Sleeping Late on Judgement Day

twenty: lioness

IT WAS a beautiful late fall morning in Northern California, the trees still bright with the previous night’s rains, the sky frothy with clouds, and shafts of sunshine striking down like God’s own searchlights. It would have been a perfect day to drive in the hills, if that had been all we were doing. But it wasn’t.

I didn’t have any music going in the car because I was tight and worried. Also, every time I put anything on the Amazons begged me to play Lady Gaga instead, and I just wasn’t up for that discussion. They had caught a bit of my mood, perhaps because I’d lectured them for about half an hour before we left Caz’s place. Monica had come through, I had an appointment, and the only thing that would stop me from keeping it would be if I had to pull over along the way and throw up repeatedly.

I know, you’re wondering why a guy who’s been in Hell would be sweating something this simple. I can’t really explain, but I think it has to do with the literal fear of the Highest every angel has. I mean, this wasn’t just something I normally wouldn’t do, this flew directly in the face of everything Heaven had taught me. You don’t question your superiors. You certainly don’t go to their houses (if I was right about that, which still remained to be seen) and more or less dare them to do something about it. But if I was truly going to commit myself to angelic treason, I needed to see for myself that I had the right suspect. I can’t explain it any better than that.

“When we get there, Halyna, you’re going to stay with the car.”

“That is not fair.” She looked at Oxana with resentment. “Why is she pretending the photographer?”

“Because she can’t drive. And despite all my careful planning, it’s my experience that a good percentage of my work ends in screaming, shots fired, and things catching on fire. If that happens here, I’d prefer not to be hunting for my car keys as I run.”

Just at that moment I turned onto Hilltop Drive and continued up at a steeper angle.

“And you, Oxana. You remember what I told you?”

“Yes. Walk in house. Don’t go far. Take pictures.” She lifted her digital camera. “I know.”

“And ‘don’t go too far’ means stay near me, no more than one room away. Go along with anything I say. Smile and nod. If anyone asks you a question that you don’t want to answer, forget your English and speak Ukrainian—”

I suddenly stopped talking, because we had rounded another bend, and now I could see the house. It wasn’t just on the hilltop, it was the hilltop, surrounded by so many acres that you could have dropped the entirety of downtown San Judas on it and still had room for most of Spanishtown as well. It was really quite beautiful, a combination of Moorish and California Spanish architecture from what I could see, but we were still too far back to make out most of the details.

We soon reached the outer fences, impressively nasty things with iron spikes, and the first guardhouse. Two serious-looking private security guys sat inside, and I was pretty sure they were armed. The gate, fortunately, looked like something we could probably ram our way through on the way out if we had to, especially since I’d left my puny little Datsun behind and rented a fairly hefty Chrysler sedan for the day in enemy territory.

“My name is Richard Bell,” I told the unsmiling fellow in the booth. “I’m expected.”

He looked at a screen I couldn’t see, then the two halves of the gate slid apart with only the softest thrum of machinery. “Follow the main road all the way to the top,” he said. He handed me a ticket for my dashboard and three visitor passes, all laminated and almost certainly electronic. “The guard there will tell you where to go.”

More guards. I was very glad I hadn’t decided to do my usual and just climbed over the fence to see what happened. I was fretfully aware I had more than my own life in my hands this time.

“Just remember,” I said to the women as we followed a long curving driveway lined with palm trees, “this is deadly serious.”

“We know,” said Halyna. “You tell us many times.”

“Yeah, but it’s my job to get you out of here safe, and I’d like to do my job right.”

Halyna smiled. It wasn’t nervy or innocent or anything except an acknowledgment of a difficult choice made. “Do not worry too much for us, Bobby. We have had good training.” She was game, that one.

The second guard booth was coming into view, this one next to an even larger ironwork gate set in a no-shit stone wall that looked like it could hold off an artillery barrage. What did Anaita, if it really was her, need with this much security? Maybe this was her idea of normal. If Gustibus was right, she had been a goddess once. Maybe once you’ve been one of those, it’s hard to live down to mortal standards, even if you’re trying to pass for human.

