Cardinal Black

by Robert McCammon

  She grasped his arm. “I ask you not to harm Samson.” Her eyes were imploring. “He’s all I have.”

  Whatever the depth of their strange relationship was, Matthew had no time to ponder. He said, “I hope there’ll be no further violence. Go back to the others.”

  She turned away and left him without another word. Matthew used the powderhorn to ready the pistol with a dry primer. Then he crossed the pit, climbed up the stone steps past the gallery and continued upward until he reached the closed door that led to the hallway. To the right would be the stairs and the entrance foyer, to the left would be the dining room with the parlor in the middle on the other side of the corridor. Where would the Owl’s men be? Still guarding the gate and the door? Scattered throughout the lower floor? In the parlor warming themselves? And how many were there? All questions he could not answer, but risks that must be taken.

  Matthew eased the door open. The hallway was clear. He quickly came out, hearing Lash’s voice talking from the dining room behind him as they were likely finishing up their breakfasts. He passed the parlor and had a start as he saw two men standing with their backs to him before the fire, one listening to the other speak. The foyer and the front door were unguarded, and there before him was the table on which stood the basket of weapons. He reached in and retrieved his ivory-handled dagger, which he slid into his waistband. Then he took hold of Julian’s four-barrelled wonder, and the wonder of it was that anyone could manage as heavy a thing as that. He put both guns down on the table and opened the front door. At the gate the guard was still there but was smoking a pipe, looking out toward the park, and evidently had not seen the coach stop through the snow.

  Matthew returned to the table, picked up the basket of weapons—a heavy weight indeed that made his shoulder muscles crack—and moving quickly he went out the door and dumped the whole load into the snowy shrubbery off to one side of the entrance staircase.

  At that moment the guard turned, saw him, and spouted a huge cough of smoke.

  Matthew threw the basket aside, went back in, closed the door and threw its latch.

  “Hey there! What’re you doing?” someone called out.

  Matthew spun around. The man who had just come down the stairs was one of those who had taken him to the room behind the pit and clouted him before stripping him naked. The man at first didn’t recognize Matthew. He came striding closer, as Matthew reached the table and picked up Bogen’s gun. The man abruptly stopped with a cry of alarm. He whipped open his jacket and began to pull out a pistol.

  Matthew had no choice but to lift the gun and fire.

  The sound of the gunshot was a small explosion. Through the bloom of acrid blue smoke Matthew saw the man clutch at his chest and fall, his own pistol going off and firing a ball into the ceiling. The racket was loud enough to raise Dippen Nack from the dead. Matthew grasped Julian’s gun and raced past the wounded man up the stairs.

  The third door on the right. No need to try the lock. Matthew kicked at the door and felt as if his kneecap would burst. But he had no choice. As he was about to deliver another kick, the first door on the left opened and Lazarus Firebaugh emerged, wearing a gray silk nightgown and his eyes groggy with sleep. “Stay where you are!” Matthew shouted, levelling Julian’s pistol at him, and instantly his mouth dropped open and he froze.

  “Matthew?” came Julian’s voice from behind the door. “What the hell…?”

  “Stand back!” Matthew told him, and again gave the door a kick. The thing splintered but would not yet yield. He heard upraised voices below and the sound of someone coming fast up the stairs.

  “Help me!” Firebaugh shouted, regaining his senses if not his courage to flee. “A man with a gun is up here!”

  The moment swayed on the edge of disaster. Matthew kicked at the door again as hard as he could, his kneecap be damned. The door burst open on one hinge. At the same time, Firebaugh tried to run. Matthew scrambled after him, grabbed him by the back of his nightgown and put the gun to his head.

  The man climbing the stairs—one of the Owl’s crew who had escorted Matthew in to see Cardinal Black—had reached the second floor and also gripped a pistol. His steely gaze registered the gun at Firebaugh’s head and said, “Let him—” but go would never be spoken, for a heavy blue flower vase went flying past Matthew’s left shoulder and made a direct hit to the man’s face, toppling him back down the way he’d come.

