The Eleventh Plague cq-2

by Darren Craske

  CHAPTER X

  The Second Shot

  AFEW DAYS FOLLOWING, the Silver Swan was far out to sea and making good time as her great steam-powered engines motored the ship through the ocean. Waking just after dawn, Cornelius Quaint decided to take a morning constitutional along the deserted deck. He had so far lapped the ship six times, a distance equivalent to a couple of miles.

  Quaint strolled along, setting his eyes out to sea. Soon he came upon a gentle old man idly mopping the deck as best he could – only for a wall of water to rise from the side of the ship and soak the walkway. As Quaint approached him, he stowed his mop into his iron bucket against the railings.

  'What is this now, Mr Quaint? Seven or eight times?' he asked.

  'Six, Alf…only six,' Quaint replied.

  'You'll wear out your shoe leather at this rate,' Alf said cheerily, wiping his forehead with a cloth from his overall pocket. 'So which is it?'

  Quaint frowned. 'Pardon me?'

  Alf chuckled to himself. 'In my experience, there're only two reasons why a man loses himself in a haze such as yours, Mr Quaint. You're either walking to remember something…or walking to forget it. So which is it?'

  'A bit of both, I suppose,' Quaint smiled. 'The walking helps.'

  'Oh? And do you reckon whatever it is it'll shift any time soon?'

  The conjuror shook his head. 'Not until we reach Egypt, at least.'

  Alf nodded his head knowingly. 'Bit o' sunshine does wonders, Mr Quaint, you'll see,' he chirped, as he wrung out his mop and continued to swab the puddles of seawater from the deck. 'I'll see you on your next lap. That is, unless you manage to shift that cloud afore then, eh?'

  Quaint walked past the old man, but spun around as a loud crash behind him set his nerves on fire. Two smartly dressed children thrust open the door from inside and rushed out onto the open deck. One was a boy of about five years old, dressed in a blue sailor suit, whilst the other was an older girl. All pigtails, gap teeth and pleated skirt. They were both squealing madly, running in circles around Alf's bucket playing tag. Slipping on the wet deck, the young girl careered into her brother, sending both the young boy and Alf's bucket flying.

  'Bleedin' mongrels, what have I told you?' cursed Alf, shooing the children away with his mop. 'That's the third time them little buggers've knocked my bucket over this morning. Their parents need to keep 'em locked up!'

  'Children will be children, Alf,' the conjuror said with a smile.

  'Aye, mebbe,' Alf half-heartedly agreed, swabbing up the water. 'You got any of your own, Mr Quaint?'

  'None.' Quaint held his smile, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch.

  Children. Now there was a subject seldom spoken of. He was fifty-five years old and it was far too late for him to even think about starting a family – even if he weren't blessed with immortality. But that did add another layer to the question of his 'condition'. How could he watch his kin grow up and grow old as he was captured in a perpetual state of eternity? How could he explain that? How could he expect them to live with that as he buried them one by one as he himself never aged a single day? He didn't think he could bear it. He didn't even dare think about it. No, it was better this way. He was better this way. With a wave of his hand he continued his stroll, his mind quickly regaining its clouded state.

  He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he failed to notice the furtive form of Heinrich Nadir peering out onto the deck through the porthole set into the door behind him. The German turned to a man at his side clothed in the grease-stained garb of ship's engineer. His low brow overshadowed his simple features, and he slapped a heavy iron wrench into his open hand.

  'That's the one there, is it?' he asked Nadir. 'The tall one?'

  'Ja. Do you know what you are to do?'

  'Yep. I'm going to wait for him to pass again, crack this tool onto his skull, and then watch his brains go splat all over the deck,' rattled the engineer, taking up his position behind the door.

  'I do admire a man that takes pride in his work,' said Nadir.

  Some minutes later, Cornelius Quaint had nearly completed yet another lap and he was beginning to tire, so he decided to make this his last. Destine would no doubt be waking by now. As he saw Alf in the distance, he steeled himself for the impending conversation. So far that morning, every time he had passed him, the deckhand had continued his conversation virtually from the last word without missing a beat. Quaint prayed that he would gloss over the subject of children. Perhaps if he were to trigger a conversation first, maybe it would throw Alf off the scent?

