Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1)

by Lori Williams

Oh, there's one other thing I can't bear to leave out.

  The lady lodger had three granddaughters of age, each with shiny yellow hair and each instantly taken with young mister Spader.

  Gren, of course, found their flirtations unspeakably irritating.

  “Excuse me, Mister, Mister, Sir!” one of the girls sang at him.

  “What?” he snapped back. He looked for the old woman, but she had already wandered inside, leaving him at the mercy of her kin.

  “Forgive me if I speak out of turn,” the girl said, sunbeams and flower petals choking each word. “But I must tell you that your aroma is absolutely delightful!”

  “It's butter. Go away.”

  Another girl took him by the arm, blocking his entrance into the inn.

  “He's a handsome man, sister!”

  “Leave me alone!” Gren barked, trying to shake his hand loose. “Go troll for husbands somewhere else!”

  The ladies giggled amorously. The third sister did a little dance up to them.

  “Are you, by chance, betrothed?”

  “No, but that doesn't mean you girls can—“

  “He is unbetrothed!” the girl with Gren's arm announced. “What eligibility!”

  “How would you like your pretty little faces sma—“

  “Gren-Gren!” the Doll instructed. “Manners!”

  “Did you hear that?” the first sister said. “He called us pretty!”

  “And little!” the second said. “Such poetry!”

  “Get off me!” Gren demanded. He then decided to change tactics and pointed their eyes my way. “You want poetry, go talk to him! He's full of it! And I bet he's available. Go bother him!”

  “Oh, I don't know, Gren,” I said amongst my own laughter. “I don't think I'm quite their type. Lacking the aroma and all.”

  The girls agreed and spent a few minutes trying to comb Gren's hair until he finally made his escape into the inn.

  “He went away!” said one girl.

  “And he locked the door!” said another.

  Kitt and I were bent over, laughing our proverbial heads off. Dolly seemed equally pleased as Gren's frowning, reddened face appeared in the front window, watching from safety.

  “I'm sorry, ladies,” I said, wiping a tear from my non-lensed eye. “I'm afraid you've scared him away.”

  “We'll put in a good word, though!” Kitt added.

  The girls sighed in disappointment and eventually shuffled away, joining their grandmother via a side entrance. Gren rejoined us outside, dragging his feet and fuming.

  “I hate you all.”

  We continued laughing.

  “You wear the scent of butter well,” Kitt said to Gren. “You should probably thank me now for stabbing you.”

  “Sure,” Gren grumbled. “Give me a chance and I'll return the favor.”

  “Hey Gren,” I said, forcing myself to cease laughing. “That was a dirty trick, trying to pawn them off on me.”

  “Not that it worked.”

  “How'd you know that I know poetry?”

  “Eh...it's seems like something you'd know. Not very becoming of a master criminal.”

  “Neither is smelling like butter.”

  Dolly, Kitt, and I resumed our guffaws as night came into its own. The sky was soon as filled with stars as it was with the bulletproof gambler’s threats on our lives.

  The funny thing about time is how it moves, sometimes slower than a man can suffer, sometimes mercilessly fast. The hours of this night blinked by in moments, and before I knew it, I had been fed by the kind lady of the inn and sent tucked into a blanket on the soft carpet of the front lobby. I rested silently on my pillow and moved my eyes around the room. It was darkened, but enough moonlight was filling the space through welcoming windowpanes that I could see my surroundings. A wooden clock hung on the wall opposite me that was carved into the shape of a night owl. The owl's eyes watched me. What great knowledge, I wondered, burned in its beady eyes? What insight was it dying to pass onto me? Was it a message of confidence or warning? Such a tragedy that his beak was forever fastened shut, an unsplit cone of wood.

  “If you have anything to tell me,” I whispered. “Now would be the time.”

  “What would you like to be told?” spoke the Watchmaker's Doll.

  I turned my head to find her staring at me over the edge of her blanket.

  “Can't sleep?” I asked.

