22
I don’t know how long we spent in those hallways. It was probably less than ten minutes, but they were easily the longest ten minutes of my life. The place was, for all intents and purposes, a maze, designed to disorient anyone unfortunate enough to get lost in the middle.
We had just passed the door I had unbolted earlier and the stable point in the linen closet for the second time. Every time we were forced to backtrack after encountering a dead end, I was terrified that we’d come face-to-face with Holmes. To make matters even worse, the smoke was getting thicker.
“I know there was a window, Miss Kate. It was on this side of the buildin’.” It was the second time we’d walked all the way to the end of this corridor and tears were now pouring down Kiernan’s face.
“Well, there’s no window at the end of the hall and no rooms on this side of the hallway,” Katherine said.
I stopped for a moment. “Unless… there’s a hidden door? He used trapdoors, didn’t he? I remember something about him walling up a shipment of furniture—building the room around it—so that he could claim it never arrived and avoid payment. Maybe…”
“What are we supposed to do then?” Katherine asked. “Start kicking in walls at random?”
I didn’t answer her, just tore down the hallway, back to the linen closet. Ignoring the fact that something back there reeked foully, I gave the closed door inside the closet a hard kick with the side of my foot. It opened about an inch and I had to put my arm over my mouth and nose to keep from vomiting.
I kicked again, trying not to think about what I was dislodging. With the third kick, there was a soft thud and the small door swung inward.
I bent down to look inside and could just barely see the window at the very end of a long, narrow room that stretched the entire length of the hallway. If there was a moon out, it was behind a cloud, because only the faintest hint of light was coming in through the glass. I couldn’t see a ladder, but Kiernan had said he didn’t think we’d be able to see it from the inside, since the rungs began just below the window’s edge.
I turned to Katherine and Kiernan, who were standing at the entrance to the linen closet. “You were right, Kiernan. This has to be it.”
“What is that god-awful smell?” Katherine asked.
“I think we both have a pretty good idea,” I answered. “I guess Holmes didn’t manage to get all of the victims to the pit in the basement. Just hold your breath as much as you can—and be careful to duck as you enter. The doorway is very low.”
I held the CHRONOS key out into the room, hoping for enough light to pick a relatively clear, corpse-free path to the window. As I began to move away from the door, my skirt brushed against something solid. I really didn’t want to know what it was, so I just kept inching forward.
“Are you okay, Kiernan?” I asked, reaching back for his hand.
“I’m okay, Miss Kate,” he said, but he slipped his hand into mine. “We need to hurry. I mean, if he set the fire, then this is prob’ly his escape route, too…”
I moved forward as quickly as possible with only the CHRONOS keys for light to guide me. The room was mostly empty, aside from some stray items of furniture, but it was only about four feet wider than the broom closet had been.
We passed several shadows that looked like cots along the left-hand wall and I was pretty sure that the long, thin object dangling from the edge of the second one had once been someone’s arm. I heard a quick intake of breath from Katherine a few seconds later, and when I looked down at Kiernan’s face his eyes were tightly closed—he just clutched my hand firmly and blindly followed my lead.
We’d covered another five yards or so when a shuffling noise came from behind us. A quick glance back revealed nothing. I told myself it was probably just the body that I’d shoved away from the door slumping the rest of the way to the ground. Or a rat. Normally, either of those ideas would have freaked me out, but right now they were a source of great comfort.
But the sound came again. And then again. Either the body was following us or it was a very large rat. Even more likely, it was Holmes.
He obviously knew we were in here. If I could hear one person moving stealthily behind me, he could definitely hear the three of us. Holmes must have known we were in here before he even entered—otherwise, why no lantern? We had a slight advantage, in that he could not see the light from the CHRONOS keys that we were using to find our way forward. He had a much better idea of the territory, however, since he’d designed this nightmare.
“Go,” I whispered, still moving forward. “Keep low and stick to the side so you aren’t silhouetted by the window. If it won’t open, smash it. Don’t stop for anything. You both know what you need to do once you’re out of here. I’ll see you—eventually.”
Kiernan leaned in toward me for just a moment and clutched my hand. I was afraid he was going to argue, but he didn’t. “Bye, Miss Kate. Be careful.”
I gave him a quick kiss on the top of the head as they moved past me. Pulling myself as close against the wall as possible, I listened, trying to separate the sounds of Katherine and Kiernan on my right from the less obvious movements to my left.
Inching over a few feet, I positioned myself across from the two cots I’d seen earlier. The room was, at most, six feet across, and with the obstacle of the cots on the other side, Holmes would have to pass directly in front of me in order to get to the window. I fought the temptation to tuck the medallion back in my pocket. There was no way he could see the light, but it still made me feel exposed—a bright blue beacon pointing out my location.
I took a few slow, deep breaths to try and steady my pulse and then stole a quick glance at Katherine and Kiernan. I couldn’t see them clearly, just the glow from Katherine’s CHRONOS key ten, maybe fifteen yards away from the window. Please, dear God, let this be the window with the ladder, I thought.
Holmes was still advancing from the left, but it was very hard to gauge his exact distance. His breathing was jagged—as if he’d recently been running or had inhaled a lot of smoke.
Another quick glance at the window. I couldn’t even see the blue glow anymore; Katherine must have slipped the key back into her dress.
I was about to turn away when the faint outline of the window shifted slightly. There was a loud creak as the frame resisted, but the gunshots were even louder.
