Gears of a Mad God: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure

by Brent Nichols

  Chapter 6 – A Midnight Caller

  The sun was rising as Colleen and Carter let themselves into Uncle Rod's workshop. Parker and Jane were in the city hospital, with Rick and Maggie keeping watch. Carter planned to get a few hours of sleep, then go back and spell them.

  Not that it was likely necessary. The hospital was crawling with police. Victoria had to be one of the most peaceful cities in Canada. Gun violence was so rare as to seem downright bizarre, and the night's events had the local police force's undivided attention.

  The team members had claimed to know nothing. They were innocent bystanders, injured in passing when half of the Arcadia's crew had inexplicably gone berserk. The local police weren't entirely convinced, but Rick's contacts in the Canadian government would smooth things over.

  Jane wasn't seriously injured. The doctors wanted to keep her for a day. Carter had promised that when she was released, he would arrange for her to be resettled in the United States, somewhere peaceful, somewhere the cult would never find her.

  Parker's case was more serious. He was dangerously low on blood. He had undergone emergency surgery and was resting.

  Carter insisted that Colleen take Uncle Rod's cot. He already knew from their earlier search of the workshop where to find a spare blanket, and he stretched himself out on a rug.

  Colleen lay down, still wearing her filthy, bedraggled dress. She longed for a hot bath and clean clothes, but she was afraid to return to her hotel. So she stared up at the ceiling, thinking of the moment when the gun had kicked in her hand and a fellow human being had ceased to be.

  Several long minutes dragged past. Then Carter mumbled something.

  "What was that?" Colleen twisted around to look at him. "Did you say something?"

  "Oh, sorry." He looked embarrassed. "Talking to myself. Talking to Dirk, actually. Trying to apologize, not that he can hear me now. I didn't mean to, you know."

  "Didn't mean to do what?"

  "To leave him." Carter sounded surprised, as if his thoughts should be obvious. "We were always a team. We stuck by each other. He pulled me out of some pretty tight spots, let me tell you, even when it meant putting his neck on the line. I tried to do the same for him."

  He lapsed into silence. Colleen stared at him, uncertain what to say, disturbed to realize that he was just as haunted as she was.

  "He wasn't always like that. Like the man you met. All intense and wound up. He used to be a baker, can you believe it?"

  Colleen tried to imagine Smith with his arms dusty with flour, and couldn't do it.

  "He lived in Calgary. Had a little house there. I think he still owns it. Owned it, that is. I saw it once. It was a nice place. I always hoped someday he'd be able to go back, take up that life he had before."

  "What happened?"

  There was a long moment of silence, and she thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he sighed and said, "The cult happened. His wife worked at a museum in Calgary. I don't even know what she found out, if anything. But the cult thought she knew something she shouldn't. They killed four people that night, and burned the museum to the ground. After that, well, Dirk's been with us."

  He fell silent again. Then he spoke again, his voice so soft she didn't think he meant for her to hear. "Until last night. I'm sorry, pal. I never meant to let you down."

  "It's not your fault," Colleen said. The words sounded hollow to her ears. "If it's anyone's fault it's mine. I insisted we go after Jane."

  "No, we had to save the lady," he said. "You were right to remind us of that. If we hadn't, it would have been harder to live with than, than this."

  Colleen closed her eyes and saw, for the thousandth time, the face of the woman on the running board an instant before the gun went off. Now, there was someone who could be blamed. Someone who had taken up a gun and set out to do kidnapping, torture, and murder.

  "It's not my fault," Colleen whispered. "You made it happen. You took Jane, you hurt her, you came after us. You made me do it." It sounded like an excuse, and her conscience wasn't satisfied.

  She spent a rotten morning staring at the ceiling, dozing off, having nightmares, and coming awake with a start. Finally she and Carter admitted they weren't going to get any more sleep and set out for downtown.

  She made him stand guard in her room while she bathed and changed. Then they went to the Empress Hotel and she sat in his room while he cleaned up. Smith's room was next door. All of his stuff would be there. The last time she'd been in this room, he'd been sitting in the chair she now occupied. The thought made her melancholy. Despite her exhaustion she was only too happy to get up and leave when Carter stepped out of the bathroom.

