by Sean Little
“Nothing,” said Bobbins. “Phillip Cartwright is a dunce. Went to school with him. Kept talking about breeding goats to be the size of horses so he could simply ride over mountain ranges. Strange boy.”
Clarke wanted to ask questions, but he knew that somehow it would lead to stories that he did not want to hear, nor had he the time to hear. “What’s our next move?” asked Clarke. “The cave seems likely to me.”
“About that,” said Bobbins. “I sent a wire to Paris this morning to a contact of mine who has more experience in dealing with electricity and the like. I had him charter a small dirigible in my name to get here with all due haste. He should arrive this evening, I hope. If anyone can solve this cave mystery, it will be him.”
As if Bobbins’ words summoned him, the wasp-like hum of a dirigible engine began to buzz in their ears. Faintly at first, like a distant mosquito, but growing stronger.
“Ah! There he is!” said Bobbins. He strode to the doors of the keep and threw them open, striding out into the chilly evening. Clarke, Shaw, and Sandsworth followed him. In the bailey, Csupo, Vasile, and Andrei were busy prepping wood for the nightly bonfire, but they abandoned their task and readied the wagon to haul back whatever luggage the new guest would have.
A small, white dirigible flying a French flag lowered out of the sky. It was a fast little zeppelin, what some people called a Nimble Nelly. They possessed no sleeping compartments in the tiny gondola, just room for a pilot and co-pilot and a dozen or so seats. They sacrificed comfort for speed.
The dirigible dropped anchor ropes out of the window and Clarke and the Romanians tied off the ropes on the cement blocks with cleats set into them. The dirigible dropped a rope ladder to the ground and a tall, painfully thin man descended. The co-pilot of the zeppelin cast off a number of large crates. They landed heavily, and the thin man winced as each one crashed to the ground. “Please,” he said in a nasally voice with a heavy Slavic accent. “Please be careful.”
The thin man turned to address Bobbins. He was a skeleton with a badly rumpled suit. His hair was a mess and his cheeks were gaunt and hollow. His eyes were dark, but there was a spark in them. “Lord Bobbins,” he said with a small nod of his head.
“Good lord, Nicky, you look awful. Sandsworth, fetch this man a sandwich!”
“That will not be necessary,” said the thin man. “I would like to get to work, please. You said you had a conundrum befitting a man of my skills. I am anxious to see it.”
“Yes, of course. I forgot that you don’t like to waste time. Well, it is too late to get there today, but tomorrow we will go first thing in the morning,” said Bobbins. “Let me introduce you to Mr. Nicodemus Clarke. Mr. Clarke is the strapping roustabout that I hired to help me find the underlying cause of this mess in Cărbunasatul. Mr. Clarke, please let me introduce Nicky Tesla.”
“Nikola,” Tesla corrected.
Clarke was impressed. Nikola Tesla was almost as much a legend as Bobbins. Clarke had heard stories of his work with electricity and his inventions. Tesla’s personal quirks made for better gossip, though. The man allegedly ate very little and worked constantly, forgoing sleep, sex, and even a good game of charades for the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of society. It was something to respect, even if he came off in many of the tales as a bona fide cuckoo.
Clarke shook Tesla’s hand. It was an enthusiastic handshake not unlike grabbing a dead octopus by the tentacles. After a brief clasp, Tesla withdrew his hand and wiped it on his jacket. Clarke got the distinct impression that the man was generally put-off by human contact.
“Will my things be taken to someplace where I can work?” asked Tesla.
“Absolutely!” Bobbins clapped his hands and Vasile, Andrei, and Csupo began to load the crates onto the wagon. The last crates fell from the Nimble Nelly. Clarke and Andrei loosed its anchor ropes and the little ship turned skyward, disappearing into the descending night in moments.
Bobbins walked the crowd back to the castle. He spoke in a fast, rapid patter like a carnival-barker, trying to explain the town, the problems, and what has happened to Tesla. Tesla seemed to be ignoring him, largely. The inventor’s eyes wandered over the castle, the grounds, and the sky. When they reached the portcullis, still raised to half-height, just barely high enough for Tesla to walk under without ducking, the inventor stopped.
