Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  ‘No. We wait.’ She explained her plan to search Lord Harford’s documents for intelligence on the duc. ‘Keep following James. See if he moves Olympe.’

  Al frowned. ‘Are you sure you’ll find something worth the risk of waiting?’

  ‘This is bigger than just James and Olympe,’ she said. ‘We get back to France – then what? We’ll still have the duc to reckon with and I’m more afraid of him than I am of anyone in this poxy country.’ She turned the book over in her lap, running her finger along the edge of the pages. ‘Ada’s risking her life in Paris trying to get close to him. If we can find something on him, we owe it to her to get it. Lord Harford is the war minister. If there’s anything worth knowing about Royalist movements in Paris, he’ll know it.’

  Al cocked his head. ‘Careful now, you’re making something dangerously like sense. I’m impressed. I’d have thought you’d be distracted by other things.’

  ‘What other things?’

  Al threw a cherry in her direction. ‘Oh dear, have you forgotten about your upcoming nuptials so quickly?’

  Camille caught the cherry and angrily yanked the stem out. ‘Ah. That.’

  ‘Yes. That. Tell me if I’m overreacting, but I’m not sure Ada’s going to be thrilled about this development.’ Al’s voice briefly lost its joking edge. ‘She deserves better.’

  Camille pressed her thumb into a bruised divot in the cherry. It was soft, rot setting in. ‘I know she does. Just – let me figure this out. The wedding gives us a place here. It keeps James from running. The rest – I’m trying.’

  Al looked around at the mess of books lying open on the table.

  ‘Yes, I can see. There has been quite an attempt. A very good try.’

  ‘Are you ever going to be useful or are you just sent here to be my own personal living hell?’

  ‘Don’t murder me with your sexy thigh knife, but you are the one who insists on keeping me around.’

  At that she looked up, eyes flashing. ‘You’d get into trouble otherwise. I risked a lot to keep your head where it is, I’m not going to let you throw yourself into harm’s way again.’

  Al stilled, a tension entering his body. ‘About that. I’ve … been thinking.’

  ‘There’s a turn up for the books,’ she said, but the joke felt sour on her lips. Something was wrong.

  ‘I’m not going back to Paris.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll help you to find Olympe but after this job is done, I’m out.’

  Camille stared at him, floored. ‘I don’t understand. You mean – leave the battalion?’

  ‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what else to say. The worst has already happened to me, Camille. I watched my whole family die; I nearly died myself. I’d rather stay here and be no one than go through that again.’

  She felt almost breathless with shock. Oh god, it was happening: that image of her battalion dropping away one by one was coming true. Olympe stolen from her, James’s betrayal, now Al leaving. She would be alone, surrounded by ghosts.

  ‘You can’t just leave. We need you.’

  ‘Do you?’ His voice was cold.

  ‘Yes. Of course we do.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He was silent, watching the runnels of rain coursing down the windowpanes. Camille cast around for something to say, something persuasive or comforting or whatever it was Al needed, but she found nothing. This wasn’t her skill. God, she barely understood her own feelings, never mind other people’s.

  Al bounced up on his seat, tension vanishing in an instant as though he had taken off a coat. It seemed he was done talking. ‘Cheer up. I’m still here for now. With all your racket I haven’t had time to tell you the most important thing.’ He pulled out a key, then tossed it to her. ‘For James’s room. Sadly I am light-fingered and couldn’t stop myself pocketing it. Such a shame. No redeeming me.’

  Camille’s face lit up. A spark of hope flared as she held the key. ‘You got it! You’re such a little shit, Al. Don’t ever hold out on me like that again.’

  Now she had two leads: access to James’s rooms, and Lord Harford’s government intelligence. Finally they were no longer on the back foot.

  Al stood, stretching until his bones cracked. For a brief moment, that shadow crossed his face again. ‘I’m serious, Cam. I’ve made up my mind. This job will be my last.’ He didn’t wait for her reply, the library door swinging firmly shut behind him.

