Chapter 28
28
A listair wanted to run the whole way to the apartment hotel, but forced himself to keep pace with Wanda’s rapid walk. Rushing ahead wouldn’t do any good; he didn’t even know where in the hotel Sam might be.
At least if Johnston had brought him here, it meant he wasn’t going to kill Sam out of hand. He clung tight to the thought.
They reached the lobby within a few minutes. The restaurant adjacent to it had closed, and few other people were about. Alistair hurried across the marble floor to the telephone and switches on one wall. He scanned the list, hoping to see Johnston’s name, or another he recognized.
“Three-oh-six, V. Nagorski,” he read aloud. “Fur and feathers. Johnston must plan on confronting him about Bobby’s murder.”
“We need to get through the door,” Doris said, nodding to the door separating the lobby from the stairs and elevator.
Alistair cast about. “Is there a fire ax?”
“No need to get the police called on us for chopping down a door,” Philip said. His pale hair gleamed in the lobby lights. “Just be a little patient.”
Alistair started to point out they had no time left, but fell silent when the door to the street opened and two young flappers came in. Both walked a little unsteadily, leaning on one another and giggling as they wove through the lobby.
“Just watch,” Philip said with a smile.
He strolled over to the girls as though he knew them. “It’s been so long since we last shared an elevator,” he exclaimed warmly. “How have you been?”
They looked at him with puzzlement, but either were embarrassed to admit they couldn’t recall him, or else so drunk they thought maybe they did. After a few moments of easy chatter, the sort Philip excelled at, they moved to the door to the elevator. One of the girls put her hand on it and spoke an activation phrase; the embedded hex in the lock flashed and there came a click.
Still chatting, Philip politely reached past her and held the door open for both of them, then casually stepped in after. Alistair quickly slipped behind him, holding the door open in turn for Wanda, Doris, and Reinhold. Holly remained in the lobby to keep lookout.
Philip kept up the banter with the flappers on the elevator, until they reached the third floor and slipped off. Wanda passed a generous tip to the elevator operator, who tipped his cap as the elevator doors rattled shut.
“See?” Philip said to Alistair. “Much less noticeable than chopping down a door, don’t you think?”
Alistair ignored him, hurrying down the hall to 306. He raised his hand to knock, then on impulse tried the door.
The knob turned easily, unlocked.
Philip, Doris and Wanda all immediately shifted into animal shape. Reinhold flattened himself against the wall. All but holding his breath, Alistair flung the door open and charged through.
His foot caught on Johnston’s body, nearly sending him to the ground. Biting back a shout, he looked around the room, alert to any threats. Besides Johnston, there was a dead man he didn’t recognize…no, wait, he did. He’d seen him at the hexworks the day Fabiano’s people shot up the place. O’Brien.
“Sam?” Alistair shouted. There was no reply.
Wanda growled as she entered, then shifted back to human shape. “What the hell happened here?”
“I don’t know.” Alistair stepped through to the kitchenette, found it empty, then tried the bedroom and bath. All lay silent and dark, all signs of trouble restricted to the main room.
More importantly, there was no Nagorski. And no Sam.
“Johnston brought Sam here to confront Nagorski,” he said, thinking aloud. “Nagorski might have killed him—or maybe it was this other guy, who Nagorski then killed. Or he shot both of them and took Sam somewhere.”
“Trying to get to safety?” Philip guessed. “Do you think they went to one of Sullivan’s joints looking for protection?”
Alistair pressed his fingers against his temples. Why hadn’t he bonded with Sam, why? He could have just reached out through the bond, looked through Sam’s eyes, known everything that was happening.
He’d tried, a treacherous voice in his head reminded him. He’d made the offer the night of the party, and Sam rejected him. Then told him Nagorski hadn’t given him a choice. But what if Sam was just saying that, what if it was what he’d wanted, he just didn’t want to hurt Alistair’s feelings?
No. No, he couldn’t believe that. “Nagorski is up to something,” he said. “He pressured Sam to agree to bond with him, by hanging the cure of his mother over his head.”
“That’s what you were arguing about earlier,” Doris said.
“Yeah.” Alistair paced around the room, looking for anything that might tell him if his guess was right or wrong. “Johnston brought Sam here. Nagorski killed him. Sam was supposed to meet Nagorski tomorrow morning, down in Jackson Park. Maybe Nagorski figured there was no reason to wait, and he took Sam there tonight.”
“Or Sam went willingly,” Philip pointed out.
“Either way, we’ve got a dead prohee.” Wanda scowled at Johnston. “We should let Sullivan know.”
“I don’t care! We have to find Sam!” Alistair clenched his hands into fists. “Nagorski is up to something, and it isn’t good. We have to find them and…I don’t know. Put a stop to it.”
Philip frowned. “Doesn’t that mean Sam’s mother will die?”
“Damn it, trust me on this!”
Doris had gone to peer at O’Brien’s body. “One problem. We have no idea where they are.”
“Sam was supposed to meet him at Jackson Park.” Alistair inspected the room again, and one of the framed photos on the wall caught his eye.
It showed a group of four people standing in front of a hotel, all wearing clothes from a long-gone era. Two children and two adults; he guessed the youngest boy was probably Nagorski. The hotel marquee behind them read The Columbian Hotel .
