POE MUST DIE (34 page)

“Jonathan is vengeful, unforgiving. Witness the death of Sproul’s associates. I sense in him a strong ego, a love of power, the strong need to dominate, to have all bow to his will without question. He sees himself the equal of the gods, for he has challenged Asmodeus as evidenced by that barbaric ritual involving the slaughter of several people. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants and there are no barriers to his evil. Witness, Mr. Figg, what he did to your wife. Jonathan defies God and Satan and he wants to rank beside them, never beneath them. He dreams grand dreams, does Jonathan and he undoubtedly is the most intelligent, determined and deadly individual any of us have ever encountered.”

Poe leaned across the table. “And, Mr. Figg, he did
not
attempt to kill you last night.”

“Go on now, you bloomin’ well know he did. Who else wants me under the earth save ‘im?”

“Jonathan lives in darkness, Mr. Figg. His awareness of the Throne of Solomon and his single-mindedness in pursuing it, indicates a deep and abiding interest in magic. His slaying of your wife, his slaying of Sproul’s cohorts, his attempts at clouding my mind—all of these things were committed by a magician, a sorcerer. By comparison, the attempt at destroying you with gas seems crude, unimaginative, hasty and above all, absent from the realm of the supernatural. Even his bringing a painting to life at the home of Miles Standish—”

Poe stopped. He frowned. “Miles Standish. Miles Standish.” He looked at Figg, then smiled quickly. “Well sir, let us talk of lighter things for my Muddy is sitting between us stunned and made silent by these somber matters.”

She playfully slapped his hand. “Oh Eddy, do not make me out to be such a fossil.”

Figg wanted to ask more questions, but no sense in pushing Poe. Later he would get dear Eddy to talk some more. Did Poe believe Miles Standish to be behind that business with the gas? Well, no more talk of killing; ain’t the business of a man to speak these things in front of a woman.

Figg grinned. “Riddle me, riddle me ree.”

“Oh Eddy, a riddle. I do so love them.” Mrs. Clemm’s plain face broke out in a smile as she clapped her hands.

Poe smiled as Figg’s husky voice assumed the singsong rhythm of a child’s verse. “Little Nancy Etticoat/With a white petticoat/and a red nose She has no feet or hands/the longer she stands/the shorter she grows.”

Poe was quick. “A candle.”

“Right you are squire. Now try this ‘ere one. A house full, a hole full/You cannot gather a bowlful.”

Poe closed his eyes, then opened them. “Smoke. Perhaps, perhaps mist.”

All three laughed.

Figg tried several more and no matter how obscure they were, Poe guessed them all. The silliness of the game delighted him more than anything had in a long time. Muddy was pleased and if Poe had not brought her money or food this time, he’d brought her the surprising Pierce James Figg, pugilist and reciter of English children’s riddles.

And, for a short time, that was something for both of them to be warmed by in an existence where there was so little to be warmed by.

*     *     *     *

Upstairs, Mrs. Clemm stood in the tiny, cold attic room where Figg was to spend the night. The cold numbed his fingers, toes and he’d have to sleep with his clothes and boots on.

The yellow stub of a candle in her long fingers was the only light. “We have straw for you, Mr. Figg and I shall bring you the blanket from my room.”

“No mum. Ain’t takin’ a blanket away from no lady, thankin’ you muchly just the same. Straw is fine, for I was born on it and it’s been me bed more than once in me life.”

“You are our guest, sir. I can do no less than give you—”

“No mum. Now if you go and do such a thing, bring me
your
blanket I mean, then I will just wait until you fall asleep, and come into your room and cover you. It ain’t correct for a gentleman to enter a lady’s chamber in such fashion, so do not place me in such a predicament.”

Lord help us, he thought. If I was to go in for a bit of night crawlin’, with all due respect, Mrs. Clemm wouldn’t be what I’d care to see at the end of me creepin’.

