The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (25 page)

Across the harbor, the island of Oriab, and the port
city of Baharna, with porphyry wharves and a pair of lighthouses that have
burned, untended for centuries, for which the locals have forgotten the names.
This was another favorite destination of the black-sailed ships, who valued the
icons local artisans carved. At the edge of the horizon, the false lights of
lost Carcosa through the perpetual fog, marking a coast that no vessel could
land upon, and no navigator could triangulate.

I could see the distant foothills, and even the clock
tower of distant Providence, flanked by the petrified trees of the Still Forest
and embraced by a yellow mist. The dormant volcanic peak of Mount Ngranek was
barely discernable, the far side of which is rumored to be fashioned into the
forms of the gods who once lived atop it. The heat shadow of the arid Waste
swirled in the background, and beyond that the shadows of the grey mountains of
Mnar, carved by singing glaciers into wild and unstable forms, which they say
no waking man has ever visited. The fabric of the Nameless City continued
unbroken to the extent of my vision, an urban patchwork; hemmed about by the
mountains, bisected by the Skai, and bounded by the poisoned Southern Sea, the
depths of which have never been sounded.

I felt awful, incidentally.

“You’ve done only half the work.” Madeleine complained
with a satisfied smile. “It is presumptuous to seek a reward.”

 She nudged Yael with the toe of her dainty shoe. Yael
was still, arms tied behind her with hempen rope, more of which looped around
her ankles. The dripping Servants of the Deep had been rough about that,
binding her limbs tightly and then tossing her indifferently to the ground.
Only her mask, which the fish-people were unable to remove, prevented her skull
from hitting the stone. One waited patiently in each corner of the room, as
inanimate as scarecrows, backs turned for privacy.

“Call it a gesture of good faith,” I suggested. “I’m
assuming all the risk. I want some assurance of payment before I go forward
with the other half.”

“Unless this is a delaying tactic. Tell me, Preston
dear – are you reluctant to produce your companion, as you have conspired to
provide me with Yael Kaufman?”

“You make it sound like my idea.”

“Wasn’t it?” A charming tilt of her head, a muffled
giggle. Madeleine Diem laid it on thick. “I made an offer, Preston. The rest
was entirely up to you.”

“That’s why I want some reassurance. I’m taking a big
chance for you, Madeleine. I want a consideration so I know you’re good for the
rest.”

She wandered about the elevated platform at the top of
the observatory, occasionally humming to herself with good humor, mostly hiding
her smile with the butterfly fan. I wasn’t sure if the display was for my
benefit or if Madeleine was simply unused to other people after her long
confinement – as well as her time among the fish-people, who didn’t strike me
as talkative.

“Very well,” she said, with a sigh that became a
tittering, little-girl laugh. “What do you want?”

“To understand,” I lied, seizing the opening. “Did you
really leave the Nameless City, after your fight with Constance?”

“What a clever boy,” Madeleine said approvingly. “How
did you find out?”

“That’s not important,” I said hurriedly. “Holly imprisoned
you, didn’t she?”

Her nod was unexpectedly vulnerable.

“Yes.” Her smile was overexposed and indistinct. “She
was very cross, and understandably so.”

We both paused to look at the only object in the
otherwise empty glass room. The chair was made of rough-hewn wood, as if it had
been put together in a hurry, the seat and arm rests worn smooth and bright
from years of contact. The metal cuffs attached to the armrests and front legs
were in better shape.

“How long did she keep you locked up here?”

“Until I found a way out. With some help from my
friends.”

“You seem pretty calm about it,” I observed. “You aren’t
angry?”

“Sisters fight at times, Preston.” A giggle belonging
to a girl ages younger. “You wouldn’t understand. Besides, it could have been
worse. At least she kept me somewhere with a view.”

“A prison with a view is still a prison.”

“Fair enough. Perhaps I am simply not inclined to
bitterness.”

I nodded warily at the lantern resting on the chair,
light spilling from vacant sockets.

“I find that hard to believe.”

She laughed.

“Don’t judge me too harshly,” Madeleine suggested,
with a wink and a genteel leer, mostly hidden by the iridescent fan. “I was young,
and Constance provoked me.”

