The Dark Story of Creation

chapter 9

I

The boy’s initial impression of the Iron Castle only grew firmer as he trailed after the two Noblemen. This thing they were currently riding in absolutely did not seem like a train. Consider the lavish use of gold and jewels, the corridor ceiling and walls adorned with such intricate carvings they conveyed a sense that its builder wouldn’t allow any surface to remain mundane, corridors with carpets that had a pile so deep it looked as if you might sink up to your knees in it, the fact that having elegant crystal chandeliers grace the ceilings was the norm, a lobby so vast and opulent it might be mistaken for an actual room, the restaurant.

The concert hall looked to be on the scale of a hundred times the size of a village chapel; musicians the likes of which Pikk had never seen produced music sweeter than any he’d ever heard, flowing out constantly over the uninhabited rows of seats. There were no people anywhere, not even a sense that people had been there, and when passing through halls with cathedral ceilings the boy looked up to the windows set up so high he got the feeling he might’ve glimpsed some figures there, and when he went through the dancehall he distinctly sensed figures in formalwear and dresses executing the steps of an elegant waltz behind him. Here on this train, the past lived on in silence.

But most startling of all was the length the train boasted. When Pikk, whose legs had earned him a reputation for running like the wind, was finally out of breath, his surroundings abruptly changed. Now there was no trace of the train as dazzling as any hotel. Transparent walls stood to either side of the corridor, and beyond them were innumerable beds and mechanical devices whose purposes Pikk didn’t fathom. As white predominated the floors and walls, these were obviously operating rooms. And each and every one of them had been laid to waste with savage force, committing them to the care of the shadow of death.

“What the hell happened on this train?” the boy murmured.

“We shall tell you,” said a voice that rained down on him from above.

Although the pair of Noblemen had been nearly a hundred yards ahead of him scant seconds earlier, they now stood to either side of Pikk, flanking him tightly.

“How nice of you to tail us. Was it treasure you sought, or the girl?” asked the grinning Gorshin, pearly white fangs peeking from between his lips.

“It ain’t like that!” Pikk bellowed, and as he did so he slipped from between them to stand in the center of the corridor.

“Wait!”

Benelli tried to grab him, but Pikk avoided his arms, running straight ahead. In this case, that was toward the rear of the train.

Suddenly, his balance was upset. The floor beneath his feet had disappeared. Undoubtedly this was a trap for intruders. Pikk seemed to fall forever in the pit that’d suddenly opened.

The next thing he knew, blonde hair swayed overhead and lapis blue eyes were looking down at him.

“Awake, are you? Such a brave lad. I am Countess Genevieve.” To the dumbstruck Pikk she continued, “That hole is for dealing with invaders, though it also doubles as a device for accommodating guests. It’s so vast, even adults might find themselves lost down here.”

Pikk sprang up. He already understood the situation.

“Where is she?!”

“Be at ease. She’s in the safest place on the entire train. Are you her little brother?”

“That’s a laugh. Who’d wanna be that prissy’s—”

“Don’t say such things. Be nice,” the Noblewoman said, her sensual red lips making an almost innocent smile.

“So, where is she, then? That’s where I’ve gotta go, too.”

“Will you be nice? If you will, I can take you there. However, in order to see her, you must first get the grand duke’s permission. I wonder, are you brave enough to meet the grand duke?”

“Yeah, of course so!” Pikk said, throwing back his shoulders with bravado. “I don’t care who it is, Noble or monster, I don’t show my back to nobody. Bring me to him right quick!”

His face, red and puffed with fight and feigned cheer, stiffened at once. The countess had brought her own face closer to his. The beauty of the Nobility had a strange air that made it differ from that of humanity. In addition, there was something regal about this woman that could inspire even the mind of a child.

“You’re a spirited boy, are you not? How I wanted to have a son like you. Can you walk?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then let us be off. It’s only five minutes on foot.”

Sounds like part of a realtor’s spiel, Pikk thought, despite his fear.

