Russian Invasion:
Once the group returned to the house, Helena started upstairs. However, Sigmund, shouted, “Meet you in the gym in ten minutes.”
Rather than argue, Helena did her best to be enthusiastic about her upcoming combat lesson, but she just couldn’t find it in her. She was keen on it enough to not be late. She arrived late once, and the workout that followed became one she would never forget. Sigmund beat her to the room, rolled up sleeves with a rolling pin from the kitchen.
“What did you learn today?” he asked as soon as she stepped through the door.
“Chinese don’t fight fair.”
“No one fights fair on the streets. The object is to win, the loser faces death,” he threw the rolling pin at her, “Attack me.”
She lunged at him, half-hearted and he roughly yanked the pin from her hand, “Ouch! That hurt!” Helena said.
“Then attack me, like you really want to hurt me. You have been angry with me before, now is your time to hurt me, or do you think you aren’t strong enough?” He threw the pin back at her.
She caught the pin, the anger from the day swelling in her heart, she lunged at his solar plexus. Sigmund stepped to the side, grabbed her wrist, used her overreach and momentum to send her to the ground, taking care not to break her forearm.
“Alright, you’re a better fighter than me, you’re also twice my size,” Helena glared up from the mat, her eyes boring holes into his face.
“It is not a matter of size, it is a matter of moves. Come I will show you,” he pulled her up.
They worked on the disarm move until her makeup ran from sweat. Sigmund showed Helena how to throw a larger opponent five different ways. The throw was needed to help distract the attacker before snatching the weapon from their hand. The last item covered a quick lesson about breaking bones, he showed her where to correctly hit and crack the wrist bones, the fragile location of the forearm bones and the easiest way to shatter a collarbone.
“You don’t always need to kill, many times breaking a bone will take two fighters out. Comrades will often come to the aid of a wounded friend. Next time I will teach you knees and shins,” Sigmund finished the hard-learned lesson with, “Remember, the fight isn’t over until someone runs away, surrenders or dies.”
“And if I can’t find Missy?” Helena asked, “I gave my word.”
“You get knocked down, the goal is to get up, simply keep getting up, always get up once more than you get knocked down, you win,” Sigmund answered.
“Where do we search now? I have no clues to follow.”
“You don’t,” Sigmund walked over to his coat draped over the parallel bar. “We have something else to attend to,” he produced The Call newspaper, blasting the headline ‘Russian’s Invade!’ I think we should go see this.
Helena sped through the story, before asking, “It says they are landing at the Bay District Race Track? How can they land at a closed track?” she asked.
“I suggest you get your riding gear on and we go to find out.”
“It also says there is a reception tonight for Count Stroganov and his sister Ludmila at the Cliff House.”
“This waited for you when we returned. Still, I thought you needed a little exercise before I gave it to you,” then Sigmund handed her an envelope her name embossed in gold leaf. “We should have enough time to go watch the spectacle. Before we come back and prepare for the reception.”
Helena tore into the envelope, the gold foil on the inside giving way to reveal her invitation for Count Stroganov’s reception. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
Helena watched Sigmund moving slower than normal, obviously sore from letting her work out her anger on his body.
Closer to twenty minutes later, the pair strolled into the stables, where Lane had three horses saddled, two English and one Western riding gear. “There is no way I’m going to miss this chance to ride. I have no idea what is happening, but I’ll grab any excuse to climb on the back of a horse,” Lane said ready to ride.
It wasn’t that far from the estate to the racetrack. Since they rode horseback, they cut through the Laurel Hills Cemetery, going around it would double their travel time. While downtown, the sun had been out, and it had been a beautiful day, the closer sunset came, the more clouds moved in. Now Helena couldn’t see any blue sky, only a blanket of gray hanging over the city.
“I bet the Russians wish they had better weather for their arrival,” Helena said.
“Don’t be surprised if they somehow engineered the overcast sky. I think we’re in for a show,” Sigmund said, kicking his horse into a trot.
The area around the now-closed racetrack became cluttered with traps and carriages, anyone on horseback rode right up to the front gate. Sigmund made a motion to the man standing guard, and he opened the gate allowing the three to enter. Not everyone was permitted to bring their horses onto the racetrack proper, but Helena was learning that her name carried much more influence in the city than she ever realized.
People arriving by horse-drawn carriage were ushered into the grandstand overlooking the racetrack. Helena assumed that they would be allowed onto the center of the track, but that area stood blocked off by a row of men standing six feet apart fully circling the infield area. The few groups of riders allowed in on horseback stood waiting on the track itself.
They had no longer arrived at the track when there came arising Awws and Oooos from the grandstand, peppered with a few screams of hysteria and fear. The three tried to decide what they were looking at before they noted the people around them pointing up at the sky, while several horses spooked from the incoming sight.
