Reliquary

= 57 =

FOR A DREADFUL moment Margo thought they were under attack, and she turned instinctively, raising her weapon to the ready position, strangely reluctant to look at the thing Pendergast was struggling with. There was a whispered curse from D’Agosta. Squinting through the still-unfamiliar goggles, Margo realized Pendergast was grappling with a person, perhaps a homeless man who had evaded the police roust. He certainly looked the part: wet, caked in mud, apparently bleeding from some unseen wound.

“Shut off the light,” Pendergast hissed. D’Agosta’s flashlight beam struck her goggles, then winked out. The glowing vista seesawed violently as her goggles tried to compensate, corning back into focus as they stabilized. She drew her breath in sharply. There was something about the lanky features, the tousled hair, that was irresistibly familiar.

“Bill?” she asked in disbelief.

Pendergast had the man on the ground, hugging him almost protectively, murmuring words into one ear. After a moment, the man stopped struggling and went limp. Pendergast released him gently and stood up. Margo leaned in for a closer look. It was Smithback, all right. .

“Give him a minute,” Pendergast said.

“I don’t believe it,” D’Agosta growled. “What, you think he followed us down here?”

Pendergast shook his head. “No. Nobody followed us.” He looked around at the confluence of tunnels above and below. “This is the Bottleneck, where all descending tunnels of the Central Park quadrant meet. He was being chased, apparently, and his path intersected ours. The question is, chased by whom? Or what?” He unshipped his flamethrower and glanced at D’Agosta. “You’d better be ready with the flash, Vincent.”

Suddenly, Smithback lunged upwards, then fell back onto the mass of pipes and twenty-four-inch mains that made up the floor of the Bottleneck.

“They killed Duffy!” he cried. “Who are you? Help me, I can’t see!”

Pocketing her weapon, Margo came forward and knelt at his side. The trip down from the subway tunnel—through noisome corridors and dark, echoing galleries that seemed incredibly out of place dozens of stories beneath Manhattan—had been like an endless dark dream. Seeing her friend race out of the darkness, petrified with fear and shock, only increased her sense of unreality.

“Bill,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay. It’s Margo. Please keep quiet. We don’t dare use lights, and there isn’t a spare set of goggles. But we’ll help you along.”

Smithback blinked in her direction, pupils wide. “I want to get out of here!” he cried suddenly, struggling to his feet.

“What?” D’Agosta said sarcastically. “And miss your story?”

“You can’t go back alone,” Pendergast said, putting a restraining arm on his shoulder.

The struggle seemed to have exhausted Smithback, and he sagged forward. “What are you doing here?” he asked at last.

“I might ask you the same question,” Pendergast replied. “Mephisto is leading us to the Astor Tunnels—the Devil’s Attic. There was a plan to drain the Reservoir and flood the creatures out.”

“Captain Waxie’s plan,” D’Agosta added.

“But the Reservoir is full of the Mbwun lily. That’s where the creatures were growing it. And we can’t allow the plants to reach the open ocean. It’s too late to stop the water dump, so a SEAL team was sent in from the river to seal the lowest spillway tunnels below. We’re going to seal off the spaces above the Astor Tunnels to prevent any spillages. We’ll bottle up the flow, keep it from escaping down into the river. If we succeed, it will back up to the Bottleneck here, but nowhere else.”

Smithback remained unspeaking, his head bowed.

“We’re well armed, and fully prepared for whatever’s down there. We have maps. You’ll be safer with us. Do you understand, William?”

Margo watched as Pendergast’s mellifluous delivery worked its calming effect. Smithback’s breathing seemed to slow, and finally he nodded almost imperceptibly.

“So what were you up to, anyway?” D’Agosta asked.

Pendergast made a restraining motion with one hand, but Smithback looked in the direction of the Lieutenant. “I followed Captain Waxie and a group of policemen underneath the Reservoir,” he said quietly. “They were trying to shut off some valves. But they’d been sabotaged, or something. Then—” He stopped abruptly. “Then they came.”

