8

ALEXANDRE had not done more than peek into the basement from the door during the three days between Christmas Eve and when the entity had told him to return. Each time he did, he saw that nothing had changed. The bottomless pool of shadow was still in the middle of the floor. It had not gotten larger, or smaller—but it was still there, so what had happened to him that night was no dream, and no hallucination.

On the other hand, there was no imperious voice ordering him about, so the entity was living up to its word and leaving him alone for now.

That was a very good thing, and he didn’t feel very much like tempting fate by venturing any nearer to it.

He spent most of the time during those three days reading and rereading the book, trying to anticipate what might come next. He didn’t even leave the flat; he sent Alf out for more brandy, and ate whatever Alf cooked or brought him from the pub or the fried fish shop. This scenario of the offering being “inadequate” but also “accepted” just wasn’t in The Book at all. There was no roadmap for him here. So he spent half the time terrified, and half trying to calculate what the entity might want and what he might, possibly, be able to extract from it.

But now . . . now the moment had come. The three days had passed. He was going to have to face whatever lived in that shadow and find out what it wanted from him. Because he had the feeling . . . if he didn’t give it what it wanted, it had no intention of going away, and it might find him to be an “adequate” offering.

Leaving Alf upstairs, he waited until after darkness fell and made his way down the solid wooden staircase, carrying a lantern. There was no other light source but the one he carried in his hand. And it was utterly, utterly silent; in fact, the silence made his ears ring. When he had rented this place, he had hired a carpenter to make sure the steps didn’t creak; now he wished he hadn’t. At least that would have been some sound. He hesitated when he reached the bottom step, then, after a long pause, put one foot on the flagstone floor.

Nothing happened.

Feeling a little less terrified, he made his way to the place he had stood when he had invoked this . . . thing . . . in the first place.

There was still no sign of life from the pool of darkness on the floor.

He hung the lantern on the hook in the beams of the floor above him, and waited.

That was when he realized that it was very, very cold here in the basement. Colder by far than it should have been; unnaturally cold, he would have said. He could see his breath puffing out in clouds, and the silence . . . was unnatural too! It wasn’t just that the basement was silent, he couldn’t hear anything in the house above him. Surely he should have been able to hear something, but . . . there was only silence and the cold, and that unnerving pool of inky black in the middle of the flagstone floor. It seemed to drink in the light. It had no texture, it reflected nothing, and he could not see into it. It might have been just lying on the surface of the stones. Or it might go all the way to the center of the earth.

Or it might go somewhere else, not of this earth.

His chest was tight; the hair on the back of his neck was surely standing straight up. He wanted desperately to run away, and at the same time felt paralyzed, too frightened to move.

He spent a very long, terrified time trying to get the courage to speak, to break that silence. All of the bold plans he had made had flown right out of his head. And all he could really think of was how badly he wanted to bolt right back up those stairs. That, and the growing certainty that if he tried to do any such thing, that black pool would rise and engulf him as the altar stone and the basket had been engulfed. He wavered between wanting to flee and not daring to until he vibrated like a harp string.

Then there was no chance to do anything.

Suddenly, between one second and the next, there was not a pool of blackness on the floor. It was a pillar of blackness, looming over him.

He bit back a yelp of terror, as his flesh shrunk away from that inky blackness. You are here, he heard in his mind as well as his ears.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

You will bring me adequate offerings, the entity said. I will show you what I want.

He felt something, then. Something . . . intruding into his thoughts. Pushing what he was thinking to one side and inserting what it wanted him to see. And into his mind came images of people, a vast crowd of people. There was nothing really alike about them, other than that they fit into a certain age group. No younger than, say, ten or eleven. No older than mid-twenties. The faces were blurry, so it was clear that looks did not matter to this thing. Short, tall, male, female, handsome, hideous, fat, or thin, none of that mattered to the entity. You will bring me two, it ordered. They must be healthy. Unpolluted is preferable.

“Unpolluted? You mean virgin?” he managed to gasp.

