Infernal

4

-65:55

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Tom said.

Jack ground his teeth, thinking about what a jerk he'd been. But then, he hadn't heard the whole story until it was too late. If Tom had told him about the Lilitongue's supposedly magical powers, if he'd told him about the girl and the dog, Jack wouldn't have allowed Vicky within ten miles of that thing.

He glanced at his brother the shmegege and thought about a quick chop to his Adam's apple—not hard enough to crush his larynx, just enough to shut him up. But knowing how that mark was growing larger on Vicky's back, he wasn't sure he could pull the punch.

"Not exactly. So can the chatter and let me think."

On either side of the two-lane blacktop, evergreens stood tall among the bare branches of their deciduous neighbors. The dull, overcast sky threatened snow. He hoped it held off—prayed it held off. The last thing he needed was to get stuck with the shmegege in the mountains of upstate New York during a blizzard. Talk about a nightmare.

Jack had been to this area twice last month. But both times at night—once with a passenger who knew the way, and the other following someone—so he was feeling his way.

"I'm still not clear on this: We've come out to the middle of nowhere to sneak into a house you might not be able to find so that we can search for a book that might or might not be there?"

"I have it on good authority that it exists, and that it belongs to the owner of this place we're looking for."

Jack hadn't wanted to bring the shmegege along, but he didn't know if he'd need an extra pair of hands at the cabin—if he could find it. He'd told him about his meeting with Dr. Buhmann, but not about Charlie. He didn't want to have to explain his connection to the disgraced Luther Brady either.

Jack rounded a curve then and slowed his Crown Vic.

"What's wrong?"

"This looks familiar."

He eased ahead until he saw the uphill gravel driveway. On impulse he pulled in and climbed the grade.

"This the place?"

"No, but if it's the place I think it is, then we're almost there."

Halfway up the driveway he looked for traces of the explosion that had ripped a man apart last month, but found none. A cleanup squad—whether human or the carnivores among the local fauna, he couldn't say—had come through and left no trace.

As the house hove into view he slammed on the brakes. The tires skidded on the gravel.

"Oh, shit."

"Wow," Tom said, craning his neck for a better look through the windshield. "Somebody sure had their fun with this place."

Not exactly the traditional idea of fun: The front door stood open, its off-kilter storm door swayed back and forth, and someone had smashed every window in sight.

Tom snorted. "Vandals. The jerk who built the place probably thought he'd leave their kind behind when he came up here. But they're everywhere."

Jack hoped the destruction was due to garden-variety vandalism. Not a hell of a lot to do in these parts: Add drugs or booze to boredom and just about anything could happen. If that had been the case, fine. But he feared the destruction might have been motivated by something else.

Seized with a sudden urgency to find Brady's cabin, Jack put the Vic in reverse and started turning it around. Took him four moves before he could nose back into the driveway again.

"Jesus, what are you doing driving a tank like this? It's a cop car. Or a retirement-village car. And you're neither."

Jack could have told the shmegege that this black Crown Victoria was the exact match—right down to the license plates—of a car belonging to a big shot in the outfit's Brooklyn wing. But then he'd have to go into a long explanation of why he'd want something like this.

He turned back onto the blacktop and continued west. Now he had an idea of where he was going. He just hoped that Brady's cabin hadn't suffered the same fate.

A few miles farther on he found a similar driveway and turned into it. The rear wheels kicked up gravel as he spurred the car uphill. Hurrying wouldn't change things—if damage had been done, it was done.

When he saw the place he slowed to a stop.

"Shit!" He pounded on the steering wheel. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Only charred timbers remained of the north wall of Brady's woodsy A-frame. The rest of the house looked almost as bad—not an intact pane in sight.

Jack jumped out and hurried across the dead grass to the smashed front door. Tom tailed him.

The inside was consistent with the outside, maybe worse. Looked like someone had taken an ax to everything before starting the fire. Splintered furniture—some of it used as kindling, maybe—smashed framed photos, slashed paintings, books reduced to confetti. Rain washing in through the ruined roof had added to the damage.

But Jack didn't care about this—his interest lay below. He knew a trapdoor lay somewhere near the center of the main room, but he couldn't see where.

He dropped to his hands and knees and began searching the knotty pine planks.

He heard Tom say, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for the edge of a trapdoor."

"What makes you think there's a trapdoor?"

"I just do. Help me look."

He couldn't tell Tom that he'd been peeking through one of these windows when Luther Brady had swung up a section of the floor and disappeared below… carrying a book… a large, old-looking book.

Jack was counting on that being the Compendium. Herta had told him Brady had it. And Charlie had said Jack had seen it. If they were right, this had to be the place.

Tom walked around in a wavering circle.

"I don't see anything."

Neither did Jack. But he knew it was here. He tried to remember if the trapdoor's opening edge had been irregular. If so, he wouldn't find an obvious seam cutting across the boards. He stretched himself flat for an ant's-eye view.

There—a tiny depression running along one of the planks. He rose to his knees and ran his finger along the edge. Yeah, definitely a space here.

Jack pictured Brady lifting the door. It had opened toward the rear of the house. He searched for a ring embedded in a plank. Had to be one. Brady couldn't have lifted it without—

One of the knots two planks away looked different. He touched it and noticed it didn't feel like wood. He worked his thumbnail along its edge and up popped a metal ring, painted to look like wood. Jack hauled back on it and a section of the floor angled upward.

"Jesus!" he heard Tom say. "How did you know?"

He ignored the question as he threw the trapdoor back. A wooden stairway led below.

Jack started down. "Wait here."

"No problem."