  The four of us were lying in a neat row across the floor, with four small blankets and pillows tending to us. Kitt and Gren were already fast asleep. It greatly surprised me that I wasn't, given my current level of exhaustion.

  “I can sleep whenever I want,” the Doll quietly said. “But I don't feel like it.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “Were you talking to that bird gentleman on the wall there?” she asked.

  I smiled at my ridiculousness. “I suppose I was.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged and propped my arms behind my head. “He looked like he had something to say.”

  “Something to say to you?”

  I looked over into her shining eyes. “I guess I’ll never know.”

  She nodded in apparent concurrence. In the light, the glow from her eyes seemed purple and the shine from the moonlight hit her just in a way that rendered the skin it touched further translucent. I could faintly see now beneath her right cheek a few, very tiny, moving cogs attached to bands. Funny how I kept forgetting that they were there.

  The bands in her cheek tightened and her mouth formed a smile. “You can see them, right?”

  I felt myself blush and I looked away. “Yeah, for a moment,” I whispered foolishly. “Just under the cheek.”

  “They show up sometimes. I don't mind if you look.”

  I glanced back. She was still staring at me. I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “You sure are something, aren't you?”

  “Am I?”

  “People seem to think so.”

  “People meaning...”

  “All right, me. And these two, I'm sure.”

  She had a moment of thought. “I don't see the big deal.”

  “Oh, come on. Humility is one thing, but you can't—“

  “I'm nothing special.” She shifted in the light and her gears disappeared. I sighed and loosened my hands beneath my head.

  “I should've expected you to say something to that effect.”

  She shrugged at me, mimicking the move I had used on her moments ago.

  “Hey, Dolly...”

  “Yes?”

  “What happens in two weeks?”

  The onlooking owl watched us there, alone on a strange floor at a stranger hour. He moved the flow of time forward with precise ticks, one second after another. The Watchmaker's Doll closed her glowing eyes and made the decision to end the night.

  “Ask me again,” she said, tightening her hands on her blanket. “In eleven days.”

  Night took us in and we slept.

  Chapter Eight

  Piece by Piece

  Morning found me with a smoldering hole three inches to the right of my head, accompanied with the jarring sound of a shotgun unloading a fresh round at a young man wanted for high crimes against the empire.

  I sat quickly up, something that I rarely did in the morning. Generally, I'm much more of a sluggish, drag-him-from-the-sheets-with-all-of-your-given-strength type of waker, but there's something about a round of smoking buckshot that really alerts your senses.

  This, I decided as I tumbled over my sheets and ran for cover, was to be the tone of today.

  Another shot was fired and my pillow was a blast of feathers.

  “Don't shoot!” I yelled, hiding behind a nearby bookcase.

  “No!” someone shouted back.

  “No?!?” I repeated in incredulity. “Why not?”

  “Because I aim to kill you!”

  “Well, stop it!”

  Another shot rang through the room and smacked into a slab of wallp
aper. I slid out from my spot and checked the floor. The others weren't there. Good, I hoped. Maybe they had gotten out. Another shot hit the wall and I threw my hands up. “Don't! I'll make it worth your...oh.”

  The old lodger was standing across from me, her thin legs wobbling as her wrinkled hands held onto the shotgun aimed at my chest. She wore a nasty look.

  “I don't take kindly to master criminals,” she spat at me.

  “I can see that. But if you'd just let me explain—“

  “Pocket!” Kitt shouted, running into the room from the other end, behind the woman.

  “Kitt, watch out!”

  The woman spun and took aim. The fox hunt, it seemed, was on. She fired one shot. It missed Kitt by a mile and shattered a lamp into several pieces. She took another shot and hit a book in the next room. Then it occurred to me. This woman was half-blind. She couldn't aim a firearm to save her...

  Pow! She fired yet another shot. It landed exactly at Kitt's feet. He screamed and leapt, seconds before getting his lower legs blown off.

  Okay, so she couldn't aim a gun. But she could still get lucky.