When they stepped through the door, Pikk froze solid. Xeno Gorshin and Benelli were standing there. They gazed down at him intently, evil in their eyes, but the boy immediately scowled back at them.

“W-w-what the hell? You bastards want a piece of me?!” he snarled, taking a brawler’s stance.

“Calm yourself. The countess here has told us not to do anything to you.”

“This time, we’re your escort. This time.”

So, next time we’ll throw down, eh? Pikk thought in his heart of hearts.

“What of the ‘failures’?” asked the countess.

“At present, a peacekeeping unit is in operation. We should have the results soon,” Benelli replied.

Shifting her gaze, the countess said, “You do not look well.”

Xeno Gorshin had been looking down at the floor, but he raised his face. His long formal jacket was completely soaked with blood.

“The wound from D’s sword still hasn’t healed. It won’t even stop bleeding.”

It was Benelli who offered this explanation. Gorshin looked down at the floor once more.

Feeling a strange presence, Pikk looked up at the countess. Her lovely visage was warped by surprise.

“Impossible . . . The two of you have the grand duke’s blood . . . You are not the Nobles you once were . . . And yet you were dealt a wound that will not close . . . This cannot be.”

“Yet it is,” Benelli said, looking askance at Gorshin. “The man known as D is no ordinary Hunter. Let me say this—I feel the same something from him that I do from the grand duke.”

Silence rolled by.

A voice like death itself said, “That something is ‘power.’”

It was Xeno Gorshin. His face was white as a sheet, yet crimson eyes blazed from it. Burning with anger and hatred—and fright.

“When his blade cut me thusly,” he continued, “I felt something more than just flesh and bone being cleaved. Perhaps I could call it the source of my life. The wound will not close, the bleeding will not cease. If this continues much longer, I will be gone. At present I can barely restrain them, but soon I will be unable to keep my blood beads from running amok.”

The countess had her eyes shut. Immediately opening them, she said, “Let us make haste. It may be that we face something incredible.”

The countess had said it was five minutes on foot, and sure enough at the end of the corridor an enormous metal door different from all the others came into view. Completely free of ornamentation, its surface gleamed starkly from the illumination.

“It would seem we have arrived without incident.”

Sensing the genuine relief in the countess’s voice, Pikk was a little surprised. This was a woman who didn’t think those two devilish Noblemen were worth the time of day, a woman who ordered around a gravely wounded Noble—yet something was prowling around here that frightened her?

“Not yet,” Benelli said, his right hand touching the great scythe on his back. “Stay on your guard until we are inside.”

“I know,” the countess replied, yet her elegant stride never faltered as she walked up to the door.

It was then that an almost indescribable sound reached the ears of all of them. It was a human voice. But could any human, or even a Noble, raise such a cry, like agony seared them to the marrow of their bones and their soul was being carved out? It would be better to die than to meet whatever fate prompted such a scream.

Pikk covered his ears. Even the pair of Noblemen turned their cruel faces in all directions, looking around.

“Going in.”

Remaining expressionless, the countess nodded in reply.

Xeno Gorshin pulled the chain next to the door. Without a sound, the door slid to the right. First Gorshin entered, with the countess and Pikk following after. Last was Benelli, who stood lookout in the corridor, and once he joined them the door shut.

Though the agonized voice ceased, Pikk didn’t take his hands off his ears. Something hot spilled from the corners of his eyes, rolling down his cheeks to his jaw.

“Are you crying, little boy?” Benelli sneered. “Taken in by that pitiful, effeminate voice? But then, you are only a human brat after all. A coward to the very pit of your heart.”

A crack resounded from the Nobleman’s jaw. Not his cheek. Benelli reeled backward for two steps before finally righting himself again.

Rubbing the delicate hand that’d delivered an exceptional right hook, the countess said sternly, “I will not have you taunting this child. To protect the girl in the grand duke’s custody, this boy followed the two of you, knowing it might well cost him his life or his soul. I cannot allow such resolve to be belittled. I, Countess Genevieve, forbid you from ever doing so again.”

