The Faculty Club: A Novel (30 page)

You know the old joke about the economist stranded on an island. He decides to build a shelter and says:
First, assume a hammer
.

If I was wrong, I wouldn't have a chance to find Sarah.

But if I went looking for Sarah, somewhere in this huge place, I might never get back here and have this chance again.

The tie-breaker was simple: I knew what Sarah would want me to do.

I reached into Miles's satchel and pulled out the crowbar. I moved into the room and walked the steps up to the altar and the machine behind it.

And that's when I saw something that made my heart stop and took the air out of my lungs.

There was a person chained to the slab on the altar. His voice was muffled with a gag. His wrists were raw and purple from the shackles. When he saw me, he started struggling violently against the chains and looked at me with wide, pleading eyes.

It was John Anderson.

I ran to the altar. What did I feel? Horror, for sure. John was stripped naked. His arms and legs were bound at four points. He was pinned to the sloped rock. When he saw me, he started fighting. The chains were loose enough that he could swing his arms up until the give ran out. They snapped tight and the muscles in his arms and chest flexed. All of this made a terrible noise. I looked over my shoulder to the door. We were still alone, for now. I motioned for him to be quiet. He had a wild, terrified look in his eyes, but I think he understood. He fell still.

What else did I feel? He certainly looked like the football star I knew he'd been in college. He actually looked like an ancient Greek statue come to life, except for the fact that he had arms. I felt that familiar sting of jealousy at the blond hair, the handsome face, the perfect six-six body. And should I be totally honest? Should I admit that I felt, deep down in a place I usually ignored, a brief flash of glee? Did I remember him gloating at the Idle Rich, leering at me and kissing Daphne on the top of the head? Am I a monster if I admit that some part of me looked at John and said:
Who's on the slab now, asshole?

I stuffed that down. I worked the crowbar into the loop of the bolt securing one of his chains. I came down on it with all my weight. It didn't even budge a hair. I tried again. All I did was send a frightening vibration through the bones in my arms. They would snap before the chains did.

John locked eyes with me. He was terrified. Where was all the cockiness? What had he seen down here that made him look so scared?

"Listen," I whispered. "You need to stay quiet. I know what to do. I'll be right back."

At that, he started jerking again wildly, rattling the chains.
Jeez, buddy,
I thought--
a little help, here
.

I studied the machine. The weak points were obvious. The arms that dipped low as they traced out the enchantments; the joints and gears that wheeled those precise orbits in the middle of the apparatus. I could do this.

I was twenty feet from the machine when I heard the scream. I pressed myself against a column and looked toward the sound. It came from a doorway at the distant end of the cathedral. The room was shadowed, but I saw movement, and suddenly Sarah
emerged from a dim shaft of light. She was held on either side by medieval men, large executioners in leather and metal. Men with hungry eyes that cherished, above all else, having orders to follow. One of the executioners had a long, baroque knife, and he held it against her neck.

They were followed by dozens of figures who slowly filled in the room below me, pressing up to the altar. They carried candles and wore masks: an eggshell face with antlers; a patchwork harlequin; a Casanova; a Scaramouch. I saw a shimmering elephant, made from jewels, carried on ivory poles. Its tusks were burning candles.

A familiar face arrived on the altar. It was the priest with the gnarled beard and the cruel voice. No unnatural phosphorescence now--his eyes were just black dots surrounded by unnatural white. They were coldly hypnotic. His nose was flat and broad, and his cheeks were coarse, like the surface of the moon. His mouth and eyes were bone dry--when he spoke, the fissures in his lips accordioned.

He placed his hand on Sarah's forehead and whispered to himself, eyes closed.

Then he looked over at another figure, in golden robes. It was Bernini.

He whispered into Bernini's ear. Bernini nodded, then cupped Sarah's face in his hand.

"Why did you come?" he asked her, shaking his head. "We would have let you live. You realize that, don't you? Now we have to harm you." Bernini frowned, disgusted. "We are not barbarians."

