by J. S. Miller
Another few minutes passed before something heavy thumped onto the concrete behind me.
“Hey, Boss,” Cagney said. “I got the stuff. Bada bing, bada — holy shit! What happened to this poor fuck?!”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, turning away from the body. The little gargoyle was smoking a cigar as thick as his arm. Where the hell had he gotten that? I grabbed the satchel and gazed at the mangled door. It was still hanging by that single hinge.
“Fuggedaboudit, he says … there’s blood fuckin’ everywhere, Boss. You need me and the boys to back you up?”
“What I need is for you to find a phone and call Arclight.”
“No way, Boss, nu uh. I ain’t squealin’ to no Feds.”
“Just do it. And tell them where to find this man’s body. His name is Charles Denton.”
“If you say so, Boss,” he said uneasily.
I reached into the satchel and removed my Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver — that's what it had started out as, at any rate. I’d rebuilt it using special pneumatics and etched its frame with the same runes that covered my bag and ring. I opened the five-round cylinder, pulled vials of varying hues from the satchel, and loaded the gun. Then I pulled an old gun belt from the bag and strapped it on. The Chemslinger slid smoothly into its double-wide holster, and I swung the satchel on so that the rune-stitched strap crossed over my heart.
Behind me, creaking metal announced the end of the door’s structural integrity. Its final hinge screeched and broke, and the bronze slab did a half-spin before slamming down onto the concrete floor. Copper pipes shuddered, and the small room filled with dust.
The corpse and the gargoyle watched as I stepped into the cloud, following a trail of ink-black blood into the mystical realm of who-the-hell-knew-where.
Chapter 6
Grit scraped beneath my feet, and the walls were cold to the touch, but the only way I knew I was still walking down a tunnel was the light at the end. Lacking any less ominous options, I went toward the light.
The path eventually opened on a forest blanketed with red and blue leaves. Tree trunks thick as underpass struts and armored in swirling purple bark had grown tall and embedded themselves in the canopy hundreds of feet above. Pale, aqua moonlight streamed down in zigzags, catching millions of dust motes in a meshwork of tractor beams. Everything about the forest felt otherworldly, and not only because no such woodland existed near city limits. Where the hell was I?
Something in the canopy moved. I caught a flash of yellow eyes, but they vanished so quickly I wasn’t sure I’d seen anything at all.
“Goddamn this place and its topsy-turvy bullshit,” I muttered, pulling the Chemslinger from its holster. Oddly, its weight in my hand made me feel less secure. What was I doing here? I had a weapon, sure, but a gun was not a plan. This was going to end badly. I could feel it.
As if in agreement, the forest groaned like an ancient man-of-war caught in high waves. The sound of it stirred up more bad memories. I hadn’t been this deep in a forest in a long time, but you never forget the sound of trees. Their stillness imprints itself upon you.
On the day of my father’s funeral, I’d wandered far into the woods surrounding the old Muller brewery. By that time the interlopers had arrived, and the place had begun to feel like a facsimile of home. I wanted no part of it. But the girl followed me. She came up behind me so quietly that, when she finally spoke, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Where are you going?” she asked in a voice still carrying the high pitch of youth.
“Away from you,” I said. Mine hadn’t exactly deepened yet either, but it was getting there. I regained my composure and started walking again.
“Why?” she responded, following me. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. I just want to be alone.”
“Liar.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re a bad liar,” she said, keeping up with me despite not being dressed for a hike. “Why are you leaving?”
“Why are you here? You aren’t even family.”
“We could be.”
“My family’s gone.”
Mud was clinging to her white flats.
“I was sorry to hear about your father,” she said. “Mine always spoke well of him.”
“Mine never mentioned yours.”
“So come back. Get to know us.”
“No thanks.”
The forest floor was staining the hem of her dress.
“You would rather get lost in this place?” she asked. “Find a nice, quiet place to cry? Don’t be such a baby.”
Without halting, I whipped my head around and locked eyes with her.
“Get away from—”
I was staring into her eyes when I fell. The open air embraced me for a long moment, and then I plunged into waist deep water. When I lifted my head to gasp for air, her face appeared a dozen feet above, framed by a rough mouth of concrete and corrugated steel. Vines had overgrown the crumbling hole in the abandoned drainage tunnel, but now they were broken and dangling limply. I grabbed one and tried to pull myself from the filthy water. It didn’t hold my weight any better than the first time.
“I will be right back,” she said before disappearing.
I stood, causing pain to shoot through my left leg. Lifting it out of the murk, I saw blood pouring from an open wound above the knee. I looked around but could make out little beyond the pool of illumination created by my accidental skylight.
No, wait. There was something. Two somethings. A matching set of eyes, glinting green in the darkness and skating rhythmically from left to right. Getting larger. Approaching.
The lindwyrm stomped into the light, flicking its tongue to test the air, to substantiate the scent of blood that had drawn it here. It must have been 20 feet long from nose to tail, with a serpent’s body held aloft by four powerful legs. The two in front had been wings once, far back down the evolutionary track, but now the webbed forelegs could only scrabble at the concrete using three long talons protruding from the first joint. Spines ran up its body, growing longer and sharper until spreading to form a crown atop its broad, flat head.
