by A. W. Exley
Seth lopped another head from a dangling hand as he thought. He cast quick glances at his men and the location of the flamethrowers. "Can you last a few more minutes?"
I was puffing, but at least I wasn't cold any longer. As long as I didn't trip, I could keep buzzing around the rat king. I nodded and Seth rushed to one side, his form ringed and illuminated by a bonfire. Shadows flickered and retreated as the blazes around the cavern banished the murky half-light.
I concentrated on staying alive as I battled Goliath. The flares around the cavern died down and I prayed Seth rallied the flamethrower troops to us. A vermin broke from the shadows and rushed forward. I raised my sword, and then I realised it held up a gas can.
"Jake, I nearly took off your head." I bowled into him and we ran to the side as the leg swung down and the creature swivelled above us.
He grinned. His infectious good humour seemed permanent. "Captain said you'd need this."
"Thank you." I sheathed the sword on my back and grabbed the canister. Jake dissolved back into the fight that raged around us. This was the tricky bit. I needed two hands, which meant I would have no way to defend myself. I would have to hope my boots, trousers, and wool jacket protected me from any scratches or bites as I worked.
I was about to ascend Mount Vermin.
I took one deep breath to steady my nerves, reminded myself I was owed a delicious evening with Seth once this was all over, and then I ran.
The monster had the vestige of a tail sticking from its back. I jumped on that and used the exposed vertebrae like a ladder, climbing higher up its back. Vermin snarled and snapped as I ran, but they bit only my boots and I prayed none scratched through my trousers. My hands were likewise exposed, but I couldn't complete my task wearing gloves. I had to trust to the vermin being locked into place and unable to move.
Higher I clambered, until I reached the hump of its arched back. From my perch with its commanding view, Elizabeth caught my eye. On her platform above the fight, her hands jerked and waved in the air. Memory exploded in my head of a distant time before the war, when mother was still alive and we’d gone to the village fair. A travelling theatre troupe had kept us entertained with a special treat for the children, a puppet show.
Elizabeth controlled her vermin like a giant marionette.
We would see how she coped when her puppet burst into flames. I unscrewed the canister and found my balance on the rolling surface. Then I began tipping fuel all over the monstrosity. It dribbled through bones and bodies, coating those packed inside the skeleton.
Far below, Seth marshalled the flamethrowers and they encircled the beast, ready to move as soon as he gave the command. I edged down the jabberwocky's spine, ignoring teeth gnashing at my boots and bony fingers trying to grasp fabric. I continued to douse as far as I could reach until the can ran empty. With a shove, I wedged the canister into a gap between two meshed vermin.
All that remained was to get off the bucking critter before I smashed to the ground. It dropped its head to bellow and I took my chance and ran back up its body. I jumped on its head, now lowered to spit at the surrounding soldiers. With a silent prayer to my deceased mother's spirit for her protection, I launched myself into the air.
Thankfully I wasn't too far from the ground, and as I tumbled, strong arms caught me around the waist.
"Got you," Seth whispered against my ear. Then he yelled, "Now!"
He hauled me backwards as the units aimed their pipe nozzles at the creature and flame erupted. Some directed their fire at the legs, others aimed higher. The ribbon of petrol I’d laid ignited, and the fire raced around its body.
Like a magic trick, in a blaze of light and smoke, the jabberwocky transformed into a wicker man. The whole now contained a mass of burning bodies. I imagined ancient druids chanting as the effigy burned, their voices melded into a song that echoed over a thousand years. So close, the voice whispered from deep in my mind. We battled something far more ancient than the recent influenza pandemic. I could nearly grasp the meaning.
As the vermin burned, they screamed, an ear splitting sound that made me cringe. Was it their souls being torn from their decomposing bodies and being sent back to the other realm?
I caught my breath and tested my weight on my ankle that had crumpled as I fell. Fortunately the joint held and it was only a twinge. Now I could change my focus now we had slain Goliath. Time to confront Elizabeth.
