Grave Voices

by Gail Z. Martin

  At the sound of a carriage approaching, all four of them leveled their guns at the opening beneath the bridge, and Jacob let out his breath once he recognized Hans in the driver’s seat of the black, unmarked wagon.

  “Let’s load what we can into the back,” Mitch said. “Farber should take a look at this.” He glanced up at Hans. “I hope you brought shovels.”

  “No wires.” Adam Farber straightened up from the corpse-doll he was examining. Adam had laid out the creature on one of his lab worktables like a makeshift morgue. Pieces of the clay golems lay on another table. “Seriously. There’s nothing mechanical about either of these… abominations,” he said. Long rubber lab gloves covered his hands to the elbows, and a welder’s apron made do instead of an autopsy room smock.

  “At least we know what some of the doll pieces I saw at the Dollmaker’s lab were for,” Jacob said with a sigh. He had gone with Mitch and Drostan directly to the doll shop after the encounter at the riverbank, only to find that the workspace had been emptied and abandoned. “And why the Maxwell box had such an effect on the dolls.”

  Jacob paused, frowning as something occurred to him. “Hold on. We could smell the ‘drowned’ men as soon as they came out of the water. There wasn’t a smell like that at the Dollmaker’s workshop. I would have remembered,” he added, wrinkling his nose. “But the dolls still came after me. And some of them were solid wood. I know: I shot them. Some were wind-up mechanicals, and that one I brought back with me was stuffed.”

  “The one you shot?” Mitch asked, good-natured needling clear in his voice.

  Jacob fixed him with a look. “That thing was trying to get at my throat. It was a reasonable reaction.”

  Della made no attempt to stifle a chuckle. Adam was too absorbed in the puzzle of the corpse-dolls to reply, and Jacob wondered if the inventor had even heard their banter.

  “Renate told me that there’s a long magical tradition of poppets,” Della said. “Voodoo dolls. Ventriloquist dummies that speak by themselves. Marionettes that move around theaters when no one is around. She also said different kinds of magic could make the dolls do specific things. So it might be Sandor Kasmir and his necromancy—or someone else entirely.”

  Mitch shook his head. “I think Kasmir and the Dollmaker are working together, on at least some of this,” he replied. He looked to Adam. “You said the Dollmaker is greedy. Well, the ‘drowned men’ would certainly feed his need for money. Ditto the break-ins when Lustig and Shurlman provided a distraction. I’m sure Kasmir can always use money. But it doesn’t seem like a grand enough scheme for him, and it doesn’t explain the kidnapped mediums.”

  “Dead inventors.” Everyone turned to look at Adam. He had stripped off his gloves and apron, and walked over to another table where the bits and pieces lay that Jacob had taken from the Dollmaker’s workshop. On the way, he had grabbed one of his many half-finished cups of cold coffee and downed what remained.

  “Excuse me?” Mitch asked.

  Adam looked up brightly. “The names of the bodies that were dug up. Ferris, Lauth, Bakewell. All inventors. Held a bunch of patents. Several of them, especially Ferris, died young.”

  “And?” Jacob encouraged, with a gesture that indicated ‘get to the point’.

  Adam pointed to a mechanical box on the worktable with a large fluted horn to carry sound. The Edison wax cylinder Jacob had taken from the Dollmaker’s lair was connected on a spindle. “Listen to this,” he said, and cranked up the player. A needle skimmed across the rotating cylinder, transforming vibration into sound. Amid static, an eerie, sepulchral voice echoed from the horn, sending a chill down Jacob’s back. From the look on the others’ faces, Jacob guessed they were affected in the same way. Adam lifted the needle, and the awful, ghostly voice stopped.

  “What is that?” Della asked, sounding shaken.

  “Thomas Edison’s device for recording the voices of the dead,” Adam replied. “Really, the man is an amazing genius.” High praise, coming from Adam, whose talents were hardly shabby. “He wasn’t the first to try. Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, they both tried to create machines either to contact the dead or to let them contact us.”

  Mitch frowned. “I figured the cylinders Jacob picked up just made the dolls talk.”

  Adam shook his head. “So did I, until I listened to the one Jacob brought back. That’s George Ferris’s voice. I know; I was at several meetings with him, just a few years ago.”

