Gears of a Mad God Omnibus

by Brent Nichols

  She said her goodbyes to Carter and left the hospital, feeling optimistic. Uncle Rod's house wouldn't be worth much, but it would be enough to hire a lawyer to handle his estate for her. Lawyers did that, didn’t they? She doubted he owned the warehouse that contained his workshop. Well, the lawyer could figure that out, and take care of whatever needed doing.

  The streets of Victoria, sunlit and bustling, made the dark machinations of the cult seem distant. With police swarming all over the Arcadia, the cult's members dead or scattered, and witnesses all around, the danger was clearly over. Colleen walked through downtown, unescorted and unafraid. She would feel even safer once she got back to Toronto. First, there was business to take care of.

  She spoke to a glib lawyer at a firm called Thorpe and Thorpe, pored over a fat contract, and signed it. Everything would be left in the firm's capable hands. She would go home and wait for a cheque.

  She went back to her hotel room and sat on the bed. The next ferry left Victoria the following day, at nine in the morning. She would have dinner, get a good night's sleep, and leave early for the ferry port. She glanced at her pillow. It looked marvellously soft, and she was so exhausted she could barely sit up. Perhaps lying down wouldn't be a bad idea, she decided. Just for a minute or two, until the worst of this weariness passed. It wouldn't do to fall asleep.

  Sleep, of course, took her almost immediately. She dreamed of Toronto, of Jane, of the woman on the running board. Once again Colleen stretched out her arm, pointing the gun, her finger tightened on the trigger. The woman looked up, and it was Smith's face she saw in the last split second before the gun went off.

  Her eyes flew open. The room was dark, and her stomach rumbled loudly. She wondered if she would still be able to find something to eat. In the hotel, ideally. The idea of walking the streets of Victoria after dark didn't hold much appeal.

  Her stomach felt heavy, so much so that she was having trouble breathing. She tried to touch her stomach with her hands and found that her arms wouldn't move. She looked down at her body. It was obscured by a dark shape. In the blackness of the room she couldn't figure out what she was seeing. Then the mattress creaked and teeth gleamed above her in a smile.

  She screamed, and a hand closed over her mouth, silencing her in an instant. A smell filled her nose, sweat and sawdust and grease, and she knew it was Jimbo before he spoke. His voice was a coarse whisper.

  "Where is Tanathos?"

  She flailed, kicked her feet, sucked in desperate breaths through her nose and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a muted whimper. He was straddling her, his knees on either side of her rib cage, pinning her arms. She drummed her knees against his back, thrashed from side to side, and he pinched her nostrils shut.

  She panicked, thrashing frantically, and he leaned in close and hissed, "Stop it!" He released her nose long enough for her to take in a single breath, and pinched off her air again. "Stop it," he repeated, and Colleen forced herself to lie still. He let go of her nostrils and she concentrated on drawing one desperate breath after another.

  "I just need the map," he said. "Tell me where it is and I'll leave you alone. I'm going to uncover your mouth. If you scream, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Will you tell me where Tanathos is?"

  She nodded again.

  "Will you scream?"

  She shook her head.

  "Good girl." He lifted his hand and Colleen let out a piercing shriek. His hand slammed down, cutting her off in mid-cry, and he pinched her nostrils shut again. She kicked and thrashed, knowing it was hopeless, staring at the dark outline of his head as swirling spots of light began to dance across her vision.

  The door crashed open. The gleam of Jimbo's teeth disappeared as he turned his head. Then the weight came off of her, she could move her arms, she could breathe!

  She sprang from the bed, stumbled to the door, and flicked on the lights. Two men were rolling on the floor beside her bed. She could see Jimbo's greasy hair and familiar red coat, and she scanned the room for a weapon. Her eyes fell on a bedside lamp, but it seemed too flimsy.

  She picked up the entire bedside table instead. It was a sturdy piece of furniture, and she grunted at the weight as she hoisted it over her head. The two men rolled back and forth, hammering each other with their fists. Then Jimbo slammed down his elbow, the other man cried out, and Jimbo rolled on top of him.

