Part 49 (2/2)
”Of course not!” Fochtmann barked through the helmet's voice box. ”We have not restored the power.”
Fochtmann signaled the men and the line of silver machines roared back to deafening life. Then he pulled down the bra.s.s handle with the flourish of a circus showman.
Nothing happened. Fochtmann raised it up, prodded a bit of wiring, and pulled it down even harder. Nothing happened. Fochtmann waved angrily at the men, and the machines powered down. Fochtmann pulled off the helmet, his face hot and the bandage on his brow flapping loose. He strode toward Miss Temple.
”Why did you say it would fail? What do you know?”
”You lack a device... to manage the flow.” Miss Temple's words slurred.
”What device?” demanded Fochtmann, taking hold of her jaw.
”She does not have it,” said Chang.
”And you do?”
”No...”
Chang turned, and every eye in the room s.h.i.+fted with him, toward the Contessa.
”Once again you block our way, madame!” cried Mrs. Trapping. She snapped her fingers, but before the soldiers reached the Contessa, the woman raised her hand and delved into her clutch bag.
”My goodness, Charlotte,” the Contessa replied with an icy brightness. ”Allow me to help you all.”
She extracted a s.h.i.+ning metal implement from the bag. With two tugs she doubled its size, stretching the device like a telescope until it took the shape of an old-fas.h.i.+oned pistol, with a ball-shaped handle on one end and a barreled tube on the other.
”The marrow sparge,” said Chang.
The Contessa spared him one glacial smile and then tossed the thing in a lazy arc to Fochtmann, who caught it with both hands.
”Now, in exchange...” the Contessa began calmly, as if her words were not an explicit plea for her life.
”O do not!” sneered Mrs. Trapping. ”Because I have been powerless you think I have seen nothing! I see you now-in tatters, like a gypsy! This business no longer requires you, madame-nor my brother, who has been a ghost these many years. You have lost your wager!”
Mrs. Trapping's face was red and her hands were clutching her side. Mr. Leveret reached for her arm but she shook him away. The Contessa had not moved.
”As you desire, Charlotte,” she said. ”Of course, there remains much that none of you know, despite your presumption-all of Macklenburg, for example, as ripe for plunder as Peru, and richer to our interests than a continent full of silver. And even more beyond Macklenburg- initiatives have begun in Vienna and Cadiz, in Venice-”
”What initiatives in Venice?” asked Mr. Phelps, rather quickly.
”Precisamente,” laughed the Contessa. Then the laughter caught in her throat and the light stalled in her eyes. She clawed at the air, and gasped through her open mouth, an animal panting. The gla.s.s woman withdrew. The Contessa met their gazes, eyes fierce, her voice raw as she called to the gla.s.s woman.
”You may harvest facts from my brain, Margaret. But beyond fact lies an understanding you cannot capture-and that is my instinct. I outwitted Robert Vandaariff and Henry Xonck-and it ought to be clear to a hare-lipped infant that if you proceed without me now, it is at your peril.” She turned to Fochtmann, snorting at the metal device he held. ”I watched Oskar create the marrow sparge himself. Do you even know what it is?”
”It connects below the skull,” hissed Mrs. Marchmoor. ”There are hidden needles.”
Fochtmann snorted upon finding the needles-as, now he had the tool, how obvious was its purpose-and set at once to its installation. Mrs. Trapping watched him for a moment but then looked away, impatient and cross.
”What is a 'sparge'?” she asked, generally.
”A medieval term,” said Doctor Svenson, after no one else replied. ”For the Comte, the meaning would be alchemical-to aerate, to infuse-”
”That tells me nothing,” Mrs. Trapping muttered.
”Why ask a German?” Leveret replied with a sneer.
The Doctor cleared his throat. ”With this device in place, the energy from the book will be sent directly along Lord Vandaariff's spine, infusing the natural fluid there. This same fluid bathes the primary ma.s.s of nerves-the spinal column as well as the brain. It is the alchemical marrow.”
”Will that work?” Mrs. Trapping asked doubtfully.
”If it does not also boil his brain like a trout.”
”We have seen it,” grunted Xonck from the depths of his distress. ”At the Inst.i.tute-the Comte wiped the mind of a caretaker, then infused it with the memories of an African adventurer he had harvested that week at the brothel. The old man's mind became nothing but slaughtered dervishes and impregnated tribeswomen.”
”How interesting it will be to speak to Oskar once again,” said the Contessa.
”If I remember correctly,” observed Doctor Svenson, ”at the moment of his own death the Comte-beg pardon, Oskar-was intending to kill you.”
”O tush,” said the Contessa. ”The Comte d'Orkancz is, if nothing else, sophisticated.”
”You cannot think he will be your ally?”
”Doctor, I will be over-joyed to see my old friend.”
”But will it be the Comte?” asked Chang. ”That adventurer was harvested under the Comte's own care. This book was inscribed at the very worst of times-”
”Inconsequential,” rasped Xonck.
”And what of Robert Vandaariff?” asked Svenson. ”Is he truly expunged? Or will a lingering remnant dangerously shatter the Comte's essence?”
”And will either of these proud men submit willingly to all of you?” asked Chang.
”Be quiet!” cried Mrs. Trapping. ”They do not have to submit willingly! The Comte must do our bidding-is that not why he underwent that horrible Process-so we may manage him and Vandaariff's money? We have acquired this power, and now we will employ it! Everyone has agreed-it is very, very simple-and I insist that we be finally ready. You, there-tall fellow...”
”I am Mr. Fochtmann,” he said, aghast.
”Exactly so. Proceed.”
THE HANDLE was pulled and the crackle of current spat across the copper wires like fat on a red-hot stove. Miss Temple clenched her fists and squinted, half turning her face away. Robert Vandaariff's voice echoed from under the black rubber mask, in unearthly yelps of terror, high-pitched and plaintive as an uncomprehending dog whose leg had been crushed by a cart. His tightly bound limbs thrashed and his spine arched until it seemed it must break from straining. At the first touch of current, blue light glowed from the bra.s.s device that held the book, intensifying to a bright white flame-the scorching reek of indigo clay came off in clouds. Within the glare, Miss Temple saw flickers of shadow, ghost fragments, dreams flaming to life.
Then it was done. At Fochtmann's wave the machines went silent.
Vandaariff sagged against the restraints. No one else moved.
”Did it work?” whispered Charlotte Trapping.
Vandaariff lurched forward, choking. Miss Temple felt a mirroring, sympathetic spasm of nausea. Leveret cried aloud as he pulled the mask away-Vandaariff had filled it with black bile, and now vomited another ink-colored gout across the man's trousers.
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