how bad it was. She was loving by nature. Maybe Nathan was too. Very likely so, as Rachel and Esther had said he was.
“It’s just as I thought,” I said.
The old man waited on me in silence.
“Gregory used the necklace to lure Nathan to him. Gregory published that stupid story of the stolen necklace so that Nathan would call him, and he could persuade Nathan to meet with him and stay with him. Nathan prepared you for his prolonged absence. Gregory put him up to this. I will do everything in my power to see that Nathan is returned unharmed. I can’t stay with you now. Will you give me your blessing, all of you? I won’t linger begging for it, but if you want to give it, I will receive it with love in the name of the Lord. My name is Azriel.”
They cried out, throwing up their hands and backing away. It was the fear of knowing the name of a spirit, though I hadn’t expected such alarm at this point. I put my hands to my temples and thought again, “Yield to me the words! Yield to me the words. I know my name is not evil.”
Then I declared, “I was named Azriel by my father when I was circumcised in our own house of prayer at Babylon. We were the last tribes taken hostage out of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The name was good enough for God and for the Tribe and for my father! Nabonidus was King and we practiced our faith in peace under his rule. We sang the Lord’s Song in that strange land every day.”
A great flush of energy passed through me, but again the memory lacked substance, color. I knew only that what I said was true, and that if I could solve this blasted mystery, this horror, then perhaps in time I could recall other things, just as I had recalled this, and all my past would come to me. Not in hatred, but in love. I was now fascinated by love. No doubt of it.
They fell to murmuring, it is his Hebrew name, it is his human name, it is his own name blessed by God, and some arguing that to know my name only gave them power over me and others whispered that I was an angel.
Then with a nod from the Rebbe, they all gave me their blessings. I felt nothing, but at least I didn’t dislike them anymore; I loved them and saw them for what they were and feared all the more for Nathan.
“But what is Gregory doing?” the Rebbe whispered, more to himself than to me.
“I don’t know,” I admitted again. “But Nathan is an identical twin, is he not? And your grandson Gregory would be the Messiah, would he not? He would change the whole world.”
The old man was perplexed and horrified.
I asked, “If I need you, for Nathan’s sake, for the sake of the love of all God’s creatures, will you come?”
“Yes,” said the Rebbe.
I was about to walk out of the room. But I decided for obvious reasons that it was best to vanish. I did so slowly so as to amaze them, growing transparent, rising, extending my arms, then vanishing altogether. I don’t think they saw the tiny bits of moisture all through the air. They probably only felt the coolness and then the heat when a spirit vanishes.
I left them staring solemnly at the place where I’d stood. I wanted desperately to comfort Sarah, whom I saw crying at the kitchen table, but there was no way, no time.
I went up higher and higher.
“Gregory!” I said, and I set my destination to that place where the Master of the Bones might be—his Temple. To search, as a spirit, for Nathan was impossible. I had never laid eyes on him, caught his scent, seen or touched him or his garments. He might have been sleeping in one of those rooms in the Temple which I roamed, invisibly, the night before. But I had not lingered on faces. There had been hundreds of faces.
Go to Gregory. The danger to Nathan was with his brother, and that was where I had to be now. I had one comforting thought. Whatever was in store for Nathan had probably not transpired yet.
On the other hand, the people in the Temple had been working full speed on the project called the Last Days.
23
A huge mob surrounded the Temple of the Mind. I came down into it invisible, amid the cameras and the radio people and understood that Gregory Belkin was to appear to make a momentous statement at six p.m. or before and that he knew the identity of his enemies and the enemies of the Temple. He intended to name his terrorist enemies and try to prevent their new plan of destruction.
The crowd spilled out, blocking Fifth Avenue, and many of the Minders, virtually pushed away by the press, were in the park praying.
I went up and into the building and found Gregory seated in a huge room with five men, amid the big electric maps and numerous monitors, and he was hard at work going over the final directions. The room itself was soundproof, and before I made myself visible I saw that no camera monitored the room itself. All monitors revealed the outside, and the walls in the rooms didn’t have ears either.
As I descended, Gregory spoke:
“Nothing will happen until two hours after I’m declared officially dead—” he said, and these words immediately galvanized me.
I appeared in my full Babylonian robes of blue velvet and gold, and my long hair and beard, and I snatched him up from the chair.
The men raced at me, and I threw them back. Through another door came a small group of heavily armed soldiers. Someone fired a gun. Gregory shouted no. No. This little cadre of ruthless guards surrounded me with powerful modern guns, the kind that fix you in a beam of light before they shoot you. All these men had the look of killers.
As for those who had been gathered at the table, they were the milder sort, though equally as serious, that included the Mastermind Doctor, and they reeked of resentment and suspicion and absolute desperation that I had interrupted them.
“No, be calm,” said Gregory. “This is inevitable and this will not stop us. This is an angel sent from God to help us.”
“Is that so?” I said. “What have you done with your brother? If you don’t talk the truth to me, I’ll tear you limb from limb and all these men will die with you. That’s the only alternative you give me. What is this about your official death? Talk now, or I will destroy.”
Gregory sighed and then he told the other men to go. “Everything will go as planned; only this angel needs to know the scope of his power,” he said. “Go on, man your desks in the building and see that my brother is comfortable and not afraid. Everything will be glorious. We are in the time of miracles. This creature you see here is a miracle from God. Say nothing to anyone.”
The men at the table left with amazing speed, but the soldiers took a little more firm persuading from him that he knew what he was doing.
I flung him back down in his chair.
“You lying monster,” I said. “How could you tell the world I killed your wife and your daughter? Tell me now where Nathan is, tell me now what you mean to do.”
I scanned the monitors all along the tops of the walls. They covered entryways, the lobby, elevators that were not in operation. I could see nothing but empty space in most. And guards passing.
The maps were dazzling and filled with pulsing neon colors, countries done in scarlet and yellow and rivers drawn in light like lightning. But there was no time to admire these things.
“Haven’t you guessed it, clever spirit?” he said. He smiled up at me. “How glad I am to see you. What took you so long? I need you, and time is running out.”
“I know you’re going to do something with your brother,” I said, “put him in your place to be killed, so that you can rise from the dead! That much is easy to figure and six is the hour you’ve marked for it. Six or before, what does that mean? I want your brother now, safe and in my arms to be taken back to his people.”
“No, you don’t, Azriel,” he said with great reasonableness, his confidence flaring up in him like an unquenchable fire. “Sit down and let me tell you what is to happen. You cannot imagine the beauty of it, and Nathan will suffer no pain. He is sedated and hardly knows what will happen to him.”
“I’m sure he is!” I said with great contempt, and a memory came back to me of people giving me something
