Page 45 of House of the Beast
Chapter
S ound drifted back to me first, soft murmurs and a rhythmic tick, tick slipping through the haze in my mind.
There was the thump of unnaturally heavy footsteps, the clink of a teacup.
Something was shaking me, disturbing me from my rest. I scowled, trying to ignore it, until after a few more shakes a familiar voice hissed urgently in my ear, “Alma!”
That got me to creak open my eyelids. I rarely heard Aster so distressed. The tone of his voice alone sent a pang of unease through me, and I struggled to clear my head.
Everything was a blur. My limbs felt as though they were made of lead. A pair of golden eyes blinked down at me, the brows above them creased in worry. My monster breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Thank goodness you’re awake,” he said. “Get up. The Mother Meister is planning something.”
What is she doing? I tried to say, but all I actually managed was “Wha...?”
Nearby, a chair scraped over the floor. My voice must have drawn someone’s attention—which was a foolish mistake on my part.
I had known there were others in the room.
Berating myself, I tried to sit up—only to find that my wrists and ankles had been strapped onto the cold, hard surface I was lying on.
“Hold on,” Aster said, and began the process of trying to undo the cuffs holding me.
I could hear footsteps coming closer; to hide the movement of the cuffs from Aster’s efforts, I continued struggling against them, rattling them to and fro.
It would make his job more difficult, but he would have to manage.
“I hadn’t expected you to be awake,” said Olissa Goldmercy as she came to my side.
“That serum was supposed to keep you down for another hour or so. I suppose you must have some resistance to it, being a vessel of the Beast. No matter: I’ll give you another dose before we go ahead with the procedure. ”
“Procedure?” I slurred, turning my head to take in my surroundings.
I was inside a dark but spacious room that looked like a cross between a study and a laboratory.
The carpet was filthy and the curtains, all drawn, were heavy with grime.
We must have been somewhere in the abandoned school.
In one corner, a tattered armchair sat in front of a cold fireplace, beside which was a low table, holding a steaming teacup and an open book.
My sword had been leaned against the chair—I breathed a sigh of relief to see it nearby, even though I had no way of reaching it at the moment.
All along the wall were shelves full of dusty bottles and rusted tools.
Two attendants in Goldmercy colors stood by them, extract ing newer, shinier tools from a leather briefcase to lay out onto a tray.
Standing in wait for orders behind them was another Tinkerer’s Thing.
At least seven feet tall and packed with muscle, it would have looked out of place beside all the delicate paraphernalia if it wasn’t so still and docile that it clearly was a tool itself.
A single Mercyguard stood by the only door, guarding it.
“Well, yes,” said Olissa Goldmercy matter-of-factly. “I asked if you would be a good girl and join your father and me of your own accord. You refused, so now I have no choice but to make sure you don’t go running off on your own.”
Panic was quickly driving the sluggishness from my veins.
Beside my ear, Aster hissed a curse. He was clearly having trouble with the mechanism locking the cuffs in place.
I had to buy him time—at least to get one hand free.
If I could reach my sword, then I could cut through the rest of my restraints.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
The Mother Meister came close enough to envelop me in her sweet, cloying perfume and tapped my temple with a finger.
“I’m going to drill a hole here,” she said sweetly, her breath ghosting over my face, “and poke around inside a little bit. Nothing too major. I’ll just get rid of that nasty, disobedient part of you—you’ll be safe and sound, and less of a problem for everyone involved.”
My eyes widened. Then I found my voice. “Are you insane?” I shouted, fully awake.
I struggled for real against my bonds, but it was no use.
The leather cuffs held fast even as the table I was lying on rattled with my movements.
The freshly healed wound in my shoulder twinged. “Why would you do this?”
“Stop, Alma,” growled Aster. “Just hold still for a little bit.”
But I could tell he was making no headway.
I was well and truly locked in place by Goldmercy craft.
I knew my father had allies in the court—but I had never imagined they would go so far for his sake.
What on earth had he said to Olissa Goldmercy, to convince her to resort to such atrocities before the Pilgrimage had even begun?
“Why, you ask?” said the Mother Meister conversationally, even as her attendants brought over the tray of tools and set it down on a trolley beside my head.
I could not help turning to look at them, these instruments of my doom.
There were long, thin picks and giant needles, as well as a nasty-looking hand drill.
The sight of them sent dread running cold through my veins.
“Because it is only natural progression, to want to become closer to one’s god,” she continued.
“Your father is quite a visionary, you know. He is the only one who sees the change we need to make. We have godhood right at our fingertips but have settled for scraps for far too long. Zander understands that there is more, and that we could take it if we tried hard enough.”
Scraps? I could understand my father’s ambition, but Olissa Goldmercy was already the head of her House, in the highest place of honor a vessel could ask for.
What more could she seek? “Look, I don’t care about what you want,” I snarled.
“My grievance with my father is personal. Leave me the fuck alone!”
“I can’t do that, sweetling. We need you, as tiresome as you are, and if we can bring you into the umbral plane with us, then darling Six over there will get to stay with me.” She gestured fondly toward the little child-Thing, whose helmeted face turned away as if in shame.
“What?” My mind whirled. The only special thing about me was my connection to Aster—and there was no way the Mother Meister knew about that.
Was there? Fear flashed through me briefly as I wondered if I had given myself away, but try as I might, I still could not understand what that Tinkerer’s Thing had to do with me. “You’re not making any fucking sense!”
“Another reason, of course,” continued Olissa Goldmercy, leaning in to speak right into my face with a gleam in her eye, “is that I simply enjoy it. It is such a beautiful process, to take something so brazen and nasty and instead turn it lovely and quiet. That is the Tinkerer’s blessing, and no one reveres it more than I.
I wouldn’t even need a reason to want to temper you, young Alma.
Unless, of course, you promise to behave for us from now on. ”
“She’s as crazy as your dear uncle,” said Aster, sounding almost impressed.
I could have lied and promised to do anything she wanted, just to give Aster more time to get me free. But now I was more angry than scared, to know that my father had decided to conspire with someone like this, and that they had planned my demise together.
“Go fuck yourself,” I snarled.
The Mother Meister sniffed. “For that, I think we will do the procedure without anesthetic. I’ve always found pain to be a wonderful teacher. Four, come hold her still.”
The great Thing lumbered over, its footsteps heavy enough to shake the table I was on. Without ceremony, it clamped one of its hands—fitted over with metal like a glove—on top of my scalp, and the other on my chin, nearly cutting off my air. Like this, I could not move my head at all.
“Fuck,” hissed Aster. “Alma, I can’t undo these things.”
“Fuck!” I echoed back.
He leaned over me, hands braced on either side of the table.
“Let me in,” Aster said, eyes blazing. “We can break through them together if you’ll just let me in.”
I did not hesitate. Reaching for him was like instinct, born of so many years of basking in his presence, of leaning into his comfort.
My heart and my mind were drawn to him—and where I usually tried to stop them, this time I let myself yearn.
I knew his touch, the feeling of his skin against mine, and I used it to ground me as he grasped my hand.
My eyes closed and I focused on the pressure of his fingers and the almost electric warmth that sparked whenever he touched me, using it to block out the rest: the strange, sterile smell of the dead flesh holding me still, the casual murmur of Olissa Goldmercy to her attendants as she chose her instruments for the procedure, the metallic scrape as something was picked up off the tray.
I imagined myself sending my consciousness, like a ball of light, to our point of contact, and brushing open the space between us to let him in.
I imagined him on the other side, reaching out just as gently, sweet and familiar, and then suddenly blazing hot and bright and as brilliant as the first time.
In one tug, my metal hand snapped through the leather cuff.