by Kin S. Law
“‘This is a church,’ she said.
“‘No—this is something else,’ Chantilly corrected. She pointed to the rooms along the flying buttresses, each one reinforced with steel bones and concrete.
“‘It may once have been a church. Now it is an abomination,’ the Sister said, bitterly. ‘There is something of great value in this room here. I need you to steal it.’
“Though the Sister would not give us any more information than we needed, she had planned the heist to meticulous detail. Nessie and Chantilly were to infiltrate the building, posing as mother and daughter, and charm the authority there to a private interview. Apparently a lecher and predator of children, he would no doubt want to get Nessie alone, giving Chantilly the time to scour his rooms for a most essential key.
“Johnny Bracken, Sister Anna Marie, and I would storm the inner sanctum through an external storm drain. There would likely be guards, which we would readily dispatch. The meeting point was in one of the cellars. Nessie would hand off the key. Then the three of us would enter the hall of reinforced rooms, entering a certain one and liberating a certain item.
“The Sister was awfully insistent about telling us nothing.
“We did not question the Sister overmuch. For one thing, she had a third of the payment ready to hand in Spanish galleons. Full faith and credit, hah. For another, the job seemed easy. All of us knew the building in question. The church of St. Francis was an imposing building but full of pleasantly bleating sheep. I can assure you, we were all thinking the same thing—that Sister Anna was full of it, and we could make off with the loot all for our own. We separated jauntily, the best of friends, our money rattling in our pockets.
“Perhaps because of some religious piety on the part of Bracken or some feminine feeling from the rest of us, we all showed up at the rendezvous with time to spare. In a job like this one, you would expect one or two hitches, maybe one of the players not showing up, but from the beginning it went smoother than silk.
“Bracken, the Sister, and I headed toward a tidal access, under the disused seafaring port. The official tunnels dead-ended a mile in, but a deep fissure in the wall led us into a maze of catacombs. There were signs of regular activity, stone surfaces scrubbed clean of dust and scored in regular lines. Despite the guide, I spied Bracken marking off the path with tiny arrows. He didn’t trust anybody, not even someone devoted to God. It was smart.
“I kept a steady hand on my torch, and another on my stiletto, and so when we ran into the guard it was a simple matter of holding the mouth firmly while running the blade, covered in sleeping tincture, across the thigh. He was a slight man, short enough for me to grab. The panicked throbbing of his heart pushed the sleeping draught through, downing the man in an instant. It was dark, and I didn’t think too much of it.
“‘I would have just killed him. Kinder,’ Bracken said, flipping his Bowie knife through the torchlight. I felt his gaze crawl along my shadowed backside. Disgusting, yet he had a point. These tunnels were dark, branching left and right. The guard would wake, befuddled and full of visions from the drug. If he had friends down here, they’d be chasing us in a labyrinth we could not know. The walls we passed were damp stone, from the tide. We would drown if we dwelt too long.
“Sister Anna seemed anxious to go on. We left the guard and continued, soon reaching a wall of brick, not stone. Turn-offs split every which way. If she hadn’t known the way so well, we might still be wandering down there.
“A wood pallet leaned against the stone, but once removed, proved to be hiding an open doorway. It had been the wall to a cellar stuffed full of bottles and wheels of cheese aging on boards. A cunning secret door. Sister Anna took out a pocket watch, and counted down the minutes. Ten minutes past time, the door to the cellar creaked open, and the gaslight came on. A disheveled Chantilly and pristine Nessie Drake appeared on the stair.
“‘The vicar was on sabbatical. This one likes them on the altar,’ Chantilly said, still adjusting her bustle. ‘Quite vigorous, for a man with a cane.’
“‘I lifted the key,’ Nessie said, her face screwed up in disgust. She held up a strong iron key the length of her arm.
“Sister Anna breathed a sigh of relief through tight lips, a sign Nessie and I caught even if nobody else did. This was a fortunate turn of events? If Nessie had wanted, she would have just knocked the vicar out.
