House of Corruption (33 page)

“And your mother?”

“I thought she was dead, but...” She laughed an angry sound. “He caught her praying to her old gods. There must have been more...I...I found them—” Her body heaved with great, choking gasps, and she turned her face away. “He wanted to break her and he did, he
did
, because he was the animal...hurting her. The animal was my father and not my father—” She buried her face again in her hands. “Oh God!”

Reynard reeled, unable to comprehend such a dreadful scene. He examined his own life, those broken memories of past sins. Was he too capable of such depravity?
It is still you
, Savoy had said.
It is your hair, your blood, your bones. If it is of you, of that which makes you Reynard, then your reason and ethics must also remain
.

Kiria lost her battle, weeping. She leaned into him.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his chest, saying nothing, knowing full well the poison of grief. With his other hand he took hers, her skin soft against his own. As he held her close and felt her relax, her breath slowing against his neck. He inhaled and drew in her scent, opened his entire heart to her, as deeply as anything he had ever known.

He did not know if he loved her—or wanted to tear out her throat. Sometimes he could not tell the difference.

“Thank God you are here,” she whispered.

With a solid kick from Reynard, rusted hinges snapped from their bracings and the gate fell open with a dusty clatter. He led Kiria through, leaned the gate into place as best he could and tossed what bits of broken hinge he found back into the corridor. From their vantage upon the uppermost tier they saw two possible exits: a wooden door to their right, and an archway on the far side where a stair ascended into shadow. Reynard considered the closest corpse, the remains of broken bone and pagan jewelry, and his gaze fell upon the black pool.

Kiria clutched his arm. “Please.”

They found the door unlocked; a stair led upwards. It was a long climb, hundreds of steps, ending at a short corridor with an oil lamp and a large iron ring bolted onto a bracket. Reynard pulled the ring and a portion of the wall slid open. As Kiria passed through, she brushed her hand along the exit as if to confirm it was real.

They emerged into a vast, neglected greenhouse. Assailed by the stink of rotten vegetation, they shielded their eyes against the afternoon light. The greenhouse bulged from the rear of Carlovec Manor with a dome of glass panels, the windows catching the light like the inverted, multifaceted eye of a giant insect. The assorted vines, flowers, potted plants, shrubs and trees were either long dead or had grown wild beyond their boundaries. Vines webbed the glass dome and fingered along tables and chairs. Discarded tools lay rusted or wreathed in cobweb. Then there was the mold: a carpet of green, leprous growths blotting out windows and dripping from tables.

Kiria went to one cluster of rotten husks. “Mother’s
paphiopedilum
collection,” she said, sliding a hand under one soggy leaf. “We left so quickly...”

She descended into memory, and Reynard looked outside. Behind the house, three acres of neglected gardens stopped against a sheer granite cliff that climbed a hundred feet or more. A waterfall cascaded off the cliff and into a lagoon, creating a slender river that wove around hillocks dotted with rusted lawn chairs, past a gazebo, and under a stone bridge through maze-like shrubs. The gardens held the shape and flavor of former decadence but, like the greenhouse, had long since been left fallow.

“Where does the river go?” Reynard asked.

“Beneath the house,” she said. “The river continues underground to join the Kinabatangan. Grandfather built this house right upon it...can you hear?” Reynard listened, and he could indeed hear the faint, dull roar of falling water. “He tapped it for the boilers, fresh water from the tap. Father paid a large sum of money to bring in men from America. They installed a generator for electrics.”

“Impressive.”

Kiria led him out of the greenhouse and into a large kitchen. It was grimy and dusty and unused, the stoves rusted shut, cabinets and shelving draped in cobweb, the counters littered with animal droppings. They continued down a hall to a second kitchen and found it clean, its shelves filled with provisions. They found dried beef and saltine crackers and bottles of preserves, and Kiria twisted the faucet for all the fresh, cold water they could drink. They ate ravenously, trying to be quiet, trying to keep things as they left them.

“Tell me about this house,” he said.