I raised the crowbar in my hands like a baseball bat.
One good swing,
I thought. But I'd have to cross the length of the altar first,
in plain view. Even if I made it, what then? I was outnumbered. Helpless.

Sarah moved so quickly she caught the henchmen off guard. She broke free with her right arm and landed a punch across Bernini's face.

"I know
exactly
what you are," she spat.

He nearly collapsed. The man was eighty years old, for God's sake.

With everyone watching Bernini, I took a careful step, crowbar in hand, toward the machine.

Bernini brought a finger to his lip and inspected the blood.

He sighed.

"It's okay," he said to her gently. "I understand."

The priest lit the silver box. There was a cascade of red sparks, and then a plume of smoke and salmon light burst through carved inscriptions. It was on a chain, being swept back and forth by the cruel-voiced priest. The light reflected on his cold eyes. The smell hit me--acrid smoke with strange spices. The priest was chanting to himself and swinging the box.

The light grew, and the half-dressed men surrounding us began pounding their drums. The women dancers advanced from the shadows and began their wild movements. I saw whipping hair and spinning bodies.

"Is he ready?" Bernini asked, looking at John on the slab, naked and bound.

John went crazy, thrashing against the chains on his arms and legs. One of the thugs put his weight on a lever, pulling the chains tight and pinning John to the stone.

A loose rock cracked under my foot.

Shit.

I jumped off-course into a shadow.

The priest dipped two fingers into the box and painted a bright stripe of ash across John's forehead. He did the same to Bernini. Smoke was filling the room. The ash reflected the light. I could barely see through the haze. I moved behind a column and came face to face with a masked figure with no eyes. I swung the crowbar toward his skull.

Just before contact, I saw it was a statue.
One inch from breaking my wrists and bringing the entire V&D down on me.
The drumming grew louder. Gears were turning inside the machine. Leather belts threaded the wheels and pulleys, pulling the jointed arms in competing directions, making them twist and bend in a skeletal dance.

The men pushed Sarah toward a wooden pole. The
sun pole,
Isabella had called it, linking the sky to the underworld. They tied Sarah's arms behind her, binding her to the pole. She was in
the center of hell.
Bernini spoke to her soothingly. "An animal is sufficient . . .
truly
. . . a lamb . . . or a goat . . .
But
. . ." A cold chill ran down my spine. "Only because you're here . . ." He shook his head. "Only because you've left us no choice . . ."

Oh, God, no.

He smiled sadly. "I would not have you die for nothing."

"You son of a bitch," Sarah yelled.

The medieval executioner turned his knife to her.

I broke into a run.

The executioner lifted the blade over his head.

Point-down toward Sarah's heart.

One push . . .
I thought,
running . . .

The priest tossed his head back and howled.

. . .
one push . . . crowbar through the gears . . .

He raised his arms and a stream of light shot above him.

. . .
shove it right through the spokes . . .

The priest nodded and the executioner brought down the knife.

It cut through the air.

I screamed--louder than I imagined possible, from someplace deep inside--a guttural
NO
that cut through the room and echoed back from every stone. The executioner froze, his knife just above her neck, my crowbar less than a hair from the central spinning gear. My voice shook with fury.
"Let her go,"
I shouted,
"or so help me God I will kill you all."
Our eyes were locked. Nobody dared move.

There was silence in the room now.

The dancers crouched on the ground, feral, their long wet hair stuck to their faces. The drummers were still.

I saw the stare of masks from all sides.

A hundred lifeless faces accusing me.

"
If you hurt her,
" I said, "
you all die
."

My words echoed.

Bernini came at me, hand up, palm forward.
Caution!
it said.
You have no idea what you're doing . . .

"Stay back," I yelled.

The medieval men were inching closer from all sides.

"STAY BACK. ALL OF YOU."

I pressed the crowbar against the spinning metal, just slightly--a stream of sparks shot out. The gear slowed almost imperceptibly, but the second it did, the room filled with unbearable screaming from the masked figures below me. Bernini's face rippled with pain. He let out a terrible squealing noise as if I were twisting a knife between his ribs. The screams came from all around me, hundreds of voices.
Stop,
Bernini cried.

