Ambidextrous III/IV: Vessalius (Part 3/4)
Chapter I: Baskerville
Chapter II: Nightray: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Chapter III: Vessalius: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4.
“What do you mean?”
An ear-piercing roar cut through the question. The two contractors looked up at the sky in alarm. The Jabberwocky was soaring through the morning sky, blocking up the sun with its giant wings. Oz raised Gilbert’s arms over his head out of reflex.
The dragon almost knocked the two contractors over as it flew past them. Oz barely had the time to glimpse the growing fireball in its mouth. The giant Chain came to hover before the broken windows of Pandora Headquarters, drew back its long neck…
“Break!” panic surged through Oz like a waterfall. “Sharon!”
The Jabberwocky fired. The roaring of Chains could be heard from where they stood.
“Little Echo! No!”
Oz made a run for the manor, and the sharp pain in Gilbert’s limbs almost made him collapse on the spot. Even with the Baskerville’s healing ability, his wounds were still deep. Oz felt nausea overcome him as he struggled not to trip, determined to get to them before it was too late. Jack took him by the wrist before he could take another step.
“What,” the ghost repeated, unmindful of the dragon ten feet above their heads, “do you mean?”
“Let go!” Oz tugged on Jack’s hand, but he was too weakened to free himself. “We have to help them!”
“Answer me,” Jack said dangerously.
So Oz told him, in two rushed sentences.
Jack’s face lit up with such raw, desperate hope that Oz thought he might be sick. The Chain went on, past caring:
“We need a Child of Misfortune in order to reach her. We have to go help Break and Vincent!”
Jack had already let go of him. With a little rattling noise, he bent over and retrieved Elliot’s sword from the humid ground.
“Very well, Oz. I’ll help you out,” he ran alongside him with sword in hand, a merry smile on his too young face. “And thank you. I could never have wished for a better Chain.”
The offhanded insult, the gaping wounds all over Gilbert’s body, my fault, all my fault, the sickening sight of Jack in his former body holding Elliot’s sword, the smell of burning wood and metal above and the mighty roars of the Jabberwocky, Oz let it all drown in the adrenaline rush as he looked up at the flames and called to Alice. In the next second, the giant rabbit had taken hold of them both, and they were jumping into the chaos of the upper floor.
“You had better know what you’re doing, Oz,” the rabbit growled mid-air.
Oz had no time to answer as he was dropped to the floor alongside Jack, who winced. Oz couldn’t help but glance sideways at the mark peering from the slightly open shirt of his former body. The needle had just moved to ten. We’re running out of time.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a feline Chain barged into his line of sight. Before he knew it, the scythe was in his hands and Oz was slicing at the beast. With a yowl, the lion vanished into a rain of dust. Charlotte Baskerville burst out of the cloud, knife in hand, her eyes a fiery red:
“Found you, traitor,” she grinned and aimed for Gilbert’s heart, only to be blocked by Jack.
“Leave them out of this, Lottie,” the ghost said, his voice even as he dodged and countered Charlotte’s furious attempts to stab him. “I believe I’m the one you’re after.”
“Fair point, Jack,” she said between swipes. Her crooked smirk was turning more demented with every strike. “Took you long enough to come out.”
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the ghost said forlornly. “After it took so long to gain your trust and Glen’s.”
An enraged snarl broke through the clanging. Charlotte’s voice got higher pitched until it threatened to break:
“I should have killed you first back in Sablier, you bastard!”
Jack laughed it off: “Call a spade a spade.”
Oz couldn’t keep track of their fight. Up into the sky, Alice was holding off the Jabberwocky with her spiked chains and mighty fists, jumping from window to window to avoid the blasts. Suddenly, when she hopped back into the open, Oz glimpsed a white figure in her fist.
“Break!” he exclaimed with equal amounts of fear and hope.
Next thing he knew, something was pushing at his back and there was a gunshot. When Oz turned round, he found Vincent at his back, smoking gun in hand. A red-clad figure dropped to the ground.
“Take better care of my brother’s body,” the man snapped at him and fired another shot. He was wearing Gilbert’s hat, Oz realized bemusedly.
“W-Why aren’t you with Break?” Oz asked before he could stop himself, his scythe slicing through incoming Chains as if it had a mind of its own.
“I dumped him to look for Gil, of course,” Vincent said. He straightened the hat on his unruly hair swiftly. “The Hatter seemed to be faring well enough on his own. I met Lady Sharon on my way here. She was injured, so I left Echo to tend to her. Good thing Lottie was in a hurry.”
It seemed he was about to say more, but he suddenly clapped his mouth shut and pulled Oz by the wrist. In the next second, the whole room shook and sent everyone tumbling to the floor in a cacophony of growls and crumbling debris. Through the stars and white dust invading his vision, Oz saw the huge grotesque head of the bleeding Jabberwocky gasp for air. Alice had its neck pinned to the ground.
“Alice, Jack, let’s get out of here!” Oz ran around the dragon’s head to get to Alice and the man she held in her hand. “We need to get to Sharon and Little Echo!”
“She left Eques in my shadow,” Vincent added belatedly as he moved backwards towards the giant Chains and kept firing meticulous shots. “This should take no time at all.”
A bullet got Lottie in the head. Jack took the opportunity to run up to them. Oz got another fleeting look at his chest and saw that the needle was still moving. The ground seemed to waver beneath his feet. It felt like it would give in any second now, ready to swallow him whole, back into the darkness he had come from.
‘Gil,’ Oz thought desperately, his heart hammering in his servant’s chest. ‘Wake up. You have to wake up....’
