Ana heard Lotte scream, then the report of the Luger against her chest, then nothing at all.
9:
MELPOMENE
Camille Kenny
Today
IT WOULD TAKE HER over a month to fully recover—physically, if not mentally—from what Nicolas did to her that day. She saw him only once after that: Nicolas visited her the day after their encounter to tell her, smugly, how he’d personally enjoyed Charlotte, how after he’d finished with her, he’d sent Charlotte and Alexander on to Drancy with orders for both to be shipped eastward to Auschwitz.
By the time Ana was well enough to leave the hospital, Brunner had left Nice and returned to Germany, his work done.
In early October, Lotte and Alexander had been transported to Auschwitz, where the two had been separated. As a pregnant woman, Charlotte had been sent to the gas chambers immediately; Ana would learn, later, that Alexander had survived forced labor until early 1944, when he, too, succumbed.
“Alois Brunner” vanished in April of 1945, during the Allied invasion of Germany. She was hardly surprised; Nicolas had long practice at becoming someone else at need. From that time on, they were engaged in a mutual hunt: he to torment her; she to end the torment forever.
She couldn’t allow him to escape again. She could have no mercy, no compassion for him. Not if she still was to live in this world.
“Next time I’ll have you watch your lover die first before I take care of you.” That’s what Nicolas had told her, and now he had David. She had no way to know where Nicolas had taken him, no way to find them. She called Morris with no expectation that he’d help her, afraid that he wouldn’t answer when he saw it was her cell calling. But he was the only person she knew who had actual contact with Pierce, who might have be able to offer her a clue. His phone rang four times, then she heard the click of the connection and his low voice. “What the fuck d’you want, Camille? Can’t you take a goddamn hint?”
“It’s Pierce,” she said in a rush over Morris’ profanity-laced complaints. “He’s taken David, and he’s going to kill him. I have to find them, and I don’t know where to start looking. You have to help me, Morris. Please.”
She could hear the desperation in her own voice, and, worse, she knew Morris could hear it as well. She was certain he wasn’t going to answer, that she’d hear the click of his disconnection in the long silence that followed. She heard him breathing, then a clearing of his throat.
“You’re thinking I’m gonna help you? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I don’t believe you want David to die, Morris, no matter how you feel about me.”
“Yeah?” he answered, and she thought that she might as well hang up when his voice softened slightly. “Look, Camille, I don’t know where Pierce is,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since … well, since he told me about you. He always came here to my studio; I never went to him and he certainly never told me where he’s staying now. And now, with the fucking cops watching my place, he ain’t likely to show up here again, either.” He gave a short, mocking laugh.
She felt her shoulders sag. “Pierce hasn’t picked up the sculpture? He didn’t have you send it somewhere?”
“No. It’s been cast and I’ve been going over to supervise the final construction of the pieces, but Pierce hasn’t told me where he wants it shipped yet. All I know is that he said it’d be local.” Again, there was a pause. “Camille, look, I don’t have anything more to tell you. I hope you find David, okay? If I hear from Pierce again, maybe I’ll see what I can find out.” He sounded sincere.
“Thanks,” she told him. There was nothing else to say. She had nothing more to go on than she had before. “I appreciate it.”
He didn’t answer that at all. She heard the click as he disconnected the call. She sat with the phone in her hand until she heard the recording telling her to hang up.
She waited, because she had no choice though it tore her apart to do so. A long afternoon faded slowly into a damp and dark evening. She pulled out her scrolls and began memorizing the spells and hexes there, trying to cram them into her memory. She went to the display of chemicals on their shelves and mixed several pungent and odoriferous vials. She laid out the Tarot cards on the table next to her laptop and scanned their familiar, scuffed, and faded faces, hating what the array told her: danger, trouble, despair.
At the center of the array stood the Tower card, to Camille the most frightening card of the Tarot, signifying sudden cataclysmic changes and a drastic upheaval. She went back to the chemicals and made more preparations, then finally fell asleep in a chair, exhausted and worried.
