Twenty-six

After hastily pinning together my dress, I began walking in the direction of Montgomery Street. It was a long walk and fog had settled all around. I still shivered from my experience with Max. He said he had some Conclave business to attend to, but he could be anywhere, even near me now, making certain that I arrived. I felt weary, exhausted. But thinking of William and Simon, that there might be a possibility of saving them, drove me on.

I had to go, try to bargain for my friends’ lives. But I was aware of the only acceptable condition for their lives, the price I must pay. Even then, their lives might not be spared. After all, I was bargaining with murderers.

A cat ran across the street in front of me and I suppressed a dark chuckle. Nine lives.

I knew that Simon and William’s only chance for survival depended on me taking the elixir. As I approached the house, I asked myself what I feared about this option. Of course, I could not remain with the Conclave, tolerating their murders. But I could perhaps flee from them, taking the elixir formula with me. I contemplated living out immortality in my own way. I remembered Mother’s death, how she had wasted, suffered. I thought of all the illnesses, the deaths, the stillborns at the hospital. Perhaps I could have lifetimes to learn to help people without murdering.

The Conclave house was directly before me.

I ascended the steps, and I knew, even as these thoughts raced through my mind, that I could not drink the elixir. In consuming it, I would set myself above the rest of the human race—I could cheat death, cheat aging. It was an unfair advantage. And the persistent, unalterable fact remained: everyone could not live forever.

Dr. Bartlett opened the door almost immediately.

“Abbie, I am delighted to see you. Come, come in out of that cold.”

It was as if I had arrived for one of his dinner parties. He was all cheer and good humor.

I scanned the house. Light streamed down the stairs. From the dark drawing room I saw the phosphorescent patterns of the jellyfish aquarium dancing along the walls.

“Where are they, Dr. Bartlett? Simon and William. Where are you keeping them?”

“Our meeting first, Abbie.”

I felt my fury rise. He was all politeness when we all knew that my life, as well as William’s, Simon’s, and Christina’s, was at stake. I followed him up the stairs and past the closed door to the gallery. As I walked, wondering where they held Simon and William, I had a sudden racing fear that my friends might not be alive. Perhaps the Conclave had lied to me in order to lure me here for this meeting.

The hall wound sharply to the right and then to the left again as we approached a door at the end of the corridor.

Dr. Bartlett opened the door, which led into a large room furnished with only an enormous, slablike table, a suit of armor, and a fireplace. The entire Conclave, excepting Max, sat at the table, their eyes upon me.

I panicked a bit. I had no idea what I would say, and so much depended upon me knowing for certain that William and Simon were alive.

“Do be seated, Miss Sharp,” Dr. Buck said, gesturing to an empty chair across the table as Dr. Bartlett seated himself to the right of Reverend Perkins. Reverend Perkins’s eyes bore into me. If it were up to him, I would be dead already.

After a very odd exchange of pleasantries where an outsider would never have guessed that the outcome of the meeting might be my execution, Dr. Buck cleared his throat quietly.

“I understand that our offer was not accepted.”

I started to speak, but he raised his hand, silencing me.

“We are giving you another chance, Miss Sharp. We thought you should meet with all of us, once more, before making a decision.”

“Did you order Max to kill my friend Mary and an old woman?” I asked. “Then you kidnapped William and Simon. To threaten me?”

Dr. Buck and Dr. Bartlett met eyes quickly before Dr. Bartlett stated, “Max has his own methods.”

“But his murders are ordered by you, and it was you who took William and Simon against their wills.”

They all remained silent, unwilling to acknowledge that they persuaded anyone by these means. Dr. Bartlett lit a pipe.

They looked like ordinary, professional, middle-aged men. Still, I did not understand why I had not seen more of their peculiarities when I first met them. Earlier today, in Hampstead Heath, the light had been too hazy to see it clearly. But now I saw, in each of their eyes, pieces, layers of the history they had witnessed, sweeping like ocean waters back and forth over a wrecked ship. This was the aspect about them that made them seem not quite human.

Dr. Brown spoke first, kindly waving his hand as if brushing away a leaf.

“None of that matters, Miss Sharp. The point is, are you or are you not willing to join us? This is an extraordinary opportunity, and we are giving you a second chance to make a decision.”

“A last chance,” Reverend Perkins growled.

I was silent. I had learned about the workings of the philosopher’s stone from Dr. Brown and Dr. Bartlett the day before, and my decision had been made. I had no more questions—no other way to stall them. The crackling of the fire in the fireplace deafened my ears.

“I want to see William and Simon before giving you any answer.”

