Both Harland Kaylock and Orpha Winter were waiting at the S.P.R. offices. They sat on opposite sides of a large drawing room on the first floor, Mr. Kaylock perched on the edge of a divan like some dark bird of prey and Mrs. Winter elegant in a high-necked blue silk gown the precise shade of her eyes. They might not have liked one another, but their stony faces made it clear they were united in disapproval of their newest agents. Not even John’s bloodstained clothing seemed to generate much sympathy.
Harry held her tongue while Alec Lawrence gave a brief accounting of his and Lady Cumberland’s arrival at the Sabelline home. Had Connor not driven like a maniac back across the bridge, they would have been too late. Her rescue was a blur of heat and darkness, but Harry remembered the crash of the roof coming down just seconds before they ran out the front door.
John sprawled in a chair by the grate, still seeming a bit dazed. He nursed a brandy poured for him by the butler, Joseph. Vivienne Cumberland paced up and down, smoking distractedly. When Alec explained that the amulet had been lost, Orpha Winter made a small sound of genteel disgust. Harland Kaylock briefly closed his eyes. Smelling blood in the water, Joseph shuffled to the far end of the room.
Overall, the atmosphere at Pearl Street crackled like one of Edison’s electrical turbines. When Alec finished, Mr. Kaylock’s gaze settled on Harry.
“It was fortuitous indeed that the agents from London were here when your boy came rushing in,” he said in a flat voice.
“It was, sir,” she agreed, resisting the urge to wring her sweaty hands together.
“And that they were kind enough to go to your aid.”
“Very kind.”
“I’m rather confused on one particular point, though. Perhaps you can enlighten me?”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Kaylock.”
He leaned forward, his blade of a nose stabbing the air. “I expressly told you not to pursue the case any further. You were to wait for Lady Cumberland and Mr. Lawrence. Was any part of my instructions ambiguous, Miss Pell? Because you appear to have disregarded them completely.”
Harry withered under his vulpine stare, but managed to keep her chin up. “I had no intention of doing that, sir. But Jackson Sabelline came to me yesterday with a letter he’d found in his father’s effects. It was from Mary Elizabeth Wickes.”
“The child poisoner?” A flash of surprise crossed his face.
“Yes. She warned him he was in danger. Sabelline took her letter seriously enough to change the lock on his office door, but it wasn’t enough.”
“You should have brought the letter straight to me.”
“I promised Jackson Sabelline I would pursue it myself.”
He frowned. “That was a rash promise.”
Harry cleared her throat. “It seemed to me there was a direct connection with Brady’s crimes, which you’ll recall was my case. With all due respect,” she added hastily. “If the Brady case has been reopened, I’m within my rights to pursue closure on behalf of my client.”
“Your client?”
“Elizabeth Brady, sir. She paid my fee.”
“You’re splitting hairs rather finely, Miss Pell,” Kaylock said. “If you had only come to me first, I could have sent Lady Cumberland and Mr. Lawrence with you to the Sabelline house. The daemon wouldn’t have gotten away with the amulet. It’s even possible that Araminta Sabelline might have lived to face a jury.”
“Yes, I do see that,” Harry said in a small voice. “I didn’t realize they’d arrived. Time seemed of the essence.”
“I’d say it still is,” Kaylock said, biting off each word. “The daemon now has what it came for. A talisman to tear open the veil to the Dominion. To unlock the gates Lady Cumberland and Mr. Lawrence have spent their lives guarding. So it’s impressive you solved the little mystery of who killed Julius Sabelline, but I’d say we’re in rather a worse position for the knowledge, wouldn’t you, Miss Pell?” His gaze raked over John. “How about you, Mr. Weston? Anything to say for yourself?”
John opened his mouth, then flushed red and closed it again. Vivienne and Alec appeared embarrassed at witnessing the dressing-down but as foreign agents, it wasn’t their place to interfere. In the end, rescue came from unexpected quarters.
“Oh, leave off, Harland,” Orpha Winter snapped. “The girl defied me too. I told her to wait to approach the count and she went ahead and showed up on his doorstep, demanding an interview.”
“How did you know—” Harry began. Then she saw Connor edging toward the door. “You told her.”
“Well, ya never said I shouldn’t,” he muttered.
