“The Mayan prophecy,” Scott said.
“The prophecy,” Maria Elizabeta agreed. “Mayan, Sumatran, Hopi…Doomsday, when the planets align on solstice day, has been spoken of throughout time and by many peoples. The prophecy has shown itself in so many ways.” She smiled and drew a breath, looking around as calmly as if she were giving them a tour of the church. “The demons of the old world entered into the new. There are the legends of Mut and Baal, and there was Astarte, the goddess of earth and fertility, along with so many more, and all involved with the seasons, the cycle of life. Ancient Syria and the Canaanites also spoke of the Apocalypse. The ancients, the earliest peoples who inhabited this area, knew the power of twelve, and this church is built—as so many were—over an old temple. They looked to the elements, the crops, the harvests and the weather for their signs, their forecasts, if you will. They divided the year, and the year consisted—as most years do—of twelve months, the new moons and the old. Below, there are etchings on the walls, made far before Christ, far before the conquering Romans came. Someday you’ll see them. Right now, I will tell you where your part enters in.”
“My part. In…the end of the world?” Scott asked.
“I most fervently hope not,” she replied briskly. “Now, how did Rome fall?”
Scott wondered if she had ever been a teacher.
“From within,” Melanie said, puzzled.
“Precisely. The Romans stretched their roads to the far corners of the world as they knew it, but they could not find the power to survive when their empire started crumbling from the rot within. The real sources of weakness—jealousy, greed, fear—come from inside us. The prophecy states that there will not be one single natural cataclysm. Rather, the earth will offer up a series of challenges related to the four elements—earth, air, fire and water. Each of those challenges must be met, and the first of these comes from the earth herself.”
“Are you saying the quake in L.A. was part of that? It wasn’t that big,” Scott protested.
“‘The earth will rattle,’ or so it says,” the sister told them. “You’ll see in time.”
“But…we’re here now,” Scott said. “Why don’t we see now?”
“We need the three,” Sister Maria Elizabeta said, and rose suddenly. “We must have the three. The last earth sign will come. I have seen him, too, in my dreams. But today is not the day. Go home now. Come back tomorrow.”
“Home is in California,” Melanie pointed out dryly.
The sister smiled. “Go back to your hotel. Better yet, go out and see Roma. Dinner is not a meal here, it is an occasion. Eat well, and rest well. Tonight you will have no dreams. You have already come to the place where you need to be.” She bent over suddenly, grimacing and holding her stomach, then sat down heavily.
“Sister!” Scott cried worriedly.
She shook her head, straightening. “The years…I’ve seen many. Too many, perhaps. I am waiting for my time, but first I must be with you until the time comes for me to move on and another to take my place.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air. “You’ve found me, and all of your own…free will.” A sparkle lit her eyes. “Now go. And come back tomorrow.”
Melanie stood, looking at the sister, then knelt and put her hands on the old woman’s knees. “Sister,” she said very softly, “I’m worried about my friend’s safety.” She glanced at Scott. “He is…a man. So new to—to what is not accepted by the world or seen by the naked eye. Are you sure that—”
“I’m sure,” Sister Maria Elizabeta said. “You are what you are, and he is what he is. The world does not revolve around any single one of us, whatever conceits we may harbor. Have faith, child. Have faith in goodness, in mankind, and in all the creatures of the earth.” She set her hands fondly on Melanie’s head, her eyes noting the little gold cross Melanie wore. She met Melanie’s eyes. “You need strength, you need faith, and you need belief in yourself as well as others. Per piacere, I need some rest.”
She looked old, Scott thought, older than when he had entered the church. He stood, taking Melanie’s hand. He was aggravated; she had tried to elude him, and he wasn’t sure he entirely believed that she was worried about his safety. “Sister Maria Elizabeta is tired. We have to go now.”
Her face was set, but she could see that the sister truly was tiring. She took her hand from his and rose, then leaned down to plant a kiss on the nun’s cheek. “Thank you. A domani.”
“Sister,” Scott said quietly, nodding to her, and headed for the door. He could hear Melanie’s footsteps as she followed him.
Scott kept up a brisk pace. “Glad you finally found the place,” he called without turning to look back. She wasn’t slamming her feet down, but he could feel her aggravation as if it were washing off her in palpable waves.
“Look, I don’t think you should be part of this,” she said flatly. “You’re just—you’re just not prepared for this kind of situation.”
Scott stopped short, swinging around to look at her. “Oh, and you are? Aside from the fact that I don’t seem to have any choice but to be involved, thanks to that damned dream I keep having, I’m not sure I believe any of this yet. Maybe it’s one of those ‘if you build it, they will come’ deals. I’m just not sure we’re not all crazy.”
She stared at him, sucked in her breath and walked past him. “That’s precisely what I mean. You’re not ready. You’ll get hurt.”
He caught her arm. “What? Are you immortal? You can’t get hurt?”
She hesitated, staring down at her arm as if an alien being were holding her. Then she met his gaze with her own. “I can be hurt. But…I’m tougher than you think. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”
“You’ve dealt with the end of the world?”
