Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (14 page)

"Failure!" It was a male voice. "Worthless! I never should have made you. I should have left you rotting in the fetid earth. I should have thrown you in the furnace as soon as I saw what a wretch you were!"

There came the sound of impact again, followed by a whimpered groan. Bartleby and I crept around dark shelves filled with dusty alchemical relics – retorts, ampoules, jars and vials of substances profane and horrid. Many were covered in dust, broken, or empty, and none were labelled. We stopped at the edge of one, peering past its contents at the tableau on the other side.

A tall and thin man in his middle-age with raven-dark hair and a hawkish nose was standing above the Scissorman, who was kneeling and grovelling at his feet. I vaguely recognised the Resurrectionist from my Apprenticeship with the Guild but could not recall his name; we hadn't had any classes together. He was holding a doubled leather strap in his hand, which he brought down with force upon the Scissorman's back.

"Useless! Worthless!" He looked up and, despite the darkness (for the Wand had gone out), zeroed in on Bartleby and I, his hateful eyes locked with my own. "And now you've brought our hunters to our very doorstep! See if you can do something right for once in your life and kill them, cretin!"

The Scissorman's head swivelled towards us, the sorrowful and guilty expression on his twisted face quickly becoming one of hate and rage. I scarcely had time to step back before he was in motion, scampering almost dog-like from his supine position, leaping through the air to crash into the shelves we hid behind.

Bartleby, faster than I, spun away. I was trapped beneath the wooden shelves, the jars smashed and leaking their loathsome contents all over my helpless form, watching in horror as the Scissorman hissed and snapped at me. Its long and spindly arms threaded through the shelves to grab at me, grab at my throat, and I soon felt its strong clumsy fingers crushing the life out of my neck. In the impact I had dropped the Siphon, and I could not get my other hand to the Filament Wand in order to crank it and generate a charge.

There was a crack as Bartleby fired his pistol at the beast atop me. The creature twitched as it was struck, but kept focused on me, crushing me, killing me, heedless of its meaningless injuries. Bartleby closed the distance between the two of them, Galvanic Siphon in hand, and the fiend let me loose with one hand to reach out and swat him away as easily as one might shoo a fly. I applied my arms' strength to try and pry the fingers from my throat, but it was but a momentary reprieve and I felt the edges of my vision growing dim.

"Call him off!" I could hear Bartleby calling to the Resurrectionist. "Call him off or I'll shoot you dead!"

"I'm the only thing that controls him! Shoot me and he'll tear you both apart."

"You speak of him like he was a dog."

"A dog?" the Resurrectionist laughed. I think his name was Kether. Keifer? Something with a 'K'. "I would be lucky to have created something as loyal and helpful as a hound. No, it's a brute, a worthless and clumsy creature not worth the corpses I stitched it from."

I saw the creature's attention waver for a moment, flinching at every insult. "It's okay..." I managed, still trying to pull its grip from my neck. "My father hated me, too."

It looked back towards its creator (Kepler? Kindler? Kormac?) with a whimper, its grip loosening slightly.

"You're not setting a great example for your son," Bartleby said.

"My what? My son? I barely acknowledge myself as its creator. It was a mistake. A failure on my part. It's just a tool; a machine of flesh and blood, a clockwork of meat. When I've enough stock to build myself a... a true creation... I'll destroy it, or simply let it loose to wander the streets, wretch that it is."

It let go of my neck with its other hand, whimpering a wordless question, eyes on its master.

"Kill them!" The Resurrectionist was livid. "Don't gape at me, you worthless fool, finish killing them!"

It let out a cry so ungodly that it still chills my blood to recall it, and leapt from atop the bookcase towards its maker. The Resurrectionist had the time for half a scream before the beast was upon it, fists flailing, scream undulating. Bartleby dashed over to help me remove the bookcase from atop me.

Back on my feet, I dashed to the thing's side and drove the Galvanic Siphon deep into its spine. Its muscles contracted, seizing up as the motivating energy left its form, staring up at the basement's ceiling for a moment before crashing to the floor beside what was left of its creator.

***

There wasn't enough of Kerring (that was his name) left to even bury, and with our report the case was closed without much of an inquiry. I dutifully handed over the scraps of his research to the Guild for proper archival and disposal, and spent the next few days recovering the use of my voice. When I'd recovered sufficiently, Bartleby and I had a discussion about Xin Yan while the girl played in my study with a doll I had bought her.

"You're sure you want to do this?" Bartleby asked.

"I've given the matter sufficient thought."

"It's a big responsibility."

"Nothing that we cannot handle. We have the resources. We have the time."

"Are you sure?" Bartleby sounded concerned. "James, it's a noble thing, but we hardly live a lifestyle that's conducive to children. Killer automatons, the resurrected, falling airships--"

"This girl's family came to London from a culture we can scarcely understand. They lived in a Whitechapel workhouse where she was beaten regularly by those devoted to providing and protecting her. If we let her go she'll be placed in a workhouse. None of this is conducive to children, and what we offer is a much brighter future."

"What do we offer, James? What is it that you want to be to this girl?"

We glanced over at Xin Yan, oblivious, playing with her doll and talking to it in her private language.

"Family, Bartleby. I want to have a family. I want to be part of something."

"James--"

"I never had a family when I was young, just... just blood relations I happened to live with, who exploited me for my talents. I want... I want to know what it's like. I want a touch of normalcy. I think it will be good for me."

Bartleby watched the girl play, remaining silent for a few moments, before looking back to me. "You know I'll support your choice, James."

"I choose her. I choose Xin Yan."

She looked up at her name, gathered her doll, and stumbled over and rested her head against my knee. "我愛你叔叔."

Bartleby let out a long sigh. "Then family we will be."

