by JM Bannon
As the steam engine faded, he heard another sound approaching from above. A dull hum that grew in intensity. He looked up to see the HMS Warrior break through the smog overhang to take up station at the gaswerks.
That was a good sign for Dolly. It meant that the Army and Air Service would exert an overwhelming force to quell any further rioting.
The air destroyer shone bright arc lights down at the ground. Dolly could make out sharpshooters on the midline walkways.
A loud but tiny voice came from the audiophone of the Warrior. “This is Captain Archer of Her Majesty’s Air Service. You are to peaceably disperse and allow the police and fire brigades to assist the wounded. Any rioters or looters will be shot.”
The detective surveyed the area as the ship moved from over his head around to the other side of the gaswerks. The spotlights from the Warrior helped to burn through the dense fog, aiding Dolly in his appraisal of the area. Several passes of the spotlights helped him make out the edges of the shops and buildings across from the plant. Two buildings were destroyed, and the rest looked like a strong wind could knock them down.
As the din of the ironclad faded, Dolly heard the cries of a woman from one of the buildings across the street from the gaswerks. It sounded to him to be coming from the luncheonette with all the windows blasted out.
It was difficult to see through the jade fog now that the airship had circled, and its beams of light were focused elsewhere. He stepped over the window sill into the café, watching not to cut himself on the jagged remnants of glass. He heard the crunch of the shattered glass on the floor under his boot when he placed it inside the shop. Along the wall were the coin-operated server chambers. The dining area was strewn with tables, chairs, bodies and body parts. None were alive. He heard the woman’s cry again and thought he saw a female form move past a doorway in the back behind the cashier’s counter.
Dolly drew his Colt Navy revolver, pulled back the hammer and brought the pistol up close to his eye. Rotating the cylinder, he made sure that there were caps in place on all the chambers, and then he clicked a chamber into place.
He edged around the doorway, looking down the sights of his pistol. No one was there. This was the luncheonette kitchen. It did not appear to have any damage, but those that had worked there had abandoned their posts and fled to safety.
The chiller was open. On the counter were chopped vegetables, and pots were still boiling on the cooktops. At the far end of the room, the door was ajar and moved.
The detective made his way to the end of the kitchen to check the door, his breathing shallow and irregular. This time he pushed the door open with his shoulder and raised his pistol. He saw someone that resembled Angelica Du Haiti move through the back of the storeroom and out the alley door. It was like looking at the phantasmagraph in Rose’s apartment, a translucent apparition in the green fog. Was this gas making him hallucinate?
Cautiously moving through the aisle between the shelves of the storeroom, he reached the door, turned the handle and threw it open, stepping to the side as the door opened inward.
He peered around the doorjamb before stepping out in the alley. All he saw was the man’s fist point blank as it smashed into his face.
* * *
10:15 AM, Hildy’s Luncheonette, near the Baden Gaswerks
Dolly went down hard on his back.
Struck square in the nose, the Scotsman was blinded by the potent blow, his eyes wet from the sharp pain across his whole face. He wasn’t certain if it was blood or tears in his eyes. He could taste and smell his own blood, a dreadful change from the taste and smell of the gas from the plant. The iron taste was on his lips and running in the back of his throat.
He tried to get up but was quickly slammed down onto the ground with the entire weight of his assailant on his chest, and now he felt hands around his throat. The grip was crushing.
Dolly panicked. He could sense the attacker driving his thumbs under and around his windpipe to crush it. His eyes cleared, and to his horror, he recognized who his assailant was: Cullam Keane. He struggled to cry out his name, but nothing came.
Like any choking victim, he naturally struggled to get Keane’s hands off his throat. He was not strong enough to break his grasp. He stared at Keane.
“She’s in me head, Dolly” Keane struggled through his clenched teeth.
Dolly let go of Keane’s thick wrists, moving his hands to Keane’s face, gouging both of Keane’s eyes with his thumbs. He thrust deep and hard, pushing his nails in between the eyeballs and the nose bridge.
