Authors: George Mann
“What, really?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. But it was worth a try. I need to go and fetch some things from the workshop. Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
* * *
“It operates on a similar principle to those living statues you encountered,” said Astrid, as she laid out a small cotton sheet on the floor, and assembled her paraphernalia. She was reading from an old, yellowed manuscript as she worked, selecting a strange assortment of icons, herbs, pickled rodent parts and vials containing what appeared to be congealed blood.
“You mean it’s going to come to life and try to kill me?” he said.
“I mean it has no obvious power source,” said Astrid, “save for the contents of the box in its chest.”
“Which are?”
“Everything I’m about to put in it,” she said. She finished laying everything out according to the pattern in the book. She’d previously marked the sheet with lines of dusty chalk, drawing the familiar hermetic pattern of nested shapes, into which she’d laid the components of her ritual in precise order.
“Right, open the compartment for me,” she said.
Gabriel did as instructed, carefully undoing the latch and opening the panel. It was stiff, and creaked, and he was worried it was going to come away in his hand at any moment.
Inside, the compartment was blackened with ancient ash.
Astrid had moved round to join him, and he watched, fascinated, as she took the components one at a time, laying them carefully within the machine’s chest, following a very specific order laid out in the manuscript. Then, when she had finished, she rolled up the cloth, found a strip of matches, and struck one.
“Would you like the honor?” she said, holding it out to him.
“I’d sooner leave it to the expert,” he said, “if it’s all the same.”
Astrid nodded and stepped forward. She gently laid the match inside the compartment, and then closed the door. “There,” she said. “Now we wait.”
She stepped back, coming to stand beside Gabriel.
For a moment, nothing happened. Gabriel could smell dried lavender smoldering inside the thing’s chest. Black smoke was curling out from the edges of the compartment door, and, disturbingly, from the open slit of its mouth, as if it were exhaling.
“I think all we’ve managed to do is hasten the thing’s demise,” said Gabriel.
Astrid shook her head, holding her forefinger up to his lips to silence him. It was still covered in chalk dust. She was watching the Seer intently. He could see the hope in her eyes; she needed this to work. For her, it was some sort of validation, proof of her methods, her way of contributing to the investigation. He had no idea what he’d tell Donovan if they did get anything useful out of it. He’d gone along with talk of living statues—an eighteenth-century automaton that could predict the future was another thing entirely.
Within moments, the whole room was beginning to swim with filthy smoke, and Gabriel was close to running for cover. He could feel it tickling his sore lung, and he spluttered, raising his hand to his mouth.
He heard Astrid say something, but didn’t quite make it out because of his coughing fit. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked, once he’d recovered. The smoke was stinging his eyes now, too.
“Not me,” said Astrid, from beside him. She had an excited gleam in her eyes. “
Him
.” She pointed at the automaton.
Gabriel stepped closer, lurching back in surprise when the Seer lifted its head with a jerky, sudden gesture, turning to look right at him. He could hear the gears and levers clicking and whirring inside of it.
“As above, so below,” it said, its voice a strange mechanical burr, as if it were being generated by the turning of the cogs themselves. “So below, as above.”
“What does it mean?” said Gabriel, looking to Astrid.
“Just
listen
,” said Astrid.
“The ancient ones once more walk the realm of men. The Empire of Greed shall be refashioned to their purpose. The heavens shall soon align, and the world shall know the wrath of Thoth.” Its head jerked suddenly to the left, and it made a sound like a long and heartfelt sigh, smoke pluming from its mouth.
“Come on,” said Astrid, wafting her arm before her face, “let’s get out of this smoke.” She led him back through the wardrobe, closing the panel behind her.
“I’m not really sure how to follow that,” she said. She looked dazed, her face covered in streaks of soot.
“I’m not sure you could,” said Gabriel. He wiped his eyes, which were still watering from the smoke. “Pastry?”
Astrid looked at him, and burst out in rapturous laughter.
* * *
“Well, it worked,” said Gabriel. “In a manner of speaking. We almost burned the place down.”
