Hunter's Moon (19 page)

Too late, I had discovered what Belladonna had been doing with those poor beggars, and understood what I'd seen Drago doing, down in the basement prison. That fluid he'd been extracting, which had vanished like quicksilver – that was Simeon's life-essence. Despair filled me. Helpless, speechless, I wished now only that I might fall asleep in that glass box and never wake up – for I did not want to live in a world ruled by a ruthless Belladonna and her army of automata, powered by the stolen life-essence of the poor, the outcast and the betrayed.

‘And another thing,' she said. She was smiling. ‘Don't think that anyone can help you now. All those who helped you will die, but not before I've harvested their life-essence. I already have the tailor, that Master Kinberg – we snatched him from his home this very morning.'

My body was paralysed but the stunning shock of her words almost jolted my frozen muscles into reacting. Almost – but then Belladonna put her hand on me and said some words I did not understand and my body locked down again. I could only listen helplessly as she went on.

‘He'll talk, under torture, not a doubt of it. He'll reveal where all your friends are hiding. Your friends – they will all be smoked out, hunted down. All of them will die. Except the one you call the Prince of Outlaws. For him, I will reserve a special fate. Like you, my dear, I can sense that his life-essence must be a truly powerful one. I have informers everywhere, Bianca. Did you really think you could defy me?'

My heart was heavy. She would kill everyone who had ever helped me. And it would be my fault. My commitment to exposing Belladonna for who she really was, my commitment to revenge, had endangered them all.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

‘I told you all that I was not to be disturbed!' Belladonna called out.

‘I'm sorry, my lady, but it is most urgent,' came Drago's voice.

‘Wait,' she called back. She clicked her fingers and I found myself forced to walk stiffly back the way I'd come, up the steps, jerkily climbing back into the box and lying down. Before she slid the glass panel shut, she looked into
my eyes and I looked into hers, and for an instant I had the sensation that I was looking into a blue abyss, an empty depth, a hungry absence that shocked me even in the midst of my despair. It was as though there was nothing there behind those eyes.

That was only for the tiny flicker of an instant. In the next, she had turned away from me. I heard her walk down the stairs and across the hall, open the door, and lock it behind her.

I was alone.

Alone, and yet not, for all around me, in their glass coffins, the automata waited for an order from their mistress Belladonna, which would bring them to some sort of life. They were all waiting for an order to wake and walk in a simulation of life, waiting patiently and obediently to do her bidding, waiting to become the army she dreamed of, the army that would in time take over our country and make it her fiefdom.

Lying immured in that glass prison, unable to move or speak, I could still think. I turned over and over in my mind everything I knew about Belladonna. Everything I'd learnt. She was an orphan of uncertain parentage, brought up by her adoptive grandmother in Aurisola. She had contrived to murder that poor old lady, thinking to gain from it, but had not. She had then moved elsewhere, eventually become a Fairest Lady candidate, murdered a rival, stolen my father's heart, come to live in Noricia, then contrived to murder my father and tried to murder me.
What other crimes had she committed throughout her life? She was behind the beggar killings, I knew that. And she was planning something much bigger – a revolution, she'd called it.

But none of these facts struck me as much as this: just how powerful she was. At first I had thought she was a witch. But the powers she had shown – the strength and cruelty of the spell I was under, and complexity of her magic in creating the automata and the uncanny tool that extracted human life-essence – didn't this extend beyond those that a human witch would possess? What if Belladonna was a feya?

I thought back to what I knew of Belladonna's past. She was an orphan – that could be a good cover story for many things. What if Belladonna's adoptive grandmother had taken into her home not a lonely human child but something completely different? A strange child, a feya child. If Belladonna was a feya, she was a twisted one. A dark, perverse one, damaged beyond redemption by something or someone – or perhaps she was simply bad, right from the start. That sort existed. They were rare, very rare, but their existence was not unheard of. Their nature was demonic, and though they could be thwarted by humans, they could not be finally defeated and destroyed by one of us. Their downfall could only be brought about by someone like them. Someone, in fact, like that one Olga called Lady Grandmother. But only if she knew. Only if she was told. Ever since I had escaped from Drago in the forest, I had tried plan after plan to expose Belladonna. If I ever did somehow escape from this glass coffin, if I was somehow released from my
own unresponsive body, I would find the feya Lady Grandmother. She was now my only hope.

Just then, I heard the door open again, and voices. For an instant, I thought my prayers had been answered, that Olga and Andel and the old woman had somehow learnt what had happened and come to my rescue. Of course it was nothing of the kind, just Belladonna, accompanied, it seemed from the voices, by the Duke and a crowd of chattering people who were apparently about to be given a private viewing of the automata. Through the thin curtain around my box, I could glimpse silhouettes, but not much else.

