by Lani Lenore
Clara found a decidedly malevolent smile, but Olivia could not hold in her scream or her tears. The walls of the tower had fallen, and within was a sight she’d never dreamed to see. How could they? How could these toys do this? Her hands slapped across her mouth.
But she could not take her eyes away.
4
“Uncle…” Olivia moaned helplessly. “No…”
On the board that had been wheeled in, rested the reeking, pale–skinned head of the toymaker–Olivia’s uncle, Euan.
The neck had been horribly and unevenly severed, but it set atop the board well enough. Blood had splattered up onto the wrinkled, oily face. The white hair was matted and stringy, soaked with sweat. One blue eye peered out from within that head, staring straight on at Olivia. The girl paled as she watched a fly crawl across it. The other eye was covered with a dark eye patch, just as it had always been when Olivia had seen it.
As the girl looked on, holding back the urge to vomit, a pretty black–haired doll in purple rose up where it had been knelt before the head, taking a large, bloody razor from its back. Grinning viciously, it pointed the blade toward Olivia, the doll’s red eyes peering into her own.
“You,” the doll’s strange voice said simply, and then Olivia’s stomach wouldn’t hold any longer. She vomited down the front of her dress, but she’d hardly finished heaving before her soldiers were ushering her back toward the palace while others moved in to hold ground.
Olivia didn’t get to see the next surprise for her desperate fleeing, but the gift–giving was still not over.
On the face of the head, the eye patch lifted, and from the hollow socket that had been cleaned of all obstructions, mice poured out from within. The rodents were slick with blood and puss, but it was nothing to them. They slid from the socket, one after the next, and proceeded to scratch and gnaw at any toy they could get their paws on.
The crowd of gathered toys had been so large that the docile kingdom had turned to complete chaos in an instant. The toys trampled one another in an attempt to flee. The soldiers could hardly get through, and dozens of mice were running rampant.
Some of the rodents scurried straight for the vent in the room, battling down the guards enough to open the grate, where another throng of awaiting mice flooded in. The toys battled, but their lack of preparation for such an attack made them easily overwhelmed in this first wave.
5
Edge stepped down from the base of his masterpiece, knowing that his real feat would come soon. The toys thought this was war. The rodents knew it was just a play. Still, these toys would be broken down, the Lady would be retained for the Master, and eventually the nutcracker would come.
The black–haired doll sauntered through the confusion, unopposed. He listened to the screams of the scrambling dolls, heard the violent screeches of the mice. He smelled sawdust, turpentine, and blood. Edge closed his sinister red eyes and lifted his arms to let this perfect atmosphere gather around him.
The sound of footsteps rushing at him forced him to grip the razor, but when his eyes opened, he saw that it was only Clara.
“Did you hear me?” the child inquired, wanting praise for her performance.
Edge released the blade without removing it from his back and gripped Clara’s small hand, spinning her around in a short pirouette.
“Every word,” he promised. The sound had carried nicely into that dark box.
“I did a good job!” she proclaimed.
“A very good job,” Edge agreed. “If only the guest of honor had stayed around a bit longer… But oh well. I expected to have some fun. Wouldn’t want it to end too soon.”
Clara looked into the direction that the Lady had run off to, seeing that she had gone inside her fort and a large group of soldiers had moved out to the front of it. The mice’s orders had been not to disturb the ruler yet. They were biding their time.
“How much longer until we get the sacrifice for the Master?” Clara wanted to know. She was so much like a child–impatient.
“This will continue for as long as it takes,” Edge said, staring at the book palace.
The child considered a moment, hopping back as blood shot from a mouse’s nose and barely missed her shoe.
“You mean, until he shows up?” she asked, giving her attention back to Edge.
The nutcracker demon. The child wasn’t sure what she thought about Edge actually acquiring that body, but she knew it was what he wanted over all else. As long as there was something in it for her, who was she to stand in his way?
“That’s correct,” he confirmed.
“What if he doesn’t come?”
Edge gave Clara a look to end all looks–slanted eyes and a thick scowl–and she quickly changed her song.
“I mean, of course he will come eventually, and he will bring Anne with him!”
“That’s better,” Edge said, renewing his smile, but who was he kidding. His plan was finally in motion, and nothing could ruin his pleasure.
“There!”
Both dolls lifted their heads to see a trio of wooden soldiers moving toward them. Clara drew herself in, knowing that it was her that they were rushing for because she had been the betrayer. She clenched her eyes tight as they came closer–
And then the sound of splintering wood made her open her eyes. The three wooden soldiers fell apart in a diagonal slant; the first at the head, the second across the chest, and the third at the waist. Their parts hit the floor. Without glue, they were useless.
Edge didn’t bother slinging the blade back onto his back. He simply looked over his handiwork, releasing a villainous laugh as he looked back down at Clara.
As long as it takes.
The girl nodded. She smiled an evil smile, using him as her design.