She tried to pull her arm away, but his hold was too tight. “I told you. There’s a loosely affiliated group we call the Alliance. We’ve…encountered various…. difficulties through the years.”
“Well, you’re in a new group now. The Twelve. And I’m one of them, so quit trying to ditch me. Don’t do me that kind of favor, got it?”
She stood very straight, staring at him, then shook her head. “You really don’t understand.”
“Maybe not, but neither do you.”
She looked off across the field that surrounded the church. “All right, I won’t ditch you again. Meanwhile, we’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere.”
He reached into his pocket and produced his cell phone. “Call for a cab. I get a signal almost anywhere. I got a cab to bring me out here—well, most of the way—so we can get one to pick us up.”
“San Stefano’s isn’t that far,” she said. But she gratefully accepted the phone; she was worn out, too—no matter how invincible she liked to think of herself as being.
“Buon giorno, prego,” she said, as someone answered.
Scott listened to her speak, relishing the cadence of her voice, and though he didn’t understand the words, he knew that she was being polite and pleasant. He’d been so angry at her, but now he felt his anger melting away as he watched her. He was hypnotized by the sound of her voice. In the afternoon sunlight, her hair seemed to shimmer with an angelic glow, but he found himself thinking of her as anything but angelic. Tall, lithe, her every movement a statement of sensuality. He found himself turning away as she spoke, not wanting to be seduced.
“Grazie,” she said into the phone, then snapped it closed and handed it back to him. She stared at him with her huge blue eyes with those fire circles deep within, and she asked grudgingly, “How did you find the right place so easily?”
“I followed your drawing,” he said simply.
She nodded and started walking, moving past him. “There will be a cab waiting for us at San Stefano’s,” she said.
He followed her. A little while later they stood without speaking in front of San Stefano’s, and he was glad that he had the phone. Rome was full of tourists and taxis, but there was no evidence of either one here now.
/>
A few minutes later their taxi drew up, and they entered it in silence. Melanie gave the driver the address of their hotel, and then fell silent again as they drove. When they entered the hotel, a new man was on the desk. He nodded gravely to them, greeting them with a polite “bona sera,” before turning back to his work.
Melanie led the way to their suite. Once inside, she turned to him. He was surprised to see that she looked hesitant. “There’s a place I know near the Trevi Fountain that has excellent food. Would you like to go out for dinner?”
He felt his heart thud, every fiber in his body tightening. “Sure,” he said, and despite his best effort to sound casual, his voice was husky.
Then he turned away from her and headed to his own room to change.
Lucien was making final arrangements with Melanie’s employees to look after her apartment and the shop when the call came through from Blake Reynaldo.
“You’re still there, huh?” Blake asked him.
“Just taking care of a few details for Melanie, then we’ll all head on home,” Lucien told him.
“So your cop friend and his wife are still with you?” Blake asked him.
“Yes,” Lucien said. “Is there something—we can do for you?”
“Yes, actually, there is. Come on down to headquarters and I’ll explain. No, better yet, I’ll come to you. No reason to make the rest of the world think I’m going insane. I’m assuming you’re still at Melanie’s?”
“Yes. What’s up?” Lucien asked.
“Well, first, I had the tapes from the broken gas pipe enhanced.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t even try sounding surprised. You’re in this deep, and you know it. Along with Melanie and Scott Bryant.”
Lucien shrugged. He felt Sean and Maggie staring at him.
“I tried to help,” Lucien pointed out.
“Yes, you did.”
“But there’s more?”
“Oh, yeah. And I’m hoping you can help.”
“How?”
“I don’t who you are, or what you’re really doing out here, but I’m hoping you can make sense of something for me.”
“Well,” Lucien said carefully, “I’m certainly always willing to help law enforcement.”
“So I hope,” Blake said. “We’ve been questioning the men we picked up after the quake, the ones who went after Mr. Delancy and his salesgirl. And here’s the thing. Most of them never actually met each other until after the quake. They claim they just ran into each other in the street. One guy is actually a college professor in Seattle. And guess what they all said?”
“What?” Lucien realized that Maggie and Sean were standing almost on top of him, frowning, trying to hear the conversation.
“The devil made them do it?” Sean asked Lucien.
Blake heard Sean’s words.
“Not the devil. Some demon named Bael. But I’ll explain more. I’ll be there soon. Oh—there’s something else. The quake didn’t cause that gas main to break. There were saw marks on it.”
Blake hung up.
Lucien hung up, too, looked at the other two, then excused himself and strode for the door.
“Lucien!” Maggie called. “Where are you going? He’s coming here, right?”
“I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes,” Lucien said.
“You don’t smoke,” Sean told him.
“And it’s not good for you,” Maggie reminded him.
Lucien paused at the door and looked back dryly. “What? I’m going to die young?”
He turned and left.
Dust to dust. What was created of dust…
Could rise again in a black mist of darkness and evil.
The Fontana di Trevi, beautiful and world-renowned, sat at the center of a small piazza. They could see the fountain and the milling tourists, all laughing and throwing coins, as they sat down at their window table at the Ristorante Inferno. Melanie loved the restaurant; she hadn’t been back in three years, but it was just as she remembered it, small and intimate, and run by Signor and Signora Fiorelli. They welcomed her as if she had never left Italy, or as if they had seen her just the week before. She introduced Scott, and they greeted him in turn like a long-lost son.
