Wolves of the Northern Rift (A Magic & Machinery Novel Book 1)

by Jon Messenger

  Tanner shrugged. “They’re huge beasts, standing as tall as a man when they’re on their hind legs. Their bodies are covered with white fur like the snow, making them virtually impossible to see as they approach the refinery. Each of their hands end in long, sharp claws, which is capable of piercing the steel of the factory’s walls as easily as they do a man’s flesh.”

  Simon nodded, confirming what he had already seen with the first corpse he examined. “Their attacks hardly seem to have caused any lasting damage to this facility.”

  Tanner’s demeanor immediately changed. He frowned deeply and furrowed his brow. “These attacks have killed half a dozen of my men. That may not seem like much to an aristocrat like you, but in a facility like this, that’s nearly a fifth of my operating staff. We got a few replacements for those we lost, but we’re still working understaffed. The longer these attacks go on, the less likely anyone is to take the jobs on the refineries. The only other option is if people like Mr. Dosett and the governor authorized armed guards around every facility beyond the city wall, but no one will approve those sorts of expenses. So while our refinery may seem in fine working order to an outside observer like yourself, that’s solely a testament to the hard work of the reduced staff that I have on hand, that they are able to keep the facility operating at their best efficiency while covering double shifts.”

  Simon swallowed hard. “Forgive me, Mr. Tanner. I clearly spoke without thinking and meant no disrespect.”

  Tanner seemed to relax as he realized to whom he was talking. “No, sir, I spoke out of turn and with bile. My outburst was uncalled for.”

  Simon smiled disarmingly. “On the contrary, your outburst has been the first moment of pure honesty I’ve encountered since beginning my investigation. I appreciate the insight you’ve offered.”

  The Inquisitor stood and put away his notebook. “If you would, Mr. Tanner, I would very much like to see any damage your facility incurred during the most recent attack.”

  The foreman stood and retrieved their parkas. He led them out of the office and back down the steel stairwell. A few workers moving palettes of supplies looked up with soot-covered faces at the odd pair following the foreman from the building. The trio paused at the entrance and stood for a brief moment between the potbelly stoves, soaking in the warmth they offered. With an audible sigh, Tanner pushed open the door.

  While the cold had been harsh before, having been inside in the warmth made the arctic blast far worse this time around. Simon immediately shivered involuntarily as he felt his sharp mind temporarily freeze. The haze over his brain quickly receded, but he was left feeling miserable. He pulled his hood further over his face and tried to disappear into its warmth.

  The foreman led them around the building. On the far side, the recent damage was immediately visible. The concrete that formed the core of the building was marred by long gashes. The pipes and hoses that Simon had admired from afar were twisted and torn upon closer inspection. He knew immediately that he had misspoken when they were in Tanner’s office. The building had suffered severe damage, much of which had yet to be repaired. The hoses sat silent and still, where they should have been channeling refined oil into storage vats below ground.

  Simon unclipped his parka as far down as he dared and reached into the pocket of his suit jacket beneath. He pulled out the notebook, holding it in one of his mitten-covered hands. He struggled to pull the pencil free, finally jerking on it with so much effort that it flew from his fingertips and disappeared into the nearby snow bank. Simon frowned as he stared at the small hole it had left in its wake. There was a brief moment where he actually considered digging in the snow after it, since he didn’t have another instrument with which to take notes.

  “Please, sir,” Luthor said, pulling an extra pencil from his small bag, “take one of mine before you do something you’ll regret immediately afterward.”

  Simon smiled and took the nub of the pencil Luthor offered. “You know me far too well. Do you happen to have the compass and protractor handy as well?”

  Luthor opened his over-the-shoulder bag once more and sorted through, pulling out both the metal instruments. Simon took the tools before turning back toward the claw marks on the wall.

  “What is he doing?” Tanner asked as he stepped beside Luthor.

  Luthor raised a finger to his lips.