Verdette, purring on Camille’s lap, leaped up in annoyance as Camille’s computer chimed, announcing that she had e-mail. Camille pulled the laptop toward her and clicked on the Mail icon as Verdette fled the room; she didn’t recognize the sender’s name or the address in the inbox, but the subject line made her stomach lurch. David, it said simply.
Taking a long, slow breath, she clicked on the message.
She was greeted with a grainy image of David, seated in a battered old wooden chair with his hands duct-taped to the chair arms and his legs also taped together. He was staring at the camera with an expression of bewilderment on his face. Below the image, there were a few words: an address near the East River, and a warning in French—Come alone or he dies immediately. The message itself was unsigned, but it needed no signature.
She put her hands in the pocket of her jeans; her fingers touched a piece of cardboard there: Detective Palento’s business card. She pulled out the card and stared at it for a long time before dialing the number. It rang once, then went to voicemail; she listened to the short recording and Gina Palento’s gruff voice. At the beep, she nearly hung up, but gathered herself.
“Detective Palento, this is Camille Kenny. Pierce … he has David. He says he’s going to kill him if I don’t come to where he’s holding him, but I have to come alone. I want you to know, just in case …” She stopped. She could hear her breath ragged in the speaker. “Here’s the address, but please, don’t send any squad cars or Pierce will kill David. By the time you get there, it’ll probably be over, one way or another.” She gave the address, then ended the call.
Camille made certain that the Ladysmith was loaded and in her purse along with her several test tubes. She took the katana from its stand in her bedroom and wrapped it in a tablecloth. She picked up her cell phone again and dialed another number in its memory. The call went to voicemail. “Mercedes,” Camille said at the beep. “If you’re there, please pick up. I … I really could use your help.” She waited; after a few breaths, she started to press the End Call button when she heard a click and Mercedes’ cautious voice.
“Camille? What’s going on? You sound really upset.”
Camille told her quickly about Pierce’s abduction of David and the e-mail. “I’m at David’s now and I know I don’t deserve any help from you. I was going to just call a cab, but I thought … I hoped …”
Mercedes didn’t let her finish. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Just let me get dressed and I’ll drive over. I’ll honk when I’m outside.”
“Mercedes, thank you. You don’t know what this means.”
“Shut up, girl,” Mercedes answered. “You’re wasting time. Get yourself ready to go.”
Camille found Verdette and spent the time stroking her, wondering if she would see the cat again, wondering if David was still alive. He couldn’t be dead, she told herself; not yet. She would somehow know if that were the case. Nicolas wanted her to come, after all. He wanted her to witness David’s death; Nicolas would keep him alive until she was there.
When she heard the horn blare on the street outside, she hugged Verdette again, who mewled in protest. She grabbed for her purse and the katana.
“I’ll see you soon, Verdette,” she said. She hoped that wasn’t a lie.
*
“Okay, I really don’t like this,” Mercedes said.
The address was an old building on East 10th Street near Avenue D. The front was boarded up, and as Mercedes slowed her ancient Volvo to a stop across the street she shook her head, glaring at the building as if she could demolish it with her scowl. “This isn’t good, Camille,” she said. “This looks like the place where someone finds a decomposing body six months after the murder, or that’s crawling with crack addicts who would kill you for the change in your pockets. You’re sure this is where Pierce said you were to meet him?”
Camille nodded; she glanced down at the scrap of paper in her hand, then at the address spray-painted on the facade and visible in the gleam of the streetlamp. “Yeah. This is it. Drive on past—park somewhere farther up where Pierce can’t look out and see you.”
Mercedes drove to the middle of the next block and pulled over. “We should call the cops,” Mercedes persisted. That had been her plea through most of the short drive to the location. “You can’t just go in there.”
