Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Ethan, what are you trying to say?”

  “It’s just that, well, over the past few…”

  A knock sounded at the door and the two sprang apart. After a moment the door opened and the kitchen lad stuck his head in.

  “Begging your pardon, Mr Slaughter, but the steamer is here.”

  “Thank you, boy,” Slaughter grumbled. “We’ll be down in a moment.”

  The lad nodded and closed the door.

  Slaughter turned back to face Marie but she was already out if her chair, pulling on her leather gloves and reaching for a portable writing desk. Her expression was bland. The moment, Slaughter knew, had passed, and he had no idea whether he would ever again be able to recapture it. He could clap his hand on the shoulder of the most dangerous criminal to ever walk London streets without a hint of fear or trepidation, but it had taken all his courage to screw up the nerve to speak to Marie Poulpe. Silently cursing his weakness, he donned his coat and hat and held the door for her.

  “Thank you, Ethan,” she murmured as she passed through, her voice barely a whisper. “Most kind.”

  He did not trust himself to speak, and so remained silent.

  “Are ye sure ye don’t want the steamer to take ye on up the London road, Mr Slaughter?” the innkeep asked in his broad East Anglia accent. “’T’wouldn’t take any much longer than the rail, and ‘t’would be most direct.”

  “I don’t like long lonely stretches, Mr Wilkerson,” Slaughter said, keeping his voice low so Marie would not overhear.

  “Aye, I suppose so,” the man agreed, nodding his broad head and also lowering his tone. “The driver, he be armed, but, as ye say, the stretches be long and they be very lonely.”

  “Safety in numbers on the train.”

  “Aye,” the man murmured, but it was plain from the expression on his face that he did not agree. “Well, the steamer be waiting to take ye and the young lady to the station.” He shouted for the boy who came running with a wicker hamper. “For yer journey.”

  Slaughter took the basket from the lad and tossed him tuppence which he caught and pocketed in one deft move.

  “Thank ye, sir.”

  Wilkerson scowled at the lad, who rushed back to his chores. “Ye shouldn’t be encouraging him, sir.”

  “He’s a good lad.”

  “Aye, he be that, Mr Slaughter,” the man agreed. “But every villain at some time in his life were a good lad, weren’t he?”

  “You’re a cynic, Mr Wilkerson,” Slaughter said as he took Marie’s arm and escorted her toward the waiting steamer.

  “I come by it naturally, sir.”

  No doubt he did, Slaughter thought. He and Marie had spent the last several days at the country inn while Section 6 poured through the notes taken during the last session of questions and answers, but few words had passed between him and Wilkerson. Like all Section 6 operatives, Wilkerson tended toward silence, and his long absence from active field duty had done nothing to make him any more loquacious. In his current role, Wilkerson’s job was to keep his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut…and to make sure he always had a weapon hidden close at hand. While Slaughter could not speak to Wilkerson’s skill with a gun, he could certainly attest to the man’s vigilance and silence.

  Slaughter handed Marie through the open door, climbed in and set the basket between them. The driver, having already seen to the pre-heating of the twin boilers, immediately engaged gears. With a hiss and a spray of gravel, they set off for the railway station. Since they had at least a quarter-hour before arrival and Slaughter had found the basket unexpectedly heavy, he decided to see what fare had been packed for them. His eyebrows raised slightly.

  Marie watched the village recede, then looked at Slaughter, her pale brow slightly furrowed. “Do you think we might have been attacked had we taken the London road?”

  “You heard?”

  “I have sharp little ears.”

  “I did not want to invite unwanted attention in lonely tracts.”

  “But remember what happened on the Channel train,” she said. “If MEDUSA seeks to capture or kill us, they will not be deterred by a train full of passengers.”

  “Evidently, Mr Wilkerson agrees with you, Marie,” Slaughter said. “Either that, or he believes in a diet heavy in iron.”

  A querying expression formed on Marie’s face, but before she could give voice to it, Slaughter pulled out two heavy W.S. Army revolvers. This was followed by a much smaller R.I.C. solid frame revolver, which he handed to Marie.

