The Intuition: Part 6, The Express d'Orient
A Horror Story
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Wien Südbahnhof, 9:45 p.m.
Will stood in the shadowy, pillared grandeur of the train platform and watched the coupling of the two royal carriages to the rear of the Express d’Orient. The cars, of Viennese design in funereal black, bore the somber, night-upon-night raven of House Corbinescu beneath their glowing windows. The stylized bird’s feathers were limned in gold that flowed outward in sinuous Art Nouveau filigree, giving the effect of manifesting the creature from fire and darkness.
“Do you approve our travel accommodations, Lord Dovedale?’ Andrei Borja separated himself from his supervision of a knot of dark-liveried porters to stand at Will’s side. He gestured at the lavish cars. “My Prince wishes your journey to be as pleasant as possible.”
“Elaborate,” Will said. “And unnecessary. We are only five.”
“Eight. Our attendant, Marcu, and a second lady and her maid will join us.” Borja watched Will’s face with attention. “The lady is our antiquarian, to be precise. She is already aboard. When we are under way, you may speak with her regarding the relics we seek.”
Will clenched his jaw at Borja’s lofty tone, a response the man seemed to call forth in him without effort. He glowered at the royal cars, now being loaded with luggage. As with the other train cars, a vestibule connected the two, but there was no such connection between them and the rear of the Express. They would be cut off from the rest of the train, prisoners in opulent cages. He brought his gaze back to Borja’s serene indifference.
“A woman? And here, in the city? I had no idea your scholar was Austrian.”
“She is not.” Borja’s face held a trace of wicked amusement. He glanced at the porters who had finished their duties and now stood at silent attention. “Perhaps you will be so good as to board your party now. The train departs in little more than an hour, and the platform will become crowded. Marcu will assist you.”
He waved forward one of the men, turned to Will with a stiff bow, and crossed the platform to swing aboard the first royal car. Will watched him go through eyes narrowed in suspicion, observing the casual surveillance of the four men remaining by the train, their gloved hands folded neatly in front of them. He felt pinned between their shadowed gazes and the warm flare of the gaslit windows of the salon behind him. Something was amiss, and yet he could point to no genuine reason for his uneasiness. He turned his gaze to the salon window. There, among the bevy of waiting passengers, Tom and Falke sat in momentary truce at a round table with Elke between them. Will frowned as he watched them. The doctor had proven to be an irritable and secretive addition to their company, yet Mrs. Kinsky had not exaggerated his influence over Elke.
He replayed the memory of Falke striding into the room where the girl had crouched on the twisted sheets of her cot, at bay and snarling as three frightened maids attempted to cajole her into bathing and dressing for the journey. Mrs. Kinsky had stepped away from her post in the doorway at the doctor’s touch on her elbow, wilting against the door jamb as though boneless.
“Dr. Falke,” she had cried. “You are just what is wanted. We cannot make her understand; she is like a wild animal.”
At the sight of Falke, however, Elke had ceased her hissing and spitting. Her face, contorted into the visage of a furious demon, had smoothed and become placid. Falke took in the steaming washtub, the heap of boxes overflowing with gowns and cloaks, the brushes and soaps and lacy underthings. He did not speak to Elke, only held out his hand to her, and she stepped from the bed. He gestured with the outstretched hand toward the washtub, and she undid the ribbons of her chemise to let it slip down her body to the floor. She stepped into the hot, fragrant water and allowed the maids, beckoned forward by Falke, to wash her with the lavender soap.
The doctor sat on the cot and waited while the women dressed Elke and attended to her hair, curling and coiling it atop her head. Will had waited, too, mesmerized by the quiet in the room and by the graceful ministrations of the maids. They murmured like doves, readying Elke as though robing a queen, and Will had fancied once again that he detected the elusive presence of his mother. Falke had smoked in silence, the warm sweetness of his tobacco mingling with the floral notes of Elke’s bath. When the women finished, the doctor had fished in his coat pocket and pulled forth a pair of indigo-tinted spectacles with small, round lenses. These he fitted over Elke’s eyes before turning his gaze to Will.
“Let us leave this city. I am heartily sick of it.”
Twenty minutes later, in the confines of the carriage transporting them to the station, Falke and Tom had nearly come to blows over the leather dressing case cradled on the doctor’s lap.
