Lily Marin - three short steampunk stories. Book 2.

caught the word "duel" from one of the two screaming men. Why they would want that, she did not know, but it was for certain not something that should happen. She knew that in her guise as singer, she could not do anything to stop these men, who apparently were beyond reason, but she knew someone who could. She would have to get to her room and change. Quickly. Furiously she searched for a way to make her disappearing viable. "They are going to fight," she screamed, and then made for the door.

  Luck was with Lily. Nobody followed her, at least not fast enough to see what she did once she had left the large dining hall. Rather unlady-like she gathered her dress up and ran to her room as fast as she could without attracting more attention than she already did. Once there, she bolted the door. Every minute counted, and far too many were passing by as Lily did her best to get out of the dress without tearing it. She became the Masked Woman.

  As that person, her sensitive hearing told her that nobody was in the corridor, so she slipped out of the room and then headed towards the dining hall, the ray-gun whining in her hand and her whip slapping against her legs. The Masked Woman burst into the hall.

  All the guests had moved against the walls of the dining hall. Most chairs and even one of the tables had been overturned, apparently to accomodate a speedier escaping the danger zone that had developed in the middle of the big room. There, the count and the duke stood opposite each other, pointing old fashioned, one-shot handguns. For a moment Lily wondered where they had gotten those from, but no longer.

  "Stop that nonsense!" she yelled at the two men. Everyone in the hall looked at her, except the ones her words had been aimed at.

  "Prepare to die!" duke Leopold Wanzinger exclaimed.

  Lily dashed forward to do something, anything, but even the Masked Woman was not fast enough to prevent the duke from pulling the trigger. A loud bang echoed through the dining hall. Time seemed to come to a halt, for several endless seconds.

  Lily stood mere feet away from the count, who had been shot. He had to be shot, the distance between him and the duke was so little that it would have been impossible to miss. And yet, the count did not fall. He didn't even flinch. Dozens of throats gasped as the count barked a laugh for a moment. Then he raised his arm and fired at his opponent. The count's bullet did not miss.

  The duke flung his arms up as the bullet punctured his forehead. The now useless gun flew to the side as the man, already dead, collapsed to the floor in a nasty heap. The count did not even wait for the duke's downfall. He slowly turned and gazed at Lily. "Now what do we have here?"

  The Masked Woman held her ray-gun pointed at the man's chest, wondering if it would in any way disable him, considering that a proper lead bullet had not done him any visible harm. "I'm the Masked Woman. And you will have to answer for killing this man," Lily responded.

  The count did not seem impressed. He looked at his empty gun and dropped it on the floor. "He offended me."

  Dumitra, the count's sister, came closer and stood next to her brother. "Why are you here?"

  Before Lily could react to that question, the count continued. "I challenged him, he shot first, and now he's dead."

  Lily sensed people behind her, so she whirled around, grabbing her whip. "A word of sense: stay away from me," she warned the three men who were sneaking up on her. Clearly they belonged to the count's staff.

  Then, from the corner of her eye, she noticed a strange movement, much faster than anything she had ever seen. Quickly she looked back at the count and his sister, to find only Dumitra standing there. "Where is he?" the Masked Woman asked the count's sister.

  "I don't know," Dumitra shrugged. "I never know where he goes when he does that."

  Lily turned and saw that the door to the hall was now wide open. She was convinced she had closed it, so the count had left through that door. A bundle of contradicting emotions raced through her as she tried to decide what she should do next. Worst of all was the disturbing awareness that perhaps she had done the most stupid thing by becoming the Masked Woman here.

  Regardless of that, the Masked Woman had to disappear again. She did not like to be in public view like this, so she tensed her muscles and jumped over the three men. Even without her backpack this was easy enough for her. As soon as her boots hit the floor, she ran from the hall.

  After the first few steps into the wide corridor, Lily stopped and looked left and right. The count, of course, was nowhere to be seen. If he had continued at the same speed that he had disappeared in, he might be halfway to London now, she thought grimly, so there was only one thing she could do now, and that was return to be the frightened singer Lily Marin. Instead of going directly to her room, Lily ran through a few corridors first, at high speed, to make sure nobody would follow her. As her room was in a more remote part of the castle as well as on the second floor, that was easy enough, and soon she had locked the door and was changing again.

