Ben huddled closer to her. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Apart from compliment you on your lovely PJs?”
Caitlin didn’t smile. That’s how he knew this was very, very serious. She looked into his eyes.
“More than anyone, except for my son—who I think knew it before any of us, now that I think back on it—you are willing to allow that what’s happening may be real,” Caitlin said. “Or at least, I think, you’re closer to believing it. I need to find a way to get to Jacob. Anita told me about the snake.”
“What about it?”
“It seemed to seek him out,” Caitlin said.
“Maybe,” Ben said. “Big maybe. I have no explanation for that beyond ‘conjurer’s trick,’” Ben said.
“Oh, come on—”
“Egyptian magicians created similar images thousands of years ago. ”
“Is that what you really think that was?”
“Honestly, Cai, I was with a Vodou priestess from Haiti—”
“Which, given the history of that region, should give her added credibility.”
“Well, it didn’t… maybe because she was so damned recalcitrant. She and her statue of a son. I’m not saying it isn’t possible,” he added to forestall debate, “and she did feel your energy on the roof… she said.”
“Did she say where she felt it, or how?”
Ben thought for a moment. “She pointed toward the East Village area. With a cigar.”
Caitlin made a fist and shook it. “That’s exactly where I sent it,” she said. “How would she know if it wasn’t real, if she weren’t legit?”
“As I said, I have no answer, Cai. Just a sort of open mind about her.”
“All right, let’s put her aside for a moment,” Caitlin said. “There’s something else. Even before I knew about the Group mansion, the tiles went dormant. To me, anyway.”
“Suggesting what?”
“I was controlling the lines of power between here and there,” she said. “Between the two stones here and the tiles that are in Antarctica. Something happened to change the arc, to cut me out of the loop.”
“Something at the mansion?”
“Has to be,” Caitlin said. “Flora had one tile in cold storage, I felt that, and the other in some kind of acoustic levitation setup. Remove me from the middle and they would have hooked directly into each other. If they were strong enough to whip me back to Galderkhaan and strand me there—if they could tear a hole in time—imagine what they could do to an old mansion.”
Ben sat back. “That is a very, very big leap.”
“Give me some alternative—” And then Caitlin stiffened, like a dog hearing a car approaching. She turned to the door, a glazed look in her eyes.
“Cai?” Ben said.
“It’s out there,” she answered.
“What is?”
“Yokane’s stone,” Caitlin replied. The first two fingers of her right hand rose, circled, pointed. “I felt it before, when Barbara was here. I’m feeling it again. It’s out there.”
“Where?” Ben asked.
Caitlin let her fingers drift; like a divining rod, Ben thought.
“North,” she said. “It’s stable, just as it was with Yokane. It’s no longer communicating with any other stones.”
“So the other one was destroyed?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t see how. It survived the pressure on the bottom of the ocean.” Caitlin lowered the bars of her bed. “I’m getting out of here,” she announced.
Ben leaned toward her, arms extended. “Cai, hold on—”
She brushed them aside and swung her legs from the bed. “A patient has the right to self-determination and autonomy,” she said. “I’m leaving. I have to follow that stone. It’s the only way back to Jacob. I would love your help, but I’ll do this alone if I have to.”
“I said hold on!” Ben snapped.
“Why?”
“Because this may not be necessary,” Ben said. “Rushing I mean.”
Caitlin regarded him. He had a there’s something I didn’t tell you tone in his voice. “What is it?” she asked.
“Let me make a call,” he said.
“To?”
He braced himself. “The Technologist I met outside your apartment this morning.”
Caitlin’s rising frustration came to a sudden, icy stop. “How was that not your lead item, Ben? Freakin’ how?”
“In the General Assembly they call that a battering ram,” he answered. “You don’t use it unless all else fails. It can cause collateral splintering.”
“Such as?”
“The Technologists and the Priests are apparently still at war and the Group was caught in the crossfire,” Ben said. “Both have obviously been watching you. If you go blundering into—”
“Make your call,” Caitlin interrupted. “Now. I have to get to that stone, connect with the others in the South, and save my son.”
“A few minutes ago you weren’t certain that was the way to go.”
“Technologists at my threshold just made me certain,” she said. “Damn you, Ben. You should have told me!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long effin’ night and day and journey for me too.”
Caitlin did not reply. She didn’t seem to have any words left in her. She looked at Ben. After a moment she touched his cheek in apology, then climbed from the bed and pulled her battle-scarred wardrobe from the tray under the bed.
After a long, unhappy breath Ben called Eilifir Benediktsson.
CHAPTER 19
Mikel Jasso pulled the muffler from over his mouth. He didn’t bother with the radio.
“I need fuel!” he yelled at Dr. Cummins.
She rolled down the window. “I don’t understand.”
“I need petrol—gas—all that we can spare.”
The glaciologist looked down at him as he neared the driver’s side of the truck. “To do what? We may need those reserves to go farther or go back.”
“This is more important,” Mikel said, breathless as he reached the cab.
“Than getting back?”
“We can radio for help if it comes to that,” he panted. He jerked a thumb toward the pit. “We have to melt the ice around that, flood the hole, and let it freeze.”
Dr. Cummins’s eyes reflected shock. “You want to cover up the very thing we came out here to study?”
“I do,” Mikel replied. “Quickly.”
“Why?” she asked. “Is it deteriorating or are you afraid of something else?”
“The latter,” Mikel said. “Something happened in New York, something that may set these things loose. As far as I know, cold is the only thing that can stop them.”
“Dr. Jasso, you’ve quite lost me. ‘Loose’?”
Mikel motioned for her to follow as he started toward the back of the truck. She thumped down onto the ice.
“I’m not sure what I mean myself,” he admitted. “These stones obliterate time and distance. I’ve only experienced their ability to create or re-create images, but not to destroy, as I just saw.”
“I’m not even sure what you saw,” Dr. Cummins said, perplexed.
“A forty-thousand-year-old girl and a woman in New York burned to death simultaneously,” he said. “The linked tiles appear to be the cause. We opened a portal. My superior there was screaming for me to shut them down and she is not a screamer. We have to dial this back, quickly.”
Mikel had already begun hauling the spare cans of gas from the back. Dr. Cummins joined him. Her movements were mechanical. She was still trying hard to understand what he was saying.