“How about a hundred pounds?” Inspector Dormouse slapped the money onto the kitchen table.
“For a finger?” Chopin seemed interested.
“Two hundred pounds.” Dormouse pulled out another hundred.
“I need three hundred pounds,” Chopin argued.
“Why? You’ve lost only two fingers?” Tom felt the need to interfere.
“And I will lose a third once I mention that devil again,” Chopin said.
“Here is another hundred,” Tom offered a hundred of his own, not sure why he’d felt so curious all of a sudden. Maybe he’d like to see Chopin lose another finger.
“Talk!” Dormouse seemed aggressive.
“Say what?” Chopin said. “I will not talk.”
“But you took the money,” Tom argued.
“I didn’t say I would not fulfill my promise, but I will not talk.”
“You’re wasting our time,” Dormouse said.
“No I’m not.” Chopin pulled out a flash drive from his pocket. “This will tell you what you need to know.”
“What is this?” Tom squinted at the drive suspiciously. “A bomb?”
“Why would I explode myself with you losers?” Chopin said. “This is a secret recording of some of the sessions. You go over it and hear everything.”
“Why haven’t you told us about this before?” Tom snapped again.
“And lose three hundred pounds?” Chopin said.
“But you also lost a finger.” Tom was getting mad.
“The devil took one finger, yes, but I fooled the devil and kept the other when you gave me the last hundred and I didn’t talk,” Chopin looked sideways, as if the devil were hiding in a teapot nearby, listening to his genius conspiracy.
“Give it to me,” Tom snatched the hard drive, but then something incredibly unexpected happened.
Dormouse found himself standing in a room where both Chopin and Tom fell asleep while standing on their feet. It didn’t take him long to realize it was the Chessmaster’s doing. The madman had earlier announced that he’d make Oxford and London sleep next.
“Hmm…” Inspector Dormouse picked up the flash drive, wondering why he was the only one left awake. “This is weird.”
He took the flash drive outside, preparing to listen to it in Tom’s car — it could also be used as an mp3 player — and looked at the University of Oxford having completely gone asleep.
“I think it’s not weird,” he reasoned. “I think it’s frabjous. The one man who slept the most is the only one awake right now. Could it be that my sleeping kept me immune from the Chessmaster’s curse?”
Chapter 69
The Last Chess Game, Chess City, Kalmykia
“The White Knight?” I say, unable to fathom this.
In the books, the White Knight was the gentlest and most beloved creature in Wonderland. In spite of his short appearance, he saved Alice from his opponent, the Red Knight. I remember reading about him repeatedly falling off his horse and landing on his head. He also had those silly inventions: pudding with ingredients like blotting paper, an upside-down container, and anklets to guard his horse against shark bites.
How could this good man have become who he is now?
“I see you remember me now,” the Chessmaster says.
“I remember what I read in the book about you,” I say. “That’s all.”
“It will come to you,” he says. “All the things you’ve done to me.”
“Why not remind me?”
“I’m afraid if I do, you’ll die from shock before I can beat you in the game.”
“If so, you should have just told me long ago and refrained from finding Carroll’s Knight,” I say. “Stop playing games. Tell me what I did. I’m very curious how I ever managed to hurt Death.”
“That’s the thing, Alice,” he says. “I never was Death before what you did to me.”
This is a complicated thing. Did I create Death in the past?
“I didn’t even ask to become Death.”
“Now I’m starting to doubt your story. It’d make more sense if you longed to become Death to have your revenge. I’d believe that.”
“Not if there had been a ritual involved.” His words echo in the back of my head, and suddenly I feel dizzy again, as if I’m about to remember.
“Ritual?”
“The unholy ritual that made you kill my daughter.”
My hand reaches for the edge of the table and grabs onto it. More dizziness. Faint memories, blurred by older sins. “I killed your daughter?”
“Two actually.” The Chessmaster genuinely exposes his pain, and it cuts through and splinters my whole being into ripped pieces of my own shroud.
I have nothing to say, all but to wish this hadn’t happened.
“And my wife,” the Chessmaster recounts. “My grandmother and my farm dog.”
“I did that?”
“It’s not easy realizing you were the villain, is it, Alice?” The Chessmaster’s anger is now surfacing. All the fluff is starting to wear off and the demon of vengeance is rising. “Villains are so misunderstood. People see them killing and raging, but they never ask themselves why they’ve become what they’ve become.”