"Ruby to aquamarine," Zoe said, and slowly, carefully pressed first the ruby, then the aquamarine.

"'The sea touches the sky.' "

"Sapphire," she said.

"'From the sky falls the ice.'

"Diamond."

"'Fire melts the ice.'

"Fire opal ..."

"No, wait wait," Ry yelled, and he grabbed her hand just as her finger was within a hair's breath of pressing down. "I think we almost blew it. We should've pressed the ruby again. Then the opal."

"The riddle doesn't say that."

"I know. But if we're making an infinite loop, then we're crossing back through the center, and the ruby is in the center."

She wiped her hands on the sides of her jeans. "Oh, man, O'Malley. I hope you're right."

She hesitated a moment longer, then pressed the ruby and the fire opal, firmly but quickly, as if she didn't want to think about it too much and lose her nerve.

"Okay. Now, 'a storm drowns the fire.' "

"Iolite ..."

Ry had never heard of iolite, but the stone she pressed did fit the riddle's metaphor. It was a dark, purplish blue-gray color, like the belly of a thundercloud.

"'And rages through the night.'

""Onyx." She pressed the multifaceted black stone then finished off the riddle with him: "'But blood flows on into the sea without end.' ... Do you think that means we should push the ruby again?"

"Nothing's happened yet," Ry said, feeling a little sick inside, because he'd told her to press the ruby that second time. "So, yeah, go ahead. Push it."

She pushed, and they held their breath. Nothing happened.

Then there was a soft click and the skull's eye sockets slid open to reveal two holes carved into the wood. One was empty, but in the other was a tiny amulet of dark green gla.s.s shaped like a skull, and with a silver stopper.

It was exactly as Ry's father had described it, except it had no chain. Although the top of the silver did have a tiny loop for one. The amulet fitted so snugly into the hole that Zoe had to pry it out with her fingernails.

"Look, Ry ..." She held the amulet between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it up, toward the setting sun. The gla.s.s was etched with runelike marks and was about half-full with a dark, viscous liquid.

"The altar of bones."

Part Six: The Altar

44.

RY LOOKED from the amulet to Zoe's face. Her lips were parted and her eyes gleamed as brightly as the sun-struck gla.s.s. from the amulet to Zoe's face. Her lips were parted and her eyes gleamed as brightly as the sun-struck gla.s.s.

"Tell me you're not thinking about drinking from it," he said.

She shuddered. "G.o.d, no." BUT she lowered the amulet and cradled it in her hands against her chest, as if she were guarding it from him now, as well as the rest of the world. "But what if it's real, Ry? What if it could give us eternal life?"

"And make us crazy in the bargain?"

She shivered again, and Ry draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. It had grown cold now that the sun was setting.

"It's just a relic from the past," he said. "A piece of gla.s.s."

"With something inside of it, Ry. A liquid something."

"Which is still probably just some Siberian peasant's brew made of eye of newt and reindeer b.a.l.l.s."

Zoe half-laughed, half-sighed. "You're right. At least my head tells me you're right. The Siberian peasant part of me feels all shivery inside just looking at it."

He hugged her tighter against him. "It gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, too. I think part of its power, what we're feeling, comes from knowing people have killed over it, are killing even now, but that still doesn't prove that it will make you live forever. Only that others believe it can."

She grew quiet, staring down at the amulet in her hands. Then she looked up at him, a teasing light in her eyes. "Okay then, O'Malley. Why don't you put your mouth where your money is? You drink from it."

"Can't. I'm allergic to reindeer b.a.l.l.s."

She bit her lip to hold back a laugh, but it came out anyway. She leaned against him, laughing, and he felt the tension ease out of her. She turned her head into his neck, burrowed into him a moment, then pulled free, stood up on tiptoe, and gave him a hard, quick kiss on the mouth.

"What was that for?" he said.

"Being you."

