Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century)

by Priest, Cherie

  Gideon jumped as a vase on a table behind him shattered.

  He dived back into the hall, leaving the president to his defensive measures, and kept scrambling over to the library, where Lincoln had had just about enough of this. The old man wheeled out into the hall, his chair humming warmly, its wheels grinding against the expensive rugs like they meant business. The revolver in his hand underscored the threat nicely.

  Gideon heard a crash from upstairs—or was it downstairs? Or behind him? There were too many explosions, too many things breaking at once for him to sort them all out.

  Lincoln shouted, “Gideon!,” and raised his handgun.

  In return, Gideon cried, “Mr. Lincoln!,” and raised his own.

  They fired simultaneously, Gideon’s shot taking down a man at the end of the hall—a man on the verge of running for the elderly leader. Lincoln’s shot singed Gideon’s ear like a firebrand, and as Gideon toppled to the side, ducking any further fire that might come, he saw a man reeling backwards behind him, stunned and bleeding.

  Lincoln fired again, and the man went down.

  “Sir!” Gideon ran to Lincoln’s side. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “Where will we go? They’re outside, aren’t they? No—we defend this place. If I’m to have a last stand, let it be here!”

  “No! No talk of last stands!” Gideon shouted at him, then dropped his voice. “We will live through this. All of us. And we will stop the war, and we will save the world.” He grabbed the mechanical chair and tried to force Lincoln back into the library … but another man appeared in the hall, and Gideon swore like the sailor he’d never been. One of the big crashes must’ve been a breach in the study. Those sons of bitches. There was a hole in the fort, goddammit.

  “Get this bastard out of the way!” Lincoln roared. Gideon was startled to hear his voice so strong, as he was so often softer spoken. But now he shouted, gesturing down at the man he’d shot. “Move him! Let me through!”

  “Yes, sir.” Gideon shook his head, but he bent down and grabbed the corpse under its arms. He dragged it to the foyer and tossed it in, freeing the hallway for Lincoln to pass, then barreled forward before he realized there was another armed man in front of him. Lincoln guided the chair away from the newcomer as Gideon opened fire. The man jerked aside, seeking cover, but finding none. He fell to the scientist’s next round.

  Upstairs Polly screamed, and it was like an ice pick to Gideon’s soul.

  “Help her!” Lincoln called without looking back. “Help the women upstairs, for the love of God!”

  Upstairs, indeed—for, yes, it’d been his idea to put the women up there, and now Polly was screaming. He found the steps by the lingering firelight and tripped up them—he’d climbed them a thousand times, but the light was so dim and he was so hurried. Someone was still shooting up there, and his money was on Mary. He banged his knee on the top step, but that was fine, he needed to stay low anyway; so he used it as an excuse to fall down to all fours, then proceed in a low, awkward crouch toward Polly. Where was she? West wing, yes. He followed the sound of her voice until he could see her silhouetted in the hall light.

  She wasn’t alone. A man held her … from behind? From her side? It was hard to say—she was fighting him like the devil, wrestling this way and that, until both their shapes were one great knot of shadow. Gideon wasn’t sure who was who, so he certainly couldn’t shoot.

  He shoved his gun into his coat pocket.

  He ran forward and seized the pair of them, wrenching them apart and taking the man by his shirt, then flinging him against a wall where he smashed a great crack in the plaster. The man lunged back, but he launched straight into Gideon’s fist, which caught him square in the stomach. He doubled over, catching the scientist’s knee in his face as he did so. As he staggered backwards, he found no retreat except the wall. As he reached up seeking to steady himself, the man found an oil lamp, turned down to nothing but still full of fuel. He grabbed at it, slipping when the glass shattered, but eventually got hold and pulled himself back to his feet. He must’ve been bleeding from the glass, but Gideon couldn’t see it. He saw nothing except for the fellow trying to step backwards, and a brighter shade behind him—someone wearing lighter clothing. Someone who swung an enormous stick and caught the intruder on the back of the head.

