Eurynomos had disappeared but had not left. Leopold noted an unusually swarthy fellow in the front row with dark glasses, who was grinning like a mad man…with sharpened teeth.
The crowd gathered about Leopold. He stiffened, fearing the worst, and when they lifted him off his feet he struggled…but only for a moment. He suddenly realized that it was a cheer of accolade that upheld him, not a mob out to tar and feather. The cheers rolled over London as more and more could see the miracle. Camera’s popped off nonstop and carriages stopped in the middle of the street. People poured out of the surrounding buildings.
Stunned, Leopold gazed at all the smiling, tear-streaked faces upholding him…and all at once the painful years of his childhood fell away. He was no longer the reviled Gypsy boy, or the mistrusted Jew…or the pathetic orphan. He was Leopold the Great Enchanter and his past didn’t matter anymore.
It was hours and hours before he was left alone. Reporter after reporter asked him questions until he was quite exhausted. Once they all left, a portly man in a gold embroidered waistcoat hovered and slowly approached. “Leopold, my friend!”
Leopold merely raised his brows. “Barnabas Dawes. Since when are we considered friends, especially after you sacked me from the King’s Garden Theatre.”
“Sacked you? Aw now, Leopold. You know me. I’m a fellow full of vim and vinegar. You merely caught me on one of my shouting days.”
“’You’re sacked!’ seemed pretty plain to me.”
He put his arm around Leopold’s shoulders. “I tell you what you do, my lad. You get yourself over to the King’s Garden and we’ll put together a cracking new contract, eh? You’ll be headlining there for just as long as you want.”
“Not for the same price.”
“Aw, now, Leo! We’re friends. You wouldn’t want to take advantage of me, now would you?”
“Yes. As you’ve taken advantage of me all these years.”
He sputtered. “Barnabas Dawes don’t take advantage of no one!”
Leopold withdrew several telegrams from his trouser pocket. “Look here. I’ve got offers from all over London. Even one from Paris—”
“Let me see that!” Dawes snatched them out of Leopold’s hands and furiously read. “Why, these are outrageous!”
“They are fair for the price of the tickets you can now charge, Dawes.”
“Well…well…” Dawes’ face reddened. “All right! I’ll meet the highest offer.”
“In writing.”
“Yes, blast you. In the Queen’s English. Meet me at the theatre in half an hour and my solicitor will bang it out.” He rubbed his hands together. “Oh, Kazsmer, we are going to make a fortune! Now, don’t be late.”
Leopold doubted the man had ever paid so high a price for an act in his life. And Leopold was determined to add several clauses to keep all of his acts safe from Dawes’ interference.
* * *
AFTER LEOPOLD HAD signed the contracts, Dawes left him alone in the theatre—as per their new agreement. Leopold insisted that the theatre be cleared of even stagehands when he requested it while he rehearsed. And now the only occupants were himself…and Eurynomos coming down the aisle, pushing Raj’s wheeled table forward. The glowing figure of Thacker’s ghost glided over the floor behind them.
He stood on the stage and looked out to the red velvet seats, to the balcony high above, the boxes on the sides, and inhaled deep of curtains, varnish, paint, and the mustiness of the theatre itself.
Pulling the telegrams from his pockets, he allowed them to vanish. They never had been real in the first place.
Eurynomos reached the stage and slapped him on the back, nearly sending him into the orchestra pit. “Good show, Leo! The permanent headliner of the King’s Garden Theatre! How splendid that will look on your signboard!”
Leopold grinned like a loon. “I can’t believe it. Me. A ruddy Gypsy boy. I just might be the richest most successful magicians on the circuit. Who would ever have believed it?”
“I would.”
They all looked up, startled. Upset, Raj wheeled in a circle, and Eurynomos tried to grab a piece of scenery to hide behind…before they both remembered that Mingli had seen them before.
“Oh, what a comical team of supernatural beings,” she scoffed. “I crept right in under all your noses and surprised the lot of you.”
“I knew you were there,” said Thacker, trying to recover his dignity.
