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Chapter 1
I diverted my gaze from the drawing of the inside of the St. Mary-at-Lambeth church clutched in my hands, to the actual church, as it appeared in front of me. The drawing was surprisingly accurate, showing the nave, the crossing, transepts and the apse exactly as it appeared in real life.
I propped my flashlight into my mouth and held the drawing in front of me, illuminating it with the flashlight. As the church was boarded up due to ongoing renovations—a work in progress judging by the tools and paint brushes scattered about—it was pitch-black inside. I counted this as luck being on my side, though, because it would stop curious passersby from noticing someone was running around inside.
The altar was still untouched, although in front of it lay a heap of tools. Underneath the altar was the secret entrance I was looking for, if I could rely on the drawing I had found tucked away in an obscure manuscript no one knew about. Because if they did, I certainly wouldn’t be the only one trespassing into St. Mary-at-Lambeth’s, that was for sure.
According to the book, the secret vault underneath the church should contain at least twenty coffins, many of them belonging to archbishops or clergy. In other words, coffins filled with gold. Or at least, I hoped so.
Mac scratched his head and meowed on a complaining tone. “How much longer is this going to take?”
The cat had been a stray when I found him along the side of the road, mauled by a terrible accident. I had taken him in and the parts of him that were missing, which included the left top part of his head, one front paw and both his back paws, I had reattached using copper plates. I had also added a speech translator into his brain while I put him back together. In retrospect, I can only defend my actions by saying I was probably absolutely insane back then. The consequence was that the cat, who I had nicknamed Mac, could choose whether he meowed or spoke, and he seemed to prefer the latter. On top of that, the cat had an opinion on absolutely everything, kept on trying to insert the topic of tuna into every conversation, and never knew when to shut up.
“There’s a slab underneath the altar that we should lift up, and then the entrance to the vault ought to be in there,” I explained to him after I took the flashlight out of my mouth. “Rather than complain, why don’t you go look for a loose stone already—you’re the one with the night vision.”
“You have night goggles too,” Mac reminded me.
“Those give me headaches, and you know it.” I trailed after him while the cat darted toward the altar.
“Arabella Blake, greatest explorer of her generation, held back by a headache,” Mac said ironically. “If you just stopped being a wuss and put on those night goggles, then you’d have two hands free to carry those books, and you wouldn’t have to put that dirty flashlight in your mouth every two seconds.”
I took the flashlight out of my mouth again now we had reached the altar. “How about we discuss all the filthy stuff you put into your mouth? Like that mouse you devoured the other day.”
“A true delicacy,” Mac said as he crawled underneath the altar. “Besides, that was entirely your fault as well. If you used your money wisely for a change, you could move us into a proper apartment in downtown London, rather than in a bloody clocktower.”
I wisely ignored his statement, bent down and looked underneath the altar, shining the flashlight left and right. “Found anything yet?”
Mac tapped his paw on the tile he was standing on. “This one is loose, but I can’t push it aside. You’ll have to do it.”
“Okay.” I gestured my head to the left. “Jump aside.”
Mac followed my command, moving away from the stone. Grunting and gritting my teeth, I put all my weight behind it. The slab didn’t budge an inch.
Sweat dripped down my forehead and I groaned as I pushed against the stone again.
“You should really work out more,” Mac commented as he licked his paw.
I slammed my entire weight into the slab, and with a dull thud, it moved to the side, revealing a hatch with a round, iron handle.
“You were saying?” I asked the cat while I wiped the sweat from my brow.
“My comment still stands.”
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the handle and pulled the hatch open. The wood groaned when it released, and the odor of damp and decay whiffed up from the underground tomb.
I lifted my scarf to cover my mouth, coughing from the dust suddenly attacking my nostrils.
Mac sneezed too, and then looked at me angrily, as if I was the source of all troubles and mayhem in his life.
The hatch revealed a staircase leading to the underground vault. From what I had gathered from my research, the original church was built in 1062. At first, a wooden church was constructed on this location, which was then rebuilt in stone later in the same century. The building was already mentioned in the Domesday Book of King William I. Later on, in the fourteenth century, the church was rebuilt a third time and the vault was added.
I hesitantly stepped on the first step of the staircase, checking if it could hold my weight. If the manuscript was correct, the last time people had been entombed in the church was somewhere in the sixteenth century. It had been remodeled a few times afterward, and during one of these remodels, the altar was placed on top of the entrance to the vault.
Over time, the vault was forgotten, and if I tumbled down the stairs and broke my neck, I would join the ranks of the forgotten corpses below.
The stairs seemed sturdy enough. Step by step, I descended into the crypt, damp air encircling me. I pulled my scarf closer around my neck and shivered against the cold.
Mac followed after me, moving gracefully from stairs to stairs in the way only felines could. He sniffed and grimaced. “I despise the scent of century-old crypt, especially on an empty stomach.”
“Your stomach isn’t empty,” I reminded him. “You’ve eaten a can of tuna this morning.”
Mac meowed pitifully. “Seems like a century ago.”
