Sam stepped forward—to impress Max, Pippa was sure, since his fingers were trembling ever so slightly. She fell into step behind him, and Thomas and Max took up the rear.
“Hello?” Sam called out as they passed inside.
The door slammed shut behind them and Pippa’s heart leaped into her throat. She spun around. But no one was there.
“This way!” Spode’s voice sounded, very faintly, from somewhere deeper within the building. Pippa felt instantly better. So they were not alone in a creepy building after all.
They moved cautiously, as a group, further into the murky darkness, skirting metal gurneys, dustbins, and coiled cables, and ducking under the chutes that crisscrossed the low-hanging ceiling. The dusty floor was pitted with railway tracks, winding like iron snakes from one end of the factory to another. An old trolley car, only half painted, loomed motionless in the dark. As they skirted around it, Pippa had a sudden fear that it would come blazingly to life, horn blaring, windows flashing with light, and run them down.
There was still no sign of Spode.
“Where are you?” Thomas shouted.
“Just a little further!” Spode called back, although he sounded just as distant as before. Was he moving? Surely, he wouldn’t be. But Pippa’s arms were prickling with gooseflesh. It was cold in the factory, as if they’d passed into a different world, a different season.
Up ahead, Pippa detected a flickering light, as if someone were pacing back and forth with an old-fashioned lantern. Spode. As they drew closer, she could make out the planes of his face, lit up harshly in the gaslight, all ridges and angles. He looked, Pippa thought, like a stranger.
Unconsciously, she began to move faster. Sam had fallen behind. His attempts at bravery had obviously failed him, and he was sticking close to Max.
“There you are,” Pippa said, and even she could hear how thin and tremulous her voice sounded. “What are you doing all the way back—?”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Several things happened at once. Spode turned to her and there was a sudden, blinding explosion of light, a flare so bright Pippa shut her eyes instinctively. She couldn’t see. Her vision was obscured by floating dots of color, and for one terrifying second she believed she’d really gone blind. Everyone was shouting, and someone—it felt like Sam—knocked into her from behind. She went sprawling, hitting the ground hard and biting down on her cheek, tasting blood.
And in that moment of impact, it was as if she was jolted out of her body, like her mind had received a big punt kick. And suddenly she was Pippa but also Max, or Pippa-as-Max, crouching in a corner of Max’s mind and feeling her fear and her terror and her desperate, fumbling desire for her knives. . . .
But Pippa-as-Max knew that it was too late. Someone tackled Max from behind, wrestling off her jacket and removing the knives in her pockets. Pippa-as-Max could smell him, the distinctive combination of chemical and sulfur, of something pickled and left too long on a shelf. . . .
And as Max cried out and Pippa was jolted once again into her own body, she knew: they had walked right into a trap.
“Well, well, well.” Gradually, a steady light began to penetrate through the blur of Pippa’s vision. Another gas lantern flared to life—and standing next to it, his long, pale fingers curled around the handle, was a smiling Rattigan. “So very nice of you to join us.”
Sam’s first reaction was a rush of fury, not at Rattigan but at Spode. “You,” he spat out. “You tricked us.”
Spode was working a toothpick in his mouth, and appeared unconcerned. “Sorry,” he said, shrugging, as if he wasn’t the least bit sorry at all. “I’m a paid private eye. Emphasis on paid.”
“So Manfred never hired you to clear him at all?” Thomas asked. “That was all a lie?”
“Oh, he paid me all right.” Spode grinned. In the low light, his face looked wolfish. Why had Sam never noticed before? “It’s just that my old friend Rattigan here paid me more.”
“Old friend?” Sam said.
Rattigan and Spode exchanged an amused glance.
“Oh, yes. Edward and I go way back. But there is time enough for explanations later. The truth will come to light, so to speak,” Rattigan said, and he bent down to retrieve another lantern. Remembering the flash that had nearly burned his eyeballs out, Sam squeezed his eyes shut. Rattigan chuckled. “Never fear, Samson, you’ll have no more unpleasant tricks from me. Ingenious device, isn’t it? I call it a flare-lantern. This was one of my very first inventions, back when I was just a lowly sergeant in the army. Back when I was Ian Grantt.”
