Iron and Blood (19 page)

Drostan gave him the kind of easy smile that he used on suspects in the interrogation room. “Something like that.” He grew serious. “I don’t imagine Eli gets a lot of visitors way out here.”

Haverton’s expression made it clear that he doubted Drostan was telling the whole truth, but he relented with a sigh. “No, he doesn’t. Most of our residents don’t. Families are just as glad to have these folks out of their hands and beyond the gossip of the neighbors. We’re the antechamber to the Great Beyond. But you knew that.”

Drostan fell into step beside Haverton as they walked down the long, tiled corridor. A guard walked several steps behind them. As they walked, Drostan looked around him. Walls, windows, and floors were pristine, but in the distance, Drostan could hear the moans and chattering of men whose minds had failed them, and as they walked down the hallway, hollow-eyed ghosts watched them pass with reproach. Dix Mountain was a far cry from the cramped, squalid dungeons where madmen had been kept in years gone by, but it was still drenched in tears and tragedy, its residents written out of the world long before their deaths.

“I don’t remember quite so many guards around, the last time I visited.” Drostan had counted two armed men on the front steps and two more in the lobby; and in the corridor, burly orderlies or uniformed guards were stationed at regular intervals.

Haverton shrugged. “Blame it on the full moon, or the way the planets align. Our patients have been restless, and we need to keep them from hurting themselves.”

Or someone else,
Drostan thought, eying the muscular guards. “I see you’ve built some new buildings,” he said.

Haverton brightened. “Ah, yes. Dr. Hutchinson, our administrator, is quite energetic. There have been improvements to the grounds, and we’ve added a women’s wing and expanded the kitchens. It’s regrettable that the area has so many who need to be confined here, but at least they’re entrusting the unfortunate folk to us instead of chaining them up in the attic or letting them wander the streets.”

Better than those choices, but not something any decent person would wish upon another,
Drostan thought. Even after death, these souls seemed to have nowhere else to go, unwanted by Heaven or Hell.

“Here’s Mr. Carmody’s room,” Haverton said. “He’s been quiet lately, and I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble, but I’ll post a guard at the door in case you need anything.” Haverton took a key from a pocket of his vest and unlocked the door. “Please don’t upset him,” he said with a stern glance. “It’s inconvenient for everyone when patients become unruly.”

“I’ll do my best not to,” Drostan said with a smile he hoped looked sincere.

“We’ve had some success with his medication. Sometimes, he’s quite lucid, though lost in the past. He believes he’s still on the force, and we let him believe that, most of the time. Relate to him like that, and you might get somewhere. Try to force him into the here and now and… you’ll get nowhere.”

Haverton bustled back toward his office while the guard stood to one side with an expression of complete disinterest. Drostan drew a deep breath, steeled himself, and knocked on the door.

“Eli? It’s Drostan.”

He heard shuffling on the other side of the door, and then the doorknob turned. The guard looked as if he were on alert should the patient make a break for the hallway, but when the door swung open, it revealed a frail old man in a dressing gown and worn, threadbare slippers.

“Drostan?” Eli Carmody croaked. “You can’t be Drostan Fletcher. He’s younger than you are.”

Drostan chuckled. “Time passes for all of us, Eli. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Carmody scowled. “Well come in, why don’t you? I don’t have all day. No one told me you were coming. Damn that secretary of mine.” He gestured for Drostan to enter, and then shut the door with a bang.

Carmody’s narrow room had a cot, a window, and a small writing desk with a chair. Papers were strewn about, and it looked as if someone had given Carmody a worn-out satchel, because it sat on one side of his desk stuffed with more papers. Carmody sat down, moved the papers from one side of the desk to the other, and glowered at Drostan.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your beat?” he growled.

It was so like the Eli Carmody of old that Drostan’s heart lurched. Captain Eli Carmody, New Pittsburgh Police, had been a force to reckon with in his prime. Drostan had been proud to serve under him, grateful as a new immigrant for the opportunity Carmody gave him despite Drostan’s dismissal from the Scottish police. The mannerisms were pure Carmody, but a look in his eyes told Drostan that his old commander was not completely himself.

