Dark Duets Part 36

"Time to start the burrower," she said.

He nodded, lowered his goggles, and ignited the steam engine. While that was warming up, she opened the wall safe and removed the carafe of ripe sustaining oil. This older batch had perhaps twenty-four hours of usefulness left before it spoiled.

"I wish I could help you with that," Toby said over the hiss of the burrower.

Rasheeda forced a smile. "I wish that too, Toby. Later we'll try another lesson."

Toby returned her smile, then pulled open the thick wooden door to reveal the entry tunnel to Rasheeda's own private underground. Over the years the burrower had riddled the earth beneath her cemetery with wandering pa.s.sages. It no doubt resembled a giant anthill in there.

Toby rolled the burrower to the entrance until its drilling head was just beyond the threshold, then put it in gear. The machine hissed as it trundled into the opening and disappeared from sight. It would follow existing tunnels and dig new ones until it reached plot G-12. Once there it would expose the bottom of Graziana Babilani's coffin. Her body would fall through the trapdoor cut into its floor, and the burrower would return her here for the ritual.

Rasheeda waved. "See you in a few hours."

"Can I perform the ritual when you come back?"

"We'll see." She gave him a hard stare. "I'm sure I don't have to warn you against trying your undeveloped skills on Mrs. Babilani while I am out, do I?"

He blanched and raised his hands. "I wouldn't even consider it! She's too valuable."

"Remember that."

" 'WE'LL SEE,' " Toby muttered after she was gone, mimicking her accent. " 'We'll see.' "

He knew that phrase too well. Her way of saying no without using the word itself. Why didn't she have more confidence in him? He was sure he was ready to graduate from being a laborer to partic.i.p.ating in the really important stuff. He just needed a chance to prove himself and convince her.

For a moment-a fleeting instant, no more-he considered defying her and performing the ritual on Mrs. Babilani himself. That would show her.

But then he remembered the lady's cold rage when a certain client had stepped way out of line. That particular client had sickened and died in agony within a week. His doctors never determined the cause of his pain, but even the strongest opiates could not touch it.

Just as Toby would not touch Mrs. Babilani.

He busied himself around the bas.e.m.e.nt while awaiting the burrower's return. He checked on the unconscious sailor to make sure he was still among the living. He'd seen people stop breathing from too much opium, but no, this one's chest was moving with regular respirations.

Finally he heard a whirring noise in the tunnel, growing louder: the burrower returning. He stood aside as it lurched out of the tunnel and hissed to a stop. He closed the door behind it-no telling what vermin might wander in if left open-and turned to the burrower.

He froze when he saw what lay in the receptacle atop the machine. A body, yes, but not Mrs. Babilani. Instead of a clean, middle-aged woman, this was a dirt-encrusted man. But equally dead.

Toby lifted him out of the burrower and placed him on the embalming table. Not that they ever did any embalming down here-they had a back room upstairs for that.

He looked him over. Dark hair, even features. Forty years, perhaps. Even though the clothing was caked with loose dirt, Toby could see it was of good quality. His shoes were shined beneath the grime. Something glinted in the corpse's right hand. A gold ring? Toby looked closer and was shocked to see all four fingers fitted into a set of bra.s.s knuckles.

"Who were you, my friend?" Toby muttered.

Certainly not a savory fellow, despite his quality clothing-not if he was wearing bra.s.s knuckles. How did he die? Where was he buried? And by whom? He- Toby noticed dried blood on the left breast area of the coat. The soil had mixed with it some, so it must have been still fresh when he'd been consigned to the earth. The blood surrounded a horizontal slit in the fabric. Gingerly he lifted the coat and suppressed a gasp at the grand expanse of red-brown stain on the embroidered vest and linen shirt beneath. The vest showed a slit similar to the one in the coat.

No doubt about the cause of death: a knife blade-a large one, from the size of the cut-driven deep into the heart. Death must have followed almost immediately.

"At least you didn't suffer. But the question is: Are you an innocent victim or did you get what was coming to you?"

But a more immediate question: Why had the burrower delivered him instead of Mrs. Babilani?

He went over to the machine and checked the programming board. Not at all like Miss Basemore to make an error of this magnitude, and no, she hadn't: the destination peg was firmly set in the G-12 hole.

