The Dark Volume

by Gordon Dahlquist

  SHE OPENED her eyes in a dim light that peeped cautiously through the very few gaps and knotholes in the freight car wall. The train had stopped. Outside she heard footsteps on the gravel. They passed by, followed by an exchange of shouts. Then with a slow, grinding rhythm the train pulled back into life.

  Miss Temple realized with a shock that her hand was cupping the Contessa's breast, and that the woman's own hand held hers in place.

  Miss Temple did not move. Had she shifted her hand to its present location or had the Contessa done it for her? Miss Temple had, with an interest at times abstract and at other times less so, of course held her own breasts, wondering at their shape and sensitivity, convinced they were both bothersome and perfectly splendid. But the Contessa's breast felt very different—being somewhat larger and connected to an altogether different body—and it was all she could do not to gently squeeze her fingers. Miss Temple bit her lip. At the margins of her mind she felt the seeping presence of the blue glass book, insistent and intoxicating, sparking an undeniable itch between her legs (… wrapped naked in furs in the back of an ice-sledge… a smearing of musk and blood across her lips… her own inner thighs stroked with a feather…) and she squeezed her hand, ever so softly, breath held tight, then squeezed again, her whole body warming with desire.

  The Contessa's hips pushed luxuriously back into her own. Miss Temple yanked her arm free with a gasp, sitting up. In a moment she was across and against her barrel, knees drawn up, smoothing back her hair. When she could no longer prevent her eyes from glancing to the Contessa, she saw that the woman was leaning on her elbow, still drowsy from sleep, smiling back at her with a mild sort of hunger.

  “WE STOPPED,” said Miss Temple. “I've no idea where. Did it wake you?”

  “It must have,” said the Contessa, a little dreamily for Miss Temple's taste. The Contessa plucked idly at her hair. “I must look a fright.”

  “You do not,” said Miss Temple, “as I am sure you know. I am the one who is frightful—my hair has not been curled, my hands are scabbed, my complexion is quite ruined with sundry disfigurements and bruising and what-have-yous—not that I care a jot for any of it.”

  “Why should you?”

  “Exactly,” snorted Miss Temple, not exactly sure why she was suddenly so cross.

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Quite poorly. It was very cold.”

  The woman was smiling at her again, and Miss Temple nodded peremptorily in the direction of the Contessa's bag.

  “Would you have anything to eat?”

  “I might.”

  “I would even more enjoy a cup of tea.”

  “I cannot help you there.”

  “I am aware of it,” said Miss Temple, and then observed, “Some people prefer coffee.”

  “I am one of those people,” said the Contessa.

  “Coffee is too bitter.”

  The Contessa let this stand and opened her bag, then looked back at Miss Temple before removing any article from it. “And what do I get in return for sharing my food?”

  “What would you expect?”

  “Not a thing. That is, I would not rely upon it.”

  “Then we understand each other quite well.”

  The Contessa chuckled and produced two dried apples and a gold-crusted pie wrapped in a grease-stained cloth. She handed one of the apples to Miss Temple and took the pie between her hands. Miss Temple thought to offer her knife to cut it in two and reached down to her boot. The knife was no longer there. She looked up at the Contessa, who had broken the pie between her fingers and was handing across one half.

  “It is too much to hope for anything but mutton,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” replied Miss Temple, taking the pie. The crust flaked onto her wrist and she brought it to her mouth, catching the flake on her tongue like a toad. “I am much obliged to you.”

  “You needn't be,” said the Contessa, chewing, and rather more frank in her manners than Miss Temple had expected. “I have no further interest in any memory of Karthe, much less its food. As I have no desire to eat more than half this pie—in fact, hardly enough to eat any at all—giving that much to you costs me nothing.”

  Miss Temple had no response to this, so she simply ate. Despite everything she felt well rested, and stronger than she had the day before. She bit into the apple, found it too chewy but still tart.

  “You took my knife, didn't you?”

  “Do you always insist on asking questions to which you know the answer?”

  “It was a way of letting you know I was aware of it.”

  “Only a fool would not be, Celeste.”

  “I must have slept deeply, then.”

  “Like a mewling kitten.” The Contessa swallowed another bite of pie. “You mentioned our stopping. But that was the third time we had stopped—you slept through the others.”

  “Will you give it back?”

  “I shouldn't think so.”

  The Contessa saw her cross expression and leaned forward.

  “Understand, Celeste, I could have slit your throat as easy as patting your head. I did not, because we had an agreement.”

  “But after the agreement, after we arrive—”

  “I will not give it back then either. Who knows when you will want to slit mine?”

  Miss Temple frowned. It was far too easy to imagine some future meeting—in the city, in a train car, on a marble staircase—where the Contessa would without pause slash her glittering spike at Miss Temple's unprotected face. Could she do the same, after pressing herself against the Contessa's warm and splendid body in the dark? How could mere familiarity change anything between them? But how could it not?

