Mariah Mundi (32 page)

‘She’s dead,’ Mariah said calmly as he held the knife behind his back. ‘Fell into the vat and was frozen. Careless, really …’

‘And of course you had nothing to do with it?’ Gormenberg asked.

‘Everything,’ Mariah replied as he looked at Black.

‘Did you enjoy it, Mister Mundi? Did it give you a feeling of power?’ Gormenberg asked.

‘I felt nothing, my heart was cold, it had to be done,’ he said as he sidled across the room to the marble pillar and leant against it. Gormenberg sat in his leather chair, leaning against his wide desk.

There was no sight of the Midas Box. Mariah looked about the room, hoping to see a trace of the artefact.

‘So … What now?’ Gormenberg asked.

‘Why did you kill Luger? I found his bones in the cellar. It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘What does it matter?’ Gormenberg said to himself. He picked a handkerchief from his top pocket and folded it into his shirt neck as a napkin. ‘You’ll all be dead within the hour and I will be far away.’ He yawned and then farted again as he licked his fingers and then rubbed them against a bloodstain on his gold waistcoat. He glanced to the clock and then to the drawer of his desk. With a shaky right hand he slowly slid the drawer open and brought out a large golden plate. It was filled with cold fat sausages, gherkins, pickled onions, strips of bacon and stale fried bread. With his stubby fingers he began to pick a piece at a time and slip it into his mouth. ‘Always like to eat when I’m thinking – the more I think the more I eat. Especially
animals. Once met a man who’d never eaten meat in his life – he was scrawny and thin with a pallor of death. Sort of man who’d die of measles or whooping cough. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to eat the ultimate meat – you know what I mean?’

Mariah knew exactly what he meant. He looked at Albion and Black, who struggled against the ties of the rope that bound them to the pillar. ‘How did you catch them?’ Mariah asked as he nodded towards the two men. ‘They’d come to get
you
.’

‘Our own fault,’ Albion said as he jabbed Black in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

‘Was your idea to check his office before midnight,’ Black squalled.

‘He was supposed to have been in the cellars,’ Albion protested.

‘Grimm and Grendel saw to that. My two friends had chased you through the sewers and got themselves lost – they eventually came out at the castle and with a shilling cab ride they were back at the Prince Regent just in time to catch your companions rummaging for the Midas Box where their greasy little fingers shouldn’t be …’

‘Grimm and Grendel caught you?’ Mariah asked them as he edged closer.

‘Not so much them but the pistols they carried,’ Black sniggered. ‘Albion insisted that this affair would not require the use of firearms – didn’t you, Perfidious?’

‘Soon be midnight,’ Gormenberg said, and to Mariah’s surprise he pulled the Panjandrum cards from his pocket and began to take them from the box one by one with his greasy fingers. He chomped and spoke at the same time, rolling the food around his mouth and dribbling constantly. ‘You see, Mariah, I now have everything I desire. A device to make gold
and another to make the future. It would be tragic to allow these two buffoons to take them from me.’ He took the last fat sausage and slid it between his teeth like a succulent cigar. ‘Now I go in search of an alabaster box filled with mercury that can take me from one world to another. You, my friends, will await the largest explosion this country has ever seen. After, they will say I was lost in a natural disaster of Icelandic proportions, a Pompeii beyond Pompeii. When the steam from below the ground is not vented through the hotel it will blow a hole in the side of the earth that will engulf the hotel and half the town, and I will watch it all from the safety of the sea. Listen … Isn’t it wonderful? Silence …’

‘You’d kill us all for that?’ Mariah asked.

‘I’d kill you for less and would never get caught,’ Gormenberg replied as he rang a dainty bell that he kept on the top of his desk. ‘Grimm, Grendel,’ he called. ‘All our guests are now assembled and I am to leave. Five minutes to midnight and I have one last task before I say goodbye the Prince Regent.’ Gormenberg put the Panjandrum cards back into the box and then into his pocket.

The door opened and the two detectives stepped into the room. Their fine suits were covered in mud and torn at the knees. Each held a small pistol uncomfortably in his hand.

Grimm smirked his usual smirk and ruffled himself like a cock hen. ‘Nice to see you face to face. Chased your dust for so long I wondered what you would look like,’ he said to Mariah.

‘Suppose I’ll be tied here to await my fate whilst you all escape?’ Mariah asked as he stepped against the column.

