by Jeff Provine
“My work requires resources; they granted them. The voices wanted more, too, and so we traded. The igniting of the City Center’s vast furnace will create a gateway large enough to bring me a military of giants into my command!”
“No,” Husk whispered. He pressed his hands against his ears. “No, you can’t do this. You’re making a deal with the devil!”
“So be it,” Burr replied.
“I can’t be a part of this,” Husk said. “I saw the truth today that there is great evil in the world. You’re saying there’s even more beyond, and you want to work with it? This is insanity!”
Burr shifted on his throne. “You won’t be writing my story, then? A pity. I could use a man like you, a man with a story of his own about fighting and killing a creature, to serve as my Minister of the Press.”
Husk lowered his hands from his ears. It would be a position alongside Burr, not just as a secretary in the state government but in a new world order. Every one of his needs, desires, and whims could be met. His stories would be read by millions.
He stopped. He couldn’t write those stories. The millions would be enslaved, or worse if the armies of evil broke free of Burr’s leash.
Husk blinked. There were more leashes, ones held by the denizens of hell. They were manipulating Burr as a human puppet.
“Absolutely not,” Husk said at last. “You’re serving evil, and I believe even you know it. You keep the laboratories locked away. You yourself are using an electric motor, not a catalyst-laden steam engine!”
Burr’s face sank. Husk couldn’t tell whether he was angry, disappointed, or afraid. After a moment, he said more than asked, “Perhaps you would prefer to spend your days in the dungeons with your friends?”
“I killed that creature in Shreveport because it was evil, and I cannot abide any more on this Earth. If you—”
“So be it,” Burr interrupted.
Soldiers descended from every direction to grab hold of Husk.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Clancy Blake awoke swinging his fist at the air. He couldn’t remember what he was trying to hit, but his heart was pounding in his chest. His black hair, silver at the edges, was plastered to his head with cold sweat.
Blake swung his legs down so he could sit on the wooden shelf that served as a bed in his cell. He had never been in a jail before, outside of a few times when he stayed so late at the office he decided to sleep there on one of the rough bunks in a free cell instead of trekking home in the dark. Even then he left the iron-bar door wide open. It was unnerving being so enclosed.
The room rested in twilight, catching indirect sunlight from a window set too high on the wall for him to see out. The air was dank, but it was thankfully free of the sulfurous smell that seemed to permeate Lake Providence. He had no idea which part of the capitol he was in, but he doubted that too many citizens knew the jail was there.
They had each been thrown into different cells the night before. Blake had fought with Ticks the entire way through the corridors, but the combined strength of hunchbacks and the soldiers in old-style military uniforms forced him inside. He had tried to wrench the door open from several different angles, but it would not budge. At least there was a barred window in it that let him see into the hall. He could see the others when they came to their own windows, except for Kemp, who was in the cell next to his.
It was Midsummer, the beginning of the jubilee. He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep, and he wasn’t sure what time it was, but he heard the crowds and music echoing from the city mall. The light was already fading. If what Husk had said about Burr’s plans were true, few of them might be alive come the next morning.
Even though he had been there himself, part of Blake couldn’t believe it was actually Aaron Burr who’d ordered him there. The governor had died years ago. Blake himself had been part of the funeral train that made a tour through Bastrop before burying him at the plantation where Gloriana began.
Blake let out a long sigh. All of that had been a ruse covering a man’s descent into a secluded world of machines and the powers of darkness.
A door opened on squeaking hinges. Blake jumped up from his bunk and ran to the door. The window rested just low enough that he had to stoop.
Two hunchbacks dragged a battered Tom Husk back to his cell. They noisily tossed him inside. The door slammed, the lock clicked, and the disguised monsters set the keys dangling from a ring on the inside of the door. A soldier had been on watch on the other side.
When it was quiet, Blake called. “Husk? You all right?”
A wet cough sounded. “I’ll live. It was just a little torture with a red-hot poker.”
