Noir (8 page)

C.L.’s mouth forms a confused-looking O. His eyes travel past me to the heap of the ringmaster on the ground. “I take it we’ve done so?” He blinks.

“I’m afraid we’ve done a little bit more than just
so
.”

“Played it my way, did we?” C.L.’s O becomes a full-bodied grin. “And you were opposed to tying ’im up.”

“Let me see that gash on your head.” I pull him around, tenderly parting his hair. The bleeding’s finally slowed, though the wound is much deeper than I first imagined. “You could do with some stitches, I’m afraid.”

“Good thing we’ve a doctor in the house.” Martin steps up. “Out of the way.” He nudges me. “I won’t be a minute. C.L., bite on this.” He hands C.L. a towel. Martin sits and threads a needle, his eyes travelling to the freakmaster on the ground. “Then we’ll have to figure out what to do with him.”

Te
n

Urlick

The door at the top of the staircase crashes open and my heart crashes with it. I hold my breath, waiting for whoever it is to hit the stairs.

Feet.
Bare ones. I think.

I scooch to the front of my cell, expecting the boy, though I’m unsure at this point, if it’s him or not. My heart pumps in my ears at the thought of it being a guard, here to collect me for my scheduled demise.

I swallow and close my eyes, awaiting confirmation.

Whoever it is grunts, slinging back the massive slab door between the stairs and my cell, and I suck in a tight breath. Bare feet slap the stones, racing the final small distance between the door and my cell, and relief pours over me.
The boy, it’s the boy.
My eyes spring open, my heartbeat slows.

He slides to his knees in front of me, gasping and breathless. “This come for yuh,” he blurts, sticking his hand between the bars as if he hasn’t the luxury of time he had before. “I figured it might be important.” He drops a glinting object from his palm inside my cell. It drops to the floor a few centimetres from me. A metallic ticking sound activates, and it scurries toward me, limping through the darkness.

“I’m afraid yer old cellmate ripped off one of its legs before I could get to it, but it still seems to be operating all right.”

The thing latches on to my trousers and crawls up my leg to my chest, coming to rest on my shoulder, tapping my cheek with a tiny claw. “The Insectatron.” The creature coos. “
My Ladybird.
How did you get this? Where did you find it?”

“Your old cellmate ’ad it, sir. Claimed it just flew in through the bars, outta nowhere, yesterday. I ’eard ’im makin’ up the story for the guards, as they was trying to take it from ’im. ’E was fightin’ ’em off whilst trying to tear it apart, shoutin’ somethin’ ’bout it ’idin’ a secret message inside its bum. ’E was shoutin’ that ’e saw you readin’ one from it the last time it come. The guards and ’im, they got into a tussle over it, and that’s when I nabbed it from ’im and ’id it in me pocket until I’s could manage to deliver it to yuh.”

“My pocket watch.” I breathe, staring past the boy’s shadow. “It was in my coat. He must have it. The Ladybird is attracted to its magnets.”

“I beg yer pardon, sir?” The boy swallows hard.

“Nothing.” I turn toward his voice “Here, take it back.” I shrug the bug from my shoulder. The bug topples to the floor.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me.” I nudge the bug toward the bars with my kneecap. “I need you to tear the bug apart.”

“Yuh wha—?”

“The bug. I want you to pull the pin from its rear.”

The boy hesitates.

“Go on,” I say. “Reach in and grab it. It won’t bite.” The boy extends his arm, grabbing the Ladybird up in his fingers, and pulls it back through the bars tentatively. The bug coos as he flips it over in his hand.

“Now grab hold of the pin at its end and yank it out,” I tell him. “Can you feel it? Between its last hind legs, below its wings.”

I hear the boy feeling around, small fingers grazing metal. Then, with determination, he locks on to the pin and grunts as he pulls it out. The gentle twang that follows tells me he’s successfully released the inner spring pin. I smile, feeling a ray of relief spread over me. “Now, feel around inside, underneath the wings. They should be open. You’ll find a little round cylinder there. Can you feel it?”

