Creatures of Charm and Hunger

by Molly Tanzer

  Edith, who so hated waiting, was grateful when the sound of a vehicle reached her ears not too long after they’d settled in for their uneasy vigil. They fanned out after the twilight-bright headlights had passed them by, sliding into formation behind the rear-guard as the truck passed.

  Edith was wary of the guards, but they didn’t so much as blink. That didn’t mean much, however. Dr. Braune was a diabolist, and diabolists didn’t need guards to protect themselves.

  Luca reached into his pocket and slid out a clockwork dragonfly. He fiddled with it for a moment, and it buzzed off toward the portcullis. There it did something Edith couldn’t quite perceive before returning to Luca’s outstretched palm.

  Luca noticed Edith’s attention and nodded in satisfaction. When they marched through the gate, it seemed they triggered no wards.

  Edith reached inside her uniform pocket to fish out one of her sweets. She’d need all her power soon enough.

  Mercurialis had many wry remarks to make about the castle’s dark and dismal interior, but Edith was in no mood to listen. Things were going fairly well, considering—Edith had gotten them past all the guards and a nurse who became interested in their party, and Luca was sure of himself as they threaded through the dank stone halls. Graham’s insight more than once led them to hold when moving forward would have meant detection. Amina was excellent at spying traps, diabolic and otherwise, but had otherwise yet to use her Art.

  The trouble began when they finally made it to the servants’ entrance to the great hall. Amina had used a dart on the guard, and Graham had known exactly where to be to catch him and let him down easy. But as Edith peered in through the watery glass of the ancient window set into the wooden door, she was surprised to see that it was fairly bustling inside. They hadn’t expected to come upon anything major happening at this hour of the evening, but as they looked on from the doorway, several nurses were at work fetching tools or washing beakers—there was even one dabbing at the forehead of a powerfully built older man with thick glasses and a bushy, gray-threaded beard. He looked in need of it—he was laboring under bright lights, doing something with a magnifying glass and a long, gold, seven-tined fork to a woman strapped to a wheeled metal table. Tubes were coming in and going out of her. Some fluids were more recognizable than others.

  Her feet were twitching. She was awake.

  Braune said something to the nurse; she dabbed at his forehead one final time before turning to a sort of drinks cart full of implements with more occult purposes than a bottle of gin and a cocktail shaker.

  The nurse picked up a pair of tongs and selected a pyramid-shaped purple crystal. It glowed faintly as Braune took it and held it over the woman. He had pulled on thick leather gloves to protect his hands; the woman on the table was not so fortunate. She was nude, and when Braune placed the magnet on her stomach, her skin began to bubble and let off clouds of yellow steam.

  The woman screamed, loud enough that Edith heard it through the closed door. She convulsed in pain, sitting up as much as she could while restrained. It was Sofia Cantor.

  As Edith watched in mute horror, Sofia’s body began to expand and then ooze in flowing gooey puddles off of the table. The once-purple pyramid was now glowing red and hot; it went crashing to the floor as she liquefied entirely.

  Edith had seen some bizarre and terrible things over the past few years, and it had hardened her in ways she felt were useful; others, not so much. This tableau, however, took her so utterly by surprise that she could not think of what to do.

  “Let’s get in there,” said Graham.

  Edith was grateful for this reminder of her duty.

  “What’s the plan?” said Luca, but Edith was already pushing open the heavy door, disregarding his question and Mercurialis’s simultaneous yelp informing her that she’d triggered about a dozen wards at once.

  She immediately realized something was amiss. It was dark in the great hall, for one—then all the lights came on at once, bright white electric bulbs that emanated some sort of non-light energy that weakened Edith’s connection to Mercurialis.

  The door behind them slammed shut.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” said Amina.

  This place clearly was Braune’s lab—all the equipment was there, just none of the people.

