Spirits of the Charles

by Paul C. K. Spears

  CHAPTER 14

  THE BIG DOORS of the truck were still giving them trouble. Rose dug through her coveralls, but all she found was a screwdriver. Jamming it into the gap between the doors, she struggled to raise the metal bar there. “There’s a latch on the outside…”

  Carla had her hand on the crate when a pinhole of light appeared in the wall—accompanied by the sharp crack of a rifle. Two more appeared, and panic penetrated her sense of shock. “Shit!”

  Rose was already hauling her to the floor. “Get down!”

  As they dove for the floor, there was a pop and a hiss from below. Somebody had shot out a wheel, in the fusillade of bullets. Their truck lurched to one side, off-kilter, and the crate slid towards them.

  “Ponzi!” Rose braced her back and thrust out her legs; whatever was in that box, it was heavy. She forced the thing away; chunks of ice gathered under her as another tire gave out. “The box—we need cover! Get behind it!”

  “What?” The thunder of guns was deafening. The truck was moving, now—rumbling over the docks, away from the firefight, but not fast enough. Not with two wheels down. Carla shrieked as a bullet nicked her ear, splattering blood on her fine evening dress. “Bastardi!” She reached for the latch again. “We gotta get out of here. I’m taking whatever’s in that box and we’re busting out!”

  “We don’t have time for that shit! Leave it!”

  The side of the box fell open, and the glow intensified. As they both leaned in to see what it was, the truck smashed into something—and careened to a halt.

  The object slid out of the crate.

  Outside, the gunfire fell silent. There was the muffled click of shells being chambered, and the moaning of wounded men: Gus and the anarchists were prepping for round two. In the light of the bullet-holes, Rose finally got to see what they'd been trying to steal this whole time.

  It was an enormous machine, some kind of Draught condenser. Rose recognized the rune stones, but beyond that it was like nothing she knew. What they’d taken for scratching was the skitter of a silver needle over a length of paper, and there were half a dozen glass tanks hooked up, each one covered with condensation.

  Humours, Rose thought. And not mixed. They were standing next to at least five gallons of pure, volatile Humors: bubbling Anger, frothy Delight, and others, all covered by a sheen of ice. In the center of the device was a brass pad, etched in the shape of a hand and surrounded by injection needles. She didn’t like the look of that.

  “That… that looks expensive,” said Carla.

  “An expensive bomb,” said Rose. Carla stared at her. “Pure Humors are unstable, They need to be mixed with something or kept cold. Otherwise, they start leaking back through to... wherever they come from. And when that happens… ” She swallowed. “You don't want to be there.”

  “Well, fuck this,” Carla said. “Gimme that screwdriver! We can’t carry that thing—let’s bust out and leave.”

  “We’ll have to hurry.” The liquids inside the tanks were churning, sliding up the sides as if they were alive. One of the glass cylinders had been pierced by a bullet, and white ooze was leaking out. Crackling energy passed between the tubes. “That stuff’s going to cook off in minutes. Maybe less.”

  “Fuck that. I ain’t dying in here!” Carla grabbed the screwdriver where it lay in the ice and began stabbing at the truck’s cab. “Hey! Let us out!”

  “There might be another way.” Rose examined the needles. “This looks like it was meant to be… injected. On the panel, here.” The thought made her skin crawl. You could mix Humours with morphine and liquor, but shooting it straight into your veins? That was a death sentence. “If we had some kind of object to inject them into, we could stabilize them.”

  She ran her hand over the panel, looking for an override switch, some kind of release. As she did, small white fingers pressed on hers, pushing her palm down. She stared at Carla, astonished—and then screamed as the needles plunged into her hand and stolen handcuffs snapped shut around her forearm. Before she could react, Carla had looped the other half of the cuffs around the mechanism, locking her in place.

  “Jesus! What are you doing?”

  “I’m staying alive.” Carla went for the door. Rose grabbed at her, but the small woman was too quick.

  “You can’t do this! Get that shit off me!”

  Carla’s eyes, shining with panic, betrayed no sympathy. “Sorry, doll. You said it—gotta mix it with something, or it goes off, and we’re both dead. Better you than me.” With blood running from her leaking ear; she looked quite insane. Rose realized, too late, that trusting her had been a terrible mistake.

