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

by Sean Little

  Bobbins gave Tesla a light shove. “Nicky, do I detect a little envy in you?”

  “Nikola. Envy is a pointless emotion. I wish to study this machine, though.”

  “We’re not going to be able to carry that back to the castle,” said Shaw. “Not going to be able to get a wagon back here any time soon, either.”

  “It works on sound,” said Tesla. He was probing into the wires and the blue goo with his fingers. “Just like the fear machine. The man who created this knows more about the principles of sound than the world’s current collective knowledge details. It is as if he is a time-traveler from the future.”

  “Is that why you built that crazy gun?” said Clarke. His ears were still ringing from the blast.

  Tesla gave a single nod. “I assumed the fear was sound-based. I hoped I was right.”

  “How did it work?”

  “It is a concentrated sonic blast. If you are in the direct line of it, it will hurt you. For a machine, it rattles its parts at such a rate that it ceases motor function. Unfortunately, it only has enough charge for a single shot.”

  “Good thing I didn’t miss,” said Bobbins.

  “A very good thing,” said Tesla.

  “How does Enwright control it?” said Clarke.

  Tesla shook his head. “I do not know. It seems like a wind-up toy. Once released, it does what it is meant to do. Maybe there is some sort of higher control, like a wireless signal?”

  “Shifting direction? Hunting? It knew where I was. How?”

  Tesla continued to shake his head. “I cannot tell you that. The man who created this is a genius beyond anything I have ever experienced.”

  Tesla probed deeper into the machine. He grimaced and strained, then something cracked deep within the control box and all the blue goo went dark. Tesla withdrew his hand and held a small, purple crystal half the size of a walnut that glowed with a slow pulse of ethereal light. He held it up reverently.

  Bobbins leaned in, eyes wide. “Nicky, is that…what I think it is?”

  “Nikola. It is,” said Tesla. “I have never seen this much of it, though. This is more than I thought existed in the world.”

  “What is it?” asked Clarke. It just looked like a sparkly rock to him.

  “Nethercrystal,” said Tesla. “One of the rarest gems on the planet.”

  “The rarest,” corrected Bobbins.

  “I’ve never heard of it,” said Clarke.

  Bobbins took the nethercrystal from Tesla’s fingers. “That’s because it technically does not exist.”

  “But you’re holding it,” said Clarke.

  “I am holding it, yes. It does indeed exist. However, the fact that it exists is a closely guarded secret. Only the world’s top leaders and scientists know that it exists.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous?”

  “Very,” said Tesla.

  “Do you remember the Slazenlaw Mine Disaster?” asked Bobbins.

  “Hard to forget that. It happened about fifty miles from where I grew up,” said Clarke. It had been in the papers almost a decade ago, an explosion deep in a long-shaft gem mine. It collapsed the entire mine, killed over a hundred Helldigger miners, and replaced about a square mile of West Virginia forest with a hundred-foot sinkhole.

  “That was the day humanity discovered nethercrystal,” said Bobbins. “During the investigation of the disaster, we found specks of the material. Grains the size of sand, maybe smaller, mere flecks. Testing showed that it was highly explosive. We assume that one of the miners accidentally sank a pick into a considerable chunk of it and boom: no more mine, no more miners. A single grain can bring down a small building. However, it had other qualities, too.”

  “Power,” said Tesla. “Each grain was like a battery that could power a machine for days, weeks.”

  “However, the positive aspect of its power was not worth the trade-off of its potential destructive qualities. A lump this size could level Cărbunasatul. It would kill everyone in a square mile. There wouldn’t even be enough human remains to stage a funeral. So far, we’ve only found it in America, England, Wales, and France. I have heard rumors that China is desperately searching for it, and so is Russia, but we have no intelligence that suggests they found any.”

  “This much is more than we have discovered in the world,” said Tesla.

  Bobbins pocketed the nugget. “If there is one this sized in that machine, then we must assume the other machines are powered the same way.”

  “That much nethercrystal could be considered a declaration of war by a world power,” said Tesla. “That much could start massive power struggles. It would change the very face of power and politics on the planet. That much is dangerous.”

