Of Stations Infernal

by Kin S. Law

  Vera stopped, turning, and Rosa paused mid-step to see the wet trails like rivers through the earthen brown of Vera’s determined face.

  “They just keep coming,” said Vera. She touched the tears, as if they weren’t her own. “The only way I know how to atone is to stop Jean.”

  “Then all this, this is just a prelude?” said Albion. “He means to spread this evil to other places? Sell them to armies and…what?”

  “I know not,” answered Vera.

  “That means he is sitting in that coil, waiting for us to strike,” said Rosa. “You’re leading us into a trap.”

  “Would that stop you from going to him? I would have you go into the Conqueror Worm and parley with Jean,” said Vera.

  “With no automata,” repeated Arturo now. “How will we parley when he holds all the cards?”

  “It does Jean Hallow no good to destroy us as we are,” said Hargreaves. As much as she hated to admit it, Vera was right. “Jean needs to destroy us at the peak of our strength to prove to his buyers that his is the superior steam craft. The automata would have been our doom.” That simple realization put her back on solid footing. Logic. The promise of sense. It was the lifeblood of an Englishwoman.

  “Tres bien,” said Vera Jasper, climbing higher into the rubble.

  Soon they were within the shadow of the Conqueor Worm when Vera held up a hand, calling for them to hold. They stood near the Ubique tower, the great corporate courtyard that served the front of the building. The signboards were empty of rail times, and the telegraphs stood silent where they hadn’t been ripped out by the Worm’s passage. The Worm itself wound around the building’s front and up several stories of the tower, leaving a thin sliver where it was possible to enter the building. There were no signs Jean had noticed them. In fact, under the clutching legs of the monster train, all was calm and peaceful. It felt a bit like everything had died in that courtyard.

  “So he is here, then,” Albion said. He turned to the rest of the group, nodded, then walked forward.

  “Whoa, wait!” Rosa protested, but Hargreaves stayed her hand.

  “He will come to no harm,” said Hargreaves. She followed.

  “Come out, you bastard!” cried Arturo. “You’ve had your blasted fun. Inspector Hargreaves might not have had the heart to shoot you but I’ve got a bullet for you right here!”

  “No! We’ve come to parley!” cried Vera, but Rosa came up behind her and struck her temple with the pommel of one of her knives. The Orb Weaver went down, in a pile, looking surprisingly fragile. No response came from Jean Hallow.

  Albion held up Victoria, but from behind him, Hargreaves saw the Red Special in his other hand. He might not have the heart, but he had the gumption. And too late Hargreaves realized the raw energies in the aeon pistol were their best shot of stopping Hallow. Hargreaves fumbled for her Collier, and patted her pockets for the sparker she had brought all the way from England, retained through all her adventures. Blast! Where had it gone? No, she didn’t have it. But the Collier was at least reassuring in her hand.

  They walked right up to the building. A chill wind blew in from over the ocean and swept up the debris in the court. It suddenly felt much colder, and the silent telegraph podiums stood like grave markers.

  The blow that found Albion took him completely by surprise. Arturo, at the front of the group, whirled, parting the thick air with a slim gun barrel that seemed to have leaped into his hand. But the shot that rang out missed by a mile. One second the court was empty, void of movement. The next, as quietly as a mouse, the Grimaldi’s arm had plucked Albion from the floor like a rose. The sky was occluded by its collared jester shape. The Cheshire grin of its face hung in the air like a crescent moon.

  They all heard Albion’s arm break, no clean snap but a wet crunch, surely splintered into a million pieces. Albion screamed, all the time he was in the air. Hallow threw him across the cold court and into a telegraph booth, where Albion lay gasping.

  An answering scream followed, and a rattling tinkle of knives—Rosa, crying in rage. Her blades rattled as they struck the Grimaldi’s impenetrable skin. A thump sounded as the machine’s leg found the nimble helmswoman, and a sick scraping sound as she slid across the court as well, coming to a stop near the Worm’s terrible bulk.

  “Hum gah!” Hargreaves watched Albion try to say something in his native tongue but all that followed was the gurgling bawl of an infant.