  “Just the right size for a lady’s purse,” she said.

  “Good Lord,” Slaughter murmured as he withdrew a weapon with a diminutive stock and foreshortened double-barrels. “Some kind of elephant rife apparently, judging from the shells.”

  “I wish I could say all this makes me feel safer,” Marie said as she shuddered, “but it does not.”

  “An overabundance of caution,” he assured her.

  She forced a smile. “At least your Mr Wilkerson seems to have thought of everything.”

  “And sandwiches,” Slaughter added, lifting a plate of treats wrapped in waxed paper. “Ah, and best of all, two insulated flasks of tea.”

  “Tea,” she sighed, shaking her head. “No wine?”

  “Sorry, my dear,” Slaughter said. “This is England.”

  * * *

  “It’s unfortunate Captain Folkestone did not leave something of the Pandora station to investigate,” Nevis said.

  “I thought so too at the time, but now I think there was nothing he could do to stop its weapons that would not have had the same result,” Lady Cynthia said. “The problem was the secondary burst of energy coming from deep within the Solar System.”

  “Our staff scientists at the Portsdown Hill facility are in full agreement, Lady Cynthia,” Sir Clive said.

  She nodded to the Section 6 Deputy Chief. “During our…”

  “Still, had Folkestone and that Martian not destroyed so much of that station, the outcome might have been different,” Nevis interrupted. “A mere soldier is hardly the best…”

  Lady Cynthia smacked her hand onto the table top, turning to the Operations Assistant and glaring at him with her one good eye. In that instant the bureaucrat might have been some hapless warrior wandered onto the isle of the Gorgon for he seemed transformed into stone. His superior within the clandestine organization settled back, interlaced his fingers over his slight paunch and suppressed a smile at the plight of his employee. The man had to learn.

  “Mr Nevis, you were not present and we possess knowledge only because of the actions of those who risked life and limb in service of the Empire, namely Captain Robert Folkestone, Sergeant Felix Hand, and the Captain and crew of the Princess of Mars, all of whom volunteered for the mission,” Lady Cynthia said, taking great pains to keep her tone level and unhurried. “We used the Princess of Mars because Section 6 wanted no overt military presence and yet could provide no competent reconnaissance of Pandora on its own.”

  “Well, yes, but…” Nevis stammered.

  “Pray silence, Mr Nevis,” she said. “Despite the destruction of the Pandora base, we on the Princess of Mars yet gathered a wealth on information with our instruments, more than enough to suss out the purpose of the station, its operation, and the general nature of the destructive energies being manipulated by MEDUSA.”

  “I don’t doubt…well…yes, but…”

  This time Lady Cynthia silenced the petty bureaucrat with a withering glance rather than a well-modulated word.

  “Had Captain Folkestone and Sergeant Hand not come to our aid, and in the most unlikely of craft, I might add, it is doubtful any of us would have survived to provide the information Section 6 now finds so valuable,” she continued. “The station was destroyed, but that is much more an obstacle to MEDUSA than us, and do bear in mind that its destruction resulted in an almost certainly lethal blow to the Black Sails marauders, which has, if I may remind you, been a plague to spacefaring nations fo
r more than half decade, despite the best efforts of the Royal Space Navy and the dubious intelligence provided by operatives of Section 6.”

  “I admit that…”

  “Before you denigrate the actions of ‘mere soldiers,’ you had better think about where Section 6 would be now in investigating MEDUSA without their efforts,” she pointed out, her words fiery but still tinged with frost. “Or, for that matter, what Section 6 would know about Lord Khallimar without the efforts of a ‘mere’ detective chief inspector from Scotland Yard.”

  “Please, Lady Cynthia, do not take my comment wrongly,” Nevis insisted, looking to his superior for some measure of support and finding none. “I merely…I mean, I was disappointed our analysts could not examine the Pandora station themselves and perhaps better understand the nature of the energy transmitted to it, which, of course was the real agency of its destruction.”

  She stared at him as if he were an insect upon a display board, and she a critical entomologist looking at an inferior specimen.

