Relic

There was a sudden commotion behind them.

“Help!” came a feminine voice. “I’ve slipped! Don’t let go!”

“Grab her, somebody!” the Mayor shouted.

Smithback snapped on the light and angled it quickly backward. A middle-aged woman was thrashing about in the water, her long evening dress billowing out across the inky surface.

“Stand up!” the Mayor was shouting. “Anchor your feet!”

“Help me!” she screamed.

Smithback shoved the flashlight into his pocket and braced himself against the current. The woman was floating directly toward him. He saw her arm lash out and felt it wrap around his thigh in a viselike grip. He felt himself slipping.

“Wait!” he cried. “Stop struggling! I’ve got you!”

Her legs kicked out and wrapped around his knees. Smithback lost his grip on D’Agosta and staggered forward, marveling at her strength even as he was pulled off balance.

“You’re dragging me under!” he said, toppling to his chest in the water and feeling the current sucking him downward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw D’Agosta wading in his direction. The woman clambered onto him in a blind panic, forcing his head under water. He rose up under her damp gown, and then it was clinging to his nose and chin, disorienting him, suffocating him. A [414] great lassitude began to sweep over him. He went under a second time, a strange, hollow roaring in his ears.

Suddenly he was above the water again, choking and coughing. A dreadful shrieking was coming from the tu

“We lost the woman,” D’Agosta said. “Come on.”

Her shrieks echoed toward them, growing fainter as she was swept farther downstream. Some of the guests were shouting and crying directions to her, others sobbing uncontrollably.

“Quick, everybody!” D’Agosta yelled. “Stay against the wall! Let’s move forward, and, whatever you do, don’t break the chain.” Under his breath, he muttered to Smithback, “Tell me you’ve still got the flashlight.”

“Here it is,” Smithback said, testing it.

“We have to keep going, or we’ll lose everybody,” D’Agosta muttered. Then he laughed a short, mirthless laugh. “Looks like I saved your life this time. That makes us even, Smithback.”

Smithback said nothing. He was trying to shut out the horrifying, anguished screams, fainter now and distorted by the tu

The event had demoralized the group. “We’ll be all right if we just hold hands!” Smithback heard the Mayor shout. “Keep the chain intact!”

Smithback gripped D’Agosta’s hand as hard as he could. They waded downstream in the darkness.

“Light,” said D’Agosta.

Smithback switched on the beam. And the bottom dropped out of his world.

A hundred yards ahead, the high ceiling of the tu

Dimly, he realized that the screaming behind him wasn’t screaming, but cheering. He looked back, and saw the bedraggled group staring upward, above his head. At the point where the curved brickwork of the ceiling met the wall of the tu

The cheering rapidly died away as the awful truth dawned.

“It’s too fucking far to reach,” D’Agosta said.

= 58 =

They moved away from the Secure Area and stealthily climbed a stairwell. Pendergast turned to Margo, put a finger to his lips, then pointed to the crimson splashes of blood on the floor. She nodded: the beast had gone this way when it ran from their lights. She remembered that she’d been up this staircase just the day before with Smithback, evading the guard. She followed Pendergast as he flicked off the miner’s lamp, cautiously opened the first floor door, and moved out into the darkness beyond, the bundle of fibers clasped over his shoulder.

The agent stopped a moment, inhaling. “I don’t smell anything,” he whispered. “Which way to Security Command and the Computer Room?”

“I think we go left from here,” Margo said. “And then through the Hall of Ancient Mammals. It’s not too far. Just around the corner from Security Command is the long hallway Dr. Frock told you about.”

Pendergast switched on the flashlight briefly and shone it down the corridor. “No blood spoor,” he [417] murmured. “The creature headed straight upstairs from the Secure Area-past this landing and right toward Dr. Wright, I’m afraid.” He turned toward Margo. “And how do you propose we lure it here?”

“Use the fibers again,” she replied.

“It didn’t fall for that trick last time.”

“But this time we’re not trying to trap it. All we want to do is lure it around the corner. You’ll be at the other end of the hallway, ready to shoot. We’ll just leave some fibers at one end of the hall. We’ll make a—a what do you call it?—at the far end.”

“A blind.”

“Right, a blind. And we’ll be hiding there, in the dark. When it comes, I’ll train the miner’s light onto it and you can start shooting.”

“Indeed. And how will we know when the creature has arrived? If the hallway is as long as Dr. Frock says it is, we may not be able to smell it in time.”

Margo was quiet. “That’s tough,” she finally admitted.

They stood for a moment in silence.

“There’s a glass case at the end of the hall,” Margo said. “It’s meant to display new books written by the Museum staff, but Mrs. Rickman never bothered to have it filled. So it won’t be locked. We can put the bundle in there. The creature may be out for blood, but I doubt it’ll be able to resist that. It’ll make some noise prying open the case. When you hear the noise, you shoot.”

“Sorry,” Pendergast said after a moment, “but I think it’s too obvious. We have to ask the question again: If I came across a setup like this, would I know it was a trap? In this case, the answer is yes. We need to think of something a little more subtle. Any new trap that uses the fibers as bait is bound to arouse its suspicions.”

Margo leaned against the cold marble wall of the corridor. “It has an acute sense of hearing as well as smell,” she said.

“Yes?”

[418] “Perhaps the simplest approach is best. We use ourselves as bait. We make some noise. Talk loudly. Sound like easy prey.”

Pendergast nodded. “Like the ptarmigan, feigning a broken wing, drawing off the fox. And how will we know it’s there?”

“We’ll use the flashlight intermittently. Wave it about, shine it down the hall. We’ll use the low setting; it may irritate the creature, but it won’t rebuff it. But it will allow us to see it. The creature will think we’re looking around, trying to find our way. Then, when it comes for us, I switch to the miner’s light and you start shooting.”

Pendergast thought for a moment. “What about the possibility of the creature coming from the other direction? From behind us?”

“The hall dead-ends in the staff entrance to the Hall of Pacific Peoples,” Margo pointed out.

“So we’ll be trapped at the end of a cul-de-sac,” Pendergast protested. “I don’t like it.”

“Even if we weren’t trapped,” Margo said, “we wouldn’t be able to escape if you miss your shots. According to the Extrapolator, the thing can move almost as fast as a greyhound.”

Pendergast thought for a moment. “You know, Margo, this plan might work. It’s deceptively simple and uncluttered, like a Zurbarán still life or a Bruckner symphony. If this creature devastated a SWAT team, it probably feels there isn’t much more that human beings can do to it. It wouldn’t be as cautious.”