The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi (41 page)

“What about us?” Swinburne asked.

Burton pointed at a steam-driven landau. “We'll drive up to the old castle, Algy, and this time we're going to search it from top to bottom.” Burton swallowed nervously. “Including the vaults.”

They found nothing.

New Wardour Castle held none but the Arundells and their guests and servants, the surrounding villages were occupied by locals and no one else, and Old Wardour Castle was inhabited only by spiders, beetles, and ravens.

Burton had been thoroughly unnerved by the vaults. Dark, dank, and infested, they had too much of the grave about them. Years ago, in India, he'd witnessed holy men being buried alive. Many of them had been dug up days later—in some cases weeks—still living and none the worse for their experience. Others, though, had suffocated to death, their noses and mouths filled with soil and worms. The memory of it had led him to tell Isabel, shortly before his departure for Africa, that when he died, she must not under any circumstances have him buried.

“I should hate to wake up and find myself underground.”

“A cremation, then?” she'd asked, unhappily. Catholics didn't favour cremations, and she secretly hoped Burton might convert some day.

“Gad, no! I don't want to burn before I have to! A mausoleum, Isabel. Above ground and with light shining in. We shall lie in it side by side.”

“Oh, I like that idea, but would you mind awfully if we grow tremendously old together first?”

“I shan't mind that at all, darling.”

Isabel. Isabel.

She was awake.

Sam Beeton announced it as soon as Burton and Swinburne returned to the mansion. Without bothering to change out of his dust-stained and web-bestrewn clothes, the explorer raced up the stairs and along the corridor to his fiancée's room.

Doctor Bird, Eliphas Levi, Smythe Piggott, and Blanche were with her.

“She's very weak,” Bird said, “but the trance is broken.”

Burton sat on the edge of the bed and took Isabel's hand. It was cold. Her eyes opened and she gave him a faint smile.

“I've been dreaming, Dick,” she whispered. “I was riding on horseback across an African savannah, leading a band of wild Bedouin women. I felt such . . . freedom.”

“Perhaps it was a premonition,” he replied, knowing how much she desired adventure.

“A premonition. A premonition.” Her eyes appeared to focus on something far away. “Yet I feel I've already been there,” she said, dreamily. “Like a memory. I can still smell the spice in the air.”

Burton glanced at Levi. The occultist was standing with his arms crossed over his chest and his back to the window. His brows were drawn low over his eyes, his mouth set in a grim line. Behind him, something dark moved on the exterior sill, attracting Burton's attention. It was a raven, big and black and staring implacably in at them.

Isabel whispered. “Why do I feel so feeble, Dick? Am I sick?”

He looked back at her. “Yes, dear, but we have two doctors and a nurse in the house. They'll make you well again.”

“In time for the ball?”

Burton looked at Doctor Bird. The man made the slightest of gestures, indicating that he had no answer.

“Yes, Isabel, and we shall dance the night through.”

“I'll need the doctors again afterward,” she mumbled.

“Why so?”

“Because you dance so clumsily. My feet will be a terrible mess.”

She sighed, smiled, closed her eyes, and drifted into sleep.

Blanche was clutching a Bible. She lifted it to her lips, kissed it, and placed it on the pillow beside her sister's head.

“That is wise, mademoiselle,” Levi said softly. “Faith strengthens the will, and it is willpower she requires.”

“But what is wrong with her, Monsieur Levi? Do you know? The doctors can tell me nothing.”

“It is beyond my experience,” Bird confirmed.

“She is the victim,” Levi said, “of a parasite.”

Blanche gasped. “What can be done?”

Burton reached across and touched her arm. “She'll recover providing we look after her. I shall sit at her side all night.”

“Very well, but Mama and Papa will insist that propriety is observed, so I'll stay with you.”

“No, Blanche, you sleep. Be strong for tomorrow. Sadhvi Raghavendra will chaperone.”

“But—”

“She is a Sister of Noble Benevolence—her presence alone will aid Isabel's recovery.”

Blanche pressed her lips together then nodded reluctantly.

“Good girl.” Burton scrutinised Isabel's face. It was pale and pinched, her eyes shadowed. Standing, he said, “She must have peace and quiet and I am desperate for a change of clothing. I'll come back later. Monsieur, will you join me in the library in half an hour?”

“
Oui
, I shall be there.”

Burton went to his room. Bram helped him to dress.

“I spoke to the Whisperers in Tisbury, Cap'n. There's a message for ye from Mr. Macallister Fogg.”

“Trounce? What is it?”

“That Mr. Thomas Great Harris has arrived in London and is currently president at the Regency.”

“President? You probably mean
resident
.”

“Ah, yes, I expect so.”

“And it's
Lake
Harris. Anything else?”

“Aye, they say there's trouble a-brewin' in the Cauldron.”

“There always is, lad.”

“You're not wrong, sir, always trouble there. But have ye ever known there to be political unrest in the blessed place?”

“Political!” Burton exclaimed. “Great heavens, no. The population couldn't give two hoots about politics, lad. They're far too busy coshing heads and burglarising to have a care about anything that might be said or done in parliament.”

Bram put a brush to the explorer's jacket, sweeping specks of lint from it.

“To be sure, sir, yet the whisper is that voices are bein' raised against our Alliance with the Central German Confederation.”

