by Michael Rigg
"Monster?" Hearse said softly. "You murder a woman in the throes of your filthy passion and deliver her cold corpse to me for breakfast... and I'm the monster?"
"Ghoul! Beast!"
"Calm yourself, Bradford. I came to discuss business, and to make some changes."
Thorne glanced down at what was left of Susanne, his darling future wife-who-would-never-be. His chin buckled and tears filled his eyes. He glanced back up. "Ch-Changes?" Thorne's voice still came out high-pitched, his eyes wide and a slight stain forming in the front of his brown slacks.
"I don't know what you've been reading, but those of my species do not sleep. And, no, unlike the musings of Stoker, we are not vampires, nor can we be harmed by the light. We simply prefer the darkness because of the loathing discoloration humanity has cast us in." Hearse motioned for the throne. "Sit, Bradford."
Thorne sank into the throne, his white-knuckled hands grasping the arms for support as his chest heaved with panicked breaths.
"Your little spy there," Hearse motioned to the head on the floor as he removed his top hat and veil. His red eyes made Thorne flinch though the ghoul's smile was tender. "She was quite forthcoming with her intelligence. It seems, as you discovered, that she is quite easily purchased with the trappings of materialism." Hearse pursed his lips. “Oh, did you know she was unfaithful to you?” He nodded. “It's true. She begged and stammered, offered to let me use parts of her body I'm sure you would not have wanted back.” Hearse shook his head and made a face revealing his disgust. “Slut.” Then he tilted his head and took on a pitiable air as he raised his eyebrows. “Her hand was shaking so badly as I had her write the card.” He looked up at Thorne, his eyes burning. “I think she understood the pun. 'get ahead in life.' Get it? A head?” Hearse's smile made Thorne's stomach turn. “You know, I love a good joke, Bradford.”
Hearse took a step forward and Thorne gasped, clawing back into the throne as if hoping it would swallow him up. The ghoul held his ground and lifted his hands with an apologetic bow.
"She told me what you told her and I must say I'm quite impressed with your evil machinations. Oh—" Hearse turned and began to pace, an amused smile curling his lips. "Did you also know that I have developed a talent for reading minds and hearing thoughts as song? It is a gift very few ghouls have and one that delights me, entertains me with the fears and pleadings in silence of those upon whom I prey—like your lovely Mr. Grubbs, for example."
Thorne's eyes teared as he watched Hearse pace. The end was coming and he knew it. Soon his head would be lying on the floor next to poor Susanne. Thorne said nothing though his lower lip stammered.
"Your vision of my public execution is rather amusing. I wonder, Bradford, if you truly mean to cover yourself in such gaudy finery as you watch my head roll into a basket."
Thorne continued to silently stammer. He tired to shake his head no, but it was no use fighting. His mind had been an open book to the King of Ghouls.
"I hope you realize the blade of your guillotine will need to be composed of glass. It is, after all, the only way I can be killed. You remember, don't you?" Hearse's eyebrows raised as he nodded to Thorne. Then he frowned as his shiny black boot bumped Susanne's head. He looked down at it and his frown deepened. "Oh. She was so lovely."
He looked up at his human partner. "And the rest of her was absolutely delicious."
Thorne caught a lump in his throat and swallowed it down. "Wh- What are—?"
"Shut up,” Hearse cautioned with that sickly quiet voice. “I will speak. You will listen. That is how it goes from now on. Do you understand?"
Thorne nodded spasmodically.
"Good." Hearse looked down at the head. "I would hate to have to do this to my lovely partner." Then he raised his boot and brought it down on Susanne's head. The skull cracked under the force of the blow, but Hearse continued stomping until the head broke apart, its contents bursting from the orifices and the jaw separating from the skull until it was no longer recognizable as human remains.
Thorne winced and turned away. He covered his mouth with his hand and fought the urge to vomit as he couldn't help but hear the squishing cracks of what was left of poor Susanne Norris.
