by Michael Rigg
"I have an older brother, Clayton, a colonel with the Confederate Air Cavalry to which Pandora belonged. I have two sisters, Adeline and Savannah."
My smile brightened. "Savannah is a lovely name. I'd guess she's probably, what, about thirteen? Fourteen?"
Bryce chuckled. "Twelve, with the mischievous spirit of a toddler and the iron will of a senator. Steer clear of her. She'll charm you—or vex you."
I studied his face, smiled at the glint of light off the military insignia on his collar. "It sounds like a wonderful family." I reached up and touched the wreathed CSA on his collar. "You know.... This was one of the first things I saw when I woke up."
He continued looking at me. His smile lost some sincerity but not its warmth.
My voice was softer than I'd meant it to be. I don't think I was used to being thankful or self effacing in any way. If what I did to Perek Grubbs was any indication, what I said had probably never come out of my mouth. "I can't thank you enough, Bryce. You probably saved my life. If not my life, for sure my sanity, though... I'm not to sure about that... yet." I tried to smile.
He took my hand and kissed the back of it. His lips were soft and warm. His mustache tickled. "I'm not yet finished savin' you, young lady."
I remembered my reflection and wondered aloud, "Young lady.... I don't even know how old I am. I could probably be your older sister."
He chuckled and moved my hand, resting it across my stomach. "Nonsense. You look to be no more than twenty-five, if that, and I'm sure I'd know if my mother'd had such a lovely young daughter... with Irish eyes and a perfect smile."
I blew a puff of air through pursed lips. I felt my face catch fire. I spoke with the best Southern accent I could muster. "You flatter me at every turn, Captain. Are you always so gallant?"
"Yes," he answered as evenly as if I'd asked if his name was Bryce Landry.
I looked at him for long time, and he back at me. I wondered what he was thinking, if the desire had crossed his mind to kiss me. I don't know why I wondered that myself except that I felt like I should kiss him, hold him. My anchor. My rescuer. But, then again, maybe in this world such a thing wouldn't be proper. Everywhere I looked, I saw men opening doors for women, bowing to them, offering them their places in line. Something told me that's not how it should be, that women should be just as forthcoming, and even sometimes as rude, as men. As of this hour, seventeen-year-old Pandora was the only “liberated” woman I had seen.
He finally spoke. "You should rest, Alice. We'll be home before too long." He stood up and bent down. He kissed my cheek before reaching to close the curtains.
“No.” I reached up and touched his hand. “Please... stay? You said you'd stay until I fell asleep.”
Bryce sighed, but smiled. He sat back down on my bunk, adjusting himself to sit more comfortably as though he intended to stay until I nodded off.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Tell me about Pandora. What's her real name?”
Bryce's grin betrayed dimples under his mustache. “Dorothea Cervella Rink. She used to be called Dora before her infusing.”
“Infusing? That's....” I lowered my whisper even more, “That's how she became a witch?”
Bryce's eyes widened and he turned and looked down at me with curiosity. “What makes you say that? You've heard about the infusing? Or, did you perhaps already know she was a witch?”
“Your confidence that she can care for herself, for one. She's just a girl, Bryce—I- I know she's a soldier and all, a pilot, but she's still just a kid. A kid like that can't survive without having an edge of some kind.”
“You're very observant, Alice.” He leaned a bit closer and smiled as he whispered. “I think more of the real you is comin' through. Observant, strong, fast, quick-thinkin', but still charmin', and beautiful.”
I shrugged against my pillow. “It's not all that. You've said a few things that tipped me off, and.... And she spoke to me... I-In my mind.”
Bryce raised his chin, his curious look becoming more serious. “And what did she say?”
This was it. I swallowed hard. “She just told me to look after you. Keep my eye on Cap', she'd said.”
He reached out and moved a strand of my hair. “We'll watch for one another, Alice. Agreed?”
“Yes, Captain.” I released a sudden, long yawn and covered my mouth. “Oh, my.... Sorry.”
He patted my arm. “Rest, sweet Alice. I'll not leave your side.”
Moments later, I fell asleep.
This time, I dreamed.
