“Nope. Just more angry people. You?”
“The same.”
“So now what?” Jack asked.
I groaned, truly not wanting to speak the following sentence.
“I’m going back in there for him.”
“You sure?” Quill asked.
“Yeah. There’s a little door up here, access from the roof to…somewhere back inside. You two get out of here. Start up the Prospero, and for God’s sake, be ready to pick us up when we come running!”
“Can do!” Jack said. “You watch your neck in there, Pocket.”
“I intend to. No, go on. Run!”
And off they went, waving goodbye while kicking up dust. I looked down at myself, standing on a dirty roof in my socks.
“I’m a fool,” I said, moving to the roof’s entry hatch. “You hear that, Dolly? A complete fool.”
I pulled open the small door, a slightly difficult task due to the build-up of rust, then moved downward through a dusty attic and eventually arrived back on the second floor. I was lucky. The hall was empty, but I still moved fast, fearing that a search party would turn up at any moment.
I passed door after door, keeping my concentration on finding any sign of Gren.
Fortunately for me, his voice carries.
“For the last time,” I heard him shout in the distance, “I don’t have any damn idea what you’re talking about! All I can tell you is that my brothers are somewhere at this party. That’s all. So let me go!”
I moved to the sound of his complaints, which led me to a door and a golden plaque.
TROPHY ROOM
CONTRIBUTIONS COURTESY OF THE NEWCASTLE GAME AND RIDING SOCIETY
All right, Pocket, I told myself. You’ve got one shot at an entrance. Make it count.
I cracked the door and peered inside, unnoticed. Two men stood with their backs to me. Gren was against the opposite wall. My only chance was to take them by surprise.
So silently, I pushed the door open and crept in.
Silently, I approached the two men.
Silently, I tripped on a bunched rug.
Silently, that rug yanked at a large, stuffed grizzly to my forward left.
And not at all silently, the bear tottered and fell, landing directly on the two men who were keeping Gren at bay. They yelled and pushed, but ultimately were pinned beneath the animal.
“Wow,” Gren said, looking at the scene. “Nice work.”
I shrugged. “Thanks. Ready to go?”
“Is the money secured?”
“There’ve been some complications.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain later. We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Hey, what happened to your shoes?”
“Gren!”
“Fine. Oh, hold on.” Gren pried from the wall a pair of sizable, golden blunderbusses that had been mounted amongst the trophies. He tossed one to me, then hopped over the grizzly. “Now, let’s go.”
I sighed and clutched the gun in my hand. “Tally ho.”
We ran madly through the manor, waving our guns about like children with toys. Confused staff and guests shrieked and dodged out of our way as we passed. We descended to the ground floor and cut back across the ballroom. Too engrossed in their own playing to notice us, the harpist and the pianists spun an accompaniment to our escape, each frantic step met with a matching note.
“Stop right there!” a single, muscle-bound man shouted, blocking our exit. He quickly produced a pistol and trained it on us. We responded by aiming our weapons back at him.
“Make a move and it’ll be your last,” the man threatened.
“No, no!” Gren retorted. “You make a move and it’ll be your last!”
“Big talk,” the man sneered. “Goes with your big mouth.”
“Big mouth, huh? Is that right? Fine. Pull the trigger. Go on. You’ll only have time to shoot one of us before the other drops you dead. So go on and shoot!”
“Hang on, Gren,” I interjected.
“You don’t scare me,” the man said. “Hell, you probably don’t know how to handle what you’ve got in your hands.”
“You think so?” Gren snarled, gnashing his teeth. “What does this tell ya?” He swung his blunderbuss skyward and fired a warning shot to the ceiling.
Except no shot was fired.
Because Gren and I hadn’t considered that a pair of hunting guns mounted in a public setting would most likely not be left with live ammunition.
Because Gren and I were idiots.
“Damn it,” Gren said, speaking for the two of us.
We dropped our firearms and raised our hands in surrender. The strong man grinned darkly and shook his pistol at us.
“Let’s take a walk, boys,” he said.
And we would’ve, had fate not intervened.
And by fate, I mean Jack and Quill.
The loud screeching of machinery mixed with the cackling laughter of Hack-Jack bellowed from outside. This seemed to be just the night for helpful distractions. The noise caught the gunman off guard, and as he turned his head toward the sound, Gren threw a punch. It caught the man under his chin, and our captor crumpled to the floor. The pistol bounced out of his hand and I quickly put my foot on it. With a kick, I sent it sliding across the room. Gren and I took off. I ran, quickly taking in air as I sprinted. I got to the front parlor and broke through the double doors.
The Prospero was moving in figure eights across the front lawn, kicking up dust and dirt. Jack looked delighted.
“There! It’s Pocket!” Quill yelled.
Jack slammed on the brakes and whistled me over. I was already halfway to the steam car before it had stopped.
“Go!” I said, climbing in.
“What about Gren?” Quill asked.
“What do you mean, he’s right—” I looked back and realized that he was no longer beside me. “We…we must’ve gotten separated. He was—”
Bang! A single gunshot rang out from inside the building. We all froze in position, staring at the investors’ ball and fearing the worst.