She blushed. “I appreciate your good manners, Mr. Figg. Now allow me to give you all of the disturbing news at once. Eddy is downstairs attempting to write, so I am unable to leave you with even this small bit of candle. We cannot afford to purchase even the cheapest tallow. What light we have is necessary for his work. I—” She was too embarrassed to speak.

Figg said, “Mum, seein’ as how I shall be lyin’ ’ere with me eyes shut tight, a candle does not appear to be needed.”

“Thank you, Mr. Figg. Eddy has not been in good health of late and since the death one year ago of my daughter, his wife, he has written little. Two poems and a book review, plus what journalistic work he can obtain at only pennies a page. So whenever he feels the urge to write, I must encourage him. It is no secret that he is, perhaps, in the twilight of his life, though I hope and pray with all my heart that this is not so. Well, Mr. Figg, I bid you good ni—”

“Noooooooooo! Do not do this, I beg you!”

Poe. From downstairs.

Quickly Figg found his flat, black wooden case and grabbed the two pistols. Pushing his way past Mrs. Clemm, he limped forward into darkness as fast as he could, stumbling down the stairs, pistols held high.

Behind him, Mrs. Clemm shouted, “Eddy! Eddy!”

*     *     *     *

Poe and Figg stood side by side on the cottage porch, looking into the night. Then Poe pointed. “There! Near the trees! There! I heard her call to me and she said she was Virginia, but I know this to be false!”

Figg saw her in the moonlight, a cloaked figure running across the snow, towards trees leading down to the road. Jonathan’s wench. The one Poe said tried to drive him batty.

Figg leaped from the porch, landing in snow. He ran. The figure ahead of him would reach the trees soon. Jonathan’s wench. Figg stopped and fired. The flintlock cracked once, sending a small puff of smoke from its chamber, the shot echoing across the countryside.

The figure disappeared into the trees.

Figg and Poe gave chase in the snow. In front of the trees, Poe dropped to one knee. “Blood on the snow, Mr. Figg. That is how they deceived me the last time. False blood. Mr. Figg? Mr. Figg?”

“Over ‘ere, squire.”

Poe ran to him. Just inside the grove of trees, Figg held a woman’s cloak that had caught onto a snow-covered bush. He fingered a hole in the back made by the flintlock’s ball. There was dampness around the small hole.

“No deceivin’ this time, squire. Whoever the lady is, she’s got a ball in her. Come, let us see if we can find a trace of her.”

Figg looked up at the sky. “Moon’s full. We ‘ave the light.” He limped forward in a crouch, eyes on the snow, the cloak over his shoulder. The empty flintlock was jammed down into his belt. The other was in his hand and if he had to use it on the woman again, so be it. She was Jonathan’s wench and Figg would kill her as easily as he sipped ale.

In the cold, moonlit night, he and Poe kept their eyes down and looked for blood in the soft, beautiful snow.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“H
UGH
L
ARNEY
,
DO
not turn around. Stay as you are.”

The soft voice was Jonathan’s and it came from behind Larney. The food merchant’s blood turned cold; he held his breath. Jonathan had managed to enter Larney’s home unseen and was now upstairs in the special room, the room with the silver-handled coffin and the books on black magic and witchcraft. A servant had reported the door to the room slightly ajar and a fire burning in the fireplace. An enraged Larney had rushed upstairs, a poker in his hand.

Jonathan.

Larney’s hands shook; he dropped the poker.

“Listen and listen well. I said do not turn around. The sight of your stupid face might force me to kill you here. Last night, you and Miles attempted to murder Poe against my orders. Why?”

“M-Miles said you wanted him dead.”

“Miles lied. And you believed him.”

“He said, said, you wanted Poe dead and yes, yes I believed him.”

“Miles does not think, he reacts. And I shall kill him for it.”

Larney thought he heard a cat meow. Or, in his fear, had he imagined it? A cat?

“Jonathan, I would not—”

“But you have. You, Miles and Volney Gunning. What shall I do with the three of you, Hugh? Tell me. I have already told you what I intend to do with Miles.”

