The Cabinet of Curiosities

It was the work of five minutes to explore the basement, a warren of narrow passages and small damp rooms, all of the same undressed stone. The passages were low and dark, and she lost her way more than once. She found the crashed elevator—and, tragically, the corpse of O’Shaughnessy—but the elevator was inoperable, and there was no way up the shaft. Ultimately, she found a massive iron door, banded and riveted, which clearly led upstairs. It was locked. Pendergast, she thought, might be able to pick the lock—but then Pendergast wasn’t here.

At last she returned to the operating room, chilled and despondent. If there was another way out of the basement, it was too well hidden for her to find. They were locked in.

She approached the unconscious Smithback and caressed his brown hair. Once again, her eye fell on the opening in the wall that gave onto a descending staircase. It was pitch black, silent. She realized it had been silent for what seemed a long time, ever since the second shot. What could have happened? she wondered. Could Pendergast . . .

“Nora?”

Smithback’s voice was barely a whisper. She glanced down quickly. His eyes were open, his pale face tight with pain.

“Bill!” she cried, grabbing his hands. “Thank God.”

“This is getting old,” he murmured.

At first, she thought he was delirious. “What?”

“Getting hurt, waking up to find you ministering to me. The same thing happened in Utah, remember? Once was enough.” He tried to smile, but his face contorted in agony.

“Bill, don’t talk,” she said, stroking his cheek. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of here. I’ll find a—”

But—mercifully—he had already slipped back into unconsciousness.

She glanced at the vitals and felt a huge rush of relief. They had improved—slightly. The saline bag continued to deliver critical fluid.

And then she heard the scream.

It came up from the dark stairs, faint and muffled. Nevertheless it was the most frightening, bone-chilling sound she had ever heard. It started at a high, tearing pitch: shrill, inhuman. It remained at a piercing high for what seemed at least a minute, then began wavering, ululating, before dropping into a gasping, slobbering growl. And then there was the distant clang of metal against stone.

And then, silence once again.

She stared at the opening in the wall, mind racing through the possibilities. What had happened? Was Pendergast dead? His opponent? Were they both dead?

If Pendergast was hurt, she had to help him. He’d be able to pick the lock on the iron door, or find some other way for them to get Smithback out of this hell-hole. On the other hand—if the Surgeon was still alive, and Pendergast dead—she’d have to face him sooner or later anyway. It might as well be sooner: and on her own terms. She was damned if she was going to wait up here, a sitting duck, for the Surgeon to return and pick her off—and then finish the job on Smithback.

She plucked a large-bladed scalpel from the surgical stand. Then—holding the light in one hand and the scalpel in the other—she approached the doorway that led down into the subbasement.

The narrow stone panel, swung to one side, had been perfectly disguised to look part of the wall. Beyond was a pool of blackness. Shining the beam ahead of her, she began descending, slowly and silently.

Reaching the last turn at the bottom, she turned off the light and waited, heart beating rapidly, wondering what to do. If she shone her light around, it might betray her presence, give the Surgeon—if he was waiting out there in the darkness—a perfect target. But with the light off, she simply could not proceed.

The light was a risk she’d have to take. She snapped it back on, stepped out of the stairwell, then gasped involuntarily.

She was in a long, narrow room, crowded floor to ceiling with bottles. Her powerful beam, lancing through the endless rows, cast myriad glittering colors about the room, making her feel as if she was somehow inside a window of stained glass.

More collections. What could all this mean?

But there was no time to pause, no time to wonder. Two sets of footprints led on into the darkness ahead. And there was blood on the dusty floor.

She moved through the room as quickly as she could, beneath an archway and into another room filled with more bottles. The trail of footsteps continued on. At the end of this room was another archway, covered by a fringed tapestry.

She turned off her light and advanced toward it. There she waited, in the pitch black, listening. There was no sound. With infinite care, she drew back the tapestry and peered into the darkness. She could see nothing. The room beyond seemed empty, but there was no way to be sure: she would simply have to take a chance. She took a deep breath, switched on her light.

The beam illuminated a larger room, filled with wooden display cases. She hurried ahead, sidestepping from case to case, to an archway in the far wall that led on into a series of smaller vaults. She ducked into the nearest and turned off her light again, listening for any sound that might indicate that her presence had been noticed. Nothing. Turning on the light again, she moved forward, into a room whose cases were filled with frogs and lizards, snakes and roaches, spiders of infinite shapes and colors. Was there no end to Leng’s cabinet?

At the far end of the room, before another low archway that led into further darkness, she again crouched, turning off her light to listen for any noises that might be coming from the room beyond.

It was then she heard the sound.

It came to her faintly, echoing and distorted by its passage through intervening stone. Remote as it was, it instantly chilled her blood: a low, gibbering moan, rising and falling in a fiendish cadence.

She waited a moment, flesh crawling. For a moment, her muscles tensed for an involuntary retreat. But then, with a supreme effort, she steeled herself. Whatever lay beyond, she would have to confront it sooner or later. Pendergast might need her help.

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.