Chapter Twenty–Four: Snake in the Grass
1
Brooke lifted his eyes to see Anne and the nutcracker emerge back into the shaft from the inner dimness of the washroom. She retrieved the marble, giving it a scratch, and he could see from the light of it that she looked much better. She was wholly cleaner and more attractive, but the look on her face was one thing that hadn’t been fixed. The woman led the way out, her pace quicker than the one who followed behind her.
She was escaping from that room–from Armand. Brooke wondered if they knew he saw these things. He knew they didn’t see it themselves.
“Do you feel better?” he asked when Anne approached him.
She looked up as if she’d just remembered he was there at all, or that they’d even left him to wait. He saw something bearing on her mind, but he didn’t speak of it.
“I do feel better,” she said, and her tone made him almost believe she meant it. “How do you feel?”
“Leg’s holding,” he said. That was all.
Brooke tilted his head a bit to look at Armand, who only glanced at him briefly before picking up his pace to trudge past.
“Is it alright with you if we move on now?” the nutcracker asked, though not expecting, or wanting, an answer.
Armand moved into the dark, aiming to turn toward the left. He didn’t hold it too important that the way to Olivia’s room was unknown to him from here.
“Not that way.” Brooke’s sudden outburst brought all the attention his way, but he didn’t falter much. He stared ahead at the nutcracker. “Go right.”
Armand walked off from both of them and went on alone as if that one direction was all he needed. Something wasn’t right with him either, Brooke saw. The dark–haired soldier guessed he’d have to set the nutcracker straight on his course shortly.
Brooke pushed himself from the wall, moving to follow, but a grip on his arm stopped him. He turned back to see Anne, who stood there holding something in his direction. It was a small square of damp cloth.
“For you,” she said. “To clean up.”
The soldier stared at it a moment. He’d forgotten that he was likely just as dirty as the nutcracker had been. Dirt, blood, mouse urine, and whatev
er else he’d picked up along the way. But this gesture; so simple, and yet so profound. The way she treated him…it was like he was something. Why?
Carefully, he took the cloth from her and touched it to his face. It felt cool by now, but it was refreshing. The grime slid easily down his glass cheek.
“Thank you.”
Anne walked past him without saying anything else, and Brooke moved on behind. He was confused as to why she would show care for him, even though she knew the truth about his existence. He was even more confused as to why he allowed it to touch him so.
2
Within the palace of books, the Lady Sovereign’s guards had barricaded every crack. Olivia sat on her throne, surrounded by many other toys–which was something that had always given her comfort–listening.
It had grown much quieter in the kingdom beyond this stronghold. The sounds of battle had diminished and she had received word that the invading rodents and toys had stopped their attacks. The Lady’s toys had set up safe havens in different places in the room, and mice had set up their own camps in different spots along the floor. Olivia had ordered that her soldiers concentrate on being defensive, but the mice and puppets were doing nothing.
They’re waiting. But for what?
Olivia ran her eyes across the ceiling, looking across all the places where the books were stacked together and examining the supports that held them. What was going on out there? She gripped Theodore the Bear’s stuffed paw a bit tighter, telling herself that this was nothing to worry about.
She had no reason to be afraid, because soon, Armand would be back. He was going to save his Lady.
3
Enveloped in the dark of the Underneath–which was the place the toys buried their dead beyond the bed skirt–Edge sat, busily working on a wad of strings that he had so intricately tied together. Those cords were attached to a puppet hostage from within the Lady’s kingdom–a pretty thing that had simply not managed to get out of his path fast enough.
She was a pretty, tortured–looking thing, decorated like a Swedish girl, but Edge had seen that her inset glass eyes had been removed. He’d liked that about her instantly. He’d claimed her for himself.
Edge had tied her up sufficiently with her own strings, tangling them together because she felt through those threads greater than a cat through its whiskers. He knew the twisted strings caused her pain. There was such great beauty in pain.
Now, she lay belly–down in the dust of the corpse–yard, and Edge sat in the crook of her back, legs crossed one over the other. He untangled her strings slowly and carefully as if it was a gesture of love, when actually he knew it only brought agony, much like how retrieving a knife from the place it had been stuck was just as terrible as the entry. The puppet doll had mourned loudly at first, but had now lost most of her zeal, crying softly while the dirt collected on her face.
“Cry louder,” he instructed. “The lack of sorrow is ruining my concentration.”
Tilting his head to the side, he focused on the wide eyes of a doll head that was the size of a croquet ball. It had been bothering him for a while, sitting there, bodiless as it was, staring at him so accusingly. He didn’t like the expression on its face or the terrible look of motherly disappointment in its eyes.
“What are you looking at?” he asked the lifeless head. “Don’t you know that’s rude?”
Swiftly, he took the razor from where it was resting on the floor, and with a firm motion, smashed the blade into the skull of the head. The porcelain cracked and shattered, crumbling into shards on the floor. The accusing eyes fell out and rolled free. The head was no more. A spider crawled out from within. Edge felt better.
“You know it’s not polite to stare, don’t you, dear?” he asked the eyeless doll beneath him. “I’d say you learned that lesson.”
Edge laughed. The doll only sobbed.
