House of Corruption (32 page)

“You are a fraud,” Savoy said.

“You know nothing about me.”

“Tell that to Mister Tukebote.”

Blood blossomed in her cheeks but she continued to smile, nibbling at her sharp fingernail like a schoolgirl. She wandered to Wilhem’s side. Master Carlovec stood, extended his arms, and she swept into his embrace. Savoy noted a strange look in Wilhem’s eyes. Did he enjoy embracing that creature?

“So...how is it done?” Savoy asked with enthusiasm. “The mesmerism, the spine and head floating about, that sort of thing? Extraordinary. The nerves must fuse with the host organism to create a form of...biologic puppet? That requires instantaneous regeneration. I can see the need for a healthy supply of blood, but what of the acidic properties of your—?”

“My, but you
are
forward,” Lucinda said.

“The stories say your kind feed on women,” Savoy continued, “but there were plenty of dead men as well. What is unclear is why you emasculate them, as the—”

“Do what now?” Wilhem asked.

“Emasculate. The violent removal of a man’s genitalia? Dreadful business, that. I surmised she prefers the femoral vein as the jugular is so damaged after she—”

“Is this true?”

“You are on the brink,” she said quickly, “and this old man plays games.”

“
Is this true?
”

Lucinda pulled from Wilhem’s side. “He is a liar.”

“Are you a liar?” Wilhem asked Savoy. “Is this what you are doing? Feed us lies, draw us apart, get us snapping at each other?” He laughed, wagging his finger. “You slippery rascal. Another such diversion and I’ll become very cross, very cross indeed.” He waved his hand at Lucinda and she sat in an adjoining chair. “Now then, professor. What is the composition of Monsieur LaCroix’s remarkable bullet? Who made the thing?”

Savoy closed his mouth.
He does not know
.

“My grandfather studied silver in his earliest efforts,” Wilhem continued, as if not expecting an answer, “but no combination served. I’d thought the idea of silver against lycanthropy was a myth. Yet there is silver and other metals in the bullet’s remains dear Lucinda gave me—platinum, gold, iron. I noted herbs of unknown origin. This cocktail altered Monsieur LaCroix’s cycle, yes? How was it done?”

“Where is Miss LaCroix?” Savoy asked.

“Tell me.” 

“Is she alive?”

Wilhem sighed. “We have much the same interests, professor. My daughter must have related my family’s own particular problems, so I shall be frank. I will master my curse. I will do whatever it requires to see it done. Either Monsieur LaCroix will be persuaded to help me—or I will drain what remains I find at Saint Dismas. Either way, my grandfather’s dream will immediately be realized.”

“Soon?” Lucinda asked.

“This very evening, if I obtain the information I require.”

Savoy felt as if his every emotion, every thought, radiated like waves of heat for Lucinda to see. He watched the way she looked at Wilhem, how she glanced at Savoy dismissively.
She barely notices I am here
, he considered,
Wilhem’s presence is so dominant
. Indeed, Master Carlovec
was
dominant, despite his casual tone and shallow courtesy.

“Bring me Miss LaCroix,” he said. “If you can see fit to release us all safely, then I am willing to assist you in your efforts. Perhaps we can—”

“When?” Wilhem asked. “A week? A month? After you have returned to America? After you’ve brought the government down upon us? No. I must have the answers now. I have waited long enough.”

“Those are my terms,” Savoy said.

“Ah, I see now.” Wilhem’s voice became measured, cold. “You thought these were negotiations. You are in no position to demand anything, sir. Nothing. I have not traveled so far, sacrificed so much, to be delayed by a man such as yourself.”

“I do not presume otherwise,” Savoy said.

“Then tell me what I want to know.”

Savoy felt a tight knot in his chest and, to his surprise, thought of a game of Whist soon after leaving Rome. Grant and Miss Carlovec had beaten him and Reynard soundly; the round ended when Kiria slapped down an ace to take the winning trick. 

It is time,
he thought,
for my trump card.

“I forged that bullet,” he said.

Wilhem paused, considering him, then looked to Lucinda. She looked to Savoy, then Wilhem, with wide eyes. “Of course,” he said. “I should have known; your relationship with Monsieur LaCroix makes a good deal more sense.”