  Miss Temple cleared her throat. “If we are so agreeable, perhaps you will now tell me of Elöise. You did promise to do so.”

  “It is a very boring thing to ask.”

  “Did you hurt her?”

  “I did not. Mrs. Dujong and a young man entered a house in Karthe, a house I myself was observing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I lost something, Celeste.”

  “But the boy who lived there was murdered!”

  “Yes, I know. Once they went in, I saw the soldier lurking in the street—he'd followed them. I took this as my own opportunity to slip past him to the inn, but before I was finished with the innkeeper, the soldier returned and insisted on being unpleasant to everyone.”

  “And Elöise?”

  “Since she did not come back to the inn with the soldier—well, either he killed her, or Francis killed her… or something else.”

  “What else do you mean?”

  “Once again, Celeste, if you simply made a habit of thinking before speech—”

  “Xonck knows her?”

  “Of course Francis knows her. She is his sister's loyal confidante.”

  “She never said any such thing to me!” Miss Temple sniffed doubtfully. “Francis Xonck…”

  “But that is what is so delicious!” cried the Contessa. “She does not even know herself!”

  “Know what?”

  “That she is already his!”

  Miss Temple recalled Elöise's determination not to explain why Chang and the Doctor had vanished, indeed her determination to explain as little as possible… but Francis Xonck? Miss Temple was appalled.

  “But what has happened to her?”

  “I've no idea,” said the Contessa. “When I got to the train yard I did what I could to create a disturbance—to make it that much harder for Francis to move about freely—and found my place to hide. Per haps there was a scream or two outside—I was securing my place with the fish oil.”

  “I should not think he would scare you,” observed Miss Temple mildly.

  “Francis does not scare me,” the Contessa replied pointedly. “But he is very dangerous, and in Karthe I had no way to combat him. In the city I shall. Most definitely.”

  The Contessa idly patted her bag, then realize
d she had done so and that Miss Temple had noticed the gesture. Miss Temple smirked with great satisfaction, and nodded to the closed car door. “If we stopped three times, do you know where we are, or what time it is?” she asked.

  “I do,” replied the Contessa, “and see no profit whatsoever in telling you. But you did sleep so beautifully.”

  The Contessa set the rest of her pie on the floor, pulled up her dress to wipe her hands on her petticoats, then flounced the dress back into position and crawled deliberately toward Miss Temple on her hands and knees, until their faces were very near. Miss Temple swallowed, suddenly afraid, but her fear was of a different order than the night before. The Contessa had become more known…a woman who ate and slept and yawned and flexed her hips with restless hunger… somehow it made her even more monstrous. Despite everything the Contessa had said, Miss Temple did not know why she was still alive— there must be a reason, some role the woman hoped she would perform. What other explanation was there?

  “The thing is… I have slept as well. I am no longer tired, nor does my shoulder so vex my movement—I am indebted for your…ministrations.”

  The Contessa's tongue caught a last crumb of pie crust from the corner of her dark mouth.

  “Not to worry,” croaked Miss Temple.

  “I am not in the slightest worried. Though I do wonder… I wonder what you intend.”

  “Me?” whispered Miss Temple. “Nothing at all.”

  “O tush. Our journey together is a parenthesis, and upon disembarkation we must once more become active enemies. In truth, you are lucky that you have been isolated with me, for alone among my companions I am… whimsical. I helped the Doctor rescue his Prince once, just to confound the Comte. I lied to Francis—O goodness how he was angry—and of course all of us betrayed Lord Vandaariff quite utterly. So it is not for squeamishness regarding a promise that I have not killed you in your sleep. But that, as I say… I am curious.”

  “About what?”

  “About you, of course.”

  The Contessa nudged her face closer, dipping her nose toward Miss Temple's curls, and inhaled. Miss Temple could not meet the woman's eye, but found her own caught by the other's pale throat, the two jet buttons still undone at the top of her bodice. She could feel the strange memories within her mind, pushing forward, shining their insidious light through each crack in her resolve.

  “You must be full of flames,” whispered the Contessa. “The book in which you nearly drowned… I know it haunts you, Celeste. It was my book—I know everything that was in it, everything that must be preying on your heart… it was my own calculated entrapment. I expect you struggle against it even now. Look at you trembling… Do you fear I will bite you?”

  At this the Contessa did just that, snapping her teeth gently onto Miss Temple's cheek. Miss Temple cried out and the Contessa let go, laughing, and then swept her tongue across the blushing, bitten spot.

  “All of this can be over for you, Celeste. Roger is dead—you've had your revenge. As you said yourself on the roof of the airship, my plots are finished. Macklenburg is unreachable—with the Prince and Lydia dead there is no marriage, and all the money and land remain in Lord Vandaariff's name, beyond my control… no doubt he has been placed in a madhouse…”

  She nipped again at Miss Temple's face and then pushed her mouth onto Miss Temple's. The Contessa's lips were even softer than Miss Temple had feared, and the woman's tongue darted past her teeth so very deliciously Miss Temple groaned. The Contessa pulled back, breathing just a touch deeper herself, and went on as if there had been no interruption.

