Day 9 (25 page)

 

CHAPTER 55

Barcelona, Spain - November 1976

Fifty white doves are released, one for each year that Gaudí has been dead.

The doves leap above the crowd and thread among my towers, white wings beating against the bright blue sky. Some alight on my ledges and cornices, tiny hearts pounding against chiseled stone. Roving spots of warmth on a chilly day.

Down below, the bishop delivers his address to the masses filling the streets. He talks about how this is the fiftieth anniversary year of Gaudí's death. In honor of that remarkable man, the Passion façade and its towers have been finished. Gaudí's dream of faith and devotion to the Sacred Family lives on.

The crowd roars. Not with rage, as in the Tragic Week or Civil War...but with approval. With appreciation.

It's a sound I love. It accomplishes the very thing I once thought was my purpose in life. It drives away loneliness.

Not that I am often lonely these days. Gaudí is fifty years gone...even Quintana has been dead for a decade...and I have lost track of everyone else who has departed—but new faces continue to take their place. New architects and workmen and artists and tourists and children keep coming. Some even talk to me now and again.

They see me as something out of the ordinary...something grand. Which is what I thought of myself from the start. Humbled by time and death and destruction, I've stopped seeing myself that way...so the people's admiration has a different taste than it once did. Whatever there is about me that might be grand, it has nothing to do with my personal greatness. It is nothing
I
did.

It is only because of my maker.

When the bishop chants a prayer, he calls Gaudí a saint, and rightly so. Only someone so devout and inspired could have put in motion a dream that still lives and grows today. A monument not to his own glorification but to the hope of the world.

It is a privilege to be his creation.

The bishop splashes the doors of my Passion façade with holy water. It makes me think of that night years ago when the mobs splashed me with gasoline. When they set me aflame.

How things have changed.

Did Gaudí foresee all this, I wonder? Was it in his plans from the start, in the parts I couldn't see when they fluttered in the wind? If so, what else was on those pages? What is the fullness of his plan for me? That I shall grow to live up to his vision and help redeem the lost souls of this world?

Or was it only this: to realize, finally, that I can only ever live up to the parts of the vision that I can see. Or understand.

On the ground, the choir begins to sing...voices of varying timbre and pitch weaving together to create a beautiful structure of sound. Then, the crowd in the streets joins in, adding hundreds more voices...thousands...growing grander with each passing second. Turning the structure of sound into a
cathedral
, the equal in music of my physical form.

It resonates in every window and vault and tomb of me. Echoes and amplifies between my walls. Synchronizes with the secret hum of my mind and bursts skyward in a great harmonic bolt. Straight to the heavens.

I wonder if Gaudí will hear it. If he will recognize it.

Did he plan it all along? Years ago, when I thought I could fly, was it just a premonition of this moment? Intuition of this talent to channel the voice of humankind heavenward?

Or is the actual flying still to come?

My visions of flight from years ago are still strong. To tell the truth, I don't think I ever stopped dreaming about them.

Oh, to rise from my hole in the ground and soar through the air. To explore the far corners of the Earth and bask in its wonders. And when I have seen it all, to rise even higher, climbing past the sun to meet the stars and powers of the night.

How I once wished I could do that.

Now, even if these dreams were merely hints of other destinies to come, how I wish it again.

 

CHAPTER 56

 

Hollywood, California - November 1976

"
What
is the
fascination
with that
cathedral
?" Lianna Caprice rolled her eyes and shook her folded hands in a pleading gesture. "Can we
please
turn the
channel
?"

Cyrus Gowdy stood in front of the TV, hand hovering near the tuner knob on the top right corner of the set. "It's the
Sagrada Família
. One of the wonders of modern architecture."

Lianna sighed and got up from the bed. "Cyrus, sweetie." She wrapped her arms around him from behind. "We're missing our
show
."

"Just one more minute." Gowdy pointed at the screen, where a flock of white doves was flying up around the cathedral's towers. "This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the guy who designed it. Antoni Gaudí."

"Darling," said Lianna. "When I say 'our show,' you know I'm talking about
Weeping Willows
, right? Which you wrote, produced, and directed, and which I
star
in? Which is premiering
right now
on another
channel
?"

Gowdy smiled at the screen as the camera panned along a peaked roof with pillars like crooked stalactites. "There's the Passion façade. They finished it just in time for the anniversary."

"Fascinating." Lianna said it with heavy sarcasm...then proceeded to reach around Gowdy and twist the tuner knob. She quickly switched three channels up the dial. And stopped.

Instead of the Sagrada Família, the screen was filled with an image of her.

"
That's
more like it." Without taking her eyes off the screen, Lianna guided Gowdy by the hand to the hotel bed. "Now let's
enjoy
this."