Rolling my eyes at the cat’s constant desire for food, I finished the last few steps into the crypt. The flashlight shone ahead, illuminating the underground vault.
An archbishop’s miter was positioned on top of one of the coffins, the light reflecting on the gold surface.
I whistled. “This is going to be a great haul, Mac, I can feel it.”
Mac jumped on the closest coffin, which nearly caved the moment he sprang on it. Startled, the feline rushed to the next, sturdier looking coffin.
“I can smell the cadavers. Yuck.” Mac stuck out his tongue and gagged. “Can we grab what we came for and get out of here?”
I dropped my backpack down on the ground, grabbed the miter and put it inside. Next, I lifted the crowbar from inside the backpack, and started prying open the first coffin.
Mac pranced around, careful not to get too close.
The lid fell from the coffin, and the smell of rot and decay rose from the inside. A skeleton with gaping holes instead of eyes stared up at me. The skeleton was wearing a miter as well, and a grin spread on my features. “Jackpot.”
I reached forward, grabbed the golden miter, and pulled it from the skeleton’s head. The skull tumbled from left to right, and then lay still again.
A nervous laugh escaped from my throat while I deposited the miter in my backpack.
“No wonder you can’t find a proper husband,” Mac said as he sat down and looked at me. “Who would want to marry a girl who robs graves for a living?”
“Not just any graves,” I reminded him. “Only the ones where I can find some actual treasure.” I snatched the necklace from around the corpse’s neck and held it up in front of me, illuminating it with the flashlight. Three rubies adorned the gold necklace, and my grin grew wider.
“Sure, that you specify which graves you’re willing to rob and which ones you won’t, will make all the difference for your future husband-to-be,” Mac mocked me. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled at the prospect that his wife is roaming around in crypts and tombs and what-not. He’ll be mightily impressed by your knowledge of ancient Sumerian, or your vast repertoire of tricks to avoid boobytraps commonly found in royal tombs.”
“Shut up,” I snapped at the cat while I pulled a ring from the archbishop’s finger. “I don’t hear you complaining about that when I’m giving you some fresh tuna.”
“If you met a man who could provide for the both of us, like a proper Victorian lady, then we could spend our evenings curled up with a good book, instead of haunting the streets of London to sell our black market merchandise.”
It wasn’t the first time Mac had touched upon this topic, but it was the first time he seemed so adamant at making a big deal about it.
I finished my inspection of the coffin, and when I was certain I had stolen all items of value, I put the lid back in its place. Moving on to the next coffin, the initials T.T. were written on the outside of the sarcophagus. Based on my research, I guessed this was the final resting place of Thomas Tenison, who had been archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the seventeenth century.
This bishop was buried without miter, but not without treasures. Three rings decorated his skeletal fingers, and the chain around his neck was even more impressive than the one of the previous archbishop.
“I’m just saying,” Mac continued, “that there might be more to life than what you’re making out of it.”
I looked up at him, annoyed by his excessive whining. “You could help me a little, you know, instead of sitting there and being all judgmental.”
“Help you with what? Robbing corpses?” Mac kept on licking his paw, showing zero intention of moving.
Groaning, I moved on to the next coffin. Perhaps all the coffins had been stored neatly inside the underground vault hundreds of years ago, but now, it looked as if a tornado had swept through the room and dispersed the coffins left and right.
A creak sounded from in the back of the vault, and Mac and I looked up at the same time.
“What was that?” I asked the cat.
Mac sniffed the air, waited for a second, and then shrugged. “I don’t smell anything, so perhaps it’s your womanly overactive imagination.”
I snorted. “If my womanly overactive imagination can startle you as well, then it’s obviously something else,” I snapped at the cat, just as another creak echoed from the darkness beyond.
I twirled my flashlight in the direction of the noise. Nothing but darkness, except…
“There’s another coffin over there.” I treaded further into the vault, Mac following suit.
Despite him teasing me every chance he got, the feline always had my back. We were an inseparable duo, and his very presence already made me feel braver.
The coffin was standing upright, unlike the other ones. The lid had been propped open slightly; maybe the nails had loosened up over time because of the coffin’s different position.
“Its color isn’t right,” Mac said. “It’s… Black.” Mac craned his head to the left, staring at the coffin curiously. “Who would paint a coffin black?”
I came closer, moving the flashlight up and down over the coffin. “It’s not made of wood, but something else.” I let my hand run over the lid. “Granite, I think.”
The lid suddenly squeaked further open, and I jumped back, almost dropping the flashlight.
The sound from earlier…was the lid of the sarcophagus slowly opening.
My mouth dropped to the floor, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I reached for the pistol dangling from my belt, grabbed it and held it in front of me. In the cramped space of the vault, the noise would be horrendous and no doubt damage my eardrums. I didn’t want to use it, but if the choice was between permanent ear damage, or being attacked by a monstrous ghoul from the afterlife, I would choose the pistol any time.
The lid crept further open.
Mac jumped on top of the pile of coffins to our left and started hissing.
