Cobwebs.
He felt like an idiot as he flapped his arms anyway.
Who – or what – might be in that coffin on top of Claudine’s? The wood was pale and fresh.
Roger set down his lamp. It cast just enough dull orange light for him to find the cheap metal rings nailed into the sides of the coffin. He swung the unwieldy box to the floor without too much of a ruckus.
“Please be Celeste.”
Taking a pair of iron nippers from his coat, he prised the nails from the lid until he could wrench it up a few inches. He’d have submitted to another Straybound hanging for just one swig of gin.
A fruity stink nearly knocked him down, despite his mask. At first he saw only darkness within. Then he noticed a constellation of tiny glowing lights, pinkish through the lenses of his mask, in the center of the dark. He jimmied the lid open further.
Lamplight fell on the thing within, and Roger struggled not to scream. He thrust the nippers forward, in case it leapt at his face.
The remains of a blonde-haired woman lay inside, her face sunken from a week of decay, her eyes empty sockets. The lips curled back from her teeth in a frozen scream. Her red burial gown tented up at the abdomen, and through the fabric glowed dim points of light – the “constellation” he’d seen.
Just as he’d suspected. The dead women’s insides held the secret.
His hands shook as he opened his clasp knife to slit the fabric in a long, horizontal line as if conducting some macabre surgery. Mushroom caps – glowing with blue and green light – sprung from the incision in the gown. He recoiled with a shout. Their tall, slender stalks had pierced through her dead skin like needles.
Roger slammed the lid and darted for the crypt door. Hands on knees, he drew deep, cleansing breaths of damp night air. At last he righted himself. He had seen that stiff before. Lady Margalotte the actress, with her lengthy will stipulating no fewer than ten mutes, looking more asleep than dead in a fancy elm coffin. How had she come to be interred here?
Roger had helped bury her in a plot up on the ridge. He’d seen Nail install a mortsafe. He hadn’t managed to resurrect her himself, but apparently someone else had.
But he had no time to worry about it now. Not while Ada waited for him. Roger planned to open every one of the Smith crypt’s dozen residences until he found her mother. Claudine’s came next. This one should be empty – he’d already robbed it once.
But no. Claudine lay inside, bare and lying on top of the clothing Roger had stripped during that first job. He recognized the plaiting of her hair, and the marks about her neck, but like Margalotte her eyes were dark holes. She seemed to have shriveled and dried, and the cavity from her sternum to her pelvis was a hollowed pit of mangled organ sections.
But Roger noticed one very important difference. Unlike Lady Margalotte’s corpse, Claudine had only a single glowing mushroom cap growing from her withered abdomen. And, judging by the dead stems that wilted nearby, it was clear that the rest… had been harvested?
This human mushroom-patch was by far one of the oddest things he’d ever observed as a surgeon. But the mushrooms made a kind of sense. All those divots in their stomachs, that had become bumps, had burst forth with glowing mushrooms. The strangler had done these women in and hidden them away so that no one would know of the gardens they’d nourished inside them.
He clamped the coffin lid shut and crouched, trying to steady his spinning head. How many more of these women would he find? At least two dozen coffins rested here, some old and gilded, the newer ones cheap pine. This frightful collection had been here all along. His hunch was right. The killing didn’t matter to the strangler. Only the mushrooms did. And Roger wasn’t about to let him reap Celeste.
He picked up his nippers and, in a burst of righteous fury, pried at the nails on the lid of the first pine coffin in the next row back, the only one not in a stack.
He’d determined the gruesome pattern. This would be another wasted garden bed for mushrooms, reduced to bones and dust.
“Bloody hell!” This time, he was wrong.
Before him laid the gaunt, bearded, mummified face of his old master – Mr Grausam of Grausam’s Undertaking and Coffining Services. Before he could make any sense of it, a cold breeze swiped his neck. Behind him, the crypt door, which he’d left ajar, creaked. Hefting his iron nippers, Roger turned.
There stood Nail with a corpse-shaped bundle of sacking in his arms, his red hair aflame in the lamplight.
The apprentice – or was he? – wore no mask. With one look into the crypt, Nail dropped the corpse-shaped bundle near the threshold and flew at Roger, brandishing an undertaker’s trocar.
