Mariah Mundi and the Ghost Diamonds (5 page)

From several yards away he heard the sound of a wooden panel opening slightly. It creaked like a whisper or the cry of a mouse. It was the type of sound that should not have been

heard, one that would normally have gone unnoticed. Mariah listened. The sound came again.

Edging his way from the elevator, he slowly slid foot by foot along the wall of the corridor until he reached the alcove opposite the fireplace. The noise came again, this time as if someone was dragging a heavy burden through a narrow entrance. There was a clatter and the dropping of a latch. Mariah looked into the mirror to get a glimpse of whoever was there without being seen. There was no one. The alcove was empty. All was as it should be. There was the ornate mirror above the large fireplace. The leather chair was just where it always was and the gigantic aspidistra had not moved.

Mariah crouched down so that his reflection could not be seen. He crawled around the corner of the lobby and into the alcove. Then he noticed the smouldering embers of the fire, which looked like several slices of stale bread without the crust. The bread seethed and burnt in a peculiar way, and as every thin slice turned up at the edges and scorched in the heat, spirals of smoke began to appear from each piece. The smoke grew deadly thick to the point where the chimney could not contain it any longer. It spewed from the fire like a dense fog that crept along the floor until Mariah could no longer see the carpet.

The fireplace soon disappeared in a pall of smoke as the lobby began to fill with the oozing smog. Mariah stood up and looked above the small, dense cloud that had formed around him. He could see that as it radiated from the fireplace it grew like a gigantic ball of fog. Fearing he would be completely engulfed, Mariah got onto the table, but as he did so he noticed that the smoke clung to him in tendrils. It was as if he had stepped into a large spider's web and that each strand gripped him tightly. The smoke stuck like glue and began to coat his hands with thin grey gossamers like strands of hair.

Mariah pulled his hands from the smog. The strands stretched and strained and then began to tighten, pulling him back deep within. He leapt from the table, hoping the force would pull him free. The tendrils stretched and stretched as he landed on the far side of the cloud, and then they suddenly snapped.

From deep within the fireplace, Mariah could see the embers begin to glow brighter. They seemed to take the form of a face in the thick mist. The ball of smog oozed out even further. The fire began to roar like a furnace as the heat melted the paint of the far wall and singed the strands of the aspidistra. The smog came towards him as if it were a reaching hand.

Mariah stepped back as it came closer like spilt treacle. From the fireplace he heard the sound of crackling, as shards of purple sparks jumped from the haze and struck the high ceiling like tiny firecrackers.

He stepped back even further. The door to the steam elevator was open. Mariah looked towards the increasing smog and knew soon he would have no way of escape.

The fire hissed and fizzed as more sparks jumped from the purple flames and then suddenly the cloud ignited. Mariah jumped into the steam elevator, slammed the grille door and frantically pressed the first button he reached. For a moment the elevator remained deathly still as the treacly smog began to ooze in through the grille door.

There came a loud explosion. Every smoking tendril burnt bright blue. The steam elevator dropped suddenly as the smog burst into cold flames that scorched the walls. Mariah was in free fall. The steam elevator dropped like a stone and then stopped with a sudden crash.

Above him Mariah could hear the roar of the fireball coming closer as it chased him down the shaft. The elevator was stuck
between floors and Mariah was engulfed in complete darkness. There was a shuddering crash and a bright, blinding flash of light and then all went black as if he were in the centre of the earth.

F
OR
several minutes Mariah lay in the dark elevator. Above him, the roof crackled as the explosion subsided. There was a small electric light hidden beneath a brass plate in the wall. It flashed into life and then glowed dimly. The neon bulb flickered on and off and then seemed to regain its power and burnt brightly. Mariah could smell the charred wood that encased the elevator. He got to his feet, brushed off the grey dust that covered his clothes and pressed every pearl button on the panel by the grille door.

