by Chris Paton
Sucking at his little finger, Blaidd lingered over the personal effects arranged on top of the chest of drawers. He picked up a smooth mahogany box inlaid with copper spirals and petals. A picture frame with the same pattern, the glass long since removed, lay flat on the surface next to the box. Blaidd tossed the box over his shoulder and picked up the frame. He traced his fingers around the chin and jaw of the young woman in the picture. With a dirty thumbnail, he scratched at the face of the young man in naval uniform grinning beside the woman. Blaidd removed the man’s face and dropped the picture frame onto the floor.
Finished with the contents of the drawers, Blaidd stood and hunted through the various glass and brass equipment on the charred work surfaces. Pulling idly at rubber hoses, Blaidd toppled flasks and cylinders onto the floor. He stopped short at the crash of equipment. Striding to the window, Blaidd leaned out and checked the street for passersby. Satisfied, he continued his search.
A heavy wooden cupboard recessed into a dividing wall caught Blaidd’s eye. Glass crunched beneath the soles of his hobnail boots as he crossed the laboratory floor and tugged at the handles. The doors rattled on spindly hinges. Blaidd reached down and tugged a long knife from the sleeve of his boot and slipped it between the two doors. Jerking the back of the blade upward in the narrow gap, Blaidd sprang the lock and the doors swung open. He slipped the knife back inside his boot.
Brushing aside loose sheaths of paper, Blaidd checked the shelves inside the cupboard. He crouched down. Blaidd pulled a leather bag from the bottom shelf. He opened the bag and tipped out the contents. Sugar crystals spilled onto the floor with a soft hiss. Blaidd tossed the bag aside and dropped to his knees. With one palm on the floor and the other hand grasping the third shelf from the bottom, he bent and twisted to search the shelf. In the corner he spied an oblong box made of hardwood lying on its side. Blaidd let go of the shelf above him and reached in to pull the box out. Grasping the handle on the side, he pulled it off the shelf and onto the floor.
Blaidd shifted position. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he turned the box on one end and opened it by sliding the side panel up and out of the grooves running along one side. Blaidd turned the box in the dim light from the laboratory windows. Tipping it, he gripped a large, rusty metal cylinder in his hand as it slipped out. Blaidd tossed the box to one side.
Rough and pitted, the cylinder was hinged and fastened with a metal claw closure. Blaidd flicked the claw out of the loop and opened the door of the cylinder. He examined it in the light, admiring the intricate spirals of strangely lettered cogs descending down to the base in ever decreasing sizes. He ran his fingers over the rough metal hole for a crank handle sunk into the top of the cylinder. Blaidd paused at the sound of a steam engine slowing to a stop outside the laboratory. The smell of coal floated into the laboratory through the broken window.
Closing the door of the cylinder, Blaidd shoved it inside the cavernous cargo pocket of his duster. Unfolding his legs, he drew the knife from his boot and a flechette pistol from his belt. The long barrel of the pistol reflected the light from a sodium crystal lantern as the driver of the steam carriage directed the beam on the window. Blaidd held his breath and listened to the voices outside.
“We can climb in through the window,” Luise called out to Hari. “It is too late to have the warden open the door. He will be eating his supper. Here, help me up, Hari.”
Blaidd rolled onto his knees and raised the pistol, resting the barrel on top of the work surface dividing the laboratory in half.
“Let me go first, Miss Luise. The window is broken. Perhaps there is someone inside?”
“It’s my laboratory, Hari.”
With quiet breaths, Blaidd drew the pistol across the wooden surface as a pair of hands took hold of the window sill.
“Push my heels, Hari.”
Blaidd ducked his head beneath the work surface as Luise clambered into the laboratory. Twisting the knife handle within his left hand, the tip of the blade pointing downward, Blaidd flexed his fingers.
“I’m in,” Luise frowned as she took in the tumble of drawers and chaos of equipment littering the floor. Flicking her head in the direction of the cupboard, Luise gasped and took a step forward. “No.”
Blaidd popped up from beneath the work surface and fired the pistol. A quiver of tiny darts shooshed through the air. Luise shuddered as one of the iron flechettes pierced her side. She slumped to the floor.
