The Eleventh Plague (25 page)

‘
Y
OU EXPECT US
to go walking into the Hades Consortium’s den with only your word as protection?’ asked Cornelius Quaint, as he towered over Joyce. ‘You must think us fools!’

‘Well, if you want to put an end to Lady Jocasta’s plot, then you don’t have much choice, do you?’ retorted Joyce. ‘The Consortium has guards posted in a three-mile radius of their sanctorum. They will cut you and your brave little band to pieces the moment you set foot on their territory…but not me. They know me…they
trust
me. I can get you past their defences, right into the lion’s den.’

‘Don’t make me laugh!’ snapped Quaint. ‘If you had that kind of pull, you wouldn’t be out here in the desert; you’d be holed up in their secret HQ in Bombay.’

‘Rome, actually,’ said Joyce.

Quaint smiled. ‘Rome, eh? I shall have to remember that.’

‘Whether you like it or not, right now I’m the only hope you’ve got of stopping this plot, not to mention getting your fortunetelling friend out of Fantoma alive.’

‘So why the change of heart?’ asked Quaint. ‘Why are you in
such a hurry to betray the Hades Consortium all of a sudden? Back in your embassy you were dead against it.’

Joyce pushed his tongue into his cheek coyly. ‘Well…you know how this game works, Quaint. I’ve been trying for years to gain a better standing in the Hades Consortium…all to no avail. They kept me on their leash as I fed them what I learned from the Embassy, and then a whole load of them turned up…in
my
territory! Before that harpy Jocasta arrived, I was top dog.’

Quaint stroked his jaw. ‘So…by getting us into the Consortium’s heart we can disrupt this Lady Jocasta’s plans…which makes her look bad, and sets you up for bigger and better things, right? You shovel manure in her direction and manage to come out smelling of roses?’

‘Vulgarly put, but yes,’ said Joyce. ‘I’m going nowhere in this backwater country, I know that. I’m no fool. If I want to make a name for myself, I won’t do that sitting behind a desk in the bloody British Embassy!’

Aksak Faroud scoured the conjuror’s face intently, trying to decipher what might be going on in his head. ‘Cornelius, can I have a word with you…in private?’

‘What’s on your mind?’ Quaint asked, once they were out of Joyce’s earshot.

‘Him!
He
is on my mind. He captured my brother and forced me to become his personal slave. Are you seriously thinking about allying our band with him? He is nothing but a lying, deceitful snake!’

Quaint smiled. ‘I seem to remember Professor North saying the same about you.’

‘And she had good reason – as do I,’ said Faroud. ‘I know
this man, remember? He will betray us at the soonest opportunity. It is too simple…it is a trap!’

‘Of
course
it’s a bloody trap! Frankly, I’d be offended if it weren’t,’ replied Quaint with an unyielding glare.

Faroud took a step back. ‘And…you are going through with it anyway?’

‘Remember the plan,’ Quaint said, shifting his voice from a whisper to a clipped snarl. ‘Right now we’re running out of both time and options, Aksak. I want to get into the Consortium’s base, and his way works just as well as mine.’

‘As contagious as your bravado is, my friend, perhaps you should have second thoughts about such rashness?’ advised Faroud.

‘Heavens, no, man!’ Quaint said, slapping Faroud on the back. ‘I had second thoughts
ages
ago; I must be on at least double figures by now. Here’s what I think we should do…’

Five minutes later, Faroud kicked a cloud of sand into the air and cursed madly.

‘That is the most foolhardy plan I have
ever
heard in my entire life! Even coming from you!’ he raged, walking away from the conjuror at a pace as Quaint followed in his wake. ‘You wish us to disguise ourselves as Hades Consortium guards whilst two of my Scarabs pose as you and me – acting as Joyce’s prisoners – and then we simply walk into the base through the front door?’

Quaint smiled. ‘Brilliant, isn’t it.’

‘No, it is not,’ disagreed Faroud. ‘I will tell what it
is
– it is utter madness!’

‘It has to be, don’t you see? It’s the only weapon we’ve got!’

Faroud looked moonward. ‘Then we really
are
in trouble.’

L
ADY
J
OCASTA BLAZED
through the stone corridors of the Fantoma sanctorum with intentional haste. She reached Sir George Dray’s quarters, and raised her hand to tear back the thin curtain dividing his room from the low-ceilinged tunnel – but then something made her halt. Anxiety was an emotion that she was feeling more and more often since her superior had arrived in Egypt, and it buzzed around her stomach like a swarm of hornets. She shook the apprehension away, and cleared her throat to announce her presence.