He stared hard at the wrought iron of the gate. Reaching a long arm up, he scratched at the metal with a finger. His mustache bent into a frown. He walked to the stone wall of the castle and ran his hands over the smooth stones.
“Is something wrong, Nicky?” asked Bobbins.
“Nikola,” said Tesla. “And just a theory. Nothing else.”
“Would you care to share that theory with the group?”
“Not at this moment, no. I must do some testing.”
They walked into the bailey. Shortly thereafter, the wagon jolted into the barbican behind them and Andrei leapt from the crates to kick the lever that lowers the portcullis. The gate slammed home with an ear-ringing crash, but the moment it closed, everyone seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The layer of protection that the portcullis provided was an invaluable asset to mental health.
The Romanian men unloaded all of Tesla’s crates in a small, vacant outbuilding in the corner of the keep opposite the stables. The little building had a crude wooden work table, a small cook-stove to serve as a heater, and a few kerosene lamps for light. Without a word, the inventor disappeared into the building and began to pull contraptions and tools from the crates.
Clarke, Bobbins, and Shaw stood at the door and watched him for ten minutes before Bobbins shook his head. “I’m calling it a night. I know how Nicky works.”
“Nikola,” corrected Tesla.
“He’ll be up all night putting things right so he can work.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay out here on his own?” asked Shaw.
Bobbins’ face darkened. He rubbed at worry lines in his forehead for a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“I’ll stay out here,” said Clarke. “Just have Sandsworth or someone bring me my coat, and maybe a blanket. And have Csupo build up that bonfire. It feels like it’s going to be a cold night.” He leaned against the doorjamb and let his right hand rest on the handle of the Colt at his hip. It was reassuring to feel the gun there in case something strange happened.
“Then I think I will retire for the night,” said Bobbins. “Ms. Shaw, if you would accompany me.” Shaw gave Clarke a lingering glance as if ask if he was truly fine with staying out to play nursemaid to an eccentric. Clarke nodded at her. He would be fine. With that, the Lord and his bodyguard walked back to the keep for the evening.
Clarke watched Tesla work. The inventor was focused and methodical. He moved rapidly with the occasional jerky motion. It reminded Clarke of clockwork.
Vasile came out from the keep with Clarke’s heavy coat and a thick, brown wool blanket. He also had a small satchel of sandwiches, little cakes, and cheeses sent by Chef. Clarke offered some to Tesla, but he was rebuffed with a small shake of the head.
Csupo ventured out from the stables and stood in the doorway with Clarke. His eyes were wide, unable to hide how impressed he was. “I have never seen so many little machines. Is this man a clockmaker?”
“Sort of,” said Clarke.
In short order, Tesla had a working laboratory in full swing. Machines were erected. Some were steam-powered and were already stoked and fed with fire and water, producing little puffs of steam in the cold night as they worked away. Tools were arranged on the table. A tea pot whistled cheerily on the little cook-stove, but Tesla seemed to be oblivious to its high-pitched wail. Csupo stole inside and removed the pot, pouring a cup of tea for the inventor before stealing back to the doorway. Tesla never touched the cup. It sat and grew cold on the edge of the work bench.
“I must inspect the castle gate,” Tesla announced. Without waiting for a response, he
turned and marched out the door, a small metal tool and a small glass jar in his hands. Tesla was seemingly oblivious to the cold. He did not flinch in the night air, which had to be in the teens, and he ignored the winds. At the gate, he scraped tiny metal particles into the jar and returned to his workshop.
Csupo shrugged. He’d never been around the presence of genius and didn’t know how to handle it. Clarke had known geniuses before, but they were usually military geniuses or experts in the field of mayhem. Tesla was a man beyond his ability to fathom.
Clarke slipped to the corner of the workshop opposite the cook-stove and spread out the blanket. Tesla did not seem to be using that corner of the space, and it was more pleasant than standing with his rear end in the cold. Clarke sat down, leaned against the corner, crossed his arms, and was asleep in an embarrassingly short amount of time.
“Mr. Clarke! Hurry!”
