The Chemickal Marriage

Too long, and the charge alone will kill her.’

Mahmoud looked to Svenson for an answer. He had none.

‘That is the truth!’ Trooste snapped.

‘Why did that woman send you?’ Mahmoud’s question was a dagger between Svenson’s ribs. ‘Madelaine Kraft is nothing to her. I cannot believe in her kindness.’

Svenson spread his open palms. ‘I do not ask you to.’

‘Then you are here to kill her?’

‘If that were true, why drag you all this way?’

‘For your science.’

‘Not mine, Mahmoud.’

‘She will die on this table,’ insisted Trooste.

‘She will never heal as things stand,’ said Svenson gently. ‘She will waste to nothing.’

Mahmoud gazed helplessly at the woman, limbs bound and face obscured, only the red mouth visible. In an instant of clarity Svenson saw the isolated line of Madelaine Kraft’s jaw exactly mirrored on Mahmoud’s younger, darker face. He was her son.

‘Do it.’ Mahmoud’s voice fell flat and hopeless. ‘She would rather die than live like this. Do it now.’

Svenson pulled the switch. A rattle of current, like a rolling volley of musket-fire, leapt along the lines of copper wire, and the sharp stench of indigo clay burnt the air. The metal pipes that covered the walls took up the vibrations, escalating until the entire chamber throbbed with a deafening roar. Svenson clapped his hands over his ears, but it did not stop the pain. Like a fool he remembered the Comte’s brass helmets – and there they were, across the chamber, in a row. If only either he or Trooste had known what they were doing! But it was too late to reach them. Madelaine Kraft’s limbs tore against the restraints and her mouth gaped in an unheard howl. Mahmoud had a fist in his mouth, eyes fixed on his mother. Svenson lurched to the gearbox, ready to open the valve. Trooste tugged at his tunic, waving frantically. Svenson shook his head. Trooste tugged again. Madelaine Kraft arched her spine, rising off the table, higher, higher, until it seemed her bones must snap –

He almost missed it, between Trooste’s attempts to shove him aside and the hammering noise, so loud he could scarcely link one thought to another. The current flooded the bloodstone, shaking the bolts that held the gearbox – then there it was, a burst of scent, bittersweet and musky, a rawness in his nostrils –

The smell is when.

Svenson opened the valve. The black hoses flared to life. Madelaine Kraft’s twisting body went stiff, fingers splayed, jaw wide, the waves of force pouring through –

The current from the gearbox died as quickly as a candle flame, the bloodstone spent. Trooste leapt forward, closed the valve and groped in the box for the switch. The roar in the pipes fell away. The blackened wires snapped their final sparks and set to gently smoking.

Svenson fell to the table, ears pounding. Mrs Kraft’s pulse was racing but strong. With a cry of relief he waved Mahmoud to him and together they peeled the mask from her face. She bore welts where it had pressed into her skin, but her eyes … her eyes shone with a life Doctor Svenson had not previously seen.

‘Mrs Kraft?’ He could not hear himself, but it did not matter. She nodded. Mahmoud freed her limbs and raised her to sit.

‘Merciful heaven,’ she managed. ‘I have been at the bottom of the sea. O my dear boy.’

She buried her face in Mahmoud’s shoulder and his strong arms pulled her close. Mahmoud leant down, face to her hair, a spill of tears on his dark cheek.

‘Now,’ Mahmoud whispered. ‘Now we pay them back.’

Svenson hurried to Francesca. The girl was cold to the touch, her breath shallow. He tapped her cheek to no response.

‘Is she alive?’ asked Trooste.

‘Of course she is!’ Svenson crossed to the still-open square drawer and heaped another load of bloodstone into the mortar. He sat on a bench and began to grind it furiously.

‘Why do you need more?’ asked Trooste. ‘A child cannot withstand that current.’

‘I am aware of it,’ Svenson replied tightly. Mahmoud murmured to Mrs Kraft, yet her gaze fell on Doctor Svenson, to his discomfort.

‘Then for whom?’ Trooste pressed. ‘Not one of us!’

‘No.’ Svenson filled a stoppered flask with the rust-coloured grains and tucked it inside his tunic.

‘Then what?’ complained Trooste. ‘For God’s sake will you not leave? They will think I have betrayed them – my entire prospects of advancement –’

‘Are bankrupt. Lorenz, Fochtmann, Crooner – did you know Crooner?’

‘Everyone knew Crooner – ludicrous fellow –’

‘Crooner died with both arms shattered at the elbow, turned to blue glass.’

‘Well, exactly – that is Crooner all over –’

‘Don’t be an ass!’ The Doctor pulled on his greatcoat. ‘Listen – we will climb these stairs. Mahmoud must help his mistress, I must carry the girl. We cannot drag you. But Vandaariff must not know what we have done.’

‘Lock me in a cupboard, I will say I saw nothing –’

‘You will divulge every detail.’ Svenson pulled out the revolver. The Professor swallowed, his wide throat bobbing.

‘B-but I have helped you –’

‘And so I ask you to come with us. If you do not, I will shoot you or bury your mind in this last glass book.’ The words were inhuman, but had he any choice?

‘No. I would not wish it on a fiend.’ Madelaine Kraft’s voice carried an authority, however weak. ‘If the Professor will not leave this business, Mahmoud could perhaps prove his resistance to our trespass … say, by shooting his leg.’

‘Through the knee?’ offered Mahmoud.

‘Hardly sufficient,’ she observed. ‘Both knees would be better.’

Trooste blanched, at which Mrs Kraft smiled, and the moment of violence was past. The ease of her intervention seemed from another world – as distant to Svenson as allowing himself satisfaction for her cure. The Doctor stuffed away the revolver and slung the leather case over one shoulder. He lifted Francesca and stumped to the door.

For once the height of a staircase did not disrupt the Doctor’s thoughts, distracted as he was by the question of what to do next. They clustered on the upper landing, all save Mahmoud panting from the climb. Svenson put an ear to the door, but heard nothing.

‘If the guard has returned, we must pull him inside – throw him down the stairs, anything for silence. If he has not, then I suggest we run for the same window we came from –’

‘We will be seen from the rooftop.’ This was Madelaine Kraft. Her tone carried no criticism, but Svenson felt nakedly at fault.

‘Then I will charge the gate. While they surround me, Mahmoud runs for the window with you and the child –’

‘They will shoot you dead, then the rest of us from a distance. Where will your mission be then? Or our revenge?’

Svenson could not think. He could not look down at the girl. He felt the grain of the wooden door against his forehead. ‘I am open to suggestion.’

‘I will go with the Professor. He is known, and if I am noticed, the reaction will at least not be immediately hostile. If he betrays me, I will cut him down. Mahmoud?’

Wordlessly, but in Trooste’s plain view, Mahmoud passed her a short knife in a leather sheath. She gripped it with a turn of her wrist, so it appeared for all the world a folded fan. Mahmoud opened the door and ducked behind.

The light hit Trooste and Mrs Kraft and for a moment neither moved.

‘Lord above,’ Trooste gasped. ‘My lodgings … my writings – O heaven!’

Trooste ran. Both Svenson and Mahmoud snatched after him, but Mrs Kraft blocked them with her arm. ‘Let