Twilight Prophecy (19 page)

“The good guys turned out to be the villains, and the monsters turned into victims.”

“Heroes. Not victims. Heroes.” She lowered her eyes. “Especially you, James.”

He felt blood heating his face and averted it to hide the reaction. “If it doesn’t work…”

“If it doesn’t work, you’ll know you did your very best.”

Lifting his gaze again, he asked her, “Do you still think it’s a mistake to try?”

“To try to raise the ashes of a man who’s been dead for five thousand years? Yes, I do. But I don’t believe it’s a mistake to try whatever you have to, to save your people. And I also think that if you do any less and your people die, you’ll never forgive yourself. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve completely changed sides in this. I’m helping you now because I want to. Not because I have to.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her face. There was something more there. Or maybe he was only seeing what he wanted to see, because of his newly awakened—or at least newly acknowledged—feelings for her. But maybe not. Maybe she really did look as if she wanted him to kiss her.

Maybe he’d better find out.

“I’m sorry I ruined your life,” he said.

“You saved my life first,” she replied. “That kind of makes up for it.”

He took a step closer. “Let me make up for it a little bit more, hmm?”

“How?” she whispered.

“Close your beautiful eyes, Professor.”

She did. And he laid his hands over them, so that his fingertips extended upward, into her silky mink-colored hair, while the heels of his hands rested on her cheeks. He willed the light to come, and it did. It glowed, and gleamed and he heard her suck in a breath.

And then the light faded, and he lowered his hands. “Okay. Open them now.”

She opened her eyes and frowned. “What did you…?”

He picked up her glasses and tossed them into the wastebasket.

She blinked. “Oh, my God, you fixed my eyesight.”

“I would have done it sooner, if I’d thought of it.”

“James, you didn’t have to—”

Before she could finish, he swept her into his arms and kissed her, unable to hold in the desire any longer.

She opened her mouth to him, let him probe with his tongue, taste her. And as she fed from his mouth in return, he moved her across the room and then fell with her onto the bed, arching his hips against her, sliding his hands beneath her to pull her hard against his grinding hips.

Her eyes flashed open, and she stared into his. And he knew her answer to his unspoken question was a resounding yes.

His hands were trembling, as if he were a teenager and this was his first time, as he pushed her top upward and out of his way.

He bared one small perfect breast and lowered his head to nuzzle at its peak.

And then the phone rang, shattering the moment.

He closed his eyes. “Dammit.”

“We have to answer it,” she told him.

“I know. And I love that you know it, too.” He raised himself up off her body, gently righting her top in the process.

Pressing a hand to her chest as if to calm her racing heart, Lucy reached for the phone and answered. “Yes?”

“It’s me, Marcus. I thought it best to act with haste—you mustn’t stay in the city any longer than you absolutely have to. So you’re in. You are Professor Sandra Duncan. Your colleague is Dr. Winston Marlboro.”

“I’m an actress from the seventies and he’s two packs of cigarettes?”

“I had to think fast,” Marcus said with a self-deprecating sigh. “Mr. Scofield Danforth will be expecting you. He’ll bring the pieces to you for examination. He’s been told this is a matter of national security, that he mustn’t tell anyone else. I didn’t say it had to do with the current issue dominating the news, but I said enough that he no doubt drew that very conclusion. So he’ll cooperate. Please stay safe, my dear.”

“I’ll do my best. You’ve been a good friend to me, Marcus. I’ll never forget it.”

“Nonsense. Go now, do what you must. Whatever it is, I know it’s the right thing.”

The phone went dead, and she hung up, smoothed her hair and lifted her eyes. “We can go now.”

He didn’t want to go now. He wanted to follow up on what had almost happened between them. And yet, that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? The survival of his race was at stake, and he wanted to put off saving them for the sake of making love to this goddess of a woman?

Yeah. He did. He wouldn’t act on that desire, but deep down, that was exactly what he wanted. Chuck it all for an hour in her arms. Buried in her body. Two hours. An entire afternoon.

Hell. Wrong time. Wrong place. And probably, he knew, the wrong woman. And yet the thought lingered, playing out in his mind in vivid Technicolor and making his lips tingle at the thought of hers beneath them.

