The Romulus Equation (10 page)

‘Specialist? In what field, might I ask?' Quaint cocked an eyebrow as the two thugs dragged him down the aisle towards the cathedral's crypt.

Seemingly, he was about to find out…

‘Wait! Just give me a minute of your time!' said Quaint over his shoulder as he was dragged down a flight of stone steps and away from the altar. ‘I wanted to ask you a question! I wanted to ask you about the Hades Consortium!'

But it was too late. Romulus was out of earshot, and as Quaint mulled over his imminent fix, he wondered if he would ever get a chance for a second impression.

San Vincentine's crypt held little in the way of artefacts of worship. They had all long since been plundered for the crime-lord's needs. Instead, it housed a strange machine; a tall device with a glass dome encasing all manner of filaments and copper coils. A single metal chair was positioned in the centre of the room, and on the walls were shelves full of an assortment of coloured powders and liquids, and on the bureau at the far end were a tortoiseshell box and a pair of thick rubber gloves.

Quaint's captors pushed him into the crypt so roughly that his shoulder smashed into one of the stone columns supporting the low ceiling. They laughed at his misfortune as they tore his overcoat from his back, pushing him into the chair.

Within moments, his wrists had been bound to the iron supports, and for some bizarre reason his captors had removed his boots and socks. The two guards then turned and exited through the arched doorway like mechanisms on a Swiss clock returning to their positions. Hearing the scuffling of light feet, Quaint looked up as a small man entered the crypt; hunch-backed and with a misshapen head as if several brains were trying to occupy his skull at the same time. This was the Specialist – and exactly what field the man was a specialist in, Quaint was about to find out.

‘Do I just call you “the Specialist” or do you have a first name?' asked Quaint.

‘You speak my language?' said the Specialist. ‘Yet you are not Italian.'

‘English, actually,' replied Quaint.

‘Oh? You have my respect then! The English are usually such a lazy breed when it comes to learning other tongues. Might I enquire as to how many languages you
do
speak?'

‘Six, fluently. Three, I can get by in,' answered Quaint. ‘Look, what's this all for?'

‘What is this all what for?' enquired the Specialist.

‘The small talk,' replied Quaint.

The Specialist cackled to himself. ‘I was merely asking how many languages you speak so that when I remove your tongue, I will know exactly how much it will pain you to never speak them again.'

‘I see,' said Quaint.

‘You see, I relish being able to remove accoutrements from my patients,' continued the Specialist. ‘I like to strip them away, bit by bit, deconstructing their souls one little piece at a time.'

‘Job satisfaction is so hard to come by these days,' said Quaint.

‘A comedian, eh? It has been some time since I practised on a comedian. If I recall, I poured gunpowder into his eyelids and forced him to stare into the fire. Died of shock in the end, the poor blind wretch. A bit of a shame really. We were just beginning to get along.'

‘Look, you can dispense with all the theatrics,' said Quaint. ‘I'll tell you exactly why I'm here and whatever else you want to know.'

‘No, no, no!' said the Specialist, with a disapproving wag of his finger. ‘That is not how this game works at all. If you spill your guts so soon, it is hardly worth my time making you bleed, is it?'

‘Sorry to be a bother,' said Quaint. ‘In any case, I need some information and that's why I came here seeking Romulus. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to tell him that. So, now that you know, you can just run along and tell your boss, all right?'

Ignoring Quaint completely, the Specialist opened the tortoiseshell box on the bureau and removed a pair of metal clamps. The deformed man was merrily going about his business – business that involved plugging two long wires into the ends of the clamps. He pulled on the rubber gloves, and then bustled over to the large machine in the corner of the room that was oscillating with a low hum.

Quaint stared at the goblin of a man. ‘What does that thing do?'

‘Cause great suffering, predominantly,' replied the Specialist.

Quaint gulped. ‘I thought you might say that.'

