Clockwork Looking Glass (Heart of Bronze Book 1)

by Michael Rigg

  Releasing each other from their sympathetic embrace of hunger, the two ghouls moved forward through the shadows, sniffing the air as the meat approached, listening to the conversation taking place as they salivated and clicked the nails of their long-fingered hands together.

  "I don't like this, Pandy," a short but thick-muscled human man said.

  "What's not to like? We're in a ghoul's lair in the underbelly of Philadelphia, and doin' a little shoppin' at Penny's," a tender and delicious woman's voice said with a smile.

  The ghouls moved slowly, prowling with their thick shoulder and back muscles rippling, and the nails of their toes retracting so they wouldn't give away their positions with a tick-tick-clicking on the dusty linoleum floor. They glanced at each other, red eyes flashing, and communicated telepathically. They would down the woman first by breaking her legs, then tear out the little man's throat and feast on him. The tender woman would be dessert and she would watch them eat her companion before they started in on her.

  They never had the chance to see the woman because she saw them first.

  Wilco released a short, sharp gasp as the two ghouls catapulted into the air from behind the broken shelving units where they'd been hiding, bounced off the ceiling, cracking plaster and raining dust, and thudded to his feet in a pair of ragged crumples of gray flesh. Pandora spun around, her hand with the crossed fingers pointing at them.

  "Good jeebie-willikers, Pandy, will you not do that—or at least give me some warning when ya do!"

  Pandora laughed. "Whatsamatter, Daddy? Scare ya?"

  Wilco stepped up to the confused and writhing forms on the floor and drew his arc revolver. He cocked the pistol and thumbed the charge pin, then blasted each ghoul in the head, killing them instantly with a bright blue flare of concentrated electricity and an ear-ringing report.

  Pandora jumped and winced at each lightning jolt from the gun. She lowered her hand and sneered. "Uh."

  "Whatsamatter, Pandy? Scare ya?"

  They shared a laugh, then Wilco fell silent and pointed into the enormous adjacent room. The old abandoned JC Penney was a warehouse of broken shelves, chairs, toys and layer upon layer of thick dust and gritty silt blown in from the abandoned streets through broken windows. The windows were only sloppily boarded and thin bands of yellow-gray light illuminated the room.

  Pandora turned to see where her father pointed. A wide red carpet like a regal trail of some sort stretched across the room to a tall gilded throne. "Damn."

  "King of the Ghouls," Wilco smirked and checked the charge on his arc revolver. He stepped around Pandora and headed toward the throne. "Since when do ghouls keep such nice furniture?"

  "Wait."

  He stopped and watched as Pandora crossed the fingers on her left hand and closed her eyes. With her eyes closed, she slowly turned her head as if scanning the room. When she finally opened her eyes and uncrossed her fingers, she said, "No one else here."

  "Ghouls?"

  She slowly shook her head. "I don't like this, though. Yer right, daddy. Ghouls don't have a mind to sit on thrones." She glanced at her father recalling last night and how the ghoul abducted Perek Grubbs from the police paddy wagon. "And ghouls don't climb over ninety stories to abduct people."

  "Until now," Wilco said with a raised bushy brow.

  Wilco kept the revolver at the ready as he ventured into the 'throne room.' He stopped near a buckle in the carpet where the dust on the floor appeared to be disturbed. "Look at this." He pointed to the floor with the barrel of the gun.

  Pandora stepped up and pushed her cap and goggles back further on her head as she crouched down to see what her father was pointing at. The floor had spatters of blood and wide damp smeared spots. "Feeding frenzy?"

  Wilco's beard pursed where his mouth would be and he said, "Nah. Not enough blood." He pointed to the wide damp areas. "What's that?" He bent over, squinting at the disturbed area, noticed hand prints and smears of muddy dust.

  Pandora closed her eyes and held her palm parallel to the floor. When she crossed her fingers, she inhaled sharply through her nose and cringed. "Uhh... Oh, God."

  "What is it?"

  Pandora stood up and stepped back. She cringed and rubbed her eyes as if they'd been burned.

  "Pandy?"

  "It's sweat. It's sweat and..." She uncrossed her fingers and shook off the vision. "It was the same ghoul bastard that killed you, Daddy. I could feel it. He was, um... biting a... a naked man." She looked at her father. "I bet it was that fella 'was with you."

