Lord Bobbins and the Romanian Ruckus (A TeslaCon Novel Book 1)

by Sean Little

  Clarke also had to contend with two pressing fears: the first being that a low-hanging stalagmite was right in front of him and he was going to take its sharp point right off his skull at any second, the second being that there was another gaping, seventy-foot hole in the tunnel before him. He moved slowly waving his right hand in front of his face and keeping weight on his right foot while his left foot probed the floor in front of him gently, like a dancer. It was slow going. In Clarke’s mind, it was almost like walking through a dense pudding. The way gave easily enough, but the solidity of the darkness was overwhelming.

  He plodded through the tunnel. The sounds of his shuffling changed pitch when he entered larger sections. When he found a cavern, the sound echoed larger and longer. It was the only way he had any knowledge of change around him.

  The hardest part about being lost in the darkness in a cave is trying not to think about death. There were always stories about men going into caves to look for gold and a tunnel collapse crushes them, or they simply get lost and were never seen again. It would be a fitting end, thought Clarke. He was born into anonymity, and he would go out in anonymity, forgotten by everyone.

  And then he smashed his knee into something metal.

  Several minutes of cursing and limping later, Clarke was running his hands over something large and metallic. It felt like a table. Scattered scraps of metal and wood lay on its surface. He kept searching; his hands were held out in front of him like a blind man. More tables. A wooden chair. A stool. Large metallic structures in the center of the cavern. A derrick of some sort? He needed to find a light. He needed matches.

  With his fingertips Clarke sorted through the materials on the tables. Anything that felt like a book of matches was examined further. It was frustrating. His fingers felt dull and clumsy. How did the blind read Braille? Clarke couldn’t make out fine details on anything he touched. His hands were calloused and rough from years of work and lack of lotions and care. There was no finesse to them.

  A sudden, low hum froze Clarke in his tracks. Somewhere down a tunnel there was the pop of an arc-light bulb. And then another. And another. A sickly almond-colored glow began to emanate from a tunnel on the far side of the cavern in which Clarke stood. With the lights, Clarke could make out the outlines of the things in the workshop. More pops and humming sounded. The light grew brighter. Clarke could hear footsteps on stone down the corridor. He desperately sought a hiding spot. He saw a bunch of canvas tarps tossed in a pile in the corner. That would do. He quickly ducked under them and covered himself, keeping just enough of a gap in the canvas so that he could see.

  A ring of lights suspended from the ceiling of the cavern popped and hummed with a headache-inducing drone. The bulbs were pear-shaped Yablochkov candles. They cast a pale yellow light down on the workshop. Clarke could make out everything clearly now. The cavern was roughly the size of a small carriage-house with a low ceiling and a tunnel leading away on either end. There were four large wooden tables draped with heavy metal plates to prevent accidental fires from someone soldering or welding. Each table was covered with bits and pieces, odds and ends. There were large metal rigs scattered around the room, strange constructions with vaguely animal-like scaffold skeletons conjoined with gears and tubes, wires and rubber. Clarke was not an engineer, but even he knew this was some high-level construction. It was beyond anything he’d seen in zeppelins, horseless carriages, or trains.

  The footsteps from down the other tunnel were getting closer. Clarke pulled the canvas over his face and waited. After a few moments, a man in simple work clothes came into the cavern. He wasn’t Romanian, by a long shot. His features marked him as Chinese, but his hair was as pale as corn silk. His eyes were strangely colored as well. He was an albino. He walked with a pronounced limp. The albino picked up a toolbox and a lantern and moved down the tunnel toward the sonic fear machine.

  Clarke waited a few moments, and then slid out from underneath the tarp. He padded after the albino with fast, silent steps, staying light on the balls of his feet, not allowing his heels to touch the stone.

  The albino trudged dutifully all the way back to the fear machine. Shining the lantern over the wreckage, he heaved a heavy sigh. Before he could turn around to go back to the workshop, Clarke was on him. The toolbox went flying, landing in a glorious crash of metal. He wrapped his right arm around the man’s neck and clamped his left hand on the man’s mouth before he could scream out. The man jumped and tried to kick backward, but Clarke had been expecting it. When the man’s center of gravity shifted, Clarke took him to the ground. The man’s lantern landed on its base, lighting the area.

