The Nutcracker Bleeds (36 page)

“I’m
sorry, Anne!” he called out, though not knowing if she could hear him. “It was
wrong of me to love you!”

Rivere’s
blade pierced the wood of Brooke’s chest, holding him firm. Lakke was already
swinging in, but Brooke did not bother to close his eyes. The blade rushed
through the wood of his neck, and his head was off. It did not bleed.

Brooke’s
head fell to the floor, and Rivere smashed the glass face with his foot,
smiling wickedly as he did so, taking great pleasure in his revenge.

Lakke
stood back, smiling, expecting the body of his brother to fall, and even though
he waited while Rivere began to laugh, Brooke’s wooden body kept standing
there, refusing to fall over with dead weight. The blond brother stared on in
confusion, his smile fading away. He stepped forward, raising a blade to shove
the body over…

The
body moved. Its remaining arm rose and slashed down upon Lakke’s outstretched
limb, lopping it off cleanly with the force. Lakke yelled through the pain and
horror, Rivere looked up from sufficiently destroying the face, and the
headless body of their brother moved again.

Brooke’s
blade hit down the side of Rivere’s face, damaging the glass that still
remained there. The blade struck again, hitting only air. Lakke used his free
strings to subdue the one–armed soldier, and Rivere set to work tearing him
apart.

He
chopped off Brooke’s other arm. He thrashed his blade into Brooke’s chest,
chipping the wood away piece by piece and ruining the coat. Rivere chopped off
his brother’s legs and then cut them into pieces as well. Finally, completely
worn, Rivere stood back and observed what he’d done. Brooke was a heap of bits
and splinters, numbering hundreds. There was no way he could be fixed. It was
done. But, surprisingly, neither Lakke nor Rivere felt the relief they’d
expected.

Lakke
collected his dismembered arm, aiming to reattach it after they’d delivered the
woman to the Master.

“
Let’s
go
,” he instructed, and wrapped his own cords around Anne to aid his wounded
brother. Together, they dragged her along.

Inside
her cocoon, Anne had seen everything. She’d heard what Brooke had said. She’d
seen them tear him apart. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she’d thought
for a moment that she would vomit. She fainted instead. The woman was weak from
exertion and lack of food. Her will to fight had passed for the time.

And
Armand was not coming.

10

Behind
him, the sounds of the struggle had passed. There were no more screams or
battle sounds. Nothing but silence. Armand continued along his way, moving down
the shafts without a destination. The quiet settled in his ears–moved to the
core of him where he felt it devouring itself.

Suddenly,
he stopped, and by the distant silence, he knew it was over. She was really
gone. He realized now that this was not what he’d wanted at all.

What
was he doing, standing there thinking that it was alright for her to be taken
and eaten alive? All he was doing by that was giving up. Once again, he was
losing. He’d made a mistake with Clara before. He’d not been aware
enough–negligent. Perhaps if he’d never left her alone when there was danger
about…

“Anne…”
he said quietly, his resolve snapping. The nutcracker turned in the passage and
rushed back the way he had come.

He
could not let her die. He’d promised her he wouldn’t! More than that, she was
right with what she’d told him before. Everything ended eventually, and he knew
he was finally going to have his peace, but he wanted her with him until he
did. She made him
feel
after he’d not felt anything for ages–even if it
was only mild irritation or sympathy. In a way, she’d renewed his purpose by
urging him to hate his enemy once again. She’d made him tell her his story and
remember. He’d been blindly going along his path, only knowing that he would
have revenge eventually, but the zeal had left him long ago. Since he could not
die, he’d had no other choice but to keep going forward.

That
woman had reminded him that he was still alive, and that he would not have rest
until his enemy was destroyed. He needed his revenge just as he’d thirsted for
it in the beginning. But he needed her, too. He owed it to Anne to make sure
she got back to her old life. Her
real
life.

Armand
swung around a corner, looking into different tunnels where the shaft split.
Every tunnel looked the same with no evidence of which way she had gone. There
were no sounds that could move him forward.

He
could take a chance, winding down into the belly of the house and losing
himself, but that didn’t seem like the best idea. She could be dead before he
got on the right track. Her captors might not have gotten far, or they might
have already been lost in the tangles of the shafts. If he’d known where the
rodent’s lair was, he could have gone any way he knew how in order to get
there…but he did not know the way. That had been his trouble from the
beginning!

Desperation
set in.

Anne
had been taken down into the lair of his enemy. He had no idea where to go to
save her.

1

Armand
stared into the dark, listening. His breathing had quickened, angry and
desperate. Still, no sound came to him to give any indication where Anne had
been taken. How was he to deal with this? That woman, the one that he–
Admit
it to yourself, Armand
–loved was likely to have her head ripped off by the
incisors of his enemy. With her head, everything he cared about would be gone
once again.

Could
he bear to let this happen a second time?

What’s
that?

He
noticed then that one of those shafts before him was not completely dark. From
within one of them, there was a faint, green glow.

The
cat’s eye.

This
must have been the right way–which he would have known if he hadn’t been
forcing his brain to work so hard. That passage was leading down the side of
the house’s hallway, which was along the path Anne had been following those
men.
That
was where she had gone.

He
rushed toward that light, moving along until he saw the enchanted marble in the
distance. He reached the marble just as it went out, but from the specs of
light through the vent, he saw the scene.

The
floor was littered with pieces of wood. Armand saw the crushed face, the
dismembered limbs…

Brooke,
he
realized.
Much too careless.

Armand
had not understood him. He could hardly fathom the soldier’s thoughts at all.
How could a toy under the same curse as all the rest completely understand that
it was not truly alive–even enough to have priorities and feelings that might
have been made real by that very denial?

