Hoping that a vision will steal over me, and there will be something God wants me to do. Anything.
Hoping for a direction. A path to walk. A sign.
But the vision doesn’t come.
From behind me, bells start to toll the hour from a towering redbrick church a couple blocks away. I count the beats—ten of them—and stand up. I should get back to Christian.
But then, as the last notes from the clock fade away, an idea comes to me, a thunderclap of sudden inspiration.
I could make myself have a vision. Or, at the very least, I could try.
I glance around. There’s no one else in the park, which makes sense. You’d have to be crazy to go out in this downpour. I’m alone.
I smile and close my eyes. Focus.
And the glory comes, like it never left me. It comes. Thanks largely to the congregation, I think.
I imagine sunshine. A line of palm trees. A row of red flowers along a path of purple-and-tan checkered stones.
I think of Stanford.
I cross.
The quad is largely deserted as I walk to MemChu. The last few steps I practically run into the church. I can’t be gone long, I think. Christian will worry.
It’s still early here, and there’s only one person walking the labyrinth when I get to the front of the nave: a guy in a red sweatshirt, mumbling quietly to himself as he walks the pattern on the floor. I shuck off my damp shoes, pick up at the entrance of the circle and start walking, slowly, following the turns and twists of the pattern, trying to clear my head of all that’s clogging it.
Time to meditate. Briefly I worry that I might start to glow in front of red sweatshirt guy, but he seems lost in his own thoughts and I can’t wait.
I walk in circles for a while, not thinking but moving my feet automatically, following the path before me, then stop and check my watch.
I’ve been here for ten minutes, and I haven’t even come close to having the vision.
Maybe this is a pipe dream. I couldn’t make myself have a vision before. Why would it work for me now?
“You’re not going to get the result you want if you keep looking at your watch,” says a voice. I turn. Standing on the opposite side of the circle in the red sweatshirt is Thomas.
Good old Doubting Thomas.
“Thanks,” I say wryly. “I bet you’re not going to get the result you want if you keep stopping to see how everybody else is doing.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to help.” His eyebrows come together. “How’d you get all wet?”
“Do you come here often?” I ask instead of trying to explain, since this isn’t exactly the place I would have expected to find the guy who could never seem to leave well enough alone in happiness class.
He nods. “Since I finished that class. It helps me get my mind off my crazy life.”
His crazy life, I think. How crazy could it be?
“I’m not very good at this,” I confess, gesturing to the blue vinyl circle. The morning sun is passing through the stained-glass windows, casting a riot of color onto the patterns under our feet. “I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s just not happening.”
“Here.” He pulls at something around his neck and comes away with the earbuds for an iPod, which he hands me. “Try this.”
I tentatively slip the buds into my ears. He presses play, and I’m flooded with a chorus of male voices singing in Latin. Gregorian chant.
Again, Thomas surprises me. I would have pegged him as a rap aficionado.
“Nice,” I say to him.
“I don’t know what they’re saying, but I like it,” he says. “It helps.”
I listen.
Panis angelicus fit panis hominum … Bread of angels becomes the bread of men …
Sometimes it doesn’t suck to be able to understand any language on earth.
“So now you walk,” Thomas says. “Just walk, and listen, and let your mind empty itself out.”
I do what he says. I don’t think about what I want. I don’t think about Angela or Web or Christian. I walk. The monks chant in my ears, and I hear them like I’m standing among them, and I stop for a moment in the center of the circle, and I close my eyes.
Please, I think. Please. Show me the way.
That’s when the vision hits me like a Mack truck doing seventy. And I am swept away.
17
TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
In the vision, I’m waiting for someone. I’m standing next to a long metal bench—standing because I’m too nervous to sit down. I take a few steps in one direction. Stop. Walk back the other way. Look around. Check my watch.
Two minutes to midnight.
A cloud drifts in front of the moon, which is full, circled by a hazy grayish ring. I pull my jacket tighter to me even though I’m not cold. My head is full of fear, my chest tight with it, my heart beating fast. This is crazy, I think. Foolhardy, my mother would call it. Insane. But here I am, anyway.
Sanity is overrated.
Behind me something hisses, loud and mechanical, and I turn to look. There’s a train, a sleek, silver line of cars stretched along the tracks. It rolls slowly toward me.
Maybe I’m supposed to go somewhere.
The train passes, clacking in a heavy rhythm like my heart. The brakes squeal as it glides to a stop, and the passenger doors slide open. I take a step forward and then look down the empty platform. After a moment the doors close, the engine rumbles, and the train continues on, shaking the earth with its weight, screeching and clacking until the last car passes. It rolls away into the darkness without me.
I check my watch. One minute to midnight.
When I look up again, I see a bird swoop down from the roof of the train depot, dark as a shadow. It lands on a lamppost across the tracks, swivels its head toward me, caws. It’s a crow. My heart starts to beat even faster.
“Caw,” says the crow, testing me, taunting me, calling me to join him across the tracks.
I start walking to him, and I don’t look back.
Because I know this bird.
He’s going to be my guide.