‘Suppose you’re right, lad. Take your place and I’ll see to you,’ Grimm said as Grendel hovered nervously behind him, a twitch taking hold of his left eye and jerking his head.

Mariah quickly stepped against the column and with the knife began to secretly cut the bonds that held Albion to Black.

‘I will see you on the steamship
Tersias
,’ Gormenberg said as he stood from his desk. ‘Do not be longer than the hour or you will share their fate. I have to get the Midas Box. Don’t be late.’ He placed his folded handkerchief upon the plate, picked a pickled gherkin, stuffed it into his mouth and then left the room.

The door slammed behind him and he was gone. Mariah could hear the strands of rope being cut through as he pressed the knife against them.

‘Careful, lad,’ Black whispered. ‘Nearly through.’

‘Do you think you could show me the glasses just one more time – the ones you followed me with in the sewer?’ Mariah asked boldly as he played to Grimm’s pride. ‘Show them to my friends, it would be most interesting.’

The detective cast a glance at his companion and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Suppose it’ll do no harm – always best to end a life on a curiosity.’ Grimm pulled the spectacles from his pocket and placed them on his nose, slipping the wire frames around his cauliflower ears.

‘So you can see where anyone has been?’ Mariah asked.

‘Like a vapour trail of red mist that goes behind us all, unseen by everyone,’ Grimm chortled like a proud professor.

‘Even where Gormenberg has gone?’ he asked.

‘Even Gormenberg,’ Grimm said bluntly. ‘All I would have to do is take his handkerchief and hold it here.’ He held the stained white cloth to his face. ‘And then I turn this dial and once the frequency is registered I could follow him forever.’

‘I must see,’ Mariah pleaded as whimsically as he could rouse himself to be. ‘Please?’

Grimm looked at his sad and pleading eyes and lopsided smile. He took the spectacles from his face and placed them carefully upon Mariah’s nose. ‘There,’ he said kindly. ‘The lad can go from this world knowing what they’re like.’

Grendel nodded, his hand shaking and his twitch growing stronger as it lurched his head from side to side.

Mariah suddenly could see a swirling red mist that formed a trail of vapour from the seat behind the desk and through the door. Upon the wooden floor were thick red blotches like the footprints of a monster that trailed across the room.

‘And you got these from the Americas?’ he asked.

‘From a prophet, a man who said he could read etchings on plates he found on a mountain. Never a stranger tale have I ever heard,’ Grimm said. He looked at Grendel, who was having trouble keeping his feet upon the ground.

‘So, Mister Grimm. You are finally the victor and we the defeated,’ Albion interrupted.

‘Quite so, quite so. A strange accident of fate,’ Grimm replied, quite distracted.

‘There are no such thing as accidents, Mister Grimm, no such thing,’ Albion said, and he twisted his wrists and snapped the severed ropes. As if he were some mountain beast, Albion threw himself at Grimm, knocking him to the floor. Grendel, stunned by what he saw, raised the pistol to shoot, but it danced around on the end of his fingers as if it had a life of its own.

‘No!’ shouted Grimm, in fear of his life as Grendel aimed the pistol at his head.

Black leapt towards Grendel, kicking out as he jumped over Mariah’s head and landing on the twitching detective like a leopard on a jackass. ‘Run, Mariah!’ he screamed. ‘Find Gormenberg before he escapes the town,’ he shouted as he punched the detective in the face and grappled with the gun in his hand.

Mariah hesitated. Albion held Grimm to the floor and looked momentarily towards him, his brow sweated as he wrestled with the detective. ‘Go, lad! Find him and we’ll follow.’

The Prince Regent lurched suddenly as a fresh tremor
arched the building and shuddered it violently. Debris fell from the ceiling, and the sound of cracking wood on the panelled oak walls ripped the air like splintering bone. The deep silence of the dormant hotel was broken as the screams of guests in faraway rooms filled the night like the cry of a thousand ghosts lamenting their own death.

As Black and Albion fought on, Mariah ran to the door and into the lobby. The staircase and the hallway were filled with panicking people escaping to the street clad in only their night-clothes. A trail of red footsteps led to the stairway. Mariah scoped the scene, the divining spectacles casting a glow around everyone at whom he looked.

The fleeing bodies left a trail of dark light like a living shadow; it was as if Mariah stared upon a field of ghosts that ran down the stairs. Many were screaming, the shuddering of the hotel having frightened them from their warm beds and chased them into the cold street. He pursued the footsteps as fast as he could, the red vapour billowing about his feet. Far behind he heard four gunshots, and then complete silence.

