Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet (31 page)

He rears back, shrieking. Nazan screams. Pete slams her head against the wall and tosses her on the floor, springing to Goo-Goo's aid. As she falls, Nazan grabs for Pete's thigh and yanks as hard as she can. He loses his balance and goes down, slamming his head on the metal bed frame. Goo-Goo wrenches the blade from his eye and slashes blindly at Archie, ripping open the old man's cravat with the first pass and his jugular with the second. Goo-Goo collapses on top of Archie, and they fall together on the bed.

On the floor, Nazan weeps.

• • •

In Rosalind's room, Enzo hurriedly attaches the tank to the pipe.

One of the Unusuals in Rosalind's bed says weakly, “Mr. Enzo, they're gone. I don't think you need to—”

“No, no, no, better to have one more window.” Triumphantly, he pushes the button that lights the fuse.

Naphtha hits oxygen, spark hits naphtha, and Enzo realizes too late that he's just set off the biggest firework of his life.

Ding!

The entire building shakes with the blast. Kitty races downstairs, a stream of invective racing through her head. This was her worst fear, an explosion just like this. It's not like she didn't think of it, but she'd been so sure she could pull this off, so bloody cocksure of herself, and now look, everything in ashes.
You bloody idiot! Did you not know this would happen, you stupid, stupid, stupid, useless girl?

“Out!” she screams. “Everybody out! Get out! Get out now!” Running down the stairs, she meets a hysterical Rosalind running up. “Get out, Rosalind!”

“Enzo is upstairs! He's up there. I have to go. I have to—”

Kitty grabs Rosalind and drags him back down the stairs with her. “Rosalind, you can't help him. You must get out of here, now!”

On the first floor, they run into Timur, demanding, “Where is Zeph?”

“I don't know,” Kitty says. “I'm sorry, I don't know. I'm so sorry.”

“What about the boy? Where is the boy?”

Kitty cries out. “I left him in the attic!”

• • •

P-Ray gazes out the small attic window, thoroughly enjoying the drama of the Unusuals on the street. He wonders idly if Kitty will be his
anne
now. His mother.

By way of reply, the universe blows up the building.

P-Ray grabs the windowsill just as the fire swallows the floor under him.

• • •

Nazan pulls herself up. “Zeph…” She climbs on the gore-splattered bed and shakes him, tears falling onto his face. “Zeph, please… Please wake up… Zeph?”

His body shudders suddenly, and his eyes open. “Sweet Jesus,” he croaks. “Nazan?”

“Zeph, thank goodness! You're all right! Are you all right?”

He coughs wretchedly and strokes his aching neck. “Not exactly… Am I bleeding?”

“No, they are.”

He sees the two bodies sprawled at the foot of the bed. “What the—no, not Archie.”

“He saved you, Zeph.”

“
Archie
did?”

Nazan nods. “He made a speech, threatened them, gave them a teacup, and when nothing worked, he just stabbed the big one in the eye.”

“Sister, you are making this up. Archie
gave
somebody something?”

“Zeph, we have to go. I think the building's burning for real now. Can you move?”

He coughs some more. “God, I don't know… Yeah, yeah, let's go.” Then he stops. “Chio! I can't leave Chio here.”

“We can't carry him, Zeph!”

“No, of course. Chio, listen. I won't forget about you. Don't be scared. We'll get you out.”

• • •

P-Ray hangs on to the side of the dormer, his legs dangling. Flames tickle the gas pipes in Timur's worktables. As the smoke intensifies, he clenches a fist and punches out a windowpane. It hurts, but the blood mainly just reminds him he's still alive.

He watches the glowing lights ride the wild air currents; some melt, but nothing explodes. Pretty.

“P-Ray!” Across the lake of fire, he sees Timur standing at the door. “Boy, you listen! I can no reach you. But hang on. We no leave you.” Timur then disappears as mysteriously as he arrived.

The heat increases, and the flames creep ever closer to the gas lines.

• • •

Out on the sidewalk, Zeph says, “I'm going after him.”

“Oh no, you are not,” Rosalind says.

“Oh yes, I am.”

“Oh yes, he is,” Kitty agrees. “I'll help.”

“No way, English,” Zeph says. “You stay here and look after everybody. Look after Nazan. She's real upset.”

“I left him up there, Zeph. I'm going with you.”

“
None
of you should go,” Rosalind argues. “The fire trucks are coming.”

“Yeah? Will they come before the gas in Timur's lab explodes?” Zeph reaches up and squeezes Rosalind's hand. “I can do this.”

