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At last the morning had come, and at last he was rising up out of the dreadful dream and back into life as he knew it. He wanted to roll over in bed beside his dear Mina and kiss her, hold her, make love to her. He wanted to hear his children in the hallways of Glenmont, to hear one of them at the piano, playing some new melody.

He opened his eyes.

He was not where he expected to be, and it was not life as he knew it.

Oh my God!

He was seated in a cold and dank room with concrete walls and three tiny windows set high near the ceiling. A single light hung from that ceiling, and it buzzed with life. There was but one door to the room; it was closed tightly. A dark-haired young man stood several feet away from him, his arms crossed, a terrifying grin on his face.

“What the hell …?” Edison managed. He tried to stand up but realized his arms were lashed to the arms of the chair and his legs were bound at the ankles. A wide leather strap forced his torso against the back of the chair, and a peculiar metal cap was atop his head.

The young man watched as Edison tried to wriggle his way out of the chair, but the restraints held tightly. He grunted, snarled, and twisted. This only made the young man’s smile all the brighter.

Heart thundering, Edison at last gave in and addressed his captor. “Where the hell am I? What the hell is going on?”

“Don’t you know where you are?” asked the young man.

“No!” He was not going to play games. He was not going to let this man see his fear. He had to project confidence and authority. He had to be in control. “And I am not to answer your questions, scalawag! I’m to be set free this moment.”

The young man pursed his lips, then went to the door, tested the knob, proving it was locked. “No one here but the two of us, and it seems I have the upper hand. So, let’s start over. Don’t you know where you are?”

Edison’s teeth clenched and his fists tightened. “I don’t know where I am. There is no reason I should know! Now do what is best in your own interest and let me go.”

“My best interest?
My
best interest?” The young man shook his head and chuckled. “You are quite delusional, sir, if you think I’m the one in trouble here.”

Edison bucked again against the straps, and they continued to hold securely. “Damn it!” he shouted, then was angry at himself for letting his fear seep through. “I’ll
have more than your hide for this,” he added. “When your little game is done, you’ll wish you’d never been born!”

The young man sighed, shook his head, smiled sadly. “Tell that to the man seated in the Westinghouse.”

Edison flinched, gasped, and looked again at the chair in which he was bound.
Oh, my God, no, no, no!

He knew, then, where he was. He knew, then, this chair, this room, this place, and his mind screamed in horror.
The Westinghouse! The chair! The electric chair!

The young man obviously could see the stark realization in Edison’s face, and he said, “Yes, that’s right. We’re at Auburn Prison. You are in the electric chair.”

“This is impossible!” Edison took a raspy, agonized breath. “That can’t be!”

“Oh, but it can,” said the young man. “You are right where you should be, considering your life and your sins.”

“What sins! How dare you do this to me! Unstrap me
now
!”

The young man began to pace back and forth slowly in front of the chair, stroking his chin as if in deep thought. He wore a fine wool overcoat, tailored trousers, and well-polished shoes. Clearly not some bum out to blackmail him for money. It was something more sinister. Something more bloodcurdling and secret.

“You aren’t a prison guard,” said Edison, trying desperately to put the pieces together, trying desperately to keep the appearance of calm.

“No, not a prison guard,” said the young man.

“You’re not a janitor! And obviously not the chaplain!”

The young man shook his head.

“So who are you? I demand you tell me!”

“You demand nothing. Yet I’ll tell you. I’m the stepson of Richard Edmonds. Know the name?”

“Edmonds. The steel baron. Yes, I know him. He doesn’t live in Auburn. He has nothing to do with this prison!”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“How are we here, then? I insist you tell me what this is all about!”

“You love death, don’t you, Mr. Edison? You love to watch things die, don’t you?”

“What? Of course not!”

“No? All those cats and dogs dead to make your point, to save your name, to try to keep your direct current in all our county’s homes and businesses?”

“It was a public service I did with those films!”

“Went a bit overboard, didn’t you? How many dogs had to fry? How many horses and cows had to be pumped full of electricity in front of audiences? And then that elephant, Topsy. Quite the coup, wasn’t she? I hear you’re ready to share her grisly death with anyone with a nickel to spare.”

