“How do you mean?”
“His name is Warwick McDermott. He worked under Northrup for a while and they locked horns. There are factions within SPECTRA. Also rival schools of thought influencing us from Washington think tanks. Most of them don’t know enough about what we do to offer sound advice because of how classified it is. On paper, we barely exist. But with all of the consultants we employ, word gets around anyway. Even your Dr. Ashmead has heard of SPECTRA.”
“Not from me. At least, not in any detail.”
“I know. But the last two big crises we took on, the ones you were involved in, were too public for comfort. The people who set the agenda, who direct the director, like to remain in the shadows. Field agents like me don’t even learn their names. Anyway, the agency has been in a defensive crouch the past few years. Northrup gave assurances that it could never happen again after the Red Equinox, and then it did in Concord.
“The fucked up thing is that McDermott—rather than destroying the books and artifacts we gathered from raids on the Starry Wisdom Church to ensure it can’t happen again—has ramped up the study of that material to see if we can use it in our defense.”
“What makes you so sure that’s a bad idea? I mean, what would we have done to stop the Red Equinox without my grandmother’s scarab?”
Brooks tilted his head and made a conceding grimace. “For one thing, Hanson worked for us, remember? We had a closet cultist on the payroll. Not to mention the one we knew about, Reverend Proctor, who also turned on us. And they weren’t even working together. Northrup got burned and he learned from it. He wasn’t going to risk it happening again. That’s why he wouldn’t let the fire trucks through the gate until the Wade House was a heap of ash. He wanted not just the house, but the library, candles, and anything else in there that might be used for evocation to go up in flames with it.”
“Do they have anything dangerous?”
“I don’t know. They took a lot of books from the church in Boston. There were probably some artifacts, too, like those bronze staffs they used at Bunker Hill. Do you still have the scarab?”
Becca slipped a finger under the collar of her T-shirt and pulled the golden beetle up by its chain, showing it to Brooks before dropping it back under her shirt.
“I’m surprised they haven’t come for it.”
“Without the gem, it’s just jewelry. And they can fuck right off if they think I’d give it to them. Catherine meant for me to have it.”
“If they decide they want it, they’ll take it.”
“Let them try. I have a red belt in Tae Kwon Do.”
Brooks laughed. “Seriously?”
“How do you think I’ve been channeling my anger and frustration for the past three years?”
“Are you going to go for black?”
Her face dropped and she focused on the beer bottle in front of her, rolling it on its edge, idly. “Well…losing your shit kind of gets in the way of your training regimen. I have less depression when I get enough exercise, but things kind of fell apart when the dreams started happening again. So close to the goal too. Sucks.”
“You’ll get back to it. How about photography? You been working?”
Becca sighed. “PTSD is a pretty good excuse for not achieving the same success as the people I went to school with, but I still feel like a loser.”
“Yeah. And I’m sure they all prevented the apocalypse in between shooting for Vogue or whatever the fuck.”
Becca smiled. “Let’s just say work is sporadic. I take it on when I can handle it and try to stretch the checks.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to pry. It’s just been a while. I’ve wondered how you’ve been.”
“You had my number. Anyway, it’s kinda weird talking with you about normal stuff.”
“It is, right? But what else is there besides war stories? And you probably don’t want to go there.”
“Actually, I do,” Becca said, peeling away a strip of the label from the bottle with her thumbnail.
“Go on.”
“You said they might come for the scarab. I think they already broke into my dad’s cabin and made off with a certain piece of sheet music while we were busy fighting monsters three years ago.”
“The Invisible Symphony.”
“Luke kept it rolled up, hidden inside a lamp tube. He left me a video message before he died. Said I needed to destroy the score, that it was too dangerous. Especially a choral section that—if it were sung by a mutant choir—could make the breaches that we witnessed look like just a prelude. He said he tried to rewrite sections of the music, but there was no way to realign it.”
“What do you mean ‘realign it’?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a musician. My grandmother studied an ancient cosmology called the Music of the Spheres. She tried to explain it to me one time when I asked about a book she was reading. It had something to do with the idea that the whole universe is vibrating in harmony, and the planets themselves make music by spinning. I know that’s not exactly in line with modern physics; maybe it’s more of a metaphor. Luke thought that maybe Earth, our dimension, could be aligned with a heavenly one rather than the realm of the Great Old Ones. But I guess he changed his mind toward the end. He’d sworn off tinkering with the symphony and wanted me to destroy it. It was his last wish. But when I went back to the cabin, it was gone.”
“And you think SPECTRA took it.”
“They probably saw his video before I did. They had access to my phone. He didn’t say where the score was hidden, but I knew where he kept it, from when you and I visited him. Only it wasn’t there. I think after they came for us in the helicopter, they searched the cabin and found it.”
“Makes sense.”
“But you don’t know. Northrup never mentioned it? You would tell me, right?”
“Of course. But no, I didn’t hear anything.”
“If anything should be destroyed, it’s that score. I want to see it through.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Do they store the artifacts in a building you have access to?”
Brooks rubbed the stubble on his chin and frowned. “Yeah. In a vault. But we don’t even know if it’s there.”