I stood perfectly still before the great reptile, even when the girl lowered a branch in front of my face.
“Here, I found a—” she began, but then she too saw the beast. “Climb, quickly!”
Climb? I couldn't move, let alone climb. If I fled, this monster would sink its fangs into my thighs and pull me under the water. The terror was paralyzing. So I moved the only part of me that was still responding: I closed my eyes and awaited the inevitable.
My father’s face appeared before me. Not the photo on the easel. Not that cold thing in the coffin. His real, living face, wearing that trademark smirk, as if he were about to hit me with one of his quips, something like, “Gotta learn to stand on your own two feet, boy. You knew I wouldn't be around forever.”
Anger drowned out the fear, the sorrow, the regret, rushing in my ears like a raging river. He'd left me. If he were still alive, none of this would have happened. The rage buzzed inside my head, scrabbling to be set free. It churned and roiled in my chest, and when I opened my eyes, the world around me seemed to tremble. I could feel the water flowing around my feet. Sense the molecules in constant motion. And I knew, in that moment, that I could call to the water, and that it would listen. It would rise from its bed and drown this tiny dragon.
I have no idea what I must have looked like. But I do know that when I gazed into those bright, green eyes a second time, it was the beast who froze.
I climbed.
When I reached the top, she was by my side, helping me up, placing herself under my arm. Together, we limped toward home.
“What happened?” she asked, grunting under my weight. “What did you do to it?”
“I … I don’t know,” I said. “I just sort of … looked at it.”
“Ah, yes, the old baby blues,” she said. “I’m Abigail.”
“Nice to meet you. I guess you'll have no choice but to get to know us now. While you recover.”
“Guess not.”
“I think you will like us. We really are quite nice.”
I looked at her again, our faces mere inches apart. She was filthy. So was I. She smiled at me, and I was hers.
A short, shrill scream shattered the memory. I glanced in the direction of the noise, and when I looked back, Abby was gone. The new forest had swallowed her up, and I was back in fantasy land, chasing the madman with the malevolent laugh. A pang of grief hit me in the stomach like a sack of doorknobs. Then another scream echoed through the trees. It sounded a lot like the one The Laughing Man had made when Elena turned him into an authentic Jewish boy.
As I followed the trail toward the sound, the flora began to lean away from the direction I was walking, reminding me of coastal trees fleeing the stinging salt of harsh sea winds. These, however, hadn’t been bent by wind or sea, but rather by some invisible force — the same one, perhaps, compelling me to trudge onward.
I kept walking until a large, solid shape emerged in the murky distance; it squatted, unmoving, just a few dozen yards away, but I wasn’t taking any more chances. Gun raised, I slinked toward the creature, trying to stay out of sight. My hands did the weapon work for me, pulling back the hammer and leveling the sights on … a broad wooden sign. Well done, West. A bright future awaits in the burgeoning field of intimidating inanimate objects.
Several lines of symbols had been carved into the sign. Some were runes, most of which I could read, while others were from foreign languages that didn’t look even remotely familiar. But, to my surprise, the bottom row contained letters from the English alphabet.
Caution: Intruders will be maimed. Thoroughly.
While this didn’t exactly set me at ease, turning back now was out of the question, so I picked up a stick and tossed it through the invisible border established by the sign. No sparks. No fire. No motion-operated machine gun turrets. I kept walking.
An even larger shape emerged from the shadows, and soon details became visible: stone walls, glass windows, tile roof. It was a modest Victorian mansion — or it had been before the herd of angry elephants stampeded through it. One corner of the building had crumbled inward, and scorch marks adorned the yard, along with several charred tree trunks. Something had attacked this house. Something that hit like a literal wrecking ball. But its residents hadn’t gone down without a fight.
I approached the broken building and peered inside. The place looked abandoned, but as I stepped over the rubble and entered the domicile, a loud clang issued from above my head. Images of trip wires tied to guillotine blades flashed through my brain, but then a small, long-tailed animal darted across a shelf near the ceiling. Two familiar yellow eyes turned toward me, and my breath burst out in a laugh. Only a cat.
The cat backed up and bumped into a beaker, which fell from the high shelf and shattered on the floor. The animal let out a startled shriek, skittered across the underside of the ceiling, spread six webbed legs, and glided out through an open window. Wait, what the hell was that thing?
Tracking the creature until it vanished into the forest, my eyes settled on the base of a tree about 30 yards away. A human body sat slumped against the purple bark. Based on the way the tree was leaning, this individual had collided with it at an incredible speed.
I exited the house and rushed across the yard, but the closer I got, the clearer it became that this wasn't Elena or even a normal human. The shape was right, but it was too large, and the skin and clothes were all one color — the same dusty, tarnished bronze. A bowler hat sat on its head, and below the nose was a broad handlebar mustache, all of it forged from the same alloy. The only non-metallic things on it were the glass monocle welded into the right eye socket, a smaller lens for the normal-sized left eye, and the leather gaskets bolted around the joints, which seemed designed for flexibility of movement. This wasn’t just freaky installation art. This was a legit robotic 19th century English gentleman.