“Wasn’t it magnificent?” said Astrid. “To think, a device built a hundred and fifty years ago can still do
that
. Do you see now how those statues must have been brought to life?” She was pacing up and down in her workshop, buzzing with excitement. “The alchemical principle is exactly the same.”
Gabriel found himself grinning, despite everything. Her enthusiasm was infectious. “Yes, I see it,” he said. “But the things it said—what did they mean? They sounded pretty ominous.”
“As above, so below,” said Astrid. “It was referring to the hermetic principle I told you about. But then it repeated the maxim backwards: so below, as above. It’s a warning, especially when it’s coupled with what it said about the ‘Empire of Greed’ being ‘refashioned’ to suit the purpose of the gods.”
“The Empire of Greed—that’s Manhattan, right?”
“I can’t think of a better description,” said Astrid. “That’s what we’ve been building here, isn’t it—the capitalist utopia, the land of possibility.”
“And by ‘refashioned’…?”
“So below, as above,” repeated Astrid. “The Circle of Thoth intend to reshape parts of Manhattan to reflect the heavens. ‘The heavens shall soon align, and the world shall know the wrath’, etcetera, etcetera. Think about it. They’re trying to bring back the ancient gods by mirroring the architecture of the heavens. They’ve already succeeded with Sekhmet—it sounds as though Thoth is next.”
“And then we shall know his wrath,” said Gabriel. “That doesn’t sound like a whole bunch of fun.”
“Not if he intends to level Manhattan and rebuild it as his new domain on Earth, it doesn’t,” said Astrid. “There must be a structure somewhere, a place where they intend to channel Thoth’s power into another vessel. The museum?”
“Possibly,” said Gabriel, “although I didn’t see anything fitting that bill. There’s a colonnade, some statues, and the tomb of Sekhmet.”
“It must be somewhere else, then. That’s the key. Find that, and we have a chance of disrupting their plans before they manifest Thoth.”
“And Sekhmet?”
Astrid smiled. “This time I really
do
need you to take off your shirt.”
“So, he’s still alive, then?” said Donovan. He was flicking ash into the dregs of his cold coffee, in lieu of the ashtray, which was overflowing and had started to present something of a fire risk. He’d have emptied it, if it hadn’t been for the storm of chaos that had erupted in the aftermath of the previous night’s attack. Or, he supposed, maybe he wouldn’t have. It was a good excuse, though.
It was long past lunch, but he hadn’t managed to eat yet, and he was starting to get grouchy. It had been weeks since he’d last managed to head to
Joe’s
for his favorite pastrami sandwich. When this was over, it was the first thing he was going to do, and damn the waistline.
He ditched the end of the cigarette and immediately lit another, hoping it would help to suppress his burgeoning appetite.
“Barely,” said Mullins, who was sitting on the other side of the desk, also smoking a cigarette. He’d been trying to cut down, but recent events seemed to have somewhat interfered with his plan. “The doctor says he won’t survive another night. Too much internal bleeding, apparently. Half his organs were ruptured when that Enforcer hit him.”
“Right,” said Donovan. “We’d better get down there, then. I’ve got some questions I want to put to him before he shuffles off this mortal coil.”
“You’re not likely to get much out of him,” said Mullins. “He’s dosed up on morphine, and he doesn’t seem to be in the mood for talking.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Donovan. He wasn’t a particular fan of strong-arm tactics, but the cultist wasn’t to know that. A well-placed threat had loosened just as many tongues for him over the years as a sharp fist to the gut.
“Hospital, then?” he said, getting to his feet. He tossed Mullins the car keys. “Here, you’re driving.”
They left the bustling office, traversed a couple of flights of stairs, and quit the precinct building via the main entrance, where workmen were hurriedly erecting wooden scaffolds in order to repair the damage. The roads were going to take longer to repair, and for now, traffic was being rerouted around the block. Donovan could still see patches of sawdust clinging to the asphalt were the cultists had landed, bursting like water balloons filled with blood and bones. The memory of it made him shudder. Maybe he’d have to pick a new spot for his meetings with Gabriel; the roof wasn’t going to feel the same again after what had come to pass.
The car was parked a little way up the street—thankfully avoiding the destruction of the previous night—and Donovan walked round, climbing into the passenger seat. Mullins fired up the engine, and they purred away, trailing a column of thick black smoke.