  Wilco looked down at the mess. "Hmm. If you're sure it was that monster, I know who the man was."

  "Perek Grubbs? The guy from T and W Corporate who was with you?"

  Wilco nodded. "Eaten," he said solemnly, his head bowed even for the evil Grubbs. No one should have to go through a death at the hands of those monstrous bastards.

  Pandora slowly shook her head. "He wasn't eaten. It was worse." She turned and walked out the way they had come in, stepping over the smoking headless bodies of the two ghouls in the other room. Wilco only looked after her, agape, for a moment before waddling up to catch up with her. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow. "Pandy, what about the King of the Ghouls? I thought we were going to find—"

  "He ain't here," she said.

  "He ain't?"

  She shook her head as she stepped over the broken pile of wood that used to be the revolving door to the JC Penney. On the cluttered street sat a yellow biplane with plates of silver and black where the fuselage had been patched. Black script on the engine housing read 'Canary'. Pandora headed toward the pilot's seat.

  "Wait!" Wilco called out as he hustled to meet her.

  "I think they both went to New Yorke."

  "Thorne & Wolfe? You know what it means if a magics-wielding ghoul joins forces with them corporate Yankee bastards?"

  Pandora nodded as she stepped up from the lower wing and climbed into the pilot's seat. Wilco grabbed the hand-holds on the plane's side and climbed up to his own seat with a grunt. "A ghoul? No way,” she huffed. “Can't let that happen.”

  The engine cranked and the loud roar of the combustion blasted warm air back at them. Curls of blue-gray smoke twisted out from the exhaust manifolds as Pandora flexed the wing flaps. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes and checked the flaps and ailerons.

  Wilco called out above the engine's roar as he dropped into his own seat, pulling his goggles down over his squinting eyes. "Pandy.... Why would any ghoul want to travel? And what makes you think it's to Thorne & Wolfe?"

  Instead of answering, Pandora pulled the brake lever and spun the Canary around.