He actually felt the thing rummaging in his head to understand what he had asked. Felt more of his thoughts pushed aside, rearranged, picked up and examined, with no regard for how private they were. He felt it going through his memories; felt it stop and examine one where the girl Alf had brought him actually had been a virgin. Felt it consider that.

It was . . . singularly horrid. Like putting one’s hand in one’s underwear drawer and feeling it full of slugs climbing all over and through one’s most intimate things. He gagged a little.

Yes. Virgin. Two. One to strengthen me. The second to serve me in your world. The second, you will put back where it can be cared for.

Dear god, what in hell did that mean? All he could figure was that he’d have to risk snatching someone that had family that would be looking for her, and would care for her when this thing let go of her. That would mean taking someone out of a better neighborhood, one where people who went missing were hunted for. Which meant, conversely, that it was a neighborhood where people would notice if you took someone, and if they were too timid to try and stop you themselves, they’d call the police.

And how was he going to manage that without getting caught himself? And when the second victim was let go again, what was to stop her from identifying him or Alf or both? Nothing, that was what!

He felt that horrid rummaging in his head again. Do not concern yourself. When I am done with the servant, she will say nothing.

Which didn’t address how he was supposed to snatch such a person in the first place!

As it happened, that very frustration was what managed to push some of his fear into the background. He was able to think again. He was still terrified, but he—and his brain—weren’t paralyzed.

Finally he managed to dredge up just enough courage to ask . . . not for anything specific, but surely he wasn’t expected to do this for nothing!

“What’s to be my reward?” he managed.

He sensed a dreadful amusement. That amusement was more than enough to push him over the edge again, and if his legs hadn’t been shaking so hard he would have fled. You have opposition to disposing of your goods as you will. You no longer have that opposition.

He could not for the life of him imagine what that was supposed to mean, but at this point he was so close to soiling himself with terror that all he wanted was to conclude this interview and get out of there. “When do you want these two?” he stammered.

Between now and seven days from now. No later than that . . . or we will be displeased.

And the pillar collapsed down into a pool—and he snatched up the lantern and ran for the stairs. He didn’t actually know what he did next—when his mind was working again, he found himself huddled up in front of the fire, swathed in blankets, half-frozen with fear and physical cold. It felt as if he was never going to get warm again, and it took him an hour, sitting on the mat in front of the hearth, before he could feel his hands and feet.

Alf left him alone until he was ready to talk, just bringing him a couple of brandies while he shivered with cold that seemed a part of his very skeleton. After about an hour had passed, and he was finally beginning to feel less than terrified, Alf sat down across from him and handed him a third brandy. “So, guv. Wot’s it want, then?”

“Two sacrifices. Male or female, doesn’t seem to matter, between about ten and twenty-ish. Doesn’t have to be virgins, but the thing prefers them. But one is supposed to be special; the thing wants us to snatch someone that has family that will look after her, and we’re supposed to return her to them, or at least put her where they’ll find her. We’ve got a week.”

Alf made some discontented noises. “Guv, I don’ loik this, but I reckon we hain’t got no choice. Oi’ll hev t’ get some help.”

“Help?” Alexandre repeated with alarm. “That’s not a good idea!”

“No, it hain’t,” Alf agreed, sitting on his heels beside him on the hearthrug. “It’s a reel bad idear. But if we’re snatchin’ people loik that, we gotta ’ave a cart or somethin’ t’put ’em in. Hain’t a good idear t’be draggin’ ’em about the street. Oi hain’t got a cart, an’ Oi dunno how t’drive. You hain’t got a cart . . . ye know how t’drive?”

“I do, actually,” he said, Alf’s words setting his mind sluggishly to working. “I could buy a cart and horse. We’d have to have a place to put them . . . I could drive. . . .”

“Bit uv an expense, guv,” Alf replied skeptically.

“Not as big an expense as if we hire someone who turns around and threatens to expose us unless we pay him,” Alexandre replied. “What I need is a stable somewhere around here where I can keep a cart and a horse, or even a donkey.” He was still thinking. “We’d need an excuse for why we were using it late.”

