Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl

by David Barnett

  Was it suddenly hot in the cab? Gideon felt a flush rise on his cheeks, needles pricking his eyes. Bones. Picked clean. And Stoker placed in his trembling hand the charm he had made for his daddy so long ago, the piece of Whitby jet he’d made into a good luck charm. So the things had done for his father, after all. And his charm had brought Arthur Smith no luck.

  “Stop the cab,” he said quietly. “There needs to be a reckoning. We must go back and finish them off.”

  “Caution, Gideon,” said Trigger. “A wise man knows when to fight, and when to retreat. We have no weapons, and you saw what they did to those dogs.”

  “I very much fear the battle might be coming back to us whether we like it or not,” said Maria. “Look.”

  Gideon looked through the glass window and beyond the hissing steam engine mounted on the back of the cab. Something was following, catching them up at a terrific speed.. It was tall and rangy, its limbs flailing as it pounded the road, gaining on them alarmingly.

  “Christ, look at the effing speed of the thing,” said Bent.

  “Am I stopping, then?” called the driver.

  “No!” said Gideon. “Faster!”

  Bathory let loose a low, most uncountesslike growl as the mummy closed the final yards between them and leaped, landing on all fours on the engine. Bent recoiled from the window as it lunged forward, its mouth wide open, its milky eyes narrowed.

  The driver glanced over his shoulder at the commotion and yelled: “What’s that? What’s on my cab?”

  Gideon turned to him, peering through the front windscreen. “Drive!” he commanded. “What’s that, up ahead?”

  “Cleopatra’s Needle,” said the driver, as the back window smashed to a yell from Bent. “Who’s breaking up my cab?”

  “Head for that needle,” said Gideon, and turned back to see the mummy’s vicious claws raking the air of the cab. Its face was at the smashed window, uttering guttural sounds and hisses.

  “What’s it saying?” moaned Bent, bending forward from the waving claws.

  “A language not heard for thousands of years,” said Stoker.

  “Perhaps it will understand this, then,” said Gideon, grabbing Trigger’s cane and forcing the metal tip into the forehead of the beast. It recoiled at the impact, then hissed loudly and lunged again.

  Gideon continued to hit the thing as Maria screamed. Bathory muttered, “If I could turn around . . .”

  “No,” said Stoker. “Not here, Countess, I beg you. . . .”

  Gideon ignored them and turned to Trigger. “Remember The Bowie Steamcrawlers?”

  The mummy grasped hold of Bent’s collar and the journalist screamed, “Gideon! This is not the time for reminiscing about the effing penny bloods!”

  “I believe I know where Mr. Smith is going with this,” said Trigger, pushing himself against the door to avoid the mummy’s raking claws. “Of course I do, Gideon.”

  Gideon leaned forward and forced the cane hard into the mummy’s mouth, wrestling with it as though it was the brake-shaft of a gearship until the creature fell back, clinging to the engine. “You—I mean, Dr. Reed—defeated Jim Bowie during a battle on an out-of-control steam engine on the Arkansas trail,” he said through gritted teeth. “As I recall, Dr. Reed knocked the gasket off the engine, sending a cloud of steam—”

  “Try that brass gasket-head directly beneath the thing’s chest,” suggested Trigger.

  Gideon leaned forward just as the mummy forced itself through the smashed window and took hold of Gideon’s hair. It appeared to smile wickedly, then opened its slavering mouth to deliver the fatal blow. Just as it had done to his father, no doubt. With renewed strength, Gideon flailed for the gasket with the cane as the thing pulled him toward it.

  “Mr. Smith!” called Maria. “Oh, Mr. Smith!”

  Gideon could feel the creature’s fetid breath on his cheek. He closed his eyes and stabbed forward with the cane, and felt it connect with the brass gasket just as the steam-cab swerved to the left. “This is for my daddy,” he whispered.

  The explosion of steam thrust the mummy upward and outward, causing it to scrabble for purchase on the engine as it slipped toward the road. It grunted and grinned again, jabbering in its dead language as the steam hissed in its face. It was a good plan, but not good enough. Gideon pulled a face and stabbed at it again with the cane, which it deftly grabbed in its claws. The creature swung out over the road, tore the cane from Gideon’s grasp, and then disintegrated in a mess of black ichor and gray flesh as it slammed into the side of Cleopatra’s Needle.