“Who else would have taken it?”
Brooks shrugged.
“Are you still in touch with Northrup? Would he know if SPECTRA took it? Maybe he destroyed it himself before he was let go.”
“I don’t know that he would admit that to me,” Brooks said, “but he doesn’t have much left to lose.”
“If they have it, what kind of vault are we talking about?”
“It’s a high security archive. I can’t just go waltzing in there, poking around.”
“So it’s like an evidence locker?”
“A little more sophisticated than that. Some items have special protections, but this would probably be kept with all the other manuscripts and books in a temperature and humidity controlled room. They have a team that works in there in the daytime, studying the books and running tests on the items. Most of what they do is over my head.”
“Are you friends with any of them?”
He shook his head. “They’re weird. And most of them have a higher security clearance than me. It’s not like field agents have drinks with the theoreticians. I could be fired or prosecuted for even talking about what’s in there.”
She glanced at the electric chandelier hanging over the table. “You think your place is bugged?”
“I know it isn’t. I’m just saying.”
“I’m not somebody off the street, you know. I’ve been on the inside.”
“As a contractor who’s always had an antagonistic relationship with them.”
“As the girl who saves their asses when they get in too deep.”
“You’re something else, you know that?”
“I want you take me to see Northrup.”
Brooks scoffed. “He’s practically on his death bed and you look like you’re rea
dy for yours. That should be a cheerful meeting to sit in on.”
“Seriously. If he can convince me they don’t have the score locked up, then we won’t have to break in and steal it back.”
“Break in. Christ, Becca, you’re in no shape to break into a fridge with a strong magnet on the door. Let’s start with getting you a few days rest and recuperation. Meanwhile, I’ll do some discrete poking around.”
“Okay.”
“Why, after three years of not knowing what happened to the score, are you all of the sudden so worried about it?”
“It’s the dreams, the singing. If that manuscript is in the wrong hands, and if there are others out there who can sing those chants… then something bad is coming. And there might not be time to stop it.”
* * *
Brooks woke to the buzzing of his wristwatch at 3:15 A.M. He groaned, tossed the sheets and blankets aside, and crept past Becca’s door to use the bathroom before pulling on a T-shirt and sitting vigil at her bedside.
At 3:33, she stirred, twitched, and groaned in her sleep.
By the yellow glow of a seashell nightlight, he watched the hairs on his forearms rise at the sound of her voice. She kicked at the sheets, then turned her head away from something as if in revulsion, groaned again, and drew a sharp breath. But she did not sing that night, nor did he wake her from her nightmare. He sat and waited, listening for a melody that never came, until the dream he knew all too well passed, and she drifted beyond its turbulence into deeper sleep.
Chapter 4
Tristan Furlong met the man from the antiquarian book and curio shop at the sphinx on the Bay of Maestral. The concrete sculpture, commissioned in 1918 by an eccentric dabbler in the occult as a tribute to his deceased wife, straddles the broken remains of the goldfish pond it once guarded on the grounds of the Villa Atillia, overlooking the street and the bay. Tristan arrived early and paced the green slopes of the garden, but soon grew restless. The landmark held no mystery for him, nothing to contemplate or puzzle over. Just a few years ago, it would have piqued his interest. Back then, he had never visited the old country. Back then, he had been a street busker in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raised by Croatian immigrants who had disowned him when he wasted the opportunity of America on playing music in the street like a beggar, rather than following their footsteps into science or medicine as his elder sister had done. Back then, he had not yet become a vessel for the infinite wisdom of the Black Pharaoh.
Now, unlike the tourists who puzzled over it daily, he could even read the inscription in the sphinx’s hair. Alas, like the statue itself, the lines were a sappy tribute to a long dead witch.
Still, he could appreciate that something about Zadar had spoken to the dilettante magician who erected this tribute. Something had always called the Starry Wisdom faithful to this coast. Tristan could sense it stirring in the cool air off the Adriatic Sea even now.
“It’s a shame about the vandals.”
The man from the shop, Andrija Babic, had come up beside him. “It used to hold a shell in one paw and a dagger in the other, but they were smashed with the pond walls.”
Tristan looked sidelong at the stout Italian in the frumpy brown suit. “It’s homely,” he said. “Why this place? It only makes me wish to see the real thing, to cleanse my mental palette.”
Babic shrugged. “Most of my special customers like it. Anyway, it’s an easy landmark to find and quiet on a weekday. The villa’s a dentist’s office now.”
Tristan’s gaze slid down the man to the leather doctor bag he carried. “You have it?”
“Yes. You’re younger than I expected. Not that that’s a problem, with references such as yours. Just, most collectors are older.”
“Show me.”
Babic set the case on the ground, unbuckled the clasps, and withdrew a lacquered wooden box with brass hinges. After a dramatic pause, he lifted the lid to reveal a thorny spiral object nestled in a bed of blue silk. It might have been an oblong conch shell. Its surface, as white as bone, was ornamented with silver edging and small gemstones. The inner chamber gleamed glossy pink, winding away into fleshy depths.
A frisson of excitement passed over Tristan at the sight. “Tell me again what you know of its provenance.”
