“Tomorrow,” Ascanio was saying. “I’ll be able to go after him tomorrow!” He actually tried to rise in the bed, as if he could throw off the traction wires holding the leg in place and the IV line connected to his arm.
The marquis put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back against the pillows.
“Rest,” he said. “You’ve done well. I can take care of things now.” And then, jabbing his cane at the floor as if he were impaling an enemy with each strike, he stalked out of the room, nearly knocking over the nurse, who had returned to chase him out.
Not two hours later, he was on his own private plane, taking off, in the teeth of an oncoming storm, for the United States. His pilot had begged him to reconsider, but when the marquis offered the flight crew a ten-thousand-euro bonus, all complaints ceased and a new flight plan was entered that would take them over Halifax and around the worst of the weather.
The marquis sat back in his plush leather seat, staring out the port-hole window and wondering just how far behind this Franco he was. He understood why the man was in such a hurry, but the marquis had never intended for La Medusa to slip from his grasp again. Nor had he intended for it to be used, willy-nilly, by whoever found it. Only he, the marquis, and his faithful servant Ascanio, were to possess its powerful secret. Look whose vile hands it had fallen into for decades.
No, the marquis would not rest until it was back in his own safekeeping, and this time for good.
The plane hit a patch of turbulence, and the pilot came on to apologize. “Sorry, sir, but we may have to divert another hundred miles or so north.”
To the marquis, it felt as if Nature itself were trying to thwart him.
But then, to calm himself, he remembered the way David’s eyes had battened on the bust atop his mantel. Caterina, he was all but sure, lived on-and in the most unlikely place of all.
That the great, and only, true love of his own long life, could have been swimming beside him through the sea of time-and without his ever knowing it-was almost too much to bear. The thought of the years that they might have passed together, sharing this strange fate, tugged at his heart; but the prospect of amending it was enough to fill him with a purpose and hope he had not felt for centuries.
When he had first perfected La Medusa, crafting the mirror from such unholy stuff, he had never suspected the toll it might exact. He was a young man then, and what did he know of life? All he wanted was eternity… and it never occurred to him that eternity could be the loneliest destination of all. He could not have guessed what it would feel like to walk among mortal people, to form attachments and forge relationships, in the full knowledge that your friends and loved ones would wither and die before your eyes-if you lingered long enough to witness it-while you soldiered on. He remembered the many occasions he had seen puzzlement, then a kind of fear, gradually creep into his friends’ and lovers’ eyes, as they noted how time had continued to ravage them while sparing Sant’Angelo entirely. And he had known, on those occasions, that it was time yet again to move on, to start over, to begin the slow withdrawal of his affections. Burdened with a secret no one other than Ascanio could believe or understand, he had become a nomad among men, a traveler in the solitary regions of infinite time.
The flight attendant was at his elbow, asking if he would like something to eat or drink. He requested she bring him his customary hot chocolate.
The storm was battering at the plane, and the pilot was still trying to maneuver around it.
Sipping the soothing chocolate, he put his head back and stared out at the red lights flashing on the wing, and the blowing snow and sleet glazing the window. There was so much he missed, from open and honest love to the skills his hands had once possessed. The greatest artisan in the world. At one time, there was no one who could have challenged him for that distinction. His works had been the marvel of their day, and he had lived to see some of them-not many, but enough-endure. What he had not understood, however-and wasn’t that the way of all magic?-was the price.
Eternal life, but at the cost of his genius.
It might just as well have been buried in the basilica, along with the pauper who occupied his tomb to this day.
He had imagined himself creating miraculous works forever, refining his talents, perfecting his arts.
But that, he had learned, was not the way it worked.
Only Providence knew how long you had been allotted, and once you had exceeded that secret span, you lived on sufferance. You became a walking shadow of your former self, bereft of all the gifts that had made life sweet and fruitful and worth prizing in the first place.
Cellini, the cleverest man of his day, had been outwitted.
The plane, buffeted by another strong gust of wind, banked its wings, and the chocolate lapped into his saucer. The attendant, on unsteady feet herself, brought him a fresh cup and another linen napkin.
The artisan who had never made an untrue object in his life had been lured into a trap of his own design. With greater skill than even a Leonardo or Michelangelo, he had fashioned for himself a destiny with no purpose, no shape, and no end.
Chapter 44
“Where is David?” Sarah murmured, as Gary took a seat beside her bed in the hospice. “I need to see David. Where is he?”
Gary wished he knew, and he wished he knew what to tell her. He had been waiting for his cell phone to ring any second, telling him that David had at least landed in Chicago. But so far, nothing. “Soon,” he said, for the hundredth time, “I’m sure he’ll be here very soon.” He’d even tried reaching him on the last cell-phone number David had called from, but he’d gotten a mysterious message, in Italian yet, saying that Dr. Jantzen was not available. Or at least that’s what he thought it had said.
He glanced out the window at the rock garden, with its ornamental pool-now frozen-and its white-barked birch trees. He could see the lighted windows on the other side, too, occupied no doubt by other dying patients. The late-afternoon light was even more attenuated by the cloudy skies and the oncoming storm. He was terrified that David’s flight-whichever one he was on-had been delayed by the weather.
