The Twelfth Enchantment Part 30

"Lady Harriett," said Mr. Morrison. "You look well. No, that's not it precisely. Not well. Awful. That is what I meant. You look awful. Like the dead warmed over, so to speak."

"Silence, Morrison," said Lady Harriett. "You and your kind disgust me. You cannot hope I shall let you live."

"What makes you think I shall let you live?" answered Mr. Morrison.

"Your shotgun shall not work on me. You must know that. I have ordered it so the revenant who leads is imbued with a special strength, and so resistant to those elements."

Mr. Morrison scratched his head, as though genuinely confused. "I do recall hearing something about that, yes. On the other hand, I was told that your late husband would be impossible to kill, and I made short work of him. Or perhaps you did not know that was I."

It seemed to Lucy Lady Harriett had not known that Mr. Morrison was responsible for the destruction of her beloved Sir Reginald. She blinked at this intelligence, and then glanced at Mr. Buckles. "Give them a taste of things to come," she said.

Moving forward quickly, impossibly quickly, Mr. Buckles was no longer ten feet away, but directly before Mrs. Emmett. Mrs. Quince now held Emily, and Mr. Buckles, with his lips pulled back in a vicious sneer, grabbed the serving woman by the hair, and, gathering it all in his left hand, he lifted her off the ground. Mrs. Emmett's eyes went wide, and her mouth opened, but no noise came out. Below her skirts, her legs kicked, and her arms flapped like a drowning woman's. Below Mr. Buckles's clenched fist Lucy could see, for the first time, Mrs. Emmett's forehead, and she now understood she had kept her hair and bonnet low in order to conceal her flesh. Inscribed, just above her thin eyebrows, written seemingly in thick black ash, were three Hebrew letters: . Lucy struggled with what little she knew of Hebrew, and realized, once she remembered to read the letters from right to left, that the word spelled emmet.

Lucy searched her memorya"for it was so familiara"and then it came to her. The Jewish story of the golem. She'd read of it in more than one of the books she'd had from Mary. In the legend, Jewish magicians were able to create a man out of mud, and upon its forehead was inscribed the word a"emmeta"meaning "truth." To destroy the golem, the first letter was erased leaving only : met. "Dead."

Mr. Buckles smiled, as though he saw that Lucy now understood. He raised his free hand and allowed it to hover over the .

"No," said Lucy.

"It is mindless thing," said Lady Harriett. "It has no soul. It is an abomination, but I know it is of some value to you, so I shall give you one opportunity to save it. Give me the book now, or I shall have Buckles destroy it."

Mrs. Emmett's eyes went wide. "I shall not be used against Miss Derrick. I could never allow it. The sacrifice I make, I make for her." So saying she reached up and, shoving Mr. Buckles's hand out of the way, wiped away the from her forehead in a clean and simple stroke.

It happened faster than the eye could register. Mr. Buckles held nothing in his hand. At his feet fell a tangle of wet, watery mud and clothing. It landed with a solid splash, heavy and sickening. Mrs. Emmett was gone.

Unspeakable sadness shot through Lucy. She felt Mary take her hand, and she squeezed it hard for a terrible moment, as though her friend's cold touch was the only thing that prevented her from collapsing. She stood that way, like the victim of a lightning strike, absorbing electricity, and then it pa.s.sed. She let go, for though the sadness was not diminished, it had receded. Anger took its place.

That anger was real and solid and heavy, but it was not all she felt. Lucy felt alive and strong, coursing with a new vitality. It was Mrs. Emmett's words. She knew that. She had made a sacrifice of herself, and Lucy had gained something. She knew not what, but it was powerful, and it wanted to strike.

Mr. Buckles lifted his lips in a lupine approximation of a smile as he retreated to stand by Lady Harriett. He brazenly put a hand upon her shoulder, a gesture of startling intimacy.

"It is remarkable," said Mrs. Quince. "I tried to make such a thing once. Jewish magic was always too devious for an honest Englishwoman like myself."

