My Clockwork Muse (31 page)

"My brain may consist of gears and wheels,
Mr. Poe, but I'm not stupid. Time for you to die, sir."

Dansby reared back. He was going to give my
fingers a sharp kick. I closed my eyes waiting for the pain, the
last I would ever feel, when I heard a sudden flurry as of great
beating wings.

Dansby screamed and the blow I was waiting
for never came. I looked up and there was Tap, cawing madly and
clawing at Dansby's face. His talons ripped the fabric—or whatever
it was—that covered Dansby's cheek. Fluid dripped from the gash.
Beating his wings frantically, Tap by turns clawed and pecked at
Dansby's eyes. Dansby waved his hands in front of his face, but Tap
darted away and came racing back each time. He even managed to yank
one of the eyeballs from its socket. He pulled and, retreating from
Dansby's thrashing hands, left the eyeball dangling. Then he
swooped up and around, striking the automaton on the back of its
perfectly groomed head. I could hear the
clunk
of his sharp
beak striking Dansby's artificial skull. The butler was soon
running with Tap swooping at him from every angle.

"Get him, Tap!" I urged as I clung
desperately to my ledge. I was able to reach my other hand up and
grasp a more secure handhold. Now I was in no danger of
falling.

I could tell Tap heard me. He shouted at the
top of his avian lungs as he swooped down one last time,
"Die,
Dansby, die!"
The next thing I heard was the crack of the
balustrade giving way as Dansby plunged over the edge. He fell with
a crash to the hard wood floor below.

All was silent but for the spectral harp
music. A moment passed, and then I saw Tap peer over the ledge at
me.

"I'd love to give you a hand, Eddy, but, as
you can see, I don't have any."

I managed to raise myself by fits and starts.
When it came to acrobatics, I was no Billy Burton. Finally, I was
able to reach my leg high enough to gain the landing, and I hauled
myself up to safety. I sat on the carpeted floor with my head on my
knees.

"I think I need a drink," I said, looking up
with a deep sigh.

"You picked a helluva time to give up
laudan," Tap replied.

By the time we reached him, Gessler was
beginning to stir. Moaning, he started to lift himself, but I
grasped his shoulders.

"Don't try to move, Inspector," I said,
urging him back down gently. The blow to his head followed by his
tumble down the stairs could have caused any number of internal
injuries. Even though he appeared to be fine, I thought it best to
take a quick inventory to make sure everything still worked as it
should.

Gessler moaned again and shooed my hands
away. "I’m fine, Poe, please," he groaned, turning over onto his
back. He tried to raise himself onto his elbows and immediately
grabbed his head.
"Mein Gott!"

"Any broken bones?" I asked.

"Just all of them." Gessler blinked hard
several times until he seemed to come back to life. "Thank God
you're all right, Poe. I thought that cursed butler had done you in
for sure."

"Not with me around, pal." Tap had ridden on
my shoulder as we descended the stairs and was now standing on the
back of my neck as I bent over the inspector. He peered around my
head at him. "How many feathers am I holding up?" he asked.

Gessler just stared at him.

"He saved our lives," I explained, realizing
the matter was now unavoidable.

Gessler just continued to stare. He remained
silent for several long, awkward seconds, and then said, "We've met
before."

"Yes. I dumped a load on your men.
Sorry."

I started to explain further. Words failed
me. I stammered through several openings. Gessler was not hearing
me, anyway. He simply stared at Tap with a blank expression.

Finally, he shook his head. "I'll be damned,"
he muttered.

"His name's Tap," I told him.

Gessler's eyes shifted to mine. "He's the
most normal thing I've seen today."

"You hear that, Eddy? Normal, he says. To
you, I'm gaunt and ungainly. Ghastly, even. Maybe now, you'll—Say,
who's that playing the harp? Do you hear that?"

"Quiet!" Something was moving slowly along
the floor. I had just glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye. I
turned my head and saw a black shape detach itself from the larger
mass of Dansby's body. It was moving towards us.

It didn't seem particularly threatening, so I
stood and walked over to it.

It was Dansby's head.

