She rationed herself to kissing each of them on the cheek and stroking her mother’s hair.
Quite unaware of her presence, Leonora and Alberto Stampara handed one another glass petri dishes and slides, working as ever like two parts of the same highly efficient and graceful machine.
“Marrowfat is running short,” Leonora warned. “How are we going to give the Cala-Mary the initial burst of speed she wants?”
“Cala-Mary?” thought Teo. “As in calamari? Squid?”
Alberto unwittingly answered her question: “To call this evil submarine after a harmless sea creature—it is typical of our captors!”
He turned to stare with hatred at a tank of water. Teo followed his eyes.
Suspended in the water was a metallic pink object, which exactly resembled the colossal squid that had tried to kill her during their voyage to London. It had tentacles, claws and blank cruel eyes for portholes. It looked frighteningly real.
“Nothing surprising about that,” she thought, with a perverse kind of pride. “It was designed by brilliant marine biologists. So at least they’re not making the Half-Dead disease. It’s some kind of automaton.”
She climbed up the stairs to an inspection stage and looked down into the tank. The lid to the squid’s carapace was open. Inside, the machine was lined with padded green velvet and carved wooden racks for holding … what?
Teo thought, “There is just one squid submarine. And it has taken all this time to build. So they can’t mean to invade London with mechanical colossal squids.”
Now Leonora Stampara was saying, “I’m terrified for the children on the treadmills, Alberto. They’re getting so tired. They’re not as productive as when they were first brought in. Can’t you hear how the treadmills are running more slowly every hour? If the prisoners aren’t useful …”
“You think Miss Uish would actually sacrifice human children to fuel the Cala-Mary’s maiden voyage?”
“She hasn’t got a single scruple,” Leonora whispered. “You know what she told us about our Teodora. That our daughter has been taken hostage. That she will be killed and boiled and brought to us in a bucket if we do not cooperate.”
“Don’t torture yourself, dearest,” murmured Alberto.
But Leonora’s white lips whispered, “And that madman whom Uish works for? She said he hates our Teodora with the hatred of ages, whatever that means. How could anyone hate a dear innocent little girl like Teodora? It’s not natural.”
Teo asked herself fearfully, “Is that madman actually aboard this boat?”
“I fear we strayed from the realms of natural some time past. Remember”—Alberto grimaced—“what happened to Teodora’s real parents, Marta and Daniele Gasperin? And the rest of her relatives. All drowned in that strange shipwreck. I keep asking myself now: could that tragedy have had something to do with this brute who controls Miss Uish?”
Teo raged silently, “Of course it did. That brute murdered my whole family.”
“The Mayor of Venice himself assured us it was a simple accident. Mind you, I’ve never liked that man. It’s clear that Miss Uish has got her talons into him too.” Leonora visibly bristled.
“Dearest, think of something else. We must work on the improvements Uish requires for the automaton scolopendre this day.”
Teo flinched at the name of her old enemies, the scolopendre, a crawling, biting kind of insect that had spied for Bajamonte Tiepolo the summer before last. The scolopendre had also fought against the Venetians in the mighty battle of the lagoon, swarming over the faces of the brave soldiers and blinding them with bites.
Her parents limped on their chained feet to a glass case, where dozens of the hideous insects were corralled in transparent drawers. The mechanical scolopendre were different from the brown ones Nature had created. These tiny contraptions were a dirty white color. Somehow this made them even more alarming.
“I have to admit that Uish’s idea for a Russian-doll setup is ingenious,” muttered Alberto. “And the white color, of course, will give them excellent camouflage on the ice and snow. I hate handling dry arthropods, though.” He shuddered. “Give me an anemone or a real squid any day.”
Teo thought, “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what I’ve seen.”
“Ingenious? I never thought I’d hear you say anything good about that woman.” Leonora was mortally offended. “I suppose those dancing eyes and auburn curls have finally had an effect on you?”
“I just wish,” attested Alberto defensively, “that Uish was working on the side of good. That brain of hers is a formidable weapon. Darling, you have to admit, it is a clever concept: if you kill the outer insect, a new insect pops out fully formed, and another … and another.”
