“You know what you need to know,” said Verlak, touching her arm. “If he wants you to wear the earpiece, wear it. His reason may not be the one he tells you. That doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason is, it’s a good one.”

  Orloff brushed the outside of the device with her fingers. It sat comfortably in her ear. She was barely aware of its presence. Its sound transparency was perfect. What is this really for?

  They went down the stairs to the floor of the great hall. The music started up again, and they danced. Verlak was on duty, but Doom had ordered her to be a visible part of the celebrations.

  “Am I a cover for you, or you for me?” Orloff asked her as they turned around the floor.

  “Both. We watch for different things, but we watch.”

  After another dance they made their way to the periphery of the hall. Tables lined the walls, and servants handed out drinks. They had avoided mingling so far, and the costumed aristocrats showed no inclination to speak to them. We’re the help, too, Orloff thought. She took a scotch and sipped it slowly next to one of the Chimera tapestries. She watched the dancers closely.

  “I don’t like these people,” she said.

  “Nest of vipers,” said Verlak. Her lip curled. “Look at them. Parading about like the castle belongs to them.”

  Orloff blinked. “Do you hear a hum?”

  “No… Wait… Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  Orloff wasn’t sure any more either. If she had heard it, she didn’t now. She went back to watching the dancers. My expertise. What is it about neuroscience that might become relevant here? For the next half-hour, she and Verlak kept up casual appearances by alternating a single dance, and then a ten-minute pause by the wall.

  Orloff began to see a change in the revelers. The conversations were becoming louder, almost frantic in their gaiety. The dancing was faster and more jagged. Though the orchestra was playing faster too, it seemed to be in response to the dancing rather than the other way around. The waltz was spinning by at an unnatural pace, just this side of nightmare.

  “What are you thinking?” Verlak asked.

  “That I need to make that visit to Vandorf Street.” She didn’t understand what she was seeing, but there was something happening in the great hall. As she and Verlak made their way to the doors, she wondered if she was going to see a control group, as she had suggested to Doom, or if she was going to see the street festival also showing signs of losing control.

  Maybe that’s what he wants me to verify.

  The word contagion drifted through her thoughts. A contagion in my field? She grew more and more uneasy.

  She and Verlak hurried from the hall, out of the castle and over the rebuilt moat bridge. They descended into Vandorf Street, and Orloff breathed a sigh of relief. The road had been closed to traffic, and food tents had been set up near the reconstructed houses to distribute Doom’s bounty. There was dancing, and the ale was flowing freely.

  “Looks normal to me,” Verlak said.

  “It is,” said Orloff. “Let’s go back.”

  They had been gone less than half an hour when they returned to the ball, and the changes were pronounced. The talk was louder yet, almost shouting. The dancers jerked and whirled, spinning marionettes.

  What’s wrong with them? Because something was wrong. Her unease returned.

  Orloff and Verlak mounted the staircase to the gallery. The balustrades of the stairs were lined with revelers. The snatches of dialogue Orloff caught as they passed sounded like gossip shot out by machine guns. Everyone was talking. No one was listening.

  The gallery was still empty, as if the fact that Doom had stood here barred the path to the guests. Orloff leaned over the oaken railing and watched the vortex of the ball.

  “They should be exhausted,” Verlak said.

  They should be, but they’re not. The energy of the ball was growing, as if the movements of each dancer fueled greater exertions from the others. Laughter, hard and brittle, built up like a thunderhead. The celebration pulsed with the warring beats of migraine and fibrillating heart. “‘It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade,’” Orloff said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “‘The Masque of the Red Death.’”

  Verlak grunted. “I can’t decide if they’re celebrating like tomorrow is the end of the world, or they’re drunk on the victory of the castle hosting a ball again.”

  “Both, maybe,” said Orloff. “They are drunk, but this a lot more than inebriation.”

  The huge doors opened again, and Doom entered the hall. Orloff was surprised to see him on the first floor. She shared a look with Verlak, who seemed just as startled. “He isn’t going to… mingle, is he?” Orloff asked in disbelief.

  “If he does, the sun is going to rise in the west tomorrow,” said Verlak. “This is more of his experiment, whatever it is. You’re providing data for him.”

  Is this right, what I’m doing? Once the question arose, she couldn’t put it aside.

  What’s the alternative? Leave? Shout for everything to stop?

  The options felt as absurd as trying to flout Doom’s will.

  Is this right? I don’t know.

  A weak answer, and the one she would have to live with.

  From the moment Doom arrived, the energy in the hall climbed vertiginously. Orloff’s arms prickled with gooseflesh. The dance became frenzied. He moved up and down the room, and the reactions to his passage were all spikes of emotion, whether fear or desperate sycophancy. Doom was the center of the ball, no matter where he was in the room. Every masked celebrant reacted to his presence, his proximity or his distance.

  “He holds ‘illimitable dominion over all,’” Orloff quoted Poe again, awed by the power Doom wielded by the simple act of being.

  The dances were beyond wild now. The music no longer resembled a waltz. It was just a hammering stab of strings, mimicking the seizure-like spasms of the spinning couples.

