Century #4: Dragon of Seas

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  “We definitely have to tell the others,” Mistral murmurs.

  “Wait, that’s not all,” Cecile says, closing the book. “Sophie ran one last test, even though it was pretty risky. Fortunately, no one noticed. She subjected the veil to reflectance spectroscopy and X-rays, plus a brief thermography. They’re tests normally done to determine how breathable new fabrics are. They detect traces of perspiration, water, bloodstains, pigments and things like that. Well, Sophie certainly wasn’t expecting the results she got.”

  “What did they say?”

  Last picture, complete with explanatory sticky notes: in the center of the cloth is an impression probably left by the dehydrating oxidation of the cellulose in the cloth’s surface cotton fibers. Mistral gasps with shock. In the center of the veil is the shape of something that looks like a giant serpent with a square head and four legs. It’s at least three yards long.

  “What do you think?”

  “How did it end up … impressed on the cloth?” Mistral says.

  “That’s what Sophie’s wondering, too. It can’t be a statue, because statues don’t perspire. But if it isn’t a statue …”

  It’s a dragon, Mistral thinks.

  But she’s too afraid to say it out loud.

  ELETTRA WAKES UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, HER HEART pounding.

  Her bedroom is dark and silent.

  She rolls over between the sheets, buries her face in the pillow. What was she dreaming about? She doesn’t remember. Something confused. Mistral was there. So was Harvey. They were being forced to sit in the backseat of a car with tinted windows. Moving past them was a city that seemed to be made only of lights. An incomprehensible city whose buildings and skyscrapers looked liquid. Like they were made of water.

  Elettra stretches in her bed, feeling a dull ache in her lower back. Tension. She keeps accumulating tension that she can’t find a way to release.

  She rolls over a second time and then a third, her eyes wide open.

  She tries to think of something comforting. Harvey’s face, for example. But no matter how hard she concentrates, she can’t picture his features clearly in her mind.

  Elevator, she thinks, perking up her ears. Who’s using the elevator at this time of night?

  Elettra rubs her eyes, trying to remember: she went up to her aunt’s room, then she went straight to bed, without watching TV or opening the book she was supposed to read for school over summer vacation. She looks for the alarm clock.

  Three in the morning. Impossible. No one could be awake at this hour. In fact, everything is quiet. She must’ve been dreaming.

  But instead, she hears it again: a distant hum, the counterweight activating as the elevator car begins to descend. Elettra listens carefully. Whoever’s using the elevator at three in the morning, they’re going down to the dining room. A guest who got in late? Her father going for a midnight snack? Or Aunt Irene who’s not feeling well?

  Elettra slips out of bed, looks for the pair of purple-and-lilac-striped socks she wears instead of slippers, slowly opens the bedroom door and, when she sees a dim light moving by at the end of the hall, runs to the other end of it in the blink of an eye. Her nightgown flows like a shadow past the grated windows that overlook the courtyard.

  Whirrr …

  Whirrr …

  The hotel is full of creaks and the noises old houses make. Woodworms in the furniture that escaped Aunt Linda’s savage disinfestations, wooden beams shifting, floorboards groaning for no apparent reason. Old things love to let it be known that they’re still alive.

  When she reaches the dining room, Elettra hides behind the big credenza that her aunt Linda would cover with white doilies and pile high with cakes and pastries for breakfast but is now just a dark, ominous-looking piece of furniture. She’s just in time to glimpse a shaft of white light that’s crept into the room through the elevator’s wrought iron door before the little elevator car disappears. And since the dining room is on the ground floor, the only possible direction it could’ve gone is up. Toward the bedrooms.

  And so, Elettra crosses the dining room, reaches the stairs and peers up. Beside her are the reception desk and the basement door, which is hidden behind some neglected-looking houseplants. She doesn’t hear footsteps in the hallways, so Elettra climbs a few steps to take a better look. But no matter how high up she goes and how carefully she listens, she doesn’t hear the customary creak of the wrought iron door opening and closing or the sound of keys unlocking the door to a room.

  In fact, she discovers that the elevator didn’t stop on the second floor. Or even the third.

