Ghosts of Manhattan (26 page)

The Ghost fell to the floor amongst a shower of shimmering fragments. Bleeding and almost senseless from the blow, he spat blood, shook his head to try to clear the fogginess. The huge golem was looming over him again, raising its fist. He rolled, just in time, as the fist slammed down against the marble floor, narrowly missing his head. Three inches closer and his face would have been a bloody pulp, spread across the floor.

The Ghost kicked out his legs, flicking himself up onto his feet. The other fist came around, lower this time, catching him in the guts, causing him to double over. Blood and vomit spewed involuntarily from his lips. He couldn't breathe, but was aware of the sound of bullets yipping all around him as the firefight continued unabated. He toppled sideways. Stars were dancing before his eyes. No. No! He couldn't stop now. He wouldn't give in. It wouldn't end here. He gasped for air, steadied himself.

More gunfire. He looked up. Donovan was standing beside him, his arms fully outstretched, firing shot after shot into the moss man's blank, green face. The only effect was to momentarily distract the lumbering monster, but it was long enough for the Ghost to raise his arm and squeeze the trigger of his flechette gun.

The moss man barely seemed to register the tiny, dull thuds of the explosive shots as they buried themselves in its waist. The Ghost didn't have time to get out of the way, but he called out to Donovan: "Get down!"

The golem exploded in close proximity to the Ghost, its midriff blowing open, scattering its mechanical innards all around him, pattering down on him as he covered his face in the crook of his arm. The massive body fell backward, crunching the last remains of the glass cabinet as it collapsed to the floor, a heap of damp clay and mangled skeletal frame.

The Ghost didn't have time to breathe a sigh of relief. The remaining mobsters were circling closer, readying their guns. Donovan was still taking potshots at them, causing them to duck behind the nearby cover. But they both knew they were running out of time.

The Ghost looked up. High above, the plaster ceiling was molded into thick, white ribs of architrave. He took a measure of the remaining mobsters: four of them, one to the left, three in a huddle behind the ruins of a display case. He hefted the barrel of his flechette gun, pointing it toward the ceiling. Then he squeezed the trigger, closing his eyes, hoping beyond hope that he was within range. He waited for the sound of the tiny blades striking home in the plasterwork, but it never came, lost beneath the sounds of tommy guns chattering and bullets clanging off the walls. He rolled, throwing himself out of the way of the mobsters' deadly projectiles.

Seconds later, just as the goons were preparing to take another shot at him and Donovan, there was a huge explosion from above. The Ghost watched, awestruck, as a massive chunk of ceiling plaster broke loose, surrounded by dark clouds of plaster dust and smoke. His aim had been precise. Particles of the stuff rained down from above, but the boulder-sized lump dropped like a stone, turning over and over in midair, landing squarely atop the cluster of three men with a sickening crunch. All he could see from where he was crouched was a shattered leg, protruding from behind the remains of the broken glass case.

Shocked, the remaining mobster lowered the barrel of his gun, his mouth agape in mute horror, and it was only a moment's work for Donovan to put a bullet in his temple before the man regained his senses and started shooting at them again. The man dropped where he stood, his dead finger nervously depressing the trigger of his gun as he fell, scattering hot lead over the marble floor for a handful of seconds. Then silence. Nothing but death, dust, and silence.

The Ghost peered around. There was no further movement, except the settling plaster dust and the slow swinging of a damaged chandelier. The hall had taken on the aspect of a grim charnel house, filled with exploded body parts, dark smears of stinky blood and spilled viscera, and the passive, blank faces of the funereal statues, mourning for their lost kin.

He got to his feet. "Donovan?" He looked at the policeman, who was on his knees, staring wide-eyed at the scene of devastation. "Can you walk?"

Donovan nodded. "Yes. I can walk. I'm fine." But it was clear that he wasn't.

The Ghost crossed the floor, his feet crunching on the debris, and hooked a hand beneath the policeman's arm, hauling him to his feet. "Come on! We're not finished yet." They didn't have time now for Donovan to revel in his shock.

The Ghost left the exhibition hall at a run, his coattails flapping behind him, Donovan at his heels as he crossed the great hall in pursuit of the two moss men and their heavy burden.

There was no sign of them. He pressed on, retracing his steps from earlier, not caring now whether he brought attention to himself, whether anyone would hear him coming. He ran along the imperious Byzantine corridor, across the medieval hall, but still there was no sign of the lumbering golems. Unconcerned as they were with subtlety, the moss men had clearly made good progress in their escape whilst the Ghost and Donovan had been fighting for their lives in the other hall.

The Ghost reached the fire escape in the American Wing and ducked out through the door, sliding on the slick snow, just in time to see the large truck swerve away from the building. One of the rear doors was clanging open as it weaved away down the path toward the road, its wheels leaving a spray of watery slush in its wake. Through the sliver of the open door, the Ghost could see the two moss men propping the marble wheel against the inside of the truck. He raised his arm, let off a hail of shots, but to no avail. The driver was too quick, and the Ghost was too late. The flechettes skipped harmlessly across the surface of the road, fizzing and popping in the pale snow.

Donovan appeared in the doorway behind him, gasping for breath. "We lost them?"

It was a rhetorical question, but the Ghost nodded and answered regardless, his voice grim. "Yes. We lost them."

