Into the Weird: The Collected Stories of James Palmer

by James Palmer

  Cairn lost his guns as his attacker closed with him. The Chinaman was not only fast, he was an expert in the style of fighting popular in the Orient, and Cairn was no match. Chow kicked him in the chest, sending him flying into a hard wooden crate. Cairn heard the sound of shattering pottery as something broke inside the crate. As Cairn’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Chow pull the two huge, curved knives from his back, the same ones he must have used on the porter. Behind Chow, Cairn heard the sound of the thieves smashing open crates to grab whatever was of value. Cairn looked around futilely for his guns as Chow lunged toward him, but something stopped him cold. A dark object inserted itself in the space between them, slapping Chow hard across the chest. He went down hard and did not get up.

  “You all right?”

  It was the magician, Thorpe. Cairn nodded, bending to retrieve one of his pistols. “You know these ruffians?”

  “Afraid so,” said Cairn.

  Chow started to get up as he was joined by two of his companions. Cairn shot a Cadre in the arm, and he went down with a moan.

  “For Asteroth’s sake,” spat Shade, “will someone please kill him?”

  They hadn’t seen or heard Thorpe. Cairn was suddenly glad for his assistance as the magician helped him up.

  “Found it!” Shade snapped, and the hairs on the back of Cairn’s neck stood up. He could feel the electricity in the air, like just before a thunderstorm. Thorpe said something in an alien tongue and an orb of blue light shot from his outstretched hand, hitting Chow and two people who looked like Cadre and sending them flying backward.

  The space around Shade began to glow as he hung something around his neck, a golden cross with a large hoop at the top instead of a bar. It hung suspended from his neck by a golden chain. “So you’re the magician,” said Shade. “My colleagues are searching for a piece of cargo that belongs to you. Show me where it is and I promise to make your death swift. As for Mr. Cairn, here.”

  Shade touched the bizarre cross, and Cairn felt his entire body spasm as he was lifted and flung across the length of the car. He landed next to the dead porter, his limbs refusing to function.

  “Never,” said Thorpe as he whispered another incantation that filled the car with liquid fire.

  “I can find it,” said a voice Cairn didn’t recognize. “We don’t need him.”

  As if in response, a series of shots rang out, flashing in the darkness like heat lighting. Cairn covered his eyes as he willed his body to let him sit up, then stand. The pain was unbearable, but he forced his limbs to work. He looked down at his right hand and noticed that it still held his gun.

  He watched, helplessly aghast as Erasmus Thorpe closed with the two men nearest him, attacking with a ferocity he had never before witnessed in hand to hand combat. He used his heavy walking stick with practiced skill, calmly and easily blocking the Cadre’s blows and delivering a few of his own.

  He brought the tip of the stick down across one attacker’s right knee, sending him toppling over as he raised the stick to block a blow from the other’s brass rod gizmo that had lit Shade’s grim work before Cairn smashed it with a bullet. Thorpe drove his right elbow into the man’s stomach, and he expelled a whoosh of air before the magician cracked him across the head with his stick, sending him sprawling backward.

  Cairn could feel his limbs again, and raised his arm to shoot one of the men in the face before he could hit Thorpe with one of the Cadre’s inscrutable electric wands. Thorpe muttered a thank-you before turning toward Shade. Standing in between them was the big man, Waters.

  He grabbed Thorpe’s cane and flung the magician into a large crate, which shattered from the impact, dislodging a pile of wood shavings and whatever priceless artifacts they were meant to protect.

  Waters grinned toothlessly at Cairn. “You want some now?”

  Cairn fired, the bullet glowing bluely before slowing down and stopping completely. It fell to the floor of the car, useless.

  “The cold iron barrier,” said Shade. “The Injuns got tired of being shot at. It’s powerful magic. Powerful enough to let me do this.”

  He gestured, and the cross began to glow with its own inner light that made everything in the car crackle and vibrate until Cairn thought everything around him was going to explode.

