The Faculty Club: A Novel (25 page)

This guy was messing with me!

"Yeah, let's get started."

I handed him one of our packages.

The man took it. He pulled out the paper and read it slowly, taking his time. It contained every single thing we knew about the V&D: facts and rumors, puzzles and solutions, maps of tunnels, the location of their temple, lists of names. His face was passive, perfectly unreadable. Not blank--just mild. He might've been flipping through
Reader's Digest,
waiting for a haircut. When he was done, he handed it back to me.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay
what
?"

He didn't reply. He just sat there patiently with a polite smile, hands folded in his lap.

He sat there until I couldn't stand it.

"We want protection. We want you to promise you'll leave us alone. Me, Sarah, Miles, Chance. That's it. We have copies of this all over the place. If anything happens to us, they go out--newspapers, internet, you name it. If we're okay, they never see the light of day. We don't care about the V&D. All we want to do is live our lives. That's it. That's all we want."

I tried to think if there was anything else to say. But there wasn't.

"Well?" I prodded him.

"Well what?"

I wanted to jump the space between us and throttle him.

"Do we have a deal?"

"Okay," he said.

I almost didn't catch it. He said it quietly. No haggling, no comebacks. Just "okay." It seemed too easy. But then again, it wasn't a very complex situation. I didn't buy his Willy Loman act--behind those placid eyes I saw a snake-brain coiling. It seemed like the smarter someone was, the less there was to say.

"That's it?" I asked.

"Is there something else?"

"No."

"Okay then." He used his thumb and forefinger to smooth the two halves of his mustache. "I better get going. Seems like I'm always running behind. You know how it is." He chuckled. "Say, I hate to ask, but can I have this?" He picked up one of my troll dolls, one with wild pink hair. "Haven't seen this one before. I bet my sister would like it." He gave an apologetic smile.

I think my eyebrows were knitting tighter than if he'd asked me a math question.

"Sure. Fine."

"Thanks. Really kind of you."

He did a couple of mini-bows to me and shook Miles's and Sarah's hands.

He was at the door with his hand on the knob when he turned around.

"Oh, sorry, one other thing. Your friend Chance."

Suddenly, the entire room froze.

"What about Chance?"

The man in the suit shook his head. "Sad news. He was killed in an accident. Drunk driving, I'm sorry to say."

I looked at Miles and Sarah. Sarah's eyes were wide. Miles's were burning.

"It'll be in the paper tomorrow," the man said. "We were waiting to put the rest of you in the car, but I guess there's just one victim in this accident, after all." He scratched his head. "Well, good night."

For a moment, I thought Miles would jump across the room and tear the little man limb from limb. The look in his eyes scared the hell out of me.

But he didn't move. He just sat there, his eyes burning like coals. I heard the door close. The man with the mustache was gone, and he took all the air in the room with him. Miles just kept staring at the spot where he'd been.

Chance is dead.
That's what kept running in my mind, over and over.
Chance is dead. Chance is dead.

Miles shivered. I thought he was cold, but then I saw his eyes. They'd dimmed from burning to a low simmer. His shiver was like a lion's shaking off a hunt. He walked to the window and threw it open. Cold air rushed into the room. It stung. It felt like an exorcism, cleansing the room of that man's affable malice.

Miles turned to us and opened his hands.

"We're free," he said.

"What?"

"We're free. We did it. We have our lives back."

"But
Chance
."

Miles shook his head.

"Chance was an adult. He knew what he was doing."

"They
killed
him."

"They did. And if it hadn't been them, it would've been the Sandinistas. Or the Taliban. Chance was only happy in the middle of a war zone. I'm surprised he made it this long. You know what would've been a tragedy? Chance dying in a Boca Raton retirement home with pea soup on his chin. His only crime was getting Jeremy involved in all this." Miles rubbed his hands briskly. "Listen to me. We're moving on with our lives. This is a gift. This is as good as it gets."

I started to protest, but Miles raised his giant hand with such force that I took a step back.