CHAPTER 12, “Collateral Damages”
Perek Grubbs woke with the worst headache he'd ever known. His face throbbed, his left eye was almost swollen shut, and every bone in his body felt like splintered wood. It hurt like hell when he breathed.
"He's coming around," a woman's voice said in an Imperial accent.
Grubbs slowly opened his eyes and looked into the face of a young woman with blond hair in a bun. She wore a dark blue dress with flared sleeves and an apron and arm band decorated with a red cross within a blue and white shield. The letters E and S curled around a medical staff in the middle.
"Emergency Serv..." Grubbs began.
The Medic hushed him. "You'll be all right. Can you stand? ...Nothing is broken but your nose and perhaps a rib or two. I set your nose for you." She smiled. “I need you to stand.” It was a pitiable smile and Grubbs knew it. Then it all started coming back to him. Bryce Landry and his Property did this to him.
"I'm ...Perek ...Grubbs."
"I'm sorry?" The nurse said as she, and someone who appeared behind Grubbs, helped him to his feet.
"Grubbs," he said again slightly louder through a gauzy nasal voice. He touched his face and felt where the tape covered the metal brace over his nose. Broad bands of tight medical tape were wrapped around his chest. He found his shirt and jacket on the ground and lifted them with the same effort to heft a boulder. "My name is ...Perek Grubbs." As the nurse looked on without a word, he struggled into his shirt and jacket, then he reached into his jacket pocket, then the other, then patted down his other pockets before he realized what had happened. That damn Landry stole his identity.
After making sure Grubbs was steady on his feet, the nurse backed away a bit. She looked past Grubbs to the person standing behind him. She nodded slightly.
A man with a thick Irish accent said, "He's okay to transpart?"
The Medic nodded again before turning to leave as Grubbs said, "I'm an Acquisitions Officer for Thorne & Wolfe. My identification was stolen. I—" He turned and saw the man who had spoken. A policeman. Beyond him on the raised platform stood a dark blue paddy wagon on spoked wheels and two more officers. The sputtering engine of the wagon idled. "What's this?"
"Mr. Grubbs—if that is yar name," the officer grumbled, "I'm placing you under arrest for suspicion."
"Suspicion of what?"
"Marder, sir."
“Murder?” Grubbs instinctively pulled back as the officer stepped up to take his arm, but stopped when he saw the man brandish a pistol with a humming stun tube on the barrel. One of the officers by the paddy wagon leveled a rifle in his direction. Grubbs looked around and saw the Medic had gathered up her things and moved off to join another by their hand-drawn cart. They loaded up and moved off, glancing back once or twice.
"This is ridiculous! I'm an A.O. I have rights!"
"You would if you had an I.D., Mr. A.O.," the cop grunted a laugh as he spun Grubbs around and cuffed him.
“Ah!” Grubbs grunted in pain, “Watch the ribs, flatfoot!” His mind reeled. Obviously, this was all Landry's doing. He'd been framed, and he knew there was nothing he could do about the fact he had no identification of any kind. He could be held in Philadelphia for days until this was sorted out.
"You 'ave the right to remain silent. If you choose to give up tha' right, I have the right to declare you for non-trial and render judgment. Should you wish to be represented in a Cart of Imperial affairs, but cannot affard judiciar
y, one may be appointed for you at a rate of fifteen percent debited against yar Imperial Allowance. Do you understand these rights?"
Grubbs gritted his teeth and sneered. He nodded, then barked out, "Yeah." As soon as he could make one call—just one call—he'd have this cop's job and be free, with any luck. "Fine!"
"Come on then." The cop whirled him around and walked him to the waiting wagon. The officers by the wagon opened the doors and helped their prisoner into the compartment before un-cuffing him and re-cuffing him to a rail built into the cramped space. One of the guards, a short fellow with red hair, climbed in across from Grubbs. "This here's Officer Doone," the arresting sergeant told Grubbs. "He'll be ridin' with ya to make sure ya don't go bumpin' yar head." He laughed.
I'll bet, Grubbs thought. They weren't alone. He saw a dwarf sitting in the corner near the small sliding door that enabled the driver to look back at his cargo. The little man had a long wiry beard and beady little eyes. He was cuffed to a rail in the wagon and wore a russet leather pilot's uniform with a Confederate patch on the sleeve.