“They are fine,” Dr. Buck said. “Safe. And as you know, we are open to … ”

“Max said that you might negotiate with me for their lives.”

“We might … ” Dr. Buck began.

“I insist on seeing them now.”

Dr. Brown started to say something, but Dr. Bartlett cut him off. “It’s quite all right. She can see them. John, you have the key?”

Reverend Perkins sighed loudly and stood up.

While the rest of the Conclave stayed in the room, Reverend Perkins led me back through the winding hallway and down the main staircase. He took me back down the corridor to the room where the ritual had taken place. The enormous doors were closed. Reverend Perkins took out a set of keys and unlocked them.

The room was dark and bare except for a few lit candles on the floor; I did not even see the chalice. William and Simon sat in chairs, back to back, in the opposite part of the windowless room, their hands cuffed together and also to the chairs.

They were alive.

“Might I have a moment with them, alone?”

Perkins’s eyes veiled, hardened. But he shut the door, leaving me alone.

I rushed to them, frantic, desperate. I had to free them.

“William!” As I came close to him, I saw that his right eye was purple, darkly bruised, and almost bloody looking.

“William thought it would be a good idea to fight John and Robert when they came to take him away,” Simon said dryly. “He only regained consciousness a few minutes ago. Of course, it could have been worse. They had guns.”

I tugged at the cuffs. Both of their wrists had been bloodied after struggling against the cuffs so vigorously.

“I’m fine.” William said almost irritably, and with renewed energy began trying to free himself. “What’s happening? What have they said to you?”

“I have only a few moments with you,” I whispered. “They’re giving me a second chance to join them, and I demanded to see you, to see that you were alive, before giving them an answer. Is the cuff key with Reverend Perkins, on his key ring?” I asked Simon quickly.

“Yes, he locked the cuffs when they brought us in here.”

I cursed under my breath. Sweat dripped down my face and I was close to a panic.

“Do you have anything I can try to pick the lock with?”

“A pocketknife. We’ve been unable to reach it, but it is in my pocket,” William said.

In a second, I retrieved the knife and began working at the lock. I tried to keep my back to the door. For all I knew, Reverend Perkins was watching us through the keyhole.

“My aunt. Is Christina safe?” William whispered.

“Yes, for now. Max promised to leave her alone. But … ”

“What is it?”

“Perdita, William. She was dead when I arrived at the house.”

“Damn! ” William hissed as his face contorted in pain. “Get these cuffs off! ”

“Keep your voice down and let Abbie work,” Simon said quietly.

I was having no luck getting the lock open.

William was incensed now, swore profusely, and began jerking his hands against the cuffs in an effort to free himself.

“Hold still—I can’t do this at all if you don’t hold still.” I whipped my head around to glance at the door. Reverend Perkins could come in again at any minute, and time was running out.

“This has to end now,” William continued. “Abbie, they killed your mother.”

“William,” Simon hissed.

I froze. A cold chill swept through me, and I stopped picking the lock. The pocketknife still in my hand, I stood, facing William.

“What did you say?”

“William,” Simon said angrily, “this hardly does any good … ”

“She deserves to know.” William met my eyes. “There was more in my father’s notes than I told you, but I thought it might be too much for you, too overwhelming. Dr. Bartlett fell in love with your mother from the first moment he saw her, that day at the operating theatre. He convinced the others that they needed a woman in the group. Caroline was educated and beautiful; she would be an asset to them as an immortal, as the psychic, the artist of the group. They gave her the offer. When she refused, they only allowed her to live because she was pregnant, the hope being that she might have a daughter with her same gift. Gabriel sent her away with Jacque to protect her. Max probably killed Sharp and let Caroline live only long enough to raise and educate you, the thinking being that you would be most like her if she raised you herself. He was probably the one who killed her, too, once you became a woman. It wasn’t dysentery. He undoubtedly poisoned her.”

Her visions. I remembered how they had increased in the weeks before her death. My mother had known the Conclave was coming for her during my entire childhood—and then, in those weeks before she died, she had seen them.

And Dr. Bartlett had been in love with her. This explained the lingering looks, why he called me “Abbie” while the others called me “Miss Sharp.” Why he had sent Max to seek me out, specifically, to see if I also was psychic. It also might explain why they were so willing to give me a second chance.

I was Dr. Bartlett’s second chance after he did away with Mother.

“Abbie,” Simon said gently. “It’s the truth. I’m sorry.”

Oddly, I didn’t cry. I only felt fury. A consuming fury.

“Abbie, are you all right?” William asked.

