Hell on Heels - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella

by John G. Hartness

  Final Countdown

  Monsters Everywhere - Bubba the Monster Hunter Vol. 3

  Scattered, Smothered and Chunked - The Complete Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1

  UnHoly Night - A Skeeter the Monster Hunter Short Story

  Love Hurts

  Dead Man’s Hand

  She’s Got Legs

  Dead Man’s Party - Bubba the Monster Hunter Vol. 4

  Fire on the Mountain - A Beauregard the Monster Hunter Story

  Howl

  Double Trouble

  The Black Knight Chronicles

  Volume 1 - Hard Day’s Knight

  Volume 2 - Back in Black

  Volume 3 - Knight Moves

  The Black Knight Chronicles Omnibus Edition

  Volume 4 - Paint it Black

  Movie Knight - A Black Knight Short Story

  Black Magic Woman - A Black Knight Short Story

  Gone Daddy Gone - A Black Knight Short Story

  Knight UnLife - Collected Black Knight Shorts

  Co-Edited with Emily Lavin Leverett

  The Big Bad: An Anthology of Evil

  Other Work

  Headshot

  Balance - Tales of Alternate Reality

  Genesis - Return to Eden Book 1

  The Chosen

  Returning the Favor and other slices of life

  Red Dirt Boy

  The Christmas Lights

  Resurrection Day

  by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin

  “Damn grave robbers.” Agent Mitch Storm stood looking down into an empty hole.

  The mortuary safe, a latticework of iron bars designed to keep out body thieves, had been pried open like the rib cage of an autopsy victim. An expensive maple coffin had been torn into with enough force that its lid lay separate from its base. The tufted satin interior was empty.

  “You don’t think it could be premature burial?” Mitch mused. He pointed to a nearby tomb with a bell on a rod. Inside, a cord went down to the corpse in the casket, just in case the dearly departed hadn’t actually been dead and gone. Similar bells dotted the cemetery, between the carved urns and elaborate angels.

  “Nah,” Jacob replied. “No one calls in federal agents for that. At least it’s pretty clear that someone was trying to get in, instead of getting out.” Agent Jacob Drangosavich, Storm’s partner, swept his gaze across the rolling hills of New Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Cemetery as if he expected to spot the resurrectionists making off with their prize.

  “How do you figure?” Mitch asked.

  Jacob nodded toward the lid, which lay upturned a few feet away from the casket. “No evidence of scratching against the lining, and an outward-bound force wouldn’t have taken off the lid so neatly. You’ve seen what it looks like when they rise on their own. I don’t care whether they’re ghouls, vampires, or wraiths, they make a mess of it.”

  Jacob Drangosavich and Mitch Storm were a study in contrasts. Their badges from the Department of Supernatural Investigation were one of the few things they had in common. Storm was shorter, with an athlete’s build. He had dark hair and dark eyes, along with a five o’clock shadow that started at three. Mitch still had the cocky assurance that had made him one of the Army’s best sharpshooters, along with a rules-are-for-other-people attitude that continued to get him into trouble.

  Jacob, on the other hand, was tall and blond, blue-eyed with Eastern European features that let him easily fit in among the new immigrants working the city’s mines and mills. And although Jacob favored deliberation before action, somehow his caution did not seem to keep the pair out of trouble.

  “Question is,” Jacob said, “who’s the body snatcher, and why do the snatchers want corpses?”

  “It’s not the medical students this time,” Mitch said. “They’ve finally got legitimate ways to get study stiffs.”

  Jacob was about to reply when he heard a clockwork click and hum. “Get down!” he yelled, diving to the ground as a shot rang out. He scrambled to his feet, but Mitch was nowhere to be seen. Jacob’s gun was ready in his hand, and he ran for the copse of trees where the shot had originated.

  “Federal agents—come out with your hands up!” he shouted.

  A figure darted from behind the trees. It looked human but moved all wrong. Metal glinted in the sun from places on the figure’s form, and Jacob heard the click and whine of meshing gears. It was dressed like a man, but it moved stiffly, without the grace of a real person. Whatever it was, it moved fast, Jacob thought, sprinting after it.