“Gr…Gren?” Quill whimpered, afraid.
The air hung thick.
“Forget the suspense, Pocket. I already know he lives.”
“Oh, yeah? Why so sure?”
“Because you promised me a scene with him and a windmill, and I haven’t heard any mills so far.”
“Hmph. Shrewd.”
“Thanks.”
We breathed a collective sigh of relief as Gren jogged at last outside, a bundle of coats clenched in his hand and a line of blood running down his left shoulder.
“Jack!” he shouted as he ran.
“I know, I know!” his friend yelled back, spinning the Prospero back toward the investors’ ball.
Gren got onboard just in time to miss an irate and rock-throwing mob forming on the lawn. Jack sprayed them with a fresh coat of dirt as he drove us away.
“Pull over, Jack,” Gren griped. “I’m driving.”
“The hell you are!” Jack responded. “Just sit there and try not to bleed on me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Is my bleeding wound inconveniencing you?”
“Shut up.”
I rolled my eyes and slumped down in the backseat.
“What happened in there?” I asked.
Gren grunted. “Bastard found his pistol, got a shot off on me.”
“Serves you right for dragging your feet! What were you doing that took so long? You could’ve been killed!”
Gren smirked and tossed the bundle of coats over the seat onto my lap.
“You forgot something,” he said.
I reached my hand into the coat I had worn and gripped the familiar metal.
The turnkey.
“Oh,” I said stupidly. “Thanks.”
“Forget it.”
“Were you hurt badly?”
“Nah,” Gren said. “Bullet just nicked me.”
“Good,” I nodded. “So no new met
al plating?”
“Not this time.”
“Still…that was risky.”
Gren looked away from me and threw his words out the window.
“Yeah…well…” he muttered, “it was for something pretty important, right?”
I rolled the turnkey with my fingers. “Right. Thank you, Gren.”
He grunted off my sincerity and asked the dreaded question.
“So did we get the money?”
The drive became very quiet, as we all began silently contemplating how best to avoid answering Gren’s question. It was Quill who finally spoke.
“Well,” she said. “About that…”
The trip back to the Lucidia was a sobering one. The initial thrill of getting out alive soon wore off and we were left with the disappointing knowledge that this long, exhausting night had given us nothing but a free meal, a few drinks, and a bloody shoulder for Gren. We had, simply put, failed.
Gren let out a low sigh as we neared the shore. Jack was turning the wheel and Quill was sound asleep next to me in the back.
I felt that I should say something, or maybe I just couldn’t stand the mood any longer.
“Hey,” I said to Gren, careful not to wake the girl beside me. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said bluntly.
“Look, they told me that you are having a little trouble—“
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“We really tried to get that money out—“
“I’m fine.”
I became quickly annoyed and let it go, crossing my arms and leaning back in my seat. It wasn’t comfortable. I was in a bad mood, which is something I hate to be in, and therefore was instantly in a worse mood.
My coat slumped off of the seat and onto my feet. Glancing over, I saw something flat and square that had suddenly appeared beside me. Surprised, I picked up the token.
It was a card, lavishly decorated with waves and serpents. A tarot card.
Madame B.
The pirate queen must have planted it on my coat. I half-smiled, reading the words that had been scribbled on the back of the card.
“WISH FOR LUCK TONIGHT! – R.P. and M.B.”
Wish, huh? I flipped the card over, revealing the tarot symbol on its face.
The Moon.
I laughed and flicked the card away. “Guess I waited too long to wish,” I whispered.
“You say something, Pocket?” Gren asked.
“No. Nothing.”
The tarot card had landed on Quill’s forehead, and she grumbled in her sleep as she shook it away.
“Uh…sorry,” I said.
She responded only with a slight crinkling of her nose. The image of the Moon came to a rest on the bound book in her arms.
Wait.
My eyes went wide as I glared at the book, gone unnoticed in the madness. That’s right, I told myself. Quill had pulled it away from Helen Blue-Eyes and wielded it as a weapon. And if this was Helen’s book…then…
Carefully, I eased the volume out of the girl’s hand, my thumb pressing the tarot card against the cover. I palmed the card, unbound the book, and held my breath.
And there, stuck between various pages, were a selection of wrinkled, white, folded envelopes.
The Prospero made its way to the shores of the oil sea as I laughed harder and harder into the night, the Moon in my hands.
Chapter Fifteen
Gifts and Goodbyes
“Quite a story, Pocket.”
“It was an unusual night, for certain.”
“That Moon card though, the tarot…”
“What about it?”
“Didn’t it make you a little nervous?”
“No. Why would it?”
“You do know why Madame B is called the Switchblade Tarot Queen?”
“You aren’t going to pull out the wanted posters again, are you?”
“She leaves a card on each victim. You know, on their corpses. Cocky move, if you ask me, leading on the police like that.”
“Theatric.”
“Don’t you think she may have been, you know, marking you?”
“Marking me? For death?!? A little harsh, don’t you think, Alan?”
“I don’t know. Sure, you paint her up pretty nicely, but…eh, I’m probably wrong. Maybe it was just a friendly warning.”