Cullam yelled and released Dolly’s neck. Williamson gasped in precious air. Keane’s arms went straight up, breaking Dolly’s grasp of his face, then Cullam came down with both fists on Dolly’s nose one more time, the blast of pain paralyzing him once again. Keane leapt off Dolly, allowing him to roll left and use the shelving to help himself to a seated position, clearing the second round of runny eyes.
Soon enough, he learned the reason for the reprieve of Keane’s assault. Cullam had found Dolly’s pistol, and Dolly was staring down the business end of his own gun. Keane was just outside the doorway, standing in the alley, and Dolly sat on the storeroom floor.
Williamson could see Angelica’s vague outline in the gloom behind Keane. Was she there or not? “Has Angelica got you under a spell?” Dolly asked in between taking breaths into his burning chest.
“Why couldn’t you leave her be, Dolly? No one else will get hurt,” Keane said as he sobbed.
"She is hurting you,” said Dolly, trying to get through to Keane. Williamson could see Keane had slipped back into his trance and was aiming to take a shot.
Dolly swept his leg to catch the corner of the open door and kick it shut. As it slammed Cullam, a shot flew and lodged in the door. Williamson stood and clambered back towards the kitchen. He struggled to tug on the shelving to see if he could force the racks over to create an obstruction, but they were fixed to the floor.
His chest burned from the deep breaths he was drawing, faltering as he dashed into the kitchen. He flung the door behind him closed, searching for a lock, but there was nothing to secure the door. His eye spotted the knife next to the chopping block and minced onions. He seized it instinctively for protection. His racing mind and darting eyes assessed the area. He grabbed an empty pot and ducked into the open chiller, then threw the pot out of the kitchen through the door, out into the luncheonette hoping his assailant would follow the noise.
Keane burst through the door and surveyed the kitchen. He didn’t fall for the racket of the pot landing in the other room. The detective was pressed up against the racks in the chiller with the knife ready.
"Come out, Dolly. I know you’re in there. I can see your breathing in the cold," said Keane.
Shit. He heard Keane step up to the cooler, loitering just outside the door. Dolly took a deep breath, looked at the knife and thought, What am I going to do? Stab Cullam to death? He could see Keane's shadow on the floor of the cold room. Dolly was cornered. His only move was to kill Keane. "Alright. Tell her I will drop the case. I will let her go." Dolly was out of choices, and he couldn’t kill Keane. He strode out in front of Cullam Keane and dropped the blade.
Behind Keane stood Angelica Du Haiti, near the exit to the storeroom.
Keane didn’t move. He stood frozen, staring at him pointing the handgun at Dolly’s heart.
“Detective, I am not a savage and have no quarrel with you.” The woman said in a lyrical West Indies accent. She was wearing a striking maroon crinoline dress, looking more like a lady strolling the park than a murdering witch, that is until you saw the tall staff decorated with skulls and feathers in her hand rather than a parasol.
“Let him go,” Dolly begged.
"I cannot. He is my only guarantee you will leave me to my business. Your colleague will remain with me until I escape. If you or others follow me, they will die by his hand. Forget me, and I will return him safely,” asserted the enchantress.
Doll
y heard Keane mutter, “No.”
His eyes flashed from Angelica to Keane. Keane was back. Dolly could see recognition in his gaze just before the gun went off and a shower of blood covered Dolly’s face. Dolly looked into Keane’s eyes as the life left them. The top of Keane’s skull was missing. Smoke curled out of the barrel Keane had stuck under his own chin. The pistol dropped to the floor just before Keane’s lifeless body did the same.
Dolly bellowed, "No! No!”
As he realized what Keane had done, he reached for the firearm and drew up on the witch to fire. She wielded her staff and howled something undecipherable, a conjuration. Keane’s dead hand grabbed Dolly’s leg. He looked down to see the deceased body moving, trying to seize his other leg. Dolly let out a scream and bolted away from Keane’s moving corpse, his mind swirling in a soup of horror and disbelief.
