Lester Folsom wasn't enjoying life anymore, and he was more than ready to leave it behind. But he wasn't willing to take his secrets to the grave with him. Those secrets were worth money. A fortune. And hell, he'd risked his life often enough while learning them that he figured he'd earned the right to spill his guts and reap the benefits before he checked out for good. So he'd spent the past year doing exactly that.
He was old and tired, and he was damned achy. And it had happened all at once, too. None of this gradual decline one tended to expect from old age. Not with him. One week he was feeling normal, and the next, he noticed that it hurt to lift his arms up over his head. The balls and sockets in his shoulders felt as if they'd run out of lubrication, stiff and tight. And he felt something similar in his knees and wrists and even his ankles now and then. It had happened right about the same time his eyesight had gone to hell. And it had all been downhill from there. His hair had thinned, and what remained had gone silver. His back had grown progressively more stooped, his skin more papery, with every passing year.
The beginning of his end, as nearly as he could pinpoint it, had been fifteen years ago, right after he'd retired from government work. His pension was a good one. But not as good as the advance River House Publishing had given him for his tell-all book. That money had allowed him spend the past twelve months on a private island in the Caribbean, basking and writing. Reliving it all, and yes, occasionally jumping out of his skin at bumps in the night. But they'd all been false alarms.
They wouldn't be, after tonight. If his former employer didn't get him, the subjects of his life's work would. Either way, he was history. And that was fine.
He'd had that year in the tropical sun. Sandy beaches and warm saltwater made bifocals and arthritis a whole lot more bearable. And now the year was over. The book would hit the stands one month from today. He figured he'd be dead shortly there after. But he was ready. His affairs were all in order.
"Five minutes, Mr. Folsom," a woman's voice said.
He glanced up at the redheaded producer who'd poked her head through the door into the greenroom. It wasn't green at all. Go figure. "I'll be ready," he replied.
And then she opened the door a bit farther and allowed another woman to enter. "You'll go on right after Mr. Folsom," the redhead told her.
"Thanks, Kelly."
Kelly. That was the young redhead's name. You'd think he could have remembered that from twenty minutes ago, when she'd first introduced herself. Didn't much matter, he supposed. She was gone now.
The newcomer-he immediately labeled her an introverted intellectual-nodded hello, then looked around the room, just the way he had, taking in the table with its offerings of coffee, tea, cream and sugar, and its spartan selection of fruit and pastries. There was a television mounted high in one corner, tuned to the show on which they were both soon going to appear, but he had turned down the volume, bored by the host's opening segment.
The woman finished her scan of the room and looked his way instead, then lowered her eyes when he met them. Pretty eyes. Brown and flighty, like a doe's eyes, but hidden behind a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
"Well," he said, to break the ice, "it seems Kelly isn't much for introductions, so we'll have to do it ourselves. I'm Lester Folsom, here to plug a book."
She smiled at him, finally meeting his gaze. "Professor Lucy Lanfair," she said, moving closer, extending a slender hand. It was not a delicate, pampered looking hand, but a working one. He liked that. She had mink-brown hair that matched her eyes, but she kept it all twisted up into a knot at the back of her head.
He took her hand, more relieved than he wanted to admit that it was warm to the touch. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise." She withdrew her hand, wiping it on her brown tweed skirt. "Sorry about the sweaty palms. I'm a nervous wreck. I've never been on TV before."
"Nothing to be nervous about," he assured her. "You look very nice, if that's any comfort to you."
"I've never been too concerned with how I look, but thank you very much. I appreciate it."
A woman who didn't care about looks. Well, now, that was interesting. "What is it you've come to talk about?" he asked.
She sank into a chair kitty-corner from his and unrolled the magazine she'd been clutching in one hand. "A rather startling new translation of a four-thousand, five-hundred-year-old clay tablet."
He lifted his brows, his attention truly caught now. "Sumerian?"
"Yes!" She sounded surprised. "How did you know?"
"Not many other cultures had a written language in twenty-five hundred BCE. May I?" He nodded at the magazine, and she handed it to him. The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, J.A.N.E.S. for short, had a classic image of a ziggurat tower on the front, beneath which the headline screamed, New Translation Suggests Another Doomsday Prophecy for Mankind. He glanced from it to her. "This is your piece?" When she nodded, he said, "You made the cover. Impressive."
"Yes, of a scholarly journal with a readership of about three thousand. Still, it's nice to get the recognition. Though I could do without the sensationalism. What the prophecy predicts is meaningless."
"Oh, don't be so sure about that." He shifted his gaze to the book he carried with him everywhere he went. "And you should be grateful for the sensationalism. You might not have gotten any coverage at all without it."
"No, I guess not."
