Faustus Resurrectus (45 page)

She bit her lower lip, wanting to believe. “So we won’t have to keep looking over our shoulders? Paper our apartment walls with pages from the Bible?”

He shook his head. “Just in the movies.”

“Good.” She swiped at the corner of her eye with a fingertip. “I’m sorry, it’s just…I don’t know what to think.”

“About what?”

“Reality. I thought my place was with you, but now…”

He took a deep breath, and then he took another.

“What happened on the Great Lawn?” she asked.

He started to reply and was forced to stop by a sudden influx of cement into his chest. She waited patiently.
He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he watched two ducks on the surface of the water. One groomed the other for several seconds before abruptly stopping and flying off. The remaining duck paddled in circles, aimless.

“What happened,” he began, forcing the words, “wasn’t actually important.”
Yeah, right.
“What I learned…is.”

“What did you learn?”

“My reality. My…path.” He gave a small chuckle. “Melodramatic as that sounds.”

She relaxed fractionally. “That’s a good thing. It’s important.”

Hell with it
, he thought, feeling a surge of hope.
I
will
protect her. We
can
make it work.
I
can make it work.
“I guess.”

“It
is
. I’m just sorry…I can’t walk it with you.”

Donovan’s head snapped around. Tears ran down Joann’s face. “What?”

“I can’t be by your side. That’s not…not
my
path. Not my reality. Not now.”

“Not
now
?”

“I lost faith in you, Donovan.” She swallowed and braced herself, remaining calm with what was obviously tremendous effort. “I was scared, but I believed you would come. But you
didn’t
. The monk encouraged my worst fears, that you were just a bartender, that you had no idea how to act…”

“I—”

“I know
now
that you
were
coming.
Then
, all I knew was I was alone, surrounded by sociopaths and lunatics. I thought I was strong enough. I thought I was better than…that. I wasn’t. I’m…not.”

“You’re stronger than you know.”

“That’s the problem—I
don’t
know. And I
didn’t
know then, and everything got so insane, and you
still
didn’t come, and when the monk told me you’d been arrested, I…believed him. And I damned you.” Her voice was cold, damning herself now. “It might be different if I could
comprehend
this—
your
—reality. But I don’t. I can’t live in a reality that makes me lose faith in you.”

Donovan stood very, very still. She leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and quickly turned. He watched her walk away, too stunned to react. She disappeared into the mist.

After a moment he turned to stare at the lake. It was empty. In the fog, its blank surface seemed to go on forever.

“Donovan.”

Conrad’s voice made him turn. Joann’s father came a few steps closer, hand extended. In his palm was Joann’s engagement ring

“I never said you weren’t a good man,” he told him. “Just the wrong one for her.”

Numbly, Donovan reached for it. Conrad stood for a moment longer, a reflection of mist in his glasses obscuring his eyes. He offered a brief, sympathetic smile, then turned and left.

Donovan stared at the ring.

“When desire defeats reality, it’s a Pyrrhic victory.”
Lucifer’s words turned a part inside of him cold.
Who knew it was the same the other way around?

He pushed away from the railing and headed home, to prepare for his trip to “paradise.”

***

Careful observation and a bit of glamour magic had provided him with an appropriate choice of clothing. The stone felt cool under his fingers as he leaned on it, looking up at the carved words above the massive entranceway:

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Faustus paused at the revolving door, momentarily confused by the contemporary device. In an instant he’d figured it out and entered. No one paid him any attention as he approached the woman behind the information counter.

“Forgive my intrusion, my lady. Pray, canst thou guide me to thy tomes of history?”

The woman glanced over the tops of her half-glasses. Her chubby face dimpled. “What a lovely way to speak.”

“Not a hundredth as lovely as thine eyes.” He bowed. “Now, dear lady, the path?”

“Here, use this.” She handed him a single-page map detailing the library’s floors and showed her dimples again. Faustus smiled charmingly. “Just go up those stairs.”

“My gratitude.” He bowed again and moved off.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she stage-whispered after him.

“If not, I shall return and seek again. I am able once more, praise God. Able to seek.”

He gazed about the grand marble interior, relief and wonderment and eagerness brightening his face. His shoulders squared in preparation to support the burden of new knowledge.

“And Faustus hath so much to learn.”

***

THE END

Consummatum est

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s been a long time coming, and there are a lot of people who helped with this book. I regret not being able to thank them all here—actually, I can, so, thanks to all who, over the years, have lent a hand. I want to make special mention of my former agent Mary Grey, as well as my current one Damon Lane. Both have been invaluable in getting this book to the world. Also, thanks to Jeremy Lassen, who saw what others didn’t. And my editor, Ross Lockhart; great minds think alike. And my mother, who read all my stuff, and typed the first story many years ago.

A special thanks to my Stonecoast mentor Scott Wolven. His support and encouragement was and continues to be a candle in some of the darker nights of my writing. Thanks, Scott. Stay noir.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Morrissey has been writing since he was ten, and amused himself with a Sears portable typewriter for a toy. His first short story, “Can’t Catch Me,” appeared in the 2005 anthology
Brooklyn Noir
, and won the Robert L. Fish Award for Best First Published Short Story from the Mystery Writers of America. His work has also appeared in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Faustus Resurrectus
is his first novel, but it sure as hell won’t be his last.