  Simon took the metal compass and held the two free-floating ends of the measuring instrument to the scars on the wall. Pulling the tool away from the wall, he lowered it to his notebook, annotating the width of the marks. He confirmed his findings with similar claw marks along the wall before collapsing and putting away the compass. He returned to the first set of claw marks and retrieved the protractor. He took angle measurements of the claw marks, noting his findings in the notebook beside the claw measurements.

  “What exactly is he expecting that to tell him?” Tanner asked.

  Luthor hushed him more audibly.

  Simon put away the second tool and stepped away from the wall. He raised a hand and scratched his chin thoughtfully as he looked at the marks. To everyone’s surprise, he howled loudly. Luthor and Tanner jerked in shock. Simon immediately raised his hand and slashed it downward, mimicking the claw gouges in the concrete. With his arm returned to his side, he spun quickly on his heels and marched over to the inquisitive pair of men.

  “From the angle of the slash, taking into consideration an arm length similar to that of a man and no abnormalities in the general paw structure of the werewolf, I have deduced we’re dealing with at least four different creatures, standing at a height of between five foot and six inches and six feet and two inches tall, all with claw width of approximately an inch and a half.”

  Luthor annotated the findings in his notebook underneath their other research discoveries to date.

  “Mr. Tanner,” Simon said as he put away his notebook, “thank you ever so much for sacrificing your time and answering our questions. Luthor, if you would be so kind, please signal for Mr. Parrish. I believe I would like to examine one of the refineries further away from the city to see if my findings are similarly confirmed.”

  The ride to the drilling station beyond Mr. Tanner’s refinery was blissfully quicker than the trip from the city. Simon tried to review his notes during the brief trip but gave up after realizing the futility of the effort. His head kept bouncing one direction while the notebook in his hand bounced the other. Looking down and attempting to read was only aggravating his nausea. He unbuckled the top of his parka and slid his notebook away before turning his attention back to his snowy surroundings.

  He expected to arrive at another serpentine refinery like the one they had just left, but he was very surprised when they instead approached an open-air operation underway. A tall, narrow, wire-framed pyramid rose from the frozen ground, towering over the group as they approached. A single thick, metal tube ran through the heart of the pyramid, extending into the earth. A myriad of workers encircled the drilling operation, barking orders or manhandling the rig into place.

  The closer they got to the rig, the louder the din of yells and conversation. The men around it wore thick parkas similar in design to the ones he and Luthor wore, but they were filthy with grease and crude oil.

  Simon and Luthor climbed from the sled as soon as it stopped. Unlike the refinery, no one left their post and approached the visitors. As Simon watched, the men worked as smoothly as the machine that they tended. Men lathered grease onto the exterior of the drill. With a wave of their hands, other men pulled levers and the interior pipe began spinning. Gray smoke mixed with rocky debris erupted from the drill tube. The men nearby turned their heads away and covered their mouths until the dirty air settled.

  Simon walked toward the men, though he doubted any of them had even noticed the Inquisitor’s arrival. He paused behind the man that seemed to be observing and calling out the occasional order. The sound of the drill carving through the bedrock beneath the permafrost was deafening this c
lose to the operation. Simon flinched at the noise and suddenly realized why no one heard them arrive.

  He considered tapping the man on the shoulder, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to distract him from what appeared to be a crucial stage of their drilling. Instead, he and Luthor stood just past his shoulder so that they wouldn’t even be seen in passing by his peripheral vision.

  “Pull it back,” the foreman yelled, his voice barely rising above the grinding of the drill bit. “Slowly. Just ease it back a couple feet.”

  The men pulled up on the switches they’d been holding down. The drill reversed the direction of its spin, and the terrible metal on stone sound Simon had been hearing eased immediately.

  “It’s close now,” one of the men greasing the drill called back. “You can feel it breaking through the last of the bedrock.”

  “How much further?” the foreman asked.

  One of the men standing further to the side looked up from a table, where cylindrical coring samples were strewn in front of him. He held a finger in a notebook, marking his latest calculation. “It should be no more than three feet, sir, though I expect we’ll be passing close to the iron deposit.”

