Heartless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth

by Gail Carriger

  It was like some broken symphony destined to repeat the same few lines of music over and over again. The ghost was caught up in a loop of reasoning. Periodically, Formerly Lefoux interrupted herself to cry out, a long low moan of agony to accompany the wail of second-death. Whether it was pain of the spirit or pain in truth was difficult to tell, but it sounded to Alexia not unlike poor Biffy being forced into werewolf shift.

  Alexia straightened her spine. Before her lay her preternatural duty, staring her in the face. That didn’t occur very often. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have asked Genevieve for permission, but the inventor was gone. She had abandoned her poor aunt in this state. The ghost was suffering.

  “Formerly Lefoux,” she said politely, “I am in the unique position to offer you . . . that is, I could . . . Oh, dash it, would you like an exorcism?”

  “Death? Death! Are you asking me if I want death, soulless? To not exist at all.” The ghost twirled like a child’s toy, spiraling all the way up to the beams of the contrivance chamber ceiling. The tendrils of her fleshless body swirled around like the feathers of one of Ivy’s more excitable hats. Floating far above, the ghost became contemplative. “I have served my time. I have taught. Not many get to say that. I have touched lives. I have finished them all. And I have done it after I died as well.” She paused and drifted back down. “Not that I like children all that much. What can a ghost do? When my niece, my lovely intelligent girl, became enamored of that awful woman. All I taught her was gone. Then the boy. Just like his mother. Devious. Who thought I should end up teaching a boy child? And now. Look what it has all come to. Death. My death, and a soulless offering me succor. Unnatural. All of it. Preternatural girl, what good are you to me?”

  “I can give you serenity.” Lady Maccon’s eyebrow was quirked. Really, ghosts in near poltergeist phase did ramble most awfully.

  “I don’t want peace. I want hope. Can you give me that?”

  Sympathy, so far as Alexia was concerned, only went so far. “Very well, then, this is getting disturbingly philosophical. Formerly Lefoux, if you’d rather not have my aid in the matter of your existence, or lack thereof, I should probably be on my way. Do try not to wail so loudly. They will hear you in the street above, and then BUR will be called. Frankly, the Bureau really doesn’t need this kind of additional work on full moon.”

  The ghost floated back down. For a moment, she recollected herself, switching from French to heavily accented English. “No, wait. I will . . . What will I? Oh, yez, I will show you. Follow me.”

  She began bobbing slowly across the room. She had no concern for obstacles or pathways through the devices, instruments, and tools of Madame Lefoux’s collection, merely floating in a straight line. Alexia, who was more substantial in every understanding of the word, made her cumbersome way after. She lost sight of the ghost on more than one occasion, but eventually they ended up in a corner of the massive room, next to a large barrel that rested on its side and was marked with the logo of a well-respected pickled onion manufacturer.

  As Formerly Lefoux neared the barrel, she became more and more substantial, until she was almost her old self—the ghost Alexia had first met nearly half a year ago. A tall, gaunt, severe-looking older woman, in clothing years out of date and small spectacles, who bore a marked resemblance to Madame Lefoux. There might even once have been dimples.

  The keening wail was much louder here, although it still seemed to be coming from some distance away, with an echo as though emanating from the bottom of a mine.

  “I do apologize. I can’t stop that,” said the ghost at Alexia’s wince.

  “No, you wouldn’t be able to. Your time has come.”

  The ghost nodded, an action that was visible now that she had managed to gather herself into better order. “Genevieve gave me a long afterlife. Few ghosts are so fortunate. They usually have only months. I had years.”

  “Years?”

  “Years.”

  “She is a truly brilliant woman.” Alexia was properly impressed.

  “Yet she loves too frequently and too easily. I couldn’t teach her that lesson. So much like her father. She loves you, I think, a little. More, if you had given her the opportunity.”

  The discussion had gotten away from Alexia again. This was often the case with ghosts—no more control over conversation than of their own forms. “But I’m married!”

  “All the best ones are. And that son of hers.”

  Lady Maccon looked down at her own belly. “Everyone should love their child.”

