The two hulking shapes detached themselves from the porch and joined us, sitting very close together to Madeleine’s right. Despite enormous seats of rough-hewn wood, their bulk still threatened to overwhelm the chairs. Both wore layers of robes, intricately woven as Persian rugs, dense with patterns that shifted and crawled if I stared too long, with veils of metal that obscured their faces. Black eyes gleamed with the patient malevolence common to predatory insects and file clerks.
“You made no mention of inviting your legal representation,” Snowball hissed, hackles raised. “Should I take offense?”
“Of course not, Lord Snowball.” Madeleine put one hand to her chest in shock. “Mr. Yog and Mr. Sothoth requested to present Mr. Tauschen with an offer on an unrelated matter.”
The two freaks seemed discomforted by the mention. The way their bodies moved beneath those layers of robes reminded me of Sumire’s stories of the Toads she sometimes encountered, when the moon was close.
“I doubt that very much,” the cat offered sharply.
“My promise stands,” Madeleine said, with a gesture of annoyance. Around us, shambling servants deposited steaming pots of tea, plates of biscuits, and a formidable array of jams, spreads, and sweeteners. “No harm will come to any of you this night, by my hand, or by the appendages of my lawyers.”
My jaw dropped, but no one paid me any mind, so I put it back in its normal spot.
“This is not what was agreed to,” Snowball said curtly. “Any further surprises and I will become extremely displeased.”
The servants poured what looked like blue milk into the grey dishes in front of the cats. Madeleine Diem inclined her head.
“I understand. May I began?”
“Please,” Snowball said, watching as a much younger cat took a measured lap from the bowl in front of the aged cat. “Don’t mind us.”
“I never have. Pardon my rudeness,” Madeleine said, turning to me with hands clenched before her modest bosom. It was impossible not to wince, seeing Sumire’s tanned fingers intertwined with crude gears and animal bone. “Welcome to the Night Market, Preston Tauschen. My family has maintained a presence here since the very beginning, providing our unique services. My name is Madeleine, but you can call me Maddy, because we are going to be good friends.”
She said all of this with conviction and a wide-eyed smile that was reminiscent, but nowhere near as charming, as her sister’s. Or maybe I’m biased toward witches who don’t cut people’s arms off and wear them.
Madeleine Diem was like a funhouse mirror reflection of Holly, a juvenile reflection that appeared a decade and a half younger, but distorted her shape and demeanor. She rested her saucer in the palm of her artificial hand while she sipped from the delicate porcelain cup, Sumire’s little finger extended daintily.
“I’m sorry,” I growled, gripping the table and startling lawyer, witch, and cat alike with my vehemence. “Normally, I’m very polite about this sort of thing. You have my neighbor’s arm, though, Madeleine – and that’s a big problem for me.”
“Preston...” Snowball’s stub of a tail swished back and forth rapidly. “Go carefully.”
“That’s so sweet!” Madeleine smiled ingratiatingly at me, running artificial fingers through her bobbed hair. “Finders, keepers, I’m afraid.”
I clenched the tablecloth between my fingers. The servant who poured the tea smelled strongly of fish oil and stale cigarettes.
“Are you trying to tell me that you...found the arm?”
“Almost!” Madeleine appeared surprised. “You see, Preston, I have any number of suitors, and despite my protestations, they are all very generous. Their gifts have taken a thoughtful turn of late, to objects of practical use and value.”
“Like arms and legs?”
“I am so glad that we understand each other.”
“Did you attack Sumire?”
“Not at all! I spent the evening with one of my paramours, had a bit too much to drink, and retired early. When I woke, this,” she said, gesturing at Sumire’s arm with the mechanical limb, “waited for me. It is, I think, a perfect fit.”
A chill ran down my spine, and I shivered, though the aspirin Yael gave me had tamped down the fever some.
“I want the arm back.” The words seemed to come from somewhere else, but they carried a certain authority. “I want you to fix what you did to my neighbor.”
