The Inquisitor's Apprentice

by Chris Moriarty

  "Will you warn him?" Sacha asked.

  "If I can get to him in time. But he won't listen. He's stubborn that way."

  Rosie raced across the stage, which was still alive with the bustle of stagehands setting up before the curtain rose. It was the strangest set Sacha had ever seen. On one side sprawled the etherograph in a chaotic bird's nest of wires and switches and clamps and insulated footings. On the other side hulked Houdini's Water Torture Cell with its massive padlocks and its threatening glimmer of bulletproof plate glass. The two mechanisms seemed to be facing off across the empty stage like duelists getting ready to aim their pistols at each other.

  Sacha and Lily scanned the audience, trying to find Wolf in the crowd. But the only familiar faces they saw were those of Commissioner Keegan and J. P. Morgaunt—both sitting right in the middle of the front row so that there was no way to get into the audience without going past them.

  "Houdini's our best chance," Lily said. "At least we know where he is. And even if we can spot Wolf in the crowd, we'd never be able to reach him without Morgaunt seeing us."

  Suddenly a ripple of excitement coursed through the audience. The curtain rose and Houdini swept onto the stage, flanked by half a dozen burly bodyguards.

  Lily sighed. "So much for that."

  While Lily was gazing forlornly after Houdini, Sacha was squinting into the wings, where he could have sworn he'd seen something moving in the shadows.

  Sure enough, he heard a faint noise that he would never have noticed if some part of him hadn't already been listening for it. And off in the gloom he caught a glimpse of the thing he'd been expecting and fearing to see ever since they'd slipped into the theater: a dark, slim, boy-sized shadow.

  The dybbuk must have seen Sacha too, because it vanished around a corner as soon as he glanced toward it.

  He turned, meaning to call out to Lily. But she had already set off to find Wolf, leaving him alone. If he followed her, he would lose sight of the dybbuk—and lose what might be his last chance to stop it before it got to Edison. If he called out to her, he'd bring every guard and policeman in the building down on top of them. And then the dybbuk would get to Edison anyway.

  So Sacha did the only thing he could think of to do.

  He followed the dybbuk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Seeing the Elephant

  THE WINGS OF the theater smelled like wet paint and sawdust. Lights swayed overhead, suspended on creaking hemp ropes as thick as Sacha's arm. Canvas backdrops bellied from their riggings like the sails of clipper ships.

  Someone whistled overhead. Sacha started in surprise—and then realized it was just a set rigger or spotlight operator whistling out instructions in the sailors' code that stagehands used. When he squinted up into the rafters, he could just see the catwalk where two riggers manned the powerful spotlights that would follow every move Edison and Houdini made onstage.

  The dybbuk slipped swiftly through the shadows, as if it knew exactly where it was going. Sacha was hard-pressed to follow without giving himself away. They crossed behind the stage, with only the flimsy backdrop between them and the audience. The band stopped playing. Edison and Rosie stepped onstage, outlined against the backlit canvas like cut paper silhouettes. As he crept along behind the dybbuk, Sacha heard Edison play a sample cylinder on the etherograph and go into his salesman's patter. Sacha barely listened; he was too busy wondering where Wolf was and why he wasn't putting a stop to this madness.

  Finally he reached a vantage point where he could look out over the footlights and into the audience. He saw Lily moving down the aisle, looking nervous but determined. She hadn't found Wolf yet, and she couldn't search much more of the crowd without Morgaunt or Keegan catching sight of her. Sacha could have cursed in frustration.

  The dybbuk was so close to the stage now that a few steps would reveal it to the audience. As Sacha peered cautiously from behind a pile of stage props, the creature raised its head and the light played along the side of its face. Sacha gasped. This wasn't the vague, smoky shadow he'd grappled with only a few hours ago. Now the dybbuk looked like a real boy—a boy that any witness would swear on his life was Sacha Kessler.

  The dybbuk strode over to a spindly wrought-iron ladder and began climbing up into the rigging. Sacha hesitated, but he couldn't risk losing sight of the creature. Whenever it struck, he had to be there to stop it. He steeled his nerve and began climbing.