“Understood,” Benelli immediately capitulated, though his eyes had a malicious gleam. But even that was shaken.

It was that voice again, only now it began to echo through the room.

“There it goes again,” Pikk groaned, clamping his hands back over his ears.

“No, it’s not the same,” the countess told him.

“Huh?”

“It would seem everyone has their own worries—let us go.”

At the urging of the countess, the group began to pass through a chamber that looked to be a lobby. On opening the door at its far end, they found another corridor. Unlike the others, this was all gleaming silver. The four of them halted before the door at the end of the corridor. There could be no doubt that this was where the anguished cries originated. As the countess advanced, the door opened naturally.

It was a strange room. Apparently it covered more than seven thousand square feet, yet aside from an assortment of bizarre devices seemingly placed at random there was nothing to be seen but five couches, with a gigantic figure resting on the center one. It was the grand duke. Sitting back against the sofa with eyes closed, he was directly across from a clear glass pane that ran the entire length of the wall.

“What the hell is that?”

Pikk’s query referred to the grand duke—and to what lay beyond the glass.

In the distance there loomed an ancient stone wall, of all things.

The ghastly voice continued even now. Pikk could see with his own two eyes that it came from the grand duke’s throat. Surely this was the cause of the mournful expression the countess wore. But what could cause a Noble among Nobility—a Greater Noble who treated Xeno Gorshin and Benelli like babes—to fall into such a turbulent state even in his sleep?

It’s behind the glass. Unconsciously, Pikk was certain of that. He didn’t know why. Behind the glass. That’s where the cause lay.

Pikk didn’t care in the least about the grand duke’s torment. His thoughts were dominated by the face of the girl on her way home from the Capital. Yet somehow, he was hopelessly drawn to this. Drawn to whatever lay beyond the glass.

Still covering his ears, Pikk realized he was moving toward the pane. The countess and the two Noblemen were so focused on the grand duke they didn’t even glance at the boy. So as not to draw their attention, he let his focus drift—only fifteen feet to go. He made a dash for it. No one intervened.

Pressing right up against the glass, he peered down.

II

The boy fell with a cry from his throat that sounded like he was being strangled, and taking note, the countess flew over to catch him. She bridged the fifteen feet in one effortless bound. Yet her action stirred only the slightest breeze.

“You saw, didn’t you, you foolish lad.”

The countess gazed down at Pikk lovingly, but his little face was pale and his eyes had rolled back in his head. What’s more, he began foaming at the mouth and his body twitched violently. He was most certainly not a cowardly child—to the contrary, at that age he’d already been through more hardship than most adults, and his heart was tough as a dragon’s armored hide. That being the case—what was below the pane of glass?

“I shall take him to the examining room,” the countess said, looking at the grand duke and heading for the door, but just then the agonized cries that’d filled the room stopped dead. Gorshin and Benelli each took a step back and fell to one knee, while the countess set Pikk down on the floor, bent her left arm in front of her chest, and took her dress in her right hand to curtsey in greeting.

The giant was just getting up from the sofa. His face called to mind stone, and two eyes opened in it like fissures breaking wide. The room was tinged with red. Though this was due to the grand duke’s eyes, it was unclear if they gave off that red glow merely because they were bloodshot.

“I was dreaming,” he said in a voice like rock scraping rock. “Will he give me naught but nightmares for all eternity?” And then his eyes turned not to the countess, not to the two Noblemen, but to Pikk where he lay on the floor. “Has he come in search of the girl?”

His guess was precisely on the mark.

“Let him see her as soon as possible. Now, D—what has become of him?”

“These two fought him and cut off his left arm. However, one of them was gravely injured, and even now the bleeding won’t be stemmed.”

Looking not at Gorshin or Benelli but at the countess, the grand duke said, “His blade cannot be tamed even after receiving my blood? Yes, it’s just as I thought. This has become most interesting. He is certain to come here eventually.”

“Before he does, we shall—” Benelli interjected.

