The Messenger; A Novel

Who is Tyler Hawthorne?Beneath the Caribbean Sea, a salvage diver hears an eerie voice calling to him from the wreckage of a nineteenth-century ship. In return for promised riches, the diver becomes the servant of Adrian deVille, Lord Varre, the creature who has called to him. It's a bargain the diver will come to regret. Varre enlists him in a hunt for a man named Tyler Hawthorne.Ten years later, in a canyon in the foothills above Los Angeles, Amanda Clarke has become curious about her new neighbor, Tyler Hawthorne. He's not home much, but others tell her that her new neighbor is about her age -- twenty-four. He's also wealthy, handsome, and single.Amanda soon suspects that another description can be added to the list of Tyler's attributes: con artist. When Tyler shows up at the hospice room of her friend Ron and tells the dying man he'll live, Amanda angrily resents Tyler for giving Ron false hope.Until Ron begins to recover.Although Tyler continues to puzzle her, Amanda finds herself drawn to him.Tyler finds himself drawn to Amanda as well, but he has a secret he must keep from her: he's been twenty-four for almost two hundred years.Two centuries ago, he bargained for his life. In exchange, he became a Messenger, one who hears the final thoughts of the dying and conveys those last messages to their loved ones. Since that time, his life has been nomadic and -- except for the companionship of a remarkable black dog -- solitary.The dying also convey messages to Tyler and now they are hinting that his long service may be coming to an end. He begins to hope that he can return to a normal, mortal life and allows himself to grow closer to Amanda, unaware that he is being pursued by an old enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy him and that he can only leave his role as the Messenger behind at a dreadful cost.

1Come to me.Frightened, Eduardo Leblanc shook his head within the diving helmet, the way a dog would shake water from its fur -- trying to rid himself of the voice inside his skull.Far below the surface of the Caribbean Sea, he had lost contact with the salvage ship, theDeclan. The communication unit on his diving helmet had malfunctioned. He had been listening to an exchange between Krantz -- the crew's marine archeologist, the only other diver down on this shift -- and the ship. Suddenly the comm unit cut out, and Eduardo heard nothing other than the exhaust of bubbles from his helmet and the usual soft noises of his equipment.He looked over at Krantz. Krantz was in charge here, supervising the underwater recovery work they were doing on theMorgan Bray, an American merchant ship that had sunk in 1815. The light for video equipment on the archeologist's helmet was on, as was Eduardo's. As far as Eduardo could tell, both cameras were still running. Through the faceplate of Krantz's mask, Eduardo could see he was still speaking to the ship, or at least narrating what his camera was seeing.Come to me, and all will be well.This was the second time Eduardo had heard the voice. The same thing had happened on his first dive in these waters, two days ago. The communications device cut out. He heard the voice. He felt afraid, and then -- then the fear changed. Now Eduardo's fear once again began to give way to a sense of anticipation. He looked anxiously between Krantz and a small mound of sand a few feet away, one among many that undoubtedly covered artifacts from theMorgan Bray.He checked the connector for the communications cable hookup on his air hat -- the model was one of the finest available to commercial divers -- to ensure that nothing was loose. As he expected, all attachments were secure, although nothing he did brought the transmissions back. He looked back at the mound.This morning, as he readied for this dive, he told himself that he had only imagined the strange sensations he felt two days ago, and that certainly the voice he had heard was not real. He blamed the experience on a lack of sleep, thought of it as a hallucination -- they were not unknown in this profession. The voice was inside his head, and not being heard over the system, or anywhere outside his own skull.Now he heard it again, and turned back to the mound of sand among the scattered wreckage, feeling quite sure that this was the place the voice wanted him to be. With every passing moment, he felt better about his decision to heed its call. The nearer he came to the mound, the greater his sense of calm contentment. Why had he ever worried about the voice?The comm unit suddenly came back online, and the archeologist, who had never treated Eduardo as anything but a mule in a diving suit, asked, in a tone of suspicion, what he was doing so far away from where he was supposed to be working.The voice fed him his lines.Tell him, "My talking apparatus failed again."Eduardo heard himself effortlessly translate this odd phrase to his own wording. "My comm unit went out again," he said.Krantz frowned. "That's dangerous -- "Tell him, "It seems to be working now.""It seems to be working now," he heard himself echo.Keep him happy, do your work. Come back to me when it is one hour before the time to begin your ascent. I am about to make you wealthy and more powerful than you have ever been in your life.This now seemed entirely reasonable to Eduardo. He moved away from the mound and he and the archeologist continued their survey work, Krantz ordering him about as usual, until it was an hour before the time for the next team to take a shift. When the next prompting of the voice commanded him to stop what he was doing and walk back to the mound, Eduardo obeyed without hesitation."Eduardo!" Krantz said impatiently.Eduardo l