by Kat Ross
When Anne asked Missing Link about the Afrikaner, he’d gone even whiter and refused to say anything more. She considered using the manacle linked to his collar to extract the information, but the prospect was revolting, a line she would only cross as a last resort. The Order had similar feelings about mental rape. They used the chains to kill — but never that.
The stairs curved around and ended at another blank wall.
“Where does it open to?” Anne demanded.
“A corridor intersecting with the one leading to the Hall of Scales,” Missing Link whispered. “I can’t promise it won’t be watched, but the second floor is as big as the first. It would take fifty men to guard all of it. The security is based on the key talismans. Mr. Bekker intended for you all to be cornered and killed downstairs.”
Anne stared at him until he swallowed and looked away. “If you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not, I swear! Just don’t feed me to a revenant.” He shuddered. “Please.”
Anne glanced at Jacob, who nodded. He and Julian readied their chains. Lucas dropped a hand to his sword hilt. Anne used the talisman to open a door in the stone.
The smell hit her like a fist. An overpowering stench of death. She retched, gorge rising, and Missing Link slammed her hard against the staircase wall. He tried to grab the key talisman but couldn’t pry her fingers open. The necromancer spat a curse and darted away into the pitch black. Anne shook off a wave of dizziness as the others rushed past her in pursuit. There were scuffling sounds, a scream and then silence.
“He’s down,” Lucas said. “Ugh. I think I just stepped on…. I don’t know what.”
“Hang on, I have matches.” Anne heard a rasp and a wavering flame appeared in Jacob’s hand, driving back the darkness. She covered her mouth. Drained corpses lay stacked against the walls like firewood. Towering piles of them. It was impossible to tell the age or sex except by size; the children were smaller. Rags of skin clung to bones, eyes shriveled to opaque marbles in their sockets.
Missing Link sprawled on the floor, his head twisted all the way around.
“Mother of Christ,” Jacob said softly.
The match burned down and he lit another, holding it high. The room was huge. Anne didn’t want to think about how many of Bekker’s victims it held. Hundreds at least. She drew a shallow breath and looked for a way out. “Down there,” she said hoarsely.
They moved to the end of the vile ossuary, sticking close together, to the only part that didn’t have bodies, a space along the wall about five feet wide. Anne tried the talisman and a gap opened. It led into a long torch-lit corridor with dozens of doors on either side. Jacob blew out the match. Anne sealed the door behind them.
“I’m sorry, Miss Lawrence,” Lucas said, giving her a baleful look. “I shouldn’t have killed him. It was hard to see anything. He attacked me and—”
“It’s not your fault, though I rather wish you hadn’t, too.” She drew a deep breath. The stench of that room clung to her skin. “We’re running out of time to search this place.”
“Let’s split up,” Julian said.
Anne shook her head. “There’s only one key and I’d bet wherever they’ve got him doesn’t have a regular door.”
“How the hell do we find it then?”
“Bekker would leave a guard outside,” Jacob said.
“Sound logic. Do we all agree with Mr. Bell?” Anne looked at Julian and Lucas. They both nodded.
“Good. We need to cover a lot of ground fast.” She flexed her toes and leaned forward like a sprinter at the starting line. “Try to keep up, will you?”
Chapter 24
Balthazar detected movement at the shadowy far end of the chamber. Axel and Daan were stuffing the dirty pictures into their pants. Someone was here. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope it might be Anne Lawrence, a bloody sword in her hand, but instead it was a grey little man who looked like an unemployed bank clerk.
He wore a cheap ill-fitting suit and round, foggy spectacles. His complexion was pallid, as though he rarely saw the sun. Five necromancers, including Constantin, flanked him as he trudged into the chamber. Three carried black leather cases. One pushed a rolling steel trolley of the sort they used in autopsy suites.
Gabriel grew instantly alert. So did Balthazar.
“Which one of you is Monsieur D’Ange?” the grey man asked politely.
For a moment, Balthazar pictured them both answering, “He is!” and stifled a bark of unhinged laughter.
“That one,” Constantin said, pointing to Gabriel.
