“The creature’s following us.”
They loped on, shouting at the top of their lungs. “VYVYAN! JEAN!”
Wilde grabbed Conan Doyle’s arm and dragged him to a standstill.
“What?”
“I hear singing,” Wilde said. He looked at Conan Doyle with a mystified expression. “It sounds like… an aria?”
Conan Doyle instantly recognized the singer. “It’s Jean. She is a classically trained mezzo-soprano. That’s her singing.”
“How apropos. I suppose, if I must die, at least I shall have a suitably operatic death. Here I am running through a burning manor pursued by a raging monster. And all to the accompaniment of an aria. Even Wagner could not stage such a drama.”
They followed Jean Leckie’s soaring voice to a large set of double doors and crashed through them.
“These are his rooms!” Wilde said. He dashed about, searching amongst the elaborate furniture and the four-poster bed; however, Vyvyan and Jean Leckie were nowhere to be seen. Conan Doyle slammed the bedroom doors shut and bolted them.
“I’m afraid that won’t keep it out for long.”
“Hardly.”
“Jean!” Conan Doyle shouted. “Keep singing.”
The silvery aria started up again.
Wilde pointed. “It’s coming from the wall, behind the print.”
He pointed to the print DeVayne had so lovingly described in the bookshop. Conan Doyle examined it and speculated, “It must conceal a door.”
“Then there must be a catch or handle somewhere,” Wilde said, hands exploring the edges of the frame.
“Don’t bother!” Conan Doyle pulled the small silver penknife from his pocket, swung out the sharp blade, and slashed through the canvas in a giant X pattern. He and Wilde tore loose the flapping canvas to reveal a dungeon door, massive and heavy, bound together with iron straps and dozens of black rivets. Wilde grabbed the black iron ring and yanked, but to no avail.
“Damnation! It’s locked. We must batter it down.”
“With what?”
Wisssshthump… wisssssshthump… wisssssshthump…
The double doors suddenly burst inward from a blow. The stench of decaying flesh preceded the monster into the room. It paused a moment to fix them both with its ghastly, yellow-eyed stare.
Conan Doyle grabbed the statue of a small bronze satyr from a nearby table and brandished it like a club. But to his surprise, Wilde pushed him aside and stepped toward the monster. He dropped to his knees before it and clasped both hands together in a gesture of supplication. The beast stumbled toward him and raised a clublike arm, coiled to smash. But then Wilde addressed it in fluent Italian, speaking in an impassioned voice, smiting his own chest from time to time. The beast stood frozen. It seemed to be listening, its facial muscles rippling with an inner struggle as the last fragments of Vicente’s humanity warred with the resurrected monster he had been fashioned to be. Wilde finally finished and the monster looked down upon him, as if unsure what to do.
“What did you say to it?”
“I asked him to save my little boy. I implored him in the name of his sister and all the loved ones in Italy he will never see again.”
Suddenly, the monster lowered its arm. It looked from Wilde to the door and back. And then the face tightened into a snarling grimace; a rising growl roared from the lungs. Wilde reared back, anticipating a deathblow. But instead the creature shambled forward and struck the door a resounding blow. The great door shook, but held. Another blow and another. An iron strap tore loose and clanged to the ground. More blows. The wood cracked and split in places. The monster backed away and then charged the door, smashing into it with such force that the hinges tore loose from the frame and the door toppled inward. The monster backed away and Conan Doyle and Wilde rushed into the chamber.
The room inside resembled the dungeon in the print, although the cell was faux-painted plaster, not stone. Torture devices hung from the walls. Gaslights disguised as torches illuminated the windowless space.
Jean Leckie sat on a simple straw pallet in the corner, cradling Wilde’s boy in her lap. And now both cried out in relief.
“Papa!” Vyvyan croaked in a dry voice.
“My beloved child!” Wilde cried, scooping up his son and hugging him to his chest.
“Papa…”
“Yes, Papa came to get you. All the monsters in the universe could not have prevented it.”
Conan Doyle took Jean Leckie by the hands and drew her to her feet. Her lips trembled as she fought to control her churning emotions. Her eyes sparkled with tears. Conan Doyle drew her into his arms and they shared a long, soul-quaking embrace. Suddenly remembering the monster, he flung about to look. But the bedroom was empty. The creature had gone.
As the four stumbled back down the long hall to the grand staircase, the smoke was chokingly thick.
“Shall we never be free of this blasted fog in one form or another?” Wilde complained. They hurried down the staircase to the ground floor where dense smoke swirled. By now fire had climbed up the fine paneling and flames were licking across the ceiling, leaping from room to room.
“Quickly!” Conan Doyle urged. “We must reach the entrance hall before the fire cuts off our only exit.”
But as they ran along the hallway past the grand hall, they found their way blocked by a solitary figure in a stovepipe hat.
Solomon Arkwright.
He brandished the Webley revolver, threatening them. “You and Wilde may save yourselves, but the young lady and the boy must remain.”
“You had a wife and child of your own once,” Wilde said. “You know full well the pain of loss. Would you inflict that upon others?”
But there was no pity in Solomon’s eyes. “Yes. I would burn the world to ash to be reunited with my family. Now send the woman and boy toward me and leave, or I will shoot them down before your eyes.”
Wilde and Conan Doyle shared a look. “What shall we do?” Wilde asked. “We are trapped between an inferno and a crazed man with a gun.”
But then something slouched into view behind Solomon, a gory figure that limped steadily along the burning hallway, unaffected by the scorching heat. Conan Doyle saw that it was bearing down upon Solomon and sought to distract him.
“Solomon. It’s not too late. Abandon this madness. The house is lost.”
In response, the toy maker raised the gun and aimed it at Conan Doyle’s heart. “I am a man already burning in hell. My soul will be damned for what I have done. And what I have yet to do. But I would pay that price willingly to have another second with my family. Would you not do the same?”
Solomon’s finger was tightening on the trigger when the creature stepped from behind and threw its arms about him, pinning his arms in a crushing embrace. As the monstrous grip tightened, the gun went off: BANG! firing a bullet into the floor. And then again: BANG! Solomon choked for breath. His face purpled. Eyes bulged. A rib snapped with a sharp pop! He moaned, feet kicking, but the deadly embrace squeezed ever tighter.
The monster’s face convulsed as it fought to control its lips and tongue long enough to summon a particle of the man who had once been Vicente and articulate a final clutch of words. “Pregate per me.”
“It spoke, Oscar! What did it say?”
“Pray for me,” Wilde answered in a breathless voice.
And with that, the monster stepped backward into the flames and ignited like a roman candle, and the thrashing form of Solomon Arkwright, imprisoned in its arms, also caught fire. His piercing shrieks were terrible to hear and the friends looked away.
“Quickly,” Conan Doyle urged, “we must get away. The monster’s steam boiler will likely rupture in the great heat.”
The group stumbled on, plunging into thickening smoke.