The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  “And what of those who did not wish to obey you?” asked Ayesha.

  “They would be persuaded by the use of mesmeric power,” said Tera, as though stating the obvious. “If that proved ineffective, they would of course be eliminated. Why should those who oppose peace, prosperity, and rational rule be allowed to create disorder for others? I shall create a world of order, in which all men will be content and productive.”

  “Then they will not be free,” said Ayesha. “Freedom includes the ability to disobey.”

  “What is freedom? A breath of air when you say the word. You say the syllables, and like that it is gone. Better than freedom are peace and prosperity. That is what I would bring the world.”

  “I cannot allow you to do that,” said Ayesha. “I have seen such peace and prosperity in Africa, have heard of it in India and Asia. It is neither peaceful nor prosperous. Mankind must be taught to be rational, to cast aside centuries of tribalism and even nationalism. I believe such a thing is possible, that with education and time—”

  “Beware, daughter. This world is already on the path to war. Your choice will lead to death and destruction. In Margaret’s mind, I have seen the embers of what will become a conflagration among the Germanic tribes and in the lands of Gaul. I would save this world from despair such as you have never known.”

  For a moment, Ayesha hesitated. She seemed undecided.

  Catherine grabbed her by the arm. Fiercely, she whispered, “Moreau used to say things like that—order, humanity, civilization. It was always supposed to be for the benefit of mankind. But he ended up making monsters.”

  Ayesha looked at her, nodded, and turned back to the Egyptian queen.

  “No empire ever rules justly,” she said to Tera, head thrown back, looking up at the small woman standing high above her in the window. “I learned that when the British came to Kôr. Your intentions may be good, but you too would rule the world as a tyrant.”

  “You have spoken, my daughter,” said Tera. She raised her hands. A wind rose and howled around them. It brought a white smoke that glittered like opals. The last thing Catherine saw before the smoke hid the keep from her sight was the front door opening, and Mrs. Raymond and Margaret Trelawny stepping out. Mrs. Raymond had her hands raised, like a witch casting a spell. Margaret was holding a pistol in one hand, with her other hand under the butt to steady it. The pistol was pointed directly at them.

  JUSTINE: I sometimes wonder if Queen Tera was right. Irene Norton says if things continue as they are, within a generation there will be such a war in Europe as we have never seen.

  MARY: Well, then we must try to prevent it. The Athena Club must try to prevent it. War is never inevitable.

  CATHERINE: The way you primates behave? I would not be so sure about that.

  “You can do it, Alice,” said Mary. “I have faith in you.”

  “As do I,” said Sherlock Holmes, standing behind and a little below them on the steps.

  Once again, Alice pointed at the lock. But today, the spark that came from her finger was even weaker than it had been the day before.

  “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. She felt her eyes prickle. She was about to cry with frustration.

  Suddenly, she heard a meowing outside the door.

  “That sounds like a cat,” said Mary.

  “It’s Bast! Poor Bast. Mrs. Polgarth isn’t coming today, and I think they’ve forgotten to feed her. Why resurrect a mummy cat if you’re not even going to take care of it?”

  The thought of poor Bast without her breakfast made Alice so angry. She pointed at the door. A crackling beam of light sprang from her finger. Suddenly, the lock shattered and the door sprang open. They were free!

  “Come on,” she said. “I’m going to feed Bast, and then we’re going to fight Queen Tera, somehow or other.”

  MARY: You couldn’t open the door for us, but you could for a cat?

  ALICE: Poor Bast. We would never treat Alpha or Omega like that, no matter how much Mrs. Poole insists they’re supposed to hunt mice for their living.

  DIANA: Mrs. Poole puts out food for them every day! I’ve seen her.

  ALICE: Anyway, I’m so glad Ayesha allowed us to keep Bast. She’s a good kitty, isn’t she? Come here, Bastet. You’re a very good kitty, you know that?

  MRS. POOLE: And a spry one, for being two thousand years old! I think she catches more mice than those two scalawags put together. There’s a little extra liver left over from breakfast, which I’m not saying she can have, because animals should not eat food meant for humans, but it’s on the kitchen counter, is all.