Hearse sighed and wiped his boot on the clean part of the Persian. "Messy. You'll need to clean that up once I retire to my own cabin. Oh, you should come by and visit. It has such a lovely view."
Thorne looked at him through watery eyes, peeking between the fingers of his trembling hand.
"Now that I have your attention, here is my plan for luring the Key of Atlantis into our possession, and yes, Bradford, we do need the key. Torpedoes will simply not do...."
As Teivel Hearse told Bradford Thorne his plan, the Venture hummed forward across New Yorke's sky and fell into formation with three other warships and an escort of black-winged kites. The fleet angled toward the Atlantic before their thrumming engines thundered and echoed through the tall cityscape.
Next stop: Atlantis.
CHAPTER 31, “Return of the Carpenters”
I tried to offer Bryce a smile as he brought me a hot cup of coffee and sat in the booth across from Lucien and I. I took the cup in both hands and raised it to my lips, enjoying the heat from the cup in my fingers.
The heat rising from the coffee reminded me of the heat and vibration of Wilco's plane as it disintegrated beneath the Mystic Lady. I still remember his smiling face, his wave, and the sudden look of disbelief in the moments before he died. I wondered if he thought about his teenage daughter in the hands of that ghoul-thing. I wondered if she felt her father pass, and I wondered if that weakened her resolve.
I prayed not.
We landed at a small airfield just outside of Richmond, Virginia. Bryce said he didn't want to raise attention and told me that the port city would be crawling with military and security, many of whom might be curious about the airship that crashed in the Midwest. After we landed, he offered to buy us a meal before we looked into the status of Atlantis and to test the truth of what Wilco told both Bryce and I about the business with Thorne & Wolfe.
The coffee warmed me, but it made my stomach rumble. We traveled all day to get here, sometimes low to the ground, sometimes just skirting the clouds, and I hadn't realized I'd gone an entire day without eating anything until Bryce chuckled as he helped me down from the cockpit.
"You're hungry," he'd said.
I admitted to him that I was, but questioned him on it.
"The vibration of your delicate tummy rivaled the engine at times," he smiled and took my hand. He bowed with a flourish and laughed. I knew it wasn't a mocking laugh. I could see the tenderness in his eyes. He was trying to put me at ease, make me feel safe and let me know that he'd take care of me. I must have looked frightful because he treated me delicately all the way to the booth inside the diner next to the main hangar of the airstrip.
The waitress brought soups and sandwiches and I had to force myself not to devour them like some kind of ravenous animal.
As we finished our meal, Lucien turned to me with a furrowed bushy eyebrow and asked, "How did you come to fall in with air pirates, Alice?"
I didn't want to say anything about Kevin and Maggie. I wanted them to move on, find their lives together while I still searched for mine. I glanced up to Bryce as I finished my last spoonful of soup. Then I dabbed my lips with a napkin. "I can't say," I shrugged. "Happenstance, I guess. I'm just grateful that fate brought us all back together."
"Indeed," Lucien harrumphed as he raised his mug of cider in a toast. Then he focused on Bryce. "Well... Whatever do we do now, Captain?"
I had been stealing glances at Bryce off and on since we landed. While the vibrations in my legs from the plane engine finally ebbed away, along with the warmth I remembered from Bryce's lap,
I found myself glancing to him more and more, studying the set of his jaw when he turned his profile to watch for our food, the glint in his eye when he caught me and smiled. Now he looked at me and nodded, answering Lucien's question to me rather than the manservant. "My guess is that Thorne will know about you, about your importance as the key to Atlantis. We'll have to assume the worst, that Pandora's mind opened up like a broken box to this ghoul Thorne has in his employ."
I shook my head. "I don't believe they'd kill her."
