The Demon Curse (12 page)

“As mentioned, I must now dispose of my colleague.” Madame Melrose bent down and grabbed one of Dr. Mincing's legs. “I shall return shortly, and once I am sure the creatures have done their work and scurried away, I shall cut the straitjackets from your contorting bodies and ferry you back to the city, where you will be discovered in some alleyway—further evidence of the Islanders' wickedness.”

“You'll never get away with this!” Billie cried, but her words were blurred by the trembling of her lips.

“
Adieu, mes enfants
,” Madame Melrose said. “I suspect that needs no translation.”

She lugged Mincing out through the door. The stripe of blood extended, glistening. Another lug, and the door slammed.

Leaving Harry and Billie with the shattered fragments of glass still rocking on the floor.

And the sound of tiny claws, scuttling toward them.

Harry fought against the straps. His arms struggled, and his fingers tore at the material, but his muscles were cramping, and his movements were slowing down. He wrenched, kicked, and squirmed until he could hardly catch his breath
.
The straitjacket's neck remained bolted to the bars, and that single buckle down by his shoulder lifted its tooth, but that was all.

Impossible.

The scorpions were scuttling through the murkiness, the light from Dr. Mincing's lamp gleaming on their scales.
They've smelled the sugar.
Their tiny claws pattered over the stone as they headed toward him and Billie, and he smelled the sweet odor too, wafting up out of his straitjacket's insides. His tongue was dry; his whole body shuddered.

No
idea
what
to
do.

“Keep trying, Harry!” Billie's voice was a strangled hiss.

“I…I can't…” He tried to fight, but his muscles cramped even more. “These jackets—they're made for mad people, aren't they? Even someone crazy wouldn't be able to get out. How can I—?”

“The scorpions! If they sting us—”

“I know!”

“It's not just us! Artie, Mayor Monticelso—we've got to save them! The Islanders too!”

“I know that!”

“The antidote!” She managed to jolt her head toward the phial, lying by the desk.

“I know.”

“We've got to—”

Her voice cut out, and Harry saw why. The first scorpion had crept onto the hem of her dress and was making its way toward her straitjacket. The tiny tail, with its venom-dripping stinger, arched above it, quivering at every fold of cloth the scorpion encountered. Something twitched against Harry's leg, and he glanced down to see three scorpions crawling up the outside of his trousers. Only his eyes moved as he watched the scaly creatures journeying up his body. They crawled onto his straitjacket and weaved through the buckles and straps. Two more crept onto the trouser leg, following the others' path. His body was frozen, but he could feel his heart hammering inside, as if it were trying to fight its way out. He thought of all the tricks he knew, all the last-minute escapes he had pulled off, here in New Orleans, back in New York too.
None
of
it
matters
, he thought.

Because he had never been truly frightened until now.

“Please, Harry, keep trying…” Billie's voice could hardly be heard. “Remember what he said…the man in the pale suit…Mr. James…back in the library…”

Harry's eyes slid sideways to see several more scorpions on Billie: five on her dress, another three halfway along her arm. Another was up by her straitjacket's collar, and it crept over the stitched edge and disappeared inside. Her voice weakened, and Harry knew she was trying not to move the muscles of her neck.

“Who knows who he is…who knows what the Order of the White Crow is either… But I heard what he said back there…about you.” She angled her eyes toward him. “About your skills.
Miraculous
, he called them.
Skills
that
make
anything
seem
possible.
Me and Artie, we impressed him too, but you, Harry, you were the one who dazzled him.”

“It's no good…”

He tried to remember it too. He closed his eyes and tried to bring it back to life, that moment in the library when all had seemed lost, and Mr. James's words had sent energy racing back through him.
But
it's no good now.
Even if Mr. James were there, whispering about his skills right in his ear, it would have had no effect. Besides, Mr. James had said other words too, and those were the ones Harry could hear perfectly clearly, lingering in his thoughts.

“He didn't just talk about my skills. He said we weren't ready, remember?”

“What?”

“The investigation was too difficult. That's what he said. He'd made a...misjudgment…”

“I know but—”

“He was right, wasn't he? Look at us!”

