Douglas Preston - The Cabinet of Curiosities

She gathered up her courage, switched on her light, and sprinted forward. She ran past more rooms full of glass-fronted cases; through a chamber that seemed to contain old clothing; and then into an ancient laboratory, full of tubes and coils, dust-heavy machines festooned with dials and rusted switches. Here, between the lab tables, she pulled up abruptly, pausing to listen again.

There was another sound, much closer now, perhaps as close as the next room. It was the sound of something walking— shambling —toward her.

Almost without thinking, she threw herself beneath the nearest table, switching off her light.

Another sound came, hideously alien and yet unmistakably human. It started as a low chatter, a tattoo of rattling teeth, punctuated with a few gasps as if for breath. Then came a high keening, at the highest edge of audibility. Abruptly, the noise stopped. And then Nora heard, in the silence, the footsteps approach once again.

She remained hidden behind the table, immobilized by fear, as the shuffling drew closer in the pitch black. All of a sudden, the darkness was ripped apart by a terrible shriek. This was immediately followed by a coughing, retching sound and the splatter of fluid on stone. The echoes of the shriek died out slowly, ringing on through the stone chambers behind her.

Nora struggled to calm her pounding heart. Despite the unearthly sound, the thing that was approaching her was human. It had to be, she had to remember that. And if it was human, who could it be but Pendergast or the Surgeon? Nora felt it had to be the Surgeon. Perhaps he had been wounded by Pendergast. Or perhaps he was utterly insane.

She had one advantage: he didn’t seem to know she was there. She could ambush him, kill him with the scalpel. If she could summon the courage.

She crouched behind the lab table, scalpel in one trembling hand and light in the other, waiting in the enfolding dark. The shambling seemed to have stopped. A minute, an eternity, of silence ticked by. Then she heard the unsteady footsteps resume. He was now in the room with her.

The footsteps were irregular, punctuated by frequent pauses. Another minute went by in which there was no movement; then, half a dozen jerky footsteps. And now she could hear breathing. Except it wasn’t normal breathing, but a gasping, sucking sound, as if air were being drawn down through a wet hole.

There was a sudden explosion of noise as the person stumbled into a huge apparatus, bringing it to the ground with a massive crash of glass. The sound echoed and reechoed through the stone vaults.

Maintain, Nora said to herself. Maintain. If it’s the Surgeon, Pendergast must have wounded him badly. But then, where was Pendergast? Why wasn’t he pursuing?

The noises seemed to be less than twenty feet away now. She heard a scrabbling, a muttering and panting, and the tinkling of something shedding broken glass: he was getting up from his fall. There was a shuffling thump, and another. Still he was coming, moving with excruciating slowness. And all the time came that breathing: stertorous, with a wet gurgle like air drawn through a leaky snorkel. Nothing Nora had ever heard in her life was quite so unnerving as the sound of that breathing.

Ten feet. Nora gripped the scalpel tighter as adrenaline coursed through her. She would turn on her light and lunge forward. Surprise would give her the advantage, especially if he was wounded.

There was a loud wet snoring sound, another heavy footfall; a gasp, the spastic stamp of a foot; silence; then the dragging of a limb. He was almost upon her. She crouched, tensing all her muscles, ready to blind the man with her light and strike a fatal blow.

Another step, another snuffle: and she acted. She switched on the light — but, instead of leaping with her scalpel, she froze, arm raised, knife edge glittering in the beam of light.

And then she screamed.

CUSTER STOOD ATOP the great flight of steps rising above Museum Drive, looking out over the sea of press with an indescribable feeling of satisfaction. To his left was the mayor of the City of New York, just arriving with a gaggle of aides; to his right, the commissioner of police. Just behind stood his two top detectives and his man, Noyes. It was an extraordinary assemblage. There were so many onlookers, they’d been forced to close Central Park West to traffic. Press helicopters hovered above them, cameras dangling, brilliant spotlights swiveling back and forth. The capture of the Surgeon, aka Roger C. Brisbane III — the Museum’s respected general counsel and first vice president — had riveted the media’s attention. The copycat killer who had terrorized the city hadn’t been some crazy homeless man, living in Central Park on a piece of cardboard. It had instead been one of the pillars of Manhattan society, the smiling, cordial fixture at so many glittering fund-raisers and openings. Here was a man whose face and impeccably tailored figure was often seen in the society pages of Avenue and Vanity Fair. And now he stood revealed as one of New York’s most notorious serial killers. What a story. And he, Custer, had cracked the case single-handedly.

The mayor was conferring sotto voce with the commissioner and the Museum’s director, Collopy, who had at last been tracked down to his own West End residence. Custer’s gaze lingered on Collopy. The man had the gaunt, pinched look of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, and he wore clothes straight out of an old Bela Lugosi movie. The police had finally broken down his front door, suspecting foul play when they observed figures moving against the drawn shades. The scuttlebutt was that the police found him in a pink lace teddy, tied to his bed, with his wife and a second female dressed in dominatrix uniforms. Staring at the man, Custer refused to believe such a rumor. True, the man’s somber clothes looked just a tad disheveled. Still, it was impossible to believe such a pillar of propriety could ever have donned a teddy. Wasn’t it?

Now, Custer saw Mayor Montefiori’s eyes dart toward him. They were talking about him. Although he maintained his stolid expression, arranging his face into a mask of duty and obedience, he was unable to prevent a flush of pleasure from suffusing his limbs.

Commissioner Rocker broke away from the mayor and Collopy and came over. To Custer’s surprise, he did not look altogether happy.

“Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

The commissioner stood there a moment, indecisive, face full of anxiety. Finally he leaned closer. “Are you sure?”

“Sure, sir?”

“Sure that it’s Brisbane.”

Custer felt a twinge of doubt, but quickly stepped down on it. The evidence was overwhelming.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he confess?”

“No, not confess — exactly — but he made a number of self-incriminating statements. I expect he’ll confess when he’s formally questioned. They always do. Serial killers, I mean. And we found incriminating evidence in his Museum office—”

“No mistake about it? Mr. Brisbane is a very prominent person.”

“No mistake about it, sir.”

Rocker scrutinized his face a moment longer. Custer stirred uneasily. He had been expecting congratulations, not the third degree.

Then the commissioner leaned still closer and lowered his voice to a slow, deliberate whisper. “Custer, all I can say is, you’d better be right. ”

“I am right, sir.”

The commissioner nodded, a look of guarded relief, still mixed with anxiety, settling on his face.

Now Custer stepped respectfully into the background, letting the mayor, his aides, Collopy, and the commissioner arrange themselves before the throngs of press. A feeling like electricity, an anticipatory tingling, filled the air.