Csupo’s panicked voice woke Clarke out of a dead black sleep. Clarke was on his feet before he was fully conscious. Tesla was not in the workshop. “Where is he?”
“Here! There is a strigoi!” Csupo was at the door of the shop, pointing toward the barbican of the castle.
Clarke was out the door in an instant, drawing the Colt. Tesla was standing at the portcullis. The banshee was back. It howled and wailed, its arms flailing.
Tesla was standing as still as death at the gate. He moved to the portcullis and began to turn the wheel to raise it.
“Stop!” shouted Clarke. “Stop!”
The portcullis creaked and began to rise. Clarke sprinted at Tesla, reaching him and kicking the release lever before the gate could make it another foot. “What are you doing, man?”
Tesla looked at Clarke through narrowed eyes. “I wanted to study the creature. How else do you expect me to do access it?”
The creature beyond the gates shrieked louder. The noise felt as if it was shredding Clarke’s eardrums. He raised the Colt and fired three shots at the banshee. It flew backward a few feet before rising into the night sky and disappearing, its screams evaporating into the winds.
“That was most unhelpful,” Tesla said. He squinted into the sky, hoping to get a glimpse of it.
“That thing has been coming ‘round these parts nightly. I’m not overly keen on meeting it in person. I feel like that would be bad.”
“Please. It was only a bestiya. They are only figments of the imagination. Pieces of children’s stories. I should like to meet one to evaluate its reality.”
Summoned by the gunshots, Bobbins and Shaw burst from the keep. Shaw with her pistol, Bobbins with his oversized shotgun. “Did it come back? The Black Annis?”
Clarke slipped the Colt into its holster. He held up his hands. Bobbins and Shaw lifted their weapons to a neutral lethality. “It was back. I shot it again. Ol’ Nicky was trying to open the gate and let it inside.”
“Nikola.”
“Why on Earth would he do that?” asked Bobbins. “Nicky, what were you thinking?”
“Nikola. I wanted to study the creature.”
Bobbins shouldered the shotgun and leaned forward. “Have you been licking the posts of your electric coil again?”
“The creature is clearly something imaginary, yet it looks real. I propose that it holds no true threat to us. Examining what it truly is would hold much interest to the current state of this village.”
“Letting something inside of these gates without knowing what it is proposes a threat,” said Shaw.
“Then we are at an impasse,” said Tesla. Without even so much as a shrug he strode forward and began walking back to his workshop.
“Peach of a fella, there,” said Clarke. “A real people person.”
“Nicky has his faults—” said Bobbins.
“Nikola,” called Tesla without looking over his shoulder.
“—but he’s the smartest man on the planet. Maybe even the smartest man in history. We need him.”
The next morning, the wagon was loaded with gadgets from Tesla’s stock. Shaw was on the single bench seat next to Csupo. Bobbins, Clarke, Tesla, and Andrei rode on the back of the flatbed wagon, legs dangling. Csupo drove the horse to Cărbunasatul. Vasile stayed to work and to watch the compound. Clarke noticed that the groundskeeper made sure to slam the portcullis gate closed the second the wagon had passed. He also noticed that Vasile had begun carrying a modest pistol on his hip.
A thick cloud cover rolled over the region coloring the sky an ugly pale gray. There was the hint of snow in the air, like a taste on the tongue. It would come soon. The cold was not as bad as it had been. It foretold heavy, wet snow—the kind that lay in thick, heavy blankets on the boughs of trees and threatened to snap them under its weight.
Tesla wore his rumpled clothes. He also wore a large wool overcoat, but had not buttoned it. He seemed to possess a strange immunity to cold. Perhaps the mark of genius was that he was so busy pondering the future that the present did not have any impact on him. Bobbins wore the brown polar jacket that Tesla had constructed for him, along with twill pants and a huntsman’s short coat beneath it. He wore a merry knitted cap pulled low over his brow, which was both comical and endearing. Neither of the two men carried a weapon, but everyone else in the party was armed. Andrei was carrying Bobbins’ weapons, serving as a personal gun boy for the eccentric lord. Tesla chose no weapons, but the crates in the wagon held other tricks that the inventor was keen to try.