  Clarke pressed his weight on the albino and held him in the chokehold. He tightened his arm constricting the blood flow to the albino’s brain. In a few seconds, the albino stopped trying to fight and became very compliant. Clarke released the chokehold, but kept his arm in place in case he needed to reapply it.

  The albino gasped for air and struggled slightly. “Wer bist du?” he wheezed.

  German. Typical in his Americanism, Clarke didn’t speak any language other than English and few badly pronounced Spanish phrases meant to make sure he could find a lavatory or a meal if he somehow found himself in Mexico. “Sprechen sie Englisch?” It was the only German he knew.

  “Ja,” the albino wheezed.

  “Who are you?”

  “Shun.” His voice was thin and carried hints of Chinese, Russian, and German accents.

  “Shun? Just Shun?”

  “Just Shun.”

  “Well, Mr. Shun, my name is Nicodemus Clarke. I’ve been entrusted by the primar of this area to get to the bottom of the werewolf nonsense. I need you to tell me what the hell is going on around here.”

  Shun said nothing. Clarke tightened his arm again. The man choked and gasped for air.

  “Air is a funny thing, ain’t it?” said Clarke. “We sort of take it for granted until we don’t have enough of it, and when that happens we suddenly become willing to do all manner of horrible stuff until we get it again. I once saw a tribal warchief who was put into a hold similar to the one I have you in now: After a few minutes of this, he signed away his own sister to marriage to his sworn enemy. Crazy, isn’t it?” Clarke loosened his hold.

  Shun wheezed, sucking in all the air he could before blowing it out noisily. “Please. I am just a…a…mechaniker. I just build things. I fix things. I am no one.”

  “Then who do you work for? What are you doing in this cave?”

  “I just fix things. I am no one,” he repeated.

  Clarke flexed his arm again. “I got that the first time.”

  Shun tried to get his hands to Clarke’s arm, but Clarke shifted his weight pinning the smaller man to the cold stone. “Please,” begged Shun. “Please, no.”

  “Then make with the answers.”

  Shun sighed. His voice shook. “I am just a fixer. I help the doctor build his things.”

  “Enwright? Sigwald Enwright?”

  “Ja, Herr Doktor.”

  “Where is this doctor?”

  “Germany.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  Shun blinked twice. “I do not know. I only fix his machines.”

  “What’s his endgame? What’s he trying to do with this thing?”

  “I do not know! I just stay here and do as he asks. I do not leave the caves.”

  Clarke was getting nowhere, and he knew it. “Fine. I’m going to let you up. I won’t have to do anything to you if you play nice. Verstehen?”

  “I understand,” said Shun.

  Clarke rolled off the man and got to his feet. The albino rolled to a sitting position and rubbed at his neck. “I honestly cannot help you, sir. I am just here because the doctor freed me from my bondage. I was stolen by the Russian government from my home when I was a young man. They recognized my abilities with machines and took me for themselves, forced me to build machines for them. Doctor Enwright freed me from a work camp in Siberia and brought
me to Germany, and then here. He gives me freedom, a place to live, food, and work I enjoy. He protects me from the sun and the cold. It is not much of a life, but I am happy.”

  “And you never questioned him?” said Clarke. “Didn’t it seem strange that he had you maintaining some sort of weird machines deep in a cave in the Romanian wilderness?”

  Shun’s face took on a beatific look. “He is my savior. I do not question the doctor. Where he tells me to go, I go.”

  “Let’s go back to the workshop,” said Clarke. He held out his hand to assist Shun. “I have questions about those things in there.”

  “I must fix the machine, first,” said Shun gesturing at the wreckage.

  Clarke shook his head. “I’m afraid that machine will stay broke.”

  Shun’s eyes widened. “No. No, it cannot. It must be fixed. The doctor will be angry if it is not.”