Sarah’s eyes closed again, and her head twisted on the pillow. Gary wondered if he should call the nurse and get her some more painkillers. “What do you need?” he asked.
“My mouth,” she whispered. “It’s so dry.”
He reached into the plastic cup for a chip of ice and put it on her tongue. It seemed as if she didn’t have enough strength even to suck on it, and the chemo had left her with mouth sores that refused to heal. But when the ice was gone, he picked up the tube of Vaseline and gently rubbed some of it on her parched lips. Her eyes took on that faraway look again.
“Maybe I should make a meat loaf,” she said, in one of the typical non sequiturs brought on by the medications.
“That sounds good.”
“David always likes it.”
“So do I.”
“And chocolate pie for dessert,” she said. “It makes Emme so happy.”
Emme was home now, with her grandmother. She’d come by a few hours ago, but Sarah had been seized with a feverish bout of pain and nausea, and the scene had suddenly gotten so awful that Gary had had to take Emme out to the car and rock her in his arms until she was able to stop crying.
Much as he hated for that to be her last view of her mother, he wasn’t sure that there’d be time for her to come back again. He’d told his mom to put her to bed early and try to get her to go to sleep.
Gary hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep in a row for days.
But there was a faint smile on Sarah’s face now, which meant that she was probably imagining herself back in her own kitchen, preparing that meat-loaf dinner. Just as well, Gary thought. When she was conscious, she was fretful and wore herself out asking about David, or worrying about what should be done to help Emme through the trauma once she was gone. When the morphine was kicking in, she was off on a cloud, but untroubled.
Gary s
lumped back in the chair, yawning and scrubbing his face with his hands. Dreadful as it was to be there, at least this place wasn’t as dismal and antiseptic as the hospital. Each room was private, and done up in neutral colors, with indirect lighting and soft, soothing music. You weren’t even allowed to use your cell phones except in the main lounge area. That, plus the view of the outdoor garden, gave the hospice a peaceful, even comforting, atmosphere.
A flock of sparrows landed in the garden, pecking at the ground between the tufts of snow and ice. Gary picked up a piece of the dried toast from the meal tray that Sarah hadn’t touched, left the room, and went down and around the corridor. A door there opened directly into the garden, and he stepped outside.
The cold air was a shock, but a bracing one. He took a few steps on the little winding path that circled the fountain, and the birds nervously flitted up onto the branches of the birch trees. He tore the bread into tiny pieces and threw them on the ground.
“Go for it,” he said, and once he’d taken a step back, the birds swooped down.
He looked up at the gray sky, getting darker by the minute, just as an airplane, its red lights flashing, passed high overhead, heading toward O’Hare Airport. And he prayed-he prayed -that David was on it.
Chapter 45
O’Hare was tied into one big knot.
David’s plane, like dozens of others, had been forced to circle the airport, flying out over Lake Michigan and then in again, as the controllers tried to safely land all the existing traffic before the wind and snow got any worse, or made any more of the runways inoperable.
The FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign had been on for nearly the entire hour, as David had huddled, invisible and anxious, against the emergency exit, occasionally peering out through the porthole at the turbulent clouds scudding across the night sky. Would the storm abate, or would it increase to such an extent that the moon was completely obscured? From everything he knew about the Medusa-first from his study of The Key to Life Eternal, the rest from the mouth of Sant’Angelo himself-the moonlight was as essential to his enterprise as the mirror itself. As he had translated the text himself, sitting in the silo of the Newberry…
“The waters of eternity,
Blessed by the radiant moon,
Together stop the tide of time
And grant the immortal boon.”
If his plan was to succeed… if the magic was to happen… he would need all the elements to come together.
And even then, what were the chances?
When the plane was finally cleared to land and David could hear the wheels coming down, he breathed a sigh of relief. There were still a dozen hurdles to go-on a night like this, just getting out of the airport was going to be tough-but oh, how he longed to get his feet on the ground. For that matter, he longed simply to see his own feet again. Being disembodied felt alarmingly close to feeling nonexistent.
It was a bumpy landing as the wheels skidded on the runway and the crosswinds tore at the plane’s wide wings; without a seat or seat belt to hold him in place, David was buffeted from one wall to the other. But with one invisible hand, he made sure he kept the wreath on his brow. His head ached from its grip, but now was no time to be discovered and hauled off to airport security as an undocumented passenger.
“ S’il vous plait sejour pose jusqu’a ce que nous soyons arrives a la porte,” the intercom announced, and the few impatient passengers who had already tried to retrieve bags from the overhead compartments dutifully sat back down. David used the opportunity to slink silently up the aisle and position himself directly behind the main hatchway. Getting the ramp in place created another delay, but as soon as the door was thrown back, David breezed past the flight attendant, who seemed to sense his presence somehow and put a worried hand to the base of her throat, before skirting a waiting wheelchair, running up the ramp, and out into the terminal.