A cat meowed again. Larney wanted to turn around; he wanted to run. But he wanted to live and so he did nothing. “Jonathan, I have, have to tell you something.”

“You, Miles and Volney have mounted one more attack on the life of Poe.”

“Ye-yes.”

“Your intelligence is transparent. Do you wish to die?”

“N-no. Oh please, oh—”

“You can buy your life.”

“I will give you anything, anything.”

“You cannot buy it with money. You can buy it with blood, both you and Volney must purchase your lives in blood.”

“We shall, we will.”

“You both are to kill Miles Standish. First let me say that if your second attack on Poe’s life succeeds, all three of you will die by my hand and most painfully. Should Poe survive this attack, leave him alone until I tell you differently.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“I knew you would. Again, you and Volney Gunning are to kill Miles Standish.”

“W-when?”

“As soon as it can be arranged, and Larney—”

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“Succeed in this task.”

“I shall, Jonathan. I shall. You have my word—”

Larney heard the cat meow again, heard the movement of Jonathan’s arm as he brought the small piece of metal down against the back of Larney’s head.

The blow was painful, but not hard. It wasn’t meant to be. Larney dropped to the floor on his knees and hands. Blackness squeezed his brain, then released it and he shook his head to clear it, forcing his eyes open, forcing them to focus.

The shrieking came from the fireplace and it was horrible, shredding Larney’s nerves, shocking him into full awakeness. Jonathan had tossed a sack of live cats into the fireplace and now the sack jerked, twisted and took on a terrified life of its own as the burning cats struggled to get out.

Jonathan’s warning. A hellish ritual from a time long forgotten.

The cats howled and their cries pierced Larney’s brain like shards of cold steel. Still on his knees, he closed his eyes, hands over his ears to drown out the sound of the burning cats. Now the smell of the tortured animals reached his nose and Larney screamed.

Servants pounded on the locked door and still Larney screamed.

Later, when he had left the room, he asked the servants if they had seen anyone in the house who didn’t belong there. A frightened Larney was not surprised when they told him
no,
no one had entered or left the house for the past few hours.

With Jonathan’s threat very much on his mind and the sound and smell of the burning cats still with him, Hugh Larney quickly left his home to seek out Volney Gunning. Miles Standish would die before the setting of the sun.

TWENTY-EIGHT

F
IGG PUSHED THE
last of his custard and hard-boiled egg into his mouth, chewing while staring through the window of the speeding train at the snow-covered ground and trees. The train was carrying him and Poe from Fordham back to New York. “This ‘ere thing moves right along. Ain’t no trains in England what speeds like this one.”

Poe, seated across from him, nibbled on a slice of ham. “A speeding train, such as this one, is a dangerous business, sir.”

“It’s
what?”

“An American train, Mr. Figg, is as poorly constructed as the track upon which it rolls. Curves are sharp, grades steep and the consideration given to passenger safety can best be described as fleeting. America is being speedily erected. It rises overnight from a wilderness, and under such circumstances, there is little time to waste upon being precise. Our republic worships the obsolete; it builds nothing that will last and it seems the citizenry, in its blissful ignorance, prefers this state of affairs. American trains undergo accidents at an astounding rate, a brutal truth we accept as we do political promises and heavy-handed dentists. Un-pleasantries to be endured and survived, the process to be repeated much too frequently.”

Figg grunted. “Nothin’ built to last, you say.”

Poe nodded.

“Then why build a bloody thing at all? I mean in your New York you have people buildin’ one thing or another everywhere you turn. A man cannot stroll about your fair city without he gets the dust of cement and plaster in ‘is nostrils.”

Poe fingered the woman’s cloak found last night near his cottage. It lay across his knees warming him. “We call that the spirit of ‘go-ahead,’ Mr. Figg. The ‘go-aheads’ tear down the beautiful old Dutch housing and churches of this city, to replace them with the ugly, cramped wooden tenements needed to house a growing immigrant population, that welcomed source of cheap labor for a growing nation. New York feeds on progress, Mr. Figg and progress feeds on destruction.”