The Nutcracker Bleeds (44 page)

Armand
stepped back into the snow. The shoes he’d absently chosen had become quite wet
by this time. He ignored it. He moved around the side of the house, passing by
all the dark windows to find the first one that was lit.

He
peered through the frosted panes there, and instantly, his eyes widened at the
sight that he saw.

Clara,
his beloved, with her golden curls, was sitting near a fire. She was wrapped up
in blankets, but simply sitting there, staring into the flame as if entranced.
In fact, it reminded him of his own fire–gazing. The toymaker was nowhere to be
seen. Something was not right…

Armand
knocked on the window to get her attention. He called her name, but none of that
seemed to move her. Perhaps she had in fact been touched by a spell? Absurd? Or
not?

It
was then that a man emerged into the room. He wore a dark robe, and he hadn’t
seemed to notice Armand at the window at all–and Armand knew him. It was that
bastard toymaker, Fuchs, and Armand was not sure he’d even been so enraged.
Augustus sat down in front of the girl who stared into the fire, and even
though he blocked her view of it, she was unmoved. The prince cringed when the
man reached out and touched the child’s smooth, young cheek–a loving caress
that was disgustingly inappropriate. He flew into a rage when the vile demon
leaned forward and kissed the girl’s unresisting lips.

Armand
smashed his fist into the glass as hard as he could, trying to break it. He hit
against it again and again, but even with all his strength, he could not even
manage to crack it. What was this sorcery! The desperate man moved onto a
different window–any that might get him into that house, but the same thing
happened each time. His fist was growing sore from the effort. Some of his
fingers had popped, possibly broken, and still the glass would not break.

Armand
went back to the door, kicking it roughly so that the latch would give way, but
the wooden door held like stone. For all of his frustration and inner torment,
he released a roar of rage into the air. What could he do? What could he
possibly
do against this? He swallowed great gulps of the freezing air.

Once
more… Don’t give up.

He pulled
up his foot, smashing it again into the door just at the latch. This time–as
magically as it had been held–it burst open. Armand did not waste a moment
moving inside.

His
nose was overwhelmed by smells of animal and urine. He saw the cages filled with
mice and rats but did not stop to look at them. He passed straight on through
the interior, hearing the door slam behind him as he finally stepped into the
one room that was alight.

The
room was filled with dolls and curiosities, also with jars of pickled things
like eyeballs and crow’s feet, but Armand was only interested in one thing in
this room. The owner of the house was standing before a workbench with his back
to Armand, busily working with something small in his hands. The angry father
could not see what it was, and neither did he care.

“Where
is she?” Armand demanded firmly, not neglecting to notice that the girl was
gone.

Augustus
did not turn around from the workbench.

“Who?”
he questioned with a certain degree of boredom.

Armand
did not bother restraining himself. He moved heatedly toward the one who defied
him.

“Don’t
try to feed me that. I’ll rip you apart for touching her!”

His
hand reached out to grip the back of Augustus’s robe, to jerk him around and
likely cram a fist in his mouth, but before he had the pleasure, the shorter
man turned around.

“You
mean
this
little dear?”

Armand
stopped at the sight of the object that the man held in his hands so gingerly.
The prince squinted to try and comprehend it better, but it was only interpreted
as a scrambled mass of thoughts in his mind.

That’s
not her. It can’t be. It’s impossible, because that’s a doll. Made of glass,
not flesh
.

In
Augustus’s hands, he held a tiny doll dressed in blue with cuffs of white
rabbit fur. There was a hat on her head of the same fluff. The doll’s curls
were perfectly arranged. Her blue eyes of glass stared out with no emotion.
Armand shook his head in disbelief–but he could not take his eyes off the doll.

“Isn’t
she so much more precious like this?” asked the weasel of a man before him.
“It’s just how she was meant to be!”

“What
are you talking about?” Armand’s head was pounding. His eyes showed his fear.

“One
could tell by looking into her face. I
delivered
her. Her soul has gone
on but her body has now been locked in its rightful state, ageless and
immortal. She’s protected by magic. She will never decay.”

Augustus
looked on at Armand’s confusion, reveling in it.

“Actually,”
he went on, “you should thank me for what I’ve done.”

Armand’s
sanity cracked. Did the man believe those words he was saying, or was he simply
saying them out of hatred? Did he expect the heir to the throne to believe that
this toymaker had stolen his daughter and performed some sort of magic that had
turned her into a doll? He expected that Armand believed in sorcery? Certainly,
he’d not doubted that it existed–somewhere–but he’d never dreamed that it would
touch close to him.

As
Armand stared at the doll’s eyes, he was made a believer.

He
stepped forward across the wooden planks, reaching for his sword as he did so,
only to find that there was no hilt to grasp. No matter. He would strike down
this wretch with his bare hands! He moved closer. Augustus raised his hand–

Armand
was flung across the room with the weight of an unseen carriage crashing into
his body. He hit hard against the back wall, gasping for the breath that had
been knocked out of him. He saw the other man advancing. Armand tried to pull
himself out of the way, only to find he could not move. He was pinned against
the wall by an invisible force.

Armand
fought against the thing that held him, but it was of no use. Augustus was
directly before him, looking boldly into his face with a sly grin, and all
Armand could do was look back and clench his teeth.

“You’re
right if you’re thinking that I also took those other girls,” Augustus told
him. “I did them the same favor as I have done for our little Clara. They’re
more perfect now, and one day will have their places in my kingdom.”

