Who was this? Some teenage hooker?
He was about to tell the acolyte to send her away when the phrase before noon struck a chord.
“She said ‘before noon’? You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Slootjes was planning to send out his email blast at noon. Could this be related?
What was the harm? The Change had begun. Anything could happen. He’d take a chance.
“Send her in.”
A few seconds later the acolyte admitted a dark-haired teenage girl, rather pretty. But something odd about her—far beyond the oddity of the ratty old blanket she’d tied around her neck to wear like a cape.
Ernst stood and extended his hand. “Good morning, Miss…?”
“Ellie. Just call me Ellie.”
As she took his hand Ernst felt a mild shock race up his arm as giant spindly spider legs sprang out behind her, framing her. He managed to repress a gasp and maintain a stolid front. He’d seen his share of strange things during his years in the Order. This was simply another.
When he broke contact, the legs faded from view. And abruptly the reason for her presence became clear.
“Well, Ellie, I was going to ask what service you thought you could render, but I think I know what it might be.”
“I was guided here to solve your problem.”
“Guided by whom?”
“The same who delayed the sunrise.”
“And why would one capable of such a feat stoop to take part in this mundane matter?”
“I am not privy to that.”
Privy…not exactly a typical component of the modern teenage argot. But then, this Ellie obviously was not a typical teen.
“Although,” she added, “I might venture that the answer is simply: Because it can.”
“But how will you…?”
“I am equipped.”
Remembering his glimpse of those giant spindly legs, he nodded. “I’m sure you are.”
“Where is the problem?”
“Right this way.”
He led her down the dank stairwell to the archives where he knocked on the door. After a pause, Slootjes spoke from the other side.
“Who is it? Is that you, Drexler?”
Without prompting, the girl answered, “No, sir, it’s me, Ellie.”
“I don’t know an Ellie. Go away!”
“Please, sir. I have something for you—something very important.”
Another pause, and then the sound of someone working the lock. Ernst backed into the shadows where he would not be seen.
The door swung inward a sliver for a moment, enough for a one-eyed peek, then opened the rest of the way. Slootjes appeared, pistol in hand, but he held it down at his side. He looked even more haggard and wild-eyed than when Ernst had spoken to him earlier.
“Who are you and how did you get down here?”
“I’ll only be a moment,” the girl said as she deftly slipped past him.
“You cannot come in here!”
“Just one minute,” Ernst heard her say as the door swung shut.
A momentary silence was followed by muffled shouts, a cry of terror, and then two gunshots. Ernst started forward, but then held back. Did he really want to see? He remembered the eight legs springing from her back and decided he didn’t.
Frantic fingers fumbled with the inner handle, and then the door was yanked inward to reveal…
Loremaster Slootjes stood framed in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth agape, but his sockets were filled with black wriggling things, their legs raking his eyelids. They filled his mouth as well. His throat worked but only faint, strangled sounds emerged. He swayed, clutched frantically at the door frame, then fell back into the room as the door slammed shut again.
Ernst leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He hadn’t known what to expect, but he hadn’t been prepared for that.
The archives room quieted after a while, then the door opened and the girl, Ellie, stepped out.
“Problem solved,” she said, speaking as if she had just adjusted a crooked curtain.
She passed Ernst and ascended the steps.
“The gunshots?”
“The shots went into the floor,” she said without looking back. “No harm done.”
Ernst started to follow her, then stepped back to the archives door for a look—out of curiosity, certainly, but also to assess how much of a cleanup would be required. He had expected blood but saw not a drop. His attention was drawn to the shape on the floor.
At first he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, then noticed with a start that the disarrayed heap of clothing contained skin and had a human face—Slootjes’s—though with hollow eye sockets and an empty, gaping mouth devoid of teeth and tongue. It resembled a human skin suit filled with a jumble of disconnected bones. Ernst had never seen anything like it and had no desire to see its like again.
When he reached the main floor the girl was nowhere in sight. From the front door he spotted her walking down the steps toward an older woman who could have been her mother. They linked arms and walked back up toward Allen Street.
BARBARA
“What did you do in there?” I asked as we retraced our earlier path.
I felt, as her mother, I should know what my teenage daughter was doing in a strange building in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
“Nothing important. What is important is that now I’m released. No obligations. We can go where we want.”
Could we? Really?
I nodded toward her back where those horrid little things clustered. “What about…you know?”
“They’re content to be with me.”
I experienced a strange, floating sensation, a feeling of unreality. Was this surreality our new everyday reality, Ellie and I? I surrendered to it. At least we were together.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I want to go see Mister Hill.”
“Who’s Mister Hill?”
“The man who carried me from the park last December when the Sheep Meadow signal triggered my…changes.”
That awful, horrible day.
“I’ll never forget,” I said. “I remember his first name was Teel—no, Tier. But we have no idea where to find him.”
“I do.”
“Of course you do,” I muttered.