  “Did you actually listen to the whole recording?” Della asked, her expression making it clear that her estimation of the inventor’s bravery had just risen.

  “Yeah,” Adam replied. “Even though it was pretty creepy. And here’s the thing. Not only is it Ferris’s voice, but he was talking about an invention that isn’t among his patents.” He looked at them as if they were slow to follow his meaning. “He’s inventing things from beyond the grave. Things that someone else will make lots of money from.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Mitch muttered. “That’s the link. That’s what Kasmir is up to—and why he kidnapped the mediums.”

  Just then, the telegraph key on Adam’s desk began to tap out a message. “It’s your office,” Adam said, after listening for a moment. He went back to toying with the odd objects Jacob had retrieved.

  Mitch, Jacob, and Della walked closer, silent as they decoded the message mentally. When the clatter of the key fell silent, Mitch looked back at Drostan and Adam. “It’s Clare Monihan, the medium. She says she’s got an urgent message from Simon Markham’s ghost. He knows where the mediums are, and he’s got a plan to rescue them.”

  Part Six: Tunnel to Hell

  “First time I’ve been on a mission run by a ghost,” Jacob muttered. A day of hurried preparations had passed since they had received Simon Markham’s telegraph. It had taken time to assemble their team and gather the resources they needed to make a stand against Kasmir and the Dollmaker.

  “I’m not runnin’ this mission. That’s Mitch’s job. I’m just advising.” Simon’s voice and inflection were spot on, though it was Clare Monihan who spoke.

  “I still don’t think you should be here,” Jacob murmured, meaning Clare.

  “She says to tell you that it’s her friends who have gone missing, and she aims to help. So bugger off,” Simon replied. There was a pause. “I’m to tell you that Miss Monihan most definitely did not phrase her statement in that way.” Clare gave a lop-sided grin that was all Simon. “But that’s what she meant,” he added.

  The telegraph watch on Jacob’s wrist sounded with two clicks, then with three. “They’re in position,” he murmured to Drostan.

  The small railway station sat on a disused set of tracks leading into what remained of a partially caved-in tunnel in the middle of nowhere, a few miles north of New Pittsburgh. Since the railroad re-routed its service, the area around the station went into decline. A few abandoned warehouses and defunct shops remained. Grass encroached on the road, and in a few more years, it would be difficult to see where the roadbed had been. Rocky foothills sat behind the station, while beyond the abandoned buildings lay an empty field covered with tufted mounds of grass.

  Della was overhead in the Bienville, ghosting along in the night sky. An earpiece and more of Adam Farber’s technology made it possible for Jacob and Mitch to stay in contact. Drostan and Jacob kept watch on the station along with Clare, who was channeling Simon’s ghost. Mitch and Renate were near the train tunnel, along with allies they had brought along for back-up. Hans the coachman was on lookout, farther up the abandoned lane.

  “Your intelligence had better be good,” Jacob whispered to Simon.

  “Never better. The kidnapped mediums asked the ghosts to warn the other clairvoyants, and when I heard about it, I followed up. Geez. Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I stopped being an agent,” Simon pouted. Jacob doubted he would get used to addressing Clare and getting Simon in response, so he decided to stop thinking about it.

  “What’s the me
ter say?” Jacob asked Drostan, who glanced at the EMF reader in his hand. It detected the energy of ghostly manifestations, and the needle on the gauge was in the red zone.

  “Busy night,” Drostan replied.

  “Let’s just hope that the Maxwell box doesn’t mess up Simon’s connection to Clare, if Mitch has to use it,” Jacob said.

  Four clicks sounded from Jacob’s telegraph-watch, Mitch’s signal to move. “Show time,” Jacob muttered.

  A moment later, fireworks exploded in the empty field in a cacophony of bangs, booms, and bright lights. “And there’s Mitch’s idea of a distraction,” Drostan said with a sigh.

  “Go!” Simon urged.

  Clare, Jacob, and Drostan ran toward the station, while more of the fireworks blasted from the field. Simon’s ghostly reconnaissance had informed them that the missing mediums were being held in the conductor’s office at one end of the old train station, which the Dollmaker had claimed as his new workroom. Jacob went to cover her, while Drostan slipped around the back, ready to plant charges to detonate the Dollmaker’s works in progress and destroy his dangerous creations.