  The world was filled with white smoke. Beatrice turned around and around, confused. Where was she? She could see shapes here and there. For a moment, she saw Mrs. Raymond—but no, it was her father, Dr. Rappaccini! He looked at her with mournful eyes. And there beside him was her lover. Giovanni, who had died drinking the antidote to her poison. He too was looking at her—sadly, accusingly. How was that possible? In the rational part of her mind, she thought, Memories too must be formed of energic waves. Mrs. Raymond is making me see things. But somehow, that did not prevent her from seeing them as though they were real.

  Justine stared at herself, at Justine Moritz, the maid of the Frankensteins, surrounded by glinting lights in the white smoke that swirled around her. How pretty that Justine was! What blue eyes she had, what golden hair, what a joyful smile. She herself—what was she? A corpse? A shadow? She fell to her knees and wept in shame at what she had become. This facsimile of a life—would it not be best to end it? To go to the grave Frankenstein had denied her?

  Catherine was surrounded by Beast Men. They grunted and pawed at her. She was not like them! She was not! “Recite the Law,” said the Hyena-Swine. “Are we not men?”

  “Not to go on all fours,” said the Bear Man.

  “Not to suck up drink,” said the Boar Man.

  “Not to claw bark of trees,” said the Leopard Man. “His is the House of Pain. His is the deep salt sea. His are the stars in the sky.”

  And there was Moreau, walking toward her through swirls of white smoke. “You are my greatest creation,” he said. But he had a goat’s horns on his forehead. How had she not noticed before that he was a Beast Man as well?

  Lucinda smelled a rabbit. It was the sweetest, tastiest rabbit she had ever smelled. She wanted nothing in the world so much as to drink its blood. She crouched, low to the ground, so she could smell it better. “Where are you, little rabbit?” she said. “Come, I wish to bite you through the throat and lap up your warm, sweet life. Come to me, little rabbit!” There—she could see it leaping ahead of her, as white as the smoke that surrounded her, mocking her with its sprightly movements. She followed it, almost crawling over the ground in her haste. Somehow, it seemed quicker to go on all fours, like one of Carmilla’s wolfdogs. She threw back her head and howled.

  Alice opened the kitchen door. “What in the world?” she said. There was a sort of white smoke everywhere, all around the keep. It was thickest close to the front entrance, but was spreading rapidly around the entire building. She stood just at the edge of the swirling vapors. It seemed to glint with a thousand lights, and she could see shadows in it, moving around. Above it, at the level of the second-floor windows, floated a black shape, flapping its wings like a crow. No, it was a woman in a black coat, with her black hair spread out around her like snakes. At the window above the front entrance to the keep stood Tera. She spread out her hands, and they crackled with electricity.

  “I see Catherine,” said Mary. “Come on! We have to help her!” She ran toward the white smoke.

  “No, Mary—you’ll be blinded, just as they are!” shouted Holmes.

  But it would not much matter whether or not they ran into the smoke, because it was spreading all around the keep. Alice saw it swirl about her ankles. This was energic power, Tera’s power. Her mother alone could never have been this powerful, although Alice suspected she was in there somewhere, in the smoke,
augmenting Tera’s power in some way. She could feel, faintly, her mother’s energic signature.

  Mary entered the white billows and looked around her. There was Catherine, but what was she doing crawling on the ground? And where were the others? They must also be lost somewhere in that confusing white smoke. “Justine!” she called. “Beatrice! Diana! Where are you?”

  Alice turned to Mr. Holmes. “I don’t know what to do!” she cried in anguish.

  “I’m going to get Mary,” he said with a grim determination she had never yet seen on his face.

  “No!” she cried as he leaped forward and sprinted toward the white smoke. He would be lost in it just like Mary. She had to follow him. This was all her fault. If she had not been Lydia Raymond, she would never have been kidnapped, and the Athena Club would never have been involved in such a dangerous adventure. Somehow, she had to save them all.

  Catherine crouched low and bared her fangs, then turned toward the Beast Men. There was Mary, running toward her through the smoke. “Mary, help me!” she cried. “They’re going to tear me apart with their teeth!”