“And just how clever are those spore syrups she is boiling up in the galley?” asked Leonora. Alberto knitted his brows.
“Spore syrups!” Teo exclaimed. “Half-Dead disease, no doubt!”
When the next two Ghost-Convicts entered the laboratory with their slopping pails, Teo slipped out of the door. In the dark corridor, she sagged against the wall.
“I don’t have to do this alone.” She pulled herself upright. It was time to report to the others, to gather forces and friends.
And yet—and yet, there was one more thing she had to find out. Creeping down the next corridor, Teo saw a ribbon of light under a door that was slightly ajar. She poked her head cautiously into a beautifully warm and luxurious room. The curved wooden walls glowed with color—for fixed upon them were all the Venetian Canaletto and Carpaccio paintings that had gone missing in the Christmas Eve ice storm. And pinned to the facing wall were postcards of other famous pictures of Venice, captioned with the names of the London art galleries that owned them. Those captions also showed the height above sea level of every gallery, and a date two days hence, February 2.
“The same day as the funeral of Queen Victoria,” thought Teo. “Just as we thought.”
He sat so quietly that she had not noticed him before. But now Teo felt the hairs lifting at the back of her neck. A man with long greasy hair was seated at a table in the far corner, painting transparent blue over a large plan of London. His back was to Teo: she could not see his face. There was a gust of cold air behind her and Miss Uish rushed in, all swirling skirts, piled curls and flashing eyes. Gone was the cruel voice that Teo knew so well. Instead, all kinds of sweet nothings flowed from that rosebud mouth as Miss Uish advanced across the room and stroked the lank hair of the man at the desk. She showed no sign of having seen Teo.
“At least that proves she is human, sort of,” thought Teo.
“Dearest sweeting,” purred Miss Uish to the faceless man, “you work too hard.”
The man did not acknowledge her in any way. His shoulders stiffened. His paintbrush continued to waft across the page.
“Ah, dearest, you are busy; I have come at a poor time for you,” chirped Miss Uish in a desperate-to-please voice. “I just wanted to see if you have everything you need? A drink, perhaps? Some bum-boo? Some rumfustian? Our cook has such a good recipe.… Oh, never fear, the galley is almost entirely devoted to the manufacture of the Half-Dead spore syrup. There’s just the tiniest corner for some warming drinks for us, dearest!”
A haughty silence. Miss Uish, Teo realized, had taken some wine already. The fumes of it subtly suffused the room.
Miss Uish was at this moment nothing more than a trembling girl with a crush on someone stronger and more ruthless even than herself.
“Professor Marìn was right about her,” thought Teo. “Her and Bajamonte Tiepolo.”
Miss Uish altered now. “My love, have I done something to displease you? For you, I would do anything, you know? Shall I have one of the Venetian whelps whipped again? The boy called Augusto is already on short commons.”
“Leave me alone, woman; stop your wittering.”
At the sound of that voice, Teo’s ears drummed and she felt pins and needles in the calves of her legs. She couldn’t pretend t
o herself that she did not know it. The trembling in her hands confirmed it. The ancient Gothic script ripped the air above his head with sinister black letters. It was perfectly familiar to Teo, but at the same time it was foreign. Then, of course, Teodora Gasperin—the Undrowned Child—had never heard Bajamonte Tiepolo—Il Traditore—speak English before.
“And never wished to,” she thought numbly.
All this time she had hoped against hope that he was dead. But he was not only not dead, he must be stronger than ever, for he had clearly evolved from his unstable, batlike form. From behind, anyway—she still had not seen anything more than the back of his head—he looked exactly like a human being.
Miss Uish clattered out, cooing, “I’ll leave you to your great work, sweetest.”
In the absence of Miss Uish, the room grew quiet. Now Teo noticed that the map of London was pinned to the table by a pair of daggers, the hilts of which were carved with intertwined Vampire Eels. A bell tower by the river tolled three somber notes.
