The Fall

Faint red light inside came from an EXIT sign. A long staircase led down to another propped-open door. Through it was a carpeted hallway with expensive accent lighting. A man dressed in a dark suit stood halfway down, hands folded at his waist. Eph stopped, ready to run.

The man said nothing. He did nothing. Eph could see that he was human, not vampire.

Next to him, built into the wall, was a logo depicting a black orb bisected by a steel-blue line. The corporate symbol for the Stone-heart Group. Eph realized, for the first time, that it resembled the occulted sun winking its eye closed.

His adrenaline kicked in, his body preparing to fight. But the Stoneheart man turned and walked away to the end of the hall, to a door, which he opened and held.

Eph walked toward him, warily, sliding past the man and through the door. The man did not follow, instead closing the door with him remaining on the other side.

Art adorned the walls of the vast room, supersized canvases depicting nightmarish imagery and violent abstraction. Music played faintly, seeming to find his ears in the same measured volume as he moved throughout the room.

Around a corner, at the edge of the building walled in glass, looking north at the suffering island of Manhattan, was a table set for one.

A stream of low light spilled down onto the white linen, making it glow. A butler, or a waiter-a servant of some kind-arrived when Eph did, pulling out the only chair for him. Eph looked at the man-he was old, a domestic for life-the servant watching him without meeting his eye, standing with every expectation that his guest should take the seat offered him.

And so Eph did. The chair was pushed in beneath the table, a napkin opened and laid across his right thigh, and then the servant walked away.

Eph looked at the great windows. The reflection made it appear he was seated outside, at a table hovering some seventy-eight stories over Manhattan, while the city roiled in paroxysms of violence beneath him.

A slight whirring noise undercut the pleasant symphony. A motorized wheelchair appeared out of the gloom, and Eldritch Palmer, his frail hand operating the steering stick, rolled across the polished floor to the opposite side of the table.

Eph began to get to his feet-but then Mr. Fitzwilliam, Palmer’s bodyguard-cum-nurse, appeared in the shadows. The guy was bulging out of his suit, his orange hair cut high and tight, like a small, contained fire atop his boulder of a head.

Eph relented, sitting back down.

Palmer pulled in so that the front of his chair arms lined up with the tabletop. Once he was set, he looked across at Eph. Palmer’s head resembled a triangle: broad-crowned with S-shaped veins evident at both temples, narrowing to a chin that trembled with age.

“You are a terrible shot, Dr. Goodweather,” said Palmer. “Killing me might have impeded our progress somewhat, but only temporarily. However, you caused irreversible liver damage to one of my bodyguards. Not very hero-like, I must say.”

Eph said nothing, still stunned by this sudden change of venue from the FBI in Brooklyn to Palmer’s Wall Street penthouse.

Palmer said, “Setrakian sent you to kill me, did he not?”

Eph said, “He did not. In fact, in his own way, I think he tried to talk me out of it. I went on my own.”

Palmer frowned, disappointed. “I must admit, I wish he was here, rather than you. Someone who could relate to what I have done, at least. The scope of my achievement. Someone who would understand the magnitude of my deeds, even as he condemned them.” Palmer signaled to Mr. Fitzwilliam. “Setrakian is not the man you think he is,” said Palmer.

“No?” said Eph. “Who do I think he is?”

Mr. Fitzwilliam approached, pulling a large piece of medical equipment on casters, a machine with whose function Eph was not familiar.

Palmer said, “You see him as the kindly old man, the white wizard. The humble genius.”

Eph said nothing as Mr. Fitzwilliam pulled up Palmer’s shirt, revealing twin valves implanted in his thin side, the man’s flesh hashed with scars. Mr. Fitzwilliam connected two tubes from the machine to the valves, taping them sealed, then switched on the machine. A feeder of some kind.

Palmer said, “In fact, he is a blunderer. A butcher, a psychopath, and a disgraced scholar. A failure in every respect.”

Palmer’s words made Eph smile. “If he was such a failure, you wouldn’t be talking about him now, wishing I were him.”

Palmer blinked sleepily. He raised his hand again and a distant door opened, a figure emerging. Eph braced himself, wondering what Palmer had in store for him-if this scallywag had a taste for revenge-but it was only the servant again, this time carrying a small tray on his fingertips.

He swept in front of Eph and set a cocktail down before him, rocks of ice floating in amber fluid.

Palmer said, “I am told you are a man who enjoys a stiff drink.”

Eph looked at the drink, then back at Palmer. “What is this?”

“A Manhattan,” said Palmer. “It seemed appropriate.”

“Not the damn drink. Why am I here?”