He stared down into her upturned face. He wanted to make love to her again, slowly this time, deeply. He wanted her, every bit of her, so badly it scared him.

He took a step back, and she made a little jerking motion, as if she, too, had been caught up in the spell.

She looked away from him, up the empty road. The whole world was so still, so quiet, he could hear his own breathing, and hers.

"So," she said, her voice breaking a little. "What do we do now?"

"Go to St. Petersburg like we planned and hope like h.e.l.l that before we get there we come up with a brilliant plan of how to deal with Popov's son without getting ourselves killed. Also, I know a guy there who teaches molecular biology at the university. He's probably got access to all kinds of equipment that could a.n.a.lyze the physical properties of whatever that stuff in the amulet is. We wouldn't need to give him the whole thing. Just a couple of drops."

"I don't know ..."

"Or you could put it back into the icon and stash it in a bank vault in Switzerland. The choice is yours, Zoe. You're the Keeper."

She looked down at the amulet cradled in her hand. It didn't look so magical anymore, Ry thought. More like a cheap trinket you could buy in a Greek bazaar.

"No, you're right," she said. "We need to know what it is. People have been killed because of it. A president of the United States was a.s.sa.s.sinated because the KGB, or at the least Nikolai Popov, thought he drank from it, and I still can't quite wrap my head around that."

She stared down at the amulet, rubbing her fingers over the runelike etching on the gla.s.s. "I wonder what happened to the other one."

"The other what?"

"Amulet. There are two secret compartments in the icon, one behind each skull eye. So at some point there must have been two amulets."

"Maybe the other one went into the river with Rasputin."

"Yeah.... No, wait. We're being stupid. The missing amulet is the one my grandmother Katya filled with toilet water so that she could switch it with this one. This is the one she originally gave to Marilyn Monroe, the one with the real altar of-Ry, that's it."

She spun around to face him, her eyes bright, her lips parted and wet, and Ry almost lost it again right there. "That's what what?" he said on a broken breath.

She started digging again through that bottomless satchel of hers. "You know how when you buy makeup at Saks, they're always giving you those little samples of perfume?"

"Yeah. That happens to me all the time."

She looked up at him, laughing. "Never mind, O'Malley, it's a girl thing. Just prepare yourself to be amazed at my brilliance, because I think I have an idea of how we can deal with Popov's son."

New York City A COLD SWEAT COLD SWEAT bathed his face and he felt as if he were going to throw up, but Miles Taylor could not tear his gaze away from the horror that filled his computer screen. bathed his face and he felt as if he were going to throw up, but Miles Taylor could not tear his gaze away from the horror that filled his computer screen.

Yasmine.

Her eyes were wide-open and empty, like a doll's, seeing nothing. Blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth, just a little blood really, nothing too terrible. Nothing like the blood farther down, where that ... thing thing-what was it? A stake? A fence post?-pierced her chest. So much blood there, as if her heart had exploded.

His finger hovered over the delete key. He wanted to make it all go away, but he was also afraid to. As if by erasing this final image of her, as terrible as it was, he would end up erasing her existence from his mind.

From his heart.

Oh, G.o.d ...

He curled his hand into a fist and pressed it against his chest. It hurt, it really really hurt, as if he could actually feel it breaking. Feel it exploding, bursting, the way hers had burst, and he looked down, half-expecting to see his own blood splashing and pooling into his lap. hurt, as if he could actually feel it breaking. Feel it exploding, bursting, the way hers had burst, and he looked down, half-expecting to see his own blood splashing and pooling into his lap.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his fist harder against his chest. A high-pitched whine filled his ears, like a flatline on a hospital monitor. It went on and on and on, a long, bloodred line stretching into infinity.

HE SHUDDERED AND blinked, aware that time had pa.s.sed, but he wasn't sure how much. Seconds? An hour? A century? blinked, aware that time had pa.s.sed, but he wasn't sure how much. Seconds? An hour? A century?

