Cadaver & Queen

by Alisa Kwitney

  “Professor Makepiece,” she begged as Igor grabbed her wrist in his rough, callused hand, “please don’t do this! You were my father’s friend!”

  But all Makepiece did was pick the bone saw up from the floor and examine the blade. “Put her on the operating table,” he said. “And use the restraints.”

  37

  A roll of gauze bandages wrapped around Lizzie’s chest and lower abdomen was all that kept her from being completely naked on the bed. Justine, she saw, was covered only by a sheet, but then, her poor legs needed no restraints. She wondered if the other girl was as cold as she was; the heat from the radiators did not reach the middle of the room, and her arms and legs were covered with gooseflesh. From time to time, she gave an uncontrollable shudder.

  The metal helmet of the large magnetometer had already been placed on Justine’s head, and the smell of carbolic acid filled the small room. Makepiece was talking softly—to Justine, presumably—as he fiddled with the controls on the box, which was large enough to serve as a chair or a small table.

  Victor was still slouched in a chair, unconscious. She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the tears that kept trickling down her face.

  “Father, please, it’s not too late to stop.” Justine’s whisper seemed oddly amplified. “You can still stop all of this.”

  Makepiece smiled down at his daughter. “But why would I want to?”

  “Because if you kill her to remake me, then you and I will both be transformed into monsters.”

  I think I like her after all, thought Lizzie. Though not enough to give up my life for hers.

  “Brace yourself.”

  There was a crackling sound as her magnetometer was turned on to its highest setting, and then Justine went rigid, her whole frail body racked with spasms as she made a sound of anguish so impossibly loud that it seemed to echo inside Lizzie’s head. For a moment, everyone froze. That’s it, she thought. He’ll have to stop now. There’s no way he’ll put his daughter through that kind of agony. Then she saw Makepiece’s face as he approached her. He was actually smiling, so fixated on his goal that nothing could move him.

  “Your daughter—is she all right?”

  “Of course, my dear,” said Makepiece, calmly inserting a chloroform-soaked gauze sheet into a small steel basket. “Justine can endure a few moments of pain, knowing that a cure is finally at hand.”

  “Please, please, don’t do this.” She didn’t want to beg. She wanted to be brave and strong and silent, but this was Makepiece, and maybe pleading would move him.

  “There, there,” he said, bending over her, suddenly paternal and soothing. “It’s the anticipation that’s the worst part, and that’s almost all over now.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “The worst part is dying.”

  He sighed. “You’re distraught. But just think: the improvements you helped me make to the Galvanic Reanimator are going to preserve your intelligence and even some of your memories. Isn’t that a fitting memorial to your talents?”

  “But I don’t want a memorial!” She moved her head frantically from side to side, looking around the room for some kind of help. “Igor, please, don’t let him do this to me! Victor, wake up, please help me!”

  “Igor,” said Makepiece, and now his voice was devoid of any emotion. “Hold her.”

  She felt strong hands clamping down on her head. Will I even know who I am when I open my eyes again? she wondered. Will it be all Justine, or will there be anything left of me at all?

  “Try to take deep, even breaths,” said Makepiece, fitting the mask over her face.

  She tried to hold her breath, but in the end she had to inhale, and the overripe-fruit smell of the chemicals burned the inside of her nostrils. It would be just like going to sleep, except she would never wake up. Well, it was probably easier to go this way than to be shot. Yet she kept expecting a last-minute reprieve to come from somewhere. It was human nature, her father used to say, to hold out hope until the very end.

  And then, just as her thoughts began to ripple and swirl from the cloying sweetness of the fumes, she heard a voice over her left shoulder, and suddenly there was reason to hope.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, Doc, but I think you’re going to have to let her go.”

  It was Jack! Somehow, he must have fought off the effects of the sedative.

  “Igor, restrain him.” Makepiece continued to hold the mask over her nose and mouth, squeezing the rubber balloon.

