‘Probably?’
‘You probably won’t die either.’ If she recalled that Konrad had died twice already in the past year, she wisely kept those reflections to herself.
‘I will be ready at seven,’ said Alexander firmly, and Konrad capitulated.
‘I’ll be along,’ said Tasha, and patted his hand just as Nanda had done. Somehow she managed to turn a comforting and only mildly satirical gesture into pure mockery. ‘I won’t let those nasty necromancers eat the inspector.’
‘Thanks,’ said Konrad.
‘You’re welcome.’
You have us, Master, said Ootapi and Eetapi together. He had not known they were near; the sudden intrusion of their icy, discordant voices into his already roiling thoughts made him jump.
Tasha grinned.
‘Anyway,’ said Konrad, taking a chair with what he hoped was casual insouciance. ‘Have you found out anything about the family?’
‘Oh — yes, actually, a few things.’ Alexander began riffling through the stacks of newspapers, notebooks and folders on his desk, disordering them further. He extracted a newspaper and waved it at Konrad. ‘I found a death notice for Zoran Vasilescu, father of Olya, Alina and Ela. He died quite young, nearly ten years ago. The house passed to the eldest daughter, Ela, though without much money to go with it. I haven’t found any clues as to where the family fortune went, yet.’
‘Considering the state of the house, I’d say they spent it long before Zoran died,’ said Konrad. ‘The house has not received much maintenance in many years. It has the dilapidation belonging to a property uninhabited for at least a few decades, not a mere ten years.’
‘Very true,’ murmured Alexander, and scrawled a note for himself. ‘I’ll look further back. I found an advertisement offering the house for sale. It was posted only a few months after Zoran’s death.’
‘Who bought it?’ Konrad asked.
‘That I do not yet know. I have sent a couple of men out to Divoro to talk to the locals, on that and other points. A prominent family like that attracts notice, there must be a lot of gossip circulating about them.’
‘I am curious about Ela,’ said Nanda. ‘She sold the house at the first opportunity, and then vanished? Where is she?’
‘If I had family like that, I, too, would run far, far away,’ said Alexander.
‘Well, yes,’ said Nanda with a small smile. ‘It is not to be wondered at. Still, her absolute disappearance and subsequent silence seem odd. Even Alina did not so irrevocably cut ties, and she was disowned.’
‘Perhaps she followed her younger sister’s example and left Assevan altogether,’ Konrad suggested. But he was disturbed by her mention of Alina, the youngest sister, whom Olya had killed. Had she murdered her elder sister as well? Perhaps in hope of being the next to inherit the house — only to find that Ela had already sold it.
‘Perhaps,’ said Nanda, and he saw the same disquiet on her face.
Chapter Five
At seven o’clock the following morning, Bakar House was unusually bustling. Dawn was some time away, and the night’s frosts had yet to clear from the windows. Nonetheless, Konrad himself was awake, fed and dressed, choosing his stout wilderness layers instead of his city attire. Nanda and Alexander stood together in the hall, both shrouded in similarly thick, snow-proof articles of clothing. Tasha eschewed such practicality in favour of her usual dark coat and cap, though being undead Konrad supposed her relationship with the cold did not much resemble his.
Diana Valentina stood impassively in a corner. She had brought her own spirit familiar, an arctic fox, whose incorporeal form Konrad could dimly perceive hobnobbing with his serpents. Much sibilant hissing and muttering was underway, though Konrad could not decide whether the sounds denoted friendly or hostile relations between the three of them. Two further members of the Order had come with Diana: a man whose iron-grey hair proclaimed his age to be ten or fifteen years in excess of Konrad’s own, with a bristling beard and a steely-eyed glare to rival Nanda’s; and a woman about Nanda’s age, unassuming in appearance, her brown hair neatly bound and her thin frame swathed in a plain, dark blue cloak. These were Lev Antonov and Anichka Zima, two of the Order’s best necromancers. Konrad had no idea what their duties to the Order consisted of, and was in no way disposed to ask; but their presence on this unwelcome expedition was a boon and he was grateful.