“A warning, huh?”
I stared at my fingers as one by one they slid through the worn holes of my black gloves. I rolled up the weathered, ink-stained sleeves that hung down my arms. I threw on my old walking coat, pockets filled with scraps and parchment and a lunatic’s perfumed cigarettes.
I smiled.
It felt good to be back in my own clothes. It felt more…honest.
A knock came at the door of my cabin on the Lucidia. It was morning and small threads of sunlight were weaving into my room.
“Come in,” I said.
The door softly opened. The Red Priest came inside.
“Good morning,” he said to me.
“Morning.”
He looked me over and smiled. “Rough night, eh?”
“Very.”
“My apologies. And my thanks. According to Quill, you accomplished quite a lot.”
“It was a circus. Don’t be impressed.”
“Modest.”
“Honest.”
“If you say.” He watched me for a moment. “Got tired of the new suit?”
I shrugged. “A bit. Didn’t seem like the thing to wear to breakfast.”
“Fair enough. I’ll have it laundered and returned to you.”
“No thanks.”
“Pardon?”
“I was just borrowing it. It’s yours.”
“Consider it a gift.”
“Thanks, Priest, but it doesn’t really suit me. Plus, I’m a little tired of borrowing dead men’s rags.”
“Fine, fine. Suit yourself.” The captain took a pause and then sat down beside me. “Pocket?”
“Yes?”
“You’re still planning on leaving us, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“And I suppose there’s nothing I could say to deter you?”
“No.”
The Priest nodded solemnly and put on a grim smile. “Thought as much. I will remind you that you have no shred of a clue as to where to search.”
“I know that.”
“You could end up circling this globe for years, maybe for the rest of your life.”
“I know.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it does. It absolutely terrifies me, right down to the very pit of my spirit. But what choice do I have?”
“What choice?!? Why, you have all the choice in the world! I don’t see any shackles on you yet.”
“The King will see to that soon enough.”
“The hell, he will! Pocket, you’re still a free man! Act as you please! Or stay with us. We can hide you away.”
“I’m very sorry, Captain, but I’m afraid you don’t understand. I am not a free man, no. Not anymore.”
I pulled the Doll’s turnkey from its place on the bed and revealed at last before the King of the Pirates my true situation.
“Get on with it, Pocket.”
“Excuse me, Alan?”
“I said, get on with it. Say it already.”
“I…what do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Pocket! You’ve been sitting here with me all night, dancing around this. Just come right out and say it.”
“I…fine. You’ll think me daft, absolutely, ridiculously mindless, but…but I…”
“You’ve fallen in love with the Watchmaker’s Doll.”
“Yes. Yes I have.”
“Good. Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“For God’s sake…”
“So it was that apparent?”
“You kidding? I saw it coming since the tea house.”
“How?”
“How? I don’t know, Pocket. I can’t explain these things. When someone is in love, they just…just are. There’s no how or why. It’s just written above their heads. You can just see it.”
“Is it always like that, Alan? Just spelled out so plainly?”
“In my opinion? Yes.”
“And…what about…heartbreak?”
“Heartbreak? Well, that’s a kind of love, I suppose. Or love’s leftovers. I imagine it might hang over a man similarly. Why do you ask?”
“Alan…do you think me perverse?”
“Of course not. Why would I?”
“Well, knowing what you know, most would consider me absolutely mad to feel as I do toward…a machine.”
“Machine? Pssh. Pocket, I’ve met handfuls of women far more lifeless and mechanical than this Doll of yours. I’m betting you have too.”
“True.”
“Pocket, look over the bar. What do you see?”
“Shelves, bottles.”
“No, above that. The portrait.”
“Portrait? You mean that old beer advert? With the tavern girl?”
“That one, yeah. Do you know why I enjoy working at this pub?”
“It was my impression that you didn’t.”
“I don’t. Place smells and the tips are lousy. But the redeeming element of this bucket of slop, the one, little piece of sweetness, is her.”
“Who, the beer girl?”
“Look at her, Pocket. The bright eyes, the flush cheeks, the flowing yellow hair.”
“She’s pretty, sure.”
“No, no, look beyond that. Look at that smile. It’s warm and sweet, you see. Caring, reassured. Just hanging up there over the slop, as if saying, ‘It’s all fine. Whatever happens in this world, I have faith that you’ll make it through the night.’ I know it’s silly, but it feels kinda like the smile of some kindhearted angel, keeping watch over the drunk and the forgotten. Over me. I’ve worked this whole city over, Pocket. I’ve moved my feet back and forth across London Town like a hermit in search of shelter. I’ve served countless faces, and do you know what? I have never seen a woman smile, at me or any other man, in any way close to the look of the lips hanging above us. Am I in love with a painted shape? No. But I have found a love for something that I wish I could find in my life. Hell, I may never find it. But you found yours, Pocket. Look, the Watchmaker’s Doll may not be a conventional woman, but if conventional worked for men like us, I wouldn’t have to spend my nights pining over paper. If that makes us perverse, then I don’t care. I really don’t. Do you understand?”
Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) Page 46