A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1)

by Shawna Reppert

  Jones brought the horseless to a stop in front of one such building, its windows broken out, the huge clock painted on its front faded, a specter of someone’s grand scheme. The air carried damp concrete, the memory of machine oil, and the lives and deaths of vermin. And above all that, the faint traces of animal blood and the stronger, fresher scents of human blood and fear.

  Hackles rising, he let out a low growl, just loud enough for Jones to hear.

  “This is the place, then,” Jones said.

  He set the hand break, but left the boiler heating, steam gently streaming as if from the nose of some great, sleeping dragon.

  They approached slowly, cautiously. Richard crept out a little ahead. Jones might be the professional, but a ’wolf was stronger, faster, and keener of all senses.

  Just inside the door he hesitated mid-stride, pressing his weight against Jones to halt him as well. His lips drew back from his fangs. The killer’s scent was strong, fresh, but there was another scent as well. ’Wolf, and yet not-’wolf. He swiveled his ears, listening hard. Two other heartbeats echoed distantly in the building, both quickened in anticipation or in fear. No other creature save scurrying rats. He took another step forward.

  A low growl like the grinding of gears came out of the shadows. He felt it through his body as much as heard it. The thing came at him out of the darkness. He froze, paralyzed by the confusion of his senses that insisted that the ’wolf leaping for him was not a ’wolf. Froze just a moment, but it was a moment too long.

  Twenty-five

  Royston saw the black-furred shape seize wolf-Bandon by the neck—the muscled top of his neck. Fortunately, Bandon’s head was too low for the stranger to close his jaws on Bandon’s throat. Royston brought his billy-club down on the stranger’s skull.

  The shock of hitting into solid metal numbed his arm. The automaton!

  Fortunately, the impact was enough to jar the creature’s gears for a moment, causing its jaws to loosen. Writhing free, Bandon twisted, locked his teeth on the stranger’s throat and tore. He came away with a mouthful of skin and fur and stuffing, exposing the metal and wired spine beneath.

  Had the beast been flesh and blood, the bite would have killed it. But it came at Bandon, snarling, seeking his throat. Bandon dodged and brought his own teeth to bear, but could not gain purchase on the steel-reinforced bone of his rival’s muzzle. The stranger’s skin tore away beneath his bite, a wound more horrible for the lack of blood. The thing twisted and snapped, gouging a red line down Bandon’s shoulder.

  The blood woke Royston from his frozen shock. Do something, or Bandon’s dead. His thoughts seemed slow, distant.

  He brought his club down on the thing’s back hock, was rewarded when the thing staggered as the joint gave. He raised his club for another blow.

  The thing whipped around, away from Bandon, lunging for Royston’s thigh. Bandon threw himself into the thing, deflecting the bite so the teeth merely grazed him. Heat burned across his leg, blood blooming in the trail.

  Bandon and the stranger rolled across the floor, snarling and snapping, moving too fast for Royston to get in another blow for fear of hitting Bandon. But the shattered hock slowed the automaton down, for all that it couldn’t feel pain. Bandon pinned it once, but it wrenched free. Bandon leaped atop it, brought it down, held it still just a second, just long enough.

  Royston brought his club down with all his strength on the spine just behind its shoulders, gambling that whatever made the thing go used the same conduit as the nerves that had made it run when it was alive. The gamble paid off; the creature’s back half went still.

  The automaton turned awkwardly toward him, jaws snapping with single-minded determination. But Bandon had gotten the idea. While the thing focused on Royston, he slipped in behind and seized the back of its neck in his jaws. He shook it back and forth until the spine gave just behind the skull with a loud crack.

  The whole of the body went still, though the glassy eyes still stared and the jaws snapped the air fruitlessly. Was the thing capable of suffering? Royston didn’t know, but he brought the club down on its skull again and again until its eyes closed and its jaws went still.

  He had time to look at it more closely. Black wolf, white patch on its chest.