Then again, I thought as we were processed by the second set of guards, maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe this is just some extremely rich Persian-American lady who does a lot of work for charity and lives in a fabulous mansion.

The inner gate guards had shotguns in the booth, and who knew what else that I couldn’t see. I really, really hoped we weren’t going to have to crash that gate under fire.

The gate opened, and we rolled into a huge semicircular driveway that looped past the facade of the main house, which had to be thirty thousand square feet if it was an inch, a tasteful combination of European and Middle Eastern themes.

I parked, then left Halyna with the car keys, telling her to text me if she saw anything that seemed weird or dangerous. She agreed, but from the sad look she gave me I might have been asking one child to wait while I took the other in for ice cream and candy. These women were tough, yes, but they were still innocents in some ways, certainly in the ways of Heaven versus Hell. If I hadn’t needed warm bodies, if I had still had Sam, things would have been different. But the first rule of Bobby Dollar Club is, “Things are just what they are. Stop bitching.” (The second rule is, “Never ask ‘How could things get any worse?’ Because they will.”)

We were met at the front door by either a butler or a personal secretary. It was hard to tell because he wore a long robe and introduced himself only as Arash. He looked me over with a professional eye. “And you are Mr. Bell, from Vanity Fair magazine? Ms. Sepanta has been looking forward to this meeting.”

“Thanks. This is my assistant. I hope Ms. Roth explained on the phone that this is just a pre-interview. We’re going to get a feeling for the place, and then we can set a date for the photographers and do the rest of the interview in email or on the phone.”

Yes, Vanity Fair. Don’t even ask about all the favors Monica had to call in to make this lie work for me. You can get people to give interviews who’d never let you across their doorstep otherwise, especially if it’s for a big-name publication.

“Just so.” Arash made a funny little bow, then led us down a hallway and across a courtyard where a tiled fountain blipped and splashed, to a high-ceilinged reception room chock-a-block with (I had no doubt) precious Middle Eastern antiques and some of the most beautiful carpets I’d ever seen, in or out of a museum.

“Please wait while I tell her you’re here.” He slipped through a tall door into the next room.

I looked at Oxana, whose wide eyes suggested she’d never been inside any private building this big in her life. “Pictures?” I whispered. “Remember, anything written down or any photos that look contemporary.”

She turned to me, confused. “Con-temp . . . ?”

“New. Any pictures that look new.”

Arash emerged and graced us with another bow. “Ms. Sepanta will see you.”

“Wander around a bit,” I told Oxana loud enough for him to hear. “I’m sure Mr. Arash will be happy to show you a few likely locations for the shoot.”

Mr. Arash didn’t look all that happy, to be honest, but he nodded and gave me a tight smile. “Of course.”

He showed me through a door and into a greenhouse. That’s what it seemed like at first, anyway, even though the roof wasn’t glass. An amazing number of plants turned it green on all sides—plants in pots along the walls, in smaller pots on various surfaces, and even in hanging baskets. Several of them had their own individual misters attached, which made the orchids and other blossoms sway like the heads of colorful snakes. The room was so thick with moisture that I felt like I’d suddenly developed a head cold.

The second thing I saw was Donya Sepanta, rising from a teak desk at the far end of the room. Two thoughts struck me simultaneously.

The first was, “I’m in love.”

The second was, “It’s her.”

Monica had been right—she was beautiful, with long black hair braided into several intricate loops, and yet with most of it still loose and flowing over her shoulders. She was tall, with skin the color of flawless old ivory, and the most perfect bone structure I’d ever seen on a mortal body. She might have been thirty or she might have been fifty, but it didn’t matter. Any room she walked into, she would have been the only woman anyone saw.

Luckily for me, I recognized that the immense urge I suddenly felt to throw myself at her feet and apologize for ever having thought her guilty of a single bad deed was not only a very bad idea, it was not even real. No, it was glamour of the oldest, most magical sort, the kind that caused mortal men to dance away their lives in a fairy mound, or return every year of their lives to a hilltop where they’d once seen beauty running naked on Midsummer’s Eve, until they finally died miserable and unfulfilled old men.

“Ms. Sepanta,” I said, somehow mustering enough saliva to speak without croaking. “So nice of you to see me. My editors are going to be thrilled.”

