“I’d really prefer not to just now, thanks. Is this revenge, Melanie?”
“No! No, no, really! Oh, Ned, I’m sorry!”
But knowledge, however you got it, changed things, Ned Marriner thought. You couldn’t go back to not knowing, even if you wanted to. And when you put what you’d just heard together with other things, specifically yesterday, the feeling he’d had in the cloister…
He felt it again, right now, that inward awareness. Unblocking, unlocking.
Abruptly, Ned pushed off the log and stood up. His heart was pounding.
“What?”
“Shh. Wait.”
Afraid now, not just in pain, Ned took off his sunglasses. He opened his eyes in the too-bright light. Pain danced and drilled in his brain. But what he saw, looking out towards the mountain, was worse.
In what should have been the clear, mild light of spring, the trees and grass between them and the ridge of the mountain were bathed—were saturated—in a sickening, dark-red hue.
It was terrifying. As though he were looking through some lurid camera filter. The world lay drowned in the colour of blood. And suddenly he could smell it, too. Appalled, horrified, he felt as if he were tasting blood. It was in his mouth, his throat, sticky, thick, clogging and—
He turned away and was violently ill by the tree stump. Then again, and a third time, wrackingly, his guts turning inside out.
“Oh, my God, Ned! I should never have…”
“I don’t think I like this place a whole lot,” he said, breathing hard.
Melanie had her phone out.
“Don’t call them!” he said. It was difficult to speak. “I’m just…just a migraine, I guess.”
Too late. She was talking fast to Greg, calling them back. He couldn’t honestly say he was unhappy about that. He needed to get away from here, to somewhere where he could try to deal with the undeniable fact that he seemed to be seeing and feeling the presence of massive, violent death. A slaughter, the world soaked in blood.
Yesterday, a carving from eight hundred years ago. And now this.
“When did…?” He took a steadying breath. “Melanie, when was this battle?”
“Oh, Ned. Forget the damn battle! Here, wipe your face.” She handed him one of those packaged wet-wipes. One more thing in her tote. He did what she told him, put his sunglasses back on. Sipped some water.
“When was it? Please?”
“Oh, hell.” He heard her rummaging for her notes. His eyes were closed again. “123 b.c., I’ve got. Why do you want to talk about that?”
“Because I don’t want to talk about throwing up, okay?”
Two thousand, one hundred years.
What happened when you fainted? Did your eyes roll up in their sockets? Could you die, like, if you banged your head on a rock or something?
He heard the guys coming down. He kept his shades on. He knew if he took them off he’d see that redness again, everywhere. A world defined by dark blood. The smell was still with him, like meat, a thick, rotting—
Helplessly, just as the other two arrived, Ned heaved again—dry, convulsive, nothing left in him.
“Jeez!” Greg said. “You’re really clocked out, aren’t you? Let’s roll. We’ll get you into Veracook’s hands, and bed.”
They got back in the van. Greg started it, geared up, and they continued north, then left at a junction back along the other side of the mountain.
Greg didn’t slow down to look for photo spots now, he was driving fast, on a road not meant for it. Ned, leaning against his door, was aware of Steve and Melanie casting glances at him every few seconds. He wanted to be brave—the heroic invalid—but it was hard when you kept smelling blood, and the swinging motion of the van was no help.
And then, halfway back along that winding stretch of road on the northern shoulder of Mont Sainte-Victoire, he was fine.
He was absolutely fine. It was gone.
A really bad taste in his mouth from throwing up, but nothing more than that. Nothing but the memory. And he knew it wasn’t the miraculous properties of Advil. Cautiously, he took off his sunglasses. No blood-red hue to the afternoon sky or the trees. Only memory. And fear. There was that, too.
“Almost home,” Melanie said, in a worried voice.
“I’m good,” Ned said. He looked at her. “Honestly. I am. It’s gone. No aura, nothing.”
“You serious?” Steve had turned and was staring at him.
“Really. I’m not lying. I have no idea what that was about.” That last part was a lie, but what was he going to say?
“Food poisoning, migraine, jet lag.” Melanie ticked them off. He could hear relief in her voice. It touched him, actually.
“Guilt? Over what you did to our phones?” Steve said from the front seat.
“Has to be that,” Ned agreed.
“I’m still taking you home,” Greg said. “You can postpone your date till tomorrow.”
“No way,” Ned said. “And it isn’t a date. It’s a Coke at five o’clock.”
“Hah!” said Greg. He, too, was obviously happier now.
“Well, we’ll stop at the villa anyhow,” said Melanie. “You’ve got time and it’s on the way. You might want to shower and brush your teeth. Think of the girl, please.”
“Right. And you can check my fingernails and ears and tie my shoelaces again. Double knot?”
She laughed. “Piss off, Ned. I am way too young and cool for that.” She grinned. “You should be so lucky as to have me kneel in front of you.”
Ned felt himself flush.
Greg snorted. “You? Cool? With a bottomless bag like Mary Poppins? No, you aren’t, Mel,” he said. “Sorry to break it to you.”
She leaned forward and hit him on the shoulder.
“Don’t fondle the driver,” Greg said. He started singing, “Spoonful of Sugar,” and Steve joined him.
Ned rolled down his window. The air was crisp and clear. Wildflowers, yellow and white and purple, dotted the sides of the road. They crossed over a small bridge. The view along the ravine below was gorgeous. He saw Melanie checking it out, too. She scribbled something in her notebook. That had actually been a really sexy line, what she’d said.
Up front the guys were still singing that song from Mary Poppins. Melanie leaned forward and gave them each another futile whack with her notebook, then she sat back and crossed her arms and tried to look aggrieved.
She saw him looking at her, and winked. Of course. He had to laugh. Melanie.
“Blood? Like, really blood colour?”
Kate had another espresso in front of her; Ned had ordered