Dawn Of The Dreadfuls Part 28

"Stop it! Both of you!" She planted herself between the men again. "You're acting like children!"

With stunned slowness, Master Hawksworth pushed himself up off the floor. Yet it wasn't anger Elizabeth saw upon his face when he turned to look at her. It was something approaching wonder-almost wors.h.i.+p.

"Elizabeth Bennet, you are a marvel," he said. "I will not pretend to command you again. Instead, I will ask you. I will beg you. Please. Leave now. With me. Stay with me. I need you. There is a hole in my heart... a hole only you can fill."

"If there's a hole in you anywhere, it's in your head," Dr. Keckilpenny declared. "Clearly, Miss Bennet intends to stay up here. With me."

"Oh!" Elizabeth cried out. She flung up her hands, and it was as if a dam within her burst, and everything she'd been holding back came pouring out. "The holes in you both are so vast I think it would take the two of you together to make one whole man!" She swung a sharp glare on Hawksworth. "You! You came to us as a Master, yet you've not mastered your own fear! You can jump, you can strike poses, you can do dand-baithaks by the score. But there is one thing you cannot or will not do: fight! Oh, maybe you can work up the courage to thrash some helpless weakling."

"Hey," Dr. Keckilpenny said.

"But when have you willingly faced a worthy foe?" Elizabeth went on. "You never sparred with my father in the dojo. Never even sparred with me! And you always seemed to disappear or go conveniently lame when it was time to deal with zombies."

The Master flinched, and Elizabeth knew she would never think of him as "Master" again.

"Your 'shameful secret' is obvious to me now, as it should have been all along," she said. "You are a coward, Geoffrey Hawksworth."

Hawksworth lowered his head and said nothing.

Elizabeth turned to Dr. Keckilpenny and found him eyeing his rival looking altogether too smug.

"And you. Do you know what you are?"

"Mad?" the doctor ventured.

"Yes! Mad! And cold, despite all your jokes. You treat the dead as your playthings, and the living-they don't enter into the equation at all! Not so long as you've got your toys in your ivory tower!"

"Precisely!" Dr. Keckilpenny began brightly. "And all that's left to make it paradise is a suitable playm-"

The heart for quips left him before he could even finish the word, and he sighed and slumped and said, "Oh, it's hopeless, isn't it?"

"You look for hope in the wrong place. Both of you," Elizabeth said. She felt spent now, empty. "What each of you lacks I cannot give you... and would not if I could."

She turned and started down the stairs, hoping she'd reach the bottom before the tears came.

She did.

After a long, still moment, Master Hawksworth left the attic, as well. It was obvious he wasn't going after Elizabeth, however. He simply had no choice but to follow in her footsteps.

"Buh ruhz," groaned Mr. Smith. "Buuuuuh ruhhhhhhzzzzzzzzz."

Dr. Keckilpenny slouched over and slumped back atop his chest, which was now rattling so fiercely it was scratching the floorboards.

"No, Smithy. Not 'buuuuh ruhhhhzzz,'" he said. "The word is d.a.m.n."

CHAPTER 35.

"ELIZABETH.".

At the sound of her name, she left the blackness. She'd been sleeping but not dreaming, as with the dead-the restful dead, anyway.

She saw her haggard father kneeling beside her, sucked in a lungful of the malodorous air, heard the banging and sc.r.a.ping on the window boards and the raspy, incoherent cries outside. And she longed for oblivion again as memory returned.

She'd spent hours-it seemed like days-fighting back one breakthrough after another. Sometimes with her father, sometimes with her sisters, sometimes with soldiers or servants or men from the village. Never with Master Hawksworth. Whatever battles he was or wasn't fighting, he was facing them without her.

She couldn't remember falling asleep, nor did she recall crawling under the dining room table with the mothers nestling sleeping or weeping children. Yet here she was.

"Come with me," her father said softly. "It begins soon."

Elizabeth was too groggy to even ask what "it" was. She simply got up and followed.

Lydia and Kitty, she found, were pa.s.sed out together atop the table, while Mary was slumped, drooling on herself prodigiously, against a grandfather clock in the hallway.

"Papa?" Elizabeth said.

Mr. Bennet just put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He was letting her sisters sleep. But why not her?