  “For Britain!” the old maniac shouted.

  “Kitt, go!”

  He dove headfirst into the next room. She took off after him.

  Oh no, you don't, you maniac.

  “Yah!” I shouted, a pathetic cry but appropriate enough for wrestling an elderly woman, which is exactly what happened next. I jumped at the woman and forced her to the ground, careful not to break her brittle bones. She sustained no injury, but would not let go off her shotgun and tried desperately to aim it at my face.

  “Hold still, please!” she commanded.

  “Are you serious?!?” I shouted.

  Kitt ran in as we both clawed at the weapon. He was carrying my trusty bottle.

  “Pocket! I've got your juice!”

  “Damn the juice! Get her off me!”

  “How?”

  “Hit her with something!”

  “I can't do that! She's old enough to be my grandmoth—“

  The woman got a shot off into the ceiling. Broken pieces of it rained down upon us.

  Gren and the Watchmaker's Doll appeared from the staircase.

  “Run!” he commanded to the Doll. “Get outside and run!”

  She did as commanded, leapt over the struggle, and flew out the front door. Kitt and Gren dove to my aid, joining in the fight for the shotgun.

  “I take it they started putting up posters,” Gren said, yanking at the weapon.

  “I may be old,” the woman barked. “But I'm sharp enough to recognize a traitor to the King! Traitors! Traitors! Police!”

  “Shut up!” Gren yelled.

  “I don't think this is working!” I shouted. “Where's your pistol, Gren?”

  “I gave it to the Doll for protection!”

  “Nice job! Who's going to protect us?”

  “Ow!” Kitt said. “She bit me!”

  “I'll do it again!” the lodger said. “I swear I'll—”

  A damp cloth appeared over her face and a fair hand pressed it to her mouth. The old woman struggled and went limp, falling into a sudden sleep. Her bony fingers slid off of the trigger of the weapon.

  We stood and looked at the trio of yellow-headed granddaughters, standing teary-eyed with the rag and a bottle of ether.

  “Go now,” they said. “Run to your freedom, beautiful sir.”

  They all took Gren's hand. Kitt and I began laughing through our wheezes.

  “Run away!” the one with the rag said. “Run to your destiny! And never look back to thank—“

  “All right. Be seeing you.” Gren offered, already running away. Kitt and I looked back at the heartbroken maidens, waving goodbye.

  “Chins up,” Kitt said. “You can probably do better, anyway. Ladies?”

  “Kitt,” I said. “They don't even see us.”

  I grabbed my bottle. The girls, locked in a stare, continued their wave as we ran out of the room. I turned back only once, to close the door. In that moment, all I remember seeing is the owl upon the wall. He had been brushed by one of the random gunshots, and a chipped eye now appeared to be winking to me.

  It would be the last time we would exchange looks.

  Outside, we found Gren trying to chase the Doll down, who was running frantically down the road, flinching and waving the pistol around in the air for protection.

  “Dolly!” Kitt shouted as we joined Gren in the chase. “It's all right! Slow down!”

  “Don't come near me!” she shouted, shaking the gun in every direction. She had something else under her arm. Something round. I realized that it was the wax cylinder that was left in her company. I hadn't realized that she had been toting it around throughout this whole escapade.

  She turned down another street. We followed and found the pistol lying in the dirt.

  And no girl.

  We stopped, took a much-needed breath, and started poking around.

  “Dolly!” I shouted.

  “Not so loud!” Gren said, taking the pistol. “You two are wanted men. You don't want to call attention to yourselves.”

  “Dolly?” Kitt said in a hushed tone, prowling the immediate area before stating the obvious. “She's not here.” He moved down the street to search.

  “Doll!” I called out.

  “I told you not to yell,” Gren said.

  “You can try telling me what to do once I get this girl back. Until then, I suggest you shut your mouth and help me find her. I swear, if someone nabbed her—“

  “If someone nabbed her, they won't hurt her. She'll just be sent off for the reward.”

