The Arcanum (27 page)

42

AS SMEDLEY COMPLETED his gas lantern SOS from the corner of Forty-second Street, Carlos the Puppeteer turned his lantern south and began his own set of signals, cupping and un-cupping the illuminated glass bowl.

That signal was received by Gilda the Geek, atop the Metropolitan Life Building on Madison and Twenty-third. She dropped her salami and orange juice, lifted her own gas lantern, and repeated the call.

It was relayed to Buttons the Juggling Clown on the roof of Clinton Hall, between the Bowery and Broadway, just as he was relieving himself on a gargoyle. But still Buttons repeated the signal, hoping that his comrades were paying attention.

Balthazar the Magnificent was the smallest magician on record, at a paltry twenty-two pounds. He was also three feet tall in heels. As he paced the roof of Police Headquarters, one block south of Bleecker Street, Balthazar noticed a tiny light, blinking on and off in a sequence of fours. Reading the simple message, Balthazar sprung onto the ledge of the four-story building, wrapped himself around a gutter pipe, and slid all the way down to the sidewalk. Then he dashed across the street and into an alley where the Rat Man waited.

The Rat Man crouched in the shadows as he listened to Balthazar’s hurried instructions. Then the Rat Man touched his pencil lead to his tongue, and scribbled a note that he rolled like a cigarette into a tiny scroll. He freed a wriggling mouse from his shirt pocket and whispered in its twitching ear, then tucked the note into its very small string collar and placed the mouse on the ground.

The mouse skittered across the street, narrowly avoiding being crushed under an approaching police wagon. Instead, it darted between policemen’s shoes and scampered up the four steps to the front door.

The mouse ran through booking and processing, down the stairs, through the detectives’ offices, around administration, down another flight of stairs, and past a row of lockers and jail cells, to another longer stairwell. It descended rapidly, then squirmed under the locked door at its base. Beyond was a small, colorless room with a single cell.

DETECTIVE MULLIN SLUMPED on a chair outside the cell, grumbling in his sleep. The Enfield lay in his lap, still loaded.

Houdini sat against the wall on his cot, staring off into space, devoid of hope. It took him several moments to even hear the squeak at his feet or feel the press of a small body against his ankle. In fact, he blinked at the mouse for several more seconds before leaning down and offering his finger. The mouse skittered up his arm and onto his shoulder.

“Tame little thing, aren’t you?” Houdini said softly.

The mouse stood up on its tiny hind legs, revealing the scroll stuck into his string collar.

Houdini frowned and gently slid the scroll from its sheath. He glanced at the creature sideways as he unrolled the paper and read. His body shook as he crumpled the paper in his fist.

MINUTES LATER, DETECTIVE Mullin awoke from a nightmare with a jolt. He blinked rapidly and smoothed his moustache, but what brought him to his senses faster was what he saw in the cell before him.

Harry Houdini’s body swung from the ceiling, hanged by the neck with his cot blanket. The copper piping groaned from the strain.

Mullin ran to the cell door and threw it open. Houdini’s lips were blue. His eyes bulged, and his neck lolled brokenly over his chest.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mullin whispered as he wrapped his arms around Houdini’s waist and tried to lift the magician up.

That was when Houdini opened his eyes.

SUDDENLY, HOUDINI’S LEGS came up, his thighs clenching around Mullin’s head. Spittle flew from Mullin’s lips as he beat against his captor’s hold. Unperturbed, Houdini locked his fists over the copper piping and tightened his grip until Mullin’s body went slack as he plummeted to the floor, unconscious.

Houdini swung from the pipe by one hand as he freed his neck from the noose, then dropped to the floor. He freed the ring of keys from Mullin’s belt and took the Enfield from the table by the chair. Then he opened the stairwell door and dashed up the stairs.

There were men talking in the locker room, so Houdini went up another flight, to the administration offices. Here, there were only two men at their desks, on opposite sides of the large room. Houdini crawled, low to the floor, until he found an office overlooking the Bowery and the front stoop of Police Headquarters, now one story below him.