William and Simon could not help me now, not as long as they were locked up like this. And I had no immediate way of freeing them.

“I’ll be back,” I said, turning from them.

“Abbie? Where are you going?” William demanded.

I didn’t answer him as I clutched the pocketknife tighter, concealing it in the folds of my skirts.

“Abbie, don’t be stupid. You need us.”

“Don’t do this alone,” Simon added.

“Abbie! Abbie ! Get back here.” Now William was desperate.

Ignoring them, I joined Reverend Perkins in the hall.

“I hope you’re satisfied now, Miss Sharp,” he said as he locked and bolted the door again.

I followed him, formulating a plan as we ascended the stairs. My best chance to eliminate the Conclave would be to kill the members one at a time, and I had to keep them separate. They could overwhelm me if all together.

Reverend Perkins would be the first to go.

I removed the knife from my skirt folds and felt my palms sweat. It would do no good if the others heard him cry out. Severing his windpipe would ensure his silence.

I steadied myself.

One. Two …

Catapulting my whole body against him, I knocked him to the floor and collapsed on top of him. Then immediately, before I could think too much about what I was doing, I plunged the knife into his throat, feeling it cut muscle and then bone. I turned away, hearing only a gurgle. Then nothing.

I stood up, quaking all over as I forced myself to look at him, to make certain that the blow had been a fatal one. His enormous hands reached toward his bleeding throat. He could not make a sound. Reverend Perkins had hated me more than the others, and I watched his angry stare until he gasped his last breath.

The door to the conference room slammed open and urgent voices sounded from far down the corridor. The others had heard Perkins fall.

I bolted into the gallery, slamming and locking the door behind me. The moment I shut it, I heard them outside. They had found John Perkins’s body and immediately began trying to break through the gallery door.

Feeling a bit like a trapped rat, I panicked when I realized that I had dropped the knife in the hallway. I frantically scanned the cases of weapons—the spears, the guns, the knives. I considered the guns, but I could not be certain whether they would work or not, whether they were loaded or not. A second later, I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and, covering my fist, punched through one of the cases and took the bowie knife.

Excellent for skinning and tearing organs.

As I held it, I estimated the force of my momentum; I considered the curved blade, the heavy handle. If I could send it spinning, I might be able to make a kill.

The door frame cracked a bit as the men outside pushed against it. They would be through at any moment. There were no windows in the gallery; I backed up against another door at the far side of the room.

Then the gallery door burst open and I faced them across the room, the knife poised in front of me.

“You killed my mother.” My voice quivered and did not sound like my own. I shook with rage.

“She had a choice, Abbie. A fair one.”

“Did she?” I spat. “What, join your group or die? The same choice you’re offering me? What kind of choice is that?”

“It was an offer,” Marcus Brown said, taking a step forward. “Off the table, now that you’ve killed John.”

“Stay where you are!” I warned him, before turning my attention back to Dr. Bartlett.

He laid one hand on Marcus Brown’s shoulder. “In a minute, Marcus. Your mother,” he continued, turning to me. “With her gifts, once she took the elixir, might have been anything.”

“What? As your immortal love puppet?”

A chilling coldness overcame his expression. I suspected that my statement affected him more deeply than John Perkins’s death had. His response came out severe and cold, as if he were issuing my own execution order. “No one can live, knowing the secret. It is part of the rules—four centuries worth of rules.”

My mother might have been just another casualty to them, but to me she meant something. They had not seen her suffer and die. They had not loved her as I had. They had robbed me.

Robbed me of too much.

Dr. Brown pushed past Dr. Bartlett. “Miss Sharp, this has gone too far. Stop this foolishness. Drop the knife and surrender to us.” He spoke kindly, politely, even as he was crossing the room to kill me.

The great politician. The murderous politician.

The politeness infuriated me, and I decided that their gentlemen’s rules were at an end.

“Your Conclave can go to fucking hell!”

I slung the knife forward. It stuck hard in Marcus Brown’s heart.

Without wasting another second, I plunged through the door behind me, locking it. I found myself in yet another gallery lined with cases, a door slightly ajar at the far end.

I needed another weapon.

Trying to ignore the shouts, and then the great thuds against the door, I ran toward the cases.

In these cases there were no weapons, only rows and rows of shrunken heads: the skin was dark, leathery, obviously stretched and then boiled. The eyes had all been sewn shut. The hair on the heads was all different colors—blond, black. I swayed as I saw a streak of auburn locks. In my horror, I tried to tell myself that Robert Buck had collected these heads from gravesites around the globe. But I knew of his anthropological curiosities, of the people that the Conclave had killed over the years. I swallowed as I contemplated how far Robert Buck’s experiments might have gone over the centuries.

