Nightmare City: Part One: A Post-Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure

by Jack Conner

  Katya touched his arm.

  “Yes?” Loqrin said.

  “I wouldn’t mind, you know, maybe having dinner with you.”

  A new look came over Loqrin. “Oh? Well, good. I was just on the point of—well.” He giggled. “Men, show her to the car.” To her, he said, “I’ll join you in just a moment.”

  As casually as she could, she glanced at Jack, who swallowed nervously. His eyes were eloquent, deeply apologetic, but he could obviously not help her.

  Strong arms steered her into the interior of Loqrin’s car. Dimly she heard Loqrin and Jack speaking. At first she paid little attention, but then she heard something that caught her attention:

  “And he doesn’t suspect?” Loqrin said.

  “No,” Jack said. “Not at all.”

  “Excellent. And you’ve done what I asked?”

  “To the letter. He believes you’re trying to weaken his positions in the east and he intends to fortify his establishments there. In all other directions, particularly west, he will be vulnerable.”

  “Well done, as usual.”

  “It was your attacks that did it. I just color information.”

  Loqrin laughed. “Well, your coloring does more for me than a thousand bullets, and then some.”

  That lying double-crossing bastard! Katya thought. Jack had been playing Ravic for a fool all along.

  Maybe Jack was just playing his part, she thought. Playing the spy. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? But no. She had heard the report Jack had given Ravic and understood that what he’d just told Loqrin circumvented Ravic’s response to it. Jack was well and truly a traitor.

  At last Loqrin left Jack standing beside the abyss and made his way over to the limo, where with a smile he slid in beside Katya. His door closed. She was locked in with Loqrin Mars. Jack the traitor seemed very far away. The auto’s engine roared into life.

  “Well, now,” Loqrin said, eyeing her eagerly, “this should be a fun night, shouldn’t it?”

  “Ah ... sure.”

  He pressed a button. “Driver, go.”

  Loqrin babbled amiably as they drove along, but, distracted by Jack’s treachery and her own vulnerability, she hardly listened. They moved uphill, away from the Sink. Half-collapsed tenements listed downward, some of the roofs almost touching. They drove past a row of mountainous rubble that seemed to stretch on and on.

  “That’s the Domino,” Loqrin said. “Near the end of the war an Urzbein bomb hit one building, knocked it over. It hit the next building, and it hit the next. They collapsed one by one, the last one falling into the Sink itself, which had been made just a few years prior.”

  “Oh?” Why was Loqrin telling her this? Didn’t he believe she was a local girl? It occurred to her that he was simply out of touch with the common people of his territory.

  The car neared the lip of the hill created by the Sink, and Katya saw weird buildings ahead like nothing she’d ever seen before. It looked like at some point in the past there had been a line of connected structures, each one forming something of an inverted U shape, curved at the bottom. The apex of each one must have been uniform, and the ones she could see were about a fifty or more feet high. In its day, the series of structures must have resembled a snake’s back, or maybe a dragon’s, undulating across the landscape. But Urzbein bombs had destroyed most of the strange arches. Jagged end-pieces stood up here and there with masses of rubble heaped between them. Only three of the great arches remained. The car drove toward the central one.

  Loqrin must have seen her interest. “That’s Horqrin’s Arch,” he said. “My home. They’re ancient Qaran ruins, built two thousand or more years ago, before their empire fell. Did you know that some say the Qarans worshipped the Elders? There are even Qaran ruins underground, as if the Qarans aped the ones they worshipped, or simply wanted to be closer to them, and it’s said only the nobles lived in such lairs. It seems a backwards culture, doesn’t it, with the nobles living like moles underground and the peasants living above?”

  The limo pulled to a stop at the base of Horqrin’s Arch. Several men had already gathered there. One held the door open for Loqrin, and he climbed out smoothly. She heard him take in a deep breath of the night air. He beckoned for her to follow.

  I still have my rings. She could rip her way through these assholes. She could get clear of this whole mess and be back in the Fifth Ward by morning. But what about the haunts? The abductions?

  “Come!” Loqrin barked.