The detective kicked at the arm that held him to escape the dead man’s grip then suddenly the body ceased its supernatural animation. He glanced back for Angelica, but she was gone. He had to take a second glance at Keane to be positive he didn’t move again. Then he rushed after her back through the storeroom then out to the alley. When he got there, Dolly heard a young voice yell, “Drop the pistol, mister!”
At the end of the alley were three British infantrymen with rifles trained on him.
Williamson dropped the gun and raised his hands. “I’m a detective in the Metropolitan Police Department. I can show you my badge,” pleaded Dolly.
“Okay, real slow,” said one trooper.
Dolly reached into his jacket and pulled out his billfold, opening it to show the infantrymen.
“Bloody hell, mate. I had no idea,” said a soldier. They all lowered their carbines and relaxed.
“Did you see a woman come out here? A negro woman with a staff?"
“No, Detective, and we moved up here quickly when we heard shooting.”
At that moment, Dolly looked down, and just outside of the alley lay a primitive, handmade doll. Upon closer examination, he observed it was a man-shaped fetish with symbols and pins stuck into it. Dolly picked up the doll and began to sob.
Wednesday, the 23rd of June
11:00 AM, a café near Scotland Yard
The front page of the Guardian showed a lithoprint of the HMS Warrior passing over the billowing smokestacks of the alchemical works.
The caption read:
Airship struck awe in the gaswerks rabble as its enormous hull blotted out the sun; 60 guns trained on the dispersing crowd.
Dolly read the main story that detailed one hundred and sixty-eight dead and fifty-seven wounded in the blas,t including three shot in the subsequent looting. He thought about the shooting of a certain police detective. That was left out of the papers.
The first three pages were all stories related to the disaster at the Baden Gaswerks. One article was on the LQ gas leak being contained by the alchemists shutting safety valves and reducing gas production and how there were no hazards to the public from the gas being breathed.
Another story opined that, with LQ production not damaged, the transfer line would need to be a priority repair to get the HMS Victoria’s flotation cells supplied with lift gas. She was grounded until the repairs on the line were completed, adding to the British authorities’ suspicion about the nature and intention of the explosion.
Dolly set the daily paper down on the small cafe table. Seated at a sidewalk table, he was enjoying his tea and a poached egg and toast. Passersby did not avert their gaze from the man with a broken nose and two swollen black eyes. What they could not see were the bruises on his throat under his collar.
Guild Master Gerard took a seat at his table. “Very unfortunate,” he said as his finger tapped the front-page story. “I assume from your condition you were on the front line breaking up the riot.
“It was...” Dolly’s voice was faint and hoarse. It hurt his throat to breathe, even more to talk. “It was sabotage, not a riot. We will look at your government as the obvious instigators, but that is not why I wanted to meet. What do you make of this?” He put the man-shaped effigy on the table. The guild master picked it up and studied the front and back of the doll.
“This is what is commonly referred to as a Voodoo doll. It is a talisman used to influence the spirit of the living. It can be used to cure ills, bring good fortune or bad,” said Gerard.
“Or to control a person?” asked Dolly.
Gerard knew of this practice, recalling Papa Lafayette creating a similar doll and the using it to dominate a wayward villager. “Oui. In the hands of a powerful witch doctor, this can be used to inflict excruciating pain or control a subject as if they were a puppet.”
“I found this near the gaswerks” whispered the detective.
“Do you believe she controlled the saboteurs with this fetish?” asked the guild master.
“No. She used it to manipulate Detective Keane. He tried to kill me in a possessed state,” answered Dolly.
Gerard picked up the figurine again and studied it. “You see these markings where the eyes and ears are?” the Frenchman said as he pointed them out to the detective. “This indicates she was also using him as a spy. Angelica could channel what your detective saw and heard. Did this Keane know of my existence in London?” The seer looked concerned at this development.
