Gaslight Magick

by Teel James Glenn

  We walked up the steps to the building but as we mounted the stairs the door to the building opened and two large gentlemen exited.

  “What do you want?” The bald headed fellow to the left of the door said. He had a large moustache and considerable evidence of a pugilistic past marked in scar tissue around his eyes and in a deformed left ear.

  “We are here to see Mister Jones,” I said, offering my card. “We have no appointment, but I am sure he will see us.” I gave my most engaging smile.

  The thug did not look at the card but made a point of dropping it and stepping on it. “Mister Jones ain’t here. Go!”

  I looked to Spike. “I think the gentleman has forgotten the rules of grammar,” I said.

  “Leave, Limey,” the thug said. “We don’t want whatever you is selling.”

  “Not selling anything,” I said, “I’m giving this away.“ I laughed then and drove the knob of my walking stick into the fellow’s stomach. It was a well muscled gut, but he still gasped and doubled, his beady eyes bugging out.

  His companion guardian reacted with snake-quick speed, producing a folding knife and lunging at me.

  Spike yelled a warning, but I had anticipated some action so whirled my cane to slash it across the fellow’s temple, felling him.

  “I suggest you tell Mister Jones we simply must see him,” I suggested to the coughing man bald man. I turned him around and gave him a gentle shove toward the door. “And do hurry, I don’t relish being in this town after dark.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Knuckles for Lunch

  The wounded door guard stumbled in through the portal and closed it behind him.

  “He’ll come back with a gun,” Spike said with exasperation.

  She signalled to Angus who produced a carriage gun from beneath his seat on the hansom, but I waved him off.

  “I think not,” I said. “I suspect Mister Jones will be too intrigued to send us off without looking us over personally.”

  She looked at me with her head tilted to the side like a curious cat and gave an elfish smile. “Mike said you were as mad as he was,” she said. “Now I see he was wasn’t exaggerating.”

  Mad perhaps, but I had calculated correctly, for when the door opened again it was a liveried butler.

  “If you would follow me this way please,” The black servant said. “Master Jones will see you in his study.”

  I held out my arm for the girl and she took it. “You certainly know how to make an entrance, Athelstan.”

  “I learned from Aunt Mini,” I said. “Shall we?”

  The ‘study’ of our host proved to be a gymnasium where Mister Hanover Jones was dutifully and handily working a heavy canvas boxing bag. It was a large room at the back of the house that had probably first been constructed as a conservatory, with large glass floor-to-ceiling windows that showed a lush back yard and the amusements of Brighton Beach beyond. The impressive edifice of the Elephant Hotel loomed large with a racetrack visible behind it.

  Above the Elephant a commercial airship painted with the green and red colours of the Mali Empire floated like some whale of the air heading to dock at Governors Island on this side of Manhattan.

  Our host was stripped to the waist and wearing tights while he attacked the heavy bag with obvious vigor. When we entered he slowed his assault but did not look up or stop.

  “Connal here says you want to see me,” he said with his eyes focused on the imaginary opponent that was the bag. When he did glance up he saw my companion and stopped. “Well, Spike, all the way out here in the hinterlands.” He held out a hand and an overly made up blonde woman, dressed gaudily for daytime in a pink and blue gown, handed him a towel. “Sorry to hear about your brother.” He did not particularly sound sorry at all.

  My two playmates from the front stoop were standing at the window scowling past their employer and, I imagine, daydreaming of a rematch.

  The blonde woman beside Jones kept her left hand hidden in the folds of her dress. The two stout fellows lounging near the windows made a point of ‘casually’ being obvious about guns under their ill-fitting jackets.

  Hanover Jones was a dark skinned man of obvious mixed blood with a shaven head and a slight trace of a Jamaican accent beneath his New York one. He wiped down his face and the put the towel around his shoulders, turning his attention to me with a long, condescending glance. “Who’s the dandy?”