  They stopped in the lobby, where Carter explained that Mr. Smith in 306 had been suddenly called away on business, but a Mr. Richard Dalglish would be taking the room. A Miss Margaret Nelson would be requiring a room as well. Carter paid for the rooms, then left with Colleen for the hospital.

  They found a policeman in the corridor outside of Parker's room, and Chris nodding in a chair inside. He stood, yawning and stretching, as Carter told him about the hotel room. He left, still yawning, and Carter sank into the chair.

  Parker was sleeping. His face was pale, but he didn't look too bad. Colleen tucked the blankets around him and went out into the hall.

  Another police officer was on guard a little way down the hall. He nodded as she stepped past him into Jane's room.

  Jane had sticking plaster on four different places on her face. Her bruises had darkened, and her lips and cheek had puffed up. Overall she looked much worse, but she smiled when she saw Colleen.

  Colleen looked around the room. "Where's Maggie?"

  "She left when the policeman outside made it clear he wasn't going anywhere. It's all right. There's police all over the place. I'm perfectly safe for now." Her face went somber. "After that, well, I'm going to be leaving Victoria. Leaving Canada completely, in fact."

  "I heard," said Colleen.

  Jane shrugged. "The only thing really keeping me here was Rod. And he's gone now. Even without everything else that's happened, I might have left, just to escape the memories." She shook her head. "Poor Rod. I miss him so much."

  Colleen nodded. Her uncle had left a bigger gap in her life than she ever would have expected.

  "It's over, I guess," said Jane. "This whole nightmare."

  "I guess it is," said Colleen.

  "Thank you for coming to get me. The others said you were the one who made them come. You made them save me."

  Colleen blushed and looked at the floor. "Well, you kept helping me."

  "Oh, posh. You got me off of that horrible ship, and I'll never forget it. I don't know where I'll end up, but wherever it is, you'll always be welcome. You're my family now. I mean it."

  Colleen stared at the other woman, speechless, and Jane grinned. "Now, don't get all teary on me. You'll spoil your macho hero image."

  Colleen left the hospital room feeling better than she had in quite some time. The nightmare really was over. She was going to catch the next ferry to the mainland and head immediately for Toronto. There, she would be spending time with Roland. It was time she thought about building a family of her own, a real family. A life with Roland, far away from mad cults and murderous plots.

  She said her goodbyes to Carter and left the hospital, feeling optimistic. Uncle Rod's house wouldn't be worth much, but it would be enough to hire a lawyer to handle his estate for her. Lawyers did that, didn’t they? She doubted he owned the warehouse that contained his workshop. Well, the lawyer could figure that out, and take care of whatever needed doing.

  The streets of Victoria, sunlit and bustling, made the dark machinations of the cult seem distant. With police swarming all over the Arcadia, the cult's members dead or scattered, and witnesses all around, the danger was clearly over. Colleen walked through downtown, unescorted and u
nafraid. She would feel even safer once she got back to Toronto. First, there was business to take care of.

  She spoke to a glib lawyer at a firm called Thorpe and Thorpe, pored over a fat contract, and signed it. Everything would be left in the firm's capable hands. She would go home and wait for a cheque.

  She went back to her hotel room and sat on the bed. The next ferry left Victoria the following day, at nine in the morning. She would have dinner, get a good night's sleep, and leave early for the ferry port. She glanced at her pillow. It looked marvellously soft, and she was so exhausted she could barely sit up. Perhaps lying down wouldn't be a bad idea, she decided. Just for a minute or two, until the worst of this weariness passed. It wouldn't do to fall asleep.

  Sleep, of course, took her almost immediately. She dreamed of Toronto, of Jane, of the woman on the running board. Once again Colleen stretched out her arm, pointing the gun, her finger tightened on the trigger. The woman looked up, and it was Smith's face she saw in the last split second before the gun went off.