The soldiers were gone from their positions along the hall, and when Elizabeth and her father reached the foyer, she saw why. The whole company was packed in there together, bayonets affixed to their Brown Besses. Ensign Pratt was at the back, his cherubic face as round and pale as a full moon. In front, by the door, was Capt. Cannon in his wheelbarrow, turned to face his men.

"... been telling yourselves you're not ready for all this," he was saying. "Because you lack training. Because you lack experience. Poppyc.o.c.k! What does that count against what you are. Englishmen! And not just that. Londoners! Young, tough ones who've already faced on the streets of Spitalfields and Camden and Limehouse foes more implacable, more cunning, more tenacious than any mere shambling rotter! Footpads, sneak thieves, pimps, degenerates-now those are fiends to fear! So you're not good at marching. So you don't know a field marshal from a major general from the company cook. I don't care, and neither should you. Because by G.o.d, you boys already know how to fight! And mark my words: This day, you shall!"

The soldiers were cheering as Elizabeth and her father started up the stairs. When the Bennets were about halfway up, the captain noticed them and said something to his Limbs, who stood beside him looking weary and grim.

Right Limb looked up at Mr. Bennet and saluted.

Elizabeth's father nodded solemnly as he carried on up the staircase.

"Papa, what is going on?" Elizabeth asked.

"You will soon see, my dear. I have arranged for box seats."

The rooms on the second floor were overflowing with huddled guests from the ball, all still in their mussed finery. Though Elizabeth didn't see her mother, she knew she was among them somewhere. Mrs. Bennet's snores were quite distinctive.

Up ahead, toward the end of the hall, Elizabeth saw Lt. Tindall speaking earnestly to her sister Jane.

"... honor-bound to do all I can to protect your person... and your purity," Elizabeth heard him say as she and her father walked up. His back was to them, and so absorbed was he in his own words that he didn't notice their approach.

Jane was blus.h.i.+ng and looking away.

Mr. Bennet cleared his throat.

The lieutenant turned around.

"Oh. Is it time?"

"I believe so," Mr. Bennet said. "Good luck, Lieutenant."

"We have daylight, we have muskets, we have the element of surprise. We won't need luck."

The young officer offered Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth a bow, turned back to Jane and boldly kissed her hand, then pivoted and marched off toward the staircase.

"There goes a brave man," Mr. Bennet said to Jane, and he continued watching her for a long moment even after she'd replied with a simple "Yes."

"Is His Lords.h.i.+p ready?" he finally said.

"He should be. He asked if I could come in and help him with his stockings perhaps half an hour ago. He was almost fully dressed then."

Mr. Bennet c.o.c.ked his right eyebrow. "Almost?"

Elizabeth c.o.c.ked her left. "Help him with his stockings?"

"Yes. His dressers are all downstairs guarding the..." Jane flushed pink again. "I said no!"

"Of course, you did," Mr. Bennet said. "Now, perhaps we should-"

The nearest door swung open.

"Would you have a look at these breeches, Miss Bennet?" Lord Lumpley said, his attention fixated (as usual) on his own nether regions. "They seem puffy in all the wrong... oh. Good morning, Mr. Bennet. Miss Bennet. I didn't realize the moment had arrived."

"It has," Mr. Bennet said.

"I see. You may as well step in, then. We wouldn't want to miss it, would we?"

The baron moved back to let the Bennets into his large-and, to Elizabeth, sickeningly empty-bedchamber. Every other part of the house was packed near to bursting, yet His Lords.h.i.+p had been allowed to keep an entire room to himself. Elizabeth knew there was good reason: The night before, he'd complained more about the invasion of the lower cla.s.ses than the d.a.m.ned, and concessions had to be made. Yet it still rankled that his room was now filled with nothing more than some furniture, scattered clothes, and a few poorly concealed bottles of gin.

"I drew these back a crack to have some light to see by," the baron said, walking over to a set of long, emerald green drapes. "I wasn't up to taking a good look out, though. Not before I'd had my morning tea and toast."

"I'm afraid we ran out of water for tea some time ago," Mr. Bennet said. "The food's all gone, as well."

"Oh?" Lord Lumpley pouted, then shrugged. "Well, there's nothing to hold us back then, is there?"

He drew the curtains aside, revealing a pair of gla.s.s doors. Just beyond was a shallow balcony and, beyond that, Netherfield's long front lawn bathed in the crimson light of dawn. When the baron opened the doors, a sound like a thousand moans or the lowing of a vast herd of cattle swept into the room.

The four of them stepped onto the balcony.

