The Untold Tales of Dolly Williamson: An Occult Steampunk Thriller: Prequel to The Guild Chronicles (The Guild Chronicles: A Steampunk Fantasy Book Series 0)

by J. M. Bannon

  “Near the works, some bill posters were gluing them up and there have been a few laborers passing them out. When I asked who hired them to pass and post the bills, they had no notion where they came from but they had been paid for the work.” Nelson said never taking his eyes off the stage.

  "This reads like what you were spouting to rile up your comrades the day I was down at the works; I would say verbatim” Dolly put the handbill in his inside coat pocket.

  "Well, it isn't the Commonwealth Communist Union I made sure of that, mate. I got your message clear as glass and told the committee you drew the line and it was my reputation if it was crossed” Nelson speech was harried.

  “Then who's the organizer if it's not you?” asked Dolly

  “None of the trade unions, I know, I inquired around and none claimed the bills.” added Nelson.

  “You pull off the picket line. I don't want one of your guys down there even walking their dog. The PM will call in the fusiliers to clear the crowds if there is any violence.”

  “I moved my lads yesterday, but the crowds have doubled. The migrants are paranoid that the aristocracy will poison their children to keep them downtrodden. I’m steering clear of that site now Detective, so as far as I am concerned this is the last we need to talk.”

  “If something goes down expect to be carted in for appearances, but I’ll make certain that your aid is recognized,” said Dolly.

  “Much appreciated” Nelson looked at him with a sarcastic sneer then went back to watching the stage.

  Dolly walked away to return to Keane., On the way back he stopped at the bar again to pick up two beers. When he returned to the table Detective Burton was sitting with Keane and there were three full pints on the table.

  “Adam good to see you,” said Dolly, then he noted the third beer on the table, “Someone sitting there?”

  “No that’s for you. I noticed you two registered in the log book, thought I would come over after my shift to grab a drink with you fellas,” answered Burton.

  Dolly placed the pints down and pulled the chair around “well it looks like we have a few ales to drink here Keane,” Dolly then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the handbill and gave it to Keane.

  “Fuck me,” Keane said.

  “A few more beers before I'll be doing that,” said Burton smiling at his own joke and reading the bill over Keane's shoulder. “Oh, those are glued all over the walls of the gas works” Adam related.

  “The leaflet isn’t as significant as what Nelson declared. He asserts that he nor the other trade unionist are behind this. In fact, he already pulled his brothers out of there before I proposed it.”

  That means he expects something is going to happen even if he doesn’t know who is behind it or what they are planning. Keane added.

  “Righto, mate we have some work to accomplish on Monday, but right now I’m just going to get drunk on the Queen’s expense and you fellas are welcome to join me.”

  MONDAY THE 20TH OF JUNE

  8:40 AM Scotland Yard Briefing Room

  The detective’s briefing had concluded and Dolly was now in the Constables Briefing Room listening to the upcoming police operation to break up the crowds at Baden Gas Works.

  Sergeant Eakins was chosen to command the operation. A uniformed officer with military experience, he was highly qualified in procedures where crowds were involved, from the planning of a parade or smashing a riot. Dolly, Keane, and Burton were all in attendance as they had spent the most time gathering intelligence on the case at the gas works.

  Once the operation was initiated, Eakins would be in charge. Today he was laying out his strategy. He stood in front of a chalkboard with a map of the neighborhood around the gas and iron works drawn out.

  “As you see there is a natural flow of the avenues to the plant. Three streets east west and south with a gate at each end. The northern gate sits opposite the south gate of the Lloyds Works with the perimeter road between the two fences. There will be three muster points, here, here, and here.” Eakins pointed to the spots on the map marked A, B, and C.

  “Muster point A will have two waves the initial squad will go down Northern Docks Road and secure the north gate at the same time squad two will secure the western gate. Squads three and four will move on to the east and south gates.

  We will send in horse-mounted constables to separate groups and then police on foot behind them to disperse and guide people away. Those that won’t disperse or resist will be rounded up.

