Southampton, Pennsylvania
December 19, 5:35 P.M. EST
Circe and I pulled into the Starbucks in Southampton, where Routes 232 and 132 meet. I started to get out, but Circe opened her briefcase on her lap and removed her laptop. I sat back. “Aren’t you coming in?”
She looked at the store and made a face. “Marty and I never quite hit it off.”
“You know him?”
“Since I was a kid. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here and go over my notes. We have so much information … there has to be some answers buried in all of this. Besides … Marty will probably be more candid without me there, anyway. You’re one of the boys.”
I smiled. “Okay. I’ll give you the highlights of this when I’m done.”
“Can’t wait.”
I clicked my tongue and Ghost bounded out of the backseat, but before I could reach for the door handle a car beep made us turn. A rental sedan pulled into the lot and Ghost was wagging his tail so hard he nearly knocked me over. Rudy Sanchez parked and got out, smiling at us despite everything else that was going on.
Rudy is short and carries a couple extra pounds, but he’s tougher than he looks and he has the most intelligent face I’ve ever seen. He’s also the only person on earth who I trust completely and without reserve. I got out and we shook hands, and then he pulled me into his version of a bear hug. We slapped each other’s backs as Ghost yipped and danced around us. He loses all traces of self-respect around Rudy. Rudy bent and vigorously rubbed Ghost’s head and received a comprehensive face licking.
“Hello, you furry monster. You keeping Joe out of cathouses?”
Then Rudy looked past me and saw Circe step out of the Explorer. “Dios mio!”
“Keep it in your pants, Rude. That’s Dr. Circe—”
“O’Tree,” he finished, grinning hard enough to injure himself. “I know. I saw her on Oprah. My, my, but the good Lord was in a generous mood when he made her.”
Circe walked over to meet us. Before I could make introductions, she said, “Dr. Sanchez?”
“Dr. O’Tree.”
“It’s ‘Circe,’” she said, smiling brightly and extending her hand.
“Rudy,” he said exactly the same way someone would say “your slave.” Even Ghost seemed to roll his eyes. “I’ve read your books. Fascinating work. Insightful.”
“Thank you,” she said graciously. “And call me Circe.”
“Mr. Church said that you’d be part of our team on this. I’d like to share my interview notes with you.”
“The Nicodemus interview?”
“Yes.”
“I’d love to see them,” she said, “and I have some things I’d like to run past you.”
I said, “You two want to stay out here and copy each other’s homework while I go inside?”
Rudy looked at me with a charming smile. “Yes, thanks. Buzz off.”
They tuned me out and were deep in conversation as they headed to my Explorer. I glanced down at Ghost. “I do believe we have been snubbed, my shaggy friend.”
He had no comment, so we went inside.
As I reached for the door handle I shivered unexpectedly and looked suddenly back at Rudy and Circe. It was a weird feeling that was based on nothing I could name, but I felt as if there was a shadow cast over them both. I lingered for a moment, letting my ears and eyes pick apart the surroundings. Was something wrong? Out of place?
No. There was nothing. A goose had walked over my grave, as my grandmother would say. Gradually the shadow in my mind receded.
Ghost looked at them and gave a single, short whuf.
Interlude Thirty-five
New York City
December 19, 5:36 P.M. EST
Toys touched his fingers to the glass, feeling the cool caress of the December wind. Behind him, Gault and the American sat on opposite sides of the big man’s desk, heads bent together in a discussion on logistics for the newest phase of the Ten Plagues Initiative. On the wall a silent flat-screen TV showed a shot from an aerial view of the scene of a gunfight in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. The legend across the bottom of the screen read: Terrorism?
Below the window where Toys stood, New York was sprawled in gaudy splendor beneath a gibbous moon. Millions of lights. Millions of beating hearts. Toys’ own heart felt like a piece of broken crockery in his chest. As cold as the night and as removed from real humanity as he was up here on the fiftieth floor of the building that the American owned. One of the big man’s many holdings. Here, Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta. The man was immeasurably wealthy. Toys smiled thinly as he mused that he, too, was now wealthy. He had millions of dollars of his own money in numbered accounts. A gift from the American.
So you don’t have to keep sucking on Gault’s tit. That was how the American had phrased it.
I could leave, Toys thought. I could walk out the door, get into a cab, and vanish.
How long, he wondered, before Gault would even realize that he was gone? Then how long would it take Gault, using the vast resources of the Kings, to find him? A week at the most. And what would Gault do? Have him brought back in chains? Forgive him? Kill him?
Toys could not pick which option was most likely. He sighed and leaned his forehead against the glass. Gault had become the King of Plagues in every sense. He was fully invested with the Kings. He was one of them, heart and soul.
Which left Toys … where?
He had no idea.
The last four months had given him new definitions for both “heartache” and “hell.” Although Toys managed to fake interest in the Ten Plagues Initiative, he knew that it didn’t fool Gault. Not completely, anyway. The only comfort, and it was a cold and dubious comfort, was that Gault did not grasp the nature of Toys disapproval. He thought it was cowardice.
Cowardice.
Jesus. Toys wanted to take a knife and rip Gault’s guts out every time he thought about that. Twice in the last month he had come into Gault’s room in the middle of the night and stood over his bed, watching Gault sleep, holding a knife in his sweating palm.
Cowardice?
How could Gault have wandered so far from himself that he could not recognize love?
Not for the first time, Toys wondered if Eris really was some kind of sorceress.
He and Gault barely spoke unless it was about incidental things. A second round of martinis, travel plans. Nothing of consequence.
Gault’s time was taken up playing the role of the King of Plagues. He had entered the world of the Kings with a will, and even though bombings were not under his purview, Gault had actively participated in the planning of the London event. He had also selected Fair Isle. Toys was secretly pleased that the Ebola release had fallen flat.
Rivers of blood my ass, he mused.
And the woman, Amber Taylor, had dodged away as well. Bloody good for her.
He knew that although the failures could not be laid at Gault’s feet, they were nonetheless failures connected to his overall plan. The failures were embarrassing to the Goddess as well, and that really pleased Toys.
Now they were poised for the next round. More killings. More death. And still they hadn’t reached the real centerpiece of Gault’s plan.
Toys wondered if they would all drown in a river of blood of their own making.
We deserve it.
The phone rang and the American answered, spoke quietly for a moment, and then hung up.
“I need to deal with something,” said the King of Fear as he lumbered toward the door. “You boys make yourself comfortable.”
He closed the door behind him.