Angel of Vengeance

57

Constance stole through the basement corridors, avoiding the occasional roaming gang member, heading for Leng’s suite of laboratories. She had been shocked and dismayed to see Aloysius chained to a metal post in the library, but she believed — as they had agreed at the bordello — that if their plans managed to reach this point, they each had clear and specific tasks to accomplish. The task she’d been assigned — and demanded — was to rescue her siblings.

She had to move with infinite care. The lack of electricity was her friend — the basement had no gaslights, and the kerosene lanterns carried by the searchers were dim and hardly penetrated the murk. She, for her part, was able to move without light — an ability gained after a hundred years spent in these same corridors. But the discovery of the sub-basement grottos, and the focus on them that immediately followed... these were things she had not planned on.

As she neared the laboratory entrance, she could hear the muffled cries of a protesting Mary. As much as it filled her with relief, it also — cruelly — filled her with desperation. She remembered all too well that Leng had vivisected the first half dozen successful guinea pigs — just to be certain — before he began injecting it himself. This was likely one reason he’d kept her alive this long; the other was his need for a decent laboratory to perform the procedure... and which was where Mary had just, almost certainly, been taken.

She crept up to a corner and peered around. Ten yards ahead lay the entrance to Leng’s suite of labs. One of the Milk Drinkers stood guard at the doorway. Even as she waited, considering what to do, she heard Mary’s cries drop in tone and volume and become softer, more confused. It was safe to assume she’d just been injected with a sedative, rendering her pliable and helpless.

It was also safe to assume she was being prepped for surgery.

Grasping her stiletto, Constance picked up a pebble and tossed it against a far wall, where it made a faint rattling noise. Then she ducked back around the corner.

“Who’s there?” came the guard’s voice. Another guard then appeared in the doorway of the lab. Leng was taking no chances.

“Oi, what you moaning about?”

“I heard something out there.”

A clank sounded as they unshouldered their rifles and began moving forward. They raised the wicks of their lanterns for more flame, and the dull light beyond became brighter.

Two of them. Constance, with her keen hearing, could tell they were moving in parallel along either side of the corridor. That meant one would come around the corner directly in front of her, while the other remained on the opposite side.

She crouched, tensing. She could hear the nearest guard approach the corner, then pause. What would follow was obvious — he’d wheel around the corner, weapon aimed at waist level — but she was ready. He made his move and she leapt up, knocking the rifle barrel away so quickly he couldn’t get off a shot, while spinning him around and sticking the stiletto deep enough into his throat to render him incapable of speech. She held him in front of her as a shield while turning toward the opposite guard, who’d heard the scuffle and trained his weapon on her but was unable to get a clear shot.

“Drop the weapon or I’ll skewer your confederate,” Constance said matter-of-factly.

The man rushed her.

She sliced through the guard’s throat, then heaved the body at the approaching man, who ducked aside to dodge it. This was an equally obvious move — Constance, anticipating it, came at him from the side, slashing him deep across the neck as he fired, missing her.

She stepped aside as he sprawled across his partner, the two men gurgling a dying chorus.

Now Constance snatched up a rifle and sprinted down the hall through the laboratory door, past rows of jars and equipment, into the operating theater. She looked around, gun at the ready. Mary was on the operating table, two assistants apparently in the middle of draping for surgery. A third assistant had been laying out surgical instruments and phials on a tray. All three, having heard the shot, were standing rigidly, faces turned toward her, frozen in surprise.

It seemed that, in addition to improving and migrating his laboratory from the one now underwater in the Five Points sewers, Leng had also upgraded his surgical staff from merely the untrained but enthusiastic Munck.

Their confusion lasted just long enough for her to take down two with rapid shots while still on the move. But the third grabbed a scalpel and, to her surprise, threw it at her. She was forced to dodge it as she swung the rifle around. Her next shot went wide and the man was on top of her, strong as an ox. He grabbed the scalpel from the floor and raised it, but she blocked his arm. She lunged upward and sank her teeth into the man’s nose, twisting her head viciously. The man reared back with a roar, his grip loosening enough for her to twist the scalpel out of his hand and cut his throat with it, the spray of blood temporarily blinding her.

She rolled his body off her own, rose to her feet, and went quickly to Mary, laid out on the operating table. She was dressed in a white surgical gown, only partially conscious.

“Mary,” she whispered. “Mary.” She gave her a gentle slap across the face.

Her eyes did not come into focus.

“Get up.” Constance slipped her arms under Mary’s and helped her off the table.

“What’s... going on?” Mary slurred, knees buckling as she sank to the floor.

Constance tried to pull her to her feet, but Mary was heavily drugged. Still, there wasn’t an instant to spare; Leng might appear at any moment.

She hurriedly sorted through the contents of the medical tray, looking for adrenaline or some nineteenth-century equivalent. She found a bottle labeled COCAINE HYDROCHLORIDE 7 % AQUEOUS SOLUTION.

Cocaine? It was a stimulant, and she was out of options. She inserted a needle into the bottle, sucked up a small amount, then stuck it in Mary’s arm.

The response was dramatic. Mary’s eyes fluttered open, then she looked around in a panic. “Who are you?”

“A friend. I’m here to get you out.” Constance wiped the guard’s blood off her face with a nearby roll of gauze. “Come with me.”

They exited the lab the way they had come. Constance grasped the hand of Mary, who staggered along behind her, confused but compliant, slowly regaining her senses. At the tunnel intersection, Constance paused and yanked a revolver from the belt of one of the dead guards. Now she led Mary in the opposite direction: a turn, another turn, then — up ahead — a third. The cell holding Binky and Joe was just beyond it. She could hear, somewhere down the halls, the sound of shouts and running feet.

She took a breath, then swiveled around the corner. Just a foot away, a guard was standing in alarm, rifle raised, back turned to her. She jammed the gun into his kidneys and pulled the trigger. Grabbing him as he fell, she plucked the keys from his belt, ran up to the cell door, and opened it. The two children rushed to her and Mary, Binky crying out loudly.

“Quiet!” Constance said sharply. “No time. Follow me.”

The only way out still available was now up, rather than down: to the main floor, and then out... one way or another.

Heading away from the sounds of footsteps, she made for a back corridor that led to the basement wine cellar; a stairway to the kitchen, she knew, was nearby. She pulled the confused Mary along by the hand, Joe and Binky careful to keep up.

It quickly grew so dark that, with no lantern, they were unable to see. Constance paused, then whispered to the two youngest: “Keep hold of my dress.”

She held Mary’s hand as they continued down the black corridor. Agitated voices echoed through the basement; people were approaching. Constance felt along the damp wall, found a niche, and pulled the rest in with her. A light grew brighter as a patrol approached. Constance slipped the revolver out of her waistband and eased the hammer back, finger on the trigger. The men appeared, walking fast, one holding a lantern, arm outstretched in front of him. They passed hurriedly, not seeing the little group shrinking back into the niche. Constance turned the muzzle to follow them.

Ten seconds later, she eased back the trigger, led the way out of the niche, and continued on. Soon, a musky scent of old oaken barrels told her they were passing the wine cellar. She touched the wall from time to time as they moved — and then her fingers contacted the doorframe of the staircase leading up to the kitchen.

“This way,” she whispered.

They mounted the stairs awkwardly, children clinging, Mary being led by the hand. As they moved, the image of Aloysius, chained to the iron post, returned to Constance. It was true, the three of them had had solo tasks to perform, without aid from the others — but at this late hour, the thought of leaving him alone with Enoch Leng, poisoned or not, was troublesome indeed.

At the top of the narrow stair, she cracked opened the door, then emerged into a back kitchen. It was dim, but there now was enough ambient light for everyone to make out their surroundings.

“You can let go,” she whispered. “We’re almost there.”

The children released their hold. Constance cast around, and her gaze stopped at a ground-level window above a long marble counter. She picked up a heavy copper saucepan, wrapped a dishcloth around it, and swung it into the glass, shattering the window, then used the saucepan to break away the sharp edges around the frame. She grabbed Binky, hoisted her up and out; Joe scrambled out on his own and Mary followed.

“Run to the road along the river,” Constance told Joe, pointing toward the front of the mansion. “Stay near the bushes. Féline is waiting at the Post Road with Murphy and the carriage.”

“Aren’t you coming?” Joe asked.

She hesitated a moment. “No. I’ve got unfinished business inside.”

58

Leng stared into his descendant’s glittering eyes. The face remained slightly flushed, and Leng noted a trace of moisture on his brow. This man was a formidable opponent and had to be handled with excessive caution. He quashed a momentary impulse to unshackle the man and allow him to sit by the fire to enjoy a glass of brandy and a cigar with him. No, not yet. He had to be sure the man’s conversion was genuine.

He took a moment to relight his cigar. After a few satisfying puffs, he stood up, went to the cabinet, and poured himself another brandy. He came back and reseated himself, swirled the brandy in the glass, and took a long, lingering sip. Then he set it down, picked up the cigar again, and puffed it back into life. Blowing out a long stream of smoke, he said: “I am pleased to hear your declaration. How did you come to believe?”

“My opinion of myself stands, or falls, on logic. And I find your logic unassailable.”

“It is unassailable.”

Pendergast bowed his head in assent.

“You would no doubt like to be released from those chains.”

“I was hoping. And a brandy would be most welcome on a cold night.”

“It pains me to say — not quite yet. Might you, however, be interested in hearing my plans more specifically?”

“I am indeed. Perhaps I can even make some suggestions, given my familiarity with the next century.”

“I’d appreciate that. The group I propose to assemble will use the machine to go to your time, as I said. We will establish ourselves on a very large piece of land, well fortified, preferably in the American West. We will stockpile food, weapons, and all the necessities of life.”

“I would advise against certain aspects of that plan.”

Leng arched his eyebrows. “Such as?”

“Many bizarre religious cults have sprung up in the twentieth century. They often favor the American West, for all the reasons you might imagine. These cults are usually armed and unwilling to submit to the rule of law — as a result, there have been massacres, large-scale suicides, and shootouts with law enforcement. In my time, the authorities are on the lookout for precisely the kind of well-fortified camp you propose.”