Signora Fiorelli smiled and gushed, and rattled off praise in speedy Italian to Melanie. He was a beautiful man, so straight, so tall, a face a sculptor would love.
Melanie smiled and nodded, then agreed in Italian that yes, he was a very fine man.
Scott did his best with his limited Italian, and the friendly couple brought them wine, delicious bread to dip in olive oil, and small starter plates of antipasti followed by pasta plates. It wasn’t until they brought the main course, bistecca con verde, that they left Scott and Melanie alone.
“Wow. I’ve eaten many meals in Italy, but never quite like this,” Scott said.
Melanie shrugged. “You need to try the small places, where the locals eat.”
“Without you here to order, I could end up eating fish livers or something.”
Melanie laughed. “How do you know you’re not?”
He cast her an evil glare, and she laughed. He turned to look out the window at the piazza again.
“It rakes in about three thousand euros a day,” Scott mused.
“What?”
Scott grinned. “The Fountain of Trevi. This place has been the constant site of a fountain, even before its more-or-less present design, dating from the sixteen hundreds. When Rome fell, the invaders destroyed the aqueducts, and the Romans were forced to use local well water or, worse, the river, filled with sewage. The poor Romans, used to bathing in fresh, clean water at a time…when the rest of the world seldom even thought of bathing—or thought that bathing could wash away the soul.” He leaned close to Melanie. “This fountain is mostly the work of Nicola Salvi, a depiction of Oceanus riding the waves in a shell, set against the Palazzo Poli.” He grinned self-deprecatingly. “Hey, I was an art student.”
“So—have you thrown three coins in the fountain?”
He grinned. “Of course.”
She liked his grin. It held both confidence and humility, a reflection of the man, she thought.
“And you? Have you thrown three coins in the fountain?”
“No.”
“Horrors! You’re lucky you were able to return to Rome,” he told her gravely.
She had to laugh. “That superstition changes constantly. Once it was two coins, then three—two over one shoulder and the third over the other. Anyway, are you sure we’re lucky to be in Rome right now?” she asked.
He turned in his seat, and she found herself fascinated by the aquiline structure of his face, the vivid darkness of his hair and eyes. He stared out at the massive fountain at night, the dancing water illuminated by the lights. All around the fountain, children played, laughed and called out—in a variety of languages. Lovers sat together, staring into the water. An Italian baritone was singing a ballad for someone, the scene charming and innocent. Deceptively innocent? he wondered.
Scott turned back to her with a rueful smile. “Yes, we’re lucky to be in Rome. No one knows what the next hour will bring, much less the next day, and at least we’re here in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”
She was startled to realize that she had reached out to set her hand over his, startled by her strong desire to touch him, and by the fact that his warmth and something of his life seemed to seep through to her in that touch. She blushed and would have drawn her hand back, but his grin deepened as he laid his left hand on top of hers.
“Okay,” she said, “it’s a beautiful place, the food smells wonderful, and we’ve had a long flight and a long day. Time to chill, and then get a good night’s sleep.”
He was more pleased than he should have been at her gesture of intimacy. “So where are you from originally?”
“Where did I grow up?” she asked.
“That, too, but where were you born?”
She hesitated. br />
“Is even that a deep, dark secret?” he asked her.
“Dublin,” she told him. “I was born in Ireland. But I’ve been in the States a long time. That’s where I went to school.”
“Irish, huh? You might have been Norse. You look like a Viking. Not that you have a red beard, or anything,” he teased. “Tall, blond and beautiful, how’s that?”
“It will do. And Dublin was founded by the Norse, so maybe I do have a few Vikings in my background.”
“Have you been back to Dublin?”
“Sure. It’s lovely. The land of leprechauns,” she said. They’d ordered a nice burgundy, and she sipped it, loving the taste even though it seemed to be missing something. But she smiled and drank more. “Tell me about yourself,” she pressured.
“I’m an open book,” he told her. “A boy from New Orleans. I didn’t go far until I moved to California. I went to Tulane, had good friends, supported the Saints, worked for a guy in Metairie, founded my own business, bought a great house in the Quarter—then sold that great house in the Quarter—and moved to California. My folks still live in the Garden District. I have one sister, and she lives in D.C. with her husband. We fought as kids, get along great now. My mom always says there’s no pressure, but she’d cry like a baby if we didn’t all get together for Christmas. Your turn.”
She smiled. “That’s nice, that your mom keeps you all together. What about your dad?”
“He’s a good guy. Loves the Saints, good jazz and a fried Cajun-style turkey at Thanksgiving. Your turn,” he repeated.
“I lived in New Orleans for a while,” she said.
“No kidding?”
“Lucien, Sean and Maggie all live there, too. Sean’s a cop, and Maggie has a dress shop right on Bourbon Street.”
“Go figure. They say it’s a small world, but I lived there my whole life and never met any of them,” Scott said. “I’ve probably noticed Maggie’s shop, though. But what about you? What about your family?”