C laudius and Gretchen remained with Sven—Gretchen only because she still thought Bree-yark was coming—while a police cruiser took Mae and Buster home and another drove me downtown.
Hoffman was waiting outside the interview room when I arrived. I didn’t think the man could look any more rundown, but the bruised bags under his eyes had grown their own bags. He was also starting to stink. His lips contorted into a mean smile as he jerked his thumb toward the one-way mirror.
“I was about to go back in without you, but look—the long wait softened him up even more.” He snorted a laugh. “Would you get a load of that sap?”
Beyond the mirror, Ludvig sat at a small metal table, his curtains of blond hair shaking as he sobbed into his cuffed hands. He let out what at first sounded like one of his giggles, but it tailed off into a pitiful whine.
“Let’s go,” I said, not enjoying the show nearly as much as Hoffman.
He led the way in, limping on his ortho boot, and we took the chairs opposite Ludvig.
“Cheer up,” Hoffman said. “I brought you a friend.”
Ludvig peered up and then wiped his crossed eyes with the sides of his hands. “Ev—Everson?” he stammered.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “I’m helping out with the investigation. Care to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s true,” he said. “I—I took them, but it wasn’t stealing. Or if it was, I was stealing them back. All of the things in my vault belonged to my great grandfather, Jesper Lassgard. When he died, the Discovery Society claimed them. My mother fought for them, but he never deeded them, and the Society had better lawyers. The items belong with the Lassgard family.” His eyes straightened with determination.
“So you were never interested in membership?” I said. “You just wanted access?”
He nodded, sobbing once before controlling himself again. “I copied Walter’s master key. Over time, I located all of my great grandfather’s things in the collections. Then it was a matter of replacing them with counterfeits. I succeeded until the final two. Walter told me he was about to move them to a warehouse, along with an entire polar collection, so I took the journal and compass that night. But before I could replace them, he noticed them missing.”
I remembered what Eldred had said: He’s cleverer than he lets on.
“And that’s why you played the fool,” I said. “So no one would think you capable of that level of deception.” I suspected the foolery also included him soliciting sponsorship for a wizard. He’d fooled me, that was for sure.
“Yes, but I never meant to get Walter into trouble.”
“He was in trouble?” Hoffman grunted. “What for?”
“The missing items. The collection belongs to the endowment, but it was Walter’s responsibility. Some suspected me—I know Eldred did—but Walter only asked me one time if I knew anything about the missing items, and I told him no. He was prepared to bear the consequences, and I—I couldn’t allow that. He had nothing to do with the Society seizing them. Even though the sponsorship was a con on my part, he was always very tolerant of me. He answered my strange questions. And now he’s—”
He began sobbing into his hands again. Hoffman gave me a tired look that told me he didn’t believe the show for a second. But for me, it added up.
“Tell us why you called Walter earlier today,” I said.
Ludvig nodded and wiped his eyes on his shirt collar this time.
“I was going to come clean,” he said, “at least about those two items. I—I was going to offer to return them and ask—well, plead—that he not report me, that he say they were found in a stock room, no harm done. He would be off the hook, and I would promise never to set foot in the club again.”
That explained why Walter had left his apartment despite the police warning.
“Is that why you killed him?” Hoffman asked. “’Cause he wouldn’t play along.”
Ludvig shook his head emphatically. “By the time I got to our meeting place, the police were there. At first I thought he’d called them, that it was a sting, so I left. I only found out later he’d been killed.”
“And we’re supposed to swallow that shit?” Hoffman said.
“Did you ever take anything else from the collection?” I asked, talking over Hoffman. “Anything that wasn’t your great grandfather’s?”
“No, just his maps, journals, and some instruments and gear.”
“Why are three fellows of the Council dead?” Hoffman asked bluntly.
“I have no idea at all. If I did, I would tell you.”
“Sure you would,” Hoffman said.
I signaled for a recess, and Hoffman and I went back out into the hall.
“I believe him,” I said.
“That’s why you’re not a detective,” he snarled. “C’mon, his place is hot with stolen shit from the club, and you said it yourself—one of those things was probably cursed. Sent him on a killing spree. We’ve got our guy.”
“The items don’t fit what we’re looking for,” I said. “And ‘our guy’ wouldn’t have surrendered to the police so easily. He needs the blood from his final victim.”
A door opened, and Vega walked in carrying a folded piece of paper.
“How’s it going with Lassgard?” she asked.
“Better if your husband wasn’t being such a tool,” Hoffman said.
“He got you this far, didn’t he?”
While Hoffman grumbled, she opened the piece of paper.
“The info on the Fludrocortisone,” she said, as I stepped around to peer over her shoulder.
“It’s a low blood pressure med, but it’s also prescribed in cases of orthostatic intolerance. The doctor admitted it’s a fallback when the problem can’t be diagnosed.” She looked up at me. “Eldred was having blackouts.”