“Very good.” He gestured and Bekker’s men set the bags down on the trolley. They made a faint clinking sound. He removed his spectacles and massaged the lenses with a stained handkerchief, then put them back on, blinked owlishly, and peered at Gabriel like he planned to fit him for a new suit. “I am Vorstmann. Secure his feet, please.”
Balthazar watched with helpless dread as the manacles around Gabriel’s ankles were locked to eyehooks in the floor, leaving him completely immobilized. Gabriel didn’t bother to fight them. He was saving his strength.
Vorstmann took out a mottled apron and tied the strings. It was too long and made him look like a wizened child playing dress-up. “Before we begin, perhaps you’d prefer to tell these gentlemen where you obtained the sword?”
Gabriel stared at him. “You poor bastard,” he said. “I—”
One of Bekker’s men cuffed him hard across the face. Vorstmann paid no attention. He was selecting items from the bags and arranging them on the steel trolley. Mostly scalpels of varying sizes, but also things Balthazar had no name for. Long, slender things with serrated hooks.
“If it sets your mind at ease,” Vorstmann said in a clipped accent, “I am happy to explain the procedures beforehand.” His voice assumed a patient, lecturing tone. “With necromancers, one is at liberty to make incisions that would cause a regular man to bleed to death in minutes. You would heal quickly, of course, allowing the cuts to be made again and again. But I am told time is of the essence.” He glanced at Gabriel and there was no animosity in his dishwater eyes. “So I think we must proceed directly to the later stage.”
Vorstmann examined one of the scalpels, then set it back down at a precise distance from the next. “Do not fear, Monsieur D’Ange, you are in safe hands. I am a devoted student of anatomy.” He gave a cheerful smile. “But my studies are not limited to modern textbooks. Not at all. The ancient Egyptians knew more about the secrets of the human body than half the physicians graduated from the most prestigious medical academies today.”
He began to line up glass jars filled with clear liquid. “Particularly in relation to the internal organs. Heart, liver, kidneys and so on. Edwin Smith found a remarkable papyrus in Luxor relating to surgical techniques in trauma cases that’s most enlightening.”
Vorstmann wiped the hooked device with his dingy handkerchief. “But to understand precisely how necromantic magic and anatomical science intersect, one must work with living subjects. Happily, Mr. Bekker has given me many such opportunities.”
He stroked the instrument with a finger, a crescent moon of dirt visible beneath the yellowed nail, and Balthazar suddenly remembered where he’d seen a similar device. It was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York the year before, at a special exhibition of relics unearthed in Alexandria.
“Until the brain stem is severed from the cervical spine, you will not die — not in the typical sense of the word,” Vorstmann continued. “Sensation and thought continue, even in extremis.”
Balthazar glanced at Gabriel, who had gone pale and silent.
“Edwin Smith,” he managed, his mouth dry as a crypt. “That was back in sixty-five, wasn’t it?”
Vorstmann’s mild gaze turned to Balthazar. “Sixty-two.”
“Yes, right. I dabble in Egyptology myself.” Anything to keep this maniac talking. “Isn’t that….?”
“A cranial crochet.” Vorstmann looked pleased. “Indee
d it is. For the removal of the brain matter through the nostrils.”
Constantin shifted uneasily. One of Bekker’s men turned a little green around the gills, but the other three seemed immune to Vorstmann. Maybe, Balthazar thought, it wasn’t their first time.
“How old is that one?” he asked with frantic eagerness. “Which dynasty?”
“Alas,” Vorstmann replied. “As much as I appreciate your interest, I cannot afford to indulge it at the moment. Monsieur D’Ange awaits and it would be cruel to prolong the anticipation. Better to simply commence.”
He set the cranial crochet back down and Balthazar twitched with relief. But then Vorstmann chose one of the scalpels and shuffled forward. He held it delicately, between thumb and forefinger. His spectacles were starting to fog again, as if he conjured up his own humid ecosystem. Constantin looked on the verge of saying something, Balthazar could see the struggle on his face, but in the end he remained quiet.