  She turned the key over in her hand, feeling its teeth against her fingers. If they couldn’t stop the duc, it might be the last job for them all.

  8

  St Bart’s Hospital

  A shock of black hair and chalk-white skin so thin James could see the flurry of veins and arteries spread like the roots of a plant. That was Edward, sprawled on the cutting table, stripped naked and covered in wires looking like so many leeches.

  Together James and Wickham had moved with slow, precise motions, reaching across Edward’s corpse to attach them along his chest, to his head, the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands. At the foot of the slab and connected to the wires was a large glass tube, set with a hand crank.

  There was one last chance to do right by his friend. Whatever came next, he had to face it head on. For Edward’s sake.

  Another crack of thunder broke outside.

  James locked the operating-theatre doors, and they set to work.

  While James cranked the handle, Wickham monitored the flow of electricity. The current would pass along the wires and into the body; the theory was that if they could send a large enough charge, they could restart the vital spark of life. James had seen it done with frogs’ legs and small animals, the jerking, twitching movements of their limbs as, for a moment, life surged through them – but the current was never strong enough. Wickham had been convinced they were losing too much electrical charge at the point of generation but had been unable to crack a workable solution. It seemed that the research notes James had stolen gave the answer.

  A sudden flurry of rain smacked the windows, like someone battling to get in. The storm lamps guttered. A hum and crackle filled the air. James’s hair rose in a halo around his head and his tongue fizzed.

  Muscles twitched. Edward’s legs convulsed. His eye opened, the white turned yellow.

  Then he fell still.

  James felt faint, sick. His hand was clammy on the crank and some ancient instinct told him to run. This was wrong. Life wasn’t a toy to be played with.

  He remembered Edward calling out to him. Dashing into the road, the clatter of horseshoes and the crunch of impact. We were like brothers, once.

  There was no turning back now.

  Wickham muttered to himself, adjusted the wires and gestured for James to start the crank again.

  Edward’s body spasmed, contorting in a grotesque echo of the patients who squirmed and cried in pain as Wickham performed surgery on them.

  Lightning flashed in a starburst that illuminated the laboratory, Wickham, the corpse, the blue sparks of the charge as it strengthened.

  The body jerked again, writhing and writhing and then – like a chorus of dancers moving as one – the movements coalesced. Arms and legs drawing together like a swimmer thrashing at sea, face twisting into a grimace.

  Edward’s eyes snapped open.

  When he fell still this time, James knew it was different. The current crackled in the air, though he had stopped turning the crank. Edward’s hand reached to touch his face. Tracing the blood-smeared jaw and cheekbone. The curl of dark hair.

  ‘Edward?’ asked Wickham gently.

  James was lifted by a wave of elation. A flash of memory: candle flame, Edward spattered with blood and hair stuck with sweat fresh from his first successful surgery, grinning with exhilaration.

  Edward had died, but they had used electricity to bring him back. James had done it, something all but impossible. He’d saved his friend.

  He’d undone his mistake.

  ‘What – what happened?�
� Edward’s voice was raspy and low. One pupil was still blown, and he blinked slowly, eyelids moving out of sync.

  ‘There was an accident,’ explained Wickham. ‘But you’re all right now.’ His face was alight with excitement. ‘Can you move? How do you feel?’

  ‘I feel – cold.’

  They helped Edward sit, wrapped a blanket around him.

  ‘This is brilliant,’ said Wickham. ‘Here we have living proof my theory is viable. The War Ministry will have to listen now.’

  James couldn’t stop staring at the stitched cut on Edward’s forehead, where shortly before he had seen bone, the shallow indent like a thumb pressed into clay.

  At his friend, who had been a corpse, and now was not.

  Wickham had his proof; it was a straight race between them now to see who would get to his father first.

  ‘You came back,’ Edward croaked, and hooked his stiff fingers around James’s. ‘I knew you would.’

