My Clockwork Muse (28 page)

The inspector came forward and gave the lid a
cautious tug.

I smiled. "One man cannot lift it."

"He had only to slide it off," Gessler said.
"Open the coffin."

The weight of the lid was a point in my
favor. Even Gessler must have understood that. But he would not
concede even the most obvious point. I feared I was doomed.

"Go on," he commanded, when I hesitated.

I felt the gun barrel poking my ribs, so, as
ordered, I leaned forward and peered over the edge of the
sarcophagus. Inside was an ornate coffin of highly polished pine.
It had clearly been tampered with. The latches that secured the lid
in place were broken. The coffin opened easily. I felt my stomach
lurch.

There, inside, was Mrs. Landor—Berenice. Her
eyes were closed in peaceful repose. Her white hair had been neatly
styled as it might have been in life. She looked much as she must
have on the day of her interment, only sallower and ... deader. Her
cheeks were sunken and puckered beneath sharp jutting cheekbones.
Her skin was waxy and gray. But it was the condition of her mouth
that filled me with horror. Slightly open as her defiler had left
it, I saw that the corners of her mouth had been ripped and ravaged
where the madman must have pried apart her jaws. Between her pale
lips, I caught a glimpse of bloody, toothless gums. I drew back in
horror, afraid that I might retch.

"In Heaven's name, Gessler," I cried, "what
is this you're having us do here?

Gessler stepped around me and glanced inside
the coffin. Unmoved, he turned his back to the corpse and looked
down at where I was kneeling on the floor. "I need the tools you
used to do this, Poe. Are they here somewhere, hidden, like your
vial." He turned his head from side to side, scanning the
chamber.

I rose to one knee. I felt helpless and sick.
"How can I make you believe that I did not do this?"

Gessler merely shook his head. "Where I made
my mistake, Mr. Poe, was in supposing that you selected your
victims
after
writing your stories—when indeed the reverse
is the truth, isn't it? You didn't pen 'Berenice' and then set out
to find one who happened to live nearby. You wrote the story after
observing Mrs. Landor in life, didn't you?"

I rose to my feet, anger beginning to well up
in me. "You're grasping at straws, Gessler."

"These walks of yours across the little stone
bridge. You didn't stop at the bridge as you would have me believe.
You continued on to the clearing at the top of the hill."

I merely laughed in reply.

"You observed Mrs. Landor from there.
Plotting your evil all the while, conjuring your sick fantasies day
after day until you were compelled to write them down and then,
finally, to act them out."

"You don't know what you're saying."

"The Rue Morgue murderer did not select his
victims based on your story. Rather, he wrote the story based on
the victims he had already selected. Isn't that true? What a task
it would be to find a house that matched the one in your tale! In
this city? A needle in a haystack! How much simpler to write your
story based on the house you had already found?" Gessler chuckled
darkly. "You had me looking in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Very clever of you, Mr. Poe."

I started to protest, but at that moment,
Gessler shifted his weight from one leg to the other, affording me
a view of the scene behind him. Over his shoulder, I saw that
Berenice was sitting upright in her coffin, her clouded eyes
staring, almost seeming to bulge out of their sockets, the evil
grin on her face exposing her ragged, toothless gums. I was
petrified. I could feel my mouth open to scream, but no sound
emerged. It was not until she started to climb from her coffin, her
eyes fixed on Gessler, that I was able to move.

"Look out, Inspector!" I lunged for him. I
knew I risked being shot. But the corpse had reached out its
cadaverous hand and I knew from Burton the strength of the
creature's skeletal embrace. Once in the thing's grasp, who knew if
one could ever escape? I launched myself at Gessler, taking him by
surprise. My shoulder struck him square in the chest. The force of
the blow sent us both sprawling across the floor—and Berenice's
hand closed on empty air.

Gessler had dropped the revolver. I saw it
spinning on the flagstones several feet from his outstretched
fingers. The look of surprise on his face changed to terror as he
turned his head to see the corpse shambling towards us. His mind
was paralyzed with fear. His heels dug at the floor, vainly seeking
purchase. The creature drew ever closer. I thought of lunging for
the pistol, but saw that there was no time. Instead, I scrambled to
my feet and hurled myself at the monster.

