by Alan Finn
When I reached the curtain of steam I had passed through earlier, the bees at last retreated. That gave me the opportunity to stand, although my fall had left me sore and weary. On my feet again, I hurried through the slip of steam to the ladder on the other side of the catwalk.
I descended the ladder to a lower, more stable walkway. This was the one that overlooked the channel from which I had entered, the water below quiet and still. I continued back into the heart of the waterworks. The machinery there still moved at full speed—an army of gears and pumps and turbines working with ceaseless purpose. Water sloshed in all directions as jets of steam shot across the walkway.
One such column of steam contained a silhouette of a man crossing the walkway in the opposite direction, the mist holding his shadow a moment. The darkened form shimmered slightly before being released as the man finally emerged.
I sucked in a deep, horrified breath, finding myself face-to-noseless-face with Corinthian Black.
He halted just beyond the curtain of steam, one hand in his pocket. His other hand was outstretched, palm forward, as if he was trying to prevent me from coming closer, although I had no intention of doing so.
“Claudia is dead, I suppose,” Mr. Black said.
His voice contained neither accent nor nuance. It was a flat plain of a voice, and all the more frightening for it.
“I think so,” I replied. “I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad about that.”
“I am . . . indifferent.”
“How did you know we were here?”
“I was waiting in my carriage outside the Pastor residence. I saw you enter. When neither you nor Claudia emerged, I knew where to find you. This is where I told her to go in the event she was discovered.”
“Did you also instruct her to kill herself ?” I asked. “For that’s what she did.”
Mr. Black’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. “She knew what she was getting herself into.”
“And what is that, exactly? Surely, you had her kill Mrs. Pastor and Sophie Kruger for a reason.”
Corinthian Black, hand still in his pocket, took a step forward. Alarmed, I looked for a place to escape, finding few satisfying options. The path behind me led only to the ladder and unsteady catwalk above. To each side of me were watery pools filled with hissing machinery.
I was trapped.
“They died because they were stubborn,” Mr. Black said. “They died because they refused to acknowledge the full power of the Praediti.”
“Who are they? Are you their leader?”
Mr. Black barked a slithering, mocking laugh that caused the skin surrounding his gaping nostrils to quiver. “I merely serve a higher power, Mr. Clark. As do my brethren.”
Fear stabbed at my gut, sharp and frigid. “How many more are there?”
“Scores of us,” Mr. Black replied. “With many more joining us all the time. Those who refuse are dealt with in the same way as Mrs. Pastor and the Kruger girl.”
“But what about me and Mrs. Collins? Why did you try to kill us?”
“Quite simply, Mr. Clark, because you know too much.”
“But I don’t know anything,” I said. “I’m as ignorant as the day Mrs. Pastor was killed.”
“You know enough,” Mr. Black replied. “Enough to make you a threat to our cause.”
At last, he removed the hand from his coat pocket, revealing the knife that had been hidden there. He lifted it close to his face, as if trying to study his reflection in the flat of the blade.
“I acquired this knife many years ago,” he said. “From someone else who knew too much. In fact, he’s the one responsible for this.”
He gestured to the gaping nostrils on his face, his breath still hissing out of them.
“He thought cutting it off would deter me. It did, for a time. But I returned. And I killed him, using the very same knife that removed my nose. This knife right here.”
Without wasting another second, he rushed toward me, blade aiming for my stomach.
I leapt out of his path, jumping off the walkway and into the pool of churning machinery. A turbine was right in front of me, with long, steel arms that pulled water deeper into the building. The turbine’s movements formed waves that almost made me lose my balance. It was only through the grace of God that I remained standing and, with one unsteady leap, cleared the turbine’s arms.
A second turbine lay in front of me, moving at the same speed as the first. Behind me, I heard a splash as Corinthian Black entered the water. I allowed myself a quick glance over my shoulder, seeing him confronting the turbine I had just cleared. The knife remained clenched in his fist.
