The Sound of Seas (9 page)

“I didn't,” Mikel said. “Not exactly.”

“Meaning?”

“While I was in the caverns, I saw a ball of fire,” Mikel said. “It appeared to be—well, looking for a way out.”

“Consciously seeking an exit?” Dr. Cummins asked.

“It didn't act like any flame I ever saw,” Mikel said evasively.

Bundy pinned the archaeologist with a look. “To be specific—a quality you seem reluctant to embrace—you referred to that phenomenon as being, and I quote from vivid memory, ‘What a soul looks like when it is sent back to hell.' Since you happen to be here,
despite
being uninvited to my table and a private meeting—”

“In a public space,” Mikel pointed out.

“Public for members of this party,” Bundy said. “Putting that aside for the moment, would you care to explain and elaborate, Dr. Jasso?”

Before he could speak, Dr. Cummins said, “Mind you, I am very much inclined, as I just told Dr. Bundy, to ascribe the face to some version of Saint Elmo's fire.” She tapped her laptop. “There was a coronal discharge and a very strong electric field in the region at that time. The crackling could have been mistaken for a voice.”

“Which supports my theory of collective hypnosis of a sort,” Bundy said, resuming their previous debate as if he had not spoken to Mikel at all. “We heard a voice and, therefore, we saw a face.”

“But Dr. Harvey's point about rising gas catching and refracting sunlight must also be given consideration,” Dr. Cummins said, more to Mikel than to Bundy. “The motion of the gas and the sun itself would cause it to appear to move.”

Mikel pulled out a chair and sat easily to avoid shocking his bruised posterior. “It was not any kind of gas or luminous plasma, Dr. Cummins. The fire was not an illusion from out there.” He motioned vaguely toward the ceiling and the sky beyond. “The flame was real, it came from below.”

“Bloody rubbish,” Dr. Bundy said. “There is nothing active down there. Nothing that would have caused fire to spit up like that. We are still not reading any kinds of energy bursts, nor are any of the other outposts we've contacted. The RAF is looking into a possible missile strike, or space debris.”

“They can look all they want,” Mikel said with confidence that bordered on calculated smugness. “It was geologic.”

“This is not goddamn Yosemite,” Bundy said with rising anger. “We are not sitting on a bloody supervolcano.”

“Not now, no,” Mikel agreed.

Bundy exhaled, loudly. “You know, I keep hoping for bloody
science
from you,” he said, “and am constantly denied.” Then he spat a series of expletives. Despite his long string of degrees, the man had the mouth of a North Sea oil-rig worker, which is how he put himself through school. It was also the reason he made a point not to mingle with anyone who didn't have a PhD. That part of his life was done. It was the only reason Mikel was allowed at the table, despite the strikes against him. If not openly blacklisted, Siem and the other engineers were definitely graylisted.

Dr. Cummins turned fully to the new arrival. “I don't disagree that there is some kind of latent, potential danger out there,” she said qui
etly. “That is precisely what Dr. Bundy and I have been discussing. But what do
you
mean? What do you know? As far as we and our very sophisticated, very expensive instruments can tell, there is nothing down there, no caldera, no ancient lava flows, nothing even extinct.”

There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Mikel didn't mind; at least she was asking questions.

“The key phrase is ‘As far as we can tell,' ” Mikel said. “There are lava tubes down there. I've been in them. There are massive wind tunnels. That is how I got this.” He raised his slinged arm.

“Dormant!” Bundy said. “Not presently
active
!”

“And, if I have been correctly advised, all of that seen in the dark, in the cold, by a battered and confused man in an environment where the senses might be easily confused!” Dr. Cummins said. She nodded toward Siem. “That, from a man who was with you part of the time.”

“Exactly so,” Bundy said. “Where is the bloody
proo
f
?”

“That, Doctors, is why I am here now,” Mikel said calmly, cutting through the debate. “I want to go out and get it.”

“You want to go back
out
?”

“I want to conduct firsthand research,” Mikel said. “That's what archaeologists do. Research. In the field.”

Bundy laughed. “Brilliant. And you want my blessing?”

“If not that, then at least a conveyance of some kind, even a very modest one.”

Bundy was still laughing. “As much as I would love to be rid of you,” he replied, “what you propose is absurdly unsafe. Even if the winds were calm—and they're fickle, having just today approached sixty miles an hour and climbing again—we don't know the status of the ice cover around that crater. It may not hold a vehicle of any kind. Or even a man.”

