“What about me, Baas?” Mary asked.
“Mary, the Spirit-Engine tears apart any non-immortal who uses it,” Baas replied. “That is why Banneker has not sent his knolls after my double.”
“But Caleb and John Brown ain’t immortals,” Mary said.
“No, but Caleb’s fluid nature will allow him to reform after his disintegration,” Baas replied. “As will Harriet’s regenerative powers.”
“My tough hide can take it, Baas,” Mary said. “We can’t send Harriet to a whole ‘nother world all by her lonesome.”
“We have no choice,” Baas said. “I feel so helpless already. Please, do not make me feel worse.”
“It’s okay, Baas,” Harriet said. “We know you ain’t no coward. Me goin’ makes mo’ sense. And Mary, this war is what I was born fo’. The Lawd done made me his soldier and I’m pledged to serve him unto my death…in this world and any other one.”
Mary swallowed her second cup of tea. “This don’t sit well with me.”
“If Harriet falls and I am killed,” Baas sighed. “Mary, I’ll need you here to take up the fight against Banneker until Harriet returns and joins you.”
Mary nodded.
“Alright then, it’s settled,” Baas said. “Rest up, we leave for Whitechapel at dawn.”
CHAPTER six
September 21, 1870
John Brown stood at the corner of Whitechapel Road and Dorset Street – described as “the worst street in London” – pulling at his beard as he perused the dwellings around him – dwellings called Blackwall Buildings, because they belonged to Blackwall Railway, housed most of the prostitutes who worked the brothels – 62 of them by John Brown’s count – in Whitechapel. Sitting outside of one building was a little boy with rosy cheeks and dead, gray eyes that looked as if they had never seen a sunrise, or lovers holding hands, or the filth all around them.
John Brown crept toward the boy.
“May I help you, sir?” The boy asked.
“Are you really blind boy?” Brown inquired. “How did you know I was here?”
“You ain’t as quiet as you would imagine, sir,” the boy replied.
“Your name Bertrand Plummer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Bert, I am told that if it happens in Whitechapel, you know about it. If you can give me some helpful information, I will pay you a pound for your trouble,” John Brown said. “If the information is not so helpful, I will still pay you ten shillings for your time.”
Bert rose from his seat. “Ask away, then, sir! I will do my best to give you a proper answer.”
Brown laid a hand on Bert’s shoulder. “Son, I have been searching for a place where a man of a…darker persuasion might frequent for the company and comfort of a woman.”
“A darker persuasion? You mean a Fuzzy, sir?” Bert asked.
“Yes,” John Brown answered. “But an educated Fuzzy, with a bit of a Moorish accent.”
“There was a man like that ‘round here once or twice, sir,” Bert said. “He stayed a couple of days at Mama Koko’s a few years back. Nice man, for a Fuzzy. Bought a sandwich and soup for me and me mum and ain’t ask for nothin’ in return.”
“Mama Koko’s on Thrawl Street?”
“That be the very one, sir.”
John Brown grabbed Bert’s hand, placed two large coins in it and closed his fist around them.
“There’s two pounds for you,” John Brown said. “You were very helpful, son.”
Bert smiled. “Thank you, sir! Me mum and me will eat good for a few days and maybe she can stay off her back for a day or two, too!”
“Let’s hope so,” John Brown said, turning on his heels.
“God bless you, sir!” Bert shouted.
John brown strode up Whitechapel Road, toward Thrawl. Within a few minutes, he had arrived at the door of Mama Koko’s. As he was about to knock, the door opened. A beautiful woman – clad in only a red corset, a matching dress that stopped at her thighs and a gold ring on her left middle toe – stood before John Brown. By the look of her long brown hair, dark tan and almond-shaped eyes, Brown figured she was of Asian and Caucasian descent.
“Come in, love,” she said. “I’m Madame Koko, but you can call me Mama.”
Her accent was strange, something Brown had never heard before. He stepped inside.
“Your voice is beautiful,” John Brown said, “But very unique. May I ask where you are from?”
“My mother is Sicilian,” Madame Koko replied. “My father is part Blackamoor; part Arab – from Egypt. I was born and raised in Cairo.”
