theatrical disaster.
The laughter cut off suddenly. In the silence, Reverend Day leaned over the edge of the box and smiled at Bendigo Rymer.
'You're finished.'
He gestured sharply with his right hand; the curtain plummeted to the stage, isolating Bendigo on the skirt of the proscenium. Fear putting the whip to his nerves, Rymer groped along the curtain to find an opening.
The Reverend bunched his hands into fists and twisted: The suspenders holding Bendigo's trousers broke away with a loud snap; his pants dropped and settled around his ankles. Reacting to the sound before realizing what had happened, Bendigo took a step downstage and crashed onto his chin.
Behind the curtain, actors and stagehands turned tail and ran, scattering out of the theater in a dozen directions. Eileen, alone, paralyzed with fright, watched from the left side of the wings.
Bendigo Rymer struggled to his knees, the uncomprehending look of an injured child in his eyes, a picture of dumb confoundment. Laughter rolled over him from the audience again; a harsh, disembodied, joyless pounding that never paused, never varied.
Reverend Day propped himself up on the edge of the box, waved his hands like an orchestra conductor, the buttons on Bendigo's blouse popped off and danced across the stage. The laces on his corset roped in and knit tightly together, stays groaning with effort, cinching his belly into an hourglass; she could hear the breath being squeezed out of Rymer's lungs. His wig rotated on his head, the absurd Prince Valiant haircut falling over his eyes. He crawled blindly on the floor, then appeared to gradually lose control of his movements, until he was jerked abruptly upright to his feet, lifted by a dozen invisible hands.
Eileen looked past Rymer, saw Reverend Day manipulating his fingers in the air as if he were controlling a marionette. Bendigo danced, arms hanging limply in the air, a pathetic shuffling encumbered by his fallen trousers....
And Eileen remembered where she had known A. Glorious Day.
His name was Alexander Sparks; she had seen him practice this same impossible nightmarish possession on another man ten years ago, a small, dear Cockney burglar named Barry. Inside the dining hall of a manor house on the Yorkshire coast. Along with six other lunatic, diseased aristocrats, Sparks had directed a plot against the Royal Family; she had fallen quite by accident into the outer tendrils of its web, but eventually found herself at its center, combatting the Seven along with Sparks's brother, an agent for Queen Victoria, and a young doctor who had gone on to become a famous author. Eileen left England for America hard on the heels of that experience and had never seen any of them since.
But Alexander Sparks had looked nothing like this Reverend Day and she could find no explanation for the discrepancy, unless over time the man's demonic heart had slowly wormed its way to the surface. If this was the same person, it certainly explained his iron grip on these people; she had seen him perform similar black miracles the last time. Yes; the idea that the revolting, twisted body and visage that bound him now reflected the man's true nature was only too easy to believe.
He had not recognized her for some reason. But why that was and for what purpose this misbegotten city had been born remained questions she could not begin to answer. Cold terror pinned her to that spot backstage as securely as a railroad spike.
With a manic smile carved on his face, Rymer's dance ended and he flopped to the stage in a deep curtsy; Eileen could hear the muscles in his legs ripping away from bones as his body contorted.
A flurry of gestures from Day: Bendigo flew to his feet again, his hand drew the saber from his belt, and he marched up and down the stage, sword raised, in a mockery of military high-step. Dead laughter from the audience doubled, deafening. For one terrible instant, Bendigo caught Eileen's eye; she saw conscious agony and horror bleeding through his eyes, but words could not break past the hideous smile that had stilled his voice before his body whipped around and marched away again.
She regretted every misfortune she'd ever wished upon the man; this humiliation was something no human being should endure. Tears in her eyes, she wished for a gun to release the poor bastard from this misery; the rest of its bullets she wanted for Reverend Day.
Bendigo came to a halt and gave a salute to the box. The Reverend raised his hands over his head and Rymer rose softly into the air, his bare spindly legs windmilling comically as if he were running up invisible steps. He soared up and over the audience, then hung suspended at the Reverend's eye level. The Reverend wiggled one hand; Bendigo's black wig flew off and scampered away in the air like a terrier. The laughter reached a hysterical crescendo, then stopped dead.
'Now do tell, Mr. Rymer; I hear that you have been harboring a secret desire to play Hamlet,' said Reverend Day, in an exaggerated hillbilly twang.
Wheezing for breath, Bendigo nodded slightly; his own dim response. Eileen saw a twitch of excitement light up the pathetic fool's eyes, even a small stirring of pride.
'Well now, don't be shy, why don't y'all treat us to a little sampling of your melancholy Dane, you insolent, uncivilized cur?'
The audience applauded wildly, stomped their feet and whistled, egging him on to perform. Bendigo saluted Reverend
Day with the sword, acknowledged his audience with a grateful wave. He took a step back in midair and lowered his head; a moment of introspection, the actor preparing for his entrance. The audience went silent.
Bendigo turned back around, in character now, bobbing like a cork in the water. With the pinched corset torturing his voice to a strangled parody of his rich baritone, he cried out, 'To be, or not to be; that is the question.'
Reverend Day leaned on the edge of the box, sly boredom, propping his chin up, the fingers of one hand drumming his cheek while the other waved idly in the air.
In response to Day's gestures, with each succeeding line of the soliloquy Bendigo raised the sword and ferociously slashed himself across a part of his body; nothing spared, arms, legs, back, chest, neck, face. Each cut opened gaping wounds.
'Whether tis
Eileen knew their blades were severely dulled down for stage combat; Rymer was striking himself with inhuman strength. Blood rained on the audience but the white shirts offered no reaction, looking straight up, not even raising a hand to shield their faces from the splatter as it pelted down.
'To
A devastating blow nearly severed Bendigo's left hand at the wrist; bones shattered, hanging by a thread of flesh. Sheets of blood cascaded down his face from cuts along his scalp; agony informed every word he spoke, and Eileen thought she could hear an occasional desperate cry break through beneath the words.
' 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be
Bendigo screamed as he thrust the point of the sword clear through his lower abdomen below the corset, straining with both hands to break its blunt tip through the resistant skin of his back.
Eileen sobbed and turned away, blinded by tears and rage, trying to pull herself to her feet.
Reverend Day stood in front of Bendigo and began to slowly applaud, banging his simian hands together; the audience picked up the rhythm and the clapping grew into a booming, rhythmic beat.
'—for in that sleep of death ...'
Bendigo's voice failing, face collapsing, gray as ash, all the emotion breaking through, underlining his final words.
'... what dreams may come ... when we have shuffled off this mortal coil... must give us pause ...'
