Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection

by Michael Coorlim

  "Tears and pain?"

  "Liviticus is quite clear on the matter. 'A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.' There really isn't any room for debate on the subject."

  "Put to death?" I asked.

  "It's a spiritual death," the Vicar allowed. "Metaphor. It elaborates on the fate of those who seek out such persons: 'If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.' You can see why the rise of so-called Spiritualism has me concerned, can't you?"

  "This has certainly been... enlightening. Thank you for your assistance, Vicar Elmwood," Bartleby said.

  Curate Lakewood caught up with us as we were leaving. "Sirs, if you would wait one moment?"

  We stopped, glancing at one another in uncertainty.

  "I just wanted to say that, having just returned from Hokkaido, I was unaware of your reputations and careers. Though not in service of the Church the work you do in combating evil is a great one. I don't share Vicar Elmwood's reservations regarding technology and want to apologise to you for his attitudes -- he is very much the product of an earlier age."

  "As we are of ours," I said, somewhat mollified.

  "The world is changing at an ever faster rate," Bartleby agreed. "I can understand that it might be frightening with someone who didn't grow up with the spirit of this age."

  "I would implore that you not discount his other words simply because of his anti-technological bent," the Curate continued. "There are dark spiritual presences on this earth. You've faced them yourself, and I encountered many strange and unusual things during my missionary work in the Orient."

  "Everything we've faced can be explained through the application of science," I assured the Curate.

  He shook his head. "Morality cannot be explained, Mr. Wainwright. The galvanic creations of men like Doctor Frankenstein and the creator of that clockwork assassin you defeated aren't just flawed and immoral. They come back from death changed. Evil. I would hazard that the animating life force Ressurectionists infuse their creations with is supplied by none other than the Adversary himself."

  "Thank you for your insight," Bartleby said politely.

  "It's a warning," the Curate continued. "The infernal forces you've faced thus-far were encased in mortal flesh, and mortal flesh is weak. But the Russian mystic is gone from this earth. Spirited away. It would take a great act of technological necromancy to follow her, and I beseech you -- do not make this matter worse. Let the criminal Buckley pay for his crimes even if the State is mistaken as to their nature. Take the Vicar's advice and walk away."

  "We can't do that," I responded quickly. I may not have thought Buckley particularly innocent, but it wasn't in my nature to let the unexplained lie. Somehow Miss Fedorovna had vanished from a locked room, and it wasn't spirits that did it. And I resented the Church representatives using fear of damnation to dissuade me.

  "Then I pray you don't find what you're looking for," the Curate sounded sad. "I always pined myself for a personal experience with the mysteries of the divine. In the Orient my wishes were granted. I would give anything to have that wisdom taken from me."

  He turned and slowly returned to the rectory. Bartleby and I stared at each other for a long moment before heading on our way. Only once we were off of the Church's sacred grounds and back at the street did my partner turn to me. "Well. Now that you're committed, what next?"

  "Back to Buckley. We question him again."

  "We'll still have the prison guards nearby."

  "We give him a second chance to give us the hint he's trying to pass on."

  "And how do we let him know we're looking for it, without the guards overhearing?"

  ***

  "Through the course of my investigations, Buckley, I have come to the conclusion that you are undoubtedly telling the absolute truth."

  "What, really?" he asked, surprise bringing his accent out in full.

  "Quite. Having thoroughly investigated your device I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that it works exactly as advertised, weakening the thin barrier between this world and the next."

  "Have you now?"

  "Yes. It's as we used to say in Mr. Potter's workshop: Sometimes you just have to put all your cards out on the table."

  Buckley's confused expression was gradually replaced by one of canny understanding. "Well, then you no doubt remember the motto of our old Alma Mater. With books, wisdom."

  "Yes," I responded. "With books, wisdom. I always needed a little help with that."

  "The world has been my education. You'd never guess at the knowledge gleaned just from my poor missing partner."

  "I'm sure the lessons of Rasputin came in handy, though with her missing I can't see how they'd be at hand to benefit from."

  Bartleby's eyes kept moving back and forth between the pair of us, quiet, observing.

  "Pulled into hell by an angry spirit," Buckley shook his head. "All her secrets in the grave, I'm afraid."

  I sat back, considering my next words carefully. "As your advocate I'm not sure exactly of how to convince the Crown of your innocence. Perhaps you could help me with the options available?"

  "You're the Guild appointed advocate," Buckley retorted. "Fully operating in her name."

  "I'm looking for the right legal approach here, though if you could offer me anything new to help me search--"

  "I'm afraid you're on your own here. But I wish you luck, or it's the gallows for me."

  I nodded, rising. "We're done here. Come along, Bartleby."

  Bartleby rose, and the police guard escorted Buckley back to his cell. Once we were alone, Bartleby spoke. "I'm not quite sure I caught the significance of that. Some sort of double-speak?"

  "Mr. Potter taught one of our classes together at the Guild Academy. Old man was senile. Afflicted with a word salad that jumbled half his speech, always the front half, so we had to learn to just parse the second half of everything he said, so we developed a method to communicate in the midst of our well-heeled peers without them understanding whatever we were talking about."

