The Nutcracker Bleeds

by Lani Lenore

  “Excellent,” he said. The puppet whispered on, and after a short moment, Edge’s expression faded from pleasure to apprehension.

  “What happened? Did you see where they went?”

  At these words, Clara’s eyes lit.

  “Is it Anne?” she asked. Edge ignored her.

  “Is it Anne!” she demanded once again, tugging at Edge’s skirt.

  The male doll gripped her wrist carefully as the puppet spoke on in his ear. Clara’s bottom lip jutted out in a pout.

  “Fine enough,” Edge finally relented. “He’ll come to me. Just see that your own duties are completed.”

  The puppet gave a nod and left the area with the others that had entered. Edge’s smile renewed, but then he seemed to remember the child. He looked down to her insistent, awaiting expression.

  “You have to learn to be patient, precious. Yes, they were sighted,” he told her quietly, though he hadn’t wanted to talk about it openly. “But I told you how it would happen, did I not?”

  Clara’s little shoulders slumped.

  “Yes…” she admitted. Honestly though, she didn’t want to wait.

  “Good,” the doll said, crossing his arms. “Now, you should…”

  “I made you something!” she said abruptly, cutting him off. From behind her back she withdrew the folded scrap of paper.

  The look in her eyes was so full of innocent anticipation that he found he couldn’t refuse her.

  Oh, what would it hurt?

  Between two slender fingers that were covered in dry blood, Edge took the paper from her. A picture stared back at him, drawn with shards of crayon. It presented the stick–figured likenesses of Clara and Anne together. The woman’s hands were tied together, and Clara held her near with a string that had been tied around the woman’s neck. Clara smiled in the picture. Anne smiled too. Edge thought it was very interesting. Still, he wasn’t sure what it had to do with him. He had work to do.

  He handed the drawing back down to her impassively.

  “Yes, yes, how nice. Now run along, dear, before you get dirty.”

  Clara’s face swelled with anger.

  “Unfold it!” she yelled, stomping her foot.

  Edge nearly cringed at the outburst. The girl was frightening by her own right. How fun she would be to nurture! However, he had no time for that, but since she was so delightfully bossy, he would humor her.

  Edge unfolded the paper fully, and another part of the picture was presented to him. He saw a figure that might have only been a representation of himself. On the ground lay his body in the purple dress, headless. Near that was the head of the nutcracker. And in the middle of the page, was a picture of how Edge was meant to be–the lovely head with long black hair, mounted perfectly atop the tall, powerful body of the nutcracker. The razor was in his hand.

  Edge smiled a very maniacal smile.

  “Do you like it?” Clara asked hopefully, clasping her hands.

  Edge nodded, looking at her with a warm, paternal smile.

  “It’s perfect.”

  4

  Sitting in the warm glow of a lantern, Brooke rolled the cat’s eye marble in his hands, trying to discover its secret. Across from him, the nutcracker sat quietly, doing nothing but breathing. He’d cleaned himself off, and looked mostly presentable–save for a few small splashes of blood.

  Brooke had led him into a corner in the passages that had been set up as a post for the soldiers of Pirlipat’s kingdom. There was a large lantern with a glass globe over it, glowing now from Brooke’s match. In front of that were two thread–less spools that the renegade soldiers sat on now. There was a sock lining the wall of the shaft, stuffed with cotton. That was where Brooke had placed Anne, who was still unconscious.

  The soldier in the black coat with silver trim glanced toward the woman. She needed this rest while it was content to come to her. Who knew when the opportunity would arise again?

  Her body rose and fell with breath as she slept, and he watched her with interest. Her body actually needed that air to survive. He could breathe himself; he could breathe all he wanted but his body did not need it at all. It was just one more lie added to the fable of his being.

  How disheartening.

  “Tell me something, nutcracker,” Brooke requested, refusing to let feelings of self–pity overcome him. “Why is she here?”

  Armand stared at him, and Brooke saw just what he meant to say right there in his face. Why do you want to know, oh nothing who realizes he’s nothing? The nutcracker would have been right if he’d said it aloud. Brooke could not have hated him for it.

  “Humor me,” the toy posed. “Perhaps it will help me to better protect her.”

  “The rodents brought her here,” said the nutcracker in his oddly accented voice. “I’ll soon find out why.”

  “The Rat King…” Brooke uttered thoughtfully. If he’d said anything with much feeling so far, this word brought a shutter of hatred to his lips. “Have you ever seen him yourself?”

  Armand paused. “Once or twice.”

  “Is he as hideous as they say?”

  The nutcracker lowered his head a bit and sighed out. For a moment, Brooke wondered if he would answer. Then again, it wouldn’t have mattered much…

  “I don’t see him as others do,” Armand said finally. “There is no fear in me for the disgusting monster that he is; only hate for the impossible demon that he was before.”

  Brooke did not pry further, reminding himself that these things did not truly concern him. To be honest with himself, he didn’t expect to exist on past the night. He only needed a reason for his temporary existence to be worthwhile.

