by Nick Marsh
‘We are going faster than I realised,’ he said, thoughtfully. He turned his attention back to us, spreading his hands across the table in a fan. ‘Mehmet must be stopped,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Neville agreed. ‘He must. Do you have a plan?’
‘Of sorts,’ the duke said. ‘We must--’
‘“We” must?’ Milos said. ‘With all this power,’ he said, gesturing around the cathedral car, ‘surely you don’t need us to help you.’
Alphonse coughed again, and the duke smiled a thin smile. ‘Sadly,’ he said, ‘my power is limited. I can make this place, but I cannot leave it. It is more of a... projection of my home, in Lausanne.’
‘Then none of it is real?’ Grace asked.
The duke shook his head, but more in irritation than as an answer to Grace’s question.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘you have many questions, and I, of course, have many answers. But this is no time for them. We cannot afford to allow Mehmet to reach London, and perform the Ritual of Cleansing.’
Alphonse nodded as the duke spoke.
‘He is right, you all know this,’ he said.
‘But--’ Grace said.
Anger crept onto the duke’s features. ‘Miss Murphy,’ he said, slowly, as if he was trying to control himself. ‘I will answer your questions, I promise, after we have dealt with Mehmet.’
‘All right,’ Neville said. ‘What do you propose? How can we even tell who the blighter is?’
The duke smiled, and sat down. As he did so, he flickered again, and my attention was drawn to Alphonse, who was sitting with his arms folded next to the duke. For a fraction of a second I thought I saw him sitting forwards in his chair, his hands pressed to his temples as though in deep concentration, but the moment passed too briefly for me to be sure. When I looked again, Alphonse was sitting with his arms folded, as he had been before.
‘The Simulacrum,’ the duke said, ‘allows Mehmet to don the skin of others. He can become an exact copy of them, by stealing their flesh.’
‘Yes,’ Milos said. ‘You told us this already.’
‘Quite so,’ the duke nodded. ‘But I know a way to reveal him. There is a ritual - nothing sinister,’ he added quickly as he saw Grace, Neville and Ash’s eyebrows rise, ‘in fact, it is similar to our little talk in the flames, Mrs Sunderland.’
I nodded.
‘The words concentrate the mind, you see,’ the duke said. ‘And when the words of this ritual are spoken, it causes the stolen skin to detach itself. Mehmet will be revealed.’
He reached into the pocket of his suit, and produced a small folded piece of parchment. His shape flickered again as he did so.
‘What is happening to you?’ Neville asked. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ the duke smiled, thinly. ‘No, nothing is wrong. The ritual--’
‘He keeps... changing,’ Grace said.
‘It is nothing,’ the duke said, firmly. ‘The words of--’
‘The train is moving more quickly than you expected, isn’t it, duke?’ Neville said, stepping forward. ‘We are in part of your home, you said, in Lausanne. This is getting more difficult for you to maintain the further we move away. That’s why your special car only appeared when we emerged from the tunnel, isn’t it?’
‘What does it matter?’ the duke said, standing and frowning. He gripped the parchment in his hand. ‘Mehmet is the important one, isn’t he?’
‘Hnnnng!’ said a voice beside him. We all looked in surprise. Alphonse sat there, his arms folded, a reassuring smile upon his face.
‘Kaargh!’ he said, and his image changed. Suddenly, Alphonse was on his feet, his arms pressed against the table, clenched with effort. Sweat was pouring down his brow.
‘What the devil--?’ Neville said. As he spoke, Alphonse appeared to sit down and fold his arms, but within an instant he was standing again. This time, he reached over and plucked the piece of parchment from the duke’s hand.
‘Kill him!’ he cried through gritted teeth. ‘Kill us both! He’s insane! You don’t... ungh... you don’t know what he is like! Worse... worse than Mehmet. Worse than--’
‘No!’ the duke cried. ‘Sit down! Shut up!’ He swung his right arm into Alphonse’s face as he spoke. The professor flew backwards across the room and slammed into the wall of the carriage hard enough to make the metal staircases at the rear of the car rattle.
‘Ash,’ said Neville, slowly, ‘Give me your gun.’
