Spectre of War

by Kin S. Law

  “Thank you,” Hargreaves managed, though she would have preferred a quiet meal and a soft bed to the drama. Her nerves were strained from imagined plots and actual danger.

  “That was Wilford Appleby, one of Appleton’s fallen sons. We take care of our own,” Howard said, as he nursed a cup of black coffee. His knuckles, perched on long craftsman’s fingers, were flushed red where he had decked Appleby.

  “What happened to him?” Hargreaves asked, curious despite herself.

  “In life? Failed in the city, slunk back to Appleton with just the clothes on his back. It’s a common enough story. Jill, the waitress over there, tried her luck as an actress,” Herbert said, wincing as he shook out his hand. A heavy, paper-wrapped cylinder fell from it with a thunk. “Just now? I was palming a roll of quarters.”

  Hargreaves laughed. Her food arrived then, a sad, limp bovine corpse on soggy bread and wilted salad greens. She was reasonably sure she had seen the chef take the patty out of a can before slapping it onto a grill. The chips were suitably greasy, but cut too small. The apple pie, however, was spectacular, and she was told it was on the house.

  “I was under the impression America was a land of plenty, rich with industry, ingenuity and the fat of the land,” said Hargreaves. “But there were an awful lot of people like Mister Appleby, coming up from New York. I hope you do not mind my saying so, but the reality falls short of the dream.”

  Hargreaves had passed shuttered houses and people destitute, living out of their still-warm jalopies. She had parked Alphonse by lots full of clacking boilers, with the windows blocked out by belongings, not yards from centers advertising the latest in clockworked home conveniences. As an enforcer of the law, she wondered where the destitute could turn if a woman amongst them fell prey to abusers. She wondered how many amongst them could afford to eat.

  Howard glanced amusedly at Hargreaves’ table manners. At a nearby table, another diner was holding his burger with both hands, tucking in with a bloody gusto. Hargreaves snorted, and continued her surgery.

  “Do not forget: we are a nation built by people leaving the old world. We’re stubbornly independent,” said Howard. He looked toward the street where he had just thrown out poor Mr. Appleby. “Even when we are demonstrably sick.”

  Hargreaves suddenly felt like a right git.

  “The coffee, at least, is strong,” Hargreaves said.

  “If you need to stay awake this evening, there’s Miracle Drop at the fountain,” said Howard. Where he looked, Hargreaves saw no statues or vaulted sprays of water, only the row of vile-smelling faucets.

  “Miracle Drop?” asked Hargreaves.

  “Maybe it is the old country that is backward, if you’ve not heard of pop. Here, I’ll order us some,” Howard said.

  Hargreaves did, in fact, know of pop. She was accustomed to a lovely amaretto fizz in summer, at her favorite Italian café in Leicester Square. Sometimes she would treat herself to a dish of strawberries, inexpensive in season and matched with the nuttiness of the drink.

  What the waitress brought roiling and whizzing to the table did not much smell like pop. In fact, Hargreaves rather fancied she saw the spilled droplets eating through the façade of the table.

  “This is Miracle Drop,” Howard declared, inserting a straw and drinking, to Hargreaves’ horror.

  “What does it taste like?”

  “Err…red, I think.”

  “That is not touching my lips,” Hargreaves declared. The stuff gave a protesting sort of gurgle, like mad science gone sentient.

  “Amazing what our ateliers can do. The trains bring the raw material, and the contraptions turn it into a beverage on the spot. And for a fraction of the cost we used to pay for tonics,” said Howard.

  “Cost that was paid for brewers and vintners. Jobs Mr. Appleby might have done,” said Hargreaves. “There’s value in the human touch.”

  “But where’s the money in it?” Howard said. He took another sip, before shrugging. “Somebody has to make a profit. And Appleby wouldn’t take the work. He used to be a millionaire.”

  Hargreaves shook her head, speechless. It seemed beneath the fizzing red glitz of this nation, something was subtly rotting away. But she was one to talk—her own government was contemplating using disease as a weapon.

  ***

  After the inexcusable dinner, Howard was the perfect gentleman, taking the time to lead her to a respectable boarding house in the center of the town. The signboard outside showed a merry sort of worm coming out of an apple and the words “Early Bird Bed and Breakfast” woodworked in cheerful copperplate. The worm was on a cam and a spring, so it poked its head out at certain intervals. The sign was nearly invisible in the dim light of a gas streetlamp, the only one on the street.

  Howard insisted on helping Hargreaves check in with the elderly owners, who greeted Howard on sight. They looked identical, gray-haired and pearly, like a pair of matching porcelain dolls.

  “Room 2D,” said the elderly woman, the front desk half of the pair. Howard took the key and passed it to Hargreaves. “And the husband can take care of your luggage.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly,” said Hargreaves. The elderly man looked hale enough, but Hargreaves had a deceptively heavy assortment of small arms and incendiaries in her carpetbag. The sparker alone would have caused a significant uproar. She struggled for a white lie.

