Wait. Where was her fiancée?
He had a particular graceful way of moving, even when intoxicated, and yet she did not spot him. Were he there he'd be the centre of the party's social flow, directing and using it, but the connections had collapsed into a random series of collisions and interactions. It was organic, unplanned, and inefficient. From its state she judged that he'd been gone for at least an hour.
Her fingers lay along the window's pane as she sought him in vain, brow furrowing, frown deepening.
There was her mother. Standing, leaning against a lawn-table, talking to Brigadier Wilson. By their postures it looked like he was upset, and she trying to placate him. Alton Bartleby was nowhere to be seen.
She might have to hurt him. She hiked up the hem of her wedding gown and stormed down the stairs. Wedding tradition or no, her mother shouldn't have to shoulder hostess duties. Not in her condition.
***
Aldora did her best to ignore the looks of surprise on the faces of her guests. It was a major faux pas for the bride to make an appearance, but not one that was insurmountable. A part of her mind, the part not occupied with concern for her mother or anger at her fiancée, was already hard at work coming up with a strategy to turn her presence from social mistake to avante guarde innovation. Within the month she'd have brides bucking the conventions and hosting their own wedding parties from Southampton to Prague. It was only a matter of the right attitude in the right ears, and thankfully, many of those ears were here at her party.
Concern washed the strategy away and she almost broke into a run when she saw the state her mother was in. The sweat on her brow, the slackness of her lips, the way her shoulders sagged -- none of it had been clearly visible from above. Alton could wait. There'd be plenty of time for recrimination on their honeymoon.
To her surprise, instead of the expression of weary endurance she'd expected, as she drew near she could see that her mother was quite pleased. So pleased, in fact, that when she noticed her daughter approaching there were no words of disapproval at her premature appearance.
"Aldora, look!" Her mother gestured towards the guest she'd been speaking to. "It's Grayson! He managed to make it home for your wedding. Isn't that splendid?"
Time seemed to slow to a molasses pace as Aldora's gaze zeroed in on the face of the man in front of her. As impossible as his attendance was, there was no mistaking her brother. She remembered the shape of his cheekbones, the slight curve to his grin, the deep blue of the eyes that mirrored her own, the noble bearing from the last time she'd seen his face, high above the city of London
She stopped, her heart thundering in her ears. Every instinct screamed that she should run, but all she could do was stare dumbly at the man, unable to comprehend how such a thing could be possible. The world around her funneled itself into a narrow path that lead only to him, the conversation around the pair turning tinny and indistinct.
Grayson regarded her with that cocksure expression that she'd hated while growing up, hat tilted back on his head, long coat buttoned up to mid-breast.
"You look surprised to see me, sister," he said in a tone dripping with subtle mockery.
"You're not here," she whispered. "You can't be here."
"All you all right, dear?" her mother said, taking a step in her direction. "You're not overdoing it, are you?"
Aldora felt as frail as her mother looked. It hit her in a rush, everything she'd endured through since her brother had died a year-and-a-half ago. Facing Grayson aboard his airship and discovering that he, her flesh and blood, was the pirate preying on a blockaded London. Dealing with the death of her long-time lover, Penny's father Henry, at the hands of the Spanish madman Sarsosa in the jungles of Mexico. Her captivity in Istanbul, fooled into falling for a man who only wanted her as a bargaining chip with the European Powers.
"Aldora, dear?"
Her mother didn't know any of it. Her father knew a little of the last, Penny a little of the matter of her father, but nobody -- not even Alton -- knew what toll the magnitude of emotional battering had taken, how much pain she'd been trying to ignore. She hadn't told anyone, she hadn't grieved, she hadn't allowed herself the luxury of that weakness. It wasn't how she'd been raised; it wasn't the Fiske way.
She felt hands gently guiding her to the pavilion tent's shade.
"Alton," she said, turning to the footman escorting her. "Charles, fetch Alton."
Eyes were upon her, sympathetic and concerned. There was no shame in being overcome at the sight of her estranged brother; it was her wedding after all, even though none but Aldora knew Grayson for the horror he represented.
"I say, are you all right, dear sister?"
She ignored the dead man's faux concern, focusing for the moment on her father's footman. "Charles, I need my fiancée. Where's Alton?"
Alton didn't know that Grayson had been the pirate, either. She hadn't told him. She hadn't told anyone.
"I'm afraid I don't know, Miss." Charles said.
"Alton left in the company of John Fuller," Mary said. "Assisting him with some police matter. John's the constable, now, dear. Did you know that? Can you imagine? Little Johnny Fuller, constable?"
"Alton left?" Aldora echoed.
Alton would have known... even without knowing why, he would have known that something was off with Grayson. That this man was an impostor.
She turned, focusing on Grayson. "Who are you?"
"I say, you must be overcome," Grayson said. "It's Grayson, your brother."
The nervousness she had felt was replaced with rage from a very deep and very red well. Part of it was directed at Alton, but he wasn't here. Instead, it was focused on this con-artist, this charlatan, this disgusting creature masquerading as her kin.