"The gun!" I cried to Gessler, hoping to
revive him from his panic. Whether or not I succeeded, I could not
tell. I had awkwardly grabbed the corpse around the neck. I tried
flinging the monster aside, but it was like attempting to uproot a
tree from the ground. The thing swung fiercely, but I hung on for
dear life, knowing that if I allowed it to throw me it would do so
with killing force. My face was pressed into the fiend's neck. I
could smell its reeking breath and when I dared open my eyes, I
peered directly into the gaping, toothless mouth. My horror mounted
until I thought I would go mad.

The creature thrashed and my legs flapped
uselessly through the air like those of a rag doll. I suddenly
became afraid that Gessler had abandoned me to this monster. Having
sought to see me hang, he would instead allow the unnatural fiend
to act as my jury and executioner. Perhaps he had already fled,
locking the door behind him.

In my horror, I cried out to him.
Gessler!
I meant to say, though no words but a guttural
animal howl escaped my lips. I could feel my hold on the creature
weakening and I knew that to relinquish my grasp was to die. I
opened my eyes, hoping to find the inspector rushing to my aid.
Instead, I found flashing before me a close-up view of the
creature's neck. What I saw made time stand still—a puncture wound
inside a ring of swollen, gray flesh. My mind reeled. It was the
same mark I had seen on Virginia in my cemetery dream. It was the
very mark I had discovered on my own neck!

I scarcely had time to consider the
implications when an earsplitting
crack
of a gunshot filled
the chamber. I winced, half-expecting to feel a bullet tear through
me. Instead, I felt the zombie shudder. For an instant, it had
ceased its flailing. I released my grip and flung myself from the
monster's grasp. I plunged to the floor. When I looked up, I saw
the corpse with a fresh black hole in its forehead and Gessler
behind a cloud of smoke aiming the revolver directly at the
creature's face.

Closing its eyes, the zombie teetered for a
moment, a trail of liquid black goo trickling from the bullet hole.
Gessler took a deep breath and seemed about to let the revolver
fall to his side when the corpse steadied itself and its eyes
suddenly snapped open. Grinning, it took a step forward. Gessler
fired again. The bullet struck the creature high on the forehead
this time, blowing away part of its skull. But it did not stop. It
took another step, and Gessler fired again ... and again .... until
the corpse's bosom was riddled with smoking bullet holes. None had
any effect on the creature. It swatted the gun from Gessler's
hands. He turned, but the thing caught him.

"Run, Poe!" he cried, as he fell to the
floor.

I was tempted to take his advice, but then I
remembered that it was with fire that I had stopped Burton.

Where had I left the lantern?

I looked around frantically and found it on
the ledge next to the now-empty coffin. I jumped up and swiped it
from its perch. Without hesitation, I grasped it by the handle and,
swinging it in a wide arc, slammed it against the creature's head.
The corpse was instantly engulfed in flames. It dropped to its
knees, and then fell forward onto its face, burning fiercely.
Gessler tried to scramble out of its path, but the thing had
grasped him around one ankle. I could see the pain on his face as
the corpse squeezed.

"Arrrgh! Get it off!" he cried.

I didn't know what to do. I grabbed the
corpse's wrist, but it was as solid as an iron bar. The flames were
rapidly consuming the creature's body. But inside the
conflagration, I could see that it was still moving, still a
conscious being. I was afraid the flames would too quickly burn out
and leave us in the blackness of the crypt with the undead
creature. I looked around in near panic when I remembered the
woodpile outside the door. I leapt to my feet and bolted from the
room. Gessler screamed behind me. I knew he was afraid I was
abandoning him to the whim of the monster, but I soon came rushing
back with the axe I had pulled from the woodblock outside.

I raised it as high as the low ceiling would
allow and brought it down with all of my strength, severing the
creature's hand at the wrist. Gessler immediately pulled his leg
free and scrambled out of reach of the burning corpse. I could see
that it was still moving inside the flames. I walked over to it and
it looked up at me. Most of the flesh had melted from its skull,
and its eyeballs had long burnt out of its hollow sockets. I
brought the axe down, this time on the thing's neck. The burning
skull went rolling across the floor.