“We entered the fortified corridors we had seen on the map, just off the cellar. The walls were old, made of mortared stone, and there was a burnt powder smell in the air from some building engine grinding stone to dust. We passed closed door after closed door, heavy old bronze with frames dug into the rock. There was a guard in a nook just inside a turning passageway. Bracken kicked him in the sternum and stove his face in. He hadn’t even the chance to come into the light.
“We stopped before one of the doors, a bronze sheet like any other, tarnished a layered gray. There was a meal slot in the bottom, and an elaborate keyhole. The long iron key slipped in up to the ring, and turned with considerable effort. Things clicked inside, like a thousand scurrying beetles, and the door opened like a jaw, two halves sliding away from a middle seam, gaping up and down.
“‘Is this a safe?’ Chantilly asked, tucking the last strands of her hair in place. ‘Whatever’s inside must be valuable.’
“‘Hamish!’ Sister Anna cried, and rushed into the room. Inside, there was a washbasin, a drain, and not much else, save a small boy in brown rags that the Sister clutched to her breast. His ribs stuck out from his chest, and when we tried to stand him up, he crumpled like a paper doll.
“I’m sure you’ve guessed by now what we were really there to steal, though it didn’t matter much to those of us gathered—so long as we were paid. We did feel right pleased with ourselves watching the Sister cradle the slip of a boy in her arms, though. As we wound our way back to the cellar, the Sister admitted to us her dreadful sin: that of having copulated with one of the priests, a Father Michael with kind eyes. She had been fifteen.
“‘He took him. My child. Claimed he was the fruit of the devil, an unholy union, and he kept him from me for five long years. I stayed in the church long enough to find out where he was being kept,’ the Sister said. ‘At the same time I discovered these plans in Father Michael’s offices, I found a hoard of Spanish galleons in the foundations of the wedding chapel. All of this used to be a pirate bay, you know. They ran the gold in crab barrels.’
“‘You are one brave sister,’ Chantilly said.
“‘All mothers are,’ Bracken said.
“‘Get us away from this place, and the galleons are all yours,’ the Sister said.
“The child, Hamish, lay an unmoving bundle in her arms, though he occasionally blinked at us.
“‘But why all of this?’ Nessie Drake wondered, turning so the corridor spun like a carousel. ‘Are there children in all these rooms?’
“She spun, fitting the key into the nearest door.
“‘No!’ the Sister cried, plucking the key from her fingers. She did not offer any explanation, nor did she look capable. All of a sudden she looked no more than a child herself.
“‘Something fishy is going on here,’ Nessie said. That was when everything went to hell.”
Rosa took a deep breath. Hargreaves refilled the tea, and stoked the fire silently. They moved the chairs closer to the fire, their armrests touching.
Eventually, Rosa spoke again.
“The halls filled with the worst sound a brigand could hear: the piercing drone of alarum. It nearly drowned out the chittering of all the doors unlocking, each one getting ready to open.
“‘Are they going to go so far to protect one child?’ Chantilly screamed over the din. ‘I’m getting out of here!’
“We took off with Chantilly in the lead, dashing down corridors filled with the groan of opening doors, clashing with the shrill throb of the alarum. We could see the shapes of children, none older than ten or so, stumbling out of the openings, g
roggy or disoriented. Chantilly nearly ran headlong into a figure in priests’ clothes, a greybeard full in the paunch but fierce, with a gray carven face.
“The father’s eyes were anything but kind. He had a look to him, a terrible look… of sadness, and betrayal, but also a sort of furious madness. We paid him little mind. He was old, old enough to be Sister Anna’s grandfather, not enough of a threat to bother with. That alone ought to have tipped us off. Sister Anna called to him, by name, but we just pulled her along, shoving him aside as we bolted for the exit.
“He said nothing. He lifted a sort of whistle, a plain whistle like any schoolchild might have. He blew on it, two blasts, and all the children screamed, holding their heads in pain.
“I never found out why they were all down there. None of us did. We just knew when Father Michael stopped blowing, they weren’t children any more. They were beasts, animals. Their eyes practically glowed with malice, their mouths drooled, and there was a bitter smell as if their soft skin dripped with hate. They surrounded us.
