The Inquisitor's Apprentice

CHAPTER NINETEEN. Mrs. Worley's Soul Catcher

DUSK WAS DESCENDING on New York by the time they pushed their way off the El and followed the rush-hour crowd down the wrought-iron stairs to the Bowery. The arc lights had just come on, and they blazed so brightly it hurt to look at them. These days Broadway was slowly eclipsing the Bowery as New York’s Great White Way. But despite Broadway’s high-class theaters and fancy beer gardens, the Bowery was still where ordinary New Yorkers went to have fun when the sun went down and the lights went on.

As they reached the curb, Wolf took Lily and Sacha by the arm to shepherd them safely across the flood of carts and carriages and trolley cars. And then the most extraordinary thing happened.

Wolf dropped their arms and leapt into the middle of the street alone — straight into the path of an oncoming omnibus. Just as it seemed the horses were about to trample him, Wolf bent down like a baseball player diving for a ground ball, swept something small and dark up off the cobblestones, and flung it into the air with all his might.

There was a swift flash of blue and white and russet feathers. Then, inches in front of the startled horses, the hurtling ball of feathers exploded into full flight. For a moment Sacha was certain the swallow would be dashed lifeless against the hard metal roof of the omnibus. But at the last instant, it swerved up into open air. And then it was gone, its shadow rippling along the cobblestones as it winged away under the blazing lights and vanished.

“A grounded swallow,” Wolf explained, rejoining them at the curb. “They’re the most perfect flying machines. They live their whole lives on the wing and nest in the cornices of the skyscrapers. But on the ground they’re helpless. They can’t walk. They can’t even take off again unless someone throws them back into the air by sheer force. Landing is practically a death sentence.”

Wolf suddenly got that sheepish look Sacha had seen him wear when he thought he’d said something too personal — though Sacha couldn’t figure out what was so personal about the flying habits of swallows. “Anyway, saving a swallow is supposed to be good luck. And right now we need all the luck we can get.”

They didn’t have any trouble finding the address Mary had given them. The sign over the door of the building was neither the tallest nor the newest on the Bowery, but it was by far the longest. In fact, it was so notorious that Sacha could have recited it to Lily without even looking at it: MANDELBROT’S AETHERO-THERAPEUTIC INSTITUTE AND DIME MUSEUM.

As they approached the museum, he could hear the practiced patter of the museum’s barker promising geeks and egg cranks and tattooed marvels and waxwork figures. Last but not least on the list of attractions was Madame Worley and her mysterious Soul Catcher.

Wolf bought three tickets and handed the change to one of the beggars who seemed to be drawn to him by some kind of invisible magnetic force. Then they ran the gauntlet of freaks and spectacles. And then they were standing at the back of a half-empty theater whose stage was occupied by a tired-looking middle-aged woman and a machine just like the one they’d seen in Morgaunt’s library.

The show had just ended. The audience was getting to their feet, muttering and rubbing their eyes and searching for hats and gloves. Sacha didn’t get the feeling that the performance had been a success. Wolf waited until everyone had filed out, and then strode down the aisle and stepped onto the stage.

Mrs. Worley, who had already started to pack away her machine, stopped and shook her head. “The money’s all gone,” she told Wolf, sounding like she’d said the words so many times they no longer meant anything to her. “I don’t have anything. You’ll have to go to Ossining and put your name on the creditors’ list.”

“I’m not here about money,” Wolf told her. “I’m here about your husband’s murder.”

Mrs. Worley stared. Wolf stared back.

“So,” he said, “you do believe he was murdered.”

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He showed her his badge, her face twisted with bitterness at the sight of it. “You’re wasting your time, Inquisitor. In fact, unless you want to be out of a job tomorrow, I suggest you forget you ever saw me.”

“It’s a bit late for that, Mrs. Worley. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped a little — but only a little. She was the kind of woman who’d had good posture drilled into her since childhood, and she wasn’t about to give it up merely because she was widowed and bankrupt and putting on a glorified magic show in a Bowery dime museum.

“They came with compliments and flattery,” she said. “In a big, long, shiny motorcar.”

“Who? Edison and Morgaunt?”

“No,” she spat. “Edison and that woman. I only found out later that she worked for Morgaunt. They offered my husband more money than he’d ever seen in his life. Far too much to refuse. No matter what conditions they put on it. It was only later that we realized the money was cursed.”

“Wall Street Wizardry?”

“Of the subtlest kind, Inquisitor. Nothing you could ever prove even with an army of accountants. They took everything we had. And then they took my husband and replaced him with that … that thing.”

Wolf leaned forward intently.

“Oh, yes,” she went on. “My husband was murdered, all right. He was murdered two days before he committed suicide.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m his wife. You think I wouldn’t know the difference?” She shuddered. “What was that thing, anyway?”

“A dybbuk. Or something very like one. Is it possible that your husband’s machine could have been used to manufacture it.”

