Another ripple, but it wasn’t laughter this time, and there wasn’t an amen within earshot. Instead, Batty saw enough startled frowns to know he’d hit a nerve. This wasn’t surprising, considering that Trinity Baptist College had been built on strict, orthodox beliefs, and few of the students here were brave enough to take the contrarian point of view.
But Batty had always liked to shake things up a bit. These kids had no earthly idea what was going on out there.
He, on the other hand, did—which was why he was currently about two drinks shy of a mid-afternoon bender.
“Milton based much of his epic poem on the book of Genesis,” he continued. “And in that book, God creates a perfect paradise, populates it with a nice young couple and puts them to work in His garden. They spend their days slaving away, doing whatever God commands—only there’s this Tree of Knowledge nearby, bearing some nice juicy fruit, and it looks pretty damn tempting.”
The fact that Batty could drink so much and still teach Religious Literature and Rhetoric without slurring his speech or falling flat on his face was something of a miracle. But he tried not to give it too much thought. If he did, he’d probably decide he wasn’t quite drunk
enough
.
Images from his nightmare still lingered—
—a screaming young girl consumed by a wall of fire.
He had awakened to those screams in the middle of the night last night, disoriented and concerned, wondering if what he’d seen was real, and suddenly reminded of his own private horror.
A horror he preferred not to relive.
He said to the class, “But temptation or no temptation, God tells this nice young couple, ‘No, no, no, you keep your hands off that tree. That knowledge stuff, that’s a bad thing. You just listen to me, let me do the thinking, and I’ll take good care of you.’ ”
Batty tried a smile, but figured it probably came off more like a grimace.
“Then along comes our new hero in the form of a serpent. He sees what’s what and doesn’t like it one bit. So he tells Eve, ‘You know what? You go on, take a bite of that fruit if you want to. You deserve to live a little.’ ”
“Is this supposed to be funny?”
The question came from several rows up, somewhere near the middle of the lecture hall, and Batty swiveled his head, wobbling slightly, trying to focus in on its source.
One of his graduate students. An angry little beignet with startling brown eyes.
Rebecca’s eyes, he thought, then immediately pushed the thought away as if it were tainted by something toxic.
He needed another drink. “I guess it
is
pretty funny. Because if it weren’t for our new hero, Eve never would’ve exercised the free will God granted her. And without free will, there’s no real purpose to life.”
Murmurs all around. None of them friendly.
“Without free will, we just follow rules. And what fun is that? No adventure, no quests, no glory, no passion, no redemption. All those things that make us human.” He paused. “Fortunately, somebody recognized that God’s Paradise was a flawed creation, and that Man was living under a kind of blissful tyranny. So he decided to do something about it.” Batty let his gaze sweep across the room. “And that, my friends, is the very definition of heroism.”
“Oh, really?” The beignet was on her feet now, a fierce little thing filled with the indignation of a True Believer. “And what did this so-called hero give us? The Holocaust? Disease? Gang violence?”
Batty shrugged. “Why stop there? What about poverty? Starving children? Endless war? The oil spill?
Katrina
?”
That last one, Batty knew, was a trigger point. Hurricane Katrina was Louisiana’s sorest of sore spots, had caused more pain and devastation than anyone here could remember, and the wounds were still festering, all these years later.
“Some might argue that the havoc Katrina brought us had more to do with God’s abandonment of Man than Man’s abandonment of Eden, and it doesn’t really negate my point. None of those things do.” He looked at the rest of the class. “Not everything in the Bible is black and white, ladies and gentlemen, which is why we’ve spent the last several centuries arguing about it. And I think John Milton himself understood this. He was a pious Puritan, but that didn’t keep him from authoring an epic about an anguished rebel rising up against an all-powerful tyrant. There’s no doubt his work was born out of a reaction to his times and his strong endorsement of regicide, but it makes you wonder if he knew something the rest of us don’t.” Batty paused. “Maybe he knew a true hero when he saw one.”
And that was when the dam broke.
Something nasty stirred in the air and several of the students joined the True Believer, shooting to their feet in protest, while others headed straight for the doors. Some began shouting at Batty, calling him a fool and a charlatan and a few choice names that would have made their grandmothers blush.
This wasn’t the first time he’d pissed them off, but it was the strongest reaction he’d ever managed to get from them. They were obviously fed up with his apparent lack of respect for their faith—an accusation he’d take issue with—and he didn’t suppose the distinct smell of Tullamore Dew oozing from his pores helped matters much.
He was about to tell them that he was simply trying to stimulate their stagnating intellects; that they should sit back down and
think
for once in their short, useless lives, when a familiar voice called out to him—
“Professor LaLaurie. May I see you in my office, please?”
And standing in the doorway, a scowl on her face, was the associate dean of Trinity Baptist College, one Edith Rose Stillwater, widow of the late Reverend Arthur Stillwater, Batty’s best friend and mentor.
Batty turned, gave her a tight smile and tried not to stagger.
This was not going to be pleasant.
P
oor Milton must be turning in his grave,” Edith said.
She sat behind the big oak desk she had inherited from her husband a little over a year ago, looking as if she had just bitten into a peach and discovered it was rancid.
Batty sank into a chair across from her. “Milton was a free thinker, Edith. He would have agreed with every word I said today. Arthur would have, too.”
“Oh, please. Arthur was a good Christian who believed in the word of God. Not the nonsense you were spewing.”