  Colleen swung the table with all of her strength, slamming it down on Jimbo's skull. He flopped forward. She hoisted the table high again and stood trembling, but Jimbo didn't move.

  The man underneath put a hand on Jimbo's shoulder and shoved him aside, and Colleen, afraid she was dreaming, tossed the table onto the bed and dropped to her knees. "Roland!" she cried, and threw her arms around him. "Oh, my God, Roland! Is it really you?"

  It was hours later before the last policeman left. Jimbo was taken away in an ambulance, his skull fractured, his survival in question. Colleen was surprised to find herself fervently hoping that he died. He had chosen his path, and the world would undoubtedly be better off without him.

  Roland's nose bled for more than an hour, but didn't seem to be broken. The police finally accepted their story that she had been attacked by a prowler for reasons unknown, and left. Roland wedged a chair under the doorknob and they lay down on the bed, fully dressed. She put her head on his shoulder. His arms went around her, and she clung to him, wanting never to let go.

  "I want you to come back to Toronto with me tomorrow."

  "Yes, Roland."

  "Having you so far away, worrying about you, and now nearly losing you... I don't ever want to lose you, Colleen."

  She smiled and squeezed him tighter.

  "I think we should get married," he said, and she answered with another squeeze.

  "There will have to be some changes," he told her, and she nodded against his shoulder.

  "Whatever you want."

  "No more workshop," he said sternly. "No more tools. I want you to stay at home and raise our children. I think we should have lots of children, don't you?"

  "I think that sounds wonderful," she told him, and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 7 – The Decision

  The story came out in fits and starts on the ferry ride to Vancouver. There were parts she didn't want to remember, but she told him the highlights. When she got to Jane's rescue, his face clouded over.

  "That was irresponsible," he declared. "They never should have done that. They certainly shouldn't have let you participate."

  She stared at him, startled. "But we had to help Jane!"

  "At what cost?" He shook his head. "No, you don't make progress by turning a disaster into a catastrophe. Sometimes you have to accept your losses and move on."

  He sounded so certain that she didn't argue. She thought of Jane in the hospital, though, talking of her plans for the future. Surely that wasn't a bad thing! Smith and Garson were dead. That was a high price to pay, a ghastly price, but what was the option? Allow the cult to flourish, look the other way? Surely that wasn't a realistic strategy.

  She stared moodily out at the water, trying to recapture her happiness of a few hours before. If Roland had a blind spot, it stemmed from his absolute determination to keep her safe. She couldn't fault him for that.

  When they docked in Vancouver Roland got in line at a news stand and Colleen walked into the middle of the terminal. It was the first time she'd been more than a dozen feet from him since he'd burst into her hotel room, almost the first time she'd stopped touching him since he saved her life. She wanted a bit of distance, enough room to think without the intoxicating aura that he seemed to generate.

  Not so much distance that she couldn't see him, of course. She watched him shuffle forward in the lineup, proud of his height, his broad shoulders, his casual confidence.

  A group of cowboys blocked her view. There were six of them, lanky, weathered men in long dusters and Stetsons. You saw every kind of perso
n in a place like this. A prim little man in a grey business suit came over to meet them and led them to the ticket counter. Colleen smiled. What would a group of cowboys do in Victoria? Catch a ship for somewhere else, she imagined. There weren't many cattle on the island.

  Roland bought a newspaper and came strolling toward her. He stopped beside her, but he gazed past her shoulder and said, "Now, what's the matter with him?"

  Colleen turned and found the short man in the grey suit staring at her from across the terminal. He had striking features, a face almost perfectly round with a bristling Chaplin-style mustache under his nose and round, steel-rimmed spectacles. He held her gaze for a moment, then turned away, talking to the cowboy beside him.

  "Friend of yours?"

  She glanced up at Roland. "No, I've never seen him before." Well, she had bruises around her mouth from Jimbo's hands, and dark circles under her eyes. Small wonder people were staring. "Shall we go?"

