Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

  “I’m afraid I don’t see anything,” she said.

  He frowned. “Me neither. But I had to be sure.”

  They swam through the crowd to the surface. After being underground, Salem felt grateful for the cool, fresh air washing over her. She was not yet ready to return to all the potential hiding spots inside the cathedral. “Have you walked through the graveyard?”

  Charlie seemed to read her mood. “Not yet. I’ll take this side, you take that, and we’ll meet in the middle? We can work the interior of the cathedral after that, if we don’t find anything.”

  She wanted to hug him she was so grateful. She walked toward the stone wall that ringed the cathedral grounds. The earth grew springy closer to the wall. The grass wasn’t mowed back here, stocky yellow flowers mixed among the clover and brome. A rise in the earth reminded her of the barrows circling Stonehenge.

  Neither the wall nor the ground gave up any clues, so she made her way toward the graveyard. A short metal fence surrounded one of the graves. She neared it, poking at a pile of sticks bundled on the ground. They squirmed. She jumped back, causing a streak of pain in her wounded leg.

  She’d nudged a mound of slugs, not sticks.

  Salem drew a deliberate breath and ignored the writhing pile. She couldn’t afford to be squeamish.

  The gravestone was eroded beyond legibility, its front speckled with yellow and black lichen. She was surrounded by festival goers speaking Gaelic laced with bits of English. The rich swell of Irish folk music reached her from the village, wafting with it the scent of fresh-baked bread and something malty.

  Her eyes grew hot. She blinked to clear a spot blurring her vision. It had appeared as a light on the ground in front of her. Rubbing her eye sockets did not make it disappear. The circle of white-yellow was as big as the bottom of a soda can. It reminded her of a larger version of the Stanhope’s reflection onto Charlie.

  She shaded her face and stared up toward the tower.

  It was constructed of the same lichen-dappled gray stones as the cathedral, its workmanship smooth. Two-story metal stairs led to a single door on its face. Another window was built into the side two-thirds of the way up, the only aperture until the rung of archer’s windows at the very peak, beneath the tower’s castellated ridge.

  The light seemed to have come from the midway window, but it had disappeared. A reflection from someone’s watch face?

  “You should see inside that window at the equinox. It’s tonight, you know. Reason for the festival.” It was the same man Salem had bumped into leaving the cathedral. He was tall and bear-shaped with a nose that hooked as if it had been broken several times. “The equinox is the only time all year the sun shines directly inside, and just for a minute.”

  His words flipped on the klieg lights of Salem’s consciousness.

  The equinox was represented by the number 8.

  Eight was the first number of the code on the St. Brigid’s cross.

  The whiteboard of her mind began madly scribbling hypotheses, erasing them, redrawing new ones. The light through that window for only one minute of every year, shining in on a clue that would otherwise be invisible. That would explain why no one had solved the Stonehenge train beyond the Gloup. A time-based clue would be appealing to a scientist like Rosalind Franklin.

  While Salem’s brain worked out all the possible angles, her mouth addressed the immediate one. “Do I know you?”

  The Irishman tapped the side of his nose before pulling back one side of his parka to reveal a flowered belt in the same pattern as Salem’s sachet. “I don’t believe so. As I was saying, the light shines in there once a year. People like to go inside for that, so it can be quite a scramble to reach the location. Seen it before myself. Can’t say it was too impressive, but of course I live here.” He winked again. “Do you know there’s six floors inside? The ladders connecting them are near-vertical, a hundred thirty steps total. It used to be a bell tower, back in its prime. A place to hide riches, too, though I suspect it’s been combed clean.”

  “What time is it?”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s quarter to nine.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his corduroy pants and returned his attention to the tower, as if they were two old friends discussing the weather. “This year, the equinox occurs at 9:02, is over by 9:03. Such a short moment.”

  Salem’s heart somersaulted. She began to calculate the distance between her and the tower but realized it didn’t matter: she had to get there. She limped forward, skimming the crowd for Charlie. She needed him. He knew masonry. He could navigate a crowd. If he pulled out his MI5 ID badge, people would have to move aside for them.

  There wasn’t time for her to do it alone.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She almost wept with relief when she spotted him slouching against the far wall, behind and to the left of the tower. He was staring at his phone, likely texting her just as she was searching for him. Salem opened her mouth to shout for him.

  His name left her lips at the same moment another man walked through the opening and turned to Charlie. Something in the way he carried himself chilled Salem to her core. When he looked in her direction, she understood why.

  It was Jason, the man who had tortured her mother, the snake who could change all his appearance except for his eyes. He was after Charlie.

  45

  St. Brigid’s Cathedral

  Kildare, Ireland

  Jason had swallowed his displeasure when the Grimalkin commanded him to hide the ball of yarn, but he could not contain himself when the Grimalkin ordered him not to retire Salem Wiley’s associate. It would have been so easy to stick with the plan, for the Grimalkin to shadow Salem and for Jason to terminate her colleague so Salem would no longer be distracted and could not escape. It’s what they’d agree on during the drive from the airport.

