by Michael Rigg
"He's mechanical." Addy stood and approached the clockwork man. "Ya mean to tell me you ain't never seen a Copperheart before?" She took the tray from him and motioned toward me with her head. "This here's Roddy. He's my personal valet. Daddy wouldn't let me have a real man butler. He suggested I was too pretty to have a man waitin' on me what wasn't my husband." She rolled her eyes and waved her hand in a Scarlett O'hara “la-di-da” sort of way that made me smile.
I relaxed my pose and stepped toward them. "Roddy" was slightly shorter than Addy and clank-snap-hissed when he walked. The gear works of the mechanized butler weren't really loud, but he really wasn't equipped to sneak up on anyone. As he approached, he reached out a white gloved hand with four fingers. His movements were rigid and made more clicking sounds throughout his torso. "I am Roddy, Miss. I am very pleased to meet you."
I glanced to Addy who nodded that it was okay for me to take his hand. She smiled though her brow furrowed. She said, "I can't believe you never seen one. Granted, they don't leave the home or they'd shut down from lack of steam. I don't think they're as popular in Yankee homes. Not like Property."
I bristled slightly at the mention of Property, but shook it off. I took Roddy's hand. Its—his—grip was surprisingly gentle. "I'm Alice."
"Alice," he repeated. "Name remembered. So good to meet you, Madam."
I turned to Addy as she motioned Roddy away with a smile and a, "That'll be all."
I moved back to my chair and sat back down as the door closed behind the robot butler. I said flatly, "Property."
Addy poured our tea and smiled. "Yes, the Yankees are more interested in that kind of thing—though they're not unheard of down these parts."
"Slaves?"
Addy laughed as she slid a cup and saucer toward me. "Heavens no. Did you forget what I told ya about President Lee? Property are artists, intellectuals, writers of fiction, bohemians, that kind of thing."
I frowned slightly. "Artists are kept as Property?"
She shrugged as she blew across her cup. "Those who work as Property, yes. Actors, performers, prostitutes." She raised an eyebrow as she sipped, then said, "I hear they get paid quite handsomely to entertain rich Yankees. ...Yankees have such disgusting tastes."
"Can they quit? I mean... If they're not slaves, they can quit, right?" I asked because I was curious about the perceived difference between servants and indentured servants in this reality. Then I remembered the odd looks of the guards in Philadelphia as Bryce identified me as Property. Considering that I was only wearing his coat with nothing underneath, they must have thought I was his personal whore, or worse. I felt a burning sensation behind my eyes as I frowned.
Addy nodded with a wave of her hand. "Like any other job, sure, but I never heard of one who has. What they get paid...?" She waved her hand again as if not wanting to even consider the amount.
We sat for a bit and sipped our tea. While all these new bits of information reeled around my brain, I'd forgotten all about Bryce and Lydia. It didn't seem like much of a consequence anyway. Now I had clockwork servants, and being passed off as a high-priced prostitute to think of, possibly being abducted quickly to Seven Orchards because Bryce thought of me only as a spy. I found myself wondering if anyone had picked up Lord Landry's paper. I was thinking of giving Bryce a few whacks with it myself.
As Addy finished her tea and glanced to the clock on a nearby table, she stood with a slight curtsy. "Oh, I should get back to my chores before Momma sends Savannah out huntin' for me." I stood and followed her to the door. She showed me how to lock the door from the inside. "I don't want Roddy to give you a start again," she'd explained with a quick wink. "I'll come knock 'round lunch time and we'll eat out on the veranda together."
"That'll be nice," I smiled.
Moments later I peeled out of the shabby pirate clothes Pandora had given me and eased into the bath. I relished the sensation of the hot water, the steam caressing my pores, and the sweet lavender smell of the soap as I washed myself. Though the triple-dot scar on my lower back throbbed in the hot bath, I took a long time in the tub, at least long enough to pucker my fingers, and just before I started to drift asleep. I climbed out of the tub and wrapped my hair in a towel. I dried off using the other fluffy towels Addy gave me, slipped into the night dress and yawned as I made my way to the huge cloud-like bed. I couldn't think of anything else but sleep. The bed was infinitely more comfortable than it looked and I fell almost instantly into peaceful oblivion.