What was going on? None of it made sense. Toby saw everyone who went into the ground here and he'd never laid eyes on this man. From the looks of him, he hadn't been in a coffin, just thrown into a hole in the ground and covered up.

And then Toby Hecker had an epiphany.

This corpse, this unaccounted-for body from who knew where was like a gift from G.o.d-or perhaps Shiva. This stranger would allow him to prove himself to Rasheeda Basemore and demonstrate beyond all doubt that he was ready to handle the important stuff.

He ran to the wall and removed the chained silver collars from their hooks. He clamped one around the corpse's throat, then threaded the other through the bars of the cage and fastened it around the neck of the unconscious sailor. He opened the safe-he knew the combination-and there among the fermenting batch of new oil and Miss Basemore's derringer lay the book that contained the ritual.

He positioned himself between the two men and began reading . . .

"KATRINA!" MADAME LOUISA said. "Put that down and let Miss Basemore anoint you."

The young woman, dressed in an extremely brief French maid's uniform, lowered the heavy armoire she'd been carrying across the room and did as she was told. Rasheeda used the oil to draw the Sanskrit words on her forehead, cheeks, and the backs of her hands while muttering the chant. She worked to make sure the oil penetrated the thick rouge someone had troweled onto her cheeks.

"Fit as a fiddle till the next full moon, I a.s.sume?" Madame Louisa said with a broad Southern drawl.

She stood on a short stool in the center of the room while a tailor pinned and chalked a dress of golden velvet he was fitting to her curvy form. Her eyes were close-set and her jawline wide, a look that had probably made her appear vulnerable when she was younger. She was about Rasheeda's age and pretty, but her gaze was cold and calculating. Rasheeda supposed those qualities were necessary in the madam of one of the city's premier seraglios.

"Rest a.s.sured," Rasheeda said, slipping the carafe of oil back into her satchel. "Renascence Staffing guarantees it."

"I remain amazed that this oil of yours imparts such wondrous strength to those skinny little arms."

It didn't, of course-that was just one of the many fictions Rasheeda had concocted about her revenants.

"Yes. It's miraculous, in a way."

"And it's really true that my dear Katrina would become torpid and useless without your monthly upkeep?"

Rasheeda nodded. "Yes, the ministrations are necessary. You know that."

"No, I don't know that. I have only your say-so."

"Why would I make up a story?"

"Perhaps it's just some excuse you've concocted so you can come by every month to collect your rent. I've half a mind to lock you out next month and see what happens."

Oh, you don't want to do that, Rasheeda thought as the muscles at the back of her neck tightened.

"That would be . . . regretful."

Louisa gestured to one of her minions. A beefy fellow with long blond hair-one of her bouncers, most likely-stepped forward to hand Rasheeda a cash envelope to cover the monthly lease. That too went into the satchel along with the other payments collected today. This was the part about these rounds that Rasheeda didn't mind at all.

"Tell me," Louisa said. "Where do you find such perfect servants? They're strong as oxen, don't speak, and do whatever they're told. Whatever is in that oil of yours?"

They're dead, Rasheeda thought, but smiled and said, "Trade secret."

Louisa's affable expression wobbled. Obviously she wasn't used to being refused and didn't like it.

"I understand. However, I have a business proposition I wish to discuss with you."

"I look forward to it," Rasheeda said, backing away, "but I have my monthly round of anointings to complete."

"Some other time, then." Her gaze became pointed. "We will talk soon."

"Of course." Rasheeda turned to leave, then turned back. "Mister Traugott is a client of yours, I believe?"

Louisa's eyebrows lifted. "I do not discuss my clients with anyone. They are a.s.sured of discretion here."

"I appreciate that, so let me rephrase: Are you acquainted with Mister Traugott?"

Louisa smiled. "Come to think of it, I do believe I am. Why?"

"The Traugotts don't seem to be answering their door. I tried yesterday and the day prior."

"That's because they are on holiday."

Holiday? A wave of cold pa.s.sed through Rasheeda. She'd had no idea.

"But if they aren't back today, their maid Eunice will miss her anointing."

Madame Louisa laughed. "Well, I guess that anointing'll have to wait, because they don't get back till tonight."