The rage drove the weakness from her limbs and she rose, trembling with fury to level a finger at Grayson. "This man is not my brother."
"What?" Mary said. "Aldora what are you saying?"
"I don't know what your game is, sir." Strength filled her trembling voice, and the man masquerading as Grayson took a step back as she advanced. "I don't know what you hope to gain here, but I do know that you're not Grayson Fiske. You've done your homework, I'll give you that. You have the voice. The look. The posture."
"What are you saying, sister?" Grayson asked. "I fear you're overcome--"
"You've done very well, but you made one unforgivable mistake."
The garden party, entranced by the dramatic exchange, held its collective breath.
"My brother is dead."
Her mother gasped, eyes darting towards the impostor. Instead of the fear or anger Aldora expected from being revealed, his face acquired a curious slackness as expression left it, as if the man had given up any masquerade of pretending to be her brother at all. His hand slipped into his jacket.
"Charles!" Aldora shouted. "He's got a weapon!"
The valet was in motion before the words had even left her lips, the hors d'oeuvre tray in his hands swinging like a discus towards the impostor's arm. Charles had been with her father for years, ostensibly his manservant, but perhaps he might be seen more accurately as his bodyguard. She'd always admired him a little, since she was but a girl, for his capability and for the fact that he'd taught her how to handle herself in a brawl. He had done some sort of work for the War Department in the past -- what, she wasn't sure -- but Charles was one of the most quietly formidable men she knew.
It was thus a tremendous surprise when Grayson took both the expertly swung tray and the followup jab to the sternum in stride, barely staggering, and giving the man a great shove with his forearms. Charles went sprawling, managing to roll and spring back to his feet, a look of shock on his own face.
He pulled Mary away from the impostor. "Get back, mum. Something's very wrong about--"
He was cut off by screams from the crowd as Grayson spun, tearing his jacket open to reveal the ruin of burnt flesh below. He -- or, as Aldora had to think of him, it -- wore no shirt, displaying the fr
ayed and ragged ends of its flesh almost proudly. Where flesh left off -- almost a quarter of its torso, in rough and jagged patches -- copper took over, both thick fixed and reflective segmented plates. What had once been her brother's corpse -- smashed and burned from the airship crash that had brought him back to earth -- had been reinforced and replaced by some sort of steam and galvanic clockwork.
It lashed out with an arm of brass and flesh, clipping Charles across the face and sending him spinning away.
Aldora grabbed her mother by the arm, running with the stunned woman away from the abomination.
***
What happened next was a confused jumble that, in her shaken state, Aldora could scarcely follow. The dead-Grayson-thing moved faster than her eye could follow, copper ridges along its forearms seeming to blur as it shoved its way through the crowd. Everywhere it shoved against someone up spouted a small geyser of blood, and Aldora realised that the blurriness was caused by small whirling blades set along its arms. Some of the braver men and servants tried to stop it, to get in its way, buying Aldora precious moments to usher her mother back to the house.
The screams and cries of the garden party echoed in her ears as she half-carried her mother through the door. She desperately wanted to go back to help the hapless guests, to punish this thing masquerading as her brother, but her mother's wellbeing came first.
They reached the stairs just as her father descended from above. "I heard a commotion, what's--"
"It's Grayson." Aldora's mother's was breathing in great rasping gasps. "He's here, and oh, Lucian, he's hurting people!"
"Grayson?" Her father frowned, starting down the stairs.
Aldora grabbed him by the bicep. "Father, no. It's... it's not him. It isn't human. It's something else. Something dangerous."
There was a crash below as something smashed into the side of the house. Lucian Fiske locked gazes with his daughter, his expression grim, then started down the stairs once more.
"It's dangerous. For mother."
Lucian hesitated, then regarded his wife. The woman was leaning against the banister, clinging to Aldora, body slumped.
"Very well." He took his wife's arm, supporting her across his shoulder. "Let's get her to my study. The doors are sturdy enough to withstand this impostor, and we can wait for Charles while we telegraph for help."
There was a tremendous crash as they reached the landing, as Grayson smashed bodily through the glass doors below. His jacket and trousers hung in tatters from his frame, dead puckered flesh and shining brass splattered with gore.
"Grayson?" Lucian's voice was barely a whisper.
Grayson's head tilted, birdlike, towards the trio. His firmly set mouth twisted into a rictus grin.
"We need to move." Aldora pulled on her mother's arm, and Lucian followed. "Take mother to the study. I'll meet you there."
"Are you sure--"
From the lower floor Grayson crouched low before springing forth, leaping halfway up the stairs, the hardwood splintering where he landed. Aldora pushed her parents down the hall towards the study, turning back as Grayson made a second great leap to land precariously on the second floor railing, knees bent, shoulders slack, like some terrible species of great ape.
"Fiske," he hissed, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, corpse face mere inches from Aldora.
She didn't hesitate, body in motion before she even considered the tactics of the situation.
She dropped almost prone and kicked out with her leg, smashing her wedding boots into the cedar supports of the rail her dead brother crouched upon. The heels snapped off, but the supports were knocked out of place.
The entire rail shuddered and groaned.
