Dawn's Early Light

by Pip Ballantine

  “Poor idiot,” Bill muttered as a third wagon slowly ambled by.

  Wellington looked up sharply at the American agent, but noted that the man’s eyes were not cast on him. Instead an older, portly gentleman, his rotund belly seeming to bounce and tremble with his own cart’s cadence, had caught his eye. The white in his beard was a brilliant, shocking white, popping against his own darkened, weathered skin. With the older man were some folk that surprised Wellington—two other men, perhaps a decade younger, and of African descent.

  “I beg your pardon?” Wellington asked in a whisper to Bill as they walked down the street a little further.

  He motioned with his head to the passing cart. “Miners. Even though the Rush ended years ago, we still got those optimistic few out here, convinced there’s another mother lode just waitin’ to be found.” He shook his head. “It’s amazing how a few tall tales told around a campfire to pass the time can suddenly become a legend people are willing to cash in their life’s savings for.”

  “Esteemed guests,” Felicity said, motioning to a small variety store apparently closed for business, “we’ve arrived.”

  He turned his attention to the storefront in front of them. “A five-and-dime?”

  “This is our safe house,” Felicity hissed theatrically.

  “Well, the Ministry has a need for it,” Eliza whispered back in an identical matter. “Do you mind?”

  Earlier in the mission, Felicity would let such a slight pass, but it appeared that the librarian was catching on to Eliza’s slights. She looked ready to throw a punch.

  Bill gave a little chuckle and held up a key that granted them access to the unassuming store. Proceeding into the darkened room, Wellington crossed over to the store’s sales counter and lit a single lantern located by the register. As he moved to the other end of the counter, he heard Felicity ask, “Shall I pull down the blinds?”

  “That would be lovely,” Wellington said, striking a match and lighting another lantern.

  A few sharp tugs later, the five-and-dime plunged into darkness pushed away only by the warm, golden light of two kerosene lamps.

  “The prototype’s over here,” Bill said, lifting a tarp that covered a table near the back of the store.

  Wellington’s vest pocket softly chimed, making him start slightly. Eliza’s own fob chimed as well. The archivist pulled out his pocket watch, and then looked around. “Right then—eyes open, everyone.”

  “Why?” asked Felicity.

  “Well, if you happen to feel a strange, queer feeling like the floor is slipping out from underneath you,” he began, his eyes still looking around the general store, “then you may be in danger of being either torn in half or possibly having your flesh flayed . . .” His voice trailed off as he caught Eliza’s hard stare.

  “Not in polite company,” she said under her breath.

  Felicity and Bill glanced at each other, and then quickly hastened over to where Wellington and Eliza stood.

  A clean scent, as if a summer storm had just breezed across an open field of freshly cut grass, wrapped itself around them. However, that pleasantness soon passed as the scent grew sharper, colder. Felicity let out a strangled breath, and it formed itself into a fog just in front of her nose. She shuddered, and stepped closer to Wellington, cuddling against his side.

  The floor beneath them vibrated but it was not being torn apart. A good sign. Wellington let out a breath of his own, and by the time it evaporated in front of him a low drone thrummed in his ears. It grew louder and louder, until it finally resolved into a white light in the far left of the shop. It lingered in the air above the floor, shimmering in the crisp cold.

  Felicity gave a slight gasp as the world rippled—like a stone breaking a placid lake—around the suspended flare, slowly becoming water rushing into the brilliant pinpoint as if it were an open drain. Reality itself slipped towards the light in a mad rush, feeding this ravenous vortex. The undulation grew to a low groan as this vortex stretched apart from its centre, its sapphire blue edge burning with a fire that gave off no heat. The portal grew larger and larger, growing beyond the open space and sinking into the floor while its top just brushed the five-and-dime’s ceiling. On the other side of this rip in space and time, another world appeared. It was night on the other side of the portal. Stepping into view was a small party of four, a familiar face leading the way. The other three people from the other side proceeded carefully, minding their heads—although there was no real need to—while a small covered trolley rolled between them and their leader.

