Masque of the Red Death (9 page)

I need to feel the solid marble floor under my feet. Elliott takes his time, smiling. I remind myself that his hand was clammy. He worries about dying, too.

Elliott has a small steam carriage, faster and less elaborate than April’s. The seats are close together, and I’m aware of him beside me, that my bare knee is touching his leg, but as we navigate the streets, I forget him and stare out at the rubble. The city blurs in the light rain, and gray buildings merge with the hulks of blackened ones. This was far worse than the single acts of vandalism that happen occasionally. This was organized mayhem. To our left are the remains of a beautiful cathedral, the roof gone, walls blackened.

“What else did they burn?”

“They focused on churches.”

I’m surprised, as we drive past the blackened structures, just how many churches there are in our city. Blending in between taller buildings or standing tall at the corners. You see one on nearly every block in the upper city.

Churches make me think of bats, and bats, of April.

“Have you heard anything? Is she with your uncle?”

He knows I mean April. “It’s my uncle’s style to take her, to prove that he can. If someone else, like these rebels who are burning and bombing, had taken her, we would know. They would ask for something, ransom.”

“I’m worried,” I say softly.

We drive past the rubble of what used to be an apartment building, and I wonder if any people were inside when it blew up. It must have been vacant. I don’t want to consider the alternative.

“When we get to the club, I need you to fetch something for me.” He glances over at me, and he looks very serious. “It’s too risky to do myself.”

My heart speeds up a little as he explains. He wants me to get a specific book with a green cover from the upper floor of the club, then bring it to him. There are whispers about the men who inhabit that floor. I’ve heard odd noises from up there, a scream once, though April says she didn’t hear anything. I agree to everything he asks. I won’t show him any weakness now.

“Be sure to hide the book,” he says. “Don’t let anyone see it. And if anyone speaks to you, pretend to be lost.”

If they speak to me, I’m not sure I’ll have the wits to pretend anything.

We are driving in the shadow of a tall building when the carriage hits something. Elliott swerves, working the controls furiously. I fall into him, and he puts his arm around me, shielding me from impact, and then his face hits the side of the carriage, hard.

I catch my breath, afraid that he has broken his mask.

I look over my shoulder. “Did we run over someone?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “It was too flat. I mean, I don’t think it was a person.” His voice is shaky. “We shouldn’t stop.”

“We should see what we hit,” I say. “We should make sure it’s not a person and we’ll go,” I say.

“Fine.”

The thing in the street could be a shadow, except that we both felt the impact as we rolled over it. Elliott pulls the steam carriage closer, takes a sword from behind his seat, and leans out of the carriage to prod the dark mass.

I suppress a scream as he lifts a sleeve with the blade.

“An empty cloak,” he says flatly. Something falls from the fabric and clatters to the street. He climbs down and hands me two objects. The first is a crucifix. When he hands it to me, I marvel at how heavy it is. The second item is a reptilian skull. As I reach for it, a tooth grazes my finger.

A thin line of blood appears on my hand.

“Crocodile teeth in a crocodile jaw.” He climbs back into the carriage. “The cross is valuable. I wonder if whoever lost it will be coming for it.”

I hold up the skull, staring into the deeply set eye sockets.

“What good is a message if we can’t interpret it?” he mutters.

“Maybe it isn’t a message. Does it have to have a sinister meaning?”

“It doesn’t have to,” Elliott says. “But I think it does.”

He grabs at his mask, trying to readjust it.

“I hate these things.”

“April told me that you refused to wear a mask.” She called him a revolutionary poet. So far I’ve only seen the revolutionary part.

“I hate the control they give my uncle. I protested by not wearing one for over a year. But what we’re doing now is too important for that type of risk.”

He starts the carriage again, and we continue on.

“Risking contagion is a stupid way to live,” I say. I don’t like the masks. Nobody likes the masks. But we need them. They work.

“It was what I chose.” He stares out over the city. “You do believe that people deserve to make their own choices?”

We’ve passed into the lower city, and the landscape is grim. Windows are protected with planks from the outsides and quilts from the inside. The quilts, visible through the boarded windows, remind me that in just moments I’m going to see Will.