  “Even if he is a wild creature born to another woman?”

  “Especially then.”

  The ghost let out a dry laugh. “I can see why you two are friends.”

  It was in thinking about Genevieve’s love life (a thing, Alexia must admit, she tried desperately not to do, as it was so preposterously captivating) that Alexia put everything together. Not fast enough, of course, because the wails were getting louder, and nearer. Even a ghost such as Formerly Lefoux, with such strength of character and mental fitness, could not resist her own demise when it was fated.

  Alexia asked, “Is there something wrong with Genevieve?”

  “Yes.” It was said on a hiss. The ghost was shaking, shivering in the air before her, as though riding atop an ill-balanced steam engine.

  “That machine, the one she was building, it wasn’t a government commission, was it?”

  “No.” The ghost began spinning as she vibrated. The tendrils were back, drifting away, floating into the air—puffs of selfhood carried away. Her feet were almost entirely disintegrated. While Alexia watched, one of Formerly Lefoux’s hands detached and began drifting toward her.

  Lady Maccon tried to dodge the hand, but it followed her. “It’s the kind of contraption that could break into a house, isn’t it? Or a palace?”

  “Yes. So unlike her, to build something brutish. But sometimes we women get desperate.” The screaming was getting louder. “Right question, soulless. You aren’t asking me the right question. And we are almost out of time.” Her other hand detached and wafted toward Alexia. “Soulless? What are you? Why are you here? Where is my niece?”

  “It was you who activated the ghost communication network, wasn’t it? Did you send me the message, Formerly Lefoux? The one about killing the queen?”

  “Yessss,” hissed the ghost.

  “But why would Genevieve want to kill the—”

  Alexia was cut off midquestion as Formerly Lefoux burst apart, like a rotten tomato thrown against a tree. The ghost exploded noiselessly. Parts of her drifted off in all directions at once, a spread of white mist wafting all around and through the machinery of the contrivance chamber. Then, showily, all those bits began drifting in Alexia’s direction—eyes, eyebrows, hair, a limb or two.

  Alexia couldn’t help herself; she let out a scream of shock. There was no going back now. Formerly Beatrice Lefoux had gone to full poltergeist. It was time for Lady Maccon to fulfill her duty to queen and country and perform the required exorcism.

  She approached the barrel of pickled onions. It lay on its side, and it was a very big barrel. She checked around the back where multiple coils and tubes were coming out, hooked into some interesting-looking lidded metal buckets. Either Madame Lefoux was particularly interested in the quality of her pickled onions or . . .

  Alexia knew well her friend’s style and design aesthetic, so she looked for any small protrusion or unusual sculptural addition to the barrel, something that might be pressed or pulled. On the end of the barrel facing the wall, she found a small brass octopus. She pushed against it. With a faint clunking noise, the wood of the pickle barrel slid away, like that of a rolltop desk, revealing that there were, unsurprisingly, no onions inside. Instead it housed a coffin-sized fish tank filled with a bubbling yellow liquid and the preserved body of Beatrice Lefoux.

  The formaldehyde, for that is what the liquid must be, had done its job. There was also clearl
y some way in which the bubbling injections of gas were allowing the ghost to still form a noncorporeal self while not losing too much flesh to decomposition. Alexia was caught by the genius of the invention. It was one of the great trials of ghostly employment, that specters would stay sane only so long as their bodies could be preserved, but that they could not form a tether and apparition if that body was immersed fully in a preservation liquid. Madame Lefoux had invented a way around this conundrum by having air bubbling through the formaldehyde in enough quantity to permit a tether, while allowing the flesh to stay submerged and preserved. No wonder Formerly Lefoux had enjoyed such a long afterlife.

  But even such ingeniousness as this, the height of scientific breakthrough, could not save a ghost in the end. Eventually the body would decay enough so that it could no longer hold the tether; the ghost would lose cohesion and succumb to second-death.