They left the hotel. In a strained and nervous silence, they walked side by side, but not touching, to the museum.

After their brief visit to the museum’s gift shop and the purchase that would enable them to pull this thing off, followed by a quick stop at the rest room, they went to their appointment with the twitchy little man with the pretentious and unlikely name of Scofield Danforth who was in charge of the traveling exhibit. They waited at a table in a private room in the glass-lined administrative section. They were on the north side of the breathtaking building, and the office windows were unprotected, as far as she could tell. Not that anyone could get out via those windows, with or without any valuable artifact, painting or jewel. They didn’t open, and there was nothing outside them to use as an escape route. No trees, no fire escape on that side of the building. Only an uninterrupted, albeit brief, drop to the manicured lawns of Central Park below.

No way out. Hell.

The curator returned with the requested items, three nine-inch-tall limestone sculptures of a nude man. He set the pieces on the table and stepped out of the room.

Lucy took the pieces in her hands one by one, reveling, as she always did, in the miracle of holding, of touching, something that had been held, touched, fashioned, by the hands of people who’d lived more than five thousand years ago. The three pieces were similar, with rough surfaces and an overall weathered appearance, gray-white in color, with varying striations of rust and darker grays. Holding the first one, she noted that the priest king’s body was almost cylindrical, his legs one blocklike unit, with an incised line to differentiate one from the other and hash marks to separate the toes. The figure flared from the hips into the upper body. The arms were bent at the elbows and held close to the body, fists at the chest, and like the legs, they were only roughly delineated. The round face featured expanded cheeks and full lips, a disc-shaped beard and a band around the hair. The genitals were carved in more realistic detail than any other part of the body.

“He left us alone with them. Not very nervous about us taking off with them, is he?” James asked softly, interrupting Lucy’s reverent contemplation of the artifact.

“Why should he be? There’s no way out of here other than the way we came in. And besides, we’re under constant surveillance.” She nodded at the video camera mounted in a corner of the room.

“We need to figure out which one it is and get it out of here,” he said, lowering his voice.

“It’s this one.”

“You’ve barely looked at the others. Are you sure?”

She sent him a scowl, her fingertip almost caressing a series of lines, carved in the stone. “His name is on it. And here are the wavy lines I told you to look for, as well.”

He held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, it’s that one.”

She shook the piece, frowning. “It doesn’t feel hollow, though.”

“Do you have the replacement ready?” he asked.

She nodded, glancing down at her jacket. Her handbag had been searched before she’d come in, but she hadn’t been patted down. The replacement statue, bought in the gift shop downstairs, was taped to her side and hidden there by her jacket.

James got to his feet and leaned over her with his back to the camera, as if in intense contemplation of the artifact. Lucy quickly hiked up her top and gently freed the replica from the duct tape holding it to her side. Then she set the fake on the table and taped the real statue to her skin, righted the shirt and straightened the jacket. The entire exchange took all of twenty seconds.

“He’s going to know it’s not the real one, James,” she said worriedly. “The size isn’t even a perfect match. I should have had some kind of a Plan B ready.”

James nodded. “You let me take care of that part, okay?” He tapped his head. “Vampire, remember?”

Smiling, she said, “Right.” She rose from the table and went to the door, opened it and smiled at the man who stood outside. “We’re all finished, Mr. Danforth. Thank you so much for your cooperation.”

The man nodded, entering the room, his eager eyes shooting straight to the items on the table. Then his eyes narrowed on the fake statue. “Wait, there’s something…”

“There’s nothing wrong,” James said, lowering a hand to the man’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong at all. The piece is exactly as you last saw it, precisely as you remember it to be, to the tiniest detail. You are supremely confident that all is well. You have no question whatsoever about that. Do you?”

“Of course not,” the man said, his voice oddly soft. He blinked, as if shaking off a stupor, and hurried to the table, picking up the artifact in gloved hands, handling it as reverently as Lucy had done. “You’ll let me know what this was all about when you can?”

“Of course we will,” Lucy said. “Your help is very much appreciated.”

