Текст книги "Hold The Dark"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

Chapter Seven

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I jumped, spilled warm beer and felt my head begin to throb.

Mama’s voice rang out. She tried the latch, cussed and shoved hard at the door.

I threw the bottle in the trash bucket and managed to get out of my chair and to the door before Mama broke it down.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, fumbling with the latch. The daylight through my bubbled-glass door-pane was faint and yellow, more blush of dawn than actual morning.

I yanked the door open. “Damn, Mama, it’s barely daylight-”

She pushed her way in beside me. The look on her face-it’s never a good look, mind you-was worried and grim and if I didn’t know her better I’d say it was frantic.

“Boy,” she said, huffing and puffing. “Boy, where you been?”

I shut the door.

“Right here sleeping. Why? Where’s the fire?”

She fell heavily into my client’s chair, her hands tight around the neck of that big burlap sack she sometimes carries. Once she let a little snake crawl out of it and get loose on my desk. I’d told her to leave it at her place from then on.

“You ain’t been here all night.” She opened the bag and started rummaging around inside it as she spoke, and I got that lifted-hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck feeling I’d always gotten when the Army sorcerer corps had aimed new hexes at us troops.

“Whoa,” I said, harder and louder than I meant to. “You got mojo in that sack, Mama, you’d damn well better leave it there. I took hexes in the Army because I had to, and you’ve slipped a few on me because I didn’t see them coming. But hear this, Mama Hog. No hexes. Not today. Got it?”

She clamped her jaw and met my stare. I could see her hands moving, see the beginning of a word form on her lips.

Then she sagged and let out her breath.

“Wouldn’t do no good anyhow.” She pulled her hands out of the bag and tied it shut with a scrap of twine. “Wouldn’t do no good.”

When she looked back up at me, she had tears in her eyes.

“Mama, I didn’t mean-”

“Ain’t you, boy. Ain’t nothin’ you said. Ain’t nothin’ you done.”

My head pounded. I took a deep breath and ran fingers through my hair, which was wild and stiff and probably bleached white from Mama’s soap.

“What is it, then? What’s got you so upset?”

“I seen something. Last night. I seen something bad.”

“I thought your cards were clueless where Martha was concerned.”

“Wasn’t about Martha.” She wiped her eyes and leaned close. “Was about you.”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t tell. Can’t tell ’cause I still can’t see real clear.” She shuffled in her seat, and I knew I’d caught her in a lie.

“Tell me what you can.”

“Cards. Glass. Smoke. Bones. All come up death, boy. I called your name and a whippoorwill answered. I burned your hair and saw the ashes scatter. I caught blood on a silver needle and saw it turn toward your door.” She shivered, and her eyes looked tired. “Ain’t never seen all them things. Not the same night. And then, when I saw them dogs tearin’ at your clothes-well, I thought you was dead for sure.”

“I’m not surprised. I came pretty close, just after midnight. Maybe that’s what you saw.”

She shook her head. “I reckon not. Something still ain’t right about all this, boy. I oughtn’t to be seeing some things I see, and ought to see things I don’t. We got a sayin’ in Pot Lockney-it’s them things under the water what makes the river wild. Somethin’s messing up my sight on this. You reckon you know what it might be?”

I shook my head. I had suspicions, but they weren’t for anyone but Evis to hear.

“I don’t know, Mama, but I will tell you this. The Houses are mixed up in this, somehow.”

She snorted. “Figured that.”

“Maybe not that way. At least not all of them.” I gave her just enough of the night’s festivities to steer the Watch and the Hoobins toward Avalante, should I have a fatal boating accident in the next few days.

None of that helped her state of agitation. “Running around after Curfew with vampires?” she shouted. “Boy, have you hit your fool head?”

I had to agree, at least partly. But I’d lived. Thanks partly to Evis, who was probably pacing anxiously in a well-appointed crypt across the river.

“Look, Mama, I’ve got to go. But there’s something you can do. For me. Maybe for Martha.”

She gave me a sideways look, nodded.

“I’ll need a hex. A paper hex. Something I can tear. Something you’ll know I’ve torn, just as soon as I’ve torn it. From twenty, thirty blocks away. Can you do that?”

She frowned. “I reckon.”

“Good. And I’ll need you to talk to Ethel. I need you to tell him we may need men to get Martha. Men who’ll break Curfew. Men who’ll fight. Men who’ll keep their mouths shut.”

“How many?”

“All you can get.” I was hoping for fifty.

Mama nodded. “You think you know where Martha Hoobin is?”

“Not yet. But when I find out, we won’t have much time. She’s got maybe four days left. That’s all.” A thought struck me, and I held up my hand to silence Mama’s unspoken question. “Humor me, Mama. What’s special about the night four days from now?”

She frowned. “Special what?”

