Authors: William S. Kirby
Justine heard water bubbling downhill.
The Dornbach.
The forest grew close, and then opened to the ruins of a pergola. Only a loose circle of decayed columns remained, centered around a marble bench. The stone seemed to glow in the diffuse light of the cloud-covered moon. The seat had collapsed under its own weight, lying shattered on the ground. The back remained; a blazing sun engraved into the center.
Starting with the sun â¦
The Place of Righteous Murder.
Vienna removed a small, flat object from her pocket and put it under the flashlight. A compass. She aligned herself northward and took several careful steps. She turned to her left, taking several more steps. Justine saw that she wasn't walking in a straight line, but in an arc around the bench. She stopped and whispered, “Mercury.”
After a slight pause, she turned directly away from the bench and started walking. Enough steps to carry her beyond the columns. Then another turn to her left and another curved march. “Venus.”
As the planets move â¦
Vienna stopped. Her eyes closed, her fingers twitching at her side. She began to tonelessly hum, recalling the weights of metal and gold found in each manikin. Justine couldn't remember any of them, despite having talked about them several times. Had it been fifty-two grams of tin in the Iceland manikin? Forty-seven? By comparison, Vienna had only briefly glimpsed most of the numbers, given to her on a scrap of paper in Brussels. Utterly meaningless at the time. Her ability to conjure them in this freezing forest seemed less a trick of memory and more a curse of the gods. She pirouetted, almost slipping on the damp ground. “Thou hast spoken right, 'tis true.” It sounded like Shakespeare, recited too loudly on this dark stage. “The wheel is come full circle,” the girl shouted. “I am here!” Justine realized that Vienna had grown bored with stepping out each planet's location. She'd begun to calculate the complete shape of David Bell's imaginary solar system.
You don't need shortcuts!
Vienna opened her eyes and surveyed the landscape. Her hands stopped; a complex series of geometrical equations solved. She clapped softly and skipped into an uneven run toward the unseen brook. Forty feet brought her to an ancient oak. Justine hunched along a parallel course.
After a complete circuit of the tree, Vienna's light found a depression between fingered roots. She dropped to her knees and started digging. In less than a minute she gave a soft exclamation of delight. She reached down and pulled a small metal box from the ground.
So anticlimactic. An unremarkable box at the base of an unremarkable tree. It would have remained hidden forever.
The girl gave a hushed laugh of delight. She didn't see that she was no longer alone. James Hargrave stepping from the bushes. A triumphant leer twisting his handsome features.
“A long chase,” he said. He turned on a flashlight, picked out Justine in the trees. “Come out, Justine.”
Vienna stood in shock as Justine approached.
Justine realized on some level she'd known the truth since that last dinner in London. The geometry of his watch. The travel hand mirroring the main hour hand, both pointing straight down. Hargrave's watch had already been set for travel. Not for New York, five hours behind London, but for KeflavÃk. In the same time zone. Always one step ahead. He'd reached Iceland first. He had been there when Haldor died.
Hargrave turned to Vienna. “Give me the box.”
“That's not it,” Justine said.
“I saw her dig it up, and you didn't come here last night. I've had you followed.”
“The dipshit in the sunglasses and motorcycle boots. I spotted him days ago. That's why I had Emily Holt fetch the star. I knew you no longer had reason to watch her.”
“I doubt that's true.”
“Don't ever sell me short.” She began walking to them, as if concerned for Vienna. No reaction from Hargrave, beyond a patronizing smirk. “You're a mess, aren't you? All because of this pathetic 'tard. What do you see in her?”
Justine kept walking.
“Close enough.” He pulled a squat handgun from his coat. No doubt he'd hidden it somewhere in the metal suitcases. Disassembled into something innocuous and reconstructed during murderous layovers in Belgium, London, and Iceland.
All because I said a manikin moved. All my fault.
The gun's blue-black mouth remained only half raised.
He must not point it at her.
Justine stalled. “I'll tell you if you give Vienna and me five minutes together.” She resumed walking toward them.
“Not unless I know where it is.”
“In my pocket.”
“Show me.”
Justine removed Emily's small box and shook it. The rock inside rattled. She stopped five feet from Hargave.
“Very good.” He flashed a tight grin. “You have five minutes, just as Rudolph and Vetsera had. You'll have a lot less if you call out or run.”
She reached into her pocket, dropped the box, took the stake by its blunt end.
Just like Lina Zahler. Meeting old friends in the woods.
Her fingers closed around the stake and she saw words, as if flawlessly conducted by the cold metal. An oath memorized on the sunny lawns of Stanford. Washing through her in perfect fidelity. Exactly how she knew Vienna saw such things.
I swear by Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea â¦
With a twist of her wrist, the stake flipped upward, the points brushing the soft skin of her wrist.
 ⦠to consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art â¦
Hargrave still smiling, not yet sensing what was happening. The gun loose in his hand.
 ⦠I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability.â¦
She saw that he was a manikin, too: a collection of parts carefully fit together. Only this time, she was the one who held the secret to take it all apart. An ancient trick, relearned by countless medical students slicing through cadavers in anatomy lab.
 ⦠and never do harm to anyone â¦
Justine flexed her knees and uncoiled, thrusting the stake to his throat. She had to generate enough force to penetrate the cricoid.
I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts â¦
Pray the thin metal doesn't bend.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients â¦
The stake took him just above the jugular notch, below the thick thyroid cartilage. The metal held, the blunt end biting painfully into Justine's palm. Hargrave had no time to react. No time to run from a woman.
