White, hands on hips, said, “Explain yourself.”

Hartwell told him about the car crash in which Lindstrom and Valerie had been killed.

White looked skeptical. “An accident?” He was all too aware of the schism inside the Alchemists over who would run Mobius and, specifically, Paulus Lindstrom. St. Vincent, always jealous, always fixated on power, had wanted to run it from inside Directorate N, but a cohort led by Hartwell felt that would cause eyebrows to be raised on Capitol Hill, where the House Appropriations Committee was continually sticking their collective noses into DARPA’s business. The Alchemists could not afford that kind of scrutiny. Therefore, Hartwell and his cohort had recommended Omar Hemingway, who, though not under their direct control, was easily manipulated. Outwardly, White had stubbornly remained neutral, but privately he had agreed with Hartwell, which was why he had secretly plumped for Hemingway to be put in charge. It was essential that he keep up the appearance of being Switzerland in order to maintain everyone’s trust, especially St. Vincent’s. Ever since the girl, Lucy Orteño, had arrived, St. Vincent’s decision-making had seemed to swing from erratic to inexplicable. This was a deep concern to every one of the Alchemists, but White more than the others.

“Yes,” Hartwell was saying now, “so far as anyone knows it was an accident.” Then he reared back. “Albin, you don’t think—”

“Calm yourself,” White said. “I know you don’t have the heart for wet work.”

Hartwell began to fidget. “Listen, Luther doesn’t know. He’s been out of circulation for a day.”

“Is he ill?”

Hartwell shrugged. “With Luther, who knows?” His fidgeting became more intense. “But I do know he’s on his way here so when he arrives—”

“I’ll break it to him, Trey.” He squeezed the other man’s shoulder. “Now get on back to your shop. Your books must be missing you.”

Hartwell, missing the humor, nodded, and scuttled out of the Well.

*   *   *

Lucy stared into the waterfall, at the noxious carving in the rock face Albin believed to be the alchemical symbol for sulfur. She knew better. Down in the bayous it was the sigil for the chimera: snake, lion, goat. In the bayous, they believed in the chimera; some had even claimed to see it on the longest night of the year, when it would emerge from the netherworld where it crouched and schemed all year, to take its fill of human blood and flesh.

With a sick feeling at the core of her, she forced her gaze away from the triangle with its horrific curled tail, down into the cenote, black, ageless, bottomless. She inhaled deeply of the scents rising from its depths: blood, fear, and death.

With a shudder, she turned away, wandered out of the high chamber and along one of the narrow curving hallways, its ceiling so high it was obscured by shadows dense as storm clouds.