“You don’t know,” said Lash, with a trace of pity for the uninformed and stupid Prussians in the room. “This is the future of warfare, gentlemen. You have brought me plans drawn up in 1664 by a Spanish inventor named Ferriz Maldonado. He unfortunately was also a drunkard, and he died of drink in 1670. His life’s work was scattered to the winds, some of it burned to ashes in a fire. Do you know what Maldonado’s life’s work was, Count Pellegar?”
“I fear I do not.”
“The dream that all laughed at him for, and drove him further into decline. These are plans for an airship.”
“A what, sir?”
“Air,” Lash rumbled, “ship. In the shape of a dragon, with four wings, powered by a system of steampipes radiating from a central kettle. It was Maldonado’s belief that a flame-throwing device could be rigged within the dragon’s mouth—much like the mortar cannons currently used on a few of the ships in the Royal Navy—and in so doing make it into the world’s most fearsome weapon: a machine to rain death down from the skies.”
Matthew was nearly tempted to give a noncommittal utterance. He’d never heard of such a thing, and it sounded like madness. An airship? A flying dragon spitting flame down upon the battlefield? Well…yes, he saw how that could change the entire world of warfare, how the great ships of every navy would be in danger of the thing’s fire, how no fortresses could stand before the thing—or God forbid a fleet of the things—and how the infantry would run for their lives at the dragon’s mere shadow, but…it was madness! It had to be!
Wasn’t it?
“I am going to build it,” Lash said.
Did Cardinal Black give a quiet laugh from his dark corner? Or was it the laugh of Satan himself, awakened and listening to this most wonderful news of the night?
“Tell the baron,” was Lash’s next statement.
With hardly a pause Julian said to Matthew “Airshippen, em builden,” and Matthew replied “Jaaaaa,” as if this were the most interesting idea in the world.
Lash spent a moment surveying the plans once more, obviously enthralled by these five sheets of parchment. “When I was a small boy—a boy,” he corrected, for Matthew figured he was never considered small, “I was struck down with a fever. I lay in bed near death for many days. But in that fever I had visions of such things as this before me. Visions of great airships commanding the sky. Huge fleets of them sailing through the clouds and spitting fire on the enemy below. When I came out of that fever, I was consumed by another: the visions I had seen, and yet they seemed so real. I understood even then, as I played with my toy boats, what power airships might bring to whoever owned them. And as I grew older the resolve grew as well, that this was the future of warfare, and I would be the man to make it so.”
“A worthy cause, indeed,” said Julian, who shot a quick glance at Cardinal Black before returning his attention to Lash.
“Yes,” Lash agreed. “Worthy. But expensive. My money comes from my family. Yarrow Huxley of the Huxley Shipyards was my grandfather, responsible for building many of the navy’s greatest ships. My path to the vice-admiralty was greased by the oil of that labor. I long to make a name for myself, one that will stand for eternity. This before me…this is my destiny.”
“Fate will smile upon you, I’m sure,” said Julian.
Lash looked up into Julian’s face. His mouth crimped and his eyes seemed to catch blue flame. “It will take more than the whim of Fate. It will take my working in secret, until the moment the airship is complete, the weapon is in place, and I will demonstrate it to—” He trailed off, and the flame of his eyes suddenly iced over.
“To whom, sir?” Julian prodded.
When Lash spoke again, his voice was hushed and it was as if he were talking to a league of ghosts in the room. “They,” he said. “They…don’t believe in my idea. Oh, I’ve presented it to them. The high officials of the navy. I have told them that someday the ship of the sea will be outdone by the ship of the air. I’ve presented all my reasons. I have described to them in detail the visions that came to me. But they don’t want to hear it, and they cannot see the future. They look at me as if I have betrayed the navy…or as if I have lost my mind. The ship of the sea, they say, will never be outdone, not in a thousand years.” Lash lifted a thick index finger and tapped it against his shaggy skull. “I know better. I have been given these visions for a reason. I have been entrusted to build this airship. Me, out of all the people in this world who have ever lived. Do you understand the importance—the responsibility—that has been thrust upon me?”
Julian gave a nod. Matthew was thinking that if Samson Lash was not fully mad, he was only a few steps away from the tumble-chute to Bedlam. These visions of his had flamed his imagination yet at the same time begun burning his candle out at a young age. And how could he be certain this dragon of the air would fly, even if the plans were valid enough to build the thing? It seemed to Matthew that Lash desperately wanted to believe it was possible to create a working airship, if only to show the navy he was right—and not half insane—and to step out from the Huxley shadow.
But…the book. The book of potions, with its binding of red leather, was right there on the desktop before Matthew, only a few feet away.
No gun or dagger, Cardinal Black’s eyes on him, Samson Lash big enough to strangle a horse and even Miss Mulloy now looking sinister in the low lantern light.
There was no way out but to play this game to the end.
“Thank you for your offer,” said Miss Mulloy, as Lash had begun a closer examination of the plans. The gold bars remained untouched on the desktop. “I’ll take you back to the parlor now.”