  Each muster point will have police wagons staged to move in and pluck up those that we arrest.

  After a pause, Eakins continued, “I have spoken with commissioner Mayne and have the 10th Fusiliers on ready if mass resistance ensues. Our preference is first to get everyone off the right of way to the Gas works premises than to disperse and move the crowd out in an orderly fashion. Questions?" declared Eakins.

  A constable raised his hand.

  “Yes,” Eakins acknowledged the constable.

  " Why are we breaking this up if there has been no violence?" the boyish constable asked.

  Mayne interrupted before Eakins could answer. “Detectives Keane and Williamson have evidence that the common trade associations have fled and that there is a nameless group seeking to incite a riot at the location.”

  “Do we know who?" asked another cop.

  Dolly spoke up this time sitting on the edge of a desk with his jacket off. The room was steamy from the June heat and the large congregation in the small space. “The gas works are pivotal to our national interests. We know the throngs are not the usual trade unions causing trouble and we can’t put a finger on who is behind it. They are getting the migrants fired up and we need to break it up before a bunch of ignorant buggers get hurt for no reason”

  The group began asking specific questions about tactics and strategy. Dolly had lost interest and started his way out of the briefing room.

  As he stepped out Mayne signaled to him to come over. “Dolly, I need you and Keane down there tomorrow to keep an eye on things we still have no idea what the caper might be and once the crowd is under control there we may lose the opportunity to find out who has been stirring things up at the plant.

  12:00 PM French Embassy, London

  Guild Master Saint-Yves had extended the invitation to Detective Williamson to meet for lunch at the French Embassy. He sat alone in the bright and spacious dining room an island of black in a sea of white linen covered tables. The Guild Master sat in a contemplative trance, watching his thumb and forefinger slide up and down the stem of his water goblet the condensation caused the motion to make a high-pitched squeak each time he did it. He stopped when the Detective was escorted into the dining room.

  The Maitre’d approached the table with the detective following. The detective was nearly a foot taller than the Maitre’d and he walked with a confident gait.

  “Guild Master, your guest is here to lunch with you,” pronounced the Maitre’d

  Saint-Yves was upstanding and greeted his guest.

  “Detective Sergeant Williamson I appreciate you accepting my invitation. I assure you that you will enjoy one of the finest lunches in London and come away with information pertinent to the Moya Case.” Said the Guild Master.

  “Thank You, Guild Master”

  “Call me Gerrard. Since we will be working together I would like us to be on a first name basis.”

  “Then thank you, Gerrard, you can call me Dolly”

  “Please sit. Dolly, pardon me, but is this not a woman’s name?”

  “Its short for Adolphus, that’s my middle name and it has been my moniker since I joined the police service”

  “I meant no offense, but it just sounded strange to my ear.”

  “None was taken,” said Dolly.

  The Guild Master turned to the Maitre’d “you can bring a menu for the Detective, si vous plait”

  “So, you’re looking to nab this voodoo priestess and bring her to justice?” as
ked Dolly.

  “Our intentions align Detective. You need to catch a murderer, I need to keep this primitivism from getting out of the Jungle,” said the Guild Master.

  “What can you share with me to apprehend the killer?” asked Dolly.

  “Her name,” said Gerrard as he drank his tea.

  “You know the name of the person who killed Moya?” Dolly reiterated as he took out his notebook.

  “Her name is Angelica Du Haiti, and I have met her,”

  “If you don’t mind I will take some notes,” said Dolly while he wrote the name is his book.

  “The Guild has been aware of the Voodoo practices in the new world for some time. Your Doctor Melbourne wrote a treatise on some of the pagan rituals but it was more anthropologic than spiritual. To gain understanding we had emissaries meet with the Voodooists and study the Arcana. Ten years ago, I was part of the Necronist Mission to Haiti and that is where I met the woman in question.

