فصل 24

CHAPTER 24

BREAKTHROUGH

SCARLET JOHNS FOLLOWED THE ROBED form of the Skeleton down the dank and dimly lit corridor. Ahead of the Skeleton was a guard, who walked quickly, not looking back. He had briefly glimpsed what remained of the Skeleton’s face, and did not want to see it again.

From somewhere close came the rumble, screech, and clank of a train. The corridor was narrow and claustro-phobic, the air stale, as if already breathed too many times to be of any use. The only light came from a string of widely spaced, flickering bulbs hung from a wire that snaked along the tunnel wall. It was cold down here, eighty feet below the London streets; muddy water dripped constantly from the earthen walls and ceiling, held up by what looked like hastily erected wooden braces.

They passed a cell to the left. The Skeleton ignored it, but Scarlet paused to peer through the barred window. She saw a figure huddled in the corner, wrapped in filthy clothes. The figure looked up. Scarlet, expecting to see a male prisoner, inhaled sharply: It was a woman, kept in cage that a dog did not deserve. The woman’s dirt-streaked face was gaunt and pale, but still quite beautiful; her eyes shone with both defiance and fear. The woman’s gaze held Scarlet’s for a moment. With an abrupt turn of her head, Scarlet looked away. She resumed following the Skeleton. She did not want to think about the woman.

In another dozen yards the tunnel widened into a space that was apparently being used as an office of sorts. A table had been improvised from wooden planks; on it sat a flickering lantern and a jumble of large sheets of paper that appeared to be architectural drawings and mechanical plans.

“Wait here,” said the guard, keeping his eyes averted from the Skeleton. He left quickly the way they had come.

The Skeleton and Scarlet waited in silence. Scarlet, restless, looked down the corridor every few seconds. The Skeleton stood utterly still, his face obscured by the hood of his long robe. Five long minutes passed.

Suddenly the Skeleton rasped, “He is coming.” Scarlet again looked down the corridor. She saw nothing. She was about to speak, when she felt something.

The air, already cold, was growing colder.

Molly felt it, too. She was standing next to the cell window, her face pressed against the bars, looking to her left, trying to get another glimpse of the two strangers who had just been led past by the guard—a hooded man, and the woman who had stopped to look in at her.

She felt the chill and turned to look to her right. She could see only a few feet down the corridor. She heard footsteps approaching. The air grew colder still, the footsteps closer …

And then Molly screamed.

She hadn’t meant to scream, but she couldn’t stop herself. It was as if the past twenty years hadn’t happened and she was a girl again, trapped in her room while the hideous shadow-thing seeped under her door, coming for her. She had felt the same chill that night, and as she felt it now, the horror came back, overpowering her thoughts.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing herself to be quiet. She backed quickly away from the cell window. A dark shape appeared outside. The footsteps stopped. Molly didn’t want to look at the window, but she couldn’t look away. Her hand still to her mouth, she watched as a tall figure in dark clothing and a top hat stepped toward the cell and bent to look inside. A face appeared in the window, long and thin, impossibly pale. The lips were thin, bloodless. The eyes were hidden behind wire-rimmed glasses with lenses black as coal. Molly had seen von Schatten once before, at a banquet. He had looked strange then. Down here, in the gloom of the tunnel, he looked inhuman.

He was silent for a few seconds, staring at Molly. She did not breathe.

“Greetings, Starcatcher,” he sneered. His voice was different from the one he had used at the banquet. Now it sounded like a moan from a tomb. Molly knew that voice well.

Somehow she found words of her own. “What do you want?” she said.

A pause, and then the hideous voice: “What we have always wanted.”

Molly started to speak again, but von Schatten was gone. Molly sank onto the hard wooden planks that served as her bed. She was grateful that von Schatten, or Ombra, or whatever this creature was, had not entered her cell. But his words filled her with despair.

What we have always wanted.

Scarlet watched the tall, thin man with the dark eyeglasses as he approached the table. The Skeleton had told her to speak to von Schatten only if spoken to, so she offered no greeting. Von Schatten ignored her, addressing his words to the Skeleton.

“Give it to me,” he said.

From somewhere in his robe, the Skeleton produced a bundled rag with a string of rawhide holding it tight. With the gnarled nub of his right hand, he set it on the table.

“The tip of Curtana,” he rasped. “As promised.”

Von Schatten looked, unafraid, at the hideous face of the Skeleton, then down at the bundle. He reached down and untied it with quick motions of his long, bony fingers. The cloth came away, and he picked up the piece of metal, which seemed to glow in the lantern light.

Von Schatten’s bloodless lips twitched in what might have been an attempt at a smile. He turned to the Skeleton.

