House of Corruption (11 page)

Now that he stood in that office again, the memory of his visit that morning came more clearly. He imagined the smell of stale tobacco and the irritation in Reynard’s voice, the stiff manner of Mister Burlington and his subtle, spicy scent of cologne. He remembered the flat disinterest of a civil servant who did his very best to remain innocuous.

Errands,
he had said
. I have been in town all morning
.

Reynard did not know where Mister Burlington was that morning—a man who had traveled to LaCroix Manor personally to invite Lasha to dinner. Frederick knew Lasha was invited to dine with her brother. He had announced the invitation!  He had known and yet stood there in that office, listening as Savoy made his appointment with Reynard. They thought him a fool, knowing full well Reynard would not attend—a ploy to keep him out of the way.

What bloody gall!

He rubbed just above his right eye, a bloody headache cramping his sinuses, and he wished Reynard would open his bloody windows more often. He felt a bloody mind to air out the whole bloody excuse for an office that reeked with a bloody—

He stopped and looked down the hall to meet Grant’s gaze. 

“You smell that?” Grant asked.

Savoy inhaled, walked into the hall, sniffed again.

“Yes,” he said, “like the—”

“Alley.”

“Morgue.”

He followed the scent to a utility closet. He had passed that very spot earlier in the day, smelling nothing, but now as he approached Reynard’s office the pungent stink caused his stomach to clench. He clasped the doorknob and turned it, slowly, hoping to find a cluster of mops and a spilled bottle of cleaning fluid.

He pulled the door open.

A headless body fell from the closet.

A sound gurgled from Savoy’s throat, a cry of alarm, as he caught the thing under its arms as it bore him down under its weight. Grant grabbed it by the lapel before it could smother Savoy to the floor. Both eased the body down and rolled it onto its back. It was a man’s ample frame in a pinstriped suit and worn leather shoes with a gold watch-and-chain stretching from breast to hip pocket. Pearl buttons latched all the way up from his belt to his open collar—the raw circle of flesh lay exposed, yet no blood stained his clothes, their hands, or upon the floor where he had been cached.

“Remarkable,” Savoy said. “This wound is as clean as if by an edged blade. Look at his neck. Do you see?” Grant leaned in, his face puckering with disgust. “A cut such as this should reveal his spine, just above the larynx. But it is gone, Mister Grant. It is
gone
. His spine is missing.”

“Who is this?”

“You saw him,” Savoy said. “This is Frederick Burlington, Reynard’s office manager. He was just at the—”

His voice caught in his throat.

“Dear God,” he said. “
Miss Lasha
.”

***

Reynard looked both ways at the empty intersection of Anthony and North Metairie Road, found it empty, and crossed the street. There waited City Park, ringed by a large iron-wrought gate and fence nearly ten feet tall. He had employed no driver; he wanted no witness. Alone, with the dark wilderness at his back, a single streetlamp threw vague, uncomforting light. He was grateful no one shared that portion of sidewalk, glad no one could see. He clasped his hands together, tight.

At the top of the hour, a black stagecoach with crimson trim, pulled by four black geldings, materialized from down the street. The driver was a native man with cinnamon skin, a blue turban and robe fitted with silver buttons, fir-trimmed muffler, feet shod with black boots, and his waist swathed with a wide leather belt. As he drew the coach to the curb and descended the bench, Reynard noticed small, black dots punctuated his skin from his cheeks and down his neck to disappear under his collar, swirling tattoos of pagan ritual, but he handled the coach door with all the solemnity of a London driver.

The door opened and a woman emerged to step upon the walk, assisted by her driver who kept watch beside the door. Her square jaw and full mouth and olive complexion contrasted against her lace-trimmed dress with its mother-of-pearl buttons and puffed sleeves. She wore a long, crimson cloak with hood, her black hair free on her shoulders. She smoothed a few strands behind her ear as if waiting to be noticed.

“Miss Carlovec?” he asked.

“Monsieur LaCroix,” she said. “I have traveled for so long, over such a distance. I have waited to meet you for a very long time.”

“Do I know you?”

