Tesla's Revenge

by Renee Sebastian

  “I thought you might need some backup, so I sent Tesla for the horses.” He tilted his head a little, as if he could see something slightly sideways that he couldn’t see normally. Then he continued by saying, “But I see that I needn't have troubled myself. For someone who can certainly disappear doesn't need the assistance of a mediocre artist.”

  I guiltily looked down and said, “You're hurt.”

  “Damn straight I am. I thought that we were being honest with each other back on that train.”

  I glared at him, “That's a little rich coming from you. Dare I mention your lodestone ability or even your innumerable little quirks like your fortune telling painting?” Then I saw him flinch. I tried to recover some sense of trust between us and said, “I'm sorry. I have never told anyone about it, not even S.O.A.R. Peter would have my hide if anyone knew.” That was close enough to the truth.

  “I believe that I have had an epiphany, my dear Wendy.” Then he pushed me back into the bushes and crowded me against them, so I couldn't escape. He leaned in close and whispered into my ear, “How much Elven blood exactly runs through your veins, Gwendolyn?”

  I jutted my chin up, while avoiding direct eye contact and replied, “Enough to catch Peter's attention, but not enough to do me any good once I am in Neverland.”

  Suddenly, I smelled rosemary and basil. I looked up into Dorian's eyes and they were an exotic blue that seemed to darken around his pupils. They were framed in ridiculously thick, dark lashes. From there I noted that his skin nearly glowed a golden alabaster with slightly sun kissed cheeks. No pores, just smooth, porcelain strokes. I looked down at his mouth that had slightly upturned corners. Such a pretty mouth for a man. He breathed into my face and the smell of spearmint cascaded over me. I leaned in a little, hoping for something more, just not sure what that more was that I wanted.

  He leaned back and said, “Looks like you are not totally impervious to my glamour, Miss Darling. Do not hide anything from me again.” Then he stepped out from the topiary.

  Or else, hung in the air. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted the or else.

  I stepped out from the bushes and said with more bravado than I felt, “Face it Mr. Grey, you enjoy a woman with a little mystique.”

  “Not when my life depends upon it,” he replied non-nonchalantly.

  “How much Fae blood runs through your veins, Lord Grey?” With a glamour like that, it made me wonder who exactly he was.

  A flat expression drifted across his expression as he stepped back and said, “Enough, apparently.” He examined his nail beds and asked, “Do you want my assistance or not?”

  So he wasn't going to tell. It mattered naught. We were all entitled to our own idiosyncratic mystiques. I decided to tease him and said, “Why Dorian, if I didn't know any better, I might believe you have feelings for me.”

  He straightened his puff tie and said, “Maybe I simply do not want to be alone with Tesla one minute more than I have to. Besides, killing a rogue Necromancer sounded like a lot more fun than scraping the shoes of a horse.

  “Tesla is most likely on his way to his secret laboratory in Baltimore, leaving us behind; once again. This is growing clichéd.”

  “Fine, but I want to let you know that I play dirty when on a hunt. Be prepared.”

  “On that, I am counting upon, dearest Gwendolyn.”

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  The cemetery was more decrepit than one might have expected in such a snobbish neighborhood. I peered through the iron gates at the willows that were indeed dying, but now I questioned the cause. This cemetery seemed to be missing a groundskeeper. Dry grass lay in patches in between large chunks of brown earth. Several of the gravestones were cleaved into pieces and most of the crypts had broken doors and windows. Well, no caretaker was for the best in our case.

  I felt for a ward that might announce us and found a strong one activated at the gate. Whether it was constructed in lieu of the absent groundskeeper to keep hooligans out or if it was created by Jasper was impossible to tell. Time to look for another way into the consecrated grounds. We discovered the small chapel on the other side of the property. Churches were only warded against evil spirits, not people or trespassers. This one was a Deist church, but it mattered not, fore we had our ticket in.

