Flock of Wolves Page 18

  That's who I needed to reach. People who wanted what I had—not people who were just trying to keep their heads above water, too busy treading to think about stroking.

  "Yes, I've been very lucky in life. God has taken care of me."

  She sneered. "You think God did that?"

  "If not Him, then who?" I asked.

  "I don't know, tell me how you bought that fancy clothing, and I'll tell you if it was God or the devil."

  My mouth dropped open in shock. "The devil? Why would you say that?"

  She stepped closer to me, her eyes narrowing. "I see you, April Madden. I smell liquor on you. And I see the devil in your words."

  Before I could respond, she turned and walked away, her child stumbling after her.

  "Ignore her," Cynthia said. "There will always be people who don't believe. This is God testing you. Come on, we have another church to get to."

  She hustled me out to the rental car. And as we began to drive I finally found my voice.

  "What if she's right? What if the devil is speaking through me, not God?"

  "That's just not the case." Cynthia said. "Lots of people are going to say horrible things to you, April. But I think you're stronger than them. And I think you're here for a reason."

  Her eyes flicked to her rear-view mirror, and I turned to look over my shoulder. A black SUV was following us.

  "Oh, my God. Do you think that's…?"

  "Yes, they've been following us since this morning." She looked over at me before returning her gaze to the streets. "You're going to have to be strong. Very strong."

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Prophet

  Robert

  She pulled off the burka, the disappearing stream of fabric revealing her dark hair tumbling in silky waves around her face, large brown eyes lit with fierce intelligence, high cheekbones, a narrow nose, full lips, and a fresh scar on her chin.

  The prophet.

  "Please." She gestured toward a rock outcropping covered in pelts. "Sit. I'll get a fire going. Help yourself to some water." She pointed to a bucket with a ladle next to some horn cups.

  My thirst roared to the forefront of my mind, and I crossed to the water, pouring some for Sydney and me. We drank it down in gulps. Cool and refreshing, it washed the sand from my mouth.

  Sydney moved away from me, walking to the back of the cave to sit by Blue and his puppies. The white mastiff laid her head on Sydney's knee and sighed peacefully.

  Looking down at the giant dog, Sydney stroked its head. A puppy climbed into her lap, half on its mother's face, and whimpered for attention. A smile stole over Sydney's face, and she cuddled the big puppy close.

  There were four pups, three of which had blue eyes, and one that shared the mismatched pairing of its father. They had Blue's markings—tan and black at their shoulders, on their muzzle and around their ears. Their snouts were something between their parents, not the elegant length of a collie, or the mushed, wrinkled edifice of a mastiff.

  Giant paws hinted at their eventual size. These would be serious dogs.

  A fire came to life under the prophet's ministrations, and she sat back, her gaze finding mine. "You never told me your name."

  "Robert Maxim," I said.

  "Please, Robert, sit," she indicated a spot across the fire from her. I took the proffered seat and stared at her for a long moment.

  "You're the prophet," I said. A hint of awe entered my voice. How did she do it?

  She shrugged. "We are all the prophet, Robert. We are all Her. My name is Rida."

  I shook my head. False modesty. "You're the one who made the video."

  She nodded. "Yes, I did that." Her eyes traveled over to where Sydney sat with the dogs. "But it was Joy's idea."

  Sydney looked up from the puppies, her face deep in shadow. I couldn't see her eyes. Couldn't tell if she was Joy or Sydney. Did it matter? Only in that Joy wanted me dead, and Sydney trusted me enough to travel through a sandstorm clutching my hand.

  I returned my attention to Rida. She brought her gaze to meet mine—strength and calm radiated from her.

  "How did you…" I paused, unsure of how to ask the question.

  "You want to know my story. The story of Rida?" She gave me a small smile.

  "Yes. Your accent is British."

  She nodded. "But I am Syrian." She paused and looked down at her hands—long-fingered and elegant, but also strong: a surgeon's hands. "I was born in Syria." She looked back up at me. "And here I will die."