  “How could it be a trap?” said Graham, sounding confused and devastated. “Zlovid said—”

  The double doors at the bottom of the hall opened, and through them came the man from the scene they’d watched in the window. He was wearing a different outfit—no apron—but he had the same glasses. His beard, if anything, was bushier.

  “A lovely bit of diablerie, don’t you think?” His German was loud and thick and uncouth to Edith’s ears. “Perfection. The treated glass captures everything about the scene. Even presence.”

  Dr. Braune was not alone. There were a half-dozen guards standing by the open doors, armed, watching.

  “It was a trap,” said Dr. Braune, and chuckled ghoulishly. “And don’t think you’ll be rescued by that squad of bruisers you sent to the Records Department. We got them, too. Froze them,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  “We lured you here to make sure you couldn’t make a run on the Dark Lab,” he continued. “We’re closing down things here, have been for some time. In three days, I am scheduled to depart to join my colleague Dr. Querner in the north. I am ever so glad you stopped by before I left. The frozen bodies of so many diabolists will mean quite a lot of raw materials for our further experimentation. We’re so close . . . what you saw with the Cantor woman, that was indeed a failure, but we’ve substantially improved upon the process and hope to have a successful run soon.”

  “You’ll have to catch us first,” said Graham.

  Edith turned to Graham and grinned at him. He’d broken Braune’s thrall with his bravado.

  To her surprise, he grinned back.

  “Not an issue,” said Braune. “I can’t imagine you’ll put up more fight than that small one I froze a little while ago. She was quite the spitfire.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Edith. “Then again, we might not need to.”

  As she’d spoken, Edith had reached into her pocket and grabbed the stoppered tube of sand that lay nestled there. She opened it with her thumb and then cast it in front of them in a wide arc.

  “I’ll get the door,” said Luca.

  “I want them alive!” shouted Braune.

  The first guard who ran over the sand got stuck, falling to his knees with a horrible crack, as did the second. The rest figured it out after that, but it slowed them down as they cast about for a broom. Even a single grain would be enough to cause some issues for them.

  Edith used the confusion to take aim at one of the stuck guards with her trusty Astra. The bullet struck the first one in the neck, and he slumped and went still as a gout of dark blood spilled over the floor. The second she missed as he thrashed, then hit in the stomach. Edith winced; she’d been aiming for his head.

  “Never mind—kill them!” shouted Braune.

  Edith ran for cover. Graham and Amina were already out of sight.

  “Let’s see if we can’t thin them out further,” said Graham, sliding beside her from where he’d been hiding. He used his teeth to pull the pin on some sort of narrow porcelain-colored grenade. He hurled it into the cluster of guards who were trying to sweep up the sand as Braune shouted at them.

  They dived away from it, but it didn’t explode. It didn’t do anything that Edith could tell. She turned away to see if she could help Luca as he fiddled with the door, but Amina was there, guarding him as he worked.

  That’s when the screaming began.

  “Spiders!” cried a guard, and ran for the exit. He was brushing at himself in horror. “Spiders!”

  Mercurialis cackled in Edith’s mind.

  The final three guards had gained their feet. They fanned out, looking for Graham and herself.

  She readied her Astra. Five bullets left. She’d
make them count.

  Graham put his hand on her shoulder and pointed at a guard rounding the corner of a long metal table. Edith nodded, then screwed up her courage as Mercurialis urged her on.

  She put her hand atop Graham’s and squeezed.

  Graham looked surprised, then pleased. But they both knew that getting out of there was paramount, and just as quickly were back to back, ready to fight.

  “Move away from the door,” said Braune.

  Braune’s voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a clever parlor trick. Edith didn’t like this—weak as her connection to her demon might be, she decided it was time to use a bit of the Art.

  Reaching into a pocket of her coat, Edith got out a small phial of light green fluid. She pulled the cork out with her teeth and swallowed the whole thing. Tossing it aside, she grabbed for her cigarette lighter. Exhaling an anise-flavored mist, Edith flicked her lighter and held it to the cloud.