Kingdom?
What was this lunatic talking about? Armand would have loved to ask him, but
for the moment, his tongue was frozen within his mouth.

“I
have told all this to you,” the magician said darkly. “So of course you must
know that I have no intention of letting you leave here.”

Augustus
rested his hand against the prince’s firm stomach, admiring the feel of the
muscles as he let his fingers dance across the flesh.

“That
doesn’t mean, however, that I’m going to allow you to die. Did you know,
Armand, that if I wanted, I could ignite the marrow within your bones? That I
could completely melt you from the inside out?”

Armand
could not answer. He could only stare. His irises shook with fury as the man’s
hand trailed up his chest.

“But
death–even a painful one such as that–might be too good for you. I never liked
you, and I know you never liked me. I know you never trusted me with your dear,
precious Clara. But that’s not fair, is it? Neither of us truly knows the
other.”

A
firm jerk tore open the prince’s shirt, and the magician would have been lying
to say he didn’t feel a certain arousal just for the domination of it, but that
was not his purpose in the action.

The
two men stared into the depth of one another’s eyes, and in that moment they
recognized each other as more than simple competitors for a young girl’s
affection. They were, and had always been,
enemies
.

“I
have something just for you, Armand,” Augustus hissed, and with a sneer tugging
at his lip, he gathered the power that resided inside him and pressed his hand
on the warm flesh above the prone man’s heart.

For
the first several seconds, Armand felt nothing save for a bit of stiffness in
his limbs. His fingers straightened and he noticed that he could no longer feel
his toes, but shortly after that first, fleeting moment,
pain
.

It started
within, as if all of his organs were compacting. He could feel them stretching
and tearing. Dead ends fell off within there, disintegrating into nothing. His
genitals, tight and hard, retracted up into his body. He opened his mouth to
yell through his torment, but no sound emerged.

His
skin began to grow heavier, hardening. His face became stiff. His muscles
pumped with blood and throbbed with pain, but they too were hardening as if
he’d suddenly clenched them all. The color faded from his hair. His hearing
seemed fine, but at that moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his own
heart.

8

Sweat
was running down the face of the magician as he laid the curse on, whispering an
incantation that Armand could not understand. Augustus was draining himself,
but it would be worth his rest.

He
raised his eyes to the man whose skin had become wood, only to find that
rage–filled gaze still staring at him. Even through all this pain, Armand had
the audacity to stare at him so accusingly and hatefully? Augustus would put a
stop to this.

At
his command, Armand’s blue eyes slid back into his wooden head until they could
no longer be seen. The sockets became dark and empty and finally Augustus was
free of seeing that stare. He watched with satisfaction as dark blood began to
pour from those sockets in cascades.

He
allowed Armand to scream then, just to hear the agonized sound, but what came
forth was unlike anything he’d ever heard. There was pain in it, yes, but there
was so much rage that it could only have been compared to the roar of an
animal. The noise sent a chill through Augustus that he didn’t want to admit,
and he finally pulled his hand away from Armand’s flesh.

The
spot where his hand had rested over the heart had not turned to wood like the
rest of his body, but it was of no consequence. He would cover it up with a few
other finishing touches.

Greatly
taxed by now, Augustus clapped his hands together only once, and Armand’s new
body dropped from the wall and fell to the floor with a hard and heavy thud.

Augustus
stared down at the nutcracker in his hand, quite pleased with it. The make was
convincing, dressed in a wooden suit of dark blue that suggested a soldier,
long white hair that seemed real, and ridges of iron beneath his arms so that
he might perform the service for which he was designed. Augustus had tested
them out on a pecan, and now he munched away at the innards of the nut as he
smoothed down Armand’s hair and placed the prince’s new form in a box of wood.
Once it was closed, he latched it tightly.

“You’ll
wake up soon, Armand,” the man said gently. “And when you do, you’ll find
yourself in a very different place. It will be dark and very cold, and if you
do manage to break yourself out of this box, you will find that you are several
feet underground. The worms will come for your blood, but even they won’t be
able to kill you. You can dig against the frozen earth to see if you can get
yourself out, and if you do, you can have the pleasure of wallowing in your
sorrow for all eternity.”

The
nutcracker did not respond, his stern mouth remaining closed within the box.
Augustus reached over and lifted up the doll that had once been Clara.

“Don’t
worry,” he said, sitting the doll down atop the box and putting the enchanted
green marble into her lap. “I’ll take good care–”

His
words fell off at the sound of fists pounding at his door. A jolt of fear ran
through the magician.
Guilty conscience
.

“We’re
of the King’s Guard,” a strong, muffled voice said from without the house.
“Open the door, citizen.”

Augustus
shrank back, not even reclaiming Clara from the box top before he did so. The
Guard–they must have followed Armand here. Wretched, bastard prince! The
nervous magician rubbed his hands together vigorously.

“This
is very bad,” he mumbled to himself. “Very bad timing.”

He’d
used up a great deal of his energy turning Clara into a lifeless doll and
forcing Armand into a living nutcracker. He would need a great deal of rest
before he could once again make his home impenetrable as he had done with
Armand earlier, but what good would that truly do him? It would only be very
curious and suspicious. If these men came inside, they would certainly arrest
him for finding all his mysterious oddities–not even accounting for the blood
on the floor.

Augustus
knew he could not attempt to escape on foot, and there was no hope of making
himself invisible. He hadn’t enough energy for that. The remaining skills at
his disposal were destruction and transformation, as had been passed down
through his family for years. He couldn’t very well kill all these men, for he
would be found out or possibly even overwhelmed by their force.