The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (112 page)

Miss Temple heaved herself to her knees. She saw her revolver, slid half-way across the floor, and screamed at the Doctor as she flung herself toward it.

“She has the books! She has the books!”

The Contessa had both hands in the trunk and when she pulled them out each held a book—in her bare fingers! Miss Temple did not know how the woman did it—indeed the Contessa’s expression was ecstatic—how was she not swallowed up?

“Roger!” called the Contessa. “Are you alive?”

“I am, Madame,” he replied, having retreated at Chang’s approach to the other side of the unmoving Francis Xonck.

“Contessa,” began Svenson, “Rosamonde—”

“If I throw this book,” the Contessa called, “it will surely shatter on that floor, and some of you—particularly those under-dressed and sitting—will be killed. I have many of them. I can throw one after another—and since the alternative means the end of
every
book, I will sacrifice as many as I need. Miss Temple,
do not touch that gun
!”

Miss Temple stopped her hand, hovering above her revolver.

“Every one of you,” cried the Contessa. “Drop your weapons! Doctor! Cardinal! Do it now or this book goes
right
…
at
…
her
!”

She glared at Miss Temple with a wicked smile. Svenson dropped his cutlass with a clang, and it slid with the tipping of the craft toward the Prince, who snatched it up. Chang did not move.

“Cardinal?”

Chang wiped his mouth and spat, his blood-smeared jaw like the painted half-mask of a red Indian or a Borneo pirate, and his bone-weary voice from another world altogether.

“We are finished anyway, Rosamonde. I’ll be dead by the end of the day no matter what, but we’re all doomed. Look out the windows…we’re going down. The sea will smother your dreams along with mine.”

The Contessa weighed a book in her hand. “You’ve no care for your Miss Temple’s painful death?”

“It would be quicker than drowning,” answered Chang.

“I do not believe you. Drop your weapon, Cardinal!”

“If you answer a question.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—”

Chang shifted his grip on the saber and pulled back his arm, as if to throw it like a spear.

“Do you think your book will kill me before I put this through your heart? Do you want to take that chance?”

The Contessa narrowed her eyes and weighed her options.

“What question then? Quickly!”

“To be honest, it is
two
questions.” Cardinal Chang smiled. “
First,
what was Mr. Gray doing when I killed him? And
second,
why did you take the Prince from his compound?”

“Cardinal Chang—
why
?” asked the Contessa, with a sigh of unfeigned frustration. “Why
possibly
do you want to know this
now
?”

Chang smiled, his sharp teeth pink with blood.

“Because one way or another, I shan’t be able to ask you tomorrow.”

The Contessa laughed outright and took two steps down the stairs, nodding Svenson and Miss Temple toward Chang, her expression darkening at Miss Temple’s quite brazen snatch of her pistol before she went.

“Join your comrade,” the Contessa hissed at them, then looked at Elöise with disdain. “
And
you, Mrs. Dujong—one wonders if you are professionally helpless for a living—
hurry
!” She turned to the Prince, her tone sweetening. “Highness…if you would climb to the wheelhouse and do what you can to slow our descent—I believe most of the panels have helpful
words
on them…Lydia, stay where you are.”

Karl-Horst darted up the stairs as the Contessa continued down, stepping over the crewman, to face all four of them in the doorway. The Doctor had pulled Elöise to him and held her hand, while Miss Temple stood—feeling rather alone, actually—between the Doctor and Chang. She glanced once over her shoulder at Roger in the far doorway, his face pale and determined, another expression she had never seen.

