A Cold Legacy (25 page)

“I'm sorry, Elizabeth,” I whispered. “I have to break my promise.”

A creak from the eastern wall caught my attention. It came from the drainage grate that emptied Lucy's blood from the room. It must be some of Hensley's rats crawling in the walls. They would burn if they didn't get out in time. My heart pounded, but there was nothing I could do. Their fate was their own.

I poured Elizabeth's vat of sterile alcohol over the books and papers. Four generations of women protecting this knowledge, passing it down, and it would all end tonight. As much as I admired what the von Stein women were trying to do, I no longer agreed with them.

In my careless hurry, alcohol splashed on my dress.

“Blast.” A crack of lightning lit up the sky. Any moment lightning would strike the rod and all this would go up in flames—and my soaked dress with it unless I found a way to escape.

I peered out the window, but the four-story fall was too dangerous. That left only the door, which was locked and guarded by one of Radcliffe's armed officers. More scurrying came from the grate, and I thought of those poor rats trapped in the walls. I couldn't save them. I couldn't save Lucy.

I couldn't even save myself.

They say a sort of peace falls over you when you know that you're going to die. I had seen enough people die to know that wasn't true, and yet as I watched the storm grow closer, I did feel a strange calm. It was a letting go of the determination that had kept me alive this far. It was the acknowledgment to Death that he had won, and I was a fool
for thinking I could defeat him. I'd cheated him enough for one lifetime.

I sank to my knees in the puddle of blood and alcohol. I'd killed so many people, including the man I thought was my father. If this was the trade I had to make to keep this science lost to time, then I was ready.

Montgomery was right. We only had one life. One chance to make the right choice. And this was mine: to burn with the rest of Ballentyne.

W
ITH MY HEAD BURIED
in my arms, waiting for the moment when lightning would strike, I didn't notice that the scurrying sounds had changed into footsteps.

“Juliet,” came a hushed whisper, “are you there?”

I jerked my head up. Montgomery's voice sounded like a ghost's.

His hands reached out from the grate.

“Montgomery!” I scrambled to the grate, threading my fingers through the bars. “I didn't think there was a passageway to the laboratory.”

“I still have the map.” He held the crumpled old paper to the light. “Radcliffe's men locked me in the cellar and I managed to make my way into the passages. There were markings on the map that indicated a passage once existed here, but it had been boarded up. I was able to break through. Now we just have to get you out.” He tugged on the bars, but they didn't give.

“Listen to me!” I clutched the bars. “There's no time
for that. You have to get out of the walls. Get out of this manor,
now
. Tell all the servants to flee.”

Lightning crashed closer this time, and I shrieked. Montgomery at last noticed the bonfire I'd built of books and journals and soaked with alcohol. His eyes went wide. “What have you done, Juliet?”

“What needed to be done,” I said. “You were right. The science is too dangerous to exist. Once lightning strikes, the fire will burn the entire house, including Frankenstein's journals.”

“Are you mad?” he said. “It'll burn you, too!”

He pulled at the bars, muscles straining. I pushed on his hands, trying to pry them off the bars. “Just leave me. Go!”

A crash came from behind me. I smelled the ozone a second before I saw the spark. The entire room vibrated just as it had before, a humming coming from the metal equipment, and Montgomery grabbed my hand through the grate a second before the lightning rod pulsed.

A spark flashed. The alcohol caught. The room erupted in flames.

I screamed and covered my head with my hands. “Get out of here, Montgomery!”

I tore away from him, scrambling to the far wall as a wave of heat struck me, and threw open the window to let out the billowing black smoke. The servants and Jack Serra's troupe would see it and know to get out of the house, but that still left Montgomery in the walls. He might not get out in time.

“I'm not leaving you here.” He pulled on the grate with all his strength, but it was useless. Only Edward might have had the strength, but for all I knew Edward was still unconscious—or worse.

I hugged myself into a ball, terrified of the painful death that would come. A scraping sound came, and incredulously, stone dust crumbled down from around the metal. Before my very eyes, the grate began to tear out of the stone. Montgomery let out a groan, pulling the bars even harder. I blinked in shock. It shouldn't have been possible. I had heard stories of normal humans developing incredible strength in times of crisis, people able to lift huge weights or run for miles with a broken leg. Such strength never came without a cost. Sometimes it could even kill a person.

“Montgomery, stop! You'll hurt yourself!”

But he didn't stop. Muscles straining to the point of giving out, he pulled on the grate until it tore out of the wall with a clatter.

“Climb through!” he yelled.