“Very well,” Julian answered. “But am I to—”
“Come along, please.” Miss Mulloy was already at the door. Matthew’s skin crawled as he turned his back on Cardinal Black, who remained sitting motionlessly in the corner.
With their return to the parlor, they found the Owl seated amid the group to prevent any further squabbling. They could only wait as Merda was escorted by Miss Mulloy back to Lash’s study, and Matthew kept as far as possible from the Owl while the last bidder’s offer was being contemplated.
Merda and Miss Mulloy returned after about ten minutes. When they walked into the parlor Victor stood up from his chair and asked, “All right, what happens now?”
“Now,” said the lady, “you wait for the vice admiral’s decision. In the meantime there is to be some entertainment I need to arrange, so if you’ll pardon me. More wine is on the way.”
“Dare we drink it?” Montague was on his feet as well. “It occurs to me that with all the treasure before him in that study, Lash could just poison us all and be done with it. Then he could put that damned book up for auction a second time.”
“Ah,” said Julian, who mirrored what Matthew was thinking to say, “a good point. What assurance do we have that we will leave this house alive? After all, as the vice admiral said…this is his house and his rules.”
The Owl stood up. “Your caution is noted but unnecessary. As Miss Mulloy will verify, Vice Admiral Lash is an honorable man. He did not organize this event to offend or antagonize the various guilds and affiliations you represent. I daresay that if none of you returned to your bases of operation, those same guilds and affiliations might communicate with each other and take a dim view of the vice admiral’s disposal of their finest resources. Thus this event is a legitimate auction, not a prelude to murder, and the winner will indeed leave here with the book and a pair of bodyguards.”
“Good to hear,” Lioness quietly said from her seat in the far corner. “It would displease me to be forced to end the vice admiral’s life tonight.”
No one spoke in the wake of that statement. Matthew thought that of all the killers gathered here this snowy eve, Lioness Sauvage and Miles Merda might be the most formidable, Victor next in terms of danger, then Montague and lastly Krakowski
as an unknown due to the drug’s effects. With the real Count Pellegar and Baron Brux in attendance, that would have made a malignant seven. As it was, it was still a malignant seven if one counted Lash and Cardinal Black. In any case…way too many killers in one room for his taste.
“The Owl is correct,” said Miss Mulloy, who aimed her voice toward Lioness. “The vice admiral is an honorable man. Pardon me now, I’m needed elsewhere.” She turned away and left the room.
Matthew settled himself back into a chair, as did Julian. The Owl walked over to warm his pale hands by the fireplace and Matthew suffered a start; if the Owl connected him with the memory of The Green Spot’s fireplace…
But for the moment it did not happen. Matthew kept his face averted, staring at the floor. He wondered about Lash being such an ‘honorable man’. How did an honorable man, even being so driven as he was to both seize the book of potions and get the airship plans, wind up in partnership with Cardinal Black? And this whole affair had the whiff of madness—or desperation—about it. Matthew wondered if the Owl was not the link that had connected Lash with Black, and Lash’s money and warped purpose had found a ready hand from the cardinal and Black’s gang of cutthroats—the same gang that had killed all the Broodies for their supply of the drug-laced gin called White Velvet. Again, the seizing of the book and this auction had to have been planned for nearly a year, and how Lash had gotten in contact with the various assassins’ guilds and so forth was a mystery; perhaps that too was the Owl’s doing. Matthew imagined that if Lash had not been successful in getting the book that night, these killers would’ve executed him on the spot for having come all the distances for nothing, so Lash had taken a dangerous risk indeed.
And also there was the second book that Black had been after but had failed to get: the copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon that had been in Fell’s library. Surely Black realized that if Mother Deare had not met him at the tower near Adderlane, as planned, she had either been captured by the professor or had lost her life. So…though Lash’s purpose for the raid had been carried out, the failure to get that second book must be a source of irritation—possibly anger—for the cardinal.
A servant with glasses of red wine on one of the ubiquitous silver trays appeared and roamed the room, but the wine was accepted only by Merda and Krakowski, who evidently had not had enough of a bad thing. After a few moments, a second servant came in to say, “Gentlemen and madam? If you’ll follow me, please.”
“Be ready for anything,” Julian whispered to Matthew as they followed at the end of the human caravan. The servant opened a door in another hallway and down they went along a set of lantern-illuminated stone steps. Further down and the walls themselves became formed of what looked to be ancient gray stone, and then the stairs led them through an arched passageway and by the light of several lamps Julian and Matthew saw a series of stone benches arranged above and around a circular dirt-floored pit.
Matthew noted chains hanging from the ceiling, ending in a set of manacles, and what appeared to be leg irons hammered into the earth directly beneath the chains. Whatever this was, it did not bode well.
Seated on one of the benches on the uppermost row of the circle were Lash and, a few feet away, Cardinal Black. Lash leaned forward to watch the procession file in, while Black simply sat staring down into the pit as if oblivious of everyone else.
Lash said, “Take your seats, wherever you wish. All the views are sufficient.”
Matthew and Julian sat down behind and to the right of Lioness. Off to their left a distance was Victor. The others spaced themselves around the circle.
“What is this, a fucking dungeon?” Merda asked, his childlike voice echoing off the stones.
