by Kirk Zurosky
“So if you see someone who does not belong . . .”
Her eyes flickered with recognition of what I was hinting at, and they may even have shown the barest hint of excitement, but I couldn’t really tell. “I think I know what you need from me,” she said. “To let you know if I spot someone who should not be there, someone I actually do not know, someone—”
“Suspicious,” I finished for her. “And you know what I think? I will have you sitting right next to me so that you can tell me immediately if you see someone or something unusual.” It was also the best place I could put this meek creature so she wouldn’t get hurt. I thought all faeries could turn their skin into diamond, rock, or even wood, but this one would probably panic and turn herself into kindling in a house fire.
“Will I be right next to you too?” Breeze asked. “Because I would be of good use to you I am sure.”
That was true if I wanted to get dry humped in a pew at Westminster Abbey with half of the who’s who of the civilized world looking on. “No, Breeze,” I said, a stern look on my face. “You have an extremely sensitive mission.” I could see she was disappointed, but in her own way, she was even more of a liability than the Professor. I could just see her entangling her legs in mine just as the creeper and the Thief showed up. “As an expert in world languages,” I said, “you are the only one who can understand what every person entering the abbey is saying, and as an elf you can use your skills of blending in with your environment and canvas the entire abbey, looking and listening for something unusual.”
“Wouldn’t I be better off staying near you and the Moon of Madrid?” she asked, scrunching up her face and looking like she was about to cry. She began sniffling slightly, and I knew the waterworks were not far behind.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I will have the Professor right by my side to identify those that do not belong, and no offense to the Professor, but she is not nearly as mobile and stealthy as you are, Breeze.”
“No offense taken,” said the Professor. “Breeze is much more nubile and sexy than I.”
“I said—mobile and stealthy,” I repeated. “Mobile and stealthy.”
“That too,” the Professor said, picking a large piece of earwax out of her ear and examining it under a small magnifying lens she had plucked from the deep recesses of her dress pleats. She tapped her ear and smiled. “Oh, now that is better.”
Breeze had composed herself, and perhaps the Professor’s utter ineptitude to do anything else had become crystal clear in that exchange. “I understand,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”
“Great,” I said, “It is settled. Tomorrow, we have a coronation to attend, and a Moon of Madrid to protect.”
Our journey to London proper was uneventful. The Professor contented herself with burying her face in one of the many books she carried. She always seemed to be plucking what looked to be different books from her petticoats, probably containing the only interesting passages any man would find there. Breeze was strangely quiet and did not flirt or try to touch me in an inappropriate manner. I admittedly felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment.
I realized that missions like this were new grounds for the academic that she was, and for all her naughty bluster, she was not very worldly or adventurous. I, however, felt that familiar rush of vigor and excitement coursing through my veins. I could not wait to see what happened at the coronation of George I. England was getting a new monarch, albeit a German one, but I had the chance to catch a Thief, and a very beautiful and enchanting Thief at that. What else could be more fun?
I excused myself from the Oxford contingent under the guise of illness once we arrived at our London inn, and I met up with Oliver and Contessa. Thankfully, the Howler was not with them, though I do not know who was more relieved by this fact, Contessa or I. The Howler was not going to leave Cornelia’s side—that is until it was time for her to take to the rooftops.
Oliver had tipped Cornelia to our plan, and we had managed to secure seats a few rows behind her to keep a proper watch. I did not ask how Contessa had managed to secure the red coat of a British infantryman that she shook at me proudly. So we were ready, but the question not one of us could answer, was for what. All the way to London, I had pondered when I would choose to strike if I were the Thief, and time and time again, I came to the same conclusion—not at the coronation! Too many people, too many soldiers, and too much risk—which just made it all the more likely the Thief would choose to strike at the coronation!
When dealing with such a master of subterfuge as the Thief appeared to be, my gut feeling was she liked to inject a little challenge and flair into her missions, especially if her attack on the Font of the Oracle was to be used as a guide to her conduct. When I put in the possibility of running into the creeper, I knew I was not going to get any sleep this night. I left Oliver and Contessa and made my way to find the Doorman to ask him some questions.
I had an idea of where I would find him if he was sticking to his old habits of being comfortable with women of ill repute. There was really only one place in London he could be—Covent Gardens was now a bastion of high-priced brothels where, for the right price, a willing courtesan would fulfill a person’s every deviant desire. I journeyed the short walk from Westminster Abbey along the Thames, then through Charing Cross and past the statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse, and entered Covent Gardens.
I had no doubt that, following the coronation of King George, this same route would be extraordinarily well traveled by the moneyed gentry of merry old England. Up and down the streets I walked, passing shrewd bawds, or pimps, many of whom were old streetwalkers themselves, now roaming the streets for new, young girls to use and abuse, and profit from. Humanity’s ability to be inhumane was on display in every fancy coffee shop, jelly house, and grand old building where huge parties raged into the wee hours of the morning and women of the night mingled casually and not so casually with so-called high society gentlemen. Nowhere did I see the Doorman.
