The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [62]
Doyle hesitated; a casual glance around revealed no danger.
"And would it be convenient if I were to call at your hotel tomorrow morning, say, at nine o'clock?" asked Presto.
"Not without my first hearing some idea of what this is about."
Raipur waved to someone over Doyle's shoulder and laughed like a nincompoop; then, under his breath: "Someone is stealing the great holy books of the world, Mr. Conan Doyle; I believe you are already aware of this. Surely such a subject warrants an hour of your time, if only to satisfy your native inquisitiveness."
Doyle took the man's measure; he stood up to the test "Nine o'clock tomorrow morning at the Waldorf Hotel."
The man bowed slightly. "I shall now create a diversion; take your brother and go immediately," said Presto, producing a calling card for Doyle with a deft sleight of hand. "We shall meet again tomorrow."
Doyle glanced at the card; under the name Preston Peregrine Raipur was printed a title: "Maharaja of Berar." Maharaja?
"Ever so grateful," said Presto, then raising his voice back into the social butterfly register he had earlier employed. "And I can't wait to read more of your fantastic stories, Mr. Conan Doyle: Bravo! Bra-vo! The greatest pleasure to meet you, sir. Best wishes always!"
With that, Preston Peregrine Raipur, the Maharaja of Berar, bowed low and glided off. As Innes made his way back to Doyle, Presto lifted his black gleaming walking stick high in the air:
"Voila!" said Presto.
The stick erupted into a cloud of billowing white smoke and a flashing column of fire. People around him and throughout the room scattered in every direction.
"What the devil..." said Innes.
"Follow me," said Doyle, taking Innes by the arm. "Quickly."
The brothers moved through the agitated crowd, losing themselves in a cluster of others heading out the doors. Behind them the smoke cleared, revealing that Presto had disappeared from sight.
The tall, blond man spotted Doyle and Innes just as they left the museum and hurried to follow them.
Outside, Doyle hustled Innes to their waiting coach at the Fifth Avenue curb, glancing behind in time to see the tall, blond man appear at the doors.
"What's going on?" asked Innes.
"I'll explain in a moment," said Doyle.
They hopped into the cab.
"Where to?" asked the driver.
It was Jack.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
She climbed off the train at the station, standing on the same platform that had held Jacob Stern a few nights before. Wearing a blue gingham dress that concealed the hard lines of her body and a bonnet over her jet hair, she looked more like a visiting country cousin or a rural school teacher than an Indian woman who had skipped the reservation. She kept her face behind the bonnet and her eyes low, submissive, attracting no attention to herself.
The dream had come again that night on the reserve, as the owl medicine had said it would: She found herself wandering alone through a city of tall buildings and wide, empty streets. Waiting for someone in front of a pale castle with thin, fingery towers. She had seen this place in the medicine dream many times, but it had appeared black before, more threatening, and it always stood surrounded by desert, not in the middle of a modern city. That was as much as this new dream could reveal before the Black Crow Man—she never saw his face, only a twisted humpback and long, scraggly hair—swooped down and washed everything away with fire.
She recognized the city as Chicago; it was the only big city she had ever seen. She did not remember seeing this pale tower during her only previous visit; a school outing twelve years ago, one of a group of reservation high school graduates trotted out to impress white politicians. The city had felt like a place of great anger, confusion, and wild energy that she'd hoped she would never experience again. But now she would stay and search its streets until she found that tower and wait for whoever was coming to her.
As Walks Alone left the