The Reincarnationist (4 page)

Taking a long breath, Rudolfo looked down at the creature. “Oh, Bella. What secrets do you have?” The professor got down on his knees and leaned toward her.

“Talk to me, my Belladonna,” he whispered in an intimate voice.

Josh experienced a flash of a completely unfounded and unexpected emotion: a white-hot surge of jealousy unlike anything he'd ever felt for any lover he'd ever had. He wanted to rush over and pull Rudolfo away, to tell him he had no business leaning in so close, no right to get so
near to her. Josh hadn't known that this corpse even existed an hour before, but his recollections had taken over and in his mind he saw muscles appearing, then being covered by flesh, the flesh plumping out her face, neck, hands, breasts, hips, thighs and feet, all coming to life, her lips pinking, her eyes being colored a deep blue. The remnants of her coppery cotton robe turned white as they'd been years before. Only her long and wavy red hair remained the same—parted in the middle and braided into two ropes that hung past her shoulders.

She was a corpse now, skin like leather and brittle bones, but once…once…she'd been beautiful. A million images crashed inside his head. Centuries of words he'd never heard before. One louder than the rest. He snatched it out from the cacophony.

Sabina.

Her name.

“I'
m not sure you believe the story you just told me, but I believe it,” the professor said after Josh told an abbreviated version of what had happened to him in the past sixteen months and how he had come to be there so early that morning. “Every time you looked at her, I could tell there was something else you were seeing. I knew there was some connection more than just curiosity.” He seemed inordinately pleased with himself.

Yes, in the gloomy light, if Josh squinted, the mummy was almost a living woman crouched there in the corner, not a sixteen-hundred-year-old shell whose sleep had recently been disturbed.

A breeze from the opening to the tomb whooshed through the space, and a single wisp of a curl escaped from her braids.

She'd always been so proud of how she looked, of being well kept; how she'd hate that her hair had come undone. He could see her unbraiding it, turning it into a glorious jasmine-and-sandalwood-perfumed silk tent that covered them both as they kissed in the dark, in secret, under the trees. Her hair fell on his cheeks, his lips and
twisted in and out of his fingers: it was the thread that wove them together, that would keep them from ever separating.

He didn't think about what he was doing, it happened too fast, he simply reached out and grasped the curl and—

“No,” the professor shouted as he pulled Josh's arm away. “She is fragile. That she is still intact is a miracle. If you touch her, she might break. Do you understand?”

The sensation of her hair on his fingers was almost more than Josh could bear. Turning away, rubbing his hands together, he found and then focused on the ancient oil lamp, blackened with soot on the ground. It looked as if she'd pushed it as close as she could get it to the alcove in the wall, at that discolored patch of earth.

The gates in his mind opened an inch wider. Josh's head throbbed with the new rush of information. He needed to go deeper into the lurches instead of skimming them, but he could only be in one place at a time. Then or now. Not both.

Give in to it. Concentrate on what happened. Long ago. Long ago, right here. What happened here?

Josh, oblivious to the professor's warnings that he might be defiling the dig, fell to his knees and clawed at the dirt wall with his bare hands. He had something to prove. To her. To himself. He didn't know what it was—only that something that lay behind this partition would vindicate him.

“What are you doing?” the professor asked, horrified. “Stop!”

As if the dream had become reality and the reality had slipped away, Josh only vaguely heard the professor cautioning him to stop, barely felt the man's hands trying to pull him back. The man's protestations didn't matter. Not anymore.

The dirt was packed tightly, but once he dug the first
few handfuls out the rest was easier to break through. The wall, which was only four or five inches thick, three-and-a-half-feet tall and three feet wide, broke apart in chunks, revealing what appeared to be the opening of a tunnel. A piece of rock ripped the skin on his left palm, but he couldn't stop, he was almost there.

A gush of cool, stale air rushed toward him.

Ancient air.

Sixteen-hundred-year-old molecules and particles filled his lungs, along with the scents of jasmine and sandalwood. He climbed in, despite the claustrophobia that reached out and grabbed hold of him and the out-of-control panic that threatened his progress. Sweating suddenly, now gasping for breath, he desperately wanted to turn around, but the pull of the tunnel was more powerful than the paranoia.

