"No! Eli, you mustn't even think that! I'll talk to the others. We'll-"
"No. I shall handle it. I'll give it one more chance. Now, you run off and get your things while I make some calls."
After Adrian was gone, Eli leaned back in his recliner and closed his eyes.
... he could never prove one way or the other whether you were as old as you say you are or just plain crazy...
Sometimes, Eli admitted, I wonder about that myself.
He had memories of his early years in eighteenth-century Italy, his discovery of the Ceremony in a stone vault in Riomaggiore among the Cinque Terre along the Liguorian coast, and then the long trail of hundreds of years and hundreds of sacrificed children, but they were vague, almost as if he'd dreamed them. He wished he could recall more detail.
What if Strauss's suspicions were correct? What if he were no more than a murderous madman trying to turn back the clock, who'd told his mad stories to himself and others so many times he'd come to believe them?
No! Eli slammed his fist against the armrest of the recliner. What was he thinking? He wasn't mad or deluded. It was the pain, the drugs...
... the wound...
Yes, the wound. There lay the wellspring of his doubts. He shouldn't have been wounded at all. That was the legacy of the Ceremony-life and personal impregnability. It didn't make an adept invulnerable to petty injuries like papercuts and such. But a stab wound... the blade was supposed to glance off the skin.
Unless it was wielded by another adept.
Uneasy, Eli took out the number Strauss had given him last night and tapped it into the phone. And just like last night, his attacker was "not available at this time."
Eli broke the connection and simmered. He would put the number into speed dial and keep calling. The man had to turn his phone on sometime, and one of those times Eli would connect. And then they'd talk, and Eli would learn about his attacker, induce him into a slip of the tongue, and then he'd have him.