“I see. What would you suggest?”

“That the true purpose of your group, at first, be carefully concealed under the cloak of benevolence. An institute or foundation, devoted to human improvement — what we sometimes call a think tank — would be ideal. Or perhaps even a health resort, a therapeutic retreat for the wealthy. We would need to accumulate vast sums of money in order to accomplish this and cover our tracks — but that would be the least of our problems. Years must pass if we are to do this right... but you strike me as a patient man.”

“I am. And I greatly appreciate the caveats you mention. To continue, then: we will create our, ah, benevolent institute, with your warnings in mind.”

“It must be kept under the radar.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean to say, quiet.”

“Precisely. There, we will assemble the scientific expertise and equipment necessary to develop a fatal and virulent plague germ, as well as the vaccine against it, and unleash it on the world. Of course, not everyone will succumb — that I understand would be impossible — but the remnant population will be starving, and savage, and no doubt soon kill themselves off anyway.”

“I’d assume so.”

“We will be safe in our enclave, which at this point will assume its true nature. Everything will be orderly. The rules will be strict but fair. There will be no violence, no disobedience to authority. All crime will be dealt with through banishment.”

“What political system will you establish? A democracy?”

“Absolutely not. Democracy is misrule by the stupid, greedy, and corrupt. No, it will be an enlightened oligarchy, or rather a geniocracy, which I’d call the Convocation of Twelve. Twelve wise men and women, who will confer on the important questions of state and move forward with consensus.”

“And how will these twelve sages be chosen?”

“Those individuals most active in civic duty, displaying leadership qualities, and also scoring in the ninety-ninth percentile on a rigorous suite of intelligence quotient tests and measurements. Hence my labeling it a geniocracy — the rule of the excellent.”

“So far what you propose sounds logical. It also evades the shortcomings of those political systems that have emerged since 1880,” Pendergast added with something like approval. “And your economic system?”

“Capitalism, but with the convocation owning and controlling the means of production. As the outside world returns to wilderness and the savage remnants of humans die off, we will expand our borders, laws, and civilization, until we have reoccupied the planet under an intelligent, rational, and compassionate world government.” He paused, then smiled broadly. “What do you think, Nephew?”

“A geniocracy, a convocation... I can see you’ve given much thought to this. I, too, have long wondered why we don’t require politicians to pass an intelligence test. It seems that stupidity is almost a requirement to run for office.”

“Indeed.” Leng gave Pendergast a long, searching look. Then he went on. “And with the added gift of the Arcanum, we’ll live much longer lives. Think of the scientific breakthroughs we could achieve, the music, the mathematics, the art, if we could live eight hundred years instead of eighty. Of course, new births will need to be greatly restricted, but the world will be a better place, in my view, without mewling children underfoot.”

“The word ‘utopia’ comes to mind, Uncle.”

“It is indeed most apt.” Leng hesitated for a long moment. “I’m truly sorry you won’t be among us.”

“You’re rescinding your invitation?”

“I am. You lied about joining me. I only just realized it.”

“I did not lie.”

Leng chuckled. “Of course you did. You are an opaque and devious fellow, but I am more a student of human prevarication than even yourself. Although I’ll admit, Aloysius, you had me convinced you were sincere — briefly. But I heard your lie in the single word you just spoke now: ‘Uncle.’ You couldn’t help yourself: there was the tiniest note of irony, or perhaps distaste. Which, in turn, tells me you have not been convinced. What have you to say to that?”

Pendergast stared back at him, denying nothing.

“I could see I was making inroads. When you stated that my solution is the only workable one, and when you offered suggestions for improvement, I believe you were speaking the truth. Perhaps all you need is a bit of time to reflect, because my logic is unassailable. And my methods, while I freely admit them to be cruel, are equally necessary. You are a cruel man, too. I know what you did to my man Munck — drowning him like a rat in a cage.”

Pendergast remained silent.

“But allowing you the luxury of considering my offer at your leisure would be a waste of my time — not to mention a needless risk. So now the demand is simple: you have one hour to give me access to the portal, or you and all of your friends will die — and most horribly. I am that rarest of souls, Nephew, who can treat the same person either magnanimously or with extreme vindictiveness. Your refusal — which would be a pigheaded and obstinate act, given what you’ve heard and been unable to refute — would cause me extreme vexation. So — if I suddenly find myself with a period of leisure I’d hoped to spend instead by employing your portal — I would be pleased to turn my mind toward a temporary project: watching you and your merry band die in the most excruciating ways imaginable. And, believe me, I don’t lack for imagination — even if I did, Decla could no doubt embroider the details. The breaking wheel; molten gold, General Crassus’s cocktail of choice; scaphism; the blood eagle; and, of course, combing and flaying. You’d be the audience for them all, of course — and I can promise that when, at last, you die yourself, you will be wearing the skin of your friend, the constable.”

He let this image hang in the air for a moment. Then he gestured toward the guards. “Take him back.” He stood up and bowed good-humoredly to Pendergast. “I have an important operation awaiting me downstairs; as it happens, the preparations will take roughly the same amount of time you have to make up your mind.”

59

Diogenes moved through the fretted shade of the alleyway, pushing workmen and guards aside as he ran, until he burst out onto Forty-Second Street. Tossing his monocle to the ground, he spotted his carriage and waved. His driver, Cato, seeing him, briskly moved the carriage forward.

Diogenes leapt onto the running board and signaled directions. Cato nodded and cracked his whip, and the cab shot out into the bustling traffic. Diogenes swung himself inside, closed the door, and sat back, removing the lace-edged gloves and other frippery encumbering his clothing as Cato navigated the broad avenue.

His coach, despite being tastefully appointed within and without, might have been looked at derisively by much of the beau monde: small, driven by a single horse, and in general resembling a hansom cab. In fact, it was an English hansom cab, chosen by Diogenes because its low-slung profile and center of gravity allowed it to take corners at speed. With a single horse at the reins, it could cut in and out of traffic when necessary, easily overtaking larger and more ponderous vehicles.

At that very moment, in fact, Cato was demonstrating the cab’s agility by turning north on Broadway at — Diogenes estimated — nearly fifteen miles an hour.

He had already added luxurious touches to the cab while replacing needless weight with lighter, stronger materials. He had ordered the springs and wheels altered according to certain laws of mechanics and gravity that, in 1881, remained undiscovered. Even more important had been his choice of driver. He’d visited the Belmont Stakes at Jerome Park, but decided Thoroughbred jockeys were not what he was looking for. Instead, he’d found his man at Coney Island Racetrack in Brighton Beach: a harness racer who had won a large number of trotting competitions. It turned out Cato was ready to trade in his “sulky” for a professional cab, especially for the money Diogenes was willing to pay.

It was precisely this moment for which Diogenes had hired Cato.

The cab was jostled as another, larger carriage tried to pull away from the curb and elbow into the throng; Cato, with the instinctive training of a harness jockey, made a quick double feint that sent the driver of the other vehicle into a terrified halt, horses neighing and rearing as their reins became entangled.

Some distance ahead, in the fading light of approaching evening, Diogenes could see their destination: the Grand Circle where Broadway met the southwest corner of Central Park.

Not only, Diogenes mused, was Cato the best possible cabman, but childhood meningitis had rendered him deaf and mute. This proved no difficulty to Diogenes, who was fluent enough in American Sign Language; if anything, it was a benefit. Cato was a man with a remarkably even keel: nothing he had witnessed while in the employ of Diogenes seemed to have excited his deadpan nature.

Cato had one other advantage: his superb knowledge of horses allowed him to control the kind of animal whose speed and stamina were usually found on the track, not the boulevard. Cato himself had found the horse for Diogenes: Bad Influence, an American standardbred of tremendous strength who, it seemed, relished being free of the racecourse. Pulling ahead of the surrounding carriages, they caromed around ninety degrees of the Grand Circle, then cut nimbly across traffic and made a U-turn, slowing and pulling to the curb directly in front of the unfinished observation tower.

Diogenes pulled out his pocket watch: ten minutes to five. Grabbing a box of matches from one of the inlaid drawers of the cab’s interior, he opened the door and jumped nimbly to the street. Cato, he explained in ASL, create a brief diversion. Then he darted into the park while, from behind, he could hear Bad Influence already beginning to whinny and rear.

No one was looking his way as he slipped into the construction zone and then the tower itself. He fumbled for a lantern, lit it, placed it on the floor, then looked around to ensure nothing had changed since his last visit. All was as before; no further work had been done.

He went to the far side of the dark space, pushed aside some crates and scaffolding, and then — more gently — rolled back a large tarp and placed it in a corner. Beneath was a double strand of jute, wound very tightly with fine gunpowder dust and then dipped in tar: the main, arterial fuse.

He had set four charges in the tower, the primary at the top and three secondaries at intervals below it. He’d also altered the safety casing of the fuse so it would burn at five seconds per foot instead of the usual thirty. If he’d calculated properly, once he lit this main fuse, it would make its way up the stairs, lighting the three secondary fuses in turn as it reached them. The higher up the load of dynamite, the shorter he’d made the secondary fuses — this way, the primary charge beneath the roof would go off first, followed in succession by those below it.

Diogenes had found amusement in explosives from an early age: placing squibs on the underside of a trash can lid; in a bed of roses; in a dog’s chew toy. Rather extreme measures had been taken to snuff out this childish pastime, and it had been years since Diogenes had toyed with, or even thought about, gunpowder. But now, watching the thick fuse take on a life of its own under his match — and the flame begin crawling its way up the stairway, leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke in its wake — he felt once again a boyish quickening of the heart.

The angry cigarette end of flame vanished up the curve of the stairwell, and Diogenes took his leave. He blew out the lantern and passed through the construction debris to the curb. The lamplighters were moving along the streets, heralding night’s advance. His cab was now parked on the far side of the circle, Cato holding Bad Influence calmly by the bridle.

