Reliquary

“So you purified the drug,” Pendergast said, “and took it yourself.”

“We did the final work at a rather untidy little lab he’d set up along the river. Greg had lost the conviction he needed to go forward. Or perhaps he’d never had that kind of courage, that intestinal fortitude a truly visionary scientist needs to see things through to their conclusion. So I finished what he’d started. More accurately, I perfected what he’d started. The drug still creates morphological change, of course. However, those changes now heal, rather than disfigure, what nature has corrupted. It is the true destiny, the truest iteration, of the reovirus. I am living proof of its restorative power. I was the first to make the transition. In fact, it is now clear to me that no one but myself could have made it. My wheelchair was my cross, you see. Now it is venerated as a symbol of the new world we shall create.”

“The new world,” Pendergast repeated. “The Mbwun lilies growing in the Reservoir.”

“Kawakita’s idea,” Frock said. “Aquaria are so expensive and take up so much room, you see. But that was before…” his voice trailed off.

“I think I understand,” Pendergast went on, as calmly as if he was debating with an old friend at a comfortable coffeehouse table. “You’d been pla

“Naturally. Gregory had modified the plant to grow in a temperate environment. We were going to drain the Reservoir ourselves and release the lily into these tu

“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, trying to keep her voice under control, “some of these seeds will make it out to the storm drain system, and from there to the Hudson and the open ocean. When they hit saltwater, they’ll activate the virus, polluting the entire ecosystem. Do you know what that could mean for the world’s food chain?”

“My dear Margo, that is the idea. Admittedly, it’s an evolutionary step, a step into the unknown. But as a biologist, Margo, you surely realize that the human race has become degenerate. It has lost its evolutionary vigor, become grossly maladaptive. I am the instrument for the reinvigoration of the species.”

“And just where were you pla

Frock laughed. “No doubt you foolishly assume that, by virtue of this little excursion, you know all there is to know about this underground world. Believe me, subterranean Manhattan is far more vast, more terrible, and more wonderful, than you could imagine. I’ve wandered again and again, glorying in the use of my legs. Here I’m free from the dissembling I must continue aboveground. I’ve found natural caverns of incredible beauty. Ancient tu

Margo stared at Frock in disbelief. He smiled in return: an arrogant, distant smile she had not seen before. He seemed supremely confident. It occurred to her that Frock might not know of the charges they’d placed.

“Yes, my dear. It’s my theory of fractal evolution, taken to the logical extreme. The reovirus—‘glaze,’ if you will—inserted directly into the bottom of the world’s food chain. How fitting, don’t you think, that I myself will be its vector, its activating agent? The mass extinction at the K-T Boundary will seem minuscule by comparison. That simply made way for mammals by removing the dinosaurs. Who knows what this transformation will make room for? The prospects are tremendously exciting.”

“You’re a very sick man,” Margo said, feeling even as she said it a chilling despair grip her heart. She’d had no idea just how much Frock must have missed the use of his legs. It was his secret obsession. He must have seen the potential for the drug’s restorative effects, even from within Kawakita’s misery. But he had clearly discounted the drug’s potential for poisoning the mind. He could never understand—he would never believe—that in perfecting the drug’s action on the body, he’d increased exponentially its ability to stimulate mania and violence, to magnify buried obsessions. And she sensed there was nothing she could now say that could bring him back.

The processions continued to shuffle up to the cauldrons. As the Wrinklers raised the cups to their lips, Margo could see shudders ripple their cloaks—through pleasure or pain, she could not tell.

“And you knew our moves all along,” she heard Pendergast say. “As if you were conducting them yourself.”

“In some ways, I was. I’d trained Margo here too well to hope that she could leave well enough alone. And I knew your busy mind would always be spi

“I think you’ve left something out of the story, Doctor,” Margo said suddenly, as evenly as she could.

Frock stepped closer to her, an enquiring look on his face. It was very difficult, seeing him move so nimbly on his feet; it made it hard to think straight. She took a deep breath of the noxious air. “I think it was you who killed Kawakita,” she said. “You killed him, and left his body here to look like just another victim.”

“Indeed,” Frock replied. “Why, pray tell?”

“Two reasons,” she said, speaking louder now. “I found Kawakita’s journal in the wreckage of his laboratory. He was clearly having second thoughts. It mentioned thyoxin. I think he had learned about the effect salinity would have on the reovirus, and he was pla

“My dear, you don’t understand. You ca