Mechanical Rose

by Nathalie Gray

Soon, her former mentor and she were alone by Leeford’s dragon. Blood glistened on its copper hull and on the backseat around the blanket covering most of Max’s body. A small golden item caught her attention.

  “Oh Leeford,” she whispered as she leaned over and retrieved it from the footwell. Leeford’s little golden “timer” watch. It was broken, its tiny brass entrails spilling out of its casing. She wrapped it in a shaking fist.

  Mr. Clarence cleared his throat, drew very near.

  “A day. For old times’ sake,” he whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder. “There is an island three hundred feet off the coast, shrouded in fog for most of the year. About one hundred and twenty miles north of here. It is almost impossible to see from the air. But from the water at low tides, one could hypothetically gain access via the many caves. From there, one can only improvise. The Society will take no action until dawn tomorrow.”

  Her heart leaped. She nodded.

  With a last long look at her, Mr. Clarence turned and walked away.

  “For old times’ sake,” she called after him. He stopped. “If Leeford is well and we escape, I will find you and thank you, although I will never again work for the Society. But if something happened to him and he is…” She took a deep breath. Steely resolve filled her. “Or if you lie to me and set out today, then I will find you. And I will kill you.”

  She did not wait for a reply. Any word of his had become irrelevant. She had a mission to accomplish. The most important yet. Leeford counted on her. Short of death, nothing would stop her.

  Chapter Ten

  The smell brought him back to his senses. A mix of rotten fruit and camphor.

  He remembered the fight, the desperate attempt to kick the men off the dragon while keeping a grip on Lily’s wrist, who was being dragged out, and the other on the altitude lever so he could take off. Both had slipped from him when someone had struck him behind the head. It felt as if his skull had split open to allow blinding sunlight to stab in. A mechanical sound caught his ear. Rhythmic clinks and clanks.

  His nape presently felt tight and hot. Leeford reached back to touch it and cringed. The tang of blood filled his mouth. His tongue felt raw on one side. He must have bitten it. His feet were cold. After he wiggled his toes, he realized he was barefoot. Where had his boots gone?

  Cringing and cursing, he moved his legs, his arms. He lay on a hard surface, opened his eyes to see the underside of a long table with rusted ironwork keeping it together. The sound of water dripping nearby made him shiver. It was cold and damp but fortunately he still wore Max’s jacket, opened wide. He rolled onto his side, sat up. After the wave of dizziness left him, his surroundings sharpened into clearer focus around him.

  And he wished they had not.

  “Graces.”

  Even in his worst fever-induced nightmares, he would not have imagined the scene before him, the grotesque, ghastly scene that reached into his brain and chased his sanity into the farthest recesses like taunting little bullies. Bile rose in his throat. His teeth clenched tight, Leeford leaned on the table for support and stood.

  Around him, a chamber hewn from bedrock. Water dripping down the walls in oily rivulets. The slate floor, looking dangerous and slick underfoot. And machines in various states of completion. Horrible machines not entirely made of steel or wood… Machines that never should have seen the light of day. What diseased mind had made these? Had thought them up, put them together? No wonder the smell was so bad.

  Leeford closed his eyes to sever the image. For a second, he thought he was going to vomit. The urge passed, left him shaking and bent over the table. Tools dug in his palms. Sharp, pointy tools. More bits and pieces there too. Those horrific bits and pieces…rusty brown and pale gray, the occasional speck of white.

  “Good fortune, what is this place?”

  For these machines, these putrefied inventions surrounding him had nothing to do with engineering or mechanical curiosity and everything to do with madness. All around him sections of rotten flesh and tendons, protruding bones, madly bolted, riveted, tied to brass joints or plated steel, forced into unthinkable shapes and functions, phalanges for pivots, rib cages for casings, empty orbits serving as receptacles for switches. The sound he had heard came from a corner where an automaton, part rusty steel, part decayed male corpse, stood face to the wall, in a futile attempt to take a step forward would only bump against the bedrock, stumble back then try again. Over and over. Clinks and clanks. Its gears showed in the empty back.