The automaton lay awkwardly on its headless
shoulders. It was bent in the middle, its feet planted firmly on
the floor. It looked like it had ... died—I supposed that was the
right word—while in the act of trying to stand. Its head had
somehow become detached from its body. As I looked down at it, I
saw that it was struggling to crawl. Its cheek was pressed to the
floor and it propelled itself by flexing the muscles of its face.
Again, not knowing the actual components of the machine, I could
only use words to describe human anatomy, inadequate as they no
doubt were. Opening and closing its one remaining eye, it seemed to
wink at me as it struggled across the floor. Whether or not it was
aware of my presence, I, of course, could not say. I only knew that
I suddenly felt pity for a creature whose directive to kill had so
overwhelmed it that it would descend to this pathetic level to
carry out its hideous instructions.

The man who would create such a machine was
truly evil.

I reached into my pocket for my revolver. I
took careful aim at the thing's temple. The eye continued to wink,
the mouth and cheek to flex. I pulled the trigger. The bullet tore
through the clockwork head. The eye closed, like a flame suddenly
snuffed out. I went back to where I had left Gessler and Tap.

"What was it?" Gessler asked.

"Dansby's head," I replied.

"Oh, is that all?"

~ * * * ~

The gunshot was still ringing in our ears
when a sound rose out of the darkness beyond the hall. Our senses
were still on heightened alert after our ordeal, and, though it was
probably nothing more than the wind or some wayward strain of the
harp, we froze, listening. But the sound failed to recur. Rain
pattered against the window panes, but that was all.

I was about to consign the sound to our
overtaxed imaginations when it came again. This time rising
distinctly out of utter silence.

A woman's scream, muffled but
unmistakable.

My heart leapt with joy and terror at
once.

"Olimpia!" I cried. "She is alive! And she is
here!"

But where? I wondered. And what was happening
to her?

Gessler started to get up, but winced in
pain. "Dammit! Help me up, Poe." He held out his hand for me, but I
was torn. Did I really want to waste precious seconds? I looked
from Gessler's outstretched hand to the unknown shadows from which
Olimpia's voice had issued. And then back again.

"There's no time," I said. "I'm going
alone."

"The Hell you say!" Gessler struggled to his
feet. Standing unsteadily, he looked at me and saw that I was torn
between helping him and dashing away. "Well, don't wait for me. Go!
I'll be right behind you."

I ran into the darkness, not knowing exactly
where I was going. But I knew the scream did not come from upstairs
and was muffled by distance to such an extent that I believed it
could have come from only one place—Coppelius' laboratory. Perhaps
Olimpia had even heard my gunshot and had cried out in the hope
that her rescue was at hand.

I opened the door to the basement and saw
that a light was indeed burning below. I stopped and listened.
Another sound reached my ear, faint and forlorn, like the dripping
of water from the back of a cave. I strained to hear it: a piteous
whimpering. It rose and fell and seemed to meld into the fabric of
silence. But I knew what it was.

Olimpia!

The sound filled me with a murderous rage.
What was that fiend doing to her? Reaching for my revolver, I
dashed down the curving stone steps, shouting out her name as I
descended.

"Olimpia!" I cried. "Where are you?"

There was a second in which I heard nothing
in reply but the scuffling of my own footsteps on the stone floor.
Then, Olimpia's voice rang out, full of hope. "I am here, Eddy! Oh,
please hurry!"

I followed the sound of her voice. I knew I
would shoot the scoundrel on sight if he was hurting her. The light
brightened and I turned a corner.

There I saw her, strapped to an operating
table, her body covered by sheets. A huge magnifying glass,
supported by a retractable metal arm, hung suspended over her
chest. Coppelius' curious needle machine—which I had uncovered
during our dissection of the clockwork Pluto—stood beside the
table, blocking my view of Olimpia's face. Its copper barrel body
was vibrating slightly and radiating heat. Steam trickled out of an
exhaust valve at the base of the machine. The last time I had seen
it, it had been in repose. Now, my eye followed the line of the
thin black hose as it ran from machine to patient. From the end of
the hose sprouted a dozen long, vicious needles. To my horror, I
saw that each was embedded deeply in Olimpia's chest. There was no
sign of Coppelius.

