Dance of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death)

by Griffin, Bethany

  “There is still only one stairway leading down.” Elliott paces back and forth. “All they have to do is block it. We’re going to fight our way out. Araby, do you have your gun? Your knife?”

  “I’m staying here.” I step in front of Elliott, forcing him to look at me. Malcontent is on the other side of that door. As terrified as I am of him, he’s April’s last chance. And as much as they despise each other, Father and Elliott can work together. They can save some of the people. “Go through Penthouse A,” I tell Elliott. “Take my father with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Father says. “I’ve only just found you.”

  Elliott doesn’t say anything.

  “If anyone stays, it will be me. I’ll tell them that I’ve been hiding here, alone,” Father says.

  “Malcontent will kill you,” I say. “He wants you, and he wants Elliott.”

  “Do you think he wants you any less?”

  I don’t. Malcontent will kill me. Publicly, to show his power. But of the three of us, I am the most expendable.

  Elliott’s silence is unnerving. I know he’s angry, and hurt. But we were trying to accomplish something together. Before I sacrifice myself, I want him to acknowledge that. He doesn’t even look at me.

  Whatever was between us, it seems to have slipped away.

  “Araby . . .” Father’s voice is anguished. “I’ve already lost your brother, your mother is imprisoned. I can’t—”

  What he says next is lost in the sound of hammering at the metal door. Malcontent’s men have realized that it is locked from within. They know someone is up here.

  “Go.” I push him, and he doesn’t budge. Elliott may be ready to leave me, but Father is stubborn. I steel myself to hurt him. “You might be able to save me later. If not . . . well, there isn’t much for me to live for in this ugly, decaying world, is there?” Father blanches. And I shove him away from me.

  But as I go to the metal door and begin twisting back the lock, I’m thinking of Will. He was the one who showed me that living was better. He knows that the suicidal girl is gone. But if I think of the things I’ll never be able to say to Will, I won’t have the strength to do what has to be done.

  “If you’re still here when I open this,” I say over my shoulder, “Malcontent will take all of us. And everything will be lost.”

  “He’ll search,” Elliott says. “He isn’t stupid.”

  “Then be quick and find a place to hide.”

  I hear their footsteps—the one who hesitates must surely be Father—but I can’t look away from my task. I give the lever one last twist and steel myself. The hinges make a terrible sound as the great metal door slides back. I don’t let myself look in the direction Father and Elliott have gone. I won’t give them away.

  “Miss Araby Worth.” A chillingly cold voice calls from the bottom of the metal ladder. “What a pleasure. Now I can hand deliver your invitation.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  INSTEAD OF MALCONTENT WITH HIS CLOAKED henchmen, Prospero stands at the bottom of the ladder, a red rose in the pocket of a heavy, well-made jacket. He’s wearing both a mask and protective gloves.

  He sees my surprise and laughs. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “You never come into the city. Especially not with the Red Death . . .” I’m frozen at the hatch, staring down.

  “I wanted to see it one last time,” he says softly. “Come, join me.”

  I’m caught. I can’t flee, or he will find Elliott and Father. I’ll have to find some way to escape him before he leaves the city.

  “Good, good,” Prospero says as I climb down. “This is so fortunate, because I’ve already retrieved my niece from the Debauchery Club. I know she won’t want to attend the ball without you.”

  “April . . .” My voice gives out. I have to swallow before I can finish. “You have April?”

  “Of course,” he says. “Have you ever known her to miss a party?”

  “How wonderful that you found us,” I whisper. “We’ve longed for a party.” But how will we keep April’s illness a secret so that he doesn’t kill her on the spot?

  It feels much farther going down the stairs than it did following Elliott up. We don’t stop until we reach the lobby. Though the room is still ornate, it seems tarnished now. A doorman I don’t recognize bows to the prince. Outside, the moon is rising.

