Page 14 of Angel of Vengeance
Constance ignored the invitation and remained standing.
Leng seated himself behind the writing desk. “I hope my welcoming committee met with your approval.”
Constance remained silent.
“Other gangs collect ears. Here, I dole out various gems to signify rank and accomplishments.” He paused. “I did not expect you to beard me like this—the lion, I mean, in his own—”
Abruptly, Constance tossed the weathered notebook at him. Taken by surprise, the man fumbled it, and it fell from his hands to the floor.
Constance did not move.
Leng stared at her and then, after a moment, reached down and picked it up. He paged through it rapidly, now and then stopping to peer intently. Constance remained motionless until he at last closed the notebook and placed it on the desk.
“I went to a great deal of trouble arranging our anticipated meeting, you know,” he told her. “But coming here as your own messenger, in this fashion, you’ve rendered all that unnecessary.”
“You have the Arcanum. Now give me Binky.” She spoke in a flat voice, again making a great effort not to reveal a glimpse of the overwhelming loathing she felt.
“Ah, Binky,” Leng repeated in a singsong, his equilibrium already restored. “Bing-kee. It’s very strange, you know; that Hungarian scientist Ferenc offered up so much information—toward the end, he was desperate to offer more—but he couldn’t say precisely why you were so eager to cross universes to rescue your kin. I can only assume that Mary and Joe must have perished while still young? You, of course, survived—obviously. And you came back to change that tragic outcome?”
Constance ignored this. “I’ve fulfilled my end of your bargain—now you do the same.”
“Ah!” Leng raised a peremptory finger, as if to silence a student giving a wrong answer. “You have brought a formula to me: on that point, we are agreed. But how am I to be sure it is the formula? Perhaps it has been altered slightly, compounding a painful and deadly poison into the mixture? You see—” and here he put his forearms on the desk and interlaced his fingers—“Technically, you have not yet fulfilled your end of the bargain. What were my terms? ‘Give me the formula, true and complete.’ There’s no reason for me to believe either of those corollaries have been proved. And it will take some time to confirm them.”
“That is the formula, as concocted by you… over many long years still to come,” Constance said. “I have no reason to lie. I want Binky—now.”
“Pardon my contradicting, but you have every reason to lie. Among many other interesting things, the nosy Dr. Ferenc told me you returned to this past time, via your infernal machine, specifically to avenge yourself upon me.”
Constance struggled to control her rage. “I won’t ask again. Give her to me.”
“I’m glad to hear you won’t. That would be tiresome.” Leng rose from behind the desk. “Now, now, Your Grace—don’t look at me like that. I am not without compassion. I’d like to think you are telling the truth; that you’ve had a change of heart; that your mad passion to murder me has ebbed. But I can’t be sure. Until I have fully tested your formula, however, here is something—shall we say?—in consideration for the trouble you’ve taken.”
He had begun to move around the library as he spoke: slowly, as if weighed down by thought. But now his hand reached out, grasped something out of sight, and tugged it—a blind, patterned after the fashion of William Morris and blending with the wallpaper. In drawing it up, he allowed her a view out of the library and across to the east wing of the mansion. A single window was illuminated in the uppermost story of that wing, and within it was outlined Binky. When she in turn saw Constance, her eyes widened visibly, and she put up her little hands to the leaded glass, as if trying to escape.
Leng allowed the moment to linger. Nothing else was visible in the room: no furniture, no fireplace, no source of comfort. Then Leng let the blind fall—and Binky was gone.
10
AS THE BLINDS CLOSED, and the image of her own younger self vanished, Constance felt a sensation of suffocation overwhelm her. She filled her lungs with air.
Meanwhile, Leng sauntered back to the desk. “There. Now you know not only that your young doppelganger is alive and well—but also that she is residing here… at least temporarily. I think that gesture is more than sufficient, given this formula of yours remains untested.” He flung back the tails of his coat and sat down once again. “And now—it’s getting late, and this stretch of the Post Road isn’t safe after dark. We shall meet again, once I’m certain this Arcanum is the genuine item.”
Constance stared at him, her breathing finally under control. She said, in a tone so low it might have been a whisper: “You will regret this.”
“I do not appreciate being threatened in my own house. As my minion Decla might say—get out.”
But Constance did not get out. She gazed around the room as her heartbeat slowed. Leng had extracted much from Ferenc, but her most important secret was not in his possession. Leng did not know that Constance had once been his own experimental subject. He did not know that he perfected the Arcanum by testing it on her. He did not know she had been raised in this very house. And, most crucially of all, he was unaware she knew his future.
She could not wait for the time when she could reveal those secrets: when her blade was embedded in his heart.
“I see murderous thoughts on your face,” Leng said. “I should point out that any effort to harm me, any attempt on my life, from you or your compatriots, will result in Binky’s instant death. She is my insurance policy as I test the Arcanum. Of course, she is too young to be a guinea pig—have no fear of that.”
Constance said nothing.
The doctor shook his head. “You are overstaying your welcome, Duchess. You are on foreign soil and your revetments are weak. This is my world, and I am well prepared to defend myself in it. Go back to whatever pestilential Pandemonium you call home.”
Another important secret he did not know: the portal was closed, possibly forever.
She finally spoke, in a voice so low Leng had to lean forward to hear. “If you knew what the future holds,” she said, “that would be the last thing you’d ever suggest. Because the next time you saw me, it would be with powers so formidable all your traps and your alley rats would be swept away like chaff. And you would have your own bespoke Room 101.”