The scene outside was typical Lower East Side chaos. Bells rang incessantly. Police carriages, motorcycles, and Model-T ambulances crowded the block as police corralled dozens of drunks and dancing girls into Headquarters—the remnants of a Chatham Square Dance Hall knife fight earlier in the evening. Amid the shoving, screaming, and arguing, there was a sharp sound of breaking glass, and something landed, hard, on an ambulance roof.

POLICE AND BY STANDERS caught a glimpse of a fast-moving figure in a tattered linen shirt bounding in single strides across carriage and car rooftops. The officers grappling with the Chatham drunks could only watch, confused, as the figure— who bore a striking resemblance to the Great Houdini—leaped to the ground and slung a leg over one of the police motorcycles, a high-powered 36-inch V-Twin Scout.

The Indian’s two-cylinder engine coughed, then roared as the motorcycle’s hard-tail swung in circles before firing forward like a pistol shot. Houdini swerved between trucks, horses, and fistwaving prostitutes. More police trucks rolled to a halt, blocking Houdini’s route, skidding him out. Houdini idled, feet on the ground, eyeing the gauntlet of police officers growing wise behind him, filling the street. He revved the engine in warning and turned the cycle to face them. The few officers unencumbered by drunks freed their truncheons and assembled in a line, shouting orders, which Houdini could not hear over the growl of the motorcycle.

Suddenly, Houdini turned the throttle and the Scout spit toward the officers, popping a wheelie as it blew past Police Headquarters and the disorderly mob, tore a right turn zipping down Prince Street, before flying onto West. Houdini opened the throttle and the Scout’s speed climbed to forty, fifty, sixty miles per hour. The Hudson River sparkled to his left as he blew past the Gansevoort Market and London Terrace on his right. Houdini hunkered down, face in the wind, legs tucked up tight as he passed the Weehawken Ferry.

THE EMPIRE STATE Express surged out of an underground tunnel and rattled over the city streets on elevated tracks.

Inside, Abigail kept moving to the front of the train, always one step ahead of the conductor checking tickets. She would linger in the loud and windy spaces between cars, where small bridges spanned the couplers, then at the first sight of the conductor’s cap she’d move ahead.

In one of the more crowded cars, filled with standing passengers, someone grabbed her arm.

Abigail tried to pull away, but Bess Houdini held her fast. “What in the name of St. Peter do you think you’re doing?”

“Leave me be,” Abigail snapped, pulling her arm away.

“We’re trying to help you, Abigail.”

“I don’t want your help; I want to be left alone. Why can’t you people understand that? If I leave this place, you can all go back to your lives.”

“It isn’t safe,” Bess insisted, lowering her voice.

Abigail scowled. “I was taking care of myself while your ancestors were wearing animal skins.”

“Tickets,” the conductor said from behind them, and Abigail flinched guiltily.

Bess calmly opened her purse. “Two, please, sir.”

Abigail continued to glower at her rescuer.

The conductor punched two tickets and handed them to Bess, who then pulled Abigail deeper into the crowd.

“Now, let’s find some seats, shall we?” Bess said.

UP AT THE front of the train, the engineer perched on a high, padded seat on the right-hand side of the cab. He cocked his head out the window, affording himself an unobstructed view of the tracks ahead. His left hand pulled down on the long throttle lever, as the train rumbled along at forty miles per hour.

Then the engineer turned to glance at the back of the train. Normally, at this stage of the journey, he’d have received a “reduce speed” or a “proceed” signal via lantern from one of the two brakemen in the caboose. But no such signal was forthcoming. The engineer frowned.

To be on the safe side, he pulled down on the air-brake lever, slowing their course until he could find out what the problem was.

THE TRAIN’S CABOOSE lay far behind the engine cab, separated from it by thirteen passenger cars. Three unused lanterns sat atop the coal stove. In the back of the room, which also served as the crew’s living quarters, was a cupola, from which the brakeman could keep an eye on the train and maintain the signals. But now it lay empty.

Instead, ragged brown robes slid over the chalky face of one of the brakemen, his sooty gray uniform spattered with blood. The other brakeman sat in the corner, his hands cupping his intestines. He looked sleepy and was still breathing, but just barely. Several soft, trembling squeals flitted across the caboose as eleven jewel-eyed demons swayed with the motion of the train, sickles gleaming.

