Riot Most Uncouth (29 page)

Angus paced up and down the hallway and decided the scent was strongest right by Knifing's door, so we searched the room again. We tugged on the floorboards, tapped on the walls, and moved the furniture around. There wasn't anything in there. We stepped back into the hallway and locked the door again.

“The smell is stronger in the hallway than it is in the room,” the constable said.

I turned slightly, and regarded the door opposite Knifing's; room number 5. According to the paper I'd copied from the innkeeper's ledger, the occupant was one Colin Underhill. The name meant nothing to me.

Angus turned his key in the lock and pressed the door slightly open. I hadn't been able to smell it before, but I was buffeted now by a thick, meaty, rotten stink; the sheer power of it made both of us take a step backward.

“We should flee from this place,” Angus whispered. “We should send for soldiers, or a magistrate.”

“If we leave, whatever is in there may be gone by the time help arrives,” I said. “We must summon the fortitude to investigate now.”

Angus let out a soft, strained laugh. “I will say, in this situation, I am deeply sorry that we are not accompanied by your Professor.”

“He'd never be so foolish as to step into that room.”

“Remind me, then, why we act with less wisdom than a dumb beast.”

“I'm a foolish drunk, and you're foolishly honorable.”

“That's true, I suppose. So, our path is set.”

Angus pressed on the door. Its hinges groaned in protest, and we lost any hope of surprising any enemies lurking inside the room. I peered through the opening, but saw nothing stirring. Indeed, I saw nothing at all; though it was a bright morning, the room's occupant had drawn heavy curtains over the room's one small window, and the dim light from the lamps mounted on the walls of the interior hallway didn't penetrate far past the doorway. Only a sliver of sun cut through the space between the curtains, giving us barely enough illumination to discern the outlines of the room's furniture; a chair, a low cot, and a large chest or wardrobe against the back wall, by the window. From the corner of the room farthest from both the door and the window, there was a strange sound; a discordant, toneless hum like the sound of a dozen violins playing out of tune and out of time, and muffled beneath a feather bed. In the darkness, I could not identify the source.

“What is that sound?” I asked.

“I've heard it once before; the day I found my wife and daughter in the woods. It's flies.”

“But to make such noise, there must thousands.”

A single tear rolled down Angus's rough cheek. “If we're going to undertake this plan, let's stop discussing it, and rise to action,” he said. He unslung his musket and kicked the door all the way open. Leading with his gun, he barreled toward the room's darkest corner, where the awful noise originated.

I cleared the distance to the window in four strides and drew open the curtain, flooding the room with daylight. Angus was pointing the musket at a large wooden bathing-tub. It stank like Hell's breath, and insects crawled all over it, and across the puckered, congealed surface of the viscous liquid that filled it.

Angus turned toward me. “Here is all the blood he took,” he said. “Oh my God, there is so much blood.”

And then a figure rose from the bathtub; a tall, lanky man-shape, slick with gore. And as he rose, the putrid blood slopped over the edges of the foul vessel and poured onto the floor. The flies rose up in a black cloud, surrounding the monster and swarming outward, away from his movement. As they took to the air, their muffled buzzing turned into the high-pitched whine of ten thousand pairs of tiny wings beating in unison.

I shouted a warning to Angus, but he was too slow on his feet, and the bloody creature grabbed hold of the musket before the constable could take aim. The weapon discharged uselessly into the wall. The wraith had a knife, and he slid it into Angus just below the rib cage and then drew it down sharply, opening the constable's torso along his right side. Angus tried to scream, but he had no voice. I heard a wheezing sound coming from the chest wound, and knew that the knife-point had found his lungs. The blood-fiend gave the blade a cruel twist, and Angus's eyes rolled upward and his legs gave out. He hit his head on the edge of the tub as he fell, and his body collapsed to the floor like an inanimate thing, a sack of flour or a discarded doll.

The killer turned toward me; mad yellow eyes and sharp white teeth flashing in the light from the window. In the East, my father said, there are men, or things like men; things that have conquered death and feed on the blood of the innocent.