  Halfway to the doors, I stumbled midstep. The Fae kiss started burning. I became anxious and started fidgeting with my gloves. I suffered only a cursory thought: Peter might be getting ready to pull me across the realms. But then it abruptly stopped. Dorian reached over and stayed my hands.

  He misinterpreted my anxiety attack and said, “I feel it too. The chapel has been desecrated.” I had never come across an actual desecrated building before. Of course, I have never come across a demon either. My previous assignments were stacking up to be mundane compared to this one.

  He reached the arched doorway and slipped out his pad and pen. Then he stabbed his forearm and drew several glyphs. Next, he stuck them at each corner of the door. They burst into flames and the ashes drifted in the air away from the entryway. He said, “This is confounding.” Then he withdrew his sword and asked me, “May I have a few drops of your blood. I shouldn't feed it directly for this spell. If I mix my blood with yours, I believe I can break this ward.”

  I muttered, “Anything for the cause.” I removed my coat and then I took off my gloves. Next, I unbuttoned several of the small buttons leading up my right wrist on my shirt. I exposed my wrist and extended my arm to Dorian, which he grasped.

  “Thanks,” he said. Then he bent his head over so all I could see was his dark hair as he stabbed my skin gently with his pen tip. A minute elapsed. Then another. How long does it take to retrieve a drop or two of blood? I started to pull my hand back, but he gripped it more tightly and said, “Just another minute and I'll be done.”

  I allowed it, but I wasn't sure why. As the seconds ticked by, I grew more suspicious of his intentions. Finally, he stood and turned his back to me. I supposed that he did not want me seeing whatever he was doing with his sword. I took a moment and examined my wrist.

  “What the bloody hell!” It was yet again some sort of glyph that I didn't recognize engraved across my wrist! Damn Hemomages. I tried to wipe it off, but it stayed put. It was red in coloration, and when I looked closer, it wasn't blood I was seeing, but rather a damned tattoo.

  “Shhhh, we might be heard,” he said. I then peeked around him to see exactly what he was doing. I saw that he carving up his own skin on his wrist.

  “What did you do to my wrist?”

  “Twas nothing, my dear. I merely put my mark upon you to make it easier to find you should we become separated.”

  “I would’ve bought another one of Bea's bots, if that was all that you wanted.”

  “Inconvenient. Besides, I know you won't become separated from this.” He finished whatever he was doing to himself and put his pen away.

  I shrugged, “You know, as soon as I'm in Neverland, Peter's elixir will more than likely erase it from my skin. Only the Fae’s kiss will remain.”

  He finished what he was doing and I saw that we had a matching pair, “Perhaps, but I am hoping whatever that is in my Fae blood that allowed me to glamour myself even a little to you, has allowed me to make your mark subservient to any potion he may give you.”

  I didn’t like this. I glanced back down at my wrist at the set of lines and curves, the color had deepened and morphed into a red iridescence. No scab, no pain, and no blood though. The scrolls and calligraphic marks were beautiful. I didn't know glyphs well, but at least this one was lovely. I looked over at his, but he had already pulled down his sleeve. His sword threw sparks and sizzled as he perused it.

  He said, “Interesting effect our combined blood has on my sword.” It was also glowing a muted red again. He scored the four corners of the door's jamb with his sword, which created a foul odor and black smoke that drifted up into the air.

  Then he said, “There, the desecration is lifted off the ent
ryway. Let's go inside. But before we do, do me the favor and go invisible.”

  “Why?”

  “Humor me, please.”

  “All right, but it helps if I am touching something green.”

  “I see a little green left on that bush just over there,” he said and then nodded over to the one to which he was referring.

  I walked over to it and crouched down behind some sickly shrubbery by the main doors. I focused, which was difficult with Dorian observing me so closely. But finally, I felt myself click with nature and the transparency cascaded over me.

  “Better. I can tell that you are there, in a hazy red outline. But I believe that to anyone else, you would be completely invisible.” That was disconcerting to me. Then he said, “Let's get on with this.”