“Better to risk that than the modules,” Dr. Cummins noted.

Bundy shot her a critical look. “You agree with this?”

“Yes, but for very practical reasons,” she said. “We may, quite literally, be on very thin ice, even here. If we don't know the root cause, we won't know how to prepare—or for what, exactly.”

“You'll never know what's out there unless I go,” Mikel added quickly. “And over days, over hours, important data may be lost.”

“Or the entire base could be lost,” Dr. Cummins added, addressing Bundy.

Bundy shook his head once. “Go out there and
you
may be lost,” he said. “Again. And this time Siem won't go rushing out to save you.”

“I'm not asking him to save me, or to save anyone for that matter,” Mikel said, “except maybe the research station. Look, I'm not an official part of this team. I can walk out of here if I want.”

“And bloody good riddance—”

“Fine, I accept full responsibility for myself and for any damage or loss you may incur,” Mikel said. “Just a Ski-Doo, that's all I want.”

“And those people who were going to pay for the last damage you caused?” Bundy asked. “The ones in New York? I suppose they will cover this too?”

“Working on it,” Mikel said.

“You're all empty promises and hot air,” Bundy said. “That's a boy talking, a boy caught in a half-truth, not a scientist.”

Mikel looked over at Dr. Cummins. “Do you agree with him?”

“I don't know,” she admitted. “You propose to do this with one functioning arm?”

“If I have to.”

“You'll never survive,” Bundy snapped.

“That's my concern,” Mikel replied.

“Not when my equipment is involved it bloody isn't,” Bundy said. “No, absolutely not.”

“I'll go with him,” Dr. Cummins said suddenly.

Bundy fired off yet another critical look. He seemed to have a bottomless supply. “Are you bloody serious?”

“Positively sanguine,” she told him. “Look. We've been sitting here for hours, getting nowhere.
I
want to know what's down there too. But of more immediate concern, the ice around the pit
is
cracked. The melted ice inside may have solidified and secured it, but we don't
know. The satellite images don't tell us that much. Furthermore, they don't tell us what kind of areal degradation may have occurred below the surface. That's where melting begins, along the ground line, and thanks to that flame geyser we saw—and maybe some we didn't see—we
could
be sitting on a section of shelf that is weaker than we know. There could be hairline fractures or crevasses due to oceanic erosion. We must know the cause and we must try to determine the extent.”

“Which is the reason I'm imploring you to let me go out there,” Mikel said. “If there is a ‘next time,' we may not have time to evacuate.”

“Or a place to evacuate to,” Dr. Cummins added. “I'll admit, Dr. Bundy, that frightens me.”

The face of the geologist relaxed slightly. Mikel could be denied; a fellow scientist was different. Especially one who voiced legitimate concerns. He looked at Mikel.

“This man frightens
me
,” Bundy said. “He is impetuous. And I don't think he's telling us everything.”

Dr. Cummins turned to study the archaeologist. “Dr. Jasso, I agree with Dr. Bundy. I believe you know things that we do not. Let me tell you, I have no patience for deceit. I worked with a botanist along the Amazon who sounded
just
like you. Same careful phrasing, same hesitation, same
urgency
. He said he had to take our raft, double back and study some rare flower he thought he had spotted growing near a tributary. I later discovered he had seen mud flecked with what he thought was gold. It turned out to be iron pyrite. I know because I had one of the natives watch him. He no longer had any credibility with me, and I sent him packing, Dr. Jasso.” She examined the scientist. “What is it with you, Doctor? What are you not telling us?”

Mikel was silent. But his expression registered respect for the scientist and she saw that. She fell silent as well.

“That was unilluminating,” Bundy remarked. “Dr. Cummins, I wish I shared your enthusiasm for this course of action. I do not. Dr. Jasso, since your arrival it isn't only the ice that has eroded. My author
ity has gone to bloody hell. Research is—
must be
—systematic or it is useless.” He shook his head. “But I'm tired . . . too tired to argue about this. Until we know
something
about what is out there—which, right now, amounts to very, very little—I cannot and will not personally authorize an expedition.” He placed his pale hands on the table and rose. “Now, I am going to sleep. We will revisit this matter later, after we have heard from the British Geological Survey, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other organizations whose job it is—not
ours
—to assess the situation.”

“A situation on the ground that they will only study from outside the atmosphere,” Mikel said disgustedly.

“At last, you understand,” Bundy said.

The barrel-chested scientist departed. Siem had also left, leaving Jasso and Dr. Cummins alone.