  Thorpe staggered over to stand beside Cairn, brushing wood shavings from his clothing. He was uttering something in a language Cairn didn’t know, was certain few human beings alive remembered such a tongue. Then in English he said, “That’s the Ankh of Ra, purported to be very powerful. The legends are true.”

  A wall of energy hit them, coming from the Ankh. It flowed around them before bouncing back, slamming into Shade, his men, the Cadre, and the assemblage of crates with a force strong enough to send them all sliding toward the other end of the car. It also put Cairn and Thorpe flat on their backs.

  Thorpe laughed. “That was amazing! I wasn’t even sure that would work.”

  “What would work?” said Cairn, annoyed. He wanted to face Shade gun on gun, on open ground. He flew to his feet.

  “That counter spell,” said Thorpe. “I just saved our lives.”

  Neither Shade nor the Cadre came forward, but one of the crates, a tall, narrow box, began to shake as if it would fly apart at any moment. Cairn watched in horror as a bandaged fist punched through the side of the crate, followed by another.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Thorpe.

  The rest of the crate exploded into splinters just as Cairn retrieved his second Colt from a wispy pile of wood shavings. Standing before them was a tall, gaunt bandaged form, with something that had been an eye peering at them through a slit in the decaying bandages wrapped around its misshapen head.

  It howled at them with the sound of a dust storm.

  Cairn emptied both pistols into the fiend, but it just stood there as the bullets stirred up mummy-dust. Cairn dry-fired several times before stopping.

  “Got any more spells?” he asked Thorpe.

  “Just one,” said the magician, “Run!”

  Cairn spun on his heels and holstered his weapons. He could feel the fiend behind them, dogging their every step as they squeezed between crates in an effort to go back the way they had come. The creature flung the heavy artifacts out of its way effortlessly.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  “Mummy,” said Thorpe, “brought to life by the Ankh of Ra, no doubt.”

  “Which Shade is getting away with, while we run away,” said the gunslinger.

  “We have bigger problems,” said the magician.

  *

  Shade the albino watched the entire exchange with bemused detachment. He stood, dusted his clothing, and inspected the heavy Egyptian artifact that hung around his neck with newfound reverence.

  “You never said anything about the artifacts being guarded.”

  Shade turned. It was Drummond, the Cadre’s leader.

  “You look a might put out, Professor,” said Shade. “But don’t take that petulant tone with me. You saw what just happened.”

  “Yeah,” said Drummond, “you got your toy. Now we want the one we were promised. That man with the gunslinger, I recognized him. It’s his cargo we’re after.”

  The albino sorcerer grinned. “Let’s go get it, then.”

  *

  Cairn and the magician crossed over to the passenger car, the mummy hot on their heels. It stopped, reeling at the sight of the prairie zipping past, the roar of the train’s engine and the clack of the wheels on the rails. It seemed to be taking in where it was.

  “It’s disoriented,” said Thorpe. “Let’s go.”

  Cairn entered the car. “That thing will tear this train apart.”

  “That’s why we’re going to stop it,” said the magician. “I have something in my bag, and something in that car back there, that will help.”

  Cairn motioned for Thorpe to lead the way. The magician returned to his seat, where the two young ladies he had be
en entertaining just minutes earlier looked up at him expectantly.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” said the dandy. “I just need my carpetbag.”

  Thorpe reached up into the overhead compartment and pulled down a dark carpetbag. He unfastened it and pulled out a brass and wood box. On one side was a pair of black knobs and some kind of indicator gauge.

  Cairn’s eyes widened. “You Cadre?”

  The magician smiled. “No. Not in any formal sense. But I do agree with some of their philosophies regarding technology.”

  He hefted the box gingerly, eagerly, like a child with a new toy. “This device will control my cargo, at least in theory.” He twisted dials, and the indicator needle shot to attention.

  “That’s a very pretty box,” said one of the ladies. “May I see it?”

  “I’m sorry, my dears, but this is a very delicate instrument.”

  “I’m afraid we must insist,” said the dark-haired woman.

