Twilight Prophecy

15


“Back in a Manhattan hotel room,” Lucy said softly. “I sure have come full circle. I was in a room just like this only—what? Less than a week ago? And yet my entire life has changed since then.”

James backed away from the window, letting the curtain fall back into place. The hotel had a direct line of sight to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Lucy thought Utanapishtim’s ashes were secreted in an old and unremarkable statue. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking out at the museum every time he walked past the window. Talk about lives changing… Now that he knew his purpose, it was burning in him, driving him. But he knew she was going through as much as he was. Her life, too, had been turned upside down. And unlike him, it wasn’t her destiny.

He looked at her then. She had been on the computer they’d managed to borrow from the concierge, with a little power of suggestion. Just like they’d checked in with a nonexistent credit card and phony names. Lucy had also been on the phone, though he thought that was a very bad idea. She was on hold now, the cordless receiver anchored between her ear and her shoulder. The television set was on, the volume low. It was showing continuous footage of various conflagrations, weeping family members, burned bodies—human ones. Vampire bodies turned to ash when they burst into flames. They burned hot and fast. It was a miracle the girl on the island—Ellie—hadn’t just exploded in a flash when her skin had begun to burn. Her boyfriend, Jeremy, must have dumped her into the water almost instantly, or there would have been nothing left of her.

And she was young. Vampires’ weaknesses, their vulnerabilities, grew larger with age, just as their powers and strengths did. For most, fire would end them. There would be no remains for hype-hungry reporters to parade in front of a national audience. None to be confiscated for study by government scientists, either. No “alien autopsy” video, with a vampire playing the role of the little green man, would be showing up online anytime soon. Thank God.

And he was thinking all of that because it kept him from thinking about what was front and center in his mind. Lucy. Himself and Lucy.

He had no business focusing on that when his people were on the brink of extinction.

“I still think we should just break into the Met tonight and take the statue,” he said, hoping to distract himself. But it did little good. She was wearing clothes she’d found on the yacht. A pair of skinny black jeans, with high-heeled black boots that covered them all the way to her knees. A tank top that hugged her slender body closely. A button-down shirt of army green, heavy with military insignia on the breast pocket, over that. Her hair was in a ponytail that rode high on her head, and her tortoiseshell glasses were perched on her nose as she stared at the computer screen.

His bookish professor had taken a turn toward Tomb Raider, and he could barely keep himself from acting on the impulses that were burning through his body every time he looked at her. So he looked over her shoulder at the computer instead and saw what she was examining so closely: a live satellite shot of the Met. She was scrolling up and down, left and right, noticing windows, exits and the landscaping around the museum.

“They have state-of-the-art security. We’d never get away with it. We need to come up with some fake credentials, and then you can use your powers to get them to hand it to us.”

“Can we at least go look at the statue?”

“Statues. There are three. But I’m ninety-nine percent certain I’ll know which it is as soon as I see it.

And we’ll go soon,” she said. “James, this is my area.

Museums, collections, artifacts. These are my people, curators and translators. You need to trust me on this.

I’ll get us in there. Okay?”

He met her eyes, beyond those glasses of hers, and nodded. “I know you will.”

She looked at him again, and there was worry in her eyes this time. “You look like a wreck. You didn’t sleep last night, or all day today. You must be exhausted.”

“I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.” He paced to the bed nearest him, sat on the edge, bounced up again. “Too much on my mind.”

“That’s an understatement. The weight of the world is riding right on your broad shoulders,” she said softly. “I don’t know how you’re even holding up under all of this—” She held up a hand as, apparently, someone came back on the telephone line. Then, nodding, she said, “Have him call me at this number as soon as possible, please.” And then, “Yes, it’s very urgent. The name? Ms. Enheduanna. That’s e-n-h-e d-u-a-n-n-a.” There was a pause. “Within thirty minutes? That would be perfect. Thank you so much for your time.”

She hung up the phone.

“En-who-whatta?” he asked, teasing just a little. “You couldn’t have gone with ‘Smith’?”

She smiled, as he had hoped she would. She had the most beautiful smile. It seemed healing to him, for some reason.

“Enheduanna was a Sumerian high priestess and the first author credited by name for her work. I’m her biggest living fan. Marcus will know it’s me.”

“And what’s to stop him from calling the authorities and giving them the number instead?”

“Loyalty,” she said. And then she shrugged. “And curiosity. He’ll at least phone me first to find out what’s going on and then decide how to proceed.”