  Black carriages line the street, and two of Prospero’s soldiers load crates and barrels into the steam carriage directly in front of the Akkadian Towers. The windows up and down the street are dark. Even here, in the wealthiest section of the city, all but one of the streetlamps have gone dark. Several young girls stand in the last flickering pool of light. They wear ornate dresses, their masks decorated with sequins. One clutches her gold invitation between gloved fingers. A young man carrying a violin case walks up. He’s also holding his invitation. They all climb into a carriage, prepared to be shipped away.

  I search the line of carriages. Prospero could be lying about April. But then something flutters out of a carriage window. A glossy black feather. And there’s a flash of blond hair before the curtain falls back into place. April. Prospero puts his hand on my shoulder, and I jump.

  As I watch, the carriages begin to move, carrying her farther away from safety and the hope that we’ll find her father and get a cure.

  Only Prospero, me, and a handful of his guards are left on the street. They are wearing black cloaks of the sort that Malcontent’s men usually wear. Prospero waves, and one of the guards brings me a similar one. “All the better to blend in at night,” he says. “My brother may be crazy, but he has a few good ideas.” His eyes flash once, and then he turns away.

  Three wizened guards join us. They all have silver hair. At least most of the young men seem to have defected to Elliott’s side. One guard has a jagged scar from his ear to his chin. He is thin, and he wears a sword. The other two guards are stocky. One has eyes that are set too close together. The other holds a musket and gives me a look so cold that he must know who I am. And hate me for it.

  I’d swear I’ve never seen any of them before, but the man with the sword reaches out to touch my hair. “I liked the purple better,” he says.

  “We must move quickly,” Prospero says. “We’ll pay our respects to the dead, give my brother these ”—he holds up the keys I remember from the throne room, the ones to the pumping station that could help save the city—“and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “So you have given up on the city.” I try to put all the scorn I can into my voice.

  “It’s never been what I wanted,” he says. “I tried, but your father ruined everything.” This man has always been at the center of the web. He is even more to blame for all of the death and despair than my father. I slip my hand into my pocket to feel the cold solidness of the gun. I have one bullet left. If I get the chance, I’ll kill him.

  As Prospero leads us across two wide avenues, the tip of my boot crushes part of a shattered mask. We stop in front of the great cathedral. It is miraculously intact, spared from fire and vandalism. The stone is a costly white marble, and in the dim moonlight, it glows a little. It isn’t tall, not compared to the skyscrapers that surround it. But it has a soaring quality, especially from where we are standing, under the great stained-glass window.

  Gargoyles peer down at us from the ornate window ledges.

  “Our mother was to be buried here,” Prospero remarks. “Our father offered a very generous donation. But the priests said that the crypt was full. Father increased his offer, until the greedy priests agreed. But they never did it. They took the money and discarded her body because they were afraid to pry up any of the stones, terrified to open the vaults. The warnings are carved throughout the building, in Latin. ‘Beware of the vault.’ Inside were heaps of unidentified bones, the victims of a plague. The priests believed that a terrible illness would be unleashed on the city if they opened the tomb.”

  Prospero steps across the thre
shold, touching the scrollwork beside the door with one gloved finger.

  I follow him, searching the scrollwork for any such warning. Could the plague have originated in this cathedral, instead of in my father’s lab?

  Prospero keeps talking. He’s always loved the sound of his own voice, especially here, where even a whisper carries and echoes.

  “Those priests were fools. My brother and I tunneled into the vaults. We found rings, jewels, and even a locket with a snippet of hair. Years later, I gave that locket to your father when I asked him to find a solution to our rat problem. He was excited to study an ancient plague.”

  My heart sinks. I should stop trying to find ways for Father to escape the guilt. It always comes back to him.

  “Come inside.” Prince Prospero beckons from the cavernous darkness. Without meaning to, I have stopped on the threshold. His cold eyes glint from the shadows, chilling me, though the night is unseasonably warm.

