“Okay. That would work.”
“Obviously, she meant to kill us all—”
A heartfelt keening arose. Moloch saw Fräulein Snaug on her knees, cradling the still form of Doctor Mittelmind in her arms. “No,” she sobbed softly, “Noooo . . . ” Moloch noticed the machinery within the late doctor’s chest was also smoking.
“Luckily, Mittelmind has a pulse cannon built into that contraption of his.” Mezzasalma shrugged. “It killed him, of course, but her gun blew up.”
Moloch looked back at the late doctor with new eyes. “That . . . that was really brave.”
Mezzasalma rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t start. He’ll be smug enough about it as it is.”
Moloch blinked. “What?”
“Oh. You didn’t know?” Mezzasalma sighed as he slid a final fuse in and snapped the cover closed. Green running lights began to bloom along his legs. “Mittelmind is part machine.” He waved a hand to indicate the rest of the Castle. “He’s died several times in here. Claims we’re just interacting with his ghost. He’s made sure that Fräulein Snaug is very well trained in his personal repair and revivification routine.”
Moloch now saw the girl had the old scientist hooked up to a battered-looking metal box. She had slipped on a pair of thick rubber gloves. With a shout of “CLEAR!” she threw a small knife switch, sending a jolt of power through Mittelmind’s inert frame, causing it to jerk and twitch. By the time she had powered down the device and removed the cables, the old man was slowly sitting up, his inevitable grin reestablishing itself upon his lined face. With a squeal, Fräulein Snaug hugged him, relief suffusing her features.
Mittelmind reached up and gently patted her arm. “Thank you, my child. That was exhilarating, as always.”
Moloch offered him a hand up, and the old scientist gingerly climbed to his feet.
“Do you do this a lot?” Moloch asked him. “Don’t you get memory loss?”12
Mittelmind grinned and pulled a small battery out from the recesses of his chest. “As long as I maintain a small emergency power source while I’m dead, I manage to keep my original personality quite intact.”
Moloch peered at the battery. “Wait—see that corrosion at the tip? This battery’s been dead for ages.”
Mittelmind examined it and frowned. “Whoops,” he muttered.
Krosp waved them over to the last body. “What about Professor Diaz?”
Mezzasalma, who was now back on his feet, daintily stepped over to them, shaking his head. “His head is totally smashed in, I’m afraid. Dead as a doornail.”13
Mittelmind shrugged philosophically. “Sans appel.”
Krosp frowned. “But I thought sparks . . . ”
Mezzasalma shrugged. “Well, I could turn him into an undead mechanical spider.”
Mittelmind perked up. “Ooh! Now that I could work with! I could condition it to obey our every command!”
Mezzasalma’s eyes began to shine. “Ah, but if we make it a giant undead mechanical spider . . . ”
“Big enough to inspire fear in the general populace?”
“My dear sir. You think too small! Big enough that it could construct webs that would trap airships!”
“Inspired! Never again will we lack for research subjects!”
Moloch rubbed a weary hand against his temples. “I cannot wait to get out of here.”
Krosp snorted. “Good luck with that.” He continued. “I mean, listen to these guys. Did they do any work on that clank?”
This drew an indignant squawk from Professor Mezzasalma. “You impertinent construct! We most certainly did! In fact, I’d venture to say it is complete!”
Moloch looked at him skeptically. “Really. I know sparks work fast, but—”
Mezzasalma shrugged. “Well, we were ably assisted by the Lady’s little clanks. A pity none of them survived.”
Moloch had noticed drifts of the little mechanisms scattered about the room. Victims of Mittlemind’s pulse cannon. Good to know that there’s something that can keep them in check, he mused. He realized Mezzasalma was still talking.
“And, well, you know how it goes when one is caught up in the grip of the spark . . . ”
Moloch interrupted him. “Just for the sake of clarity, assume I’m not barking mad.”
To Snaug’s astonishment, Mezzasalma didn’t even look offended at this, but merely dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Very well, when you build on another spark’s work, you get little flashes of inspiration. You see . . . possibilities you wouldn’t have if you had tackled the problem on your own.”
Moloch remembered Theo’s reaction to the notes he’d found downstairs and nodded in understanding.
Mezzasalma continued. “Now combine that with these marvelous little clanks; they were so useful. We merely had to explain what needed to be done, and they attacked it on a dozen different fronts simultaneously. Plus they allowed us to implement any number of extemporaneous ideas . . . ”
Again Moloch held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah. So it’s done.”
A giant metal paw crashed to the ground behind him. Mezzasalma grinned. “And we made improvements!”
Agatha stepped through a doorway and her breath caught in wonder. Even in ruins, the room before them was magnificent. A large airy chamber, capped with a dome that had once been painted in a riot of colors. It was shattered in places, and small shafts of outside light shone in. Two stories tall, it was surrounded by a set of chambers fronted by decoratively carved screens, a surprising number of which were still intact. The floor, though covered in dust and dead leaves, was made of inlaid marble, and in the center, a magnificently salacious statue held primacy.
Gilgamesh stepped into the room and whistled in appreciation. “Wow. It’s the seraglio of Satyricus Heterodyne!”
Agatha looked at her map. The area they were in was simply labeled “Bedrooms.”
Gil continued, “Yes, I’ve seen pictures. There’s no mistaking it. The first edition of François Mansart’s Les Abominations Dangereuses de L’Architecture has an extensive collection of plates, and of course here is Alphonse Ennui’s masterpiece The Temptation of Saint Vulcania, which has the most amazing—oh. I see they’ve removed those.”
To Agatha’s eyes it was obvious that, indeed, things had been removed from the original statue. There was no way to tell what exactly had been so outrageous that even some past Heterodyne had felt the need to remove it, but there was still plenty left to tempt the hapless saint, who looked like she was having a very difficult time resisting. Especially the thing with the feather duster. Agatha considered the possibilities and felt her face getting red.
Gil plowed on. “It’s still a fantastic piece. It really gives you a feel for the excesses of the early Heterodynes, and . . . ”
Belatedly, he recognized Agatha might not be the most appreciative of audiences. “Of course,” he rallied gamely, “these books were commissioned for the Storm King, so I’m sure it’s all totally exaggerated.” He glanced back at the statue. “Mostly.”
A chilly silence was broken by Tarvek’s barely smothered snort of laughter.