The Empress's Tomb (29 page)

Even when a forgery is detected, it's often swept under the carpet. The wealthy are loath to admit they've been duped, and even museums will sometimes leave a fake hanging on the walls simply to avoid embarrassment.

At precisely 8:18 the next morning, a stink bomb was tossed into the teachers' lounge of the Atalanta School for Girls. Twenty-two more were ignited in quick succession and left to do their dirty work in the building's classrooms, broom closets, and lavatories. The final bomb was detonated in the school's main lobby as students and faculty fled, many retching and squealing with disgust. The culprit stood in full sight of the evacuating crowds, laughing maniacally at the chaos she'd caused. Though a gas mask hid most of her face, there was no mistaking Molly Donovan's bright red curls.

The wail of sirens drilled at my eardrums. Three police cars screeched to a halt in front of the school, and a SWAT team jumped from the back of an unmarked van. Molly didn't put up a fight—after all, it was she who had placed the call to 911. As she was handcuffed and dragged from the building, I slipped through the mesmerized mob and walked briskly away from the school.
Though my plan had proven a stellar success, I didn't feel like celebrating. My life was a mess, and it seemed easier to flee than to stay put and engage in a little springcleaning. I'd told too many lies for my parents to forgive me. There was no going back. Protecting the secret of the Shadow City had cost me my home. Sharing that secret would cost me the Irregulars.

I hung out in a magazine shop for an hour or so, catching up on my celebrity gossip, until the owner rudely informed me that he wasn't running a library. Back on the streets, my paranoia returned. Cop cars seemed to slow as they passed me. Shopkeepers watched from their windows. Finally, I purchased a cup of coffee and a bagel and headed for Central Park to wait for the Irregulars. A few lonely snowflakes drifted down from the clouds above. A square-jawed man in a tracksuit raced by, his fists punching their way through the icy air. A bleary-eyed dog walker waiting for a poodle to finish its business was forced to leap out of the jogger's path. I turned off the trail near Seventyeighth Street and headed for the trees across from Lester Liu's mansion. A pair of battered wing tips stuck out from under a bush and I heard the soft clucking of a chicken.

“Who's there?” a frightened voice called out from between the leaves. “What do you want?”

“Howard? Is that you?”

“Maybe” was the cautious reply.

“It's Ananka. Remember me? I'm a friend of Kaspar's.”

Howard Van Dyke's head popped out of the bush. With his beard festooned with twigs and leaves, he might have been a spirit of the forest.

“Well hello,” he said merrily. “How kind of you to pay
me a visit. Would you like to come inside?” He shoved the branches apart, and I ducked into the bush. The clearing at the center was surprisingly spacious, with enough room for me, Howard, his chicken, Kaspar's squirrels, and a kitten. A week's supply of Vienna sausages and canned beans sat stacked on one side.

“Looks like you're well stocked,” I said.

“Yes, it's very strange. Different people bring me groceries every day. On Monday it was a Chinese movie star. Yesterday it was a lovely Indian lady in a splendid dress.”

“That was Betty,” I said, though I couldn't recall seeing her dressed as a Chinese movie star. “They were all Betty. She likes to travel in disguise.”

“I see.” Howard nodded as if it all made perfect sense. “She said that I shouldn't live in the park. She told me I need to go home.”

“Where is home?” Howard's kitten scrambled onto my lap, and I ran my fingers through its soft black fur.

“I lived over there.” He pointed toward the west side of the bush. “I had a wife and two children. I see them sometimes, but they don't see me. They don't know who I am anymore.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Why don't you live with them?”

“I made a mistake.” Howard tucked his face into his beard and began to cry. “I bought bad stocks and lost all our money. I thought I could hide the truth, but my wife found out when they took the furniture away. That's when I decided to live in the park. I couldn't go home. My family is better off without me.”

“How do you know that? Have you ever
asked
them how
they
feel?”

Howard looked up in surprise. “That's just what the movie star said.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I'm scared.”

“You can't hide forever, Howard. You've got to go home sometime. Maybe they'll forgive you. Maybe they won't. But you need to give them the chance. It's only fair.” Just saying it made me feel guilty. I looked down at the kitten purring in my lap. “Howard? Where did you get this kitten?”