Rosalind grips Zeph's hand as hard as he can. “I won't let you. I've lost too much today.”

“What did Enzo say earlier, Ros?
The people need help; we help the people
.”

“Get going!” Timur says.

• • •

Crumbly Pete opens his eyes, touches the tender spot on his forehead. “Ugh, that little bitch.” He stands. “Goo-Goo? Hey, Goo-Goo. Archie? Anybody?”

No response from the seeping corpses on the bed.

“Yeah, well.”

He looks up. Heat drifts down from the ceiling something fierce. He should leave. Business first, though.

Using a pillowcase to protect his hand, Pete gingerly rolls the bodies over. He releases the
kris
blade from Goo-Goo's death grip, then the teacup from Archie's. He shrugs, not unhappily. “Last shall be first.”

• • •

Moments after the explosion, the Lilliputia fire truck sprang into action. Plague or no plague, Whitey Lovett is fire chief, period, and he takes command. The pumper is too small to force water all the way up to the third floor, but Whitey puts it to work wetting down the lower levels in hopes of sparing at least part of the building.

Rosalind dashes to the fire truck. “Whitey, do you have a ladder?”

“Not that high, I don't! This one's all up to Zeph.”

“We have to do something!” Rosalind turns to the crowd. “Who has a tarp? Or a blanket, a big one?” His questions are met with a round of helpless shrugging, and Rosalind can feel tears prickling his eyes as he scans the crowd. “There must be something we—”

Halfway down the street, he sees the elephant standing patiently at attention, the howdah on its back now empty, the intricate embroidery of its blanket seeming to twinkle at Rosalind like a present on Christmas morning. He claps his hands. “There!”

• • •

Zeph, Kitty, and Timur reach the roof of the building next door. While Zeph wraps himself in a length of rope, Timur paces impatiently. “Go get our boy.”

“Make sure you tie that line real tight, yeah? If I slip, it's the only safety I've got.”

Timur rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, I tie. You go.” He turns away to secure the rope but then pauses. “You go, Zeph, and then you come back. Understand?”

Zeph smiles. “Yes, sir.”

“You no come back, I am annoyed.”

“Got it.”
All right
, Zeph thinks,
let the heroism commence!
But as he gingerly climbs across onto Magruder's roof, he realizes just how high off the street he actually is. Meanwhile, the heat from the fire is already softening the tar.
Dear Lord, please let this not be a mistake.

• • •

Nazan helps Rosalind organize some Unusuals to hold the elephant blanket beneath Magruder's flaming windows. Heat and smoke roll off the building in waves, but Rosalind will brook no hesitation. “Let's get it closer to the building. Hold on tightly—no, not like that, like this. Tighter, Hector! Well, get someone else to do it if you can't!” A snake charmer has a coughing fit, vomits, and faints on the sidewalk. “Oh,
not now
,” Rosalind admonishes. “Die on your own time! You, over there—yes, you! Roll her out of the way and take her place! We need to hold this very tightly if we're going to catch them!”

The crowd holds its breath as Zeph clings onto the side of the dormer and pulls P-Ray out the window. The boy dangles perilously from Zeph's shoulders, his legs flopping.

“Funny,” Zeph mutters. “I recall you being lighter.”

Then it happens. The flames finally eat their way through the metal pipes in Timur's worktables. The attic detonates, sending Zeph and P-Ray flying out over the street, battered by chunks of wall and sliced by shattering glass. Zeph stays tethered to Timur's rope, but he loses his grip on P-Ray, and the boy falls, limbs waving helplessly in the air. He plummets like a sack of dirty clothes into the blanket's waiting embrace. Zeph is slammed into the side of the building next door. His arms are in searing pain, his face is scraped and bleeding, but he has only one thought. “Did you catch him?” he screams. “Did y'all catch him?”

Rosalind waves up at him. “We caught him, darling! Now get your ass down here!”

The crowd gently lowers the elephant blanket, and Rosalind scrambles across it, kissing P-Ray's head. “You're okay, baby,” he says, crying. “You're okay.”

Zeph looks up and sees Timur and Kitty peering over the roof. Gripping the rope, Timur looks more panicked than Zeph has ever imagined the old man could be. “I'm all right, Doc!” Then he looks down and sees Nazan peering fretfully up at him, her dark, curly hair dancing in the wind. He shouts down to her. “You sure look beautiful today, miss!”

She laughs. “So do you, sir!”

He pulls himself up the rope, hand over hand, but pauses to watch the helium lights spill out of the burning attic. The balloons shimmy across the street and drift up into the smoky sky.

