The Mysteries of Holly Diem (Unknown Kadath Estates Book 2) (29 page)

I followed clumsily in her wake, getting up close and
making short work of a disoriented Toad with the scalpel. Butter would have
offered more resistance to the knife than the Toad’s flesh. Off-white fluid and
bizarre organs spilled onto my shoes in a revolting miniature waterfall.

The next one was in better shape. I was busy dealing
with the mess of tentacles writhing out of an orifice positioned like a mouth,
and therefore failed to notice the pseudopod it extended from its back until it
was poised to strike like a scorpion’s tail. There was no time to dodge or
flee. I counterattacked instead, lunging at the Toad while attempting to slip
the glistening tip of the pseudopod.

The scalpel punctured the Toad’s head with
supernatural ease. The cruel edge of the pseudopod had little more trouble with
my jacket and my abdomen beneath. Only a last second roll of the hips kept me
from evisceration.

The Toad squirmed away, but there were a score waiting
to take its place.

Yael tossed a small object underhand, like a softball,
and it went tumbling end over end across the roof, coming to rest in the center
of the knot of Toads.

The rooftop crowd flinched and froze, bracing
themselves for a detonation. There was a gentle whir, and then a discordant
tinkling of keys that gradually resolved into a rippling, haunting melody.

Yael had thrown a music box.

The effect of the music on the Toads was remarkable
and immediate. They scattered to the edges of the roof, massing there shortly,
desperate for escape. Then the Toads began to throw themselves from the roof. One
wet impact followed another as the concrete pulverized them. I mean, they could
put themselves back together eventually and everything, but it still very much
looked as if it hurt.

We stood in silence, watching the Toads make like
lemmings. The melody ran out thirty seconds or so after the roof cleared. I
went to pick up the music box for Yael, but it had melted into a steaming pewter
puddle.

“What was this?” I said, pointing the former music
box. “Magic?”

“No,” Yael said. “Classical. The music of composer
Erich Zann. Toads hate it.”

“Didn’t seem that bad to me.”

“It isn’t an issue of quality. It has a little to do
with tuning, and much more to do with intervals…”

“Hey, guys!” Sumire approached, waving her goo
splattered metal arm. “Thanks for the rescue! You’re a little late, though.”

“I know.” Yael frowned. “They took Holly?”

“Yeah.” Sumire’s smile disappeared. “I came as fast as
I could, but they waited until she came up to water the plants, and then parked
one of their damn ships right next to the roof. They had already pretty much
finished dragging her off before I got up here.”

“Madeleine Diem is running us around in circles,” Yael
said, shaking her head in frustration. “She probably has Holly halfway back to Innsmouth
by now.”

“I thought Madeleine was allied with the fish-people,”
I objected. “Not the Toads. Am I wrong?”

“She has friends.
Admirers
,” Yael explained,
blushing. “Madeleine isn’t just a regent in service to the Empress of the Deep.
She must have called in a favor from one of Assemblies.”

“You said Madeleine took Holly to Innsmouth,” Sumire said
curiously, chipper despite the attack. “What’s at the docks?”

“You missed a lot. I’ll explain on the way,” Yael said
hurriedly. “We need all the help we can get. Someone will need to stay with
April, though…”

They both stopped and looked at me.

“Preston,” Yael said urgently. “Where is April?”

“I brought her inside the gate, and left her with
Lovecraft,” I said hurriedly, scrambling for the stairs in a panic. “She’s safe…”

“…from anything outside,” Yael said, pushing past me.
“Where did you leave Jenny?”

“You mean Jenny Frost? Not to worry!” Sumire called
out from behind us. “Holly banned her from the Estates.”

Too late, I realized that I had made a terrible
mistake. I was right on top of Yael’s heels.

“The ban only holds…”

“…when Holly is here. Yeah.”

“That bitch!”

“Preston!”

“Sorry. But…”

“…yeah. I know.”

An apologetic clearing of the throat from the second
story.

“If I could be a bother,” Dawes said, skewering a Toad
with the business end of what a looked like a legit sword cane, “then we could
use a bit of assistance.”

The old ghoul was right. Toads choked the hallway
behind the one Yael had impaled, to the point that the gelatinous beasts spilled
over the railing. Dawes was putting up a good fight – two Toads had fallen
victim to the pointy end of his cane, and were still putting themselves back
together – but he looked winded and worried. Behind him, Kim Ai pounded on
Josh’s door, demanding entry with a quavering voice. Josh predictably did no
such thing, leaving our manager to her fate.

I had ambivalent feelings.

“I got this,” Sumire said, leaping from the roof across
the airshaft, to land casually on the railing beside Dawes, temporarily
forgetting her fear of heights in her enthusiasm for battle. “You go check on
April.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. The Toads didn’t stand
a chance against Sumire and her mechanical arm. We left her to it. My urgency
was greater, but Yael was in better shape, so she was the first to see what
waited for us beside the gate.

 “Oh.” Yael had stopped directly in front of the stairwell.
I looked over her shoulder, and understood. “Oh, no.”

April was gone; the silver gate was ajar, swinging
gently along with gusts of cold wind from the water.

It wasn’t an involved betrayal. Judging by the slime
trail, all Jenny Frost did was hold the gate open in our wake. The Toads must
have waited until we were on the roof before snatching April.

I had assumed that Elijah Pickman had hired Jenny, but
looking back on it, that was a foolish assumption. Jenny had probably been
working for Madeleine all along, but Yael’s unexpected presence had complicated
her job.

Yael sobbed loudly over a small, broken body.

Lovecraft had defended April. The quantity of gooey Toad
innards splattered about spoke to both the valor and futility of the defense.