I tried to jump over the sloshing arms of the second turbine. This time, I wasn’t so lucky. My right boot caught on one of the moving arms, which sent me flailing over the machinery.
I fell facefirst into the pool, mere inches from a massive wooden waterwheel that stretched to the ceiling. It rumbled just beyond my head, and for a moment I thought I was going to be either crushed beneath it or scooped up and carried skyward. I only managed to avoid those fates by twisting my body under the water and rolling away from the rotating monstrosity.
Pushing off the floor, I managed to get to my feet again. Looking behind me, I saw that Mr. Black had cleared the first turbine and was now attempting to do the same with the second. All that separated us was a single turbine wheel and its iron arms pushing back and forth through the water.
Behind me, the twenty-foot-tall waterwheel continued to roll, blocking me. My first instinct was to try to duck through it to the other side. But the waterwheel—a wide and heavy thing—had too many support spokes to do so. Not that it mattered much, for beyond it was nothing but a stone wall.
I spun around again, seeing Corinthian Black leap over the turbine’s arms. He landed in the water a few feet to my right, lunging toward me with his knife raised.
Helpless, I pivoted and grabbed the edge of the waterwheel. My hands slipped an inch or so before my fingers caught one of the wheel’s blades. I gripped it with all my strength, a slave to its powerful roll as it lifted me off my feet.
I continued to be swept upward as Mr. Black surged ahead, the knife slicing thin air. The blade struck the outer rim of the waterwheel, right near my knees. The tip sank into the wood, the motion of the wheel jerking it upward and away before Mr. Black had a chance to pry it out again.
While he leapt against the waterwheel in a vain attempt to retrieve the knife, I let go and dropped to the water a yard or so away from him. My goal was to escape the same way I had come, jumping over both turbines and back to the walkway. Mr. Black, however, was too quick and determined to let me do that. He turned away from the waterwheel and slammed into me, sending us both tumbling sideways into the drink.
I thrashed in the water, trying to kick him off me, but he was too strong. Shockingly so. I found myself helpless in his grip.
He scrambled on top of me, hands grasping my throat. His face pressed close to mine. Hot, stinking breath hissed through the twin holes where his nose should have been. His eyes locked on my own, angry, fierce, and confused.
As he stared at me, emotion flickered over his deformed face. Recognition. A dawning realization on his part that I couldn’t begin to understand.
“Columbus Holmes?” he said in an awed, surprised voice.
His fingers were still tight around my neck and it took all the breath I had left to ask, “How do you know who I am?”
“How are you still alive?” he asked. “All of us thought you were dead.”
“Why would my fate be any concern of yours?”
Corinthian Black smiled again—a rictus grin that struck fear into my very soul.
“I don’t think I’m allowed to answer that,” he said. “You’ll have to ask your mother.”
In one swift and startling motion, he shoved my head underwater as his grip tightened around my throat. I struggled beneath him, thrashing my legs and swinging my fists. Yet the more I fought, th
e weaker I became. Mr. Black was too heavy, too strong.
Inches above my face, the water’s surface was an undulating veil through which I could only see his narrowed eyes, open mouth, and wide, flaring nostrils.
All the while, the breath was being squeezed out of me. Gurgling sounds erupted from my constricted throat. My heart, beating wildly not a minute earlier, had started to slow. A bubble of pain formed in my chest, growing and expanding until I thought it would break right through my rib cage.
By then, all the fight had left my body. My legs went still, ignoring my desperate desire to keep them moving. My arms dropped to my sides. In that moment, I knew I was going to die. The life was going to be choked right out of me in a pool of water, just like my mother.
I thought of Annalise Holmes just then. As my body weakened further and the pain in my chest grew, I wondered if this was how she had felt right before her death. Did she fight for her life, as I had tried doing? Did her limbs grow numb with the same ferocious speed? And, most of all, did she think of me in her final moments, as I did of her?
