City of Lost Dreams (27 page)

DAY 6,868

T
he road has been long. Very long. I have made mistakes. Harriet has not been the finest of necromancers. Her mind is marred by the drug.

St. Vitus is not the best portal. It has been corrupted.

The Charles Bridge portal isn’t perfect, either. Too weak. Or maybe it was Harriet who was too weak. She overshot wildly. John of Nepomuk came out in the Vltava. He didn’t last long, fortunately.

Then the incident at SS. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. Too much pain there. And again, Harriet failed.

Harriet is quiet now. She was very upset that the little Lobkowicz princeling caught her spying. One would almost believe she had feelings for him. But she got just enough information to be helpful. First, when under the influence of the drug she saw Sarah Weston (no relation, since, as you know, dear reader, I have no descendants) open the portal in St. Vitus with a key. Apparently this happened a while back. That was very interesting to me, though Harriet could provide very few details. And second, she reported that there is a map of the Star Summer Palace in the Lobkowicz library. This confirmed my suspicions.

And so I have decided to give young Harriet the ultimate gift. She has graciously agreed, although possibly she does not quite understand as to what. I have given her a full dose, and I believe she is currently watching the Swedes loot Prague in 1648. Perhaps she will see me being raped. If she does, she may stop wondering why I became so cruel, how I could hurt so many people along the way in order to learn what I needed to know. Why my ambition is not tempered with compassion.

B
ut no more mistakes.

If you want to make sure something is done correctly, you must do it yourself.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.

A stitch in time saves nine.

Twinkle, twinkle little star.

Life is but a dream!

T
ruly, this is the Golden Age.

I am the Redeemer of the Alchemists. I am the Alchemist’s Revenge.

I
do not need Harriet.

I have found another.

I have sent the message to Max, and soon all the players will assemble to play my tune.

This is the greatest age of them all. I do not even need to hide so often. I am no longer the only woman who appears to be frozen at thirty years old! I can look thirty for decades.
O brave new world
, indeed.

And now I know where it is to be done.

I should have known.

I should have remembered.

But four hundred years is a long time.

I have known so many over the centuries—the wise, the illustrious, the terrible. The unkind. The merciless. The diseased. Much harm could be done, you know.

But what I do next, I do for love.

THIRTY-FOUR

B
oris was dead.

Pollina was aware that she had been dreaming. Boris had been dead in her dream, or was he actually dead? Dead in life?

Dead in life. That could be the title of an aria, for Nico, for her opera. He was a character in it, too. A character who wanted to die.

Then it occurred to her that she herself might actually be dead.

She was awake.

She had died in her dream.

No, the first part of her dream had really been a memory. She had remembered walking to the Lobkowicz Palace with Nico. Right before Sarah had come back to Prague.

She had never walked up the Old Castle Stairs. She was surprised when Nico suggested they try this together one morning. Nico did not particularly enjoy steps any more than she did, and there were one hundred and twenty-one of them on the route. Nor did he like crowds, and the route drew crowds, because the views from it were said to be spectacular. But the stairs were lined with walls, and many of them were too high for Nicholas to see over. Between counting the steps, and managing her cane, and being around so many people, and hearing them talk, and trying to ignore the pain in her chest, and the fear, it had not been pleasant.

But Nico had said that there were too many unpleasant things in the world to escape them. He had said that she needed to find a way to manage stress, not avoid it. He had said that the world was cruel, and that nothing could change the world from being cruel. He had been angry, and she could feel his anger through his arm, which was laced through hers.

“You would feel differently if you believed in God,” Pols told him.

“Who says I don’t believe in God?” he answered. “Once I believed that God was the great power of our universe and that God had created our world and everything in it and that God watched over all of us. Later it occurred to me that I had made a very naive assumption: that God had done any of that in a spirit of benevolence. So then when I prayed to God, I prayed that He would be less cruel, less vicious.”

“So you hate God.”

“I hate God with the same amount of passion that I love God,” Nicolas answered. “Which is to say a very small amount. I cannot . . . care . . . anymore.”

“You still have God’s love,” she said.

“And God’s hate.”

“You don’t think God hates you because He made you smaller than other people, do you?” she asked indignantly.

“Whether He hates me or loves me He has left me here all alone,” Nico said. “For eternity. Alone. Like our lonely planet. As above, so below.”

She had pulled on his arm until they were against the wall. And she had felt his face with her hands. She wasn’t sure why she had done that. She had never wanted to before. She had never deliberately touched a man’s face before. She had felt Nico’s jaw, and his lips and his cheeks and his nose and his forehead up to where his hair began. His skin was very smooth, so she knew he was very beautiful.

And they had not said anything more.

