Gordon Dahlquist
Page 1
Praise for
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
“Furiously entertaining … utterly succeeds … thrilling.”
—Boston Globe
“Sometimes books, like cakes, can be built upon recipes. In the case of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, that would be one part history, two parts fantasy, three parts deft plotting and skilled narrative, and about 17 heaping cupfuls of suspense … and the result is one marvelous confection of a book … which serves to keep the reader from doing anything else but, well, read. It makes Dahlquist’s tome seem infinitely shorter than it is. I … found that it took only three days to finish. The newest Harry Potter took me four. Make of that what you will.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“This is a plump English tea cake of a book: messy, studded with treats, too big and too rich to finish in just one sitting.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A combination of science fiction, dark fantasy, thriller and gothic horror, this novel is as flat-out fun, engaging and funny as any tale of mystery and imagination I can recall.… The dialogue is wry, the descriptions clever and the complicated plot advances as smoothly as a patrician’s pocket watch.… At more than 700 pages, this one ends too quickly.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters has a clever conceit with a foundation of literature as fantasy.… Dahlquist may have created a literary character in Miss Temple, whose resolve to be of one mind between dream and reality also holds the book together.”
—Kansas City Star
“Carr[ies] the reader on a mind-twisting odyssey … The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is sweeping, highly original and absorbing … well worth the investment.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Fantastic … I was in seventh heaven … somewhere between Dickens, Sherlock Holmes and Rider Haggard.”
—Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth
“A kinky, atmospheric look at Victorian England.”
—Washington Post
“Oh, this guy is goo-ood! The most original thing I’ve read in years: deftly executed, relentlessly inventive and with a trio of the most unusual and engaging heroes who ever took on a sinister cabal out to rule the world by means of sex and dreams.”
—Diana Gabaldon, author of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade
“The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is a big, fat, rich-as-whipped-cream, tart-as-balsamic-vinegar novel that begins like an old-fashioned romance and turns into a wildly imaginative near fantasy with more than a little violence and a climax that will knock your socks off—and promise a sequel, too.… [Dahlquist is] fiction’s new golden boy—he really is a richly talented storyteller with a terrific gift for offbeat but recognizable and wonderfully likable characters.… The writing is as chewy and delicious as a nougat, the story gains speed with every page … and the whole reading experience is (as I seem driven to say) as satisfying as a feast.”
—Sullivan County Democrat
“Sometimes sly, other times full-frontally in your face, the author’s inventive detail beggars inventory.… A marvelous revival of old-fashioned theatrical melodrama with some contemporary zip … As a storyteller he’s awfully good.… The author imparts to the book a tremendous amount of energy.… Builds to a smashing climax … A major confection with serious undertow.”
—Locus
“An immersing and stimulating experience … Set against a backdrop of an unfolding mystery and plenty of action: gun play, sword fights, good old-fashioned brawling. It makes for a fun read.… Make no mistake: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is a remarkable achievement of imagination and stellar writing. Dahlquist never once breaks from the Victorian-era style, often to great effect, and his descriptions and conversations will delight readers who enjoy charm and subtlety.”
—Tampa Tribune
“Dahlquist introduces so many characters, props and plot twists, near-death experiences and narrow escapes that the novel has the feel of a frantic R-rated classic comic book—if comics were arch.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Quite an adventure.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Brimming with atmosphere … The Glass Books has the potential to become a cult novel, along the lines of Katherine Neville’s brilliant The Eight.… Glass Books reaches a perfect momentum at the novel’s beginning and the surprising, action-packed end.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“It’s a rare writer who can string so many words together and still be entertaining.… Dahlquist’s fine attention to detail, colorful cast of characters and generous spattering of well-written erotica serve to keep the right brain imaginatively excited while the left brain is kept busy tracking cat-and-mouse chase scenes.… It’s all very ingenious.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“An engaging work for lovers of over-the-top Victorian suspense and intrigue.”
—Library Journal
“Readers will be eagerly turning the pages to discover just what happens to the intrepid trio (Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Dr. Svenson)—and how those enthralling glass books get their power.”
—BookPage
“The most notable thing about The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is the sheer brio of its erotic inventiveness.… Reading this book—and it is a page-turner—you become immersed, befogged, almost as if you had indeed been looking at one of the glass books.… As stupendous as it is stupefying, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters transcends its flaws.”
—Guardian
“An erotically charged, rip-roaring adventure for adults with scarcely a dull moment to be had, which defies its great length to keep the reader on the edge of his seat.”
—Daily Mail
“Bodice-ripping.”
—Elle (UK)
“An outrageously good novel; a gripping gothic roller-coaster of a book … A rip-roaring read. It ends perfectly, poised between cliff-hangers and closure.… The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters has the feel of a classic in the making.”