  He watched the nutcracker look toward the spot where the woman slept. His face was unreadable, but Brooke detected his concern for her. Was it a simple concern for whatever goal he had in mind? No, it was something else. A distant failure similar to this situation that he would not allow to fall short this time? Granted, Brooke had no notion of why this nutcracker was trailing around with the woman, but whatever that reason might have been, Brooke knew that it was alright.

  “You are different from me,” Brooke said, interrupting Armand’s glance toward Anne. “I can tell.”

  “How so?” the nutcracker asked, turning back. Whether or not he was truly interested in knowing, Brooke could not tell.

  “Because you understand what I am, and know that you’re different. You feel things that are real and not fabricated, as is the nature of my own existence.”

  “Not much,” Armand promised. “There is very little feeling.”

  “But you do have it still. You feel hate. You feel for this woman even if you are simply forcing yourself in order to protect her. I saw you fighting my brother. There was pleasure in your swings–a feeling of satisfaction when you crushed his head. Those are your passions, and you bleed for those things. I felt love once, and I felt it more deeply than anyone else perhaps. But she wasn’t real. So neither was what I felt. It’s all a fantasy.”

  Armand listened to those words, and he might have agreed, but it was not worth the effort.

  “At times, I still do get carried away by those false feelings. I’m babbling. Apologies.”

  A movement to the side caught their attention, and the soldiers turned to see Anne sitting up on the sock–bed. She rubbed her eyes and swallowed heavily, wincing through the pain of her aching throat. Eventually, her gaze found them. She didn’t smile or speak, simply sitting there looking flushed.

  “Is something wrong?” Brooke asked when it was apparent Armand would not.

  “I was having a bad dream,” she said, looking away.

  Dreams… Brooke thought to himself. He understood the concept, but knew nothing of them–good or bad.

  5

  As soon as he saw that Anne was awake, the nutcracker rose from his seat, unwilling to waste time, even for her.

  “We’d best go see what the Shaman has to say while we have the time.”

  He’d said t
his mainly to remind the woman of their goal–to tell her to pull herself together quickly because they were very close to having answers. It seemed to work. Anne got to her feet as Armand moved past her–

  He stopped suddenly. A sound had reached his ears–something tapping lightly against glass.

  His gaze moved to the lantern behind him. There, casting a fluttering shadow over the walls, was a pale moth. It bumped the glass, wanting to touch the light more than anything else in existence. For a moment, Armand could relate, knowing what it felt like to crave one thing over all others. Revenge. But the sight of the moth reminded him of something else.

  He was hungry.

  Anne stood nearby, perhaps waiting to fall into step behind him. Without looking to her, he spoke.

  “Turn around.”

  The woman looked up to him indignantly. The expression on her face asked him why she should do this thing that he wanted.

  “I asked you to,” he told her before she was able to speak.

  Brooke moved toward Anne to take her ahead shortly, but it was Armand’s empty gaze that eventually made her relent. The dark–haired soldier took her arm and handed the cat’s eye to her. She rubbed it easily to give them light, walking slowly down the line of the shaft with him.

  In her unconsciousness–and she hardly remembered what had happened that caused it–Anne had dreamed once again. It had been the same dream she’d had before.

  In her doll dress, she peered across a long floor to see Armand locked in battle with an adversary. This time, the enemy had been a bladed puppet. The nutcracker bested his enemy, but he’d been injured. Once again, she rushed to him, though she wondered more and more why she would even bother in reality. Would he do the same for her?

  The trek seemed so long, the blood–pool growing, and eventually she’d fallen. Like before, her legs had become porcelain and lifeless.

  “Armand…I didn’t mean what I said…”

  She’d tried to pull herself along, slipping and painting herself with the blood–but then someone was helping her to rise. It was Brooke. He pulled her to her feet and supported her for just a moment before he fell to the floor himself, completely lifeless.

  Anne then found she could run again. She’d moved toward Armand with all she had, manipulating legs that shouldn’t have been mobile. But then there was something else in her way. A small figure stood there, directly in the path between her and her hero. The figure was a child. It was Olivia. The girl opened her mouth.

  “You know, he always loved me most.”

  Anne awoke after that, feeling sick and confused. Why did this dream come? What did it mean? She was beginning to think it was part of her curse.

  The sound of footsteps behind her brought her back, and to her right side, Armand passed and took the lead without a single word or glance. He had asked her to turn around…why?

  The woman turned to look over her shoulder, looking at the corner they’d just left with the lantern and the sock bed. Only one thing was different.

  The moth was gone.

  Chapter Nineteen: Deadly Sins

  1

  The trek back to the Shaman’s armoire was silent. Armand was as tight–lipped as ever, thinking his own thoughts. Anne simply didn’t feel like speaking, still feeling the pain at her throat as she relived the images from her dream. Brooke simply had nothing to say, and because there was nothing pertinent, he would not make meaningless conversation.

  So the three of them moved on; Armand in the lead, Anne after that, and Brooke following behind.

  Anne thought she began to smell the dreadful stench of the rotting doll much earlier than the last time. Was it possible that the Shaman’s stench had grown so greatly in just a short while? They hadn’t even reached the curtain between the passage and the vent before it touched her nose.

  Upon reaching the edge of that cloth, Armand stopped.

