EPILOG

From the private diary of Oliver Guest.

At Otranto Castle a wind from the south-southwest should be a warm zephyr, bringing the lotus ease of the lazy tropical ocean whence it came. But not this time. The wind had blown as a force-five gale for six days and nights, a fury that carried in its dark heart sleet and hail and the sour, bitter stench of cindered lands and dead seas. The castle, windows shuttered, crouched down and endured this blast, as it had stood and withstood for more than two and a half centuries.

Soon after dawn on the sixth morning, I opened the heavy oak door of the main entrance and stepped outside. The wind was strong as ever and rain sheeted at me sideways, but there was a freshness in the air and a clarity to the sunrise. It was possible to believe, for the first time since the onset of the particle storm, that Earth had a future.

In that moment of spiritual rebirth, the castle Alert blurted in to steal joy from the morning. Warning, it shouted in my ear. Possible intruder sighted to the southwest. Human evaluation requested.

I sighed and went inside. Under high magnification I studied the solitary walker. He was enveloped in waterproof clothing that flapped like dark wings in the gusts, and he maintained a wide and wise separation between himself and the edge of the cliffs. This time, however, I had no doubt as to his identity. For more than a week I had been waiting and wondering; not if, but when.

I opened the door and held it as he approached. He hurried into the dark hallway as though the wind bore him across the threshold unassisted.

“A nasty morning,” I said.

“You might say.” Seth grinned at me as he stripped off his overcoat and leggings. “But we’ve both seen worse.”

His clothing had been inadequate protection. His hair and shirt were soaked. I led him through to the far end of the kitchen, where towels hung drying on a line and a gallon pot simmered on the blackened stove.

He took a towel and rubbed at his hair until it was a drier but more tangled mess, then went over and sniffed the pot. At my nod he filled a bowl and carried it to the long wooden table.

“Beans?” he asked.

“With ham hocks,” I said. “From the gentleman who pays the rent.”

“Huh?”

“It’s an old Irish joke. It means a pig.”

Those were our first words after the initial greeting, and they were not inspiring. After that neither seemed inclined to speak again. The silence continued until Seth had emptied the bowl and refused more with a shake of the head. Finally he said, “You were expecting me.”

“It was my preference.” I led the way to the study, and we sat down in front of the peat fire. “Otherwise I would have ultimately been obliged to seek you.”

“Yeah.” He removed his boots and held his stockinged feet close to the red peat coals until the soles began to steam. At that point he moved back a couple of feet, accepted my offer of whiskey, stared into the low flames, and said, “We got unfinished business. It’d be nice to say, go back to the way it was before any of this started. But we can’t. You know that I know.”

“And vice versa. I know about you. More, perhaps, than anyone else in the world. Even in these troubled times, the curious demise of Gordy Rolfe was widely reported.”

“Yeah. There’s rumors that he was part of some big conspiracy, robbin’ Sky City blind, an’ his business partners knocked him off so he couldn’t talk. But some people talked conspiracy with the Sky City murders, an’ we know how that turned out. Me, I think nobody’s goin’ to find anything more. Old Gordy made hidin’ what he knew an’ did into an art form.”

“I will not dispute the conspiracy theory. However, I suspect that you and I alone are aware of your intention to visit Gordy Rolfe on the day before he died.”

“Ah, but did I go there? I vote for natural causes, Doc, comin’ as a result of unnatural experiments. You heard what the media said about poor old Gordy. ’Hoist with his own petard,’ if you want to put it fancy. They found one of his boots, an’ that was all. Nobody’s lookin’ for me as a killer. Can’t say quite the same for you.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Or thinking to blackmail me?”

“Never.”

He glanced toward the door behind me and frowned. I turned and saw four faces peering in a vertical line around the jamb: Paula, Bridget, Beth, and Trixie. They had been in the cellar earlier, but they must have seen the Alert flashing or heard the outer door.

“This meeting does not call for your presence,” I said sharply.

That would probably have been enough had not Seth made the mistake of adding condescendingly, “Run along, kiddies. You heard your dad.”

Paula frowned, and Bridget flushed and opened her mouth as though about to speak. Before she could do so, Paula dragged her out of sight. A moment later the other two faces vanished.

Seth waited to make sure they had gone, then went on. “Take it easy, Doc. I’m just sayin’ we need to have some sort of negotiation or truce, an’ it’s nice to know where each of us is startin’ from. Seems to me you’re startin’ off vulnerable. Not because of you; you’re fireproof.” He gestured toward the door. “Because of them.”

“If you imply that through the existence of those girls I have, in the words of Francis Bacon, given hostages to fortune, then I am obliged to agree with you. However, you know my history. The addition of one more victim to the roster for the sake of security would not, if discovered, change my sentence at all were I ever to be recaptured.”

“One more victim. Are you threatenin’ me, Doc?”

“I would not dream of it.”

“Or tryin’ to blackmail me?”

“Never.”

Seth grinned. Far from being intimidated, he seemed amused. “So we both know where we stand. Question is, what do we do?”

“If you are referring to the reward for the apprehension of the Sky City murderer, I neither need nor want it.”

“That’s good. I need it, an’ I want it, ’cause with Gordy gone I don’t have a job. But the reward ain’t the problem. How do we work the other stuff?”

I had no immediate answer. Regrettably, he was right. I was far more vulnerable than he. Eighteen young girls are not easy to hide. With them to protect and nurture, I would need a permanent and safe base of operations for many more years. A single male like Seth, on the other hand, could vanish with ease or wander the world as he chose.

Should I seek to kill him now, this very minute, while he sat drinking my whiskey? He was undeniably accessible, but I felt a reluctance even to consider that prospect. I ascribed it to a worry that my darlings might somehow become aware of such a bloody deed. There was also, of course, a more practical consideration: Seth Parsigian’s whole history proved that he was no easy man to kill.

Before I could decide on action or inaction, another complication reared its head. My darlings appeared again; not, this time, in the form of the previous four. All eighteen came trooping into the study and stood in an orderly line, oldest to youngest, along the wall opposite the fireplace.

“Paula.” In spite of her short stature I addressed her as the most senior and the usual ringleader. “I told you once to go away. What do you think you are doing here?”

When Paula spoke it was not to me but to Seth. “We wanted to meet you,” she said in her deep, husky voice. “And we wanted you to meet us. We thought it was important.”

This time he did not try to dismiss her. He studied the girls, carefully and one by one, his tawny eyes moving steadily along the line. “Important how?” he said. “We never met. You don’t know me.”

“You came to our home on one previous occasion. You are Seth Parsigian.”

Seth jerked around sharply in my direction. His face was more surprised than I had ever seen it. I shook my head. “Not from me, Seth. I swear on my nonexistent soul, that did not come from me.”