Blake winced. At least they left him his sense of humor. “Did you tell them anything?”
“I told them everything, even before they brought the poker out!” Husk cried. “I’ve got nothing to hide, but they went to town on me anyhow!”
Blake winced again. Men were cruel simply for the enjoyment of it. “I’m sorry.”
“They wanted to know how I killed the monster. Ticks didn’t much like the fact that all of the answers came from the Good Book.”
“Not too many of those still around Gloriana,” Kemp called from down the hallway.
Blake scratched his chin. His old family Bible probably had dust on it.
He heard Husk sigh. “Right now, it’s a little hard to imagine being out of this dungeon.”
Blake rested his head against the door. He wished he had some words for Husk, but nothing came to mind. Things were bleak.
“It’s all right,” Kemp said. “We’re meant to be here.”
Blake raised his head. “What’s that?”
“It’s God’s will.”
“God certainly has a funny way of doing things,” Husk muttered.
“He works in mysterious ways. That’s what they told me at my father’s funeral. The words have haunted me for twelve years now, and it took all of this to have them make sense.”
“What do you mean?” Ozzie asked.
“He had to die. It was his time. I don’t know why it was in his own life, but at least I can see it in mine. When he was alive, I only thought about myself. It got me into a lot of trouble, stealing, fights. But typhus took him away, and all I could think was, what about Ma? Who’s going to take care of Ann? It had to be me. All the energy I spent on fighting turned to working, and it brought me here.”
“To a dungeon,” Husk added.
“For now.”
Blake squinted and thought back over Kemp’s words. He could see the effect of a loss like that impacting a life, but to say that this was a part of the Good Lord’s will? Why would He do this to us?
He bit his tongue and didn’t want to question the young man’s theology.
Ozzie did it instead. “Why would a loving God leave us locked up? I’ve been locked up before. This… this isn’t a good place for me. The walls are playing tricks on my eyes.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Jacey,” Kemp said. “I don’t know.”
The squeaking door opened again. Hunchbacks shuffled past Blake’s door. He wished the bars were spaced wider, enough for him to have taken a swing at them.
They opened Kemp’s door. Scuffling sounds followed. Blake could only imagine the fight. At last it ended, and the hunchbacks came back through the hallway dragging Kemp.
“Stay strong you all!” Kemp shouted. “Two nights ago I was thrown out of an airship. That’s what it took for me to see the light!”
The squeaky door slammed.
The cells were quiet for a long moment. Blake wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything worthwhile. He supposed he could say whatever string of words he wanted; supposedly even that would be God’s will.
He shook his head. Even if bad things caused good to happen in the end, there were bits of life that couldn’t possibly be part of a heavenly plan. Did God determine what socks he chose to put on? What did it matter what he had for breakfast?
; Blake’s stomach rumbled, empty since the night before when they raided the pantry on the Rail Agency airship. He shouldn’t have thought of food.
The squeaking door opened again. Blake pressed himself against the stone to peek around the corner enough to see the soldier on duty hold it open for a moment before shutting it back. Soft footfalls padded down the hallway.
Someone very short was coming. He thought of Parvis and shuddered.
Instead, it was a familiar dark-headed boy, carrying several metal bowls. His face was cleaned up and he had on a new green coat without a split seam, but it was the same one who’d tried to pick his pocket yesterday.
“That’s impossible,” Blake mumbled.
The boy carefully set the first bowl down below Blake’s door. He pushed it with the tips of his fingers beneath the edge. It fit just under and appeared at Blake’s feet.
“Boy!” Blake called.
The boy’s big eyes looked up and then went wide. “It’s you!”
Blake smiled.
“Why are you in jail?” the boy asked. “I thought you were a sheriff.”
“I am a sheriff,” Blake told him. “Some very bad men are planning to hurt a lot of people, and they put me in here.”
He didn’t think it was possible, but the boy’s eyes became even wider. “Wow, really? I better go tell the guard!”
