SITTING ON A FLY-BLOWN couch in an otherwise barren second-floor room, Otto Bloom had just finished rolling a cigarette and was about to light it when he heard a commotion among the sandhogs milling about on the floor below.
“Look—it’s his nibs!”
“So it is. And he’s got his muffin with him, looks like.”
“Between the two of them, I don’t know which one’s the more barmy.”
Dropping the cigarette, Bloom jumped to his feet and raced downstairs to the small group clustered about the sole entrance that remained open to Forty-Second, sniggering and chortling.
“Shut your pieholes!” he said, pulling the men bodily back from the doorway, leaving only the two guards in place. “Back to your posts!”
As the bricklayers, carpenters, and other construction workers scattered into the dim fastness of the empty tenement, Bloom stepped out onto the street to watch the glittering cab pull up. There was a brief pause, then the door opened and a resplendently dressed man descended, pausing on the lowest step to glance right and then left through his monocle, grimacing as if the street were made of cowshit and he were searching for the spot most thinly daubed. At last he condescended to tread the pavement, where he paused to snatch a silk handkerchief from a vest pocket and polish the handle of his snakewood walking stick. Giving the enameled surface a final stroke, he tossed the kerchief into the gutter, shot his cuffs to a precise amount of Mechlin lace, then turned to assist his companion out of the carriage. This was a young woman—young and, Bloom had to admit, very beautiful—whose shoulders were wrapped in sable and whose sweeping silk gown exposed—given the cold January air—an unhealthy amount of décolletage. The dandified gent gave her his arm and then guided her to a cart where a woman was selling apples to select one for his companion and another for himself. Reaching into a pocket of his satin waistcoat, he extracted a coin and tossed it to the vendor, a glint of gold flashing end over end. He looked up at the building before him, his gaze moving languorously east to west across the heavily scaffolded façade. He patted his companion’s hand with satisfaction and proceeded toward the guards framing the doorway, their expressions carefully stolid. As he did so, Bloom moved back a few steps into the maze of carpentry, preparing himself for another meeting with Lord Cedric.
When Mr. Billington had employed Bloom and his gang to contrive a small collapse in Smee’s Alley, then fill the alley and its surrounding buildings with enough obstacles—in the form of structural girders and buttresses—to keep out a small army, Bloom hadn’t asked many questions. The pale-looking man had paid handsomely indeed. It was only once the site was fully secured that he was let in on the secret. And it was bizarre indeed.
Billington said his family had an estate in Surrey, where he had an older brother—Cedric, Lord Jayeaux, fifth baron in his line. Thanks to the English system of primogeniture, Lord Cedric got all the money, and Billington’s allowance was dictated by his brother’s whims.
One of these whims, Billington explained, was Lord Cedric’s study of the occult. His Lordship was a member of various mystical orders and secret societies devoted to alchemy, divination, necromancy, and other occult sciences. Billington described to him Cedric’s interest in mummy “unwrapping parties” and “spirit boards” and his devotion to the charismatic Helena Blavatsky, a Russian spiritualist who had arrived in New York a few years earlier and founded the Theosophical Society.
Bloom’s recollections were interrupted by the high, nasal tones of Lord Cedric, searching for him.
“Stab me if I’ve ever seen such a beastly mess in all my life! Bloom!”
Summoning patience, Bloom stepped out into the corridor.
“Odd’s fish, where is that layabout? Bloom, I say! Come out of your hole and face me!”
Turning a corner, Bloom reached the spot where Lord Cedric currently stood, spreading his costume out to full glory, like a peacock fanning his feathers.
“There you are!” cried Lord Cedric. “Bloom, have you been introduced to this, my trembling hyacinth of the Dartmoor bogs, my hothouse Brixton orchid—the Lady Livia?”
“We’ve met,” Bloom said, putting a hand to his cap. Lord Cedric had, in fact, brought the woman here only once before, to the great entertainment of the sandhogs. He fell in behind Lord Cedric, who was now continuing on through the dust and intervening joists, making for a shaft of light that marked the interior entrance to Smee’s Alley.
Years earlier, Billington had told Bloom, his brother Cedric and Madame Blavatsky had joined forces to establish the precise point on earth where unearthly forces could manifest themselves to worldly beings. Billington had referred to this mysterious spot as the “nexus of ectoplasmic energy” or some such thing. The baron and Madame Blavatsky had determined it was located somewhere in New York City—but then they’d had a falling-out. Not long afterward, Lord Cedric had narrowed down the location of the nexus—the middle of Smee’s Alley. Blavatsky and her henchmen had learned about the discovery and were moving in to take it over.
When Bloom heard this and realized all their work in the alleyway was merely to indulge the ridiculous whims of a batty English lord, he’d come close to quitting. He had, however, noticed a variety of shady characters loitering here and there, evidently acolytes of Blavatsky. Billington had warned him they were serious people—and would not hesitate to murder anyone who might stand in their way of gaining access to the nexus.
