Corvino cleared his throat. “Whatever it is we’re looking for—what did you call it, a nexus-point?—is somewhere around the Lower East Side. That is obvious. If these forces, or beings, or whatever they are, are coming out and into our world, it looks like their gateway to Manhattan is right in there somewhere.”
“But how does that explain the other cases?” asked Lya, pointing to the more remote patches of pins scattered through midtown, the West Side, and the Battery.
“A good question, dear lady,” said Carter. “Remember what I was saying about the ley-lines: there is not one single intersection of these force lines, but probably several, or even a multitude, I don’t know. But it is my feeling, from what I have been able to discover in deciphering many ancient texts, that the majority of these intersections are nothing more than cosmic ‘magnets,’ so to speak. That is, they draw the agents of dark forces, human or otherwise, to these locations, and sometimes this leads to bizarre crimes, deaths, or other inexplicable events. But I believe that there is only one place, a primary nexus, if you will, that is serving as a portal, a passageway, through which energy and living entities may pass. And that place must be in this area of black pins.”
“Do you think we can find it?” asked Lya.
“Given enough time, yes,” said Carter slowly, averting his gaze and pretending to study the map.
“Lane, you say that like there isn’t a lot of time. What’re you getting at?” asked Corvino.
He exhaled slowly, then reached for his packet of cigarettes and lit one deliberately and dramatically. “I’m not totally certain,” he said finally. “And in order to explain what I’m talking about, I would like to get to my next point—which is the frequency of these events.
“The distribution of the cases through time can be shown on a graph, like this one, which I plotted this afternoon.” Lane picked up a page from an art sketch pad upon which he had drawn a graph, the horizontal line divided into years from 1950 to the present and the ascending line indicating the number of incidents. He had plotted the numbers and the years and connected the points with a solid line.
“As you can see, the number of incidents through the years has been rather constant, not changing significantly from year to year. This relatively straight line indicates that a rather static phenomenon has been at work here.
“But notice that this year shows a very marked increase in activity. In fact, the frequency of events is accelerating very quickly, and I have concluded that it can be traced back to a single event.”
He paused and looked at his audience. A flash of enlightenment was spreading across Lya Marsden’s face. “And I think I know what it is, and when,” she said softly.
“Perhaps you do,” he said, drawing in a deep lungful of smoke.
“It goes back to when we found the missing train, doesn’t it?” Lya seemed to want Lane to deny it, but her expression was not hopeful.
Carter nodded, exhaling a thin stream of blue smoke. “Yes, that is precisely it. Ever since we have been down there, monkeying around with forces that have been relatively static for centuries, millennia probably, things have been taking place at an accelerated pace. We have at least one person per day disappearing or being destroyed in some inexplicable way, almost like clockwork.”
“So what are you suggesting is happening?” asked Corvino.
“I don’t know if I am correct, but I have an educated guess. As I said before, I think that we have opened the age-old Pandora’s box. I fear that we have let the forces, or the beings that are aware of such things, know that we have discovered them. For untold centuries they have slipped in and out of our world unseen, unsuspected, and now they may be on the alert. Or worse, they may have decided that our knowledge is a dangerous thing, and they may be moving to destroy us.”
Lya laughed nervously. “‘Destroy us’? I mean, really, Professor Carter, you can’t mean that, can you? I mean, how?”
“You would not say that so carelessly if you had studied as I have, or if you had seen the same cryptic references in hundreds of otherwise disparate mythologies, conflicting religions, and forbidden texts. They all speak of a final accounting of some sort or another, you know—Armageddon, Ragnarok, the Returning. Even in our Christian codex, there is the Last Judgment or the Second Coming. They are all the same, really.” Carter paused to smoke his cigarette. In their faces he saw the expected reactions. Initially, there was open skepticism in their eyes; but then, as his words sank in and were turned over a few times and flavored by those creeping fears of the subconscious, he saw the acceptance of the possibility cross their faces, to be quickly replaced by fear. Fear that it was all true. If they felt as he, they were now standing at the front doors to their own personal views of the world, and having thrown them open, expecting to see all the familiar shapes and colors, were staring instead into the dark and endless pit of chaos. And with that fear, of course, came the certainty that once the door had been flung open, there was no closing it.
“The end of the world …” said Lya in a voice only slightly above a whisper.
“You could call it that,” said Carter. “Now, mind you, I may be way off base. In fact, I want to be way off base on this one. There have been crackpots proclaiming the end of the world every day we’ve been on the planet, and I don’t want to be placed in that category. The only reason I say what I do is because I have reason to think that it may be true.” He tapped the stack of computer paper. “Look, the evidence is unmistakable that something is happening in our city! Something strange and inexplicable by any ordinary standards. We have no choice but to look elsewhere for our answers.”
Corvino rubbed his hands together slowly. “What are we going to do, Lane? Provenza and I were thinking of going to our captain with all this data, especially after what we found tonight—the footprint and the blood and things. Now you’re telling us this. I don’t know what to think. But I know one thing—most people would think we were all wackos, including my captain. So what do we do next?”