Bajamonte Tiepolo lifted his head and sniffed the air.
“Is that you, Undrowned Child?” he asked.
Teo kept her mouth tightly shut, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. The fact that he could not see her meant Il Traditore had indeed managed to drag his spirit into an almost human body. And that meant that his power was not only renewed—it was greater than before. It had become stable inside human skin, and was concentrated in a being that did not change shape or lose its memory.
“How do you like London, Undrowned Child? Did you see how I took my sweet revenge upon your friends, the English Melusine and the London Sea-Bishops who thwarted me in battle? And how do you like your frozen Venice now? How shall we say it? Ah yes, half dead and cleansed of all her tawdry art?”
He muttered, “Christmas Eve, I had to rely on bone-headed Ghost-Convicts to steal the right paintings. I might as well have sent blind newts! Next time I shall go myself in my beautiful submarine and personally attend to the details. Have you seen my lovely Cala-Mary? Your parents are making a masterpiece for me. They are nearly finished—in both senses of the word. For, of course, it would be foolish of me to allow them to live once they have served my purpose. They know a little more than is convenient.”
His tone was cool and amused, as if the idea of murdering Leonora and Alberto Stampara was something to be done in a lighthearted manner. Teo felt her old contempt for him flooding back undiluted. She shouted unheard, “You give villains a bad name! At least you should be passionate! You have done every bad thing that a coward can do, and nothing a brave man would.”
Bajamonte Tiepolo shook his head as if there were something in his ear.
“I cannot hear you, Undrowned Child, yet I sense your impotent anger. I feel you looking at my plans for a flood in London.”
“So it is another flood,” thought Teo. “Of course. Bajamonte Tiepolo loves floods. Much better than a battle! Lots of death for innocent people and perfect safety for himself.”
Into her mind flowed images of the graceful Houses of Parliament, the spires of Westminster Abbey, the beautiful dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral and even the gilded wind vanes of Billingsgate Fish Market. There followed the grimy, hopeful faces of the Mansion Dolorous gang, and those of the busy Londoners rushing to their important appointments.
Bajamonte Tiepolo wanted to destroy all these places, all these people. Teo pictured stones and humans tumbling through another great ice flood, the destruction and the silent, tragic aftermath, just as she had seen in Venice.
“So.” He pointed to the map, by now nearly covered in blue wash. “A London full to bursting with mourners is inundated by a wall of water that quickly turns to ice: the same treatment that worked so capitally in Venice. And while they are all a-drowning, I’ll be safely in the Cala-Mary on a brief art-history excursion. No one shall stop me. They’ll be too busy trying not to die.
“I can almost smell your indignation, Undrowned Child. It has no power, however, except to amuse me, which it does.” He laughed dryly. Then he pointed to the empty spaces on the walls. “Dry and snug inside the Cala-Mary, I’ll be helping myself to the paintings of Venice that shall complete my collection of doomed art.”
“Doomed art?” fumed Teo.
“Doomed, you’re no doubt asking? Yes, for when I have every last Venetian picture in my possession, there will be such a blaze aboard this ship! The image of Venice shall be effaced from the world forever. Elaborate fireworks and a glorious firestorm … Oh, you wonder what shall happen to all the creatures presently at work on the treadmills? And my other slaves, your parents? I understand that children and scientists burn quite well, particularly when they’re somewhat dehydrated from short rations and long hours of work.”
Teo gripped one hand in another, trying to calm herself.
“So much death, you ask? You’ll be whimpering, why must millions of Londoners and animals and visiting dignitaries lose their lives now? What of it? I personally might have let Queen Victoria’s funeral pass unmolested—it’s nothing to me—but I needed to placate my friend from the island of Hooroo, who has promised to be so very … useful … to his dear Signor Pipistrelly, as he likes to call me. Indeed, the subjugation of London was a condition of his cooperation. And why shouldn’t Harold Hoskins be king of the few survivors if he wants? He has a family tree that shows that he has every right to the British throne.
