The Dark Volume

“And I will not.”

“You will.”

“Unfortunately, Doctor, we are no longer alone.”

SVENSON SPUN toward the rooftop door. At once, instinct firing his limbs just in time, he threw himself back to avoid the slash of the Contessa's spike across the front of his throat. The woman staggered at the force of her erring blow. Svenson's own arm was cocked in a fist when he met her eyes and saw she was once again laughing.

“You cannot blame me, Doctor—only a fool gives up easily. Strike me if you must—or if you can—but I was telling you the truth.”

She pointed with her steel-wrapped hand at the far side of the rooftop, beyond the line of chimneys. Two men stood there, one straight, one bent as if in illness, yet however many steps apart they stood, they unquestionably stood together. Svenson turned back to the Contessa, wishing he still held the silver revolver. On the other side of the line of smokestacks stood Francis Xonck with—with! —Cardinal Chang.

The two men advanced to the line of chimneys and crossed through to Svenson's side of the tar-covered rooftop. The Contessa darted to the ladder, but once there merely leaned down, sniffed, and then called to them.

“No one climbs up. As it would be evident to an infant that we are here, I must assume Mr. Leveret considers us managed.”

How easily the woman had gone, in the matter of a minute, from dashing conversation to attempted murder, to a reunion with sworn enemies—and then shown the presence of mind to assert that any specific argument between them had been rendered trivial by their shared predicament.

“What weapons are they using?” growled Xonck, his voice thick and hoarse.

“Your special carbines, of course,” replied the Contessa. “But I do not believe they have men in the trees to shoot us here.”

“They could rush us if they cared.” Xonck nodded to the rooftop door.

“So they do not care,” she snapped. “It is your Mr. Leveret—perhaps you know his intentions.”

Xonck hacked out a wretched blue gobbet onto the tar. For an instant his eyes lost focus and his body swayed. “Leveret… merely following… orders.”

“I do not think so, Francis,” the Contessa said. “Leveret remains no more your creature than Margaret Hooke is the Comte's, or Caroline Stearne is my own.”

“He does not know that I have arrived.”

“Perhaps not—merely that a savage, stinking, monstrosity—”

“Rosamonde—”

“And how bold you were to remove Oskar's machinery from Harschmort—before anyone was even dead! Or was everyone to die in Macklenburg by way of a poisoned pudding?”

Standing apart from them all, Cardinal Chang chuckled. Svenson searched on his one-time ally's face for some explanation for his alliance with Xonck, but found only the two implacable, flat circles of black glass.

“Francis.” The Contessa's tone was almost kindly. “There is no time at all. You must talk to us while you are still able, and while we have time. The machines are gaining speed.”

The clatter from below, and the corresponding vibrations, had accelerated so gradually the Doctor had scarcely noticed the change. But the incremental change was actually quite extreme, like a ship's boiler driven slowly to ramming speed to break through ice.

“What of that army—those adherents?” Xonck growled. “Why summon them if you are marooned with us?”

“Because she did not summon them at all,” said Chang.

“You might have said before what you knew,” hissed Xonck, swaying.

“Neither of you could have called them. You have both just arrived.”

“Nor Leveret,” said Svenson. “He does not even know who they are.”

“It is Margaret,” said the Contessa, bitterly.

“She will skin you alive yet, Rosamonde,” Xonck snorted, a garbled rueful laugh. “Do you still have it?”

“Have what?”

“The marrow sparge,” said Chang, again causing both to turn to him.

“Margaret has the book,” Xonck snarled. “She will bring it here.”

“With a damned army,” began Svenson, but Xonck ignored him, weaving close to the Contessa.

“If you have the marrow sparge, none of this matters!”

“Unless Margaret did not recover the book,” said Chang.

“Recover it from whom?” the Contessa asked with impatience.

“The little teapot.”

“Celeste Temple,” said Chang.

“She is alive?” cried Svenson, taking a step closer to Chang, wanting to shake the man.

“She went to Harschmort,” said Chang. “And took the book for herself.”

“Margaret has invaded her mind!” insisted Xonck. “The girl is marked, finished.”

“So all will be well!” the Contessa shot back at him. “If your book does arrive—and if we are not killed—and if our minds are not raped—and if Margaret and Mr. Leveret are both utter fools! And if that's the case, Francis, I suppose we must come to an agreement.”

“I am dying, Rosamonde.”

The Contessa's only reply was a haughty snort.

“None of this makes sense,” said Svenson. “Leveret knows we are here. And yet he does nothing.”

“Because he fears to cross me,” rasped Xonck.

“Because he fears us,” cried the Contessa. “We have defied his men, his weapons, his every defense—”

“He does nothing because he does not need to,” said Chang. “We are birds in a cage.”

“No.” Svenson shook his head. “He did not expect us to be here— we mean nothing to his plan. He waits for his true rivals—one he has taken captive, and the other is on her way. The one he has is insignificant. But the one he waits for—the glass woman—when she arrives, he must be ready for her. It can be the only reason for this factory to exist.”

NO ONE spoke, and then a moment after that they could have shouted at the top of their lungs and no one would have heard. The double line of chimneys burst into life, belching thick columns of black smoke and steam. The roar of their spewing left Doctor Svenson staggering as if a gunshot had gone off next to each ear.

It was perhaps two seconds after this that the rooftop door exploded in an almost silent flower of wood chips and flame. The Contessa fell to her knees and Xonck, nearest to it of all, was knocked flat. Svenson flinched at the splinters blown against his face, and looked up, blinking. Chang carefully raised his empty hands. Svenson followed his gaze and then lifted his own arms with the exact placating caution. The ragged hole where the doorway had been was now crowded with green-coated soldiers, their bright weapons aimed in an unwavering line. Another squad of soldiers had swarmed up the ladder where he had climbed with the Contessa, and a third— following Chang and Xonck on the opposite side—had crossed the roof to take positions between the chimneys.

Xonck vomited onto the tar. The Contessa struggled to her feet, her hair in disarray. The soldiers at the ruined doorway fanned onto the rooftop, and as they did so Svenson saw a figure rise through the fingers of still- flaming wood, the black chimney smoke behind her like an infernal curtain blotting out the sky.

Charlotte Trapping stepped onto the rooftop, looking with disdain at the disheveled Contessa and her ruined brother, then wrinkled her nose at Svenson and Chang, their arms still in the air.

“Collect them,” she cried over the roar, a note of pleasure running through her poised demeanor like a seam of silver through cold stone. “If any one so much as raises a finger… kill them all.”