  Cairn and Thorpe looked up to see two guns pointing back at them. Everyone in the car gasped.

  The blonde put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly and sharply. “We’ve got it!” she called.

  Two men stepped behind the women, having come from the forward car. They both wore the telltale brass lightning bolt of the Cadre on their lace necks.

  “Lady Cadre?” said Cairn, surprised.

  The blonde gave him a playful wink and snatched his empty guns, while the dark-haired woman took the box from Thorpe’s hands.

  “You don’t know what you are doing,” said the magician. “There is a mummy back there and it’s—”

  The Cadre laughed. “That’s rich,” said the blonde. “You want to tell us another whopper?”

  Just then the door at the rear of the car was wrenched open, torn off its hinges with great force. A large, bandaged form shambled into view. The few passengers onboard, already frightened by the scene playing out before them, went mad with panic. Some tried to get up and flee but were tossed aside like rag dolls by the creature.

  The female Cadre screamed and opened fire on the creature as Cairn and Thorpe shrank back, and the magician grabbed his box. Cairn grappled with the closest male Cadre, an older man with a well-manicured red beard.

  Cairn gripped his gun hand and shoved it out of the way, pulling the hellblade from his belt and inserting it in the soft flesh below his right arm.

  Thorpe clocked the second Cadre man in the face with his box, shattering his nose. Both men went down without preamble, and retrieving his guns, Cairn and Thorpe staggered over them and into the next car just as the screams and gunshots died down unsettlingly.

  “What was all that back there?” Cairn asked.

  “The fisticuffs? Just a combination of bartitsu and some martial arts I picked up while in the Orient. I just hope I didn’t damage my little darling here.”

  He inspected the box as they ran through the car. “We’ve got to stop this train,” said Cairn.

  “Agreed,” said the magician. “Just let me get this. Ah! Here we go.”

  The needle jumped, but nothing happened.

  “How is that gizmo supposed to help us?”

  “You’ll see,” said Thorpe. “I just hope it can reach us in time.”

  “Hope what can reach us?”

  Thorpe wasn’t listening. He reached over a large man’s head to pull the alarm chain. The train lurched, almost knocking Cairn and Thorpe to the floor, then it slowly came to a stop.

  “What is the meaning of this?” The big man huffed.

  “Everyone needs to evacuate the train immediately,” said Thorpe.

  Everyone stared at him blankly.

  “You heard the man,” said Cairn, pulling his Colts and aiming them in the air. “Get off the train!”

  He had reloaded one pistol while they ran from the mummy and Cadre, now he fired a shot into the roof of the car, and that got everyone moving. Panicking, screaming, they opened the car’s side door and climbed out to stand by the tracks in a confused huff. Just as the last passenger got off, the mummy came barreling into the car.

  “We’ve got to keep it on the train,” said Thorpe.

  Cairn nodded, firing a couple of shots into it more from habit and lack of anything else to do, even though he knew his bullets would have no effect.

  The creature seemed to be coming to grips with its surroundings. It stared at Cairn coolly, approaching the gunslinger slowly and carefully.

  “I guess we run now,” said Cairn.

  “Correct.”

  Cairn followed the magician through to the next car, the mummy right behind them, enraged at being fired upon.

  *

  “Here it is.”

  Drummond pointed. In the light provided by his associate’s aether torch they could see the crate, which had been knocked sideways against the wall of the car. Stenciled on the side were the words PROPERTY OF K THORPE. NEW YORK, NY.

  “Let’s have that pry bar,” said Drummond.

  “Wait,” said Shade, “do you hear that?”

  The men listened, each of them leaning toward the crate. Chow gritted his teeth, pulling his kukris from their sheaths on his back. The smell of oil and ozone filled the space.

  “Sounds like clockwork,” said Drummond.

  A metal fist punched through the crate, sending shards of splintered wood everywhere. Next an enormous foot plunged through the lid, smashing the top of the crate to bits. A humming, metallic form loomed out of what was left of the box, towering over the men huddled before it.