"So, you're a translator?" he asked, as he flipped pages to find her story.
"And an archaeologist, and a professor at Binghamton University," she said softly.
Not bragging, just particular about getting her facts straight, he thought. She was a pretty thing. A bit skinnier than he liked, but women had been curvier in his day. She dressed down, though. Probably to be taken more seriously in her career. Pencil skirt, simple white blouse with a thin, cream-colored button-down sweater over it. Very plain.
"And now an author to boot," he added.
"It's mandatory in my field. 'Publish or perish' is more than just a figure of speech."
Or in his own case, publish and perish, he thought. He found her article and, without time to read it all, skimmed ahead to the actual translation. Within the first few lines, he was riveted.
The offspring of the Old One,
All the children of the Ancient One,
Of Utanapishtim,
In a stroke, are no more.
In the light of his eyes, they are no more
To the last, to the very last,
Unless Utanapishtim himself... (Segment Missing)
"As I say, it's not what it says that's so interesting," the skinny professor said, her voice breaking into his reading. "It's that the Sumerians simply were not known to prophecy. But-"
He held up a hand to stop her distracting chatter as his eyes sped over the lines.
When light meets shadow,
When darkness is well-lit,
When the hidden are revealed,
War erupts.
Like a lion, it devours.
Like a tigress, without mercy, it destroys.
For the end is upon them,
The end of their kind,
The end of their race,
The race that sprang from his veins.
The door opened, and the redhead-Kelly-poked her head in again. "Time to go on, Mr. Folsom."
"One moment!" he barked, startling both women. He had to finish reading. He could not stop there. He had to know.
Only the Old One... (Segment Missing)
The Flood-Survivor
The Ancient One
Utanapishtim
The Two must bring about... (Segment Missing)
The Two who are opposite
And yet the same,
One light, one dark,
One the destroyer.
One the salvation
"The twins," he whispered. "This is about the legendary mongrel twins."
"Excuse me?" Professor Lanfair asked.
"Mr. Folsom," Kelly said. "We have to go."
Ignoring them both, he flipped the page, but there was no more. Lifting his head, he speared the professor with his eyes. "That's it? That's all? They printed all of it?"
"Yes. At least, that's all so far. There are still hundreds of broken pieces of clay tablets from that particular dig site in storage. There may be more to this tablet, but at the moment-"
"Mr. Folsom!" Kelly was not taking no for an answer.
He nodded, closing the magazine and handing it back to the doe-eyed bookworm. "It's not a doomsday prophecy at all, Professor Lanfair. Not for humankind, anyway. This is about them."
"About whom?"
He sighed, glanced at the redhead and then leaned close to the professor and whispered in her ear, "About the race no one believes exists-the very one my book is about to expose on national television tonight." A sudden chill raced up his spine, and he glanced at the TV screen in the corner again, then narrowed his eyes and looked more closely. As the camera panned over the studio audience, he spotted a dark-suited man standing near the back, and then another near the exit. Both wore tinted glasses in the dim studio. His mouth went dry.
But he couldn't back down now. He had to see this through. Returning his attention to the pretty professor who had stumbled upon what might be the key to everything, he pressed his personal copy of his soon-to-be-released book into her hands. "You'd better hold on to this. Don't let anyone know you have it, and don't let it out of your grip. No matter what."
"I don't under-"
"I'm about to tell the world that vampires really do exist, and that our government has known about it for the better part of a century. The darkness, my dear girl, is about to be well-lit. The hidden is about to be revealed. And there are those who don't want that to happen. But the proof-" he tapped the book's cover with a forefinger "-the proof is in there."
Then he straightened away from her, nodded at the television set and said, "Turn up the volume and pay attention, Professor. Somehow, this involves you, too." Then he walked out the door, letting it swing closed behind him.
He followed the youthful and impatient producer, who all but trotted down one long corridor after another. It was all he could do to keep up, and he was literally out of breath by the time she pushed open a pair of double doors and held one with her back while ushering him through. "Take your time crossing the stage," she told him in a whisper. "Wave hello to the audience. And watch those cables on the floor."
Will Waters, twenty-five-year news veteran, retired network anchor and current host of the nation's top-rated prime-time news magazine, rose to his feet and extended a hand in Les's direction. "Please welcome Lester Folsom to the show."
Struggling to catch his breath, Les lifted his chin and began walking forward, his pounding heartbeat barely audible to his own ears due to the live studio audience's obedience to the glowing "applause" sign. Silently, he wished he hadn't missed Will Waters's entire introduction. But he could guess at what it had entailed. The true contents of his book had not been revealed to anyone besides the publisher, only the barest of hints had been released to the press. That he had worked for a top-secret sub-division of the CIA for more than twenty years, a sub-division known as the Division of Paranormal Investigations, or DPI. And that his book would reveal the existence of things formerly believed to live only in the realms of fiction. Just what sorts of things-that was what he would talk about tonight. If those fellows in the back of the audience let him get that far, anyway. He'd have to get straight to the point with Will Waters. No time for small talk.
