Holy Mary, another chapter! I must have been possessed by the plot demon or something. That's the only explanation for how I managed to get another chapter out in less than a day. I think the story is really getting interesting now. As a writer, I know what's going on inside my own head, but I wonder about your reactions to these new twists and turns. Also...the feels!
On that note, please feed the plot demon with reviews! He becomes stronger with each review...or something. :)
Something soft and fragrant met with her face as Lydia's fall was abruptly ended in a pile of earth-smelling softness. She kicked and struggled for several moments to right herself, rolling over and over until her shoulder finally met with solid ground. Groaning faintly, Lydia lifted her head and stared into pitch darkness. She had fallen through the ground, but she could not see the hole she had fallen through. It had closed itself the moment after it sucked her down. A spring-loaded trap door. The magician's secret.
Lydia had no idea how the assassins had timed it so perfectly, but blast it if she was just going to stay wherever they had dropped her. She heard the muted rush of footsteps from somewhere down the long corridor of darkness ahead. Heaving herself upright, she seized her bandages is a trembling fist and tried to focus on the light, the away, the movement through to where Ciel was….
"DON'T!" A voice roared from the darkness with such intensity it nearly knocked her backward. The lights snapped on in a blinding blaze; she felt something sharp wind around her left hand and wrench it away from her right. Losing her balance, Lydia lurched backward into the pile of softness, rolling evasively and grasping for her second line of defense. When she emerged from the fragrant whiteness, she saw a line of people piling into the room, a vibrant mass of voices and colors. In the midst of it all was a familiar face outlined by red hair, and Lydia did not waste a second aiming her pistol directly between his wide eyes.
The red-haired figure froze; several voices yelled, and the room came into focus. Lydia observed the full roster of Noah's Ark circus troupe, last seen disappearing in the center ring, now crowded around the only door and staring down at her. The red-haired ringmaster spread his hands in front of him; he seemed to be signaling the others to let him do the talking. "Now 'old on there, girl, let's not be too 'asty with the trigger. We 'avent brought ye 'ere to 'urt ye."
"That's a bloody likely story!" Lydia voice came back at a croak, and she brandished the pistol as he tried to step closer. "Get away from me, damn you! I mean it!"
"Don't you aim that thing at Joker!" the dark-haired woman burst out, raising her whip and preparing to lash at Lydia's arms again. The brunette twitched and wavered the barrel of the gun between the two of them, suddenly realizing there was no way she had enough bullets to keep them all at bay.
"Beast, stop it!" the redhead hissed, blocking her whip with his skeleton arm. "I said no weapons!"
"She's definitely got a weapon!" The woman gestured angrily at Lydia.
"That's because she still thinks we're gonna kill 'er." The man called Joker bit his lip, glancing behind him at his fellow assassins, some of whom were halfway toward reaching for their own weapons. "Everybody, please, we ain't gonna get nowhere like this. We gotta calm this down so we can talk. Please," he took a step toward Lydia and she aimed the pistol straight at the teardrop tattoo under his eye. "We jus' wanna talk to ye."
A tense silence stretched between them for several moments while Lydia tried to process what was happening. The assassins had managed to trap her in a place where she was vastly outnumbered, but their leader was telling them not to attack. Had their orders changed? Were they now trying to capture her alive rather than kill her immediately? Lydia kept her gaze fixed grimly on the eyes of the redhead. Whatever was going on, she needed to maintain enough distance between them that she would be able to grab her bandaged arm before anyone could grab her. "Stay where you are. Don't come near me. I can hear you perfectly well from over here."
The redhead nodded, forming a thin line with his lips. "Alright, girl, but don't go pullin' that disappearin' act on us jus' yet. Yer gonna wanna hear what we gotta say."
"And what is that?" Lydia growled, wondering if anyone above ground had seen her fall through the trapdoor. It seemed unlikely. "You lot haven't exactly been keen on talking in the past."
Joker seemed unsure how to respond, and Lydia jumped when a voice rang out behind him. "We wanted to apologize for our actions….says Goethe."
"Apologize?" The brunette's eyes riveted to the pale face of the snake charmer. "By tricking me into coming to your circus and then dropping me through a bloody trapdoor?"
"We didn't want the fall to hurt you….says Emily," the pale man replied, rocking back on his heels nervously. "We made sure there would be a soft landing. White camellias, see? We use them for our acrobatic acts….says Dante."
