Ancient Appetites

XXXI

At Daisy's urging, Roberto was carried on a stretcher down to Gerald's laboratory. She did not trust Dr Warburton's loyalties; it felt as if the whole house was against them now. Hugo had come down with them – accompanied by Elizabeth and a couple of the Gideonettes – and was looking thoroughly amused by the whole affair. They found Gerald up and dressed, stitching up a wound in the chest of Nathaniel's manservant, Clancy Daisy wondered which of the family's lunatics had caused that injury.

'You have a new patient,' Hugo announced, looking disdainfully down at the unconscious servant as they came through the door. 'Someone more deserving of your attention… Though for how much longer, I couldn't say.'

Gerald looked up, his exhaustion evident on his face. His eyes closed for a moment in dismay as he saw Berto on the stretcher.

'He can't feel his legs,' Daisy told him tearfully, still holding Roberto's right hand. 'And his left arm is numb. We think his back is broken.'

'Put him on the table there,' Gerald said, pointing. He quickly washed his hands and then wiped them with a cloth. 'Lay him on his front.'

The two servants did as they were told. Gerald took some scissors and cut up the back of Berto's waistcoat and shirt. The trousers were soiled, but he made no mention of it. He ran his fingers up his cousin's spine, pressing gently in places.

'Here,' he said finally, touching a spot halfway up the back. 'A broken vertebra, maybe two or three. I… I'm sorry, Berto. It's a grievous injury. I don't know if there's anything that can be done.'

Roberto stifled a sob. Daisy pressed her hand to his cheek and kissed him, crying for him.

'I can't live like this,' Roberto gasped hoarsely. 'I can't face being a confounded cripple. If you can't fix me then end me, Gerald. I won't live like this!'

'Don't say that!' Daisy said softly to her husband. 'You'll be all right. You'll be fine. Won't he, Gerald?'

Gerald said nothing, avoiding her eyes. Hugo looked on with a bored expression, fiddling with his cufflinks.

'Is this ready?' he asked, nodding towards another body lying on the table nearby.

It was Edgar's naked corpse, its decapitated head stitched back on. The claw was missing from the right arm. At Hugo's insistence, Gerald had used the engimal limb to replace Brutus's missing hand.

'Yes, the servants can take it to the refrigerators,' Gerald replied. 'The collar of a dress suit will hide the stitches… whenever you decide to hold a proper funeral.'

'Excellent,' Hugo grunted. 'You are a talented boy. What of Brutus?'

'His recovery proceeds,' Gerald said coolly. 'Your blood has helped. There's no movement yet, but his breathing and colour are better.'

Hugo went over to stand by his brother's bed. His face softened and he knelt by the bedside. Gold needles were visible, protruding from Brutus's arms and neck, but they had been removed from his face. He had recovered much of his muscular bulk and now looked as if he were just sleeping. Hugo tenderly placed a hand on the huge man's brow.

'Not long now, my brother,' he whispered. 'Our prayers are with you. We will be together soon; it is God's will.'

'I seriously doubt it,' Daisy muttered under her breath.

Gerald took her elbow and led her aside. She felt a cold cylinder of glass and steel being pressed into her hand.

'Hugo likes you,' he said to her in a hushed voice. 'We can use that against him – you can win his confidence… get close to him. He's damned near invulnerable; I don't think we could kill him with bullets alone – perhaps with explosives or the right kind of blade… who knows? And now he's wearing bloody chain mail too… But this syringe contains a poison that can kill him if you can get close enough to stick it into his heart.'

Daisy gave him a sharp look, checking to ensure that Hugo was still intent on Brutus's unconscious face. The others were on the far side of the room, looking at Edgar's corpse. She eyed the hypodermic syringe in her hand. It was filled with a dull, greenish liquid and had a rubber cap on the needle.

'Aren't the Wildensterns immune to poisons?'

'This is different,' Gerald whispered. 'It's made from the toxins produced by the dead flesh in Brutus's hand – gangrene, you understand? Now that their bodies are revived, their own dead flesh can infect their blood, I'm sure of it.'

