My Clockwork Muse (33 page)

"Where is it, Olimpia?" he shouted. "Where
did that crackpot father of yours keep it? The old serum—not the
new..."

"I don't know," Olimpia said.

"Oh, come now, Miss Coppelius. Don't think
I'm a fool." He walked over to where she lay strapped to the table
and thrust the muzzle of his pistol under her chin. "I will find it
sooner or later. I'd prefer it to be sooner—and I'd prefer you
still have a head on your shoulders when I do."

Olimpia said nothing and the masked man
pressed the muzzle into her flesh. He began to squeeze the
trigger.

"For God's sake, tell him!" I shouted.

"In the cabinet," Olimpia said at last.
"Above the workbench."

The masked man jerked his head up and located
the cabinet. He rushed to it and flung open the doors. Though I
could not see his eyes, I saw that his head moved slightly back and
forth as he scanned the dozens of identical vials and beakers of
fluid and variously-hued powders. He turned.

"Which of these is it, Olimpia?"

"I have already told you where it is," she
said defiantly.

"Damn you! Show me which it is!"

He rushed to her side and began unbuckling
her restraints, first her ankles, then her wrists. He pulled her
from the table and shoved her roughly to the cabinet. She was
wearing the same dress she had on when I had last seen her at
Witherspoon's. The masked man held the pistol to the small of her
back as she fingered the vials. She selected one and handed it to
him.

"Forgive me, Eddy," she said.

"We’re not finished yet," I replied. I kept
glancing into the darkness at the far end of the room. I knew
Gessler was out there somewhere. He would not have left me. I
remembered that his revolver had been lost in our fight with
Dansby, so wherever he was, he was unarmed. Perhaps he was only
waiting for an opportunity to spring.

"Oh, but you
are
finished," said the
masked man. He had found a syringe and now filled it with a measure
of the serum Olimpia had procured for him. Presumably, the old
serum, as he had requested. My mind was a jumble, so I had no
conception of what that might mean.

He ordered Olimpia before him as he moved
towards me. The needle glistened in the lamplight as a beaded
string of red-tinged serum dripped down its length.

"This is not how I wanted this to end,
Poe—just so you know. I rather wanted to send you off in a blaze of
glory—at the Rue Morgue, in fact. But your friend Billy Burton
saved you without even knowing it."

"My friend!" I scoffed.

"You see, I had grown tired of Coppelius'
little game. 'Why not just finish it?' I wondered. But, no,
Coppelius wanted to test his machines, pitting them against your
wit. He was a vain man. He read your stories and fancied you a
master of deductive reasoning. I tried to tell him that anyone can
solve a crime that he himself has concocted. 'Oh, but to solve them
so cleverly! Truly this Poe is a genius!' Coppelius gushed. It was
enough to make you retch. But then it struck me. What if Poe really
did commit the crimes? How would the genius solve them then, when
his life was on the line? I admit, there was some amusement in the
affair, at least initially."

"You!" I gasped. "Who are you?"

"Oh, I am Coppelius' little clockwork man,
his marionette." The masked man raised his arms. Bending his
wrists, he waggled his hands making it appear as though they were
being manipulated by strings. "Or so he believed. He wanted to
inject me with his new serum, forever making me his slave. But I
would not allow it. The process that has already begun in me will
continue. With this." He indicated the syringe as he moved it
closer to my neck. "If you prick my finger today, a little machine
oil might spill out, but that's about it. You see, I long for
blood, Mr. Poe. In fact, I long for your blood." I tugged at my
restraints and thrashed my head to avoid the needle as it drew
closer. I could feel it pressing cold and wet against my skin. "All
I have to do is inject this into your neck. Then wait a day or so,
letting the serum mix with your blood. Then it's just a matter of
extracting Coppelius' vile cocktail from your veins and loading it
into that infernal contraption over there. Of course, the same
process that confers life upon me will, I'm afraid, kill you quite
dead—and you will spend your short afterlife as a savage revenant
strapped to this table. In the meantime, however, I will have to
find some way of amusing myself in this dreary old house. That's
where Olimpia comes in. Goodbye, Mr. Poe—"

I closed my eyes, waiting to feel the cold
prick of the needle, but heard only a scream instead. It came from
the mouth of my tormentor, for Olimpia had delivered a hard kick to
the back of the man's legs. His knees buckled and he dropped the
syringe. It fell with a
chink
of broken glass to the
floor.

