Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  She drew a deeper, easier breath. She could endure so long as she felt him, as she first had when he appeared in her room.

  And when the Undertaker’s work was done, would her spirit and Rom’s join together? That alone might make her fate bearable. But, ah, she would have liked to love that body of his one more time.

  The steam plant, still chugging away, drummed in her ears in time with her heartbeat. The sound blotted out the words her father and the Undertaker exchanged. That they planned the event of her death, and Rom’s, she did not doubt.

  But what was death? What life? Did it end with the flesh? If Clifford could be believed, her flesh would live on, sold to the highest bidder, taken away to some far place where no one would recognize her. Her spirit, she knew, would live on also—but not a life she could easily comprehend. No sting of sleet on her cheek, no hunger or thirst, no desire. She looked again at the man who hung from the pipe. No tasting the enticing tang of his flesh or feeling him plunge into her, bringing unimaginable completeness. She wanted that—oh, how she did!

  The argument, for such it was, between Frederick and Clifford grew louder. Did her father still resist after all? But maybe they argued only over methods. She pressed her eyes closed and prayed to she knew not what. She did not wish to watch Rom die. Call her cowardly, but she couldn’t bear it. Please let them kill—or banish—me first.

  “Topaz.”

  At first her ears barely caught the hiss that came from the direction of Sapphire’s table. When he had remained still for so long, she’d believed him unconscious. Now she turned her head to find his dark gaze, narrowed between black lashes, fixed upon her.

  Her heart leaped again, this time with hope. Like her, Clifford and Frederick must have supposed Sapphire sufficiently incapacitated that they’d failed to strap him down. She didn’t know what had happened to him during that terrible psychic flash at Forest Lawn, but he had clearly regained his senses.

  He mouthed something, the words making barely a sound. With the boiler hammering in the background Topaz couldn’t hear. She shook her head and stole a look at her father. Abruptly, Sapphire’s voice invaded her mind.

  Join with me.

  She started, and Frederick twitched his shoulder almost as if he heard. Not daring to turn her gaze back on her brother, she thought instead, How?

  Mind.

  That hadn’t worked in the graveyard; even together they had insufficient power to defeat Frederick. Yet what options did she have? She contemplated it as ruthlessly as she ever had a physical opponent and decided, as she always would, to fight.

  She gave Sapphire one nod. When?

  Now, he told her and leaped from the table.

  He made not for the steamie—still armed—or for his father, but for the Undertaker. Before Topaz could blink he had the frail man in his clutches, one arm hard across his throat, the other around his rib cage, making of him a shield.

  Frederick, shocked for once, stepped back. The armed steamie raised its cannon but could not shoot without hitting Clifford.

  “It’s over, Father,” Sapphire said in a voice that bore no relation to his usual smooth tones. “All done. Release Topaz and her companion or I’ll crush his windpipe.”

  Sapphire, who had taught Topaz to fight, knew how to make good on the threat. A man’s windpipe, so he had once told her, was nothing but a thin tube and easily collapsed—a vulnerable point, were she ever attacked.

  Now he looked like nothing so much as an assassin, dark hair mussed, eyes glittering, and face intent. Frederick must believe him, yet he made no assent. Instead he attempted to speak.

  “Son—you must not betray me.”

  Sapphire howled a cry of pain. “Why not? Tell me, Father.” He made of the last word an epithet. “What have you ever given me?”

  “Security, a strong roof over your head. Good food in your belly. A superior education, and every advantage in choosing a career,” Frederick retorted. “Far more than your forefathers ever had.”

  “We are not our forefathers!”

  “We are, though, son. We are the ones who were hounded and chased across Europe, whose children slept on the cold ground, who were exterminated like foxes. The ability we carry comes from them. Would you betray the memory of all they endured and what they fought to pass on?”

  Sapphire bared his teeth. “You are the one guilty of betrayal! You’re selling their sacred talent to the highest bidders.”

  “An easy mark is an easy mark, Sapphire—wherever he may be found.”