'I… I'm not like all of you,' she said. 'I don't know if I could kill someone. And besides, I can't leave Berto now.'

'Do you want to spend the rest of your days living under a man who thinks the world is flat and his brain is in his chest? Because I cannot!' Gerald hissed. 'What would you do to save Berto's life? Hold his hand or kill his enemy?'

She didn't answer, but she could feel her resolve growing. Elizabeth was looking over at them now and Daisy's heart started to beat faster.

'Why don't you do it, if you're so sure it'll work?' she retorted.

'Because I'm not the one he's making eyes at, woman!' Gerald said, almost too loud. 'You need to get him alone… get him to take off that bloody armour and drop his guard. But you have to stick the needle in his heart. Anywhere else and he could take hours, even days to die. You understand what I'm telling you?'

Daisy hesitated, and then nodded. If she tried to kill Hugo and failed, his revenge would be terrible. Clutching the syringe in the folds of her dress, she edged towards the Patriarch. Elizabeth's watchful eyes followed her, the leaf-light cloak giving off the faintest glow in the low light at that end of the room. Daisy glanced over at Roberto for a moment, and then touched Hugo gently on the shoulder. He looked round and up at her.

'My lord,' she said haltingly. 'Gerald tells me that… that if Roberto is to survive, he will need expensive medicine and surgery and… and a long convalescence. I realize that you two have had your differences, but…' She paused to compose herself, keeping her gaze lowered. 'I wonder if I… if we could speak in private? Perhaps I could convince you to overlook his disloyalty and see that he gets the help he needs?'

'What are you doing?' Berto growled, trying to raise himself from the table on which he lay. 'Daisy? What's going on?'

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but Hugo stood up and gave a lascivious smile

'Daisy?' Berto asked again plaintively.

It hurt her like a wound to ignore him, but she did. Instead, she fixed Hugo with a pleading, wide-eyed expression. He opened his arms in a generous gesture.

'Every great leader knows when to show mercy' he said. 'Come, my dear. Let us retire to more comfortable surroundings and see if your beauty is matched by your persuasive powers.'

Taking her arm, he led her from the room without a second glance at Roberto. As they passed Elizabeth, the two women locked eyes.

If there's anything left of this poison when I'm done, Daisy thought, I'm going to drive the rest of it into your rotten heart, you witch.

Gerald watched them leave. He instructed his footman to fetch a nightshirt, dressing gown and some more blankets for Berto and then waited until he was alone with his injured cousin. Then, taking a clean syringe, he strode over to Brutus's inert form and inserted it into the ancient warrior's arm. Berto watched as the young doctor drew blood into the syringe.

'What's that for?' he asked.

'It's for you,' Gerald told him. 'I've already given some to Clancy. His wounds were so serious I was at my wits' end. I would have given up on him, but Nate wouldn't have it. So I decided to see if our ancestor's blood could do anything. Thought it would finish him off, to be honest – he's a commoner, so he has no aurea sanitas of course.' He pulled out the needle. 'But it didn't. He may well make it after all. And if it can help him…'

He walked over to Berto and wiped the crook of his cousin's arm with some cotton wool and alcohol.

'I have to say, I think I'm getting the hang of this miracle business-'

'Gerald,' Berto said in a choked voice. 'Look.'

Gerald turned round in time to see movement by Brutus's bed. The fingers of the giant's left hand were twitching.

'Oh, bloody hell,' he said.

Nate left the horse tied to a gate, where it would be picked up by Duffy's people later that morning. In the first misty glow of dawn, he was able to slip by the guards patrolling the wall of the estate and climb over, making his way through the forest towards Wildenstern Hall. Dew dripped from the trees and strands of mist lay in the undergrowth, wetting his clothes and shoes, the cold making him shiver as his fatigue began to catch up with him. It wasn't fear that made him tremble, he was sure of that. For the first time in his life he was doing what he had been bred to do.