“Yeah.”

“Remove it, carefully, by lifting up. But don’t pull hard,” I caution the boy. I hear a soft tug and the cylinder snaps free of its enclosure. My heart beats a little louder. “The cylinder is wrapped in a thin sheet of tin. Unwrap it slowly,” I say.

A brush of tin follows, then metal unfurling. “Now quickly. Tell me what it says.”

“Beggin’ pardon, sir?” The boy’s voice lilts up.

“The message on the tin sheet, it should be glowing, what does it say?” I lacquered the tin sheets with phosphorescent paint just in case I was ever to receive a message after second twilight, or deep in the woods . . . or in such a precarious situation. I silently congratulate myself for being such a forward thinker, and for making sure it worked before our last journey. It is working, isn’t it?

“Tip it forward so I can see, quickly!”

The boy stretches out his arms. The tips of his fingers illuminate briefly. Next to them the message glows very faint, but still it glows.

HOLD TIGHT. PLAN IN PLACE. C.L. AND I LEAVING ABOARD CLEMENTINE IN MORNING. BE THERE BY NOON TOMORROW. UNTIL THEN. LOVE FOREVER. EYELET

The message fades.

“Clementine?” My heart jerks tight in my chest. “They’ll never make it through the woods on that old horse.”

“Beg pardon agin, sir?”

“Nothing.” I gasp at breath. “Has there been any other word? About my situation, I mean?”

“I’m sorry, sir. No change, I’m afraid. Is someone really tryin’ to come and spring yuh loose before it ’appens?”

“Appears so, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, my.” The boy falls back on his haunches. “An honest-to-goodness prison break!”

“You must tell no one about this, do you promise?”

“I swear. Cross me ’eart.”

A clatter of keys rings out near the door at the top of the stairs, and the boy sucks in a sharp breath. He bolts to his feet. “I’d better be goin’, before they comes looking for me,” he whispers, starting for the door, then slowing. He swings back. “If I agree to ’elp yuh escape, is there a chance yuh’d take me with yuh?”

In my mind I try to work out how that would be possible. I don’t want to leave the boy, but I don’t want him to get hurt. “No,” I say, then quickly add, “but I can try to come back for you, I promise—”

“Please, sir, I’ll do anything.” His voice shakes.

In my heart I feel the tug of his pleading tone. I can’t leave him. “All right,” I say. “We’ll find a way, but for now, get going before you get yourself caught.”

“Right, sir!” The boy starts off again.

“Oh, and Sebastian?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep an eye on my old cell, will you? If anything out of the ordinary happens, or someone shows up, find a way to get them to me.”

“I will, sir. Don’t yuh worry.”

“Boy!”
a voice booms down the staircase.

“Comin’!” Sebastian shouts, bare feet grinding over the sandy stones as he squeezes through the crack in the heavy separation door and punts up the circular metal stairs.

In the clip of light that follows, I bring a hand to my eyes, blinded temporarily, then catch a short glimpse of my new partner—a waif of a thing, eight, maybe ten, dark hair, ringlets flying as he twists up the steps. He’s dirty as a corpse and wears clothes two sizes too big. My pocket-watch chain dangles below his shirttail.

Why, that little thief . . .

The door thumps shut at the top of the stairs. I fall back against the damp, unforgiving stone wall of my cell, grimacing at pain that shoots up between my shoulders in my awkward position, my wrists still in chains behind my back. I close my eyes and think again of Eyelet astride Clementine on her way through the criminal-infested forest. How will she ever get past the checkpoint to Brethren without being arrested, let alone survive the Infirmed in between?

By the grace of God, if she does somehow manage to make it here . . .

I hope I’m not already dead.

El
even

Eyelet

“Are you sure about this?” I say and twist my hands, pushing the layer of fog along in front of me. Perspiration beads my brow. I’ve never known C.L. to be unreasonable, not even flighty, but this idea sounds preposterous—no,
insane
.