  “Bill, Felicity, reinforcements have arrived.” Eliza extended a hand to Doctor Basil Sound. “Welcome to the Arizona Territories, sir.”

  SEVENTEEN

  In Which Wellington Books Suffers a Bout of Hero Worship

  “Agent Braun,” Doctor Sound said cheerfully as he stepped out of the glare of the æthergate and glanced at his own fob, “I must apologise for our tardiness. It took a moment to lock onto your rings. Must be something in the air here. How go things in the field?”

  “Better than I could have hoped, Director,” Eliza replied, motioning to Wellington with her head, “what with a new partner to initiate and all.”

  “Indeed,” he said before turning to Wellington. “And you, Books—adjusting well I hope?”

  “What Miss Braun does here is par excellence, sir,” Wellington answered. “I do have a great deal to learn.”

  Doctor Sound gave a chuckle at that. “Intriguing choice of words there.”

  Wellington’s brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand . . .”

  “Those were the same words that Agent Braun here used to describe her time with you, weren’t they?” he asked, looking over to Eliza. He then turned to the Americans and stretched out his hand. “And these must be your counterparts? William Wheatley, or ‘Wild Bill’ as you prefer?”

  “Howdy, Professor,” Bill replied. “Heard a lot about you.”

  “Tosh, man,” he said, waving a hand, “I’m a doctor not a professor. I’m afraid moulding young minds is beyond my purview.” A twinkle came to his eye as he glanced at Felicity. “And this must be the tenacious and talented Felicity Lovelace, head librarian of the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical.”

  “Doctor Sound,” she spoke quickly, “it is such a pleasure to finally meet you, after all the research I have done on your organisation.”

  “You flatter me, madam.” He enveloped her hand. “I know that both our organisations are steeped in secrecy, but if you wish to discuss details about what we do across the pond, I would be thrilled to discuss such matters. Over dinner tonight?”

  Eliza nudged Wellington in the small of his back, and motioned to Sound with her head. “Look at that,” she whispered under her breath to him.

  “But he’s . . .”

  “By a few years, yes.” Eliza could only hope that the director would draw Felicity’s attentions, but she knew that was highly unlikely. The strumpet was far too smitten with Wellington. Still, Felicity revelled in the flattery. An older man, yes, but a man in power, nonetheless.

  “So this is what the fabled æthergate travel looks like?” Felicity asked breathlessly, turning her gaze to the gaping hole suspended in space behind them.

  “Yes, but we must not abuse this technology as we still do not fully understand its side effects upon the human condition,” the director warned, in a tone a schoolmaster might have when chiding children.

  “Oh, now come along, Doctor Sound,” the haughty voice spoke. “Knowledge and discovery always contain an element of danger.”

  Eliza shot a glance at Wellington, who had flinched ever so slightly. He too had recognised that voice.

  “There is risk,” Doctor Sound said sternly to Professor Hephaestus Axelrod, “and then there is foolhardiness.”

  “You and I are never to agree on that point,” he
returned tersely.

  Axelrod held up what could have been confused for a snow globe set in a marble base; but on closer inspection, the “snow” was actually pinpoints of energy floating within the globe. When Axelrod’s hand grasped the globe, the energy turned pink, creating tendrils that danced along the inside of the glass between it and Axelrod’s palm. Punctuated by a rush of air, the globe traced the edge of the portal and gradually closed it.

  Eventually, the chill gave way to the surrounding heat of the Arizona Territory.

  “Doctor Blackwell and I are here to help,” Axelrod began, setting the æthergate generator on one of the shop’s empty shelves. “We have made a few improvements to our armoury since our agents have set foot in the Americas.”

  When Axelrod’s eyes landed on Wellington, Eliza was rather startled by the professor’s reaction: he was elated.

  “Books!” he bellowed as he crossed over to shake his hand. “You know, I was thrilled to find our paths would be crossing like this.” Axelrod rocked gently on his heels as he proclaimed, “Your commission is ready. Shall we try it out here in front of your colleagues?”