  She was almost done when someone knocked on the door. "Lily? Are you in there? Lily?"

  It was Billy's voice, but she also hear Selma. "Lily dear, it's all fine now. You can come out."

  "Are you sure?" Lily called back as she fought with the last parts of her dress, the ones that Selma had helped her with earlier. She could use that help now, but as that was out of the question, she did her best and hoped no one would see the difference. And had he said 'dear'?

  "Yes, we are sure. Please, open the door." That was Billy again. His voice sounded sincerely worried.

  Lily did as he asked, mostly because there was nothing more she could adjust to her attire. Billy seemed quite obsessed to enter her bedroom, he almost stumbled inside. "Billy. Please."

  The young man regained his composure quickly and then, as several other people streamed into the room, he took a long and serious look at Lily, to make sure she was indeed fine. "Where were you?"

  "I was hiding. In the closet." Lily hoped that would be an acceptable answer. She saw Billy's eyes move to the object she had mentioned and then they returned to her.

  "Obviously," he nodded. In a bold move he reached out and took Lily's hand. "Don't worry, Lily. As I said, everything is just fine again. Although it might be wise for you to avoid the dining hall for the time being."

  Lily raised her free hand to her lips. "Oh dear, did something bad happen there?"

  Billy looked at Selma. Selma nodded. "Yes, dear. The count shot the duke, and the duke is now dead."

  "Oh." Lily had already decided that she should 'faint' at a certain point, to get everyone out of the room, and this sounded like a good moment. Something that complicated this little act was the rough stone floor. Hitting her head against that would not be clever, not even for her. So despite her aversion of what she was about to do, she 'fainted' towards Billy, hoping he would catch her, which he did. Probably with pleasure.

  There was some agitation of course, and Billy, helped by someone, carried Lily to the bed. Someone came running. The person had brought a wet cloth which was put on the singer's forehead. Lily had to concentrate not to blink or pull the cloth away as cold water seeped into her eyes and neck.

  People expressed their concern, Billy and Selma claimed that Lily had always been a sensitive soul, and then they managed to get everyone out into the hall. Billy offered to stay with Lily, but Selma convinced him that Lily might be unconscious for quite a while, and he could bide his time in much better ways. There were things to be packed, as the choir would leave the next day.

  After everyone had left, Lily remained lying on the bed, her eyes closed, in case someone would come back in the first minutes. Her suspicions proved right. Someone did come in, and carefully closed the door again. There was the sound of a chair being placed next to the bed and someone sitting down. The rustle of clothes betrayed that it was a woman.

  "You can stop pretending now," the woman said.

  Lily recognised Dumitra's voice. She peeked through one eye, then opened both. "I was not pretending."

  "Oh, you were. I can tell." Dumitra sat back, ver
y much at ease, openly watching Lily. "And you can stop your innocent play as well. I know who you are."

  This surprised Lily. "Who am I then?" she asked as she sat up on the bed.

  "You're the woman in the cape. The masked woman. You almost caught me in that museum, don't you remember?" Dumitra calmly admitted that she was the burglar that no one had been able to catch yet. "I must say, you're good. No one ever got that close to me."

  "Which museum?" Lily tried to keep up her appearance, hiding her surprise as well as she could.

  "Oh, please. We met in only one museum. In the Egyptian section, where you made me leave my treasures behind. Do you care to tell me how you became like that? You're not a vampire, but formidable in your own way."

  "Vampire?!" Lily was even more surprised.

  "You didn't know? My brother is a vampire, that is why he never shows up when it's light. And why he can move so quickly." Dumitra straightened part of her immaculate dress. "I only got nibbled at by one, so I never really changed. It did leave me with some nice specialties though. That's how I could tell you had not really fainted."

  Lily's stomach started to make her feel very uncomfortable. Here she sat, with a woman who somehow knew her deepest, darkest secret. This woman could make her life more miserable than any demon! "What do you want?" she asked, her hands slowly turning into fists.

  "Want?" Dumitra