“Good afternoon, Mr. Gordon,” the Indian fellow said politely. “My name is Gurpreet Gopal. It is good to see you again. If you would like to take a seat we can begin.” He gestured towards a large, comfortable armchair.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Gopal.” Gordon took the chair. “It is good to be here again. I do hope I pass the test this time.”
Mr. Gopal gave a thin smile. “It is not often a second invitation is extended, but recently a review was conducted of your original application, and it was found to contain merits that were previously overlooked – hence your second chance. Would you like some water?” The little man held out a large jug.
Gordon would have preferred something stronger, but he accepted a small glass and wetted his dry mouth. “Thank you.”
“Good. Now I have some questions for you. Please answer as quickly and as succinctly as you can.” Mr. Gopal had no list in front of him – he fired the questions off from memory, and Gordon struggled to answer as best he could. He remembered some of the questions from last time, but others were new. They were designed to test his general knowledge of history, mathematics, philosophy, science and language. Only at Mathematics did Gordon really excel, although he did quite well at the science portion.
The IntelliGent hid his derision well. Nicholas Gordon had above-average intelligence, but fell far short of the club’s entry level. No matter. He would be allowed in at the associate level. The Gent doubted he would want to peruse many of the low-level books anyway. He had no interest in the esoteric arts. Finally, he finished the entry questionnaire and cleared his throat. “You have done quite well, Mr. Gordon. You have improved since last time.”
“Am I a member now?” Gordon asked, a little too eagerly.
“That is for my superiors to decide. However, I do have a couple more questions for you, which if you answer truthfully, will greatly accelerate the process.”
Gordon gave a smile. “Ask away.”
Mr. Gopal steepled his long, thin fingers. “Recently you have made the acquaintance of a particular person of interest to this club.”
Gordon looked blank. “Who?”
“I don’t know his name, but I think you do. I can describe him for you; he is quite tall and slender, with pale skin, long dark brown hair and an unusual red mark between his eyebrows, shaped like a bird in flight. It is imperative we gain as much information about this person as possible.”
Gordon turned white. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he gasped, his heart suddenly racing.
“Come now. This is the Intelligent Gentlemen’s Club. You can’t lie to us. You have been with this fellow. Whatever your relationship with him is of no interest to us. We just desire his name and his location, so we may speak with him.”
An icy sweat sheathed Gordon’s body. Of course all his silly attempts at secrecy had been for naught! He had been lured here as part of a blackmail attempt! “I … I have no information for you. Sorry to have wasted your time. I will show myself out.” He was about to rise, but Mr. Gopal pushed him back down.
“Enough,” the Gent growled. “If you don’t give us the information we want, we will make your secret life public. It is a simple enough request.”
Gordon gaped at the little fellow’s dark, dangerous eyes. He saw a power that hadn’t been there before and realised he was far more than a mere servant. “He … he is a business associate!” he finally managed. “He … works for the Da Vinci Company and has hired me to build a theatre for him!”
It was the Gent’s turn to be surprised. He couldn’t read Gordon’s mind without touching it with his tentacles, but he could read lies. And Gordon was telling the truth. “Continue. What is his name?”
“Er – Adam – Adam Delfay.”
Of the fey! the Gent thought. An elf name! “And his address?”
Gordon gulped. “That … That I can’t tell you. I first met him on the train. He could live anywhere around there.”
“Has he given you any indication about his address? Does he live with someone?”
“He did mention an associate – the one who designed the theatre he wishes me to build. It is an amazing structure – I have never seen anything like it!”
“A name?”
Gordon struggled to remember. “Achilles?”
“Achilles?”
“It was something from a Greek legend.”
“But you don’t remember? Could it have been Icarus?”
Gordon snapped his fingers. “Yes! That’s it. The fellow who flew too close to the sun. I’ve never been much good with legends.”
The Gent actually swore out loud. He flopped back into his chair. After all this time! Confirmation of what he had suspected all along! Icarus was alive and well and living in London!
“Er – Mr. Gopal,” Gordon asked uncertainly.
“You’ve given me exactly what I want,” the Gent told him. “Thank you.”
It seemed the strange little man did run the club after all. “Er – you’re welcome,” Gordon managed, still a little confused by the strange turn of events.
The IntelliGent realised he couldn’t let Gordon leave after having witnessed his uncharacteristically emotional response. He would definitely suspect that something was up, and mention it to the Necronite and Icarus. “There’s just one more thing we need to do. Anthracite – if you would be so kind?”
Suddenly, lumpy limbs burst from the arms of Gordon’s chair, locking around his wrists and ankles, holding him tight. “Wh-what trickery is this?” he gasped in sudden horror.
The Gent smiled thinly. “Don’t worry – in a few minutes you won’t remember this instant at all.” He started unwrapping the turban from around his head.
Now Del had his contract with Gordon Steamworks, it didn’t take long for work to commence on the Da Vinci theatre. Gordon felt the remote location on a large block on the outskirts of Sheffield was a bad choice for such a structure, but Adam Delfay didn’t seem worried, and assured him that customers would come as soon as word got out.