James nodded slowly and felt a bit of jealousy that he told himself was entirely misplaced. Marcus had been a friend and colleague of her father’s, he reminded himself. So he must be at least fifteen or twenty years older than she was. “This guy—is he some…Indiana Jones type?”

Her smile was bright and wide, and it took his breath away for a moment, and then he wondered when he’d started reacting that way to her. Not only the breathless desire, not only looking at her and then getting stuck, unable to look away, but also this jealousy. What the hell was that about?

But he knew when. He knew exactly when. It had been on the yacht, when she’d sat across from him as he’d healed Pandora. It had been when he’d seen her crying over that damned cat, and when they’d shared in healing her. And it had intensified on the island, when she’d been weeping for Ellie, and then after the healing, when she’d looked at him as if she wanted to kiss him, as if he were some kind of a hero, or a god, and flung her arms around him and whispered in his ear that he was special. He’d realized then that he’d been dying for her to feel that way about him ever since he’d met her.

And now maybe he was starting to get why. He was falling for this bookish little mortal.

“A retired Indy, maybe,” she said, and laughed. “He’s almost seventy. He’s one of the few friends I’ve allowed myself in my life. But more importantly, he has a lot of influence in the antiquities community. And I have no doubt that a phone call from him will get us permission to take a closer look at those statues.”

“That doesn’t get the one we want out of the museum.”

“Well, if it gets it out of the case, into a quiet, private room and into my hands, we’ll be ahead of the game. Won’t we?” Then she tapped the computer screen, and he saw that she’d switched to the page for the museum’s gift shop. She clicked on a thumbnail of one of the items for sale, enlarging it, and he saw a small, rather crude statue of a nude man with his arms held close to his chest, elbows at his sides, thumbs pointing upward. Beneath the statue were the words, Sumerian Priest-King Replica—Actual Size. Gypsum Stone. $149.99.

He nodded. “You’re one smart woman, Lucy Lanfair.”

She tapped her head. “Professor, remember?” But then her smile died, and she frowned past him at the television screen.

And no wonder. A photo of her filled the screen, with the caption Professor Lucy Lanfair. Wanted in connection with the Waters/Folsom Murders.

He reached for the remote to shut the thing off, but she grabbed it first and cranked up the volume.

“…I think the government is reaching, here,” said one of the journalists seated on the set of a popular Sunday morning news program.

“The woman’s family was murdered in front of her,” said another.

“Family and the entire team on that dig in Iraq.” The camera went close on the man on the far right, close-cropped black curls and thick glasses. A caption read Dr. Jarod Cunningham, Clinical Psychologist. “She was the sole survivor. That’s going to leave some scars.”

“So then you think it’s possible this book of Folsom’s—meeting him by chance in that greenroom—somehow triggered a violent break with reality?” asked the host.

“It’s entirely possible. All this vampire stuff, all wound up with Sumerian legend, the very thing her parents were studying. It has to be connected,” said the shrink.

“Right. But the question remains, where’d she get the gun?”

A third man broke in, identified as a congressman. “None of that is relevant right now. What we need is for Professor Lanfair to come in and talk to us. And in the meantime, I must reiterate my call for calm. People are panicking—”

“People are dying, Congressman,” the host interrupted.

The politician nodded and looked right at the camera. “These vigilante groups are murdering their own out of fear and ignorance. People, there’s no such thing as vampires. No such thing. This violence needs to stop, and the sooner this professor comes in and tells the truth about what happened in that studio that night, the faster that will happen. There is more blood on this woman’s hands than just that of the two people she shot in Studio Three.”

“Allegedly shot,” said the host.

The congressman went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “This was not a government sponsored execution, as some fringe internet sites are claiming. There is no conspiracy here. There’s no more than one deluded old man, one irresponsible publisher looking to exploit his delusions and one mentally scarred genius who suffered a break with reality.”

James took the remote control away from her and turned the television set off. Lucy looked…stricken. And stunned and horrified and…

He went to stand between her and the TV set, because she was still staring at it. “You and I both know that’s all bull.”

She met his eyes then. Hers were wet. “But what we know is irrelevant. Most people are going to believe it. I’m a reclusive brainiac. I have no family, almost no friends. If they ask my neighbors about me, they’ll say, ‘She keeps to herself.’ God, they couldn’t have picked a better scapegoat.”

“Lucy, we’re going to fix this.”

“How? How are we going to fix this?” She lowered her head and shook it slowly. “My career is over. My credibility is destroyed. And I know, James—believe me, I know—this isn’t anywhere near as devastating as the possible extermination of an entire race. If I had to pick one or the other, I’d choose helping to save your people over my own career—I hope you believe that.”

