“That’s good,” Cassius drawled. “Never ever thought you were. We’re friends, though, doc. If this is that hard to say—”
I interrupted, “I’m going to butt in and punch this out. Here’s what I know or think I know. You can choose what to tell us?”
“Okay. Wait.” He stood and walked back to us, flopped onto the bed, back where he began. “This is better. Friends and lovers, yes.” He nudged me with his toes, then Cassius. “Please, Charity. Go on.” He held out his hand, palm out. “Please.”
“Okay.” I inhaled, thinking. “This is so hard to sum up. I might just run through it in the same order as I found out these things.” I rubbed my temple, thinking. “After Cassius, and Jacob, wanted to know about you, and were worried you were some psycho demon-worshipping serial killer…” I peeked past my hand, and he was just waiting, “After that, I got the phone. I saw all the stuff in the lower library in the tower. The pots of tissue samples. The weapons.”
None of that was what I needed.
“Then I found the fallen tower, the underwater tunnel, and saw they were connected.” I rattled onward. “I accessed the Inner Sanctum and found your diary. I’m sorry, doctor, but I took photos of every page. Oh! I forgot the cemetery.” He grunted and waved me on.
“The lists in the diary meant almost nothing, even though some of the men in the left list were serial killers. It was when I found the photo beneath the tower that everything fell into place. You have the same tattoo as that man, Dr. H. Taylor. Horatio Taylor?” I was guessing there. “You are the same man. The tattoo SPQR is in the precisely same place. It’s also the symbol of the Roman Republic. The women on the list, one of them you married.” It had to be so. I had ceased to call these guesses and maybes because saying it made me even more sure of it.
“I think all of the women are yourlost girls,like me.”I’d made inverted commas with my fingers as I said that. I looked at him again. “I think you have lived since the time of the Roman Republic, and that it’s your name on that helmet in the sanctum. Horatius Tertius.” I cleared my throat. “So. Tell me. Are you immortal?”
The other questions, I let lie. I’d leave it to him.
“I am…” He shut his eyes, opened them. “I believe I am immortal to a degree. I’m killable. As for whether I could cure Jacob’s cancer. No. I can’t because I won’t.”
He crossed his ankles and drew several slow deep breaths.
I was astounded to hear him confirm what I’d guessed. Cassius? Probably disbelieving, as well as stunned. He’d raised a hand at one point, as if to question the doctor, but had desisted, lowered it.
“Ummm,” Cassius seemed unsure who to speak to but settled on the doctor. “I could ask if you’re both on crack, but I know you’re not. You’re not joking, are you?”
The doctor shook his head. “No.”
“Not pranking me? If you are—”
“No,” he repeated.
“Fuck. This is a bit crazy.”
I rested my palm on Cassius’s back. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m still having doubts… Even now. So, I get it—your confusion and doubts.” I raised my head. “I’m unsure the doctor can even prove this irrefutably?”
“I can’t. I never will. It’s too dangerous to try to keep some sort of evidence. Though an antiquities professor would have a fit if they saw my full collection.” He straightened himself against the headboard, ran a hand over his hair. “I could speak to you in ancient Latin, but that does not prove I have lived since then.”
“DNA?” I frowned.
“Hah. It was actually a worry of mine. The contamination of any samples, with the DNA of anyone who handles them, would make that inconclusive. It’d mean nothing.”
Cassius grabbed my arm and brought it to his front then took my hand in his. “I feel like I should run around yelling or something. I can’t handle this as like a pre-breakfast spilling of ancient secrets. If you’re really going to insist on this being real…” He stared at the ceiling, then shook his head. “Yeah, look. I’m at sea. I’m fucking at sea.”
“There is no hurry, Cassius. Truthfully, I don’t care if you don’t believe in this. Let it be. As long as we, the three of us, are together…” His expression both hardened and looked a little lost. He blinked. “Just that will be enough for me. Please, don’t worry about this.”
“Don’t worry about immortality?Hmmm.Okay. Time is all I think I need. And a drink or three, later.”
I patted his chest. “We’ll get thoroughly pissed tonight, together. Although maybe we should have champagne, to celebrate? Or we could play a dirge?” I asked, only mildly sarcastic there. I was wondering. The man was immortal and thousands of years old.
“A few drinks will be enough for me.” The doctor reached his leg over the top of Cassius and nudged me with that toe again. “I wouldn’t say your deductions were perfect, but you dug enough of it out. Can you both understand why I don’t reveal this to the world?”
“If true, you’re old enough to have seen so much shit go down.” Cassius stared at him. “The wars, the disasters, the plagues. The changes in countries, the fall and rise of empires.”
“I have at that, yes. I will admit I have forgotten more than I remember. The human brain does not have the capacity to recall everything after thousands of years.”
“I’ve forgotten all but the most striking details of my earlier life.”
“That’s why the mementoes and the notes.” I thought back to the cemetery. “You knew all of those people in the cemetery.”