"No!" the man cried in anguish, his precious
serum lost. He swung the hand that held the pistol, catching
Olimpia with a backhanded blow that sent her flying across the
room. She landed on her back near her father's body, dazed. The
clockwork man rushed after her.

"Olimpia!" I shouted, hoping the sound of my
voice might rouse her. In fury, the masked man raised his pistol,
preparing to shoot. I tried to wrench my wrists free and felt one
of the restraints give a little. I craned my neck and saw that a
tear had appeared in the leather. I tugged with all my might, but
it held me fast.

Olimpia rose onto her elbows and when she
lifted her head, her nose nearly touched the muzzle of the
blunderbuss pistol. I did not believe she was even aware of it. I
could tell by the look in her eye that she had not yet fully
regained her senses. The flared barrel seemed as large as her head.
I dreaded what I would be forced to witness when the man pulled the
trigger. But to my astonishment, Coppelius, who had been lying
prone on his back, suddenly reached up and grasped his clockwork
creation's wrist, jarring the pistol from the man's fingers. It
clattered to the floor at his feet. In the next instant, Coppelius
was up and on his feet. He rammed his misshapen shoulder into the
automaton's chest, staggering him.

"Olimpia, run!" I cried. But Coppelius had
already grabbed her by the arm. He lifted her to her feet and
looked like he was preparing to flee. But the clockwork man had, in
turn, grasped his shoulder and whirled him around. Coppelius' frock
coat flew open and to my amazement I saw that he was wearing what
looked to be an armored waistcoat of some sort. The wound in his
chest that I had taken to be fatal was in fact nothing more than a
shiny crater of bare metal in his vest. The velocity of the ball
had perhaps stunned him or rendered him unconscious temporarily,
but it did not kill.

He spun around, flailing at his clockwork
creation. He of all men should have known the futility of fighting
one of these machines unarmed. His blows to the man's head and
chest fell virtually without notice. The clockwork man wrapped his
fingers around Coppelius' throat. I could see his good eye widen in
terror. His vulture's eye bulged as always, cloudy and blue. He
thrashed at his assailant, his blows falling harmlessly. One of his
hands had whisked away the man's mask. From behind, I saw a wild
shock of black hair. Then, to my horror, as the two turned about in
their struggles, it was revealed to me who the clockwork man
was.

He was me!

The automaton was my twin, identical in every
regard. Now it came clear. The man seen dragging Burton down the
hallway in the Amontillado boarding house; the intruder in the
garden carrying a bagful of teeth. It
was
me. A clockwork
me.

Coppelius broke free from
his—
my
—strangling clutches, but he would not relinquish his
grasp of Olimpia. The doctor had her by one arm and the clockwork
Poe—for what else could I now call him?—had her by the other.
Olimpia was crying out as they tugged. I feared they would tear her
in half and some twisted version of Solomon's horrifying wisdom
would play out before my very eyes.

At that moment, I spied Gessler peeking out
from around the corner.
Finally!
How long he had been there
watching, I could not say. But I dared not cry out for fear of
ruining whatever plan I supposed he had in mind. I reflexively
tried to raise my hand to attract his attention, but my restraints
held me fast. When he saw the struggle that was occurring for
possession of Olimpia, he immediately bolted from his hiding
place—and, screaming like a madman, dashed straight at
Coppelius.

He delivered a blow into the old man's back.
But Coppelius was stocky and solid and even when attacked by
surprise could not be knocked from his feet. Nor could Olimpia's
hand be wrested from his grasp. Gessler reached under his arm and
up and around the back of his neck, clutching him in some kind of
arm lock, forcing his head low and his arm high in an awkward,
painful-looking contortion. Coppelius cried out but could not be
compelled to release Olimpia. Her head thrashed as the two men
yanked her from side to side.

"That's it, Inspector," the clockwork Poe
shouted. "Lay the dog low!"

"Take Olimpia and run, Poe!" Gessler shouted
back, straining with his effort to control Coppelius. "I've got the
devil by the tail now—and I've no mind to give him up!"