“There.” He stabbed a finger at it. “The Columbian. It’s near Jackson Park, was built for the World’s Fair.”
“One of the few remaining structures, if I recall,” Wanda said, coming to his side for a closer look.
“That’s where he took Sam,” Alistair said, staring at the photograph as though he could pass through it and find Sam. “It must be.”
Philip and Doris both looked skeptical. “And if it isn’t?” Wanda asked.
If he was wrong, if they couldn’t find Sam, Nagorski would go through with whatever he had planned. He’d be Sam’s familiar, bonded for life.
Which meant Sullivan would be gunning for them both. Probably the government as well, if word about who murdered Johnston got out.
He tried his best to block the thought from his mind. “Let’s get the truck.”
Sam screamed at the sight of Bobby’s eyes boring desperately into his. He stumbled back, caught his foot on a chair, and fell heavily to the ground.
Vic hurried to him. “Sam! It’s all right!”
“It isn’t!” He couldn’t look away from the mutilated form. “What have you done?”
Vic crouched beside him. “Sam, think. He was spying on me to sell secrets to Fabiano. Young as he was, and already driven by nothing but greed. As doomed and useless as all those people we reviled at Sullivan’s party.”
Sam wanted to object, say he hadn’t reviled anyone, but no words would come.
“I saw his corruption and I purified him,” Vic went on, his voice as steady and calm as when he’d been discussing hexmaking back in the lab. “Now he can serve a grander purpose. We’ll take him to the distiller in the ball room and boil him in quicksilver. Don’t worry—I have gas masks to protect us from any fumes.”
That was the last thing Sam was worried about, but he could only stare aghast at Vic as he talked.
“We use the final hex”—Vic took it out of his pocket and held it up— “and the distillate will be the elixir of life. There will only be enough for one person—a life for a life. That’s why I wanted to do it here; otherwise, Sullivan would take it for his son and leave you with nothing. This way, you can use it to save your mother.”
Sam’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. “I…this is…”
“Shh.” Vic put a finger to his lips, and Sam jerked back. “We can repeat the process anytime we need, now that we know how. Sullivan won’t get his filthy hands on it—I burned all my notes, everything from the lab in Paris, and set fire to the hexworks earlier this evening to make doubly sure. But don’t worry—it’s all up here.” He pointed to his own head. “We’ll leave Chicago, go somewhere else we can set up a new lab in anonymity. Create the elixir again, once for each of us. After that, there will be no age, no disease, no death. Just imagine it.”
Could any of this be true? The theory was sound, and hexes…the ones he’d helped create…should work.
“We’d have to kill each time we make the elixir,” he protested. “We—we can’t.”
Vic sighed heavily and gestured at Bobby. “He was a worthless punk, Sam. What’s his life compared to your own mother’s? We’ll find others like him, useless men the world will never truly miss. We’ll elevate their worthless lives and use them to save people who matter.”
How many times had he heard the words “Jake should be here instead of you.” Or “Jake would never have let us down like this.”
He’d spent most of his life being called worthless, or made to feel lesser. In any other circumstances, he’d be the one being sacrificed to improve someone else’s life. Someone like Jake. Someone judged to have better potential, or a better life ahead of them, or any number of other criteria he couldn’t hope to measure up to.
“Bond with me, Sam,” Vic murmured, tipping Sam’s head back with a single finger beneath his chin. “Let me in, and we will do such wonders together.”
Sam swallowed convulsively. Vic’s eyes glowed with determination, with triumph. His lips were parted; he was preparing to kiss Sam the moment he said yes.
“No,” Sam said, his voice trembling. “I won’t do it.”
Vic’s lips pressed together in displeasure, and he dropped his hand. “Your mother is going to die, Sam. If you refuse, you’re as bad as the man who shot her. Worse.”
Sam’s eyes burned as an enormous blanket of guilt draped over him. “I…”
Sensing weakness, Vic said, “Look at Bobby—he can’t survive like this for long. He’s going to die anyway. Do you really mean to waste all of our work, waste his sacrifice, because you can’t stomach what it takes to save your own mother?”
Vic was right. Bobby was dying anyway. He should go ahead with this—bond with Vic, take the elixir of life to his mother, then worry about the rest.
Bobby let out a soft moan. Sam glanced his way, and their eyes met. Bobby’s were wet with the slow leak of tears, the expression in them as desperate as it had been the night he’d died in Sam’s arms.
He hadn’t deserved this. Whatever his motives had been in spying on Sullivan for Fabiano and Johnston, they didn’t justify this horror. He imagined lifting Bobby, carrying him to the distiller’s boiler and throwing him in, to die a second time boiling in quicksilver. Pictured taking whatever final tincture resulted to Mom and pretending that everything was all right.
They might even be proud of him, Mom and Dad and Opal. They might put him on the same level as Jake, instead of regretting Sam was the one to survive.
They might finally love him.
“I can’t,” he whispered. Then more loudly. “I can’t do this.”
Vic rose to his feet and held his hand out to Sam. “All right. Have it your way.”
Sam automatically took his hand. Vic hauled him up, then pressed something hard and cold against Sam’s side.
“If you won’t do it to save your mother, perhaps you’ll do it to save yourself,” he said, and pulled the trigger.