“So there’s no conflict between you and Holly?”

She frowned and brushed nonexistent dust from the
front of her gown.

“Nothing that can’t be settled with an exchange of carefully
chosen words. We witches are a civilized folk.”

“You get your new arm and legs, and then live happily
ever after?”

“Why not?” Madeleine asked, bemused. “Everything is
permitted, and all that.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“You are very inquisitive. Haven’t I told you enough?”

“One last thing,” I said, forcing a grin. “How did you
rope Elijah Pickman into all of this? Is he one of your…boyfriends?”

Madeleine’s laughter was unexpected and uproarious.
She doubled over and clutched her stomach as if afraid she might burst.

“You can’t be serious!” She wiped her eyes and shook
her head. “He is my great-grandnephew, after all. In any case, Holly would
never forgive me for such a thing, even if he is a handsome boy.”

Madeleine tossed a wrench in the works, and my thought
process came to a grinding halt.

“Ah…what?”

“Yes,” she said, with a curt bob of her head. “Holly
has always been terribly fond of him.”

Despite my best efforts to kick-start my grey matter,
I kept tripping over the most basic facts.

“Your grandnephew? Really?”

“Great-grandnephew,” she corrected, with a giggle. “Do
I look old enough to have one, Preston?”

Her eyes fluttered coquettishly.

“You know you don’t,” I said, as gruffly as possible.
“Who is Elijah’s great-grandmother, then?”

Madeleine smiled at my ignorance, doll eyes gleaming
like marbles.

“Holly, naturally. Doesn’t she strike you as the maternal
type? Constance is a committed spinster, in any case.”

“I’m having trouble imagining Holly settling down and
having children…”

She laughed again, ephemeral notes from a glass piano,
honey color hair dangling in her face.

“She never settled! Witches don’t, as a rule.”
Madeleine fluttered her fake eyes. “Holly took lovers at rare intervals. Very
occasionally, these dalliances would end in pregnancy. One such romance
involved Elijah Pickman’s great-grandfather – a gifted artist, as I recall,
very driven. Holly is quite traditional, you know – she insisted on a full nine
months with a swollen belly, the ghastly delivery, and even nursing. I do note,
however,” Madeleine added, with the enthusiastic air of a child divulging a
secret, “that she exempted herself from both the baby weight
and
post-partum depression, which is hardly sporting.”

She left me no space for consideration.

“Holly raised Elijah’s grandfather?”

“I doubt it very much. Holly is a career-minded woman,
Preston. Obadiah Pickman’s upbringing would have largely been the
responsibility of the Pickman family, though Holly enjoys entertaining and
spoiling children.”

“How many kids are we talking?”

“I wasn’t counting, darling. Do you really care so
much?”

I shook my head. I felt confined and suffocated,
despite the view.

“Not really. It’s just weird to think that Holly has kids
running around somewhere.”

“Oh, not hardly!” Melodious laughter. “They are all
long dead, Preston. Do you still desire Holly, now that you know she is
lifetimes older? A woman rarely becomes more attractive when you delve into her
secrets. You should know that.”

“I suppose so.”

Madeleine lost interest and resumed her wanderings
across the roof, occasionally gazing at the city with the confident affection most
reserved for a possession. I made a quick check of my limbs, just to be sure.

“How did Elijah get caught up in all of this? At
Holly’s request or your own?”

“Well,” Madeleine said, putting a finger to her lips
in thought, “she
is
my sister.”

“That doesn’t really…”

“I think that’s more than enough to prove my
sincerity, don’t you?” Doll eyes behind lowered lids, glimmering with quiet
hostility. Or, my imagination, maybe. “We can discuss your reward later. Why
don’t we get down to business?”

I shrugged as if it didn’t make any difference, as far
as I was concerned.

“I suppose.” I offered Madeleine a relaxed smile. “Let’s.”

“Excellent!” She clapped once, to punctuate her enthusiasm.
“I will need Yael Kaufman’s left leg, if you please, including as much of the
thigh as you can free from the hip, so my designers can accommodate the
difference in height. It will be more difficult than you expect, but butchery is
always that way. Persevere, however, and the rest will be self-explanatory.”

