Walker’s smile grew wider.
He knew exactly what he’d done.
THIRTY-ONE
When she awoke, but long before she cleared quarantine, Sophie at last found the time to read through Lamar’s journal from beginning to end. Some of the pages had been damaged or stuck together, some of the ink blurred, but Sophie could make out enough to fill in the rest. Dr. Tang had told her that Lamar’s decline could be traced through his writings, yet still his translations and interpretations were invaluable. It had been his greatest achievement, up until the moment he had begun to unravel.
But the pages she kept coming back to were at the end, where he had scribbled what had look like gibberish to Dr. Tang. They were written in biblical Hebrew, which both Sophie and Lamar had studied. The scrawl had been difficult for her to decipher, but Sophie was sure she had translated it correctly now, after much effort, and the message both healed her and broke her heart. No matter how lost his mind had been there, in the end, he had meant this entry as a message to her. She could interpret it no other way.
I stabbed you in the back, Lamar had written. Once I crossed that line, I knew I could not go back. If I can say anything in my defense, it is only that when I told them about the jar, I did not believe it was anything but a jar. Now, too late, I know better. The sickness is in me. I see obscenities acted out before me. I have seen so many phantoms here, and now there is a rash spreading on my skin. I think it is in my lungs, too.
But there is something worse inside me now. It wants me to do terrible things. The caliphate will come for me and for the jar, but I realize now what a fool I have been. So many will die. Friends and strangers by the thousands. It was not supposed to be like this, and I cannot allow it to happen, which means I must become a thief now. I must reveal my ugliest secret to my dearest friend, and I know it will destroy her view of me forever. But if I am successful, you will live, and that is worth any cost.
I hear things. I see things. The urges inside me are repulsive, but I know this one is real. This one is right. I must do it now … this very minute. At any moment, the last of me could be erased, and there will be nothing left of me that you would recognize, nothing left of me that would recognize the right and the wrong.
Hate me if you must, my friend.
But live. Whatever you do, please live.
* * *
Sophie closed the book and set it aside, waiting for sleep to come again. Waiting for the day the doctors would release her and she could breathe fresh air and feel sunshine again. She would go to France and be with her parents and stay with them for as long as her father had left. Lamar had battled sickness of body and soul to concentrate enough to write her those final thoughts, and his last action in this world had been to try to save her and the rest of their team. Their friends and colleagues.
She would do as he’d asked for as long as she was able.
Sophie would live.
THIRTY-TWO
At the bottom of the sea, the jar rolled in the current, brushed against a bed of seagrass, where it caught for a time. A turtle hiding in the grass turned and swam away, and even when the ebb and flow of the current tugged the jar away, turning it ’round and tumbling it far from that bed of seagrass, the turtle never returned.
Fish began to follow the jar, to swim circles around it, languidly at first and keeping track of its movement across the bottom of the strait and out, in time, into the Arabian Sea. Far above, light glinted on the waves, but here in the depths was only darkness. Within that deep shadow were shadows deeper still. They appeared to be fish, but gray and translucent, with a blue gleam in their eyes that left a trail in the water as they swam.
The other fish—the ones who had always been here—began to rot and drift and die, but soon those spectral fish swam to them and vanished. The sick ones turned on each other then and tore each other apart.
If sound traveled down there, deep beneath the sea, you might have been able to hear them laugh.
Also by Christopher Golden
Ararat
Dead Ringers
Sons of Anarchy: BRATVA
Snowblind
Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire (with Mike Mignola)
Joe Golem and the Drowning City (with Mike Mignola)
Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism (with Mike Mignola)
The Boys are Back in Town
The Ferryman
Strangewood
Straight On ‘til Morning
Soulless
The Myth Hunters: Book One of The Veil
The Borderkind: Book Two of The Veil
The Lost Ones: Book Three of The Veil
The Ocean Dark (as Jack Rogan)
The Shadow Saga
Of Saints and Shadows
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts
Of Masques and Martyrs
The Gathering Dark
Walking Nightmares
The Graves of Saints
King of Hell
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling and Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Ararat, Snowblind, Dead Ringers, and Of Saints and Shadows, among many other novels. With Mike Mignola, he is the cocreator of two cult favorite comic book series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. Golden is also the editor of such anthologies as Seize the Night, The New Dead, and Dark Cities, and the cohost of the popular podcast “Three Guys with Beards.” He lives in Massachusetts. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Also by Christopher Golden
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE PANDORA ROOM. Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Golden. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Rowen Davis
Cover photographs: caves © VVR/Deposit Photos; clouds © Sabphoto/Shutterstock.com; (top) figure © Egoreichenkov Evgenii/Shutterstock.com; men © Kozlik/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-19210-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-19211-0 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250192110
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First Edition: April 2019