Hudson squeezed his eyes shut and shouted “AWAY!” at the top of his lungs. The shout caused his guards to crash into each other as they retreated, their swords and pistols aimed for action but atremble so badly they couldn’t have hit a wild bull at six paces, which at the moment would’ve been a tamer target than the man himself.

“Hush,” said someone, in a quiet voice.

Hudson opened his eyes. There before him, as the fiery arms and the cinder-eyed faces crackled above and began to become simply torch flames again, was the wiry man who called himself Stalker.

“What’s all this commotion?” Stalker asked, still quietly. He was about half the size of Hudson but there was something about his sharp-jawed face, the coldly intelligent eyes and the smooth economy of his movements that told Hudson this man had experience in killing people in the dark; an assassin by nature, is what Hudson suspected. Stalker was bundled up in a sheepskin coat and wore a black cap upon his bald head. His hands were lodged in his pockets and he had the easy demeanor of a man out taking the evening’s air. “Ah!” he said, and then to the others: “He’s had an incident. Don’t be frightened, boys. He’s coming out of it.”

Hudson watched the last few spiders vanish from his hands like whirls of dark smoke. He ran a forearm across his sweating face. He said to Stalker, “Damn you.”

“I presume you had a pleasant visit with the girl.” It was a statement, not a question.

Hudson spat on the ground between Stalker’s lizard-skin boots.

“Your opinion means nothing to me,” Stalker said. “What becomes of you means nothing, either … but I’ve been told to find you and bring you to dinner.”

“To dinner? What?”

“He wants you to join him.”

Hudson knew exactly who was summoning him. “Tell the professor he can go to—”

“You have questions no one will answer,” Stalker interrupted. “They have been forbidden to do so. The professor has instructed me to tell you that it’s time you got your answers … from himself.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Not for the knowledge you’ve been seeking? Oh come now, Hudson! You want to know where Corbett is, correct?”

Hudson didn’t reply.

“It’s dinnertime,” said Stalker.

Hudson followed the man along Conger Street and was in turn followed by the other four. The wind had picked up, blowing in over the fort’s ramparts and bringing with it the briny scent of the sea. At the end of the street stood a stone construction that looked nearly like a small castle, with many windows of stained glass and a balcony encircling the upper floor. Hudson had previously seen this house and had no doubt to whom it must belong. Lamplights glowed behind the green, blue and red patterns of the windows. The house stood on a slight incline beyond an open iron gate, the gravel pathway leading up to the front steps ornamented by small trees that had been blown into contorted shapes by the seawind.