Sir George bade her to enter.

The old man was sitting at a writing bureau. The waning light from a paraffin lamp burrowed deep shadows into the wrinkles on his craggy face. He held up his hand, ordering Jocasta to wait, and continued scribbling away into a leatherbound journal.

‘What is it?’ he asked eventually, like the culmination of all Jocasta’s childhood nightmares rolled into a grating snarl. ‘Don’t just stand there gawping like a startled doe, lass.’

Jocasta stepped forwards into the dimness of Dray’s quarters. ‘Sir George, I thought you would like to know…our people
have delivered the consignment of poison to the Scarab. Nastasi has orders to distribute the vials in accordance with my plan.’

‘That sounds like good news to me…so why are you here in my room when I quite clearly asked not to be disturbed?’ said Dray.

Lady Jocasta’s stomach somersaulted. The shrivelled old man seemed to have an uncanny understanding of her thoughts, and that chilled her – for she had much to hide. She shifted on the balls of her feet as if she were about to bolt for the door at any moment.

‘Heinrich Nadir has returned…with the Frenchwoman in his custody as you ordered,’ she said.

Dray raised his wiry eyebrows. ‘I’m still waiting for the
bad
news, lass.’

Jocasta’s eyes fell to the floor. ‘Well, sir…Nadir has also supplied me with some information about the Englishman that you mentioned.’

Sir George’s interest was aflame. ‘What of him?’

‘According to Nadir…he was believed to have been en route to the British Embassy, although our scouts have since confirmed that he is presently encamped several miles from the eastern perimeter, along with a handful of Clan Scarabs from Bara Mephista that fled under Nastasi’s charge. Godfrey Joyce is with them.’

Sir George rubbed his hands together. ‘Now that
is
good news!’ he cried.

Jocasta took a sudden step forwards. ‘It is?’

‘Of course! It means that Cornelius is on his way!’ chirped Dray.

Jocasta was finding the old man’s response hard to fathom. ‘Then…we must send our troops to apprehend him immediately. If this man is an enemy of the Hades Consortium then we must—’

‘No, Jocasta, we must not do a damn thing,’ said Dray. ‘I have gone to great expense to orchestrate Quaint’s arrival and I do
not
intend to risk that when he is right in my lap, is that understood?’

‘But, Sir George…may I ask why you stay your hand? This Englishman might attempt to subvert my plans for the Nile,’ said Jocasta.

‘Oh, almost certainly he will, lass!’ grinned Dray. ‘But once you get a bite on your line, you have to give the fish a little slack. You make it think it has a chance of getting loose…and then reel it in once its defences are down.’ He linked his bony fingers together and smiled, his wrinkles stretched tight around his mouth like the opening of a drawstring bag. ‘Tell the guards to give Quaint’s line a little slack. Allow him and his friends undeterred passage…right in through the front door. Just make sure once they get in…there is no way they can get out.’

‘I will speak with the captain of the guard right away, sir,’ said Jocasta, with a compliant nod. She turned swiftly and took a step to leave, but then lingered on her toes by the door.

The old man looked in her direction expectantly. ‘Is there anything else, Jocasta?’

‘I hope you do not think me too bold, sir,’ she said, taking a swift breath as she turned to face him, ‘but I must admit that I am finding it difficult to understand your actions. This man Quaint…you say that he is our enemy, and yet you do not seem to be concerned that Joyce has led him to our citadel.’

‘Concerned, lass? Far from it. I was damn well
banking
on it!’ chuckled Dray.

The pieces had still not fallen into place for Jocasta.

‘But I am most perplexed, sir,’ she mumbled, almost thinking aloud. ‘You said that this is the same man that derailed my
plot in London. Surely he must have learned of what we plan here in Egypt from Antoine Renard.’

‘It does seem that way, doesn’t it?’ Sir George snatched up his walking cane and wrenched his frame out of his seat with unexpected vigour. ‘Once I found out about his involvement in London, I knew Quaint’d be hell-bent on putting a stop to what you were cooking up out here! Leading him to Egypt was the only way I could be sure to keep an eye on him.’ Dray laughed, a sound like water gushing down a drain. He inhaled sharply, his hand darting to his chest, and he faltered, groping for a handhold. Jocasta rushed to his side to support him but he waved her away abruptly. ‘I am fine, Jocasta, leave me. If there is one thing that I have learned from my previous dealings with Cornelius Quaint, it’s that you can’t afford to take any risks.’

‘Baron Remus made no mention of this man to me,’ said Jocasta.