He stepped over a pair of heavy cables that snaked across the floor and made his way to the host, one of the most beloved newsmen in the world. Will Waters extended a hand.
And just as Lester Folsom closed his own hand around it, he felt something like a sledgehammer pound into his chest. And then again. And again.
It was only as he sank to the floor that the accompanying sounds-Pop! Pop! Pop!-registered in his brain. Not hammer blows. Gunshots. Bullets. They felt nothing like he'd expected. And vaguely, he became aware that the famous veteran newsman was on the floor beside him, jerking spasmodically as he bled out. Collateral damage. That was what those suits would call it.
As the light of this world began to fade and the light of another appeared on a distant horizon, Lester thought that they had got to him even faster than he had anticipated.
He'd done the right thing, though. And despite this sloppy effort at containment, there was no way they could keep his secrets quiet now. He'd opened Pandora's Box, then made a graceless but timely exit before the havoc he'd unleashed could play out. From the sounds of the skinny professor's prophecy, it wasn't going to be pretty. He hoped she would survive, now that she was the only one with the proof.
The light on the distant horizon grew brighter. He could see it clearly even without his glasses. And then his shoulders stopped aching at last.
When the crazy old man left the greenroom, Lucy finally allowed the amused smile she'd been holding back with all her might to take possession of her face. She even laughed a little, quickly clapping her hand over her mouth in case he might hear beyond the heavy door. That would just be cruel. But really, vampires? Lester Folsom was obviously suffering from some sort of delusional break with reality.
Poor Kelly. He'd given the girl an awfully hard time. Lucy made a mental note to go a lot easier on the young producer when it was her turn to go onstage.
Sighing, she glanced down at the book the old man had pressed into her hands.
THE TRUTH.
Unimaginative title, but memorable in its simplicity. There was a string emerging from the top of the book, and a tiny jade Kwan Yin, goddess of mercy and compassion, pendant dangling from the bottom. A necklace. Pretty. What an odd thing for a man to be using as a bookmark. She wondered if Mr. Folsom was a practicing Buddhist or just fond of Asian art. She removed the necklace from the book and hung it around her own neck, tucking the pendant underneath her blouse, so she would remember to return it to the man when they passed again. She was sure she would see him on her way to the stage.
She stuffed the book into her satchel so she wouldn't forget it and offend the old guy when he came back to the greenroom for his coat and saw his gift, abandoned there. Then she dropped her bag into an empty chair and went to the television to turn it up the old-fashioned way, since she didn't see a remote, curious to see how the fearless vampire hunter would come off to the viewers.
She'd always had a lot of respect for Will Waters. She hoped that wasn't about to be shaken, but she suspected it was. There were only two ways this interview could go down, the way she saw it. Either Waters was going to expose the old man as confused and possibly senile, or he was going to play along with this sensationalistic vampire nonsense for the sake of his ratings. Either way seemed a breach of what used to be known as journalistic integrity. She hoped she was wrong.
Lucy sat down, waiting for the commercial break to end. She had been pleased at the invitation to appear on a serious news program. Not because she had any desire to grab her fifteen minutes of fame. God knew she preferred solitude. Her favorite place in the world, aside from a dig site in the middle of nowhere, was the dusty basement of the archaeology department at BU. And she certainly wasn't going to jump onto the 2012 doomsday bandwagon, as the show's producers seemed to be expecting her to do. No, she was going to stick to the facts. This translation was an extraordinary new bit of information about the ancient Sumerians, how they lived and how they thought. Period.
Sensationalism was something she didn't need. And she wouldn't take fame if they gave it to her. Recognition for her work, that would be okay, because it might just result in good PR for the university, which might persuade the powers that be to further fund her work.
She was picking over the fruit tray on the table, looking for grapes that hadn't yet made it more than halfway to raisinhood, when the show's theme music announced that the break was over. As it faded away, Will Waters introduced his dotty next guest.
Lucy looked up at the screen, absently popping a grape into her mouth, and watched as Mr. Folsom made his way toward the set. His gait was slow and shuffling, his posture stooped. He took his time crossing the stage, then finally extended a hand to shake the host's.
And then there was a series of popping sounds that Lucy recognized all too well. She froze in place, not believing what she was seeing on the TV screen, as both men fell to the floor, red blooms spreading on their white shirts.
Shock gripped her as her brain tried to translate what her eyes had just seen. The cameras began jostling amid a cacophony of shouting, rushing people. Some seemed to be racing toward the stage, but most were running away from it, stampeding for the exits.