Looking out for traffic, he made his way across Central Park South, and then west to the far side of Broadway. Diogenes was about to warn the ex-jockey to cover his ears, then remembered it wasn’t necessary. And so instead he gestured for Cato to keep the horse calm. They both put reassuring hands on the animal’s neck, and Diogenes turned toward the tower to make sure he didn’t miss the show.

60

“What the devil?” Enoch Leng roared, staring at the dead bodies of the two guards splayed in a puddle of blood across the basement corridor outside his surgery. He rushed into the surgery suite itself and saw a sight that curdled his vision: three dead assistants sprawled across the floor — and surrounding an empty operating table.

“Cheese and crust,” murmured Decla, coming up behind him with a posse of Milk Drinkers.

Leng knew instantly what had happened: Constance. She had been in the house, spying, plotting. That bloody bitch had stolen his patient — and no doubt she’d also freed, or was freeing, the other children. He had underestimated her. He felt an intense, destabilizing fury... but quickly recovered himself.

Where was she now? Had she fled with the children? Did she know Pendergast and his policeman friend were locked in a distant wing?

He turned to Decla and the gang. “Seal up the house. Now. I want that woman.”

“So do I,” said Decla.

“By God, you shall have her.” He paused. “In fact, it’s possible I can save you some work in searching.”

Constance pulled back from the broken window after watching Mary, Joe, and Binky disappear into the shrubbery, apparently unseen. She slipped into the main kitchen, then paused in the dim light, listening. She could hear voices, running footsteps, a door slamming — the house was now on full alert. Aloysius was being kept on an upper floor — almost certainly in an attic room under the eaves that on an early reconnaissance she’d seen being converted into an iron room with bars. But the upper floors were a very dangerous place to roam. Above the first floor, there were few hollow walls or secret passageways — and that meant sneaking around in unfrequented halls and rooms, hoping to avoid discovery.

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, keeping the stiletto in hand and the revolver tucked in the waistband of her dress, she went to the kitchen door and listened. The activity, though extensive, sounded for the most part distant. She eased open the door, slipped through, and closed it. Beyond, a broad archway led across a main hall to the salon, and she could see the gas there was turned on brightly. As she waited, an armed figure passed by — one of the Milk Drinkers. That was no way to go.

She returned to the kitchen, pondering how to get to the higher floors. The stairs to the servants’ quarters, next to the pantry, were a possibility. She flitted across the kitchen and through the pantry to a closed door that led to the back stairway. She pressed her ear to the panel and listened. Silence. She turned the knob and opened the door. The narrow, unpainted, claustrophobic stairway was dark. Shutting the door, she crept up, one hand on the beadboard wall. The wooden stairs creaked and groaned with every footfall. She paused to listen after one particularly loud creak. This part of the mansion still seemed quiet, with most of the activity taking place in the front of the house and, no doubt, in the basement and even deeper.

The stairs came to a landing with two doors, right and left, both closed. One went to the cook’s bedroom and sitting room, the other to the scullery maid’s chamber. The latter was a dead end. The cook’s rooms, on the other hand, led to a door that opened onto a rarely used second-floor hallway. From there, the hallway led to a large room and, beyond, a staircase to the third and fourth floors — and it was on the fourth floor, under the eaves, that the iron room had been built.

She could see a faint light under the doorsill of the cook’s bedroom. Again, she pressed her ear to the door. Was the cook in there? It was impossible to tell. He might have retreated to his room to get away from all the excitement — or he and his assistants might have been enlisted in the search. There was only one way forward, and it was through those rooms. Constance flung open the door, stiletto in hand, and rushed in.

The room was empty, the gas turned low.

With a sigh of relief, she moved through the bedchamber and sitting room, to the door leading into the side hall. Beyond, she could hear running and intermittent shouts, growing fainter even as she listened. She used this moment of relative calm to map out in her mind the route to the iron room. She would have to traverse the hall and large room beyond in order to reach the staircase to the fourth floor.

Making sure all remained quiet, she opened the door from the cook’s chambers and darted down the hall. The light remained dim. The door at the end of the hall led into a private entertainment room, which in her own present day was used as a gym by Proctor. Back in 1881... she tried to remember... it had been a billiards room, with a leather seating area and cocktail tables for smoking and drinking. The windows were usually drawn with heavy drapes. Beyond the room was the service stairway leading up to the third floor and then to the attic areas.

No sound could be heard in the space beyond, and the sill was dark. It was empty, the gas off: not surprising, since no one would be playing snooker at a time like this. She opened the door and stepped into the darkness beyond. There was no light at all. But nevertheless, she was aware of shapes, moving quickly—

A gaslight flared up, illuminating a half dozen Milk Drinkers, including Decla. They had been lying in wait and were heavily armed, all guns pointed at her. She shrank back toward the door, pulling the revolver as she did so, but a shot rang out and a blow to her left shoulder spun her around, the gun flying out of her hand. As she struggled to lower the rifle, she was rushed, seized, and thrown to the ground.

Struggling and twisting, she tried to escape, but four brawny men pinioned her, and all she could do was writhe. The shot had merely nicked the upper part of her left arm; the wound didn’t seem serious, but one of the men, seeing a bloodstain, ground his knee into it anyway.

Decla sauntered over, hands in her pockets, and stood over Constance.

“I’ll slit you open like a Christmas goose,” Constance said, struggling.

“What a wildcat you are,” Decla replied. She bent over Constance and methodically searched her clothing, extracting the stiletto, a second knife, matches, a tiny pair of opera glasses, a phial of white powder, and a one-shot ladies’ derringer with a pearl handle.

“Heading off to a fancy-dress ball, are we?” Decla said, inspecting the derringer and putting it in her pocket. “Such pretty little toys.” She held up the white phial. “Don’t tell me you smoke the Shangri-la tobacco, too?” She turned to one of her gang. “Go tell the doctor we caught her just where he suspected.”

The man left, and Decla turned back to Constance, this time playing with the stiletto. “You’re all mine now, love,” she said, rotating the glittering, razor-sharp blade. “This is the beauty you cut my hand with, isn’t it?”

“Too bad I didn’t cut your throat.”

“Oh, it hasn’t seen its end of throat cutting, I’d wager,” said Decla.

Constance struggled but was firmly pinned down. “Is this your idea of a fair fight? Let me up — then I can kill you one at a time.”

With a tight smile, Decla merely bent more closely over Constance, the stiletto point gleaming in the gaslight. “Such shiny thick hair you have,” she said. “In my trade, I can always use another wig — or a merkin, for that matter.”

Carefully placing the edge of the blade at the line of Constance’s scalp, she let the tip slowly sink in.

61

Pendergast shuffled along, chained hand and foot, as the three guards escorted him back to his cell. Their ascent had been briefly interrupted by a surge of noise and activity erupting from below, but when it grew fainter, the guards resumed forcing him up the stairs heading back to the iron room.

“You’re an arse-dragging cove, aren’t you?” one of the guards said, giving Pendergast a shove with his rifle. “Here, get a wiggle on.”

Pendergast stumbled and fell to his knees, then laboriously got to his feet.

“For Jayzus sake—”

They were now opposite the door to the third-floor room Pendergast had barged into on his way down. Just at that moment, the cuffs fell almost magically from Pendergast’s hands, and with that he whirled around, snatching a revolver from one guard and, continuing his pivot, shooting him and the man beside him, ending up facing the third man, barrel planted in his ear. Taken utterly by surprise, the guard froze.

“Live or die?” Pendergast asked quietly.

The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Live.”

“Drop the gun.”

The man did so.

“Unlock these leg irons.”

With shaking hands, the guard knelt and did as instructed. Pendergast kicked off the irons, picked up a candle and matches from a nearby table, then rummaged through the pockets of the two dead guards until he found a penknife. Keeping an eye on the remaining guard, he used the knife to split the candle lengthwise, then — carving away excess wax — he extracted the wick. He slid the wick under the doorsill of the room he’d entered earlier, wedging it in place with the penknife. Then he lit the end of the wick, which would act as a fuse to the chamber, now full of explosive gas: a result of the torchlight stopcocks he’d managed to twist open in the moments after he broke into the room on the way to see Leng. He watched long enough to ensure it was burning steadily, the wick inching down toward the doorsill. He hoped they could escape the mansion before the improvised bomb went off — it all depended on how quickly, or slowly, that candlewick fuse burned.

Then he rose, keeping the gun trained on the guard. “Walk ahead of me. Unlock the door to our room.”

62

Diogenes did not have long to wait. Within fifteen seconds, he saw a small flash of intense light at the top of the tower, which was instantly engulfed in a fast-expanding gray cloud. He opened his mouth and covered his ears, motioning for Cato to do the same.

The real shock came a split second later, as the sound of the explosion — twenty eight-inch cylinders of black powder, releasing 10 megajoules of energy — burst from the tower’s crown, a wave of overpressure and sound so powerful it took on a physical presence, shooting outward across the park, the traffic circle, and the surrounding walls of buildings to the east and north. Though he’d pressed his hands to his ears, the blast was nevertheless painful. As he looked around, feeling the ground tremble under his feet, he could see that — almost as if with the flip of a switch — the relative calm of a quiet winter sunset had been transformed into chaos. Pedestrians staggered or fell to the ground. Horses reared and whinnied, some breaking free from stunned coachmen and rushing this way and that, colliding with other carriages or overturning them. Dandies in evening dress threw themselves into manure-clogged gutters. Lower windows along Central Park South imploded in sequence, as if at a cadet review. A surprising number of people drew pistols from places of concealment. Under the stroke of his calming caress, Diogenes felt Bad Influence tense. He was concerned the horse might bolt, not out of fear but out of excitement, thinking — after being long conditioned to loud reports at the track — that a race had begun. But Cato held him steady, and as a reward he reached into his pocket and fed the horse a watermelon-flavored sugar drop.

After the passage of the wave of overpressure, Diogenes closed his mouth and looked up again. A black cloud was thrusting like a fist into the sky, along with bits of debris that tumbled even higher, lit from below.