“I …”

“Admit it. You love death and you love moving pictures.” The young man nodded, then walked around behind the chair where Edison couldn’t see him. He returned with a camera and a tripod.

“Oh dear sweet God, no!!”

“Oh dear sweet God, yes,” said the young man. He set up the tripod and adjusted the camera on top. “And you should be honored, actually. This is the very death chamber where the first man was put to death with electricity. William Kemmler just thirteen years ago. Unfortunately, it was a botched execution, right there in that chair where you now sit. The current didn’t kill him at first. Cooked him but didn’t kill him. They thought it was done but he was still breathing. Much like Topsy, I heard tell. Still breathing when it was done. In Kemmler’s case, they had to send another surge into him to finish him off.
Smoking, smoldering mess it was. The smell of cooked human flesh made some of the witnesses quite ill. Did you know that?”

Edison fought the straps harder.

“I’m not talking to myself here. I asked you a question.”

“I knew that! What does it have to do with me?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said the young man. He opened the camera, threaded the film, snapped the camera shut. “You are rather fascinated with this electric chair. You even staged a recreation of the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz two years ago, I’m sure you remember. Built a model of the electric chair, hired actors to play the guards and the condemned. Filmed it and happily shared it. Did you want others to think you’d actually witnessed the man’s death here at Auburn Prison? Did you want people to find that same dark delight you find in death?”

“What? No! I—”

“Shhh, now,” said the young man. “I have to check the lighting. Not too good, but it will have to do. Light and shadow. Life and death. Truth and lies. One against the other, always fighting for the upper hand.”

“I have money,” said Edison. “I can wire Mina. I can pay you. Is that what you want? Truly, I have more money than your stepfather.”

“I doubt it. And though Edmonds is my stepfather, he is not my father.”

“So? What do I care who your father is?”

“He is … he was … Adolphe Le Prince.”

Edison’s eyes widened. His mouth went dry.

“Yes, Adolphe Le Prince. My grandfather was Louis Le Prince. My mother remarried, you see. After my father was killed.”

“I … I had nothing to do with their deaths!”

“No? Even now at the moment of your death, you won’t tell the truth? You won’t beg for forgiveness?”

“You can’t kill me!”

“Look around, Mr. Edison. Well, look as well as you can from the confines of the chair. Do you see anyone here to save you? Do you hear anyone pounding on the door demanding I open it up and set you free?”

“You’ll be hunted down and executed yourself!” Edison was beyond controlling his words or their volume. “You’ll be killed just like Leon Czolgosz for my assassination! Do you really want to die just for a bit of revenge?”

“I won’t die,” said young Le Prince. “Don’t you wonder how I was given access to this place by myself? Don’t you wonder how I know the workings of that chair? Don’t you wonder what power made it possible for me to gain entrance to this prison and have access to this most ghastly tool with no one to disturb me?”

“You paid someone …”

“I have no money. My stepfather doesn’t care for me. I have clothes and a few valuables, such as this camera. The very one invented by my grandfather.”

“I don’t believe you. I’m sure you paid someone. There is always someone with his hand under the table.”

Le Prince sighed, went to the door, knocked. It opened a moment later and a guard came in. He looked most strange, with eyes glinting unnaturally and his mouth slack.

“McAllister, check Mr. Edison’s straps,” said Le Prince.

The guard shambled to the chair and tugged on each strap, checking the security of the buckles. He said nothing. His face looked dead.

“Now come back to me.”

The guard shuffled over to stand by Le Prince.

“Now here is a knife,” said Le Prince. “A nice dull one I found in a tugboat. I want you to cut your hand.”

The guard took the knife and without hesitation dragged it along his knuckles, opening the skin. Blood welled and ran free, spattering on the bare floor.

“Now leave us, McAllister, and lock the door. Remember, no one is to enter while I am here with Mr. Edison.”

The guard nodded and wandered back out through the door, closing it, locking it.

Le Prince smiled again at Edison. “I have great power beyond what you can imagine. Now, shall we talk?”

Edison nodded weakly.

“You had my father killed. You had my grandfather killed. Why? I can only guess it had to do with your movie camera patent. What were two deaths to save your reputation?”