“Miss Luise?” Hari dragged himself through the window, wincing as the palm of his right hand gripped the sill. He dropped to the floor, looking first at Luise then Blaidd.
“She’s hurt, eh?” Blaidd waved the pistol at Hari. “Not much time. You decide.”
Hari opened his robes and gripped the pommel of his kukri within the fingers of his good hand.
“Me or the girl,” Blaidd pointed the pistol at Luise.
“Miss Luise?” Hari glanced down at Luise lying on the floor, blood staining her skirt black.
“Hari,” Luise pressed her hands to her side. “I can’t stop it, Hari.”
“There’s your choice, eh?” Blaidd holstered the flechette pistol. Staring at Hari, Blaidd bent down and slid the knife into the sheath in his boot sleeve. “Pretty girls shouldn’t bleed out.” He took a step toward the second window. Blaidd held up his hand as the sodium light flashed across his face. He tapped his fingers on the sill and turned to look around the laboratory. “Maybe I’ll just take the door.” Blaidd pointed to the corner of the room furthest from the window. “Bit busy outside. More of your friends, eh?”
“Go,” Hari let go of the kukri.
Blaidd tapped two crooked fingers to his forehead. “Thanks, friend.” With a last glance at his hat, Blaidd turned and fled the room, his duster drooping with the weight of the machine. The laboratory door swung on oiled hinges as he crashed through it.
Hari dropped to Luise’s side and peeled her fingers away from the wound. She shook her head.
“Don’t, Hari. Just bind it.”
“We have to remove the projectile, Miss Luise,” Hari picked at her fingers.
“No,” Luise nodded at green chest at the end of the work surface. “Bandages are in there.”
“Yes,” Hari’s robes swished through the wreckage on the floor. Wrenching open the chest he pulled out a roll of brown bandages. Luise forced a smile as Hari hurried over and knelt beside her. “I must help you up to wrap the bandages around you.”
“Yes,” Luise shuddered.
“Are you cold, Miss Luise?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“Then we must keep you warm.”
“Treatment,” Luise breathed.
“What was that?” Hari leaned in close.
“I will need to treat this,” Luise lifted a bloody palm from her side and held it against Hari’s cheek. “Quickly, Hari.”
Chapter 7
Old Pye Polytechnic, Dept. of Chronology
London, England
May, 1851
“Why can’t we stop the bleeding?” Hari pressed another bandage into the wound in Luise’s abdomen. Egmont shuffled around the work surface while Smith searched for more bandages.
“Luise has a rare condition.” Egmont’s leg hissed as he moved.
“Which is?” Hari grasped Luise’s hand as she opened her mouth to talk. Her head drooped. Hari rested his burned palm upon her cheek.
“Luise has a hemorrhagic disposition. Quite rare in females, in fact,” Egmont stopped by Hari’s side. “Although,” he paused, “not unknown amongst the royals.” Egmont scratched at his beard.
“She mentioned medicine,” Hari looked up at Egmont. “Admiral?”
“Not medicine,” Luise squeezed Hari’s hand between week fingers. “Treatment.”
“What kind of treatment, Miss Luise?”
“My machine,” Luise flicked her eyes in the direction of the ransacked cupboard.
“What machine?”
“Of course,” Smith crossed t
he laboratory floor and knelt by Luise’s side. “Miss Hanover has a personal interest in slowing time.”
Luise’s lips formed a thin smile. “Yes,” she breathed. “I heal better the longer...”
“The longer the time you have to let your blood clot,” Smith nodded. “I have heard the same of hypnosis, an alternative treatment for haemophiliacs.”
“Look after her.” Hari released Luise’s hand and stood up.
“Where do you think you are going, Singh?” Egmont placed his hand on Hari’s shoulder. “Luise needs our help.”
“No, Admiral.” Hari brushed past Egmont, slipped off his outer robe and tightened his belt. “She needs her treatment.”
“Hari?” Smith looked up.
“Yes, Mr. Smith?”
“God speed.”
Hari pressed his palms together and bowed. Finishing his Namaste, Hari winked at Luise. “Be good, Miss Luise.” Stepping carefully around Luise and Smith, Hari crossed to the broken window and leaped out onto the street.
