of the house, and up yet another floor, Konrad at last discovered the room he had been looking for all along. It was tucked away into a corner, at the end of an out-of-the-way and disused corridor. It was the footprints upon the floor that alerted him; upon turning down yet another dark, frigid, empty passage his torchlight shone upon disturbances in the thick layer of dust. Someone had walked this way recently — and frequently.
Upon approaching the only door in view, however, Konrad was startled by the sounds of voices talking nearby. Those low-uttered words struck him forcibly, incongruous after so long a time spent among the silence of long decay. He stopped several paces from the door, straining to discern words enough to understand the import of the conversation, or to guess at who was speaking. To no avail; his ears caught only a low babble, incomprehensible except for the fact that at least one of the voices was certainly female.
It seemed more than likely that his theory had been correct: someone lived here in secret. But if so, who else was in the room with her? Was there danger, if he entered? He wished suddenly for his serpents, and regretted that he had not recalled one of them to assist with his search of the house.
Nothing for it, then, but to proceed. He approached, moving as quietly as he could, and laid his ear near to the door…
… and the voices stopped at once, hushed by someone who had, apparently, heard the sounds of his advance. Then came footsteps from the other side, quick and brisk and oddly familiar somehow.
The door opened to reveal Nanda.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I was hoping you would soon appear. Come in, come in.’ She stepped back in invitation and Konrad trailed past her, silenced by surprise.
Explanation enough soon came in the shape of Eino Holt. The big man was seated in a faded tapestry chair near a long window, a great cloak wrapped tightly around him. Nanda’s conference with her friend had gone well, then; she had induced him to confide in her, at least to a degree.
Recumbent upon a narrow bed in the far corner of the room lay an elderly woman, dark silken covers drawn up to her chin. She looked frail and tired, her face drawn and sunken with age and too many cares. Konrad made her a polite salutation, biting back all the questions that immediately rose to his lips. ‘Ma’am,’ he said.
The woman stared at him with wide, suspicious eyes, and made no move to return his greeting.
Konrad paid the same courtesy to Eino, who at least deigned to return it, though his face revealed that he was no more disposed to trust Konrad’s sudden and uninvited appearance than the lady.
Nanda bustled to the chair that sat by the side of the bed, and seated herself in it. ‘Konrad, this is Eino’s mother, Alina Holt. Mrs. Holt, this is a friend of mine, Mr. Konrad Savast. You may trust him, for I do, with my life.’
The woman — Mrs. Holt — surveyed Konrad with less suspicion and rather more curiosity, though she did not grow noticeably friendlier towards him.
‘Mr. Savast,’ said Eino in his deep voice. ‘How did you find this room?’
Konrad made him a half-apologetic smile. ‘I searched until I discovered it. I knew there must be something like it, you see, after your recent, er, comments.’
By the look on Eino’s face, he had not been aware that Konrad had been present to witness his outburst. ‘Oh,’ he said at last. He looked searchingly at Nanda, and said no more.
Nanda went to him, and took his hand. ‘Eino. Mr. Savast has no love for the theatre, as you must have observed. I brought him because he is quite expert at dealing with precisely the kind of trouble we have lately experienced — he and the inspector, and the inspector’s assistant. I have brought them all to help, you see, and you must let us assist you. I could not be more delighted that you have entrusted me with the secret of your mother’s residence here, but you must yet trust me with more. Please, will you not explain?’
Eino looked as though he wanted to speak, but knew not where to begin. His lips moved, though nothing emerged, and he cast Nanda a helpless look. ‘I—’ he began.
His mother interrupted him. ‘The theatre,’ she whispered, and gave a long sigh. ‘Oh, Eino, tell me you have not.’
That galvanised Eino, at last, to speak. ‘I— I know I should not have, but… how lonely it has been, since I came here! You must understand, I thought — I thought all would be well. It was only for a few days…’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Holt fretfully. ‘Can you not understand? Have you heard nothing that I have told you? It will never be well! This house, this place, is cursed, Eino. No one will ever be safe here.’ She turned to her son and fixed him with a fierce, anxious stare, saying in an agitated tone: ‘Some disaster has come of it, has it not? I knew that it would. You must tell me!’
Eino returned her stare, shaking his head with slow incomprehension. ‘I have been safe here, mother. I have lived here almost a year, and you for some months, and we are both unharmed. What, then, should threaten our guests?’
Mrs. Holt gave a short, mirthless laugh, a sound more of despair than of joy. ‘My poor, fool boy, you can have no understanding…’
Konrad’s attention was diverted by Nanda, who had found something to interest her in Eino’s vicinity. She bent over him, intent, her posture suggesting that she was listening for something. But if she was, it was not Eino’s words or his mother’s that absorbed her. What was she doing? He tried to catch her eye, but she did not notice.
