The Demi-Monde: Summer

by Rod Rees

  ‘Rivets-san, you must be quiet,’ ordered Dong E from out of the shadows. ‘You must be more careful.’

  Stroppy cow.

  He had had no idea that such a small and delicate-looking girl could be so bloody bossy, but bossy or not, he was pleased that she was with him. If he’d been alone, he doubted if he’d have had the bottle to leave the crate.

  Yeah, the problem Rivets had with the darkness was that it got his imagination firing. Ever since he’d had that run-in with the vampyre tart in Venice, as soon as night fell he got the wind up something chronic, every second he thought horrible vampyres would come lunging out at him from the shadows. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for months.

  ‘You have the bombs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then where shall we place them?’

  ‘Dunno,’ answered Rivets. It was all very well for Odette to tell him to stick the bombs where they would do the most damage, but she wasn’t the silly sod who had to creep around a dark room worried shitless about being attacked by vampyres or that the bombs would go off in her hands. He’d heard some funny stories about the blasting gelatin used to make them, so as gently as he could, he eased the bombs from his haversack and set to work.

  Odette had allocated four of her home-made bombs for use in destroying the laboratory and, being devoid of any better ideas, Rivets decided to stick them in the middle of the room on the basis that one big bang was always better than four small ones. After whispered debate with Dong E he set the timers for sixty minutes, which, he judged, was more than enough for Burlesque and Odette to settle their business at the Fermentation Plant.

  But even as he finished putting the bombs in position, Dong E was at him again. ‘Now we must search this laboratory, Rivetssan. Femme Su was most insistent that we ensure all records of Dr Ptah’s research are destroyed.’

  Curiosity must be a bird thing, decided Rivets, as they spent the next few minutes fine-combing the lab. But it was a curiosity that was rewarded when Dong E came to a locked cabinet set in the furthest corner of the laboratory. The girl let out an excited squeak and waved him over.

  ‘This is the only cabinet that is locked, Rivets-san. We must open it.’

  ‘Yeah, right you is,’ and taking a crowbar out of his bag, Rivets attacked the cabinet with gusto. Against so much steel and determination the wooden door didn’t have a chance but when it sprang open all it revealed was a very formidable steel safe hidden inside.

  ‘Can you open it, Rivets-san?’

  Risking the striking of a lucifer, Rivets examined the safe closely. It was a substantial piece of engineering that, from what he could make out, had also been bolted to the wall. ‘I dunno. It’s a real brute an’ no mistake.’

  ‘Maybe we could use one of the bombs to blow the door open?’ suggested a very impatient-sounding Dong E.

  Rivets shook his head. ‘Not a good idea, Dongie. Remember, it might contain this Plague stuff, so that’d be a sure way of ‘aving me end the day toes up. Anyway, blowing that bastard’s door off will be loud enough to bring everywun an’ their uncle running.’

  Dong E’s face fell.

  ‘But ’ave no fear, Dongie, Rivets is ‘ere.’ Once again he delved in his haversack and after a careful search pulled out a leather box about the size of a cigar case. From inside this he took out a glass tube sealed by a glass stopper which he cautiously – very cautiously – removed. Choking yellow fumes poured out, forcing both him and Dong E to flinch back.

  ‘Yeah, it’s real ‘orrible stuff, an’ no mistake. It’s called Aqua Regia Superior, luv, a mixture ov hydrochloric acid, nitric acid an’ ovver nasties. I wos taught all about it when I wos apprenticed to a peterman back in the Rookeries.’

  With enormous care Rivets applied the glutinous acid to the safe’s hinges and to its lock. This done, the pair of them ducked away from the smoke and the fumes that were emitted as the acid ate into the metal, squatting down behind a bench to wait. After five minutes he judged that the acid had done its work, handed the vial to Dong E – warning her to be mindful how she handled it – and took up his crowbar again, forcing the pointed end into the holes burnt into the safe’s steel carcass. After a minute of struggling and straining the door of the safe clanged open.

  ‘Oh, well done, Rivets-san,’ squealed Dong E as she planted a kiss on his cheek.

