“The Pope would have struggles.”
“Exactly.” He threw his hands up. “I don’t honestly know what I’m going to do without her to keep me from thinking for myself.” He passed the flask back to Saxton.
“That doesn’t often turn out for the best.” Saxton smacked his tingling lips. “Is there laudanum in this?”
“Just a pinch.” He took the flask for another sip and then put it back in his coat.
“I truly am sorry, James. She was a great woman and she didn’t deserve to be caught up in this mess.”
“No, she didn’t.” The doctor rose and rubbed his eyes clear with his palms. “I think I’m going to go kill a priest now.”
“Excellent!” Saxton stood and stretched from being hunkered over in the bunk. “We really ought to go to Mirov’s address first. We need to make sure this thing hasn’t jumped bodies again. We also need to think of way to actually test them. I was thinking we could check the eyes. The parasite makes them glow, so maybe we can illicit that response somehow. Make it nervous or frightened so that it’ll show itself.”
“Don’t be an imbecile. It’s unbecoming.” Wells scratched at his earlobe. “Trudy said something about her notes earlier. I’m going to go fetch those and some of my belongings from the cargo hold.” He held up a finger. “I had a memory earlier. Another burst of them from this thing we’re hunting.”
“Me too. About being frozen.”
“I’m right there with you, chronologically. The caveman, your Neanderthal, did you see him? The way the thing did, I mean.”
“No.” Saxton sank a little. “I missed that part.”
“You would’ve liked him. He was fierce. So was the warrior the thing was using when he took him.”
“I saw that bit. The Pilgrim.” Saxton nodded. “That’s what it called him.”
“Yes. The Pilgrim, that’s right.” Wells paced as he spoke. “This creature is pathetic. It’s frail and miniscule, and I think it hates that. Maybe it picked up on the notion from spending too much time in humans, but it despises physical weakness.”
Saxton pinched the bridge of his nose. “James, you know how I hate that bloody pacing. What are you getting at?”
“Children, the elderly, the infirm. It would avoid them. Which means we don’t need to test them. We just need to get them out of the way.”
“Are you suggesting we throw them from the train?”
“Yes.” Wells spun on a heel and pointed a finger at Saxton. “Don’t get too excited, it’s not going to be as fun as you’re thinking. In fact, it’s going to be extremely dangerous. Remember when we spoke at Trinity in Dublin?”
Saxton thought for a moment then snapped his fingers. “That Irish writer was sauced and arguing with you about his idiotic vampire novel.”
“Yes, I still say that his medical research was poppycock at best and his narrative was the melodramatic drivel of a well-spoken tosspot. I am currently speaking of the train ride, however. There was a miniscule village that didn’t warrant a stop, so they used a slip carriage. You commented on it, I believe.”
“They let the bloody carriage go careening wildly by itself.”
“Not by itself. There was a brakeman onboard to stop it and let the passengers off without stopping the train. Our brakemen have been together this entire time in the caboose, meaning the thing couldn’t have taken over one without alerting the other.”
“So then, we put all the weaklings in the caboose, disconnect it and let them off at the next stop.”
“Exactly. Less places for the bastard to hide and less people to get killed by mistake.”
“Don’t we need the brakemen?”
“No. The brakes up here are automatic. The engineer controls them. You’d like him, he’s of high color and low class. You go to the meeting and figure out who’s getting off the train, and I’ll go get the fireman, because we do need him.” He looked over his shoulder at the gangway door. Voices mumbled in the distance, some clearly shouting. “Sounds like Mirov brought the meeting to you.”
***
Tremblay jumped at the shadow and cast a glance up at the clerestory roof. Moonlight streamed through the glass, but nothing else.
“A branch. Perhaps a night bird,” he reassured himself. “What damn fool would be on the roof after all?”
He rubbed his frozen ears and ducked through the access panel in the floor again. His bandaged hand stretched out, the wind under the train sliced through his wool shirt and whistled sharply. The prize of his peril was much further away than logic suggested it would be and hanging upside down wasn’t making the job easier. Neither was the roar of the steel wheels speeding along the rails that made his brain pound with its rhythm.