  “I’d be wondering if I should be arranging for ambulances,” Verlak said, “if I thought Doom cared about any of these people.”

  “They might need them yet,” Orloff said, only half paying attention. New symptoms were presenting in the people Doom went closest to. He had come to the staircase now and was climbing it slowly, a majesty of armor and mask as weighty as death among the crowd of meaningless costumes. Orloff had a better view of the revelers on the stairs, and she saw the symptoms clearly in them. A woman in a dog mask and a man wearing a moon face tried to talk to Doom. All they got out, during the brief second he paused to look at them, was a shouted gabble of “Your Excellency your Excellency your Excellency.” When Doom left them, the woman’s arms dropped limp. Even though Orloff couldn’t see her face, she seemed vague, making quarter turns where she stood, back and forth, purposeless. Her companion started swatting at phantoms in the air. He was breathing hard and whining anxiously. There were others near them behaving similarly.

  Doom reached the top of the stairs and turned to look down at the ball. He stayed there, motionless, the presiding shadow, as the celebration worked itself to higher and higher pitches of hysteria.

  Orloff wondered if she was meant to speak to him and say what she was observing. She took half a step, but Verlak took her arm.

  “No. He’ll call you when he wants you.”

  The dance went on, and on, and on. The energy built higher and higher. Orloff halfexpected a mass case of spontaneous human combustion. The maelstrom swallowed the hours in its fury. Then Doom cocked his head slightly, as if engaged in a private conversation. He looked up, and the orchestra stopped.

  The dancers froze.

  The castle’s tower bells struck the hour of two. The reverberations of the bells faded away, leaving the silence of the grave in the hall. The assembled nobility of Latveria stared at the king, panting like dogs.

  “The ball is finished,” Doom announced. “Remove your masks and leave.”

  All did as he commanded.

  Orloff hurried down the stairs to observe the guests more closely as they left. They were drenched in sweat and haggard with exhaustion. They spoke with each other normally, though. They sounded like any other crowd after a social event that had been, they thought, satisfactory. Orloff had expected at least a few of them to collapse before they even made it to the doors. No one did. The nobility departed, their voices fading away. It was as if there had been nothing abnormal about the ball.

  Weak with relief, Orloff rejoined Doom and Verlak at the head of the stairs.

  “What are your conclusions, doctor?” Doom asked.

  “The people in this room were clearly under some form of influence.”

  “And those on Vandorf Street?”

  “No. The effect was limited to the castle. Possibly to this room.” She glanced at the musicians putting away their instruments. “It was also limited to the guests.”

  “Quite,” said Doom. “You may, incidentally, remove your earpiece now.”

  Orloff had forgotten she was wearing it. She took it out just as a servant arrived to retrieve it from her.

  “I can’t say what was affecting the dancers,” Orloff continued. “But I was seeing increasing cognitive impairment as the night wore on. There was a significant loss of coherence and precise motor function. Everyone was getting energy from somewhere.” She paused. “Those of us wearing earpieces, though, were not affected.” She waited.

  “Quite,” said Doom.

  Don’t push. “I have no definite conclusions,” Orloff said carefully. “None of what I saw made any medical sense.”

  “There is much in the world that does not,” said Doom. “Yet it exists. I am not troubled by your lack of conclusions, doctor. How did Latveria’s glorious nobility seem to you after the ball? Was there any sign of lasting impairment?”

  “I would have to run tests to be certain.”

  “Which I’m sure they would be delighted to let you do,” Verlak put in.

  “No doubt. At a glance, though, there seemed to be no lingering effects. It surprises me to say this, but I think it’s likely none of them will wake in the morning with anything worse than a hangover.”

  Doom nodded. “Good,” he said.

  Orloff found it hard to believe he was satisfied that the welfare of his guests was assured. She had the impression she had been watching a sideshow while the main event went on elsewhere.

  “You are a valuable resource, Doctor Orloff,” Doom continued.

  “If I may…” said Orloff.

  “Yes?”

  “You read my articles, so you know that I’m interested in transmittable neurological effects. What I saw tonight…”

  “I thought it would intrigue you. Circumstances do not permit me telling you more at this time. However, I think we will work more closely in the future.”

  Doom left them. Orloff remained still after he had passed through the gallery exit. After a minute, Verlak took her hand.

  “What just happened?” Orloff whispered to her wife.

  “That was your destiny being decided.”

  In the laboratory, Helm stepped carefully away from the control of the Harrower and sat down on a bench next to the wall. She took deep, slow breaths, feeling herself grow calm. She smiled in spite of herself.

  Doom finished his inspection of the components, then strode over to where she rested.

  “That went well,” she said.

  “It did. The machine is intact. I see no sign of ruptures of any kind.”

  “It felt right,” said Helm. “It felt good.”

  “How far did you take the build-up?”

  “To the limit.”

  “Excellent. The psychic feedback was minimal and contained. Those wearing field dampeners were not affected at all.”

  “And we were feeding on the psychic energy of the entire castle?” Helm asked.

