"It's true! The only reason you are able to sit here and doubt is because I covered you with my body on both occasions when the rakosh came in to find you! I made you disappear! As far as a rakosh was concerned, your apartment was empty. If I hadn't, you would be dead like the others!"
The others… Grace and Nellie. Two harmless old ladies.
"But why the others? Why—?"
"To feed the nest! Rakoshi must have human flesh on a regular basis. In a city like this it must have been easy to feed a nest of fifty. You have your own caste of untouchables here— winos, derelicts, runaways, people no one would miss or bother to look for even if their absence was noticed."
That explained all those missing winos the newspapers had been blabbering about. Jack jumped to his feet. "I'm not talking about them! I'm talking about two well-to-do old ladies who have been made victims of these things!"
"You must be mistaken."
"I'm not."
"Then it must have been an accident. A missing-persons search is the last thing Kusum would want. He would pick faceless people. Perhaps those women came into possession of some of the elixir by mistake."
"Possible." Jack was far from satisfied, but it was possible. He wandered around the room.
"Who were they?"
"Two sisters: Nellie Paton last night and Grace Westphalen last week."
Jack thought he heard a sharp intake of breath, but when he turned to Kolabati her face was composed. "I see," was all she said.
"He's got to be stopped."
"I know," Kolabati said, clasping her hands in front of her. "But you can't call the police."
The thought hadn't entered Jack's mind. Police weren't on his list of possible solutions for anything. But he didn't tell Kolabati that. He wanted to know her reasons for avoiding them. Was she protecting her brother?
"Why not? Why not get the cops and the harbor patrol and have them raid that freighter, arrest Kusum, and wipe out the rakoshi?"
"Because that won't accomplish a thing! They can't arrest Kusum because of diplomatic immunity. And they'll go in after the rakoshi not knowing what they're up against. The result will be a lot of dead men; instead of being killed, the rakoshi will be scattered around the city to prey on whomever they can find, and Kusum will go free."
She was right. She had obviously given the matter a lot of thought. Perhaps she had even considered blowing the whistle on Kusum herself. Poor girl. It was a hideous burden of responsibility to carry alone. Maybe he could lighten the load.
"Leave him to me."
Kolabati rose from her chair and came to stand before Jack. She put her arms around his waist and laid the side of her head against his shoulder.
"No. Let me speak to him. He'll listen to me. I can stop him."
I doubt that very much, Jack thought. He's crazy, and nothing short of killing's going to stop him.
But he said: "You think so?"
"We understand each other. We've been through so much together. Now that I know for sure he has a nest of rakoshi, he'll have to listen to me. He'll have to destroy them."
"I'll wait with you."
She jerked back and stared at him, terror in her eyes. "No! He mustn't find you here! He'll be so angry he'll never listen to me!"
"I don't—"
"I'm serious, Jack! I don't know what he might do if he found you here with me and knew you had seen the rakoshi. He must never know that. Please. Leave now and let me face him alone."
Jack didn't like it. His instincts were against it. Yet the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded. If Kolabati could convince her brother to eradicate his nest of rakoshi, the touchiest part of the problem would be solved. If she couldn't—and he doubted very much that she could—at least she might be able to keep Kusum off balance long enough for Jack to find an opening and make his move. Nellie Paton had been a spirited little lady. The man who killed her was not going to walk away.
"All right," he said. "But you be careful. You never know —he might turn on you."
She smiled and touched his face. "You're worried about me. I need to know that. But don't worry. Kusum won't turn on me. We're too close."
As he left the apartment, Jack wondered if was doing the right thing. Could Kolabati handle her brother? Could anyone? He took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out to the street.
The park stood dark and silent across Fifth Avenue. Jack knew that after tonight he would never feel the same about the dark again. Yet horse-drawn hansom cabs still carried lovers through the trees; taxis, cars, and trucks still rushed past on the street; late workers, party-goers, prowling singles walked by, all unaware that a group of monsters was devouring human flesh in a ship tied to a West Side dock.
Already the horrors he had witnessed tonight were taking on an air of unreality. Was what he had seen real?
Of course it was. It just didn't seem so standing here amid the staid normalcy of Fifth Avenue in the upper Sixties. Maybe that was good. Maybe that seeming unreality would let him sleep at night until he took care of Kusum and his monsters.
He caught a cab and told the driver to go around the Park instead of through it.
6
Kolabati watched through the peephole until Jack stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him. Then she slumped against the door.
Had she told him too much? What had she said? She couldn't remember what she might have blurted out in the aftermath of the shock of finding that hole in the rakosh egg. Probably nothing too damaging—she'd had such long experience at keeping secrets from people that it was now an integral part of her nature. Still, she wished she could be sure.
Kolabati straightened up and pushed those concerns aside. What was done was done. Kusum would be coming back tonight. After what Jack had told her, she was sure of that.
It was all so clear now. That name: Westphalen. It explained everything. Everything except where Kusum had found the male egg. And what he intended to do next.
Westphalen… she thought Kusum would have forgotten that name by now. But then, why should she have thought that? Kusum forgot nothing, not a favor, certainly not a slight. He would never forget the name Westphalen. Nor the time-worn vow attached to it.
Kolabati ran her hands up and down her arms. Captain Sir Albert Westphalen had committed a hideous crime and deserved an equally hideous death. But not his descendants. Innocent people should not be given into the hands of the rakoshi for a crime committed before they were born.
But she could not worry about them now. She had to decide how to handle Kusum. To protect Jack she would have to pretend to know more than she did. She tried to remember the name of the woman Jack said had disappeared last night… Paton, wasn't it? Nellie Paton. And she needed a way to put Kusum on the defensive.
She went into the bedroom and brought the empty egg back to the tiny foyer. There she dropped the shell just inside the door. It shattered into a thousand pieces.
Tense and anxious, she found herself a chair and tried to get comfortable.
7
Kusum stood outside his apartment door a moment to compose himself. Kolabati was certainly waiting within with questions as to his whereabouts last night. He had his answers ready. What he had to do now was mask the elation that must be beaming from his face. He had disposed of the next to the last Westphalen—one more and he would be released from the vow. Tomorrow he would set the wheels in motion to secure the last of Albert Westphalen's line. Then he would set sail for India.
He keyed the lock and opened the door. Kolabati sat facing him from a living room chair, her arms and legs crossed, her face impassive. As he smiled and stepped forward, something crunched under his foot. He looked down and saw the shattered rakoshi egg. A thousand thoughts hurtled through his shocked mind, but the one that leaped to the forefront was: How much does she know?