“Edge?”
The black–haired doll raised his head to the sound, and a short distance away, he saw Clara. One of her small hands rubbed at her eye, wiping away drowsiness. Edge was surprised to see her there in the dark of this dead place, but why should he be? She’d been with the rodents for years. There was no way to know the sort of things she had seen.
The child was not fazed by standing amongst the death of her own kind. It was as if she didn’t notice at all.
“I can’t sleep,” she whined.
He looked at her, her sudden appearance taking his attention from the sound of the doll’s crying. For a moment, he considered what to do. He didn’t need this child relying on him so strongly, but at the same time it made him feel important.
And she was just one more thing to take away from the Master.
Edge smiled as softly and sincerely as he could smile, holding out his hand toward the little poppet.
Clara moved toward him then, taking his hand and completely ignoring the doll that Edge had made his chair.
“How about a story?” he asked in a voice as seductive as death. “Would you like that?”
The girl nodded eagerly, hoping up into Edge’s lap and burying her head beneath his chin. His body was cold and hard like hers, but for the time, she didn’t pay much attention.
“Once upon a time,” the dark–haired doll began, stroking her curls with slender fingers. “There was a dirty, dirty rat. Not only was he dirty and filthy, but he was greedy beyond all measure. He wanted to possess everything for himself, and nothing less than everything was good enough. But what the rat craved most, were eggs.”
“Eggs?” Clara asked, looking up at him confusedly.
“Yes,” Edge confirmed. “Eggs. So, it came to pass that the rat was well on his way to getting all the eggs he desired, until one day, he met a snake. The snake promised the rat that he could help him get all the eggs so much faster than the rat had ever dreamed! The snake was very clever, and the rat made a great mistake. He trusted the serpent. Time passed, and everything seemed fine, only it wasn’t.”
“But the rat didn’t know it wasn’t fine,” the girl chimed in.
“That’s right. Then the day finally came when the rat had all the eggs, and it was only because of the snake that he had managed this. The rat wasn’t going to thank the snake or share any of the eggs, because the rat thought he was better than him. So, the snake ate him, and took all the eggs for himself.”
Clara looked up into Edge’s red eyes, and the doll leered down at her.
“The end.”
“That was a scary story,” she accused, not quite seeing the reality behind Edge’s words.
“Even more terrifying,” he said with a sinister grin, “for the rat.”
4
Within the depth of his mind, the King of Mice heard the words that Edge spoke to Clara within that dark place. The rat did not move from his throne as he considered–having dismissed his second head for the time. Around him, dolls minded his claws. He was weak, yes, but not quite as weak as they all thought. Another thing he had managed to hide from most was that he was getting stronger. The suckling rats were helping greatly, but it would take so many of them to match a human. It was best to stick to the old ways.
Concerning Edge, however, something new was in order. The doll was powerful in his own right. He was clever–the Rat King had to admit–but why did he think that he could outsmart him? A toy that was only alive by his word thought that it could defeat him? What a ridiculous notion!
Still, Edge had potential. A simple lesson might get him back in line. For now, the rat would allow him to continue on, thinking that he was pulling the strings. The doll’s plans were good ones, and it would greatly benefit the rat to let them go on.
But he had created them all! Not one of them could best him.
Not even Armand.
Poor, pathetic, Armand. The nutcracker with a heart. How riotous! The Rat King had heard every conversation that had passed between Clara and Edge since Edge had come to him, and he knew very well of the nutcracker’s presence in this house.
&
nbsp; In the beginning, this knowledge had displeased him greatly–both the secret of it and the fact. The nutcracker was loose inside the tangles of this place, but there would be no running this time. He’d come too far.
And to think that the only thing you fear is something you brought upon yourself.
That was the thought of a lesser being. It made him feel weaker. The rat magician shook it away quickly.
Though the King was aware of Armand’s presence–and also knew he was trailing along with the human woman–he did not know what that nutcracker was plotting. Had he known of the soldier, Brooke, the Rat King could have listened with that toy’s ears or looked on with his eyes in order to observe their purpose. It was not so much a mind reading that the rat was able to do, but simply a projection of his cognizance into the ears and eyes of the toys he had linked himself to by bringing them to life. If Edge had simply kept his big mouth shut, the Master would never have known of his betrayal.
As much as he was able to know by this method, he had never been able to get into Armand’s mind. The nutcracker was different from the rest of the toys, and completely separate from the rat since the transformation. He had never known Armand well, even through all the years he’d been chased by him. He simply knew of the nutcracker’s extreme hatred toward him, and of his desire to cut out his heart. Possibly even to eat it for all his trouble. That thought made the rat snicker.
But to think of this now was useless. Eventually, the nutcracker would find him, and he would worry about those things when the time arose.
He had bought himself time by adopting Edge.
The Rat King knew of Edge’s desire for Armand’s body–which the vicious doll could never actually attain, but there was no reason to tell him that. Augustus would let them battle without interference, and one or the other of them would be destroyed. He would dispose of the remaining on his own.