Part 17 (2/2)
Mary waited, poised for flight, for combat, for any surprise she could imagine.
He swal owed hard. ”A map.”
”What else?”
”A letter to my daughter.”
These were too generic; things anybody might guess. ”Anything else?”
”A a pendant.”
Her knees buckled, despite she told herself her lack of surprise. ”What did it look like?”
”Jade. A gourd.”
She frowned. ”A what?” She'd always thought it a pear, or a stylized figure of eight.
He made an impatient gesture. ”Why does it matter? A bottle gourd. Very symbolic. A vegetable.”
She'd never heard of such a thing but also she was cut off from her Chinese heritage. Why mightn't the smal , seed-shaped object be a gourd? ”Very wel .” She measured out a dropperful of laudanum and pa.s.sed it to Lang's eager, shaking hands.
He downed it greedily the first thing in days to wil ingly cross his lips and immediately said, ”More.”
She gave him a second dropperful.
”More.” This was strong stuff, the most highly concentrated tincture of opium she could procure from an apothecary, yet it seemed he could swal ow the entire bottle without harm.
”I have more questions.”
His eyes flicked between her and the vial, brightening slightly as the drug took effect. ”Ask.”
Heavy footsteps towards the cel . Mary whisked the vial back into her handbag, looked innocent as the gaoler's head appeared in the doorway. He was visibly surprised to see Lang sitting up in bed, acknowledging her presence, and gaped for a moment.
”Is something the matter?” asked Mary, looking down her nose at the man.
”Beg your pardon, miss; I'd have fetched you a chair only I never thought you'd stay this long.”
”It's of no concern,” said Mary, as patiently as she could manage. ”I prefer to stand.”
”I'm to give you ten minutes' warning, miss.”
”Please a quarter of an hour?”
He glanced about, as though searching the air for permission. ”Quarter of an hour, but no more.
Regulations, I'm afraid.”
”Thank you kindly.” She waited until the footsteps had receded into silence, then looked once more at her unacknowledged, unacknowledging father. Their personal history would have to wait. ”What happened in the opium den on Sat.u.r.day night?”
He blinked at the change in subject. ”With the toffs, you mean?”
”What else?”
He focused pleading eyes on the laudanum bottle.
”I need more. You don't understand it's like tiny drops of water to a man in the desert. Give me the bottle, and I'l tel you anything you ask.”
Mary looked at him. She knew better than to believe a drug addict, of course. He was lying.
Saying whatever was necessary to feed the demon.
And yet. And yet.
She held the bottle towards him and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it with eager fingers, pouring the liquid down his throat with such frantic haste that he nearly swal owed the vial, too. Coughing, spluttering, panting. He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes that were, nevertheless, alive in a way they'd not been before. Eyes that were half-way human. ”Thank you.”
Mary was touched, despite herself, and then angry again. How pathetic he was and she in turn, for giving in to him. ”Sat.u.r.day night.”
He nodded. Wiped his lips. Licked round the mouth of the vial with hope and regret. ”I don't remember the start I'd been smoking. But there wasn't enough in my hookah to keep me away, properly. I heard shouting a drunken lad's voice.
Screaming and swearing. Filth. You know. The lad was fal ing-down drunk, but it didn't stop him from trying to kick over the hookahs and the men lying beside them. And Sayed tried to see him off nicely.”
”That's the proprietor?”
Lang nodded. ”Didn't see why, at the time. First sign of trouble, Sayed's vicious at turning them out.
Then I saw their clothes: toffs. And then the main one sees me, and comes staggering at me, and swipes at my hookah.” Lang's breathing became louder, faster. Mary noticed that his s.h.i.+vering had al but subsided. He looked at her steadily. ”Don't suppose you'd believe it, an old bag of skin and bones like me fighting a young man.”
She met his gaze. ”I suppose it depends on your level of skil . And his intoxication.”
He nodded. ”And the drugs. They fil you, somehow; make you theirs. You might be floating on a cloud, warm as blood, blind and deaf to al around you. This time, I was-” He stopped to consider. ”I wanted him to vanish. To make him into nothing.”
Mary's stomach churned. ”To make him leave?”
”No. To destroy him.” He looked at her again, his eyes cold but without malice. ”Not what you wanted to hear? You should know better than to ask, then.”
”I want the truth.” And she meant it.
”You understand, I couldn't think. Felt no pain. I was in a rage but I was numb, too.”
”You couldn't reason, then.” Or understand the consequences of his actions.
He seemed almost amused by the question. ”In an opium dream, there is no reason.”
She drew a deep breath. ”So you attacked the young man. Do you remember how?”
He looked surprised. ”With my hands.” He held out a pair of age-spotted claws: fingers twisted, knuckles pulpy, the nails ragged and filthy. They were purple with cold, although he seemed not to mind. ”The opium, again. It takes strength, then gives. There were two men. A foolish one, who stood in my way but I didn't want him. I wanted the real swine. I flew at him, knocked him down. I choked him, there on the floor.” He looked down almost reminiscently, as though Beaulieu-Buckworth's supine body was there on the cel floor. ”He was so weak, for such a large body.”
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