‘No? I can’t fathom why. He’s got a bit of history with Quaint himself.’ Just then, Dray’s face darkened as a grim thought graced his mind. His eyes drifted away from the Greek woman’s face, down to the floor. ‘My God, is that it? Has Cornelius finally discovered the truth? I hadn’t considered that.’

Lady Jocasta scowled at Dray’s pained expression.

‘Sir George? What has the Baron to do with this man Quaint?’ she asked.

‘A lot more than Quaint knows, with any luck!’ Dray replied. ‘Someone once told me that you could measure how evil a man is by the shade of his enemies. Well, if that’s the case, then Baron Remus puts the Devil himself to shame…but if there is one foe that even he might have trouble with…it’s Cornelius Quaint.’

‘I take it this man is a dangerous sort?’ asked Jocasta. ‘And has he no weakness that we can exploit?’

‘Just one…and thankfully she is now in our possession,’ said Sir George. ‘I knew that Quaint would be drawn to his beloved Madame Destine like a moth to a flame…and soon his wings will be singed!’

S
ITTING UPON AN
iron bed-frame in an otherwise empty room below Sir George’s quarters, Madame Destine’s mind was an uneven patchwork of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She clenched handfuls of her dress in her fists, tugging them towards her. It was late and she was tired, yet she could not sleep – not with that incessant voice constantly calling her name.

Destine’s heart stopped.

Her name?

She looked around, but she was still in the room within Fantoma’s bowels, still confined. Perhaps the day had finally taken its toll on her, and sleep had crept in unannounced. It must have been the last vestiges of her conscious mind giving way to tiredness. She lay down on the bed. She could feel the coolness of the underground room making her eyes itch, and she could feel the tightness of her chest drawing air. Amongst these feelings, something else began tugging at her senses, but it was not sleep.

A sensation descended upon her, similar to the glimpse of the past that had manifested itself the previous night. Knowing this,
Destine accepted the feelings more readily, forcing her mind to relax. She could sense something approaching. It was like a dim candle in a darkened room, yet she could feel its warmth upon her skin. Consciously, she steered herself towards it.

Her location melted away, and just like the après-monition in the clearing by lake, she was somewhere else. She was in the same place, but not necessarily in the same time. The sand was cold beneath her toes.

Sand?

An amorphous carpet of mist clung to the damp sand that parted between her toes. Trails of warm breath floated from Destine’s mouth, curling into the violet-black sky. She moved forward across raised dunes, with the mist parting as she strode through it. Up ahead, she could see a silhouette of a man upon the rise of the hill, and she approached unerringly, feeling not one jot of fear.

He was in his mid-fifties with a thin, waxed moustache adorning his top lip. He was wearing braces over a collarless shirt, with a broad belt around his waist and a variety of items hanging from it, such as a telescope, a canteen of water and a small pocket-knife. He seemed to be waiting for her, and as Destine stepped closer, he beamed a once-handsome smile in her direction.

Yet another après-monition from my past, she thought to herself.

‘No, Madame…not this time,’ said Aloysius Bedford. ‘You look surprised to see me.’

‘Actually…I am more surprised that
you
can see
me.
’

‘Of course I can see you!’ Bedford replied. ‘I might be dead, but I’m not blind.’

Destine faltered in her approach. ‘
Dead?
’

‘As a doornail,’ replied Aloysius.

‘If you are dead…then you are obviously not from the present…nor the future. Yet you say you are not an après-monition? So what are you? I have never been able to commune with spirits of the dead before.’

‘Perhaps they just had nothing much to say.’ Aloysius gave a deep-throated chuckle. ‘Your gifts are still a mystery to you, aren’t they? Even after all this time? You truly have no idea what wonders you can perform…what wonders you
will
perform.’ His voice floated upon the air like spring blossom, lighter than the cool breeze that nipped at Destine’s bare feet. ‘Perhaps it is time that I enlightened you.’

Destine scowled at the spirit before her, its form fluctuating in and out of cohesiveness. ‘If this is no après-monition…how can this be, Aloysius? If that is indeed who you are and not some trick of my mind.’

‘What do you think? Do you believe that I am Aloysius?’ the ghost asked.

Destine shook her head…which then seemed to evolve into a nod of its own accord. ‘I
wish
you to be…I have so much to ask you!’

‘And I have so much to tell,’ Aloysius responded, with a playful smile.

‘But how can any of this be true? How am I able to
see
you? To speak with you?’ Destine asked. ‘As attuned to the spiritual world as I am…I had thought there was supposed to be a barrier between the living and the dead?’

