Chapter Eighteen
“Don’t open it!” I said.
Jackaby crossed the room. “It’s all right. There are rules about this sort of thing and safeguards in place. Stay back, ladies. I think it is high time I met Mr. Pavel face to face.”
The pale man looked exactly as before. He smiled his crooked, arrogant smile up at Jackaby as the door swung open, and I could see the dark gap of his missing fang. I heard a gasp from Mrs. Hoole.
“Detective Jackaby. An honor to meet you at last. I am a big fan of your work,” the vampire said. “I must admit, I was not expecting such quick results. And what’s this?” He waggled a finger at Mrs. Hoole. “You caught the slippery little fish that got away from us, as well! You truly have a gift, my friend. We’re all very impressed.”
“I take it you’ve come to make good on your agreement with my assistant?” Jackaby said. I swallowed.
“That’s right. Be a chum and invite me in, would you? I’ll take the wandering woman and sleeping beauty off your hands before you can say boo, and then you two can get back to your relaxing evening.”
“That was not the deal you struck.” Jackaby stood up a little straighter. “It is my understanding—and Miss Rook is very good about conveying all the pertinent details—that your arrangement was that Miss Rook would receive information from you regarding certain persons of interest in exchange for our finding Mr. Finstern, is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, we found Mr. Finstern. Our end of the bargain is complete. Delivery of the gentleman into your custody was never stipulated. Now then, I believe you have something to share?”
Pavel’s eyes narrowed and his expression turned icy. “You don’t know me very well,” he said softly, “and you really don’t know my superiors, if you think I’ll be leaving this house empty-handed.” He cracked his neck and composed himself. “I’ll tell you what, Detective. In the interest of keeping our relationship professional, why don’t you just turn them both over to me, and I will consider not murdering your pretty little assistant in her sleep.”
“You’re right, I don’t know you,” said Jackaby. “But I do know stories, and that’s not how yours works. That thing at your feet? That’s a threshold. You are a vampire. Huff and puff all you like, you may not come in.”
Pavel stared daggers at Jackaby through narrow, powder-white eyelids. “Hold on,” he said at length. “I’ve seen your face somewhere before, haven’t I?”
Jackaby stood his ground, glaring back at the pale man. “I expect you’ve seen quite a lot of me. You seem to be doing more than your fair share of lurking.”
Pavel shook his head. “No. Not the famous R. F. Jackaby. You’re right, I have been watching. I know a great deal about R. F. Jackaby. I know, for instance, that R. F. Jackaby did not exist twenty years ago. You look older than twenty, detective. Twenty-seven? Thirty? Forty-two? Years are difficult to judge when you start counting in centuries.”
Jackaby said nothing.
“No. Wait a moment. Now that I see you closer, I do remember. Yes, I have seen that face, long before this ridiculous character that you invented. Helpless scrap of a thing, weren’t you? What did they call you back then? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
Jackaby’s fists were clenched tight. His knuckles were turning white.
Pavel smiled. “Oh, that’s an interesting thought, now, isn’t it? Clever little boy hides his true name from the world because words have power, is that right? They do, of course. You were right to hide your name. The thing is, sometimes you need that power.”
He slid closer until the scuffed leather tips of his shoes were right on the edge of the threshold. “I wonder, Detective, whose name is on the deed to this old place?” His milky white hands felt the air in front of him as if he were brushing an invisible curtain. “R. F. Jackaby owns this place, doesn’t he? Only—and here’s where it gets interesting—we both know that R. F. Jackaby does not exist.” He planted one foot and then the other inside the door, and Jackaby staggered backward a step.
“You’re still just a helpless scrap of a thing. Now then, if you don’t mind—” Pavel swept past Jackaby and toward Cordelia Hoole. His movements were effortless and inhumanly fluid. Mrs. Hoole threw herself backward with a squeak, but her checkered dress got caught up in her chair, and she toppled to the ground.
I fumbled a rosary off of the hook beside the desk and leapt over to her, holding it up like a shield. The little wooden cross danced as my hand trembled.
“That’s cute,” Pavel said. “I’m Jewish—at least I was a very long time ago. I must admit, I haven’t exactly been keeping kosher.” He winked and then batted my hand away. My wrist instantly stung, as though I had been bitten. “The thing about faith is that it only works when you have it. Now, you’re beginning to make me grumpy. Are you going to get out of my way, or will I have the distinct pleasure of going through you?” His eyes were rimmed with red.
“Y-You can’t!” I stammered. “Your benefactors!” Pavel flinched. “They want us alive! Remember? What do you think they’ll do to you if—”
“First of all, my benefactors want him alive.” Pavel nodded at Jackaby. “So don’t get too full of yourself, girlie. Second, there are oh-so-many creative things I can make the detective watch me do to you”—his expression darkened—“if either of you decides to be difficult.”
He made a sudden motion as if to lunge at me, but then drew up short. His sickly white hand, the one with just a stump of a pinky, slowed to a crawl as it extended toward me. Far from his fluid, effortless actions a moment ago, his whole body was now moving as if through heavy syrup—and then he froze completely, his face contorted in a mask of confusion and anger.
“How are you doing this?” he snapped. His eyes darted toward Jackaby, although my employer looked as baffled as he was. “You have no power over me! This is not your house!”
“No.” A shimmer of light rippled in the air between Jackaby and the vampire. “But it is mine.” Jenny’s eyes were ice and her glare was iron as she coalesced. She was fury incarnate, her long silvery hair whipping around her. “You,” she said. “You worked with my fiancé.” The temperature in the room plummeted and Pavel’s body abruptly stiffened. He made a strangled wheezing sound as though he were suddenly being squeezed very tightly. His feet lifted off the ground until just the tips of his brogues scraped the floorboards. “You shouldn’t be here,” Jenny whispered darkly.
With a mad vampire frozen in midair and a vengeful ghost hovering in front of her, I fully expected Mrs. Hoole to bid farewell to her last nerve and collapse at my feet as unconscious as Owen Finstern, but the widow proved surprisingly more resolute. She made the sensible and reasonable decision, instead, to clamber frantically behind the desk, hug her knees to her chest, and huddle in a tight ball taking very deep breaths. I could not fault her. In fact, I considered joining her.
“You’re a dead thing!” Pavel croaked. He spun slowly in place an inch off the ground. “You’re like me! You shouldn’t be able—grkk!”
“I have been feeling much more able of late.” Jenny’s voice was cold. “I don’t like being told what I can’t do. My brick. My house. My whole wide world.”
Paper spun off the desk in a sudden flurry, but Jenny remained solid and composed. Crystals had begun to form on the windowsill and Ogden the frog was burying himself into a pile of shredded newspaper in the corner of his terrarium.
Jackaby righted the chair that Mrs. Hoole had toppled. He planted it next to the captive vampire and plopped casually into it. “Words do have power,” he said, “and my dear friend Jenny keeps hers. She made me a promise once, right here in this very room. I asked her never to give up on the place. She never has. You crossed a line, Mr. Pavel, and now you’re in her world. I believe you were about to tell us a story?”