“Leave thet t’me, guv,” Alf replied. “Oi’ll find yer a place wut don’t care wut ye do. On’y goin’ out a couple times a week, an’ jest carryin’ a couple gels . . . reckon thet ’orse’s gonna think ’e’s in clover.”

“Which means I can buy some old nag no one will look twice at.” Alexandre was liking this idea more and more. “And all we need for a cart is something sturdy, with high sides. And clean. We won’t want something that can leave telltale mud smears on the one we put back.”

“Roight then, we got a plan.” Alf stood up. “Oi’ll find wut we need. Stable fust, reckon stable lads’ll know where Oi c’n git a hanimal an’ a cart. Oi’ll git all thet set up, then come t’ye fer the ready.”

Alexandre felt limp with relief. It wasn’t impossible after all. In fact, it probably wouldn’t be that hard. Twilight, suppertime, will be about the best time. Most people will be home. The streets will be uncrowded, with a few people hurrying home or running an errand, but an old man driving a cart won’t be anything anyone will note. Alf can get the target. We’ll be off the street and gone before anyone notices that our target is missing.

As his fears ebbed, and his anxiety went with it, he found himself wondering what on earth the entity had been talking about when it had said it was “removing opposition.” The only “opposition” he could think of was that damned meddling solicitor who kept coming around every quarter. And how would something with no agency of its own be able to stop the officious old goat from insisting on his quarterly “inspection”?

But that reminded him of possible interference from that particular quarter. I’ll have to think of a way to hide a cart, horse and stabling in my accounts, he realized, and frowned sourly. Damn that man. Now there is some “opposition” I would love to see removed.

The next morning, Alexandre was scribbling down some notes on places where he had noticed girls and young women out alone and unsupervised when someone rang the bell and startled him so much that he thought his heart was going to stop. It was such an unusual sound at this time of the morning that he actually froze, trying to work out who it could be, or if it had somehow been a mistake, when the bell rang again—this time as if someone had pulled the chain with a bit more force.

Why hasn’t Alf answered that?

“Alf!” he called—then realized that Alf was out on his transportation errand and, with a grimace, got up to answer the damned door himself. Probably some wretched urchin wanting to sweep the snow from my step for a penny, or some damned impertinent salesman, or worse, some religious fanatic wanting to save my soul. . . .

The man standing on the front step was not any of these. There was a carriage waiting for him out in the road, a modest, sober-looking affair that Alexandre glanced at with concealed envy, because a carriage like that would have been ever so much more convenient than a cart. In fact, his thoughts raced with how easy it would be to pull alongside a girl, entice her in or snatch her, hold a sponge full of chloroform to her nose, and be off with no one the wiser.

He quickly snatched his wandering thoughts back to the present and this unexpected visitor. The man himself was dressed in an excellent dark overcoat and wearing a handsome derby hat; he was perhaps ten years older than Alexandre, with hair and moustache suitable for a professional of some sort. This was distinctly . . . odd. People who looked like that generally sent notes around, asking if the person they wished to see would be at home at such-and-such a time. Could this be a mistake? Could this man be looking for someone else?

But who in this neighborhood would someone who looked like a prosperous man of business be looking for?

“Is—ah. Excuse me, am I addressing Master Alexandre Harcourt?” the man asked, with punctilious politeness. The sort of politeness Alexandre was accustomed to hearing only from doctors and solicitors.

“You are,” Alexandre replied. “I beg your pardon for leaving you on the step so long. My man is out. How can I help you?”

“I have come—please, may we conduct our business inside, sir? It is not the sort of thing to be bandied about in public.” The man appeared . . . anxious, as if there really was something that was of a delicate nature to be discussed. This was not the sort of anxiety that came when someone was about to deliver a paternity suit on behalf of a strumpet, and in any case, a strumpet would not be able to afford someone dressed like this. This was more like the anxiety of someone about to deliver bad news. Alexandre’s heart sank.

“Yes, yes, of course, certainly.” Alexandre moved aside and waved the man in, then conducted him to the sitting room. “Please, have a seat, Mister—”

“Abernathy. Of Abernathy, Abernathy, and Owen, your solicitors and the administrators of your trust.”

