Mariah Mundi (31 page)

‘Why did he give you that?’ asked Sacha as she rattled the chains that held her to the floor.

‘Said it would be for my own good. That one day it would come in useful, and I think I know why.’ Mariah took hold of the chain and stabbed the fine point of one blade into the lock, twisting it back and forth. Soon Felix was free. He rubbed his wrist and ran to the door and peered through the lock.

‘No use,’ he said desperately as he looked about the room. ‘There’s a key in the other side.’

Mariah didn’t hesitate. First he quickly undid Sacha’s shackles and then, pulling a piece of discarded newspaper from the shelf, he slipped it under the door and pushed at the lock with the blade of the knife. Within seconds the key fell from the other side. Mariah pulled the stiff sheet of paper back into the room, and the key was there before them. Felix smiled.

‘Clever lad, this Mariah Mundi. I’ll soon be out of a job.’ He tried to laugh.

‘Learnt it at the Colonial School. I was the one who trashed your room and burnt your money. Got the key from the caretaker’s house just like this, and no one knew. Bilton thought you’d done it to yourself. Teach you for all you did. I laughed when I saw you in that cage, wanted to leave you there forever. Hoped that crocogon would eat you alive.’ Mariah spat in his face and he clenched his teeth, ready to fight.

‘Then why did you come back?’ Felix argued, his face flushing with rage.

‘I came back for her, not you. You made my life hell. When you left the school it was the best day of my life. Just ’cos you’re a year older, thought you were the big man, and who had to save your skin? Me!’ Mariah held the knife to his face. ‘You’re a joke, I know that now. Always the joker, poking fun, but that stuff hurts, hurts deep. Never told her I knew you, never wanted to. A bad memory best forgotten.’

‘Stop it!’ Sacha shouted. ‘Luger will be back and you two will still be fighting.’

‘Was him,’ they said together, pushing their fingers into each other’s face as if they had done it a thousand times before.

‘She’s right,’ Mariah said reluctantly. ‘Save this until another day. It’s waited this long, it can wait another hour.’

‘Likewise,’ Felix grunted.

‘Gonna get us out of here then, Mariah?’ Sacha asked.

She had spoken too late. The door shimmered as the outline of a body broke through the fibres of wood. First a face and then the shoulders, until a whole body appeared in the room.

‘My dear little friends,’ said Monica as she materialized before them, dripping blue liquid to the floor in a large pool at her feet. ‘You weren’t thinking of leaving?’ She looked at Mariah. ‘All together at last,’ she said, her eyes jumping from one to another.

Mariah hid the knife behind his back and stepped across the
room as Sacha looked at Monica. A growing stench of salt water and dead fish emanated from the sea witch, filling the room like a rising tide. Monica appeared to steam, a haze of fog falling from her shoulders like a white cowl. Yet her face looked young and fresh and was neatly powdered, her lips etched in bright red paint.

‘I see you’ve eaten the pearls … Good, now I can have you dipped in liquid nitrogen and frozen for your journey. Who shall go first?’ she said as she looked at Felix and Sacha in turn. ‘I think … Felix.’

Before anyone could say a word she grabbed the boy by his throat, her hands strong and powerful. She lifted him from his feet and dragged him towards the steaming vat of freezing steam.

Felix screamed and looked at Mariah with eyes that called for help. Sacha tried to move but found her feet salted to the floor, encrusted in a thick layer of brine that held her like cement. Mariah too was held fast, the salting running up his leg and encrusting his body to the waist. Monica laughed as she dragged Felix closer and closer to the metal vat.

‘Soon we’ll have a boy who looks better than any of Otto’s waxworks,’ Monica said.

‘He’s not Ottto – he’s Gormenberg,’ Mariah said quickly.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘You heard. He killed Otto Luger. I can show you his bones in the foundations. Otto’s dead, has been for a long time. He lied to you and he’s gonna kill you.’ Mariah spoke quickly as she took Felix closer to the vat.

‘I would have known, he tells me everything,’ Monica replied, intent on killing Felix. Her grip tightened around his neck and he began to stop struggling.

