Chapter Twenty Seven
The police officer stepped closer and then I recognized him. He had been at the apartment fire earlier and had been the one to instruct me to get the key to Susan. I also noticed he wasn’t alone; there were two other figures with him. Jan and Derek flanked the officer and moved with him as he approached.
Jan stepped ahead of the whole group, indicating who was in charge. “Good evening Mr. Nicholas,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“I can see that,” I said. We stood at stalemate, each waiting for the other to make the next move. Jan stood with her arms crossed. We had no time for power games so finally I asked, “Would you care to tell me what’s been happening to me and what has been your part in it?”
She assessed me a moment. Then she flicked her eyes between each of the people with me before she returned her analytical gaze in my direction. “No doubt you’ve discovered to some degree that data processing is a front for our actual purpose,” she began. “In brief Spectra’s purpose has been to wait for you. And here you are.”
“Fascinating,” I said sarcastically, “but you’re going to have to do better than that. Start by rewinding the story a bit. You can skip all of the history with Jonas Pine and the St. Francis Orphanage. We’ve got all that. Tell us where Spectra comes in.”
“With all due respect,” Jan said, “I doubt you have the entire story. Perhaps if you make it beyond tonight I can fill you in on the pieces you are missing. As for your question about Spectra I will tell you what we know. Some of our back story is lost with the people who began our organization decades ago. Not all of them met with pleasant ends. But that is another story.
“Spectra began with a group of people who simply wanted to uncover the whole story surrounding the nineteen-eleven fire which consumed the orphanage and several of the orphans with it. It started with one man, the doctor who watched over little Susan as she lay comatose in the hospital. Day after day as he watched for signs of either improvement or decline he began to love that little girl and eventually he adopted her. Though he doubted she would ever wake up he thought she should have a father who could watch over her and care for her. He had her moved to his personal residence so he could keep a closer watch on her.
“The doctor kept journals. At first they were simply a record of Susan’s vitals and progress. Over time they took on a more personal tone and eventually he began to record the strange dreams he had about the orphanage and the fire and Susan. Some of them featured an angry man he’d never seen in his life. The dreams disturbed the doctor greatly and he started to obsess about them and the fire. He had other dreams as well unconnected to the fire. Susan, however, still featured greatly in them. In most of the dreams she would talk with him and urge him to search for the truth and find someone to help her and the others.
“For months he regarded the dreams as nothing but his sleeping mind’s creative means of sorting through his relationship with his ever-sleeping adopted daughter. Then one day she appeared to him while he was awake in his study. At first he thought she had awoken from the coma and wandered around the house until she found him. Her apparition beckoned him to follow her as she ran back to her room. There he found her lying as always in her bed and at the same time standing next to the bed. Poor boy almost had a heart attack right then and there.
“After time he gathered clues as to the various events which led up to the fire. He discerned the identity of Jonas Pine and soon thereafter learned from the disembodied spirit of Susan that Pine’s ghost was still around and she was doing her best to hold him at bay. It then became his mission to find a way to stop Pine from getting loose.
“He created Spectra, an organization which would hide in plain sight as a private broker of information and investigations but actually serve the function of finding the right person to bring resolution to the story. He left the medical profession and recruited all kinds of people who showed interest in his work. Information was gathered from all over the world, collected, categorized and catalogued. Despite what certain previous Presidential hopefuls have claimed we invented the internet.”
“Okay,” I said after she finished her interesting little story, “where do I come into the picture?”
She responded, “We’ve been watching you for some time, Mr. Nicholas. Actually we’ve been keeping tabs on your whole family for decades to see if something would crop up. It only made sense. Besides, it was stipulated in the doctor’s last will and testament that the Nicholas family should remain under consideration as a potential source for the one we needed for the job.”
“Whoa, wait a second there,” I said. I felt like there was something important Jan had left unsaid and I needed it clarified. “Why did it ‘make sense’ and why would the doctor put that in his will?”
Jan looked at me and the smallest twitch of a smile appeared on her lips. Then she said, “The doctor’s name was Stellan Nicholas.” More pieces fell into place.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve met him. He started a Library around here, didn’t he? He likes to hang out in the archives and scare Librarians away from specific books. That sound like him?”
Jan looked at Derek who shrugged indifference. “That sounds like him. He started the library in nineteen twenty-five with a grant from the Carnegie foundation. It also was part of the Spectra project. He needed a place to store his personal archives. Unfortunately much of his personal materials were destroyed in a library fire in nineteen seventy-nine and we were left with only a few shreds of evidence to follow. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how the fire started.” It was somewhere around this point that I began to feel a little light headed. I felt no concern about the feeling and concentrated on listening.
“Seventy-nine was the year I was born,” I said.
“We know,” Jan replied. “We’ve found important events are often marked with fire when it comes to Pine’s activities. Sometimes in the past he has wriggled free enough to wreak havoc.”
“Hold on, there’s another thing,” I interrupted her. “When this thing started happening to me I got the impression that Pine was one who held captive Susan and the ghosts of the other kids who died in the fire. There was a boy I saw by the elevator in the basement here. He seemed to think Pine was in charge.”
“Yes and no,” Jan said. “Pine was certainly powerful and apparently he’s been growing considerably stronger of late but it was always something of a tug of war between the two, neither winning nor losing.” She paused to collect herself for what she was to say next. “Without Susan there to restrain him we have no idea what Pine is capable of doing. But we do know it will be bad. Since his death we’ve linked several small fires throughout the city to hi.”
“How,” I wanted to know as I was sure did the rest of our group.
Jan tilted her head as she considered how to answer. Finally she said, “It’s complicated. Sorry, there isn’t time to divulge all of our practices and methods. Just know this: If Pine has his way there will be a firestorm of destruction which will rain down on this city, and if we’re lucky it will only be on this city. In all likelihood he won’t be satisfied to stop here. The world will be his tinderbox. That’s where you come into picture, Mr. Nicholas.”
Another wave of light headedness came over me, much stronger this time. I felt I needed to sit. The next thing I knew I was on my back in the foyer and everyone had gathered around. Jan and Katie called my name but the sound came as from a distance. Trent had two fingers pressed to the side of my neck presumably to check for my pulse. The rest stood and watched. I started to seize, my body convulsing and arching. The sounds of the people around me yelling faded and my vision went black.