Grayson attempted to leap off of the rail, but the shift in balance only served to collapse the railing more quickly. He tumbled back, falling to land flat on his back on the ground floor below with a tremendous crash.
Aldora watched, blood in her heart freezing as he started to rise.
She ran off down the hall after her parents.
***
Aldora almost crashed into James's large form as the engineer stepped out into the hall.
"What's going on?" he asked, closing the door behind him.
"James!" Aldora glanced behind, but Grayson hadn't made his way up the stairs yet. "Where are the girls?"
"Playing a game," James said, tilting his head to look past her down the hall. "They've hidden, and I'm to find them. At least, I think those are the rules."
"I pray they're well hidden," Aldora said.
"I believe I heard screaming?"
"There's a man, some sort of clockwork man, half flesh and half machine. He's attacked the guests, and is now after my parents."
"A clockwork man?" James's voice dropped low. "Do you mean a galvanic resurrection?"
"I don't know," Aldora said. "He looks like my deceased brother, only parts of his body have been replaced by machines, and he has copper piping all through his flesh--"
"It's something else, then. Something new. We've got to find the girls."
There was a sudden crash and the floor seemed to erupt at their feet. Aldora shoved James, knocking him back from the explosion of carpeting and debris.
Grayson crouched for a moment next to the hole he'd smashed up through, eyes seeming to glow, that terrible grin yet on his face.
He swung a brass fist towards Aldora. James pulled her away and took the strike square in the chest. The impact knocked him back into a mirror on the wall, shattering its glass and shredding the back of his waistcoat.
"Go!" James staggered forward towards the machine-man.
Aldora hesitated only a moment before running. James was a strong and powerful man, capable of holding his own against entire mobs of people, and Penny was canny enough to keep herself and Xin Yan hidden, but her parents -- they weren't used to this kind of danger. They were elderly, fragile, and without her to watch over them...
She did the best she could to ignore the sounds of James's struggles as she left him behind.
***
Aldora found her parents having just arrived in the study. Lucian had taken a pistol from a lock-box atop a bookcase, and her mother had nearly collapsed in one of the chairs, drawing in big gasps of rattling breath.
"Aldora," her father asked, "what is that thing?"
Aldora closed the study doors. "I don't know what it is, but that thing is not your son."
"It is, it is," Mary wailed. "My boy, my son, my Grayson. What have they done to him?"
"I don't know." Aldora dragged one of the bookcases towards the doors.
Her father moved to help. "It is him... or his body."
"He showed up downstairs," Mary explained. "For the wedding, you see. I thought he was a little stiff, but it's quite the flight from Paris."
"Mother..."
"I couldn't tell how wrong he was, not wrapped up in that coat. But you, Aldora. You could tell." Her mother paused. "No. You knew. You already knew he was dead."
"What?" her father asked, setting his end of the case down.
"She knew Grayson was dead, Lucian. Somehow Aldora knew."
"Help me get this into place." Aldora rocked the bookcase.
"How did you know?" her father asked. "We haven't heard from Grayson since he left to go to school in Paris. He's always kept in touch with you. Had you heard something?"
"Why wouldn't you tell us?"
"Is this really the time?" Aldora asked, doing her best to move the bookshelf on her own.
"Answer me, girl." her father frowned.
"Please?"
"He... he's dead. Alright? Can we leave it at that?"
"His body... it looked broken. Burnt," Mary said weakly.
Her father moved to her side, hand in hers, palm on her forehead. "Take it easy, my love."
"What happened to my boy?"
Aldora's shoulders slumped. They needed to know. They deserved to know, and she deserved the consequences. "I killed him."
Her mo
ther's eyes widened. "What?"
Aldora turned from the door, face drawn. "Do you remember those air-pirates blockading London last year? That was Grayson. He was their leader. As soon as I'd heard their populist rhetoric, I knew it was him. I could tell."
"What are you saying?" her father said quietly.
"I had to stop him. It had to be me. The city was starving. And who could stop a Fiske but another Fiske?"
"You killed him?" Her mother closed her eyes. "Your brother?"
"I had to," Aldora said. "He was family. I killed him and left his body to crash to the ground with his airship. When no remains were discovered, I believed them destroyed on impact."
"You killed your brother," Lucian said. "My son. And you were planning to go on letting us believe him alive?"
"You didn't need to know." Aldora's voice gained an edge of frost. "You never cared what we were up to unless it endangers the Fiske name. Well, be proud of me, father, for I made bloody certain that none would learn of Grayson's shame."
Her mother sobbed quietly. Her father stared at the study's wooden floorboards.
The door was shoved open, bookcase knocked aside as James half-collapsed into the room. His waistcoat was bloodstained and torn in half down the middle of his back, and there was a shallow cut across his forehead. His breath came rapidly.
"James, is he--" Aldora said.
"He's on his way," James said, his solid form muscling the bookcase into place. "I knocked him through the solarium, but he won't be delayed for long. That table -- mahogany? Help me move it."
Aldora grabbed one end. "Are you hurt?"
"Nothing serious. He's tremendously strong, though."
Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection Page 31