Douglas Preston - Reliquary

She passed through a close, foul-smelling darkness, then into a large, dimly illuminated space. She forced her eyes open, straining to orient herself. She could see a ruined mirror, covered in what looked like countless layers of dried mud, most of its glass shattered and lost long ago. Beside it, an ancient tapestry of a unicorn in captivity, rotting from the bottom up. Then she was jostled again, and she now saw the marble walls rushing toward a high, glittering ceiling, the ruined chandelier. A tiny metal plate glinted at the ceiling’s center: their viewhole, not ten minutes before. I’m in the Crystal Pavilion, she thought.

The foul odor was stronger here than ever, and she fought against panic and a rising despair. She was brusquely thrown to the ground, the blow knocking the breath from her lungs. Gasping, she tried to rise to one elbow. She saw she was surrounded by Wrinklers, shuffling back and forth, swathed in their ragged patchwork cloaks and hoods. Despite her horror, she found herself looking at them with curiosity. So these are the victims of glaze, she thought, her mind clearing. She could not help feeling a stab of pity over what had happened to them. She wondered again if it was necessary for them to die, even as she knew in her heart there was no other answer. Kawakita himself had written that there was no antidote—no way to reverse what the reovirus had done to them—anymore than there had been a way to reverse what had happened to Whittlesey.

But with this thought came another, and she stared around wildly. The charges had been set and would soon detonate. Even if the Wrinklers spared them—

One of the creatures bent forward, leering at her. The hood slipped back a moment, and all thoughts of pity—even thoughts of her own immediate danger—fled away in overwhelming revulsion. She had a brief, searing vision of grotesquely wrinkled skin with pendulous folds and dewlaps, surrounding two lizardlike eyes, black and dead, their pupils contracted to quivering pinpoints. She turned away.

There was a thump and Pendergast was thrown to the ground beside her. Smithback and Mephisto, struggling wildly, followed after him.

Pendergast looked at her questioningly, and she nodded that she was unhurt. There was another commotion, then Lieutenant D’Agosta was dumped nearby, his weapon tugged from him and tossed aside. He was bleeding freely from a large gash above one eye. A Wrinkler tore the pack from her shoulder and tossed it to the ground, then started toward D’Agosta.

“Keep away from me, you goddamn mutant,” the policeman swore. One of the Wrinklers leaned forward and dealt him a slashing blow across the face.

“You’d better cooperate, Vincent,” said Pendergast quietly. “We are slightly outnumbered.”

D’Agosta rose to his knees and shook his head clear. “Why are we still alive?”

“The question of the hour,” replied Pendergast. “I’m afraid it might have to do with the ceremony that’s about to begin.”

“Hear that, scriblerian?” Mephisto chuckled mirthlessly. “Perhaps the Post will buy your next story: ‘How I Became a Human Sacrifice.’ ”

The soft chanting rose once again, and Margo felt herself pulled to her feet. A path was cleared among the shuffling throng, and she could make out the hut of skulls, perhaps twenty feet in front of them. She stared in mute horror at the macabre structure, stained and unclean, grinning a thousand grins. Several figures moved around within it, and great wafts of steam rose above the unfinished roof. It was surrounded by a paling of human longbones indifferently cleaned. Before the entrance, she could make out several ceremonial stone platforms. Inside, through the countless empty eye sockets, she could see the vague form of the sedan chair on which the shaman had been brought in. She wondered what the terrifying apparition within might look like. She was not sure she could bear to see another face such as the one that had leered at her hungrily moments before.

A hand at her back propelled her roughly forward, and she half walked, half stumbled toward the hut. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see D’Agosta struggling with the Wrinklers prodding him along. Smithback, too, was silently resisting. One of them drew a long, evil-looking stone knife from beneath the folds of his cloak and held it to the journalist’s throat.

“ Cuchillos de pedernal ,” Pendergast murmured. “Isn’t that what the subway survivor told you?”

D’Agosta nodded.

A few feet from the paling, Margo was brought to a halt, then forced to her knees and held along with the others. Around her, the chanting and drumming had increased to a fever pitch.

Suddenly her eyes focused on the stone platforms around the hut. There were several metal objects on the nearest, lovingly arranged as if for some ritual purpose.

Then she caught her breath. “Pendergast?” she croaked.

Pendergast looked toward her inquiringly, and she gestured with her head toward the platform. “Ah,” he whispered. “The larger of the souvenirs. I could only carry the smaller pieces.”

“Yes,” Margo replied urgently, “but I recognize one of these. It’s the handbrake to a wheelchair.”

A look of surprise crossed Pendergast’s face.

“And that piece there is a tipping lever, broken off at the stub.”

Pendergast tried to move toward the platform, but one of the figures forced him back. “This makes no sense,” he said. “Why would such an arrangement be—” He stopped abruptly. “Lourdes,” he said in a low whisper.

“I don’t understand,” Margo answered. But Pendergast said nothing more, his eyes now fixed on the figure inside the hut.

There was a rustling from within, then a small procession began to emerge. Cloaked figures stepped out in groups of two, carrying between them large cauldrons of steaming liquid. Around her, the chanting increased until it seemed to Margo one long, monotonous cacophony. The Wrinklers seated the cauldrons into depressions beaten into the floor of the Pavilion. Then the sedan chair emerged, covered in dense black material, flanked by four bearers. The bearers processed with measured step around the bone paling. Reaching the farthest, largest stone platform, they carefully placed the sedan chair upon it. The supports were drawn away, the covering removed, and the lieutenants moved slowly back into the hut.

Margo stared at the shadowed figure in the chair, his features invisible in the darkness, the only observable movement the slight flexing of thick fingers. The chanting ebbed, then swelled again, taking on an unmistakable undertone of anticipation. The figure raised his hand suddenly, and the chanting ceased in an instant. Then, as he leaned forward, the flickering firelight slanted across his face.

For Margo, it was as if time itself were suspended for a brief, terrible instant. She forgot the fear, the aching knees, the detonation timers relentlessly ticking in the dark corridors above her head. The man who sat on the litter made of lashed human bone—dressed in the familiar gabardine pants and paisley tie—was Whitney Frock.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came.

“Oh, my God,” Smithback said behind her.

Frock gazed across the assembled throng, his expression impassive, devoid of emotion. The huge hall was deathly silent.

Slowly, Frock’s eyes swept forward to the prisoners before him. He looked at D’Agosta, then Smithback, then Pendergast. When his gaze reached Margo, he started suddenly. Something kindled in his eyes.

“My dear,” he said. “How truly unfortunate. Frankly, I didn’t expect to see you as science advisor for this little outing, and I am indeed sorry. No—it’s true, and you needn’t look at me like that. Remember how, when it came time to get rid of that meddlesome Irishman, I spared your life. Against my own better judgment, I might add.”