Monstrous Design

by Kat Dunn

  It flashed bright white and there was a bang worse than the fireworks display – but it only bounced harmlessly off a glass jar and she swore.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Wickham spun round, frantically checking his precious collection.

  Quickly, Camille yanked the ropes from around her ankles, as did Al. They exchanged a glance in the briefest of seconds, then leaped in opposite directions, Al tackling Edward headlong into the display with a crash, sending the jars smashing to the floor with a shout of ‘God save my beautiful face!’, while Camille made for James to slip him the blade, then on to Olympe, still strapped to the table.

  She had unbuckled one strap before Wickham was on her, an arm locked around her throat and a hand twisted painfully into her hair.

  ‘How dare you, how dare you?’ he hissed into her ear. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘We are – the Bataillon – des Morts,’ she grunted with the last of her breath. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  As they struggled, Olympe undid the rest of her straps and in an instant she had James untied. He bounded into the fray with Edward, hauling his erstwhile friend away from Al who was biting and scratching like a cat whose tail had been trodden on. Al scrabbled free and reached for his stash of firecrackers.

  ‘Get down!’

  Camille just had time to swing them round so Wickham took the brunt of the blast when Al threw a firecracker into the mess of glass and flesh and spirits. Camille sent up a prayer as it arced through the air, and this time it landed perfectly, the flash of gunpowder lighting the preserving fluid like a match to kindling. Sparks danced behind her eyes; she could hardly breathe, the arm around her throat too tight and her lungs already drowning. The edges of her vision crept black.

  Wickham dropped her as his body jerked. Olympe touched a bare hand to his crown and sent another pulse of electricity through him. His jaw clenched, limbs spasmed and she thought he might bite through his own tongue – then Olympe fell back, face wild with horror.

  ‘I can’t – I can’t—’

  Camille struggled up, looped an arm around her waist. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to. You did good.’

  ‘I can’t kill him, Cam, I can’t become a monster – a weapon.’

  ‘You’re not. Come on, we’ve got to go.’

  The fire had caught, burning through the oiled floorboards and blocking their escape. Camille and Olympe fled up the stairs between the rings of viewing benches to where Al crouched, lobbing firecrackers to cover their retreat. Wickham hadn’t stayed down for long – he was crawling around the floor, lurching like a sailor newly on land, two palm-shaped burn marks on either side of his face. Smoke was filling the air, rising to cloud the upper levels they had climbed to.

  Where the hell was James? Camille doubled over and coughed. And coughed and coughed and coughed, until she thought she must tear apart her own throat. Her hands were bloodied where she held them to her mouth, and her head spun and throbbed. The fire was burning too hot – not again, this couldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t lose anyone else like this. She peered down at the haze of flame and smoke, looking for a body – a figure – anything.

  Anything to cling on to hope.

  12

  The Operating Theatre on Fire

  James circled Edward, smoke making his eyes sting. They knew each other too well; when James moved, Edward moved with him, when Edward feinted, James sidestepped a second before.

  Only now did he feel the true extent of the injury to his arm, the blood loss; the wound ached and his head was dizzy. The preserving chemicals burning in the fire filled his mouth with a bitter taste. He wondered if it still affected Edward, or if meeting death once had armoured him from feeling its effects again. Then again, judging by the mottled pallor of his skin, perhaps death had not left him so far behind. Edward raised his hand, and James saw something glitter. He had found a scalpel from the dissection table, spattered with blood but still wickedly sharp.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ said James, echoing Olympe. ‘This isn’t you, Ed.’

  ‘What do you care, James? You made your choice and you didn’t choose me.’

  James blanched from the hit. ‘No, I didn’t. I’m sorry. But I’m asking you to choose me, now.’

  A beat passed, fire licking the walls and smoke gathering like a thundercloud.

  Then Edward lunged at the same time that James darted back, raced up the stairs between raked balconies two at a time. Halfway up, a hand closed around his ankle. He fell hard, ribs smacking against the stairs. Edward had hold of him, face dark with intent. He stabbed, and James kicked with his free leg, catching Edward across the temple with the heel of his boot almost by chance. Edward yelled, clutching his face. The stitches across his forehead had split, revealing the bone and gristle beneath.

  A firecracker flashed and James took the chance to flee ever upwards. An arm snaked out of the smoke, hooking him into one of the rings. It was Al. James took in Olympe, a shivering outline of blue sparks, and Camille, as pale as chalk save for the hectic spots of colour in her cheeks.

  ‘This way.’ He led them up, up, into the smoke that grew denser and more caustic, looking for the second exit he knew was somewhere along the highest tier. His head swam, the stitches in his arm a burning line. Then, just as his eyes were watering too badly to see, his hand closed on the doorknob, and they were tumbling into a small corridor in the upper reaches of the hospital.

  Olympe and Al supported Camille between them as they ran. At every corner James expected Wickham to appear, mallet in hand – but somehow, after an eternity, they broke out through a servants’ door into a courtyard at the back of the complex.

  In seconds, they vanished into the warren of streets in the old part of the city, cutting first down Butcher Hall Lane, past Christ’s Hospital, then along Ivy Lane and Paternoster Row, heading for St Paul’s. James had the vague idea of looking for a hackney cab along Ludgate Street, though only the hardiest of drivers would be out this late.

