The Memorist

by M. J. Rose

  When the symphony came to its abrupt stop, Lucian was sucked back into the present with violent force, watching Meer in her black jeans and leather jacket, Meer with her auburn hair and shocking green eyes, not Ohana, not the robed woman.

  Now as his eyes followed her through the hysterical crowd, Ohana hovered, ghostlike, beside her. Was it possible to exist in two states of being? Could he be Lucian Glass, FBI agent working a case that was breaking open around him and also be alive and aware in another time?

  It looked as if Meer was clutching something to her chest and although he was too far away to tell what it was, he didn’t doubt it was the memory flute he’d seen her take out of Sebastian’s hands. Then, as more of the crowd gushed out of the auditorium like blood from a wound, he lost sight of Meer. Around him painful screams mixed with shrieking ambulances and police sirens arriving at the location.

  Finally spotting Meer and Malachai again, he also noticed an older man with thick white hair who was moving, catlike, through the melee toward them. It was Fremont Brecht, the head of the Memorist Society. More robust than his age or size suggested; his only sign of infirmity was a slight limp but it didn’t seem to be doing anything to slow him down.

  Lucian had been with the agency long enough to trust his instincts when he sensed danger. He would have screamed out to Meer and Malachai to warn them if there was any chance they would have heard him but he was too far away. He was cut off by a wall of terror-stricken people. These were the men and women who created foolproof security firewalls in cyberspace, GPR systems, tracking devices, mantraps, and machines to test the air for traces of explosive. Their alarm was exacerbated because they knew too much, understood how impossible it really was to protect anyone and that no lockdown procedure was ever completely secure. Certainly, none of them had any idea that the violent dreamlike images they’d just experienced were their own past life memories. More likely they believed they’d been the victims of a mass hypnotic trance induced by some kind of chemical warfare. But Lucian didn’t. He guessed that what Malachai had spent his life trying to verify might very possibly have been proved tonight, triggered not by a sophisticated biological agent but by a handful of notes: a memory song.

  And then the crowd broke and in the crazy flashing paparazzi light Lucian saw Brecht pull a gun.

  “Meer! Watch out!” The multitude swallowed his scream.

  Suddenly Malachai doubled over. Clutching his stomach, he dropped out of sight and Meer disappeared along with him. The crush of people was too thick. Brecht must be after the flute, too. That meant that when he realized Malachai didn’t have it, the Memorist would go after Meer. Damn the crush of people. Lucian started shoving his way through.

  A heavyset woman was in his way. Swaying on her feet, she was obviously disoriented. Lucian yelled at her to get out of the way but instead of moving, Gerta Osborne froze, panic on her face. And as the opera singer fainted, Lucian had no choice but to dive and try to catch her.

  Chapter 104

  Thursday, May 1st—8:42 p.m.

  Tom Paxton sat alone in the makeshift office, barely aware of his surroundings. He looked at the melee on the monitors but was seeing images the music had induced in him…malignant scenes of a man raping a woman while a little boy looked on… He could smell the fire and filth and hear the screams of the woman underneath him…no, not him…a vicious man in another time. The screams were so horrifying…

  And then he realized the screams were real. They were happening now. In the theater. The cries and shrieks of an audience that had come to hear a symphony and celebrate only to be terrorized by an act no one could have anticipated.

  “Boss?” It was Kerri.

  Paxton looked over, so relieved to see her. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “Did anything happen to you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lucky,” he whispered.

  “Was it awful?”

  Paxton nodded, then looked away, back at the bank of monitors.

  She walked over to his side and put her hand on his shoulder, surprised to feel his back trembling and even more so to see the tears in his eyes.

  “Tom? What happened?”

  Paxton heard her, felt her hand, wanted to lean into her and let her comfort him but his attention was drawn to one of the monitors aimed on the theater’s front door. There, a swell of people poured out, a wave powered by its own momentum with David Yalom in its midst. The journalist looked how Tom felt. As if he’d been to hell and back. Except in Yalom’s eyes there was something else. Even via the mediocre-quality screen, he looked as if he’d found some resolution while he’d been there.

  “That’s a relief, at least,” Kerri said, nodding toward Yalom. “I was worried about him. He’s been through enough.”

  Paxton nodded.

  “Tom, I came in to tell you the police want to talk to you,” Kerri said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they do.”

  “They don’t know for certain, but there don’t seem to be any fatalities.”

  “What about our team? Has everyone reported in?”

  “Everyone is fine.”

  “Tucker?”

  She nodded.

  “There was an attack on my watch, Kerri,” he said as his voice broke.

  Chapter 105

  Thursday, May 1st—8:46 p.m.

  The lighting director threw a switch and the bank of klieg lights blinded the crowd. The TV crew was determined to interview some of the people who’d been inside and affected by the strange phenomena, and nothing was going to stop them.

  From down on the ground, seeing everyone around her surging in hyperrealistic brightness, Meer’s panic intensified. She and Malachai were in danger of being trampled. This was worse than what had happened inside the auditorium. There was no chair here to grab hold of. Nothing to hide behind. Getting to her knees, she tried to force him up with her but he was just too heavy and she let go, her hands coming away wet. She looked down. It was blood. Blood? What had happened? He’d been hurt, but this badly? Oh, no, not her father and Malachai on the same night?