T
HE clocks struck midnight with a chilling sound. It was as if their call was different than on any other night. The Prince Regent shuddered in time with each beat, the sound of the chimes almost deafening Mariah as he ran. He could hear the echoing carillon coming from all around him as he chased the red glow of Gormenberg’s footsteps. As the clocks struck the third chime of midnight, he turned a corner of the stairs and into a long corridor. He had never been this way before. It was cold and damp and had the smell of cordite and pepper. It reminded him of the odour an old aunt who would carry her wheezing and toothless dog everywhere she went.

In front of Mariah a door stood a fraction open, the light from inside shafting into the dark corridor. The footsteps led through it; they were bright and fresh and shimmered with red vapour. He knew Gormenberg was near. From inside the room he could hear the man fumbling with the lock of a safe and the clitter-clatter of a dial ratcheting loudly as he turned it back and forth to find the combination. Mariah heard the safe door creak open on squeaky hinges, followed by the slithering of metal across a shelf. 

He waited outside the room, not daring to venture in. The chimes of a gentle clock picked out the hour again, as if time had stood still. Mariah counted the twelve strokes of midnight, repeated over and over like the call of a faraway bird.

He listened as Gormenberg slammed something heavy against the slats of a wooden table. There was the click of another lock. The man mumbled to himself, half cursing, half laughing. It was as if he recited a charm under his breath, not wanting the world to hear the secret words he recounted.

‘Guardian of Gold, open the door to riches and grace …’ he said again and again, his words seeping out through the open door as Mariah listened, wondering what to do next.

It was circumstances and not bravery that forced his hand. Mariah was leaning against the door to hear more of what Gormenberg was chanting when suddenly he fell into the room and to the floor at the man’s feet.

Gormenberg didn’t look at him. Mariah could see that he held the outstretched wings of a plain lacquered box, the Panjandrum lying by its side.

‘Stay, boy, and don’t move,’ Gormenberg said as he placed a piece of black coal into the box. ‘I must do this before I deal with you.’

‘I’ve come for the Midas Box,’ Mariah said, his voice trembling.

‘Brave or stupid? I haven’t decided which you are but will soon find out,’ Gormenberg nagged through chattering gold teeth, as he was about to close the lid of the box upon the lump of coal.

‘Neither!’ shouted Mariah as he jumped to his feet and stepped towards the man, grabbing him by the hand and thrusting it into the Midas Box as he slammed the lid upon it.

Gormenberg screamed in agony, his face turning blue and then deep crimson as throngs of white spittle blew from his mouth like foaming wave tops. The box juddered against the
wooden table, vibrating and alive, as shards of golden crystal light beamed across the room, the light so intense that it dazzled. Mariah struggled to hold Gormenberg’s hand fast as they both became absorbed within the blazing light that escaped from the Midas Box.

‘You don’t know what you do!’ screamed Gormenberg as he struggled to be free. ‘I had altered time and at last would have succeeded. It will kill us both if you don’t set me free.’

His voice sounded feeble. Mariah could smell the noxious odour of stale cigars and old cologne that clung to Gormenberg’s jacket. Tiny ribbons of wax began to melt from his face as his nose began to drip and liquefy. His eyes bulged as if they were being pushed from his head. As he screamed, darts of golden light shot from his mouth.

There was a sudden and terrifying explosion. The room was darkened as the lights flickered. Mariah was blown from his feet and landed against the wall. Gormenberg was nowhere to be seen. A thick layer of black smoke hung like a pall of winter smog across the stone floor. As Mariah got to his feet he saw Gormenberg’s arched back rising from the mist. The man stood up, clutching his left hand. It glowed in the gaslight. It was completely golden, every finger frozen in bright precious metal.

‘My hand …’ Gormenberg stuttered as he stared disbelievingly at what had been done to him. ‘Look what you’ve done!’ His voice sounding like that of a child who had discovered a broken toy.

Mariah looked towards Gormenberg, who had been showered in golden rays. Upon his coat were globules of shining metal; his skin shimmered in a fine gold powder. Droplets of gold hung from the ceiling of the room, sparkling in the light. It was as if everything had been bathed in gold and outlined like a finely painted icon. He looked again at Gormenberg’s hand – it was solid gold.

