The only other object was a small bronze urn sitting on a shelf about two feet below the ceiling. I brought it down and opened the lid. Inside were some yellowish gems. I took one out. Precious stones of some kind. Why had Hal kept them in here? They were quite small and uncut so wouldn’t be worth much.
Upset and preoccupied by my failure to find anything, I relaxed my vigilance as I left the house. That was all it took. As I passed by the recess between a townhouse and the churchyard a figure lurched out of the shadows, locking his thick arm around my neck. He gripped my jacket, pulling me hard against his chest, so tight I could actually feel his diaphragm rise and fall.
I jerked my body away and felt his grip slacken slightly. I swung my arm around and struck out, hitting him with all my strength. My jacket came off as I tore myself away. I was free.
With only a split second to react I opted not to run down the street, thinking Eris might be waiting there and armed. Instead I charged through the church gate and flung open the wooden front door, hoping whoever was inside might help. But the interior was dark and silent.
I darted up the stairway of blackened wood that led to the second-story galleries. Tucked into one corner of the landing was a small door, like the entrance to a monk’s cell. I pressed against it, felt it give, and slammed my body into it, hard. It sprang open.
Shutting it as quietly as possible, I found myself in a tube of yellow brick so narrow I couldn’t spread out my arms. I felt for my cell to call the police and realized it was in my jacket pocket. Only one option left then—to hide.
A black iron spiral staircase curled up the tower’s center. Sconces fixed into the rounded walls produced a weak, yellowish illumination. My shadow preceded me as I corkscrewed up the stairs. I couldn’t see more than six feet ahead and had no idea how high it went. The air inside was warm and close, and my head buzzed with the turning motion. At the top of the stairway a plank door painted battleship gray opened onto a large room, about fifteen feet square. The space soared to a crumbling plaster ceiling. In places the plaster had fallen out, exposing the wood lath beneath.
A steady pulsing sound off to my left turned out to be a huge iron pendulum enclosed in a wooden frame. Above this a collection of gears and pulleys whirred away. The drivers for the church clock. The pendulum swung back and forth with the slow sideways swish of a reaper’s scythe.
Poe’s story surfaced. I imagined the walls and floor sliding in, crushing me flat.
A full-dress army uniform, dusty with age, and Second World War military colors hung on one wall. Ghosts of dead soldiers whispered into the silence.
I listened for any sounds of pursuit but could detect only the steady stroke of the clock, a soft boom, like the heartbeat of a giant. Flimsy steps led up to a closed hatch on the ceiling. I climbed them and pushed at the wooden covering. Something fell, and I pulled back as though it had been aimed at my head. A dead sparrow landed on the floor with a tiny thud.
The hatch opened into an empty, dark space. The sour smell of bird droppings and mold lingered. I could hear the swish of wings. Pigeons? Bats? I felt gingerly around the wooden frame above the hatch to see whether enough secure flooring existed for me to clamber up. When I pulled my hand back it was covered with dust and the furry wings of dead moths.
Could I hide there?
Footsteps rang on the metal stair treads below the room, steadily gaining, interspersed with the ticktock of the giant pendulum, as if the clock were counting out the seconds left in my life. The door creaked open.
The man’s leg extended over the threshold and then his entire body came into view. He could barely squeeze in. He tottered into the room and stopped.
When he spotted me a tremor of excitement seemed to ripple through his body. Tortured sounds came out of his mouth, as though his vocal cords had corroded. Like a stone statue, he took slow, deliberate strides toward me. This I knew in my gut was the burned chemist. He was like some primeval creature who’d taken on human form, as if a god had fashioned a giant sculpture and breathed life into the stone. The ancient Greeks chained their statues to prevent them from escaping, believing they were alive. I realized now they did this out of fear, not to stop them from running away.
His face was broad and abnormally flat beneath a completely shaved head. His skin had a grayish quality, like dried putty. He glared at me out of one eye. It filled me with revulsion. For an instant it seemed as though the Cyclops of my youthful imagination had come back to claim me.
He turned his head and now I could see that he actually had two eyes, but the left was severely damaged and masked with scar tissue. Over the vacant space where his left eye should have been, waxy skin had been clumsily grafted back on.
I had a couple of advantages. The guy was powerful but slow moving. My reaction time was much faster and I was above him. Always a good position to be in if you want to beat someone.
He had trouble with the stairs, the weak wood of the steps sagging beneath his great weight, and his balance seemed off. I did my best to judge the optimum distance. When he got within reach, I gripped the rails to take the weight of my body and kicked his chest. He lost his footing and crashed down the stairs.
It would have been a successful move, but when I grasped the frame of the hatch to pull myself into the cavity above, the worm-eaten wood splintered and came away in my hands. I plunged down a few steps, close enough for him to grab me. He caught my lower legs and pulled me the rest of the way down. This time I couldn’t break his grip.
He forced me out of the room, down the twisting stairwell to the main floor of the church, and out the door. At the curb a Range Rover revved its motor.
Someone opened the side door. The brute threw me face down on the floor, where the second bank of seats had been removed. Inside, I could make out the form of another man. When I tried to lift my head a heavy boot smashed my face into the floorboard. Blood flooded into my mouth as my incisors cut through the soft flesh of my bottom lip. I spat out dirt and motor oil.
A hand dug into my trouser pocket. “Look up,” the guy said. “Where are your keys?”
I wasn’t about to help him out. “Must have lost them in the tower.”
The ploy didn’t work. He opened the window and said something to the thug outside, calling him Shim. That had to be George Shimsky, whom Tomas Zakar had mentioned. A minute later my jacket was thrown into the front seat. The keys were extracted and we took off, leaving Shim behind.
If they were taking me back to my place, it was on the tip of my tongue to point out they’d never make it past the doorman. But I held back. Let them walk into their own trap.
A ringtone. I heard the driver answer. “Yes?” A woman’s voice. “We have him and we’re on our way. Just a minute.” I heard her rustling for something. “Okay, I’ve got it with me. Yeah, we’re nearly there.” A space of silence while she listened. “Not this time,” she responded, snapping the phone shut.
The voice belonged to Eris.
We stopped in less than ten minutes. The interior lights came on. “Sit up,” the man ordered.
The driver’s door opened and slammed shut again.
She scrutinized me. “You’ve got blood on your face. I can’t take you in like that.” She reached into her handbag and extracted a tissue, bending toward me. For an instant I considered making a grab for her, but the odds of failing were too high.
I could smell the faint, spicy scent of her perfume as she leaned over. “Okay,” she said. “You’re going to put your arm around me and escort me to the elevator. The two of us are coming back from the clubs. We’re slightly drunk. When we see your doorman you’ll smile. Don’t bother trying to get away. You’re not tough enough to go against us.”
“Really? I did last time.”
That didn’t lighten her mood any. She tossed me my jacket, ordered me to put it on, and pulled out her gun, keeping it pressed against my side, too close to be visible to anyone else. We proceeded into the lobby while the second man drove away.
I glanced toward the desk. No sign of Amir. On a slow night he’d duck out for a coffee. He couldn’t have chosen a worse moment.
Eris moved abruptly away the minute we got on the elevator and leaned against the wall, aiming her gun at