  'Nasty storm coming in from the west there,' Quaint chimed.

  'So, what would you have preferred then, a boy or a girl?' Alf asked.

  Quaint could have spat.

  'Me, I've got three boys and a girl,' continued Alf. 'They're all grown up now course, but when they were young? Strewth! The boys were no trouble, but my girl was a proper madam, by crikey! I swear she's to blame for this sorry state of affairs upstairs!' He whisked off his cloth cap to reveal a practically bald head, save for sporadic patches of white tufts of hair. 'I used to have a thick mop of chestnut up top, and now look at it! Old age happens to us all at some point, I suppose.'

  'Hmm,' agreed Quaint. 'I suppose.'

  'I think you might be right about that storm, Mr Quaint,' said Alf, looking out to sea. 'Looks like there's something nasty heading our way.'

  Alf could not have realised just how right he was.

  Behind him, the door to the deck silently swung open and through it stepped the engineer. He scoured the soft pink flesh at the back of Alf's skull and made a mental note to sort him out too once his target was taken care of – just for fun. Taking a couple of swift steps towards Quaint, he raised the wrench in the air…

  Just then, the door behind the engineer was smashed open and its full weight slammed into his back. His boots skidded on the slippery deck, launching him at a rate of knots towards the ship's railings, flipping him upside down and over the side like a rag doll. The last thing the engineer saw was two small children on their backsides in a pool of water with an upturned bucket between them, their excited squeals masking his screams as his skull smashed against the ship's hull.

  Quaint and Alf spun around.

  'Sorry, mister!' exclaimed the boy with an impish grin, before he and his sister poked out their tongues and ran off.

  'Bloody damn bastard kids,' mumbled Alf.

  'Oh, it's just high spirits,' said Quaint merrily. 'It's not as if anyone was hurt.'

  CHAPTER XI

  The Third Crack

  ANOTHER WEEK PASSED, and Cornelius Quaint wished for a far quicker way to get to Egypt. He often looked up at the sky, wishing that he had a pair of wings like the seagulls that flocked above the ship looking for scraps to eat. He had always known that getting to Egypt would mean a long and arduous journey, but Madame Destine had convinced him that he should learn to calm his mind, and focus on the job at hand when the time came. But he could not afford to let go. He was primed for action and Cornelius Quaint was not a man who liked waiting.

  For anything.

  It was late into the evening, and Quaint was sat at the long wooden bar in the tavern onboard the ship. It was small but comfortable, decorated to resemble the lounge of an English gentleman's club. Quaint had never felt particularly at home in those places – too much pipe smoke and bloated posturing – but Tanner's Tavern served a great pint of pale ale and the conjuror had been glued to his seat all evening, way past the landlord's bell calling time.

  The conjuror's mind was characteristically patchwork, endlessly replaying recent events and, in particular, Madame Destine's words on their first night onboard. 'We are all servants to our destinies,' she had said.

  And she was right, not that it made Quaint feel any better. Was it all really down to destiny? Could it be that cruel? If only he had sensed Renard's presence in London some weeks past he would not be in this situation. He would be stood over the Frenchman's grave, s
pitting into it. But would he be at the grave alone? Even though Renard had been Quaint's most hated foe for much of his life, the man was so much more to Madame Destine. His betrayal ran so much deeper – within her blood. Having a callous, cold-blooded murderer for a son was a heavy weight to bear on its own, but knowing that the child she had brought into the world was mortal enemy to the man that had become her surrogate son was heartbreaking. Even the conjuror had to admit there was a certain sense of painful irony about that, and, strangely, that made Quaint smile. Every now and then, he was forced to revisit his past failures – and in truth, allowing Renard to draw breath after the first time they had crossed swords was a mistake. But Renard was finally dead now. No longer could he torment him. A score had been settled, a lifetime of battles won. So why then did he still feel on edge? Why could he not allow his mind to wander free? Why was he plagued with such doubts, as if death were stalking him from around the nearest corner? Had the conjuror been gifted with eyes in the back of his head, he would have solved that mystery.