“I mean is it some old rite of spring or solstice or something. Is there going to be an eclipse? Will the skies turn blood red and rain frogs-that kind of thing?”

“Nothing special about it at all. It’s Thursday. There’s a new moon. Might rain.”

“That’s it,” I said, aloud. “New moon. No moon. Darkest night of the month.”

Vampire picnic day.

Mama saw, and the same thought occurred to her.

“Damn, boy,” she piped. “I done told you I seen death! Death on your name. Death on your blood. Don’t none of that mean nothin’ to you?”

I rose. “It does. But look again. You see me telling Ethel Hoobin I quit? You see me leaving Martha Hoobin at the mercy of those who have her? You see me just walking away?”

She gathered her bag. She rose, and she was crying when she hit the door.

I sat. “Whippoorwills,” I said, to my empty chair. “There aren’t any whippoorwills in Rannit. Haven’t been in years.”

None sang. Ogres huffed and doors began to open and slam outside and old Mr. Bull’s broom started its daily scritch-scritchon his pitiful small stoop. Rannit came to life, sansportents and whippoorwills, vampires and doomsayers.

I listened for a while and then got up, combed my hair and headed across town to speak with Evis about corpses, new moons and ensorcelled silver combs.

I hadn’t even hailed a cab when a sleek black carriage pulled up to the curb before me. The driver tipped his tall black hat, all fresh-scrubbed smiles and shiny black boots with silver buckles and a just-picked yellow daisy in his topcoat buttonhole.

“Good morning, sir,” he said, to me. “I believe you have an appointment with the House this morning.”

I agreed I most likely did. I opened the door and clambered inside. A short time later we were across the River and through the tall iron gates of House Avalante.

I’d have been impressed, were I not so engrossed in my new aches and pains. My right eye still stung from Mama’s soap, and my hips were sore where Sara had snatched me up. So all I can recall is a maze of oak-paneled corridors and gold-plated lamp holders and mirrors set in silver frames. That, and the hush, and the constant strong smell of fireflowers.

I was ushered through half a dozen lavish sitting rooms, each done in fussy pre-War Kingdom style, lace and claw-footed tables and tiny swooping dragons, each biting the tail of the last, carved along the door-frames. I was greeted by half a dozen human household staff, each one more polished and reserved than the last. By the time I was finally shown the anteroom outside Evis’s office, I’d guessed I’d met all the most trusted and highly placed of House Avalante’s daytime staff. Each one called me Mister Jones, and each knew they spoke a lie.

I sat. A butler dusted a forty-candle candelabra and eyed me. I yawned at him. I’d worn my good coat and my new hat and he still lifted his eyebrows and bit back admonitions to keep my feet off the furniture.

Yet another butler appeared, and at last I was presented to Evis. He was seated behind a massive ironwood desk, in a dimly lit forty-by-forty office with red-gold Gantish carpet covering the floor. Three of the walls were lined with cherry bookcases crammed with leather-bound books. The other wall held a glass case filled with curios and old swords and glittering spinning things I took to be sorcerous knick-knacks but couldn’t see well enough to identify. There were, of course, no windows. In fact, by my count of stairs, we were three stories underground.

“Good morning, Mister Markhat,” said Evis. He signed a paper, blew the ink to dry it, and rose. “I trust you slept well?”

I crossed to the empty chair at his desk. “Well enough. How’s Sara?”

Evis motioned for me to sit, then seated himself as well.

“She is recovering.” The room was dark. There was a small candle burning in each corner, but I still couldn’t read Evis’s expression. “I shall tell her you inquired.”

I nodded. Evis reached into a pocket, found his dark glasses, put them on before whispering a word.

Light flared, bright and white, from a pair of glass globes hung on silver chains from the ceiling.

“For your comfort. By the way. Sara’s husband Victor wishes to extend to you his apologies. He fears his manner was brusque, in the carriage.”

I shrugged. “He didn’t tear my head off and eat it. I thought we got along famously.”

Evis grinned. “Nevertheless. We were all disturbed to distraction by what we discovered last night.”

“Oh, we most certainly were. That was…let’s see…” I unfolded and consulted my list, picked out the tenth name. “Milly Balount, wasn’t it? Or maybe Allie Sands?”

Evis nodded. “Allie Sands, we believe. Examination of the body revealed a tattoo, which matched one Miss Sands was said to possess.”

“Allie Sands. She was number nine. Snatched just before the new moon three months ago.”

“Indeed.” Somewhere, a clock ticked and tocked. Evis sighed. “How much do you know about halfdead physiology, Mister Markhat?”

“Very little,” I replied. “I’m not sure anyone does.”

Evis nodded, not in agreement but acknowledgment.

“Miss Sands was bitten many times. We estimate that some eleven halfdead fed on her.”

I stared. Halfdead usually hunt alone, that much I knew.