The numbers gathered looked promising, when collected into the relatively confined space that made up Konrad’s front hall. Nonetheless, he eyed them with misgivings. They did not know how many they would face at Divoro; would these several people be enough?
No way of knowing.
Two coaches waited outside the house: his own, which was designated to carry himself, Nanda, Alexander and Tasha, and a handsome equipage belonging to the Order, which would convey Diana, Lev and Anichka. Konrad took Nanda’s arm and escorted her to his carriage, seating her beside him. When the vehicle rolled into motion only a few minutes past the seventh hour, he watched the familiar contours of Bakar House fade into the night with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the coven at Divoro had to be disposed of. Even a moment’s reflection upon their various misdeeds brought a burning anger to his heart; not the least of which was the ruthless killing of Nanda’s friends, and the encouragement they had given to the depredations of Denis Druganin. They had earned a vicious retribution, and he would be delighted to visit a world of pain upon them.
On the other hand, nothing short of such strong inducements could have persuaded him to go back to Divoro. Especially not with Nanda along.
A few short hours — too short — brought them to the gates of the doomed house. Konrad watched the dark shapes of its towers draw nearer and nearer with a growing sense of foreboding. A feeling of dread uncurled in his stomach and his heart quickened its pace.
He spoke sternly to himself. How foolish he was being. Just because horrors had occurred in that house, and recently too, did not mean anything of a similar character was guaranteed to occur again. No doubt everything would be—
‘Curse it,’ said Tasha. She was staring out of the carriage window.
Konrad sat up, his heart pounding. ‘What? What is it?’
She did not reply. The moment the coach came to a stop outside the house’s gates, she threw open the door and jumped down into the blanketing snow. A gust of chill, snowy wind blew through the gaping door.
Konrad exchanged a dark look with Nanda, then darted after Tasha.
The gates of Eino’s cursed mansion had always struck Konrad as especially handsome. Wrought iron, twice as tall as Konrad and ornate in design, they offered an elegant first impression which perfectly augured the grandeur to come.
Today, they’d received an augmentation. Two men hung from the intricate, coiled iron, one to each gate. Their purple faces and bulging eyes heralded the manner of their deaths: they had been strangled. As a further indignity, they had been stripped naked and haphazardly mutilated. Their dead, marble-white flesh gaped here and there with red, glistening wounds.
Behind Konrad, Alexander choked.
‘Your men, I assume?’ Konrad said.
‘Pyotr and Yevgeni.’
Konrad stood immobile, frozen with indecision. What to do? Ordinarily, his duty would be clear. He would task his serpents with gathering whatever tattered shreds of the two men’s departing spirits they could find; these he would interrogate for information. After that, he’d take the usual bones from each and set about finding their killers, with the usual result.
But these were Alexander’s men — his friends, perhaps — and he was standing three inches away from Konrad’s elbow.
Diana came up and stood a moment in thoughtful silence, taking in the sight of the two strung-up bodies. Whatever her thoughts were, she did not share them.
‘Are you going to do it?’ she said at last.
‘No.’
‘Lev and Anichka will talk to them. Come back for the bones.’
He tipped his
hat to her, too relieved at not having to question the traumatised ghosts of Nuritov’s friends to mind the order which followed.
He collected Nanda, but she was not disposed to be ushered past the slain policemen just yet. Instead, to Konrad’s surprise and mild horror, she reached out both hands — her gloves removed, despite the numbing chill to the air — and pressed her fingers to the dead flesh of each corpse. She stood motionless for a full minute, her eyes closed, face grimly composed. Konrad watched as a tremor ran through her, and she coughed.
When she opened her eyes, he detected a sheen of suppressed tears there, but otherwise she was calm. ‘I can sometimes glean a glimpse of their last thoughts, if they are not long dead,’ she said in answer to Konrad’s unspoken question. ‘I do not like to do it, as I am sure you can imagine.’ She withdrew her hands from the bodies and drew on her gloves. ‘Their tongues are cut out,’ she said.
