She lifted her shoe from Dr. Mincing’s corpse. Its sequins flashed, and her embroidered petticoats rustled as she walked toward them.
“Sadly, our country has changed,” she continued. “Unlike the slaves in my family’s fields, the Islanders aren’t useful in themselves, but they are useful for something they possess. La Pointe des Pêcheurs, I call it.” She looked at them. “But you’ll know it as Fisherman’s Point.”
Harry’s fingers, arms, and elbows kept struggling on. His body could hardly move, but his thoughts made up for it, flying around his head. Rightfully ours… Daggerbeard’s and Yelloweyes’s words floated back into his memory, and he studied Madame Melrose and thought how entirely unlike those gnarled fishermen she was, infinitely more elegant, and yet, from what she was saying, every bit as brutal.
“Their land,” he muttered. “You want them chased off it so you can have it. Just like—”
“Very good, mon garçon. But it is one thing to puzzle something out afterward, another to be the one devising it in the first place.” She smiled. “Yes, La Pointe des Pêcheurs is a most valuable piece of land, conveniently situated on the banks of the Mississippi. Perhaps you have gathered this from that gang of rival fishermen who would be so happy to see the Islanders driven from it? Rumors have reached me of their plots, but I’m afraid there is no chance of La Pointe ending up in the hands of, well, fishermen. Our country is changing, mes enfants.”
She lowered herself into the chair by the desk. Next to it, a pool of blood from Mincing’s body glistened; one of her embroidered petticoat hems settled on it and started drinking the blood up.
“You recall I had a group of gentlemen from Chicago with me when we met at La Pointe des Pêcheurs? They weren’t professeurs d’anthropologie sociale. More useful by far, they were grands patrons, businessmen, who wish to buy Fisherman’s Point. Fish is still their business, I suppose, but in a far more lucrative way. They seek to build canning factories, to be blunt. Gone will be the days of fishermen living near this city of ours; they can dwell in the swamps, and the fish they find will be brought to sleek new factories, where it will be canned for transportation around the world. A profitable affair, and les grands patrons are prepared to pay a considerable fee to whoever can smooth the way toward it being possible. Mayor Monticelso was set against it, you see. To him, the Islanders’ right to their land was immovable. But all problems can be solved with enough thought. And meeting with a diseased and bankrupt doctor of medicine came in handy too.”
Her spectacles tilted across to the corpse in the doorway, dumped at the end of the stripe of blood. She smiled.
“Such fascinating research. I’m sure he told you his intentions were good; he had a habit of saying that. Good, bad, le bien, le mal.” She rolled the words off her lips. “These are subtle distinctions, and not ones that Mincing’s diseased brain could easily grasp. He was in a desperate state when I met him—years of failed experiments had left him penniless. I offered to pay for his lodgings, his food, the clothes on his back, in return for him carrying on his scientific work for me. I even found him this convenient deserted asylum to use as his laboratory! Occasionally, he would express concerns about the way in which I wished to put his scientific discoveries to use, but when I reminded him of his financial dependence on me, he generally became quiet. It is a simple matter, to control a man with no financial means. Even simpler when that man’s mind has been overthrown by years of exposure to strange venoms. And it is a simpler matter still, once that man is no longer required—and has become a liability indeed—to finish with him.”
She noticed the bloodied hem of her petticoat. A frown appeared on her forehead, but she lifted her dresses by the tiniest amount and resettled on the chair. Harry struggled even harder, his gaze on the phial of antidote. No way of getting it, no way at all. The thought hit him suddenly, and his muscles started to shake. Cold, frightened weakness spread through his body as Madame Melrose spoke on.