Eurynomos pressed his hand to his naked chest. “In truth, we didn’t expect you.”
“Of course.” She turned to Leopold and grinned. “You bloody well did it.”
“Miss Zhao! Really!”
“Oh, come now. Surely I’ve said worse before.”
Leopold slipped his coat back on and straightened it. He leaned down and helped her up the stairs to the stage. She looked around, amused. “You’re back.”
He puffed a little. “Yes. I’m back.”
“As well you should be. I shall soon be quite left behind.”
“Dear Miss Zhao,” said Eurynomos. “If Leo should be so stupid as to do that, I’m sure I’d be pleased to keep you company.”
“Would you?” She blushed.
“Or I,” said Raj.
“Or me,” said Thacker abashedly. He took off his bowler. “Though…there are obstacles.”
She laughed.
Leopold stepped between Mingli and Eurynomos. “Gentlemen, please! Miss Zhao, er, a word?”
“Of course.”
He steered her without taking her arm to a quiet spot upstage. She glanced curiously at the ropes and up into the fly space.
He smiled. “I’m very glad you came. Did you miss the, er…”
“No. I saw it. Quite extraordinary. Even the canon of St. Paul’s was astounded. I thought he would fall upon his knees in supplication. If only he knew it was the work of Jewish daemons.”
“And a Romani.” He wanted desperately to take her hand but he knew how she disliked being touched. Instead, he drew closer and spoke softly. “Have you decided whether you will stay in London…with Scotland Yard…or not?”
“Yes, I have. The crown offered me a commission with the Yard…and I chose to take it. For now.”
“Why that’s…that’s excellent news! Really!”
“I’m so glad you’re pleased.” She drew closer and her perfume clouded about him. He blinked. She raised her face, eyes hooded. Did she…was this an invitation to kiss her? He wished he knew the finer arts of courtship. He leaned in.
“There is one thing I must tell you,” she said, spinning away and twirling her ever-present umbrella. Leopold stumbled and righted himself in time and hoped he hid his embarrassment adequately as she smiled at him. “The scroll from the old woman. It seems we were slightly mistaken. I looked at the ideograms once more. Yes, the riddle was about a key, but it turns out that you were the key.”
“That still wasn’t exactly helpful.”
“I must try to be more precise next time when I ask my questions.”
“Next time?”
“Well…you never know.” She winked, twirled the umbrella once more, and strode away down the stage, all lilac and ribbons and ruffles. They all watched her walk up the aisle and disappear out the double doors.
“So she’s staying,” said Thacker. He nodded his approval and slapped Leopold hard on the back.
Leopold spun to look at him. He had felt a very faint and cold touch. “By Jove, Spense. I felt that!”
“Did you? Well then.” He beamed toward Raj. “Thanks to Raj here for his training.”
“We shall get you corporeal yet, my friend!”
Leopold stood on the apron of the stage for a moment before he sat down, dangling his legs over the side. Eurynomos joined him.
“And here we are, just like the old days,” said the daemon.
“Not quite like the old days,” said Raj with a hint of gravity.
“You can say that again,” said Thacker. He sat too, though he wasn’t quite ac
tually on the stage floor.
“True.” Leopold stroked the mark under his sleeve. He knew no one else could feel it, but he could detect the raised flesh under his fingertips. What had Eurynomos said? It was all about balance. He had this new mark, this new worrisome thing hanging over his head, but he also now had his job back and fame he never could have hoped to achieve on his own. And he had stopped a mad man from inflicting his terror upon the world. “How had von Spiegel…or, I suppose, Waldhar, found out about me in the first place?” he asked aloud.
Eurynomos watched his own naked feet, their long talons curling, as he swung them back and forth. “You are known in the Otherworld, I’m afraid.”
He frowned. There was so much he had to learn. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spent so much time on this foolish career as a magician and spent more time researching the ancients and the nature of daemons, the Unholy Hosts, and the gates of Gehenna, as his father had done. “Suchah, that little disgusting imp…said he saw my father.”