  “We have turned up some very interesting information about Lord Khallimar, though it is admittedly sparse,” Nevis said after a long moment, reaching for a file at hand, passing it to Lady Cynthia for review. “He is a man who cherishes his privacy and has taken great care to remain hidden from the public at large. His peerage is an obscure and hereditary one, stemming from the rule of an even more obscure Rajah in Abaj, a tiny semi-independent principality in Mysore, supported under the Charter of the EIC, and recognized by Her Imperial Majesty. From what we can tell, Lord Khallimar is fabulously wealthy.”

  “And the source of that wealth, Nevis?” Sir Clive asked, feeling somewhat safe wading into the briefing now that his inferior had been beaten like a turkey rug. “Have we anything on that?”

  “Not much, sir,” Nevis admitted. “Though small in size, Abaj is blessed with tremendous mineral resources such as gold, rubies, emeralds, light crystals, and aether-resonating stones.”

  “Yes, I suppose those family jewels would give the bloke a leg up in the modern world,” Sir Clive observed. “Rather!”

  “Indeed,” Nevis agreed. “But the most interesting information about Lord Khallimar is not the riches he possesses but the various concerns he is involved in covertly. Fleets of aetherships, factories of all kinds, research facilities, shipping lines, banks, mercantile establishments, and philanthropic organizations—his name is never found on any of the governing boards, never listed as an investor, but on deeper examination we find he is actually the sole owner and that the others exist only as a protective shield, so to speak.”

  “What about a connection to MEDUSA?” Lady Cynthia asked.

  Nevis cleared his throat, a little nervously. “In establishing that, we have not been successful. He has the resources to establish such an organization as MEDUSA, but the only link we have between him and it are in the documents conveyed from France by Chief Inspector Slaughter and Marie Poulpe.”

  “Perhaps Mlle Poulpe will be able to shed a bit more light on the connection when she and Slaughter arrive,” Sir Clive said.

  “When is that, Sir Clive?”

  “Within the hour,” the official replied. “We initially planned to transport them from the safe-house in the Village to London by steamer, but that presented too many opportunities for an attack.”

  “Have we managed to identify or locate the assassin?” Lady Cynthia asked.

  Sir Clive looked to Nevis for a report.

  “Locating the assassin, no, unfortunately, but we have been far more successful in establishing who the assassin might be,” Nevis said. “For the past several years, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as well as the American Confederation Intelligence Agency and other intelligence services, have heard rumors about a female assassin but we thought of her as a freelancer, not as an agent of any group.”

  “And why was that?” Lady Cynthia asked.

  “Because of the sheer variety of her victims, or, I should say, her rumored victims, because they usually appeared to be accidents, until examined very closely,” Nevis explained. “The outcomes of the assassinations did not seem to work in the interest of any single nation. The same hand seemed to work for and against a country.”

  “MEDUSA owns to no nation it seems,” Sir Clive said.

  Nevis nodded. “Despite all the information forwarded to us from Paris and Mars, and our own efforts in the meanwhile, we do not know much about the structure or intent of MEDUSA. But one thing we do know is that they pose a danger to all nations, both on Earth and on all the planets and moons.”

  “But not equally.” Lady Cynthia added.

  The men looked at her perplexed.

  “The greatest danger is to the greatest power, gentlemen, and that is the Empire,” she said. “Fatally wound the British Empire, and all the other powers will fall like a line of dominoes.”

  They nodded their assent.

  “MEDUSA must be stopped, but the immediate danger is that assassin of theirs,” Lady Cynthia pointed out. “We must find her. If possible we should capture her; if not, kill her.”

  Nevis’ eyes widened a bit at Lady Cynthia’s bluntness, but he was in no mood for a second verbal thrashing from Her Ladyship.

  “We are doing everything in our power to run the assassin to ground,” Nevis protested. “We’ve provided her description to all our domestic and foreign operatives and to all the Chief Constables of the counties. The trouble of course is finding one person out of millions, who is likely disguised and quite accustomed to living below the mainstream of every day life. Because she failed twice to kill Chief Inspector Slaughter and Marie Poulpe, we have focused our efforts on the area between the Village and London.”