—Scotland on Sunday
“Extraordinary. An undoubted feat of literary imagination. I cannot recall ever having read a novel comprising so much breaking and entering, spying through keyholes, jumping over walls, hiding in shadows, and listening out for footsteps, nor one with so many miraculous escapes.”
—Daily Telegraph
“A vivid fantasy, liberally spiced with chases, stakeouts, fights, fetish gear, exotic foreign names and a satisfyingly long trail of bodies.”
—Herald
“An undoubted feat of literary imagination.”
—Telegraph
“A Dickens of a plot.”
—Evening Standard
“Churns with adrenaline and leaves us suspended over a gulf of anxiety for the characters’ fates.”
—Time Out (London)
“Think of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: its lurid plots, its murky pea-soupers. Now, apply the production values of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, commission a rewrite by the Marquis de Sade—oh, and lose Sherlock and replace him with Barbarella.… it’s literally a ripping yarn.”
—London Paper
“The three heroes, wonderful. The premise, the glass books—excellent idea! Really fabulous.”
—Books in Bed (UK)
“Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe and Alexandre Dumas with shades of Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut thrown in.”
—Irish News
“From the first few lines, the slick plot has you utterly hooked. What follows is a tumultuous adventure … a vastly enjoyable page-turner of epic proportions.”
/> —Big Issue
“Bodice-ripping, adventure-packed.”
—Financial Times
“Wilkie Collins on acid.”
—New Statesman
THE GLASS BOOKS OF THE DREAM EATERS, VOLUME TWO
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition of Volumes One and Two published September 2006
Bantam trade paperback edition / February 2009
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2006 by Gordon Dahlquist
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006040740
Bantam Books and the Rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-75556-8
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
One - Royale
Two - Cathedral
Three - Provocateur
Four - Inheritrix
Acknowledgments
About the Author
ONE
Royale
Once she made a decision, Miss Temple considered it an absolutely ridiculous waste of time to examine the choice further—and so from the vantage of her coach she did not debate the merits of her journey to the St. Royale Hotel, instead allowing herself the calming pleasure of watching the shops pass by to either side and the people of the city all about their day. Normally, this was not a thing she cared for—save for a certain morbid curiosity about what flaws could be deduced from a person’s dress and posture—but now, as a consequence of her bold separation from the Doctor and Cardinal Chang, she felt empowered to observe without the burden of judgment, committed as she was to action, an arrow in mid-flight. And the fact was, she did feel that merely being in motion had stilled the tempest of feeling that had overtaken her in the Comte’s garden and, even worse, in the street. If she was not up to the challenge of braving the St. Royale Hotel, then how could she consider herself any kind of adventurer? Heroines did not pick their own battles—the ones they knew they could win. On the contrary, they managed what they had to manage, and they did not lie to themselves about relying on others for help instead of accomplishing the thing alone. Would she be safer to have waited for Chang and Svenson—however much of the plan was her own devising—so they could have entered the place in force? It was arguable at the very least (stealth, for one) that she alone was best suited for the task. But the larger issue was her own opinion of herself, and her level of loss, relative to her companions. She smiled and imagined meeting them outside the hotel—she chuckled at how long it would take them to find her—vital information in hand and perhaps the woman in red or the Comte d’Orkancz, now utterly subject, in tow.
Besides, the St. Royale held her destiny. The woman in red, this Contessa Lacquer-Sforza (simply another jot of proof, as if any were needed, of the Italian penchant for ridiculous names) was her primary enemy, the woman who had consigned her to death and worse. Further, Miss Temple could not help wonder at the woman’s role in the seduction—there was no other word—of Roger Bascombe. She knew objectively that the primary engine must be Roger’s ambition, manipulated with ease by the Deputy Minister, to whose opinions, as a committed climber, Roger would slavishly adhere. Nevertheless, she could not but picture the woman and Roger in a room together … like a cobra facing a puppy. She had seduced him, obviously, but to what actual—which is to say literal, physical—degree? One perfect raised eyebrow and a single purse of her rich scarlet lips would have had him kneeling. And would she have taken Roger for herself or passed him along to one of her minions—one of the other ladies from Harschmort House—that Mrs. Marchmoor—or was it Hooke? There were really too many names. Miss Temple frowned, for thinking of Roger’s idiocy made her cross, and thinking of her enemies turning him to their usage with such evident ease made her even crosser.
The coach pulled up outside the hotel and she paid off the driver. Before the man could jump from his box to help her, a uniformed doorman stepped forward to offer his hand. Miss Temple took it with a smile and carefully climbed down to the street. The coach rattled away as she walked to the door, nodding her thanks to a second doorman as he opened it, and into the grand lobby. There was no sign of any person she recognized—all the better. The St. Royale was openly sumptuous, which didn’t quite appeal to Miss Temple’s sense of order. Such places did the work for a person, which she recognized was part of the attraction but disapproved of—what was the point of being seen as remarkable when it was not really you being seen at all, but your surroundings? Still, Miss Temple could admire the display. There were scarlet leather banquettes and great gold-rimmed mirrors on the wall, a tinkling fountain with floating lotus flowers, large pots of greenery, and a row of gold and red columns supporting a curving balcony that hung over the lobby, the two colors twisting around the poles like hand-carved ribbons. Above, the ceiling was more glass and gold mirrors, with a crystal chandelier whose dangling end point, a multifaceted ball of glittering glass, was quite as large as Miss Temple’s head.