I turned to see Gessler cringing at the base
of one of the stone pedestals, his eyes wide with terror as the
skeletal hand, still living, pulled itself along the floor with
clenched fingers, its nails cracking with the force of its efforts.
I kicked it into the flames where its fingers flexed and clenched
before burning to bone.

With a heavy sigh, I sat down next to the
inspector and wrapped my arm around his shoulders. "Do you believe
me now?" I asked.

Maggie wiped the blood from Gessler's ankle.
Three crescent-shaped lacerations—made when the creature's
fingernails had dug into his flesh—continued to seep blood until
Maggie pressed the cloth tight to his skin. She peeked beneath it
from time to time until the bleeding had stopped. She soon had the
wound cleaned and bandaged. "Good as new, sar," she said with an
incongruous cheerfulness given that a burnt-out corpse lay just
feet from where she stood.

Gessler gave her a smile, but when he tried
to stand found that his ankle would not support his weight. I
grasped him before he toppled and set him down gently.

Mr. Landor was less solicitous of Gessler's
injury. He had come running at the sound of gunfire and demanded to
know the cause of the ruckus.

I explained as best I could, choosing my
words carefully. At first, I thought to lie. Some elaborate
fabrication immediately began to form in my mind, the end result of
which would have been my secretly replacing the collection of
charred bones in Mrs. Landor's coffin with no one the wiser. But I
decided to tell the truth instead. I set about to explain in as
delicate terms as possible the fact that the creature who had tried
to kill us had once been Landor's own wife.

I immediately regretted my decision. Landor
refused to believe me. The more I insisted, the more annoyed he
became. His anger rose to such an extent that I feared we might
have to defend ourselves from the husband no less than we had his
wife. But the truth of my words was borne by the evidence all
around us. Even he could not deny it. His fury soon gave way to
grief as he regarded the pitiful remains of Mrs. Landor scattered
on the floor at our feet.

"It was her doctor—Coppelius," Gessler said,
looking up from where he sat rubbing his bandaged ankle.

Landor looked puzzled. "Coppelius," he
repeated, turning the idea over in his mind.

I took up the explanation. "Yes," I began,
"his treatment of your wife's illness may have ... done more harm
than good." I still found myself searching for delicate phrasings.
I feared my words sounded foolishly obvious.

Landor clenched his fists. "Coppelius," he
muttered darkly. "The devil..."

"Devil indeed," Gessler said. He stood
gingerly, without assistance. He had found my pepperbox revolver
and handed it back to me. His derby had gotten smashed in. He
popped it out and placed it back on his head. "It is that very
devil we seek now, Mr. Landor. I'm sorry for leaving you with our
... mess to clean up, but we have dangerous business to attend and
no time to lose."

Landor understood and we made our way
quickly—or at least as quickly as Gessler's stricken ankle would
allow—out to the waiting carriage. The driver was smoking his pipe
half-asleep when we found him.

As he climbed into the driver's seat, he
groused, "Took you long enough." As if we had dallied out of some
lazy self-interest. I almost laughed.

~ * * * ~

Once we were underway, heading back to the
city, I turned to Gessler. "The creature had this mark, Inspector."
I pulled my collar down, exposing the perpetually fresh puncture
wound on my neck. I could feel it sting where my fingers brushed
it. The sky was darkening, so Gessler had to lean in close to see
it.

"Ah, your cat-scratch."

"It's not a cat-scratch. Oh, damn it all! I
don't know what it is. But Mrs. Landor—the creature, that is—had
the same mark on her neck that I have on mine."

I almost added
"And Virginia on hers,"
but I caught myself at the last instant. The truth of the matter
filled me with horror. I was loath to speak of it. I had scarcely
dared to believe it. Better, I had reasoned, to consider myself mad
than to think of my darling Virginia one of these hideous
creatures. Now I knew how Mr. Landor had felt confronting the
terrible truth. I could no longer deny it.