‘And indeed there is…yet some wrongs are worth crossing barriers to right,’ answered Aloysius, his answer not remedying the confusion in the Frenchwoman’s head. ‘You are presently on a course laid out by your younger self, a course that has already
been long and arduous, yet there is far more to be done before you will see its end. Your bewilderment is causing you to drift from the road…and I am here to put you back on track.’

Destine took a sudden step forward at his words, hungry for more.

‘You know? You know of the task that I set myself in those letters? The task to find your journal?’ she asked.

Aloysius nodded. ‘Of course I know, Dusty. It is my actions that have guided you thus far.’

‘Then tell me why I could forget all that occurred in Umkaza all those years ago?’ the Frenchwoman demanded. ‘So many dead – murdered! How could I have ignored that…choosing instead to write a letter that I had no assurance I would ever get to read?’

‘You had assurance enough, Destine,’ said Aloysius. ‘You had your premonitions to guide you…even if they are no longer your guide at this time. That was the only thread you had to cling to, my dear, the only hope. You knew that you were powerless to undo what had been done…and only by sealing that night within your words were you able to survive. As for how it has slipped from your recall…what occurred twenty years ago in Umkaza was horrific for anyone to witness. But for someone as gifted as you are, it was even more so. It almost cost you your life.’

Destine so wished to interrupt, but something held her tongue. As the ghost of Aloysius Bedford continued, finally she was on the verge of so many answers.

‘Your connectivity to human emotion has been a great tool to you in the past, yet on that night in 1833, it was almost your undoing. Back then it was not as easy for you to control…to deafen your ears to the feelings of those around you. Unknown
emotions and sensations would come at you unannounced, and often you were unsure which were your own feelings, and which were those belonging to others. On the night that those men died in Umkaza, your senses were wide open. You had no defence. You “felt” every death as though it was your own and the extrasensory feedback almost crippled you.’

‘That does not explain why I would forget,’ said Destine. ‘If I experienced all that pain for myself, surely it is something that would stay with me for ever.’

‘The human mind is a conscious beast, my dear,’ replied Aloysius. ‘And it’s propensity for self-preservation goes far beyond your conscious levels. When it is threatened, it does what many beasts do – it runs away. It retreats into itself. Yet no matter how long it curls up and cowers, the danger will always be there. That is why you have no memory of that time. It was hidden away, deep within your subconscious…because your mind knew that should you ever discover it…you would relive all that pain and misery and death all over again.’

‘And yet…since I arrived in Egypt…since learning of my warning and finding your journal…I have felt glimpses of my past coming back to me,’ said Destine. ‘So what does that mean, Aloysius?’

‘It means that you are near to unearthing that which you secreted in your memory, Destine,’ Aloysius replied, his voice stronger now, more forceful. ‘You have strong mental defences, my dear – far stronger than you know, but your reawakening to your past began weeks ago when you decided to come back to Egypt. Back to a place that harboured so many painful memories. Once you had learned of the letters, the stronger the psychic connections to your past became, and with every step that you took, the more your mind was opened.

‘It was difficult for me not to reveal myself to you before now, and spell out your task in detail. But it had to be done slowly. At your mind’s pace. You had to piece it together bit by bit. Were you to have access to your memories in one fell swoop, the pain would have torn your mind to pieces, leaving you nothing but a mindless husk!’

‘I must be imagining this,’ whispered Destine.

‘You are,’ replied Aloysius merrily. ‘But don’t let that put you off. Soon this will all make sense. Soon you will understand why matters of the mind cannot be rushed. You are a cygnet right now…but soon you shall become a swan.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Destine asked.

‘You have discovered my journal, you have experienced the atrocity in Umkaza firsthand, and your task is now fully illuminated before you. You know what you must do, and so, now that it is safe for me to relinquish my hold over your clairvoyant abilities, they will soon return…and stronger than ever.’

Destine’s mouth fell open, sensing shock for the first time since meeting the spirit, and her lips quivered with fear. ‘Your hold? What do you mean…your hold?’

‘It was necessary, Destine. For your own good,’ said Aloysius.

‘My own good? What are you talking about?’ demanded Destine. ‘What was for my own good?’

Aloysius Bedford’s form dissipated slightly, as if it was difficult maintaining coherence. His pale face glanced at the Frenchwoman, seeing her anger all too clearly. ‘I had to act to protect you. I have been trapped in this formless limbo waiting for you to catch up with your past, and once it became clear that you were to return to Egypt, I had no recourse but to do what I did.’

‘What?’ Destine snapped. ‘What did you
do
to me?’

