picked up the well-worn book he’d been reading last night when his anticipation of what today would bring had kept him awake, Theosophy by the nineteenth-century philosopher Rudolf Steiner. There were always new books being published on the subject that mattered so much to him—he bought and read them all—but it was the thinkers of the past centuries whom he responded to and returned to so often: the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Walt Whitman, Longfellow; the prose of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and so many more who engaged, reassured and aided him in amending and revising his own ever-evolving theories. They were his touchstones, these great minds that he could only know through their words. So many brilliant men and women who had believed what he believed.
He let the book fall open to the soft leather bookmark with his initials stamped on the cordovan in gold, at the beginning of a chapter titled “The Soul in the World of Souls after Death.” He’d underlined several paragraphs and he reread them now.
There follows after death a period for the human spirit in which the soul casts off its weakness for its physical existence in order then to behave in accordance with the laws of the world of the spirit and the soul alone, and to free the mind. It is to be expected that the longer the soul was bound to the physical the longer this period will last… .
His right hand returned to the brass buttons on the chair. The metal was cool to the touch. There was not much he’d ever lusted after the way he craved these stones. Once he had them, oh, the knowledge he would gain. The mysteries he would solve. The history he could learn. And more than that.
He read the next paragraph, in which Steiner described how great a pain the soul suffered through its loss of physical gratification and how that condition would continue until the soul had learned to stop longing for things that only a human body could experience.
What would it be like to reach the level of not longing? A pure level of thought, of experiencing the oneness of the universe? The ultimate goal of being reincarnated?
He looked up from the page and over at the phone, as if willing the call to come. It was a simple burglary: the professor was elderly. He would be there alone. It was just a matter of overpowering him and taking the box. A child could accomplish it. And if a child could do it, an expert could certainly do it. And he was only hiring experts at every step of the way. The most expensive experts money could buy. For a treasure, for this treasure, was any price too high?
There was no reason to worry. The call would come when the job was done. The round brass buttons were warm once more. He moved his fingers over to the next two, relieved by the cold metal on his skin, and returned to the book.
Having reached this highest degree of sympathy with the rest of the world of the soul, the soul will dissolve in it, will become one with it … .
If he had proof of past lives, actual reassurance of future lives, what would he do with the knowledge first? Not torture or punish; he had no desire to cause pain or sorrow. Find lost treasure? Discover truths that had been turned into lies through history? Yes, all that in time, but the first thing he would—
The sound startled him, although he was expecting it, and he jerked forward in the chair. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t pick up on the first ring. He put the bookmark back in the book and closed it. Listening to the second ring, he took a satisfying breath. He’d waited for this for so long.
Lifting the receiver, he held it up to his ear.
“Yes?”
“It’s done,” said the man in heavily accented Italian.
“You’ll proceed to the next step?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He was ready to hang up, but the man spoke quickly. “There’s something I should tell you.”
He braced himself.
“We had a small accident, and—”
“No. Not on the phone. Report it through your contact.” He hung up and stood.
People were fools. He’d explained a dozen times how important it was that nothing revealing be discussed over the phone. Anyone could be listening. Besides, it didn’t matter if there’d been a small accident. Accidents happened, didn’t they? What mattered was that the stones were almost in his possession, at last.
Chapter 8
“Are you hurt?” Josh asked the professor.
“No, stunned, not hurt.”
He was on his back, lying on the mosaic floor, at the foot of the ladder.
“Here, let me help you. Are you sure he didn’t hit you?”
“It was so odd, looking up into the barrel of the gun, it was like looking into the night. Except a night as big as all the nights I’ve ever known. As big as all the nights Bella has slept all these sixteen hundred years.”
Rudolfo was having trouble straightening up; he was favoring one side of his body.
“Are you sure you are all right?”
He nodded. Concentrated. Frowned. And then looked down at his stomach.
The professor was wearing a dark blue shirt, and until that moment, in the low light inside the tomb, Josh had missed the spreading stain. But now they both saw it at the same time.
As carefully as he could, Josh pulled the professor’s shirt away from his body. The wound seeped blood. Snaking his fingers around Rudolfo’s back, he checked for an exit wound. He couldn’t find one. The bullet was still inside him.
Meanwhile, the professor kept talking. “Good timing for you,” he said. “If you hadn’t been in the tunnel you would be bleeding like a pig, too, eh?”
Except, Josh thought, if he’d been quicker, he might have prevented this. Hadn’t he thought this before?
“Bad timing for me,” the professor rambled. “I would have liked to have lived long enough to find out if what Gabriella and I have found … Find out if what Bella has been protecting all these years … is … is … as important as we think.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Josh put his fingers on the man’s wrist, looked at his own watch and counted.
“If I’d had a daughter …” the professor said, “she’d be just like her … tough as nails … with that one soft streak. She’s too much alone, though … all the time alone… .”
“Bella?” Josh asked, only half listening. The professor was losing blood too quickly; his pulse was too slow.
Rudolfo tried to laugh but only managed a grimace. “No. Gabby. This find … Her find … Something no one believed existed. But she was as cool as … What is your expression … Cool as … What is it?”
“Cool as? Oh. Cool as a cucumber.”
Rudolfo smiled faintly; he was visibly failing.
“Professor, I need to call for help. Do you have a phone?”
“Now we know … dangerous … what we found … . You’ll tell her, dangerous… .”
“Professor, do you have a phone? I need to call for help.”
“Did he take … all of the box, too?”
“The box?” Josh looked around and saw the pieces of it on the ground. “No. It’s still here. Professor, can you hear me? Do you have a phone? I need to call for help. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“The box … is here?” The idea seemed to buoy him.
“Yes. Professor, do you have a phone?”
“Jacket. Pocket.”
Finding