IN THE LIBRARY of the Helios mansion, Erika Five said, “I found it by chance yesterday.”
She slid her hand along the underside of a shelf and flicked the concealed switch.
A section of bookshelves swung open on pivot hinges, and ceiling lights revealed the secret passageway beyond.
Jocko said, “This feels bad to Jocko. You want Jocko’s opinion. Opinion is—not good.”
“It’s not just the passageway. It’s what lies at the other end of it that’s the bigger issue.”
“What lies at the other end?”
Crossing the threshold, she said, “Better you see it than I tell you. I’d color my description, no matter how I tried not to. I need your unbiased opinion.”
Hesitating to follow her, Jocko said, “Is it scary in there? Tell Jocko true.”
“It’s a little scary, but only a little.”
“Is it scarier than a dark, damp storm drain when you don’t have your teddy bear anymore?”
“I’ve never been in a storm drain, but I imagine one would be a lot scarier than this.”
“Is it scarier than Jocko’s teddy bear being full of spiders waiting for bedtime so they can crawl in his ears when he sleeps and spin a web in his brain and turn him into a spider slave?”
Erika shook her head. “No, it isn’t that scary.”
“Okay!” Jocko said brightly, and crossed the threshold.
The floor, walls, and ceiling of the four-foot-wide passageway were solid concrete.
The secret door in the bookshelves closed automatically behind the troll, and he said, “Jocko must really want that funny hat.”
The narrow corridor led to a formidable steel door. It was kept shut by five inch-thick steel bolts: one in the header, one in the threshold, three in the right-hand jamb, opposite the massive hinges.
“What’s locked in there?” Jocko asked. “Something that might get out. Something not supposed to get out.”
“You’ll see,” she said, extracting the bolts one by one.
“Is it something that will beat Jocko with a stick?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Is it something that will call Jocko a freak and throw dog poop at him?”
“No. That won’t happen here.”
Jocko did not appear to be convinced.
The steel slab swung smoothly away from them on ball-bearing hinges, activating lights on the farther side.
The subsequent twelve-foot-long passageway ended in a door identical to the first.
Scores of metal rods bristled from the walls, copper on Erika’s left, steel or some alloy of steel on her right. A soft hum arose from them.
“Uh-oh,” said the troll.
“I wasn’t electrocuted the first time,” Erika assured him. “So I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay.”
“But Erika is luckier than Jocko.”
“Why would you say that?”
The troll cocked his head as if to say, Are you serious? “Why would Jocko say that? Look at you. Look at Jocko.”
“Anyway,” she said, “there’s no such thing as luck. The universe is meaningless chaos. That’s what Victor says, so it must be true.”
“A black cat crossed Jocko’s path once. Then it came back and clawed him.”
“I don’t think that proves anything.”
“Jocko found a penny in the street after midnight. Ten steps later, Jocko fell down an open manhole.”
“That wasn’t luck. That was not looking where you’re going.”
“Landed on an alligator.”
“An alligator in the storm drain? Well, all right, but it is New Orleans.”
“Turned out to be two alligators. Mating.”
Indicating the rod-lined passageway, Jocko said, “You go first.”
As on her previous visit, when Erika entered this new corridor, a blue laser beam scanned her from top to bottom, to top again, as if assessing her form. The laser winked off. The rods stopped humming.
Reluctantly, Jocko followed her to the next steel door.
Erika extracted five deadbolts and opened the final barrier, beyond which lamplight swelled to reveal a windowless, twenty-foot-square space furnished as a Victorian drawing room.
“What do you think?” she asked the troll.
In just the second day of her life, Erika had arrived at a crossroads. Perplexed and irresolute, she needed another opinion of her circumstance before she could decide what she must do.
Jocko did a little moonwalk on the polished mahogany floor and said, “Smooth.” He squinched his toes in the antique Persian carpet and said, “Soft.”
Putting his peculiar nose to the William Morris wallpaper, he inhaled deeply, savored the smell, and said, “Paste.”
He admired the ebonized-walnut fireplace and licked the William De Morgan tiles around the firebox. “Glossy,” he said of the tiles.
Cupping his left hand around his left ear, he leaned close to one of the lamps that featured fringed shades of shantung silk, as if he were listening to the light. “Wednesday,” he said, but Erika did not ask why.
He jumped up and down on the wingback chair—“Springy”—studied the deeply coffered mahogany ceiling—“Abundant”—squirmed under the Chesterfield on his back and made a peeping sound.
Returning to Erika, he said, “Nice room. Let’s go.”
“You can’t just ignore it,” she said.
“Ignore what?”
She pointed to the focal point of the chamber, an immense glass case: nine feet long, five feet wide, and more than three feet deep. It stood on a series of bronze ball-and-claw feet. The six panes of beveled glass were held in an ornate ormolu frame of exquisitely chased bronze.
“It seems to me like an enormous jewel box,” Erika said.
After smacking the flaps of his mouth, the troll said, “Yeah. Jewel box. Let’s go.”
“Come take a close look at the contents,” Erika said, and when he hesitated, she took his hand and led him to the mysterious object.
A semiopaque reddish-gold substance filled the case. One moment the contents seemed to be a fluid through which circulated subtle currents, but the next moment it appeared instead to be a dense vapor as it billowed against the glass.
“Does it contain a liquid or a gas?” Erika wondered.
“One or the other. Let’s go.”
“See how the gas or liquid absorbs the lamplight,” Erika said. “It glows so prettily throughout, gold and crimson at the same time.”
“Jocko needs to pee.”
“Do you see how the internal luminosity reveals a large, dark shape suspended in the middle of the case?”
“Jocko needs to pee so bad.”
“Although I can’t see even a single small detail of that shadowy form,” Erika said, “it reminds me of something. Does it remind you of anything, Jocko?”
“Jocko is reminded of a shadowy form.”
Erika said, “It reminds me of a scarab petrified in resin. The ancient Egyptians considered scarabs sacred.”
This seemed like a quintessential H. Rider Haggard moment, but she doubted the troll would be able to appreciate a literary allusion to the writer of great adventures.
“What is … scarab?”
“A giant beetle,” she said.
“Did you hear? Jocko needs to pee.”
“You do not need to pee.”
“Better believe it.”
Putting a hand under his chin, turning his head, forcing him to meet her stare, Erika said, “Look me in the eyes and tell me true. I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“You will?”
“Better believe it. Now … does Jocko need to pee?”
He searched her eyes, considering his answer, and tiny beads of sweat appeared on his brow. Finally he said, “Ah. The urge has passed.”
“I thought it might. Look at the shadow floating in the case. Look, Jocko.”
Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the occupant of the big jewel box.
“Touch the glass,” she said.
“Why?”
“I want to see what happens.”
“Jocko doesn’t want to see what happens.”
“I suspect nothing will happen. Please, Jocko. For me.”
As if he were being asked to press the nose of a coiled cobra, the troll put one finger to the glass, held it there a few seconds, and then snatched it away. He survived.
“Cold,” he said. “Icy.”
Erika said, “Yes, but not so icy that your skin sticks to it. Now let’s see what happens when I touch it….”
She pressed a forefinger to the glass, and within the luminous substance, the shadowy form twitched.