"I shall teach you," said Lady Harriett. "It is no difficult thing, even for a weak-minded woman like you, Quince. Though Mary made a particularly clever one. Still, even the cleverest of tricks can be undone, as we have witnessed. And what of the infant? Is not that baby but another trick, an ugly illusion of copulation and generation. It sickens me."

"It was as vile in the making as it is now," said Mr. Buckles.

"Dear G.o.d," Lucy said. "I hate you for daring to touch my sister."

"Oh, don't be so sanctimonious," said Lady Harriett. "You cared for that lifeless bit of clay, so what do your feelings for your sister or her wretched child signify? You will give your pathetic heart to anything who looks upon you. It is what has undone you, you know. Your compa.s.sion."

Lucy felt black rage course through her. She had known people who were small and petty and selfish and vile, but never had she encountered pure evil. Whatever reservations she had had about destroying Lady Harriett, destroying her forever, were gone. She would do what she must. "My compa.s.sion does not extend to you," she said.

"I do not fear you," said Lady Harriett. "How could I, when your loyalties are so easily manipulated? Now, here is what happens next. You shall give me the pages of the Mutus Liber, and I shall give you your niece. If you do not, I shall make you watch while Mr. Buckles kills her. None of your spells will work here, girl. This building, like my home, is warded. You can give me the pages in fair trade, or I can take them by force, and you would not like that."

Lucy had defeated wards before, but she did not think she could depend upon doing so. "How can I know you will give me Emily?"

"What care I for the baby?" asked Lady Harriett. "It was only ever of interest because it was important to you. But I am serious in my threat. Mr. Buckles, take the child, and be ready to strangle it when I command."

Buckles took the baby from Mrs. Quince's arms. He held it in the crook of his arm, but there was no tenderness in him. He might have been holding a log.

"You must not believe her," Mr. Morrison told Lucy. "Do nothing on her terms."

"I cannot see that I have a choice," she answered. She turned back to Lady Harriett. "What will you do with the pages besides cast away Ludd?"

"That is my concern, not yours."

Lucy stood still for a long moment, neither moving nor blinking. She then reached into the folds of her gown and pulled out a rolled tube of papers. Tentatively, she held them out while Lady Harriett stepped forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed them from her hand, as though fearful that Lucy was a serpent ready to strike.

"No!" Mary and Mr. Morrison cried out at once, but the act was already finished. Lady Harriett had the pages.

Lady Harriett retreated back to her own people and examined the pages. "They are remarkable," she said, leafing through them. Her chest heaved with her breathing, and her face colored. "You give them to me? These are mine?"

"Lucy," Mary cautioned.

"Yes, I give them to you," said Lucy. "They are yours for so long as you want them. Now give me my niece."

Lady Harriett smiled at her. "No. I don't think I will."

"Why do you want her?" said Lucy. Her voice was shrill, even to her own ears. "You said she means nothing to you."

"I want her for spite," said Lady Harriett. "Perhaps it is because of your friend Mr. Morrison, and the debt I owe him for striking down Sir Reginald. Perhaps it is because I hate you enough for your own sake. Perhaps I want to keep her to punish you for standing in my way, and to mock you for agreeing so foolishly to trust me. Having her gives me pleasure in direct proportion to your pain, and it allows me to show you how poorly you played your hand. I now have everything, and you nothing. With this book I can destroy all of you, and there is nothing you can do. You have made a great blunder."

Lucy could not help but smile. She did not think of herself as a vengeful person, as one who took pleasure in the suffering of others, but this was different. Here was Lady Harriett who had lost all shred of her humanity, who was evil beyond reckoning. She thought herself superior to everyone, but she was not superior to Lucy Derrick.

"I would have blundered indeed," said Lucy, "had I given you the true pages."

Lady Harriett looked through them again. "You lie. I have seen the false pages, and these are not the same, but they are of the same hand."

