“I love her, too. I love her so much!” He held the puppy gently to his chest, letting her nuzzle his neck. “I don’t think I want to call her Mine anymore. Because she’s not. She’s her own.”
“What do you want to call her, then?”
“What you said. Mercy. That’s her name now. So I don’t forget.” He carried her into the house, snug against his chest. “I love you, Mercy. More than anything.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Mouse said to her father once they were alone.
“I suppose I should’ve just let you go on and on about how wrong it is to use your power?” He laced his fingers behind his head, arching his back until it popped. “He’s happy and he has me to thank for it.”
“Part of growing up is learning that there are consequences for our choices. You say you want him to have a normal life, but you just taught him—”
“I never said I wanted him to have a normal life. I said I want him to understand what it means to be human.”
Mouse studied him. He had that twinkle behind his eyes that she knew well. He was playing at some game. But she didn’t have time to unravel his mysteries.
She shrugged. “Human or normal—doesn’t make a difference. It was still a mistake.” She went into the house.
“We’ll see how long you feel that way,” he said to himself, then stuck out his tongue and caught a falling flake.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Bishop contacted Jack a few weeks later to let him know that the Reverend and his wife were going to be at the Bolshoi a couple of days before Christmas to see The Nutcracker. Mouse intended to go alone, but the Bishop and Jack insisted on being there, too. And in some ways, it made things simpler for her—the last four names on her list, all in the same place at the same time. A few minutes’ work during intermission and it would all be over.
When she told her father she was going to The Nutcracker, he suggested that he and Luc go, too.
“I want us to do all the normal things a family does—after all, it’s Christmas,” he said, his voice full of mischief.
“We’ve gone shopping at the holiday markets in the village. We’ve baked cookies and wrapped presents and learned all the carols and decorated the house. I’ll be back on Christmas Eve. We can do The Nutcracker next year,” Mouse answered. But her words felt hollow. She had a dark Christmas wish she meant to ask of her father once everything was accomplished.
“There’s no reason we can’t go this year, is there?” he countered.
Mouse knew full well that her father already understood why she was going. The tease in his voice just confirmed her suspicions. “This isn’t a game. The people I’m dealing with are dangerous. They don’t know about Luc, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Her father waved away her concern. “He and I will be nowhere near your dangerous people. And even if they were to see him, they won’t be around long enough to pose a threat, will they?”
Mouse didn’t answer. She hadn’t decided what to do about Jack yet. “I doubt you can get tickets this late,” she said instead.
Her father smirked. “I assure you, we will have some of the best seats in the house.”
Mouse had no choice but to acquiesce. “You’ll keep Luc away from . . . what I’ll be doing?”
“I promise I will keep him safe from your dangerous prey.” He played with a bit of garland swirled around crimson candles on the kitchen table. “But won’t your activities interrupt the show?”
Mouse looked out the window at Luc and Mercy playing in the snow. The puppy didn’t seem any different than before her death and resurrection. If anything, the bond between the two had grown stronger, fed by Luc’s newly discovered power of selfless love.
Mouse swallowed a little wave of sadness. “I won’t do it there,” she said quietly. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
“Ah, that’s clever. Less distraction, and it eliminates the drama that’s sure to stir if someone drops dead at the ballet. Where are you going to take—? Oh, I bet I know. The lake that’s not a lake? The one that’s full of salt and bitter with disappointment?”
She snapped her face toward him. “There’s nothing funny about any of this. I know the lake. I know it’ll be isolated. I know there’s nowhere for them to run. It makes sense to take them—”
“Them? I thought we were picking them off one by one.”
“They’ll all be there that night—what’s left of them.”
“That’s ambitious of you. Can you do it? Traveling with a companion is more difficult than traveling alone.”
“I know that.”
“Would you like some help?”
“No.” She had been transporting Jack back and forth to different locations to touch base with the Bishop via cellphone. She didn’t want anyone tracing the calls, and it was a good way to test her endurance. “I’ll do one at a time.”
“How will you—”
“None of this is any of your business!” she said sharply. “I have it all planned. You’re the one screwing it up by insisting on bringing Luc. Just be sure to keep him away from it all. When it’s done, I’ll either join you back at the ballet or I’ll meet you here.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
In the days leading up to the show, Mouse visited the theater several times, playing out various scenarios in her head, mapping out countless strategies. She found all the places to slip away from the crowd so she could come and go unnoticed. She anticipated what the Reverend and Mrs. Ayres might do during intermission, thought about how to snatch them one by one, considered who to save for last. Mouse planned for everything.
Finally, the night came when it would be finished. Mouse wore a tux like her father and brother. Her hair had been growing back and now covered her head like a thick, super-short pixie cut. Luc was thumbing through the glossy program, looking at the faces of the dancers he was about to watch. It would be his first Nutcracker.
Her father had been right about getting them good seats. They had a box on the bel étage—a perfect view of the stage and of much of the audience below and across from them; a strategic spot. Mouse had already picked out Jack and the Bishop, Jack’s long, snow-white hair standing out like a beacon. They were on the floor toward the middle. The Reverend and Kitty Ayres were supposed to be in the seats to the right of the presidential box, but they apparently hadn’t arrived yet.