  “So,” Sapphire sneered, “you are no more than a schemer, a user, a dirty gypsy.”

  “Don’t say that.” Topaz rarely heard her father angry. He seldom had cause to raise his voice, but he did so now, and his will flared up to clash with that of his son. Topaz distinctly felt them mesh and battle, and raised her own strength to support her brother, eyes riveted to her father’s face. It flushed with rage and then drained white.

  “We are the sum of our ancestors,” Frederick insisted, “but so much more. We have achieved more than they dreamed. I cannot let you toss all that away, Sapphire. You must see I cannot.”

  With that, Frederick unleashed his power, hurled it like a whip, striking Sapphire in a burning lash of pain. Topaz, who caught the mere edge of it, did not know how Sapphire kept his knees from buckling.

  “You think you can defeat me, Sapphire?” Frederick roared. “I, who gave you life?”

  Sapphire swayed where he stood. The steamie, wholly flummoxed, posed with the steam cannon pointed at Sapphire’s head, awaiting orders.

  But Sapphire and his father were locked in a battle of wills, one perhaps many years overdue. Topaz, immobile yet linked in spirit with both her brother and Rom, felt Sapphire draw strength from her, strength with which to fight.

  Still with his fingers clamped around Clifford’s throat, he stared into his father’s eyes—and squeezed.

  “Cut them loose,” he grated, “or by all the gods, I will kill him.”

  “Go ahead,” Frederick told him. “I’ve already learned his methods and no longer need him. And I don’t think you have the balls for it.”

  “Do it,” Rom urged suddenly, hoarse with agony. “Remove the blight from the world.”

  At the sound of his voice, Topaz arched her body, fighting for freedom. But she could not break the bonds that fixed her to the table.

  Sapphire, never looking away from his father or so much as blinking, tightened his fingers and twisted brutally. Clifford made a strangled sound and sagged to Sapphire’s feet.

  “Shoot him,” Frederick commanded, and the steamie fired.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The second steam blast in the confined space almost blew out Rom’s eardrums. He felt the various spirits that always flocked around Frederick Hathor flee, even as he ducked instinctively away from the scorching blast.

  They must have heard that—and the last impact—upstairs, he thought, even as his eyes sought Sapphire. Hurt? Dead? No, though he had landed on the floor when he ducked and rolled away beneath another of the tables. Was he trying to get behind his father? Trying to reach Topaz where she lay?

  Frederick whirled, and the steamie with him. Rom—utterly vulnerable where he hung—knew the steamie’s side cannon would take many seconds to recharge. Sapphire must know it also, for he leaped upon his father even as the automaton raised the weapon again.

  As soon as Sapphire’s fingers closed on Frederick a terrible power rose in the room, the full fury of Frederick’s outrage at being attacked by his son.

  Momentarily forgotten, Rom drew himself up and examined his situation. He cared far less for himself than for Topaz—freeing her and getting her away out of this madness.

  He eyed the chains from which he hung, which ended in the manacles on his wrists. They’d been slung over the pipe that ran beneath the ceiling joists, not affixed permanently as in the torture room at Grayson. He sucked in a breath, tensed all his muscles, and almost unconsciously drew
on the connection between him and Topaz for the required strength.

  She turned her head and looked at him. He could feel her deliberately lend her will as he began to slowly draw himself up, climbing the chains, reaching for the pipe which clattered and flexed beneath his weight.

  He slipped and felt Topaz buoy him. His grasping, half-numb fingers reached for the metal pipe, gripped it securely. He hauled himself up even as the room shuddered with the impact of Frederick’s ire.

  The pipe over which his chain had been slung did not reach the ceiling. Not till he had hauled himself up could he be sure he’d fit between the joists and be able to squeeze over it. A tight fit, for sure, but he plunged forward, wriggling like an eel, and forced his way through, losing half the skin on his back.

  He leaped down, and the steamie saw him. It whirled and fired the weapon, missing Rom with all but a sizzling frisson of air. Rom ducked and, the heavy chains dragging from his wrists, crept to Topaz’s table and popped up beside her.

