He looked her in the eye and said, “It’s a ridiculous little game we’re playing here, isn’t it, Briar?”
The easiness with which he used her name made her teeth grind, but she refused to be drawn in. “It certainly is. I’ve asked you a simple question and you’re disinterested in helping me, even though I think you can.”
“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. You know who I am, and you’re pretending you don’t, and I can’t imagine why.” He templed his fingers and let the structure fall, patting his hands against the desk surface in an impatient sort of patter. “You recognize me,” he insisted.
“I don’t.”
He tried a different approach. “Why would you hide him from me? Ezekiel must’ve been born… so shortly after the walls went up, or right around that time. I’ve not been much of a secret inside here. Even the child had heard that I survived; I find it difficult to believe that you did not.”
Had she mentioned Zeke’s name? She was almost certain she hadn’t, and so far as she knew Zeke had never implied that he thought his father might have survived. “I don’t know who you are.” She stuck to her story and kept her words as flat as if she’d let all the air out of them. “And my son knows that his father is dead. You know, it’s very improper for you to—”
“Improper? You’re no one to speak to me of improper behavior, woman. You left, when you ought to have stayed with your family; you fled when your duty was to linger.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with more confidence. “If that’s the worst you’ve got to accuse me of, then you may as well confess your deception now.”
He feigned offense and leaned back in his chair. “My deception? You’re the one who came here acting as if perhaps it had been so long I might not know you. Lucy knows what’s going on too, I suppose. She must have, or else she would’ve used your full name to introduce you.
“She was being careful because she feared for my safety in your presence, and it seems she had good reason to.”
“Have I threatened you? Shown you anything apart from courtesy?”
“You still haven’t told me what you know of my son. I consider that the very height of rudeness, when you must be able to guess how much I’ve worried for him over these last few days. You’re tormenting me, and taunting me with the things you keep to yourself.”
He laughed at her, softly and with condescension. “Tormenting you? Good heavens, that’s quite a claim. Here, then. Ezekiel is safe and well. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Yes, but she had no way of knowing if it was true. It was almost too hard to hope through his screens, and lies, and deliberate misleading. “I want to see him,” she said without answering his question. “I won’t believe you until I do. And you might as well say it. Say what you’re implying so strongly, unless you don’t dare—and I think you shouldn’t. Half your power over these people comes from the mask, and the confusion. They fear you because they aren’t certain.”
“And you are?”
“Quite.”
He rose from his chair as if he couldn’t stand to sit there another moment. He vacated it with such force that it rolled out from under him and knocked against the desk. With his back turned and his gleaming mask facing the faux fireplace he said, “You’re a fool. The same fool you’ve always been.”
Briar kept her seat, and kept her grim tone intact. “Maybe. But I’ve survived this long in such a state, and maybe it’ll keep me a little longer. So say it, then. Tell me who you are, or who you’re pretending to be.”
His coat flourished when he whirled around to face her. Its hem scattered papers on the desk and caused the crystals on the desktop lamp to tinkle like wind chimes. “I am Leviticus Blue—your husband then and still, who you abandoned in this city sixteen years ago.”
She gave him a moment to revel in his announcement before saying very quietly, “I didn’t abandon Levi here. If you were really him, you’d know that.”
Inside the doctor’s mask something squeaked and whistled, though he gave no outer sign of feeling her rebuttal. “Perhaps you and I have different ideas of what abandonment means.”
She laughed then, because she couldn’t help herself. It wasn’t a big laugh or a loud laugh, but a laugh of pure disbelief. “You’re amazing. You’re not Levi, but whoever you are, you’re amazing. We both know who you’re not, and you know what? I don’t even care who you are. I don’t give a good goddamn what your real name is or where you came from; I just want my boy.”
“Too bad,” he said, and he made a swift yank on the desk’s top drawer. In far less time than it would’ve taken Briar to ready her Spencer, Dr. Minnericht was pointing a fat, shiny revolver at her forehead. He cocked it and held it steady. He said, “Because your boy is staying here with me, where he’s made himself quite comfortable over the last day or so… and I’m afraid you’ll be staying here too.”