The roar of another engine sounded as one of the four parked cars up ahead suddenly screamed to life, peeling away from the museum and shooting off toward the road in the wake of the truck. Black smoke curled from its exhaust funnels. The Ghost thought about going after it, but then, as if the thought had entered his mind unbidden, he remembered his friend. He looked at Donovan. "Arthur! He's still in there, somewhere."

He charged back into the museum, nearly bowling the policeman over in the process. He leapt over the remains of the dead guard, nearly missing his footing and sliding in a puddle of greasy blood. He tried not to think about it as he ran on through the great hall, up the flight of steps, and along corridors until finally, out of breath, he came to the door to Arthur's office. He seized the handle and flung the door open. Inside it was dark. All the lights had been extinguished.

"Arthur?" No response. "Arthur, are you there?" He heard a whimpering from over by the desk. He crossed the room and found the curator cowering there, curled up, fetal, beneath the desk, his knees drawn up under his chin. The Ghost dropped into a squat. "Arthur, it's me. Gabriel."

Arthur turned his head to look at him, and for a moment there was no sign of recognition in his terrified eyes. The man was visibly shaking, frightened out of his wits. But something seemed to register in his brain: the sound of the Ghost's voice, or the appearance of the vigilante's disheveled face. He focused, and his eyes regained their usual luster. "Gabriel?" he whispered. "You came."

"Of course I came."

"They ... they're here for the marble wheel."

"Yes, Arthur." The Ghost's voice was low and soft, calming. "I'm afraid they got away with it, too. There were too many of them."

Arthur looked pained. "Was it Mr. Gardici?"

The Ghost smiled sadly. "I don't think your Mr. Gardici was quite who he claimed to be, Arthur. I suspect the man you were really dealing with was the person I know as the Roman."

Arthur's shoulders fell. "I wish I'd known, Gabriel. I would have done something. I would have tried to stop him." He was crestfallen, accepting the burden without question. As if he could somehow have prevented it all. This was the greater tragedy, the Ghost reflected, not the lost antiquities or the money it would take to repair the damage to the museum, but the impact it would have on Arthur. He would never forgive himself for failing to predict what had happened that night. He would blame himself for the deaths of the museum guards. He would be irrevocably altered by it. The Ghost knew this without question; he had seen it in fellow soldiers during the war, seen it even in himself. That perpetual, haunting question: What if? What if I had done something different?

The Ghost reached under the desk and clasped Arthur by the wrist. "I know, Arthur. I know." He pulled the curator out from the small, confined space into which he had forced himself. "Come on, Arthur. We need to get you home."

Arthur looked unsure. "What about the exhibits, the collection? Did they touch anything else?"

The Ghost hardly knew how to break the news to his old friend, especially given his fragile mental condition. "It's a bit of a mess down there, Arthur. Probably best if you leave it for the morning. We'll get it cleaned up. I have a policeman with me."

Arthur nodded. "Very well." He leaned on the Ghost, and then, as if seeing him properly for the first time, he looked the vigilante up and down appraisingly. "You're a mess, Gabriel."

The Ghost couldn't hold back his laughter as, together, the two men set off in search of Donovan, and home.

he next morning, the Ghost woke feeling already tired. He was in his apartment on Fifth Avenue. He'd given Donovan the bed, deferring to the wounded man, and consequently he'd slept only fitfully in an armchair, waking almost hourly to find himself staring out of the window at the sleeping city below.

His thoughts were filled with Celeste. He kept replaying their conversation of the previous day over and over in his mind. He didn't know how he'd left things between them, didn't know how he'd be able to put things right. And in the small hours of the morning, sloshing bourbon into a glass tumbler and staring out at the distant stars, he admitted to himself how much she had hurt him by clinging on to her secrets, by not opening up to him with her concerns. He knew then, too, what he had done to her, and wondered if she was punishing him for that misdemeanor, causing him to feel that same sense of helplessness, of abandonment, a sickness in the pit of his stomach. It had started at the very moment he'd discovered she would not confide in him, and it had not yet abated. He closed his eyes and breathed out, slowly, fighting the nausea. All he had wanted to do was keep her safe.

He stirred again, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was nearly seven. He stood, stretching his weary limbs, and crossed to the bathroom, where he bathed, shaved, and otherwise tried to busy himself within inane activities for as long as possible. His body ached all over from the exertions of the last few days. The combat had put a strain on him, but he knew it was not yet over. He needed to discover exactly what the Roman wanted with the stone wheel, with Celeste. And he needed to find Reece and the three-funneled car. He had very little to go on.

When he emerged from the bathroom an hour later, dressed in an immaculate black morning suit, he found Donovan was up, fixing breakfast. He felt drawn to the steaming pot of coffee, which he knew would imbue him with more energy, banishing the lethargy of his sleepless night. Banishing too, he hoped, the gnawing sense of hollowness in his gut. He sat down, drinking deeply from a mug of the hot, oily liquid. Donovan was eating eggs from a plate balanced precariously on his knee. If his appetite was anything to go on, the man was starting to get his strength back.

"Did you sleep well, Donovan?"

The policeman shrugged. "No. Not really."

It was an honest reply, and the Ghost wouldn't have expected anything less. "How's your shoulder?"

"Painful. I think I must have opened the wound last night at the museum." He spoke around a mouthful of food.

The Ghost nodded. "I'll help you strap it again in a while. I need to make a call first."