  As they reached the soot-blackened, looming mass of the cathedral, Al called for him to stop. There was too much open ground, so James led them to the only hiding spot he could think of: the portico of the cathedral. At the top of the steps, they secreted themselves in a dark corner and Al lowered Camille to the ground. James kneeled before her to take her pulse and her temperature.

  A fever, her heart thumping like a moth battering itself against a lit window. She looked as pale as the blood-drained corpses on the dissection table, her face gaunt and skull-like. Only her eyes blazed, a manic, glossy glint that skipped here and there, lacking focus.

  An understanding had dawned on him just before she’d left for the pleasure gardens but he hadn’t had time to think on it since. Now it was all too clear. It was the doctor’s bread and butter, a sickness you could see on any street in the country. The quiet horror of it was almost more than he could bear.

  ‘Loosen her collar,’ he instructed. ‘Is there any water?’

  Al shook his head, but helped undo the cravat around her neck.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Olympe, still glowing with charge.

  ‘I don’t know,’ James lied. ‘We need to find a cab – keep an eye on the street.’

  Olympe crouched by a column, watching the road intently. James pushed the hair back from Camille’s forehead.

  ‘You’re going to be okay.’

  Camille didn’t reply, only meeting his gaze, then closed a hot hand around his.

  ‘There! A carriage!’ The cry went up from Olympe, and they manoeuvered Camille down the steps towards the horse and carriage pulling along the churchyard. It stopped at the gate in the wrought iron fence, but at the last second James hauled them back into the shadows.

  And there they were – Wickham jumping from the driver’s seat, Edward climbing after him. He made a gesture and they split up, Wickham turning towards Ludgate Street, while Edward entered the churchyard.

  ‘Come on,’ hi
ssed James, following the perimeter fence towards the opposite gate.

  They barely made it a few paces. Camille sagged in Al’s arms, stumbling over her own feet. James lunged to catch her, but she was a dead weight. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she was gone in a faint.

  The clouds cleared from the moon, and the tableaux was cast in silvery light: Camille collapsed, Al and James trying to lift her, Olympe smothering panicked sparks that kept erupting from her skin.

  And Edward, lurching over the paving stones towards them.

  James froze, kneeling at Camille’s head, knees pressed against cold stone. Edward stopped, took in their desperate state.

  James held his gaze, a silent plea passing between them.

  From the street beyond, Wickham was calling.

  ‘Nothing here! Report?’

  Edward watched them, his face cast in sharp angles in the moonlight, only the wound on his forehead to distinguish him from the statues surrounding them. His gaze flicked from Camille, to James, and then to Olympe where she glared in defiance, the shadows shifting uneasily across her skin.

  James held his breath.

  ‘Nothing here either!’ Edward called. ‘Move on?’

  ‘Move on,’ Wickham confirmed.

  Edward lingered, holding James’s gaze. It seemed in that moment that their entire history together, shared triumphs of drunkenly celebrated exam results, lows of sleepless nights spent studying, the quiet moments of ordinary friendship, all of it was laid out between them. And James had betrayed it. He didn’t deserve forgiveness, but Edward had always been the better man.

  He knew it was not over between them.

  But for now, Edward had granted them mercy.

  13

  The Salon, the Duc’s Headquarters

  Tea was a formal affair. Taken in the plush upholstered salon, the duc had invited several aristocratic sympathisers and brought Clémentine up from the catacombs to celebrate the death of Robespierre.

  Ada sat among them, feeling like a weed amid hothouse flowers; she didn’t belong, and it must be painfully obvious to everyone there. The rush of the experiment had left her shaken, the thrill and horror mingling as she played it over and over in her mind. The duc had found a way to kill countless people at once, and she had helped him. The Revolution was on its knees, and it was a matter of time before he had all the pieces in place for a coup. She had given him the largest one.

  How did Camille make these impossible decisions? In that moment Ada desperately wanted to know what Camille would have done in her position, a whole-body longing that still had the power to surprise her. She wanted someone to stroke her hair and tell her she was right and the doubt and anxiety and dread would be worth the outcome. She longed for Camille like she had longed for her mother at ten years old, curled up crying in her bed.

  When a round of toasts was called and measures of brandy were poured, Ada mechanically lifted her glass and drank to the execution of Robespierre, the fall of the Committee for Public Safety and the end of the Revolution. The alcohol burned in her throat. She was glad, at least, that no one expected her to speak. She could still smell the dead rats on her skin.

  Just when Ada thought she couldn’t stand it any more, the duc left with his allies flanking him to conspire in his office. It seemed impossible that time could have unravelled so quickly.

  The Revolution had never defeated the monster; it had only slumbered.

  Clémentine and Ada were left alone. Ada stood abruptly. ‘Thank you for your hospitality, but I must go…’

  ‘Of course.’ Clémentine smiled, though made no move to show her out, as if she knew Ada wasn’t done yet.