  A moment later they were airborne, sailing up between the gray skyscrapers of Philadelphia before angling north toward New Yorke.

  ~~~~~~~

  Bradford Thorne glanced up from the documents he was reading and studied Admiral Terrace, distracted by the naval man's perfect quaff of blond hair and feathered mutton chops growing out from his jaw, the long navy blue coat with brass buttons, brass epaulets and brass stripes.

  He tapped the papers in his hands. "What does it say, Admiral?"

  Terrace broke his gaze and looked to his boss. "Mr. Thorne?"

  Thorne's smile was a contemptuous sneer, the kind he reserved for lower businessmen, secretaries and those he was about to fire. "I'm no naval officer, Admiral. Kindly tell me what I'm looking at."

  "It's the order you gave, sir," Terrace nodded as he spoke in a deep, crisp Imperial North American accent. "It's a manifest for each vessel broken down by armament, crew compliment, executive and scientific staff, application of—"

  Thorne slapped the papers against the tall admiral's chest and scowled. "Oh, I don't need to see all that. Just tell me we have an armada ready to blockade Atlantis if necessary."

  "Oh," Terrace nodded, looking more like a chastised little boy than an Imperial fleet admiral. "Oh, yes, yes. Twenty-one ships, sir, from four corporations, all ship-shape and ready."

  "Go
od."

  "We're set to launch within the time window."

  "Excellent. And the submersibles?" Terrace held up the wrinkled papers and read, "Yes, sir. Two of them. The Stravitskov and the Republic."

  "And they can go that deep?"

  "The Stravitskov is rated for 3,000 fathoms, sir, the Republic for 4,000."

  Thorne smiled. "Good. That's good, right?"

  Terrace nodded. "Well, sir, according to geodetic surveys we pulled from Landry Holdings through our thinking machine, the site is in excess of 3,500 fathoms. It'll be tight for both, nearly impossible for the Stravitskov, which I plan to have on hand for assist—"

  Thorne raised a silencing hand. "That'll do, Admiral. Just make sure I'll have accommodations aboard your flagship."

  The admiral nodded. "Aye, sir."

  "Dismissed," Thorne said with a yawn and an idle wave.

  The admiral clicked his heels, parked his enormous Napoleonic hat on his head, spun, and exited the conference room.

  Thorne turned to Wolfe just as his partner was waking from his post-newspaper nap. "Landry can't change his mind now, Nigel. The whole Imperial navy will be protecting our latest acquisition."

  "Indeed, Bradford," Nigel Wolfe yawned.

  Thorne started to speak again but the intercom on the conference table buzzed. He walked over to it and snapped the toggle switch. "Yes, Miss Norris?"

  "Mr. Thorne, there is a Mr. Grubbs to see you."

  Thorne grinned widely and raised an eyebrow to Wolfe. "See? And now we'll find out all we need to know about this mystery woman." To the com speaker, he said, "Send him in. Immediately."

  "Yes sir."

  A moment later, Perek Grubbs entered the conference room, his black velvet suit shushing quietly with each step as he pulled leather gloves over his hands. Grubbs smiled and nodded to both of his former bosses. "Good morning, gentlemen."

  Wolfe's eyes widened and Thorne's eyebrows crawled half the distance to this hairline. His handlebar mustache twitched. "Well, well, well, look who we have here, Mr. Dasher VonDashing." Thorne clapped his hands twice, applauding the entrance mockingly, before lowering his hands and scowling with irritation. "I sincerely hope your trip to Philadelphia wasn't just to stop at the finer men's tailors in the city."

  Grubbs pulled out a chair near the end of the conference table, sat down and kicked his feet up on the shiny surface. "Not at all, Bradford." He nodded to the other partner in the room. "Nigel."

  Thorne's normally-pasty pallor deepened to crimson. A huff of air escaped his nostrils as he turned and marched toward a desk near the corner by the two corporate thrones. As he moved to the desk and pulled open a drawer, he said, "I don't find this amusing, Perek. Not in the least." He pulled a long-barreled chrome revolver from the center drawer and checked to see that it was loaded. "And you know full well I'm not used to being spoken to in that manner by an underling. I've killed employees for less."

  "Quite right," Grubbs grinned, "And forgive me for not re-introducing myself."

  Thorne slowly walked back to where Grubbs sat, his arms folded and the enormous chrome pistol tucked under his armpit. Nigel Wolfe's forehead dotted with beads of sweat. He reached into his vest pocket and produced a pair of earplugs which he crammed into each ear.

  Thorne said, "I'm listening, Grubbs, and frustration is building."

  Grubbs stretched and crossed his legs atop the table at the ankle, flicked out his cuffs and tucked his hands behind his head, leaning the chair back on two legs. "The name is Vice President Perek Grubbs of Hearse & Grubbs... Incorporated."

  Thorne's lips were tight under the handlebar beneath his nose. He breathed loudly through flared nostrils and sharpened his gaze. After a long pause, he spoke, choosing to forget Perek's introduction. "What do you have for me on the woman with Bryce Landry?"

  Grubbs shrugged one shoulder disinterestedly and inspected his manicure. "Well, that kind of information will cost you, Brad. My employer—my new employer—sent me to negotiate a deal on the information."

  "And who is this new employer," Thorne said quickly, sneering.

  "His name is Teivel Hearse. And soon, he and I will own Thorne & Wolfe. Imperial business holdings are too weak separated from each other. Mr. Hearse suggests massive mergers across the country. I promise to keep you on as my valet, Bradford, if you prom—"