The salting gripped them to the floor as her unspoken spell worked quickly about them. Mariah could feel the brine cutting
into his flesh as the crystals multiplied upon him. Monica lifted Felix up the first of the three steps that led up to the top of the vat of freezing liquid. He had become limp in her hands as the life was strangled from him. She laughed to herself as she went up the next steps, and the sound of Sacha’s frightened screaming filled the laboratory.

‘I promise I’ll be quick,’ Monica shouted above the noise. ‘Death comes easily – so many people have done it before, it can’t be that bad.’ She laughed again as Sacha ripped at the salt that now enfolded her up to her waist; her legs were like those of a giant snowman.

‘Don’t do it to him, please!’ Sacha shouted, sobbing.

Mariah looked at the sea witch and the words of Captain Charity came back to his mind as if freshly spoken in his ear. ‘
A
triple blade for a triple death. Not only kills the body but the soul
and spirit, a blade for each, and will keep even the most fearful
ghoul in its tomb for eternity
.’

‘Take me!’ Mariah shouted as the sea witch dropped Felix to the steps before she lifted him over the lip and into the liquid nitrogen.

Monica stopped and glared at him, holding her hands against her waist and tipping back her head in mocking laughter. ‘Your turn will come,’ she scolded.

Mariah seized the moment. His hand flashed from behind his back, then quickly stretched to full length and fired the triple blade through the air. It flew like a hawk swooping to the ground, taking on a life of its own. It shuddered the air, whistling and groaning as it sped towards the sea witch. It knew its purpose, as in the second it pierced her tight black dress, sending sequins exploding across the room. There was a flash of bright green light as the knife was absorbed into her body and then burst through her back, embedding itself in the far wall.

Monica laughed as she put a hand to her chest and felt the dribbling fluid running over her skin. ‘I’m not flesh and blood … I’m a sea witch – you can’t kill me.’

She crooked herself to slide Felix into the vat of liquid nitrogen. He moaned as she gripped him by the chest and began to lift him higher to roll him into the vapours.

‘It didn’t work – she lives!’ Sacha shouted as Monica charmed the salting higher and higher up her waist.

It was then that the sea witch stopped and looked at Mariah. She smiled, but a look of concern flashed upon her face and fluid began to pour from her chest. As she looked to the triple blade embedded in the wall, minute orbs of green light burst from her and she began to glow. She gasped for breath, holding her hand across the rupture in her skin as she sought to quench the escape of life.

Felix began to breath again. The salt melted from Sacha and she broke free of its bindings. The sea witch gasped harder as if the air she gulped was of no worth and empty of life. A multitude of sparkles gushed from her wound like fireflies. She looked around the laboratory, her eyes searching for something familiar and her hand stretched out as if to reach for someone she knew.

Mariah walked towards her, knowing she was dying. His face was lifeless; there was not a single trace of emotion in his eyes. All he knew was that she had to die and that he could bring her life to its end.

In a few paces he had crossed the room. Felix stared at him, not knowing what he would do. Sacha grabbed his arm to hold him back, only to be shaken free as he pushed her to one side and made for the sea witch.

‘There had to be the first one and it’ll have to be you,’ he said as he contemplated what he was about to do, pressed on by a growing force that welled up inside him. ‘There will be no witnesses.’

Mariah stepped up to the vat of frosted liquid and took hold of Monica’s shoe, which looked as though it were sprayed upon her translucent foot. He twisted it to one side, pulled her leg towards him, then stepped towards her, pushing her backwards. Without a word, he tipped her into the tank. Then he grabbed hold of Felix and dragged him away.

Like a graceful and silent swan, Monica the sea witch fell into the icy pool. In her final seconds of life she looked towards Mariah and smiled. It was as if she could see his future and knew all that life would bring to him. As she was consumed by the chilling fluid the sound of cracking bones echoed through the laboratory. In an instant she had disappeared, only to float to the surface holding out a frozen hand as if she reached for mercy.

Mariah picked Felix from the floor and looked harshly into his face. ‘Don’t get any ideas, Felix. I did it for Sacha.’

