Last Call For Caviar (28 page)

The back-up generators kicked in when I clicked on the lights. I stripped off my rain-soaked clothes in the kitchen and let them fall to the floor. I examined the gash. I wouldn’t need stitches, though the cut was seeded with gravel and debris from the mud-strewn path. I was chilled to the bone, and there was no hot water. I toweled off, cleaned and bandaged the wound. I put on two thick sweaters I found in Arnaud’s closet and fleece-lined sweatpants.

I huddled on the couch under a mound of blankets and nursed a mug of tea with a healthy slug of whiskey and tried to warm up as the storm beat on the dome. This morning at dawn, I’d been so sure. It had felt so right. But here, alone, while the storm howled outside, my courage and faith drained away. I’d counted on Buddy’s presence and affection to lean on while I waited, but now I didn’t think I’d ever felt so miserable and alone in my life.

The lights flickered off and a couple of seconds later, came back on. I realized I’d forgotten to bring in the battery-operated lanterns from the garage shelf. I didn’t relish the idea of cowering in the dark if the generators were knocked out by the storm. I needed those lanterns, and though I was finally comfortable and warm, I would have to venture out once more into the fury of the night.

It was only twenty meters to the garage and workshop, but the spotlight was burned out next to the back door. I shone the flashlight light around the yard, the beam too faint to penetrate the inky blackness that surrounded the dome. Thunder rumbled, and a fork of lightning briefly illuminated the scene before my eyes.

I was soaked to the skin by the time I unlocked the door and wrestled the wind to open it. I grabbed two camping lanterns off the shelf and locked the door behind me. I played the beam across the ground separating me from the dome before braving the elements. That’s when I saw the pair of eyes watching me from the shadows by a shed halfway across the yard. I could see the rectangle of light from the open back door, spilling into the night, and realized that I’d left my gun inside. Something or someone was there in the dark between me and the rectangle of safety.

There had to be something I could use to defend myself in the garage. I slowly set one of the lanterns down. The other I clutched to my chest. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was my only defense. My back was to the garage door. I didn’t take my eyes off the patch of darkness where the creature crouched, as my hand searched blindly behind me for the lock.

There were boars with wicked tusks to gore soft, human flesh, here on the heights. One could be watching me and getting ready to charge.

Or might someone have heard me calling Buddy’s name and followed me back to the dome?

Refugees from the fighting, or other escapees from the Farm, like Luca and Joanna, might have become lost in the storm and sought shelter here. Desperate and willing to do anything to survive.

My skin crawled as I remembered the back country psychopath, his incisors honed like daggers and the serpent’s tongue flicking at me between his fleshy lips. Could he somehow have tracked me to the Astrarama, and even now, was he licking those lips in anticipation of the revenge and what horrors he would visit upon my flesh this night?

Were Slava’s ghouls and night crawlers waiting out there in the darkness, intent on mischief of another kind? Had they found me already? My heart pounded as I remembered the naked hunger crawling across the face of the hag.

Had my escape from
Carpe Diem
been for nothing? Was it all going to end here?

I was about to spin around and unlock the door when the shadow moved and crept out of the darkness towards me.

Head lowered and shivering in the rain, Buddy limped into the rectangle of light. I was across the yard in a couple of strides and fell to my knees. I wrapped my arms around him. The tension and worry that I’d held in all day poured out of me and fell on his coat.

“It’s okay, sweet boy. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’re home now,” I cried against his shaking form. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I thought I was protecting you. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I swear I’ll never leave you again.”

Lightning cracked overhead, and thunder boomed across the night. I could feel his heart beating under my hand as I crouched in the mud and hung on while the heavens poured down on our heads. Then, I felt his warm tongue licking my hand.

“Dog” is “god” spelled backwards. Buddy had come back to show me that through forgiveness, we find redemption.

Staring at the light that spilled from the doorway, I’d never been more grateful for warmth and safety.

“Come on, Buddy. Let’s get you dried off and fed.”

I led him inside.

There was no dawn as the storm raged on for a second day. The blackness of the night lightened to charcoal gray, while the fury of the winds and waves pounded the coast below. Tornadoes spun off from the storm front, effectively cutting off escape by sea. I wondered if Anjuli and Abdul were at this minute waiting for
Carpe Diem
to pull into port in Santa Margarita. I thought of Bilal and prayed the yacht hadn’t put out to sea. No matter how skilled her crew, she wouldn’t have been able to run before this storm. Even if I had stayed on the
Carpe Diem
, I was never destined to escape. For all I knew she, her passengers and crew were resting on the bottom of the sea.

But on the bright side, no helicopters would fly, either. The storm would make Anjuli’s trail harder to follow for Slava’s trackers. At least for today, everyone was pinned down. Even the rebels in Cannes couldn’t press their advance. But when the skies finally cleared in the next days, another sort of firestorm was poised to rain hell down on all our heads.

.

CHAPTER 32

H
OME OF THE
G
ODS

It had been a week, cut off from the world. No word from Julian, even though I turned on the cell phone to check for messages every day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. There was one from Giovanni. I didn’t answer. Maybe if we survived, one day I could send him word.

