The Romulus Equation Read online

  Destine cocked the hammer into firing position. ‘Killing you would not be an act of murder, Antoine, but an act of kindness to all the souls you have tainted over the years. Cornelius knew it, and that is why he sought to do the job himself.’

  ‘Twice… but who’s counting?’ said Renard. ‘And whilst we’re on the subject, if he really has gone to Rome, surely you must know that he will never return.’

  ‘Unless your lot aren’t as clever as they think they are,’ said Prometheus, bustling into the conversation. ‘Did you forget that Cornelius is a magician by trade? Performing the impossible is what he does every day!’

  ‘Do you want to elucidate, ape-man? Or will I need a dictionary to translate your Gaelic twaddle?’ taunted Renard.

  ‘You came here looking for Cornelius, right?’ said Prometheus, feeling just as well armed as if it had been him holding the pistol. ‘But for all your scheming and planning, you were wrong. Cornelius left here hours ago. He’ll be in Rome in a couple of days, doing his damnedest to raise hell, so he will.’

  ‘If hell is what he seeks, ape-man, he will find it at the Hades Consortium’s headquarters, that is for certain,’ said Renard. ‘Or did you think their name was just meant to frighten people?’

  ‘You have been there?’ asked Madame Destine. ‘Inside their fortress?’

  ‘Several times,’ replied Renard. ‘And it’s hardly a fortress, Mother. We call it “the Hive”, and it’s a fitting place for dear old Cornelius to meet his end. I must say, my only regret is that I will not be there to witness it.’

  Madame Destine rose from her chair swiftly, driving the barrel of the gun into Renard’s stomach harder.

  ‘Do it, witch! You’ll be doing me a favour!’ he snarled.

  ‘Perhaps it is the other way around,’ Destine said, shifting her footing. ‘You said that you have orders to deliver Cornelius to your master?’

  ‘To drag him all the way to Rome personally… and I was so much looking forward to it. He might even have been in one piece once we’d got there. But as he’s made a start without me, I suppose I’ll just have to catch up with him.’

  ‘That will be difficult with a bullet in your guts.’

  ‘But not impossible, Mother,’ said Renard. ‘I’ve cheated death before, remember?’

  ‘Not this time. This time you have lost,’ said Destine. ‘As Prometheus said, Cornelius is long gone and there is no way that you could charter a vessel and have it prepared to sail in time to catch up with him. I wonder if your superiors will see you as such a valued commodity once you explain how Cornelius slipped so easily through your fingers.’

  Renard tensed his metal fist. ‘You are wrong, Mother. I hardly need to charter a vessel, for the Hades Consortium has already provided me with one! Its captain has even now prepared for the voyage to Rome and is merely awaiting my arrival, so if you’ve got any last words for dear Cornelius, by all means I’ll pass them on to him. However, first we need to get this little business sorted out, eh? So what are you going to do, Mother? Just shoot me then leave me to rot?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Destine. ‘I am going to shoot you then commandeer your ship, and then it shall be me that drags you all the way to Rome.’

  Renard barely had time to open his mouth before Destine pulled the trigger.

  His metal hand darted to his stomach. As he lifted it to his eyes, the silver was tarnished by a swab of crimson blood.

  ‘Bravo,’ he whispered, before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

  Prometheus was agog. ‘Destine… you shot him!’

  ‘That was the general idea,’ she replied. ‘To accomplish our goal, he would be no good to me dead – nor alive enough to do either of us harm.’

  ‘But… what are we supposed to do now?’

  ‘Did you not hear?’ Destine asked of the Irishman. ‘I intend to take control of the Hades Consortium’s vessel, and once we are in Rome, my son will guide us to this hive!’

  ‘You mean you were serious about that? About us taking his ship?’

  ‘Cornelius needs us!’ said Destine, matter-of-factly. ‘But we must make haste, for he has a day’s advance on us. I just hope that he has managed to avoid getting himself into trouble already, but with Cornelius you never know.’

  ‘Forget him, what about us?’ bellowed the strongman. ‘This hare-brained scheme is like something Cornelius himself would cook up, so it is!’

  ‘That, my dear Aiden, is what I am relying on,’ said Destine. ‘Now, we must depart with haste if we are to find this ship. Antoine cannot stay here much longer.’