Perek spat, "Billy Rink."
The dwarf looked up "Friends call me 'Wilco,' so I guess you can call me Mr. Rink."
"I ain't callin' you nothin'."
Wilco regarded him coolly. "Good thing, 'cause that ain't my name neither."
They heard the grind of a clutch and the gears catch before the wagon nudged forward and began rolling in a jerky motion that soon leveled out.
Grubbs turned to the red haired Officer Doone across from him. "When do I get my call?"
"Shut up. Both of ya."
Grubbs allowed himself a long, exasperated sigh and closed his eyes. That would be another job gone. Hell, after his call, he'd wipe out the entire Philadelphia P.D.
~~~~~~~
Pandora watched the whole thing from two stories above. She only glanced up once to see that Bryce's SkyTrain was under way. She smiled knowing they'd done their job, but now she had to get her father out of the clinker wagon.
She ditched the revolver in a waste bin two blocks back, and wouldn't use it against cops anyway. Besides, it was too damn big and heavy. She made her way down, then up, then down again to the metal platforms over the elevated street level where Wilco and another man were being taken to a local precinct house two blocks away. She knew her father had been instrumental in helping Bryce and party escape, but she was the one who had taken out the goons from TW. The guy who got fried on the Network had been collateral damage. Either way, she had to get her father out.
Pandora skulked in the shadows, keeping to the alleys that were made of grates or ribs of metal, so she could watch the wagon below, waiting for the driver to turn into a shadowed street before crossing her fingers and casting a charm to release her father. It would be three-fold magic, difficult but nothing she hadn't done before. The first part of the charm would hold them all frozen in a bubble of time, the second would unlock the doors and her father's cuffs, and the third would erase the last hour of memory from the three policemen and the other man in the back of the wagon.
Him, she decided, she'd leave to his fate.
She didn't know Perek Grubbs was part of the attack tonight. She figured Emergency Services simply called the police to handle a drunk they found in an alley behind Spoilery. Had she known Perek Grubbs was a lieutenant for Thorne & Wolfe, her plan might have been totally different.
~~~~~~~
The paddy wagon stopped when all the lights on the block winked out. It was late, so no one else was around. Music curled through the air from a distant lounge, an airship in the distance hummed along and a dog barked, but the only sounds close by were the creaking of the wagon's wheels, the rusty squawk of the elevated metal street and the whistling of winds through the tall buildings.
The wagon driver's name was Officer Ardon Tyler, the sergeant who hauled in Grubbs was Mike O'Halloran. Neither one had expected much on tonight's shift, but the explosion at the Tesla Bridge and resulting murder investigation had certainly sparked things up a bit. Nearly every officer was called in tonight and nearly every roaming person in the vicinity of the Universal Electric Building was under suspicion. This wagon crew had already transported three winos to the precinct house and all three of the officers were irritated and edgy.
Ardon locked the brake.
"What are you doin'?" O"Halloran asked, glancing down at the brake handle.
"I ain't drivin' this thing over the edge. I can't see squat."
It was then that Sergeant O'Halloran noticed the lights on the carriage itself were out as well. "That's queer. What could have caused all this mess?"
"Eh." Tyler clapped his knee and nodded as though he'd just realized something and was excited by the discovery. "Oh, I know what done it."
"What's done it?"
"The Bridge. A power surge like what caused the explosion is bound to take out electrics in town."
“Yar daft. That was a time ago.” O'Halloran pointed down the street to their left. “An' look down there. All those lights are on a few blocks down.”
A dull metallic boom sounded from inside the paddy wagon as Doone banged on the forward wall. Officer Tyler slid open the panel. Doone, peered out. "Why'd we stop?"
O'Halloran said, "Ardon's afraid of the dark."
"Nah. I can't see is all."
That's when the carriage's motor died, plunging them into a silence that matched the darkness.
Sergeant O'Halloran nudged the driver. "Tarn her back over."
"I didn't shut her off."
"Just start her up and roll, will ya," O'Halloran barked.
Tyler punched the choke, then the start button. The engine spun but wouldn't catch. He stopped trying when the sergeant huffed and kicked the floorboard.
Tyler shrugged, his shoulders barely visible in the dark. "Dead."
