The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (104 page)

Slumped in a nearby chair, a half-full glass in his hand and an open bottle of brandy on the floor between his legs, sat Karl-Horst von Maasmärck. The Comte wore his leather apron, his black fur slung over a pile of chairs behind him, and cradled a bizarre metal object, a metal tube with handles and valves and a pointed snout that he wiped clean with a rag.

On the walls behind them, hung on nails hammered carelessly into the bookcases, were thirteen distinct squares of canvas. Miss Temple turned to Chang and pointed. He had seen them as well, and made a deliberate gesture to flatten his hand and then turn it over, as to turn a page. At the St. Royale, Lydia had muttered something about the
rest
of the
Annunciation
fragments—indicating that she had seen them collected. Miss Temple knew the squares of canvas represented the entire reconstituted work, but she had not expected the Comte to hang each painting face to the wall, for what she saw was not the complete blasphemous image (which she was frankly by now more than a little curious to see), but its canvas backing—Oskar Veilandt’s alchemical formulae as they traveled across every piece, for which the painting was but a decorative veil, a detailed recipe for his own Annunciation, the unspeakable impregnation of Lydia Vandaariff by way of his twisted science. Around each canvas were pasted scores of additional notes and diagrams—no doubt the Comte’s own attempts to understand Veilandt’s blasphemous instructions. Miss Temple looked down at the girl on the bed and bit her knuckle to keep silent…

She heard an impatient sigh below her and the flicking catch of a match. Miss Temple scooted forward on her belly and gained a wider view of the room. With a tremor of fear she saw, almost directly beneath, the Contessa’s large party. How had they not heard them in the corridor? Next to the Contessa—smoking a fresh cigarette in her holder—stood Francis Xonck and Crabbé, and behind them at least six figures in black coats, carrying cudgels. She glanced again to Chang and Svenson and saw Chang’s attention focused elsewhere, underneath the opposite balcony. Glittering in the shadows, as the orange flames from the Comte’s crucibles reflected off her skin, stood the third glass woman, Angelique, silently waiting. Miss Temple stared at her, and was just beginning to examine the woman’s body with the new understanding that it was the object of Chang’s ardent affection—and in fact, its consummation, for the woman
was
a whore—which meant…Miss Temple’s face became flushed, suddenly jumbling her memories from the book with thoughts of Chang and Angelique—when she shook her head and forced her attention to the rather agitated conversation below.

“We would not have bothered you,” began Xonck, his eyes drawn with some distaste to the spectacle before them, “save we are unaccountably unable to locate a workable
key
.”

“Where is Lorenz?” asked the Comte.

“Readying the airship,” replied Crabbé, “and surrounded by a host of soldiers. I would prefer to leave him be.”

“What of Bascombe?”

“He accompanies Lord Robert,” snorted the Contessa. “We will meet him with the trunk of books and his ledger—but he does not have a key either, and for any number of reasons I would prefer not to involve him.”

Crabbé rolled his eyes. “Mr. Bascombe is absolutely loyal to us all—”

“Where is
your
key?” the Comte asked, glaring pointedly at the Deputy Minister.

“It is not
my
key at all,” replied Crabbé somewhat hotly. “I do not believe I am even the last to have it—as the Contessa says, we were collecting the books, not
exploring
them—”

“Who
was
the last to have it?” cried the Comte, openly impatient. He shifted his grip on the repulsive metal device in his hand.

“We do not
know,
” snapped the Contessa. “I believe it was Mr. Crabbé. He believes it was Mr. Xonck.
He
believes it was Blenheim—”

“Blenheim?”
scoffed the Comte.

“Not Blenheim directly,” said Xonck. “
Trapping
. I believe Trapping took it to look at one of the books—perhaps idly, perhaps not—”

“
Which
book?”

“We do not
know,
” said the Contessa. “We were
indulging
him—I am still not satisfied as to his death. Blenheim either took it from Trapping’s pocket when the body was moved, or he was given it by Lord Robert.”

“I take it Blenheim is still missing?”

The Contessa nodded.

“The question is whether he is dead,” said Crabbé, “or
independent
?”

