Korbinian knelt before her and gently took her hands.
“Come,” he said, helping her to rise. “Let us be away from this place.”
Varanus looked down at herself and saw the holes in her arms and legs rapidly closing. However disgusting Thorndyke’s blood, it was still blood; weaker than normal, perhaps, but still enough to make due. Though she was suddenly hungry again. She had truly been starving if one man’s whole quantity of blood was not enough to sate her.
“Liebchen, we must go,” Korbinian said, sounding a little more urgent. “Someone may have heard the screams.”
Varanus slowly nodded. She wrapped the remnants of her dress around her, securing them about the middle with Thorndyke’s bloody apron as if it were a belt. It would have to do. She had no intention of walking about with her whole front exposed to public view.
She followed Korbinian to the doorway and suddenly looked back at the hideous surgery. Such a place could not be left for men to find. Its very presence was an offense to the memory of its victims. Who knew what sort of deranged fantasies its discovery might breed in the minds of similar men? Better for it to burn and be obliterated. And better still that Thorndyke be denied any tomb or burial, just as he had denied it to countless others.
“A moment,” she said to Korbinian.
She turned down all but one of the gaslights in the room—the one at the very back of the surgery—before departing. As she crossed through the ghastly storeroom and the office after it, she extinguished each light in turn and tore them one-by-one from the wall, leaving the open gas pipe exposed and slowly leaking its contents into the air.
She continued doing the same as she walked along the hallway to the stairs, leaving in her wake a basement slowly filling with gas that hungrily awaited the touch of flame.
* * * *
Ekaterine arrived at the warehouse driving the wagon she had stolen. Iosef sat beside her, his expression calm but his eyes alight. During their journey she had related to him much of what had transpired over the past year and a half, though she was careful to avoid mention of anything that Varanus might want to tell him herself—or might not want him to know at all. Ekaterine was a little dubious about withholding information, for truly it would be the first time she had kept important knowledge from one of the living so much her senior as Lord Iosef. But she felt it was only right. Varanus was a sister to her, and sisters did keep secrets between themselves. If Varanus wished to expound further upon their adventures, that was her business.
She stopped outside the warehouse gate, though Iosef alighted even before she could properly rein in the horses. She watched him walk to the door, and she quickly climbed down and followed him as he began knocking with a series of sturdy, loud blows of his fist.
After a few moments, the door opened a crack, accompanied by a man’s voice that shouted angrily:
“Whatcher want—”
With neither reply nor ceremony, Iosef raised his foot and kicked the door in. He stepped through the doorway, and Ekaterine followed quickly behind him. A scruffy old man lay on the ground where he had been thrown by Iosef’s forceful entry. Half a dozen more men stood around the yard, several of them smoking. All of them carried firearms—that was a new addition since last Ekaterine had been there. And they looked a little bruised and battered, probably from the fight with Friedrich earlier.
Good, she thought. Serves them right.
Iosef removed his hat and stood in the lamplight where the men could all see him, tall and pale and majestic. He reached down, and with one hand he lifted the man on the ground and slowly turned to look at him, snarling and showing his teeth as he spoke.
“Where is the woman?” he asked. His voice was calm, gentle, and commanding all at the same time. The sound of it made Ekaterine shiver a little.
“Wha’?” the man asked.
“Where is the woman?” Iosef asked again. “If you do not answer, I will kill you rather than ask a third time. Do you understand?”
The man in his grasp struggled against him, staring at Iosef as if confused that so slender a man could hold him off of the ground with so little effort.
Ekaterine looked toward the other men in the courtyard, who were approaching quickly, drawing their weapons as they did so.
“Um…Lord Iosef…” Ekaterine said, drawing the revolver she had taken from Luka.
She had no concerns about a fight, but Iosef might distain a public commotion. He often did. He was very big on anonymity, as Ekaterine recalled.