Lily gasped. But Mrs. Worley just laughed. “Wherever did you get such a ridiculous idea?”

“Is it so ridiculous?”

“Of course! I’ve read all the newspaper articles about Edison’s etherograph over and over again. It’s just my husband’s machine dressed up with some new bells and whistles. It’s a harmless toy. This idea of theirs about fingerprinting magical criminals is quite distasteful, of course. But manufacturing dybbuks? No, Inquisitor. I know the machine inside and out, and that’s quite impossible.”

“Perhaps Edison added some other component—”

“There’s nothing you could add that could change it into what you’re describing. Look, I’ll show you how it works if you don’t believe me.” She smiled at Wolf’s apprehensive expression. “I assure you, it’s perfectly safe.”

Wolf sat down stoically in the chair she offered him, stretching out his long legs as if he expected to be a while. Mrs. Worley flicked a few switches. The machine hummed to life. The spindle turned, and the wax cylinder began to spin. And then … nothing. The needle hovered without descending. The fluted trumpet speaker was silent. As far as Worley’s machine was concerned, Wolf’s chair could have been empty.

“There’s a problem,” Wolf said.

“Yes. But it’s not with the machine. It’s with you.” Mrs. Worley hesitated. “I’ve never tried to record an Inquisitor before. But some subjects are more … resistant than others.”

“How so?”

“I think it has to do with having magical powers.” She bit her tongue, obviously worried she had offended him. “Not that I mean to be impertinent, Mr. Wolf. But you being an Inquisitor, well, one naturally assumes…”

“I understand. You think I’m resisting the device.”

“It’s probably something Inquisitors learn to do naturally, dealing with magical criminals the way you do. But if you can just … well … let it happen?”

Wolf leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Worley, I surrender myself to you entirely.”

She started the machine up again. This time Wolf seemed to be listening intently for some sound no one else could hear. He must have heard it because after a moment he smiled and blinked in surprise. And then he laughed softly to himself and opened his hands in the same quick gesture with which he had freed the grounded swallow.

In that instant the needle sprang to life, and the Soul Catcher began to play the same unearthly music they’d heard in Morgaunt’s library.

But where that song had been excruciating, this one was … riveting. It was impossible to stop listening, just like it was impossible to stop staring when you rode the elevated right past people’s living room windows. Suddenly Sacha knew things about Wolf that he never would have guessed at … things he really didn’t have any right to know. He felt embarrassed, like he’d been caught stealing something.

“There,” Mrs. Worley said at last, switching the machine off. “Harmless, see?”

“But rather unnerving.” Wolf swiped the back of his sleeve across his brow. He looked pale and clammy and even more disheveled than usual.

“That’s just because of your being — you know. Ordinary people actually find it rather pleasant. Just as they enjoy admiring themselves in a mirror or looking at old photographs. Vanity, I suppose. But, as I said, quite harmless.”

“And that’s it?” Wolf asked.

“That’s it.” Mrs. Worley pulled the little gold and white cylinder out of the machine. “If Edison has made the machine into anything more than a parlor toy, then he’s invented something new, and I wouldn’t know enough to help you. Would you like your recording, though?” she asked when she noticed that Wolf was still frowning at it. “As a souvenir?”

“Thank you,” Wolf said gravely. he took the cylinder and slipped it into his pocket.

Wolf seemed to recover his composure rapidly after that. He decided he wanted to see the machine in action again, and when Lily volunteered to sit for it, he didn’t argue. Worley’s machine had no trouble recording Lily, though the tune it played back was sweet and wistful and disarmingly un-Lily-like. Sacha gazed at her, searching her face for a hint of this hidden gentleness.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped.

“Nothing!” What on earth had he been thinking? Lily Astral wasn’t sweet or sad or gentle. And if Worley’s ridiculous machine made her sound that way, then what better proof did you need that it was all a load of hooey?

“And anyway,” Lily prodded, “it’s your turn now, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t think I really—” Sacha began.

But then he noticed that Wolf had suddenly gone all vague and bland and absentminded. Wolf wanted him to do this. And resisting would only make Wolf start wondering about the very things Sacha least wanted him to think about.

“Sure,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

He sat down. The chair seemed to creak unnaturally loudly under his weight. Mrs. Worley turned the machine back on. It whirred and clicked for what seemed like an eternity. The cylinder spun. The needle hovered, and…

“That’s odd,” Mrs. Worley said.

Wolf leaned over her shoulder. “Is he doing the same thing I did?”

“No. And the machine’s working perfectly. You saw how well it recorded Miss Astral just now. It’s just — well — it’s almost as if—”

“Almost as if what?”

“As if there’s nothing there to record.”

Sacha stared at Mrs. Worley, trying to comprehend her words. He felt numb. He tried to work out what she meant, but all the ideas that occurred to him were so horrifying that he flinched away from them before the thoughts even had a chance to form in his mind.