My heart beats a little bit faster.

“Of course I believe in making choices.”

“Good.”

Elliott parks, and we step out of the carriage and into the alley. He opens the door and ushers me into the club. As soon as the door swings shut behind him, he rips the mask from his face and gasps for air. I’m certain that his near panic is genuine.

I put my hand up to his face. “You will get used to it. Everyone does.” His cheek is warm. I would pull my hand back, shocked that I’m standing here touching him, but he looks so vulnerable.

“I don’t think I will, but it’s nice that you care.” His voice is overly warm, but not smooth like the one from the doorway behind us.

“If this can wait until you’re inside the club, I need to conduct your examinations.”

And now I feel guilty for standing so close to Elliott, with my hand still touching his face.

There are so many things I want to say to Will, questions to ask. Were the bombings close to his home? Were the children afraid? Are they healthy? No coughing? No rashes? Did they get the food I sent? But being near him makes me tongue-tied and awkward. I can’t tell him that I was going to get a mask for his brother, because the gesture is meaninglessness now, and my intentions will remain useless until Elliott and I succeed with our plan.

I’m shocked when Elliott follows me into the examination room. I want a few seconds alone with Will, but Elliott dominates the room with his arrogance, and Will barely looks at me as he gestures for me to roll up my sleeve.

“Who moved my sister’s steam carriage?” Elliott asks.

“You’d have to ask one of the doormen. They take care of vehicular matters.” Will’s fingers are cool against my forearm. He might not be looking at me, but his fingers linger on my arm.

“Find out.”

Will gestures for me to breathe into the clockwork mechanism, his hand on my shoulder. The dial on the clockwork device twists and turns.

“Is she clean?” Elliott asks.

“Of course she is.”

Elliott’s eyebrows go up.

They stand looking at each other. I’m supposed to go in now. To hurry to the top floor alone. For Elliott. But Will is gripping my arm.

“I’ll need my private rooms unlocked,” Elliott says. “I seem to have misplaced the key.”

I try to catch Will’s eyes, but he won’t look away from Elliott. I pull my arm out of his grip. He steps closer to Elliott, presumably to test him, as I slip out of the examination room. I imagine I hear a faint clicking sound as I pass through the dangling beads. I miss April laughing on the other side. The Debauchery Club feels different tonight.

Instead of wandering through downstairs rooms, I go directly to the stairway and climb away from the crowded areas, through the libraries where men whisper secret things to giggling girls.

After seven or eight steps down a long corridor, I stumble over an uneven place in the floor and have to take two steps down. The hallway looks the same, same carpet, same dark paneling, but I’m pretty sure I’ve entered a different building that has been connected to the original. Following Elliott’s directions, I find a doorway. Inside are the same heavy, ornate furnishings that are found throughout the club.

On the far wall, there is a tapestry. Bright red birds nest in a tree with withered purple leaves. Behind the tapestry I find a door, and behind the door is an exceedingly dim stairway. I want to go back to the lower floors, where there is laughter and drinking. The darkness here feels oppressive and stale.

I square my shoulders and tiptoe up the stairs, entering a silent hallway lined with doors. Some are open. Inside the rooms I see older club members playing cards. In one, a man looks directly at me. He has the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.

Elliott says that the plague claimed their families and fortunes. They know everything that goes on in the club and are fanatically loyal to the prince, who has given them this refuge.

“They are supposed to stay on their own floor,” Elliott told me. “My uncle knows that they could be bad for business, but he also knows the value of ruthless men who live in a state of desperation.”

“Who were they, before?” I asked.

“People who did his dirty work. Criminals, assassins. It’s unfortunate that the book I want is in their domain. They cannot find out that I have taken it.”

Finally I come to a corridor lined with bookshelves, exactly as Elliott described it. I’m supposed to find a book with a green spine, a book filled with maps of the city, but searching for a single book while maintaining the illusion of glancing casually at these volumes makes my head throb.