  Balconies branched off the ladder at regular intervals, but the dybbuk never so much as looked at them. It was headed for the catwalk, where it could lurk unseen over Edison's head—in the perfect position to kill him whenever Morgaunt gave the final signal.

  When Sacha reached the catwalk, it was all he could do to step out onto it. There were no railings to speak of, and the narrow walkway was littered with coiled ropes, unused winches, and disemboweled floodlights that looked like they'd been abandoned halfway through some complicated repair.

  Far below, Sacha could see the top of Edison's head moving around the stage as he demonstrated the workings of the etherograph. Rosie was down there too; the spangles on her costume twinkled like the lights on the Luna Park roller coaster. Down in the orchestra pit Sacha could see the shiny bald spot of the flutist winking up at him as the man nodded and swayed to the beat of the latest show tunes. And on the far side of the stage Houdini now waited, dwarfed by the ominous bulk of the Water Torture Cell.

  At last it was Houdini's turn. He stepped forward, his spotlight following him as smoothly as if it were tied to him by an invisible wire.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Houdini cried in a voice that carried clear to the rafters, "there is nothing supernatural about the Chinese Water Torture Cell—or in the methods I shall use to escape from it. The bottom and three of the walls are hewn from solid mahogany. In front, as you can see, is a single sheet of specially tempered plate glass. May I invite a few distinguished members of the audience to step onstage and inspect it? Commissioner Keegan? Mayor Mobbs? And might I be so bold as to ask Mr. James Pierpont Morgaunt to step onstage as well?"

  Down in the audience, Sacha saw the mayor, the police commissioner, and Morgaunt rise to their feet, looking like they'd rather be anywhere but onstage with Edison and Houdini.

  "Will you gentlemen kindly examine the apparatus and inform the audience of the results of your inspection?"

  Sacha could hear only vague embarrassed mutterings from the mayor and the police commissioner. But Morgaunt's voice rang out firm and clear into the hushed theater.

  "Solid as a bank vault," the Wall Street Wizard announced. "No trick ... or no trick that I can see, anyway."

  Houdini stood before the Water Torture Cell while a crew of mackintosh-clad firemen dragged heavy fire hoses onstage from both sides of the wings and began filling the tank with water.

  "As you can see," Houdini announced, "I have dispensed with the silk curtain that usually hides the Water Torture Cell from view during my escape. Every move I make and every breath I take—or rather don't take—once I am lowered into the water, will be in full view of the audience. Mr. Edison has insisted upon this point in order to rule out even the slightest suspicion of a hoax. Of course, it will be absolutely impossible to obtain air once inside the Water Torture Cell. Should anything go wrong, my assistant will be standing by with a fire ax to break the glass and release the water." Houdini smiled. "In which event, I regret to inform you that some of the ladies in the front row may get a little wet."

  Another scattering of laughter moved across the audience and faded into nervous silence. They were hooked. They stared at the Water Torture Cell with queasy awe as the water rose behind the plate glass. It was one thing to hear about the trick and wonder how Houdini pulled it off. But it was quite another thing to watch another human being willingly brave what looked like almost certain death.

  The dybbuk was all the way out in the center of the catwalk by now, directly over Edison's head. Sacha watched, horror-struck, as the creature laid one
hand on a massive spotlight casing. The thing must weigh a hundred pounds. Dropped from this height, it would be as deadly as a bullet.

  So what was the dybbuk waiting for?

  Then Sacha understood. The dybbuk was waiting for Houdini to perform his escape so Edison could announce the results of the etherograph. Morgaunt wanted every single pair of eyes riveted on Edison when the dybbuk killed him. All the other assassination attempts had just been setting the stage for this one. Tonight every leading citizen and newspaper reporter in New York would see Sacha Kessler, Maximillian Wolf's apprentice and the son and grandson of Kabbalists, kill Thomas Edison right in front of their eyes.

  Morgaunt's strategy unfolded in Sacha's mind with all the stark elegance of moves played out on a chessboard. Edison's death would unleash a witch-hunt that would make millions for Pentacle Industries. Sacha would be branded a murderer. It would be pathetically easy to link Harry Houdini to a conspiracy to kill Edison. If Morgaunt played it right, Wolf might even end up in prison alongside Sacha.

