The Eleventh Plague cq-2 Page 2

  'But what if it clears too late?' asked Ruby.

  'I do not know, but I have to try,' replied Madame Destine, taking Ruby's hands within her own. 'Cornelius is about to take the first step on a path that will be long and difficult, and the more that he progresses, the darker the path will get.' The Frenchwoman smeared her wrist underneath her eyes, wiping tears from her cheeks. 'I fear that if I am not there to guide him back to us…he will be lost for ever.'

  CHAPTER III

  The Unfriendly Negotiations

  CHRISTMAS WAS LESS than a month away and scenes of revelry were not limited to the platform of Grosvenor Park station. In keeping with the season, all throughout London traders were busy selling roasted chestnuts in crowded market places, carol singers congregated on many a street corner, and the sound of brass instruments filled the air. Despite the onset of the season, however, there was one man severely lacking in any good will.

  'This is getting rather monotonous, Ferret,' snarled Cornelius Quaint, sucking hard on his bruised knuckles. 'For the last time…what you know about the Hades Consortium's plans for the River Nile? Where is that damn poison?'

  The owner of the neck that Quaint's other hand was wrapped around wheezed pathetically before collapsing onto the cold, wet cobbles of the fogbound alleyway.

  'I already told you, Mr Q – I dunno what you're on about, I swear I don't!' Bob Ferris ('Ferret' to those unfortunate enough to know him) was a loathsome individual who had crossed Quaint's path before. Lacking in many redeeming qualities, his only speck of worth was that he was often party to insalubrious information. Few aberrant activities in London failed to reach his ears, and on a night such as this, Ferret's particular variety of information was vital to Cornelius Quaint's quest.

  'Why don't ye let me have a go at loosenin' his tongue, boss?' growled the colossal Irishman at Quaint's side, his brush-bristle beard twitching as he spoke. 'I'm gettin' fidgety just stood 'ere twiddlin' me thumbs…especially when I'd much rather be breakin' his.'

  'Keep it at the forefront of your mind, Prometheus,' said Quaint calmly. 'We'll try the nice approach first. If this worm still refuses to talk, we'll up the stakes.'

  'Look, I swear, Mr Q, I don't know nuffin' about any poison,' Ferret spluttered, getting up and wiping his fingerless-gloved hand under his nose.

  'If there's one thing I abhor, it's bad grammar, and double negatives stoke my coals something chronic,' said Quaint, sucking air between his clenched teeth. 'I don't have all night to play games, Ferret.'

  Still Ferret protested. 'But I don't know nuffin' about none of it!'

  'I warned you about that grammar!' Quaint punched him in the face, and a fine seam of blood trickled from Ferret's nostril. 'Let me make this easier for you, Ferret…I know that poison is headed for Egypt, and I know what the Hades Consortium plans on doing with it once it gets there. I just need to know where it is right now. A man in your line of work – and I use the word "work" loosely – is surely in receipt of such knowledge.'

  'Please, Mr Q, I can't tell you,' Ferret whimpered.

  'Can't?' said Quaint.

  'This is the bloody Hades Consortium we're talkin' about, Mr Q – they'll do me in!' pleaded Ferret.

  'One of their crimes that I will applaud,' said Quaint. 'Ferret, you are one of the most despicable little parasites in all of London. You feed off lies and deceit like a maggot feeds off dead flesh, and even Cheapside's rats take a bath after they've been in your company. You could die right here and now in this gutter, and not a single soul on the face of this earth would mourn you.'

  'Look, Mr Q, I'd love to help you, surely I would, but if I spill me guts, I'll be dead by the end of the week!' spat Ferret.

  'And if you don't you'll be dead by the end of this conversation,' parried Quaint.

  Ferret's tear-stained eyes appealed to Quaint's better nature – which was a wasted effort, for the caustic conjuror was devoid of one. 'You…you wouldn't do me in…would you, Mr Q?'

  'Me? Certainly not!' trumpeted Quaint.

  'Thank you, sir! Thank the Lord!'

  'But I didn't invite my gargantuan friend here along for his good looks,' said Quaint. He motioned over his shoulder to his Irish cohort, and Prometheus took a step closer to Ferret's quivering form. 'I'm beginning to tire of this. Prometheus, grab his hands. Break one of his fingers for every minute that he refuses to talk.'

  'What happens when I run out of fingers, boss?' asked Prometheus.

