by Kin S. Law
“What in the Lord…” Hargreaves uttered, unable to comprehend what lay before her.
All around the edge of the clearing, the signs of the explosion caught her attention first. She had been trained to assess threat, and there was certainly a lot to assess.
It was a pressure vessel breach, she was sure. The train car nearest the engine was burning when Hargreaves left. Now it was extinguished, the walls left holed and gutted from the shrapnel like the husk of an insect. A characteristic clean smell permeated the air, like a sauna or a fresh rain, pushing out the green pine smell of the forest.
Alphonse had flown clean away, where he sprawled on his back not two yards from her. Perhaps three yards from him, the standing silhouette of Barrel’s automata gave Hargreaves a shock—until it groaned, and fell backward to reveal a pitted, scoured front. The steam had taken the paint and rust right off.
Hargreaves had seen the touch of steam before, felt it from the ’Berry’s pipes. She nearly turned to retch when the cockpit of the gear came into view, but the angle was wrong, and she could not see anything inside. She could smell it, though, just a whiff. She could imagine driving the auto, pushing to get at the box, then having the sudden shock of a thousand streams of hot vapor come through the viewing mesh like a swarm of angry wasps. The force would have scoured the flesh from bone, and the inside of the engine was surely an abattoir.
What happened next drove the unsavory thought completely from her mind.
As the automata fell, one of its arms dropped off. The other toppled backwards, and the Cook box it clutched hit the ground and cracked open over the seared ground.
Cezette’s leg wasn’t quite broken, as she tried to explain to Petunia from their perch on a nearby rock. The only thing wounded about the girl was her sense of adolescent independence.
“But dear, it is really quite horrific! We must set the bone, or something,” said Petunia. She wasn’t fainting or fanning herself, but the matron seemed anxious to help something, someone. The woman smelled of strong coffee, from the upended trolley.
For the second time in a day, Cezette found herself lifting the hem of her pinafore, showing off her souvenirs from Mordemere. She was not accustomed to thinking of the legs this way. Their viola-like trim, the subtle variation of ebon varnish, copper, and red brass had always reminded her what a beautiful gift Cid had created. In the light of the wreck, it was difficult not to think of the kobolds, and the clankers, and the terrible thing Maman had pulled her out of.
“Oh my…” Petunia finally fanned herself, and, seeing not much else to do, tied a pretty ribbon from her own parasol round the worst of the breakage. She propped the parasol itself firmly against the glare of sunset. A sound like some gigantic flatulence rolled down the tracks, turning both women to behold the deserted diner car finally catching flame.
Cezette’s good leg tapped a rhythm against the rocks, some modern number from the diner car’s gramophone. If she were whole, she would have been hot on Hargreaves’ heels.
“I hope my friend Violet Jade has found safety,” Cezette murmured in a restless way.
“Oh, but she has.”
Cezette whirled around, unable to believe her eyes; Violet Jade stood there, her silks bloodied and torn, but seemingly whole. Between the various bright hues, the tight winding of a bandage showed around her middle. Had she been injured? The winding looked tight, but the stains were old blood.
“Stand. You are coming with me.”
Cezette had never seen a sparker before, but the bright conical object in Violet’s hand was too ridiculous a threat to be anything else.
“Violet! What is the meaning of this?” demanded Cezette.
“I tried to warn you, poppet. The derailment was not supposed to happen. I had this all in my pocket, but those…those buffoons!”
“Dearie, whatever is the matter?” Petunia stepped before Cezette, and stretched out her hands, as if Violet was a child to be comforted.
“Shut it!” Violet screeched, and before anyone could stop her, a bright lance shot from her hand and into Petunia Arnold’s rather rotund middle. There was a smell like pennies in the mouth. Petunia jerked in place, glowing for a moment in a halo of lit dust motes. All her ruffles stood on end, and then Petunia Arnold fell to the ground.
“Ah. Hair trigger, what. Rather sorry about that; these things sting like the dickens.”
“Violet!” Cezette gaped in horror.