Lydia slid one eye downward and noted that she had indeed landed in a pile of white flowers. However, she refused to be distracted by this. The snake charmer ducked his head, but not before Lydia caught sight of the scaly flesh on his face that seemed more reptilian and human. It must be stage makeup, but it looked so real. "So, um….we wanted to apologize, says Goethe….because- because…."
"Because ye were right," Joker cut in, a heavy expression on his painted face. "About Renbourn Workhouse."
"Ah," Lydia muttered, finally understanding what this was about. "So you went there. You saw."
"I saw," he nodded, grimacing painfully. "An' I realized we 'ad been lied to. Betrayed."
Lydia eyed him dubiously, clenching the fist of her loose left hand. "And because of that, you magically don't want to kill me anymore?"
"I told ye," the redhead said hurriedly, "only reason we wanted yer life to begin with was so we could keep our brothers an' sisters safe. He swore he'd keep 'em safe at Renbourn. But now that we know the truth, he won't even tell us where they are!"
He was nearly shouting at the end of this, and Lydia could see the fear in his eyes reflected in the gazes of those behind him. The room was full of shadowed faces, frightened eyes. Drawing a breath, Lydia suddenly wondered if Ciel had entered the midnight tea party yet. She had to get back to Weston. "I'm sorry for your loss, but as I've said before, I have no idea where they are either. I don't know what you stand to gain by telling me this."
"Easy." The knife-thrower crossed his arms, stepping closer to the dark-haired woman with the whip. "Ye've got a bone to pick with Kelvin. An' so do we. If we all go in together, we've got a better chance of findin' what we need to know."
Lydia's jaw slackened and her fingers tensed as she stared at the troupe in shock. Easy? This was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. There were a million ways this could be a trap, and they ought to know she was smart enough to realize that. Magicians knew everything about tricks. "You must be out of your bloody minds. I'm leaving."
"Wait!" Joker shouted, darting toward her as she seized her bandages in her free hand. A moment later, he was pulled back by Beast as Lydia leveled the revolver at his head. "Don't scare 'er!" the woman hissed harshly. "Who knows but she might blow ye away!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Joker apologized, glancing between her eyes and the barrel of the gun. "I'm so sorry, I really am. It's jus' that we need yer help for this to work. We're not the only killers Kelvin employs. He's got a bevvy of 'em standin' guard 'round his manor, an' there's no way we can corner 'im on our own. Not wi'out most of us dyin' on the way. There's too many, an' in the end…." Joker closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "We're jus' actors. Performers. We can fake magic powers an' sling weapons, but that's not enough to go up against someone like Kelvin. He knows all our moves. But you- you and yer people, I daresay- ye've got real powers."
Lydia felt his eyes on her bandaged arm, and she suddenly wanted to hide it. "My powers are to protect my family," she said testily. "Dragging them into something like this-"
"Now, now, lass, nobody said we were askin' for charity." Joker stretched out his arm behind him, and the ribbon-adorned tightrope walker placed a large envelope in his hand. He held it out to her, and when she did not move to take it, he tossed it across the space between them. She caught it in her free hand. "In there's a map to Kelvin's manor an' a blueprint layout of the place itself. Ye'll need it if yer gonna find him out. Make no mistake, girl, jus' because we've turned away, doesn' mean he's gonna stop sendin' people to kill ye. There's plenty more out there jus' as desperate as we were. The only way to make 'im stop is to see 'im captured. An' fer us, the only way to find our brothers an' sisters is to do the same. So please…." Joker took a tentative step in her direction, halting when she refused to lower the gun barrel. "Can ye stop pointin' that thing at me? I'm not gonna 'urt ye. It's jus' really hard to explain things when I keep wonderin' if yer gonna shoot me in the 'ead."
There was a long moment of silence in the underground room. Lydia could hear feet passing above her, but she no longer had any desire to cry out for help. She had something to say. "You tried to shoot me in the head," she stated, her voice empty of emotion. "You tried to murder me right in front of my little brother."
Joker's face drained of color, and his fingers grasped at empty air. He seemed at a complete loss. Lydia was sure the others were trading stares and murmuring, but she kept all of her attention fixated on the assassin's leader, trying to gauge his soul. He stood numbly before her as if someone had nailed him there. Just when she was wondering how to end this standoff, the tall man moved. He closed his eyes and dropped to his knees so suddenly that it startled her backward. She could not see his face, but the tears were thick in his voice. "Please….please. I've no right to ask it of ye, but please, fer god's sake, I jus' wanna see my sister again. All of us….we miss our families so much."