Bryce shook his head. "I'm hoping she'll be strong enough to resist whatever torture they throw at her, that she could buy herself some time until we can rescue her. In the world of Corporate War, Alice, an entire year's profits can be made in the spilling of one secret. Considering Atlantis... we're lookin' at enough secrets to set a company up for life."
"Or more," Lucien muttered into his mug.
"As soon as we've rested up a bit, I'll see about getting us on a Confederate freight into New York."
"W-wait. What?" I nearly jumped when Lucien exclaimed. I put down my coffee cup and Bryce and I looked at him. He said, "You're mad. We need to get dear Alice out of this place, far away from Yorke, Bryce. We need to take her back to Seven Orchards, to safety." I couldn't help but smile. It was quite the turn for Lucien from a couple days ago when he tried to kill me.
"After what Lady McFerran and my brother tried to do? You call that safety?"
Oh, yeah. That. That's the one good thing about being captured by sky pirates. It took my mind off the memory of how Bryce's brother knocked me out and tried to rape me while I was unconscious, and the cold snakelike glare of Lady McFerran as she threatened to pin my would-be rapist's murder on me.
"But you'd take her with us on some fool errand into the corporate capitol of the Empire?"
"It's not a fool errand, Lucien. Pandora is a friend and—" He cut himself off, careful not to say anything that would let Lucien know their little pilot friend was a witch. "And she has vital intelligence. We have to get her out of Thorne's clutches before he really does kill her."
I nodded with Bryce and looked to the portly butler.
Lucien continued to bristle. "This is madness. Don't get me wrong," he stammered, "But don't you think it's dangerous taking Alice on a journey like this, into the belly of the beast as it were? If she is who they need, we're just giving her to them."
Bryce shook his head. I could see his military mind had already worked through this. "I don't think so. Right under their noses is the last place they'd look for her—if they even are."
"Madness."
I touched Lucien's arm. "Bryce is right. If they're looking for me, they'll look back at Seven Orchards, or the SkyTrain stations. They won't expect me in New Yorke." I caught Bryce smiling at me with admiration, but I ignored it as I pressed Lucien. "And I can handle myself, Lucien. Did you or did you not pull me from a burning pirate ship that I had taken down myself?"
Lucien's mustache puckered as his eyebrows raised. He adjusted his spectacles. "Yes, well...um, quite."
“And the man who tried to mug us at the SkyTrain station in Philadelphia.”
“Quite,” Lucien muttered, lowering his eyes.
Bryce pressed his palm to the table. "Then it's settled. Alice comes with us to track down Pandora."
Lucien nodded once, sharply. "Endorsed."
"Alice?"
I smiled at Bryce. "Do you really think I'm going to let you out of my sight again?"
He reached across the table and took my hand in both of his. His hands were warm, strong and tender. He said, "Those were my words."
The sunset cast a deep ruddy glow through the western windows of the diner, glinting like gold off the brass and silver trim and fixtures. The sky above was dark and clear, the rains all sweeping south as a biting northerly chill brought the first hint of October and winter beyond. We discussed our plan for finding Pandora over warm apple pie and more coffee. Despite the caffeine, I found myself stifling yawns until I had to excuse myself for the ladies room at the back of the diner.
Bryce stood as I got up from the booth with Lucien's coat wrapped around me. "Just want to freshen up. I'm sure I look like a mess."
Bryce only smiled. "You look lovely as ever."
I glanced to Lucien and caught his near eye-roll toward his master. I nodded to them both as I headed toward the powder room.
The diner's bathroom was as small as I expected, but almost opulent for such a place. The mirror was framed in a beautiful bronze rectangle fashioned like the folding wings of an angel with lamps mounted on either side. The bowl of the sink was wide and the faucets ornately styled. Even the doors to the stalls were hand-carved in oak with fancy designs on them. The green and black tiled floor was clean and the room carried the fragrance from a large basket of flower petals next to a stack of towels on a table near the wall. A framed poster hung next to the sink. It showed a woman dressed in a long Victorian dress with a high collar and bustle, holding a tray between a pilot and co-pilot, both men grinning up at her as they took steaming mugs from the tray. The poster read, "SERVICE," and at the bottom, "United SkyTrain Line: Offering the best in friendly service from New Yorke to The City of Angels. Non-stop daily."