“Ah, no wonder Baas Bello found this place so welcoming, then,” John Brown said.
Madame Koko’s face was stone, but a single rivulet of sweat crept down her brow. “I am sorry, I have never heard of this person.”
Madame Koko tried to walk away, but John Brown grabbed her arm. “I believe you have.”
Two men, both nearly seven feet tall, heavily muscled, with matching mugs obviously forged in many boxing and catch wrestling rings, darted from out of the shadows, placing their bullish bodies between John Brown and Mama Koko. Brown’s hand was yanked off of the madam’s arm. Mama Koko strutted into the parlor, where a dozen men and two dozen women laughed, drank and cuddled.
“Evenin’ gents,” one of the twins said with a tip of his bowler. “Me name’s Connor and this handsome bloke is me brother, Colin. Afraid you will have to leave our fine establishment now, or we’ll be forced to batty-fang ya’.”
A muffled din erupted from under John Brown’s vest. “We’ll leave when we get what we came for!”
Connor and Colin exchanged quick glances.
“How’d you say that without openin’ your sauce-box?” Colin asked.
“Wasn’t me,” John Brown replied.
Brown yanked his vest open, sending the buttons flying in all directions.
Caleb flashed a wide grin at the twins. “It was me!”
The twins hopped backward in unison.
“What the bloody hell?” Connor gasped.
“Damfino!” Colin croaked. “Damned if I know.”
“You…you’re the Devil!” Colin wailed.
“Not quite,” Caleb replied. “But we shol’ ‘nuff ‘bout to send you to Hell!”
John Brown’s face turned soft and claylike, oozing like hot wax. His mouth formed into a gaping hole, filled with several spiraling rows of needle-like teeth. In place of his eyes and ears were smaller mouths identical to the large one.
A tendril of thick flesh carrying Caleb’s face shot out of John Brown’s torso. Caleb sank his teeth into Colin’s thigh and then the tendril retracted back into John Brown’s torso.
Colin fell to the floor, screaming in agony as blood poured down his pants leg.
Caleb spit. A pink chunk of flesh and a patch of Colin’s brown cotton trousers landed between Connor’s feet.
“Tastes like chicken!” Caleb chuckled.
John Brown exploded forward, closing on Connor, his spine making strange clicking noises as he encircled the big man like a boa constrictor trapping it’s pray. As Brown’s malleable frame slithered about Connor, his many mouths tore at the man’s flesh, opening dozens of deep wounds. The mouths that were once John Brown’s eyes chewed at Connor’s throat, severing his vocal cords.
Brown released Connor and he fell beside his brother, writhing in silence.
Panic spread through the brothel like a plague. Patrons and prostitutes alike rushed toward the door, but were cut down by the teeth of the John Brown / Caleb hybrid. The creature’s arms and legs were now tendrils, lined with scores of biting mouths that captured and bit chunks out of all in their path.
Blood, flesh and entrails painted the walls of the parlor and other rooms on the first floor. The John Brown / Caleb creature then slithered up the stairs to the second floor, where it found several prostitutes hiding with their terrified clients. The creature tore them apart with relish, ensuring to deliver killing bites to m
ajor arteries as they did on the floor below – neither Brown nor Caleb wanted an army of Ghul whores and whoremongers terrorizing London.
Within a quarter hour, everyone in the brothel was dead.
John Brown and Caleb resumed their “human” form and searched the top floor, going from room to room, looking for a false wall or hidden door.
All of the rooms were identical and clean, except for the bloody mess they had just made.
In one room, however, John Brown found a cobweb in the corner. He searched the items in the room – a chest-of-drawers, a bed, a chair and a wash basin – and found a bit of dust on the chest and on the seat of the chair, as if the room had not been used in quite some time.
John pounded on the walls, they sounded solid. He stomped on the hardwood floor, it too, was solid. He looked under the bed. A blanket and a woman’s wool coat were folded neatly on the floor. John slid the bed aside and then tossed the blanket and coat onto it. He stomped on the floor where the blanket and coat once lay and was rewarded with an echo, as if the floor beneath was hollow.
