Masque of the Red Death (28 page)

“How could he have—” I gasp.

“Araby, it probably isn’t true,” April says. “But if it is, we can’t help who our fathers are, or what they do.” April squeezes my arm. The one that isn’t bleeding. Elliott scans the street behind us. His eyes, when they meet mine, remain wary.

“Hey, kid, can you help me with this chest of supplies?” Kent calls to Thom, giving Elliott a pointed look.

The paper in my hand flutters as the wind picks up again.

“We have to go,” Kent insists.

“I hate the idea of leaving now.” Elliott frowns. “This new affliction is bad, and Malcontent is encouraging the chaos. If my uncle won’t do anything, then maybe—”

“Malcontent isn’t alone, Elliott. He has an army and they have weapons,” April cuts in.

“And
your
army isn’t ready,” Kent says. “We don’t have enough masks to give away yet. We don’t even know how to protect against this new contagion.”

“But there is no one to keep order in the city.”

“That does not mean that you can do it by yourself,” Kent snaps. He seems to know Elliott’s plan better than anyone. “We’re going to take this box of supplies to the roof of the Morgue. My interest here is in saving my work. And myself. I’d love to take all of you with me, especially since Elliott financed most of the inventions I’m saving.”

He slaps Elliott on the back, and Elliott winces. Then Kent gestures to Thom, and they begin carrying the box toward the building.

“Where did Malcontent get an army?” Elliott asks. At one time I would have enjoyed Elliott’s bewilderment, but that time has passed.

“The swamp,” April says. “Hundreds of men.”

“Hundreds?” He motions for April to follow Kent and Thom.

“Araby is hurt,” April tells him.

“Aren’t we all?”

April puts her arm around me again. I take two steps, and now Elliott can see my back.

“How bad is it?” he asks as we walk.

“She’s lost a lot of blood.”

The music pulsing from the first floor of the Morgue is a reminder of Will and his betrayal, and my own betrayal.

“Elliott,” I gasp.

When he turns, his eyes aren’t as cold as before.

“Yes, darling?” The words are ironic, but his tone is not.

I don’t know what to say. I’m still holding the flyer. I hold it out to him, but he looks away, as if he can’t stand to look at it and at me at the same time.

“Let it go, Araby,” April says gently.

But I can’t. My shoulder is on fire, I’m exhausted, and I can’t remember the last time I ate. And here is this awful thing, these … lies … about my father.

I stuff the flyer into my sleeve. Just like I did with the plans for the masks. So long ago.

“We should hurry,” I say in a low voice. Kent and Thom have disappeared into the club, with the box between them.

“It doesn’t matter now,” April says. “Look.”

The balloon is floating up and away.

“Damn it!” Elliott mutters. “That’s going to attract every wretch in the city. What is Kent thinking?”

We hear footsteps approaching. Many people, men, marching together through the street.

“Run,” April says, putting every bit of horror that she has ever felt for the disease into that one word.

We do.

In the lobby of the Morgue, people are standing around holding drinks. Their expressions register distaste as we stagger in.

“You have to pay at the door,” someone says. Elliott punches him in the face. And then we are off at a run again, going through the door to the stairs. By the second flight, I’m flagging. Elliott scoops me up, pulling me close to his chest. I know that it hurts him, but I can’t walk another step, so asking him to put me down is out of the question. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on as tightly as I can.

“We have to get out of here,” Elliott says under his breath as he climbs. “The city is all going to hell. Burning and murder. We can do something about this, but not if we’re dead.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

M
IRACULOUSLY,
I
’M STILL CONSCIOUS WHEN WE
reach the roof.

The enormous beige tarp has been pulled back, and the thing that was under it is exposed. It’s some sort of ship. Not a ship for navigating waterways, though. It is attached to an elongated balloon and floating about a foot above the roof. An airship. It looks very similar to a water-going vessel, complete with several portholes that show there are rooms inside. Like a ship, it has two decks.

“We have to go!” Kent shouts from the front of the lower deck. “We have to go
now
!”

“I thought you were dead.” Elliott’s voice is muffled by my hair. He carries me across the roof and up a set of wooden stairs. April is right behind us.