The grand duke merely shot him an ill-tempered glance before continuing, “Nightmare or not, this is a vision he has given me. It taught me a number of things. Not only of the past, but of the future as well. Though the message is yet shrouded in mist, it would seem this train will not run smoothly.”

“Due to D?”

There was no answer.

The countess’s eyes turned red, and she asked, “There are other troubles as well, then?”

“Perhaps. At any rate, it would seem there was some merit to being awakened. Both for me, and for you.”

An expression that beggared description flitted across the countess’s face. One of both pleasure and grief. It was the one she’d found only after millennia of living.

“That’s—fine,” the countess replied, her voice now changed.

Glaring intently at Xeno Gorshin, the grand duke said, “I shall set him right. Come.”

He beckoned with a nod.

For some reason, Gorshin shook his head. Not only that, but he also backed away as if he were going to flee.

“Damn you for having the heart of a flea. Come.”

The grand duke’s eyes gave off a red glow. It burned itself into Gorshin’s retinas.

The young Nobleman stood stock-still, but coughed as if in one last act of resistance. He spat up blood beads. Benelli groaned and backed away. Their poison was so virulent, it’d rendered D helpless enough for them to lop off his left arm.

“Parlor tricks,” said the grand duke, opening his mouth wide.

An incredible wind resulted. The hair of all save the grand duke billowed in the same direction. The grand duke had inhaled. Every single blood bead was sucked into his maw. No doubt the deadly beads burst in his mouth.

The grand duke’s Adam’s apple bobbed as if he were swallowing something, and then he remarked, “That might be sufficient to kill a field mouse.”

Having said that, he stood before Xeno Gorshin. Grabbing the young Nobleman by the throat, he lifted him effortlessly, and Gorshin could do nothing to stop him. The countess looked down at her feet.

Before long Gorshin was thrown to the floor with a thud, where he twisted weirdly, then quickly got to his feet. Neither his face nor his physique had changed. However, the pained expression was gone, and his bleeding had ceased. All that differed was the pair of teeth marks that remained in two spots on his neck.

Gorshin must’ve felt this full yet incomprehensible recovery, because he twisted his lips into a grin. His expression and the fangs that peeked from the corners of his mouth were the same as before, yet an entirely different Nobleman stood there.

“I’m cured. And I’ve changed,” he said in a voice that seemed to echo from the depths of the earth, and there was something about it that resembled the grand duke’s tone.

“My apologies for letting you see me in such an unseemly state,” he said, bowing deeply to the grand duke. “Together with Benelli and Braylow, I will see to it that the maggot plaguing this train is eliminated once and for all. We shall set out immediately.”

“No, wait a moment.”

“Why, milord?”

Though the wording was cordial, the tone was one of repressed rage. He was infused with a rebelliousness and savagery inconceivable in the old Gorshin. But one roar from a veritable thunder god swept that away.

“Silence!”

In time with his command the giant’s right arm swept out. With a dull thud Gorshin was sent sailing through the air, his neck bent ninety degrees. However, a split second before he was to slam against the wall, the young Nobleman extended his hand and struck a pose as if sticking to the wall, deftly leaping back and landing on his feet in precisely the same spot he’d been standing.

The grand duke grinned.

“Hold. Whether he wants to fight or not, our foe shall come to us.”

Braylow suddenly halted. There had been a disturbance to the spiraling madness of his essentially aimless wandering. The latest disruption came from a baseless anxiety and a killing lust.

“Rattling,” he muttered almost incomprehensibly. He could hear confirmation of that phrase from his back. Somewhere, something was happening that threw his two magic swords into a frenzy.

“So, where am I?”

Braylow squinted his eyes. He hadn’t the slightest idea of his present location. His unbalanced psyche sought to suppress its madness—and his wandering had been in search of an outlet for his insanity.

“So, where am I?” he repeated, and a glowing green schematic appeared before his pale and slender face at eye level. For this Braylow was of the same blood as the train’s owner.

He was at the front of the vehicle.

“Rattling,” the demon swordsman of a Noble murmured. “Where is he?”