  It was all going to happen now. And the only person who could stop it was Sacha.

  He measured the distance between himself and the dybbuk. He wished he were closer. Yet he knew he couldn't risk creeping forward. If he moved now, he would only put the creature on its guard.

  Then the dybbuk turned, as if drawn by some invisible thread, and looked straight into Sacha's eyes. Magic pulsed around them. Sacha knew that it was Morgaunt trying to control the dybbuk from the audience. But he knew something else too, something that he just might be able to use.

  Morgaunt couldn't really control the dybbuk. It wasn't a tool. It was a half-tamed animal. No punishment Morgaunt could inflict on the dybbuk was worse than watching the thief walk free under the sun. And no reward Morgaunt could offer was greater than the chance to devour Sacha.

  Onstage, Houdini's assistants had bound his ankles with chains and padlocks and were lowering him into the Water Torture Cell. The band struck up the chorus of "Asleep in the Watery Deep" for what seemed like the fortieth time that night, and Sacha wondered why he'd ever liked the song in the first place.

  "Come on!" Sacha taunted. "What are you waiting for?"

  The dybbuk hesitated. Then it took a single step toward Sacha. It wasn't much. But it was enough to bring him just within reach. Sacha leaped toward the dybbuk, spreading his arms wide to tackle it.

  He never got there.

  Just as Sacha flung himself toward the dybbuk, a second shadow burst onto the catwalk, caught Sacha in a flying tackle, and brought him crashing down onto the metal grating.

  As they grappled with each other, Sacha caught horrifying flashes of the drop below them. It took longer to get a good look at the face of his opponent. When he finally did, he could have screamed in frustration.

  "Antonio! What are you doing? Can't you see they're about to kill Thomas Edison?"

  "I don't care about Edison! You killed my father! You think I'm going to let you live?"

  "I didn't kill him!" Sacha gasped. But Antonio wasn't listening.

  The fight was over almost before it started. There was no room on the narrow catwalk to use any of the moves Shen had taught Sacha, and Antonio was an experienced street fighter. In one breath, Sacha realized he was completely outclassed. In the next breath, he was lying on his back and Antonio was kneeling on his elbows and throttling him.

  Then the dybbuk came up behind Antonio and laid a hand on his head.

  It was a gentle, familiar, almost friendly touch. It looked as if the dybbuk were ruffling Antonio's hair. It reminded Sacha eerily of the way his own mother used to wake him when she came home from Pentacle to find that he'd fallen asleep at the kitchen table over his homework.

  But then Sacha saw something that made his stomach turn. When the dybbuk had touched Lily after the summoning, it had looked like it was pulling something out of her. Now, however, the dybbuk was putting something into Antonio. Sacha could see it more clearly than he'd ever seen any other magic in his life. Antonio's grief and anger had created an empty place inside him, and the dybbuk was filling it up like a dentist filling a cavity. Except that what the dybbuk was pouring into Antonio was so black and dead and rotten that Sacha knew it would eat away at him from the inside until there was nothing left of him.

  "No!" Sacha shouted over the din of the music below. "Leave him alone!"

  The dybbuk raised its pale face to stare at Sacha.

  "If you're going to take anyone," he said in a shaking voice that sounded like someone else's, "take me."

  As if Sacha's words had been an invitation, an oily darkness began to swirl around the dybbuk. It welled up like fetid water flooding from a broken sewer and poured into Sacha, scouring away every memory of joy and warmth and happiness.

  He felt the shadow ripple and rise within him. He felt the dybbuk rummage through his thoughts and take possession of the secret places of his heart. He watched with a curious sort of detachment as the final moment approached—the moment when everything human in him would flare and gutter and snuff out like a spent candle.

  Then he felt a stabbing pain like nothing he'd ever known in his life—and after that, only darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Admission to the Burning Ruins 10 Cents

  WHEN SACHA opened his eyes, the dybbuk was gone. He looked down at his chest and saw blood. Then he looked up and saw Antonio standing over him, clutching a kitchen knife.

