The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(96)

“No, sir, it didn’t.”

“Hmmm.” Some of the anger had drained from his face. “Well,” he said, relaxing a bit. “The day seems to have been a success all around, Will Henry, for you have found me and I have found us passage to Socotra. We leave at first light for the Isle of Blood.”

We were both tired and hungry, but the doctor insisted on walking down to the telegraph office before anything else, where he sent off a wire to von Helrung:

LEAVING TOMORROW FINAL

DESTINATION. PXW.

There was a message waiting for him. He read it and then slipped it into his pocket without showing it to me. I deduced from his concerned expression that it had not come from Venice. He was very quiet on the walk back.

We took a room at the hotel for the night, changed quickly for dinner—we were both ravenously hungry—and ended up sharing our table with Rimbaud, who kept mum about our sightseeing foray into the Shamsan Mountains above Crater. Instead he talked about his early days in Aden and the coffeehouse where he oversaw a “harem” of women workers preparing the beans for shipment to Europe. The doctor listened politely but spoke little. His mind was elsewhere.

Later that evening I woke from a light sleep to find myself alone. A shadow moved outside the window. I peeked between the wooden slats onto the veranda. Silhouetted against the silvery sea was the form of the monstrumologist facing east, looking toward Socotra.

He turned suddenly and peered down the beach toward the quay, his body stiffening, his right hand dropping into his coat pocket, searching for his revolver. He would not find it, I knew.

Tell him, a voice whispered inside my head. You must tell him.

I got out of bed and dressed in the semidarkness, shivering, though it was not cold. I’d never hidden anything from him—had never tried, because my faith in his ability to see through any lie was insurmountable.

I was pulling on my shoes when the floor creaked outside the door. In a panic—apparently my quick thinking was done for the night—I jumped back into bed and yanked the covers up to my chin.

Through half-open eyes I watched him cross the room to the chair where I had carelessly thrown my jacket. If he checked the revolver’s chamber, I was done for. But what did it matter? I was going to confess, wasn’t I?

He went to the same window through which I had spied on him and stood for a long while with his back to me before saying, “Will Henry.” And again, with a sigh, “Will Henry, I know you are awake. Your nightshirt is on the floor and your shoes have gone missing.”

I opened my eyes fully. “I saw you outside and—”

“And when you heard me coming back, you jumped into bed fully dressed.”

I nodded.

“Do you think such behavior might strike someone as odd?” he asked.

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“So the most reasonable thing that occurred to you was jumping into bed and pretending to sleep?”

He turned to me and said, “I know why you left this afternoon.”

I swallowed hard. My faith in his powers was not misplaced. He did not need my confession. He knew.

“Do you trust me, Will Henry?”

“Of course.”

“Your actions today give lie to your words. Why did you think I wouldn’t come back for you? I told you I would, and yet you left to look for me. And just now, finding me gone, you threw on your clothes to chase after me. It’s New York, isn’t it? You remember New York and you fear at any moment I may abandon you. Perhaps I need to point out the difference between New York and this afternoon. I made no promise in New York.”

I was wrong. The monstrumologist had not discerned the truth. I felt the burden settle back upon my shoulders.

“I don’t know what we will find on Socotra, Will Henry. Kearns and the Russians have beaten us to the treasure, and there is a possibility that once again the grail has slipped from our grasp. I hope not. I pray it is not too late. If it is not, then you and I must shoulder a burden greater than most men can carry. Our only hope for success lies not in the force of arms or in numbers, or even much in our wits. No, this is what will save us.” He pulled my left hand into his a squeezed hard. “It saved you in America and it saved me in England, the thing in which I must now put absolute faith—the one thing I do not begin to understand! The thing that frightens me more than the abominations I pursue—the monster whose face I cannot bring myself to turn and face. We have been—we are—we must be—indispensable to each other, Will Henry, or both of us will fall. Do you understand what I mean?”

He let go of my wounded hand, rose, turned away.

“On the night you were born, your father drew me aside and with great solemnity—and tears in his eyes—told me your name would be Pellinore. He did not, I think, expect my reaction to this flattering gesture, of which I’m sure your mother was unaware. I unreservedly upbraided him, disavowing him of any notion that I was honored by the choice. My own anger confounded me. I did not understand why it enraged me, the thought of you carrying on my name. So many times we express our fear as anger, Will Henry, and now I think I wasn’t angry at all but afraid. Terribly, terribly afraid.”

It was time to confess. Were not my actions that day the indispensable proof that his faith in me was not misplaced? I tried. My mouth came open, but, like with Rurick’s before I killed him, no sound came out. Though I had most likely saved both our lives, though I had chosen the only door through which our salvation lay, I remembered his quiet despair on the beach at Dover. The very strange and ironic thing is that I left you behind so you wouldn’t have to live on that plate with them. If I confessed, there would be no absolution; I would still be nasu.