House of Corruption (37 page)

Reynard did not slow. He leapt upon him, gripped the man’s face in his claw and flung him to the ground like a doll. His nails sliced through his throat like butter.

—
What
?

The man twitched, blood seething in steady pumps upon the grass. Reynard’s senses retreated from rain and voices and focused on the bellows of his breathing. He fought not to lick the blood from his fingers.

—
have I done
?

Lobis-homems queimadura no inferno
.

He groaned the sound of the damned. His voice was both man and beast, howling above the rain. When Reynard convinced himself to move again, the Eng Banka did not follow. They kept their distance, crying oaths, while others fell to their knees and renewed their chanting in fell tongues. The dead man drained upon the driveway and they ignored him, adding wood to their fires, focusing their voices again upon the house.

Lasha
.

Reynard ran, leaped onto the porch, hurled himself against the manor’s front door. It held. He slashed with his claws, tearing gouges of wood. The door did not open. His panic became a fury as he raced along the edge of the house to the first window he could find. With a coiled leap he hurled himself up and crashed through in a shower of glass.

A metallic click echoed off to his left. He was on his feet, swiping out, and his paw connected with the cold shaft of a rifle’s muzzle as it discharged in a flash of gunpowder and acrid smoke. He rubbed at his eyes, the spots swirling, but he smelled sweat, heard the ragged breathing. Reynard dropped to all fours and started for him.

—
Kill you
—

Another man darted between them.

“Reynard!”

He stopped.

“To me. Look to me!”

Reynard’s attention focused on a bearded man, an old man, someone who held no gun. Reynard’s rage melted into fear. He crawled up from the dark, inch by painful inch, hoping the man would leave, would get out of the way.

Move, Arté
.

“Renny.”

Move before I tear out your throat
.

Grant edged to retrieve the rifle the creature slapped to the floor, a Remington pump-action stolen from above the mantle of the drawing room. He popped open the chamber, removed the smoldering cartridge, and slid in another. The creature regarded him, took a wet breath, and turned its focus back to Savoy. When it snapped its teeth, drops of blood flecked from its muzzle.

“Reynard,” Savoy said.

Savoy reached out with one hand, trembling, and Grant pumped the rifle’s lever with a resolute
snap
. Savoy thrust out his other hand, motioning for Grant to halt, but Grant lifted the rifle to his shoulder.

“Reynard,” Savoy said.

“Move aside,” Grant hissed.

“Put that rifle down,” Savoy answered back, firm.

Grant’s finger slid onto the trigger.

The creature lifted its claws, to the gore drying upon its fingers. It took a step back, coughed, as it considered the room and the two men, the paintings and statues and rugs, the shards of broken glass scattered across the carpet. Its claws brushed against its muzzle and hair began to fall from its face and arms; first like dandelion seeds, then in great clumps. The creature tore at the hair and pulled it away, slashing and cutting at its own scalp, peeling dead skin from its flesh. It collapsed to the floor as muscles shrank and lost their bulk. Its jaw slid into place with a wet pop, pelvis and shoulder blades cracked as they shifted, tendons stretched like ropes relaxed under strained flesh. Muscles slid into alignment. When his body stopped shivering, a sheath of dead skin encased him like a translucent cocoon, a newborn gasping his first breath of air.

Reynard touched at his own face and mouth with quivering fingers, his eyes adjusting, clearing. He saw Savoy standing over him.

“
Stay away from me!
” he cried.

“Reynard—”

“
I will kill you!
”

Reynard backed up in a panic, knocking over a pedestal and vase, retreating until he pressed himself against the wall. He was naked, filthy with dirt and blood. He clutched his head, his nails scratching at his face. He wanted to cut himself until he could deflate, vaporize into nothing. He did not care the wounds in his chest and stomach were knit closed, consumed by his grief.

“I am damned,” he said.

Savoy took his hand. “Does the Beast claim you?”

“I...I don’t...”

“Does it claim you?”

“They’ll have heard my gunshot,” Grant said.

“Another man is dead!” Reynard wailed.

“Does it claim you?”

“Are you listening to me? I
killed
him!”