  Not far, portions of another automaton, this one unmoving, lying on a trestle table with his semi-organic, semi-mechanical entrails spilling out, with mismatched eyes and twine to keep its mouth sewn closed. And beyond, more trials and errors, severed hands, some rotten almost beyond recognition, lined up by size, a few of them much too small to be those of adults. Who would do this? For Graces’ sake, who would do this?

  Leeford felt bile rise dangerously close. He squeezed his eyes to shut out the mad experiments of a brain long gone beyond the edge. As though the designer had tried to meld together human and machine. Failing miserably. Horribly.

  With a snarl, he pushed off and meant to backpedal but something caught his foot and he sprawled on his ass. Metallic sounds made him look down at his legs. A manacle of steel bound his ankle with a long length of rusty chain cemented into the floor between broken tiles.

  Feeling dirty, so very dirty, Leeford floundered back to his feet and wiped his hands on the back of his jacket until his palms tingled, until his fingers ached from rubbing against the stitching. Until heat from the rubbing turned into burning. He was shocked to see blood on his knuckles when he brought his hand in front of his face. Madness tickled the back of his neck. The automaton looked at him from the table, its dead, glassy eyes pleading, accusing, begging.

  He knuckled his eyes, avoided looking into the haunting face. “Graces…no.”

  “Welcome back, Gunn,” a man said from behind him. “Sooner than I expected. But you were always a punctual one.”

  Leeford whirled around, dragged the chain when he meant to rush at Spark, who stood not far, stood very still. He must have seen the whole thing, witnessed Leeford’s horrific awakening. Must have reveled in it too, the monstrous bastard.

  “What have you done?” Leeford demanded with much more force than he had thought himself capable just a few seconds ago. The smell alone nearly floored him. “What have you done?”

  Spark’s gesture encompassed the whole chamber when he stood by the work table’s corner. A mere inch away from Leeford’s reach. “My work, you mean?”

  “Your ‘work’? This is…Graces. This, this filth is no ‘work’,” Leeford spat. “It breaks every rule of morality.”

  “Rules are for common men, Gunn. You and I are far from common. We are architects of ideas, geniuses. Rules do not apply to the likes of us.”

  “Us? You think we are alike? You did these things—”

  “These things did not exist before I made them. I am a creator. Like you.”

  “Listen to yourself! Your mind is gone, this is all madness, perversions of a diseased—of a festering mind! You vile bastard—you foul, neurotic bastard!” He took a step forward. The chain abraded his ankle.

  “My, my, Gunn,” Spark said, grinning. “Who would have suspected you had all this colorful language in you?”

  “Come here and I will show you what else I have in me!”

  “Jealousy is so unbecoming of you, Gunn. But not really a surprise. My scientific interest is uncompromising. Not everyone can understand, although I had hopes you would.”

  “Jealousy? Scientific interest? There is nothing, nothing, scientific about any of this!” Leeford punched his fist on the table.

  A small sound caught his attention. It came from under the table. He took a few cautious steps away. From the darkness emerged a tiny machine no bigger than a man’s hand. Perched atop its spiderlike body and many legs, bits of fur still clung to a tiny skull—a rabbit’s mayb
e, or some other small creature. It clinked and clanked, spurred on by a spring-loaded mechanism, skittered across the room until he could no longer see it. How big was this place? At the edge of light, a trapdoor was open, its grilled iron cover leaning against the wall with unspeakable fluids of all consistency and color slithering down the gentle incline to drip into the hole.

  I will go mad. I will go utterly, completely mad here.

  “Genius is often confused with madness by common men. And I thought you had vision, Gunn.” Spark removed his gloves and put them in his jacket pocket. The steel ring like a giant scarab clutching his little finger gleamed in the light of gas lamps bolted to the walls. “Shall we start? Tell me what you require.”

  “Start what? I will do nothing for you. Nothing.”

  Spark’s grin crystallized at the corners. “You will, or I would be placed in a position of doing some very, very wicked things.”

  “You can do whatever you want to me, it will not change a thing.”

  “Who said anything about you?”