  Impossible, Elettra thinks. It can’t have disappeared.

  And yet, total darkness reigns in the third-floor hallway, where she can hear their German guest snoring steadily.

  Elettra hurries back down to the dining room. But there’s no trace of the elevator here, either.

  And the Domus Quintilia doesn’t have any other floors, above or below.

  It’s dark, I’m stressed and my mind is just playing a nasty trick on me, Elettra tells herself. It’s here somewhere. I just can’t see it.

  And yet …

  She’s tempted to make another round of the hotel’s floors but holds back. Instead, she walks past the breakfast credenza with the intention of going back to her room and trying to fall asleep. But halfway down the hallway, she stops.

  Bewildered.

  She stares straight ahead at her bedroom door, which is still ajar, but out of the corner of her eye she’s noticed something unusual outside the window. Something very unusual.

  In the old well in the center of the courtyard, a light has gone on.

  The minute Harvey walks into the intercontinental terminal of the airport in New York, he looks for his check-in desk. Number fourteen. He waits in line, has his ID checked and his wheeled suitcase sent directly to Shanghai. His only carry-on luggage is his backpack, which contains a book and the sealed documents his father asked him to hand-deliver to him. His backpack is passed through an X-ray machine before the boarding gates, while he, in jeans, double T-shirt, wool sweater, is frisked. He also needs to take off his shoes and have them pass through an X-ray machine before he can go any farther.

  He sighs and makes sure his toothbrush is still in his shaving kit.

  So far, so good, he thinks, stopping to tie his shoelaces.

  While he’s waiting for his flight to start boarding, he stands at the windows and stares at the landing strips that welcome planes from all over the world. He tries to guess which one is his and looks around for a couple of comfortable chairs, texts Sheng to let him know he’ll be landing at the Shanghai airport in eight hours, sends a second text to Elettra and, after a moment’s hesitation, writes to Mistral, too.

  He doesn’t tell his friends what his real plans are. He just lets them know that once he gets to Shanghai, he’ll go see his father first and then meet up with them to … try to do something.

  Harvey isn’t sure he’s made the best choice, but he’s happy he made up his mind. It was a tough, hard decision, but he’s learned to live with the responsibility of having to do tough, hard things. He’s learned to accept his own unusual characteristics, which set him apart from other kids his age. No other boy can hear the Earth talking to him. Or hold a dead plant in his hand and see it spring back to life and grow before his very eyes.

  An announcement over the PA and the formation of a long line of people show that they’re starting to board. Harvey gets in line, hands over his ticket and passport, follows the flight attendant’s directions, picks up a copy of the New York Times from the mountain of free newspapers, finds seat 14E and sits down. He tucks his backpack under his seat so his book will be easy to reach during the flight, switches off his cell phone after checking if any of his friends have replied, fastens his seat belt and opens the newspaper, skipping all the articles about politics. He scans down the pages with the same lack of enthusiasm as someone thumbing through a comic book they’ve alr
eady read or a women’s magazine in a men’s barbershop.

  “Excuse me …”

  Harvey lowers his paper. A woman who looks like she could fit the role of a cantankerous teacher in a cartoon is asking if she can get through. Harvey unbuckles his seat belt, gets up, smiles as he lets her take her seat and opens the paper again. The woman starts to grapple with her seat belt.

  “Dammit,” Harvey says, making her turn to look at him.

  The article is brief, just a few lines long. THE BRONX. FIRE IN GYM.

  Harvey reads it all in a flash.

  “Dammit!” he bursts out again when he learns that the gym in question is Olympia’s. His gym.

  The woman in the next seat glares at him, but Harvey doesn’t have time for formalities. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket and turns it on. He looks through his contacts for Olympia’s number and calls her.

  “You can’t keep your cell phone on during takeoff,” the woman in 14F points out.

  Harvey turns the other way. “Pick up,” he says as he listens to the slow succession of rings. “Come on, Olympia, pick up.”

  When his boxing trainer answers on the fifth ring, he can finally breathe again.

  “It’s Harvey. I read the news in the paper. What happened?”

  “Harvey! I tried calling you at home! Where are you?”