I
N the faint light of the passageway, Mariah peered through a narrow slat that was cut into the cell door. In the corner of the room he could see Captain Charity leaning against the wall, his head held in his hands.

‘I can’t open the door,’ Mariah said as he peered inside. ‘I met with Albion and Black – they told me everything. I know who you are – and what’s more, Luger is
Gormenberg
.’

Charity smiled as he stepped to the door. ‘Gormenberg? I realised that when I was captured. If I cannot escape, then you’ll have to go alone. Did you find Felix and Sacha? I heard their voices.’

‘They’re safe, still in the laboratory. Felix is hurt. I … I …’ Mariah stuttered the words as he pushed his hand through the slat to take hold of Charity. ‘I killed Monica – she was a sea witch.’

‘Did you use the knife?’ Charity asked. ‘And it worked?’

‘She’s dead,’ Mariah said as he held his hand.

‘I’m not surprised, never known the knife to fail in its task. Do you have it now?’

‘In my belt,’ Mariah said softly, wanting more than this,
wondering if everyone in the Bureau of Antiquities talked like this in times of great consequence.

‘Good … Find Albion and the Midas Box and Gormenberg will not be far behind. Sacha will help me from this place. Go – go now.’

‘Gormenberg has closed the steam valve and said the whole building will explode. You have to get out of here.’

‘Fear not, Mariah. I have no plans on leaving this life. The land of the table-rapper will not take me yet. Find Gormenberg, and swiftly – he must not get away from the Prince Regent.’ Charity spoke quickly as the cell filled with a sudden gust of steam from a bursting pipe.

‘But how will you get out?’ Mariah asked as the sound of the steam generator suddenly stopped.

‘That’s not your concern, Mariah. Do as I say. Find Albion and Black. They will need you in what is to come.’ There was the sound of grating rock above their heads. The foundations seemed to jump as they were showered in a pall of thick dust that fell from the roof.

‘I can’t leave you here, not like this,’ Mariah argued as he rattled the door to the cell.

‘I’ll find a way to escape. You have to go and go quickly,’ Charity insisted as more dust fell upon him.

Mariah turned to set off at a pace but stopped dead in his tracks. He cast a glance through the door to the laboratory: Sacha was lifting Felix to his feet.

From inside the darkened laboratory Felix looked at Mariah and smiled. ‘I judged you wrong. There’s more of a Colonial boy in you than I thought,’ Felix said as he hobbled to the door still holding his neck, his hands covering the bright blue finger-marks around his throat.

Mariah nodded and smiled at him. Somehow all that had gone before mattered not, it seemed so trivial and commonplace.
The mountains of hurt had crumbled around him in his present circumstances.

‘Take Felix to the beach,’ he heard himself saying to Sacha. ‘Charity needs you to help him escape. I have a task I must complete alone.’

Sacha vainly tried to call him back, her words echoing along the empty tunnels as his footsteps sped off into the distance.

Mariah ran and ran until he came to the steam elevator. He pressed the bell as the sound of the emptying steam generator gurgled and gulped all around him. He waited, in his heart knowing that the machine would not come.

Wet sand covered the floor. Upon the wall the gas lamp burnt dimly, casting shadows through its broken glass shield out and along the tunnel that led to the sea. Mariah pressed the button for the lift and again waited. There was a long moan as the steam escaped from the ramrod far below, and he now knew for certain that the elevator had died. Looking around him, he walked on, keeping to the tunnels that went upwards and towards the Prince Regent. It was lighter and drier here. The sea was left far behind, the corridors covered in a fine sand that didn’t show his footsteps.

The foundations tremored yet again as the earth shivered and twisted, the pressure mounting in the geyser deep within the rocks. In a few minutes Mariah had walked the length of the longest passageway and stood before a double door with salt-rusted handles. It was blocked with a pile of sand. Nearby was a discarded shovel with a broken blade that had split in two; it was half buried in the dry sand that was stacked all around him.

Mariah pulled upon the doors. They were jammed fast. He thought of going back, finding some other way through the labyrinth of tunnels that he knew would lead him to the surface. But when he peered through a cracked pane of glass in the doors he could see on the other side the steps that led to the
spiral staircase and eventually the lobby of the Prince Regent.

