Page 8 of Angel of Vengeance

“But his instructions about the lamp… This is crazy.”

“Perhaps.” She exited the outer door with the swirl of her cloak, then descended the steps to the carriage. As Gosnold was shutting the door behind her, D’Agosta heard her call out to Murphy, “The Post Road…”

The door closed.

“What the hell?” D’Agosta turned to Pendergast. “We can’t just let her go like this!”

Pendergast finally spoke. “I’m afraid we’ve got no choice. She’s bringing him the Arcanum.”

D’Agosta looked from Pendergast to Diogenes and back. “You’re both okay with this?”

“No,” said Pendergast.

“But you let her go!”

“Are you under the misapprehension she could be stopped?” Pendergast arched an eyebrow.

At this, Diogenes chuckled. “Frater, you and I know the nature of that woman.”

“But—” D’Agosta swallowed. “After all your careful plans, after all that we’ve… What is she thinking?”

“Vincent,” said Pendergast wearily, “she is not thinking. But we must let this act, however rash and impulsive, play out. We owe her that. It is bound to be unsuccessful. And when she returns—if she returns—she will be in a state none of us can imagine. What happens next will be anyone’s guess.” He took a deep breath. “We must prepare for the storm.”

7

D’AGOSTA LISTENED WITH DISBELIEF. His head was pounding again, and he leaned back in his chair to ease the pain. This was insane. How were they, marooned in a strange world, going to handle Constance, save Binky, kill Leng—and then get back home again?

He turned to Diogenes. “You say the time machine was wrecked. How wrecked?”

“You mean, can we use it to return?” Diogenes asked him. “As I said, that fool Ferenc left its levels at maximum when he went through, timed I assume to give him sufficient opportunity to accomplish his scheme and return. The most logical explanation is that the man simply didn’t return in time to ease back the power—and the machine overloaded.”

“So we’re stuck here?”

“Unless Proctor can repair it,” said Pendergast.

“Proctor?” cried D’Agosta. “He’s a chauffeur! How’s he going to fix a time machine?” He felt horror settle in. Laura—he’d never see her again. The twenty-first century, the New York he loved—gone.

“My advice to you, Vincent,” said Pendergast coolly, “is not to ponder such existential questions for the moment.” He rose. “The first thing we must do, before something even more dire occurs, is to get the one entrusted to us safely away and far from here. Gosnold, will you take Joe upstairs while we discuss what is to be done?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can go on my own,” said Joe coldly.

“In that case, pack a bag for yourself, with some warm clothes, a book, and a deck of cards. You’ll be going on a journey.”

Joe turned stiffly and went upstairs.

D’Agosta looked at Pendergast. “What’s to stop Leng from killing Constance after he gets the Arcanum?”

“For one thing, his suspicious nature—if the formula has been tampered with, he might still need her. For another, I believe Constance has a certain amount of leverage over him.”

“What leverage?”

“Constance knows a great deal about Leng—and, what’s more, she knows his future.”

“What I don’t understand,” Diogenes said, “is this: if this world is supposedly identical to our own, except that it’s in the past of 1880, what is that monstrosity I saw being erected at the southern edge of Central Park? Nothing like that ever existed in the past of our world.”

D’Agosta had seen this himself, during a carriage ride on his first trip back here with Pendergast—an ugly tower under construction, like a ten-story chimney. He’d just assumed that it, like so much else built in Manhattan, had vanished with time.

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