I tightened my grip around my pistol.
God, I hated mummies.
Four fingers curled around the lid, each of them gold-colored and definitely not human. Next, an arm appeared, completely encrusted in gold, and with cogs at the height of the elbow.
A machine of some sorts. An automaton, that moved on its own…
Mac growled now, the same noise he made whenever a dog passed by, his tail bushy and the hair on his back standing on end.
My heart battered against my chest at a million miles an hour when the automaton appeared.
Rolling on two wheels, one attached to each side, it resembled a cardinal wearing a robe and miter, but he had been painted the color of gold from top to bottom.
The robot had a rudimentary face, with two eyes shining light straight at me. Could it see me? Its other features weren’t quite so developed: its nose was a rectangle engraved into his face, and its mouth was a black hole opening to its insides.
The stuff of nightmares, rolling straight toward me.
Mac screeched, lunched at the creature, and promptly hurried away when his claws didn’t even phase the automaton.
The archbishop just rolled on ahead, straight toward me.
It blurted out different noises but all I could really make out was ‘beep beep’. Was it trying to harm me, or was it just happy to have escaped its eternal prison?
I had no idea, but when it reached its arms out for me, I preferred to play on safe and go with my first idea.
“Run!” I shouted at Mac.
The feline dashed past me, onto the stairs.
I glimpsed at the unopened coffins, saddened by the treasure they could still hold, and that the automaton was keeping me from. Treasure that could mean the difference between Mac and I having a roof over our heads and food in our belly or starving to death in the next few months.
“Come on!” Mac yelled at me. “Forgot about the gold!”
I grasped the strap of my backpack tighter, and turned on my heel.
The archbishop’s metal arms grazed nothing but empty air as he lunged for me.
In three steps, I was on the staircase.
Mac was already at the top of the stairs, screaming for me to hurry up.
I rushed on the first four steps, and then the metal claw of the archbishop circled around my ankle. Its grip was like a vice, biting into my flesh.
I slammed into the staircase, hitting my chin.
“Arabella, get up!” Mac yelled while he hissed at our opponent.
I pulled at my foot, but the automaton refused to let me go. Lifting my pistol until it was level with the robot’s face, I fired the gun.
The sound rang through the vault. Mac screeched, and my ears rang as if a bomb had exploded.
The automaton let go of me, but besides a huge dent on its face, it seemed unharmed.
“Run!” Mac screamed.
He didn’t need to tell me twice. Keeping to the side of the staircase, as far away from the infernal archbishop as possible, I dashed up the stairs.
At the top, I collapsed on the floor, adrenaline crashing into me like a flood.
Mac peered over the edge of the stairs. “We need to close the hatch!”
“No way that thing is getting up this staircase,” I said.
The words had barely left my mouth before the creation halted before the staircase, and two panels opened from its side. Two long, spiderlike arms poked out of the panels and positioned themselves on the first step. With a grunt, the additional pair of arms lifted the automaton and threw it down on the staircase.
One step, then another…
The archbishop was ascending the staircase.
I slammed the hatch shut. “Help me!” I yelled at Mac while I reached for the stone slab that had covered the vault.
We p
ushed against it together, the adrenaline giving us the extra force we need to slide the stone back in place.
Getting up, I checked if I still had everything: the flashlight was lost, dropped somewhere in the vault below, but I still had my backpack and pistol, the two most valuable items. And of course, I still had Mac, a thousand times more important than the loot stocked in my backpack.
“We need to get out of here,” Mac said. “I don’t put it past that automaton to figure out a way out of that vault.”
“Lifting up the hatch with that heavy stone on it? Doubt it.” My voice trembled a little; I wanted to make sure Mac didn’t panic, but my own heart was doing cartwheels in my chest. What if that monstrosity managed to find a way out of the underground crypt? I had never expected it would be able to get up the stairs, but the automaton seemed to have zero issues with that. It was far more advanced than I had given it credit for; far more advanced than anything dating back two centuries should be.
“I want to leave.” Mac sounded scared—the first time in his entire life that I had seen him frightened of something. “Let’s go home.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more, buddy.”
The church was covered in darkness because of the boarded-up windows, but Mac navigated for us, his feline eyes quickly adapting to the lack of light.
I opened the church door—when getting in earlier tonight, I had cut the chains from the other side—and breathed in the crisp night air.
Noises swarmed from downtown London, a place that never slept, no matter how ungodly the hour.
“I’m looking forward to some tuna.” Mac’s voice had regained its normal tone.
My own heartrate had calmed down a little, relief flooding over me now we had left the church, and its hellish occupant.
“You’ve deserved it.” I patted the feline on his head. “Now let’s hope those workers don’t stumble upon that crypt…”
Mac hesitated for a second, then waggled his tail. “It’s been hidden for the better part of two centuries. If you hadn’t found that book, it would still be lost in history. They’re just doing some renovations to the interior; no way anyone’s going to stumble upon that vault.”
Of Steel and Steam Page 69