  I didn't speak, letting the crackling of the fire fill the silence, hoping that she'd continue, explain herself. She gave me a half-smile and leaned back, resting against a rock, reaching out to pet a mastiff who sat nearby. It scooted closer, resting its head by her knee as she massaged its neck.

  "These dogs were my father’s. They are kangals, the largest breed in the world. He bred them to help with his goats. Except Janan." She gestured toward the white dog. "He gave her to me as a gift when I returned last year. Her name means ‘heart and soul.’ My father said that with me back home, our family’s heart and soul had been restored.

  He refused to understand that I was only there to try to drag them back to England with me." She shook her head. "Now I am the only one left. The only survivor." Her eyes found mine and deep sadness shone from the depths of her gaze. "Can the heart go on without the rest of the body, Robert? Without the limbs, the head?" She raised her eyebrows in question.

  "You appear to be very intelligent, a skilled surgeon."

  She gave me another one of those half-smiles. "You think maybe I was the brain? Not the heart."

  I shrugged. "Maybe you are complete on your own."

  She shook her head. "No one is," Rida said softly.

  Her words made my chest ache. For so long I lived just for me. The image of that boy soldier lying in the sand, at my mercy, came into my mind. I didn't kill him. I didn't kill Mustafa. I was here, instead of safe—here for Sydney. Something inside me had changed. Pursuing my own interests was no longer enough…

  "What happened to your family?" I asked.

  Rida glanced at Sydney again before reaching up and touching the scar on her chin. "We are Shia." She paused, frowned. "Were. We were Shia. But I have not believed—practiced— for some time." A soft smile danced across her full lips before it pulled back down into a frown. "I never told my family I didn't believe. They died thinking I still practiced." She shook her head. "But I did not share their faith in God's protection."

  She looked up at me, the fire flickering between us. "And I was right. He didn't protect them. Their bodies are in a ditch with their neighbors…with all the others who believed what they did. My sisters, my brothers, my grandparents, aunts, uncles." She stopped, swallowing, her eyes filming, but she continued to hold my gaze. "They died for what they believed in."

  "How did you survive?"

  Her nostrils flared and anger kindled in her gaze. "They lined us up. The whole village, in groups of twenty. They lined us up in front of the grave they made us dig. Then they fired. And they missed me. I fell back, lay still, covered in the blood and corpses of my family and neighbors. I waited there—" she swallowed, "in that pit of death until night fell and then I climbed out."

  She looked down at the dog by her knee. "They'd taken my father's dogs, tied them up. They were starving them." She closed her eyes as a tear escaped and dangled for a moment on her long dark lashes before releasing and falling into the blackness of her dress. "I knew if I was going to survive I had to free them. Take them and the goats, and live out here. But I also knew that I had to…" She looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot with the horror of her memories. "I had to kill the men who…" She faltered briefly before continuing. "Before they shot us, they raped the women." Her face twisted with disgust. "My youngest sister was only thirteen."

  "I'm sorry."

  She shook her head almost violently. "Do not apologize to me." Her voice came out forceful. "No regret can change what happened."


  I nodded, looking down at my boots, unable to meet her gaze—it held so much pain and power it felt almost like looking directly into the sun.

  "Isis had left only a few men behind in my village. So, I went to my house, and I got my father's guns. I freed the dogs and I…" Her gaze went hazy, her mouth smiling. "No one was on guard because they thought we were all dead. I killed them while they slept."

  She paused for a moment. "I have saved many lives, and lost some too, on the operating table. Blood and exposed tissue are not foreign to me. I know how to turn off the part of me that cares. My medical training, the decade I spent learning to save lives, allowed me to take them so easily, so…precisely." She shrugged. "I took my dogs, and I went and gathered our animals, and I set off into the wilds—where I knew no one could find me if I didn't want to be found."

  "Why didn't you try to get out? Get back to London?"