“Multiple bites result in the unfortunate condition you saw last night. To do such a thing is anathema, even to the oldest and most depraved of my kin. But it is not the first such attack we have discovered. I believe this is significant.”

“I’ll tell you what I think. You stop me when I’m wrong.”

“I shall.”

I took a breath. “Someone-maybe one of the Houses, maybe not-decided that snacking on Curfew-breakers wasn’t good enough anymore. This person or persons has other tastes. Tastes that include young women, consumed without the fuss and bother of plying them with flowers or sneaking through their windows.”

“We do neither,” said Evis. “But do go on.”

“So, once a month, our hungry friend arranges to have a dinner party. Catered, if you will. Someone lures the main course into a carriage with a bauble, or a bribe. Did Miss Sands have a silver comb among her possessions perhaps?”

“She did not. Though her somewhat avaricious business associates rifled her belongings before our agent arrived,” he said. “It is entirely possible such a comb was among her things.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She was chosen-like the rest-because she was young and pretty and she was a prostitute and no one would look hard when she turned up missing.” I made myself stare at those round black lenses. “How do you like my story so far?”

“It lacks certain elements.” He didn’t smile. “But, sadly, the theme is generally correct.”

“I’ll bet. So, once a month, and always in a different place, this industrious halfdead and several of his closest friends gather. They gather, and they wait. And at the appointed time-”

“At the appointed time,” said Evis, interrupting, “a young woman is brought out. She is abused, slain and left in the state you observed last night. And that, Mister Markhat-that, we will not bear.”

“Because if word got out, the Curfew laws wouldn’t keep mobs from burning the Hill to ash. Even the Regent couldn’t stop it. I doubt he’d even try.”

“That is a reason,” said Evis. “But it is not the sole reason.” He took off his glasses, squinted in the light, but looked me square in the eye and I looked him square back.

“How old do you think I am, Mister Markhat?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Forty, maybe. Give or take.”

“Correct. And how long will I live, in this state?”

I shrugged again. “A hundred years or more. Until the bloodlust drives you mad.”

He shook his head. “That may be so, among the other Houses. But I expect to live for another three centuries. Perhaps four, even-and at the end, I shall be old and feeble, but I shall be neither mad, nor more of a monster than you see here.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “That’s not the way it works. If it did, why all the old mad vampires?”

“Because they insist on sustaining themselves with the blood of their own species. Because they succumb to the hunger that drives them to slay their own. Because the hunger takes over, bit by bit, until nothing is left of the person but the physical shell and an awful, irresistible thirst.”

“And you?”

“We at Avalante resist. Oh, we must have blood. Bovine blood, porcine blood, any blood, save that of men. And because we resist, we will be spared the madness.”

“And that works?”

Evis nodded. “During the War, the House had dealings with a group of monks, high in the mountains of Chinlong.”

“They make that powder that keeps wounds from going septic. Sin-see, or something like that.”

“Cincee,” said Evis. “A most effective substance.” He reached down, donned his dark glasses again. “But did you know these monks are halfdead?”

I sat back. I hadn’t.

“I have walked among them. I have spoken with a man four hundred years old. He laughed and he walked with a stick, but he was of his right mind. I will be that man, Mister Markhat. And I shall not be alone.”

“You drink no blood.”

“We drink no human blood.”

“Do the other Houses know?”

“They do not. They would see it as a sign of weakness. They would attack, and we would waste valuable resources defending ourselves. Better to wait. Better to bide our time. Because, Mister Markhat, time is what we have.”

“Unless Martha Hoobin crawls out of the ground a month from now and kills everyone in a nursery school.”

“Just so,” said Evis. He sighed. “I will not deny your logic. But is it not possible, Mister Markhat, that I find the fate of these young women as awful as do you?”

I thought of Sara praying, and Victor crying.

“Maybe you do. Sorry. I fear I was brusque.”

Evis laughed. “Forgiven.” He rose, strolled to a wine rack, and motioned at the bottles and then at me.

“No thanks.” I rose too. It seemed like a time for pacing, since we were all old friends now.

“So how do we find Martha, before the new moon?”

Evis sighed. “I had hoped the warehouse would provide us with a name. It did not. It has been vacant for six years. A man named Amralot bought it and keeps it empty because he owns the facility next door and he doesn’t want the competition. We are assured he knew nothing of what took place there, or of Allie Sands.”

I frowned, walked over to the nearest row of books, realized the titles weren’t in Kingdom, and moved on.

“I had a thought, last night,” I said. “It may be offensive. Depends on how you feel about the Church.”

Evis laughed. “How I feel about the Church is irrelevant, considering how the Church feels about me.”

“They’re still trying to find mention of a hotter part of Hell just so they’ll have somewhere to wish you. And that’s on Mercy Day.”

Evis nodded. “Go on.”