  'The human body has over two hundred bones in it, my friend.' Quaint leered as close to Ferret's stench as his tolerance would allow. 'We could be at this all night until we run out of things to break.'

  Ferret's bottom lip trembled and he slid down the alley's brick wall, sniffing into his hands. 'All right, Mr Q! You made your point. Just…just call off your dog! Maybe I do know sumfin',' he said, with a deflated sigh. 'I was in the Blue Boar last night and there was this foreign bloke, pissed as a newt. He was on about shippin' sumfin' to Egypt, and I heard him say the name of the bloke he was takin' it to. Said his name was Al somebody or other. Al Fekesh, that's it!'

  Quaint's black eyes narrowed. 'He said that name – are you absolutely sure?'

  Ferret's glassy eyes blinked in earnest. 'I'd bet my life on it, Mr Q!'

  'If you're wrong, Ferret…I'll be back to cash in that bet,' said Quaint.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Breadcrumbs

  CORNELIUS QUAINT BLAZED out of the grimy alleyway with his boots scuffing against the cobbles and his long black cloak dragging in his wake – much like Prometheus.

  'What the devil is wrong with this world?' Quaint snapped. 'What happened to the good old days when the threat of a good thrashing was enough to weaken the resolve of any lice-infested ne'er-do-well? Now I've got to get my bands dirty!'

  'What did ye expect, considerin' where we are? This is the arse end of London! The place is full of Ferret's kind. Maybe ye're just gettin' old.'

  'How dare you!' snapped Quaint, with a prominently raised finger. 'I am not getting old, Prometheus! I'm only fifty-five, damn it.'

  'I love the way ye say "only",' said the Irishman, as Quaint shot him a look. '"We're just off fer a stroll along the docks,' ye said. "Friendly negotiations," ye said. Surely ye didn't think this was going t'be easy.'

  'Well, it would have made a nice change.' Quaint removed his top hat and swept his hand through his silver-white curls. 'I really don't need these distractions at the moment. I've got far too many other worries to contend with!'

  'I noticed.' Stopping dead in the middle of the street, Prometheus cleared his throat loudly to gain Quaint's attention. 'Are ye even aware of what's goin' on at the station right now? The gang are holdin' a farewell party, wishin' ye well before ye take yer leave…and where would Cornelius Quaint rather be? Out in the pissin' cold roughin' up the local sewer life!'

  Quaint said, 'Hardly by choice. Running into Ferret was just a coincidence.'

  'Don't give me that rot, ye don't believe in coincidences!' Prometheus eyed Quaint's rugged face. The conjuror was foremost his friend before his employer, but of late there had been a chasm forming between Quaint and his circus, and it was growing wider by the day. Quaint was becoming more of the employer and less of the friend. 'I'm worried, man. More than usual, I mean. What's happened t'ye recently?'

  'That is a very long conversation for another time, Prom. There are other topics that beg my attention at the moment,' Quaint said, recommencing his stride.

  'And the cares of a friend ain't one of them?' asked Prometheus, rooted to the spot. 'For years I convinced myself that I was mute, remember? I was trapped inside a prison of my own makin' whilst I tried t'figure out what was goin' on in my head. I know all about keepin' things to myself, and I know all about how easy it is t'slip the mask on and forget it's there. After a time it replaces yer real face, so much so that ye forget what ye look like.'

  'This is different, Prom,' called back Quaint, his pace not decreasing.

  'Oh,
is it now? Ye've been distancin' yerself from the circus, and at show-time that just ain't like ye.' Prometheus looked ahead of him into the enveloping shadows of the wharf, but the conjuror was nowhere to be seen. Cursing, he had no recourse but to follow. 'Ever since that episode in Whitehall, neither ye nor Madame Destine has been actin' right. What happened, Cornelius? Why won't ye tell me?' Prometheus jolted to a standstill as he bumped into Quaint, hidden within the shadows. 'Jesus! Ye nearly scared the life out of me!'

  'I think I preferred it when you couldn't speak,' said Cornelius Quaint, a tired smile across his lined face. 'Prometheus, you're as stubborn as a mule!'

  'Must be the company I keep,' said the strongman.

