"
Now
," Etan said, and slowed the action. "This is what I noticed earlier, and tell me if I've completely lost it, darlings."
A dark smudge or shadow appeared on the screen and grew in successive images, achieving a recognizable shape. It seemed to come out of the combi, but there was a problem with depth perception and the unsteadiness of the camera. The shadow creature was moving, leaping, perhaps, at Karloff the elephant, reaching a height of ten feet or more above the ground.
Bertie dropped her fork in her lap.
The image broke up in layers of digital chaos.
"That's all I have," Etan said. "But it looked like a lioness to me, except for its size. Of course there could be a distortion effect. The head is difficult to make out, unfortunately. The image is there for only about two seconds of normal running time. Blink and you've missed it."
"Why don't we see it again?" Joseph suggested, as Eden tightened a hand on Tom's shoulder. He looked up at her, puzzled by her intensity. Bertie was watching both of them.
They studied the shadow, or cloud, or whatever it was, three more times.
"The body shape is typical of a tiger's," Joseph concluded. "I saw several of them at the London Zoo, including a male Siberian that weighed nearly seven hundred pounds."
"Phylogenetically lions and tigers are closely related," Tom said.
"But even the Bengal tiger is larger than the largest lion I have ever seen. The image captured by the camera appears to be moving purposefully, not randomly." Tom nodded. "If it is the image of a tiger, or the ghost of one, the head, what we were able to see of it, is not right."
"Tiger's body, the head of a hyena," Eden said. That got their full attention. "I know, it's a physical impossibility. So are two-headed calves, but they exist. And I don't think you've forgotten Moby Bay, have you, Tom? They were real, and this thing is real too, although it wasn't actually
there
this morning. It was like a dark spoor in the air. Karloff got wind of it and charged. If Bertie hadn't been in the combi with the guys, it would be junk now and we'd be burying everybody tomorrow."
"So it wasn't just a figment in Karloff's addled old brain," Bertie said softly. "What d'you know?"
Etan was staring at Eden, which made her uncomfortable. She shrugged before he could start asking questions, turned, and walked out of the parlor.
T
om, Bertie, and Eden had a meeting an hour later in Eden's bungalow.
Eden explained everything her doppelganger had told her about the sacred staircase in Rome, without mention of the dpg.
Tom said, "So there was a guru in India, according to Pegeen; the evangelist in Atlanta last week; and now you think the Pope is a likely target for... whatever it is."
"Yes."
Bertie said, "I'm bothered by the whatever-it-is, now that it's shown up here." She was looking at Eden, smiling, but her smile seemed cool to Eden.
"Hold on," Tom said. "We haven't seen much of anything yet. An image, a shadow."
"But Eden has seen it—I mean, enough of it—to believe that it's real."
"Yes," Eden said, and compressed her lips, shoulders tensing. It was Bertie who looked away first.
"You know I love you," Bertie said. "But—"
"You think I'm inventing—
it
? Bringing it to life? Oh, God,
why
would I do such a thing?"
Torn was uneasy. "Let us not jump to conclusions, here."
Looking for ticks, Bertie parted the short hairs behind the ears of Fernando, the hulking mixed-breed dog that lay between her sandaled feet.
"Eden. You went through so bloody much in so short a time. When we first saw you, in Moby Bay among those shape-shifters, you were so deep in shock I thought you were a goner."
"And you don't believe I've fully recovered from that experience, is that what you mean? I'm hallucinating? Well, I didn't hallucinate that fucking dead evangelist, Bertie! And I've always trusted the messages of my dreams. Otherwise that city in Tennessee would be a glass-lined crypt."
"I haven't said you ought not to trust them," Bertie replied. "But your powers have no checks or balances yet; you can blow wild sometimes, like an uncapped oil well."
"But Pegeen saw what I saw the other morning, on the face of Jimmy Nixon there on the tube—and it
was
a tiger with the head of—"
"We both know Pegeen is highly suggestible. Give me five minutes and I'll have her convinced she saw Santa Claus on the roof with the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"This is not very fair of you," Eden said bitterly, turning from Bertie. There was a catch in her voice; her eyes shimmered by firelight. "Torn, don't you want to listen to me? I know the Holy Father is in danger. We have to do something."
Silence in the sitting room of the bungalow. The fire on the hearth popped and crackled. Fernando broke wind vigorously as he got to his feet. Bertie made a face and fluttered a hand.
Outside
. The dog padded away.
"Yes. I agree something should be done." Tom was looking at Bertie.
Bertie got up and put her arms around Eden, who for the moment was unyielding but offered a bruised smile, taking in Bertie's warmth.
"I've always liked Rome in the fall," Bertie said.
E
den was in bed at half past midnight but not asleep, although the genets that lived in one of the fig trees not far from her bedroom usually lulled her with their nocturnal rap, huffing sounds like fat men jogging up a steep hill. Voices from the nightly chorus, underscored by the ceaseless metallic peeping of tree frogs and the tympany of bull toads. She'd also been hearing the alarm calls of a baboon troop half a mile or more away; that almost always meant a leopard in the neighborhood, their most feared adversary.
Tom Sherard knocked on her bedroom door, identifying himself.