‘This cathedral was constructed on top of a river,' said the Specialist. ‘It runs beneath the entire building. I chose the crypt for my workplace because of it, in fact. Not only do I find the sound of rushing water quite calming, it makes for such an interesting accompaniment to the pain… but I don't want to ruin the surprise.' He pulled a lever affixed to the wall and a wooden sluice gate opened directed in front of Quaint's chair, making his feet drop into rushing water. The cold bit into the conjuror's flesh and he winced in discomfort as the chill crawled up his legs.

‘You call this torture?' he snarled. ‘This is mildly uncomfortable, at best!'

‘That is not the torture part,' said the Specialist, as he nodded towards the vibrating machine. A blue flash sparked from the tips of the metal clamps in his hands as he clipped each one to Quaint's wrists. He shuffled back over to the machine, ensuring that he kept his distance. ‘
This
is the torture part.'

He flipped a switch and an electric bolt of lightning spat from the tip of the oscillating generator. Quaint watched in slow motion as the sparks travelled along the length of the wires, snaking towards him. As the jolt of electricity hit him, his back arched violently and he screamed out in pain. With the water augmenting the electricity's impact, it doused every atom of the conjuror's body in icy fire. The pain etched itself into his flesh, stripping his skeleton from his body and marinated the raw bones in white-hot lava.

The Specialist then turned off the machine, peering with interest at the wisps of smoke that floated from Quaint's exposed skin. ‘Quite shocking… isn't it?'

Quaint's head lolled. ‘It barely tickled…'

‘I am glad to hear that, because that was the lowest setting. Things get much worse from here on in, I'm afraid.'

With hazy eyes, Quaint watched the Specialist hurry back to his machine. The conjuror clenched his teeth to ride through the inevitable pain. It was not enough to quell the electric fury that poured into his body. This was the most nerve-fraying state of agony that he had ever experienced in his entire life. He almost prayed that the next jolt would kill him and it would be over quickly, for he did not think he could survive such prolonged torture for long. Quaint closed his eyes, knowing this was to be his end. After everything that he had lived through, was this to be the manner of his death? It certainly would have been, had an amazingly fortuitous series of events not occurred at that exact moment. There was no lancing blue fire, no ominous hum from the electrical machine, no inhuman cackle from the Specialist as he fried the conjuror alive. There was nothing. Nothing that was, apart from a very loud crash.

Quaint opened his eyes to see the Specialist cowering on the floor, blood seeping from his nose… and Viktor Dzierzanowski towering over him.

‘I hope I am not interrupting?' he said, slamming the crypt's door and bolting it. He rushed over to Quaint's side and hastily unclasped his wrists from the chair. ‘We have to get out of here – and soon! I made my entrance from a window at the rear, but it was teeming with guards at every turn. We are trapped!'

‘Trapped? Me? Never!' said Quaint. ‘You there! Specialist! Is there any other way out of this crypt?'

‘No, signor!' he whimpered, blood coating his misshapen teeth. ‘But your friend is right about the guards. They patrol these tunnels every fifteen minutes whilst I am operating, just in case there are any complications.'

A heavy thumping resounded against the crypt's door.

‘It seems they are ahead of schedule,' said Viktor. ‘Cornelius, pull yourself together! You have got out of worse scrapes than this!'

‘That's a matter for debate.' Quaint's hands darted to his head, scratching at his nest of curls. He could feel the last ebb of the electricity fighting to stay in his veins as he tried his best to purge it. ‘Christ, the pain is killing me!'

‘Cornelius, shame on you,' said Viktor. ‘This is a house of God.'

‘Romulus didn't look much like God to me… quite the opposite, in fact.' Quaint's black eyes flicked wide open and he stumbled over to the Specialist, lifting him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. ‘You said that a river runs underneath this cathedral?'

Another thump at the door.

‘Yes!' he answered. ‘It leads to an inlet that meets up with the River Annanti some miles away.'

‘Good,' said Quaint. ‘Can you swim, Viktor?'

‘Do not be ridiculous, Cornelius! I am a grown man!'

‘Another matter for debate, but can you
swim?
'

Viktor puffed his cheeks. ‘
Nein
… I… I never found the time.'