  “On a plane for Shanghai. I just boarded and … darn it, can’t you sit still one minute?” he snaps at the woman next to him, who’s trying to get up.

  Meanwhile, Olympia says over the phone, “You’ve got to be careful! It was those damn women.”

  “What women?” Harvey asks. Then he shouts, “The ones from Lucifer? Nose’s women?”

  The woman next to him waves her arm to catch the flight attendant’s attention.

  “Exactly. They dumped gasoline all over the gym and set fire to it. When no one was there training, luckily,” Olympia says.

  “How can you be so sure it was them?”

  “They called me at home to let me know.”

  Harvey’s head is spinning: the women working for Egon Nose, the man who was sent in to track them down in New York. The lord of nightclubs.

  “Nose got out of prison, Harvey,” Olympia goes on. “Three days ago. And he didn’t waste any time. This was only a warning. For us … and for you. Is there anyone at your place?”

  “Just … my mom,” Harvey whispers.

  “Warn her. Warn her right away! It could be dangerous!”

  Harvey ends the call, dazed. He calls his home number.

  “Excuse me, sir,” says a kind voice above him. “You need to turn off your phone.”

  Harvey looks up at the flight attendant, but he’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t even see her.

  The line is free. One ring. Two rings. Three rings.

  “Sir,” the flight attendant says again, “I need to ask you to hang up.”

  Harvey raises his palm defensively and holds up his finger, motioning for her to wait a second, it’s important.

  Four rings. Five rings.

  On the sixth, the answering machine picks up. “This is the Miller residence. We’re not at home right now. Leave a message after—”

  Harvey almost loses his grip on the phone. From her seat, the woman in 14F reaches over and snatches it out of his hand. “That’s enough, young man!”

  “Gimme my phone back, now! It’s important!” Harvey protests.

  But the cantankerous woman snaps it shut and hands it to the flight attendant. “Here, you keep it. And don’t worry, miss. I’m a math teacher. I know how to handle troublemakers like him.”

  Harvey is dumbstruck. He’d love to tell her off and take back his phone, but he doesn’t have the strength to do anything: he sits there, perfectly still, as if paralyzed, staring at the wings of the plane as they begin to shudder over the runway.

  Egon Nose got out of prison.

  And he’s really angry.

  AN INTERCONTINENTAL PHONE CALL PIERCES THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE to be picked up and relayed by a private satellite in orbit over the skies of China.

  “Heremit,” a voice replies.

  “Heh, heh, heh, old boy!” Dr. Nose exclaims. “It’s a voice from the grave!”

  “Egon.”

  “Always in an excellent mood, aren’t you?” says the old owner of Lucifer. His voice brims with tension. “Want me to tell you how I’ve been over the last few months?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you happy to hear from an old friend?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Heh, heh, heh! Heremit! You surprise me. You think I called just to say hello? That wouldn’t be my style, don’t you think? My style is elegant. Sober. High-class. Oh, I’m sorry you can’t see me on your monitors … but as you know, things have changed and I haven’t had the chance to equip my new office with all those electronic contraptions you like so much. So you’ll have to make do with hearing my voice.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I have good news for you. Heh, heh, heh!”

  Silence.

  “First: I had Olympia’s gym burnt down. But I don’t think you’re interested in that. Let’s just say I did it mostly to … reestablish my priorities. Second: I’m about to do the same thing to your boy’s house.”

  “Stop.”

  “Stop?” Egon Nose protests, his big nose trembling. “I can’t stop! Not after what they did to me. Besides, you certainly can’t stop me.”

  “I’m the one who had you released, Egon.”

  “Heh, heh, heh! Of course, Heremit. You got me out of prison and I’m grateful to you. But may I remind you that you also got me in there, thanks to your orders: get my hands on a top and follow a boy from Grove Court … who, coincidentally, just left town.”

  “When?”

  “Half an hour ago.”

  Silence.

  “You still there, Heremit?”

  “Do what you want, Nose. New York is no longer my concern.”

  With this, the conversation ends. Heremit Devil has other things on his mind. Things that are unfolding. And things that don’t add up.

