Gaslit Revolution

by Jason Gilbert

  “You have information.”

  “None that I’m willing to share.”

  “We’ll see about that. Enjoy your life in prison.”

  Kane felt a hand on his shoulder as he reined his hearing in. He looked over to Tabitha.

  “We gotta go,” he said to her, shaking his head. “Before we get caught. Take us somewhere safe.”

  The inside of the office was musty and dark, papers and debris scattered around as if the place had been ransacked. Chairs in the lobby were overturned, and the doctor’s desk was a cluttered mess of paperwork, cigarette papers, tobacco, and an ashtray that probably hadn’t been emptied in a year.

  Alastair Jones hadn’t been known for his housekeeping.

  Tabitha sat down in the doctor’s chair, looking around.

  “Wow, this thing is comfy,” she said. “I never thought I’d be able to sit in Jones’s chair!”

  “Not while he was alive,” Kane said, looking around. He felt a small pain in his chest, seeing the inside of Jones’s office again bringing back memories of his conversations with the fellow Magician. Most of them consisted of Jones grouching at him and eventually kicking him out. Jones had been coarse, his bedside manner akin to a grizzly bear. But he’d been noble, brave, and a true friend. Kane had revered the doctor as a best friend, a brother.

  A father figure.

  The memory played in his mind again. Jones healing him, telling him to quit whining. Barking orders that they needed to get their asses aboard the Jezebel. Gentry’s sickening purr. A round chambered. Tabitha screaming as Jones went down, his head blown open, his blood spattered on Kane’s face. It was so long ago. Jones had helped him defeat the Mors Rebrum. And he’d paid with his life. Kane lived, and Jones burned with the shipyard.

  Gone.

  “I miss him, too,” Tabitha said.

  Kane shook his head, looked at her.

  “What?”

  “I said I miss him, too.” Tabitha gave him a small, sad smile. “I know that look. I don’t like that look. Stop it. You couldn’t have saved him.”

  Kane grunted, looking out from the office door, through the window in the lobby as a large searchlight shone down from above, panning around the area. A police patrol ship. Not something he’d particularly missed during his stint in the South.

  Another memory flashed in his mind. Anderson laying against a wall, a harpoon through her chest. Her last words spoken around the blood pooling in her mouth.

  You made the right choice.

  “Seems like I can’t save anyone,” Kane said, turning away from the door and walking over to the desk. “Why’d you bring us here?”

  Tabitha grinned.

  “Jones’s Grimoire, silly!”

  Kane raised an eyebrow.

  “Jones is dead, Tabitha. How is his Grimoire going to do us any good?”

  She shrugged.

  “I dunno,” she said. “But I do know that we keep learning new things about ourselves and our power. Casting without amulets, inventing spells and stuff. Maybe we can learn something from him?”

  Kane rubbed his face.

  “Tabitha, I doubt it’ll help,” he said. “Jones is gone. His book is a fucking paperweight.”

  A loud thump sounded from the file cabinet in the back corner of the office. Kane blinked at the sound, went over to the file cabinet as Tabitha stood.

  “What was that?”

  “Stay back,” Kane said, drawing his rune on his amulet and conjuring a fireball. “We don’t know who’s been here since Jones died.”

  He heard Tabitha conjure an ice spear. He looked at her, nodded, and opened the file drawer.

  An old book sat in the bottom, the cover made of leather and etched with drawings and symbols. Kane extinguished the fireball, picked up the book, and opened it. The handwriting was legible, though Kane didn’t understand Portuguese. He leafed through, saw symbols and charts drawn out, some of them marked up with notes and lines pointing to different points as if to indicate a more specific direction to the incantation. He skipped to the second half of the book, recognizing Jones’s handwriting instantly.

  Jones’s Grimoire. Kane thought back to the time when he’d jokingly wondered if calling the book a “fucking paperweight” would’ve summoned it and chuckled.

  What are the odds?

  A Magician’s Grimoire was his source, his lifeline to his power. Entrusting access to another Magician outside of the family took blind trust and faith in that person. It was kinsmanship, an acknowledgement of brotherhood.