‘Well, now's as good as any,' said Quaint, as he pushed Viktor into the open grate in the floor. ‘Oh, and before I forget.' He punched the Specialist in the face. ‘That's for the torture part.' He leapt into the rushing water just as the crypt's door was forcibly smashed open.

Five minutes and almost as many miles later, Quaint dragged his soaking wet body
from the freezing cold water of the River Annanti, clutching hold of Viktor's collar. The bedraggled knife thrower coughed and spluttered, smashing his fists into the water.

‘
Mein Gott
, Cornelius, you almost
drowned
me!'

‘No… the
river
almost drowned you. I only pushed you into it. And had I not, we would probably both be trussed up and fried by that maniac's machine by now, so show a little gratitude!'

‘I
hate
getting wet,' Viktor complained.

‘I'm not all that keen on it myself, but it's better to be wet and alive than dry and dead,' said Quaint. ‘We need to find somewhere to bed down for the night before we go back to that cathedral tomorrow.'

From somewhere in his lungs, Viktor found a mouthful of water to spit out.

‘
Go back?
We only just escaped, why would we want to go back?'

‘Because I hate coincidences,' said Quaint, ‘almost as much as coincidences seem to hate me. So much so, that I'm able to tell the difference between what is an actual coincidence and what is something quite the opposite.'

‘Such as?' asked Viktor.

‘Circumstance,' replied Quaint. ‘I arrived in Rome this morning with a bee in my bonnet and little else, hunting a man who could have died decades ago, for all I know. I'm used to chasing ghosts, Viktor, but even as I was staring into Romulus's face, I wasn't scared… because I knew our meeting was of importance.'

‘To what?' asked Viktor.

‘My hunt for Remus,' replied Quaint. ‘I know with all certainty that Romulus is the man to help me. It
can't
be coincidence! I was an idiot for not seeing it before! How familiar are you with Roman mythology?'

‘About as familiar as I am with being able to touch my toes these days,' said Viktor, slapping his portly stomach.

‘Quite…' said Quaint. ‘Anyway, in Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus were brothers born of a union between their earthly mother and the god Mars. They argued their whole lives until one day they fought a tremendous battle with the heavens crashing around them, thunder and lightning, the lot. Eventually Remus was destroyed and Romulus was victorious… and Rome was so named in his honour.'

‘Cornelius, I am tired,' groaned Viktor. ‘Can we not skip lessons for today?'

‘No, Viktor!' Quaint said. ‘You're not seeing it! I'm here in Rome hunting a man named Remus and the only man that can help me happens to be a man called
Romulus
! That's a pretty wild coincidence, even for me, which is why things are going to be tricky. I never got the chance to tell Romulus
why
I wanted his help last night, and now I can't help but feel that I'm going to rely on it… and that's why we've got to go back.'

‘One more leap into the jaws of death, eh?' Viktor harrumphed.

‘Let's hope not,' said Quaint, slapping the German's back. ‘But you've got to admit, it
is
fun!'

‘Something tells me,' said Viktor, ‘that your definition of “fun” is going to be the death of me.'

Sat alone in his office within the Hades Consortium headquarters, Baron Remus was deep in thought, repetitively stroking the oil-black streaks that ran through his beard. Ever since he had read George Dray's note, the name Cornelius Quaint had been a fly buzzing around his head. How he dearly wished that he could swot it.

‘
Chi è esso
?' he called, hearing a rap upon his office door.

It opened to reveal one of the Hades Consortium's attendants, a willowy young man dressed in crimson robes. ‘Baron, I apologise for the intrusion. Lady Sirona requests an audience immediately.'

Remus cursed. ‘Then let us hope it is good news, for I dearly I need it.'

Making his way down through the winding corridors and along the tunnels and into the Hive's underbelly, Remus arrived outside Sirona's quarters. He took a deep breath before stepping inside. The smell of stagnant air hit his senses immediately, like the smell of impending death.

‘You sent for me?' he said, by way of a greeting.

The old woman was sitting awkwardly in a wheelchair, the light from an oil lamp striking her withered features. She looked like a skeleton, her flesh clinging to her skull. ‘Adolfo, thank you for being so prompt.'