Ground Zero

13

Mother . . .

The word breathed in his mind, filled it, flooded it, owned it.

Not his mother, not anyone’s mother, just an idea of mother. And he wanted her.

She was a glowing speck in his vision, dead ahead, but far ahead, miles ahead.

He came to a wall. He could see the bright mother speck against the bricks. He turned and walked along until he cleared the wall, then he turned and faced the speck again. He continued his journey toward it . . . toward her.

For he must reach her. Nothing else mattered. His wants, his needs, his dreams, none of that mattered. Not even his name mattered.

His name . . . he was pretty sure it was “Darryl.” He’d heard people say that word to him. He remembered being sick and wanting a cure, but the memory of just what kind of sickness he’d had was lost to him now.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore but Mother. He had to find her, embrace her, clutch her to him.

And then he would be well. Then he would be clean and whole, and all the world would be renewed.

He picked up speed.

I’m coming, Mother.

14

“Where the fuck is he going?” Thompson said in a peeved tone. “We must have walked ten miles already.”

Ernst glanced at him. Sweat beaded his face. The hair at the nape of his neck was dark with moisture.

“More like half that,” Ernst said, but he knew how Thompson felt.

The heat of the day was growing and he was not dressed for this sort of activity. He’d unbuttoned his vest and loosened his collar, but none of that had helped. Plus he wasn’t used to physical activity. He wished he’d done more to stay in shape.

Darryl had led them up Bowery and then up Broadway through Times Square. Now he seemed headed toward Central Park. The stores weren’t open yet, so car and pedestrian traffic were light. Good thing. Because Darryl did not stop for anything. He seemed to have a specific destination in mind and was relentless in his progress toward it. He paid no heed to WALK or DON’T WALK signals, simply stepped off the curb and into the street without breaking stride, sometimes to a chorus of shrieking tires, blaring horns, and screamed curses. He didn’t seem to notice. His pale skin, sunken eyes, stained clothing, and stiff, plastered-down hair lent him a frightening look that caused the scattered Sunday morning pedestrians to allow him plenty of room.

As they neared Central Park South, the street and pedestrian traffic thickened. Something was going to happen. A collision with a car or a person seemed inevitable.

“Maybe we should walk ahead of him,” Ernst said.

Thompson nodded. “Just thinking the same thing. Only a matter of time before—”

A woman screamed and fell away from Darryl, dropping to her knees and clutching her forearm as a teacup-size puff of scarlet smoke evaporated in the air between them.

“My arm!” she wailed. “He burned my arm!”

Ernst hurried past without looking at her, his eyes fixed on Darryl’s back. He edged by those deadly swinging arms and positioned himself a dozen feet in front of him. He began waving his own arms as he matched his pace to Darryl’s.

“Make room! Make room! Coming through!”

He didn’t know how badly that woman was hurt, but had no doubt Emergency Services would be called. Police would arrive with them, and soon they’d be searching for Darryl. The last thing needed now was a melee between Darryl and the NYPD. He didn’t think anyone or anything could stop Darryl, but they could impede him, throw him off course, perhaps make him miss a window of opportunity for whatever he was supposed to accomplish.

They’d have a much harder time finding him without a trail of wounded pedestrians to follow.

People seemed to be listening to him, because they were moving to the sides to let him pass. Ernst kept glancing over his shoulder to check on Darryl’s position. He wanted to keep a safe distance between them.

He came to 58th Street. The orange don’t-walk hand was lit. He knew Darryl would ignore it. He looked left and saw a black stretch limo racing his way, trying to make the light. Another backward glance shot Ernst’s heart rate into the stratosphere: Darryl and the limo were on a collision course.

He stepped out into the street and began waving at the car, but it didn’t slow. If anything, it picked up speed as it began to honk at him. Darryl was closer now. Ernst held his ground and waved his arms more frantically. The car never slowed. The honks became one prolonged blare. The maniac was going to hit him.

Ernst jumped out of the way just as Darryl stepped off the curb and into the street.

15

“Oh, my God,” Weezy said. “He’s been through pure hell.”

As they’d strolled through Central Park, the Lady had covered the past year or so of Jack’s life—sketching the succession of betrayals and treachery, the circumstances of Kate’s and his father’s deaths, Tom’s mysterious fate, but going into detail about what had happened to Vicky, Gia, and their baby just this past January. Eventually they’d reached the Turtle Pond and settled there.

They’d chosen a spot near the water’s edge. The grass had been worn thin by the countless feet trampling it day after day, but that changed as soon as the Lady seated herself on the ground. Weezy watched in amazement as the anemic, beaten-down blades closest to her began to thicken and green and straighten. The rejuvenation spread in a slowly widening ripple until the grass for about a hundred feet in all directions looked like a carefully manicured lawn.

And then the turtles began to leave the water and approach. Soon a couple of dozen clustered around her, stretching their necks from their shells to stare at her.

But that didn’t last. They’d had the lawn pretty much to themselves when they arrived, but now people were begi

Weezy watched them swim with their heads above the surface toward the island at the center of the pond. Birds were circling and landing there. Not far away a snowy egret stood frozen in the shallows, eyes fixed on the water, waiting for breakfast to swim by. Nearby a man was trying to help his son launch a kite but the breeze was too gentle to keep it aloft.

Granite-walled Belvedere Castle with its conical tower loomed on the opposite shore atop Vista Rock, while the horseshoe of the Delacorte Theater sat empty to their right. She remembered dragging Steve there years ago to see Hamlet at the a

A lump formed in her throat as she remembered how he’d said he’d hated reading Shakespeare in school and she’d countered that the plays were meant to be seen and heard, not read. He’d come away a fan.

If only he could be here beside her now, with the Lady, learning the secrets behind the Secret History.

Weezy gestured around her. “All this peace and beauty. It’s all stage dressing, isn’t it. Built to keep us from knowing about the dark turmoil that lurks behind it all.”

“No,” the Lady said. “It’s real enough. It’s simply not the only reality. And it is just as well that what is on the other side is hidden. Revealing it would cause only panic and misery.”

“But people deserve the truth, don’t they?”

She shrugged her thin, stooped shoulders. “Why? Because you think knowledge is power? It isn’t. Behind all this is an ugly truth they are powerless to do anything about.”

Weezy couldn’t—wouldn’t buy that.

“Then why am I parsing the Compendium? Why is Jack somewhere out there trying to find the Fhi