“You know, you can take off your coat and stay awhile,” Charlie said.
But Harley looked like he was still too cold to take it off, and Charlie knew enough not to rush him. And it was the backpack, anyway—not the coat—that he was dying to get into.
“While you were gone, I took a little trip myself,” Charlie said by way of distraction. “To Nome.”
Apart from nervously rubbing his thigh, Harley didn’t react in any way.
“I went to see that thief Voynovich.”
Harley’s eyes flicked up from the rim of the mug.
“He told me a few things about the cross. And I’ve done some digging on my own.”
Harley was starting to focus again.
“Seems like it might be worth a helluva lot more than we thought.”
Harley snorted, like none of this mattered much anymore, and Charlie took offense.
“In case you care,” Charlie said, “it belonged to Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar. And it was a gift to her from a guy named Rasputin. I figured all of that out by myself, sitting in this very room.” He waited for the news to sink in. “How about that?”
“If you ask me, you should throw the fucking thing in the ocean.”
That was not exactly the reaction that Charlie was expecting. A puddle was forming on the rug around his brother’s boots, soaking the bottom of the backpack.
“You know what?” he said. “I don’t know what you’re on, or what the hell happened to you, but I’m already sick of this routine. Are you gonna tell me what’s going on? Where are Eddie and Russell?”
Harley, finally, cracked a smile, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that would gladden any heart. To Charlie, it made him look as demented as that guy from Dillingham.
“Eddie and Russell are dead.”
“Dead?” Holy Hell, what sort of trouble had these cretins gotten themselves into?
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Eddie fell off a cliff, and Russell got eaten by wolves.”
Charlie blew out a breath, then said, “That sounds plenty dead to me.”
Harley actually chuckled. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Charlie, not overly endowed with patience to begin with, was now fresh out. For all he knew, Eddie and Russell were down at the Yardarm right now, just as stoned and out of it as his brother was. Who knew what they were ingesting? Eddie’s mom was known for cooking up some pretty wicked shit. “Pick up that damn backpack,” he said, “and give it to me.”
Harley tossed the damp backpack onto Charlie’s lap.
As Charlie started to root around inside, Harley said, “I’d be careful if I were you,” but it was already too late. Charlie had pierced a finger, and pulling it out, stuck it in his mouth to stanch the bleeding.
“What have you got in here?” Charlie said, turning the satchel over and shaking it out on the rug. A hail of broken tubes and stoppers fell out, some of them bloody or smeared with melting flesh. Charlie recoiled at the mess. “Are you nuts?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’d you get all this crap?”
“The colony.”
“What for?”
“Just keep shaking.”
Charlie shook it again, and this time the icon fell right into his lap. The Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus … adorned with three sparkling diamonds. Charlie’s mood changed in an instant. “Holy Mother of God.”
“Damn straight.”
Charlie angled his chair to catch the light from the desk lamp better, and to see the diamonds shine.
“This is from one of the graves?”
Harley nodded.
“And there’s more where this came from?”
“I suppose so.”
What kind of answer was that? Charlie was caught between exultation and frustration. Between the emerald cross and this icon, they had struck the mother lode, but how much more had his idiot brother left in the ground? “Then we’ll have to go back.”
“Not me.”
God, give me strength, Charlie thought. If it weren’t for this wheelchair … He was searching for the right tack and trying to keep his temper, when Harley bent over double, calmly vomiting the tea and toast onto the carpets.
Oh, Christ, Rebekah was going to have a fit.
But Harley smiled dreamily, unaffected, before toppling out of the chair, unconscious, and into the pool of puke and broken vials.
Chapter 45
The second Slater entered the quarantine tent, he could see that Lantos had gone from stable to critical. Her brow was bathed in sweat, her normally frizzy hair was limp and sticking to her scalp in clumps, her lips were a pale blue. Delirious, she was thrashing around in the improvised restraints that they had finally had time to fashion for her, and muttering about wolves and blood and mice.
“Eva, stop struggling,” he said, trying to pin her arms more firmly to the cot. “I want to give you something for the pain.”
“Hospital,” she said, barely focusing on him. “I need … to be … hospital.”