Taking the shovel, he smashed at the glass, only to find that it had been barred in place long ago with iron braces stronger than any prison. He kicked the sand and then began to dig. In a short time he had pushed the fine white sand back into the tunnel, piling it as high as himself. Still there was more to be moved. He dug the spade in deep until it cracked against something hard. He burrowed with his hands, moving away as much of the fine debris as he could, until he came to something that felt as hard as iron yet as smooth as a silken handkerchief.

Mariah tapped upon it three times. It rang out with a dull thud and sounded strangely hollow. It was then that he felt the earth move slowly beneath him. There was no sound of a tremor or fall of sand from the roof, but he was sure he had moved. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun and he knelt there, waiting. He again tapped upon it as he smoothed away the sand, and there he saw the thick red shell of the Pagurus.

It was as if he were in an earthquake. He was violently tilted back and forth as the sleeping creature got to its feet and shook the sand from its body. Mariah was pressed against the ceiling. The Pagurus snapped its claws as it tasted the air and its one large red eye swivelled in its socket and stared at him.

As the Pagurus pressed him higher against the stone roof, hoping to scrape him from its shell and then pick him limb from limb and suck upon the juice, Mariah suddenly dived and flattened himself upon its back, keeping one hand upon the shovel as the other grasped for the beast’s eye. It snarled like a simmering pot as he held the eye in his hand, wanting to pull it from its socket. The Pagurus leant back, raising its claws high into the air as it snapped at him. It lurched from left to right, confined by the sand and the door as its sharp toes danced upon the stones below.

The beast showed no fear as Mariah hung on to its back, his hand upon the shovel. He had run from the creature before but now he felt compelled by powerful voices within him to stand and fight. The Pagurus stopped and looked at him as he cupped its eye in his hand. It seemed to taste the air and shimmer the long spiny hairs that covered its mouth.

‘I won’t run this time,’ Mariah said.

The crab rattled its claws like a jangling sabres, as if it had understood his words.

‘You or me?’ he asked as he flashed the shovel back and forth.

Another shudder of the rock exploded a shower of fine sand all around them like a swirling mist. The Pagurus trembled, and the clatter of snapping claws echoed through the tunnel. Mariah stared at the beast and the beast stared back. For a moment the Pagurus hesitated. Mariah took the broken blade and sliced it across his hand, shattering the creature’s eye.

It hissed and moaned as it then spun this way and that, grabbing blindly with its claws at everything and nothing. In one movement it threw Mariah to the floor and blindly took hold of the door, instinctively holding upon it with its large right claw.

Mariah smashed at the creature as its powerful legs stabbed at him time and again. He thrashed it across its back, the shovel bouncing from its carapace as if from the hardest steel. It backed against Mariah, pressing him against the wall with the cusp of its shell. He slid to the floor as it tried to dance upon him and impale his body to the sand, and as he grovelled beneath the beast he saw a multitude of fine red berries that clung to its underside. He brushed against the thick spines that covered each speared leg, while the Pagurus darted its fat claw towards him, trying to pluck him from his hiding place. Mariah stabbed the nest of eggs that clung to the queen’s shell. They burst upon him like a fall of fresh cranberries as he
scrambled into the light. Taking the shovel, he rammed the blade into the creature’s mouth.

Like a madman he twisted the shaft back and forth, each time pressing it deeper and deeper. The Pagurus snapped with its mandibles and held its claws before it like praying hands. It froze upon its feet and then backed away, shuddering with every step.

Mariah pushed the shovel even deeper until the full handle was plunged within the beast. It groaned and spat as its claws were held in rigid spasm. Taking the triple blade from his belt, Mariah stabbed the crab again and again until his hands ran pink and green with the mucus that spewed from within. It juddered once more then fell to the floor – dead.

With the sand cleared, Mariah wasted little time in opening the doors and walking through the musty dank tunnels until he found his way to the landing that led into the hotel. The sound of moaning and creaking pipes vibrated the air around him, and he felt thoroughly alone. In the distance he could hear the crocogon wailing in the depths, barking and roaring like an old caged lion wanting to be fed.

