Ring of Fire (5 page)

“Um, why’s that?”

“Because you obviously don’t like company. You’ve barely said a word since you walked into the room. Except ‘Bedtime.’”

“Well, what was I supposed to say? I’m exhausted.”

“You could’ve said something like, ‘Guys, I’m exhausted. How about you?’ It’s called ‘pleasant conversation.’”

“I didn’t know what to talk about.”

“Well, how about your favorite movie, the last book you read, when your birthday is …,” Sheng blurts out, running his fingers through the lampshade’s tiny wisps of light. “In fact, I’m tempted to tell you guys when I was born—”

Harvey cuts him off with a hoarse laugh. “Actually, my birthday’s pretty funny.”

“Not as funny as mine,” Mistral adds.

“Believe me. Mine’s the worst,” Sheng insists.

“I don’t think so,” Harvey shoots back, clasping his hands behind his neck. “I was born on February twenty-ninth. Can you believe it?”

A sort of electric charge fills the room. Elettra can clearly feel it surging down to her fingertips. It’s a shock that comes from outside, from the street, or maybe from much higher up. As if in the sky, at an infinite altitude, some ancient mechanism made of stars and ancient mysteries has switched on.

The air echoes with silence and then suddenly becomes still and cold.

Sheng’s hand grabs on to the dandelion lamp’s wisps. Mistral, sitting at the foot of the bed, gasps.

Realizing he’s said something strange, Harvey sits up and asks, “Weird, isn’t it?” But there’s a note of uneasiness in his voice. “Don’t you think it’s strange? February twenty-ninth!”

“I was born on February twenty-ninth, too,” Sheng whispers, turning to stare at him.

The room grows even colder. And the electrical charge in Elettra’s hands grows stronger.

“I don’t believe it,” says Mistral. “It can’t be!” Her blue eyes are gleaming with amazement. “Me too.”

Sheng’s hands freeze completely amid the lamp’s wisps.

“Man …,” he murmurs. “What … what a bizarre coincidence.”

“Go figure …,” muses Harvey, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Elettra needs to move. She’s boiling hot. Inside of her is a seething volcano. She walks up to the window and throws it open, letting in the chilly nighttime air.
How could it be?
she wonders.

She looks up. The sky is overcast. No stars can be seen.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

She shuts her eyes and lets a few snowflakes land on her face. They melt into tiny teardrops. Her hands are so hot her fingertips are aching.

When she opens her eyes again to look at the three people in her room, she notices that none of them has said a word.

Grouchy Harvey.

Dreamy Mistral.

Cheerful Sheng.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Elettra says, her voice trembling.

She’s logical, rational, perfectly organized. She understands people at a single glance. She categorizes them, classifies them and always has an explanation for everything.

Except for when she winds up burning out lightbulbs or
ruining mirrors. Except for when a printer goes haywire or a television screen changes colors when she walks by.

She doesn’t believe in coincidences. Not ones like this, at least.

Because Elettra was also born on February twenty-ninth.

When she tells the others this, she feels the need to lean against someone. Her hand barely touches Sheng’s shoulder, and all the tension and heat she’s been keeping inside of her instantly surges out like a flooded river.

“Aaahh!” cries the Chinese boy, feeling a burning sensation.

The dandelion lamp in his hands lets out a burst of blinding light and shatters into a thousand pieces.

M
ANTLED IN WHITE, THE TRAFFIC IN
R
OME SLOWS DOWN TO A HALT
like a weary animal. All alone in her yellow Mini, Beatrice tries to cancel out everything around her as she sits in the protective comfort of her car. She turns up the volume of her CD player full blast and lets the music carry her thoughts far, far away. She’s surrounded by endless lanes of cars, honking horns and glaring headlights. The statues guarding the bridges of the Tiber River stare at her sternly.

She dropped Jacob Mahler off outside the small house she’d rented for him in the Coppedè district, near Corso Trieste. It was Mahler himself who’d requested it. He wanted to sleep in one of those bizarre, menacing-looking buildings full of strange faces, masks, crenellations, turrets, lilies, roses and vines intertwined beneath the pointed rooftops.

Well, if that’s what he wants. …

Beatrice rests her head against the car window. She’s tired. The cold glass feels good against her cheek. It freezes out her most troubling thoughts. She was expecting a lot from this day, and she has the feeling she didn’t get much out of it. Not that she thought “the great Jacob Mahler” would be more easygoing, but she’s
disappointed by the man’s pointless arrogance and by how she let her thoughts get muddled.

Jacob Mahler is tremendously self-confident and incredibly cold.

They say he’s one of the very best professional killers in the whole world.

Inside the Mini is a lingering trace of his violet-scented cologne.

Beatrice shuts her eyes and thinks back to how they said goodbye.

“What should I tell Joe Vinile?” Beatrice asked, dropping him off outside the house. A wrought iron gate spiked with sharp points. Balconies resting on the backs of ancient mythological figures.

“Tell him we’ll meet tomorrow at eleven past eleven.”

“Here?” Snowflakes were clinging to her hair like little white spiders.

He shook his head, looking at her with his piercing, light-colored eyes. He nodded toward the house. “I’m not here. Nobody’s here.”

I’m such an idiot
, thought Beatrice.
No one’s supposed to know that Jacob Mahler’s here in Rome
.

“We’ll see you at Joe’s restaurant, then?”