But that hadn’t been in her dream. Or had it? Her mind was confused. Was she dead? Was this what being dead was like? But where was Heaven? Pollina was starting to panic.

She must not panic.

Her dream. Yes, she had been thinking about Nico as she was getting ready for bed, and remembering that conversation and thinking about how it could be translated, musically, and then something had happened and she had fallen asleep. In her dream she had been walking down a smooth gravel path. The sun had been shining; she could feel it on her skin. But her chest was hurting and she was afraid. And sad. Because in her dream she had realized that Boris was dead, and would never run beside her again, and he would have liked this path, which was so straight and smooth, and therefore beautiful.

And then she had known that a creature was in her path, a creature that was not her dog, though it had four legs. It was a lamb. A golden lamb. But it was not beautiful. It was terrible, and it had jumped at her, and wrapped itself across her shoulders, and she had fallen to the ground and then she had rolled over on her back and she had felt as if she were broken and then she had thought,
It has killed me.

Then she had woken up. Yes. She was awake now.

She was lying on her side, but not on gravel. It was hard, whatever it was, and it was moving, vibrating and jolting. Pollina decided she would try moving her fingers and toes. They responded. Her tongue felt very thick in her mouth. She moved a little more. Her back was not broken. Her legs and arms could move, but not very far before they hit things that were hard. Metal. Rubber. She was in a moving box made of metal and rubber. She listened.

Her head hurt. Her chest hurt.

She began to cry. This surprised her. She had not cried in a very long time. When she was younger she had cried a lot, in frustration, because her hands were too small to play what she wanted to. She had met Sarah then. Sarah had played for her, until she had grown.

Nico would not grow.

Nico was lonely.

Boris was dead. She had gone to the bathroom the night before and brushed her teeth and she had been thinking of the opera she was writing, of Ferdinand and Philippine overcoming the obstacles to their love, but also of Nico’s theme, of the bassoons. She would need to hear the woodwinds, to make sure they were all right. She thought they would be, but she would need to hear them played, with the strings, to make sure she had gotten it right. Max would have to arrange for the musicians to come and play it. Then she had drunk the glass of water by her bedside and gotten into bed. She had called Boris’s name, to say good night to him, and he had not come. And she had kept calling for a while but in her heart she had known that he was gone. He was gone forever. She had gotten out of bed and she had found him, as she had known she would, stretched out in front of her door. Until the end, he had been her guard. He had kept her safe.

And then . . .

And then she had realized that something was wrong, inside her. Different from the other thing that was wrong. This was new. Because she always felt tired now, but this was not tired. This was . . .

And then she had a thought:
the water
. The water had not tasted right. She had noticed, and not noticed, because she had been thinking of the bassoons.

Cars. She could hear cars.

She was in a box in a car. She was probably in the trunk of a car.

Pollina began to pray.

THIRTY-FIVE

A woman loves or hates; there is nothing in between. So now, the dilemma is a binary question for you. Yes: you will come at midnight to the Star Summer Palace with the folio and Sarah Weston. Or, no: you will not do these things and I will kill the girl.

M
ax read through the message for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time looked at the clock in his office. Nico was standing on the window seat, staring out. Sarah would be getting to Prague soon. She had actually been on her way, when he had called her.

Of course Sarah would be bound up in this latest edition of
Hell Portals for Dummies.
Sarah had the key that Nico had given her. Once before when their lives were threatened, it had opened a door and they had watched evil fall into its fathomless depths. He hadn’t told Harriet about the key or what it had done, but had she found out somehow?

He had hurt more than just himself when he had fallen for Harriet. Now Pols was in danger. They were all in danger.

“Max?”

It was Jose, standing at the doorway. Max turned to him.

“Pollina’s parents. They are coming. They will be at the airport tomorrow morning.” Jose held up his phone. He was trembling. “I tell them nothing. I say she is in hospital and situation is serious. I no tell them you let her be stolen when she is dying.”

“We will have her back,” said Nico. “Before her parents return.” Max watched as the little man jumped down and crossed to Jose.

“Is it money?” Jose’s voice was hoarse. “They want money? Because parents pay money. They want these things?” He waved a hand around at the library vaguely. “You give them every fucking thing in this palace.” His nostrils flared. “Every stupid butter knife and old painting of ugly lady in bad dress. They want blood?” He thumped his chest. “I cut out my heart. I . . . I . . .” His eyes filled with tears.

“You must have faith.” Nico spoke with great firmness and solemnity. “I would not say this of everyone, but in your case faith is a good thing. Because you are a good man. Your actions are good. Whatever your sins are, they are not against love. So I believe your life will be a happy one.” To Max’s surprise, Jose knelt down next to Nico, who gave him a kiss on the forehead and whispered something in Spanish. Jose embraced him for a long moment and then rose. He looked at Max expectantly.

