The young man set his eye against the eyepiece once more, his hand on a focus knob. He saw nothing on the roof but the smoldering remains of the unfortunate Nos. “No sir, just a trick of the light. I’m ready to repack her.
Several minutes later, Captain Grimm joined them at the table. Cook had prepared a meal of thinly sliced ham he called, prosciutto. A heap of sliced baguette sat next to it, as did a bowl of orange marmalade. A bottle of brandy also adorned the table but no one touched it, choosing the coffee instead.
“Well,” Persi started, “I guess the obvious question is, where did they go?”
“Africa, I believe. The Congo, to be specific,” Tesla said.
“That is not my first question,” Grimm said, reaching for the coffee carafe. He looked at Tesla. “My question is why an apparently sane person, of the scientific mind such as yours, makes the choice to make a weapon for a criminal?”
Tesla stopped sipping his coffee and his brow wrinkled. “What?”
“Oh, come now, Mister Tesla ...” Persi began.
“Please, Nikola,” Tesla said.
Persi dipped her head. “Yes, Nikola, you must have known you were making a weapon. How could you not?”
He smiled. “Just because I shoot electricity into the aether ...” he shook his head, “It is this time we live in I suspect. Why must every act of science be reduced to weapons and warfare?”
“Well, shooting lightning is a very violent act,” Persi said.
“Is communication a violent act?” Tesla asked.
Now it was Persi’s turn to look confused. “Communications?”
“Yes, my invention ... our invention is meant for communication. We shoot signals into the air and bring them down at some other point.”
“Like aethergraph?” Grimm asked.
Tesla laughed, “Yes, in the most basic sense, but imagine voice, sound and pictures being transmitted, perhaps from your home, and hundreds of miles away, your mother pulls them down in hers.”
They were mesmerized by his idea.
“And perhaps one day, even power itself can be transmitted through the aether. You must understand this, Mister Boots. I understand you were with Stanley on his little outing. Imagine being in the remotest place and pulling power down from the sky to heat a pot of water, or illuminate your camp. This, this is what I am doing.”
“Perhaps you don’t completely understand what you have been doing?”
“How so?” Tesla asked.
For the next hour, Persi and Boots explained their findings at Deadwood and Orlando. When they were through, Tesla buried his face in his hands.
“What was this Duke Narcissa’s piece of the project?” Persi asked.
“He had invented a transmitter. It was based on several years of research, sometimes bordering on the arcane, and crystals he found in Egypt. He mounted the egg-sized crystals in his amplifier, then shut himself up in what he called his, ‘control room’ to energize them. Honestly, I would have assumed he had lost his mind if his device had not worked. Using my generators, I made the electricity, kilowatts worth.
“That is a lot?” Persi asked.
Tesla smiled. “We made so much, too much, that we sent much of it to Aspen. I thought of it as free advertising for my future introduction to Mr. Edison.” His demeanor changed, his face tightened with excitement. “But with Narcissa’s device, we produced Terawatts.” He looked at Persi. “Enough to power a large city like New York, but instead of using it over time, we released it into the atmosphere as lightning. It was quite a show. He were working on the receiver, ‘almost completed’ he told me, when last night he ordered the airships loaded, told me I had betrayed him.
“Had you?” Boots asked.
“Not that I am aware of. The only thing that had changed in months was my meeting you, but he didn’t know that. I told him he was wrong and that I would give him time to cool off and turned to leave. I was engulfed in blue light and my muscles seized, as if I was being electrocuted, and I blacked out. This morning I woke up in a cell, though the door had been left unlocked. I found my way to the main floor – the cells were below, part of an old copper mine – then began to hear, what I now know was the Nosferatu stirring. I ran out into the courtyard believing I could flee in a velocitor but they were all gone, they had left me. I saw your ship in the distance and ran to the roof in hopes of getting your attention and, well, I think you know the rest.”
