I waited on the rooftop across from the glassworks until almost 4 o'clock, then headed home. Final exams were coming, and I needed at least a little bit of sleep before school. Gabriel stayed until dawn, but nobody ever came to collect the mask.
I woke up to a text from Corrigan. The police had finally finished counting and authenticating the "donation" Glassface left at the Policeman's Ball. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of five-and-a-half million dollars—mostly in very large bills that hadn't been printed since the New Deal. That Marbrose banks kept bills in defunct denominations was an open secret—if you're in the business of laundering drug money, Salmon P. Chase is your best friend. Glassface must have been saving them ever since the bank heist. That—to me, at least—meant his final move was coming soon.
By the time school was over and I'd made it back to the glassworks, both Nika Artemesia and the mask were gone. Her coworkers were completely useless, and my usual underworld leads—Mickey the Mouth was getting a lot of beatings this week—weren't any help either. Only 12 hours had passed and already I'd broken my promise to keep her safe. Not exactly the kind of thing that was going on my vigilante resume. I was on my way home to mope when I got a text from Gabriel.
'I just got a message from a friend. Meet me at my place at 10. Don't bring your work clothes.'
I met him in the lobby of the Argosy at the appointed time, dressed slightly nicer than usual just in case this turned out be a date. Dorian kept looking at me from behind the check-in desk and grinning, which made me wonder whether I was the first girl who'd ever made a return visit after sleeping over with Gabriel. When Gabriel arrived in the lobby with a large bag slung over his shoulder, I was surprised to see him beckoning for me to join him in the elevator.
"I thought we were going out," I said.
"We are," he said. He turned to the thin, sallow elevator operator. "Take us as far down as this thing goes."
The man didn't so much as nod, but soon we were sinking down into the depths of the hotel, below even the storage rooms two floors below ground level. There was no light down here apart from the feeble bulb hanging from the elevator ceiling, and the walls started to look less like bricks and more like rocks and exposed earth. Eventually, we came to a stop in a dark stone passage maybe forty feet beneath the Argosy. Gabriel passed the operator the usual extravagant tip.
"C'mon," he said, taking a flashlight out of his pocket. "It's just at the end of this passage."
We'd walked only a few yards when I noticed a familiar sound in the darkness ahead of us—the trickling, dripping, and gurgling of slow-moving water against stone. As the elevator disappeared up the shaft on its long, slow climb back to the hotel lobby, we stepped out into a vast subterranean tunnel that enclosed an underground river—the abandoned sewer system built by Robert Bellamy more than a hundred years ago.
"I didn't know the Bellamy sewers had a landing here," I said.
"I think the hotel management had it put in specially," said Gabriel. "A lot of the residents prefer to travel this way."
He reached out and pulled a long rope that hung from the ceiling, and a bell—like that of a church, but not quite so deep—echoed through the tunnel. Being used to summoning the Psychopomp with a whistle, it never occurred to me that he might answer to other noises as well. After about 10 minutes of waiting—you can probably guess how we occupied ourselves—I heard the gentle splash of the Psychpomp's pole in the slow-moving water, and saw the old man and his small boat emerging from the darkness.
"Where does your journey end, soul of wrath and thieving bird?" he called.
His voice was eerie and hollow, and despite its familiarity, it still made me shiver.
"The Pool of Tantalus," said Gabriel, placing two "obols" in the boatman's withered hand. As he felt the old quarters with his bony fingers, a frown deepened the creases on his ancient face.
"The gods of that realm take ill the meddling of mortals, thieving bird," he hissed. "And the door is shut."
"You have your obols," said Gabriel, stepping into the boat. "Just get us there."
Despite his obvious reluctance, the Psychopomp let the matter drop. I sat down beside Gabriel in the bow of the raft and the ferryman pushed off with his pole, sending us gliding into the dark subterranean maze. Gabriel turned off his flashlight, and the shadows closed in around us until I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. There was always something a little unnerving about traveling with the Psychopomp. It was even more unnerving when I didn't know where we were going.
We'd been drifting silently through the murky blackness for about twenty minutes when I sensed rather than saw someone following us. Peering into the darkness for what felt like minutes, I eventually caught the faint outline of a hulking creature wading through the water about ten yards from the stern of the boat. Its burning eyes—just barely visible in the dim light—were fixed on our small craft. Gabriel must have sensed it too, or just noticed me looking because he leaned close to me and whispered, "What is it?"
