The Comte stood over Svenson, his mouth a grimace, as if he were angry for having spoken so intimately to such a person. He cleared his throat and went on, his words returned to their customary coldness.
“You asked why I waited to expose you. You will have overheard certain disagreements amongst my allies—questions for which I would have answers…without necessarily sharing them. You may speak willingly, or with the aid of Angelique—but speak to me you will.”
“I don’t know anything,” spat Svenson. “I was at Tarr Manor—I am outside your Harschmort intrigues—”
The Comte ignored him, idly fingering the knobs on his metal implement as it lay next to Lydia’s pale leg.
“When we spoke in my greenhouse, your Prince had been taken from you. At that time neither you nor I knew how or by whom.”
“It was the Contessa,” said Svenson, “in the airship—”
“Yes, I know. I want to know why.”
“Surely she gave you an explanation!”
“Perhaps she did…perhaps not…”
“The falling-out of thieves,” sneered the Doctor. “And the two of you seemed such particular friends—”
The Prince stepped forward and boxed Svenson’s ear.
“You will not speak so to your betters!” he announced, as if he were making polite conversation, then snorted with satisfaction. Svenson looked up at the Prince, his face hot with scorn, but his words were still for the Comte.
“I cannot know, of course—I merely, as you say, deduce. The Prince was taken mere hours after I had rescued him from the Institute. You—and others—were not told. Obviously she wanted the Prince for her own ends. What is the Prince to your plans? A dupe, a pawn, a void in the seat of power—”
“Why, you damned ungrateful rogue!” cried the Prince. “The audacity!”
“To some this might seem obvious,” said the Comte, impatiently.
“Then I should think the answer obvious as well,” scoffed Svenson. “Everyone undergoing the Process is instilled with a control-phrase, are they not? Quite by accident the Prince was taken by me before any particular commands could be given to him—the Contessa, knowing that, and knowing the Prince’s character would predispose everyone to think of him as an imbecile, seized the opportunity to instill within his mind commands of her own, to be invoked at the proper time against her putative allies—something unexpected, such as, let us say, pushing you out of an airship. Of course, when asked, the Prince will remember none of it.”
The Comte was silent. Miss Temple was amazed at the Doctor’s presence of mind.
“As I say…fairly obvious,” sniffed Svenson.
“Perhaps…it is your own fabrication…yet credible enough that I must waste time scouring the memory of the Prince. But before that, Doctor—for I think you are lying—I will first scour you. Angelique?”
Svenson leapt to his feet with a cry, but the cry was cut to a savage choking bark as Angelique’s mind penetrated his. Chang burst forth from the stairwell, running forward, Miss Temple right behind him. Svenson was on his knees holding his face, the Prince above him, raising a boot to kick the Doctor’s head. To the side stood Angelique. The Prince looked up at them with a confused resentment at being interrupted. The Comte wrenched his attention from Svenson’s mind with a roar. Angelique turned, a little too slowly, and Miss Temple raised the revolver. She was perhaps ten feet distant when she pulled the trigger.
The shot smashed into the glass woman’s outstretched arm at the elbow, shearing through with a spray of bright shards and dropping the forearm and hand to the floor, where they shattered in a plume of indigo smoke. Miss Temple saw Angelique’s mouth open wide but heard the scream within her mind, indiscriminately flaying the thoughts of every person in the room. Miss Temple fell to her knees, tears in her eyes, and fired again. The bullet pierced the cuirass of Angelique’s torso, starring the surface. Miss Temple kept squeezing the trigger, each hole driving the cracks deeper, lancing into each other to form fissures—the scream redoubled and Miss Temple could not move, could barely see, flooded with random memories stabbing her mind like daggers—Angelique as a child at sea, the rank perfume of the brothel, silks and champagne, tears, beatings, bruises, distant embraces, and a piercingly tender hope, more than anything, that her desperate dreams had come true. Before Miss Temple’s eyes the torso split wide below the ribs and gave, the upper body breaking against the lower in a cloud of indigo smoke and glimmering deadly dust, the pieces smashing apart as they struck the stone.