When the wagon rounded the bend to the city, Clarke was pleased to see people were already in the streets. The market was erected and the day’s business was proceeding as close to normal as it could be, given the circumstances. “See!” exclaimed Bobbins. “Just show a brave face, and everything else falls in line. The people needed to be reassured that they are stronger than whatever lurks in the forests.” The profound feeling of unease was still palpable, but the people seemed to be trying to ignore it.
As the wagon rolled down the street, children ran behind it, begging for coins or tokens in that way that children do. Bobbins cast a handful of Romanian leu to the children. They gave a great shout and scattered to pluck the silver coins from the dirt. Women pressed to the sides of the wagon, holding up bolts of cloth or freshly baked pastries. Bobbins put on a great show of exclaiming over everything, thanking them, tasting what was put in front of him, and generally acting as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The people of the village ate up the showman’s act and loved him for it.
Csupo stopped the wagon in front of the Crying Pig. Mr. Petran was already in the street. The door to his tavern was thrown wide and a few people were inside enjoying a breakfast of eggs and rashers. It was a little early to drink, but the coffee he offered was being spiked with a little good morning medicine by some. When the wagon stopped, Bobbins leapt down from the back of the cart and began talking to various people, Andrei by his side to serve as translator. A crowd gathered, curious about the crates and boxes in the wagon, and interested to see what the day would bring.
Clarke and Shaw were reserved. They knew what the day would bring. The claw marks on Clarke’s chest still stung quite a bit though they had scabbed over. It would be weeks before they would heal fully and there would always be three horizontal scars on his chest—just a few more for the collection, really.
Tesla unpacked several gadgets and gizmos. One was a large box with several dials and knobs on one side, a small antenna on the top, and two straps so that it could be worn like a backpack. There was a large weapon-like thing that had a body not unlike a shotgun, but at the end of the “barrel” was a large concave metal dish. Tesla also unpacked a few handheld devices with gauges and buttons. Nothing was labeled. Clarke hadn’t the faintest idea what any of the items did.
Tesla made Csupo wear the backpack with the antenna. As the Serb strapped the stable boy into the machine, Clarke noticed the young lady he’d been flirting with the day before was giving the boy the eyes. Csupo must have noticed because he straightened up, despite the weight of the device, and plucked
a Winchester rifle from the back of the wagon. He stuck out his chin and looked ready to fight the Devil himself. Attaboy, thought Clarke.
Tesla handed the shotgun-dish weapon to Shaw. She looked it up and down like a soldier inspecting a rifle. Then she shrugged and shouldered it.
“Stop! Stop this madness!” a voice called. Clarke turned to see Brother Paschal emerging from the church. He wore his black cloak over steel-gray robes. He was unshaven and looked as if he’d only just got out of bed. The friar pushed his way through the crowd.
“Ah, Brother Paschal,” said Bobbins, his sing-song exclamation was without the slightest hint of being disingenuous. “So good of you to come see us off. Have you come to bless the party before we head into the woods?”
Paschal looked angry to Clarke. The old monk’s face was hard and lined with age. “Look at what you’re doing,” he said gesturing wildly at Tesla’s strange inventions. “What do you think will happen?”
“I think we’ll get to the bottom of why this village is plagued by a werewolf,” said Bobbins.
“We tried to kill the werewolf once,” Paschal exclaimed. “And look what hells it wrought! If this man goes into the woods and kills another one, what do you think will happen to us tonight? Which of our houses will be broken into? Whose children will die because of this madness?” He repeated himself in Romanian for the crowd’s benefit. Several people gasped and a few began to mutter under their breath.
Paschal continued, “Clearly this is a punishment from the Lord, because we have brought a false lord to this town. The only way to save ourselves from monsters is to trust in God, and to elevate no other Lords above Him. What are we to think about a man who calls himself Lord and thinks to save this town? He is a false idol, my friends!”
As he repeated himself in Romanian, Bobbins leaned over to Shaw and whispered something in her ear. She elegantly positioned herself just enough between Bobbins and Paschal that she could intervene if necessary, but not so much that it could be seen as cowardice on Bobbins’ part, or a threat on Paschal’s part.
