Death's Avenger

by Charlotte E. English

  Druganin’s room was one of the most comfortable in the house, draped in plush velvets and furnished with soft, deep chairs. Nobody took any pleasure in these delights. However handsome and comfortable his red velvet chair might be, it felt constrictive to Konrad. He wanted nothing more than to be done, and gone.

  The serpents returned, and Konrad immediately put them on the watch for Druganin. He felt some compunction upon doing so, for they were weary after their battle with the shade of Jakub Vasilescu. But he needed their assistance.

  Inform me the moment he appears, Konrad instructed.

  Yes, Master, said Ootapi glumly, and Eetapi only sighed.

  I am sorry, he told them. Soon we will be finished with this bad business.

  Not soon enough, muttered Ootapi, with Konrad’s full agreement.

  ‘What of Olya Druganin, and the others?’ Nanda asked, somewhere in the middle of the long wait. ‘The coven the serpents mentioned? We have seen nothing of them. They must be dealt with, must they not?’

  ‘I imagine that will be a matter for my Order,’ Konrad replied. ‘Yours, perhaps, as well.’

  Nanda nodded slowly. ‘They conceal themselves too well. It may take a proper incursion to dig them out.’

  ‘Why, though?’ said Nuritov.

  Konrad blinked at him. ‘Why, what?’

  ‘Why have they concealed themselves? What are they hiding from?’

  A fair question. ‘Perhaps they became aware of my serpents,’ he suggested.

  ‘Or perhaps they are not hiding at all,’ Nanda mused. ‘The serpents indicated that the cave system is extensive. They may simply be in another, quite different part, one that we have not yet discovered.’

  ‘Either way, I will make sure to send plenty of people after them.’ Diana Valentina, head of The Malykt’s Order, would want to hear all about this forsaken place, and as soon as possible. Konrad was glad he could hand off the task of dealing with the coven to her; he was heartily sickened by Divoro, and wanted nothing more to do with it.

  He was therefore extremely glad when Ootapi finally raised the alarm. Master, he comes.

  He brings a body with him, added Eetapi.

  There were several things wrong with that, but chief amongst them was the absolute absence of Eetapi’s customary glee; should not the appearance of another freshly dead corpse please her? Normally it would.

  The news that Druganin had been out seeking some new victim could not please Konrad, for it was precisely what he had feared. But it puzzled him, too. Why had he gone so far afield, when there remained plenty of people in the house?

  What manner of body is it? he asked.

  It is a small one, answered Eetapi.

  Konrad’s heart stopped, and resumed its beating a moment later with a lurch.

  You don’t mean—

  He got no further, for the door opened to admit Druganin. The man paused on the threshold, taking in his unexpected guests with an air of mild surprise.

  ‘Why, good afternoon,’ he said, smiling. ‘I had no notion I was to receive the honour of a visit.’

  In his arms he held the lifeless body of a child. She was no more than six years old, Konrad judged, and her neck had been broken. Her arms and legs were broken, too, and her sweet, dead face was covered in bruises.

  Druganin dropped the child unceremoniously onto the floor, and locked the door behind him. He smiled pleasantly upon them all, his gaze flicking from Nanda to Nuritov to Konrad. ‘So you have found me out, have you? I knew that you—’ he indicated Konrad with a nod ‘— were too curious by half. I had a prime spot on my roster reserved.’ The smile widened.

  Konrad was too appalled to think. He felt frozen.

  Nuritov spoke. He had jumped out of his chair the moment Druganin appeared with the child, though he had not advanced. He stood, white-faced and shaking, and somewhere beneath his own disgust Konrad felt a stirring of concern for the inspector. Had he ever encountered such a villain as Druganin? ‘Why,’ said Nuritov hoarsely. ‘What is any of this for?’

  Druganin appeared to give the question some thought, for his eyes turned distant. ‘You do not know, I suppose, the pleasure of it. The power. The joy…’ His gaze flicked to Nuritov with something like contempt. ‘I do not imagine you ever will.’

  Nuritov appeared stunned beyond speech.

  ‘Jakub Vasilescu?’ said Konrad, softly. ‘What of him?’