Jack and he reached Break at the same time, followed shortly by Vincent. A black wall was already rising all around them. But Alice was still in rabbit form, the clock was ticking and the scythe wouldn’t go away, hitching to slice through the surrounding golden chains, Oz had no idea how to stop it…
‘I need you to activate the seal,’ Oz urged Gilbert’s slumbering spirit at the back of his mind. ‘Please, please, wake up…!’
He could feel his contractor stirring at his call, willing exhaustion away. Oz clung to this bit of consciousness, kept shouting at Gilbert over the bridge of their contract, when a wave of darkness rose from Eques’ shadow and swept the group along. Alice let go of the Jabberwocky at the last minute. The last thing they heard was Lottie’s voice, screaming at the other contractors to rummage through the ground floor and seal off all the exits.
They landed in a mass of limbs, metal and black fur. Oz had no idea which body was his anymore. He was only dimly aware of Gilbert’s presence close by, just shy of reach.
“Miss Sharon,” Break’s breathless voice cut through the thick silence. “Are you alright?”
“Get off my face, you damn clown,” Alice growled close to Oz’s ear.
Looking up, Oz glimpsed a mop of blonde hair that might have been Jack’s or Vincent’s. Over that, he saw Sharon rush over to Break with one arm wrapped over her stomach. Oz caught a glimpse of torn silk and bloody bandages on her fair skin. Everything looked and sounded fuzzy. Oz felt like he might throw up.
“Gil…” he muttered around a coated tongue.
There was a blur of white and a tug at his wrist. Oz was pulled to his feet. He came face to face with a mask of grey. He blinked. Echo’s face cleared before him.
They remained frozen on unsteady legs and stared at each other in silence. Her hair was covered in dust and debris, her cheeks powdered with chalk, her clear eyes huge with worry. Oz couldn’t recall a time when he had seen her so open. He wanted to comfort her, but couldn’t seem to find his voice. The scythe was still in his hand.
He heard a coughing fit behind him, violent enough to break the spell and make him turn round.
“I will be fine,” Break said raggedly. “I think our main concern should be: what do we do with him?”
The sight made Oz wobble harder on his feet. Jack had been surrounded. Break’s sword was at his throat and Vincent’s gun at his temple. Alice and Eques were lurking in the shadows behind the ghost. Oz could feel the rabbit’s growling all the way to his gut. The weapon in his hand felt heavier still. Dimly, he realized that Echo had stepped forward to stand between him and Jack, knife in hand.
Jack was standing among his enemies in the half-destroyed corridor with an amiable smile on his face. White powder was falling from the roof on his hair like snow. The ghost had one hand clenched loosely around the hilt of Elliot’s sword, the other to his half-exposed chest. The clock read eleven.
“Don’t kill him,” Oz blurted out.
Vincent’s finger only curled tighter around the trigger. His expression was set in rigid anger and grief, the very picture of betrayal. Oz didn’t dare move a muscle lest the man shoot on impulse. There was nothing but contempt in Break’s eye as he stared Jack down, his stance unwavering in spite of the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth. Sharon kept close to him.
“We don’t have a choice, Lord Oz,” she said without tearing her eyes away from their captive. “If we don’t finish him now, he will be cast into the Abyss.”
“That’s the plan,” Jack said cheerfully. “The one Oz came up with, that is. We are going to meet the Will of the Abyss.”
Break narrowed his eye at that. Jack’s polite gaze drifted from his to Vincent’s without wavering:
“We would appreciate it if one of you two gentlemen could lend us his help.”
There was an ominous click.
“Don’t do it, Vincent,” Jack said gently. “Gilbert wouldn’t want this.”
Vincent drew in a sharp breath, seemed to hold back the urge to scream. His hand was shaking madly around the gun. Break’s expression turned to one of intense disgust.
“Oz,” he asked in a low voice. “Do you intend to change the past?”
“No,” Oz answered in a rush. “I found a time paradox in Jack’s memories. I think it might be part of what caused the distortion of the Abyss. The Will of the Abyss needs my power to fix it, but only people born with red eyes can meet her. I need your help to reach her.”
“And I need to get my sister out of the Abyss,” Alice interjected.
This, more than anything, seemed to capture Break’s interest. Yet Oz’s borrowed eyes kept darting back to the seal on Jack’s chest and the slow, relentless progression of the needle. He thought he could hear the seconds ticking away, pulsing at his temple like blood, Gil, Gil, please wake up!
“There’s no time. I can’t get my powers under control,” Oz stammered. He was clutching at Gilbert’s bloody chest without meaning to. Was his heart even still beating? Was it the clock? “I can’t get through to Gil… At this rate, we will be stuck like this forever… We will…”
“I’ll handle this,” Break sheathed his sword. “Time to end the masquerade. Would you give me a hand, milady?”
Sharon had already kneeled down and started drawing a pentacle with a piece of chalk. Break completed the drawing while Vincent held Jack at gunpoint. Sharon motioned for Oz, Jack and the giant rabbit to stand together on the pentacle. Once they were all gathered, Break slammed his swordstick in the centre.
There was a flash, a jolt, a world in black and white turned on its axis in a burst of pain. Oz was left panting on the floor. His body felt heavy and warm, almost feverishly so. It felt so strange, yet so disturbingly familiar, Oz wanted out of his skin.
“Well,” Break’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I think that settles it.”
“What… Oz!”
Hearing Gilbert’s voice at last prompted Oz to open his eyes. Here they were, all three beings that shared his powers, all pinned to the floor by the bluish light of the restraining pentacle. Jack down on his knees and breathing heavily, eyes trained on the broken clock on his chest in anticipation. Alice in her human body, clad in the spare of red clothes and white ribbons she had gotten from her bond with B-Rabbit, who struggled to sit up while glaring daggers at Break and Jack in turn.
