Clan Novel Setite: Book 4 of The Clan Novel Saga

by Kathleen Ryan

  Thompson appeared, offering her shawl. “You look lovely,” he mouthed. She smiled weakly but stood tall.

  “Come along,” said Hesha, and she went.

  Monday, 19 July 1999, 11:54 PM

  La Rotisserie, the Oberoi Grand Hotel

  Calcutta, West Bengal

  Elizabeth toyed with the last mouthfuls of her coffee. It had been a long evening, full of visits from Hesha’s endless stream of acquaintances. Seven times Agnes’s name had come up—seven times Elizabeth had had to visit the ladies’ room and flutter convincingly to stall, sink, or mirror. The smartly dressed, middle-aged attendant had politely, pointedly, refrained from comment. It would take little acting now to convince the woman that the vain, crazy American tourist was ill, as well.

  Liz watched her companion with concern. These two nights—in public—Hesha had been as attentive and charming as when she first met him. He smiled, he laughed with her, his hand reached occasionally for hers…but his eyes were cold. She thought, finally, that she was learning to read him behind the mask. Under the surface, there was not, so far, a tender word for her, nor a sign of the soft and honest glance she hoped for. He was…worried?

  Hesha considered, carefully, the personality of his contact. Michel was confident, skillful, and reliable. The Tremere had said that his magecraft would yield results by Sunday night. He had meant this, and Hesha, remembering their efforts together in the Ottoman Empire, had believed it. It might be that the ritual had taken longer than the cocky old boy had anticipated. But Sunday had gone, Monday would come to its end in mere minutes, and there was not only no sign of the warlock, there was no word. It might be that Michel was so new to town that any messenger was risky. But Hesha found it hard to believe that the wily ancient had so few resources.

  The restaurant staff were closing the restaurant down around them, and his reverie ended.

  “Elizabeth,” he said quietly, touching her hand. She looked up at him, waiting for instructions. She was tired; they had been on display here for nearly four hours. She played the part very well, but the strain showed. For an instant, the memory of real smiles on her face came to him, and he noticed what she was wearing—truly noticed—for the first time. Tonight Janet had dressed the girl in strapless, wine-red silk and the Asp had bought a shawl from the bazaars to cover Elizabeth’s shoulders. It was a figured brocade of blood-red and jet-black. Hesha began to suspect his servants of exercising their sense of humor at the girl’s expense.

  “We are leaving,” he said. He held her chair and helped her to her feet. With downcast eyes she collected her bag and shawl, and Hesha offered his arm to escort her. “Fortunately, the rain has stopped for now. We can have dessert on the terrace, and gain a little more time.”

  She kept her chin up, but her shoulders sagged slightly. She leaned a fraction of her weight on his strong arm, and together they set out for the damp, steamy darkness of the cafe by the pool.

  Tuesday, 20 July 1999, 2:16 AM

  Five Star Market, Kidderpore

  Calcutta, West Bengal

  Hesha, dressed in sopping-wet, cheap clothes, leaning heavily on his cane, staggered uneasily down the narrow paths of the bazaar. His retainers would not have recognized him; a dissipated, surly mask hid his face from mortal eyes, his hands were gnarled with disease, he went barefoot through the dirty, stagnating water beginning to gather in the low places of Calcutta. At a rundown, half-height, hole-in-the-wall of a shop, he drew to a halt and wavered back and forth. Hesha looked up at the proprietor. He was a man of fifty, skinny, wizened, and bright-eyed; then he…it…was a near-skeletal creature covered in drooping gray flesh that looked more like wasps’ nests than skin.

  “All right. I see you, you see me,” said a voice like a chainsaw in offal. “What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “Hah. Well. I have a good deal of that in stock,” said the thing sitting in the doorway. “What did you have in mind, old Nag?”

  “First, tell me: Are we enemies?”

  “I know you, old Nag, and I heard your name in the gutter, but I don’t know you that well.” The Nosferatu shifted slightly in his seat. “Is there a reason we should be?”

  Hesha shook his head. “None…that I know of. I have always regarded your people as the only allies worth having, but I fear your kinsmen have changed their minds toward me.” He paused. “I do not look for vendetta, I look for help from you. Do you hear any news from Bombay?”