Terrified, I rushed to the machine, meaning
to fling it away. But its body was too hot. When I tried to touch
it, I only scalded my fingers for my efforts. Frantically, I looked
for a means of turning it off. I scanned every inch of its surface
but could find no switch or lever. The monstrous contraption held
Olimpia in its horrifying embrace, like some parasitic creature. I
felt helpless to free her. Further, I had no idea of its function.
While I suspected it was doing her no good, how did I know it would
not kill her to suddenly disengage it?

I moved around the machine towards Olimpia's
face. I could not help but glance into the huge magnifying glass as
I rushed past. I saw clearly—and many times actual size—the place
where the needles punctured her sweet flesh. The needles were
arranged in a neat circle above Olimpia's heart. I wanted to yank
them out at once. But for my fear of unforeseen consequences, I
most assuredly would have.

"Olimpia, am I too late?" I asked. I moved to
take her hand, and I could feel her straining to reach for me, but
her wrists were bound in leather restraints secured to the
table.

"I fear he means to finish me, Eddy."

"Your father?"

"Yes."

"These needles ... What do they do? What is
this machine?"

"I-I don't know," Olimpia said. "I'm afraid,
Eddy."

I straightened and turned, meaning to find
Coppelius. Only he knew the functions of his arcane devices. I
would force him—at gunpoint, if necessary—to free Olimpia from his
dreadful machine; and then to apply whatever remedies would free
her from his even more dreadful poisons. I was about to call out,
when I saw to my dismay that he had found me first.

"On the contrary, Edgar. You're not too late,
you're just in time."

Coppelius stood just outside the limit of the
lamplight. I heard only his voice before seeing his form. But even
as I spun on my heel and made to draw my revolver—for I had
stupidly put it back in my pocket during my struggle with the
machine—I saw that he had the drop on me. As he stepped forward
into the light, he did so behind the gaping maw of an ancient
blunderbuss pistol pointed straight at my heart.

"Don't get any ideas, Edgar, my boy," he
said. He saw me staring at the flared muzzle of his pistol—a
'dragon', it would have been called a century ago. Even then it
would have been considered old-fashioned. He had another stuffed in
his belt. "Oh, don't be fooled by its archaic look," he said. "It
is, in fact, brand new, and delivers quite a lethal punch. I picked
it up during one of my ... many journeys. I actually procured this
one up in Salem, as a matter of fact, for some ... work I was doing
there. Please put your own firearm on the table. Slowly."

I thought of having it out with him then and
there, trusting to my relative youth and quickness and his
doubtlessly cockeyed aim to see me through. Though the consequences
of my failure were too horrifying to risk, I seriously did not know
what I meant to do as I slowly pulled my revolver from my
pocket.

My face must have betrayed my thoughts.
Coppelius cocked his gun, a loud double-click. "I
will
use
it, Edgar," he warned.

Reluctantly, I laid my revolver on the table.
Now I was in Coppelius' power.

"Now, if you will step aside," he said, "I
have work to do."

I did as he commanded. He moved past me, his
aim never leaving my heart. He wore a pair of leather-framed
goggles high on his forehead. I could feel the heat from his
machine building, and I shuddered at the probable nature of his
work. He paused to pump one of the pedals on his infernal device,
and when he finished, he glanced with satisfaction into the
magnifying glass. With his free hand, he stroked Olimpia's hair as
she struggled at her restraints. I wanted to kill him at that
moment. I secretly scanned the tabletop within reach of my hand,
hoping to find a beaker of acid or some other corrosive substance
to hurl in his face.

He turned. "Well, this is going to be harder
than I thought to get any work done with you standing here. This
puts me in a quandary. What to do with you, Edgar? I don't want to
shoot you. I really don't. But I'm assuming since you are here that
Dansby is—"

"Dansby is no more, Doctor."

Coppelius shook his head sadly. "No more ...
Tsk-tsk. Good, loyal Dansby. He was one of my first machines, you
know. I've come a long way since then. Still, all in all, a nice
piece of work, if I do say so myself. The finished product was only
slightly duller than the original."