Miss Temple could not tell whether the silence was due to a shared inability to speak, or if the scream had made her deaf. Her head swam with the fumes in the air and she put a hand before her mouth, wondering if she’d already inhaled blue glass dust. The steaming ruins of Angelique lay scattered across the floor, blue shards in an indigo pool. She looked up and blinked. Chang lay with his back against the wall, staring. Svenson was on his hands and knees, groping to crawl free. Lydia was on the bed, whimpering and pulling at her ropes. The Prince lay on the ground near Svenson, hissing with pain and swatting feebly at his hand, where a splinter of glass cut open a patch of skin that had since turned blue. The Comte alone still stood, his face pale as ash.
Miss Temple turned the pistol toward him and pulled the trigger. The bullet shattered the chemical works on his table, spraying more glass and spattering his apron with steaming liquid. The sound woke the room. The Comte surged forward and swept up his metal implement from the bed, raising it up like a mace. Miss Temple aimed another shot at his head, but before she could fire felt Chang seize her arm. She grunted with surprise—his grip was painful—and saw that with his other hand he held Svenson’s collar, pulling them both to the door with all his fading strength. She looked back at the Comte, who despite his rage took care to step around the sea of broken glass, and did her best to aim. Svenson got his feet beneath them as they reached the door but Chang did not let him go. Miss Temple extended her arm to fire, but Chang yanked her back and into the corridor.
“I must kill him!” she cried.
“You are out of bullets!” Chang hissed. “If you pull the trigger he will know!”
They’d not gone two more steps before the Doctor turned, struggling against Chang’s grip.
“The Prince—he must die—”
“We’ve done enough—” Chang pulled them both forward, his voice thick, coughing with the effort.
“They will be married—”
“The Comte is formidable—we are unarmed and weak. If we fight him one of us—at least—will die.” Chang could barely talk. “We have more to accomplish—and if we stop the others, we stop your idiot Prince. Remember Mrs. Dujong.”
“But the Comte—” said Miss Temple, looking behind her for pursuit.
“Cannot chase us alone—he must secure the Prince and Lydia.” Chang cleared his throat with a groan and spat past Svenson. “Besides…the Comte’s vanity has been…wounded…”
His voice was raw. Miss Temple risked a glance, now finally running with the others on her own two feet, and saw with a piercing dismay the line of tears beneath Chang’s glasses, and heard the terrible sobs within his heaving breath. She wiped at her own face and did her best to keep up.
They reached the stairwell and closed the door behind them. Chang leaned against it, his hands on his knees, and surrendered to another bout of coughing. Svenson looked at him with concern, his hand on Chang’s shoulder for comfort. He looked up at Miss Temple.
“You did very well, Celeste.”
“No more than anyone,” she answered, a bit pointedly. She did not want to speak of herself in the presence of Chang’s distress.
“That is true.”
Miss Temple shivered.
“Her thoughts…at the end, in my mind…”
“She was cruelly used,” said Svenson, “by the Comte…and by the world. No one should undergo such horror.”
But Miss Temple knew the true horror for Angelique had not been transforma
tion, but her untimely death, and her terrible silent scream was a protest as primal and as futile as the last cry of a sparrow taken by the hawk. Miss Temple had never been in the presence, been possessed by such fear—held tight to the very brink of death—and she wondered if she would die the same horrible way when it came to it—which it might this very night. She sniffed—or day, she had no idea what time it was. When they’d been outside watching the coaches it had still been dark, and now they were underground. Was it only a day since she’d first met Svenson in the Boniface lobby?
She swallowed and shook the dread from her mind. With a perhaps characteristic keenness Miss Temple’s thoughts shifted from death to breakfast.
“After this is settled,” she said, “I should quite enjoy something to eat.”
Chang looked up at her. She smiled down at him, doing her level best to withstand the hardness of his face and the black vacuum of his glasses.
“Well…it has been some time…,” said Svenson politely, as if he were speaking of the weather.