“Come in, Mr. Bell.” The voice was a stunning, throaty alto, but I thought I could also hear the childlike tones of Anaita, the angelic ephor, lurking inside it, like tiny pearls wrapped in black velvet.

As she walked toward me I saw her eyes widen just a small, almost unnoticeable fraction; she quickly covered it with a smile so white and perfect I had to fight the urge to fall to my knees all over again. Either she’d just decided I was one sexy dude or she’d pierced my cover already, from all the way across the room. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She took my hand in her warm, dry one—and how did she stay dry in a room that felt like a sauna? She looked me in the eyes long enough to make my hand sweat even more, then let it go. “Will you have something to drink?”

I said yes, hoping that Oxana might be left alone somewhere while Arash the high priest or whoever he was went to fetch it, but Donya Sepanta only returned to her desk and pushed a button on her phone and asked someone to bring in some refreshments.

“You have an amazing house,” I said. My heart was beating so hard I was surprised it wasn’t rattling the windows. It was really her sitting there, the one who’d tried to erase me from existence. We were finally, actually face-to-face. “Just beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She paused as a maid dressed in a tunic over loose pants tiptoed in with a platter and set out ice water and lemonade on a small table near the window, then put down a plate of fruit and went out as silently as she’d come in. “Let’s sit here where we can see the garden. It is my greatest joy.” Her voice was like honey. I’m not talking about the cliche, I’m talking about how hearing her talk really felt like something sweet and golden and warm and sticky was being poured over me.

Goddess of Fertility indeed. Just being in the same room with her made me want to fertilize everything in sight. I took a few pieces of melon and a half a pomegranate onto a plate to give me something to fiddle with, then forced myself to concentrate, when all I really wanted to do was lie down and listen to her.

Despite her enormous beauty and supreme self-confidence, I thought I could sense a bit of tension in my hostess. She knew who I was, I felt sure, or at least what I was. Which was no more than I had expected would happen, although I had hoped the suspense might last a little longer.

“So, here we are,” she said, and laughed. Her laugh was predictably melodious. “You must have lots of questions you want to ask me. Please, feel free.”

Don’t be stupid, Bobby, I told myself. She’s playing it straight—you have to, too. But I couldn’t help feeling that maybe what Anaita was playing was me. “Oh, we have lots of questions about your fascinating life and your even more fascinating work, Ms. Sepanta,” I said. “Everybody I’ve met here in San Judas talks about all the things you’ve done for the city—but we’ll do most of this in the interview, of course. I just like to . . . get a feel for people. See them on their home turf.”

“Well, you are a most thorough young man!” She laughed again. She might be a little tense, but I was feeling more and more like I was the one sitting in a cage with a very large, very beautiful lioness who could swallow me whole without crimping a whisker. “I admire that. And are you . . . getting a feeling?”

“I’m a bit overwhelmed, to tell the truth. This is all so impressive.”

She gave a careless flip of her perfectly manicured hand. “I need a place where I can get away from the stress. The modern world is a very tiring place, I think. How about you, Mr. Bell? Do you find the modern world a bit much at times?”

“I guess. But it’s the only world I’ve got.”

“Ah.” She sat back with her glass of water, toyed with the lemon peel floating in the glass. “Myself, I long for the old days. You know this is not my native home, yes?”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Then you can imagine how much more important it is for me to feel safe here, in this new home of mine. That is why I have so much security. I’m sure you must have noticed the guards.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“I do not wish to be . . . paranoid.” She smiled again. “But a woman in my position—well, there are people against whom I must protect myself. Bad people. Both from my old country and from this new land, where privacy is so hard to acquire. Satellites, computer hackers, so many people and magical devices which can pierce secrets, destroy privacy, ruin lives.”

That was clearly a message, but I wasn’t sure how to read it. Still, I was ahead of the game at this point simply because she hadn’t called in the guards to rip my head off—or worse, called Heaven to let them know she had a rogue angel in her conservatory. “Is that a worry for you, Ms. Sepanta? People from your past trying to hurt you?”