Briar forced herself to relax, letting her body settle more deeply into the chair. She had one card left to play, and she was going to play it without giving him the satisfaction of seeing her scared. She said, “No he’s not, and no I’m not, and if you’ve got any sense, you’re not going to shoot me.”
“Is that what you think?”
“You’ve been building this up a long time, slowly feeding people clues that you might be Levi, and getting them so nervous about you that it’s made you powerful. Well, they’ve been arguing out there in Maynard’s, and in the Vaults, and in the furnace rooms—trying to get me to come out here and take a look at you because they want to know for sure, and they think I can tell them.”
He came around the side of the desk, bringing the gun up closer but still not firing it, and not telling her to stop talking. So she didn’t.
“You tried to convince me you were Levi, so that must be your goal—to make it official. It’s one hell of an identity to steal, but if you want it, I say you can have it.”
The gun jerked in his hand; he aimed it at the ceiling and angled his neck like a dog asking a question. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, you can have it if you want it. You can be Levi—I don’t care. I’ll tell them that’s a fact if that’s what you want—and they’ll believe me. There’s no one else in the world who can confirm or deny your claim. If you kill me, they’ll figure I knew you were a liar and you felt the need to shut me up. But if you let me and Zeke go, then you can be whatever legend you want. I won’t muck it up for you.”
It might have only been her imagination, but Briar thought that the bright blue flecks took on a crafty look. He said, “That’s not a terrible idea.”
“It’s a damn fine idea. I’d only ask for one provision.”
He didn’t put the gun down. He didn’t aim it at her face again, either. He said, “What’s that?”
She sat forward in the chair, and it released her back and her satchel with a squeak. “Zeke has to know. I won’t let him think you’re his dad, but I’ll sell him on the story, and he’ll run with it. He’s the only one who needs to know the truth.”
Again the blue lights flashed. Minnericht didn’t argue. He said, “Let me think about it.”
And faster than Briar would’ve believed the man could move, he struck her across the head with the butt of the gun.
A searing bolt of pain sounded like a gong against her temple.
And everything everywhere went dark.
Twenty-three
When Zeke awoke in the princely room beneath the train station, the lights had been somewhat dimmed and the cottony taste in his mouth suggested that he’d been asleep for longer than he’d meant to be. He smacked his lips together and tried to moisten his tongue.
“Ezekiel Wilkes,” said a voice, before Zeke even realized that he was not alone. He rolled over on the bed and blinked.
Sitting in a chair beside the fake window, a man with folded arms and a monstrous air mask was tapping one gloved hand against his knee. He was wearing a red coat that looked like it was meant for a foreign king, and boots that were shiny and black.
“Sir?” Zeke said. He could scarcely force the question out.
“Sir. You call me ‘sir.’ I suppose it belies your appearance, that simple indication of manners. I’ll take it as a good sign.”
He blinked again, but the strange vision didn’t change, and the man in the chair didn’t move. “Of what?”
“Of how breeding might overcome raising. No,” he said as Zeke began to sit up. “Stay down. Now that you’re awake, I’d like to see that gash on your head, and the one on your hand. I did not want to examine them while you slept, lest you awaken to this.” He motioned at his mask. “I’m aware of what it looks like.”
“Then why don’t you take it off? I can breathe in here.”
“So could I, if I chose.” He rose then, and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Suffice it to say, I have my reasons.”
“Are you all scarred up or something?”
“I said, I have my reasons. Hold still.” He pressed one hand against Zeke’s forehead and used the other to push the matted hair away. His gloves were warm but so snug that they might as well have been his naked fingers. “How did this happen?”
“Are you Dr. Minnericht?” he asked instead of answering the question.
“I am Dr. Minnericht, yes,” he said without changing his tone in the slightest. He pressed a place here, and nudged a spot there. “At least that’s what they call me these days, in this place. You ought to have stitches, but I think you’ll survive without them. It’s been too long since you sustained the injury; your hair has gummed up the wound; and for the time being, at least, it isn’t bleeding and it doesn’t appear inflamed. We should keep an eye on it, all the same. Now, let me see your hand.”