And then he began to walk like a phantom. In no time he reached the control room. The look he gave the door that impeded further progress was colored with madness.

“Just beyond this, then?”

In a sense, Braylow was correct. When he took a step forward, a warning howled down at him from overhead.

“Present entry card. This is a class one security area. Present entry card. If you cannot present credentials, leave the area. Attack to commence three seconds after this warning concludes. Three . . .”

Braylow’s eyes began to give off a red glow.

“Two . . .”

His right hand reached for his back. The question was, which enchanted blade would he choose, Blue Soldier or Gray Soldier?

“One.”

From anywhere and everywhere countless arrows of light concentrated on Braylow. A heartbeat later, the lights limned new paths, and fire erupted from the ceiling, floor, and walls. See? Dozens of ultra-thermal rays had been stopped by Xeno Braylow’s twin longsword blades. Not only that, but all of them had been deflected back. The fires all around him were like cries from those stricken.

“Impertinence,” Braylow spat, and his right arm plunged forward.

Before there was time to subject him to a second assault, his blade had pierced the door, quickly shredding it like paper and making an opening large enough for a person to pass through with ease.

“He must be up ahead.”

Without hesitation, Braylow’s tall form stooped a bit to slip through the door.

Ah, there was a reactor in the control room. Who could say for certain that his madness wouldn’t be unleashed on it in a gale of sword blades? And more importantly, who did the Nobleman mean when he said “he” was in the control room?

III

Annette was lying in bed when the door opened without so much as a knock. Since anxiety denied the girl sleep, her blood ran cold the instant she glimpsed the enormous figure filling the doorway. Before she could even ask what he was doing, the giant had glided over to the bed. Though his body looked as if it must weigh a ton, not so much as a single footstep was heard. Annette was scooped into his arms as if she were light as a feather. Those arms felt more like stone than steel, as did his chest. She could barely move her head, but that was all she could do.

Annette’s eyes shifted their focus from the giant’s chest to his face. He was looking down at her. In that dark face were two points of light, crimson and blazing. Annette’s consciousness was swallowed up by darkness.

The next thing the girl knew, she was lying on an operating table. Though her consciousness had clearly returned, the fact she remained unable to move so much as a finger was probably due to those burning eyes.

Off to the right there were sounds of a fierce altercation.

“Will you not cease this already?”

The voice was that of Countess Genevieve.

“Don’t interfere in this.”

That was the grand duke.

“He is waiting. Just one more step, and our aims will be achieved. Surely you must understand what a fabulous future this will unlock for the Nobility. And not for the Nobility alone!”

“This will serve humanity as well? Have you not noticed? You are living in the past. You remain a slave to a nightmare you cannot escape!”

The voice of persuasion was joined by the sound of a heavy impact, which then became a scream. Far past Annette’s head, there was the noise of a body slamming into a wall or something else.

An overwhelming presence approached Annette.

“No, don’t,” she said, her mouth moving. Though she couldn’t guess what was going to happen next, the fact that it was happening to her inspired terror far beyond imagining.

The presence stopped beside the table. Immediately his words rained down on her.

“Child, you shall be an invaluable lamb sacrificed for a greater purpose. Chances are you will not survive. However, by giving your life and soul, you will truly bring us one step closer to our goal. You have my gratitude!”

“Stop it!”

Annette tried madly to undo her bonds. Not so much as a strand of her hair stirred.

“What are you talking about?! Don’t do this. Help me, Daddy. Mommy!”

“Everyone called out as you do.”

In Annette’s heart, a faint hope sparked. She’d felt a sadness in the grand duke’s voice she didn’t recall ever hearing there before.