  Clare moved with Simon’s sure-footed stealth. She popped her head up at the office window, which glowed with the dim light of a lantern. Jacob crouched beside her, gun at the ready, watching for an ambush.

  “They’re in there!” Clare’s enthusiasm colored Simon’s usually droll delivery. She gave three quiet raps on the glass, which drew the attention of the four women inside. The prisoners rushed to the window excitedly when they recognized Clare, then looked puzzled as she set to prying the casement open with a crowbar.

  The window locks snapped and the window opened. Clare gestured for the trapped women to follow, leery of speaking because Simon’s inflection might make her voice unfamiliar.

  “I’m a government agent, and I’m here to get you to safety,” Jacob said. “There’s a carriage waiting. You’ve got to hurry.”

  More fireworks meant Mitch was doing his best to keep Kasmir and the Dollmaker focused elsewhere, but Jacob knew that could change at any moment.

  Drostan joined them just as the last of the mediums crawled out of the window. “Charges are planted,” he said. “We’ve got to get clear before we blow the explosives.”

  “Watch out!” Simon’s warning came an instant too late. A shot from the darkness clipped Jacob in the left arm. He bit back a cry of pain and fired back, as Drostan also took a shot at their assailant. The four mediums huddled against the station wall, terrified. Clare took in the situation with Simon’s experienced, unruffled calm.

  “It’s the Dollmaker, and he’s moving left,” Clare reported, as Simon tapped into the network of ghosts that gathered around the mediums.

  Blood stained Jacob’s left sleeve, but he ignored the pain and adjusted his aim, then he and Drostan shot where Simon directed, and the sharp curses suggested they had hit the Dollmaker, or that their bullets had been near misses.

  “Get them to the carriage. We’ll cover you,” Drostan hissed. Clare nodded, and motioned for the other mediums to follow her, grabbing their arms and pulling them along when they were frozen by fear.

  The whirr of gears and the clatter of wooden-jointed limbs made Jacob’s heart sink. As the Dollmaker fired again, life-size metal and wooden dolls emerged from the shadows, cutting off the escape path to the carriage.

  Three wind-up metal soldiers marched stiffly from their hiding places, with the buzz and hum of their springs and gears. With horror, Jacob realized that their arms were Gatling guns. Wooden warriors with metal swords flanked them, and their herky-jerky movements did not reduce the danger of the weapons in their hands.

  “Down!” Jacob warned as the metal men’s guns blazed. Clare and the mediums barely had time to hide behind a short stone wall as the bullets flew. Drostan did his best to pick off the malevolent dolls, but while his bullets dented metal and splintered wood, they could not stop the magic that animated them.

  Simon, whose ghost still possessed Clare, took matters into his own hands the instant the Gatling guns went quiet. “Call the ghosts!” Clare ordered the frightened mediums, then she dodged above her hiding place, animated by Simon’s daring and experience, and lobbed a rock with a pitch worthy of a baseball player that hit the nearest wooden doll right in the face. She swung the crowbar with both hands, and slammed the heavy iron bar into the wrist of a nearby doll, tearing its gun from its body.

  Jacob was still trading shots with the shadowy figure of the Dollmaker, trying to keep him away from the mediums until they could get to safety. He tapped a code to Hans for back-up and tried to go to Clare’s defense, but the Dollmaker’s shots were too close for comfort and Jacob had yet to get a good enough bead on his target to hit the mark.

  Drostan’s carefully planted explosives could blow the station sky-high, but not until they had gotten far enough away to survive the blast. The malevolent doll-soldiers were no longer firing, but they continued to advance toward the stone wall.

  “Come on!” Clare shouted to the frightened mediums. “Show them what we’re made of!” It was Clare’s voice but Simon’s mannerisms. Before the other clairvoyants could object, Clare scrambled over the wall, setting about with the crowbar, taking advantage of the doll’s exhausted weapons. Emboldened by her brazen example, the others roused to their defense, sending a hail of rocks flying that pelted the dolls, driving them back.