“Came in to make a report, sir,” Drostan replied, falling into the old routine, hoping that wherever Carmody’s mind strayed, he might tap into the memories he needed to learn more about the riverside killer, and maybe, about who killed Thomas Desmet.

“Well, get to it,” Carmody snapped. “I’ve got things to do.”

Drostan stood at parade rest in front of Carmody’s desk, and tried not to see the withered old man in the hospital gown. “Got a bad one, sir,” Drostan said, framing his words carefully. “Over in Allegheny.”

“Allegheny? That’s not your beat.”

“No, sir. Got called in because they needed all hands. Another knife murder. Real nasty piece of work. The boys and I were wondering—do you think it could be like before?”

Carmody’s eyes flashed. “You mean Tumblety? Good lord, I hope not.” Francis Tumblety, snake-oil salesman, self-proclaimed physician, and suspect in the Ripper killings, had come through New Pittsburgh on Carmody’s watch. There’d been a string of unexplained murders. Carmody had never been able to convict Tumblety, but he had never forgotten, or forgiven.

“You remember that case much better than I do, sir,” Drostan said, hoping to spark Carmody’s memories. “I was hoping you could help me put the pieces together.”

For just a moment, Drostan saw the keen intellect in Carmody’s eyes that had made him the most successful detective on the New Pittsburgh squad. “Lay it out for me, Fletcher, and let’s see where the pieces fall.”

Carmody listened intently as Drostan recounted the details of the killing on the river bank, omitting only the fact that the eyewitness testimony came from ghosts. “Doesn’t sound like the Ripper,” he said when Drostan had finished. “Sounds to me like what the new men are saying. About the shadow-killers.”

“What new men?”

Carmody’s eyes had lost the flinty look of a few moments ago. “Miners,” he said. “Miners Forty-Niners. Got a whole batch of them, Poles and Slavs and Hungarians, locked up like loons—the ones who didn’t die.” He started to hum ‘My Darling Clementine’.

“What about the shadow-killers?” Drostan asked.

“
In a cavern, in a coal mine, digging Vesta Number Nine, died the miners, ninety-niners when the shadows took their minds.
”

“Eli, help me,” Drostan begged, but he could see his old friend struggling against the madness that gripped him.

“
They were bleeding, they were dying, down in Vesta Number Nine, when the
gessyan
killed the witches and the shadows took their minds.
”

“Eli, what are
gessyan
? I don’t understand.”

Reason had faded from Carmody’s eyes, and his voice was a raspy sing-song. “
Dug to Hades, found the demons down in Vesta Number Nine, now they’re hungry, red and bloody and the shadows took their minds.
”

For a few seconds, something close to sanity came back to Carmody’s eyes. “Run,” he said. “Before the
gessyan
get you.”

Madness closed in again. “What the hell are you doing here!” Carmody raged, standing up so suddenly he overturned the table, sending papers flying. “Get back on your beat! Get back to the street and do your job! People are dying! You’ve got to stop the
gessyan
. They’ve gotten loose and you’ve got to stop them, stop them, stop them…”

He launched himself at Drostan, fists flying. Drostan held up both arms in front of his face to defend himself, knowing that he outweighed Carmody and was decades younger. Madness animated Carmody’s frail body far past its normal strength, raining down blow after blow until the guard opened the door and two orderlies hustled in, wrestling Carmody off of Drostan and hauling him back, toward the bed.

“There’ll be blood! Mark my words, there’ll be blood, rivers of blood!” Carmody shouted, as Drostan got to his feet. And yet, despite the rage that had his old captain red in the face, spittle flecking his lips, there was a disturbing flicker of sanity in Carmody’s eyes that made Drostan shiver with a cold that went to his bones.

He knows something, and he’s trying to tell me, trying to get past the madness. But what’s sane in what he’s saying, and what’s not?

The guard hustled Drostan out of the room as the orderlies restrained Carmody. “They’ll make sure he’s taken care of well, won’t they?” Drostan asked as the guard closed the door behind him.

“He was doing much better before you got him stirred up,” the guard said, hustling Drostan down the corridor.

“I’d heard a rumor that you’ve had several coal miners come in lately,” Drostan said as they strode back toward the foyer.

The guard eyed him. “You want to get them all worked up, too?”

