The Fury and the Terror (43 page)

"So you have nothing to tell me."

Geoff stared at the pyre, swallowing, weeping.

"Just leave me alone."

"You haven't heard your choices."

"There'll be search teams. They'll find us in the morning. I have to get through the night, that's all."

She nodded. "That's one choice. To be rescued."

"Yes."

"Geoff, you see the Auditors waiting over there, don't you?"

"The what?"

"If you choose rescue, then we'll go away and leave you here. All of us but one, whom the Auditors will choose from their number to be your companion for the rest of your life. Give yourself a few moments now, look the Auditors over, and try to imagine what that life will be like. You'll be constantly watched, by eyes that never blink. Never close. The Auditor won't speak to you. He'll have nothing to say. He will only watch, and wait."

"Wait for what?"

"For you to go balls-up, dungeon-style paddycrackers. Forty-eight hours to fracture time is about average, I'm told. That's when you'll begin to talk to your Auditor. Talk, talk, talk. Plead, moan, and whimper for him to forgive you. But forgiveness is the Pardoner's game. He's only an Auditor.
Your
Auditor, until the end of your days."

Geoff ran his tongue over his broken front teeth. His lips twitched into a frozen position, a kind of snarl.

"Or—" Chauncey had been working on her smile. She almost got it right this time. "You can go back to Moby Bay, and live there. A few mortals—Wardella's husband Mychal was one of them—made that choice, and many of them adjusted nicely in time. You will be ... tolerated, and we're not so hard to take, really, in our everyday appearances. You might even marry one of us. It's a simple, undemanding life in Moby Bay, except for occasional disturbances like today's. There are always problems with the Bad Souls, the Fallen of Malterra. Those who have no hope of God's forgiveness. I'm telling you, it makes them
mean
."

Geoff was trembling. He couldn't look at Chauncey any longer. He looked instead at the flames, at the diminished wisping remains of his father.

"The third choice, of course, is the best one," Chauncey said. "It satisfies—"

"Your honor? What sort of honor do monsters have?"

"There you go, confusing appearance with evil. Not all of the Fallen were evil. The Bad Souls are permanently locked into human form. All except Mordaunt, who is
Deus inversus
, the Darkness of God. All of you mortals can consider yourself lucky that this is so. Gives you a fighting chance, at least, although evil has had the edge for the last hundred millennia. Maybe because it's never boring. Why
we
are shifters is part of the whole Redemption package. Unlike the Malterrans, eventually we may return to a state of Grace. First we do our lessons. In order to understand the nature of all creatures that swim, fly, walk, or crawl, we assume their identities." Her smile was okay now, somewhat rueful in tone. "But damn it can be tricky! Learning how to shift, I mean. My brother's only thirteen, but he's already better at it than I am."

"Thirteen? How ... old are you?"

"Try Antediluvian. Earth years, I'm twenty-two. Life, death, rebirth, we go through cycles of renewal like everything else that is vital in nature. Refreshes our outlook, keeps us sharp mentally. I was born July 28, last time. That makes me a Leo. Want to see my paw again? I guess not. I've been working on this damn gryphon for the last year and a half. Mom says I've always been too ambitious. She's probably right. Combining different body parts from the avian and animal worlds and getting them to work together, kind of a hoot but it's exhausting. Roald says I should've started with a. chicken, the little jerk. What did you think of his were-bear? He took first prize in the eighteen-and-under competition at our winter solstice revel."

"Were-bear? Is that ... what it was?"

"But anyway. Getting back to you. That third choice. If you're buying the total redemption package. It's really a bargain. Spare yourself in this life; you wrestle a lot of heavy baggage into the next. You go with scabs, murk, and mildew. The soul deserves a clean delivery, Geoff."

"I ... don't know w-what to do."

She nodded. "Sure. You need a little time. You're lost, you're cold. Throw some more wood on your fire, heat up some of the instant coffee that came with your survival gear. Wrap yourself in a blanket. I'll be around if you want to talk."