Mariah pressed on, climbing the spiral staircase until his mind swirled. He jumped the stairs two at a time, clattering his footsteps against the stone. The brass pipe banister that coiled upwards was cooling to his touch; the whole of the Prince Regent began to groan and creak as it contracted with the growing cold.

Soon he had come to the door that would lead beyond the theatre to the lobby and eventually to Gormenberg’s office. It had been bolted from the inside with a sweeping brush wedged between its handles so that no one could come through, but Mariah managed to jolt the brush free and pulled the door open. He peered down the long corridor beyond the Trisagion and onwards towards the brightly lit foyer. The gold clock
above him chimed the quarter hour and was echoed by the landing clocks throughout the hotel.

The lobby was empty, except for the old janitor who doddered back and forth with his brush and pail, sweeping the remnants of ashed cigars from the floor and turning down the lamps one by one.

Mariah walked as calmly as he could. He felt taller, almost a man. A painting of Luger – or was it Gormenberg? – stared at him, its eyes following his every step, an outstretched finger pointing accusingly. He smiled and nodded at the janitor as he walked past, turned the corner and stood before the oak-lined door of Luger’s office. His black suit was now tattered and torn, his shirt ripped and covered in the slime of the Pagurus.

For the first time he looked at the wall above the entrance to the hotel. It was a perspective he had not seen before. The revolving door had been folded shut and locked for the night. As he stared through the glass, Mariah could see a night porter stood on the steps outside in his thick padded coat with gold cuffs, beating his arms against himself to bang away the chill.

To one side a grand staircase swept upwards, its gold handrail shining in the dim light like the back of a coiled serpent rising from the deep green carpet that stretched from wall to wall. Pinned to the ceiling like an ornate plaster rose was yet another clock face. Its second hand swished anticlockwise as the minutes clicked onwards. A moon appeared and then set across the face, growing from new to full in a matter of seconds, as small stars like jewels and a golden sun went back and forth from behind silver clouds. Mariah was mesmerised by the whirring golden hand that appeared to spin faster and faster.

There was no sign of Albion or Black. Apart from the janitor there was no one at all. Mariah waited impatiently, strutting up and down outside the office door. He looked up to the clock
several times and watched the minutes pass by slowly. There was still no sign of the agents from the Bureau as the janitor finished brushing the floor, gave Mariah a sorrowful glance and then walked away.

From above he finally heard footsteps. They thumped slowly down the steps from the high landing. He tried to follow them with his eye but in the dimmed lights could see no one. Mariah stepped back away from the door and into the shadows of a small alcove. He pressed himself against the dark oak panel and held his breath.

Gormenberg turned the corner and walked towards the office door. He seemed unconcerned, as if this was a night like any other night. Mariah could at last see his true face without the cover of the waxen mask that he had moulded to convince the world he really was Otto Luger. He looked younger than Mariah had expected, with a thick brow and razor-like jaw. His cheek was slashed with an old duelling scar that had been treated with salt to make it stand proud. It was longer and finer than the one Gustav had so arrogantly carried. The mark ran from Gormenberg’s right ear to just below the eye and looked like a crescent moon carved into his skin.

Mariah watched from his hiding place as Gormenberg fumbled in the deep pockets of his coat for a set of keys. He farted, then glanced to the clock that spun above him, opened the office door and stepped inside. There was still no sign of Albion and Black. Mariah looked up at the swirling clock: nine minutes to midnight. As he felt the shape of the dagger in his belt, he knew he had to go alone. He tapped on the door and waited nervously for a reply. The door to the office was slowly opened and Mariah stepped inside.

‘Mariah Mundi … How well you have escaped,’ Gormenberg said as he welcomed the lad into his office. ‘Of course you now know Albion and Black.’ He pointed to the two men tied
together and strapped around a large marble pillar that appeared to hold up the roof. ‘I thought I had taken care of everyone and like a bad penny you keep appearing. Whatever shall be done with you? I gave instructions to Monica to have you frozen and yet you are here before me alive and well.’