  She had an absurd thought, as she looked up at Makepiece’s face: his nose hairs blend in with his mustache. She giggled, hardly knowing why.

  “Sorry,” Jack was saying, gesturing with the scalpel in a way that made it seem unmistakably like a weapon. “I really can’t wait. Terribly impatient, me. It’s a character flaw.”

  “Igor,” snapped Makepiece, “handle this.”

  Igor, standing beside Justine, made a little grunting squeal of distress.

  Jack grinned, as if this were all a lark. “Remove the mask, Professor, or I’ll remove your thumb.”

  “Igor! What’s wrong with you?” Suddenly, the mask was gone and she could breathe again. As her muddled thoughts cleared a little, she saw that Makepiece was snapping at Igor, who remained stubbornly by Justine’s side, grunting to himself like a frightened animal.

  “Stop that, I tell you! I gave you a command, you cretin!”

  Igor grunted again and, this time, Makepiece turned to his daughter and said, “Justine, will you reason with... Justine? Justine?” The pale girl made no response, and Makepiece hurried over to her side. “Dear God, she’s not breathing!” Raising his head, he looked desperately around the room. “My daughter... Victor, please, I need your help...”

  Jack shook his head. “You got rid of Victor, remember?”

  “Bring him back! Can’t you see she’s dying?”

  The word seemed to galvanize Igor. Lizzie saw him lunge sideways at Jack, taking him by surprise, and then there was a scuffle and crash, the sound of something scraping across the floor, a door slamming shut. She couldn’t see what happened next, but after a moment, Makepiece said, “Well done, Igor. You dumped him outside? Good, good. Well done. And now we will help Justine.” Then the mask was placed over Lizzie’s face again, and she couldn’t tell whether her eyes were open or closed anymore, because there was a metronome made of light in front of her, ticking back and forth, back and forth, keeping time with her heartbeats, and then...no light and sound at all.

  * * *

  “You have to wake up! Wake up!”

  The voice was Justine’s.

  “Miss Lavenza. Elizabeth!” The girl’s voice was strong and insistent, not breathless at all.

  Lizzie opened her eyes. “Why is everything so foggy?”

  “There’s an angry mob of villagers carrying torches and pitchforks just outside the front doors of the school. They’ve already set fire to the main hall, and now they’re torching the laboratory. This whole place is made of old wood, and once it’s alight, it will burn up fast. Can you sit up?”

  “No.” She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but the haze remained. She looked at her left wrist and saw that the restraint had been unbuckled. Her right wrist was free as well, and for some reason, her arm was not supported by a sling. “Yes. Maybe.” She rolled over on her left side, which made her cough. “Where is everyone?”

  “Never mind. We have to move quickly.”

  “I’m trying.” She couldn’t go anywhere wearing nothing but a few strategically placed bits of gauze, so she looked around till she saw a lab coat and managed to put it on, awkwardly buttoning it with her left arm. She coughed again, then realized that her vision was growing more clouded. “Justine...I think there’s smoke in the room.” Now she could smell it, too, and taste its harsh tang in the back of her throat.

  “I know.”

>   Lizzie shuffled over to the girl where she lay on the table, feeling no more nimble than Igor, and tripped. She fell hard, jarring her injured right arm.

  “You all right? Elizabeth?”

  Lizzie couldn’t respond at first, as shock waves of pain raced up her shoulder. After a stunned moment, she realized what she was lying on: a body. She scrambled up and saw that it was Professor Makepiece, his brown eyes staring sightlessly over the rims of his spectacles. There was no sign of any wound, but she didn’t need to check his pulse to tell that he was dead.

  There was a shuffling sound behind her, and she gave a sharp, instinctive scream, and heard an answering sound—a grunting squeal. “Igor,” she said, recognizing the sound before she spotted him hunched in a corner beside Justine’s bed.

  “You have to hurry now,” said Justine. “Can’t breathe...”