43

HOUDINI’S SILVER GHOST sped through the Hudson River Valley, uplifting tornadoes of leaves as it passed.

Doyle was unaccustomed to American roads. So despite the press of time and Abigail’s disappearance, he dedicated most of his concentration on not veering left into the lane of oncoming cars.

He was aware that Lovecraft was locking his arms and pushing against the dashboard. And as Doyle took a particularly sharp turn and once again merged into the wrong lane, Lovecraft shrieked.

“Right side! Right side!” he shouted as Doyle wrenched the wheel back.

“Americans always have to do things their way,” Doyle groused.

“I’m gettin’ sick back here,” Marie complained, her hand over her eyes.

After receiving Smedley’s message, Sebastian had volunteered to finish tidying up at the DeMarcus Manor so that the Arcanum would be free to follow Abigail and Bess. Throughout the crisis, Sebastian had performed magnificently—not only keeping all his promises, but also exhibiting enormous courage and selflessness. And Doyle realized that he owed the man his thanks, and also a debt. Without the aid of the American Society of Magicians, Darian’s madness might have consumed all of the city—not to mention the world. And where he had once been suspicious, Doyle now had to admit the A.S.M. was an impressive body, deserving of trust and, perhaps, responsibility. Even if this victory was to be theirs, the sun was setting on the age of the Arcanum. Soon another secret society must take up the mantle, and carry on the mission and charter of Montalvo Konstantin Duvall. Meaning that Sebastian Aloysius and the A.S.M. might find themselves the inheritors of a more daunting legacy than they had anticipated.

“Do we know where the train is headed?” Doyle asked, pulled back to the present by the realization that he had absolutely no idea where he was going.

“It runs through Poughkeepsie, but I don’t know the way,” said Lovecraft. “Just head for the river. I know the tracks run parallel.”

“Is there a road to the river?” Doyle asked.

“Do I look like a cartographer?” Lovecraft replied tartly.

“Bloody hell,” Doyle growled as he swerved off the pavement and onto a dirt road that appeared to wind through woods and over hills into the heart of the valley.

DETECTIVE MULLIN SQUEEZED the small piece of paper between his stubby fingers and read the message again:

Bess
in
Danger/Empire
State
Express

His Model-T police cruiser strained at thirty-five miles per hour up Second Avenue, past Jefferson Park, where he eventually hooked a left onto 125th Street. The Alhambra Theatre flashed by on the right-hand side, then he swung right at Nicholas Park, honking his horn to clear the pedestrians and slower carriages from the road.

His actions were violating every police protocol, but his instincts drove him on. Something was going on here. Mullin had a nagging suspicion the real players in this dark opera were about to take the stage.

LEAVING MANHATTAN ISLAND behind, Houdini surged onto the semipaved roads of Spuyten Duyvil, looking up at the high arches of High and Washington Bridges. He sped north through Bronxville to Yonkers, where the air was thick with the chemical smells of the many carpet factories. The Scout fishtailed as Houdini steered onto a dirt country road parallel to the railroad tracks along the Hudson River. The cycle bucked and lurched over the road’s holes and divits. At a clearing in the brush, Houdini swerved onto an embankment. The back tire spewed dirt into the air as the Scout groaned and muscled up onto the railroad tracks. With a train whistle fading in the distance, Houdini poured on the speed, hot on the trail of the Empire State Express.

BESS GAZED AT Abigail, who was asleep beside her, face pressed to the window and breath steaming the glass as moonlit valleys flowed by outside. She noticed a leather pouch hung about Abigail’s neck with a string of what looked like human hair. Bess reached for it, but Abigail shifted, removing it from reach. Instead, Bess watched her raspberry tea slosh in its cup as she tried to determine how to return Abigail safely to New York. She could attempt to wrestle her off the train at the next stop, wherever that might be, but doubted the likelihood of success. Abigail seemed surprisingly stubborn once she had fixed her mind on something. Bess then wondered if she might not enlist the train conductor’s help, but that would open up a litany of questions to which she had no sufficient answers. That left the option of simply following Abigail until she could find a way to contact Arthur.