That was the thing. He did believe it.

“But it’s still devastating. Because I can’t go back home again. My life as I knew it…it’s over. It’s over.” Blinking back tears, she looked at the telephone. “My God, I don’t know if even Marcus will believe me now. What must he be thinking?”

The telephone rang, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. James was all too aware of her turmoil, her fear, her uncertainty about her own future, and he wished he could make things right, but he would be damned if he knew how.

The phone was still ringing. Lucy stared at it, and then, reluctantly, she picked it up. “Hello?”

James leaned close to her, so he could hear. She tipped the phone toward him slightly.

“Lucy, is it you?” said an urgent male voice. “Please, for the love of God, tell me it’s you.”

“It’s me. Hello, Marcus. Your phone’s not tapped or anything, is it?”

“Of course not! Lucy, are you all right?”

“Yes. But I didn’t do what they’re saying I did. I didn’t—”

“I know. It never even crossed my mind. Mental break? You’re the sanest person I know. Lucy, where are you? Are you all right? Can I do anything to help you?”

“Yes, actually. I need to get my hands on the three priest-king statues from that traveling Sumerian exhibit that’s at the Met right now. I just need to examine them. Can you get me through the red tape?”

“The Met? Yes, I think I can do that. You can’t go as yourself, though, not with all the press you’ve been getting. Could you…manage a disguise of some sort? I know it sounds over the top, but given the situation…”

“I was already thinking that, myself.”

“All right, give me some time.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have much time, Marcus.”

“We?”

“Yes, I’m, um…with a colleague. He’s helping me.”

“But you’re safe, yes?”

“I’m as safe as I can be, given the circumstances.”

The older man sighed. “I’m just glad you’re not alone. Can you hold off for an hour? I’ll call you back then—sooner, if I can manage it.”

“An hour. All right, Marcus. Thank you.” She hung up the phone, lifted her eyes to meet James’s.

“An hour, Lucy?” James asked. “You do realize that’s more than enough time for him to give the authorities this number, and for them to trace it and surround this place. Are you sure you trust him?”

“Yes. I do trust him. But I don’t trust them. They know I know him, so they could be tapping his phone and he wouldn’t even know it. Let’s see how far down the hall this cordless phone will work, shall we?”

He lowered his head, amazed yet again at her ingenuity. “All right.”

She turned to begin gathering up their things, not that there were many.

Reaching behind her head, he snapped off the scrunchie that held her hair in place, and as she spun to face him, surprised, the long strands flew around her shoulders. Smiling, he took off her glasses. “You look nothing like that buttoned-up professor in that shot they were showing on TV. Not now.”

“I feel nothing like that buttoned-up professor,” she said. “My entire worldview has been turned inside out, James. Everything I thought was real is on shaky ground. And so many things I thought were just fantasy are walking around in my reality now.”

“The good guys turned out to be the villains, and the monsters turned into victims.”

“Heroes. Not victims. Heroes.” She lowered her eyes. “Especially you, James.”

He felt blood heating his face and averted it to hide the reaction. “If it doesn’t work…”

“If it doesn’t work, you’ll know you did your very best.”

Lifting his gaze again, he asked her, “Do you still think it’s a mistake to try?”

“To try to raise the ashes of a man who’s been dead for five thousand years? Yes, I do. But I don’t believe it’s a mistake to try whatever you have to, to save your people. And I also think that if you do any less and your people die, you’ll never forgive yourself. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve completely changed sides in this. I’m helping you now because I want to. Not because I have to.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her face. There was something more there. Or maybe he was only seeing what he wanted to see, because of his newly awakened—or at least newly acknowledged—feelings for her. But maybe not. Maybe she really did look as if she wanted him to kiss her.

Maybe he’d better find out.

“I’m sorry I ruined your life,” he said.

“You saved my life first,” she replied. “That kind of makes up for it.”

He took a step closer. “Let me make up for it a little bit more, hmm?”

“How?” she whispered.

“Close your beautiful eyes, Professor.”

She did. And he laid his hands over them, so that his fingertips extended upward, into her silky mink-colored hair, while the heels of his hands rested on her cheeks. He willed the light to come, and it did. It glowed, and gleamed and he heard her suck in a breath.

And then the light faded, and he lowered his hands. “Okay. Open them now.”

She opened her eyes and frowned. “What did you…?”

He picked up her glasses and tossed them into the wastebasket.

