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He came closer, and suddenly, as if by magic, brought a small, black pistol out of his coat pocket. “How could this happen? Didn’t Rakoczy make his potion strong enough?”
I shook my head.
Mr. Whitman frowned, and pointed the pistol at my heart.
I was going to laugh, but only a frightened snort came out. All the same, I asked, “Want to try again?” and did my best to look him bravely in the eye. “Or have you realized that you can’t harm me?” Aha! Our plan was working out—although if Gideon had put in an appearance, I’d have felt very much happier about it.
Mr. Whitman stroked his smoothly shaved chin and looked thoughtfully at me. Then he put his pistol away. “No,” he said in the familiar voice of a trustworthy teacher, and suddenly I did see something of the older version of the count in him after all. “I suppose there would be no point in that.” He clicked his tongue again. “I must have made a mistake in my thinking. The magic of the raven … how very unjust that you were born with the gift of immortality! You of all people. However, there is some point in it, because both lines unite in you—”
Dr. White moaned quietly. I glanced at him, but his face was still ashen. Little Robert jumped up. “Watch out, Gwyneth!” he said, sounding scared. “I’m sure that horrible man is planning something bad.”
So was I. But what?
“As the star dies, the eagle arises supreme, fulfilling his ancient and magical dream. For a star goes out in the sky above, if it freely chooses to die for love,” quoted Mr. Whitman quietly. “Why didn’t I think of that at once? Well. It’s not too late.” He came a couple of steps closer to me, took a small silver box out of his pocket, and put it on the desk beside me.
“Is that snuff or what?” I asked, bewildered. I was beginning to feel very anxious about our plan. Something was going wrong. Very wrong indeed.
“Once again, of course, you are slow to understand,” said Count Saint-Germain, formerly known as Mr. Whitman. He sighed. “This little box contains three cyanide capsules. I could tell you why I carry them about with me, but my plane leaves in two and a half hours, so I am a little short of time. In other circumstances, you could always throw yourself on the rails of the Tube or jump off the top of a high-rise building. But take it or leave it, fundamentally cyanide is the most humane method. You simply have to put a capsule in your mouth and crush it between your teeth. It will work at once. Open the box!”
My heart sank. “You want me to … to take my own life?”
“Exactly.” He lovingly caressed his pistol. “Because there is no other way to kill you. And in order to … let’s say, help your decision along a little, I am going to shoot your friend Gideon the moment he arrives back here.” He looked at the clock. “Which ought to be in about five minutes’ time. So if you want to save his life, you had better take that capsule at once. Or you can wait until he’s lying dead before your eyes. Experience suggests that such things provide extremely strong motivation. Think of Romeo and Juliet.”
“You’re so horrible!” said little Robert, and he began to cry. I tried to give him an encouraging smile and failed miserably. I felt like sitting down beside him and bursting into tears myself.
“Mr. Whitman—” I began.
“I do prefer the title of count, you know,” he said cheerfully.
“Please … you mustn’t—” My voice broke.
“But why can’t you see sense, you stupid child?” He sighed. “Believe me, I have longed for this day. I am about to return to my real life at last. A teacher at St. Lennox High School! Of all the activities I have pursued for the last two hundred and thirty years, that was really the most demeaning. I have lived close to the pulse of power for centuries. I could have dined with presidents—with oil barons, with kings. Not that kings are what they used to be these days. But no, instead I had to teach dimwitted brats and moreover work my way up from the rank of novice to the Inner Circle in my own Lodge. The years since your birth have been terrible for me. Not so much because my body began to age again and was beginning to show slight traces of deterioration”—at this point he indulged in a vain, self-satisfied smile—“as because I was so … so vulnerable. I lived for centuries without a fear in the world. I marched over battlefields amidst a hail of bullets, I exposed myself to any danger you care to mention, always in the knowledge that nothing could happen to me. But now? Any virus could have finished me off in the last few years, any damn bus could have run over me, any falling brick could have knocked me down and killed me!”
At this moment, I heard a clattering noise, and Xemerius came swooping through the wall at high speed. He landed right beside me on the desk.
“Where the hell are the Guardians?” I asked him, not stopping to bother that the count could hear me. But he seemed to think the question was meant for him.
“They can’t help you now,” he said.
“I’m afraid he’s right.” Xemerius was flapping his wings frantically. “When Gideon got back before, those idiots closed the Circle of Blood, and then Mr. Male Model here took that useless fool Marley hostage and forced the Guardians into the chronograph room at pistol point. They’re locked in there now, turning the air blue with their language.”
The count shook his head. “No, that was certainly no life for me! And it must come to an end. What can a little girl like you offer the world? I, on the other hand, still have many plans. Great plans—”
“Distract his attention!” cried Xemerius. “Just distract his attention, never mind how.”
“How … how did you manage about elapsing all that time?” I asked quickly. “Uncontrolled time travel—I mean, it must have been terribly uncomfortable.”
He laughed. “Elapsing? Huh! My natural life span had run out, and from the moment when I would have died, I no longer had to bother with the nuisance of traveling in time.”
“And what about my grandpa? Did you kill him, too, and steal his diaries?” At this point tears rose to my eyes. Poor Grandpa. He’d been so close to uncovering the whole plot.
The count nodded. “Our clever friend Lucas Montrose had to be silenced. Marley senior saw to that. The descendants of Baron Rakoczy have served me well over the centuries, although the last in the line is a disappointment. That pedantic, red-headed dreamer has inherited none of the Black Leopard’s quick wits.” He looked at his watch again and then glanced expectantly at the group of armchairs standing around the documents room. “Well, it ought to be any time now, Juliet. You obviously want to see your Romeo lying in his own blood!” He took the safety catch off his pistol. “It really is a pity. I liked the boy. He had great potential.”
“Please,” I whispered one last time, but at that moment, Gideon, bending his knees slightly to ensure a soft landing, came down beside the door. He didn’t even have time to straighten up before Mr. Whitman fired the first shot. And then another. And another, firing again and again until the entire magazine of his pistol was empty.
The gunshots echoed deafeningly through the room as the bullets hit Gideon in the chest and the stomach. His green eyes, wide open, wandered around the room until he caught sight of me.
I screamed his name.