Following the signs for Customs, David hurried along the endless corridors and escalators, and though a luggage cart was trundled over his foot and a baby carriage was shoved into his shin, he was able to pass through the automated doors without trouble by following close on the heels of a bulky businessman.
At the Customs desks, David looked around to see which officer was already occupied riffling through someone’s luggage, then shimmied past the girl whose guitar case was being given the once-over-“Yeah, I packed it myself,” she was reciting, “and it hasn’t been out of my sight”-and then raced down the concourse, past the big plate-glass windows where people were waiting to spot their visitors, and out toward the taxi stands.
The line was interminable, passengers huddled against the biting wind, stamping their feet to keep warm as the cabs were slowly motioned forward by the dispatchers, loaded up, and sent on their way.
But David had no time to spare on this, and renting a car would take even longer.
Across several lanes, in the section reserved for unloading private car service clients, he saw a maroon Lincoln parked, and the driver-a young guy with a soul patch-was helping an elderly couple to wrestle their bags onto a trolley. David loped across the lanes, dodging the cars that of course could not even see him, and while the driver was settling up, he slipped into the backseat and took off the garland.
For a second or two, as nothing happened, he feared he’d done himself some irreparable harm. But then, he felt a tingling in his toes, the same feeling he’d get when he’d been out skating too long and the blood had slowly started to return. His boots reappeared, drumming on the floor of the car. Then the sensation coursed up his legs, and they, too, gradually became visible.
But the driver got in sooner than David had expected, jumping into the seat to count his bills.
David prayed he wouldn’t look into the rearview mirror yet.
Reaching for the radio mike, he said, “Car 6, calling in.”
“Hey, Zach.”
“I’ve just made the drop-off at Air France.”
David felt the rippling sensation moving up his torso. Glancing down, he saw his coat coming into view, and then his chest. His arms prickled, as if each hair was standing on end, and he flexed the muscles gratefully.
“You got another pickup for me?” Zach asked.
“Looks like it,” the dispatcher replied. “Alitalia.”
“Cancel that,” David interrupted, and the driver whipped around in his seat. David hoped that the crown of his head wasn’t still missing.
“What the hell?” the driver said, dropping the mike. “Where’d you come from?”
David held up a fistful of bills. “Do it, and they’re all yours.”
Zach looked very confused.
“Hey, Zach,” the radio dispatcher said, “let me give you the name.”
“Tell ’em you’re busy,” David urged.
“Those are euros,” the driver mumbled to David.
“Zach, you still there?”
“True,” David said. “That means they’re worth more than dollars.” He leaned forward and handed over the whole wad of them.
“I do know that,” Zach said, as he thumbed through the bills. “I’m in grad school.”
“Then you can figure out how to get to Evanston hospital.”
Satisfied with the windfall, Zach pleaded engine trouble over the radio, then shut off the mike for the breakneck trip to the suburbs.
David fished Jantzen’s BlackBerry out of his pocket again, called Gary, and got his voice mail. “I’m in a cab,” David said, “and on the way.” Hanging up, he simply stared blankly at the phone. What if he was already too late? Nothing he had read suggested that the Medusa could reanimate the dead. It could bestow eternal life, but it could not return it to those already gone. He reached into his shirt just to feel its presence on his chest. The silver was cold, the silk backing slick. That was strange, he thought. It did not absorb any of his body heat. It remained unaffected, oblivious to its surroundings, as if in a vacuum of its own. His fingers traced the contours of the Gorgon’s face. He knew every t
endril of its hair, every furrow of its snarling brow, but for the first time since acquiring it, he feared it, too. What great transgression was he about to attempt?
The cab slowed down, and David said, “Can’t you go any faster?”
“Not on the ice,” Zach replied, “and I’m not about to total the damn car.”
But something told him that Sarah was still alive. Some intuition, some sixth sense. The bond they had was so strong, and had always been so unbreakable, that if it had been severed, he’d have known. He’d have felt the break, no matter how far away he’d been, like a punch in his stomach.
Little cyclones of snow were whipping across the highway, and the wind was battering at the windows. Automated signs warned of delays up ahead and a maximum speed of twenty miles per hour. A Hummer, its warning lights flashing, had slid right into a traffic divider.
“Get off at Dempster,” David said. “It’ll be faster.”
Zach did as he was told, and David steered him toward several shortcuts to get to the hospital complex more directly. But every time Zach tried to engage him in conversation, David shut him down. He didn’t want him talking, he wanted him driving.
At the hospital complex on Central Street, David quickly scanned the various driveway signs and arrows for the one leading to the Hospice Care Unit. It turned out to be a separate one-story building, with a broad, covered driveway in front.
“Good luck, man,” Zach said, as David charged out of the limo, his backpack hanging from one hand, and into the revolving door; it was one of those doors that turned at its own speed, but David was shoving at the bar, anyway.
A nurse behind the counter looked up as he arrived, panting, and said, “Whoa there, partner. Slow down. This is a hospital zone.”
David dropped the backpack, and said, “Sarah Franco.”
The nurse looked uncertain.
“Sorry. I mean Sarah Henderson.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, her voice now taking on a more solicitous tone. “She’s down the hall, in Room 3. And you are?”
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