"No. W-what time is it?"

"Time doesn't mean anything to you anymore, Geoff."

His eyes were smarting. He rubbed his throat, trying to ease the choking tension there. He turned away from Chauncey, seeing the flames on the rock again like radiant branches of a tree nourished by the consumed heart of his father.

"Oh, Geoff?"

He turned back to her. Chauncey's right hand was out. He saw a compact Glock automatic lying in her palm.

"This is yours, isn't it?"

He stared at the pistol for a few seconds, then waded three steps toward Chauncey. The surf beyond the misted bay was like the blood rushing through his heart. His fingers closed over the dull black slide of the Glock, fingertips grazing Chauncey's wrist. It was unexpected, that touch, comforting in a way. Imagining himself blind and finding a flower in the dark. A single beat of his heart said
courage
.

Geoff looked up and into her eyes.

"Thought I'd lost it," he told her. He lifted the Glock from her hand. Held it as he might've held a key poised at the threshold of a lock on a mysterious door. "Thanks."

"What you think is the end is only another place to go to."

"I wanted to see Eden again." There was no strain in his voice, no sorrowing notes. His mind felt clear, open to possibilities, raised remotely above the ruck and misery of self-pity and other merely human perceptions, immaculate as an observatory. The reality was clear as well, like the gleam of new stars; his purpose now etched plainly in firmament but only large enough to accommodate the humble event.

"I know," Chauncey said. "I can promise you this. If she ever needs our help, she'll have it."

AND HAD I NOT THE FLAME RESERVED . . .

THERE'S NOTHING SPECIAL OF MY OWN TO SHOW.

-MEPHISTOPHELES, IN
FAUST
, PART I, SCENE 3

WASHINGTON, D.C. • MAY 30 • 12:50 A.M. EDT

A
fter talking to Victor Wilding, Rona toned up in the White House gym. Then she had a massage, a B-12 shot given to her by a protege of Clint Harvester's personal physician, and enjoyed a light supper just before midnight in her second-floor suite. The music on her Bose stereo system was up-tempo bluegrass: Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss. Various R-Team staffers came up to the residence from the First Lady's east wing offices, bringing files, departing with instructions. Some of them were a little bleary-eyed or had coffee nerves. They all were impressed and as usual slightly intimidated by Rona's crispness and energy level. Only one small tantrum resulted from the visits, when Rona found out she couldn't view the covers of three news magazines that had inserted coverage of Rona's Hawaiian dust-up at the eleventh hour.

Katharine Bellaver arrived at the White House at twelve-fifteen. Rona kept her waiting while she finished off a round of phone calls. Two minutes for the new young wife of a global media mogul whom she wanted to cultivate. Three and a half minutes for the President of France (Rona had been taking twice-a-week French lessons for five years, and she managed to pull off a mildly dirty joke in the language that he hadn't heard before). A minute and a half for Allen Dunbar, who seemed a little depressed by India's heat and the news that Clint was returning to the White House. And ten minutes for Barbara Walters.

The butler on duty in the executive mansion had parked Katharine in the solarium. Rona breezed in. She had deliberately dressed down for this meeting: off-the-rack Wrangler Riatas, huaraches, a loose-fitting linen shirt, and two ropes of Cheyenne Indian beads. She also wore, on a shirt pocket, her lucky
Clint When It Counts
button from his tailgate campaigning days for governor of Montana. Katharine had once remarked to someone who had told someone else, etc., that Rona seemed to have gone a little hog-wild after she moved into the White House, willingly making herself a victim of fashion overload. Titter, titter. Rona had established blood feuds over lesser slights. But she'd never needed a reason to dislike Katharine Bellaver. Her dislike was instinctive, a reaction against privilege and pedigree. And there was the fact that she'd been such a good friend of Clint's.

"Katharine, I am
so
sorry to keep you waiting!"