“What a gang of unlikely rebels,” said the Contessa. “As I am a rational woman I must recognize your success—however inadvertent—just as I can find myself truthfully wishing that our circumstances were other than they are. But the Cardinal is right. We will most likely perish—all of
you
will, certainly—just as I have lost my partners. Very well, Mr.
Gray
…it is no secret now—not even to the Comte, were he still alive. The mixture of indigo clay was altered to decrease the
pliability
of the new flesh of his
creations
. As a defense, you see, if they became too strong—they would be more brittle. As it happened, perhaps
too
brittle…ah, well…it seems I was rash.” She laughed again—even at this extremity a lovely sound—and sighed, going on in a whisper. “As for the
Prince
—well, I do not like him to overhear. In addition to taking the opportunity of implementing my own control phrase for His Highness, he has also been introduced with a poison for which I alone have the antidote. It is a simple precaution. I have secretly made an adherent of his young cousin’s mother—the cousin who must inherit if the Prince dies without issue. With Karl-Horst so dead, Lydia’s child—and the Comte’s dire plan for their offspring—is swallowed in a battle for the succession that I shall control. Or perhaps the Prince shall live, continuing to consume the antidote in ignorance—it is all preparation.”

“And all of it rendered academic,” muttered Svenson.

Above them the Prince had found a helpful switch, for one chopping propeller switched off, followed a moment later by the other. Miss Temple looked to the windows, but they were still covered with curtains—were they still losing altitude? The cabin righted itself, and grew silent save for the whistling outside wind. They were adrift.

“We shall see,” said the Contessa. “Roger?”

Miss Temple turned at a noise behind her, but it did not come from Roger Bascombe. Francis Xonck had somehow regained his feet, steadying himself with his injured hand on a settee, the other holding his jaw, his lips pulled back in a wince of pain that revealed two broken teeth. He looked at Miss Temple with cold eyes and reached his good hand toward Roger, who immediately passed Xonck his cutlass.

“Why, hello, Francis,” called the Contessa.

“We’ll talk later,” said Xonck. “Get up, Oskar. This isn’t finished.”

Before Miss Temple’s eyes the enormous man on the floor, like a bear rousing itself from hibernation, began to stir, rearing up to his knees—the fur coat flashing briefly open to reveal a shirtfront drenched in blood, but she could see it had all seeped from one superficial line scored across his ribs—the crack on the head had brought him down, not her shooting. The Comte heaved himself onto a settee and glared at her with open hatred. They were trapped again, caught between the books and Xonck’s cutlass. Miss Temple could not bear it an instant longer. She spun back to the Contessa and stamped her foot, extending the gun. The Contessa gasped with pleasure at the notion of being
challenged.

“What is this, Celeste?”

“It is the finish,” said Miss Temple. “You will throw the book if you are able. But I will do my best to put a bullet through the book in your other hand. It will shatter and you will lose your arm—and who knows, perhaps your face, perhaps your leg—perhaps it is you who will prove most
brittle
of all.”

The Contessa laughed, but Miss Temple knew she laughed precisely because what Miss Temple said was true, and this was just the sort of thing the Contessa
enjoyed
.

“That was an interesting plan you described, Rosamonde,” called Xonck. “The Prince, and Mr. Gray.”

“Wasn’t it?” she answered gaily. “And you would have been so surprised to see it unveiled in Macklenburg! It is such a pity I never got to see the finish of
your
secret plans—with Trapping or your brother’s munitions—or
yours,
Oskar, the hidden instructions to your glass ladies, the triumphant birth of your creation within Lydia! Who can say what monstrosity you have truly implanted within her? How I should have been amazed and outflanked!” The Contessa laughed again and shook her head girlishly.

“You destroyed Elspeth and Angelique,” rumbled the Comte.

“Oh, I did no such thing! Do not be temperamental—it is not becoming. Besides, who were they? Creatures of need—there are thousands more to take their place! There are more right before your eyes! Celeste Temple and Elöise Dujong and Lydia Vandaariff—another triumvirate for your great unholy sacrament!”

She sneered a bit too openly with this last word, caught herself, and then snickered. A certain lightness of mind was one thing, but to Miss Temple’s wary eye the Contessa was becoming positively giddy.

“Karl-Horst von Maasmärck!” she bellowed. “Come down here and bring me two more books! I am told we must finish this—so finish it we shall!”

“There is no need,” said Xonck. “We have them trapped.”

“Quite right,” laughed the Contessa. “If I did throw this book the glass might spray past them and hit you! That would be
tragic
!”