  Heinrich Nadir watched Quaint through the glass of the tavern's door, knowing that this was the night that his prey would die. There had been two slip-ups already and Nadir knew that he could ill afford a third. The closer they got to Egypt, the more his time was running out. This attempt would have to go like clockwork.

  The landlord smiled politely as the German approached the bar, but flicked his eyes to the large clock above the main entrance. 'I'm just about to close up, sir…but I can fix you a quick nightcap if you wish?'

  'A small cognac, thank you,' Nadir said, battling with a twitch in his right eye as he took a stool next to Quaint. 'Not having trouble sleeping, I hope?'

  Quaint did not look up at this newcomer immediately; it was only when the German spoke that the flames of recognition were lit.

  'It's being awake that I sometimes have trouble with,' said Quaint, supping his ale. His sozzled eyes looked at Nadir's face, transfixed by the multiple features swirling around in a whirlpool.

  'A rare complaint from a man on holiday,' noted Nadir.

  'I never said I was on holiday,' said Quaint.

  'Indeed?' questioned Nadir. 'You are an intriguing man, Herr Quaint.'

  'I hear that a lot,' said Quaint, finishing his ale quickly.

  'Can I buy you another?' Nadir asked.

  'No, thanks. I need to let Charlie here get some sleep. I've been bending his ear for hours. Right, Charlie?' Quaint asked the landlord.

  'Always a pleasure hearing your old stories, Mr Quaint.'

  Quaint slapped a handful of coins onto the bar and, with a wink to Charlie, he slid himself off his stool and tottered in a crooked line from the tavern. Nadir watched him zigzagging across the deck, the onrushing wind doing its best to dislodge his footing – and doing a good job of it too. The German's face entertained a subtle smile, and had the landlord not been purposefully checking his pocket watch, he might have wondered about such a devious expression of delight.

  'Now is the moment,' Heinrich Nadir told himself, feeling the knife nestled within his jacket. Its blade would taste blood before the night was through.

  Cornelius Quaint steadied himself against the ship's railings. He was looking forward to getting back to his cabin – if only he could remember where he had left it.

  He fought against the wind to open the door that led inside, tripping over the raised step. He found himself at the end of a long corridor with rows of identical doors on both sides. Feeling inside his trouser pocket, he pulled out his door key and squinted at it whilst his inebriated vision tried its best to decipher the numbers embossed upon the key's tag.

  'Is that a five…or a six?' he mumbled to himself.

  Those ales were stronger than he had thought – or perhaps it was merely the number of them that he had consumed. He thumbed his lips, bringing the tag closer to his beleaguered eyes. He decided to wait until his vision remembered what gravity looked like, and he propped himself against the corridor's wall.

  The ship was quiet. It was the early hours and most of the passengers were tucked up nicely in their bunks, the rocking of the ship sending them quickly to sleep. Only a few crewmembers were drifting around the ship like ghosts, tidying their stations, locking doors, checking safety equipment. Away from the ballroom and dining saloon and a lot closer to the passengers' cabins, the occupation was scant – a fact that Heinrich Nadir clung to. He lurked in the shadows just beyond Quaint's sight. He could hear the conjuror mumbling to himself, drunkenly chastising the world for all its ills, promising to set them right in the morning.

  The German smiled at how easy this was going to be.

  After finding his sense of balance, Quaint then discovered that his key wouldn't work, but when he turned the handle, he was relieved to find that he had left it unlocked. He opened the door, bouncing off the doorframe and into the cabin.

  Nadir rounded the corner just as the cabin door closed shut. He grinned. Now his target was caged, in a drunken haze with nowhere to run. It almost seemed unsporting to kill him in such a state – but then he was reminded of the reward he would receive from his employers and all pity went out the window. For some reason that he was not party to, the Hades Consortium had targeted Cornelius Quaint. The order to kill had come from very high up, possibly from the inner stratum itself. That spoke volumes to the German. Killing such a high profile target gave him a chance to make a name for himself, and he would not let this moment slip through his fingers. Cornelius Quaint was going to die this night – even if Nadir had to drag him to hell himself.

