The Prophet. Amanda Stevens

He handed Ethan a beer, and I heard the soft fizz as they each opened their bottles.

       Devlin stepped out on the veranda then and stood with shoulders squared, feet slightly apart, as if bracing for something unpleasant. He was a tall man and lean to the point of gauntness from all his years of being haunted. But there was something very powerful about him just the same. Something almost menacing about the way he scowled into the darkness.

       “I don’t mind admitting I’m still a little jumpy,” Ethan said with an uneasy laugh. He perched on the railing while Devlin leaned a shoulder against the porch wall. “Never in a million years did I expect to look across the street and find Darius Goodwine staring back at me. I’m telling you, John, it was the eeriest feeling. The weirdest coincidence.”

       “You don’t really think it was a coincidence, do you?”

       “I don’t see how it could be anything else. I’m never in that neighborhood. I don’t even have occasion to drive through it. Then today I was called out to an old house on Nassau to examine some bones that were unearthed beneath the porch. When I crawled out, there he was. He had on sunglasses and a hat, so I guess I could have been mistaken—”

       “You weren’t mistaken,” Devlin said. “It was him.”

       “How can you be so sure?”

       “Things are happening in this city.”

       “What do you mean?”

       Devlin paused, his gaze lifting to the trees and for some reason, I thought of the nightingale and his strange insistence that I’d heard a mockingbird. “A woman was found dead on the east side a few nights ago. The toxicology screen turned up some interesting chemicals in her bloodstream. A cornucopia of botanical psychedelics, the coroner said, along with a substance that no one has been able to identify.”

       “What’s that got to do with Darius?”

       “Everything if that unknown substance turns out to be gray dust.”

       “Gray dust? Jesus.” Ethan turned once again to scan the darkness. He looked pale and tense in the light that streamed through the doorway, and I could have sworn I heard a note of fear in his voice. “I thought that stuff disappeared years ago.”

       “Apparently, it’s resurfaced just when Darius Goodwine returns from a long African sabbatical,” Devlin said grimly. “There’s only one source for gray dust and only a handful of outsiders that have ever been granted access. He’s one of them.”

       “Yes, but he’s not the only one.”

       “Come on.” Devlin sounded impatient. “Today was no coincidence. He wanted you to see him just like he made sure those rumors about the gray dust got back to me. Just like he made sure the right chemicals turned up in that woman’s body to create a mask. Every move he makes has a purpose.” Again, Devlin tilted his head, as if trying to detect some distant sound. I glanced up, but the trees remained silent.

       “What is it?” Ethan asked anxiously.

       “Nothing. I guess I’m hearing things, too.”

       “Darius has that effect.” Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s hard to believe a man in his position would take such a risk. It’s not like he needs the money these days.”

       “Money was never his motivation. Gray dust gives him the power to play God.”

       “The wielder of life and death,” Ethan murmured. “Isn’t that what he used to say?”

       Devlin moved over to the steps and stood gazing out into the yard. If he looked down at just the right angle, he would surely spot me. I wanted to fade more deeply into the shadows of the porch, but I was afraid even a slight sound would draw his attention. Discovery would be the ultimate humiliation, but I was also fascinated by the conversation. Mariama’s maiden name was Goodwine so I suspected she had some connection to Darius. What I didn’t know was why the very utterance of his name seemed to invoke dread. I felt a tremor of something in the air that made my heart beat even faster.

       “I used to think gray dust was a myth,” Ethan said. “I always scoffed when Father and Mariama talked about it so reverently. I still say it’s just a very powerful hallucinogen.”

       “It’s more than that,” Devlin said. “It stops the heart and people die. And the ones that come back…” As he moved down the steps, he turned his head away, and his voice became muffled. I couldn’t make out the rest of his comment.

       “You’ve seen them?” Ethan asked.

       Devlin moved back to the steps. “They’re still out there if you know where to look. Take a walk on the east side sometime, down along America Street. You can still spot one now and then among the crackheads and heroin addicts. Eyes frosted like a corpse, shuffling around all slumped over as if they’d dragged something back from hell with them.”

       Ethan was silent for a moment. “Father used to call them zombies.”

       “They’re not zombies,” Devlin scoffed. “Just fools that trusted Darius Goodwine.”

       Ethan rose and moved down the steps. I couldn’t see either of their faces now, but their voices carried clearly to my hiding place.

       “What are you going to do?” he asked Devlin.

       “He’ll have to be stopped.”

       “Not by you, I hope. He’s a powerful man, John. From what I hear, he’s got disciples all over the city. Some in very high places.”

       “I’m not afraid of him.”

       Something in Devlin’s voice, a hint of excitement, sent a warning thrill up my spine.

       “Maybe you should be,” Ethan said.

       “And why is that?”

       “You know why.”

       “No, I don’t. But I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

       In the tense silence that followed, I was almost afraid the rapid thud of my heart would give me away. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. I’d never heard of gray dust, but it made me think of what Fremont had said earlier about the place in between the Light and the Dark: It’s called the Gray.

       “I’m talking about the night of the accident…after you found out about Mariama and Shani,” Ethan said. “You went to see Father at the Institute, remember?”

       “What of it?” Devlin’s voice sounded terse and wary. Almost suspicious.

       “You demanded that he help you contact the other side so that you could see them one last time. So that you could say goodbye. When Father couldn’t help, you grew extremely agitated. Violent, even.”

       “I was still in shock,” Devlin said in exasperation. “Out of my mind with grief. That’s the only reason I went there. You know I don’t believe in any of your father’s nonsense.”

       “And we both know there was a time when you did. You were once Father’s protégé. I’ve heard him say a million times you were the best investigator he ever had.” Was that a note of jealousy I heard in Ethan’s voice?

       “That was a long time ago,” Devlin said. “I was looking for a way to annoy my grandfather and Rupert’s dog and pony show was a novelty to me.”

       “It was more than that. Even after you moved on…I don’t think you completely let go. You married Mariama, after all.”

       “What are you getting at?” Devlin asked coldly.

       “Some remnant of that belief must have remained. Grief and shock alone wouldn’t have driven you to the Institute that night.”

       “Think what you want. I have no idea why you’re dredging all this up now.”

       “After you stormed