He saw his computer had gone to sleep. The screen was blank now, the photograph that O'Malley's whelp had sent him was gone. Gone, gone, gone. Yasmine was gone. As if, while he'd been off in a daydream, she had quietly and simply left the room.

He sat in a leather captain's chair before the ma.s.sive mahogany desk in his library. Around him all was silent, and he had the strangest feeling that if he went to the door and opened it, the rest of the brownstone would have vanished and he would be staring down into an abyss. Yet the silence also had a weight and texture to it, as if he could feel it pressing like warm, wet palms onto his skin.

She's dead. My love is dead.

"Okay, Yaz," he said out loud into the empty room. "You're right. I won't let this beat me. I'll deal with it. I'll ..."

You'll do what, Miles, you fool? Do what? What he wanted to do was bring her back. He wanted her What he wanted to do was bring her back. He wanted her back back. If he wanted to, right this minute, he could pick up the phone and buy himself a villa on Lake Como, a Maserati Granturismo S, a van Gogh-except he already had all those things, and more. Okay, something bigger then, something both grand and catastrophic. How about start such a run on the world's biggest banking inst.i.tutions that would bring down the entire global economy? He had the power and the wealth to do that, if he really wanted to. Whatever his heart desired, whatever whim he wanted gratified, he could make it happen.

But he couldn't bring her back. "Christ, Miles, what a maudlin, pathetic cliche. Get a grip."

He wrapped his hands around the arms of his chair and pushed heavily to his feet. He stood for a moment, swaying, feeling light-headed and nauseated. That strange, high-pitched whine was back inside his ears again.

He jerked, shook his head. He'd been about to deal with some-thing-what was it? Something that had come up right before he'd clicked open the e-mail from Yaz and that monstrous photograph had filled his computer screen. Something- We're bringing you down.

The film, of course. The f.u.c.king film. O'Malley's kid and that old woman's granddaughter, Zoe Dmitroff-they had the film. They had to have the film because that was the only thing in this world with the power to bring him down.

Okay, so they've got the film. Now what are they gonna do with it? What a stupid f.u.c.king question. They would give it to the media wh.o.r.es, of course. The government had a lot of reasons to bury it, but if Mike O'Malley's boy was smart enough to have gotten his hands on the film in the first place, then he was smart enough to have figured that much out. And the media ... to them it would be the mother of all stories, the story of the millennium, and they would blast it around the world with the power of a megaton hydrogen bomb. What a stupid f.u.c.king question. They would give it to the media wh.o.r.es, of course. The government had a lot of reasons to bury it, but if Mike O'Malley's boy was smart enough to have gotten his hands on the film in the first place, then he was smart enough to have figured that much out. And the media ... to them it would be the mother of all stories, the story of the millennium, and they would blast it around the world with the power of a megaton hydrogen bomb.

Panic ripped through Miles with such force he shook with it. He bent over and fumbled through the c.r.a.p on his desk for the universal remote. He pointed it at the oil painting above the fireplace-a Jackson Pollock, not a van Gogh-and the painting and part of the paneled wall slid to one side to reveal a wide-screen digital TV.

The whining was now so loud in his ears he could barely think, and a terrible pain stabbed his head, right between his eyes, blurring his vision. His breathing was harsh and shallow as he clicked through the twenty-four-hour news channels. But they were all covering the story of the pretty blond coed who'd gone missing from the University of Wisconsin a couple of days ago. Nothing about the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination.

He left the TV on, but hit the mute b.u.t.ton. Okay, this was good. This meant he still had time. Even if the O'Malley boy had already pa.s.sed the film on to someone in the media, they would have to check it out first, wouldn't they? They would want to be sure it wasn't a fake before they aired it, and that gave him time.

Unconsciously he rubbed at the piercing pain in his forehead, but the whining had blessedly stopped. His mind felt clear now, as if he'd just sucked in a breath of pure oxygen, clear and cold and sharp as ice.