“You vault-vacatin’ vagabond!” cried Nail, thrusting like a fencer. “I’ll perforate yer skull.”
Roger dodged Nail’s first blow by rolling behind a stack of coffins. His mask fell askew, and clumps of dried herbs from the beak fell into his mouth. He managed to knock the mask back in place before Nail caught up with him. Huffing, the redhead stabbed wildly at the air, but one well-aimed kick from Roger brought him to his knees. Roger scrambled over the apprentice to ensnare him in a headlock, using the iron nippers as a yoke. He tossed his mask to the floor.
“Nail,” Roger gasped. “It’s me, you daft bastard. Drop your weapon.”
The trocar clattered on the stone and rolled away.
Nail raised his hands. “I’d ask what a known resurreck-shnist is doin’ in my vault, but I think I know the answer.”
“I’m not here to thieve,” said Roger, invoking every calming thought to keep from choking the man. “Not in the usual way. But that don’t matter. I’ve seen what you keep ’round here.”
By now Nail’s face matched the hue of his hair. His nose dripped blood. “Ain’t hardly nothin’ here of mine. You might say I’m but a landlord.”
“Then explain that.” Roger grabbed a handful of Nail’s hair and wrenched his head to the side, forcing him to look at the mummified Grausam. “Or so help me, I’ll shove these nippers in your mouth and pull every last tooth I find.”
“Steady on, friend.” Nail twisted his neck and attempted a grin. “That gentleman there – that sloughed and mortal husk – he buckled you, remember? Sent you straight for Ol’ Grim, he did. His own apprentice! You should be pattin’ my humble back. Such a busy man he were, always shut up with his books, and me doin’ all the filthy labor. No soul has missed him these last months, neither you nor I, so long as I keep up appearances.”
“You killed him?”
Nail tried to shrug. “It were a kindness, really. He had the dropsy. The shop would be bankrupt had I not stepped in.”
Roger kept his firm hold on Nail’s neck. “He were a strict master. Old-fashioned in his views, but honest. Never fobbed off them knot-holed boxes to the poor widows.” He kneed Nail in the back. “And what of the girls? They’ve all got mushrooms growing out of ’em – and I’d be willing to bet if I dug up all the other strangled women, I’d find more of the same. What say you?”
“You’re the man of science, so you’ll know more about experrymints than me.” Nail’s voice had regained energy with the prospect of shunting his captor’s fury elsewhere. “I’d have nothin’ to do with it, if not for the handsome earnings. Like the humble farmer, I box, I harvest, and I get my pay. He says it’s all in the name of reason – you should be the last to fault me fer that.”
“Who hired you?”
“Smith, of course. You think he’d give his true name? I just do as I’m paid, an’ don’t ask no questions.”
Nothing Nail said made any sense. Farms? Reason? Roger had to break this stalemate. “Then let’s bargain. You give me that bundled stiff you brought–”
“And you’ll let me go without surgeonizin’ me?”
“Perhaps.” Roger pushed Nail away and pocketed the nippers. “But you’ll need to tap your terrible memory first.”
“You’re a good friend, Weathersby.” Nail rubbed his neck and thumped Roger’s arm wi
th a chummy, sheepish grin.
Roger pulled away. “I’m no friend of yours. You ain’t telling me half of what you know. You must see the man who pays and instructs you. What does he look like? Where do you meet?”
“That’s no way to question your mate.” Nail pulled out his flask and unstoppered it. “Calm down, surgeon-man, and have a drink. I’ll answer you when my whistle’s wet. To stiffs, to science, to silver coin, an’ you not surgeonizin’ me.”
Roger had no desire to drink to anything Nail might bring forward. “Shove off,” he said, and pushed the flask away.
Just as the metal touched his fingertips, Nail whisked the flask in an upward arc, splashing spirits in Roger’s eyes. Blinded, Roger lashed out to throttle the redhead, but his assailant had leapt out of the range of his windmilling arms.