  Golden eyes, half maddened, stared into his. “He’s going to kill Sapphire. I can feel it.”

  Rom could feel a lot of things—far too many: Topaz’s fear and love for him, her love for both men who thrashed together on the floor. He did not even pause to ask which he she meant. Her bonds fastened with stiff buckles; he began working on the first of them frantically.

  “No,” she begged. “Not me. Stop them. Stop them.”

  He could feel what she felt, it filled him also, a backwash of what she collected through her connections with both men. He ignored her; he cared little for anything beyond her safety.

  “Rom, please!”

  He ducked instinctively as the steamie, now completely adrift and without direction, fired again. He gasped, feeling Topaz’s pain as the beam passed directly above her body. The blast struck the boiler, and the room exploded.

  Topaz screamed, a sound Rom felt even more than heard. Steam, fire, and boiling water erupted from the breached boiler on the far side of the room. Had Rom still been hanging from his beam, he would have been cooked alive.

  “Sapphire!” Topaz cried. Or did she only think it? Rom could no longer see the two men. Clouds of steam and a flood of hot water began to fill the space. A jet of water struck the automaton and took it down; the cannon fell from its grip.

  Rom dragged himself back up and set to work on the buckles again. All the while Topaz’s will beat at him, demanding he go to Sapphire’s aid. But he could hear flames from the generator crackling up the wall behind him, and if she thought he would do anything before he got her out of here, she was mad indeed.

  The first buckle came undone and he moved to the second. Topaz’s free hand clutched him with dire strength.

  “Help him.”

  The battle on the floor—more spiritual than physical—continued. Rom spared one look for the two men locked together before he returned all his attention to his task. The hot water flooding the floor had not reached them yet, though it had now engulfed the fallen steamie and fast approached the rest of them.

  The second buckle came free and Topaz popped upright. She screamed at her brother, “Sapphire!”

  At that instant, unbearable pain invaded Rom’s skull. It took him a moment to realize it stemmed from Frederick Hathor and came to him from Sapphire—its recipient—through Topaz.

  Sapphire went still. Rom, working on the last of Topaz’s buckles at her right ankle, actually felt his consciousness leave the room. Dead? He didn’t know and had no intention of waiting to see. He gathered Topaz into his arms and, turning his back on the terrible scene, went through the door.

  The barren corridor met his gaze. To the left lay more doors and a blank wall, to the right the flight of stairs that led up.

  He could now hear flames crackling in the room behind him. Topaz seized his arm.

  “Fire! We can’t leave him there. We have to go back for him.”

  “Which of them?” Rom asked.

  “Sapphire.”

  “I’ll come back for him. I’m getting you out of here first.”

  “There’s no time!”

  He started for the stairs and heard a roar behind him. He whirled at the foot of the steps, Topaz clutched against his chest, and beheld…

  It must be Frederick Hathor, but it didn’t look like him. This figure, misshapen, appeared as nothing so much as a dark form surrounded by a corona of light. Power, Rom thought, even as his spirit shrank from the aspect.

  “Stop,” Hathor cried.

  Topaz wriggled in Rom’s arms and slid to her feet. Rom felt the strength within her stir. She raised it even as she might the stiletto, a purely defensive action.

  “Where’s Sapphire?” she asked, her voice broken. “Have you killed him? Did you kill your own son?”

  Frederick shook his head slowly. Regretfully he said, “Daughter, I cannot let you go, lest you betray me.”

  Topaz’s head came up. “You can rely on it.”

  “Then I must overwhelm you, as I did your brother. I am sorry. It is not what I ever wanted to do.”

  “Father, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can—”

  Topaz got no further. Frederick unleashed his full power at Topaz, and Rom felt the snap of it through her consciousness, enough to rattle his teeth. Topaz stiffened and, dredging strength from somewhere, withstood the onslaught. For half a dozen heartbeats the two of them stood facing one another, father and daughter, before he heard Topaz’s voice in his mind.

  Go.

  “No.” He said it out loud, every part of him rejecting the prospect. They were truly joined; he would stand with her even if it cost his life.