"Mr. Roth—uh, the Shambler is following us," I said, glancing up at the Psychopomp. "I can see his eyes glowing in the dark. Gabe, where are we going?"
"You'll see," he said. "Have patience."
It was hard to have patience, even without the added mystery of why Eugene Rothko had decided to start following us. But, at last, the raft came to a halt beside a moss-covered stone stairway rising out of the murky water—one of the many pickup points for the Psychopomp's strange underground cab service that were scattered throughout the city. Gabriel got off first and held out his hand to help me with the dismount. Without a word, the Psychopomp pushed off and glided away into the darkness—a little more hurried than usual, I thought. Squinting back the way we came, I saw that the Shambler had stopped about forty feet back, but he was still watching us. The dim orange glow of his eyes made me uneasy.
"So, now can you tell me where we are?" I asked.
Instead of answering, Gabriel pointed to something in the stone wall just above the landing. It was a huge door of Nirosta steel, decorated with a stylized tableau of the Marbrose skyline as it existed nearly a hundred years ago. I recognized it as the same Art Deco-style design that was on the elevator doors at the Dreyfuss Hotel, only much larger. That certainly clarified my suspicions.
"We're under the Dreyfuss," I said. "Why are we under the Dreyfuss?"
Again, he didn't answer directly. Instead, he reached into the bag that was slung over his shoulder.
"Put these on," he said, handing me a heavy bundle that turned out to be a black silk robe wrapped around a mask of polished bronze. The robe was a bit like a hooded toga—probably in imitation of the ceremonial robes of a Roman priest—and the expressionless mask reminded me of the sphinx-like faces of classical statues. Once we'd both changed into our cultic getups, Gabriel took hold of a small handle on the massive steel door and started to pull. At first, it seemed like it wouldn't budge. Then, slowly and without making a sound, the huge door swung open.
It was extremely thick—probably 16 inches, at least—and it was ordinarily locked by a complex mechanism of levers and gears that could only be accessed from the other side. So, someone had let us in. It was another of Gabriel's inside jobs. As I stepped through the door, Gabriel immediately pulled it shut behind us, and I heard a soft click. The long corridor on the other side of the door was dark, but I could tell it was more recent than the Bellamy sewers we'd just left. The walls were made of flat limestone and leaned inward, making the passage much narrower at the top. They were decorated with simple geometric patterns, like those on the facade of the hotel above us. At the end of the passage was another door—much smaller this time, and without a heavy lock. Gabriel listened with his ear pressed against it for a long time. Finally, there were two knocks—so quiet that I almost missed them—and Gabriel opened the door, gesturing for me to follow him.
We found ourselves in a huge, round chamber. It had the same leaning limestone walls as the passage we'd just left, only much higher, giving the effect of a domed ceiling in a church or ancient temple. To my astonishment, this strange, underground room was filled with people. There were maybe forty in all—hooded and masked, just like we were. The anonymity allowed us to slip into the crowd without being noticed. Had I wanted to, I could have learned some very interesting things about the inner workings of Marbrose City by listening to their whispered conversations, but I was too fascinated by the room itself. We were standing on what was probably the eastern end, where seats like those in a Roman amphitheater faced a long, curved dais along the opposite wall. On the dais were maybe half a dozen thrones of various sizes, all made of the same limestone material as the rest of the room. On the wall above them, I saw the names of various gods inscribed in gold. MAMMON. IVPITER. SERAPIS. APOLLON. But that wasn't what caught my interest. Instead, my eyes were fixed on the strange equipment in the center of the room.
For months, I'd been wondering what it would look like. I'd only seen the faded outline left behind in the basement of Rothko mansion, but I'd tried to reconstruct it in my mind. The wires. The tubes. The electrical mechanisms. All just guesses. But this, undeniably, was the real thing. Eugene Rothko's immortality machine. And I had a strong suspicion I was about to see it in action.