‘Why, mother?’ said Eino, his voice rising. ‘Why did you bring us here, if it is “cursed”? Why did you make me buy this place, if it is so unsafe? My friends! You cannot imagine what has befallen them!’
‘Oh, I can, Eino,’ whispered his mother, growing more faded and tired even as Eino grew angry and vehement. ‘I can imagine it, all too well. I wish you had listened to me. I wish you had never hosted this ill-advised party.’
Something Konrad had heard nagged at him. Something Eino had said… no, something that Nanda had said. She had not yet said very much; what had it been?
Alina.
Alina Holt, mother of Eino. Where had he lately heard that name? Or seen it, yes, he had seen that name, written… written upon the wall, on the other side of the house.
‘Alina,’ Konrad said abruptly, cutting across Eino’s lamentations. ‘Alina Holt. Forgive me, ma’am, but are you — were you —’
The lady sighed more deeply than ever, and sank into her pillows as though she would never rise from them again. ‘Alina Vasilescu,’ she replied. ‘So I was, once.’ Her lips twisted in brief bitterness as she added, ‘My poor husband was not good enough for my father and mother. No money, no status. They threw us off, and little did they know how I blessed them for it.’
‘That is how you know so much about this place,’ Konrad said, his mind racing.
Her eyes closed. ‘I have tried so to forget, but it is of no use. This place haunts me, and shall forever do so.’
‘Why,’ said Konrad, his mind overflowing with questions. ‘Why did you return here, if you despise it so? Why do you hate it? Why do you say that it is cursed?’
‘I returned here for my son’s sake,’ said Mrs. Holt, but she proceeded no further, for Nanda interrupted with a cry of horror which brought Konrad straight to her side.
‘Nan, what is it?’ He looked her over, heart pounding, appalled to imagine what might have befallen her in this terrible place. But she was whole and hale, no sign upon her of any calamity.
Nanda paid him no attention, for she had none to spare from Eino. She laid a hand against her friend’s chest — the left side — and pressed hard against the layers of his cloak, her face ashen. Her other hand gripped one of Eino’s, and Konrad knew she was Reading him. ‘Eino, what has become of — how is it that you — I knew, I knew something was amiss with you, but this! This is unthinkable!’
Eino stared miserably up at her, motionless. ‘Dearest Nan,’ he whispered. ‘If you have come to some conclusion regarding my present state, I beg you will share it, for I have not the least idea how I am altered.’ He swallowed, and said: ‘I only know that I am altered.’ He looked to his mother, but she turned away her face and would not meet his eye.
Nanda, at last, remembered Konrad. The look she turned upon him was heart-rending. ‘He is… he is altered somehow inside, Konrad. That is, he… I do not think his heart is his own.’
‘What,’ was all that Konrad could force past his suddenly frozen lips. Not his own? His heart? The look of sudden, horrified comprehension on Eino’s face told a tale; the answering look of apology and entreaty upon his mother’s told another.
And a number of things clicked into place in Konrad’s mind. The emerging picture left him so sick to his stomach he could not, for one long, terrible instant, breathe at all.
No one spoke.
‘You… you were so ill,’ said Mrs. Holt at last, and her words fell like stones into the heavy silence. ‘You were dying, Eino! How could I let that happen, when I had the means to save you? How could you ask me to lose you, too?’
‘But…’ said Eino, in a painful whisper. ‘How…?’
He did not appear able to finish the question, and Konrad was not at all sure that he wanted to hear the answer, either. But he must.
Mrs. Holt wet her lips, her eyes darting about the room as though she sought in vain for some means of escape. Could she rise from that bed at all? Was she capable, in her frailty? ‘I have never told you,’ she began at last. ‘I have kept from you the truth of your family — of my family — for I sought to spare you that pain. How I celebrated, when you were born! That I had found the means to escape from my family, and with their full collaboration! I knew they would never come after you, son as you were of so unworthy a man. You were safe, and forever.
‘But you became ill. The problem was with your heart, they said. It no longer functioned as it ought, and you grew sicker and sicker. Then they began to say that they could no longer treat you; that their medicines and elixirs could no longer affect you. Your heart, they said, would soon stop beating, and forever. You would die. My child, my only son! Your father already gone before you! How could I permit it?
‘We had always known what went on below the Vasilescu mansion. My sisters and I knew, always — even when we were children. No one concealed it from us, for we were to take our part in it in time. Olya did, of course. She delighted in it, like our mother and father. But I, and Ela — never.’
She lapsed into silence, and did not seem disposed to rouse herself to further speech. ‘Is that why Ela sold the house?’ he prompted. He was guessing; Ela was the eldest of the three sisters, and most likely to inherit the family property.
