The 7th of Victorica

by Beau Schemery

  Sev turned the knob on the door and lifted so the hinges would not squeak.

  OUTSIDE OF the barracks, Sev crept from shadow to shadow. He was reminded of the time he’d spent on the streets of Blackside, constantly trying to avoid the eyes of Fervis’s Footmen. After dashing about for a few moments, he realized he had no idea where he was going. He decided to take advantage of one of his old tricks and scaled the nearest building to get a better idea of the layout of the compound. From the top of the building, Sev could just make out the enormous, looming shapes of a trio of warehouses.

  “They have t’be in one o’those,” he whispered to himself. He swept his gaze over the ground around him, wanting to note where soldiers patrolled and the best way for him to get to the warehouses. He searched but saw absolutely no movement in the compound, no patrols, no sentries, nothing. Something didn’t seem right about the whole situation, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He decided to slip back and bring Rat and Silas with him since he didn’t need to worry so much about being detected.

  When the three were reunited, and Sev had hastily explained the situation in whispers, they sneaked along the buildings to the first warehouse. They encountered no resistance, and it still made Sev uneasy. “Why aren’t they keepin’ an eye on their base?” Sev asked his mates.

  Silas shrugged as they moved. “Maybe they’re confident their wall will keep out any intruders.”

  “Maybe.” Sev remained unconvinced. He dashed across the final lane, up to the door of the warehouse. Silas and Rat joined him, and they all stood, staring at the door. Sev reached out and twisted the handle. He could tell they were all surprised when the door swept inward. A gust of cold air followed and Sev shivered. He spared a look to each of his friends before walking inside. They looked as apprehensive as he felt.

  They found themselves surrounded by racks and racks of sheet-covered forms. Blocks of ice lined the perimeter of the room and were scattered about throughout. “Oy, mates. It’s us,” Rat whisper-shouted, causing Sev to flinch violently. All around them blankets rippled and the bodies beneath them stirred. Sev found it slightly off-putting, like the dead were truly waking, and his mind flashed once again back to the tunnels beneath London, where they battled an army of cursed corpses.

  Their friends and comrades climbed off their racks and gathered around the trio. They murmured whispered questions. Sev shushed them and they quieted. “All right, mates. This is where we’re at.” He went on to explain where the barracks with the hidden chamber beneath could be found.

  “I’ll take ’em,” Rat offered. Sev nodded, and the gathered masses crept off.

  After they had left, Sev and Silas inspected the warehouse. There remained many sheeted forms. Sev walked up to the closest and felt the wrist. No pulse. “What the hell d’they think they’re doin’ with all these bodies?”

  “We both know, Sev,” Silas answered. “And it’s nothing good.”

  “I’m sure ye’re right. Let’s check out one o’the other warehouses.” Sev motioned.

  Silas nodded. “All right. But then we need to get back to the barracks.”

  “Agreed.” Sev didn’t wait but dashed from the warehouse with Silas in tow.

  WHEN THEY reached the next building, Sev grabbed the doorknob and pushed. He slammed into the door, and it didn’t budge. “This one’s locked,” Sev hissed.

  “So open it,” Silas ordered.

  “What makes ye think I can?” Sev had already slipped his lockpick kit from his pocket with a smirk.

  Silas raised an eyebrow and tilted his head in an incredulous gesture.

  “Fine. Ye’re no fun.” Sev dropped to his knees and set to work on the lock. The mechanism clicked, and he pushed the door open. The air that rushed out to meet them smelled like winter and rot. “Blimey,” Sev groaned, disgusted but not surprised.

  “Another morgue warehouse?” Silas pressed a fist to his lips to suppress a gag.

  Sev grabbed Silas’s hand and dragged him inside, despite the stench. “There’s magic in here,” he whispered.

  “How can you tell?”

  Sev shook his head and realized Silas couldn’t see it. “I don’t exactly know. It’s a feelin’, a sense I have. Sometimes I can feel it at the edge o’my vision.” They picked their way into the interior of the warehouse, feeling their way along the walls. Sev’s hand stumbled upon a switch, and he flipped it. A dull glow emanated in the vast chamber as a series of gas lamps flashed alight one after the other.