I reached up and kissed Seth. "Time to finish this."
"I'll keep the fire burning here," he said.
The creature was well aflame now. Bones heated and popped, making spitting and hissing noises. The acrid odour of charred flesh hit my nostrils and I told my stomach contents to stay put. Wouldn't do to retch in front of the chaps when I was leading this army.
I drew my sword and angled through the throng toward Elizabeth's position. As her numbers diminished, her spiral plinth was revealed in its delicate hideousness. Bodies twisted to support her above our heads. She still sought to control her creature, waving her arms as she tried to force it to rise.
It would stagger to one leg and try to lift its head, but fire ate through its individual pieces and bit by bit, it crumbled to the cavern floor. All that remained of her mighty champion was a seething, twisted mess of burning parts. Soldiers circled, ensuring nothing escaped. Limbs caught crawling free were booted back into the bonfire. From elsewhere, soldiers carried decapitated bodies and flung them on.
I stood at the bottom of step-mother's pillar. Here was a much easier creation to destroy. The katana sang a sweet verse as one by one, I attacked the roots of her tree. The headless vermin wobbled and buckled. Even with head separated from body, they still tried to follow their queen's orders, but they sank to the ground as though made of sand and couldn't put themselves together again. Soldiers ran in, wearing thick leather gloves, and picked up the wriggling pieces to add to the main bonfire.
"No!" Elizabeth screamed and lashed out with her hands. If she waved them any faster, she might just fly. Queen bees could do that if they had to; flee the hive and start again elsewhere. But this one wasn't going to escape. Not this time.
"Kill her!" she screamed as she tumbled down, but there were no nearby vermin left intact to obey her.
Elizabeth fell to Earth. She pushed herself up on her hands, her long hair wild around her face, which twisted and distorted into a mask of true evil. No—the cool mask dropped away and revealed the ugly thing she had always been underneath.
"I will spend an eternity tearing the skin from your back." She spat each word. Spittle dropped to the ground and a blob landed on the toe of my boot.
This was my moment of victory, of cold revenge, and yet I felt hollow inside. "No, you won't. I'm not the scared child anymore, longing for her father to return from war. You are nothing to me, and you have lost this battle."
Years of torment at her hands had come to this, but I couldn't rejoice in killing her. If I smiled and laughed as I struck her head from her body, that would make me no better than her.
The vermin twisted around her, headless bodies trying to protect their queen when all they did was hinder her. Arms wrapped around her waist and held her tight and stopped her from standing. Or did they seek to stop her from fleeing? It looked as though they would drag her back down to Hell with them.
"You cannot stop us!" she screamed. Her voice cracked with hysteria and her arms batted at the limbs twisting with hers as she tried to regain her feet.
I knelt until I was so close to Elizabeth that my lips nearly grazed her skin as I whispered. "I know your secret. The mighty Lady Jeffrey is but a pawn in someone else's game. You are nothing but a puppet."
She narrowed her eyes and laughed, but I saw the sliver of fear reflected in her black gaze. "You know nothing," she said.
Once, I had dreamed of exacting revenge upon her. I had saved up years of agony and wanted to throw it all back at her. Now the moment had arrived, and I let my anger drain through my hands like sand
. She had no control over me, and I wouldn't pollute my soul by relishing her final moments. "Oh, I know far more than you ever suspected. Millicent will lose, just as you have lost."
I had set these events in motion and now I brought them to an end. I rose and gripped the sword. I whispered a brief prayer to whatever God there was, asking Him to deal with Elizabeth in a manner befitting her treatment of others while on Earth.
"No!" One high-pitched cry, laced with fear. Then silence as I struck.
Elizabeth's head rolled to one side and I walked back to Seth.
22
The glow worm ceiling went dark as fires burned below. One by one, the tiny worms winked out, like stars retreating as dawn approached. We no longer needed their eerie blue light to see; bonfires throughout the cavern lit the way and gave the few remaining vermin nowhere to hide. Soldiers ferreted them out, beheaded, and dragged them to the pyres.