Bess felt a sudden panic. Unlike some wives, she had grown so accustomed to fearing for her husband’s life that it was like a switch had been turned off in her brain. It was as if the relentless pace of his existence and the danger of his stunts had become the norm. But prison . . . Prison was all too real, and the stakes far graver. Up until now, Bess had always believed her husband capable of anything—for it had been a trust he had borne in proof time and time again. He had always risen, as predictably as the sun, to whatever challenge presented itself.

SEVERAL CARS AHEAD, the conductor ducked his head into the engine room and shouted, “We’re behind schedule!”

The engineer swung around, his gaze angry. “That’s because I ain’t gotten a signal since we left the station. Get back there and find out just what in the Sam Hill is goin’ on, will ya? Otherwise, I’m stopping at Tarrytown till we sort this out. An’ if they’re drinkin’ on the job again, I’ll hide their asses myself.”

The conductor needed no further instruction. He ducked out of the engine room as the engineer applied the air brake, and a scream of protest rose from the engine. But the Empire State Express slowed its approach to the Tarrytown station near the shores of the Tappan Zee.

ABIGAIL BOLTED AWAKE. “Why are we stopping?”

“Perhaps someone needs to get off,” Bess answered.

The conductor entered the car from the front, wearing a concerned expression. He passed Bess and Abigail as the train surged into a tunnel, and the entire car went black save for the flash of track sparks.

Abigail jumped to her feet. “What’s happening?”

“Sit down,” Bess said soothingly. “It’s only—”

A curdling squeal echoed down the car, and a flash through the windows revealed a trio of demons flowing down the aisle, their ruby eyes glinting, sickles biting into anything in their path. Bess watched in horror as the conductor caught a blade under the ribs and was flung forward like a rag doll, to land atop a family of five.

Abigail scrambled over Bess and toppled into the aisle.

“Abigail!” Bess screamed, then cursed herself for revealing the name. For amidst the screams of the passengers came squeals of discovery as the demons located their prey.

ABIGAIL KNOCKED OVER a waiter as she ran, sending wine-glasses tumbling. As she reached the car door, she looked back and saw creatures following, heard the screams of frightened passengers. She pushed open the door and darted into the windy gap between cars. Abigail could see the train tracks flashing by beneath her, and the steam whistle shrieked as it announced the Empire State’s arrival at the Tarrytown station. Abigail lunged across the pedestrian bridge above the couplers and stumbled into the next passenger car, the train whistle blurring into the howling of her pursuers as they burst through the door behind her.

And still Abigail kept running, until she came to the engine cab and slammed into the iron instrument panel. This close to the engines, the noise was deafening.

The engineer scowled at her. “Get back to yer seat.”

Abigail touched a hand to her bleeding forehead. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words.

Something about her expression must have alerted the engineer, for he leaned toward her. “What’s the matter?”

His answer came in the form of a long neck, which swiveled around the doorway, topped off by a lean head in a sackcloth hood, with rubies in place of eyes.

The engineer cast his eyes from the creature to Abigail and back again. He released the air brake and climbed off his chair, placing himself between them.

“What the Christ is going—?” he began, then the demon raised its blade. Abigail saw the sickle bite deep into the engineer’s gut. Something splashed on the floor. Then a wet, red hook lifted, and the engineer fell into a corner of the cab.

“Water,” the engineer begged.

The creature then reached for Abigail, who sprang onto the engineer’s chair and scuttled out the open window, out of reach of those long fingers.

Wind screamed in her ears and tugged at her oversized coat. She looked down at the tracks flashing past beneath her. Should she slip, she would fall beneath the train and be ground into chopped meat.

With shaking hands, she reached along the outer wall of the cab and grabbed a maintenance railing as the demon lunged after her. Half of its lithe body dangled from the cab, arms swinging for Abigail as she leaped onto the rounded neck of the K-4 engine—the vibrating, superheated, 242-ton power core. She slid her small feet along the narrow ledge, fists affixed to the steel railing, standing over the chewing cylinders and valve chest, the crisscrossing rods, links, and reversing gears. Her hat flew off her head, bouncing off the body of the demon that followed her onto the engine. Its robes rattled in the wind as it gurgled, uncertain, jewel eyes glancing down, bandaged feet sliding, cautiously, on the ledge.