A bizarre sight awaited him on the lawn as he came to the edge of the forest. Standing on the grass not far from the house were two enormous shapes, their feet shrouded in mist. At first the light of the low morning sun made their shapes indistinct against the grey walls of the house, but as his eyes adjusted, Nate recognized Trom and Colossus, the juggernaut. They stood perfectly still, as if awaiting orders. He gaped at the sight in amazement.

Trom could never be left alone like that without wandering and Colossus… Colossus was too wild – too insane to be let out of its enclosure. Nate stared, bewildered, until he remembered what Gerald had told him. One drop of blood in an engimal's water and they were yours to command. He had found it hard to believe it would work on the simple mind of a toast-maker, never mind the tortured brain of the juggernaut.

He was under no illusions as to who was in command of the huge engimals. Creeping up along the hedge to the stables, he was careful not to attract their attention. Their eyes were dimmed, but he was sure they could come alert at any second. Unlatching the side door of the stables, he stepped inside and closed it after him. The stable boys were already up; he could hear them moving around upstairs. He knew the grooms would be here any minute too, to start feeding and exercising the horses. He had to be quick. He needed his velocycle, and then he had to find Abraham and his brothers. There was a plan to be hatched.

Flash was in its stall and looked up timidly as he leaned over the door. It whimpered and turned its face to the wall.

'Bloody right, you should be ashamed,' he snarled at the velocycle as he opened the door. 'You're a downright liability… But I need you now, so you're getting one more chance.'

Looking down at the beast's water trough, he thought about adding some of his blood to the mix. And yet there was something about Flash's cantankerous spirit that he loved. Even though it meant taking the chance the velocycle might disobey him again, he preferred to leave it with a will of its own. He knelt down to look into the engimals eyes.

'We have to save my family today, Flash,' he said softly. 'We have to save the people I love. I could feed you my blood and make you my slave, but I won't. I need a friend now, not a servant… But if you let me down this time, I'll have your bloody wheels cut off, you understand?'

Daisy sat on one of the sofas in Hugo's private living room, with one hand resting on the secret pocket which held Gerald's syringe. The curtains had been drawn to hide the morning light, and instead, candles burned in silver holders around the room. The late Duke had indulged his morbid taste in decor with oil paintings and tapestries of gruesome Old Testament scenes in ornate frames, and had equipped the room with outlandishly carved ebony furniture that might have pleased the devil himself, upholstered in blood-red velvet.

She had freshened herself up and changed into a scarlet taffeta gown with a low-cut bodice and suggestive embroidery. It was one of her most provocative dresses and had the added bonus of a hidden pocket in the folds that she normally used for a compact or a handkerchief. It served just as well for concealing a syringe full of gangrenous poison.

As she waited for Hugo to appear, her hands shook, her stomach knotted up and her teeth chattered. She had never been so scared in all her life. Even now, she wasn't sure if she could go through with this. Daisy did not want to kill and she certainly didn't want to die. Left sitting there alone, images flashed through her mind of what Hugo would do to her if she tried to attack him and failed. She found it difficult to breathe. This was no good; if she was to fool him into thinking she was attracted to him, she had to-

'My dear!' he cried. 'Sorry to keep you waiting.'

He was standing at the door of the hallway that led to his bedroom. Dressed in a burgundy smoking jacket, he had his hair oiled and curled, and a cigarette in a holder in his left hand. The leather collar and chain mail were gone. It seemed she was to have her chance. Stroking his goatee with the fingers of his right hand, he glided across the room and sat down on her left side.

'So, what's your scheme?' he asked, smiling.

'I'm sorry?' she replied, her right hand unconsciously brushing over the syringe.

'Oh, come on,' he chided her. 'You don't fool me. You're no more devoted to that wastrel of a husband than I am. You're a conniving wench if ever I saw one… and I've seen a few, I can tell you. But don't be put off, dear. I like a woman who knows what she wants and will do anything to get it. God helps those who help themselves – and I believe in helping myself to everything I can get my hands on.'