Rasheeda noticed that she'd slipped her facade to reveal a more working-cla.s.s manner of speech. Madame Louisa seemed to catch herself, and when she spoke again, she did so more slowly.

"Anyhow, what's the worst that could happen? As you say, she'll go all sleepy and someone else'll have to bring Fritz his brandy and cigar after dinner. I'm sure Fritz'll survive."

Don't count on that, Rasheeda thought.

Despite what Madame Louisa had told her, Rasheeda went directly to the Traugott house. Mr. Traugott was a member of the Rhinelander family, which had made a fortune in sugar and shipping. He and his wife and children lived in a Yorkville mansion on East Eighty-Fourth Street, so Rasheeda took the pneumatic tube uptown from the brothel.

Despite repeated poundings of the heavy bra.s.s knocker, no one answered their front door.

This could be bad, she thought as she hurried back toward the Eighty-Sixth Street pneumatic station. Very bad.

RASHEEDA RETURNED HOME to find an unaccountably exultant Toby.

"I've got a surprise for you, Miss Basemore!"

Oh, no.

"What is it, Toby?" she said, not wanting to hear the answer. "Not Mrs. Babi-"

"No no no! I wouldn't touch her!"

She let out a breath. Well, that was a relief.

"Good. Excellent. What's all the ado then?"

"It will be easier to show you." He was vibrating with excitement. "Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Come!"

He dashed ahead and she followed, hefting the satchel of lease payments that was bound for the safe. She entered the bas.e.m.e.nt, where the burrower rested near the tunnel entrance like a faithful mastiff, pressurized air still burping from its tubes.

Toby spread his hands to the cage. "You see? I told you I could do it!"

The cage door was closed. Stretched across the stones beyond it lay a sailor, Toby's donor, dead, still tethered to the silver chain. And on the opposite end of the silver sat- Not Mrs. Babilani.

No, the fellow next to the dead sailor was dirty and scarred, drool sagging from lip to lapel.

Toby rattled the bars. "On your feet, now. Say h.e.l.lo to your new mistress."

The man did not blink. The stream of drool neither slowed nor coursed afresh. He was beyond stupor.

Rasheeda felt her fingernails tighten around the satchel. "Toby, what have you done?"

"Give me a minute. I'm sure I did it right."

Toby slipped the key into the lock and threw wide the cage door. He shook the man, though man was a generous word for this creature. No more animated than a bull thistle. And so covered in dirt he looked like he'd been buried without a box and crawled up through the soil on his own. Facial scars indicated that during his life some of the bones had broken and healed over a few times; and yet, were it not for his pallor and ghastly stupor, he might be otherwise handsome.

Toby shook him, but the man's head lolled back without resistance. Only when Toby released him did the head slowly right itself to its normal posture.

This revenant was useless.

An inch at a time, Toby raised his gaze to Rasheeda.

"It was the burrower. It should have picked up the Babilani lady, but it brought him back instead."

Rasheeda swung the satchel of coins and bills, catching Toby on the side of the head. He howled and stumbled backward, then jabbered about how he'd only been trying to salvage the situation. Wasn't there something they could do? After all, this was Toby's first revenant.

Rasheeda looked at the thing. "Certainly. We could sit him in Central Park as a means of attracting pigeon s.h.i.te to spare the statues. I'm sure the Borough of Manhattan would pay . . . oh, let me see . . . nothing?!"

Toby sank to his knees and retrieved a gold eagle coin that had escaped Rasheeda's satchel.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him. "You can't revive just any old corpse. This one's clearly been dead too long."

"But he seemed so fresh. He was still leaking from the stab wound in his chest."

Rasheeda pinched her brow. "Well, then, he probably wasn't dead long enough. The timing is sensitive. There's a reason I'm the only one who can do this. A good revenant is lively but dumb, docile, and compliant, and very plain to the eye."

"But I never-"

"And you never will. We'll have to get rid of this rubbish as it is. And the donor, too, which you've wasted. Now we have two bodies to dispose of, with no usable revenant to show for it. I should take the money I'd be getting for the Babilani woman out of your wages."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Miss Basemore."

"You're lucky he came to as a houseplant. These things can be dangerous."