Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  Ellison laid another sheet of paper on the table.

  “A striking resemblance,” Omicron said.

  “Who is she?”

  “According to your dossier, Helen Dietrich.”

  “In the picture from eighty years ago,” Ellison said.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t handle personnel. I did technical work.”

  “‘I don’t know’. Those are the last words I expected to ever heard you utter.”

  “Would you rather I lied to you and made something up? I was not hired to keep track of general staff, and the henchgirls tended to not speak to me. So I rarely knew their names.”

  “So, you say you did technical work. What kind of work was involved in this project?”

  Omicron picked up the first two pictures and looked them over again. “That would have been... Ah, yes that one. Where would you like me to start?”

  “What were you trying to do?”

  “I was trying to get paid.”

  There was a protracted moment of silence as Ellison cast a look at Omicron that the camera didn’t catch. I doubted it was warm and friendly.

  “Though Lord Castel was trying to prove a theory he had about the structure of the universe.”

  “Go on.”

  “He believed that the universe consisted of multiple layers like sheets in a laminate, though effectively occupying the same three-dimensional space. Pocket dimensions were bubbles or grains of sand trapped between these layers. He theorized that what had historically been described as spirits, demons, eldritch abominations, or similar such unnatural creatures were actually inhabitants of these other layers that had been drawn to ours by some means. This would explain the ability of magic users to conjure them up as if from thin air. If this were true, it would then be possible to open a stable bridge between layers and explore the other side. This particular test failed because someone had tampered with the device, turning it from a bridge to a summoning device. Lord Castel was so infuriated when he found the tampering that he fired most of the project staff and sent me back to Europe.”

  “Did he ever succeed at making his ‘bridge’?” Ellison asked.

  “I have no idea,” Omicron said. “He disappeared without a trace, and when my paychecks stopped coming, I needed to find a different employer.”

  “You said he sent you back to Europe. Does that mean this project was worked on in the United States?”

  “Yes. He needed both an isolated location and access to modern industry, so the middle of the continental United States was the best choice at the time.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “Upriver from Sheridan, a couple of hours by truck over very bad roads from the river. Under an abandoned church on a tall hill.”

  “Promontory Cathedral,” I said. Nick and Xiv looked at me as the video continued.

  “That’s not very helpful,” Ellison said.

  “These roads were not marked,” Omicron said. Nick hit pause.

  “What is Promontory Cathedral?” he asked.

  “I keep forgetting you’re not from around here,” I said.

  “Some sort of local landmark then?”

  “Guy makes it big in mining, finds God, and decides to build a grand cathedral in mine country. Picks a prominent peak where everyone can see the building and sinks his fortune into it. Problem is, it’s in the middle of nowhere, so he has no parishioners. Soon, he has to shut the place down and sell the land. It’s sitting there, east of Pickman’s Crossing, which is upriver from Sheridan. There’s probably not a single good road to the place. It’s been sitting there for almost a century and a half because the land is worth more for the coal under it than the old cathedral on top of it.”

  Part 21

  “Promontory Cathedral does fit with the notes I’ve turned up so far,” Grandpa Walker said. “I didn’t have a definitive location yet, so I hadn’t called.” The three-way conference included two Rookhounds this time, as Uncle Kyle joined Saito at Sterling Towers.

  “So what are we going to do with this information?” Icerazor asked.

  “It is obvious from her time at Rockstead that Dietrich plays a long game,” Saito said. “If she is the same person as the woman in the film, knowing what was going on back then could help piece together what her objective is. So at the very least, you should try to locate Lord Death’s base and see if there is anything left.”

  “It’s been eighty years,” Icerazor said.

  “It’s a long shot, and might just end up being a hike in the woods,” Kyle said. “But we can’t afford not to look.”

  “Who owns the land now?” I asked.

  “Vulcanfire Coal,” Shiva said. “Currently unworked, though three different mines have been dug in the vicinity in the past.”

  “So at least no one will be shooting at us,” Icerazor said.

  “Never assume that,” Grandpa Walker said.

  “I should probably mention this,” Kyle said, “Local folklore holds that Promontory Cathedral and the mines are haunted. Given what we know, I don’t think the possibility of something living there should not be discounted.”

  “Oh,” Icerazor said.

  “How are we going to know if we’ve found anything?” I asked. “Neither of us are tech people.”

  “Scion of Anubis is still available for field work and is the closest thing we have available at the moment,” Saito said.

  “Who?” Grandpa Walker asked.

  “A relatively new sidekick,” Saito said, his tone implying an insignificance I doubted he genuinely believed.

  “Were any of these mines there when Lord Death was?” Icerazor asked.

  “The North Promontory Mine was abandoned at the outbreak of the great depression,” Shiva said. “The other two were operated concurrently between nineteen fifty-three and the late seventies.”

  “Are you thinking he built in the old mine?” I asked.

  “It would still be under the church, and seems easier than digging under the crypts.”

  “It’s a place to start, anyway,” I said.