  “You can go back to your hotel, back to your husband-hunting, back to your little island… there is no need for the two of us… to come… to blows…”

  The Contessa feinted another kiss and smiled at Miss Temple's indecision, whether to turn her head or open her mouth.

  “You must stop,” Miss Temple whispered.

  “Stop what?” asked the Contessa, stabbing her mouth forward again. This time Miss Temple's tongue responded, pushing into the Contessa's mouth. Miss Temple's hands were balled into fists against the desire to seize the Contessa's body. Her mind was spinning, so many flickering memories leaping to feed her senses. She did not know how much of what she felt came from the book and how much from the Contessa—did it matter? Was she any less subject either way? The Contessa broke contact and kissed her a third time, pushing forward. Miss Temple's left hand groped to keep her balance, while her right shot out to push the woman away, but felt the stiff corset beneath the cheap silken dress and then slid farther along, smoothing past the corset's edge to the sweet soft rounded sweep of the Contessa's hip, where she could not help but squeeze. The Contessa broke away to bite Miss Temple's little chin.

  “You must stop…”

  “I do not believe you,” breathed the Contessa against Miss Temple's throat.

  “Your plots,” gasped Miss Temple, turning her head away despite herself, so the Contessa's tongue might trace itself more freely. “Your intrigues—you must be content with survival…”

  “What did you say?”

  “You have corrupted my heart—”

  “O… nothing of the kind… you were always so…”

  “They will kill you if you do not disappear.”

  “Who will kill me?”

  “Cardinal Chang—the Doctor—”

  “Those heroes… but what, Celeste, of you?”

  “I would kill you myself—”

  “And how very brave, and how principled.”

  This did not seem like a compliment. Miss Temple's breath was still rapid—when had the Contessa's knee lodged itself between her legs?

  “Such principles just show how much you understand…” The Contessa planted small speculative kisses along Miss Temple's jaw. “And how little… a gratifying thing to have displayed by an enemy.”

  “I am your enemy.” Miss Temple writhed against the Contessa's grinding knee.

  “You always have been, dear.”

  “Then why have you kept me alive?”

  “Because even I cannot be everywhere at once.”

  To Miss Temple's surprise, even as once more her tongue was darting within the warm and silken confines of the Contessa's mouth, the Contessa's fingers pinched Miss Temple's nose tightly closed. Merging oddly with the tingle of her loins and the flush she was sure had spread all down her front… was the realization that she could not breathe. She tried to gently shift the Contessa's arm but found her own sharply pinned by the woman's elbow. She tried to turn away, but the Contessa did not loosen her grip. Miss Temple arched her back. She tried to bite the Contessa's tongue but the woman merely brought up her other hand to clamp shut Miss Temple's jaw. Miss Temple thrashed her legs. She slapped at the Contessa's face, groped for her hair. The Contessa did not budge, the seal of her soft lips fast as an oyster to stone. Miss Temple became dizzy and afraid. She could not think. She heaved with all her strength but could not dislodge her succubus. With a last, desperate thought that such an end was exactly what she had come to deserve, Miss Temple's mind went black.

  SHE OPENED her eyes to an unmoving car and the Contessa gone. Attempting to sit up, she found herself pinned to the wooden floor, the tip of her own knife driven through her dress at the very juncture of her legs. Miss Temple wrenched it free with both hands, snorting that to the Contessa such a gesture would pass for wit, and returned the blade to her boot. She crawled to the doorway of the car and, heaving with both arms, pulled it three inches wide, enough to peer through.

  The land before her was a blend of fen and forest, perfectly suited for the construction of canals. She remembered Elöise's description of her uncle's cottage, annoyed that she had listened with such disinterest, for she was certain his home lay in this very part of the country. It had been in a park of some sort—what had it been called? Parchfeldt! Yet the idea of leaping off the train in the deluded hope that anyone— if there was anyone—might direct her to Parchfeldt Park was ri
diculous. Miss Temple slumped back against the wall. Her actions in the freight car—from the first decision to sleep next to the Contessa to this last humiliating struggle—flayed her conscience like a whip.

  If she ever found Chang and Svenson, what would she say to them—about her own failures of character, or about her loss of Elöise? Where would she possibly find the two men? She did not know where Parchfeldt was. She did not know what Chang's message possibly meant—“the Lord's Time”—no doubt it was the secret name for some gambling club or brothel!

  The Contessa's words echoed in her heart. She could choose to leave her adventure as something finished, be satisfied with her revenge and her survival. She could return to her life with lessons learned and precious few scars to prove it. But then she clenched her legs tightly together, shivering at the memory of the Contessa's touch, pulling her knees to her chest in fervid misery.

  The train at last pulled forward. Miss Temple curled onto her side, though the rest she found was thin and brought no comfort.