  “It’s the same one I saw at Winchell’s manor,” he said to Bandon. “Not that I had much doubt. There can’t be too many of those abominations about. Or at least I hope not.” Winchell must be the killer. He hadn’t ever suspected Willie, not really. Why, then, the relief that washed over him?

  Looking at the sad mass of bits of metal and stuffing and hide, he hoped again that it had been a natural wolf in life. That would be horrible enough. He looked at the living werewolf beside him, remembered the dead woman in Winchell’s laboratory. Far easier and cheaper for Winchell to kidnap a homeless local than pay for someone to breed natural wolves from imported stock. He felt queasy, and it wasn’t just the excitement of the fight leaving his body.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Bandon.

  In the darkness the red of blood blended too well with the black fur, but where moonlight shone on his coat Royston could see the gleam of wetness.

  Bandon gave his shoulder a few desultory licks and got to his feet. Limping just a little, he approached Royston, pointing with his muzzle at the wound on Royston’s leg, careful not to touch.

  Careful not to touch, because the saliva of a werewolf in an open wound would change the victim. If the thing had not been a natural wolf in life, could the automaton still infect him?

  He couldn’t deal with that right now. The automaton guard told him they were on the right track. Miss Chatham might still be alive. They might have a chance to save her from ending up like Molly and all those other unfortunate girls, or ending up like that mindless mechanical thing they’d just destroyed.

  Bandon gave a soft, inquiring whine.

  “I’ve lived through worse,” Royston told him. “If you can go on, let’s do what we came for. Do you sense anything?”

  Bandon sniffed the air, raising his head high and then low. Then his ears pricked forward, and he trotted off.

  “Carefully,” Royston warned him. “Given Winchell’s love of mechanics, I wouldn’t be surprised if the place is booby-trapped.”

  The wolf slowed his pace, the only indication that he’d heard him. Missing his revolver that was still tucked safely away in a box on the top shelf of his wardrobe, Royston followed, wincing at the sound every time he bumped into a piece of abandoned machinery or crunched a bit of broken glass under his boots. The latter made him worry about Bandon’s unprotected paws.

  He’d thought about detouring for his revolver on the way here, but his flat was surely being watched, either by the Yard or by an angry mob out for vengeance.

  The ’wolf started up the stairs to the second level. He paused half-way up, ears pricked hard forward—then lunged upward, leaping up the stairs in a few long jumps before Royston could finish calling out, “No, slowly!”

  As soon as Bandon crossed the top of the stairs, a loud clunk echoed through the building followed by a low whir-grind of machinery starting up. The whole top floor filled with light and the horrible amplified sound of a ticking clock.

  Royston dashed up the remaining stairs—no point to stealth now—and then froze at what he saw. Chained to the wall, high up near the ceiling of the cavernous warehouse were two gagged figures. A narrow ledge along the wall that might have once supported some sort of machinery gave them both barely enough purchase that if they balanced very carefully they could keep their full weight from the chains. He recognized both of them.

  Miss Chatham, hair unbound and clad only in a dirty white under-dress, and Willie Godwin. Between them a huge clock counted out seconds, not minutes.

  Willie couldn’t be the killer, then. The relief struck him like a blow.

  Suspended from the ceiling were two metal knights on horses. Crude, angular, these were no artist’s sculptures, but looked like t
he work of a demented child that someone had trusted with metalworking tools. Still, they were recognizable for what they were, and each carried a lance, long and needle-sharp. The metal arms that suspended each figure reached up into a long, straight metal track, and steam poured from the horses’ nostrils as they glided forward with the whispery hiss of well-oiled machinery. They moved slowly, inexorably, lance tips pointed at the midsections of the two prisoners. Death would be slow, excruciating, and inevitable.

  There was a single ladder against the wall. Royston had time to save one only. Damn Winchell, that sadistic bastard!

  Miss Chatham was shrieking in terror behind her gag. Willie looked at him silently. Royston could not read his expression, but hoped it was permission, understanding.

