He came out of the shower, toweling his hair, and went into his dressing room. He was standing naked in front of his mirror, wondering if he had put on any weight around his midriff, when an amused voice said, ‘Very well endowed, Professor. I’m impressed.’
He shouted out, ‘Ah!’ and turned around, bundling the towel between his legs. Sitting in the pale blue basketwork chair in the corner, his legs crossed, was Theodor Zauber, dressed in his usual black suit and glossy black shoes.
‘How in God’s name did you get in here?’ Nathan demanded.
‘God’s name had nothing at all to do with it,’ Theodor Zauber replied. ‘It was the name of another, equally powerful. You should know me by now. I am able to go wherever I please. Ich bin wie Glas transparent. I am no more visible than a window. By the way, I am sorry about your window. What damage those gargoyles can do!’
‘Do you think I care about the goddamned window? It’s young Stu Wintergreen that I care about. You killed him, you bastard. He was only seventeen years old and now he’s dead.’
Theodor Zauber gave a one-shouldered shrug. ‘It’s very regretful, Professor. But you know what they say about omelets and eggs. I did warn you what might happen if you persisted in being so uncooperative.’
‘Stu Wintergreen was nothing to do with you and me. He was an innocent kid who had the whole of his life in front of him.’
‘Well, now the whole of his life is behind him. What can I say? There is nothing that can bring him back to us now, not even the greatest spells devised by the greatest sorcerers of all time. Dead is dead, Professor. But you can make sure that he did not die in vain, your Wintergreen boy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you agree to join with me now, and work to perfect the petrification process, his death will have had some lasting value. If you like, we can name the process after him, in his memory. The Wintergreen Process. I like the sound of that. It sounds like fresh growth emerging at a time when everything is chilly and barren. Life, emerging out of cold stone.’
‘Do you seriously think that I would consider working with you after what you’ve done?’
‘Have I not managed to persuade you yet? You saw what happened to that poor fellow at the hospital; and now you have seen for yourself that you and your family are not safe anywhere, even inside your own home. If you do not agree to assist me, Professor, I will have no option but to continue trying to find a thaumaturgic method to prevent my gargoyles from reverting back to stone. That will mean bringing more and more of them to life, and sacrificing the lives of many more innocent people.’
Nathan took a deep breath, making the most reluctant decision of his life. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me do some background research today, and see if there’s anything practical I can do to help you. Then maybe you can show me the gargoyles and I can try out some preliminary chemical tests on them. Where do you have them stored?’
Theodor Zauber smiled. ‘All in good time, Professor.’ He checked his wristwatch. ‘Why don’t you meet me at ten o’clock tomorrow morning at the Eastern State Penitentiary? That would be an appropriate rendezvous, don’t you think? Then you can tell me what you have discovered about reanimating gargoyles, if anything, and we can discuss how we can go forward together with our research.’
‘I see. You don’t entirely trust me, even though you’re threatening to kill my wife and my son, and who knows how many other people?’
‘I have learned to trust nobody, Professor, regardless of the duress they may be under. Many people will not hesitate to sacrifice others for the greater good, even the ones they love. Like my father, for instance, and like myself.’
Nathan said, ‘My God. You’re a piece of work, aren’t you, Herr Zauber?’
‘All living things are “pieces of work”, Professor. You and I devote ourselves to finding out what these “pieces of work” are made of, and how they are put together. Also, how one may take them apart.’
He paused, and then he said, ‘I will see you tomorrow, then, at the penitentiary. I must ask that you tell nobody, however – especially the police. Otherwise, the consequences may be doubly terrible. Ein Blutbad, as we Germans so graphically describe it. A massacre.’
Nathan went across to his closet and took out his navy blue toweling bathrobe, and put it on. When he turned around again, tying up the belt, Theodor Zauber had gone.
Immediately, he went out on to the landing. Grace was coming up the stairs, and she said, ‘What’s the matter, darling? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Theodor Zauber was here.’
‘What?’
‘He was right here, in my dressing room, talking to me. Then he just vanished. You didn’t see him come downstairs, did you?’
‘No. Nobody. But it was very strange … halfway up the stairs I felt like somebody brushed past me.’
‘That was Zauber. He can do that. It’s some kind of hypnotic thing.’
‘What did he want?’
Nathan went into the master bedroom and crossed quickly to the window. He was just in time to see Theodor Zauber climbing into his rented Impala. Theodor Zauber looked back at the house as he was fastening his seat belt, and Nathan was sure that he smiled up at him.
‘He wanted the same as he wanted before, the bastard. He needs help to reanimate these gargoyles of his. He can bring them back to life, but after an hour or two they start to turn back into stone again.’
‘Could you help him?’
‘I think so. It’s all a question of modifying the coding in their chromosomes. At the moment, being petrified is their default state, because of the way in which they turned to stone. What I would have to do is alter their chromosomes so that their default state is flesh and blood. It’s a bit like reprogramming a computer.’
‘More to the point,’ said Grace, ‘would you help him?’
‘I think you know the answer to that. It’s time to disinfect the world of Zaubers. This particular line of Zaubers, anyhow. He’s asked me to meet him tomorrow morning at the Eastern State Penitentiary.’
‘And you’re going?’
‘Of course. If I can find out where Theodor Zauber keeps his gargoyles, I can make sure that none of them ever comes to life again. I know enough about recreating mythical creatures to know how to exterminate them, too.’
‘You’re not telling Detective Pullet?’
‘What’s the point? Like I said before, she couldn’t arrest him for possession of legally-purchased statues. And how could she ever prove that Theodor Zauber had brought them to life, so that they could fly, and attack people? He would simply have to say that the whole idea was absurd, and it is, when you think about it – like the phoenix, and the gryphon, and the basilisk.’
‘I guess so, when you put it like that. But you will be careful, won’t you?’
Nathan heard a soft rumbling noise. It sounded like distant thunder, but actually it was the tarpaulin that the builders had rigged up as a temporary cover for Denver’s bedroom window, rumbling in the wind.
He held Grace close, and kissed her forehead, and she smelled of roses and citrus, like she always did.
‘I’ll be careful. I promise.’