She grinned as if she were being clever. I glared as
if I didn’t agree.

“That was never part of the deal.”

“Wasn’t it?” She tapped her lower lip thoughtfully. “I
could have sworn I mentioned that.”

“You did not.”

“Oh well. Consider it a favor,” Madeleine suggested, offering
me a handsaw and a boning knife, “and get cutting, won’t you?”

An empty room is sacred; a broken mirror is an
altar.     

“That’s quite enough, I think.”

Yael cast aside her severed bonds, the scalpel I slipped
her during our collision held cautiously in her left hand. “Let’s settle this, Madeleine;
shall we?”

Madeleine clucked in disappointment, but her inanimate
eyes didn’t show anything of the sort, glimmering with synthetic amusement.

“Oh, Preston, I am surprised at you!” Madeleine wagged
her finger at me. “You came so highly recommended. Such a foolish decision,
Preston – the things I could have done for you – and to you! – if only you
cooperated. What a disappointment!”

“Don’t feel too bad,” Yael grumbled. “Preston didn’t
warn me at all before he hit me.”

“I…ah…figured your mask would cushion the blow.”

“It did. A little.”

“You are both very rude,” Madeleine said humorously.
“You should treat your host with more respect.”

Madeleine snapped Sumire’s fingers, and all four of
the fish-people turned to face us.

“Tell me the truth,” Yael demanded, pointing at Madeleine
Diem like a lawyer in a courtroom drama. “You admit to arranging the attack on
Sumire Iwakura, do you not?”

“Not a bit of it.” Madeleine pouted. “Elijah Pickman
offered me the limb, as a gift.”

“Nonetheless,” Yael persisted, “you must have told him
who to attack…”

“What? Oh, not at all! He requested specifications –
measurements and aesthetic requirements.” A frown flitted briefly across her
face, but found no satisfactory resting place. “I was not able to accept every
gift he offered, for that reason. A waste, I suppose, but it seemed a shame to
criticize, when little Elijah was feeling so enthusiastic…”

“Then the attacks…
all
of them…” Yael’s voice
quavered shortly. “Elijah did that?”

“My great grandnephew is a capable young man,”
Madeleine stated proudly. “I am happy to provide him with part-time work.”

“That is just awful.” Yael sounded pretty down about
it. “I still hold you responsible. You motivated these terrible attacks, Miss
Diem. Dragging poor Elijah into this…”

“Dragging Elijah?” Madeleine raised one thoroughly
plucked eyebrow. “I assure you, no coercion was required. Elijah was desirous
of something difficult to obtain, you see, and I was in a position to assist.
The limbs he provided were a freewill offering, an expression of gratitude.
Taking them is no more a crime than accepting stolen property, in my mind.”

Yael and I exchanged a look – despite the reflective
lenses inset in her mask.

“Receiving stolen property is most certainly a crime,
Miss Diem.”

“Maybe where
you
come from,” Madeleine asserted
forcefully, “but for the well-travelled…”

She looked to me for support.

“Sorry, Maddy.” I shrugged. “I think that’s illegal
everywhere.”

“Oh.” She sighed, as if enduring the latest in a long
line of disappointments. “Well, I’m still not guilty of the murder.”

“She’s not dead!” I shouted. God help me, I shook my
fists. “Sumire isn’t dead, and she never was! Elijah stabbed her a bunch, cut
her throat, and then cut her arm off – but she lived! There was no damn murder,
okay?”

“Preston.” Yael’s tone was surprisingly tolerant.
“Please.”

“Sorry, it’s just…no. You’re right. Sorry.”

“You’ve made your point,” Yael said, turning her
attention back to Madeleine. “We’ll go find Elijah, and try to find a way to
fix this. Matters are not settled between the two of us, however.”

“Of course not!” Madeleine put a hand in her chest and
looked scandalized. “I have no intention of allowing you to leave, after all.”

The fish-people began a clumsy simultaneous advance,
dripping water on the concrete floor, reeking of fermented seaweed. Yael and I
backed up against each other, studying our enemies closely while trying not to
be too obvious about watching each other. It was like a trust-building
exercise.

