Polidori’s second arm came swinging over the edge and seized my other leg. Then his head lurched into view as he started hauling himself up my legs and into the elevator.
I thrashed about, trying to throw him off, but his grip was so strong that I feared his iron fingers would crush my flesh to pulp.
Henry grabbed one of Polidori’s hands and began prying his fingers off my ankle. Elizabeth kicked his head. But it was as though he no longer felt pain, as though his muscle and tissue would never tire.
My grip on the rope tightened, and I noticed that as Polidori pulled on me, he also pulled on the rope, and so the elevator was still rising, albeit slowly. I looked up and saw we were not so far from the cellar’s stone ceiling.
“Henry!” I yelled. “Keep pulling!”
“What?” he shouted.
“Raise us!”
At this, Polidori looked up, and seemed to understand my plan, for he redoubled his efforts to clamber up me and into the elevator. His belly, hips, and legs still dangled over the edge.
In three feet he would have to let go, or be crushed.
Elizabeth kicked at him again, and he lost his grip for a moment, sliding down my body. I thought he might fall off altogether, but he grabbed hold of both my ankles. The elevator lurched upward.
Less than two feet now to the ceiling.
With a burst of preternatural energy and speed, he climbed up me once more: clawing up my legs, then grabbing at my waist. I bellowed and kicked even as I hauled on the rope with Henry. The elevator lurched up another foot.
“Let go!” I shouted at him. “Or you’ll be severed!”
“And you will lose your feet!” he bellowed back.
In horror I saw he was right. He had dragged my legs over the edge.
For a moment no one moved. The elevator was filled with the sound of our animal grunts and panting.
“Then I will live without them!” I roared into the alchemist’s acid-stained face. “Henry, Elizabeth, pull hard!
With all my strength I heaved on the rope. The elevator lurched up. Polidori tilted his face to the stone bearing down on him-and let go. The elevator, suddenly lighter, rocketed higher. I yanked my legs back, and stone grazed my feet as the gap closed before us.
We were in total darkness now, for we had not thought to bring a candle or lantern. And for a moment we just sat sprawled on the elevator floor, panting raggedly.
“We had best keep going,” I said. “He may have some way of summoning the elevator back to him.”
“Yes, you’re right,” said Elizabeth.
I felt her breath on my face, and realized she was very close to me.
“You were very brave, Victor,” she said.
I stroked her cheek with the three fingers of my right hand. I moved my face closer to hers, and our mouths met in the darkness. I felt her tears on her cheeks, and tasted their salt against my tongue.
Abruptly she stood. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get to the surface!”
From below came the sound of Polidori shouting and cursing. I could not make out many of his words, for at times he seemed to be raging in another language.
“He wanted it for himself,” I puffed as we raised the elevator together. “He wanted his legs back.”
“He never meant for us to have it,” said Elizabeth. “He just used us to fetch his ingredients, the devil.”
Suddenly the elevator bumped to a stop, and I saw the faintest crack of light before us. The secret panels! Gasping for air, as though we’d been trapped beneath the sea, I stepped forward to throw them open.
“Wait!” Henry whispered, yanking me back.
“What?” I demanded.
“Krake,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tensed, I pushed open the elevator doors, ready for the lynx to spring upon us.
The empty corridor stretched out in near darkness, with only a pale flicker of orange light coming from the parlor.
“When we entered,” I whispered to the others, “Krake was before the hearth.”
“Let’s hope he’s asleep,” Henry breathed.
“Keep watch behind us,” I told Henry. “Elizabeth, set your gaze high; he is a good climber.”
As we stepped out of the elevator, its wooden planks groaned briefly, and the sound seemed huge in the silent house. Once more I cursed myself for not bringing the poker or Polidori’s clubbed cane. Slowly we made our way down the corridor, pausing before the branch in the passage that led to the lavatory and bedchamber.
I listened. I sniffed, in case I could smell Krake. But he was the predator, not me, and his ears and nose were keener than mine. I leaned out around the corner. The corridor was empty.
We hurried on, past the closed kitchen door, toward the parlor. As we neared it, more of the room became visible in the pale light from the crackling embers. On the mantelpiece ticked Polidori’s clock. The time was half past nine.
In thirty minutes the gates of the city would close, and they would not open again until five o’clock the following morning.
We could not be trapped inside the city for the night.
The elixir had to be taken within four hours of its making.
Stealthily I moved into the room, far enough to see the rug before the hearth. Krake sat upon it, his back to us, looking directly into the embers as though mesmerized. His ears were pricked high.
I turned to the others and gestured for them to follow. We could move past, behind the lynx.
With every step I watched Krake, but all his attention seemed hypnotically focused on the embers. Halfway across the room, I heard something-a kind of hiss emanating from the fireplace. It took me a moment before I realized it was Polidori’s voice, carried upward to Krake through the chimney. I did not catch the words, and did not want to know in what devilish way these two communicated. With every step I took, Polidori’s voice seemed to get louder and more urgent, and when it stopped, the silence was like a sudden noise. The clock ticked, and Krake turned and stared straight at us.
“Run!” I cried.
Krake snarled, and every hair on my body bristled. I bolted for the door to the storefront and flung it back. Lamplight from the street spilled through the grimy shop windows. Krake gave another terrible shriek, closer now. We hurtled across the shop, threw the door wide, and ran headlong down the dark cobblestones of Wollstonekraft Alley.
Before we rounded the corner, I glanced back, but I did not see Krake pursuing us. Still we ran, until we came out upon a public square where there was torchlight and people about-though mostly of the drunken sort. Here I stopped and bent over, breathless, my amputated fingers throbbing as though they were still there.
“We will need the horses,” Henry said. “We must get back to your stables.”
From across the city Saint Peter’s tolled the quarter hour. Fifteen minutes till ten.
“We will not make it to the Rive gate in time,” I said.
We were too far from my house. Even if we ran all the way, readied the horses, and rode full tilt to the gates, they would already be locked for the night.
“What do you intend to do, then?” Henry demanded.
“The river gate,” I said. “We’re no more than a few minutes away.”
It was the city’s only entrance by water. But the harbor itself was sealed off shortly after ten o’clock. Two massive chains were strung between the two shores and raised to prevent any vessel from leaving or