But what I did see, or more accurately feel, when I passed a fairly nondescript house in the middle of a street full of beautiful homes catering to the wicked desires of the privileged, was positively unnerving. Right before the aforementioned house, I had nearly tripped over what I thought was a man’s corpse before he rolled over, moaning softly, with breeches at his knees and bright red welts about his phallus and his lips. I jumped back, thinking him afflicted with the Great Pox, which the learned among men called syphilis. Though immortals could dally all they wanted and not suffer the horrid indignity of this vile disease, this case was as extreme as any I had ever witnessed. And I was absolutely no stranger to houses of ill repute.
Then I heard voices, soft and sweet, beckoning to me to come to the house. I shook my head to clear the sound, and was promptly pushed into the garden by a group of men who were heeding the call. I stepped out of the lilies I had crushed under my boots, and saw a hand-painted clapboard sign, “House of Lilies.”
I walked to the gate of the house and saw the men walking, nay staggering, toward the entrance, fairly tripping across a small wooden bridge over a stream filled with brackish water that had strange coils of inky smoke rising from its tepid surface. I grabbed a firm hold of the gate and was reassured by the feel of the cold iron. But the men were not so lucky. Spinning down from the windows of the house on silk ribbons wrapped around their naked bodies dropped acrobatic ladies of the evening. Each lithe lady latched on to a man, trussing him up in her ribbon before spinning back up to her room. It took only a moment before the moans began, sounding more of pain than of pleasure.
Something was not right in this house, of that I was certain, yet I was momentarily powerless to loosen my grip on the iron gate and walk away. But then another voice spoke to me, this one foreign and familiar all at the same time, and I saw, walking out of the house ever so slowly and clad in nothing but a web of gossamer, Carolina, my first ever
lover from long ago. Now, I knew she had been murdered on the banks of the Duero River centuries ago, and was dead and gone, but she was not calling out to my logical brain but to my phallus instead. “Sirius, it is me, Carolina,” she said. “Come to me, and let us give our bodies what we crave.”
I felt my hand loosen from the iron gate of its own volition, and my feet were not under my control as they stepped slowly toward her. She drifted down the stairs of the porch, waiting for me with open arms to cross the bridge and come to her. Was it really Carolina after all these years? She looked just as sexy as when she had left the witch’s farm to go to Segovia way, way back when.
“Yes,” Carolina said. “It is me. Take me, Sirius. Take me like you didn’t get the chance before.”
I nodded, as fate was seemingly giving me a second chance with my first time. I would take her like I never got the second chance to. I reached the bridge and placed one foot on it when a ripple in the dank water of the stream caught my eye. I stared more closely and saw a Lazarus stone shimmering in the water, and it jogged my clouded brain into realizing I was walking into a trap. What was left of the real Carolina lay in a Lazarus stone back in Harvis’s vault with the rest of my blood collection.
“I cannot wait to have you inside me,” the demon Carolina called. “Cross this bridge and take me like the man you have become, and we can do it for all eternity.”
I saw an ancient coldness in the demon’s eyes. “You almost had me, you foul demon,” I called, pulling my sword from my belt. “But I am not getting sucked dry of my soul by you and your sisters, and then getting tossed to the curb as just another victim of the Great Pox.”
The coldness in the demon’s eyes turned to ice, and the gossamer floated to the ground. “Sinister,” she sneered. “Don’t you want to sample my wares? I will let you live, because if you can satisfy the wife of the Lady of the Underworld, I can just imagine what you will do to me.” She turned and bent over, smacking her hand on her bare bottom, but all I could see was a ladyhood that was quite reminiscent of the foul nipple-gouging demon that ran the Hellevator.
“The only prick you will get from me will be from my sword,” I said. “It is high time your games ended here in London. I can’t have you sucking the life out of half the nobility in London after the coronation, now can I?”
“Blue blood is the best blood, you know,” she cackled.
I still had a few thunder crash bombs on my belt, but did not want to set London on fire if I used them on the house, and I also was holding them for use against the creeper if necessary. Just then, a man walked up, heeding the demon’s call, and with one punch, I put him to sleep—to the chagrin of the demon. “Not fair,” she called. “He was my snack.”
Better a sore jaw than an absent soul I thought. I couldn’t knock out every horny Englishman this night, so I had to come up with something else. The solution was actually simpler than I would have thought. I stepped forward and, with a few well-placed blows of my sword, turned the bridge to scrap. “Hey,” the demon said. “You can’t do that!”
I retreated and slammed and locked the gate from the inside, then jammed it sufficiently so that it could never be reopened. I realized as the demons all clustered on the other side of the bridge that they could not cross the stream, and thus were powerless to snare any more men in their webs of ribbons and lies. I leaped over the gate and waved to the demons, who were stunned at what had just transpired. I crossed my fingers hoping that their night of bewitching was done. I continued down the street, beginning to think of turning around and heading back as I had seen no sign of the Doorman.
But as I came around a corner, I saw, in the full light of the moon, a great house ablaze with a thousand candles burning so brightly that nearly every open window seemed aflame. Through the wispy curtains, I glimpsed women in various states of undress, and quickly realized they were all young, sexy, and mine for the right price. I glanced at the fancy gold gate, and saw etched in a decorative marble plate the name of this fine establishment, “The Den of Angels,” and knew that I had found my place. But I had not come here to pluck the wings of an angel, instead I sought something inherently more lasting and valuable—information that could save my life and protect the Moon of Madrid.
