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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Shane Carrow
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March 30 - April 1, 2021
The American checked the clocks above the ticket desk and felt his muscles unclench. He’d made it with fifteen minutes to spare.
I know that feeling.
Another note: if they don't refer to our Brit counterpart with the same sort of repetitive service, I shall be disappointed.
Lucas Avery sat in the smoking car of the Orient Express as it wound its way out of the suburbs of Paris, into the rain-sodden fields and vineyards of Champagne.
Okay. I gotta note this here. Avery is the name that initially intrigued me. Namely because of 'The Vampyre'. Is this Avery related to the titualar man himself?
It should either be baking hot or freezing cold, in his opinion. He occasionally quipped at dinner parties that this belief was half the reason he went into the Foreign Office, and while it often drew a laugh, he wasn’t entirely joking.
Claes asked Avery more about his supposed work for the Bank of England, and turned out to be the rare and difficult sort of person who wasn’t simply being polite but was actually interested in what his conversational partner had to say—something
“Young men and Americans,” Claes said. “Fine people in their own right, but I wouldn’t want to be either one of them.”
A rich stew and a strong red wine, raindrops splattering down against the dark window: that ancient civilised feeling of smugness, of being warm and dry while the world outside was not.
I’ll sit there with my coffee and just marvel at it, take it all in. And within a couple of months? Of course I was just reading the paper.”
“I feel happy to wait until I meet the right person,” Avery said delicately. “Well,” Claes said. “A toast to that. To the right person.”
Or the right job.
He’d been putting careful feelers out all night, but it had become clear at the threshold of their cabins that the young American man was strictly traditional.
Knew it!!
Life was nothing more than a series of moments strung together.
Well duh.
Right on the edge of sleeping and waking, just as he was about to plunge into a deeper slumber, a scream cut through the night.
“So you are carrying a pistol, though. Across borders. As a foreign national.” “I was planning to throw it out the window after we left France. In light of recent events—maybe not.”
On the real though!
If I’m not awake for the lunch service, come hammer on my door, would you?” “This is the Orient Express, Mr Carter,” Avery said. “You can ask the staff to do that. That’s what you’re paying for.” “Well, thanks very much, partner,” Carter muttered,
It's official. They're partners!
The world was a dark and nasty place and he’d seen enough of that now; knew that people could die at any minute with their problems unsolved, their love unrequited, their dreams unmet.
Something malignant poisoned the air of the Orient Express.
Whoever or whatever had attempted to harm Evin Durmaz was either an interloper who had boarded and left before Strasbourg, or was still aboard the Express.
“And where was the Lord last night, when Evin Durmaz was attacked?” “He sent you and Mr Carter,” Verninac smiled. “Very glib, Father. But the girl is still very sick.” “For that, M’sieur Avery, he has sent us a doctor.”
As he’d suspected, then, but it was important to do your homework.
It's like Facebook stalking, but old.
SIMILARITY TO JAMES WATERHOUSE CASE IN ULLAPOOL 1901 STOP CAN FORWARD CASE FILE TO CONSTANTINOPLE STOP HOPE FOR YOUR SAKE THIS IDLE CURIOSITY STOP
Whomever is sending these telegrams knows how to employ some serious, short-worded sass like a boss.
Forwarding the case file to Constantinople wouldn’t be very useful if he never reached the city alive.
“I know that you’ve never murdered anyone. Because if you had, you wouldn’t threaten me. You’d just do it.” Or try to do it, at least, Avery thought.
“Stop it with the mister bullshit,” Carter said. “Call me Sam, for Christ’s sake. You’re Lucas, right?” Avery’s nose twitched, the same micro-organisms which dyed his blood blue rebelling at the casual attitude of this Colorado tumbleweed. “If you prefer.”
I'm dying.
“Where do you propose we start, then?” Avery checked his watch. “Well, you and I have a dinner appointment in about half an hour.” “Excuse me?”
It's a date LOL
“They both have bad eyes?” Carter said. “A family trait, sir,” Dascalu said smoothly, putting a match to the lantern wick. “Husband and wife?” Carter said. Avery glared at him.
“Watch your tongue, you damned yokel,” Avery hissed. “What was it you were saying before about the civilised world?”
“Indeed,” Dascalu said, and turned the key in the lock that opened the carriage door.