She blinked. “Oh, my God, you fixed my eyesight.”

“I would have done it sooner, if I’d thought of it.”

“James, you didn’t have to—”

Before she could finish, he swept her into his arms and kissed her, unable to hold in the desire any longer.

She opened her mouth to him, let him probe with his tongue, taste her. And as she fed from his mouth in return, he moved her across the room and then fell with her onto the bed, arching his hips against her, sliding his hands beneath her to pull her hard against his grinding hips.

Her eyes flashed open, and she stared into his. And he knew her answer to his unspoken question was a resounding yes.

His hands were trembling, as if he were a teenager and this was his first time, as he pushed her top upward and out of his way.

He bared one small perfect breast and lowered his head to nuzzle at its peak.

And then the phone rang, shattering the moment.

He closed his eyes. “Dammit.”

“We have to answer it,” she told him.

“I know. And I love that you know it, too.” He raised himself up off her body, gently righting her top in the process.

Pressing a hand to her chest as if to calm her racing heart, Lucy reached for the phone and answered. “Yes?”

“It’s me, Marcus. I thought it best to act with haste—you mustn’t stay in the city any longer than you absolutely have to. So you’re in. You are Professor Sandra Duncan. Your colleague is Dr. Winston Marlboro.”

“I’m an actress from the seventies and he’s two packs of cigarettes?”

“I had to think fast,” Marcus said with a self-deprecating sigh. “Mr. Scofield Danforth will be expecting you. He’ll bring the pieces to you for examination. He’s been told this is a matter of national security, that he mustn’t tell anyone else. I didn’t say it had to do with the current issue dominating the news, but I said enough that he no doubt drew that very conclusion. So he’ll cooperate. Please stay safe, my dear.”

“I’ll do my best. You’ve been a good friend to me, Marcus. I’ll never forget it.”

“Nonsense. Go now, do what you must. Whatever it is, I know it’s the right thing.”

The phone went dead, and she hung up, smoothed her hair and lifted her eyes. “We can go now.”

He didn’t want to go now. He wanted to follow up on what had almost happened between them. And yet, that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? The survival of his race was at stake, and he wanted to put off saving them for the sake of making love to this goddess of a woman?

Yeah. He did. He wouldn’t act on that desire, but deep down, that was exactly what he wanted. Chuck it all for an hour in her arms. Buried in her body. Two hours. An entire afternoon.

Hell. Wrong time. Wrong place. And probably, he knew, the wrong woman. And yet the thought lingered, playing out in his mind in vivid Technicolor and making his lips tingle at the thought of hers beneath them.

They left the hotel. In a strained and nervous silence, they walked side by side, but not touching, to the museum.

After their brief visit to the museum’s gift shop and the purchase that would enable them to pull this thing off, followed by a quick stop at the rest room, they went to their appointment with the twitchy little man with the pretentious and unlikely name of Scofield Danforth who was in charge of the traveling exhibit. They waited at a table in a private room in the glass-lined administrative section. They were on the north side of the breathtaking building, and the office windows were unprotected, as far as she could tell. Not that anyone could get out via those windows, with or without any valuable artifact, painting or jewel. They didn’t open, and there was nothing outside them to use as an escape route. No trees, no fire escape on that side of the building. Only an uninterrupted, albeit brief, drop to the manicured lawns of Central Park below.

No way out. Hell.

The curator returned with the requested items, three nine-inch-tall limestone sculptures of a nude man. He set the pieces on the table and stepped out of the room.

Lucy took the pieces in her hands one by one, reveling, as she always did, in the miracle of holding, of touching, something that had been held, touched, fashioned, by the hands of people who’d lived more than five thousand years ago. The three pieces were similar, with rough surfaces and an overall weathered appearance, gray-white in color, with varying striations of rust and darker grays. Holding the first one, she noted that the priest king’s body was almost cylindrical, his legs one blocklike unit, with an incised line to differentiate one from the other and hash marks to separate the toes. The figure flared from the hips into the upper body. The arms were bent at the elbows and held close to the body, fists at the chest, and like the legs, they were only roughly delineated. The round face featured expanded cheeks and full lips, a disc-shaped beard and a band around the hair. The genitals were carved in more realistic detail than any other part of the body.

“He left us alone with them. Not very nervous about us taking off with them, is he?” James asked softly, interrupting Lucy’s reverent contemplation of the artifact.

“Why should he be? There’s no way out of here other than the way we came in. And besides, we’re under constant surveillance.” She nodded at the video camera mounted in a corner of the room.