John pulled at a plank of wood with his fingers and it came up easily. He removed another plank and another, exposing a gray, metal door beneath the wood. In the center of the door was a ring.
John twisted the ring clockwise until he heard a click and then he released the ring. The door slid open, revealing an iron ladder that descended into darkness. The smell of feces and urine billowed up from the dank blackness.
“Damn!” Caleb said. “What in the hell is makin’ that stink?”
“I suppose we are about to find out,” John Brown replied, placing one foot on the ladder.
“‘Spose so,” Caleb said.
John Brown descended the ladder, disappearing into shadow, like a ship slipping below the surface of murky waters.
John Brown broke through the smothering darkness just as his feet touched cold stone.
He stood in a capacious room that was dimly lit by four indigo spheres – one in each corner – that glowed with a soft light.
In the center of the room, about thirty feet away, sat a large machine, from which several wires and tubes protruded. Sitting atop the machine was another indigo sphere, but this one glowed more intensely than the others.
“That must be the Spirit-Engine,” Caleb said. “You ready, old man?”
“As ready as I will ever be, I suppose,” John replied.
A soft chuckle came from the other side of the men.
“What the hell?” Caleb whispered.
“Who’s there?” John Brown asked, craning his neck toward the machine.
The sound of shuffling feet and metal dragged across stone answered.
“Show yourself!” John Brown demanded.
A man, if you can call it that, stepped out from behind the machine. He stood nearly six feet tall, but his legs were the length of a boy not quite in his teens. The creature stood with its sinewy arms hanging at its sides, its knuckles scraping the floor. His long, thick torso swayed back and forth as if he was intoxicated. The man’s eyes were dark and penetrating. In contrast, his smile was warm and bright.
The man darted forward.
Shocked by the sudden and aggressive movement, John Brown crouched low with his fists raised.
“Hello, there, gents,” the man said, stopping a foot from John Brown. “Jack Springheels, at your service. I would welcome you with a handshake, but alas, I cannot reach you. Why don’t you come a bit closer?”
John Brown looked toward the floor. Around Jack’s left ankle was a thick, iron chain that extended from a slot carved into and around the center of the engine.
“My name is Brown; John Brown,” Brown said. “Why are you here? Why are you in chains?”
“Been here 880 years, has I,” Jack replied. “Got 120 more to go and Bello lets me go.”
“You’re Baas Bello’s prisoner? Jack inquired.
Jack shook his head. “His employee. I protects his engine. No one goes through or comes out and lives unless Bello tell me face-to-face.”
“I have come a very long way to use the Spirit-Engine,” Brown said. “ Let me use it unmolested and I will bring you back a feast. You must be starved down here.”
“Oh, I eats,” Jack said. “I gets my fill of rats, roaches and the ghosts that haunts this place.”
“Oh boy,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes.
Jack chuckled. “It talks! Hello, belly-face. What’s your name?”
“Caleb Butler,” Caleb replied.
“Pleased to meet you, Caleb Butler,” Jack said. “What with the ‘oh boy’?”
Caleb snickered. “How can you possibly eat a ghost?”
“Well, I kills it first, of course,” Jack replied. “I ain’ts no savage!”
“You kill ghosts?” Caleb asked with a smirk.
Jack raised his hands before his face; claws, as long as daggers, extended from them. “With these, I can cut and kills anything – iron, glass, ghosts, goblins, and even the Good Lord hisself should I one day have the pleasure of his acquaintance.”
“Then, why not cut the chains and free yourself?” John Brown asked.
“They’s enchanted,” Jack said. “By Bello witchery. Only the intestines of a white man can break the enchantment. You the first white mens been down here in ever.”
“Leave us be and we will bring you a white man’s intestines upon our return,” John Brown said.
Jack’s smile grew wider. “Why wait? You here already.”
Jack struck with lightning speed, the claws of his hands digging into both sides of John Brown’s ribcage.
Brown and Caleb screamed in unison.