  The steam cab, its engine dead, rolled to a halt. For a moment no one spoke, then Bent looked out of the window. “I can’t see any more of the effers, but I shouldn’t think we want to hang around here.”

  Gideon let himself out and went to inspect the remains of the mummy, dripping from the edge of the obelisk covered in Egyptian hieroglyphics, as the driver began to remonstrate with Trigger.

  “I have given the driver a personal check,” said Trigger, appearing at his elbow. “We should depart.”

  “Sorry,” said Gideon, still staring at the remains of the mummy. “I’ll pay you back. Somehow.”

  “Nonsense!” said Trigger. “Most excitement I’ve had in years. You saved our lives, Mr. Smith. Excellent work.” He looked into the mist. “Still, we should get home. To Grosvenor Square. Let us head up Northumberland Street and find some transport, before word gets out and we’re blacklisted by every cab driver in London.”

  Gideon stared into the mist. The Children of Heqet. Had they followed him to London? For what purpose? He turned to where the others waited. Enigmas, puzzles, and mysteries, the lot of them. He felt a sudden weight in his stomach, a longing and sickness for home. Maria was smiling, and he realized he didn’t really know where home was, anymore.

  Could he truly say it was back in the cottage in Sandsend, which would be cold and dark and dead with the absence of Arthur Smith? It was an emptiness that could never be filled, not even if Gideon went back there and filled it with a wife and children and grandchildren. His father had gone, and with it any notion Gideon had of home. Home was a transient thing now, ever shifting, walled in by the desire for justice, its hearth burning with the cold flames of revenge.

  Gideon watched the black ichor drip from the monument. One down, thought Gideon. God knows how many to go. But he wouldn’t rest until he’d hunted them all, and laid Arthur Smith properly to rest.

  17

  The Last Testament of Annie Crook

  That night was what Gideon had dreamed of all his life. To be in such company, telling such tales. The moon was full and the fog was thick, and despite the season there was a chill in the air, so Mrs. Cadwallader built a small fire in the hearth. They drank ruby red wine and ate their chops and looked at each other, these strangers brought together by wild circumstance. One by one they told their stories, and Bent wore pencils to stubs as he furiously took down their words in shorthand in his rapidly filling notebook.

  When they had all finished, Bent shook his head. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen those things over on Embankment. If they hadn’t nearly effing killed me.” He paused and flicked through his notes. “This story’s getting bigger and more complex by the hour. But a theme’s running through everything. Egypt, of course. This bloody pyramid John Reed went off to find. The Children of Heqet. Our Mr. W. And . . .” He looked up. “Maria. Or should I say, Annie Crook?”

  They all looked at Maria, who had been silent throughout the proceedings. Gideon said gently, “There are things we need to tell you, Maria.”

  She looked at her hands, knotted in her lap. “And things I must tell you, Mr. Smith. You are aware, of course, that I have dreams of London. When I left you at Highgate Aerodrome I followed the paths I had walked in my dreams. They took me to Cleveland Street.”

  Gideon felt Bent lean forward beside him. “And what did you see there, Miss Maria? What did you learn?”

  She looked the
journalist in the eye. “I met a man called Sickert. I . . . remembered him.” She tapped her forehead. “Or rather, what is in here did. He told me of Annie Crook, found without a brain. I know what I am now. Not human, not a machine. An unholy composite of both.”

  “Are . . . are you Annie Crook?” asked Gideon slowly.

  She shook her head. “No, Mr. Smith, I am not Annie Crook.”

  “But you have her brain . . . ,” said Bent. “And her memories.”

  “The memories are like half-forgotten dreams,” said Maria softly. “Like stories I was told long ago and only barely remember. They do not feel as though they happened to me.”