  “There are some delicate samples I can entrust to no other. In fact, once I purchase some coal for my engine tomorrow, I must get going.”

  “Didn’t you come in on the bus?” Howard remarked.

  “Yes. The driver found me waylaid on the side of the road, and was kind enough to offer me a ride,” she lied. Howard nodded.

  “A shame. Howard talks to so few women, let alone a nice young lady. All the nice ladies are gone,” the elderly woman said, writing in the hotel’s thick, mostly blank registry.

  “Gone?”

  “To the city, I imagine. Here one day, and not the next.”

  “And which city is that?” said Hargreaves, both flushed and endeared to the lady’s remark.

  “Why, New York City, of course. No other.”

  “Esther, Miss Hargreaves, I believe I will bid you a good night,” said Howard. He tipped his hat as he went.

  “See? A right gentleman. Although one does wonder what he gets up to, with no wife in the house,” said Esther. Hargreaves blushed, as Esther looked at her pointedly. But eventually Hargreaves secured the room key and climbed the stairs to a small room, one of four on that floor. Curiously, the hall kept going for another few meters, and Hargreaves thought perhaps the other rooms had quite luxurious floorplans.

  As soon as Hargreaves found her room, she quietly closed the door and fussed about, picking her heavy bag up and putting it down in different places. When she was sure Howard had gone, she went downstairs again and approached the front desk.

  “Why, the room is delightful, just delightful, but I’m driving several hours in the morning, and I’d sooner not look on the road while I’m resting,” Hargreaves explained as the innkeeper nodded empathically.

  “Those dreadful engines! With their racket and soot. I understand, dearie. Here you go.” Esther smiled as she handed Hargreaves another key. It opened room 2B, directly opposite her current room.

  Hargreaves regarded such practices as second nature. Though idyllic Appleton had its charms, she had not forgotten she was being pursued. So she braced the door with the vanity chair, and confirmed she could climb out of the window if necessary.

  Then she sighed, loosed her golden tresses, and settled into the quilted comforter with a depressed sort of poof. She wondered when she had even begun to have these habits. Was it when she became an agent of the Queen? When the pips had landed on her shoulder, making her a plainclothes inspector? Hargreaves suspected it was even further back than that, but before she could go there her mind drew a veil of sleep over the waking world.

  Half an hour later, she was suddenly awak
ened by the sound of a floorboard creaking. Through the fog of sleep, she slowly worked out the sound was coming from the hallway just outside her door.

  “Likely the innkeep’s,” Hargreaves thought. “Or a resident out to the loo.” Nevertheless, she got out of bed, still fully dressed, and extracted her 9mm Browning from the carpetbag. She tucked the Browning into the band of her skirt and drew the Bowie knife. Then she looked through her peephole. The moon in the hall window was bright enough, and she didn’t bother with the room’s gas lamp.

  Howard? thought Hargreaves. Kneeling at the keyhole of 2D, her savior was stealthily but vigorously picking the lock. She wouldn’t have thought the pleasant man such a deviant, but there he was, kneeling in his well-starched trousers, intent on assaulting her in her boudoir. Hargreaves huffed. She might have stayed in the room if she’d known there would be an opportunity to thoroughly thrash a sexual predator.

  The door to 2D swung open, and she saw the shadow of Howard go into the room. Her view was blocked by the edge of the peephole, but she heard the footsteps. With the full intention of confronting the dastard, she slipped open the door to 2B.

  The blow was stealth itself, but the hard object across her temples hurt no less than if she had seen it coming. Her knife fell quietly to the rug in the hall. It would have been melodrama to faint straight away, but Hargreaves was no fragile blossom. She whirled round, her head stinging abominably, to see the vicious Howard somehow wedged into a blind spot behind a delightful bureau. His eyes were wide, the skin flush and wet, the lips open to reveal perfectly white, straight teeth. He had a knife, too, a long, thin switch that sprang cheerfully into the moonlight.

  Hargreaves waited for Howard to lunge, before stepping aside and putting her knee into his abdomen. The knife snickered back across in a vicious slash, and the inspector’s training took over. She grabbed the knife hand in a Roman handshake along the wrist, and struck at the heel, bending the arc into Howard’s chest.

  “Gahh…” said Howard, wheezing through a new and unnatural aperture.

  Hargreaves took a step back, expecting blood, only to bite her lip as the head came up and clobbered her clean under the jaw. Her last sight was of the ceiling, and the empty hallway behind her, before her crown came down on something hard.

  When the stars had faded from her eyes, she saw Howard stumble down the hall. When she followed, she found a dead end—and a secret door that had not been properly shut, leaving a hair’s breadth of opening and a bit of a draft.

