Magistrates of Hell

understand, do you think, if we tell him that we must see this man’s body? We must cut the head off quickly and stake the heart—’

Asher gestured to him for quiet. Together, they made their way through the crowd to the Emperor’s military attache, and when he turned to them and bowed, Asher asked, ‘Was it Ito-san, sir?’

‘It was.’ The Count’s coffee-black eyes met Asher’s, steady and deeply sad. ‘The physical effects of his illness were more than his body could bear. He died a little before sunset.’

‘I am deeply sorry to hear it. We owed him our lives, and it grieves me, beyond what I can say, to realize that our lives were bought at the cost of his own.’

‘He was samurai,’ replied Mizukami. ‘He understood that it was his duty.’

‘If you will excuse us, Count,’ put in Karlebach in an urgent whisper. ‘It is necessary – vitally so – that we be permitted to see the body. The head at least should be severed, lest—’

‘It is custom,’ returned the Count, folding his hands before him, ‘that when a man commits seppuku, the friend who assists him onward severs the head. You need have no concern for that. I have made arrangements for Ito-san’s body to be burned tomorrow, and his ashes will be sent back to his family in Ogachi.’

When Karlebach’s brow grew thunderous – Asher could almost hear him demanding: how they would locate yao-kuei in the city now? – the Count went on, ‘Some here in the Legation knew that he was ill, and I have put it about that it was of his illness that he died. He made a good end. A samurai’s end, with courage and honor.’

Asher murmured in Czech to the furious old man beside him, ‘What would you have done, sir?’

Ysidro had a point, he reflected, about the Van Helsings of the world.

They walked back to the Wagons-Lits Hotel through the early darkness. ‘Ito’s family had served the Mizukami for three centuries,’ said Asher, and he drew his brown ulster more closely about him. His breath smoked in the light that fell through the gateway – massive and slightly absurd – of the French Legation. ‘Of course the Count would assist him.’

He glanced across the street, with the casual air of one whose attention has been flagged by the cries of the old woman selling cricket cages on the other side of Legation Street, but didn’t break stride. Nor did he see whatever it was – half-familiar flash of color or style of movement, a face he’d glimpsed somewhere before? – that had touched that old part of his soul, the part which had kept him alive in Berlin and Belgrade and Istanbul . . .

But his whole being – every instinct he possessed – shouted at him: Run now and run fast. You’re being followed.

DAMN it.

And of course there was nothing behind them, or anyway nothing that looked dangerous. Too many shadows, the electric glow from the more modern buildings bright against the older softness of paper-lantern-light. A couple of rickshaws spun by; a little group of home-going Chinese – servants, presumably, but who could tell?; and three American soldiers striding along arm-in-arm singing ‘Marching Through Georgia’:

Hurrah, hurrah, we bring the jubilee,

Hurrah, hurrah, the flag that makes you free . . .

Had someone run across the street behind him, seeking cover in the doorway of the Chinese post-office, or behind the gateway of the German Legation? Had he half-recognized one of the peddlers? Or one of the German soldiers on the other side of the street? Someone who’d turned around after passing him and was now coming back the other direction? He didn’t know, and being seen examining his surroundings would only make the situation worse. They made one mistake. If they’re not put on their guard they’ll sooner or later make another.

Unless, of course, they plan to do something about me tonight.

He didn’t even know who ‘they’ were. Abroad one often hadn’t the slightest idea.

Mentally, he mapped escape routes. A vampire wouldn’t let himself be seen, unless it was a new-made fledgeling, or a vampire who had been starved for a sufficiently long time as to be losing his powers of concealment. If it was the Germans – or just possibly the Austrians, though he hadn’t seen anyone he recognized from the Auswartiges Amt here – it might only be a preliminary observation. I’ve been around the Legation for over a week now. Anyone who wanted to find me, could . . .

I’ll have to tell Karlebach to make some kind of arrangement for Lydia . . .

IS old Wu still on Pig-Dragon Lane?

Windows, coal chutes, storerooms at the hotel . . . There was a kitchen service-door that opened into an areaway on Rue Meiji, about a hundred yards from the watergate that led out into the Chinese city.

Asher ascended the shallow steps of the hotel with a sense of relief. Karlebach had been haranguing him since they’d passed the French Legation on the subject of their next expedition to the Western Hills, and he’d barely heard a word. ‘Once we get the other entrances to the mine blocked, we should be able to go in by daylight. The main thing is to locate where they sleep and—’

Karlebach broke off to return the greeting of the English doorman, and Asher crossed the lobby to the desk for messages. A gentleman who’d been reading The Times in one of the lobby’s deep chairs got up, and Asher instinctively turned. Another, standing at the desk, advanced on him.

Here it comes . . .

The man who’d been reading The Times made his mistake. He addressed Asher before his confederate got within grabbing distance.

‘Professor Asher?’ Sussex. A European’s English would-be Oxonian . . . ‘The name is Timms. I’m from the Legation Police. There’s been a most serious allegation brought against you, for selling information to the German Legation.’

Asher said, with a slight note of surprise, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ He gestured – wait just a moment, I won’t make trouble – and moved as if to go say something to Karlebach . . .

Then cut swiftly to the right, dashed for the windows that overlooked Rue Meiji, toppled a chair in the startled Timms’s path, opened the window, and dropped through into the darkness.

He was pleased to see he’d calculated precisely; he was within a yard of the areaway to the kitchen. All the windows on that side were curtained against the icy night. He was stripping off his overcoat even as he sprang lightly over the railings, stepped back into the hotel and crossed the kitchen, overcoat slung over his arm – ‘I’m here about the generator,’ he explained to the one person who even gave him a glance in the bustle of preparing dinner – then walked straight to the doorway that led to the generator-room hall, stopped long enough to pick up his money, and climbed the service stair to the roof.

They’d assume he’d run straight for the watergate – it was a hundred yards from the window he’d escaped through – and would probably send a man up to watch Lydia’s room just in case.

Hobart. His feet sought the risers of the stair as he climbed, silent, up fifty-six steps in the dark. Possibly the Germans – old Eichorn might have recognized him after all – but the Germans were hardly likely to accuse him of selling information to themselves. Mizukami . . .? His instinct told him that the Japanese attache was a man to be trusted, which of course might mean nothing. Vampires weren’t the only ones who buttered their bread by getting people to believe them.

But Hobart had every good reason to want him deported quickly and a closet that fairly rattled with skeletons.

At this time of the evening, every room on the floor relegated to the personal valets and maids of the guests was deserted. Above that was the attic, pitch-black and crammed with trunks: the smell of dust as he came up the narrow stair was suffocating. A bare slit of a hall, a dozen small rooms, each labeled with the number of the floor to which the luggage within belonged – he’d identified the location of the light switch on an earlier reconnaissance, but knew better than to give his position away by using it. From his overcoat pocket he took the candle he’d brought to go yao-kuei hunting with, lit it, and made his way to the ladder at the end of the hall which led to the roof.

By the light of the waning moon, Asher strode along the hotel’s low parapet till he found a fire-ladder. The roof of the Banque Franco-Chinoise lay two floors below. The Chinese houses that had been here in 1898 had mostly been destroyed in the Uprising, and had been replaced by modern buildings with modern iron fire-escapes. A narrow alley separated the Franco-Chinoise Bank from the old Hong Kong bank – one of the few older buildings on