  She and Roland left the terminal and joined a queue for taxis. There were over a dozen people ahead of them, and not a cab in sight. Roland grinned and opened his newspaper. "I guess I should have waited until we got to the train station," he said. "I let everyone get ahead of us."

  "I don't mind," Colleen told him. "It's nice to be by the ocean." She left him minding their luggage and holding their place in the line, and walked to the corner of the terminal building. She watched gulls wheel and dive. After a while a horn sounded, and soon she saw the ferry moving away from shore.

  She could see the cowboys in a line at the ferry railing and wondered again what brought them to Victoria. A man in a suit had come to meet them, so it had to be something important.

  For some reason, the man in the suit bothered her. She thought she remembered him vaguely from the morning's crossing. He'd come across just to meet with the cowboys and bring them back, then. What troubled her? She was sure she'd never seen him before. His face was too distinctive to forget.

  She chased the thought in circles, then pushed it from her mind. Her brain would serve up the answer if she gave it a chance. She walked back to rejoin Roland.

  "Cor," said a voice behind her, "we'll 'ave a 'ard time makin' our reservation now."

  Colleen went cold as the memory came rushing back. A hotel lobby, the prick of a knife, and a voice behind her, a cold, clipped British accent. A man in a suit. She'd never seen his face.

  "Darling?" Roland's voice was tight with concern. "What is it?"

  She stared at him. "That man. The round-faced man in the train station. I think he's a member of the cult."

  His eyebrows rose. "Are you sure?"

  She wasn't sure, far from it. She hadn’t even heard his voice this time. The suit was similar, and the way he'd stared at her was unsettling. It could be coincidence.

  "It doesn't matter," Roland said, as if she'd spoken aloud. "There's nothing we can do about it now. He's gone. We're out of it now. Forget him." And he turned away, calmly scanning the street for a taxi.

  Colleen stared at the back of his head, speechless. He wasn't pretending. He honestly didn't care. Colleen was safe. They were leaving. In Roland's mind, nothing else mattered.

  She looked toward the ocean, the ferry, and Vancouver Island somewhere just over the horizon. She was safe, but she wasn't the only person involved.

  A taxi pulled up and the man in line ahead of them got in. Roland and Colleen were next.

  She kept staring after the ferry, thinking about the cowboys. Six men, tough-looking, on their way to Victoria with a cultist. They were reinforcements, she was sure of it. There would be guns in their luggage. And Carter and Rick and Maggie had no idea they were coming.

  She looked at Roland, sighing as she realized the dream of safety was going to slip away. If going with him would mean safety. The cult might leave her alone, but she could never be sure. She would be looking over her shoulder for years, scrutinizing every stranger, clinging to Roland and wondering if proximity to her would eventually get him killed.

  Some stubborn streak inside of her began to reassert itself. Even if her friends weren't in deadly danger, she realized she couldn't go with Roland. She wasn't going to live in fear. If the cult was going to terrorize her, she was going to take the fight to them. Again and again, until they were no more threat to her or anyone else.

  Another taxi pulled up, and Roland picked up his valise and her suitcase. He smiled at her, then froze as he saw the expression on her face.

  "Thank you so much for saving me," she said. "Thank you for coming. But I'm not going back with you."

  His jaw dropped. "What do you mean?"

  Colleen stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. "There's something I have to do," she said. "Goodbye."

  Chapter 8 – Tick Tock

  She left her suitcase in a locker in the ferry terminal. Leaving Roland was harder. She ignored him as he pleaded, demanded, and argued. She walked along the waterfront, talking to boat crews, and he dogged her footsteps, calling her a fool, telling her to stop being childish. He delivered an ultimatum, telling her it was her last chance to be sensible or he'd leave without her. When she ignored that, more ultimatums followed. After the third ultimatum he finally followed through, turned away, flagged a passing taxi, and left.

  Part of her felt devastated to see him go, but she felt more than a little relief, too. He could be a real pain, she saw, when he didn't get his way.