  “Please… Carla, I have a family. They need me. I need to get back to Florida, I need to…” Her spine crawled with terror as she saw the tubes around the needles begin to fill with liquid. “No! No!”

  “I'll send them a postcard.” Carla passed out of sight behind the crate and Rose heard the scraping of the screwdriver between thudding gunfire. “Christ, this thing is heavy.”

  “You piece of shit!” Rose scrabbled at the hinges on the cuffs; there had to be something, some way to get out of this torture device. Kicking at the thing, she succeeded only in spraining her toe, terror racing through her. “I’ll kill you, I’ll—”

  “Bye!” There was a click as the truck door opened, and the click of heels as Carla escaped. Gunsmoke wafted through the gap. It only then, that Rose remembered the knife in her boot, and cursed herself for stupidity.

  Pulling the knife, she laid it against her arm. It was a heavy thing, six inches of steel. She weighed how quickly she could saw through her own wrist... but then, pushing the idea away, she moved the blade to the injection tubes. If she could cut off the supply, she might be able to buy time.

  But then the first of the Humors slid into her. It was like being filled with lightning. Her eyes rolled back as pure Fear poured through her veins, swamping her in horror. She screamed her throat raw, but couldn’t hear herself.

  She was back in the orange groves. The trees were burning—everything was burning. Houses sagged, collapsed into blackened husks. People were screaming: her aunts, uncles and cousins. The gunshots in present and past ran together, in a steel rain of cacophony. She saw the murderers coming through the flames, big men with white grins. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move. They were coming for her, they had killed her father and they were going to take her too—

  Then the Rage hit, followed by Joy and Misery. Her mind was blasted to pieces as currents of pure emotion pumped through her heart and brain. The gates of madness yawned, and she knew what it was to experience every feeling at once: all life’s happiness and pain, in the space of a few heartbeats. Tears streamed from her eyes while her skin crawled with mutative energy. White light consumed her vision. In her last moment of humanity, she saw her father’s face in her mind, the moles on his chin and the mischief in his eyes standing out with perfect clarity.

  Rose Sweetwater died, then… and became something else.

  CHAPTER 15

  WHEN CARLA escaped, she found herself in the middle of a gun battle. The Red Queen’s gang was trading fire with the cops: several of the smugglers lay dead, though shrieks and sobbing from clouds of gunsmoke told her both sides were hurting. She dropped flat and began crawling, warm shotgun shells under her elbows. The steady thunder of rifles pounded her ears numb, and she found herself babbling nonsense, to chase away the fear.

  “Not my fault, babe. Not my fault. Not my…”

  She didn’t feel bad for leaving Rose behind. Why should she? The woman had gotten in with bad people; she would’ve just died in a different gutter, on a different night. Besides, Carla had obligations to fulfill, customers to pay back. She was make it, she promised herself, as bodies crumpled around her. She was going to survive, and then get to a confessional. God would forgive her for everything.

  A cop car howled by, its wheels barely missing her head. The driver was trying to ram the escaping ice truck,
but instead it jumped the curb into the harbor—headlights disappearing into murky water. This was madness. Sooner or later, she’d catch a bullet out here. Mick obviously wasn't coming to rescue her.

  Then her eyes caught the silhoette of the boat, swaying gently in the tide. Any port in a storm, she thought. Any port… She crawled through the dark, dress ruined, ear streaming with blood. The pain was beginning to hit her; it was tempting to just curl up and pray for salvation. But that was a quitter’s attitude. She was going to make it! She was already on the gangplank, scuttling towards safety. She’d be toasting her escape with Earl soon, back at the St. Cloud—

  A boot pressed into her back. She gagged, her face jammed into the soggy gangplank. She saw wood lice squirming and burrowing there, cast in whiteness by a cruiser’s spotlight.

  It was the Red Queen. “Hello, little bird.”

  “Ghhk!” She held up her hands, to show she was unarmed. The Queen kicked her in the ribs, rolling her over, and Carla found a pistol pressed against her neck.

  “You have emerged from the god's chamber. And you are not dead.” The Queen stood tall, apparently unconcerned by the bullets flying around them. “You have been chosen by the god of the proletariat. It is decreed.”

