“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m not that easy to get rid of,” I said.
“The day’s still young,” she replied.
Philip rolled his eyes and muttered, “Get a damn room.”
“Philip, can you hear me?” Bethany asked.
“Unfortunately.”
“Meet me on Second Avenue, between Second and Third Street. You know the spot.”
Philip blanched. For a vampire who was already quite pale, it was a remarkable feat. “You can’t be serious, Bethany.”
“What’s on Second Avenue?” I asked.
“I can’t allow this,” I heard Isaac say.
Bethany said, “Look, Isaac, the oracles may be the only chance we’ve got left, and Trent shouldn’t go alone. Someone needs to go with him, but it can’t be Philip, and you and Gabrielle need to keep looking through those books. That leaves me as the obvious choice.”
I looked at Philip. “What does she mean, it can’t be you?”
“Bethany, you can’t ask me to do this,” Philip said, ignoring me. He almost sounded frightened.
“I don’t like this,” Isaac said.
“I think we’re all going to like being dead a lot less,” she replied.
Isaac sighed. “You have a point. Okay, do it, but be careful, both of you.”
“This is crazy,” Philip said.
Bethany said, “Philip, if you get there first, keep Trent in the car. Trent, no running off on your own again. I’m coming with you. I mean it. No arguments this time.”
“No arguments,” I said, and ended the call.
Philip shook his head. “Taking you to see the oracles. I must be out of my damn mind.”
He turned off the Henry Hudson Parkway onto Ninety-Sixth Street, heading east into the city. As we drove down the canyon of concrete and glass, a ball of fire burned before us on the horizon, dimmed to a shimmering egg yolk by the Escalade’s heavily tinted windows.
The sun, rising on what, if we failed, would be the last day of New York City.
Thirty-four
Philip pulled the Escalade up to the curb on Second Avenue between Second and Third, just as Bethany had instructed. She was there already, leaning against one of the supporting poles of an awning, the faded words PROVENZANO LANZA FUNERAL HOME emblazoned above her head. With her bulky cargo vest and the morning sun on her face, she looked like a five-foot-tall jungle explorer waiting to enter the bush. All she was missing was a machete and a pith helmet. I opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Bethany looked up at me with a half-smile. I’d thought of her eyes as sky-blue before, but now, seeing the way they sparkled in the sun, I realized just how apt that description was.
“For someone who spent most of the night in a gargoyle cage, you don’t look any worse for wear,” she said. “Pity. You could stand to be taken down a peg.”
“I’ve spent the night in worse places,” I said. I turned back to the Escalade, where Philip watched us from behind the wheel. “You coming?”
He shook his head. “I told you, you’re on your own. Vampires aren’t welcome here.”
“You’re going to let that stop you?”
He looked up through the tinted windshield at the morning sky. “Even if I wanted to come with you, I couldn’t. Not everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. We have … issues with the sun.”
“Like the gargoyles,” I said.
“We are nothing like those mindless vermin,” he snarled, turning to me angrily.
“They’re not all like that,” I reminded him. “Besides, you were outside yesterday during the day. I saw you.”
He sighed and seemed to relax. “That was different. Storm clouds covered the sun yesterday. I won’t be so lucky today. But it doesn’t matter. Vampires can’t enter. I’ll wait for you here.” I nodded and started to close the passenger door, but he stopped me. “Be careful, Trent. If I were you, I wouldn’t trust a word the oracles say.”
“I don’t believe in prophecies. I don’t think the world works that way,” I told him. “But if they know anything that can help us, I’ll get it out of them.”
I closed the door and turned back to Bethany. She stooped to pick up a metal birdcage I hadn’t noticed down by her feet. Inside, two small starlings sat on the perch. They let out a few chirps as she lifted the cage, then sat quietly again.
“What’s with the birds?” I asked.
“Payment,” she said. “The oracles don’t work for free.”
“You were able to get two birds on short notice at six in the morning on a Sunday?”
She shrugged. “I know a guy. Come on.”
I followed Bethany down the sidewalk. Just past the white brick funeral home was a tall, wrought-iron gate that covered the mouth of an alley. Running along the top of the gate were the words NEW YORK MARBLE CEMETERY, INCORPORATED 1831. Through the bars I saw a long brick alleyway lined with fire escapes and windows with air-conditioning units, and at the far end, a glimpse of the cemetery in the form of a green sliver of grass. Bethany handed the birdcage to me and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. While I studied the starlings and wondered who exactly could supply birds to the needy at odd hours, she pulled a key from her jeans pocket and used it to open the padlock on the gate. She opened the gate quickly, and we went through. As soon as we were in, she closed the gate again and reached through the bars to squeeze the padlock shut. It was clear she didn’t want anyone following us inside.
We walked down the alley, the sound of my boots echoing back at us from the brick walls. “How do you have the keys to this place?” I asked. “Your bird man give you those, too?”
“I borrowed them,” she said, “from the Library of Keys.”
I stopped walking. “There’s a library of keys?”
She didn’t break her stride, just shook her head and grinned. “I keep forgetting you’re new to all this. Tell you what, if we get out of this alive, I’ll take you on a tour of the real New York. There’s a lot more to this city than the Statue of Liberty and Famous Ray’s.”
“So I’m learning,” I said, catching up to her. “A tour sounds good. I’m going to hold you to that.”
We walked on, neither of us saying anything, though I imagined we were thinking the same thing. Time was running out, and even if the oracles told us where Stryge’s body was, the odds were still stacked against us. By this time tomorrow, it was likely there wouldn’t be a New York City left to tour.
Another locked gate stood at the end of the alley. Bethany pulled out the key and opened this one, too. Once we’d passed through, she made sure to lock it again behind us, just like before. She took the birdcage back from me. I looked around, expecting to see a cemetery, but it looked more like someone’s backyard. A meadow of neatly cut grass, a few shrubs and trees, and some plastic outdoor tables and chairs, all fenced in by stone walls. There wasn’t a single headstone or monument anywhere. Either the bodies were buried in unmarked graves or they’d been interred in the walls, behind the engraved marble tablets affixed to the stone.
We continued walking, making our way to the far end of the lawn. “I always wondered what was back here,” I said. “I must have passed this place a hundred times, but the gate was never open.”
“You weren’t meant to know what’s back here,” Bethany said. “No one is. It’s too dangerous.”
“Because of the oracles?” I asked. “Are they really that bad?”
“If you believe the stories, yes,” she said. “They say hundreds of years ago the elder of a vampire clan got some bad news from the oracles. It upset him so much he sent assassins to kill them. The assassins never returned. The entire clan disappeared. Just wiped out, like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Ever since, no vampire has been allowed inside. More to the point, no vampire has dared enter.”