“It will be some while more,” managed Chang, hoarsely.
“I’m sure it will,” said Miss Temple. “But being as I am not made of glass, it seemed like a reasonable topic of conversation.”
“Indeed,” said Svenson, awkwardly.
“Once this business is settled of course,” added Miss Temple.
Chang straightened himself, his face somewhat composed. “We should go,” he muttered.
Miss Temple smiled to herself as they climbed, hoping her words had served to distract Chang at least into annoyance, away from his grief. She was well aware that she did not understand what he felt, despite her loss of Roger, for she did not understand the connection between Chang and the woman. What sort of attachment could such transacted dealings instill? She was smart enough to see that bargains of some sort ran through most marriages—her own parents were a joining of land and the cash to work it—but for Miss Temple the objects of barter—titles, estates, money, inheritance—were always apart from the bodies involved. The idea of transacting one’s own body—that this was the extent—involved a bluntness she could not quite comprehend. She wondered what her mother had felt when she herself had been conceived, in that physical union—was it a matter of two bodies (Miss Temple preferred not to speculate about “love” when it came to her savage father), or was each limb bound—as much as Lydia’s had been in the laboratory—by a brokered arrangement between families? She looked up at Chang, climbing ahead of her. What did it feel like to be free of such burdens? The freedom of a wild animal?
“We did not see Herr Flaüss on our way out,” observed Doctor Svenson. “Perhaps he went with the others.”
“And where are they?” asked Miss Temple. “At the airship?”
“I think not,” said Svenson. “They will be settling their own disagreements before they can go on—they will be interrogating Lord Vandaariff.”
“And perhaps Roger,” said Miss Temple, just to show she could say his name without difficulty.
“Which leaves us the choice of finding them or reaching the airship ourselves.” Svenson called ahead to Chang. “What say you?”
Chang looked back, wiping his red-flecked mouth, out of breath. “The airship. The Dragoons.”
Doctor Svenson nodded. “Smythe.”
The house was disturbingly quiet when they reached the main floor.
“Can everyone be gone?” asked Svenson.
“Which way?” rasped Chang.
“It is up—the main stairs are simplest if they are free. I must also suggest, again, that we acquire weapons.”
Chang sighed, then nodded with impatience.
“Where?”
“Well—” Svenson clearly had no immediate idea.
“Come with me,” said Miss Temple.
Mr. Blenheim had been moved, though the stain on the carpet remained. They took a very brief time, but even then she smiled to see the curiosity and greed on the faces of her two companions as they plundered Robert Vandaariff’s trophy chests. For herself, Miss Temple selected another serpentine dagger—the first had served her well—while Chang selected a matching pair of curved, wide-bladed knives with hilts nearly as long as the blade.
“A sort of macheté,” he explained, and she nodded agreeably, having no idea what he meant but happy to see him satisfied. To her amusement, Doctor Svenson pulled an African spear from the wall, and then stuck a jeweled dagger in his belt.
“I am no swordsman,” he said, catching her curious expression and Chang’s dry smirk. “The farther I keep them from me, the safer I’ll remain. None of which makes me feel any less ridiculous—yet if it helps us survive, I will wear a cap and bells.” He looked over at Chang. “To the rooftops?”
As they walked to the front stairs, the dagger’s unfamiliar weight in her hand, Miss Temple felt a troubling lightness in her breath and a prickling of sweat across her back. What if Captain Smythe did not reject his orders? What if Captain Smythe was not there at all? What if instead of soldiers they were met by the Contessa and Xonck and Crabbé? What must she do? A failure of nerve while she was alone was one thing, but in the company of Chang or Svenson? With every step her breathing quickened and her heart became less sure.
They reached the main foyer, an enormous expanse of black and white marble where Miss Temple had first met the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza so long ago, now empty and silent save for their own echoing steps. The great doors were closed. Svenson craned his neck to look up the stairs and Miss Temple followed his gaze. From what she could tell, there was not a soul between the ground floor and the top.
Behind them in the house the dead air was split by a gunshot. Miss Temple gasped with surprise. Chang pointed to the far wing.