“He also had a world-class intellect. One he liked to use. Not everything he believed in was limited to the constipated mutterings of the gospel according to John Smyth.”
Edith stared at him. “Are you purposely trying to get yourself fired?”
Batty had spent so much time in self-destruct mode lately, he wasn’t sure he knew the answer to that. But he didn’t let it hold him back. “The only thing I do with any real sense of purpose these days is seek out liquid sustenance.”
“That’s fairly obvious. You smell like a distillery.”
Batty shrugged. “What can I say? Aftershave just doesn’t have the same kick.”
Edith sighed in exasperation. It was obvious she’d had more than enough of him and Batty couldn’t really blame her. Insolence and sarcasm were his first line of defense these days and he doled them out with the abandonment of a street-corner lunatic.
“For God’s sake, Sebastian. Why do you insist on being so contrary? Arthur loved you like a brother but I sometimes have to wonder why.”
“Not enough to fire me, apparently.”
“Believe me, I only hired you here out of loyalty to him. And call me a fool, but I still hold hope that time in a nurturing environment like this might help turn you around. Unfortunately, you seem to have gotten worse.”
“It’s the world that’s gotten worse, Edith. I’m just an observer.”
“An observer with one of the finest minds I’ve ever encountered—and I hate to see you waste it. I don’t know a practicing scholar in this country who has more insight into the history of religion and religious doctrine than you do.”
The point was arguable, but Batty certainly knew a lot more than he probably should.
Too
much knowledge—and the curiosity that goes along with it—can sometimes get you in trouble.
He’d learned that the hard way.
So had Rebecca.
“But your mind can only take you so far,” Edith continued, “and while there’s room for a certain amount of cynicism when it comes to matters of faith, you don’t always have to be so infuriatingly obnoxious about it.”
Batty shrugged again. “The kids love me. Didn’t you see the way they were cheering me—”
“Enough.”
Batty closed his mouth.
Sour
Edith had been abruptly replaced by
Stern
Edith, and he knew better than to wander down that alley.
“As much as I hate to do this,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to make this your last warning.”
“Didn’t you say that three or four warnings ago?”
“I’m deadly serious, Sebastian. Look at you, you can barely sit up straight. Are those bruises on your face?”
Batty said nothing. He vaguely remembered getting into a brawl last night. Or was that the night before? Fighting and fornicating were not exactly admirable pursuits in his line of work, but he’d done his share of both lately.
He caught Edith staring at the scars on his wrists. She shifted uncomfortably and averted her gaze. “I’ve been extremely patient with you, but that ends now. And if Arthur were here instead of me, he’d do exactly the same thing. So, please, for the sake of us all, sober up, get some help, and put your faith in God.”
That last bit flipped a switch inside Batty’s head. He thought of the night Rebecca died and no longer felt like being insolent or sarcastic or, as Edith had so delicately put it, infuriatingly obnoxious. He just stared at her, incredulous. “You want me to put my faith in God?”
“It was good enough for Arthur. It should be good enough for you.”
Batty felt fury rising inside him, but he tamped it down and leaned toward her. “Do you ever smell them, Edith?”
She looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“Rebecca did. And so do I sometimes. That was both our blessing and our curse.”
“What on earth are you talking about? What does Rebecca have to do with this?”
“Look around you, Edith. They’re among us. They look just like you and me, but that smell, it radiates off their bodies like pig shit on a farmer’s shoes.”
“You must be a lot drunker than I thought.”
“This has nothing to do with booze. The world isn’t what you think it is. Contrary to what this school teaches the mindless zealots who walk its halls every day, God lost interest in us a long time ago. And that book you preach doesn’t have all the answers. The sooner you accept that fact, the better off you’ll be.”
Edith’s whole body went stiff then, and Batty knew that he’d just kissed this job good-bye. Some people can’t deal with the truth.
Not that Batty was a shining example of someone who could. This was the third teaching position he’d burned through in the last two years, so his record wasn’t exactly stellar. But he was just trying to cope in the best way he knew how, and that didn’t sit well with some people. Including him.
Edith said nothing for a very long moment, then closed her eyes, and Batty assumed she was sending up a prayer.
Good luck getting an answer.
When she looked at him again, she said in a careful, measured tone, “I want you to take some time off, Sebastian. Starting now. And I want you to get some professional counseling. If it’s a matter of money, the college will pay for it.”
A charitable offer, but no amount of therapy in the world would bring Rebecca back. “And if I don’t?”
She sighed again. “Then may God have mercy on your pitiful soul.”
MIAMI, FLORIDA
S
he couldn’t remember what name to use.
Oh, she knew her
real
name. That one was easy. It was downright impossible to forget an albatross like Bernadette Imogene Callahan—as much as she might like to. But seeing as how she had passports issued to at least a dozen different identities, she sometimes felt as if she needed a Rolodex implanted in her brain just to keep track of...
. . . Wait now.
Stephanie.
Stephanie Hathaway.
Twenty-nine years old, newly divorced, using her alimony to travel the world. Had a layover in Dallas before heading into Miami where she spent the weekend at the Viceroy. Thought South Beach was pretentious and overpriced, but shopped there anyway.
Was that the one?
She was pretty sure it was.
Standing at the airport ticketing kiosk, she tuned out a lobby full of anxious travelers, then hit the touch screen and began keying in the letters:
H-a-t-h-a-