  ‘In case he wakes up, you mean?’ asked Prometheus.

  ‘Non,’ said Destine, ‘because he is bleeding all over my carpet.’

  Chapter VII

  The Dead Weight

  ‘Destine, are you sure this is wise?’ asked Prometheus less than half an hour later, as he marched along the River Thames embankment in the dead of night with Renard’s unconscious body slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Wise? Possibly not,’ said Destine, walking briskly at his side. ‘But it is essential nevertheless.’

  ‘But we don’t even know which one is the right ship!’ said Prometheus. ‘It could be any one of about a hundred of them! It’s owned by the damn Hades Consortium, remember? It’s not as if we can just stop and ask for directions!’

  ‘Maybe not, mon ami, but I have a guide nonetheless,’ said Destine, tapping her forehead. ‘Even though Antoine is quite unconscious, there is an aura of evil that clings to his flesh like the stench of old tobacco. I shall merely follow my nose.’

  Within fifteen minutes, the Frenchwoman’s nose had performed its job well. Destine stopped suddenly and pointed to a many-sailed ship moored at the end of a long, wooden walkway. ‘Voila! This is the one!’

  Prometheus stared up at it. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Persephone,’ said Destine, pointing to the name painted upon the ship’s bow. ‘From Greek mythology, she was the consort of the ruler of the underworld. Rather apt for a vessel owned by the Hades Consortium, non?’

  ‘All right then,’ said Prometheus. ‘So now that we’ve found the right ship, what are we going to do? Just stroll on up and ask them nicely to take us all the way to Italy? I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Madame.’

  ‘Shame on you, Aiden!’ said Destine, playfully slapping the Irishman’s broad chest. ‘You have partnered Cornelius on many adventures in the past, were you not paying attention?’

  Prometheus grinned. ‘To be fair, I was usually too busy clobbering blokes to be taking notes, and if I were attempting to do something this suicidal, I sure as hell wouldn’t be taking no advice from Cornelius, so I wouldn’t!’

  ‘Then it is lucky for us that I am here!’ announced Destine. ‘We shall board this vessel and convince its captain that we are operatives of the Hades Consortium tasked with delivering our injured colleague here to Rome. We shall demand private quarters, and not to be disturbed for the duration of the journey. Once we arrive in Italy, we will force Antoine to take us to the Hades Consortium’s lair. How does that sound, mon ami?’

  ‘Fine up until we get to the part where we’re supposed to convince the captain that we work for the bloody Hades Consortium,’ acknowledged the strongman. ‘Having a plan is all well and good, but I’m used to Cornelius’s plans, remember? Faith is a little hard to give once you’ve been caught out as many times as I have.’

  ‘Well, this is not Cornelius’s plan… this is Destine’s plan,’ said she. ‘The key to telling a believable lie is to cloak it in the truth as much as you can. To bolster our disguise I shall pretend to be a member of the Hades Consortium’s higher echelons, and you,’ the fortune-teller sized the massive strongman up and down and then back up again, ‘you shall be my bodyguard, an area of familiarity for you.’ Destine took a deep breath and nodded firmly, steeling her nerves. ‘And so… we begin.’

  ‘I never thought I’d see the day when I missed Cornelius’s plans
,’ mumbled Prometheus under his breath.

  ‘You there!’ called Destine to the nearest seaman that she found as they walked up the gangplank onto the ship’s deck. ‘What is your name, boy?’

  ‘Watkins, ma’am,’ was his reply.

  Destine nodded. ‘Très bon. Seaman Watkins, kindly escort me to your captain.’

  ‘Sure, ma’am. But who’re—?’

  ‘Do not dawdle, boy!’ snapped Destine. ‘We are in a hurry!’

  Within five minutes, Destine’s company of three were led to the captain’s cabin, a room with a blanket of must and alcohol clinging to every inch of the damp wooden beams. Once Prometheus had flopped Renard’s body onto a long wooden bench in the corner, he towered at Destine’s back. The captain was a surly sort, with his boots up on the table.

  ‘Slater,’ he said, by way of an introduction. ‘We ain’t had the pleasure, Mrs…’

  ‘Madame, if you do not mind,’ said Destine.