Orpha gave Harry an unpleasant smile.
“If you’d only asked him, I wouldn’t have had to,” Harry said sullenly, feeling like she was eight years old again and Mrs. Rivers had caught her sucking the lemon meringue out of a freshly baked pie with a paper straw.
“I did, foolish girl. More than once.” She gave Harry and John an icy look. “I agree that our newest investigators require some reining in, but now isn’t the time to do it. At least Miss Pell had the brains to figure out it was Araminta. Without her, we’d be chasing our own tails. Now, I suggest we find out exactly what they’ve learned, every scrap, and then we can determine a course of action.”
Harland Kaylock pursed his thin lips but refrained from comment. Joseph poured everyone brandies except for Connor and Alec Lawrence, who took tea. It was still raining hard outside, blowing in sideways gusts that made a soft hiss against the windows. The others listened in silence as Harry related the series of events at the Sabelline house before the London agents arrived, and how she had deduced that Araminta was the killer.
“She had access to the madu Jackson had borrowed from Count Koháry,” Harry said. “He showed us a drawing of one. It’s not a large weapon and easily concealed. After the party, she waited for her husband to go to the strongbox. Then she followed him. I do believe she had an altercation in the hall with Mr. Sharpe over the affair. After he stormed off to his office, where he probably had another bottle stashed, she carried out her grisly task.”
“And the footprints?” Orpha asked.
“Araminta wore her husband’s shoes to throw off the police and keep her own shoes clean. But that meant she had to get rid of them. First she tried hiding them in the air duct, but they wouldn’t fit. So she slipped upstairs and placed them in one of the sarcophagi.”
“And she lifted the lid alone?” Kaylock asked skeptically.
“Daemons confer superhuman strength on their mortal victims,” Alec put in quietly. “I saw it when I encountered Dr. Clarence in Oxford. He nearly bested me.”
“What about the eyes?” Orpha asked. “What drove her to such grotesque lengths?”
“She said her husband refused to look when the daemon tried to show him things. I wonder if it didn’t seek to possess Julius first,” Harry replied. “Everyone we spoke to described him as cold and strong-willed. Perhaps he simply wasn’t as susceptible to the magic of the Dominion as Araminta, who was already prone to morbid fancies.”
“I remember her exact words,” John said, taking a bracing gulp of brandy. “They gave me a chill. He kept his eyes shut tight. We didn’t like that, so we took them.”
“Dear God.” Orpha shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her. She always seemed rather mousy. Although I suppose it wasn’t Araminta, not really.” She idly toyed with an emerald bracelet. “I had no idea daemons could influence a person through their dreams. Fascinating.”
“It did the same with Mary Elizabeth Wickes,” John said. The spirits had put some color back in his face, which he’d scrubbed clean of blood and soot with a damp towel provided by the butler. “When we visited her at the Tombs, she said she let it through. Something about paying the blood price. Do you know what that is?”
Alec nodded. “There are two ways to open a portal to the Dominion. Talismans like the amulet can unlock a Greater Gate. But a lesser gate can be conjured by shedding the blood of an innocent. It won’t stay open long, but even a few seconds is enough if something is waiting on the other side.”
“Mary talked the girl in the next cell into cutting open her wrist. It was a few months ago—the same day this daemon possessed Mr. Brady and killed Becky Rickard.”
“That would do it, if Mary knew the words of opening.”
“So we know how it came through.” Harry turned to Orpha. “The count said you told him it was a daemon. That would have been useful information to share.”
She looked confused. “But I didn’t. I only learned that fact from Mr. Kaylock an hour gone.”
Vivienne’s eyes narrowed. “Who is this man?”
“He’s the last descendant of the House of Habsburg-Koháry in Hungary,” Harry replied. “He told us his family has known of the Dominion for generations. That he’s fought ghouls.”
“I find it strange we’ve never heard of him.”
“Necromancer?” Alec said to Vivienne.
“Possibly.” She snicked her lighter open and shut. “But he’s not our immediate problem. We need to track down this daemon before we do anything else.”
“Are the gates being watched?” Kaylock asked.
“Of course. And none of them are nearby. It will have to take a ship again. And whichever gate it chooses, we’ll be ready. Cyrus Ashdown has sent cables to all his agents. They’ll come out in force. If the body it takes can be killed before it switches to another, it will be banished back to the Dominion.”