“Gee Whilikins, what have I gotten myself into?” He stretched further, letting more of his body slip through the panel.
Finally, he hooked the cable he was reaching for and tugged it loose from the brace on the side of the car. Immediately, the lights inside his coach went out. He tried to wriggle backwards through the panel, but the precarious angle left him with little purchase. His shoulder burned as lactic acid spread through it and into his rhomboid, then down his side. His legs tensed as he flexed his heels into the carpeted flooring in a desperate attempt to anchor himself. He felt his foot slipping from his shoe and quickly adjusted his leg.
The movement forced him out of the panel further and the frozen ground ripped a strip from the elbow of his shirt—and the skin beneath. He pinched the cable between his fingers and palm tightly. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he worked his arm closer to his chest.
“Please be well insulated.” He closed his eyes and bit down on the cable, holding it firmly between his teeth. With his hand free, he found a rusted beam to push off from and slid back into the car. Tremblay kicked the panel shut and spat out the cable.
“This is Saxton’s job,” he huffed. “Canadians don’t do this sort of thing.”
He groaned at the forming blood puddle in his palm. He inspected the wound through the ragged tear. “That’s going to hurt like the dickens when my skin warms back up.” He tied the cable into place so it wouldn’t slip away while he staunched the bleeding.
***
“Two pair, pine d’huître!” Sasha laughed and threw the aces and eights across the table for the other brakeman to see.
“Mes couilles sur ton front.” Fredrick tossed his cards onto the floor. He fell for the bluff and folded on three of a kind. He rose sharply, sending his stool over with a bang. “You’re a cheat. Enjoy your stolen goods, you dick skin.” He slapped the pack of cigarettes he’d bet across the table to his partner.
“Don’t be so happy, Sasha.” Chuck, the fireman, picked his nostril. “You know what they call that hand in America?” He eyed the prize of his efforts and wiped it on the coat hanging next to him.
“Of course not, Chuck. They won’t let me into America.” He stuffed the cigarettes into his bibs. “They know all their ladies would follow me back here.” He laughed again.
Chuck snickered. “Don’t get cocky, kid. We have work to do and it ain’t getting any warmer out there. Let’s start this shit show.”
“Hold up, Chuck.” Fredrick pulled his toboggan over his ears. “What do they call it? The hand?”
Chuck pulled the coat down across his lap. “Aces over eights is a dead man’s hand.”
The glass overhead shattered for emphasis.
Shards rained down and tinkled across the table a second before the man in black landed on it. His wild eyes burned beneath dark brows caked with beads of frozen sweat. His hand lashed out, and the white of his priestly collar flashed briefly beneath his beard. The brakeman’s head tilted back, his throat gaping wide. Twin fountains shot from the severed arteries as he stumbled away. The priest spun and smiled. He flung the blade into Fredrick’s back as the man turned to run.
Chuck made it through the door and slammed it shut. His ashen face shook back and forth violently as he denied Fredrick’s ple
as for help. The young brakeman was jerked away from the door and landed with a yelp on the knife protruding from his back. The priest pressed his face against the glass and eyed Chuck merrily, the glass fogging over with his breath.
His bloody finger traced a two-barred cross in the condensation, then twisted a figure-eight around its base.
“I am saved by our one true Lord and reborn in His image. I am Leviathan, the devourer of the damned. I shall rend your flesh and drink of your blood so that your soul may find its home upon the Master’s spit.”
Chuck ran.
“Yes, run. Run fast and herald the coming of the one true God, Lucifer, for His time is now. Tell them all, you pathetic cockroach.”
Fredrick watched as the priest sighed blissfully and turned his attentions back to him. The man raised his hands and shrugged.
“Now that he’s out of our way.” The priest drew a long amputation knife from behind him. “Let’s hear those sins, my boy.”
