Chapter Forty-One
You’re not going anywhere,” Blanck repeats. “That séance of yours started this chaos. And you accuse me? Say that gem is in my safe? No. You’ll stay until the police come.”
Blanck grips my wrist with one beefy hand and yanks at the loosened bow tie around his neck with the other. He pushes me into a chair and ties my right wrist to the wooden arm with his bow tie. Tight, tight, tight.
I fight but can’t slip free.
Blanck slips a thick finger into the knotted silken cord holding back his curtains, untying it. My left wrist is bound as well, with that cord. I am fully tied, one wrist to each chair arm.
Trapped.
And very alone.
I again feel my lungs swimming in smoke, blistering and boiling.
The Dark Legion’s shadow over my shoulder is immediate.
The ties binding my wrists—they begin to slither, writhe, squeeze.
They grow slick heads and beady eyes and darting tongues.
They grow rattling tails. One rears its head and hisses, fangs bared, ready to sink its poison deep in the blue veins of my wrist.
I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s an illusion.
I am trapped by Blanck. Like Kiyoko in the far room, like the 146 souls he killed in his factory.
Hang in there, Stella-girl.
We got you.
We love ya, kiddo.
You’re back! I cry to Spirit. Tears sting my eyes and squeeze out of the corners. Spirit shows me an image of a crowd of people, smiling, laughing, hugging me. In my daze, a woozy smile lifts the edge of my face.
The guests look at me tied to this chair with pity, but no one tells Blanck to stop.
Cowards, all. They’re not leaving. I don’t know if that’s due to Doyle’s declaration that no one should leave until the police come, or if it’s some sort of morbid fascination with finding out what’s happening with Evalyn Walsh McLean, with Kiyoko, with the Hope Diamond.
And Pax. If he’s stuck with what remains of our plan, he is gone, departing down the back stairwell. I don’t feel him nearby. It’s likely for the better. Pax barely survived that handshake. He would gut Blanck like a fish in front of all these people if he saw me tied to this chair.
Harry Houdini passes and swiftly drops something onto my lap. It takes me a moment to register: It’s a small, thin pocketknife. I curl my right hand over it, pick it up. I almost fumble it, but Spirit gives it a small tuck back into my clumsy fingers.
Thank you, I tell them. I missed you.
Aw, we know, love.
We missed you, too.
Doyle paces the fine, expensive rug, rolling his mustache between thumb and forefinger. “We need a timeline.”
I saw with the pocketknife at the bow tie strapping me to this chair. The task is made all the more difficult thanks to the shaking of my hands.
Doyle snaps his fingers. “The tintypes!” The guests all turn as one to the photographer, who has quietly been packing his equipment.
“Mrs. McLean had her photograph taken several times this evening. Quickly, sir. Hand over those tintypes.”
The photographer’s eyes go wide at this unexpected attention. “I haven’t developed them all yet.” He motions to a nearby table where dozens of flimsy tintypes lay scattered about.
“Chop-chop, sir. We need to see those photographs.”
The photographer points to a coat closest. “The silver nitrate, the developer—they’re all in there.”
“I’ll assist.” Doyle roughhouses the poor photographer into the closet. The guests wait and drink while we hear shuffling, bottles clinking. I steadily saw through the silk bow tie with Houdini’s knife.
Mrs. Walsh’s dog, Athena, leaps from the rug where she’s been napping.
Athena growls, the hair on her spine erect. She runs to the elevator door, bares her teeth, and barks. The guests follow.
“What are you barking at, girl?”
“Is someone coming?”
“I don’t hear the elevator.”
Athena’s haunches rise. She barks louder still, then drops immediately into a sitting position. Silent.
We all wait with great anticipation for the elevator door to slide open, revealing something sinister.
It remains closed.
Athena whimpers a bit, curls up on the spot, and falls asleep.
Kiyoko would be able to tell us why Athena was alerting. My worry reignites. What will become of Kiyoko? Her fate doesn’t look good.