And Gilbert, back in his own body, his bloody clothes clinging to his skin, his pale face covered in sweat as he stared at Oz from his position on the ground. He looked small and scared; it felt like they had jumped back in time. Back at the coming of age ceremony, when everything had gone mad; back in Sablier, a helpless little boy bleeding to death at Oz’s feet....
Oz closed his eyes tight.
“The seal…” was all he could manage, in a low growl that he refused to acknowledge as his own voice.
With a sigh, Break slammed his swordstick a second time. There was a patter of feet when the human captives stood as one. Oz didn’t even try to get up from his slumped position on the floor. He felt too big as it was. His long ears twitched as he waited with batted breath.
“Oz, it’s not working!” he heard Gilbert’s panicked voice. “The needle has moved too far! Oz!”
The voice sounded much closer. Reluctantly, Oz opened his eyes to meet Gilbert’s terrified golden ones.
“Then we don’t have much time left,” Oz said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry, Gil… I have to meet the Will of the Abyss and ask for her help.”
The man was shaking hard. His eyes were filling up with tears. Gilbert held it all in with a shuddering breath:
“I’ll go with you.”
He meant it as reassurance, but Gilbert could as well have hit him, it hurt so badly. Oz silently and vehemently cursed himself for all the times he had felt accomplished when Gilbert had sworn to always be by his side. They didn’t even have a choice in the matter anymore.
“Will you come back?”
The quiet inquiry startled Oz out of his gloomy thoughts. Those were the first words Echo had spoken since they had arrived. She was looking up at him with the same concern she had shown while Oz was possessing Gilbert.
“I will,” he answered before thinking.
He regretted it almost immediately. His ears drooped uneasily. They both knew what had happened the last time Oz had made this kind of promise: Philippe’s father had been killed and the child had become an illegal contractor. A hint of wetness appeared in Echo’s clear eyes. All the same, she nodded and pulled a pistol from under her wide sleeve, which she handed to Gilbert.
“Master Vincent used most of the bullets,” she warned him. Her voice had recovered its deadpan tone.
“What about you?” Gilbert asked her. His voice was raspy from repressed tears. “What are you going to do about Master Glen?”
“I’ll help Lady Sharon escape as Master Vincent ordered me to,” she said neutrally.
Oz peered at Vincent warily. The man had opened his mouth like he was about to protest. In the end, he just shook his head with an irritated scowl. Gilbert gripped his pistol tightly as he looked from his brother to Echo with growing anguish:
“I’m sorry. I dragged you both into this... I’m so sorry....”
Oz wanted to scold him, tell Gilbert that it was his fault, never his servant’s, and why did he always have to blame himself… but something in Echo’s even stare stopped him. There was some hesitation there, like there was something she was dying to say but couldn’t quite find the words.
“It’s alright,” she said after a pause. “Noise is loyal to Master Vincent, and I…”
She glanced Oz’s way, and words seemed to fail her once more. She inclined her head.
“I’ll handle things here,” she said quietly. “Just go.”
Oz stared at her in bemused wonder. He wasn’t sure if it was from the instinctive protectiveness he felt around young girls ever since he had been given sentience, from the time Echo and he had spent together on St Brigitte’s Day - did it make a difference after all? Did I really help her? - or the incongruity of her being concerned about someone like him, but the Chain felt a surge of affection warm his heart.
“Little Echo…”
“Just Echo!” she snapped, and her whole body shook with her cry of protest.
“Thank you.”
Echo looked up with a jolt. A bright blush was peering from the cracks in her mask of chalk, and her lips were drawn in a tight line. She turned away in the same swift motion.
“This is all well and good,” Break’s voice cut in. “But you are still short a red-eyed jinx, am I right? Count me in.”
Yet another couching fit swallowed his last sentence, and the man almost fell to his knees before Sharon caught him.
“Break, you can’t be serious…!”
“Don’t try to stop me, Gilbert,” Break cut the servant off. “This is a purpose I intend to fulfil. I swore to grant her wish.”
Oz’s ears perked up at that. Her? Did he mean the Will of the Abyss? The Chain peered at Gilbert, but his servant looked just as confused as Oz was. Sharon, on the other hand, showed no hint of surprise.
“You can’t go in your state, Break,” she told him softly, her face grave. Oz could tell that it cost her to turn Break away from his goal, when all this time she had been doing everything in her power to help him. Yet when she turned to them, there was nothing but determination in her eyes.
“She told Break that she didn’t want to be the Will of the Abyss anymore,” Sharon told them.
Oz straightened in spite of himself. He stilled when the tip of his ears brushed against the crumbling roof. The Chain knew dangerously little about the Will of the Abyss after the Tragedy had driven her mad, but if what Sharon said was true, it might play to their advantage.
“Of course she doesn’t,” Alice growled exasperatedly. “That’s why I’m going to get her. And Raven too,” she added, turning to Gilbert, which prompted a startled “what” from him: “We had a deal, remember? First we settle accounts with Jack and save Oz, then we go back for my sister.”
It seemed to take several seconds for Gilbert to remember what she was referring to, but his eyes lit up at last, and he nodded. The man turned to Break with purpose:
“You don’t have to come, Break,” he told him. “I’ll go as your left eye.”
Break twitched.
“What the hell are you…”
“You saved Oz for me,” Gilbert finished before Break got a chance to further object. “Just like you promised. It’s about time I paid my debt to you.”
