taking over the tour for Sarah. Did she tell you about the architectural history of this place?”
Heads shook slowly, as Sarah hurried away.
“Oh, then you’re in for a treat. Follow me outside the building, if you will—just a brief external tour. You’re going to love this.”
She led the group out the front doors, talking all the way, pointing, explaining, elaborating, even making things up from whole cloth. They walked right past the police, one of whom even nodded hello. She led the group around a corner of the building, toward the park that bordered it, and then she said, “Oh, no! I forgot your free gifts. Wait right here. You,” she added, with a nod toward James. “You can come help me carry them.”
He nodded, and the two of them raced off into the park, leaving the puzzled tour group alone and confused as to what had just happened.
“Now what?” Lucy asked, when they were in the clear, pausing on one of the winding footpaths that meandered through Central Park. She located a bench, sat on it, then gave a quick look around before reaching under the shirt to pull the tape off her side. She winced. “I’m not going to have any skin left there.”
“We can’t go back to the hotel,” James said, sitting down beside her. “If they were bugging Marcus’s phone, they’ll know that’s where we were calling from.” He took her bag from her shoulder. Then he eased the statue from her hands and tucked it inside.
“No reason to go back there anyway,” she said. “We didn’t leave anything. We need to get out of the city, James.”
He nodded. “This would be a bad place to resurrect old Utanapishtim anyway. Can you imagine a man who’s been dead for five thousand years waking up in the middle of Manhattan?”
“I can’t imagine him waking up anywhere,” she said. “And it’s Utana.”
“What is?”
“His name. The one he used, his familiar name.” She reached into the bag and pulled the statue out, but only far enough to see the lines engraved on its base. “I’ve read these same lines on that stone tablet of yours. Utana. Called Ziasudra. Called Utanapishtim. Called the Flood Survivor. Called the Servant of the Gods. Then cursed by them. And hidden here by my hand, hidden from the Divine wrath of the Anunaki.”
“Anu-what?”
“The gods.”
He frowned at her. “Are you going to be able to communicate with him? When we raise him, I mean.”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again and lowered her head, shaking it slowly.
“What?” he asked.
Drawing a breath, Lucy chose her words with care. “James, I don’t want you to do this. It’s not a good idea. And it probably won’t work anyway. It didn’t work with those…those corpses,” she whispered. “Back at the mansion.”
“It did work. They were up and walking around. How is that not working?”
“They were pieces of animated meat. Not thinking, sentient beings. It’s not going to do any good to raise a zombie, is it? Besides, this isn’t even a body. It’s ash.”
“You don’t think I can do this. After all you’ve seen.” He got to his feet, walking away from her and shaking his head.
She hiked the bag onto her shoulder, got up and went to him. Standing close behind him, she said, “Maybe it’s that I’m afraid you can do it. I wouldn’t be so worried if I thought you were going to hold your magical, glow-in-the-dark hands over a pile of ash and nothing was going to happen, would I?”
He lowered his head with a sigh and turned to face her. “That’s what happened at my parents’ house,” he said softly. “I ran around holding my hands over one pile of ashes after another. Trying to…”
“Oh, James… But they weren’t there, so it’s no wonder you couldn’t—”
“I know. They’re okay. But see, they won’t be if I fail. No one will. I have to try. You’ve seen what’s been happening. You’ve read the prophecy.”
“The prophecy was incomplete. We still don’t know the details of what it is that Utanapishtim’s supposed to do, if and when you bring him back.”
“If and when I do,” he asked again, “will you be able to communicate with him?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. We’re guessing, at best, as far as what the language sounded like. I could write—maybe—basic things. But…it’s going to be a challenge. No one alive has ever heard the Sumerian language spoken.” She bit her lip, raised her head. “Wait a