  Alexia thought she might mention this tank to BUR. They would probably want to order a few for their more valuable spectral agents. She wondered if the gas injections had something to do with the explosive nature of Formerly Lefoux’s poltergeist state. In any event, the tank’s work was completed. Alexia had to devise a way inside.

  The screams were now deafening. Formerly Lefoux’s misty body parts were centering on Alexia, attaching themselves to the exposed skin of her arms, face, and neck, like body part burrs. It was repulsive. Alexia tried to brush them off, but they merely transferred to her wrist.

  There seemed no way into the tank. Madame Lefoux had never intended to open it once it was built.

  Lady Maccon was getting frantic to stop the screaming. She was also becoming increasingly aware of time wasted. She must get out of the contrivance chamber and stop Madame Lefoux’s mad scheme to build a monster to kill the queen. Why would Genevieve, of all people, want to do such a thing?

  Desperate, she flipped her parasol, hefted it as far behind her back as her condition would allow, and swung it around with all her might. She hit the side of the glass tank with the hard pineapple-looking handle. The tank cracked and then broke, spilling the yellow fluid and with it a strong, suffocating scent. Lady Maccon backed away hurriedly, lifting her ruffled skirts out of the toxic liquid. Her eyes began burning and watering. She coughed as the sensation moved to her throat, and she tried to breathe in shallow gasps. Luckily, most of the liquid was absorbed quickly by the hard, compact dirt of the contrivance chamber floor.

  The body inside flopped over and against the cracked side of the tank, one hand dangling out through the broken glass. Quickly, Alexia tugged off her glove and stepped up to it. She touched the cold dead hand once, flesh to flesh, and just like that, it was over.

  The wailing stopped. The body part wisps vanished—mist gone to aether. All that remained was the clanking sound of Madame Lefoux’s machines in motion and the empty air.

  “May you find your stillness, Formerly Lefoux,” said Alexia.

  She looked ruefully at the mess before her: broken glass, fractured tank, dead body. She abhorred such untidiness, but she had no time to see to the cleanup. Best to contact Floote on the matter as soon as she found some time.

  With that, she turned away and waddled back out of the chamber and into the passageway. She hoped the clientele above her was still arguing over hairmuffs, for she had no time to scheme her way around exposing Madame Lefoux’s secret entrance this time. She must stop her friend from imprudent action. And, more importantly, she desperately needed to find out why. Why Madame Lefoux, such an intelligent woman, would try to do something so dull-witted as mount a frontal attack on Buckingham Palace in order to kill the Queen of England.

  Fortunately, the hairmuff obsession was still in full sway. Almost no one noticed Lady Maccon scuttle, like some kind of gimpy goose, out of the door in the wall. She then made her way through the myriad of dangling hats and out of the shop. A few remarked upon the smell of formaldehyde, and one or two noted her ladyship’s undignified ascension into the depths of her fancy carriage, but few thought to connect the two. However, the head shopgirl did, and made a note to tell the mistress everything, before returning to the sudden increase in hairmuff orders.

  Lady Maccon remembered what Madame Lefoux had said about relocation. She’d arranged to utilize space in the Pantechnicon. Alexia was unaware of the location of the warehouse consortium. Being a matter of trade, it was not something Lady Maccon ought to know. Sometimes Madame Lefoux’s engineering interests led her into the most peculiar parts of London. Alexia had, of course, heard of the Pantechnicon but had never had occasion to visit such a thing as the facility in which Giffard’s Incorporated housed and maintained its dirigible fleet. The Pantechnicon stored and distributed a good deal of furniture as well. The very idea of a lady of good breeding visiting such a place. There would be tables lying about, on their sides, naked! Not to mention flaccid dirigibles! Alexia shuddered at the very idea. However, sometimes the muhjah had to go where Lady Maccon would not, and so she gave the order and trusted her driver to know the location, which turned out to be Belgravia, a deeply suspect part of London.

  After clattering for some time down one cobbled street after another, having passed through the worst and most raucous crowds of the West End and moving toward Chelsea, the carriage drew to a stop. Lady Maccon’s speaking tube rang imperiously.