  “I’ve got this,” said Julian, who put one hand on the four-barrelled bastard of destruction and the other on the back of the red-bearded bastard’s neck. Matthew stepped aside. A glance at Julian showed the guards had enjoyed some exercise at the bad man’s expense, for Julian’s left eye was bruised dark and dried blood crusted his swollen lower lip. Though the garish yellow jacket had been taken off him, he was still wearing his Count Pellegar clown costume of gray breeches with red stripes up the legs, gray stockings, a lavender-hued blouse—now speckled with bloodstains—and the python-skin boots. He held the pistol against the back of Firebaugh’s head so hard it made the doctor’s eyes bulge.

  “Hear me!” he called around the corner to those downstairs. “If we’re not allowed free passage out of here, we’ll find out if the good doctor is well-named or not!”

  Lazarus, Matthew thought. Able to rise from the dead, is what Julian meant.

  “He won’t be of use to any of you with his brains blown out!” Julian continued. “Are you listening?”

  “Listening.” It was Lash’s voice. “‘We’? Who is—oh my Lord! Is Corbett up there with you? I thought you’d broken out on your own, but…Corbett, are you there?”

  “Present,” Matthew answered.

  “Well, I am impressed! Come down and let’s talk. You can tell me how you got back into my house, and perhaps we—”

  “Perhaps my ass,” Julian interrupted. “We’re going out. One move I don’t like and Firebaugh is a useless bag of bones.” To Matthew, in a quieter voice, “Stand behind me.”

  “Kill him and you both are dead,” said Lash. His voice was easy and betrayed no sign of distress. “Haven’t you considered your situation that far?”

  “You may not care, but ask the others if they want a dead chemist to go along with the winning bid!”

  There was a long silence. Not quite a silence: both Matthew and Julian could hear urgent whisperings from below.

  “We need to go now,” Matthew told Julian, before Lash could think clearly enough to send men out to find the coach or to take up firing positions in the park.

  “Start walking,” Julian told the doctor.

  “Please…let me at least get my cloak.”

  “No.” Julian gave him a hard shove with the gun’s barrel to the head, and Firebaugh began walking toward the staircase.

  As Firebaugh, Julian and Matthew came around the corner, two pistols were levelled at them by a pair of men standing on either side of the Owl. The front door was wide open, someone having unlatched it to let in the gate’s guard. Everyone had taken positions below the stairs, including Cardinal Black who stood toward the rear next to Montague. Matthew saw Elizabeth Mulloy at the very back, and when their eyes met she shook her head as an entreaty not to harm Lash. But not harming Lash was far from Matthew’s mind at the moment; getting the book and getting out of the house with their skins were the foremost problems.

  “Back up, all of you,” Julian said. The man who’d been hit with the vase was at the bottom of the stairs next to the one who’d been shot, the former sitting up and rubbing his bloodied face, the latter stretched out moaning and clutching at his wound with both hands. Matthew saw on the steps a few risers down the pistol that had been dropped when the vase crashed home. “Keep moving,” Julian told the doctor. As they went down, Matthew picked up the fallen pistol and cocked it.

  “Everyone be easy,” said Lash. He wore a bemused expression. “Surely you gentlemen don’t think y
ou’re going to get very far, do you?”

  “Shoot ’em now!” Merda urged the gunmen. “Go on, take ’em!”

  “Keep your teeth in your head, shorty,” Julian said. “As Lash says, everyone be easy and just keep backing up.”

  “You won’t get out of here alive,” Lioness promised, standing between Lash and Merda, with Krakowski just behind her. In her eyes burned the flames of impending violence.

  “Then neither will the doctor. And we’ll be able to send at least one of you to the grave. You! Come here!”

  Matthew had no idea who Julian was addressing. Then Julian said, “You! RakeHell Lizzie or whatever you’re calling yourself! Get over here!”

  “Stay where you are, Elizabeth,” Lash directed, with perhaps in his voice the faintest of quavers.

  “Matthew,” said Julian, “shoot her in the head if she doesn’t come here in three seconds.”

  Matthew realized he had no reason not to obey, at least by Julian’s understanding and the understanding of the others. How could he refuse? Because he was not the bad man? No, if he didn’t, someone—like the Owl or Cardinal Black—might get the slightest sense that he had gotten into the house with her help, and she might be Lash’s dear companion and advisor but her skin would be in jeopardy after he, Julian and the doctor had gotten out.