The Prince clomped down the stairs into view, with two books bundled in his coat under one arm, in the other carrying a bottle of orange liquid identical to the one Elöise had taken from the Comte’s stores in the tower. Xonck turned to the Comte, who muttered, just loud enough for Miss Temple to hear.

“She does not wear gloves…”

“Rosamonde—” began Xonck. “No matter what has been done—our plans remain in place—”

“I can make him do anything, you know,” laughed the Contessa. She turned to the Prince and shouted out, “A nice waltz, I think!”

As under her command as he’d been in the secret room, the Prince, his face betraying no understanding of what his body was doing, undertook a stumbling dance step on the slippery metal landing, all the time juggling his fragile burdens. The Comte and Xonck both took an urgent step forward.

“The books, Rosamonde—he will drop them!” cried Xonck.

“Perhaps I should just start throwing them anyway, and Celeste can try to shoot me if she can…”

“Rosamonde!” cried Xonck again, his face pale.

“Are you
afraid
?” she laughed. She motioned to the Prince to stop—which he did, panting, confused—and then raised her arm as if to make him continue.

“Rosamonde,” called the Comte. “You are not yourself—the glass against your skin—it is affecting your mind! Put down the books—their contents are irreplaceable! We are still in alliance—Francis has them in hand with his blade—”

“But Francis does not trust me,” she replied. “Nor I Francis. Nor I
you,
Oskar. How are you not dead when you’ve been shot? More of your
alchemy
? And here I had grown quite used to the idea—”

“Contessa, you must stop—you are frightening us all!”

This was from Lydia Vandaariff, who had taken several steps toward the Contessa, and reached out one hand, the other still clutching her belly. She tottered, and her chin was streaked with blue-tinged drool—yet however hesitant her carriage, as always for Lydia, her tone was both restive and demanding.

“You are ruining everything! I want to be Princess of Macklenburg as you promised!”

“Lydia,” rasped the Comte, “you must rest—take care—”

The girl ignored him, raising her voice, piercingly plaintive and peevish, to the Contessa. “I do not want to be one of the glass women! I do not want to have the Comte’s child! I want to be a Princess! You must put down the book and tell us what to do!”

Lydia gasped at another spasm.

“Miss Vandaariff,” whispered Svenson. “Step away—”

Another gout of blue, much thicker than before, heaved into Lydia’s mouth. She gagged and swallowed, groaned and whined again at the Contessa, now in a tearful fury. “We can kill
these
others any time, but the books are precious! Give them to me! You promised me
everything
—my dreams! I insist you give them to me at once!”

The Contessa stared at her with wild eyes, but to Miss Temple it did seem the woman was genuinely attempting to consider Lydia’s request—even as if the words came from a great distance and were only partly heard—when Lydia huffed with impatience and made the mistake of trying to snatch the nearest book. Showing the same speed she had used to overcome Crabbé, the Contessa, all sympathy vanished, whipped the one book from Lydia’s reach and slashed the other book forward, chopping it with a cracking snap some two inches into Miss Vandaariff’s throat.

The Contessa let go of the book and Lydia fell backwards, the flesh of her neck already turning blue, the blood in the back of her mouth and in her lungs hardening to crystal, popping like gravel beneath a wheel. The girl was dead before she hit the floor, her solidified throat breaking open and separating her head from her shoulders as neatly as an executioner’s axe.

From the stairway the Prince let out a bellow of shock, roaring at the spectacle of Lydia dead, jaw quivering, mere words beyond him. Whether it was grief for the woman or outrage at an attack on one of his own, for the first time Miss Temple saw within the Prince a capacity for regret, for sentiment beyond mere appetite. But what to Miss Temple might have rendered the Prince infinitesimally admirable, for the Contessa changed him to a danger, and before he could take another step she hurled her second book into his knees. The glass shattered above his boots and with a piercing scream the Prince toppled back, legs buckling, juggling the books, landing heavily on the stairs, his boots still upright where he’d left them. His upper body slid down to rest against the fallen crewman and did not move.

The Contessa stood alone, flexing her fingers. The delirious gleam in her eyes grew dim and she looked around her, realizing what she’d done.

“Rosamonde…” whispered Xonck.