The Dark Volume Part 54

"I have tried to protect him, Celeste," Eloise cried to her, "to protect everyone-and not one thing has been saved! I am a fool-not one thing!"

Eloise's words stopped in her throat, her shoulders rocking.

MISS TEMPLE slumped onto her back, her ragged breath fogging in the midnight chill. Chang shoving her to safety with his last strength. The Doctor exposing his heart to a sword. Of course he had returned at her cry. Of course Chang had protected her to the end. Despair swallowed up her rage and she felt unbearably alone.

Miss Temple heard Eloise move and knew the woman was watching her, miserable, desperate for any crumb of forgiveness or care.

"It is not your fault," Miss Temple said finally, her voice a stricken whisper. "It is only mine, and always has been. I am extremely sorry. I am... I am... nothing at all."

Eloise shook her head. "We could go back."

"If we go back we will die as well, and their sacrifice is made meaningless." The words were hollow and false in Miss Temple's mouth. She felt the black coating of the Comte's book in her throat-felt the truth of it-and could find no other answer.

"I do not care," shuddered Eloise.

Miss Temple turned her head and found herself staring into the face of the silent girl. Francesca Trapping's lower lip was trembling, her blue eyes frightened and remote. What nightmare had the poor girl lived? Miss Temple struggled to sit.

"You must take her," she said, swallowing, kicking at Eloise's nearest leg. "She has to be saved, Eloise. You must take her away from this."

"I cannot," said Eloise, shaking her head at her own helplessness. "I cannot go. I have been waiting-"

"You cannot wait-the Doctor is gone!"

"But-I tried to say, so many times-"

"It has to have stood for something!" Miss Temple cried. She surged unsteadily to her feet, shouting at the other woman. "Get up, Eloise! Save this much! Save her!"

THE WHISTLE of Lydia's case as it swung in the air caused Miss Temple to turn just enough that the sharp metal corner did not punch through her skull, but the impact jarred her teeth and dropped her to the earth like a hammer. She lay without understanding, as if her head had been severed. There was blood in her mouth. She could not move.

A hissing whisper penetrated her ear like a poisonous smoke. She felt the soft lips pressed against her skin, and the warmth of each vicious word as it came.

"This is not the way, Celeste Temple-you're half dead and cannot feel a thing, cannot think a thing. For all your presumptions, I require that you taste your despair completely-that you choke on it. I want you to know to your bones when I have killed you."

The mouth went away and Miss Temple lay for the longest time in the cold air, stunned and drifting, though she remembered somewhere that to truly sleep was to die. She lifted an impossibly heavy head and blinked gummed and crusted eyes.

Francesca Trapping was gone. Eloise was a shapeless huddle in the dirt, the dark wet stripe across her lolling throat reflecting the star light.

MISS TEMPLE retched, but nothing came. She finally stood, eyes tight against what she could not bear, and stumbled away. The gunshots had ceased-she must have outrun the search; it did not matter-she barely noticed. She was impossibly alone, and even the swirling visions that had for so long battered her mind could find no entrance to her shattered heart.

SHE WOULD reach the ca.n.a.l. Beyond the ca.n.a.l was the train. She had money in her boot. Beyond the train was the city, her certain death... and her revenge.

end.