a special ringtone for him, but there was no way to know which number he would use. Once the man called from Amber’s home. Another time was from her daughter’s cell. When Amber later asked the girl if she had lent her phone to someone else—a stranger or someone she knew—the girl said no, it had been in her school locker all day. That had been one of the worst moments since this whole nightmare began. True to the man’s threats, he and his people seemed to have total access to Amber’s life. Nothing and nowhere was safe. That’s what he had told her that first time.
Nothing and nowhere.
“You and those you love are only safe as long as we allow it.”
“We.” Such a horrible word, filled with dreadful and unlimited potential. Who were “we”? How many of them were there? Would the police even be able to make arrests? Based on what evidence?
You and those you love are only safe as long as we allow it.
Amber Taylor feared her own cell phone. She feared his call. Any call. If she dared, she would have thrown the phone into a culvert, let it sink into the muck and filth where it belonged. But she knew that she could never do that. He would never allow it, and the punishments for any infraction of his rules had been clearly outlined to her. The memory of those terrible photographs was always right there behind her eyelids, cued up on her mind’s internal audiovisual projector.
Her cell rang just as she closed the door to her three-year-old BMW and Amber jumped so badly she missed the ignition keyhole and dropped her keys. Amber dug frantically into her purse and found the phone on the third ring. She checked the screen display. Wolpert. She sighed in relief and sagged back against the seat. Cathy Wolpert was her best friend and neighbor.
Smiling in anticipation of a manageable crisis—probably something else about the wedding plans for Cathy’s daughter—Amber flipped open the phone.
“Hi, Cathy—”
“Hello, Mrs. Taylor,” said the man with the Spanish accent.
His voice was quiet, polite, but it grabbed her by the throat and throttled the air out of her world.
“Oh, God!”
“Not quite,” said the man. “But close.”
“Are my children all right? God … you didn’t touch them—?”
“Shhh,” he soothed. “Shhh now. Emily and Mark are fine. I can see Emily right now. Such a pretty little face in that tiny school bus. Her new braces are quite nice. She wears them well.”
“Don’t—”
“Isn’t it nice that she doesn’t try to hide them behind her hand when she talks? Not even when she smiles. She’s very self-possessed for her age, don’t you think?”
“Please,” Amber begged. Her voice was already raw, as if she’d been screaming. “Please don’t hurt my babies.”
“Why would I? You haven’t done anything that requires that they be hurt, have you?”
“No!”
“So why would I let anything happen to them? Unless you demand that I act, then none of us will touch a hair on her head. Or Mark’s head. That is our agreement, yes?”
“Yes.” Tears boiled from the corners of Amber’s eyes and fell like acid down her cheeks. “Why are you doing this?”
The man laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh, and the sound of it made her cringe. The laugh was unspeakably ugly. Deep and filled with a knowledge and delight so dark that it threatened to burn the light out of the clear morning sky.
“Mrs. Taylor,” he said, “do you know why I am calling you today?”
“Y-yes.”
“You knew that this day would come. I told you that I would make this call.”
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “When?”
“Today,” he said. “Right now.”
“But … my children … I have to—”
“No, Mrs. Taylor, you only have one thing to do. We are watching your children. We are waiting for you to do what you have promised to do.”
“I need to know that my babies are safe!”
“That’s up to you. If you do this, then I swear to the Goddess and by all of her works that I will not harm them. When this is over for you, it will be over for them. They will live to grow up and grow old and put flowers on your grave.”
“Please don’t make me do this … .”
“Or,” he said softly, “you could spend your remaining years putting flowers on their graves. That is … if you could ever find where they were buried.”
Amber tried to shout at him, but her voice broke into splinters of fear and grief and tears.