  Now the Grimaldi dangled Victoria like a boiled sweet for a moment before crushing it between its giant beige fingers. Bits of metal tinkled to the ground. It leered, and took a step toward Hargreaves, shaking the floor with its enormous mime feet. Its toes were pointed up at the end of its long, thin legs, as sharp as stakes and horrifyingly close. Hargreaves began to fire at the white beast, round after round, expending all of the Collier’s eight chambers. An echoing ring, as Arturo unloaded another blast into the sheer cliff of metal before him to no avail.

  Cezette! Where was Cezette? Hargreaves craned to see, but the terrifying shape suddenly filled her vision. She had let it get too close!

  “Hey!” a hoarse gargle came from Albion, and the Grimaldi turned a second before it was upon her. “Bollocks to you!” And then there was a riot of thunder, as the grim white specter lurched sideways, thrown a good twenty feet into a quiet signboard. The court was filled with the tinkling of tiny tabs and cogs burst free from their mountings.

  Fumbling southpaw, Albion had aimed the Red Special and squeezed off a shot. It was a beautiful shot, a dull vibrato that left the barrel shuddering visibly in his hand. Even with Albion’s terrible aim and dragging his smashed arm, the white cliff of Grimaldi was impossible to miss.

  Hargreaves didn’t doubt the blast could have gone clear to walls of the tower. Yet when the Grimaldi stood up, it was completely unharmed.

  Albion cursed a blue streak.

  Hallow’s creature leaned forward now, and made a motion with its long, creepy fingers. The Red Special jumped from Albion’s grip and flew away, as if hooked by a celestial fisherman. Then it slowly made the flicking motion at each of them that were up, the tinkling of guns hitting the floor like sleigh bells. When it hit Hargreaves she felt the passing of a massive train, like a parade of the dead knocking her clean to the floor.

  Threat of bullets gone, the Grimaldi’s chest opened like a flower. The petals of white enamel were a fleshy pink beneath, blooming in increasingly sickening layers. Inside the stamen, Jean Hallow squatted like an insect. His whole lower body was sunk into the automata’s flesh, melted, wrong-looking. Splotches of raw red dripped clear onto the floor. Whatever had befallen his mighty host had struck at Hallow himself; that much was clear. His face was haggard, the stump of his lost arm wretched and blackened where it was just visible sunken in the mess. The machinery inside still pumped and dipped through the flesh, but it shuddered, haltingly, as if its movement had broken off a few teeth.

  A high-pitched scream, a different voice now, Vera, awake and, huddled in a corner of the court, shivering.

  “It is a shame you did not bring the automata,” Hallow said in a hoarse gasp. “But Inspector, what made you think I would not still make mince of you all? I can throw the broken dolls in on top of you.”

  Hargreaves groaned, the pain blinding now, paramecium creatures eating up her consciousness. She had fallen badly, and her old wounds were seeping between her stitches. She struggled to stand, and succeeded in leaning against a telegraph.

  There was a thunk in the court now, solid.

  It took everyone a moment before they noticed the cutlass sticking out of the red mess where Hallow’s leg should have been. Albion had thrown it, end-over-end, lobbing the thing as if from a catapult.

  “Ah, very good,” said Hallow, watching the blood pump from the wound. The fluid welled up, dribbling in a throbbing river, then a stream, and finally dwindled to an ooze as the substance of Grimaldi sealed the wound. The cutlass clattered to the floor. Then the Grimaldi was near Albion agai
n, moving so quickly they could not follow. It picked up the pirate by his broken arm.

  Albion’s screams echoed afresh.

  “You’re an abomination…” hissed Albion, clutching at his shoulder. His arm dangled uselessly from the Grimaldi’s delicate fingers, and now it was bleeding a thin stream.

  “No abomination. Merely…” Hallow tilted his head, musing. “Evolution, you might say. Darwin revisited, if you will. I’ve merely sped up the work of centuries a bit, and reached a form few have dreamed of. Even Her Majesty’s little present is nothing, I will be rid of it shortly.” He twitched, and a few splotches disappeared from his skin, healing.

  “You’re rambling,” said Albion. Hargreaves knew what it was; he was grasping for his familiar banter, a ward against the blackness closing in. He was bleeding, not just hurt, but broken somewhere inside. Outside, a thundering boom echoed. Was it an illusion Hargreaves just saw? A ship, so close to the Worm and Grimaldi’s terrible reach? They had told the damaged ’Berry and Blair to fall back. It would not be here.

