by Lani Lenore
“Get them,” he said with a new calm. “Bring the woman back. Rip the other apart.”
Without hesitation, every minion in the hall came up from the floor and obeyed.
12
The strangely attractive doll pulled Anne along, and while she didn’t know its intentions in rescuing her, she followed it by her own will, only because they were headed away from her other fate. This doll… Something about it was so familiar, though she was certain she’d never seen it before.
The toy with black hair led her out of the empty rat pit and down through tunnels with authority, knowing where it was taking her. In that, at least, Anne felt a bit of relief. But perhaps the toy had only wanted to steal her away from the Rat King to have her for himself. She supposed that it was a chance worth taking. As of yet, this wasn’t a sure death.
Still, there was something about this misfit.
Anne’s eyes passed down to the razorblade the toy held in its hand. That, she recognized. It was from her dream. In that ghastly vision, this doll had been the one to emerge behind Clara, and as Anne had been distracted, it raised this same blade, aiming to chop off Armand’s head. Seeing this doll here, and knowing she had only ever seen it within her head, told her that her dream was not just a dream. There was more to it than that. It was a product of the curse.
She was hardly watching where they were running, much too busy in her mind, until abruptly, the doll stopped. With a firm jerk, it pulled her close to its face, looking at her with intense red eyes that were level with her own.
“Don’t think I’m helping you,” the doll said in a quiet voice. Anne couldn’t tell if the voice was masculine or feminine. “I’m only helping me. Honestly, I don’t care what happens to you as long as the rat doesn’t have you. If you want to live, I suggest you take care. You’re on your own now.”
The toy released her, stepping past her and moving back the way they had come. In the distance through the tunnels, a great deal of shuffling could be heard. There were voices and squeaks. Anne watched with wide eyes as shadows began to emerge on the walls of the shafts far off, large and distorted.
Red eyes turned back to her, hardly concerned that she was still standing there.
“You’d better get gone,” the doll hissed, though wearing a leering grin.
Anne didn’t need any more encouragement. She turned and ran up a wooden ramp, running off into the unknown of the rodent’s lair.
13
“This way! …No wait…”
The jester puppet threw his hands to his partially broken face, clenching his eyes as he tried to remember where he was going. The jester turned his purple and black eyes to the right in the dirty, open space that led off into further dirty, open spaces.
“That way! I…arg!”
“Make up your mind,” Armand barked, quite fed up. There was no time to waste on idiocy.
“I can’t make decisions under pressure!” the puppet whined pitifully.
The nutcracker gripped the toy’s throat and pulled him off the ground. The jester choked–as if he truly needed to breathe in the first place.
“You will learn,” the nutcracker menaced.
The marionette gulped audibly, staring into the nutcracker’s empty sockets–but something else had already gripped Armand’s attention. There were noises passing through the tunnels to him. A large commotion.
Anne.
He released the jester without warning, and the puppet fell to the ground without any sort of grace. The nutcracker started off in a run down one of the passages, and simply for the sake of not being left behind, the jester pulled his pathetic self off the grimy ground and followed.
The sounds became louder in Armand’s ears until finally he emerged onto a bridge, looking down on a lower level of the rodent’s lair. Down below, he saw the black–haired misfit doll that had attacked him in Olivia’s room–alive and well, just standing there. What was that ridiculous doll doing in the pit? Actually, with the drains in the floor, the pit looked more like a…
There was a rush of white movement to the side. Armand jerked his gaze there, and there he found Anne. She was rushing off down a passage beyond the pit, wearing a dress she’d not been in when he’d left her. She looked like a doll, but he could tell she was flesh.
“Anne!” Armand shouted.
Several dozens of rodents and toys were flooding into the pit now from the other end. The noise had grown much louder. The woman ran out of sight. She hadn’t heard him. Armand rushed to the side and jumped down to the lower level, trying to catch her. The jester wasn’t too far behind.
14
Edge destroyed the wooden ramp Anne had taken up and then waited until he saw the pinks and browns of the rodents’ eyes before he moved. He was taking a chance, but he was certain that his lingering wasn’t suicide. He stood there as they came on, heedless to any commands he might have made, but still there was a smile on his face. He raised a delicate hand into the air.
“Welcome, honored guests,” he said mockingly, and as agilely as a cat, he flipped up out of the pit.
The rats and mice that reached the pit wall first began scrambling up to reach the toy their master had commanded them to destroy, but Edge was not yet done. Nearby was a lever that had been installed by the mice themselves. Had they so readily forgotten it? Or could they simply not think for themselves?
“Foolish pawns,” Edge sneered. He threw down the lever. The result was instant.
Sewage water poured out of a drain in the wall, flooding the pit, swallowing up those who had been thoughtless enough to move straight into his trap. They struggled against the current of the cesspool, and despite the smell, Edge could not contain his laughter. It rang out over the hollow space and traveled down the passages, proclaiming a small victory. Perhaps things were going according to plan after all. He’d bought the woman some time to escape and hopefully she would make the most of it. Greatest of all, he hoped the rat had seen this brilliance.