  ‘My mother’s pet project,’ answered Druganin with a shrug. ‘There is some little substance to it, I grant that, but it is futile. So they keep the old man alive enough to talk; what of that? All he can do is complain of us, condemn us for wasting his grand legacy. Would he have done any better? Could he, were he to return to life? I think not.’ He spoke softly, mildly, but every syllable radiated anger.

  ‘Then why do you help them? Why did you kill Alen Petranov, and Kati Vinter?’ Konrad felt a growing frustration, for nothing much about the man’s actions and professed opinions made any sense.

  ‘Alen… was he the man who wandered into the caves, a few nights past? I do not know how he found us, but that was not to be borne. Kati asked too many questions. They are delicate, you know, my mother’s friends. Eager to put a conveniently vacated corpse to use, if one happens to fall into their hands, but they prefer to have someone else perform the unpleasant task of killing. I, as you may observe, am more than happy to assist there, provided they return my property once they have finished with it.’

  Konrad did not want to ask what he wanted the mutilated corpses for. He could imagine too many possibilities, all of them horrific.

  Nobody else spoke, either, for which Konrad was grateful. He did not think that information would be much to anybody’s benefit.

  ‘You would do a finer job of leading the family, I collect, than your deceased ancestor?’ Konrad suggested, choosing to return to an earlier point rather than pursuing the grislier question.

  ‘Undoubtedly. I have the resolution, the will, the vigour. I have everything the family needs! They will see it, soon enough.’

  ‘And your cousin?’

  ‘Eino will be dealt with. After he has been induced to transfer the house to me.’

  Nuritov gestured at the dead child, his face paler than ever. ‘But what of… that still does not explain… why?’

  Denis Druganin smiled gently upon the inspector, and said very softly: ‘Because I enjoyed it.’

  Nuritov made to speak again; would it be a condemnation, or another ill-fated question? He had heard more than enough, Konrad thought. He spoke, quickly, before the inspector could muster more than a syllable or two. ‘Jakub Vasilescu is dead.’

  Druganin laughed. ‘My good fellow, he has been dead for more than two hundred years. This has not deterred my mother and her friends, as you have perhaps observed.’

  Konrad smiled thinly. ‘His spirit is now in The Malykt’s care, as it ought long ago to have been.’

  ‘Then you have done me a great service, and I thank you.’ Druganin bowed gravely to Konrad, then paused, a slight frown crossing his smooth brow. ‘Though I should like to know how you contrived it. For curiosity’s sake, you understand.’

  Konrad stood up, slowly. He was a little taller than Druganin, and he made the most of this advantage. Surreptitiously, he permitted just a little of his Malykant’s presence to glimmer through, making a more imposing figure of himself.

  Well, and why not? Nanda had spent days encouraging him to take an interest in the dramatic. Perhaps he was not such a poor student, after all.

  But Nanda, who had hitherto stood in a silent stupor of distaste, now recovered herself. She moved, faster than thought, and took hold of one of Druganin’s wrists. Her bare fingers to his bare skin; she would Read him. Konrad wanted to stop her, for what could she expect to see in such a mind save the worst, the very worst, of which mankind was capable? What could motivate her?

  The worst was what she encountered, for she gave a choked gasp, and a rain of sudden tears wet her cheek
s. ‘How could you,’ she hissed, pain turning to fury in an instant. Her grip tightened upon his arm, her eyes burning with the kind of rage Konrad had never before seen in her.

  But Druganin’s amusement did not fade. ‘Reader, are you?’ he said, and only a slight narrowing of his eyes suggested that he found that information at all interesting. He looked at Nuritov again, and at Konrad. ‘Which of you would like to be first? Shall it be you?’ This last was directed to Nanda, with a smile Konrad could only describe as flirtatious.

  Predatory.

  Konrad’s control melted away for the second time that day, though this was a different thing. Fury swamped his judgement, drowned his better feelings, smothered all rational thought. He heard himself say, with deceptive mildness: ‘You realise, I hope, that the man who harms a child places himself forever beyond all possibility of forgiveness?’