“There’s no other way, mum.” He strips the freakmaster of clothes. I let out a small peep and turn my eyes away. I don’t want to catch sight of any of his still-stiff nasty bits. It’s bad enough they touched my leg.

“Couldn’t we just string him up in the woods”—I pace—“and let the criminals have him?”

“We could, but if ’e was ever found, we’d be facin’ prison terms for murder.” C.L. crosses his brows.

“But we didn’t kill him,
technically.
Clementine did.”

“Do yuh honestly think there’s a court in the land that’ll believe tha’ one?” I hide my eyes as C.L. yanks the laces of the freakmaster’s corset loose and relieves him of it. “Last time I checked, they wouldn’t take the word of a ’orse.”

I rub down the guilty goose bumps that have formed on my arms. C.L.’s right. Clementine certainly can’t speak the truth, and no one’s going to take the word of a wanted girl and her armless freak-show sidekick. No matter how many other freakish witnesses there are. I turn to the rest of them. We’re in too deep now. I bite my nail. Precisely the reason I didn’t want him killed. Precisely the reason I don’t want to go on with this. “You’re sure this’ll work?” I say, turning back to C.L.

“Not to worry, miss.” Martin steps in, holding out a blanket like a drape, shielding me from the body. “We’ve done this loads of times.”

“
Loads
of times!” I gasp.

“Well—not
us
in particular.” Martin corrects himself. “The freakmaster did.”

“The freakmaster dissolved people?” I say, pawing at the air for something to steady myself. C.L. has explained the logistics, but I’m still not able to wrap my head around what’s happening.

“Only those who didn’t pay their debts.” Martin smiles. “Besides, I think it only befitting he goes out the same way as the man who taught him the trick.”

“What?”

“He learned the trick from a passing magician. The only magician in the land who could really make his audience disappear, if you know what I mean.” Martin grins.

“Out of the waaaay!” Sadar totters through the rolling fog toward us, two buckets of smoking, sloshing liquid in his hands. I rush to his rescue, plucking the buckets out of his grip, one on each side, and steady them before I move another pace. Their pungent, chloric odour bites at my nostrils and sears my lungs. I can’t believe we’re doing this, any of this. I slump slowly forward, gingerly plodding over the brittle grass, acid gurgling. What has happened to my life?

I place the buckets down at the head of the body and turn my eyes away. “Is this going to be enough?” I rub the sting from my hands. “Or will we need more?”

“Oh, it takes very little, miss,” Sadar says.

“And you’re sure it’s going to work?” I look to C.L.

“Sure as I know me name is Ernest.”

“There’ll be no trace left of him?” I wipe the wet from my brow. “None whatsoever?”

“No, mum. We just give ’im a good douse with this drink from ’ead to toe and ’e’ll be gone—bones and all.” C.L. spouts a satisfied grin.

“
Wonderful
, that makes me feel
so much
better.” I feel bile churn in my throat. I swallow it down, buck up, and pace. After all, what other choice is there? “Let’s just do this and get it over with, shall we?” I fan my face.

“You all right, miss?” Reeke asks me gently.

“No, not really.” I bat a swirl of dark forest fog away from me.

C.L. strips the corpse of its boots and tosses them aside with a thump, and I jump. I clutch my heart. Good God, I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.

But I suppose, he’s already dead.

C.L. loosens the stitching and rids him of his pants, then finally his drawers. Holding them up, he inspects them carefully. “Me own pair’s got a ’ole in ’em,” he says with a smile.

“Of course.” I gulp and turn my back to him. A proper woman would never know about the state of a gentleman’s drawers. Then again, a proper woman would not be about to douse a corpse in flesh-eating chemicals, now, would she. I shut my eyes and count to ten, calming my breath. “Can we just get this done?” I exhale and thread my fingers together.

Teeth chatter in the trees.