My heart skipped. “When did they start?”
“Last month. He told the doctor he’d hear buzzing and then have about two minutes to lie down before he passed out. The episodes ranged anywhere from twenty minutes to a couple hours. It started suddenly with no triggers that he could think of. All of his scans and EEGs came back fine.”
I turned to Hoffman. “Is the Sup Squad still at the Discovery Society?”
“Should be,” he grunted.
“Tell them to detain Eldred.”
He looked from me to the interview room and back. “What the hell for?”
The explanation fit with something Claudius had said at the Waldorf: If you existed in one realm but not the other, you traveled back and forth as you were. If you existed in both, you shifted from one form to the other.
“Because Eldred’s shadow is the killer,” I said.
* * *
While Hoffman called the Sup Squad, I explained my thinking to Vega.
“The Cronus artifact I had in mind never arrived here. It arrived there , in the shadow present. Eldred’s shadow found it, and it compelled him. Just like the Hermes Tablet compelled Sven. The difference is that Sven doesn’t exist here, so he’s able to travel between the two realms. Eldred does, so his shadow has to occupy his form.”
“Explaining his sudden blackouts,” she said, nodding.
“I think the shadow Eldred had the artifact for a while. The shapeshifter is probably its guardian, much like the animations are for the Hermes box. He used the artifact and shifter to assume power there, transforming the Discovery Society from a scientific organization into a cult to Cronus.” I was going off what Sven’s classmate had told him.
“Eldred became the ‘master of many places,’” I continued. “‘Many places’ signifying the nature of the club. When the faith in Cronus reached a certain pitch, he was ordered to perform a powerful ritual that involved harvesting pure organs and blood.” My words were coming faster as I tried to keep pace with my avalanching thoughts. “But, clean or not, the shadow organs weren’t going to be potent enough—he needed the real articles. So he brewed a potion that would bind the fellows to their shadows, possessed the actual Eldred to slip the potion to them here, extracted the organs back there, and voila. He has the organs without leaving any evidence of his crimes in our reality.”
“But what was it about the fellows?” Vega asked. “Why harvest from them and not easier marks?”
“I think it relates to something Sunita told me. She said Bear was obsessed with a gene called 7Rb, a variant of what’s known as the ‘explorer gene.’ He was funding research into it. The gene only exists in a small percentage of people, and in addition to exploration, it’s believed to spur innovation, one of the most important assets in Bear’s industry. He wanted to develop a therapy that could maximize the gene’s expression. Sunita said his profile for the gene was off the charts. Given Robert Strock’s and Walter Mims’s pedigrees and achievements, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true of their 7Rb expressions.”
“And you think they were singled out for that?”
My magic had been nodding along with me the whole time, and it wasn’t stopping.
“That particular variant didn’t appear until about twenty-five hundred years ago, which also happened to be the height of ancient Greek culture. You won’t find this in any of the scientific journals, but I think the variant is an artifact of intense worship to one of the gods of travel, quite possibly Hermes. If so, its offering would give the Cronus essence a boost of god vitality. He was Hermes’s grandfather after all.”
Hoffman lowered his phone and stepped toward us. “They found Eldred.”
“Good, we should put him in one of the warded cells in the Basement,” I said. “That should keep his shadow from…” I tailed off when I saw Hoffman shaking his head.
“He was swinging from a belt in his apartment.”
I stared at him. “Eldred killed himself?”
“Well, he wasn’t trying to grow another inch.”
“What does it mean?” Vega asked me.
An icy hand gripped my heart. “It means his shadow has completed his work here. He’s bonded the final victim.”
Snapping my eyes closed, I tuned into the amulet I’d given Sunita. It wasn’t signaling a hit on the potion, thank God, but I pulled out my phone and called her anyway, my pulse thumping in my ear.
“Hello, Everson,” she answered.
“Are you still wearing the amulet?”
“Yes, I’m looking at it right now. Is everything all right?”
I was panting, but I couldn’t help it. “It’s not glowing?”
“No, it’s been dim since you gave it to me.”
“And you feel all right?”
“Fine, except that you’re starting to scare me.”
“I’m sorry.” I exhaled, scrambling to think. “The club members. Do any of them have explorer pedigrees?”
“Most are researchers. Well, except for Ludvig—his great grandfather was the famous expeditioner—but he’s not officially a member.”
I turned slowly toward the one-way mirror. Ludvig was still at the table, staring soberly at his cuffed hands.
“Why?” Sunita asked.
Ludvig looked up as I entered the interview room.
Exploration is in my blood, I heard him saying when we’d met the night before.
My own blood roared in my head as I stepped toward him. He followed the tip of my cane down to his stomach, his expression going from confused to concerned. I tapped into what remained of the hunting spell on the bonding potion.
“Attivare,” I whispered.
The cane wiggled.