The scorpions were all over his trousers, the straitjacket too. He looked at those arms and legs and remembered how quickly he had clambered up inside the dumbwaiter shaft at city hall. He saw one of his boots and remembered how he'd kicked the sack of charms into the brazier's flames. He remembered his fingers, cleverly picking the lock of a suitcase when he was trapped inside…
But
none
of
it
makes
any
difference
now.
Here he was, that nimble, skillful body unable to move at all…

“I believe in you, Harry, even if you don't. Mr. James was right about your skills; it doesn't matter what else he said. That's the truth. Artie would say the same.”

A scorpion was on Harry's face. He felt it scuttle across his forehead, and almost straightaway, he felt another one creep onto his cheek. He froze, and for a few seconds, those terrible pattering sensations were all he could feel, all he could think of. But then, even as he lay there, he realized that Billie was still speaking, and he listened to her words, every single one of them.

“Obviously, I wouldn't normally say this—don't want you to get bigheaded or anything…” Her voice was almost gone. “But it really is true. What you do…there's no one else who can do anything like it. Harry, are you listening?”

Harry slanted his eyes to the side. He saw Billie's face again and shuddered at the sight. For a start, there were the scorpions crawling over it. But worst of all, for him, was that desperate hint of hope in her expression.

Hope
in
me.

“Whatever it takes, you always do it,” Billie was saying. “Why, just yesterday morning on the Crescent Express, you rescued me and Artie out of those suitcases, didn't you?”

“Yes, but…” Harry felt scorpions inside his straitjacket, their claws against his skin.

“When we pulled in at the station, two minutes later, you were doing the Fiery Coal Dance.”

“I know, but—”

“As soon as I knew the Islanders were in trouble, I asked you to help. I knew you'd say yes. I knew you'd do whatever it took to save them.”

“I can't…” He felt one creep down his spine.

“You always do it, Harry. You always manage to win through. And you'll do it now, yeah? You'll get us out of here. For Artie…for Mayor Monticelso…for the Islanders…for me…”

Her words stopped. The scorpions on her face had reached her lips, and not even she dared speak anymore. The insects stood right by her mouth, their stings quivering, and Billie was silent, her eyes wide with terror. But her words kept echoing in Harry's mind.
If
only
those
words
could
change
things
, he thought as he looked at his straitjacket. There were countless scorpions on it. Inside, he felt a crowd of them gathering at a spot just under his ribs.
Too
late…
He tilted his head back and looked, for what he thought might be the very last time, at his friend, lying there in a straitjacket, just a few inches away…

Just
a
few
inches
away.

Harry's heart stopped beating. He waited and felt it jolt back to life, pounding even harder. He wondered if the vibrations would disturb the scorpions, but so far, they seemed just to be creeping onward on their journeys. He looked at the ones on the outside of the jacket, weaving their way between the buckles. He looked at the particular part of the jacket he was interested in: the strap by his left shoulder.

With
the
buckle
that
had
lifted
its
tooth.

A scorpion was crawling over it, its spiny legs lifting. Harry waited for it to move on and turned his head until he was staring at Billie.

“The straitjackets…they're for mad people, yes?”

“You said that. I know.” There were fewer scorpions on Billie's face, but she seemed hardly to have the strength to whisper.

“Even someone in a mad fit couldn't get out, yes?”

“You've said this, Harry…”

“But people who are mad, they're on their own, aren't they? All locked up in their own craziness.”

“I suppose so. But—”

“They wouldn't listen to anyone. Wouldn't matter how good a friend they were, wouldn't matter what they said…”

“Harry?”

Harry looked back at the buckle. He concentrated on the scorpions inside the jacket, working out where they were. Most of them had gathered at the spot beneath his ribs.
Some
of
the
cane
sugar's there, perhaps.
He felt them in other places too—his neck, his chest—but there were some bits of his body that were free of them: his left arm, for example.
Very
slow.
Gritting his teeth, he tightened that arm until it was pushing against the straitjacket as hard as it could. No other part of his body moved, only the arm. His eyes stayed fixed on the buckle.

“Harry? What are you doing?”