“Those poor souls are as much under a thrall as you,” Savoy said, his voice calm. “You cannot expect to conquer the animal in a day. Look at yourself! You were beast and now you are man. I ask again: Does it claim you?”

“I would have killed you both.”

“You did not.”

“I would have.”

“Yet you did not.”

Grant lowered his rifle. Removing his longcoat, regained from the kitchen, he tossed it to Reynard. He helped him to his feet and into the coat. Reynard started to speak, his mouth forming a word, but Grant clasped his shoulder and gave him a reassuring nod.  Nothing more needed to be said.

Savoy, however, showed no restraint. He swept Reynard into his arms and held him tight. A month ago, a week ago, Reynard might have resisted, but now he allowed Savoy to embrace him. Savoy knew his sins, the blood on his hands, and still he held him as tight as any father who regained his prodigal child.

“My sister is alive,” Reynard said as they separated. “They mean to sacrifice her, I think. Kiria is dead. That woman...she killed her. I think she is her mother. That witch is wearing her daughter’s body.”

“Dear God,” Savoy said. “So it has come to this.” He walked to the broken window. Outside, the natives’ voices fought to overwhelm the storm. “We found Wilhem’s laboratory, found his notes. He has his solution.”

“A cure?”

“He has created some kind of serum.”

“Where is he?”

“I do not know.” Savoy saw the anxious look in Reynard’s eyes. “Whatever he has created, he is satisfied his search has come to an end. With her husband’s lycanthropy no longer a threat, Lucinda can now end her own curse. She has summoned every Eng Banka under her command. Poor devils. If Lasha is indeed her sacrifice—”

“I know where they’d take her,” Grant said. “Beneath the house—”

“I know it,” Reynard said.

“There we make our stand,” Savoy said. “Lucinda obeys the Father of Lies—we must not be fooled by her voice. Not again.” He turned to face Grant. “She promises bread, Mister Grant, when there is only a stone. ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”

“I don’t know if I—” Grant whispered.

“You can. We
must
.” Savoy took two shards of slender wood from the broken window frame, wrapped them together with cord from the shredded curtains, and lifted up the makeshift cross. “We each have our tokens,” he said. “This is mine.”

He dipped his hand into his pocket to reveal something discovered in Wilhem’s abandoned laboratory—the scant remains of the silver bullet, a thin slash of bright metal. He gave it to Reynard. “Faith against faith.”

“I believe in nothing,” Reynard said.

“You believe in Lasha.”

37

Every sconce in the grotto beneath the house blazed with fire. Large, misshapen shadows danced against the walls, some cast by those standing beside the black pool, others with no visible source. The air was alive with whispering.

Lasha lay on her back, clad in a white dress, upon the floor beside the black pool. The servants Jeané and Claudette stood on either side, each beside a column of stone, silent. Lucinda knelt before a bowl smoldering with sour herbs, a long-handled mandau set before her knees. She too was clad in white—her old wedding gown, perhaps—her skin translucent against the firelight. Long, black hair hung in untidy strips over her colorless face—

—Kiria’s face.

“
Doh Tenangan
!” she cried. “
Usun lasan urip ulun kam kelunan nini ketai natong tawang
.” Her voice grew loud. “
Doh Tenangan!
”

This she did four times, lifted the sword above her head, and the pungent smoke redoubled from the bowl. Lowering the sword she began to sing, the words akin to those natives upon the front lawn that both demanded and begged unseen forces. Light dimmed, flickered, and shadows fled their places to coalesce between the standing stones.

“Stop!”

From the upper tier stood Reynard—barefoot and wearing Grant’s overcoat, a crowbar locked in his left hand and a pistol stolen from Wilhem’s mantle in his right. Savoy and Grant stood beside him, each with a rifle. They did not hide their dismay as Kiria’s face glared up at them.

Lucinda looked to Jeané, then to Claudette. Jeané ascended one set of stairs while Claudette took the other; Savoy and Grant each slid back the chambers of their rifles and confirmed—for the third time—they were loaded.

“Mistress demands that you leave,” Jeané said.

“None of your business,” Claudette added.