  “Well, the doctor isn’t here to raise a fuss, so let’s be on our way.”

  “The machine—it is necessary.”

  “Why?”

  Shun shrugged. “I do not know. The doctor only told me that I had to maintain the drum at any cost.” He took Clarke’s outstretched hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Do you even know what the machine does?”

  Shun shook his head. “I just build and fix the machines. That is all.”

  “Then, let’s go fix a different machine. I have questions.”

  Shun glanced at the wreckage of the fear machine. He looked worried. “But I must—”

  The albino swung something at Clarke. Clarke tried to duck out of the way, but Shun was quick. He connected a large metal wrench alongside Clarke’s head. It hit him hard enough to drop him to a knee and make the world swim. Shun sprinted down the cavern toward the workshop.

  Clarke staggered back to his feet. He tasted blood and his right ear was ringing. He took a couple of steps down the cavern and the world swung back and forth. He closed his eyes and tried to shake away the ringing in his head. It took him a few seconds, but he was able to fool himself into believing he wasn’t dizzy as hell. He moved to pursue Shun, drawing the Colt revolver as he did.

  Clarke burst into the cavern. Shun wasn’t there. Clarke listened. It was quiet. No footsteps echoing down the corridors. Was there a secret door in the workshop? He took two steps and Shun popped out from behind one of the constructs. He held a long, hollow metal tube. He pulled a lever on the side of the tube and it made a sharp noise like a wound spring breaking. A metal mesh net of links fired out of the tube and caught Clarke fully, knocking him down. The links had barbs on them that dug into Clarke’s clothes and flesh. It was like being ensconced in sharp burdocks. Every move made more of the links bite down. When he pushed, the links tore at his flesh.

  Shun stood for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to do next. He dropped the net-gun and approached Clarke, taking little steps as if he expected Clarke to break free of the net at any second. He picked up a ball-peen hammer from a table. “You should not have come here.”

  Clarke froze. “What are you thinking, Shun? Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Dr. Enwright would be angry to find you here. He would be angry with me for letting you go. You have to be dealt with.” Shun raised the hammer and moved toward Clarke.

  Clarke didn’t want to kill him even though the smart play would be to shoot for center mass, aim for the chest. That would definitely stop him, but this wasn’t a time for killing. It was a time for finesse. From where he held the revolver near his hip, Clarke sized up the man and fired. A single shot. The bullet hit the side of Shun’s thigh and spun him in a circle. He collapsed, crying out and clutching his leg.

  “I know well what you’re feeling,” said Clarke. “Shot from a gun that size—it’s like the getting stung by a bee the size of a horse. I apologize for having to do that, but I’m sure I would not have enjoyed taking a hammer to the ol’ bean, you know? I have grown quite an affinity at not having my skull collapsed. Now, how do I get out of this contraption so I can get you some proper medical attention before you bleed out and die?”

  Shun’s voice sounded as if he was biting back tears. “Roll onto your stomach and be still. After a moment, slowly roll back and forth. Most of them should work free.”

  Clarke did as instructed and gravity freed some of the links. As he rocked, more broke free. After a dozen rocks, the chain fell away like magic. “That’s a neat little trick,” said Clarke.

  Clarke pulled out a pocketknife and cut a couple strips from the canvas tarps to use as bandages for Shun’s leg. The mechanic was still lying on the ground clutching his leg and moaning. Clarke had to cut the man’s pants to get at the wound. The wound was mostly superficial, but the bullet had snagged some of the meat of the thigh. Clarke gave a low whistle. “You’re going to feel that in the morning, I’m sad to say. It’s going to take a bit for the bleeding to stop. You might feel sick or weak because of that.”

  Clarke helped Shun to his feet. “You don’t have another wrench up your sleeve, do you?” He looped the man’s arm around his neck. “We got to get you back to town.”

  Shun pulled back hard. “No! We cannot leave the tunnels! It is not safe!”

  “What do you mean? Why is it not safe?”

  “The creatures are in the woods. It is not safe to leave the caves or they will come.” Clarke spun Shun around and took him by the shoulders. The man’s eyes were full of terror.