I am so nervous that I almost don’t see it. An open eye stares at me from the spine. In the dim light the gold fades into the green leather. I grab it, and another volume to place over it, and turn, my heart racing.

Before I can take two steps down the hallway, a man steps out of a shadowy doorway and into my path.

“Are you lost?” It’s the man with the cold eyes.

“I’m meeting someone,” I say, to indicate that I’m not alone.

“In my day, young ladies wouldn’t have dreamed of reading such books.” He is looking at the oversized volume that hides the one I’m clutching to my chest.

A figure is embossed on the cover. I stare at it and realize that there are actually two figures. My cheeks burn. The old man’s chuckle turns to a wet cough.

“I’ve seen you before,” he says. “We’ve seen you.” His eyes flicker back to his friends. “Your hair is such a lovely violet.”

Bony fingers caress my hair. I struggle to breathe.

“I have to meet a friend,” I repeat, and step away, careful to keep the green book hidden.

“You should have brought your friend with you.”

He’s looking at my legs now, exposed to show that I’m not sick. I turn quickly. “Thank you for your help,” I say over my shoulder, prepared to run if he gets any closer. The other men stand, dropping their cards, pushing back chairs.

My feet feel too heavy, like I can barely lift them from the floor.

“If you ever need help finding your way, you need only ask.” Something in his voice makes the others stop.

“I will,” I say. “I will.” And now I’m hurrying down the hall.

“We’re always happy to help,” he calls after me.

At the bottom of the stairs I sink to the floor, leaning against the tapestry. I’m shaking so hard that I’m not sure that I’ll be able to stand back up. I might have to sit here on this disgusting dirty rug forever. Elliott should have been waiting for me. And Will… I want Will.

But there is no one here, and I can’t stay. Someone could come into this room at any moment, and both books are just lying beside me. I pick up Elliott’s precious book and the other one, and stand. The birds in the tapestry watch me with beady eyes.

CHAPTER

NINE

I
THROW OPEN THE DOOR TO
E
LLIOTT’S PRIVATE
rooms, step inside, slam it behind me, and then stand, leaning against it, and panting slightly.

“Too many stairs?” he asks lightly, giving me a moment to compose myself. As my breathing evens, I realize where I am. As far as I know, even April has never gone into one of these private rooms. We joked that this was where the debauchery actually happened.

What would my mother say if she knew I was in Elliott’s bedroom?

But the room we’re in is a study rather than a bedchamber. In the center is a wide table, thick and angular, functional rather than decorative. An open doorway leads to his bedroom.

He puts out his hand. I give him the book.

“Good girl.”

I sit and take a deep breath. The air here is just like the rest of the club, scented with sweat and a hint of subversion.

“You told me it was dangerous,” I say. “But there was a man who said that he’d seen me before.” I want him to understand how scared I was.

“One of them spoke to you?” He looks up from the book.

“Yes. He touched me.” I put my hand to my hair. It feels oily.

“They would notice you,” Elliott says.

Across the room I see our reflection in a gilded mirror.

“Do they … watch us?”

“Oh, yes. My uncle is an astute businessman. If bored young women will pay exorbitant dues to play at being debased, there are those who will pay for a glimpse of that.”

I feel ill.

“I thought you said that they had no money.”

“There are different kinds of currency. Surely you know that.” He shakes his head and smiles to himself, amused at my naïveté. But I saw the way he glanced into his bedroom when he spoke of currency. I wonder if he has companions here. The rooms are quite elegant. I can see heavy silk curtains in the bedroom, and the color, a deep blue, is mirrored in the walls of the study. I have the impression of pillows and rumpled bedding. I look away.

Bookshelves line one wall of the study, but the books look unread. Formal leather classics. Perhaps those are the sorts of books he likes. A sideboard carved with lions is pushed against the wall perpendicular to the bookshelves.

“Interesting choice.” Elliott indicates the larger book that I used to hide the first one, and now I’m blushing again.

He pauses, waiting for me to speak, and when I don’t say anything he focuses his attention on the green book. In the stillness, the sound of ripping paper is unexpected and loud. Elliott folds the pages and puts them in an inside pocket of his vest.