For the second time, Jacob Mahler shook his head, enjoying the chance to make her feel foolish.

“Where, then?”

“At the best café in Rome. At eleven past eleven.” Having made this enigmatic statement, he turned around and walked through the gates.

“Mr. Mahler?” Beatrice called after him. “Mr. Mahler? The best café in Rome … Which one is that?”

A thick whirl of snow was carried in by the wind, forming a white curtain between her and Jacob Mahler.

When she looked again, he’d disappeared.

A honking horn suddenly snaps her back into the real world. Traffic has moved ahead a few meters. Beatrice puts her car into gear and creeps forward. It could take her hours to get home. And all she wants to do is crawl into bed and close her eyes.

She’s gripped by the anguishing feeling of helplessness. She looks for her cell phone and scans down the list of names. She finds Joe Vinile’s number, stares at the phone’s glowing display but can’t find the courage to hit the call button. Instead, she sends him a message:
MEETING TOMORROW AT ELEVEN PAST ELEVEN, AT THE BEST CAFÉ IN ROME
.

“What the heck!” she yells, tossing the cell phone over her shoulder. She clutches the steering wheel and counts the minutes it takes her to move one meter forward. Just then, the cell phone starts ringing.

Beatrice twists her arm back and finds it, checks the number and is relieved to see it’s neither Joe nor any of her ex-boyfriends.

“Beatrice?”

It’s Jacob Mahler.

Her mouth drops open slightly. Her stomach churns with worry while her brain wonders,
How’d he get my private number?

“Yes, Jacob?” Beatrice bites her lip. She just called him by his first name.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Jacob Mahler continues.

“How so?”

“We need to do something tonight.”

“Did you hear from Joe Vinile?”

“We need to go see a man.”

“Where?”

“Under the Ponte Sisto. In half an hour.”

“We can’t,” replies Beatrice. The cars around her aren’t moving. The snow whirls down from the sky and gives no sign of letting up. “I’m in the middle of a traffic jam.”

“Find a way. It’s very important.”

“It’s impossible! Nobody’s moving.”

“That’s why
we’re
going to move. I’ll wait for you here. I’m counting on you.”

Beatrice is about to protest, but Jacob Mahler has already hung up.

Try to think
, she tells herself.

To get back to the Coppedè district, Beatrice would need to reach the first traffic light and turn off on the street going up the hill, on the other side of the divider.

The cars are lined up in three lanes. An endless procession of white and red lights surrounded by snow. At this rate, just getting to the intersection might take her half an hour.

And she doesn’t have half an hour.

Nobody’s moving.

That’s why
we’re
going to move.

Find a way.

A crazy idea flashes through her mind. Her arm shoots back and grabs the jacket from the backseat. She clasps her fingers around the door handle, her hand trembling.

Nobody’s moving.

That’s why
we’re
going to move.

Beatrice takes a deep breath. She switches off the engine, opens the door and gets out of the Mini, leaving it stranded in the middle of traffic.

“I’ve gone totally nuts,” she says, starting to walk between the other cars. “I’ve gone totally nuts.”

Horns are blaring out behind her, but Beatrice doesn’t turn around. She starts running, reaches the traffic light and crosses the street. Just as she expected, cars are zooming down the road going up the hill.

“The mysteries of traffic in Rome,” she murmurs with a smile.

Just past the intersection, she starts waving her arms. A dark car pulls up beside her. “Need some help?” the young driver asks, rolling down his window.

“Yes,” Beatrice replies.

Suddenly, something strange happens.

Around them, all the lights in the city suddenly go out. The traffic lights go out. Then all the streetlights. Then the shop lights. The lights in all the houses.

Rome is plunged into darkness.

“What’s going on?” the young man asks, looking around, astonished. Instinctively, he gets out of his car, leaving the door open.

To Beatrice, this is a sign of destiny.

“I’m stealing your car,” she says.

Thinking she’s joking, he plays along. “Oh, sure. Be my guest! What are you, a thief?”

“Maybe.” Without giving him the chance to react, Beatrice dives down into the driver’s seat, grabs hold of the steering wheel
and peels out, splashing up a wave of slush behind her. The young man runs after her, shouting.

It’s snowing.

Her yellow Mini is abandoned in the middle of traffic.

She’s just stolen someone’s car.

Rome is pitch-black.

But all she thinks about is getting to Jacob Mahler in time.

I
T’S PITCH-BLACK IN
E
LETTRA’S ROOM
.

“Did you hurt yourself?” the girl asks Sheng, kneeling down beside him. The shattered dandelion lamp is lying on the floor in a thousand pieces.

“No, but—”

“Mistral?”

“Harvey?”

“I’m here.”

“Me too.”

“Is anybody hurt?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

The kids move closer to each other, crawling on the floor.

“Watch out for the glass.”

“It’s everywhere,” says Sheng.

Elettra feels around for the light switch. She flicks it, but nothing happens. She goes into the bathroom, but the light doesn’t work there, either.

“No luck. We must’ve blown a fuse.”

“A flame,” says Harvey. “It was like a flame.”

“I—I saw it come out of Sheng’s hands,” Mistral stammers. Her voice is quavering like a violin string.

“Man,” repeats Sheng. “Man …” It’s as though he is incapable of saying anything else.

The room is totally immersed in darkness. The only light coming in is the reflection of the snow falling in the courtyard. A dark courtyard, like the bottom of a black box.