The Romulus Equation (2 page)

‘Certainly, my Lady,' nodded Jacobi, obligingly. ‘Our operative Heinrich Nadir has submitted a report of what occurred in Egypt. The facts are thus: just before your protégée Lady Jocasta could complete her assignment to poison the Nile, a usurper became embroiled within her plans. This man was not only successful in preventing the poison's dispersal, but reports indicate that with the aid of a band of Egyptian mercenaries, he wilfully destroyed our citadel in Fantoma. Nadir confirmed that we have sustained heavy casualties. Some close to home.' Jacobi paused, making sure that he made eye contact with Remus. ‘It is my sad duty to inform you that, Sir George Dray is dead.'

‘
Dead?
' gasped Remus, his eyes darting to the empty booth shrouded in darkness. ‘How can this be? The last I heard, he was in India!'

‘It seems that he departed there rather abruptly… en route to see
you
, Baron,' said a new male voice from one of the shadowed booths. ‘The inner stratum would very much like to know the outcome of that meeting.'

‘Me?' replied Remus, trying to calm the nerves in his voice. ‘There must be some mistake. George and I never crossed paths in all the time that I was in Fantoma. I did not even know that he was coming. What do we know of this
usurper
that derailed our plans?'

The inner stratum paused as a single consciousness, the elongated silence speaking volumes.

‘And where is this man now?' demanded Remus.

‘Dead. Nadir claims that he perished with the destruction of the citadel in Fantoma.'

Remus clasped his hands together, squeezing his knuckles until his tanned flesh went pale. ‘That is a shame… for I would very much have liked to have met him.'

‘We are aware that Sir George was more than just a friend to you, Baron… he was your mentor and a very vocal supporter of your ascension within our organisation… but there will be a time to mourn him.' The man's voice trailed away slightly, only to return twice as bold. ‘We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted from events in the Black Sea! Great Britain and France have yet to ally with the Ottoman Empire, but soon an act of our making will force their hand. War with the Russians is inevitable.'

A rumbling murmur served as applause from the shadowed booths, and several silhouetted heads bowed their approval.

Remus took a stilted breath as silence filled the chamber. ‘I understand, my Lord.'

‘If there is no more business to discuss might I suggest an adjournment?' said Jacobi, and the gallery's booths echoed the sound of many scraping chairs. Once it was just he and Remus he said, ‘Dear God, Adolfo! You got out of that one by the skin of your teeth!'

‘Forget about me, Carmine – what the hell happened in Egypt?' Remus roared, darting towards Jacobi with his teeth bared. ‘What on earth was George doing in Fantoma?'

‘Perhaps you had better ask Sirona… for if Heinrich Nadir was wrong… if this Englishman somehow survived then the wrath of the inner stratum might be the least of your problems.'

With his brain stewing and temper brewing, Baron Remus wanted to get far away from the underground cavern, and he climbed a spiral staircase three steps at a time to the upper levels. He turned into a long corridor where a single door stood at the far end. Approaching it at pace, he hammered his fists upon it and it crashed open against its wooden frame. The room was black, pierced by the seam of light from the open door.

‘Did you know?' he demanded, his voice rumbling like thunder.

‘Poor George,' said a woman's voice from the void.

‘I will take that as a yes,' Remus snarled. ‘And may I ask why you did not see fit to mention it
before
I got dragged in front of the council, Sirona?'

‘What did you expect, Baron? The inner stratum has been chomping at the bit for answers to what occurred in Egypt, and I can only do so much to deflect their attention. Thankfully, they are not in possession of all the facts.'

‘And you are, I suppose?' Remus asked.

‘Approach me, dear Adolfo, and learn all that I know,' replied Sirona, her voice cracked and brittle. ‘But you will not like it.'

The Baron's eyes adjusted to the darkness as he approached a grand four-poster bed. Its occupant was an old woman, her frail body propped awkwardly among a sea of pillows. Her flesh clung to her skull like wet paper, drawing her sunken eyes and cheekbones into shadow.

‘I want to know what really happened in Fantoma!' said Remus. ‘I must speak with Nadir at once!'

