“Oh, honey bear,” said Doc, “that’s one thing you don’t ever have to worry about. Joltin’ Joe’s trained for this kind of thing. He knows how to acquire money, equipment, and other resources. He might even ask nicely for some of it, but—let’s face it—for a man as skilled and resourceful as he is, do you really think for one blessed moment that he’s going to let anything get in his way?”

Bug sighed. “What I’m really afraid of is Joe finding a quiet place to stick one of those gun barrels up under his chin and see if that stops the pain.”

It was such a cold, frank, and plausible statement that it sucked all the warmth out of the room.

CHAPTER 18

BARI KAROL WOJTYŁA AIRPORT

VIALE ENZO FERRARI

BARI, ITALY

The fat old man with the emotional support dog waited nearly forty minutes for the pay phone to be free. Coin phones were harder to come by lately, and this one seemed very popular. He watched a nun use it, then a teenage boy wearing a Pro Italia Galatina football jersey, and then a woman with a baby. Why none of them had cell phones this far into the twenty-first century was a mystery.

The old man waited until there was no one around to observe him, and then he waddled over to the wall-mounted phone and thumbed in some coins. The fact that he wore gloves to do this also went unobserved. He let the phone ring while he stood there, eyes closed, one hand clutched tightly around the handset, the other balled into a fist at his side.

When the woman answered, the man sagged against the wall as if he’d been punched. There were tears in his eyes, and his breath was a ragged wheeze.

“Hello?”

The woman’s voice was soft, tentative, and uncertain. Almost as if she suspected but did not believe who was calling.

The fat old man said nothing.

“Hello, who’s calling?” asked the woman.

He did not reply.

Then she said, “Joe?”

That one word. Soft, scared, hopeful.

It took so much of what he had left inside to speak. “I … I love you, Junie.”

And then he hung up, whirled, and fled. The dog followed as the man hurried toward the closest trash can, and it stood guard while the man vomited.

CHAPTER 19

PHOENIX HOUSE

OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE

Church woke in the lightless depths of the night with a name on his lips. It tasted like blood and bile.

He reached for Lilith, but her side of the bed was empty. Then he saw her by the window. Standing so still, her naked silhouette a study in tension. He could read that in every line, from the rigidity of her back muscles to the fist clenched tightly beneath her chin. Without turning, she said, “He is alive in the world again.”

He.