The iron elevator doors slammed shut with the hollow clang of a bank vault.
The sound bounced off the high plaster ceiling of the Grand Halcyon lobby. In the sudden quiet, salt water hissed against the radiator pipes, and the smell of scorched tallow hung thick in the air.
Elena Rostova did not move from her triage station beside the Front Desk.
Her grey eyes stayed locked on the bronze arch of Otis Elevator #2.
On the original 1928 cast-bronze bezel, the Roman numerals had been stamped with heavy precision. They climbed in an unbroken curve from I through VII, then jumped cleanly across a gap of dead metal straight to IX.
There had never been an eight.
For seventy years, the space between the seventh floor and the ninth floor was supposed to be four feet of dead masonry and hollow floor joists. But Harker’s red override key had forced open something that should have stayed buried.
Above the arch, the bronze pointer needle shuddered at sixty cycles a second.