***
The screams coming through the door made Mountie Earl Hicks’ hand freeze in mid-knock. The high-pitched shrieking and cursing overlapped the moans and slapping of flesh. The crude concert made his cheeks redden. The wooden bed frame struck the wall with a rhythmic pounding that drowned out his puny knocks and forced him to beat an assertive fist against the thin door. A woman giggled and then wailed. Another voice begged for rapidity and depth. Hicks fanned himself as his imagination painted a picture of the goings-on in his captain’s quarters.
The banging continued and quickened. Finally, the captain’s voice was heard in a bearlike grumble followed by a groan that turned to victorious laughter. Satisfied moans softened and then faded to whispers and coos. Hicks sputtered his lips and knocked again.
“Enter, you fucking drudge,” the shout came.
The Mountie entered the room and froze. His mouth hung open and wiggled slightly.
Captain Kazan sat against the headboard with a brunette lady buried against him. She traced his various scars with her slender fingers. Hicks blinked in disbelief, having just arrested the girl that morning for the immorality of prostituting herself in front of the general store. That sort of behavior was why the city paid for alleys, after all. A sheet twisted around her pale legs but covered nothing else, and the captain couldn’t even be bothered with that much modesty. He sat spread-eagled with his deflated member draped across a powerful thigh.
The Inuit girl that cooked for the station sauntered across the room. Her brown breasts bounced hypnotically and made Hicks’ head nod along unconsciously. He hadn’t noticed their fullness under her usual attire, but he would never be able to not notice henceforth. She puffed one of the captain’s cigars and slipped back into bed, pulling the fur blanket over her curvaceous rear. She pushed the cigar into Kazan’s mouth and nuzzled his neck. The former strongman’s still-massive arm wrapped around her as she nested against his ribs.
Kazan smiled around the cigar. “Even a Cossack needs a break from time to time.” His voice, more a rumble of thunder, was accented only slightly. “But not a very long one. Get to your purpose, piss ant.”
“Sir, I have been quiet far too long. You have been here for several months now, and I believe it is time that I say something.”
“Seems to me you’ve said quite a lot to have not said anything at all.”
Hicks looked down at his polished boots and tapped the toe of one to the heel of the other. “It’s just that… well, don’t you think your behavior is more than a little indecorous for a captain of the Mounted Police?”
Kazan filled one mighty hand with a perfect brown breast and the other slapped down on the prostitute’s porcelain ass which drew a pleasured sigh from her lips. “It wouldn’t be any goddamn fun if it wasn’t.” He laughed heartily.
Hicks cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. But… oh, never mind.” He held up a piece of paper. “We’ve received a telegram from the continental express, sir.”
“And?” His attention drifted to the nipple between his finger and thumb. “Is there a problem?”
“The whole thing is quite moonstruck, if I do say so. It claims there’s been some murders. As in more than one. I don’t see how such a thing is possible, especially with Mounties aboard.”
“None that I’ve trained, obviously.”
“No, sir. I don’t believe so, anyhow. They’re bypassing their stop and requesting our assistance. They want us to board between stops, in the wilderness, if you can believe that. It seems they’ve gone quite mad. The frozen lakes of Hell would be a tad warmer, I think.”
“You fucking Canadians don’t know cold.” The Cossack looked up at Hicks and chuckled. “If there is a killer onboard, then meeting in the wild is exactly what I would do. It is a strategic move, a soldier’s move. The murderer will have no choice but to face me.”
Hicks nodded. “Yes, of course, sir. I should have thought of that. The telegram says he’s already killed a score of people including Mounties, though. I would suggest we not take undue risks.”
“If he has already killed many, then maybe he poses some challenge. I so miss a real challenge.” He paused as the brunette took the cigar from his mouth and flicked the ash into the floor. “Thank you, love. The Japanese, they have some fight in them. Can you believe that, Hicks, as small as they are?”
The prostitute smoked his stogie and winked at Hicks, who hoped the stirring she caused would go unnoticed. She teased the end of the cigar with her tongue, making the Mountie shift uncomfortably. She snorted as she suppressed a laugh.