Daisy dropped her gaze. She knew she was perspiring, but hoped it would not give her away. Her hands were still now and her jaw had stopped its trembling, but her heart was still racing.

'You see through me, my lord,' she said shyly, looking up at him again with her doe-like eyes. 'I confess, I married Roberto for what he was, not who he was. And now I fear he is no longer the man I married… in so many ways. I am a resourceful woman, my lord. But I am loyal to my master… for as long as he lives. The same cannot be said for some of this family. I fear Gideon, for instance, will betray you at the first opportunity.'

'Yes, he's a back-stabber, that one,' Hugo agreed, sitting back, his arm casually draping across the back of the sofa behind her. 'But a coward too. I know where I stand with cowards; they can always be trusted to fold under pressure.'

'Men think only of themselves. You need a strong woman by your side,' Daisy told him.

'But I have two,' he said, pretending not to understand her, and leaning closer to' her as if that would help. He placed the burning cigarette in an ashtray on the table in front of them and put his free hand on her knee. 'Two women who would die for me if need be.'

Daisy's fingers slipped into the pocket and closed around the syringe. His face was inches from hers and she could smell the smoke on his breath. His jacket hung open, with just his shirt and waistcoat covering his chest. She wouldn't get a better chance than this. Her breathing quickened. Gripping the glass cylinder, she pushed the rubber cap off the needle with her thumb.

'It wasn't the role of a sister that I had in mind,' she said, staring at the point on his chest, just right of the sternum, where she would have to strike.

'Ah,' he sighed, with a raise of his eyebrows. 'You hope to steal my heart.'

'Not exactly' she said, pulling the syringe from her pocket.

But just as she did so, there was a sharp knock on the door and then Gideon burst in. Daisy pulled the hypodermic back out of sight before it could be seen. Hugo was already on his feet.

'I told you I didn't want to be disturbed!' he roared.

'I wouldn't… except… I…' Gideon stammered.

He stepped aside to reveal a grey-haired, middle-aged man with a ramrod-straight back, dressed in a fine suit. Daisy recognized him immediately. It was the Lord Lieutenant – the Viceroy, the Queen's representative in Ireland.

'What is the meaning of this?' the Viceroy demanded, holding up what looked like a telegram. 'Who the blazes are you, sir? Where is the Duke?'

'What is that?' Hugo asked, ignoring the questions and pointing at the piece of paper.

'I received this an hour ago,' the Viceroy snapped, holding it up. 'Let me read it to you. "MY BROTHER HAS BEEN MURDERED STOP AN IMPOSTER HAS TAKEN THE FAMILY HOSTAGE STOP SEND HELP IMMEDIATELY AND COME IN FORCE STOP GIDEON WILDENSTERN STOP".'

Gideon looked stunned. Hugo looked ready to spit venom, and would have aimed most of it at Gideon.

'I'm afraid you've been the victim of a prank, sir,' the Patriarch said smoothly, managing a pained smile. 'The Duke is bedridden with typhus – highly contagious – and as the brother next in line, it has fallen to me to take the reins until he recovers. His sons are not taking it well and have quite lost the run of themselves. It's clear that they sent this message in a fit of pique, hoping to embarrass me…'

He gently ushered the two men out of the room, closing the door behind him. Daisy let out a shuddering breath and put her head in her hands. She couldn't take much more of this. Beyond the door she could just hear the men's voices:

'You're the Duke's brother?' the Viceroy exclaimed incredulously. 'How have we never met? He's never even spoken of you!'

'A family tiff that has lasted years, I'm afraid,' Hugo informed him. 'He called for me when he fell ill…'

Daisy lifted her head and gave a start as she found a tall black man standing in front of her. She stared up at him for a moment, wondering how he had got there.

'Abraham, isn't it?' she said. 'What are you doing here?'

'It's time to leave, ma'am,' he replied. 'Master Nathaniel has asked us to take you to safety. The chief groom has a carriage waiting for you and your husband at the back entrance. Your husband assures us Mr Hennessy can be trusted.'

'Oh, I'm sure he does,' she said acidly.