‘We’ll use Martita, then,’ said Diana, unruffled. Konrad sensed a flicker of wild joy from the little arctic fox as her mistress spoke her name, and she rushed to coil herself about the dangling feet of the nearest corpse.
Konrad was both relieved and horrified to learn that a bloodthirsty joy in death was not quite unique to his serpents. He could not decide which feeling was predominant.
‘They died in the caverns,’ Nanda added. ‘The wounds were inflicted prior to death, not after. Their bodies must have been moved out here later, for our benefit.’ With these words she unlatched the gate, pushed it open and sailed through it, her chin high, no signs of distress about her save, perhaps, for a slightly greater pallor than usual.
Konrad followed.
Nanda’s dauntless stride carried her to the enormous, heavy front doors in no time, despite the depth of the snow crunching underfoot. But there she stopped, for the doors were not only closed but soundly locked.
Nanda demonstrated this fact beyond all doubt by thumping a hand against the thick, carved wood, and then kicking it for good measure. ‘Konrad?’ she said crisply.
‘Ah… yes?’
‘Could you…?’ said Nanda, and wiggled her fingers in the direction of the wrought iron lock.
An unwelcome, and increasingly familiar, sensation of nausea gripped Konrad’s unhappy stomach, and he swallowed. ‘Um, do we not have a key?’
‘We do not need a key, not with your magic fingers to hand.’
Konrad stared down at the fingers in question, his mouth set in a hard line. He ought, he knew, to have confided in Nanda sooner. If he had, he would not be obliged to humiliate himself right here, in this moment of tension, in front of Alexander and Tasha and three prominent members of his Order. Could he bluff his way out of it somehow?
He had hesitated too long. Nanda was growing impatient; her brows had gone up, and she stared at him. ‘It is rather cold,’ she pointed out, as though he might not have noticed the bone-deep chill for himself.
Konrad sighed, removed the glove from his right hand, and touched his fingertips to the lock.
What ought to have happened: the encouraging creak and groan of ancient tumblers rolling back as the lock opened in response to Konrad’s “magic” fingers.
What actually happened: Nothing. Nothing at all.
Konrad silently replaced his glove.
Nanda stared. ‘How long…?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘You didn’t say anything?’
‘I didn’t even want to think about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it petrifies me.’ These words emerged testily, harshly, and he sighed. It was not Nanda’s fault, he ought not to bite at her. ‘Would it not you?’ he said in a softer tone.
Nanda just nodded, slowly, her eyes thoughtful.
It was the first time in Konrad’s years as the Malykant that any part of his Malykt-given powers had failed him. Never before had he reached for any ability only to find it gone, unresponsive. Now, the repeated failure of this trick. Though it was among the simplest of his skills, and not absolutely vital to the performance of his duties — locks might be opened by other means, after all — it raised unpleasant prospects for the future. If this power could fail, then… then any of them could.
And then there was the little matter of why it was failing. Konrad could not guess at a reason: he only knew that there could be no good one.
‘Right,’ said Nanda, and gripped Konrad’s hand briefly. He appreciated that little, swift gesture of comfort, and returned the pressure of her fingers before she withdrew her hand. ‘Anybody with a key?’ she called, turning back to the group of people waiting in the courtyard.
Diana’s eyes fastened at once upon Konrad, her look searching. She, of course, knew full well that he ought not to need one.
He returned her questioning stare with a bland smile, and looked away. He would have to deal with Diana later.
When nobody spoke, Tasha rolled her eyes and marched up to the door. She shook a sleeve, and something metallic fell into the palm of her hand. She went to work on the lock without a word.
‘I observe there is no end to Tasha’s questionable talents,’ Konrad said to Alexander, who had come up to stand with him.
‘She is useful to have around,’ he agreed. He waited a moment in silence, giving Konrad room to talk. Ever perceptive, he’d have noticed the odd series of reactions to the mundane problem of a locked door.
Konrad toyed, briefly, with the idea of confiding in the inspector. But he could not force the words to his lips. Was this what friendship was? Making a display of one’s weaknesses, darknesses and failures, and hoping to be loved anyway? He was not equal to it.