  Yes, Mary could see them now—the grinning, slobbering Beast Men! Where was her pistol? She must have left it at home, back at 11 Park Terrace. But she could see Catherine’s .32 lying there on the ground. She picked it up.

  “Mary, no!”

  Who had said that? It was a man’s voice, but which man? Moreau? Hyde? Van Helsing? She turned toward the sound. It was Adam Frankenstein! Had he risen again from the dead? She would make certain that he would never rise again, that he would stay dead forever. She pointed Catherine’s pistol at him and pulled the trigger. The shot went straight and true, through the monster’s heart.

  Alice wandered in the glittering smoke, alone. She would be alone forever. No one would ever love her or care for her, because she was not worthy of love. Had not her own mother abandoned her? Her very own mother—but there she was, looking younger than Alice had ever seen her, with long black hair that tumbled down her back in thick curls. “My Lydia,” she said, holding out her arms. “We shall never be separated again.”

  Alice walked into them. To be held as she had never been held before. To be comforted as she had never been. That was everything.

  “My beloved daughter,” said young, beautiful, kind Helen. She kissed Alice on both cheeks. “Now we shall be together always.”

  “Traitor!” It was Margaret Trelawny, standing in the swirling smoke, looking at Alice with fury in her eyes. “This is all your fault. How did you betray us? How did you reveal our plans to our enemies? I don’t know how you did it, but you did it somehow.” She pointed her pistol at Alice.

  “No!” shouted Helen Raymond. She threw her arms around Alice and turned, so that she stood between Alice and the pistol.

  A shot rang out. Helen’s body slumped in Alice’s arms. Incredulously, Alice stared down at her mother. It was no longer the beautiful young Helen that she held in her arms, nor was it the grim Mrs. Raymond she had encountered in the society of St. Mary Magdalen. It was a middle-aged woman, still beautiful, with signs of suffering and sorrow on her face, and strands of gray in her long black hair. “Lydia,” said Helen softly. She reached up to touch Alice’s cheek—then her hand fell, and her eyes closed, and Helen Raymond lay dead in Alice’s arms.

  On the second floor of the keep, Diana followed Laura down a long hallway. Where was Mary? They had looked in every room, but seen no one. The first floor seemed to be filled with a strange white smoke. Even up here, it was creeping along the floor. Laura had a pistol in her hand. Diana had her knife. She was looking forward to using it. No one stole her sister! Mary was annoying, Mary was a bore, but Mary was her annoying bore. They had not found her on the first floor, so she must be up here.

  Laura threw open the last door on the hall. It opened to a large room filled with shelves on which were placed Egyptian artifacts. There were urns and statues and broken objects that looked distinctly Egyptian, or at least ancient and foreign, which in Diana’s mind amounted to the same thing. This must be Professor Trelawny’s study.

  At the far end of the room, in front of a large window, stood Queen Tera. She had her back to them. Out the window, Diana could see lightning crackling across the sky. In the air floated—could that possibly be Ayesha? Queen Tera held out her hand, and lightning surged through the President of the Alchemical Society, lifting her black braids until they all stood on end. Her body arched backward and she screamed in pain.

  Diana clutched at Laura’s arm. “I think Queen Tera’s winning.”

  Laura looked at her with a grim, determined smile. “Diana, would you like to see how we hunt vampires in Styria? I will shoot her, but that will only startle her and slow her down. Then you must cut off her head. Remember that it must be completely severed. She must not be allowed to regenerate. Understand?”

  Diana nodded. Diana Hyde, vampire hunter! This was even better than rescuing Lucinda Van Helsing.

  Laura aimed her pistol, pulled the trigger, and emptied all six bullets into Tera’s back. The Egyptian queen’s body jumped as each bullet entered her back. Then, she fell to the ground.

  “Quick, the knife!” said Laura.

  Diana looked at her knife. It was sharp, but there, on the wall of Professor Trelawny’s study, was a knife that looked even sharper. It was twice as long, with a curved blade on which were etched letters of some sort. She grabbed the hilt and pulled the knife off its hook on the wall. Then, she ran to the fallen queen.

