Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

could not have been accomplished save by forcibly holding her down, or—as it has actually been managed—hiding tiny amounts of the substance in chocolate or an aperitif. Now, witness the strength of her new-minted will.”

Miss Poole turned to the woman and held out the flask.

“My dear,” she said, “you understand that you must drink this, as you have in these past weeks.”

The blonde woman nodded, and reached out to take the flask from Miss Poole.

“Please smell it,” asked Miss Poole.

The woman did. She wrinkled her nose, but showed no other response.

“Please drink it.”

The woman put the flask to her lips and tossed off the contents like a sailor quaffing rum. She primly wiped her mouth, held her body still for a moment, as if to better keep the substance down, and then returned the flask.

“Thank you, my dear.” Miss Poole smiled. “You’ve done very well.”

The audience erupted into fervent applause, and the young blonde woman shyly beamed.

The Doctor looked ahead of him on the catwalk. Bolted to an iron frame suspended from the ceiling—and in reach, for he realized that the catwalk’s sole purpose was to tend them—hung a row of metal-boxed paraffin lamps, as in a theatre. The front of each box was open, to aim the light in one direction, and fixed with a ground-glass lens to focus the light onto a more precise area. For a moment he considered—if he were able to climb out unseen—the possibility of blowing out each lamp and throwing the theatre into darkness…but there were at least five lamps over a fifteen-foot length of the iron grid. He could not reach them all before he was seen and most likely shot. But what else could he do? Moving as delicately and as quickly as he could, Doctor Svenson crawled through the curtain and into view of anyone who happened to look up.

Miss Poole whispered in her blonde charge’s ear and then led her closer to the audience. The young woman sank into a curtsey, and the audience politely applauded once more. Svenson could swear she was blushing with pleasure. The woman rose again and Miss Poole handed her to one of the Macklenburg soldiers, who offered an arm with a click of his heels. The blonde woman draped her arm in his and with a distinct brightening of her step they disappeared down one of the rampways.

From the same rampway emerged two more Macklenburg soldiers propelling between them a third masked woman in white. Her feet dragged in awkward steps and her head dipped—she was either drugged or injured. Her brown hair unspooled behind her back and around her shoulders, obscuring her features. Again, despite his best intentions, Doctor Svenson found his gaze falling to the lady’s body, the white silk clinging across the curve of her hips, her pale arms sticking from the balled-up sleeves.

At their entrance, Miss Poole whipped around in annoyance. Svenson could not hear what she hissed to the soldiers, nor what they deferentially whispered in return. In the moment of disturbance he looked to Miss Temple, the hideous mask in place across her face, twisting ineffectually against her bonds.

Miss Poole gestured to the new arrival.

“It is a different sort of case I present to you here—perhaps one emblematic of the dangers attending our great enterprise, and of the corrective power of this work. The woman here before you—you see her ragged appearance and lowly condition—is one who had been invited to participate, and who then took it upon herself, in league with our enemies, to reject this invitation. More than this, her rejection took the form…of murder. The woman before you has killed one of our blameless number!”

The audience whispered and hissed. Svenson swallowed. It was Eloise Dujong. He hadn’t recognized her— her hair had been back in a braid and now it wasn’t—such a foolish detail, but it nearly caused his heart to crack. All his doubts as to her loyalty fell away before this sudden pang of emotion. Seeing her hair down should have been an intimacy given to him from her, and now she was insensible, vulnerable, the intimacy blithely trammeled. He crawled quickly to the next lamp and dug in his pocket for the revolver.

“And yet,” continued Miss Poole, “she has been brought before you to demonstrate the greater wisdom—and the greater economy—of our purpose. For despite everything this woman’s actions carry with them undenied qualities of resilience and courage. Should these be destroyed simply because she lacks the will or the vision to see her true avenue of advantage? We say it shall not be—and so we will welcome this woman into our very bosom!”

She gestured to her attendant. He bent over Miss Temple once more to make sure of his electrical connections and then knelt at the boxes. Svenson looked wildly about him. In a moment it would be too late.