"How can you be so cold?" Sarah snapped.

"Cold?" He stared at her. He almost roared. "You think I'm cold? I knew Chance better than either of you. I'll be mourning him long after he's just a footnote in your memory."

His eyes actually started watering.

"Miles . . ." Sarah said gently.

"I don't want to hear it. Chance is gone."

"This isn't about Chance," she said. "Miles, they're killing kids. Twenty-two-year-olds, right at the start of their lives."

"You can't beat these people!" he barked. "Say we tell people what we know. So what? We're only alive because it's easier for them than cleaning up the mess we'd make. But they
could
clean it up. We're alive at their
convenience.
That's it."

"You're right," I said.

Miles did a double take. Sarah looked at me like I'd betrayed her.

"What?"

"You're right."

"I don't think you've ever said that before," Miles mumbled.

"Exposing what we know won't help us."

"Thank God. At least someone's been paying attention."

"We have to beat them another way."

His smile dropped; he let out a low growl.

It was time to tell them what I'd been thinking about, ever since my trip back from New York. The final piece of the puzzle. Their Achilles' heel. The piece that had been right in our faces the whole time. We just hadn't seen it.

"Something's been bothering me," I said. "Remember what Isabella told us? Possession is a
temporary
state, right? You do the ritual, magic happens, and then bam, it's over. Right?"

Miles closed his eyes. He didn't say anything.

Sarah nodded. "Right."

"So how are they maintaining this for the entire life of the victim's body--until they're ready to skip to their next generation of hosts? We're talking sixty years . . . How do they do it?"

"I don't know," Miles snapped. "What am I, Grand Poohbah?"

"Miles, listen. What did I see, when I was in the tunnel over the ceremony? Remember? There were dancers, right? And drummers? And the priest with the crazy eyes? And behind them, what did I see?"

He tried to remember, then shook his head.

It had been there, right in front of us, all along. Sarah's eyes lit up.

"Behind the dancers?" she asked.

I nodded.

"And behind the priest, on the altar?"

"Right . . ."

"A machine. You said you saw a machine."

"That's right--"

"A machine, or something like that, in the dark, twisting and moving like the dancers were. That's what you said."

I nodded. Her eyes were bright, alive.

Miles didn't say anything. He just nodded slightly.

"Isabella didn't say anything about a machine, did she?"

He shook his head no.

"Of course she wouldn't," I continued. "It's totally out of character with the ritual . . ."

Sarah smiled, remembering my exchange with Isabella.

" 'What if someone were
using
voodoo . . .'" she recited.

" '. . . someone from
outside the culture
. . .

" 'In a way it was never intended,'" Miles finished.

I nodded.

"What if the machine . . ."

". . . was some kind of
extension
of the ritual . . ."

"Prolonging it . . ."

"
Sustaining
it . . ."

Miles shook his head as the idea unfolded.

"It's an addition."

"A mechanization."

"Assembly-line voodoo," I said, smiling.

"Then it stands to reason," Miles continued, "that if the machine is prolonging a temporary state--possession--indefinitely, then if we . . ."

". . . destroyed the machine . . ."

". . . we'd end the possession . . ."

". . . and then . . ."

". . . what then?" Miles asked. "Are the victims--what did Izzy call them?--the
horses . . .
are they still in there, somewhere?"

"Would they come back?"

" 'When the god dismounts, the priest is himself again,
weary
maybe, dazed,' but . . ."

". . . but this is so much
longer
. . . not minutes but
decades
. . ."

"If you cut them off too long, do they die?" Miles asked.

"Don't we owe it to them to find out?" Sarah replied.

Miles laughed harshly.

"
Owe
them? What do we owe Nigel . . . Daphne . . .
John
? Those people
used
Jeremy. And when he had nothing left to offer them, they dropped him without a second thought."

"So what?" I said. "So they deserve to die?"

"No. And they don't deserve you risking your life to save them, either. Or me." He laughed. "Would they do it for us?"