The screen switched abruptly to a "technical difficulty" message, and it took Lucy a few seconds to realize that the sounds of panic she could still hear were coming, not from the television set, but from the hallway beyond the greenroom door.
And for just an instant she was back there again, sleeping in her parents' tent on the site of an archaeological dig in a Middle Eastern desert.
There were motors roaring nearer, and then a series of keening battle cries and gunshots in the night. She felt her mother's hands shaking her awake in the dead of night and heard her panicked, fear-choked voice. "Run, Lucy! Run into the dunes and hide. Hurry!"
At eleven years old, Lucy came awake fast and heard the sounds, but what scared her more was the fear in her mother's voice, and in her eyes. It was as if she knew, somehow, what was about to happen.
"I won't go without you!" Lucy glimpsed her father as he shoved his worn-out old fedora onto his head. He was never without that hat on a dig. Said it brought him luck. But it wasn't bringing any luck tonight. And then he was taking a gun from a box underneath his cot. A gun! She'd never seen him with a gun before. >Her parents were a pair of middle-aged, bookish archaeologists. They didn't carry guns.
"You have to, Lucy. Go! Now, before it's too late!"
"Obey your mother!" her father told her.
Her mother pushed her through a flap in the rear of the tent, even as men in mismatched fatigues surged from a half-dozen jeeps, shouting in their foreign tongues, shooting their weapons. Lucy's feet sank into the sand, slowing her, but she ran.
There were screams and more gunfire. Every crack of every rifle made her body jerk in reaction as she strained to run faster through the sucking sand, until finally she dove behind a dune, burying her face.
But worse than the noise, worse than the shouting and the gunshots, was the silence that came afterward. The vehicles all roared away. And then there was nothing. Nothing. Just an eleven-year-old girl, lying in a sand dune, shaking and too terrified to even lift her head.
Something banged against the greenroom door, snapping Lucy out of the memory. Blinking away the paralysis it had brought with it, she realized that she had to get the hell out of this place, and she had to do it now. The door through which she had entered was not an option. There was what sounded like a riot going on beyond it. Turning, she spotted the room's only other door, one marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.
This qualified, she decided, and she grabbed her satchel and jacket, shoved the emergency door open and ran through it into a vast concrete area with an open, overhead door, like a garage door, at the far end, and the city night beyond. She raced toward that opening, onto the raised platform outside it-a loading dock, she guessed-and jumped from that to the pavement four feet below.
Running full bore now, she followed the blacktop that ran between two buildings until she emerged onto a New York City sidewalk. Blending with the masses of humanity, she walked as fast as she could away from the violence she'd just witnessed.
Sirens screamed as police arrived. She smelled fast-food grease from somewhere nearby. Across the street, four men emerged from a black van. They wore suits and long dark coats, and they strode very quickly toward the building she'd just exited. One glanced her way, but she quickly averted her eyes and kept on walking. The wind swept a playbill over her feet and on down the sidewalk, and air brakes whooshed in the distance. She kept going.
Guilt rose up to nip at her heels. She was a coward for running away. Surely she ought to seek out a police officer, and tell him what she had seen and heard.
But everything in her told her to do just the opposite. So that was what she did. Running away, saving herself while others died-that was she did best, after all.
And yet it didn't work out quite that way for her this time. From behind her, Lucy heard a voice say, "Hold it right there, lady." And somehow she knew he was addressing her.
Her feet obeyed. But her heart raced even faster. The fight-or-flight impulse was coming down with all its weight on the "flight" side of the coin. And every cell in her body was already in motion, pushing her, making it almost impossible to stand still.
"Are you Professor Lanfair?" the man asked. He was one of those men in black she'd spotted earlier. She could see his warped reflection in the back of a chrome mirror, affixed to the side of a hot little sports car she wished she could jump into and drive away.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me, ma'am."
No, I don't think I am.
Her brain argued, told her to just calm down, take a breath and cooperate. The guy was official in some way, right?
And then he started toward her. His footsteps on the wet sidewalk were like a starter's pistol. And they had the same effect on her. She burst into motion like a racehorse when the gate flies open, but in three strides she felt an impact in the center of her back. The force sent her falling, as if she'd been slammed by a speeding truck. She was already colliding with the sidewalk by the time she actually heard the gunshot.
The pain of it came last, like a red-hot poker had been driven right through her spine and out through her sternum. Her bag went skidding along the sidewalk, into the alley, everything flying out of it in a hundred directions.
Shot. My God, I've been shot. I've been shot, I've been shot.
She lay there, facedown and shocked beyond thought, in a warm and spreading pool of her own blood. See? A voice in her head whispered. I told you not to run.
