Dedicated to my dear friend CamyTang.
*************************************
God help me. I mentally screamed at Dietrich. I snapped my pepper spray from the neckline of my dress and sprayed it at Creston.
He reeled back, shouting, but his cries were lost in the screams from the actors as they played out the kraken scene.
A scene I was supposed to enter in only a few minutes.
I’m coming, Minx!
Wallace lunged for me. I tried to pepper spray him, but he knocked the canister from my hand. It disappeared into the chaos far below us.
As I watched it fall, I caught a glimpse of Dietrich, balancing on the wooden half wall surrounding the orchestra pit. He nimbly ran along the narrow ledge onto the stage.
The sight of him filled me with renewed strength.
I pressed the hidden button in my gloves, unsheathing my fingered blades. I clawed at Wallace. Four long slashes opened on his face. They filled quickly with blood.
He swore at me and reach again for my arm. I shoved him. He hit the guard rail of the catwalk, momentarily off-balance.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Creston hurtling toward me.
A sickened dread filled me. I wasn’t going to win.
But if I was going to lose, I’d cause as much damage as I could first.
This time, I would fight.
I stomped the heel of my boot, releasing three inch spikes through the sole. I threw the hardest kick I could at him.
It caught him in the thigh. He screamed.
I yanked hard to pull the embedded spikes out of his flesh. He stumbled back, clutching his injured leg and swearing at me.
Wallace grabbed me around my waist from behind. I flailed. I reached backward and clawed his head. He growled, but didn’t let go.
I sheathed my claws and grabbed my hairpins. Blindly, I jabbed them into his face.
He screamed and released me. “Bloody hell!” Frantically, he dug at the burning, corkscrewed pins.
Creston leaped on me, pinning my arms to my side. I struggled and stomped my boots, trying to impale my spikes on his feet. But he managed to stay out of my way.
Wallace advanced on me, his face bloodied and full of rage.
It was almost over. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to yield.
Leaning back against Creston, I braced one foot on the railing and kicked with the other one.
Wallace grabbed my foot. Twisted it.
Pain shot through me. I cried out.
I lifted the other foot, but I couldn’t cross my body enough to get a good kick in. My skirt tangled around me, and Wallace laughed at my contortions.
Creston let go of me with one arm. I almost fell, and instinctively put my free leg down to regain my balance.
Before I could attack Creston again, he jammed a gloved finger into my mouth.
Like a chalk painting in the rain, the noise, screams, and soaring orchestral music ran together into a muddied blur.
Minx? Dietrich’s thought sounded far away, thin and muffled. Oh god. Don’t give up. Keep fighting.
Too…late. The desire to struggle drained away from me. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.
A calmness overtook me, almost a sense of euphoria. Everything seemed lit with a halo of silvery light. It was so beautiful. My heart fluttered in a rapid tremelo, even though I felt like I was floating on a sea of peace.
Creston shoved me back onto my feet. “Sheathe your boots,” he snarled at me.
The command was like a physical force slamming into me. I obeyed immediately. I couldn’t not obey.
The men were breathing hard, glaring at me with hatred I should have found chilling. But nothing seemed to matter anymore.
“I am going to kill Agnes when this is done,” Wallace said. “She was supposed to have neutralized her before the show started.”
From the steel in his tone, I didn’t think he was exaggerating. But I didn’t care.
Dimly, I heard Creston say they’d better hurry.
I looked down on the teeming stage far below. So many little people. So much scurrying around.
So meaningless.
I saw Dietrich, struggling to make his way across the stage. Mechanical kraken arms slammed on the stage, nearly smashing him. It was all intricately choreographed, but he didn’t belong in the dance. He might get seriously hurt.
I didn’t know why he should be doing that. The plan was to send the rozzers up the fly gallery stairs to the catwalk. Not across the stage.
But we had no rozzers. They were drugged or dead.
Pity.
The two men began chanting in a foreign language. Slow, rhythmic. Eerily beautiful. It sounded like Latin. At first, I was confused.
Then I remembered—that’s right.
They were going to kill me.
And now that they’d succeeded in drugging me with the brugmansia, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
I was going to die.
I felt no fear. Just a calm acceptance. Death suddenly seemed normal. Everyone was going to experience it someday. My turn was now.
I watched Dietrich’s progress across the stage. A kraken arm slammed his head. He stumbled, nearly falling off the front of the stage.
He pulled himself to his knees and crawled. There was blood on his face. Even though our mental connection was fuzzy now, I could still feel the traces of his desperation and determination to save me.
Dietrich, it’s fine. Really. I will miss you, but everything will be all right. Don’t be upset.
I will not let them do this! I swear it, cariad.
My poor, brave Dietrich. He just didn’t understand—there was no need for so much struggle. It was better to be calm, and accept fate.
Wallace tied a rope to a batten in front of the catwalk. At the other end of the rope was a noose.
More chanting. Creston flicked something wet over me in a pattern of three. It was all so strange. Like a religious rite.
A sacrifice.
My head ached.
I heard the orchestra’s music, as if from a long distance. It was reaching the apex of the scene. It would have been fun to take my place in it all. I had been a good Julia Donovan.
I would have made a fine actress.
But it wasn’t important anymore.
The chanting stopped. Wallace handed me the noose. “Take this noose in the name of the Sacred Master. Put it around your neck,” he commanded me.
The compulsion hit me hard again. I took the heavy, rough loop and lifted it over my head. Creston tightened it so it fit snugly against my skin.
Then he took a red sash and wrapped it around my waist. He slid a beautiful, iridescent peacock tail feather into the sash.
Wallace lifted my hands and placed a small red bottle in them.
He and Creston backed away now.
I could barely hear Wallace’s voice over the other noise. “You will drink from the vial of death. You will stand on the rail and count to thirty. Then, you will jump. And so another piece of defilement will be purged from the empire.”
I didn’t really considered myself a defilement, but it wasn’t worth caring about.
I recognized the music. It was my cue. I was supposed to scramble from below deck and climb my way to the ship’s rudder to take command of the ship and save it from the kracken.
Instead, I would drink.
And die.
I lifted the bottle to my lips.
Goodbye, Dietrich.
*****************************
Everyone okay? Are you *HANGING* in there? *wink*
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Next Thursday:
Dietrich’s body glowed with anguish. I will do whatever I must to keep you alive.
(What do you think Dietrich is planning to do?)