All the stubbornness seemed to vanish from Break’s face, replaced by disbelief. His grip tightened around Sharon’s shoulder. He averted his eye. The young woman directed a forlorn, grateful smile at Gilbert. Oz felt prouder of his servant than he had any right to be.
“Break, was it?” Jack asked lightly. “Think of it this way: the Baskervilles are still after us, and the situation here is sure to get complicated. You wouldn’t want to leave Miss Sharon without a knight, would you?”
Break turned a deadpan stare towards the ghost. Jack held out a pendant hanging from a thin chain:
“This is yours, I think? I took it back from Lottie. Please don’t hold it against her, she was always overprotective.”
“The blood mirror!” Sharon cupped one hand over her mouth.
Oz noticed the way Break tested the stability of his feet before he deftly detached himself from Sharon and walked up to Jack. In spite of the smooth confidence he was showing, Oz couldn’t help but feel a pang of worry.
“Why thank you, Mister Hero,” Break snatched the chain from Jack’s hand and passed it around his neck. “I wish you a pleasant journey into the Abyss, then. Send my best regards to Alice, will you?”
Jack’s only answer was an obliging smile. Behind him, Vincent still had his gun pressed to his temple. Oz could see Gilbert trembling in his peripheral vision.
“Is there no other way, Oz?” the man asked. “We can’t just…”
“I’ll go, brother,” Vincent’s voice cut in.
“But…”
“On one condition,” Vincent’s mismatched eyes turned to slits. “If we meet the Will of the Abyss, you should be the one to make a wish.”
Gilbert started at that, but recovered quickly.
“I trust Oz,” he told his brother firmly. “Whatever wish he wants fulfilled, I’ll help him grant it.”
There was no mistaking the resentment in Vincent’s eyes when he turned to the Chain. Oz couldn’t help a shiver, which was thankfully hard to notice with his current appearance. He really wasn’t deserving of anyone’s trust, for dragging them all back in this hell they had fought so hard to escape. All but Jack.
“Jack will handle it,” Oz said softly, yet his deep voice still made the roof rumble. “He is the only one who can convince the Will of the Abyss.”
“And don’t you try anything funny,” Alice pointed a warning finger at Jack. “You’ll ask her exactly what Oz told you to, and that’s it. Otherwise, you’re dead meat.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack grinned at her, seeming to find her suspicion absurdly funny. “It is my wish, after all.”
“What?” Gilbert asked, alarmed. “Oz, what does that mea…”
“We found them! Glen Baskerville, Sir, we found them!”
Oz turned round with a jolt, his black fur bristling in startled fear. Two men clad in Pandora’s uniform had just appeared at the window and were waving their way. They disappeared as fast as they had come, running in opposite directions with terrified cries.
“Everybody get down!” Oz shouted and got on all fours to shield the others with his body. In the next second, the wall exploded.
There was the inhuman screech of the Jabberwocky, a detonation and roaring fire that went to eat at Oz’s skin. The rabbit curled up on himself to cover the others as best as he could. He thought he heard his name somewhere in the commotion; he couldn’t be sure. The flaring pain, the nauseating smell of burning flesh and fur, it was all too much for Oz to take. All sounds drowned in a cry of agony that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
It stopped just as suddenly, in a burst of blue flames that forced Oz’s eyes open. The entire corridor had been destroyed; the rabbit could see the sky from his position on the ground. He barely even felt the pain of his burning wounds as he took in the view.
Two gigantic black birds were facing each other against the rising sun. Their monstrous beak and mouth were dripping with long flames. Their talons and claws dug into the ground. It looked like they could take to the sky and drag the entire world with them.
“Run,” Oz said in a ragged growl, unable to look away from the scene long enough to make sure the others had gotten away.
Gilbert was there before him. The man stood close to the Raven with a revolver in one hand, Elliot’s retrieved sword in the other, and faced his former master. Oz could tell that he was shaking. The rabbit felt a horrible sense of déjà vu.
All of a sudden it felt like he could read Leo’s expression from this distance: impassive features, every step filled with purpose as the possessed boy walked up to them, in stark contrast with the furious storm in his black eyes. Those accusing eyes trapped Gilbert as surely as they burnt Oz.
There was a black blur. Before Glen could come in hearing distance, Alice jumped on Gilbert’s back. The startled man staggered forward and barely recovered his balance. Alice plucked his ears firmly.
“Stop it, Glen!” she screamed over Gilbert’s head and threw her legs around his chest so she wouldn’t fall off. The man hissed in pain when her heels dug into his ribs. “Raven and Oz are my contractors! Leave us alone!”
It felt like time had frozen for them. Glen stood before them, his pale face stark against the black dragon wings that embraced his figure from behind. The beast’s feral slit yellow eyes squinted over his head ominously. The possessed boy’s expression was clearly visible now, his surreal eyes burning with one betrayal too many. For all of three seconds, Glen Baskerville didn’t move.
For the last time, Oz summoned the scythe. He heard Jack gasp.
‘Midnight.’
The earth opened under them in a giant black void. Glen jumped back when the chains burst from the darkness and snaked their way around the giant rabbit and three humans, but Vincent threw himself at his brother and caught him in a tight hug. Gilbert returned the embrace with Alice hanging precariously on his back, and the chains encircled all three. Jack had already started to sink. Raven vanished, but Gilbert never looked away from his former master.
When he told him: “I am sorry, Lord Glen,” among the nightmarish rattle of chains, Oz heard Jack say: “Goodbye, Oswald.”
Merciless metal sank in his fresh burns and wounds. Oz lifted his head to let out a howl. He saw a cloudless sky and a flock of birds. The rising sun lit their feathers a blazing gold. Then he was dragged down and darkness closed on them.