  “I will alert Scion of Anubis,” Saito said, “while you two get ready-”

  “Can I go?” Xiv’s question cut off Saito mid-sentence, but he looked nonplussed. Indeed, Grandpa Walker was more rankled by the interruption than the man who’d been speaking.

  “That’s a question for your mentor,” Saito said.

  “And don’t interrupt people unless it’s important,” Grandpa Walker said.

  Xiv cast his gaze at the floor and slinked behind me.

  “I was effectively done,” Saito said. “The only words left unsaid were ‘to leave’.”

  “Was there anything else we needed to cover?” Kyle asked, trying to divert the conversation back where it belonged.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Grandpa Walker said. “I’ll get this film back in the can and send it to Sterling to be looked at more closely.”

  “All right then,” Kyle said, ending the meeting.

  “I’m sorry,” Xiv said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s not as big a deal as it sounded. I know you’ll try harder to control your enthusiasm, and we don’t need to keep harping on it.”

  “So, are we bringing him along?” Icerazor asked.

  “I did sort of drag him along to chat with Molbrech, and he did help catch Colt,” I said. “So I don’t see why not.”

  Xiv grinned.

  Garden Row was an old residential neighborhood built during the first boom years when New Port Arthur really became a city. It was made of stone-faced townhouses averaging between three and four floors apiece. It used to be a respectable place. At the time, it had been a neighborhood where shopkeeps, managers, and other people aspiring for upper middle
-classdom moved to demonstrate their upward mobility. Times had changed. The park that was its namesake had been built over and absorbed into downtown. The area had spent the latter half of the twentieth century as a slum, and now was in the midst of gentrification. The townhouses were all small apartment buildings. Those that had been refurbished advertised their ‘quaint and historic’ nature. Though there were some real dumps sandwiched in-between.

  Owen Dekker lurked in the basement of one of the latter types. The granite and sandstone front of the building was cracked and crumbling. The wrought iron railing on the stoop wobbled and was pitted with rust. The door to Apartment B looked to have more of its exterior the hue of weathered gray wood than flaking brown paint. Only the iron bars on the window looked sturdy, though two of the panes had been replaced with plywood. I knocked at the door.

  “I hate this job,” Dekker said as he peered out.

  “They pay you?” Icerazor asked.

  “I wish,” he said, finally emerging into the daylight. “I think we’ve met, but I’m not certain.”

  “Icerazor. I was at Vanguard after you were caught. Speaking of, how are you not in prison?”

  “I cut a deal. Part of it involved not talking about the details of the deal.”

  I got the impression that Dekker was lying, but I had nothing more than suspicion to go on. I let the matter drop, it wasn’t worth starting an argument in the middle of the sidewalk over. We piled into the car, and I headed towards the highway. I had to force myself to remember that I wasn’t driving to Kyle’s house. He lived not far from Pickman’s Crossing, and all the times I’d gone down that way were to see him. City gave way to farms, then woods began popping up, and hills intruded, making the farms less common as we proceeded.

  “Are we there yet?” Dekker asked in a sardonic tone.

  In the mirror I saw Xiv glare at him. To his credit, Dekker looked appropriately sheepish, so I didn’t say anything. To my credit, I remembered to turn towards Pickman’s Crossing and head into the hills. The roads in the hills east of the town were riddled with convoluted, winding roads. Some were better than others. Each had been cut for some mine or transfer station or who knows what else. The state of any given road depended entirely on how heavily used it was. The roads up towards Nathan’s Promontory, the actual name of the outcrop the Cathedral sat upon, were a total ruin. No one had paid them any heed since the seventies, and four decades of neglect had left them in a sorry state.

  When we had to get out and move fallen trees just to keep going, I knew for sure we were off the beaten path. The sedan proved unable to go too much further, as the road became less of a road and more of an impression of a road. Fortunately, this was close to the base of the minehead, and within reasonable walking distance. Despite having been in operation for decades, the forest had reclaimed much of the minehead. Crumbling buildings tinged with the chipped remnants of lead paint were propped up by the trees growing along or through their structure. Leaf litter coated the rooevs, and a few had caved in on themselves. Dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy danced over the tattered remains of the work site.

  “These are the lower mines,” Icerazor said. “They were dug after the second world war.”

  “So where is the one we want?” Dekker asked.

  I pointed up the hill.

  “Fantastic. Is there a path or a trail of some kind?”

  “Xiv, could you fly up and see if you can’t find us a way up, please?” I asked.

  He nodded and bounded up into the branches before disappearing from sight entirely. It wasn’t long before his voice buzzed in my earpiece. “There’s a road on the far side of the camp that goes up to the top of the hill. It splits part of the way up. I think one part goes to the church and the other goes into the ground.”

  “Perfect, Xiv, thank you. We’ll meet you on the road.” I looked at the others. “We just keep walking forward.”