  Rivets blushed with happiness, but he had no time to enjoy the sensation. Just as Dong E was raising herself up onto her toes to see what was hidden in the safe, the handle of the laboratory door rattled and he could hear someone talking outside.

  Safe in the shadows, Burlesque and Odette scuttled along in pursuit of the soldiers, trying to get as close as possible to the last of them without being seen or heard.

  Even as the Fermenting Plant loomed before them, a side door to the right of the huge main gates swung open and as it did so a horrible smell billowed out, washing over them. Doing his best to ignore the horrible stench, Burlesque edged nearer, until he and Odette were tiptoeing only five or six yards behind the last of the soldiers, hardly daring to breathe, lest one of the Amazons spotted that they were being tracked. Then the soldiers, without once breaking step, marched through the open door, disappearing from sight; as soon as the last of their number passed through, the doors began to close. Burlesque, mouth dry and arse tweaking, waited until the last possible moment and then he and Odette scuttled into the intimidating darkness of the room beyond.

  *

  Shaking with fear, Rivets listened to what the newcomers were saying – something about a ‘postern gate’ and ‘horses’ – and then the laboratory door was pushed open and all his worst nightmares became reality. There stood three tall and decidedly creepy-looking individuals. A lantern flared and their vicious, horrible faces were illuminated. Rivets almost passed out.

  Vampyres!

  Instinctively he dodged further back behind the workbench, dragging a much too inquisitive Dong E with him. ‘Them’s vampyres,’ he whispered into the girl’s ear. ‘Just like the one I ‘ad a set-to wiv in Venice.’

  Fuck.

  A feeling of grim foreboding ran through him and, as quietly as he was able, he unclipped his holster ready to draw his Bulldog.

  A woman came to join the vampyres. ‘The safe where Dr Ptah keeps her research papers is over—’ She let out a gasp, presumably shocked to see the safe door hanging open. Rivets almost wet himself.

  ‘Bar the door,’ he heard one of the vampyres yell, ‘and search the laboratory.’

  Rivets moved to pull the Bulldog free from its holster, but the bloody thing stuck. Panic-stricken, he gave it a yank, overbalanced and was forced to stick out a hand to save himself from falling over. He bashed into a bench as he did so and sent a couple of test tubes smashing to the floor.

  ‘There!’ shouted a vampyre, pointing in the direction of the noise. ‘But no guns. Kill them quietly.’

  The three vampyres attacked. Their faces contorted in fury, without a challenge or the emitting of one solitary sound, they launched themselves at Rivets and Dong E. The speed and the fury of the attack were breathtaking: they leapt across the room like huge cats, each of them wielding a wickedly curved sword.

  *

  The Fermentation Plant was huge, the vast and smelly hall lined on both sides by massive brass cylinders at least twenty feet tall and half as much in diameter. It reminded Burlesque of a brewery he had once visited when he had been in the bootlegging business, and the stink was pretty much the same too: the smoke billowing around him had a sort of stale, yeasty odour. It was also terrifically hot, which wasn’t surprising given that the cylinders were being heated by gas mantles, the flames sending eerie, flickering shadows dancing over the walls. It was so hot that Burlesque began leaking sweat, beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead.

  But the big difference between the Fermentation Plant and the brewery was that the latter hadn’t been so well guarded. The Fermentation Plant was crawling with soldiers so
it was as well, Burlesque decided, that the place was largely in darkness, just the shimmering light of the gas mantles providing any illumination.

  Grabbing Odette by the arm, he darted across the tiled floor, searching for a place to hide, finally finding sanctuary behind a pile of barrels stacked against the far wall. Once safe from sight, he took a moment to draw breath and to take stock. Nearer to the cylinders, he could see that those on the right of the hall had red lettering – Chink lettering, so he couldn’t understand it – painted on them, and those on the left had blue lettering. He didn’t need to read Chink to know what was going on. According to the briefing he’d been given by Mendel back in Rangoon, the two elements of the Plague – the Yin and the Yang – were manufactured in separate vats, being mixed only when the Plague was to be deployed.

  But even as Burlesque hunkered down behind the barrels trying to figure out what to do, there was an enormous whooshing sound as the flames under the cylinders suddenly leapt higher. The gas mantles had been turned up to full and now dozens of white-coated technicians began to scuttle around, checking pressure tubes and shouting at one another in their ridiculous Chink language.

