thing, then removed key phrases, just breaking them away, then planted the rest at my school and waited, knowing that someday someone would translate it. Finally I did. And they also knew how you would interpret what remained. They knew you would find and resurrect Utanapishtim, and they knew what would happen when you did. They tricked you, James. They used you to bring about the destruction of your own people. And they used me, too.”
“I…resurrected the only being who could destroy my entire race?” he whispered. He fell to his knees. To go from being his people’s savior to their destroyer in a single hour was more than he could bear. “God, no.”
“There’s more,” Lucy said softly. And then she read aloud.
“‘There is no redemption for the Ancient One, unless he undoes all he has done, beginning with the eldest one.’” She shook her head. “Obviously the translator has taken liberties here. It probably wasn’t meant to rhyme, but I imagine it’s close.”
“He breaks his curse by undoing what he has done,” James said. “He believes he must destroy the race he inadvertently created. Undoing his sin against the gods by destroying his own kind. ‘Beginning with the eldest one,’” he said softly.
“He’s going after Gilgamesh,” Brigit said. “But I thought he was here, on the island.”
“He must have left. Either way, I have to go after him—them,” James said. “Brigit, take Lucy and go after the survivors, see if you can find out where Damien is. Do what you can for them, and then catch up with me. I’ll stay on Utanapishtim’s trail.”
“I’m the one who should go after him,” Brigit said softly.
“I did this.” James took his sister by her shoulders, and stared into her eyes. “Please, give me a chance to make it right.” And then he faced Lucy and, his heart in his eyes, he said, “You were right. Even though you broke my trust, betrayed me in a way I don’t know if I can ever forgive, you were right, Lucy. My ego did this. My blind determination to fulfill what I thought was my destiny, to be my people’s hero, so my fucking life would finally make some kind of sense.”
“There’s more.” She held up her phone.
“I don’t give a shit what that damned book has to say.” James turned and began running back toward the shore, no doubt in search of a boat. Brigit was already running off to find the survivors of the brutal attack.
Lucy raced after James. “Wait!” she cried. “I’m going with you. And if you argue, you’re just wasting time. You can’t stop me.” There were tears in her eyes.
James nodded, feeling too broken, too defeated, to argue. He hadn’t saved his people. Instead, he had brought about the end of his race. God, he’d been such a fool. “All right.” Then he dragged his eyes from her determined expression and stared after his sister.
As if sensing his eyes on her, Brigit stopped, turned and called out to him, “Be careful. And you, Professor, make sure you don’t do something else stupid and get my brother killed, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
With that Brigit turned and ran off, following her senses to the vampires who’d escaped Utanapishtim’s deadly gaze.
James raced along the shore, Lucy following him, until he came to a small motorboat, checked that it was full of gas and, as soon as they were both aboard, fired up the outboard motor and aimed the bow toward the mainland, following the still detectable wake of the departing yacht. Still detectable to his eyes, at least.
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Lucy said. She sat near the bow, facing him as he sat near the stern to steer. The boat was no more than a supersized rowboat with an outboard attached.
He looked heavenward for an answer. “In what universe is this not my fault? Tell me, will you, because I’d really love to know.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, James. I’m not the enemy here.”
“You could have fooled me.”
She lowered her head. “I know. I know I screwed up. God, if your family aren’t okay, I don’t—”
“They’re all my family. And they’re not okay.”
“You had no way of knowing. The translation was…incomplete. So it was my fault,” she said. “If I’d refused to publish what I had until the missing segments had been accounted for…”
“No, this…this war still would have started. Folsom’s book is what kicked all this off. And you had nothing to do with that.”