The Midas Box lay on the table, the cards close by. They appeared to have been undisturbed by the explosion of light that had knocked Mariah from his feet. The lad saw Gormenberg’s eyes flash from box to cards and then to his golden hand.

‘Want to take them both?’ he asked as he felt for the dagger in his belt. ‘Your move, Gormenberg. Go for which one you want, but go for both and I’ll pin you to the table with this dagger.’ Mariah couldn’t believe he had spoken the words – his fear had gone, and his heart pounded as if with each beat it changed a boy to a man. He clutched the dagger and heard the disturbing sound of soft metal touching against the hilt.

Mariah held out the dagger before him and looked at his own hand. It was then he saw that the tip of his little finger to the second knuckle had been transformed to pure gold. It was perfect in every way and joined seamlessly to the flesh, as if the gold had grown from his skin. He stared at it intently, mesmerised by what he saw.

Gormenberg saw the look of panic on the boy’s face and laughed.

‘Slightly less than mine,’ he said jovially as he grasped his hand. ‘If we had fought for longer then we would both be turned to solid gold.’ With that he reached out, grabbed the Midas Box and ran from the room.

Mariah picked the Panjandrum cards from the table and followed. The mist swirled red before his eyes as the divining spectacles followed Gormenberg’s every step. They ran on, down and down, Gormenberg’s stride lengthening as he left Mariah trailing behind. Through door after door and around dark landings they ran. All Mariah could see was the plod, plod, plod of red footprints in the sands that covered the stone steps. They clattered into a long tiled corridor that Mariah knew led to the beach.

Gormenberg darted quickly into a side passage far ahead as
Mariah ran on behind. In the distance, Mariah saw three figures coming towards him, their bodies outlined by a fine blue aura.

‘Mariah!’ shouted Sacha. She held Felix by his arm as Charity carried the boy along.

‘He’s running for the harbour. Gormenberg is going to catch the
Tersias
before she sets sail,’ Mariah screamed as he ran on, in his heart knowing he couldn’t stop.

‘I’m with you, lad,’ Charity shouted as he laid Felix to the ground. ‘Take him to the beach. Can you make it, Felix?’

The boy nodded as he leant towards Sacha, and Charity joined the chase.

Mariah snatched the eyeglasses from his face and plunged them into his pocket. At last he could see without stumbling, free from the blinding of the divining spectacles. He ran even faster, trying to make a yard on Gormenberg, but the man ran like the wind, faster than Mariah had ever seen a man run before – it was as if his feet didn’t touch the ground as with every step he bolted a further yard. Soon they were upon the beach, where a growing storm was mounting in the bay. The waves washed across the top of the North Pier, the dolphin buoys dancing in the water.

Mariah watched Gormenberg leaping across the sands and stretching the distance between them with every step. The man danced across the strand like a gazelle, soaring over the dispersing mist.

‘CU-BAA!’ shouted the distant voice of Charity, who ran far behind Mariah. ‘Get the man!’

Several yards from Mariah the soft white sand burst open, and out sprang the crocogon who had been basking in the warmth. The beast looked about it, hearing the call of its master, and then, sighting Gormenberg, set off to run.

‘Go, Cuba, go!’ shouted Charity as he ran on behind Mariah
and together they watched the beast chase Gormenberg through the mist and towards the pier.

Gormenberg turned and cast a glance behind, slowing his steps as if he taunted the crocogon to run faster. He stopped and held out his golden hand to tempt Cuba, and looked across the sands to Mariah and Charity as they raced on.

‘Do you think a dragon can catch me, Captain Charity? Is that the best you can do?’ he screamed, his voice shrill and angry. ‘You have no idea who I am, do you, Captain?’ he shouted mockingly as Cuba rushed towards him, about to strike.

Cuba leapt the last six feet, launching herself through the air with all the strength of her dragon legs. Her long tail twisted as she dived towards him, and at the final moment she snapped her mouth.

Gormenberg sprang to one side. The crocogon fell into the surging water of the surf, perplexed as to how it had missed the man.

‘Better luck next time!’ Gormenberg laughed as he ran towards the fish pier lined with gutting sheds that were silhouetted against the moonlight.

‘Run for the ship, Mariah!’ Charity shouted as Mariah raced on, his lungs fit to burst and his throat burning.

