Chapter XVII: Murder on the Orient
The Orient Express, 4:30 am.
"Be still, Sabine."
"Will she be able to breathe?"
"Yes." Lucian did not look up, maintaining the steady pace of his handwriting. They sat in their four-bed sleeping car, petroleum lamps sustaining a warm glow on their faces. Though the train rattled like a horse-drawn reaper, the movement had become imperceptible after the first twelve hours on board. The window drapes were shut.
"How?" Placed on the top-bunk and not allowed to leave its boundaries, Sabine was skipping over the small, tanned-leather bag Allegra had packed for her. Her bed was cluttered with its contents. She had the weary pitch of a child that had been confined for too long. "Do they breathe differently?"
"Ask Raze." He drew a line beside 1896, adding three slanted marks beside the date.
She crawled to the side of her bed, peering over the side, her hair falling amok. "Raze, can she breathe?"
"Yes." Raze was grinding a bone between his teeth, working away at the last bits of marrow as if he wanted to savour every bite. "…and there are enough holes that she will not suffocate unless we leave her behind."
While explaining this, the lycan casually reached into his bag, untying one of the waxed paper bundles Allegra had packed for them. Beef rations. Removing his pocket-knife, he sliced a sizeable chunk from one of the rations and passed it to the girl. She snatched it up quickly and retreated behind her bed-drapes to feed, pacified for the moment. Neither lycan made any issue over her lack of manners. It was not common for lycan children to thank the hand that fed them. Most were spoiled for what they represented: life, progression, advancement…the next generation of soldiers under constant threat of eradication. When the sound of gnawing stopped, she crawled out from behind her bed-drapes and wiped her fingers on her shirt. The meat had been smoked, so the stain was more greasy than bloody. Dressed in breeches, at least she was starting to resemble a boy. A nine-year-old girl travelling in the same compartment as a gentleman and his manservant raised too many questions. She was listed as "William Eichel" on her ticket.
"Lyosha, I want to leave my bunk," she moaned.
Without comment, he drew another line.
"Please." She had an expectant look on her face, as if 'please' could make miracles.
"I will play a game with you, Sabine," he said pleasantly, closing his book for a moment. "For every hour that you are silent, you will receive a minute off your bunk." Contrary to his orders, the girl had left their compartment, hiding in another sleeping-car to play a game of tacks with mortal children. Whether Sabine knew it or not, she could have been spotted. He had carted her off before any harm was done, but the potential had been there.
"I will be very still." She crouched, wiping her nose on her arm. "I promise, I will be quiet and good like…like a mouse."
"Mice are not still."
"But I did not mean to do it." She knelt on the bed, pleading and wrapping her fingers together. "Alena wanted to know about my ear and Edward said I could play with them if I pretended to be a girl, but I told them I was a wolf, and they said that was…"
"Enough, Sabine." He opened his book again, determined at least to finish the margin of this journal entry. He continued writing in code, each letter standing for another letter depending upon where it resided in the sentence. It took patience and thought to write in code, but he had mastered his focus enough to be able to do it without interruption.
1896 / Branded stock retrieved from denless friend, completed rendez-vous with…
"Pleeease, Lyosha…please." Sabine folded herself in two, beating her fists against the bed covers. "Please …"
Ugh.
His pen had skewed off the page. The entry was marred. She sounded like a whining dog with its neck in a twist. Scowling, he looked to Raze, impatiently seeking that margin of support for dealing with creatures under the age of naïve. Rather than help, the lycan reached into his bag yet again, retrieving yet another ration for the girl. Right. Lucian smiled, nodding to himself, crossing out the marred stretch of code. First they'd run out of food. He crossed out another stretch. Then Sabine would starve. And then maybe…He scratched the date out. Just maybe, he'd be able to write! Incensed, he abruptly flung his pen at the girl, forgiving her marginally for how quickly she caught it. If discipline could follow reflexes, in time, she'd make an excellent front-runner. "You remain in the compartment," he said. "Is that understood?"
"Thank you!" She climbed off the bed, repeating the word 'thank you' approximately a hundred times in ten seconds. Barely touching the floor, she scaled the sides of his bunk, pulling herself up to sit next to him. Confident, she dropped the pen by his hand and then crawled forward, her fingers immediately veering for the sewing kit near his feet.
"Stay out of the kit."
She changed her target to the ivory comb. "May I have it?" she asked openly, touching the small teeth with care.
"No." He kicked her lightly with his foot, not entirely displeased that she dodged the blow quicker than she caught the pen. Even had he made contact, the kick was too light to hurt anyone. "Use your own comb."
"It is too painful. I want this one."
"That one is taken." He retrieved the pen and started writing again. Completed rendez-vous with…
"May I have these?" She was shaking the matches in their cardboard box.
"No."
"This?"