  Horror closed a cold, clammy fist on his guts and tugged downward.

  “I would not touch Eleanor in anger or do anything untoward to your charming cousin, but…” Spark shrugged as if he were faced with a hopeless situation. “I may have to now. Is she a virgin, I wonder? Your cousin? I know for a fact Eleanor is not. You are a fortunate man indeed to be the object of her affection. I have once been such a man. Does she still enjoy having a lover bend her on elbows and knees and take her? And such an adorable little mole—right there.” He pointed to a spot in the middle of his chest.

  He knew well the one. Leeford’s stomach knotted. “What happened between you and Eleanor is none of my affair. And from what I can tell, it is in the past.”

  Spark took the hit without flinching, but his eyes narrowed for just a moment. He smiled. “Not a stitch of jealousy? You are a better man than I. Then you will not object if I share her with my men? Properly motivated, she would be receptive enough.”

  Abject fear paralyzed his body. Only his mind worked, and the things it showed him. “Neither woman is here.”

  Spark arched an eyebrow the way Leeford remembered, the way he hated. That insufferable air of arrogance. As though he owned the world. “Would you gamble them, Gunn? Which one first, the lover or the cousin? Or have they both already shared your bed?”

  “You utterly repulsive swine.”

  “Which one, Gunn? Choose. Your lack of cooperation just cost one of them her female dignity, and I can assure you—” Spark grinned wide. The glint of malice made Leeford swallow hard. “That you will hear her screams from down here. A bit of background music to season your work.”

  “Let me see them, and I will do whatever you ask.”

  Spark shook his head, black wavy hair like snakes. “This is not the way of things. You do whatever I ask, and I will touch neither one. For now.”

  His heart beat so hard, so fast, dizziness gripped him. Rage boiled low in his gut, simmered beneath the surface. If there was justice in this world…

  “What do you want?” he spat, turning away from the most gruesome view, only to notice other details even more appalling. There was no safe place for a sane man in Spark’s laboratory of death.

  “A condensator. Similar to the one you already built, but more powerful. Much, much more powerful.”

  “It will take weeks. At least.”

  “Then we better get to it!” Spark rolled the sleeves of his shirt and rubbed his hands.

  “I work alone.”

  “Not this time, old friend.”

  Leeford could not believe he would be forced to work like this, surrounded by…these things. He had no choice. What if Spark did hold Eleanor or Lily? Chances were he did not, but Leeford would never gamble either of them if there was the slightest, remotest possibility Spark spoke the truth. He would never forgive himself.

  With his heart in his throat, his hands shaking, Leeford took a long, deep breath and forced the gears in his brain to start turning. Maybe if he kept busy on the project, he would not go mad. Maybe.

  * * * * *

  Finding the island proved easy. Mr. Clarence had been right, fog shrouded the thing like veils on a sinister bride. Caves also dotted the island, and atop its rocky, bristling crest stood a large stone mansion where several chimneys spewed black smoke.

  Eleanor did not have much time. She rowed to shore near the mouth of a cave, pulled her small skiff up on the rocks so high tides would not pull it out into the choppy strait frothing between the mainland and Spark’s island, but not far enough that she would need much effort or time dragging it back to the water.

  If at first rage had fueled her tired limbs, a cold sort of determination now filled her veins. She had donned every bit of equipment from her pack, had added the thin plates of steel to her corset for protection against bullets—unless they shot her in the head, in which case, she would simply die. Armed with a dagger, wire along the corset’s rim to serve as a silent and efficient garrote, Leeford’s pair of peculiar pistols, her own little silver one, a length of thin silk rope and resolve that took roots in the coldest, meanest, angriest part of her soul, Eleanor set forth.

  Silent as a toxic fume, she slipped along the darkened cave, used her hands as safeguards. Lichen provided patches of aqua-colored light. But someone had smoothed the rocky ground. For ease of transport, she surmised. Around the first bend she spotted a man sitting on a boulder, a long-range rifle across his lap and an oil lamp by his feet. With practiced movements, Eleanor slipped the wire from the edge of her corset, fisted the slim handles on either end.