And then the second explosion went off, tearing away the top part of the structure, adding more fuel to the growing conflagration. Diogenes, ears uncovered now, could hear the full power of this report ring off the buildings around him, a thunderclap that echoed and reechoed over Central Park, ricocheting from one line of buildings back to the other. He felt immensely gratified. A third explosion blasted out the middle part of the remaining tower, rocking the ground and prompting still more screaming, firing of shots, and crashing of glass.

And then the fourth and final detonation tore out the lower sides of the structure, sending another series of echoes booming down the stone canyons and shattering whatever nearby windows remained intact. At this, the unflappable Cato glanced over at Diogenes, raising one eyebrow as if to ask out of mild curiosity: How long is this to continue? Diogenes smiled and shook his head. Study to be quiet, he signed in return, quoting Paul but thinking with equal irony of Izaak Walton, and the admonition with which he’d closed The Compleat Angler.

The rumbling died away, while the ruins of the observation tower were rapidly engulfed in fire. Another sound rose up: a loud patter as a rain of grit and debris began to come down around him.

The first three sets of charges had destroyed the framing in the upper section of the tower. The final, fourth charge had been detonated where the brick cladding ended. But the brickwork encircling the lower half, along with the structural steel supporting it, now performed Diogenes’s second purpose: that of a chimney. A huge column of sparks and embers from the burning wooden beams within mounted up several hundred feet, the bottom of the tower turned into an eight-story kiln. The only comparison that came to his mind was that of a monstrous afterburner. Glancing upward at the tower of fire and sparks, Diogenes saw to his satisfaction that the engine he’d created was coloring the bellies of the gathering clouds with an angry orange glow.

This was a signal that no one within a hundred miles could miss.

There was nothing more to do. Like the watchman in Agamemnon, he’d lit the beacon, heralding the news: his assignment complete, it was up to its intended witnesses to act. Time to return to Smee’s Alley. He saw the chaos in the street was only growing worse — they’d better hoof it before the route became impassable.

Back to the alleyway, please, he said in ASL to Cato as he gave Bad Influence a final pat and made for the carriage door. Cato nodded and stepped up into the driver’s seat.

Another thing, Diogenes signed, leaning out from the step, one hand on the window frame. Once all this calms down, we’ll celebrate with a drink.

And with that, he slid into his seat and closed the door as the cab lurched forward. Cato had yet to fully appreciate the virtues of absinthe, but — like Livia — he had the makings of a model pupil.

D’Agosta, sitting moodily in the iron cell, heard the turn of a lock. Then the door opened — but to his surprise, the party that had come to take Pendergast downstairs was now reduced to two: a single guard and Pendergast himself, a revolver held to the guard’s head.

Thirty seconds later, D’Agosta had stepped outside and the guard had replaced him as resident. Pendergast slammed and locked the door behind him, then pocketed the key.

“How in the hell—?” D’Agosta began in a loud whisper.

“I made a loop with your shoestring, slipped it into the handcuff lock, lassoed the lock screw, and then drew the pin back. An old Houdini trick. Well, not old, yet, but... Listen, we must hurry — we have very little time.”

“Time for what?”

But Pendergast was already moving along the hallway, and the question remained unanswered.

63

“Excellent!” Leng said as he entered the room and saw Constance pinned to the floor. “Hold her tight, fellows; she’s a catamount.” He strode up as Decla remained hunched over Constance, the knife’s point planted in her scalp, blood running out of a half-inch cut. Decla paused.

Leng looked down into those strange violet eyes. “I’ve never met a demon quite like you.”

“Your cowardly assistant was about to scalp me.”

“Barbaric. But fully deserved.”

“She’s too scared to fight me properly,” Constance said. “She needs a platoon to help her.”

“Shut your bone box,” snapped Decla.

Leng stared at Constance. It was quite astonishing what this vixen had been able to do, how many she’d killed in his very own house, under his very nose.

He started to speak again, but at that moment a distant rumble passed through the house — something had happened far to the south. The others in the room noticed it, as well. But Leng paused for only a few seconds. His own mansion had been echoing with sporadic gunfire for the last half hour — and his interests lay here.

“Before you continue your work,” he said to Decla, “and she’s no good for conversation anymore, I have a few questions I’d like to ask.”

“Go ahead.”

He looked back down at the pale, beautiful, defiant face. “Where are Mary and the two children?”

“Far away by now.”

“No matter — I’ll find them later. Were you living in my house?”

“She was,” said Decla. “We found her lair down below. And a tunnel, like, straight out to the Hudson. Figure she came and went that way.”

“How intriguing. One final question: I’ve tried to accept it as a given, under the circumstances, but at the same time I still find it hard to believe. Are you and the waif you call Binky truly one and the same person?”

Constance laughed. “Since you ask: yes. How strange are the byways of time. And now, I’ll answer a question you are unable to ask, being ignorant of its circumstances — but that will nevertheless be of great interest to you.”

“By all means, enlighten me.”

“You’ve been poisoned.”

A silence, and then Leng said, “Really. And how might that be?”

“Remember the excellent meal you had several nights ago? Filet de bœuf, consumed with a bottle of Clos Saint-Denis.”

Leng paused. “Decla, please rise, just for a moment; you others, let the girl free, but keep your weapons trained on her.” Leng waited for them to clear a way so he could move in still closer.

“You spied on my dining?”

“More than spied. I poisoned the Bordelaise.”

“What nonsense. That was...” He thought for a moment. “Five days ago. I’m fine.”

At this, the woman smiled. “Since you’re a connoisseur of poisons, perhaps this detail will help convince you: alpha-amanitin, extracted from the death cap mushroom — taken from your own basement storeroom.”

“You couldn’t possibly perform the biochemical extraction.”

“Ah, but I can. Here’s something else you don’t know: in the future — or what, for me, is now the past — I become your assistant. You see, I was the guinea pig whose survival finally convinced you the Arcanum was a success. The half dozen before me had appeared successful — but you forced some to live imprisoned for observation, while you dissected the rest in search of internal damage. One way or another, you killed them all. I happened to be the guinea pig at the time you finally convinced yourself the Arcanum worked. And one thing else: you didn’t just let me live. As it turns out, I not only lived in this house during Pendergast’s time — I lived here for over a hundred years before, as well — with you.”

Leng felt a most unpleasant sensation of cognitive dissonance wash over him: one of utter disbelief combined... with certainty the woman must be telling the truth.

“That’s how I was able to create the poison,” she said, her voice rising. “And that’s how I know there’s no antidote, none whatsoever — not in this century!” And she broke into a peal of laughter that rose toward a scream.

Leng stared at her — and believed. She would not tell such an obvious untruth. And the fact was, he’d already noticed since first rising that morning he wasn’t feeling quite himself.

His thoughts turned wildly to his predicament. Five days had passed already... He knew, given the properties of the death cap mushroom, that gave him another week to live, at the most. Another week to find an antidote. There must be one, somewhere, in his vast chemical arsenal. Hadn’t she just said there was no antidote? Was she lying — toying with him?

He glanced at Decla. “Don’t kill her — not yet. Make her suffer infinite agonies until she provides me with an antidote. You’ll find me in my lab!”

“With pleasure, Doctor.” Decla prepared to reinsert the stiletto into the cut she had begun.

As Leng turned to go, he abruptly stopped. In his panic at Constance’s sudden revelation, he’d forgotten: Ferenc. Pendergast. And Constance herself — the time machine could save him.

There’s no antidote — not in this century...

As this thought burst into his mind, the house itself suddenly shuddered with a deep bass roar: the walls split and snapped; the chandelier and half the ceiling dropped with a shower of plaster; and a huge gout of flame and smoke burst through the lathing.

64

Choking and coughing, Decla clawed away the dust and pieces of plaster, her immediate instinct to locate, by feel, the stiletto she’d dropped in the explosion and collapse. The room was so filled with dust she couldn’t see, but — as she struggled to her feet and took stock of herself — the air began to clear. She was not hurt, beyond cuts and bruises. But the rest of the gang, which had been standing back, lay crushed and buried under heavy timbers.

What the hell had happened? And where was the doctor? She could see no sign of him — no doubt he was buried under one of the numerous piles of debris. Some of these piles were moving, a few forcibly, others more spasmodically. But there, right in front of her, was the duchess, rising unsteadily to her feet.

Constance wiped away a rivulet of blood on her forehead — and then their stares locked.

“Looks like we’re the last ones at the party,” said Constance, flicking away bits of lath clinging to her clothing.

“You’re one lucky bitch,” said Decla. She advanced, wielding the stiletto.

“So you’ve decided on a fair fight — now that your Neanderthals are incapacitated?”

Decla knew she was being goaded, knew the bitch was supremely dangerous. But she also knew there was nobody who could best her with a knife. That’s why she’d risen to lead the Milk Drinkers, why members of other gangs leapt for cover when they saw her coming. There was no way this young woman — with her milky skin and fancy clothes — knew how to handle a knife. The bitch had cut her hand, but that was only because she’d been taken by surprise. This time, there would be no such surprises. Keeping her eyes on Constance, she flexed first her arms, then legs, before crouching into her favorite fighting stance.

“I’d like my stiletto.”

“I bet you would. It’s mine now.”

At this, Constance merely smirked. She took one step back, then another. With a quick movement she plucked a four-foot piece of wooden molding out of the debris. She held it by one end with both hands, like a golf club, twisting it first one way, then another, as if testing its tensile strength and elasticity.

“What do you plan to do with that?” Decla asked, laughing despite herself. “The javelin competition isn’t until tomorrow.”

Suddenly, Constance planted the staff-like piece of molding hard against the ground, lifted herself into the air, and — legs horizontal — swung toward Decla. Taken by surprise, Decla staggered back, but Constance kept pivoting around the staff like an acrobat, feet toward Decla’s face, and then suddenly emitted such a bloodcurdling cry that Decla stumbled backward, dropping the knife and scurrying out of the way.

Constance immediately threw aside the molding and grabbed her stiletto.

But Decla, looking around at the motionless bodies, first spotted, then snatched up, a twenty-inch sawback machete — once Fishbait’s pride and joy, now hers.