“That's Kaspar's kitty. He found it the day he went to save the snakes.”

“What do you mean,
save the snakes?”

“He didn't want any more snakes to be eaten, so he went to save them. Then the man in the suit came and took him away.”

I heard a Vespa in the distance. Kiki had arrived on the Upper East Side.

“Howard, I want you to listen carefully, okay? Take very good care of this kitten. Don't let it out of your sight, and don't let it get lost. In a couple of days, Kaspar will be back to get it.”

“He will?” Howard was overjoyed. “You're going to save Kaspar?”

“Yes. And he'll be very happy if you still have this kitten.” I looked back down at the kitten and counted again. There was no mistaking it. The animal had six toes on each foot.

•     •     •

While I'd been visiting with Howard, the first blizzard of the season had begun. Fat flakes hurled themselves at
the city. They clung to branches and stuck to the sidewalks, transforming New York into a scene from a black-and-white movie. The sounds of the city were muffled, and traffic lights swung in the wind, their bright green orbs the only color left on Fifth Avenue. In this silent, frozen world, Lester Liu's hulking white mansion loomed over Fifth Avenue like the Fortress of Solitude.

Kiki Strike chained her Vespa to a park bench across the street from Lester Liu's house, while Betty, DeeDee, and Luz converged on our meeting spot from three different directions. Nobody was smiling.

“A million dollars to the first person who can guess what I found in the park,” I told the group.

“I'm not in the mood for games,” said Luz. “And you don't have a million dollars.”

“Just tell us, Ananka.” DeeDee's eyelids drooped with exhaustion.

“Fine,” I huffed. “I just had a chat with Kaspar's friend Howard. He's been sharing a bush with the heir to the Varney fortune.”

“Howard has a six-toed cat?” Kiki's eyebrow touched the edge of her black knit cap.

“Yep. Kaspar found it the day he was kidnapped.”

“Kaspar?” Betty's eyes sparkled at the mention of his name. The girl had it bad.

“Does that mean we can get New York's first family of crime kicked out of their fancy mansion?” Luz smirked.

“I thought we were trying to keep an open mind, Luz.” Kiki sighed.

“Right now, I'm just trying not to freeze to death.” DeeDee shivered and shook the snowflakes from her
dreadlocks. “Can we get started? I was up all night making more Fille Fiable.” She reached into her coat and brought out a large perfume bottle. “If I don't get some rest soon, I'm going to collapse.”

“Go home if you're tired,” Kiki offered. “You've done enough for today.”

DeeDee shook her head. “No way. I'll sleep a whole lot better when I find out what's going on.”

“Sure you want to know?” asked Luz.

“Don't start again,” Kiki warned.

•     •     •

I got the feeling we'd been expected. The butler opened the door and silently stepped to the side. Lester Liu greeted us in the lobby, a cane in one hand and a monogrammed handkerchief in the other. His head suddenly pitched backward and then slammed forward in a violent sneeze. He daintily wiped his nose and tucked the hanky into his breast pocket.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” His normally smooth voice was raspy and nasal. “My daughter suspected you might drop by today. Forgive me for not shaking hands. I have a terrible cold, I'm afraid. I wouldn't want to endanger you.”

I glanced at DeeDee, and I knew from the terrified look on her face that Lester Liu's cold had rendered our Fille Fiable powerless.

Kiki cut straight to the point. “Is Oona here?”

“She is indeed. She's in her room, being fitted for the dress she'll wear to the gala tomorrow night. I would be happy to take you to her.” Lester Liu paused to give me a
patronizing smile. “As long as Miss Fishbein promises not to wander off again.”

Kiki spoke for me. “We'll all stay right behind you, Mr. Liu.”

“Then please—follow me, ladies.” He gestured toward a door riddled with nail holes. It was the same one that had been barricaded the first time I visited the mansion. The other girls slipped into the gloom on the other side, but I hesitated at the threshold. The air in the east wing was thick with dust. Tiny particles sparkled in the thin strips of daylight that squeezed through the slats of the shutters. The sparsely placed furniture appeared to be upholstered in matted gray fur. I found it hard to believe that Oona Wong would spend much time in a part of the mansion that looked and smelled like a mausoleum.

