Page 89 of The Grey Wolf
His phone was down to 32 percent. Each use must be not just important, but vital. Armand wroteBonne nuit. Je t’aimeto Reine-Marie and sent it into limbo with a heart attached.
Then, by the glow of the phone, he did one more vital thing. He reread her message. The one that had come in after she’d received his, reassuring her that they were safe.
Oh, thank Godwas followed by a heart andJe t’aime.
Clicking the phone off, the small room descended into complete darkness.
Into the Great Silence he whispered, “Je t’aime.”
The next morning, as day broke, Jean-Guy and Armand stood on the shores of the lake and watched the pilot checking out the plane. It wasn’t yet light enough to fly, but he was clearly anxious to get away.
“He’d better not leave without us.”
“I thought you were taking the vow,” said Armand.
“If they’d had those little chocolate-covered blueberries, absolutely. But since they don’t…”
Armand smiled.
As so often happened after a fierce storm, the new day was calm, the lake a mirror. There was, at that early hour, the softest mauve in the east. The lake was disturbed here and there by fish just breaking the surface to grab insects.
The air smelled fresh and clean and slightly musky from the mud of the shore, and the damp moss, and the pine needles.
Lauds, the office of the monastic day that signaled dawn, had just begun.
Standing on the shore, it was possible for Armand to believe that it was not just a new day, but that the world itself was young. Unspoiled. That nothing bad, nothing terrible, nothing catastrophic was planned.
That it did not fall to him to stop it.
Jean-Guy bent down and carefully selected a stone; then, as he tossed it, he counted. Five skips disturbed the calm lake. “Tell me about the wolf.”
The wolf.
Armand barely slept that night. His cell was chilly, and he found himself curled into a tight ball, clutching the thin blanket to conserve body heat. He looked over at his jacket on the chair but couldn’t bring himself to get up and get it to spread it on top of him. He fell into a fitful sleep and awoke after a few hours. Lying in the darkness for a couple of minutes, he finally surrendered to the inevitable and got up.
After taking a lukewarm shower, he dressed quickly, grateful for the heavy sweater Reine-Marie had stuffed into his satchel at the last minute. He turned on his flashlight and stared down at the map that all but covered the stone floor of his cell, in the hopes that some inspiration would strike him. It did not.
Turning off the light, he placed the now rolled-up map behind his satchel under the bed. A not-very-effective hiding place, but theonly one available. Which was exactly what made it not a hiding place at all.
Heaving himself to his feet with the help of a hand on the bed and a muffled groan, he left the cell. After a few steps down the dark corridor, he returned to his room, grabbed the map, and took it with him. He also put the two halves of the Chartreuse recipe in his pocket.
As he walked, Armand dragged his hand along the rough stone wall. For equilibrium. It was disorienting to be in complete darkness and utter silence.
Instead of turning on his phone flashlight, he allowed his eyes to adjust. It was, he thought, a sort of metaphor. How easily humans could adjust to darkness. To dark thoughts and darker deeds. Until, finally, the darkness became normal. And they no longer missed, or looked for, or trusted, the light.
It was a survival instinct, but not always one of the more laudable.
Even this place was not immune. The specter of the Inquisition haunted Saint-Gilbert. If so-called men of God could turn a blind eye to those atrocities, and so much more, then anything could be done, by anyone.
Including poisoning drinking water, murdering tens of thousands.
“Some malady is coming upon us,” Armand muttered, as he walked. “We wait. We wait.”
He was pretty sure the wait was almost over.
He wasn’t ready. He did not have enough answers. He could not see clearly. Armand suppressed the urge to run off in all directions. To send out half-baked orders to his team.
After getting lost once, he found the corridor that led to the huge doors. That led outside. Once there, he ran his hand over the smooth wood, then the stone on either side. Hoping to find a key hanging there.