  “And you’re just going to carry it in your pocket?” said Clarke.

  Bobbins shrugged. “Safe as anywhere else. It will only detonate if it’s hit very hard or a specific charge is applied to it.”

  “What kind of charge?”

  “Oh, who knows. Point is, I might as well carry it because if it goes off, we all die anyhow. There’s no outrunning this.”

  Nothing about the werewolf or the nethercrystal made sense to Clarke. He started looking at the pieces to the puzzle and was coming up with nothing.

  Unless…

  The answer made Clarke sick to his stomach. “Cărbunasatul is a nethercrystal mine.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wolves in Town

  Since the dawn of man wars have been fought over money, over women, over land, and ideals. Wars have been fought over misunderstandings in gesture or language or contract. Wars have been fought over insults. It takes very little for a man to bring up his fists and swing them in anger, and even less for a king or president to order men to battle. Countless lives were sacrificed in the pursuit of power. For something like a walnut-sized lump of nethercrystal, there would be very little stopping two countries from attacking each other. Or multiple countries attacking each other. The Civil War had been a twenty year-long, drawn-out exercise in attrition that Clarke wouldn’t like to repeat anytime soon. A war for nethercrystal, though—that’s a world-ender. Any government with a large supply would be a major threat to the rest, and that threat would have to be neutralized by any means necessary. The entire idea made Clarke shudder to his core.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense to me,” said Clarke. “Why else would someone go through all the trouble of building these things and trying to frighten a village into staying away from the mines? Why else would someone capture and kidnap people and then stage their deaths to protect a secret? Why else would he bring an engineering genius from Russia and hide him, forcing him to build machines like the wolves?”

  “You’re saying that this very land could be ripe with nethercrystal?” said Bobbins.

  “I’m saying there is some nethercrystal here. It could be ripe, for all I know. I don’t know how much there is. It is probably a safe bet to think Dr. Enwright found it years ago, but couldn’t figure out what it was. He probably knew it was important, though. It wasn’t until the mine disaster occurred that he knew what it was, exactly.”

  “And then he figured out how valuable it could be,” said Bobbins.

  Clarke nodded. “Exactly. Once Slazenlaw happens, he knows what he has. He is a wildly intelligent man. He develops a way to do something with the crystals that will make him rich or powerful, or something that will allow him to…something. It doesn’t really matter. He knows he can do something amazing or something wildly dangerous with the crystals. Only one problem—”

  “He doesn’t own the castle anymore,” said Shaw. “He abandoned his link to the crystals because he needed time to investigate the material. The timeline fits.”

  Clarke pointed to his nose. “In his absence to develop the crystals, he loses the rest of them. He needs them back. If he just comes in and demands, people will get suspicious. Why does he want the castle back? He has to develop a way to get what he wants without anyone being wiser for it. He
needs the people to stay away from the mines so he can get the crystals out without anyone knowing. He finds himself an engineer who can help him build a machine. He builds a way for the machine to work. He develops the ability to control the machine. He preys upon the superstitious nature of the people by using fear. He controls their fears and gets them to stay inside. When people start pressing against the fear to keep their daily life moving, he has to take a couple of them, make it look like something wild killed them. When that doesn’t work, he stages an opportunity to take a photograph, give them something physical to see. That thing in the photo was clearly not a real werewolf, and it certainly wasn’t a mech like the thing we just stopped. Maybe there never was a real werewolf. He can control them with chemicals. Maybe he rigged it to make them all think they saw a werewolf, and used a prop mannequin to make a very convincing physical image. Then, he stole back the prop and the people who would have known it was a prop. That picture was horrific. People would have been terrified to go back to the woods knowing what was out there, even if they had defeated one.”

  “Then he’s free to mine all the crystal he can, stockpile it, and wait for the rest of the world to start demanding it,” said Shaw.

  “Only trouble: I doubt he expected the people to send me the daguerreotype of the wolf. With physical evidence like that, I could not avoid investigating,” said Bobbins.

  “Precisely,” said Clarke. “You gummed up his plan. He has to move fast or lose everything, now. I’d be willing to bet Dr. Enwright is near, very near. Who’s the only outsider in this town besides us?”