The two of them in their white terrycloth robes settled against the piled-up pillows. The gray light from the TV danced over their faces as the premiere episode of
Weeping Willows
flickered across the screen.

There was a shootout, then a love scene involving Lianna, then a commercial. The next segment started with a shouting match in the Team Room at the Willow family's ranch headquarters.

Lianna watched with her arms around Gowdy, her head on his chest. "This is wonderful," she said. "Like a dream come true."

Gowdy kissed the top of her head. "I know."

"Cyrus?" said Lianna. "What made you decide to watch the premiere with me instead of your wife?"

"She's not my muse, is she?" Gowdy caressed her long, red hair. "And she's not my star."

Lianna curled more tightly against him. "Do you think we were meant to be together?"

"It feels that way," said Gowdy.

"When we're old," said Lianna. "Thirty or forty years from now...do you think we'll be together?"

Gowdy cocked his head and stared into space. "Yeah." He grinned and nodded. "I have a feeling we'll be together then."

"So it's all going to work out." Lianna's voice was a purr of satisfaction. "We'll have our happy ending."

"To go with our happy beginning," said Gowdy.

On the TV screen, Lianna and Scott Savage fought a gang of thugs barehanded—and almost won. Lianna and Scott were both captured and dragged away just as the show faded to black and another commercial started.

"I'll be right back." Gowdy slipped away from Lianna, hopped off the bed...and changed the channel on the TV. The commercial was replaced by the Sagrada Família, surrounded by a sea of people bathed in sunlight.

Lianna sighed. "Not again."

"Just a minute, I promise." Gowdy sat on the edge of the bed, transfixed. "Just look at that. Gaudí was a genius, wasn't he?"

Lianna crawled across the bed and knelt behind him, twining her arms around his chest. "
You're
a genius."

Gowdy shook his head. "I could never create something like that."

"You made
Weeping Willows
," said Lianna.

"In fifty years..." Gowdy pointed at the screen. "Do you think people will turn out in honor of
Weeping Willows
? Do you think they'll
revere
it? Do you think it'll make a
difference
?" He chuckled. "Not a chance."

"Maybe
Weeping Willows
will be bigger than you think," said Lianna. "Maybe it
will
make a difference."

"It's schlock," said Gowdy. "Well-intentioned schlock, but still schlock."

"So make something that
matters
," said Lianna. "Nobody's
stopping
you."

Gowdy thought for a moment, then reached for her hand and kissed it. "Maybe you're right. Maybe someday."

Lianna whispered in his ear. "Do it for me."

"Will you help me?" said Gowdy.

"Of course," said Lianna. "We'll do it together."

A montage played on the screen, close-up shots of the cathedral's intricate features. "And what about that?" said Gowdy. "I've always wanted to see it in person."

"That, too," said Lianna.

"We'll see it?" said Gowdy.

"We will," whispered Lianna. "Together. I promise."

 

CHAPTER 57

 

Warpath Journal

Dateline: New Justice, New Mexico

The remote control for the bomb around my waist reappears. It floats into view above me as I lie on my back, staring up at the sky.

I've been worrying about what Quincy said about Amish Amos talking through me. The symbol I drew on the back of my arm—a question mark combined with a crucifix—matches the one on the wall of the bloody church in my vision.

But the bomb remote takes my mind off all that. I thought Quincy had taken it while I was blacked out.

But it's Jeremiah Weed who's dangling it over me.

"I'm done waiting," says Weed. "Get 'em up here
now
, or I'll push the
button
."

He gets my attention.

Weed makes some more threats, but I just lie on the ground a minute more, thinking things over. One problem still stands in the way of my plan, and its name is "Knox," as in "Knox won't come out and play."

The good news is, I have an idea for turning him up.

With Weed still standing over me, I toss and groan in the dirt. I roll my head from side to side and make my eyes flutter like I'm having a seizure.

Weed backs up fast. Probably thinks I'm going to try to jump him. "Settle down, War!" He waves the bomb remote. "I
swear
, I'll
push
it!"

"I'm not War." I roll my eyes back so only the whites are showing. "My name is
Amos
."

"What the fuck?" says Weed.

With my eyes still rolled up to the whites, I flop my head to one side so Quincy can see my face. "Quincy?" I make my voice a little higher, though it's only a guess at what "Amos" sounded like. "Quincy, it's me. I'm in control again."

Quincy says nothing for a minute. And then he speaks.

"Amo-o-o-s?" His voice is a ghostly moan. "I'm ba-a-a-ck."

And I know I've got him. What I couldn't accomplish by kicking his ass, I made happen through trickery.

Knox Pittenger has returned.

Now to put him to good use. "Come with me, Knox." I get to my feet and then help him get to his. "It's time to go fishing."