  “Polly!”

  “Got it from the broom closet,” she panted and pointed. The man had fallen to his knees, on the ground in the oil and glass, so she hit him again. He went down and stayed down, sprawled out between the scientist and the maid.

  “Give me your hand,” Gideon commanded. She did, but she held on to the broom as she jumped over the unconscious figure on the floor. “Where’s the attic? There must be a door in the ceiling; where is it?”

  “Here,” she said, leading him along the hallway, picking a spot, then changing her mind and going back a little farther. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s over here. It’s so hard to see, I can barely tell at all.”

  He held up his hand, feeling around for the rope pull that would bring the door down. It fluttered against his fingers. He missed it, tried again, missed once more. Finally, he caught it and gave it a yank, and a set of rolling stairs rumbled down. He caught them with his shoulder so he could lower them more quietly than was their wont. “Get up there,” he ordered her. “This is getting out of hand. Just go. I’ll get Mary.”

  “But, Gideon—”

  “Do as I say!”

  He left her, not knowing whether she’d obey or not, but knowing that Mary was not shooting anymore; she was shouting instead. He found her in the back bedroom, leaning out the window and shoving hard, then cackling like a witch as someone beyond hollered and fell heavily.

  “Mrs. Lincoln!”

  “Ladders!” she responded. “The bastards got themselves some ladders!”

  “Didn’t think they’d manage that so fast,” he said under his breath, then went to her side. “You’re out of ammunition?”

  She nodded, and the silver in her hair caught what little light came from the sky. “Fresh out. But they’re running out of men,” she said optimistically.

  He drew her back from the window. “You have to get up to the attic now,” he said. “Polly’s already there; she’ll pull the stairs up behind you.”

  “What about Abe?”

  “He’s down there with Grant and Wellers. They’re watching him. The mercenaries are inside the house, now.”

  “They’re inside my house?” she shrieked.

  “Keep your voice down, ma’am—and yes, they’re inside. I want you to go up to the attic and wait for us. We’ll let you know when it’s safe.”

  “When it’s safe?”

  “Yes, when it’s—”

  “This is my house! I’m not going anywhere! Give me another gun!”

  “Oh for the love of … no, Mrs. Lincoln.”

  Downstairs it was heating up, getting louder. He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, running. He couldn’t tell who they belonged to. He told her, “Stay here!” but she followed right behind him.

  For a moment, he seriously considered tying her up and sticking her in a closet, if only to get her out of his way.

  No. There wasn’t time.

  A large shadow loomed at the top of the stairs. Before he could demand that the shadow identify itself, a shot from below caught it in the back. It threw up its hands and fell backwards, tumbling down to the first floor like a rock down a fall.

  “Wellers!” Gideon hollered.

  “Right here,” said a voice from below. “That was close, eh? How are the ladies?”

  Mary yelled, “We are just fine. Just fine, do you hear me, Dr. Wellers?”

  “Gideon,” Wellers called, with a note of concern creeping into his voice. “It’s getting hot down here.”

  “I know. I’m about to put her upstairs.”

  “You aren’t putting me—”

  Gideon grabbed Mary around the waist and threw her over his shoulder
. “Ma’am, I do apologize, but you’re getting out of the way if I have to toss you up in that attic myself.”

  “I’d like to see you try!” she yelled, beating her fists on his back.

  “You are watching me try,” he said, but when he reached the attic stairs, he collided with them, because he hadn’t been able to detect them in the dark. “Polly,” he called up. “You there?”

  “Yes, Dr. Bardsley, sir.”

  “Incoming,” he warned, and climbed up just far enough to push the wriggling Mrs. Lincoln up into the overhead space. Then he jumped down, grabbed the edge of the steps with his fingertips, and flung the door back up into place. Polly said something through the ceiling, but he didn’t catch it, and he didn’t have time to ask her to repeat it.