  Now, at last, he had Druganin’s attention. Did the man see his own death approach, when he looked into Konrad’s eyes? He should. He must, for Konrad was Konrad no longer; he was the Malykant again, resplendent in all his Master’s deadly power, burning with the heat of his own rage.

  But even this could not long subdue Druganin’s infernal confidence. ‘I am to receive no mercy, I collect,’ he said, with a wry quirk of his lips. And he was fool enough to grab for Nanda — with what purpose in mind, Konrad could not imagine, for what could he now hope to achieve?

  ‘None whatsoever,’ said Konrad.

  Epilogue

  Konrad was not proud, later, of what he did to Druganin that day. Justice was his job, vengeance both his duty and his pride. But the revenge he enacted upon Denis Druganin was a particularly terrible one. He shuddered, later, to remember with what delight he had inflicted pain upon the shrinking murderer; with what unholy joy he had listened to the man’s screams.

  He tried not to think of it very often.

  He could not feel, though, that the punishment had been unwarranted. Nor could Nanda, for in her deathly white face he had read a deep-seated approval for what he had done. Tasha had been furious at being left out, once she had heard of the full extent of Druganin’s depravity. She had not yet forgiven Konrad for leaving her on Boredom Duty, as she put it, when she might have joined with him in punishing Druganin. As they made their slow, shiversome way back to Ekamet through the drifts of snow, their carriage’s wheels groaning in protest, Tasha spent the entire journey staring out of the window, her face turned away from Konrad.

  Nuritov… was a different matter altogether. The inspector was quiet on the journey home, deeply subdued. But then, so were they all. Even Konrad himself had rarely encountered so deeply unpleasant a case as that of the house at Divoro; poor Alexander had probably never experienced its like. Nanda regretted having forcibly dragged him along, but Konrad knew that the fault was his own. Had he never befriended Nuritov, the inspector would now be comfortably ensconced in his office in Ekamet, intent upon some important but less horrific case.

  He must be deeply regretting the day he ever became acquainted with the Malykant.

  Eino and Mrs. Holt, and Lilli and Marko, had been escorted to the village prior to their departure, and put into a passing stagecoach. Nanda would not even think of leaving until they were made safe, and tired though he was, Konrad would not argue. Eino dismissed all the servants, too, and the house was empty and silent when Konrad, Nanda and Nuritov finally took their leave.

  But there had been the problem of the nameless child. She could not be abandoned, for all that they had been too late to help her. That fact alone tormented Konrad almost more than he could bear, for it could have turned out differently. Couldn’t it? If he had realised Druganin’s involvement sooner, kept a watch on him, set one of the serpents to tail him… the man would never have been able to slip away from them, to disappear so completely into the snow that there was no following him.

  The child, whoever she was, might not have died.

  The very least that they could do was ensure that she was returned home — if they could. Konrad flatly refused to make any attempt at reviving her departed spirit, not even for long enough to draw from her an idea of where her home lay. If he succeeded then she would, for a few moments, live again. She would remember Druganin, and everything he had done… no. Konrad could not, would not, risk that.

  It fell to Nuritov’s well-honed detective’s instincts to come up with an alternative plan. ‘There cannot be too many possibilities,’ he observed. ‘She must have come from somewhere nearby, for Druganin must have walked there on foot, and in deep snow. There is, I suspect, only the village of Divoro within that range, but I will enquire of Eino.’

  Which he did, and soon confirmed his theory. After that, it did not take them so very long to discover which house the child had come from, for her absence had been noted in the village, and a search sent out for her.

  Nuritov took it upon himself to manage the difficult task of returning the tiny, inert form to her parents.

  ‘I do not think it wise,’ Nanda had said, laying a hand upon his arm. Konrad agreed, for though the inspector had adopted a credible facade, it was clear that his true emotional state was still disordered.

  ‘It is my duty,’ he had said. ‘I am the police.’

  He had suffered Nan to go with him, in the end, but had rejected everybody else. Especially Konrad. When the two of them returned, they were both silent, pale and weary, and Konrad knew not what to say.