“Both these women—I promise you, more determined villains you could not find outside the Thuggee cult!—will join us, one after the next, by way of the clarifying Process. You have seen its effect with a willing subject. Now see it transform a defiant enemy to the fiercest adherent!”

The first shot crashed out from the darkness above the theatre. The man near Miss Temple abruptly stumbled back, and then dropped beneath the blackboard, the blood from his wound pooling in the leather apron. Screams erupted from the gallery. The figures on the stage looked up, but straight into the lamps and could not—at least for another precious moment—see past the glare. The second shot tore through the shoulder of the other aproned man, spinning him away from Eloise and to his knees.

“He is there!” shrieked Miss Poole. “Kill him! Kill him! ”

She pointed up at Svenson, her face an emblem of fury. The Macklenburg trooper had been pulled off balance by the second man’s fall, suddenly taking up the whole of Eloise’s weight. He released her—she dropped at once to her hands and knees—and swept out his saber. Svenson ignored him. He was well out of reach of the blade, and knew the Ragnarok troopers did not carry firearms. He aimed the revolver at Miss Poole, but then—what was he thinking! How could he forget her cruelty at the quarry?—hesitated to pull the trigger.

The catwalk behind him lurched. Svenson turned to see two hands grabbing hold of the edge. He shifted on his knees and rapped the gun butt down on each hand one after the other, dropping the man back into the seats. The catwalk lurched again. Now three sets of hands pulled on the edge, tipping the Doctor into the wooden rail. For a moment he looked helplessly down into the outraged crowd—men on each other’s shoulders, women shrieking at him as if he were a witch. He shot a foot forward and smashed it down on the nearest hand—but now there were men on either side of him, hefting themselves above the edge. To his left was an athletic young man in a tailcoat, no doubt an ambitious second son of a Lord determined to take an inheritance away from an older brother. Svenson shot him through the upper leg and didn’t wait to watch him fall before turning to the second man—a wiry fellow in his shirtsleeves (thoughtful enough to doff an encumbering coat before climbing)—who leapt the rail and crouched like a cat not three feet away. Svenson fired again, but more hands jostled the catwalk. The bullet flew wide and directly into one of the paraffin lanterns, shattering it completely. A shower of hot metal, broken glass, and burning paraffin spattered onto the stage.

The shirtsleeved man launched himself at Svenson, knocking him flat. A woman screamed from the stage— there was smoke—the paraffin—did he smell burning hair? The man was younger, stronger, fresher—an elbow across Svenson’s jaw stunned him. He thrust a hand ineffectually at the fellow’s eyes, and the catwalk careened as more hands pulled at them and more men climbed aboard—a creak, a popping snap of wood—it could not hold. The woman still screamed. The shirtsleeved man took hold of Svenson’s coat with both hands and raised him up—face- to-face with a triumphant leer—as a prelude to flattening the Doctor’s nose with his fist.

The catwalk gave way, tipping toward the stage and dumping them both over the rail and into the row of lamps—Svenson hissing with pain at the hot metal against his skin—and then (in one ghastly moment of weightless terror that convulsed Svenson from the top of his spine to his genitals) to the theatre floor.

The impact jarred the Doctor to his teeth and for a moment he merely lay where he was, dimly aware of a great deal of activity around him. He blinked. He was alive. There were screams and shouts from every direction… smoke…a great deal of smoke…and heat—in fact, everything pointed to the theatre being on fire. He tried to move. To his surprise he was not on the floor—he was not on anything smooth. He rolled on one shoulder and saw the waxen face of the shirtsleeved man, neck folded unnaturally to the side, tongue blue. Svenson heaved himself to his hands and knees—realizing as it hit the floor with a clunk that he still held the revolver.

The fallen lamps had set a line of flame between the stage and the gallery, effectively blocking one from the other. Through the rising wall of smoke he could see figures and hear their screams and shouts, but he quickly turned away at another scream, much nearer. It was Eloise, terrified but still dulled by the drug, kicking weakly at the flames that licked her smoking silken robe. Svenson stuffed the revolver into his belt and tore off his greatcoat.