  “I’m going in alone,” he said, and for a moment, Anne only stared at his back. Surely he had not been serious…

  “Like hell you are,” she protested, her voice rising a bit more than it should have. “You’re not leaving me.”

  She gripped his arm, moving to look at his face. His face told her, as it always did, that he was deathly serious.

  “What do you mean by this?” Anne demanded. She would have searched his eyes, but that was impossible. “You know I need to hear–”

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” he broke in without looking at her. “Can you do that?”

  She stared back at him, and she almost said no. How could he think for one moment that she trusted that he would tell her the truth? Likely, the truth would just happen not to coincide with his own goals and she’d never know whether or not she could have been saved. He was completely beyond her trust, and yet she fully believed that he would never let anything happen to her. At that moment, she realized she didn’t trust him at all–but yet she trusted him more than anything. He was all she had.

  “Tell me you wouldn’t lie to me concerning this,” she requested, much more calmly now. “Look in my eyes and say it.”

  Armand turned his face toward her. There was no proof that he was looking at her, but she was certain she could feel it–like a chill running a course through her blood.

  “I’ve told you everything that concerns you. I won’t stop now.”

  That, she supposed, would have to be good enough. Anne let go of his arm and stepped back, resigning herself to stand against the shaft wall. Broke would wait with her here, and if Armand actually trusted the soldier that much, she knew her own trust in him was not misplaced. He was very different from Armand.

  Very, very different.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” the nutcracker said, and vanished beneath the curtain. A cloud of stench rolled through from beneath it.

  2

  During the wait–period, Anne attempted to busy herself following Armand’s footsteps throughout his trek. She had guessed how many steps it would take him to get to the armoire. Imagined him opening and closing the doors, getting to the lift. He went up and up and up until finally he reached the top shelf. She guessed him walking down the long walkway of the shelf to get to the birdcage where the Shaman awaited him. The Chinese doll told him what he needed to know–or perhaps he even gave it to Armand in a letter that she could read. And then Armand was on his way back…

  Still, she was waiting. She’d likely miscalculated–as one might try to count for the clock and manage to slip two seconds into the space of one.

  Brooke had said nothing for a long while, leaned against the wall, alert yet restful. She decided that it would hurt nothing to speak with him. Perhaps he even had something he could share. The only problem was deciding what to say. If she tried to talk about him, he wouldn’t allow it. He’d tell her that everything about himself was false. So, what was there to say?

  “Do you know anything about the rodents?”

  He raised his brown glass eyes to her.

  “I haven’t had much experience with them myself,” he admitted. “I’ve run into a few, but they left us alone mostly. I assume because of all the human traffic in the room during the day. Doesn’t leave room for violent conquest when everything has to appear exactly as it was the next morning.”

  “Why have all the rules changed tonight then? They’re causing havoc everywhere.”

  “I can only suppose that tonight is the night,” Brooke said. “This is when they will make their plans reality.”

  What a coincidence. Tonight was the night she was getting out of this.

  Before she could redirect herself, she’d begun talking about the only other thing they had in common.

  “What’s your theory about him?” she asked, jerking her head back toward the curtain that Armand had passed through earlier on.

  “I’m not trying to figure him out,” Brooke told her quickly. “His business is his own. I just know that his rage is toward the King of Mice. And it’s not some sort of programmed hate just
because he’s a soldier. It’s very personal.”

  “It’s definitely that,” she agreed, though quite begrudgingly.

  Personal. His own person. Those were the things Armand cared about. The only things. Anne refused to admit her constant desire to be close to him despite all the awful qualities she saw in him. More than that, she’d erased the earlier incident from her mind. No, she hadn’t wanted to kiss him. That was silly. Yes, yes, yes, it was gone fully. Armand was completely impossible; bottom line.

  “You don’t have to dodge,” Brooke said suddenly, feeling no shame for keeping his gaze locked on her. “It’s alright for you to love him.”

  Anne gaped back at him. No words would come forth from her mouth, but neither did a nervous laugh of denial. Then she became angry.

  “Oh I certainly do not love him,” she protested adamantly. “I don’t even know him!”

  Brooke noticed her hostility and understood that it was best not to press matters at a time like this. He let her win this conflict, and she accepted herself as victor. Still, the soldier could tell that something was still on her mind. It wasn’t very long before she spoke again.

  “Besides, how do you love someone who keeps so many secrets? How would you ever know them for who they really are?”

  She was venting now, relieving that pent–up frustration. The soldier let her go on.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” she sighed. “He’s a toy.”

  “Oh no,” Brooke interrupted with a shake of his head. “He’s real.”

  The woman raised her eyes, and Brooke was certain that he saw a royal look there. How dare you impede me? it asked.

  “He’s still part of this world,” Anne insisted to him heatedly, “and if I did feel something for him–which I don’t, mind you–I don’t want to have anything to do with this world. Somehow or another I’m going to get out of this. And only with him is it possible. That, I’m sure of.”

  Brooke didn’t pry, but he was seeing this woman’s pattern already. She said things that she wanted to believe, and not things she actually did. Anne, however, was much too busy in her anger to realize this truth now.