Ancient Appetites

XV

Nathaniel lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Even in the dark, he could see the coving around the edges and the oil painting that hung above his bed. It portrayed an eight-wheeled behemoth found in North America, now living in the Wildensterns' zoo. Gazing at it upside down, he remembered the excitement of seeing it when it had first arrived, tugging at its chains, steaming belligerently and snarling at everyone. He was thirteen and it had been the scariest, most exciting thing he had ever experienced.

Until the night a corpse had bitten his hand. The graze from the velocycle accident had almost fully healed, but he could still feel the brush of those teeth over his raw flesh. He was unable to get the bog bodies off his mind.

And he still was no closer to finding that goddamned, bloody Babylon either. Thinking the message might have been a code, he had broken the letters up and tried re-form them into other words, but it did not seem to be an anagram – nor, for that matter, was it a numerical code or any other system of encryption that he or Gerald could think of. But then, how could they tell without some kind of key?

He had questioned Winters at length, but with no satisfaction. The footman was telling the same story as everyone else. It could be the truth, or it could be Edgar forcing the servants to maintain a cover-up according to the Rules of Ascension. Nate's father didn't trust him enough yet to share those kinds of responsibilities.

But Nate was sure now that the message wasn't a code. Babylon was not where it should have been and he had several servants trying to find out what had happened to it. And anyway, what did the message mean? If he found Babylon, how would it lead him to Marcus's killer? Was the little scamp carrying another note? Was the murderer to be found in the same place? Did it even have anything to do with the murder at all?

Nate let out a yell of frustration and thumped his head against his pillow.

Climbing out of bed, he pulled on a dressing gown and made his way down to the laboratory. As the elevator doors slid open on the floor where Gerald had his rooms, Nate heard a low moaning sound. Three voices were softly wailing in a haunted chorus of pain. He hurried along the hallway. It could only be the bog people, and this was the first time he had heard their voices.

He was not surprised to find Gerald awake. The four ravaged figures were breathing unaided and his cousin was watching them as if hypnotized. The bodies were covered by blankets and a fire burned fiercely in the fireplace, but still they shivered uncontrollably. There were still gold needles visible, sticking out of their flesh, but the electrical wires had been removed. They had Gerald's complete attention now: all the other bones and corpses unearthed by the explosion were gone; reassembled and returned to their graves. He was spending every waking hour assisting them in their recovery. He looked up with a start and greeted Nate with a nod.

'How long have they been making that racket?' Nate asked.

'Started about an hour ago,' Gerald replied. 'They're still not conscious – it's as if they're in a delirious state. Well, three of them anyway; this fourth one hasn't made a sound.'

He indicated the taller of the two males. The man's body was in the worst state of all of them, and at nearly seven feet tall, was easily the largest. They had found wounds all over his body and it was clear that he had not been buried without a struggle.

'Quite the brute, isn't he?' Gerald muttered. 'Doesn't seem to be much fight in him now. Not like the others.'

The moaning filled the room, an aching, sorrowful noise. Nate found the sound deeply disturbing.

'It's bloody awful,' he breathed.

'You've been hurt enough times yourself… and you've had to heal,' Gerald said quietly. 'Think about it. You know what it's like to have a wound close up, or have a broken bone knit itself back together. It's painful. Sharp pain eventually subsides to a throbbing, then the itching and discomfort of healing, the feeling of being fragile… mortal. Their bodies are just starting to feel again after hundreds of years. Their entire physiologies are rebuilding themselves; their organs are beginning to function again, their nerve endings are growing back. Ever come back inside on a freezing cold day and felt the pain in your hands as they started to thaw out?'

Nathaniel nodded.

'These people are coming back from the dead! Gerald whispered. 'And every inch of their bodies is in absolute agony'

Nate leaned over to take a closer look at one of the women. She lay on the table with blankets tucked up to her chin, her feeble jaw opened as wide as it could, moving slightly as she groaned. The woman had the remains of black hair and a set of what must once have been good teeth. Gold needles stuck out of her cheeks and jaw, and he could see that her flesh was paler and already seemed to be filling out. Her body had lost some of its flattened appearance. Her eyelids did not look as sunken as before. When he touched the skin it was still cold, but it no longer had that dead, leathery quality.

The other woman had red hair and a misshapen face, which had been crushed crooked by the ground that had buried her. As she moaned, her shivering body gave sudden twitches. When she was found, one of her legs had been folded back across her body at an impossible angle; Nate noticed that it had been straightened out.