Constance glanced from Decla to the evil-looking knife, then took a step back.

“Nowhere to run, bitch,” Decla said. “Your carnival tricks aren’t going to save you. You’re the one who’s about to be slit like a Christmas goose... and I think I’ll start with the giblets.”

Even before she finished speaking, she leapt forward, blade whistling. Constance leaned backward as the machete carved air her breast had occupied a moment before. Then, using her loss of balance to best advantage, she pivoted ninety degrees, one hand planted on the floor, then leapt to her feet again as Decla got a fresh grip on her blade and tightened its lanyard around her wrist.

Decla took a moment to size up her opponent, who looked back at her expressionlessly, violet eyes narrowed to slits, doing the same. They’d keep this game up awhile longer, see how well her stamina lasted.

Decla lunged. Constance swerved — but in the direction Decla anticipated. She J-hooked the arc of the blade, cutting through the sleeve of Constance’s dress.

Her opponent spun away, but the damage was done. With satisfaction, Decla saw blood darken the sleeve. It was not serious, any more than the wound in the shoulder had been. She could keep this game up for quite a while, carving here and there.

Constance held her stiletto out, its tip bobbing up and down slightly, and, her head lowered, in a half crouch — circled Decla. She suddenly whirled, sweeping the knife in an arc at belly level, but Decla one again anticipated the move and hopped back, rotating to one side like a matador. As Constance’s arm flashed by, she gave her another cut with the machete — just for fun — parallel to the slice she’d already made on Constance’s arm.

The bitch recovered her balance and once again went into a crouch. But the blood was now spreading across the tears in her sleeve.

“Those are gonna scar up good,” said Decla. “Or they would, doll — if you survived.”

She circled Constance, who rotated in turn.

Constance swept again with the knife toward Decla, but it was a feint and she finessed the move with sudden, startling speed, the blade of her knife just catching the fabric of Decla’s sleeve.

“Not good enough,” said Decla.

And it hadn’t been — but the feint itself, along with the alarming speed with which it had been executed, was a reminder to Decla not to get too confident: this opponent was as lithe and fast as a weasel.

Suddenly, Constance kicked up a piece of plaster; Decla dodged, only to realize this had been yet another feint — the plaster had not been directed at her at all, but Constance used her rival’s countermovement to artfully slash at her again. Decla responded quickly, but not quite quickly enough, and Constance’s knife — which had been aimed for her throat — swiped instead across her chin.

“There’s a scar for you,” Constance said, falling back into position.

“Bitch!” Decla was breathing hard now — and she was angry. Nobody had touched her face before.

As she stood back, gathering her wits and taking fresh stock of her opponent, she saw one of the numerous heaps of debris — one directly behind Constance — begin to shift.

Suddenly, Constance — who had been standing utterly still — exploded into movement. Airborne for a moment, she then came back down into a low crouch, lunging forward, thrusting the stiletto into Decla’s thigh and giving the blade a sharp twist before pulling it out.

With a curse, Decla staggered back, partly in pain, but mostly in astonishment at the sudden display of skill and the cleverness by which she’d been duped. She backed away farther as a figure rose up behind Constance, the noise obscured by the cracking and moaning of the dying mansion.

She raised her machete to distract Constance just as the figure, whom she recognized as Trotter, used a broken board to slam Constance across the back of her head. The young woman was knocked to one side, yet somehow managed to slash Trotter across the neck as she recovered her balance. But it was just the opening Decla needed and she lunged forward, thrusting the blade deep into the bitch’s vitals.

Constance’s eyes went wide and she fell onto the debris-strewn floor, clutching her abdomen and trying to stem the flow of blood from the wound. Decla stepped back and gave a whoop of triumph, raising her arms. Her opponent was a goner, gut cut like that — but there would be time and pain before the end came.

Giving a second victory cry, she glanced over to where Constance had stood a moment earlier and saw Trotter. The hand that had held the board was now pressed against his neck where the knife had cut him.

Suddenly, as she stared, Trotter’s head vanished into a pinkish mass of blood, brains, and fluid. It was as if someone had taken a baseball bat to a balloon filled with butcher’s offal — while a deafening report boomed through the room.

She whirled around and saw a pale highwayman emerge from the dust like a ghost, gun pointed; a great explosion of white light was followed immediately by a devastating blow to her head — and then, sudden darkness.

65

D’Agosta heard the two shots and, waving away the clouds of dust, saw Pendergast kneeling over someone on the floor — Constance, gasping, lying in a pool of blood. Nearby were two figures, their heads mostly gone. Muffled cries, moans, and calls for help came from scattered spots under the collapsed ceiling, primarily from the far end of the room.

“The children,” Constance said in a whisper. “The children got out.”

“We’re going to get you out, too,” Pendergast told her.

He eased Constance onto her back. Pulling off his coat, he tore it into strips, balled up one of them, and pressed it hard against her abdomen; Constance cried out once, then fainted. He then tied the remaining strips around her midriff in an improvised tourniquet.

“Go first and clear the way!” he called to D’Agosta, heaving Constance up and draping her over his shoulders. “Keep an eye out for any resistance!”

D’Agosta stumbled forward, Pendergast calling out directions through the wrecked house. They had to negotiate fallen beams and push aside sections of plaster and lath. The fire above was now working its way down with frightening speed, filling the corridors with smoke. They ran into a couple of Milk Drinkers, but they were disoriented and terrified, trying to find their own way out; the two groups ignored each other.

Finally they reached the central staircase and descended to the main floor. A tremendous amount of destruction in the reception area blocked the front door. Turning, Pendergast directed them through the salon instead.

“Take that battle-axe,” he said as they passed a suit of armor.

D’Agosta wrenched it from the knight’s hand with a rattle of steel. He’d always wondered if these suits of armor on display were real or not — he wondered no more; the axe weighed at least twenty pounds. They continued around to the side of the house to an oaken door. D’Agosta tried it, found it locked.

“Use the axe!” Pendergast said.

With a mighty swing, D’Agosta split the door down the middle; two more strikes opened it wide.

Pendergast carried Constance outside. They paused, coughing from the smoke and sucking in the fresh air. D’Agosta peered into the fading light; they had exited on the northern side of the mansion.

“Vincent,” Pendergast said, “go around to the mews and get the carriage.”

But just as D’Agosta was turning to run, wondering how the hell he was going to drive a carriage — assuming its horses were even hitched — there came a clatter of hooves... and then Leng’s barouche came flying out from behind the house and onto the drive. Murphy, sitting in the coachman’s seat, pulled on the reins and halted the stamping animals.

“Oh, my dear Lord!” Murphy cried, seeing Pendergast holding Constance, the two of them covered in blood.

“Who’s driving the clarence?” D’Agosta asked.

“Gosnold, sir. He insisted on coming along. Shall we follow them back to the mansion, guv?”

“No!” Pendergast said as he eased Constance’s body into the coach. He leapt in behind as D’Agosta climbed up next to Murphy.

“Longacre Square!” cried Pendergast. Then he murmured, to himself rather than the unconscious Constance: “That signal from Diogenes is our only chance.”

“Hyaa!” Murphy shook the reins and the horses took off at a gallop.

66

Twenty minutes after leaving the chaos at the Grand Circle, Diogenes pulled up at the fortified entrance to the alleyway. Bloom must have been waiting just inside, because now he pushed his way past a couple of burly roustabouts and stepped onto the pavement.

“Milord!” he said, looking Diogenes up and down. “What’s happened? Have you been accosted?”

Diogenes realized the man was referring to his once-resplendent outfit, now bereft of its ruffles and lace. He was also covered with soot and ash. Above the tops of the buildings on the north side of the avenue, the conflagration was still visible: the tower of fire had subsided, but black smoke was belching upward as thickly as ever.

“We almost got caught in an explosion in the park,” he told Bloom. “Anarchists, maybe — but I think it’s the Theosophical Society, creating a diversion. If I’m right, that means an attack might be imminent. They must have learned about the nexus and are preparing an assault on our barricades.”

As he listened, Bloom’s expression wavered between incredulity and alarm. The latter won out — thanks, in part, to the inferno. “Those blasts got the men riled up,” he said. “They’re ready for anything.”

“‘Anything’ is the perfect word,” Diogenes said, a not entirely theatrical quaver in his voice. “A mob might descend upon us. My brother will certainly be here momentarily. God only knows what will happen—” He paused to look at Bloom. “You haven’t let anyone near—”

“Lord, no, sir!”

“Good. Now, tell your men: we might have to open the alley barricade for my brother at a moment’s notice... while preparing to repel anyone else. Lively, now!”

As Bloom took off, yelling for his men inside the tenements to rally round, Diogenes made his way through the barricade that blocked the alley entrance. Here, between the unlit buildings that rose on both sides, night had fallen — save for the barrier of thick tarps in the very center of the alley, where an unearthly glow shone from behind the canvas shroud.

Diogenes dashed forward and ducked inside. There it was, strong and stable as before: the gateway, not only to his home, but to countless distant worlds beyond. With its brilliance and fearsome power, it had an ineffable attraction, awe inspiring in its promise of the unknown...

...Forcing himself to look away, Diogenes ducked back out of the enclosure and glanced down Smee’s Alley toward Seventh Avenue. Half a dozen men, at least, were now manning the barricade.

He paused a moment, thinking. When the three of them — Pendergast, Constance, and himself — had held their meeting at the bordello, they had agreed on one crucial element: a deadline. Since Constance knew the Riverside Drive residence intimately, she was key to the plan; Pendergast was to find Binky, get captured, and ensure she was brought back with him to the mansion, where Constance would find a way to free her and, if necessary, Joe. It was a desperate and unlikely stratagem, but then so were their circumstances. Constance had set the deadline at January 9 — she refused to say why exactly but insisted that if the day should arrive without at least Binky being back at Leng’s mansion, all would be lost.

There was, of course, a codicil to this plan: in addition to impeding Leng’s access to new victims, Diogenes was to keep an eye on Smee’s Alley and — in the unlikely event the portal should reappear — contrive to send out a signal that would reach the length and breadth of Manhattan, and that could not be missed by Pendergast, wherever he might be.