It took my brain a moment to comprehend that he had actually done it, before I scrambled toward him and crawled through the hole. I collapsed onto a grimy stone floor. It was cool to the touch, covered with dust and cobwebs. Everything was a strange kind of dark, like the world had been cast in shadows. I sat up, struggling for breath.

“You inhaled a lot of smoke,” Montgomery said. “It's making you sick.”

I clenched my hands over his, squeezing tight. “I told you
to run.” I coughed. “To save yourself. It's impossible, what you did.”

His fingers brushed back my tangled hair, damp with sweat. “Love can sometimes do the impossible. You're mad if you think I would have left you there to die.”

I pressed my lips against his. The sound of fire spreading through the manor roared in the distance, and the stone under our knees was warming, but I needed to feel his lips on mine. If we only had one life, then I wanted to live it right.

Something crashed in the house, jarring us out of the kiss. His arm tightened around my back. The muscles of his biceps shook strangely from the superhuman exertion; I needed to get him out of here and treat him properly before his muscles gave out completely.

“Come on,” I said. “We're not out of danger yet.”

I grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the burning tower. Smoke was already seeping into the ceiling of the passageway. We moved faster, and I tripped over a brick and fell against the wall, flinching. The dust was disturbed here, and I looked closer at the uneven brick. I'd tripped over it before, with Hensley.

“We're by the library!” I said. “That means this passage leads down to the tunnel that goes outside, the same one I used to escape the Beast.”

The roar of the fire was getting louder. It took me back to another time, another fire, one that roared into the island night. Father had died in that one. Maybe I'd die the same way, fated to end up like him.

No
, I reminded myself.
We choose our own fate
.

Montgomery coughed. Smoke was so thick that it was hard to make out his face even from a few steps away. We kept low where the air was still breathable and descended stairs, sliding more than climbing, until the temperature lowered. The stone walls here were blessedly cool. Our feet splashed in the flooded basement.

“There it is!” I spotted a low wooden door that led to the outside. But when I turned around, my smile faded. One glance told me Montgomery's superhuman strength was failing. There was only so long a body could do the impossible.

“The south garden is just beyond this door,” I urged. “It's jammed—we just have to push through. Don't give up yet, Montgomery.”

He nodded. I counted, and on three we both poured the last of our strength into that wooden door. It slid open an inch, then two, and at last wide enough to crawl through.

A cold wind bit at me as rain stung my face and mixed with tears of relief. Montgomery came through the passageway behind me. I clenched my hands in the mud, wanting to collapse into it.

Laughing with exhaustion, I crawled over to him. His hand tightened on mine as his eyes closed. I rested a hand on his chest, enjoying the steady beat of his heart and knowing that everything would at long last be all right.

“We're safe now,” I said, brushing the rain from his face. “We made it.”

The sound of a boot scuffing came through the rain, and I had just enough strength to look up. Radcliffe's fair blue eyes stared at me. He aimed his pistol at my head.

All the joy drained out of me.

“Miss Moreau. Where, may I ask, is Lucy?”

A
NGER FLOODED INTO ME
. I pictured Lucy's body in the tower, slumped against the wall as though sleeping. Dead by her own father's hand.

From the other end of the courtyard, a crash came as flames exploded through the upper windows of the tower. Smoke billowed into the dark night sky.

“She's already gone,” I said, coughing. “Burned in that fire along with all of Frankenstein's equipment and journals.”

Radcliffe's face went slack as he stared at the smoke that consumed his daughter's body. There was loss there that I was sure my father had never felt, and for a moment I felt pity for this man I hated. But then he turned to me with a furious growl.

“Get up!” He dug the pistol against my forehead. When I stumbled, he wrenched me to my feet, digging the pistol in harder.

“Pick him up as well,” Radcliffe ordered to two of his men, nodding at Montgomery. Worry spiked in me again. Montgomery was flat in the mud, streaked with rain. Radcliffe's men tried to lift him, but he was much larger than both of them, and they could barely lift his chest. His eyes were closed.

My heartbeat sped. Had he passed out from exhaustion? I looked around the courtyard frantically. There was no sign of the Balthazar or the little girls, so Radcliffe must not have discovered their hiding place. I hadn't seen Jack
Serra and his troupe since they'd lowered the electric wire, but they were nimble acrobats and would be able to escape the burning building. At last I saw McKenna, Carlyle, Lily, and Moira huddled under a tree that gave them little shelter in the rain, guarded by one of Radcliffe's men. That left only Edward, and his body still lay in the same place, faceup in the gravel, blood surrounding him.