  “Halt! Police!” he shouted again. He put on a burst of speed, but the attacker paused long enough to squeeze off another shot that sent Jacob dodging, then took off again at a full run.

  The stranger was too far ahead of him to catch and running for one of the carriage roads. Jacob’s long legs carried him quickly over the uneven terrain of the old cemetery, but the shooter was faster.

  Jacob’s lungs burned and he knew he would tire long before he reached the carriage road. Catching up with their attacker was not going to happen. The hiss and thump of an engine sounded behind Jacob, and Mitch let out a whoop as he roared by on one of the department’s experimental steam bikes.

  “Be careful with that thing!” Jacob shouted, but by that time, Mitch was too far ahead to hear him.

  Mitch rode the bike like he was jumping hurdles with a stallion. The cemetery’s rolling terrain gave him just what he needed to send the bike airborne, vaulting over several granite headstones and barely missing the wings of a mourning angel sculpture.

  The bike came down hard, but Mitch stayed with it, pulling it out of a slew and barely remaining upright. He gunned the engine, and it popped and hissed in protest, but the bike took off again, with Mitch weaving between and around the stone obelisks intent on his quarry.

  The shooter was fast, but Mitch’s bike was faster, and the gap between the two narrowed. The runner veered left, and Mitch cut off the corner to intercept. The distance between them went from yards to mere feet. Mitch steered straight for the runner, closing in, intending to run the assassin down.

  A muffled explosion echoed off the field of monuments and mausoleums with a sickening wet thud. The runner exploded, just a few feet in front of Mitch’s bike, sending a rain of skin, hair, bone, and clothing falling through the air. Mitch skidded to a stop, covered in gore, staring in complete horror at the spot where the would-be assassin had detonated.

  Jacob jogged up a few minutes later, winded and sweating. “What the hell just happened?”

  Mitch for once was speechless. “I almost had him,” he said, staring at the burned patch of ground where the bomb had gone off. “And then he just... boom—”

  “You’re sure it was a man?” Jacob tried to catch his breath, and wrinkled his nose at the distinctly unpleasant smell.

  “It looked like a man,” Mitch replied. “But it didn’t move like one. It was jerky and awkward, and way too fast. There was something really strange about him.”

  Jacob frowned and moved into the blast range, sniffing the air and then kneeling to look closer at the chunks of flesh that littered the grass. “There’s no blood.”

  “What do you mean, there’s no blood?” Mitch demanded. “Didn’t you see him blow up right in front of me? How can there not be blood?”

  Jacob shook his head. “I don’t know how, but there isn’t. Look,” he said, pointing. “I think we’ve answered one question, why the mystery man moved strangely. He was already dead.”

  “You saw him run. He shot at us. Dead men don’t do that,” Mitch argued.

  Jacob pointed to the spray of gore. “Look at the flesh, Mitch. It’s not bleeding. It’s not the right color. Smell the air. Formaldehyde and rotting meat.” He gestured toward some brass bits that caught the sunlight and shimmered. “Bits of metal. Where did they come from? They had to be in with the skin and bone.”

  Mitch sat back down on his steam bike with a worried look. “You think someone finally managed to do it? Create a cl
ockwork creature?”

  Jacob spread his hands and shook his head. “More like clockwork abomination… I don’t know much about that kind of thing. But I can think of someone who might.”

  # # #

  Inside the huge Romanesque Revival building locals called ‘The Castle’, down in the hidden laboratories of the secret subterranean floors, Adam Farber poked the charred and twisted metal pieces with a wooden pointer as Mitch and Jacob told a highly edited version of their brush with a clockwork assassin.

  “Maybe,” Adam said to the question Mitch posed. Adam Farber was the boy genius of the Tesla-Westinghouse Company, a gawky, too-skinny young man in his twenties with stick-straight blond hair, wire-rimmed spectacles, and angular features. A nearby table was littered with used coffee cups, and it was clear Adam had already drunk enough caffeine that he nearly vibrated.

  “Maybe what?” Mitch pressed.

  Adam chewed on his lip as he tilted his head from one side to the other to examine the bits of metal Jacob and Mitch had retrieved from the cemetery bombing. “Maybe someone could build one. I mean, theoretically,” Adam replied.