The space only accommodated him on all fours. So, on his hands and knees, he crawled forward, immediately engulfed in darkness, and sadness crushed him as if the air itself was weighted down with it. He struggled on slowly, going five yards in, ten yards in, then twenty and then twenty-five. The professor continued calling out for Josh to stop, but he couldn't: there was an end point somewhere up ahead and he needed to reach it.

He navigated a turn, gulping for air, and froze, incapable of moving. It would be easier to die now than to go forward. Picturing the dirt that surrounded him, he saw it coming loose, breaking free, raining down on him. So real was the manifestation of his fear, he could taste the grit in his mouth, feel it in his nostrils, closing up his throat.

But something important waited for him up ahead. More important than anything else in the world.

“Stop, stop!” Rudolfo yelled, his voice coming from a far distance, distorted and echoing.

Oh, how he wanted to, but he managed another five yards.

The professor's voice reached him, but more faintly now. “What if there is a drop and you can't see it? What if you fall? I can't get to you.”

No, and that was one of the fears that plagued him now. A sudden break, a hollow cave beneath this one, a descent into subterranean darkness.

He sensed the energy in the tunnel and let it pull him forward. Almost alive, it begged him to come, to come deeper into its shadows, to explore what was waiting, what had been waiting for so damn long.

“Come back at least and get a flashlight…. What you are doing is dangerous….”

Of course, the professor was right. Josh had no idea what lay ahead, but he was too close now to turn back, not sure that if he did he would find the nerve to start over.

He moved forward another foot and then he felt it. Something long and hard under his fingers. Trying to identify it through touch, he examined its contours and its circumference.

A long stick? Some kind of weapon?

The surface was slightly pitted. It wasn't wood. Or metal.

No. He knew through logic and through a primordial instinct.

It was bone.

Human bone.

New York City—Tuesday, 2:00 a.m.

F
our months after her aunt's unexpected death from a heart attack, Rachel Palmer learned that a woman who lived in her building was assaulted on the stoop as she fished in her bag for her keys. Much to her chagrin, Rachel couldn't shake how uncomfortable she felt in the brownstone after that: always looking over her shoulder when she opened the front door, rushing up the stairs, quickly throwing the bolt behind her and never sleeping through the night. When she mentioned that she was going to start looking for another place, her uncle Alex suggested she temporarily move into his palatial duplex at Sixty-Fifth and Lexington.

Even though he never said it or showed it, she knew he was lonely—Alex and her aunt Nancy had been inseparable the way certain childless couples can be—and even though he was only sixty-two-years old, Rachel sensed it was going to be a long time before he sought the companionship of another woman.

Rachel's father had abandoned her mother when she
was a child, and Alex had stepped in, becoming much more to her than an uncle. Now she was glad to keep him company and enjoy the inviolability the building's doorman plus her uncle's round-the-clock security system gave her.

Without realizing it, Rachel got used to the companionship, and in the past two days since Alex had left for a week-long business trip to London and Milan, she'd had trouble getting to sleep. Having given up for the night, she was in bed with the lights on, simultaneously watching an old movie on television, sipping a glass of white wine and reading the next morning's news on her laptop.

The noise emanating from the television disappeared. The lights in the bedroom dimmed. Rachel tried to keep reading, tried to stay in bed, feel the sheets under her hands, pillows at her back, but deep inside of her, her heart fluttered, raced; the promise of understanding gave her a physical thrill. A whole world that she didn't know anything about presented itself like an uncut diamond. All she needed to do was step forward and explore it.

Entering, she was bedazzled by a scene that glittered in hyper-realistic sunshine. Warmth surrounded her and held her, cosseting her like a summer wind. Comforted and excited at the same time. The radiance was inside her now, and she felt light, so light she was flying, moving faster and faster and at the same time aware of each sensation as if it was happening in very slow motion.

The sun burned her cheeks. The smell of the heat filled her nostrils. Her body hummed as if she were an instrument someone played. She heard music, but it didn't have anything to do with tones or keys or chords or melody. It was pure rhythm. Her heart changed its beat to keep pace. Her breathing altered to the new timing.