  Andrei spoke up, “Brother Paschal, the priest.”

  Clarke nodded and put his finger on the end of his nose. “Anyone want to bet that Paschal is Enwright in disguise? He’s here to mine out the nethercrystal and become wealthy.”

  “With a couple of lumps of this size, he’s the richest man in the world,” said Bobbins. The Russians would hand over all the Tsar’s children for this. The Chinese would give up all the jade in the Han Dynasty for it. Egypt would hand over the land deed to the Giza Pyramids for it.”

  “Money is a powerful motivator for crime and war,” said Clarke.

  “Andrei, is there any part of the castle that you haven’t seen? Or maybe there’s a tunnel in the depths of the dungeons or something?” said Bobbins. “We need to know why he wants the castle back. I can only assume that there’s a tunnel to the mines somewhere.”

  Andrei shrugged. “Maybe? I do not know, m’lord.”

  “First thing’s first, then,” said Bobbins. “We get this poor man some help. Then, we go find whatever Enwright wants in the castle. Then, we figure out how to stop him from doing whatever he is doing. I need to send a wire to the Queen, immediately.”

  With Andrei’s help, Clarke was able to carry Shun back to Cărbunasatul. They carried him directly to the small office where the town’s only man with any sort of physician training—a barber—had a shop. Between the abilities of the village doctor-slash-barber and Tesla, Shun would live.

  The village seemed to be waking from a slumber. With the fear force gone, people were feeling good again. The misery and unease was gone and there was a welcome lightness in the town. There was a renewed sense of joy and peace. Even though it was after dark when the group returned, the town was still in motion. People were out and talking in the streets. The Crying Pig was filled with people talking and laughing, drinking beer and wine and eating. The eerie sense of fear was gone. The people were responding to it. They were coming out of the fog that had held them at bay for months. When they saw Bobbins, they crowded around him, offering food and trinkets. Old women pawed at him, saying prayers in Romanian over him, cheering him, and speaking rapidly in their own language.

  Bobbins, a gracious smile plastered on his face, accepted all their praise. Andrei stood behind him, acting as translator.

  “Where is Csupo?” a young girl’s voice asked Clarke in heavily accented English.

  Clarke turned to see the young girl that Csupo had been flirting with previously. Clarke didn’t know what to tell her. He had no idea where Csupo was. “He’s fine,” he said. “Lord Bobbins had other work for him.” As an afterthought, he added, “Lord Bobbins relies heavily on Csupo. He’s a very important man.”

  The girl’s smile was vacant. Clarke didn’t know if she knew what he’d just said. “He’ll be here soon,” he lied. He smiled graciously and moved away from her. He hoped Csupo wasn’t dead. He couldn’t bear to see that girl’s face if they brought back Csupo’s corpse. Her mother may not have wanted her to see the stable boy, but it was clear that she had other intentions.

  As the noise and adoration of Bobbins increased, it only brought more people out of their homes. Bottles of booze were passed. Barrel fires were lit to provide warmth and light. Songs were being sung. In short order, the entire village was in the streets celebrating. Andrei was telling people of the group’s victory over one of the werewolves, and the story was spreading. It quickly evolved from the truth into a tale of Lord Bobbins himself slaying the beast with his bare hands, swinging a mighty punch into its jaw to kill it, and then plucking its heart from its chest like a conqueror triumphant.

  Clarke was swept up in the crowd. They milled about, signing and drinking. Random women came up to Clarke, draping themselves on him in jovial hugs, alternately crying and laughing, swilling liquor, and pinching his cheeks.

  Somehow, a chant was started. Bob-EENS! Bob-EENS! Bob-EENS! Bobbins was pressed into giving a speech, and a pair of men hoisted him onto a hogshead barrel so that he could address the crowd from a vantage.

  “My friends!” Bobbins called. Next to him, Andrei translated what he was saying into Romanian for the benefit of the crowd. “We have returned from the woods! The werewolf was not a werewolf, but an elaborate machine. My friend, Mr. Clarke, tells me that the people you were mourning are still alive! We hope to bring them back to you soon.” There was another great cheer and a lot of glasses of booze being raised.