“Not yet,” she said. “I have confidential matters to discuss. It may not be entirely proper, but I request we hold our discussion in my coach—it allows privacy…” She motioned toward the driver at attention. “…albeit chaperoned.”

“I see.” Reynard did not smile. “If I refuse?”

“We share a common history,
monsieur
, one that needs closure. Am I being clear?”

“How did you—?”

“If you have indeed found the means to fend off your condition...”

“Who told you this?”

“Please.”

“Who?”

“
Please
,” she said. “My father suffers the same, and it is killing him.”

***

Savoy and Grant sat in their cart across the street, a half-block from City Park’s south entrance, hidden under the dark recess of a balcony. The horses nickered at mosquitoes clouding above their ears. City Park’s wrought iron gate stood locked, the gaslight nearby muted and grey, transforming the drooping oaks beyond the fence into foggy silhouettes. The yellow fog stank of wet soot.

Mister Grant was right
, Savoy thought.
I am an unprepared fool
.

Involving the authorities with Mister Burlington’s corpse would embroil them in such legal mire that their efforts would be delayed. They grimly decided to leave the body at the office, and prayed no cleaning staff would stumble upon it until a report could be filed…but what would he say? What
could
he say? What could sever a man’s head so cleanly, and leave no bloody trace? Why remove the head at all?

Tell the police!

No, he countered himself. Not yet. I want to see.

It was exactly nine o’clock—Savoy checked his pocket watch to confirm—when a clattering of oiled wheels interrupted the silence. From an adjoining street came a black stagecoach with crimson trim, its driver wrapped in a robe and turban and heavy fur muffler. Four black geldings pulled with their mouths puffing steam, their iron-clad hooves cracking against the brick of the street. The coach rolled to a stop beside the park gate, and the driver descended.

“Is he here?” Savoy whispered. “I do not see him.”

“There.” Grant motioned ahead and to the left. “Someone.”

Savoy strained to see, and saw only muddled shapes. Soon the driver returned to his perch, flicked the reins, and the massive coach rolled away. Before Savoy could urge his horses forward they saw another shape: a shrouded hansom, materializing from the fog, following the coach as it rolled down North Metairie Road. The driver was a typical New Orleans cabby in his longcoat and top hat and whip, but there was no indication as to the identity of the passenger. When the black coach turned south, the hansom did also.

Savoy snapped the reins and the horses lurched forward. He kept pace with both vehicles, keeping well enough back. They left the park, down twisting streets where lamps flickered like sickly stars, the street checkered with light from tenement windows. Wherever the stagecoach turned, the hansom followed.

Savoy did his best to keep sight of them both.

***

“I know what plagues your family,” Kiria said, Reynard seated across from her, “because we are distant kin,
monsieur
. Our common curse began nearly three hundred years ago with Giorgio Basta.”

“I know of him,” Reynard said with distaste.

“Then you must know of his unholy pact to serve the Church, or thwart it, whatever tale you might have been told, and the price his children have since paid for his blasphemy. He was a prolific man, easy with his mistresses, and his blood spread. Two hundred years ago one branch, the Family Carlofé, returned to the Balkans and became Carlovec, and there we remained until great-grandfather relocated to South Africa seventy years ago. My grandfather joined the Dutch in their expansion to Kalimantan...then relocated to North Borneo once the British made their claim. We have been there ever since.” She knitted her fingers together. “We thought Basta’s blood all but spent.”

“You say your father is dying.”

“He is afflicted.”

“How can you know?”

“I know,” she said, looking away. “My grandfather was also burdened. It was thought such a curse had no cure, having come from Hell, but we Carlovecs are stubborn people. We defy the devil himself.”

“The Beast has no master,” Reynard said.

“Indeed,” she said. “Father maintained a stellar career despite his burden, but Basta’s Curse is destroying his health, his mind, his will to live. He has spent his life and fortune to find a cure; my grandfather spent his life in the same pursuit. Only recently did my father see progress. He is on the brink. When he learned there was someone else like him, another so afflicted, someone who had found the means to hold off his own curse—”

“Just
how
did you learn this information?”