  He aimed his gun at her head. “One,” he said.

  “Let me through,” she told the others, because she too had recognized the inherent danger…not because Matthew would shoot her, but because a brother Black-Eyed Broodie could not. “It’s all right,” she said to Lash when he took hold of her arm. “No one should be hurt on account of these two. Especially not for that doctor…or for him.” She lifted her chin with disdain toward the cardinal.

  “Two,” Matthew said.

  Lash let her go, but he glowered pure hatred at Matthew and Julian.

  When Elizabeth reached Julian, he grasped the neckline of her gown and turned her so his pistol barrel was between her head and Firebaugh’s. “Everyone into the parlor,” Julian said. “Go in and slide the door shut. Matthew is going to stand here with his gun on Firebaugh, and Lizzie is going to take me back to get the book. After that, we’ll be on our way.”

  Brave words, Matthew thought, because Julian had no idea the coach was up the road about a hundred yards.

  “You won’t get far,” Lash said. His eyes were cold and dead. “You have two guns but not very many shots, it appears.”

  “We have enough, and I hope you’ll keep your own gun in its place. Firebaugh is going to be standing up against the door if anyone has the idea of shooting through it.”

  “So what good is that bastard if you’ve stolen the book?” Montague said at the parlor’s threshold. “That’s not much of a—”

  “The book is more easily recovered than the doctor replaced,” said Lash, still with a withering glare aimed at Matthew and Julian. “I know where they’re taking it and the route they’ll be using to get there. Unless they want to kill me right now, and use up one of their shots, I can get that book back within a day.”

  “Are you tempting me?” Julian asked, with a curl of his injured mouth.

  “Go ahead,” Lash replied. “Use that shot and see what happens.”

  “Please,” said Elizabeth. “Samson, just do as he says.”

  Matthew realized Elizabeth was trying to protect both Lash and her brother Broodie. Also that since Lash had the airship plans he didn’t give much of a damn about the book any longer, but he could not reveal that to the assembled group. He had the plans and a fortune in the Prussians’ gold, and that had been the point of the entire endeavor.

  “We shall,” he replied. “Let us retire to the parlor, everyone. Owl, you and your men go ahead.”

  Cardinal Black strode forward so quickly Matthew hardly had time to swing the pistol in his direction. Black stopped a few feet from Matthew, cocked his elongated face to one side, and with a grim smile said, “You and your friend are declaring war not only on me, but on all gathered here. Devane is a killer. You are not. And here he is leading you to your destruction. Be certain that I will follow you to the ends of the earth to—”

  With an explosion of anger, Matthew hit him across the face with the barrel of his gun. Black’s nose crunched and the blood burst out. He staggered back into Lioness Sauvage, who thrust him away from her as if he carried leprosy. Krakowski made a move to lunge at Matthew in the confusion of bodies, but the black-eyed brooding hole of Matthew’s gun in his face drained his enthusiasm for attack.

  “Calm, everyone,” said Lash. “We have time to correct this situation.” To Elizabeth he said, “Don’t fret, dear. We’ll all survive this minor setback. I trust Mr. Devane has a light hand with a lady.”

  “Into the parlor,” Julian said.

  They all obeyed, including Black with his bloody, broken nose. The last in was Lash, who slid the door shut. True to his word, Julian pushed Firebaugh up against the door. “Stand behind him,” he told Matthew. “They won’t shoot through the door…I don’t think. If they do, the ball won’t reach you.” To Matthew’s dismay, Julian’s light hand with a lady included twisting one of her arms behind her back. “To the study,” he said, and he marched her off along the hallway.

  In Lash’s study, Julian released Elizabeth to pick up the red leatherbound book where Lash had left it on the desk. He paged quickly through it by the light of the desk’s lantern to make sure it was the real thing, and though he couldn’t make heads or tails of it he did see that it was composed of chemical formulas. He slid it down in his blouse.

  “Satisfied now?” Elizabeth asked. “Just take it and get out.”