  'All right! If only to cease your incessant interrogation, I'll tell you exactly what happened the other night. But you might not like what you hear,' Quaint began, stepping into a shard of moonlight. 'After I prevented the Hades Consortium's plot to poison the Thames, I thought that would be an end to it. I thought that we could all go back to our lives as if nothing had ever happened. I was wrong. As our resident fortune-teller is so keen to remind me: sometimes, Fate has other plans for us. Just before I killed Antoine Renard…' Quaint allowed a slight pause as his lips burned at the name, '…for the second time, as it goes…he let slip that the Thames was just the tip of the iceberg. There was more of that poison. How much, I don't rightly know, but I can't afford to take any risks. Egypt is in peril unless I can find that poison before the Hades Consortium can get its hands on it…and that is why I have to go.'

  'Why?' asked Prometheus.

  'Why? Why what? I just told you why,' clipped Quaint.

  'No, I mean why is it that ye have to be the one to go? Why not just tell the police and let them handle it? It's their job, after all, not yours.'

  'Prom, have you forgotten Commissioner Dray in Crawditch? He was a Hades Consortium puppet, and for all I know Scotland Yard is rife with them! I don't know whom I can trust, and I can't just cross my fingers and hope this all blows over – there's just too much at stake. I have a breadcrumb to follow…and follow it I must.'

  'All the way to Egypt? And I don't suppose there's any point in tryin' t'talk ye out of it?' asked Prometheus.

  'Not this time,' replied Quaint. 'You know how pig-headed I can be.'

  'I'm constantly surprised,' grimaced the strongman, sweeping his large hands over his bald pate.

  'Anyway, it's too late. Our tickets are already booked. We set sail tomorrow morning aboard a steamship bound for Cairo,' added Quaint.

  'And ye never thought t'tell me about any of this? We're supposed t'be mates. Ye can't just swan off whenever ye-' The sentence dried in the strongman's mouth, killing it dead. 'Did ye just say our tickets? We set sail tomorrow?'

  'Destine is coming with me,' replied Quaint. 'In fact, she insisted upon it!'

  'Ye're draggin' her halfway around the world after what she's just been through?' asked Prometheus. 'She was poisoned a matter of days ago, remember?'

  'I don't need reminding of that, thank you very much!' Quaint snarled back. 'She was poisoned with the very stuff that I'm trying to stop getting to Egypt! And whose fault was it that she was poisoned, hmm? Prometheus, the Hades Consortium is like a puddle of oil leaking from a can. The stain will spread further by the second unless someone plugs it up. That someone is me.'

  'But ye said that ye were done gallivantin' about the globe. Ye aren't gettin' any younger, y'know!' said the Irishman.

  Quaint folded his arms across his chest. 'True, but neither am I getting any older.'

  'And what's that supposed t'mean?' frowned Prometheus.

  Cornelius Quaint forced himself to swallow the words resting on his lips.

  Although he wanted (perhaps even needed) to talk to someone about what had happened, he was not sure he believed it himself. The conjuror was certainly no stranger to the sublime, but whenever his mind replayed the events of the past week (which was frequently and without mercy) it all seemed so absurd. Had anyone told him that alchemists of the Anglican Church had created an elixir of immortality and buried it within a dockland cemetery in London, he would have pointed them in the direction of the nearest sanatorium. But that was before the bodies began stacking up, and Quaint discovered the involvement of his deadly nemesis, Renard. With the Frenchman's hand implicated in the plot to unearth the elixir, Quaint had all the proof he required. Renard's employers – the secret cabal known in hushed tones as the Hades Consortium – were searching for the elixir not for its potency over life, but for its potency over death. After centuries buried underground, the elixir had mutated into a deadly poison. Quaint was all too familiar with the toxin's effects, for both he and his confidante Madame Destine had witnessed it firsthand. Against the odds, Quaint managed to obtain the antidote, and, just in time, he halted the deadly poison's attack. But just as the elixir had mutated, so too had the antidote.

  Quaint and Destine were brought back from the brink of death, but not as they once were. A bizarre chemical reaction occurred within their bodies. The antidote triggered the elixir's original life-enhancing design, and from that moment Quaint and Madame Destine would never age, never suffer disease, and their life expectancy was immeasurable.

  Whilst Destine was full of wonder and awe about what had been bestowed upon them, Cornelius Quaint's mind was racked with doubt – even though the telltale signs had been plain to see. As his body accepted the chemical change within him, a gunshot wound to the shoulder miraculously healed within hours. Gashes, grazes, cuts and bruises disappeared completely, and old muscles and limbs discovered new vigour. But there was a downside, Quaint's once brown-grey hair had been bleached an embarrassingly premature silver-white.