Eden got out of bed, stripping off the comfortable flannel shirt that hung to her knees. Shivering—the temperature outside had dropped into the high forties—she pulled on a pair of green coveralls:
snap snap
and she opened the thick carved door to him. Raking a hand through her hair where it had flattened on the pillow.
Tom had a glass in one hand, two ounces of whiskey and a melting ice cube, but she knew it wasn't his first. Probably he'd camped out on the veranda with only a couple of dogs and Uncle Norm for company, his boots up, as sleepless as Eden, eyes narrowed but alert in flush moonlight, hunter, caretaker, knowing the night of his birthplace but not the strangeness in his heart.
So it was to be tonight
, she thought, looking solemnly into his gray eyes for confirmation, nipples sensitive against the fabric of her coveralls. She had known how to touch him after all. Reach him. Then a twinge that snaked into a livid cramp reminded her that she was seeping blood.
Not this night
. When he reached into a pocket of his safari jacket and rather awkwardly handed her a couple of folded pages his computer had printed out, Eden realized with a different twinge that she had misread him. She smiled in a self-bemused way.
"What's this, Tom?"
"I know it's late, but I thought you'd want to—E-mail, from Betts. It was received by my office at the Bellaver Foundation in Geneva earlier tonight, and they passed it on to me according to our arrangement."
He turned from the doorway but she motioned for him to stay.
"It's all right. Don't go, please. I'd like some company."
While he poked at the embers of the fire in the sitting room and added logs, Eden pulled up a chair and turned on a lamp with a tasseled shade. She read eagerly, gasped, stopped, looked up.
"Tom!"
"What's wrong?"
"Betts. She's not coming. She
can't
come! Omigod!"
For a quarter of a minute Eden stared at the pages in her hand, breathing through her mouth. Then her eyes closed; tears that were squeezed from the corners of her eyes ran down her face. She sat there heaving from sobs.
Tom came to Eden and gently pried the E-mail pages from her cold hand.
"May I read this?"
"Y-yes."
Eden slumped back in the chair, scrunching against the black-fringed zebra hide. An animal reaction, emphasized by a long wail of despair.
He tilted the lampshade, holding the pages close to the round globe. He had left his reading glasses in his small study next to his bedroom, which had been his parents' bedroom. But with enough light he could make out Betts Waring's words. Eden knotted up in the chair, going, "Oh shit. Oh shit."
My darling
this is going to be a rough one I
know because you have no warning.
Even after it happened I still wanted
to come there to Kenya & when the time
was ripe brag it up (assuming there can
ever bee ripe time for the noose none
of us ever want to wear?) but my flying
to anyplace now is Im sure out of the
ballpark. Youll understand why.
My flight from SFO to London was delay
by a bad storm that bombard the
airpoor a cup of horse, so I had rumcoke
in the first class lunge to wait out
with a very nice people from Santa
Rose, who were on their way to Rome
to see the Pope. (Im writing this
slow but still probably doing some
whistles wrong but cant tell which ones
youll understand why)
You know how my little strokes used
to happen, because once you were with
me & I have to pool over ask you to
drive which you didnt have your license
yet? I got this warm feeling the side
of my neck and vision was fuzzy for a,
copper mints. But weenie they check
me at the Med that time all the
dynasty whatzits didnt pick, up
anything wrong with me.
That was yours ago but only two little,
episodes after the first one & I
never told Riley told you. Over in
a few mints no harm, done & my
reaction of course was light up
another Pall Mall, self-dialysis &
put it all out of my mind.
But the one that hit me in the San
Fran airpoor wasnt so easy to dismiss.
I know I blacked out but not how long.
And my left urn was numb from elbow
down. Funny feeling, looking & there's
my hand like ded bird in my lap. I
felt weak and had to go to the garden.
Heaved and heaved but didnt feel much
better. Looked in the mirror while
I swallowed my face but already knew
it was deep caca. The pupil of my
right eye bigger than the short one.
Left everything so I guess my kit
is in London now but Im in a big
hurry thinking Im going to die &
took a taxi to Pal Alto. Where
they have the best special lists
at Stanford. They did all the tests
and I guess its pervious by now the
rest of my life is a blank table.
Weenie we look at the skull pix I
know its waste of time to go in
there dig & dig because this squat
little monster has more urns than a
Hondo diety, thats all she rot &
fuckit babe, Four weeks is about
what Im left so pleese I need you to
come here where I am while I can
still make senz and will know who
you arse.
I didnt want to go home to an empty
well. Getting tired now must finish.
Im staying with dear old friend from
college almost married him but those
things happen & anyway he has been so
kind to me. His name is Edmund Ruddy
& will pick you up at San Fro weenie
you rive then its just one oar to the
marbles where Edmund pizza greek. I
miss you so bad pleese mall me right
away you are coming
bye now dear one
"What a terrible thing to happen!" Eden shouted. "Can't the Warings get a break anymore? Tom, what am I going to
do
?"
"You have to go to her. The Gulfstream can be gassed and ready by dawn. It's a sixteen-hour hop, I'd hazard, to San Francisco, so Reggie will need to round up a full second crew. I'll ring him while you pack; then I'll fly you to Kenyatta Airport."
"But—we were going to Rome tomorrow! The Holy Father—"