by Michael Rigg
Ardon locked the brake.
"What are you doin'?" O"Halloran asked, glancing down at the brake handle.
"I ain't drivin' this thing over the edge. I can't see squat."
It was then that Sergeant O'Halloran noticed the lights on the carriage itself were out as well. "That's queer. What could have caused all this mess?"
"Eh." Tyler clapped his knee and nodded as though he'd just realized something and was excited by the discovery. "Oh, I know what done it."
"What's done it?"
"The Bridge. A power surge like what caused the explosion is bound to take out electrics in town."
“Yar daft. That was a time ago.” O'Halloran pointed down the street to their left. “An' look down there. All those lights are on a few blocks down.”
A dull metallic boom sounded from inside the paddy wagon as Doone banged on the forward wall. Officer Tyler slid open the panel. Doone, peered out. "Why'd we stop?"
O'Halloran said, "Ardon's afraid of the dark."
"Nah. I can't see is all."
That's when the carriage's motor died, plunging them into a silence that matched the darkness.
Sergeant O'Halloran nudged the driver. "Tarn her back over."
"I didn't shut her off."
"Just start her up and roll, will ya," O'Halloran barked.
Tyler punched the choke, then the start button. The engine spun but wouldn't catch. He stopped trying when the sergeant huffed and kicked the floorboard.
Tyler shrugged, his shoulders barely visible in the dark. "Dead."
"Aww, damn me mother's eyes," O'Halloran grumbled as he climbed out of the carriage and rounded it to the front. The moonlight barely cast enough light to see, but he found the handle of the hood and twisted. He popped the latch and folded up the hood to take a look inside. O'Halloran plucked the flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. No light. As he tapped the cylinder with the palm of his hand and flicked the switch on and off, a wet cracking sounded like twisting celery stalks came from the carriage. The vehicle bounced on its springs and teetered. Something heavy hit the street. When O'Halloran looked back to the wagon, Arden Tyler was gone. "Tyler?"
Doone called from inside, "What's goin' on out there?"
"It's just Ardon. He's clownin' around. Tyler? Come on now. I ain't got time for shenanigans! We need to—"
The muzzle flash from the gunshots illuminated the night around the paddy wagon, the deafening booms echoed off the tall buildings around the elevated streets, casting giant cartoon silhouettes of the boxy wagon and Mike O'Halloran, his head thrown back and arms cartwheeling in the air.
From inside the paddy wagon, men screamed but were quickly silenced as more shots rang out and thunked hard through the side of the metal carriage.
Mike O'Halloran and Ardon Tyler lay dead, their uniforms soaked in blood, Tyler's head turned around the wrong way, as a dark figure moved through the inky night to open the back door of the wagon.
~~~~~~~
Perek Grubbs flinched and covered his face with his free hand, screaming as the bullets punched through the paddy wagon. His eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, but he didn't see what happened until the shooting stopped and the back door to the wagon swung open. A lamp from a distant street and the moonlight shone in and revealed black starbursts of blood against the dim gray interior of the wagon. Officer Doone lay slumped against the wall, one clean dark hole in his forehead and one through his badge. Rink too, appeared to be dead, his body hunched forward with his left arm suspended where it was still shackled to the railing.
A man stood outside, silhouetted against the dim light. He wore a long black cloak or riding coat and his dark oily hair touched his shoulders in long twists and tangles. His eyes reflected the dim light like the eye shine of a cat or other wild animal. He raised a gray long-nailed hand and the cuffs disintegrated from Perek Grubbs' wrist, crumbling like glittering metal dust.
"Are you the man called Perek Grubbs?" The stranger asked in a cold whisper, from a voice as deep as hell itself.
Grubbs stammered. "W-Who?"
"Come."
Grubbs felt himself rise, though he wasn't doing it himself. His legs moved but he wasn't controlling them. He hopped down from the wagon and found himself standing before the shadowy figure. Then his eyes grew wide as he realized what the man was.