“I left a message with the detective who’s handling Helen’s murder,” Camille said, a bit wearily. “But if Pierce sees cops, he’ll just kill David immediately and he’ll get away again. Mercedes, you have no idea what the man can do. No idea. This is something I have to do myself.”
“No, you don’t. I’ll come in with you.” She didn’t sound quite so certain of that, but Camille smiled for a moment hearing her say it, even as she shook her head.
“He said ‘alone.’ That’s the way I have to do it. All I’m asking is for you to drop me off. That’s it. I don’t want to expose you to anything more.”
Mercedes scowled. “Well, I’m not a taxi and I’m not just dropping you off and leaving you,” she told Camille. “I’m staying parked here until you come back out—and if you’re not out fast enough, I really don’t give a damn what you say; I’m calling 911.”
“Don’t get involved in this, Mercedes. I don’t want you to get hurt, too.”
Mercedes sniffed. “Then why the hell did you call me? I’m already involved, or haven’t you noticed? You think your detective won’t check your phone records and see that you called me? You think she wouldn’t ask me what that call was about; you think the garage won’t tell them that right afterward I took my car out? Look, if you don’t want me to go in with you because you think that’s dangerous for David, then fine. But I’m staying here; you just need to tell me how long to wait before I call for the cavalry, because that’s what I’m going to do.”
Camille took a long breath, considering her options. If she failed, if Nicolas killed both David and her, at least there might be a chance that the police would catch Nicolas. A chance, though not much of one … “Twenty minutes,” she said. “That should be enough. And Mercedes …” Camille fumbled in her purse and pulled out a cork-topped test tube the length of her forefinger. In the faint light of the instrument panel, a thick, dark liquid moved sluggishly at the bottom. She took a pencil from the glove compartment and scribbled quickly on the address paper, handing it to Mercedes. “Can you say these words: alnar aldhahabia?”
Mercedes glanced at the paper, shrugged and repeated the phrase. Her pronunciation was poor, but the words were vaguely recognizable; Camille decided that it would have to do. “What language is this?” Mercedes asked.
“Arabic,” Camille answered. She handed Mercedes the vial. “If you see Pierce, if he starts to come toward you, throw this at his feet hard enough that the glass breaks, then speak those words while striking the fingers of your right hand in your left palm like you’re striking a rock with a piece of flint, and then run.” Camille showed Mercedes the hand motion. “Just run and don’t look back. Do you understand that?”
Mercedes took the vial gingerly, watching the liquid slosh inside. “Alnar aldhahabia,” she said again, and moved her hands in imitation of Camille. “Umm, nothing happened,” she said.
“Nothing will happen until the stuff in that tube is exposed to air,” Camille told her. “Your pronunciation was rough, but I think it’ll still work.”
“You think it’ll work …” Mercedes repeated, skeptically. “Do I want to know what’s supposed to happen?”
“I don’t think you’d believe me,” Camille answered. “Just remember those words and the gesture—the stuff inside won’t do anything without them.”
“This is some of your … magic?” She said the last word as if she were tasting a rotten lemon. “Camille, I don’t believe in magic—at least, not this kind.”
Camille allowed herself a small smile. “Do you believe in science?”
Mercedes nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then think of it as a science experiment that requires an incantational component, because that’s what it actually is. If Pierce comes after you, you’ll be glad you have it.” Camille hoped she was telling the truth; she was doubtful that Mercedes could successfully work the spell words and gesture without a lot of practice, but she couldn’t give her the Ladysmith. Mercedes gripped the test tube a little tighter. She nodded. “All right, I’m going now,” Camille said. “Twenty minutes?”
“Twenty minutes,” Mercedes repeated. “Good luck. And please be careful, Camille.”
“I’ll try.” Camille opened the door and stood in the cool night air. There was no one nearby on the street, though she saw people moving a few blocks up. She unwrapped the katana from the tablecloth and untied the strings of the saya from the weapon, placing the sheath under the belt of her jeans at her left side and shoving the strings into her pocket. She took the Ladysmith and attached the holster at the back of her right hip, then slung her purse around her shoulder so that it also lay on her right. She stared at the building; she spoke a small charm, and felt a tingling that told her, yes, Nicolas was nearby. Nicolas would certainly feel her coming as well. She crossed the street at a jog, then entered the alleyway behind the building.
