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CHAPTER THIRTY


The closer we got to the park, the more haunted our surroundings became. Ghostly figures circled the tower of lights, giving off their own ephemeral glow. The sound of music rose, and the dissonance got worse. It was traditional carnival music, but played slower, and in a lower key. Some of the notes dragged out much too long, and others were broken into a jumble of fragmented echoes that disappeared into the roar of the surf. The park itself was built on an enormous pier that extended out into the storm-tossed waters. The bright lights of the park reflected off the low-hanging clouds in a motley of greens, reds, and sun-golden yellows, blinking and flashing and rolling in waves of bright ribbons of color that turned the dark pewter sky into a cheerful tapestry. That didn’t stop the rain, of course.

We reached the entrance to the park. A weathered archway led inside, framed with flickering light bulbs and painted in gaudy pinks and greens. The sign over the archway advertised “Electr-O-World” and the O in the center was a gaping mouth, complete with teeth and a dangling tonsil. I came up short, staring at the all-consuming vowel.

“That’s hardly comforting,” I said. “Electr-O-World. How are all these machines still running after all this time?”

“Gestalt,” Adelaide said. “The entire island was built on Gestalt power, and with Gestalt logic. It’s amazing what you can do with science.”

“Well, it’s seen better days,” Chesa said. “Half the stalls look empty, and the rest are pretty beaten up.”

“You forget that most of the steampunk world thinks this place was destroyed,” Adelaide said. “It’s surviving on the strength of belief of the Lumieres. Most of whom are dead.”

“Were dead,” I corrected. “So what do we make of that?” I pointed at the tower of light at the center of the park. It looked like a cross between the Eiffel Tower and an unlit Christmas tree. Three large horizontal arms ran the length of the central spire, each one capped with a brass sphere. The lights that had first drawn my attention through the fog were simply running lights that traced the edges of the tower. Glass-and-steel platforms stretched up the length of the structure, but other than the flickering bulbs of the running lights, the tower was dark.

“Le Tour d’Elysee. Tower of Heaven, more or less. It was the central attraction. The wonders of electricity, created by Claude Lumiere. I didn’t think much of it,” Tesla said with a sniff. “Bit gaudy for my tastes.”

“Evelyn’s journal mentioned an Immortality Engine that her father was designing,” I said. “Seems like a pretty obvious place for it.”

“I reviewed the plans for that tower, and oversaw part of its construction,” Tesla answered. “Nothing about it seemed unusual to me.”

“And yet before today, you would have counted Claude Lumiere among your closest friends,” Tembo pointed out. “I think it warrants investigation.”

“Good enough for me,” I said.

“I’m with John. Lightning Tower,” Chesa said.

“As much as I don’t like the idea of being close to something like that while wearing metal armor”—Gregory shrugged—“looming tower of electric death seems like a good start.”

“Anything that claims to be the tower of Heaven but looks like a ruined carnival ride is right up my alley,” Saint Matthew said. “Maybe they’ll have angels!”

“I sincerely hope not,” I muttered as I passed beneath the archway that led into the park. The rest of the team followed close behind in a vee formation.

Unfortunately, traveling to the tower was easier declared than executed. Like most tourist traps, Electr-O-World was a maze. The proprietors wanted you to get lost, they wanted to draw you from one finely tuned money extraction stall to the next, without actually going anywhere. The iron tower at the center was the obvious destination for most visitors, but the surrounding amusements and vendors were the source of all the profit. The longer they could keep you from your destination, the more money they made.

“Glad to see that hasn’t changed in a hundred years,” I muttered.

“What was that?” Chesa asked.

“Oh. The maze of amusement. It’s like casinos. You can’t just walk from one end of those things to the other. You have to wind your way past a thousand flashing displays and slot machines just to find the bathroom.”

“Haven’t spent a lot of time in the casinos,” Adelaide said.

“Really? You seem the type,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Steamboats and cardsharps, the whole thing.”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand, Rast,” Chesa said.

“Right, right. Task at hand. Which appears to be”—I looked around at the labyrinth of glowing signs, boarded up vendors, and shuttered rides—“getting lost in a haunted amusement park.”

“There is more to it than that,” Tembo said. He was walking at the center of our loose mob of adventurers, but now he looked around curiously. “I wish we had sketched our route a little more clearly.”

