The Ferryman Institute (31 page)

As he hurried to the door, Charlie realized that the middle tube of the tunnel was currently serving outbound traffic. The sound of a droning car horn drifted out, the way cars do endlessly after they've collided with something, and Charlie had a good feeling he knew what that something was. Just as he started to pat himself on the back for another perfectly executed bit of Charlie Dawson genius, two men wearing body armor—members of the Ferryman Institute's detention unit, no doubt—burst out of the tunnel with their legs pumping furiously. It didn't take Charlie long to figure out who they were chasing. He pulled up next to the entrance door where Alice was standing, her breath coming in short huffs now.

“Now what?” she asked.

Charlie looked at her quizzically. “Um, we open the door?” His mind was already trying to figure out how many seconds they had until the guards arrived.

“Let me rephrase that.” She tried to push open the door. Nothing happened. “It's locked. What the hell do we do now?”

Admittedly, Charlie hadn't accounted for that possibility. In his glorious plan B, the door opened easily from the outside—where he currently was—and locked even more easily from the inside—where he currently wanted to be.

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Charlie muttered under his breath.

He could hear the shouting now over the steady clamor of the car horn. “
Dawson! You're under arrest! Stay where you are!”

“Charlie,” Alice said, emotion creeping back into her voice, “we need to do something!”

The Ferryman jumped down from the small landing in front of the service area door to the large garage door next to it. “Yup,”
he called back, “I couldn't agree more.” The men from the detention unit were rounding the corner of the tunnel. Charlie crouched down in front of the garage door before sliding his hands as far underneath as he could.

Charlie licked his lips.
Here goes nothing.

He put everything he had into trying to lift the garage door. His body shook under the tremendous force, yet the door didn't budge. Alice jumped down beside him, but he was so focused on the door that he barely noticed. Charlie stopped, readjusted his position, and tried again. “Open sesame, you stupid piece of shit!” he yelled as he poured every ounce of strength into lifting.

The detention unit officers closed the gap with each pounding step. It wasn't going to be enough, they were going to run out of time, they were going to—

Suddenly, the door rose up three feet. Charlie lost his balance, accidentally toppling backward in the process. A mustached face poked out from under the opening of the garage door.

“Quickly now,” Cartwright said.

Alice apparently didn't need to be told twice as she scurried under the door. Charlie looked over to his right. One of the officers was sprinting, a look of cold determination frozen on his face.

“
Charles!
” barked Cartwright from under the door.

Spurred into action, Charlie quickly scrambled to all fours like an ungainly bear cub. The lead officer dove at the Ferryman with outstretched arms. Charlie tucked and rolled as fast as he could through the small opening.

Just when Charlie thought he'd cleared the door, his body came to an abrupt stop. Charlie whipped his head around and found himself staring into the eyes of the detention officer who'd gotten ahold of Charlie just below his biceps.

The rest of Charlie was inside the garage—only his arm was
pinned down against the ground, half in, half out. Charlie tried to wrench himself free but only managed to cause the officer's grip to slip down to his wrist. The other officer closed in, clearly aiming to slide underneath the door.

Then, with a dramatic crash, the garage door came careening down to the ground.

Cartwright stood over Charlie as he swiftly locked the door. A loud
thud
resonated from outside the door, followed by the sound of a fist pounding against it. “They've locked us out!” came the muffled voice from the other side.

Charlie lay there, unmoving.

“Cut that one a little close, don't you think?” he said to Cartwright, an amused smile tripping over his lips. For that brief moment, the accusations disappeared from Charlie's mind. It was damn good to see Cartwright again. There was also the small matter of him pulling Charlie and Alice straight out of the fire, which certainly didn't hurt the man's reputation.

The moment was short-lived, however, only partially because Alice chose the next second to start screaming.

“Charlie, your arm!” she shrieked, visibly cringing as she pointed.

Charlie looked down. Sure enough, his left arm from the elbow to his hand was gone. A tiny portion of his jagged stub poked out from beyond his rolled-up sleeves, the bone in his forearm jutting out a few inches.