“Tranquilo! Sorry. I traveled in Spain with the caravan, picked up the jargon. Peace, peace, she is merely stunned,” Violet said. She tripped something on the sparker with a click, rather too expertly for Cezette’s taste. “Now, it shall kill. Stand!”
Cezette stood, with difficulty. After fumbling about, she managed to secure Petunia’s parasol, which was a good length for a makeshift cane. Violet seemed unperturbed by the possible weapon, but she stood well away from Cezette as she got to her feet. Her hair swung in a raven wing behind her, clipped in a barrette. Violet whistled.
“How I always wished to look like you, Cezette. Skin like milk, hair like the night.” Violet sneered down her extended sparker arm, a rich coffee color splashed in black soot. “The world worships people like you, did you know? Our picture houses may play in sepia, but the screen behind it is white.”
“Why are you doing this?” Perhaps inspired by the reference, or distracted by hobbling, Cezette found herself spouting picture-house dialogue as if by rote.
“And the accent! Sacre bleu, c’est magnifique! In a year you’ll get better breasts, and the boys will be falling all over themselves.” Violet gestured with her sparker, and they began to walk beside the rail bed, hidden amongst the foliage. Cezette had to pick her way between the virgin brush. “What will they say when they see your legs, Cezzy? You show them easily enough. Some gormless deviant will want to see how they connect to your mangled stubs. I bet you’ll love his bad touch. March!”
“Stop this! You are my friend, Violet!” said Cezette. But she knew that for the falsehood it was now, though she wouldn’t let on. She was at Violet’s mercy, and her spite. The small girl suddenly seemed much older, twenty, even twenty-two to Cezette’s seventeen.
Despite the clichéd penny dreadful appeals, Cezette was clever. She had been around Jean Harren and Vanessa Hargreaves long enough to learn the basics of criminology. Violet needed Cezette, otherwise she would never have shown herself. Therefore, Cezette had to keep Violet talking long enough to discern some information from her, or until Violet slipped up. She was also aware the more Violet told her, the more likely Cezette would be killed. The knowledge did not perturb Cezette overmuch; she had been in such a situation before even Mordemere, in her little room over the Rue Fremicourt. It might not have been her mortal coil at risk, but perhaps what was salvaged was even more important.
“Yes, yes, it was fun for a time. Did you not wonder what I was doing, a lone girl wandering the train by herself?” Violet continued. “This is America! No doting father would allow his child to wander around on public transport!”
“There was no father,” Cezette guessed. Violet was lonely, just like Cezette, and with a drop of empathic guilt, Cezette played on those emotions. It was hard to walk leaning on the parasol. Had Cezette weighed five more pounds, the gingerbread and lace at her fingertips would have crumbled long ago.
“Of course not! Nor any conductors in the car, after my sparker had its say. The last one was hard, I had to strangle him in the crook of my knee. Still, the derailment was not supposed to happen until later. It was only to convince those meddling Incognito you were dead,” rambled Violet.
So! The infamous pirate populists were involved somehow. Cezette began to put the pieces together.
“I would have all the time in the world to find out where the box was, although now I have you, it should be easy to convince this rogue inspector to give up the goods. I really should speak to my employer about the quality of his henchmen,” Violet finished, then was silent.
&nb
sp; They were approaching the head of the train. The rail bed was deserted now, free of the prying eyes of survivors and rescuers, though in the distance the squeal of emergency engines could be heard. Violet prodded Cezette down the slope, and through a gap between train cars. They threaded between, and suddenly were upon a great, messy crater, where it was obvious some calamity had occurred. It smelled oddly moist and clean. Across the crater, Inspector Vanessa Hargreaves knelt. Her fall of blond hair obscured the rectangular metal object she was working on.
“Maman!” Cezette cried, unable to suppress a well of emotions. There was embarrassment at being so easily coerced, as well as anger, empathy, but paramount was her love for the woman who had rescued her out of Mordemere’s nightmare machination.
“Cezette!” Hargreaves squinted. “Vera?”
“Yes, yes, inspector, the very same,” Violet Jade replied. She waved her sparker. “Hands up, where I can see them. Throw away your gun, there. Cezette, dear, go over to your maman. Back, away from the box.”
