An overpowering scent of roses suddenly cloyed their senses: stifling, rather than sweet. No one moved a limb. A yellow-green light spread from the middle of the room, and a small, ethereal presence—an angel, with the visage and physical attributes almost of Lucy—was among them. Suspended in midair above the ancient box, she was luminous against the painted horse with its rose bridle, the fallen knight, the gaping tree. Guy Temple, holding his chest, stooped lower to the ground, sighing out a wounded sound. The impact of the apparition was electrifying, wonderful, heart-stopping; he read in it a profound warning.

With her whole being—eyes and mind—intent on the angel, Lucy froze, aware of her own heartbeat, her pulse clouding her eardrums; aware too of Fitzalan Walters leaping from her, laughing, his arms raised, onto the box—up into the arms of the angel. Then all sight and sound fused. There was a deafening “pop,” accompanied by a dense arc of blue light, a curl of smoke, and the clear impression of flight in the black-dark space. Lucy’s throat disgorged a sound, between a whisper and a scream.

“Oh God! Alex!”

33

KNEELING BEHIND HER ON THE FLOOR, SSIÂN’S ARMS WERE CLAMPED firmly around her, rocking her gently, but Lucy said nothing. In her mind Walters’s fingers were again at her throat, insistent, squeezing, companion actions to a flash of metal and a manic laugh. Yet her eyes were witness to his slumped body three or four feet away, Alex tending to him. Her nostrils wouldn’t let go of the smell of him—his suit, cologne, the breath that had been in her face—and a strange odor of something acrid, smoky. But she gradually became aware of Alex’s voice talking to her, without its richness, exactly as she had heard it a dozen times talking her down into anesthesia. She felt isolated and alone; but he was there.

An interplay of disorienting high-power beams of light had now been succeeded by a more constant light source, and she looked around the room, which in the space of three or four minutes had become peopled with uniformed strangers. Calvin was holding Angelo down, while another man was restraining him with cuffs; a lady handed Alex a blanket, which he spread over the prone figure of Walters in front of him, and a distinctive Scottish voice was talking quietly to Guy Temple a short distance from Alex.

Additional moments seemed foreshortened to seconds when Lucy listened to the doctor hand over to a team of paramedics: “Patient on the right has angina, but no apparent evidence of a myocardial infarction. Victim on the left has suffered an electric shock from the overhead pendant light. No loss of consciousness I’m aware of, though he’s been rambling and laughing for a few moments. His lips are bluish and he has scorch marks on the fingers of his right hand, very slight arrhythmia, but his breathing is regular. I can’t find any evidence of an entry or exit wound, but he was thrown several feet clear of the source, so we can’t rule out spinal injury.” And in minutes more, they were gone.