“Indeed. It is I who used it against him; it is I who helped him during his remission. It is I who can replicate the formula. You are correct—this is not a negotiation. This is a business arrangement. You wish my expertise, and I have my price. See Miss LaCroix safely home.”

“Impossible. She cannot leave.”

“So she
is
here?”

“He cannot have her,” Lucinda hissed.

“Do not fret,” Wilhem said. “She is yours.”

Savoy frowned. “May I see her?”

“No.”

“Then I cannot help you.”

Wilhem drew a deep inhale on his cigar and snuffed it on a standing ashtray. “You choose to be stubborn,” he said. “Very well. Those ancients who built the foundations of this house understood the pliability of the human animal. Birth and death and physical shape held no meaning for them. It is most unfortunate that for a man who claims an open mind...” He walked to the doors. “I am afraid you were right, my dear. I had so hoped otherwise.”

“I told you,” Lucinda said.

“So you did. Tell Jeané I will take tea in an hour.” He made a slight nod toward Savoy. “I would offer you the usual comforts, but that would be inappropriate...considering.”

“Where is Lasha?” Savoy said.

“If only we had met under, shall I say...less troublesome circumstances?”

“
Where is she
?”

Wilhem left, the sound of his footsteps fading. Lucinda settled to the sofa and placed a languid hand upon Savoy’s shoulder. She gazed into his eyes. He tried to look away, caught in the attention of her black eyes. He thought she might kiss him, but then she began to speak, soft words that he felt more than heard. For a moment—just a moment—he wanted to declare he loved her, to share his fears, his dreams. He wanted to tell her how smart he was. Wouldn’t she be proud? Wouldn’t she hold close the man who had forged such a miracle as that silver bullet?

Am I the one opening the trapdoor now?

“...Pater noster, qui es in cælis, ” he whispered, motioning the sign of the cross with his hand, clutching to the rites of exorcism, “sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum…”

“Stop,” she said.

“…Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cælo et in terra—”

“I said
stop
,” she said, slapping him across the face. “You can no longer harm me, shaman. Your God no longer holds any power against me.”

“And Master Carlovec?”

“I do not fear him.”

“So you say.”

“I have seen
your
heart, old man.” She stood. “You use your friends’ tragedies to justify your own sins. You fail as a Jew. You fail as a Catholic. You fail as an academic. You think God would impart a portion of his grace to such a waste as you?”

“And what,” he asked, “was your thirty pieces of silver?”

She slapped him across the face again, harder, the edge of her fingernail drawing a thin line of blood from his ear to his mouth. His trembling hands felt along his coat; he still had his glasses, a handkerchief, the letter from Ernst Stronheim—
should I ask her?
He wished they had given him breakfast. He removed the handkerchief and dabbed at the wound. His hands could not stop shaking. Would breakfast be coming? He wanted to leave, feeling a raw fear like a schoolboy.

Lucinda pulled a velvet cord along the wall; Jeané soon appeared in the doorway. “Fetch the other one,” she said. “Master wants his service in an hour, and we still have those items to sort through...”

“Currently engaged,” he said. “Shall I prepare rooms for our guests?”

“No. If what Master says is true, his labors will be completed this very evening. You know what you must do. This is an important night...for all of us.”

“Yes. Thank you, Madame.”

Jeané brought Grant in from breakfast, and then went to the front door and admitted four of the Eng Banka who had been waiting outside. Lucinda commanded the others with strange words and they were off, running as fast as they could down the slope toward the jungle. She started down an adjoining corridor into the west wing of the house. The natives followed, urging the men forward. Grant never once met Lucinda’s gaze, preferring to focus on the floor.   

At the hall’s end they descended a long stair. At the bottom Lucinda turned a switch and electric bulbs illuminated from sconces, the dim, uneven light revealing a basement stacked with a dozen iron-banded glass coffins. At least half were filled with green liquid. Three contained nude, headless bodies, all female. There was an armoire and changing table heaped with towels and perfumes, a large sink with a pump, and a full-length mirror. The air stank of vinegar and blood and dead flowers.

Electric light,
Savoy thought.
How?