  Trigger sat back thoughtfully in his chair. “Modern science tells us the brain is matter and electrical impulses. Can that truly be said to be what makes a person who they are?” He looked at Bent and placed his hand on his chest. “My heart aches because of the loss of John. But does it, really? My heart is a fleshy pump feeding blood to my organs. It is not truly where love resides, except in the language of poets. I cannot even begin to understand the miracle Hermann Einstein performed when he created his automaton and married the human brain of Annie Crook to the Atlantic Artifact within her. I should imagine Einstein himself does not fully understand it. I believe Maria is greater than the sum of her parts; she is Maria, and the life driving her is as much a mystery as that which animates our own earthly bodies.”

  Maria smiled at Trigger, and Gideon noticed her eyes were wet. He quietly dug into his satchel and took out Einstein’s journal. “Maria,” he said softly. “I took this from the laboratory. It . . . well, you should read it. It might help you understand a little more. I should not have kept it from you.”

  She took the book and looked at its dark leather cover. “Thank you, Mr. Smith.” She looked up. “And thank you, Captain Trigger. Is there somewhere private I may go?”

  “I shall have Mrs. Cadwallader show you to your room,” said Trigger.

  “One more thing,” said Bent. “Miss Maria . . . do you recall anything about why you—rather, Annie Crook—might have been killed so terribly?”

  Maria looked into the middle distance. “For love,” she said eventually. “Forbidden love. With Eddy.”

  Bent slapped his hand on his thigh and chuckled. “At last. Gotcha. I effing knew it.”

  Maria, holding the journal to her breast, paused at the door. “Oh, and I remember one more thing. The last thing Annie Crook recalled before she died. You mentioned someone you refer to as W?”

  Trigger looked up. “Yes?”

  “I believe you may be referring to the man who murdered Annie Crook,” said Maria. “His name is Walsingham.”

  As Maria left there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Cadwallader hurried to answer it. She appeared at the study and said, “Captain Trigger, delivery men . . .”

  “I took the liberty of telegraphing the Aerodrome and having Countess Bathory’s things delivered here,” said Stoker. “Captain Trigger had indicated there may be rooms for the night . . . ?”

  “Of course,” said Trigger, frowning as the deliverymen manhandled Bathory’s long wooden box up the stairs. Gideon watched the arrivals with interest. There was more to Countess Bathory than either she or Stoker was telling, he thought. Their story of her arrival in Whitby and their subsequent encounters with the mummies had not been as thorough as Gideon might have expected from a writer of Stoker’s stature.

  The Countess smiled at Trigger. Was there something in that smile that spoke to Gideon of a strange darkness he could not identify? She said, “I do, unfortunately, travel with a great deal of baggage, Captain Trigger. I hope it does not inconvenience you overmuch.”

  “Not at all,” said Trigger. He poured brandy for those who wanted it. “Now that we have told our stories, though, what now?”

  “The writer in me demands some kind of concordance,” said Stoker thoughtfully. “Where did it all begin? That’s the ticket. To begin at the beginning.”

  “The Shadow Over Faxmouth,” said Gideon. “Captain Trigger—well, John Reed, really—and the adventure in Arkhamville.”

  “Quite,” agreed Trigger. “That was the first sighting of one of the Children of Heqet, though it was dormant and little more than a mummified grotesque. What revived it, I wonder?”

  “It stole an item Professor Halifax had found on a previous trip to Egypt,” said Gideon. “Could the proximity of the pendant have effected some kind of awakening in the thing?”

  “When did all this supposedly happen?” asked Bent.

  “Autumn of 1887,” said Trigger.

  Bent said, “What happened next? Old Hermann Einstein— wherever the hell he is now—was delivered of this Atlantic Artifact, which we now know to be inside the head of Maria, in January 1888.”

  “Evidently the Children of Heqet somehow knew of this,” said Trigger, “and began their search for it. I wonder why they waited so long to strike?”

  “Perhaps they had other items to plunder?” suggested Bathory.

  Trigger held up a finger. “Or . . . what did Einstein’s manservant say? There was some disruptor device. . . .”

  “Quite,” said Trigger. “If Einstein’s paranoia about having the Atlantic Artifact stolen from him led him to create a suitable . . . I don’t know, masking device, perhaps this clouded the Children of Heqet’s talent for being able to locate the thing.”