  Fear for her friends overrode every other concern, though. Later she could patch things up with Roland, or try to, or not bother. In the meantime, innocent lives hung in the balance.

  She finally found a fishing boat that was docked waiting for her nets to be repaired. She haggled briefly with the captain, hampered by not knowing what a charter should cost, and by her own sense of urgency. She wrote him a cheque and came on board.

  They set out immediately. None of the crew was on board. The captain sat at the wheel, staring placidly at the horizon, showing no interest in conversation. Colleen took a seat at the prow, stared toward Victoria, and willed the boat to move faster.

  They arrived after dark, well after the ferry. Colleen dashed ashore, looked in vain for a taxi, and ran to the Empress Hotel.

  No one was in. She left messages for every member of the team, then took a taxi to the hospital. Jane had checked out. There were different cops outside of Parker's room, a pair of stern broad-shouldered men with cold eyes and hard faces. They refused to let her past, and a nurse nearly as intimidating told her in no uncertain terms that visiting hours were over.

  Colleen left the hospital, sick with worry. Parker was safe enough, but where were the others? She trudged back to the hotel, hoping against hope that they had returned.

  They had not. Colleen stared around the elegant lobby. It was past midnight. Where would they go, in the dead of night? If the cult had them, where would the cult have taken them? They no longer had a ship. Where else could they be?

  She caught another taxi, wincing at the money she was spending. She directed the driver to the outskirts of the city and had him stop under a streetlight a block from her destination.

  The driver peered out his window at the surrounding darkness. "Are you sure, Miss? I don't like to leave a lady alone in a place like this. Are you sure I can't take you to your door?"

  "I'll be fine," she told him. "Right here is good."

  She crept up to the warehouse on foot, keeping to the shadows, placing each foot carefully so that no rock was sent rolling, no stick broke underfoot. There was a faint glow through the dirty windows. Someone had left a light on inside.

  The front door would be her entry of last resort. Instead, she slipped around to the back, hoping to find an unlatched window. Instead she found broken windows and a back door that had been smashed open.

  She crept to a window and peeked over the sill, seeing nothing but darkness and shadow. A sound came to her, though, a drawn-out groan, like a man in great pain trying hard not to cry out, and failing.

  Colleen mov
ed to the back door, which hung swaying from one hinge. The door frame was a splintered mess. She stared into the darkness beyond, her thoughts racing, fear and prudence warring with concern for her friends. She told herself that the sensible thing to do was flee, run back to town, summon a squad of police. But that would take hours, and what would the team members go through in the meantime?

  Another pain-filled groan came echoing through the window, and Colleen abandoned her inner debate, took a deep breath, and stepped through the shattered doorway.

  She found herself in a shadowed space behind a mass of rusted, filthy machinery. Nothing moved. No one was watching the doorway.

  She crept forward, watching where she put her feet, careful not to let detritus or broken glass crunch under her shoes. She inched her way to where the mass of machinery ended and peeked around the corner.

  The boiler loomed before her, several tool cabinets beside it. Beyond that would be the main workshop area. Colleen crept forward, keeping the cabinets between her and the open area beyond.

  She paused to examine a set of wrenches hanging from hooks on a cabinet door. The biggest wrench caught her eye, a massive steel tool longer than her arm. She lifted it down, holding it two-handed, feeling its comforting weight.

  She crept up to the last cabinet, knelt, leaned down so her head was just above the floor, and peeked around the corner.

  A cowboy loitered near the front door, thumbs hooked in a wide leather gunbelt, right hand close to a holstered pistol. Three more cowboys, similarly armed, sat on crates and smoked cigarettes. The round-faced Englishman in the business suit paced back and forth in the middle of the room, one fingertip absently rubbing at his absurd little mustache.

  Beyond him, four people stood with their backs to the rusted machinery that ran the length of the room. Rick was nearest to her. His face was swollen and bruised. Blood from his nose was caked around his mouth and chin. His shirt was in tatters, revealing a blood-stained white undershirt. Fury shone from his features. The muscles of his arms and chest were taut with rage.