“Perhaps we can
query
Lord Robert,” said the Comte.

“We could if he retained his memory,” observed Xonck. “But as you know it has been put into a book—a book we cannot find. If we did find it, we could not safely read it without a key! It is ridiculous!”

“I see…” said the Comte, his brooding face dark with thought. “And
what
has happened to Herr Flaüss?”

“We do not
know
!” cried Crabbé.

“But don’t you think we should?” asked the Comte, reasonably. He turned to Angelique and clapped his hands. At once she stepped into the light like a tamed tiger, drawing the wary attention of every other person in the room.

“If there is someone hiding here,” the Comte said to her, looking up to the balconies, “
find
them.”

Miss Temple spun to Chang and Svenson, her eyes wide. What could they do? She searched around them—there was no other place to hide, to shield themselves! Doctor Svenson silently rolled back on his heels and pulled out the gun, his eyes measuring the distance to Angelique. Chang put a hand on the Doctor’s arm. The Doctor shrugged it off and eased back the hammer. Miss Temple felt the strange blue coldness approaching her mind. Any moment they would be found.

Instead, the pregnant silence in the room was broken by a crash from the opposite balcony, directly above Angelique. In an instant Xonck had the serpentine dagger in his hand and was sprinting to the narrow stairs. Miss Temple heard a scuffle and then a woman’s gasping protests as Xonck dragged her twisting body brusquely down the staircase and thrust her to her knees before the others. It was Elöise.

Miss Temple looked to Svenson and saw his frozen expression. Before he could do a thing she reached for his hand that held the pistol, gripping it tightly. This was no time for reckless impulse.

Xonck backed away from Elöise, indeed as did they all, for at a nod from the Comte Angelique stepped forward, her feet clicking against the stone floor like a new-shod pony’s. Elöise shook her head and looked up, utterly bewildered by the splendid, naked creature, and screamed. She screamed again—Miss Temple squeezing the Doctor’s arm as tightly as she could—but it died in her throat, as the expression of terror on her face faded to a quivering passivity. The glass woman had savagely penetrated her mind and was rummaging through its contents with pitiless efficiency. Again, Miss Temple saw the Comte d’Orkancz had closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration. Elöise did not speak, her mouth open, rocking back and forth on her knees, staring helplessly into the cold blue eyes of her inquisitor.

Then it was done. Elöise dropped in a heap. The Comte came forward to stand over her, looking down.

“It is Mrs. Dujong,” whispered Crabbé. “From the quarry. She shot the Duke.”

“Indeed. She escaped from the theatre with Miss Temple,” said the Comte. “Miss Temple killed Blenheim—his body is in the trophy room. Blenheim
did
have the key—she herself wondered why. It is tucked in Mrs. Dujong’s shift, along with a silver cigarette case and a blue glass demonstration card. Both were acquired by way of Doctor Svenson.”

“A glass card?” asked the Contessa. Her gaze darted judiciously across the room. “What does it happen to
show
?”

Elöise was panting with exertion, groping to rise to her hands and knees. The Comte shoved his hand roughly into her shift, feeling for the objects he’d described. He stood again, peering at the cigarette case, all the time not answering the Contessa’s question. Xonck cleared his throat. The Comte looked up and tossed the silver case to him, which Xonck awkwardly managed to catch.

“Also Svenson’s,” he said, and glanced over at the Prince, who was still in his chair, watching it all through a veil of drunken bemusement. “The card is imprinted with an experience of Mrs. Marchmoor, within a room at the St. Royale…an
encounter
with the Prince. Apparently it made quite an
impression
on Mrs. Dujong.”

“Is that…all?” asked the Contessa, again rather carefully.

“No.” The Comte sighed heavily. “It is not.”

He nodded again to Angelique.

To the immediate dismay of the other members of the Cabal, the glass woman turned toward them. They shrank back, as Angelique began to walk forward.

“W-what are you
doing?
” sputtered Crabbé.

“I am getting to the bottom of this
mystery,
” rasped the Comte.

“You cannot finish this without our help,” hissed Xonck. He waved a hand at the girl on the bed. “Haven’t we done enough for you—haven’t we all accommodated your
visions
?”