Part 4
Chapter II: Nightray: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Chapter III: Vessalius: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4.
“What do you mean?”
An ear-piercing roar cut through the question. The two contractors looked up at the sky in alarm. The Jabberwocky was soaring through the morning sky, blocking up the sun with its giant wings. Oz raised Gilbert’s arms over his head out of reflex.
The dragon almost knocked the two contractors over as it flew past them. Oz barely had the time to glimpse the growing fireball in its mouth. The giant Chain came to hover before the broken windows of Pandora Headquarters, drew back its long neck…
“Break!” panic surged through Oz like a waterfall. “Sharon!”
The Jabberwocky fired. The roaring of Chains could be heard from where they stood.
“Little Echo! No!”
Oz made a run for the manor, and the sharp pain in Gilbert’s limbs almost made him collapse on the spot. Even with the Baskerville’s healing ability, his wounds were still deep. Oz felt nausea overcome him as he struggled not to trip, determined to get to them before it was too late. Jack took him by the wrist before he could take another step.
“What,” the ghost repeated, unmindful of the dragon ten feet above their heads, “do you mean?”
“Let go!” Oz tugged on Jack’s hand, but he was too weakened to free himself. “We have to help them!”
“Answer me,” Jack said dangerously.
So Oz told him, in two rushed sentences.
Jack’s face lit up with such raw, desperate hope that Oz thought he might be sick. The Chain went on, past caring:
“We need a Child of Misfortune in order to reach her. We have to go help Break and Vincent!”
Jack had already let go of him. With a little rattling noise, he bent over and retrieved Elliot’s sword from the humid ground.
“Very well, Oz. I’ll help you out,” he ran alongside him with sword in hand, a merry smile on his too young face. “And thank you. I could never have wished for a better Chain.”
The offhanded insult, the gaping wounds all over Gilbert’s body, my fault, all my fault, the sickening sight of Jack in his former body holding Elliot’s sword, the smell of burning wood and metal above and the mighty roars of the Jabberwocky, Oz let it all drown in the adrenaline rush as he looked up at the flames and called to Alice. In the next second, the giant rabbit had taken hold of them both, and they were jumping into the chaos of the upper floor.
“You had better know what you’re doing, Oz,” the rabbit growled mid-air.
Oz had no time to answer as he was dropped to the floor alongside Jack, who winced. Oz couldn’t help but glance sideways at the mark peering from the slightly open shirt of his former body. The needle had just moved to ten. We’re running out of time.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a feline Chain barged into his line of sight. Before he knew it, the scythe was in his hands and Oz was slicing at the beast. With a yowl, the lion vanished into a rain of dust. Charlotte Baskerville burst out of the cloud, knife in hand, her eyes a fiery red:
“Found you, traitor,” she grinned and aimed for Gilbert’s heart, only to be blocked by Jack.
“Leave them out of this, Lottie,” the ghost said, his voice even as he dodged and countered Charlotte’s furious attempts to stab him. “I believe I’m the one you’re after.”
“Fair point, Jack,” she said between swipes. Her crooked smirk was turning more demented with every strike. “Took you long enough to come out.”
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the ghost said forlornly. “After it took so long to gain your trust and Glen’s.”
An enraged snarl broke through the clanging. Charlotte’s voice got higher pitched until it threatened to break:
“I should have killed you first back in Sablier, you bastard!”
Jack laughed it off: “Call a spade a spade.”
Oz couldn’t keep track of their fight. Up into the sky, Alice was holding off the Jabberwocky with her spiked chains and mighty fists, jumping from window to window to avoid the blasts. Suddenly, when she hopped back into the open, Oz glimpsed a white figure in her fist.
“Break!” he exclaimed with equal amounts of fear and hope.
Next thing he knew, something was pushing at his back and there was a gunshot. When Oz turned round, he found Vincent at his back, smoking gun in hand. A red-clad figure dropped to the ground.
“Take better care of my brother’s body,” the man snapped at him and fired another shot. He was wearing Gilbert’s hat, Oz realized bemusedly.
“W-Why aren’t you with Break?” Oz asked before he could stop himself, his scythe slicing through incoming Chains as if it had a mind of its own.
“I dumped him to look for Gil, of course,” Vincent said. He straightened the hat on his unruly hair swiftly. “The Hatter seemed to be faring well enough on his own. I met Lady Sharon on my way here. She was injured, so I left Echo to tend to her. Good thing Lottie was in a hurry.”
It seemed he was about to say more, but he suddenly clapped his mouth shut and pulled Oz by the wrist. In the next second, the whole room shook and sent everyone tumbling to the floor in a cacophony of growls and crumbling debris. Through the stars and white dust invading his vision, Oz saw the huge grotesque head of the bleeding Jabberwocky gasp for air. Alice had its neck pinned to the ground.
“Alice, Jack, let’s get out of here!” Oz ran around the dragon’s head to get to Alice and the man she held in her hand. “We need to get to Sharon and Little Echo!”
“She left Eques in my shadow,” Vincent added belatedly as he moved backwards towards the giant Chains and kept firing meticulous shots. “This should take no time at all.”
A bullet got Lottie in the head. Jack took the opportunity to run up to them. Oz got another fleeting look at his chest and saw that the needle was still moving. The ground seemed to waver beneath his feet. It felt like it would give in any second now, ready to swallow him whole, back into the darkness he had come from.
‘Gil,’ Oz thought desperately, his heart hammering in his servant’s chest. ‘Wake up. You have to wake up....’