They crossed to Hargreaves, now an arm’s length away. As Cezette came close, she saw the inspector shift on her feet, but not away from the box behind her. It was a clever waltz, creating the illusion of compliance.
“What is the meaning of this?” said Hargreaves. “Stop playing games, Vera Jasper. You were well aware how carefully I handled this box when we traveled on Ivanov’s airship. Now it is open, and we are all in danger!”
To Cezette’s surprise, the short brown girl doubled over in laughter, the sparker weaving dangerously all over the place. Before either Cezette or Hargreaves could lunge for it, Violet, or Vera, was pointing the weapon at them once again. She pointed menacingly, a rather comical gesture from such a diminutive form, and now Hargreaves had to really move away from the box, with Cezette in tow.
“Poppycock,” Violet said. “You’ve seen it for yourself. The Queen lied to you. There’s no plague in there.” She noted Hargreaves’ surprise. “Only Victoria III could have engineered such a brilliant tactic. Have a trusted agent turn rogue, and conveniently deliver the package away from our agents and into the wild blue yonder of America. Stay there, yes, that’s fine.”
Violet reached the large oblong box. A seam in the front panel was split, trailing gummy crumbs of sealant. Armatures within partially propped it open, like a cabinet where some idiot child had hidden. With a surprising strength, Violet stomped on the panel. It slid smoothly open, both halves into grooves within the casing. Cezette recoiled, but when no cloud of pestilence emerged, she dared to look.
It was a mistake. Her gorge awoke into the back of her throat, memories of being attached to greased pistons rising to meet the sight of the wet, sucking flesh. What lay inside was no ordinary corpse, that much was certain, but exactly what it was defied comprehension. Cezette had the fleeting impression of pink petals overlapping one another, of a thick fleshy column constrained by metal rings. From the inspector’s face, she already knew what was inside.
Violet shut the box with a clang, and removed an odd device from her pocket. It looked like another sparker, but the tip was a glass bulb with what appeared to be a wad of steel wool inside. She pointed it at them momentarily, with a sneer, though Hargreaves was unmoved. There was a panel of mesh in the body of the gun. Violet held down a toggle and spoke into the mesh.
“Orb Weaver here. Rendezvous Pagliacci, repeat, Pagliacci. Your stupid clowns cocked it up.”
Violet pointed the device straight into the air and pulled the trigger. A crackling boom sounded, followed by a flash of light, and then the tinkling of glass showered the girl.
“Dashed inconvenient, ether flares, but the only sure way of getting a complex message across distances,” Violet complained, brushing glass from her silks. The blue smoke drifting from the device reminded Cezette of being aboard the Nidhogg, but also of her short time aboard the Huckleberry. She recognized artists’ charcoal, the green scent of the Champs de Mars park, bordello champagne, and sweat. Aeon particles smelled differently from person to person, she knew.
“It was you! At Temple Mills, and killing Feerick at the Yard. The contortionist Orb Weaver,” Hargreaves said calmly. “You tailed me all the way from England.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Vera, or Violet, the Orb Weaver, said, leveling the sparker once again. She touched the bandage at her back, bending in a most unsettling manner to do so. “It wasn’t personal, at first. I’m afraid I have a score to settle with you, and that amateur detective you consort with, for Temple Mills.”
“Consort! I’ll not die with a relationship with Arturo C. Adler hanging over my head!”
“You have no choice in the matter,” Orb Weaver repeated. She grinned. Her finger twitched, but Cezette threw herself in front of Hargreaves, leg jerking spasmodically, parasol forgotten.
“Violet! Stop this! Maman was only doing her duty!”
Hargreaves threw Cezette back behind her, putting herself into the crosshairs once more. Ceztte’s abused leg finally gave out, and she tumbled back onto the ground.
“A noble gesture,” Orb Weaver said, and pulled the trigger. Cezette, unable to run or defend herself, screwed her eyes shut.
When the crackling sound of the sparker passed, and Cezette found herself unburnt, she immediately believed the worst. She thought Vanessa Hargreaves had taken the blow for her. Cautiously, fearfully, she opened her eyes to find Maman standing still. Her hands were at her sides, shivering with shock. The smell of burnt hair hung in the air.