I suddenly realized that Gessler believed he
had intervened in a struggle between Coppelius and
me
, for
that was exactly how it appeared. He must not have been able to see
me where I stood bound against the wall. For my part, I now
considered the clockwork Poe the greater evil. However horrifying
the choice, if it was Olimpia's fate to be seized by one of them, I
would prefer it to be Coppelius. Gessler was attacking the wrong
man.

I shouted to him, but could not make myself
heard over the din of the struggle. I thrashed against my bonds and
again could feel a give in the leather band securing my left wrist.
If I kept struggling, perhaps I could free myself entirely.

"Hold still, for cryin' out loud!"

I looked to my left and there was Tap. He was
clutching the side of the table and, holding himself sideways,
began tearing at the leather restraint with his sharp beak. I could
feel the tear in the leather begin to expand. Using all my
strength, I applied steady pressure at the same time that Tap tore
at the band. At length, it ripped clean through and my hand broke
free. With my free left hand, I quickly unbuckled the strap holding
my right.

I stepped away from the table. "You're
welcome," I heard Tap cry after me, as I began shouting at Gessler
at the top of my lungs.

"It's me, Inspector! I am the real Poe. This
man is an impostor!"

"Don't listen to him," the clockwork Poe
cried. "He is an automaton, like Dansby!"

Gessler experienced a moment of confusion
that seemed to ripple all the way through Coppelius. Both of their
grips slackened at once, Gessler's on the doctor, and Coppelius' on
Olimpia. The clockwork Poe seized the moment and wrested her away
from her father once and for all.

I feared Olimpia was injured, for she seemed
limp in the automaton's grasp. She may even have fallen
unconscious. But I did not have time to dwell on the matter, for
the clockwork Poe, sweeping Olimpia along beside him, was making a
dash right past me. For where he was bound, I did not know. I only
knew that if I did not act fast, I would lose them both
forever.

From somewhere behind me, Tap shouted
encouragement. "Get him, Eddy!
Ninja kick!"

Not knowing what that meant, I instead threw
my body at Poe's legs as he attempted to dart past me. I felt a
sharp pain in my side
—
ew Roman" \s 12an artificial knee, perhaps, striking my
all too real ribcage. The next thing I knew, I was tumbling
uncontrollably across the floor. When I came to a halt, I found
myself staring at Coppelius' loaded pistol. It was laying on the
floor where it had fallen. Chance had put it within my grasp. I
grabbed it, rolled over and, assuming a kneeling posture, pointed
it where I had last seen clockwork Poe. I remembered that only a
headshot had finally killed Burton and I had only one shot
available to me. I would have to make it count. I aimed high.

But there was no Poe.

Olimpia lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.
I swung my aim to the right, and then the left. But I saw only
empty space where I supposed the automaton should have been. I
whirled to aim behind me. But the creature had vanished, seemingly
into thin air.

I was about to get up when I heard Coppelius'
cackling laughter. I glimpsed only his hideous blue eye in
exquisite detail as he dashed past me. The rest of him was a
black-garbed blur.

"Stop him, Poe!" Gessler shouted. "Don't let
him get away! He's taking Olimpia!"

But I myself was confused now. I watched
helplessly as Coppelius scooped up Olimpia and raced away. Gessler
dashed past me next, hot on the old man's heels. Coming to my
senses, I clambered to my feet and followed, thinking I would be
forced to use my single shot on Coppelius now. I would have to take
my chances with the clockwork Poe later—wherever he had disappeared
to.

I turned the corner in pursuit and saw
Coppelius, carrying Olimpia, disappear into a space occupied by a
dusty old bookcase which had swung open on a hinge like a door. He
slammed it shut after him. Gessler, expecting to yank it open and
follow Coppelius inside, was surprised to find that it would not
budge. Vainly, he yanked again and then ran his hands frantically
along the outside of the frame, feeling for a latch. I caught up
with him and quickly scanned the bookcase for the means of opening
it. I spied a thick tome that stood out from the rest. Finger marks
on its dusty spine told me that it alone, of all the books in the
case, had been recently handled. I pulled it as though to remove it
from the shelf and felt it catch. At once, a sharp click issued
from the frame. The bookcase then swung open easily.