The glaciologist rose suddenly. “Come on.”

“Where?” Mikel asked, startled from his sudden dejection. He wasn't looking forward to trekking out there.

“To the garage,” she said. “Your friend is preparing one of the trucks.”

“My friend?”

“Siem. Good lord, I hope you read archaeological signs better than you read human ones,” she said. “Dr. Bundy is a scientist. A good one. He wants answers as much as we do, and he wasn't saying no. He was simply abrogating responsibility for the decision I made to take you out there. Meaning, it's my ass if we screw up. Your friend Siem was watching, saw my eyes give the order, and left.”

Mikel continued to stare at her. Dr. Cummins was correct. He had missed every piece of that.

“I understand that you work for a woman, the head of a small research organization,” Dr. Cummins went on, rising with some effort; she too was tired. “Going forward, we are not, are we, going to have a problem as to who is in charge?”

“We are not,” Mikel said, “with one caveat.”

The woman froze, her mouth turning up in a not very surprised half-smile. “You've got spine, I'll give you that. What's the caveat, Dr. Jasso?”

“You defer to me regarding a single matter.”

“Which is?”

“The ancient civilization that once held absolute sway over this continent,” he replied.

She took a moment, just staring at him. Then she said, “A . . . civilization?”

“Yes, quite large and advanced well beyond where the Aztecs and Mayans were at their height,” Mikel said. “A civilization that is not quite dead and is definitely not quiescent.”

CHAPTER 7

S
tanding in the sunny but otherwise empty living room, Ben was not just tired and angry, he was perplexed. The Langloises were definitely gone; not only couldn't he hear her jewelry here or in the hall—he opened the door to check—but he noticed Arfa emerge from under the sofa and leap gracefully onto the windowsill. The cat skillfully nestled in the small space between the flowerpots.

Against his strongest instincts, Ben Moss phoned Eilifir. He couldn't think of anything else to do.

“Mr. Moss, what can—”

“Have you been watching the building since I went in?” Ben asked.

“Yes—”

“Did you see the Haitian couple leave?”

“No—”

Ben swore and ended the call. Eilifir called back but Ben ignored him. He tried to think of where the Langloises could have gone—and then it occurred to him: they would have followed the energy. Not that of the smoke snake, but the one Madame Langlois herself had referred to.

Leaving Anita in the apartment, Ben dashed up to the roof. Ma
dame Langlois was now sitting on a lawn chair that was bolted to the roof and Enok was behind her. She was facing south. The smell of cigar smoke reached Ben as he approached.

“I thought you said you had no matches.”

“Someone had a birthday recently, there were matches in the kitchen,” she said.

Ben noticed them, now, in Enok's hand. “It was Dr. O'Hara's birthday,” he said absently, longingly. He had to admire the woman's resourcefulness. “What made you come up here?”

“You never know where a habit may take you,” she said.

Ben eyed the woman. “Is that all?” he asked. “This is just a place to smoke?”

“Smoking is never just to smoke,” she replied. “It helps me think. And I think that Dr. O'Hara was up here.”

“Many times,” Ben replied.

“I say recently,” she said, raising her arm and pointing to the southeast while she puffed on her cigar. “Very recently. The snake flows there. It tells me of a death.”

“In the past or future?”

“It already happened,” she said.

Ben peered out. “That's the direction of the park where Caitlin was found.”

“It is not she who is dead,” Madame Langlois said confidently.

“Do you know exactly when she was here?” Ben asked, approaching her under Enok's watchful eye. “Or rather, was she here in body?”

“In body and soul,” Madame Langlois assured him.

Ben looked back at the woman, disapproval in his expression. “Madame, I'm sure you understand how frustrating this is for me.”

“You are in love.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. You say Dr. O'Hara is alive but in danger, yet that isn't much to go on. Can you please tell me anything more?”

It was Enok who answered. His eyes were hard, his voice even harder.

“You must learn to listen,” he said as the smoke from his mother's cigar swirled past his face. “You do that for your livelihood, I am told, yet you are lost in words and not meaning.”

“I don't agree,” Ben said. “I struggle every minute with nuance and subtext—”

“You deconstruct, that is all you do,” Enok said. “Dr. O'Hara
tried
. She was fully committed. She heard. You talk about going to your job. You only hear your own voice.” He touched his own forehead, right between the eyebrows.

“The third eye?” Ben said. “That's a Hindu concept, the seat of wisdom—”

“It is present in many cultures,” Enok told him. “I was with the doctor when she heard other voices. Heard, not just listened.”