  Duty dictated his actions. Willie, his oldest and best friend, had been a constable, even if he was no longer. Miss Chatham was a lady and a civilian. But in saving her, he would condemn his best friend to death. Time slowed as he rushed to the ladder, positioned it and started climbing. Willie would understand, Willie would have to understand. Royston would trade places with him if he could.

  Another betrayal of the friendship that he’d wronged by doubting, because, yes, he had doubted Willie’s innocence, deep down in the dark places where he seldom looked.

  Would Godwin on some level blame him for the death of the son that he, despite all, still loved?

  The clock ticked steadily, and the knights continued their horrible slow-motion charge. He reached the top of the ladder and he had no room to think about anything but freeing the hysterical, struggling Miss Chatham and steadying her on the ladder without falling himself. The ladder rocked ominously.

  “Steady, for the love of God!” he shouted. “I’ve got you, don’t fight me.”

  She stilled, and he started down the ladder as quickly as he dared with his unbalanced burden. The lance-like shaft continued on its inexorable course. If he wasn’t quick enough, it would kill them both together. The Commissioner would be properly horrified that his daughter’s name was linked in death to a most unsuitably bred ex-constable. He got her to safety a hair ahead of the shaft’s approach. It drilled itself deep into the wall. The shaft poised at Willie. . .

  Stopped. A foot away from him.

  From where he stood, safe on the ground, Royston stared, a cold fist closing in his gut.

  Willie wriggled, slipped out of his bonds, and started to remove his gag. Miss Chatham was pulling her own gag from her mouth.

  “It’s him, it’s him!” she gasped and clung to him, sobbing.

  Royston stared up at Willie, feeling as if he had been turned to stone. Willie climbed out on the lance, stretched out full along it, and pulled a lever. With a whirr of gears the knight slowly bowed and lowered his lance to the floor, and Willie slid carefully down the weapon until he stood before Royston, safe and sound. Almost as if the mechanism had been designed for that purpose.

  Miss Chatham stepped behind him, shielding herself. She extended one shaking arm past him, pointing at Willie. “It’s him! He took me and held me. He kept on talking and talking about how clever he was and how my fiancé and my father would never catch him. And he kept talking about—” Her voice caught on a sob. “About what he did to those other poor girls. What he was going to do to me.”

  "You did it," Royston said, and the words had the taste of ashes in his mouth.

  Willie laughed a dark, ugly laugh that Royston had never heard before. “You still don’t get it. Too easy, it’s too bloody easy. I knew the Commissioner would never figure it out, let alone that idiot Browne. And my dear father is long past his glory days. But you, at least, I had hopes for.”

  “But Winchell. . . The automaton was Winchell’s.”

  “It was. One last false clue for you to puzzle over. I stole it earlier this evening, while you would have been waiting for your own ’wolf to arrive. You have to give me credit for planning the end game for a month that you’d have your pet available for an extra night. Sporting of me.”

  “You broke into Winchell’s house?” Royston said woodenly.

  “Didn’t have to. His sweet little serving girl let me in. So accommodating, in bed and out. Kitty Harper’s necklace looked better on her, by the way, especially when she wore nothing else. Still, she balked at letting me steal the automaton. I had to slit her throat in the end.”

  “Is this the same serving girl who found the dead woman?”

  “The very same. I met the dead woman’s husband drinking at Fishtail’s. Told him what I’d read of Winchell’s work. And it was so very easy to manipulate my lass into being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Almost as easy as it was to manipulate you. That invitation to the costume ball? My doing as well. Miss Beauchamp’s friend does like to sample from the rougher side of life. She told me her suspicions about her friend’s death in the intimacy of after. I gave her the idea of passing the information on to you, though the masks and the masquerade were her idea. You should have pushed your luck that night, Roy-boy. A bit of fun might have done you good.”

  “But you… It was you.”

  Willie shook his head with a mocking frown of disappointment. “How many times did I have the answer to the puzzles my father brought us—well, not my father, has he confessed that much yet to you?”