  It didn’t ignite, it coagulated. As she stepped inside it, Edith disappeared, even to her own eyes.

  It was a powerful armamentarium, but it didn’t last long. Edith made the most of it.

  Amina was in a standoff with two guards; another was about to encounter Graham. As for Braune, he was traversing the room by walking atop the tables, peering here and there for signs of his quarry. He carried a thick metal rod in his hand, the purpose of which Edith could not guess.

  Edith took aim, hoping to end this quickly, but she dropped her Astra when what felt like a burning-hot spiderweb struck her face. Dizzy, Edith fell to her knees as every joint in her body thrilled with terrible pain. Her skin felt as if ants were crawling all over her, inside her clothes, on her ears and everywhere.

  “Got her!”

  She opened her bleary eyes to see someone enormous standing above her—a giant the likes of which she hadn’t seen since she was six years old and all adults were impossibly, unachievably tall. He was a muscular man with a strong chin and close-cropped blond hair, and he was reaching for her with black-gloved hands.

  Move! Mercurialis urged her to her feet, but she couldn’t—she felt too sick and she couldn’t catch her breath. Something was very wrong with her vision, not just the blurriness. Everything in the room looked different to her, larger and farther away.

  The man grabbed her with his huge, powerful hands, dragging her to her feet. Edith had never felt so helpless, and she actually screamed. There was something terrifying about how big he was—but as her vision cleared a bit, Edith saw that it wasn’t him who was huge.

  We’re small, said Mercurialis, a moment before Edith realized it.

  The report of rapid gunfire caused her assailant to spring away, releasing her. Edith ran for it, putting as much distance and equipment as she could between herself and her attacker given her short legs and the pain in her joints. She couldn’t quite catch her breath, either—

  Edith realized she had the bends.

  She’d never even heard of an armamentarium like this, but she had no time to worry if somehow this diabolist had managed to shrink the size of her atoms or reduce the space between them. Or if the effect was temporary or permanent . . .

  She peeked out from behind a table. Luca and Amina were still alive; the guards were all down, it seemed. Amina was just standing up, her hand smoking vaguely; behind her, one of the guards’ faces was melted like a candle. Perhaps Edith’s armamentarium of softening was Amina’s creation.

  Braune drew a sigil in the air with his metal rod and uttered some nightmarish word as he finished with a flourish. The air condensed where he’d traced the lines, the light bending in unusual ways. Then through the center of the pattern stepped something vaguely human-shaped and made of copper-colored mist.

  Braune pointed at Amina and Luca. Edith realized she’d just been watching, transfixed by this, failing utterly to pay attention to what was directly behind her.

  Look out!

  Thankfully, Mercurialis was less amazed by this ghastly, unknowable creature. Edith turned and dodged the grabbing hands of the blond man with the leather gloves.

  “You’re losing,” he said, smiling down at her with even teeth. “Surrender and save us all the trouble! Dr. Braune’s mist golem will—”

  A man’s scream made them both pause. The copper-colored being was not attacking Luca and Amina; it had turned on Braune and sprang upon him like a jaguar. They all watched in horror as the creature overwhelmed Braune and began to tear out his throat.

  “Mein Gott,” said the blond man. “It’s—”

  The mist golem glanced up at his words, looking his way out of its featureless face.

  “No!” he cried, and raced for the open double doors. Edith chased after but couldn’t catch up with him, she was half her usual size and still couldn’t breathe very well. As she limped along, Graham overtook her—but as her friend passed her, his long legs pumping, the mist golem leaped on him from across the room, sinking its spectral claws into his back.

  “Graham!” she cried, as he screamed and fell to the floor.

  “Edith!”

  Amina was gesturing at her; what could she do but obey? She couldn’t fight this being, not in her state—maybe not ever. Mercurialis also goaded her to back away and retreat; she did, but not before noticing that the blond man had not retreated. He was messing about with a metal box on the wall; getting it open, he hit a button inside and then fled.

