The Dark River

Alice jumped off the rock and continued up the slope, followed by a plump nun with a flushed face. The nun nodded at him, and he saw a hint of sadness in her eyes. But then she was gone and he was facing Mother Blessing.

The Irish Harlequin wore black wool pants and a leather jacket. She looked smaller than Hollis had imagined, and had a proud, imperious look on her face. “Welcome to Skellig Columba, Mr. Wilson.”

“Thanks for the helicopter ride.”

“Did Sister Joan speak to you?”

“No. Was she supposed to?” Hollis looked down the slope. “Where’s Vicki? That’s who I really came to see.”

“Yes. Come along.”

Hollis followed the Harlequin down a pathway to the four beehive-shaped huts on the second terrace. He felt as if a car had crashed and he was going to be shown the wreckage.

“Have you ever been punched very hard, Mr. Wilson?”

“Of course. I fought professionally in Brazil.”

“And how do you survive that?”

“If you can’t avoid someone’s fist, you try to move with it. If you just stand there like a stone, you’re going to get knocked out.”

“Good advice to follow,” Mother Blessing said, and she stopped in front of a hut. “Two days ago, the Tabula came to the island with their helicopters. The nuns fled to a cave with the girl, but apparently Miss Fraser stayed here to protect the Traveler.”

“So where is she? What happened?”

“This will not be easy, Mr. Wilson. But you may see-if you wish.”

Mother Blessing opened the door to the hut, but allowed him to go in first. Hollis entered a cold room where cardboard boxes and plastic storage containers had been pushed against the wall. Something was splattered all over the wooden floor. It took him a few seconds to realize it was dried blood.

Mother Blessing stood behind him. Her voice was as calm and unemotional as if she were talking about the weather. “The Tabula brought splicers with them so they could crawl in through the windows. I’m sure they killed the animals afterward and dropped their bodies into the sea.”

She motioned to an object covered by a plastic tarp, and Hollis immediately knew it was Vicki. Moving like a sleepwalker, he shuffled over to the body and pulled back the tarp. Vicki was almost unrecognizable, but teeth marks on her legs and arms showed that animals had killed her.

Hollis stood over the mutilated body, feeling like he had also been destroyed. The left hand was a mass of torn flesh and shattered bone, but Vicki’s right hand was untouched. A heart-shaped silver locket lay in the center of her palm, and Hollis recognized the style immediately. Most of the women in the church wore a similar piece of jewelry. If you opened the locket, you discovered a black-and-white photograph of Isaac Jones.

“I removed the locket from her neck,” Mother Blessing said. “I thought you might want to see what’s inside.”

Hollis picked up the locket and pushed his fingernail into the top of the little silver heart. It clicked open. The familiar picture of the Prophet had disappeared, replaced by a piece of white paper. Slowly, he unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the palm of his hand. Vicki had written seven words with an old-fashioned fountain pen, trying to make each letter perfect: Hollis Wilson is in my heart-always.

His shock and pain were shoved aside and replaced by anger so extreme that he felt like howling. No matter what happened, he would hunt down the men who had killed her and destroy them all. He would never rest. Never.

“Have you seen enough?” Mother Blessing asked. “I think it’s time to dig a grave.” When Hollis didn’t answer, she crossed the room and pulled the tarp over the body.

33

Maya left the drum shop and went to a cybercafé on Chalk Farm Road. Linden said he trusted one expert on the six realms-an Italian named Simon Lumbroso. A quick search of the Internet showed that a man with that name worked as an art appraiser in Rome. Maya wrote down Lumbroso’s office address and phone number, but didn’t call him. She decided to fly to Rome and meet the person who was supposed to be her father’s friend.

After making a plane reservation, she took a taxi to the storage locker she kept in East London and picked up a new set of false identification papers. For her trip to Rome, Maya decided to use the safest option, one of her unused OR-IF passports. OR-IF was an acronym for “origin real, identity false.” These passports had been obtained from the government and all the data had been fed into the Vast Machine.

Maya’s OR-IF identification had taken years to prepare. When she was nine years old, Thorn had obtained the birth certificates for several dead children. All of their “lives” were tended like fruit trees that needed to be occasionally pruned and watered. On paper, the girls had taken their O-levels and received driver’s licenses, started jobs, and applied for credit cards. Maya had kept the documentation current even during the period that she was living on the Grid and trying to act like a citizen.