  James twisted his hand away. The feeling was too strange.

  He only realised now that Wickham couldn’t have known how Edward would come back. How death might have changed him. It was his Edward sitting in front of him, but it could have easily not been. The wrongness hit him all at once, a wave smashing him off his feet. They had treated Edward’s life like another experiment. Olympe was right; he was no better than the duc. He kept telling himself the things he did, the lines he crossed, the people he hurt, were worth it.

  He wondered if there was an end to the path he’d started on.

  ‘I – I have to leave.’ He fumbled with the apron strings, grabbed his topcoat.

  ‘Where are you going?’ A note of threat in Wickham’s voice. ‘This news cannot be shared.’

  ‘I won’t – I’m sorry.’ He couldn’t look at either of them. ‘I – need some air.’

  ‘James!’

  Once out of the theatre, he ran and didn’t stop until he was halfway up High Holborn where he huddled under a shop awning along with several other people sheltering from the storm.

  He waited, wondering whether Wickham would follow.

  Lightning flashed, but the thunder had moved further away.

  When no one came after him, he breathed deeper. Shut his eyes.

  He saw Edward on the slab again. Saw him jerk and twitch. His eye open. He had met death and returned.

  James shivered despite the muggy summer warmth.

  He had to bring Olympe to his father before Wickham could tell him about Edward.

  Through the last of the rain he cut back to the Rookery and up to his room. At the top of the stairs, he frowned.

  His door was slightly ajar.

  Oh god, he really was too late. He flung himself inside.

  But Olympe was already gone.

  9

  The Printing House of L’Ami d’Égalité

  ‘My dear, my dear – you’ll never guess who I found waiting in my office.’

  Ada’s father stepped aside to present Guil coming down the stairs. He looked as exhausted as Ada felt, but his suit was crisply pressed, his cravat exquisitely folded; he’d learned Ada’s lessons of dressing for bloodless battle well. Still in shock from her encounter with the duc, it took her a minute to truly register that Guil was here, alive, safe. She felt a rush of love and relief, and it was no pretence when she embraced him, kissing both cheeks.

  ‘You gave me such a – surprise!’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  She squeezed his arm. ‘Well, you’re here now.’

  Her father clapped his hands. ‘So, what is it you young people have planned for the day? A play? The pleasure gardens?’

  ‘With your permission, citoyen, I had been considering a visit to the Observatory.’

  Ada bit her tongue. She had forgotten they were due to meet Léon today at the Observatory. It was too close to the duc’s new headquarters for comfort, but there was no changing it now.

  Guil continued. ‘Ada mentioned she used to have a telescope, so I wondered if she might be interested in viewing theirs. I hear it’s something of a popular curiosity.’

  ‘What a brilliant idea. You must go at once.’

  Ada found herself packing picnic baskets and organising a carriage to take them, yawning all the while as their late-night activities caught up with her. Finally, they were alone together on the drive across the city, tracing the path they had cut the night before with the resurrection men. In daylight the city was no less sinister, with corpses left in gutters, effluence flowing in the street past fine buildings shuttered and barred.

  The journey was torturously slow. Ada had travelled faster on foot as part of the battalion, but she was a lady now, and a lady had to mind her delicate slippers and fine skirts.

  She knew she should tell Guil about her run-in with the duc, that he had seen them last night. But the longer she left it, the harder it was to get the words out. Every time she tried, she choked at the duc’s offer, swallowed by shame because she couldn’t deny she was considering it.

  So she fell silent, letting the shape of a plan resolve itself. Once she knew what she wanted to do, she would tell Guil, she would. Once she knew how to make him understand.

  They arrived at the Observatory a little before lunchtime. Ada unfolded herself from the carriage, sticky with sweat, in front of an imposing two-storey building that stood alone, surrounded by a sweeping grassy terrace overgrown with weeds. Ada had seen engravings from its happier past, when countless astronomers, nobility and their servants from around the country had gathered there to set up telescopes and other equipment for measuring the stars.