“Father’s laboratory is here, on the ground floor,” she said, “and where he spent most of his time. Drawing room, conservatory, servant’s quarters and main dining room. There are four floors with East and West wings, and many cellars beneath. Second floor contains the guest dining room, master bedroom, smoking room, music room. Guest rooms on the second and third floors, along both wings. Higher up is the ballroom, billiards, more servant’s quarters, observatory.”

“Blazes.”

“This is a big house.”

It was an overwhelming prospect. There was no knowing what, or who, they might find. There could be five or fifty people to contend with while searching for Lasha—even if she was here, even if she was still alive. To the immediate right was another door with a tarnished brass knob. “Where does this lead?” he asked.

“Servants’ stair,” Kiria said, “to the guest dining room.”

“We should avoid an unexpected encounter,” he said, “and it seems this floor is the most likely place to have that happen, and the most unlikely place they would lodge a guest. If Lasha is here, I would deduce her upstairs.”

“Mother told me not to use those stairs.”

“Did you always do what your mother told you?”

“Yes.”

Reynard tried the knob. It turned, soundlessly, and he opened the door to a dusty stairwell of steep, narrow steps. He meant to say something, then took Kiria by the arm and led her inside, closing the door as quickly and as quietly as he could.

“What—?” she started.

He pressed his hand against his mouth. The kitchen door opened. Two people entered, their heels clacking on the tiled flooring; they rummaged through the bottles and cans and containers along the cupboards. Reynard’s muscles tightened at the fear they had left crumbs, a splash of water, something that revealed their presence.

“And this?” a woman asked in English.

“All of them,” said a man with a subtle accent. “The water must be clean and infused with garlic, the rice mingled with thorns.”

Kiria wagged her head. She did not recognize them.

“Does she lie to us?” the woman asked.

“Bite your tongue.”

The man stood just on the other side of the door. Reynard held his breath waiting for the door to fly open, no idea what to do if that happened. He was more concerned with Kiria’s immediate presence, her face so close, his hand having touched her face and lips. He wanted to hold her again.

“We have a right to know,” the woman said.

“I trust the Mistress,” the man said. “She will keep her promise.”

There came the sound of dry goods being scooped from one container and poured into another, and soon both pairs of feet clicked away. A door shut heavily, and still the two in the servants’ stairwell did not move. Reynard and Kiria expelled a nervous breath; he smiled like a cat, and she shook her head at his cozy indifference.

“Shall we?” he whispered.

***

Grant found a narrow ledge surrounding the well water and, with effort, heaved himself up. He pulled Savoy beside him, the two gasping and shivering. The walls were of black stone, slick with mold, the floor at least ten feet below the water’s surface. Savoy praised God they did not break their necks; then he reconsidered it. Perhaps a quick death would have been better.

“If hypothermia does not kill us,” he said, shivering, “then the unhealthy vapors in this terrible place certainly will.”

“You could tell her,” Grant said.

“I doubt she would believe anything I say. If she did, she will kill us just the same.” He tightened his arms across his chest. “At least they gave you breakfast.”

Grant laughed. Savoy looked at him with surprise, then found himself laughing in response. The two laughed deliriously until their voices echoed loudly up the darkness of the shaft. When their laughter finally died, once born of terror and pain, Savoy tried to think of fire and warm blankets.

“She is afraid of him,” he said.

“What?”

“Lucinda. She is afraid of Master Carlovec, yet she loves him. I understand why she went through so much trouble.” He paused. “I have known too many wives whose husbands treat them badly. One of those dirty little secrets: wives who suffer at the hands of so-called gentlemen. Yet these same women would defend their husbands to the death.”

“Doesn’t make any sense.”

“It is a sad fact that passion will make us do all sorts of things,” Savoy said. “Perhaps she is indeed determined to see her husband cured. Perhaps she does this out of love.”

“You believe that?” Grant asked.

“No. Not really.”

They sat a long time, hours perhaps, trying to ignore the fear that time was their enemy, that every minute shivering in the dark meant one minute closer to a dark and lonely death. High above, the lantern’s light flickered and disappeared, filling the well with a deep, moist darkness. Neither said a word. For Savoy this was worse than a werewolf in a chapel, worse than wild men in the dark. Did the prophet Jonah feel such despair, he thought, trapped in impossible darkness, unsure if his Lord would save such a sinner as he?

“Look.”