She took all of this in slowly, knowing there was a great deal to see, and that such sights easily dazzled a person, encouraging them to ignore what might be important details: like the row of mirrors against the oddly curving left wall, for example, which were strange in that they seemed placed not so much for people to stand before as to reflect the entirety of the lobby, and even the street beyond it—almost as if they were a row of windows rather than mirrors. Miss Temple immediately thought of the odious comment of the still more odious Mr. Spragg, about the cunning Dutch glass—about her own unintentional display in the Harschmort dressing room. Doing her best to shrug off twin reactions of mortification and thrill, she turned her thoughts more directly to her task. She imagined herself still standing in the lobby, trying to get up her nerve, when Chang and Svenson entered behind her, catching up before she had even done anything—she would feel every bit the helpless fool she was trying not to be.
Miss Temple strode to the desk. The clerk was a tall man with thinning hair brushed forward with a bit too much pomade, so the normally translucent hair tonic had creamed over the skin beneath his hair—the effect being not so much offensive as unnatural and distracting. She smiled with the customary crispness that she brought to most impersonal dealings and informed him she had come to call on the Contessa Lacquer-Sforza. He nodded respectfully and replied that the Contessa was not presently in the hotel, and indicated the door to the restaurant, suggesting that she might desire to take a little tea while she waited. Miss Temple asked if the Contessa would be long in arriving. The man answered that, truthfully, he did not know, but that her normal habit was to meet several ladies for a late tea or early aperitif at this time. He wondered if Miss Temple was acquainted with those ladies, for indeed one or more of them might well be in the restaurant already. She thanked him, and took a step in that direction. He called to her, asking if she wanted to leave her name for the Contessa. Miss Temple told him that it was her habit to remain a surprise, and continued into the restaurant.
Before she could even scan the tables for a familiar or dangerous face, a black-coated fellow was standing far too close and asking if she was meeting someone, if she had come for tea or supper or perhaps, his brow twitching in encouragement, an aperitif. Miss Temple snapped—for she did not like to be pestered under any circumstances—that she would prefer tea and two scones and a bit of fruit—fresh fruit, and peeled—and walked past him, looking around the tables. She proceeded to a small table that faced the doorway but was yet some distance into the restaurant,
so that she would not be immediately visible from the doorway—or the lobby—and could herself scrutinize anyone who happened to enter. She placed her bag, holding the revolver, onto the next chair, making sure it was beneath the starched tablecloth and unapparent to any passing eye, and sat back to wait for her tea, her mind wandering again to the question of her present solitude. Miss Temple decided that she liked it perfectly well—in fact, it made her feel quite free. To whom was she obliged? Chang and Svenson could take care of themselves, her aunt was packed away—what hold could any enemy now place over her, aside from a threat to her own bodily safety? None at all—and the idea of drawing the revolver and facing down a host of foes right there in the restaurant became increasingly appealing.
* * *
She picked at the weave of the tablecloth—it was of quite a high quality, which pleased her—and found she was equally impressed with the St. Royale’s tableware, which, while displaying an elegance of line, did not abjure a certain necessary weight, especially important in one’s knife, even if all one were to do with that knife was split a scone and slather cream into the steaming crease. Despite Miss Temple having had tea that very morning, she was looking keenly forward to having tea again—indeed, it was her favorite meal. A diet of scones, tea, fruit, and, if she must, some beef consommé before bedtime and she would be a happy young lady. Her tea arrived first, and she was busily occupied with scrutinizing her waiter’s handling of the teapot and the hot water pot and the cup and saucer and the silver strainer and the silver dish in which to set the strainer and the little pitcher of milk and the small plate of fresh-cut wedges of lemon. When all had been arranged before her and the man departed with a nod, Miss Temple set about to deliberately re-arrange everything according to her taste and reach—the lemon going to the side (for she did not care for lemon in her tea, but often enjoyed sucking on one or two slices after she had eaten everything else, as a kind of astringent meal-finisher—apart from which, as she had paid for the lemon slices, it always seemed she might as well sample them), the strainer near it, the milk to the other side, and the pot and hot water positioned to allow her to easily stand—which was often, due to their weight, the length of her arms, and the leverage involved with her chair (whether or not its height allowed her feet to touch the floor, as hers presently did just with the toes) required of her in order to pour. Finally, she made sure there was ample space left for the soon-to-arrive scones, fruit, jam, and thick cream.