“Vandaariff’s office,” he whispered. Svenson opened his mouth but Chang stopped his words with an open hand. Could they have shot Elöise? Another few seconds…a door slam from the same direction…then distant footsteps.
“They are coming,” snapped Chang. “Hurry!”
They were to the third floor when their enemies reached the foyer below. Chang motioned Miss Temple closer to the wall and lowered himself into a crouch. She could hear the Contessa, but not her words. Above, the Doctor groped his way to an unobtrusive door. Miss Temple dashed to meet him, bobbing past him in the doorway and trotting up the narrower steps to where Chang waited. Chang caught her arm and leaned his face close to hers, waiting until the Doctor had caught up to whisper.
“There will be a guard on the other side of the door. It is vital we not harm any Dragoon until we reach Smythe. His men ought to outnumber our other enemies—if we can but get his attention, we have a chance to sway him.”
“Then I should be the one who goes,” said Miss Temple.
Chang shook his head. “I know him best—”
“Yes, but any Dragoon will take one look at either of you and start swinging. He will not do so to me—giving me the time to call for the Captain.”
Chang sighed, but Svenson nodded immediately.
“Celeste is right.”
“I know she is—but I do not like it.” Chang stifled another cough. “Go!”
Miss Temple opened the door and stepped through, the dagger tucked into her bodice, and winced at the bitter wind blowing across the rooftop, carrying the sharp salt tang of the sea. A red-jacketed Dragoon stood to either side of the door. Some twenty yards away was the dirigible, hovering ominously, like an unearthly predatory creature, an enormous gasbag dangling a long bright metal cabin, near the size of a sea-ship but all gleaming black metal like a train car. Dragoons were loading boxes into the cabin, handing them up to several black-uniformed Macklenburgers posted at the top of the gangway. Inside the cabin, through a gas-lit window, she saw the sharp-faced Doctor Lorenz, goggles around his neck, busy flipping switches. The rooftop was a hive of activity, but nowhere could she locate Smythe.
It took perhaps another second for the two Dragoons to cry out at her presence and take insiste
nt hold of her arms. She did her best to explain herself above the whipping wind.
“Yes—yes, excuse me—my name is Temple, I am looking—I beg your pardon—I am looking for Captain—”
Before she could finish the one to her right was bawling toward the airship.
“Sir! We’ve got someone, Sir!”
Miss Temple saw Doctor Lorenz look up through the window, and the shock upon his face. At once he darted from view—no doubt coming down—and she took up the trooper’s cry.
“Captain Smythe! I am looking for Captain Smythe!”
Her handlers exchanged a look of confusion. She did her best to exploit it and charge from their grasp but they kept hold, despite her kicking feet. Then, at the top of the gangplank, standing next to each other, appeared the figures of Captain Smythe and Doctor Lorenz. Miss Temple’s heart sank. The pair began to walk down—Smythe’s face too far away in the dim light to read his expression—when the door behind her slid open and Cardinal Chang laid a blade to the throat of each Dragoon. Miss Temple turned her head—surely this was an unwanted complication—to see Doctor Svenson, spear tucked under his arm, holding the doorknob fast by force.
“They are below us,” he whispered.
“Who have we here?” called Doctor Lorenz, in a mocking tone. “Such a persistent strain of vermin. Captain—if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Captain Smythe!” shouted Miss Temple. “You know who we are! You know what’s been done tonight—you heard them speaking! Your city—your Queen!”
Smythe had not moved, still next to Lorenz on the gangway.
“What are you waiting for?” snapped Lorenz, and he turned to the Dragoons on the rooftop—a band of perhaps a dozen men. “Kill these criminals at once!”
“Captain Smythe,” cried Miss Temple, “you have helped us before!”
“What?” Lorenz rounded on Smythe and the Captain, without hesitation, shot out his arm and shoved Doctor Lorenz cleanly off the gangplank to fall with a grinding thud on the graveled rooftop, some ten feet below.
Glass Books of the Dream Eaters Page 85