Then it was cold. Shivering, she peered through a glass door, through a crack in the curtains, spying on two men, both hunched over a desk.

“This is what I came to Rome for. What I gave up hope I'd ever find,” said the one she knew well, though she couldn't remember his name.

Then she saw the magic colored stones and their reflections. Flashes of blue and green lights filled her with a desperate pleasure. It was a drug. She wanted to stand there and try to understand how they melded into each
other, creating a hundred new shades: a rainbow of emerald melting into peacock blue melting into cobalt melting into sea green melting into sage melting into teal, into red, burgundy and crimson.

“This is important, a real find.” The man's voice was hard like the edges of the stones and she felt little cuts on her skin where his words touched her. She didn't care if she bled. She wanted to be part of this moment and this pain and this excitement. It surpassed anything that had ever happened to her before.

And then it was over.

Dizzy, Rachel put her head back and stared up at the ceiling. Her skin was burning hot. How long had the episode lasted? A half hour?

She picked up her wine. No, the glass was still cold.

Only minutes?

Except it seemed so real, so much more real than any daydream she'd had before. It wasn't just an image stuck in her head. She thought she'd been sucked through time and space and had been somewhere else for a moment, not
seeing
the scene played out but
being
part of it.

Leaving her bedroom, she walked down the sweeping staircase and headed toward the kitchen. She needed something stronger than wine. She wished her uncle was home so she could tell him what had happened; it was the kind of thing he'd be fascinated by. No, nothing had happened. She must have been tired, after all, fallen asleep without knowing it, dreamed the villa and the man and the colors.

After pouring a brandy, she took a few sips, the fiery liquid stinging her eyes and burning the back of her throat, and then, instead of going back to her bedroom, she went into her uncle's den and sat down at his desk. She felt safer there, surrounded by all his books. That was
when she noticed, tucked into his desk blotter so that it was hardly noticeable, a corner of newsprint.

She pulled it out.

Tomb Possibly Dates Back 1600 Years.

Rachel shivered as she read the dateline. This story had been filed two weeks ago, in Rome, by that same reporter. No, there was nothing portentous about Alex tearing out this article. He was a collector. Tombs yielded ancient artifacts. The house was filled with objets d'art. She was overreacting. It was just a coincidence.

Wasn't it?

What else could it be?

Rome, Italy—Tuesday, 7:45 a.m.

J
osh felt a sharp, searing, twisting pain in his middle. Taking his breath away. Stunning him with its intensity. He broke out in a second cold sweat. The pain worsened. He needed to get out of the tunnel; his panic was making it almost impossible for him to breathe. If he hyperventilated now he might suffocate, and the professor was too old and too slow to get to him in time. He needed to get out now.

But he couldn't turn around. The space was too narrow. How was that possible? He'd gotten here, hadn't he?

He sat back on his haunches and reached out both of his hands, feeling for the walls on either side. His fingers hit dirt almost immediately. The tunnel must have narrowed as it continued without him being aware of it.

The reality of the darkness descended on him. He was fully conscious and present. The smell of the dank air nauseated him and he was suddenly, inexplicably sure he was going to die in this tunnel. Now. Any minute. In this small, narrow space that was not big enough for a man to turn around in.

A small rock came loose and pinged him on the shoulder. What if his presence caused an avalanche of stone, and he became trapped in this passageway to hell? His chest tightened and his breathing became increasingly labored. He tried a series of contortions but couldn't manage to turn.

His panic heightened.

A few deep breaths.

A full minute of focusing on one fact: he'd gotten this far, that meant he would be able to get out.

Of course. Just go backward. Don't try to turn now. Don't turn until the space widens again.

The gripping frenzy broke, the anxiety vanished and Josh became aware of a very different pain. The tunnel was filled with rubble. Small pebbles and sharp stones ripped his palms, pressed down deep to the bone in his knees. He held his hands up to his face, forgetting for a minute that there was no light—he couldn't see what he'd done to his flesh but could guess from the overpowering sweet smell of blood. Struggling out of his shirt, he banged his head on the tunnel's roof. Ripping the fabric with his teeth, he used the strips to wrap around both of his bleeding palms. There was nothing he could do for his knees.