“I understand how you feel,” he continued. “It is not as if you were born to meet such a fate. Weep if you will. Joanne, Peter, Rita, Agnes, Tevis—all tortured me so. Turn my blood to ice. Give unto me such sadness it will still my heart. And always remember this: when your cries and pleas reach my ears, it is not that I’m unmoved. I am no murderer. Yet I must play the murderer. The surgery system I developed was not conceived to open your abdomen without the benefit of anesthesia and pull your heart out. My hands were not made to toy with your brains and turn them to pulp. Yet a greater purpose commands that I do so. Do not hate me alone. Though he was insistent, I, Grand Duke Drago, spent seventy long days in deliberation before deciding to take part in this project. Ah, if there is a God, let His punishment be swift. The moment our aim is achieved, let me be torn limb from limb. That would be fitting retribution for what I have become.”

Annette’s mind was thoroughly deranged. Considering her position, the giant’s confessions were the ramblings of a madman. They were nonsense. A murderer’s contrition counted for nothing. However, it conveyed to Annette a mournfulness that surpassed mere sincerity. Once the giant’s ends had properly been met, he would undoubtedly tear himself to pieces.

“Forgive me.”

His voice, doleful and choked with anguish, brought Annette back to deadly reality. What was he going to do? What would happen? Her heart stopped.

“Stop this!”

In the time it took the girl to realize that desperate cry had come from the countess, the giant’s presence moved away. There was a clamor that dwarfed the earlier altercation, and it came from almost the same vicinity. There was a breeze and a different presence drawing nearer, and then a pale hand touched Annette’s brow—and the spell over her was broken.

As the countess undid the girl’s straps one after another, Annette stared at her in amazement. Far off to the right, between mechanisms of unknown purpose, the grand duke was pulling his massive form to its feet while purple sparks showered him. Apparently the force of his impact had shorted the machinery. The thought that somewhere inside her this delicate woman had power enough to throw that giant actually frightened Annette.

Undoing the last of the straps, the countess said, “Flee,” and pointed to a distant doorway. “Your hero is just outside. I wished for such a husband.”

After being told to hurry and getting a push to her back, Annette got down off the table and started to run. Halfway there, she looked back.

The countess had just leapt right in front of the grand duke. With her elegant skirt gathered up, she delivered a savage kick to the giant’s jaw. As the grand duke reeled backward his right hand swung around, and the countess was pitched hard against the floor. Annette saw brains spill onto the floor from the countess’s head.

Why would she do all this for me? the girl wondered. She’d heard that humans captured by the Nobility were either drained of their blood and made into servants, or else used as playthings or the subjects of weird experiments. And that was correct. However, there was no denying that at present a Noblewoman was engaged in deadly combat in order to protect her, a human. Head split open, the woman crawled across the floor.

I’ve got to help her.

The giant was closing on the girl. Though he was still over thirty feet away, the wind he whipped up and his unearthly aura buffeted her face. Fear forced Annette toward the doorway.

The iron door was open. She probably had the countess to thank for that, as well.

As soon as Annette was through it, from off to the right a voice called to her, “Little lady!”

There was no need to ask who it was.

“Pikk—you came to find me?”

“No, to rescue you.”

Annette set off behind the boy with the daring smile, but then she tumbled forward. The sudden lull in the strain had swept the legs out from under her. As soon as he noticed, Pikk came back, and with one glance he knew what was going on. Without so much as a cluck of his tongue he squatted down and lifted Annette.

“Think you can walk?” he asked.

“No.”

No sooner did Annette notice the boy bending down than the next thing she knew he was carrying her on his back.

“Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’ll manage,” the boy replied. “A long time ago the village I lived in was attacked by the Nobility, and I ran around in the mountains all night long with Mom and my little sister on my back. Had to stop and rest about a hundred times, though.”

“What became of your mother?”

“We finally reached a valley with another village, and the Nobility attacked there too—and that time they got her. Got ’em both.”

Annette didn’t know what to say.

“Put the stakes through both their hearts myself.”

Annette had the wind knocked out of her. It wasn’t all that strange. On the Frontier, almost everyone had had similar experiences, but she asked, “How old were you then?”

“Eight, I suppose.”

An eight-year-old boy driving stakes through his mother’s and sister’s chests—Annette tried to push the cruelty of it all from her head, but she didn’t fare well. Instead, however, she got a clearer sense of the broadness of the boy’s back and the strength of his gait than anyone anywhere.