Once we’re on the deck, he sets me on my feet. We stand and stare at each other. Then he strips the mask off my face. Before I can blink, or slap him or scream, his mask is off, and he’s kissing me, right there in front of April and Kent and the boy, Thom. I reach up to put my arms around his neck, but I can’t. I ignore the pain and concentrate on the kissing. I haven’t known how to do it for that long.

“And I didn’t think anything could be more distasteful than that scarf,” April says.

Elliott lets me go, and then, as I try to find my footing without his arms around me, he hands me my mask and turns to fold the wooden stairs. The ship is rising.

“Can you steer, Elliott?” Kent is working a set of controls.

Elliott pulls me along as he goes to a steering wheel at the front of the craft. He puts one hand on the wheel. His other is twined with mine. I’m not sure what’s happening between us. It’s enough, right now, that we are both alive.

“Oh, hell,” Elliott says.

I look over the side of the airship, expecting to see an army on the roof.

Instead I see Will, running across the roof, carrying Henry. Elise is lagging behind them.

“What do we do?” Kent asks. The ship is rising, and we’re already out of Will’s reach.

“Throw down the ladder,” Elliott says.

I see a man with a musket behind Will and the children, and then two more. One of them shoots up at us; others follow, brandishing knives.

“We can’t throw down the ladder,” Kent says. Men are pouring onto the roof from stairways at either end of the building. “If enough of them jump on it, we’ll capsize.”

“We can’t leave them to die,” I say quietly. Will sacrificed me, but it was because he loves them more.

“I don’t want to!” Kent says. “Will and I have been friends since we were boys. I just don’t know how to save them.”

“Is what we are doing more important than their lives?” April asks.

“Yes,” Elliott says. “We can save countless lives.”

Will has reached the center of the roof, directly below us, and the ruffians are pouring out of the stairwell. All he has to defend himself is a knife.

“They’re Malcontent’s men,” Thom says. “Those men are killers.”

Elliott looks at me and sighs. He gestures for Thom to hold the steering wheel, then tosses the rope ladder down. It lands at Will’s feet. He grabs it and steadies it for Elise to climb up then drops his knife and follows, with Henry against his chest.

“We have to move,” Kent tells Elliott. “I’m taking us higher!”

We rise fast. But not so fast that two men don’t jump onto the ladder, climbing more quickly than Will and Elise. A third leaps on as the ladder dangles above him. The others watch us rise into the sky.

Suddenly Elise stops climbing. Will tries to push her on, but she is frozen with fear and Henry is locked around Will’s neck.

“Hell, damn, hell.” Elliott grabs a musket. I stumble to the wooden barrier at the edge of the deck.

“Give me that. I’m a better shot than you.” April takes the musket and aims. The way it’s pointed, toward Will and the children, scares me. But then she shoots, and one of the men falls from the ladder and lands below. He’s moving, but his legs are twisted beneath him. His death is just a matter of time.

The men have inched upward. “I can’t shoot now. They’re too close to the children,” April says.

I kneel and call to Elise. “Can you climb to me?”

“No,” she says. Her face, peering up at me, is colorless.

“Go to Araby.” Will’s voice is strained. He’s been holding himself and Henry for too long.

“Elise,” I say, “you have to do this. For me. For your brothers. They can’t hold on much longer, and they can’t climb past you.” A tear trickles down her face, but she doesn’t move.

“I’ll climb down and get her.”

“You can’t climb.” I’m surprised by Elliott’s voice from behind me. “Your shoulder—”

“I can do what I have to do.”

Wind is moving through my hair, and the flimsy rope ladder whips back and forth. I won’t be able to climb down fast enough.

“Pull up the ladder,” I say. “It’s the only way.”

Elliott pulls at the ladder and then pumps the handle of the winch. After only a few feet, the rope frays against the wood of the ship.

“Too heavy,” he gasps.

I lie flat on the deck and reach my good arm down to Elise. She’s closer now, at least. I grit my teeth and ignore the pain.

A gust of wind shakes the ship, and she screams.

“You have to take my hand,” I tell her. “Please. Trust me.”

Elise reaches one small hand toward me. She’s shaking. I grab her hand with both of mine.