  At the other side of the camp, we found a wooden wall built slightly into the side of the hill. It was as battered as the buildings we’d passed, with equally faded and peeling paint. A plethora of signs bearing variations of “No Admittance” and “Danger” were nailed to it. The newest of these read “Property of Vulcanfire Coal - No Trespassing.” Before this entrance and off to the left was a rusted barricade of tube steel. It also had a shiny new “No Trespassing” sign hanging from it. This barricade blocked off a level span of rock cut that hid under a thick layer of leaf litter. While some stones had tumbled down from the hillside, no trees had taken root in the barren rock of the road. It was a rather gentle incline, but the distance made it a bit of a tall order to climb. No wonder no one prayed at Promontory Cathedral. We were sullen and downcast as we passed the canopy and approached the fork in the road where Xiv perched atop a boulder. He vaguely resembled a gargoyle the way he sat there, staring at us.

  “Are we there yet?” Dekker asked, more to himself than to anyone else. Ignoring the comment, I glanced up. Above us, I could see the stone steeples and the flying buttresses of the cathedral proper. Most of the structure was hidden from sight by the hillside, however. I turned my attention down the fork in the road leading into the hillside.

  “Mine or church?” I asked.

  “Mine,” Icerazor said.

  Dekker looked at the steeper trail to the cathedral, then at the relatively level trail into the mine. “Mine,” he said.

  Xiv frowned. I knew he didn’t want to go underground if he could avoid it, but the most he could do at the moment was deadlock the discussion. So instead of arguing, he remained quiet. After he refused to say anything for a long moment, I started down the road towards the mine. There was a wooden wall closing off this entrance as well. The small door set into the wall was held closed with a rusty chain and an ancient padlock. Rattling the lock, I found it a fused block of rust. I stepped back and Icerazor carved through the chain with a single stroke of his sword. Unwinding the chain from the door, I pushed it open. The corroded hinges shrieked at us.

  Stepping into the darkness, I let my eye adjust. The shape of the tunnel was picked out in green. Stout wooden beams held up the roof with brackets in the corners. As a whole, I expected there to be altogether more creaking noises from the bow in some of the timbers and the generally decrepit look of the place. Instead, it was utterly silent, and smelled faintly of wet rock. The tunnel where we stood looked big enough to drive a truck down, and Xiv looked relieved at this. Icerazor shone a small penlight around, pausing when it was shining on me.

  “Are you going to actually use those goggles?”

  I reached up to the goggles sitting on my forehead. I shrugged, took them off and handed them to Icerazor. He muttered a thanks before putting them on and clicking off the penlight. Dekker pushed his glasses up to his forehead, and pools of purple light followed his gaze around the tunnel.

  “Do we ever get to go to anywhere that’s actually nice?” Dekker asked.

  “Not often,” I said. I walked onward, deeper into the tunnel. A set of old boards nailed to the posts caused me to pause. Painted on it was a map.

  “Don’t Get Lost,” the sign above the map said. “Your pay will be docked for the cost of searching for you. The South Mercia Company.” Brushing some of the old dust off the map, I found a large star marked ‘You Are Here’ near the front entrance. It showed the more ragged lines of the mine tunnels and in the middle, a very neat and orderly building of several stories in height. Unfortunately, the interior detail was too badly degraded by time to get anything of value from it.

  “South Mercia Company?” Icerazor asked. I made a show of flipping open the screen on my wrist computer to look them up. The signal was crap, but eventually it came up.

  “The South Mercia Company was a corporate body owned by Lord Edward Castel,” I said. “Was massively restructured after his disappearance. It appears we’re on
the right track.”

  “If I’m reading this right, we just have to go down the tunnel some more and the base is right there,” Dekker said. “That sounds too easy.”

  “How much would it have added to the expense of building this underground base if everything being carted in had to negotiate a labyrinth?” I asked. I tapped the notice. “And besides, who is going to absurdly inconvenience themselves on the off chance it slows down a costumed hero?”

  “People odd enough to become costumed criminals?” Icerazor asked.

  “Just get going,” I said, heading deeper into the mine. The others fell in behind me, and we proceeded through the dark, passing several side passages. Corroded rails lead to a chamber whose walls had been coated with concrete and a drab gray paint that was starting to blister. Heavy machinery sat in the chamber, slowly rusting away.

  “What are these things?” Xiv asked.

  “Coal breakers,” Dekker said. “They’re not normally in the mine, and it’s odd for their conveyor belts to head deeper into the mountain.”

  “Let’s see where they go,” I said. That was easy, since the conveyor belts were going in the same direction we were headed to begin with. They passed through a concrete wall on either side of a truck-sized door. The door was rusted shut. Rather than try to force it, my attention turned to the holes through which the conveyor belts ran. They were plenty big enough for me to crawl through.

  “This is why you wear black, isn’t it?” Icerazor grumbled.

  “We had this conversation before. I think it was in an elevator shaft.” I looked around the room. The conveyor belt fed a series of now-empty coal bunkers. Each sat in front of a hulking boiler. The boilers were hooked up to turbines and dynamos. We were in a power plant. I wasn’t sure where the exhaust from the fireboxes went, but poking about in a steam plant was not our objective. With the others through the wall, I began looking around the edges of the power plant. There was less rusting around here, and the doors out of the room looked like we could operate them.