The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(14)

“But you haven’t heard my counteroffer. I am prepared to tender something far more valuable than money, Maeterlinck. This find is priceless, and I will pay you in kind. I don’t need to spell it all out for you, do I? Everyone knows the one thing that is beyond price.”

He jumped to his feet; his chair fell back, clattered to the floor. He fumbled in his pocket and his hand came out gripping a derringer pistol.

“It is too late for that,” I said levelly.

“No, you supercilious young pup, it is too late for you. Get out!”

He swayed; he tried to steady himself with his free hand upon the tabletop, but the room was spinning around him, the center would not hold, and the gun slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. His eyes were wide, the pupils grossly dilated, the lids fluttering frantically like a butterfly’s wings.

“What have you done?” he whispered hoarsely. “What in heaven’s name have you done?”

“Nothing at all in heaven’s name,” I replied, and then I watched him fall.

FIVE

I set the box on the floor. Laid Maeterlinck upon the bed. Removed the syringe from my pocket and placed it on the bedside table. Then I rolled up his shirtsleeve. I picked up the derringer and placed it on the table beside the syringe.

The sleeping draft would wear off in less than twenty minutes. I checked my watch, and waited.

Where did I fail?

You didn’t fail me, sir. You succeeded past all expectations. The wisest teacher desires to be surpassed by his student, and I have surpassed you: My lamp burns brighter than yours; it allows not the remotest corner a smidgen of dark; I see clear to the bottom of the well. And what I see is all there is and nothing more. There is no room in science for any sentimental thing.

I had considered the alternative.

An overdose of the anesthetic. Or a pillow over his face while he slept. But disposing of the body posed a problem. How to remove it from the room without being seen? And even if I could accomplish that feat, there would be inquiries; I knew nothing about this man, where he was from, who had hired him, if anyone had, and who, if anyone, knew his business here. There were simply too many unknowns, too many places where the brightest of lights could not reach.

I had another drink. The room was overly warm now. I unbuttoned my vest, rolled up my sleeves. From a great distance I watched myself return to the bed. I had been here before; I had never been here.

Do you know what this is, Kendall?

Maeterlinck’s eyes roamed beneath the jittery lids. I picked up the syringe filled with amber-colored liquid and rolled it between my hands, five fingers on one, four on the other. The missing finger floated in a jar of preserving solution in the doctor’s basement. He’d chopped it off that I might live. I was indispensable to him, you see. I was the one thing that kept him human.

The man’s eyes opened. A few seconds before the world came into focus, but before his senses fully returned, I clamped my left hand upon his wrist and with my right jammed the needle home. His body stiffened as his head whipped toward my face, which was hovering a few inches over his, like a lover about to give him a kiss. I tossed the syringe aside and pressed my free hand upon his moving mouth, hard.

“You must remain very still and listen very carefully,” I whispered. “It can’t be undone, Maeterlinck, and if you wish to live, you must do exactly what I say. The slightest deviation would have devastating consequences. Do you understand?”

He nodded beneath my hand. His brain was still a bit foggy from the drug, but he gathered the gist of my meaning.

“You have been injected with a ten percent solution of tipota,” I informed him, keeping my hand upon his mouth, the other on his wrist. “A slow-acting poison derived from the sap of the pyrite tree, indigenous to a small island near the Galápagos Archipelago called the Isle of Demons. Tipota, from the Greek. Do you know Greek, Maeterlinck? No? It doesn’t matter.”

I reviewed for him a brief history of the toxin, how it had been discovered by the ancient Phoenicians and brought to Egypt, why it was preferred by assassins and certain governments’ secret police (extremely slow-acting in the proper dosages, giving the perpetrators days to effect their getaway), what he might expect in the coming hours—headaches, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, insomnia—the lecture delivered in a dry monotone, like that of a white-coated man to a hall filled with other white-coated men. And Maeterlinck quivering beneath my grip, nodding with wide-eyed enthusiasm. It was, after all, the most important lecture he would ever hear.

“You have about a week,” I told him. “One week until your heart muscle blows apart and your lungs shred to pieces. Your only hope for survival is receiving the antidote before that happens. Here.” I stuffed a piece of paper into his shirt pocket. “His name and address.”

Dr. John Kearns, Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel.

“If you leave tonight, you might have just enough time,” I went on. “He is a close friend of the doctor’s, a doctor himself as a matter of fact, Warthrop’s spiritual twin and polar opposite, a man who has seen to the bottom of the well, if you follow my meaning. He will give you the antidote if you give him the name: tipota. Do not forget.”

I stepped back, scooping up the derringer from the nightstand.

And his mouth came open, and he said, “You’re mad.”