“Un tour très simple, a simple affair, once I had thought it through. Remove Mayor Monticelso’s opposition, and not only that, remove the mayor himself, by sending him into a deranged madness. Then devise matters so that the deranged madness would seem to be a creation of the Islanders, allowing the vile Oscar Dupont to stir up a typhoon of rage that would sweep the Islanders from the city, leaving me free to use my council position to guide through the sale of Fisherman’s Point to the grands patrons, in return for not only my fee but a percentage of all profits. Once again, I shall live in the manner to which I was accustomed on the family plantation! A neat affair—and it will be all the neater once the last details are complete.” Her spectacles swung back to Dr. Mincing’s corpse. “The remains of my accomplice must be taken to the other end of the asylum, to be dumped through a hatch I use for such business—various alligators lurk nearby who will dispose of the body. That just leaves you, mes enfants.”
Harry fought against the buckles. Sweat trickled down his face, but the only movement he could see was of the buckle over his shoulder, its tooth rising and settling down. Impossible. He stared at Madame Melrose, who was smiling, clearly delighted by the story she had just told. All of it unknown, unguessed by me. His muscles grew even weaker as he thought back over everything that had happened. He thought of how skillfully he had searched Arthur’s clothes and found that blot of ink. He thought how determinedly he had followed Dr. Mincing, tracked him down to this dark place. And yet all the time, a deeper mystery had been lurking, one that he hadn’t guessed at all. Missed it…
Harry froze. Madame Melrose had lifted her revolver.
“I expect you are wondering why I didn’t shoot you as soon as I found you here, rather than club you with the gun’s other end?” The revolver rotated in her hand, muzzle following heel. “It was quite considered, mes enfants. My plans may be conceived at great speed, but they are perfectly precise.”
She was up out of the chair. She had circled Dr. Mincing’s desk, and Harry was quite sure she had no idea about the antidote, because she was standing with the bottle almost touching her shoe. But he was more concerned about what she was doing with Dr. Mincing’s scorpion-filled jars, taking them down from the shelves and arranging them next to the one on the desk.
“Oscar Dupont’s mob is violent and ugly. But there is no harm, for my purposes, in it becoming more violent and ugly still. And what could better produce that effect than the discovery of two further children, also in the unending grip of the demon curse? Coup d’éclat! How very startling!” She turned. “The pain, I should warn you, is supposed to be excruciating. But you’ve seen Mayor Monticelso and your dear friend. I don’t need to tell you that.”
She tucked the final jar into a leather bag hanging from her shoulder. The rest, six in all, each filled with its furious contents, she left lined up along the desk. Harry saw the scorpions, tiny arched bands of muscles, blur against the insides. He saw droplets of venom trickle down the glass from wherever the stings had struck.
“I shall keep a few of the specimens for possible further use.” She patted the jar in the bag and swept back to the doorway across the hall. “The rest, however, must be disposed of. I shall release them to roam in the swamp. The food they rely on, a rare variety of sugar cane, grows only in Costa Rica, so they will perish in time. However, kind soul that I am, I have left them the last remains of their favorite food à l’intérieur de vos camisoles de force.” She arrived at the door and Mincing’s body. “By which I mean—and it is so very important that you understand me—inside your straitjackets.”
She spun the spectacles on their stem several times, like a windmill, and then stopped the lenses in front of her eyes. The gun muzzle pointed toward the jars on the desk, and its tip blazed. One of the jars shattered, and Madame Melrose’s thumb pulled back the revolver’s hammer. Five more shots and the rest of the jars shattered, one by one. Finally, the last shot faded away.
“As mentioned, I m
ust now dispose of my colleague.” Madame Melrose bent down and grabbed one of Dr. Mincing’s legs. “I shall return shortly, and once I am sure the creatures have done their work and scurried away, I shall cut the straitjackets from your contorting bodies and ferry you back to the city, where you will be discovered in some alleyway—further evidence of the Islanders’ wickedness.”
“You’ll never get away with this!” Billie cried, but her words were blurred by the trembling of her lips.
“Adieu, mes enfants,” Madame Melrose said. “I suspect that needs no translation.”
She lugged Mincing out through the door. The stripe of blood extended, glistening. Another lug, and the door slammed.