"I had them of the artist who drew the true pages," said Lucy. "They were a parting gift from a very wise man. I believe this is what Mr. Morrison would call sleight of hand."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Morrison gazing at her with open admiration. She suspected that if she took the time to think about it, she would very much like the feeling.

Lady Harriett looked at the false pages. She stared at them and then sniffed them like a dog and rubbed them against her face. The truth of Lucy's claim made itself known to her, and she tossed Mr. Blake's drawings down in disgust.

"Very clever," said Lady Harriett. "But I do not make idle threats. A father sacrificing a child on my behalfa"a sacrifice on that order shall give me the power I need to force you to gift me the book. Kill the child, Buckles."

"He shall not!" cried Mary. "Lucy, be prepared to take the baby."

Lucy turned and saw that, while their attention had been on Emily, Mary had surrounded herself with something upon the floor, a circle that glinted and sparkled in the dim light. Lucy understood at once what it wasa"Mary had encircled herself in gold.

Casting her gaze to Mr. Buckles, she saw him standing in mute horror, the baby still cradled in his arm, but he appeared to have forgotten it. He made no effort to harm it. He merely stared in disbelief.

"No," said Lucy, her voice cracking. She remembered the story Mary had told her, and she knew what the circle meant. "There must be another way."

Mary shook her head. "No, my dear Lucy. There is but one way."

Lady Harriett had her eyes fixed upon Mr. Buckles, and seemed not to have noticed the circle upon the floor. "Buckles, why is that child still alive? Sacrifice it to me."

"Look at the Crawford woman," he snapped back. "She's drawn a circle."

"Don't be an idiot," said Lady Harriett. "Spells won't work here."

"Not a spell circle," hissed Buckles. "One of our circles."

"It is far more elemental than a spell," said Mary. "You should know that. It is the flow of the universe itself, and your wards will no more hold it than you could hold back the wind with a basket."

Lady Harriett turned toward Mary, and seeing the thin line of gold upon the ground, she set her jaw hard, perhaps in defiance, perhaps in disdain. "You'll not sacrifice yourself for that infant."

"I cannot let you have the book. If you take possession of it, the age of the machine will be ushered in, and nothing will stop it."

"No," said Buckles, his eyes wide with understanding. He understood what Mary did, what it meant. "I won't harm the child. Here, Quince, take it."

Mrs. Quince shrank back. She wanted no part of the child either, and so, desperate, Mr. Buckles rushed forward and handed his daughter to Lucy. "Take it! Take it, and see that I do not harm it. Now stop your friend."

"You blockhead!" cried Lady Harriet.

"Get behind me!" shouted Mr. Morrison, raising his shotgun. "This may not kill you, Lady Harriett, but I'll wager it will sting."

Lucy retreated behind Mr. Morrison. Emily was deep in infant sleep, but healthy and unharmed. It was her niece. She hugged her to her chest, feeling her warmth, listening to the low rumble of her breathing, smelled the yeasty odor of milk about her mouth. It was truly her niece in her arms, safe at last.

Lady Harriett stepped forward, but Mr. Morrison put his finger on the trigger, and she stopped.

"That's right," he said. "It's hard to retrieve a baby when you are writhing upon the floor in pain. I recall that is how it was with your husband. The first blast did not kill him, but it made him much easier to manage."

Lady Harriett balled her fists in rage. Her face turned red, and she whirled on Mrs. Quince. "Do something!"

"I don't know what to do!" Mrs. Quince cried out.

Mr. Buckles was in full panic. "She hasn't stopped. Why hasn't she stopped? I've returned the child. One of you must stop her."

Mary looked up, and her eyes were moist. Her hands trembled as she poured a sprinkling of sulfur atop the gold, but there was a smile upon her lips. "I cannot let you live while you are willing to destroy what Lucy loves best. You would harm your own daughter simply to gratify your mistress, and so that is why I have already done it. Can you not see that? I have contained myself in the circle. I cannot turn back."

"Please," said Mr. Buckles. "Miss Derrick, you have the child. Tell her to spare me."