  I need help.

  Almost as soon as she thought it, out of all the thousands of people streaming by, one stopped. It seemed he was holding back the surge of people and clearing some space. Meer was certain that she’d seen him before, but where? She remembered the deep-set brown eyes that were filled with awful sadness. No, it was more than having just seen him before, she knew him. And knew he was barely containing his grief.

  He held out his hand to help her up and as she took it, Meer remembered. She’d seen him on the steps of the library a few days ago…as she was going in he was leaving. She understood now what she hadn’t been able to then because she hadn’t yet heard the memory song.

  “Devadas?” she asked.

  His eyes widened and a spark of something like hope broke through his anguish.

  “We have to get him help,” she said, shouting over the crowd. “Malachai’s bleeding.”

  The man she knew only as Devadas reached down to lift Malachai up just as Fremont Brecht, her father’s friend and the head of the Memorists, inserted himself between them, separating them, thrusting Devadas out of the way.

  The crush of oncoming people swallowed him up. Meer watched him struggle against them like a swimmer fighting a strong undertow but he couldn’t beat them back this time and he was carried away from her. Carried away again—she thought—again.

  Suddenly she wasn’t sure he’d even been real.

  “Malachai’s hurt,” she shouted to Fremont. “He’s bleeding. We have to get him out of here.”

  “I know. I saw what happened. Do you have the flute?”

  “The flute? Yes. But Malachai—”

  “Don’t worry, first give me the flute—we have to protect it.” He grabbed her and his grip sank into her flesh. “Quick.”

  In the distance a man on a bullhorn shouted instructions as the crowd continued surging. A man tal
l enough to be visible above the pack broke through and stepped up, pointing a gun at her. Did this man know about the flute, too? Then Fremont grimaced and let go of her, and it took Meer a second to realize the man with the gun was tackling Fremont, that his gun was aimed at him, not at her.

  It only took him seconds to secure Fremont’s arms. “I’ve got him,” the man shouted in English to two policemen emerging from the mob. “But we have a man down and hurt,” the American explained. “Brecht shot Samuels.”

  “Ambulance on the way, Lucian,” one of the Viennese policemen called out.

  “You shot Malachai?” Meer asked her father’s oldest friend.

  Fremont’s hands were cuffed behind his back but he stood as erect and proud as if nothing had happened, ignoring both the police and Meer’s question. She insisted. “Did you arrange to have the letter and the gaming box stolen?”

  Fremont’s continued silence was tantamount to a confession.

  “You’re responsible? But why? My father was your friend. He told me he was your friend.”

  “I had a greater responsibility to safeguard our heritage and keep it from public ridicule,” he said with conviction.

  “Regardless of who you hurt? I don’t understand that kind of responsibility.”

  “Neither did your father. Jews in the twenty-first century can’t afford the wrong kind of attention.” The conviction was transforming into rage. “Just as we’re losing our stigma as outsiders, if it’s discovered we have a memory tool that proves reincarnation, we’ll be reviled again as crazy mystical zealots.” The rage was edging toward hysteria. “We can’t afford to go backward and be outcasts in ghettos—”

  Inspector Fiske interrupted, speaking to Fremont in German, saying something Meer didn’t understand. Fremont clenched his jaw and looked away, up at an invisible point in the sky, and then the inspector led him away.

  Off to the side, Malachai slumped against the building, holding his ribs with one hand, his eyes closed. The American knelt beside him, taking his pulse. She joined them.

  “Malachai? Can you hear me?” she asked.

  He opened his eyes to look at her but noticed the American. “What are…you…doing here?” He was in pain but coherent.

  “I like Beethoven,” the American answered, actually grinning.

  “Enough to travel…all the way from New York to catch a performance?”

  “Why not? The Eroica wasn’t playing at Carnegie Hall.”

  “You’re the one who’s been following me…on my street…in the car…I know the tricks. You got them to release my passport thinking I’d come here for the flute, didn’t you?”

  The American didn’t answer because the medics had arrived and he’d stepped back to allow them in. But Meer wanted to know the answer. “Have you been following Malachai? Why? He hasn’t done anything but help me.”

  “So it seems. At least this time.”

  “Is he being arrested?”

  “Nope, just going to the hospital. And how about you? Are you hurt? Do you need to stop by the hospital?”

  She shook her head. “Who are you?”

  “Special Agent Lucian Glass,” the American said. “FBI Art Crime Team. I’m so very sorry about your father. Will you let me help you, Miss Logan?”

  “How?”

  “Well, from the way you’re protecting it, I’m guessing you’d like to get the flute someplace safe.”

  “Yes. Someplace safe,” she said.

  The medics had Malachai on the gurney now. Walking with him as they rolled him toward the ambulance she reassured her old friend that he’d be fine. Lucian followed close behind her. They’d reached the car. The medics moved away from the gurney to open the door. Wincing, Malachai reached out for Meer’s hand—the one that held the bone instrument. “It’s real, Meer. I saw it work.”

