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

by Jack Conner

  “I-I don’t know,” she said.

  Her apparent fear seemed to irritate him. He struck her. She reeled backward, stumbled over the prone body of the black-haired boy and fell on her backside.

  “Whose is this?” Loqrin roared, shaking the sheet-rope.

  Silence greeted him. Wind hissed in through the open terrace door.

  “Fine,” he snarled, “then I guess I’ll have to extract the information.” Savage pleasure lit his eyes.

  No no, Kat thought. I can’t let him torture the dolls. She started to open her mouth to confess, knowing as she did that she was damning Lavorgna to whatever madness Loqrin had gotten under way.

  Heather overcame her shock first. Though still trembling, she stepped forward. “I believe that’s mine,” she said.

  It was Katya’s turn to stare. Heather, what are you doing?

  “You!” Loqrin bellowed. He marched forward and belted Heather, hard, across the face. She flew backward, hit the rear of the couch, toppled over it and went sliding across several drugged-up dolls. One of them swatted at her feebly. Another shrieked, tried to stand, and fell over. Some of the more lucid ones, however, had already risen and were backing up into the corners of the room.

  Loqrin leaned over the couch, grabbed Heather by the throat and hurled her to the ground before him. “Why?” he demanded. As he strode toward her, he raised the sheet-rope in his arm. Like a whip, he cracked it, and the broken green shoe smashed Heather’s upper right arm. She screamed. “Not such a fun toy now, is it?”

  Kat had seen enough. “No,” she said. Shakily, she stood to her feet. “Don’t—”

  Loqrin started to turn his attention to her, but Heather spoke up suddenly: “Because I hate you!” she said.

  He returned his attention her. Her words seemed to amuse him. “Well, that’s too bad for you, girl. But, you know, I can’t help but think that’s not the only reason. There’s something funny going on here, and I mean to find out what.”

  “No, really—” Kat started, stopping only when Heather shot her a furious glare that said, Don’t waste this! The look contained such venom that Kat closed her mouth.

  Loqrin hadn’t seemed to notice. After coiling the sheet-rope in one hand, he crossed over to Heather, grabbed a fistful of her pretty auburn hair, and dragged her across the floor and into his lair, slamming the vault door shut behind them. Just before the door shut, Heather’s gaze met Katya’s, and Kat saw a single tear under Heather’s right eye. Then BANG! Katya jumped at the stark, metallic sound. And she knew, right then, that she could not let Heather do this. Katya could fight her own godsdamned battles. She wouldn’t let someone else sacrifice themselves, especially not someone like Heather, who deserved so much better.

  Furious, Katya turned to the glazed-eyed dolls. “Well,” she demanded, “are you just gonna lie there, or are you gonna do something?”

  They stared back at her as though she were an alien. Well, most of them. A few of the more sober ones looked fearful and worried. They had looked on Heather like a mother. One or two even looked ashamed.

  “What can we do?” asked Brennon. He sat on a sky blue couch holding a clay pipe in his hands.

  “Well, for a starter,” Kat said, “you can put down that fucking pipe.”

  He blinked down at the pipe. “The pipe?” It was as if she was speaking a different language.

  “Yeah.” She snorted. “Like this.” She marched up to him and snatched the pipe away. He tried to swat it out of her hand, but it was a weak effort. Angrily, she grabbed up another pipe, and then a pouch full of Az. Complaints rose about her, but in the face of Heather’s disappearance the complaints were muted. “Like this!” she said.

  Heatedly, she ran down a hallway toward the bathroom. Perhaps sensing what she was about to do, more cries and shouts rose behind her. She flung the drugs down the hole onto the immense mound of shit below, and laughed. Gratified, she marched back into the main room and snatched up more drugs and drug paraphernalia.

  “You can’t do that!” one girl said. She slapped Kat across the face.

  Kat slapped her back. “I just did!”

  Again she ventured to the shit-hole and flung the drugs into the fecal mound below. “This is where it belongs!” she shouted. Another trip, and another. “See?” she demanded. “Right fucking down there!” A couple of the dolls, the ones who had looked ashamed, were actually helping her, earning them sharp glances and punches on the arms from their confederates. “She’s right,” said her helpers. “We should’ve done this a long time ago!” “Fuck you!” came the response. A few fights broke out.

