Page 59 of Angel of Vengeance
She had to act immediately. When they got the door open, they would eventually find her hiding place, and everything she’d stored within it. This left her with a choice: she could flee the mansion via the watery tunnel, leaving everything behind—or she could flee into the house itself, hoping to remain hidden in its secret passageways and hollow walls long enough to accomplish her objectives.
In reality, this was no choice at all. To follow through on her end of the plan required her presence—here. To run away was to fail herself and the others, and to perish… sooner rather than later.
Extracting a heavy key from her pocket, she unlocked the door and cracked it open, easing her lantern into the now empty hallway. They would be coming back momentarily—she had to move fast.
After shutting the door and locking it again from the other side—given the scrapings and chisel marks, there was no longer any point in trying to disguise it—she crept along the basement corridor. With her lantern partially shuttered, she moved in the direction opposite Decla’s path of return. It would take the gang an hour, perhaps longer, to break through the door and explore the sub-basement, which should give her time to locate a new bolt-hole from which to operate in the time that remained. Of course, the water entrance—the intended escape route—was almost certain to be discovered. They would have to leave the mansion through the main floor—a dangerous complication.
She moved along the maze of corridors into an abandoned and unstable area of the basement, far from Leng’s labs and collections. A small cave-in marked the opening. She made her way over the rubble and continued along in silence, looking for a place to hide. There were rows of ancient storerooms, some with rotting casks that once held amontillado; stacks of old bricks; hardened sacks of cement; shovels and trowels and other rusting tools.
She heard a distant sound and froze, quickly shuttering her lantern. Listening intently, she identified it as a girl weeping.
In utter darkness, she stole toward the sounds, occasionally touching the basement walls for orientation, her progress aided by her preternatural night vision. Slowly, the sounds grew more prominent, and the darkness diminished—she was approaching a section of the vast, never-mapped basement that was reachable from another passage. Someone had been imprisoned down here—and recently. And as the weeping grew nearer, she realized it was Binky. This meant Pendergast had completed his part of the compact; he had located Binky, been captured by Leng, and already been brought back to the house. But as she turned a corner, and the weeping grew louder, she could hear another voice murmuring words of comfort.
In a moment of profound astonishment, followed instantly by joy, Constance recognized the other voice. It was her sister, Mary. Alive. She was whispering words of comfort to Binky. And then another voice chimed in—Joe.
The shock of this discovery, with the simultaneous rush of gladness and fear she felt, was so powerful that she had to steady herself against a nearby wall. Mary wasn’t dead after all. Mary was alive.
But now all her siblings were prisoners.
It had been a cruel deception of Leng’s—and she had to temporarily put aside her emotions to think the consequences through. If Binky and Mary were here, Pendergast had succeeded. And if Joe was here, too, then Leng had discovered D’Agosta’s hideaway. D’Agosta, if still alive, would probably be imprisoned with Pendergast in another section of the mansion.
She forced herself to pause a moment, to refrain from acting on instinct. Her natural impulse was to rush to them, free them, take them to safety. But without more intelligence of the other developments that must also have occurred, that plan would surely fail—especially now, with the basement crawling with Decla’s gang, which meant Leng was on high alert.
Even as she pondered this, she heard other voices coming down the hallway—loud, male—and then saw a dim light, shining from around the corner of the path opposite to the one she’d taken. More of Leng’s confederates. She shrank back into a nearby storeroom, flattening herself against the inside wall.
She heard the men bang on the metal bars of the cell door. One shouted Mary’s name. There was a defiant yell from Joe and what sounded like a tussle; Binky sobbed loudly and Mary began to scream.
“Don’t take me!” she heard Mary cry. “Oh God, don’t take me there!”
Another angry shout from Joe, followed by the sound of a blow, and then the clang of the iron door. Mary’s voice, still crying out, began to fade as she was manhandled down the hall and away.
A new shock flooded over Constance. Mary was alive… She had not factored that into her plans when she vengefully poisoned Leng. But more immediately, she knew from the echoing sounds exactly where Mary was going: Leng’s new operating theater, built in this very basement.
If Leng had not killed Mary for her cauda equina, then what had he done? There was one obvious answer: he’d been using her as one of his guinea pigs, testing an accelerated version of the Arcanum on her. And since she herself had given him the proper formula, it would no doubt work—Mary would be showing no signs of aging.
And Constance recalled something else. When Leng’s guinea pigs began to present like Mary—indicating a successful formula had been reached—Leng had the first of them dissected, looking for internal malfunctions caused by the elixir but not obvious externally.
This meant that Leng was preparing—right now—to autopsy her sister, Mary… alive.
53
VINCENT D’AGOSTA SAT ON a straw bale in the corner of the room, watching Pendergast examine the walls, door, floor, and ceiling—something he’d been doing for the past hour. D’Agosta had been locked in this cell the night before, but Pendergast had only arrived today. It seemed that—although Pendergast had been caught earlier than D’Agosta—Leng had taken his sweet time arranging transport for him and the others from his farm down to the mansion… no doubt realizing how cautious he’d have to be in doing so. Upon his arrival, Pendergast had closely questioned D’Agosta about his conversation with Humblecut, taking extreme interest in both the questions and the answers.
“We’re fucked six ways to Sunday,” said D’Agosta wearily. “There’s no way out of this iron box.”
“Your curses are as amusing as they are logistically and anatomically impossible,” Pendergast replied. He broke off his investigation and began pacing the room. His outfit—tight riding breeches and shirt, cloak, and high leather boots—made him look like some highwayman of old.
“You don’t seem all that worried.”
“I assure you, my dear Vincent, I would be extremely worried—were I merely pondering our predicament. But worry is a debilitating emotion, and so I suppress it in lieu of other things.” He paused, staring down at D’Agosta’s shoes. “Pity your footwear has been ruined.”
“Who cares?” D’Agosta said. The overwhelming emotion he felt was one of failure—failure to protect Joe and keep him safe, failure to detect Humblecut’s presence on the island, failure to escape from the boat. That last had been an interminable voyage, the two of them stuffed in the freezing, foul-smelling, almost lightless bilge. At least Joe hadn’t been affected by the seasickness that plagued D’Agosta. They had almost escaped when Joe managed to loosen some rivets in a bulkhead, but their efforts were discovered by that bastard Humblecut. As soon as they docked, a carriage with guards took them to Leng’s mansion; there, Joe had been led off elsewhere, and he, D’Agosta, had been locked in this cell under the eaves of the building. Earlier that day, Pendergast had been thrust in as well. A single candle illuminated the grim, windowless room, its floor covered in straw, a tiny, barred slot in the door presumably for meals—although they had been given only water. The four walls, ceiling, and floor were all riveted iron. Not even Pendergast, it seemed, could find a way out.
When Pendergast spoke, it was as if he’d read D’Agosta’s thoughts. “If you’re blaming yourself for getting caught, please don’t. That was part of our plan all along.”
“Our plan? What are you talking about?”
“Constance, Diogenes, and mine. You see, under the circumstances it was virtually impossible to hide you somewhere you would not be found, while still being able to reach you. No: the trick was to delay Leng’s finding you until his plans and schemes began to focus more and more on the future—and the portal we used to get here. That is why the first thing I did after you left the city was seal off all access to the portal. Whatever Ferenc told him, Leng does not know for certain whether or not we have control over it. I was confident he wouldn’t kill either Joe or Binky, because he could use them for leverage. My assignment was to find Binky—which I did—and then arrange to be captured. I felt certain Leng would return all of us here, under this roof… and as you see, he has done exactly that—including, as it turns out, Mary.”