  Harvey left town. To meet with the others in Shanghai, no doubt. But where? There’s only one thing Heremit hasn’t yet learned: the Chinese boy’s identity.

  The man paces his office on the second-to-top floor of his tall building and stares at the city spread out on the other side of the picture windows, trying to decide what to do. Then he picks up the phone again.

  “Mademoiselle Cybel,” he says in a low voice, hanging up a second later.

  Various objects are lined up on his desk.

  “The Ring of Fire,” he says, going down the list as he strokes the object also called Prometheus’s Mirror. It’s a fragment of an ancient mirror set in a frame that can’t be more than a hundred years old. Possible, Heremit thinks. Its original frame might have broken. And the more recent one must have been designed to fit into the statue of Prometheus at New York’s Rockefeller Center.

  “The Star of Stone,” Heremit continues. An ancient, primordial rock. A rock that’s hollow, like a vase.

  “And then Paris …,” Heremit murmurs. The object from Paris is an old wooden ship.

  Why a wooden ship? he’s been wondering for weeks now. And how are these three objects connected?

  Next to the ship are six ancient wooden tops. Heremit runs his fingertip along their delicate engravings: dog, tower, whirlpool, eye … those are the ones that were in Professor Van Der Berger’s possession; rainbow, which was in the antiques dealer Vladimir Askenazy’s possession; skull, which has been in Heremit’s family’s possession.

  “A hundred years,” Heremit Devil says aloud. “These objects are useful only once every hundred years. The mirror, the stone, the ship and, finally …”

  The underground level of his skyscraper.

  Zoe told Heremit that last time, in the early 1900s, the objects weren’t found. Therefore, game over. The universe turned, the stars moved.
And they had to wait another hundred years.

  “But today,” Heremit Devil murmurs, “the objects should all be here.”

  The elevator opens with a whoosh.

  “Is something the matter, my dear? Is something the matter?” the mammoth Mademoiselle Cybel asks, gliding across the room in her flashy white-and-blue-flowered dress and butterfly-shaped glasses. Without waiting for a reply, she goes over to one of the two chairs in Heremit’s office and sits down on it with unexpected grace. “You asked for me?”

  The man doesn’t turn around to look at her. He concentrates, as much as possible, on the objects on his desk. Finally, he breaks the silence. “I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand, Heremit, dear? What?”

  The man sits down in his chair. “I need the kids.”

  “Ah,” Mademoiselle Cybel remarks, straightening her glasses. Then something crosses her mind and she takes them off, pulls a little mirrored compact out of her purse and checks her makeup. “You said that—”

  “I know what I said.”

  Cybel snaps the compact shut, satisfied. No lipstick smudges on her cheeks. “As you like, dear, as you like. Let’s go get them, then. Do you still have someone in New York?”

  “Miller is already on his way to Shanghai.”

  “Then we can get Mistral Blanchard.” The woman chuckles. “From what I know, she’s probably at home. Or taking those singing lessons of hers. I’ll send someone at once, if you like.”

  Heremit Devil doesn’t respond.

  “I think we’ll need someone in Rome, too, for our Little Miss Electrical Current.”

  Heremit Devil has perfectly combed hair. Black Bakelite glasses that frame his eyes. He wears a dark Korean jacket buttoned all the way up.

  “Yes,” he says.

  But something off-key lurks in that single syllable.

  “NOT BAD, MADEMOISELLE BLANCHARD, NOT BAD AT ALL! YOU’RE my finest student!” Mistral says, laughing, as she lies on her bed in her room.

  She’s changed clothes and now wears a sweat suit with tiny light blue flowers. She’s opened a notebook, the kind she uses to write down everything that happens to her, and is sketching Professor François Ganglof’s face. If she closes her eyes and thinks back to the audition, she can still feel her legs trembling. She was certain she got a number of notes wrong. And that her voice was too sharp, shrill, almost unpleasant. She was nervous, of course, but the professor told her, “Emotions are vital, Mademoiselle Blanchard. That is what one must convey when singing. The world is full of fine singers. Excellent singers. Powerful voices with perfect intonation. But not voices full of emotion.”