I halted. “Doesn’t this once-a-month new-moon midnight feast business strike you as a ritual? I’m wondering, Mr. Prestley. Are there any former priests in the ranks? Not necessarily in Avalante-but elsewhere maybe?”

“Bravo, Mr. Markhat. Are you still determined to refuse my House’s offer?”

I was taken aback, despite myself. “Angels and devils. You mean I’m right?”

Evis nodded. “I fear so. It was your comb that provided the clue.”

“My comb.”

Evis crossed to his desk, rummaged in a drawer, produced the comb. “It was indeed devoid of any traces of handling. Utterly. Completely.”

“Impossibly,” I added.

Evis beamed, behind his shaded glasses. “My word exactly.”

“So someone hexed it.”

Evis smiled, and forgot to lift his hand. “Not just anyone, Mr. Markhat. Our inquiries are sure on this point. This comb was recently subjected to a ritual cleansing, a cleansing so thorough it is, in essence, a new object. A cleansing so powerful it lingers for some thirty days. A cleansing unique in its utter eradication of all the marks of handling, or ownership.”

I nodded. Something was coming back to me-something about excommunication, about the property of the despised.

Evis saw it and nodded. “Indeed. As…what we are, we have some intimate knowledge of the Church and its rituals of cleansing. When the condemned is cast out, the Church seizes his property. In our case, the property is considered unclean. And so, rather than pollute its coffers, the Church permits an arcane ritual to take place. The Rite of Cleansing.”

“Must be more to this Rite than a few mumbles of Church-words and a wave of the censer,” I said.

“Indeed,” said Evis. “It is a powerful act of magic, performed in utter secrecy, by one of the few walks of sorcerers the Church will permit on sacred ground.” He put the comb down. “This comb was subjected to this ritual. I believe the others were too.”

“How many of these Cleansing sorcerers are around? There can’t be many.”

Evis stepped closer. “There are only seven in all of the Church.” One is away in Galt, and has been for two years. One is old and feeble and hasn’t risen from his bed in nearly as long. The rest-well, I have the names of all the rest.”

“Five names. Only five.”

“Three are an hour’s walk from here.”

“You think one of them did more than hex the combs?”

“Perhaps so, perhaps not,” said Evis. “But even if they were not party to the fates of Miss Sand and the others-even so, they sold or allowed to be sold Church property, property that had been seized and Cleansed. That, or they are performing their art for clients other than priests. Either way, Mr. Markhat, they know the ones we wish to know. They have seen them. They have dealt with them. They may well collect the young women, as well.”

“You don’t know that.”

Evis sighed. “No, I do not. But we are out of time, Mr. Markhat. Miss Hoobin is next, unless we prevail.”

“So why not drag all five of our Church wand-wavers in here and start pulling off toes until one of them talks?”

“That was my initial strategy,” said Evis. His expression was deadly serious. “The House, though, refused to entertain any such notion. A call to arms by the Church-well, you see our dilemma. We cannot approach any of these men directly.”

I sat. “All right.” I’d been kicking a notion around since dozing off last night. I’d crafted my plan around hunting a halfdead former priest, and maybe I’d been wrong about that. But since I’d been right that the Church was involved, my notion hadn’t suffered. If anything, I had fewer calls to make.

I took a deep breath. Evis was right. Miss Hoobin was facing her last few hours above the bricks, unless Evis and I found her. “I have an idea. But it needs something to work.”

Evis whirled his chair around and plopped down into it. “What is this thing?”

“A name. A special name. We need to scare our comb-hexing friends, and Markhat won’t work, and Avalante might not. I need cold-sweating, pants-soiling, pale-faced terror, and I need it right now.”

Evis frowned. “Castor Sims?”

Sims was a Senator, noted for his fondness of the gallows.

“Scarier.”

“Violin Otal.”

“He’s dead.”

“He was indeed,” said Evis, flashing a toothy grin. “But he won’t be for long, much to the dismay of the persons who killed him.”

I shook my head. “Forget Senators and generals and remember what’s at stake here. Let’s keep the fires in the cook stoves, shall we? Give me a name. Someone who owes the House. All they’ve got to do is look grim and nod yes when asked if they’ve hired a finder named Markhat. That’s it. Now give me a name, Evis. Give me a name or I can’t make this work.”

Evis lipped his lips.

“Encorla Hisvin. That is as high as the House may reach.”

I grinned. Hisvin the Black. The Corpsemaster. I understand the Trolls had added him to their pantheon of devils, during the War. Parts of the Serge out West were still burning, where he’d swept his spells across the rocky hills. Better still were the tales told of his exploits after the War, as he cleared the parlors and drawing rooms of the Regent’s many critics in a variety of colorful and lingering ways.

“High enough.” I gulped back a spurt of misgivings over having a creature like Hisvin know my name. But I’d started this. Now I had to finish it.

“Now then. Here’s what I need you to do.”