“That was a cheap trick,” Thomas said, his face flushed with anger. “We figured out that Ian Grantt is an anagram of Rattigan.”
“I was certain you would,” Rattigan said, nodding encouragingly. “In fact, I was counting on it.”
“Was that another one of your tests?” Thomas said, spitting the words as if each one carried a particular bad taste.
“Not at all. At least, not entirely. When I was a young man I decided I wanted a fresh start. With just a few adjustments to my given name, I had a new identity and a new lease on life. I moved to New York.”
“And met Rachel Richstone,” Thomas said.
“And met Rachel, yes.” For just a moment, Rattigan’s face softened. But the result was hideous; now it was like watching a wolf rhapsodize about its first kill. “She was a beautiful girl. Sweet and very faithful. If it hadn’t been for the war we might have . . . well, there’s no sense thinking about that.” Now his face hardened again, and his eyes glittered demonically. “The war changed many men. We all came back with pieces missing, if we came back at all. Isn’t that right, Ned?”
Ned spat out the toothpick. “That’s right.”
“Why don’t you show our friends your particular missing piece?” Rattigan said. “Perhaps it will help convince them I am not nearly so monstrous as they believe.”
Spode bent down and began to roll up his left trouser leg. Pippa gasped sharply, and Sam experienced a roiling sense of nausea. His leg was a mangled mess of shredded skin and exposed muscle, seamlessly interwoven with metal wiring, rubber tubing, and iron bolts.
Rattigan hardly glanced at it. “We were leading the charge on the German front line, not long before the war officially ended. It was a fool’s mission, but we did what we were told. We always did what we were told back then.” His voice was full of sudden venom. “Idiot pawns of idiot men playing with power like toddlers with blocks. Hundreds of thousands of men, bloodied and broken—for what? For some lines on a map. For some scraps of dirt.”
Sam wanted to look away but he couldn’t.
“We were halfway toward cover when the first man had his head blown off. The whole place was a minefield. An artillery blast turned our friend Ned’s leg to spaghetti from toe to tibia. It took me the better part of a year to put him back together. But now, you see, he’s as good as new.”
“Better than new,” Spode grunted. Sam was relieved when he yanked down his pant leg, so the horrible confusion of bone and blood and metal and muscle was once again concealed.
“But Spode was lucky compared to some of the others. My best friend, Corporal McMurphy, was blown into so many pieces they could hardly put two teeth together to send home to his wife.”
“Stop,” Pippa said quietly.
Rattigan turned to her. “You want me to stop?” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “You find this upsetting, these tales of blood and battlefields? But you have to see, my dear Philippa, that I am not the evil one. I don’t conceal my true nature. All men are monsters. The only evil is in pretending otherwise.”
“You’ve killed people. That’s evil,” Sam said. He swallowed when Rattigan’s gaze passed to him. His eyes were cold, hardly human. “You murdered Rachel Richstone. And you killed Eckleberger. He was our friend.”
Rattigan didn’t blink. “I confess I’ve had to go to certain lengths to preserve my . . . anonymity. I couldn’t risk having the poli
ce link me to Rachel’s death, you see. Not when I’d gone to such lengths to convince them that I was all the way out in Chicago.”
“Why did you kill Rachel?” Max blurted. “What’d she ever do to you?”
“It’s what she didn’t do, Mackenzie,” Rattigan said evenly. “My time as a guest of the federal penitentiary system has left me a little bit short of funds necessary to my work. As you can imagine, I’m quite eager to begin my experiments again . . . especially since I have now seen definitive proof of my success.”
Sam’s stomach surged into his throat. “We’re not proof of anything,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to do with you.”
Rattigan waggled a finger. “But you’re wrong, Sam. You’ve everything to do with me. I made you. Your strength, your power, your sense of justice, even your anger—I had a hand in all of it. Oh, I don’t doubt you cling to some ideas about Mommy and Daddy,” he added with a shrug. “I bet you wonder what life would be like if I had never found you. But don’t you see? I’m your true creator. Your mother, father, and future all in one.”