He nodded, said goodbye and Lucy and James walked out into the public part of the museum and down to the ground floor. As they approached the main entrance, she tried to conceal her nerves. God, she was walking right out of the Met with a stolen artifact taped to her waist! This was so not typical Lucy Lanfair behavior.

Just the opposite, in fact.

And yet, they were doing it. They were getting away with it. They were almost to the massive, beautiful doors. They were—

James grabbed her arm. “Don’t freak out on me.”

“What?”

He nodded toward the door. “Police. Outside.”

“For us?” She blinked, staring at the door.

“Stop looking.”

She looked away. He lifted an arm, pointing to the left, and she followed his gaze. “Try to look like a tourist admiring the place.”

She made a face at him as he steered her toward the nonexistent thing he was allegedly pointing at. “Do you think the curator…?”

“No. He has no clue. I messed with his mind…just a little, but enough. No, this has to have come from your friend, Doctor Jones.”

“Marcus Payne. And he wouldn’t have ratted us out, James. Not Marcus.”

“Then maybe they really did tap his phone. Who the hell knows?”

He picked up the pace, heading for an elevator. “How are we going to get out of here?”

She looked around, saw a group of tourists being led by a college-age tour guide, swallowed hard and said, “Follow my lead. Blend in with the group.”

“What?” He frowned at her, but she rushed over to the group, tapped the young girl on the shoulder and, with a quick glance at her name badge, said, “Sarah?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Hi. I’m Molly. I’m new. Um, listen, the boss told me to take over. You’re wanted upstairs. Something about a special project.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do you know what it’s about?”

“No idea.”

“Well, will you tell me when you come back? I’m dying of curiosity.” Then Lucy turned to face the group. “Hi, all. I’m Molly, and I’ll be taking over the tour for Sarah. Did she tell you about the architectural history of this place?”

Heads shook slowly, as Sarah hurried away.

“Oh, then you’re in for a treat. Follow me outside the building, if you will—just a brief external tour. You’re going to love this.”

She led the group out the front doors, talking all the way, pointing, explaining, elaborating, even making things up from whole cloth. They walked right past the police, one of whom even nodded hello. She led the group around a corner of the building, toward the park that bordered it, and then she said, “Oh, no! I forgot your free gifts. Wait right here. You,” she added, with a nod toward James. “You can come help me carry them.”

He nodded, and the two of them raced off into the park, leaving the puzzled tour group alone and confused as to what had just happened.

“Now what?” Lucy asked, when they were in the clear, pausing on one of the winding footpaths that meandered through Central Park. She located a bench, sat on it, then gave a quick look around before reaching under the shirt to pull the tape off her side. She winced. “I’m not going to have any skin left there.”

“We can’t go back to the hotel,” James said, sitting down beside her. “If they were bugging Marcus’s phone, they’ll know that’s where we were calling from.” He took her bag from her shoulder. Then he eased the statue from her hands and tucked it inside.

“No reason to go back there anyway,” she said. “We didn’t leave anything. We need to get out of the city, James.”

He nodded. “This would be a bad place to resurrect old Utanapishtim anyway. Can you imagine a man who’s been dead for five thousand years waking up in the middle of Manhattan?”

“I can’t imagine him waking up anywhere,” she said. “And it’s Utana.”

“What is?”

“His name. The one he used, his familiar name.” She reached into the bag and pulled the statue out, but only far enough to see the lines engraved on its base. “I’ve read these same lines on that stone tablet of yours. Utana. Called Ziasudra. Called Utanapishtim. Called the Flood Survivor. Called the Servant of the Gods. Then cursed by them. And hidden here by my hand, hidden from the Divine wrath of the Anunaki.”

“Anu-what?”

“The gods.”

He frowned at her. “Are you going to be able to communicate with him? When we raise him, I mean.”

She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again and lowered her head, shaking it slowly.

“What?” he asked.

Drawing a breath, Lucy chose her words with care. “James, I don’t want you to do this. It’s not a good idea. And it probably won’t work anyway. It didn’t work with those…those corpses,” she whispered. “Back at the mansion.”