“Worried about getting lost?” Gregory asked.

“No. Worried that we might be walking through a giant summoning rune,” he said. He raised his staff in front of him and began an incantation. The spell wrapped around the dark wood of the staff like coiled lightning. Wind fluttered through his robes, matching the beating rain of the storm overhead. Slowly he rose into the air, until the sandaled soles of his feet hovered just over our heads. I made a point of not looking up. “Yes,” Tembo said, looking around. “The stalls, the pathways, the amusements . . . They are very intentionally laid out. Not to distract. To invoke.”

“What does that mean?” Addie asked as Tembo floated gently back to the ground.

“It means that this entire park is part of Lumiere’s Immortality Engine.” Tembo dispersed the remaining magical aura with a flick of his hand, sending sparks showering through the rain. “And once the incantation begins, a ritual this size will be very difficult to halt. If not impossible.”

“All the more reason to hurry,” I said.

The lane ended in a courtyard, centered around a mechanical orrery, similar to the one at the center of Ida’s domain. A statue capped the central spire that acted as an axis for the rotating planets. The planets were depicted by verdigris-stained brass spheres that ran on cogwheel tracks. The display was silent, though the engines looked to be in good working order. I was still examining the engines when the statue at the top moved.

It was Evelyn Lumiere, wearing close-fit plate armor over a dancer’s gown, with an open-faced helm and bandoliers looped across her chest, stuffed with wooden stakes. I called a halt, then lifted my visor.

“We found your little science project, Ms. Lumiere,” I said.

“It took you long enough,” she said with a smile. She looked twenty years younger. I noticed a pair of hoses protruding from either side of her neck, leading to a device on her back. Perhaps she had been sampling her father’s cooking. “So, what now? Have you come to stop the evil witch?”

“Something like that,” Gregory said. He ran a thumb along the crosspiece of his zweihander, eager to fight.

“I don’t understand all this, Evelyn!” Tesla pushed his way past us. The coiled gauntlets of his generator were tucked away behind him. He extended his hands, pleading. “After all these years, why would you turn on us like this?”

“Turn on you? Hardly. It was you who betrayed me. Betrayed my father!” Evelyn hopped agilely from the spire down onto the mechanical sun, dancing down its length to land on the amber face of Mercury. “You and Esther MacRae could have saved him at any time. Instead, you used me to destroy the one hope for rescuing him.”

“Neither of us knew he was in league with the vampires. And, frankly, I’m not sure that would have improved our disposition in the matter.” Tesla took another step forward. “This can end, Evelyn. No one has to die.”

“The people I care about are already dead.” Evelyn leapt from Mercury to an out-of-orbit Earth. “But I’m going to save them. And nothing you can do will stop that.”

“Very well.” Tesla threw his arms forward. The gauntlets folded out, latching on at biceps and elbow before clamping onto his wrists. Brilliant electricity coursed through the coils, underlighting his face with blue light. “We will settle this your way.”

“About time,” Gregory muttered, striding forward.

“Careful,” Tembo said. “You saw what she did to those vampires.”

“Good news.” I lowered my visor and joined Gregory. “We’re not vampires.”

“That’s fine,” Evelyn called down. With a whirl, she drew a pair of steel stakes and assumed a fighting stance. “I’m sure the skills will translate.”

Before I could move any closer, Evelyn leapt from the metal surface of the Earth, skipped off the rotating silver of the Moon, and vaulted over our front line. Tesla let out a startled cry as she flew overhead. Chesa, made of sterner stuff, sent two arrows flying toward the slayer. Evelyn dashed those aside with her metallic stakes, redirecting them toward me and Gregory. I caught them both on my shield.

Evelyn came down between Chesa and Tembo. She landed in a blur of slashing stakes and striking boots. Tembo’s staff flew from his hands, then a sweeping kick took his legs out from under him. Evelyn was just about to drive a stake through his heart when Addie’s pistol boomed. The shot struck the slayer in the shoulder, spinning her off the mage and through the air. Evelyn kept up the motion, landing only long enough to jump high up into the rings of Saturn. She perched on the golden disc to glare down at us.

“Addie, my dear. I think that tea is off,” she snarled.