“You may stay here if you prefer, Miss Fishbein.” I could hear the humor in Lester Liu's voice. “Sukh will see that you stay out of trouble.”

I had no desire to hang around with Genghis Kahn's badly coiffed double. I hurried over to Betty, Luz, and DeeDee, who were huddled together in the center of the room.

“You've opened the east wing,” Kiki noted calmly as she took everything in. “Not worried about the heating bill?”

Lester Liu guided us into an empty living hall. “I believe I can afford all the necessary modern conveniences, Miss Strike. Now that my daughter has come to live with me, I needed the additional space. This wing of the mansion will serve as her private quarters. As you can see, we still have some decorating to do.” My eyes passed across
the faded wallpaper decorated with interlacing lotus flowers and patches of oozing black mold. If the house wasn't haunted, it was missing an excellent opportunity. Kiki must have had the same thought.

“How's your ghost?” she asked. “Has she finally disappeared now that Oona's here with you?”

Lester Liu chuckled, which brought on a sneeze. “No. The ghost is still with us. I don't expect she will ever go away. Do you know what ghosts
are
, Miss Strike?”

We wandered through a garden room, its domed glass roof covered in snow. A tangle of dead plants crunched under our shoes. As we stepped over the petrified trunk of a palm tree, I felt Luz yank on my sleeve. We both knew Oona would never have gotten so far without turning back. It was obvious that Lester Liu wasn't taking us to see her, but Kiki seemed not to notice. I tapped on her shoulder, but she chose to ignore me.

“Does anyone know what ghosts are, Mr. Liu?” she asked.

“
I
do. Ghosts are how the past stays alive. No one can escape from his past, Miss Strike. Not me. Not you. Not even Cecelia Varney. Do you know why Ms. Varney locked herself away in this mansion? She believed she was haunted. She discovered that her fortune hadn't come from potato farms as she had always been told, but rather from her father's gun factories. A medium convinced her that the spirits of the people who'd been killed by those weapons would one day have their revenge. She gave the spirits an entire wing of her mansion in the hope of appeasing them, and she tried to squander her fortune so that no human heirs would inherit her guilt.”

“So she
wasn't
concerned about the heating bill.”

“No, Miss Strike. Ms. Varney understood that the past never goes away. Unless we take action, everything we do will someday come back to haunt us.”

Beyond the garden room lay an enormous woodpaneled ballroom. Light spilled out from under a door at the far end. We were now deep inside the vast, empty wing of the mansion. The sharp click of Lester Liu's cane on the parquet floor suddenly stopped.

“Ah, here we are,” said Lester Liu. “You'll find what you're after inside that room.”

“I think I'll stay here,” Luz mumbled.

“Me, too,” DeeDee agreed. Betty wouldn't budge.

“Come, come ladies, what's to be frightened of?”

Kiki gave me a sharp nod. While I stepped toward the door, she stayed behind, standing within arm's reach of Lester Liu. I knew she could take him out with a single punch. I twisted the handle of the door, but it seemed to be stuck.

“It won't open.” My mouth was dry and I felt lightheaded.

“Then I suggest you turn the lock,” Lester Liu advised.

I felt the lock click between my fingers, and I held my breath as I opened the door. There, sitting on the floor of a dusty room, were more than a dozen people, their hands and feet bound, their eyes blindfolded, and gags stuffed in their mouths. I could see nothing but the top of their heads. All but one had black hair.

“Surprise!” called a familiar voice.

Sergei Molotov slid into view with a pistol in his hand. I tried to slam the door in his face, but Molotov
grabbed my arm and pulled me into a headlock, the gun jammed into my temple. I heard him sniff at my neck.

“Do you bathe? You smell disgusting. Like armpit.” He had just gotten a nose full of Fille Fiable.

“Let me go. I'm a double agent,” I whispered. “I've been working for Mr. Liu.”

“You have?” Sergei sounded confused, and I felt his grip weakening.