“Oh, no.” Yael cradled the poor, still cat beside the
ferns at the base of the stairwell, where he liked to lay in the afternoons, in
a shaft of sunlight. She wept softly over Lovecraft while my hands opened and
closed uselessly. “Not again. You poor dear. You poor, dear kitty.”

I watched the girl cry, and the dead cat do nothing at
all.

And then I made a decision, which felt small at the
time.

***

“This is
very
suspicious.” Kim Ai glared at me over her glasses,
pausing midway in the execution of perhaps fifteen stitches. “I am still of the
opinion that you are responsible for what happened to poor Sumire…”

She tugged the loop on the stitch tight, closing the
wound, and I gasped with relief. Kim dipped the needle in a small dish of
alcohol to sterilize it, watching me closely with evident dislike. I need her
anyway – I should have gotten someone to look at my injuries hours earlier, as the
skin around the wound beside my belly button had turned an ugly pinkish-yellow,
while the one near my hip was puffy and deep red.

“…and now this. April is gone...”

“She’ll be fine,” I lied. “I’m gonna find her just as
soon as everybody’s patched up.”

“You’re always putting the girls in danger,” Kim criticized,
attaching stitching to the needle and examining the wound in my stomach grimly.
“Did you see Yael’s poor eyes? Sumire’s helping her wash them out now, but she
could have suffered real damage to her vision.”

“She did that herself.” To save both of us. “Really.”

Kim gave me a dirty look.

“You had better return April in one piece,” she
grumbled, swiping away blood with a cotton swab to see her work. “After
everything that’s happened, it’s the least you can do. You’re responsible for
all of this, Preston.”

“I don’t know about responsible,” I said, gripping the
sink with both hands as she tugged the final stitch snug. “Not this time. I
think our landlady can bear the weight this time.”

She appeared to consider throwing me out.

I leveled.

“Listen – it went like this.” I told the story of
Holly and her sisters, their squabbling and maiming. “Holly was pissed at
Madeleine. Pissed enough to lock her up in Constance’s old observatory for
who-knows how long. There was a purpose to that, I think – Holly mentioned
something, about Constance, about obscuring things. Madeleine was stuck there
up until just recently – a few months – when an old girlfriend went to great
lengths to bust her out. Madeleine needed help, and got it, in the form of her great
grandnephew, Elijah Pickman.”

Kim paused in mid-stitch, and then studied my grimace.

“How did she find Elijah?”

“Madeleine didn’t find him at all,” I explained. “Elijah
found her. He was studying the Nameless City’s architecture, remember? Making a
survey of the oldest remaining examples or something like that. He must have
found the observatory, and forced his way in. He couldn’t free Madeleine by
himself, though, so she had him contact an old friend. The breakout took some
time to arrange. In the meantime, she helped him find a tool, something called
the Pallid Mask, which made him powerful and ruined him. He must have become
enamored of Madeleine, and he started collecting arms and legs as presents.”

“Poor Elijah,” Kim clucked. “Such a bright child. The
Nameless City is hardest on the curious.”

“I can see that.”

“You haven’t convinced me of Holly Diem’s
culpability,” Kim reminded me. “Or your own innocence.”

“Holly
knew
,” I explained, slapping my palms on
the table as she splashed alcohol on the finished stitches, before applying
bandage and gauze. “Right from the very start, she knew Madeleine was loose. When
the attacks started – when girls started turning up without their arms and
legs, she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t warn April, or Yael – or Sumire.”

I let that one sink in. She didn’t like it any more
than I did.

“Instead, she convinced Sumire to go hunting for
Madeleine, without telling her what was going on, or what kind of risk she was
taking. She used her as bait. Then, when it worked…”

“…she still didn’t tell us.” Kim looked at me, her
eyes so sad I immediately regretted telling her anything. “You lie all the
time, Preston. I can tell, you know.”

“I know.”

“You lie all the time.” Kim wasn’t given to tears, but
the emotion was there. “Why aren’t you lying right now?”

I wasn’t prepared to answer that question. Maybe
Yael’s pushy decency had rubbed off on me a little.

“Holly wasn’t as important to me as she is to you,” I
said, mindful that she had given Kim Ai sanctuary after cultists assaulted her.
“She is a big deal for me, though. I wouldn’t slander her.”

Kim pursed her lips and nodded, her agreement
unexpected, because I don’t think Kim has ever agreed with anything I said.

“This damn city.” She clipped the end of the thread
and ended my abdominal torment. It took all I had not to whimper. “It’s nothing
but sharp edges.”

“Seems that way.”

Another stitch done. She turned her attention to the
back of my head, removing the ice pack she had placed there earlier, so that
she could inspect the damage there. She shook her head, and picked her needle
back up.

“I’ve wondered about her business for a long time,”
she admitted with a sigh. “You work for her. Do you know what Holly does,
Preston? Aside from keeping her monster of a sister imprisoned, I mean.”

“I asked Dawes and Josh to look into separately. They
came back with the same answer: Holly Diem has her fingers everywhere in this
city, and no one has any idea why. Carter, the Museum, the Library, even the
Night Market – she’s tied up in all of it.”

Kim nodded sadly and went back to work.

“I suppose.” She cleared her throat, and I felt the
tension in her hands. The question came at cost. “Do you think there is truly any
chance of retrieving her and April?”

“Not sure.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “Yael thinks
we stand a chance.”

“I’m not sure if I can stand to hope. I’m not sure
what I would say to Holly now.”

“Don’t know either. I know I at least want the opportunity
to ask her some questions, though. She has a lot to answer for.”

Kim tugged the stitch closed, and then inspected the
job, apparently to her satisfaction.

“If you are right, then she used Sumire – probably all
of us.” The possibility bothered her, and I didn’t blame her for that. “I
trusted Holly. It took me a long time to trust anyone again, after what
happened. If it was all a lie, then that seems a terrible waste.”