“I like these,” Luc said, nudging her with his elbow and pointing at the pictures of the Arabian dancers in his program. “Will we see them?”
“I think so, in the second part.”
“When will the show start?” He pulled at the collar tight against his throat.
Mouse’s leg was bouncing. “Any minute now.”
And just as the words left her lips, the third bell rang, sending patrons scurrying for their seats. As the lights dimmed and the curtain started to rise and the first notes rang out from the symphony, she looked back at the seats beside the presidential box and saw a woman in a modest black evening gown take her seat. The opulent jewels at her neck glimmered in the last of the house lights.
Behind her was a face Mouse knew well. It traveled with her like a second shadow. She saw it in her mind when she woke and just before sleep claimed her. She dreamed it during that fitful hour or two of night, all the time her mind would give her body for rest. She called the face to her when she hunted. She toyed with it when her grief threatened to overwhelm her.
She knew the Reverend’s face like it was her own. In her mind, she lingered over every gaping pore and blemish and deep wrinkle and scar in that bloated face until, finally, her eyes settled on the cracked lips, shaping the words that had framed her fate and Angelo’s—words that would now seal the Reverend’s own.
Mouse strained to filter out the music so she could hear his voice. The Reverend’s high Southern drawl lay discordant against the sharp, bright trumpets announcing the march of the toy so
ldiers.
“Are you comfortable, dear?” he asked his wife.
A simple question; a gentleman’s question. Jarringly different than those other words Mouse had watched him say at Lake Disappointment, words that ran over and over again in her mind—Take the girl down. The priest doesn’t matter. Kill him.
Mouse’s hand slid around her side, fingering the bone of the Seven Sisters where it rested against her back like a second spine, tucked into her waistband and held tight by her cummerbund. It vibrated with anticipation. The bone wanted this one—this man would make a worthy kill.
But not yet. Mouse forced her hand back onto her shaking thigh. Luc reached over and threaded his fingers between hers, their entwined hands resting on her leg, now stilled. He leaned his head against her arm, and they watched the opening scene of The Nutcracker together. Their father, who sat on the other side of Luc, smiled over at them and stifled a yawn.
As the Christmas party played out on stage, Luc lost interest. From the corner of her eye, Mouse could see him watching the people in the audience, studying their expressions as they watched the ballet. She found it unnerving that her father was doing the same thing. She leaned down, about to whisper something to Luc to draw his attention back to the dancing dolls on stage, when she felt someone watching her. She looked first at the Reverend and Mrs. Ayres, but they both seemed enraptured by the ballet. Mouse doubted that the Reverend would even recognize her with her short hair and tux.
Her eyes turned down toward the seats on the floor. The Bishop was staring at her, and then his eyes grew wide as they slid to Luc beside her and finally to her father. He leaned over and said something to Jack Gray, who also turned and looked up at them.
With a sudden heaviness, Mouse knew she no longer had any choice about what to do with Jack. She turned her head back toward the stage. She could feel her father’s eyes on her. She heard his gentle whisper in her mind: I’ll take care of it for you.
Onstage, Herr Drosselmeyer conjured his magic, and the Christmas tree against the back wall, center stage, grew taller and brighter as Marie watched, wonderstruck, and the violins reached a crescendo. Luc shifted in his seat, tucking his legs under him to get a better view. He gripped Mouse’s hand a little tighter as the music soared higher and louder.
Mouse turned to her father and shook her head. Something passed over his face, but she couldn’t tell if it was pride or pleasure. Neither boded well for her soul. She leaned down and kissed Luc on top of the head.
“Look! It’s you!” he said quietly, pointing at the stage. The Mouse King had just emerged from the trapdoor amid colored smoke. Luc grinned as he looked up at her. “It’s the Mouse Queen.”
He let go of Mouse’s hand and leaned forward as the battle between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker began. He bounced with excitement when it seemed the Mouse King had won, but when Marie rushed forward and hit the Mouse King over the head, Luc sank back in his seat. As the Mouse King fell gracefully back into his soldiers’ arms and was carried off, lifeless, Luc pressed his face against Mouse’s arm. He didn’t move even as the lights brightened for intermission.
“Is the Mouse gone?” he asked. “Forever?”
Mouse had already scooted to the edge of her seat, ready to stand, ready to finish what had to be done. She looked over her shoulder and saw the Reverend and Mrs. Ayres disappearing past the curtain into the shadows behind their seats. The Bishop and Jack were already making their way out to the lower lobby.
“I don’t like this show. I want to go,” Luc said.
“It’s alright. It’s just pretend. If you stay, you’ll see the Mouse King at the end with all the others. I promise.” Mouse pulled free of his arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to go to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re lying. I hear it. Where are you really going?”
“I’ll be here with you, Luc,” his father said.
“I don’t want you to go,” Luc said to Mouse, a note of panic in his voice.
“Let’s talk about what you liked and didn’t like in the ballet,” his father said.
Luc shook his head. “I want to go with Mouse.”
“You can’t,” his father said firmly.
