Page 76 of Angel of Vengeance

“I don’t know. We’ve got to get her back.” He turned to D’Agosta. “We can’t all go through simultaneously. You go first; tell them we’re coming. I’ll follow with Constance in a few seconds once the portal recharges.”

He turned to Diogenes. “You guard the portal, keep everyone back, and follow last. As soon as you come through, we’ll shut it down on our end.”

“What about Leng?”

“Dead—or as good as dead. Constance poisoned him with an extraction from the death cap mushroom.”

Diogenes looked into his brother’s face, smeared with blood. “I’m not coming, Frater.”

Pendergast stared back. “What?”

“Go on, get her through—save her life, if you can!”

“We’ll never open the portal again. This is your only chance.”

“I made a hash of my life in your time.”

Pendergast looked carefully at him. “If there was ever a time for jokes—this is not it.”

“I’m not joking. For me, this world is a fresh start—and I have things to do here. Enough said. Ave atque vale!”

Pendergast stared at him, the expression on his face unreadable. “Goodbye then, Brother,” he said, and turned away. “Vincent,” he cried: “Go!”

67

D’AGOSTA DIDN’T HESITATE—NOT EVEN for a second. On the other side of that shimmering door was Laura.

He stepped up to the portal—feeling again that sense of unearthly energy, hot and cold simultaneously, that made the hairs on his neck stand at attention—and jumped.

At the same moment, the gateway flickered—a piece of gossamer, sliced diagonally from top to bottom by an invisible knife—wobbled, weakened, then disappeared.

Caught unawares, D’Agosta fell onto the cobbles of the alley. He rolled, instinctively using his shoulder to break the fall. It still hurt like a son of a bitch.

“What the hell?” he cried as he lay on the ground. The look on Pendergast’s face was one of pure horror and despair. He felt the same sudden madness and fury: what kind of sick, twisted joke was fate doing to—

With a snap that was not a sound, but some phenomenon having nothing to do with his five senses, the portal abruptly came back to life, its brilliance once again filling the alley. D’Agosta didn’t need a second invitation. He leapt…

… And found himself half staggering, half falling onto the floor of Pendergast’s basement laboratory. He glanced around on his knees. Proctor was there, staring at him, along with some guy in a wheelchair.

“Get ready!” he cried. “We’ve got Pendergast and Constance coming through. She’s stabbed in the abdomen, bleeding out!”

The portal rippled briefly, brightened, and a moment later—with a glittering, blinding flash—Pendergast staggered through, Constance in his arms. He was caught by Proctor’s steadying hand.

“Call an ambulance,” Pendergast cried. “We need AB negative blood—lots of it.” He turned to D’Agosta. “Please assist me.”

As he helped Pendergast carry Constance out into the hallway, the last thing D’Agosta saw was Proctor, raising a phone to his ear at the same moment the stranger in the wheelchair shut off power to the machine.

68

IT WAS FIVE DAYS before D’Agosta took Pendergast up on a standing invitation and returned to the Riverside Drive mansion for afternoon tea. Everything looked the same; everyone acted the same: Mrs. Trask opened the front door with the usual blandishments, and as D’Agosta approached the library entrance, he saw Pendergast seated in his usual chair by the fire. The harpsichord bench held a neat stack of densely notated music, Constance’s newly polished stiletto lying atop like a paperweight, both music and weapon awaiting the recovery of their mistress. Yet for D’Agosta, everything had changed. His venture into the nineteenth century had given him a new and much darker worldview that no ordinary far-off vacation could have. Ever since returning, after a joyful, awkward reunion with Laura, he felt unsteady—like a sailor just back in port, still encumbered with sea legs. He found himself waking in the middle of the night, sitting up and drawing in a lungful of breath, just to make sure the air was reassuringly clean, without the constant background odors of coal smoke, tallow, and manure.

As he stepped in, Pendergast looked up at him, then gestured languidly toward a chair. “Vincent, my friend, so good of you to come—at last.”

“Sorry,” D’Agosta said as he came over and sat down. “I had a lot of fancy footwork to do, after going missing for two weeks.”

“Everything all right downtown?”

“It is now.”

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