One of Iosef’s eyes glanced toward the approaching ruffians before slowly moving back to look at the sputtering, bewildered man who struggled in his grasp.
“Close the door,” he said.
Ekaterine cocked the hammer of her revolver and kicked the door shut behind her. Things were about to become exciting.
“Wha’ ya think ya doin’ ’ere?” shouted one of the ruffians.
Iosef turned his head slowly and looked at him.
“Very well,” he said, “I will ask you.”
With a flick of his wrist, Iosef snapped the neck of the man he held. Discarding the body onto the ground, he spoke to the leader of the ruffians:
“Where is the woman?”
“Jesus Christ!” one of the ruffians screamed.
Suddenly in a panic, the men began shooting wildly at Iosef, who simply advanced slowly into the oncoming fire without breaking stride. Ekaterine, however, still walking in the shadow of death, made a dash for the wagons, returning fire as she did and killing two of the men by the time she made it to cover.
She watched as Iosef reached the first man, countered the fellow’s desperate attempt to pistol-whip him, and took him by the throat. Another of the ruffians came at him from the side, and Iosef punched the man in the chest without looking at him. The man clutched at his heart and doubled over onto the ground.
The two remaining men dropped their weapons and fled toward one of the nearby buildings.
“Where is the woman?” Iosef asked his prisoner.
The man sputtered and stammered, but he lashed out at Iosef and struck him again and again across the face. Iosef sighed and crushed the man’s throat before discarding the body.
“Lord Iosef!” Ekaterine called. “If I may.… I fear your method of interrogation shows an unfortunate lack of finesse!”
“I am not in the mood for finesse,” Iosef replied. Ekaterine almost fancied that she saw him smiling. “One of them will find his tongue soon enough to tell me.”
A moment later, more men rushed out of the nearby side building that the others had fled to, carrying more pistols and a pair of rifles.
“And look,” Iosef added, gently brushing back his hair with one hand. “More men have come to help us find our way. Such neighborly spirit.”
Yes, Ekaterine thought. He was definitely smiling.
“She might be in the main building,” she suggested.
“It is likely,” Iosef agreed. “Sadly, we cannot go inside while leaving a cohort of armed men at our back. They may try to kill us. Or worse, flee and summon the police.”
Suddenly, his body staggered as one of the men with rifles fired and struck him in the chest. Straightening up, he snapped his head around and fixed his eyes on the man, who began shouting at his comrades to fire as he struggled to reload. No one seemed to know what to make of a man who did not fall from a rifle shot.
“You search for her within,” Iosef said, as he advanced upon the men, “and I shall inquire of our friends here. And together we shall find her.”
* * * *
Varanus walked through the main room of the warehouse, throwing open the doors along one side as she went. She did not hurry, but she walked with swiftness and purpose, knowing that it would not be long before the gas beneath her feet caught fire.
“Out!” she shouted, to rouse the inmates—their exact purpose there remained unknown to her, but she suspected they were more of Thorndyke’s victims. “Everybody out!”
&
nbsp; Her shouting roused a few people—especially those whose doors she had thrown open—and they began slowly wandering out into the main room, blinking at her in confusion.
They were not responding quickly enough. She tried another tactic:
“Fire! Fire!” she shouted. “Everybody out! The building is on fire!”
That did the trick. In an instant doors were flung open, and people began running for the courtyard.
Varanus continued toward the exit, prodding the more hesitant inmates along. She had no intention of leaving anyone likely uninvolved in Thorndyke’s abductions and murders to burn to death when the fire started.
As she stepped outside into the chill night air, she saw a curious sight. A number of bodies littered the courtyard, though the sight of them fortunately did little more than encourage the fleeing inmates to flee all the faster.
Varanus heard gunshots, and she looked toward them to see Lord Iosef, of all people, in the midst of a fray. Around him stood a company of armed men who seemed intent on either killing him or fleeing for their lives—in truth, at such close quarters the one was much the same as the other. She glanced in the other direction and saw Ekaterine approaching her, looking rather bewildered but smiling all the same.
