Kate left her apartment unseen and headed across town. It was a warm night, and the neighborhood smelled of food from thousands of apartments with their windows left open after supper. The cup was in her handbag. It thumped against her with every step. Even through the leather, she could feel its strange vibration, throbbing, throbbing like a distant heartbeat. It's not the Grail, she told herself as she crossed Eighth Avenue. It couldn't be, because Aubrey had made an exact duplicate of it which she had placed in the old man's room when she took the original. If the Grail even existed, how would anyone—even Aubrey—know precisely what it looked like, down to the last dent and discoloration? The thing was probably some valuable artifact Aubrey had seen in a museum somewhere, or in a book. Something that had been photographed from every angle. For all she knew, the old man had stolen it himself.