They continued into another basement filled with many shelves and racks of crates, bottled foodstuffs and bags of rice and beans and grains; shovels and picks and iron-riveted flues beside countless crates painted with Chinese letters; coils of rope and stacks of boots and lanterns and open-faced boxes filled with bracing pins and T-joints and many thick nails used in railroad ties. Savoy caught the words
active fusing
on barrels smelling of wet gunpowder. He could not guess why mining equipment would figure so prominently in Carlovec Manor’s stores.

They passed through a larger basement dominated by six massive fire-tube boilers. Only two of the tanks were lit, the air hot and heavy with many pipes. Between two tanks the question was solved—there hissed a massive electric generator, its dials wiggling. Clusters of iridescent bulbs glimmered, their light dimming and surging as if the generator breathed. Savoy stared at the power-works in astonishment. He smelled no coal. As they started down another stairwell his next question was solved: the sound of rushing water roared beneath their feet and behind the walls. An underground river. He had heard of such advances in America. Water-powered turbines provided electricity—a singular, extraordinary accomplishment.

The further they descended the quieter it became, but the air was more cool, the stone walls dripping. At the bottom of the stair Lucinda removed a lantern from a hook on the wall, lit it with a match, and guided them into a large, circular room. Carved from the rock itself, the chamber opened to three other entrances as black as pitch, the crossroads to a host of other rooms not made by modern hands.

A round, ten-foot-wide hole dominated the center of the floor. Rivulets of fetid water drained from the moist walls and poured over the edges, cascading down a deep, deep shaft into lightless space, only to splash onto a distant surface far below. It was a well, Savoy noted, an ancient forgotten well, and then a sick realization washed over him as he realized—

“Throw them in,” Lucinda said.

Grant dashed for the exit. Natives leapt upon him like apes; he spun about with an angry cry, cracked one man across the head with his elbow, and shook the other man off. Grant moved backwards to slam another man against the wall. When another pummeled his bad arm, he cocked him under his chin and sent him to the floor. Another native stood between him and the exit; Grant buried his fist into his stomach, folding him over, and started for the exit.

Lucinda struck like a snake, sudden, violent—she caught Grant by the throat. Though nearly a third larger than her, he could not stop her from dragging him across the floor. He kicked and thrashed, writhing, hissing as her hand contracted, but she handled him as a rag doll.

She threw him into the hole. Grant dropped with a startled cry.

Two of the Eng Banka pulled Savoy’s arms behind his back and forced him to the edge. “Killing me will not help!” he cried.

“I do not need to kill you,” she said.

They shoved him, feet-first, into the hole.

The dark swallowed him up, rushed past him, the terrible falling and freezing air clutching his voice so he could not shout. He struck icy water, submerging. His feet touched something solid and he kicked up, finding air, and he thrashed to keep his mouth above the water, his brain threatening to black out at the shock and pain. Grant floundered in the water beside him, both men gasping and coughing and stinging with cold.

“I trust my hospitality will make you more pliable,” came Lucinda’s voice, high above. “Why did that bullet stave off the animal? How was it done?”

“What does it matter?” Savoy asked, coughing, the cold cramping his muscles and burning his skin. “You have everything you want!”

“Yes,” her voice said. “You will tell me, Arté. You will.” Her voice grew faint. “You cannot imagine what sleeps down here.”

32

“Six months,” Kiria said as she and Reynard sat before the ancient gate, the dead-filled grotto rising beyond, “before mother—before she died—father flew into one of his rages. This time she faced up to him.”

“You do not have to tell me,” Reynard said.

“I must,” she cried. She wagged her head. “I have been here before. The screaming from the conservatory...I had forgotten. How could I have forgotten? I could hear them shouting. Mother commanded him to leave. He dragged her by her hair and she was screaming...”

She buried her face into her hands. Reynard placed his own hand on her shoulder, not sure what to say, what to do, but he felt her despair as keenly as his own. She did not protest.

“I followed them,” she said. “Through a door that is not a door, down an endless stair, then orange light.” She motioned to the sconces along the grotto wall, each with a shallow iron bowl snapping with oily flame. “I remember that pool and those stones and the bones, countless bones. Why build a house upon such a terrible place?”