  He banged his leg on an old sideboard, no doubt a priceless antique, then dragged the thing away from the wall to leave it blocking the top of the stairs. Wouldn’t stop anyone, he knew, but it’d make a lot of noise and surprise the hell out of someone who happened onto it. Might even trip a body up. Maybe they’d get lucky and some damn fool would fall down and break his neck.

  Gideon was of the very firm opinion that when men want to kill you, there’s no such thing as fighting dirty.

  Back down on the first floor, things were not improving.

  He ran into Wellers, still lingering at the bottom of the stairs, his back to them—his gun aiming first at the front door, and then the west corridor, while Grant held down the spot at the front windows. Lincoln rolled out from the library, briefly confusing Gideon, who had last seen him leaving it.

  Wellers explained before he could ask: “We’ve barricaded the east wing with a pair of cabinets. I couldn’t have moved them on my own, but that chair of his is tougher than it looks. I didn’t realize we’d given him something with so much towing power.”

  “I’d forgotten. Never thought he’d use it.”

  “Now he’s running ammunition back and forth, but we’ll be out of everything before long.”

  “At this rate, sooner than you think,” Lincoln said, delivering a box that looked frightfully empty. “This is the last of it. Where’s Mary? And Polly?”

  “They’re stowed in the attic. They ought to be safe, so long as they stay quiet. They were out of bullets.” Lincoln gave Gideon a quiet stare he couldn’t quite read in the darkness of the foyer, even by the light of the last of the parlor embers. So he added, “It was the best I could do, sir. Considering.”

  “Considering, yes. Let us pray it’s enough. Though if we’re relying on Mary to stay quiet…”

  From his position at the front of the house, Grant hissed, “They can’t have too many men left. I saw three go scampering into the trees like frightened rabbits, and we’ve killed more than a handful. They’ve stopped making requests and demands, and now they’re only sneaking. We’ve held the fort, men.”

  “But how much longer can we hold it?”

  “The rest of the night?” the president guessed. “Listen, do you hear that? They’ve stopped shooting.”

  He was right, but no one relaxed. They clustered together, three men standing and one sitting, listening for the next wave of peril.

  “This is your last chance!” cried someone outside. “Give us Nelson Wellers and the negro, or we’re coming inside!”

  Gideon scowled, partly because they’d figured out he was present, and partly because they hadn’t even bothered with his name.

  Grant shouted in return, “No, it’s your last chance! You’ve already tried to come inside, and what’s it got you? Half a dozen dead men and nowhere!”

  For a full minute, no one responded from outside. Then, just when the men inside had begun to hope they wouldn’t hear anything more: “We have more men on the way! You won’t survive until dawn!”

  At that point, it might have gotten strange. Tense conversations might’ve occurred within, as the men in the Lincoln compound admitted that the men outside were probably right.

  But instead, a new voice entered the conversation.

  A loud one, projected mechanically from somewhere above, higher than the roof and with greater force than anyone below it: “On the contrary!”

  A brilliant white beam of light shot down into the front lawn, illuminating everything a hundred feet around with such blinding vividness that even the men inside averted their eyes.

  Gideon’s adjusted first. He held up his arm and squinted, coming closer to the broken windows covered by shredded blankets that barely served as any cover at all, anymore. He stood to the side and narrowed his eyes.

  The column of light blasted down from something black and massive above the house—something that hovered with a rumble and the hiss of hydrogen. He saw no details, no refined lines of anything outside the ferocious column, which then began to move.

  The light pivoted, swung, and swayed, strafing the tree line and revealing three men with their faces covered … and now their eyes covered, too, as they slunk away, seeking cover from the all-knowing beam. The light shifted again, passing over the lawn to reveal bodies, some unmoving and some still twitching. It ran the length of the drive and chased two more men into a ditch; they scrambled up the other side and fled.

  And from the great light the voice came again. “We can see you! We will shoot every last one of you sons of bitches, and we’ll enjoy it! You have until the count of ten exactly to be clear of these premises—and then we open fire!”