"We should look for smoke in the morning, see if this cavern vents anywhere," Seth said as we watched the fumes spiral up and obscure the roof.
"There's so much to do," I murmured. We had vermin to find and destroy, and the catacombs were calling to be explored. How deep did these tunnels go, and what did the veiled sections of honeycomb hide?
There was another task I really didn't want to perform: telling Charlotte I had killed her mother and handed over her sister to be a captive freak in London.
"Tomorrow, Ella. There is nothing that cannot wait until tomorrow. I think right now we all deserve a hot bath, a meal, and a decent night's sleep." The smile lifted his lips as he took my hand.
Seth was probably right, but I wanted everything done now. Then my stomach growled. It had been a rather long day. My clothes carried the strong smell of petrol and fried vermin that I wanted to scrub away. "What if we miss one?"
"Lieutenant Bain is more than capable of supervising the clean-up operation. Let the fire burn and the lads will rig out the cavern with lanterns. In the morning we can poke around." He tugged me toward the tunnel and the way out. The lieutenant directed operations and men swept the cavern in a regular pattern, hunting every remaining vermin.
Smoke filled my lungs, and my mouth watered at the thought of crisp, sweet night-time air. And then a bath. "Very well."
Alice and Frank joined us for the slow walk out. Not together though. Frank still had ground to make up, and Alice was doing an excellent job of ignoring him. Alice walked beside me while Frank walked on the other side of his half-brother. Or I suppose not his brother at all, after Seth's revelation.
"Who is your father, then?" I asked Seth, curious about the man who wore the ducal title. Imagine if Warrens was really his father—oh, the scandal!
"The same man as fathered Frank." His hand tightened around mine as we trekked from tunnel to the smaller catacomb.
I frowned. I was tired but I usually wasn't this slow to figure things out. "But you told Elizabeth the ducal bloodline and ducal title were carried by two different people."
Seth stopped me from peering into niches to see what they held and pulled me up the next tunnel. "I lied. I could see Jake trying to get you out of that cage and figured I needed to come up with something good, something that would keep Elizabeth and Louise focused on me."
I must be a bad influence on the duke, if my original deception about my parentage had rubbed off on him. "Lord Leithfield, I am mortified that you told such an outrageous lie."
"Worked, though, didn't it?" He grinned wider.
A weight seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders now that we had not only found but torched Elizabeth's hive. For the first time in a number of weeks, I allowed myself to think of the future. We had won this battle, but the Grim War continued, although now there appeared a small burst of sunlight. My confidence that we would emerge victorious grew, just as my chest swelled with love for Seth.
I wasn't sure if the other two would come out of this stronger or apart. That was for Alice to decide. She seemed different wearing pants and with the mallet over her shoulder. No longer the housemaid, but a warrior in her own right. I wanted to interrogate her about what had happened after she left with Frank, but I certainly wasn't going to do that with the lads eavesdropping. Tonight I would curl up in the attic with her and we would talk until sunrise.
We emerged into another night-time world, with real stars above our heads. I stopped and drew deep lungsful of fresh air. I hadn't realised how stale the air below was until I stood under the sky again.
"I'll find us a ride to take you back to the farm," Seth said, and then slipped away from me.
A familiar grinning shape emerged from the tunnel and came to stand next to me.
I asked him, "How did you do it, Jake? What happened?" When Louise had stopped us in the tunnel with her vermin guard, Jake had disappeared as though he had never been one of our party. Then he had materialised when I needed him most.
His teeth flashed white in the dark. "Well, miss, have to admit I was being nosey and wandered off, peering in those little cubbyholes in the rock when Miss Jeffrey struck."
Ha! Couldn't fault him for his curiosity. I was itching to go back with a lantern and see what secrets we would find down there. "But why didn't the vermin notice you?"
He shrugged. "I was standing amongst them when you were split up. Maybe I got myself a bit dirty crawling around. But when I realised they weren't paying me any mind, I made myself dirtier, kept my mind blank, and followed along."