The words passed like a fog through Sam’s body, invading him with cold. Was it true? Would Rattigan always live inside of him, even after he’d been defeated?
“So you killed Rachel because she wouldn’t give you money,” Thomas said.
Rattigan studied his nails. “I lost my temper. She was not nearly so stubborn when I knew her.”
Thomas frowned. “Where did Eckleberger fit in?”
Rattigan set down the lantern on an overturned crate, clasping his hands together in front of him. “I think you know, Thomas. Don’t you?”
“The photograph,” Thomas said after a brief pause. “It proved that you’d known Rachel Richstone in the past. It might link you to the murder. And Eckleberger had it. But how did you know that?”
“After our last brief and, I must say, disappointing encounter, you didn’t think I’d let you stray too far from my protection, did you?” Rattigan said, revealing his yellowed teeth.
“Your protection?” scoffed Max. “What a load of—”
“It was you,” Thomas said, cutting her off. “You came to the museum to see the Richstone exhibit. You stole peanut brittle.”
Rattigan shrugged. “It’s always been a weakness of mine.”
Sam’s mind felt like it was fighting to work through a thick mud that had enveloped it. He remembered no one but Richstone’s lawyer and a group of leering children and an old man with a thick crop of white hair and buckteeth. . . .
And then he realized: Rattigan. The old man had been Rattigan in disguise. All this time, when they’d believed themselves safe, he’d merely been toying with them, biding his time.
And he was gripped by a sense of hopelessness. Rattigan was too smart. Smarter than all of them, even Thomas.
“A bit of vanity, I suppose,” Rattigan said with another flutter of his hand. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see some of my work represented.”
“You call murder your work?” Pippa said angrily.
“Shouldn’t I?” Rattigan said. “It takes planning and dedication to detail. And commitment. Commitment above all.” He frowned suddenly. “I was distressed to realize, however, that your friend Eckleberger had misrepresented some critical details of the scene.”
“He got Rachel wrong,” Thomas said. “He was working from an old picture.”
“My thinking exactly!” Rattigan’s changes of expression were dizzying; now he was beaming again. “An old picture. But what old picture? The idea troubled me greatly. Rachel and I had once been engaged. She might have hung on to any number of photographs, for sentimental reasons. I was, if I may say so, a very handsome young man.”
Max made a choking sound. Rattigan didn’t notice, or chose to ignore her. “I became concerned, you see, that your friend Eckleberger might have in his possession evidence that might link me to Rachel. The world believed Ian Grantt had died on the battlefield. That was, to some extent, true. Ian Grantt did die. And Rattigan was reborn.”
“So you killed Freckles.” Sam was trembling with rage. He thought of Eckleberger, his dark eyes sparkling, passing out warm sugar cookies; Eckleberger dressed up as Santa Claus, distributing presents; Eckleberger, singing old German lullabies in his raspy voice. He wanted to kill Rattigan, to flatten him, to press his vocal cords into paper. Rattigan might be smarter, but Sam was much, much stronger.
Could he do it? Could he kill someone? He wanted to believe that he could, if it was for a good reason. But didn’t everyone, even Rattigan, have reasons for doing terrible things?
“I’m not proud of it,” Rattigan said shortly. “He seemed like a fine man, and an even better artist. I had no choice. Similarly, I had to kill the Haskells. I realized that they might sooner or later see my picture in the papers—the only downside of my escape from prison is all the publicity it has received—and recognize me as Rachel’s old boyfriend in light of her recent murder.”
“What about Manfred?” Thomas said. “Did you arrange to have him bumped off, too?”
Rattigan shook his head. “Now you give me too much credit. I would have done, I suppose. Once I learned from Ned that you, Thomas, had gotten in touch with him, I was concerned that idiot might blunder into the truth. As it turned out, I was spared the trouble of acting. Manfred was never very good at making friends, you see.”