Spooky. They were locked in.
It was all too complicated, especially on your fourth or fifth drink.
Long, splintered pieces of wood lay scattered across the floor. Carter seized the nearest, his chest twanging, some broken rib or torn muscle drowning in a sea of adrenaline.
Get that bitch!
“Did you see it?” Avery demanded. “Did you see?” “What on earth are you talking about?” Claes said. “I saw,” Jean-Paul said hollowly. “I saw it… it… mon Dieu…”
*“Who?*
Random asterisks. Probably place holders for italics.
*“It,” Carter thought, while Jean-Paul still thinks “he.”*
More italics as astericks.
I do not believe we are battling ordinary human beings.”
Thanks, Father Obvious.
Something lupine, ursine, feline, chiropteran. Something red-eyed and savage. Carter already knew it would reoccur to him for the rest of his life, probably around two o’clock in the morning.
If you’re going to die there are worse ways than this, his inner voice said. So Carter gripped his stake, and carried on.
It was like a morbid child’s school problem: if it takes so-and-so minutes for the conductors to realise a carriage is on fire, and the train is already travelling at blah-blah miles an hour, how many miles has it covered before two half-dead amateur monster hunters catch up to it when it’s however many degrees below zero at… whatever o’clock in the morning?
“What’s Romania compared to Colorado?” “In Colorado we try not to jump out of trains in the middle of the night in February.” “March,” Avery said. “It’s past midnight. It’s the first of March.” “Well, that has a ring to it for the tombstone, then,” Carter shivered. “Born 1st of March, 1892, died 1st of March, 1914.” “Really?” Avery said. “Well. Many happy returns.”
I just want a whole book of them going back and forth, honestly.
He grabbed Avery by the arm. “C’est miracle…” “Easy,” Carter wheezed. “Easy with him. That arm’s gonna snap off like an icicle, if you’re not careful…”
Avery stood up, and looked down at the German woman. “Tell her we are going to get her daughter back.” “Are we?” Carter said. “I am coming with you,” Captain Claes said. “And me,” Father Verninac said, rising from beside Mrs Durmaz. “Christ,” Carter said.
Carter's the brawn and Avery's the brains. I love it.
“I ran away,” Jean-Paul said meekly. “Good God, kid, don’t worry about that,” Carter said. “I probably would’ve too, if he hadn’t knocked me down before I got the chance.”
A projection, Avery thought. I suspect you’re weaker than you appear, Mr Dascalu.
Smart, Avery. Smart.
“Do you think I select just any soul to join me in eternity? It is an honour, gentlemen. A great honour.” “Why did you pick the girl, then?” Carter said. “What makes her so special?” Dascalu smiled, his lips thin and pale in the glum lanternlight. “Because she is young,” he said softly, “and beautiful.”
“Would it not be everything you want?” Dascalu shrugged. “You could observe. You could learn. No? Well, then, what about you, Father?” He turned his gaze to Verninac. “Is that not the duty of the priest? To care for his flock?” He turned to look at Claes. “And the duty of the soldier? To sacrifice himself for the innocent? I won’t bother asking you, Mr Carter—I know you are a selfish man. But perhaps you, Jean-Paul? To step forward and take the place of a beautiful young woman? They would write songs about you…”
Bruh, everybody's taking the absolute piss out of Carter, but like... The dude can throw down. He's aight in my book.
“Do you still have your gun?” Avery said urgently. Carter barked a weak laugh. “That’s a nine millimetre round, Lucas. That’s not going to stop a charging wolf in its tracks.” “But if you hit it in the eyes, or the mouth…” “What, you think I was a gold medallist at Stockholm? Tell you what, you have the gun and you can try and hold ‘em off while I climb a damn tree!”
I'm wheezing!
*“Donde?*
Astericks.
“What are you trying to explain to the feller?” Carter said. “That we need to burn the tavern down. He doesn’t seem to understand.” Carter stared at him.
“You don’t have to do anything else,” Avery said. “Just give me the gun.”
Don't do it Carter.
Carter stared at him wearily, and then pulled the Browning from the back of his belt and passed it under the table. “What’s your plan, Lucas?”
Bitch!
“I know you’re in here,” Avery said, drawing on eight years in the diplomatic service and ten generations of aristocratic breeding to sound more confident than he felt.