  Sev could almost feel all the color drain from his face at the sight revealed under that dim light. His eyes widened, and despite all the horrors he’d been witness to even in his relatively few years on earth, this one made him take a step back. He bumped into Silas. “What are we seeing here, Seven? Is it really what I think it is?”

  “It ain’t right,” Sev croaked, his throat gone instantly dry. His vision blurred for a moment. Then it realigned, came back into focus, and he could see it, the magic, like a smoky, green miasma clinging to the hideous figures standing in rows before them. An army of corpses stood at silent attention. Their bodies were part steamsuit, part rotting flesh with crude clockwork limbs completely unlike Silas’s delicate mechanical arm. They were attached with bolts sunk deep in the grayish flesh. “It’s an army o’the dead. Just like Lincoln said. Only I don’t think he could’ve ever pictured this.”

  “We have got to stop this.”

  Sev stared. Each of the clouds around the corpses sprouted a small umbilical stream of magical energy. They all ran like threads in the same direction. “Where d’they go, d’ye s’pose?” he asked the question more to himself.

  “Where do what go?” Silas responded anyway.

  Sev ignored him, started walking between the rows of patient corpses. He traced the threads through the vast chamber of the warehouse. He could hear Silas’s footsteps behind but continued oblivious, almost mesmerized as he walked faster and faster through the regiment of dead soldiers. All the threads led to a large metal door at the very back of the area. “The threads of magic,” Sev said breathily. “They all converge here.” He pointed to the door.

  “Sev.” Silas tugged on Sev’s sleeve. “We should leave, join Ratty back at the barracks.”

  Sev nodded but didn’t move, only reached for the door handle. He turned it and pulled open the door. An acrid fog rolled out from the small chamber on the other side. It smelled like one of the opium dens back in London: the smoke, human sweat, and waste. A nearly emaciated black woman lounged on the single filthy mattress in the middle of the room. Every one of the mystical threads joined at a point just above the woman’s heart.

  Sev glanced over his shoulder at the threads and then quickly back at the woman. He finally understood. “She can control them.”

  “What?” Silas asked. “She can? But she’s an addict.”

  “That’s how they control her,” Sev explained, suddenly realizing the truth. “Bloody hell, they’re usin’ some kind o’Victorican witches t’control their dead army.”

  “This is even worse than we could have imagined. What should we do?”

  “We’ve got t’get her out o’here.” Sev marched forward and bent down to pick the woman up.

  “No.” Silas placed a hand on Sev’s shoulder. “We can’t. Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s just us,” Silas explained. “We need to get word to Lincoln. We can’t give ourselves away.”

  Sev realized the wisdom in Silas’s words. He nodded slowly, but his gaze drifted over to the barely conscious woman. His nod turned into a violent shake of his head. “No. Silas, we’ve got t’get this poor woman out o’here. What they’ve done t’her ain’t proper at all. I don’t care about these clockwork corpses or anythin’ else. We’ve got t’help her.”

  Silas opened his mouth, Sev assumed to protest. Instead he hung his head and shook it quickly. “I know, Sev. I know. But not now. Soon. But we have to preserve the mission.”


  Sev gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists. “That’s shite! Utter shite, Silas. That woman is a human bloody bein’. Fuck the mission.” He dashed forward and scooped the dozing witch into his arms. “I can’t believe ye’d have the bollocks t’suggest we don’t help this poor woman.” He marched out of the room, shouldering bodily past Silas.

  “Sev,” Silas pleaded. “Stop. We have to be smart about this.”

  “Bugger smart,” Sev growled. The threads folded now as Sev watched them, and they, too, were making him angry. He reached out, grabbed the bundle above the woman’s chest, and yanked. He felt them in his hand, didn’t know why, and he felt them when they snapped, letting loose. Almost instantly the corpses surrounding them collapsed. Silas and Sev both stopped in shock.

  “How did you do that?” Silas asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That was really loud.”

  “We should run,” Sev suggested.

  Silas didn’t agree, just dashed toward the entry. Sev followed, carrying the woman.