The blackened and sooted funnel of the steam-tramp
Tersias
poked above the chimneys of the houses that lined the pier. A thick column of black smoke rolled upwards like the blade of a knife cutting the sky as its engine chugged and clanged, ready to set sail.

Gormenberg ran on, leaping from the beach to the top of the pier like Spring-Heel Jack as the crocogon followed up a flight of stone steps. Mariah came behind, with every pace losing his breath. He stumbled up the steps, slipping on the jagged winkles and seaweed that clung grimly to each tread. Long swags
of draped nets pulled at his face as he ran past the scaling huts to the harbour side.

In the faint gas light of the pier end Mariah could see Gormenberg leap from a stack of fish boxes and on to the ship. At once the
Tersias
put to sea, crashing the boats that were moored to its side to matchwood. Mariah ran along the pier, knife in hand, as he caught up to the ship. Gormenberg stood aft, the Midas Box held proudly in his right hand as he waved to Mariah with his five golden fingers and shimmering palm.

‘Next time, Mariah. I am sure there will be a next time. Out of them all it was you who came the closest to capturing me. Imagine – a boy, a Colonial boy! Keep the hotel, whatever is left of it …’ Gormenberg laughed as the ship slipped through the mouth of the harbour. Its portholes glimmered with a meagre yellow light that seeped through the dirty windows.

‘I expected your escape on something finer than this,’ Mariah shouted back to him as he stood on the end of the pier.

‘I have a bilge full of pearls and the Midas Box, what more could I ask for?’ Gormenberg swaggered as he turned to walk away. ‘One more thing,’ he shouted. ‘The man who was killed outside the Three Mariners – I didn’t do it. It was another.’

‘We’ll find you, Gormenberg,’ Charity shouted as he found Mariah and stood watching the vessel put to sea.

Gormenberg waved his golden hand and laughed as the
Tersias
sailed clear of the stillness of the harbour and into the turbulent open water of the Oceanus Germanicus.

‘Lost to us …’ Mariah said as he turned to Charity. ‘He got away.’

‘But you fought well, you proved yourself. The struggle changed you … And you and Sacha did it together.’

‘But Gormenberg got away with everything.’

‘Sometimes things are never the way we wish. Often it looks as if evil has triumphed and light is weaker than darkness. That
is life, my lad. Loose ends and misery.’ As Charity spoke, the panting crocogon came and wrapped itself around their feet like an attentive lapdog.

‘The Prince Regent!’ Mariah blurted. ‘I must go, the steam was switched by Gormenberg …’

‘And the faucet released by Captain Charity. Sacha helped me escape – she did well, no one could have done better. Together we found the valve and the Prince Regent will shudder no more.’

Mariah shooed the crocogon from his feet and together they turned to walk away. In his heart he felt saddened, as if the burden of the world had been thrust too early upon his young shoulders. The cold night clung to his face and dewed his eyes. Nothing of what he had done or seen made any sense to him. It was as if life had become an opera and he a player against foul fiends.

As they stepped away, Mariah smiled at Charity and then turned to cast a final glance to the sea.

‘LOOK!’ Mariah screamed and pointed to the sea just beyond the harbour mouth. The tentacles of the Kraken wrapped themselves around the bow of the
Tersias
, tearing the wooden slats from the steel hulk. The sea boiled as the creature took hold of the ship and pulled at its smokestack, ripping it from the ship and hurling it to the water. ‘The Kraken – it did come back!’

‘What did I tell you?’ Charity said as he looked on. ‘Never trust a creature like a Kraken, you never know what they will do.’

They stood as onlookers, watching the waves break over the ship. From below another beast gripped itself upon the craft’s stern, and a gigantic tentacle broke open the bridge door and searched inside. Three crewmen leapt to the foaming sea, to be lost in the waves. Gormenberg stood proudly on the top of the
ship, waving to the shore in defiance, his screams drifting upon the wind with none to hear them.

In seconds the vessel was no more. The Krakens together pulled it from the surface to the depths below. Gone was Gormenberg, gone was the Midas Box.

‘What’s to be done?’ Mariah asked of Charity.

‘Nothing. All has been done for us,’ he replied calmly as Albion and Black ran towards them.

‘He escaped …’ Mariah said before they could ask.

‘Only to be caught again,’ Charity continued.

‘We saw it well but couldn’t believe our eyes. In all these years at the Bureau we have never seen the likes before,’ Perfidious Albion snorted enthusiastically.