And late this afternoon, that event had — remarkably — transpired, and the signal had been duly sent: the destruction of the tower.

Diogenes now went deeper into the alley and through the door leading to the rambling ground floor of the northern tenement. The building was by now a virtual armory, and he grabbed a brace of pistols as he followed the twists and turns leading at last onto Forty-Second Street. There he stopped, tucking one pistol into the waistband of his silk trousers and the other into his vest. If everything had gone according to plan; if Pendergast had found Binky and returned with her to Leng’s mansion; if Constance had managed to slip past Leng and his gang and freed Binky; if Pendergast had been able to extricate himself from the mansion... if, if, if.

Diogenes was certain of one thing: they could not fail to notice his signal — and if all was well, they would now be coming to Smee’s Alley at a gallop.

Thanks to the explosions, the thoroughfares surrounding Central Park were full of panicked people, carriages, and horses... no doubt impassable. If they’d still been in Leng’s mansion, Pendergast’s group would come down the Post Road, then remain near the Hudson as the road became Tenth Avenue, not turning until Forty-Second — which meant they would probably be approaching from the west, if they were coming at all.

He surveyed the broad street. Here, ironically, there was less traffic than usual; the confusion and frantic bottleneck seemed to have created something of a ghost town on these cross streets to the south. A few carriages and pedestrians jogged up Seventh Avenue and Broadway, apparently spurred on by curiosity. A greater number were making their way south. He could hear the frantic ring of distant fire bells and the occasional gunshot from the direction of the Grand Circle.

Diogenes squinted westward through the intersecting pools of light the gas lamps cast along the boulevard. As he stared at the scene, a strange sensation of past, present, and future images overlapped in his head, along with a succession of conflicting emotions. And then he saw a large black shape — a four-in-hand barouche coach — emerge from Tenth Avenue and swerve east onto Forty-Second Street. It was Leng’s: Diogenes recognized it from that first day, when he’d seen it pull up at Bellevue. As Diogenes stared, his heart accelerated when he saw Murphy, Constance’s coachman, at the reins.

The coach was moving like the devil. Having navigated the turn, it accelerated toward him at breakneck speed, the horses thundering along the cobblestones at more of a stampede than a run.

No sane person would drive as recklessly as that... unless it was a matter of life and death.

Turning abruptly and breaking into a run, he cried to the bodyguards maintaining watch. “Open the gate!” he yelled. “Open the gate!”

He reached the corner and turned onto Seventh Avenue. His shouted commands had preceded him: the massive construction of lumber, prepped for such an occasion, crept open like the gates of Troy. Now a dozen or more men were rushing over the scaffolding like ants, pushing boards and metal columns out of the way, while others fanned out across the alley and beyond, firearms at the ready, keeping watch. Diogenes glanced into the alley in time to see Bloom appear out of the darkness. The black of night was diluted by gas lamps, but the alley itself had an illumination all its own: an unearthly glow that, for all their efforts, still permeated the heavy tarps. Bloom had trained his men well; although they had to be curious, and perhaps fearful, of whatever was within that enclosure, his sharp orders — and the promise of a thousand dollars each — kept them at their posts.

The rattle of iron horseshoes ringing off the cobblestones approached, and a second later the big coach turned into the alley at full speed, wheels screeching, forcing men to jump out of the way. There was a commanding shout from Murphy and the horses reared, skidding on the bricks, half falling in the effort to stop. Flecks of foam from their bits spattered Diogenes as he ran past them toward the carriage door, which burst open even as his fingers grasped its handle.

Diogenes was stunned by the scene within. The dark interior of the carriage was in a state of confusion, the coppery smell of blood overpowering.

“Hurry!” Pendergast cried from the darkness. “Get her to the portal!”

He emerged, carrying a bloody body slung in a blanket. With a profound shock, Diogenes realized that all was, in fact, not well — Constance had been terribly, if not mortally, wounded.

“Good God, what happened?” Diogenes cried.

“Clear the way!” Pendergast shouted. D’Agosta jumped off the coachman’s seat, and the two of them carried Constance toward the shrouded enclosure.

Diogenes turned and ran before them. “Bloom! Open the canvas!”

The workmen fell back in a scramble, Bloom untying and pulling aside the heavy tarps. In an instant they were bathed in a kaleidoscope of light. As if from far away, Diogenes could hear shouts of surprise and dismay rise from the workmen as they shrank away in fear. As the unnatural light spilled across the alleyway, thousands of cockroaches stirred in alarm and scuttled, in disgusting chitinous waves, every which way.

The portal was exposed, coruscating.

“Is she alive?” Diogenes shouted at Pendergast.

“I don’t know. We’ve got to get her back.” He turned to D’Agosta. “We can’t all go through simultaneously. You go first; tell them we’re coming. I’ll follow with Constance in a few seconds once the portal recharges.”

He turned to Diogenes. “You guard the portal, keep everyone back, and follow last. As soon as you come through, we’ll shut it down on our end.”

“What about Leng?”

“Dead — or as good as dead. Constance poisoned him with an extraction from the death cap mushroom.”

Diogenes looked into his brother’s face, smeared with blood. “I’m not coming, Frater.”

Pendergast stared back. “What?”

“Go on, get her through — save her life, if you can!”

“We’ll never open the portal again. This is your only chance.”

“I made a hash of my life in your time.”

Pendergast looked carefully at him. “If there was ever a time for jokes — this is not it.”

“I’m not joking. For me, this world is a fresh start — and I have things to do here. Enough said. Ave atque vale!”

Pendergast stared at him, the expression on his face unreadable. “Goodbye then, Brother,” he said, and turned away. “Vincent,” he cried: “Go!”

67

D’Agosta didn’t hesitate — not even for a second. On the other side of that shimmering door was Laura.

He stepped up to the portal — feeling again that sense of unearthly energy, hot and cold simultaneously, that made the hairs on his neck stand at attention — and jumped.

At the same moment, the gateway flickered — a piece of gossamer, sliced diagonally from top to bottom by an invisible knife — wobbled, weakened, then disappeared.

Caught unawares, D’Agosta fell onto the cobbles of the alley. He rolled, instinctively using his shoulder to break the fall. It still hurt like a son of a bitch.

“What the hell?” he cried as he lay on the ground. The look on Pendergast’s face was one of pure horror and despair. He felt the same sudden madness and fury: what kind of sick, twisted joke was fate doing to—

With a snap that was not a sound, but some phenomenon having nothing to do with his five senses, the portal abruptly came back to life, its brilliance once again filling the alley. D’Agosta didn’t need a second invitation. He leapt...

...And found himself half staggering, half falling onto the floor of Pendergast’s basement laboratory. He glanced around on his knees. Proctor was there, staring at him, along with some guy in a wheelchair.

“Get ready!” he cried. “We’ve got Pendergast and Constance coming through. She’s stabbed in the abdomen, bleeding out!”

The portal rippled briefly, brightened, and a moment later — with a glittering, blinding flash — Pendergast staggered through, Constance in his arms. He was caught by Proctor’s steadying hand.

“Call an ambulance,” Pendergast cried. “We need AB negative blood — lots of it.” He turned to D’Agosta. “Please assist me.”

As he helped Pendergast carry Constance out into the hallway, the last thing D’Agosta saw was Proctor, raising a phone to his ear at the same moment the stranger in the wheelchair shut off power to the machine.

68

It was five days before D’Agosta took Pendergast up on a standing invitation and returned to the Riverside Drive mansion for afternoon tea. Everything looked the same; everyone acted the same: Mrs. Trask opened the front door with the usual blandishments, and as D’Agosta approached the library entrance, he saw Pendergast seated in his usual chair by the fire. The harpsichord bench held a neat stack of densely notated music, Constance’s newly polished stiletto lying atop like a paperweight, both music and weapon awaiting the recovery of their mistress. Yet for D’Agosta, everything had changed. His venture into the nineteenth century had given him a new and much darker worldview that no ordinary far-off vacation could have. Ever since returning, after a joyful, awkward reunion with Laura, he felt unsteady — like a sailor just back in port, still encumbered with sea legs. He found himself waking in the middle of the night, sitting up and drawing in a lungful of breath, just to make sure the air was reassuringly clean, without the constant background odors of coal smoke, tallow, and manure.

As he stepped in, Pendergast looked up at him, then gestured languidly toward a chair. “Vincent, my friend, so good of you to come — at last.”

“Sorry,” D’Agosta said as he came over and sat down. “I had a lot of fancy footwork to do, after going missing for two weeks.”

“Everything all right downtown?”

“It is now.”

“And how is Laura?”

“Fine, thanks.” This, in fact, had been the other, marvelous, side effect of his strange journey: one that had brought his life back into balance. The longer he was away, the longer he was missing — with everyone thinking the worst, with an ever-widening search turning up nothing — the more anxious she became. Her imagination (she’d told him) had run wild; crazy scenarios had gone through her mind: he’d decided to just chuck it all and go back to Moose Jaw, Canada, to write another book. He’d run off to Ibiza with some sidepiece he’d been hiding from her. After a week with no news, her scenarios had grown morbid: suicide; a Turkish prison; murdered by the mob, his body joining Jimmy Hoffa’s.

When he’d told her the bizarre reality, she had listened quietly. When he asked if she believed him, she’d responded, “Nothing that happens when you partner with Pendergast would ever surprise me.” And she added, “It doesn’t matter now, Vinnie. I have you back. I learned the hard way that’s all I care about.”

When D’Agosta had first arrived at the library, Proctor had been standing by the door, a study in taciturnity, and that odd guy in the wheelchair he’d seen briefly on their return was parked on the far side of Pendergast, in half darkness, sipping hot cocoa. His name was Mime, some sort of computer maven Pendergast occasionally consulted with, and who’d helped Proctor fix the machine. D’Agosta had never met him before, but Pendergast had spoken of him several times, and on one occasion explained that thalidomide embryopathy had left him with malformed legs and one nearly useless hand. But nature had bestowed the gift of transcendental intelligence to that otherwise compromised body. From an early age, he’d shunned the company of others and devoted himself to mathematics, cryptography, engineering, and computer programming. Apparently, once Proctor finally convinced Mime to leave his sanctuary in River Pointe, Ohio, via private medical jet, the hardest part of repairing the machine was already done. Mime had succeeded brilliantly.

