The Demon and the Princess Chapt. 10

With a sword shorter than usual somehow hidden in my clothes I was sitting in a carriage heading to Portsmouth. For the first time I missed my dresses; in the hems of my every dress could be hidden a pair of swords, but in the legs of my trousers I couldn't just fit a full-sized sword. I had to get along with a thigh-length sword, which would be a problem in a fight. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time.

I jumped off of the carriage and threw a couple of coins for the driver for the effort. I was running out of money too, but I hoped, that my search would end soon and we would have a solution for this whole situation.

Portsmouth was a bigger place I knew. It was more dirty and dusty than London, and even the ´honest people´ Undertaker was talking about looked like the criminals in London.  The chimneys of the factories were pushing dirt, smoke and ash to the air, and the harbor looked like it was living a different time of the year under its ash cover than the other parts of the city. The sun couldn't get through the thick veil of smoke. I felt like coughing.

I wandered without destination along the streets, because I had no idea, where in this dirty town I’d find the man I was looking for, Konstantin Grigorovits. I should have asked more about Grigorovits from Undertaker, but I was so excited about the fact, that I could find someone who could help me, that I rushed out of the store to find a carriage right after I had got the sword.  

I sat on a barrel that was on an alley; it was so high I had to jump on it and my feet weren't even close to the ground. The ground itself was so dirty, that I couldn't sit on it. I looked the ash that was floating in the air slowly and prayed that I would find what I was looking for.

I tried to come up with the safest way to find Grigorovits. Somehow wandering around asking things from the hucksters of the downtown alleys didn't feel like the best option. I wasn't really familiar with the underground businesses, even though I had been in a lot of things when Ciel was still here.

Ciel… He was the only thing that kept me moving and continuing this sometimes hopeless search. All the beautiful memories had been replaced with a constant, burning worrying. When I closed my eyes, I saw him in front of me weaker and sicker than he had been when I left, and somehow I felt, that our time was running out.

I needed courage now more than ever. Sitting in one place was starting to feel in my limbs and it wasn't any use. I decided to head again to the harbor; at least in the books in the harbor there was always someone, who knew about this kind of things.

There was a cold wind blowing in the harbor. Even though it was summer, the water looked freezing. The sailors loading and unloading cargo were growling angrily, when I bumped into them, and told that the brats should get off from their way. A couple of younger boys tried to give me sympathetic smiles, until some of the elder men pushed them back to their work. I was drifted with the crowd in a foggy bar, from which I wasn't getting out of. When I reached the door, I realized that from here I could find some clues, if I knew how to act.

I took a stand near the door and watched. The sailors here were acting very peacefully and the housekeeper and her daughter were serving the men food and drinks. Maybe this wasn't so bad place I had thought. Suddenly I noticed a curtain next to the counter. It was swaying a bit strange, not like a curtain in front of a window, rather than one in front of a door. When a man walked from behind the curtain with unstable feet it confirmed my doubts. The housekeeper hurried to the place and guided the man out of the kitchen door. Under the curtain exuded thin, grayish-blue twisty smoke.

I inched slowly next to the wall closer to the counter. For my luck one duffer managed to spill his drink over his friend and the men started to brawl, when the housekeepers attention slackened and I got to slope past the counter to the curtain unnoticed. I opened the curtain slightly and went in the room. I turned around and peeked behind the curtain, had someone seen me.

“We meet again, lady Middleford”, I heard a voice behind me. I turned around quickly.
“Lau!”
“Me it is, dear lady”, Lau smirked on the couch between two Chinese woman, “what brings you here? Are you looking for some entertainment?”
I was disgusted and wanted to leave, but maybe Lau had the information I needed. I coughed a bit, because the smoke tickled my throat.
“Do you happen to know anyone named Konstantin Grigorovits?”
Lau got a pensive look on his face. The women were looking at my clothes and giggling. I was annoyed.
“Konstantin Grigorovits… Maybe, maybe, but my memory is very bad…” Lau then said fingering a Chinese coin that was hanging on a string around his neck. I got the hint, but I wasn't ready to give the rest of my money to a mere drug dealer. I yanked my sword out and pointed it at Lau.
“Would this make your memory a bit better?” I asked with as calm voice as possible. It felt little bad to even show a sword in a situation, that didn't require a fight, but I didn't suddenly come up with anything better.
“Well, the lady turned out to be as rough as her fiance”, Lau stated holding his hands up comfortingly. I took a step closer, and his smiling face trembled.
“I might have met a Grigorovits when I came from China along the Silk Road”, Lau said slowly.
I nodded and let him continue.
“He had a Russian tavern nearby, until he got in trouble with the public authority. It had something to do with dark magic, I think… Well, the tavern moved to the downtown, but it didn't last there long. The building still exists, though…”

I was standing in the early evening dusk on a narrow alley with an old- and rundown-looking building in front of me. Over the door was a sign that told there had once been a tavern with a strange Russian name.  I knocked on the door five times as I was told to. Through the windows I saw, that there was a light upstairs. I didn't hear anyone coming downstairs even though I knocked again.  

I was nervous, but I still tried the door; it was open.  I stepped in to a dark room, which looked partly like a tavern, partly like a warehouse. On the other side of the room was a counter, and behind it long lines of glass bottles, on the other side a pile of furniture. Behind the pile I saw steep stairs, which didn’t have a railing on them.

I walked across the untidy floor to the stairs my other hand ready to grab the sword if needed.  I heard steps from the upstairs, but somehow I felt, that I shouldn’t let them know I was here, whoever was moving there. The stairs were sleek and slippery.

In the upstairs there was only one corridor with three doors; two on the other side, one on the other. From the edges of the lonely door gleamed light. I walked silently to the door, and just when I was about to knock, I heard strange, metallic noise inside of the room, and it was strident. I covered my ears with my hands and when the noise finally ended, I saw something liquid running from under the door.
It was blood.