  Bobbins continued. “There is no longer anything to fear in Cărbunasatul. We will continue to work together to improve this town, to build the economic infrastructure, and create a paradise for the people of this town and the surrounding area.” Another great cheer rose up. More booze was swilled. Clarke was impressed by the tolerance levels of the townsfolk. He’d seen large men laid low by far less than what the average grandmother in the crowd was imbibing.

  Bobbins continued, looking from face to face, moving his way through the crowd making eye contact with each person. “My friends, today is a brave new day. You have persevered. You have weathered a dark night and seen the dawn! You have a great big giant damned wolf!” Bobbins’ face hung in a rictus of shock.

  There was a pause. The crowd was unsure. One drunken sot in the front gave a cheer and everyone else joined. Clarke followed Bobbins’ look of astonishment to the road beyond the crowd. At the edge of town, near the church, a werewolf stood surveying the crowd with cold, dead eyes. This one was bigger than the one they destroyed in the forest. It was large and solid. The dancing shadows cast from the fires in the braziers in town gave it a menacing look, demonic.

  Clarke’s hand went straight to his Colt. He drew it and fired a single shot into the air. “Everybody run!” The crowd went dead silent and everyone turned to look at him. Clarke sighed. “Andrei, would you?” He pointed to the wolf. Andrei craned his neck and saw it for himself. He went pale. Andrei shouted something in Romanian. The crowd, en masse, turned to look where he was pointing. Then, as one, they broke out into screams and panic. They went tumbling over each other for shelter. Men knocked over old women. Children ditched their mothers. It was a tooth-and-claw panic of confusion and terror.

  “Shaw!” Clarke called. As if rehearsed, a Winchester Yellow Boy came spinning end-over-end above the crowd and Clarke caught it with one hand. He holstered the revolver, brought the Winchester to his shoulder, sighted, and emptied it at the wolf. It seemed to have no effect. Clarke
tossed the rifle and found the dour Serbian genius standing next to Bobbins. “Tesla, get your sound gun.”

  Tesla shook his head. “It is useless; it does not have any charge left.”

  Of course, it doesn’t, thought Clarke. He looked to Dolly Shaw. She was standing just behind him and twenty feet to his right. “Thoughts?”

  “I guess this is where you earn your money, Cowboy,” she said.

  “Resources?”

  “A few guns. A plethora of panicked villagers.”

  “Neither of those seems to be a help at the moment.”

  “Not really, no.” Shaw nodded toward a horse tied to a hitching post. “Can you do anything with that?”

  Lead the wolf away from town, maybe? “Probably not,” said Clarke.

  “Then we can only do this the old-fashioned way,” said Shaw. “By getting bloody.”

  “I hate the old-fashioned way.” Clarke started a slow walk toward the beast. He tossed the Winchester to the street and pulled the Colt. The box in the head, that had to be its weak point. He sighted down the Colt’s long barrel and squeezed. The recoil snapped the pistol backward, but he corrected and sighted again. Five shots went straight into the construct’s head. It remained standing. Was this a hallucination from the gas? Clarke wondered. Why wasn’t it the banshee he’d seen before?

  The wolf tilted its mechanical head upward and howled. The noise was metal crashing on metal combined with fingernails on a chalkboard. It hummed and buzzed unpleasantly in the ear and the gut. It was a horrific noise that grated on every nerve ending in Clarke’s body. It was a paralytic. It froze him in place and made him clap his hands over his ears. How did Dr. Enwright make that thing?

  The wolf finished howling, and it charged. Two more constructs followed it from the woods, crashing out of the brush and wheeling toward town on the road. Clarke reloaded his Colt as fast as he could. Only through the sheer volume of practice and repetition was he able to do it quickly. The large wolf was almost upon him when he clacked the cylinder closed and leveled the weapon to shoot. The shot went point-blank into the wolf’s face, dead-ought-center, as they used to say in the snipers. It must have hit something because the animal’s limbs ceased function. The animal tumbled ass-over-teakettle crashing into Clarke like a runaway boulder. Clarke spun to the ground.