Mouse looked down at the boy. She knew his unnatural senses were telling him that something was wrong, but she had no more time to waste. “Luc, I’ve got to do something and I’m nervous about it—that’s what you’re sensing. Okay? You stay here, but I have to go. I’ll come back when I can.” She pushed past him.
“Tell me what you liked and didn’t like about the ballet so far,” she heard her father say again as she moved toward the door at the back of their box.
“Leave me alone,” Luc muttered as Mouse closed the door behind her.
The coat check was just down the hall. While she waited for the attendant to get her cloak, Mouse worked feverishly to douse her nervous energy and shift her focus from worrying about Luc to the task at hand. She realized that she’d come to rely on the mask Ngara had given her—it was like she could be something else when she wore it.
Tonight, though, she could wear no mask. Tonight, she would just be Mouse—she would kill as Mouse. She took her cloak from the clerk and pulled it around her shoulders. She forced her face to settle into an implacable, stony visage of hatred.
She was supposed to meet the Bishop and Jack in the White Lobby behind the presidential box. As she walked beneath the too-bright chandeliers, she scanned the room quickly. Sifting through the patrons, she realized that Jack and the Bishop weren’t there. Neither were the Reverend and his wife. Mouse shifted plans in her mind and wove easily between the milling crowd, her unnatural senses on heightened alert. When she reached the top of the main staircase, she saw the Bishop and Jack on the landing below. They were talking to the Reverend and Kitty Ayres.
Everyone was smiling politely, but their hearts were running like horses. Mouse salivated at the adrenaline-saturated air. And then the Reverend looked up.
Mouse had been wrong. He most certainly recognized her.
He pressed back against the balustrade, his eyes darting from her to the crowd to the landing below him, clearly assessing his options as Mouse descended the stairs slowly, not wanting to draw any attention. His eyes flickered back up to her and then to the bone shard gripped in her hand and partially visible beneath her flapping cloak. The Reverend spun away from the others and down the stairs to the lower lobby.
Mouse tensed, ready for pursuit. And then a high voice called out her name.
“Mouse?”
It echoed against the polished marble walls and rolled down the stairs like a tossed ball. She looked up toward the White Lobby. Luc and her father stood at the head of the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Luc asked.
Mouse knew he was reading all of it—her cloak and the bone shard in her hand, the Bishop’s fear and Jack’s, Kitty’s terror, the Reverend’s flight. She could imagine the echo of the music still thrumming in Luc’s ears, pitched and chaotic. She could feel his panic as he tried to make sense of it all.
“Mouse?” he said again, his voice shivering with confusion and fear.
Mouse felt her stony visage begin to crack, her mind full of a cacophony of choices. She had only a moment to decide, but she didn’t know what to do. Her hand squeezed the bone shard, which vibrated with power, eager for release.
She lifted her eyes to Luc’s, thinking to ask forgiveness for what she was about to do, but what she saw in his small face undid her. Mouse saw herself as Luc saw her in that moment—a monster, her face full of naked hatred, a mirror of what her father had looked like when he was killing her atop Megiddo.
Luc, who had only ever loved her, was now afraid of her, too.
Her gaze slid over to meet her father’s, his eyes twinkling in victory, a contemptuous smile spreading across his face. And Mouse realized that this had been his plan all along—to have Luc watch Mouse murder these people in co
ld blood.
Shame at her own foolishness washed over her. She had let herself believe that her father simply didn’t have the patience to parent well and that was why he wanted her with them. It was convenient for him and easy for her. But he had used Mouse for a far darker purpose. She had taught Luc about being human, about compassion, about love. These were the gifts she had that her father did not—gifts that gave her the power to sway multitudes, where her father could only manipulate the weak-minded, the selfish, and the greedy, one individual at a time.
Now Luc also understood his humanity. He knew how to love. He had the same power Mouse had. And her father finally had what he’d always wanted—a son to match his adversary’s, a son who was both human and divine, an ally who could compel armies. A weapon. Mouse had given him all of it.
Her father didn’t need her anymore. In fact, Mouse’s continued influence over Luc could prove dangerous to her father’s goals. But if Luc watched her kill these people—Mouse imagined what it might have been like to watch Father Lucas do something so cruel and violent. She would never have listened to him again. She would have turned her back on everything he had ever taught her. It would be the same with Luc. She would lose him forever, and he would become his father’s son.
Mouse would not let that happen.
She lifted her arm to tuck the bone shard back into her cummerbund and realized that it was already glowing a brilliant, icy blue. She didn’t know what else to do, so she did what she’d always done. Mouse ran. Down the stairs, not after the Reverend—just away. The bells rang for last call. She edged back a little behind the stairs and started to pull her cloak around her, an easy escape from the turmoil and the crowd now bustling back toward the doors into the theater. But then she smelled something familiar. A scent not quite the same but still recognizable, still unique. Still his.
Linen, a hint of coffee, the sweetness of olive oil.
Mouse let her gaze follow her nose. He was across the room, leaning heavily on a set of forearm crutches that bunched against the sleeves of his tuxedo. His legs seemed thin and slightly twisted under the loose legs of his pants. He was gaunt, his face almost unrecognizable in its hardness. But he was alive.
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