“No!” Blake shouted. He lowered his voice. “No, you can’t. He works for the bad men.”
The boy turned his head to the side. “He does?”
“He does,” Blake confirmed.
“I thought he worked for Mr. Rassey. He’s a good guy. He gave me this job after I shined his boots.”
Blake blew out frustrated air. He had told the boy to get a job, and sure enough, he had found one right in the jail where they would need him. If this wasn’t a miracle, he didn’t know what he’d call one.
“It’s hard to explain, but I think Mr. Rassey is working for a bad guy. He may not even know how bad. My friends and I have to stop him.”
The boy stared at him.
“Please. Get the keys and let us out.”
The boy stood still. “Am I going to get into trouble?”
Blake sighed. “I certainly hope not, son.”
“I don’t want to lose my job.”
“There will always be more jobs. Don’t ever let your job get in the way of doing what you know, deep down, is right.”
The boy stood still a moment longer, and then he set the bowls of gruel on the floor. He walked softly to where the keys hung, stretching to get them off their hook.
“Attaboy!” Blake called.
The boy unlocked the door. Blake patted him on the shoulder, took the keys, and freed Ozzie and Husk. He tried the keys on his shackles, but none of them fit.
Ozzie hugged the boy. “You’ve done a very brave thing.”
Husk grabbed one of the bowls of gruel and drank deeply from it. He wiped his mouth with his filthy sleeve. “Whew, I needed that.”
“You should wait here,” Blake told the boy. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”
The boy nodded and slipped into Blake’s cell.
Blake crept quietly to the heavy door at the end of the hall where the guard stood. He knocked and ducked.
The guard turned around. “What is it?”
Blake knocked again.
“Hands full or something?” the guard asked. He opened the door.
Blake pounced on him as quickly as his stiff body would let him. The guard wrestled back, trying to grab a whistle from around his neck. Blake tried to squeeze harder, but his old grip shook. Just as the younger man overpowered him, Husk’s long, thin arms came from around his back and start strangling the guard.
The guard let out a gurgling cry, and his hands dropped the whistle. Blake got around him, grabbed him around the waist, and pulled him back into the hallway. Together, Blake and Husk managed to pin him on the floor. They peeled his coat off his shoulders and used the lengths of the arms to tie his hands behind his back.
They stripped him of his rifle, a knife, and two sets of whistles, then threw him into Husk’s cell, locking it tight. When Blake turned back around, Ozzie was holding the rifle out to him.
“You should carry this,” she said. “You’ve got a good record so far of shooting people.”
He twitched. The nurse had practically burned him with her glares while she mended the wounds of the airship’s engineer.
Then, she winked.
He winked back.
“You shot someone?” Husk blurted.
“I did,” Blake admitted. He took the rifle from Ozzie. “But he’ll live, thanks to this young lady.”
Husk led the way out of the dungeon. Ozzie followed closely, but Blake held back a moment. He peeked back into the cell where the little boy now sat on the wooden platform bed.
“Thank you,” he said.
The boy nodded. “You’re going to stop the bad men?”
“Lord willing,” Blake told him.
Blake nodded and then dashed after Ozzie and Husk. “Where are we going?”
“We have to rescue Nathan,” Ozzie whispered.
“This way,” Husk said. “If they took him to the same place they worked me over, it’s just a few doors down.”
Blake didn’t know how the newspaperman could keep the different doors clear in his head, but Husk seemed to find the right one immediately. He laid his hand on the doorknob, but Blake stopped him with his own hand.
“We don’t know what’s in there.”
“I know what’s in there,” Husk whispered, almost hissing. “A bunch of maniacs probably getting ready to tear Kemp’s fingernails out.”
Ozzie gasped and then clapped both hands over her mouth.
Blake pursed his lips. “I’ll reconnoiter.”