“Can you take the two on the left?”

“My left or yours?”

Yael glared from behind reflective lenses. I was sure
of it.

“Does it matter?”

“No. And I doubt it, for the record.”

“I’ll take my right, then,” she explained, disregarding
the whole of my response. “Watch my back.”

I had no time to clarify, because the Servants of the
Deep closed the distance, one swinging a heavy driftwood cudgel, while the
other clutched a pair of wicked looking curved knives, the kind favored by
sinister cultists the world over. Maybe a meter and a half between them, advancing
sloppily, aiming to flank me. If I failed to stop them, they would run all over
Yael’s exposed back, while I’m sure the same thing was happening behind me. I
waited where I stood, and made them come to me.

The fish-people were obliging. The hideous hybridization
of their features was on full display as they closed in, from the iridescence
of their scaly hides to the ruby-red slits of their gills. They had all the
accessories that normally come with the human package – ears, noses, and the
like – but these features were diminished, as residual as a pinky toe.

They circled to either side, and I watched. Behind me,
I heard the hiss of an aerosol, and the sound of flesh contacting flesh, but
there was no time to worry about Yael. If she went down, I would follow seconds
later, likely never even seeing the Servants of the Deep who would tear me
apart. I waited, until I saw one of the fish-people sneak a glance at the
other, trying to arrange a simultaneous attack.

I sprinted toward the fish-person with the cudgel, hoping
it was distracted, and preferring to deal with the blunt object first.

The fish-person saw me coming, and telegraphed its
response the entire way. It wound up with the cudgel like an overenthusiastic
batter and aimed to take my head off in one go. I avoided the cudgel with
something less than grace, weighted driftwood glancing off my bicep and numbing
my arm. I feinted toward the neck with my scalpel, and then lunged for its
body, and came up short. It took another two handed swing, and I went low,
rolling beneath the sweep of the club. I drove the scalpel into its hamstring –
assuming it had one of those – until only the handle protruded.

The Servant of the Deep made no noise in response. I
don’t mind saying that freaked me out.

It took a hesitant step on its wounded leg, and then
bent to try to remove the scalpel.

The other fish-person tried to sneak up on me, but
evolution – or whatever – equipped the Servants of the Deep poorly, when it
came to stealth. I heard the raspy wheezing of its breath before it was within
a meter, not to mention the stench of decaying marine life. I avoided a few
clumsy stab attempts, while I slipped behind the injured fish-person, still
tugging at the scalpel embedded in its leg, and snatched up its abandoned
cudgel.

The driftwood was lighter than I expected, even with
the metal inlay that added weight and durability, but awkwardly sized. I would
have liked a practice swing or two, but the fish-person and its curved knives
had other ideas.

The second blade was more of a hindrance than an
advantage. I ducked his first attack, and then sidestepped the next,
maneuvering the cudgel up high enough to be useful. I choked up on it like a
baseball bat and swung at the fish-person’s head. The driftwood cracked in my
hands. The fish-person’s head bowed as if it were made of clay.

The cudgel was hopelessly cumbersome, so I tossed it
aside, turning my attention back to the Servant of the Deep I had wounded
earlier. His attempts to remove the scalpel had ultimately proved successful,
but then he tossed the implement aside, to limp at me with bare hands. I got my
hands up and squared my shoulders, rocked up onto the balls of my feet, and
waited.

The fish-person charged right in, both hands extended
as if it intended to hug me. I gave it a couple jabs and a right hook as it
came in, each blow sinking deep into the scaly, loose flesh of its face. When
the hook connected with the fish-person’s temple, I felt the bone of the skull
flex and indent. The thing just kept on coming.

Clumsy, webbed hands closed around my neck. What
little air I managed to inhale was tainted by the smell of spoiled shellfish. I
shoved my arm inside and tried to break the grip, but had no luck. I smashed my
left hand into its abdomen, stomped its instep, and then hit it with an
uppercut that warped its jaw and loosened several of the needle-teeth that
filled its grotesque mouth. The Servant of the Deep ignored the damage and
focused on strangling me.