Lydia glanced up at the faces of the rest of the troupe. Scared. In pain. Grieving. She thought she saw the whisper of a shadow behind them, and a dark knowledge settled over her mind. "How many?"
"What….?" Joker murmured in a fearful tone.
"How many others have you killed before you got to me? How many lying dead in the ground, away from their families forever? You cry over your siblings and what might happen to them, but you didn't spare a tear when you tried to take my brother away from me. There's no way I can ever trust you."
Joker clutched his arms around his torso, a broken sob rasping from his throat. Lydia knew she should leap away. No one was looking at her now, they were all unable to meet her eyes…. She had the map. She should go back to Weston. Who knew what was happening there….
"Fine, then. So be it."
She turned back to Joker, still on his knees, real tears streaming down his face past his dusky tattoo. His eyes looked like something had broken inside, and his skeleton hand twitched faintly. "I….I understand. If you won't help 'cos of me, what I've done, then I've got to go. Shoot me." He flung out a hand to ward off the stifled cries of his troupe, who had begun to rush toward him. "Kill me. I'm no good anyway. I never was." He squeezed his trembling hands together in likeness of prayer. "But after I'm dead, ye lot take the map an' hunt down Kelvin. Find my sister, find all our siblings. Get 'em outta his maniac 'ands. Take 'em somewhere good. Somewhere with open spaces an'….an' fresh air….an' tell her…." Joker shuddered, but when he raised his head his eyes were quiet and his mouth curved in a faint smile. He seemed like he was gazing through her into a different world, somewhere over her shoulder. "Tell Laura 'ow much I love her."
"Don't kill 'im!" Beast screamed, trying to fling herself into the revolver's path. She was barely held back by the knife-thrower, who hauled her backward into a chaotic tangle of limbs and faces. In front of the troupe, Joker closed his eyes. He had said all he wanted to say. For an eternal moment, Lydia's finger brushed against the trigger and she felt the weight of the revolver in her hand, ten times heavier than it had been when her father handed it to her. She wondered how heavy it would become once it had taken a human life. She breathed in, breathed out, gazing down her bandaged arm and thinking of what lay beneath. Then she retracted her fingers and, in one fluid motion, lowered the gun to her side.
"I'm not going to kill you."
Joker blinked dazedly as the snake charmer and the fire eater rushed forward to help him up. "Then….then what will ye do?"
"I need to think about this." Lydia's fingers fumbled as she secured the revolver back in the holster hidden inside her jacket. "And I can't stay here any longer tonight. My brother needs me."
Joker started to reply when the beast tamer rushed forward and threw her arms around him, sobbing deeply into the scarf bundled around his neck. The redhead staggered and patted her hair, mouthing words that never reached his vocal chords. He seemed genuinely startled to still be alive. As Lydia took a step back, intending to leave them in their moment, the snake charmer turned toward her and held out his hand. Around his wrist coiled a small, speckled snake. "Go where you will, and think about what we've offered….says Bronte. We know where to find you when the time comes, says Wordsworth."
"I will," Lydia intoned, reaching across her body to her bandaged arm. There were no more footsteps above her, and she knew the midnight tea party must have already begun. She wished she could collect her thoughts for a moment- a part of her still had no idea what had just happened- but there was no time. "Goodbye, Bronte. Goodbye, Wordsworth." The bandages tore under her hand and she lit up like a flame, feeling the away, moving through it with the voices of a thousand candles.
When she let go she found herself in the dark, standing before the fragrant entrance to Weston College's storied gardens. She shuddered for a moment and shook her head fiercely, beginning to tread along the walkway toward the nearest row of shrubbery. She hoped she would run into Sebastian so the demon could update her on the current state of affairs. She had quite a story to tell him as well, but that would have to wait until the tea party was over and the present case solved. Lydia increased her pace as she tucked the envelope Joker had given her safely into her jacket. Just then, a terrible scream rang out ahead.