‘Impossible,' replied Sirona. ‘Nadir is presently on assignment in London.'

‘
London?
What the devil is he doing there?'

‘An apt turn of phrase, all things considered,' smiled the old woman. ‘I cannot allow him to reveal the truth, and so I have dispatched him on a little errand, one that he will not return from… in one piece, anyway.'

‘Stop speaking in riddles, woman!' snapped Remus. ‘What truth?'

‘The reason why Sir George was compelled to speak with you in Egypt, Adolfo. He was attempting to warn you.'

‘Warn me? Warn me about what?' demanded Remus.

‘Grave news, what else?' replied Sirona. ‘Finding you absent, he sent me a communiqué explaining everything.' The frail old woman took a letter from the folds of her blankets and offered it to the Baron. ‘It's come all the way from Egypt, so it's some weeks old by now, of course. However, its pertinence is only heightened considering recent events. I fear that the worst is to come… and come he will.'

Remus scowled. ‘
He?
'

The old woman nodded towards the letter. ‘Read it and find out… but as I said, you will not like it very much.'

Taking a pair of wire spectacles from the breast pocket of his white jacket, Remus perched them upon the bridge of his nose and read:

‘My dearest Sirona,

I had hoped to convey this news to Adolfo in person, but he seems to have flown the coop, and so in that case, I find myself wondering if he already knows what has come to pass. Cornelius seems to have inherited his father's altruistic streak, and he is currently in Egypt, intent on disrupting our plans for the Nile.

I have done what I can to keep him occupied, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow so that I may deal with his interference myself. He's a tenacious bugger, just like his old man – but then we both know what happened to him.

Which begs the question: what does Cornelius know? I need not remind you of the consequences if he has uncovered the truth about his father. You must warn Adolfo to be on his guard just in case. A Quaint is not to be underestimated – as you know to your cost.

George.'

‘This interloper in
Egypt… was Augustus Quaint's
son?
' gasped Remus.

Sirona nodded. ‘Which means that George's death was no accident.'

‘So this is why he was so eager to speak with me? But, Sirona… I fail to see the need for concern. Quaint is dead.'

‘Are you mad, Adolfo, he is nothing of the sort!'

‘But Nadir's report—'

‘Was falsified on my orders!' barked Sirona. ‘If the inner stratum suspected the truth, they would take an immediate interest in Cornelius Quaint and I cannot permit that. That is why I have gone to great lengths to ensure that Nadir's tongue is silenced permanently… yet he is not our only problem. Cornelius must be dealt with too – as quickly and cleanly as possible. We currently have an operative in London who seems to be the ideal candidate for the job, does he not?'

‘
Him?
' gasped Remus. ‘Sirona, are you mad? In his present condition, he is hardly fit for an operation as sensitive as this! He is too much of a risk!'

‘And we know all about
risks
, Adolfo,' Lady Sirona snarled. ‘The ghosts of our past must be exorcised once and for all… preferably
before
they come back to haunt us. Send word to Dr Chang in London. Inform him that he has a resurrection to arrange.'

Limping through the Limehouse district, the gaunt man was no stranger to the shrouded backstreets and dingy alleyways, and he pushed his way past baying whores and bragging tavern owners towards his goal. His pale face was flecked with scars, as if he had stared into the heart of an explosion. As he arrived at a dimly lit doorway adorned with Chinese symbols, he thumped his bloodstained and bandaged lump of a fist upon it. Behind this door he would be reborn, as would his revenge.

A pair of oriental eyes peered out of a slot fitted into the door.

‘We are closed,' clipped their owner.

‘I'm here to see Chang,' said the scarred man. ‘Remus sent me.'

The oriental eyes lowered nervously. ‘In that case… I shall inform Dr Chang at once of your arrival.'