“Yes,” Boots said, “but what was the Duke doing with the Nosferatu?”
Tesla shifted his eyes to the table. “I do not know.”
“Come now, Monsieur Tesla, I think this is a lie,” Grimm said.
Tesla looked up sharply. “No, not a lie ... I have no solid proof of anything, only hints, rumors.”
When he was silent, Persi spoke. “So, you chose to look the other way, but what was he doing, what were the rumors?”
“They were outlandish, which is why I claim innocence. I heard he was trying to condition them, to take away their animal nature, to make them thinking, reasoning creatures.”
“How, how was he doing this?”
“Again, fanciful rumors of a combination of drug therapy, electrical shocks and ...” Tesla faltered.
“Well?” Boots asked.
“He was heard speaking, sometimes screaming what the witnesses said were spells. ‘Yog suthoth’ this and ‘Cuthulu that ... craziness, as you supposed.”
“Then how do you suppose he got the results we saw only an hours ago -- Nosferatu out hunting in full daylight?”
Tesla shook his head. “No idea, I had no interest in his other projects. Now,” he clapped his hands together, “perhaps there is a place I could clean up? It has been a long morning.”
“Certainly,” Persi said, “Mister Nicholas, please show Mister Tesla to the Navigator’s cabin. Oh, and Nicholas,”
The young man looked at Persi.
“Check the cabin, make sure it’s empty.” Nicholas smiled and nodded.
Interlude Four – Wedding Bells
Maggie fluttered her eyelashes and giggled, batting Henry Brewster’s arm playfully. James told her it would be easier if she stopped thinking of him as her father so she was doing her best. She heard a scuff just behind and to the left. Mentally, she feigned a stumble and while grabbing the blade from her secreted belt sheath with the handle shaped as the buckle, then stood to face her opposition as she had been trained. In reality, she turned to giggle in his ear and glanced over his shoulder, relaxing slightly when she saw it was just the hulk of one of Brewster’s men. Brewster was aware there were men who wanted him dead so he had hired a guard who maintained a constant surveillance, which is why James needed her to get closer than a man ever could.
“I’m so glad we’ve had the chance to get close these past few months. I must tell you that you are the most beautiful and engaging woman I have ever met,” Brewster covered her slender hand with his large beefy one. “After making my fortune I began to realize I was incredibly lonely. Other women only wanted me for my wealth.”
She smiled to herself hearing the inferred, ‘but you are different.’ She released the smile from the inside and it spread across her face. “Henry, you know I care for you. It wouldn’t matter to me if you were a pauper!” She looked down demurely. “After all, you haven’t judged me for what is now my past.”
“My sweet,” he dropped his gaze, “I am pleased you left Mister Sturgess’s establishments and found respectable work in the milliner’s shop, but regardless, how could I criticize you with good conscience? I myself came from humble beginnings, but I climbed out of that life, and it is one I wish to forget.”
I’m sure you would like to forget it, she thought. Nor will I mention the many times you have attempted to force me to bed, as if I was still a whore. Perhaps that is why you want me, because you can’t have me?
He turned and looked straight into her face. “Mara, if you will only say yes I would make you my wife. You would never have to work, an
d you would care for you like a queen.”
Mara was the name she had given to her father. James told her it meant bitter.
“And though I am a bit older than other suiters you may have had,” he continued, “I have always wanted children.” He paused, then squeezed her hand. “Marry me, Mara?”
Maggie felt sick. He was disgusting, a fool. She loathed him, she wanted to scream, you had a child and you sold me! She paused for a moment to get her emotions under control, then remembered her months of lessons with an actress, Madam Schotsky. Within a month she could control every muscle in her face and knew which combinations promoted the exact emotion. Flexing her facial muscles, she donned the proper smile, even as the emotional struggle caused pain, and forced her eyes into the shape that conveyed ultimate joy. “Henry, of course I will,” she exclaimed in a voice designed to exude rapturous happiness. “I couldn’t be happier, just imagine how beautiful our lives will be together.”
