“Maybe I’ll see you in my dreams tonight,” he said instead. “On that road.”
Theta’s smile faltered just a bit. “I suppose I’d feel less scared if you were there.”
The cops patted the doors of one of the wagons and sent it on its way. The streets were clogged with people now. Theta stuck out her hand. “Thanks for the daring escape, Poet.”
Memphis shook Theta’s hand, marveling at the softness of it. “Anytime, Creole Princess.”
Theta ran toward the subway. At the corner, she turned to see Memphis still watching her. He wasn’t watching her the way that audiences or the occasional fan on the street did. It didn’t make her feel odd or imagined; on the contrary, she had never felt more real. “Hey, Poet!” she called back to him. “It’s Theta!”
“Pardon?” he shouted.
“My name. It’s Theta—”
The crowd thickened between them just as someone pulled Memphis into a choke hold from behind. He whipped around, ready for a fight. Laughing, Gabe put his hands up in surrender, backing away. “Easy, brother. Just me. Can you believe they raided the club? Somebody’s putting the squeeze on Papa Charles. I’d gone out back for a smoke or I’d be in one of those wagons, too. Hey, Memphis—you even listening to me?”
Memphis had turned away from Gabe and was craning his head, searching for some sign of Theta, but she was already gone. How would he find her again? Beside him, Gabe was talking a mile a minute, but Memphis wasn’t listening. Something had shifted in the cosmos. His future seemed to have thinned to a point of destiny, and it had a name: Theta.
When Memphis let himself into Octavia’s apartment, he found Isaiah standing at the foot of the bed in a pale wash of bluish moonlight. The boy stared into the gloom of the bedroom, his head shaking slightly.
“Hey, Ice Man. Whatcha doin’ up?” The boy didn’t answer. “Isaiah? You all right?”
Isaiah’s eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible. His eyelids fluttered wildly.
“The seventh offering is vengeance. Turn the heretics from the Temple of Solomon. And their sins shall be purified by blood and fire.”
“Isaiah?” Memphis whispered. Hearing these strange words coming out of his brother’s mouth made him cold with fear.
“Anoint thy flesh and prepare ye the walls of your houses to receive him.” Isaiah’s thin body jerked with small spasms.
Memphis gripped his arms. Should he run for Octavia? The doctor? He didn’t know. “Isaiah, what are you talking about?” he whispered urgently.
“They’re coming. The time is now.”
“Isaiah, wake up now. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, I say!”
Isaiah went limp and calm in Memphis’s hands. His eyelids closed as if he might drift back to sleep. Suddenly, he stiffened. His eyes snapped wide open. He stared at Memphis as his small body shook. His words were a choked whisper: “Oh, my son, my son. What have you done?”
Isaiah swayed, but Memphis caught him in time and put his little brother into his bed, where he resumed sleeping as if nothing had happened.
Memphis sat shivering on his own bed. Unable to rest, he watched the rise and fall of his brother’s chest for some time, until early dawn filled the room with a weak, milky light. How could Isaiah have known? No one knew except Memphis. It was what he’d seen when he was under the healing trance in those last moments with their mother on her deathbed. As he’d walked in that other place, a misty land between waking and death, he’d seen her spirit, mournful and afraid, her hands reaching out toward him just before she was swallowed by some vast dark, her last words both a benediction and a warning:
Oh, my son, my son. What have you done?
BLOOD AND FIRE
Eugene Meriwether let himself into the imposing white edifice of the Grand Masonic Lodge on West Twenty-third Street, near the rattling thunder of the Sixth Avenue El, and climbed the steps to a small office on the third floor. He’d enjoyed a dinner out with his Brothers following a meeting on a charity endeavor they hoped to get under way. Now, by the soft glow of his banker’s lamp, he worked up a proposal for the Grand Master to review.
In the quiet of the office, he opened the jeweler’s box secreted inside his jacket and brushed a finger across the cuff links nestled into the dark velvet. Tomorrow was Edward’s birthday. He smiled, imagining Edward saying, “What is this?” as he opened the box and beheld the fine workmanship of the cuff links, which featured a scrolled E, the initial they shared. He could practically feel Edward’s sweet kiss on his lips. Edward, his great love; Edward, his great secret.