“Destiny, honey,” he began. But he knew the mixed emotions she was feeling. He’d felt the same way when he first had to kill another human being.
“The Grim Destroyer of yours is a god of death you think you can outfox. But none of us beat death, Matt. None of us.”
She went on some more then she let him hold her close, sobbing onto his shoulder.
“We better get out of here,” Coleman said in a rasp.
“Try not to think about it too much,” Henson advised, knowing the opposite would occur.
Stevenson didn’t look at him.
The four left. “I better drive,” Coleman said.
Stevenson had a hollow look on her face as Henson helped her into the Ford. He left his motorcycle up the block after removing the spark plug wire and got in the rear of the car with the professor.
“Are you taking me to the frog and his jade rock, Matthew?” Ellsmere said. The older man turned to look at his friend a grave set to his face. “The Frog Prince has the answers you know. How to unlock the secrets of Seqinek’s gift to us.”
Henson said softly, “Is that what you told them, Henrik?”
Ellsmere stiffened as if struck. “My dear, boy, I want you to know I held out despite physical violence and threats of more.” There were bruises on his neck the other man had noticed. “The frog told me it’s only you who will wield its power. Your destiny,” he said, not being ironic.
“Okay, prof, sure you right.”
Henson wondered what were Dutch Schultz, and by extension Davis, able to get out of Ellsmere this go-round about the Daughter. His captors had given him laudanum to better lubricate his tongue, but that also loosened the moorings he was having on sanity, he feared. He didn’t think taking him to a sanitarium was a good idea. He needed to be cared for but not so anyone could get to him in the condition he was in. He knew where he had to take him. Coleman stopped so he could make to make a phone call, and then they made one other stop.
"I’ll see y’all later,” he said to Coleman as he and Ellsmere stood on the sidewalk. Destiny Stevenson stared straight ahead. The aviatrix nodded and drove off.
Henson took Ellsmere upstairs to Nikola Tesla’s apartment at the Service Hotel along with the scientist’s notes, retrieved from the basement at Columbia University.
“I’ll see to it that he gets the help he needs,” the electrical wizard said, his hand on his colleague’s shoulder, the notes in the other. “I too have had bouts of…uncertainty.”
Ellsmere nodded, muttering.
Henson had heard like Slip Latimore, Tesla could spend hours feeding the pigeons in the park, no doubt lost in arcane calculations he was working out in his head. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. And as much as possible, keep him under wraps, okay?” He’d told him briefly about how they’d rescued Ellsmere. “I’m not sure for how long, but I’ve got the feeling this is coming to a head for good or for ill soon.”
“I concur on your assessment, Matthew. Forces are at play. You should know your Mr. Davis is part of…a council, I suppose it could be called. A grouping of plutocrats and a selected assortment of members of the government who, it is fair to say, stand closer to the tenets of a dictatorship that they do to democracy.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. A nest of vipers, is it?” Now it made sense how it was the government could spirit Ellsmere away from lock up, but wind up back in the hands of Davis working in cahoots with this bunch.
“More like that of the Medusa of myth, it seems to me,” Tesla said. “With Davis looking to be the main head from which these snakes writhe. A Medusa Council, if you will.”
“You mean, if he could possess the Daughter,” Henson said.
Tesla regarded his visitor. “Is it here in New York?”
“Let’s just say I can get a hold of a piece of it if I have to.”
“I understand. But you must keep it safe.”
“On that you can put all your money, Nikola.” To Ellsmere he said, “See you soon, Henrik.”
“Yes, I’d like that,” his friend said, absorbed in examining a gadget that looked like a coffee pot with tubes and wires sticking out of it.
Henson went back down to the street; a chill wind having kicked up. As people turned up their collars, buttoning up and bending their heads low, Henson walked along erect, invigorated by the cold wind. For this was when he was at his sharpest, when he was most aware that any mistake would send him into the embrace of the Grim Destroyer. How he best not be complacent, least that bastard come for him through the white haze and claim him.
Upstairs, the woman called Petersen appeared from a side room in the doctor’s quarters. Ellsmere reacted.
Tesla touched the other man’s arm. “Don’t worry, Freja is on our side. She was my Mata Hari inside Davis’ operation. It was she who left certain doors unlocked for you to escape from your velvet prison in Poughkeepsie.”
“Well I’ll be,” Ellsmere muttered.
“Should I try and follow him see if he takes me to the Daughter?” Petersen said.
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,