  Arriving outside the cabin door, he pressed his ear to it, hearing the rumbling of heavy snoring from within. His target had already fallen asleep or, more accurately, passed out. Removing his knife from his jacket, Nadir silently turned the handle and pushed open the door. He hovered in the doorway for a moment, not wanting to broadcast his entry into the room. Not that it would have mattered. His arrival could have been announced by a trumpeting fanfare and still the snoring beast would not have woken. He pushed the door closed, wincing as the latch snapped noisily into place. Stepping towards his mark, he raised his knife into the air.

  'Guten Nacht, Herr Quaint,' he said.

  And then he launched himself.

  The blade struck its target, closely followed by the German's bodyweight. Again and again he brought the knife down, feeling his quarry flinch beneath him. Nadir thrust a pillow over his target's head to smother the screams, and then stabbed the man's heart to finish him off. Soon, the room was silent and still.

  Silent that was apart from Nadir's heavy panting, stringy spit clinging to his lips.

  Still that was apart from the nervous twitching of the man beneath him.

  Nadir lifted the pillow to take one final look at the man that would cement his name in the ranks of the Hades Consortium for ever.

  Except…

  The face that stared back at him was that of a stranger.

  Horrified, Nadir rushed to light the oil lamp on the bedside cabinet, which was quite a task considering how much his hands were shaking. Holding the lamp closer to the bed, he could not believe his eyes. The dead man was of a broad build, with a bushy grey beard lining his chin, branching into mutton-chopped sideburns, and very definitely not Cornelius Quaint.

  'This can't be!' Nadir gasped.

  Just then, he was distracted by a woman's scream in the cabin directly next door, as a familiar deeply toned voice apologised profusely. Nadir swore and dived to the door, listening intently.

  'This is E16, you lunatic! You want D16, one deck up!' the woman screamed. 'I'll have you thrown overboard for this outrage!'

  'Dear madam,' hiccuped Cornelius Quaint, 'it is quite possible that my present orientation is a trifle out of order.'

  'I'll say! Now get out of here before I call the guard!' the woman yelled, before slamming the door in Quaint's face.

  Heinrich Nadir smeared the blood from his hands across the bed sheets. Yet another body for the incinerator
, he supposed. Once more Cornelius Quaint had evaded death, and Nadir had run out of chances. Killing him was obviously not as easy as he had first thought. Quaint was a wily foe, and not to mention blessed. Nadir's options were decreasing, and a change in tactics was called for.

  'You have the gods on your side, Herr Quaint,' he said. 'But I wonder if your luck extends to your travelling companion? If I cannot kill you…perhaps I can make you seek out your death willingly.'

  CHAPTER XII

  The Awkward Silence

  THE REST OF the trip passed uneventfully.

  If anything, Quaint was a little bored by the time the Silver Swan arrived in Egypt.

  The amber-hued sun blazed low in the sky, caressing the flat rooftops of the buildings with elongated shadows. There was a tangible sense of excitement in the air. The gleaming sugar-white steamship was moored in the port, and the cacophony of dockside activity was in full swing. A succession of suitcases and cumbersome trunks were being carried from the cargo hold to the docks by a flurry of eager Egyptians. The infrequent visits from passenger ships always created a tingle of expectation among the dockland community. High-pitched whistles, wails and booming yells floated on the breeze as traders, workers, travellers and all those in between made their way around the port. It was rapidly approaching nine o'clock in the morning, and most of the Silver Swan's passengers were bustling about trying to grab the last remains of the breakfast service before it closed.

  Bucking the trend, one passenger was decorum personified.

  Cornelius Quaint grabbed the thin net curtain and peered out of the open porthole of his cabin at the chaos on the docks below.

  'Ah…there's nowhere quite like Egypt,' he said, taking a long sniff of the air.

  He pulled on a dark grey pinstriped jacket over matching trousers, and ran a thumb down his braces before buttoning up a tan waistcoat. He rested a brown felt hat upon his nest of curls, and strode towards the door.