The rusted fire escape she dismissed immediately—even if it would hold her weight, it would creak and groan and alert Nicolas exactly how she was approaching. There was a crude plywood door a little farther down; she went to that. The wood was tagged with swirls of blue-and-orange spray paint, and the cheap hinges bled rust down the side. The hinges looked less than functional in any case; the door was nailed shut, the nail heads also rusted and pitted. It had been a long time since someone had come in this way.
Camille rummaged among the test tubes in her purse, pulling one out. She poured the thick, pale liquid inside over the door hinges and onto each of the nail heads before capping the vial again. Tendrils of smoke curled away from the metal, and she could smell an iron tang in the air. She stepped back.
She heard the sound of footsteps as she did so, someone coming at heavy run. She turned and drew her katana from its sheath in a single fluid motion: a testament to the years she’d studied martial arts. The draw of the sword was also the attack. The blade slid hard across the oncoming attacker’s abdomen, cutting deep into the muscles and flesh there: she saw the man’s intent as he held the tire iron high over his head to strike her. Then he doubled over as she continued to turn her hips, the blade ripping out of his body with a shower of blood droplets. The tire iron clanged against the pavement, dropped from his hands. She heard her attacker gasp as he sank to his knees, doubled over.
She didn’t hesitate: this would be another of Nicolas’ dupes, thinking they were immortal. If she left him here, he might just rise again like a zombie and follow her. She stared down at the man’s back as he groaned and blood pooled on the blacktop. Let the blade do the work … Her teacher’s words. The katana hissed through the air as she sobbed, a downward-angled cut. Despite having practiced at cutting reed bundles in her study of the art, she was surprised at how easily the head separated from the body and ro
lled away, at how the body remained upright on its knees for a few seconds before toppling.
She glanced at the head which had come to rest a few feet away, its face toward her … and she recoiled in horror, cursing. She knew that face, those features: it was Kevin from the Bent Calliope Group. He was younger in appearance, his long hair ash-brown rather than touched with gray, but it was him. The mouth was open in a soundless wail, the open eyes staring at nothing. Blood drooled from his neck. “Oh, Kevin,” she said. “Why?”
But there would be no answer for that. Not now or ever.
God, please don’t let me find Morris with him, too, or any more of the others … Her vision shimmered with tears, and she blinked them away. You can’t break down now, she scolded herself. You can’t think about this at all. David needs you. Go help David.
She brought the blade around in a quick chiburi motion to fling the blood from the blade, then sheathed it. She tried not to look at the body or Kevin’s head as she moved back to the door. The acid had already done its work; the nail heads had vanished and the hinges no longer held the door to the frame. The plywood moved easily as she tugged at it, falling away from the doorframe. She caught it and lowered it to the ground; beyond was a corridor moving away into blackness. From her purse, she took a small LED flashlight and turned it on.
She entered the building.
*
She had to forget Kevin. She could deal with that guilt and grief later. She put David in her mind, and Nicolas.
Camille slid the Ladysmith from its holster; somehow the weight and bulk of the gun felt more reassuring than the spells coiled in her mind, the test tube vials still in her purse, or the newly blooded katana at her side. At the end of the dark hall, where it turned toward the front of the building, a lone, naked light bulb dangled from a cracked socket on the ceiling, illuminating stairs leading up to the second floor. There was no door at the top, only the yawning cavity of the frame with darkness beyond it, though she thought she detected the wavering, orange-yellow light of a flame flickering dimly beyond. She could smell Nicolas’ presence now: the scent of chemicals, mixed and bubbling in their glass retorts. Her own laboratories had always had the same characteristic stench.
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