Shit was about to get very real.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” I said.
“Let me come with you.”
“You can’t. He’s at the library. And, I think I need to face this myself. But can I come over right after?”
“If you want to go home,” Levi said, “be in your own space, be with Priya, someone who’s been there with you all these years in dealing with Adam’s absence, I won’t be hurt.”
“I want to be with you.” I kissed him quickly, but he hauled me back against him, taking his time until I clutched dizzily at his shirt front.
“Now you can go,” he said smugly.
“You’re a bastard.”
“Good. When you get back, we can fight about that fact and then have really good make-up sex.”
“Get real. I’m not forgiving you that easily. We’ll have really good hate sex first.”
He lay his hand on my cheek. “Thank you for not being dead.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you for breaking Jonah’s face. And take Miles home to watch over you.”
I slid the ring on my finger and disappeared.
Rafael was practically levitating, he was so excited. His eyes sparkled behind his slightly askew glasses, his short hair sticking out in tufts as if he’d been pulling at it.
The library looked like a bomb had gone off. There were Attendant records strewn all over the table, from the very ancient to the most modern, along with reams of loose leaf paper and a variety of colored pens.
He dragged me over to the table and pushed me into a chair. “I did it.”
“Can I get some tea?” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Tea? Generally served in one of your frou-frou little cups, preferably with something sweet to accompany it. Your host skills were subpar on that front last time.” I didn’t give a damn about the tea. I was stalling.
Rafael glanced about him, bewildered. “You really want tea? I don’t have any here and I can’t remember what I have at home.”
I sighed. There was no putting off the truth. “What did you find?”
He rummaged amongst all the books. “I got to thinking. Chariot took its name from the Old Testament. What if the members took their codenames from there as well? I found…” He picked up an older leather-bound volume. “Right. Here it is. Remember I mentioned how we had another codename? It’s 34E13.”
“Yes. Number, letter, number. I don’t see what it stands for, though.”
“Ah, but throw in the Old Testament.” He bounced on his toes.
“Still not following.”
“The five books of Pentateuch. It occurred to me that the letters might correspond to the various books. Thus the E in 34E13 refers to Exodus.”
“And the numbers?”
“Quotes. Generally when a passage is cited it would be written like this.” He grabbed a red pen and scrawled Exodus 34:13. “They rearranged it a bit. If you were going to use it as a codename, you wouldn’t want to be obvious about it.”
“Heaven forbid. Okay, lay it on me. What’s the quote?”
“Exodus 34:13.” He cleared his throat. “‘Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.’”
I slammed my hands down on the table. “You. Are. Shitting. Me.”
“I’m not. I assure you. This has to be the key.”
“It does. But does it give us their identity?”
He frowned. “I’m still working on that part.”
“You’re doing brilliantly. Truly,” I said. “What’s the quote corresponding to 26L1?”
“Ah. That one comes from Leviticus.” Grinning, he pushed his glasses up his nose, totally unaware of the tsunami he’d unleashed with the word Leviticus, now barreling toward me to upend my life.
He babbled on as he found the correct passage. I tried to shut him up, but I couldn’t get anything other than a faint squeak out.
“Aha!” Rafael said. He didn’t notice me frantically waving my hands. “Leviticus 26:1. ‘You must not make idols for yourselves or set up a carved image or sacred pillar, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, For I am the Lord your God.’”
The quote on the clock.
A pained sound from deep in my belly escaped me as I bent over, my fists pressed into my stomach. I gagged on the taste of bile, then jumped up, barely making it to the trash can before I vomited.
Rafael stared at me, the book forgotten in his hand. “Ashira? Are you still injured?”
I wiped my mouth. “26L1 is Isaac Montefiore. Levi’s father.”
Chapter 28
Hope is a funny thing. It forces parents to sit by the phone years after their child has gone missing, just in case. It causes spouses trapped in loveless marriages to have a baby—like that can save them.
It found me cramped in an economy seat, flying back to Antigua to see Paulie, seeking a miracle that would make this nightmare disappear.
I’d been too cowardly to talk to Levi, texting that I’d been wrong. Rafael desperately needed my help breaking the codename and we’d be working late into the night. I used my own funds to buy the ticket.
Levi had barely just been saved. He’d been willing to go to his darkest place when he thought that I’d died, and I’d only started to mean something to him. Isaac, for all his many faults, was his father.
Even if I could convince Levi not to go after Isaac in retaliation for killing Adam, Levi wasn’t a fool. He’d know immediately that his dad wasn’t merely supporting a party that intended to impose legislative control on all Nefesh. The rumors around the vials, the virus, abducting kids in Levi’s home territory—Isaac was engaged in a systematic and ruthless takedown of his only son.
The darkness Levi had unleashed in the wake of me going to Sheol would be mild cloud cover on a summer’s day. He was