There was nothing in this room to help me, so I ran toward the other door. Along the way, I threw myself against the cases, crashing them to the floor in the hopes that the mess would stall the Conclave.

Running into the next room, a laboratory, I slammed and locked the door behind me. There were no more escape routes. I would have to face them in here.

I began flinging open cabinets, looking for a new weapon. Test tubes and fluids crashed around me. In the darkness, I slammed into the dissecting table and my hip throbbed in pain.

I heard their voices and the sound of crunching glass. Robert Buck and Julian Bartlett were in the gallery.

My odds would be better if I could create some sort of diversion. A large vat of formaldehyde caught my eye.

As I heaved it toward the door, I spilled half of the vat’s contents. The formaldehyde spread across the floor quickly. I dumped the remainder of the contents along the edge of the floor and across the surface of every countertop, taking care to keep the solutions off my skirts.

Just as I grabbed the nearest Bunsen burner, Robert Buck and Julian Bartlett broke through the door. Buck slipped immediately, falling, just as Bartlett braced himself on the slick floor. His eyes met mine as I lit the burner and tossed it onto the ground near me. I then leaped into the dry, middle part of the laboratory. Flames shot across the floor and up the countertops. The laboratory would be engulfed in flames within minutes, and then the house.

Julian Bartlett shouted something to Robert Buck and started to fight the fire. Buck, standing again, grabbed me hard as I ran past. I kicked him sharply in the ribs but could not disengage myself. I fought hard against him and we fell together, tumbling out into the gallery.

Shards of glass crunched under my back and cut into my arms as we rolled across the floor. I tried to ignore the shrunken heads that kept bumping against my body, focusing instead on keeping Buck from pinning me. He slammed my head hard against the side of one of the felled cases. Then once he was on top of me, he put his hands around my throat, choking me. Flickers of light began to appear in my peripheral vision. I was losing consciousness.

I dealt a mighty kick upwards into his sternum, and heard a crack. That was enough. He released his grip and I slid out from under him, dizzy but standing.

Heaving and choking, I stumbled out of the room as smoke began pouring out from the laboratory, engulfing the galleries. I hoped that Dr. Bartlett had been overcome by the flames and smoke. That would leave me just Robert Buck to kill until I could find Max.

Buck stood up and I ran from him into the first gallery, ducking, trying to keep my head away from the smoke.

Pulling the bowie knife from Brown’s body as I ran out of the gallery, I almost tripped over Perkins’s body at the top of the stairs. The handcuff keys. Keeping an eye out for what was behind me, I struggled to get the keys unhinged from his belt. My hands trembled and I felt myself crying as I fought to free them. Buck would be upon me anytime.

“Abbie Shaaaarp!” I heard him roar from the gallery, just as I freed the keys and ran down the staircase.

There was no time to free William and Simon—there were at least thirty keys on the ring and I had no idea which, if any, would work on the handcuffs. I certainly didn’t want to lead Robert Buck to them, so I ran in the other direction, into the drawing room.

Large sheets covered all the furniture. All the fish aquariums were now gone except for the jellyfish globe aquarium, which rested upon a large cart with wheels. The top had been removed.

Venomous. Can kill someone within minutes.

I still had the knife, but an easier means of killing Buck occurred to me.

Pushing all of my weight against it, I rolled the giant globe aquarium on its wheels toward the side of the entrance to the drawing room. Then, standing on a chair, I steadied my breathing and waited. I heard the stairs creaking. He was coming.

I held my breath as I placed my back against the aquarium. Timing would be everything. Then, if this didn’t work, I still had the bowie knife.

I focused on the silence, listening for Robert Buck’s breathing as he approached the room.

The second he entered, I threw my back against the aquarium. With a great crash, it toppled over, emptying its contents onto him. I would have fallen along with it, but I grabbed a nearby window curtain, catching myself just in time.

I leaped off the chair and stood nearby, watching, the knife ready in case this didn’t work. Robert Buck was screaming and thrashing on the floor, his spectacles falling off. Jellyfish clung to his body. His neck began swelling immediately, turning red and then purple as he suffocated.

Smoke poured down the stairs. He was dead. Julian Bartlett, if alive, would have come down the stairs by now. I started to maneuver past Buck’s body, careful of the jellyfish, to get to William and Simon.

Then I heard the crashing footsteps upstairs and a voice calling for Robert Buck.

Julian Bartlett was still alive.

