City of Endless Night (Pendergast #17)(84)
Pendergast swept up several half-finished scarves, pulled the knitting needles out of them, and tied them around his feet. As he walked on, he could see an improvement in the track he made: though still faintly visible, it was now more difficult to read amid the comings and goings of earlier travelers. He had no illusions: Ozmian could surely follow even this track, but it would take more care. That would buy Pendergast a little time.
Now he headed west, toward the ruined wing, moving as lightly as possible. As he passed room after room, one corridor after another, turn after turn, he began to pick up the acrid scent of an old fire. And then, passing a kitchen, he came to a hallway leading unmistakably into the burnt wing. He was now far enough from Ozmian to dare his flashlight; he flicked it on and aimed the beam into the blackened interior.
What he saw gave him pause. The walls were leaning and crooked; some had partially collapsed. Ceilings had caved in, leaving piles of charred wooden beams and spalled concrete pillars, exposing twisted snarls of rebar. And this was just the first floor—nine stories of building were stacked above, barely held up by these unstable walls. As he surveyed the damage, he realized the fire was not ancient—it had probably happened in the past year.
A homemade sign, written in silver marker on a blackened piece of plywood, had been hammered to an adjacent wall.
HAIL FELLOW CREEPERS!
LISTEN UP, DUDES: IF YOU THINK EXPLORING WING D OFFERS A UNIQUE CHALLENGE, THINK AGAIN. THIS PLACE IS SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS. IF ANYONE GETS KILLED IN HERE IT WILL IMPACT ACCESS FOR ALL OF US. SO PLEASE, ENJOY THE REST OF BUILDING 93, BUT STAY OUT OF WING D. DON’T FORGET THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF THE GREATEST CREEPER OF THEM ALL:
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE
After a moment’s hesitation, Pendergast stepped into the dark, foul-smelling labyrinth.
60
OZMIAN TOOK HIS time following the trail, savoring the pleasure of the stalk. There was no rush: time was on his side. Even though up to this point his quarry had disappointed him, the man was clever and dangerous and it would be fatal to underestimate him. And he was learning. He was getting better.
The long, meandering wild-goose chase of a trail eventually led him to the arts-and-crafts room. Strangely enough, he had no memory of this room, or of doing any crafts during his time at King’s Park. Even so, the space was highly unsettling, with the tables still displaying the last unfinished craft projects of the patients—half-knitted scarves, clay heads, atrocious watercolors, the pathetic productions of misshapen minds. The tracks passed by the table of scarves and instantly Ozmian divined what had happened: Pendergast had swiped some of the scarves to wrap around his feet, thus leaving a fainter, more diffuse trail.
A clever move.
And from that point on the trail became more challenging to follow, requiring frequent pauses when it intersected the tracks of earlier explorers. He continued along the hall, in and out of several rooms. Pendergast was gaining time with this diversion, slowing him down. He was planning some sort of trap or ambush—one that would take time to set up.
The general trend in the trail was westward toward Wing D, and Ozmian wondered if that was where Pendergast was headed. That would be a most unexpected move.
Another few minutes of tracking did indeed bring him to the burnt section. At the point where the track entered the tangle of debris, he examined it closely with his flashlight. It could be a diversion, an attempt to lure him into this dangerous area, but a close look revealed that Pendergast had indeed entered the unstable wing himself. There was simply no way to fake it. He was in there—somewhere.
And now, peering into the scorched interior, Ozmian felt himself taken aback. He could actually hear the entire wing groan and creak with every gust of the winter wind. It almost looked as if the walls were moving, and the unceasing sounds made him feel as if he were in the belly of some foul beast. The walls were crumbling and the floors burnt, leaving great gaps and diagonals of fallen beams. It had been a hot fire, so hot there were puddles of glass and aluminum on the floor and sections of concrete wall that had crumbled and fractured. It was truly insane for Pendergast to venture into a place like this—an indication more of desperation than cleverness.
But no matter: if this was where his quarry wanted to continue the hunt, this was where the hunt would continue.
Ozmian shut off his light. He would have to move forward now by moonlight and by feel, making his way over the sagging, gaping floors with great care while at the same time maintaining high alert, trusting in his almost supernatural sense of peril. He was sure Pendergast had set up an ambush for him. He was like that wounded lion waiting in the mopane brush to spring upon his tormenter.
Moving past a heap of concrete rubble, he came into a huge open room that had clearly once been a communal dormitory. The beds, still lined up, were now rows of blackened iron frames. The far wall had collapsed, exposing a bathroom of heat-cracked porcelain sinks, scorched urinals, and exposed shower stalls, many of the fixtures warped and melted.
Pendergast’s track led him to the main stairwell of Wing D. It was a perfect nightmare of destruction; Ozmian found it hard to believe it was still standing. Naturally, seeking the most dangerous area, the quarry had gone up the stairs. Again stealing forward with extreme care in absolute silence, expecting an ambush at any moment, Ozmian worked his way by feel up the noisome and crooked staircase. The trail exited at the second-floor landing into another ruined hall, a veritable labyrinth of charred and twisted beams. A fire hose lay stretched down the length of the hallway, evidently left by the firefighters who had put out the blaze. The end was still screwed to a standpipe. He paused. Something had been lying on the ground near the hose, and fresh scuff marks in the char and dust indicated that Pendergast had picked it up. What could it have been?