Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [122]
Landau continued to spin, screaming as the room filled with black smoke. I fought the urge to puke as his flesh burned. Then, the old man toppled him with the tip of his cane and the flaming husk that was Landau fell, writhed and went still. “Use one of those sheets to put him out, there’s a good fellow.”
I whipped a sheet from one of the armchairs and beat what was left of Landau with it. His corpse smoldered and stayed down.
“Thank you for creating a diversion,” the old man said. “Come along. I suspect we’ll finish all this in the lower regions.”
I hunted around for my gun and put it back in my shoulder holster. Then I took the flashlight from the old man and led the way through the dining room and into the kitchen. The basement stairs were there, beside an old servant’s door. I reached into the darkness and hit the switch. Dim light came from below.
“There may not be more of those things,” the old man said. “Things like that poor devil Landau. But, of course, I could be wrong.” He gestured towards the stairs. “After you.”
The first step creaked loudly. I was down two or three stairs before the old man had even made it down the first. Something scurried in the dark corners and I caught sight of rats running for cover. “More of his friends,” the old man said. “He has a marked taste for vermin. He’s down here, I’m sure of it. Do be careful. He can control rats, you know.”
“Control rats?”
“Though I wouldn’t worry. He’s hardly had time to gather too many of them. Still, you never know. Maybe we’ll need your revolver after all.”
The stairs curved round and, halfway down, I saw the main portion of the basement for the first time. It was filled with boxes … fifty coffin-sized boxes of simple, unvarnished wood. Romanian words were stenciled in black paint on most of them. I hurried down and into the room, now a deep ocean of pine.
One box leaned upright in a corner, separate from the others. This, too, was stenciled with Romanian words, but it also had some weird oval marking on the lid, like a family crest. The crest featured a castle and four bats. I thought of what the old man said outside and wondered again what the hell was going on.
The old man caught up behind me. “That would be his. Odd question of etiquette, isn’t it? I wonder if one just knocks, like a Sunday visitor? Of course, he may not be home.” He hobbled over to the box and smartly rapped on the lid with his cane. “Come along, come along. The game is afoot and it’s getting late.”
The box … moved. Something was inside and shifted its weight. Then … things happened too quickly for me to fully grasp it.
First, the box lid exploded outward, shooting across the room. Then a wave of fetid air washed over us and I moved back a step. I could hear roaring in my ears, and, suddenly, rats squealed all around me. I looked around my feet and then in the corners of the basement, but didn’t see anything. And when I focused my attention back on the box, he was stepping out.
He was tall, very tall. I top about six feet, and he towered over me. He was dressed all in black from head to foot, and the high gloss of his boots caught the gleam of the light. His face was long, fierce and cadaverous. He had thick white hair brushed back over a high forehead. His face was aquiline, with a large nose. His bushy eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose, and his top lip was invisible under a large, gray moustache. Sharp, animalistic teeth protruded onto his bottom lip. Then I caught his eyes.
They were red, and burned like coals. Like Landau, he looked more animal than man.
He flexed his hands and I heard his knuckles