“The closest of them lunged for Johnny Bracken and gave him his scar, the ragged one across his collarbone. The silly man was reluctant even to punch the child gnawing on his shoulder. It was strange seeing the coarse thug suddenly hesitant, even kind. Then we saw bone and Bracken tossed the little body aside like a sack of potatoes, child or no.
“Chantilly tore her bustle, using it to blindside their heads before they could bite into her thighs. Nessie was about their height, but she was smart, she turned and pretended to attack me, all the while shoving us down the hallway instead. When I turned to take Sister Anna with us…She tried to bite my face off.
“She was one of them. Father Michael must have done whatever he’d done to the children to her when she was in his care. The horrors in that rotten place ran deeper than any of us could guess.
“Sister Anna dragged us back into the throng. That was when I stopped seeing them as children, but as simply things that had come out of the darkness, scenting for prey. There was nothing we could do but fight back, and we weren’t so grown up to feel for them like they were our own progeny. To us, they were simply attackers, not cute, not helpless. We lashed out with Nessie’s sharp fingertip claws and my knives, taking an emaciated limb here, a grubby hand there. There wasn’t a lot of blood in them, but soon the floor was slick with it, the air copper with the steam. It was a wonder we got out at all.
“I reached out through the slaughter, snagging Father Michael’s collar. Something came away in my hands, and I realized I was holding his whistle, the whistle that started all this madness. Without thinking about it I blew, hard, the slimy texture of fresh gore staining my lips. Immediately the children, and Anna, and even Hamish the wretched child, scrabbling for murder with stubby fingers, they let loose a bloodcurdling howl. When I stopped, their murderous eyes fixated on us once again, so I did not stop. I drew one enormous, deep breath and I blew, hard.
“We backed up, four cutthroat robbers bleeding at a dozen places. We scurried back, back into the tunnels. I blew until my breath gave out. When they started emerging from the black tunnel mouths I took another, and blew again, and again, until the children’s eyes bugged out, their faces ran red, and the nearest one turned and began to bang his head against the wall. Even then, there could be no stopping. We kept retreating, my heaving chest putting forth blast after blast of the diabolic whistle. Somebody, I think Chantilly, wet themselves, and that byzantine hell stank more than a charnel house.
“In the end they tore themselves to pieces trying to get at the sound in their heads, until there was no need to run any longer. Then we followed Bracken’s chalk traces to get out of the tunnels.
Rosa stopped, tears beginning to slowly well in the corners of her eyes. She sat silently for a moment, allowing them to fall.
“Nessie, of course, delighted in the macabre of what we did. It bought into her counterculture, her stupid anti-establishment rhetoric, making it seem like we eviscerated the rotting heart out of the pristine body of God. Some shit like that. She started telling people, exaggerating the horrible bits, like I was the one who had no compassion at all. Of course we sold it as if the Sister had set a trap, which we cleverly clawed our way out of. They ate it up, helped build our reputation… but only as nasty and not to be fucked with. It was useful, until we split up. Then I found no captain would take me by my lonesome, no matter how much leg I showed.”
“But why? That sounds to me like a reputation any pirate would be eager to have.”
“Eager? Certainly. Proud? No. Not for a woman. The men of the world might look gruff and autocratic, but their protectiveness for children often runs deeper than ours. With Nessie around they thought I was not a threat, but without her, they compared me to Gryla. To Pierre Fouettard. To the Countess Bathory. The child-eaters out of myth.”
“Instinct. The drive to protect one’s legacy,” said Hargreaves.
“A Rose Cottage is a morgue for children, did you know? I was a child killer anywhere there were men, you see. ‘Nervous’ is a kind way of putting it. They despised me. Only Albion looked past that. He took the time to listen. He convinced me I had no other choice down under the church. Those poor babes… some no more than toddlers, really, unable to do anything but shriek and run headlong into our shins. Unbelievably, he said he had seen worse. He offered me a place on his ship. From then on I was his, and his alone.”
