Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

Mrs. Trapping remained silent.

“I am sorry,” continued Elöise. “I know how… how… how—”

“Who shot him?”

Elöise's face fell. The woman had not heard a word.

“Charlotte—”

“Who shot my brother Francis?”

“It was Doctor Svenson,” said Elöise, heavily.

Mrs. Trapping stood up and emptied the whole of her tea mug into Elöise's face.

TAKING THIS as the best opportunity he might find, Cardinal Chang took the sill with both hands and vaulted through the window, shooting past the oilcloth to land in a crouch. Charlotte Trapping wheeled to face him, quite obviously wishing she had not just emptied her cup on such a lesser target. Vandaariff stood as well, but this was in mere imitation of the woman, for the man did nothing other than stare as Chang rose, the razor slipped from his pocket.

“It is Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise quickly, her face wet, taking a warning step toward Mrs. Trapping.

“Is he your lover as well?”

“Charlotte, come away from the window.”

Elöise gently reached both hands for Mrs. Trapping's arm, but at her touch the woman sharply shrugged herself free.

“So you are the one who killed that odious Comte,” Charlotte Trapping cried to Chang, her eyes bright and glittering. “I daresay it has saved me the effort, and yet the timing has proven most unfortunate. Ought I to be frightened by your fearsome appearance? I am not . What do you intend with that implement?” She nodded at the razor.

Chang looked at his hand as if he had not known what it held. “This? I suppose I hold it out of instinct—like an animal. Or because I do not choose to share the fate of Doctor Svenson.” Chang kicked Mrs. Trapping's chair across the room with enough force to make both women flinch. “You will sit down until I tell you otherwise.”

The women did so, Elöise moving hastily to right the chair and brush off the seat. Chang watched with disgust, wondering what could possibly drive her to abandon the Doctor, who had saved her life, in favor of an employer . He turned to Vandaariff, still standing with an expression of blank concern.

“Sit down, Lord Robert.”

Vandaariff did. Chang plucked the tea mug from the man's grasp and drank it down, then handed the mug back with a nod of thanks.

“I think you are an animal—” began Charlotte Trapping.

“Be quiet,” growled Chang, and turned to Elöise. “Where is Miss Temple?”

“How on earth are you here?”

“Dry your face and answer my question.”

“Elöise, do not tell this man one thing.”

Chang shot out his hand and slashed Mrs. Trapping's jacket— trusting the razor would not cut through the whalebone in her corset— clean across her torso, causing the blue fabric to hang, the gash made before the woman could even squeak.

“Do not speak again until I am asking questions of you . I promise, we will talk, for I have spoken to your brother. Elöise?”

Elöise looked into Chang's black lenses for the first time since his entry, her gaze grim and beaten.

“I left Miss Temple at the town of Karthe. We became separated. We had quarreled. The Contessa was there, and Francis Xonck. If you have truly seen him—”

“I have seen him.”

“I believe he took me for the Contessa. He attacked me, with a sliver of glass.”

“Elöise,” muttered Charlotte Trapping, “really.”

But Elöise had already pried free the third button down between her breasts, and pulled the fabric open with her hands. Chang saw the bandage, and its coin-sized stain of blood.

“The Doctor found me—”

“What was Svenson doing in Karthe?”

“I have no idea. He left the fishing village not long after you yourself… we had quarreled—”

“Elöise quarrels with everyone,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“When I woke I was on the train. The Doctor removed the glass. He saved my life.”

“Again,” said Chang.

“Again,” echoed Elöise, miserably.

“I found him rather weedy,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

“Charlotte, please !” cried Elöise, her voice a whisper.

“Francis Xonck was also on that train,” said Chang.

Mrs. Trapping looked up.

“And the Contessa,” sighed Elöise, “hiding in a freight car. When the train stopped at Parchfeldt, she fled and the Doctor and I went to find her. The last we saw, Francis was bent double on the trackside, sick as a sailor. The Contessa escaped into the park. Abelard insisted that we follow.”

“And what of you? Did you want to follow?”

“I believe I more wanted to die,” sighed Elöise, and she covered her face with both hands.

CHANG LOOKED down at the unhappy Elöise, whose dismay only inflamed his desire to cuff her face. Instead, he stepped to the bound bundle. He flicked the razor at the blanket and then ripped enough of an opening to see the vivid colors of the painted canvas beneath it. Charlotte Trapping had gone to Harschmort, burned the laboratory, taken the paintings, and captured Robert Vandaariff all by herself. He had taken her for a society ninny. He glanced up and met her fierce, determined gaze—the green eyes unpleasantly like her brother's— and recalled Xonck's story, that the second child had inherited the intelligence of their powerful father. From the conversation he had just overheard he knew she was whimsical, cruel, and insufferably proud—that she was here at all proved her bravery and determination … and that she was a Xonck meant she was also probably insane.

But he was not finished with Elöise Dujong.

“Where is the Doctor now?” he demanded, harshly.

“We left him at my uncle's cottage.”

“Struck on the head,” added Mrs. Trapping.

“He will be safe,” said Elöise quickly. “The cottage is warm and there is food and firewood and a bed—Lord knows he deserves an excuse to let all of this go, to let me go.”

“I'm certain he feels the same way,” said Chang.

“He is alive,” said Charlotte Trapping haughtily. “He need not be.”

“And how long will he stay there, do you think?” Chang ignored her, directing his words to Elöise. “And where will he go? The Prince is dead. The Doctor has been declared an outlaw by his own government—and our Ministries, presently in the hands of his enemies, are more than happy to capture or execute him. I do not imagine he has any money. A destitute foreigner hunted by the law? Your Abelard will be lucky not to be hanged on the spot by the first country sheriff to run him down!”

Elöise began to sob before he finished.

“You're an ugly fellow, aren't you?” observed Mrs. Trapping.

Chang took hold of Elöise's jaw, tugging her face up so their eyes met. “I've been to your room—I know . Were you Xonck's spy from the beginning? Or was it the Contessa?”

“Cardinal—”

“Of course, none of this was worth mentioning! When people were dying! When people were saving your life!”

He released his grip with a push.

“Caroline Stearne summoned you both to a private room in the St. Royale,” Chang went on. “Doing the Contessa's bidding—was it only blackmail, or something else? What did she demand in exchange? Who else did you betray?”

Tears streamed down Elöise's cheeks. He turned away from her to Mrs. Trapping.

“Why don't you tell me—there are no holes in your memory, are there?”

“I am completely capable of telling you about Caroline Stearne,” said Charlotte Trapping. “But I want you to tell me why I should.”

Ironically, Chang realized her blithe dismissal of his anger actually meant that, for the first time, she truly understood how dangerous he was. Was this her Xonck tenacity rising to—and there was the pity, perhaps only to—a mortal challenge?