Crawling backward was awkward and slow going, and he'd only gone a few feet when he heard the voices: the professor and another man were speaking in loud, rapid Italian. Something about the cadence made him think they were arguing.

Moving steadily, doing his best to ignore the pain, he finally reached the point where he could turn around. After that he moved faster, and seconds later rounded a curve. Ahead was a straightaway at the end of which he could see the interior of the tomb.

The professor stood in pale yellow lantern light, fists
by his sides, facing someone Josh couldn't see but could hear. The stranger's voice was cruel and demanding. The professor's response was angry and defiant. No translation was necessary. The professor was in jeopardy.

Josh crawled forward another foot. Then another.

The stranger crossed in front of the tunnel opening and became somewhat visible. From his clothing, he looked like the man guarding the site whom Josh had encountered when he'd first arrived.

Nothing to worry about, then.

Except they continued to argue; hot words were flung back and forth so rapidly that even if Josh had spoken basic Italian, he wouldn't have been able to understand.

The shouting escalated and the professor tried to push the guard away, but the man stepped back adroitly and Rudolfo lost his balance, falling to the ground. The guard put his foot on the professor's chest.

It was almost impossible to crawl faster. There was too much debris in the tunnel, and despite the makeshift bandages, his wounds throbbed. But he must. This was tied to the past, a chance for Josh to right a wrong. It was inches from his reach, almost within his grasp.

A stone pierced the skin on his right knee. Involuntarily, Josh swore under his breath. Then he froze. The only chance he had to stop whatever was going on was to take the guard by surprise.

Then everything happened so quickly that he would have missed it if he'd glanced away for five seconds, but his eyes were riveted to the action. He just wasn't fast enough to stop any of it. The entire tomb was in his sight now. Far away still, but visible.

The guard leaned down, bent over the ancient corpse and snatched the fruitwood box out of her arms.

“No, no…” The professor clawed at the guard,
jumping on him like an angry monkey, grabbing at him, for the box.

As if the professor were a mere annoyance, the large man flung Rudolfo off. The professor landed on the ground, close to the mummy. Too close. His arm hit her and her head fell forward—she was in danger of coming apart. Rudolfo let out an agonized scream and rushed to her side. But before he could reach her, the guard kicked her with his heavy boot and her intact form splintered at the waist with a sickening crack.

While the professor kneeled at Sabina's side, the guard opened the fruitwood box, pulled out what looked like a leather pouch, shook its contents into his hand, pocketed whatever he'd found and then hurled the box at the professor. It hit his shoulder and broke apart, the pieces flying into the air and then landing haphazardly.

Josh was only ten yards away, planning on how he was going jump out, take the man by surprise, tackle him and get back what he'd taken.

Hand forward.

Knee forward.

Hand forward.

Knee forward.

Rudolfo stood, dizzy, rocking back and forth. The guard hurried toward the ladder.

With only a few feet left to go, Josh inched steadily forward. The way the tunnel was angled he could see the whole scene, and he watched with growing dread as the professor rushed toward the opening of the tomb.

The guard had started up the ladder.

Rudolfo tried to grab hold of the man's shirt, to pull him down, to stop him.

The guard pushed the professor's hand away as if it were nothing more than an insect and took another step up.

Not ready to give up, Rudolfo took hold of the ladder's wooden dowels and tried to shake the guard loose.

Josh had two, maybe three yards to go.

The guard stopped climbing—he was halfway up now, and he just stood there, staring down at Rudolfo, and then he pulled out his gun.

The professor took a step up the ladder.

The guard's finger teased the trigger.

Josh was almost at the entrance of the tunnel, and just as he screamed an agonized “no” in warning, the gun went off, causing an enormous explosion in the small tomb and drowning out his warning. Behind him, he heard a rumble and then the sound of heavy rain. No. Not rain. Rocks. Some parts of the tunnel's walls were collapsing in on themselves. And in front of him, he saw the professor fall on his back on the hard, cold, ancient mosaic floor.