Leaving Harry and Billie with the shattered fragments of glass still rocking on the floor.
And the sound of tiny claws, scuttling toward them.
Chapter 18
Harry fought against the straps. His arms struggled, and his fingers tore at the material, but his muscles were cramping, and his movements were slowing down. He wrenched, kicked, and squirmed until he could hardly catch his breath. The straitjacket’s neck remained bolted to the bars, and that single buckle down by his shoulder lifted its tooth, but that was all.
Impossible.
The scorpions were scuttling through the murkiness, the light from Dr. Mincing’s lamp gleaming on their scales. They’ve smelled the sugar. Their tiny claws pattered over the stone as they headed toward him and Billie, and he smelled the sweet odor too, wafting up out of his straitjacket’s insides. His tongue was dry; his whole body shuddered.
No idea what to do.
“Keep trying, Harry!” Billie’s voice was a strangled hiss.
“I…I can’t…” He tried to fight, but his muscles cramped even more. “These jackets—they’re made for mad people, aren’t they? Even someone crazy wouldn’t be able to get out. How can I—?”
“The scorpions! If they sting us—”
“I know!”
“It’s not just us! Artie, Mayor Monticelso—we’ve got to save them! The Islanders too!”
“I know that!”
“The antidote!” She managed to jolt her head toward the phial, lying by the desk.
“I know.”
“We’ve got to—”
Her voice cut out, and Harry saw why. The first scorpion had crept onto the hem of her dress and was making its way toward her straitjacket. The tiny tail, with its venom-dripping stinger, arched above it, quivering at every fold of cloth the scorpion encountered. Something twitched against Harry’s leg, and he glanced down to see three scorpions crawling up the outside of his trousers. Only his eyes moved as he watched the scaly creatures journeying up his body. They crawled onto his straitjacket and weaved through the buckles and straps. Two more crept onto the trouser leg, following the others’ path. His body was frozen, but he could feel his heart hammering inside, as if it were trying to fight its way out. He thought of all the tricks he knew, all the last-minute escapes he had pulled off, here in New Orleans, back in New York too. None of it matters, he thought.
Because he had never been truly frightened until now.
“Please, Harry, keep trying…” Billie’s voice could hardly be heard. “Remember what he said…the man in the pale suit…Mr. James…back in the library…”
Harry’s eyes slid sideways to see several more scorpions on Billie: five on her dress, another three halfway along her arm. Another was up by her straitjacket’s collar, and it crept over the stitched edge and disappeared inside. Her voice weakened, and Harry knew she was trying not to move the muscles of her neck.
“Who knows who he is…who knows what the Order of the White Crow is either… But I heard what he said back there…about you.” She angled her eyes toward him. “About your skills. Miraculous, he called them. Skills that make anything seem possible. Me and Artie, we impressed him too, but you, Harry, you were the one who dazzled him.”
“It’s no good…”
He tried to remember it too. He closed his eyes and tried to bring it back to life, that moment in the library when all had seemed lost, and Mr. James’s words had sent energy racing back through him. But it’s no good now. Even if Mr. James were there, whispering about his skills right in his ear, it would have had no effect. Besides, Mr. James had said other words too, and those were the ones Harry could hear perfectly clearly, lingering in his thoughts.
“He didn’t just talk about my skills. He said we weren’t ready, remember?”
“What?”
“The investigation was too difficult. That’s what he said. He’d made a...misjudgment…”
“I know but—”
“He was right, wasn’t he? Look at us!”
The scorpions were all over his trousers, the straitjacket too. He looked at those arms and legs and remembered how quickly he had clambered up inside the dumbwaiter shaft at city hall. He saw one of his boots and remembered how he’d kicked the sack of charms into the brazier’s flames. He remembered his fingers, cleverly picking the lock of a suitcase when he was trapped inside… But none of it makes any difference now. Here he was, that nimble, skillful body unable to move at all…
“I believe in you, Harry, even if you don’t. Mr. James was right about your skills; it doesn’t matter what else he said. That’s the truth. Artie would say the same.”