A Matter of Spirit

"There is another world alongside our own, James, touching it but forever just out of reach. A world of spirit and death, a world of ghosts and the afterlife. The essence of the departed collect there to watch us, to watch over us, to pine for the senses they no longer possess and sensations of which they can no longer partake. Some of these spirits are helpful and kind. Others are spiteful and envious. And some... James, some are simply mad, their humanity worn away by the unchanging passage of years in that dismal realm. We cannot divine their true natures; such wisdom is the providence of God and God alone until we shuffle loose the mortal coil to join them, but we do know that they are there. That is one fact we cannot dispute."

"Humbug."

The corner of Buckley's mouth twitched before settling into a frown. He raised his manacled hands to me, as if in supplication. "Arrah now, I'm sad to hear that you're still such a sceptic, James. I would have hoped that the passage of years would have broadened your focus."

"Softened my resolve and addled my mind you mean," I sat across the table from Buckley, arms folded. The guard that had escorted my old schoolmate from his cell waited impassively nearby, still like a statue, but certainly taking in every word. "Enough with the apothecary's babble; I'm not one of your marks. If I'm to be of any help as your advocate you'll have to deal with me straight. I've no blind faith to spare, I'm afraid."

"As if blind scepticism is any wiser! God's truth, I'm being entirely forthright with you," Buckley insisted, refusing to break character for even a moment. The years had done little to change him... perhaps a few lines around the corners of his eyes, and the Irish brogue was less pronounced, but Liam seemed the same rogue I'd last known during my apprenticeship in the Royal Guild of Artificers and Engineers almost two decades prior. It was always so hard to tell when he was being genuine and when he was having me on.

"Go on then," Bartleby spoke. He'd been silent since we'd arrived, letting me speak to my old friend, content until now to simply observe. "Tell us your version of what happened."

***

Buckley and his Russian mystic, Miss Duscha Fedorovna, had made a strong emergence onto London's social scene shortly after their arrival several months ago, and the gentry's obsession with Spiritualism and séances had peaked at a new height. They'd entertained for and been patronised by some of the brightest stars of the city, set apart from the other such practitioners by Miss Fedorovna's skills as a medium -- they claimed that she'd studied at the feet of the healer Rasputin himself -- and by the unique technological devices that Buckley had designed to "breach the spirit world".

"Can they?" Bartleby asked me later, after we'd left the prison the Metropolitan Police were holding Buckley in.

"Can what?" I turned back from the carriage window. Bartleby had something on his mind, and had since we'd left.

"Mr. Buckley's devices. Can they breach the spirit world?"

"There's no such thing as the spirit world."

"You don't know that," Bartleby protested.

"Yes, I bloody well do."

Bartleby waved a hand languidly. "So what do they do then?"

"Flashing lights and eerie noises, I would wager. It doesn't take much to impress the gentry."

"If that is the case then why did the Guild ask us to investigate?"

"Buckley's an associate member. It doesn't come with many perks -- he's not fully accredited -- but he's entitled to advocacy when his technology is being maligned."

"He dropped out prior to graduation?"

"He was expelled." The memory was far from a pleasant one. For the bulk of my apprenticeship Buckley had been my only friend at the Academy, both of us outsiders, me from my working class background and he an Irishman. When he had been expelled I had felt that not only had I lost a friend, but that he had betrayed me on a personal level. The only thing keeping our heads up was the conceit that we were smarter, better, cleverer than our social superiors. After his cheating had been exposed I felt more alone than ever; I retreated within myself for the rest of my apprenticeship, and part of me wonders if I'm still hiding.

When Miss Fedorovna had disappeared following their last performance Buckley had maintained that an angry spirit had absconded with her. He took the blame for her vanishing, claiming that it was his NecroGram device that had enabled the vengeful dead to come for her. The police, of course, disagreed, believing that he had most likely simply killed his partner and invented some fancy to explain her departure. While I was inclined to agree, the crux of the matter was that an associate member of the Guild had made certain technological claims that the police were disputing. As ridiculous as it was in this situation, the Guild had fought hard for the right to supply the judiciary with expert consultancy when Guild technology was involved. When they had approached Buckley with this advocacy, he had insisted that I be the one trusted with this duty.

Initially I had intended to perform a simple visual examination of Buckley's NecroGram, declare it a worthless toy in a written report, and go about my business. But then my partner Bartleby had insisted upon a full and proper investigation: talking to witnesses, following up, searching for clues, all of that nonsense. I probably never should have mentioned the case to him, but I had mistakenly thought him too intelligent to cultivate an interest Spiritualism, forgetting that my partner's hunger for the latest fad knows no bounds.

"Buckley's obviously guilty," I said. "Let us return home, I'll write up my report, and we can salvage what remains of the day."

"No." Bartleby was idly toying with his lapel. "Let's go visit the household where they performed that last séance."

"We're wasting our time, Bartleby. The man's guilty as sin, and his excuse is pure humbug."

"Humour me, James."

"Very well, if you insist."

"I do."

Impossible man.

***

Bartleby had, it turned out, made arrangements to call on the widow Lakewood before we'd even met with Buckley. She lived in one of the more secluded Knightsbridge estates, a vast manse for an old woman living alone. I could imagine her drifting from empty room to empty room, haunted by the spirits of the past, a departed husband and father, children grown up and moved on, the laughter and presences she felt as a child now gone and replaced by cold drafts and leaking roofs. If you ask me, those are the only ghosts in this world, the spectres of the past we've yet to deal with. It was all too easy to understand why the wealthy and elderly were taken in by the claims of men like Buckley -- as the world moved on into a technological utopia beyond their comprehensions, memories of the past were all they had to cling to.