Along Came a Wolf (The Yellow Hoods, #1): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (16 page)

Nikolas felt Tee’s head gently slump against his arm, and gave her a nudge. “Okay, my dear, we must get you to bed now.”

Tee nodded slowly, her eyes barely open. Nikolas stood her up and guided her to her bedroom.

She sat on the bed and let her grandfather pull off her socks. She lay down and he pulled her covers up and tucked her in. He gave her a kiss and was about to leave when she said in a sleepy voice, “Grandpapa …”

“Yes, my dear?” he replied softly.

“No one answered my question,” she said, turning over and propping herself up with a pillow. Light from the main room silhouetted her grandfather, preventing her from seeing his face.

“What question was that?” asked Nikolas softly.

Tee yawned and closed her eyes. “Did—” she said sleepily, “did anyone find LeLoup’s body?”

Nikolas leaned on the doorframe in thought for a moment. He started to answer, only to be interrupted by the sounds of Tee’s deep breathing.

“Tee?” he asked gently.

There was no reply.

He smiled and whispered, “You’ve had a busy enough day.”

Before returning to the main room, Nikolas pulled a small red box out of his pocket. He’d waited long enough. Carefully, he opened it.

He removed an encoded note and what looked like a special bath plug. The plug was made of steel and had divots around the edge. 

Nikolas had wanted to provide a way for the Tub to communicate securely. Almost as a joke, he had designed both the “bath plug” key and a machine which could use it to encode and decode letters. To his surprise, it had become an immediate hit with the members of the society and had been in use, with little modification, for the past ten years. 

He examined the divots on the plug’s perimeter, mentally building up the list of which letter or letter combination decoded to which other letter. With the decoding key in memory, he then read the note.

He gently rubbed his forehead and then tugged lightly at his newly trimmed beard as he digested the message and its implications. After a moment, he put the plug and letter back in his pocket, planning to destroy them before the evening was done. 

Nikolas looked again to his granddaughter, sleeping peacefully. “I fear the world will need you and the Yellow Hoods sooner than I’d hoped,” he said with dismay. With that, he quietly closed the door.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rise of the Hound

It had been a long, painful road, but the dark figure was determined and tenacious. If word got out he was still alive, he was sure he’d be hunted down. Fear helped drive him, but more than anything, he wanted to stop being a
nobody
. 

The echoes made by his heavy, tattered boots on the marble floor were almost deafening. The long, poorly lit corridor provided little distraction from the sounds of his rhythmic pace—a pace he’d kept up for weeks. No matter how exhausted or how much pain he’d felt, he’d forced himself forward.

The glint of the gold trim around the huge double doors at the end of the corridor finally came into view. His stomach tightened. He knew he’d be putting his life in the hands of a man known to be untrustworthy—known to use people up, and then dispose of them. Still, he pressed on.

His knock on the great doors was followed by silence, his heartbeat his only company.

As he waited, he finally noticed the paintings and statues decorating the corridor. When he looked at them, he felt nothing inside. He’d stripped away so much of who he’d been to get there; he couldn’t remember if he liked art of any kind. He wondered how many other things he’d walked past without taking notice, how many other things he didn’t care about anymore.

Finally, the enormous door creaked open. A bald, sickly looking old man in fine brown and green attire stuck his head out. He slowly examined the figure before him, from head to toe and back. The old man wrinkled his nose at the sight and smell of the visitor, but then showed him in.

The visitor had a grizzly, dirty, red-brown beard and hair that hadn’t seen a brush in weeks. His face had caked-on dust and sweat. His clothes were torn and dirty.

Entering the room, the nameless man was taken aback by its grandeur. It had the look and size of a royal library—though he’d never actually seen one. He could imagine two or three hundred people milling about in the space. 

The outer walls were covered with gold-embossed bookshelves that reached all the way up to the thirty-foot ceiling. There were stairs on wheels, and ladders here and there—all to provide access to the highest shelves. Inside the room, eight-foot-high bookcases were arranged throughout, almost making smaller rooms within the grand room. 

There were three stunning, dark wooden worktables covered with drawings, as well as several antique couches and chairs. The floor was a polished, icy-white marble with flecks of blue and green. He had never seen anything like it. 