Rosa stopped, and the silence was filled with the dying embers of the hearth fire. She tore a piece of broken bulkhead from the Berry and threw it on the flame, smoothing the spot with her sleeve.
15
Hargreaves Rides Into the Sunset
“He’s alive,” the inspector insisted after a bit.
“Of course he’s alive,” Rosa said, as if the inspector had pointed out the sky was blue. She stepped back, straightening her skirts. “The question is where we should rendezvous.”
“I have Alphonse. We should make good time, if you still keep a sedan engine in the hold,” Hargreaves began.
“We’re not leaving the Huckleberry here,” Rosa said curtly.
Hargreaves whirled around, shocked. “Rosa, she’s shot through in a million places,” Hargreaves said. “You can’t expect her to carry us, not without water, and lift. More of those things may come upon us at any moment.”
“Lift we have, backed up in the reserves,” Rosa said. She was tapping at a row of glass tubes in a panel, half of them bubbling with some glowing blue liquid. The others were shattered or empty. “We can seal the breaches, and we’ve got a hold full of gear parts. One anchor launcher is functional. There’s a pond not far back, and we can filter the water.”
“How long? With what crew? You’ve got Auntie and Elric and Alex, and us,” Hargreaves said. “Unless you’re hiding a merry band in those skirts, it’s going to take you a week! What about the manipulator arm?”
“So it will take us a week,” Rosa insisted. Her fingers busily opened panels and unrolled foolscap schematics from the copious recesses in the bridge’s walls. “This ship is Albion’s home. We’ll drag her fat backside to water and then she’s going to look for him.”
“There are men with automata after us, Rosa! Albion stayed behind so we could do this!” Hargreaves shrieked, her voice higher than she intended. “You knew! You knew even when he stayed to confront Captain Clemens. For all his talk of profiting off this, he’s always had an eye on the greater good.”
“What greater good?” Rosa said, her voice deadly calm.
“Stopping this Cook plague from being used in war,” replied Hargreaves, but her voice was shaky, unsure. Just before the spidery automata attack, Albion had brought back news of an Ottoman incursion at the Falklands. Hargreaves was no longer sure keeping the Cook box from the queen was a choice she ought to make now, nor whether she had the right to make it. How many lives would she save, by giving up the weapon and ending the war early?
“To think of the greater good, a girl has to have a
future. Without Albion, I have no future,” Rosa said.
So there it is, Hargreaves thought. They had gone beyond games, little rivalries. Rosa was in love, and she was determined to rescue the captain, despite his noble intentions.
“All right. I’ll take Alphonse and go it alone. The least it will do is draw our pursuers off of you,” said Hargreaves. “Mind, the captain may very well be coming after me himself. He’s as reckless as you are.”
“Then I will be there for you, Vanessa. You know that.”
“Humph.”
Hargreaves strode off the bridge in a huff, half expecting a sassy quip. When she looked back, Rosa was buried in her schematics, conversing hurriedly with Blair through a speaking tube.
Hargreaves set out on Alphonse, but she wasn’t alone in her endeavor. Inside the warm, thrumming belly of Alphonse’s cockpit was a satchel of parting gifts from the crew: comestibles from Auntie’s larder, and a stock of ammunition in a cookie tin from Alex. Blair had kept Alphonse in pristine condition, his handwritten notations pasted everywhere with spirit gum.
Hargreaves had labored over what she would do, where she would go. In the captain’s quarters, she pored over his charts, devising a sensible route towards the Niagara River, where she would dispose of the Cook plague forever. Or could she? What if the queen had lied? What if there were more bodies?
There was a series of arc power manufactories on the river, with large filtering sluices and deep tunnels for running the arc cables. The power of the falls had long been in use for mills and nearby townships, and in the early 1800s the first arc generators were constructed. Unfortunately, the churning power of the falls proved too readily accessible; the company maintaining the manufactories found they could only sell the energy at dirt-cheap prices, and soon defaulted on their debts.