House of Corruption (25 page)

 “You are young. You will understand one day.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I know you better than you know yourself. Stand.”

“No.”

“
Stand up
.”

Lasha closed her eyes as the woman’s voice bled into her ears. She could not help but sit against the edge of the bed, but damn her if she can make her stand!

“
Stand up
.”

To her shame, Lasha’s legs lifted her to her feet.

“What a good girl,” the woman said.

“Go to hell.”

The woman grinned bright teeth. It was only recently that Lasha even had a mind to resist; since Metairie Cemetery she traveled in dreams—by train to Boston, up the gangplank to the
Kalabakang
, through one exotic port after another, day after day strolling the deck and playing cards and drinking tea and speaking with the woman...

The woman.

She had been there from the beginning: whispering, comforting, chatting and giggling as if they were life-long sisters pledged to the most intimate of secrets. They had laughed together, read together, spoke of jungles and pirates and wild peoples living free. Lasha had spoken of her life, her memories, her voice a rushing stream. During her entire journey—train or boat or carriage—she considered this woman her mother, sister, friend, privy to all her secrets yet as mysterious and unreachable as a stranger. She did not understand why she unloaded her thoughts when this woman returned little of herself.

Yet during the last few days the fog dissipated from her mind and she knew, truly understood, that she was awake. She did not like what she saw. The house. Though she had not been allowed outside since entering that vast place, she had a window, she could hear the jungle outside, and the moisture on her face told her she far, farther from home than she ever dared imagine—

I am alone. No one can help me
.

The house.

She feared the sounds in the night. Creeping whispers along the old corridors when no one was there, voices flittering outside her door. Daytime was tolerable but night—

“I will protect you,” the woman said.

She left and Lasha followed, furious, wishing her body would listen. Garbed in their white nightdresses the two women floated down the unlit corridor like ghosts. The hallways of that obscene mansion were always longer than anticipated. The walk to ground level felt like endless wandering through curtained hallways and down countless steps, drapes billowing with unfelt breezes, rooms smelling of velvet, rotten anaglypta and mildew, ticking with the pattering of clocks. Their bare feet padded on dusty carpets.

Around them, lingering, lurking, voices whispered as they went. At first Lasha found herself turning to look, expecting someone beside her. After two days she suspected they were voices inside her own head. In five, she was sure she was mad. She felt those voices seething from beneath the floorboards at night, evaporating with morning, the house saturated with them.

They walked down to the laboratory on the ground floor. To the left, the room served as a sitting room with Savonerie rugs and mahogany furniture and a great, leather couch near the fireplace. On the right, a long metal table lay covered in rolls of gauze, bottles of carbolic acid and ether and chlorine and a dozen other chemicals, empty flasks and rubber tubes, Bunsen burners and vials filled with blood and other liquids, and a handful of steel medical implements in a tray. Beside the table stood a wheeled gurney, fitted with leather straps and brass buckles.

Lasha’s stomach tightened.

Wilhem Carlovec stretched out upon the couch, reading a leather-bound book. He was a tall, gray man, his body a wiry reflection of past youth with short, iron-white hair. He sported both a prominent chin and a sharp, Grecian nose, and he moved with deliberation and focus. His haggard complexion contrasted against his fine silk vest, shirt and cravat that smelled of musky cologne. He shut his book with a slap and stood.

“My dear,” he said.

The woman swept into his arms and kissed him full on the lips. Lasha looked away. If she had not been so disgusted by Master Carlovec’s passion for that horrible woman, she would have been offended by his lack of tact. A look of love, a sweet word, the touch of a hand were appropriate tokens. Their public affections were far from chaste.

“So prompt,” he said, “so prompt. My apologies for waking you, but I have come across the most extraordinary bit of insight. I hope you understand.”

“Please do not cut me again,” Lasha said.

“I know this must be a terrible thing...” His hand swept toward the table. “Had I any other choice I would have taken it. I am nearly there, my child, nearly there, and then this horror will be forgotten.”

“Please.”

The woman gripped Lasha’s arm and pulled her to the table, squeezing, her free hand unwrapping the bandages to expose a raw, blotched wrist. Lasha jerked back. The woman forced her arm above a metal bowl, twisting, until Lasha cried out.