  Druganin’s corpse they left where it fell, alone in the room he had made into a place of nightmares. Konrad would leave word with Diana, and his body would be suitably disposed of. He would receive no burial. The bodies of murderers were typically burned by the Order, their ashes scattered upon a designated site sacred to The Malykt. It was no honour; rather, it was part of their torment. The Malykt ensured that the fate of their physical remains was as much a torment to their spirit as the rest of the… consequences… that He enacted upon them.

  Konrad felt that even this would not be enough for Druganin.

  The journey home passed in almost unbroken silence, their minds too busy and their spirits too low for conversation. Upon their eventual arrival in Ekamet, very late at night, Nuritov and Tasha were set down directly outside the inspector’s house. Nuritov departed the coach with a polite nod of his head to both Konrad and Nanda, and a few murmured words of farewell; Tasha merely gave an ironic salute.

  Then they were gone. Konrad closed up the door and signalled to the coachman, suffering a mixed array of feelings. Alexander was just tired, most likely, and emotionally wearied by everything that had passed. He would be all right.

  Wouldn’t he?

  ‘A night’s rest or two will set him to rights,’ said Nanda, as sensitive to his thoughts as ever. Sometimes, she did not need to touch a person to understand their feelings with startling accuracy.

  ‘I am sure you’re right,’ Konrad replied, with an attempt at a smile. He hesitated before adding: ‘And… and you? Will a night’s rest set you to rights?’

  Nanda looked away. They had not discussed the details of what she had seen in Druganin’s mind, and Konrad did not wish to. But if it were to trouble Nanda, he knew he must do what he could for her. And he would, gladly, even if it meant sharing in that terrible vision with which she had burdened herself.

  ‘I will be all right,’ she said, after a longer silence than Konrad was comfortable with.

  ‘Nan… if you need me—’

  ‘I will be all right,’ she repeated, more firmly, and Konrad subsided into silence.

  ‘But,’ she said sometime later. ‘Thank you.’

  Konrad nodded.

  ‘I am here if you need me, too.’

  He managed a smile. It was a poor one, but it was enough, for Nanda smiled back. But the smile quickly faded. ‘I have been thinking,’ she said.

  ‘That is sometimes unwise.’

  She acknowledged this point with a slight inclination of her head, but continued: ‘About Eino, and his terribl
e fear. Do you think… do you think that a person’s organs retain any trace of their personality? Their spirit?’

  Konrad blinked, confused by the apparent randomness of the question. ‘I do not know. I have never had cause to give the matter any thought. Why do you ask?’

  She took a deep breath, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘The Eino I used to know was never so helplessly fearful as we found him. If the heart he received was torn from a living body, if it was taken in a moment of terrible agony and fear… would Eino feel some echo of that? Is that why he was so prone to fits of terror?’

  This was a disturbing thought, and one which Konrad did not wish to dwell upon too long. ‘Perhaps,’ he allowed. ‘But. His fears manifested the most around the subject of ghosts, did they not? And then we discovered the ghost of Jakub Vasilescu, a malevolent figure if ever there was one. His mother must have known all about him. She was probably terrified of that particular ghost herself, and may have imparted some of that to her son — knowingly, or otherwise.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ said Nanda, sounding relieved. But she frowned, and he saw in her face that she was troubled still. ‘I had better keep an eye on him,’ she decided. ‘He and Alina. They live within reach of my mother’s house, I understand. It will not be too difficult to visit, from time to time.’

  Konrad smiled, touched by her endless capacity to care. ‘I am sure they will both appreciate that.’

  Nanda nodded, and managed another smile in return. This one held, just about, and he decided to capitalise upon it if he could. ‘How about a midnight banquet?’ he ventured. He was unwilling to leave Nanda at her own house alone, and equally unwilling — though he would never acknowledge as much — to be left at his house alone.

  ‘I do not think I could eat,’ said Nanda.

  ‘A small one? Light on the viands, heavy on the tea?’

  Nanda thought that over, and rewarded him at last with another smile — a real one, this time. ‘That would be delightful.’

  ‘Then, madam, my kitchen and dining room are at your disposal.’

  Her smile turned into an echo of her usual, impish grin as she said: ‘Your poor cook will positively detest us.’