“But which gate will he choose?” Kaylock asked. “There are twelve, correct?”
“Yes.” Alec ticked them off on his fingers. “One in Afghanistan and another in the ruins of Memphis, Egypt, just south of Giza. Then you have Rome, Damascus, Jerusalem, Babylon, Karnopolis, Samarkand, Athens, Luoyang, China, and Kush, now called Karima in Northern Sudan. And London, of course.”
John broke the silence. “Begging your pardon, but are you certain there are only twelve?”
Alec turned to him, mouth quirked in mild amusement. “We’ve already established that this daemon came through a lesser gate by inducing a human familiar to pay the blood price. But every reference we’ve ever found to the Greater Gates says there are twelve. Without exception.”
“I’m sure you’re correct. But just before the daemon started the fire, it was complaining about Claudius Ptolemy. That they’d made some kind of bargain, but Ptolemy betrayed it. And Araminta said, The thirteenth gate will open.”
“He’s right,” Harry said. “I heard it too.”
“A thirteenth gate.” Alec’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I don’t suppose either of them was kind enough to say where it was.”
Harry and John looked at each other. They both shook their heads.
“What if it’s here in New York?” Mr. Kaylock said.
“One we never knew about?” Vivienne asked doubtfully. “Then why isn’t the city plagued by ghouls?”
They were all silent for a moment.
“Perhaps it’s a new gate,” Orpha said. “Would that be possible?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing says it couldn’t be,” Alec said. “The Dominion is a strange place. In many ways, it’s alive. Organic. We don’t know why the first gates appeared, but it’s a fact that they attract human settlements. And New York’s a relatively young city.”
“The de Lusignan letter we found at Cyrus’s said the gate rejected the daemon and wouldn’t let it pass,” Vivienne pointed out. “That neither blood nor talisman sufficed.”
“But if it was a new gate, it wouldn’t be warded. Or not as strongly as the others.”
“Goddess,” Vivienne breathed. “A thirteenth gate. The question then is where.”
“There’s one consistent fact about gates,” Alec said. “They’re always in water.”
“That hardly narrows it down. Manhattan is an island,” Kaylock said.
“Still water, not running. Which rules out the rivers and harbor.”
“I’ll fetch some maps,” Kaylock offered.
He returned a short time later and unrolled a large map of the city across his desk. They all crowded around.
“There are two obvious locations,” Kaylock said. “The reservoirs in Central Park and on Forty-First Street.”
“But they’re manmade, aren’t they?” Alec said. “Gates are always in natural water sources. The one in London is beneath the lake in Hyde Park. In Rome, it’s a pond in the Villa Borghese. And so on.”
“Wait. I’ll fetch the 1874 Viele map.” Kaylock dashed off. He returned a minute later with a long rectangular map that showed the topographical features of the city. “Egbert Viele used surveys and historical maps to reconstruct the original hydrology of Manhattan Island. It’s become absolutely indispensable for building engineers. They call it the ‘water map.’”
It was hand-drawn in exquisite detail, with shaded lines to illustrate the island’s original contours. Most of the map was colored in hues of tan and green, but a few splotches of blue indicated water. Harry easily recognized the twin squares in Central Park labelled Receiving Reservoir. At Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Sixth Street, a river snaked east from the edge of the park. The orderly grid of streets and avenues had been superimposed over the natural features, creating the impression of a phantom world of marshes and meadows now displaced by bricks and cobblestones.
“What’s that?” Vivienne pointed to an unmarked blue splash on the map only a few blocks from the S.P.R. offices.
“The old Collect Pond,” Kaylock said. “It was drained and filled in eighty years ago.”
“What’s there’s now?”
Harry and John looked at each other, eyes widening. “The Tombs,” they said in unison.
John slapped his forehead. “Of course! It’s where it all began. The prison is only a few blocks from the flat on Leonard Street where Becky Rickard was murdered. Mary Elizabeth Wickes said she’d brought something through. What if it wasn’t through a lesser gate but one of the Greater Gates?”
“And that gate is somewhere in the prison itself,” Harry finished. “I have to say, it does fit the facts.”