  She took a deep breath, let it out, and climbed out of the auto.

  Loqrin marched forward, into the Arch.

  The first thing she noticed was that the men who’d come out to greet Loqrin weren’t really men at all. Well, maybe they had been at some point, but they were walking corpses now. They wore nice suits and nodded to Loqrin politely, but they were rotting on their bones and gave off a horrid stench. Katya wanted to ask about them but didn’t. She assumed the Returners were genuine Reynalts, but it was hard to be certain. Dr. Reynalt was the only Awakener Kat had ever heard of who could reliably bring a corpse back to life with all its mental faculties intact, and these seemed to possess theirs.

  At any rate, the mystery provided her with something to think about as Loqrin led the way into the interior of the Arch. The Returners grouped around, stinking and strange.

  A large set of doors made of beaten brass led inside, into a foyer with once-fine brass railings now covered in dust and long, curving couches, likewise coated. A few decrepit Returners lounged on the couches cleaning guns or just staring and slowly rotting, thinking their wormy thoughts. That was it.

  Katya had expected a long, curving ramp that led into the upper reaches, but instead saw that the arch was arranged in tiers. There would be a broad level, usually with chambers on either side, then a short flight of stairs, then another level. It had all been radically remodeled since the Qaran days, she was sure, but much of it seemed quite old and out of date, and everywhere there were Returners, some about various errands, some just leaning against the wall, staring into space. Cobwebs spanned from some of them to the nearest surface. A few she didn’t even see until she had nearly bumped into them, and then she’d start violently. The whole place stank of mildew and corpses, and it turned her stomach. Loqrin marched on, oblivious. They mounted level after level.

  She began to see that some of the Returners were not really Returners at all. Metal appendages stuck out from them, and through visible ribcages she saw gears turning inside their chests. Tick. Tick. Tick. They were clockwork! She stared, fascinated. Clockwork-driven zombies. She’d never heard of anything like this.

  Loqrin saw her interest and smiled. He did not volunteer to give away his secrets.

  At last they reached what must be the highest level, where the stairs ended at a set of thick metal doors, like those of a bank vault. Loqrin spun a dial, the mechanism inside clicked, and the door swung open. Here the Returners paused, but Loqrin stepped forward.

  Reluctantly, Katya followed. Loqrin slammed the door closed, and the heavy thud resounded throughout the apartment. It was a beautiful suite, she had to give it that. While dust and grime coated the lower levels, this place absolutely gleamed. Polished brass fixtures, gleaming granite counters, mirrors that sparkled like diamonds. Young men and women sprawled on the handsome couches or lounged in expensive leather chairs. A few stood at the bar, mixing drinks. They wore silks and furs, and not much of them.

  “Meet your new playmates, the members of my harem,” Loqrin said. “That’s Anna over there. That’s Billy, that’s ... oh, what’s your name? And you, I forget ...” He snapped his fingers, as if trying to recover the memory, but he did it in mock. “Well, no matter. They’re charming lads and lasses all. I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”

  Loqrin wore his look of what Katya was coming to suspect as perpetual amusement. The lights in the apartment were bright, and she got a better look at him than she had before. Earlier he’d seemed so handsome. Now sh
e saw strange lines on his face, and his veins bulged blue and throbbing. A manic light lit his eyes, and his mouth twitched spastically. Something was unnatural about him. His body was so perfect, his face that of an angel, but his mind ...

  “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you something I think you’ll enjoy.”

  She followed Loqrin out onto the balcony. Wind blasted her, and overhead both moons floated. One was far and white and round. The other was closer, larger, greenish and misshapen. Astronomers said the near one was a planet or moon that had drifted through space for uncounted eons and finally been captured by this world’s gravity field. Lucky us.

  Loqrin gestured to the Qaran arches on either side of his. The night was dark, but Katya could clearly make out the high dark curves erected so long ago by the Qaran Empire, separated by mounds of rubble. From here Katya could see the landscape spread out before her. The ridge that surrounded the depression led down to the Sink, the arches curving over it. Mansions and nice brownstones crowned the ridge, along with a few rearing factories, while the crumbling tenements crowded together below, drooping down toward the Sink miles away. Down in the bowl-shaped depression she could imagine the huddled, misshapen, disease-ridden throngs that Loqrin ruled over. Just what had he done to these poor bastards? They had looked awful, Katya remembered from her flight.