The man took a seat as Alexandre suddenly felt faint. He sat down himself, and clutched at the arms of his chair. There was only one reason why Abernathy would be here. Oh god. The trust’s gone bust. I’m penniless. I’m—

“Master Harcourt, there is no easy way to say this,” Abernathy said, taking off his hat and holding it in his lap, gloved hands resting on the brim, his face a mask of polite concern, with just a touch of professional sympathy. “Mrs. Emily Harcourt, your mother, passed to her reward last night. She was found this morning in her bed. We are deeply sorry for your loss. You have our every sympathy.”

Alexandre had been so braced for the horrible news that he was dead broke that the words did not at first register with him. And when they did, he stared at Abernathy in open-mouthed astonishment. “My—mother?” he stammered. “She’s dead?” The words made no sense. No sense at all.

“If it is of any consolation to you, it appears she departed from this mortal world in her sleep,” Harcourt said . . . with the air of someone who is withholding information, if Alexandre was reading him correctly. “The doctor has been called, and there is no need for an inquest. There is no foul play suspected, nor does it appear that she somehow, accidentally poisoned herself with her medicine. Of late, her maid has kept that locked up and administered measured, safe doses herself. No, the death is certainly . . . er . . . natural.”

There is something he is certainly not telling me. Oh dear, I should present some sort of semblance grief . . .

He buried his face in his hands. “Oh mother . . . poor mother. . . .” he forced his voice to break as if he was sobbing. He imagined himself if he had lost the trust fund, penniless, and in the street, and managed to produce real tears of self-pity. “I would have come at Christmas, but the doctor said not to . . . I should have gone, and I didn’t, and now I shall never see her again.” This ended in a real sob, as he pictured himself huddling for warmth against the chimney of his own house, hoping no one chased him away.

“Now, Master Harcourt,” Abernathy said uncomfortably. “You must brace up. This was not unexpected. We both know she has not been well for a very long time, and has been pining for your late father since he died.”

He wiped his eyes, pleased to have produced some genuine tears. “Yes . . . yes of course you are right. And now she is with him, where she longed to be, both safe in the arms of Jesus.” He rather thought that was a nice touch. “Tell me, Mister Abernathy, what must I do? What must be done now? I am sure there are many tasks but—I don’t know where to start.”

Now more comfortable with his role, Abernathy straightened, and his expression smoothed into one of professional sympathy. “According to the terms of our agreement with your late father, the firm will undertake all the necessary arrangements for you. We assumed it would be a modest funeral—?”

“Yes, of course, just myself, and mother’s servants,” he replied, trying to sound just heartbroken enough to be bereaved, but not unmanly. “Any friends she once had fell by the wayside when she became . . . ill.”

“Quite right, quite right.” Abernathy removed a notebook from inside his coat and consulted it. “Fortunately she can be interred in the family vault beside your father immediately, and there will be no need to wait. Would Wednesday do?”

It can’t be soon enough. “Yes . . . yes of course,” he replied. “Just send me the details, and anything I might need to sign. I rarely leave the house; my work, you know. I will be here, certainly until at least suppertime every evening.” He started to get up to show Abernathy out, but the man remained seated. “Is there something more?” he asked, and sat back down again.

“One small matter, of your trust,” Abernathy replied, and coughed. “As you know, the trust specified that you were to have your affairs overseen by a member of the firm.” He flushed a little. “However, Arthur Fensworth, who undertook that task, seems to have taken leave without notice. This leaves us shorthanded, and the other members of the firm have suggested that your mother’s sad demise effectively breaks that trust, leaving you the sole heir, and us with no obligation to continue what must have been somewhat distasteful, since you are a grown man in perfect command of his senses.” The very slight lift of Abernathy’s eyebrow conveyed to Alexandre, without words, that only the insistence of Fensworth had led them to continue the practice of the quarterly visits and the minute examination of his accounts. Precisely as he had suspected. Only that old goat knew my father, and knew how little my father trusted me to handle my own affairs.