“We need to figure out which one it is and get it out of here,” he said, lowering his voice.

“It’s this one.”

“You’ve barely looked at the others. Are you sure?”

She sent him a scowl, her fingertip almost caressing a series of lines, carved in the stone. “His name is on it. And here are the wavy lines I told you to look for, as well.”

He held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, it’s that one.”

She shook the piece, frowning. “It doesn’t feel hollow, though.”

“Do you have the replacement ready?” he asked.

She nodded, glancing down at her jacket. Her handbag had been searched before she’d come in, but she hadn’t been patted down. The replacement statue, bought in the gift shop downstairs, was taped to her side and hidden there by her jacket.

James got to his feet and leaned over her with his back to the camera, as if in intense contemplation of the artifact. Lucy quickly hiked up her top and gently freed the replica from the duct tape holding it to her side. Then she set the fake on the table and taped the real statue to her skin, righted the shirt and straightened the jacket. The entire exchange took all of twenty seconds.

“He’s going to know it’s not the real one, James,” she said worriedly. “The size isn’t even a perfect match. I should have had some kind of a Plan B ready.”

James nodded. “You let me take care of that part, okay?” He tapped his head. “Vampire, remember?”

Smiling, she said, “Right.” She rose from the table and went to the door, opened it and smiled at the man who stood outside. “We’re all finished, Mr. Danforth. Thank you so much for your cooperation.”

The man nodded, entering the room, his eager eyes shooting straight to the items on the table. Then his eyes narrowed on the fake statue. “Wait, there’s something…”

“There’s nothing wrong,” James said, lowering a hand to the man’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong at all. The piece is exactly as you last saw it, precisely as you remember it to be, to the tiniest detail. You are supremely confident that all is well. You have no question whatsoever about that. Do you?”

“Of course not,” the man said, his voice oddly soft. He blinked, as if shaking off a stupor, and hurried to the table, picking up the artifact in gloved hands, handling it as reverently as Lucy had done. “You’ll let me know what this was all about when you can?”

“Of course we will,” Lucy said. “Your help is very much appreciated.”

He nodded, said goodbye and Lucy and James walked out into the public part of the museum and down to the ground floor. As they approached the main entrance, she tried to conceal her nerves. God, she was walking right out of the Met with a stolen artifact taped to her waist! This was so not typical Lucy Lanfair behavior.

Just the opposite, in fact.

And yet, they were doing it. They were getting away with it. They were almost to the massive, beautiful doors. They were—

James grabbed her arm. “Don’t freak out on me.”

“What?”

He nodded toward the door. “Police. Outside.”

“For us?” She blinked, staring at the door.

“Stop looking.”

She looked away. He lifted an arm, pointing to the left, and she followed his gaze. “Try to look like a tourist admiring the place.”

She made a face at him as he steered her toward the nonexistent thing he was allegedly pointing at. “Do you think the curator…?”

“No. He has no clue. I messed with his mind…just a little, but enough. No, this has to have come from your friend, Doctor Jones.”

“Marcus Payne. And he wouldn’t have ratted us out, James. Not Marcus.”

“Then maybe they really did tap his phone. Who the hell knows?”

He picked up the pace, heading for an elevator. “How are we going to get out of here?”

She looked around, saw a group of tourists being led by a college-age tour guide, swallowed hard and said, “Follow my lead. Blend in with the group.”

“What?” He frowned at her, but she rushed over to the group, tapped the young girl on the shoulder and, with a quick glance at her name badge, said, “Sarah?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Hi. I’m Molly. I’m new. Um, listen, the boss told me to take over. You’re wanted upstairs. Something about a special project.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do you know what it’s about?”

“No idea.”

“Well, will you tell me when you come back? I’m dying of curiosity.” Then Lucy turned to face the group. “Hi, all. I’m Molly, and I’ll be taking over the tour for Sarah. Did she tell you about the architectural history of this place?”

Heads shook slowly, as Sarah hurried away.

“Oh, then you’re in for a treat. Follow me outside the building, if you will—just a brief external tour. You’re going to love this.”

She led the group out the front doors, talking all the way, pointing, explaining, elaborating, even making things up from whole cloth. They walked right past the police, one of whom even nodded hello. She led the group around a corner of the building, toward the park that bordered it, and then she said, “Oh, no! I forgot your free gifts. Wait right here. You,” she added, with a nod toward James. “You can come help me carry them.”

He nodded, and the two of them raced off into the park, leaving the puzzled tour group alone and confused as to what had just happened.