  But the Grimalkin would not, could not, follow a plan straight.

  The assassin had pulled Jason away from what he was doing, ordered him to pivot. “I’ve got an update,” the Grimalkin said. “A new plan.”

  Jason scowled, waiting. He estimated over two thousand people crowding the streets of Kildare. The bustle disguised their argument, but it also irritated Jason.

  “Do you want to know what it is?”

  Jason still refused to answer. He would not be the Grimalkin’s toy, a distraction from the frustrating efficiency with which Salem was solving everything thrown her way. Jason had watched her inside the cathedral, nervous, limping even though she’d gone to great efforts to hide that weakness, deep bags under her eyes. She was stumbling around like a wounded bird yet was seemingly able to spot clues that the rest of the world was blind to. It must chafe the Grimalkin greatly to have someone so outwardly weak be so much better at codebreaking.

  “Aw, come on now,” the Grimalkin said, wheedling. “Lean in and let me tell you the new plan, the one that involves me killing the colleague in the next five minutes and you getting the glory of shadowing Wiley when she breaks the uncrackable next level of the Stonehenge train like the idiot savant that she is.”

  Despite himself, Jason bent toward the Grimalkin ever so slightly.

  The Grimalkin had grinned. “There it is, such a good teammate you are.”

  Jason saw it coming but could not move fast enough. The Grimalkin’s legendary speed was not a myth. Jason was outdrawn.

  He saw only the blur of a hand, felt only a prick at his throat.

  Even as he fell to the ground, he did not know whether the weapon had been a needle or a knife.

  46

  St. Brigid’s Cathedral

  Kildare, Ireland

  “Salem!”

  She turned to see Alafair walking around the side of the cathedral. When her head whipped back to the spot Charlie had been, both he and the assassin had vanished.

  Salem stared wildly
at the tower, then at the spot where Charlie had disappeared.

  The sun was dropping.

  She could save her partner, or she could crack the next clue of the Stonehenge train.

  “They’ve got him, don’t they?” Alafair asked. “I saw the fellow in the long coat watching your man. Did he reach him?”

  Salem nodded, Alafair trailing her as she limped toward the spot where Charlie had been texting, her mind made up. Enough people had died. She would discover another way to crack the code. “I think so. We’ve gotta help him. If they haven’t taken him too far, I can maybe get back in the tower before the equinox is over.”

  Alafair stopped her. “What’s this?”

  Salem pointed toward the tower’s window. “I think that the St. Brigid’s cross is sending us to the tower, that the only reason no one has unlocked its secret is because it’s only visible once a year, at the exact moment of the equinox, when the sun shines through that single window.”

  Alafair steered Salem toward the tower. “Go.”

  “I can’t.” Salem pulled free. “I have to rescue Charlie.”

  Alafair laughed unpleasantly. “You and your bum leg against a man trained for battle? I will save your friend, if there’s anything left of him. You crack the code.”

  Salem drew in a breath to fight, to argue that she couldn’t trust a near-stranger with Charlie’s life, but she heard the sense in Alafair’s words. It pained her to leave her friend, but she had to do it. “Thank you.”

  She felt someone’s gaze on her as she hurried toward the tower, maybe the Grimalkin’s, wanting her to solve the puzzle so he could swoop down and snatch it from her before murdering her. The thought stoked that same black rage that had consumed her back at the Gloup. She picked up her pace, her leg openly bleeding.

  She flung out her elbows, but there was no need to jostle. The crowd parted for her, stepping aside to let her charge up the metal stairs. The design above the door featured the same V shapes as on the Flower Rock and the Gloup—more refined, yet the same flower symbols nonetheless. She wanted to yell her exultation. She was in the right place.

  At the first landing, the tower was no wider than six feet across, bisected by a wooden ladder that pierced the ceiling above. It was agony to bend her leg at each of the steps, but she pushed through to the second landing.

  This level was packed with people, but they hugged the walls when she neared. When a rare person turned to chide her for shoving, they were silenced by a nearby friend.

  I must look the ghoul, she thought, bleeding and crazy-eyed, bent on climbing upward.

  The tower narrowed slightly at the third level, the crowds here treating her with the same cautious deference. Sweat dripped down her back. Her jacket was too hot for this physical exertion. She dropped it halfway up to the fourth level.

  The level with the window.

  The light was different even before she breached the floor separating the third floor from the fourth. This room was so packed with people that it was impossible to stand in it, but as if urged by some whisper network, people moved up the ladder to make room.

  Salem got her bearings. The circumference of this space was also about six feet. The window was to her left, deeply recessed, revealing the walls to be at least four feet thick. The window was more of an archer’s opening than a true aperture, and bright green clumps of flowers grew in the chinks of stone near its outer rim.

  The sun was tickling the window’s edges.

  “What time is it?” Salem demanded of a woman standing near her, one of the few who’d remained.

  “Nine PM pure, ma’am,” she said, her Irish accent thick.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Salem nodded. She stepped away from the path of light, eyes trained on the spot she guessed the equinox sunset would illuminate.

  She didn’t remember inhaling, or exhaling. Only waiting.