“Cezette, are you all right?” Hargreaves said, turning to look on the girl’s prone form. “We must go, hurry!”
“Violet…Vera…Merde!” Where was the Orb Weaver? Where was the sparker?
“There!”
Incredibly, the colorful silks of the Orb Weaver were quivering some five yards to their left, splayed but not splattered on the ground. Cezette turned to look behind her, and discovered a streak of black just to their left. The sparker blast had left a trail from the Orb Weaver all the way to the edge of the clearing.
“Pourquoi?” Cezette gaped, but when she looked for the Cook box, she found her line of sight blocked by a thick sheet of steel. It was dented and marked, but the shape was still familiar. Alphonse’s right arm, the fingers clutched into a fist. He had struck at the Orb Weaver, knocking her to the ground.
“I don’t know. Alphonse just moved,” Hargreaves said. She helped Cezette to her feet, and together they limped their way to the metal man. Alphonse’s cockpit was empty. “I am surprised Alphonse even survived the explosion,” Hargreaves remarked, feeling the intact controls. They sat in the cockpit, a little cramped for space, but ensconced safely. There was a bit of torn ribbon inside. Had it given way, sending the iron giant’s arm hurtling forward?
“I am not shocked,” Cezette replied. “Cid and I maintained Alphonse ourselves. He is repaying us in his own way.” Perhaps the movement was simply the result of some damage to his intricate clockworks, but Cezette did not think so.
“We’ll work it out later,” huffed Hargreaves. Clearly she thought it was a load of guff. “Right now we must secure the Cook box.”
Alphonse moved stiffly, but there was still plenty of pressure in his boiler, and some scraps of coal to fuel his furnace. The indicators were intact, their glass tubing bubbling reassuringly. Just above the bank of gauges and toggles, the cockpit opened onto a thin slit between the chest plate and Alphonse’s chin. With both women inside, the slit was hard to see out of, but serviceable. Hargreaves reached out to manipulate the controls and winced.
“Ahhh…I may have pulled something during all that running around. We need to pick up the box.”
“I can do it, Maman,” Cezette said, and squirmed forward to take the controls. Hargreaves’ smell filled her nostrils, a clean scent of old sweat covering the traces of a nostalgic perfume like a rare bloom. Probably her maman was a little embarrassed in the tight spot, where she had been traveling for days, but Cezette found it comforting.
“All ri
ght. Gently does it, the seal is broken,” Hargreaves said. “The finger toggle is very sensitive.”
“I’ve done it before, Maman!”
By degrees, Cezette was able to stand Alphonse up. The Cook box was not far from them. She had not expected it to kill them outright, but there certainly wasn’t any regular corpse inside the box. Further, Cezette had a disturbing sensation the thing inside the box was not deceased, but very much alive. She could imagine the thing watching them through the lid of the coffin. Cezette cautiously guided the iron giant’s fingers nearly around the lip of the box.
WHAM.
Alphonse was suddenly thrown aside as if swatted. Cezette and Hargreaves screamed as they were tossed about inside the cockpit, suddenly both blind and deaf inside the close space.
“What the blazes was that?” Hargreaves hollered. Cezette, in control of the automata, found herself blinded. Alphonse’s viewing slit was pressed against a train car. Rotating the controls instinctively, she pushed off against it, whirling Alphonse’s hips round until the clearing came back into view. Amidst the gnarled tracks and cliffs, something crouched over the pass.
“I have seen it’s like before,” Cezette murmured.
“So have I,” said Hargreaves.
It was unlikely they would mistake it for anything else. Hovering on eight legs, albeit much smaller than the one that had devastated Frances Derry’s home town, the machine tarantula picking its way over the Cook box was built on much the same lines. Cylindrical abdomen, glass eyes, and wicked mandibles clicked at them across the box. It looked sleeker, more refined than its larger cousin. Behind it, Cezette could just make out a dark shape on the other side of the pass, a thing of riveted walls and great churning pistons. Some kind of train? Or a castle on wheels?