  She picked up the listening trumpet. “Yes?”

  “Motcomb Street, madam.”

  “Thank you.” Never heard of it. She looked suspiciously out the carriage window. What Lady Maccon had never quite fathomed was how extraordinarily large the Pantechnicon had to be in order to accommodate both flaccid dirigibles and naked tables. She was in front of a massive caterpillar of warehouses. Each one resembled a barn, only bigger, being several stories high with arched metal roofs. Alexia assumed these must somehow open or come off in order to accommodate the dirigibles. The street was dimly lit by the flickering yellow glow of torchlight rather than by the steady white of gas, and the area was bereft of humanity. This was a part of the city that catered to day dealers, workers of transport and industry who loaded and unloaded their contraptions and carriers under the light of the sun. It was not a place for the likes of Lady Maccon to be traipsing about on full moon.

  But Alexia was not going to let a little thing like the dark emptiness of an alleyway prevent her from proceeding with her intent to assist a friend in dire need of sensible council. So she alighted from the carriage, Ethel in one hand and her parasol in the other. She waddled slowly along the row of gigantic structures, listening at the door of each, standing on tiptoe to peer in at small dingy windows—the only means of viewing the interior. She rubbed the grimy coating on leaded glass with her soiled glove. The Pantechnicon appeared to be as abandoned as the street. There was no sign of Madame Lefoux or her contraption.

  Then, finally, inside the last building in the row, Alexia caught sight of a spark of light. Inside, Madame Lefoux, or the person she assumed must be Madame Lefoux, wore a glass and metal bucket over her head, like the offspring of a medieval knight’s helmet and a fishbowl. She was also wearing the most hideous pair of coveralls and was busy with a flaming torch, welding great slabs of metal together. Her giant mechanical construct had taken its final form, and Alexia could not help but emit a little gasp of amazement at the sight of the monstrous thing.

  It was colossal, at least two stories high. The brimless bowler-hat portion now rested atop eight articulated metal tentacles that hung down like pillars, but if Lady Maccon knew Madame Lefoux, each would be able to move independently of the others. A remarkable creature, indeed. It looked like nothing so much as a massive upright octopus on tiptoe. Alexia wondered what it said about her current state that this comparison made her hungry. Ah, pregnancy.

  She banged on the window to attract Madame Lefoux’s attention, but the French woman clearly could not hear, for she did not pause in her activities.

  Lady Maccon circumnavigated the building, looking for an entrance. It had massive loading
doors street-side, but these were bolted firmly shut. There must be a smaller, more convenient, one-person door somewhere about the place.

  Finally, she found it. It, too, was locked. She whacked at it with her parasol in frustration, but brute force was also ineffectual. Not for the first time, Alexia wished she knew how to pick a lock. Conall had frowned most severely upon that particular request and on her proposed venture into Newgate Prison in order to hire the necessary criminally minded individual as instructor.

  She went back round to the front and considered breaking one of the lower windows; while it was too small to climb through, even if she were not eight months pregnant, she could at least yell. A massive noise interrupted her right before she was about to swing the parasol.

  The building began shaking slightly, the metal roof creaking most terribly, and the two great loading bay doors clattered against their hinges. Gouts of steam billowed from beneath the doors and around the edges. Metal screeched and the trundling thrumming sound of a steam engine in full operation emanated from within. Alexia backed away from the door. The sounds began to get louder and louder and the doors shook with more vigor. More steam puffed forth.

  It was getting closer.

  Lady Maccon waddled as fast as she could away from the doors, and just in the nick of time, too, for they burst open, crashing against the sides of the building in a great splintering of wood, left to hang askew on their hinges.

  A gigantic tiptoeing octopus came through, looking almost as though it floated atop the cloud of steam that gushed forth from under its mantle to swirl about its tentacles. The doors were not quite tall enough to permit an easy exit, but this didn’t seem to trouble the creature. It simply took a chunk of the roof off with its head. Tiles fell and splintered, dust wafted up, and steam wafted down as the world’s biggest automated cephalopod tentacled its way into the London street.