  “What creatures?”

  Shun fell to the floor. He shrunk into a little ball and tried to crawl under one of the tables.

  “What creatures, man?”

  The mechanic spoke in a tiny voice from the darkness under the table, barely more than a whisper. Despite that, it was clear enough when he said, “The wolves.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Revelation

  Clarke dropped to a knee and grabbed Shun by the shoulder, dragging him out from under the table. “What wolves?”

  “The wolves. The one Dr. Enwright controls. I have seen them. I know what they can do.” Shun shook his head. He gave a low moan from deep in his throat. “They are…terrible.”

  Clarke dragged Shun back to his feet, almost suspending the man off the ground by his shoulders. “How terrible? Are they monsters? Are they real wolves?”

  Shun nodded. Then he shook his head. He looked defeated. Crestfallen.

  “Where are the wolves?”

  Shun’s voice was weepy. “They are in the forest.”

  “Not in the caves?”

  Shun shook his head again. “Not in the caves. Not anymore. I completed them. They do his bidding now.” Tears welled up in his strangely blue eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

  “Shun, I got a feeling you know a lot more than you’re telling me. I need to know what the hell is going on.”

  “Dr. Enwright is getting his revenge on Cărbunasatul. He will make them sorry for what they did to him.”

  “What did they do to him? From what I hear, he couldn’t afford the upkeep on the castle and they sold it.”

  “That castle is his legacy! His family’s ancestral home!”

  “So, he wants to punish a town for it?”

  “He only wants his castle back.”

  “I don’t think my employer will be too keen on just handing over the title. Why don’t you start telling me the whole story?”

  Shun sighed. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

  “I don’t doubt that. Start at the beginning.”

  Shun looked down the tunnel from whence he’d come. “It will be easier if I show you something.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Shun gave a sigh of defeat. “This way.” He gestured down the tunnel. “No tricks. On my honor, I swear.”

  With Clarke supporting him so he could stumble along on his injured leg, Shun led Clarke down a windy path of tunnels lit by a crude electrical system and pale, glowing bulbs. The tunnels vacillated between roughly hewn natural tunnels and smooth, eleg
ant corridors shaped over time by pickax and shovel.

  They came to a portal that sealed by a thick oaken door locked with a stout iron lock. Shun reached into his pocket and produced a large metal key. Before unlocking the door, he said with a sad voice, “None of this was my idea.”

  When he turned the lock, Clarke heard voices on the other side of the door begin calling in Romanian. The door rolled to the side and a dozen men, two women, and three children were sitting in the corner, huddled together. They had dirty faces and unwashed hair. There was evidence of food and water being meted out, so they weren’t starving. The men stepped forward and started shouting at Shun. Shun shouted back. Clarke, who didn’t speak a lick of Romanian, was utterly confused. Csupo was conspicuously absent from the group. Clarke hoped the stable boy wasn’t dead. Or worse.

  “Shun, who are these people?” demanded Clarke.

  “They are the dead.”

  The dead. What did that even mean? Clarke said, “They look pretty alive to me.”

  “They are dead to everyone in the village. The woodsmen. The miners. The hunter. His daughter. One of the town drunks. The mortician, his wife, their children. The village thinks they are dead, killed by the werewolves. They aren’t. Weren’t. They are here.”

  For once in his life, Nicodemus Clarke was at a loss for words. He’d been brought in to investigate murders, but now there were no murders. Only kidnappings. Clarke said the only thing that came to his mind: “What?”

  Shun spoke to the people in Romanian. They quieted. Shun crouched by the door, folding his face to his knees and wrapping his arms around his legs like a small child. “It became too much; Dr. Enwright did too much.”

  Clarke took a knee next to Shun. “I get that you’re scared and confused, but I think you best start coming clean. We have to get these people back to their families, back to their lives. And I’m going to need to know what’s going on here.”

  “We can’t leave the caves. The wolves…they will get us.”

  “You let me deal with the wolves. Tell these people to get ready.”