“So when does it stop?” Pippa said. Her lower lip was trembling. “The running and the hiding and the killing. When does it end?”
Rattigan frowned. “My dear Pippa, you should know I despise any form of violence. Murder is particularly distasteful—it’s so common. But again, I had no choice. It was a matter, you see, of survival. And wouldn’t you do anything to survive? Wouldn’t you, Sam?”
Sam looked away. It was as if Rattigan had just read his deepest thoughts.
“It’s the rule of the world,” Rattigan said softly. “Dog eats dog. Only the strong survive. That’s why I made you strong, Sam.” His voice was practically a whisper. In the half-light, his eyes glinted eerily, like those of a cat. “Your father, you know, was supposed to be quite the brute. No one could ever understand how he’d managed to settle down with such a lovely wife.”
Sam froze. His breath crystallized in his chest. It was painful to breathe.
“Priscilla, her name was, if I recall correctly,” Rattigan squinted up at the ceiling, looking everywhere but at Sam. “Tiny slip of a thing. And your father stumping around with his hands in fists, boasting to everyone he could split a rock with his friend. Joe the Bully, he was called.” Rattigan closed his eyes. “But in the end, you see, he was quite weak. Far too weak to stop me.”
Sam started for Rattigan. But at the same time, Spode moved a hand almost casually to his pocket, where the bulge of a revolver was visible, and Thomas flung out an arm to stop him.
“Don’t,” Thomas said quietly. “It’s what he wants.”
Sam was shaking so hard he could feel his teeth jump together. “You’re a liar,” he spat out.
Rattigan looked away, as if he found Sam’s outburst embarrassing. “I’m explaining to you why I did what I did,” he said. “I’m explaining why I made you what you are.”
“Stop saying you made us,” Sam spat out. “We don’t belong to you.”
Finally, Rattigan turned back to face him. Now his eyes were like holes, and Sam felt he was falling into them.
“Oh, but I did,” Rattigan said simply. “And you do.”
“I’ll be honest with you,” Rattigan said, perching on an overturned crate and crossing his legs. All this time, Spode was still standing beside him, motionless, half hidden in shadow. Max had a sudden image of Ned Spode as a soldier under Rattigan’s command. Blindly obedient. Determined. Deadly. A cold coil of fear squeezed the lungs in her chest. “I called you here today because I need your help.”
“Our help?” Max scoffed. “You think we’ll help you?”
Rattigan lifted a hand. “Hear me out. You th
ink I’m bad. You think I’m evil. But you’ve got it all wrong.” His eyes were lit up from the lantern, cold and pale as glass, shining with a frightening intensity. “It’s the world that’s evil. I’ve killed—what?—a half dozen people? That’s nothing. Every day, thousands of people around the world are killed by soldiers of one army or another—all supposedly good men, fighting for a supposedly good cause. I want to stop that.”
Max remembered what Mr. Dumfrey had told them about his half brother: his deranged fantasy of an army of superhuman soldiers, an unbeatable unit. With power concentrated so heavily in the hands of one group of people, no one else would dare go to war. But it was crazy. Power like that would only lead to more war. Anyone could see that.
“You want us to be part of your army,” Thomas said.
“Eventually, yes.” Rattigan nodded encouragingly, as if he were a teacher and Thomas a particularly encouraging student. “But first, of course, we’ll need funds. In that, too, I’ll need your help. Think about it. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being pointed at? Ridiculed? Mocked? Do you really want to spend your life as freaks, when you could be doing something important?”
“Like what?” The anger in Max’s chest was uncoiling now, lashing around in her stomach, making her feel careless and dangerous. “Helping you rob little old ladies on the street?”
“Of course not.” Rattigan looked shocked. “That would hardly do us any good, would it? No. We’ll take money only from the places where it is most abundant.”
“So what?” Thomas said. When he was angry, even his freckles darkened. “You want us to help you rob banks?”
“I prefer not to use the word rob,” Rattigan said. “I like to think of it simply as redistribution. It was the banks and war profiteers that sat back and watched the world go up in flames. Why not settle the score?”