After a long slow descent, the elevator ground to a halt. Unexpectedly, the door behind them opened.
Hari tapped the one that had stayed closed. “Where does this one go?”
“Just a rather large storage area where Mister Allard locked away mementoes of his life.”
“He must have a lot of mementoes.”
A nod. “That he does. I’ve only taken a quick look, but he left all sorts of things in there, including an intact autogyro.”
“An auto-what?”
“Autogyro—a two-seat precursor to the helicopter.”
Figuring that had to be one helluva storage space, Hari followed Hill out the rear door onto a platform and—
“Holy shit!” Hari cried and pressed her back against the wall. “I mean, what the fuck?”
That kind of language was not her style, but the words jumped out on their own. She noticed Barbara close beside her, eyes closed, looking a little sick. She understood perfectly.
A stone stairway led down—not against the wall, where you’d normally expect it, where any sane person would place it, but curving through the middle of the emptiness. With no handrail. Just steps, four feet wide and going down forever. Not into darkness—at least they were spared that—but down and down. Flames flickered in sconces all up and down the circular wall, lighting the stairway and all the empty space around it.
“Sorry,” Hill said. “I should have warned you.”
“Ya think?” Hari said.
Despite his rugged good looks, this Burbank or Hill or whatever he was calling himself was getting on her nerves.
Barbara still had her eyes closed. “W-we have to go down there?”
“I’m afraid so,” Hill said. “I didn’t realize you were acrophobic.”
Hari forced herself to push off from the wall and take a few steps closer to the edge.
“I’m not. I don’t exactly go looking for high places, but I’m not terrified of them.”
“Same here,” Hill said. “Even though my father and grandfather were skywalkers, I—”
Ellie said, “Like in Star Wars?”
“No, like in high-steel workers. Like many Mohawks, they had no fear of heights. I didn’t inherit that.” He waved an arm above. “My grandfather helped build the Allard and hinted that it held secrets in its foundation. I’d always assumed he meant gangsters from the Roaring Twenties had found their final resting place in the concrete, but I wasn’t even close.”
“Who clued you to this?” Hari said.
“The original Burbank occupied the penthouse from its beginning in 1931 to just last December.”
Hari did a quick count. “From 1931? He must have been—”
Hill was nodding. “Yes, he died at a very ripe old age. He knew almost everything about the building and left lots of notes. I found a section of blueprint with these keys in his papers.”
“We’re wasting time,” Ellie said, hands on hips, foot tapping. “Mother, maybe you’ll feel better waiting upstairs in the lobby?”
“No!” Barbara said. She had her eyes open now but still looked a little green around the gills. “I’m…I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t put yourself through that,” Hari said. “I’ll watch out for her.”
“But who’ll watch out for you?” Barbara muttered. Before Hari could ask what she meant, Barbara added, “You all go ahead. I’ll be fine right here.”
“Sorry, Mother,” Ellie said and started down with the nonchalance of someone descending steps a dozen times wider.
Hill followed but at a slower pace.
“I’ve been down these a number of times,” he said. “The trick is to keep your head down and your eyes fixed on the next step.”
Hari stopped on the lip of the first step and looked down and around.
“Who dug this?”
“Don’t know,” Hill said, “but Burbank’s papers say it was already here when they dug the Allard’s foundation. The owner, the original Mister Allard, would only allow natives of an obscure South American tribe to work on the section of the foundation directly above this.”
“How old is it?”
“Burbank didn’t know.”
“Okay, one more question then I’ll shut up: all these flames burning in the wall…who refills the sconces?”
“No one,” Hill said. “They never seem to run out.”
Twenty-four hours ago Hari would have called bullshit. But after spending the night on another planet, she accepted that he was telling the truth.
She started down, using his method of watching the next step, and it worked to block out all the empty air around her. She’d almost caught up to Hill by the time he reached the bottom where an obviously impatient Ellie waited before a big, pointed-arch door of riveted steel set in the wall.
Hill flipped through his crowded keyring and selected the largest one.
“You have a key for every room in the place?”
He shook his head. “No idea what all these are for. Luckily they’re labeled.” He stuck the big key in the lock but didn’t turn it. “Don’t get your hopes up, anybody. Every time I’ve opened this door I’ve run into a wall.”
When he turned the key, a latch went thunk deep within. He grasped the iron ring that served as a handle and swung it out to reveal…a stone wall.
“You weren’t kidding, were you,” Hari said.
“Close it again,” Ellie said, “then let me open it.”
Hill gave her a look. “You really think…?”
Hari looked at the solid wall of stone, the very bedrock of Manhattan, impenetrable. And yet…this weird kid had this air about her and, what the hell, anything and everything seemed possible today.
How had that mantra ended? It will begin in the heavens and end in the Earth, but before that, the rules will be broken.”
Well, the sun had been late climbing into the heavens, and here they were, deep in the Earth…and all sorts of rules had been broken back on Norum Hill…
“Give her a shot,” Hari said. “What’ve we got to lose?”
Hill pushed the door shut and stood back. As Ellie reached for the ring, Barbara cried out behind them.
“Wait for me!”
The three of them turned to find her crawling backward down the steps on her hands and toes.
BARBARA
I don’t know how I did it, but I couldn’t let my baby go off with strangers to see the infernal machine that destroyed her life. I found a