  When Katya had at last disposed of most of the available dope, she returned to the living room to find many of the dolls on their feet, cursing her and shouting angrily. The few that had helped her shoved them back, clearing a way for her.

  “You oughta be ashamed!” Kat said. “Ashamed! How could you let him do this to you? Look at yourselves!”

  The girl she had slapped earlier stepped forward. “What would you have us do, bitch?”

  Kat lifted her lip in a snarl. “There’s almost thirty of you! There’s one of him! Next time he comes to you, rip him to fucking shreds!”

  Most of them just gazed at her with those same watery, fearful eyes.

  “Well, then, if you can’t help me,” Kat said, “then get the fuck out of my way!”

  As if her angry words had invoked some wrathful spirit, just then screams of pain drifted into the room. The dolls started. Eyes swiveled to the vault door. The screams didn’t come through the door, Katya realized—what could?—but they came through the glass of the terrace door. And they came from—there could be no doubt—Heather. As the dolls stared in horror at the door, she screamed again.

  Chills coursed down Kat’s spine. “We have to do something!”

  “But what?” said the girl she’d slapped. Kat thought her name was Magan.

  “You’re going to help?” Katya said.

  Magan stared at the people about her, then nodded, as if daring them to argue.

  Kat felt a sudden swell of pride. “Well, for starters, I’m going to need some more sheets. And a shoe.”

  Three minutes later saw her scrambling, desperate, over the roof of the arch. Wind knocked at her, nearly spilling her off. A storm swept in from the sea to the east. Thunder rolled in the distance. Winter weather, she knew. She thought she felt a touch of winter chill as she scrambled along. Below and before her, in Loqrin’s suite, Heather screamed in pain, and Katya ground her teeth. I’m gonna get that bastard, she thought. I’m gonna make him wish he was never born! Lightning stabbed down, lighting the sky to the west, over the Fifth Ward. Kat longed to return there.

  At last she reached the roof over Loqrin’s suite. Carefully, she placed her sheet-rope and lowered herself to Loqrin’s terrace. Just as her bare feet touched down, another scream peeled through the night. Katya winced.

  The apartment was dark, as before, with just a few alchemical lamps providing alternately green and red illumination. They hinted at expensive paintings, mirrors, a chandelier, but they were only hints, the sparkle off glass, the reflection in brass.

  Heather was all too visible. Katya felt something sick trickle through her as she saw what Loqrin had done to her.

  Completely naked, Heather hung by her wrists from the ceiling, her back to the terrace.

  Loqrin paced back and forth behind her, tiger-like. He had discarded the rope-whip for a true whip, made of rawhide. Fury twisted his handsome features.

  “Who set you up to this?” he roared, raising his arm.

  “No one—” Heather started.

  That was all she got out, as Loqrin brought his arm down, with all his strength, and the lash struck Heather’s narrow back with the force of a hurricane. She screamed so loudly her lungs should have burst. The lash peeled away a long strip of skin, and blood wept down from the wound. Her back was criss-crossed with long, similar gashes. Dear fuck, Katya thought. What has he DONE
?

  The impact of the whip rocked Heather forward, then back. Blood trickled down her legs, finally dripping from her toes to form a puddle on the floor.

  Katya could take no more. She’d had a full day to think about how she might have saved the man from yesterday, and now she knew what she could have done. She swiveled the glittering, silver rings on her pointer finger so that they faced inward, then scratched a line in the glass around the door’s locking mechanism. Taking a deep breath, she stuck out her tongue and pressed it to the cut-out section of glass, then, very gingerly, pulled her head back. Presto! The piece of glass fell into her hand.

  Even more gingerly, she snaked her hand through the opening and unlocked the terrace door. A soft scrape, and the door glided open.

  “What’s this?” Loqrin said.

  Every hair on the back of Kat’s neck stood up. Her heart trembled.

  “Gone into a faint, have you? Well, that won’t do.”

  Kat’s heart started again.