“—He sent me to plead for your help.”

“I do not think it can be replicated,” Reynard said.

“Then come with me. Teach us. I would front all expenses.”

“You could afford me?”

“Father has done well for himself,” she said.

“Do you bear this burden?”

“No,” she said.

“Then why not wait until his death?” Reynard asked. “If we are all that remains of Basta’s blood...” He picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “Seems a waste to have devoted his life when celibacy would have done the trick.”

“You are wrong,” she said. “The affliction stains our blood, regardless. It is arbitrary. My father cares for his family line. He thinks of those not yet born. I do not think your sister wishes such a burden.”

Reynard stiffened.
How does she know about her?

“Does she wish to forgo love and family?” Kiria asked.

“She is none of your concern,” Reynard breathed.

“Then I do not want such a life,” Kiria said. “If my blood can be purified then we Carlovecs can flourish again...” She looked to her hands, her face all but hidden in the shadow of her crimson hood. “Instead of ending with me.”

Reynard lifted the drapes of his window, catching the vague shapes of apartment buildings with their closed shutters, the night ripe with cold and moisture. Despite his doubt and the coiled anxiety in his chest, her could not help but look at her. The shadows played across her throat and face inside her hood until her complexion seemed to radiate. There was something oriental in the shape of her eyes. He liked that. He liked that she wore her hair down off her shoulders. He fancied the turn of her lower lip, that she did not wear too much—or too little—color.

Perhaps that was her game. To intrigue him.

With a turn of her head and a renewed whiff from her perfume, he realized it had been a long time since he enjoyed a private moment with a beautiful woman. He would never admit it, but he found her audacity charming. He watched her lips as she spoke, catching the breathy sound of an accent not quite British, not quite anything he recognized. When she glanced in his direction and locked gazes she turned away, never to look at him for long.

S
he is shy
, he considered,
or coy, or polite
.

Ask about her route
.

He shook off Savoy’s presumptions. What did the old man know? He assumed everything involved a ghost or goblin or whatnot. He spent far too much time lurking in alleys and digging through people’s rubbish and sticking his nose in news articles not worth the paper it was printed on. How could such a woman be any threat?

Her valet arrived mere hours after Bill’s death. On my doorstep
.

Savoy’s accusations percolated. Blazes, but that man could be tiresome! Perhaps it was best if he asked her a few questions. Settle the matter once and for all, then see if the coach might take them someplace warmer with fine wine and candles.

“It was an effort,” he asked, “to find me?”

“An understatement,” she said.

Just a dreadful misunderstanding
.

“How was the Gulf this time of year?” he asked.

“We arrived by train. My ship is docked up north.”

“New York?”

“Boston. We had little information as to your current whereabouts, but we followed a lead and learned you lived in Montreal. When we discovered you had moved, we were soon directed to LaCroix Brokerage. I traveled from rail office to rail office for two months. None of your employees were helpful. You do a superb job keeping inconsequential.”

“I do what I can,” Reynard said. “How did you find Baltimore this time of year?”

“Charming.”

“You must have visited Pensacola’s waterfront.”

“We only spent a day there.” She smiled suspiciously. “Were you aware of my inquiries?”

Reynard expelled a long breath. Boston to Baltimore. Baltimore to Pensacola and now to his doorstep—the very route Savoy had predicted, littered with brutalized victims too horrible to contemplate.

Coincidence.

You don’t believe that, do you
?

He felt sick, cursing his interest in her, reviling the growing duplicity that now seemed so obvious. He hated duplicities, hated them all. Beyond the curtains he saw, beyond another tall, iron fence, numerous burial vaults stretching into the dark. Cypress Grove? Perhaps he could find a hansom in that more isolated corner of the parish that time of night; he could not breathe. Perhaps he misunderstood everything, and Savoy’s ideas had tainted what was, in reality, innocuous.

He needed to go home. He needed a tall brandy. Time to think. 

The stagecoach rolled to a stop against the sidewalk. Kiria pulled aside the curtain and slid down the window. “Driver,” she said. “Why have we stopped?”