“My house is built over a Roman bear-baiting pit,” Lash answered. “I didn’t know it until the builder found it. Actually, there are Roman tunnels all through this area and leading under the park as well.”
Matthew saw an oak door down in the pit’s wall. As he was looking at it, there was the noise of a bolt being thrown and two of the guards came through dragging a naked man. A third guard followed behind. Rapidly the three men set about chaining the unfortunate’s wrists to the manacles and then his ankles to the leg irons. The victim tried to struggle but obviously he was in no shape to do so, for his pale and thin body already bore an ugly patchwork of bruises from earlier rough treatment. When they were done, the naked man was stretched to full length by the tautness of the chains, his arms up above his head and his body curved in what was nearly a half-moon crescent so that his chest jutted forward.
Matthew realized it was a position of complete helplessness. Whatever was to follow, the man might shake from side to side but he could not protect any portion of himself.
“I ain’t done nothin’!” the man called out, his voice mangled by what must’ve been swollen lips and broken teeth. “Hear me?” He rattled his chains and his body swung a bit but no more; his arms appeared so strained they were about to be disjointed from the shoulders. He lifted his head and looked up at the gallery through terrified and bruise-slitted eyes. “Listen…please…I ain’t done nothin’!”
“What kind of entertainment is this to be?” Montague asked, as the guards retreated to take up positions around the pit. “I fancy there is violence involved?”
Matthew was sure of it. He was braced for what was to come, and all he could do was sit and watch.
“Oh, indeed,” Lash replied. “I have taken the liberty of plucking two constables off the streets. Two small men whose disappearance will hardly be noted.” As Lash was speaking, Matthew saw the arrival of the Owl and a pair of servants; one of the servants held a drum and the other a penny whistle. The Owl took a seat between Lash and Cardinal Black but the servants remained standing nearly side-by-side at the top of the gallery.
“I have come to despise dumb authority,” Lash was saying. “Over the course of years, I have seen how small men destroy large—and great—ideas. If I had my way, all the small men would be trussed up in that pit. It would be better for London, and for the world, to be rid of the stumbling-blocks to true progress. I realize also that you gentlemen and madam have had your own misfortunes with such men, whether they represent a tainted law or a tainted house of royalty. And also…I have a companion who needs…shall we say…proper expression every so often, therefore I have used this pit several times in the last few years. It is a release for her, and I believe you will all enjoy the spectacle.” He waved toward the two servants. The one with the drum started a steady beat with the palm of his hand while the other began a weird, lilting melody on the whistle.
“I give you the hidden animal within Elizabeth Mulloy,” said Lash. “In this arena, known as RakeHell Lizzie.”
One of the guards, on cue, opened the door down in the pit.
A few seconds passed. The drumbeat and the weird melody kept going. Then suddenly a completely nude Elizabeth Mulloy came through. Her lithe body glistened with oil under the lantern light. Her eyes were sunken in pools of dark purple makeup, and black lines had been drawn on the angles of her face as if to resemble a painted doll. As she took appraisal of the hanging man it seemed to a dazed Matthew that he could see in her eyes the leap of a red spark, like a tinderbox just about to birth its flame.
She had removed the elegant gloves that she’d remarked were her style of fashion, yet had replaced them with elbow-length gloves of another nature.
These were made of black leather and bore long curved talons of blue-edged steel.
RakeHell Lizzie advanced upon the helpless constable, and Matthew realized he was about to witness murder on a scale beyond the horrific.
nineteen.
The creature that had been the demure hostess was gone. In its place was another killer to add to the list, and RakeHell Lizzie wasted little time in displaying her talents.
As the drumbeat and the penny whistle played their strange carnivale,
the woman slinked in a circle around the chained constable, her rhythms that of the drum. Then upon completion of the circle—as if she had been an animal looking for the right place to strike—she leaped upon her victim with a bound of her gleaming body, her small breasts pressed against his gray-haired chest, and she began to lick his face with her legs wrapped around his hips and the deadly claws at his shoulders. The chains rattled and the man cried out for mercy. Someone in the gallery laughed. Matthew chose not to lay eyes upon whoever it was, for he felt that all of them held sadistic glee in their dark hearts, and none more so than Samson Lash and Cardinal Black.
RakeHell Lizzie climbed up the man and then up the chain, her blades striking sparks against the iron. She stood on his manacled hands and swung his body from one side to the other, again in keeping with the drumbeat. Sliding back down again, she peered into the constable’s face for several seconds, what Matthew thought was a terrible stare of triumph for whatever demons ruled Elizabeth Mulloy. The man moaned “No…please…no,” and then with a dramatic flourish of her boyish arms her blades bit into his shoulders.
Matthew could not close his ears to the cry of pain, but RakeHell Lizzie was only playing with the man for the cuts hardly drew blood. The blades caressed his face, roamed across his forehead and combed through the sparse gray hair of his scalp. Matthew shot a quick glance at Julian and saw that he was completely without expression, but Matthew had to wonder if the bad man was not at least a little intrigued by this danse macabre.
Cardinal Black Page 21