  In his torture area, Loqrin pulled a lever, and Heather’s limp form unwound from the ceiling. He untied her hands and carried her over to what looked like a surgical bed. It’s where he had been playing with Abby’s body earlier. There was no sign of Abby now, but Katya saw leather straps where wrists and ankles should be. Loqrin laid Heather down—back down, the fucker!—on the bed, and began to strap her down. A table of gleaming instruments lay on his right, some of them sharp, some of them dull, some of them shapes Katya had never seen before and that she could not imagine the purposes of. She did not want to.

  “Well, my dear,” Loqrin said, though Heather still seemed to be out, “it has been a long journey we have taken together, you and I. Perhaps, if you cooperate, it will not end here. I have ways, techniques. I could extend your service to me ... indefinitely.” He stroked one of Heather’s legs as he said this, and Kat shook.

  Loqrin was utterly absorbed. He did not notice Katya sneaking up behind him. As light as a feather, she made her way through that dark, spooky lair, until she was almost breathing down his neck.

  “But,” Loqrin said, a trace of sadness—but also, strangely glee—in his voice, “if you do not cooperate, I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, that your mind will be a meal for the Leviathan.”

  Kat reached him. Then, without thinking very much about it, she picked up the sharpest-looking scalpel she could find on the instrument table—and stabbed him as hard as she could in the back. The blade penetrated under his left shoulder-blade, and she pushed down.

  He screamed and spun. Almost as reflex action, he hit her, hard, sending her flying backward. Kat struck the floor and slid.

  Meanwhile, Loqrin’s scream and the pain of being placed on her back seemed to have half-roused Heather, who began to sit up.

  Ignoring her, Loqrin raised his head to let out a howl: “GET HER!”

  Katya, feeling a ringing in her skull, felt a vague premonition. Then, before she had time to rise, clicking and scuffling sounded in the edges of the room. Dark, shadowy shapes lurched toward her.

  Her blood ran cold.

  They were dolls. Every one of them, and there were probably half a dozen. Young men and women. All naked, and all ... mechanized. Clockwork gears spun inside visible skulls, or gears ticking in ribcages, or handles jutting from sides. Lifeless yet moving in odd jerks and twitches, the wretched things advanced on Katya. Tick. Tick. Tick. A long blade gleamed where a boy’s arm should be. A coo-coo clock thrust past one girl’s lips, then retracted, then popped back out again, but instead of a bird there was a corkscrew on the end of it. Scissor-like appendages snapped in place of one girl’s hands.

  It was the young woman called Abby, Katya was sure of it. “No ...”

  Abby stepped forward, scissors snapping, eyes blank.

  The wretched things had been still until called, but now they moved with surprising speed. Katya had a plan, but she had not expected this. Anything but this. Feeling as if she was about to vomit, she sprang up and leapt at the vault door that connected Loqrin’s suite to the harem, which stood at the base of a short flight of dark granite steps. This side, of course, was not locked. She grabbed the wheel in both hands, wrenched it to the right. Metal squealed. Clicked. She pulled—pulled—

  Footsteps right behind her. Tick. Tick.

  She pulled.

  The clack-clack of scissors. The whish of blades.

  Kat ducked, spun aide.

  The door drifted open. Light flooded up from the harem chamber. Katya jumped at Abby, sweeping under her lethal arms and tackling her to the stairs. One of the arms fell off. Loqrin hadn’t quite finished with her, and the stitching was crude. Kat sat on Abby’s chest, thinking, Poor girl. Abby’s skull was still intact, and Kat wondered how much of the girl’s brains still survived. Was she present? Was she staring up at Kat out of that gray, pretty face? If so, she must long for death.

  Half hating herself, Kat obliged. She grabbed up Abby’s fallen arm, raised it overhead so that the blades pointed down, and stabbed, right into the smooth white forehead. There was a crunch, the sound of a spring snapping, and the girl sagged.

  And still she moved, her clock-work parts still working. A leg kicked. The scissors on her one arm still snapped. But she did not rise.

  Gasping, Kat stood up and stumbled back. To her right, Loqrin was swearing and cursing at one of his dead dolls as it tried to yank the scalpel from his back. Blood drenched his clothes. Behind him, Heather sat up, shaking her head. She looked weak.

  Three dark figures lurched toward Kat. Tick tick tick. She staggered backward. She felt the warmth of light on her back, heard the sounds of the boys and girls in the harem. They had seen her fight Abby. Some were impressed. Some were afraid. Which way would they go?

