The Hollow Ones(81)
Blackwood met her gaze finally. No words, but it signified that she was right.
“And you’ve seen it this whole time. You knew it was wanting a confrontation…and you didn’t care who got in the way. Even Solomon, a dying man, now leading you to your appointment. You wanted him taken.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But you were okay with it. So long as it got you where you need to go. So long as you can catch your fourth Hollow and install it in your trophy room.”
“Your oversimplification of this matter is absolutely astounding,” said Blackwood. “Have you learned nothing? Or is this simply a willful attempt at imposing guilt?”
“I’m learning plenty,” Odessa said. “Solomon tried to warn me about you. He said you’ll let nothing and no one get in your way. He saw it coming but he was too frail to stop it. Well, I’m not going to let him go out a casualty of some horrible supernatural imp. You need to save him. You can’t let him die like this.”
Blackwood said sharply, “You assume I have a choice.”
The flash of anger in his face was startling. Odessa became quiet, her eyes staying on him, wondering what sort of monster she had gotten herself paired up with.
The Phantom swerved hard left past a head-on collision in which one vehicle’s engine had burst into flames. Mr. Lusk said, “He’s heading for the Queensboro Bridge!”
They trailed the wailing cruiser by at least a full city block, all the way onto the upper-level, two-lane inbound side of the bridge. The blue lights swerved madly up ahead, the Phantom snaking around spun-out automobiles left in its wake, crossing the East River over Roosevelt Island into Manhattan.
Odessa gripped her seat, bracing her shoulder against the side of the car as they careened off the bridge, emptying onto Second Avenue and continuing a block west before turning hard left, heading south on Third Avenue, driving the wrong way.
They rode against traffic, using every one of the five lanes of the wide avenue, filling the lane of destruction left by the runaway police cruiser. Some ten blocks down, the cruiser cut off a semitrailer, turning sharply right at about 46th or 45th Street. Mr. Lusk spun the Phantom’s polished wheel madly to avoid the truck as it slid to a stop diagonally across the intersection, costing them some time. When the Phantom finally negotiated the turn, the cruiser’s lights were no longer in sight, though its path of disruption was easy to discern.
The Phantom wheeled left, and at once screeched to an abrupt halt. Odessa, used to the bright-blue spinning lights, did not understand why they had stopped. Then she saw the cop car, side doors and rear fender crumpled from multiple impacts, its front grille smashed, steam rising out of the tented hood from the overtaxed engine. At first she thought the cruiser had broken down, but its lights had been switched off, as had its siren.
The Hollow had reached its destination.
Blackwood immediately exited the vehicle. Odessa followed, getting her bearings, craning her neck to the early-evening sky. She recognized a portion of Grand Central Station by the way the building disrupted the traffic pattern, so rare in the Midtown grid of New York City. The building nearest them was fenced off from the street, much of its twenty floors covered with scaffolding and safety netting, undergoing a substantial renovation. It looked currently abandoned, however; no lights in the glassless upper windows, no work being done. A city sign on the fence warned away trespassers, citing a shutdown of the work site per order of the city of New York.
“What is this place?” asked Blackwood.
“Maybe they ran out of money,” said Odessa, looking up at the sandstone fa?ade. Suddenly its proximity to Grand Central sparked a memory. “Wait,” she said. “This is one of those university clubs. They were converting it into a big hotel here at Grand Central but they had to shut down the project. It was in the news about a month ago—big finding, then a scandal. They were excavating the club basement some thirty feet down and discovered centuries-old remains. It turned out to be part of a potter’s field for dead slaves.”
Hugo Blackwood turned and looked at Odessa with a look of astonishment. “Slaves?”
“It stopped construction. Now there are lawsuits flying back and forth. Trying to decide if they can reinter them or put up a plaque or if this kills the entire project.” She noticed Blackwood was still staring at her. She realized this meant something more to him than it did to her. “What?” she said.
Blackwood regained his composure, to the extent that he had ever misplaced it. “Devilry,” he hissed, producing his leather kit from inside his jacket, loosening its ties with sudden urgency. “Mr. Lusk?” he said.
Odessa turned to Mr. Lusk, who was still behind the wheel of the idling Phantom. He dialed a number on his cell phone and put it to his ear, replying, “I will give him the location.”
“Who?” said Odessa, confused. “Give who the location—to what?”
But when she turned back to him, Hugo Blackwood was already gone.
Odessa heard the canvas-covered security fence shaking, and realized Blackwood had climbed up and over it. Angry at having been left behind, she found a supporting pole to reduce the fence’s flexibility and scaled it. Two lengths of barbed wire topped the fence, angled toward the interior. She made sure her phone was secure in her pocket before vaulting high over the top wire to the fence on the other side, gouging out a bit of material from her jacket sleeves but no skin.