  “We were, as on Walpurgis Night we shall feed on the entire city, in the confidence that we will be in complete control of the Harrower and its effects. It will be strong enough to hold back Hell.”

  Helm leaned back, exhausted. She pictured the unwitting test subjects Doom had brought into the castle. “Do you know,” she said, “I’ve often wondered why you allowed so many families of the old regime to linger, pretending to themselves that they still matter.”

  “Now you know. The aristocracy has its uses, and the advantage of being disposable.”

  Doom turned back to the Harrower. “Our work is not yet done,” he said. “But our time is.”

  Chapter 21

  Stop him. Stop him.

  The command, the desperate need, filled Dubrov’s existence. It was all he thought about during the day, except when he was using all his terrified concentration to appear normal. At night, when he no longer had to maintain a façade, the command took over completely. His nightmares were an endless reliving of what he had seen in the laboratory.

  He considered himself lucky in only one respect. Doom had not sent for him once in weeks, not since the night of the solstice, nor come to the archives. The lab held Doom’s attention. If Dubrov had faced Doom, he would have given himself away. He didn’t have to interact with Helm when she came to the archives, and that was a blessing too. She was just as responsible as Doom for bringing about the end of the world.

  Stop him. Stop him.

  Nothing else mattered. This was the most important task of his existence. There was even someone who was waiting for Dubrov to bring news of Doom’s project. There was something precise Dubrov had to do. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was too frightened to do anything. He moved through his days like a zombie, curled into a quivering ball at night, and he did nothing. If he put a step wrong, if his thoughts made him sigh, Doom would see, and Doom would know. Through the last days of December and January, Dubrov tried to withdraw into a numb darkness. If the world faded from him entirely, then everything would be gone, including the need to act.

  The night of the masked ball, he failed once and for all to make that retreat. Something thrummed through the castle, and he knew that the machine had been activated again. He cowered in his cell, back against the wall, sweat pouring down his face and neck, soaking his clothes. His heart beat like a rattling train. The terror built up until he screamed himself hoarse. The terror ended abruptly at two in the morning. He collapsed, his strings cut.

  Stop him. Stop him.

  He had been frozen, but time had marched on. Hell was coming, and soon.

  When?

  Dubrov took his first action the next day. As he pushed the cart through the aisles, replacing the latest documents and books that Helm had consulted, he looked at them himself, flipping through with the hope of finding clues as to when the disaster would come.

  He found that Helm was interested in dates too. She had examined a number of ancient astrological almanacs. In one of them, she had forgotten a scrap of paper. Dubrov couldn’t understand her scrawl of runes, but she had marked the page in the almanac that dealt with April 30.

  “Walpurgis Night,” Dubrov whispered, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Motionless, he imagined his words scuttling up the bowl of the archives and up the tower to the laboratory.

  He hears everything.

  That night, he took his second action. Despite his terror, despite his certainty that he would be caught, he went out to drink at the Tower and Chariot. Though it took a Herculean effort to do even that, and then to act like all was normal and that he wasn’t checking to see if he was followed, Fortunov did not appear. Dubrov returned to the castle convinced that he would not have the strength to try again. But two nights later, the thought of what would happen if he did nothing was so awful that he tried again. Still no Fortunov.

  Dubrov wept. He despaired. Three nights later, he tried once more. This time, two hours and four brandies after he’d sat down in his booth, Fortunov arrived.

  “I had expected to hear from you long before this,” the prince said. “You tried my patience. I thought you were hiding, and was about to teach you a lesson.”

  “I’ve been here three nights in a row.”

  “I know. I have been watching to see that you were not hoping to betray me. And your presence now happens only after weeks of absence.”

  “I was too frightened.”

  “Of Doom? Then you weren’t scared enough about what I might do to you.”

  Dubrov suddenly saw Fortunov’s threat for the posturing it was. The prince might still be able to destroy someone as insignificant as Dubrov, and what a sad triumph that would be. Fortunov was not the power he wanted others to think he was. Dubrov prayed that he was still just strong enough to make the crucial difference now. “I was scared of you,” Dubrov said, bolstered by drink, “but I don’t care about what you can do to me any more.” He leaned forward. “You have to stop him. I don’t know if I can help you at all, but you have to stop him. Even if you die. Nothing else matters.”

  Dubrov couldn’t see Fortunov’s face inside its hood. He couldn’t tell if his appeal was making an impression.

  “What are you talking about?” Fortunov asked. “What is he doing?”

  “He’s raising Hell.”

  “That’s nothing new. He…” Fortunov paused. “You mean that literally,” he said quietly.

  Dubrov nodded. He sat back, ready to weep again. The prince was listening. There might be hope.

  “Why would he do that?” Fortunov asked. “What can he possibly hope to gain?”

  “Why does he do anything?” Dubrov shot back. “His reasons are his own, but I know what I saw.”

  “Tell me,” said Fortunov. “Tell me everything.”

  Dubrov told him. He relived the nightmare on the tower so that Fortunov would understand. If he felt a tenth of the fear Dubrov did, then that would feel like a victory.

  When Dubrov finished speaking, Fortunov was quiet for a very long time.