  “But so many people suffered so much pain…didn’t you see that?”

  Malachai wasn’t listening. “It worked. It worked for you, didn’t it? All your frozen memories thawed. You don’t have to tell me, I can see it in your eyes. You remembered what you had to, what you’ve been trying to for so many years. What I couldn’t help you remember.”

  She nodded. “But not the way I was supposed to remember…it was horrible…”

  He still wasn’t listening. His eyes were looking beyond her. Filled with a longing she’d never seen in them before. A longing that scared her. “I didn’t have a single memory.” His bitterness was as dark as the sky above them. “Not one.”

  The medics lifted Malachai up and into the ambulance and then jumped in after him. Through the window Meer watched them worrying over him. He looked so pale. As if he were fading while she watched.

  The siren started up and the car pulled out. She was aware that the FBI agent was behind her but she didn’t turn around. Keeping her eyes on the vehicle as it drove off, Meer reached into her bag and feeling around found and pulled out the flute. No matter how amazing, it wasn’t worth killing for. Wasn’t worth dying for. Not bothering to even look down, without any hesitation, Meer raised the instrument high over her head, and in one fierce motion threw it down on the pavement where it instantly shattered into dozens and dozens of shards of old, fragile, brittle bone.

  Chapter 106

  I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence.

  —Socrates

  Vienna, Austria

  Friday, May 2nd—11:00 a.m.

  The doctor came through the double swinging doors and into the waiting room. “Miss Logan?”

  She nodded and stood up, trying to prepare herself for the news. Beside her, Lucian Glass stood too. They’d spent the night in the hospital, in the intensive care waiting room, while Malachai underwent surgery to save his life. Each of them was there for very different reasons.

  “He’s out of the woods. It’s going to take some time but he should make a complete recovery,” the doctor reported.

  “Can I see him?” Meer’s voice trembled with relief that she wouldn’t lose him, too.

  “He’s still unconscious but should be able to have visitors early this evening. He’ll be in quite a bit of pain for the next few days.”

  “At least there’ll be one recovery,” Meer said to Lucian after the doctor left. She was thinking about her father. About Ruth and Smettering. And Nicolas. While she’d been waiting for news about Malachai she’d checked at Steinhof; Sebastian’s son hadn’t had any reaction to the flute music. He was still locked in his own world. Both Fremont and Sebastian had been arrested and would each likely wind up in prison for years. There were other casualties, too. The news reported that thousands of radio listeners had suffered horrific flashback sequences and many of them had been hurt. In addition, hundreds of concertgoers had been injured in the chaos and were here in this hospital.

  “A complete enough recovery,” Lucian said, still talking about Malachai, “for him to try again.”

  She shook her head. “You’re wrong.”

  “I know you don’t want to believe me but he’s dangerous. Malachai wants the memory tools and will do whatever he has to in order to get them. I’m still convinced he was responsible for trying to steal the stones that were discovered last year in Rome. Several people died as a result of that robbery, too.”

  “Do you have proof of his involvement?”

  He didn’t need to answer. If they’d had proof, Malachai wouldn’t be a free man.

  “I’ve known him almost my whole life. Do you have any idea how many children he’s helped?”

  “One thing doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the other.”

  She stood to leave.

  “My partner is downstairs,” Lucian said, standing with her. “We’ve been asked to give you a lift to the cemetery.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  “The FBI would prefer it if you had one, though. At least until the case is officially c
losed, which should happen sometime in the next forty-eight hours. We won’t get in your way.”

  They went down in the elevator and when the doors opened in the lobby they walked out into what appeared to be a press conference. Reporters, photographers and cameramen crammed around an officious-looking doctor with a dour face who was reading a statement.

  Meer and Lucian kept to the edges of the gathering and had almost reached the front door when someone approached her.

  “Excuse me.”

  Meer turned toward the accented voice.

  After being swept away in the crowd outside the concert hall, David Yalom had made it back to his hotel room in time to cancel the e-mail he’d programmed his computer to send to his editor. He read each line in the overzealous manifesto as he expunged it and found himself worried for the soul of the man who’d written it.

  David had sat up all night thinking about what he’d experienced when he’d seen the dark-haired woman in the crowd who’d called him Devadas. He was awake at dawn when his editor called him to request he cover a breaking story: the night before, the Vice President of the United States had attended a concert that had erupted into chaos and had been hurt and hospitalized. There was going to be a press conference at the hospital at 11:00 that morning on his condition and on some of the other VIPs who’d also been hurt in the melee.

  “Excuse me, I’m David Yalom—”

  “I’m sorry.” Lucian Glass protectively inserted himself between Yalom and Meer. “Miss Logan doesn’t have any comments.”

  Meer took in the dark hair and eyes, the notebook and pen. “It’s okay,” Meer said as she stepped around Lucian so she could face Devadas—no—he’d said his name was David. David Yalom. “I know him,” she told Lucian.

  Listening to her, David’s face underwent a change. Nothing as obvious as a smile, but from one moment to the next, he looked different. As if he’d allowed himself a deep breath finally, and it had almost felt good.