The scarred man made his way down the narrow hall and up four flights of stairs to the attic. Flickering candles made shadows dance across the walls, each one decorated with more Chinese symbols. The light was dim in the enclosed space and a stench hung stagnant in the air. He flopped, almost collapsed, onto a cot bed and looked around, grasping what he could of his surroundings. A moth-eaten curtain separated him from a large open room filled with rows of beds occupied by pale-faced ghouls, smoking opium through long rubber tubes. They were laid out like wretched corpses, a hair's breadth closer to death than life. The stench came from them, the unmistakable bouquet of urine and defecation. The scarred man was distracted by the scuttling approach of a Chinaman with crooked spectacles perched upon his snout-like nose. He was dressed in a long, stained white coat and he carried a wooden tray. Placing the tray upon the table by the side of the bed, with no word of greeting to the scarred man, he removed several utensils one by one. A scalpel, a bone-saw, a pair of scissors, a magnifying glass and most curious of all – a metal glove, similar to a medieval knight's gauntlet.

‘I am Chang,' said the Chinaman. ‘I assume you understand the bindings of the contract? And you understand that this operation is not without pain? I have opiates to minimise your suffering, but they will not be enough.'

‘Pain and I are well acquainted, monsieur,' said the scarred man, lifting his bloodied stump of a hand.

‘Ah, yes. Might I inspect the wound?' asked Dr Chang.

Using the pair of scissors, he began cutting away at the mitten of filthy bandages. The blood-soaked material cracked open like an egg, and the scarred man hissed in pain as the wound tasted fresh air – as fresh as the air could be in the clouded fog of opium fumes.

‘When did you receive this injury?' he asked.

‘Four months ago… or thereabouts,' replied the scarred man.

‘Hmm, not too bad then,' Dr Chang said, taking the magnifying glass from the tray and inspecting the hand more closely. In truth, it was barely recognisable as a hand. It was just a stump of flesh, missing four of its five digits, each one severed cleanly near the knuckle. Only the thumb remained intact, albeit bruised and gangrenous at its base. ‘The majority of the nerve endings seem to be undamaged, although the tendons around the wound have superficial damage. You are actually
lucky
that it has not fully healed; it enables the grafting to occur that much faster.'

‘That is good news,' said the scarred man, ‘because I am bleeding to death.'

‘I understand, sir… but this is still an experimental procedure. These things cannot be rushed.' Dr Chang lifted the metal gauntlet from the table and presented it to the scarred man. ‘Once this glove is fixed in place it will bond with your injured nerves, tendons and muscles. The mechanisms will respond to your brain's commands like flesh and bone. It will
replace
flesh and bone… but I must warn you that it comes at a price. Once the grafting has taken place, it can never be removed.'

‘You may dispense with the disclaimer, Doctor,' said the impatient patient. ‘My employers have briefed me on what to expect.'

‘Of course they have.' Dr Chang shuffled nervously about the bed, trying to find the right words to put in his flailing mouth. ‘The Hades Consortium… is a
dangerous
group to make such a bargain with. One day you may regret selling them your soul.'

‘It is a little late for that, Doctor,' the scarred man said. ‘Just get on with it.'

Dr Chang inched closer and placed the metal gauntlet carefully onto the stump of a hand. Bustling over to a small, steam-powered generator, he pulled a ripcord from its side and it sprang to life, rattling and humming with power.

‘I advise a deep inhalation, sir,' Dr Chang said, offering the scarred man a long rubber pipe connected to a glass vat of smoking opiates.

‘No, I want to feel every ounce of this pain!' He pushed it away, grinding his teeth as sparks of electricity illuminated the flecked scars on his pale face. ‘Soon I will have a hand in Cornelius Quaint's death… just as he had a hand in mine.'

As morning dawned outside Grosvenor Park station, shards of sunlight speared through the domed roof, bathing the gaudily painted steam train with golden caresses. The light forced itself into every carriage, determined to rouse the inhabitants from their slumber. But there was one onboard that needed no rousing, for Cornelius Quaint had not slept a wink all night. Decorated with theatrical posters on the walls, magicians' equipment and costumes, keepsakes and heirlooms from his career, his office was usually warm and inviting – but not this day. This day the circus proprietor was not greeting visitors. He had closed the shutters on his windows and locked his door – a sign to all callers that he wished to be alone. Hearing a gentle knock, he knew exactly who it was.