Babic cleared his throat. “In 1604, the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner published his bestiary Historia Animalium. The Vatican placed it on the prohibited books list because the author was a Protestant. But Gesner had allies. His private library and catalog of clippings are regarded as one of the world’s first scientific databases, and he was considered too valuable to shun entirely.”
Babic, whose manner had been awkward at first, was loosening up as he hit his stride. He nodded toward the bay. “Just across the water from here, Venetian booksellers petitioned the Church to have his works removed from the blacklist.”
Tristan waved his hand. “Enough about books. Tell me about the shell.”
“But, you see, the shell is believed to come from Gesner’s own collection. His studies and writings also included works on fossils, stones, and gems. His notes indicate that he was undecided on which category this shankha properly belonged to.”
“Shankha?”
“A Hindu word. It means ‘divine conch.’ This may be one of the first such ceremonial items to have found its way into a European collection. But only if you believe it originated in the Indian Ocean. My source does not.”
“May I?” Tristan tilted his chin toward the open box in Babic’s hands. The bookseller offered it up, and Tristan removed the shell from the silk bed, turning it over in his hands.
“Gesner’s bestiary was purged of heretical content and reprinted, thanks to his Venetian advocates. In it, among the many creatures now believed to be mythical, is an illustration of what he calls a ‘sea devil.’ A hybrid of fish and goat. Some scholars suggest that Gesner believed the shankha in his collection was one of the horns of this creature, cut from its head when a fisherman found it snared in his net and slayed it. But one of Gesner’s assistants kept a journal, which I have read. In it, the boy recounts a story Gesner told him about the shell’s origin.
“Now, maybe the old man was pulling his young assistant’s leg, but the devotees of the secret church in Zadar give the tale credence. According to the boy, Gesner said a sea devil delivered this shell to a pagan priest at the Palace of Diocletian, just down the coast from here, so that the emperor might use it as an oracle. If that is true, then history works in wondrous ways, indeed, and the shell has now returned home, in a manner of speaking.”
“And how was it to be used?”
“Whisper your questions to it, as in a lover’s ear, and the sea will answer true.”
“Did it answer Diocletian?”
“Who knows? By the time the emperor retired to tend the gardens of his palace, he had already enjoyed his great victories and achieved peace. One wonders what he would ask of an oracle at that late stage of a distinguished life. But the historians say he may have committed suicide, so…perhaps it did.”
“Old maids and children believe you can hear the ocean in a conch,” Tristan said. “But have you heard any other story of whispering in the ocean’s ear?”
“No, my friend. Any sailor will tell you Poseidon is deaf to prayers and petitions.”
“I was thinking of another god of the deep.”
“Well, I suppose that’s between you and him. Between you and I, there’s still the matter of payment. If you’re satisfied.”
Tristan closed the lid of the box and latched it. Babic laid it at his feet.
“I’m very meticulous about tracing the line of an artifact,” Babic said, straightening his tie. “But I make no promises about results, should you ask it something.”
“Understood.” Tristan produced an envelope from the breast pocket of his pea coat and passed it to Babic. The little man thumbed through the euro notes inside, licked his lips, and tucked it away with a nod. He turned to go, but hesitated, as if the weight of
the cash in his trousers made it difficult for him to move his legs without a final word.
“They say the shell has to be addressed in the proper tongue. You’re aware?” Babic swung his doctor bag idly, waiting for a reply that didn’t come.
Tristan tucked the box under his arm and started up the path between the pine and olive trees.
“It doesn’t alter our deal if you can’t pronounce it, you understand? You won’t come looking for me,” Babic said with a tinge of anxiety in his voice.
Without looking back, Tristan Furlong said, “No worries. I’m quite fluent.”
Chapter 5
Becca awoke to the sound of Django whimpering, his cold nose nuzzling at her face. She pushed him away and rolled in the other direction to face the wall. The room was too dark for dawn. Did he really need to go out? Brooks had driven her to Neil’s place in Brookline to pick the dog up after stopping by her apartment to grab her things. Django had been ecstatic to see her after almost two weeks apart, and when they arrived at Brooks’ house, she had taken him out in the scrappy little back yard to throw a stick around and tire him out.
So why wouldn’t he let her sleep?
He paced around the bed trying to reach her face again before finally standing with his front paws on the mattress, whining urgently on the brink of barking.
It was her third night in the house, and according to Brooks she had yet to sing in her sleep. She didn’t know what time it was now, but her biological clock told her it was too early for the witching hour alarm. If she didn’t shut Django up, he’d wake Brooks in the adjacent room and deprive the poor guy of even more sleep on her account.
Becca propped herself up on her elbows and looked at the dog.
“Seriously?”
Django paced an urgent circle, swishing his tail against the bed, then went to the doorway and looked back at her, the whine in his throat percolating to a low growl.
She stood up, tucked her hair behind her ear, and squinted around the room for a shape that might be her jeans. The nightlight did little to illuminate her clutter, and she decided she could handle five minutes of standing outside in the cold in only her boxers and T-shirt while the dog pissed. By the look of him, he needed to go so badly that it wouldn’t take longer than that.
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