"Mary," Lucy said softly, beginning to understand what her friend intended. "You may stop."

"It is too late to stop."

Lucy clutched her niece even more tightly, as if her hold on this infant could steady her while her world appeared to whirl around her. "Mary, you cannot. I have Emily. I have the pages. With your help, we can escape and defeat Lady Harriett another day."

"It cannot be undone," said Mary. "Gold and sulfur have been set down, and I have made this sacrifice. Like Mrs. Emmett, I make the sacrifice for you."

Mr. Morrison turned to her. "No, Mary, you cannot."

"Oh, Jonas, I am sorry you must see," she said. "I tried to love youa"to remember what it was to love you, but that part of me died with my flesh. Even so, I feel compa.s.sion for you, and I beg you not let the past stop you. And Lucy, you have been my friend. I have loved you, and I do this for you."

"Oh, Mary," said Lucy, "please don't."

Mary smiled at her. "It is better to be nothing than to become like one of them." She looked at Lady Harriett and Buckles. "How long until I forget what I was, and care nothing but for my own pleasures? How long until, like her, I am willing to murder an infant for some strategic advantage or the pleasure of shocking my own sensibilities, to destroy a world if it will better suit my needs? How long until I become like those wraiths she shepherds, existing but hardly alive? If I can end my existence in an act of love, then how much better for me to face oblivion as some reflection of my true self, than eternity as a perversion of what I once was." She took out a vial, this one containing mercury, and she began to pour it in a circle around her. "Thank you, Lucy," she said.

And then she was gone.

There was no flash, no cry, nothing to mark her pa.s.sage. She simply dissolved out of existence, as though the air folded over her. At the same instant Mr. Buckles was gone. He was no longer in the room with them, and Lady Harriett stood in mute astonishment.

Lucy set down the child behind Mr. Morrison, who kept his gun trained on Lady Harriett. She needed her hands free. Reaching into the hidden pocket of her frock for her little pouch and fis.h.i.+ng out the talisman she needed, finding it by touch even as she worked herself into a sprint, Lucy ran directly at Lady Harriett. Perhaps she was about to die, but she would not let anyone else die for her. There had been sacrifice enough, and Lucy would rather die than let Mrs. Emmett and Mary destroy themselves for nothing.

With the talisman in her hand, she leapt at Lady Harriett, shoving it deep into the revenant's black gown. It was the talisman to vulnerability, the one she had made in Lady Harriett's house after seeing Byron tossed across the room. The wards should have rendered it useless, but Lucy remembered Mary's words the day she had first told her about the Mutus Liber. The most powerful sacrifices could nullify the most powerful of wards, she'd said, and the most powerful sacrifices are those that friends make out of love. Two of Lucy's friends had obliterated themselves from the universe out of love for her.

Lady Harriett toppled under her. Lucy saw the look of surprise on her face as the two of them struck the earth of the mill. Lady Harriett tried to rise, tried to push her off, but her arms had no strength, and Lucy saw the panic in her ancient eyes.

Straddling Lady Harriett, holding her still with the weight of her body and her left arm, Lucy fished in her bag until she found her tiny vials of gold, sulfur, and mercury. Placing them between her fingers, pressed near her knuckles, she removed the cork stoppers with her teeth. She then gripped all three vials in her tight fist, and glared hard at Lady Harriett.

"You are a fool if you don't know that I am immune," said Lady Harriett.

"Oh, I know," answered Lucy.

"Then what do you mean to do with your elements?"

"I mean to make you eat them."

She pressed her free hand to Lady Harriett's jaw and forced it open, as one would with an animal, and poured in the contents of all three vials. Lucy s.h.i.+fted hands, using her left to hold Lady Harriett's head still. The revenant's eyes bulged. Her body bucked weakly, and her arms flailed ineffectually at Lucy's sides. She might have been immune to the elements, but surely they were unpleasant. Beneath her shut mouth, Lady Harriett appeared to retch.