“The firm hopes you will allow us to continue to administer the estate, but from henceforth, you need only drop us a message to have whatever you like transferred from the account of the estate into your own,” Abernathy concluded. “We will, of course, under this arrangement, arrange for all the final expenses and death duties without needing to trouble you.”

“Of course,” Alexandre said, numbly, unable to believe his good fortune. No more penny-pinching! No more having to account for the least little expense! No more busybody Fensworth! “That would be . . . admirable. Thank you. My father was right to put his trust in you.”

“Have you any suggestions as to the disposition of your mother’s servants?” Abernathy asked delicately.

“Six months pay, and letters of recommendation from the firm?” Alexandre replied. “I . . . don’t think I can bear to even look at the house. I think it must be closed up. Possibly sold. So much death . . . I am the only one left . . . I could not bear to be alone in so much familiar, empty space.”

“Quite, quite,” Abernathy rose, uncomfortable again now that there might be a second display of emotion. He probably put all that down to Alexandre’s being a poet. “We’ll see the house is closed up, and revisit the disposition of it, and your mother’s personal effects, in three or four months, shall we? And your suggestion for the servants is perfect—generous, without being effusive. We will see to that as well. Now, I really should go. There is much to do.”

“Yes, yes of course,” Alexandre replied, rising himself. “Thank you, Mister Abernathy. Thank you.”

He saw the man out, and closed the door only when Abernathy was inside his carriage and pulling away. Then he went to his sitting room and poured himself the largest brandy he thought he could drink at one sitting without being fuddled by it.

Dead! he thought with glee. The bitch is dead at last! And that meddling old dotard is missing! And I, I, I have control of every damned penny, at last!

He tossed down the brandy, scarcely able to believe in his luck.

Or . . . was it luck?

Having his mother die, just after the entity had told him that “opposition” was going to be removed could have been coincidence. But having Fensworth vanish? At the same time?

No. That was not coincidence, could not have been coincidence. Fensworth vanishing alone would not have broken the trust. His mother’s death would not have removed Fensworth. As long as his mother lived, Abernathy would have felt duty bound to make sure Alexandre did not misuse the funds that were supplying income for both of them. And the tyranny of Fensworth would never have ended until the old dotard died himself.

But both of them going? And the firm deciding that he could handle his own funds? No, that could not possibly be coincidence. Somehow that thing in the basement had exercised its influence, and given him the one thing he wanted and needed above all others at this moment—financial freedom. Financial freedom to make sure the entity got what it had demanded.

He would not even have to buy a horse and cart now. There was one elderly horse, and an even more modest carriage than Abernathy had used at the house. He could send for it now, if he chose, claiming he needed it to go to the funeral, and would keep it for his convenience. All perfectly proper, and it would allow Abernathy to dismiss the stablehand along with the rest of the servants, and would not leave him trying to be rid of a horse only useful for occasional service.

Perfect. It could not have been more perfect. All that was needed was for Alf to return with stabling arrangements, and everything would be set in motion. He went to the study to write out that note to Abernathy about the horse and carriage. Alf could take it over when he returned, get the stableman to drive it to the stabling, and with any luck the entire issue would be taken care of tonight.

An old coat, a coachman’s hat, and no one will look twice at me.

No, this could not possibly be coincidence. He repressed the urge to dance with glee. If this was how his life was going to be conducted from now on, well. . . .

. . . that thing in the basement can have anything it likes!

After consultation and scouting, Alexandre and Alf had decided on West Ham as their initial hunting grounds. At sundown, dusk, and twilight, the streets still had some people on them, but not many. It was a part of London where most people were prosperous enough to rent entire homes, but generally not prosperous enough to have servants. The folk who lived in West Ham were well off enough that they had the freedom to be concerned about their daughters’ virtue—rather than scolding her for losing her position because she wouldn’t let her master do as he pleased with her. And the area was well off enough that the streets were considered safe. Girls were not afraid when strangers spoke to them.