  The foreman nodded. “That’s what I expected. We’re close, gentlemen, but that doesn’t mean we need to get overzealous. We’ll drive the drill slowly until I’m sure we’re clear of the iron deposit before we make our final push. If anyone pushes too quickly and breaks the drill bit, I’ll send you personally to Mr. Dosett to ask for more money.”

  The men all laughed before returning to their respective jobs. With a wave of his hand, the switches were thrown and large gears spun, twisting a massive screw and descending the drill once more. The sound of metal on stone returned immediately, and even Simon’s thoughts were consumed by the noise.

  Unbeknownst to the foreman, Simon and Luthor continued to stand behind the man as they admired his smooth-running operations. The drill continued to descend slowly, inching forward as it carved through the thick limestone.

  The foreman’s gaze traced upward, reaching to the full height of the rig. Simon followed it, wondering exactly what the man was waiting for. As he watched, a single spurt of black liquid shot from the top of the hollow tube attached to the drill. Simon canted his head to the side as another small geyser of oil erupted from the rig.

  The foreman turned to Simon and Luthor, catching them both by surprise since they had no idea the man knew they were even there. “You both may want to back up. This is about to get messy.”

  The three men walked back to where Parrish waited with the sled dogs. No sooner did they turn back toward the rig than oil sprayed wildly from the top of the structure. The black liquid sloshed over the sides of the metal frame and dripped down on the men below. The workers bellowed with glee at the sight of the oil.

  “Stop the drill,” the foreman yelled. “Clamp it down. I don’t want to lose any of our payload.”

  The men worked feverishly, spinning large wheels affixed to the side of the drilling tube. The erupting volcano of oil slowly petered back to a small geyser before turning into nothing more than an intermittent drip of the fluid.

  With the rig clamped down, the foreman turned back toward the Inquisitor and apothecary with a broad smile. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to properly welcome you earlier, though I can’t think of a more proper introduction to the work we’re doing here. Do you work for Mr. Dosett?” The foreman’s expression suddenly fell. “About what I said earlier about Mr. Dosett, I meant no disrespect. I was merely joking with my men.”

  Simon held up a hand. “I don’t work for Mr. Dosett. My name is Royal Inquisitor Whitlock.”

  The man’s expression didn’t improve at the revelation of Simon’s official title.

  Simon cleared his throat awkwardly, having forgotten that not everyone showed him the deference to which he’d grown accustomed when announcing himself.

  “My associate and I are merely conducting an investigation into the tales of werewolves in the area. Since you and your crew are more mobile, I had hoped you might be able to share some insight into your own experiences.”

  The foreman nodded. “We’ve seen them, but never up close. They’ve slinked around the edges of our camps as we were checking out some other drilling sites, but as soon as they were found to be dry, we moved on and never saw them again.”

  Simon stroked his chin as he listened intently, mentally annotating a few more interesting facts. Luthor seemed far less interested in the man’s words as he stood beside the Inquisitor. He lazily spun his cane between his fingers as he stared out across the tundra.

  Luthor took a step forward, letting the icy cover to the powdered snow nearby crunch under his thick-soled shoe. He was about to take another step when he saw something dark in front of him. His gaze drifted toward the snow at his feet, where a large droplet of spilled oil had stained the pristine white snow. Luthor stopped spinning his cane and used the tip of it to press into the inky spot. He withdrew the cane, and its tip ran black with crude.

  “You’ve never actually seen one of these werewolves up close, then?” Simon asked. “You couldn’t actually confirm what they looked like?”

  The foreman shrugged. “They were as big as a man and covered in white fur. I presume they could have been a person in an elaborate wintery garb, but in this instance, it actually seems more likely that they were werewolves.”

  Simon frowned at the man. “You realize that statement is preposterous. It is never more likely that what you saw was a mythological creature rather than just a man in a suit. That mentality is exactly why Inquisitors are in such great demand, often for the most nonsensical and mundane of reasons.”

