Immortal Muse (50 page)

The new explosives she'd developed were at least as potent as Nicolas' magic, but more . . . comprehensive. Nicolas could select and kill a single person in a crowded room with his black lightning; she'd seen that. She could control the timing of an explosion from the chemicals she mixed either through an infused timing cord, a watch mechanism, or even via the small store of spells she was capable of learning. But while she could ensure that an explosion would take out Nicolas, it would do the same to everyone—innocent or guilty—within several strides of him, and potentially wound dozens more with shrapnel or simply the concussive force of the blast.

She wanted Nicolas dead, but she wasn't willing to take other lives with him, no matter how much she desired to remove him.

I won't be like him. I won't.

Still, this was her best defense against Nicolas: that and a handgun, which were becoming more reliable and more powerful with each passing decade. She'd purchased a Gasser-Kropatschek Officer's Revolver, made here in Vienna—a weapon in use throughout the region. If she could stop Nicolas, render him unconscious or helpless for just long enough to strike his head from his body . . . and for that, she had a meticulously sharpened officer's saber in her apartment. That would serve.

Verdette meowed on her lap, glaring through the archway of the small workroom into the reception room and the door of her suite. She heard a knock a moment later. The sound startled her and she grabbed for the revolver, already loaded on the table, before she felt the touch of the soul-heart outside. “Gustav?” she called. “Are you alone?”

“
Ja
,” she heard him reply, his voice muffled through the wood.

“A moment . . .” she called out. Verdette grumbled as she rose from the chair and threw a sheet over the table laden with chemicals, retorts, and measured vials. She put the revolver in the pocket of her robe. She re-tied the sash of her nightgown, stained here and there with the splash and stains of chemicals. She brushed her hair back with her hand as she went to the door. “You're alone?” she asked again as she put her hand on the chain.

“I've already told you that,” Gustav answered, irritation coloring his voice and the hue of his soul-heart. Gabriele unfastened the chain and clicked the lock, turned the door handle as she opened the door enough that he could slide in, her hand on the revolver's wooden grip and her finger on its trigger. It was only Gustav; she let her hand slide from the weapon as she closed and locked the door again.

“I'm sorry, Gustav,” she said, “but I wasn't dressed . . .”

He looked at her and grunted. “So I see.” Without asking her permission he shrugged his coat from his shoulder and draped it over the nearest chair. He plunged a hand into the side pocket of his jacket. “You left the ball the other night so abruptly, and you haven't been to the studio in two days. You're truly ill?”

She shrugged. “Not anymore. I'm feeling much better now. How was the ball? Was Emilie a sufficient substitute for me?”

He smiled momentarily at that. “I don't think you're as subtle as you think you are, Gabriele. But
ja
, she and I got along very well. And you aren't jealous?”

“I've already told you, Gustav. I love you, but I've no interest in being
in
love with you. She already is. Are you with her?”

“You're impertinent.”

“I'm truthful,” she answered. “And I wasn't ill. I was just giving Emilie the room she needed. I like her, Gustav. She's the one you need, much more than you need me.” Gabriele pulled the robe tighter around her shoulders as Verdette rubbed against her ankles. She bent down to pick up the cat, making certain that she held her front paws in case she decided to strike at Gustav. Verdette purred, but her eyes were on Gustav and her tail lashed angrily. “The man you wanted to see at the ball—he was the one who came up to you and Emilie after the first quadrille?”

“Yes. Herr Anton Srna, who is here for the Amateur-Kunst Photography exhibition, where he's displaying some of his prints. A photographer must know silver, so why not gold also?” Gustav pulled his hand from his pocket, displaying a small cardboard box; he opened it and showed it to her. A packet of several sheets of tissue paper lay inside, and he lifted the top sheet to show her a delicate rectangle of gold foil nestled between the sheets. She could see the gleaming edge lift with her breath, like an impossibly-thin autumnal leaf. “A sample: easily half the price I would have paid at Mörtenbock's or Heldwein's. I had it assayed and it's genuine—and as finely hammered as any foil I've seen. The man wasn't lying. He says he can supply me with as much as I like. I'm meeting him tonight at
Gösser Bierklini
to finalize the deal.”