Holmes fired twice in rapid succession. I don’t know where the first shot landed, but the second shattered a section of the window. I twisted toward him just as the third shot went off and was able to pinpoint his location—he was almost on top of me. In fact, if he hadn’t been staring at the window when he fired, I’m pretty sure he’d have caught a glimpse of me in the brief light of the explosion.
I stood up, my back pressed to the wall. The blue light gave an unearthly glow to Holmes’s face that would have been sinister enough without the long-barreled revolver he was clutching. He had stopped in order to take a more careful aim when I kicked upward. The goal was to hit his arms, which were holding the revolver at chest level, but the skirt limited my movement and the blow caught him just below the belt of his overcoat.
Holmes doubled over, his finger squeezing the trigger of the gun as he did. The shot went wild; the vibration in my feet suggested it had lodged in the floor. Catching my balance, I pulled my knee up sharply into his face. I heard a crunch, but it wasn’t enough to stop him; his hand lashed out and snatched the foot I was standing on out from under me.
As I fell, I could see Kiernan’s form visible in the window from the chest up. I couldn’t see Katherine; she was either standing out of the light of the window to avoid being a target or she was already on the ladder.
My head smashed against the floor. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, my back against the wall, as quickly as I could, but I was disoriented. There were dozens of little blue lights when I opened my eyes and I remember thinking that must be what they mean by “seeing stars.”
There was a noise to the left of me, so I pulled my legs in and kicked again. One foot clipped him, in the knee, I think, but it was more of a glancing blow than a direct hit.
“You have an impressive kick for such a little lady,” he said. “But it’s no match for a gun.” He was moving the gun slightly from side to side with one hand as his left hand fumbled in his jacket pocket.
My heart pounded in my ears as the gun swept past where I was huddled. He can’t see you, Kate, he can’t see you, I reminded myself. And there had already been six shots—two downstairs, and four up here. I didn’t know a lot about guns, but I’d seen a few Westerns, and the one in his hand was a “six-shooter.” That meant the gun should be empty. Unless, of course, he’d stopped to reload before entering the linen closet.
He hadn’t reloaded, but it didn’t matter. His hand emerged from his pocket holding a single bullet.
As Holmes clicked the round into the chamber, I turned sideways and centered the medallion in the palm of my hand, wedging my arm against the wall to keep it steady so that I could pull up the kitchen at Katherine’s house.
He took a couple of steps backward, probably to give himself a wider view to catch any movement, his left hand stretched behind him to feel his way. His legs buckled when he bumped into one of the cots. There was a clank of glass against glass, and Holmes cursed softly, then stopped in mid-profanity to laugh.
I don’t know what instinct caused me to turn away from that laugh. It meant breaking eye contact with the medallion and I had already locked in the kitchen—I was just pulling up the date and only needed a second more, two at the most. If I hadn’t turned away, however, the liquid would have caught me square in the face.
The acid was pure flame, scorching my neck and scalp. I screamed—there was no way to avoid it even though it gave away my location. I held my breath, waiting for the shot, but I heard a different loud noise instead. It sounded like he had tripped over the cot, but he was soon on his feet again, moving toward me.
He was just playing it conservatively, I thought—with only one bullet he wanted to be certain of his target. I crawled along the floor as quickly as I could, away from him, back toward the linen closet, trying to keep from whimpering as each tiny movement worsened the blazing pain on the side of my head.
The smell of smoke was growing stronger, battling with the stench from the decomposed body just ahead. Holmes had only one escape route from the fire—the window. With any luck, he would think that was my only way out as well and maybe, just maybe, leave me to my presumed fate in a burning building. If I could keep moving and avoid slipping into shock, however, all I had to do was get out of this room and find a spot where I could concentrate and use the CHRONOS key.
The doorway had to be close. I struggled to my feet so that I could move faster. I was still seeing the little blue stars, so I leaned against the wall to steady myself before taking a step. I couldn’t see Holmes, but I heard movement from behind me.
My hand finally found the opening in the wall and I lowered my head to step through and enter the tiny linen closet. I shoved open the door to the hallway and sucked in a mouthful of air—smoky, but at least without the underlying stench of decaying flesh. Running as fast as I could in the general direction of the stairwell, I whipped around one corner a bit too fast and caught the heel of my stupid boot in the hem of my skirt. The rip echoed through the hallway—the auditory equivalent of a big red arrow pointing Holmes in my direction.
I ducked into the third corridor on the right and then darted across the hallway, taking a left at the next intersection. Hopefully, the doctor would assume that I’d taken the quicker, easier turn to the right. He had stopped to light a lantern—I could see it casting shadows against the walls as he ran.
At the third room down, I jiggled the knob on the off chance that it had been left unlocked. No luck. The footsteps grew louder and I pulled myself as close to the door as possible. Taking a deep breath, I pressed my fingers to the center of the medallion.
I didn’t think there was time to pull up a location and lock in the date—I was just going to pick a spot and blink. I remembered Connor’s caution about landing in the middle of a highway, but if the other choice was a mass murderer armed with acid and a gun, a possible collision with a semitruck sounded like a bargain. I tried to steady my hands so that I could focus and pull up the display, but it was hard to concentrate. The display wavered and then disappeared.
As I prepared to try again, I saw a faint light from the corner of my eye. The doctor turned briefly into the right corridor—then the lantern swung around and he headed straight toward me.
And then the door behind me opened and I fell backward into the room. A large hand covered my mouth, trapping the scream before it could escape my lips. Another hand, holding a white folded cloth, moved toward me.