"Aww, damn me mother's eyes," O'Halloran grumbled as he climbed out of the carriage and rounded it to the front. The moonlight barely cast enough light to see, but he found the handle of the hood and twisted. He popped the latch and folded up the hood to take a look inside. O'Halloran plucked the flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. No light. As he tapped the cylinder with the palm of his hand and flicked the switch on and off, a wet cracking sounded like twisting celery stalks came from the carriage. The vehicle bounced on its springs and teetered. Something heavy hit the street. When O'Halloran looked back to the wagon, Arden Tyler was gone. "Tyler?"
Doone called from inside, "What's goin' on out there?"
"It's just Ardon. He's clownin' around. Tyler? Come on now. I ain't got time for shenanigans! We need to—"
The muzzle flash from the gunshots illuminated the night around the paddy wagon, the deafening booms echoed off the tall buildings around the elevated streets, casting giant cartoon silhouettes of the boxy wagon and Mike O'Halloran, his head thrown back and arms cartwheeling in the air.
From inside the paddy wagon, men screamed but were quickly silenced as more shots rang out and thunked hard through the side of the metal carriage.
Mike O'Halloran and Ardon Tyler lay dead, their uniforms soaked in blood, Tyler's head turned around the wrong way, as a dark figure moved through the inky night to open the back door of the wagon.
~~~~~~~
Perek Grubbs flinched and covered his face with his free hand, screaming as the bullets punched through the paddy wagon. His eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, but he didn't see what happened until the shooting stopped and the back door to the wagon swung open. A lamp from a distant street and the moonlight shone in and revealed black starbursts of blood against the dim gray interior of the wagon. Officer Doone lay slumped against the wall, one clean dark hole in his forehead and one through his badge. Rink too, appeared to be dead, his body hunched forward with his left arm suspended where it was still shackled to the railing.
A man stood outside, silhouetted against the dim light. He wore a long black cloak or riding coat and his dark oily hair touched his shoulders in long
twists and tangles. His eyes reflected the dim light like the eye shine of a cat or other wild animal. He raised a gray long-nailed hand and the cuffs disintegrated from Perek Grubbs' wrist, crumbling like glittering metal dust.
"Are you the man called Perek Grubbs?" The stranger asked in a cold whisper, from a voice as deep as hell itself.
Grubbs stammered. "W-Who?"
"Come."
Grubbs felt himself rise, though he wasn't doing it himself. His legs moved but he wasn't controlling them. He hopped down from the wagon and found himself standing before the shadowy figure. Then his eyes grew wide as he realized what the man was.
"Y-You're a—"
~~~~~~~
When the shooting started, Pandora was already climbing down a fire escape attached to the building where she'd been skulking. Now she gasped and cried out, "Daddy!" and let herself drop. She hit the ground with a hard clank and rolled to the side, bumping her head against a wide metal garbage bin before she scrambled to her feet and staggered forward. When she had her senses back, she sprinted toward the corner.
Then she stopped before skidding out into the open.
Gasping for breath, Pandora could feel the pulse and throb of magic in the air, strong and pungent like the crack of ozone near a Tesla Bridge. The air sat still despite the altitude, and it felt dense in her lungs. Crossing her fingers, she made herself invisible and peered cautiously around the corner.
She heard a man say the word "ghoul" just before he let out a blood-chilling scream. Her entire body shivered as she watched the ghoul place his hands over the man's ears, then they both vanished in a clap of thunder before the last echo of the man's screams died away. Pandora had no idea who the man was or why a ghoul would come all the way up here to kidnap him. The very presence of a ghoul in the vicinity of her father made her skin crawl and her blood turn icy.
“Daddy.”
Her only thought now was her father. She prayed against reason that he was somehow still alive inside the black metal Swiss cheese that was once a police wagon.
Lights flickered back to life. The gas lanterns flashed on with a hiss and electronic snap, then lights came on inside the paddy wagon as its engine revved back to life, momentarily dimming its re-ignited headlights. "Daddy!" Pandora uncrossed her fingers and became visible as she sprinted toward the wagon. The air stood rank with the stench of the ghoul's rotten flesh and the copper smell of blood moments before the breezes returned.