Dark Duets Part 38

"What, a spell?"

She shook her head. "The entire process is a delicate balance. Your existence is completely . . . anomalistic." She shrugged.

He turned his gaze back to the stones down the alley. So. Maybe he would not continue to exist as the coherent, functioning lad from Meath. Maybe he would degenerate into . . . what?

No use giving over to dread. He'd long since been doomed.

Vengeance was all he had left. Vengeance and wrath, rich as whiskey in the blood. He'd have a taste before his final bow.

The streets were dark and quiet. They'd left Toby behind to handle disposing of the donor sailor in the crematorium. Later Rasheeda would use the ashes as subst.i.tutes for corpses she should cremate but would resurrect instead. All so very ghastly, but Liath could respect her business sense.

He himself had dabbled in racketeering, bribery, or whatever was required, but he'd found he had a knack for the smuggling trade. He considered it more of a gentleman's racket, although every once in a very long while he might have to doff some bloke and shove his body off the pier. But those were rare and unfortunate circ.u.mstances, and then only if the bloke were a true maggot.

Rasheeda gave Liath an annoyed glance.

He realized he was whistling, same as he'd done on the night he'd died. Whistling along, thinking of his sister's brown bread and coddle . . .

He snapped to. A shadow moved at the far end of the alley.

Liath cleared his head and squinted. The shadow swayed. Just some drunk. But something familiar about him just the same.

Ah. Liath knew him but couldn't place the fellow. He was singing some made-up lyrics to an old opus, something about "promenading in the park, goosing statues after dark . . ."

. . . and Liath nearly groaned. Ricky the Rake. An alcoholic thief who was known for laying hands on the ladies. Usually without consent. And he often combined his lechery with pickpocketing. More the worse, he was stinky. To graze past him was to be saturated by him. Yes, Liath knew Ricky all too well.

And Ricky knew Liath.

Liath moved to Rasheeda's other side so that he was now striding-actually, scrabbling in his pinchy boots-between Rasheeda and the Rake.

If that lout didn't accost the two "ladies" in the alley, it would be a first. And if he laid one hand on Liath's b.u.m, he'd figure out that Liath was a he.

The Rake seemed at first to take no notice, but then: "Oh, ladies. Hullo and good-"

Liath swung the bra.s.s knuckles in a roundhouse punch to the left side of the Rake's chest. Ricky crumpled to the stones.

Liath and Rasheeda kept walking. Behind them, a low, long squeak escaped from Ricky's throat.

At the end of the alley Rasheeda finally asked, "Are you going to explain what just happened or are you counting on my frisky imagination?"

"Just someone I knew. Didn't want to risk being recognized."

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Did you stab him?"

"No, luv. Just a little trick I learned from Five Points. They call it the Dead Rabbit punch."

"He's dead, I think."

"Naw. That punch can stop a heart but our man there will see tomorrow, though he'll remember that blow for weeks-every time he draws a breath."

AS LIATH WORKED on the bit lock with an iron pick and a crooked finish nail, he heard Rasheeda grousing behind him.

"We're too late, I think."

He turned and saw her staring up at the moon. "Too late for what?"

"The moon . . . it's past its full cycle. d.a.m.nation!"

The cylinder turned and he pushed the door open. The house was quiet, of course. Rasheeda had said the Traugotts were on holiday. Or supposed to be.

Then beyond the foyer, from the drawing room, came the sound of breathing. Loud, steady; a restless sleep sound.

And a wicked odor.

Rasheeda squeezed Liath's elbow. "I was afraid of this! Turn on the light, I'll cover the windows."

She rushed to the far wall, pulling the sash and letting the drapes fall together. Liath switched on a Tiffany floor lamp.

There on the silk rug sat a gaunt and pasty waif, forearms resting on her knees and her skirts. .h.i.tched so that her bloomers spilled apparent. A revenant dressed in a maid's uniform. Her mouth was covered in gore. It formed a muzzle and stained her neckerchief and skirts.

The maid took no measure to conceal her disarray. She merely sat, staring, unresponsive to Rasheeda or Liath or the light that now bathed the room.

"What has she been . . . ?" Liath started and looked toward the hall.

"Oh, dear," Rasheeda said softly. "Eunice, Eunice, Eunice."

Kneeling next to the maid, she removed a carafe from her pocket and began streaking oil onto the revenant's face.

"Go find the family," she told him.

"And where might they be?"

"They will be dead and . . . not pretty."

"Dead?"

She waved him on. "Go, go! See if anyone survived."