"Y-You're a—"
~~~~~~~
When the shooting started, Pandora was already climbing down a fire escape attached to the building where she'd been skulking. Now she gasped and cried out, "Daddy!" and let herself drop. She hit the ground with a hard clank and rolled to the side, bumping her head against a wide metal garbage bin before she scrambled to her feet and staggered forward. When she had her senses back, she sprinted toward the corner.
Then she stopped before skidding out into the open.
Gasping for breath, Pandora could feel the pulse and throb of magic in the air, strong and pungent like the crack of ozone near a Tesla Bridge. The air sat still despite the altitude, and it felt dense in her lungs. Crossing her fingers, she made herself invisible and peered cautiously around the corner.
She heard a man say the word "ghoul" just before he let out a blood-chilling scream. Her entire body shivered as she watched the ghoul place his hands over the man's ears, then they both vanished in a clap of thunder before the last echo of the man's screams died away. Pandora had no idea who the man was or why a ghoul would come all the way up here to kidnap him. The very presence of a ghoul in the vicinity of her father made her skin crawl and her blood turn icy.
“Daddy.”
Her only thought now was her father. She prayed against reason that he was somehow still alive inside the black metal Swiss cheese that was once a police wagon.
Lights flickered back to life. The gas lanterns flashed on with a hiss and electronic snap, then lights came on inside the paddy wagon as its engine revved back to life, momentarily dimming its re-ignited headlights. "Daddy!" Pandora uncrossed her fingers and became visible as she sprinted toward the wagon. The air stood rank with the stench of the ghoul's rotten flesh and the copper smell of blood moments before the breezes returned.
When Pandora saw the blood splattered inside the wagon, her eyes burned with sudden tears. There was no hope for the young red haired policeman, or the others splayed out on the grated street outside, but she climbed in and crawled her way to her father. "Daddy... Daddy," she whimpered as she edged closer and closer, knowing that the wet redness in her father's beard was not a hopeful sign.
Why would someone do this? Even a ghoul. Her father was an innocent man who only cared for her and nothing else. Wilco was more than a father to her. He was her protector and provider as well as her co-pilot. “Why...?” she stammered.
Pandora reached out to cradle her father, to ease him back onto the bench. She crossed her fingers quickly to snap the chain off the handcuff. Wilco's head lolled back, his flat eyes staring blankly at oblivion as his hand dropped free of the rail.
"No!" Pandora cried. Her eyes blurred, obscuring the view of her father's lifeless face as she climbed onto the bench and knelt, holding him in her arms and rocking. She whined, "No... Why, daddy...? No...." as she dabbed at the blood speckling his face with her long black braid.
As she held him tightly, her mind whirled with memories of the flashes and gunfire, the stink of magic and the tall ghoul stealing the other man away. If the monster wanted to take the man, he could have just taken him, there was no need to kill her father—or the policemen. Pandora wailed, her cries echoing inside the paddy wagon as she held Wilco in her arms. “Why!?”
She wished she had seen the face of the beast who killed him so it would be easier to find. As she rocked her father gently on the bench, tears burned
her cheeks and she gritted her teeth with a sudden fury. Pandora's blood turned from ice to lava as sweat formed under her pilot's cap. She would find who did this and make him pay, make him pay for taking her father away. She wondered if ghouls had fathers and if she'd be able to find the one who produced the one she'd seen tonight.
“Oh, daddy.... I'm so sorry.... I'll make it right. I'll make it right.” But even as she wept the words, she didn't know how she could make it right. Avenging her father wouldn't bring him back. The only thing that would make her happy is the impossible. Well, unless....
She crossed her trembling fingers and—
In a room at the Drake Towers Apartments a few miles away, silvery light flashed and the paintings on the walls swayed on their hooks. A loose sheet of paper fluttered up from a desk.