Dolly thought for a moment. “No, he knew that I had identified Angelica and was working on her whereabouts and capture. I mentioned the identity was confirmed by a foreign source, but he assumed I learned about her through an occult specialist I confer with from time to time.” Dolly stopped to drink some warm tea to sooth his throat.
“You mean the angel summoner, Caldwell?” asked the necronist, knowing the Englishman’s answer.
“Yes,” replied Dolly. He had heard Rose called a lot of things but never an angel summoner.
“You would be wise to assume there are others under her spell,” said the guild master while he played with the salt shaker on the table.
Dolly thought for a moment. Shit, she could have half the city under her control. “How do I know you’re not one of her minions?” asked Dolly.
“I can divine that you are not one of her thralls. As to me, you don’t know. All you have is my word that I possess powerful wards that protect me from her charms and incantations,” answered Gerard.
Dolly accepted the answer and thought about the ward Rose gave him. “She tried to kill me, and in the process, got a friend of mine killed. I need to stop her from doing any more damage.”
“Dolly, you were close to this Keane?”
“I was. We both started as constables. Our beats were near each other. We both moved into the detective branch around the same time. I’ll admit I was always envious of his eye for detail. He was a natural detective and a good friend.”
“You see now that your police force is not equipped to deal with someone like Angelica. To be frank, I would not attempt to confront her on my own, and I am a master seer.”
Dolly swallowed hard as he drank his tea, wincing with each gulp. “How do you propose I apprehend her if even you’re not strong enough to defend against her?”
“Our affiliation with Emperor Napoleon has made the Crown and the mechanists suspicious and prevented our guild from growing our membership or establishing a guild house on your soil. However I am traveling with two other guild members who can assist, and I can reach out to members of the Lodge here in London for additional help,” answered Gerard.
Dolly said nothing. He had heard of the Lodge but thought of the organization as quacks and charlatans, not real metaphysicists, and certainly not as well-organized as the guild.
“For complete safety, I would need to go after Angelica with a full wyrding of twenty necronist seers,” said Saint-Yves, but he knew that the police and the government would never stand for that many of his guild in London. “But without that, I am thinking some from the guild at the embassy and some patriotic Englishman with have spiritual insight could find h
er and rid London of her treachery.”
“When you say rid her you mean kill her?” Dolly said bluntly.
“I truly hope it does not come to that,” said Gerard.
Dolly couldn’t breathe through his nose, and every breath he took through his mouth made his throat throb. He wanted Angelica dead, but it had to be at his hands or at the end of a hangman’s rope. “Well that would be murder under English law, and I would haul you in along with your pack of spiritualists as vigilantes,” said Dolly making an effort to raise his voice.
“I know Angelica. We have a past, That may be just what will get her off this path of death she is on. The group I can put together will be better equipped to defend against her sorcery and minimize any additional loss of life. The incident yesterday was not a failure on your part. I am surprised that you’re still alive. You should be proud of that fact.”
It sure felt like failure yesterday. The thought of almost dying at the hands of Keane or later when he washed Keane’s blood and brains of his face were fresh in his mind and a reminder of his failing his friend. “If you know her, maybe you can answer this question. Why didn’t she kill me yesterday? She had the chance. She reanimated my dead partner, and rather than sticking around to have him finish me off, she ran.”
The Guild Master paused, as if thinking about Dolly’s question. “I lived with her for two years in the jungle. She was happy studying the arts. She had a true devotion to them. Now, as an outsider, you may assume that her, and even me are bad or touched by evil because we study the metaphysics of the afterlife. Making that gross assumption may make it easier to justify your actions towards her, but assuming she is evil because she practices Voodoo is as naive as assuming everything you do is good because you are an officer of the law. She has always been determined. Perhaps part of that devotion was to get the means of her revenge for her mistreatment as a slave. That she has gone to this extent to exact her revenge does not mean she wants us all dead. I believe that Angelica sparing you is a sign that she still can be redeemed.”