  “Aw,” Tabitha said from behind him. “Jonesy trusted you with his Grimoire! How sweet of him! I knew he was just a big grouchy sweetheart!”

  Kane leafed through the pages, saw post-mortem photos of Jones’s family members.

  “I don’t know what could help us here,” Kane said. “We’ll need to decipher it. Right now, we just need to keep our heads down until we can figure out what’s been going on here while we’ve been away.”

  “I’d rather keep our heads down at my apartment,” Tabitha said. “I’m sure my appliances miss me.”

  Kane ignored Tabitha’s comment and kept looking through Jones’s book. Chesterfield seemed meticulous, thorough. Educated on his marks. He was after Kane and Tabitha. It made sense that he might pay Jones’s office and Tabitha’s apartment a visit looking for their Grimoires.

  Kane closed the book and looked at her.

  “That’ll be the first place they look,” he said. “This place will likely be second. We can’t go there, but we can’t stay here, either.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Kane searched his mind, tried to think of a place. His first thought was Antonia Boudreaux. Madam Boudreaux’s was the brothel in Hidden Valley, but it also served as a haven for lost girls. Antonia didn’t ask them to work unless they planned on staying there permanently, and even then it had to be the girl’s decision to work at all. She was a formidable woman, fearsome and motherly. Even the police didn’t dare mess with the wrath of Antonia Boudreaux.

  Until the night they stormed her house looking for Kane and Tabitha. That was the night Richard, a Shadow Wraith, shot Kane through the door with a blood-covered bullet, cursed him with the Wendigo. Kane wondered if that night had made them brave, given them the invitation to hassle Antonia more regularly. The prostitute network was an important information highway for the Revolution.

  There was only one way to find out.

  Antonia Boudreaux’s home was an old Victorian house that stood between two office buildings in Hidden Valley. The offices had been abandoned years ago as things declined, though Hidden Valley still remained the most populated of the communities in Hell’s Kitchen. Her home was a beacon in the neighborhood: the small yard neat and clean, the front porch perfectly swept, the cushions on the wooden rockers always washed and clean. The porch swing sat empty, a telltale sign that dawn was coming.

  Kane knocked on the door and waited. He knocked again. Under normal circumstances, he would be hesitant to wake Antonia. She had strict rules about what times were appropriate for gentlemen callers to knock on her door. The earliest hours of the morning didn’t fall into her ideal timeframe, and she’d walloped more than a few men who’d been foolish enough to test the waters. Word traveled fast and well in Hidden Valley: mind your time. If you have to ask what time is appropriate, best not darken Antonia’s doorstep.

  Sandra opened the front door. She wore a green silk robe over her nightgown, the color making her red hair stand out more. She was Antonia’s assistant, and took care of things when Antonia was unavailable. She’d unwittingly helped introduce Kane to the Mors Rebrum while he investigated the Blood Priest murders. She looked at Kane, her scowl quickly turning into a look of surprise and delight as she opened the screen door and rushed him, wrapping her arms around him in an embrace.

  “Oh, God!” she breathed. “Kane!”

  “Hi, Sandra,” Kane said, gently pulling away. She touched his face, her eyes filling
with tears.

  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  Tabitha cleared her throat. Sandra looked at her, the scowl returning.

  “Hi,” Tabitha said, cheerily. “Good to see you, Sandra! Can we come in?”

  “Tabitha,” Sandra said, her acknowledgement sounding far less enthused. She looked at Kane. “Come in. Both of you. We don’t need the police seeing you here.”

  “Is Antonia awake?”

  “No,” Sandra said. “But she can be in a minute. She’ll want to see you, Kane. She’s been expecting you.”

  Kane raised an eyebrow.

  “Since when?”

  Sandra looked at him, stepping aside and motioning for him and Tabitha to go inside.

  “Ever since her daughter died.”

  Chapter Two

  Kane and Tabitha sat on the couch in the parlor. The fire in the fireplace had gone to embers, the room warm by comparison to the cool air outside. Gaslit sconces burned low on the walls, the room dark as if cold was trying to fight back the warmth of the fireplace. Having just left the muggy and humid swamplands of the South, the North now seemed more frigid to him. He’d only managed to put his tattered, bloodied shirt back on while on Bill’s airship. His trench coat was long gone.