Vorstmann halted at the center of one of the great scales inlaid in the floor. “Any last-minute change of heart?” he asked, slicing through the front of Gabriel’s shirt as if it were gossamer. The unfortunate parallel to Balthazar’s recent fantasy was cringe-inducing. Vorstmann’s clinical gaze moved across Gabriel’s abdomen, darting here and there as he mapped out the vivisection. “I will remove the liver first. Then the small intestine, followed by the kidneys and lungs. I’m afraid you’ll experience some discomfort.”
He lifted the chain dangling from the collar and draped it over Gabriel’s shoulder. “There we are,” he said gently.
Gabriel swallowed. Sweat slicked his torso. “Are you a married man, Vorstmann?”
He seemed unsurprised by the question. No doubt he’d heard everything in the course of his career. “As a matter of fact I am, Monsieur D’Ange. Twenty-three years now.”
“So am I. And mine has an evil temper.”
“They all do,” Vorstmann replied wearily.
Balthazar tried to picture Mrs. Vorstmann and failed. The whole scene was sliding deeper into the unreal. The product of an absinthe nightmare he couldn’t wake from. His thoughts felt fractured, derailed. Did the little grey butcher even have a first name? Or did his wife call him Vorstmann, too?
Balthazar looked away as Vortstmann squinted through his greasy spectacles, angling the blade. And exhaled a sharp breath when the scalpel flew out of his hand, spinning end over end into the shadows at the far end of the hall until it thwacked into someone’s palm. Bekker’s men looked confounded, except for Constantin, who guessed what was in store and had already started backing away.
A small woman strode into the torchlight. She was barefoot and painted head to toe in dried blood. With her wild auburn hair, she reminded Balthazar of the Celtic queen who had burned Londinium to ashes and whipped the Romans so badly they almost fled Britain.
Two men trailed behind her. Julian Durand and Jacob Bell. And then a third figure stepped forward, prematurely greying at the temples, hair parted on the left, ruler-straight, moustache waxed into sharp points. Lucas Devereaux caught Balthazar’s eye and gave a brisk nod.
“Why don’t you practice on me first?” Anne Lawrence said softly. Her green eyes swept over Gabriel, saw he was unharmed, then fixed on the little grey man in his apron and misty spectacles.
“Who is this person?” Vorstmann asked.
For a brief moment, the silence was complete. Then Constantin shattered it with a single word.
“Daēva,” he hissed.
Swords scraped from their scabbards. Bekker’s men spread out, forming a ragged line. Anne looked them over with contempt. And Balthazar was suddenly grateful he hung in chains next to Gabriel. It was the only thing that might save him from this woman.
Vorstmann opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Anne’s arm blurred and the next instant, the scalpel was buried in his skinny throat. He dropped to his knees, fingers twitching weakly around the blade. Anne walked forward. Her chest rose and fell, pumping like a bellows. A whirlwind scoured the chamber. It howled in Balthazar’s ears, tore at his hair and clothes. Just before the torches went out, he saw jagged cracks slice through the mosaic on the floor. Jacob and Julian unfurled their chains. Lucas raised his sword. Then darkness descended.
“Daan,” Axel gasped with a note of wonderment somewhere to Balthazar’s left. “I think that’s—”
“My wife,” Gabriel finished in satisfaction.
Balthazar heard grunts and gurgles and the clang of iron against iron in the darkness. They were all fighting blind, guided only by the faint necromantic glow of the chains, and his gut tightened every time the sounds of combat came close. Revenants were out there, too. He could smell them. Hopefully, it meant Bekker’s men were dying in droves.
Then he heard a metallic click and a soft groan as Gabriel slithered from his manacles.
“I have you now,” Anne said in a tone that was both soothing and no-nonsense. “Can you stand?”
“My legs are fine,” Gabriel said tightly. “Anne…. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Her voice fractured. “You great lummox.”
There was a moment of quiet, followed by kissy sounds.
“Hello?” Balthazar whispered into the darkness. “I’m sorry, but would it be too much trouble—”
He gasped as the manacles opened and he dropped like a sack of grain to the stone floor. No gentle arms to catch him like Gabriel, but he could hardly complain.