Liath ventured deeper into the house. And one by one he found them: the husband, the wife, the children, a butler. Rasheeda had been right: not pretty. Each had been savaged as though by a rabid boar. Some were barely recognizable; others merely had their throats torn.

Of all the degenerates Liath had known, from Five Points to the Bowery, from the Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys to the Munic.i.p.als and the Metropolitans; not from any rank of thuggery had he witnessed such wanton disregard for human life as what that revenant had done in the Traugott home.

Worst of all: Why didn't he feel shock or revulsion? Was it because he was . . . oh, well, might as well be saying it: dead?

He stood in the kitchen and gazed at what was left of the butler. The poor man lay eviscerated atop tiny little black-and-white tiles, a cloth still draped neatly over his arm. Shattered bits of china and a tea tray lay at various points around the baseboard.

What disturbed Liath more was that his own stomach was not turning flip-flops as it ought to. Instead it felt . . . hungry.

"Well, you can't say I didn't warn them," Rasheeda said behind him.

Liath jumped in his boots. "G.o.dsake woman. Don't be sidling up on me like that."

"Wasn't sidling. I was just saying that I'd warned them."

"You mean to tell me, all these people knew they risked slaughter and still they dallied in their return?"

"Well, not slaughter exactly."

"No? Well, then, what were you after telling them-exactly?"

"I told them what I tell all my clients: without the lunar anointing, their servant will become inactive-as you can see by that wretch in the drawing room."

Liath looked in the direction of the revenant maid. "But if I might be hazarding a guess, it appears she went into some sort of berserker rage first."

"Yes. They do tend to do that when the anointing is delayed past the full moon."

"Well, if these folks knew she'd do that-"

"They didn't know that, exactly."

"What? You don't tell your clients their lives could be at risk?"

"Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"Don't you feel some sort of responsibility to give fair warning?"

"Don't be silly! Who would lease from me then?"

"No one!"

"Exactly!"

She was cold, this one. Colder than his own dead a.r.s.e.

"That's . . ." He found himself at a loss for words. "That's unconscionable!"

She raised her chin. "I'm not sure I care for an air of moral superiority in a career criminal-and a dead one, at that."

"An air? Me? I'm not one for airs of any sort. I may be having a few failings now and again but-"

"A few? You've told me you're a smuggler. That means your modus operandi is bribery, thievery, and probably extortion as well. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't have a murder or two on your hands to boot."

"Oh, listen to herself talking about murder. As if there's not a drop of blood on her lily-white hands."

"I have no blood on my hands, and what you imply as murder on my part is anything but. It is a simple transfer of life force."

"The poor bloke's just as dead as a man with a bullet in his noggin."

"Besides, it's not as if they were doing anything useful with their lives in the first place. We're careful in choosing the types who tend to go missing anyway. No one is looking for them, I a.s.sure you. But you-how many have you killed?"

"Only two, and never with glee, and never a one who didn't deserve it."

"And what criteria, in your estimation, are required for one to find a place on your 'deserve it' list?"

He hesitated, scratching his cheek even though it didn't itch. This wasn't a comfortable topic.

"All right: both times was because of a double cross."

"A betrayal?"

"Yes. Someone who says he'll be doing one thing and then he does another."

She rocked her head back and forth. "Oh, and I suppose you, as a career criminal, never break your word?"

"Never. And I don't think of meself as a criminal."

"Smuggling is a crime."

"It is, but I'm after thinking of meself as a businessman whose trade simply happens to be against the law."

"One who's never gone back on his word?"

"Well, sometimes I may not be delivering on a promise-"

She jabbed at finger at him. "Aha!"

"-but only because of circ.u.mstances beyond me control. Never because I had a better offer elsewhere, or something heinous like that."

"You mean . . . let me understand this: you mean to tell me that you hold to your word no matter what?"

"If I say I'll be doing something, I do it. People have to know that when Liath O'Shea says he'll be delivering, he delivers. How else will business get done?"

"Even when it turns unprofitable?" She shook her head. "That's like some silliness out of a penny dreadful."

"It's a matter of me personal pride."

"So you fancy yourself a character from a penny dreadful then?"

"I do no such thing! You sound as though you think keeping one's word is silly."

"Of course it isn't!" She looked mildly offended, then shrugged. "Unless of course it becomes inconvenient to do so."

"How can you say that? Your word is your bond!"

"I always reserve the right to change my mind if things don't go my way."

Liath could only stare. Was it because she was from India? Was this how heathens over there conducted business?

Rasheeda stared back with a puzzled expression. "What?"