She laughed. For the first time since Christmas week my Ellie laughed. And it sounded real and…and wonderful.
We returned to the Grand Street station and took the D train to Columbus Circle at the southwest corner of Central Park.
I gestured toward the park. “Aren’t you worried…?”
“No. The Sheep Meadow signal will sing its swan song tonight. I’m actually looking forward to it.” She pointed up Central Park West. “Come. He’s this way…in the Allard Building.”
“He lives in the Allard?” I said.
The Allard had the status of the San Remo or the Dakota. He hadn’t struck me as wealthy.
The walk turned out to be a short one. We stopped before the canopied entrance to an Art Deco apartment building. Its sixteen-story base narrowed to a graceful, streamlined ten-story tower, capped with a heavy-duty antenna from another age.
A liveried doorman with Simón on his nametag greeted us at the front door.
“We’re here to see Mister Hill,” Ellie said.
“Hardly anyone asks for him by that name.”
Curious, I said, “What name do they use?”
“‘Burbank.’ Is he expecting you?”
“No,” Ellie said, “but if you tell him the girl he saved from the Sheep Meadow is here, I’m sure he’ll see us.”
Giving Ellie a suitably puzzled look, Simón retreated to his kiosk and made a call. He returned a few moments later.
“He said to come right up. Take the center elevator and press P for the penthouse.”
The penthouse at the Allard…despite the horrors of the day I wanted to see it. The woodwork in the lobby was stunning—graceful
arrays of multicolored inlays and laminates and burled wood veneers. The penthouse had to be even more impressive.
TOWER in Art Deco letters marked the middle of three elevators. Ellie pressed the P button and we whisked to the top where we were greeted by a tall and wiry man I recognized instantly: the same ruddy skin, high cheekbones, and sharp nose. Definitely a Native American. The only change was the fatigue in his eyes.
“Mister Hill,” I said extending my hand. “So good to see you again.” His clasp was brief but firm. “And this is Ellie. Remember her?”
“Of course,” he said in a deep voice, turning to her. “But do you remember me?”
“Yes and no,” Ellie said. “I was in pretty bad shape. Thanks for getting me away from the signal.”
He looked surprised. “So…you know it’s a signal?”
“Yes. I’ve learned a lot since then. And so have you. You put out a report on them, I believe.”
“I didn’t originate it. Burbank did. I merely took over for him after he passed. But now I’m shutting it down. All the signals have synchronized to the same frequency, so there’s nothing left to report.” He clapped his hands once. “Well, it was nice to see you, but I’m busy dismantling the electronics in the monitoring room, so—”
“I want to go below and see where the Prime Frequency originates.”
He stared at Ellie in silence a moment. As did I. What was she talking about?
“You know about that?”
She nodded. “It’s among the many things I’ve learned.”
He offered a lopsided smile. “Have you heard the expression, ‘You can’t get there from here’?”
“Maybe others can’t,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but I can.”
He shook his head. “The passage is closed, I’m afraid.”
“It will open for me.”
Another long stare, then, “You know, for some strange reason, I believe it will.”
“Can we go now?”
He shrugged. “Don’t see why not. We’ll have to take the freight elevator. Wait here while I get the keys.”
He returned a minute later and the three of us rode the elevator back down to the lobby. He led us to a rear corner and was unlocking a door there when Simón called out from the entrance.
“Mister Hill? This lady here is in a big rush to meet Burbank.”
We turned to see a short Indian woman striding purposefully across the lobby.
HARI
Hari took a Lyft from Newark Airport straight to the Allard.
She felt content and calm. Good sex did that for her. And the sex had been very good. Donny proved to be a skilled and considerate lover, as anxious to please her as she was to be pleased. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long, long time. Too long.
And as a bonus, for a while she’d been able to forget about the sun rising late.
Despite her cajoling and even the application of some of the Kama Sutra techniques she’d learned, she could not convince him to return to New York with her. He was planning something. He kept saying he didn’t have a plan yet but she didn’t buy that. For some reason he didn’t want to tell her what it was. Which meant it was either foolish or dangerous or both.
But Hari had her own plan, which involved learning more about the signals. According to Donny, the last report from [email protected] said all the signals had synchronized their frequencies. A few hours after that, the sun rose late. Coincidence? Hari didn’t think so. And as far as she could see, if anyone had info on the signals, this Burbank character was the man.
She hopped out of her Lyft and headed straight for the doorman.
“Somebody named Burbank live here?”
The doorman nodded. “He’s busy right now. If you want to leave your—”
“I’m one of his subscribers.” Well, Donny had been reading his emails—close enough. “I need to speak to him ay-sap. It’s important. What can you do for me?”
He turned and called out to a tall man and two women in a far corner of the lobby. “Mister Hill? This lady here is in a big rush to meet Burbank.”
The man had ruddy skin and strong features. She didn’t get the “Mister Hill” bit, but the way the guy had turned said he had to be Burbank. She made a beeline for him.