  ‘Fair enough… Madame.’ The captain pulled a knife from inside his waistcoat and thrust it into the table, watching it sway from one side to the next like a metronome. ‘You’ve got about ten seconds to tell me who you are before I chuck you in the drink.’

  ‘Do not take that tone with me, Captain, lest you wish my bodyguard to remove your insolent tongue!’ snapped Destine, distinctly out of character yet one that strangely suited her. ‘You are speaking to a member of the Hades Consortium’s inner stratum, so show some respect! My wounded companion here goes by the name of Renard – perhaps you have heard of him?’

  Captain Slater’s face dropped. ‘My orders were to take some bloke named Renard to Italy.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Destine. ‘But he has been badly wounded and he must receive urgent medical attention at the Hive or he will be lost to us. And our mutual employers would be most upset about that, hmm?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the local quacks?’ asked the captain.

  ‘Discretion is paramount in our organisation, Captain Slater, surely you know that,’ replied Destine. ‘Only the surgeons of the Hades Consortium can save him.’

  ‘That may be, but I don’t have passage orders for you, nor your…’ Slater squinted at Prometheus, ‘... whatever he is. On whose say-so am I supposed to take you?’

  ‘You are familiar with Baron Remus?’ tested Destine.

  Captain Slater nodded, his face rather pale.

  ‘He has personally ordered Renard to be taken to Rome and that is exactly what you shall do, Captain, or Remus will hear of it,’ said Destine, each word rising in tone and volume. ‘Is that completely understood?’

  ‘Y-yes, ma’am… sorry, ma’am. I’ll issue the order to cast off right away!’

  ‘Bon!’ said Destine, fighting the urge to take pleasure from the moment, but she could not resist allowing the feeling to wash over her. Is this how Cornelius always felt? If so, it was intoxicating in the extreme. ‘We require quarters and seclusion for the duration of our voyage. Order your ship’s medic to report to me at once. Let us pray the wind is at our backs, because we do not have one moment to lose!’

  Chapter VIII

  The Second Opinion

  Morning came at a crawl.

  The cracked window fractured the sunlight, painting the cabin in an eerie glow. Incessant creaking echoed around as the ship peaked and fell in the rough sea. Prometheus stood guard over Renard as he lay unconscious in one of three bunks in the cabin. Captain Slater had obliged Destine’s request not only of private quarters for her company, but also use of the ship’s medic. Eric Markham was an unkempt man, with lank hair and three days’ growth of beard. He looked unflinchingly at Renard’s wound as he prodded around inside it with a metal instrument.

  ‘Here’s the little bugger!’ he announced, as he lifted a small metal pellet out of the hole in Renard’s stomach. ‘Now that the bullet is out we need to stitch the poor bastard up, or his guts will be spilling out all over the deck.’ Reaching into his pocket, Markham pulled out a small leather pouch. ‘Gunpowder,’ he said helpfully, as he took a pinch and sprinkled it liberally over Renard’s wound. He walked over to the stove in the corner of the cabin and took out a poker that had been resting in the coals, its tip glowing white-hot. ‘That hole is far too messy for me to even attempt to stitch him at the moment, so we’re going to use an old seafaring trick for wounds of this type. Your friend’s lucky he’s unconscious, because this is going to hurt like hellfire.’

  Markham thrust the hot poker onto Renard’s wound and the gunpowder ignited with a white flash. The cabin was ripe with the stench of burned flesh. Markham wafted the wisps of smoke away and took a closer look at the wound.

  ‘That should just about do it!’ he said. ‘It’s not going to look pretty, but by the state of his face, it’s not like anyone would notice. I’ll need to patch him up, and then we’ll see how long he lasts. I give him a fifty-fifty chance… with gunshots it’s hard to tell. He’s lost a fair old amount of blood.’

  ‘Thank you for your efforts, Monsieur Markham, we shall keep him under close observation’ said Madame Destine. ‘How long until he wakes?’

  ‘Depends on how tough he is,’ replied Markham. ‘If he makes it through the day, there’s as good a chance as any that he’ll recover relatively quickly. And if he doesn’t, well… let’s put it this way… the mess I just made of his guts’ll be the least of his worries!’