҉
Bremen’s steam carriage hissed beneath the dark brick arch and the past the wrought iron gates of the paper mill on the eastern banks of the Thames. The smog of London industry pressed down between the buildings. The German minister’s black-clad men closed and locked the gates behind the carriage. Flanking the carriage, the same men escorted it through the heavy wooden doors of the mill’s wheelhouse. The driver steered the carriage around massive wooden gears and parked beneath the oak scaffolding leading to the third and fourth floors built around the gears, like a wooden siege tower within a brick fortress.
Two of Bremen’s men opened the door and helped the minister out of the carriage. Leaning on his cane, Bremen waited for Romney and Robshaw to join him.
“My men are retrieving your steamracer as we speak,” Bremen raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think we need mention it again. Do you?”
Romney shook her head. “Not for my sake.”
“Good.” Bremen pointed at the wooden stairs zigzagging up one side of the scaffolding. “The lift is a rather cantankerous affair. I prefer to climb.”
“Lead the way, Herr Bremen.” Robshaw waited for Romney to follow the minister before falling in behind them.
The stairs creaked as they ascended. The beams spanning the first and second floors criss-crossed the space between the walls. Thick and wide, the beams were supported by oak pillars shod in square iron shoes set into the stone floor. Robshaw paused on the stairs, tracing one of the pillars from the ceiling to the floor below with his eyes.
“A remarkable building,” Bremen stopped to catch his breath a few steps above Romney. “Although I often question the merits of having one’s office on the top floor.” He smiled, turned and continued to climb. Romney followed with Robshaw but a few steps behind her.
Tucked inside the scaffolding, the third floor was strewn with hammocks slung from the beams and between the sturdy wooden pillars. Black cloaks and jackets hung from iron spikes, diamond-shaped and tapered to a point, hammered into the wood. Beneath each hammock was a heavy trunk, padlocked but with the key turned inside the lock. The hammocks furthest from the stairs were occupied by more of Bremen’s men, their grey woollen caps tugged low on their foreheads covering their eyes. Robshaw pulled at the tails of Romney’s jacket.
“He has a lot of manpower,” he nodded at the men sleeping as they passed the third floor. “What do you think? They can’t all be mechanics.”
“I don’t know,” Romney shrugged. She gave Robshaw’s hand a quick squeeze before climbing the stairs after Bremen.
Bremen paused at the top of the stairs. With a sweep of his arm he invited Romney and Robshaw to step onto the fourth and final floor of the tower inside the mill. The railings skirting the scaffold stairs stopped a few feet to each side of the last step. The wooden floor ended abruptly on every side with nothing to stop one from falling. Romney peered over the edge and took a quick step backward.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Bremen crossed to Romney’s side and gently pinched her elbow. “I find the centre of the room to be less imposing. Would you join me?”
Romney turned away from the edge and let Bremen guide her to a large leather sofa with plump cushions, wide enough for two and deep enough to kick off her boots and tuck her legs beneath her bottom. Robshaw sat down next to Romney and slid back into the sofa. Bremen sat opposite them in a worn leather armchair. Resting his cane against a side table, Bremen slid his fingers into the shallow leather grooves at the end of the chair arms.
“This was my grandfather’s,” he smoothed his fingers forward and backward with a light rasp of skin on brushed leather. “He sat in this chair when advising the then President of the Confederation against meddling in the affairs of other countries. Fortunately,” Bremen allowed himself a thin smile, “he died long before he thought it necessary to advise me of the same.”
“Pardon me, Herr Bremen,” Robshaw leaned forward. “Are you meddling in the affairs of other countries? Right now, I mean.”
“Yes,” Bremen nodded, “and no.”
“I don’t understand,” Romney twisted her hair behind her ear.
“Then I will explain. But first,” Bremen reached for the bell on the side table, “refreshments. It has been a long day.” He rang the bell.
҉
The rainwater pooling between the cobbles erupted from the dirty street as Hari dropped from the window. Pressing the fingertips of his right hand against the smooth stone cobbles to steady his fall, Hari gripped the pommel of his kukri in his left hand and flicked his eyes up and down the street.