Edge had other matters to tend to now. He swung the blade onto his back casually, heading off into the dark.
When the first of the soaking rodents pulled themselves over the ledge to once again seek their prey, the black–haired doll with the giant razor was nowhere to be seen.
15
“Anne!”
The woman heard the calls, but her brain did not register them well enough to know that it was Armand’s voice. She kept moving blindly, tripping slightly over her dress, but unstopping. Behind her, Armand wondered if perhaps she was running away from him. But he didn’t care if she didn’t want him to catch her. He was going to, and he wasn’t letting her go again.
He gained ground, running as hard as he could until he finally touched her arm. She screamed in protest as he pulled her back and swung her around. The woman began to swing her frail, human arms at whatever had caught her, refusing to take the time to look up and see what it was.
Armand clenched her wrists, but she still struggled in his grasp, fighting back with her last amount of strength. Stressful noises emitted from her mouth as she fought until finally his voice somehow managed to reach her.
“Anne,” it said calmly. “Stop. It’s only me.”
I can’t stop, she thought. I can’t give in! I don’t want to die here!
“Anne!”
Her body shook, startled by the sound of her name. It broke through her defenses. She breathed a little deeper, her movements slowed, and finally she saw him. His long, soft hair; his perfectly shaped lips…
“Armand…” she breathed out.
She’d calmed from her frantic state enough to recognize him. Further on, she seemed relieved to see him. This was progress. He released her wrists and touched her face, feeling the warm flesh and knowing she was alive because of it. She gripped his arms in return, looking up into the hollow of his eyes.
“Armand,” she said weakly, her voice full of sorrow. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
What? His mind searched for the me
aning of that, grasping back to the last moment he’d seen her until finally it came back to him. “This is my real life! I don’t care about anything else!” He was nearly overwhelmed. How could she, in a moment like this, bring that up over all else? She’d nearly been killed and he’d not protected her!
“By God, Anne; be quiet about that,” he said, swiftly putting an end to that apology. Those were things for another time–if ever. They never had to be discussed at all. He forgave her already.
He held her tightly. She cried quietly against him.
Behind the nutcracker, the jester puppet finally caught up–finding his Anne folded in the arms of another man. How typical of her. It was the same thing she had done with that human man when she’d been a few sizes larger. Now this.
He took a step forward to speak an intervention, but noises behind him in the passage made him stop abruptly.
The jester turned his cowardly, pale head, looking back to see several large shadows emerging down the passage. Rodents! The puppet threw himself against the wall, sinking into the shadow and edging along to position himself somewhere on the other side of the nutcracker.
About the time the slippery puppet eased past without their notice, Armand heard the distant sounds as well. He let go of Anne immediately, pulling weapons and moving down the passage toward the oncoming threat.
“Armand, let’s just go!” Anne called out after him, not wanting to linger here even for a fight, but she must have known a fight was inevitable.
“Stay back,” was all he said to her.
16
Anne decided not to argue with this. Holding her gathered skirt, she kept her eyes locked on Armand and moved back with slow steps. She stopped when she felt Brooke’s hands on her shoulders. She felt instantly safer, even with the dark shapes she saw advancing on Armand. Things would be alright now. She was back with her protectors and…
“Wait…” she uttered lowly.
Anne remembered what had happened before she’d ever been taken to be decorated by the frightening dolls. When the puppets had captured her, Brooke had returned to her aid, only to meet his own destruction.
He’s dead, she remembered. This brought on a new sorrow–and a new fear.
The woman tilted her head slowly to the one who stood behind her, afraid of what she might find. Her apprehension was well–founded. Her face twisted up to look into the half–crushed visage of the jester puppet–that still, to this moment, made her cringe at the slightest thought. Now, here he was once again near her, touching her with his greedy hands.
The marionette grinned down at her with his wide mouth and large teeth, but it was not a gentle, warm smile. The grin spoke volumes about what he was thinking, and the theme was a single, base thought: I’ve got you now.
At the same moment that Armand sliced through the throat of the first sewage–covered rat, Anne let out the most objectionable scream she’d ever created.
17
Armand heard the scream while he was swiftly slicing through rodent jaws, but he couldn’t turn back to look at it immediately. Blood was spilling and teeth were snapping at him. He worked to buy himself a moment.
Anne managed to move out of the puppet’s grip, moving away from him any way she could within the space as he advanced toward her.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed at him, wishing that he could tell by her tone that she was serious. Apparently, he did not.
“Anne…”
“No!” She jerked her hand back when the jester tried to grab it. She looked at the floor and not his face. There was a thump behind her as a large rat fell dead.
“But, Anne…”
“Stop saying my name! You don’t know me!”
Anne felt her back bump against the wall, and the puppet halted, staring incredulously back at her. How could she have said such things? Of course he knew her. He knew her better than anyone. She would not even give him a chance to explain himself to her? Wouldn’t let him close? Suddenly, all his feelings of reformation vanished.
