Chapter 64
PENDERGAST RIGHTED HIMSELF AND watched as Magnus disappeared over the railing, his body glancing off the paddle box and into the turning wheel—wedging itself into the iron feathering.
With a hideous scream, Magnus was carried around and—stuck between the paddles—down into the boiling water, plunging below the moiling surface.
Pendergast waited, and a moment later the body came back up still wedged in the paddles, tangled and bloody, like a medieval traitor being broken on the wheel—his face distorted in agony, a keening cry escaping from his lips before he was carried around and buried once again in the foaming wake.
Pendergast waited as the wheel made another revolution, but this time it came up empty: the body was gone, save for a few trailing clouds of blood in the water.
A fiery explosion from behind knocked Pendergast off balance, tongues of fire licking the deck around him.
He snatched up the gun from on the deck and, with a backward glance at the raging inferno, dove over the railing, passing briefly through smoke and flame before plunging into the warm Delta water.
He stroked up to the surface and swam toward the near shore.
Reaching it within a few minutes, he made his way up the muddy embankment into the cordgrass, scrambled to his feet, backed off to a safe distance, and turned to watch.
The air was aglow with a lurid ruddiness, the huge boat tilting ever higher, the stern rising until at last even the paddle wheel was fully out of the water, groaning and clanking in air.
Then the blaze reached the fuel tanks and, with a monstrous roar, the vessel exploded in a ball of fire.
Countless burning fragments soared into the night sky, a million orange arcs of flame that rose and spread and, losing momentum, at last fell back to earth.
As the plume punched upward, it left behind a mass of burning flotsam, swirling and sinking in the black water, to the accompaniment of hissing and great clouds of steam.
Pendergast’s unmoving, impassive face, lit by the glow of the fire, was punctuated by two glittering eyes that seemed illuminated from within.
And then he heard a sound—not from the ship, but from the tall grass in front of him.
It rustled strangely… and then, like a ghost, a figure rose up from the vegetation: hideous, dripping gore, one hand hanging by a mere thread of flesh, an eyeball loose in its cracked socket—a body so broken it looked scarcely human.
“You!” breathed Pendergast in genuine astonishment.
The figure lurched toward him. “Me.” A ghastly, gurgling laugh emerged from his chest. “How did you do it? I… must know.”
“I was behind you the entire time.”
“But I saw—”
“No. What you saw was a visualization in my mind, projected for your benefit.”
“It was not a thought in your head. I saw you—for real.”
“Are you familiar with the Tibetan discipline Chongg Ran? No? Visualization, or the simulation of it, plays a large role in their mental exercises. A pity you don’t have the time left to hear more about it—judging from your condition.”
Another mirthless laugh erupted from the man’s broken chest. “You know, Pendergast, I should thank you. My life had grown dull to the point of deadliness. But you’ve revivified me—just in time, it would seem: that little merry-go-round ride you just sent me on is something I’ll never forget.
” He giggled, his voice cracking. “I realize I’ve been living…
well, in lockup, a tiny unlit space in the punishment block.
I’m a fifth grader in a kindergarten class—knowing all the answers, beating up the boys, taking all the toys I want.
Only now it’s all grown so tiresome. And yet I can’t move on.
Where would I go? And to think that all this time, I’ve been congratulating myself on how clever I was to keep my ambitions restrained—along with my sweet little secret. ”
“Is that secret connected to your locked cabin?” Pendergast asked.
“Ah! Did you see its splendors?”
“I did.”
“You saw, but no doubt lack the refinement to understand. It is for a fragrant jewel, an impossibly rare truffle, its musk to be always enjoyed but never devoured. Not yet aboard, alas, but still in the cellar of my house, for you to seek out… if you can.”
“I wish I could say I look forward to it.”
“And I wish I could be there to see the look on your face.” A silence—and now Magnus’s face twisted in true agony, forcing him to drop the badinage. “The gun—was it really empty?”
Pendergast reached behind and withdrew it from his waistband.
The slide was no longer locked back. He ejected a round from the chamber, caught it deftly in midair, held it up between thumb and forefinger in the dying glow of the burning boat for Magnus to see, then reinserted it and racked the weapon.
Without a word, he turned the butt of the gun around and held it toward Magnus.
Magnus took it with a trembling hand and pointed it toward Pendergast. “You’re a fool in the end, my friend. Say your prayers.”
“There’s only one round left,” said Pendergast. “Either for me—or for you. Not both. Consider carefully.”
After a long silence punctuated only by his wheezing breath, Magnus turned the gun around, tucked it under his chin, aimed skyward—mumbling under his breath something that, to Pendergast, sounded like a l’envoi—and pulled the trigger.