‘What?’ the duke cried, red-eyed with rage. ‘Are you insane? I saved your life! I saved all of your lives! I am trying to help you--’
The pilot handed Neville his pistol without hesitation.
‘Thank you, duke,’ Neville said, levelling the gun at him. ‘But I think we’ll take it from here.’
Neville shot the duke three times in the chest. In the shocking silence as the echoes of the gunshots faded away, the stunned duke stared at Neville with incredible hatred.
‘Fools!’ he cried. ‘You bloody fools!’ He turned and ran. Within seconds he had climbed half of the staircase. Despite his bad leg, Neville reached the foot of the spiral steps first. I followed.
‘Grace!’ I called. ‘The professor!’
‘Yes, Mrs Sunderland,’ she said as she rushed over to his prone form. I climbed the steps, following the duke and Neville, whilst Ash and Milos charged up the staircase on the other side of the carriage. Neville was climbing out onto the roof, into darkness, when I heard Ash swear. The hatch on the other staircase was closed and locked.
I hurried up the steps. The wind hit me like a hurricane as I tried to get my bearings. The train was still rocketing down the tracks, approaching a long, iron bridge. Beside us, a ten-foot clock tower topped with a large brass bell pointed up into the sky. The bell was tolling, but the sound was distant, almost inaudible. The roof was topped with mini-battlements, and strange buttress-like structures projected from it into the darkness. It was like a child’s idea of a train carriage.
The duke - or prince, as he now called himself – stood in the centre of the roof. Neville panted beside me at the top of the stairs, gun in hand. The duke began to move his lips, and over the terrible roar of the wind we could hear familiar syllables.
‘Neville!’ I cried, but his gun was already raised.
‘There’ll be none of that, I’m afraid!’ Neville said. The gun discharged, and the duke flinched, howling in rage and frustration. Just for that second, the duke flickered once more, and his shape changed. His mask slipped, and his true shape was revealed to us. The terrible image will be burned into my mind as long as I live.
‘The Jigsaw Prince’, he had called himself at his bizarre feast below; finally Neville and I saw that this was more than just an honorary title. The suit had vanished, and the naked form in front of us looked like some horrid parody of the human form; pallid flesh hung loosely from the swollen, obese frame, and the skin was criss-crossed with hundreds of deep, purple scars, some of which oozed with sticky red material. Not one patch of skin on that hideous body matched the colour of the patch next to it. Only the duke’s face, contorted with anger, was untouched by the corruption and patchwork monstrosity of the rest of his body.
Everything happened so quickly from there. Howling like a demon, oozing blood from the four bullet wounds, the Jigsaw Prince charged across the roof at us, arms outstretched. I think that Neville fired the gun at least once, and possibly twice more, but it had no more effect on the monster than it would have had upon a stampeding buffalo. Within a moment the prince was upon Neville, grasping, biting and tearing. The flabby body jerked again as Neville fired the pistol into it at close range, but nothing seemed able to stop the thing. For one second I saw the glint in Neville’s remaining eye as he wrapped his arms around the horror, embracing it.
‘No!’ I cried, realising his intent at the last second.
Neville, grappling the prince as tightly as he could, turned, and leapt from the train. As I write, I can still see them now,
falling into darkness - the Jigsaw Prince screaming and juddering with fear; Neville, blood streaming down his shirt from his now re-opened neck wound, silently accepting his fate.
Then they were gone. I ran to the edge of the car and shouted into the night. The pair had fallen from the train, from the iron bridge, and far, far into the night. I knew that a fall of fifteen feet would probably have been fatal at the speed we were travelling. A fall of forty feet, or more... there was no hope.
As I stood and shouted, pointlessly, Milos appeared at my side, quickly piecing the situation together.
‘The colonel... gone?’ he asked.
I nodded, unable to speak. Milos cleared his throat.
‘He was a good soldier. A good man.’ I nodded again. ‘Now,’ he said, gently laying his arm on my shoulder, ‘we must go, Mrs Sunderland.’
