The Wheel of Darkness

, been tracked?

In his fierce climb to the top of the Silicon Valley hierarchy, Blackburn had long ago learned to trust his sense of paranoia. He had learned that, if his instincts told him somebody was out to get him, then somebody generally was. And here, trapped on this ship, without recourse to his usual layers of security, he was in an unusually vulnerable position. He’d heard rumors there was some kind of private investigator on board, an eccentric passenger by the name of Pendergast, looking for a thief and murderer.

Was the bastard investigating him ? There was no way to be certain, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed likely. He couldn’t afford to take a chance; the stakes were too high. His adversary—for, if his instincts were right, there could be no other term for him—would have to be dealt with in a special way.

A very special way.

He turned off all the lights in the room and stood in the dark, sharpening his senses. First he listened intently, teasing out every little sound—from the faint thrumming of the engines deep within the riveted steel, to the moaning of wind and sea; the splatter of rain against the glass; the sobbing of his private maid in her bedroom; the muffled footfalls in the corridor outside. He tuned in to the sensations of his own body, his bare feet on the plush nap, the scent of sandalwood and beeswax in the cabin, the sensation caused by the deep, ponderous rolling of the ship.

He inhaled, exhaled. The three enemies—hate, desire, and confusion—had to be temporarily banished. All must be calm. Of these three, hate was the most powerful of the enemies, and now it almost suffocated Blackburn in its triumphant embrace.

With iron self-control, he moved to an easel standing beside the far wall, on which something was propped up, covered by a tied shroud of the finest silk. It had been a foolish mistake not to keep it in the safe from the very beginning; but he had hated the idea of locking it away when he needed it so frequently. His own private maid had been given strict instructions never to lift the silk and look upon it. And he knew she wouldn’t—it had taken him years to find someone as reliable, unimaginative, and incurious as her. But the first ship’s maid—the one who killed herself—must have lifted the veil. Now, if his suspicions were true and this Pendergast was after it, even the safe wouldn’t be secure enough. Hotel safes were notoriously easy to break into, and ship’s safes, even a big one, were probably no different. They were designed to keep out petty thieves, and no more.

He would have to find a better hiding place.

Scrupulously avoiding looking at it, he gingerly lifted the silk covering from the object and placed it in the center of the room. With ceremonial care, he arranged thirty-six butter candles on a large silver tray, lit them, then placed them in front of the object to better illuminate it—all the while keeping his eyes averted. He placed bundles of joss sticks into two elaborately chased gold thuribles, arranging them on either side of the object.

The butter candles flickered, filling the room with their peculiar, dancing, golden light. Next, he laid out a quilted silk mat before the candles and seated himself, lotus-style, upon it. Closing his eyes, he began to chant: a strange, low, humming that the careful listener would hear as a braid of the same strange sounds linked together, without beginning or end. The warm, animal smell of the butter candles filled the air as his humming rose and fell, creating the bizarre Tibetan polyphonic effect known assygyt: that of sounding two notes at once with the same voice, made famous by the Tengyo monks, among whom he had studied.

After thirty minutes of closed-eye chanting, the three enemies were gone, vanquished. Blackburn’s mind was empty of all hatred and desire, and receptive toit . He opened his eyes suddenly, very wide, and stared at the object in the candlelight.

It was as if he’d received an electric current. His body stiffened, his muscles bulged, the cords in his neck tightened, his carotid artery pulsed. But his chanting never wavered, growing more rapid, moving into the higher registers, reaching an intensity of sound that was nothing at all like the normal tones of the human voice.

He stared, and stared, and stared. A peculiar smell began filtering into the room, a nauseating, earthy smell, like rotting toadstools. The air seemed to thicken, as if filling with smoke, which drew together in a place about four feet in front of him, clotting like dark, viscous cream into something dense, almost solid. And then . . .

It began to move.

33

IT HAD BEEN A VOYAGE FULL OF FIRSTS, THOUGHT BETTY JONDROW of Paradise Hills, Arizona, as she waited in the gilded lobby of the Belgravia Theatre, clutching a program book. Yesterday, she and her twin sister Willa had gone to the Sedona SunSpa® and gotten matching tattoos on their butts: hers of a butterfly, Willa’s of a bumblebee. Both had bought ankle bracelets of real diamonds in Regent Street, one of the ship’s two upscale shopping arcades, and they wore them every night. Who would have believed, Betty thought, that between them she and her sister had borne eight nine-pound babies and boasted eleven bouncing grandchildren? Thank God they had never let themselves go like so many of their high school classmates. She took great pride in the fact that, at sixty-three, she could still fit into her high school prom dress—an experiment she repeated religiously each year on the anniversary of the prom.

She looked around again and checked her watch. Almost one o’clock in the morning. Where in heck was Willa? She had gone off to buy batteries for her camera at least half an hour ago. Maybe even longer.

It was Willa who had been so anxious to meet Braddock Wiley, the movie star. One of the highlights of the cruise—and one of the reasons they had signed up—was the promise of a mid-atlantic premiere of Wiley’s latest horror movie. It was supposed to happen at ten, but Braddock Wiley, or so rumor had it, was suffering a bit from seasickness due to the rough weather.

She scanned the crowd again, but still no Willa. Well, if she didn’t get there soon, Betty would just have to meet Wiley for both of them. She slipped a makeup mirror out of her bag, examined her face, touched up the corners of her lips with a hankie, snapped it shut, and slid it back.

A sudden stir at the fringes of the group told her the wait had not been in vain. There was Braddock Wiley himself—dashing in nautical blue blazer, ascot, and cream-colored pants—striding into the lobby with several ship’s officers. He didn’t look sick at all.

As soon as he saw the group of women he beamed and came over. “Good evening, ladies!” he said, reaching inside his blazer for a pen as the women, giggling and blushing, pushed their movie programs toward him. Wiley worked his way through the crowd, chatting with everyone, signing programs and posing for photographs. He was even more handsome in person than on the silver screen. Betty hung back, hoping for a last-minute appearance of her sister—but then, finally, there was Wiley, in front of her.

“Last but not least,” he said with a wink, enveloping her hand in both of his and holding it warmly. “They told me there were going to be some fine-looking ladies on board. I didn’t believe them—until now.”