 ⦠keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction â¦
Once the tip was through muscle, Justine felt only slight resistance as it punctured Hargrave's trachea. Blood welled around the wound. She released the stake, stepping away.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession I will keep secret â¦
Only a fraction of a second for Hargrave's smile to slip. No air to fill his lungs. He dropped the gun and scrabbled desperately at the stake with his right hand. His left arm was no longer working. The stake must have bent after all, slicing the brachial plexus. Justine kicked the gun away as hard as she could.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art â¦
Hargrave collapsed as the stake slipped free. A terrible sucking sound filled his throat.
 ⦠but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.
No pressure to power his voice box. No way to scream. Vienna did it for him, her shrill cry piercing the night. From the forest behind Hargrave, Justine caught a split second flash of red laser light, reaching from the trees to connect to the back of his sinking head.
Justine grabbed Vienna's hand. “Hush. We don't want to attract attention.”
As if on a switch, Vienna went quiet. Justine pulled her away from the writhing body of her agent. Wet gasping and the rustle of legs kicking uselessly at fallen leaves.
He will see the ruins in his last breath, just as Rudolph did. And I will walk away just as Lina did.
But I will not get as far.
Â
Vienna followed Justine to the edge of the forest. The city below was all hazy and it was so cold that each breath added its own wispy cloud to the night. Justine headed toward Saint Stephens, but too far north for their hotel. Vienna was afraid to ask what their destination was because Justine had just murdered her agent and it didn't make any sense because there was no way Justine had the Star of Memphis. Vienna had it in her pocket. She grabbed the box to assure herself it was there.
Justine kept walking until Vienna's legs felt like melting lead. They'd covered at least thirty kilometers and she just wanted to sleep and the sun had to be coming up soon and she couldn't stay warm any longer.
Where is she taking me?
Justine stopped at the edge of a park. Vienna noticed for the first time that her side was muddy and wet.
She must be freezing
.
“Wonderful,” Justine said, in that way she said things that meant the opposite of what the word meant. “Vienna, what's the quickest way to the hotel. I thought we were on the right track.”
“No.” Vienna pointed to a massive tower that loomed before them, visible as a silhouette of concrete decks and steel rails. “It's a flacktürme.”
“What?”
“The Augarten is the oldest baroque garden in Vienna, having been established in 1712. It did not gain its most distinguishing features, two enormous flacktürmes, until World War II. Built by the Nazis starting in 1943, these towers were to serve as housing for anti-aircraft guns as well as self-contained fortresses for thirty thousand troops. They included their own munitions factories as well as hospitals andâ”
“Come, then, my tour guide. Let us cross the Augarten and find our way home. I'm too tired to take a single step more than I must.”
They were halfway across the park when a black SUV pulled up on the street in front of them. Vienna looked at her internal map and found the street: Castellezgasse. A man stepped from the car. He made no move to come after them, but it was clear he was waiting for them.
Justine sighed. “Ah. Well, it was a long shot. I should have called a taxi. Had to try though.”
“What's happening?”
“Doesn't matter, Vienna.” She took Vienna's hand. “I want you to do something for me.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to give me the star.”
Vienna backed away. “Why? I found it! I have every right to keep it!” She set her arms across her chest.
“More than you know, but I want you to give it to me.”
“Why should I?”
How dare she ask after all of this?
“Because five people are dead from it. I don't⦔ Justine swallowed. “I don't want you having such a venomous bauble. Anyone but you. I can't explain more than that. Anyone but you. Please.”
Vienna was stunned to see that Justine was crying. Tears streaming down her face.
You have to trust her.
It's your turn to stop her tears.
Vienna took it from her pocket. “It would sell for a lot, yeah? If I sold it, I would have enough money not to depend on you.”
“I know.”
Vienna handed the box to Justine. “Eight people. Prince Rudolph and Vetsera and Sisi died, too.”
“True.”
Justine took the box and slipped it into her pocket. She took a moment to compose herself. “Shall we see what the fates bring?”
“You think that man by the car is going to kill us, don't you?”
“No. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it.”
Whatever that meant.
Justine offered her arm, and Vienna slipped her hand inside Justine's elbow. “It's cold,” she said, not knowing what to talk about, but knowing silence was unbearable.
“It is,” Justine said.
“It was very clever of me to find the star, don't you think?”
“I do. Will you tell me how you did it some day?”
“I will.”
They were close enough now to see the lean grace of Sir Anson Davy. “Not much of a surprise,” Justine said under her breath.
They stepped up to him.
“The Talmud cautions never to meet a stranger in the night, for he might be a demon,” Lord Davy said.
“If you are, I'm too tired to run,” Justine answered.
Davy nodded. “Would you like a ride to your hotel?”
“Is that where the car will take us?”
“Yes, my colonial friend.” He was standing unnaturally still, his arms folded in front of his waist, his hands visible. “I had David Andries's number on my cell phone because he'd called to coerce me with the threat of harm to Vienna. He wanted access to a place where he was no longer welcome. His father and I had been friends, long ago. I didn't even suspect you knew I had his number until Olifur told me a few hours ago.”
“But he has known for days.”
Uncle Anson removed his suit jacket and draped it over Justine, even though it would get muddy. “He was forming the same suspicions you were. He kept several things from me. I can't blame him.”
“But you arranged for Vienna to go to Holler,” Justine said. She pulled the jacket close around her shoulders.
“I had no way of knowing Andries was one step ahead of me. He wished to demonstrate how easy it would be to get close to Vienna. Ironic that he set you two up as a warning shot. He took the first step, but you took the dance.”
“Speaking of warning shots, your lackey in the forest could have been faster.”
“He arrived too late due to my stupidity, and his orders were to act only as a final resort.” Uncle Anson, left without a jacket, didn't look cold at all. “He was not ready until events had progressed beyond the need to interfere. He reported you acted with courage and intelligence. High praise from such a man.”