“I always knew you'd come back for me one day,” I said to the vampire.

“For you?” it said. “Why must everything always be about you?”

I peered at the naked figure, the long face and neck, and the high peak of his forehead, and the limp, blood-matted strands of hair slicked against the sides of his skull. It was a familiar face, but it was not Mad Jack's.

“Mr. Frederick Burke,” I said. “Does this mean that I need not fear litigious action from the Banque Crédit Française?”

“That should be the least of your worries,” he said. “And Burke is not my name.”

He leapt at me, and I pointed my pistol at him and discharged it. I should have hit him without difficulty, but my hand was shaking and the reek of fetid blood was so overwhelming that my eyes were full of tears. I missed; the ball whizzed past his head. He did not even flinch at the sound of the shot. And then my weapon was spent and useless, and he was upon me.

I braced myself against my strong leg; hugged his torso as he hit me, and I twisted in the direction of his momentum; hurling him to the ground. He wrapped an arm around my neck, and I gulped air, choking on the coppery stink. My weak ankle buckled beneath me, and I collapsed on top of him. As I fell, I bent my knee and aimed it at his body. I needed to hurt him. I needed to cripple him. But he was wet and slippery, and I couldn't hold him in place. He wriggled out of the way, and my knee hit the floor with the force of my weight behind it.

I howled in pain, and he saw in my misfortune an opportunity to wrench himself from my grasp. I recovered my senses as he was trying to get to his feet, so I gripped my spent pistol by the barrel and swung my arm in an arc, aiming to smash his skull with the hardwood grip. Burke attempted to dodge it, but I caught him high on the cheekbone, and he grunted and fell flat on his back. I heaved my body up into a kneeling position, ignoring the shooting pain in my bad leg, and I raised the gun again. If I could hit him hard enough at the spot behind the eye, where the skull was thin, the bone would give way. But he kicked out one of his long legs and struck me in the shoulder. I cried out, and lost my grip on the weapon.

Burke used the moment's respite this gave him to roll out from underneath me, and I staggered to my feet. He seemed to consider lunging at me again, but instead, he retreated toward the stinking vat; toward Angus and, I realized, toward the unused pistol the constable had been carrying.

Against the wall next to me was a wooden wardrobe, like the one we'd searched in Knifing's room. I threw my body against it, and it crashed to the floor. I dove behind it for cover. I drew my own second, loaded pistol from its holster at the base of my spine.

Angus was lying on his belly, trying, without much success, to keep his guts inside him. Burke grasped him roughly by the collar of his uniform shirt, and the constable put a hand in the killer's face to try to stop him. But Angus had little strength to resist; his life was draining out of him, and he could barely draw breath. His wound was making a wet sucking noise now.

Burke managed to roll Angus's body over, but the pistol had fallen into a puddle of blood, and Angus had lain upon it as he bled. I peeked over my makeshift barricade and saw blood streaming out of the muzzle as Burke lifted it.

So I rose from my cover and the killer pointed his weapon at me; he squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, of course; the powder was soaked.

“Mine's dry,” I said.

“Twice you've missed me.” Burke's voice was ragged from the exertion, but betrayed no fear; no emotion at all. “Miss once more, and I shall own you.”

He was straddling Angus and eyeing the hilt of his knife sticking out of the dying man's belly. If I fired and didn't kill him, he'd need a second and a half to pull the blade loose, and two seconds more to run the length of the room. If I was very lucky, the dirk might stick a bit in Angus's flesh and buy me an extra few seconds.

Burke was strong, and he was bigger and taller than I. While he held the blade, I'd be unable to attempt to neutralize his reach by grappling with him. If I could not kill him with my pistol, I probably would not prevail in the struggle that would follow.

“Stay very still,” I said.

He laughed.

Maybe I was about to shoot him; I certainly remember that I tried to steady my aim. And maybe he was about to pounce upon me; he appeared to be coiled to do so. But then, Archibald Knifing appeared in the doorway, holding a gun.