“Ekaterine?” Varanus asked, as they neared one another.
Ekaterine nodded with great enthusiasm.
“Alistair is safe,” she said, before even uttering a word of greeting.
It took Varanus a moment to realize what Ekaterine had just told her, and as she did, she felt the weight of fear that had been suffocating her suddenly lift from her shoulders. How like Ekaterine to have known to tell her such news first, before anything else.
She embraced Ekaterine tightly, and Ekaterine replied in kind. After a few moments, Varanus looked up at Ekaterine and shook her head in astonishment.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“We came to rescue you,” Ekaterine replied. “Lord Iosef and I. Alistair told us what had become of you, after I rescued him from those beastly men. I mean honestly, the company he’s been keeping of late.…”
“Thank God he is safe,” Varanus said. “Or rather, thank you Ekaterine.”
“Well, I am his aunt after all,” Ekaterine said. “Family responsibility.”
“If you’re here to rescue me, shall I go back inside and wait?” Varanus asked. “I would hate for you to have come all this way for nothing.”
Ekaterine looked toward Iosef, and Varanus did likewise. She saw Iosef wrench the rifle from the hands of one ruffian and strike him firmly in the face with it. Another man scurried backward, firing his revolver at Iosef, who snarled at the pain and swung the rifle like a long cudgel, sweeping the man’s feet out from under him.
“No need,” Ekaterine said, turning back to Varanus. “I think he’s just about finished.”
At that moment, a great explosion in the depths of the warehouse shook the air, and a gout of flame burst forth from inside the door. Ekaterine jumped in surprise and looked toward the building as its windows cracked, then shattered, and the whole structure began to burn.
“Just as well,” Varanus said. “It seems the place has become rather inhospitable.”
“Indeed,” Ekaterine agreed. “Best you wait outside with me.”
Then, perhaps for the first time noticing Varanus’s state of dress, Ekaterine quickly removed her mantle and draped it over Varanus’s shoulders.
“Goodness, I can only imagine what you’ve been through,” she said.
“After I’ve had a bath, I shall tell you all over some cordial,” Varanus said. “It was beastly, and I am very pleased to have set the place on fire.”
She looked back across the courtyard and saw Iosef standing with the last remaining one of Thorndyke’s henchmen held firmly in his grasp.
“Where…is…the…woman?” Iosef asked. Varanus could only just hear him across the distance and over the noise of the fire, but she could hear him clearly all the same.
Iosef’s prisoner slowly pointed across the courtyard toward Varanus. Iosef looked up, spotted her, and smiled.
“Thank you,” he said.
Without another word, he snapped the ruffian’s neck, dropped the body, and crossed to join Varanus and Ekaterine.
“Varanus,” Iosef said, nodding. “I am pleased to see that you are alive.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Varanus said.
She frowned as she saw a dribble of blood upon his cheek, likely from one of Thorndyke’s men, though perhaps it was his own. He had suffered his share of wounds. But now the flesh that showed through the tears in his clothing was whole, pale, and unmarred.
“Let me just.…”
Varanus stood on tiptoes and reached up, wiping the blood away with her sleeve.
Iosef touched his cheek, looking surprised.
“Ah, thank you,” he said.
Varanus smiled at him, and he smiled back in his usual elusive manner.
“Sooo…” Ekaterine said. “The burning building. Are we to do something about it? Yes? No? Call the fire brigade? Throw some oil on it? Do some cooking?”
Varanus looked toward the warehouse and scoffed.
“The damn thing can burn to the ground if you ask me,” she said. “It was a horrible place. Horrible things were done there. Worse than in one of your Gothic novels, Ekaterine.”
“Really?” Ekaterine asked, breathless and excited. But it took only a moment for her enthusiasm to change into grim understanding. “Oh, in a bad way. Of course.”