I don't know which was more disturbing: the nightmare that soon followed, or the fact someone had been watching me while I slept.
CHAPTER 18, “Corporate Take-Over”
Bradford Thorne smiled to his partner, Nigel Wolfe, as the two men entered the promenade conference room high atop the Center of Trade. The shades of the windows looking out over the city were open wide, the long mahogany table freshly polished, the two tall leather chairs at the end of the room gleamed as the mid-morning sun washed over them. The room smelled of leather, lemon furniture cleaner and fresh deep-roasted coffee.
Thorne was in the best mood of his life. Frustration completely abated, he looked around the wide conference room smiling at every stolen treasure, every richly polished wooden chair, every thick Persian tapestry. His eyes stopped on the secretary who prepared a silver carafe of coffee. "I'll have my usual, Miss Norris."
"Yessir, Mr. Thorne." Miss Norris, a curvaceous brunette who always had Thorne's eye, was one of the acquisitions he dreamed of but had yet to take. He wanted her to hear the tales from the other girls, to make her wonder why she hadn't been pulled into a late night meeting, to make her want him. Curiosity killed the cat. And Bradford Thorne loved killing cats.
As Nigel Wolfe huffed and puffed his bulk toward the wider of the two chairs, untucking the paper from under his arm and flapping it open, Thorne stopped at one of the tall windows and stood with his arms folded across his chest. Wolfe took an offered cup of coffee as he passed Miss Norris without acknowledging her and exhaled heavily as he plopped into the chair. He carefully rested the steaming cup on the arm of the chair as he opened the paper and began scanning the markets.
Miss Norris brought Thorne his coffee. "Here you are, Mr. Thorne."
He took the cup and saucer with a slight bow and twitch of his handlebar mustache. "Thank you, Miss Norris. And may I say that your dress brings out your full attractiveness."
The young woman bowed her head slightly, her expression unreadable though her blush was obvious. "That will be all, Miss Norris... for now." Thorne leered as he watched the woman leave, his eyes following the swivel of her swaying backside as he imagined his hands on her hips to steady himself as he took her from behind. Once she was gone, Thorne smiled and sipped his coffee, then set the cup and saucer down on a sideboard near one of the windows. He hooked his arms behind his back, sighed contentedly and bounced on his heels as he called out to his partner, "It's a glorious day, Nigel. Glorious."
"Indeed, Bradford."
"Within a day or two we'll be venturing to Atlantis herself!" He held up a proclaiming finger before resuming his stance. "And I will be on the submersible that will take us there."
"Indeed, Bradford," Wolfe nodded behind the paper. Thorne picked up his coffee cup and smiled at the aroma. It was perfect. It was exactly how he liked it. Maybe Miss Norris would be his personal Property on the journey below the waves. Maybe the pinging and puckering of the submarine's hull under all that pressure would frighten her into his arms. The more shaken the cherry, the sweeter the juice, he mused. Thorne cleared his throat. "I say, Nigel."
"Yes, Bradford?"
"I have a mad notion to have the Landry Holdings Company investigated by the Confederate Council of Corporate Affairs."
The newspaper lowered and Wolfe loo
ked to his partner with a raised eyebrow.
"What. You don't think I'm serious?" Thorne took another sip of his coffee as he turned and enjoyed the view. "Why stop now? Once the C.C.C.A. finds out what Landry lost between those fat fingers of his, they're bound to be curious. Even somewhat irritated." Smiling too broadly to drink more coffee, he turned and walked the cup to the conference table. He looked up at Wolfe. "What?"
Wolfe's head dipped back below the news. "Atlantis is the single most important discovery in history, Bradford. Why risk war by going after the small potatoes?"
Thorne didn't miss a beat, though he frowned deeply. "Because Jefferson Landry needs to learn a lesson. He and that no-account soldier boy of a son of his, running off after some tail." Thorne scowled and folded his arms. He wasn't an idiot. While what Nigel Wolfe said was true, that could only mean that the woman who pulled Bryce Landry from the contract signing was twice as important as the discovery of Atlantis. He had to know who she was.