OK … well, I needed directions, and this thing was probably an animatronic tour guide, right? Holstering the Chemslinger, I dropped to one knee and started feeling around for a clasp, a knob, anything to pop Sir Cyborg open so I could get a glimpse inside. My fingers caught on something that felt like a winding key for an old clock, and when I turned it, the dapper metal waistcoat swung open. The inner panel was etched with runes along with a single English word: Coppersworth.
“OK, Coppersworth,” I said. “Let's see if we can bring you back to life.”
Now, I’ve worked on a lot of weird machines, but I’d never seen anything like this before. Every type of engine I could imagine — from internal combustion to steam to a dozen others I didn’t recognize — had been streamlined, shrunk, and crammed into Coppersworth. Its innards were a maze of gears and levers and belts … although one belt stood out. It hung limply from a set of pulleys, as though it had popped loose upon collision with the tree.
I reached into Coppersworth’s chest and slipped the belt up over the corresponding pulley. It fit like a tailored glove. With that done, I started searching for an “On” switch. No doubt an informative speech about Victorian England awaited me upon boot-up. Within seconds of realigning the belt, however, the damn thing started spinning all on its own. One by one, the tiny pieces in the engines sprang to life, whirring and clicking and sputtering wildly, like a drowning man getting an unexpected breath of air.
At the center of all that frantic motion, a small hexagonal jar lit up. A ball of blue flame burned inside, a focused point of compressed energy turning fuel into heat and light. Except there was no fuel, only the small, self-sustaining sun suspended in the glass. I gazed at the flame, and it seemed to stare back at me, into me, tugging at my soul as though it were a piece of infinity itself, some existential secret no one was meant to see, the living fire at the heart of the universe that burns within everything we know. For a moment that seemed like days, it refused to let me go, and I was lost.
Then the metal man started screaming.
Chapter 7
The automaton bellowed and lurched to its feet. Damn thing must’ve been over seven feet tall. That strange blue fire now danced in its eyes, but the mismatched glass lenses diffused the light, making the right one seem to bulge. If a robot the size of an NBA center hadn’t been bearing down on me, howling with rage, it might have been hard to take the situation seriously.
I took a step back and reached for my hip, remembering at the last second that I needed this thing talking, not bubbling in a puddle of liquid metal on the leaves. And besides, it clearly had a combat mode. Maybe I could turn it into my own personal bodyguard. Just needed to persuade it to stop trying to kill me first.
“I mean you no—” I started to say, but before I could finish, a shiny metal fist flew at my head. I dived out of the way and stumbled to my feet, raising my open hands. “Harm! See? No weapon.”
The robot stopped shouting, lowered its arms, and arched one golden eyebrow. Something buzzed faintly, as if he’d just switched on an amplifier, and the copper chin moved beneath the giant mustache. A tinny but somehow resonant voice emerged.
“Are you daft, boy?” it asked in a rumbling English accent that was somehow both posh and pistols-at-dawn scary. “I could have spotted that barker from a mile off.”
“I … uh … what?”
“Your revolver, son. It’s practically a blunderbuss.”
I gawked, and the machine man sighed.
“Tell me,” it said. “Did your mother, perchance, partake of the opium?”
When no words dislodged themselves from my open mouth, the talking statue shook its head sadly and raised its left arm as if in salute.
“I suspected as much. Diabolical stuff, truly.” As it spoke, the left forearm split down the middle with a click and a whir. The hand folded back, and a long black cylinder slid out. It looked like a Civil War cannon b
arrel in miniature. “Since you lack the faculties even to proclaim innocence, I shall put you out of your misery.”
That got my mouth moving.
“Whoa, hold on a second—”
The cannon roared. An orb of superheated plasma sizzled past me, and a nearby mound of leaves exploded. Molten debris sprayed my leather jacket as I stumbled away from the crater. The brass man stepped forward, looming over me.
“A warning shot. The next one will disintegrate your head, brigand. Now, tell me what you know of the assault on Arthur Rundale’s estate.”
“What? I’m not a brigand. I just got here.”
“I do believe that is precisely what a brigand would say, brigand.”
“Coppersworth!”
The robot lowered its arm, and its eyebrows clinked as they met in the middle.
“How do you know that name?”
“Please, listen to me. Look at the house. The attack happened years, maybe even decades ago. Local wildlife has moved in, for crying out loud. See for yourself.”
The machine glared for a few seconds more, then without another word stomped past me toward the house. It stepped over the fallen wall and disappeared. For several minutes I stood there, listening to the forest. Songbirds warbled out of sight, but the sound did not summon pleasant daydreams, as the wind whispering through the trees had: These unearthly lullabies made me feel farther from home than I ever had before. Adrenaline started to settle in my toes and fingertips, weighing down my limbs, pulling me toward drowsiness. It’d been a long day, and it only seemed to be getting longer.
I’d almost forgotten what I was waiting for when an anguished howl from within the house rattled its few remaining window panes. It was a sound so human it gave me chills.