Snowball watched without comment. If I had to guess, then I bet he found the whole scene hilarious. Or mortifying. Who’s to say? He’s a cat, after all.
“That is impossible, Mr. Tauschen.” The regret in her voice sounded legit. “Your friend’s arm is regrettably lost. The limb retains vitality thanks only to my occult energies. Should it be separated from me, decay would shortly follow.”
I looked at the cat beside me, muzzle stained blue, the purported Lord of the Cats of Ulthar. Any port in a storm, I suppose.
“That true?”
Snowball squinted, and rubbed his nose with a paw.
“It is very likely,” he concluded. “Madeleine Diem was rebuilt with technology excavated by the servants of the Drowned Queen, from the ruins beneath the waves. Manipulations of flesh and necrosis seem well within the realm of such black science.”
“Please do not speak as if I am not here,” Madeleine said, taking a dainty bite from a scone, and then dabbing her full violet lips with a napkin. “It is impolite.”
“Are you sure you aren’t lying, because you want to keep the arm?”
“I do want to keep the arm,” she confirmed, studying it happily. “It is very nice – much better than the one I had originally. I am telling you the truth, though, however convenient it might be. I cannot return the appendage, even if I wished to. Allow me to restate – I did not take your friend’s arm, nor would I do such a thing.”
“What about your sister’s head, then?”
“Oh, Mr. Tauschen, you know how sisters are,” she said, patting her grotesque lantern. “Always borrowing each other’s things.”
“Forget I asked.” I folded my arms and tried to look tough. “What do you want from me?”
“It’s not fair,” Madeleine protested, tossing a balled up napkin on the table. “You are so much nicer to my sister.”
“How would you know, anyway?”
“Oh, Elijah tells me everything,” Madeleine said, with a grin full of nasty insinuations. “You’d be surprised what I know about you, Preston.”
“Maybe it’s your sister that’s so much nicer. Ever think of that?”
Her cheeks went pale at the thought.
“Your reputation suggested that you were a reasonable man, Preston.”
I shrugged and waited. That drives everyone crazy.
“Can we start over? Please?” Madeleine watched me hopefully. “You haven’t even heard my reasons, yet.”
“Okay,” I grumbled, picking up my teacup. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
“That will be fine,” Madeleine chirped, giving me a pin-up perfect smile. “You would be amazed, Mr. Tauschen, with what I can do in five minutes.”
There was no room for doubt. She was Holly Diem’s little sister, after all.
“Allow me to reassure you of the soundness of my intentions,” Madeleine suggested brightly, motioning to an odoriferous servant, who scurried quickly over to deposit a parcel wrapped in linen on the table in front of me. “A gesture of goodwill.”
I poked the package suspiciously, and naturally, nothing happened. It was maybe a meter long, and heavy. Cats, lawyers, and the witch alike watched without comment. It is exactly as difficult as stories suggest to be the only human being at a tea party. Taking perhaps more care than was merited, I unwrapped the parcel, bracing myself for something horrible.
I realized I was wrong when I exposed the first of the brass gears. Wrapped in linen and well oiled, Madeleine Diem’s former mechanical arm gleamed on the table.
“My old arm!” Madeleine squealed. “Since I don’t need it an
y longer – and because you seemed very upset for your neighbor – perhaps she should have it. It served me well for years, and is still in excellent condition.”
I honestly wasn’t sure how to react. Anger was tempting, but it didn’t seem likely to be helpful. Whatever else was true, Sumire could use a prosthetic arm.
“I don’t know.” I put the arm down on the ground beside Snowball. “What do you think, Snowball?”
The cat circled the arm slowly, pausing occasionally to sniff it.
“It is built of dhole bone and mechanisms harvested from one of the Great Race’s submerged outposts. It is, as the witch says, in excellent shape, and is remarkably potent.”
Snowball batted at one of the fingers with his paw, while Madeleine sipped tea and looked pleased with herself.