I also heard roaring flames as he ran down the stairs. The fire had spread. Then a bullet hit the wall behind me. Bartlett had seen me, and he had a gun.

Sprinting back into the drawing room, then through the French doors into the hothouse, I found myself enshrouded in early morning darkness. The fountain was empty and the place absolutely silent. There were no shrieking monkeys, no flying birds.

I ran fast past the fountain into the forest, knowing that I had to take cover before he caught up with me.

I was not a moment too soon. The hothouse doors slammed open just as I reached the trees.

Once in the wooded area, I planned an ambush. If I could take him by surprise, kill him quickly, then free Simon and William, we just might make it out before the house burned down.

The tree nearest to me had a thick branch about ten feet off the ground. Silently, clenching the knife blade in my teeth and plunging the keys into my right boot so that I would not lose them, I climbed up.

I heard his footsteps. He was closer than I had thought. I eased further out on the branch.

He stood directly underneath me.

He had been my supervisor, my mentor. But now, as Mother’s murderer, he had to die. Slowly, silently, I removed the knife from my mouth and clutched it hard.

I inched forward a bit more. Dropped.

But he stepped aside and spun around, aiming the revolver at me as I hit the ground painfully. I rolled sharply to one side just as the dirt exploded in the spot where I had been.

I stood and charged at him with the knife before he could fire again. But with frightening ease, he caught me and spun me against him, holding my body and my wrists in a vice grip. Before I could take another breath, he had taken my knife and placed it against my throat.

I struggled, but he held me too tight.

“It has come to this. This.” He pressed the knife harder.

He seemed calm, calm even though I had killed the others, calm even though he was about to kill me now.

“You’ve created quite a mess for me, Abbie. Ruined so much of what I have worked for four hundred years to build. They are gone now.”

It was a cool reproach, yet stern and controlled as if he lectured a child.

“You know, Abbie,” he whispered softly, soothingly, in my ear, “I thought Caroline Westfield was extraordinary, that she wanted to do extraordinary things. But she disappointed me and turned out to be sadly ordinary.”

“You … ”

“Hush, Abbie.”

In that moment, I felt overwhelming panic. He had immobilized all of my limbs, had me locked against his body. I had come so close to surviving, to saving William and Simon. If I died now, they would both die, very soon, in the fire.

I almost choked as the vision washed over me. Julian Bartlett’s touch, my emotions, must have triggered it. I saw my mother’s face, as she stood in front of the Conclave in that meeting room—the same room where I had been. I saw the sharpness in her expression, her defiance. She had just refused the elixir.

The vision, a split-second lightning flash, left.

Mother’s face had done it. I had to finish this.

With a crazed burst of energy, I threw Bartlett off me, snatched the knife from him, and kicked him to the ground. I had knocked the wind out of him, but nonetheless, I placed my boot hard on his chest.

“No, Julian. Mother was extraordinary. You, on the other hand—”

I cut his throat.

“—Are just too old.”

He died without another word, those unfathomable eyes finally lifeless.

When I reached the drawing room again, smoke had already poured down the stairs and through most of the first floor. It was hot, difficult to see. The smoke burned my nostrils, my throat. My fears rose for Simon and William. Covering my nose and mouth with one hand, I crouched low and hurried through the drawing room, careful as I stepped around Robert Buck’s body.

The floor creaked above me. It could collapse at any moment. The fire had spread so quickly, and Montgomery Street was so empty, the house would likely be burnt to the ground by the time the fire department arrived.

I reached the large doors to the ritual room and pulled away the first bolt. My hand trembled as I tried five different keys in the lock. None worked. After ducking to the floor to gulp fresh air again, I stood, tried the next key, and thanked the gods of luck that it worked.

As I burst through the doors, I saw that although the room was smoky, the doors had sealed away most of it.

“Abbie!” William yelled. “Bloody hell, you’re alive! I heard the gunfire, the yelling. Then the smoke came.”

Smoke was now filling the room.

“I have the keys, but dammit, I have no idea which one—”

I screamed when I heard a ceiling collapse somewhere on the first floor.

“One of the keys is a bit shorter than the others, with a small notch on the top,” Simon said coolly. “That’s the one to the cuffs.”

I found it.

“Thank you, Simon, you’re amazing as always.” I unlocked the cuffs.

“Hurry! Hurry !” I yelled, although I hardly had to say that. William grabbed me, pulling me hard out the doors, Simon just behind us.

The heat was unbearable now. My eyes burned, watered. I tasted ash. Fortunately, once we made it to the hallway, the front doors were immediately in front of us.

We broke through them, into the embrace of the early morning air.