  Luthor looked up again, his gaze tracing the distant foothills. He furrowed his brow as he realized something was amiss. It took him a moment to realize that the thin trails of smoke coming from the campfires were no longer visible, as though all the fires had been simultaneously extinguished.

  “Simon, sir?” Luthor said.

  “If the idea of werewolves were so preposterous,” the foreman countered, “you certainly wouldn’t be investing so much time and energy determining their authenticity. You would have sent a simple telegraph back to the capital announcing a lack of evidence to support the allegations of monsters and then flown back home at your earliest convenience. The fact that you remain is a clear proof that at least an iota of you believes they’re real.”

  Luthor saw movement in the distance as something as white as the snow rushed from one snowdrift to the next. He clutched the pommel of his cane tighter as he tilted his head to be heard without taking his eyes from the scene before him.

  “Sir, begging your pardon, but I believe we’re about to be under attack.”

  “If I truly thought the werewolves were real,” Simon retorted, “I would have sent a telegraph demanding a team from the Order of Kinder Pel. You and half the town are alive only because I had the common decency not to send that message.”

  From the leeside of a snow bank, a wolf emerged. Even from a distance, the creature was enormous. Thick muscles rippled underneath its smooth coat of snowy white fur. It padded along the top of the hill on all fours. Its lips twitched as it stared at Luthor, who stood transfixed in place. As the winter wolf turned away from the apothecary, he noticed a bandolier wrapped around the creature’s waist. He furrowed his brow only for a moment before the wolf turned back, this time standing on only three legs. Its other front leg was held aloft, holding the stock of a flintlock rifle. Pushing off with its other front leg, the werewolf rose to its full height on its back two legs and pulled the stock of the rifle into the crook of its shoulder. It lowered its head and sighted along the top of the rifle toward where Simon and the foreman argued with one another.

  Luthor turned and ran toward the pair. He leapt, striking Simon from behind and driving him into the snow as a gunshot rang out. The foreman lurched backward and clutched at his shoulder. Blood seeped from between his fingers as he collapsed
into the snow.

  “Luthor,” Simon said while facedown in the frigid snow, “please get off me.”

  Luthor hastily moved from atop the Inquisitor and Simon turned his head to the side, spitting out a mouthful of partially melted powdery snow.

  “A thousand apologies, sir, but I believe we’re under attack,” Luthor explained.

  A second gunshot rang out, and they both heard the whizz as it flew dangerously close over their heads.

  “I notice as much,” Simon said. He rolled over and climbed quickly to his feet. “Arm yourself and go defend the drill workers. I don’t think they have much more in the way of weaponry than the wrenches and hammers at their disposal in the toolkits around the workstation.”

  “Very good, sir,” Luthor said as he rushed toward the rig.

  Simon climbed to his feet as another gunshot rang out. The lead bullet struck the metal framework around the drill site, resounding loudly across the empty frozen plain.

  The Inquisitor could see the werewolf atop the hill with the butt of its rifle driven into the snow. It tilted a powder horn, knocking some of the black granules into the end of the barrel. The wolf looked up and met Simon’s gaze as it tore off a small swatch of fabric, shoving it into the barrel ahead of another lead bullet.

  Simon’s attention was pulled away from the reloading werewolf as another of the creatures bounded over a nearby snow bank and sped toward him. Shocked from his stupor, Simon reached up and attempted to unclasp the top of his parka. As before, he found the task nearly impossible while wearing the mittens. His fingers fumbled with the metal clasp unsuccessfully.

  He looked up to see the werewolf sliding gracefully down the backside of the snow mound, landing only on its hind legs. It grasped the hilt of a long knife tucked into its sheath at the wolf’s waist. In a fluid motion, it pulled the shining steel blade, holding it nimbly between its fur-covered paw and its dewclaw, which Simon noted was long and limber enough to act as a thumb.

  In frustration, Simon stripped off the mittens, tossing them to the ground at his feet. The werewolf stepped forward, slowly at first, but gaining speed as it ran. Though the metal clasp was extremely cold to his unprotected hands, Simon unclasped the top latch of his parka and slid his hand into its warm interior.