But
none of that mattered now, did it? Brooke was gone. There would be no more help
from him, and that was what mattered. Armand had to let it go. Now concerning
Anne…

Before
him, the tunnel split in three directions. No clues. His growing sense of
urgency nearly made him impatient, but something had suddenly emerged from
within his mind. It was something Anne had said to him when he’d first met
her–when he’d bullied her into showing him the way into his enemy’s lair.

“Isn’t
there someone else? Anyone else? In fact, I know the perfect fellow. All you
have to do is get him out of prison.”

Armand
remembered this. There was some toy in the Lady’s prison that could show him
the way to Anne. Even if the toy only took him to the wall of dirt that had
obstructed the path before, he would break through it! The Lady’s kingdom
wasn’t far, and even though it was reported to be in chaos, he could not avoid
this visit.

The
nutcracker turned on his heels to hurry away, but a heavy resistance against his
ankle urged him to stop and clutch his sword.

He
looked down to it, knowing that one of Brooke’s remains hadn’t simply fallen
against him. This was a
grip
–fingers wrapped around his ankle there–and
it was unrelenting. He peered at it in confusion, and what he saw there might
have been the only thing to surprise him all night.

There
were indeed fingers wrapped around his wooden ankle. Those fingers were
attached to an arm–but that was all.

It
was Brooke’s arm–perhaps the only piece of him that was still fully intact, and
it was moving. More than that even, it was aware. It had reached out on its own
and gripped the nutcracker’s leg, and Armand could feel the fingers moving
within that hold. It was fascinating, actually. Brooke understood that he was
never alive, therefore he understood that he could not possibly be dead? No
other toy had the will!

But
Armand had no time for this.

He
reached down to pry the arm from him, but as soon as his own hand came close,
Brooke’s released his ankle and gripped Armand’s hand firmly. The arm set
itself against Armand’s left arm, aligning against the point where it had been
split at the elbow. The fingers interlocked with Armand’s, the palm resting on
the top of the nutcracker’s hand, refusing to let go. Beyond Armand’s control,
the blade shot out of what remained of Brooke’s sleeve. Then it withdrew. Their
two arms together had become a great and impressive weapon–a retracting blade
and a metal ridge for blocking and crushing.

Armand
stared down at it. He still had the use of his own fingers, though they were
hindered somewhat by Brooke’s, but the extra arm was not letting go. Locked
with his, it only gripped and moved not at all.

Something
came back to Armand then; the last words he’d heard Brooke speak.

“I
want a hand in this.”

This
was brilliant–an absolute riot! The toy could not have known this… But how
insane!

For
the first time in many years, even in this moment of despair, Armand laughed.
The sound was blood–curdling–tortured–and it rang out through the darkness as
the nutcracker rushed back toward Olivia’s room faster than he’d moved all
night.

2

Within
Anne’s dream, thick with images she’d seen many times before, she had been
completely taken into this world.

She had
been dressed up like a doll. Someone had curled her long hair into ringlets.
Her dress was large and full, but tight.
Too
tight. She couldn’t
breathe. She was running. There were sounds behind her that she was fleeing
from.

Then
there was Armand in front of her.

He
was across the span of a pale floor, fighting once again. This time, it was
against Brooke’s very warped brothers. He cut them down as she watched, but
once again, Armand was wounded and bleeding all over the floor.

The
blood became a pool that splashed up onto her dress as she ran through it and
toward the nutcracker. She moved forward until she fell, but not because she
had slipped. Her legs were glass. They wouldn’t go any further.

“
Armand…I
didn’t mean what I said
.” She heard the words, but she wasn’t sure she’d
actually said them.

Her
arms reached forward, trying to pull her along, but she couldn’t get a grip on
the slick floor. Then there was a shadow over her. Brooke. He reached down and
helped her up, but as soon as she was steady and standing, he fell away from
her. She tried to grip him, but he was gone. When he hit the floor, he
shattered, but his arm had broken away from his body, gripping her wrist still,
and she could not get free of it.

She ran
toward Armand once again, but also once again, there was a small figure
standing in her way.
Olivia
. Wait… It was not Olivia at all.

It
was a tiny doll that stood there, standing on a spot of the floor that was
surprisingly clean even though it was surrounded by the blood pool. Blue eyes.
Many curls.
Clara.

The
doll looked up to her, smiling sweetly, but there was a sinister gleam in her
eye.

“You
know, he always loved me most.”

Anne
lifted her eyes past the tiny doll, and she saw in the distance that there was
another doll standing very near to Armand. The nutcracker was still on the
ground, clutching his wounds, but the doll that she had never seen before–a
pale, pretty doll with long, black hair–was standing over him.

She
watched, and the doll raised a large blade over its head, sending it crashing
down toward Armand in order to behead him.

“
No
!”
Anne screamed, but it did no good. She had woken up.

Her
body flung itself upright, and the woman found herself in a strange room. Then
again, when had she
not
awoken to a strange place?

She
was resting upon a pillow in an enclosed area filled with old tapestries, and
though it was still and quiet here, she smelled the awful stench from beyond
the walls. She recognized this smell.

Mice.
Dirty, filthy, mice!

Movement
to her side gripped her attention, and she turned her head to see two dolls
looking over her.

They
were very old dolls; she could tell by their design. They were decayed and
dirty from age, their painted faces chipped and worn. Some of their hair was
missing, and Anne could already tell that it had been replaced in several
spots. Their skin was dirty, but how could it not have been, living where they
did. Their dresses however, were decently clean.

Anne
stared at them, and they back at her. She realized then that her hands and feet
were bound with rubber bands.

“Time
to get you dressed,” said one of the dolls. Her voice was not quite like Anne
had expected. The accent was very different from her own, and in fact, it was
like Armand’s.

Before
she’d had much time to consider this horror, the dolls began to pull, twist,
poke, and arrangement her into perfection.