The blows striking his head made Dr Darius Vonken
instinctively shut his eyes, but his attacker seemed more intent on bludgeoning
him randomly than targeting vital points. The brute struggled to keep him
pinned as Vonken wrenched himself off his stomach.Vonken swung his arm in
response, realizing too late he’d left his cane behind at Autumn Hill. Blast and damn! He thrust up his right
knee, grimly satisfied when his attacker wheezed sharply like a bull in the
slaughterhouse and slumped, hands weakly trying to cover the area Vonken had
wounded. Vonken threw them both sideways, toppling the goon, and scrambled
back. He snarled at the burly man with the steam-hammer arm, “This isn’t even a
decent spot for an ambush, you amateur! I didn’t think you’d be fool enough to
assault me within full view of the house!” He glanced up the hill, noting that
although lamplight shone from the library window, the curtain was drawn, the
other windows mostly dark. Shaking his head, he pointed to a shadowy patch just
past the gates to the drive. “Had you a brain in that thick head, you would
have waited until I –“ The man rolled over, kicking strongly; one clod-coated
boot connected with Vonken’s left ankle. The mere instant it took the doctor to
regain his balance was enough for the brute to leap to his own feet, raising
that jackhammer of a fist. Vonken managed to duck the first unwieldy swing; a
jet of steam hissed past his nose.
“Blast it, these boots are highland elk!” Vonken cried
angrily, examining the scuff upon the supple black leather, sidestepping the
second blow as he lifted his foot. “Tell your master he owes me a new pair of
boots!” He backpedaled quickly, avoiding a third clublike swing of the enormous
arm, and the brute growled. Vonken gave him a disgusted look. “I see finesse is
not your particular skill.”
“You took somethin’ what belongs to Mr Villard,” the man
grunted, pausing a moment to regain his breath. Vonken felt a twinge of
admiration; that hadn’t been a soft blow he’d given the goon, but the hired
heavy seemed able to shake it off now, straightening his shoulders and focusing
more sharply on the man in green. “Hand it over and,” a gap-toothed grin split
the homely face, “I’ll let ya off with a maimin’.”
“I assure you I possess nothing which Mr Villard could
ever call his own,” Vonken snorted, circling so the nearest street-lamp was
behind him, hoping the light in his opponent’s eyes would help. He briefly
considered outrunning the brute. That arm
looks crafted of Taftinnium; must weigh half a ton. However, though he had
no problem exercising the better part of valor, it might prove more effective
to send a message back to Villard that Darius Vonken was not a man to be
intimidated with violence. He took a step back as the goon he’d nicknamed
Hammer advanced, metal arm glinting. The hiss of steam telegraphed his next
thrust, and Vonken jerked his head aside. Soldered fist met iron lamppost; the
recoil knocked the heavy man back a step. “Why he chooses to employ such clumsy
oafs for his dirty work is beyond me. You’re lucky I’ve forgotten my cane, else
I’d have already boxed your ears like one of the Sisters of the Oncoming
Storm!” he taunted.
“I got no problem takin’ it from your body once I’ve
pummeled ya,” Hammer growled, showing a little more speed as he tried an
undercut. Once again, Vonken sidestepped, and the fist clanged off the
lamppost.
“Careful there, boy. You’ll be cited for destruction of
city property!”
Hammer looked furious enough to bite through his own arm.
Suddenly he pulled a firearm from beneath his coat, a tiny Dust-pistol. Vonken
scoffed, “Oh for heaven’s sake! A tart-gun?
What, did you steal it from your girlfriend in the red lamp district?”
“Stay still so’s
I can pound ya, ya fairy!” Hammer roared, and let off a shot. Vonken threw
himself to one side, mentally re-evaluating his tactics. First, get the pistol away from him. That might actually do some harm.
If the heartlink is severed...
Aloud, he countered, “Only my coat is green, boy. If I
look like the Green Fairy to you, clearly you’ve spent too much time in the
taverns wharfside as well as the brothels! Oh, wait, my mistake; the wharfside
places don’t serve real absinthe, do they? No, cheap crabwhiskey’s good enough
for the lowly likes of you!”
Snarling, Hammer aimed the pistol roughly and loosed
another shot of Dust-powered aetherfire. Vonken twisted himself out of the way,
mindful of the cone-shaped spread of the flashing green energy, but didn’t
anticipate Hammer to immediately follow it with a swing of the powerful arm,
directly at Vonken’s head. His own gloved hand shot up and caught the metal
fist, stopping it abruptly. Both men stared startled at each other an instant.
“What the fu—“ Hammer rumbled. Vonken shoved. Hammer
tumbled, his head thudding hard against the street cobbles. As he groaned, his
flesh hand touching his skull, Vonken bent and took the dropped pistol.
“Damn it, you fool, I was
intending to merely rip that ridiculous appendage from your shoulder,” Vonken
said. His voice was low, regretful. “Now you’ll have to end your own miserable
existence, rather than have to report your failure to your corrupt master.”