Pandora wept as she lay her father on the bed. She started to remove his leather flight cap, but the wet crackling sound beneath it made her wince and cry out as she realized it was all that was holding in what was left of his brain. "Daddy..." she whimpered as she curled herself onto the bed next to him and wrapped her arms around him, her fingers lacing between the fingers of his cold hand. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn'ta left you." Her sobs shook the bed. “I shoulda never have left you!”
She lay like that for some time, crying and sobbing, wailing in anger, guilt and bottomless remorse. When her tears finally subsided into quiet moans and sniffles, she rose up and looked into her father's dead eyes. She pushed up and turned so that she knelt next to him. She ran her fingers lightly over his grizzled beard.
A calm resolve overtook her as she realized she couldn't exist without him. It was beyond unfair that her daddy be collateral damage in a ghoul attack. It was unfair that she never got to say goodbye.
"I'm sorry, daddy...” she whispered, “I know you said never to even think about it... That all things come to their time, and that... That the price is too high." she peeled off her jacket and wiped her nose on her gusseted shirt sleeve. Sniffing, she brushed back loose hair from her head and looked down at him.
"But this ain't fair and you know it. It ain't fair that I didn't get to say bye to momma, and it sure as hell ain't fair now." She drew a deep breath, let it out, drew another.
As the fresh tears burned, Pandora crossed her fingers, and did something she swore she would never do.
CHAPTER 13, “Raymond Simcoe and the Lady”
I collapsed, naked, on the cold reflective surface. As I tried to get up and run again a hand grabbed my hair and snapped my head back. I cried out and gasped as they surrounded me, their cold hands touching my flesh as they lifted me into the air, shouting angrily at my defiance in a language I didn't understand.
I screamed and thrashed. I felt myself lifting higher, my arms and legs spreading out as I floated up. Hands worked at shackles around my wrists and ankles. They hung me from the ceiling and chained me to the floor, my arms stretching up and out, my legs down and wide. The chains felt like ice, the dark room echoed my breaths and their shouts from the stony interior of a cave-like room, dank and deep.
Suspended, helpless like a pale human X in the dark room, I could only listen as they moved behind me. Shuffles of fabric and whispers found my ears. The air smelled of brine and oil.
"Let me go!" I cried out, but the sound was muffled like screams under water.
I tossed my hair out of my eyes so I could see what was happening over my shoulder behind me.
The man was short and pale. He looked to be middle-aged. A strand of silver hair flashed from the shadow of his hooded black robe. He looked up at me with his dark, penetrating eyes and smiled with thin, white lips. My naked flesh seemed to warm in the dark cave as his eyes, and that cruel smile, scanned over me from head to toe.
He held a tool of some kind, a wand with three points. Each glowed burned like a burning ember. His gaze leveled on the small of my back and he stepped closer. I lashed and screamed, but couldn't move more than an inch or even hear my own voice. As he pointed the wand at my back, he glanced up at me and said, "You wanted to be part of the solution." If he said anything else, it was drowned out by the fire of my own internal screams of agony, the pain searing through my back and into my bones.
I sat up, soaked with sweat. "No!" and almost hit my head on the bunk over my head. Large hands grabbed my wrist and shoulder.
"Alice! Alice!" Bryce adjusted his grip to my upper arms and held me down as I struggled against the nightmare still flaming through my mind. I don't know how long I'd been asleep, but his position at the end of my bunk hadn't changed. "You were havin' a nightmare. I'm here. You're all right."
Lucien's head peered out over the edge of the upper bunk. Loose silver strands of hair hung down from his forehead. His groggy eyes blinked and tried to focus as he wrestled his spectacles on. Far off in the sleeper section, someone grumbled and someone else said, "Quiet!"
Lucien spoke in a low voice, "Lord sakes, Bryce!"
The Captain glanced up, "She had a nightmare."
"Good Lord." To me, Lucien said, "What about? Do you remember something?"
I started to re-focus as the present came into clarity. I calmed and lay back as Bryce relaxed his grip on my arms, his strong but tender grip. He looked up at the butler. "Go back to sleep, Lucien. She'll be fine."