  Names are engraved in each of the flagstones beneath our feet. Stepping-stones, burial stones, there is no difference in an ancient church like this. Some are engraved with images too worn to decipher. Pieces of an enormous pipe organ lie abandoned and decaying. A patch of night sky is visible where the roof has collapsed.

  The prince murmurs something, and as I strain to make out his words, I hear something else. The soft rustling of thousands of wings, shifting restlessly in the darkness of the eaves. The cathedral is filled with bats. Enormous, bloated, disease-carrying bats.

  Prospero freezes, and his eyes move upward, ever so slowly. Is it possible that he did not know bats have taken up residence in abandoned churches throughout the city? Even the smallest children know this.

  By now the sky is fully dark. The slightest sound could wake the bats. I’m afraid even to breathe.

  But Prospero walks to the front of the nave, easily a hundred paces from where I am standing, and kneels. His men stand in the doorway, watching me, their weapons ready. Prospero puts both hands to the altar and presses until some sort of panel pops out—a wooden drawer. He takes the keys from inside his vest, but before he places them inside, stone grates on stone, and one in the floor rises. A figure in dark robes ascends silently from beneath it. “You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow,” Prospero rasps.

  The keys jingle, once, as he holds them above the secret compartment, as if unsure what to do with them. And then all I hear is the whisper of restless wings.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A SINGLE BAT LEAVES THE SAFETY OF THE ROOF and swoops downward, and then everything is silent again.

  Malcontent lets his hood drop. His hair is shot with white, and his eyes are bloodshot.

  While Prospero is cold, Malcontent burns. And yet . . . there is a little of Elliott in each of them.

  “How appropriate to meet you here,” Malcontent says, “where your crimes began.” He steps away from the slab of limestone that must conceal a tunnel rather than a tomb. Two of his men follow.

  “Elliott could do much to improve the city,” Prospero says to his brother. “I trust you will stop him.”

  In this moment, my loathing for both of these men eclipses all other feelings. They are bent on destroying what’s left of the city, sabotaging everything Elliott is trying to do.

  “It was good of you to agree to meet me tomorrow, here at Mother’s empty tomb.” Malcontent gives a quick laugh. “But my men said that you were obviously leaving tonight, and I wanted to see you once again.” He steps forward. Prospero’s men are still in the cathedral but haven’t left the doorway. They can still run if things continue to go poorly for the prince.

  “Take him,” Malcontent says.

  Two of Malcontent’s diseased men flank the prince. The prince flails as one of the cloaked men reaches up and grabs his mask. Prospero freezes.

  In the silence, the crunch as the mask hits the floor is shocking. The other man, whose face is dripping with open sores, lunges at the prince, smearing the foul pus from his wounds onto Prospero’s face. The movements are practiced. He’s done this before.

  Prospero’s scream echoes through the church. The bats flap above us. Malcontent’s man lets him go, laughing, and Prospero scuttles backward like a frightened crab. He’s so close now that I could almost touch him. The keys fall to the floor.

  I measure the distance to the door while keeping an eye on the diseased man. I don’t want to draw his attention, but if he makes the slightest move in my direction, I’m ready to run.

  Malcontent sees me and gestures for me to join him. Just hours ago I’d planned to give myself to him, but now April is on her way to the palace. I have to stay with Prospero, whether I like it or not.

  A knife shines in the near-darkness. From his undignified crouch on the floor, Prospero throws the blade. It nicks Malcontent’s ear, but he keeps his chin high, even as blood drips down. The knife hits a statue behind him and clatters to the ground.

  Above us, thousands of wings flutter.

  “Is this . . . the same knife?” Malcontent asks, retrieving the blade. Anger contorts his face. He stares up, not at the bat-covered ceiling, but at the statues around the church, chanting something under his breath. As he toys with the knife that Prospero threw at him, I hear footsteps. Even more men are ascending from the tunnels.

  Our only hope is to get back to the waiting steam carriage.

  Prospero and Malcontent are eyeing each other from across the room. “Find the keys,” Malcontent says to his soldiers. No one is paying any attention to me.