I twist around and stare into the mist over my shoulder. Fingertips of branches poke through the grey trolling cotton. The noise comes again and I twist left and right. “We need to hurry,” I say. “Or we’ll all end up in a worse situation than he.”

Something lets out a whoop, and my head spins in that direction. Red beams of light burn out through a rip in the fog, camouflaged inside the base of a log, then extinguish as fast as they lit.

“I’ve never heard them do that before.” I turn back, staring at C.L. “I’ve heard them chatter and scream, but never whoop like that.”

“Maybe it’s not a criminal.” His eyes get wide.

I stare again into the rolling grey landscape sprinkled with skeleton trees. “Maybe it’s the Brigsmen. Signalling to each other.”

The whoop goes off again.

“Hurry,” I say. “The rest of you, back to the train with me.” I scoot them along. “C.L., will you be all right to finish this job on your own?” I turn back to him.

“It’ll be me pleasure, mum.” He smiles big, taking the bucket up in his feet.

“All right, then”—I haul up my skirts and scan the steamy forest in front of us—“quickly, the rest of you. Follow me.”

“Here, take these.” Martin flings the freakmaster’s clothes in my direction. I look down at them, bewildered. I don’t want to touch them.

“At some point you’ll need to put them on,” he says to me.

“What?”

“’E’s right,” C.L. says. “We’ll need a ringmaster to get through the checkpoint, for obvious reasons—”

“I understand that—but me?”

“Well, you don’t expect
me
to pass as the master of this caravan, do you?” He holds up his stubs, as if he’s thrown out his missing arms. “And certainly, none of the rest of us will do.”

I look around at the motley crew of broken people who stand before me. He’s right, I’m the only intact logical choice. I bring a hand to my mouth to cover the gasp that escapes me. Another whoop sounds at my back. The thought of putting on the freakmaster’s clothing makes me want to retch. Weakly, I reach down to collect the clothes. They stink of booze and sweat and other unthinkable body odours. “Right,” I gulp breathlessly.

A series of whoops slithers past us.

“We’d better get going. But what about you?” I say to C.L. over my shoulder.

“Don’t worry ’bout me, I’ll catch up.”

“Clementine! What about Clementine!” I spin around.

“I’ve already de-armoured her and tied her to the train, miss,” Reeke says. “The circus horses are ready, too.”

Another hoot rises from the forest, and C.L.’s head jerks up. “Just get into those clothes and take the mount quickly. Get going, all of yuhs, please!”

I turn and race for the freak train, Wanda waving us on. Martin takes the reins temporarily and I dash into the caboose to change my clothing, holding my breath before ducking in. Wanda joins me, screening me with a blanket as I shuck off my corset and skirts, retching as I don the freakmaster’s clothes, the crevices of the fabric still moist to the touch. A whip cracks and the train lurches forward, couplings clattering, and I wonder how I’ll get to the front.

I roll my hair into a bun and plop the top hat on my head to hide it. “How do I look?” I turn to Wanda. She drops the blanket, nods.

“Thanks,” I say.
“Whooooaaahhh!”
She wrenches me up onto her shoulders, unexpectedly hurtling me through the hole in the rooftop. The wind up there is violent. I clap a hand on my head to hold on to my hat. “What are we doing?” I shout to her. Wanda pops up beside me and points a big, hairy arm in the direction of the front car, revealing a walkway that travels the length of the rooftops, a sort of rope-and-swing bridge without the swing.

“Seriously?” I say to her, wind whipping in my ears. “You want me to walk that?”

She nods her head and points again.

“All right, all right.” I stand, wobbling against the juggle of the cars, and cautiously creep down the narrow rooftop toward the front, placing my feet one in front of the other. More than once I grab for the railing, more than once disappointed by its fragility. “Good Lord in Heaven, have mercy.” I clutch my heart, boots slipping on the metal rooftop, the horses now bolting at top speed.

Behind us, a splash.

Then the sizzle of acid eating flesh.

The sound worms through my ears, into my brain, over the howl of the wind, snapping my shoulder blades back.