  He’d at least managed to save his Stetson hat.

  Tabitha’s hand moved close to his, onto his, her fingers interlacing with his as she whispered, “This makes me nervous.”

  “Why?” Kane asked. “It’s Antonia.”

  “I know,” said Tabitha. “I also know that she’s not going to be happy about being woken up at this hour. I know I wouldn’t be.”

  “She’s probably also not real happy about her daughter being dead.”

  “Thanks, Kane. You really know how to make it all better.”

  “Would you rather have waited until the sun came up? Maybe walk around in broad daylight?”

  She looked at him.

  “We could us our invisibility spells, Kane. You’re being silly.”

  “They know we’re back,” Kane said. “Likely, they’ll be using Seekers. We’d be screwing ourselves.”

  Kane looked toward the main foyer where the staircase came to an end as he heard Antonia’s signature grunt accompany her footfalls on the carpeted stairs. He couldn’t lie; he was more nervous than Tabitha for completely different reasons.

  General Regina Boudreaux Anderson had been the leader of the Revolution. She’d taken Kane and Tabitha to Charleston, South Carolina in hopes that they would join the fight and, by using their magic, make it easier to combat the Special Forces garrisons that followed them. Unfortunately, New Chicago Police Commissioner William Gentry had also followed them. He’d killed Anderson in cold blood.

  And it was Kane’s fault.

  Tabitha was dying. He’d been given an impossible choice: pick a life to trade for hers, or watch her die. Wilhelmina, the Marsh Witch, granted Tabitha her life back after her spirits read Kane’s thoughts. He couldn’t lose Tabitha. He kept telling himself over and over again, just as Anderson had told him with her dying breath, that he’d made the right choice.

  Now he had to face the wrath of her mother.

  Antonia entered the parlor and Kane stood, remembering his manners.

  The large black woman stood in the doorway, her arms crossed in front of her. She wore her typical garb: a brown skirt and white blouse with long sleeves. A white apron covered her front, and her hair was tied back in a fierce bun. She glared at Kane as she walked in. Kane went still, and Tabitha hid behind him with a small whimper as Antonia stepped up to Kane, looking up at him. She was shorter than him by at least a foot.

  Kane knew her height didn’t do much to hide her ferocity.

  “Hello, Antonia,” he said. “How—”

  The loud slap across his face cut him off mid-sentence. His jaw slackened as his head whipped to the side, his cheek stinging from the hit. Tabitha yelped and backed away as Antonia stepped even closer to Kane.

  “You gotta lot of nerve comin’ here after what the hell I’ve been through,” Antonia snapped. “Gonna come up in my house at this hour like you ain’t been gone without a word! Not even have the common courtesy to let me know ahead of time so I can clean! I question Lieutenant Danwood’s upbringin’, but I know yo’ mama raised you better.” She stared at him, her jaw set. Kane rubbed the side of his face where she’d walloped him. Before he knew what happened, Antonia was on him in a hard, motherly hug. She pulled away, grinning as she gripped his shoulders and squeezed.

  “It’s so good to see my babies!” she said, pinching Kane’s cheek before she moved to Tabitha and hugged her. “Ooh, girl, let me get a look at you! Oh, you still so pretty! Both of you need a bath. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Antonia,” Kane said, taking a slight step back in case Antonia decided he needed another slap. “How did you know we were here?”

  Antonia spoke over her shoulder as she faced Tabitha.

  “Oh, honey, I was already stirrin’. Gotta get breakfast goin’ for my girls and a couple of clients.” She eyed Tabitha as Kane shook his head. “Girl! You got that glow! He done finally come around?”

  Tabitha grinned, her eyes wide and excited as she nodded eagerly.

  “We had sex!”

  Kane buried face in his palm.

  “Oh, my God,” he muttered.

  Antonia clapped her hands.

  “It’s about time! He’s a fine catch! Little dense, but they all are.”

  “I’m still in the room,” Kane said, pulling his hand away and raising his eyebrow.

  Antonia looked over her shoulder.

  “Hush, Kane,” she said. “Women-folk talkin’.”