There was a judder as the steam elevator sprang to life and slowly dropped floor by floor to the deep basement far below. It was as if it didn’t have the strength to go higher. The thick metal rope uncoiled itself creakily. As Mariah leant against the handrail he noticed a brass plaque lower down the wall. In small black letters was the word EMERGENCY. Mariah pulled back the door and looked inside. There, to his surprise, was an axe and a phosphorescent torch. He took the torch, unscrewed the base and unwrapped two cubes of white gum from their silver foil. He had seen Charity do this many times. Mariah placed the phosphorescence into the torch, pulled the
cowl over the lens and waited. He counted another twenty-six cubes stored in the base of the hand lamp. It was enough to give him three hours of light. Mariah slid the torch inside his coat and pulled the axe from the two spring fasteners that held it tight to the wall. It jumped into his hand, the wooden shaft smooth against his skin. Mariah waited for the elevator to stop.

After several minutes it came to a grinding halt. Mariah could smell the sea and feel the chilled cavern air. He knew he was deep inside the hotel, deep in the dark depths where Gormenberg had kept his oyster lagoon and a gigantic crab had kept guard. Since his death, all had been left as it was. The doorway had been sealed and the elevator stopped from descending to this depth.

‘Must have been the explosion,’ Mariah said in a whisper as he slid back the grille door and stepped outside. ‘Shouldn’t have come this far down.’

His soft words echoed faintly in the silence. The steam elevator sighed as if it could go no further. Mariah took the torch from his coat and pulled back the cowl. It burnt brightly, lighting a long tunnel that led to a flight of stone steps. He walked on; his feet crunched the chalk limestone pieces beneath his feet. The steps took him higher, every one cut from the rock, the chisel marks clear to see in the torchlight. He walked on.

After ten minutes of hard climbing, Mariah stopped. He was hopelessly lost. Desperately he tried to remember the time he had been here before and how to retrace his route back to the Prince Regent. He closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate. All he could see was the mist and the face from the fireplace. It was no use – he would just have to keep walking.

Mariah turned several more landings chiselled from the rock and eventually walked the length of a steep corridor. He knew he was getting further from the sea. The smell of salt water and the cold chill had subsided. Mariah shone the torch along the

tunnel. In the distance he could make out what he thought to be an iron door, like the vault of a bank. In a minute he stood beside it. The door was rusted, corroded by the salt air. Sticking into the rock on both sides was a long metal bolt that had fused into the clasp. Mariah smashed at it with the axe. It gave way easily. He pulled on the door. At first it wouldn’t open. He pulled harder and the creaking hinges gave way. The door then opened.

For a moment, Mariah couldn’t believe where he was. There in front of him was a wall of water at least twenty feet high and the width of a room. It was held in place by a sheet of glass that looked to be a foot thick and was braced like a window with girders of steel.

From the door, two steps led down to a metal gantry that went off to his right. As Mariah walked along the gantry he looked inside what he knew was the back of a gigantic seawater aquarium. It was built underground, beneath the bridge that spanned the deep valley between the Prince Regent and the drinking spa a mile to the south of the town.

Every Sunday Mariah had come to Titus Salt’s Aquarium and Pleasure Palace to see the fish that had been caught in the German Ocean. The most unusual would be displayed for all to see. Once he had paid an extra penny to view a shark with two heads. He had watched the fish for an hour, as it couldn’t decide which way to swim and fought against itself in discontent. Within the week it had died, to be replaced by an electric eel that would spark as it lunged against its reflection in the thick glass.

Every week there would be something new, something strange and ever more exotic. The Aquarium was lit in perpetual gaslight. A vault of steel supported the road above with gigantic perpendicular arches like the inside of a vast Hindu temple. Each one was encrusted in thick green paint and in the
centre of the Aquarium was a long row of skylights covered in moss.

