“The Boss?” That question, blurted out far louder than Werth hoped. He says again, quieter this time: “The… Boss did this? Don’t fuck with me.”

“He’s not the Boss anymore. Not entirely, at least. It was a ritual. He summoned something. Maybe into him.”

The eyes. Those new baby blues.

It fits. Werth can’t help but admit it: it totally fits.

All this time and the Boss killed his own grandson.

Skelly keeps talking, asking him what she can do, how she can help to free Mookie, asking him about Nora, asking him all kinds of things.

But as he stands there, he sees something.

He moves aside the cleaver – Christ, the thing’s as heavy as Viking battleaxe – and lifts the flap of the satchel. Two things catch his eye: first, a box, and second, a little jeweled metal ball with a latch.

He opens the latch.

Red dust lies in a little dune. He sniffs at it. Even just the smell sends a surge of adrenalin through him: neck tendons tighten like the rope around the neck of a pissed-off dog. His heart goes a mile a minute. Jesus.

It’s the Red Rage. Vermillion. Has to be.

It’s myth. A legend. All bad news.

Or is it?

He swoons with the possibilities.

He mutters into the phone: “I’ll handle it.”

Skelly protests: “Wait, wait–”

He ends the call.

Then closes the little container of Red and pockets it.

Deep breaths. In, out. In, out. He wills his heart to calm itself.

When he’s cooled down, he roots around the satchel. Beef jerky. A flashlight. A pair of brass knuckles. Then he finds Mookie’s little tin of Cerulean. Werth takes a hit. It’s time to scrape the barnacles from his third-eye and start seeing the world as it really is again. The Blue washes over him. Almost sweeps his legs out like the ocean coming up over the side of a boat.

He shakes it off, then keeps digging.

He opens the scalloped box. Inside lurks a phial. A cloudy yellow sap oozes within the glass. Crystalline glitter shimmering in the goop.

Werth isn’t a student of the Pigments, but goddamn if that doesn’t look like Ochre. Could it be that Mookie’s walking around with an old-timey test tube full of what Oakes called “Golden Gate”? That means Mookie’s got three of the Five Occulted Pigments in his bag. Two of which were thought to be relegated to the stuff of legend.

He shoves them back into the satchel. Nobody’s looking right now; it’s safe here.

With the Red in his pocket, Werth hobbles back out into the hallway. Haversham’s still out there. Fidgeting.

“I’m a man on a mission,” Werth says.

“What?”

Chapter 24

24