"It must be a memory, Bryce, a dire one by the sound of it."
"Lucien, please."
I looked out the portal next to my bed and saw a few lights streak by between breaks in the clouds far below. It was still dark but the sky above the clouds was starting to brighten to a deep violet color in the east. "How long—?"
Bryce smiled. "You slept well for a couple of hours." He checked his pocket watch. "It's 3:15 a.m. We'll be home in slightly less than an hour." I blew out a long breath of air. "My God, Bryce it was horrible." I covered my eyes and winced at the memory of the men with the robed hoods, their cold pale skin and malevolent grins, and those forks.
"Who is Raymond?"
My blood ran cold and I lowered my hand. My eyes must have appeared as saucers in the gloomy light of the sleeper car. Bryce considered me thoughtfully. I said, "Who?"
"A name you said in the midst of your nightmare. You said, 'Where is Raymond?'"
I frowned. I had a very brief passing vision of a tall African American in some kind of black or dark blue police or SWAT uniform. It was nothing like Bryce's. The patches on the vision's uniform included the name SIMCOE and the American flag as I now clearly remembered it, with stars and stripes.
"A policeman... or soldier," I said, my voice raspy, “I think.”
"An Imperial soldier?"
I slightly shook my head. I was about to say "American," but caught myself. It was clear to me that I hadn't forgotten anything about the time and place I was in... because I'd never been here. This wasn't my reality. But the nightmare, the darkness, that wasn't my reality either.
Bryce wouldn't understand what I saw if I described it to him. He'd take me for crazy, or brainwashed from the dream, no more clear than when he and Lucien found me. One thing was for certain. After that dream, I knew I wasn't some kind of sleeper agent for Thorne & Wolfe. I think I was something worse.
I whispered, "I'm not sure."
His eyelids looked heavy. He half-smiled. "Well, if anything, we have a line of inquiry as to who you are and where you're from. We find us a man named Raymond in the service somewhere and we might find your home."
I blinked. The edges of my eyes burned as the terrible dream flashed behind them. I slowly shook my head. "Bryce.... I don't think I want to remember."
Lucien peered over the edge again. "What'd she say?"
Bryce shook his head at the butler. "Lucien." Then his deep brown eyes locked with mine. When he spoke, his voice was soothing, gent
le, like the voice of some consoling Confederate angel. "Alice, whatever do you mean? Why would ya not want your memories back? I'm sure the nightmare, or whatever caused it, is long gone. You have our safety, our promise to protect you."
Lucien huffed. "A Landry is a man of his word."
I glanced between them, my jaw working but nothing coming out. I couldn't formulate my thoughts clearly. Something deep inside me said to shut up and ride this out, to see where they were taking me and to bide my time. If the nightmare was any indication, my memories would start flooding back in time whether I liked it or not. "Thank you,” I whispered, more to Bryce than to Lucien who continued to regard me with a level of suspicion. “I... I think I'd like to rest."
I decided not to mention my back, the hooded man, and how he prodded me with the electronic fork like I was some kind of animal or slab of meat on a spit. I also didn't say what the voice said about me wanting to be the solution. Solution to what?
Bryce touched my hand. "Fear not, dear Alice. You are safe with us. It was only a dream. I promise you that whatever haunts you, it'll subside or we'll chase it away." The offered smile helped to melt my fears away, but they still lingered, like a spying shadow. I nodded and looked at him for a long while before wiping my eyes and turning away. I rolled away from him onto my side, and took a deep breath, knowing I wouldn't fall back to sleep even if I could. A moment later, he touched my shoulder.
"Alice," Bryce said softly. "I want you to have somethin'."
I looked at him over my shoulder. I watched as he reached into a small pocket of his vest on the opposite side of his watch pocket. I turned back and propped myself up on my elbows and tried to smile for him. He dug out a twisted tangle of gold metal from the pocket, then pulled at it until a locket and chain slipped loose from his hand and dangled from his fingertips.