Beneath the skylights was an ice-cream stall that sold hot waffles and jam. Sacha would always insist on buying one to eat on the way back to the Prince Regent. The woman who owned the stall had a thin beard of long black hair. He could tell that she knew he couldn’t take his eyes off her, wondering if she curled the tip or if it just formed itself into a natural point beneath her chin.

Mariah knew where he was. All he had to do was get to the front of the exhibits, follow the tour route to the end of the long room and push his way through the turnstiles. From there he could easily get back up the hill to the Prince Regent and within the hour would meet Charity back in his office.

He opened the door at the end of the gantry and stepped into the long room. As on any Sunday it was brightly lit and the fish were swimming in their tanks – but there was no other person but him. To his left was the ice-cream stall. It was shuttered and covered in a candy stripe canvas shawl. Quickly he closed the door and set off to walk the hundred yards to the turnstiles and then out of the Aquarium.

It was as he passed the third piscary that he suddenly felt he was being watched. He turned and saw no one, yet he had the unnerving feeling that someone or something was staring at him from close by. Leaning against the glass, he looked back and forth along the illuminated avenue of fish tanks – there was still no one. The Pleasure Palace was empty. There was not a sign of Titus Salt or his dog.

Sacha had told him that at night they slept in the small office that was cut into the ground like a cave. Titus would curl up with the dog and the day’s takings. It was said that if Titus caught anyone in his Pleasure Palace they would never be seen again. When Barcus Dobbs, a notorious villain, had robbed the

Pleasure Palace, Sacha had said that he had disappeared and the fish had eaten well on him for many days.

Mariah didn’t want to meet with Titus Salt. He listened intently to the gurgling sound that came from the large pipe that ran around the entire building. He looked up at the large temple arches hung with vines. Small oriental birds danced silently through the leaves that wrapped themselves around each arcade.

Then he felt it – a sudden, sharp tap against the glass just above his left ear. It happened three times and then stopped. Slowly he turned, expecting to see old Titus with his face pressed against the glass.

Mariah shuddered. There, staring at him through thick plate glass, were the red eyes of three large fish. The tank was in darkness and yet each fish glowed and emitted a blue essence of light. It followed their outline as if they were electrified and lit from within. What made Mariah stare in disbelief was their size – each fish was at least six feet in length. Their tails swished back and forth effortlessly in the cold dark water as they weaved in and out of the long strands of seaweed.

The smallest fish stayed by the glass and looked at him. It appeared to follow his every movement. Mariah raised his hand to the glass. The fish in turn moved towards it. They stared eye to eye – each examining the other for the first time. Mariah smiled, and to his amazement it looked as though the fish smiled back. It shuddered and changed colour from blue to purple and then to red. Mariah wondered from which sea these fish had been taken and how they had come to a place like this. At the base of the tank was a hand-painted sign pasted carelessly to the glass:
Piscis Humanis – please do not feed
.

As Mariah looked closer, he was sure that the fish had the face of a man. Not a completely human face, but similar in many ways. The eyes, nose and mouth looked as if they had
been pulled back over the creature’s head, as in a caricature. He tapped his finger twice on the glass – the fish tapped back with the tip of its nose. It then came close to the glass and in the lamplight Mariah could see it clearly for the first time. The creature looked as if it had a human eye. It stared mournfully, and an array of gills fluttered just behind what looked like a small but very human ear.

There was a sudden swirling of the water as the other fish darted frantically back and forth and shone from blue to red. It was as if they were trying to warn Mariah and signal some coming danger. The smallest of the three banged against the glass, its head shining so brightly that it lit Mariah in a red glow. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone.

It was then that Mariah heard the tap-tap-tap of metal heels against the stone floor. The footsteps echoed through the Pleasure Palace. He was unsure from which direction they came.

‘Who’s there?’ a voice shrieked from the other side of the arcade. ‘I know you’re there – the dog’s got your scent.’

