As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale (Twisted Tale, A) (37 page)

“Except for Monsieur Lévi,” Belle spat. “So you burnt his shop down.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” D’Arque snapped. “I suspect that was the idiot, Gaston. When he went to find Maurice. I have nothing against books. I
love
books. Books are the remedy to superstition and…magic. I was so pleased with your education, your brilliance, Belle….It’s a pity we have to do this, but we must be sure….”

He took off his waistcoat, folded it neatly, and handed it to the nurse. Then he drew over the scariest-looking machine, and began to pump at a foot peddle on it.

“No…Monsieur D’Arque…
Please
…”

“Shhh, now,” D’Arque said, placing a metal cup with a tube attached over her mouth.

Belle began to scream. She thrashed and tore at the leather straps, throwing herself from side to side. Blackness began to drip over her senses.

The Beast continued to howl, always his first response when something terrible and confusing was bothering him that he couldn’t literally reach out and shred with his claws. Disbelief, anger, and terror had full control of his animal mind, and it took all his effort not to run, shrieking, into the darkness. Away from the scene.

Giving his animal side free rein for just a moment, he turned and bounded through the castle, past the dead suits of armor, up, up and up to the West Wing. He had to see for himself. He hadn’t looked at the rose at all since that night with Belle. In a strange way, he had sort of forgotten about it, what with the books and the making dinner and stories and finding out about Belle’s mother. All of that to figure out how to break the curse that had turned him into a beast, and yet he hadn’t given a second thought to the rose….

But what was happening to his servants…his
friends
…must have something to do with the curse.

Before he even got to the table with the rose, he saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks.

The Portrait of the Beast as a Young Man
, as he had taken to calling the painting in the hall; it was an image of the man he
should
have been, with dark honey hair and fingers instead of claws and a broad, handsome figure. The picture that he had tried to destroy, and Belle had tried to fix…

It now showed a beast.

Not just the Beast as he was, at that very moment, but
all
beast. Snarling, slavering, the oil paints swirled so realistically it looked like he was about to tear his way off the canvas and through the heart of whoever was viewing it. In one paw was a bloody white dove, its head missing.

The Beast fell back against the wall, feeling weak.

This
is what would happen to him eventually. Soon.

His insides would match his outsides. He would be nothing more than that monster in the picture, completely devoid of human reason, thought, and conscience.

He covered his face with his paws, overwhelmed with the urge to weep.

Hadn’t she said this might be happening? Hadn’t he
felt
it, recently? If he was honest with himself?

From that blackout he had experienced after Belle angered him, to waking up with no memory of how he got the blood on his muzzle. Thankfully it was just a sparrow or another small bird, but it could be anything next time, if he even “woke up.” He had been losing his temper more than usual, little things setting him off in a way they hadn’t used to. The urge to hunt was stronger than ever. And he had barely been able to control himself on the run home, nearly overcome with the desire to run free into the woods.

Slowly, desultorily, he moved into his bedroom proper, now no longer really caring what the rose looked like. He knew in his heart the changes were becoming complete.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, he thought, if the Beast he became was more like a real animal—a wolf or a horse, say. Then he could almost happily sink into oblivion, spending the rest of his days like a simple creature of nature, sleeping and hunting until old age or a bullet caught up with him.

But he wasn’t a real animal. A
natural
animal. He was a monster, whose heart would become ferocious and vile, bloodthirsty, and out of control. His prey wouldn’t be confined to rabbits and sheep.

Despair rose up like a huge, inescapable tide. He sank down onto the floor.

He’d never, ever be able to see Belle again. He
couldn’t.
For her own safety.

The thought of her made him pause.

Before he was overtaken by the curse, before he became a full-blooded monster, he had to do this one last thing.
He had to save her.

He pulled the mirror out of his cloak.

“Magic mirror, show me Belle!” he commanded.

When the silver-gray fog cleared, he nearly crushed the mirror with fury.

Belle lay half-drugged and kicking feebly, strapped down on some sort of horrible table. An old man was shoving needles into her flesh while some sort of thug forced a bronze cone over her mouth. More men stood near the door, along with a frightful-looking hag who looked like she was enjoying the proceedings.

The Prince swore, thinking about the giant, impregnable stone building he had seen her taken to. There was no way, even in full-on berserker mode, he could break in and disable every guard.

He ran his paws through the fur on his head, frustrated. He couldn’t do it alone. He needed help. And the servants were all…unavailable.

The only people around to help were the people in the village.

The people the Beast had long avoided, knowing that the insane hunters like Gaston would shoot him on sight and the closed-minded peasant folk would run screaming.

But…they liked
Belle
, right? Despite what she had said about growing up lonely, she had a few friends, like the bookstore owner. And hadn’t that man in the street shown some concern about her and her father?