So it was trivial for Alexandre, in his disguise as an elderly coachman, to drive his old horse alongside a girl who looked to be about fourteen and call to her from the box, in an ingratiating voice, “Miss . . . could you tell me how to get to 124 Portway Road? This isn’t my part of London and I’m fair lost, I am.”

And despite the fact that in the gathering gloom between the streetlamps you couldn’t see across the street, the girl quite trustingly came right up to him to tell him the directions. Alexandre knew she would be perfect as soon as he laid eyes on her. She was a pretty little thing, in a black and white dress, white stockings, black boots, and a little black coat and wool hat with brown curls escaping out from underneath it. Just as neat and clean as you could wish. It was clear her parents thought a great deal of her. “I’d be happy to,” she said, smiling up at him. “It’s no trouble at all.”

Which was when Alf crept up to her from behind the coach, clapped that chloroform-laden sponge over her mouth and nose and had her inside the coach and on the floor before she even had an inkling there was a second person behind her.

Alexandre started the coach moving as soon as Alf got the door shut, to cover any sounds that might be coming from inside it, and any swaying the girl’s struggles might cause. But he really needn’t have worried. Alf, it seemed, was very good at this. I wonder if he did a bit of abduction for his previous master? It wouldn’t have surprised him. There had been rumors . . . and Alexandre never had found out why the police were interested in him.

The double thud on the coach roof that told him Alf had the girl secure, silent, and probably sleeping was the signal for him to take the next two turns to head back to Battersea. It had all gone so smoothly that he was very careful to keep the horse to an amble so as not to attract any interest. And he was careful not to tempt fate by thinking they had this job locked up and finished. It wouldn’t be finished until the entity in the basement said “offering acceptable” and turned one of the two girls they needed to snatch back over to them. Actually, it wouldn’t be finished until they figured out what to do with that second girl, and got her safely away from them.

And they would have called it a good night’s hunting, except that on the way home, they spotted a girl sitting on the curb beneath a streetlamp and crying. This one was dressed like a servant, in a plain, dark dress and white apron, with nothing but a shawl pinned around her shoulders for warmth, and had a tatty old carpetbag and a scarf done up around a bundle next to her. Her tale was as plain to read as if it had been written out; she was a servant who had done something wrong, or at least something her employer didn’t like. Hopefully, it wasn’t being caught in bed with another servant or the master’s son. She’d been turned out on the spot, with no references, and she was either afraid to go home and confess she’d lost her place, or she had no home to go to. If the first girl matched the description of someone who would be missed . . . well this one was clearly someone who wouldn’t be. At least, not for a good long while. And there was absolutely no one in sight, on either side of the street, for as far as Alexandre could see in either direction. Even the building she sat in front of was dark; either no one was home, they were early sleepers, or it was vacant. Alexandre gave the triple rap on the roof of the coach that signaled to Alf that he had spotted another target.

Alf must have been astonished, but Alf never stayed surprised for long. As Alexandre stopped the coach right at the girl’s feet, and she gaped up at him in shock and surprise, Alf already had the door open and was leaning out. She had no time to react before he had her. This time he clapped his hand around his victim’s mouth to prevent her screaming, and dragged her, kicking and thrashing inside. There was some bumping about until he overpowered her, then silence—presumably as he applied the chloroformed sponge. Meanwhile Alexandre had leapt down off the box, picked up the girl’s belongings, and tossed them inside the coach with Alf and his captives. Then he was back up on the box and urging the horse forward, taking a quick glance all around to make sure that no one had spotted them. The street was still deserted, and there was no sign of life in the house.

All was soon quiet in the coach. The horse ambled its way back to Battersea. Once in a while they met a coach not unlike theirs; in the universal fraternity of men who must be outside in wretched weather, the other coachman invariably nodded and touched his hat to Alexandre in sympathy, and Alexandre echoed the gesture. What would they think if they knew what I carried? he asked himself, and felt a thrill of excitement at getting away, literally, with murder.

