East Forty-eighth Street and Park Avenue, New York City
Percival Grigori ordered the driver to turn onto Park Avenue and head north to his apartment, where Sneja and his father would be waiting for him. The wide avenue was clogged with traffic; they moved forward in incremental lurches. The black branches of winter trees had been strung with thousands of colored lights that rose and fell along the median, reminding him that human sects were still celebrating their holiday gatherings. Holding the case, its aged, scuffed leather rough under his fingers, Percival knew that for once Sneja would be pleased. He could almost imagine the pleasure she would show when he placed the lyre and Gabriella Levi-Franche Valko at her feet. With Otterley gone, he was Sneja’s last hope. Surely this would redeem him.
Gabriella sat across from him, glaring with pure contempt. It had been more than fifty years since their last meeting, and yet his feelings for her were as strong—and as conflicted—as they’d been the day he’d ordered her capture. Gabriella hated him now, that much was clear, but he had always admired the strength of her feelings: Whether it be passion or hatred or fear, she felt each emotion with the entirety of her being. He’d believed that her power over him had ended, and yet he could feel himself grow weak in her presence. She had lost her youth and beauty, but she was still dangerously magnetic. Although he had the power to take her life in an instant, she appeared utterly unafraid. This would change once they reached his mother. Sneja had never been intimidated by Gabriella.
As the van slowed and stopped at a traffic light, Percival studied the young woman at Gabriella’s side. It seemed absurd, but her resemblance to the Gabriella he’d known fifty years before—her creamy white skin, the shape of her green eyes—was uncanny. It was as if the Gabriella of his fantasies had materialized before him. The young woman also wore a golden lyre pendant about her neck, the identical pendant Gabriella had worn in Paris, a necklace he knew she would never part with.
Suddenly, before Percival had the chance to react, Gabriella flung open the door of the van, grabbed the case from Percival’s lap, and leaped out into the street, the young woman following close behind.
Percival screamed for the driver to follow them. Cutting through the red light, the van turned right onto Fifty-first, driving the wrong way on a one-way street—but even as the van was upon them, the women evaded it, running across Lexington Avenue and disappearing into a staircase down to the subway. Percival grabbed his cane and jumped through the door Gabriella had left open, pushing himself forward with all his strength. He ran as best he could through the crowds, his body aching with each halting step.
He had never been inside a subway station in New York City, and the MetroCard machines and the maps and the turnstiles were strange and unreadable. He was at a loss for how it all worked. Many years ago he’d been to the subway in Paris. The opening of the Métro at the turn of the last century had drawn him underground out of curiosity, and he’d taken the trains more than once when it was the fashion, but the appeal had worn off quickly. In New York such transport was out of the question. The thought of standing next to so many human beings, all of them crushed together, made him nauseous.
At the turnstiles he paused to catch his breath, and then he pushed at the metal bar. It was locked in place. He pushed a second time, and once again the bar caught. Smashing his cane on the turnstile, he cursed in frustration, noticing as he did how people in the crowd paused to examine him, as if he were insane. Once he would simply have scaled the metal barriers with ease. Fifty years ago it would have been only a matter of seconds before he would have caught Gabriella—who also could not move as quickly as she once had—and her associate. But now he was left helpless. There was nothing to do but get around these ludicrous metal barriers.
A young man in a tracksuit entered the station and pulled a plastic card from his pocket. Percival waited, letting him come to the turnstile, and then, just as he was about to swipe his card, Percival slid the knobbed handle of his cane from the shaft and, pressing the tip into the man’s back, jabbed with all his might. The man’s body lurched forward, slamming into the turnstile and falling back at Percival’s feet. As the man moaned in pain, Percival snatched the card from the injured man’s fingers, swiped it, and pushed through the gates of the subway. In the distance he heard the thundering of a train approaching the platform.