A vague, grey light illuminated the floor of the well. Without a word Grant slid into the icy water, submerged, and swam to the bottom with a splashy kick. He stayed below only a moment.

“A tunnel,” he said, treading water. “I think this is connected to a drain, some kind of sewer. There is light at the other end.”

“The house was built upon a much older site,” Savoy said. “Who knows how far these ruins extend?” He could indeed see the tunnel entrance, the half-light revealing the outer edges grinning like broken teeth.

“I’ll see where it leads,” Grant said.

“The water is freezing,” Savoy said. “You cannot—”

Grant sucked in a quick breath, dropped below the water’s surface, and pushed himself into the hole.

Grant swam until his lungs clenched. Twenty feet further he decided he had made the stupidest, most rash decision in all his sorry life. Either he would swim to the light, or drown. His hands slithered along the walls, feet flailing as he strained to drag himself along. The tunnel was too small to turn around. With each yard he swirled up a cloud of grit and slime, joined by the last, trailing bubbles from his mouth.

The ceiling of the tunnel opened and, with a solid kick, he broke the waterline. He gasped and coughed and caught his breath. He bobbed in a black, shallow well, a metal grate just high enough to reach. He gripped it, twisting his body. It did not budge. Whatever lay beyond was dark as pitch and soundless, another abandoned chamber in a labyrinthine sprawl beneath the house.

He considered his options.
The light at the end of the tunnel
, he thought with no irony,
or back to our tomb
. He inhaled a deep breath, submerged, and continued down the tunnel.

I brought us to this
.

The way seemed to go on forever, the light no closer, and with each frenzied pull forward his lungs began to burn. Memories emerged of swimming in hot summers, diving deep in the Great Salt Lake, the sting in his eyes, going deeper and deeper until sunlight fell away and he was tempted to open his mouth. He swam harder.

He shot out of the tunnel and into a much larger column of water. For a moment he hung there, suspended, unsure which way was up, but then he saw dull, flickering light above his head. Below him lay bones, pile upon pile of rotten, decomposing remains. Countless skulls stared up in frozen grins, their eyes filled with slime, the water saturated with chalky dust. When he kicked to ascend, a shape detached from the pile—the rotten husk of a man, his fleshy throat wriggling.

Grant scrambled up, horrified, bubbles streaming.

Something locked around his ankle.

He kicked and his leg pulled free. Foul water slipped down his throat. He shot up, crested the waterline into open air and snatched a quick, ragged breath—

Hands pulled him back under the water, clutching at his shoulders and shirt and belt and over his face. They dragged him down. Beneath him, a host of pale bodies ascended with reaching arms and slack faces. Some were mere bones, others scarecrows of rotten flesh and sinew. Their bony fingers pulled at his trousers. Cold, slippery skin brushed against his feet. One pair of hands covered his face, clawed at his eyes.

He yanked from their grasp, kicked hard and swam as hard as he could, clawing at the water, feeling like lead. He found a lip of stone, caught it, and launched from the waterline onto a stone floor—coughing, spitting, retching fluid. He rolled from the water’s edge, scrambling to gain distance.

He lay beside a round pool surrounded by three tall, misshapen columns of stone, its broad surface now as still and black as ink. Around him rose a grotto, vast, rising like a ghastly amphitheatre with tier after tier of countless dead in all directions. Fresh bodies laid upon the closest slabs, native men and women with their throats and shoulders opened up like those back-alley drunks in Chalmette.

He had seen horrible things, but
this
—

The retching came so powerfully he groaned at the spasms, spewing until his lungs and stomach had nothing else to give. He sucked in a desperate breath. Two sets of stairs climbed up between the tiers to end at two exits, a closed door to his right and an open archway to his left. He got to his feet and started toward the arch.

The door to the right unlatched.

He fled to the top of the stairs and slipped through the arch, just as two people entered the grotto. He recognized the butler Jeané in his suit and polish, but now there was a woman in a black dress and white apron and cap. They each carried two wicker baskets down the steps, walking past the dead without a second glance. Grant prayed they did not notice the wet signs of his arrival—but they may not have noticed much of anything, focused on placing the baskets in a crescent along the far side of the pool.