He eased down into the warm water. “Ah, yes. Mr. Poe. Twice we have presented him with visions of our choosing and twice he has found cause to doubt his own senses. Let us see if there is any change in him, if he is now more inclined to see other worlds as more real than this one.”
“And if he does not choose to believe as we wish him to believe?”
His eyes were closed. “I shall destroy him.”
She nodded, giving no more thought to Poe’s fate that she did to the floor beneath her. She was on her knees at the side of the tub, her hands slowly rubbing the warm water into his flesh and when she reached down into the tub, she took one of his hands and brought it to her lips, kissing it.
The little finger was missing. As it was on the other hand.
Jonathan, his eyes still closed, thought of the Throne of Solomon.
And of Asmodeus.
ELEVEN
Carefully placing his booted foot at the base of Poe’s spine, Hamlet Sproul savagely pushed the writer, sending him rushing forward, arms flailing the air for balance.
At the same time, Chopback, who carried an axe behind his neck and across both shoulders-the axe to be used on Mr. E. A. Poe-stuck his foot out, tripping Poe. The writer dove into the air, landing painfully on his left side, then slowly rolling over until he was face down, right arm outstretched, fingers digging into the stable’s straw covered dirt floor. Last night, the vision of his dead wife. This morning, a sixteenth-century painting had come to life and attacked him. And now this.
Sproul, Isaac Bard and Chopback had dragged Poe off the street and into a nearby Fifth Avenue stable to make the little poet pay for his treachery. Pay with his rum-soaked life. Hamlet Sproul unbuttoned his long green overcoat, then jerked on the leather thong around his neck until the bowie knife that hung down between his shoulder blades was in front of him. He was going to draw blood from Mr. E. A. Poe which should surely make a good Christian of this sorry excuse for a man and when Sproul finished, Chopback could use his axe to end the little poet’s days of betrayal.
Mr. Poe, author of numerous unsuccessful mystical works, would die this afternoon, die among horses standing quietly in stalls, among broken carriage wheels, bales of hay, dusty horse collars and yards of reins and bridles hanging from nails in the wall.
Poe, on his knees, pressed both hands against his aching spine.
“I would like to know-”
Hamlet Sproul grabbed a handful of Poe’s hair, snapped the writer’s head back on his shoulders and twisted the hair so that Mr. Poe felt pain. Sproul leaned over until he was nose to nose with this man he hated so much.
“You wants to know and so you shall, my poetic friend. And so you shall, you snivelin’ little Judas! Yes, Judas! Know this: As the bible proclaims, ‘man’s days are short and full of woe’ and I say unto you, Mr. Poe, your days are down to one. Today is your last on God’s green earth.”
They intend to kill me. Poe, living still another nightmare, knew immediately that this one was real. He had been only a half block from Rachel Coltman’s Fifth Avenue mansion, on his way to talk to her about his meeting with Miles Standish when Hamlet Sproul and two sinister friends had leaped from a parked carriage to roughly drag him across the street and into this stable.
Poe’s spine ached and his neck would be out of line if he lived, for Sproul’s grip on his hair was vicious. The cut on the palm of his hand from this morning’s attack by the painting was forgotten. Poe managed to croak one word.
“Why?”
Sproul’s answer was to spit tobacco juice into his eyes, blinding him, and even as Poe dug his fingertips into the corners of his eyes to stop the burning, he felt pain explode in his left temple from Sproul’s fist. Poe fell to his right, hands still over his eyes but he was staring into the red eye of the sun. His brain was on fire.
Sproul’s voice came to him from far away. “We agreed, you and I, that there would be no treachery on your part. I dealt with you, sir, as one Christian gentleman to another and you repay me with death.”
Poe stared up at Sproul. “Death?”
“Sylvester Pier is dead. Tom Lowery is dead. Someone hired you to deal with us for the corpus of Justin Coltman, but you had no intention of being honorable. Not you Mr. Poe. You were the stalking horse, the pathfinder, the lighthouse that lit the way. He used you to find us and when he found us, he slaughtered my treasured companions.”
“Who hired me? I do not understand.”
“I could pull out your lyin’ tongue and eat it meself.”
“Who?”
“Very well, then. I shall play your little game for a while longer. Not that much longer, poet. Jonathan hired you to find us. He followed you and when he learned our whereabouts he struck.”
Sproul frowned, tongue nervously licking his lips. Jonathan was no human agency, no normal man. But Sproul would triumph over both him and his snot of a servant, E. A. Poe.
Poe said, “I know of no Jonathan.”
“You lie. And do not leave your knees. Stay exactly as you now are. Any attempts at gettin’ to your feet will bring punishment down on you all the sooner. Master Chopback, that gentleman with the axe, he is here to assist and would welcome the chance to apply that instrument in removin’ most of your spine. His name comes from lovingly usin’ his axe on the backs of his enemies. Include yourself as an enemy, Mr. Poe. Chopback and Sylvester Pier were cousins of a sort. Both were lads in County Cork, chasin’ virgins and anxious to avoid dyin’ of starvation, so they come here and now Sylvester no longer has to concern hisself with virgins or a full belly, thanks to you. Chopback is anxious to get his own back, Mr. Poe and that means you are a man facin’ difficulty.”
Hamlet Sproul’s eyes were as hard as buttons, and as empty of feeling. The lunacy in the bearded grave robber was about to manifest itself and the result would be poe’s death. Poe did not want to die.
He said, “I tell you I know of no Jonathan.”
“Your story smells rather tall.” Sproul’s fingers stroked the sheathed bowie knife.
“Tell me why I am to die.”
“You expect me to believe you don’t know. Yes, it is written all over your bloodless face. Very well, poet. We talk, then I shall have your life and laugh about it as a hyena laughs over a dead nigger. Sylvester Pier was topped. Hung until he died but that was not all. His heart was cut out and so was his liver and they was both set fire to. Made a neat little pile of ashes and burned flesh beside his bleedin’ body. Your card was found in the room.”
“My card?”
“None other. The same happened to Tom Lowery, with a difference or two. Poisoned whiskey helped it along, but his heart and liver was removed and burned as well. Throat cut ear to ear and your card was found in his pocket. Your card!”
Sproul’s shout filled the stable. “There never was any hope of us collectin’ ransom, was there? You and Jonathan weaved your little web and you lets us stroll into it. He follows you to us and we die. Well, poet, today you die. We shall pay your respects to your lady friend, that one you was on your way to see.”
Poe pleaded. “I swear to you I had no hand in the death of your two friends. I am not capable of such deeds.”
“I leave it to you” Sproul said, “to make your apologies when you join them in the next world. Yours may not have been the hand on the knife what done ‘em, but yours was the callin’ card found near their mortal remains. And let it be noted that Sylvester Pier and Tom Lowery was breathin’ ’til comin’ upon you. I allow that the actual blood lettin’ is Jonathan’s handiwork for I know only too well that he had his little ways about him.
Sproul pointed a forefinger at Poe who was still on his knees. “But I charge you with leadin’ Jonathan to the killin’ ground and now our talk is done.” He drew the bowie knife from its worn, leather sheath and stepped towards Poe.