“Visions at the core of your
profit,
Francis.”

“I have never denied it! But if you think to turn me into a husk like Vandaariff—”

“I think nothing of the kind,” answered the Comte. “What I am doing is in our larger interest.”

“Before you treat us like animals, Oskar,…and make me your
enemy,
” said the Contessa, raising her voice and speaking quite fiercely, “perhaps you could explain what you intend.”

Miss Temple clapped a hand over her mouth, feeling like a fool. Oskar! Was it so stupidly obvious? The Comte had not stolen the works of Oskar Veilandt, the painter was no prisoner or mindless drone…the two men were one and the same! What had Aunt Agathe told her—that the Comte was born in the Balkans, raised in Paris, an unlikely inheritance? How was that incompatible with what Mr. Shanck had said of Veilandt—school in Vienna, studio in Montmartre, mysteriously disappeared—into respectability and wealth, she now knew! She looked over to Chang and Svenson, and saw Chang shaking his head bitterly. Svenson had eyes for nothing but Elöise’s slumped figure, glaring down at the poor woman with helpless agitation.

The Comte cleared his throat and held up the glass card.

“The
encounter
is attended by spectators—including you, Rosamonde, and you, Francis. But the clever Mrs. Dujong has perceived, through the viewing mirror, a
second
encounter, in the lobby…that of Colonel Trapping speaking most earnestly with Robert Vandaariff.”

This revelation was met with silence.

“What does that
mean
?” asked Crabbé.

“That is not
all,
” intoned the Comte.

“If you would simply tell us, Monsieur!” protested Crabbé. “There is no great amount of time—”

“Mrs. Dujong’s memory tells of a
second
card—one the Doctor cut from the lining of Arthur Trapping’s uniform. Evidently his body was not fully
searched
. Among other things this card conveys an image of myself performing a preparatory examination on Lydia.”

“Arthur intended to give it to Vandaariff,” said Xonck. “The greedy fool would not have been able to resist…”

Crabbé stepped forward, narrowing his eyes.

“Is this your way of informing us that
you
killed him?” he hissed at the Comte. “Without telling anyone? Risking everything? Pushing forward our entire time-table? No wonder Lord Robert was so agitated—no wonder we were forced to—”

“But that is the point, Harald,” rumbled the Comte. “I am telling you
all
this exactly because
I
did not harm a hair on Arthur Trapping’s head.”

“But—but why else—” began Crabbé, but he then fell silent…as every member of the Cabal studied one another.

“You said she had this from Svenson?” the Contessa asked. “Where did
he
get it?”

“She does not know.”

“From me, of course,” drawled a sluggish voice from the other side of the room. Karl-Horst was attempting to pour himself more brandy. “He must have found it in my room. I never even noticed Trapping, I must say—more interested in
Margaret
! It was the first bit of glass I’d ever seen—a present to entice my participation.”

“A present from whom?” asked Francis Xonck.

“Lord knows—is that important?”

“It is perhaps crucial, Your Highness,” said the Contessa.

The Prince frowned. “Well…in
that
case…”

It seemed to Miss Temple that each member of the Cabal watched the Prince with the barest restraint, every one of them wishing they could slap his face until he spat out what he knew, but none daring to show the slightest impatience or worry in front of the others…and so they waited as he pursed his lips and scratched his ear and sucked on his teeth, all the time enjoying their undivided attention. She was beginning to get worried herself. What if Angelique were to continue her search? Who was to say the glass woman could not somehow smell the presence of their minds? Miss Temple’s leg tingled from being crouched so long, and the dusty air was tickling her nose. She glanced at Chang, his lips pressed shut, and realized he had controlled his cough this entire time. She’d not given it a second thought, but suddenly the possibility—the inevitability!—of him exposing their presence terrified her. They must take some action—but what? What possibly?

“I suppose it must have been Doctor Lorenz, or—what was his name?—Mr. Crooner, from the Institute, the one who died so badly. They were the ones working the machines. Gave it to me as a sort of
keepsake
—don’t know how that villain Svenson found it unless he had help—I stashed it most brilliantly—”