The Lazarus Engine – Chapter 17
The Latin Phrase
They took refuge in a small church off Westminster Bridge. The doors were unlocked, the pews empty. A single candle burned before a statue of the Virgin. Thorne knelt at the altar not to pray, but to think.
Gray sat beside him, her truncheon across her knees. “The servant said three words: Mors vincit omnia. Mors est ianua vitae. Death conquers all. Death is the gate of life.”
“Standard Order doctrine,” Thorne said. “But the second phrase is different. Expectamus in turri. Media nocte. We wait in the tower. At midnight.”
“The clock tower.”
“Big Ben. The largest clock in London. The most public symbol of time.” Thorne pulled out the regulator cylinder Pym had given him. “Charlotte isn’t planning a small demonstration. She’s planning a spectacle. Stopping the great clock. Winding her engine in front of thousands.”
Gray looked at the tower visible through the church window. “How do we stop her?”
Thorne turned the cylinder over in his hands. “This is the key. The master regulator. With it, I can override all the engines she’s planted. Burn them out. But I have to be close. Within a hundred feet.”
“Then we go to the tower. We find her. We use it.”
“If she doesn’t kill us first.”
Gray stood up. “She’s had three chances to kill us. She hasn’t. She wants us there. She wants witnesses.”
“Then we give her what she wants. But on our terms.”
Thorne stood. He looked at the candle, at the statue, at the quiet faith of strangers who had come before them.
“One more thing,” he said. “The Latin phrase has a third part. The servant didn’t speak it, but I know it from the Order’s rituals. ‘Et tertio volvitur, mortui surgent.’ And on the third winding, the dead shall rise.”
“Three windings,” Gray said. “Three events. The first was Wells. The second was Hale. The third—”
“The third is tonight. At the tower. Charlotte isn’t just going to stop hearts. She’s going to try to restart one. Her father’s.”
Thorne slipped the regulator into his pocket.
“We need to get to the tower before midnight. And we need to stop her before she completes the third winding.”
They left the church and walked toward the river. Big Ben loomed above them, its clock face glowing in the fog.
11:15 PM.
Forty-five minutes to midnight.