The immense chandelier, which hung in the center of the room, cast light everywhere. With the reflective marble, and freestanding oil lamps positioned perfectly throughout, all shadows were eliminated. Side tables had books stacked in perfect piles. Everything was methodically arranged.

A man wearing scholarly robes seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost as if he had slid out from behind a bookcase. 

“Incredible, isn’t it? This is my sanctuary,” he said. He was a clean-shaven man with salt-and-pepper hair, and about five-foot-eight-inches tall and likely in his late forties. His fine robes were a luxurious purple and had detailed gold and silver embroidery.

The finely dressed man quickly assessed his guest. He let an uncomfortable moment pass before introducing himself. “I am Simon St. Malo, inventor and advisor to the regent of this kingdom. Come, please—let us sit, and let us be
civilized
.”

Simon St. Malo was a master of word choice and tone. The words he chose were inviting, yet his tone made it clear he was looking down on the nameless man. His guest bowed his head slightly and then followed. Simon secretly smiled. He liked that his guest was obedient. What he didn’t like was that he looked and smelled like a dirty, mangy dog.

St. Malo was making the nameless man’s skin crawl. He wondered what devil’s bargain he was about to make, but it was too late to turn back now.

Simon gestured for his guest to sit in a chair—a chair which he was certain cost more money than the guest had seen in the past year. Simon made a mental note to have the chair burned later, figuring there was no good way to rid such fine upholstery of the reek of
wet dog
.

“Cleeves, some tea please,” Simon commanded. He turned to his guest. “Do you drink tea? If you don’t, you should. It is said that tea is good for one’s health. Besides, Cleeves isn’t useful for much, but I do appreciate how well he can boil water and pour it onto dry leaves. Asking him to bring it gives him a sense of purpose in life.”

Simon, himself at ease, purposefully let his guest wait in uncomfortable silence.

Eventually, the old man arrived with the teacart. He poured fresh, hot tea slowly over a strainer and into each of two teacups he’d set out on the cart. He carefully handed each man a cup and saucer, motioned to the assortment of biscuits and other items, and left as quietly as he had come.

Simon used silver tongs from the teacart to inspect a piece of crystallized raw sugar. Deciding it met his criteria, he lowered it carefully into his teacup. He watched it start to dissolve before stirring it gently with a small ornate spoon. 

Seeing that his guest did not wish anything in his tea, Simon clapped for his servant. Cleeves returned and took the teacart. 

After enjoying his first sip, Simon broke the silence. “I’ve been told you dragged yourself down a mountainside to the town of Mineau. From there, you walked for days until you stole a horse from a farmer—leaving the man stranded with a plow in the middle of his own field.

“That first horse, you rode until it couldn’t move anymore. They say you then walked until your feet bled. And when a man stopped to help, you beat him until he gave you his horse. Is this all true?” Simon asked, leaning forward a bit, trying to hide his eagerness. He studied the man as he awaited his response.

The nameless guest looked down at his tattered stolen boots. Hidden inside were his badly cut and blistered feet. He then looked up at Simon, his face confirming everything and more, without saying a thing.

“You took his boots, too?” said Simon, smiling. “You’re committed, driven. You
are
a loyal dog,” said Simon, leaning back. “Blind devotion to the idea of coming here. I like that.”

Simon looked around for a moment, in thought. He had a look of surprise as an idea hit him. “Cleeves!” he called out. “Make a note regarding the new pistol design. I should make the handle wider by a half inch. I’ll remember why. Have you noted it?”

“Yes sir, I’m noting it,” replied the old man from somewhere in the room.

Simon’s mind was always working on several things at once, and Cleeves was often the man to catch the thoughts Simon tossed out for his later reference.

“Well—he’s done two things right in one day. I should make a note of
that
,” said Simon snidely to his guest. “When genius strikes, it is our responsibility to capture it, no?”

The man, his tea untouched, looked at Simon with dead eyes and nodded. With a man like St. Malo, not responding might be unsafe, even when the question seemed rhetorical.

