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It was near dawn when Rose and Crowley emerged from the underground. Rather than going back the way they came, they’d sought the closest exit they could find. One which brought them out a few blocks west of Bellevue Hospital at the corner of Park Avenue and 23rd Street.
“I was sure I had him figured out,” Crowley said as he helped Rose up out of the manhole. He was still seething about the dead end of the underground lab.
Even at this early hour, there were a few pedestrians out and about, as well as light traffic. No one gave them a second glance.
“You were right about the lab,” Rose said. “I know it’s not much use now, but as things move on we know how to shut him down, right?”
Crowley half-shrugged. “If we get the chance. But if it’s too late for Gertie, what difference does it make?”
Rose frowned at that. “We’re going to get to her. But either way, shutting Price down will stop a lot of innocent people from getting hurt, and that’s a good thing. An important thing.
Crowley glanced at her, chastised. He nodded. “Just my anger and concern talking. I hope you know that.”
“I do, and I’m sorry, Jake. I know you’re worried. But Price is an evil man, he’s killed countless people. Whatever else happens, we have to stop that.”
“And we will.” Crowley took a deep breath, then blew it out in a rush. “I just hope I didn’t get Clyde hurt or killed. I thought it would be the ideal distraction for Price while we collected Trudy, but she wasn’t there. So now we’re treading water, waiting to hear from Price.” He grunted in wordless frustration.
They purchased coffees from a 24-hour coffeehouse and sat down on a bench in Madison Square Park in sight of the Flatiron Building. They had brought the Masque Journal along, and Rose pored over it. Crowley tried to read along, but he couldn’t focus. Eventually, he gave up and sat staring at the iconic, wedge-shaped building. On any other day, he’d have found the architectural oddity fascinating, but now he wanted nothing more than to find Trudy.
Right now, he had two ideas: one involved paying a visit to the offices of SaleMed, the other to Price’s home. Both involved gratuitous violence. But Price was too clever for that. Crowley couldn’t risk a move unless he had better intel than what he’d been operating on so far. And he was damned if he knew where he could find that.
“I’ve read through all of this,” Rose finally said, closing the Masque Journal. “It clarifies things a little bit. I mean, it’s truly incredible, but it gives us a better idea of what’s been happening.” Evidently, she hoped the distraction would give Crowley something else to focus on even while she desperately wished for a call from Clyde too.
“Can we walk and talk? I can’t abide sitting here doing nothing.”
Thankfully, Rose didn’t ask where they were going. She simply agreed.
“Go on then,” Crowley said as they headed north on 5th Avenue. “What madness has Price been up to? And is it really Edgar Allan Poe’s journal?”
“Yes. If it’s read as notes for fiction, it makes little sense. But if it’s all real... It seems that after the death of his wife, Poe became utterly distraught. In his grief, he began researching elixirs, desperate to find something that would ease his suffering. I’m not really sure what he thought it would accomplish, but it became his obsession. This was at the same time as he wrote The Masque of the Red Death. You know the story?”
“I read it years and years ago,” Crowley said. “About a plague and a lord?”
“Yeah. It was originally published as The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy,” Rose said. “Which seems to be a little like protesting too much to me. It’s from 1842, about Prince Prospero trying to avoid a deadly plague called the Red Death. He hides in his abbey with a bunch of wealthy nobles and holds a masquerade ball, using seven rooms of the place, decorating each with a different color. While they party, a stranger dressed as a victim of the Red Death travels through each of the rooms. Prospero confronts this victim and dies after discovering there’s nothing inside the costume. All the other guests die too.”
Crowley forced a tight smile. “Jolly stuff, eh?”
“Well, Poe wasn’t known for children’s stories. But I researched a bit, and it’s considered that Poe’s story pretty much follows the traditions of Gothic fiction and is considered an allegory about the inevitability of death. A lot of people have tried to understand what he meant by the plague in question, but these things always have more questions than answers. Maybe he was just spinning a good yarn.”
“Or maybe he was trying to understand his wife’s death?” Crowley suggested.
“Sure. Maybe both. These things don’t have to be either/or situations.”
“But what does any of this have to do with us now?” Crowley asked. “With Price.”
“Well, that’s where it gets interesting. According to the journal, Poe’s research led him to Price, who was working with similar aims.”
“In 1842?”
Rose nodded slowly. “Apparently. And Price had been around ‘for multiple decades prior to my work’ Poe wrote.”
“Multiple decades?”
“Yep. Poe says his work was all plant-based, and only yielding limited results. The main problem was that during all this time, Poe isn’t quite right, in practice or in his mental state. He was working on his short story, recording the results of his experiments, journaling, and ranting all in this one book. It reads like he had focused in on one place and was coming undone because of it. Then he finds Price. He knew Price as a scientist but had no idea who he really was, what he was, or how he did his work. But both had lost beloved wives, and they bonded in their grief, and then subsequently over their work, and quickly became like brothers. When they realized they were both looking for the same thing, they found camaraderie in that too. It became a friendly contest to see who could achieve immortality first. Finally, on a lark, Poe mixed his latest elixir with Price’s latest serum and drank it. As he notes towards the end of this book, Poe could tell immediately that it had worked. The next time they met up, Price saw right away the change in Poe. He saw that Poe had succeeded.”
“And that made him mad?”
Rose smiled. “No, not at first. Price was overjoyed. They were brothers in arms in all this, don’t forget. So they agreed they would each produce another vial of their particular serum so that Price could do as Poe had done and also become immortal. Poe notes that it would take thirty days for him to complete his elixir. Whether it was due to joy or relief, Price let his guard down. All this time, he hadn’t been entirely honest with Poe about his practices, the human cost of his experiments. As Poe puts it, ‘he revealed to me then the utter depravity, the avarice, of his foul ministrations and I felt inside me the clamoring of all those murdered souls. I felt death envelop me like a shroud and knew I would wear its weight for eternity!’ For all his faults, at least Poe was pretty appalled when he learned the truth.”
Crowley pursed his lips, nodding softly. “I can guess where this is going then. He thought to stop Price from ever achieving immortality, thereby putting some finite end to his evil.”
“Exactly. Among the last of his notes in the journal, Poes says that he realized he had to get away from Price, away from everything they had shared, and ensure Price never learned of his elixir. The journal ends there.”
“But surely Poe knew that Price had been alive unnaturally long already. Multiple decades, he said it himself.”
“Exactly,” Rose said. “I don’t get it. You’d think he would actively try to end Price, not just hide from him. And if he was so afraid of Price getting hold of his research, why did he leave the journal behind instead of destroying it?”
“And on top of that,” Crowley said, “we have to assume he’s still alive. I mean, if he really solved the issue of immortality, he must still be around somewhere.”
“He could be in Mexico or Timbuktu for all we know,” Rose said. “Or he could have died. Just because he found the answer to immortality doesn’t mean he can’t be killed. There are a lot of years between 1842 and now for any number of things to have happened.”
Crowley opened his mouth to say something more but was interrupted when Rose’s phone rang. She snatched it up and answered it quickly.
“Hello?”
“Rose? I’m really sorry, it all went badly.”
Relief flooded her. “Derek, I’m so glad to hear from you. Are you okay?”
“Price took a shot at me, but yes, I’m okay. But he knows the book I gave him is a fake, and he’s absolutely furious.”
His phone rang.
Rose’s eyes went wide. “Who is it?”
Crowley stared at the name on the display.
“It’s Gertie’s number.”