Mariah froze as the words of Titus Salt echoed through the arches under the glass roof. He could hear the growling of the dog from nearby. Looking through the mouldy green tank opposite, Mariah could see the misshaped reflection of old Titus. It shimmered in the gaslight, and made him look ten feet tall with a hunched back and long staff. The dog appeared to be as big as an elephant as the glass reflected its image through the murky water.

Mariah had seen Titus many times before. Even in his great wealth, he was a man of miserly temperament. Never would he buy a new coat, but would rather stand at the door of the Pleasure Palace in his crumpled top hat and fingerless gloves. Titus would collect the pennies and check each one by biting them in his teeth. Then he would hide them in a leather bag he kept around his neck. He was a man of two voices. One was kept for

thrilling the Sunday crowds with tales of his adventures at sea: it would lure the young girls with all his talk of adventure, it was croaked and yet kind, tinged with the rasp of tobacco but always welcoming. The other was harsh and bitter – kept for those who would try and sneak in without forfeit. Then old Titus would shout and snarl as Grub would bark and snap wildly at their heels.

Now, Mariah could hear Grub sniffing at the floor as he searched for his scent. The dog began to growl as it sensed him nearby.

‘Better come out now – before we get ya!’ Titus shouted. There was a hint of hesitation in his voice. It was as if he wasn’t sure who or what he was searching for.

Mariah watched him through the glass of the fish tank. He knew that he could not be seen as the light that shone through was behind Titus Salt. The dog sniffed as it walked along. Mariah stood motionless as he wondered how he would escape. There was a gentle tapping on the glass behind him. He turned and there was the fish. It shone red and then turned to blue before it darted upwards to the top of the tank. Mariah looked up. There above the tanks was a long feeding gantry that could just be seen from the ground. It led the length of the arcade to the gates that led out to the street.

The fish frantically swam up and down as if pointing Mariah to his escape. There, cut into the metal frame of the tank, were six neat footholds. Quickly Mariah climbed from the ground up the side of the tank and onto the gantry. The fish swirled about in the water beneath his feet, and from it pulsed the most beautiful white light. Its head broke the surface and looked at him. For a moment Mariah was mesmerised. In the twilight, it looked as though he was staring into the eyes of another person. He smiled and lowered his hand to the water. The fish shuddered as he stroked the tip of its nose.

‘Thank you,’ Mariah said in a whisper.

The words echoed around the arcade as Grub began to bark.

‘I know where you are!’ Titus shouted as he ran and cracked his stick against the floor. ‘You’ll not be having my money – the dog’ll be having you!’

In a panic, Mariah began to run. The gantry shuddered and shook with each step and vibrated the water below. He crossed one tank and then another and another as he ran the length of the glass avenue towards the exit from the Pleasure Palace. All the time he could hear Titus and his dog chasing him.

‘You’ll not get far, not from Titus – I know where you’re going and you’ll not get that way – ’tis locked.’ He sounded old and out of breath as he wheezed each word. ‘Get him, Grub! Rip him to bits, tear him to pieces …’

Mariah leapt over a small gap above a tank of silver fish that skimmed the surface. Suddenly the air around him was filled with silver darts as fish leapt from the water and flew. They jumped and dived. One snapped at his ear with sharp, needlelike teeth. It bled quickly and profusely.

Getting back to the gantry, Mariah ran on. It was as if every piscary contained an even stranger creature than the one before. As he ran on he could see the deep waters beneath him and hear Titus and Grub catching up on him.

‘There’s no way out. Just give yourself up and face the consequences,’ Titus shouted above the ravenous barking of his dog. ‘I’ll spare you, if you give yourself up.’

Mariah thought he sounded insincere. There was smug laughter in his voice. From where he was he could see the long shadows of Titus and Grub dancing on the wall at the other side of the Pleasure Palace. They were getting closer.

‘Come out and I’ll open the gate and let you go,’ Titus said, jangling a set of keys on a thick chain. ‘Just be gone and that’ll be that – understand?’