  “Do you want to see something fun?” Loqrin said.

  Katya didn’t answer.

  He pulled a small device from his breast pocket, unfolding a stalk-like antennae. It seemed to be some sort of radio emitter.

  “You see the other Arches?” he said. “Well, inside them are a few of my friends. They help keep order around here. Usually I let them out to play earlier, but I could not let them interfere with my meeting with Gentleman Jack. Oh, no. He is helping me, you see.”

  “How?”

  Wind blew his gorgeous blond hair away from his high, noble brow, and a blue vein throbbed under the skin. “Never mind. But enough of that. I want you to meet my friends.” His finger hovered over a button on the transmitter, then stabbed down.

  Instantly, alarms began to blare through the night. Kat jumped. As soon as the alarms sounded, she heard screaming coming from below. The people of the Hollows were scared. Of what?

  “I like to be sporting,” Loqrin said. “Sometimes. Sometimes I don’t give them any warning, though. It’s fun to see them hop.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Shut up!”

  He backhanded her across the jaw, and she spun about. The world tilted, and she tasted blood on her tongue.

  “There,” Loqrin said. “You made me do that.”

  She didn’t know what to do for a moment, her brain was that shocked. One hand went to her cheek. Bastard! I should—

  She waited for some of the harem subjects to come to her aid, but none did, and looking through the glass at them she saw them still at their drugs and drinks. They evinced no interest toward her or the goings-on on the balcony.

  Loqrin’s attention returned to his device. “And now ...” He pressed another button.

  A clanking, grinding noise issued from one of the Arches, then the other. It sounded as though large, rusty doors grated open. Katya peered out. It was too dark to see much, but she could discern a tide of ragged, hunched figures streaming from the base of one of the Arches. She turned to the other. The same.

  There were hundreds and hundreds of figures. Maybe thousands. Had they been caged in the Arches? At first she thought they must be prisoners.

  “Oh, look at them go!” Loqrin said. He clapped his hands in glee.

  The ragged horde descended on the Hollows. Katya heard savage cries and idiot hoots. Screams drifted up to her ears as the horde surged through the streets. Lights in some of the homes flickered off, and vague figures fled for doorways, with strange, misshapen figures at their heels.

  Loqrin laughed. “Isn’t this fun? But I guess you’re used to it, aren’t you? The scream of the siren, the mad rush to get behind locked doors before the dead ones fall on you and rip you to pieces.” He shivered in excitement. “You must have wondered how I train them. Well, you see, each of my children has a small device attached to its brain. If it strays beyond my territory, a radio transmitter causes that device to send electric shocks throughout its nervous system and it turns back. Everything else is fair game. If it catches someone in the open, well ...” He gestured expansively.

  She felt her gorge rise. The things in the arches were Returners. Swarms of them. Looking at the streams of misshapen wretches slipping through the streets and alleys of the Hollows, she realized that Loqrin was utterly insane.

  “But why?” she said. “Why sic Returners on your own people? I’ve … always wondered.”

  “It started off as a curfew device, then expanded. Now my flock never knows when the alarm will ring. It could be noon, it could be now.”

  “But ... where did you get so many?” Jack had told her Loqrin had only been in power for ten years or so. It did not seem sufficient time to amass so many Returners.

  When he didn’t answer, she said, “I’ve seen enough.” She tasted her own blood on her tongue. Well, Jack did try to warn me.

  “So soon? Ah, well. Some things are wasted on the young.”

  There was something about that comment that struck her as odd. “You don’t look so old.” He looked in his late twenties, maybe early thirties.

  He withdrew into his apartment, again without answering.

  Katya relished the wind on her cheek for one more moment, but the screams of Hollowers and the mad hooting and shouting of Returners caused chills to run down her spine, and she followed, slamming the sliding glass door shut behind her. When she turned around, she saw Loqrin cross to the far side of the room, opposite to the one they’d entered by. Another thick metal door stood there. He spun a dial. Click. The door swung open. He lightly stepped into the next room.