  "It just sounded like you were jumping from topic to topic."

  "Yes, only the second clause or sentence in each exchange was important."

  Bartleby closed his eyes, rerunning the dialogue in his head. He's a good memory, but not eidetic. "Something about a grave?"

  "Yes. Something that'll help us help Buckley at a grave relating to his missing partner in a yard where they bury the condemned."

  "Brookwood Cemetery?"

  "It's likely. We find a grave tied to Duscha Fedorovna and we find some answers."

  ***

  The next day found us at Brookwood, searching for the grave of Duscha Fedorovna with the assistance of Father Rybin, from the local Orthodox parish.

  "Not find Duscha Fedorovna," he warned us as we began looking. "Russian names given in speech like, 'First Name, Father Name.' On graves as, 'First Name, Last Name.' Duscha's father's name Fedor, but that not on her grave, yes?"

  "So we're looking for... any Duscha?" Bartleby asked, looking over the spread of graves.

  "Da. Maybe we lucky, maybe Duscha have father name on grave too."

  We weren't lucky. An afternoon's search of the graveyard revealed sixteen Duschas, none of which held Fedorovna-related patronymics. There was little recourse but to search the grounds around each for clues. After a few wasted efforts we found a leather-bound personal journal hidden in a small metal tin among the foliage of one of the older and overgrown grave markers.

  "Duscha Fedorovna Gargarina," I read from the tombstone. "1777 to 1807. A great-grandmother she was named after?"

  "Unlikely. They'd need the same fathers' names."

  "Not unusual in Russia," Father Rybin added.

  "Not impossible, but con artists frequently go through Church records looking for names to adopt," Bartleby
explained. He'd been looking through the notebook. "This is full of details on many local families, focused on those that have passed on in the last few decades. The Lakewoods are in here. So are the Maples."

  "Explains where they got the information for their séances," I said.

  "Don't be smug." Bartleby continued flipping through the book.

  "Where would they learn this kind of information?"

  "Servants gossip, even years later." Bartleby said, handing me the book. "But look, here -- a name and address written in the back, and what looks like a ledger of accounts paid. They may have been purchasing information."

  "Nyle Abbot. The address is in Whitechapel?"

  "Underworld, most likely. Connected, but low-level if he's dealing with newcomers like Buckley."

  I thought about it. "He won't want to talk. Not to us."

  "Have faith, James. I'm sure you can be properly convincing."

  I grinned, perhaps a little too broadly.

  ***

  My first punch drove the wind from Nyle's gut. My second bloodied his nose. The third fractured one of his teeth.

  "How go the negotiations?" Bartleby was leaning against the exterior wall of the pub, making sure nobody interrupted our discussion, idly filing his nails.

  "Well, I should think," I panted, watching Nyle try to scramble to his feet. I tossed the man's knife aside into the gutter, glancing down where he'd slashed a shallow laceration into my thigh. "He had some reservations but I think I'm getting through to him."

  Nyle had turned himself onto his back and was scrambling away as best he could while I closed on him.

  "Ready to talk yet?"

  "Oh god," he moaned, feeling his back up against the alley wall. I slammed a fist into the crumbling plaster next to his head, dusting his shoulder with debris.

  "Do you need a little more convincing?"

  "Saints preserve me," he muttered.

  "Irish, are you?" Bartleby asked, drawing near, peering down over my shoulders. "A compatriot of Buckley's?"

  "Never met him," he stammered. "My contact was that Fortier girl."

  "Fortier?" I asked. "The Russian?"

  "Not Russian, French," he explained. "Though yeah, she looked a little Russian. Could pass. But she was from Paris."

  Bartleby stood upright. "Paris? Is she... connected?"

  "Dunno," Nyle winced. "She had connection enough to make a deal with me."

  "For what, exactly?" I let him sit up, passed him his handkerchief.

  He pressed it to his bloodied nose. "Information. Gossip on prominent families. I put the word out to the local servants, they sell to me, I sell to Trinette at a sharp mark-up."

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "Four nights past."

  The day before she'd gone missing. After she and Buckley had moved in with Mrs. Lakewood -- when supposedly she'd locked herself in her room. "Where did you meet with her? At the Lakewood estate?"

  "Nah, no. Different places. Pubs. She'd put the word out when she wanted to buy, and I'd meet her on her terms."

  I stood up, straightening my vest.

  "You know, Mr. Abbot, this was nothing personal." Bartleby leaned to take my place.

  "Aye. Business. I get it. A little rough, but no worries."

  "Mr. Wainwright and I," he continued, "may have use for a man who can gather certain types of information, if he can be discrete."

  "Oh, I'm quite discrete, Mr. Bartleby."

  Bartleby stood, dropping a few pounds into Nyle's lap. "Good. Consider this a retainer. Go see a dentist about that tooth."

  "God's blessing on you both, sirs."

  We left him there then, returning to Whitechapel's narrow streets.

  "Assuming Nyle's telling the truth it would seem that Miss Fedorovna... Fortier, sorry... had some way of getting out of her room," I said.

