“All were missing their eyes and the skin on their faces,” Riis continued. “It had been stripped from the underlying musculature with surgical precision. All were found nude.” He swallowed, for the first time a bit overcome. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow.
“And all three were young. The oldest was the only son of a Chinaman who immigrated here last August. The boy was fifteen and quite small for his age.”
“The weakest,” murmured von Helrung. “The most vulnerable.”
“The youngest was found at Mulberry Bend, only a few blocks from my office. A girl. She was seven. She suffered by far the worst mutilations. I will spare you the details.”
No one spoke for a moment. Then von Helrung asked softly, “Their hearts.”
“Yes, yes,” Riis nodded. “Ripped from their chests—and when I say ‘ripped,’ I do mean ripped. Flesh flayed open, ribs snapped in two, and the hearts themselves . . .”
He did not finish. Von Helrung placed a consoling hand on his shoulder, a hand that Riis immediately shrugged off.
“I thought I had seen every horror imaginable in the slums of this metropolis. Starvation, drunkenness, depravity. Deprivation and despair that rivals the worst of the most wretched European ghetto. But this. This.”
“It is only the beginning,” von Helrung said somberly. “And only the part of the beginning we know of. More victims will be found this day, I fear.”
“Then we haven’t a moment to lose,” said Torrance. Riis’s report had gotten his blood up. “Let’s do what we’re trained to do, gentlemen. Let’s hunt down this thing and kill it.”
Warthrop’s reaction was immediate. He whirled upon the younger man and slammed his cane onto the tabletop, causing Torrance to jerk in his chair.
“Any man who harms John Chanler will answer to me!” the doctor snarled. “I will not truck with cold-blooded murder, sir.”
“Nor I,” agreed Pelt. “Unless we’ve no choice.”
“Of course, of course,” von Helrung said hurriedly. He avoided Warthrop’s icy glare. “The line between what we are and what we pursue is razor thin. We will remember our humanity.”
Von Helrung proposed the division of the group into three teams, each to investigate the crimes reported by Riis. Warthrop did not like the idea; he insisted the party should stay together; division only weakened us and diminished our chances for success. He was overruled, but he retreated by inches, not yards, disagreeing next with the composition of the teams as devised by von Helrung. He had paired Warthrop with Pelt, himself with Dobrogeanu, and Torrance with Gravois.
“Experience should be paired with youth,” he argued. “I should go with you, Meister Abram. Pelt with Torrance, Gravois with Dobrogeanu.”
“Pellinore is correct,” agreed Pelt. “It would not do if you and Dobrogeanu were faced with it—if it is as strong and fast as you say.”
Dobrogeanu stiffened. He was offended. “I resent the implication that I can’t handle myself in a pinch. Need I remind you, sir, who it was that single-handedly captured—alive, I might add—the only specimen of Malus cerebrum comedo in the history of monstrumology?”
“That was quite a few years ago,” Pelt said dryly. “I meant no offense. I am not much younger than you, and I think Pellinore’s idea makes capital sense.”
That—and the urgency of the hour—put an end to the debate. Riis took his leave, promising he would return at nightfall with an update and, hopefully, to congratulate us on a successful prosecution.
It fell to me to escort Riis to the door. He tucked his muffler into his coat and tugged the collar high, squinting through his round spectacles at the gray landscape. The snow brought back disquieting memories; we had left the gray land, and now it seemed the gray land had come back for us.
“I would like to give you a piece of advice, young man,” he said. “Would you like to hear it?”
I nodded dutifully. “Yes, sir.”
He leaned toward me, bringing to bear the entire force of his formidable presence. “Leave. Run away! At once, without delay. Run as if the devil himself were after you. There is something altogether unnerving about this business. Unfit for children.” He shuddered in the cold air. “He seems to like children.”
Back in the war room von Helrung had laid out six boxes and several long silver-plated knives. All, with the exception of Warthrop, were checking their weapons, testing the firing mechanisms and examining with frank curiosity the contents of the boxes, holding the gleaming silver projectiles up to the light.
“There is nothing in the literature to suggest that Lepto lurconis requires sleep,” the Austrian monstrumologist was saying. “And it is my inclination that we will not find it in such a felicitous state.
“Legend does tell us with what tremendous speed it attacks and what frightful power is employed in that attack. The Outiko uses its eyes to mesmerize its prey. To look into the Yellow Eye is to perish; do not forget!
“Do not waste your ammunition; it is precious. Only by piercing the heart can you destroy Lepto lurconis.”
“And only as a last resort,” put in Warthrop.
Von Helrung cut his eyes away and said, “More powerful than its eyes is its voice. Little Will heard it last night and nearly succumbed. If it calls your name, resist! Do not answer! Do not think you can deceive it by pretending to fall under its spell. It will consume you.”
He looked at each man in turn. The gravity of the moment settled over our little assemblage. Even Gravois seemed subdued, lost in his own dark thoughts.
“What we seek, gentlemen, is as old as life itself,” von Helrung said. “And as constant as death. It is ruthless and cunning and ever hungry. It may be as devious as Lucifer, but in this at least it has been honest with us. It has not hidden from us its true nature.”
There remained but one small matter—what to do with me. I had expected, naturally, to accompany the doctor, but even Warthrop didn’t seem keen on the idea. He worried with some justification that I might be in danger of falling into a venom-induced delirium at any moment, rendering me an unwanted and potentially fatal hindrance. Equally unattractive was leaving me behind. Von Helrung was particularly opposed to this alternative; he was convinced that the beast had “marked” me the night before. Dobrogeanu suggested they drop me off at the Society.
“If he isn’t safe among a hundred monstrumologists, where will he be?” he wondered.
“I think he should come with us,” Torrance said. Apparently he had not given up on the idea of somehow using me as bait. “Other than Warthrop, he’s the only one among us who’s come face-to-face with one of these things.”
Warthrop winced. “John Chanler is not a ‘thing,’ Torrance.”
“Well, whatever he is.”
“But I do agree that his experience could prove indispensable,” Warthrop continued. “Therefore, he should come, but not with me. Gravois, you and Dobrogeanu shall take him.”
“But I don’t want them to take me!” I cried out, forgetting myself at the intolerable notion of being separated from him. “I want to go with you, Doctor.”
He ignored my entreaty. His eyes had taken on that familiar backlit glow. He seemed both with us and very far away.
He pulled me aside as the men loaded their weapons with silver bullets and strapped the silver blades to their belts.
“Understand, Will Henry—my chief concern is protecting John from these madmen. I cannot be all places at once. I’ve spoken with Pelt, who has agreed to keep the overeager Torrance on a tight leash. I must rely on you to be my eyes with Gravois and Dobrogeanu. Gravois I have little concern about—the man hasn’t fired a weapon in his life and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if he did. And Dobrogeanu can’t see four inches past his own nose. But he is fierce, even if he is old. Do you still have the knife?”