He pushed Husk’s hand away and opened the door himself. Blake moved so slowly and gently that there was no click from the latch. He pushed until a sliver appeared in the doorway and peered, moving his head to see the corners of the room.
It was a torture chamber right out of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic stories. On the far wall, an open fireplace burned, casting sinister flickering light across the room. Nate Kemp was bound to a chair in the center of the room with shackles on his wrists and ankles. The little hunchback, Parvis, stood next to him with a red-hot poker. Ticks leaned against the far wall beside the fire.
“I told you!” Kemp said. “There was a blinding white light! Maybe it slowed me down!”
Ticks rolled his dark eyes, and Parvis made a disgusted squeak. The next sound was Kemp screaming.
Blake gripped the rifle in his hand. He whispered, “The marshal’s by the fireplace. The little one is by Kemp in the middle of the room. No sign of Biggs.”
“This’ll be easy then.” Husk kicked the door in.
Blake winced, but he charged in after the newspaperman nonetheless.
“What is this?” Ticks shouted.
Husk flew out from behind Blake and tackled the marshal.
“It’s the end of your torturing career!” Blake said. He drew up the rifle and shot. He had been tempted to aim at the marshal, but Parvis was more pressing now that Husk was in the mix.
The blast blew the iron rod out of the little man’s hand. Parvis squealed and tried to run, but he was cut off by Ozzie, who kicked him firmly in the side where Blake had seen the giant, upside-down eye. Blake dropped the rifle rather than bothering to reload and joined the fray, wrapping his hands around the marshal’s neck. Husk hit the marshal, each blow a little more weary.
“Give up!” Blake barked at him.
Ticks made an angry hacking cough. His face turned red, but his thin black eyebrows were stitched with determination.
“Got it!” Husk called. He stood up, holding the marshal’s keys in his hand.
Ticks gave a rasping growl.
Blake held him tight. Husk dashed halfway across the room and freed Kemp. Ozzie was on the far side of the room,
stomping on Parvis’s gut while his too-long arms flailed and not giving him a second to stand.
When Kemp was free, he and Husk joined her. Husk fastened one end of a set of shackles to the hunchback’s stubby leg, dragged him across the room, and locked the other around Tick’s ankle. Ticks fumed, spitting foam from his mouth.
Kemp’s leg shackles bound the marshal’s and the hunchback’s hands to each other, crisscrossing so there was no way they could walk. Husk stripped him of his revolvers and tossed one to Kemp.
“That should keep them busy for a while,” Husk said.
When the marshal was helpless, he let him go. Ticks screeched out swears so fast and filthy Blake wasn’t entirely sure they were in English.
Kemp walked slowly toward the marshal. He had the revolver in his hand and pulled the hammer back. Ticks went quiet, and his dark eyes wide. His mustache twitched.
Blake swallowed and stuck up a hand, but then he paused. What good was the marshal alive anyway?
Then the girl caught Kemp’s shoulder, the good one that hadn’t been stitched up. He turned to look at her with dead eyes.
They stood there a long moment, staring at each other. Blake opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Kemp eased the revolver’s hammer back to rest. “We have to stop Burr.”
Blake picked up the spent rifle and led the way out. He waited at the doorway as the others came out. Ticks mumbled, and Parvis whined from inside, and Blake closed the door on them. He rammed the butt of the gun down on the knob, bending it into a useless shape. He hoped they would be stuck in there quite a while.
Ozzie was hugging Kemp, whose eyes were closed. Husk leaned against the wall and held his stomach.
“How are we going to stop a man who came back to life?” Ozzie asked. “Even if anyone believed us, he has his own militia and the rail agents.”
Husk shivered. “And soon he’ll have a whole army of monsters from beyond the fire. I saw what just one of them could do against thirty men.”
“Not if he’s using the catalyst that was on my train,” Kemp said with his voice suddenly low. Blake hadn’t noticed before, but the fireman had earned a new black eye from his time in the room with Ticks and Parvis.