  “He has.”

  “He never admitted it to me. My mother’s lover told me. They wanted me to come away with them. They wanted me. He never did. He kept me out of spite.”

  “That’s not true,” Royston protested, though his defense rang hollow even in his own ears.

  “Lying to your oldest and dearest friend? You should be ashamed.”

  The shock hadn’t worn off so much as dulled, and Royston’s thoughts started turning again at about their normal rate as his Yard training reasserting itself; slowly, yet steadily picking up speed, like a steam engine chuffing forward after a pause.

  “It is you who should be ashamed, Willie Godwin. More than ashamed. The game is over. You’re coming in with me.”

  Willie laughed. “Same old Royston, with the shouldn’ts and the musn’ts and I’ll-tell-your-fathers.” He drew a gun from a holster concealed under his coat. “Same old Royston, still always one step behind me.”

  Up until that point, a part of him, if a rapidly shrinking part, had been waiting to find it had all been some elaborate tasteless joke, waiting for Willie to explain it all away.

  But now, with Willie looking down that revolver with eyes full of cold promise, the magnitude of the truth froze his blood.

  “I even tried to help you out. I told you to leave your emotions out of it, to think like a criminal. Had you done so, you might have realized that this criminal was much smarter than you. Not many people fit that description, and few of those know police procedures. Or your history. Or have enough of a grudge against Chatham to take his darling daughter when there’s easier prey to be had.” Willie shook his head in disappointment. “I thought a little extra motivation might get you going, too. But I guess you just aren’t as into pretty Miss Chatham as I thought.”

  “You. . .” Royston had trouble finding the words. “You are obscene.”

  Willie pouted like a child. “You always liked the puzzles Da threw your way. What’s wrong? Not up to a real-life game with real stakes? Da must be disappointed in you.” He grinned abruptly. “Do you like my machinery? My own invention. I worked for Winchell for a while, mostly odd jobs. He didn’t appreciate me either. He never knew how much I learned from him.”

  “How? How could you?”

  Willie grinned. “How could I what? Steal knowledge from Winchell?”

  Witnessing that familiar teasing playfulness on a subject so grim chilled Royston to the bone. “Those poor girls. How could you?” And how had he not seen what Willie truly was?

  Willie chuckled. “The ‘how’ was the easiest part. Women love a charming rogue, and once I got them to a quiet place, a lot can be hidden in the darkness and the fog. Miss Chatham was the
only real challenge. I knew I’d have to snatch her quick-like. She never did have the time of day for me.”

  “I was right,” Miss Chatham said, voice proud despite the tremor of sobs still beneath the words. “There was always something I didn’t trust about you, something not quite right. You may have been Mr. Jones' friend, but you were nothing like him.”

  “Why, Willie?” Royston asked again. “Why?”

  “Ah, now you’re asking the right question. It wasn’t for the thrill of the kill, you know. I knew the Yard would stop at the most obvious explanation and assume they had another Blackpoole. That was the fun of it. Watching you all chase your tails, knowing that you had dismissed the only man capable of original thinking. You may be the best of the lot, Roy-boy, but you never think of the unusual, the uncommon, when you go to solve a puzzle. It held you back when we were children, and it holds you back now.”

  Willie had some truth there. Original thinking had led him to a werewolf among the landed gentry, but it hadn’t taken him far enough to see the killer in his best friend, he thought bitterly.

  The part of his mind trained back when he not only investigated crime but actively confronted criminals on a daily basis started to turn its gears. Willie seemed to have forgotten about the ’wolf, at least he was ignoring Bandon for the time being. If Royston rushed him and drew his fire, Willie would have a chance to get off one shot, maybe two before Bandon jumped him. It might work. Might. Willie was a good shot and cool under pressure. And he’d be expecting the tactic. Bandon had no training and would not be.

  Would Bandon know what to do if he rushed Willie? And would he react quickly enough? Too big a gamble with civilian lives at stake. Best keep Willie talking.