  The light came.

  Its shape, through a trick of the stonework, appeared as a St. Brigid’s cross.

  Those remaining on the fourth floor gasped.

  Salem leapt forward, slapping her hand in the center of the cross. The warmth of the sun heated it. She reached for her phone and snapped a one-handed photo. Then she peered at the shape, eyes and mind racing to find what CH3COOH—the original code minus the 8 that had brought her here—would have meant to Rosalind Franklin in this context.

  She had less than a minute.

  “Here you go.”

  The woman who’d told Salem the time was holding a tube of lipstick, it’s red tip poking out. Salem didn’t understand.

  The woman stepped forward tentatively, as if offering a treat to a mad dog. “It’s for the shape, now. Trace it with the lipstick before it disappears.”

  Salem accepted it gratefully, completing the four-armed outline just before the sun moved its trajectory and the light cross disappeared. She handed the tube back. “I’m afraid it’s ruined.”

  The woman smiled. “The color never suited me.”

  Salem studied the outline. The rock in the center of it was the same unbroken limestone as the rock beyond it. There were no holes, no imperfections. She could scrape at it, pound it, but she wouldn’t get far before the police dragged her away. She was surprised the locals had not already thrown her out of the tower, if she paused to think about it. They were surely texting for help, afraid to disrupt the crazy woman. She didn’t have much time.

  CH3COOH.

  If she removed the remaining number, it spelled CHOOCH. Like the noise a train made? Except that didn’t help. She dropped to the floor, keeping her wounded leg as straight as possible, and removed Gaea from her case. She flipped her open, the lipstick outline garish, almost swastika-shaped, above her.

  She inputted the letters.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Gaea was testing billions of hypotheses. Salem had to help her, must narrow it down. She felt the eyes of the people lining the walls, crowding the stairs, but she had to pretend as if they weren’t there.

  How could she narrow it?

  “Science!”

  When a young man on the ladder jumped, she realized she’d yelled that out loud. Rosalind Franklin was a scientist. She would have chosen a code in her own milieu, a formula.

  Salem’s fingers flew like birds across the keys.

  Gaea provided the result in less than thirty seconds.

  CH3COOH was the chemical formula for acetic acid.

  Salem whooped. She tweaked Gaea’s data input to discover that acetic acid was a simple carboxylic acid that was produced by certain bacteria, naturally present in the vaginal lubrication of primates, and synthetically produced for use as an antifungal and antibacterial in ear drops as well as to create vinegar, wood glue, and photographic film.

  The last use was almost certainly how Rosalind Franklin had come into contact with it. And she would have known of its singularly unusual property: it melted limestone.

  Salem shot back to her feet. “Who has ear drops?”

  The woman who had given her the lipstick shrugged. “Not me.”

  “Vinegar?” Salem asked, without much hope.

  “Well, you heard her,” the woman said to the person standing at the top of the ladder. “Spread it up and down. We need ear drops or vinegar.”

  Those who had been watching Salem began buzzing, the sound traveling along the tower. They might think she was off her rocker, but they wanted to help.

  “I can’t believe you aren’t having me arrested,” Salem said to the woman.

  She winked. “You’re in Ireland, love. We take the person whole. And in any case, we Kildaren know about the cross lighting up for the same minute every year. Wouldn’t mind knowing what’s behind it. Here we go now.” A bottle of ear drops was handed down. Five condiment packet
s of malt vinegar appeared from below.

  “Is that it?” the woman asked. The humming traveled up and down and back again, returning empty. “This’ll have to do.”

  The bottle of ear drops was half full at best. The packets combined would provide no more than three tablespoons of vinegar by Salem’s guess. She wasn’t hopeful, but she had no choice. She approached the wall.

  “Can you shine a light on it?”

  The remaining people crowded in the room with her turned on their phones, lighting up the wall like a film shoot.

  Salem drew a deep breath. She removed the cap from the ear drops. She aimed toward the center of the cross and sprayed, pointing the nozzle so all the drops landed within the lipstick boundary.

  The bubbling was immediate.

  Those in the landing cheered.

  Salem squirted some more above that spot. The foaming grew more aggressive. She emptied the whole bottle and moved on to a packet of vinegar, squirting it at the top of the cross so any overflow rolled down. The acrid smell curled the flesh inside her nose.

  She poured the other four packets within the cross.

  Careful not to disturb the work of the acetic acid, she explored with the tip of her pen knife. It was difficult to see what was happening under the bubbling brown-yellow, but it seemed as if the knife went in deeper than it would have before she’d doused the wall.

  She pushed and twisted.

  A pitted block of limestone fell near her feet.

  It revealed a square of metal underneath.

  “She’s found something!”

  This cheer traveled all the way to the top of the tower.

  Salem put her shoulder into it, chipping away the now-loosened limestone to reveal more metal. Once it was fully exposed, she saw it had the same trip mechanism as the drawer in the Gloup.

  She pushed the switch. A drawer slid open, drawing gasps.

  Salem reached inside. She removed a glass test tube holding a scroll of paper.