Dead Waters - Anton Strout [64]
“Tell me,” I begged of him, wishing I could reach out and grab him to shake him. “Who has risen? What’s her name?”
“We should probably get out of here,” Connor said. “As in, now.”
“Tell us,” I said. “Please.”
“General . . . Slocum,” the young man said, his fear growing. His feet left the ground as his agitation grew, swirling off into the crowd. I wasn’t sure if he was gearing up to attack or not, but it was clear that Connor’s ghostwrangling mixture had worn off. I didn’t want to see what happened next, but Connor was already one step ahead of me.
Already in motion, Connor bolted off across the bridge and I came running after him. Spirits dove and wove around us and I did my best to keep them from passing through me as I ran. By the time we passed beyond one of the stone towers at the end of the bridge, the swarm was well behind us and already settling down again. When the two of us stopped running, we both were panting pretty heavily.
“Dare I ask how my hair is?” I asked.
“Still perfect,” Connor said, “although you could maybe use some product in all this wind.”
“Smart-ass,” I said. “Can you do anything to disperse them?”
Connor shook his head as he fixed the collar of his windblown trench coat. “I don’t think so, kid,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen so many ghosts in one place since that night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Besides, it’s hard to disperse them when I don’t know why they’re still here in the first place.”
“So what now?” I said, adjusting my coat. I tapped my bat. “Fat lot of good this would do.”
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” Connor said. “I consider what we just did a win. We made it off the bridge alive, didn’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s something.”
“But that’s not all,” he added.
“No?”
“We have a name,” he said. “I’m not sure who General Slocum is, but I aim to find out.”
“I hope Godfrey Candella’s on call, then,” I said.
Connor headed off toward the lights of Queens. “With all the cuts, everybody’s on call all the time.”
“True,” I said, yawning with fatigue, shivering, “but I think this has to wait until morning. I’m not sure if Godfrey needs his sleep, but I’m pretty sure I do.”
18
Heading down to the Gauntlet always creeped me out a little. The archives were far older than the coffeehouse, movie theater, and offices above, and descending the well-worn stone stairs into the caverns that housed our gathered archival resources sometimes felt like I was going on a caving expedition. I hurried all the way down until I reached the door at the bottom and swung it open to reveal the main room where overhead lights, shelves and shelves of books, and antique wooden worktables galore gave a hint of civilization that calmed me again. As luck would have it, Godfrey Candella was rushing out of one of the aisles, heading for his office off to my right. I had to jog just to intersect with him, but when I did, I almost wished I hadn’t.
“What do you want?” Godfrey said, continuing past me with his stack of books.
I followed him as he headed into his office. His large wooden desk was threatening to collapse under the weight of already accumulated books, but Godfrey seemed determined to test the limits of its structural integrity by finding room for more.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said. Godfrey shoved some papers off the top of one pile of books, letting them fall into another one, forming one super pile of loose paper chaos. Something didn’t feel quite right. It was far too quiet down here. The hustle and bustle of the usual staff was all but gone at the moment.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I asked.
“What everyone?” Godfrey asked, snapping. “This is it. Me. I’m the everyone.”
I looked around for someone else down here, anyone else. “You’re kidding,” I said.
Godfrey put the books down on his desk and pushed his horn-rims back up onto his nose. “First of all,” he said, “I rarely kid. Especially when it comes to the Gauntlet.”
“Right,” I said, wandering to take a peek out of his office door. There was an eerie stillness to the vast bookfilled cavern. “I