The only real proof that he was involved with Jack Kennedy's death was at the end of the film, when the camera had focused in on him taking the rifle from Mike O'Malley's hands. But that was the face of a man from almost fifty years ago, and who knew what kind of condition the film was in after all this time? Surely, if it ever came to trial, he would be able to buy a brigade of experts to testify in court that the man taking the rifle from the a.s.sa.s.sin wasn't him.

"Who you gonna believe, you or your lying eyes?" he said to the vacant-eyed talking head that now filled his television screen, but his words came out all slurry.

Well, f.u.c.k 'em-he didn't need them or their s.h.i.t. He had so much money he could shred most of it into confetti and throw himself a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue and still have enough left over to live like a king for the rest of his life. He could buy himself a tropical island and spend the rest of his days in a Margaritaville of warm sunshine and beautiful girls in string bikinis, and then, just because he could, because it would satisfy the black anger in his heart, he would get himself the most bada.s.s. .h.i.t man he could find and send him after the O'Malley boy and that miserable old woman's granddaughter. Zoe Dmitroff.

G.o.d, did he want them dead. He wanted them dead dead the way Yasmine was dead, and he would tell the guy he hired to make their deaths long and slow and painful, and he would have it videotaped, too, yeah, and every night before he went to bed, he would watch the tape over and over, watch them dying over and over, and he would think of Yasmine, and he would smile- the way Yasmine was dead, and he would tell the guy he hired to make their deaths long and slow and painful, and he would have it videotaped, too, yeah, and every night before he went to bed, he would watch the tape over and over, watch them dying over and over, and he would think of Yasmine, and he would smile- Suddenly it felt as if a giant vise had grabbed his head and was squeezing it, tighter and tighter. He tried to reach out to keep from falling, but he couldn't lift his arm. He tried to take a step, but lurched instead, banging into his desk, knocking something off it. He heard it hit the thick carpet with a dull thud, but he couldn't see. It was as if a white, gauzy bandage now covered his eyes, and he tried to reach up to pull it away, but he still couldn't lift his arm.

His legs gave out from under him, and he pitched forward, banging his head on the corner of his desk as he fell to the floor. He tried to get back up again, but a boulder was on him, pressing him down. And the pain was so sharp and fierce, it felt as if a knife were slicing open his skull. Had Jack Kennedy felt pain like this when the bullet ripped through his head?

Miles blinked, and the white gauze fell away from his eyes. For a moment he thought he saw his son, standing by the fireplace, but no hate was in Jonathan's eyes this time. The boy's eyes were wet with tears, and Miles wanted to tell him to quit bawling, to be a man, but he couldn't get his tongue to work right. Nothing was working right anymore. Even his heart felt broken, and wasn't that a laugh.

Then suddenly his son was gone, and where his heart had been, Miles felt a gaping hole, a giant, sucking abyss of need. I want I want, he thought. I want, I want. I want her back, I want it all back, every day, every moment of love and joy and sadness and misery-I want all of it back I want, I want. I want her back, I want it all back, every day, every moment of love and joy and sadness and misery-I want all of it back.

45.

ZOE STARED at the ugly gray concrete building, its door nondescript except for the number 17 painted black on the milk gla.s.s of the transom above it. "This looks closer to a prison than a nightclub, Ry." at the ugly gray concrete building, its door nondescript except for the number 17 painted black on the milk gla.s.s of the transom above it. "This looks closer to a prison than a nightclub, Ry."

"The club itself is deep underground, in what was once a nuclear fallout shelter."

"How far underground?" Zoe asked, as a shiver of claustrophobia coursed through her, but Ry pretended not to hear.

She could feel the beat of the music blasting up from below through snow and the thick soles of her new fur-lined boots. The crowd waiting to get in was mostly teenagers. They drank from paper cups of vodka bought from a kiosk on the corner and sucked on harsh Russian cigarettes while they jiggled and stamped their feet, trying in vain to drive away the bitter cold.