“How do you know that the rest will be as good as the sample?”

“It will, or he'll live to regret that mistake,” Gustav said. The grin he gave then was ugly; Gabriele knew Gustav's predilection for picking fights when he was drunk. He seemed to enjoy the pounding of fists into flesh and the blood that followed. More than once he'd come to the studio with eyes purpled and swollen from having been in an altercation the night before, too sore and hungover to paint, but strangely happy.

Gabriele rubbed Verdette's ears. “Be careful, Gustav. You don't know this man.”

“He'll need to be the careful one, if he thinks he can cheat me.” Gustav sniffed. “Oh, and I nearly forgot. He mentioned that he also wanted to meet
you
, my dear.”

The statement made her shiver, as if the chill March wind had found its way into her room. Her arms tightened around Verdette, who mewled inquiringly. “Me? He said that?”

Gustav shrugged. “He said he would like to meet the model for ‘Girl From Tanagra.' He told me that he found the painting intriguing, and that he particularly likes women with red hair. Perhaps you'd like him, as well, eh? A man who can afford to sell gold for less than it's worth? Maybe you could love him but not be
in
love with him also.” Gustav laughed.

“What did you tell him?” Gabriele asked. “About meeting me?”

“I told him that you'd be at my studio tomorrow. You will be, won't you? I need you to model.”

A momentary fear ran through her, and she had to remind herself that this was what she'd wanted, what she'd planned for, and that settled her once again. She smiled at Gustav and released Verdette, who padded away. “Of course,” she said. “Tell Herr Srna that I very much look forward to making his acquaintance. Tomorrow. At the studio.”

Gustav laughed. He took a step toward her, one hand touching her face. She kissed his palm as his other hand untied the sash of her robe and let it fall open. Chill air touched her. “What do you have in your pocket?” he asked. “Your robe is so heavy.”

“It's nothing,” she told him as his hands roamed her exposed body. “Gustav, your meeting tonight . . .”

“That is hours away yet,” he said. “Let me spend one of those hours, at least, with you . . .”

 * * * 

The
Gösser Bierklini
w
as a tavern and restaurant located at Steindlgasse 4, near the Palais Obissi. It was one of Gustav's regular stops, she knew—he'd taken her there several times in the year she'd been his model. The area around the tavern was fairly well-traveled, though after midnight it was far less so.

She knew Gustav well enough that she was certain he would stay drinking with Nicolas far into the night, and that Nicolas' manner toward Gustav would be soothing enough that there'd be no altercations. After Gustav left her, she dressed and followed him to his house—he lived with his mother and his sister—and had the carriage driver wait until she saw him leave for the tavern. She had her driver follow his fiacre, stopping the carriage well down from the tavern and waiting as Gustav entered the establishment. Several minutes later, she saw Nicolas, walking down the street from the opposite direction toward the
Bierklini.
She watched him go in, then paid her driver and stepped out onto the street as well.

In the early evening, the avenue was relatively crowded, with carriages passing by and people walking the streets. A few young boys moved among the better-dressed citizens, begging for coins. Gabriele walked toward the tavern slowly, thinking. When one of the boys approached her, she caught him by his thin shoulder. “How would you like to earn five kronen tonight?” she asked.

He looked at her with a strange melding of eagerness, suspicion, and greed as he wiped a dirty sleeve over a slightly dirtier face. “And how might I do that?”

“Nothing too hard, and nothing that will get you in trouble with the gendarmerie. What's your name?”

“Andre.”

“Well, then, Andre . . .” She described Nicolas and Gustav to the boy, handing him a one-krone coin. “That's your advance. The rest I'll give you later. Now, I want you to go inside and look for the two men I've described. They should be drinking together. I want you to see their faces so you know them. Then come back out here and I'll give you the rest of your instructions.”