  “Get help. Get Pat.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  The crackle of flames had grown louder. The glow from the other room made a ghastly backdrop for what Frederick Hathor had become—a figure of darkness, unredeemable, lost. Topaz seemed to realize that at the same instant as Rom. She tossed back her hair, screamed, and called up her full power.

  Rom felt it come—not easily—clawing and scratching, fighting its way up through her to get out. Dazzlingly bright, golden as the sun, it streamed forth into the corridor to battle the darkness.

  For one blessed, glorious moment Rom thought she must win. He saw Frederick’s knees buckle before the man caught himself and stumbled backward. Of course, Rom thought—because darkness couldn’t stand against true light.

  But Frederick regained himself and bared his teeth at his daughter. The spirits of the place, so recently driven away, streamed back, poured into him, and augmented his strength, which he thrust into a gout of power.

  It caught Topaz in a net woven of darkness, cast by her father’s mind. Rom felt her stiffen, experienced her terror and pain, and his heart fell. He caught her in his arms before she could sag, and bore her upward.

  Frederick Hathor, caught in his daughter’s defeat, did not notice the figure that dragged itself up by the frame of the doorway behind him. He never looked around to see the ghastly look on Sapphire’s face, or to notice the weapon in his hand.

  Topaz’s stiletto.

  The blade took Frederick Hathor just beneath the left shoulder blade in a perfect position to pierce his heart.

  Frederick fell, and a cloud of what looked like multicolored steam arose from his flesh. Vast it was, deeply dyed in red like rubies, green like emeralds, sapphire blue, and the bright glow of topaz. It gathered all the other spirits into it and ascended through the ceiling of the cellar, into the house, and out of sight.

  “Sapphire!” Topaz cried. Rom turned in time to catch Sapphire as he went down. A glance into the room from which he had emerged showed it engulfed in flame, with Clifford—not dead after all but boiling in water and steam—moving feebly.

  “Leave him,” Sapphire croaked when Rom would have ducked back in. His eyes met Rom’s. “Let the evil burn—let all of it burn.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The fire followed them as they struggled up the stairs, both
Topaz and Rom supporting Sapphire between them. As Topaz told herself with every step, if the door at the top proved locked, they would all die down here together.

  It wasn’t till she touched the door she realized something besides the fire followed them. A glance behind showed her Clifford, scalded by boiling water, his face and hands red and blotched, had dragged himself from the inner room and pushed past Frederick’s body and up the hallway.

  Without conscious thought, she turned the doorknob. The door opened, and she thrust both Rom and her brother through.

  “Take him, Rom. I’ll handle this.”

  “No—” Rom began, and she felt his protest arc through her.

  She slammed the door on him, whirled, and drew a breath. No weapon, save her body. It would have to be enough. Her gaze skimmed the blackened, lifeless form that had once been her father before fastening on Clifford.

  His eyes, bloodshot and set in a face now mottled and barely recognizable, held no mercy. How many poor souls had looked into those eyes, searching for humanity that didn’t exist?

  He had already lost his soul; she had only to finish his flesh.

  She flew down the stairs on eager feet. If she were to die here, lost to the now-roaring flames, it would not be too high a price so long as she took this monster with her.

  The power of that thought sent her feet first into Clifford, heedless of all else. Her boots took him in the chest and knocked him over. She landed on top of him, face to face, her eyes staring into the darkness that possessed him.

  “Be gone,” she told him.

  “Not unless I take you with me.”

  His hands closed around her throat. Pain blossomed as he found the pressure points there, and darkness rushed at her, composed of hate and greed and all the emotions that made him the abomination he was.

  “I think I will appropriate your body,” he said. “You see, mine is ruined. But yours—strong and supple. Only imagine what I might accomplish with it.”

  “Never.” She bared her teeth and fought back, breaking his grip and smashing his head against the stone floor. But his fury, that of a maddened creature, had him reaching for her again. This time his fingers tightened till she saw dark spots dance against the bright flames roaring down the hallway.