“Sacha?”

Sacha jumped. How many times had Wolf said his name before he noticed?

“Sacha? are you all right?”

He looked into Wolf’s eyes and saw a depth of sympathy there that he would never have imagined possible if he hadn’t just heard the man’s soul turned into music.

He had a swift, startlingly vivid image of Wolf snatching him out of danger and throwing him up to safety just as he’d done for the grounded swallow. For one dizzying moment, he thought of confessing everything. Then he thought of Morgaunt’s laughing threats and the towering walls of Sing Sing and the sinister Semitic face of the Kabbalist in Edison’s etherograph ads. Wolf was a good man, but he was still an Inquisitor. Telling him wouldn’t solve Sacha’s problems. It would only hurt the people Sacha loved.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

Sacha had no idea how he made it back outside without being sick to his stomach. He could see Wolf and Lily staring at him. He could see the questions and doubts and suspicions swirling behind Wolf’s eyes. But it felt like he was stuck at the bottom of a well and they were much too far away to reach him.

Wolf ushered the two children into the cab, muttering something about having to apologize to their mothers for keeping them out so late. Sacha looked longingly down the Bowery toward Hester Street, only a few short blocks away. But he was trapped in his lie, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He was cold and weary and footsore by the time he finally turned onto Hester Street. To his relief, everything looked normal. The street was quiet at this time of night, but there were still scattered signs of life on the front stoops and fire escapes. Sacha slowed his pace a little, figuring that now he could take the time to catch his breath before he went inside.

And then he felt it. That same swirling, sinking motion he’d sensed in Morgaunt’s library, when he’d felt like all the magic in New York was spiraling down into Morgaunt’s golden glass of Scotch. Only now there seemed to be no center to the whirlpool. Just the bleak, aimless, drifting rattle of dead leaves scattering before a storm.

To Sacha’s ordinary sight, the street still looked the same as always. But now the men lounging on the front stoops and the women gossiping on the fire escapes seemed to be part of a separate world, as if he were looking up at them through deep water. And in the silent underwater world that Sacha was trapped in, there was another presence — one that was at once mysterious and frighteningly familiar.

He turned to face the shadow that he already knew he would see behind him.

The watcher stopped when he stopped, and they stood staring at each other across the littered cobblestones.

“Who are you?” Sacha called out. “What do you want from me?”

A faint breeze whispered down the street, lifting the hanging laundry only to let it drop back limply the next moment. It seemed to Sacha that the breeze also stirred the watcher’s hair and clothes. But the watcher himself never moved.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Sacha taunted. He took a step forward.

For a moment the watcher seemed to hesitate. Then it stepped forward too. Just one step. Just enough to let the smoky halo of the street lamp light its face.

Its eyes were black pits — dark pools of shadow in a face already cloaked in shadow. But even in the flickering gaslight, Sacha could see that the dybbuk was no longer the disembodied wraith that it had been when it first began following him. He could see it clearly now. He’d racked his memory for weeks trying to put a name to that face, trying to understand why it seemed so hauntingly familiar. He’d compared it to every face in his family, every face in his neighborhood. But there was one face he hadn’t thought of … one face he knew better than any other…

He broke and ran, sprinting for home across the slick cobblestones. But the dybbuk was faster than he was. Or rather — and this thought made his heart stutter in terror — it was exactly as fast as he was.

He stumbled and almost lost his footing. Now the dybbuk was so close that he could hear its breath behind him.

Then, just as he was sure the creature was upon him, Sacha felt a ripple run through the very bricks of the city, as if it were a pond and some unseen hand had cast a stone into it. An instant later, he heard the most beautiful sound of his life: the silvery jingle of streganonna bells on a horse’s bridle.

He knew, somehow, that it would be the Rag and Bone Man who rounded the corner. He jumped up onto the broken-down cart and peered anxiously over his shoulder as the Rag and Bone Man flicked the reins and his ancient horse shambled forward.

“Did — did you see that?” he asked.

The Rag and Bone Man gave a single nod of his grizzled head, but he kept just as silent as ever.

Sacha glanced sideways at him. Who was he really? Why was there a file on him in Inquisitor Wolf’s office? And what would Sacha see if he ever worked up the nerve to sneak a peek inside it?

The Rag and Bone Man pulled up to Sacha’s building, and Sacha scrambled down and took the cast-iron steps two at a time, desperate to get inside before his rescuer left. He raced up the tenement stairs toward the warmth and light and life of home.

He slipped through the Lehrers’ room, trying not to wake them. He bolted down the dinner his mother had left out for him, reassured her that he was safe and sound and hadn’t caught pneumonia, and got into bed, exhausted.

He was fine, he told himself, hoping to stave off the nightmares. The Rag and Bone Man had saved him. Again.

But he knew that the Rag and Bone Man hadn’t really saved him. He had only delayed the inevitable.