Carter stubbed out his cigarette and lit up another one instantly. “That is what we are here to discuss. Do you think that we should wait for Detective Provenza before continuing?”
“Well, he is one of us, now,” said Corvino. “I think we should.”
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Corvino opened it and Provenza rushed into the room, obviously excited.
“Christ, have you guys been listening to the news?” he asked loudly. For a moment no one said anything; everyone was simply looking at Provenza.
“What’re you talking about, John?” Corvino asked finally.
“Some fifteen-year-old kid just opened up on a crowd waiting for a subway at Union Square … with a shotgun!”
“Jesus,” muttered Corvino. “What happened?”
“He jumped on the train and blew away some passengers before the transit cops put him away. He just went berserk, they said.”
“When did this happen?” asked Lya.
“About forty minutes ago. I was still in the precinct when it came in over the radio,” said Provenza. He noticed Carter for the first time. “You must be Dr. Carter. Sorry about busting in like I did. I’m John Provenza.” The detective smiled in spite of his bad news, and Carter immediately liked him for his charm and his forthrightness.
Provenza accepted Carter’s offer of a glass of sherry and sat at the end of the couch, taking a stiff hit and savoring it, then shaking his head slowly. “He killed nine people. Nine people. A real nut case, and just a kid, too.”
“And they killed him, so there’s no way we can talk to him and find out what was going on in his head,” said Corvino.
“From what I heard, he wasn’t exactly in a talking mood,” said Provenza. He glanced around the room, his gaze stopping as he noticed the map and the graph. “What’s all this?”
Carter quickly explained it to him, finishing by summarizing his conclusions. “I know that it must all sound very crazy, Lieutenant Provenza. We m
ay all be crazy … or we may be correct.”
Provenza shook his head and took another drink. “No, Professor, after what I’ve seen, nothing you could tell me would sound crazy. Which reminds me, I haven’t told you what happened with the lab boys.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook, flipping back through the pages until he found the one he wanted. “Did you tell them that we investigated the guy from the Health Department who was missing, Michael?”
Corvino nodded. “When I first got here. They know all the particulars. Go on, John.”
Provenza nodded. “Okay, I’ll start from the top. The Health Department identified the stuff we found there—the gun and the other things—as belonging to Clifford Thompson. The stains we found were bloodstains, type O positive. And Thompson’s blood type is O positive, but so’s a lot of other people’s. Still, it sounds like the guy bought the farm and bled a lot while he was doing it. They took some scrapings off the wall where the shotgun blast hit it and found some traces of organic material, but they haven’t identified it yet. To me, that sounds like whatever it was that was coming for Thompson caught a blast of pellets, but that didn’t stop it. Now, for the kicker: they got a good impression from the print with the quick-dry plaster, and you wouldn’t believe it. Some kind of clawed foot—three toes in the front, one in the back. Only the middle toe had a big claw on it, bigger than the others, curved like a sickle.”
“Did they identify the creature?” asked Corvino.
“No way. Nobody in the lab has ever seen anything like it. But it creeped everybody out, I’ll tell you. Once you’ve seen this thing, you’ll never forget it, and your only thought is gonna be that you hope you never meet whatever it belongs to. Anyway, they’re sending the cast up to the Bronx Zoo tomorrow morning to see if anybody up there can give us a lead on it. Everything points to Thompson being dead, though.”
Lane Carter lit another cigarette and cleared his throat. Everyone turned to him expectantly.
“With the new information that Lieutenant Provenza has given us, plus the disturbing news of the youth with a shotgun in the subway, I think we can see that the pattern I was describing is taking a more definite shape. I suggested before that there was some kind of awakening occurring beneath the streets … and I fear that it has now begun in earnest.”
“You think the kid with the shotgun is part of it?” asked Lya.
“Of course! As was this Slasher fellow that Michael and Detective Provenza were hunting so zealously, and all the other demented people. They are drawn to the underground, to the forces of darkness that emanate from those places. It’s possible that the entities of these other worlds feed upon the diseased minds of our city’s psychos. Remember de Castries and his theory that a city develops its own persona over a period of centuries, that it assumes a life of its own. He was perhaps correct. Our city is coming to life, and it will manipulate its more susceptible inhabitants as easily as a marionette master his stringed creatures.”
“You mean that the general … oh, how would you say it? … psychological makeup of the city is being mirrored by the forces under the ground?” Lya spoke slowly, trying to form the proper question.
“Not exactly ‘mirrored,’ which implies a recreated image. No, I think it is more of a symbiotic relationship—both entities, the city and the otherworldly forces, are feeding upon each other. The weirdos and the disturbed are drawn to the energies that are pouring into our world, are being fueled by them and driven to greater heights of horror and madness. And, in turn, these otherworldly energies or beings are being fed by the massive outpourings of evil, violence, and general mayhem.”
Provenza shook his head. “Sounds like you people are way ahead of me on this one. If I hadn’t seen some things myself, I would have to say you’re all going crackers.”
“Yes,” said Corvino, “but you have seen what we’re talking about, and you know we’re not crazy.”