  Her eyes flicked to me and then over to Sydney. "You are a powerful white man, and you cannot imagine a world where you are so vulnerable. But I had no way to move through Syria, no way to get to an airport. No way to escape except the one I chose."

  "Surely your friends in London would have—"

  She cut me off. "You should listen to me instead of your own vision, Robert Maxim." Her eyes held mine. "I am telling you the truth, and you are denying it to hold onto your beliefs. That is how you end up in a ditch."

  My brows rose, and a smile pulled at my lips. "I'm not the kind of man who ends up in a ditch, Rida."

  "Are you the kind that asks men to dig them?"

  Sydney spoke from her corner for the first time. "He is the kind making money off the two sides thinking any of it is worth the effort."

  She knew me so well.

  Rida nodded knowingly. "The eye in the sky? A god amongst men."

  "I've never claimed to be divine," I pointed out. "Unlike some people in this cave."

  Sydney laughed, and I turned to look at her. Rida saved her life. I owed her. "How did you come upon Sydney?" I asked, still looking at Sydney where she sat, the puppy asleep on her chest, Blue leaning against her side, the white mastiff's wide head resting on her lap.

  "I heard the battle—the gun fire, the helicopters. I'd been staying in a lean-to nearby, and I decided to check it out. Hoped to scavenge from what was left of the wreckage. When I saw Joy laying bleeding on the ground, with Blue by her side, I knew I needed to help her." Rida stared down at her hands. "I wanted to save a life. I had medical supplies I'd taken from the local clinic when I left my village. Painkillers, sterile instruments, bandages."

  "You did an incredible thing."

  "Yes," she nodded. "I was always an excellent surgeon."

  "How did she convince you to…?"

  "Claim to be a prophet from God?" Rida asked, her voice even. "She mumbled in her sleep at first, and then she started to make sense. And her words were nourishment to my soul. That women were equal, that it was our responsibility to stand up for ourselves. That without women leading our own movement, claiming our own equality, releasing the power within us, we'd never be free. I believed it all."

  I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  "The fact that she said it was God telling her…" Rida smiled. "It's not the first time I've heard a post-surgical patient claim to have a direct link with the big man upstairs." Rida gave a low laugh. "People say crazy stuff on those drugs. But it was the combination, the idea that God would sanction a female revolution. That set something inside me free. I wanted it to be true. I wanted to believe. And so I did."

  "That simple?"

  "The same parts of the brain light up when we feel 'the spirit' as when we gamble—our reward centers. It is a very powerful motivator, much more powerful than intellectual thought. Non-religious people sometimes feel it in nature, or when contemplating revelatory scientific theories…it isn't anything concrete. No amount of thinking will get you there. Will light up that part of your brain." She gestured around the cave. "I feel it when I walk in this landscape, its vastness and beauty, the safety it has provided for me…I feel gratitude that I am alive and free."

  "Are you free?" Sydney asked, her face shadowed.

  Rida turned her attention to Sydney. The firelight flickered against Rida's skin so that she almost glowed. "Yes, I am. As are many who believe."

  "What do you believe in? I don't understand," Sydney said.

  "You don't remember anything from our time together?"

  Sydney shook her head, creases of displeasure forming around her mouth. "I thought you were my enemy. That you'd been controlling me…using me. Then I came to realize." Her gaze found me in the dim light. "I realized that the words I'd been hearing in my head were my own. But I didn't understand that…they were Joy. I didn't know that I…"

  "That you had slipped back into your earlier self," I said, picking up her thoughts, saying the words that were too hard for her to speak.

  Rida smiled gently, her eyes soft. "No, I never controlled you. We worked together. Once you recovered enough to slow down your medication, we talked."

  "About how to change the world?" Sydney asked.

  "Yes, we agreed that the only way was through God—through the reward centers of the brain." She turned to me. "Have you read the Bhagavad Gita?"

  "Years ago."

  "I read it in med school; a friend gave me a copy. You know that the Hindus don't believe in a single God, as Christians, Jews or Muslims do?"

