the curse of the nameless city

“Are you frightfully, frightfully, frightened?” asked the evening’s host. “Oh, frightfully so,” the girl shrieked. Around the table, laid in glittering silver, seven places were set, each one without yet a plate. There were only seven egg cups, whose inlaid covers the diners were just removing. Inside each, the head of a kitten bobbed in its own blood. Mr. Maltraven stood at the head of the table and clapped his calfskin hands. “Then our soiree is off to a splendid beginning.”

A country gentleman, he wore tweed. He was extremely tall, and spoke from a great height. His gray hair and hound’s long face were up away from the gleam of the chandelier’s light on the white tablecloth. The taut linen below him was marked with a spray of sharp crimson dots. Miss Stokes, in her horror, had spilt her kitten head. She sat at his left hand, wearing a gauzy, Grecian sort of gown. Her auburn hair was pinned up in a soft pile, with a few wisps lightly trailing her white neck and the lobes of her ears. M. Tranche, beside her, remarked to himself that she had gotten considerably prettier since the last time he had seen her, an ill-behaved, ill-favored little girl screeching about in Cannes. But that had been years ago. How old was she now? He was glad to feel as dashing as ever. The lacquer stroke of hair atop his round head was still jet black; he still had the face of a china doll. He was short and rotund, with small soft fingers, but had never felt this a disadvantage. Beside him was the stranger, Madame Strasky, the mystic. It had been quite a coup on Maltraven’s part, inducing her to attend in person. She was a tall woman, with black hair, mannish hands and lips like raw meat. As befitting someone who spent her days in a veiled chamber, probing the ether for thoughts of human violence, she was dreadfully pale.