  I knew I should have been furious with Dorian for doing this, but in a strange way, it didn’t bother me. I truly believed that Peter would be able to remove it, but did I want him to?

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  We made it through the church without incident. There was a painter's palette of broken stained glass scattered like an abstract mosaic across the floor. Rats had made their nests in nearly every overturned pew, and the religious relics had either been stolen or worse yet, broken and displayed in disturbing and perverse arrangements. Its overall impression was oppressive.

  Most Deist churches were an odd mix of secular and religious images in their iconography. Someone had spray painted rainbow colored hair over the smoothly carved marble of a loincloth covered Thomas Edison. As ludicrous as this was, I took a moment to envision Tesla's visage, rather than Edison’s. I chuckled quietly to myself. He might have gotten a kick out of it if he were here too.

  Finally, we were through the church and out its backdoor. Once outside the previously disconcerting feeling that I had in the church, it became absolutely smothering. I looked around and saw that way too many freshly turned graves. The soil had definitely been disturbed and that was bad news for us with a Necromancer lurking around.

  I asked, “Should we flush him out? Or should we just wait him out?”

  Dorian smirked and said, “I thought you were the expert.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “I don't usually have someone else to protect while I am hunting.”

  Dorian simply leveled a stare at me, but eventually said, “Even though we were careful, I think he might already know we have arrived. I don't think giving him extra time to possibly make an army of the undead would be for the best. I think we should force his hand. Currently, he is outnumbered two to one. I am quite fond of those odds myself.”

  “Why don't you send out another paper plane to show us precisely where he is?”

  “Can't. He might attach something unpleasant to it this time. Last time he was caught unaware. How sure are you that those special bullets will work?”

  “Not enough to give up my other weapons. Do you think that you could get close enough to put one of those freezing notes on his forehead?”

  “Unlikely.”

  I surveyed the yard and wondered where to start. Everything was equally dispiriting. “Flush him out it is then.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I do,” came a boy's voice behind us. I spun around to see Jeremy wearing a straw sailor’s hat, proper short pants with a matching short coat, and a crisp white shirt. The biggest change was seeing him miraculously scrubbed clean. His hair looked three shades lighter than I had ever seen it before.

  Dorian smirked and said, “Bored with the upper crust already?”

  “That wanker? I wasn't going to stay with 'im. I made my great escape shortly after you two abandoned me there. I have already called that thar' number you done gave to me too. At the post office on the way here. They tele'd me back two slips for paid passage on two airships. One is on its way to pick me up and take me to Washington, so I can get a connectin' flight to London. Want to hitch a ride with me?”

  I said, “We might even beat Tesla to Washington, if we hitched a ride with him?”

  Dorian lit up and said, “Deal, but first we have some nasty business to conclude.”

  “Oh, flushin' out the fox, huh? I heard. Ya'll not the only one who can follow people 'bout without gettin' caught. My dog was real good at that. Left him behind at Niagara, I did. Miss ‘im already. Now let us see if there are some biggun' rats about that I could be usin'.”

  “You used the vulture to find us didn't you?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said as he smiled sheepishly. My true concern was that if Jeremy could use a vulture to find us and some rats to find Jasper, what else could Jasper use to monitor us with? I thought briefly on how the connection might work if he slept.

  I said, “Wait, I don’t want you out of commission once we find him. I have another option.” I dug out of one of the pockets of my coat the bot with the surveillance features. I affixed the picture tape to the inside of my hoodwinks. Then I flipped it over, switched its wings on, and took a firm grip on the control stick. I tossed it up in the air, and I slowly navigated it through the cemetery's ghostlike grounds. There were about ten buildings in all, so I started with the closest one first.

  Dorian commented, “Really must make it back to visit your mother's shop, Jeremy.”