  France had just abolished slavery in the colonies and plantation owners were concerned that practice of Voodoo would lead to the organization of the recently freed slaves and eventual revolt. We, French, know how ugly a revolution can be and the Minister of Colonial Affairs contacted the Guild to help assess the situation. We were intrigued of course, to see if the tales were true of the ability to control and raise the dead. On the tour, we determined that there was a population of slaves that believed in the religion of Voodoo but they were not practicing any arcana. It was a religion with no control or understanding of metaphysics.” Said Gerard as the memories of his past came back to him.

  Ten years had passed since Saint-Yves, a young silver seer, had the privilege to be part of a delegation to investigate the threat of Voodoo to the French colony or the Emperor. The guild was happy to have the government of France fund the expedition to evaluate Voodoo. This primitivism intrigued the Necronist as it appeared to engage death magic in ways like what Necronists were experimenting with in clandestine research.

  His mind drifted back to the expedition under Guild Master Huey, they tramped through the hot jungle of Haiti for six days. His urban upbringing in Paris left him unprepared for the long slog through the humid insect infested tropics. The trek was grueling even with the troop of porters and guides, his feet became blistered from walking and cracked from waterlogged shoes. Mud clung to his legs and made his steps heavier. His robes that he was so proud to wear absorbed the sun and held the sweat and humidity. Eventually, they found the secluded village. They had followed an estuary that led to the awe-inspiring waterfall, where the village had developed at its foot. Gerard was physically uncomfortable, sweating in his black Necronist robes and morally unsettled observing a village filled with nearly naked men and women.

  They were not greeted with open arms, many of the inhabitants were escaped slaves and those that had grown up in the village had heard the stories of the cruel life on a plantation, and had a genuine dread of the white man. As they closed in on the village it became clear that they were being followed and were surrounded and outnumbered. At the edge of the river just before where the village started, they were met by the Voodoo King and his retinue. His name was Papa Lafayette a wiry old man with only a loin cloth for clothing and coated in a sheen of sweat and musky from the unwashed life of the jungle. He stood with his Ju Ju Staff, the mantle of his power. The staff was horrifying. The tall warped and petrified wood had four human skulls attached to it. These were the heads of the past Voodoo Kings who imbued the staff and the present King with all of their power. The Frenchmen could speak with the King through Lafayette’s Interpreter, a mixed-race girl. A true vision, the type of person you will always remember the first time you saw. Remarkable in her natural beauty and the glimmer of her aura, even with his limited training Gerard could detect the shimmer of her mortal and metaphysical charm.

  “There was, however, a village that was folklore to the slaves where runaways who reached it settled in paradise under the safeguard of the gods of Voodoo. It was there I met Angelica. She was likewise an initiate at the time to a powerful Voodoo Witch Doctor. She was his protégé and interpreter,” Is what Gerard chose to share.

  “You saw her conduct rituals that killed men by removing their soul?” asked Dolly.

  Gerard thought back, his mind raced with the memories from a decade ago, back to the initial contact. He recalled in his mind’s eye Lafayette and the vitality and raw power he exuded, how his ebony skin glistened from the humidity. Papa boldly told the mission that they were not welcome and they were to leave. As Guild Master Huey attempted to parley with the Voodoo King; Lafayette began working a thralling incantation; the guides and porters quickly fell under his influence they broke and ran in fear. Huey was impressed at the strength of the invocation the King was fabricating and the King equally impressed with the Necronist’s defenses against it. Huey and Gerard saw through the Voodoo illusion and stood their ground.

  The acknowledgment of each other’s capacity to wield such power became the thread of common respect that the two parties could build on. The necronists were the first outsiders allowed in the sanctuary. The two parties learned from each other. The necronists could articulate the science of the metaphysical, Papa Lafayette could help them to find a way to a primal connection with the Arcane. That was the weakness of the Necronist way, their connection to the supernatural was an intellectual one, not visceral. The Necronist path to the metaphysical was books, learning, and experimentation; the Voodooist path was spit, sweat, and blood.