  "I didn't mean to cut you that bad," Antonio said. "I only meant to chase out that... thing."

  "By stabbing me? And if you had that knife, why didn't you use it when you were actually trying to kill me?"

  "I remembered something my mother said about pain driving out evil spirits. And I was going to stab you, but it seemed kind of ... well ... unfair."

  Sacha stared at the other boy, dumbfounded. Then he burst out laughing. "You followed me all the way here in order to kill me, and then you didn't want to use a knife because you thought it wouldn't be fair? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard!"

  "I'm silly?" Antonio asked incredulously. "I'm not the one who just offered to let that thing eat me for dinner!" He shuddered. "Do you think it's really gone?"

  "I don't know," Sacha admitted. "I hope so."

  He lifted his shirt gingerly and tried to see where all the blood was coming from. It wasn't as bad as he'd expected. The knife had skipped along his ribs, and though the cut was long and ugly, it wasn't deep. He obviously wasn't going to die of it. It just felt like he was.

  "I don't want to scare you or anything," Antonio said, glancing over Sacha's shoulder. "But I think we should leave."

  "We can't!" Sacha struggled to his feet. "Morgaunt won't just give up because you chased the dybbuk off. He'll have a backup plan."

  "Uh ... I think I already know what it is."

  Sacha followed Antonio's gaze and saw that the spotlight operators had now left their posts and were moving around behind the painted canvas backdrop.

  "What are they doing?"

  Antonio gave him a pitying look. "What do people usually do with matches and kerosene?"

  The flames began to catch and swell, licking their way up the backdrop. As Sacha watched, he realized that this was just a diversion. Morgaunt was rearranging the chessboard so that Wolf would have to make the moves he'd planned for him. But it didn't matter. The theater was a firetrap, and it was packed to the gills. There was only one decent thing to do—even if it was exactly what Morgaunt wanted them to do.

  He raised his head, cupped his hands around his lips, and shouted, "Fire!"

  At first no one noticed. The audience was still too focused on Houdini's mortal struggle. Then Sacha saw the white circle of a woman's face staring up at them. Her mouth opened, and her eyes grew wide with terror, and she started screaming.

  Onstage, a fireman grabbed the ax next to the Water Torture Cell and smashed the plate glass, freeing Houdini—and several hundred gallons of water, which actually came in pretty handy
under the circumstances. Houdini rose to the occasion. And so did Edison, in his own decidedly odd way. In seconds, Houdini had cast off his manacles and begun pushing, dragging, and carrying people toward the exits. Edison, on the other hand, had eyes only for his etherograph. Instead of running for the exit like everyone else, he tried to save his precious prototype.

  Meanwhile, Sacha and Antonio were making the slow, painful climb down to safety. Antonio reached the bottom first and helped Sacha down the last few rungs. Finally they were both standing on solid ground. They turned to make their way out through the rising flames—and found themselves face-to-face with a burly fireman in full battle dress.

  "This is no place for kids!" he told them. "Let's get you out of here!"

  Sacha went limp with relief, half collapsing against Antonio. But then, right before their horrified eyes, the man changed.

  There was nothing you could put your finger on, no clear moment when he stopped being himself and became someone else. But Sacha could see the magic flaring and spitting around him. And there was no mistaking that steely blue flame—or the hard-as-steel voice that emerged the next time the fireman opened his mouth.

  "Come along, boys!" Morgaunt sounded almost cheerful—and Sacha didn't even want to think about what would make a man like Morgaunt cheerful. "I've got a job for you."

  He marched off, and Sacha and Antonio were forced to follow him, though Sacha couldn't have said for his life whether it was magic that compelled them or sheer physical terror.

  "Is that the real killer?" Antonio whispered.

  Sacha nodded.

  "Then I guess it's him I should have been shooting at."

  "Where is that gun, anyway?" Sacha couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before.

  Antonio looked shamefaced. "My mother took it. She wanted me to stay home and cry like a girl instead of doing what a proper son should."

  "And right she was," Morgaunt interrupted, shocking both of them. "Your father was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got caught in the machinery. Only a fool would throw away his future to avenge an accident."