The Dead Gentleman (22 page)

“I want you to pay a visit to our two prisoners,” the Gentleman said. “Find out if they know where the artifact is now. Do whatever it takes, but keep them alive for the time being.”

The Gentleman strode past Macheath, palming the Cycloidotrope and climbing down the stairs toward steerage and the engine. Macheath yipped at his heels like a dog.

“What is to become of Learner after that?” he asked.

“I’ll keep him around for a time. The High Father is still out there somewhere and the two have obviously been in contact. How else would the boy get his hands on the Cycloidotrope? The High Father escaped my Grave Walkers in the Hidden City, and he could still pose a threat—albeit a small one.”

“That little man won’t be a problem,” said Macheath. “Not without his Explorers around him.”

“Never can be too cautious, Macheath. The High Father is old. Nearly as old as me, but he’s crafty, that one. A trickster. No, the boy stays alive, for the time being.”

“And the girl?”

Ah, here it comes, thought the Gentleman. “What of her?”

“Is she … I mean, are you keeping her, too?”

Macheath didn’t even try to hide the drool dripping down his chin or the way his lips smacked in anticipation. He was nauseatingly obvious.

The Gentleman stopped walking and Macheath nearly tripped over him. They had come to the real engine of the
Charnel House
. Under a great black curtain it rested, the nerve center of the ship and, next to the artifact, the Gentleman’s greatest discovery. He drew back the curtain with his stiff white fingers (he really would have to choose a new shape soon; the rigor mortis was making this one difficult to operate). Underneath was a chunk of stone, a carved doorway cracked with age. Inside the door the air shimmered, a black pool that glowed with a weak, sallow light.

The Gentleman’s portal. Built into the heart of the
Charnel House
. Its power fueled the engines of this entire vessel, propelling it not just through the air but between the barriers of reality. With it, he could go anywhere.

For now that meant going home, where no sun had ever shone and there wasn’t a breath to draw. There, he would prepare for war. He would wait a hundred years if need be, and then—Earth. At last it would be his. Earth. Then everything.

“My lord?”

“Yes, Macheath, what is it?” The vampire’s voice droned in the Gentleman’s ear like the buzzing of flies. He wondered if he could endure another century of it.

“The girl, sir. Are you keeping the girl?”

The Gentleman turned and gazed down at the Cycloidotrope
once more. The images of Jezebel’s life kept spinning in a perpetual loop. Now she was a baby again, getting a bath from a man with tousled, paint-splattered hair.

“She’s yours,” said the Gentleman. “After you’ve interrogated them thoroughly, you may drink your fill. But leave the boy alive.”

Macheath practically giggled with gratitude. The obscene vampire bowed and scraped his way out of the Gentleman’s presence, hurrying toward the cells, toward Jezebel.

The Gentleman turned back to his miraculous portal and began to ponder what shape he’d take next. Something festive, something celebratory, something especially gruesome. After all, today had been a very, very good day.

“The way I see it, we’ve only got one option,” Tommy said. “When the guards come to finish us, we’ve got to take them.”

Jezebel gave Tommy a look. His plan, such as it was, sounded like a reliable way to get one or both of them killed. The problem was, however, that she couldn’t think of anything better.

“You really think we can overpower those things?” she asked. “Just the two of us?”

Tommy shook his head. “Not really. But it’s a chance. The outside walls are reinforced with solid weirdwood, and that stuff’s strong as iron. They say it only grows in hangmen’s gardens and you need magic to shape it into anything useful. Besides, the Harvesters probably aren’t expecting it—two kids charging a pair of eight-foot-tall monsters.…”

“I wouldn’t,” said Jez. “But if we do get free, then I think we should try to find the trogs again. I think they might help us.”

“The trogs? Are you kidding me? They captured us in the first place! They’re working for the Gentleman!”

“I don’t think they all are. In fact, one of them saved my life. And he kept saying your name over and over.”