Straight above the infield the clouds glowed green as if an emerald sun burned overhead and grew closer. Something lowered through the clouds, it wasn’t one light making them radiate, but Helena counted six distinct light sources arranged in an oval pattern. Suddenly the lights burst through the overhead and everyone could tell that they were lime light spotlights attached to what resembled the hull of a ship. It continued to descend when all at once the lights shut off in unison and a tremendous oval shape drifted out of the clouds. Four great propellers, two fore, and two aft, were attached to the hull of the ship, systematically spun maintaining the ship's position in three-dimensional space.
“What is that?” Helena asked awestruck.
“Is that the Russians?” Lane asked.
“I assume it is, but I never knew they had flying ships like this. This is the largest one I’ve ever seen,” Sigmund said.
“You’ve seen these before?” Lane and Helena asked in unison.
“Something similar, many years ago in India, but this one looks built for war, not adventure.”
Helena understood what Lane meant by made for war, noting no apparent weapons visible, but the craft looked menacing. On closer inspection, the suspended section did look like a ship that had been plucked from the water, but there was something about the lower portion she could view that made it emit ominous or threatening feelings. Painted flat black, it seemed to soak up the little remaining light. The greater part painted the same dull black, looked solid as if made of metal. The best name, Helena could place on it would be a flying ship.
As the audience stood in awe or terror of the spectacle. Mooring lines began to drop from the ship like a jellyfish’s tendrils. These lines efficiently scooped up by teams of five men and carried to great cement blocks with bollards attached. She hadn’t noticed before, but on the end of each line, had been spliced a loop, those loops dropped over the bollards with practiced precision.
“Someone has trained those men well. They move with German military precision. I have an odd feeling about this display. I think it’s saying more than just an arrival of a Russian Count. The Russians are probably still sore gold was discovered in the Yukon a few years after they sold it to the United States,” Lane observed the entire display with a critical eye.
Once the ropes firmly
secured, there came a steady whoosh, clack from the flying ship. Puffs of steam blowing from relief valves. Helena observed the propellers had stopped spinning. As, the vessel continued to settle towards the ground. The sun had recently set, on cue the steam capstans stopped and a different set of electric up lights lit the gas bladder with, white, blue, and red colors replicating the Russian ensign. This elicited another round of Oooos and Awwws from the spectators.
A loudspeaker boomed on, amplifying a distinctive Russian accent that addressed the gathered crowd, “People of San Francisco, we bring you warm wishes from mother Russia. We look forward to visiting your fair city and traveling your country. We come in peace, hoping for the prosperity of both our nations. We look forward to meeting many of you at the reception tonight and many more as we travel about the city.”
“Now that was an entrance,” Sigmund spoke barely audible over the cheering crowd.
“We need to go home and dress, I want to be there to meet the Russian royalty.”
“Am I the only one that finds it strange that they didn’t arrive until nightfall?” Lane asked.
“Before you can even think that accusation we need to be around fewer people,” Sigmund chastised Lane for his loose lips.
“What accusation?” Helena asked.
Sigmund merely put his right index finger up to his lips and guided his horse towards the gates. “We need to head back to the estate.”
Helena grew exceedingly resentful to the fact that it seemed everyone knew something about how the world worked, but her.
“Why do I feel like my tutors left out most of my education? I feel there’s so much more to the world than what I’ve been taught. Why did I go to school if I’m going to be left so ignorant about the way things work?” she asked.
“Right now, you just have a different kind of smarts,” Lane commented chuckling to himself.
“Because your stepfather and grandfather made some decisions about your upbringing when you were young. I have done my best to follow their wishes. Unfortunately, I think they made a mistake, now we might need to rush your training. You’re too much like your mother and father,” Sigmund said.
Helena let his words sink in, she did do as he requested and not ask any inconvenient questions until they gained some distance from the crowd. She was just about to ask when Sigmund started speaking.
“Lane was trying to be clever and imply that the Russian royalty might be creatures of the night.”
“I don’t understand, creatures of the night?” Helena asked.
“A dollar way of saying vampires,” Lane added.
“Now you’re trying to convince me that vampires walk among us?”
“I wouldn’t say walk among us, but there have been some cases of vampires being discovered stalking and murdering humans. They are rare. It appears the folklore about creating new vampires might be overstated. Nevertheless, the journals I’ve read, suggest the vampires do enjoy an extraordinary long lifespan if not immortality.”
“You told me about fairies, will-o’-the-wisp’s, now vampires are real, what’re next... witches?”
“Oh, witches are very real, my grandma is one.”
“Magic surrounds us every day, we typically refuse to acknowledge it. There are some who learn how to control it. There are some who try and die. So yes, witches are real, some are merely better than others. Before you ask, werewolves are real as well though they prefer to be called lycanthropes and some shift into other animal forms.” Sigmund picked up the pace of his horse trying to reach home a little quicker.
“Are there any books about this? I would really like to learn more.”
Sigmund considered his answer carefully before giving his response. “I know where there are a number of books, on multiple subjects I’m sure you’ll find interesting. I’ve been waiting for the right time to show you. It may have finally arrived. But tonight, we are not focusing on Legendary Creatures, tonight we are all going to get dressed up and take you to a masque.”