Scattered here and there over the grounds were dozens of ragged, staggering figures-easily two hundred in all, if not three. It was easy to tell the first wave of sorry stricken from their victim recruits. Half the dreadfuls looked moldy and rotten, and they hobbled on legs that had barely enough flesh to hold the bones together. The other half one could have almost taken for living, so natural was the pallor of their skin. Their faces were slack and often blood smeared, however, and many had gaping cavities where their organs had once been.

When they saw Lord Lumpley and the Bennets, they began drifting toward the balcony, some of them shrieking or gnas.h.i.+ng their teeth.

"My G.o.d," the baron gasped. "Just look what they've done to the topiary."

Elizabeth tore her horrified gaze away from the unmentionables just long enough to point it at him.

"Surely, Captain Cannon doesn't think he can just march out and kill so many unmentionables," she said. "His men are outnumbered at least three to one."

"The captain doesn't intend to kill them all," Mr. Bennet replied. "He merely seeks to distract them. He very wisely had the stables sealed last night in addition to the main house. Captain Cannon plans to draw the main horde off so that someone can get inside and-presuming the dreadfuls haven't already broken in to feast upon the horses-saddle a mount. That someone would then ride west to look for a battalion of the king's army on the march from Suffolk. If all goes well, a rescue party might very well reach Netherfield before we've either starved or been eaten."

SCATTERED HERE AND THERE OVER THE GROUNDS WERE DOZENS OF RAGGED, STAGGERING FIGURES-EASILY TWO HUNDRED IN ALL, IF NOT THREE.

" If all goes well," Elizabeth said.

Her father nodded. "Very, very well."

There was a great ma.s.s of yowling dreadfuls cl.u.s.tered beneath the balcony now, and looking down at them Elizabeth saw a few familiar faces scowling back.

"Not Mrs. Ford!" Jane exclaimed. "And all the Elliots and Dr. Long, too? Oh! And what a beautiful child!"

Staring straight up at them with large, round, gray-rimmed eyes was a little girl not much younger than Lydia. She neither screamed nor moaned but instead merely gazed at them plaintively, as if hoping someone might come down to play with her. The blood smeared around her mouth and hands, however, made it plain the kind of games she would have preferred.

"We could only reach so many in time. And even then, some refused to come with us," Mr. Bennet said, practically shouting now to be heard over the din of the dreadfuls.

He reached beneath his cutaway coat, produced a flintlock pistol and said something to Elizabeth she couldn't quite hear.

"What?"

"I said, 'The diversion for the diversion has gone on long enough!'"

He pointed the pistol at the sky but then changed his mind, leaned over the balcony, and aimed at the little girl.

"Why waste a bullet when it might offer deliverance?"

Both Elizabeth and Jane started to say something, but neither got out a full word.

Their father pulled the trigger, and the zombie child toppled over backward. For a moment, Elizabeth could still see its pure-white dress beneath the milling feet of the other dreadfuls, but before long even that was blotted out by the throng.

A flurry of movement caught Elizabeth's eye, and she looked up to find that the front doors of the house had been opened. The soldiers were charging out through them, hurling themselves like a great red lance bound for the heart of the lawn. Lt. Tindall led the charge, while Capt. Cannon was at the center of the column, his cart swerving and tipping treacherously as the Limbs maneuvered it around and over the b.l.o.o.d.y cornucopia of body parts and well-gnawed bones left over from the night before.

With a deafening roar, the zombies turned and hurtled after them.

"Why aren't we out there, too?" Elizabeth asked. "We should be joining the battle, not watching it."

Her father glanced over at her and, worn and worried as he was, managed to look almost pleased at the same time.

"The deadly arts have their place, but volley fire-that's what will do the greatest damage to a herd. Get them clumped up together on an open plain, and you can mow down dozens like so many weeds."

The soldiers had stopped now and were trying to form themselves into a box-four lines facing outward, each two rows deep, the first kneeling, the second standing. The unmentionables gave them little time to arrange themselves, however, running in madly no matter how torn and mangled they might be, and the lines wavered and broke into chaos each time they almost seemed set.

"They can't even get into formation to fire," Elizabeth said. "If we were with them-"

Mr. Bennet shook his head, eyes still fixed on his daughter. "Your sisters and I are being held in reserve, at the captain's insistence. But a volunteer did go along..."

"Oh, Lizzy. Look!"