Jack pulled his hands toward his chest. The ripping force separated the men. A naked Caleb stumbled backward and then fell, landing on his haunches. John Brown was still caught in Jack’s grip. Jack brought both arms forcefully upward and outward above his shoulders, tearing John Brown in half as easily as a man rips a piece of tissue.
Jack opened his mouth wide, letting a torrent of blood rain inside his gaping maw.
Caleb crawled to the front of the Spirit-Engine. There was a brass lever protruding from a bronze plate on the machine’s face. Caleb grabbed the handle and snatched it downward. The light at the top of the machine went black.
Jack dropped the halves of John Brown onto the floor. “No!”
A vertical chasm, glowing bright violet, opened in the air to Caleb’s left. He leapt to his feet and sprinted toward it.
Jack was hot on Caleb’s heels, slashing furiously with his claws.
Caleb leapt through the chasm. Jack’s claws just missing the back of his neck.
The chasm closed. The light on top of the Spirit-Engine came back on.
“I am in so much troubles!” Jack sobbed. “Bello never lets me go, now!”
Jack stared at John Brown’s torn and tattered body. A smile stretched from one cheek to the other.
“Intestines,” he whispered. “A white man intestines!”
CHAPTER seven
The Nefertiti landed, silently, upon Mama Koko’s roof. Baas pressed a pedal with his right foot and the airship’s giant balloon deflated, folding in upon itself until it was in a neat rectangle that rested atop the Nefertiti.
“Baas, this airship gon’ go crashin’ through the roof of this place!” Harriet whispered.
“The roof is fortified,” Baas said. “It could hold two airships comparable to the Nefertiti’s weight.”
Mary wrapped a burly arm around Baas’ waist and then leapt out of the airship. She landed with a dull thud.
Harriet landed behind her without making a sound. She looked up at the sign above the door. “Mama Koko’s Oasis. What kind of place is this, Baas?”
Mary laughed. “You know what kind of place it is, Harriet. Baas…you old whoremonger, you!”
Baas’ dark brown face reddened. “I assure you, I am no whoremonger. I simply use this as a hiding place for the Spirit-Engine. No one would suspect it is here.”
Harriet pressed her fist to her hip and frowned. “No one would have suspected it was in church, either.”
Mary threw up her hands. “Amen!”
“Or in a inn,” Harriet continued. “Or on a riverboat; or at…”
“Alright!” Baas said, interrupting her. “Please…we have to stay alert.”
“Oh, we alert, Baas,” Mary replied. “We wide awake, now.”
Baas tugged at his cravat. “Anyway…umm…right now we have much to do; we will discuss this later.”
“Harriet nodded. “We sho’ will.”
Mary laughed, but her laughter quickly faded. She sniffed the air. “Blood,” she whispered. “A lot of it. All over the brothel.”
Harriet drew the Bello Mule and then aimed it at the door.
Mary drew both Colt Dragoon revolvers and held them at the ready.
Baas checked the door, pressing his palm against it. The door creaked open.
Harriet crept inside, with Mary and Baas close behind her.
“Lawd,” Harriet sighed as she studied the grisly scene.
“Damn!” Mary said. “That John Brown-Caleb mishmash obviously beat us here.”
“They are, more than likely, dead too,” Baas said, trotting toward the stairway. “Let’s check upstairs.”
Harriet and Mary followed Baas to the second floor.
At the top of the stairs, Harriet tapped Baas on the shoulder. Baas peered over his shoulder at her.
“You said John Brown and Caleb are most likely dead,” Harriet said. “What you mean by that? A bunch of fallen women killed those monsters?”
“No,” Baas replied. “In 869, I was hired by the Saracens, who lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia, to capture one of the gifted who had been terrorizing them for over a decade, killing any woman it could find out alone and eating her entrails.”
Baas continued to speak as he walked toward a room in the middle of the hallway. “I discovered that this man, whose name was Jek, had been sent by Basil I, ruler of the Byzantine Empire, to demoralize and weaken the Saracens, who had refused to bend to his rule. I used a chain nkisi to ensnare him.”
“A chain inky, what?” Mary said, scratching her head.
The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman- Freedonia Page 5