  ‘Ils commencent le processus du mélange … they are making the beginning of the mixing process,’ said Odette in an urgent whisper. ‘Eet ees the moment when the parts rouges et bleus are together mixed, and then … she drew a very eloquent finger across her neck.

  The girl’s observations were interrupted by a gong being sounded. Peeping out from his hiding place, Burlesque saw white-coated TechnicianNoNs begin to wheel steel barrels across to the vats and position them under the taps set in the pipes that connected the red and the blue cylinders.

  Reluctant as Burlesque was to admit it, he knew that it was a case of now or never. If he didn’t destroy this vile place tonight, he – and every other bloke in the Demi-Monde – would be dead meat.

  He looked around, trying to determine where it would be best for him to place the six bombs he was carrying. All he could think was that putting them under six of the fermentation vats – three reds and three blues – would give him the best chance of doing the maximum amount of damage. The problem he had was how to do that with so many Amazons and technicians wandering around. In the end the answer came to him: one of the TechnicianNoNs walked over to stand next to their hiding place and without thinking, Burlesque pulled out his gun and smacked the poor sod over the head with it. The NoN sagged into a heap on the ground and Burlesque pulled him behind the barrels and hauled off his white coat.

  Wearing his new disguise – fucking reluctantly – he stepped, as nonchalantly as he was able, out from behind the barrels and began to march towards the far end of the hall. By playacting that he was taking notes of the measurements on the pressure tubes, Burlesque was able to stuff one bomb under each of the three furthest vats, the bombs’ clockwork timers set for ten minutes. He ambled along, sliding the bombs under the vats as he went. It was so easy, he began to think that Lady Luck was smiling on him.

  She wasn’t.

  He’d got back to the other end of the hall and was just setting the sixth and final bomb when one of the Amazons began to shout at him in Chink. Not having a fucking clue what she was yelling, there was no chance that he’d be able to bluster his way out and anyway, being caught red-handed holding a bomb was beyond even his powers of mummery. So he gave the Amazon his broadest smile, twirled the clockwork timer on the bomb to zero and tossed it towards her.

  The bloody thing didn’t explode …

  Fucking useless blasting gelatin.

  … but the surprise registered by the Amazon when she found herself holding a bomb was such that it at least gave him the chance to pull out his Bulldog and begin blasting away.

  He fired two quick discouraging shots at the head of the Amazon, but as three shots whipped past him in an answering fusillade, he came to the rapid conclusion that retreat was most certainly the better part of valour. He was lucky that Odette began firing away from the other side of the hall, otherwise things could have got decidedly hairy, and it was only thanks to her intervention that he was able to dodge for cover behind the cylinder next to the doors leading to the outside world. But with shots pinging around him it was an outside world he knew he’d be fucking fortunate ever to see again.

  Now he was in a rare pickle: pinned down by ten or so Amazons, outgunned and out-of-positioned, all he could do was ram five fresh cartridges into the Bulldog and blast away. For about a minute the two sides traded shots, cordite mixing with the vapour streaming from the bullet-riddled cylinders, the noise and the smoke and the stench giving the hall a Helish, stinking cast.

  It would have gone badly for Burlesque and Odette, but just as Burlesque was down to his final couple of shots, all Hel really did break loose. The bomb he had thrown at the Amazon exploded.

  The vampyres would have sliced them up for sure if Dong E hadn’t reacted instinctively and hurled the vial of acid she was holding at the onrushing creatures.

  The first of the attackers swatted the vial contemptuously aside, his blade shattering the glass. That was his undoing. The acid spat out in a foul-smelling mist which enveloped all three of the vampyres, and as the vapour touched their faces and their bare arms it began to rend the SAE from their bones. Dong E, as she watched stupefied from behind the bench, saw their bodies begin to melt. The pain suffered by the vampyres must have been incredible but, to her astonishment, they uttered not one sound. Ravaged and flayed though they were, they carried through their attack.

