Page 18 of Light Me Up

“A monk, of course. The event and what led up to it were duly recorded and even illustrated. A curse like that is a mortal sin. And the wages of sin are—”

“Got it. Doom, destruction, death,” he finished.

“Yes,” she agreed. “To all who touch the cross, supposedly.”

“Quite a story,” Noah commented. “Do you believein the curse?”

“I just want to look at it, Noah.” Caro needed a change of subject. Her eyes fell on the newspaper in his hand. “You’re readingLa Repubblica?” she asked. “In Italian? Lucky you. How many languages did they load into your database, anyhow?”

“Just the top twenty most commonly spoken.”

“Just?” Sheshook her head.

Noah shrugged. “They could have packed in hundreds more, but enough about that.”

She fell silent, knowing what she did about what he’d gone through at Midlands.

“Do you want to learn Italian?” he asked.

His question wasn’t exactly out of the blue but it still surprised her. “Sure,” she said. “Not that it’s easy, right? Although it sounds easy, just listening. It’s such a beautiful language.”

“So we’ll stay in Rome longer,” he said. “Rent a swanky apartment. Get you started in the immersive method, maybehire a tutor.”

“But you—”

“A female tutor,” he clarified sternly. “You’ll pick up the basics in about three thousand years. According to actual Italians, who think that their language is the most complicatedin the world.”

Caro laughed. “Is that right?”

“Totally true.”

“It sounds like fun,” she said. “But what about your work?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “I can run Angel Industries from here. They don’t need my physical body. I can be available for them any time of day or night. I’ll work from here, and you just study Italian and look at art until it come out of your ears. I’ll help, if you want. I’m a walking dictionary. And if I have connectivity, I’m an encyclopedia, too.”

She was surprised all over again. And moved. “You’d do that for me?”

“Hell yeah. Gotta put in some effort to blow away my competition.”

“Huh?” She was baffled. “What competition?”

“Orazio,” Noah said darkly.

“What?”

“You heard me. The guy sounds like a self-absorbed dickhead to me. Besides, I don’t want you to be anybody’s kindred spirit but mine. So fuck Orazio.”

A startled laugh burst out of her. “He’s been dead for five hundred years, Noah!”

Noah gave her a crooked smile. “Lucky for him,” he said. “If he wasn’t, I’d make him wish he was.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she told him.

“Sure it is, but what can you do. I’m hardwired to defend my turf. It’s a reflex. Mine-mine-mine-mine. That’s the refrain that plays in my head.”

She giggled at his nonsense, but the fierce intensity in his eyeswas very real.

“What is it?” she asked him. “What are you thinking about right now?”

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