'The bones are regaining their original shapes?' he asked.

'Yes.' Gerald nodded. 'Don't ask me how. I've been resetting where I could, but it wouldn't be possible if their limbs kept the shape the ground had forced upon them. It's the same with their skulls and their teeth too – they're recovering their original forms. It's another mystery to be solved.'

Nate looked at the shapes stretched out under the thick blankets. For the first time he began to see them as people, rather than archaeological oddities.

'We should put them into beds,' he said.

Gerald straightened up.

'You're right, of course,' he agreed. 'I wasn't thinking. We should try and make them as comfortable as we can.'

While Nate examined each of the patients more closely, his cousin gave some instructions to a servant standing unobtrusively in a corner. The man bowed and left the room. Nate looked at his own hand, thinking about the wound on his palm that had almost healed. Normal people's injuries did not disappear in a couple of days. He and these strange bodies shared a link he could not comprehend. Where had this unearthly power come from?

'I don't understand,' he said at last.

'Nor do I.' Gerald chuckled, coming up beside him. 'But I will!

The wailing moans grew louder, as if the reanimated bodies sought to share their suffering.

Nathaniel snapped awake, roused by the sound of moving furniture. They were bringing beds into the laboratory next door. He was sitting on the sofa in Gerald's living room. History books and scribbled notes littered the floor; Gerald was still trying to trace the ancestors' past. Clancy was standing by the door and Nate had the impression that he had been there for some time.

'Clancy'

'Master Nathaniel.' The manservant dipped his head in a modest bow.

Nate rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had come in here to sit down and must have dozed off. The melancholy moans were still going on. He felt as if they had seeped into his being; he was feeling thoroughly depressed and in need of escape from the bodies and their unbearable pain. His thoughts turned to Marcus and his heart felt as if it were made of lead.

'I'm sorry to disturb you, sir,' Clancy said to him. 'But the Duke has requested your company at your earliest convenience.'

Nate scowled. He very much doubted that his father had used the word 'request'. Realizing he was still in his nightshirt and dressing gown, he stood up and yawned again. He couldn't face his father in a dressing gown. Not only was it improper; he needed as much armour as he could get.

'What time is it?'

'Just before nine, sir.'

'That late? I must have been asleep for hours. I need to get dressed.'

'I took the liberty of bringing some clothes down for you, sir,' Clancy said, gesturing to a grey suit hanging on a shelf by the door. 'The Duke indicated that your prompt arrival would be appreciated.'

Nate drew a hissed breath through his teeth. There was to be no delaying then. He had hoped for a cup of tea first at least, while he chose the right outfit.

'I see I have no excuse for being late. Thank you, Clancy'

'Your convenience is my reason for living, sir.'

Nate experienced the usual butterflies in his belly as he approached the door to his father's study. Knocking diffidently, he waited until he was summoned into the imposing room. Edgar sat behind his desk, and standing on the near side of the slab of teak was Slattery, the bailiff. He gave Nathaniel a welcoming smile, a gold tooth glinting in the morning light.

'You're late,' Edgar grunted.

'Sorry, Father.'

The two Maasai servants stood in the corners, looking for all the world like a pair of ebony statues. Nate didn't know if these were the same two who'd been here last time. One of them might have been the one who had comforted him when his leg was broken; he couldn't be sure. There were four altogether, all brothers, and he sometimes had trouble telling them apart. By their very nature, servants were supposed to be unnoticeable. The three bull mastiffs were asleep near Edgar's feet.

'It is time you involved yourself in the family business,' his father said to him. 'You will start by overseeing the investigation into the rebel attack. Slattery here will brief you on the progress to date.'

Nate nodded. He still had no interest in business, family or otherwise, but he was determined to play his part in helping find the vermin who had attacked his family. He sat down in an armchair and looked to Slattery, who bowed his head respectfully.

'Master Nathaniel. This is what we've dug up so far,' he said, facing the younger man with an upright stance, his hands clasped behind his back. As he talked, he began to pace back and forth. 'We know the attack was pulled off by a gang; at least three men and possibly four or more. We believe that some of them may have been killed in the explosion. But there were definitely some who survived.

'One of the men involved was a small-time thief by the name of James McCord. He's not known to have rebel sympathies so we don't think he was the ringleader, but we're sure he was part of the gang.'

'Why are you so sure?' Nate asked.

'Because his horse was found wandering not far from the estate, sir,' Slattery replied. 'It was dragging the broken wreck of a dray cart… and it was stone deaf.'