  “Can you shut down the ghosts that are powering the dolls?” Jacob yelled to Clare.

  “Tried that,” one of the mediums yelled back. “They’re under some kind of control. But we can bring in some friends to even the score.”

  “Call in the reinforcements!” Clare shouted to her fellow mediums. A moment later, the air around the station grew much colder, cold enough for them to see their breath. A thick fog rolled toward the station from the empty field across the way, and Jacob realized belatedly that the mounds and tufts he had spotted were the markers of an old graveyard.

  Fog became ghostly figures, at first featureless and then more defined, farmers and merchants, the townspeople from the village once served by the abandoned station. The ghosts came when the mediums called, and from the look of it, they were angry at the Dollmaker’s control of the other spirits. Jacob had heard of poltergeists, but the spirits summoned by the clairvoyants went beyond what he had ever witnessed. The ghosts hurled rocks and shoved the doll-soldiers with impunity, pushing them over so they were easy for Clare and the mediums to bludgeon with stones, sticks, and Clare’s crowbar. Drostan’s well-aimed shots knocked more of the malevolent dolls off their feet, once he started aiming for the knees.

  Jacob had no time to celebrate. The Dollmaker shot again, and the bullet sank into the wooden wall of the station far too close to Jacob for comfort. Jacob traded his empty revolver for his shotgun, and keyed the ear piece. “Della! Can you get some light on us? We’re pinned down and I can’t see the shooter.”

  “Let there be light,” she replied with a chuckle. A moment later, a spotlight shone down from the sky, seemingly out of nowhere since the black airship was almost invisible against the night sky. Jacob was ready as the light blinded the Dollmaker for an instant, and his shotgun blast hit the mad inventor square in the chest, knocking him off his feet back into the shadows.

  “Good shot!” Della cheered.

  The Dollmaker was down, but more of his infernal creations lumbered from the station, and it wouldn’t take long before Jacob and the others were surrounded. The Bienville’s weapons were too imprecise to take out the doll-soldiers without either setting off Drostan’s explosive charges or hitting Jacob and their allies. And from the shots being traded from the direction of the tunnel, it sounded like Mitch and his friends were not going to be able to help.

  The snap of reins and the pounding of hooves came from the roadway. Hans was driving the carriage like a madman, and the former cavalry horses seemed to be enjoying the action. The horses bowled over the dolls in their way, hitting them from
behind and riding them down, trampling the metal and wooden bodies with their heavy hooves. The horses reared as Hans reined them in sharply.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  Clare ran to open the door for the others, who stepped warily around the broken forms of the killer dolls. From the look on Clare’s face, it was clear that Simon was torn about leaving his friends and the fight.

  “Go on,” Jacob urged. “Get them to safety. You’ve fought a good fight.”

  Simon’s sly smile spread across Clare’s features and she gave a nod to Jacob as she swung up to the carriage’s running boards in a move that was pure Simon. “See you later,” she promised in Simon’s voice. The door closed, and with a shout and a snap of the reins, Hans headed out at top speed. Some of the new ranks of doll-soldiers emerging from the station fired at the carriage, but its steel-reinforced sides deflected their bullets. The ghosts grew less solid now that the mediums were gone, vanishing into the wind.

  Gunfire sounded again from the direction of the tunnel. “Come on. Sounds like Mitch needs some back-up,” Jacob said, pausing just long enough for Drostan to tie a piece of cloth around his arm where the Dollmaker’s bullet had grazed him.

  “What about them?” Drostan said with a jerk of his head toward the new wave of killer dolls clicking and whirring their way out of the station.

  “Take them out once we’re clear,” Jacob replied. “Della, take the ship up,” he warned through his headset.

  He and Drostan were barely a hundred feet away from the station when the whole building exploded and flames shot toward the sky. “You could have waited a few more steps!” Jacob protested.

  Drostan shrugged. “Seemed like the right time to me.”

  The burning station provided enough light that Jacob and Drostan could see the fight at the tunnel entrance as clearly as if the airship had trained its lights on the scene. “Della, keep an eye out for anything circling behind us. It looks like Kasmir’s got a whole army of golem soldiers stashed in that tunnel, and by the smell of it, more of his corpse-dolls, too.”