  Angrily, she turned to them, at the same time pointing a finger toward the direction of the approaching clock-work dolls.

  “You want your damned drugs!” she said. “Go and get them! Loqrin has stores of them in his lair! Come on, you pussies, get off your asses and help me out, if only to get your motherfucking drugs back!”

  A full dozen of them stepped through the doorway and moved around Kat. The young woman Kat had slapped earlier squeezed her shoulder. “Are you all right?” Genuine concern touched her voice.

  Surprised, Kat nodded. “Better hurry, Magan. The others’ll get to the dope first.”

  “I just came for the fight.”

  She grinned a hard grin, and Kat returned it.

  The living dolls came upon the dead ones, and numbers were on their side. The dead ones cracked and splintered, breaking apart on the floor, as the living ones struck them with jars filled with specimens and unopened champagne bottles. Loqrin, watching from his lab, sputtered in rage. “No!” he shouted. “No!”

  Wild-eyed, he disengaged himself from the single remaining clock-work doll, the one who had been ineffectually helping him, and vanished deeper into the apartment. While some of the harem girls and boys scoured the rooms for drugs and others for weapons, Kat approached Heather and helped her to her feet. Heather winced with every movement. Blood caked her back and the table where she had lain.

  “Damn,” Katya whispered. Then: “Thank you.”

  Heather offered a small, pain-filled smile. “Thank you.”

  “Come on.”

  “GET THEM!” thundered Loqrin, appearing from nowhere.

  Behind him stood a huge Returner, dead flesh peeling off his wide face. Worms wriggled through it. A foul reek rose from him, making Katya gag. He must have been sealed up somewhere, an early model, a last resort. He was certainly no doll.

  The monster lurched toward Kat and Heather, heavy and huge but slow.

  Satisfied, Loqrin slipped away. A scalpel gleamed from his hand, and as his former playthings tried to fall on him, he slashed and wheeled, and they fell back, clutching at themselves. At last he reached the far door and spun the wheel. On the other side, Katya knew, were the quarters where Loqrin’s goons lived. She figured it must be
a great humiliation for him to ask them for aid against his harem subjects, and she relished it, even as she helped Heather stagger to the harem door.

  The creature stalked after them, one heavy footfall after another. He moved slowly, but inexorably, an approaching storm.

  “Run!” Kat shouted to the dolls. “Get out of here now! Loqrin’s goons are coming! And watch this bloody bastard!”

  Heather couldn’t bear having an arm go around her back, so instead both of her hands gripped Katya’s left arm tightly, so tightly it felt as it the blood had stopped flowing in that limb. Not caring, Katya helped her through the door. Half-naked young men and women flooded past them, screaming. The monster stalked right behind.

  Katya turned her head to see several of the dolls try to slam the vault door in its face. Too late. The creature knocked them away, ducked its head to avoid the ceiling, and stepped through.

  “Shit,” Kat said. “What have I done? It’ll kill us all!”

  “This way,” Heather hissed, pain making her voice ragged.

  She guided Kat down a hallway.

  “What do we do?” a boy yelled.

  “Follow us!” she said.

  The creature stomped after them, trailing blood. It must have stepped in someone’s body, Kat thought. A length of intestine coiled around its ankle. One of the dolls, probably, a victim of Loqrin’s scalpel.

  Kat and Heather stumbled into the bathroom. The shit hole gaped. A breeze gusted up, bringing with it a nasty stench. Katya thought she realized what Heather wanted. Maybe she could improve on the plan. Thinking fast, she pressed herself against the wall. With a squeal of pain, Heather did likewise. Several of the boys and girls followed them in, chased by the creature. Others must have scattered throughout the apartment, because Kat could hear their screams. Loqrin’s goons might have already appeared. She hoped not.

  The creature stomped in, a groan on its lips.

  “Now!” Katya said.

  She jumped on its back, keeping one hand on Heather’s wrist as she did so, forcing Heather to jump with her. The monster teetered on the edge of the shit hole. Katya wrapped her arms around its thick neck, rocked her body to tip the Returner. She felt Heather wrap her own arms around Katya’s middle.