I pulled the crowbar back, horrified.

For a moment he just stood there, catching his breath. He coughed a few times, a wounded, rattling cough. Then he looked at me with those penetrating eyes. I thought of the first day of school. He looked fragile, and above all else, tired.

"Let her go," I said to him.

"If I do," Bernini said quietly, "you will hurt the machine."

"If you don't, I'll destroy it."

"No," he said, "you won't. You'd have nothing left to bargain with."

"So what? You'll all be dead."

He shook his head. "Not fast enough to save her."

The executioner leaned into Sarah and pulled up slightly against her neck with the knife.

"So you see," Bernini said. "We have a stalemate."

For once, I was a step ahead of him.

"Not exactly," I said.

I raised the crowbar, ready to press it forward and slow the gears again.

Bernini raised his eyebrows, unsurprised.

So calm. Like he knew what I was thinking before I did.

"You'll torture us, then?" he asked mildly.

I nodded. "If you make me."

"We won't let her go, Jeremy. You know we can't. You'd only be torturing us for sport."

I hated this man! How could he be so sure I was bluffing?

"We'll see about that," I heard myself say.

To my own shock, I shoved the crowbar forward and slowed the wheel.

Bernini's head jerked back and his eyes rolled up. He cried
out. His torso twisted and he fell forward on his knees. His arms locked in rotation, one inward, one outward. Veins popped up along his skin.

Shrieks, from around the room--hundreds of terrible cries.

I felt a wave of horror. And at the same time, I felt powerful. I
loved
her. They wanted to
murder
her. Was I wrong to do this? Was I wrong to stop?

I pulled the crowbar off the wheel and the screams stopped instantly. The pain was unnatural, and it vanished with unnatural speed.

"Let her go,"
I cried, my voice breaking.

Bernini stared at me, half-collapsed, on his elbows.

For the first time ever, I saw him look surprised.

"I didn't . . . think . . ." he gasped, wiping a sleeve across his mouth, " . . . you . . . had it . . . in . . . you . . ."

I was going to shatter. There was nothing left.

I was an empty vessel.

I looked at Sarah, and she mouthed, "I love you."

Bernini sighed.

"I think, Jeremy," he said, "that you deserve to know the truth."

"It must have hurt," Bernini said, "when you didn't make the cut. I'm sorry about that. Your friends had the physical presence of presidents. Prime ministers. Very valuable. You . . . You do not. Not
quite
."

I thought of the mirrored ballroom. How they watched us.

"And their minds, Jeremy.
Supple
. Capable of abstraction. John less than the others, but that was mostly laziness. Riding on his looks. He had the
capacity
to hold one of us. He would have survived the transfer." Bernini shook a finger at me. "You would have gone insane."

I felt a mix of rage and shame.

"But we're past that, now," Bernini said. "There
is
a way out of this, for both of us. But you must open your mind. Can you do that? Can you indulge your old law professor one last hypothetical? I mean to say, before you put that crowbar through my heart?"

There was a flash of the old Bernini--the hint of a smile.

"I'm done with your games."

Bernini shook his head.

"This time, I promise you, it's no game."

He rose slowly. His eyes twinkled. Suddenly, he was the professor again.

"Suppose, Jeremy, that we weren't down here in this unfortunate place." His eyes danced around the cathedral. "Suppose instead you are the night watchman about a thousand yards that way, in the largest library in the world." He gave that wry grin. "
Imagine
it. Four thousand years of knowledge. Original Shakespeare folios. Handwritten notes on nuclear theory by Rittenberg and Kingsley. Priceless. Just last year, Professor D'Martino found a lost book on rainforest herbs and deduced a new treatment for Parkinson's. Somewhere in there is a cure for cancer. A framework for peace.

"You might guess security is tight for such a building. There's a fire system, of course, but who would spray water on a priceless collection? So, instead, they spray a chemical that will douse flames without harming paper. Ingenious, really."