Wolfe made no comment. He continued reading the paper.
Thorne turned back to his window and muttered. "I swear, Nigel. Frustration would build if not for Grubbs' report this morning."
Wolfe made a short humming noise, then, "Should hope that it would be good news, Bradford. I, personally, can't wait to hear what the chap has in store for us."
"Indeed, Nigel.... Indeed."
~~~~~~~
The two ghouls hissed and chattered their teeth at each other, red eyes reflecting the hunger they felt, their shared pangs. They huddled in the darkness of the master's throne room and sniffed at the air. Oh, such delicious flesh approaches.
Releasing each other from their sympathetic embrace of hunger, the two ghouls moved forward through the shadows, sniffing the air as the meat approached, listening to the conversation taking place as they salivated and clicked the nails of their long-fingered hands together.
"I don't like this, Pandy," a short but thick-muscled human man said.
"What's not to like? We're in a ghoul's lair in the underbelly of Philadelphia, and doin' a little shoppin' at Penny's," a tender and delicious woman's voice said with a smile.
The ghouls moved slowly, prowling with their thick shoulder and back muscles rippling, and the nails of their toes retracting so they wouldn't give away their positions with a tick-tick-clicking on the dusty linoleum floor. They glanced at each other, red eyes flashing, and communicated telepathically. They would down the woman first by breaking her legs, then tear out the little man's throat and feast on him. The tender woman would be dessert and she would watch them eat her companion before they started in on her.
They never had the chance to see the woman because she saw them first.
Wilco released a short, sharp gasp as the two ghouls catapulted into the air from behind the broken shelving units where they'd been hiding, bounced off the ceiling, cracking plaster and raining dust, and thudded to his feet in a pair of ragged crumples of gray flesh. Pandora spun around, her hand with the crossed fingers pointing at them.
"Good jeebie-willikers, Pandy, will you not do that—or at least give me some warning when ya do!"
Pandora laughed. "Whatsamatter, Daddy? Scare ya?"
Wilco stepped up to the confused and writhing forms on the floor and drew his arc revolver. He cocked the pistol and thumbed the charge pin, then blasted each ghoul in the head, killing them instantly with a bright blue flare of concentrated electricity and an ear-ringing report.
Pandora jumped and winced at each lightning jolt from the gun. She lowered her hand and sneered. "Uh."
"Whatsamatter, Pandy? Scare ya?"
They shared a laugh, then Wilco fell silent and pointed into the enormous adjacent room. The old abandoned JC Penney was a warehouse of broken shelves, chairs, toys and layer upon layer of thick dust and gritty silt blown in from the abandoned streets through broken windows. The windows were only sloppily boarded and thin bands of yellow-gray light illuminated the room.
Pandora turned to see where her father pointed. A wide red carpet like a regal trail of some sort stretched across the room to a tall gilded throne. "Damn."
"King of the Ghouls," Wilco smirked and checked the charge on his arc revolver. He stepped around Pandora and headed toward the throne. "Since when do ghouls keep such nice furniture?"
"Wait."
He stopped and watched as Pandora crossed the fingers on her left hand and closed her eyes. With her eyes closed, she slowly turned her head as if scanning the room. When she finally opened her eyes and uncrossed her fingers, she said, "No one else here."
"Ghouls?"
She slowly shook her head. "I don't like this, though. Yer right, daddy. Ghouls don't have a mind to sit on thrones." She glanced at her father recalling last night and how the ghoul abducted Perek Grubbs from the police paddy wagon. "And ghouls don't climb over ninety stories to abduct people."
"Until now," Wilco said with a raised bushy brow.
Wilco kept the revolver at the ready as he ventured into the 'throne room.' He stopped near a buckle in the carpet where the dust on the floor appeared to be disturbed. "Look at this." He pointed to the floor with the barrel of the gun.
Pandora stepped up and pushed her cap and goggles back further on her head as she crouched down to see what her father was pointing at. The floor had spatters of blood and wide damp smeared spots. "Feeding frenzy?"