The storm ended on the third day, and I crept down to a vantage point, as close to the coast as I dared, to survey the damage. The anchorage off Cap Ferrat was littered with the masts and listing hulls of half a dozen boats. Others had probably sunk and come to rest on the bottom of the bay. The port at the village of Saint Jean was a shambles, and a yacht had been flung by the winds onto the beach at Paloma.

The grotto and cove at la Mala were submerged, and a maelstrom of waves swamped the villas built down close to the shore. I saw a tornado had hit land on the peninsula and cut a swath through the parasol pines. Only matchsticks of timber and debris were left of the stately villas caught in its direct path. Miraculously, my home had been spared, though a pine had been torn from its roots and flung at a drunken angle across the red tiles of the roof. As much as I needed the extra supplies still stocked at home, I couldn’t risk venturing back one last time until the waters receded.

Every night, the sky was illuminated by rocket flares and the echo of gunfire as the fighting crept ever closer. The front lines were now only kilometers from the airport. The sky was veiled day and night by a pall of smoke. I hadn’t seen the stars all week. A great city was about to fall, just like in my dream. The firestorm was coming and would burn everything in its path. It had been a week now since I received the fateful text message, but Julian was still lost to me in the hell below.

Last night, I awoke to silence, the rumble of the guns from the killing fields hushed, and saw, for the first time in a week, the majestic swath of stars shining above. I wheeled the telescope onto the deck and searched the familiar constellations, and unknown worlds, spreading in a dazzling profusion before my eyes

My gaze swept past Betelgeuse and Rigal. There was Orion the Hunter, stalking the night sky, in amorous pursuit of the Pleiades. And the Seven Sisters did, as Lord Tennyson so eloquently declaimed, “Glitter like a swarm of fireflies, tangled in a silver braid.”

In every ancient civilization on Earth, the Pleiades were revered. From the desert tribes of North Africa and the Pharaohs of Egypt to the island kingdoms of Polynesia; for the aborigines of the Australian outback to the nomads of the Far East steppes or the citizen-philosophers of the Greek archipelago, legends swirl around these brilliant, blue stars.

North American Indians’ legends denote the Pleiades as a sacred place and believe it is where a soul returns to upon its death. For the Mayans and Aztecs, the star cluster of the Pleiades was the home of Gods.

Quetzalcoatl was one such god, a bearded white man who lived among these tribes for a time, taught them mathematics and astronomy, and shared with them sacred knowledge from the stars. He foretold of many things to come. The record of his predictions is written in hieroglyphics on the walls of their stone pyramids. And eerily, so many of these prophecies have come to pass.

When Quetzalcoatl’s time on Earth drew to a close, he transformed into a feathered serpent, then ascended to his home among the Pleiades. With the promise he would return to usher in a new world, a new age.

Indeed, almost every tribe in the Americas, from the Incas in South America, to the Plains Indians of North America, too, have legends of a bearded white god—though he was known to them by other names—who, two thousand years ago, traveled and lived among them for a time, teaching them the sacred ways.

I saw the hour was late and was ready to turn in for the night, when I noticed low in the eastern portion of the sky, a new star rising from the Pleiades. As it rose ever higher, its color magically intensified until it blazed blood-red.

I stood there mesmerized, and goose bumps ran up my arms as I wondered if the Red Star Kachina—the Purifier from Hopi legends—had finally appeared.

Later, as I lay shivering in bed, feeling all alone in the world, except for the reassuring bulk of Buddy warming my feet, the pulsing image of the red star followed me down into dreamland and haunted my sleep.

Today, I observed, from a stand of oak trees, the last stretch of road that led to the valley of Laghet. I haven’t been back to Laghet since that fateful day when we fled the wrath of the tornado at Lac Saint Cassiens. I haven’t spoken with the nuns, either, since that day when hope died.

In the early hours of the morning, I’d descended from the Astrarama and hiked cross-country. It was now a quarter past eight, and the mist that hugged the ground was steaming under the sun’s warming rays. I’d been watching the empty road for twenty minutes, but no cars passed this way.

Unfortunately, I’d be exposed while traversing the road, until about seventy meters ahead; there was a little-used footpath hidden amongst the vegetation that led to the grotto at the base of the sanctuary’s walls. From the top of the footpath, I’d have a clear view of the parking lot and the main entrance to the church.

I hadn’t planned on coming back here, but when I awoke this morning after a night of restless sleep, haunted by a pulsing, red eye, I felt a compulsion to visit Laghet’s sacred grounds once more.

I swept the surrounding countryside one last time with my binoculars. I left the stand of oaks, and with Buddy loping by my side, ran the seventy meters to the turnoff to the footpath.

The only car in the parking lot was the church’s van. No one saw me as I slipped through the wooden door in the wall and descended the worn stone stairs to the cool grotto. It was 8:40; the offices of the morning were over, and the members of the order were, most likely, breaking their fast.

I lit a candle and placed it before the photo of Julian. The reflection of the flame caused points of light to dance in his eyes, and I imagined a spark of sentience lurked in their green depths.