Jack and he reached Break at the same time, followed shortly by Vincent. A black wall was already rising all around them. But Alice was still in rabbit form, the clock was ticking and the scythe wouldn’t go away, hitching to slice through the surrounding golden chains, Oz had no idea how to stop it…
‘I need you to activate the seal,’ Oz urged Gilbert’s slumbering spirit at the back of his mind. ‘Please, please, wake up…!’
He could feel his contractor stirring at his call, willing exhaustion away. Oz clung to this bit of consciousness, kept shouting at Gilbert over the bridge of their contract, when a wave of darkness rose from Eques’ shadow and swept the group along. Alice let go of the Jabberwocky at the last minute. The last thing they heard was Lottie’s voice, screaming at the other contractors to rummage through the ground floor and seal off all the exits.
They landed in a mass of limbs, metal and black fur. Oz had no idea which body was his anymore. He was only dimly aware of Gilbert’s presence close by, just shy of reach.
“Miss Sharon,” Break’s breathless voice cut through the thick silence. “Are you alright?”
“Get off my face, you damn clown,” Alice growled close to Oz’s ear.
Looking up, Oz glimpsed a mop of blonde hair that might have been Jack’s or Vincent’s. Over that, he saw Sharon rush over to Break with one arm wrapped over her stomach. Oz caught a glimpse of torn silk and bloody bandages on her fair skin. Everything looked and sounded fuzzy. Oz felt like he might throw up.
“Gil…” he muttered around a coated tongue.
There was a blur of white and a tug at his wrist. Oz was pulled to his feet. He came face to face with a mask of grey. He blinked. Echo’s face cleared before him.
They remained frozen on unsteady legs and stared at each other in silence. Her hair was covered in dust and debris, her cheeks powdered with chalk, her clear eyes huge with worry. Oz couldn’t recall a time when he had seen her so open. He wanted to comfort her, but couldn’t seem to find his voice. The scythe was still in his hand.
He heard a coughing fit behind him, violent enough to break the spell and make him turn round.
“I will be fine,” Break said raggedly. “I think our main concern should be: what do we do with him?”
The sight made Oz wobble harder on his feet. Jack had been surrounded. Break’s sword was at his throat and Vincent’s gun at his temple. Alice and Eques were lurking in the shadows behind the ghost. Oz could feel the rabbit’s growling all the way to his gut. The weapon in his hand felt heavier still. Dimly, he realized that Echo had stepped forward to stand between him and Jack, knife in hand.
Jack was standing among his enemies in the half-destroyed corridor with an amiable smile on his face. White powder was falling from the roof on his hair like snow. The ghost had one hand clenched loosely around the hilt of Elliot’s sword, the other to his half-exposed chest. The clock read eleven.
“Don’t kill him,” Oz blurted out.
Vincent’s finger only curled tighter around the trigger. His expression was set in rigid anger and grief, the very picture of betrayal. Oz didn’t dare move a muscle lest the man shoot on impulse. There was nothing but contempt in Break’s eye as he stared Jack down, his stance unwavering in spite of the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth. Sharon kept close to him.
“We don’t have a choice, Lord Oz,” she said without tearing her eyes away from their captive. “If we don’t finish him now, he will be cast into the Abyss.”
“That’s the plan,” Jack said cheerfully. “The one Oz came up with, that is. We are going to meet the Will of the Abyss.”
Break narrowed his eye at that. Jack’s polite gaze drifted from his to Vincent’s without wavering:
“We would appreciate it if one of you two gentlemen could lend us his help.”
There was an ominous click.
“Don’t do it, Vincent,” Jack said gently. “Gilbert wouldn’t want this.”
Vincent drew in a sharp breath, seemed to hold back the urge to scream. His hand was shaking madly around the gun. Break’s expression turned to one of intense disgust.
“Oz,” he asked in a low voice. “Do you intend to change the past?”
“No,” Oz answered in a rush. “I found a time paradox in Jack’s memories. I think it might be part of what caused the distortion of the Abyss. The Will of the Abyss needs my power to fix it, but only people born with red eyes can meet her. I need your help to reach her.”
“And I need to get my sister out of the Abyss,” Alice interjected.
This, more than anything, seemed to capture Break’s interest. Yet Oz’s borrowed eyes kept darting back to the seal on Jack’s chest and the slow, relentless progression of the needle. He thought he could hear the seconds ticking away, pulsing at his temple like blood, Gil, Gil, please wake up!
“There’s no time. I can’t get my powers under control,” Oz stammered. He was clutching at Gilbert’s bloody chest without meaning to. Was his heart even still beating? Was it the clock? “I can’t get through to Gil… At this rate, we will be stuck like this forever… We will…”
“I’ll handle this,” Break sheathed his sword. “Time to end the masquerade. Would you give me a hand, milady?”
Sharon had already kneeled down and started drawing a pentacle with a piece of chalk. Break completed the drawing while Vincent held Jack at gunpoint. Sharon motioned for Oz, Jack and the giant rabbit to stand together on the pentacle. Once they were all gathered, Break slammed his swordstick in the centre.
There was a flash, a jolt, a world in black and white turned on its axis in a burst of pain. Oz was left panting on the floor. His body felt heavy and warm, almost feverishly so. It felt so strange, yet so disturbingly familiar, Oz wanted out of his skin.
“Well,” Break’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “I think that settles it.”
“What… Oz!”
Hearing Gilbert’s voice at last prompted Oz to open his eyes. Here they were, all three beings that shared his powers, all pinned to the floor by the bluish light of the restraining pentacle. Jack down on his knees and breathing heavily, eyes trained on the broken clock on his chest in anticipation. Alice in her human body, clad in the spare of red clothes and white ribbons she had gotten from her bond with B-Rabbit, who struggled to sit up while glaring daggers at Break and Jack in turn.