I spiral back to myself at the church. I’m stopped in the center of the circle, my face uplifted, the monks singing, singing, singing, their voices gone dark.
“Looks like it worked,” Thomas says, smiling, as I hand him back his iPod with shaky hands.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. “I have to go now.”
Boy, do I ever have to go now.
I walk to the Oval and sit down under the tree where I always study. I think Samjeeza’s name, over and over again, summoning him the only way I know how, hoping that he hasn’t given up his creepy stalking now when I’m really counting on him. And I wait.
I feel his presence before I see him. He steps out of the trees at the edge of campus, his amber eyes bewildered but curious.
“You called me,” he says.
“Yes, I did.” Although I’m as surprised as he is that it worked.
“I didn’t expect to see you here again,” he says. “You’re in some trouble with Big Brother.”
So he already knows. Of course he does. I’m sure gossip really gets around in hell. “You could say that. Anyway. I’m ready to tell you a story,” I say. “But I want something in return.”
He smiles, surprised and pleased and even more curious now. He opens his arms, palms up, and steps back in the semblance of a formal bow.
This guy is cheese to the core.
“What can I do for you, little bird?” he says.
This is it. Don’t chicken out now, I tell myself. I meet his eyes.
“The Black Wings took my friend Angela. Do you know where she is?”
“Yes. Asael has her.”
“In hell?”
“Naturally.”
I swallow. “Have you seen her?”
He nods.
“Is she all right?”
There’s a cruel twist to his mouth. “No one is all right in that pla
ce.”
“Is she … alive?”
“Physically speaking, yes, her heart was beating the last I saw her.”
“And when was that?” I ask.
He finds the question funny. “Some time ago,” he answers with a laugh.
I bite my lip. This is the insane part: Telling him my impromptu plan. Putting it all out there. Letting the chips fall where they may. The wind picks up and sends the trees into a furtive whispering, like a warning. Don’t trust him, they say.
But I trust the vision, and the vision tells me that I trust him.
Samjeeza’s getting impatient. “I told you what I know about your friend. Now tell me the story.”
“Not yet. I need something else.” I take a deep breath.
Be brave, my darling, my mother told me once. You’re stronger than you think. I can be brave, I tell myself.
“I need you to take me to Angela,” I say then. “In hell.”
He lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Whatever for?”
“So I can get her out.”
His eyes widen. “You’re serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack,” I say, which is appropriate, because I feel like I’m about to have one.
“Impossible,” he says, although his eyes take on an excited gleam.
“Why is it impossible?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Don’t you have the power to do it? You took me there before.”
I’m provoking him, and he knows it. Still, he smiles. “I could take you there easily enough. Getting you out would be infinitely more difficult. Chances are you’d lose yourself within a few moments and become as trapped as your friend.”
“I’m strong,” I tell him. “You’ve said so yourself.”
“Yes, and why is that?” he asks. “Why are you so strong, little Quartarius?”
I smile vaguely.
“You’d be waltzing in right under Asael’s nose and taking something that belongs to him,” he says, like the idea is not altogether an unpleasant one. He’s none too fond of Asael. Which works for me.
“Yes. Will you help me?”
“All that for a mere story? Do you take me for a fool?”
“Then I guess this is a pointless conversation.” I shrug and stand up, brush grass off my jeans. “Oh well, it was worth a shot.”
“Wait,” he says, all the humor gone from his voice now. “I haven’t said no, exactly.”
Hope and terror bloom simultaneously in my chest. “Then you’ll take me?”
He hesitates. “It’s very dangerous, for both of us, but especially for you. The likelihood that you will be caught—”
“Please,” I say. “I have to try.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t understand the nature of hell. It will swallow you up. Unless …” He starts to pace. He has an idea, something good—I can tell by the way he stands up straighter, by the diabolical bounce in his step. I wait for him to tell me.
“All right,” he says at last. “If you cannot be talked out of it, I will take you.”
“How soon can we go?” I ask.
“Tonight. That will give you enough time to reconsider.” He leans toward me. “This is a futile endeavor, little bird, no matter how strong you think you are.”
“When should I meet you? Where?” I ask.
“Where’s the nearest train station?”
“A few blocks from here. Palo Alto.”
“Meet me at the train station in Palo Alto, then,” he says. “Midnight.”
I’m light-headed. I already knew the time and place, from the vision, but hearing him say it, knowing for sure that’s what the vision is about, shocks me. That and that he’s ready to take me so soon. Like, tonight. Tonight I am going to hell.
“Having second thoughts already?” he asks with the hint of a smile.
“No. I’ll be there.”
“Wear black or gray, nothing conspicuous or flashy, and cover your hair,” he says. “Also, you must bring a friend, another of the Nephilim, or I can’t take you.”
He turns like he’s going to walk away.
“A friend? You can’t be serious,” I gasp.
“If you’re going to succeed on this little excursion, you’ll need someone to ground you. Someone to help you keep back the sorrows of the damned. Otherwise your gift of feeling what others feel will drown you. You won’t last two minutes.”