  Huey understood the tremendous opportunity the Necronist had after the group witnessed a voodoo ritual where Papa Lafayette summoned the spirits of past Voodoo Kings back to earth to possess the dead. It began more like a frenzied bacchanal with naked practitioners dancing themselves into a trance, so contrary to the puritanical dress and demeanor of the guild. Gerard a talented necronist was adept at, scrying messages from the afterworld and was beginning to hone his skills at controlling the wills of others but what he saw that evening was raw and pure necromancy.

  The village was located at the waterfall for a purpose. The falls were a rift point into the afterworld, a doorway for Ju Ju spirits to move from one plane to another. Papa Lafayette was in the center of the ritual directing the ceremony. Four corpses were brought into the circle, Lafayette recited his incantations and the dead rose. They became the mortal vessels of spirits that had passed. The Savage could do what the Necronists could not, reanimate the dead and do so by bringing spiritual energy from the afterworld.

  “No. She did not have those powers then but Papa Lafayette did and I saw primal necromantic arts being performed. They were ignorant of the metaphysics behind what they were doing but he still could wield the power of life and death.”

  A few nights later the necronists were invited to Papa’s hut. He had the three necronists sit with him on the floor around a small clay pot he was brewing some concoction. Angelica was there but she was standing on the outside acting as the interpreter. The Voodoo King said that he had decided that he would train the Necronists upon the condition that the Necronists guaranteed the safety of his people. Huey wholeheartedly agreed to the pact. Lafayette said to seal this pact the four of them would drink from his pot. He ladled the foul-smelling soup into wooden bowls and each man drank. He smiled and gestured for them to drink it all. When done he laughed and talked to Angelica. Her face lost color. The old man kept repeating to her the same words. She then told Gerrard and the others their fate.

  She explained how all four of them just consumed soul worm eggs. Their flesh and eternal Ju Ju would be consumed by the Great Devourer when the worms hatched and grew. They were all bound by a death pact. In six months’ time the worms would hatch and in a year from that day those that were not cleansed would be dead. Gerrard and the other young Seer Hume would stay in the village and train alongside Angelica. Guild Master Huey would return to France to secure the written agreement of sanctuary, upon his return the four men would again sit in this
hut and he would brew the potion to cleanse them of the eggs or larva.

  Huey left the next day; Gerrard and Hume became pupils of Papa Lafayette alongside Angelica. Saint-Yves and Hume’s learning became fundamental to the most important of the Necronists metaphysical discoveries. Ten months later Huey returned with the compact signed by the Emperor himself.

  “In the end, we learned what we could and we gave the witch doctor and his tribe sanctuary. It was a worthwhile tradeoff for the Guild and now we knew the true extent of the Voodoo power,” said the necronist.

  “How are you sure it is this woman that is our murderer?” Dolly followed up.

  He remembered the stories she and Gerrard shared about their pasts and dreams of their future together. He remembered the times they laughed as he fumbled incantations and how disappointed he was that she chose not to return with him to Paris to join the guild. His younger self wanted so much to share Paris and the guild with her. He knew her natural spiritual manipulation would bring her to the rank of Guild Master and they could continue to be together, but that was not what he would share with the Englishman.

  “First I know the innate talent she had and if she continued to progress at the speed she was learning she will be capable of these acts. Further, there is a connection to the murdered. She was a runaway slave before she joined Papa Lafayette. She shared with me that it was a Moya Plantation where she was born. The older Moya’s cause of death was impossible to determine and the state of his body was attributed to the house being burnt to the ground. When I heard about the younger Moya being killed and the condition of the body I am certain that it is her”

  “Do you know if she has any family or associates in London?” asked the detective.

  “No. She had never been off the island and she would not leave until she learned everything from Papa Lafayette”

  Gerard observed the patience of the detective. This man would sit in silence and wait for him to divulge more. He needed to see the detective’s commitment to stopping the threat.