  Heart beating at a normal rate—this was nothing new or distasteful to her—she pounced on him, wrapped the garrote once around his thick throat and used her knee against his nape as an anchor. Together they fell in a heap, his limbs flailing at first. Her fists never relented as she pulled on the wire’s thin handles. Soon, the man stilled. Eleanor pulled the wire, used a corner of his lapel to thread the blood off then walked on. Daylight greeted her not far ahead. The cave had been shallower than she had expected. Spark was so predictably arrogant in his overconfidence.

  As she slipped out of the cave and hid between boulders, she spotted a small brick house that much resembled a guardhouse in her experienced eyes. Through the tiny window—more like a slit between bricks—she spied a pair of men sitting in watchful silence, drinking from mugs. The door around the back was ajar. She dug a small button from her trousers pocket, clicked the mechanism then lobbed it in before closing the door and hanging onto the handle. A muffled poof indicated the button had done its job. Economical and silent, Eleanor padded inside, used one of the men’s jackets hung on a hook to wrap around her hand and deaden the sound of her pistol. She put a shot in each of them, rolled them back onto their fronts.

  Beyond the guardhouse, fifty-two paces onward, towered Spark’s smoke-spewing mansion. Even this did not deter her. Leeford was inside somewhere. She would find him. She would kill her way to him. Without problem. Without remorse.

  Eleanor spotted the more “work”-related portion of the house, its chimneys smoking, colossal gears poking out of walls as they turned, dripping brown-black grease onto the rocky slope beneath. She squeezed by one such gear, peeked inside, saw nothing but giant cogs and pistons so after slipping her pistol back into her corset proceeded deeper into the mammoth mechanism to emerge into a sort of small refinery. Fumes and the smell of rotting meat made her gag. Teeth gritted, she padded along a metal gangway overlooking basins filled with bubbling gray goop, vats of green jellylike substance where electrodes dipped a few inches beneath the surface. Past a cleated steel door, she plastered herself against the slick rock wall when men walked by in the perpendicular corridor. Their voices receded soon afterward. Fortunately for them because she had retrieved one of Leeford’s steam pistols, practically noiseless compared to her own, and waited.

  Something touched her ankle. She jumped, whirled with pistol pointed down.
A tiny spiderlike thing crawled around in circles. A tiny skull with bits of flesh and fur clung to a mad assemblage of screws and springs. Disgusted, she kicked at it so it would not impede her progress. A tiny sound erupted from it as soon as her foot made contact, grew disproportionate to its small size, rose to a high-pitched whistle. Eleanor tried to stomp on it but could not catch the demented thing as it spun in erratic ellipses, steam hissing out of its body. Voices down the perpendicular corridor rose. Someone yelled a challenge.

  Eleanor cursed, pulled the second steam pistol from her belt and started running for the corner, hoping to catch the men before they raised the general alarm or before more of those nasty little things started chasing her around. Thwarted by a fist-sized mechanical…toy!

  As soon as she rounded the corner, running full speed, bullets ricocheted along the rock walls on both sides. The two men she had seen earlier stood in the middle, apparently oblivious to the fact they made excellent targets. She put a shot in each, ran past the bodies. Doors lined one side. One opened just as she was about to run past it.

  Spark, looking frustrated, barged out of the door, spotted her. “You!” He turned tail and ran down the corridor. Surprisingly fast. And she had always thought of him as a fop.

  “Stop or I shoot!” she roared, doing just that. The steam pistol’s shht preceded the recoil. A bullet thudded against the wall by Spark’s head.

  “Eleanor!”

  Only for a moment, Leeford’s voice shifted her focus away from Spark, who, without even turning around, yanked another door open and disappeared behind it.

  “Leeford? Leeford!”

  After she poked her head in the embrasure, checked for danger then stepped inside, she spotted him standing in the middle of a nightmare. The smell here was even worse.

  “In the name of all that is Divine,” she murmured.

  The things that were in this place. Horrible things. She shook her head, focused on Leeford’s haggard face. Down the steps four by four, she leaped the last few and threw herself into his arms.