He held it up to his face, then shrugged. “It'll grow back,” he said.

She looked at him, her face a mix of wonder and disgust. “Wait, what?” she asked.

This should be fun
, he thought.

Within seconds, the end of the Ferryman's left arm began to
stretch like a sentient piece of taffy. Muscle fibers lengthened, braiding together at the ends as they became long cords. The open wound closed off immediately, leaving behind a completely inconspicuous nub. A small bubble began to form at the end of his reconstituted arm, growing outward from his wrist. When it was about the size of a fist, it suddenly sprouted five thin outgrowths, which almost instantly began to flex into fingers. Charlie opened and closed his hand several times.

He caught Alice looking at him. Both her hands were covering her mouth, and she quickly turned away, gagging. After a few dry heaves, he could hear her mutter, “Ugh, gross.”

A clap drew Charlie's attention. Cartwright stood with his hands pressed together, looking just as he always did, his twirled mustache finely spiraled in on itself. He bowed to them both.

“Please accept my sincerest apologies for the rather precise margin of timing. I assure you I had every intention of arriving sooner, but tonight has been a rather chaotic night.” Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Cartwright was already walking to a back room. “This way, if you please. I have the utmost faith in that door, but I'm afraid it shan't hold our undesirable guests forever. I believe a smattering of privacy would be most welcome indeed.” He opened the door and beckoned the pair in.

The room was a closet. Not in the figurative sense of it being a small room, but in the literal one of it being an actual closet. Motor oil, several extra car batteries, jumper cables, a mop. All else being equal, it would certainly give them some privacy, but it wasn't much for comfort. Charlie could see a narrow passageway off to his right, which he assumed led farther into the tunnel, namely what his original plan had called for.

“Uh, is there a reason we're going in here and not following that tunnel over there?” Charlie asked.

Cartwright's oh-so-familiar, all-knowing smile arrived on cue. “Of course” was all he said.

Forthcoming as always
, Charlie thought with a grimace.

Reluctantly, he followed Cartwright's lead, shuffling in behind Alice as they filed into the cramped space. When they were all inside, Cartwright reached into his breast pocket and produced what Charlie always considered his Ferryman Key, then moved aside a box of windshield wiper fluid. Curiously, carved in the wall behind it was a small opening. With casual indifference, Cartwright flipped his key around so that the barrel and key bit were facing away from the hole, holding the key essentially backward, and slid it into the wall. There was a
click
, and just like that, the wall was sliding open.

Cartwright looked at them, a twinkle in his eye. “Contingency plans. You simply cannot have enough of them.”

Beyond the now-open wall was a softly lit room roughly three or four times the size of the closet. There was a small wooden table in the center, complete with four chairs situated around its four sides. A lazily steaming teapot sat in the center of the table, three teacups placed nearby. An open doorway stood beyond the table, its long passageway quickly bleeding into darkness. As Charlie crossed into the room, the last of their threesome, the wall behind him began to close and, within seconds, had sealed shut.

In all his years of service, Charlie had never seen anything quite like it. Yet it felt strangely familiar, his skin buzzing ever so slightly as he crossed the threshold—much like it did whenever he used his Ferryman Door.

Alice looked around, obviously surprised that such a space appeared to exist next to the Lincoln Tunnel, of all places (Charlie knew the feeling). “Did we just walk into a secret passage, or is it safe to say I'm now in Narnia?”

“Not that particular universe, precisely, but a not altogether dissimilar idea,” Cartwright said.

“So, as of right now, I'm not on earth anymore?” she asked. “One small step for man and all that jazz?”

“How to explain it . . . yes and no. Ferrymen operate between worlds, as it were, an existence betwixt the mortal world and the afterlife. It gets complicated rather quickly, and I regret to say I don't quite understand it all that well myself, so unfortunately that explanation will have to suffice. Now then, I daresay I will find it nigh impossible to excuse myself for such inordinately rude behavior. I haven't even given you the common courtesy of introducing myself. William Henry Taylor Cartwright the Fourth, at your service.” He bowed, and took her hand.