  She managed to get herself up without touching Makepiece, and used the table to maneuver over to Justine. There were singed wires on the Galvanic Reanimator’s helmet, which still covered the girl’s head. The coppery tang of blood in Lizzie’s mouth mingled with the bitter taste of smoke. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “My father’s heart failed him. In more ways than one.”

  Lizzie tried to feel a pang of regret for the professor’s passing, but all she could think was that his death had saved her life. “I am sorry for your loss,” she managed.

  “You don’t have time to be sorry.”

  She was right; the air in the room felt uncomfortably hot, as if it they were standing near an open furnace. Lizzie tugged at the helmet with her left hand. “I can’t budge it.”

  “Igor.” Justine’s voice was sharp. “Help her.”

  Igor lurched over and succeeded in yanking off the helmet.

  Lizzie looked into the girl’s face. “Are you all right?”

  Makepiece’s daughter struggled for breath. I might be, if we stop wasting time.

  Lizzie stared at her. “Justine...” She must be hallucinating from the smoke, but still...she could have sworn that Makepiece’s daughter hadn’t moved her lips. “How did you...?”

  Justine turned her head. Igor, you’ll have to carry me out. Igor moved as if galvanized, hoisting the slender girl into his arms, Lizzie moved as quickly as she could toward the door. She yanked her hand away before it came into full contact with the doorknob. Burning hot.

  Under the rag rug, said Justine’s voice in her mind. The trapdoor.

  Of course.

  Lizzie pulled back the frayed kilim rug, revealing the trapdoor beneath. Please, she prayed, for once in my life, let me remember the right way. She stumbled on the last step and fell, sprawling, onto the hard ground. The darkness pressed in on her, the cold, packed earth smell of the passageway reminding her of a grave. For a moment, she just remained there, thinking, Maybe it’s a nightmare.

  You’re all right. Get up.

  “You’re not as nice as you like people to think you are,” said Lizzie, getting to her feet.

  True. But then, who is?

  38

  Lizzie emerged from the tunnel and just stood for a moment, shivering as she watched fire consume the Ingold Academy of Medicine. Two of the four main buildings were already fully engulfed, and students were still spilling out of the other structures, crying and shouting out their friends’ names.

  It was all happening with astonishing speed, the bright orange flames rippling in the high arched windows of one building before leaping with a crackle to appear, weaving and darting, through the windows of its neighbor. There was a scuffle, and she turned to see Igor climbing out of the tunnel, his bent head covered with a fine dusting of soot and ash as he tried to protect the limp girl in his arms.

  Alarmed, Lizzie checked the girl’s pulse at the side of her throat. Still alive. Justine’s eyelids fluttered.

  And with a brand-new talent, it seems.

  Before Lizzie could consider the implications, there was a sharp crack as fire claimed the upper floors of the School of Surgery. In the next instant, the slate roof collapsed in on itself. Next, the fire dismantled the wooden additions of previous generations—beamed Tudor halls and elegant Georgian rooms and all the ingenious mechanical improvements of the present age—hundreds of years of incarnations, crumbling in a puff of smoke like a conjurer’s trick. Soon all that would be left were the ancient stones of the abbey itself, the old bones of the original structure.

  Victor, she thought. Had Igor killed him, or left him outside to die? Then she thought of Will and Byram and Aggie, possibly unconscious or dying in the fire. She buried her face in her hands.

  “Miss Lavenza.”

  She turned, shocked to see Professor Grimbald emerging from the tunnel. His mustache was singed, and there was a patch of raw pink skin on his cheek where he had been burned. His army greatcoat had been flung over a pair of navy pajamas, which should have made him appear ridiculous. It did not. He was holding something in his arms—a body, draped in a blanket. For one, stomach-wrenching moment, she thought it might be Victor, but no, the shape was far too small.

  “Miss Lavenza, can you help me? We need to get up the hill to help the others.”

  “Help you?” She gave a laugh that teetered on hysteria. “I can’t even help myself.”