“I was with her on one of those occasions as well,” Ben shot back, “and Dr. O'Hara—Caitlin—has now paid a price for ‘hearing' without fully understanding.”

“She saved the child from the serpent,” Madame Langlois said pleasantly. “We here are not ready for it.”

“Are you talking about a cult?” Ben asked. “Snake worshippers?”

It sounded trivial as he said it. Not silly, but small. Madame Langlois confirmed this impression.

“Not worshippers,” she replied. “The most important
loa
himself.”

“The god?” Ben said, making sure he understood.

“It is so.”

“What is he doing?”

“You saw,” she replied. “Damballa, the serpent
loa
, the Sky Father, the creator of all that live—he sent his herald. His endless coils that fill the heavens—
they
are coming.”

“I saw lights inside the smoke,” Ben said. “I thought those were what you meant by ‘they.' ”

“The
loa
's skin will be shed again, not to create the seas but to create new living things,” she continued as if she had not heard. She blew smoke at the sky. It formed a sinuous shape before dissipating to the
southeast. She cackled low in her throat. “He is gone. He must go to his job too.”

Ben was more confused than ever. He did need to go to work, not just to work but also to clear his head. He turned to Enok.

“I have to leave and you cannot stay up here,” he said.

“Why not?” Enok asked.

“Because Dr. O'Hara's father is coming and he will not understand. Would you agree to go somewhere else?”

Enok deferred to his mother. She shrugged. “Okay.
Loa
knows me. He will find me wherever I am.”

Ben didn't like that, and now he wasn't sure he wanted to take them to his apartment. He did not believe his renter's insurance would cover the kind of damage a giant Damballa made of smoke could inflict. He also wasn't sure his neighbors would understand. But he suddenly had another idea.

Motioning them to come along, Madame Langlois carefully extinguished her cigar on the roof then tucked it back in her pocket. Then the Langloises followed Ben down the stairs, Enok hovering attentively by his mother as she descended between the two men. Ben stopped by the apartment to let Anita know he had found the couple and was taking them somewhere else. Then he texted Eilifir and told him to meet them at the front door of the brownstone at once. When Eilifir asked why, Ben said he would let him know when they got there.

Ben walked ahead of the mother and son. A brisk wind had kicked up while they were still on the roof, and even the bright sunlight could not dampen the chill. Eilifir was waiting by a tree just west of the door to Caitlin's building. He remained there, his smartphone in his left hand, his right hand in his pocket. He kept it there even after Ben had emerged, followed by his guests. Ben approached the man, watching Eilifir as he would watch a diplomat at the United Nations: with innate mistrust.

“Have you ever seen these people?” Ben asked.

Eilifir peered over his sunglasses. “Only photographs taken by the individual I relieved,” he said. “Who are they?”

“Vodou practitioners from Haiti,” Ben said.

“You
have
made some interesting friends,” Eilifir remarked as Enok and his mother walked up.

Ben introduced them. Eilifir acknowledged them with a slight dip of his head.

“Caitlin met them there while working on . . . this matter,” Ben went on. “They came here because, according to Madame Langlois, they knew she'd be in danger.”

“Great danger,” the woman corrected him.

Eilifir smiled. Ben did not.

“The woman has some kind of connection with Caitlin O'Hara,” Ben went on, “though I'm not sure how that works: snakes seem to be a key. This woman says a snake god is coming.”

“
Is
coming,” she said with emphasis.

“Caitlin saw a snake in a vision,” Ben went on. “The madame invoked some kind of snake—a mirage, I guess you'd call it, upstairs.”

“A harbinger,” the woman gently corrected him again.

“That's the foundation of—what word did you use? A ‘connection'?” Eilifir said mockingly.

Ben nodded. “I have to agree it's not very impressive, except for one thing. The arm motions in Galderkhaani, the curlicue designs in their writing—they're all very serpentine.”

“So are the movements of a ballet dancer, and the art form did not originate in Galderkhaan,” Eilifir remarked. “It is of fairly recent vintage. I have season tickets to the Kirov.”

“There's more, but I can't go into it now,” Ben said impatiently.

“I'm certain there is,” Eilifir remarked. “What would you suggest I do with this information—and them?”

“I can't leave them here and I can't take them with me to work,” Ben said. “I assume your people have a base somewhere, a headquarters.”

Eilifir regarded Ben. “Are you pumping me for information, Mr. Moss?”