The daemon stopped swinging his legs. “It’s…possible.”
“Eurynomos, I want to find him.”
“I know, old friend. But I advise against it.”
“If there is the slightest possibility that I can bring him back…”
“There isn’t.”
“But I must try.”
He patted Leopold’s back very gently so as not to dislodge him from the edge of the stage. “I know.”
They sat in silence for a time. Even Raj and Thacker thought their distant thoughts.
Leopold sighed. “You know, in all the excitement and preparation for all this, I neglected something.”
“Oh? What’s that?” The beast leaned back on his hands and stared up to the ceiling of the theatre, eyes tracking along the plaster rococo scrolls and foliates.
He turned to his scaly friend. “I forgot to inquire what it was you were going to tell me about Miss Zhao.”
“Oh! The beautiful and succulent Miss Zhao.” Leopold blushed in spite of himself. “Well, old man, it’s really quite interesting.”
“She wasn’t working for Waldhar, was she?” Please, don’t let it be that!
“Oh dear me no!” Leopold relaxed. The sound of the daemon’s voice was cheerful, not full of dread. “Something quite different. I’ve not seen the like before but thought you should know. I don’t quite know what it means yet, but it could be worth some investigation and discussion…”
“Dash it all, Eurynomos! Get to the point!”
“The point? The point is this. You see…” He smiled with his sharp teeth and leaned against Leopold’s shoulder. Very quietly he said, “You see—and even she doesn’t know it—your Mingli…is part daemon.”
Epilogue
THE CEMETERY STANK of rot and bog. The full moon glazed the headstones and tombs with silvery light. A man hurried through the many stones and monuments, pulling his coat tighter about him. He looked furtively from one stone to the next, peering close at the tombs he passed, but not finding what he was looking for. He stopped at a willow tree, assessing.
An angel weeping over the grave of a child caught his eye and he roved his gaze over the careful marble carving, but cracks had already started to form in the stone and green crept slowly between the cracks, gradually staining it gray and crumbling it, until one distant day it, too, would be dust.
The monument must have given the man a point of reference, for his steps became surer when he strode on.
He whipped his head over his shoulder when an owl hooted from an oak and he stepped back with a gasp as it spread quiet wings and soared over him. He watched its flight for as far as he could see it before the mist swallowed up the apparition. Licking his lips he hurried on, skirting the stones until he saw the crypt and slowed. He stood before it, laboriously reading the name above the gated door before he swallowed again and looked behind. He saw the headstone and the rock sitting atop it, just as he had been told. He walked toward it and picked up the mossy rock and clapped it hard to the top of the grave stone—once, twice, three times—before he set the rock back in place.
He stared at the crypt and held his breath, whispering a prayer.
A shuffle. Then another. His heart beat faster, the breath he held expressed to a tight rhythm of inhales and exhales. Now was the time to decide. Would he stay or would he run? His body was telling him to run. The panic began in his head screaming at him to flee. He even took a step. But he held himself in place. He needed to know. Had to know. So much depended on it. Cecelia. His Cecelia.
The crypt’s door scraped against its stone floor. The door and its hinges had warped after so many years of rain and snow and now it scraped, stuck, scraped again, until it opened wide enough for the dark figure to curl bone-white fingers on the bars of the gate.
Run, he told himself. Nothing is worth this!
Still he stood, watching in horror as the…thing…pushed gently at the gate and it opened with a whine. The man saw that the creature had only one complete arm. The other was a ragged hem of flesh dangling from an exposed elbow joint barely covered by a rotted sleeve.
“Who comes?” came the voice like the grave itself. Breathy, overgrown, dark. “Who comes to ask his question?”
“I…I do,” said the man, now more fearful than ever. He couldn’t run now. His feet would not convey him.
The face, begun in shadow, turned. Moonlight caught it and the man wished with all his might that a cloud would cover the face of the moon and hide again that terrible visage. He saw how one cheek was rotted or possibly eaten away so that bone and teeth shone through. How the jaw didn’t quite sit right anymore and hung at a slight angle. How moss infected the creases in his face. How his eyes were sunken deep in darkened hollows. But when the creature grinned, he saw the sharpened canines well enough. The dull eyes seemed to brighten.