Something hot slid along the side of her nose. Just as she finished desperately fighting a hiccupping sob, behind them a cry of rage went up.

The grand duke was out. What about Countess Genevieve?

“Damn it, here he comes,” said Pikk. “And we were so close to getting to that car.”

“It’s no use. We’ll never make it.”

“You’ll never make anything if you always think it’s no use. You’ll have to go on and board it alone. I’ll hold off this bastard!”

“You’re not going to escape with me?” Annette asked, surprise lowering her tone.

“Well, I’m your guard.”

“I fired you.”

“Well, I’m a volunteer guard. Don’t you worry yourself about it.”

The auto-car platform came into view. Taking the distance to it and the speed of whoever was closing on them from behind into account, Pikk thought to himself, We might not make it.

“Ouff?!”

There was a cry of surprise, and just a brief moment later a thud from the ground. When Pikk turned to look, his eye caught sight of the giant sprawled on all fours, like he’d made a dive.

“Help from Heaven above.”

The auto-car was a four-seater. Loading Annette in first, Pikk then got in and started it up.

The giant, now rising to his feet, rapidly dwindled in the distance.

“We’re in luck!” the boy exclaimed. “We just might make it out this way, eh?”

“Think we’ll manage?”

“At the moment, not really. Sure would be nice if God were to lend us a hand, though.”

“Huh?” Annette said, listening attentively.

“What’s wrong?” Pikk asked.

The girl just cocked her head and said, “I don’t know. It’s just, I was certain I heard someone say, ‘Would you settle for little ol’ me?’”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

With that, Pikk forgot all about what Annette had said. The auto-car would soon reach its final stop.

“So, what do we do next?” Annette asked apprehensively. She’d told the boy she could walk now and was no longer on his back.

“Ain’t it obvious? We get outta this creepy train.”

“But in order to do that you’d have to get it to stop first. Jumping off would be suicide!”

“That’s why we’re going to the engine room now.”

Annette was astonished.

“The engine room—can you operate this thing?!”

“Sure.”

“That’s fantastic! Where’d you learn to do that?”

Pikk furrowed his brow. “Out in the sticks. They had a steam engine that was a lot like this.”

“A steam engine? Are you talking about some half-assed bumpkin railway line?”

“Hey, no need to call ’em half-assed.”

“I think it’d be best not to lump this train in with some countrified steam locomotive, wouldn’t you say?”

“Oh, is that a fact?” Pikk said, turning away in a snit. “Anyway, let’s get moving. We don’t have any other play. If I can’t operate the thing, I’ll bust its engine and make it stop.”

“You’re out of your mind!” the dumbfounded Annette shot back.

The boy gave her an equally disgusted look. “You talk about this like you’re just on the sidelines. I’m doing all of this for you!”

“Don’t take that patronizing tone with me. No one ever asked for your help!”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No, you’ve got a problem with that!”

Just as their argument was beginning to escalate, figures alighted from the ceiling to stand before the pair.

“What the hell?!” Pikk exclaimed, backing away.

Annette couldn’t say a word.

“Did you think you merely needed to board the auto-car to make good your escape?” Xeno Gorshin asked, stark fangs bared.

“We were waiting outside the operating room all along on orders from the grand duke,” Benelli added, giving Annette an impassioned look utterly at odds with the image his garb projected.

“How come you let us be this long?!” Pikk asked, stepping in front of Annette to shield her.

“Because if we waited until you believed yourself safe, your despair would be all the greater.”

Gorshin’s fine jacket shook in time to his laughter. Apparently it was a bit large for him.

“You sick Nobles.”

Pikk planted one foot and was ready to spring on them, but then thought better of it. He had a responsibility to guard Annette. However, now faced by these two Noblemen who were even more wicked and powerful than before, he wasn’t sure if he’d ultimately be able to fulfill that duty.

The vibrations of the train came to the boy faintly—yet far stronger than always. It was a moment later that the shaking took on a mass like solid rock and slammed against all of them.