  I handed my hat to the butler and shrugged off my cloak while smiling at the well-muscled Jones. “Sir Athelstan Grey,” I said. I extended my hand but made no move to step toward him and grasp it.

  Jones made no move to take my hand. “So,” he said. “ What do you want?”

  “Jonesy!” Spike exclaimed. “That’s no way to talk to a baronet! He came all the way from England to see the sights and visit Mike and you talk rude to him like that! I oughta box your ears!”

  “We fought a war not to have to cow-tow to lords and such, Spike.”

  “I am not a peer,” I pointed out again cheerfully as I took his measure, “so cow-towing is not required at all; just common courtesy would be fine. You should try it; it has a very uplifting quality.”

  Hanover snorted and took a step toward me that promised violence.

  Miss Ellenbogen intervened and threw an exploratory salvo at the pugilist. “We came to ask if you’d seen Little Tony, Hanover.”

  “Why would I see that slob?” Jones asked.

  “Well,” she said, “ you made yourself scarce about the same time as Tony disappeared-- when Mike was—well, anyway we thought you might know what happened to him.”

  “I couldn’t care less.” He said a little too quickly and turned his back on us.

  I did not like that and I decided not to let it go.

  “You are a cad, sirah,” I said. Jones froze. “And a coward, from the looks of things.”

  The pugilist spun at that and glared at me.

  “Baronet!” Spike said with sudden fear in her voice. “We better go.”

  “Yes, your ‘lordship’,” Jones said. “You had better get going before I have to teach you about manners.”

  “”What is it with you colonials,” I said as I loosened my cravat and handed my stick and Horus medallion to a confused Spike. “You seemed obsessed with elevating me to a peerage.” I produced my leather riding gloves and donned them, stepping forward to the centre of the room, my eyes locked with Jones’. He clearly understood the meaning of the gesture and smiled with cold glee.

  “I’d like to elevate you to the pearly gates,” our host said. He put up his fists and took a boxing stance. “No one called Hanover Jones a coward and walks away.”

  “You and I in single contention, unmolested by your aids?’ I stated my terms. “And no harm to Miss Ellenbogen either way this works out?” This brought a savage grin from the muscular Jones.

  “Stay back all of you,” he called out to his servants, his eyes still locked with mine. “And I’d never bring harm to Spike-“ he grinned like an urchin and was suddenly less menacing. “She’s like a little cousin to me.”

  Spike snorted a laugh at that. “I’d ain’t got no family as homely as you, Jonesy.”

  “Call the rounds, Candy,” Jones called to his blonde doxie. The girl nodded and picked up a spoon to use as an improvised striker to hit a metal mug as a makeshift bell.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Bruise and Consequences

  Hanover Jones came at me like a hurricane, his leather-mittened fists flying like a flock of crows driven by a gale. It was clear he fully expected to overwhelm ‘ the dandy’ who stood before him in the first rush and assert his control over the room.

  I, however, had other plans.

  Aunt Mini laced my first boxing gloves on me when I was six years old. I’d came home from school with a bloody nose, courtesy of some older form boys who did not like my being raised by a ‘savage American’ woman and so had beat me up on the football pitch.

  She coached me f
or a week after which I’d faced each of them individually, trouncing them publicly and completely. They left me alone afterward.

  Since then I had studied the manly arts under many instructors and had more than enough chances to put it to practical tests in many alleys and bars from Liverpool to Bombay. The American gangster was in for a surprise from ‘the dandy.’

  As Jones advanced I danced away slipping each punch with light slaps to his fists. I angled to his left as I back-pedalled, forcing him to circle and extend himself to keep up his attack and thus tire him out.

  I saw the annoyance on his face as his calculated plan to humiliate me in the first rush of aggression faltered and he reassessed how to defeat me.

  All was as I wanted it.

  I’d seen his kind before, bullies themselves, they had no respect for anyone who did not stand up to them. If we had left at Jones’ order we wouldn’t have learned anything. If I could hold my own against him then, if he did have anything of import to tell us about Mike’s death or his man Little Tony, he might tell us if he thought I had ‘earned’ it.