“Where was it?” he said.

“The cathedral at Aachen,” rasped the Skeleton. “It was in a stained-glass window, disguised as a bishop’s miter. In plain view, all these years.”

“You have done well,” said von Schatten. “Both of you.” He turned in Scarlet’s direction. A sense of dread overcame her; she felt as though the air had been sucked from her lungs. She was greatly relieved when von Schatten was distracted by the arrival of one of the guards, who came puffing down the corridor from the direction opposite the way Scarlet and the Skeleton had arrived.

“Baron von Schatten,” he began, as he reached the table.

“We have …” He stopped, catching sight of the Skeleton’s face.

“Out with it!” snapped von Schatten.

“Yes, Baron,” said the guard, tearing his eyes away from the Skeleton. “You said to inform you when the prisoners have broken through. We believe they have.”

“Stop the digging immediately,” von Schatten said. “I will be there shortly.”

“Yes, Baron,” said the guard. He scurried back down the corridor.

Von Schatten turned to the Skeleton, and once again his thin lips writhed into a ghastly smile.

“It appears you arrived at an opportune time,” he said. “You bring the tip of Curtana, and now we appear to have broken through to the chamber. That give us two legs of the tripod. We now need only the third leg, and we shall have it soon enough, thanks to our friend in the palace.”

“Still,” rasped the Skeleton, “you run the risk of discovery here, so close to the Underground.”

“We are well hidden,” said von Schatten. “We are protected by powerful friends in the police force. No one knows of our efforts here except, of course, the guards, who are well aware that their lives are worthless if they betray us.”

“What about the prisoners?” said the Skeleton.

“We will not need them much longer,” said von

Schatten. “When their usefulness expires, they will be eliminated.”

“Perhaps,” said the Skeleton, “you will allow me to carry out that task.”

Von Schatten’s lips twitched. “You would enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” rasped the Skeleton, and Scarlet shivered for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Very well, then,” said von Schatten. “When their work is done, they will be yours. Now let us observe as they finish digging their graves.”

Von Schatten and the Skeleton started down the corridor. Behind them, Scarlet hesitated. She had been promised great deal of money for her expertise, which had been critical in finding the tip of Curtana. But now that the tip was found, had her usefulness also expired? She thought about the woman in the cell only yards away. Suddenly she was seized by the urge to run, to forget the money and get out of this underground hell. Could she escape? Would she be able to get past the guards? And even if she did, would they …

“Scarlet!” the angry rasp of the Skeleton’s voice jolted her back to the moment. She saw that von Schatten and the Skeleton had stopped and were looking back at her.

“Are you coming?” rasped the Skeleton.

Scarlet half-turned toward the exit corridor, her body tense, on the edge of running. But she could not get past that edge. She sagged, then slowly turned and began walking toward the two dark figures.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I’m coming.”

Molly had heard every word; a trick of acoustics carried sound perfectly from the wooden table to her cell. Molly had listened with increasing dismay to von Schatten’s conversation with the two visitors. Now, as they walked away, she tried to piece together the meaning of what she had overheard.

The strangers had brought von Schatten the tip of something, the name of which Molly did not recognize. But she recognized the name of the city it had been found in: Aachen. That triggered a memory in Molly. James said he had overheard von Schatten talking about a “missing piece” that had something to do with Germany. Aachen, Molly knew, was in Germany. Apparently the strangers had brought von Schatten his missing piece.

Whatever that piece was, it was one of three things von Schatten needed—the “legs of the tripod,” he called them. Apparently he also had the second leg—a chamber, close by, which must be what James, Thomas, and the other prisoners had been digging for. As for the third leg, Molly had no idea what it was, other than that von Schatten expected to have it soon.

That was bad enough. Much worse was the discussion about the fate of the prisoners.

When their usefulness expires, von Schatten had said, they will be eliminated.

Molly wondered how soon that would be. Tomorrow? Today? In the next hour?

She peered through the cell window. She had done this a thousand times, but this time she focused her attention on the wooden supports that held up the tunnel. Her gaze then went to the boards that formed her cell floor. She went to the wall of her cell and dug her finger into the dirt, grabbing the end of the widest board. She grunted and pulled with all her strength. With a sucking sound, the end of the board came up. Spiders and centipedes, disturbed by the board being moved, scurried across the mud. Molly jumped back. The board was oak, thick and sturdy.

Molly again moved to the door and examined the tunnel supports outside her cell. They appeared to have been constructed hastily, for temporary use. She looked down again at the loose floorboard, then at the steel bars across the cell window.

Molly looked both ways down the corridor. She saw nobody. She lifted the floorboard, slipped it quietly through the bars, and went to work.