  “I may.”

  “Bombay can speak for me, if they will. I did them a service some years back.”

  The gray creature gazed down on him, and slowly spoke. “I’ll trade you all I know about your status with my clansmen for all the reasons you think we’re on the outs with you.”

  “Done.”

  “I’d never heard of you before your visit to the Haunted House.” Hesha’s face darkened; the Nosferatu held up a crumbling hand. “I know, I know, sounds like a cheap trade. But on my oath, I’ll make inquiries and find out whether there’s trouble, and why, and give you the information under truce. If we’re foes, I warn you first, all right?”

  “Now the deal is in my favor, I think.”

  “No, no, no. I am dying of curiosity; there’s a story behind this, I’m sure.”

  “Your people pressed an invitation on me. To a party in Atlanta, under so-called Elysium. They insisted. I had other business; I sent my lieutenant. The party was a death-trap, my cousin was killed in it, and I,” admitted Hesha reluctantly, “do not yet know whether your kin meant to catch me in it. There has been no word, one way or the other.”

  Silence passed heavily between them. The noise of the bazaar at night, the rain on tin roofs, and the shouts and music from the red-light district in the next street surrounded them. The gray creature rustled, then cranked out the question:

  “So what’s the thing you really want? That we had to settle up truce even to start to talk about?”

  “Do you know of a young man named Michel?

  “Wet-behind-the-ears warlock? What about him?”

  “We had an appointment. He failed to arrive. I don’t care to wait pointlessly; I also feel that it is…unlike him to be less than punctual. I am worried that someone may be interfering with him, and thereby interfering with me. I want to find him—or find out what happened to him,” Hesha finished blackly. “Now tell me,” he said in more pleasant tones. “What can I do for you in return?”

  “I hear that you’re good at bringing things through customs. I need merchandise.” Hesha raised an eyebrow. “Banned books, underground newspapers, dirty magazines, that sort of thing,” the monster rattled. “I peddle my papers to the kine as well, brother Nag.”

  The Setite smiled. “I’m conducting business out of the Oberoi Grand. Bring a list with you and I’ll have my people ship you as many as you can stock; enough leeches are seeking those kinds of services that you will blend in beautifully.”

  Wednesday, 21 July 1999, 11:24 PM

  The Ming Court Restaurant, the Oberoi Grand Hotel

  Calcutta, West Bengal

  Michel came in through the front door, exchanged words with the maître d’, and started toward Hesha’s table. He was dressed well, though his trouser cuffs were darkened with water and mud. Almost naturally, he threaded his way through the crowd of tables and diners—but Hesha, sensitive to the subtlest detail, caught the unnatural: Michel was nervous, almost frightened. The panicky gait put the Setite’s teeth on edge.

  “Mr. Ruhadze?” said the young man, hopefully.

  Hesha stood. “Michel. Have a seat. Can I get you anything?” The Tremere shook his head, and the millionaire waved the waiters away imperiously. “Allow me to introduce you—Elizabeth, may I present Michel Singh. His family runs an excellent investment firm in Bombay; they have turned the younger generation loose to shine in Calcutta. Michel, this is Elizabeth Dimitros, an expert on antiques and antiquities. I was fortunate enough to convince Rutherford House to lend her to me fo
r this trip—you know Hermione Rutherford, perhaps?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure,” mumbled the bashful boy in the third chair.

  “So pleased to make your acquaintance, Michel,” Elizabeth rang in, sparklingly.

  Michel looked up and made an effort. “Oh, certainly, certainly. I’m charmed, Ms. Dimitros—Elizabeth,” he amended, as she opened her mouth to suggest it. For a moment, the whole table smiled.

  “Now,” said Liz, as if searching her memory, “we were…oh, of course. Michel, I feel terrible running out just as we’ve met, but I was about to…ah…” she gestured gracefully toward the ladies’ room, “powder my nose. Will you excuse me for a moment, gentlemen?”

  As soon as the woman was out of earshot, Michel leaned in and began speaking. “I’ve been followed. I need your help.”

  Hesha stood immediately. “Come with me.” His hands strayed to pockets—he hit the emergency code on the phone, readied weapons—and he maneuvered to put himself between the mass of the room and his companion. Weak. Michel looked tired and hunted, but his boy’s face was haggard, and, above all, weak.

