Page 68 of Heart and Soul
“Danny, if you’re hearing whispers, you need to do what they say.”
My heart goes bump. “What? I thought whispers were bad. You said to listen toyourvoice. Only your voice.”
“We’re out of time.”
“Then we bail! We don’t give in.”
Russo reaches down into the tomb, and when he pulls his hand back out, he’s gripping a long, pointy dagger made of ice.
“Guys, there’s a dagger. He just pulled it from the coffin. Russo?”
“That’s it,” Jay decides. “I’m coming down.”
“Give it a damn second,” Hillerman hisses.
“Russo? Buddy, what you got there? Charlotte, I’m asking you for the last time, what is this place? What’s the final sin? And don’t tell me you don’t know. There’s bodies trapped in ice. That seems pretty specific to me. If that’s from the poem, then you know exactly what’s supposed to happen.”
“Tell me what he’s doing,” she responds. “Tell me, and I’ll tell you.”
“He’s not doing shit. He’s just staring at the dagger. Now tell me! Whatever is supposed to happen, I’ll do it myself.”
Jay shouts, “No! Just wait for me.”
Hillerman makes up her mind. “Russo won’t do it. We’re coming down.”
“Don’t!” I shout. “Jay, if the timer runs out, we’ll all be trapped.”
It’s too late to stop them. I already hear their quick steps. They rush onto the ice. Jay immediately slips, falling on his ass. As I help him, Hillerman stalks up to Russo and wrenches the dagger from his hand. Her face is red with anger. “As always, I have to do everything myself. You’re right, Shayne. Bodies frozen in a lake of ice is in the poem, when Dante reaches the final circle of Hell. It’s reserved for the crowning achievement of the worst, the most degenerate of sinners. This place is for the betrayers.”
I’ve just helped Jay to his feet when Hillerman plunges the dagger into his back, burying the ice blade all the way up to the hilt. It’s razor point thrusts out of his chest, spraying me with hot blood.
After that, I remember only still images. No sound—sound went away, like hitting a mute button. I remember that I saw the confusion on Jay’s face. I saw him lifeless on the ice, and Hillerman shouting at Russo, and Russo wrapping his big arms around me. I remember seeing my own feet kicking at the air. Russo carrying me away. The last image was Hillerman dragging Jay’s body into the ice coffin.
I see pine needles in thesnow. It’s strange-looking snow. Not white—it’s green from the candlelight in the courtyard. But it feels like snow. It’s cold and wet where my hands are buried in it. I’m on hands and knees. My hair falls down around my face. Tiny, smoldering holes form in the snow where tears fall from the tip of my nose.
I’m aware of Russo somewhere behind me, breathing hard. Muttering something about whispers and fog in his mind.
With a deep rumble, the mausoleum door begins to close. Hillerman rushes out of the darkness, then turns and helps Jay to stumble out just before the door seals shut. The green candles extinguish all at once, leaving us with only the moonlight.
Breath surges into my lungs. Leaping to my feet, I throw myself at Jay, crushing him with my arms. He crushes me back, gasping and wheezing. “I’m here,” he says between painful breaths. “I got you.”
“Son of a bitch, Brenner,” Russo exclaims. “How are you standing here right now?”
I rip open the front of his shirt. There’s no hole, no blood. But he drops to his knees with a painful grunt, obviously wounded. Steam rises from under the back of his collar. I push the shirt up his back. There, where he had been stabbed by the dagger, bright red burn marks sizzle like bacon. Two words and a symbol are branded into his skin.
GRANDE BALLROOM, it says. The symbol is a half circle.
“That’s a first quarter moon,” Hillerman says quietly. “It’s the time and place of the next masquerade. The Grande Ballroom on the night of the first quarter moon. That’s two days from now.”
Her voice sounds odd to me. It’s soft. Too soft. Too careful and controlled, as though she’s trying to tiptoe. It won’t work. There’s no tiptoeing around what she’s done.
I rise to my feet, and when I turn my eyes on her, I see that she has taken a defensive stance, with her hand hovering over her gun in its holster. She won’t take her eyes off mine—watching my every move. Very slowly, she raises her other hand in a placating gesture. “Shayne. Think.”
I don’t. Can’t think right now. Only stare.
“Think about it, Shayne. We talked about this. King Paul came through here. He went in, and he came out. What does that mean? Now we know. It means he had to bring somebody with him. Takes two. Who would he have brought? Think about it. Who?” I don’t answer, so she keeps talking. “Ronny Fencher. The ogre.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, but so quietly that I’m not sure she hears it.