  “Reward?”

  “Right. Big reward for you two, small reward for her safe return. The King himself has vowed to see her back to her family.”

  “Family?!?” I took a firm step towards Gren and peered into his eyes. “Is that what they're telling people? That she's just some abduction case?”

  “Isn't she?”

  I squeezed my eyes. “Do you really have no idea what she really is? The Doll?!?”

  “Just a pet name, right? Like darling or precious or—“

  “Gents!” Kitt said, hurrying back. “It's okay! She's safe!”

  Gren and I stopped our bickering and melted with relief.

  “She is?” Gren said. “Where?”

  “With him,” Kitt said.

  On cue, a man with a wild smile stepped out into view, his hands folded behind his back.

  “Hello again,” said the infamous Doctor D.

  “Oh no...” I said, rubbing my eyes.

  “Not the Marin boys, again.”

  “The very same, Alan.”

  “Lovely. So what'd they do with the Doll? Unscrew her legs and sell them as mechanical door-stoppers?”

  “No, they put her in a big hat and used her in some silly medicine show. And her legs don't unscrew.”

  “Oh ho! So you've inspected her legs!”

  “Don't be juvenile, Alan.”

  “No, no. It's a valid point. Proper inspection, eh? You work fast, Pocket.”

  “Are you about done with this insinuat—“

  “Pardon me, ladies, if you could just produce your legs momentarily. Routine inspection, I assure you. Proper maintenance. Have to make sure there isn't any funny business going on down here.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Not sorry enough. I don't suppose it's possible to trade you for a more overall silent audience?”

  “What fun is there in silence, Pocket?”

  Doctor D fixed his grin on us and rubbed between finger and thumb the price tag that dangled from his knotted tie.

  “You have her?” I said, approaching him. “The girl?”

  He scoffed at this. It was the kind of scoff that implied that for anyone to doubt his capabilities was completely cockeyed. The doctor nodded.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  He released the tag and
threw the thumb over his shoulder. “Caravan. Back there.”

  Think what you will about the Marvelous Marins, but they work fast. The Doll had only been out of our sight for minutes and the twins had already managed to snag her and throw her on a wagon.

  “So she's safe?” I asked.

  Another scoff. “Of course,” Doctor D replied.

  “Great. Thanks. Can you take us to where you put her?”

  He shrugged and spun around. “This way.”

  We followed him down to an empty, dead-end street. There was no caravan, only tracks spun about in the dirt. “Here,” he said, gesturing to the empty space.

  “Here what?” Gren inquired.

  “This is where we were parked,” Doctor D said.

  “All right...” I said.

  “But it isn't parked here now,” Gren said.

  “No,” the doctor said. “It is not.”

  “So why are you showing this to us?” Gren said.

  “You asked where we put her. This is where we were parked and this is where we placed the young lady. Right over there, where that branch is. Just under that was the cabin she went into. Right there.”

  “You're a very strange person, aren't you?” I asked.

  He shrugged and spun his tie tag. “Your opinion.”

  “Can you take us to where she is now?” Kitt asked.

  The doctor giggled. “Of course.” He kicked up some dust and went off in another way.

  “He's a lunatic,” Gren said.

  “We can't all be butter-smelling men of beauty,” Kitt said.

  Gren punched Kitt in the shoulder and we followed Doctor D, who was following the tracks in the dust.

  When we finally got to the caravan, we found a crowd huddled outside of it. Doctor D's enthusiastic partner was quickly drumming up excitement, circling the wagon's connected stage and pointing into the crowd. It was, as I earlier said, Alan, a kind of medicine show, though instead of medicine he was peddling his contraptions. The Doll sat center stage on a small stool with a pleased smile. Half of her face was covered by an oversized, lady's evening hat that drooped over her small head. My chest tightened and I feared that one of these onlookers might find her suspicious. Her portrait had not been illustrated on the wanted posters, but her description was given. Even with her face partly obscured, it would not take much curiosity on the part of someone to...