“Put your foot on the next rung.”

A second musket shot deafens me, and then the ladder swings wildly as one of the men drops off it.

Elise won’t let go of my hand, and I’m sliding forward, but then someone is rolling the ladder up and grabbing both of us.

I pull her away from the edge, even as Will and Henry climb to safety.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see an unfamiliar man scrabbling onto the deck. And then Elliott hits him with the butt of the musket. The man crumples. Elliott hits him again and then drags him away.

Will is so close that if I put out my hand, I would touch him.

“Thank you.” Will breaks the silence.

I don’t know what to say. April too is silent.

“She wouldn’t have climbed to anyone else.” Will says, searching my face with his dark eyes. I look down at the deck.

“Araby?” Just yesterday he tried to convince me that there was still good in the world. Then he betrayed me, and now the city is burning below us.

“I guess fear of heights runs in the family,” I say finally.

He laughs without humor.

Elliott comes out of the cabin. “I’ll question the prisoner when he wakes up,” he says grimly. He hands Will several blankets. “Try to keep the children still,” Elliott says, “Otherwise they’ll be in danger of falling.”

April settles onto another part of the deck, near Thom. “It’s better if he’s not breathing on the children.” She sits on the deck, not beside the boy, but close enough that he isn’t completely alone.

A gust of wind hits the ship, and we tip to the side.

“I’m going to the upper deck,” Elliott says. “Come with me?” he asks softly.

I go with him.

“The city,” I breathe. It looks terrible. Water flows through the streets in some places, gushes up from the tunnels in others. People are fighting in the streets, and everywhere people are fleeing.

“Where are they going?”

“My uncle is having a party,” Elliott says. “His biggest event ever.”

I laugh. “So the city is in ruins and the prince is holding a party?” I wonder if it will be a masked ball.

“He’s gathering all the clean upper-class citizens who can make the journey. They say he’ll let exactly one thousand people in. Then he’ll seal the doors.”

“What of the Red Death?” I ask, finally.

“He thinks he can hide from it.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Maybe. Maybe he’s finally gone insane. Or maybe he knows something we don’t know.”

I shake my head, not sure what I know any longer. If my father killed all of those people, then he killed Finn, too. So many deaths, and now there’s the Red Death.... I still have the vial.

I remove it from my bodice with shaking fingers. Elliott watches with interest.

“That’s a fascinating place to store items.” The wind whips his scarf back and forth.

I uncap the vial with my teeth. Father told me to drink half and give half to the person I care about most. Half of it is left. I hand it to Elliott. He puts it to his lips.

I find it endearing that he is willing to drink it without questioning me, but I’m light-headed and blurt out, “My father gave it to me. He told me to give it to the person I cared about most.”

I watch his face, waiting for his reaction. I remember the depth of emotion I glimpsed when we were on the prince’s boat. He’s hiding whatever he feels.

He lowers the vial.

“You drank the other half?”

“No. I gave it to April.”

He holds it out to me.

“Your father wanted you to drink it.”

“Elliott, you told me that the reason you wanted my help was that I didn’t care. You drink it. Go back and save my mother. Kill the prince, and Reverend Malcontent, and anyone else who … needs killing. Save the city. I probably won’t get the sickness; my mask is intact.”

He puts it to my lips.

“I’m going to do all those things. But I need a reason to do them.”

“No,” I say, because this isn’t how I planned my act of selflessness. But when I open my mouth to say the word, he tips the vial, and I have no choice but to swallow the contents.

I sit, miserably, on the deck of the ship.

“What happens next?” I ask.

“We have two clear choices,” he says. “We can go looking for other people, or we can join my uncle’s party.”

“My mother will be there, won’t she?”

The castle is a dark blob to the west. A steady stream of carriages lines the road.

“There’s a third option,” Elliott says. “But it’s crazy.”

“Tell me.”

He holds the empty vial between two fingers. “We go back into the city and find the only man who can help us make sense of all this.”

We look down at the chaos that is the city. Burning and flooding and diseased. And then there is a great cracking sound and we see one of the Akkadian Towers—not the one where we lived, but the unfinished one—cracking and falling. My building is obviously on fire.