  “Lady, come on, I just want to go—Ack!” The woman gripped her dress, hurling her onto the tugboat. The deck was briny and filthy. Several gunmen crouched in the prow. They carried big hunting rifles, but none of them were firing. They were laying low, Carla realized, leaving their friends to die so they could escape. It was cunning… if cowardly.

  She kicked at the woman’s boots, still furious despite her ordeal. “I’ve had it with this. Let me go! Goddamn Bolshies—”

  Something crawled over the side of the boat, something wet and dripping and leathery. She screamed as it landed next to her. It was a man, wearing a long coat, his face hugged by a gas mask with several hoses in it. He carried a pistol and a belt of knives. Carla scrambled away from the apparition.

  “My Angel.” The Queen signaled to the helmsman, who started the boat’s engine. “Has the Host emerged?”

  “Not yet. But the machine is working—I saw the glow.”

  “Good. What about Lombardini?”

  “No sign of him. I think he went ashore for… a snack.”

  “Leave him.” She sighed. “I’d hoped to see the Host. But we still have work to do.”

  “As you wish, my Queen.” Sighting Carla, the masked figure loomed over her. She shrank away, terrified. “Hello, little lady! I’m the Angel of Hope! Pleased to meet you.” It extended one dripping, gloved hand. In the light from the cruisers, the thing looked like an enormous bat.

  “You’re all fucking pazzo,” said Carla, shivering against the bulkhead as the boat churned away from the docks. “Crazier than a bag of snakes.”

  “Your small mind cannot understand what we are.” The Queen was leaning on the rail, watching the carnage on shore with an expression of ecstasy. “There. Gaze upon the future—the Host of mankind.”

  There was a white flash, and a rumbling explosion. The gunfire petered off, and Carla peeked over the stern to see what was happening.

  The truck was overflowing with wild, crackling energy: it was strange, beautiful and one of the eeriest things she'd ever seen. The Humours rose up, swirling and shimmering and pulsing, a mass of emotion, spreading out of control. In that unnatural color, she felt rather than saw the presence of straining desire and vicious hate. It was an aurora borealis of madness.

  Nice knowing you, Rose.

  But then the fountain of emotions—as high as the buildings on the Boston shoreline—began to fade, seeping back inside the truck. Police and gangsters stood mesmerized as the spectacle folded down, darkened, and disappeared.

  Then the shooting started up again.

  The man in the gas mask gripped Carla, dragged her towards the cargo hold. Too late, she realized she could’ve used their momentary distraction to escape. She kicked and thrashed, but he tossed her into the hold, on a bed of straw soaked in freezing water. The masked man was singing as he reached for the door latch.

  “But for a life of glory, and a laurel to crown my head…”

  “Hey! Hold it!” She threw herself against the door, and got a swift kick from him. “We can arrange something. Listen, I have friends. I have resources!”

  “It’s already been arranged,” giggled the madman. “Welcome to the Soldiers of Mithras!”

  And the door banged shut.

  Carla hammered on it, too weak to sustain her fury for long. Shell-shocked and freezing, she curled up on the straw, as the craft moved out to sea. Thoughts of revenge curdled in her mind, ideas of crawling out the tiny porthole and swimming to safety. But they were just ideas: she was too frail, and the porthole was too small, and she was too good for this, goddammit.

  But she would get out of here. She’d get out, and sell her story to the papers, and be rich again. Comforted by such fantasies, she hunkered down… and awaited her fate.

  CHAPTER 16

  EVERYTHING WAS going straight to hell.

  Gus staggered along the waterfront with Mick, trying to find his men through a haze of gunsmoke and ocean fog. Sirens wailed, and he could hear pounding feet through the haze. There were shouts, screams in the dark, and the whizz of bullets passing by invisibly. It was madness: they’d never expected this level of heat. He wished he’d left Malloney’s book in the dirty cop’s pocket, where it belonged.

  Mick was leaning heavily on him, clutching his attacker's knife with pale fingers. A primitive dressing made from Gus' shirt-sleeves was tied off around his stomach. It was already soaked red.

  “Hurts,” he said.