• • •

At last, the local fire department arrives to take over for the Lilliputians. But if the professionals think they will be allowed to take charge of the operation, they're sorely mistaken. Now that Nazan's medicine has kicked in, Whitey is back at his post, cursing out the professional firefighters for everything they do wrong, which, in Whitey's opinion, is everything.

But with the fire under control and P-Ray and Zeph returned safely to earth, Rosalind has run out of distractions. He stands as close to the building as the others will let him, waiting for Enzo to come out. Eyes glued to Magruder's front door, he hugs himself and rocks back and forth, distractedly biting off each porcelain fingernail in turn and spitting them out absentmindedly. They hit the sidewalk with sad, little tinkling noises. Tears run down Rosalind's face, seemingly of their own accord. He doesn't wipe the tears away. He doesn't respond to friends who call out to him. He doesn't even blink. He watches the door.

One by one, the Unusuals who'd been too ill to evacuate on their own are brought out of the building by firemen. The ones from Rosalind's bed are also carried out, charred almost beyond recognition.

“Are they all right?” Rosalind cries out. “Was there anyone else in the room?”

The firemen glance over but only shrug in reply.

Rosalind howls, and Nazan dashes over to hold him up. “It's okay,” she repeats. “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.”

• • •

Timur and Zeph loiter across the street from Magruder's, watching helplessly. Zeph knows he should be by Rosalind's side, but he can't make himself go over there. Rosalind's agony is too much: it shimmers like the summer sun beating down on the pavement. Zeph doesn't know how Nazan can do it—be so close to so much pain. Run toward it, even.

“Enzo,” he says quietly.

Timur nods. “Enzo.”

“How many wonders we got left in that building, Doc? We got any more?”

Timur doesn't answer.

Kitty approaches them carefully and only when she thinks she can have this conversation without falling apart. But despite herself, the words “I'm sorry” come out trembling and weepy.

Zeph shakes his head. “None of that, English. You did everything you could.”

Timur keeps his eyes locked on Magruder's, but he agrees. “No crying girls. We no like.”

In the building, the third-floor joists moan, sigh, and surrender, sending furniture careening down to the floor below.

“Bye-bye to bedrooms,” Timur says.

Zeph reaches up and pats Timur on the small of his back. Uncharacteristically, the old Uzbek doesn't move away. “You think they'll save the first floor, Doc?”

“Does it matter?” Another interior wall groans and collapses. “No laboratory, no home. No money even for telegram to Theobold.”

“Theobold again!” Zeph looks up at Timur. “Enough mystery. Who's Theobold?”

Timur huffs. “Theobold Gruber, obviously.”

Zeph and Kitty exchange glances. “And Theobold Gruber is…”

“Bah. Theophilus Magruder.”

Zeph is gobsmacked. “You're saying, all this time, there actually is a Theophilus Magruder?”

“No, half-wit! There is Theobold Gruber only. He invent this stupid name. He want something less Prussian.”

“Okay, but—”

“Theobold goes…you know…he…” Timur gestures vaguely, searching for the English word. “He
circumnavigates
. Buying, trading, stealing. For the Cabinet. Where do you think our treasures come from? You think conjoined twins sell two-for-one at Sears Roebuck?”

Suddenly, Magruder's oak door opens again and out comes Digby with a large bundle wrapped in a blanket and slung awkwardly across his shoulders. Sticking out of the blanket are a pair of legs, shod in a fine pair of Italian men's shoes.

“Yes, Zeph,” Timur says. “I think one wonder more.”

• • •

Rosalind perches on the back of Whitey's fire truck, cradling Enzo's head in his lap. Kitty, Zeph, and Timur race across the street to join them.

Enzo mutters incoherently as Rosalind strokes his hair. “
Amore mio… Mi dispiace…ma tanto…è tutta colpa mia…ho rovinato tutto…
”

Zeph looks at Rosalind. “You get any of that?”

Enzo murmurs again. “
Amore mio
…”

“Just enough,” Rosalind says, crying. “I understand just enough.”

Whitey nods to one of his fellow firemen. “Take them to Reception Hospital, quick as you can.”

“No,” Kitty interrupts. “I'm sorry, but Reception can
not
handle injuries this serious.”

Whitey rolls his eyes. “Lady, we don't have time for your Limey bullsh—”

“It's certainly not—”

“—and Enzo
definitely
doesn't have—”

But Rosalind's anguished voice cuts through the debate. “She's right. Reception won't help him. Forget Reception—everyone dies there.”