“My name?”

“I think there’s more going on here than we realize …,” Jez began, but was interrupted by a sound at the door—the jingling of keys in the lock.

“Oh no!” she said, stepping back from the door.

Tommy balled his small hands into fists and stood ready. He looked pretty ineffectual, actually, standing there weaponless. The short kid preparing to face off against the bully—Jez had seen this kind of thing many times before, on playgrounds and in schools. But the sad truth was, no matter how brave the smaller kid was, the bully always won.

She stood next to him and faced the door.

“Don’t give them time to do anything,” he said. “When they step in, we rush them and then you run.”

“You mean
we
run? Together, right?”

Tommy didn’t answer. The door handle began to turn.

The door opened and Tommy charged, with Jez right by his side. He swung at the dark shape that had stepped into the room, but his swing went wide. This Harvester was surprisingly nimble and it ducked out of the way, sweeping Tommy’s legs out from under him and stepping in front of Jezebel. It sat on Tommy’s chest, pinning him, and blinked at Jezebel with bright yellow eyes.

Jezebel stopped—Harvesters didn’t have yellow eyes. But this trog did, and it looked up at her from beneath a dirty sweatshirt bandage. Tommy was kicking and scratching at it like a
cat, trying to get his teeth around its big, hairy toe.

“Wait!” Jezebel shouted. “I know him! This is the trog that saved me!”

The trog relaxed, and his big mouth opened in a questioning smile.

“Tobby Erber?” he said, looking down at the boy beneath his rear end.

“Excuse me?” said Tommy.

“See,” said Jezebel. “You’re famous.”

“So, he’s here to do the Gentleman’s dirty work?” Tommy asked.

The trog scrunched his face at Tommy and looked back at Jezebel. His third arm held a ring of keys over her head, and with the other two he gestured to the open door and the hallway beyond.

Jez smiled, understanding. “I think this is a jailbreak,” she said. “He wants us to follow.”

The trog let Tommy up and stepped several feet out into the hall. He gestured for them, and Jez followed.

“Come on,” she said. “I told you, he saved my life. And I kind of returned the favor. I trust him.”

“Well, I don’t know if I do,” said Tommy, dusting himself off. “But I’m sure not hanging around that cell for a minute longer! Lead the way, Mr. Trog.”

The hallway outside their cell was more of the same dark wood, lit here and there with what looked like fishbowls of blinking lights. They dangled on chains, these orbs of glass, and inside each one fluttered three or four dots of ghostly light. Their trog rescuer led the way, sneaking down the corridor by pulling his short legs along with two arms, while the third gestured for Jez and Tommy to follow.

They caught up with the trog as he paused to listen at a set of ladder steps. “We need to get off this ship!” said Tommy. “We should make for the hawsehole, where they raise and lower the anchor …”

Jez didn’t hear the rest of what Tommy was saying—she was focused on the man who’d appeared on the ladder above them. He’d drifted down the rungs, as silent as a ghost. When he spotted Jezebel he showed her his teeth—he was missing all but two. Those that remained were grayish-red, the color her father’s turned after he’d had a glass of red wine. They were long and sharp, and Jez felt certain they had been stained by something else altogether.

“Tommy!” Jez shouted, but it was too late. The man dropped down just as Tommy looked up, catching a boot square in the face. The man was fast—in a blur of movement he grabbed the dazed Tommy by the hair and brought a long, curved knife up to the boy’s neck. Seeing this, the trog backed away, a low growl issuing from his throat.

“It’s good to have friends, ain’t it?” the man said, glancing at the trog. “Good for helping you out of tough spots, like cells!”

“What do you want?” asked Jez.

“I want you to come over here, that’s all. Come and play with old Archie Macheath,” he said. “Or else I open your boyfriend’s throat.”