"No," I said softly.

"It's not just Nigel, Daphne, and John," Sarah said. "It's everyone who came before or after. A new group of students every year."

"People we don't know," Miles said. "People who would slit each others' throats for an A."

Sarah leaned toward us.

"It doesn't matter if they'd do it for you. It doesn't matter why us.
Us
is all there is." She looked at Miles and me matter-of-factly. "I'm going. Whether you two do or not."

I met her stare and nodded.

"I'm in," I said.

We looked at Miles.

"Even if your theory is correct," he said, "you're talking about walking right into the sanctum sanctorum."

"That's right."

"You could be walking to your death."

"Maybe not," I said. "Think about it. They only need to do
the ceremony once per initiate, right? The machine does the rest. They already did Nigel. Maybe the others too. So there's a good chance no one's even down there now."

He didn't argue.

"Miles, you
know
about this stuff.
You
were the one who cracked the voodoo puzzle. I don't think we can do this without you."

He scratched his beard. He mumbled something that sounded like
what a clusterfuck.

"Get in, smash the machine, get out?" he asked.

I nodded.

He closed his eyes.

"Can we set the place on fire, for fun?"

"Sure we can."

At long last, he sighed.

"Why not?"

Sarah let out a cry and hugged the big man.

I found the lever, more like a clutch, somewhere in the upper bowels of the fireplace. The room was perfectly silent in the middle of the night. My cheek was pressed against the marble, while my hand groped around inside the mantel. I heard it before I saw it--releasing the clutch led to the popping open of a tall panel by the desk. Sarah clapped her hands. "Perfecto," I heard Miles say, his voice echoing into a larger place.

Just this morning, we were sitting in Sal's, trying to think of a door they wouldn't be watching. We had a map--the one Chance and I had concocted with the help of the late Frank Shepard. We knew where we had to go and what we had to do, which was why Miles's leather satchel now contained a crowbar instead of postmodern gibberish. We just needed a starting point, a way down into the tunnels. Preferably one they wouldn't be guarding with a team of assassins. Which meant, strangely enough, that the best door for us would be one we didn't know existed.

Where to start? There was the hatch under my bed, extra handy if you were inclined to murder me in my sleep. Not to mention it was the first place I'd think of, if I were dumb enough to go after them (which apparently I was). No thanks. There was the elevator in the old house on Morland Street, but I'd been blindfolded,
and anyway it was a natural second choice. There was Humpty Dumpty's library passage--but we didn't have his keys. There was the plant manager's office--wired with a burglar alarm. There was the sewer by Nigel's house. They sure as hell were aware I knew about
that.
I thought of the Puppet Man, coming toward me on his gangly spider legs, that long silver fang in hand.

There had to be a better way.

I've said it before--the brain is an amazing thing. Sometimes it tries to help you, even if you're too stupid to notice. I found myself struggling to ignore a sudden, pointless memory: leaving Bernini's office for the first time, walking away down that old hallway.

Stop it,
I told myself:
focus on the problem
.

What did Bernini say, seemingly to himself, as I'd walked away?

V&D perhaps?

And what next . . .

That other voice, unexpected, much, much colder--a voice I now assigned to the priest with the twisted, yellow-eyed stare.

We'll see,
he'd said.

Where had he come from? No one else had been in Bernini's office with us. No one had passed me in the hall.

It was suddenly clear.

There was another door in Bernini's room. Well hidden and, as far as they knew, totally unknown to us.

I had a less pleasant memory: my last visit to Bernini's office. His cool termination of my services. The way he let me get all the way to his door before he called my name and asked for his key back.

But that was perfect, wasn't it?

He had his key back.

A door I didn't know about, in a room without a key.

I thanked God for the anal-retentive, type-A, worst-case-scenario worldview of young lawyers, as I pulled my copy of
Crime and Punishment
off my bookshelf, opened it to the middle, and let the spare key to Bernini's office fall into my hand.