  The double doors slammed behind him as metal shutters slid down, covering the few windows. Fluorescent lights flickered on, gradually intensifying as Edith began to feel hot and uncomfortable.

  “I can’t get this door open,” said Luca.

  “What on . . .” Amina squinted up at the lights. “Are they . . .”

  The mist golem left off with her beloved Graham’s limp and bloodied body and uttered an indescribable sound before collapsing. Edith felt it too—the lights were doing something to her, making her feel even worse somehow.

  She couldn’t feel Mercurialis for the first time in over two decades.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said, really panicking for the first time. “It’s doing something to our diabolic material, it’s—”

  But Luca was on the ground, shuddering in a terrible seizure. Amina, too, was close to fainting. Edith resisted the urge to sit down and thought hard on what to do.

  The armamentarium Luca had given her! The one that would soften anything! Edith got it out, hoping against hope that it still might work even under these bright hot lights. She carefully uncorked it; it was thick and viscous. She drizzled it on the door.

  She gave it a moment and then grabbed Amina’s pistol so she could poke at the softening metal with the handle. It gave a bit but not enough. Edith used the rest of the potion as her body fizzled and cracked under the lights, until finally the door was malleable. With an apology to her fallen friend, Edith took his wool jacket and used it to push.

  The hole she eventually achieved was just big enough for her tiny body.

  As soon as she was through, Edith shook out her bag of sweets and ate three. Mercurialis surged back into her mind, yapping and crying at her like a dog too long separated from its master.

  “We have to get out of here,” gasped Edith. Mercurialis agreed.

  Edith thought of Graham—poor Graham! She would never hear his warm voice again, nor thrill at eliciting a smile from his serious mouth, nor look with interest upon his weather-beaten hands. She thought of Luca and Amina . . . the Englishman George Stuart and her friends, Maja and Zelda, “frozen” elsewhere in the castle; she thought of their failed mission.

  All she’d learned was that Sofia Cantor was dead. She still didn’t know where Querner was; he was still safe in his Dark Lab. And she still didn’t know the nature of his weapon.

  But in her weakened, shrunken state, Edith couldn’t imagine what she could do about any of it.

  Instead, with a heavy heart, Edith selected the snuffbox secreted in her pocket. She opened it; sprinkling a p
inch on the back of her hand, Edith snorted it, and then plucked a hair from the head of the dead guard they’d left outside the door. Holding that under her tongue, she would take on his appearance for a time.

  After her exposure to those dreadful lights, Edith had no idea how long the armamentarium would last. She would just have to trust that it would allow her to escape the castle. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

  14

  * * *

  IT CAME TO JANE ONE MORNING as the first sunlight of the day leaked through a gap in her curtains to spill over her eyes, rousing her from dreams of dubious pleasantness. As she was turning over, her sleep-blinking eyes saw the title of the book she’d fallen asleep reading—Ceremonial Practices of the Puritan Witches—and two thoughts about the problem of flight came together in her mind as eagerly as Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

  Odd how after weeks of reading and note-taking and theoretical maths, it was but the work of a moment to write down what Jane was certain would result in a diabolic formula capable of making an object fly. Her object was, naturally, her broom, so she worked out the equations for a liniment she could rub onto the handle and over the twigs of the brush. As she wrote it down, she felt a surge of fascinating energy filling her, a sense of contentment and fulfilled purpose she’d never before experienced.

  This would work. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. She felt it like she felt the coming of spring.

  The problem was, she couldn’t do it. Not as an apprentice—not even an apprentice who had an outside source of diabolic essence. In fact, looking at the formula, Jane wasn’t sure how many Masters would willingly sacrifice so much of their resources for something so frivolous as a flying broom. Eccentrics abounded within the Société, but most diabolists were fairly practical. They had to be.

  A vanity item that took more than a year’s worth of resources would not tempt many.

  But she’d done it. She’d worked it out. She couldn’t prove it—which was rather the point of the Practical—but she’d done it.