Varanus could not help but smile at her.
“It wouldn’t be out of place in a penny dreadful, that is the truth,” she admitted. “Rather in the nature of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
“I’ll fetch the cordial,” Ekaterine said.
“Yes,” Iosef said, interrupting them, “you should both return home. Or perhaps to the clinic, to see to the state of young von Fuchsburg.”
He said the name in a manner that was ever so slightly disdainful, which made Varanus frown a little. Why couldn’t her son have made a better first impression? It really was nothing short of intolerable.
But still.…
“Yes,” she said, “I must see to him. But he is well?” she asked Ekaterine.
“He is well,” Ekaterine assured her, laying a hand on her arm. Ekaterine looked at Iosef and asked, “Will you be joining us, my lord?”
“No,” Iosef said, as he began walking toward the nearest of the bodies. “The fire brigade will be here soon, and attention will have been roused by now. I must dispose of these corpses. The two of you should go before you are seen.”
And with that, he lifted two of the bodies by their collars and carried them toward the burning building as a man might haul a sack of rubbish to be burned in a bonfire.
How very efficient of him, Varanus thought.
She took Ekaterine’s hand and smiled.
“Let us be off,” she said, “before someone sees me in my state of undress.”
“Yes,” Ekaterine agreed, “standing here with a burning building behind us and corpses all around, our greatest cause for concern would be in being seen half-naked wouldn’t it?”
Varanus nodded firmly and said:
“I knew you would understand, Ekaterine.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Despite what was probably her better judgment, Varanus went first to the clinic, rather than returning home to dress. Much as both her sense and her sensibilities demanded that she make herself presentable first, she could not allow herself to wait one moment longer before seeing her son. She had already known what it was to think him dead. Now what she needed most in all the world was to see him alive.
She found the clinic in a state of relative calm, which she noticed seemed to surprise Ekaterine, who accompanied her with the careful closeness of a friend concerned. Doctor Constantine sat at the desk making a note of something in the log—Varanus would soon need yet another book, as the current one w
as near to full—and Luka reclined on the sofa, reading a newspaper.
Constantine looked up and jumped to his feet at the sight of Varanus. Luka’s reply was rather less enthusiastic. He merely glanced up, grunted, and turned the page of his paper.
“Doctor Shashavani!” Constantine exclaimed. “I.…”
His mouth was agape as he took in the blood, the exhaustion, and the tatters of her clothes.
“Kindly avert your gaze, Doctor Constantine,” Varanus said, approaching and straightening her disheveled appearance as best she could under the circumstances. “I may be in something of a state, but a gentleman does not gawk at a lady.”
Constantine quickly put up a hand and looked away.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “My apologies.” After a moment’s pause he added, “But I feel I must venture to ask.… What has become of you?”
“I was lately in circumstances that proved both unfortunate and disagreeable,” Varanus replied. “I have since extricated myself from those circumstances, and I feel much the better for it. Does that answer your question?”
Constantine frowned and said, “No, not particularly. But I shall not pry. I expect you wish to see your son.”
“Yes,” Varanus said, nodding. “With all my heart. Where is he?”
“Just in the back,” Constantine answered.
He quickly guided her to the back room and then just as quickly retreated to the desk to leave her in peace. Varanus looked back over her shoulder and saw Ekaterine presenting Luka with the revolver she carried. Luka took the weapon, checked the chambers, and frowned.
“You’ve fired it,” he said, sounding displeased.
“Well deduced!” Ekaterine replied.
Varanus shook her head and turned away from them. A lengthy argument would no doubt follow in Svan, and she had no interest in being present to hear it.
In the back room she found Friedrich in one of the beds, his chest wrapped in bandages. He was fast asleep and snoring softly, but his face still had its color—or at least it had returned to him. He looked far better for his ordeal than Varanus could have expected. She was pleased for it, if more than a little surprised.
A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires Page 39