  “It is of no use,” said Hallow through parched lips. “Now…Inspector. If you will be so kind. Bring us the automata…the one with the sword. Yes…the Queen’s other present. Bring it here so I may rip it limb from limb, or watch me do it to your precious pirate captain.”

  “Fuck you!” said Albion, and this time he struck hard enough to rip the cloth at his shoulder, freeing himself. He tumbled to the ground, rolling and stumbling away, clutching his arm like a mewling babe. He slunk into a cramped space beneath some rubble too small to fit Hallow’s abomination.

  “I’ll just have to come after you then,” said Jean.

  “Captain!” said Hargreaves, and tried to get up, but was laid low by a wave of terrible nausea. There was the stench of the slaughterhouse to it, like the Grimaldi was sweating the stuff, keeping her down. Hallow was going to eliminate the greatest threat. He was going to kill Captain Clemens, and Hargreaves could do nothing to stop him.

  “Jean?” Hargreaves heard Vera’s shaking voice ringing through the ill wind. But Hallow ignored her.

  Horror of horrors, now the Grimaldi’s substance began to push out of itself, to extrude and writhe hotly in the air. Tendrils of it reached out, as if tasting copper mist from the blood on the floor. Hallow reached one fleshy arm out of the gore and braced against the edge of the opening. Then he stepped out of his suit of demon armor, jumping lightly to the ground.

  If Albion was posturing before, now they knew he had inadvertently spoken the truth. Hallow had become an abomination. A nest of serpents had wrapped itself about Hallow’s shoulders, digging into his skin. Kraken tentacles draped across his back, pushing the muscles of his slim form outward. His deltoids exploded to meld with bulging pectorals. Hallow’s biceps were great hams. His missing arm was now a turgid surging mass, terminating in a round, shiny tip, phallic and grotesque. Worst of all the head that sat upon those shoulders was Hallow’s own face, the same sallow, drawn countenance Hargreaves first met in the case archive under Scotland Yard. It sat on the mountain of flesh, enveloped and swallowed by it. Hallow had become a monstrous caricature of masculinity, a strongman skinned and wrapped about a scarecrow’s bones.

  Hallow picked up a nearby chunk of shrapnel and threw at Albion a few steps away. Striking Albion’s shoulder, the pain must have been exquisite, like being clipped by a cannonball. He shrieked. A second missile clipped him where his head was already injured, and his face was suddenly covered in dark, shining blood. Hargreaves smelled the copper of the blood over the terrible stench of this place.

  “Fuck you,” Albion said again, gargling a little. But he went down, crumpling on the spot.

  “Hah!” said Hallow. He looked Albion up and down, appraisingly. “Perhaps I will.” One bulging, throbbing leg took a wet, slapping step toward him.

  “Wait!” cried Hargreaves. “I’ll…I’ll do what you ask!”

  Tendrils of flesh were already creeping round Albion’s ankles. But Jean Hallow stopped, and turned.

  “You will bring the sword-carrying automata,” said Hallow. Even his voice was different, deeper and harsh, as if the worst part of every man possessed his spirit.

  “Yes,” said Hargreaves, sobbing freely now.

  “Or I will rip this fellow open.”

  “Please. No!”

  Hargreaves stood there, clutching her own wounds, watching as Hallow’s unutterably loathsome form stood over her friend prone on the floor. Albion was still moving, his chest rising with some difficulty. But Hargreaves had no cards to play, nothing to save him. Even if her gun wasn’t out of ammunition, Hallow’s tenebrous form was beyond anything that could be harmed by mortal weapons. The tentacles were gibbous, not thinning out toward the tips but bulging in obscene musculature. He reminded her of something pre-Cambrian, something accustomed to battling the giants in the dark for its survival.

  Just as her fingers loosened on her Collier, a voice rang out over the court.

  “Who are you kidding, Jean? Clemens is a lout. You prefer the gentlemen, do you?”

  Hallow turned, his mouth open, frozen in a moment of glib reply. That was when the bolt of lightning struck him in the shoulder, every bit as terrible as the one that knocked down the Grimaldi. It set all the tentacles writhing in pain. Little arcs danced between all the surfaces, and the Grimaldi twitched, exactly as Hallow twitched. The pair of them jerked uncontrollably as uncanny flesh burned, bubbling like hot treacle. A terrible oily smell hung in the air. Hallow screamed, lurching back, and there was Arturo, limping along, clutching Hargreaves’ sparker in his hand.