Katharine looked up from the book of Ansel Adams photographs she'd been slowly leafing through. "Not at all, Mrs. Harvester."

"Can I have Thomas bring you something? Coffee?"

"Thomas already asked. But I'm fine." She looked at Rona's bandaged head and bit her lower lip delicately. "How are
you
feeling, after that ordeal?"

"A little headache, still."

"Was it a bullet fragment? I didn't think those limos could be penetrated."

"We're not sure." It had been a small nail file Rona had ready for the occasion. In the slam-bang uproar none of the other occupants of her limousine had seen her gouging her forehead as she pressed both hands to her face. "It's really good of you to interrupt your holiday. I know you have so little time to relax these days, those endless dialogues over human rights violations. Which of course is a matter of deep concern to us all."

"Peach Boondecker suggested that it was urgent." Katharine regarded Rona with a half smile and the porcelain poker face that had been a part of Jackie Kennedy's superb defenses. Katharine made "urgent" sound a little ridiculous, but she was a professional diplomat. "Peach said that she couldn't tell me more. I assume she didn't know." Katharine's smile said,
Up the ante or fold your hand.

"It's more in the nature of a personal matter," Rona said.

"Having to do with Clint? Is he here?"

"No. I expect him back soon. About two A.M."

"So late?"

"We wanted to avoid a fuss."

"Well, of course," Katharine said with a hint of derision in her eyes. "There's quite a crowd on Pennsylvania Avenue, for this hour. The WELCOME HOME CLINT signs." She didn't mention the WE LOVE RONA signs, outnumbering those addressed to the President.

"Nothing warms the heart like a spontaneous outpouring of affection," Rona observed.

"That couldn't be more true. But ... is Clint ready to go back to work?"

"As ready as he'll ever be."

"The pressure. I worry, Mrs. Harvester."

"No one could be more concerned about his health than I am. I can take quite a load off my husband's shoulders, and I'm prepared to do so. By the way, since you've been calling the President of the United States 'Clint,' just as if he were still one of your confidants and bedfellows—which I certainly don't begrudge anymore—would it break your patrician jaw to call me 'Rona'?"

"Well, no. I don't think so." Katharine paused significantly, and smiled. "Rona." She folded her hands comfortably in her lap, cocked her head slightly. "Your information—by the way—is both rancid and wrong. Clint and I always have respected each other too much to roll in the hay together. Now, what's up? Shall we?"

"I want you to tell me where your granddaughter is, and when you expect to see her."

Katharine glanced down, head dropping slightly as if she'd been rapped smartly on the back of her skull. When she looked up again she was okay, no fault lines showing in the porcelain, her smile correctly quizzical.

Rona yawned rudely. "Please spare us both the bullshit denials. I know everything about the circumstances of her birth, who Eden's father probably was. I'm sure you were present when she was born. Why did you give the kid away? Was Gillian too crazy at the time to take care of her own daughter? Or were you afraid of what she had brought into this world?"

"You asked me if I'd care for some ... refreshment. I believe I would now."

"Glass of sherry? Oh, that's right, you don't drink sherry. Neither do I. Let's see, this time of the night don't you favor Stoly over ice, once you've brushed and flossed and settled down to do some reading, usually about twenty minutes' worth, before tucking yourself in? I've never been able to read in bed. Gives me a stiff neck every time. Thomas!"

Katharine was thoughtfully silent; her eyes focused past Rona's head, until the butler had served the requested drinks, lowered the lights at Rona's suggestion to a shadowless twilight luster, and departed.

"Drink up," Rona said cheerfully, rising to click her glass, filled with citrus punch, against Katharine's. She kicked off the huaraches before settling down again, small feet tucked under her on the love seat. Katharine was now gazing at nighttime Washington through the solarium windows, rolling the crystal tumbler between her hands.

"Secret Service didn't like us being up here at night," Rona told her. "Possibility of snipers, they said."