Hammer stared dumbly up at him, only registering what was happening as Vonken
knelt and stuck the pistol’s muzzle under the man’s chin. His eyes widened.
“No, waaaaiii—“
Vonken blinked several times, waiting for his vision to clear.
His sensitive eyes still burned with green reflected light. He sighed. Damn and blast. Blast and damn. Nothing for
it, but Villard will certainly notice this one. I suppose a message is a
message, no matter what the medium... He snorted, mildly amused. Good thing there’s not a valid spirit medium
in Concordia at present. He’ll never know what really happened. He wrapped
the still-twitching fingers of the deceased around the butt of the pistol,
avoiding a glance at the fading glow in the black air where the man’s head used
to be. The blood beginning to spurt from the stump of a neck was bad enough,
and Vonken was grateful he couldn’t truly smell it. The sound of it, gurgling and starting to really gush, was unpleasant
enough.
Vonken rose, dusted off his tunic, and looked up and down
the street. The night was quiet, at least in this posh neighborhood. Another
glance at the house atop the hill showed no change; the fight had been unlikely
to be visible from its windows, in any case. If the red-lensed man Vonken had
labeled Blinky had seen any of the fight, he didn’t seem eager to come down and
continue it on his colleague’s behalf. The doctor sighed again, annoyed. If you’d remembered your blasted cane, this
wouldn’t have been necessary! Pay more attention. His shoulders sagged, the
toll of all his Dustcrafting tonight catching up with him. I need a cup of tea. And a long nap. Perhaps a nip of that bourbon. He
stretched on his toes, raising his arms, straightening his whole body, before
striding away from the jerking, spurting corpse beneath the lamp. The Watch will dispose of that soon enough.
It shouldn’t trouble the effete citizens of Hillside when they emerge
fashionably late tomorrow morning.
He walked down the gently winding street until it reached
an intersection at the river, and paused there to gaze at the black water. The
Willamette ran fast enough in these higher elevations to still look relatively
scenic in the daylight, he knew; none of the sludge from the factories or the
effluvia from the city sewers clogged it until it fell over the Mansfield
Escarpment, created years back to power the city’s industry as Dust was too
rare to bear the burden. Above the falls, one might imagine the water to be as
pristine as it had been prior to the Cataclysm...unless one was foolhardy
enough to drink it. Pleasure boats carried the wealthy farther upstream, as far
as the southern mountains if one wished a journey to a reasonably “safe”
wilderness, where hunting lodges catered to the Villards, the Athertons, and
the Autumnsons of this region. It appeared as lively as it always had, if one
discounted the lack of salmon. Below the falls was another story. Vonken had
seen for himself the sores and diseases of those humbles unlucky enough to live
on the river’s edge, downcurrent from the refinery... Only after the Columbia
joined with the sluggish stream, washing all the city’s waste through the
forest and out to sea, did the brown reek of it turn blackish-blue again.
He crossed the stone bridge and continued on, the lamps
becoming set farther apart, until only the occasional light high on the wall of
a fenced-off building offered any security to the nocturnal traveler. He wasn’t
concerned, though he knew his skills had been so exhausted tonight that he
wouldn’t be able to manage more than a crackling spark between his fingertips
to frighten off any would-be footpads. If it came to that, he wasn’t averse to
leaving another corpse in the street, and in this neighborhood, such an event
would barely afford an investigation by the Watch. All the same, he was tired,
and so took extra effort to carefully observe his surroundings as he walked. At
last, his laboratory hove into view.
It wasn’t a building many would judge to be the workshop
of a prominent inventor. Blunt-cornered, with fanciful touches of Gothic
Revival in its stone crenellations and corner gargoyles, it abutted two similar
edifices, all of them built in the ‘forties when this street had served as a
new business district. The hoped-for prosperity had never quite bloomed here,
and the merchants and bankers had moved a little south, closer to the river, or
north to the Columbia to more easily receive the ocean-brought treasures from
the Far East or California on wharves built down into the gorges. Vonken’s lab
and residence had once been the Second Pacific Savings Bank. The name remained
carved into the polished granite of the grand lintel over the double-riveted bronze
doors. The grotesques of figures of industry parading around the top of the
building in a soot-stained frieze amused Vonken, and he did nothing to alter
the façade after he moved in.
He whistled a specific refrain at the gargoyle on the
southwest corner, and its head turned. When its lenses focused on him, he
raised his left arm as a falconer might, and the construct coated in powdered
granite spread its metal wings and swooped down to him. Its weight caused his
arm to lower a moment; he took a deep breath and forced himself to hold it
steady. He petted it absently as he approached the entrance, whispered the
passwords and traced the proper spell with a quick gesture, and resumed
stroking its snakelike head as he carried it inside.