He had not reformed; no, not at all. Look at her: so weak; so vulnerable. There was nothing but deep lust within him, and he would do anything he had to in order to satisfy that craving. So what if she protested? Did she deserve any better?
“Wretched whore,” the dark puppet snarled, smiling with his new resolve.
Anne drew herself into a ball, covering her head with her arms and closing her eyes against anything that might happen to her. The jester moved toward her with evil intent, reaching out his hands–and then the white–haired soldier had stepped between them.
The puppet shrank back, kicking himself for not noticing the silence that had fallen or that all the rodents were dead. The stench of their death and fur filled the air.
Armand stared at him expressionlessly, but the puppet knew that there was something behind those eyes.
“What did you do to her?” he asked–demanded.
The jester froze. He panicked. He had already been found out once and locked in prison–away from the woman he loved. He’d not be put there again!
Without nearly enough consideration, the puppet let out a cry of rage and rushed forward at Armand. Animated strings wrapped around the nutcracker’s arms. They were not strong enough to hold him. Not much more than a simple jerk snapped them.
The jester came on again and again like a resilient beast, and each time, he was propelled back without grasping the lesson. Armand pushed at the puppet’s arms, broke its cords, shoved its face…and eventually, he noticed something else.
The jester fell back into the wall, taxed, and Armand stepped toward him to test his theory. He reached down toward the puppet, digging into the folds of the black costume to find what he’d seen. The frantic jester tried to fight him away, but to no avail. Armand’s hand had found what it had been searching for, and he swiftly broke it off.
Even though the attachment had been put on by the puppet himself, by that, it had become part of him. At its removal, he yelled out horribly in intense pain. When he’d been thrown in prison, the Lady’s soldiers had not searched him enough to take the handmade accessory away from him–the very same he had tried to use on Anne once before.
Armand held up the sharp wooden post to examine it, but it only took a moment for him to understand exactly what it was supposed to be. A very personal thing. A violating, probing, pleasurable thing. A thing he too had once known. He clenched it in his fist, staring at it, knowing what must have happened to cause Anne to react to the puppet as she had. He didn’t know details, but he didn’t have to.
A puppet told me he loved me earlier tonight. These were words that she’d told him at some point. She hadn’t mentioned that the puppet had tried to rape her with a stake.
Without a word, Armand moved toward the marionette.
There was a snarl at the jester’s lip when the nutcracker lifted him up by his throat and shoved him against the wall. The puppet stared back at him with contempt, and if the Armand hadn’t been so furious, he might have been amused.
He wasted no time on mercy. He drew back the crude, wooden phallus in his fist and forced it into the puppet’s cloth gut. The jester cringed in pain, but Armand did not relent. He withdrew once again, thrusting the post once again into different sections of the cloth, violating the toy’s body again and again with its own creation.
The jester was stabbed until he thought he couldn’t breathe, and just as he opened his mouth to cry out in pain and terror, the nutcracker crammed the engorgement into the yawning orifice of his face.
The puppet began to choke on it, and there was a degree of sadistic pleasure in the dark eye–slits of the nutcracker.
“Does it feel as good as you thought?” he asked in a cruel whisper. Then he let the puppet fall.
The black mess of cloth with the cracked face hardly had enough strength to raise its hands and grip the thing that was stuck deeply in its throat, but it did the jester no good either way, for the puppet had not only made the white–ha
ired soldier angry, but another with him.
Armand had his own attachment, in the form of a third arm that was clinging to his own. Though the toy it had belonged to was no longer whole, there was still a consciousness left–an awareness. That arm was just as aware as Armand was of what this puppet must have attempted with Anne. That arm was just as angry.
The pointed end of a letter–opener shot forth from the cloth sleeve of the third arm.
“Tschüss,” Armand bid, and he let his arm be guided by Brooke’s.
The jester’s head was ruined swiftly, chopped through the pale glass and broken through the middle. The body was then completely shredded, destroying every discernable piece until there was nothing but cloth scraps and splinters.
Armand was satisfied with this, and Brooke’s blade withdrew back into the sleeve, proving he was satisfied as well.
Anne.
The word seemed to come from nowhere in the back of his mind, but of course Armand had not forgotten. He turned to search for her, hoping that she’d not tried to run away in her frantic state.
He saw her against the wall to the side, her chin resting against her chest. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was steady. She’d simply fallen unconscious.
Armand could help it; he sighed with relief.
He went to her to gather her up, holding her close, perhaps more tightly than he should have, but there was no chance he was letting her get far from him again. Not until death tore them apart.
With his work still far from done, he carried her out of the forsaken place and back to safety. They both could use a bit of rest.
Chapter Thirty: Schande.
1
Years ago, in a very distant place, snow fell heavily on the whitened banks outside,, but it was warm by the fire…
How could he have forgotten–even though it had been so long; even though his mind had moved onto different things over the time that had passed by? Was it so bad to remember, even if he would never have that life back again? Or was it just the shame in it? The thought made him want to be dead even more than he already did.
