21: DON’T LOOK DOWN
Enrico sets down a history of the twentieth century, grimacing.
“So long in the dark. This city is huge and strange. This world. The traitor made peace with the magistrate as he worked with witches and Carthians to secure the city... and now he allows them free rein, and speaks of tolerance.” He smiles thinly. “The Cardinal was many things, but he was not tolerant. When we find him, blood will be shed.”
“But we still have to find him,” Pavel says quietly.
--
Valia hands a Dictaphone tape to someone she knows.
Half an hour later, she has a partial translation of Enrico and Walker’s conversation.
“I was trying to secure the mining tunnel when the usurper’s followers found me. But it was someone else that cut me open, took my blood...”
--
“Best we can hope is that someone has the Cardinal. Strange thing to hope for...” Pavel grimaces.
“The canon is the most likely. Who else? Alvarez?” Valia asks.
“They both gain from his absence. Option three is that he really is somewhere safe... but where?”
--
Dr. Barrow watches Enrico as he sits in the back of the car.
“I have a theory about the attractant effect of ‘blood sympathy’ working on the inner ear. Perhaps once we’ve triangulated a viable position we could...”
Enrico stares at him until he looks away.
“It’s not like I’m breaking out the dowsing rods...”
--
Valia takes the ferry to Alcatraz.
Carrie looks at the ghost tour, almost twice the normal size.
“They’ve been acting up. Good for the tour...”
“Bad for anything else?”
“Yeah. So. If it is as bad as we think... if you want to stay here...”
“Thanks.”
--
The refugees look at a map of the city from 1906, and the Nosferatu map of mining tunnels, and compare it to the points Enrico stopped, not far from the Mission itself.
“There.”
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