He leaned in for a kiss and bile rise began to rise in her throat. Only with great control, and thankful to James for this, she allowed a small peck on the lips.
He raised his gray brows. “Won’t you stay with me tonight, my love?”
Maggie had been prepared for this eventuality. Her eyes filled with tears, then she slowly bent her head forward to look at the floor and relaxed the muscles in her shoulders in a pose of complete rejection. “You would treat me like the whore you think I still am? My past is not my past, contrary to what you have recently said?”
“Oh, my heart, my heart, how thoughtless of me. Please forgive me. Your beauty beguiles me, but of course I’ll wait for our marriage.” He quickly pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “Please don’t cry, my sweet.”
Maggie dabbed her eyes and added a few sniffles for good effect, then lifted her head, cheeks wet with tears and gave a little smile of forgiveness.
Several hours later she was at the front porch of the townhouse James had rented for her. The sign at the front said rooms for rent and her cover was that she rented a room, though the whole house was hers. As she stuck her key into the lock, a familiar voice sounded from behind.
“Where have you been?” Sturgess asked, his face plastered with his famous and dangerous honey smile.
She felt herself being angry, being defiant. She had paid for her freedom and left The Pearl almost a year earlier, now here he was, her past oppressor standing at her door. Was he daft enough to think he could get her to come back? Or perhaps he was there to force her back? She mentally checked the weight at her ankle where she carried a double shot Derringer, but she forced her emotions further away from the edge. James taught her that subtlety and manipulation were the keys to true power. She smiled knowing that sometimes, violence and aggression felt better.
“What is that to you? I no longer work for you.”
“Watch your tongue, bitch. Don’t think I don’t know where you’ve been. I keep an eye on all my women.”
Maggie filed this for future action. It would not do for her to be watched.
“Are you playing some sick game, are you now ‘daddy’s girl,’ or do you think Brewster will finally remember his long lost daughter and take you back?”
“Business hasn’t been good since I left? Is that what this is all about?” she said.
Sturgess eyes widened and he placed his foot on the first step.
“Take another one and I shall scream. This is not the neighborhood you found me in all those years ago. Even now, I suspect if you look to your left, you will see the parlor curtains parted slightly. She is an old dowager who has little to do but sit in front of that window all day keeping track of what happens on this street.”
Sturgess glanced to the left, saw the parted curtain and slid his foot off the step. Further down, a door shut and man and two children stepped down onto the sidewalk. Sturgess nodded to the man as he passed.
“You better be careful,” he said, enunciating the last two words.
If he knew, if he only knew what she could do to him, but instead she answered, “Yes sir.”
He turned to leave, then turned back. “By the way, you haven’t by chance seen that black maid of yours, Beulah wasn’t it?”
Maggie shook her head.
“She disappeared shortly after you left and she didn’t pay for her freedom.”
Maggie crossed her arms. “Perhaps that little war against the south escaped you? And did you remember President Lincoln freed the slaves?”
“Hmm, I’ve heard things. Nasty things about you and about that man you’ve taken up with.”
“Who, James? James is nothing, friend and mentor. I don’t even think he likes women, if you know what I mean.” She felt the need to go. She was too exposed and she continued to struggle with her emotions- the desire to remain free, battling the desire to pull her belt blade and place it very deliberately into his chest.
“I have received your message, now if there is nothing else?”
For an instant, Sturgess looked as though he would explode then he smiled, tipped his hat and walked down the sidewalk stopping momentarily to tip his hat to the dowager behind the sliver of parted curtain.
As she turned and entered her home she made a note to kill him. He was dangerous, like a rogue dog inside the chicken pen.
Chapter 33 – It Comes Alive
The fiery ball was bright on its skin. It wanted to hold a hand up, to push the light away. It wanted to run deep beneath the hill, far from the sun’s deadly rays but something new continued to rearrange his thoughts.