The silence stretched.
‘Good,’ said Tasha, as the door swung ponderously open with an unpromising squeal of its hinges. She disappeared inside, and Konrad hurried to push past Nanda and Alexander. He would not choose to send them in ahead of him. Anything could be awaiting them inside, all of it dangerous.
But when he stepped into the darkened hall, he found it echoingly empty. No coven waited in the shadows, and — to his relief — no more corpses decorated the interior. The great chamber was unchanged from his previous visit, save for the hollow, still quality so quickly developed by an unoccupied house.
Serpents, he called. Survey the house, please. If there is another soul here, living or dead, I must know of it at once.
Master, said the snakes together, and streamed silently away, Eetapi into the east wing and Ootapi to the west.
Tasha had already disappeared. Konrad hoped she, too, had gone to search the apparently deserted house, and had not already fallen victim to some fiendish trap.
He pushed the thought aside.
Konrad kept everyone standing in the hall until the snakes returned — and Martita, who joined the hunt with enthusiasm. Empty, hissed Eetapi, a cold wind brushing his ear.
Not a soul left alive, Ootapi added.
Konrad felt a flicker of alarm. Left alive? Have others been slain?
No, said the serpents together, identically mournful.
‘Alexander,’ Konrad said aloud. ‘Did you happen to discover who now owns this house?’
The inspector shook his head. ‘If Eino left a will, I have yet to hear of it.’
‘What if he had no will?’
‘Then… the house must go to his nearest living relative. If he had no children, and there is as yet no reason to imagine that he did, then — then with his mother being dead, and his cousin Druganin…’ Alexander frowned. ‘There is no sign that he had any siblings either, or any other cousins.’
‘Is his father still alive?’
‘A good question.’
Denis Druganin’s mother, Olya, would be after the house. That much Konrad could guess. It had been she, and her repulsive son, who had pressured Eino into purchasing the house from its former owner in the first place — apparently because he alone among their diminished family had the means to meet what must have been a steep asking price. Eino’s acquisition brought
the house back into the ownership of the family, rather than some wholly unconnected person. But Eino and his mother had been disowned and reviled. She would want to have the place secure in her own hands, and now that Eino was dead — had his death been part of the plan all along? — what next? How would Olya Vasilescu now ensure that she became the next heir?
‘Eino’s father died years ago,’ said Nanda.
‘If Ela, the eldest sister, had any children,’ put in Konrad, ‘they are not recorded on the family tree. Nor is any marriage of hers.’
‘In that case,’ mused Alexander, ‘who would qualify as Eino’s nearest living relative? Olya or Ela?’
‘All other things being equal, the law usually favours the elder party,’ said Nanda.
‘So Ela inherits the house.’ Konrad thought about that. ‘She could not wait to rid herself of it in the first place.’
‘I imagine it would not please,’ Nanda said.
Diana approached, and with a sharp look at Konrad, said: ‘I would not wish to remain here beyond today, so I trust we have a plan?’
‘Since the house is deserted,’ said Konrad, ‘we must go below. We have already discovered a way into the cellars — or caves, in fact — that lie beneath the surface. We must begin again there, and this time explore much farther. Tasha, the serpents and Martita will, I hope, guide our steps.’
Diana accepted this with a nod, though her eyes were troubled. ‘They wait for us down there like cats at mouseholes and you want to just… walk in?’
‘What else can we do?’ Konrad had turned that question over and over in his mind all the way to Divoro, and had come up with no better plan. Yes, they were stepping into an obvious trap, but he could see no other way to proceed. They would have to spring the trap, and hope that their disparate skills would be sufficient to win through.
‘Very well,’ said Diana, apparently as devoid of cleverer notions as he. The fact that she did not like it was clearly written across her usually serene face.
Well, he did not like it either. He liked very little about his daily obligations, as it happened. When had that ever mattered?
Death's Avenger- The Malykant Mysteries, Volume 2 Page 36
