He surveys the landscape around him. Ten or twenty feet to his right, a man lies slumped at the foot of a chain-link fence, either unconscious or dead. The woman sitting beside him ignores the fallen man altogether. Instead, she jabs a needle into the crook of her elbow.

O Lord, this is so much better than the railway platform, he thinks. Please forgive me for defying Your earlier command.

But his prayer, like all the others he has uttered since leaving the train station, goes unanswered.

Undeterred, he backs into an alcove, a shadow away from the streetlight. He extracts a glove from his pocket, removes his backpack, and lowers it to the ground. He reaches his gloved hand inside until his fingers find the cordlike tail. As soon as he pulls on it, the rat squeaks in protest. He can feel the pressure of the bite around his finger, but the teeth don’t penetrate the glove. He pulls Cacio out by the tail.

The rat stills with fear as it dangles in front of his face.

His sympathy stirs for the petrified animal. “Not to worry, Cacio. You will love it here. So much to eat. So many places to hide.”

The rat stares back with dark blank eyes.

Then he parrots the same phrase his mentor sometimes says to him: “You should feel honored. After all, you will be doing the Lord’s work.”

Chapter

Thirty-Five

The second vodka neat tastes better than the first. Alana finds the slight buzz welcome after this deflating day. Byron is still nursing his first beer while she’s already considering a third drink, as she toys with the straw in her glass.

She can’t even remember which one of them suggested drinks. Byron gave her a ride back to her hotel and their conversation regarding potential containment strategies continued into the lobby and up to the bar. Now, after midnight, they’re sitting at a table with the whole bar to themselves. No wonder, Alana thinks again. Who would visit this doomed city?

“Back in the Middle Ages, it wasn’t called the Black Death,” she says apropos of nothing. “That term wasn’t coined for centuries.”

“What did they call it?” Byron asks.

“The Great Mortality.”

Byron studies the rim of his beer bottle. “It does kind of fit.”

“You figure?” Alana is aware that alcohol sometimes brings out an edge in her, but she makes no effort to suppress it. “Truth is, ‘The Great Mortality’ was a massive understatement.”

“It does explain a lot, though. Like why this outbreak is so much deadlier than what we’ve seen with the modern-day bubonic plague.”

“That’s about the only thing it explains.”

“It’s as if they’re not even the same bug. Like comparing a cold virus to Ebola.”

“You’re gonna tell me about Ebola?” She taps her chest indignantly. “I was there. In West Africa.”

“So I’ve heard.” His eyes glint with sarcasm.

“Then again, the plague does have one major epidemiological advantage over Ebola that will make it far deadlier.”