The Duke made some kind of speech that I only half-heard, something about how the technology was such an incredible breakthrough, how extraordinary Belladonna was, and how pleased he was to have the opportunity of showing these people around. I heard the sound of boxes being opened, and the somewhat heavy movement of automata as they moved around jerkily to Belladonna's brisk commands. I could not, of course, see the crowd, but I could hear their gasps of astonishment mingled with a kind of nervous amusement.

How had she kept her true nature, her true plans, hidden from us all? Neither my father nor I had had the slightest idea. Apart from Drago and perhaps one or two of her most trusted servants, no-one had had the slightest idea. Only that dummy at the fashion show had been a hint of what she'd been doing, and who could have known the full extent of what lay behind it?

But before I could run off with my thoughts once again, the curtain around the box I was in was drawn and
I was revealed to the crowd for the first time. Now I could see them, their mouths hanging open in amazement – and something else, too. Horror. But there was dead silence as Belladonna ascended the step, opened the glass panel, and tapped me on the shoulder. As I sat up, stiffly, the crowd fell back a fraction, and at that moment I caught sight of a face I recognised. Emilia – flanked by her mother and another woman. Our eyes met, above the heads of the crowd. She went completely white. Opened her mouth. And screamed.

‘Oh my God! Mother! Aunt! It's Bianca! It's Bianca!' She turned to Belladonna. ‘What have you done to her? What have you done?'

‘Emilia!' Her mother and aunt vainly tried to calm her as she struggled within their grasp, sobbing, now, her eyes wild in her chalk-white face. Belladonna had hesitated, but only for a moment. She tapped me on the shoulder again so that I had to sit stock-still, helpless as a machine whose clockwork has run down, then she calmly went back down the step towards Emilia.

‘We're so sorry, my lady,' Emilia's mother and aunt kept repeating. ‘We don't know what's come over her, she's not usually like this …'

‘I understand,' said Belladonna, gently. She looked at Emilia, gave her a smile, and touched her on the shoulder. My guts twisted inside me. She was going to do the same thing to Emilia as she had done to me … In front of all these people?

But she didn't freeze Emilia. She withdrew her hand and said, ‘I'm sorry it's given you such a shock. I wasn't thinking. You were her friend, of course. And these
things …' She waved a hand at me, at the automata. ‘… They can look so real, can't they?'

Emilia looked at her, the horror still in her face. Then slowly, she nodded. It was as though she was doing it automatically, not of her own will. As though Belladonna had put a spell on her …

‘I hesitated about showing this one,' continued Belladonna. ‘My poor stepdaughter modelled for it. But his grace the Duke – he persuaded me it would be a fitting tribute to a girl who was much loved. That it might help us to bear her tragic end, and that of her poor father, my dearest husband.' Her voice trembled with fake emotion and inside me, the fear and despair was ebbing away as rage rose. She might be powerful – she might even be an immortal – but even if I were to die in the attempt, I would do everything I could to try to defeat her.

Emilia was led away. She was still sobbing a little, but calmer now. Her mother and aunt went with her. The crowd, disturbed at first by the little scene, gradually relaxed again, as Belladonna's soothing voice explained how I – a supposed automaton – had been made. Of course, she mentioned nothing about stolen life-essences, she just spoke technical talk about wires and levers and cogs and amazing synthetic materials that could be made to look just like skin. The crowd oohed and aahed while I was made to parade before them, and one or two of the bravest came up to feel my hand or poke at my side. It was unbearable but I had to bear it because there was nothing I could do to stop it. As to the Duke, he was gazing proudly at Belladonna, all the while perorating about how creating
the automata was going to make Noricia wealthy and famous beyond any dreams.

‘We will be the powerhouse of the future,' he proclaimed. ‘We will show every other country the way forward. And it will be all thanks to the genius of Lady Belladonna Dalmatin!'

‘Well, I think it is an outrage!' came a loud voice from across the hall. Everyone turned. It was Lady Helena, the Duke's sister, storming across the hall. She was in full sail, red in the face, her eyes sparking, striding purposefully towards her brother.

She gave me a glance. Something flickered in her eyes. Turning to Belladonna, she snapped.

‘This is shameful. The poor girl went to a miserable death and here you are parading what seems to be some kind of simulation of her.'

‘Helena …' began the Duke, but she brushed him aside.

‘It is outrageous,' she said, biting each word off, ‘that a widow whose husband is hardly cold in his grave should be leading a crowd of gawkers to a ridiculous and repellent spectacle of giant dolls – one of whom was modelled on her poor late stepdaughter who has been dead only a week.' She surveyed Belladonna with great disfavour. ‘I do not like this at all. Something unpleasant is afoot.'

Belladonna was quite still. Her ivory skin had not flushed, but her eyes were bright and hard as she said, softly, ‘I am sorry you feel that way. But I am sure you understand that grief takes us in different ways, my Lady Helena. I have found that my work helps to soften the pain. And his grace is kind enough to take an interest in my project, and help me through these difficult times.'