  She felt a sudden burst of apprehension. “No, wait—”

  He slammed the door, locking her in the harem.

  In the distance, Hollowers screamed in fear and pain, and the wind shrieked outside, rattling the glass wall of her prison.

  Katya moved to the steel door Loqrin had vanished through. Banged on it. No response. She slumped her back against it and stared around at the pathetic harem. The girls and boys sprawled like broken dolls throughout the living room.

  “Hi,” Kat said lamely.

  Some stared back at her. Glazed eyes, half-parted mouths. One dapped something on her tongue. Another inhaled on his hookah. A particularly ambitious girl, the one with honey-blonde hair, waved feebly at Kat, then went back to her long black cigarette on a long black cigarette holder. Faintly phosphorescent smoke drifted up. Ah, thought Kat. Alchemical drugs. The same crap the Guild used to keep the aristos in line. Commoners couldn’t afford the stuff, and the Guild needed them relatively sober to work the factories. The gentry of the nation, however, was kept passive through pricy designer drugs like that one. Loqrin evidently had access to such things, and he kept his little harem fully supplied. They in turn doped themselves to the gills to avoid thinking about when Loqrin would show up next.

  They weren’t members of a harem, really, Katya realized. They were sex slaves. Prisoners.

  Now she was, too.

  In that moment Kat was tempted to stroll over to her fellow inmates and take a good strong hit of whatever was handiest. She was cold, wet, tired and sore. Her cut cheek still throbbed, as well as the scrapes on her knees and elbows. She wanted nothing more than to inhale something strong, curl up on the floor and vanish into dreamland.

  Instead she found herself wondering what Loqrin was up to, locked away in his private quarters. He had hinted that some important business remained for him to do tonight. Perhaps she should find out what. If she didn’t start her spying now, then when? Only when she’d found what she needed could she plan her escape, and she wanted that to be ASAP.

  But she was so tired ...

&n
bsp; There was a cure for that. She stormed over to the dolls, and they stared up at her vacantly. One boy of maybe seventeen wearing nothing but silk briefs leaned over a silver plate on the floor and inhaled a fine gray powder through his nose by way of a short straw. He sank back, an idiot grin on his suddenly red face. Kat recognized the drug. Azcui. It’ll do.

  She gently thrust the boy aside, took his straw, and snorted a long line of Az. A thunderbolt hit her brain. Fire rushed through her veins. She’d had it before, once or twice, but it had never been this pure.

  She felt her cheeks burn, a smile plaster itself across her face and her eyes light up. Something burned inside her. It was kind of painful, and completely invigorating.

  Aflame, she ventured outside. Wind blasted her, and in the distance the moans and howls of the Returners rolled over the Hollows. She ignored them. She stared from this balcony to the adjacent one, the one that must be Loqrin’s; it was actually a few feet higher. She had thought the harem level the ultimate level, but apparently it was the penultimate. Her mind buzzing, she calculated the distance, or tried to. She had energy now, but her mind didn’t work quite the same.

  About fifteen feet, she thought. Fifteen feet sideways, another five up. She could tie some bed sheets together ...

  She leaned over the edge of the balustrade. Her stomach churned. Instantly she reeled backward. It was a long way down. And in her present condition the thought of shimmying the gulf on bed sheets knotted together with her trembling fingers did not appeal.

  She tapped her chin. Wind gusted, knocking her backwards. She staggered, and as she did she glanced up.

  “Shit!” she said happily. “Motherfucker!”

  The roof was only about ten feet overhead. Seashell-like shapes undulated across its top, glistening from the recent rain.

  It might work. It was insane, but it just might. Without another thought she ran back inside, limping down one hallway, then another. Luxurious bedrooms stretched everywhere, most occupied by several sleeping and completely doped-up young people. Others nested on the floors, some beside pools of their own vomit. Kat didn’t want to have to go through the trouble of emptying the beds, so instead she searched for a linen closet. There!