Lydia jumped out of her skin and began to run, stumbling through the shrubbery with only moonlight to guide her. The scream was followed by several more, punctuated by the discord of breaking glass and racing feet. Something must have gone very wrong. Assuming there was no more need for stealth, Lydia smashed her way past the first gate and tore through the hedges, shouting her brother's name. Her calls were answered by a sudden yell to her left. "Lydia!" She veered in that direction and came upon a second gate, this one solid and made of wooden planks. Yanking out the latch, she shoved it open and-
A body leapt forward, its fingers tearing at her throat. The first thing she saw was teeth. Then filmy, dead eyes. Then greasy black stitches. She punched the thing instinctively and it flew across the clearing, leaving Lydia room to take in the scene in front of her. It looked like it had been a lovely banquet until a few minutes ago, when everything had gone to hell. Tables and chairs were overturned, and their former occupants raced in every direction, trying to find a way to safety. Several patches of grass were on fire, sparked by fallen candles. The cobblestones were dripping in tea mixed with a thicker, darker substance. Across the garden she saw Greenhill lying facedown in the grass, a huge section of his arm gouged out. Beside him, Edward was fighting off another of those humans-turned-monsters with a short sword. Cheslock was fending off another with a chair, and Clayton and Bluewer were trying to tear their way through a thicket of roses to escape the shambling form of Derrick Arden. She could not see anyone else. She could not see Ciel. From somewhere up above the chaos, she heard a dark voice laughing.
"Cheslock!" she bellowed, racing across the garden and flinging his ghoulish assailant onto the ruined table. "Don't bother with it, you can't knock these things unconscious no matter what you hit them with. You need to take the others and get out of here, the way I came in. That gate right there! Go!" The wild-haired artist gaped at her in astonishment, but asked no questions before rushing off to drag Bluewer and Clayton toward the opening she had indicated. Lydia struggled through the garden to Edward, dodging flames and broken glass. She reached him just as Edward slashed the other ghoul's legs from under him and sent the desiccated body tumbling to the ground. "Edward, it's clear through that gate! Take Greenhill and get out! I'll find Ciel!"
"I saw him run that way!" Edward lashed his arm toward a copse of small trees, glowing eerily in the moonlight. Lydia helped lift an unconscious Greenhill onto his back and then dashed off in the direction he had indicated. "Ciel! Ciel!"
She rounded the corner just in time to see another ruined table, shattered glassware, and her brother snatching a paralyzed Harcourt away from the crunching jaws of a looming ghoul. Lydia caught the boys as they stumbled over a chair, and raced wordlessly beside them toward the open gate. They were nearly waylaid by another ghoul, but Lydia punched it across the garden and Ciel pushed Harcourt underneath her arm. "Go, go! Keep running!"
The boy glanced behind him with tear-filled eyes, taking in both siblings before staggering into the darkness. Panting, Ciel slammed the gate shut and reached into his holster for his revolver. "Don't want these bastards getting out," he wheezed, leaning slightly on her arm. "God damn it all."
"What on earth hap- no, never mind, we'll worry about that later," Lydia breathed, drawing out her own revolver and wavering it between the heads of several ghouls. "All the witnesses out of the gardens?"
"I think so. I told Sebastian he must destroy these things discreetly until we're sure no one can see us. We'll have enough trouble keeping all this in the dark as it is." Ciel hissed and wiped a smear of blood from his cheek. "Her Majesty is not going to be pleased."
"And what of iiiiitt?" A booming voice echoed from above their heads. Lydia whirled around to see a blur of darkness blocking out the moon. The next second, a towering body impacted the ruined table in front of them, causing it to sway wildly. Through the smoke of burning trees, Lydia could see a formal suit and shining leather shoes.
Ciel gnashed his teeth and took aim with his revolver. "Lydia, stay back. You don't know what's been going on since-"
"Honestly, my loooord. Her Majesty this and Her Majesty that! Such a boring thing to fixate on. You know how much I hate that woman." The leather shoe's heel slammed into the teapot, crushing it to splinters with the word hate. Lydia gasped. She thought she knew that voice, that playful, lilting tone. The figure stepped forward, shattering more teacups, and Lydia stared as long, gray hair untangled itself from the smoke and revealed a pale face, a violent scar.
"Undertaker?"
The man smiled, a grin of pure delight and utter disregard for the chaos all around them. "So glad you could make it, my dear. I was beginning to wonder if you'd found something better to do. Very discourteous to keep your host waiting, you knooooow. But you're here now!" He clapped his hands and the fire around them seemed to flare brighter, lighting up his piercing, bright green eyes. "And I know I'm going to get an unforgettable laugh out of this night."