“You wish to get your prophesy?” said the deadened voice.
“Y-yes. I was told…I was told you could foretell the future.”
“I can. It is the last thing I can do, for I am fit for little else. Are you willing to pay?” A mossy tongue slipped out of his rictus mouth and licked what was left of his lips.
Aghast, the man shrank back. “I…I…”
“You must pay!” The living corpse lurched forward, that which was once a vampyre, or so it was said. “You will get no prophesy without payment.”
Dread filled the man but he bolstered himself with another silent prayer and stepped forward. “I will pay.”
The vampyre smiled and chuckled. “Pay. They always pay. Don’t worry, my fleshy friend. I never take more than is offered. You will live past this encounter. And so will I.”
The man approached until he stood no more than two feet from the creature. He could smell him now, the unmistakable odor of the dead.
“Do you fear me?” asked the vampyre.
“Y-yes.”
“Ah. Then I haven’t lost my spark. Come. Your arm will do. I am too old and too wretched to try for the neck.”
The man swallowed down the bile and reached out his arm. Faster than he expected, the vampyre grabbed it and the man let out a shriek. The vampyre laughed and examined the white arm, looking it over as a customer might examine a cut of meat at the butcher’s. He let it go and petted it, stroked it, watching avidly as the vein pulsed. He grabbed it again and slowly brought it to his mouth. His jaw loosened, dropped open, and then he fell upon it, biting down hard, sucking the release of warm blood. The man screamed and squirmed, trying to wrestle his arm back. But the vampyre possessed an amazing strength the man hadn’t been prepared for.
All at once he let the man go. His face was covered in blood. But that mossy tongue dipped out longer and longer and lapped it up, leaving not one drop to spare.
Panting, weeping, the man looked down at his arm expecting a bloody ruin. But it was clean and blemish-free…except for two tiny holes.
The vampyre lifted his head and stared at the man. “Ask your question.”
“I…I need to know if this business proposition is the right choice. It’s all the money I have in the world. If I lose it, it’s the poor house for me. And my bride. Please, can you tell me? Is it the right decision?”
The vampyre took a deep breath. His eyes rolled back and he closed his lids. “Mmmmm,” he moaned. “I see…a brick row house with a black door and a shiny brass knocker. I see the name ‘M. McBride’ on a plate above the door. I see you, in a fine suit and a woman with light brown curls standing beside you with a babe in her arms, fat and healthy. Because you chose this path. Yes. It is the right decision.”
The man’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh God thank you. Thank you! Cecelia will be so pleased. Thank God. Thank you. I…wish I could offer you…”
“You are done,” said the vampyre, leaning heavily against the gate. He waved his remaining arm at the man and shook his head. “Begone. You’ve been told. Go live your life…and let me live mine.”
“Thank you, thank you,” muttered the man. He stumbled away, looking back at the creature standing in the crypt’s doorway. “Thank you, thank you,” he said on the wind.
The vampyre watched until he departed and sagged back. Perhaps he had not wanted the man to witness the extent of his feebleness.
He began to return toward the silence of his crypt when he heard the breaking of a twig and turned back sharply. “Who is there?” His dark eyes scanned the underbrush. Shadows. The skeleton fingers of dead foliage. Nothing…until the dark man emerged. He walked forward with the sound of a clicking whirr and a whoosh of air making the vampyre squint at him. He carried a large leather satchel, at least four feet long. “Who is there?” he said again.
“A friend,” said the man in Hungarian.
“Ah!” The vampyre smiled. “I have not heard my mother tongue…” he sighed and replied in Hungarian, “for so long. So many decades. Centuries.”
“You sound like a gadjo,” said the dark man, looking the vampyre over.
“I have learned to speak like an Englishman. I have been here too long. And I shall remain here even longer.” He eyed the man with an unblinking gaze. “What do you want?”
The Daemon Device Page 28