'Deaf?'

'Aye, sir. Deaf as a post – couldn't hear a thing. It was caught in the explosion, see? Had shrapnel wounds all over it too. It didn't take long to find out whose it was, once we'd asked around. People round here knew McCord; he hired out his cart from time to time.'

'Ah.'

'Anyway, now we've figured out who he is, it won't take long to suss out who his mates were and then we'll be in business.'

'And what will you do then?' Nate enquired, his interest sparked by the ease with which Slattery seemed to get results.

'Then we'll pick them up, sir.' Slattery rubbed his knuckles. 'We'll take them someplace quiet. And we'll ask them questions in such a way as they won't refuse us an answer.'

Nate nodded but didn't say anything. He knew he should have a problem with this. These matters were supposed to be handled by the law, not some hired thugs. But the prospect of his family's enemies suffering a little abuse gave him no qualms at all.

Slattery studied him for a moment and seemed to find what he was looking for. He gave a grim smile.

'But that's not all, sir,' he added. 'You see, this had to be an inside job. The rebels knew where the powder store was and wasted no time getting in there. They knew it was below the cemetery and they knew what time the funeral procession would reach the mausoleum. All this took incredible co-ordination. They'd have needed the schedule for the funeral so they'd know when and where the mourners would be gathered, a series of lookouts at key points around the hill and, most importantly, they would have needed a map of the railway tunnel showing the powder store.'

'My God,' Nate muttered. 'I hadn't really thought it through. You're right; one of the staff must have been in on this. Someone has betrayed us.'

'They will be found and they will be dealt with,' Edgar rumbled. 'But there is a more pressing matter before us. Consider the resources the rebels have been able to muster: they were able to plan and organize this complex plot in an extraordinarily short time. They had only a few days between Marcus's death and his funeral to execute the most telling blow against the governing powers of this land. It was one of the very few occasions when such a collection of influential figures would be gathered in one place – an ideal opportunity for an assault … but the rebels had no way of knowing it would happen!

Nate found the two men looking expectantly at him. For a moment he was at a loss and then, with a growing sense of horror, he saw the light.

'You mean…?' he began and then paused, struck by the enormity of what they were implying. 'You mean the only way they could have known the funeral would happen was if they made it happen?'

'Indeed,' his father said through gritted teeth, the hate in his voice tinged with what sounded like admiration. 'We are facing an enemy with immense cunning. For this plot to be carried out as it was, the only conceivable way it was possible was for them to create the opportunity.'

Edgar stood up and leaned forward over the desk, staring at his son with his one good eye.

'The rebels had to kill Marcus.'

Nathaniel came out of the meeting with his father and the bailiff with his head spinning. The scale of the plot against them had been huge. And they could only assume that their enemy would try and strike again. Until the mastermind behind this attack was found, no one in the family was safe.

Standing in the mechanical lift, he watched the needle arc counter-clockwise around the numbers before it finally settled on the ground floor, where the breakfast room was located. He badly needed some tea and toast. He thanked the boy perched at the control lever and stepped out to find Tatiana standing in front of him wearing a petulant expression, flanked by her two black-and-white spaniels.

'You said I could have a ride on the monster!' she declared. 'It's been almost a week and still nothing!'

The spaniels looked at him with large, reproachful eyes. He sighed. It had been a rash promise and he had been regretting it ever since.

'I know, Tatty, and I'm sorry. It's just that-'

'It's just that what?'

'It's just that I can't let you ride it on your own – the creature is still a little… unpredictable. And you can't ride behind me because… Well, you know why'

Women rode horses side-saddle – with both legs on the same side of the horse – to avoid being placed in the scandalous position of having their large and complicated skirts lifted at the front. No respectable lady could ride with a normal saddle and no man would be caught dead trying to sit on the front of a side-saddle.

'So you lied to me, is that it?' Tatiana looked close to tears. 'You went and raised my hopes and now you've dashed them like a doomed ship on the rocks.'

It occurred to Nate that his sister had been reading too many maudlin romance novels. But he still hated to disappoint her. Perhaps he could just lead her round the lawn on Flash's back – the engimal would probably behave itself.

And then he had a thought. A smile crept across his face, and when Tatiana saw it, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly.

'What are you thinking?' she asked.

'There might be a way for you to get your ride after all,' he told her, grinning down at her. 'But we're going to have to do something really shocking.'

'Oh, good!' she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

He took her arm and they walked down to the breakfast room with the spaniels at their heels.