Not wanting to end my life gazing up at the noseless face of Corinthian Black, I was about to close my eyes. My sight had already dimmed. Darkness was approaching from all sides.
Then I heard a sound. Sharp and quick, it was muffled by the water in my ears and the hum of the machinery. But there was no mistaking what it was.
A gunshot.
Drops of blood fell into the water around me, blooming into crimson clouds. Above me, Corinthian Black’s expression changed once more. His eyes widened and his mouth opened with a surprised howl. His once-tight grip loosened around my neck as he slumped sideways, knocking against the waterwheel before being pulled beneath it.
I sat up, gulping in air while shaking the water from my face.
Standing in front of me was Lucy Collins. Her drenched hair had come loose and now hung over her shoulders in soaked tendrils. The tunnel from the Pastor residence to the waterworks had left streaks of mud on her skirt. And in her hand was the pistol that she had promised to use only in the event of an emergency.
VI
I’m afraid I can’t adequately describe how I felt upon seeing Lucy. I’ve now spent countless hours trying to summon the right words to express the relief, disbelief, and utter joy I experienced. But, in this case, words have failed me.
Instead, I can only tell you my actions following Lucy’s surprise rescue.
I stood, my legs wobbly, and stumbled toward her. Lucy rushed to help me, the skirt of her dress swirling in the water around her. When we reached each other, I fell against her, overcome with gratitude.
“Thank God,” I whispered. “Thank God you were here.”
“Actually,” Lucy said, “it’s me you should be thank—”
She didn’t have time to finish her sentence. I wouldn’t let her. Cupping her flushed cheeks in my still-trembling hands, I silenced her with a kiss.
Her lips were as soft as I expected them to be, and her kiss was both tender and forceful. And the longer it lasted, the more I became lost in it. I didn’t exactly know why I was kissing her. Nor did I care if we would ever kiss again. All I knew was, in that moment, it felt like exactly the right thing to do.
The regret came later, once we broke away from each other, both of us short of breath and me quite dizzy.
“I’m so sorry,” I quickly said.
Lucy looked at me, head tilted in a way that left me wondering if she was either confused or disappointed. “You’re sorry?”
“I have no idea why I just did that.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, I—”
My mind, churning as fast as the machinery all around us, struggled to come up with an excuse. In truth, there wasn’t one. I had kissed Lucy. Whether it was out of gratitude or desire, I truly didn’t know. Not then. Not even now.
Fortunately, I didn’t need to explain any further. For at that moment, Inspector William Barclay and a dozen policemen swarmed the waterworks.
They seemed to come from all directions, splashing through the water and running across the catwalks over it. When I caught sight of Barclay, he was at the very same spot where I had come face-to-face with Corinthian Black.
Peering down at Lucy and me, he said, “Are either of you hurt?”
“No,” I replied. “What about Stokely?”
“Mrs. Pastor’s butler? He’s badly hurt, but alive,” Barclay said. “A doctor is stitching him up as we speak.”
I exhaled a long sigh of relief. If Stokely had perished, I never would have forgiven myself for leaving his side.
“I’d like to see him, if I could,” I said.
“Later,” Barclay replied. “First, could one of you please tell me what in tarnation happened here?”
Explaining the situation to Barclay was easier said than done, although Lucy and I certainly tried. I started off by giving him a tour of the waterworks and the two corpses that rested within.
Corinthian Black was first, found wedged between the waterwheel and the stone wall behind it. Lucy’s single shot had struck him in the back of the neck, killing him within seconds.
I felt no remorse about his death. He had ordered the murders of two people and tried to kill me, as well. His ultimate punishment was justified. If I felt anything while staring at his lifeless body, it was regret that I would never know how he was familiar with both me and my mother. Corinthian Black’s secrets died with him.
Next on our morbid tour was the bee colony hidden in the upper reaches of the waterworks. More insects had made their escape through the hole in the roof, although quite a few still crawled over Claudia’s corpse. Enough of her flesh was exposed to reveal the full extent of her wounds. Her entire body was pockmarked with stings.