  “Not satisfied yet,” Julian answered. He had seen an edge of the airship plans protruding from beneath the desktop’s blotter where Lash must’ve put them before Merda’s visit to the study. He drew out all five sheets of the parchment. Then he pulled the lantern closer and removed its glass chimney to reveal the naked flame.

  “What’re you doing?” The young woman’s voice carried a note of alarm.

  “I don’t care to be held down and beaten. This is my payment.” So saying, he held the first sheet to the flame.

  She attacked him, not with the supple grace of RakeHell Lizzie but with the wild desperation of Elizabeth Mulloy. She got an arm around his throat and squeezed but in her current state she was no match for Julian; he threw an elbow into her jaw that knocked her nearly senseless and then he tossed her like a bag of rags against the wall.

  Methodically and with great joy, Julian burned all but one sheet to brown crisps that he scattered across the top of Lash’s desk. When Elizabeth started up off the floor, he kicked her down again. The bad man was in his full glory. He set fire to the fifth sheet and when it had burned nearly to his fingers he blew it out so only a charred remnant remained.

  “Get up,” he told her.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done!” she said as she staggered up, her eyes wet with both rage and pain.

  “I know.” He shoved her out of the study. “Move.”

  Instantly Matthew saw that violence had been done to Elizabeth. “Julian! What have—”

  “He burned the plans!” she said, nearly sobbing. “This insane idiot! He burned them!”

  “Not all of them.” Julian moved Firebaugh back from the door with an elbow to the ribs and dropped the remaining fragment on the floor. “Now,” he said triumphantly, “we have the book, we have the chemist, and I presume the coach you obviously escaped from is somewhere near.”

  “A hundred yards up the road,” Matthew said.

  “Good. Our hostage won’t have to walk too far in the snow, will she?”

  “Our…hostage?”

  “We’re taking Miss Mulloy,” Julian said. “No resistance from you, please.” He put the gun to her head. She looked at Matthew for help, but he was unable
to give it. Julian was already pushing both Firebaugh and Elizabeth toward the foyer and the open door.

  Matthew started after them, but stopped to look down upon the remnant of the airship plans on the floor.

  All that was left was about the length of a man’s thumb. Matthew had the bad feeling that Julian had just declared war upon Samson Lash, and combined with Cardinal Black and the other killers who would want both the book and their revenge…

  …it was going to be a very long way back to Y Beautiful Bedd.

  Someone had begun to slide the parlor door open, an inch at a time.

  “Elizabeth?” Lash called. And again, more urgently: “Elizabeth?”

  Matthew turned and ran.

  four.

  squirrels

  and cats

  twenty-four.

  “What are we to do?”

  Samson Lash did not answer. He sat at his desk in the study. Before him was a white clay cup bearing the brown ashes he had gathered from the desktop. The remnant of parchment paper he’d found on the floor lay under the fingers of his right hand. Every so often his fingers trembled.

  “What are we to do?” Cardinal Black asked again, through the bloody cloth pressed to his battered nose. Both his eyes had turned a shiny shade of purple.

  “Do,” said Lash after another moment of silence. His voice was distant, his eyes unfocused. “Yes. We must do something.”

  “The others want to know! We must get after them! Every minute we dawdle, they—”

  “Hush,” Lash whispered, and though it was only a whisper it was enough to make Cardinal Black shut his mouth in obedience, for beneath the soft voice was a sound like a blade being sharpened on a grinder. Lash turned the cup of ashes between his hands. “Bring the Owl to me,” he said.

  Black left the study, and the vice admiral sat alone turning between his hands the cup of his burned dreams.

  Not quite one hour ago, Lash and his guests had emerged from the parlor. “Elizabeth!” Lash had cried out, and when no answer was given he knew the worst. Then, upon the realization Elizabeth had been taken by Devane and Corbett, he had seen on the floor at his feet the most horrible thing…the thing that stole his voice and made his heart hammer and killed something in his soul…for immediately he knew what it was, and running at breakneck speed to his study there was the rest of it scattered atop his desk, and at that moment an icy cold and frozen grip seized upon him that was like falling from the world he had held under firm control onto the threshold of another where chaos and insanity ruled. Thus he was made small and shivering as he stared down upon what had been mockingly left for him to find.