  Ada fought herself, fingers twisting in the fabric of her skirt, then gave up and sat back down. There was nothing left to lose. She couldn’t baulk now.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I must raise this again,’ she said. ‘You know I know Olympe. She told us about her upbringing. She thinks very fondly of you, but the duc – she does not know he is her uncle. From her own reports he did … terrible things to her.’

  Clémentine’s face was stormy. She might not have Olympe’s swirling, cloudy-grey complexion, but Ada could see her daughter perfectly in her.

  ‘Yes, I thought it best to protect her from that truth.’

  ‘But the experiments…’

  ‘I regret the way things went. I will not deny it.’

  ‘She’s your daughter.’

  ‘And I have subjected myself to far worse in the name of discovery. I only wish I could speak to Olympe and explain it all to her, that I only ever saw brilliance in her. To achieve the brilliance one is capable of, one must sometimes do unsavoury things – I thought you understood that.’

  She sat, tall and steely, and Ada knew she meant every word she said. It was so hard to reconcile the fierce mother in front of her with the awful past she’d read about in the duc’s notes. Ada thought about the experiment she had just done with the duc. The blood she had on her hands. Did she really have the right to judge?

  ‘When your brother pressured us to hand Olympe over, it didn’t seem like he wanted her back for family reasons. It seemed he was more interested in how her abilities could be used in pursuit of his political ambitions.’

  Clémentine snorted. ‘Philippe is my brother and I owe him a lot, but he is something of an idiot. He can’t use Olympe; she’s her own person. She’ll either work with him or not, that’s her choice. He’s never understood that. He uses the people around him to prop him up because on his own he isn’t half the person he thinks he is. Why else do you think he wants you here?’ Ada flushed. Clémentine shrugged. ‘But what’s so bad about that? We use him too.’

  She turned this thought over. Clémentine couldn’t know the truth of how Ada had come to be working with the duc, but she was right. Ada was using him. Getting close to learn his plans, to work out how to stop him.

  And, if she was completely honest, using him to do what she really wanted with her life. She’d always thought getting to study and to participate in practical experiments was a dream for the future. She had danced with Camille on a rooftop and talked of university, of planning their life to come. The duc had given her that life now.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with taking what you need,’ said Clémentine. ‘Don’t you get tired? Don’t you see there’s no way you’ll ever be good enough for them? You don’t have to play by their rules. Use the skills and resources you have to hand, do the things they never could do – whatever it takes. Because no one is going to hand you anything.’

  Ada rubbed her temples, suddenly exhausted. Why did everything have to be such a struggle? Months and months with the battalion, railing against forces stronger than them, people who thought they knew better, trying to do right. Maybe Clémentine was right. Maybe she was the one making it difficult for herself. Camille didn’t doubt herself, Camille did whatever was needed to get what she wanted. Why was Ada so insistent on being a good girl?

  A good girl – that’s what her father called her, wanted her to be. But it hadn’t got her anywhere with him. Good and quiet and obedient only made it easier for him to disregard her. With the battalion, she had already proved she wasn’t the last one. Maybe there was no reason to be the first two either.

  Clémentine took her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to push you. Only, I see myself in you and it makes me angry that little has changed. And you make me think of my girl. I’ve spent many months powerless to help her… Maybe I can at least help you. Tell me, what does your mother think of your scientific interest?’

  Oh, that felt like a blow. ‘My mother … passed away a long time ago.’

  Clémentine’s face crumpled. ‘My dear, how terrible. So hard for a girl to grow up without a mother. A loss you never stop feeling.’

  Ada was crying before she realised it, fat tears running down her cheeks. She reached for the handkerchief in her pocket, then remembered it was tied round her mother’s earrings and cried even harder.
>
  Clémentine took a square from her reticule. ‘Here, use this.’

  Ada sniffled. ‘She asked for you. When we rescued Olympe, the first thing she said she wanted was to go back to you.’

  Ada felt more than heard the sharp intake of breath. Clémentine turned away from her, a quiet anger clear in her posture. The tears would not stop coming. Ada cursed herself for feeling so helpless.

  Clémentine put an arm around her, mopped the tears from her face. It was a small gesture, but it brought Ada’s mother back to life for just a second, in the gentle and protective sweep of the handkerchief against her cheek. Clémentine might have a warped idea of being a mother, but she still was one. Who could they trust more to help them protect Olympe than her own mother?

  Ada lifted her face, eyelashes stuck together and cheeks wet. ‘I need to tell you something – but you must keep it secret.’

  Clémentine’s brows drew together. ‘You can tell me anything.’

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘Very well, I promise.’

  Ada paused, on the very edge of the cliff. Another step and there would be no going back.

  Sometimes it was impossible to tell the difference between bravery and recklessness.

  She could only find out by taking a leap of faith.

  ‘I know where Olympe is. I know how you can get her back.’

  PART FIVE

  L’Enfer

  1

  6 Bedford Square

  James put away his stethoscope and closed his medical bag. His hands were trembling imperceptibly. Camille watched his movements, feeling detached, unreal. It was like the time Ada took her to see the great telescope at the Observatory and showed her the stars and planets drifting through their ancient orbits impossibly far away. She knew they were connected to her life, that they meant something about the truth of their world. But it was too distant to connect.