And Gilbert, back in his own body, his bloody clothes clinging to his skin, his pale face covered in sweat as he stared at Oz from his position on the ground. He looked small and scared; it felt like they had jumped back in time. Back at the coming of age ceremony, when everything had gone mad; back in Sablier, a helpless little boy bleeding to death at Oz’s feet....
Oz closed his eyes tight.
“The seal…” was all he could manage, in a low growl that he refused to acknowledge as his own voice.
With a sigh, Break slammed his swordstick a second time. There was a patter of feet when the human captives stood as one. Oz didn’t even try to get up from his slumped position on the floor. He felt too big as it was. His long ears twitched as he waited with batted breath.
“Oz, it’s not working!” he heard Gilbert’s panicked voice. “The needle has moved too far! Oz!”
The voice sounded much closer. Reluctantly, Oz opened his eyes to meet Gilbert’s terrified golden ones.
“Then we don’t have much time left,” Oz said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry, Gil… I have to meet the Will of the Abyss and ask for her help.”
The man was shaking hard. His eyes were filling up with tears. Gilbert held it all in with a shuddering breath:
“I’ll go with you.”
He meant it as reassurance, but Gilbert could as well have hit him, it hurt so badly. Oz silently and vehemently cursed himself for all the times he had felt accomplished when Gilbert had sworn to always be by his side. They didn’t even have a choice in the matter anymore.
“Will you come back?”
The quiet inquiry startled Oz out of his gloomy thoughts. Those were the first words Echo had spoken since they had arrived. She was looking up at him with the same concern she had shown while Oz was possessing Gilbert.
“I will,” he answered before thinking.
He regretted it almost immediately. His ears drooped uneasily. They both knew what had happened the last time Oz had made this kind of promise: Philippe’s father had been killed and the child had become an illegal contractor. A hint of wetness appeared in Echo’s clear eyes. All the same, she nodded and pulled a pistol from under her wide sleeve, which she handed to Gilbert.
“Master Vincent used most of the bullets,” she warned him. Her voice had recovered its deadpan tone.
“What about you?” Gilbert asked her. His voice was raspy from repressed tears. “What are you going to do about Master Glen?”
“I’ll help Lady Sharon escape as Master Vincent ordered me to,” she said neutrally.
Oz peered at Vincent warily. The man had opened his mouth like he was about to protest. In the end, he just shook his head with an irritated scowl. Gilbert gripped his pistol tightly as he looked from his brother to Echo with growing anguish:
“I’m sorry. I dragged you both into this... I’m so sorry....”
Oz wanted to scold him, tell Gilbert that it was his fault, never his servant’s, and why did he always have to blame himself… but something in Echo’s even stare stopped him. There was some hesitation there, like there was something she was dying to say but couldn’t quite find the words.
“It’s alright,” she said after a pause. “Noise is loyal to Master Vincent, and I…”
She glanced Oz’s way, and words seemed to fail her once more. She inclined her head.
“I’ll handle things here,” she said quietly. “Just go.”
Oz stared at her in bemused wonder. He wasn’t sure if it was from the instinctive protectiveness he felt around young girls ever since he had been given sentience, from the time Echo and he had spent together on St Brigitte’s Day - did it make a difference after all? Did I really help her? - or the incongruity of her being concerned about someone like him, but the Chain felt a surge of affection warm his heart.
“Little Echo…”
“Just Echo!” she snapped, and her whole body shook with her cry of protest.
“Thank you.”
Echo looked up with a jolt. A bright blush was peering from the cracks in her mask of chalk, and her lips were drawn in a tight line. She turned away in the same swift motion.
“This is all well and good,” Break’s voice cut in. “But you are still short a red-eyed jinx, am I right? Count me in.”
Yet another couching fit swallowed his last sentence, and the man almost fell to his knees before Sharon caught him.
“Break, you can’t be serious…!”
“Don’t try to stop me, Gilbert,” Break cut the servant off. “This is a purpose I intend to fulfil. I swore to grant her wish.”
Oz’s ears perked up at that. Her? Did he mean the Will of the Abyss? The Chain peered at Gilbert, but his servant looked just as confused as Oz was. Sharon, on the other hand, showed no hint of surprise.
“You can’t go in your state, Break,” she told him softly, her face grave. Oz could tell that it cost her to turn Break away from his goal, when all this time she had been doing everything in her power to help him. Yet when she turned to them, there was nothing but determination in her eyes.
“She told Break that she didn’t want to be the Will of the Abyss anymore,” Sharon told them.
Oz straightened in spite of himself. He stilled when the tip of his ears brushed against the crumbling roof. The Chain knew dangerously little about the Will of the Abyss after the Tragedy had driven her mad, but if what Sharon said was true, it might play to their advantage.
“Of course she doesn’t,” Alice growled exasperatedly. “That’s why I’m going to get her. And Raven too,” she added, turning to Gilbert, which prompted a startled “what” from him: “We had a deal, remember? First we settle accounts with Jack and save Oz, then we go back for my sister.”
It seemed to take several seconds for Gilbert to remember what she was referring to, but his eyes lit up at last, and he nodded. The man turned to Break with purpose:
“You don’t have to come, Break,” he told him. “I’ll go as your left eye.”
Break twitched.
“What the hell are you…”
“You saved Oz for me,” Gilbert finished before Break got a chance to further object. “Just like you promised. It’s about time I paid my debt to you.”