I kicked and struggled, the fish-person’s ribs bowing
with each strike as if they were plastic. I attacked its elbow in an attempt to
break the grip, to no effect. My vision began to dim and darken, while my
movement became more wild, and difficult to control. I stumbled, and then fell
backwards, the weight of the fish-person resting directly on my desperate
lungs. Nearly blind, I dragged my nails across its face, and then dug my thumbs
into its round, milky eyes.

They were surprisingly shallow and flat. I had the
left one out in no time, which finally got its attention. It released its hold
on my neck to try and save its other eye. The air whistling through my crushed
windpipe was all that I could hear. The fish-person seized my right arm with
both webbed hands, so I focused on driving my left thumb as deep into its brain
as was possible.

My thumb progressed into the eye socket as far as the
first knuckle with a squelching sound. The Servant gained control of my right
arm, and pulled it toward its nightmare of a mouth. I put everything I had
behind my left thumb, working around the elastic bone into the slippery flesh.
The fish-person’s needle teeth had no trouble with my jacket and shirt, sinking
deep into my right forearm. I hollered and pressed; teeth scraped against my
radial bone.

I felt a membrane give way, with a sensation like a
rubber band breaking, and my thumb plunged into the creature’s head. Its mouth
opened in a mute expression of…something. Then its arms went limp. It took a
concerted effort to free my arm from the toothy confines of its mouth.

The world steadied and brightened as I caught my
breath. I made it to my feet, and then noticed the Servant of the Deep I
brained with the cudgel crawling clumsily toward me, a divot running down to
the crown of its deformed head. I spared a moment for a glance behind me, and
watched Yael use a short metal spike to pin a fish-person’s foot to the stone
floor as it lurched after her. The creature gave the impaled limb a distracted
look, and then tore it free, heedless of severed flesh and splintered bone.
Yael retreated slowly, fumbling at her belt, the final Servant circling around
behind her.

I planted a soccer kick on the crawling fish-person’s
head, and then another, to no visible or auditory effect. I abandoned the
effort, turning my attentions to the Servant behind Yael. It paid me no
attention, intent on ambushing the girl in the gas mask. I kicked out its legs
at the knee until it toppled, then seized it by the folds of its fleshy cheeks,
and drove its skull into the floor. Again. And then again, until its struggles
subsided.

I had no illusions, at this point, of killing the
thing. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I was capable of injuring them.

“Yael!” I shouted. “We have a serious problem, here.”

“I know!” She came to a halt behind me, digging
frantically in her satchel. “Buy me a couple seconds?”

I wanted to complain, but there was no time. I met the
Servant coming in, ducking its outstretched arms and popping up inside. We
tangled up in a wet, angry mess. While the monster attempted to wrap its clumsy
hands around my injured neck, I leaned on its neck and battered its abdomen
with full-force knees. With each blow, I felt the fish-persons ribs flex and
cave. After three, it stopped trying to strangle me. After five, it finally
dropped to the ground. I brought down both fists just behind the ear in an
axe-handle strike, my knuckles sinking into the pliable skin and bone of its
head.

The Servant of the Deep dropped, but didn’t stop
moving. Its partner was nearly on me, despite the limp Yael had given it, and the
one-eyed fish-person was already on its feet again. I backed away from the
advancing Servant, throwing wild punches that didn’t even annoy it.

There was a metallic clanging, and an aluminum
canister rolled across the floor of the room, spitting moss-green smoke from
either side. A hand covered my mouth, and then another clamped over my eyes. I
nearly lashed out, but then I noticed the gas mask pressing against the back of
my neck.

“Be still,” Yael hissed. “Hold your breath.”

Behind Yael’s fingers, my eyes burned and watered. I
held my breath as long as I could imagine doing that, but Yael’s hand remained
firmly attached to my mouth. I inhaled through my nose in an involuntary
gesture of panic, and the air burned like menthol inside my nose and smelled
like burning plastic. The pain in my sinuses was staggering, my eyes watering
like a fountain. My lungs rejected it entirely, expelling my breath in a lung-scouring
cough. Yael lost her grip on my head, and I fell to the ground, only dimly
aware of my cheek resting against the stone.