  Grubbs never finished his taunt. Silver flashed in Thorne's hand as the revolver appeared and he fired two shots point-blank into Perek Grubbs' heart and one into his throat. The tall windows vibrated in their panes as the pistol roared, Grubbs toppled backward, his eyes wide with dead shock, blown out of the chair by the force of the heavy pistol.

  Thorne turned to Wolfe and sneered. "He was building frustration, Nigel. You know how I hate that!"

  Wolfe pulled the plugs from his ears and frowned. "He was a good man, Bradford. A shame. Though really quite unstable this morning."

  "Indeed." Thorne set the pistol on the shiny table surface and picked up his coffee with no more thought than if he'd just let out the cat.

  "I wonder what he knew about the damsel," Wolfe wondered aloud.

  Thorne shrugged, turning to the tall window. He frowned and fisted his trembling hands. He could no longer smell the coffee, only gun smoke. His morning was ruined. "I don't care, Nigel. I'll soon have Atlantis. If there is anything to this phantom woman story, we'll soon learn it, no? I can't imagine Landry would keep the bitch secret if he thought there was anything to her. We acquire Atlantis first, then we acquire the woman."

  Nigel harrumphed and nodded. "Important thing is acquisition, Bradford, always."

  "Always."

  “I do wonder what young Grubbs was going on about, though. This Hearse? Have you heard of him?”

  Thorne puckered his mustache to one side of his face and shook his head as if irritated. “Never. Probably some Rhode Island bumpkin thinks he can match toes with me. Not on my watch.”

  "I wonder if...."

  Thorne turned to his partner as Wolfe's voice trailed off. The fat man stared, his eyes open and showing white all around his irises. He pointed past Thorne, his jowls flapping soundlessly.

  Thorne spun around in time to catch Perek Grubbs getting to his feet and dusting off his black velvet trousers.

  "Uh," Grubbs said, "This was a new suit, Bradford." When he spoke, his voice came with a raspy gargle. The torn vocal chords and esophagus flapped in his open throat as air vibrated in and out of his lungs. The bullet holes in his chest, brown with stagnant blood, wept with each breath he took.

  Thorne stumbled back a few steps, his eyes and jaw imitating his partner's as he watched the should-be-dead man lift the revolver from the table top. Grubbs smiled. "It's perfectly legal to kill a former employee, and I'm sure despite my new position you'd be able to trump up something about corporate espionage.

  "No worries." Grubbs shrugged. "You can listen to me now, right? I mean... it's important I get your full attention for my lord, Mr. Hearse."

  Thorne's jaw continued to work and he glanced around as if he'd find another weapon capable of bringing down a man who was already dead—or should be. He said, "H-How did?"

  "Calm down, Brad."

  "I-I don't—"

  Grubbs sighed and enunciated slowly, "I need you to be rational. Calm. Down. Bradford."

  "H-How did y-you—?"

  "We need to be placed in a position of impoverished fear, Brad, like I was... so you can show Lord Hearse the proper respect." Grubbs lifted the revolver and formed a straight line with his arm and pointed the gun at Nigel Wolfe. The revolver bucked in his hand as he pulled the trigger. The gun roared from the muzzle flash and Thorne watched as a black dot appeared on Wolfe's forehead, a fan of red spraying out on the chair behind him.

  Nigel Wolfe slumped dead in his chair.

  Thorne squealed and held his hands up to defend himself uselessly. A dark spot spread on the front of his trousers. "P-Perek, I—"

  Grubbs held the smoking barrel to his
lips and said, "Sssh," then he tossed the gun to Thorne who caught it, whimpering, in trembling hands.

  Grubbs held up his leather gloved hands. "Like I said, it's legal to kill me—which you have." He nodded to Wolfe's corpse. "But your partner?" He made a tisking sound behind his teeth. "Fingerprints, Brad... I guess frustration builds." Grubbs repeated the "tisk" sound before collapsing to the ground like a broken marionette.

  Dead.

  CHAPTER 19, “Alice in Wanderland”

  My neck hurt. My back throbbed. My vision was a blur of white.

  "She wakes," a soft male voice said from the white.

  I was sitting on something cold and hard, my head bent far forward as if I were slouching on a bench, my legs spread out, knees bent and feet on a cold, hard floor. As my vision began to focus, I saw my own breasts, a dark thatch of hair between my legs, bruises on my thighs and knees. I heard movement, fabric brushing, footsteps on a hard floor. In the distance, like down an unseen hall, I heard machinery, clanking. ...Chains?

  "Let her come back to us, slowly."

  I blinked, blinked harder, squinting against the glare of the room even with my eyes cast down at my own nakedness. "Who..?" I managed without lifting my head.

  "Oh, look! She speaks," a soft woman's voice said.

  The man replied, "Listen to her. Let's hear what she has to say."

  “She's only going to start screaming again.”

  “If that's all she has to say, I want to hear it.”

  “Nothing useful can come of this.”

  “Something useful always comes of this,” the man said, with emphasis on 'useful' and 'always'.

  My neck felt like liquid lead, my head throbbed, but I forced it upright so I could see who was talking. I gasped when I saw them, drawing a sharp breath as my eyes opened wide and I remembered the black room, the torture with the prodding electric fork. "No!"

  The pale faced man said, "Relax. You are safe."

  "Yes. Relax. You are safe."

  I screamed, "You lied to me! I'm not safe here!"

  "You are."

  "Yes. You are. Safety is relative."