“Come on,” I said, hurrying through the passageway and into the common areas before Chandra could sense my sorrow. “Xavier should be ready for us.”
We took the elevator back to the ground floor and Xavier’s private office. There was a time when Xavier Archer had been hounded by the press, so he’d had an office suite and conference room built at home so his associates could come to him. But all that was before, when he’d been the primary figurehead for his empire. Nowadays Olivia grabbed most of the headlines, and Xavier was content to let her. He still spent the bulk of his hours secluded at home, but fewer employees and investors were stopping by. He’d begun to prefer taking his meetings by conference call instead.
Chandra gasped when we stepped from the elevator. I gave her a moment to look around, not bothering to hide my matching awe. We hadn’t decamped into the most opulent room in the manor, but it sure did make a statement.
The room was floor-to-ceiling white marble, with three high unadorned windows letting in specific amounts of light. Its interior was supposed to resemble a Tibetan stupa-an elaborate mound built in ancient Tibet to house the remains of great lamas-which was a fancy name for tomb. The highlight of the room was a museum-worthy exhibit containing the first complete English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which, as far as I knew, Xavier had never even cracked open, but the objects that really attracted one’s eye was the vertical phalanx of prayer wheels leading to a red-carpeted dais. A giant, overly ornate throne had been added since I was last here, solidifying my suspicion that Xavier wasn’t just egomaniacal…he was psychotic.
When I’d been an angry teen living among this physical anomaly I’d only wondered what the hell a gaming mogul thought he had in common with Tibetan meditation masters, and merely decreed the whole thing creepy. Now that I knew the link, that this place of worship had probably been forced upon Xavier as a condition of the Tulpa’s patronage, the room sent chills up my spine. However, I still didn’t know exactly what the area was for, why there was a throne, and what the room’s only ornamentation-a half-dozen ancient masks; some wooden, some plain, some copper, some ornate-signified, if anything at all.
“Come on,” I said, gesturing to the opposite side of the stupa. “That’s his office.”
I knocked on the great oak door and waited for the familiar bellow to either welcome us inside or tell us to go away. The only response was a lengthening silence, so I knocked again, louder.
“Do you hear music?”
I wouldn’t have if I’d still possessed mortal hearing. But there was a thread of low and resonant drumbeats, and the faintest tinkling of chimes. I tilted my head and furrowed my brows. “Xavier always works in silence.”
Chandra stared at me for one long second before doing something no one else had ever dared. She turned the handle on the office door and let herself in.
I expected an explosion of fury and outrage to erupt from the other side of that threshold and was already scrambling for an Olivia-esque excuse…but the bellow didn’t come. There was just that steady, thrumming beat and the continued tinkle of chimes. The beautiful and unexpected scent of sandalwood had my eyes widening in wonder. If Chandra hadn’t pulled me inside the office and shut the door, I probably would’ve stood there, dumbstruck, until the music stopped to effectively break the spell.
The only thing familiar about the office was its layout. The desk was where it should be, and the floor-to-ceiling shelves lined one chocolate wall with their stiff-spined books, but even those familiar features were hard to distinguish in the cloying, curling smoke. Heavy burgundy drapes had been pulled tightly over the glinting windows of lead crystal, and the lamps had been extinguished in favor of one great corner candle. But it was neither the dimness that made me squint and strain to see around me, nor the incense, though that didn’t help. And smoke usually derived from flame, from heat, from the disintegration of something substantial, but this was more like the cool waves of mist that wound about a Scottish highland…except these tendrils weren’t rising from the ground to overtake the landscape in a heathered glen. They were coming from an opening in the far bookcase, where the steady flame of another candle called to us like a beacon.
“I take it he’s no longer on a conference call with Macau,” Chandra whispered, unable to take her eyes from the hole in the bookcase.
And together we stepped forward, through the faux barrier, and into a room I’d never known existed.
8
Xavier Archer was on his knees, chanting, which was probably why he didn’t hear our approach. He was holding something that reminded me of a child’s rattle, but when I inched closer I recognized it as a handheld version of the prayer wheels in the stupa outside. Its handle was wooden, but there was an ornate metal cylinder at its apex, with a ballasted chain helping the cylinder whirl around with a deft flick of the wrist. His mouth moved as he repeated his mantra over and over, but it didn’t sound like Xavier’s voice. It was too low and respectfully resolute.
“Praying?” Chandra asked, so lightly only I could hear.
I shook my head. Xavier didn’t pray. “No. It’s more like…”
“Worshipping.”
Centered on a colorful rug, he leaned over in a practiced move to pick up a mallet, striking the side of a bronze bowl without losing beat with his prayer wheel. A warm bell tone overtook the tinny chiming in the room and resonated through my body, making the spot on my chest where the doppelgänger had nearly rent me open pulse lightly. I lifted my hand, wanting to rub the feeling away.
I also wanted to back out of the room, ponder what this could mean far from the compelling smell and sound of ritualistic Eastern prayer, but Chandra was inching closer to Xavier. I caught up with her as the even spin of the wheel stopped and the tonal notes died in the air. The room fell to complete silence. We didn’t dare breathe in the unearthly stillness, and even Xavier’s mouth moved soundlessly as he set aside the first singing bowl and mallet, and picked up a second, larger one, placing it directly in front of him on the carpet.
He held the hollowed disk with straight arms, as if proffering it to someone, and I had just enough time to think: No, not a bowl. A mask.
Bending his elbows, he drew the mask toward his face in an exaggerated motion. It was too small for his bullish mien, its bowl delicate and shallow, and obviously a totem meant for ritual ceremonies, clearly not intended to be worn. Yet as Xavier drew the plain wooden artifact parallel to his features, the ancient wood startled and sprang to life. He cupped it to his face as the wood pushed against itself and began to flatten, grain thinning with a high-pitched noise. It attached itself to Xavier’s skin, caressing his cheeks in a jagged slide, seeping like wax beneath his hairline to add Xavier’s coiffure-down to his cowlick-to its inanimate features.
It went fast after that, like the wood was once again living and vital, anchored in the earth, and not merely a hollowed out husk. Xavier was already statue-still, but once the mask encompassed the whole of his face, I heard a sharp click-the animate wood meeting and fastening at the nape of his neck-and he went absolutely rigid.
Ash flew from his mouth to thicken the air in a blackening haze. I leaned forward, waving a hand before me, but the effect was temporary; the air was too heavy, molecules pressed so tightly together they were almost sticky. The whole scene took on a dreamlike aspect, as if what I was seeing was taking place inside of my lids. I took another step forward, and with a second I spotted the candle burning like a focal point in haze. A third step and Xavier became visible again.