The Masque:
After making their way home, it took some time for the small group to complete preparations to join the other revelers at the Cliff House. Fortunately, they had plenty of time, three hours from the arrival of the airship until the beginning of the masquerade ball, well after sunset, closer to Midnight.
Helena failed to hide her excitement, she had met plenty of wealthy people in her limited years, but never royalty. She was unsure what to expect, but they had to be somehow better, more caring than the people she knew.
She wished the search for Missy was over, her life before this adventure seemed simpler, happier, full of the good things. Now her existence seemed hollow, she had a constant pain in her heart but felt powerless to place a name on the cause.
She was happy the three women, Kam Ting, Wai Han, and Gertie, had taken the day off, not allowed to leave her room they had worked hard to get to know each other, between naps. Now the two Chinese women and the Irish one worked overtime to dress Helena. It never crossed their minds that they prepared Helena to attend an exclusive resort for a fancy ball, and the other three stayed behind.
Gertie said, “Miss, Mister Sigmund gave us this dress, he told us you should wear it, it belonged to your mother.”
Helena inspected the dress, unquestionably different from any dress she had ever seen, more adult, no extra padding, no sleeves, made to be comfortable, and luxurious, and the color reminded her of the richest red she had ever seen. Something in the fabric shifted the shade of the color of blood to rosé.
Dressed, Helena sprinted down the stairs as best she could with her mid-heel shoes and the full-length ruby artistic dress, bare-armed covered by long fingerless gloves and solid lame underlayment. She was delighted the dress only had a light corset. On top of her head perched one of her most beautiful wigs matching her strawberry blond hair perfectly, to complete her costume a black leather mask adorned with bright scarlet feathers.
Both men with tails, half capes, and black masks met her at the bottom of the stairs, mouths agape as she rushed to meet them.
“Miss Helena, one does not run while wearing a ball gown. You should do your best to glide down the stairs. You’ll draw everyone’s attention,” Sigmund reached over and closed Lane’s mouth before continuing, “Lane don’t you think it would be a good time to collect the automobile.”
“I can’t help it I’m so excited to meet real royalty, all we have here in San Francisco are normal people.”
“I hope they meet your expectations. I have a small gift for you, it might seem awkward, but I think it is for the best,” he handed her a slender walking stick. She took it from him and scrutinized it.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“Twist the handle and find out.”
She did as he told her, finding the handle disengaged from the shaft after twisting a quarter turn, tugging on the handle she withdrew a slender court sword from the scabbard.
“Oh, this is beautiful, thank you.”
“I thought you would like it, it belonged to your mother. It is more like the foil than the saber. Only the point is sharp, but you are to only use it for self-defense or an emergency.”
“To stab Lane when he’s teasing me, wait this belonged to my mother, why would she need a cane sword?”
“You are learning the world can be a hazardous place, ten years ago it was even worse.” Before Helena asked another question, Lane pulled up with Bessie.
“Now it is time to go meet your Count and Countess,” Sigmund hustled her out the door before she asked any more questions.
The trip from the estate to the Cliff House followed a straight shot out Geary Street and then onto Point Lobos Avenue. Carriage traffic was light considering the trio arrived at the party fashionably late, which, considering Bessie’s ability to spook horses, was for the best.
“I wish we could see the moon, it has to be getting close to full,” Helena said.
�
��The first night of the full moon is still six days away,” Lane said over her shoulder.
“That matters not, it remains overcast, we will have a very dark night,” Sigmund replied.
It was an odd sight approaching the Cliff House, carriages parked to the side of the road, their drivers huddled in little groups all sharing cigarettes and tall tales, leaving the smallest of track for them to follow. Lane pulled into the regular parking area in front of the Cliff House, and the guard waived him into a reserved parking spot at the front door. Lane began closing valves and flipping switches shutting the boiler down while Sigmund helped Helena out of the backseat. The boiler now secured, Helena could hear the surf crashing on the cliffs four-hundred feet below the foundation of the Cliff House.
“I’ve always loved this place in the daylight, the house looks like it came out of a fairytale. Now with the lights, the view is even more spectacular,” Helena gazed up at the many oil lamps illuminating the gingerbread facade of the mansion’s seven stories. Build on a precarious precipice, four-hundred-feet above the crashing surf of the Pacific Ocean, it was a marvel of engineering.
“Mister Suttor spent a lot of money building this resort, and the Baths below,” Sigmund noted.
“You two head in, I will follow shortly, after I get Bessie calmed down for the evening.”
Sigmund offered Helena his arm since officially tonight he played her escort though old enough to be her father. They walked to the front door, and Sigmund handed their invitation to a doorman who inspected it before giving a slight bow and waving them in. The card then passed to a runner, a young boy who sprinted ahead to provide the information to the waiting herald.
Upon arriving at the head of the stairs, Helena jumped when the trumpet started blowing a flourish announcing her arrival.
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