I smirked at the poster before turning my attention to my reflection. "You boys have a lot to learn about the place of women in this world."
My reflection wasn't as bad as I imagined. I had lines under my eyes, but my eyes themselves were still fairly clear. My hair, however, was a mess. I carefully removed the bandage from my head, squinting and leaning close to the mirror to study the small egg just under my hairline. Kevin's what'smed thing really did its trick. Not only did my head feel clear, there was no bruising or broken skin. I dropped the head wrap in a nearby copper ash can and washed my hands in the sink, then ran my wet hands through my hair, trying to straighten it before taking a tie from a small fancy jar on the counter above the sink and pulling it into a pony tail. Then I ran the hot water in my hands and bent forward to splash my face.
When I came back up, the room was dark.
I gasped even before I saw the pale face of the woman behind me. But, instead of screaming or cowering, my muscles and reflexes tensed. I cocked an elbow and lunged back with my arm to knock the "Clockwork Carpenter," or whatever it was, on her ass. I remembered the brand on my back, the nightmare of their torture, all—I'm sure—precursors to my presence here.
Before my elbow connected with the woman's piercing dark eyes and delicate nose, my entire body went rigid. As it had when they suspended me in the black room, I felt the tiny hairs on my arms prickle as some sort of field froze me in place. I could move my lips and eyes, but I couldn't move my body or turn my head. I was locked in place, staring into the piercing dark eyes of the small black clad woman with silver hair. Through gritted teeth, I snarled, "Let me go."
She raised an eyebrow. "You have intentions of returning to us after you promised not to return."
Before I could speak, a man appeared next to her. He spoke in the same soft monotone. They looked like they could be siblings. Both had the same pale features, the same dark eyes, and the same silver hair. Her lips were thin and red, his were thin and as pale as his skin. Both were dressed for the age but completely in black. I noticed the man held a device in his hand that resembled brass tongs with a throbbing red gemstone in the apex. That was probably the thing they used to freeze me. I could hear it humming and feel the vibration from it when he moved it around. "You wanted to be the solution."
I spoke softly but my voice remained tinged with anger. "I don't even know who you are or where you're from. I don't even know what you're talk—"
"We are the keepers of all," the woman said
"Of all," the man responded. "We are the administrato
rs of existence."
"Angels."
"Demons."
"Phantoms."
"Nightmares."
"God."
I glared at them, my eyes moving from one to the other as they took turns speaking. I seethed with anger, the frustration and pain of my torture coming back to me, and... memories. "You're not God,” I blurted. My eyes worked at them though my body was held firm. This was it, I decided. I wanted answers. I wanted to know where I was, what I was doing here, how I fit into all this. It was obvious my being in Bryce and Lucien's and Pandora's reality had something to do with them. The only real question was why. I stammered, “I... I don't know what you're talking about. I wanted to be the solution to what?"
"The correction."
"A solution."
"One of yours came through."
"A disruptor."
"He disrupted the Course."
I asked, "Course?"
She said, "Existence."
He said, "Yes, existence. He disrupted the Course—"
"Of existence," I finished for them, smirking.
They simply stared, two pairs of beady dark eyes stared through me without acknowledging me.
Then it came together. I remembered the tall African American from my dream, the black man with the sturdy jaw and the determined deep brown eyes, a fierce angry look and... a uniform with an American flag—my American flag—on his shoulder. I was close. So close. I pressed them: "Ray? Ray Simcoe. He ...came through?"
He said, "He came through."
She said, "The disruptor."
"Changed existence."
"You were to be the solution."
"Where is he?" I demanded.
She responded, "Removed from existence."
"He is no more."