  I reach into my pocket, so slowly that none of them notices. The ivory handle of the gun is heavy in my hand. I pull it from my pocket, aim toward the ceiling, close my eyes, and pull the trigger.

  The sound explodes and, all at once, is joined by the screeching bats and the screams from the men as the crazed creatures descend.

  I put up my other arm, to shield my hair as best I can, and run. Bats careen in every direction, swooping down and then back toward the ceiling. Someone knocks into me hard, and I fall. Something touches my hair, and I scream.

  Tiny pebbles rain down from above, along with bits of mortar.

  I crawl across the floor, and my fingers find something cool and metallic. The gold key ring. Everyone in the cathedral is fending off the swarm. I’ve lost track of Prospero, and I don’t see Malcontent. I clutch the keys and crawl into a small chapel.

  I can’t hide the keys on my body—now that I’ve revealed my gun, when one of them catches me, they’ll surely search me. Above, a gargoyle looks down from a ledge. I aim and throw the key ring up. It falls over the statue’s snout, then slides to lodge between it and the rough gray stone. It will have to do.

  And I got rid of the keys just in time, because Prospero grabs me from behind and drags me out of the chapel and through a door that is so perfectly concealed in the stonework that I didn’t see it before. Once we’re outside, he shoves me ahead of him toward the covered steam carriage that is waiting.

  One of the large, gruff men heaves me into the carriage, and then Prospero grabs my wrist and twists, hard, forcing me to drop the tiny gun and locking my right wrist into a restraint attached to the seat.

  He kicks my ivory-handled pistol aside. It doesn’t matter; both bullets are gone.

  “Give me your mask,” he says. He’s scrubbing at his face with a handkerchief, and his eyes water as he wets the cloth with wine from a bottle beside his seat and scrubs again.

  “But masks can’t protect anyone except their original owners,” I say, holding tight to my mask.

  He yanks it from my face. It’s too small on him, and he looks ludicrous, and as crazed as his brother.

  He coughs, and even though it’s much too early for any signs of the Weeping Sickness to manifest, his eyes go wide with horror and he scrubs at his hands once again. Then he kicks at the empty gun again, mocking me and the weapon, though I saved his life with it.

  “Elliott gave that to me,” I say, wanting to see his response to his nephew�
��s name.

  He scowls behind the mask, and then, in a voice filled with childish spite, he says, “Your mother doesn’t approve of him.”

  “No,” I agree. “She doesn’t.”

  “She used to cry over Elliott. She didn’t understand that torture is an art. That I had to train him.”

  I shake my head, willing him to stop talking, but he doesn’t.

  “Do you know how I convinced your mother to stop coddling him? I told her that it might be entertaining to replace him with a pair of twins. Everyone loves twins. She never let Elliott hide in her room after that.”

  Not only is this his first smile since that diseased man rubbed infection into his face, this is the first time that I’ve ever seen Prospero’s smile reach his eyes They crinkle up in the corners. I feel my hand balling into a fist.

  I shift in my seat, as if trying to pull my knees into my body for comfort. But my knife is in my boot. If I can get it, I might be able to hurt him.

  Elliott warned me that it would be difficult to put a knife into someone, but I don’t think it will be so hard if that person is Prospero. And I did shoot a man for the first time today.

  “You killed my brother,” I say.

  He raises his eyebrows in mock hurt.

  “I sent the men who killed your brother, it’s true. I didn’t know Finn was among the ill. I would have preferred to have him alive.”

  He pours the wine left in the bottle into a goblet and drinks without offering me anything. Not that I would have accepted. Last time he gave me wine, it was laced with poison.

  “You must realize that I wanted both you and your brother,” he goes on, as if he is trying to convince me of something. “But your spineless father said that if I touched either of you, I would die, bleeding from my pores. Your brother died while your father was eating at my table. I don’t believe he has ever recovered from it. And he’s never known the truth, has he? The way your brother suffered, as he died?”