BZRK

that name. “Kerouac, Renfield here—a character from
Dracula
no less—and, of course, Lear.”
    Sadie, who missed very little in life said, “Who’s Caligula? That’s a pretty heavy name.”
    Ophelia used her eyes to direct the question to Nijinsky. Nijinsky closed his blazer and buttoned it. “This isn’t the Girl Scouts. We can’t allow betrayal.”
    Sadie smirked. “Caligula is your enforcer.”
    “What is this?” Noah asked. The sound of his own voice surprised him. He hadn’t intended to speak. “You came to me. You told me and—” He glanced at Sadie, realized he wasn’t supposed to be indiscreet, blushed, and picked up the dropped thread of his thought. “You came to me. Then that fucking test. And I was, like, okay then. Now you’re saying what? What are you saying?” His mouth didn’t look tentative now. There was a curl in the upper lip that made it seem just a little bit as if there was someone harder hiding behind the blue Bambi eyes and the diffident manner.
    Nijinsky nodded slightly to himself. “I’m telling you that if you betray BZRK, you will get a visit from Caligula. And I want you to understand this, boy.” He stabbed his manicured finger at Noah, not angry, but like, “Hear me, remember this, or God help you,” and said, “No matter who tells you they can keep you safe from Caligula, they’re lying. No one can keep you safe from Caligula.”
    Sadie looked at him, the blue-eyed boy. Never a blink. No flinch. “I wrote a paper on Sylvia Plath. She was a poet. She was thirty when she stuck her head into the oven. Turned on the gas. Breathed it until she was dead. Her children were in the next room.” She blinked once, a slow, deliberate move. “Is that crazy enough for you?”
    Nijinsky drew back, almost like he feared contamination.
    Noah looked at her in absolute wonder and he thought,
She’s already crazy
. And at the same time thought he would fall asleep that night only after lying awake a long time and thinking of her.
    “Sylvia, then?” Nijinsky asked.
    A slight headshake. “Plath.”
    It had a religious feel, that moment. No one smiled or laughed or winked or, Noah was sure, even considered doing any of those things.
    “How about you, kid?” Nijinsky asked, still looking at Sadie. At
Plath
.
    “I don’t . . . know . . .” Noah said. “I mean . . . I wrote an essay on Nelson Mandela once. But he wasn’t crazy.”
    That did earn a smile from Ophelia, an unambiguously sweet one. Renfield looked puzzled and a little offended to find himself puzzled. He had no idea who this Nelson Mandela was.
    Noah wasn’t sure how to read Plath’s look. Sizing up. That was as close as he could get to defining it. She wasn’t quite judging him, just assessing him. Measuring him. Like she might do if she was picking up a screwdriver and wondering, Is this the right size?
    Ophelia said, “If we’re to have a Plath, perhaps we should have a Keats. Also a great poet. Plath was American; Keats was British. He was also depressive and an opium addict. And like Plath, he died very young. In his twenties.”
    “Two poets in one day,” Nijinsky said. He stood up, moving with just a little less grace than he’d shown sitting down. “This may seem silly. Making you take new names. But it has a point.”
    “It’s not . . .” the newly named Keats began to say.
    “The point,” Nijinsky said, eyes seeking theirs, each in turn, “Is that you must right now, here, without pause for further consideration, and without later regret, accept that you are in a fight with a deadly enemy. From here forward your lives are in danger. From here forward you surrender any claim to privacy. From here forward there are only two outcomes for you: death or madness.”
    His phone rang.
    He drew it out, looked at the caller, turned abruptly, and walked away.
    “Or victory,” Ophelia said quietly, when she was sure Nijinsky would not overhear.

TWELVE
    “They’re in,” Nijinsky said into his phone. “Plath and Keats.”
    “Dr Violet is wired,” said Vincent into his. “She’ll give us what we need. Tonight. It should be safe enough to bring the two young poets.”
    “Are you going to equip them both? Plath hasn’t even been tested.”
    Vincent hesitated. “Do you laugh at the idea of instinct, Nijinsky?”
    “Yours? Never.”
    “I’m going to equip them both. Instinct. And need. Time is short. She’ll do.”
    *
    At the same time miles away, in another location, Burnofsky