Mrs. Holt looked at him as though she had forgotten his presence. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Yes, of course it was. The money was gone, that was true, but no Vasilescu would ever have sold this place for so trivial a reason as that.’ He could not tell if she spoke sarcastically or not, for her tone was bland. ‘When the house came into Ela’s possession, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. So she sold it, for a mere pittance. Her buyer, she told me, had wanted it for an investment only — had no intention of living here. He or she never set foot in it, that I know of, but the fact that they could at any time they wished… well, that did not please Olya.
‘I took Eino to her. I begged her to save his life, by any means, so long as he lived. And she agreed, but at a price: that Eino should purchase the house, and live here, so that she and her revolting fellows should always be safe. That their lair should remain undisturbed.’
‘The cellars,’ Konrad guessed.
‘Caves,’ Mrs. Holt corrected. ‘They are connected to the cellars, yes, or they used to be.’
‘But how…’ said Nanda, a deep frown creasing her pale brow. ‘Your sister Olya, she… she gave Eino someone else’s heart?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Mrs. Holt. ‘Do not ask me how, for I do not want to know. But the exchange was made, and my son lived.’ She turned her gaze to Eino upon these words, and Konrad read in her face a deep fear of what she had done, and a desperate need for her son’s forgiveness. But he, stunned and frightened by her news, could not speak. His chest rose and fell, far too quickly, and his face turned paler than Nanda’s.
This was why Alen Petranov’s body had been butchered. This was why Kati Vinter’s organs were missing. They had been slain for their parts — or, perhaps, for their knowledge, at least in Kati’s case, and her corpse turned to a grimmer purpose afterwards. They had taken Alen’s heart; did they intend it for such another use as in Eino’s case? Or did they have other uses for such an organ, taken as it had been from a body that yet breathed? Konrad’s imagination quailed, and shied away from the bloody prospects raised by such a train of thought.
But another realisation, equally unpleasant, darted into his mind. ‘Druganin,’ he gasped. ‘Olya married a Druganin — she is the mother of Denis, isn’t she? What has he to do with all this?’
Alina Holt looked at Konrad with the wide eyes of pure terror, and she gave a tearing gasp. ‘Oh, no. Eino, you did not… you did not extend the welcome of this house to your cousin?’
‘I… I did,’ whispered Eino. ‘He— he is all, nearly all, the family we have left.’
Mrs. Holt erupted into activity, or an attempt at it. She threw off her covers and tottered to her feet, though she had not strength enough to go far. Konrad contrived to catch her just as she fell, and found her far too light in his arms. She was not merely frail; she was wasting away. But why? She was not young, but she was by no means old enough for such decrepitude. Was it care that had worn her away?
‘You must help them,’ said Alina Holt, her eyes feverish, words tumbling over each other in her haste. ‘Denis, he — he is the worst of them all! Far worse even than Olya, than Father — no one here is safe from him, do you understand? He is their tool, or so my sister believes. His is the hand that slew your friends, I am sure of it.’
Konrad did understand, at least well enough to feel afraid. Tasha he did not fear for, but Nuritov was somewhere in the house, attempting to coax confidences from Lilli Lahti. Marko Bekk, too, remained, and all the servants…! Poor, foolish Eino had provided his cousin with a veritable buffet of victims.
What if something had already gone awry? What if Lilli — or, Malykt Avert, the inspector — had already been sacrificed to Druganin’s predations?
These ruminations were interrupted by the sudden presence of Eetapi in his head. Master! she shrieked, at such volume that Konrad jumped. Master, we have found them! They loiter far below, which is quite fitting, dear Master, for they are terrible—
They are wonderful! Interrupted Ootapi.
—terrible and wonderful, continued Eetapi. May we have an underground lair, Master? And a coven?
A coven? Konrad spoke sharply, cutting across his serpents’ babble.
A coven of witches!
They are not witches, Ootapi said crossly.
Then what are they?
I do not know, but—
Enough! Konrad roared the word, and was gratified by the sudden, dead silence that followed. Witches or not; who are these people you have found, and where are they?
In caves below the house, said Eetapi much more succinctly.
They are the ones who stole the parts, added Ootapi.
Is Denis Druganin among them?
No, Master, said the serpents as one.
Konrad looked at Eino, who remained ashen-faced and sombre. ‘Holt. You and your cousin. Would you say that you are friends?’
‘Of course, I—’ began Eino, but his mother interrupted.
‘No!’ she said with vehemence, and added with some bitterness towards her son, ‘How can you be such a fool as to imagine Druganin has friends? If he did, you would be the last to be counted among them, Eino!’
‘That is what I was afraid of,’ said Konrad grimly. ‘Has Druganin any designs upon this house?’
‘Of course he does,’ said Mrs. Holt. ‘They all do.’