“Is it safe, though? It looks…evil?”
“It is a witch’s arm, manufactured by servants of the Outer Dark,” Snowball said, inspecting the mechanism lodged in the carved bone of the wrist. “You cannot expect such things to be entirely benign. That said, it carries no particular doom or curse with it.”
I picked the arm up off the ground, and examined it blearily.
“Are you sure it would even work?” I touched the brass fitting that constituted the shoulder mount. “How would we even go about…attaching it?”
“The process requires a witch,” Snowball said, settling back beside his empty bowl. “Fortunately, one is among your acquaintances.”
I nodded slowly, pondering implications.
“With that in mind, Mr. Tauschen…”
“Preston, please.”
“And please call me Maddy.” That smile again, with all the impact of a downed power line. “I offered proof of good intent. Will you hear me out?”
“Five minutes,” I said, folding the linen wrap back over the arm. “Go for it.”
“I assume that my older sister,” she began, emphasis on the adjective, “has already told you of the events that occurred between us, all those years ago?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“That will save us time.”
I shook my head, which was a mistake, because it felt full of ball bearings.
“You don’t intend to dispute her account?”
“My older sister Constance chopped off my arms and legs, and cut out my eyes with scissors,” she explained, suddenly matter-of-fact, even a little cool. “I returned the favor when I could. There isn’t a great deal of room for disagreement in our story.”
I caught myself before I shook my head again.
“If you say so.”
“I do. I have waited a long time for the opportunity to return to the Nameless City, and I will not have it spoiled by interlopers.” If that was a threat, then the grace of the delivery muted it. “I like to think, however, that there is room for a solution that does not bring us into conflict. That is why I asked Lord Snowball to facilitate this conversation.”
“I get it. I’m sitting here. What do you have to say?”
Madeleine rose from the table, and gestured that I should look. I didn’t mind much.
“You see the state of me...”
“Yeah. I liked the arm better on Sumire, honestly.”
She stroked the olive skin of her right arm with a covetous expression better kept private.
“I do not blame you.” Her head bobbed amiably. “I require quality replacements, however, and I tire of my artificial limbs, despite their useful nature and exceptional workmanship. I desire something...softer. More delicate. In keeping with my own nature.”
“Sure. I heard a bunch of girls lost their limbs in the last few months, though. Why don’t you have, like, six legs?”
She scowled, and just like that, the scars around her eyes were prominent, swollen with angry blood.
“As I have already mentioned, I do not take the limbs myself. They are presented to me, by an admirer. One was suitable, the others...less so.”
Between my digestive distress and the oddly satisfied way she smacked her lips when she said that, I darn near lost the pitiful contents of my upset stomach.
“I’m warning you; if you intend to come for Sumire’s other arm, you and I have a problem, right now.”
Snowball glanced up from his personal maintenance routine.
“Exercise caution, human,” he warned. “Should you initiate violence, our protection will not apply.”
“No need, Lord Snowball,” Madeleine said, with a tittering little laugh. “There will be no violence. I have no such intention, Preston. I am an unconventional beauty, and my choice of limbs will reflect that. The idea of a matched pair bores me.”
I went through a whole sick rainbow of emotions. Eventually, the implications of the quiet way Madeleine Diem studied me started to sink in, my battered and overtired mind trudging in the direction of a conclusion that it probably should have raced toward.
“You want me to betray your sister, Holly.” I shook my head, and then remembered not to do that. The bones in my neck ground against each other as if they had rusted. “Not gonna happen.”
“I do not.” Madeleine looked miffed. “Holly is old, Preston. Older than you can imagine. You would find her repulsive,” she said, licking her perfect lips at the thought, “if you knew the truth of it. I want no part of her, and neither should you – even those that seem the most desirable.”
Multiple choice; there were only ever three options. If my landlady was out…
“Are you talking about Yael, or April?”