  “Could you?”

  Adam’s gaze slid up to meet Mitch’s eyes, and Jacob saw a glint of irritation. “If you are trying to ask ‘did I’, the answer is no,” Adam replied tersely. “Could I?” He gave an off-hand shrug. “I don’t know because I wouldn’t try. We’ve been successful with the werkman. Why would anyone want to work with dead, rotting bodies?”

  “What Mitch was trying to ask with his characteristic charm is, could it be done?” Jacob interceded. Mitch glared at him but did not contradict.

  Another shrug. “Theoretically, yes,” Adam said. “But it would take a lot more than using gears for joints.” He shook his head. “Sweet heavens. You saw what we did for Hans, after his accident. There are a few others like him. It’s not easy replacing damaged parts on a living person. It can be done—but it’s expensive, and there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance it won’t work.”

  “Oh?” Mitch asked.

  Adam nodded. “Sometimes, the damage is just too bad to fix. Or the flesh fights the metal and gangrene sets in. That’s why we haven’t gone public with the process. Think of all the war injuries, the factory accidents.” He grimaced. “People would clamor for the process, and it’s not ready for that kind of scale yet.” He sighed. “On the other hand, replace joints with gears on a corpse, and all you have is a metal-bound corpse.”

  Adam looked up to meet their gaze. “You saw it run?”

  Mitch and Jacob both nodded. “Then what made it move?” Adam challenged. He straightened and ran a hand back through his straw-colored hair. “It would be much easier to create a mechanical man from scratch than hinge and joint a corpse. Unless—”

  “What?”

  Adam shook his head. “Unless someone’s discovered how to raise the dead, or at least animate them. I mean, there are stories, sure. Fables meant to be told around a campfire. Zombies from the islands under the spell of a conjurer. That Shelley woman’s awful mad scientist tale. But that’s all just fiction.” He waved his hand at the metal bits. “That’s crazy talk!”

  As if on cue, a man made of metal lumbered out of the laboratory’s small kitchen carrying a tray with a fresh pot of coffee, a china creamer and three porcelain cups. The mechanical marvel, one of Adam’s prototype werkmen, moved with the creak and hum of gears and steam like a ghostly suit of armor. Jacob and Mitch had seen Adam’s werkmen before. The Department had procured several of the prototypes.

  “Your coffee, sir.” The werkman’s voice had the metallic, scratchy quality of an Edison cylinder.

  “Thank you, Lars,” Adam said. Lars the werkman gave a short bow and returned to the kitchen. Adam poured a cup for himself and then remembered to offer some to Mitch and Jacob, who declined.

  “The idea’s been around for a while,” Adam said after he had tinkered with the cream and sugar for his drink as if it were a precise lab experiment. “Adding machines to men. Using corpses as puppets. Fixing cripples. Enhancing warriors.”

  He said the last comment off-handedly, but there was an edge of bitterness to Adam’s voice that made Jacob wonder if the inventor had been approached by others on the subject. Maybe even by the Department and its competitors.

  “Who else could have a hand in this?” Jacob asked. “Who might have the interest—or the skill—to even come close to making a clockwork corpse?”

  Adam’s eyes turned flat and hard. “When it comes to snake oil, one man always comes to mind first. Francis Tumblety, king of the charlatans.”

  Tumblety was a name Mitch and Jacob recognized. A quack physician and failed spiritualist, Tumblety reveled in the dubious notoriety of having been investigated—and dismissed—as a suspect in the Ripper murders in London. He had passed through New Pittsburgh on more than one occasion, always leaving in a forced hurry.

  Mitch’s lip curled in disgust. “Yeah, I could figure Tumblety for having something to do with this, even if it was just thieving the bodies.”

  “No idea whether he’s back in town, but he’s the first person I’d go looking for, if I were you,” Adam said. “Now that I think of it, there is one more thing I heard about, from one of my materials suppliers. There’ve been thefts over on the North Side from a chemical warehouse. Not sure what was taken, but that would be Tumblety’s style.”

  “We’re on it. Thanks,” Mitch said.