  THEY BURST out of the door they’d entered and found themselves surrounded. “Shite.” Sev looked around.

  “That’s appropriate,” one of the men said. He had a British accent. “You’re in it deep.”

  Sev laid the woman on the ground at his feet. “Run, Silas.”

  “What?” Silas spun and stared at Sev. “I’m not abandoning you.”

  “T’hell with that,” Sev said. “Get t’Rat and Teddy. Get ’em out o’this godforsaken hellhole. I’ll take care o’these buggers.”

  “Nobody’s goin’ nowhere,” a large mustachioed man barked. “Ya got t’put Addie back in ’er room.”

  “Sev,” Silas said, apprehensively.

  “Silas. I said run. Bloody run!” He lifted his arms and intoned the incantation to paralyze a crowd. Silas ran and the Griswoldville men grabbed at him. “Down!” Sev shouted, and Silas dropped to the dirt. Sev threw his hands out, releasing the spell on those gathered. Many of the men froze instantly in their tracks. Silas jumped up and continued to run, facing a great deal less resistance. Sev picked up the woman at his feet and followed Silas. He knew it was a gamble, and he nearly stumbled twice. He’d miraculously nearly cleared the gathered crowd when those farthest from the spell began to stir. Before he could escape, someone tackled him to the ground. He fought, kicked, punched against the man until more joined, pinning Sev’s limbs to the dirt. The mustachioed man loomed into Sev’s field of vision and grinned with a sneer. “I’m goin’ to enjoy this, I am.” He raised his foot. The last thing Sev saw before darkness was the sole coming down on his face.

  SILAS RAN. He spared a look over his shoulder, hoping to see Sev on his heels, but he was not there. It could only mean that Sev had been caught, and it fell to Silas to save their friends and get word to their allies. Silas wanted to go back, but he had to believe Sev could survive. He knew, despite Sev’s lapse of judgment to save the drugged woman, that Sev wouldn’t want him to compromise the mission. Especially now that they knew the South had an army of the dead and was steadily adding to its ranks.

  He turned the corner back to the barracks and came up almost nose to nose with two soldiers. Before they could hail him or ask questions, he lashed out and knocked them both back with his mechanical hand. He crossed the last few feet and burst into the bunk room. Rat jumped up, ready for a fight. “What?” he asked.

  “We’ve got to evacuate our people. The whole mission has gone tits up.”

  “Where’s Sev?” Rat threw back the loose boards covering the secret chamber.

  “He’s, uh.” Silas wasn’t sure what to say. Should he tell Rat Sev was captured? Rat would insist on helping him. Sev clearly wanted them all to escape. “He’s dealing with the situation at the warehouse. There may be quite a commotion soon.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. “He wants us to get out.”

  Rat nodded. The young urchin trusted Sev unconditionally and looked up to him. Silas could tell that Rat would never even think to question Sev’s judgment. “Come on, mates,” Rat called down. “Up ye get. We’re movin’ out.” The New Undertowners poured out of the hole in the floor.

  “Out. Everyone out. Head for the gate,” Silas instructed. They didn’t hesitate, just followed his orders. They all rushed out into the night. “We need to retrieve Teddy and Tabitha,” he said to Rat.

  “Right. Let’s go, then.” Rat marched off, leading Silas to the barn.

  “TEDDY,” SILAS said once they were inside. “Teddy. Tab.”

  “Silas?” Teddy’s voice drifted out of the barn’s interior.

  “Teddy!” Silas ran to meet him. He noticed that Rat and Tab had already found each other. “Sev wants us to go.”

  “All right, Silas.” Teddy turned. “Let’s go, everybody. We’re leavin’.”

  “We?” Silas asked.

  “We ain’t leavin’ these folks behind.” Tab motioned to the slaves gathered around with anxious expressions.

  “No,” Silas said. “These people are the whole point of this endeavor. Come along, friends. We must make haste.”

  They stared at one another for a moment before anyone made a move. “What the devil are y’all waitin’ for?” an old woman barked. “Get movin’!”

  Instantly the crowd appeared to snap out of their mutual trance, and they clamored for the exit. “Who is she?” Silas whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  “Mama Gert,” Teddy answered. “She seems t’be their unofficial leader.”