The machine was set on a flat disk that was about a foot lower than the rest of the room and perhaps 25 feet in diameter. It seemed to cast a reddish glow onto the chamber's sloping walls, but I couldn't quite tell where the light came from. In its center was what looked like an operating table—the kind of device you'd use to zap Frankenstein to life—and in these neoclassical surroundings, it also reminded me of an altar. On either side of the table was an upright metal gurney—at least, that was what they looked like to me—each linked to it by cables that ran along the smooth metal floor and flanked by towering electric coils. There was a woman—young, pretty, obviously drugged—strapped to each of them, and an old man lay motionless on the metal altar. It took me a moment, but I recognized him.
It was James Greenwald, city councilman for the eastern Fen, and he was about to be rewarded for his tireless loyalty to the New Imperium.
A gong sounded, and the people around us immediately fell silent. From an unseen anteroom on the opposite side of this unholy temple, the gilded gods of the evening emerged. They wore the same black silk robes as the other cultists, but their ornate bronze masks and the various scepters and symbols of power they held gave strong hints as to who they represented. I'm not exactly a mythology buff, but—by matching the names inscribed above them to the figures below—I managed to work out who most of the members of this syncretistic pantheon of corruption and crime were supposed to be.
There was Mammon, the personification of greed—probably a powerful city businessman. And Apollon, master of science and medicine, his right hand on Rod of Asclepius. My guess—which turned out to be right—was that this was the head of the sinister and secretive Galt Foundation. The stiff posture of the horned god Serapis, meanwhile, reminded me of Mayor J. Anton Murray, and "warlike Mars" had a bearing suspiciously like that of Police Commissioner Algernon Warner. I'd seen both men at the Policeman's Ball just two nights before. There was also Mercurius—the wings on his mask jutting like the hood ornament on a Rolls-Royce—as well as relatively obscure deities like Copia and Phanes. They were less easy to identify, but I figured they were most likely members of the city council or other power brokers in the New Imperium.
One god, however, stood out from the others. He wore a blood red robe, and his bronze mask was crowned with pointed rays. In his right hand, he held a staff that looked like a bolt of lightning. His throne stood higher than all the other gods, and the people around us waited until he was seated before sitting down themselves. This, I knew, could only be Lucian Montagnese, dressed as the Roman god Jupiter—well, Ivpiter Sangvinevs, a dog Latin alter ego invented specially for this ritual. It meant something like "Jupiter the Bloody."
As the would-be deities sat down on their thrones, a pale man with a shaved head greeted them in a low bow. He was the only person who wasn't in costume, so it was easy to recognize him as Herman Blitzhalter—the state electrician who'd thrown the switch when Tommy Genovese went to the chair. He wore an insulated jumpsuit and round goggles, and he had been working at what appeared—based on the number of switches and dials—to be the control station for the entire machine.
"The machine is ready," he said in his heavy German accent. "His rebirth awaits but your command, mighty Jove."
All eyes were on the red-robed god. Lucian Montagnese—his bronze mask cold and blank—held out his left hand with the thumb pointed inward, like a Roman emperor about to render the fate of a defeated gladiator. Then, he jerked his thumb upwards. The state electrician bowed a second time.
"Let it be done as you will," he said.
He returned to the control station, adjusted his goggles, then threw a huge red switch.
The two women, despite being barely conscious, began to writhe and moan. Instinctively, I moved to help them, but Gabriel caught me by the wrist. It was probably too late, but watching them die didn't sit right with my superhero insticts. A whirring and crackling sound filled the room, and the red glow that seemed to come from the horrible machine grew even deeper. Blitzhalter turned several knobs on his controls, and the whirring turned into a high-pitched shriek as the women's blood was drained from their bodies and ran through the tubes on the floor towards Greenwald. At the same time, Greenwald's body started to contort as he struggled against his metal restraints. Blitzhalter flipped a series of smaller switches, and sparks flew from the machine as the air seemed to fill the static electricity. My hair stood on end, and my skin tingled. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash. The machine fell silent, and the room was plunged into darkness.
When the blood-red glow of the machine returned, I saw Blitzhalter helping Greenwald to his feet. At first, there was no visible change. He still looked like a gaunt, pockmarked old man near the end of his earthly existence. But as I strained to see him in the dim light, his skin grew young and smooth. The muscles returned to his flabby limbs, and his hair changed from white-gray to gold. I almost couldn't believe my own eyes. It worked.
Eugene Rothko's machine really could let you cheat death.
"Arise, arise, favored one," the people around me chanted. "By lightning and blood, by the will of Jove, be filled with new life."