INSIDE THE ENGINEER’S cab, two more demons studied the complex tubing of the instrument panel. Their heads swayed as wet purrs sounded off the iron walls. Then one took hold of the throttle lever, which was currently pointing up, slowing the train down to less than thirty miles per hour. With a squeal, the demon pulled the lever back down, and the engines kicked in protest. Valves shuddered and cylinders trembled as superheated steam was introduced from the steam dome into the boiler, forcing the pistons through the piston rods, which, in turn, pushed and pulled the valve rods, freeing more steam.

With fresh plumes of exhaust rising from the chimney, the Empire State Express began speeding up.

EVEN AT SIXTY miles per hour, Houdini feared he would not catch the train. The landscape on either side of him, the rising highlands, he knew as the approach to Tarrytown. The railroad tracks turned away from the river and headed west. Houdini knew the Empire State would have to circle through Irvington before the Tarrytown stop. His only hope of catching up would be a direct route through the rolling countryside. So, taking a deep breath, Houdini opened the throttle and soared off the tracks, passing over a rocky embankment, landing ugly on his front wheel in a river valley pasture with only mud roads. Houdini toppled from the Scout and struck the ground some twenty feet away, landing on his back. The Scout wheezed on its side as its wheels spun. Favoring his ribs, Houdini ran to the cycle, righted it, straddled the seat, and tore across the field.

Cresting a promontory twenty minutes later, surrounded on all sides by lush valleys and cornfields, Houdini caught sight of the Empire State Express and the spires of the tallest church in Tarrytown. The train tracks plunged through the heart of the village, and from his high vantage, Houdini could see the thick puffs of steam as the train started to move faster.

Houdini surged straight into the cornfields. The Scout’s wheels battered and bounced off the dried mud, spitting chunks of dirt and loosening wheel bolts, while Houdini propped himself above the seat, knees bending to absorb each impact. Then the cornfields parted, and Houdini roared onto the main road.

Thanks to the shortcut, he had arrived in Tarrytown in advance of the train. The Scout flew down a residential street, engines whining and straining. The whistle of the train pierced the air.

Gradually, the estates of Tarrytown gave way to the village center—to restaurants, drugstores, and clothiers, all closed for the evening. Between the buildings, Houdini could see the Empire State building up speed, blasting past the train station at fifty miles per hour and climbing.

Knowing the area, Houdini realized that he would have one shot—and one shot only—to overtake the locomotive. He throttled the motorcycle for one final, all-out surge.

The few pedestrians still on the streets dove for safety as the Indian V-Twin rocketed for the cobblestone bridge spanning the train tracks. The Empire State had already passed halfway under the bridge. Houdini had mere seconds to act.

He steered the cycle onto the bridge, turned his body toward the train, tucked his legs under him, feet on the seat, fingers grazing the handlebars. He knelt down into a crouch, measuring the distance with his eyes, and dove from the motorcycle. The world’s greatest magician cleared the bridge wall—arms waving to control the trajectory of his flight—soared through the night air, and plunged thirty feet down onto the last passenger car.

His body spun on impact and rolled wildly left. In the blink of an eye, Houdini was dangling off the side, one hand attached to the maintenance railing, the rest of his body pitched above the rushing ground.

THE SILVER GHOST skidded to a stop on the dirt shoulder of a hilly road in the Hudson Highlands. Doyle, Lovecraft, and Marie spilled out of the car and raced to the edge of the lookout. From the crest, they could see the waters of the Hudson and, to the south, the distant lights of Tarrytown. Then a whistle blew, and the Empire State Express snaked around a wooded corner, its headlight gleaming fiercely.

Lovecraft suddenly pointed. “Look!”

All eyes went to the third-to-last passenger car, where a man in a tattered linen shirt was battling the winds, running the length of the roof, and diving to the next car.

“That’s Herry,” Marie exclaimed.

“He’s mad,” Lovecraft said as Houdini made another perilous leap.

“Yes, he is,” Doyle said, a small smile on his lips. “And thank God for it.” He turned to the others as the train vanished around another bend. “Back to the car. We’ll catch them in the hills.”