  “Fair enough.” Silas nodded. He noticed Mama Gert limping slowly after the rest of her people. Silas walked up and grabbed her elbow. “Can I help you, madame?”

  Mama Gert slapped Silas away. “I ain’t some invalid.” She pushed him off. “I can manage just fine, thank ya.”

  “My apologies,” Silas mumbled as the old woman left him in her wake.

  “Don’t take it personal,” Teddy said and patted Silas’s shoulder. “She ain’t nobody’s granny.”

  “Apparently.” Silas and Teddy followed the rest of the slaves as they ran down the road to the gate.

  They passed the Hercules to meet up with the New Undertowners standing at the entrance. Several of the Southern soldiers lay about unconscious. “Get that door open, fellas,” Teddy shouted. A few of their young compatriots had already gone to the winch that controlled the gate gears and started cranking. The doors rolled back.

  Rat and Tab jumped down from the engine car in the Hercules. “That ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Rat clapped once.

  “That’s f’sure,” Tab agreed with a sly smile and a sideways glance at Rat. His cheeks bloomed pink under his customary thin layer of grime.

  Silas wanted to smile, but their situation seemed too grim at the moment for such contrivances. “We have to move, get help, and come back.”

  “Where’s Sev?” Rat looked around. “He ain’t back yet?”

  Silas stared back toward the center of Griswoldville. “He’ll be along” was all he said, and to his ears he sounded confident and honest, but in his heart, he shuddered. He wasn’t confident at all; indeed he felt like he was leaving Seven to face his own death, alone. Silas wanted nothing more than to dash back in there. His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of gunfire and shouting. He turned to see lanterns in the distance.

  “The rest o’the soldiers,” Rat shouted, pointing. “They’re comin’ back. We got t’get out o’here!” The New Undertowners and the slaves of Griswoldville wasted no time escaping into the forest near the wall on the opposite side from where the soldiers approached. Silas stood undecided, his gaze darting from the regiment marching across the field toward them and the compound. Rat and Teddy made the decision for him by pulling him bodily off the tracks and over into the forest. Silas could only hope that they could get word to Lincoln and Grant in enough time to rescue Sev.

  Some of the slaves instructed the New Undertowners how to run quietly, hide properly, and avoid detection once they were all safely ensconced in th
e woods. “They won’t come in here, ’cause they too scared,” a thin slave who’d introduced himself as Red whispered to Silas. “Ya just stay down, an’ they won’t bother us. Not tonight. The mornin’ is a dif’rent story.”

  Red knew what he spoke of; the soldiers marched right up to the edge of the tree line, then stopped in their tracks. “Come on out, ya ungrateful niggers!” The man stood with his lantern raised but made no move to enter the trees.

  “We saw ya Brit bastards with ’em,” another voice added. “Y’all’re all dead come mornin’.”

  “Lest ya give yer selves up now,” the first voice offered. “Then we can all walk all polite-like back into the compound, and we’ll only beat the niggers and put the Englanders back on a boat. No harm, no foul.”

  They waited then: the men on the edge of the forest, and the men, women, and children, most on their bellies hidden between the trees. No one spoke on either side. Cicadas and other creatures continued their nighttime serenade, but no other sounds split the night. Silas spared a glance at Rat, who lay next to Tab, holding her hand. They couldn’t stay here all night. They’d have to continue running at some point. He wanted desperately to get a message to Lincoln, wanted desperately to get back to Sev.

  He waited, listening to the bugs, his breath, and the sound of his pulse in his ears for what seemed like days. Then after an interminable time, one of the men waiting them out made a low grunt. After that a twig snapped, someone spoke, but the word died in his throat. There was a muffled thud. Silas squinted and strained his eyes to see anything happening beyond the trees. He hadn’t noticed before the soldiers’ lanterns were extinguished.

  “I assume these men weren’t standing on the edge of this forest for nothing,” a polished British voice called. “You needn’t worry about them any longer. Come along. Nothing to be afraid of. Well,” it added, “not nothing.”

  Silas could barely believe his ears, but he stood up and ran for the clearing.