All the stubbornness seemed to vanish from Break’s face, replaced by disbelief. His grip tightened around Sharon’s shoulder. He averted his eye. The young woman directed a forlorn, grateful smile at Gilbert. Oz felt prouder of his servant than he had any right to be.
“Break, was it?” Jack asked lightly. “Think of it this way: the Baskervilles are still after us, and the situation here is sure to get complicated. You wouldn’t want to leave Miss Sharon without a knight, would you?”
Break turned a deadpan stare towards the ghost. Jack held out a pendant hanging from a thin chain:
“This is yours, I think? I took it back from Lottie. Please don’t hold it against her, she was always overprotective.”
“The blood mirror!” Sharon cupped one hand over her mouth.
Oz noticed the way Break tested the stability of his feet before he deftly detached himself from Sharon and walked up to Jack. In spite of the smooth confidence he was showing, Oz couldn’t help but feel a pang of worry.
“Why thank you, Mister Hero,” Break snatched the chain from Jack’s hand and passed it around his neck. “I wish you a pleasant journey into the Abyss, then. Send my best regards to Alice, will you?”
Jack’s only answer was an obliging smile. Behind him, Vincent still had his gun pressed to his temple. Oz could see Gilbert trembling in his peripheral vision.
“Is there no other way, Oz?” the man asked. “We can’t just…”
“I’ll go, brother,” Vincent’s voice cut in.
“But…”
“On one condition,” Vincent’s mismatched eyes turned to slits. “If we meet the Will of the Abyss, you should be the one to make a wish.”
Gilbert started at that, but recovered quickly.
“I trust Oz,” he told his brother firmly. “Whatever wish he wants fulfilled, I’ll help him grant it.”
There was no mistaking the resentment in Vincent’s eyes when he turned to the Chain. Oz couldn’t help a shiver, which was thankfully hard to notice with his current appearance. He really wasn’t deserving of anyone’s trust, for dragging them all back in this hell they had fought so hard to escape. All but Jack.
“Jack will handle it,” Oz said softly, yet his deep voice still made the roof rumble. “He is the only one who can convince the Will of the Abyss.”
“And don’t you try anything funny,” Alice pointed a warning finger at Jack. “You’ll ask her exactly what Oz told you to, and that’s it. Otherwise, you’re dead meat.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack grinned at her, seeming to find her suspicion absurdly funny. “It is my wish, after all.”
“What?” Gilbert asked, alarmed. “Oz, what does that mea…”
“We found them! Glen Baskerville, Sir, we found them!”
Oz turned round with a jolt, his black fur bristling in startled fear. Two men clad in Pandora’s uniform had just appeared at the window and were waving their way. They disappeared as fast as they had come, running in opposite directions with terrified cries.
“Everybody get down!” Oz shouted and got on all fours to shield the others with his body. In the next second, the wall exploded.
There was the inhuman screech of the Jabberwocky, a detonation and roaring fire that went to eat at Oz’s skin. The rabbit curled up on himself to cover the others as best as he could. He thought he heard his name somewhere in the commotion; he couldn’t be sure. The flaring pain, the nauseating smell of burning flesh and fur, it was all too much for Oz to take. All sounds drowned in a cry of agony that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
It stopped just as suddenly, in a burst of blue flames that forced Oz’s eyes open. The entire corridor had been destroyed; the rabbit could see the sky from his position on the ground. He barely even felt the pain of his burning wounds as he took in the view.
Two gigantic black birds were facing each other against the rising sun. Their monstrous beak and mouth were dripping with long flames. Their talons and claws dug into the ground. It looked like they could take to the sky and drag the entire world with them.
“Run,” Oz said in a ragged growl, unable to look away from the scene long enough to make sure the others had gotten away.
Gilbert was there before him. The man stood close to the Raven with a revolver in one hand, Elliot’s retrieved sword in the other, and faced his former master. Oz could tell that he was shaking. The rabbit felt a horrible sense of déjà vu.
All of a sudden it felt like he could read Leo’s expression from this distance: impassive features, every step filled with purpose as the possessed boy walked up to them, in stark contrast with the furious storm in his black eyes. Those accusing eyes trapped Gilbert as surely as they burnt Oz.
There was a black blur. Before Glen could come in hearing distance, Alice jumped on Gilbert’s back. The startled man staggered forward and barely recovered his balance. Alice plucked his ears firmly.
“Stop it, Glen!” she screamed over Gilbert’s head and threw her legs around his chest so she wouldn’t fall off. The man hissed in pain when her heels dug into his ribs. “Raven and Oz are my contractors! Leave us alone!”
It felt like time had frozen for them. Glen stood before them, his pale face stark against the black dragon wings that embraced his figure from behind. The beast’s feral slit yellow eyes squinted over his head ominously. The possessed boy’s expression was clearly visible now, his surreal eyes burning with one betrayal too many. For all of three seconds, Glen Baskerville didn’t move.
For the last time, Oz summoned the scythe. He heard Jack gasp.
‘Midnight.’
The earth opened under them in a giant black void. Glen jumped back when the chains burst from the darkness and snaked their way around the giant rabbit and three humans, but Vincent threw himself at his brother and caught him in a tight hug. Gilbert returned the embrace with Alice hanging precariously on his back, and the chains encircled all three. Jack had already started to sink. Raven vanished, but Gilbert never looked away from his former master.
When he told him: “I am sorry, Lord Glen,” among the nightmarish rattle of chains, Oz heard Jack say: “Goodbye, Oswald.”
Merciless metal sank in his fresh burns and wounds. Oz lifted his head to let out a howl. He saw a cloudless sky and a flock of birds. The rising sun lit their feathers a blazing gold. Then he was dragged down and darkness closed on them.
Part 4