What it came down to was that he had no other choice.

With a determined roar, he headed back to the village.

Sounds and voices came and went like wolves drifting over dead prey and then disappearing again.

“No, the meters don’t lie. It is just as I said all those years ago. She has no magic in her whatsoever….”

“[undecipherable]”

“…
Keep
her…she is still valuable. I believe she can lure in a far better prey: the beast Gaston was blithering about….I believe he is the one cursed long ago by her own mother…how is
that
for irony?”

Even in Belle’s confused head, she wondered how he knew all about that.

She forced her eyes open.

D’Arque’s face was shockingly close to her, examining her wakeful movements. She looked directly into his eyes, small and black as coals, full of intelligence and malice above his narrow crooked nose.

A dagger of familiarity drove itself into Belle’s foggy brain. She had seen him in the visions in the mirror at the bookshop, in the panes between the webbing on the castle.

“In the kingdom…you were…Papa and
Maman
’s
friend
…” she croaked. “You were friends with them! And
ALARIC POTTS
!”

She had the satisfaction of seeing D’Arque’s face go pale…right before he pushed the cone over her mouth again, causing her to lose consciousness.

The tavern was a perfect scene of Christmas: merry yellow light glowed from the windows and poured onto the snow below and cheerful singing broke through the snug stone walls. The smells of smoky fire and bubbling cheese and spicy mulled wine overwhelmed any of the rank, oily
human
scents the tiny village had.

The Beast watched for perhaps a little too long, hiding in the shadows of a fountain. Any childlike yearning he had for that glow, to be part of humanity again, was eclipsed by his nervousness about how to begin. This was a
hunter’s
tavern, for heaven’s sake. The Prince could smell the cold scent of long dead, mildewing fur and the fresh, lovely stink of all sorts of game in the back dressed and hung to bleed out. If anywhere there was a less safe place for a potentially dangerous, one-of-a-kind furry monster to show up, he would have a difficult time imagining it.

This was going to be hard.

Also, the Prince had never asked for help before. Anytime. Anywhere. As beast
or
prince. He ordered people, he demanded of people, he made sure people anticipated his wishes before he even had to vocalize them.

Somehow he had to go in there and make them see the human in him before it was gone forever. He had to make sure they didn’t shoot him, and then beg them to help him—a dangerous, total stranger—rescue Belle.

The Beast closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his courage.

Something he had also never had to do before.

Then he sprang up—

—and immediately forced himself to slow down. To walk on two legs up to the tavern door. To s-l-o-w-l-y push it open.

Upon his entering, the tavern fell to an immediate, and very understandable, hush.

And then a mad scramble as everyone grabbed for his musket or gun or hunting knife or anything else that could be used as a weapon. There were screams and cries and general chaos, yet all leaving a very clear area between the Beast and the rest of the room.

“WAIT!”
the Beast roared—then cursed himself for roaring. He held out his hands, his paws, claws sheathed, harmless and empty except for the mirror. “I’m here to ask you for help.
I need your help.
Belle—Maurice’s daughter—is in trouble!”

There was a strange moment of silence.

“Belle?”

The man who asked had his gun leveled completely motionlessly at the Beast’s heart. His eyes were ice-blue and the Beast had no doubt that with the slightest flick of his finger there would be blood and fur on the wall behind him.

The scene swam in front of his eyes.
They were going to get him.
These foul-smelling omnivores with their machines and ugly teeth were going to swarm him. He had to attack first, he had to get away….

“She’s in trouble,” the Prince whispered, fighting the Beast within. “I need you to help me help her.”

“Maurice was…right?”

This was asked by a man sitting at the bar. He hadn’t grabbed a gun. In fact, he hadn’t even released his hand from his tankard. He was watching everything more with interest than anything else.

“It’s the beast!”
someone else cried. “Maurice
was
right!”

“Fangs, and long snout!” a third person yelled, standing up from the bar and bracing himself for a fight. “It’s him!”

The man with the deadly aimed gun looked confused. “No…There’s not actually a beast….”

“He’s right there!”
an old barmaid swore.

“YOU TOOK BELLE!”
a short man with a long ponytail swore, pointing.
“J’accuse!”

“No!” the Beast said, backing up against the door. He wasn’t one to lie, even as a spoiled child. But maybe now was not the time for setting straight confusing truths. “She’s being held captive…tortured…but not by me! I came here to try and get help to rescue her!”

The fire in the giant hearth blazed high and hot. His fur was growing matte and damp and itchy. The faces in front of him were ugly and mistrustful. Hands tightened around knives and muskets. The barest hint of relieving cool came from the frosty pane of a window nearby. He looked at it longingly. The moon shone behind. He could just break out and leave, flee this pack…