  I nodded. "They believe in 'the God Head.'"

  "Right. So anyone can be a prophet—we are all God. We all have that direct connection that prophets claim in other religions." She leaned forward and, using a long metal tool, poked at the fire. "If we can change consciousness, we can change the world." She reached behind her, grabbing another log from a pile. "Women must rise up to be equals, or the world will never find balance." Rida placed the log on the fire and the flames engulfed it.

  "The world will never be balanced, not in the way you want," I said. "And even if it were, women can be as evil as men. Everyone is guilty."

  She gave me that half-smile of hers. "That's true. Everyone is guilty. Women are guilty of believing the lies. As are men. It hurts everyone. I believed all of that, but it was Joy who convinced me that women insisting on their equality will lead to a better world. And she convinced me to insist that idea came directly from God. We found herders, and I showed them her wounds, told them my story—that I brought her back from death with His help. So the word spread. And the miracle was believed.”

  "But I never wanted any of this," Sydney said, interrupting.

  "You did. And you got it."

  "But…I'm no longer Joy."

  "You're both," I said, a calm coming over me. I looked to Rida for confirmation. "She must be switching back and forth between Joy and Sydney, like someone with multiple personalities, right?"

  She shook her head. "I'm not a therapist."

  "Just a surgeon," I said.

  "How do we know she's not a messenger from God?" Rida asked me, holding my gaze—challenging me.

  "Because there is no such thing."

  She shrugged. "You can't prove that, and neither can I. But it doesn't matter. What matters is if people believe."

  "I recognize that. Belief is the most powerful drug we have."

  "Yes, the biggest reward. If you want to change a habit, you must offer a large enough reward to the brain."

  I nodded, knowing the science—habits were merely tracks in our brains that led to rewards—the brain didn't care if the reward killed you, like smoking, or made you fit, like running, as long as the brain got its nicotine, its dopamine, its reward.

  Sydney Rye was my habit—and she had changed me.

  Sydney

  I breathed in the scent of the puppy: musk and stone and milk. The young dog slept against me, snoring slightly. Totally trusting. His mother—the giant white mastiff Rida had said was named Janan— warmed me, her head on my lap, her chest against my thigh.

/>   Robert and Rida spoke over the fire, but I had stopped listening—their voices rose and fell like a stream babbling in the distance. The cave wrapped me in comfort, despite the terrifying revelations I'd received here. Joy was inside me—and she wanted out.

  This cave felt like home.

  But it wasn't.

  My stomach rumbled as the scent of food reached me. Glancing up, I saw Rida cooking over the flames. The smoke rose up and slipped through an opening in the cave ceiling.

  Robert stood, his body unfolding elegantly, and approached me. All of the dogs watched him—recognizing the powerful predator he was.

  Robert crouched in front of me and held my gaze. "You okay?"

  I let out a soft laugh. "I don't know."

  He nodded, frowning. "Let me take you back to Miami. Get you help. We can solve this together."

  I shook my head. "There is no helping me. I just destroy things."

  "That's not true." His voice was harsh, almost angry. "You may have changed the world, Sydney. You may have flipped the script."

  "Joy did that. Not me."

  "She couldn't have done it without you. Please," his voice dropped, so that it sounded almost like he was pleading, except that Robert Maxim never begged for anything. He took what he wanted.

  Tears burned my eyes, and I looked down at the puppy in my arms. "What if she kills me?" I whispered, not wanting to let that possibility loose into the air.

  "Joy?"

  "Yes."

  "Maybe you can learn to live together," Robert said. "Work together. Lean on each other."

  I looked up, and his gaze was on me. That icy sea behind his eyes a few degrees warmer…he was showing me something.

  Lean on someone? Be with someone?

  "What about Mulberry?" I asked.

  His gaze shuttered, and he looked down at the mastiff resting her head on my lap.

  "I will have him transferred to Miami." Robert looked up at me. "You can heal together."