“East Enders protesting about international affairs? By James, I wouldn't credit them with even knowing Europe exists! What on earth has riled them so?”

“It's a regular mystery, so it is. There, Cap'n, neat an' tidy, ye are.”

“Thank you, Bram. Can you keep yourself occupied for the afternoon?”

“Not half! Doctor Steinhaueser bought me the latest issue of
The Baker Street Detective
, so he did. I'm eager to discover what our friend Mr. Macallister Fogg has been up to.”

A few minutes later, Burton left his valet in the grip of
The Mystery of the Master Mummer's Mummy
and joined Levi, Swinburne, Monckton Milnes, and Steinhaueser in the library where, having missed lunch, they'd been provided with a platter of cold meats, pickles, and breads, which they were picking at in a desultory manner.

“I have just resisted the urge to sneer at young Stoker's choice of reading material,” Burton announced. “He's lapping up a tale of Egyptian mummies come to life. Now I find myself having to discuss, in all seriousness, a vampire in our midst. If I awake in a moment in Africa, having feverishly hallucinated everything that has occurred these past weeks, only then will life make any sort of sense.” He pulled a cheroot from his top pocket, held it between his teeth, struck a lucifer, and watched the spluttering flame for a few seconds before applying it to the cigar. Inhaling the sweet smoke, he forced it out through his nostrils and continued, “But the one thing I know for sure is that my fiancée is suffering, and I won't stand for that, so I have to accept this as neither myth nor fantasy—one way or another I'm going to stop Perdurabo.”

His friends remained silent, their faces perfectly reflecting Burton's stony determination.

“Monsieur,” Burton said, turning to Levi, “according to folklore, a vampire is able to transform itself into an animal, or even vapour, yes?”

“Ah,” Levi replied. “You think of the ravens?”

“I do.”

“It is this way: Perdurabo, his
volonté
inhabit John Judge, but it is not attach to the flesh. Certain animals, they sense when that which make a man alive leave the body; they feel the loosening of the
volonté
, and it attract them, for they are scavengers. So ravens or crows or wolves or hyenas, they are seen where a
nosferatu
or
strigoi morti
is, and the superstitious people, they think transformation.”

“And the vapour? Can Perdurabo enter the house in the form of steam or smoke?”

“He already show that, at least for a short time, his
volonté
can exist without
une forme physique
—vapour is a symbol of this—but he can do nothing in this state. He have to possess a man to survive and to feed off others.”

Swinburne twitched and shuddered. “My hat! How can we battle such a monstrosity?”

“We must kill the body he occupy while he is still in it. Take him by surprise.”

“Must I remind you all that John Judge is an innocent man?” Monckton Milnes put in. “He is a victim. Are we to murder him?”

Levi put his hands into the position of prayer and touched his fingertips to his lips. “He have been with the
nosferatu
inside for a month. It is too long. If it leave him more soon to possess another, it is possible for him to recover, but after this much time, now he becomes
nosferatu
, too. It is how the species survive and spread. To kill him is to save him.”

“Is there no other way?” Monckton Milnes asked.

The Frenchman closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Gentlemen,” Burton said, “not a one of you is under obligation. I am commissioned by the king, you are not. If you wish to disassociate yourself from this matter, do so now. I will not blame you. Friendships, old and new, will not be affected.”

“I stand with you, Richard,” Swinburne said.

“And I,” Steinhaueser added.

Monckton Milnes put a hand over his eyes. “Now I fear even more for Florence Nightingale. My God, what if they took her to be—to be
food
for this damnable creature? I'm with you. Of course I'm with you.”

Levi said, “Then we are together.”

Burton looked at each man in turn, his expression communicating his gratitude. He asked Levi, “Do you think the
nosferatu
is liable to strike tonight?”

“It is
inévitable
. For his
volonté
to survive, it must draw from others
très fréquemment
.”

“Then I suggest we rest for a couple of hours, gentlemen. Tonight, we confront the vampire.”

They worked quietly and they concealed the truth. Burton knew it was more than the Arundells could accept, though he felt strongly inclined to recruit Sam Beeton and, inexplicably and absurdly, even more drawn to confide in the man's pregnant wife, Isabella. Monckton Milnes persuaded him otherwise. “Take advice from a man who knows. In divulging sensitive information, one must consider every recipient as an insecure container. Secrets leak like water, and the more implausible they are, the more likely it is that they'll flood beyond the bounds.”

He was right, of course.

To Mr. and Mrs. Arundell, Burton said, “We think the trespasser seen by Lallah Bird is still somewhere on the estate. We also suspect he's carrying the disease—or, rather, the parasite—that has infected Isabel. Swinburne, Monckton Milnes, Steinhaueser, and Monsieur Levi will patrol the grounds tonight.”

Eliza Arundell looked perplexed. “This man—a fugitive?—does he threaten the household?”

“In so much that he's chosen to hide out in the vicinity, yes.”

“Then I shall gather more men to help you,” Henry Arundell said.

“If you'll allow, sir, I'd prefer to limit the numbers to those I've named. I should like to catch the man, so we might hand him over to the authorities. If too many of us patrol the estate, we're liable to scare him away, possibly to inflict his disease upon others.”