Pain sparked along his back – Nail must have jabbed him with the trocar. His overcoat bore the brunt of the attack, or else he’d be breathing blood. Through a hazy lens of tears, he made out Nail’s silhouette. Roger lurched forward and tripped on something – Nail’s outstretched leg? He tumbled face-first into the empty open coffin. The layer of sawdust mixed with rosemary, meant to sop up putrid fluids, broke his fall.
Then darkness descended with a clap like thunder. Nail had shut the coffin lid.
Roger shouted and kicked and clawed at the sawdust. The steady bam-bam-bam of a hammer answered him. Roger’s head grew light, and he panted like an overheated dog. He couldn’t even roll onto his back within the narrow space. Wood scraped on stone as Nail dragged one of the other coffins across the floor. A creak, a grunt, the groan of wood…
Nail was stacking the boxed-up corpses on top of him.
“That were your cleverest joke yet, you scab!” Roger shouted into the sawdust. “You hear me laughing? Now let me out.”
He writhed in the tight space of a coffin built for a smaller frame, choking on the wood shavings. Nail dragged something across the floor with a scrape. Then the crypt door shut with a clang.
Nail! He had no head for the science but made a perfect accomplice for murder. An undertaker had access to the necropolis and could move stiffs about at his convenience. Nail had brought the murder victims to the Smith crypt, then served as their caretaker. He’d likely told the truth about being paid by a Mr Smith. Some other person – or persons – must be the real Strangler. But as it turned out, Nail was just the sort to bury a man alive. Roger’s throat tightened as he remembered the look on Claudine’s face when he first came upon her, and her coffin’s lining torn to shreds.
“Nail!” Roger shouted in one last futile breath. But all had fallen quiet in the crypt beyond.
32
Her morning tea arrived but her Straybound did not. Sibylla, Archbishop Tittlebury, and Harrod had all been clear about the consequence of missing a devotional. Failing to refresh his bonds, by drinking a cup of Sibylla’s blood, would result in Roger being struck with divine punishment. The slow and painful process might last a day or two, but always ended the same: death. By now, her family would be enjoying their breakfast of walnut-peppermint scones and poached eggs while Sibylla, pacing anxiously about her room, inked a swarm of bees.
She had set out preparations for Roger’s first devotional on the table beside her bed. She’d even arranged for the glass cupping instruments to be warmed. A frightening-looking scarificator with its spring-loaded steel blades sat beside a gold bloodletting bowl with etched lines for measuring. Sibylla fiddled with the mechanism inside the brass box, adjusting the depth to which the blades would cut – just deep enough to breathe the veins.
Archbishop Tittlebury had assured her the royal constitution was made of hardier stuff than that of commoners, but she only partially believed him. Aside from her skin healing quickly after bloodlettings at the chapel, she had no experience with daily benefactions. Supposedly by changing the place they cut weekly, her thumb marking would be her only permanent scar. None of these concerns mattered, however, if Roger intended to run away. Surely he wasn’t so stupid.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Though he might groan and protest, she couldn’t imagine Roger purposely taking his own life. Another bee escaped her thumb. And yet his innocence, professed or otherwise, didn’t change the fact he was Straybound. As such, missing a devotional was its own execution sentence.
To distract herself before she filled her entire room with inked insects, she removed two lacy handkerchiefs from her writing desk, each stained with dried blood. The one with the blue embroidery belonged to Edmund, while the other was Edward’s. Or rather, they belonged to the Angeline girls who had wiped the blood from her cousins’ faces after Lieutenant Calloway trounced them in tallycracker.
With a pair of silver scissors, she snipped scraps of the bloodied parts from each. She’d intended to wait for Roger, as the man who wanted to be a surgeon might find the strange demonstration interesting, but now she shoved each scrap into a vial of Dr Lundfrigg’s clear liquid and waited. And waited. Her own vial had turned powder blue within a few breaths of conversation. Maybe men’s blood took longer.
She picked up one of the vials and shook it several times, but the scrap had already dispersed its red traces throughout the liquid without effect. Had Angeline cleverly switched the vials and given Sibylla gin instead? Sibylla took a whiff but detected nothing peculiar. She went to retrieve the scarificator with its six spring-loaded blades for quick, efficient bloodletting. Setting aside the vial, she cocked the blades inside the box. As the sharpened steel razors extended through the narrow slits in its brass body, she deliberately sliced her skin.