The Doorman had indeed come full circle from his days as Hades’s door knocker. I could see him standing by the majestic polished bronze door leading into the Den of Angels. I would know that familiar spindly build anywhere. His legs were covered in gray silken hose that ended at fine leather shoes with big shiny silver buckles across their tops. He had come a long way from being naked and, frankly, mostly dead, now dressed in a slate-colored silk shirt with horn buttons and white lace that flared out around his hips, giving him the appearance of an oversized pewter duck. I chuckled to myself when I saw that the Doorman’s stringy blond hair was covered by a heavily powdered white wig. He pursed his lips, unsuccessfully trying to blow some wayward curls out of his eyes, failing again and again in the attempt. Even from the street, I could see his piercing-blue eyes, and I wondered just how much the Doorman would be able to tell me. Had he seen the creeper? Down the walkway I went, silencing my footsteps in the way of my profession and avoiding the telling click-clack of the cobblestones.
“Hello, Doorman,” I said, leaping soundlessly onto the porch and startling him so much that he fell back against the door, and his wig flew from his head and landed with a thud on the patio. A small cloud of powder rose from the wig along with a few stray fleas. I stuck out my boot and nudged the wig over to him, it looking all the while like a cottony, flea-bitten bichon frise. “You might need that back.”
The Doorman looked up at me, and his blue eyes flickered in recognition. “You,” he said, reaching for the wig and putting it rather unsuccessfully back atop his head where wispy white curls now meshed not so seamlessly with ruffled blond hair. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” I said. “The last time I saw you was in Florence—though I never got the chance to thank you properly for your warning about the one I call the creeper.” The Doorman’s face grew even more ashen when I said that, or perhaps it was the moonlight catching the powder on his face. We were interrupted as a group of men came up the walkway to the house. My hand instinctively went to my sword, but they barely paid me any mind, and the well-dressed nobleman in the lead placed a gold coin in the Doorman’s open hand and passed into the Den of Angels.
“Thank you, milord,” said the Doorman as the first man entered the den. “To your left please, for the best flagellation in the city—the birch is as new and young as the girls, and the switches will be to your liking, good sir.” From where I stood, I could see a young, pretty harlot waiting with switch in hand to take the nobleman in for his pleasurable beating.
Another coin struck the Doorman’s palm. “Thank you, milord. The choosing room is to your right.” And the rest followed. “Milord,” the Doorman said each time, until he got to the last man. I wasn’t completely sure of the gender of this noble. A decidedly feminine face with copious facial hair was paired with a strong masculine jaw. Man? Woman? Both? But the Doorman knew, “Thank you, milordlady, straight ahead you go.”
I watched the lordlady walk into the den, looking rather like they had just entered the gates of paradise. “Lordlady?”
The Doorman looked at me like what I had said was the dumbest thing in the world. “Yeah, lordlady,” he said. “You know, people who have the meat, the two vegetables, and the pot to cook it in.”
“Ah,” I said with a grin. “That explains it. Now, on to why I came here.”
The Doorman nodded knowingly, holding out his hand. “You know the drill, Sinister, one gold guinea to enter, and then to the choosing room so you can negotiate your price. The coronation is tomorrow, so we will be full up, so ply your loins now or risk celebrating alone with yourself.”
“Somehow that has never seemed to be
a problem for me,” I replied. “But thanks for the offer. Did you forget why I am here?” I peered at his skull, which now seemed to be perfectly formed and lacking any sort of rotting brain tissue sticking out of it. “Doorman, do you know who you are?”
“Nope,” the Doorman answered. “I think my name might start with a J. Or maybe a different kind of J—one that has one of those fancy curly things in it.”
“Are you perhaps a John or a Juan?” I offered. “You could be one of those names, since they are very common you know.”
“I could be,” he said, with a smile showing me teeth that were still nicely rotted. The smile quickly turned to a frown. “But, I don’t really know. I guess I am still the Doorman.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “And to jog that memory of yours that is as foggy as the English countryside, I am looking for the creeper from Florence. Have you seen him?”
The Doorman became positively jumpy, skittering from one side of the porch to the other and looking all around. He made for the door to the den and then stopped. Clearly he could not leave his post. “He’ll kill me,” he muttered. “He said he would pin me to the door with one of his arrows if I told anyone I saw him.” He began sweating profusely, rivulets of perspiration carving a trail through his powdered face, and dropping to the porch. “You have to go, Sirius! I just can’t be pinned to a door again, even a door that is not in Hell. I can’t take that. And he promised me that his arrow would make me suffer an unimaginable death. Me, an immortal, suffer unimaginable death? Can you fathom such a thing?”
“Actually, I can, but I am not going anywhere until you talk to me,” I said, eyeing the rooftops and looking for the barest flicker of movement that would betray my assassin. “But I am pretty sure I would smell him if he was here, what with that nasty black poison he carries around to tip those arrows. And I don’t smell a thing but you—take a bath this month, will you? Good heavens. Powder can’t hide everything you know.”