The vast lobby of the former bank echoed his steps. A
single lamp, its wick low, made his shadow chase strangely among the black
polished pillars and open, empty spaces. Sheets covered long tables in one
wing, where his last attempt at an aetheric ship for personal transport lay
partly built. He hadn’t touched it in almost a year. His current project took
all of his time lately. He scowled at the thought. All my time not occupied by wild goose chases for deceased friends.
Damn it all! If Mikael didn’t have the element on him, and Villard hasn’t
recovered it in the Wastelands, what happened to it? Could he have sent it by a
Courier which was waylaid like that poor beast? He glanced at a smaller table
nearer the back of the cavernous room; he really should try to put the poor
bird back together. She’d gone above and beyond her orders to bring him
Mikael’s final letter. Viewing the shadowy, broken form there made him remember
the small lizardy thing on his arm, and he tapped its nose gently. “Show,” he
commanded.
The gargoyle hopped down on a nearby railing which had
once corralled customers to the tellers’ windows. It choked, its body cramping
and unwinding repeatedly, and then jerked its head upward. Light spewed from
its round, open mouth. The flickering images showed him, in faster-than-life
motion, the few people who’d passed the bank in the street that day. He watched
silently, recognizing the local fishmonger and his cart, the local brawlers
having a drunken argument as they passed in the early evening (no doubt after
being tossed from yet another tavern), furtive souls hurrying home in the dusk.
At sunset, himself leaving the building, and nothing until his return. The
light shut off, and at once the little monster he’d built began peeping
plaintively at him.
“Oh, hell,” he sighed, wondering if he really had the
strength for this. Closing his eyes, he sought out and drew in all the energy
he could latch onto; doing even this strained him, and he fought back a wave of
dizziness. Bracing his hand on the railing, he leaned over and vomited the
sparking aether down into the creature’s mouth, a bizarre tall bird feeding his
hungry chick. He gasped, staggering, but the gargoyle seemed sated. It chirped
at him again. He raised a shaky finger, pointing to the vent in the roof,
hidden in the darkness of the high ceiling, and the gargoyle flapped off, going
back to its roof-edge perch.
Vonken remained clutching the railing for some minutes,
bone-weary. Last time I forget to feed
the damned thing before I go out. Rallying himself at last, he trudged past
the tellers’ windows, full of supply cabinets and far less mundane things now,
and opened both the strong ward guarding the massive door to the vault and the
door itself. Nothing had yet disturbed his sanctuary, but now that Villard
believed him the holder of something he wanted...well.
One couldn’t be too careful in this city.
Once “home,” Vonken removed his tunic and hung it on the
coat-tree inside the vault entry. He unbuttoned his shirtcollar, and pried off
the tight gloves finger by finger. He flexed his hands, examining them in the
brighter lamplight of his private rooms. Holding
up well so far. Good. He fetched a bit of cold poultry and a hunk of
Concordia Stilton from the icebox, and plunked himself into his favorite chair
to peel off the ruined boots. He sighed as he wiggled his feet into his
slippers, poured a draught of bourbon from the decanter on the tea-table next
to him, and sat there eating and sipping until his immediate appetite was
fulfilled. He briefly considered tea, but felt so worn-through that he rejected
it in favor of his bed.
He did make one detour. Gloves tucked under one arm and a
krakenoil lamp held high to light his way, Vonken stopped at the door to the
inner vault, which in former times held gold from Alaska or property deeds for
the wealthiest merchants. He didn’t like opening this door, but it was necessary.
Horribly necessary. Mentally bracing himself for the ugly sight, he cracked
open the reinforced-steel door and thrust the hand with the lamp within.
Quiet, bubbling respiration reached his ears. In a moment
his sight adjusted to the shadows, and he made out the still form floating in
the tank. Hating it, he nevertheless forced himself to take a step closer.
Another. Another, until he could make out the features of the man in the
sustaining amniotic solution. Empty eyesockets gaped above a straight nose. The
frayed moustache gently flowed in the light current circulating round the glass
coffin. Most of the auburn hair was gone, save for patches randomly dotting the
scalp above the stitches; he’d been too unnerved by the hole left in the skull,
and had to close it, as any good surgeon would. Liquid had bloated the body
somewhat, and the ugly sores seemed to have spread across more of the naked
skin. Vonken shuddered. He felt the pull of the heartlink through the aether,
and for a moment touched his chest, listening to his pulse, softly thumping in
time with that of the man in the tank.
If the element
hasn’t been recovered...or if Villard gets hold of it first...how will I
ever... He frowned deeply. No. Don’t
play that awful game. Best not to think of the worst, lest it come to pass. But
he knew that old superstition would only hinder him. Time to make alternate plans...but what? How?
Much troubled, Darius Vonken shut the room up again,
leaving the living but soulless body floating, floating through the night in
darkness, though he would dream as he usually did of the Coldspark energy
coursing over the skin of that unfortunate, of the pain it had caused him,
looking out through dark blue eyes forever changed by Dust.
His bed was bolted to the floor, so his unhappy tossing
only disturbed the blankets.
No comments:
Post a Comment