  “You’re welcome. Get the Department to throw some more money my way. My lab could use some more equipment,” Farber replied.

  Outside The Castle, their carriage was waiting for them. Hans, their driver, opened the door for them with all the aplomb of a well-trained coachman, although his skills actually lay more in combat and munitions. He kept his cap down over his face, hiding the metal plate, clockwork jaw and mechanical eye Adam had crafted for him. Beneath his driver’s uniform, there were other replacements. Mitch gave him directions, and Hans nodded.

  “North Side,” Mitch said to Hans as they settled in. He turned to Jacob. “Sound familiar?”

  Jacob nodded with a dour expression. “Same area where all those poisonings happened, and half a dozen people disappeared from their own wakes.”

  “Yeah.”

  The carriage stopped in the alley behind the jail in downtown New Pittsburgh. The jail was a massive stone structure with a turret and a bridge that crossed over the street like Venice’s bridge of sighs. Across the street, Dr. Zebulon Sheffield presided over the city’s coroner office, grim territory that Sheffield ran like his own private fiefdom.

  “Well, well,” Sheffield said as Mitch and Jacob entered. “If it’s not the Storm and Fury boys.” Sheffield wasn’t the first to match their last names up to ‘sturm und drang’, and the allusion made him chuckle every time.

  “Good to see you, too,” Mitch replied. He glanced at a black armband around Sheffield’s left arm. “Are condolences in order?”

  Sheffield sighed. “My uncle died. He lived with us. Ninety years old and full of piss and vinegar, but the years finally caught up with him. We’re holding the wake tonight and tomorrow, then he’ll be buried over at Union Cemetery. New mausoleum. Pretty fancy. Can’t cross the street it seems without seeing an advertisement for them.”

  “My sympathies,” Mitch replied and Jacob nodded.

  Sheffield eyed them warily. “If you’re here, then there’s a shit storm coming,” Sheffield said. “Always seems to work like that. What is it this time?”

  Mitch jumped up to sit on the edge of one of the clean stainless steel autopsy tables. Jacob leaned against the wall, arms crossed, trying not to let the overwhelming smells of sanitized death make him throw up.

  “Stolen bodies,” Mitch replied more cheerfully than the subject warranted. “Maybe even someone who wants to create mechanized, clockwork corpses.”

  Sheffield looked from one of them to the other. “Seriously? You’re talking about zombies?”

  Jacob shrugged. �
��There’s a word for the living dead because people have tried it before,” he said. “The guys in the legends used magic. Everything’s scientific nowadays. Figures that someone is going to try sooner or later.”

  Sheffield looked up from the papers he was shuffling on his desk. “Huh. You think they actually made it work?”

  “Well enough for someone—or something—to take a shot at us over at Allegheny Cemetery yesterday,” Mitch replied.

  “What have you heard?” Jacob asked. “You’re in the body business.”

  Sheffield gave a snort. “Never heard it called that before. But yes, I do know a lot of the embalmers in town, and the cemetery managers. We run in the same professional circles.”

  “And?” Mitch probed.

  Sheffield looked away. “There’s been talk.” He picked up a now-cold cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair. “You heard about the robbery at the mortuary supply on the North Side and the missing chemicals?”

  Mitch nodded.

  “Do you know what kinds of chemicals went missing?” Sheffield asked. “Formaldehyde. Embalming fluid. I found out because I and many of my colleagues had orders in that now can’t be filled.”

  Mitch and Jacob exchanged a glance. “We’re back to mad scientist territory,” Jacob muttered.

  “You hear any theories about who took the chemicals?” Mitch asked.

  Sheffield shrugged. “Rumors. Could be jealous competitors.”

  Jacob raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes rumors are right in spite of themselves.”

  Sheffield sighed. “I’m hearing a lot of griping about a new embalmer in town. He’s been doing quite a bit of business lately, underpricing the long-time players, moving in on neighborhoods they considered their territory.”

  “Name?”

  “David Congeliere,” Sheffield replied. “Showed up about six months ago and yes, that was just a little bit before the spate of grave robbings, but so was Christmas and the full moon and I don’t think they had anything to do with the missing corpses. Sometimes, timing is just a coincidence.”