  It was a big voice, even without the electrical amplification. Gideon could tell it belonged to a big man. But that wasn’t what surprised him. What surprised him was the fact that the speaker was almost certainly another colored man—though this man’s voice had slightly different inflections from his own, so he was probably not from Alabama. He wracked his working knowledge of Southern accents, trying to place it. Not Louisiana, not Mississippi. Not a river man, this one. Not Tennessee; he’d learned that one well.

  “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

  The light showed motion in the trees, men departing as quickly and gracelessly as fleas leaping off a dog.

  “Seven! Six! Five!”

  There was a ratcheting sound, the drop and shift of something heavy, as the voice continued.

  “You know … I never was a very patient man.”

  And then, without a further countdown, something preposterously huge opened fire.

  It sprayed the woods with bullets that pierced trees and shattered saplings, raining down broken limbs and splinters from all angles. It blew great holes in the lawn, blasted pits into the drive, and left nothing but a crater where the lamppost used to be.

  And, above it all, they could hear the sound of a big man laughing.

  When the yard seemed clear and the driving pulse of the enormous gun had ground to a halt, an immense armored dirigible lowered itself toward the remains of the Lincolns’ yard. A side panel opened—and an oversized harpoon appeared and was fired directly at the ground, smashing an awful hole in the lawn that Mary would surely complain about in the morning. But there it stuck, as firmly as any ship’s anchor.

  Beneath the craft a hatch opened, and then a set of stairs extended, much like the ones that led up into the attic.

  Grant, Wellers, and Lincoln joined Gideon at the front door.

  Lincoln said, “Pardon me, men.” And he opened that door, wheeling himself forward onto the stoop. The others followed close behind but lingered together, scarcely breathing as they watched a bulky colored man in a Union-blue coat descend, every step a stomp, and every shift of his shoulders like the rolling of river rocks in motion.

  Bald as an onion, the man was not young—closer to fifty than forty, Gideon guessed; and he had a scar across his cheek that must have come from some grievous old wound. But right now he was smiling from ear to ear, crinkling the scar and his eyes alike.

  He opened his arms toward them and cried, “Gentlemen! I am Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey, and I bring you the services of my ship and crew.”

  Gideon was take
n aback. “Hainey? Of the Macon Madmen?” Well, that accounted for the accent.

  Captain Hainey performed a little bow. “At your service! Are you the renowned doctor, Gideon Bardsley?”

  “I am.”

  “Then it’s a pleasure!” He came forward, hand extended, and vigorously shook Gideon’s hand. “From one old criminal to a young one: I’ve heard great things about you—great things indeed!”

  President Grant came forward and gave the next handshake. “I’ve heard many tales of the Macon Madmen. You’re the last of them, aren’t you?”

  “So far as I know,” the captain confirmed. “I was innocent of all those crimes, but I’ve since committed plenty I could be convicted for more fairly. Perhaps I can talk a pardon out of you before the sun comes up.”

  “You’ve got one whenever you want one,” the president assured him. “That was some amazing shooting. What sort of gun is it?”

  “Oh, that?” he said casually. “That’s the Rattler. It’s a Gatling conversion. I’ll show it to you, if you like. But first…” He turned his attention to Lincoln.

  Lincoln sat serenely, a peaceful and knowing expression on his face. “Do I have Kirby Troost to thank for your intervention?” he asked.

  “You know Troost: The man’s a miracle, but he can’t be every place at once. So, yes, you owe it in part to that strange little fellow, and in part to those strange little ladies.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, where Mary and Polly were descending the dirigible steps with caution.

  “Wait … how?” Gideon began to ask, and then he shouted to the women, “You’re supposed to be in the attic!”

  To which the captain said, “I found them on the roof, which is close enough. They flagged me down, and good on ’em for doing so! I wasn’t sure I could find the place; there’s not a ray of light anywhere for a mile. The weather’s done a number on the District, taking the power and taps alike—but your missus was up there with a lantern, waving it around on the widow’s walk like … like a little maniac,” he grinned.