 

"He's caught something," said Hannahlee. "His side's infected."

She gave Dunne and Gowdy a look at the sewn-up wound in Leif's side, which was oozing between the stitches. "We need to get him out of here."

Gowdy's hands jittered as he fiddled with the ruby frames of his glasses. "How soon?"

"ASAP." Hannahlee shot him a look, then bent to affix a fresh dressing to Leif's wound. "Unless you've got a stock of I.V. antibiotics on hand down here."

Gowdy shook his head. "I guess we'd better get moving."

"Hold on." It was the first thing Dunne had said in a while. He was still shell-shocked from Gowdy's Godseye blitz of information, not sure if he was more pissed off at Gowdy and Hannahlee for
keeping
secrets or
revealing
them...but his personal turmoil would have to wait. "Does the exit lead to Waystation Cemetery, like on the show?"

Gowdy looked relieved that Dunne was talking again. "Yes, it does. The cemetery's right above us."

"You have a camera up there, right?" said Dunne. "Let's take a look."

Gowdy headed across the cave. "You think Lou's waiting for us?"

"He doesn't know much about the tunnels, apparently," said Dunne. "He didn't follow us down here."

"I'm the only one with access." Gowdy hurried to a bank of video screens mounted on a rack against the far wall. "And I'm sure the layout's a blank to him. He didn't see the
Weeping Willows
episodes that showed it. He's never watched the episodes he didn't appear in."

"I still say be careful," said Dunne.

Gowdy pressed buttons on the control board built into the rack. One of the screens flared to life, displaying a black-and-white image from the outside world.

Dunne immediately recognized the location as Waystation Cemetery. He also recognized the human figure in the middle of the shot.

"Quincy!"

The ponytailed giant waved his arms at the camera. He was shouting, though Dunne couldn't hear what he said.

"So that's your partner," said Gowdy. "Good to see he's alive."

"But he looks bad," said Dunne. Even in low-resolution black-and-white video, Quincy looked beaten and bedraggled. His clothes were torn, his face bruised and bloody, and he was limping. "Where's the audio?"

"I'm trying." Gowdy flipped switches and slid fader bars up and down on the board. "The mic's dead. Let me switch to another pickup." Gowdy punched a button and slid a fader bar with finality. "There we go."

Quincy's voice filtered from a speaker, sounding distant and strange. "...can you hear m-e-e? I got away. I ha-a-ave the car..."

"He's in a daze or something." Dunne squinted at the screen. "He must've really taken a pounding."

"I'm waiting for yo-o-ou," said Quincy. "We need to go before they fi-i-ind me."

"We should get up there," said Gowdy.

Dunne kept staring at the screen. "What if he's not alone?"

Gowdy also leaned in to stare. "I don't see anybody."

"Do you have more cameras up there?"

Gowdy hit a series of buttons on the board. The screen changed to snow...then went back to the original shot of Quincy. "None that are working."

"Hur-r-ry," said Quincy. "We don't have much ti-i-ime."

Dunne frowned. He went over every millimeter of the image on the screen but saw nothing suspicious.

"So what now?" said Gowdy.

"We go." Hannahlee had crossed the cave and was standing behind them. "Before the patient gets worse."

Dunne looked over at Hannahlee and Gowdy. He couldn't believe they were his parents. It didn't seem possible. "Can we wait just a little? See if anything changes up there?"

Before Hannahlee could answer, Quincy let loose a howl, and all eyes turned to the screen. Quincy staggered in a circle, dodging tombstones, then dropped to the ground. He lay there, wailing and twitching under the blazing New Mexico sun.

"Does that answer your question?" said Hannahlee.

Dunne sighed. "We have to help him." Even as he said it, his heart pounded faster. They were going to leave the safety of the Burrow.

"He could be faking the seizure," said Gowdy. "At gunpoint."

"We can't take that chance," said Hannahlee. "We have both him and Leif to think about."

Dunne felt cold sweat trickle down his sides. He wished he could argue with her, but he couldn't. Quincy was a human irritant, but he was also part of the team. He had been on the quest from almost the beginning, through all the ups and downs and deadly dangers.

And somewhere along the way, though Dunne hated to admit it, he had turned into a friend.

"Okay then." Dunne looked at Gowdy, his newfound father, and forced aside the mixed feelings roiling within him. "We need two things."

"Shoot," said Gowdy.

"Exactly," said Dunne. "Where do you keep the guns?"

"And a stretcher," said Hannahlee.

"You read my mind," said Dunne.

"See?" Gowdy chuckled and swatted Dunne's arm. "I
told
you we were a family. We even
think
alike."

"I hope not." Dunne scowled. "Because I don't think you'd like what I'm thinking about you right now."