  Tera was staring up at the ceiling. Wounded and bleeding, with her blood spreading over the floor, she pulled back her lips and snarled like an animal. For a moment, Diana quailed. Yes, you did, Diana, don’t deny it. Any of us would have under the circumstances. Not even Diana could remain unaffected by the look of baffled anger on the Egyptian queen’s face. Quickly, she knelt down by Tera’s side and sliced through her slender throat. The knife entered easily until it hit bone. Then, it was gross, really really gross, to saw at that neck, with blood all over the floor, tendons snapping, bones breaking, and Tera twisting her head back and forth, making that terrible snarling sound. Almost too gross even for Diana. Finally, Laura had to kneel and help her. At last, at long last, Tera’s head lay completely severed on the floor of the study. Only then did the light go out of her eyes. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes still open but now sightless.

  Diana looked at Laura, breathing heavily. Both of them were covered with blood—Diana’s trousers and Laura’s skirt were soaked in it, and there was blood spattered all over their shirts and hands.

  “Like that?” said Diana. “Did I do it right?”

  Laura nodded. “You did very well. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  Down below, around the base of the keep, the smoke started to dissipate. Beatrice was sitting on a stone wall that had once been part of the castle, crying bitterly into a handkerchief. She looked up, startled. Where was she, and why had she been weeping as though her heart would break? Justine stared at her hands. The fingernails were bloody, and there were scratches up and down her arms. Had she really tried to take herself apart? That made no sense. Yet it had seemed a logical idea just a moment ago. Catherine was crawling on the ground, growling. She sat back on her haunches. What in the world had she been doing? There were no Beast Men, not anymore. Moreau’s creations had all been destroyed—she was the only one left of her kind. For a moment, the thought made her feel lonely. Lucinda sat on the grass by another stone wall, chewing what seemed to be weeds. She spit them out. How disgusting! She would have to rinse out her mouth with water, or preferably blood. Mary stood over the fallen body of Sherlock Holmes, who was groaning and clutching his side. She dropped Catherine’s pistol. “Oh my God,” she said. “I think I’ve shot him.” Alice sat holding the body of Helen Raymond, which would never rise again. She leaned down and kissed her mother on the forehead while blood soaked through the dress she had brought from the house in Soho, the dress her mother had chosen for her. Ay
esha knelt on the ground, her head in her hands, clearly in pain. There were still bits of lightning playing around her, as though she had been electrified. Margaret Trelawny stood in the midst of them, turning and pointing her pistol about. “You won’t get away with this, any of you!” she cried. “When Tera becomes queen, she will kill you all!”

  Suddenly, something sprang toward Margaret. It was Lucinda—how quickly she moved! In a moment, Margaret lay on the ground, the pistol knocked from her hand and lying on the grass. Lucinda crouched over her, growling. Then, realizing who and where she was, she looked around as though ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I did that.”

  CATHERINE: You see, there are some useful things about being a vampire. Your instincts and reflexes are almost as good as mine.

  DIANA: Then why didn’t you disarm Margaret Trelawny, I’d like to know? But no, it was Lucinda. Nohow.

  Ayesha stood up, although she staggered a little, and glared at Margaret lying on the ground. “That’s quite enough from you,” she said. “Thank you, Lucinda. I think”—she looked around at them all, considering the situation—“that our work here is done.”

  ALICE: I think that sometimes, just for official purposes, I would like to go by Lydia. You can still call me Alice, of course. But I was born Lydia Raymond, and I would like to use that name, sometimes. On legal documents and the like. If nobody minds, that is.

  MARY: Of course we don’t.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Rescue in Southwark

  I’ve never been south of the Thames,” said Alice. “Truth to tell, it doesn’t look that different from Soho.”

  “But you have been many new places recently,” said Beatrice. “Cornwall, for instance. That is quite different from London, whether north or south of the Thames.”

  “Yes,” said Alice. She paused for a moment, then said, “These adventures—they don’t really stop, do they?”

  “No, they do not,” said Beatrice, looking at her thoughtfully. “Would you like them to? You did not need to come with me. There are other ways we could have planned to rescue Martin and the other mesmerists.”