It was the shrill sound of metal scraping across wood. He knew that sound. Abruptly, he closed his book and snatched her latest find out of hand, effectively pushing her off the bed. Like any lycan over the age of two, she landed on her feet, but as she straightened, her mouth opening in protest, a silver blade came through the wall, stabbing the air where she had been. Again, the shrill sound of metal. Bloods. With a sharp intake of breath, Lucian threw himself back against the bed drapes, avoiding the second blade by inches. Weapon. He needed a long weapon. Only the pocket-knife and claws… Forced to act mid-fall, he wrenched the drapes out of their sockets, tearing the metal pole off with his claws. Before he hit the ground, he swung inwards, still gripping the pole, landing on the lower bunk and stabbing upwards through the wall. He heard a grunt, the cry of a woman. Twisting the pole, he retracted it, taking in the red smear that proved he had made contact. One down. There had to be two more…he could hear one of them dragging the woman's body back from the wall. They had not expected the…
BHAM!
Before he could move, a shotgun had blown a gaping hole in the wall next to his head, smoke drifting from the open wound. He blinked at the hole, the echo of the spent slug still resounding in his ears. Apparently, Allegra had packed more for Raze than just meat rations. There was blood-spatter dripping from the hole. Whoever had been dragging that body had just had their torso blown off. He looked behind him, spying the barrel of what Raze was now re-loading in under five seconds. The muffled sound of running drew their heads in the same direction…five inches to his right. He ducked, rolling off the bed. The shotgun fired. BHAM! A third grunt and the sound of a final body dropping to the floor. There were screams coming from the other compartments. Cries of 'we're under attack', 'save us', and 'what the devil is going on?' Chaos as doors slid open along the train, women fainting wildly, while men rushed about in their evening gowns trying to find a rival to shoot.
Sabine…
On his side, covered in wood-dust, Lucian got to his feet, brushing himself off, his eyes scanning the room for Sabine. She was cowering beneath one of the beds. Lycan children were taught to run…hide. Never face an enemy unless they had the moon on their side. She was unhurt. Glowering, Raze was still aiming the shotgun at the wall… The lycan pointed two fingers to the door and then left. He would go round the back. Make certain they had killed their quarry. Left in the room, Lucian snapped his fingers, getting Sabine to look at him. When she did, he drew three fingers in a circle and then brought them together in a fist. She swallowed, and then nodded, creeping out of her hiding place. Get the essentials, he had told her. She picked up her coat and Raze's pocket-knife. He retrieved his journal from the floor, the meat-rations, as well as the wooden box Sabine had been handling moments before the attack. Everything he packed in one of the food-sacs. After a moment's thought, he picked up the sewing kit and ivory comb as well. The laudanum went in his pocket, clinking as it settled beside the remains of his watch. The rest did not matter. The officials would be coming presently, and with three bodies on their tab, they could not tarry here.
Wrapping his arm in the remnants of the drapes, Lucian broke the window, mildly flinching as a gust of wind blew the glass back towards him. Outside, the night air was cold, the distant mountains black beneath clouds and rain, the land covered in rocks and hills. He could hear a river below them…it had to be the Rhine. German or French countryside, he could not tell, but whichever it was, they would meet it from a sharp sixty-degree angle. Eighty feet from the bottom. Sixteen hours from Paris…not the ideal place to leave the train, but what choice did they have?
Behind him, the door slid open and shut, Raze stepping over the tattered drapes to take Sabine up onto his back, like a great wolfhound carrying a mouse. At Lucian's silent question, the lycan grimly signed with one hand, handing the shotgun over and taking a tighter hold on Sabine. They are dead, he reported. One mortal travelling with them…killed at least an hour earlier. The authorities come now. We should leave. Lucian nodded, keeping the shot-gun pointed towards the door, his back to the window, inhaling and exhaling in time, breathing the scent of his own adrenaline. He would need it. As they reached the bend in the tracks, he reached out, touching Sabine's remaining ear-lobe for a moment, reassuring her with contact. She looked pale, but remarkably calm considering their present situation. They would never know if the attack was her fault…but they had survived, so there was no sense in holding it against her now. She had never done this before…but it would be alright. She would live.
The bend in the tracks.
Now.
He grabbed hold of the window-sill with one arm and swung outwards, freefalling for under a second, using his claws to stop the fall, the earth sliding between his fingers, threatening to let him slip over the cliff-side. Even under control, it seemed like water was rushing toward him. Four feet from the edge, Raze was sliding faster than he was, finally clawing to a stop with a single-arm, Sabine clinging tight around his neck. Above them, the train was still going. The rackety clatter of the horse-drawn reaper leaving them behind. For thirty seconds in the dark, they hung there, listening as the train passed on its way, proving that even murder could not stop the Orient Express. The rain was pelting his face…his grip was precarious. Time to climb.