And that was that. By the time he usually had a late supper, they were back home. Alf carried the girls under the cover of darkness into the house, and Alexandre took the second girl’s belongings up beside him on the box. Halfway to the stable, he pitched the carpetbag into the backyard of a place dilapidated enough that he knew whoever found it would take whatever was in it, and the bag itself, with no questions asked. A little farther along, he dropped the scarf-bundle at a crossing where, again, the first person to come along would snatch it up and carry it off. Alf’s stabling solution had been a good one; it was a place for both vehicles and draft animals of men who did all sorts of odd jobs. The care and feeding of the animals could be done by the customer or by the stablehands, if you paid a little extra, which Alexandre was happy to do. There were long, covered sheds with spots for wagons, carts, and old cabs and coaches. Alexandre’s story was genius; he gave the name and history of his mother’s now-dismissed coachman and stableman, except that in this version, he’d been given the horse and vehicle in her will, and he reckoned to pad out his savings by hiring himself out now and again. No one batted an eye at the story.

He backed the coach into its shed, unhitched the horse, and took it to its stall. He’d learned to do all of these things at his father’s insistence, as the price of having his own pony and cart as a boy. The old skinflint had even made him do all the feeding and mucking out, no doubt to spare himself the expense of a stablehand. He had burned with resentment as a boy whenever he’d been forced to do such menial work, but now, the skills were literally his salvation. The old man is probably spinning in his grave, knowing he is responsible for my carrying all this off so successfully. When the horse was unharnessed, the harness hung on a peg in the stall, and the horse put up under a blanket, he made his way to the front of the place. There were vehicles coming and going here at all hours of the day and night, and it was no trouble to catch a ride for a penny most of the way back to his flat with a carter on his way to collect night soil. By the time he returned, Alf had everything in readiness in the kitchen.

The girls were awake now, but tied up, with balls of cloth stuffed in their mouths and gags tied in place for good measure. The most they could manage were muffled grunts. Alf had them sat down in two of the kitchen chairs. Alexandre surveyed them with pleasure. He knew what they were expecting. He chuckled to himself.

“Good night’s work, guv,” Alf observed, rubbing his bristly chin. “Bit uv luck, that second one.”

“When fortune was so obliging as to provide her, I couldn’t see any reason to pass her by,” Alexandre smiled, as the girls shrank as far away from him as they could manage, their eyes huge and terrified above the gags. He regretted that the entity had specified it preferred virgins; that first girl was really quite pretty, and it was a pity he wouldn’t get to enjoy her and her terror. The very few times he’d paid for the privilege of “breaking in” a new girl at a brothel, the experience had been exhilarating.

“Shame t’waste ’em,” Alf observed, echoing his thoughts.

“More where they came from,” Alexandre replied. “And I don’t fancy the risk if you-know-what objects to us enjoying ourselves. Let’s give our guest what it wants. We’re both just lucky it was temporarily satisfied with that baby, Christmas Eve.”

“Roight ye are, guv,” Alf agreed. “Oi’ll take th’ feet. They’re kickers, they are. Yew take th’ ’ead.”

The girls did, indeed, kick, but Alf was far stronger than he looked, and he wasn’t even thrown off balance as they carried the girls, one at a time, down the stairs. Alf eyed the eerie pool of blackness in the center of the floor as they brought down the second one. “Oi’ll jest wait upstairs an’ make supper,” he said hastily, and made his way up, taking the steps two at a time.

Leaving Alexandre alone with the girls, now lying on the stone flagging of the floor, panting with fear, illuminated by a single lantern. Aside from that pool of shadow, the basement was strangely normal, just a cold, but not unnaturally cold, room, smelling slightly of damp.

All right, then, I have them here as it wanted . . . I wonder, should I repeat the invo—

The pool of darkness became a pillar of darkness, and the temperature in the basement plummeted abruptly. Muffled, strangled screams came from both girls—scarcely loud enough in the sudden silence to qualify as squeaks.