The cathedral car was already beginning to fail without the duke’s controlling influence. The staircases we descended were rusting and crumbling as we entered the main chamber. Grace was sitting over a crumpled, dark form in the corner, sobbing. Ash stood by her side. I hurried over, and she looked up as I approached.
‘He... he’s gone,’ Grace said. I looked at the sad, charred and rotted corpse that was all that remained of my friend Professor Alphonse Moretti. The duke must have needed the professor’s mortal remains to create the illusion that he had returned. Apparently, he brought back more than he intended when he robbed the grave.
‘He faded before my eyes,’ Grace said, wiping her nose. ‘He gave me this.’ She held up the parchment with the ritual on. ‘He said... he said to say goodbye.’
‘Grace,’ I said, slowly, ‘Neville...’
I couldn’t say any more, but I didn’t need to. Grace could see it in my eyes.
‘Oh, oh no,’ she said, quietly. She looked down at the parchment.
‘Was it worth it?’ she asked.
‘It will be,’ I said. Whispering one last goodbye to my two dear, dear friends, we hurried from the disintegrating carriage, in search of Mehmet Makryat.
Later
‘Mon Dieu, my friends, what has happened to you?’
The chef de train, as far as anything else could surprise him on this night, was surprised to see us. We brushed off his questions about our tattered clothes - now covered in stone dust - the strange noises that had emanated from the back of the train, and about the whereabouts of Neville.
‘Take us back to the fourgon,’ I said, determined.
‘The fourgon?’ Grace asked. ‘Why the fourgon?’
I looked pointedly out of the window, at landscape rushing past in a blur. ‘This ritual gets rid of stolen skin,’ I said, waving the parchment. ‘Maybe it will work on the train.’
‘The train?’ Grace asked. ‘What about Makryat?’ Beside her, Milos nodded.
‘Mrs Sunderland is correct,’ he said. ‘Makryat is on the train too. The sooner we stop it, the better.’
‘Also,’ Ash added, ‘We’re running rather short of track. Best to stop before then, eh?’
The chef de train blustered, but our determination was obvious, and he had no other solutions. Within a few minutes we stood once again in front of the pulsating, fleshy door of the baggage car, and the locomotive beyond. The guard - equally surprised at our return - moved aside for us as we approached at the beckoning of the chef de train.
‘I hope you know what it is you are doing,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I said. Not a bloody clue, I thought. I raised the parchment, and unfolded it, squinting at the duke’s spidery writing.
‘What are you--?’ the guard asked. I ignored him, and began to speak the words.
‘Fay lah riet. Fay lah riet,’ I began. As the words left my lips, I felt something else leave with them, a part of myself. Almost immediately, I felt immensely weary, as if I had not slept for days.
‘Fay lah monad.Fay lah monad.’
‘No! NO!’ The guard’s face suddenly twisted with fear and rage. ‘What are you doing?’ he cried.
‘Monsieur!’ the chef de train said, as I continued to chant the words. It felt as if the ritual had command of my tongue, and I honestly don’t think I could have stopped then even if I wanted to. Glancing up from the page, I saw that the flesh-covered door had turned an alarming shade of red, which darkened even as I watched to an ugly purple, then black, withering and rotting as it did so. Beside the door, a similar startling transformation had begun to take hold of the guard.
‘Makryat!’ Milos cried, as the skin of the guard’s face withered and peeled off, leaving a bloody mess of pus and blood below. White staring eyes and teeth flashed through the gore as he howled in bestial rage and leapt at me. I braced myself for the impact, unable to prevent the stream of words from my mouth, but the jolt never came. Ash, our brave pilot, jumped in between the crazed figure of Makryat and myself, and both fell to the floor, wrestling and writhing. The carriage shook violently as the Orient Express began to shed its purloined skin.
Milos, Grace and the chef de train rushed to the struggling figures at my feet, attempting to pull Makryat off the fallen airman, but they only succeeding in wrenching off handfuls of rotting, shrivelled flesh. Beneath the skin, the Simulacrum was visible, stretching out Makryat’s muscles, distorting his joints and warping his bones. Like an animal, Makryat went straight for Ash’s throat, biting and snapping, and Ash’s shout of anger was cut off, turning into a bloody gurgle. Grace screamed in horror and the coppery tang of blood filled the carriage.