Lady Helena snorted, but before she could say another word, the Duke spoke. He was as red in the face as his sister, and his eyes were equally angry. He said, sharply, ‘That is quite enough, Helena. The lady you address so discourteously is a person of the finest feelings I have ever known. Her sensitivity is second only to her intelligence and beauty. You think to insult her? Well, know this. In doing so, you are insulting me. And I do not speak as your brother.' His tone became commanding. ‘I speak as your duke.'

Everyone in the crowd held their breath as Lady Helena looked at him – her brother, her Duke. She gave a strange, sad, little smile. ‘I see,' she said, after a moment. ‘Very well, then. Clearly there is nothing I can do here.' And without another word, she turned on her heel and strode out of the room as abruptly as she'd come in.

‘Good heavens,' said the Duke after a moment. ‘What a to-do! Let's all forget about it, shall we?' His words were light, but his tone was not. As he looked around the crowd, people tittered nervously, nodding like fairground clowns. Of course they wouldn't forget it, but there had been a definite warning in his tone. There would be no-one here who would dare repeat such gossip.

‘Get that thing put back in its box, will you? And the others, too,' he said, gesturing to the servants, who hurried over to do his bidding. As I was settled back down in the box, the panel shut above me and the curtain drawn, I thought of what had just happened. First Emilia, then Lady Helena. Both of them had looked at me with eyes that just for a tiny instant saw something other than what Belladonna wanted them to see. But I had no hope that they guessed the terrible truth. How could they?

As the hours wore on, I fell into greater despondency, my mind beginning to feel as trapped as my unmoving body. The shadows lengthened in the room and night fell and still I lay there surrounded by the hollow, lifeless figures of the automata I so closely resembled. My thoughts turned to the Prince, to Lucian. Why had he abandoned me at the Duke's palace? I hoped against hope that he had somehow – I couldn't think how – realised that the beggars and other outcasts had been discovered, that they were in danger. I hoped that he had gone after them, gone to make sure they were safe. Belladonna's words stuck in my mind: she would reserve a special fate for the Prince of Outlaws … No! I thought. He will save his people; he will save himself. She will not destroy them. She will not!

The night marched on. I fell into a light, unrefreshing, open-eyed doze from which I woke suddenly: there was someone in the room with me. No, not someone, I saw, as a ray of moonlight fell onto the newcomer.
Something.

Eyes. Hazel eyes, with a yellow light to them. Bright, pitiless eyes. Glowing at me through the glass, set in the face of a wolf with jet-black fur that was touched with a strange shimmer. Its face bore a scar, just under one eye.

The wolf gazed at me through the glass without blinking. Unable to tear my own gaze away, I stared into its eyes. I knew that hazel glare. I had stared into it before. At the station. The masked policeman. It was he, and he was a wolf – or, rather, he was a werewolf, like Lucian.

Only, unlike Lucian, he was not a friend. This was a dangerous creature, a creature of dark and shadows.
Lucian had said that some of the police were in Belladonna's pay. This was clearly one of Belladonna's creatures. Just as he'd been sent to find me at the station, he'd been sent to watch me here, to make sure that I didn't escape once again.

For a while, the wolf prowled around the room. Trapped as I was, I could not follow his movements. Presently, he came back, and nosed at the glass panel. Terrified, I thought my last hour had come. But, quite suddenly and without my knowing how it happened, the wolf was gone. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. And I was alone again. Only this time, my mind no longer felt frozen. It was skittering like a little animal, trying to make sense of what I'd seen. But I could not.

The night spun on. Daylight came. The morning light sparkled on the rows of glass coffins. Nobody and nothing else came into the room after the wolf except for the cleaners. When they came in, I had to submit to their dusters and polish as if I were an automaton. The smell of the polishes filled my nose but I could not sneeze or cough, and nor could I protest in any way when they used a wire brush to untangle my hair and flicked the dusters over my face. I heard what they said as they dealt with me and the other automata. They found us creepy. But, just like Emilia and Lady Helena, although they found us uncanny, they did not think beyond that. The cleaners could only see giant dolls, cold machines with the pretence of humanity. They found the automata half-fascinating, half-disgusting. I wasn't surprised. I found myself disgusting, too. If I had been able to weep, tears would have fallen in floods.

Time passed. The cleaners left. Other servants came in and out. Preparations were being made for the public exhibition tomorrow. From where I lay I could see the bustle. Tables were being set up, banners were being hung. Again, I fell into thought about Lucian and the outlaws. Would they be safe?

I must have fallen into a doze again for suddenly it seemed that the evening was beginning to draw in; darkness was pressing in at the windows. And then, just as night really fell, but before the moon rose, the lights came on, and in walked three servants who were wheeling in a crate.