The cats watched us closely now, even those who had not finished their blue milk, their heads swaying like spectators at a tennis match.
“It matters to you, then?”
Madeleine seemed to think that this was funny.
“It does. Very much so.”
“The implications are delicious. I wonder; which name do you hope to hear?”
“Preston is unwell.” Snowball’s voice was cool and crisp, as if he was the only adult in the room, disappointed by the behavior of children. “I suggest we continue this at another time.”
“Spit it out, witch,” I growled. “My patience is wearing.”
“Both.” Her smile was deranged, gleeful; with her mouth open wide, I could see that she had row after row of pointed teeth, like a shark. “I am short an arm and both legs, after all.”
I stood abruptly and nearly lost my balance, grabbing the table for support. I rose to the clatter of shifting cutlery and teacups, a serving bowl shattering beneath my numb feet. The fever was intensifying; it seemed impossible that the conflagration in my head didn’t spread.
“This conversation,” I mumbled, the tablecloth sliding, bunched in the grip of my left hand, “is over.”
“Wait a moment, please,” Madeleine pled. “You haven’t heard what I have to offer in return.”
“Don’t want it,” I mumbled, nearly tripping over my own chair. “Just stop.”
“Anonymity, for April and yourself, and the security that comes with it.” Madeleine spoke rapidly, but with the slick delivery of a businesswoman confident in the strength of her offer. “An end to the Institute’s pursuit, Preston. I will neuter them, in return for your aid. My paramours will destroy the station and tunnel by which they access the Black Trains, consigning them forever to the trap they built. My allies will reach into orbit and cast down the satellites by which they hunt you. I can set you free, Preston; you and that girl with whom you have such an interesting relationship.”
I swayed, as if drifting in intermittent currents. The world froze like a paused video file, expressions distorted and movements blurred. I kept touching my right ear, which made sloshing sounds when I moved, and felt full of liquid. Snowball and Dunwich watched me closely, their concern evident even through my delirium.
“I’m tired...” I managed, or I think I did. “No more.”
“I believe we should end this, Lord Snowball,” Dunwich offered, his voice much more youthful than I would have anticipated. “By you
r leave.”
“Yes, of course,” Snowball said, with the cruel pity of a cat, which is more akin to a human contempt. “I regret to bring a premature close to this encounter, Madeleine; however...”
“By all means,” Madeleine said, with a generosity as patently false as a stage magician’s deck of cards. “Do consider my offer, Preston. Freedom is a rare and precious commodity. Isn’t it worth the cost of a single arm, no matter how shapely?” The witch’s face swam, taking on sickening and inhuman dimensions, whether due to my fever or her malevolence, I cannot say. “I will have a replacement manufactured, naturally; something more visually appealing perhaps? The Drowned Empress employs talented artisans.”
“One more word.”
Snowball hopped up onto the table as if he owned it, the dirty white cat, missing an ear and most of his tail, trotting calmly across the tableware. I held onto the chair with both hands, legs wide and knees bowed as if on rough seas, and shivered helplessly.
“I am tempted to consider this a slight to the office of the Lord of Ulthar.” Snowball came to rest, knocking over the superfluous candelabra and assuming its former position, carefully situated between Madeleine and myself. “An affront to me, I might remind you, is an affront to the Cats of Ulthar.” I noticed the cats shifting subtly in the cobwebbed corners of my vision. “Have I made myself understood?”
Madeleine offered him that charming little curtsey, and myself a playful wink.
“Of course, Lord Snowball.”
“Mr. Yog and Mr. Sothoth; my apologies.” Snowball lowered his head just slightly. “It appears your conversation with Mr. Tauschen must be delayed. I am certain that you understand.”
“Certainly. We have taken the liberty of passing along our card.” Mr. Yog – or was it Mr. Sothoth? I could not tell the difference – spoke with a voice like a cement grinder, while a malformed servant offered me a business card on pewter platter. “Sleep well, Mr. Tauschen.”
The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) Page 16