  Kane cleared his throat.

  “Antonia, I’m not trying to be rude, but we’re on borrowed time. We’re—”

  “Fugitives,” Antonia said, turning to him. “You think I don’t already know that, Kane Shepherd? You two have been in the papers ever since you left.” She put her hands on her hips. “We got a lot to talk about, Kane. All three of us. She need to know, too.”

  Kane nodded.

  “Then let’s get right to it,” he said. “What happened here, Antonia? What’s going on?”

  Antonia’s smile faded as she spoke.

  “You done missed it all, Kane,” she said. “Ain’t no mystery as to where it started or what started it, but trust and believe that Hidden Valley, hell all of New Chicago seen better days.”

  Above all else, Kane wished he could’ve been surprised that things in Hidden Valley had gone from bad to worse.

  Kane and Tabitha sat on the couch while Antonia filled them in on the current events in New Chicago. Their escape from the shipyard weeks ago when they’d fled South had caused a massive ripple in the city, starting with mandatory Special Forces surveillance in every shipyard. Battle Cruisers hovering overhead while yard workers toiled away at their daily and nightly tasks were now the norm, and gunnery ships joined the police patrol ships that lumbered through the city, watching the streets below. The police interrogated everyone in Hidden Valley. Raids were carried out at random, homes targeted for no apparent reason.

  Corporations had also joined in on the fun. Laborers and low-tier employees were subject to pay cuts and layoffs while top-level board members and chairmen—the Oligarchs—saw gigantic pay raises. Now that Thomas Frostmeyer, the wealthiest of all the Oligarchs in the Northern Union, was President, he had the ability to help them avoid pesky little things like taxes and investigations into fraud on an even larger scale. Burden shifted to the lower classes, and Hidden Valley was just one of several low-income communities being crushed under the boot of the wealthy.

  To add to the excitement, anyone accused of magic use, regardless of proof, could now be killed on the spot. By anyone. In the weeks that Kane and Tabitha had been in the South, the number of murders in the Northern Union was staggering. It was a part of daily life in to go outside and find a body bleeding into a street drain.
<
br />   Kane stared into the fireplace, his mind spinning. What could he have done if he hadn’t left? His friends would still be dead, maybe even more of them, and Frostmeyer would still be President.

  And Gentry would still be a Magician working on the Oligarch payroll alongside a Blood Priest responsible for the operation of the Special Forces.

  “Wow,” Tabitha said, shifting on the couch. “That’s awful. Is Ralphie’s still open?”

  “Yeah, he is,” Antonia said. “I don’t know how long, though. He likes to keep his head down. Me, I ain’t got nothin’ they want anymore. The prostitute network is shut down. After the murders and everything that’s happened, girls is keepin’ they mouths shut. They don’t even pull shifts between my place and the Mermaid anymore. They go to work, do their shift, and be done with it. Men tell them something, they just let it go.” She sat back in her chair, stared into the fireplace as if lost in thought.

  “Antonia,” Kane said, sitting forward on the couch. It was time to clear the air. “We need to talk.”

  “I know about my daughter, Kane,” she said, not looking at him. He saw a single tear run down her cheek as she spoke. “Jimmy Catch sent word after you left his place. I’ve already mourned. Already done screamed to God and gnashed my teeth.” She pulled a handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes. “She believed in you, in the Revolution, and she was a smart woman. A fine woman. Every bit of fire her mama is.” Antonia chuckled. “Probably why we didn’t get along.”

  “I’m sorry, Antonia,” Kane said, his voice low. “I’m so sorry.”

  Antonia shook her head.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “But she’s gone now, and you two ain’t done with what you got to do.”

  “What do you mean?” Kane said.

  Antonia shook her head.

  “You were part of the Revolution,” she said. “Everyone knows what happened in that shipyard when you ran off and poor Alastair Jones went got himself shot. And Jimmy Catch sent word about what happened in the South just yesterday. Both at his place and Charleston.” She leaned forward, eyeing Kane. “That man—Commissioner Gentry—he’s obsessed with you. And everyone knows it. And with him bein’ a Magician, there’s no tellin’ what he can do to get his hands on you.”