Beastly Beauty

Four

He wore a suit the color of midnight.

A gray cravat, fastened with a jet stickpin, closed the neck of his shirt. His long white hair was gathered with a length of black ribbon. A pair of spectacles was perched at the end of his nose. Behind them, his eyes glittered like two dark stars.

Looking into them, Beau had the strange, unsettling feeling that he’d met the man before, but he couldn’t remember where or when.

Miguel, too drunk to be afraid, swaggered up to the clock and pointed at the man. “Hey! Mister, hey!” He snapped his fingers. “What are you doing up there, eh?”

The man did not reply; instead, he raised his arm in a stiff, jerky movement, then swiveled his torso toward the bell. Beau saw that he held a silver hammer in his hand, and that his pockets contained pliers, a pair of tin snips, a screwdriver.

“Ha! He’s a dummy!” Miguel exclaimed.

Rodrigo snorted. “Takes one to know one.”

Beau had stolen enough valuable objects to know that an artisan would often sign his work in clever ways—adding his initials to a filigree on a necklace, or carving his own face on a figure of a saint—but the man who’d made this clock had taken the conceit further: He’d signed his work by adding a life-sized figure of himself to it. Beau felt drawn toward the mysterious clockmaker. He wanted to touch his pale porcelain cheek, to take hold of his arm and feel cold metal under the cloth. He wanted, needed, to reassure himself that the man wasn’t real.

Just then, the clock’s weights ratcheted up their chains, startling Miguel, who staggered backward, tripped, and fell on his backside. The others laughed at him, but Beau didn’t join in. Who pulled the weights? he wondered.

The minute hand clicked into place next to the hour hand at twelve and the clockmaker struck the bell with his hammer. The chimes sounded like a warning to Beau, and as the last one faded, music began to play—a jangling, discordant fairground tune that filled every corner of the room. The arched track in front of the clock began to move. The doors on the clock’s left side swung open with a creak and a grinning jester in patched nightclothes and a jingling cap emerged from the clock, capering wildly. The bloom of color in his cheeks, the glimmer in his glass eyes, made him seem so alive. But then Beau saw that he, too, was just a clockwork figure repeating the same movements.

Behind the jester came a groom and a milkmaid, leaning in to share a kiss, then pulling apart. There was a scullery maid reaching for a sweet, and a kitchen boy cradling a big, tawny ham. A stiff-backed guard walked to and fro, rifle over his shoulder; another dozed in an alcove. Cats prowled. Dogs snored. A rat nibbled at a wheel of cheese. A lady-in-waiting mended a gown, her needle going in and out, in and out. A regally beautiful woman read by candlelight, her hands covered in rings, her silk dressing gown flowing around her legs. A handsome man dressed in a fur-lined robe played chess with his valet, moving his king into check and out again. As the figures proceeded along the track, the doors on the clock’s right side opened. The jester led the court through them, and when the last one—a little page boy holding a chamber pot—had disappeared into the darkness, the music stopped and the doors swung shut with a rush of air so soft and sad, it sounded like a sigh.

Beau stood staring at the closed doors, surprised to feel an ache in his heart, sudden and deep. The other thieves, ardent with greed, hooted and whistled.

“Did you see that fur robe? It’s mine, boys!”

“Keep it! I’m taking m’lady’s rings!”

“We’ll take it all. Break down the doors!” Raphael commanded.

Two of the men grabbed a heavy chair and dragged it toward one pair of doors, ready to batter them open.

They were all making so much noise, they didn’t hear the throaty growling. Not at first.

It seeped into the room like blood through water, moving sinuously beneath the raucous laughter, but then it grew deeper, winding itself around the thieves like a riptide. By the time they realized they were in danger, it was too late. Their laughter fell away. Their shouts died.

“What is that?” Ramon asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“It’s coming from there,” Beau said tersely, nodding at the entry hall.

The thieves had walked through it on their way to the great hall. Only moments ago, the room had been ablaze with light; now it was shrouded in darkness.

“Arm yourselves,” Raphael commanded.

The men scrambled for their weapons. There was a great sucking whoosh and the fire went out. One by one, the candle flames died. Only the moon’s pale rays, slanting in through high windows, illuminated the great hall now.

“What the devil is going on?” Rodrigo shouted.

The growling rose. Whatever was making the sound was coming closer. Terror tightened Beau’s grip on his dagger. Visions appeared in his head of ripping teeth and slashing claws, of deep, spurting wounds.

Cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of evergreens with it, and then the darkness in the doorway parted like a pair of velvet curtains.

“Mother of God,” Raphael whispered.

He managed to fire one shot before the creature was on him.