“Tell me about this Wickes woman.” Alec leaned forward. “Mr. Kaylock said she was a poisoner.”
“Yes. She murdered children with arsenic, beginning when she was only sixteen.”
“Such a person might well be susceptible to dark communications from the Dominion,” Orpha Winter said in a theatrical whisper. “The spirit world is only visible to those with sensitivities. Many mediums are no strangers to traumatic death. If Mary was already corrupt, she would have attracted the most dangerous entities that roam the shadowlands.”
John nodded fervently. Mr. Kaylock examined his fingernails as though they were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
“By all accounts, Mary was sane when they first brought her to the Tombs—or as sane as a repeat killer of children can be,” Harry said. “A jury thought so. They found her accountable for her actions and sentenced her to hang. But when we visited her, she seemed to have been driven half mad. She rambled about the master, just like Araminta.”
“But if the Collect Pond was drained, how can there be a gate?” Connor asked. He’d been listening quietly from the shadows.
“Gates persist no matter what people build over them,” Vivienne explained. “They can’t be destroyed, only warded. If there truly is a Greater Gate at the Tombs, I promise you it will be standing in water somehow.”
Alec used his cane to push himself to his feet. It was an oddly graceful gesture.
“We must go immediately,” he said. “The daemon might start with the gate here, but I’ve no doubt he’ll try to open all of them. And I don’t have to tell you how disastrous that would be.” He looked at Harry and John. “Speaking personally, I find you both to be highly competent agents.”
Harry flushed at the praise. John straightened his collar.
“Would you be willing to take us there?” Alec continued. “If you visited Mary once before, it might make it easier to get inside.”
“Of course,” John said immediately. Harry nodded her agreement.
“I would only ask that you let Lady Cumberland and myself deal with this creature when we find it.”
“Understood.”
Vivienne swept a hand across her skirts and produced a wicked-looking dagger, which she examined and then caused to vanish. A moment later, it had been replaced with another. Harry watched in fascination as the process was repeated several times. She realized Vivienne had sewn secret compartments all over her gown. They must have been designed by an expert seamstress, as nothing unusual was visible when she moved. Finally, Lady Cumberland seemed satisfied that her armory was in good working order.
“How will you proceed?” Mr. Kaylock asked.
“We corner this daemon in whatever body’s it’s taken and cut its head off,” she said, heading for the door. “If that doesn’t work, Alec and I will drag it through the gate and hand it over to the Shepherds.”
“Shepherds?” John asked, hurrying to keep up.
“The creatures that keep order in the Dominion. They herd the dead along to their final destination and have no fondness for souls who try to return to the living world.”
Harry and John’s coats had been lost in the fire, so Orpha Winter found a pair of blankets they could wrap around themselves for the short ride. Harry wished she had her pistol, but that too had been left at the Sabellines. John’s gift had only lasted three days, she thought ruefully.
“Count Koháry said you have another key,” John said to Alec as they waited for Connor to bring the carriage around. “Is it true?”
“Yes. I always thought mine was the only one in existence.”
“May I see it?”
Alec slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled out a smooth grey stone. “It may not look like much, but it’s a powerful talisman. We’ve used it to close all twelve of the Greater Gates. And I can use it to lock the thirteenth as well if we don’t manage to get the amulet.”
Darker striations made a whirling pattern on its surface. They bent the eye in a queer fashion. John found himself looking away after only a few seconds.
“Makes one dizzy,” he said with an uneasy laugh.
“Most talismans have that effect.”
“How is it used?”
“Words can be spoken, but they aren’t strictly necessary. Incantations are merely a tool to focus the will of the user. The only thing that matters is that one has the spark.” He slipped it back into his pocket. “Very few mortals can wield talismans, Mr. Weston. One in a thousand, perhaps less than that now.”
The carriage jolted to a stop before them on the deserted street. Connor leapt down and opened the door for Lady Vivienne. Harry went next, then John and Alec.
Orpha Winter and Harland Kaylock huddled under umbrellas at the curb. Before closing the carriage door, Mr. Kaylock leaned in and gave them each a brusque nod.
“Good luck,” he said, his black eyes resting on Harry and John. “Particularly you two. Despite any prior lapses of judgment, you’re quite valuable to this organization. And I’d say your nine lives are nearly used up.”