Carmen Gaudin had her hands at her cheeks and was breathing as if she might pass out or explode. Juliette pointed the knife at her. “Don’t you scream. Don’t you dare fucking scream.”
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec stumbled through the door behind Carmen.
“And don’t you scream, either.”
Henri looked to Carmen, eyes wide to the point of panic, about to hyperventilate, and put his arms around
her shoulders. “I presume all this is a bit of a surprise to this Carmen.”
“It’s not to you?” said Juliette.
“I may be becoming jaded.”
“Good, take the head. Get it out of the building.” She pulled the Colorman’s stolen shirt from the pile and tossed it to Henri. “You can wrap it in this.”
The Colorman’s body pushed up to its knees and grabbed at the black blade, pulling it out of her hand even as she could feel the edge grinding into his bones, then, quick as a wolf spider, the blackened body scuttled toward its head.
“Too late,” said Juliette.
LUCIEN EMERGED FROM THE CAVE BLACKENED AND SMOLDERING AT THE SEAMS but not seriously hurt, although it would be some time before he regrew his eyebrows and the dark shock of hair that normally fell over his eyes. He was dragging a mop stick with the yarn at its head burned to a charcoal nub.
“What have you done?” asked the Professeur.
Lucien smiled weakly, then saw Dr. Vanderlinden coming up the trail fifty meters behind the Professeur, and the painter slumped in shame.
“I’m sorry, Professeur, the cave paintings are no more. They’ve been burned.”
“How? The mineral on stone—”
“Magnesium powder,” said Lucien. “There was a large tin of it among the doctor’s photographic equipment. I mixed it with turpentine and painted it over the paintings with a mop, then ignited it with the electrode from Vanderlinden’s arc light. It was more of an explosion than a fire.”
“That is why they call it flash powder,” said the Professeur. “How is your vision? Have you burned your retinas?”
Lucien touched a pair of dark mountaineering goggles slung around his neck. “These were also among the doctor’s equipment.”
“You’ve destroyed priceless archaeological artifacts, you know?”
“And I hope that’s not all,” said Lucien. “I’m sorry. I had to. I love her.”
THE COLORMAN SMASHED HIS HEAD DOWN UPON HIS NECK, BUT THE OPERATION being somewhat imprecise, he had to hold it in place with one hand while he brandished the knife with the other. The fury had never left his eyes, even when his head had rolled across the room. He turned on Juliette.
“I’d run,” said Juliette to Carmen and Henri.
“En garde!” said Toulouse-Lautrec, stepping between Carmen and the Colorman and boldly drawing a cordial glass from his walking stick. “Oh balls. Run it is, then.”
He turned as the Colorman leapt, knife-first, at Juliette. She was sidestepping, hoping to duck under the blow, perhaps shoulder him through the window, when there was a loud pop in the air and he simply came undone—whatever elements had shaped themselves into the Colorman assumed their original form of salt or stone or metal or gas. The black knife dropped to the rug along with the clothes, among what appeared to be multicolored grains of sand. The watery bits of the Colorman assumed their hydrogen and oxygen forms and dissipated quickly, the increased volume causing everyone’s ears to pop for a second.
Juliette stood up from a defensive crouch and poked the toe of her shoe in the small spray of sand that had once comprised the Colorman’s head. “Well that’s new,” she said.
Toulouse-Lautrec had sheathed his cordial glass and was staring at the spot where a second ago an ancient enemy had stood. Carmen was winding up to what looked to be a complete hysterical breakdown, panting, as if gathering her energy for a skull-cracking scream.
Juliette prodded the pile that had been the Colorman’s torso with her toe, then stepped back.
“Check his trousers,” said Henri.
“Sure, he’d love that,” said Juliette, but she prodded the trousers and grinned at Henri.
That’s when Carmen began to let loose with her siren wail, her eyes rolled back in her head until there were only the white eyes of a madwoman. She barely got an eighth note of terror out before Bleu jumped back into her.