  Stoker said, “So you suggest that once Maria left Einstein’s house, and the influence of his disrupter, this made the Children of Heqet aware of its existence again, and they followed the trail to London?”

  Bent pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “This is making my head hurt. Let’s look at this from a different perspective. The mummies are after certain items. The scarab stolen from Countess Bathory; whatever they were digging for in Sandsend; the pendant John Reed acquired from Arkhamville University; and the artifact in Maria’s head.”

  “Those notes from John Reed,” said Gideon. “The breakin at the British Museum, where the guard was horribly murdered. A . . . figurine was stolen.”

  “The shabti.” Captain Trigger nodded. “Of Egyptian origin.”

  “And now they have them all,” said Stoker. He glanced at Trigger and coughed. “Presuming, of course, they managed to wrest the pendant from Dr. Reed in Egypt.”

  “I do not think there is any doubt,” said Trigger. “John went in search of the Rhodopis Pyramid. He cannot have failed to encounter the Children of Heqet.” His eyes fell. “And even he cannot have resisted those monsters.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Bathory sat forward. “What were your plans?”

  “We had arranged transport to Egypt,” said Trigger. “We thought to look for John, so he could perhaps aid Mr. Smith with his troubles in Sandsend. Events seem to have overtaken us, though. The mummies are here in London . . . or at least were.” He looked at Gideon. “It was your suggestion that we go to Egypt, Mr. Smith. Your home is no longer under threat. What do you wish to do now?”

  Gideon opened his mouth, then paused. Trigger was right. The Children of Heqet no longer threatened Sandsend—they had gotten what they wanted, whatever had been buried within Lythe Bank in years or centuries past by smugglers or pirates. His quest was over. But he had promised Maria he would help her find Professor Einstein. He had a duty to Maria; he had made her a promise. And whether it was John Reed or Lucian Trigger who was truly the Hero of the Empire, Gideon knew one thing: Heroes kept their promises.

  “I need to speak to Maria,” he said. He would tell her he was now free of his commitments and could devote his energies to searching for Professor Einstein. The thought of returning to Sandsend didn’t occur to him until he stood on the carpeted landing at the top of the stairs. Return to Sandsend? Fish the shallows in the Cold Drake? Where running around London in the company of Captain Trigger had once seemed the highest, most improbable fantasy, now it was his old life that was beyond him. A warm breeze emerged from the billowin
g curtains at the end of the hallway, caressing his face, bringing with it the smells and faint clamor of London. He closed the gap between the top of the stairs and Maria’s room, the middle one of three guest bedrooms, and placed his hand on the doorknob.

  18

  Clockwork Wishes

  With each page Maria turned in the journal of her creator, she felt the memories of Annie Crook receding, becoming events that had happened to someone else. She wasn’t angry that Gideon had kept the journal from her; she could see why he might have thought it would prove upsetting to her. That he considered her feelings—that he considered she could have feelings at all—caused whatever beat invisibly in her breast in place of a heart to hammer all the harder. In fact, reading the coldly scientific methods and results outlined by Einstein made her feel better. What man or woman truly knew where they came from, other than the collision of biology that brought sperm and egg together? It was the great question of the age, the desire to know what was the essential, mysterious spark giving self-awareness and humanity to mankind. Thanks to Einstein’s journals, Maria had more idea than most people what animated her. And she was just as much a mystery as any flesh and blood woman. A brain, a clockwork body, a mysterious artifact. Who was to say her own life wasn’t as God-given as anyone else’s?

  Since her adventures alone she had resolved to be less dependent on others. While living in Einstein’s house she could always rely on the Professor or Crowe—loathsome, horrible Crowe! How she longed to pummel his face in with her newfound strength!—to wind her when required. Alone in the room she practiced winding herself, finally finding a position that allowed her, albeit awkwardly and slowly, to insert the key in the brass aperture and turn it until she felt strength and vitality in her clockwork muscles. She had asked Mrs. Cadwallader for a needle and thread and had sewn the small cotton bag that held her key tightly to her dress; she would not risk being without it, ever again.