spilling old candy bar wrappers into the shadows, then removed a cigar and set the case on the table. With great pleasure he bit the end off of the cigar and clenched it in his teeth, then went to the forge and leaned in, plunging the tip into the blazing furnace. The heat from the fire baked the skin of his face, but he was used to that. Hobgoblins had no particular fear of flames. Of burning to death, yeah. They weren’t stupid. But not of fire. A little scorching wasn’t going to do much damage to one of his kind.
With a sigh of pleasure he puffed on the cigar and glanced around at the shadow chamber. There were no walls, really, and yet the workshop did exist in a sort of void within the world of darkness. Black mist churned and pulsed all around, but there were openings in that breathing shadow, pathways that would take him anywhere he needed to go. Once upon a time, Squire had been like other hobgoblins… daunted by the constant feeling that the shadows were aware of him, that the darkness sensed his every move and thought. It still unnerved him at times, but he had come to know this place, and there was no danger in it. Not for hobgoblins. Not unless other things roamed the shadows.
When that happened, he closed his workshop up and fled back to the world of light.
But at times like this, with a job well done and a fresh cigar in his hand, Squire could relax. He took several more puffs on his cigar and blew a cloud of noxious smoke into the shadows.
At peace.
A soft, electronic melody broke the silence of the shadows. The tune was The Beatles’ 'Penny Lane.' It was Squire’s ringtone.
He reached into another pocket in his coat — it had more pockets than was possible — and answered. 'Squire.'
He listened to the voice on the other end, cursing a couple of times. 'Yeah. Yeah, of course. No, that can’t be good. You just sit tight there, spanky. Someone’ll be in touch.'
Mr. Doyle strode along Hanover Street in Boston’s North End, enjoying the warm summer day. Once upon a time the neighborhood had been subject to a constant drone of noise from the elevated interstate that ran through Boston’s heart. But the city had done something extraordinary, burying the highway underground. It was quiet, now, in the North End. Or as quiet as the neighborhood would ever be.
The North End was a warren of curving streets, lined with churches, apartments, bakeries, and restaurants. Early in Boston’s history it had become the haven of the city’s Italian immigrants, and it still reflected the best of that cultural influx. The spring and summer seemed a parade of festivals honoring the Italians’ favorite saints, carnivals of food and music. This was a corner of the city — of the nation — that still enjoyed simple pleasures.
The summer breeze swept off the ocean and blew through the narrow streets, picking up the wonderful aromas from the markets and the pastry shops. Mr. Doyle could not help himself, and he paused to peruse the small menus posted in front of several restaurants as he made his way along the street. Frank Sinatra’s voice whispered through one propped-open door, Andrea Bocelli through another.
The sidewalks were busy with people out strolling, deciding on lunch, or making their way to the Old North Church to appreciate the history of the place. Like so many of Boston’s treasures, the church was tucked away far from anything else, beyond even the limits of the touristy areas of the North End. Parts of that neighborhood did not share the appeal of its main streets. Beyond Prince and Hanover, there were other smaller, narrower roads where there were no expensive signs, no festival banners, no outdoor music. The shops on those backstreets catered only to local people. The faces of the buildings were in desperate need of sandblasting and refurbishing, and the windows were often cluttered with handmade signs.
Mr. Doyle left the brighter, more colorful heart of the North End and slipped into a gray side street with the sureness of one who had walked this way many times. He passed a shoe repair shop, a small butcher’s, a used appliance store, and an antiquarian bookstore that looked tiny from a peek through the front window, but was unimaginably enormous within. Impossibly large, some might have said.
Ah, well. People had so little imagination. And other than the locals — who had a strong enough sense of community never to remark on anything odd — the only people who went into the bookstore knew what they were looking for, and that only a special kind of shop would be able to acquire it for them.
He inhaled deeply. The salt of the ocean was strong on the breeze. It had been a beautiful walk down here from Beacon Hill. It was June, the solstice imminent. The days were long, and the air shimmered with the heat of the sun. During the workweek there were mostly professionals about, but this was Saturday, and so he had passed many women in pretty summer dresses. It was the sort of day that inspired that kind of thing. On his walk back, he thought he might stop and buy a lemonade from one of the street vendors in front of the aquarium.
Mr. Doyle waved to a Sicilian grandmother pushing her daughter’s child in an old-fashioned carriage. She nodded gravely in return. A silver Lexus prowled along the curving street. Someone looking for parking had lost their way. There were things he simply knew, things he intuited from the moment. It was a gift.
He twitched, pain lancing into his head from his empty eye socket. The patch that covered it was not a problem, though its strap itched the back of his head. For a moment, Mr. Doyle paused on the sidewalk and pressed the heel of his hand against that void, that eyeless hole. At times it ached profoundly.
Doyle had removed the eye himself. The pain had been like nothing he had ever felt. Worse, though, was the feeling of tugging, deep in his head, as he tore it loose from the optic nerve. It was a memory he would have very gladly erased. The man had done what he had to do, and it had helped to make the world safe — at least for a time. It was good, however, that he had not had any idea what it would feel like at the time. In retrospect, it wasn’t something he would do again.
A dry laugh escaped his lips. What a sickening thought. Only a lunatic would do what he had done. But perhaps in that moment, knowing that it was the only way, he had been a lunatic indeed.
Now, the question was, what to do about it.
His shoes scuffed the sidewalk. The sleeves of his crisply pressed white shirt were rolled halfway to the elbow, and he wore black suspenders that did not go very well with his beige trousers. By his outward appearance, he would seem to most a librarian or a museum curator who’d lost his way, perhaps an eccentric academic. That was one of the reasons he loved Boston so much. The city was old enough to suit him.
For he himself was, of course, far older than he appeared.
Mr. Doyle rounded a corner and came in view of a small sign that jutted from the front of a building. Ancient neon blinked off and on, forming the letters Rx. The symbol for prescription drugs. It was a pharmacy, of sorts, at least as far as the neighbors were concerned. Many of them had their prescriptions filled at Fulcanelli the Chemist.
It was old-fashioned, of course, for the pharmacist to call himself a chemist. Still commonplace in England, it was unusual in the U.S. But there were a great many things that were unusual in this little warren of old Boston. Fulcanelli carried most things people could buy at another pharmacy, and many things that could be purchased nowhere else in the northeastern United States.
A bell rang above the door as Doyle let himself in. He turned the hanging sign around to read closed and locked the door behind him.
There was no one at the counter when he entered, but in just a moment Fulcanelli emerged from the back of the shop, summoned by the bell. The man was bent with age, his pate bald on top, his white hair a thin curtain at the back of his head.
'Hello, old friend,' Doyle said.
Fulcanelli nodded, grunting in the manner of the very ancient and very cranky. He waved a hand as if to say, let’s get on with it.
'Come,' said the chemist. 'I’ve got what you need.'
Shuffling his feet, the aged shopkeeper moved to a cabinet. Though his fingers were yellowed and covered with age spots and his knuckles were swollen, they moved with the dexterity of a prestidigitator as he reached into a pocket and withdrew a key.
'You’re nearly there, aren’t you?' Doyle asked, concerned.
Fulcanelli froze with the key nearly to the lock. He paused and regarded his visitor with moist, yellowed eyes. 'Don’t act as though you are overwrought with sympathy, Arthur.'
Doyle stood a bit straighter, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and blew out a puff of air that ruffled his mustache.