“Yes, I can hear you—almost—protesting that there is the small technicality that the old Queen’s son Albert Edward has already been sworn in as king. But”—and Il Traditore laughed again—“Bertie was never a very strong swimmer. And he’ll be riding a short-legged horse for the funeral. Poor King Bertie.
“At the last minute, of course, Harold Hoskins shall be unable to attend the funeral—a slight attack of the royal family’s malady will keep him in bed, resting. In his apartments at Kenwood House high on Hampstead Heath; very high up, as it happens.
“It grows even more beautiful, our plot. For as soon as London is drowned, I shall freeze over the English Channel. Our army of ghosts, escaped prisoners and pardoned criminals will simply step straight across from France. Any Londoners who survive the flood will be weak with the Half-Dead disease. Our soldiers will make short work of anyone who resists.
“And Harold Hoskins—the only member of the royal family to survive the flood—will have been granted his heart’s desire, assuming he has a heart, of course!” Il Traditore sniggered. “And then King Harold will repay me by turning his attention on Venice! My cormorants tell me that the frozen pathway from the mainland to Venice is almost solid now and, if a few men sink through the soft ice, there are plenty more where they came from.…”
For the first time, Teo thought of herself. “How am I going to get away to tell Renzo and the others? He’ll be calling for his Ghost-Convicts any second. They can see me between-the-Linings, even if he can’t.”
Yet again, Bajamonte Tiepolo followed her thoughts with uncanny accuracy. He called out, “Get in here!” and the crunch of skeletal ghost-feet could be heard at the far end of the corridor.
He turned to Teo. “Planning to run to the Studious Son with this story? A little late for that, I fear. Farewell, Undrowned Child. Even if you evade my henchmen, the Thames may not prove as easy a path as you might wish. Vampire Eels do not thrive at this latitude, so I’ve recruited some sanguivorous new friends from the South Pacific. Vampyroteuthis infernalis has proved a most happy addition to the wildlife of this estuary. At least, they’re happy. The London creatures have suffered somewhat. Particularly the wretched Melusine and Sea-Bishops. And a few worthless children. As will anyone who gets in the way of my new friends, especially anyone planning to tell tales and alert my victims to what is about to befall them.”
“Vampyr …” Teo tried to consult the pages of Lagoon Creatures—Nice or Nasty? by Professor Marìn, but Bajamonte Tiepolo continued triumphantly.
“In Venice, it was not possible to drown the accursed U
ndrowned Child, but in London I’m free of that old Venetian Prophecy. Anyway, you’ll be dying long before you drown.”
He lifted a coil of leather tubing and whispered into it. Teo’s eyes traced the tube down through a hole beneath his desk. From the echoey noise that came back, it seemed that the far end of the tube lay in the water below the boat. And an excited chittering now filled the air. Bajamonte Tiepolo resumed humming to himself and filling in the very last inch of white on his map with blue paint.
Numbed, Teo backed out of the room and pounded up to the deck. The two Ghost-Convicts who were arriving had time only to shout “The girlie!” before she slid between them. For the first time, she noticed wires and sticks of dynamite fastened at intervals to the spaces above the doors. The whole Bombazine was nothing more than a bomb, ready primed: as soon as her slaves had served their master, she would be destroyed along with all the Venetian art—and children—aboard.
“Oh no!” Teo’s coracle had been set adrift and floated an impossible half-mile down the river. Examining the rope, she saw that it had been gnawed off in the water. Behind her came the sound of Ghost-Convicts clanking rapidly in her direction. One shouted, “There she is!”
Teo gulped in a huge breath and dived back into the Thames. She swam away from the Bombazine as fast as she knew how.
Almost immediately, she found out exactly what Bajamonte Tiepolo meant by “my new friends.”
Teo was not twenty yards from the boat when she felt her arms brushed by something soft and flabby. Putting her head under the water, she realized that she was surrounded by unblinking pale blue eyes. Those eyes belonged to brown squid. Each squid was only about one foot long, yet there were thousands of them. A wall of squid blocked every way she looked.