It didn't make any sense. Given that the vermins’ sole purpose was to bite or scratch the healthy, why did they ignore Jack in their midst?
"He should have been one anyway," another voice said from the dark. Jack stepped forward, a mirror image of his twin—except his uniform was cleaner.
"What do you mean?" The itch started in the back of my head again.
"After the war, Jake caught the influenza on the ship home and—"
"I should have died, but Jack wouldn't let me." Jake finished his twin's sentence.
There should have been a cymbal crash in my head as thoughts tumbled into view and formed themselves in a cohesive picture. "You survived the pandemic and it somehow made you immune. That's why they didn't want Charlotte. She also survived the original pandemic."
"Who didn't want Charlotte?" Seth had returned and caught the last part of our conversation.
"I have kept watch over Charlotte, in case Louise and Elizabeth tried to snatch her to be part of their undead family. When I asked why they hadn't, Louise said they didn't want her taint. I assumed they meant her trace of humanity, but what if they meant some taint that lingers in the survivors of the original pandemic?"
Seth let out a whistle. "Something that might be like a poison to them? Which is why they didn't bite Jake. We never thought to track survivors to see if any were subsequently Turned."
Jack laughed and smacked his twin on the back of the head. "Maybe they didn't bite you because you would taste bad. You might have made them sick or something."
I think he had literally hit it on the head. Vermin didn't bite survivors because something about them repelled their undead tastes. This was one missing piece of the puzzle we needed, quite apart from learning why Elizabeth needed Seth.
"We've been so focused on those who died, Turned, and those who were subsequently struck. It never occurred to us to look for patterns in survivors and what has happened to them. Jake moved amongst them unnoticed, and Louise and Elizabeth recoiled at the idea of having Charlotte as part of the hive."
Seth tapped his jaw as he thought. "It might be a way to harm them, or to somehow protect innocents from the effect of a bite. A type of inoculation, perhaps."
"Something to report to the War Office tomorrow." Bath and a bed called my name. Let the doctors and scientists figure out what surviving the pandemic meant. Perhaps they would discover something under their microscopes that would aid our fight.
"I have a car waiting to take us home." Seth took my hand and we walked down past the trucks. Al
ice trailed behind, deliberately avoiding Frank.
I sat in the back and Alice climbed in with me, leaving the men up front. She had a determined glint in her amber eyes, as though she had made up her mind about something. I suspected I was about to be drawn into one of her schemes.
"What are you planning, Alice? And don't tell me nothing. I can see it written all over your face, I just can't read what."
Frank slid behind the steering wheel and started the motor. He backed the car down the death road until he found a clearing between two trees that was wide enough to turn around. Then we headed back through the forest, trees picked out by the headlamps and flashing past us like ancient sentries, keeping guard over the ancient site we had discovered.
"Would you be terribly upset if I didn't want to be a maid anymore?" Alice chewed her bottom lip, waiting for my reply.
Was that all that preyed on her mind? "No, but I do hope you would still be my friend?"
"Oh, of course." She punched me lightly in the arm. "But you are embarking on your own path, Ella, and I want to claim a piece of that road for myself."
I couldn't see Alice as part of the war effort, but she did suit a uniform. "You want to join the army?"
"No, silly." She laughed. "It's a new century, and you are turning into a new woman. I want to be one, too. An independent woman who doesn't need a man in her life to look after her."
She may not have noticed, but Frank was awfully quiet, soaking up every word Alice uttered. If she wanted a modern career instead of being in service, I would do whatever I could to assist. If Frank had half a brain, he would listen and figure out how to help her dream come true, too. "What do you want to do, Alice?"
Her eyes shone in the moonlight, excitement and possibilities gleaming in their amber depths. "Women have the vote, but still no voice. Those lucky enough to be eligible are expected to blindly follow the dictates of their husbands or fathers. That's not right. I want a world where women have more rights, more control over their lives, and I want to be a part of that."
