“No empire ever rules justly,” she said to Tera, head thrown back, looking up at the small woman standing high above her in the window. “I learned that when the British came to Kôr. Your intentions may be good, but you too would rule the world as a tyrant.”
“You have spoken, my daughter,” said Tera. She raised her hands. A wind rose and howled around them. It brought a white smoke that glittered like opals. The last thing Catherine saw before the smoke hid the keep from her sight was the front door opening, and Mrs. Raymond and Margaret Trelawny stepping out. Mrs. Raymond had her hands raised, like a witch casting a spell. Margaret was holding a pistol in one hand, with her other hand under the butt to steady it. The pistol was pointed directly at them.
JUSTINE: I sometimes wonder if Queen Tera was right. Irene Norton says if things continue as they are, within a generation there will be such a war in Europe as we have never seen.
MARY: Well, then we must try to prevent it. The Athena Club must try to prevent it. War is never inevitable.
CATHERINE: The way you primates behave? I would not be so sure about that.
“You can do it, Alice,” said Mary. “I have faith in you.”
“As do I,” said Sherlock Holmes, standing behind and a little below them on the steps.
Once again, Alice pointed at the lock. But today, the spark that came from her finger was even weaker than it had been the day before.
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. She felt her eyes prickle. She was about to cry with frustration.
Suddenly, she heard a meowing outside the door.
“That sounds like a cat,” said Mary.
“It’s Bast! Poor Bast. Mrs. Polgarth isn’t coming today, and I think they’ve forgotten to feed her. Why resurrect a mummy cat if you’re not even going to take care of it?”
The thought of poor Bast without her breakfast made Alice so angry. She pointed at the door. A crackling beam of light sprang from her finger. Suddenly, the lock shattered and the door sprang open. They were free!
“Come on,” she said. “I’m going to feed Bast, and then we’re going to fight Queen Tera, somehow or other.”
MARY: You couldn’t open the door for us, but you could for a cat?
ALICE: Poor Bast. We would never treat Alpha or Omega like that, no matter how much Mrs. Poole insists they’re supposed to hunt mice for their living.
DIANA: Mrs. Poole puts out food for them every day! I’ve seen her.
ALICE: Anyway, I’m so glad Ayesha allowed us to keep Bast. She’s a good kitty, isn’t she? Come here, Bastet. You’re a very good kitty, you know that?
MRS. POOLE: And a spry one, for being two thousand years old! I think she catches more mice than those two scalawags put together. There’s a little extra liver left over from breakfast, which I’m not saying she can have, because animals should not eat food meant for humans, but it’s on the kitchen counter, is all.
The world was filled with white smoke. Beatrice turned around and around, confused. Where was she? She could see shapes here and there. For a moment, she saw Mrs. Raymond—but no, it was her father, Dr. Rappaccini! He looked at her with mournful eyes. And there beside him was her lover. Giovanni, who had died drinking the antidote to her poison. He too was looking at her—sadly, accusingly. How was that possible? In the rational part of her mind, she thought, Memories too must be formed of energic waves. Mrs. Raymond is making me see things. But somehow, that did not prevent her from seeing them as though they were real.
Justine stared at herself, at Justine Moritz, the maid of the Frankensteins, surrounded by glinting lights in the white smoke that swirled around her. How pretty that Justine was! What blue eyes she had, what golden hair, what a joyful smile. She herself—what was she? A corpse? A shadow? She fell to her knees and wept in shame at what she had become. This facsimile of a life—would it not be best to end it? To go to the grave Frankenstein had denied her?
Catherine was surrounded by Beast Men. They grunted and pawed at her. She was not like them! She was not! “Recite the Law,” said the Hyena-Swine. “Are we not men?”
“Not to go on all fours,” said the Bear Man.
“Not to suck up drink,” said the Boar Man.
“Not to claw bark of trees,” said the Leopard Man. “His is the House of Pain. His is the deep salt sea. His are the stars in the sky.”
And there was Moreau, walking toward her through swirls of white smoke. “You are my greatest creation,” he said. But he had a goat’s horns on his forehead. How had she not noticed before that he was a Beast Man as well?
Lucinda smelled a rabbit. It was the sweetest, tastiest rabbit she had ever smelled. She wanted nothing in the world so much as to drink its blood. She crouched, low to the ground, so she could smell it better. “Where are you, little rabbit?” she said. “Come, I wish to bite you through the throat and lap up your warm, sweet life. Come to me, little rabbit!” There—she could see it leaping ahead of her, as white as the smoke that surrounded her, mocking her with its sprightly movements. She followed it, almost crawling over the ground in her haste. Somehow, it seemed quicker to go on all fours, like one of Carmilla’s wolfdogs. She threw back her head and howled.
Alice opened the kitchen door. “What in the world?” she said. There was a sort of white smoke everywhere, all around the keep. It was thickest close to the front entrance, but was spreading rapidly around the entire building. She stood just at the edge of the swirling vapors. It seemed to glint with a thousand lights, and she could see shadows in it, moving around. Above it, at the level of the second-floor windows, floated a black shape, flapping its wings like a crow. No, it was a woman in a black coat, with her black hair spread out around her like snakes. At the window above the front entrance to the keep stood Tera. She spread out her hands, and they crackled with electricity.
“I see Catherine,” said Mary. “Come on! We have to help her!” She ran toward the white smoke.
“No, Mary—you’ll be blinded, just as they are!” shouted Holmes.
But it would not much matter whether or not they ran into the smoke, because it was spreading all around the keep. Alice saw it swirl about her ankles. This was energic power, Tera’s power. Her mother alone could never have been this powerful, although Alice suspected she was in there somewhere, in the smoke, augmenting Tera’s power in some way. She could feel, faintly, her mother’s energic signature.
Mary entered the white billows and looked around her. There was Catherine, but what was she doing crawling on the ground? And where were the others? They must also be lost somewhere in that confusing white smoke. “Justine!” she called. “Beatrice! Diana! Where are you?”
Alice turned to Mr. Holmes. “I don’t know what to do!” she cried in anguish.
“I’m going to get Mary,” he said with a grim determination she had never yet seen on his face.
“No!” she cried as he leaped forward and sprinted toward the white smoke. He would be lost in it just like Mary. She had to follow him. This was all her fault. If she had not been Lydia Raymond, she would never have been kidnapped, and the Athena Club would never have been involved in such a dangerous adventure. Somehow, she had to save them all.