  All this time, Michel talked. “I found what you’re looking for, of course. That’s why they’re here. You were wrong, Hesha—I didn’t think I’d live to see it, but you were dead wrong. When the Eye is active, it doesn’t draw on Calcutta for power. Calcutta sends power out to it.”

  Hesha steered the boy toward the kitchen door for safety. The service elevator…fewer crowds…fewer witnesses…they reached the wall, and with half the angles of attack covered, Hesha permitted himself to scan the room, then looked down at Michel in surprise. Michel had lost control—and consciousness—and the print of a small and bloody palm had appeared on his cheek.

  Hesha snatched at the air where the invisible hand had rested. Nothing. He forced his eyes to find the stalker…and failed. He grabbed Michel by the waist and shoulders but found the warlock weighed down by another, unseen body. Hesha kept one hand on his contact’s shoulders—pulled him up, down, sideways—discovered the opposing force moved too fast for him. Wounds appeared on the boy’s skin—double punctures—and the Setite, frustrated, lifted Michel’s helpless body over his head. He spun and began running for the doors.

  In the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the thing.

  She was tiny—no more than eight years old, had she been human—naked as a frog, and twice as fast as dragonflies. Her hair had been hacked off near the roots, her skin was dark, shading to ebon black at the fingertips and toes—and her tiny, delicate jaws were clamped on Michel’s dangling arm.

  In the moment before she knew she had been seen, Hesha seized her by the neck and broke her. The miniature assassin dropped off and ran. Her steps faltered, her head rocked from side to side, but she twisted through the rising crowds faster than the Setite could follow.

  Hesha reached the front door, pushed his way past the confused hotel staff, and found Thompson waiting for him on the other side. Without a word, he thrust Michel’s unresisting carcass into the bodyguard’s arms and dashed after the child.

  Elizabeth emerged from the lounge just in time to see him run past her. She followed without thinking, the emergency tone shrilling from her phone. He was in trouble. She ran, and fought to keep him in sight.

  Outside, the monsoon rains poured down. The streets were ankle-deep in water; running feet threw knee-high spray that glittered in the city lights. Over the flood, there was a small shadow—Hesha trailed that. The Assamite could move faster than he, but she couldn’t keep it up forever, and his legs were long. If he could keep her in sight…. So long as she stayed on the streets, there would be the splashing footsteps. Hesha swore. The imp’s trail turned west, down a narrow alley. He could follow her through that, but her destination must be the park—the Maidan—poorly lit, grassy, spotted with trees, and huge. He called on Set to lend him speed, and kept running.

  Elizabeth dove down the dark alley. Hesha was only a silhouette in the downpour before her; there were lights on the next street, at least. She gathered up her skirts, cursed the heavy, water-logged satin, and leapt over the trash and rats. Out, and up the street, and down another crazy lane, across a boulevard, through traffic—and into a morass of vegetation and mud. Hesha was still just visible, heading for a tangled mess of trees, across a triangle of water. Elizabeth kicked her shoes off and sped after him. Her stockings struck gravel and tore, her bare feet hit the mud, and she fell sideways into the pool. When she looked up, Hesha was gone. Thunder rolled across the commons, and she limped painfully out of the dirty water.

  The Setite, blinded by the rain and whipping branches, followed the scent of Michel’s blood through the trees. On the other side of the thin stand, he caught sight of the girl again. He sprinted, closed the yards she’d won in the wood, and began to close the gap.

  Lightning struck.

  Hesha shrieked at the flash. His eyes shut down and burned in their sockets, his world blanked away, and the Beast took him running. The curse drove him blindly, colliding into trees, into stones, into bodies, and the life they found the Beast took with them. In control of himself at last, utterly sightless, he fell to four limbs for safety, slipped, and ended in a puddle. Burrowing into the mud, pressing his raw-red lids into the cool water, he waited, face down, for the pain to fade, praying to Set to intercede against the light.

  From far away, he heard a high, chiming laugh and, through the ground, footsteps only slightly heavier than the rain pelted away.