“Please hold still,” Wilhem said.

“Don’t cut me again,” Lasha said. She squirmed. “You shall burn in hell next to this horrible creature...you miserable, filthy old man!”

The woman slapped her across the face.

“Lucinda,” Wilhem said. “Your temper.”

“Why do you allow her to say such things?”

“Do you blame her?”

Lucinda drew the nail of her index finger across Lasha’s wrist. Flesh split, blood erupted and, with a squeeze, the fluid dribbled into the bowl. Tears poured off Lasha’s cheeks, her pain replaced by the sickening cold like poison under her skin. They would squeeze her, then force sour wine down her throat and send her back to her room with nightmares that raped her dreams.

“It hurts,” she said.

“It is for the best,” Wilhem said. “I promise.”

MALEFICUS

“
Whoever fights monsters should see to it he

does not become a monster …

if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

the abyss will gaze back into you.”

-
Friedrich Nietzsche

26

Sandakan, British North Borneo

December 1889

As soon as the steam-fueled clipper
Tatakan Ruy
nestled against the dock, workhands tied it into place. Ramps fell. Retainers began their ant-like precision unloading cargo, swarming to tasks, blending into the heartbeat of the wharf.

Sandakan stretched along the shoreline with tin-shingled houses and tenements belching smoke, punctuated with warehouses and mills and canneries where the spoils of harvest were processed for export. Muddy roads dissected most of the city into misassembled blocks. Further east, the city ended and jungle stretched along the coast over a line of rolling, primal mountains. Though much smaller than Singapore, Sandakan retained the air of British rule; Her Majesty’s flag caught the breeze above the wharf and declared confidently that yes, Victoria’s Own were in charge. 

Reynard inhaled the thick air as he stood on the forward deck. Borneo beaded on his skin, stinking of rotten vegetation and brine. He did not care for it. The heat and humidity made him perpetually moist in all the wrong places.

He had both longed for, and dreaded, this day. The four had reunited in Rome where they secured a sailing ship through the Suez to India, around Siam to Singapore and finally to Sandakan. It was a long voyage. At first Reynard spent much of the time avoiding the others, keeping to himself, wallowing in the memories of recent events. He did not look Grant in the eye for over two weeks, though nothing had been said, nothing confirmed. Denial and time served their purpose, easing his conscience, with each passing day. He grew more animated, more social. He spent more time with Savoy, the two meeting daily for bridge or gin or chess. Artémius always tried to draw him out during their games, but Reynard proved unwilling.

Why
, he thought,
should I revisit ancient history?
 

Kiria emerged from a stairwell. A porter followed close behind, his arms weighed down with her luggage. She was garbed in her white dress and hat and parasol, and the climate agreed with her—the sun highlighted the olive in her skin and drew a healthy blush in her cheeks. The curls of her black hair had been pulled back to reveal a long and ruddy neck after many afternoons gazing over the sea. She was not a woman to seclude herself indoors. She had spent much of their journey keeping to herself or—when she did associate with them—keeping with the group, never allowing herself to be alone.

At least, Reynard noted, when he was around.

Many times he had tried to talk to her, to explain himself, to learn exactly what she had seen in Marseille. It was no use. She spoke to him only in the most formal of terms. She did not mention their argument, the horrific sights aboard the
Kalabakang
. Nothing had been said about
anything
, but he knew. He knew how she would avoid his gaze, how her scent changed when he was nearby.

“Miss Carlovec,” Reynard said, nodding a greeting.

“It is good to be home,” she replied.

She continued down the gangplank. Reynard followed her, hating the heaviness of his heart; Savoy and Grant soon joined them on the dock, trailed by the porter who pulled a cart with their immediate belongings. She led them from the water to Pryer Street, a rutted and muddy road that curled along the shore. Horse and wagon traffic flowed in both directions. At her suggestion they waited for a prearranged transport, and the longer they waited the more they were conspicuous strangers amid coffee-and-cream faces.

“I thought this was a British colony,” Reynard said.

“The North Borneo Company is in control,” Kiria said. “The Great Financial Experiment. We export a good deal from here alone, so by and by it has proven profitable. Father’s fortune is in tobacco.” She looked at Savoy. “His
Colonial Fields
is quite popular.”