The buckle's tooth lifted. It rose only a tiny amount, but Harry kept it like that, the muscles in his arm shaking. Inside the jacket, around the rest of his body, he felt the scorpions go still. But they didn't sting.
Not
yet.
One by one, they continued with their scuttling, burrowing onward. Beads of sweat ran down Harry's face; as his arm remained clenched, the buckle's tooth remained raised. He started to roll to the side.

“Harry! Careful! The scorpions, they'll—”

Just
like
a
trick.
Control was everything. Harry rolled his body so slowly that it hardly seemed to be moving at all, the scorpions on the outside of the jacket crawling on as if nothing was happening, the ones inside undisturbed too. But he
was
moving. He could tell that by focusing on that lifted tooth and watching the bars of a nearby cell door move past behind. He watched that tiny, inch-long piece of metal as it traced an arc, down to the nearest buckle on Billie's straitjacket.

“Stay still.” His lips shaped the words.

He could only use one eye now. One of the scorpions on his face was creeping over the lid of the right one, so he concentrated on what he could see with the other eye instead. More muscles tightened, and the lifted tooth of the buckle glided forward, sliding into the buckle on Billie's jacket. It hooked under the leather strap and angled itself against that buckle's tooth. Harry rolled slightly back and watched one tooth lever the other upward.

The tooth of Billie's buckle lifted.

And slid out of the hole of its strap.

“Your turn. But slowly!” Harry hissed, keeping still. “Undo one of my buckles…any one…”

Billie's arm was already moving. The fallen-away strap had released a fold of material, and although the arm was buried in the jacket, it could shuffle about. Harry watched it struggle beneath the cloth. Billie's face was pouring with sweat, and he knew that she would be feeling those tiny bodies creeping over her, but her arm managed to reposition itself, her hand pushing its way out. Harry saw two fingers poke out through a gap and strain toward one of the buckles on Harry's jacket. They brushed against it and fell away. Billie tried again, and this time the fingers grabbed the buckle's strap and pulled.

The shaft of the buckle's tooth slid out of the strap. Harry could move his shoulder but nothing more.

That's all I need.

Harry's shoulder wriggled loose, and his elbow hinged upward. He could feel the scorpions feeding all over him, but he moved so smoothly that none of them seemed to notice.
Control.
The jacket was looser; his wrist flexed, and his fingers probed around. He managed to wiggle one of his fingers out of the straitjacket, hinged it back, and flicked a buckle free. His hand was out, and it swept about, finding buckles all over the jacket, sliding them loose. The rest of his body lay still, the scorpions undisturbed. His hand took hold of the jacket's front edge and opened it up. He looked down at his body inside.

Scorpions were all over it, but they were all over the inside of the jacket too. Harry saw specks of sugar clinging to the jacket's insides and noted how the scorpions were gathered around those specks.
Food—that's what they want most.
He watched the scorpions on his body scuttle about and make their way back into the folds of the jacket that lay around him.

Slowly, he sat up. His arms slid from the jacket's sleeves, and he felt the scorpions scuttle away from his neck, his back, vanishing down into the jacket, their sugar-laced nest. He gathered his legs underneath himself and stood up, the final scorpions creeping down his trousers. He waited until the last one was gone and crouched over Billie.

“Don't move,” he whispered. “My turn again.”

Billie did exactly as he asked. His hands rustled around the buckles of her jacket. Opening her jacket, he watched the scorpions hurry away from her body into the sugary folds. He grabbed her arms, pulling her so that she rose up out of the jacket, leaving the scurrying hordes behind. Only then, as her face grew close to his, did she allow herself to move a little, her lips shaping the words.

“I knew you could do it, Harry. You always do,” she whispered.

“Ow!”

Pain shot into Harry's hand. Something tore through his skin, just beneath the base of his thumb, but he kept his grip on Billie until he had lifted her free. Harry rotated his wrist and saw it, the scorpion, scurrying over his knuckles. He flung it away, but the pain was already traveling deeper into his hand. He felt it, a cruel jabbing, racing up through his wrist. Harry gripped his arm in a desperate attempt to choke off the flow of blood, but the pain traveled on, up his shoulder, into his neck. Gathering strength, it burst into his head. Harry fell to his knees, his body slammed onto the floor, and he was lying on his side, jolting all over.