Noir (29 page)

Fi
fty-Two

Eyelet

The last in the group gallops off to save Iris, damaged hindquarters of the elephant glinting gunmetal grey under the fading streetlights. I bow my head and say a prayer for Iris. “Please, Lord, let them make it in time. Please protect her until we meet again.”

I cross my heart and crawl to my feet slowly, tucking my soiled handkerchief into my pocket, considering what to do next.

I’ve got to find out why this is happening. I can think of only one place the answer might be.

Hobbling back through the main doors of the castle, I steady myself, then steal the keys to the Academy and a hooded cloak for disguise. Pulling the hood up over my head, I scurry across town as fast as my lungs will allow me, arriving at the gates winded and wheezing a few moments later.

Everything is spinning. The earth feels rubbery under my feet. I can’t believe how weak I am. I bend at the waist, pinching my sides, sucking in shuddering breath after breath. No matter how hard I try to gulp away the shaky sensation it doesn’t clear.

I stagger up to the gates. Edgar and Simon raise their heads in query. Their steely beaks tilt to and fro. I throw back my hood and stand in front of them, gasping, letting them get a good, long look, cathode beams scanning. “How much do you trust me?” I push the words out on an exasperated breath, coughing and gagging afterward.

They flap their wings and the gates fold back. I fall to my knees, convulsing, retching hard. The stone walk below me is spattered with blood.

What is this? I touch it. This has never happened before.

It’s as if my chest were a runaway criminal and the air the Brigsman’s sword.

I raise a hand to my mouth, shocked and trembling. It, too, wears traces of blood. What does this mean? What’s happening to me? I rub the blood off on my skirts.

Pulling myself to a weak stand, I stumble forward through the gates, heaving breath in as I go, pitching myself through the doors of the great room and down the hall to my father’s old office. Once inside, I drop to my knees next to the magic circle on the floor—the one with the oracle where Urlick and I found my father’s hidden, sacred journals.
Please let one of these hold the answer.

The spiked arms of the crypt remain open. Twelve tiny triangles point toward the ceiling. Red hardbacked volumes lie scattered about the floor, just as we left them; a few remain anchored in their crypts beneath.

I shuffle through them madly, searching for clues, stopping only when my hands cradle the volume marked
Noir
.

I take in a deep breath and cough it out, then break open the spine. Turning to the page marked by a ribbon, I grow teary at the sight of my father’s handwriting, and even tearier at what it says.

One day, Eyelet, you will understand why I must do what I do today. And why I must risk everything to go there. I hope you will grow to understand it was all for you. You, Eyelet, were my everything.

I close my eyes and hear his voice, the lyrical sound of his words, the promise he spoke into my ear that last day in the kitchen. His desire for me to go ahead to the carnival and have fun.

I swipe the tear that warms my eye, drop my chin, and continue reading, my fingers trembling as they hold open the page.

Though the long-term effects of the “ray” are at this point not completely known, what I do know is the following: Every patient I’ve exposed to the light has become adversely affected. Though their symptoms vary, they have all become irreversibly ill.

I stop on the words, my lips quivering. I dry my eyes and read on.

There has been, however, one recurring symptom shared by every patient. Each has developed a violent cough, which slowly but eventually escalates to something more heinous. They struggle to breathe at all and eventually begin to cough up blood, which, in my estimate, indicates a tumour has begun to take hold in their lungs.

I hesitate, bringing my hand to my mouth.

If they are not treated immediately with my antidote—prognosis is grim . . .

I drop the book in my lap, shaking.

What I feared most since we found the machine has come true.

Since the cough began, I’ve felt myself slowly slipping into the depths of darkness, like I was drowning in my own body. I said nothing, not wanting to worry Urlick, thinking eventually we’d return to Brethren and re-create the potion my father left me, and all would be well again.

But now, I fear we could be too late.

I close my eyes and swallow down the sick feeling that comes.

I must have the antidote.

Urlick is right.

I must drink it,
now.

I open my eyes and tip my head back toward the ceiling, and a vision of the vial comes into view.

“Flossie!” I say, remembering something pulsing green between the folds of her clothing. “She has it! She has the vial!” I gather my legs beneath me and stand, dropping the book to the floor. “I must find her! And steal it away! My very life depends on it!”