“Please join me in the conservatory.” Jeané motioned toward the exit. “I am happy to provide tea or coffee or whatever else you might—”

“Move aside,” Grant said.

“There is no reason to be rude.”

Grant raised his rifle. Jeané transformed into a horror, all wide mouth and flashing teeth and eyes as if some fell creature writhed beneath his skin. Claudette too became hideous, her face corpse-like as the Lady of Chalmette, both creatures lesser than their mistress yet still burning flashes of gravelight. They lunged at the men with unearthly snarls. Jeané took Grant with an iron grip and tossed him to the floor. Claudette advanced on Reynard. He raised his pistol. She gripped his hand with long fingers and forced his arm down. The pistol fired with a
crack
. She grabbed his shoulder and gnashed at his throat, her mouth filled with sharp teeth.

“
Res sacræ, ritus, communio
,” Savoy cried. He lifted his cross, sweeping it forward. “In the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”

Savoy pressed the cross against Claudette’s neck. She shrieked, rolled off Reynard and scuttled away like a wounded spider. When Jeané lunged, Savoy thrust the cross at him, pressing it against his face until the butler’s expression became a Grecian mask of tragedy. The main shrieked an unearthly sound.

“Depart!” Savoy shouted. “In the name of—!”

“Not His name,” Jeané cried.

“—Christ Almighty, who casts thee down!”

“
Not his name!
”

The servants fled, wailing, up the steps toward the greenhouse. Savoy helped Reynard to his feet and the three men started down toward the pool, the corpses on their slabs on either side gaining form and feature with every descending tier. Lucinda stopped her singing. Kiria’s body and semblance of face hung off her like a badly-stitched costume, awkward, but the voice was all too familiar:

“
Stay away
.”

All three stopped. Her voice crowded their thoughts, plucked at their fears, their needs, those deep places. They fought to remember why they were there, who they were.

“
Mahonri
,” she said.

Grant imagined how the drunken monster slapped Emily down, ignored her screaming, forced his body upon her while his stinking breath smothered her face. He had imagined it a thousand times until his rage, the absolute rage, tightened his heart until he thought he might die. His hands squeezed on the rifle.

He looked at Reynard. A monster—he
was
a monster, a vicious, drunken, bestial monster. Did he not know she was with child? Did he not know she had made a promise to give herself only to her husband, only to him?

“
Do not let them hurt me
.”

Grant swung around and pressed the barrel of his rifle against Reynard’s head. A bullet in the brain would not be enough to atone for such a miserable...

“
Please
.”

Who am I
, Grant thought.
I should’ve seen justice done. But I shot him and watched him bleed
. He lowered the rifle.

“
You are supposed to protect me
.”

Grant lifted the rifle and took aim at Lucinda’s—at Kiria’s—heart. “I can’t listen to you anymore,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to shoot you, but Lasha’s coming with us. I figure we can work something out.”

Lucinda frowned and rose to her feet. She opened the lid of the fourth basket and dipped the mandau’s blade as far as it would go. Removing it, the blade dripping, she flecked blood and gore across the surface of the black pool. With another dip into the basket—filled with the slippery coils of human viscera—she flecked another curtain of blood over the water.

“
Manu bada, doh Tenangan
,” she said. “
Manu ba
!”

An invisible reek vomited from the water like mist, boiling up every tier until it filled the grotto. Reynard felt it sink into his flesh. He knew this feeling. He feared what would happen before—

“Grant!” he cried.

Two dead bodies shifted from their niches. One caught Grant’s leg and pulled hard; he fell and his rifle discharged with an echoing boom. He clobbered the corpse with his boot, a slack-faced native with his throat open to the collarbone. The second clutched his other leg and pulled itself closer, fingers digging. With the butt of the rifle Grant cracked the corpse’s head back with an audible
snap
and the thing loosened its grip.

Every corpse in the crypt began to move.

They rose from their slabs in all stages of decomposition, voiceless. Some rose with dry flesh and muscle, draped with rotting cloth, others mere bone and chalky dust, while others were fresher and stank and dripped fluids as they stood upon their ruined feet like ghastly mannequins. Their attention coalesced on the three men upon the steps.