  Wondrous. Hargreaves sighed. She had been in Appleton a day, and already the ghosts of this small town west of all she knew were swirling around her ankles, begging to be exorcised. She drew her Browning.

  Time to get to work, Inspector.

  Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of OF STATIONS INFERNAL available now.

  Don’t miss Lands Beyond with book 3, OF STATIONS INFERNAL and discover more from Kin S. Law across social media.

  In the wilds of America, Vanessa Hargreaves finds herself up to her corset in trouble.

  Her investigation stymied by monstrous horrors, the Inspector continues to carry the deadly Cook plague away from villains unknown. Traveling with her automata Alphonse, she doesn't know can't tell if she's running from the steaming, lurching giants at her heels or her guilt at putting her loved ones in danger. From deadly circus side shows to a ghostly train that seems to have a life of its own, the very land of the new world seems to be attempting to thwart her at every turn.

  The American heartland is rife with strange, wondrous, dangerous oddities of its own, challenging her convictions and her very service to her Queen. Loyalties and regrets will become the least of her worries as titanic forces are mustering, from ghost trains to air pirates, to bring her great American adventure to an untimely end.

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  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have been possible without my beta readers, the encouragement of my family, and the City Owl team.

  About the Author

  KIN S. LAW is a Chinese-American author who looks to include diversity, representation, and truth in his steampunk. Instead of a historical fiction where one event has changed things, his worlds represent what could have been, what should be, and what always was. He draws from a life lived in multiple cultures, but always with a love for everything weird and geeky.

  voxvorago.tumblr.com

  About the Publisher

  City Owl Press is a cutting edge indie publishing company, bringing the world of romance and speculative fiction to discerning readers.

  www.cityowlpress.com

  Additional Titles

  FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS

  By: Kin S. Law

  A steampunk romp featuring an unorthodox, multi-cultural pirate Captain!

  SPECTRE OF WAR

  By: Kin S. Law

  A third Victoria has ascended the throne of a steam-driven country where enormous clockwork giants walk the streets.

  OF STATIONS INFERNAL

  By: Kin S. Law

  In the wilds of America, Vanessa Hargreaves finds herself up to her corset in trouble.

  BLOOD AND MAGIC

  By: Melissa Sercia

  Gray is a Dhampir—a woman alive, but also dead. With supernatural powers and an insatiable need for blood, her existence is cursed.

  FLESH AND BONE

  By: Melissa Sercia

  Gray’s dark magic has grown stronger and threatens to consume her. But when her partner Aldric mysteriously disappears, she must rely on her powers to find him.

  GODS AND DEMONS

  By: Melissa Sercia

  Will Gray send the demons back to the Underworld or watch her world burn to the ground?

  BOHERMORE

  By: Jennifer Rose McMahon

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  When your dreams become reality, being cursed can be a real nightmare.

  INISH CLARE

  By: Jennifer Rose McMahon

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  When your dreams become reality, hidden secrets come to light.

  BALLYCROY

  By: Jennifer Rose McMahon

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  When your dreams become reality, the legends become truth.

  DIVIDED

  By: Sharon M. Johnston

  A new heart should mean new life, instead it’s a living nightmare.

  SHATTERED

  By: Sharon M. Johnston

  Healing a battered heart will risk her last link to humanity.

  FROSTBITE

  By: Joshua Bader

  Getting hired to be a personal wizard for a billionaire may just become a death sentence.

  TWO WIZARD ROULETTE

  By: Joshua Bader

  While working as a personal wizard for a billionaire, the stakes have never been higher.

  FACELESS

  By: Joshua Bader

  The Race is on to Save Colin and Bring Him Back from the Beyond.

  MAD GOD WALKING

  By: Connor Drexler

  A stranger on earth and a refugee from a twisted Sideways world, can Damon save his friends
before he turns into the Mad God the Inquisition believes him to be?

  MIXED IN

  By: Catherine Haustein

  When passions are regulated, which laws will you break?

  MUD

  By: E. J. Wenstrom

  Torn apart by war and abandoned by the gods, only one hope remains to save humanity. But the savior isn’t human at all.

  Royal Palm Literary Award for Book of the Year and First Place for Fantasy.

  RAIN

  By: E. J. Wenstrom

  After Nia’s father dies from a mysterious illness, she grows in isolation amidst the fear and suspicion from her village.

  Prequel novella of Chronicles of the Third Realm War.

  TIDES

  By: E. J. Wenstrom

  Rona didn't ask to be brought back from the Underworld, and now that she is alive again, she’s angry enough to raise hell.

  PURGATORY’S ANGEL

  By: B. Hughes-Millman

  We all have a dark side where inner demons roam. When devils of our nightmares murder in their sleep, only she can stop them.