Fi
fty-Three

Urlick

Clementine drops through the cloud cover, circling the chanting crowd. Their voices lick the sky with bloodthirsty howls. Revenge burns in their eyes.

We land just outside the main stage in the centre of the park. Clementine finds her balance and drops her wings. The startled crowd pulls back.

Behind us, Iris is shrieking. Fire rages at her feet. Thankfully, the flames have not found her yet, but it won’t be long before they do. She chokes and coughs and cries aloud. I can’t bear to see her like this. “Hold on,” I whisper to her. “Hold on.”

“Yuh look after them!” Masheck eyes the crowd, as he pulls the engine up behind me. “I’ll take care of Iris!”

“You’re sure—?”

“I’m sure.” Masheck jumps from the engine, hastily unravelling the hoses. “A little ’elp ’ere!” he shouts as C.L. pulls up in the freak train. C.L. yanks the horses to a halt and leaps from the mount. The rest of the freaks spring from the bars of their cages, and race toward them.

“IRIS!” A streak of red curls flies past me. I swoop down, snagging Cordelia about the waist before she makes it to the flames. She writhes and kicks as I haul her up into the air. “NO!” She pounds at my arms and legs. “Let me go! Let me go!
IRIIIIIIIIIIIS!
”

“Listen to me!” I shake her, staring deep into her swollen eyes. “I promise you, I
will
save Iris, but this is not helping. You need to stay calm and go and help the others. Promise me you will?”

Cordelia sniffs. “But—”

“How much do you trust me?” I say.

Her arms and legs stop swinging and she nods her head, crying.

“Wanda!” I shout, crowd chanting at my back. “Take Cordelia and don’t let her out of your sight.”

Wanda reaches out and I pass her the child, then I turn to face the crowd. My gaze floats past Iris in the flames, her mouth pulled awry. Streams of black smoke curdle up from the pile. Ravens circle overhead. “Help is coming,” I breathe to her and dig my heels into Clementine’s ribs. Clementine rears, shocked, and jumps forward. We ride headlong through the crowd then I coax her into a leap. She clears the heads and fists of the angry protesters and lands with a crash on the floorboards of the stage. Her giant wings cause the crowd to gasp and pull back, giving me a breath of time to collect my thoughts.

Looking out into the faces of the people who stand before me, I see nothing but hatred in their eyes. They spark into a chorus of fearful screams. Their voices rage up to the clouds.

Women turn their faces to their husband’s chests at the sight of me. Frightened husbands take up arms. Children cry and run, screeching. It’s the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to be seen in public, and the reaction is horrifying at best. I’ve got to do something, quickly, or it’ll be the end of me. Steamrifles rise.

“You want to burn a heretic!” I shout, leaping from Clem’s back to the stage. “Here is your heretic!” I haul Penelope down from the mount and launch her out in front of me, bound and gagged. The crowd draws in a collective breath. They fall back on their heels. They shake their fists and threaten to kill me.

“Tell them,” I hiss in Penelope’s ear. “Tell them why I’m here.” I tear away the gag that binds her mouth.

“Don’t believe him!” Penelope shouts. “He
kidnapped me
! Took me against my will!”

I clap a hand over her mouth and yank her to me. “Tell the truth or I swear I’ll
wring
your bloody neck!”

I remove my hand from her mouth and shove her to the front of the stage. She stumbles to stay on her feet. “This is who should be burning in those flames!” I shake her. “She is the liar, the cheat, the one who’s done you wrong!”

“Kill the monster!” someone shouts. A man trains his bow on me.

“No! Wait!”
Parthena darts in front of us. “He speaks the truth!” she shouts at the crowd. “You must believe me!”

“Believe the keeper of Madhouse Brink!” Penelope scoffs. “How foolish do you think they are?” The crowd joins Penelope in laughter. Behind us, Iris screams. I twist around, seeing the flames edge ever closer to overtaking her, Masheck frantically pumping water into the machine.

“Tell them the truth!” I shout into Penelope’s ears. “Or I swear it’ll be you in those flames!”

At last the gauges fill and whistles sound. Water shoots from the hose. Masheck dances backward, struggling to keep control under the force of the surging water, as he douses out the flames. Burned steam billows skyward. The crowd wildly objects. Martin rushes up on the stack of smouldering kindling, and he emerges seconds later with a smudged and choking Iris in his arms. The edges of her dress are singed where they’ve been stomped out, but otherwise she appears unharmed.