  In the mundane light of day, it looked nothing special. A few of the tall windows had been boarded over, the limestone walls grimy with coal smoke and blooming patches of moss crawling up from the ground. At the door, the housekeeper was accepting visitors in return for cold hard cash.

  The Revolutionary regime had neglected the Observatory, the housekeeper explained, due to the old director, Comte Cassini, being a Royalist. There was a temporary director in place, but with no real money to speak of, the grandeur was barely more than a memory.

  ‘You can have a look at the big telescope if you like,’ she said, ‘but don’t break anything.’

  The housekeeper took them through a room full of smaller telescopes and lenses gathering dust to the first floor, where a long, high-ceilinged gallery stretched the width of the building. Sunlight flooded through the windows, and above one was drilled a hole the size of a fist. It sent a coin of light onto the floor and along a marble path measured in brass markers and decorated with astronomical symbols.

  Ada dragged Guil over to it, caught up in sudden delight.

  ‘Oh my goodness, look! It’s the Paris meridian line! I came here once before with Camille, but this room was closed.’

  ‘I … see. Very interesting.’ Guil’s attention had drifted to the view outside, and the duc’s house beyond. ‘Léon left word that he had some urgent intelligence to share, but clearly not urgent enough for him to arrive on time.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. You don’t have to pretend you’re interested.’

  In that moment, Ada missed Camille something fierce. She didn’t much understand what Ada would go on about, but she would listen attentively all the same, curling an arm around her waist, turned to her like a flower follows the sun.

  Guil softened. ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘The meridian – it’s a way to measure the height of the sun. It’s how we can work out what shape the earth is.’

  ‘A stage, my dear, that’s the earth’s shape.’ Léon arrived in the gallery like a leading man entering on cue. ‘And we are but players on it.’

  Ada’s lips quirked. ‘I see now where Al gets his Shakespeare quotes from.’

  Léon was dressed as though it was the last thing he had thought about, in clean but worn breeches and jacket, a paisley scarf flung carelessly around his neck in place of a cravat. His exquisitely embroidered waistcoat looked as
if it had been lifted from the Théâtre Patriotique costume box, and his shoes needed a polish – like all of them, he was surviving, but at a cost.

  ‘How is Al?’ Léon spoke off-hand, but he wasn’t a good enough actor to hide the way his eyes stayed sharply trained on her.

  ‘We’ve had no word,’ said Ada. ‘But he will be safe in England, I promise you.’

  ‘I would say I can’t believe he fled the country and let me think he was dead, but unfortunately it is quite in character.’

  Ada had thought Al and Léon only a casual thing, though it had become clear it was something more – from the tension in Léon’s jaw when they spoke of England, or the faux nonchalance when Al’s name came up. She thought of Al and his fraught childhood, barren of love, and how he guarded it now so closely and secretly.

  And she thought of Camille the last time she had seen her, eyes glittering and a crackle in her lungs.

  They both would be safer there, she had to believe it.

  ‘You said you had something for us?’ asked Guil.

  They crossed to the far end of the gallery, away from other visitors clustering around the meridian line. Out of the tall windows and across the grounds the view spread over the city; between the fluttering canopy of treetops, Ada picked out roofs and spires – perhaps of the Palais du Luxembourg by the battalion’s former home above the café Au Petit Suisse – but more likely just the gutted shell of the Val-de-Grâce.

  ‘How did my last tip go?’ asked Léon. ‘One always likes to know about one’s successes. It was a success?’

  Ada and Guil exchanged glances, and Guil nodded. ‘He has been found.’

  ‘Congratulations. In which case, this might be even more interesting to you. Someone I reckon is this self-same duc has been sniffing around the soldiers littering the city.’

  Ada frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Muscle for hire, I had assumed. Since you disposed of his right-hand man, he would be in need of a replacement.’

  ‘No shortage of people looking for work,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he’s been able to equip himself with a personal guard.’