But now, as D’Agosta sipped his tea, he could see that Mime, for all his alleged reclusiveness, loved to talk and relished an audience. In front of the fire, he proudly recounted the steps he’d taken to render the device not only workable, but improved. As he talked, Proctor eased himself into a wing chair near the library entrance to listen.

“...The most difficult part was the downtime,” Mime was telling them. “It took me two days — well, closer to three — to understand the basic functionality. That was some righteous, righteous shit! After that, I spent ages waiting on him.” Here, an eye was cast toward Proctor. “The dude took, like, forever to get the parts.”

“Try acquiring a palladium bolometer and a unimetric thermopile... at three o’clock in the morning,” Proctor replied. He did not seem to hold Mime’s genius in high regard. D’Agosta could only imagine the long hours they must have spent together — Mime giving the orders, Proctor doing the work.

“Pendergast, my man, don’t get me wrong: Wild Bill Hickok here is an ace when it comes to cleaning guns and sharpening knives... But ask him to do some delicate soldering?” He shook his head, pale and bald save for a few blond hairs laid flat across the dome. “Sweet sister Sadie.”

“You have to admit,” Pendergast observed gently, “that Proctor turned your instructions into reality. And he provided you with invaluable information on how the machine initially worked.”

Mime appeared ready to object, then changed his mind and took a swig of cocoa.

“Thanks to the two of you,” Pendergast continued, “one using his mind, the other his hands — we are safely back home. And for that, we’ll be eternally grateful.”

At this, Mime beamed. Proctor, meanwhile, remained expressionless — but, though he couldn’t be sure, D’Agosta thought the man’s chest swelled slightly with pride.

“How’s Constance doing?” D’Agosta said, taking the opportunity to change the subject.

“Steady improvement, thanks. She has a remarkably strong constitution. Another fifteen minutes’ delay in 1881, and...” He shook his head. “A massive transfusion was required — six units of packed red blood cells in under an hour. Not to mention surgery and an infusion of antibiotics to address a severe laceration in the peritoneal cavity.”

“Six units?” D’Agosta echoed.

“In under an hour.”

“Jesus.” Six units for someone as petite as Constance... He could only shake his head. “What about the kids — Binky and Joe?”

“No doubt she would have liked more time to say goodbye to her family. But it’s done now, and for the best. During those last weeks, she prepared matters carefully, set everything up for them to be well taken care of. The mansion is in their name, as is a considerable fortune. Féline and Mary will be able to make sure their education and needs are all taken care of. No doubt Murphy will prove an able surrogate father figure. And Leng is dying or dead by now — if not due to the collapse of the mansion, then thanks to the poison Constance administered.”

There was a brief silence before Mime returned to what, D’Agosta assumed, he’d been pressing Pendergast about when he first entered. “Look, you’ve got to stop dancing around the question: what to do about that machine. You keep putting it off. Do you realize what it’s now capable of? You’ve hardly scratched the surface! You just make the call, and then watch the unbelievably fantastic stuff I can do with it.”

“Perhaps I should make a call and get the plane ready to take you back to Ohio,” Pendergast replied dryly.

Mime slapped the armrest of his wheelchair. “Don’t be coy! You know what I’m talking about. I did more than fix it — I enhanced it. Not only can it now be run by a single person, but it’s far more than before — thanks to yours truly! What do you say to that?”

“The potential for catastrophe exceeds my imagination.”

“Only in the wrong hands,” Mime said. “Or hand. You got burnt by it — but that doesn’t have to happen. Think of its capacity for helping mankind. If I can find a way to take that sucker far enough into the future, we could get our hands on all kinds of breakthroughs: microgrids running off cold fusion, graphene, antiviral and antitumor medicine — just think of it!”

This was met with a quiet scoff from Proctor and a shaking of the head.

“The potential for disaster is even more tremendous,” Pendergast replied after a brief silence. “In fact, I challenge you to think of a single technological advancement that, ultimately, wasn’t also turned against humanity. Nuclear power — the bomb. Genetics — euthanasia. The internet — well, I’ve made my point.”

“I could name a hundred advances that made our lives better,” Mime said, looking from Pendergast to Proctor and back again. “Twinkies, for one. But I sense you’re toying with me, Secret Agent Man.”

“In what way?”

“You’re conflicted. And my guess is, until you make up your mind, you’re going to lock that thing away. You’ll avoid answering my questions. But I’m sure with time you’ll come around to my point of view. You’ll see the potential there for human advancement. That machine is too powerful for you not to use it. No one person can make such an important decision.”

Mime stopped. D’Agosta, looking at Pendergast, couldn’t tell whether his silence was an affirmation... or the opposite.

Mime sighed — with his high, breathy voice, it sounded almost like a penny whistle. “Look. Now that it’s working, at least give me time to study it. I’ve made the necessary repairs and then some, but it’s like I told you — whoever first designed that thing was, like, the Mozart of silicon. I was too busy at first to reverse engineer the core — and anyway, its processors were practically the only things still functional, thank God — but, man, some serious twenty-second-century thinking went into designing it. If I—”

Pendergast raised a hand to stanch the flow of words. “Mime! You saved us; thank you; it would be remiss of me not to allow you that. But you’ll understand if I simply need time to think about the implications. I won’t destroy the machine, I promise you. But I’m not going to let it be used again without extremely careful thought and planning.”

“Okay, okay! Charles H. Babbage on a stick, you’re throwing me crumbs here!” Mime rolled his wheelchair back and forth for a minute in silent annoyance. “I guess I’ll take what I can get.”

“You may, in the meantime, continue to examine it — as long as you promise not to use it.”

“Oh, I’ll just use it once or twice. You know, make a few trips back to 1983, so I can take care of Johnny Williford — the bully who kept putting baking soda in my Cream of Wheat at lunch break.”

This was met by a frosty silence.

“That’s a joke! Didn’t I agree I’d just study it? Of course I won’t turn it on. Jesus, has everybody lost their sense of humor here?”

And then he laughed — but he laughed alone.

69

The conversation in the library continued as the rest of the vast house was cloaked in silence. Mrs. Trask was in the back kitchen with an Agatha Christie novel, feet up on a stool after a long day, a pot of Earl Grey keeping warm on the hob. The rest of the house help had retired.

Twenty feet below the library, in the mansion’s basement, was the large space, formerly a zinc-lined ice room, that now contained the time machine. It looked different than it had earlier: Mime had added additional processing units, along with a failback system and other enhancements to make the machine more powerful and stable. The room was clean and orderly. A low hum was the only noise. A suite of diagnostic equipment — obtained and installed by Mime — winked and gleamed in a rack that was situated against the wall where, before, Proctor had spent his hours on guard duty making bespoke bullets. The light this assembly generated provided the only illumination.

There was a soft ticking sound, then a louder, mechanical snick as a timer finished counting down. The big machine’s subunits began to stir from their electromechanical sleep. Mime had enhanced the master mechanism so it could be operated not only by one person alone, but remotely as well. This was happening now. Each step necessary to bring it online was taking place in orderly succession. A module would come to life, run through self-diagnostics, and hand control to the next stage in the chain. Thanks to Mime’s optimizations, the floor-trembling force that had previously been necessary to tear through space-time was now reduced to a low growl, like an idling race car.

And now, the steps complete, the portal came to life. A strange, apocalyptic whorl of undiscovered colors — a kaleidoscope of seemingly infinite depth — materialized between the three rhodium-platinum poles. It swelled to full size, becoming a door to a parallel universe, in the year 1881.

For three minutes, then five, the portal shimmered between the poles, its ovoid surface gleaming like mercury, illuminating the darkened lab with a painful brilliance. Then the light abruptly fluctuated; the portal dimmed as some of its power was temporarily consumed; the center of its surface flickered, coalesced into human shape — and a man stepped through.

Enoch Leng rocked a moment, then righted himself. He shook his head to clear it and — grabbing the emitter railings for support — blinked several times. Then he drew in a deep breath, as if to restore himself after a difficult journey.

Except that he was not restored. His clothes were torn and grimy, and dirt was caked under his nails. Traces of dried vomit were evident on his shirttails and the cuffs of his trousers. His skin had a deathly pallor — save for his left cheek, which had a blistered black-and-red stripe seared into it. He clutched a heavy revolver in his hand.

He bent forward suddenly, coughing, a spasm racking his guts. As he recovered, his hungry gaze probed the lab, taking everything in by the reflected light. His eyes stopped their circuit at a far corner, still in shadow despite the portal’s violent intensity.

“You!” he cried, staggering.

“Me,” a dulcet voice replied.

Constance Greene sat in a wheelchair, wearing a silk dressing gown, her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. Her legs were covered by a heavy blanket. Beside her was a small wheeled lab trolley, made of steel that winked and shone in the light of the portal. On it sat three items: a book, lying open; a small bottle of medicine; and a large surgical scalpel.

Their eyes met. Then, while still looking at Leng, Constance reached for the scalpel.

Leng raised the gun, while at the same time shaking his head with a tut-tutting sound. “Hands back in your lap, my dear.”

She complied. Leng stood before the glowing portal, grasping the railing.

A beat passed, and Constance spoke again. “I knew that, sooner rather than later — assuming you hadn’t been crushed in your own mansion — you’d appear in that rathole of an alley, waiting. I could have kept the machine off and left you to die, but I didn’t. Instead, I turned it on — knowing you’d come through.”

“I see you’ve managed to cheat death,” Leng said after a moment, his voice thick and raspy. “Thanks, no doubt, to the miracles of twenty-first-century medicine.”

She did not reply. Leng remained where he was, listing slightly back and forth.