A shadow flickered behind a steam carriage to the east. Hari pushed himself up from a crouch and splashed toward it. He slowed as he neared the carriage. Hari stopped as a heavyset man stepped out from behind the carriage and pushed the barrel of a magnetic coil gun into his face.
“No further, mein Herr,” Armbrüster flicked the charge selector on the Polyphase rifle to maximum. “You will come quietly, ja?”
“Of course,” Hari bowed.
“Very wise,” Armbrüster flicked his head in the direction of the carriage. “Please, put up your hands.”
Raising his hands, Hari ducked beneath the barrel of the rifle, slapping it upward into Armbrüster’s face. Discharging the rifle with a blast of white energy, the German staggered backward. Hari yanked the rifle out of Armbrüster’s hands and used the stock like a hammer, thudding the wooden butt into his opponent’s chest. Armbrüster collapsed to the floor and Hari fell on top of him.
“Where is he?”
“Who?” Armbrüster wheezed.
“The man you are waiting for.” Hari glanced up as the shadow of a large bird flitted beneath the gas streetlamps.
“I am not waiting for anyone.”
“Truly?” Hari pressed his knees onto Armbrüster’s chest as he cranked the handle on the Polyphase rifle, spinning the magnetic coils and charging the weapon. The rifle whined in his grasp. Hari flicked the selector to maximum and pressed it onto Armbrüster’s chest.
“Please, mein Herr,” Armbrüster struggled beneath the weight of Hari’s body.
“Do you know what I do for a living?” Hari rested his shoulder upon the stock of the rifle and wriggled it into position. The hairs of his beard caught on the thick rubber base.
“Nein.” Armbrüster’s eyes darted left and right. They settled on Shahin as the hawk landed on the street just a few feet from the German’s head.
“I track people in the mountains and across the deserts. I am very good at this, but...” Hari’s voice wavered.
“But what?”
“But since arriving in London I have been attacked, shot at, locked up and electrocuted. Truly, I have had a rough time of it. Would you not agree?”
“Ja, mein Herr.”
“And now, a good friend of mine is in terrible pain and in need of help.” Hari pressed the barrel harder into Armbrüster’s sternum. “Perhaps you can help her? Do you think so?”
“Ja,” Armbrüster panted. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Hari leaned closer and pressed his face within a hand’s length of Armbrüster’s. “Where can I find the man you are waiting for?”
“At the mill.”
“What mill?” Hari slipped his finger around the trigger and began to squeeze. The whine of the Polyphase rifle increased an octave.
“Please, mein Herr.”
“Where?”
“The paper mill. It is on the Isle of Dogs.”
“The Isle of Dogs?” Hari frowned. “Where the docks are?”
“Ja.”
“And how will I find this mill?”
“It is the only one. The only building in a big open space, right by the docks.”
“Well,” Hari shifted the barrel of the rifle and pressed it on a shallow stone, the tip of the barrel an inch below a puddle seeping into Armbrüster’s coat. “You have been very helpful, sir. Truly,” Hari bowed and dialled the rifle selector switch back to the minimum discharge.
“And am I free to go?” Armbrüster’s eyes flicked across Hari’s face.
“You are free to dance,” Hari smiled.
“Dance?” Armbrüster shook his head. “I do not understand.”
“You will.” Hari moved his feet free of the puddle and squeezed the trigger.
Hari let go of the rifle and stepped away from the German’s body as Armbrüster twitched within a net of blue sparks pinning him to the cobblestones. Shahin beat the air with her wings and flapped away from the blisters of light popping upon the street. Shahin screeched.
“You do not approve?” Hari held out his wrist. Shahin lifted off the street with a beat of her wings. Hari twisted his head to follow her flight as the hawk circled once before landing upon his wrist. “Hello, my friend,” Hari stroked Shahin’s breast. “We have work to do, Shahin. Come, we must fly.” Hari launched Shahin into the air as he loped along the street.
҉
The wooden elevator creaked. Romney turned her head to watch the thick hawser rope rasping through the pulley suspended from the elevator shaft on the far side of the wooden scaffold tower, close to the outer brick wall of the mill. As the wooden car reached the fourth floor three of Bremen’s men stepped out of it, the last of them wheeling a silver tea trolley loaded with Deutsch pastries and a white porcelain service.