  I kept back-pedalling, slowly, letting the pugilist appear to make progress with a flurry of combinations I barely blocked, then moving more quickly as I faded away from him to draw him on.

  Jones realized I was moving backward to tire him out and decided to take control of the match (or so he thought) and hold his ground. This was intended to force me to bring the fight to him. So I decided to oblige him.

  I glided in toward Jones and fired two quick, but weak, left jabs at him. He blocked them with solid technique. He then tried to counter, thinking I had no starch because of my ‘weak’ jabs.

  I let him send a powerful right my way, hunching my shoulder to absorb the blow (though it was still quite powerful and hurt a darn sight) then twisted in low to drive the hardest right uppercut I could launch into Jones’ diaphragm.

  The blow landed perfectly. The pugilist was lifted up off the ground and sent back two staggering steps. He did not, however, fall.

  Suddenly the improvised bell sounded and round one was done.

  Jones gasped for breath, but I will say he was rum, as he never dropped his guard or complained. He kept his eyes focused on me like two flaming beacons as he stumbled back to his blonde.

  I smiled.

  “You see, Mister Jones,” I said in a calm voice, “You really shouldn’t judge people by appearances alone.”

  He growled and smiled a feral smile back at me.

  “Athelstan,” Spike whispered tensely, “this is crazy.” Her eyes were wide with worry. “You’ve been lucky so far, but Jonesy is a killer with his fists he-“

  “Shhh,” I said with a cocked eyebrow. “You do not inspire confidence.”

  “But he-“

  “No buts,” I said. “He is not trying to kill me, he wants to-- needs t-- humiliate me in front of his people.”

  “So -“

  “Your concern is noted, Miss Ellenbogen, but be at ease,” I said. “I have things well in hand.”

  The blonde clanged the spoon against the mug and round two began.

  The pugilist came back at me with a quick series of punches that I also dodged, replying to him with several quick jabs to his upper arms that targeted the biceps to weaken him. He grinned at that attack with understanding, clearly reassessing my skill and appreciating my strategy.

  “You got this, boss,” one of the bodyguards at the window chimed in. “You can take out the limey trash.”

  I didn’t honour the comment with much notice but threw another combination at Jones to back him up in response.

  “Not what you expected from me, is it, Mister Jones,” I said between blows. “But then I did not expect you to be so frightened by someone or something that would drive you to Brooklyn with armed guards in the room with you, including charming miss Candy there, after Mike was murdered.”

  “I’m not frightened of anyone,” Jones said and launched a renewed attack at me. This time he was cautious as well as powerful and I was hard pressed to block, dodge or reply to his increasingly complex combinations.

  I gave ground but grudgingly and was able to land only a few light blows as I back-pedalled.

  “If not any ’one’ then just what are you afraid of?” I asked, “What do you know about Mike’s death?”

  My question seemed to infuriate him and he pressed harder, his speed and power all but doubled. I let him drive me for a few moments then, as I dodged a hard right that would have ‘taken my head off’, as they say, I stepped in and swung an elbow hard into his temple.

  The blow caught him solidly and his knees turned to rubber and he almost buckled. The moment he faltered his two men at the window reached under their coats but Jones danced backward and held up a hand.

  “No,” he commanded. “He’s mine.”

  “Nice thought, Mister Jones,” I said, impressed by his code of honour, but I added. “But I really am my own man; so Auntie says.”

  We paused then, fists up and eyed each other. I knew he had reassessed me as someone ‘possibly’ worth dealing with. If not as an equal then as not quite so dismissible. I knew I had earned enough of his respect that he might tell us what we needed to know.

  “Stop this!” Spike yelled, “Hanover Jones, if you know something about Mike’s death you have to tell us; please.”

  Hanover gave her a sidelong glance. “You need to keep yourself quiet, girl; we have men’s work to do.”