  Her eyes flew open. The room was dark, and her stomach rumbled loudly. She wondered if she would still be able to find something to eat. In the hotel, ideally. The idea of walking the streets of Victoria after dark didn't hold much appeal.

  Her stomach felt heavy, so much so that she was having trouble breathing. She tried to touch her stomach with her hands and found that her arms wouldn't move. She looked down at her body. It was obscured by a dark shape. In the blackness of the room she couldn't figure out what she was seeing. Then the mattress creaked and teeth gleamed above her in a smile.

  She screamed, and a hand closed over her mouth, silencing her in an instant. A smell filled her nose, sweat and sawdust and grease, and she knew it was Jimbo before he spoke. His voice was a coarse whisper.

  "Where is Tanathos?"

  She flailed, kicked her feet, sucked in desperate breaths through her nose and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a muted whimper. He was straddling her, his knees on either side of her rib cage, pinning her arms. She drummed her knees against his back, thrashed from side to side, and he pinched her nostrils shut.

  She panicked, thrashing frantically, and he leaned in close and hissed, "Stop it!" He released her nose long enough for her to take in a single breath, and pinched off her air again. "Stop it," he repeated, and Colleen forced herself to lie still. He let go of her nostrils and she concentrated on drawing one desperate breath after another.

  "I just need the map," he said. "Tell me where it is and I'll leave you alone. I'm going to uncover your mouth. If you scream, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Will you tell me where Tanathos is?"

  She nodded again.

  "Will you scream?"

  She shook her head.

  "Good girl." He lifted his hand and Colleen let out a piercing shriek. His hand slammed down, cutting her off in mid-cry, and he pinched her nostrils shut again. She kicked and thrashed, knowing it was hopeless, staring at the dark outline of his head as swirling spots of light began to dance across her vision.

  The door crashed open. The gleam of Jimbo's teeth disappeared as he turned his head. Then the weight came off of her, she could move her arms, she could breathe!

  She sprang from the bed, stumbled to the door, and flicked on the lights. Two men were rolling on the floor beside her bed. She could see Jimbo's greasy hair and familiar red coat, and she scanned the room for a weapon. Her eyes fell on a bedside lamp, but it seemed too flimsy.

  She picked up the entire bedside table instead. It was a sturdy piece of furniture, and she grunted at the weight as she hoisted it over her head. The two men rolled back and forth, hammering each other with their fists. Then Jimbo slammed down his elbow, the other man cried out, and Jimbo rolled on top of him.

  Colleen swung the table with all of her strength, slamming it down on Jimbo's skull. He flopped forward. She hoisted the table high again and stood trembling, but Jimbo didn't move.

  The man underneath put a hand on Jimbo's shoulder and shoved him aside, and Colleen, afraid she was dreaming, tossed the table onto the bed and dropped to her knees. "Roland!" she cried, and threw her arms around him. "Oh, my God, Roland! Is it really you?"

  It was hours later before the last policeman left. Jimbo was taken away in an ambulance, his skull fractured, his survival in question. Colleen was surprised to find herself fervently hoping that he died. He had chosen his path, and the world would undoubtedly be better off without him.

  Roland's nose bled for more than an hour, but didn't seem to be broken. The police finally accepted their story that she had been attacked by a prowler for reasons unknown, and left. Roland wedged a chair under the doorknob and they lay down on the bed, fully dressed. She put her head on his shoulder. His arms went around her, and she clung to him, wanting never to let go.

  "I want you to come back to Toronto with me tomorrow."

  "Yes, Roland."

  "Having you so far away, worrying about you, and now nearly losing you... I don't ever want to lose you, Colleen."

  She smiled and squeezed him tighter.

  "I think we should get married," he said, and she answered with another squeeze.

  "There will have to be some changes," he told her, and she nodded against his shoulder.

  "Whatever you want."

  "No more workshop," he said sternly. "No more tools. I want you to stay at home and raise our children. I think we should have lots of children, don't you?"

  "I think that sounds wonderful," she told him, and drifted off to sleep.