Maybe her efforts would amount to nothing, and maybe all her friends had given would be in vain, but what Lucy intended seemed possible. She might suceed, and so Lucy intended that she must succeed. The pages would want that. Twelve pages and twelve enchantments. By itself that meant little, but with everything Lucy knew and did, with everything Mary and Mrs. Emmett had given, perhaps those twelve enchantments would mean everything.

"Mr. Morrison," called Lucy. "As we have been disarmed, be so good as to find a knife for me as quickly as you might."

Mr. Morrison, with his free hand, drew one from inside his waistcoat and handed it to Lucy. "Sleight of hand," he said. "But what do you mean to do, Lucy? The power of those sacrifices must wear off soon, and the elements may make her unhappy, but they shan't kill her."

"Let's see about that," said Lucy. She took the knife and began to carve into Lady Harriett's forehead. She would have to act quickly because she knew that the revenants healed with remarkable speed, but she believed she could effect it in time. That she was straddling this woman, carving into her flesh, she was distantly aware of, but she was too focused on the act, on the necessity of what she did to dwell on its strangeness and barbarity. First she drew a square of tolerable symmetry, and then, within it, a triangle. Below her, Lady Harriett struggled against the power of the symbol, and she understood its meaning. She redoubled her efforts to throw Lucy off, and Lucy detected a new strength. Perhaps it was her will to save herself, or the power of the sacrifice was already fading. Either way, Lucy was almost finished. It was the same symbol Lucy had left upon Mr. Gilley, who was so afraid of catching colda"the talisman to make its victim susceptible to what he most feared.

With one last quick stroke, Lucy made an X inside the triangle, completing the charm by speaking Lady Harriett's name. Briefly Lucy wondered how she would know if it worked, but it was but an instant, for Lady Harriett was gone, vanished as if she had never been there. Lucy knelt over the empty earth, knife in her hand, and even its tip was clean of blood.

Lucy rose, letting the blade fall to the earth. She scooped Emily off the floor and cradled the cooing child to her breast. She had done it. She had done it all. She had rescued her niece, saved the book, and destroyed the most powerful and dangerous creature to walk the earth. It had cost her Mrs. Emmett, and it had cost her Mary, and Lucy could take no joy in what she had done. She must settle for relief.

Lucy wanted to cry for her friend and for herself and for her loss, but she would not. She would cry later. "Have we won?" she asked Mr. Morrison. "Is there more to do, or have we won?"

Mr. Morrison stared at the spot where Mary had stood, he looked at the empty circle. "Yes," he said. "You have done it."

Lucy clutched the baby tighter. How she resembled Martha, and also her namesake, Emily. There was nothing of Mr. Buckles in the baby, though perhaps that was wishful thinking. What mattered was that the child was safe. Lucy had the sweet, sleeping child in her arms. Their struggles were over. Mr. Morrison had said so.

She turned to him to say something to comfort him, to let him know that he was not alone in his grief. She was about to speak, but no sound came out for she watched as his chest exploded with blood.

Lord Byron strode into the room, tossing aside the freshly fired pistol. In his other hand he held a torch, and with his newly free hand he removed another pistol from his pocket "That was so we know that I'm serious. Also, I've always hated him. Now, Lucy, give me the book, and give me the baby. The baby you shall get back. It is merely a means by which I can get away unharmed. You'll not curse me or bring down any dark magic upon me if the baby is in my care. When I am somewhere safe, I shall send you the child."

With Emily clutched to her breast, Lucy bent over Mr. Morrison. He was breathing, but his breaths came shallow, and there was blood in his mouth. She needed to work magic upon him, but she could not do it in the mill, not with all the wards set upon it.

"You have not much time to act," said Byron, tossing his torch onto a pile of hose. It went up at once, and the flames began to catch, spreading over the stocking frame, and then catching to the next. "Hand me the pages, Lucy. And the child. If you do not, I shall shoot you and take the pages off you myself. How shall your niece fare then?"