And it seemed Adam was right; almost as soon as work began on the unusual structure, people showed up from the surrounding areas to investigate. Adam and the strange individuals he called his ‘business associates’ were quick to take advantage of the gawking crowds, setting up tents and stalls around the work-site. These ‘business associates’ consisted of an emaciated fellow who always wore a broad-brimmed hat and a scarf wrapped around his face; a large, burly fellow in a long-nosed mask and steel helmet, a smaller chap with long, straggly hair and a cat mask, and a voluptuous woman with a badly pock-marked face.
A stranger bunch of circus freaks Gordon had never seen. But the locals seemed impressed, and flocked to the site every day, first to simply gawk, then purchase the items for sale at the various stalls. Adam Delfay, who at first had nothing to do but simply wander around inspecting the growing building, began perform magic tricks for the onlookers. For the life of him, Gordon could not figure out how he did them. The locals began to pay more, and others came from further afield to visit the site.
Despite the carnival-like atmosphere around the theatre, work progressed far too slowly, largely because of the efforts of Icarus. According to Gordon’s foreman, an efficient Welshman he had trusted for twenty years, this annoying little character kept criticising the labourers for their shoddy workmanship, undoing sections that had just been bolted together, and loudly correcting the foreman in front of his men. He got in the way and underfoot so many times that one autumn afternoon the foreman threw down his tools and stomped off the site. He confronted Gordon in his office, where he was working with Mr. Delfay on the accounts. Enough money was coming in from the stalls to start repaying the enormous loan. “I can’t work under such conditions any longer! You tell that annoying professor to get off my site, or I quit!”
“Professor? Who do you mean, Gruff?” Gordon asked incredulously.
“That little know it all, Icarus Abbacus!” Foreman Gruff Jones shouted. “I ha
ve had enough of him always correcting me and sabotaging everything!”
“It is his design,” Mr. Delfay apologised.
“You make too many excuses for him! If ye want this theatre finished any time soon, get Professor Abbacus out of my sight!”
It was meant to be a derisive term, but frankly, Icarus did not mind being called Professor Abbacus. Soon he began to insist on it, much to Foreman Jones’s dismay. While Icarus’ insults cut the foreman to the core, nothing he threw back at the strange little fellow seemed to affect him!
Only Del was able to convince Icarus to keep out the foreman’s way, telling him that he would be better off conducting his reviews at night, while no-one was around. “Some of those incompetent oafs don’t even know how to nail two planks of wood together,” Icarus growled. “I don’t want the entire structure to fly apart every time we move it!”
“That reminds me – how will we get everything out of the lab and up here?”
“Before we came up here I reworked all my wards. Everything is now linked, and should come when I fire up the Omniportallis.”
Del rubbed his forehead, still not understanding how Icarus’ ‘Magick’ worked. He seemed able to do a lot more with it than was possible with psionics. But he nodded anyway. “Just remember what I said. Keep out of Jones’s way. He knows what he’s doing.”
Icarus sniffed. “That fat loudmouth couldn’t find his own arse with a map.” But he grudgingly did as he was told, disappearing into a makeshift office that had been made for him in the theatre’s attic. Even though he didn’t have any of his laboratory equipment with him, he was still able to work on plans for other structures. He had told Del that as soon as he was satisfied with the structure’s progress, he would return to London to finish the difference engine. Unfortunately, he doubted he would ever be satisfied with the work until he could do it all himself! He had been alone and in charge of his own destiny for so long that he simply couldn’t accept others’ short-comings.
Thus the mysterious ‘Professor’ Abbacus continued to hover around the work-site, always watching critically, and making odd little changes during the night. When the nights grew too cold for him, and his metal joints were in danger of freezing up, he started accompanying Del back to Gordon’s place in town.
Nicholas would have preferred he stayed with the others, but Adam assured he wouldn’t be any trouble, and didn’t need a bed of his own, simply a spot on the floor in front of a fireplace. Nicholas grudgingly agreed, and it seemed Adam was right – Icarus didn’t sleep but simply meditated in a cross-legged position. He also didn’t eat or drink, so he wasn’t any imposition there, either. He did, however, want to know where Gordon kept his coal.
“Where on Earth did you meet that extraordinary little fellow?” Nicholas asked Adam one cold winter night as they snuggled together in bed. “He is brilliant, yes, but by far the strangest man I have ever met!”
“He lives in London, near the Fleet ditch, in a basement under a tavern,” Del explained.
“I would love to see what he looks like under all those bandages,” Gordon mused.
“You would have to ask him, but I doubt he will show you. He is very private.”
Nicholas smiled. “Not that private. It’s obvious to me that he has quite a soft spot for you. You’re the only one he seems to listen to.”
“True enough. He trusts me.”
“He’s … not jealous of us, is he?”
Del smiled and slipped his arms around Gordon’s broad shoulders. “No.” He drew the older man into another bout of lovemaking, and unknown to Nicholas, he sent his pleasure – and Gordon’s – down to Icarus who was still seated in front of the fire. Icarus never moved, never gave any sign of what he was feeling – but rejoiced in it nonetheless. He might have not been physically a part of the activities upstairs, but he felt everything. And the fact that Gordon didn’t even know made it even more delightful.