  “I think not, Professor,” Wellington replied, his smile tight and forced. “Perhaps when we finish here, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied, his words coming out as a whisper. “Discretion is the better part of valour.”

  Wellington would never hesitate to trade barbs with Axelrod. It could have been over the extravagant design of his experimental weapons. Sometimes, it could be about his choice of fashion, which Eliza thought was unwarranted. Dressed as Axelrod was, polished in a fine-tailored grey suit, a crisscross pinstripe pattern of black and silver that seemed to shine in the dim light of the five-and-dime, it could not be denied the man’s fashion sense was impeccable.

  Civility? With Axelrod? The mystery of Wellington Thornhill Books deepens . . .

  Eliza rapped the archivist lightly on his shoulder. “A commission?”

  “It is a personal matter,” Wellington answered flatly, “best kept between gentlemen.”

  Eliza felt a breath catch in her throat. What was Axelrod holding over her partner?

  “Agents Wheatley, Lovelace,” Axelrod said with a grand flourish, doffing his top hat and motioning to the small trolley that had followed him from the other side of the portal, “we at the Ministry’s Research and Design are here to provide you with the latest tools of our exciting trade.”

  On the mention of “we,” Wellington’s eyes immediately went to the other two people in the shadows, working on arranging an array of weapons and accessories. One was immediately recognisable as Axelrod’s counterpart, Doctor Josepha Blackwell.

  Eliza glanced over to Wellington. He looked as if he were ready to bolt.

  While Axelrod was a man of fashion and impeccable style, Blackwell was a woman cut from a rather gothic cloth. She had such a penchant for black attire it would have been a safe assumption that she was in mourning, had it not been for the plunging neckline that bordered on the scandalous.

  The other contradiction of Blackwell’s consistent fashion of mourning attire was her personality. Unlike Axelrod’s put-upon civility, Blackwell was effervescent, much like Agent Lovelace, only far more anxious. Far more volatile. And also unlike the American librarian, Blackwell’s enthusiasms embodied themselves in more terrifying behaviours.

  “It is such a delight to be in the Americas!” Blackwell spoke, enthusiastically pumping the arm of Felicity Lovelace. When she grasped Bill’s hand, Josepha gasped. She then reached up and gently squeezed Bill’s forearm with her free hand, making an interested noise in the back of her throat.

  “You really do not want to know,” Wellington said, making eye contact with a bemused Bill.

  Josepha blinked, and then turned to look at him. “Ah, Agent Books, so excited to see you here in the field!” She leaned forwards with a wicked grin. “We have a few surprises for you.”

  “From you, Doctor Blackwell, I would expect nothing else,” he replied warily.

  “So you won’t be here for long, Director?” Eliza asked.

  Doctor Sound was now all business. “Yes, Agent Braun. We do have other cases happening here and within the Empire. Your telegraph, however, demanded use of the æthergates.”

  “Yes, what with the House of Usher possessing the technology of an electroacceleratron, we found the need to up your arsenal, as it were,” Axelrod said.

  “I’m sorry,” Bill asked, “the technology of a what?”

  Axelrod considered Bill and then shook his head, stroking his thin, tightly groomed goatee. “An electroacceleratron. The device you procured in the Outer Banks.”

  “You mean, the Death Ray?” he asked.

  “The proper term is electroacceleratron, thank you very much,” he said sharply.

  “Therefore,” Blackwell chimed in cheerily, “we have a few items for your consideration as well.”

  “Mighty kind of you, Doc,” Bill said, tipping his hat to Josepha, “but my Peacemakers are serving me just fine.”

  “We did lose a Remington-Elliot in North Carolina,” Eliza said, shooting a cold glare in Felicity’s direction.