“Bill, don’t,” Margo interjected.

“I ran away,” Smithback said, swallowing hard. “Duffy and I ran away. But they caught him in the gauging station. They—”

“That’s enough,” said Pendergast quietly. There was a silence. “Sabotage, did you say?”

Smithback nodded. “I heard Duffy say that somebody had been messing with the valves.”

“That is troublesome. Troublesome indeed.” There was a look on Pendergast’s face that Margo had not seen before. “We’d better continue,” he said, shouldering the flamethrower again. “This Bottleneck is a perfect place for an ambush.” He glanced around the dark tunnel. “Mephisto?”he whispered.

There was a stirring in the darkness, then Mephisto came forward, arms folded across his chest, a wide smirk on his whiskered lips.

“I was just enjoying this touching reunion,” he said, in his silky hiss. “Now the merry band of adventurers is complete. Ho, scriblerian! I see you’ve descended farther than you dared venture on our first meeting. Grows on you, doesn’t it?”

“Not especially,” Smithback replied in a low voice.

“How nice, at least, to have one’s own Boswell at hand.” In the artificial light of the goggles, it seemed to Margo that Mephisto’s eyes glittered gold and crimson as they surveyed the group. “Will you compose an epic poem on the event? The Mephistiad. In heroic couplets, please. That’s assuming you live to tell the tale. I wonder which of us will survive, and which will leave their whitened bones to lie here, forever, in the tunnels beneath Manhattan?”

“Let’s move on,” Pendergast said.

“I see. Whitey here feels there has been enough talk. Perhaps he fears it will be his bones left to the rats.”

“We need to set several series of charges directly below the Bottleneck,” Pendergast said smoothly. “If we stand here listening to your empty posturing, we won’t have time to exit before the Reservoir dumps. Then it will be your bones, as well as mine, that are left for the rats.”

“Very well, very well!” Mephisto said. “Don’t chafe.” He turned and began clambering down a large, dark tube.

“No,” Smithback said.

D’Agosta took a step toward the journalist. “Come on. I’ll take your hand.”

The vertical tube ended in a high-ceilinged tunnel, and they waited in the darkness while Pendergast set several sets of charges, then motioned them on. A few hundred yards down the tunnel, they arrived at a walkway that crossed a few feet above the level of the water. Margo felt grateful; the ankle-deep stream had been cold and foul.

“Well!” whispered Mephisto, climbing on the walkway. “Perhaps the Mayor of Grant’s Tomb can finally dry out his wingtips.”

“Perhaps the Hobo King can finally shut up,” D’Agosta growled.

A delighted hiss came from Mephisto. “Hobo King. Charming. Perhaps I should go hunting track rabbits and leave you to do your own spelunking.”

D’Agosta stiffened but held his tongue, and Mephisto led the way across the walkway into a crawl space beyond. Margo heard the roar of falling water in the distance, and soon the passage ended at a narrow waterfall. A narrow iron ladder, almost concealed by the ordure of many decades, descended into a vertical tunnel at the base of the falls.

They passed through the tunnel one at a time, dropping to an irregular bedrock floor beneath the confluence of two seventy-two-inch mains. The narrow boreholes of explosive drills lined the walls like the work of disorderly termites.

“Nous sommes arrivés,” said Mephisto, and for the first time Margo thought she could detect nervousness behind the bluster. “The Devil’s Attic is directly beneath us.”

Motioning them to stay put, Pendergast checked his maps and then vanished noiselessly into the ancient tunnel. As the seconds turned to minutes, Margo found herself ready to jump at every drop of water from the mossy ceiling, at every stifled sneeze or restless stirring. Once again, she questioned her own motives for coming along. It was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the fact that she was hundreds of feet underground, in an obscure and long-forgotten warren of service passageways, railroad tunnels, and other spaces even more obscure, with a lurking foe that at any moment might…

There was a movement in the dark beside her. “Dear Dr. Green,” came the silky hiss of Mephisto. “I’m sorry you decided to join our little walkabout. But since you’re here, maybe you can do me a favor. Please understand I have every intention of letting your friends here take all the risk. But if something unpleasant should happen, maybe you could deliver something for me.” Margo felt a small envelope being thrust into her hand. Curiously, she began to lift it toward her goggles.