  Still not subscribing to the notion of immortality, Quaint took his newfound lease of life as a sign that he must bear the burden of defeating the Hades Consortium for ever more. But although he would not admit it (least of all to himself) even he had his limits. He had faced danger, duplicity and discord countless times in his life, but succeeding in such a daunting task would be far greater than any miracle he had ever performed onstage as a conjuror.

  'Well?' asked Prometheus, snapping the conjuror from his thoughts. 'What's goin' on in that muddle of a mind of yers right now, Cornelius?'

  'Once I unravel it myself, I'll let you know,' Quaint said numbly. 'But what I do know is how this plot to poison the Nile will end if left unchecked…and that is a nightmare that I dare not entertain. Now, thanks to Ferret, I know where Renard sent that poison.'

  'Yeah, so that'll be an end to it. Maybe ye don't have to go to Egypt at all then, eh? We can just go and see this Al Fekesh bloke and rough him up a bit, make sure he hands over the poison and we're done!' grinned Prometheus, relishing the prospect of getting his hands dirty. 'Nothin' to worry about, right?'

  From the expression on the conjuror's face, there was everything to worry about.

  'I wish it were that simple, Prometheus,' replied Quaint, grinding his teeth. 'Al Fekesh isn't a bloke – it's a place! Al Fekesh is a port just outside Cairo, a haven for smugglers, thieves and scoundrels of all varieties. If the poison is headed to Al Fekesh, the sand is already spilling from the hourglass, my friend…and Egypt doesn't have much time left.'

  CHAPTER V

  The Two Birds and the Stone

  AHANDFUL OF MILES from Cornelius Quaint's position, standing outside a ramshackle old tavern on the outskirts of Wapping, a stunted figure hugged the shadows of the terraced street. More of rodent descent than human, his glassy eyes twitched this way and that in search of something (or someone) in particular. He pulled a fob watch from the inside pocket of his overcoat and cursed under his breath. Behind him, the nearby Thames lapped against the docks, and the gentle tolling of bells on the waterfront drifted in the air. The night was in full pitch. Midnight had long since passed, and all the warehouses along the docks were settled under a blanket of quiet, the perfect atmosphere for subterfuge. Like a changing of the guard, when those who wal
ked in daylight retired to their homes, those who dwelt in twilight embraced the comfort of shadows. Hearing a stifled wheeze nearby, the man embraced the shadows that much deeper, and soon an ungainly red-haired fellow limped along the silent street towards him.

  'You are late, Herr Ferris,' he said, speaking raw English laden with an unmistakable Germanic twang as he stepped into the wan light of a lantern affixed above the tavern's entrance. His face was unimpressive, neither particularly handsome nor memorably ugly. Heinrich Nadir was as unobtrusive a fellow as any man could be. The sort that you would walk past in the street without giving him a second thought – exactly how he preferred it.

  Ferret's bloodied face lit up, and he limped his way over to the man's side. 'Evenin', Mr Nadir. Sorry I'm late. I had a bit of bother, courtesy of one Cornelius flippin' Quaint,' he said, as he picked a clot of dried blood from his nose and wiped it upon his lapel.

  'You will be suitably recompensed for your inconvenience, Herr Ferris. So, tell me: did Quaint take the bait?' asked Nadir.

  'Good and proper! I did me old "I don't know nuffin'" routine, and then told him that name you said. You should've seen his eyes light up!' Ferret sniggered, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. 'I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out what's comin'. But I've gotta say, mate…your lot are taking an awful risk, aren't they? Lettin' him get so close? Why not just do 'im in now before he can cause any more trouble?'

  'Because I have my orders, Herr Ferris, that is why,' Heinrich Nadir replied, his leather gloves squeaking as he clasped his gloved hands together. 'My employer has had previous business with Cornelius Quaint. He knows the man is tenacious, and notoriously hard to kill, and he wishes him to be dealt with quietly. That is why I have been assigned to follow Herr Quaint's every move. When his vessel departs for Cairo tomorrow, she shall also have me as a passenger. Thanks to my colleague Renard, I will be transporting the consignment of poison to Egypt personally…but whereas the toxin will arrive safely, Herr Quaint will not.'