“Jesus, no,” Ben said. “Friend, I don't give a good damn about you and your associates. In fact, I've had it with cloak-and-dagger, and I certainly have no patience for it now.”

“You know, I believe you, Mr. Moss,” Eilifir said. “But I am supposed to watch this building. I can't take charge of them. Anyway, I think you got what you wanted.”

“I don't follow.”

Eilifir cocked his head toward the two. “Them, out of the house. Do you care if they stay here on the street?”

“I do,” Ben said. “I tell you, there's something between them and Caitlin.”

Eilifir grinned. “I believe you. I just wanted to make sure.”

“God, can I just have my life back without the games?” Ben asked. “Listen, nothing will be happening here, I assure you. Do you think I'd be leaving if I thought Caitlin would be coming back for breakfast? All you're going to see happening here is her parents arriving. That's it. They'll be coming to take Jacob O'Hara to school and they'll be here when he gets back. You will also see an exhausted, frustrated psychiatrist named Anita Carter leaving.”

“Madame Langlois seems to believe something else will happen,” Eilifir pointed out. “Snakes.”

“Like Saint Patrick, the snakes will go where she goes,” Ben said. “I'm sure of that too. They've only appeared in her presence.”

“As far as you know,” Eilifir said.

“Yes. As far as I know.”

The shorter man gazed at the Haitian pair. Madame Langlois had gone back several paces to sit on the stoop of the building. Huddled in her sweater, she had resumed staring at the dying leaves of the trees. Enok stood at the foot of the steps and watched the two men with unflinching eyes. His face looked, just then, like a skull.

There was a ping. Ben's eyes dropped to Eilifir's phone. It had
been dark. Now it was beaming with a text. Eilifir looked at it and then at Ben.

“All right,” Eilifir said. “I will take them to our sanctuary.”

“You had me on speakerphone?” Ben asked.

“I did.”

“Nice of you to let me know,” Ben said. “With whom?”

“My superior,” Eilifir said. “We host, but the two of them must go willingly. And they remain with us.”

“You have a deal,” Ben said, pushing his indignation far to the side. “Where—and what—is this sanctuary? Is it a religious institution? A fortress of some kind?”

“Nothing as formidable as that,” the man replied. “It's an estate in Connecticut. Very large, very comfortable, very isolated. There is an SUV on Central Park West. I will call it to come and collect them.”

Ben exhaled. “So now I have to persuade them to take a ride outside the city.”

“All you
have
to do is persuade them to get in,” Eilifir said. “I won't force them to do that.”

“No,” Ben said, “and you will definitely want their cooperation. Hers to get Enok's. Where in Connecticut?”

“Right on the Long Island Sound, in Norwalk.”

“Water,” Ben said. “I think she'll like that. All right, give me a moment to talk to them. And Eilifir? The intrigue aside, thank you.”

Eilifir grinned. “The intrigue is not even what makes this work intriguing,” he quipped.

Ben acknowledged that with a nod and Eilifir watched as he walked over to the Langloises. Enok's eyes followed Ben like those of a predator watching prey. Conversely, Eilifir did not seem interested in Ben; Ben didn't know whether he should be flattered that he seemed trustworthy or insulted that he suddenly seemed beside the point.

Ben stopped in front of Enok and his mother, took a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Madame Langlois, Enok—the gentleman behind me is a col
league who knows more about this situation than I do,” Ben said. “Would you consider staying with him outside of New York while I—”

Madame Langlois held up a hand and Ben stopped. She removed her necklace, aided by her son, and peered through it at Eilifir.

“I see him still,” she announced. “I feared he might be
bokor
. He is not. We will go.”

Enok placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. She lightly shrugged it off as she replaced the necklace.

“We came so far,” she said. “We must go farther.” She waved a hand above her. “And I am cold here.” She leaned around Ben. “Have you tea?” she yelled to Eilifir.

“I will make sure you get some,” he responded with a smile.

Ben stood there watching as Madame Langlois raised her elbow and, taking it, Enok carefully helped her to her feet. Together, they walked over to the man. As they did, Ben googled the word she had uttered on his phone.

He was not surprised.
Bokor
meant sorcerer. The woman might have her quirks and magick, but she was consistent. She really did seem to believe.

Eilifir texted the driver of the SUV, then told the pair a car would be there momentarily. Madame Langlois asked if she would be free to smoke. Eilifir said she would. He asked what she was smoking. She told him it was a Cuban cigar.

“We have not enough land to farm our own,” she informed him.

Enok said nothing.