  “I'll be putting a good word in for ya'.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was darker than I had thought it would be in the first crypt, but the bot surprised me and flipped over to a nighttime view where everything became muted outlines of blue. That must have been the surprise Bea warned me about. While it wasn't sophisticated enough to see everything in great detail, it was enough to see if there was a person hiding in the structure. This time there was no one. I had to give it to Bea; she was one ingenious tinkerer.

  The bot meandered out the broken pane of glass and drifted to the next building. I looked in it. It was better lit since there were more broken windows, but again no people. Lots of rats, though. If I had to wager, there had to be five different packs living in this one alone. I maneuvered the bot out again.

  It went like this through the next three crypt structures. Some had broken sarcophagi and coffins, and most of those had rats living in them. One looked like the dying grounds of the rat community, since there were more than twenty dead rats heaped on top of each other. I didn't want to think about if something was feeding on them. That might have meant that I had more than a rogue Necromancer to deal with in this cemetery. Nasty critters boggarts were, but that may have explained the lack of a caretaker if they had a boggart guarding the cemetery.

  Finally, the sixth one meant the death of my little dragonfly. I got the vague outline of someone laying down on a slab of marble before my inlay went black. I removed my hoodwinks and readied my gun. Dorian took point and Jeremy slid behind a tree, while I turned invisible again.

  Suddenly, a roar bellowed out of the crypt. Then, wherever there was a freshly turned grave, the ground started to bubble and burp. I glanced around and found far too many of the disturbed gravesites showing signs of movement.

  I said, “I've got a bad feeling about this.”

  “Stating the obvious are we now Miss Darling?” Dorian asked facetiously.

  I couldn't wait for a graveyard full of dead things to come and eat me, so I shifted into invisibility mode and ran up to the crypt in question to cut the angle. Then I kicked open the door. It was not the smartest thing I had ever done, but that was why I didn't work well with partners.

  Once the door was open, I had a split second to make a point blank shot. I took it. The shot hit him with its full force in the middle of his chest, but it didn't slow down his speed as he rushed me and knocked me to the ground. I lost my concentration and turned visible again. Drats! The bullet didn't work!

  He dipped to the ground and scooped up a handful of dirt. Then he ripped open his shirt and stuffed the wound on his chest from the gunshot with grave dirt. I estimated that this was the equivalent of compress for a Necromancer. Dor
ian shot a few shots from his colt, but Jasper only acted as if they were angry bees and swatted them away.

  I went invisible again and shot a black dart at him. He pulled it out and looked at it. In the split second it took for him to look at it, I readied an orange one and figured if I couldn't kill him, maybe I could take off a limb at the very least. I blew and he caught it in midair. It never even reached his skin. What the tarnation!

  He pocketed it and said, “Nice work Miss Darling. Now let’s see what you think of my little creations.” He must have guessed the trajectory of the dart and my position, because he rushed me even though I was still invisible. Again, I fell back hard onto the ground. This time I was prepared for it and just focused on just staying invisible. He loomed above me, not quite sure where I had fallen, but knew I was close.

  Dorian, meanwhile, had been busy with his pen and pad. He had been placing notes on each of the disturbed graves closest to us, while I engaged Jasper. The paperless gravesites, the ones he missed, started to burst in an explosion of dirt. I saw skeletal and mummified hands making their great escapes from various graves.

  Now or never Dorian, I thought, as he came forward with his sword out, distracting the Secretary of State long enough to allow me a moment to stand up.

  Jeremy had been busy, as well. An army of dead rats left their burial chambers, and they had made good progress trekking up to Jasper. Now they were nipping and climbing up his body. Must have been a real nuisance, that. He had to shake them off to keep them from being taken down by the mere weight of them.

  Then I rounded behind him and jumped his back. I wrapped my legs around his portly belly and didn't hesitate to pierce my silver stilettos into each side of his neck. He threw me off of his back. I left my knives where they pierced him and Dorian sliced off his head, just above where my knives were embedded into his skin. Jasper's head flew off his neck and landed a few feet away from his body.

  Then my world went black.

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