  The new aether torch, which was held aloft by a thin Cadre named Lomax, cast strange shadows over the thing’s metal hide.

  “The control device,” said Drummond. “Someone’s activated it.”

  “And I’ll bet it warn’t your pretty fillies,” said Waters.

  “Your women have failed you,” said Shade. “Let me handle this.” He gripped the bottom of the Ankh of Ra hanging around his neck, and it glowed faintly.

  “Don’t damage it,” said Drummond.

  Inside the robot’s brass dome of a head, its difference engine worked, registers clicking. It had been given a single command, and it must obey.

  Hobarth, come.

  It went.

  The robot charged forward, smashing through the remains of the crate as well as Drummond and Lomax. The aether torch snapped in half, plunging them in darkness.

  Shade moved to block the metal man, but caromed off his chest like a horsefly off the wrought iron head of a locomotive. When he got up, the mechanical man was gone.

  *

  The gunslinger and the magician ran through the train like madmen, shooing frightened and confused passengers off the train while keeping as much distance between them and the mummy as possible. A few unfortunate souls got a little too close to the creature and were smote down by the powerful blows of the undead thing that now ran loose, and Cairn didn’t know how to stop it. He wondered if his hellblade would have any effect, but was wary of getting close enough to test it.

  “When will that little box of yours work?”

  Thorpe gave it a quick glance as he ran. “It is working. I have called something to our aid. Be patient.”

  “We’re almost out of train,” said Cairn, wishing he’d stayed off to let Shade and the Cadre take their damned prizes. He could always catch up to Shade when he got off. He still didn’t know what to make of this unassuming dandy, who was somehow a skilled fighter as smart as the Cadre. He reloaded one of his guns as they ran.

  “The tender is next,” said Thorpe, panting. “End of the line unless we get off the train.”

  “We do that and we’ll have a mummy running loose,” said Cairn.

  Thorpe nodded. He slapped his box. “Come on!”

  Then they heard it. A sound of metal clanking against metal. Cairn imagined it was a miniature steam locomotive, flying through the cars toward them and the mummy.

  “He’s here!” said Thorpe. “It worked!”

  “What worke
d?”

  Behind the mummy that loped toward them, the door to the car, already damaged by the undead creature’s rampage, was torn completely asunder by what entered through it now. The mummy turned to face this new adversary, cocking its head, at a loss as to what this strange new foe was.

  “What the hell is that?” said Josiah Cairn.

  “That,” said Thorpe, “is Hobarth, and he is a mechanical man. He was built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and entrusted to a relative of mine after he died. By turns I inherited him. I picked him up while in England, and now I’m bringing him home to my workshop on the West Coast.”

  The metal monster was huge, towering nearly seven feet, almost taller than the mummy. Its broad brass belly glowed softly in the light streaming through the Pullman’s windows, and it reminded Cairn oddly of a wood stove with arms and legs. The chest appeared to have buttons running up the middle, like a coat, and the face had an aquiline nose, a mustache composed of brass bristles, and sparkling green eyes made of sophisticated-looking lenses.

  The mummy wasted no time sizing up its opponent. It engaged the metal man, punching it hard in the stomach with a hollow thud. The mechanical man’s chest was dented, but he was otherwise unharmed.

  “Behave yourself, ruffian,” said the mechanical man in a deep voice.

  “It talks?”

  The magician smiled. “Oh yes. And more.”

  The automaton raised its massive arms with a hiss of pneumatic pistons, putting its enormous hands on the shoulders of the withered, walking corpse.

  The mummy grappled with the metal man as best it could, its bandaged fingers finding little purchase on the shiny metal.

  Hobarth lifted the mummy effortlessly and flung it into the side of the Pullman car, its head smacking against a window and spider-webbing the glass. The mummy flailed about, its legs tangled in the seats as it fought to return upright.

  Hobarth grabbed the fiend’s legs, but the mummy kicked him in the stomach, knocking the metal man backwards into the opposite row of seats.

  “We don’t have to fight the winner, do we?” Cairn asked.