‘As an astral being, it is forbidden for me to intervene in affairs of the living. We have discarded our physical forms, and with them…all ties to our lives are cast off also,’ explained the ghost. ‘But what happened in Umkaza was something that I could not abandon, Destine! Even a spirit can be haunted…and that memory would never fade from my mind. And so, when Fate conspired to bring you back to Egypt, I had to protect you and ensure that the clarity of the message was not diluted.’

‘I am waiting, Aloysius,’ said Destine. ‘Ghost or not, my tolerance for being toyed with is not one that you wish to measure.’

Aloysius held up his hands in submission. ‘You assumed that it was the elixir of life that had stolen your clairvoyant gifts from you, but it is not so,’ he admitted, dolefully. ‘It was I that stole them from you.’

‘
You?
’

‘But only because I had to!’ insisted Aloysius, and his expression quickly adjusted to one of grave concern. ‘Your thoughts had to be clear of noise. You had to
believe
in the task laid at your feet. If you were to think it a stray thought from your past, you would never have paid it any heed! I could not take that chance, and so even though intervention is not permitted, it is within my power…and it was necessary if light was to be shed on the crimes that occurred in Umkaza. But as powerful as I am in this form, I could not hold the memories back for ever…not once you got closer to your goal. Shards of your past have been slipping through my fingers these past few days…giving you glimpses of your time in Egypt. The chains that bound your memory were weakening, and I was forced to exert all my energies to ensure that your past was fed to you carefully…lest you go insane.’

‘You mean…my après-monitions?’ Destine gasped.

‘Yes,’ Aloysius confirmed, his eyes twinkling like onyx.

Destine’s legs buckled and she slumped onto the cold sand. The mist rose up to her shoulders only to turn tail and evaporate around her. She almost wished that she would become lost within it, transported back to reality.

‘All of this…it is so much to take in,’ she mumbled. ‘You are a ghost. After all I have seen and done…this is so unbelievable.’

‘If it helps, try not to think of me as a ghost,’ said Aloysius. ‘Think of me as a sort of
intermediary
between you and your subconscious. A translator, if you will…surely you can identify with that!’ He beamed a translucent smile. ‘You asked me a few minutes ago how you were able to speak to me. This is why. Now your mind is clear for the first time in your life. No little side distractions from the future to get in the way. You have learned much of what occurred in Umkaza on the night that my fate was sealed…but you do not know it all, you do not know
enough.
’

‘Enough to do what?’ asked Destine.

‘Absolutely the right question, my girl,’ Aloysius grinned. ‘I speak for all the men that perished in Umkaza, Destine. All their tormented souls, locked within that moment. There is more to be told before the scales can be balanced…and they will be free.’

Destine rubbed her arms furiously as another trail of warm breath floated from her mouth. ‘So tell me…what is so important that you would tear down the barriers between life and death to communicate with me? Godfrey Joyce is our enemy, yet he works for the British government! I can do nothing to expose him!’

‘This is more important than
him
,’ said Aloysius. ‘Just as
I was, Godfrey Joyce is just a plaything of a much grander puppeteer.’

‘Enough riddles, monsieur!’ snapped Destine.

‘I have spent twenty years as a ghost, and you’re the impatient one?’ laughed Aloysius. ‘All right. I will tell you…’ In actuality, the ghost did not need to breathe, yet there was still so much of it that was still a man, and Aloysius Bedford took a long, thoughtful breath before he continued. ‘Back in 1833, I was hired by a Chinaman named Cho-zen Li to find one of Egypt’s greatest treasures – the Pharaoh’s Cradle. A treasure lost for centuries beneath the sand, with rumour and guesswork the only guide to its location. Cho-zen promised that he knew the whereabouts of the Cradle, and I leapt at the chance to uncover it.’

‘Cho-zen Li…I read of his name in your journal,’ said Destine.

‘Yes…devil that he is,’ snarled Aloysius. ‘You see, Cho-zen was after a bigger prize than the Pharaoh’s Cradle alone. He’d heard tell of a curse upon it: any man to disturb the treasure would die. Now, I’m no fool, Destine. I’ve heard a thousand curses over the years, and not a one of them has ever been grounded in any truth…except for this one.’

‘The Pharaoh’s Cradle was cursed?’ gasped Destine. ‘It was responsible for the massacre in Umkaza?’

‘In a way…’ replied Aloysius. ‘Yet the curse was not born of sorcery or witchcraft – the Cradle was infected with a deadly bacterium that had festered within its tomb. The expedition was all a sham so that Cho-zen Li could get his hands on that bacterium…and use it.’