Free Hell Train by Christopher Fowler

on the step of the caboose, and was turning some of them away, as if he sought only a certain type of passenger.
    Isabella opened the carriage door and swung it wide. Her dainty foot hovered over the step.
    ‘Snerinska,’ called the Conductor. ‘All aboard.’
    The sole of Isabella’s high-buttoned boot remained above the platform.
    The pig squealed at her, frightening her back inside. The gypsy woman grabbed the door just before she could shut it and hissed at her in a gutteral dialect. Then she beetled along the platform to board in the third class carriage. Shocked, Isabella fell back in her seat. Nicholas had not noticed her hesitance about disembarking.
    ‘What did that filthy old hag say to you?’ Thomas demanded to know.
    ‘I think... it was part of an old poem, something we learned in the nursery. What do you call it—an old wife’s tale. We must not alight.’
    ‘Why ever not?’
    ‘The story.’
    ‘What story?’
    Isabella was resolute. ‘Nothing. It is nothing. I do not believe in such things.’
    ‘I say, look here.’ Thomas shoved down the window and leaned out, pointing. The steam evaporated, revealing an astonishing sight. A tall, slender lady of upright bearing, dressed entirely in crimson chenille, her coat floor-length and laced with spiderweb silk, her face heavily veiled above red ruffs and frills. Everything about her was a shade of scarlet, even the three pieces of luggage born by a black boy servant.
    To Thomas, the lady’s appearance in the mist was more than merely startling. As he watched her reach the carriage step he felt an unwholesome heat spread through his body. He was captivated. He tried to stop the boy bearing her valises, but the servant’s angry glance warned him away. Instead he reached out to a toothless old woman who trailed adoringly in her wake.
    ‘Can you tell me,’ he asked, ‘who is that?’
    The shawled crone turned one good eye to him. ‘That’s the Red Countess, of course. Maria Theadora Grudczinska, originally of Austria, from the Hungarian line.’
    ‘I have never heard—’
    ‘There are tales about her that would burn your ears.’ She bustled on, anxious not to be left behind.
    As the Red Countess tilted her head and whispered something to the Conductor he touched her arm, helping her onto the step. He did the same to an storm-faced army Brigadier, the man dressed like a funeral director and the elderly fellow with the holdall. Many of the others were turned away.
    The train seemed to sigh with impatience. There was an argument about tickets. One of the peasants attempted to fasten himself to the carriage window, but Thomas quickly drew it up and slammed the lock shut.
    And this is a Christian minister, thought Nicholas, how fast he is to close the foreigners out. He had travelled the world and learned much of others’ lives, and the only lesson he had learned from Christianity was how many slights were remembered and how little was ever forgiven.
    Nicholas glanced down at the sweat-softened map in his hand and felt sure it could not be relied upon. Behind the station at Snerinska he had seen angular green hills cropped with brown mountain rock. The track arced around, heading into the night-shrouded landscape, and there was no way of knowing what they would find there.
    ‘There seems to be some kind of delay.’ Nicholas looked out at the passengers who had been denied entry to the train. They stood mutely waiting for the Arkangel to leave. He saw two men in black frock-coats pushing a long wooden crate into the guard’s van. ‘They are loading something on board that looks like a coffin.’
    Isabella looked around in sudden anxiety. ‘Where has Thomas gone?’ she asked.

 
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    THE COUNTESS
     
     
    T HOMAS FOLLOWED THE Red Countess’s approach and embarkation, transfixed. He could smell her perfume—cloves and almonds—and some kind of herb.
    He stood outside the compartment and watched in fascination as she raised her arms,