“Now what?” Lucy asked, when they were in the clear, pausing on one of the winding footpaths that meandered through Central Park. She located a bench, sat on it, then gave a quick look around before reaching under the shirt to pull the tape off her side. She winced. “I’m not going to have any skin left there.”

“We can’t go back to the hotel,” James said, sitting down beside her. “If they were bugging Marcus’s phone, they’ll know that’s where we were calling from.” He took her bag from her shoulder. Then he eased the statue from her hands and tucked it inside.

“No reason to go back there anyway,” she said. “We didn’t leave anything. We need to get out of the city, James.”

He nodded. “This would be a bad place to resurrect old Utanapishtim anyway. Can you imagine a man who’s been dead for five thousand years waking up in the middle of Manhattan?”

“I can’t imagine him waking up anywhere,” she said. “And it’s Utana.”

“What is?”

“His name. The one he used, his familiar name.” She reached into the bag and pulled the statue out, but only far enough to see the lines engraved on its base. “I’ve read these same lines on that stone tablet of yours. Utana. Called Ziasudra. Called Utanapishtim. Called the Flood Survivor. Called the Servant of the Gods. Then cursed by them. And hidden here by my hand, hidden from the Divine wrath of the Anunaki.”

“Anu-what?”

“The gods.”

He frowned at her. “Are you going to be able to communicate with him? When we raise him, I mean.”

She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again and lowered her head, shaking it slowly.

“What?” he asked.

Drawing a breath, Lucy chose her words with care. “James, I don’t want you to do this. It’s not a good idea. And it probably won’t work anyway. It didn’t work with those…those corpses,” she whispered. “Back at the mansion.”

“It did work. They were up and walking around. How is that not working?”

“They were pieces of animated meat. Not thinking, sentient beings. It’s not going to do any good to raise a zombie, is it? Besides, this isn’t even a body. It’s ash.”

“You don’t think I can do this. After all you’ve seen.” He got to his feet, walking away from her and shaking his head.

She hiked the bag onto her shoulder, got up and went to him. Standing close behind him, she said, “Maybe it’s that I’m afraid you can do it. I wouldn’t be so worried if I thought you were going to hold your magical, glow-in-the-dark hands over a pile of ash and nothing was going to happen, would I?”

He lowered his head with a sigh and turned to face her. “That’s what happened at my parents’ house,” he said softly. “I ran around holding my hands over one pile of ashes after another. Trying to…”

“Oh, James… But they weren’t there, so it’s no wonder you couldn’t—”

“I know. They’re okay. But see, they won’t be if I fail. No one will. I have to try. You’ve seen what’s been happening. You’ve read the prophecy.”

“The prophecy was incomplete. We still don’t know the details of what it is that Utanapishtim’s supposed to do, if and when you bring him back.”

“If and when I do,” he asked again, “will you be able to communicate with him?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. We’re guessing, at best, as far as what the language sounded like. I could write—maybe—basic things. But…it’s going to be a challenge. No one alive has ever heard the Sumerian language spoken.” She bit her lip, raised her head. “Wait a minute, someone has.”

“Yeah. Damien.”

“Gilgamesh,” she whispered.

“Vlad, too.”

“Vlad…you mean Dracula?” she whispered the name.

“Yeah. He’s far older than his legend would lead you to believe. He took on the role of Prince Vlad Dracul, but he’d already been alive for thousands of years by then. But it’s a long story, and we don’t have time.”

“You’re right. But I’m fascinated, James.”

He met her eyes, and she stared into them. They almost kissed, but she bit her lip and drew away.

James tried to focus. “Okay, so we’ll have people who can talk to him. We think. So we just need to raise him in a safe place. A place where we’ll have privacy, where we won’t be interrupted, and where nothing’s going to pop up and scare the hell out of the poor guy, like a truck or a bus or a plane or—”

“The island?” she asked.

He met her eyes, considering it, then shook his head. “Too many people wanting to talk to him, with good reason for impatience. We need to bring him up to speed, explain how it is he’s been returned to life and what’s been happening in the world since he was last a part of it.”

“It boggles my mind that this might actually be about to happen, James.”

He nodded. “Let’s take him out on the Nightshade. Get him out on the ocean, try to do it there.”

“Kind of close quarters, don’t you think?” she asked. “What if something goes wrong?”

“I won’t let anything go wrong.”

She closed her eyes and wished the phrase famous last words hadn’t chosen that moment to run through her mind. “Fine. The Nightshade it is.”