“Thank you,” Balthazar ground out, beset by a fresh wave of agony as he tried to move his left arm and found it was dislocated. “Lucas?”
“Here, my lord.” Hands groped around and hauled him to his feet.
“You don’t have to call me that, really.” Balthazar had told him this for years but it never seemed to register. “I need you to pop something in for me.”
“Er….”
“My arm. Feel it?” He guided Lucas’s hand.
“Oooh, nasty. Brace yourself, my lord.”
Lucas expertly snapped the ball back into the socket. Balthazar tried to be stoic but couldn’t suppress a whimper. “Well done,” he muttered. “Do you have a talisman to Travel?”
“In my pocket.”
“Thank God.” He paused. “Gabriel? Anne?”
There was no response. They’d already gone. Every man — and woman — for themselves, then. Good. Balthazar preferred it that way. He and Lucas skirted the diminishing sounds of fighting and headed for the outline of the open doorway at the end of the chamber. Balthazar wished the Order luck, but he was done. Finished. Vorstmann might be dead, but there were others like him, and Balthazar knew one thing with perfect clarity: he would never, ever allow himself to be at their mercy again.
A dead necromancer lay in the corridor outside, but nothing else moved. “This way,” Balthazar said, limping away on stiff legs. “How did you know to come here?”
“I assumed the plan would go to hell,” Lucas replied with his usual tone of profound gloom. “Most things do.”
Balthazar’s laugh turned into a wince. “So you disobeyed my orders.”
“Yes, my lord. I was outside the museum when the shots were fired. I’d marked Bekker’s landau and saw it leave empty. So I waited for a while more. When neither of you appeared, it seemed clear you’d left through a gate. His estate was the obvious place.”
“I could have been dead.”
Lucas gave a faint smile. “Not you, my lord.”
“So you rode out here alone?”
A cheerless shrug. “What else could I do?”
“Leave me.”
Lucas shot him an irritated look. “I caught up with Bell and Durand on the road. Once I’d explained the situation, they were glad for an extra man. We entered the grounds together. The sentries were already dead.”
Balthazar glanced at him. “All of them?”
Lucas nodded. “Miss Lawrence got here first.”
Balthazar flexed his fingers. Sensation was returning, a thousand tiny red-hot
needles pricking his abused flesh. “Remind me to send her a card. Maybe a basket of fruit, too. Better to stay on her good side.”
Lucas didn’t crack a smile. “Yes, my lord.”
“You must be wondering about Bekker. He left to see Leopold.”
They reached what Balthazar now thought of as the Pink Mermaid Chamber. He strode to the edge of the pool, where the tin of Keating’s lozenges still rested on the edge.
“I assume he was intending to return,” Lucas said quietly.
“Yes. He was.” Balthazar met Lucas’s dark eyes. “Through this portal. But he had two necromancers with him.”
“Poor odds,” Lucas said. “For us.”
Balthazar nodded. “I don’t think I could lift a sword, even if I had one. I was strung up for hours.”
“Better we leave then.”
“Yes.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Lucas took out his own spiral shell, closed his fist around it.
And then a distant greenish light lit the depths of the pool. It grew steadily brighter. Balthazar briefly closed his eyes. “Never mind. He’s here.”
Without hesitation, Lucas strode to the lip of the pool, his sword poised in a low two-handed grip. Balthazar considered urging him to run, but he knew Lucas wouldn’t listen. The glow intensified and the crown of a bowler hat appeared, rising out of the gateway. Lucas waited for the shoulders to emerge, then swung for the fences. He’d been captain of his cricket team in boarding school. Blood fountained. Hat and head, remarkably still conjoined, hurtled into the void.
Balthazar gave a silent cheer, then stumbled back as a jet of necromantic lightning boiled out of the murk. The power was dissipated from passing through the not-water of the gate, but it still knocked him flat. Fingers and toes twitched spasmodically. There was no loss of consciousness this time so he heard all that followed. The death of the second necromancer, the roar of revenants, and Lucas’s high, sharp screams.
