Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel by Mike Mignola Christopher Golden Page B

them occurring.”

    Molly stepped forward and ran a hand over the smooth glass face of a gauge.
    “So this is how you knew the gas-men would go after Felix and me today?”
    “Not precisely. My machines predicted a surge of occult activity at his residence this morning. Unnatural energies were coalescing there. I had been expecting something like this for years, and sent Joe right away.”
    Molly frowned, thinking of the seizure Felix had undergone during the séance.
    “Did something attack him?” she asked.
    “I don’t believe so. Rather, I suspect those energies were generated by Felix himself, or by the occult influence that has tainted him throughout his life. Given your description of what happened to him during the séance with the Mendehlsons—before the attack by the creatures you call ‘gas-men’—I believe that during his trance state, he tapped into those energies for the first time, which triggered a kind of … evolution, I suppose, of the previously dormant supernatural element of his heritage.”
    “That makes no sense,” Molly replied, studying the gauges more closely. One of them released a jet of cold steam that made her jump back. “Felix sometimes pretended with clients, but only sometimes. Whatever gifts he had, he already had before the séance this morning.”
    Joe grunted, tapping the glass face of a gauge as if he doubted its reading. “The magic he could do, talking to the dead, all that … That was just the tip of the iceberg. If Mr. Church and I are right—”
    “And when are we not right?” Mr. Church asked, almost irritably.
    “—there’s much more to Mr. Orlov than he ever knew himself.”
    Molly hugged herself against the frigid air of the room. No sunlight came through the opaque windows above. She took some time to make sense of all she had been told. But one question remained.
    “If your machines predicted what happened to Felix during the séance,” she asked, “if that’s why you sent Joe to help, then how is it the gas-men were there at practically the same moment? It can’t be a coincidence.”
    Mr. Church looked as if he had swallowed something sour. His mouth twisted in an almost childish gesture, and then it was gone.
    “I don’t believe in coincidence,” the old detective said. The clank of gears within him grew louder. He sniffed, almost as if he were about to sneeze, and she wondered if oil would come out.
    Joe leaned against the pipes lining the far wall, taking a long puff of his cigarette. Neither the cold nor the heat seemed to affect him.
    “Mr. Church isn’t the only one in the city who can build this stuff,” Joe told her, smoke curling from his lips. “Someone else has been monitoring the occult energies in the city, saw the same spike we did, and went there this morning to get their hands on Felix. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
    Molly spun toward Mr. Church.
    “This is the guy you mentioned before? You think he sent the gas-men, which means if we find him, then we find Felix. What’s his name?”
    “Over the past twenty years,” Mr. Church began, “I’ve encountered Dr. Cocteau far too often. Several times I’ve nearly captured him, and more than once he’s returned from seeming death. He is a formidable and elusive opponent. He’s a genius, and yet his great mind is a crumbling edifice, turning more and more to ruin with each passing year.
    “If anyone else in this city has instruments like these, it can only be Dr. Cocteau. As I am certain he is also seeking Lector’s Pentajulum, it is only rational to presume that he has been watching Orlov, just as I have.”
    Molly threw up her hands. “We should be out there, right now, saving Felix from this Dr. Cocteau!”
    Joe gave her an apologetic look. “We would be, if we knew where to look.”
    “Then how do we find them?” Molly demanded.
    “That’s precisely what we’ve been talking about,” Mr. Church said, as if lecturing a schoolgirl. “Dr.