“All right,” I say hoarsely.
He turns into a bird. My eye’s not quick enough to see the transition, but one second he’s a man, the next a crow. He squawks at me.
Midnight, he says in my mind, his voice like a splash of cold water. And don’t forget, you owe me a story.
I won’t forget.
Christian’s more than a little surprised when I cross straight into our hotel room and tell him we need to take Web to Billy after all. I’ll fill him in later. “Trust me,” I say, and his jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue when I go around gathering up Web’s supplies and take us to Billy’s house in the mountains, where she is obviously expecting us.
He thinks I’m freaking out over the whole motherhood thing. That I don’t want to be responsible for Web. He’s disappointed, because he thought we could handle it, but he understands.
Or at least he thinks he does.
It kills me to hand Web over to Billy, but I try to smile when I do it. He’ll be safer with Billy, I remind myself. But he’s uncertain in her arms, whimpering, and my heart squeezes painfully at the way he keeps looking at me.
“It’s okay, little dude. Auntie Billy’s going to take good care of you,” I say, and go over all his stuff one last time, what kind of formula he takes and which one makes him puke like The Exorcist, which blanket to swaddle him in at night, which pacifier is his favorite, the vital importance of his stuffed monkey.
“I got it, kid,” Billy says, patting my arm. She’s feeling emotional, too. Deep down she’s always wanted a child. She would have had one with Walter, if she could have. But she herself only has seven more years to live.
“I’ll call tonight and sing him a song,” I promise, and only barely get out of there without bursting into tears.
And that entire time, Christian stands beside me, waiting for me to tell him what’s up.
He’s crazy surprised when I cross us to the study room in the Roble basement and not back to Lincoln.
“All right, Clara,” he says, trying to hide his alarm. “Where are we? What’s going on?”
I tell him.
He has the following reaction:
“You did what?”
Yeah, he’s a little upset. Understandably.
“I agreed to meet Samjeeza at the Palo Alto train station, at midnight,” I say again.
“How could you do that?” He tugs his hands through his hair. “Do you have a death wish?”
“No,” I reply coolly. “I have a vision, and it’s telling me that I’m going to go meet him.”
“You’re talking about taking a train ride into hell.”
“I know.”
He starts shaking his head. “No. No way. No.”
“I’ll show you,” I say, refusing to take no for an answer. “Come on.”
Without another word I head off, up the stairs, out of Roble, walking fast across campus, and he doesn’t have much of a choice but to follow. He hasn’t learned to cross yet—for as amazing as he is with flying and glory swords, I am still light years ahead of him when it comes to calling and using glory. He can’t get back without me.
When he sees the church, he suddenly gets where I’m going, and he doesn’t want to come. I take his hand and start pulling him across the quad. We reach the doors of MemChu. I turn to him. “Just go inside with me. Walk the labyrinth. See if you don’t have a vision there, too. I’ll bet you ten bucks you see a train station.”
Uncertainty flashes in his eyes. He’s tempted.
“Last time I went in there, I came out thinking you were going to die,” he says hoarsely.
&
nbsp; “But I didn’t. And you did what you were supposed to do. You saved me. You saved Web.”
“I killed a person,” he whispers.
“I know. But this is what we’re supposed to do now. Don’t you see? It’s our purpose. Maybe all of it, all along, has been about this. Rescuing Angela. Getting her out of hell.” I feel like somebody’s lit a fire under me. I can hardly stand still, I’m so full of anticipation.
Christian’s brow rumples. “All along?” he asks. “What do you mean?”
“What if Angela was always supposed to have Web? I mean, Asael sent Phen to find her, and maybe they were meant to fall for each other, and she was meant to get pregnant. With the seventh—God’s perfect number.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
“So I had my first vision, which told me that I had to move to Wyoming. So I did. And met you, and Angela. And then I had my second vision—and this one’s a stumper, because I never could understand why I kept seeing the cemetery, why God wanted me to know about that moment in advance, but now I think I was being shown two things that I would need to know. I was being shown that Samjeeza was there, so I knew he would be there that day when I went to give him my mother’s bracelet. I chose to be kind to him, which changed the way he felt about me. Which is why he’s been watching me, talking to me, and why I could go to him and ask for this.”
“What’s the second thing?” Christian asks.
“You. My cemetery vision showed me that you make me stronger. You and me together, we can get through anything. We can be each other’s anchor. We can be each other’s strength.”
“You sound exactly like Angela right now, you realize?” he says.
I laugh and keep on talking. “And the third vision showed me what happened to her. If I hadn’t had that vision, I would never have known that we had to go out to the Pink Garter that night. Angela would have just disappeared, and the twins would have burned down the theater, and Web probably would have died, or they’d have taken him, too. I was meant to be there, Christian. And now I’m meant to go get her.”
“Clara, I don’t know,” he says doubtfully.
“It’s not all about me,” I say. “It’s about Angela. This entire time, it’s been about her. Come on.” I start tugging him into the welcoming coolness of the church. “Walk the labyrinth one more time, with me.”