The basement had turned from a prosaic room to a freezing, silent, portico of Hell—not the Hell of the Christians, all fire and demons, but the silent, cold Hel of the Norse. Was that a clue? Was this thing Nordic? But what about—

The offerings are acceptable, said the voice in his head. And the darkness erupted into tentacles that seized both writhing, horrified girls and dragged them inside it within a second or two. It all happened so fast it took his breath away, and he was left gasping, cold fear closing around his heart. Remain, it commanded, when he started to back away.

He swallowed hard, all his earlier exuberance gone. Time seemed to stand utterly still—but he was afraid to move. The pillar of darkness remained motionless, neither shrinking nor growing. The silence was absolute. Alexandre couldn’t even hear Alf moving around upstairs.

Then, with no warning whatsoever, the first girl stumbled out of the pillar and collapsed facedown on the basement floor.

Take her away, said the voice, and the pillar once again became a pool.

The silence vanished; in its place were the sounds of Alf shuffling around overhead and the girl breathing. The air warmed, and the scent of damp returned.

The girl was no longer tied and gagged, but she wasn’t moving except for breathing. Cautiously, Alexandre went to her, and turned her over.

Her eyes stared fixedly into nothingness, the pupils so dilated that he couldn’t see any iris at all. He touched her face; she was cold, almost corpse-cold, even though she was clearly still breathing. At the touch of her clammy, chill skin, all thoughts of enjoying her before turning her loose on the street vanished out of his mind.

Bloody hell . . . am I going to have to carry her? He decided to see if he could get her to her feet first, before trying to carry her. Taking one hand, he tugged on it, saying “Stand up.” She obeyed him like some sort of automaton, getting easily to her feet and standing on her own. Encouraged by this, he turned her so that she faced the stairs.

“Go over there, climb the stairs, open the door at the top, and go into the kitchen,” he ordered. And just like a clockwork toy, she lifted her feet, one after the other, and did as she had been told. He followed behind her, both of them surprising Alf as he laid out a cold supper on a tray in the kitchen.

“Bloody Jesus!” he choked, catching himself on the back of a chair. “The ’ell! Did—is—”

“Our guest got what it wanted,” Alexandre informed him. “This is what it left.”

Alf left his task and prowled around the girl like a nervous cat investigating something it was not at all sure of. The girl paid him no more attention than she had anything else.

“I can order her about, and she’ll do what I say,” Alexandre continued, as Alf peered into her black eyes and shook his head. “My thought was to take her to the street and set her on her way. I think she’ll just keep going until someone stops her.”

Alf pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and mopped his face with it; Alexandre saw he was sweating nervously. “Sooner ye do thet, guv, th’ better Oi’ll loik it. Thet thing . . . Oi dunno wut ’tis, but ’tain’t ’ooman no more.”

Alexandre blinked, a little surprised at Alf’s perceptivity. “I think you might be right,” he said. “But at least our guest left her with enough that we’ll have no trouble disposing of her—and there’s not a chance in the world she’ll betray us.”

After making sure there were no potential witnesses, he steered the girl-husk out the front door and down to the street. He pointed her in the direction he wanted her to go; she evidenced no more will nor personality than a giant wax doll. But she did manage to navigate all the hummocks and ruts in the snow, which solved the question of whether or not she was actually going to be able to walk far enough away to erase any connections between them and her.

“Walk forward, move quickly, keep on this street, and don’t stop until someone tells you to,” he ordered, and exactly as if he had wound up a clockwork toy and set it in motion, she began walking. She was able to maintain quite a good pace; he waited, shivering in the cold, until she was three blocks away before going back inside.

He an Alf looked at each other. Alf mopped his face again. “Oi’ve seen a lotta thin’s, guv,” he said finally. “But Oi hain’t never seen anythin’ thet give me th’ shivers loik—thet. There weren’t nobody in there, guv, Oi swear it.”

Alexandre thought that over. It was as good an explanation as anything. “How about a brandy?” he suggested.

“’Ow ’bout a bottle?” Alf countered.

Alexandre thought about the moment that pillar had erupted into grasping tentacles and engulfed both girls, hauling them into its blackness.

“I think that’s a capital idea,” he said fervently, and went to get the bottle himself.