“I don’t think he truly understands what it means to die,” she said in a soft voice. “Sure, he knows about life and death, but only in terms of cause and effect—he’s learned that by observing nature. But as for what happens next, the question of whether it is possible to come back from a kind of sleep that consumes the flesh . . . That’s something he can only imagine, just as we do, just as humans have done for millennia. He was simply trying to wake his companion up. But now he’s not alone anymore. He’s found himself a cub.”

-67-

-67-

The search party was now concentrating its efforts on the stretch of sloping ground that Teresa had indicated. The men worked relentlessly, refusing to take any kind of break as they climbed toward the peak in ever tighter formation. Not a grain of sand could have slipped by them without their noticing.

The orders were to halt their advance as soon as they sighted the target and wait for Teresa to reach them—she was worried about how Andreas might react to feeling surrounded, and she needed to figure out a way to communicate with him. She had moved from her earlier station at the bottom of the valley to a helipad that had been set up on some flat land further up the mountain.

The temperature was rising and the sky remained clear. All she could think of was the child. He’d been wearing heavy winter clothes when he’d been abducted, with a Babygro to shield him from the chill. But while he might not suffer the cold, he must certainly be hungry and thirsty by now. How would Andreas cope with its incessant crying?

She kept going back to Wallner’s diary. It had stopped in September 1993, and Teresa couldn’t bring herself to imagine what had happened next. There was only one thing she was sure of: child Omega had died, while child Alpha had survived and had continued to live in what he considered his lair, near the source of the only human contact he’d ever experienced in his life, and which time had reduced into nothing more than a skeleton.

Her mobile vibrated in her pocket. It was Marini calling from the Travenì police station.

“Any news?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’ve had the archives searched in full. No children have gone missing in the valley in the last thirty years. There’s no sign of any missing person’s report. I also called headquarters in the city and ran a search at the public library. There’s nothing in the newspaper clippings from that period, either.”

Teresa feared that the mystery of Omega’s identity might never be solved. But perhaps there was one more path they could try, running beneath the surface of those seemingly flawless, immaculate lives.

“I think I know someone who can help us,” she said. “Wait for me.”