The boy returned several minutes later, chewing the remnants of a pastry he'd either stolen or bought with the krone. “I saw them, Fräulein. Herr Klimt I recognized; the man with him is dark-haired and short, with sharp eyes and hands that won't stay still. They're sitting at a table on the balcony outside the Steindl Room with steins of beer and plates of
schmankerln
.” He grinned and licked his lips of the pastry crumbs. “It didn't look like they'll be going anywhere soon.”

Gabriele patted the boy's head. She pointed to the corner just down the street, where a carriage went jangling by. “There's an inn just around the corner there. You know it, Andre?” He nodded his head vigorously. “That's where I'll be. I want you to stay here and watch; if you see either Herr Klimt or the other man leaving, run and get me. Otherwise, I'll return in two hours, and I'll pay you the rest of your fee.”

At one in the morning, after fending off several offers by well-lubricated customers to escort her to their rooms, she paid her bill and left the inn, going back to the
Gösser Bierklini
. Andre was still there, leaning against the pole of one of the gas lamps that dotted the street. “Herr Klimt and the other man are still inside,” he told her. “I just checked again only a few minutes ago. But their plates have been collected and the bill is on the table.”

Gabriele thanked him and paid him the remaining kroner for his troubles. She found a shadowed spot at an alleyway entrance half a block up the street and kept watch herself; perhaps fifteen minutes later, she saw Nicolas emerge from the tavern with Klimt. The two conversed for a few moments, then Klimt turned left and Nicolas right, back the way he'd originally come and moving toward Gabriele. The street was now otherwise deserted, and she stepped farther back into the alleyway, drawing the Gasser revolver from her handbag, and putting her back to the wall closest to where Nicolas would pass. She whispered a phrase in Arabic before he could reach her, accompanying it with a wave of her free hand: in response, the night suddenly went eerily silent around her; she could not even hear Nicolas' footsteps on the stones of the avenue. She saw the elongated form of his shadow, thrown by the gas light, then Nicolas himself, walking quickly down the street.

She raised the revolver, aimed directly at his back. She pressed the trigger and saw the flame, but there was no report echoing from the flanks of the buildings around them, only silence. Nicolas stumbled, his head craning to look back, his mouth open in a shout, though she could hear nothing: she fired again into the eerie silence, the chambers turning, then yet again, and he went down hard onto the cobbles. Gabriele looked quickly around—the street was still empty. She thrust the revolver back into her handbag, then ran to grab the limp body by the lapels, pulling Nicolas deep into the alleyway, well away from the street. As she did so, the spell of silence vanished; the sound of Nicolas' body being dragged along the stones sounded impossibly loud, and her breath seemed a roar. Panting, she leaned over the body; the mingled, sharp scent of blood and gunpowder wrinkled her nose, overpowering the other odors of the alley. Her hands were stained with red.

Nicolas didn't appear to be breathing, but she knew that already the elixir would be working in his body, repairing the damage and returning him to life. She set down the handbag and removed from it a long, wicked butcher's knife—she'd left the saber behind as too heavy and obvious to carry in the streets. The butcher's knife would make the work more difficult and messy, but that didn't matter. She knelt down on the greasy stones of the alley.

A carriage rattled past the entrance of the alley; she hesitated, ready to flee, but it didn't stop.

As she placed the blade against Nicolas' throat, his eyes flew open and he took a long, shuddering gasp.
Do it. Do it now . . .
She knew she should move before he could speak, but it was already too late. “Perenelle . . .” His voice was weak, little more than a croak. He moaned, then, and that made her draw back a little. His eyes found hers. “You don't need to do this.”

“You left me no choice, Nicolas.” She pressed the blade hard enough that a line of blood trickled down his neck. He was staring at her, watching her. She could feel her hand trembling. She imagined how it would feel: the blade slicing muscle and tendons, severing veins and arteries so that the blood would spurt, slick and hot on her hands. She would hit the cartilage of the esophagus and push through, Nicolas' life gurgling out, his dying breaths causing the blood to bubble. And finally reaching the bone of the spine, where she would have to saw her way through, with both hands pressing down on the knife to separate the head from the body, as the guillotine had done to Antoine.