SEVERAL YEARS AGO The tone of the voice completely threw me for a loop. Even worse, I thought that I recognized it from somewhere, although I couldn’t quite place it.
Still, I replied calmly enough. “Oh, well enough I suppose. I took a nice jaunt out into the city, managed to get shot a few times, ended up here. Speaking of which, where is here, after all?” It was really all I could do to keep from screaming at the madness of the whole situation.
PRESENT DAY His response didn’t at all help me believe that this was the actual Lazarus. If he’d really been around for more than two thousand years and if this Cup was the thing that had kept him alive so long, surely he would have kept better track of it. I mean, one would think that after living for two thousand years, one would have amassed some sort of person power.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO So Alex was a hitchhiker. “What does that mean exactly?”
He grinned. It was that terrifying sort of grin. “It means that when Alex came back, I came along for the ride. So it worked out well for the both of us.”
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO The four of us were standing there in the darkness, with only the pink neon glow of Mrs. Claire’s sign still providing anything in the way of illumination. There was a faint breeze from the outside, providing just enough motion to the curtain between us and the sign to make the darkness even more disconcerting.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO There was no way that Smith could have missed at that distance. His brother–or at least his brother’s form, I still wasn’t sure on the details–was standing no more than a foot away, directly in front of the gun. Yet when my eyes readjusted to the gloom after the brilliant flash of the gun, he was still standing there, looking none the worse for the gunshot.
PRESENT DAY Since she wasn’t answering my question and I had no intention of answering hers, we were at somewhat of an impasse. Worse yet, she was standing in the only exit that I knew, so I couldn’t even consider running for it. Granted, there was almost surely a fire escape–was that mandated here in Italy as well?–but I couldn’t count on finding it before being kebobbed. So for long moment after long moment, we just stood there staring at each.
PRESENT DAY The apparent source of all the commotion just stood there in the hallway, so far as I could tell completely ignoring the havoc she’d wrought. She was an older woman, short, barely more than five feet tall if that. Lightly built, she looked as if she might have been a dancer in the youth, although that would have been many years ago indeed. Steely gray hair pulled back into a tight bum framed a severe looking face with features hinting at perhaps an Asian background.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO The lights sounded almost like popcorn, going one after another. First the smaller lights–a strand of Christmas lights here, a smaller lamb there–and then the main overhead light blew out, I squeezed my eyes shut and raised my hands to cover my face. My hope was that I could protect my fact and eyes from the worse of it.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO I felt lightheaded. I couldn’t have said if it was the strange goings on or the lack of blood, but either way the world seemed to be glowing around the edges. That couldn’t be natural.
“Did you see–” I started to say, but my words seemed to make the glowing even worse.
PRESENT DAY “You know Father,” I said, turning to Father Antonio. “I don’t think that’s a story to leave until another time. I think that’s a story for right now.”
I wasn’t quite sure what it was that pushed me to the sudden confrontation, but I was just getting tired of all of the being lied to. Of not remembering or not being told what I should know. So I was going to get some answers.