  “You wanker! So it was you!” cried Hargreaves, patting the spot where she had it stowed just moments before Arturo nicked it.

  “Alby!” cried Rosa. When Hargreaves looked, she was dashing across the court to retrieve her captain, who was awake and getting a grasp of the situation.

  Before the detective could get off another shot, Hallow leaped into the air, landing a yard from Arturo. A tendril shot out and knocked him to the floor. The arc weapon tumbled from his grasp, sending off little static charges across the stained flagstones. As a bolt of stray lightning tweaked Hargreaves’ leg, she felt a cocktail of emotions: regret, affection, and the bitter taste of betrayal. Arturo had been holding back, but the aeons didn’t lie. The sparker had translated all of Arturo’s feelings into a deadly arc of energy.

  “Adler! You!” Hallow cried. The pain was from more than the sparker; that much was clear. She could see it in his eyes. Empathy just took the piss.

  Hallow took two steps toward Arturo, and he seemed to recover his composure. He sneered.

  “Did you like our hot, turgid night together? Well, look at me now!” All the tendrils waved, cheerfully.

  “Oh, it was him, then.”

  Jean turned, once again. He winced as if expecting pain. And there was pain. Standing there was Vera Jasper, her pose slightly askance, one leg in front of the other like a glamour model. Her voice shook, and tears streamed down her face. Cezette Louissaint stood near her, legs twitching uncontrollably, reacting to something beyond her. But her face was drawn in determination, and she was handing something to Vera Jasper’s outstretched hand.

  “I knew you had taken a lover, but to treat him like this. I am glad we never…”

  “Dearest Vera. Have you been with me so long and still clung to that hope? How silly of you. How utterly…woman.”

  “Oh, I think you’ve been very silly yourself. Haven’t you heard?” asked Vera Jasper. “There’s naught in hell like a woman scorned. Burn, you cur. Burn!”

  She raised her hand from Cezette’s nested fingers, already unfolding as she teetered away from the weapon. The iced-cream gleam of the sparker she had picked up from the floor was already glowing and sending out little tendrils of energy, something inside developing a fault.

  And when she squeezed the trigger, Hallow’s look of horror was priceless.

  Station 19

  Conqueror Worm
>
  Maddening shapes peeled back like a rabbit being skinned, revealing the non-Euclidian clockwork of the horrors driving the Conqueror Worm’s movements. Hargreaves believed enough in the aeons to know this wasn’t some fever dream or madness. Her eyes felt as if they had been turned to ice. A surety came over her that if she’d glimpsed the vision for more than a moment she would have gone mad. Then the airships ruined the perspective, and the illusion dispersed.

  Years later, when asked about the events of that night she would only recall an impression of suffering, of many hands holding up a throne reeking of wet shit and sour meat.

  “What is it doing?” Cezette’s voice shook Hargreaves out of her torpor. She stood on the bridge of the ’Berry, with her hands in the gloves that controlled the ship’s manipulator arms. As the Worm came around close enough to snap at the pirate airship with its terrible jaws, she threw open the throttle. The ship lunged away, as a deep sea diver might from an incoming horror of the deep. The Worm howled, a caterwaul of rage.

  When Vera Jasper launched her frenzied sparker assault at the foot of the Ubique Tower, the court immediately filled with a branching, frenzied lightning. Arturo’s sparker bolt had been loaded with his complex of feelings for Hallow, like a champagne cork giving way. Vera’s was ten years of rage and unrequited love that had burst in a torrent that filled the court like a searing acid bath. She fell, her hands terribly burned. A fragment of the sparker had cut her deeply. Now both she and Arturo were unconscious. Hargreaves would later find a keraunographic pattern etched red into her skin, which would not fade. For some days afterward people complimented her on the tattoo of a tree she had gotten on her arm, so much that Hargreaves got fed up and had an oak detailed over the scarring.

  When they managed to see again the Grimaldi was gone, and the Conqueror Worm that had once been the Ghost Train was slowly rearing up into the sky, uncoiling length by length from the Ubique Tower. At its head was something truly terrible; the Grimaldi, its white frame fused into the substance of the Worm. Its collar was unfurled into something like a lizard’s intimidating flaps, and its chest opened to reveal a terrible mouth, with a single wet eye staring out of its center.