“Their little yellow bodies make the most satisfactory sounds when you crush them, but they make you work for it.” Kazan stared at the ceiling and grunted. “Those are real goddamn warriors. Not enough of them anymore. Certainly not in Canada.”
Maybe it was the voluptuous vixens pressed on either side of him or the recollection of past glory, but the Cossack’s mighty sword rose to the occasion and further reminded Hicks of how inadequate Canadian men were compared to the indomitable Captain Kazan.
Hicks’ head hung low. “Perhaps you’ll get your wish, sir.”
“That would be a glorious fucking day.” He took his cigar back and inhaled greedily. He flicked it in the general direction of the fireplace and smiled with a sharp exhale. “We will intercept the train twelve miles out. Now close my door. There’s an uprising that these ladies need to put down.”
Chapter Sixteen
Chuck’s feet flew into the air and his back met the floorboards with a bone-jarring impact. The blood around him led back to the exsanguinated remains of a plump matron. He rolled away from her body and tried to crawl clear, only for his knees to slip and his face to splat into the bodily fluid. He pressed himself off the floor and looked back the way he came. The mad priest didn’t seem to be pursuing him, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
He ran as fast as he could, throwing open doors and leaving them ajar as he made his way to the front of the car. Chuck should never have left the engine. The engine was always safe. The door was solid iron. Then there was Johnnie. No one could best Johnnie in a brawl. He should’ve stayed in the engine. He made it to the eleventh coach and froze instantly.
The lights were off.
The bloody carpet stuck to his shoes, making an odd sound as he took a tentative step forward. Chuck held his breath as he ventured into the gloom. He knew that the priest couldn’t get ahead of him. Even if he went back onto the roofs and ran across, the wind was too harsh to get this far up so fast. He certainly wouldn’t have time to disable the lights. The generator’s cables probably froze and snapped—it happened from time to time, or so he’d heard. A bit of moonlight danced through the windows along the roof. Dust particles sparkled in the light. Chuck steeled his nerve and took his final step.
***
Tremblay watched from the shadows as the man stumbled into the car. The passenger compartment provided plenty of cover. More so, if the man had come from the right direction. He had expected the creatur
e to come from the front of the train. The idea that the killer was at his back the entire time twisted his stomach like Irish knotwork. He could have died at any moment. The killer, the man-thing that it was, could have just pushed him through when he was dangling beneath the train and no one would have even known where to find his remains.
He shuddered and tried to refocus. The moonlight wasn’t much help, but it was enough. The man’s body was slick with blood, turned black by the magnesium rays washing through the high glass. It was obvious that this man was possessed by the—whatever it was. He was practically bathed in the evidence. Tremblay held his breath as the man edged forward.
If the trap didn’t work, then he would surely be discovered. He was no fighter. The creature would murder him and possess his mind like it had so many others. What secrets would he give it? Wells’ commentary on atomic weapons scratched at the back of his mind. As did his previous research with Tesla and that horrid device they made. Would he arm this thing once it had his mind? His stomach lurched.
Then the man stepped on the switch.
***
Wells froze as he reached for the door handle. The next car came to life in a lurid flashing of lights—the dim yellows flickering overhead, the searing orange of fabric smoldering, and the sharp crackling blues arcing from the man’s body as he shuddered and danced. The fibers of his pants glowed brighter and then burst into open flame. The man didn’t scream, couldn’t with his jaw clenched together so tensely. Bloody bile, forced up by the convulsions, ejected itself between his teeth. His eyes seemed to grow, until they popped from their sockets and jiggled from their nerves like Christmas ornaments.
Even through the sealed door, Wells could hear the sizzle of cooking meat. He pulled his shirt over his nose before the sweet smell of long pig got to him—he remembered it well enough from countless battlefields. He watched in horror as the man’s skin blackened and split. Tongues of lightning licked the air, cracking and popping as they searched for conduits. Wells’ stomach turned as he realized what was happening.
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