  The tiny girl seemed to grow a foot and stepped toward us. “You don’t tell me to shut up, Jonesy! You’d never have talked to me like that when Mike was around-“

  Just as I thought she was physically going accost my opponent she froze, a puzzled expression eclipsing her angry one.

  “Athelstan,” she said with an alarmed tone. “Your walking stick—it—it- the jewel on the handle is vibrating in my hand.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, “That means there is occult energies in the immediate-“

  At that moment the windows exploded inward and a nightmare flew into the room!

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Highlander Fling

  The glass shards from the exploding windows sliced into the two bodyguards by the window slashing them virtually to ribbons in a spray of gore.

  The reason for the explosion was the thing that flew through the casement and landed in the centre of the room. It was a living horror out of a one’s worst nightmares.

  The thing that landed four footedly in the centre of the room was the twisted image of an animal, covered all in brown matted fur. It had aspects of many predators, wide, almost madly staring dark eyes and long, white tusk-like fangs that overhung its slavering lips. It had both the aspects of lupine and primate yet was neither and both at once.

  The girl Candy, frozen with the sudden appearance of the hideous creature, came unstuck at the snarl and drew a pistol from the folds of her dress to fire at the monster.

  Five quick shots struck the shaggy apparition that roared in defiance but the conventional bullets didn’t seem to do much but annoy the beast. It sprang at the blonde, knocking her off her feet. The creature slashed at her with razored fore-claws, spraying gore everywhere.

  Jones yelled in terror, but did not hesitate to act. He dove for the body of one of his guards to try and get a gun from the man’s holster, but when he reached the man’s side the boxer’s leather mittens hindered him.

  I grabbed my sword-cane from the horrified Spike and drew the obsidian blade. I had been assured the my present from the Mexhican ambassador was not just a deadly edged weapon but was imbued with centuries of Aztec magicks. I was hoping that it was not only good for detecting occult energies, but might be practical in eliminating them as well.

  I sprang at the monster just as Jones managed to snatch off his mittens and brought a forty-five caliber pistol up to fire.

  The beast turned as Jones fired, pausing and shuddering slightly with each bullet’s impact but undaunted by the lead pellets.
The bullet hits seemed only served to enrage the creature and it leapt on the pugilist with a roar that sounded like a tormented soul.

  Jones screamed in answering terror as the weight of the shaggy monster pinned him to the ground. He barely managed to get his hands up just in time to keep the slathering jaws from his throat.

  I was on the beast in the next instant, slashing wildly at its eyes using the black blade of my sword cane in an attempt to drive it off the fallen man. The monster yelped when my blade cut a long gash along its slightly pronounced snout.

  A bluish liquid I assumed was blood splashed from the animal’s wounds, yet it continued to try to tear at Jones’ throat. I changed tactics and, remembering the cry from Agincourt of ‘Estoc’, I thrust at it instead of slashing. I repeatedly drove the point into were the head joined its upper body.

  I felt a tingling surge of occult power flow from where the black blade made contact with the monstrosity and the power of it all but numbed my fingers.

  The roar of pain from the monster was like a hurricane of sound driving against my diaphragm with such force that it staggered me back.

  The animal could be hurt!

  The creature roared once more and turned and jumped at me. I ducked and slashed upward along its side of the monster as it passed over me. It twisted in the air and landed off balance, just in front of Spike.

  “Run. Spike!” I screamed, but the girl was frozen with fear.

  I spun, intent on attacking the creature again before it could attack her, but it did something strange. It did absolutely nothing.

  The huge brute simply stood, only a foot or two away from the terrified girl and sniffed. She shivered but did not back away from the walking nightmare.

  I yelled and lunged at the monster’s back. Just then the inner door of the room was kicked open and seven feet of highlander charged in.

  “Drop, Lassie!” Angus ordered. A shocked Spike complied as Angus discharged the coach gun directly in the apparition’s face.