 

Chapter 39

A little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description.

—
Lord Byron,
from an 1813 journal entry

“I see you've found the killer, Lord Byron,” said Knifing. “I'm impressed. However did you figure it out?”

“I thought it was you,” I said. “We came here to search your room, and stumbled onto Mr. Burke.”

“My name is not Burke,” said Burke.

“Whoever he is, I am just about to shoot him.” My wrist, battered from the shackles and the stagecoach crash, was feeling sore and kind of shaky. I tried to steady my aim.

“When Lord Byron misses, I will stab him,” said Not-Burke.

“Let's relax,” said Knifing. “We can all still walk away. We don't want to commit some irreversible and ruinous act here.”

“It's already too late,” I said. “Angus Buford is mortally wounded by Burke's hand.”

“The constable's death is convenient for all of us,” said Knifing. “He's got carpentry tools that can break open most locks in town, so he possessed a means of ingress to the private residences where the killings took place. He's former infantry, so he could have fired the rifle that killed Fielding Dingle. We can all claim to be witnesses to the depravity he committed in these rooms. We can walk away from this.”

Angus could no longer speak, but the sound of his rasping quickened.

“He's owed dignity, if nothing else.”

“What use have the dead for dignity?” Knifing asked.

“What else have the dead got?” I said.

“The dead have nothing,” Knifing said. “That's why the prudent course is the one in which all of us live.”

I waved my gun at him. “While I hold this, nobody gets to live without my permission.”

“You can't kill us both with your one gun,” said Not-Burke. “And once it's spent, you're at the mercy of whichever of us is left standing.”

“Well, I've got it aimed at you now. So stop grinning at me.”

“I don't fear you or your toys,” Not-Burke said. “You are a coward. If you were man enough to fire, you would have already.” He knelt down and pulled his knife out of Angus's gut. As the blade slid out of the wound, it brought with it a ruptured coil of purple viscera. Angus's whole body seemed to clench, and his back arched, and he sucked in a long rattling gasp. After that, he did not move again. His chest was still and his unblinking eyes stared fixedly into the middle distance; toward something imperceptible to the living. And then, the flies settled upon him.

“Who is this lunatic, Knifing? And why are you protecting him?” I asked.

“I serve the King,” Knifing said. “I am here in Cambridge on His Majesty's orders.”

I looked at Not-Burke, red and wet and naked, with insects crawling all over him. He looked like the very portrait of the Devil.

“Why would the King want this maniac protected? Why would His Majesty send you to cover up these crimes?”

“How much do you know about all this?” Knifing asked.

“I know about Blackpool,” I said. “I know about Chelmsford and Grimsby. I know there were sprees of brutal killings in each of those places, and corpses drained of blood. I know that you investigated each event, and that, each time, you arrested and executed some local laborer. I know, now, that Burke was the perpetrator of all those crimes, and you bore false witness against innocent people to protect him.”

“My name is not Burke,” said Not-Burke. “And you know almost nothing; only enough to make your death convenient.”

“My counsel in London, Mr. Hanson, collected that information, at my behest. He retains copies of all relevant documents, and knows what to do if harm befalls me.”

“I'm sure we can make some sort of a deal,” Knifing said. “Your discretion in this matter is of crucial importance to the security of England.”

“All I see is a madman bathing in human blood. England will be well served by his destruction.” I was tense, unsure whether to take my gun off Not-Burke to point it at Knifing. Both men were exceedingly dangerous.

Knifing kept his voice calm and soothing, and made no move toward me. “Let me ask, Byron, are you a loyal subject of the King?”

I shuffled my weight back and forth on my feet. My arm was starting to hurt. Not-Burke was standing as still as statuary, or as still as a predatory cat waiting for unsuspecting prey to wander within pouncing distance. “I'll not have you cast aspersions against my honor,” I said to Knifing. “My family has a long military tradition, and my fealty is not subject to dispute.”

“So I can assume, then, that you love your King and accept his rule?” Knifing asked.