Odessa turned to Mr. Lusk, who was still behind the wheel of the idling Phantom. He dialed a number on his cell phone and put it to his ear, replying, “I will give him the location.”

“Who?” said Odessa, confused. “Give who the location—to what?”

But when she turned back to him, Hugo Blackwood was already gone.

Chapter

Odessa heard the canvas-covered security fence shaking, and realized Blackwood had climbed up and over it. Angry at having been left behind, she found a supporting pole to reduce the fence’s flexibility and scaled it. Two lengths of barbed wire topped the fence, angled toward the interior. She made sure her phone was secure in her pocket before vaulting high over the top wire to the fence on the other side, gouging out a bit of material from her jacket sleeves but no skin.

On the ground, she quickly crossed a plaza of crumbled asphalt to the entrance of the structure, ducking under plastic tarp billowing in the breeze. The door contained another warning sign, but a window to the right of it was missing a long, vertical glass pane, and she stepped right inside.

She did not see Blackwood, and decided against calling his name. She started down a wide stone staircase that split into two staircases doubling back. She got to the bottom and brought out her phone, turning on the flashlight, looking for more stairs. The modern-day island of Manhattan was built on the shoulders of previous centuries. She knew that the rule of thumb of Manhattan landfill was: Ten feet below ground level took you to about the beginning of the 1900s, where you might find poured concrete from the turn of the century; another five or so feet below that took you to roughly 1800, with walls of brick and mortar, where you might find surviving pieces of ceramic and domestic artifacts; twenty to twenty-five feet below street level, you were in the 1700s.

She ran out of stairs with Blackwood nowhere to be seen. Then her phone found a hole in the temporary wood floor, a ladder sticking out. She climbed down quickly, shining her light around.

“Put that thing away.”

It was Blackwood, directly below her. She descended the last few rungs into a passageway floored by craggy rock.

He was shielding his eyes. “I need stealth. And you are ruining my night vision.”

She killed her phone light, returning it to her pocket. Now her eyesight was shot. She relied on Blackwood, following him closely as she waited for her vision to adjust. Blackwood appeared to be following a trail of some kind.

“This has to do with the grave robbing?” said Odessa, her voice low.

“Slave graves are hallowed ground,” said Blackwood, “as places of great pain always are. Their innocent spirits are a repository for great suffering, trapped in limbo for centuries. Harnessed and released into the city, they could wield a potent malevolent force.”