“No!” said Mephisto, catching her hand and thrusting it into her own pocket. “Plenty of time for that later. If necessary.”

“Why me?” Margo asked.

“Who else?” came the hiss. “That slippery G-man, Pendergast? Or maybe the large economy model of our city’s finest, standing over there? Or Smithback, the yellow journalist?”

There was a rapid footfall in the darkness, then Pendergast was back within the dim circle of their flashlights. “Excellent,” he said as Mephisto melted from her side. “Up ahead is the catwalk where I made my own descent. The charges under the Bottleneck should take care of the main Reservoir flow to the south. Now we’ll set the rest of the charges to block off any spillage from feeders beneath the north end of the Park.” The matter-of-fact tone of his voice was more appropriate for a croquet party, Margo thought, than this nightmare stalk. But she was grateful for it.

Pendergast grasped the handle of the flamethrower, undipped the nozzle guard, and pressed the primer a few times. “I’ll go first,” he said. “Then Mephisto. I trust your instincts; let me know if you sense anything wrong or out of place.”

“Being here is out of place,” Mephisto said. “Ever since the Wrinklers arrived, this has been shunned ground.”

“Margo, you’ll be next,” Pendergast continued. “Take care of Smithback. Vincent, I’d like you to cover the rear. There might be a conflict.”

“Right,” D’Agosta said.

“I’d like to help,” Margo heard Smithback say softly.

Pendergast looked at him.

“I’m useless without a weapon,” the writer explained, his voice unsteady but determined.

“Can you handle a gun?” Pendergast asked.

“Used to shoot skeet with a 16-gauge,” Smithback said.

D’Agosta stifled a laugh. Pendergast pursed his lips a moment, as if calculating something. Then he unslung the other weapon from his shoulder and passed it over. “This is an M-79. It fires 40-millimeter high-explosive rounds. Be sure you’ve got a kill zone of at least one hundred feet before you use it. D’Agosta can describe to you how to reload as we go. I expect if action starts, there will be plenty of light for you to see with.”

Smithback nodded.

“The thought of a journalist with a grenade launcher makes me very nervous,” came D’Agosta’s voice out of the darkness.

“We’ll set the charges, then leave,” Pendergast said. “Fire only as a last resort; the sound will bring the entire nest down upon us. Vincent, set the flash unit to strobe, and use it at the first sign of trouble. We’ll blind them first, then fire. Be sure to remove your goggles first—the flash unit will overload them. We know they hate light, so once they know we’re here, let’s use it to our advantage.” He turned. “Margo, just how sure are you about the vitamin D?”

“One hundred percent sure,” she answered immediately. Then she paused. “Well, ninety-five percent, anyway.”

“I see,” the FBI agent replied. “Well, if there’s a confrontation, you’d better use your pistol first.”

Pendergast took a final look around, then began cautiously leading the group down the ancient tunnel. Margo could see D’Agosta leading the journalist forward, gripping his arm tightly. After about fifty yards, Pendergast raised his hand. One by one, they all stopped. Very slowly, he brought a warning finger to his lips. Reaching into a pocket of his jacket, he removed a lighter and held it close to the nozzle of the flamethrower. There was a puff, a flash of light, and a low hiss. A tiny blue pilot flame played around the end of the copper nozzle.

“Smores, anyone?” Mephisto murmured.

Margo breathed through her nose, struggling to stay calm. The air was heavy with the combined reek of methane and ammonia. And overlying them both was a faint goatish odor she knew only too well.