  “I hope you advised your operatives not to be deceived.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Most of Section 6’s field operatives are male, are they not?” Lady Cynthia demanded.

  Frowning in confusion, Nevis nodded. “Yes, naturally.”

  “They should be warned not to give in to their male conceits and discount her lethality just because she is a woman.” Lady Cynthia smiled sweetly. “Among humans, as in nature, the female is usually the deadlier of the species.”

  Both men swallowed nervously.

  The door of the conference room opened and a young clerk entered bearing a strip of message tape. Whispering in Sir Clive’s ear, he gave him the paper. Sir Clive frowned as he read. He passed it to Nevis.

  “Good God!” Nevis murmured.

  Lady Cynthia snatched the paper away.

  “The train in which Slaughter and the Poulpe woman were traveling was derailed upon its approach to London,” Sir Clive murmured. “It is not known yet whether it was deliberate or accidental. We already have people searching the wreck.”

  Lady dropped the paper and stood. “I must leave.”

  Sir Clive nodded.

  Nevis watched her leave the room, waited until the door was securely shut, then said: “Damn infuriating woman! Does she work for us or do we work for her?”

  “That, my dear Nevis, is debatable.”

  * * *

  “We are surrounded by traitors, Ahriman,” Lord Khallimar said as he sat in darkness. An untouched glass of blood-red wine sat on the table before him. The book-lined room was lit only by a single taper. “We are besieged by enemies within and without.”

  The Mesopotamian made no reply. He had stood in silence for nearly an hour before his master spoke.

  “The operatives from Britain are nosing around my affairs, like pigs rooting for valuable truffles, seeking ties I have always taken great pains to hide,” Lord Khallimar continued. “Bellaseus’ assassin failed to kill the turncoat’s daughter and Section 6’s ferret, failed thrice, mind you. Does that seem likely, Ahriman?”

  “No, My Lord, it does not,” Ahriman replied softly. “In all her other tasks Eck has been most efficient. She moves quietly, and the hand that moves her is not seen.”

  “Yes, precisely, Ahriman, but not this
time…not this time.”

  Lord Khallimar rested his elbows upon the arms of his chair and balanced his chin upon tented fingers, forked beard covering his wrists. His eyes became unfocused as he contemplated the evolving situation. Except for the rain which pounded the foliage surrounding the palatial ancestral estate, which it did more than three hundred days out of the year, silence reigned.

  “The blotched massacre in the Parisian café, and the attack on the Channel train,” Lord Khallimar said after a long moment of silence. “And then the destruction of the airship that Eck’s quarries were not on.” He ruminated on the incidents. “Could they have been planned to happen as they did?”

  “I do not understand, My Lord.”

  “Baron Bellaseus is a most devious man,” Lord Khallimar said. “I have suspected his loyalty to our cause…and to me for a very long time. Only because he is so good at what he does has he lived this long. Perhaps I have not paid enough attention to him. Perhaps he has taken advantage of my distraction with the project. The time to rein the man back may have passed.”

  “My Lord, I always stand ready to…”

  The dark man gestured for silence. “Bellaseus has blamed the mistakes made by Eck on the exigency of the moment, but is that true? Could there be some other machination at play?”

  Ahriman did not reply. He had long served Lord Khallimar. While he would never admit any insight into his master’s complex and shrouded mind, he knew that when in doubt it was always more prudent, and much safer, to remain silent than to speak.

  “The Scotland Yard inspector escaped during the confusion of Eck’s attack, taking the pilfered information and the girl with him,” Lord Khallimar continued. “Was the confusion created to allow his escape? The same for the attack on the Channel train? And what about the airship? Was Eck directed to insert a bomb into the airship solely for the purpose of bringing attention to me? Would Section 6 hold the information they’ve come into possession of if Bellaseus were not trying so hard to get it back? With so much of my concern focused on the turmoil surrounding Eck’s failures, does Bellaseus think I will not wonder the source of the information?”