“Jose is a knight. He wants you to give him a task,” said Nico, as if he were translating. “Be a prince, Max. Delegate.”

Max kept himself from ordering Jose to bop Nico in the nose.

“There are some airtight containers in the supply room,” Max said. “Find one big enough for Boris and put him in the wine cellar. Pollina will want to give him a proper burial. Then call Oksana. If for any reason we are delayed, Oksana can help you stall the parents until we get Pollina back here. Keep your phone charged.” Jose bowed and left.

Nicolas returned to the library table, where he had spread out the pages of the folio and where he had installed a rat in a cage that for some reason he had brought with him from Vienna.

“Okey-doke,” Nicolas sang out, cheerfully. “I could really use an astronomical sextant for some of these instructions, but I think I have the basic idea of what’s what. And now I would like to shower and shave and pick out something snazzy to wear. Be a dear and open up a bottle of Château d’Yquem.”

Max crossed the room in three quick strides. His anger had found a new focal point. He would not threaten the little man physically (not because of political correctness but because Nico had once demonstrated to Max with an uncooked potato a move Nico called “the testicle puree”), but he wasn’t going to let Nico treat this as another entertaining rotation in the great Wheel of Life, or whatever.

“They stole Pollina,” he thundered. “She’s sick and she’s blind and they took her. And now they want Sarah in exchange. Stop acting like it’s prom night.”

“He doesn’t want Sarah.” Nico waved a hand. “He wants Sarah to open up a hell portal. And he found a very efficient means of getting her to do it. He won’t harm the child, whom I will remind you is very close to dying anyway. But nobody wants her to be murdered. This will be prevented. You and Sarah will get her back. She is not important to him.”

“Who? Edward Kelley?”

“Edward Kelley.” Nico’s eyes were shining. “Edward Kelley. Or possibly Dee. It has to be one of them, and from all the little tricks I’m thinking it’s Kelley. Dee was rather a sweetie. I can’t see him snatching little girls.”

“Your ‘Moriarty.’”

“Yes. Kelley must have taken the same drug Tycho forced on me.”

“But why does Edward Kelley want to open a hell portal in the Star Summer Palace?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps because that is where the Fleece is. Perhaps it is the presence of the Fleece that creates a hell portal. But if it’s Kelley, he’ll know what the antidote is. He’ll know how to help me die.”

“But how can you be so sure that Kelley will be able to kill you?”

“You cannot have the code for life without the code for death.” Nico smacked the table with his hand. “Death is everything. Death, therefore, art. Therefore, religion. Therefore, sex. Therefore, drugs, wall-to-wall carpeting, salad forks, the Westminster dog show, Barbie, Twitter, soap on a rope, and ShamWow.”

“ShamWow?”

“It’s a towel. Very absorbent. Oksana ordered one off the Internet. I am trying to say good-bye to you.”

“I know. Your requiem sucks. And you might be wrong. Even if it is Kelley, he might not be able to reverse the curse. If he had it, wouldn’t he have used it on himself?”

“Edward Kelley has had a
choice
!” Nicolas thundered. “That is the difference. I have had no choice. I am Time’s pawn. I am History’s
bitch
.”

“Okay, that’s a little dramatic, even for you.”

“Pandora opened a jar out of curiosity and all the evils flew into the world. She shut the jar and caught Hope in the lid. It’s all I have. You’ve always been supportive of my suicide. Don’t get soft on me now. This is my moment of exaltation. Kill not my buzz.”

Nico leaned over and flipped open the door to the cage that held the rat. The animal immediately ran up Nico’s outstretched arm, nuzzled the little man’s ear, and then settled himself on Nico’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Hermes,” said Nico, with more tenderness than Max had ever heard in the man’s voice. “I would never leave you here alone. We’ll go together.”

“I can look after the rat,” Max said.

“Not this rat.”

A silence fell between them.

Max found that his anger had dissipated, replaced with a profound sadness.
You are the only family I have,
Max wanted to say.
Don’t leave me
.

“You will have a family of your own,” Nico said, as if reading his thoughts. “And you don’t need me as much as you think you do. Also, I’ve stolen a number of things from you.”

“I know you have.”

“And if Sarah had let me sleep with her, I would have.”

“Okay. The moment you’re dead I’m shagging Oksana.” Max turned away, trying to control the spasm in his throat.

“It all comes down to sex, apparently,” said a familiar voice. Max turned. Sarah was standing in the door of the library. She looked like hell. She looked wonderful. “All right, I’m here and I’m ready to open a hell portal to get Pols back. The question is . . . what happens after that?”

“Precisely,” said Nico. “It’s very exciting.”