“I … I had nothing to do with the death of Adolphe Le Prince!” cried Edison. “I swear before Almighty God I know nothing about it!”

Le Prince cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “No? I might believe you. I’m not sure. But my grandfather? Best tell the truth. You have seen what I am capable of. I can control others and I know when a lie is told.”

Edison swallowed. His ass ached from the sharp edge of the chair seat, and his chest was aching, too. Was it a heart attack? He didn’t want to die! “Yes, I did order the death of your grandfather! I was … desperate! I was wrong! I’m sorry! Forgive me! Don’t kill me!”

“I’m afraid you must die. You, larger than life, are America’s greatest inventor, and people like to see greatness brought to its knees. You know that all too well.”

“Please!”

Le Prince peered through the camera’s lens. “You, my friend, are poised to experience the two things you love the most—death and film—in the most exquisitely intimate of ways. Say your prayers, sir.”

“Oh, God, no, please don’t kill me!” Edison squirmed, wept, and screamed. Le Prince stepped back from the camera and watched the spectacle. Edison was beyond caring about reputation, pride, or dignity. The thought of a current of electricity slamming into his body and cooking his brain and organs was beyond terrifying. His bladder let go, and urine rolled down his trouser leg. “Don’t!”

Le Prince made a soft tisking sound and walked over to the left wall, where a metal panel was bolted. Heavy cables ran down the wall, across the floor, to the chair. From the panel emerged a large U-shaped switch with a black handle. Le Prince put his hand on the switch. “I would ask you how this feels—if you think electrocuting a man creates as much pain as it does for a dog—yet I won’t be able to. You will be beyond answering, Mr. Edison. Your tongue will have cooked in your mouth, your eyes will have burst from their sockets.”

“Don’t!”

Le Prince sniffed the air. “Did you piss yourself? Pathetic! What would your family say? Indeed, what will they say when they hear their husband and father was found strapped in the Westinghouse, cooked beyond recognition?”

Edison threw back his head and wailed.

“But,” said Le Prince, dropping his hand from the switch, “I think it best you suffer much longer than the few moments it would take this AC to kill you.”

Edison gasped and blinked, tears blurring his vision. “What? What did you say?”

“I think I shall let you go.”

“Oh, my God! Thank you!”

But Le Prince said, “Don’t thank me. You aren’t forgiven and you aren’t free.”

“What … what do you mean?”

Le Prince came close to the chair and leaned over Edison. So close that Edison could smell the young man’s insanity and feel the hot waves of mad energy pouring off him. “I am in possession of a great and terrible power,” he whispered. “You have seen
only a fraction of what I can do. I have a way of commanding anyone I want to do whatever I ask. Do you believe me? If not, I can show you further. McAllister is right outside and the knife can cut inventors as much as guards.”

“I believe you.”

“Good. And once you leave here I will be watching you, sir. Always watching. Sometimes from the shadows. Sometimes from within a blinding light where it is too bright for you to gaze. And should you make one false move, go to the authorities, write or say something I wouldn’t like, or even whisper my name in your sleep, you will know my wrath. I will happily look to your luscious wife Mina and your lovely, buxom daughter Madeleine as my next willing accomplices. They will do as I command them to do against you, and then they will do what I demand for my own … desires.”

“I won’t say a thing or do a thing!”

“And I promise you this. Satan is waiting anxiously for your death, whenever it might come. Be that tomorrow or thirty years from now. He is grinding his red-hot palms in gleeful anticipation of that moment when you become his. He is already dreaming up delicious tortures to inflict upon you throughout eternity.”

Le Prince smiled and patted Edison on the head. Then he unbuckled the blubbering man.

***

Saturday, January 31, 1903, Edmonds mansion, Riverdale

Moonlight pooled across the Oriental carpet in the library. Andrew sat on the divan, gazing at the oil portrait of his mother on the wall above the fireplace. His stepfather had paid for the sitting, of course, and it in Andrea looked quite content and
quite rich. Pearls hung around her neck. Nestled in her hair was a small, diamond-studded tiara. Her little black poodle, Martha, sat in her lap.