Mine isn’t looking so hot, either. Why won’t this damn bow tie snap already?!
The closet door bangs open. Doyle emerges, holding a pair of silvery-gray tintype photographs over his head. The images are slick with developing chemicals.
“Look here!” Doyle declares. He tosses two photos onto the dining room table, and they land with a clatter.
“The necklace here, see?” He jabs a finger at the earlier photo, in which Evalyn hugs Athena, while the dog wore the Hope Diamond.
“The gem is surrounded by a ring of diamonds. But the necklace here?” He shifts his point to the later photo of Evalyn McLean and Max Blanck, with her foot kicked up playfully.
“The gem has a plain, platinum setting. That’s not the same necklace! ”
The guests crowd and squint at the two photos.
“Ah, it’s true, innit?”
“That setting is famous. Set by Pierre Cartier himself. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
“But that second photo. With Blanck. That’s not the Cartier setting.”
“It isn’t the same necklace at all.”
My every muscle tightens. We tried so hard to get every detail correct.
The setting?! Miss Willamina, the watchmaker next to our Bureau, had worked wonders, recreating that necklace with the elaborate details Pax had given her.
Who knew Evalyn McLean had that necklace reset after she bought it?
New York City socialites knew, apparently.
The guests shift and murmur, sliding their eyes toward Blanck. They grumble and pant. Wolves.
“He’s the only person here who touched the necklace between those two photos!”
Blanck blinks under the hard, cold gaze of a hundred of New York’s wealthiest and most influential. Hedda Hopper hasn’t stopped taking notes.
“Rubbish!” he shouts, his gin blossom reddening.
“You all saw me clasp that necklace around Evalyn’s throat.
It has to be that terrible woman in the kimono!
You saw her with the candlestick. You all saw poor Evalyn and her head wound.
I am not guilty.” He whips toward me, face twisted, voice low and level.
“I should’ve never hired you and your friend. Trash.”
The heat inside me churns like foamy disgust. I yank and tug at the ties that bind me, to no avail.
Blanck’s face makes my stomach roil. This man’s soul is rotten. I can’t help myself. “You are unquestionably guilty, you greedy son of a bitch.”
Blanck turns purple, storms to me, and grabs my throat with one hand. “You did it, didn’t you? You dirty thief!”
He is crushing my windpipe. I gurgle for air. My feet kick at him but they don’t find purchase. The chair shifts and tips wildly.
My eyes bulge and swim, but when I look at Blanck, I see a man in a wide-brimmed hat instead, his two cronies crouching behind him, over me.
Their tongues are snakes, their eyes black as ink.
They inhale inhale inhale and I choke, gasp, fight for air.
I look away, terrified to look directly at them.
I plead with the guests with my eyes, Help me. They do nothing but watch with horror.
My breath is a delicate wisp of smoke, leaving my body, and I am terrified as the Trio drinks it in. I am cold. Colder. Blanck and the Trio are one.
Spirit howls and hisses at this evil like a cat, trying to scratch Blanck’s eyes, his face. No, that’s me, with one hand free now… I fight. I feel the strength of my Team of Light with me. But his grip on my windpipe is strong.
I am blacking out, my head light and spinny, and the three shadowy figures smile with rotted teeth, their garbage breath filling my nostrils, my lungs. My eyesight floods red.
Ending him is justicccce, Sssstella, the Dark Legion hisses. Daisy wants justicccccce.
I am five years old again and I feel the surge of power and ire I felt then, when I summoned this Dark Legion to help my mother fight the lecherous landlord. The landlord I pushed. The landlord who fell to his death once this Dark Trio took over.
End him, the Dark Trio urges, their voices slimy. You know you can end him.
I can do that again. I can kill him. If anyone deserves it, it’s Blanck. My red eyesight darkens still. Everything is the color of blood. But I cannot look into the eyes of the Dark Trio. It is too terrifying. I will lose myself to them if I do. I kick and claw.
“Stop! Police!”
It’s the last thing I hear before I slip into deep, black unconsciousness.