“Hari Tate,” she said, shaking his hand. “Spelled H-a-r-i.” She guessed from his complexion and features he was Native American. “One of your subscribers. I’ve got some questions about the signals.”
“I’m busy right now,” he said. “If you want to wait—”
“Last night they all synchronized, and today the sun rose late. There’s got to be a connection.”
He shrugged. “There’s certainly a correlation but I don’t know if it’s a cause-effect relationship.”
The younger of the two women, a teenager with a weird ratty blanket tied around her neck, said, “Night is falling, the Change has begun.”
Uh-oh…was she one of those Septimus types? She was just a kid.
“What happened to ‘twilight has come…night will follow’?”
“That’s passé. Twilight is done.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Hari said. “Who are you?”
She introduced herself as Ellie and the older woman as her mother, Barbara.
“And you’re Burbank?” Hari said.
“My Burbank days are over. I’ll answer to Hill.”
Ellie turned to him. “Maybe we should take her with us.”
Hill shook his head. “I don’t know…”
“Hari says she wants to learn about the signals. The Prime generator would be an excellent place to start.”
“If we’re talking about something that generates this Prime Frequency I’ve heard about, I’m in. Lead on.”
Hill hesitated, then said. “Okay, but don’t be surprised if our way is blocked.”
He opened a door and Hari followed the three of them into what looked like a freight elevator. He inserted another key into one of two slots in the control panel and the car started down.
“What’s down here?”
“The Allard has an underground garage but we’re going below that, deep into the schist. You can’t access the bottom stop without a key.”
“What’s the schist?” Barbara said.
“It’s the bedrock of Manhattan Island,” her daughter said. “It runs close to the surface here in Midtown.”
Well, I just learned something, Hari thought. Smart kid.
But something very weird about her—a keep-your-distance brand of weird. The ratty blanket as cape, sure, weird as hell, but something much deeper. And on the subject of the blanket, did it just move, like with a breeze when there wasn’t one?
Hari was going to have to keep an eye on her.
After a long slow descent, the elevator ground to a halt. Unexpectedly, the door behind them opened.
Hari tapped the one that had stayed closed. “Where does this one go?”
“Just a rather large storage area where Mister Allard locked away mementoes of his life.”
“He must have a lot of mementoes.”
A nod. “That he does. I’ve only taken a quick look, but he left all sorts of things in there, including an intact autogyro.”
“An auto-what?”
“Autogyro—a two-seat precursor to the helicopter.”
Figuring that had to be one helluva storage space, Hari followed Hill out the rear door onto a platform and—
“Holy shit!” Hari cried and pressed her back against the wall. “I mean, what the fuck?”
That kind of language was not her style, but the words jumped out on their own. She noticed Barbara close beside her, eyes closed, looking a little sick. She understood perfectly.
A stone stairway led down—not against the wall, where you’d normally expect it, where any sane person would place it, but curving through the middle of the emptiness. With no handrail. Just steps, four feet wide and going down forever. Not into darkness—at lea
st they were spared that—but down and down. Flames flickered in sconces all up and down the circular wall, lighting the stairway and all the empty space around it.
“Sorry,” Hill said. “I should have warned you.”
“Ya think?” Hari said.
Despite his rugged good looks, this Burbank or Hill or whatever he was calling himself was getting on her nerves.
Barbara still had her eyes closed. “W-we have to go down there?”
“I’m afraid so,” Hill said. “I didn’t realize you were acrophobic.”
Hari forced herself to push off from the wall and take a few steps closer to the edge.
“I’m not. I don’t exactly go looking for high places, but I’m not terrified of them.”
“Same here,” Hill said. “Even though my father and grandfather were skywalkers, I—”
Ellie said, “Like in Star Wars?”
“No, like in high-steel workers. Like many Mohawks, they had no fear of heights. I didn’t inherit that.” He waved an arm above. “My grandfather helped build the Allard and hinted that it held secrets in its foundation. I’d always assumed he meant gangsters from the Roaring Twenties had found their final resting place in the concrete, but I wasn’t even close.”
“Who clued you to this?” Hari said.
“The original Burbank occupied the penthouse from its beginning in 1931 to just last December.”
Hari did a quick count. “From 1931? He must have been—”
Hill was nodding. “Yes, he died at a very ripe old age. He knew almost everything about the building and left lots of notes. I found a section of blueprint with these keys in his papers.”
“We’re wasting time,” Ellie said, hands on hips, foot tapping. “Mother, maybe you’ll feel better waiting upstairs in the lobby?”
“No!” Barbara said. She had her eyes open now but still looked a little green around the gills. “I’m…I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t put yourself through that,” Hari said. “I’ll watch out for her.”
“But who’ll watch out for you?” Barbara muttered. Before Hari could ask what she meant, Barbara added, “You all go ahead. I’ll be fine right here.”
“Sorry, Mother,” Ellie said and started down with the nonchalance of someone descending steps a dozen times wider.
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