  “Oh, excellent!” Blackwell exclaimed. “Then you will be obligated to take our experimental weapons!” Eliza and Wellington both groaned in alarm. Josepha, in reply, held up a hand. “They are in need of field-testing. You are in the field. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

  Eliza leaned over to Wellington. “I really don’t care for Latin.” She then returned her gaze to Josepha Blackwell. “I like it even less coming from her.”

  “Come, come, don’t be shy, my dear Eliza,” Axelrod said, his smile chilling to the core. “To the table.”

  Eliza could see the remaining figure moving in the shadows—but exactly what he was doing remained unanswered. They now all gathered around a table offering the oddest pistols that she had ever seen. Perhaps the strangest trait all these guns shared was that none of the barrels were open. They all appeared sealed.

  “Welcome to the exciting future of armament.” Axelrod beamed.

  “Interestin’ gadgets here, Doc,” Bill said, picking up a smaller model close to him. The pistol was just a hint larger than a twin-barrelled Derringer. “What exactly do they shoot?”

  “They don’t shoot.” Axelrod’s chest swelled with pride. “They excite and vacillate.”

  Bill furrowed his brow, held the small gun up to his face for a closer look, and then pointed it at the five-and-dime’s covered cash register. The gun emitted an undulating growl like that of a lion as successive rings of fire shot across the room, burning a hole through the shop’s tender that Bill, if he removed his hat, could easily fit his head inside.

  “Sweet hell on earth!” Bill swore, releasing the gun’s trigger. He held the Derringer-style pistol close to his face again with a wild grin spreading on his mouth. “This thing ain’t putting off any heat.”

  “Internal cooling systems. The gauges on the side will give you a full diagnostic and will warn you in case of imminent overheating.” He glanced over to his counterpart, and after she shrugged, he added, “At least it is supposed to.”

  “We call that particular model the Dragon’s Breath.” Blackwell motioned to the other offerings before them. “Each of these models offers a wide array of options.”

  Wellington cautiously picked up one closer to the size and grip of the Remington-Elliot. This gun was easily twice the weight, though, and while it did look capable of slipping into a standard holster, the glass tube protruding from the top appeared alarmingly fragile. “So if this were to shatter,” he began, tapping the glass gently, “exactly what would this liquid do?”

  Blackwell’s smile disappeared, and Axelrod shook his head, disappointed. After a moment, Blackwell said in a heavily rehearsed response, “The solution in the vial is vital to Jack Frost’s effectiveness.” />
  “You named the gun—”

  “The exciter,” Blackwell interjected.

  “—Jack Frost?”

  “It was either that or the Axelrod-Blackwell-Olszewski X-2. Jack Frost seemed far more elegant in comparison.” She motioned to the gun and added, “After working closely with our Germanic colleague, we can offer a safety tip that should be sufficient for you.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Don’t break the glass.”

  Wellington nodded. “Lovely.”

  “At least you have a replacement for your ’81,” Eliza said. “I must admit these exciters of yours are . . .” She looked up at both scientists and forced a smile. “Compact.”

  “We did have one particular creation—the Annihilator—set aside for you specifically, Agent Braun.” Axelrod shot a look to Doctor Sound, who returned the glare with an elevated eyebrow of his own. “We were told you needed to keep a low profile on this mission.”

  “Obviously she didn’t tell you about Detroit.” Bill chuckled.

  Eliza picked up a pistol roughly twice the size of her pounamu pistols. It was bulbous, its shape and size resembling a sheep’s heart—which, as a New Zealander, she was very familiar with. There were several small pipes running from a circular vent cut on one side of it. She flipped over the weapon to find on the other side a dial offering several settings:

  INTERRUPTION—VULGAR DISPLAY—PUB BRAWL—TYPHOON

  “The Brouhaha,” Axelrod spoke when Eliza looked up to him.

  She crooked an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re having a laugh.”

  He sniffed. “I never joke about my work, Agent Braun.”

  “I am sure you do not,” she replied, extending her arm fully to feel its balance. “Surprisingly light,” she commented. Just how she would she carry it? Perhaps in a large handbag or satchel.