It climbed down through the hatch on the roof, the smell of the burning corpses of its clan lingered in its nose, and their cries in its ears. What the men in the flying thing could not do, the sun could, and did. They had stolen prey, prey fairly gained, and left them only destruction.
The smoke continued to fill the huge room that had once been the laboratory of his torturer. To its left, the glow of fire grew brighter as the flames spread away from the broken air machine the man had used to leave the roof.
But it was the other man that had captured it and its people. A flash of fire, its last memory, before the blue lightning came from the human’s hands. They had been hunting, the elk bedded down at the end of a small ravine of which he knew.
‘He,’ the word invaded his thoughts, jumping out like a mountain lion on a rabbit, or like his final jump from the steel catwalk. He landed on the ground some thirty below and walked toward the door, the air down here was less smoky and his vision less impaired. It ... he, he continued thinking – something very new to him. It was a male and males were called ‘he’, but how do I know this?
Returning to the memory of his last night of freedom, he could still smell the elk as he got closer to their location. He could feel their heartbeats, and a taste that said ‘food’ collected on his taste buds as he ran open-mouthed. His clan split, half to the north-east, and the other half, south-east, so whichever way the prey bolted the clan would be in position and they would feed.
They swarmed the elk and none escaped, and it was while they were feeding that the human appeared, black hair beneath a heavy black coat. Now the scent of human blood, not yet spilled, mingled with that of the elk which had. Yet, something came over them and he and his clan stood, just stood still allowing the man to approach. Sounds formed in its head, sounds he now knew were called music. There was music in his head and it stilled him, quieted him, trapped him.
He soon realized there were other humans, in the dark, waiting, but knowing this did not stir the clan to anger. The man reached toward them, as his arm and hand began to glow. He smiled, and the word, ‘friend,’ sprang into his head. Suddenly, the flames leapt from the man’s hand when it hit him, every muscle in his body tightened and he dropped to the cold snow covered ground and all was dark.
Exiting the building, now fully engulfed in flames, he crossed the grounds to the other building in which the access to the cells deep underground were contained. He was thankful t
he clouds billowing from the burning building obscured the sun. In the other building, he made his way to the stairwell, then down to the cave beneath were he and his people had lived. He shook his head, Not lived, existed only.
He endured several weeks in the cells, where he was frequently removed and strapped to a table. The human sang to him, in a language he knew was not English, nor any other human language, while the blue flame danced over his body and caused him to bite into the hard rubber bit placed in his mouth. The song, brought fear, an emotion with which he had little experience, and he could not forget the smells and noises that seemed to come from nowhere. And the shadows that formed behind the man, shadows that didn’t fit the man, shadows with too many arms and eyes. Wait, how do I know shadows have no eyes? But if true, what were the shadows I remember?
At first, when they returned him to his cell, violence erupted. He was forced to kill a companion by breaking its neck, and removing its head, but slowly things changed. After several trips to the table, he began to find pictures in his mind, images for which he had no words, but still there was the violence from the others when he returned. And many of the others began to change, though not as significantly as he, they calmed. It was all different now, for him. He needed reasons for violence. No longer did he crave blood, and open space to run and hunt instinctually.
He thought of ... tomorrow, I have never thought of tomorrow. Then he realized with a smile that he had never thought of how he had never thought of anything.
He leaned against the wall, suddenly tired. Sleep, he would sleep he decided, and smiled at another first decision. He would descend to the cells, not because he had to but because he decided to, and he would sleep. He knew he had plenty of time to think and plan when he awoke, and to consider options -- all new words.
His smile broadened, I have a tomorrow.
Chapter 34 – Mr. Tesla Bids Farewell
Tesla cleaned up hurriedly and was back at the dining room table several minutes later. When no one joined him, he approached the bridge and found Captain Grimm, looking over a large chart.
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