  Thursday, 22 July 1999, 2:48 AM

  The Oberoi Grand Hotel

  Calcutta, West Bengal

  “Don’t bother, Ron. They’re nothing.” Elizabeth pulled her scratched feet out of the old cop’s hands. She tucked her bare legs back under the wreckage of her dress—brass-green watered satin, it had been; crusty, mud-yellow, spoiled and stiff now—and slumped wearily over the sofa’s arm.

  “Nothing, hell. There’s plague rats on the Maidan. Right foot, Liz. And eat your breakfast.”

  Time crawled by. Elizabeth ate little. Thompson tended the girl’s left foot. Both of them watched their phones—as if watching would help—and waited. The Asp, on his, conducted short, whispered, coded conversations with hushed voices in other parts of the city. Twice, Thompson took calls: Janet Lindbergh, worried; Pauline Miles, offering the information that Kettridge had left Philadelphia for Albany.

  “Thompson…” Elizabeth began cautiously, “does he have to be in by dawn?”

  Ron lowered his eyes. “Of course not. He’s supposed to check in. But he makes the rules; he can break them. Go take a shower, Liz. Hot water’ll make your feet heal faster.” He helped her up, and propelled her toward her room.

  Thompson and the Asp stayed awake until they were sure, despite the clouds, that the sun had conquered the horizon. Without a word to each other, they sought out their beds. Sleep took hours to come.

  “Elizabeth Ariadne…” said the man with the moon on his head. “What do you do here?”

  Liz looked up from her seat in the lobby of the hotel and let her notebook fall to the ground. It, and the chair, and the ground beneath them faded away. She stood up—one stands, when a god speaks—one stands, also, when one has no chair—and tried to see the figure’s face more clearly, but the moon’s rays filled her eyes, and the voice was all she knew.

  “I…I came to watch the dancers perform. Tonight they were acting out the Curse of the Deer from the Mahabharata.”

  “Doomed love. I see.” The man with the moon on his head turned and walked. Elizabeth, without moving her feet, came with him. They trod on a soft surface, like skin, but it was likewise the cold, hard, night-blue sky. The stars scattered, just as Hesha’s snakes scattered when he passed among them.

  The moon-god came to a halt and spoke again. “The dancers are too early in the cycle. Tonight begins a different chapter, Elizabeth Ariadne. Look down at my feet.” She obeyed—she could do nothing else—and saw, in a blank space where the othe
r stars would not go—from which the other stars had fled to do the moon his due reverence—a small, dim, red, insolent star that burned her eyes.

  “The dance tonight, Elizabeth Ariadne, is taken from the War of the Rakshasa. The King Ravana has returned…the Demon Ravana is awake…the Rakshas Ravana wages war again.” The shining hand of the stranger covered her gaze, and the red star let her go. “Can you remember this?”

  Elizabeth shook her head in doubt. “I am dreaming.”

  “You are dreaming,” said the god. “But there will be a way. In your hands, there will be a way—” He stopped suddenly. “They are coming for you, Elizabeth Ariadne. Remember, Elizabeth…”

  “Elizabeth…Liz…wake up.”

  In her seat in the lobby of the Oberoi Grand, Elizabeth opened her eyes and saw Thompson’s ruddy face and grizzled brows staring down anxiously.

  “He’s back,” said Thompson. “Meeting in half an hour.”

  Elizabeth knocked quietly on the door of the suite. The Asp opened it, checked the hallway, pulled her through, shut and bolted the door fast behind her. He brushed past her, left the woman standing in the foyer, and signaled into the common room. Conversation sprang up immediately—hushed, urgent tones, starting in mid-sentence, starting at the exact word they had left off before the knock and the tiny crisis of opening the door.

  “…Spent the day in a drainpipe?”

  “Better than in the river. Remember it when your time comes.”

  Unacknowledged and alone, Liz stepped timidly into the conference and sat down.

  “Where is Michel?” Hesha asked of Thompson.

  “He’s dead, sir. He was weak when you handed him over. We took him upstairs, washed the hand print off and tried to…revive him, but before we could do much with him, his body disintegrated.” Thompson shook his head. “He wasn’t dry, either. He bled, but one of the stains wasn’t his blood. I think it was some sort of acid. There were glass fragments on the shirt before the stuff ate it away.”