“What’s in there, then,” Tom had said. “Must be something worth a monkey for you to keep hold of it when the rest of the baggage went on ahead. Give us a look, why don’t you?”
He had reached for the handle of the case with all his usual impudent swagger but Falke, rigid and expressionless, had slapped the hand away.
“There is nothing here to interest the likes of a common thief and scoundrel.”
“Common, is it?” Tom blazed. He gave Falke a shove into the corner of the carriage. “You’ll be chuffed to know my likes is about when we’re in a ruck, as is likely where we’re going.”
Will, recognizing the flame kindling in Falke’s eyes, stretched out his leg and thumped his booted heel onto the upholstered seat between the two men. He studied the leather case, now gripped in white-knuckled determination by Falke, and knew—as he often knew the unknowable—that he would be privy to its contents before they reached Romania. Settling back against the cushioned bench, he closed his eyes and allowed the motion of the carriage to lull him. Beside him, Elke sat silent and disinterested.
When they reached the station, Falke had taken the girl into the salon that looked out upon their platform and seated her at a table. Tom hung back to whisper in Will’s ear.
“I’ll bet my boots that one’s a hophead. I seen it enough to know. He clutches that box calf bag of his like he’s got his immortal soul inside it. Carries his dream stick and hops in there’s more like.”
Tom had made a face of prudish disapproval, an expression Will found absurd in one so unscrupulous. “If ye’ve got to have him along, Billy, we’d best not put too much weight on him. He’s like to get blootered and bollocks up the whole concern.”
Borja’s man stepped toward Will with a brisk nod. A stocky fellow with a great brush of moustache, Marcu’s shoulders strained at the seams of his fitted jacket, and Will had no doubt the man possessed a wrestler’s grip and agility. Another tickle of unease skittered over him, and he felt the tattooed swallows on his shoulders flex their wings as if in preparation for bloodshed.
“Wait here,” he told Marcu, and turned to enter the salon.
From the door, he caught Tom’s eye and raised a beckoning hand. Tom leaned to mutter something to Falke who turned to look at Will in the doorway. At Will’s nod, the doctor reached out to take Elke’s gloved fingers in his own. Like a dancer, he drew her from her seat and out into the room. She drifted like smoke between the tables, her shuttered gaze never leaving Falke. Where she walked, conversation stilled and men’s eyes followed, yet it was neither lust nor admiration Will read in them. It was a dread reverence.
Beside the platform, the engine hissed and puffed its clouds of steam into the shadows. The companions stood for a moment on the precipice of their adventure, and Will felt a dark frisson, as though he looked upon a company of the dead. Marcu escorted them to the train.
Vienna to Bucharest
“’Tis butter upon bacon, this is.” Tom sprawled upon the tufted leather divan in the gentleman’s smoking parlor, a cigar smoldering in his maw, and waved a tumbler of scotch at the luxurious appointments. “All I needs now is a cuddle from that dolly we dragged with us. Sit her right here.” Tom slapped his knee with enthusiasm.
The night rushed by the windows, filled with the city and its outskirts rendered invisible in the autumn black. The train might as well have been a phantom of the ether, unmoored from reality. Dr. Falke, sitting by the blind window with his head tilted back upon the velvet cushion of his chair, opened his eyes and sat forward to glare at Tom.
“Shut your filthy mouth,” he said with weary disgust, “before I stop it for you.”
Tom chuckled and puffed a tremulous smoke ring onto the air. “I welcome you to try, Dr. Quack, but there’s no need to throw a wobbler. I got no designs on your sweetheart, for all she’s a whore.”
“Swine,” spit Falke. “Your empty head is a pit of vulgarity.”
Will, seated at a linen-draped table, crossed his cutlery over the surgically denuded carcass of a squab, bloodied and raw-looking in the remains of its cherry reduction. He dabbed his lips and dropped the serviette over the sauced bones.
“There are days of hard travel ahead of us. I care not if one of you flings the other from the train, but do not tax me with your squabbles.”
Further discussion was cut short by a rap at the door. It opened to reveal Marcu who nodded at Will.
“Madame will speak with you, Lord Dovedale,” he said, filling the doorway. “I will take you.”
"Tis butter upon bacon..." A bunch of great dialogue - but this is my favorite line! The Intuition is a damn gem. Love it, Liz. - Jim