“Now!”
I shout, shaking Penelope.

An earsplitting howl snakes through the trees.

The crowd erupts in a frightful roar, but they’re no longer looking at me. Instead, their heads twist and turn, tracking the movement of something circling toward the stage. A long, low growl coils out of the forest, enveloping us all in its wake.

I know that sound. I’ve heard it before.

It warps from a growl to a moan, and then I know. I know what’s happening.

It can’t be.

The cloud cover beyond the trees streams black. Curls of grey smoke sidewind toward us. White-flame eyes burn through the skeletal limbs of the forest trees.
The Infirmed
. I suck in a breath.
They’re coming for us.

My skin shudders as my eyes jump to the horizon, spotting ten, twenty, thirty more.
It’s not possible. They can’t be here. But they are.

“What’s happening?” I turn on Penelope. Her eyes are the size of moons.

The crowd ducks and screams as shimmering silver faces swoop and stalk them from the clouds. Ghastly mouths attached to stealthy, wraithlike bodies dive at them like bats. Others whirl and churn above the crowd’s heads, bombarding their minds with demonic chants.

An apparition drops down in front of me, centre stage, its maw hiked open wide, fangs bared at me. C.L. takes aim and sends an arrow through its head. The spirit bursts, splintering into a snowfall of ashes, then just as quickly returns to its form, laughing as it soars away, howling on the wind.

“How did they get here? Who let them in?” I shout, shaking Penelope.

“It was me!” she shrieks. “I let them in!”

“You did what?” Parthena snaps up beside us. C.L. joins her, along with Livinea, Iris, and Cordelia not far behind, all of us staring her down.

“We had a deal,” Penelope snivels. “Urlick and the girl in exchange for the vial and my freedom.” She gulps. “You don’t understand. It was either my life or this.”

“With who?” I dig my fingers into her shoulders. “With
who
did you make this deal?”

“With her.” The words wobble weakly from Penelope’s mouth. She points a shaky finger.

I follow it to the horizon, where a twitching, shorting, Flossie emerges, storming out of the woods toward the stage like an angry cloud. Her once-black dress a deathly shade of grey. Her skin is eerily luminescent—half human skin tone, half translucent blue. The veins in her forehead bulge and shimmer. Her legs are missing, replaced by tentacles. Some of the fingers on her hand are missing, too. Her hair stands straight up from her head.

“What do we do now?” Livinea breathes.

C.L. steps in front of her and takes aim with his crank-crossbow.

“No.” I lower his bow. “No amount of firepower is going to get rid of her. She’ll only return to her form. Just like the apparitions.”

“Then what, sir?” C.L. says. “’Ow do we fight the beast?”

I stare into the panicked faces of the screaming crowd before me, and all at once it registers. “Masheck.” I turn to him, still standing by the engine. “That hose you’re holding, it works in reverse, correct?”

He looks down at the hose in his hands and then at me, confused.

“The engine! It pumps things both in and out via the hoses, isn’t that right? You said yourself you saw the engine used to suck in the clouds and spit them back out filled with chemicals, am I right?”

“Yes, sir. I did.”

“So the engine, it must work both ways.”

Masheck’s eyes brighten. “Yes. It does.”

“You get busy changing those hoses. Martin, Sadar, help him out. The rest of you, get ready to take cover. C.L., you and I have to hold things off until they’re ready.”

“Right, sir.” He raises a strong-willed bow.

“Oh, and Masheck”—he turns on his way to the back of the engine—“don’t make a move until I give you the signal. We’re only going to have one chance at this.”

“Right, sir!” He nods his head and disappears, Martin and Sadar running at his side.

“Wanda, go and see if you can find Eyelet.” I scan the crowd. “I don’t see her anywhere.” A sharp spear of panic rises in my heart, as Wanda jumps from the stage and races back toward the castle.

“Parthena, you keep an eye on
her
.” I flick a seething look toward Penelope. “Whatever happens, don’t let her go!”

