The Isle of Blood

“Did it strike either of you?” Warthrop asked breathlessly. He did not wait for an answer. His eyes glowed with exultation. “Red rain! You understand what this means, don’t you? We are not too late.”

“It feels as if we are,” Awaale shouted in his face before yanking on his poncho.

The monstrumologist laughed, and lifted his face toward the bleeding sky.

The red rain ended as abruptly as it had begun, and now a great shadow raced across the plain, the sky was engulfed, and the wind returned with a vengeful howl. Then the heavens split open in a furious cannonade. Like a gray curtain slamming down came the torrential rain, driven sideways by the wind, full of hate.

“Stay here!” the monstrumologist commanded, and he dove into the maelstrom and was quickly lost in the twisting sheets of gray. He returned after a moment and threw himself to the ground beside us with a great sigh of relief not altogether owing to the paucity of shelter offered by the trees.

“Well, the rain has washed away most of the evidence, but I did manage to scoop this up,” Warthrop said, opening his hand to show us the severed tip of a human finger. He dug into the instrument case for something to put it in. Awaale watched him impassively; it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His stony expression unnerved me, though.

Not so the doctor of monstrumology. “Before you volunteer for an expedition with a practitioner of aberrant biology, perhaps you should educate yourself in what precisely constitutes aberrant biology,” he said to Awaale.

“The missionaries who taught me must have overlooked that part of my education, dhaktar

,” returned Awaale dryly. The poncho was too small for him. The hood would not fit over his large head, and water coursed down his wide face and dripped from his chin. Fat drops splattered from above, filtered by the tangled arms of the Dragon’s Blood trees.

“I am not surprised,” Warthrop return. “It’s not the sort of thing that God-fearing men like to think about.”

“Now you will tell me that you do not fear God.”

“I don’t know enough about him to form a reasonable basis for fear.”

The doctor wrapped his long arms around his upraised knees and looked to the east—the source of the storm and the gruesome shower that had preceded it.

“We must correct our course, gentlemen. The way lies due east of us.”

“East?” Awaale asked. He glanced over his shoulder but could not even see to the other side of the gully through the ruffling gray shroud of water. “But you said the mountains were impassible this time of year. Rock slides and wind and—”

“Well, I suppose we could send Will Henry ahead with a polite note for the magnificum to rendezvous with us in Hadibu?” The monstrumologist laughed harshly and humorlessly, and then spoke gravely. “Those remains were carried aloft by the winds coming down from the Hagghier Mountains, so it is to the Hagghier Mountains that I intend to go, with your charming company or without it!”

He turned to me, unable to restrain his childlike enthusiasm. “You understand what this means, Will Henry. Despite their best efforts to keep the prize from my grasp, the Russians have failed. The magnificum still roams free!”

“Russians?” asked Awaale. “What Russians?”

The doctor ignored him. “I suspect they put their trust in Sidorov, a terrible scientist who couldn’t find the Statue of Liberty if you plunked him down on Bedloe’s Island!” He tapped the container that held the severed digit. “Maybe this belongs to my former colleague—a fitting end to an ignominious career!”

Awaale was slowly shaking his head. In all his travels he’d never met a man like the monstrumologist, and Awaale, you will recall, had traveled with bloodthirsty pirates. Warthrop’s particular brand of bloodlust was of a peculiar vintage, though, a taste that was wholly foreign to the Somali, like the difference between rotgut and fine wine.

The doctor dropped the specimen container into the instrument case and pulled himself to his feet, holding on to the trunk of the Dragon’s Blood tree to keep from sliding down the muddy slope. He cocked hiis head, as if listening for something hidden in the tumult of the smashing rain. In the gully below, the trickle of water had swelled into a shallow stream merrily racing over the rocks.

“We have to cross,” Warthrop said suddenly. He threw the instrument case over his shoulder and started down. “Now!”