“I’m glad you survived,” he continued. “I, too, seek the miracles of twenty-first-century medicine — and you’re going to help me with that.” He gestured with the muzzle of the gun, keeping it aimed even as he turned partially away, coughing and retching, seized by another bout of cramping. But he recovered quickly, spitting a mouthful of phlegm toward the nearest wall. “When you disappeared, I knew you’d all gone through that magic-lantern show. Well, now, so have I. Expected that, did you? Never mind: I’m here now — and you’re going to undo the pain and suffering you’ve caused me.” He again waggled the gun. “So: where are we?”

“In a basement.”

“Don’t be daft. Where are we?”

“New York City. In our home.”

“‘Our’?”

“Aloysius and mine.”

“Aloysius... Pendergast. How domestic.” Leng tried to smile, but his face was contorted by another spasm of pain.

“In your former house.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Enough persiflage. I need you to get me the antidote — the one you told me didn’t exist in my century. And for your sake, I suggest you hurry — I may be losing my grip on reality, which makes me unpredictable.”

“A side effect of the poison?” Constance asked. Then: “What happened to your face?”

“When I was waiting in the alley, that pernicious cleric paid me a visit.”

“You don’t mean Reverend Considine?”

“He had something glowing in his hand, and before I could gather my wits, he branded me — across the face! The brand exiles bore when bound for the penal colonies of Australia. As I fell back, I heard him say: ‘Here’s a farewell gift from Constance.’ I see now, you little vixen, that he was one of yours.”

“Thoughtful of him,” Constance murmured.

“No more wasting time. I want medical attention, and right away — as I implied, the last thing you’d want is my growing delusional. I know what a telephone is: use it. Get me a doctor. Now.”

“No need for threats,” she said. “And in fact, there’s no reason to leave this room. I have the antidote right here.” And she nodded toward the metal table at her side.

As Leng followed her glance, she picked up a medicine bottle, sealed, with a tiny label covered in writing.

“That is certainly most convenient. And how do I know it’s not just another poison?”

“Because that would be too cheap a trick.” She twisted the top of the bottle, cracking open the seal. “Your timing is good; indocyanine green only became available as an alpha-amanitin inhibitor quite recently. Before that, there was no true cure for the death cap mushroom.”

As he watched, she took a sip.

“Ugh,” she said, recapping the bottle and returning it to the medical trolley. “Bitter.”

“Let me have it.” With his branded face, his crazy eyes, and the infernal halo of the portal ablaze behind him, he could almost have been one of Lucifer’s fallen angels.

“I will. Do you think I’ve been waiting here, in the dark and the damp, for my health?”

Leng scoffed, then looked at her narrowly, as if she might still be feverish. “I tire of this. Let me have it!”

“Very well.” As he kept the gun aimed, she reached over, grasped the trolley, and rolled it across the uneven floor. It collided with the vertical post of the emitter railing, then rolled backward a few inches, the scalpel and medicine bottle wobbling slightly under the impact. Leng watched as Constance sank back in the wheelchair. Despite her bravado, it was obvious that simply pushing the tray was still not only painful, but exhausting.

Grabbing the scalpel off the tray and throwing it into a dark corner, he put the revolver down, picked up the bottle, read the label with streaming eyes — there it was: INDOCYANINE GREEN, neatly and officially printed. Steadying himself against another wave of spasmic pain, he twisted off the top, threw it aside, and drank half of the bottle down. It was bitter. He couldn’t feel any worse off than he did already, and it wasn’t a large bottle — he lifted it a second time and drained it to the dregs.

Then he tossed it away. As he heard it shiver into pieces against the floor, he raised his eyes to Constance.

She was seated in the wheelchair as before. Now, however, the blanket covering her legs had dropped away, revealing a pump shotgun leveled at him, her finger on the trigger.

“You must have wondered why that portal suddenly appeared, after five days of nothing but agonized waiting,” she said. “It was bait — and you swallowed it. You see, it wasn’t enough for me to kill you in your century. I wanted to see you die in mine, as well.”

“You hell-bitch!” And, as Leng snatched his revolver from the tray, she unloaded the 12-gauge into his chest.

The load of double-aught buck knocked him off his feet, throwing him back toward the portal and ripping a hole in his midsection, even as his own gun went off uselessly, the round going wild. Constance’s wheelchair lurched under the recoil, impacting the wall behind it. She watched as Leng somersaulted backward into the glowing tunnel, blood and viscera erupting in a fountain of gore. The portal dimmed briefly, as if absorbing a meal, then flared back once again to its full, awful power.

Constance sat for a moment, breathing hard. The lab hummed with the low song of the device; there were no other sounds. It was as if Leng had never been there.

Wheeling herself a few yards along the closest wall, she reached up and painfully opened the dual industrial breaker boxes that fed the machine its 100,000 watts. As she snapped off each SF6 breaker in turn, the portal winked out; then the humming whined to a stop. She took a final glance at the panels, then twisted the three-phase main lug into the off position.

Now she moved the wheelchair to the center of the room, dark save for the glow of Mime’s rack of monitoring equipment. She stopped once to check the dressing beneath her robe and to regain her breath. Then, turning the wheelchair with one hand, she faced the machine, racked the shotgun, and raised it.

The first blast tore apart the main control console, ripping it wide open, exposing a fantastically intricate web of circuits and wiring, flinging fragments of logic boards and chunks of microcircuitry outward. Pumping another round into the chamber, she noticed that the impact of her blast had torn away a reinforcing internal panel, exposing a section of much older technology. She lifted the shotgun, aimed with great effort, then sent a load of buckshot directly into the heart of the machine, smashing it into a chaos of pulverized transistors, vacuum tubes, and copper.

This blast sent her wheelchair lurching backward once again, this time tipping it over. Strength gone, in pain, Constance let the weapon slide from her hand as she rested her head on the cold floor... even as rising voices sounded in the corridor outside.

70

D’Agosta was hard on the heels of Pendergast and Proctor as they raced down into the basement, following the sound of a shotgun blast. As they reached the landing and ran down a corridor, he heard a second blast, followed by a third. The echoes died away as they approached the laboratory door. It was closed, but Pendergast shouldered it open and they stormed inside.

The room was dim. Acrid smoke filled the air. The glow of red emergency lamps flickered and danced, coming in and out of view as the haze drifted by. It stank of burnt electronics and nitrocellulose.

As D’Agosta stood, uncomprehending, Pendergast and Proctor fanned out ahead of him, their figures growing ghostly in the pall. He heard the sounds of switches being turned on and off fruitlessly. There was a loud spark, followed by a curse from Proctor. And then lights in the ceiling sprang to life — one, two — and the roar of an exhaust fan came from somewhere overhead. The light revealed Constance Greene on the floor, propped up on her knees, in a dressing gown. An overturned wheelchair and shotgun lay nearby.

“Constance!” Pendergast cried. “What happened?”

“Help me up, please,” she said with a gasp.

Gently, Pendergast helped her rise as D’Agosta righted the wheelchair and eased her into it.

“Are you all right?” Pendergast asked.

“Rarely better,” Constance managed to say, even as she winced in pain.

Proctor watched them silently for a moment, then approached the smoking wreckage, surveying the damage. “Mr. Pendergast?” he said, turning.

The agent looked over. Proctor silently pointed to a section of the device that had received the brunt of the blast. The central brain of the machine was a violent tangle of copper wire, bits of plastic, ruined circuit boards, and other detritus stamped with various colors and labels. The damage was so great D’Agosta could see right through the ruined guts of the machine to the wall behind, peppered with shot.

“It’s finished,” Proctor murmured, almost to himself.

There was a brief silence as Pendergast came over and the two men surveyed the damage. Then Pendergast turned back to Constance, looking at her silently.

“Why did you destroy the machine?” he asked after a moment.

“Because none of you would,” came the reply.

“Before that first shotgun blast, I thought I heard the faint sound of a raised voice. Who...?” Pendergast stopped, looking most uncharacteristically baffled.

“Leng,” she said.

“What?”

“He—” She paused, closed her eyes, and took a moment to regain her breath. “He came through. He wanted something.”

“And?”

“I let him have it.”

This was followed by another silence, during which Proctor knelt to pick up the shotgun. He turned it over in his hands, then racked the slide a couple of times. Two shells sprang out, which he picked up and put in his pocket. Then he leaned the weapon against the wall and turned toward Pendergast. An odd look passed between them. Pendergast’s glance shifted to the shotgun, then the portal, and finally to Constance, his eyes glittering with growing understanding.

Then he returned to the wheelchair and gently gathered her into his arms. “I’m taking you back to bed,” he said in a low voice that sounded not quite paternal, and not quite fraternal. “Vincent, if you wouldn’t mind getting the door and assisting with the elevator, please?”

“You got it.” D’Agosta moved to the exit, holding the door open. “What—” He hesitated. “What are we going to tell Mime?”

Pendergast made a pained face. “Later, my friend.” Cradling Constance, he walked toward the door.

As he did so, D’Agosta saw Constance bring one hand up to caress Pendergast’s cheek. At the same time, she raised her head to murmur something in his ear. D’Agosta, embarrassed, looked away, but heard her words nevertheless: Thank you for bringing me home.

“Proctor,” Pendergast said over his shoulder, “if you wouldn’t mind making sure this mess is stabilized and not about to burst into flame, before following us back upstairs?”

“Of course.”

“Much obliged.” And Pendergast vanished around the corner and into the hallway, D’Agosta following.

Proctor spent ten minutes checking the main electrical leads and a few of the more unstable components, satisfying himself that the thing was inert — and would stay that way. Task accomplished, he made a circuit of the room, his flashlight illuminating every corner. He picked up the empty buckshot shells and pocketed them with the others. Then, as he rose in preparation to leave, he noticed three small droplets of blood. They were at the base of the platform where the portal normally appeared. Dipping a hand into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a handkerchief, knelt, and carefully wiped them away.

“Neatly done, Constance,” he murmured in a low, admiring voice, as he returned the handkerchief to his pocket. “Very neatly done indeed.”

Then he rose, turned off the emergency lighting, stepped over to the door, exited, locked it behind him — and vanished into the gloom of the basement hallway.