Hauling himself up with an arm and a gun, he slowly and carefully scaled his way back, peering over the side when he reached the summit, watching the steel back of the train… No movement on the tracks. No deathdealers jumping from the roof. Satisfied, he swung himself up, gripping the iron rail to balance himself, keeping his body low to the flat surface. Ten more seconds passed. He could hear Raze following with Sabine, keeping her on his back when they crawled out on the tracks. The one looked fine, while the other was shivering, her hair plastered to her face, her coat soaked…she smiled though. Still high off his adrenaline, Lucian returned half of the smile…and then reached into his bag, taking out the ivory comb and handing it to her. She wiped her nose and then grinned, hiding it away in her coat. Good girl. She had kept her head. He pointed a thumb up and then two fingers to the right. They had to get under cover.
Wasting no time, they hiked off the track and into the woods, following the train at a breakneck pace, one sniffing and safe-checking the way forward while the other came behind with Sabine. It was safer in the woods. Deathdealers loved a rainy night, but they would hesitate to go on a trek through Rhine-territory two hours before sunrise. As they covered ground, catching up to the train, the gap between him and Raze began to grow…and soon it was Lucian by himself, the bag on his back, loping about a kilometre behind the train. Until now, he had set aside all concerns regarding the two exiles still on board the Express. Both containers had a random passenger name written upon the label, thus muddying the waters between himself and the safe-boxes. Depending on how long they had been followed, it was quite possible the safe-boxes were untouched.
If they were alive, Kolya and Reinette would not arrive in Paris until eight in the evening…not for another fourteen hours. Before that, he, Raze, and Sabine would have to veer off the track in order to enter the city, thus leaving their prisoners' trail for a time…but he would trust the Line to worry on that. By now, the Parisian den would know of the two containers labelled with scent, arriving from Vienna with high-priority content. Whatever happened, someone would pick them up from the station. The den might give them an unruly welcome…but it was better than being caught by deathdealers. He did not even want to think on whether that ambush had occurred before or after a baggage-check.
Kolya was expendable…
…but Reinette, he needed alive.
Breathing hard, he slowed his pace and came to a stop, turning to stare back towards the east. Almost sunrise. Raze and Sabine were out of sight, a few paces behind, following the trail he was laying. The train was not far ahead, so he could stand to wait a while. It was a common saying that lycans did not rest until they saw the sun…but it was only a few more minutes. Unshouldering the bag, he crouched on the ground, letting his arms hang over his knees, catching his breath. In all honesty, he was still bothered over Allegra and Reinette's commentary from the previous night. He had brooded on it. He might have lost sleep over it had he been less than a laudanum addict.
How could she think all that? Of course, he was a sensitive man…and he had every consideration for women. He loved women. Feeling introspective, he picked up a twig, starting to shave the leaves off with his nail. Something to do with his hands while he waited. Reinette was barely one, but certainly, he did not want her dead. He wanted her alive…if only for the soreness she'd have after leaving that box. And since when had Allegra not enjoyed her time as his mistress? The way she spoke, she made it sound like a prison sentence. Had he not faced hell and highwater for her? Two years of giving into her every whim, her every need. Theatre, opera, ballet, every scrap of fabric to grace the Parisian catalogue covers. That woman had dined like a queen…by herself most days, but he had priorities. He thwacked the twig sharply against the dirt, breaking it in the process. He was not the difficulty…women were. Wheedling their way into his bed, one after the other…
'Lyosha, your shirt needs darning…'
'Lyosha, your breeches are dirty …'
'Lyosha, your quarters…are they bigger than other lycan's?'
How the hell was he supposed to stick to one woman when every second word out of every second mouth had to do with his breeches, his pants, and under it all, the state of his arse? In the midst of this bitter soliloquy, he heard Raze and Sabine approaching, Raze almost silent, but still perceptible on the woody pathways. His subordinate might seem a great wolfhound, but after a time…even wolfhounds grew tired. Sabine was a little louder, certainly exhausted, but keeping up for the most part. It was alright for her to stretch her legs for a while… Exhaling, Lucian got to his feet, grabbed the bag and started loping again. When they reached Paris, he would give Sabine the sewing kit. It was questionable what she saw in it, but then like Reinette…she probably assumed he kept strange and mysterious treasures in metal tins. Speaking of fish-crone…He leaped over a log, ducking beneath a branch. …he'd already gone through too much trouble for that woman to see her die in a box. Alive and sore, that was the ticket. Alive and sore. He began running faster as sunlight touched his back. She'd be fine…
…he was sure of it.
A/N: Naturally, you're bound to witness a murder or three if you board the Orient Express. Hopefully Reinette is not among those murders...Lucian seems to think she's alright, but I have a feeling he's telling that to himself because secretly he's concerned that she's not (and what a waste that would be.) Anyway, thank you for the latest reviews to Mackenzie, Epilachna, Sheen, and ThranduilsDaughter! (Also for favourites and story alerts)
(Note: Mackenzie, after reading your review tonight, I finished this chapter specifically for you. One of the most touching reviews I have ever received. Hopefully, the chapters never disappoint and the characters remain enthralling!)