A scorpion was on Harry’s face. He felt it scuttle across his forehead, and almost straightaway, he felt another one creep onto his cheek. He froze, and for a few seconds, those terrible pattering sensations were all he could feel, all he could think of. But then, even as he lay there, he realized that Billie was still speaking, and he listened to her words, every single one of them.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t normally say this—don’t want you to get bigheaded or anything…” Her voice was almost gone. “But it really is true. What you do…there’s no one else who can do anything like it. Harry, are you listening?”
Harry slanted his eyes to the side. He saw Billie’s face again and shuddered at the sight. For a start, there were the scorpions crawling over it. But worst of all, for him, was that desperate hint of hope in her expression.
Hope in me.
“Whatever it takes, you always do it,” Billie was saying. “Why, just yesterday morning on the Crescent Express, you rescued me and Artie out of those suitcases, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but…” Harry felt scorpions inside his straitjacket, their claws against his skin.
“When we pulled in at the station, two minutes later, you were doing the Fiery Coal Dance.”
“I know, but—”
“As soon as I knew the Islanders were in trouble, I asked you to help. I knew you’d say yes. I knew you’d do whatever it took to save them.”
“I can’t…” He felt one creep down his spine.
“You always do it, Harry. You always manage to win through. And you’ll do it now, yeah? You’ll get us out of here. For Artie…for Mayor Monticelso…for the Islanders…for me…”
Her words stopped. The scorpions on her face had reached her lips, and not even she dared speak anymore. The insects stood right by her mouth, their stings quivering, and Billie was silent, her eyes wide with terror. But her words kept echoing in Harry’s mind. If only those words could change things, he thought as he looked at his straitjacket. There were countless scorpions on it. Inside, he felt a crowd of them gathering at a spot just under his ribs. Too late… He tilted his head back and looked, for what he thought might be the very last time, at his friend, lying there in a straitjacket, just a few inches away…
Just a few inches away.
Harry’s heart stopped beating. He waited and felt it jolt back to life, pounding even harder. He wondered if the vibrations would disturb the scorpions, but so far, they seemed just to be creeping onward on their journeys. He looked at the ones on the outside of the jacket, weaving
their way between the buckles. He looked at the particular part of the jacket he was interested in: the strap by his left shoulder.
With the buckle that had lifted its tooth.
A scorpion was crawling over it, its spiny legs lifting. Harry waited for it to move on and turned his head until he was staring at Billie.
“The straitjackets…they’re for mad people, yes?”
“You said that. I know.” There were fewer scorpions on Billie’s face, but she seemed hardly to have the strength to whisper.
“Even someone in a mad fit couldn’t get out, yes?”
“You’ve said this, Harry…”
“But people who are mad, they’re on their own, aren’t they? All locked up in their own craziness.”
“I suppose so. But—”
“They wouldn’t listen to anyone. Wouldn’t matter how good a friend they were, wouldn’t matter what they said…”
“Harry?”
Harry looked back at the buckle. He concentrated on the scorpions inside the jacket, working out where they were. Most of them had gathered at the spot beneath his ribs. Some of the cane sugar’s there, perhaps. He felt them in other places too—his neck, his chest—but there were some bits of his body that were free of them: his left arm, for example. Very slow. Gritting his teeth, he tightened that arm until it was pushing against the straitjacket as hard as it could. No other part of his body moved, only the arm. His eyes stayed fixed on the buckle.
“Harry? What are you doing?”
The buckle’s tooth lifted. It rose only a tiny amount, but Harry kept it like that, the muscles in his arm shaking. Inside the jacket, around the rest of his body, he felt the scorpions go still. But they didn’t sting. Not yet. One by one, they continued with their scuttling, burrowing onward. Beads of sweat ran down Harry’s face; as his arm remained clenched, the buckle’s tooth remained raised. He started to roll to the side.
The Demon Curse Page 12