Something very important occurred to Charlie just then. “Hold on a second. If you're holding your key, how can she see you?”

That was Ferryman 101. Even without his key, Charlie would still be able to see Cartwright—such was the way of the Ferryman. It had been explained to Charlie as a necessary precaution should any Ferryman lose their key and need assistance. However, as an outsider, Alice shouldn't have been able to. In fact, Charlie had witnessed her inability earlier in the night when he'd arrived in her room. With his key, she couldn't see him. Without it, she could.

Cartwright, who at the moment was leaning toward Alice's hand, stopped. “Magic, my good fellow,” he replied, then proceeded to gently kiss the back of Alice's hand.

She looked over her shoulder at Charlie. “Now
that's
a gentleman,” she said, a touch of impish delight drawn on her lips.

Charlie's brain, however, was too busy trying to process everything to notice. Secret doors that were opened by Ferryman Keys; Ferryman Keys that didn't make their Ferrymen invisible;
Ferrymen—or men who claimed to be Ferrymen—who somehow knew all about this . . .

Jesus, what the hell is going on here?

“You must be Ms. Spiegel, I assume?” Cartwright asked politely.

“Yes, Alice Spiegel,” she said, apprehension coloring her response, “though I'm a bit curious as to how you know that . . .”

“My apologies, I had absolutely no intention of alarming you. However, without divulging too much, I have been reliably informed by various sources as to who you are.” Charlie's eyebrows shot up. That was news to him. “Regardless, and I pray this isn't too forthright, I am positively delighted to make your acquaintance, Ms. Spiegel. I must say, you have a positively intoxicating smile.” Alice's mood instantly brightened at the compliment. “May I offer you some tea? I would offer Charles some, but his rejections of such offers generally end in ill-advised attempts at comedy. I would imagine you are now quite familiar with his unique sense of humor as well, for which you have my condolences.”

With a giggle, Alice followed Cartwright to the central table and sat with him. Charlie, however, stayed standing where he was. He ran his fingers through his hair, completely at a loss for what to do next. Javrouche's revelation was exactly the type of problem he'd normally go to Cartwright for, except that was an obvious nonstarter in this situation.

Hey, Cartwright. Listen, I just had a quick question . . . Let's say I have this friend who, hypothetically speaking, knows a guy who might actually be a spy for some clandestine operation that for all he knows could directly or indirectly lead to the end of humanity as we know it. Any tips on how I—I mean
he
—might approach his friend about that? Without hurting his feelings, of course.

That was sure to go over well.

Did Cartwright even know about Javrouche's accusations? If he didn't, then how did he know about Alice? Even more mind-boggling than that, how had he known where to find them? The maintenance garage of the Lincoln Tunnel wasn't generally the place old acquaintances coincidentally ran into each other. There had to be something else at play—it was simply inexplicable otherwise. And if Cartwright did know about his own apparent lack of existence, why was he acting like . . . like . . .

“. . . all is right with the world.”

Charlie looked up at the sound of Cartwright's voice. “What?” he said dumbly. Only after Charlie had opened his mouth did he realize that Cartwright had been talking to Alice, though both were now looking squarely at him.

“I was just relating to your new acquaintance my particular fascination with Earl Grey tea. A cup of it paired with some fine reading can make it seem as if all is right with the world, or something to that effect. Where was I? Ah, yes. Ms. Spiegel, would you be terribly offended if I had a somewhat personal discussion with Charles in your presence? Under normal circumstances, I would no doubt ask for some privacy; however, present circumstances being what they are, it would seem that option is currently unavailable.” He gave a broad gesture to signify the room they were in to finish his point.

Alice took a sip of tea before responding. “First, just Alice, please. Second, it doesn't sound like I have much of a choice. But I mean, hey, go for it. Pretend I'm not even here.” She gave both men a meaningful look before returning to her teacup, peering over the brim at them like a scheming cat. Though she was trying her hardest to seem put off by the whole thing, Charlie caught the now familiar glint of excited curiosity in her eyes.