Wincing, she held her thumb over the vial. Her blood mingled with the sopping scrap of kerchief inside, and she impatiently waited for the results of her experiment. With every passing second, her pride over yesterday’s threats, which had gotten her these vials, dissipated.
Until at last the liquid changed to powder blue. She sank onto her bed, pulling her morning robe tightly around her. So Edmund’s blood wasn’t like hers, after all. Then, perhaps his mother Lady Esther hadn’t the right blood in her veins to begin with. Impossible. All royal marriages were strenuously checked. The church’s crypt beneath St Myrtle’s, dedicated to meticulous recordkeeping, ensured that, and Lady Esther came from the distinguished Gusets – water blowers who when angered spewed river-like streams from their nostrils. Sibylla had received plenty of her aunt’s watery tirades. Yet her imperious and unruly cousins, she’d barely witnessed perform… parlor tricks.
Her cousins were bastards.
She shot up from the bed. Edmund, Edward, Edgar: they never glowed, or sparked, or rusted, not like her. First Edgar’s disappointing dinner performance, and now these vials. Lady Esther had had an affair, three by her count, and not with a Calloway or Cornin, either – those sons would have gained magic from their fathers.
Sibylla squeezed the bedpost. Should the queen discover the not-so-magical paternal origins of Sibylla’s cousins, she’d never let them inherit the throne. But unless Sibylla wanted to condemn her cousins to death by revealing matters, her grandmother might never know the truth. How could Lady Esther have done this? Myrcnia relied on the magical legitimacy of the Muir line – they’d shepherded the country through famine, snowstorms, and war.
Sibylla dropped her hands in uncertainty.
Unless… All this time Lady Esther and Edgar had insisted on Sibylla marrying her cousin out of tradition, but perhaps they simply couldn’t stomach smiting a thousand-year dynasty. Given time, they’d have surely invited a Calloway to bed her.
A brisk knock on the door broke her reverie. She had no time to hide the bloodletting devices that littered her room. Two maids entered carrying a silver dress. Beautiful white silk flowers adorned the skirt, and the sleeves were light and airy like the wings of a dragonfly. She blinked at the brocade bust with its intricate seaming, not quite sure why it had been brought to her room. Then, as if a heavy wooden block had fallen on her chest, she remembered. The Royal Heritage Ball.
The younger maid gasped, noticing Sibylla’s collection on the bedside table. She dropped the hem of the gown as she clapped a hand to her mouth. The senior maid, for her part, wore a stoic expression that demonstrated a familiarity with any manner of curious objects. No doubt she’d seen the queen’s items kept for Dorinda.
There was no avoiding the dress and ball. And the Muir dynasty could survive another day while a certain wayward Straybound would not.
“I need to speak with the steward straightaway,” said Sibylla. The palace steward oversaw the ball’s arrangements, and he would know where to find Harrod. And Harrod, Divine Maiden willing, could retrieve Roger before he faced an excruciating death.
The older maid nodded to the younger, who left in a hurry.
“Your headpiece will arrive shortly, ma’am.” The maid curtsied. “Lunch will be served in the main dining hall soon, but I could send up a cart if you’re otherwise disposed.”
“Thank you,” Sibylla nodded.
Better to stew in her bedroom than suffer the company of her relations, especially now that she had guessed a certain secret. Little escaped the queen’s eyes, yet her cousins remained alive and in line to inherit the crown. Sibylla needed to act with care. While she had no fondness for Edgar, Edmund, or Edward, it was not their fault their mother had strayed, and the bastards’ well had no need of more bones. She’d decide her course after she found Harrod. Time pressed. Without his talents, she’d be less one Straybound.
33
Roger lay facedown in a coffin so narrow that his shoulders were wedged between the sides. He had stopped struggling. The pine “eternity box” might be cheap but it wasn’t flimsy, and his attempts to kick himself free had left him sweaty and exhausted. Sawdust filled his nose and mouth. The walls of the coffin trapped his hands up by his ears. The iron nippers in his coat pocket dug into his hip, but he couldn’t bend his arms to reach them.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 32