I knelt before the altar and prayed to I knew not which god. Maybe it was the Sisters’ beloved Seigneur. Or some ancient spirit who inhabited this sacred grotto since the dawn of mankind. The chill and dampness seeped into my knees from the old stones, until they ached as though I was crippled with arthritis, and still, I stayed kneeling before the altar. I beseeched the nameless power who resided in this holy grotto to keep Julian from harm and speed him safely back to my arms.

I don’t know how long I knelt, lost in supplication, before I felt Buddy’s nose nudging my arm, his breath warm against my cheek. I climbed the steep steps, thinking to slip out the door and disappear into the countryside, but Sister Marie-Timotee was waiting outside of the wooden doors.

“Good morning, Maya Jade. I thought that was you, tiptoeing down these stairs. We’re you planning on sneaking off without even saying goodbye?” Her face was stern, but I could see the humor twinkling in her eyes.

She was as saintly as any of the other nuns of the order, but I wondered what other lives she’d led before retreating to a cloistered life of contemplation and prayer. I sensed that she once knew, firsthand, of the pleasures and temptations, the sorrows and joys of the secular world.

“You’re right, Sister Marie-Timotee. I did sneak in and was planning on leaving without saying anything. I feel guilty because I’ve never come back since that day at Lac Saint Cassiens. I’ve been so lost. It feels like the world’s ending, and we’ve run out of time.”

She took my hand in hers and led me to a secluded bench under an enormous oak, the boughs spreading in a russet canopy over our heads. Buddy lay down at my feet. The valley spread before us, carpeted in autumn shades of rust and gold. The days were still warm, but you could feel the seasons changing, the nip in the air at night. And taste the approach of dark and melancholy winter days.

“My dear Maya, it doesn’t matter why you’ve stayed away. We’ve missed you. But you’re here now. I’m glad you came. I’ve worried about you. I know you were so full of pain and grief. I can see in your eyes, you’re still troubled.”

I think more than anything it was the kindness in her voice, because the words poured out in a torrent.

“Sister, I don’t know what to do. I don’t think you can help me, but I received a message from Julian. Or at least I thought it was from him. He’s still alive. The message told me to wait. That he would come for me. But it’s been more than a week… I don’t know if he’s coming. I don’t know anymore if the message was even from him.”

I could feel the panic well up inside as my doubts threatened to swamp me.

“Maybe it was a hoax. Maybe the message was a trap, sent by someone else. I don’t know what to do. I had a chance to leave. There were people who wanted to help me. But I turned my back on their help. I stayed for him. And now, I don’t know if I made a mistake. There are people looking for me. Some really dangerous people. I’m in trouble. What will I do if he doesn’t come?”

“My dear child, so many worries, and you feel so alone. Apart from your loyal friend here, lying at your feet.” She smiled and reached down to pat Buddy’s head before continuing.

“You feel overwhelmed. I understand. But you came here today, with your sorrow and your confusion. You couldn’t carry the burden by yourself anymore. The Seigneur is like a father who wants his children to be happy. He doesn’t want you to suffer this burden alone. He wants to help you and take away your pain.” Her soothing voice and reassuring words flowed over me, easing the knot of panic in my chest.

I gazed into her clear gray eyes and felt the warmth flowing from her hand into mine. “All you have to do is give Him your sorrow, your worries, your pain. He will carry the burden for you. You need only lay it at His feet. Believe in His love, because you are loved. You’re one of His children. We all are.”

It all sounded so easy. If only it could be that simple—to believe we are loved. That there exists a higher power who will shoulder our burden, ease our pain and sorrow.

“If God is love,” I thought cynically, “then we, His children, have taken His gift and twisted it into war and hatred. Slaughtering each other and doing our best to destroy the world. More likely, we are Lucifer’s children. We are fallen angels, once blessed, now doomed.”

But I couldn’t fling these words at her and disappoint her with my doubts. Instead, I answered, “Sister Marie-Timotee is it really that simple? All I need to do is ask and believe?”

“Maya, I see you have your doubts. I understand when you look at all the misery, destruction and hatred that fills our world today that it’s hard to believe in something so pure and healing as His love. But it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Child, open your heart and believe in His love.” Her voice rang with absolute conviction.

“I’ll try, Sister, I’ll really try. But sometimes it’s so hard.” I tried to pull myself together. If I broke down now, all would be lost. I had to stay strong. I changed the subject.

“Anyway, how have you been? The sanctuary seems so quiet. For some reason, I thought there would be more people here: refugees, families seeking shelter.”

Worry creased her brow for a second.

“We do as much as we can to help and welcome anyone who seeks a place of shelter. These are dark days. Strange and troubling times have been unleashed on this world.” She regarded me intently. “We’ve had visitors here, unsettling visitors. And there’ve been people asking about you, Maya Jade.”

“Who? Did they leave their names? When were they here?” I looked around in panic, imagining binoculars trained on me even as we spoke. I shouldn’t have come here today.

“I’m sorry to frighten you, Maya. One was your friend, Bilal. He came here two days ago and asked if we saw you, to give you a message. He said to tell you to be careful; there are dangerous people looking for you. He said you would understand. That if you needed him, you know how to contact him. He’s worried about you, Maya. You said you’re in trouble. Do you want to tell me about it?”