As we left that strange and secret hive, I took one last look at Claudia’s corpse. I doubted she had found the glory she was expecting. In fact, I doubted it ever existed in the first place.
I didn’t tell Barclay much about why Claudia and Corinthian Black wanted both Sophie Kruger and Lenora Grimes Pastor dead. Since it was hard enough for me to fathom, I didn’t think it wise to try to explain it to him. I simply told him the basic truth—that Claudia had confessed to both murders, stabbed Stokely then brought about her own death via the bees. As for Mr. Black, I told Barclay that he had confessed to coercing Claudia into committing the murders. I left out any mention of the Praediti, my opinion being that the less Barclay knew about them, the better off he would be.
After that, it was back to Lucy’s house, where we found Leslie Dutton in police custody and her husband and stepdaughter consoling each other. Everyone was still present, from P. T. Barnum to Mrs. Mueller to Jasper Willoughby.
“What in heaven happened to you?” he asked, clearly surprised by my sorry state. “You look half dead.”
I looked down at my clothes, seeing them stained by water, mud, and blood. When I ran a hand through my hair, I felt a wild patch of wet and untamed locks. Dirt was still streaked across my face and Stokely’s blood continued to color my hands.
“That’s better than fully dead,” I said. “Which is what almost happened.”
Before I could elaborate, a policeman pulled Jasper away to be questioned with the others about what had occurred during the séance at Lucy’s house. As everyone who had been present—Lucy included—was ushered into another room, I couldn’t help but notice the queer looks they sent my way.
No doubt, they were as confused by the events of the séance as I was. Not only had Mrs. Pastor spoken from beyond the grave, but the speaking had been done through me. I didn’t know why or how, but it left me with a worried feeling that everyone’s strange expressions only amplified. Watching them leave the room, I feared that whatever had happened in Lucy’s séance room would happen again. If it did, I’d have yet another secret to suppress.
I would have continued to dwell on that fact had Barclay not grabbed my arm and led me from the room. At first, I thought he was
taking me to join the others for a thorough questioning. Instead, he guided me out of Lucy’s house entirely and into a waiting police coach.
“Where are we going?” I asked as the coach started to roll.
“I’m taking you home. Your day has been long enough.”
“But what about Stokely?” I asked. “And Mrs. Collins?”
I longed to speak to them both, but especially Lucy. My actions in the waterworks required at least some form of explanation, even though I still hadn’t come up with one.
Yet it wasn’t to be. At least not on that night.
“They’ll be there in the morning. Besides, I have something I need to tell you.”
“Which is?”
From the way Barclay shifted uncomfortably, I knew an attempt at an apology would soon follow.
“I just want you to know,” he said, “that I understand how difficult this past week was for you. While I never for a second doubted your innocence, I didn’t make it any easier for you. I’m truly sorry about that, and I hope you can forgive me.”
I looked out the coach window at the city gliding by. It was a clear night, the stars bright and glistening. Below them, Philadelphia was hushed and calm, rare for a place so bustling and crowded during the day. It was a city of people colliding with one another, arguing with one another, killing one another. So many inhabitants, and yet I considered very few of them my friends. Barclay, for all his annoying habits, was one of them. The knowledge of that put me in a generous mood.
“You’re forgiven,” I said. “You were only doing your job.”
Barclay harrumphed. “Not very well, seeing that you’re the one who found out who killed Mrs. Pastor and Sophie Kruger. You even exposed a murder I didn’t know existed.”
“In a strange way,” I said, “I suppose we owe a debt to Mrs. Dutton.”
It was clear that, despite her malfeasance, Leslie Dutton had been of valuable service. Her attempt to kill the already-dead Mrs. Pastor had left behind the puncture wound that pointed to murder in the first place. Without it, no one might ever have known that Lenora Grimes Pastor was poisoned with bee venom. She ended up unwittingly exposing two murders when it would have appeared there were none.