Jez couldn’t tear her eyes away from his mouth. The man, Macheath, noticed this and pursed his lips in a strange, self-conscious way. “My choppers aren’t what they once were, but I can still bite!” He pressed the knife tighter to Tommy’s throat. “I just like to use the blade for starters.”

Tommy eyes started to focus on Jez. He was coming back to
his senses after the blow, although one eye was already beginning to swell shut.

“D-don’t listen to him, Jezebel,” Tommy said.

“No one’s talking to you!” said Macheath, and he gave Tommy’s hair a savage twist to quiet him.

Jez didn’t know what to do. She was unarmed, and Tommy was half Macheath’s size. Even without the knife he would have been outmatched. She took a hesitating step forward.

“I ain’t got all day!” said Macheath, and he dug the knifepoint a little farther into Tommy’s neck, just breaking the skin. A small drop of bright-red blood appeared at the blade’s edge.

Macheath’s face went suddenly slack and his nostrils flared as he sniffed the air near Tommy’s head. A low moan escaped his lips as the drop became a trickle. He was sweating now, a disgusting pinkish sheen appearing on his forehead and on his upper lip. He was muttering something over and over again, repeating it like a mantra:

“You can have the girl but leave the boy, you can have the girl but leave the boy, you can … BLOOD!”

Macheath became a rabid animal. Dropping the knife, he lunged at Tommy with his jaws opened wide—his eyes rolling back in his head like a shark’s just before the kill. Tommy shouted and fought back, punching and kicking, but he might as well have been hitting an unfeeling wall. In his struggle he was managing to make himself a hard target, however, and Macheath was having trouble finding the boy’s neck with all that squirming.

Jez ran forward and, not knowing what else to do, scooped up the knife. It was heavy and the handle was greasy and she didn’t want to think about what that knife had been used for over the years. She closed one eye, aimed and, using all of her weight,
brought it down on Macheath’s foot. There was a thump as the blade sank through the man’s booted foot and into the wooden planked floor beneath.

Macheath paused for just a moment, looked at his foot now firmly staked to the deck and then with a roar grabbed Jezebel by the collar. One in each hand, he lifted the two kids to his mouth as if he were about to binge from two glasses. His roar changed to a delighted cackle.

The first punch to his face seemed to surprise him but did little more than that. The second, which followed swiftly after the first, knocked him back a step. The third broke his hold on the two kids and sent him to the floor. The trog was on top of him, hammering down with all three fists now into Macheath’s face and not letting up for an instant.

Tommy stared, wide-eyed, but Jez kept her head. “C’mon,” she said, grabbing Tommy’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here!”

They scurried up the ladder, Tommy in the lead. When she got to the top she yelled, “C’mon!” but the trog was already a step ahead of her. Macheath had gotten his arms up in front of his face the way a boxer would, and the trog’s beating was having less of an effect. The trog gave him a final smack and then leapt up onto the ladder, his apelike limbs scaling the distance in no time.

There was a sturdy-looking hatchway up top, and as Jez flipped it closed she caught a glimpse of Macheath climbing the ladder after them. Their eyes met, and his fury was palpable as he spit a single, broken tooth out of his bloody mouth.

She shut the hatch and drew the thick bar lock closed. The wooden plank shuddered but it held as Macheath beat on it from below, cursing all the while.

Tommy smiled at the trog. “That’s two we owe you!”

“Tobby Erber,” he replied.

“Where to now?” Jez asked.

“We need to head for the hawsehole. We’ll climb the anchor chain down.”

A deep rumble started somewhere in the bowels of the ship. A quiver ran through the walls, the floor. Jez even felt it through her sneakers. Something was happening.

“That sounds like an engine,” she said.

“They’re setting sail! We’ve got to go, quick!”

Again the trog led the way, and they ran the length of the lower deck. Once they had to dodge a group of Grave Walkers who were coming down the corridor, but the death worshipers were apparently too busy with their duties to notice the three of them hidden in the shadows.

They reached the hawsehole and found it, thankfully, unattended.