Faceup?
I thought.
He had landed and been shot facedown
.

My heart beat faster. Was he alive?

This exhilarating thought was met with a crash from the house as part of the roof fell in. The servants shrieked, and even the mercenaries seemed nervous so close to a raging fire. The only one who didn't flinch was Radcliffe.

“There's no point anymore,” I said. “The research is gone. You've lost.”

A low moan came from the courtyard, and Edward's arm twitched. Radcliffe took notice, just as I did. “Not dead yet?” he called. “I suppose all that's left is to finish the job, since you've made it perfectly clear you aren't willing to bargain, Miss Moreau.”

“Don't!” I cried, but Radcliffe's mercenary had a rifle aimed at me.

Radcliffe cocked his pistol, aiming for Edward's head, but then paused. He holstered his firearm and took out a hunting knife instead. “No. A bullet is too easy. I'll cut open his throat so deep not even you could stitch it back, Miss Moreau, and then do the same to everyone else in this household.”

He hauled Edward to his feet, the knife glinting at his throat, cutting into the outer layer of skin. My heart beat wildly as a line of blood rolled down his chest. It flowed too freely, not at all like Hensley's had. It made me start. If Edward could bleed like that, could he also die? How much damage could his body take before shutting down completely?

My eyes met Edward's over the glinting knife. Radcliffe didn't know that he was stronger than most, possibly even immortal. Edward raised an eyebrow, asking me a silent question. He could overpower Radcliffe easily, but not before Radcliffe slit his throat.

I shook my head, telling Edward not to try anything.

“Let him go,” I said. “Return to London and we'll pretend none of this ever happened.”

“I don't give up so easily.”

My mind whirled with ideas for how to bring him down. I caught sight of a gleaming metal object—the lightning rod. When the roof had collapsed, it had landed in the center of the courtyard, revealing a jagged end.

I took a step closer to the rod. Edward followed my gaze with understanding.

“There's a problem with your plan,” I said slowly, taking another step closer.

Radcliffe moved the knife closer against Edward's neck. Flames burst out of the upper windows, raining glass to the front steps.

“I don't give up so easily either.” I lunged for the lightning rod. It was heavier than I'd expected, but that only
meant it would kill quicker. I aimed it at Edward's chest, and by extension Radcliffe's chest behind him. “Let him go.”

Radcliffe laughed low in his throat. “You really expect me to believe you'd murder your own friend just to kill me, too?”

My eyes met Edward's. Memories flashed in an instant: a curled body in a rocking dinghy, the boy behind the waterfall, the boy who'd fought against the Beast.

“Believe it,” I said.

I rammed the rod into Edward's chest with all my strength. He jolted with the shock but didn't cry out. Radcliffe, however, howled with pain. The force pinned them both against the courtyard wall, but I hadn't the strength to push it far enough through Edward's body to entirely pierce Radcliffe's chest.

“Edward,” I gasped. “I need your help.”

He winced as he gripped the lightning rod, and together we thrust it all the way through his chest. Dark blood seeped from the wound, and alarm again shot through me.

How much blood could he lose and still live?

Radcliffe cried out in anguished pain as the lightning rod went straight through him. His arms went limp, the blade falling from his fingers. At last he was silent.

I picked up his pistol and aimed for the mercenaries who remained, but they were already fleeing the manor, disappearing into the darkness. I knew we wouldn't ever see them again.

I returned to Edward, close enough for his dark blood
to stain my hands. I was terrified to look up, afraid that he'd be dead, and this time I'd have killed him.

But he let out a deep sigh.

“You're alive,” I whispered.

He winced, reaching for the lighting rod. I hurried to help him pull it from both Radcliffe's body and his own. Radcliffe's body sagged onto the mud, face in a puddle, no air coming from it.

Dead.

I knelt next to Edward, brushing the hair from his face. He clutched a hand to slow the seeping blood from his chest. “Nothing you can't fix, right?” A small smile played at the corners of his mouth.

I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight, knowing that soon I'd have to tell him about Lucy. What place was there in the world for a man like him, so unnatural and yet so good?

“Go to him,” Edward said, nodding toward Montgomery's unconscious body.

I pulled away, wiping my eyes. Edward gave me a gentle push, and I crawled across the muddy courtyard to where Montgomery lay. The color had drained from his face and arms. I pressed my fingers to his neck, praying to every god I knew that he wouldn't be dead. He couldn't be. Not after everything.

Someone shuffled behind me, and I smelled wet dog. Balthazar crouched next to me. Blood seeped from a gash on his shoulder, but otherwise he seemed unhurt.