“Right,” said Provenza, “but what are we going to do about it? We can sit here and discuss it till next year, but that’s not going to help. I feel like we’ve got to do something, man.”
“I assure you, Detective Provenza, that we all share your urgency to act,” Carter said. “But if we do not have the slightest idea of what we are up against, our actions will be of little help.”
“I think you have to agree, though,” said Corvino, “that it’s still too early to go to the captain. Even with what we found under the piecrust, it’s not enough for him. He’d still think we’ve lost our marbles.”
“Even if we brought in Dr. Carter?” asked Provenza. Lane cleared his throat and smiled ruefully. “It is true that I have been called in as a consultant to the police from time to time, and therefore my credibility is good. But I don’t live in my ivory tower all the time, Lieutenant. I know that the general word on me in the precinct houses is that I am a bit of a kook, an intelligent and sometimes helpful kook to be sure, but a kook all the same. Most police people are pragmatists to their dying breaths, and they have little tolerance for eccentrics. No, in this case I’m afraid my presence would only convince the captain of how foolish it all was.”
Provenza nodded slowly, and Lane was sure that Provenza believed that he was nothing more than a nutty professor. No harm done, however.
“Then it’s just the four of us,” said Lya. “Against whatever it is down there …”
“Don’t sound so glum,” said Lane Carter. “Remember, with the luck and innocence of children, we discovered the power of that Celtic crystal. I have other pieces, other artifacts that may prove useful—or they may prove to be nothing at all. We do hold some powerful cards in our hands. At this point we simply do not know how powerful they are, or if they will be enough.”
“But we’ll soon be finding out,” said Corvino, “won’t we?” Lane Carter nodded, then paused to light another cigarette. “Yes, and this is what I propose. We begin our search here—” He pointed to the dark concentration of black pins on the map of the Lower East Side. “We use the talismans I have collected and, of course, the star-stone. I have versed myself in the various mythologies and some of the ancient religious rites. I believe it is possible to close down the gateway between our two worlds.”
“Do you know how to do it?” asked Provenza.
“I think so. The explanation may prove to be rather arcane and obscure, but I will attempt it if you want me to.”
“No,” said Corvino. “Let’s wait on that. I think what Lya and John are concerned about is our basic plan. Where are we going, and how are we going to do it?”
Lane Carter drew deeply on his cigarette, then exhaled a thin blue stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Very well. I would like to have Ms. Marsden contact the various departments—Transit, Sewers, Steam, and anybody else— and get the proper permissions to be poking around under the streets without being harried by nitpicking public servants. You could use the cover of that long-awaited feature story for the TV news. I should hope that we can get these clearances tomorrow and then be on our way under the streets.”
“Are we all going down together?” asked Lya.
Lane nodded. “It would be safer that way, I would think. However, if anyone does not want to go, I understand.”
“Oh, no,” said Lya. “I wouldn’t miss any of this for anything.”
Carter smiled. He liked Lya Marsden. She had a genuineness that he didn’t expect to find in a television “personality.”
“Once a newshound, always a newshound, eh?”
Lya blushed ever so slightly, but she was smiling. “I guess you could say that, Professor. Even though it’s a story I may never get to use, I want to be there to see it firsthand.”
“What about protection for ourselves?” asked Provenza. “We don’t want to go down there unarmed, do we?”
Lane chuckled. “Detective Provenza, if you were to hand me a pistol, I wouldn’t know which end to hold and which end to shoot. I fear that I would be more dangerous to us than anything we might enc
ounter along the way!”
“Lieutenant, I don’t think I would feel comfortable with a gun, either.” Lya touched his sleeve as she spoke.
“Well, I can understand that,” said Provenza. “But I think that Michael and I should bring some special precautionary equipment. We’re trained to handle it, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if we had something more than handguns.” Corvino looked at his partner with a wry smile. “Don’t tell me—you have connections at the armory, right?”
Provenza returned the smile. “How could you possibly guess?”
Corvino shrugged. “Get whatever you think will be useful. I won’t complain, but just don’t get caught, okay? I don’t want to be called on the captain’s carpet to explain why we needed a flamethrower when we were off duty.”
Everyone chuckled at the remark, grateful for the tension-breaker.
“Very well, then,” said Lane as he stubbed out his cigarette. “We shall meet here at seven o’clock tomorrow evening dressed for our journey. We will need maps of the underground systems, which Ms. Marsden has already obtained for her feature story; we will need flashlights and durable clothing and some armament, which Detective Provenza will provide; and, of course, we will need lots of courage and a bit of luck. That is all I have to say for now; does anyone have anything further to add?”
“I just have one question,” said John Provenza. “Supposing that everything you have been figuring on is true, and supposing that we find we can’t do anything to stop it … what’s going to happen then?”
Lane Carter did not answer immediately. His gaze shot about the room from one face to another, each reflecting silent concern and a touch of fear. The question was the same one that had been capering on the edge of his conscious mind for many days. It was a question he had been trying to ignore, but here it was now, leering at him, daring him to find an honest answer.
“I don’t really know,” said Lane very slowly. “But I would think that this city would soon be giving new meaning to the word nightmare.”
Night-Train Page 27
