‘What?’
‘No time – for god’s sake, run!’
But it was too late.
11
The Chapel
Camille’s hand twisted in Ada’s sleeve and dragged her back into the chapel. The battalion pelted inside just as Dorval lunged after them. The door was too stiff to slam, and his arm wedged through the gap, swiping with the knife clutched in his fingers.
Camille swore a stream.
Ada left Guil and Al blocking the door and ran to the shelves on the back wall.
‘Quick – help me move these.’ She showed Camille the second door hidden behind the shelves.
‘Good work.’
The shelves were too heavy to move with all the jars and bottles on them so Ada and Camille pulled them off haphazardly. One slipped and smashed on the flagstones spilling acrid liquid over their feet. A lumpy cross-section of liver bounced under a dissection bench. Camille clapped a hand over her mouth, retching at the awful smell.
Olympe stumbled back, breathing fast, sparks frizzing her hair. ‘No, no, no. Not him. Not here. We have to leave.’
‘Working on it.’
Al joined Ada and Camille to heave at the shelves. Centimetre by centimetre they began to move.
Guil was left alone in a battle of strength against Dorval. The door shook as though Dorval was throwing his body against it like a battering ram. For a too-brief moment, the door nearly edged closed. But then Guil jerked back from the knife as it cut blindly through the air. A foot, heavily booted, forced itself through the gap; a knee, a shoulder, wedging the door further open.
Olympe yanked off her gloves and kneeled on the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Ada.
‘This power is mine, isn’t it? I control it. No one else.’
Ada could see the way Olympe’s hands shook, but her unflinching gaze never faltered, her chin held high. ‘It’s your power.’
The light had dimmed, as though a summer storm had rolled in outside the windows. Shadows swallowed scalpels, acid and bone.
Olympe turned to Guil. ‘Let him in.’
‘We’re not giving up that easily—’
‘Just do it!’
It was too late to make a choice. The door slammed open and Dorval surveyed the room, lip curling over sharp teeth.
‘Guil! Get out of the water!’ Olympe shouted.
She plunged her hands into the thin layer of liquid that coated the flagstones from the shelves to the door. A flurry of sparks spread along her arms and into the turpentine.
Guil scrambled back.
Camille’s skin prickled with static. Behind her, another jar burst with the pressure in the air, spraying preserving fluid and a shower of glass across her back.
Olympe looked up at Dorval, meeting his sneering gaze.
‘You know what this does,’ she said. ‘You saw the experiments. The electric charge can move through liquid. If you step in it, it’ll shock you.’