Wilco's beard pursed where his mouth would be and he said, "Nah. Not enough blood." He pointed to the wide damp areas. "What's that?" He bent over, squinting at the disturbed area, noticed hand prints and smears of muddy dust.
Pandora closed her eyes and held her palm parallel to the floor. When she crossed her fingers, she inhaled sharply through her nose and cringed. "Uhh... Oh, God."
"What is it?"
Pandora stood up and stepped back. She cringed and rubbed her eyes as if they'd been burned.
"Pandy?"
"It's sweat. It's sweat and..." She uncrossed her fingers and shook off the vision. "It was the same ghoul bastard that killed you, Daddy. I could feel it. He was, um... biting a... a naked man." She looked at her father. "I bet it was that fella 'was with you."
Wilco looked down at the mess. "Hmm. If you're sure it was that monster, I know who the man was."
"Perek Grubbs? The guy from T and W Corporate who was with you?"
Wilco nodded. "Eaten," he said solemnly, his head bowed even for the evil Grubbs. No one should have to go through a death at the hands of those monstrous bastards.
Pandora slowly shook her head. "He wasn't eaten. It was worse." She turned and walked out the way they had come in, stepping over the smoking headless bodies of the two ghouls in the other room. Wilco only looked after her, agape, for a moment before waddling up to catch up with her. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow. "Pandy, what about the King of the Ghouls? I thought we were going to find—"
"He ain't here," she said.
"He ain't?"
She shook her head as she stepped over the broken pile of wood that used to be the revolving door to the JC Penney. On the cluttered street sat a yellow biplane with plates of silver and black where the fuselage had been patched. Black script on the engine housing read 'Canary'. Pandora headed toward the pilot's seat.
"Wait!" Wilco called out as he hustled to meet her.
"I think they both went to New Yorke."
"Thorne & Wolfe? You know what it means if a magics-wielding ghoul joins forces with them corporate Yankee bastards?"
Pandora nodded as she stepped up from the lower wing and climbed into the pilot's seat. Wilco grabbed the hand-holds on the plane's side and climbed up to his own seat with a grunt. "A ghoul? No way,” she huffed. “Can't let that happen.”
The engine cranked and the loud roar
of the combustion blasted warm air back at them. Curls of blue-gray smoke twisted out from the exhaust manifolds as Pandora flexed the wing flaps. She pulled her goggles down over her eyes and checked the flaps and ailerons.
Wilco called out above the engine's roar as he dropped into his own seat, pulling his goggles down over his squinting eyes. "Pandy.... Why would any ghoul want to travel? And what makes you think it's to Thorne & Wolfe?"
Instead of answering, Pandora pulled the brake lever and spun the Canary around.
A moment later they were airborne, sailing up between the gray skyscrapers of Philadelphia before angling north toward New Yorke.
~~~~~~~
Bradford Thorne glanced up from the documents he was reading and studied Admiral Terrace, distracted by the naval man's perfect quaff of blond hair and feathered mutton chops growing out from his jaw, the long navy blue coat with brass buttons, brass epaulets and brass stripes.
He tapped the papers in his hands. "What does it say, Admiral?"
Terrace broke his gaze and looked to his boss. "Mr. Thorne?"
Thorne's smile was a contemptuous sneer, the kind he reserved for lower businessmen, secretaries and those he was about to fire. "I'm no naval officer, Admiral. Kindly tell me what I'm looking at."
"It's the order you gave, sir," Terrace nodded as he spoke in a deep, crisp Imperial North American accent. "It's a manifest for each vessel broken down by armament, crew compliment, executive and scientific staff, application of—"
Thorne slapped the papers against the tall admiral's chest and scowled. "Oh, I don't need to see all that. Just tell me we have an armada ready to blockade Atlantis if necessary."
"Oh," Terrace nodded, looking more like a chastised little boy than an Imperial fleet admiral. "Oh, yes, yes. Twenty-one ships, sir, from four corporations, all ship-shape and ready."
"Good."
"We're set to launch within the time window."