  “Yeah, I know, buddy. I know.” He turned the corner to the alley where his men had planned to ambush the smugglers. His feet splashed in puddles of blood. “Aw, shit…”

  They were all dead. Not just shot, but chopped to bits, arms and fingers scattered like parade confetti. Spades’ head was smashed, grisly pieces of his brain smeared on the bricks. Sampson’s legs were gone. The alley reeked with the coppery odor of blood. Sickened, Gus felt like he was back in the trenches.

  Christ, it was just a grab job. What am I going to tell their families? Their kids?

  “Shit,” said Mick.

  Gus gritted his fangs. “I’m going to kill these sons-of-bitches.”

  A heavyset figure lumbered from the dark. Gus tensed, raising his Remington; it would be hard to get off a shot with Mick leaning on him, but he could do it. When he saw the man's face, though, he froze.

  It was Big Joe Lombardini, flabby and pale as he’d been in life but with several bullet-holes in his chest. The enormous gangster stepped on Sampson’s head, as he passed. The mob boss’ vast weight popped Sampson’s head like a grape. Now Gus did vomit, bile surging up his throat.

  “Oh, don’t be squeamish, young man. Despair comes for everyone.” Big Joe checked his pocket-watch, many chins dimpling as he frowned. “One in the morning. A fitting time to die, I suppose.”

  Mick shot Big Joe in the stomach. Gus flinched; he’d thought his friend had passed out. But though Mick was gasping and limp, his eyes were steely. His revolver barked in his trembling fingers.

  “Traitor…”

  “I beg your pardon?” The bullet didn’t seem to faze Lombardini, although Gus had seen it go right through his sternum, and the exit wound sprayed dark blood on the alley's hard-packed dirt. “Boys, boys. It’s not as simple as all that. Loyalty has no place, in the coming age.”

  Gus had met Big Joe once, back when he got his start running Draughts. The man had struck him as greasy and contemptuous, a gourmand of luxuries. But this Big Joe was different. He spoke with jaded boredom, despite the carnage around him. And, of course, there was the fact he now could soak up bullets like a sponge. That was new. What had that Noxious do to him?

  “I’ll make it simple for you.” Gus fired, but this round whizzed past Lombardini to fly out to sea. Big Joe stepped
forward.

  “Stop this foolishness, and give in.” His doughy face, Gus saw, was pure white—no blood pumped in those veins. “I'll make your deaths brief—it’s the least I can do, for fellow thieves.” He plucked some of Spades’ brains from the wall, nibbling them. “Mm, traces of Fear. Exquisite!”

  “Jesus…” Gus backed away, laying Mick against the wall. “Sit tight, pal. I’m gonna take this gas-bag down.”

  “Are you?” There was no trace of concern in Lombardini’s deep voice. “How diverting.”

  Gus rolled up to the monster in a boxer’s stance, muscle-memory of his fighting days coming back. Hands up, light on your feet.

  Lombardini put up pudgy fists; they were comically tiny, but the man’s massive frame outweighed Gus by at least a hundred pounds. The folly of what he was doing weighed on him. If bullets didn't work, what were his fists going to do?

  Big Joe winked. “Go on. Let’s see the cut of your jib!”

  Gus threw a haymaker. Big Joe took it on the chin, and he heard the man’s jaw break—but Joe didn’t even flinch. His knuckles shot out, catching Gus in the chest. He was strong, stronger than a man fond of steak and brandy should’ve been. Gus retreated, limbs prickling with adrenaline.

  “I must ask. What god do you carry inside you?” The big man swung, and Gus side-stepped, but the whistle of air told him that blow could’ve crushed his face like paper. “Is it Midas? He’s a fair-weather friend, Argus. His strength will fade, when you lose your wealth–when you dare to be selfless.”

  “Dead guys shouldn’t be so damn chatty!” Gus ducked a right hook, and tried to tackle Big Joe. It was like charging an elephant. A fist drove into his back, smashing him to the ground, and then Big Joe’s shoe was on his spine, pressing down. The shoe was a black Oxford with blood-spattered laces, and it squeezed his ribcage with such force Gus felt the vertebrae in his neck pop and grind. He went for the switchblade in his pocket, but the big man kicked it out of his hand.