Drostan reached into a pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. Information was more valuable than the groceries he was going to buy, and he figured his friends would not let him starve. He passed the twenty to the guard. “Miners. New patients. What have you heard?”

The guard slowed his pace, and looked around to make sure no one was nearby. Drostan did the same, seeing no one but the ghosts that lined the hallway. “Got in ten guys from the Vesta mine, bunch of Polacks and Hunkies, you know?” the guard said. “Forgot most of the English they knew, if they ever knew it, raving in whatever-the-hell they speak over there, but one of the nurses caught a few words here and there. Goin’ on about shadows and demons and monsters. Nonsense.”

“How is it they all came in at once?”

The guard looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “What, you don’t read the newspaper? Buncha miners died down in the deep shafts, musta been the blackdamp that took them.” He shrugged. “It happens.” Then the guard paused, frowning. “Only—”

“What?”

Again, the guard looked from side to side, and his voice fell to a whisper. “Usually, when they open up a shaft after there’s blackdamp—bad air—they find the bodies. This time I hear they only found
pieces
, and not enough pieces at that.”

They reached the foyer, and the guard opened the door. His expression hardened as the secretary looked up. “Probably good if you don’t come back for a while,” he said loudly for her benefit. “Let the old guy cool off.”

Drostan nodded his goodbye to the receptionist and hurried down the steps, deep in thought as he headed for the end of the carriageway. He hoped the wagon driver would show up to take him back to the trolley.

“Have you talked to the witch?”

The voice made Drostan stop dead in his tracks. He looked around, but he saw no one nearby. Then the air shimmered, and he could make out the gray form of a stooped old lady, clad in a hospital gown with a scarf tied over her head like a babushka. “What did you say?” Drostan whispered, afraid someone might overhear.

Have you talked to the witch?
This time, he heard the voice only in his mind.

Witch?

The old woman cursed in Polish. He caught only a few words of it, enough to know she had insulted both his hearing and his intelligence.
You want to know what killed those men? Ask the witch.

I don’t know any witches.

More cursing.
The witch of Pulawski Way
.
Tell him Irena Sokolowski sent you to him.

What’s his name? Who is he?

She looked at him as if he were stupid.
They call him the
czarodziej
. Ask. You’ll find him.

And with that, the old woman’s ghost faded from his sight.

“Hey bub! You want a ride or not?” The wagon driver looked at him impatiently, and Drostan hurried toward the end of the driveway.

“You always stare into space like that?” the driver asked as Drostan climbed into the wagon. He shook his head. “Do that too much in a place like this, they don’t let you leave.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Drostan replied distractedly. He glanced at the driver. “Did you hear anything about problems at the Vesta mine?”

The driver gave a harsh laugh. “Which one? There’re nine of them.”

“Vesta Nine.”

He shrugged. “Always problems with mines. That’s why I won’t have nothin’ to do with them. My granddaddy and my daddy were miners, but I ran off when I was old enough and started working on the docks. Done all right for myself.” He eyed Drostan. “Why?”

Drostan looked away. “Heard some men died. Wondered what happened.”

“Men die in mines. If the blackdamp don’t get you, the firedamp will, either suffocate you or blow you to bits,” he said. “And that’s if you don’t get crushed or trampled or skin yourself up and get blood poison.” He shook his head. “Bad places. Worse lately.”

“Oh?”

Another shrug. “The
babas
say it’s because the mines go too deep. Vesta Nine is the deepest of all their mines. The
babas
say the miners are disturbing things that shouldn’t be woken.” He gave a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Women. You know how they talk nonsense.”

“Yeah,” Drostan said. “Nonsense.” He was quiet for a moment. “You ever hear the word
gessyan
?”

The wagon driver’s face shut down. “I ain’t got no more to say,” he snapped. “And if you come back this way, I’m not your man. Keep your nose outta things ain’t your concern.”

Spooked him good,
Drostan thought.
That’s all right. He might not want to tell me, but I think I know someone who will.

T
HE WAGON MASTER
said nothing more the rest of the way to the station. Drostan rode the trolley back to New Pittsburgh deep in thought. The platform was nearly empty when he arrived, and he walked another two blocks to the dispatcher’s station, stopping to pick up a bucket of beer on the way.