“Oh, I have made it sound too dramatic. No, most of the reason I desire privacy is because I wish to avoid the kind of people who prey upon the rich and the successful. Kidnappers. Blackmailers.”

Ah. I was beginning to get it. I deliberately went another direction. “Kidnappers, yes, of course. Do you have family, Ms. Sepanta?”

Her lip curled, and the fear came back into my chest. “I do not wish to talk about such private things, Mr. Bell, to you or your magazine.” Her expression softened. “I’m sure you can understand. And we have lots of other things to discuss.” She poured herself a little more water, and when she spoke it was very deliberate. “Now, tell me exactly what you need from me.”

Anaita thought I was blackmailing her. She thought I was here to let her know I was aware of her earthly life, and maybe even to suggest there were other, more deadly secrets I knew, in hopes that she would pay me off. Or maybe just in hopes that she’d leave me alone. I didn’t know whether I wanted her to go on thinking that or not, so I proceeded very carefully.

“All I want from you, Ms. Sepanta, are a few answers. I know your time is precious, and that you have other places you need to be and other people to answer to besides a humble journalist like myself. I’d just like to know a few things about what makes you who you are.”

“Is that really what you want?” She leaned back a little and looked at me with a calculation I hadn’t seen so far. I was stupid if I believed I could outthink her, I realized. This was a being that had been around forever, or as good as, and had survived the loss of her worshippers and her country, only to set herself up all over again as a major player in Heaven. She was a survivor, and they were the toughest kind of enemy to deal with, because they played the long game and didn’t jump to ordinary bait. Why should she blast me to cinders now? She had as much time as she needed, and I had nothing but stubbornness and the occasional streak of dumb luck. Those streaks never lasted very long, either.

“I’m just curious,” I said. “You’ve gone to so much trouble to create an entire world for yourself—a beautiful world.” I looked around as though I was talking about the huge house and the vast grounds, but we both knew I wasn’t. “A beautiful world that isn’t your old world, but isn’t part of your new one, either. A kind of between-place, I guess you’d say.” I let that hang for a moment. “Why? I mean, forgive me for being blunt, but you must have invested a great deal in this project. Is it so important to you to have something that is not of either world?”

Her smile, when it came, was slow and extremely sexy. If I wasn’t an angel, or at least if all the non-meat parts of me weren’t angelic, I would have instantly had a hard-on or a heart attack or both.

“You are a very interesting man, Mr. Bell. Are those the kinds of questions you intend to ask in your interview? Nothing more mundane and practical? Others always want to know, how much do you have, what do you own—material things. But you want answers to difficult questions.”

“That’s my nature, Ms. Sepanta. I’ve always been more interested in the why than the how much.”

“Well, then,” she said, and rose from her chair with a movement so sudden and yet so graceful that it was like watching a great bird take wing, “you must think of all such questions that you can, Richard Bell, to prepare yourself for the next stage of our interaction. May I call you Richard? Because we will have our interview. I can tell already that it is fated for us to meet again.” She pushed a button on her desk. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I have an important phone call coming.”

“Of course,” I said, caught by surprise but quite ready to get out while the getting was good. “I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“But do prepare yourself.” The door opened and Arash stepped in, clearly waiting for me. “Because I promise you, next time you will have your answers,” she said. “All of them. And some of them will surprise even a man like yourself.” She nodded to Arash. “You may show our guest out.”

I grabbed Oxana from the reception room and tried to walk like something other than a guy who had almost pissed himself in terror because a beautiful woman had told him they were going to meet again. When we got to the car, I threw myself into the back seat and concentrated on breathing again. It felt like I hadn’t really done it for a while.

“Drive,” I said. “Just drive.”

Halyna shrugged and put the car in gear, and we crept around the long driveway. Oxana started chattering to her friend about the inside of the house, then turned to me. “Lots of pictures, Bobby. I took them just like you said.”

We rolled through the first gate. Beyond the green hills I could see the bay, far, far below and far away—an entire world away.

“Did you hear, Bobby?” Oxana said. “I make lots of pictures.”

“Don’t talk for a while,” I said. “Please. And Halyna, take it slow on the curves, will you? I don’t feel all that great.”