  ‘We shall pray for his speedy recovery,’ said Destine, quite truthfully.

  ‘I’d better be off,’ said Markham. ‘The cook’s got a dose of syphilis that’s causing him no end of irritation, and if I don’t give him something for the pain, God only knows what’s going into the stew!’

  Prometheus winced, making a mental note to skip dinner.

  Renard was naked from the waist up with a dark red stain seeping through the bandages wrapped around his stomach. He was a ghastly shade of pale, and his chest was speckled with sweat. In truth, he looked dead already. Once Markham had left the cabin, the strongman reattached the leather straps around each of Renard’s wrists, binding him to his bunk.

  ‘Just in case he wakes up and tries to slit our necks in the night,’ he said, receiving a firm nod of agreement from Destine. ‘We’re still a long way from Rome, Madame. What if he dies on us before we get there?’

  Destine shook her head firmly. ‘Do not fear on that score, Aiden. I have heard that some people can survive for several days with a wound such as Antoine’s. All depends on his willpower, and this is my son we are talking about, remember? If he has anything, it is a strong will. But he must not die. He shall not die!’

  ‘I’m touched by your faith, Mother,’ Renard said, opening his eyes.

  Destine was forced to grab onto Prometheus for stability. ‘Mon Dieu! How long have you been conscious?’

  ‘Ever since the medic arrived,’ said Renard, his breath noticeably shallow.

  ‘Whilst he was operating on you?’ asked Prometheus. ‘You never said a bloody word! Not even a whimper! What kind of unfeeling monster are you?’

  ‘Oh, I feel, ape-man,’ seethed Renard. ‘I felt everything. I admit, the poker was a little excruciating, but as Mother quite rightly says: I have a strong will.’ The Frenchman tried to push himself up on his elbows, but then flopped back down as ice-cold daggers stabbed his guts. Still he did not give voice to his pain. ‘But I heard what he said – that I might not make it through the night – and now I have to decide whether I wish to play along or not. It seems that you are not as in control as you thought, Mother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ gasped Destine. ‘You must live!’

  ‘I think not,’ Renard replied. ‘Especially now that I know you and the ape-man are reliant upon my survival in order to… to do what exactly? Infiltrate the Hive and save good old Cornelius from certain doom? That will not do. That will not do at all. But I am glad that it was you that murdered me, Mother. You gave me life… and now you have given me death. Rather poetic, ne pensez-vous pas?’

&nb
sp; ‘You will live, damn you!’ shouted Destine. ‘Even if I have to do battle with the Devil himself – he will not claim your soul!’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Renard. ‘Soon my strength will be gone and I shall die… and then your little plan will have failed.’

  Destine ground her teeth. ‘I have not failed anything yet. You know that I can read emotions better than words on a page, mon fils… but you have no idea what else I am capable of. My empathic abilities have become keener than you know. I cannot just read emotions any longer… I can create them!’ The Frenchwoman stepped closer to Renard’s bed, pounding the words into his skull. ‘I can penetrate your every thought, your every feeling. I can force my will onto your own, breaking down your defences and rewriting it to my whim. Know this, Antoine: I am going to save your life even if it kills you!’

  Chapter IX

  The Dead End

  Some days later, the Victorious glided into Civitavecchia’s harbour. Situated on Italy’s Tyrrhenian coast, the port had faithfully served Rome since before the city of seven hills had birthed the empire that grew to dominate much of the known world.

  Cornelius Quaint had been up on the top deck since sunrise, eager to begin his task. Bathed in amber sunlight, the port was serene – broken only by the droning wail of the ship’s horn. The journey to Italy had been uneventful, and Quaint had relished the opportunity to distil his thoughts. What he was about to do was risky, he knew. Taking on an enemy such as the Hades Consortium unprepared was tantamount to suicide, but he planned to change all that. Unusually for him, he would take things one step at a time, and there was much work to be done before he could even think about confronting Remus, if the man was even still alive. It had been almost fifty years since his parents had been killed. What if their killer was also long since dead? No matter, Quaint would find out either way and he would not rest until he had learned the truth, the Hades Consortium be damned.