Flossie moves in, a dark funnel cloud of arms and tentacles, suction-cupped legs slopping down over the skirt of the stage. She pulls herself up, suction cups
thwacking,
amid the demonic chants of her following, the Infirmed. She slithers closer, and my gut flips.

C.L. leaps out in front of me, crossbow raised. Livinea flanks his side, quiver full of steam arrows at the ready.

“Is this a joke?” Flossie bats them aside.

Parthena gasps, clutching her heart. The Infirmed crowd even closer. They swoop and scream.

“Silence!”
Flossie shouts and they freeze in the sky, their heads bowed in submission.

“Where is she?” Flossie jerks herself forward on her tentacles, closing in on Penelope, her ghoulish eyes flashing. “We had a deal! You promised me both of them! I only see one!
Where is she?
Where is the girl?”

“He has her.” Penelope points past Flossie to me. “He’s hidden her away from here!”

I suck in a breath as Flossie churns around.
“Where is she?”
Her voice thunders. The force of her breath throws my hair back.

“Even if I knew, I’d never tell you.” I clench my teeth and speak slowly.

“Really?” Flossie slinks closer. “Is that the game you
really
want to play?”

Cordelia whimpers behind me. Iris pulls her close. C.L. jumps to his feet.

My eyes fall to a green pulsing light emanating from the folds of Flossie’s clothing at her chest. Through the fading luminescent fabric, the lines of chain link can be seen. A glass vial dangles from its end.

“Look familiar?” She tracks my gaze and yanks the chain from between her breasts. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you need this?” She taunts me, pendant swinging from her flickering fingertips.

“Where did you find that?”

“Right where you left it. Hanging over the cliff of the ravine where you
murdered my father
.” She presses her burning eyes at me.

I stare at the vial, not knowing what to do, or how exactly to steal it back from her . . . without . . .

“What’s the matter, afraid to come and get it?” She swoops toward me, and I falter back.

I reach for the Quantum Tunneler in my pocket, hoping the light may have some effect on her, and she claps a cold hand on my wrist. “Come now, Urlick. Do you really think I don’t know your tricks?” She pinches me until I’ve released it. “Where is she?”

“I will never tell you.”

“All right, then.” She flings herself around, the crowd screaming.
“Eat them!”
she shouts to the Infirmed in the sky. They spring to life.

“No!”
C.L. shouts, training his crank-crossbow on Flossie. “Call them off or I’ll shoot!”

“Oh, now, don’t make me laugh.” She snags the crossbow from C.L.’s hands and turns it on me.

“Maybe this will make you change your mind.” Flossie screws her damaged lip.

I stare down the arrow’s tip. My breath catches.

“Urlick!” The crowd gasps and falls back, creating an opening through which I see her.

“Eyelet!” She runs toward the stage, a journal pressed to her chest.

Flossie turns, sizing up Eyelet with the arrow instead of me. “I so love it when the drama gets high, don’t you?” She wrenches the string back, increasing the tension . . . and slowly, lets it go.

I launch toward her—

“NO!” Cordelia shouts. She bolts from behind Iris’s skirts and dives across the stage, taking the arrow meant for Eyelet straight through her tiny heart.

“CORDELIA!” C.L. leaps to the ground, collapsing over her body. “No! My sweet Cordelia,
nooooooo . . .
”

Iris shrieks and races from the stage, cradling Cordelia up into her arms, rocking.

I cannot find my breath. It’s as if all the air in the world has evaporated. I clutch the sides of my head and scream.

Flossie stretches back the bow again, training it on Eyelet.

“NOW!”
I shout at Masheck.
“NOW!”

Masheck gives the freaks the signal and throws down the hammer on the machine. Martin and the rest of the freaks snap to attention, hoses pointed at the sky. Flywheels flutter. Steam pours from the vents. One by one the hoses spring to life, sucking the howling, fleeing, wraithlike bodies of the Infirmed from the sky, trapping them within the belly of the cloudsowing engine, their harrowing voices reduced to tinny, whispering screams.

The engine backfires, purging a dark, black cloud of smoke into the sky.

“Eyelet?” I shout, waving my hands.

“Urlick!” Her voice streams up through the clearing smoke.

I whirl around to find her fighting her way toward the front of the stage. “The necklace!” she calls.

I turn my eyes to the sky.

But it’s too late.

Flossie’s already taken flight.