He was hoping for some good news. So far, it hadn’t been a day for it.
He’d sent Parkhurst and another of the uniformed boys out to pick up Landsworth, but they’d returned empty-handed, claiming he wasn’t to be found at his hotel, or at the museum, and that the curator had claimed he’d not shown his face since the shooting at the parade the previous day.
The wheedling bastard was on the run. Donovan knew it. Their visit to the hotel had spooked him, and whatever Gabriel had said to him at the museum had only made matters worse. The shooting must have been the final straw, and he’d upped and made a run for it. He’d had Parkhurst alert all the ports, but in a city like this, if someone really didn’t want to be found, they could go to ground for months. Especially if they had powerful friends, and Donovan was certain that Landsworth was well connected to the Circle of Thoth.
He couldn’t blame Gabriel, not really. If it was Flora who was missing, he doubted he could have been so restrained. All the same, he cursed himself for not getting to the man earlier. His gut had warned him soon enough, and he’d played it cool, rather than trusting his instincts.
Nevertheless, the cultist in the hospital presented an opportunity. He’d had multiple guards posted on him all night and all morning, and they’d been careful to ensure there was nothing in the ward that he could employ as a weapon, against either the police or himself.
They purred through the bustling streets in silence. It was unlike Mullins to be so reflective. “What is it, Sergeant? Something’s on your mind.”
Mullins glanced at him, and then returned his eyes to the road. “I was going over what happened last night, sir, is all.”
“And?”
“And what, sir?”
“And what were your conclusions?”
Mullins looked uncomfortable. “Not so much conclusions, sir, as questions. I was thinking about the Ghost. You know I’ve had my concerns about him in the past.”
“I do.”
“And then, after what he did to help Florence Wu—I can see why you think what you do of him, sir.”
“And what’s that, Sergeant?” said Donovan.
“You respect him, sir. And so do I. His tactics might be anathema, but he gets the job done, and he’s on the side of the angels.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”
“All I was wondering was… would we have so much trouble if he wasn’t around? I mean, does he attract them, the lunatics and psychopaths and supernatural stuff? Would the Reaper and those cultists have even attacked the precinct last night if he hadn’t been there?”
“He arrived afterwards, Mullins. Once the fighting had already started. I was up there on the roof having a smoke.”
Mullins glanced across at him. “Yes, sir. If you say so, sir.”
Donovan sighed. “You’re a clever sod, I’ll give you that, Mullins. Maybe a little lacking in diplomacy, but you’re turning into a damn fine detective.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And the answer is ‘maybe’,” said Donovan, lighting another cigarette and tossing his empty packet on the back seat. “Maybe he does attract them. Maybe the precinct wouldn’t have come under fire if he’d been somewhere else last night. But I look at it like this—he doesn’t create those madmen, or those things that lurk in the darkness. They’re already out there, drawing their plans. If it weren’t him, it would be someone else—maybe someplace else, true, but then someone has to deal with them. It might as well be us. He took a long draw on his cigarette. “And you’re right, his tactics sometimes leave something to be desired, but if we engage with him, if we
work
with him, then he can do things we can’t, get to the places we can’t go. There’s incredible value in that. Having someone we can trust on the outside, it brings perspective.”
“So you’re saying he’s worth it? He’s worth the risk?”
“I think I am, Sergeant, yes. I’m saying the city’s better off with him than without him.”
Mullins pulled the car to a stop. They’d reached the hospital. “That’s all right then, sir. Just so that I understand.” He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine died. “Let’s go find us some answers, then.”
* * *
The sight of the cultist in his hospital bed did little to alleviate Donovan’s notion that he was having a bad day. If he’d hoped to get much of any coherence from the man, he was going to be bitterly disappointed—the dying cultist was hooked up to an intravenous drip, strapped to the bed to stop him thrashing, and presently in a state that resembled a drug-induced delirium. He was rolling his head from side to side on the pillow and mumbling. His eyelids were fluttering, his hands squeezed so tight into fists that the nails had dug into his palms and blood was trickling down his wrists.