  Grimbald glanced at Igor, taking in the unconscious girl in his arms, then looked at Lizzie properly for the first time, taking in the tangled hair falling down her back, her bare legs visible beneath Victor’s shirt.

  “Take my coat.” He shifted the body in his arms, managing to shrug himself out of the wool cape so he could hand it to her. “You need it more than I.”

  She draped the garment around her left shoulder, then used her left hand to draw the fabric over her injured right arm, sucking in a breath when the movement jarred the wound. His cloak smelled reassuringly of pipe tobacco and bay rum, and she thought for a moment of her father.

  “Why are you being kind to me? I thought you just wanted me dead, so you could use me for spare parts.”

  He looked genuinely shocked. “What in the name of heaven made you think that?”

  Stop, said the voice of reason. Don’t say anymore. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Professor Makepiece told me everything. About how you murdered Victor. About the queen.”

  His nostrils flared above his mustache, but he gave no other sign of emotion. “I never meant to hurt Victor. I loved that boy like my own son. As for you, girl...I may not think you belong here, but I would sacrifice my own life before letting someone take yours. I’m a soldier, Miss Lavenza, not a killer.”

  She thought about her friends, trapped in the burning building. She should have gone back for them. She should at least have tried.

  Grimbald’s sharp eyes missed nothing. “You once told me you were as fit as any man to be a student here. Were you wrong?”

  Her spine stiffened. “No.”

  “You don’t sound very certain.”

  “No,” she said more firmly, “I wasn’t wrong.”

  “You’ve been injured.”

  “Yes.” For some reason, his blunt assessment brought tears to her eyes.

  “You’ve been injured, but you fought your way out of there.”

  “Yes.” She blinked away the tears.

  “Stop that sniveling. You’re a soldier, Lavenza. A soldier and a surgeon. You’re going to push down your own pain, and you’re going to do what needs to be done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A hint of humor touched his steel-blue gaze. “And you’re going to take all those things I said about women not being suited to medicine, and you’re going to shove them down my throat. Am I right?”

  That made her smile. “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m trusting you managed to find your way to a cadaver despite my admonitions.”

  “I...”


  “Good.” He turned, hefting the body in his hands a little higher. “There are wounded up there who need you.” His hands and wrists, she now saw, were blistered from the fire, yet he was still managing to carry the blanket-covered body. She wondered whose corpse it was to matter to him so much.

  As she followed Grimbald up the hill, she realized that he must have been hurt more badly than she’d realized. He was limping, and his bare feet were red and blistered, like his hands. Despite the additional strain on his arms, he was also holding the body away from him, which made her suspect that the burns did not stop at his ankles.

  “How much of you is burned, sir?”

  He glanced at her sharply. “More than a quarter of my body.”

  She tried to remember what she knew of burns. “We should probably disinfect the affected area, sir.”

  “We have more pressing concerns.” He nodded toward the chaos of villagers and students outside the burning buildings.

  They had reached the top of the hill, and now Lizzie could see that wounded medical students were lying side by side with Bio-Mechanicals. Shiercliffe and some of the other nurses were attempting to separate the more seriously injured burn victims, and suddenly, she saw Aggie, her familiar red hair tumbling down her back as she pleaded with the crowd.

  Thank God, she thought, at least Aggie’s alive.

  “You’re not murderers,” Aggie was telling one woman. “Reason with them, Mrs. Coombes. If we formed a bucket line, we might be able to put out the flames.”

  “They’re monsters!” The woman’s voice rose to a shriek. “Unnatural mechanicals!”

  Lizzie looked where the hysterical woman was pointing, and with a surge of joy she saw Victor kneeling on the ground next to another victim of the fire. Victor was bare chested under his waistcoat and jacket, and the electrodes at his neck were exposed, but all his focus was on the unconscious student. He lifted the young man’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, then moved his hand to check the student’s throat.

  That was when she realized: it was Will lying in the grass, eyes closed, face parchment white.