Distraught though I was, the ritual continued to flow through me. My legs grew weak and my vision dimmed as the last syllables forced themselves through my tired lips. The words left me, and the last image I remember as I collapsed was that of the twisted figure of Makryat, obscenely distorted by the Sedefkar Simulacrum, smashing through the window of the train. Then the juddering floor, soaked with blood, rose up to meet me, and I mercifully lost consciousness.
When I awoke, I was in the restaurant car, with the concerned faces of Grace, Milos and the chef de train peering down at me. I don’t recall ever feeling quite so exhausted. The rattle of the carriage, which I had grown so accustomed to, had stopped, and the wheels were silent. The train was still.
‘Madame Sunderland,’ the chef de train was saying, ‘Are you well?’
‘Ash?’ I asked, struggling to my elbows, and looking around. Milos shook his head. Another death, another friend gone. At the time, I felt nothing. I was too numb, too tired and shocked, but writing it now... I must not dwell upon it. There is still work to be done. I am so tired, but I suppose rest will come soon, one way or another.
Milos and Grace explained to me what had happened after I lost consciousness, though in truth there was little to tell. After killing Ash – biting his throat out like a rabid dog, Grace said with a shudder – Mehmet had leapt from the train as it ground to a halt. The locomotive itself was damaged beyond repair, crushed and warped under the weight of the strange skin Makryat had wrapped it in. The chef de train said that it was a miracle the boiler had not exploded, although I must admit that it seemed to me the night had been somewhat short of miracles; at least, short of the benign kind.
As to where we were, it seemed that the train had followed the track right through Paris and almost all the way to Calais. The chef de train would have some explaining to do to the Wagons-Lits company. Milos told him, without explaining, that one of his staff may well be missing, and that if he was found he may not be in a pleasant state. As the duke had told us, the price for Makryat’s impersonation was the skin of another. To his credit, the chef de train acknowledged this disturbing news without questioning. He had seen enough already.
I gazed out of the window. Dawn was breaking over the serene, frost-covered French fields.
‘Makryat is ahead of us,’ I said. Milos nodded. ‘He will still be heading for London, for his shop, won’t he?’ Again, Milos nodded. I sighed. ‘Then I suppose we still must continue.’
Grace was looking at the fl
oor. Milos cleared his throat. ‘Makryat must be stopped,’ he said, quietly.
I looked down at my hand, liver-spotted, thin-skinned. A nasty purplish welt had appeared on my forearm. ‘And we, of course, are still under our own personal death sentence.’
Milos and Grace nodded.
‘Come on, then,’ I said, rising unsteadily to my feet, and sounding as cheerful as I could. ‘One last push before the end, eh? That’s what Neville would have said.’
My voice broke as I spoke of Neville, but my spirit did not. There is still a job to be done. The chef de train, not understanding, but realising there were greater things at work than his own tragedies, arranged for us to be escorted from the wreckage of the train with a minimum of fuss and questions. My last view of the Orient Express, the train which had escorted us to the edge of Europe and back, was a sad one. The locomotive and fourgon were nothing more than crushed, twisted pieces of metal, and the rest of the cars were scratched and battered from their high-speed trip. The blue and gold paint, once so bright, was now chipped and dismal.
The loss of Neville was still too great for me to bear, and the brief reappearance of Alphonse had reopened even that scarcely healed wound. To shut out the thoughts, I slept, reawakening hours later on this ferry to Dover which Milos and Grace had arranged, and where I have been writing what may be the last entry of my diary.
The final leg of our long journey awaits us. Whatever happens to us in London, if we make it in time, the matter will be settled, and I will be able to rest. Perhaps, if things go badly, I will see my friends again. I only hope that they accept my apologies, and that they understand what had to be done.
Diary of Mrs Betty Sunderland, Monday, 6th December
The trip to London was quick, but still long enough to dwell on all that had happened. Milos and Grace, at least, had each other, but I felt dreadfully alone. The pair stayed with me at first, but I shooed them off. They needed their time together. Instead, I sat and brooded, and wondered what awaited us in London.