“I was going to ghost you anyway,” Adelaide said. With a spin, her revolver changed to a lever-action rifle, which she cocked and sighted at Evelyn. “Literally.”

The muzzle jumped, but Evelyn was already gone. Dancing from orb to orb, she disappeared behind the sun’s mass. Addie followed her with shot after shot, sending sparks off Saturn, Mercury, and finally old Sol itself. When Evelyn dropped behind the golden orb, Addie swore and collapsed her rifle into a shotgun.

“She’s a fast one,” she muttered. “Going to have to get creative.”

“Faster than I remember,” Tesla said. “Though it has been some time since I saw her in action.”

“What’s that thing on her back?” I asked.

“No idea,” Addie answered. “We can check once she’s dead.”

“Chickens before they hatch, dearie.” Evelyn appeared out of the shadows of a broken ride to our rear. She vaulted over us, landing in a squat in our path. The streak of blood on Evelyn’s shoulder from Addie’s shot was smeared over pale flesh. The veins of her neck and across her forehead were dark and throbbing. She was healing at an astounding rate. “Though you may find death has little dominion over me.”

Gregory yelled and barreled toward her, zweihander drawn back to swing. Evelyn sneered at him, then leapt high in the air. She kicked him once in the chest, a second time in the face, then danced down the length of his blade to charge me. I stopped gaping long enough to assume a guard. One of her stakes crashed against my shield before she skipped back into the shadows and disappeared.

“I’ve seen those kinds of moves before!” I shouted. “Chesa! Flarrows nocked!”

“I can’t hit her,” she answered. “The old crone’s too fast!”

“You’re not going to have to. Trust me. Back to back, everyone!”

We formed a circle and faced outward toward the darkness. The rain pounded down on us, and the only light was the dim glow from a couple of the surrounding amusements, and the tall spire of ghostly illumination of the Tour d’Elysee.

Evelyn sprang from beneath the billowing sheets of a mothballed park ride, silent as she zipped across the boardwalk, straight at me. I barely got my shield up before she barreled into me. One stake glanced off the Viking steel, but the other slammed into Gregory beside me. He gasped as it punctured his shoulder, dimpling the steel and drawing blood. I was just whirling to face this new attack when Chesa found her mark.

The first flarrow went wide, but the second thumped into Evelyn’s armored chest. Designed to provide precise illumination in any condition rather than to pierce steel, the flarrow stuck to the curved front of the slayer’s breastplate before bursting into brilliant light. I was momentarily blinded by the sunburst.

Shrieking, the slayer backpedaled away from our little circle. I watched as her skin seared and the veins of her face turned a deep black under her pale flesh. Plumes of noxious smoke curled out from under her armor. Her limbs twitched like a pinned beetle. She dropped her stakes and batted ineffectually at the shaft in her chest, fingers blistering each time they brushed the glowing arrow. Finally, she knocked it free. The flarrow clattered to the ground, still burning. Evelyn was nothing more than a shadow as she leapt out of the circle of its illumination, leaving behind a trail of smoke and ash.

“Well. That was dramatic,” I said.

“What just happened?” Gregory asked. The rest of the team was staring at the circle of light, and the cinders that were still drifting to the ground in Evelyn’s wake.

“I think she’s been supping at the table of her enemy,” I said. “Using the juice from the vampires’ souls to power her abilities. Maybe that’s part of why she’s losing her mind.”

“Or perhaps it is merely a sign of her madness,” Tembo said. “Either way, good thinking, Lady Chesa.”

“That was John’s idea,” she said. “I’m just the messenger.”

“I suspect that was only enough to drive her off for a bit. She’ll be back,” I said with a shrug. “Let’s get to the tower toot sweet. If we can stop the ritual before she recovers, it might not matter.”

Just then, a single stroke of lightning, as wide as the sky and bright as the sun, struck the Electr-O-Tower. With a groan, the three rotating arms of the generator started to spin. With each rotation, bolts of energy arced between the brass spheres at their ends, building in power until they started grounding into the park itself. With each crackling stroke, the arms spun faster and faster, until the sound of their passage was a thunderous roar. Overhead, the storm began to rotate in conjunction with the generators. The lights in the park flickered out as lightning reached out of the ground to dance across the iron trestles of the tower, as though the structure was drawing all the power into itself.

“Or not,” I said, and started to run.


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Framed