The Dobbs brothers and their companion Ethel spent most nights in a tent on the work-site. Now they were all undead, the cold didn’t affect them, and they could rest quite comfortably on frozen ground. Due to their new status, they no longer needed to sleep. However, Icarus had explained to them that every creature needed time out to unwind, otherwise they would eventually go insane. He showed them how to meditate, a process that had taken him years to perfect. They only needed a few hours of quiet-time each night.
However, the three zombies were adventurous ‘souls’ and after a while they tired of guarding the work-site. They went into Sheffield to investigate its night-life. Unfortunately, being a poor northern industrial town, Sheffield’s nocturnal venues consisted of various seedy taverns crammed with drunken factory workers and consumptive prostitutes.
Still, the zombies had never been fussy. Any tavern was better than loitering around a half-built theatre. Their unusual appearances soon livened up the local joints, and attracted the attention of three creatures who had been sent north on a mission of investigation.
From Nicholas Gordon’s mind the IntelliGent had pulled the exact address of Gordon Steamworks, but not the location of Icarus’ mysterious theatre. At the time Gordon had not known its exact site. No matter. The Gent sent the Underfiend, Pumpkinhead Jack and Jersey Devil north to find out. The three imps had been loitering around the Steamworks’ head office by day and spending their evenings at various local pubs. They hadn’t spotted Gordon yet, only his partner James Henry, but knew it would only be a matter of time before the old man showed up.
Tonight three bizarre characters burst into their tavern; a large man in a long-nosed mask and helmet, a tall fellow in a cat-mask and a woman dressed in eighteenth century finery, each one of her pox-scars covered with a beauty mark. Instead of gaping at the garish group in surprise, the locals welcomed them. The imps instantly realised something was different about these characters. Their enhanced senses detected no human body-heat, no heart-beats, no breath.
The newcomers were dead. Their bodies didn’t possess the cloying stench of decay, but rather a strange earthy odour – they appeared to have been frozen at the instant of death. But they didn’t act dead – they yelled, drank, sang and danced with the rest of the locals. And the intoxicated factory workers didn’t suspect a thing.
But the imps knew. These were the zombies they had been looking for down in London! One of them had the glowing eyes described by that terrified brothel-owner! They realised that if he took off his cat-mask he would have no eyes, but gaping sockets with dreadful scars radiating from them.
The Underfiend nudged a heavy drinker beside him. “Who’re the freaks?” he growled.
“They’re from th’ new theatre thass goin’ up outsida town,” the drunk slurred.
“Where’s the theatre?” the Underfiend insisted.
“Wha? Ye never bin there? ‘Till be a sight once tis finish’!” the man exclaimed. Tis on the north road. Ye can’ miss it! Tis bloody huge an’ there’sh all this rubbish ‘roun’it!”
Did you get that? The Fiend sent to his companions. It seems the zombies are linked to Gordon’s theatre! We have to check it out!
His companions nodded. It seemed things were finally looking up for them! They had finally done what the Gent wanted! Located the Necronite and Icarus!
When the pub finally closed for the night, and the owner had to throw several inebriated individuals out onto the street, the three imps decided to follow the zombies. The two men supported the woman between them, but were in no better condition. Despite the zombies’ condition, the imps hung back, unsure if the creatures had superior senses. After both Jersey Devil and the elusive Pumpkinhead Jack had gotten themselves spotted by the Necronite, the low-level demons weren’t taking any chances.
But they needn’t have worried. The zombies staggered down the road unperturbed by the fact that it had started snowing, singing off-key at the tops of their voices. The imps could have snuck up right behind them. The undead led them from town along the northern road, and there it
was; an incongruous half-finished structure, rising from mounds of sand and dirt. In the eerie half-light created by the snow, it looked like a skeleton – an undead building for its undead occupants. The zombies disappeared into a tent and the flap dropped behind them. More sounds of merriment soon emerged.
They’re doing it in there, Jersey sent to Pumpkinhead. Let’s take a peek!
Oh yes, agreed Pumpkinhead, and the pair were about to take off when the Underfiend’s giant, ham-like hands dropped onto their shoulders and hauled them back. Of the three he had the highest degree of self-control, and could boast that he hadn’t accidentally killed a whore during sex.
Idiots! While they’re indisposed we can examine the rest of the building! He hustled the protesting pair towards the structure. While Jersey and Pumpkinhead examined the lower levels, the Underfiend went up. He found an office, but unfortunately it was locked. He dug out a set of picks and went to work. He managed to open the lock, but unfortunately for him he tripped a ward that activated a silent alarm.
Since Del had told him about the Immaterial Imps, Icarus had become even more paranoid. And now, it seemed, his vigilance had paid off. The alarm sounded a warning inside his head, startling him from his meditative reverie in front of Nicholas Gordon’s fire. He sprang to his feet and raced down the hall to the main door. But as he pulled it open, an icy blast drove him back inside, almost knocking him off his feet.
Cold was his one great weakness. Even with his furnace running at full blast his joints would still seize up out there. Del, I need you, he sent to the sleeping Eridon upstairs. Someone has broken into my office!
The Circus Infinitus - Genesis Infinitus Page 17