  "And that the kidnapper had a way to get in to grab her."

  "Assuming that she didn't just abandon Buckley."

  "Either way, there's got to be some way in and out that we didn't see."

  I nodded. "The Curate arrived before we could fully investigate the room."

  "Not that you were inclined to. Still, back to Knightsbridge tomorrow."

  ***

  The old servants' quarters weren't very large, and it didn't take us long before Bartleby discovered a sliding panel in the closet revealing a staircase down into the ground. We borrowed a lantern and followed it to a tunnel running under the estate's grounds.

  "This must date back to the older construction," I said.

  "Some information that Miss Fortier was able to glean. Mrs. Lakewood probably didn't even know about it."

  "She didn't seem the sort to have gone exploring as a girl," I agreed.

  There was a crunch underfoot and Bartleby stooped to the ground, lantern in hand. "Beads."

  "Beads?"

  "Rosary beads." He rose, a small string of beads attached to a cross in hand. The string had snapped and several had spilt out onto the floor.

  "Broken in a struggle?"

  "Probably not Miss Fortier's. Buckley?"

  "Catholic but not religious."

  Bartleby rolled the beads in his hands thoughtfully. "The Curate."

  "Mrs. Lakewood's son?"

  "He might have discovered the passage in his youth. The other night he waited for Miss Fortier here, they struggle, he takes her."

  "But why?"

  Bartleby held the crucifix up to his lantern. "You heard the man after we spoke to the Vicar. A zealot obsessed with the supernatural. And look, here, on the back. Some sort of Oriental characters."

  "Let's confront him, see how he reacts. To St. Barnabas."

  ***

  "You come here – to my parish – and accuse me of... of what, exactly?" The Vicar was red faced with rage.

  "We're not accusing you of anything," Bartleby said. "We're simply telling you–"

  "The implication is clear, young man. I've no patience for honeyed words. You may be popular among some important families, but don't think you're free to go lobbing accusations at the Church freely. You think your modern secular natural philosophies free you from the responsibility to respect God by slandering His servants? You'll discover that the Church still has temporal power to protect itself."

  I'd just about lost my temper. "'A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.' Sound familiar, Vicar?"

  "Metaphor! I told you. I'll not stand idly by and let you accuse me of–"

  Bartleby wordlessly placed the crucifix we'd found on the Vicar's desk. The old man's eyes seemed riveted to it.

  "Where did you get this?"

  "Found. In a secret tunnel leading from the Medium's chambers to the grounds of the Lakewood estate."

  The Vicar's face paled and he sank into the chair behind his desk, looking all the world like a deflated zepplin. "That's his. That's William's. Oh, God forgive me. I should have known."

  Bartleby glanced in my direction briefly. "Perhaps you had best start at the beginning."

  "This... it's an internal church matter."

  "A woman's life is at stake, man."

  The Vicar nodded and swallowed. "William... he's always been superstitious. Religious, yes, but beyond that... he honestly and earnestly believes that the forces of good and darkness are fighting a constant war around us at all times. He believes in angels, and demons, and the devil, in a very literal and definite fashion."

  "And you don't?" Bartleby asked. "Last time you came around you were lamenting people's lack of belief in these things."

  "In the allegories they represent! In their moral and ethical meanings, not in the literal sense of actual demons walking the earth. I believe these things have weight, have definite consideration, but only as metaphor. William has believed in the stories, in spirits and angels and demons, since he was a child. And these literal convictions only worsened when he to
ok his mission work in Japan."

  "What happened in Japan?"

  "He somehow came to the conclusion that his parish was haunted by demons," the Vicar continued, glancing towards the window. "Performed a host of exorcisms without the church's consent, and several men died. When he confessed his deeds to the Vicar he served there the Church covered things up and sent him back here."

  "That was it?" I asked, incredulous. "He committed multiple murders and got away with it?"

  "It was a religious mania." The Vicar seemed to be pleading that we accept this as a truth. "What good would an international incident have done?"

  "Brought peace to the families of the men he killed," Bartleby replied coldly. "Even if criminals, they were still men."

  "God save us," the Vicar moaned. "And if William is still at it -- God forgive us."

  "Vicar Elmwood," I spoke quietly. "Where is the Curate now?"

  "I don't know. Off. Gone. If he's taken the girl then he's been depriving her of food and water these last few days. Somewhere sanctified and isolated."

  Bartleby stood abruptly. "Come along, James. If we hurry, we can save her from his zealot's mercies."

  I followed him out into the hall, haunted by the Vicar's revelations. "He could be anywhere."

  "Not just anywhere. He needs somewhere sanctified and secure."

  "Any number of the disused chapels in London."

  Bartleby stopped, staring up at the soot-colored sky. "Hold on. Consider his mental state. His psychotic break began during his mission work in the Orient. He'll gravitate towards similar features."

  "There are some Buddhist temples in the East End."

  "Close, but no. The immigrants there are Chinese. The Curate's mission work was in Japan."

  "The Japanese Village?"

  "That's our best bet. And it's close, here in Knightsbridge."