Bloom, of course, didn’t tell his men anything about the occult tommyrot. Lord Cedric was paying them lavish amounts of money to keep the alley and its surrounding buildings secured, in addition to providing unlimited food and small beer. With three hots and a cot, and the spondulix literally pouring in, the men were happy to shore up the works and keep watch without asking questions. In fact for them, the occasional visits by Lord Cedric were moments of comic relief. Not so for Bloom, who had to keep his men in line while at the same time humoring the dandified Brit.
The three of them stepped into the empty alley, and Bloom watched as the baron took a moment to peer around with his monocle, satisfying himself that everything was in good order. Bloom had to admit that the man—once he’d allowed his monocle to drop—had a keen, observant eye—at least one eye, the green one. The other was a deadish white-blue, perhaps blind.
There was a rustling from one of the few open windows looking over the alley, and then a rough voice sounded, scornfully feigning a cough. “Kaf-kaf-kaf… ponce!! Kaf-kaf!”
Lord Cedric looked up indignantly. “Who said that?”
Silence from above.
“Insolent puppy! Show yourself!”
Another rustling, then the grimy, indistinct visage of a workman peered out a second-floor window, grinning. Immediately, Livia took aim and let fly her half-eaten apple, the overhand heater—despite the dim light—hitting the man’s face squarely above one eye with a spray of pulp and juice. The figure disappeared from view with a stream of invective.
“Why, Livia!” Lord Cedric turned toward her, delighted. “How reassuring to see you haven’t lost your slum pitching arm.”
Livia—who, it seemed, didn’t appreciate being reminded of her pedigree—sulkily turned her back on them and began to stroll toward the guardhouse sealing off Smee’s Alley.
“Don’t mind ’em, milord,” Bloom said, making a mental notation of the heckler’s name in order to dock his wages. “Just blowing off steam, you know—making a little harmless fun of their betters at the end of the day.”
“Blowing off steam, you say? Well, you can tell him for me—in the words of Mozart—Leck mir den Arsch fein recht schön sauber.” The baron looked around once again. “All quiet? All remains as it was? No sign of the nexus coming to life?”
“No, milord. And my two brothers arrived just yesterday from Virginia. They’ve been working the mines there. Brought three of their sons with them, too: big, strapping boys they are—to keep out them spies.”
“Stab me, that’s capital! Bolstering the ranks is a bully idea, especially—”
“Cedric?” Livia’s voice came floating over, interrupting the conversation.
“Yes, my dove?” the baron said without looking over.
“Whatever on earth is that?”
Bloom watched as the other man spun around. Halfway down the alley—hovering directly in front of a set of old dancing-hall posters plastered to the brickwork—strange sparks were appearing in the air, hovering a moment like fireflies, and then disintegrating in odd rainbow curlicues.
Bloom was struck dumb. He had never seen anything like it. Good God, could the hocus-pocus actually be true? Even more remarkable was the transformation of the baron’s face, the silly expression vanishing into one of surprise, then concentration. “Bloom,” the man said in an entirely new voice, “have someone get that woman into a carriage and send her home. Not in my own conveyance—that is to stay. Hurry, now.”
As Bloom led the protesting woman away, he could see Lord Cedric approaching the sparkling lights. By the time Bloom returned, the baron was standing—warily—in front of the multicolored flashes, which now were vibrating the very air of the alley. As he watched, the vibration turned to a shimmer, then began to take on an ovoid shape. Bloom stared, mesmerized and astounded.
“Bloom,” Lord Cedric said, turning to him.
But Bloom found himself unable to move.
“Bloom!” came the low, urgent voice. “We must hurry and cover this thing up. Let us drop the cloths now—as discussed. And, for God’s sake, keep everyone away.”
Spell broken, Bloom—who had more than once been instructed on what to do in this situation, however unlikely—began issuing orders to his men. In quick succession, they tugged a series of guide ropes that loosed heavy black tarps—each suspended from scaffolding above, five feet on either side of the shimmering thing—and let gravity roll them to the ground. The baron meantime scrambled up a ladder and, running along a catwalk, kicked free another tarp, mounted horizontally, that unrolled along a frame, covering the open space above the thing. Descending the ladder again, he helped Bloom fix the tarp panels in place with hooks. In minutes they had, in effect, produced a twelve-foot cube, the thick black material of which enclosed and obscured from all eyes the brilliant light of the thing within.
“You remember what to do next?” Lord Cedric asked him.
They were currently standing inside of the enclosure, and Bloom, having fixed the last tarp into place, was again staring, mesmerized, at the … thing.
“Yes, sir. Triple the guard.”
“Exactly. Your best men. And for the love of Christ, keep everyone away. You understand? It won’t be long now. Twelve, maybe twenty-four hours, and either Billington or I will see that you and all your men get a thousand dollars each. Now, hop it!”
“A thousand—?” Seeing the look in Lord Cedric’s eye, Bloom nodded. The baron, for his part suddenly a different man, ducked out of the canvas cube and began running—actually running, having lost all his mincing affectations—for the alley exit, then disappeared.