  The swipe of the sword from a vampyre managed to slice across her right thigh, but then the acid took its toll and the creature folded to the ground. As it lay trembling and shivering on the floor of the laboratory, Rivets came out of his fugue and kicked the vampyre squarely in the mouth, sending three fangs skittering over flagstones. Then, as it writhed and groaned, he took the chance to stomp his heel onto its throat. There was a rattle and then it stopped moving.

  Now, as a second vampyre hurled itself at her, Dong E drew her pistol and pumped three shots into the thing’s chest. The vampyre staggered, recovered, and then its sword pistoned towards her. But even as she prepared to receive the killing strike, Rivets leapt between her and the blade, taking the thrust square in his guts. He staggered, but had enough strength to poke his Bulldog into the vampyre’s mouth and pull the trigger. They might not have been using silver bullets, but Dong E doubted even a vampyre would come back at them after having half its head blown off.

  ‘Out, out! The shots will bring the guards!’ she heard the woman shout and the third vampyre, its face distorted by acid and fury, reluctantly did as it was ordered.

  As the door slammed behind them, Dong E turned anxiously to Rivets who lay crumpled on the stone floor, all the colour having drained from his face and all the strength from his body.

  ‘I’m a goner, Dongie,’ he gasped. ‘Time for you to scarper.’

  ‘I cannot leave you, Rivets-san …’

  ‘Don’t be daft … you gotta … them LessBien tarts will be ‘ere in two shakes ov a nanny goat’s tail. I’ve ‘ad it, Dongie.’

  ‘I beg you … do not die, Rivets-san.’

  ‘Don’t fret abart me, Dongie darlin’. Scum like me ain’t worth no tears. Gor … I’d die a thousand times for you an’ then some. I love you, Dongie …’ The boy shuddered, gave her a thin smile and then was gone.

  For long seconds Dong E knelt with the head of Rivets cradled in her lap, tears streaming down her face. It was unbelievable that someone as tough and as resilient as Rivets could be dead. But even as she knelt there with head bowed, she could hear whistles sounding from beyond the laboratory and this was what finally persuaded her that she should go. Closing Rivets’s eyes, she laid his head gently to the ground, rose unsteadily to her feet and bowed, her voice trembling with emotion as she said her last goodbyes. ‘Noble Rivets-san, great warrior and true friend. I return your love and I swear on this love, should I come safe through this night, to ho
nour your memory and to make such offerings that your soul will come safe to your ancestors.’

  With a final bow to Rivets, she limped over to the safe and rifled through the contents. There were poor pickings: just a bulky file of papers which Dong E assumed must be valuable, otherwise Dr Ptah wouldn’t have been so keen to protect them in the safe. She took a box of matches from her pocket and fired them all, then stumbled towards the laboratory door, hobbling for all she was worth on her wounded leg.

  Lucrezia Borgia dragged the pain-crazed Chazaqijal across the courtyard, hurriedly searching for a place to hide before the Amazons came to investigate the sound of the shooting. And as they went, she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She had seen a scruff of a boy and a slip of a Chink girl defeat the three Grigori sent by Crowley to help her, Grigori who Crowley had confidently stated were unbeatable in combat. And it was how they had defeated them that had given her palpitations. The Grigori had melted!

  ‘What now, Comrade Chazaqijal?’ she asked.

  The Grigori looked frightful. Half of his face was gone, pared down to the bone, and one eye had been reduced to a weeping red ball. As he spoke, he winced in pain. ‘I cannot allow myself to be defeated by such … nonentities.’

  His grumbling was interrupted by a ripple of explosions that ripped the Fermentation Plant asunder. Flames leapt skywards, turning night into scarlet-tinged day. But even as she cowered away from the heat and the fury of the blast, Borgia’s mind whirled. The Plague weapon was no more, destroyed by Burlesque Bandstand, and now it would be impossible for the Coven to defeat the ForthRight. Empress Wu was finished and it was time for her to take control of both the situation and the Coven. There could be no more doubt or delay. She had to act. Tonight would begin the reign of Empress Borgia.

  ‘Then, Comrade Chazaqijal, you must wait here and attack them when they emerge from the laboratory. But you must do this alone … I have other priorities.’ And with that she disappeared in the direction of the postern gate.