After taking a couple more sips of tea, Simon placed his teacup and saucer down. “I can understand coming all this way if you were Andre LeLoup himself, as it is literally his head on the line. But you… you were
just
a horseman. Why go through this trouble? Where is LeLoup, anyway?” he asked.

The man decided that before he’d answer, he would take his first sip of tea. Despite not having ever enjoyed tea before, this tasted somehow like… success. Though that didn’t make much sense, he decided he wanted more of it and what it represented.

“LeLoup’s dead. Went off a cliff,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. He had barely spoken in weeks. He took another sip of tea, and then looked for a place to set it down. He noticed that while St. Malo had a side table, he hadn’t been provided with one. This couldn’t be accidental. He could see another side table, oddly placed off in the corner. He realized St. Malo subtly treated his guests this way to make them uncomfortable. 

“Hmm,” said Simon. “Dead? Unfortunate. I didn’t take Nikolas Klaus for a killer. I guess we all evolve. I have underestimated him in the past.”

The nameless man gently shook his head. “It wasn’t Klaus. It was”—the man paused, swallowing his nervousness—“the Yellow Hoods.”

“What’s a
yellow hood
?” asked Simon, irritated. He didn’t like it when topics came up that he didn’t know everything about.

The guest looked at St. Malo, and then at the ground. He wasn’t sure how to say they were
just three kids
. He was certain that St. Malo would be furious and perhaps have him killed.

“The Yellow Hoods are a group—disciples of Klaus. They protect that area now,” he said after having thought about it. Simon could detect there was more to the story, but for the moment, he was satisfied.

“Moving on—” said Simon, “I see no tube or crumpled plans under your…
excuse
for a shirt. Am I missing something?”

“No.” 

“Well, then,” continued Simon, “I take it that you were too stupid to run and hide? Are you like a dumb but loyal dog who has returned to his master, only to be shot?”

Simon then leaned forward, pretending to examine the man’s neck. “I wonder how many hacks it’ll take for that head of yours to come off? The axe is dull, I’m afraid—the result of budget cuts. We just can’t seem to find the money to sharpen it. It takes longer, being dull—but it still works.”

The man leaned forward, causing Simon to recoil slightly. “I came because I want to
matter
,” he said forcefully. 

“What could you possibly
have
that would make me think you matter?” asked Simon. Everything hinged on what the nameless man would do next.

“I brought you something,” said his guest finally, looking back at the ground. 

Simon didn’t believe him. “Really? What could you have brought that could possibly change my mind?” He hated having his time wasted. It was bad enough when people he needed did so, but this disgusting peasant? “Dog, what do you have?” he asked angrily.

The wounding words bounced off the man. He knew St. Malo’s reputation, and that he had reached the end of his patience. He pulled out a short metallic rod with a small handle at one end and offered it to his host.

“What’s that?” said Simon, gesturing to it with disgust. He refused to take it.

The man started to crank the handle. “I don’t know, but it was powerful enough when thrown at me by a Yellow Hood to shock me right off my horse. I couldn’t get up for ten minutes. My body still hurts when I think about it. The handle cranks, but I’m not sure what else to do to make it work. I think it came from Klaus.”

Simon gracefully snatched the rod out of the man’s hands, and stood up to examine it. “Well of
course
it’s something interesting. But, hmm …” Simon turned the rod over in his hands, examining the handle and other features. “Nikolas has had something to do with it—of that I’m sure—but this isn’t his alone.

“This is an
excellent
prize. With it, you have shown me not only what he is up to, but potentially with whom he is working. My dog, it seems you have brought home a very good stick. It wasn’t what I asked for, but it was what I wanted.”

“So …?” said the man, wanting to know his fate. His exhaustion was showing.

Simon put the short rod down on the side table and looked at the man with an offended expression. “Do you really think I’d get rid of a tenacious, loyal dog that has an eye for good
sticks
?” He revealed a sliver of genuine appreciation for his guest.

Simon looked at the rod again. “I’ll give you a third of what I was going to pay Andre LeLoup—plenty more than you’re used to. You might even be able to afford one of these chairs— used, of course.” Simon lifted his head, as if talking to the ceiling. “Cleeves—pay the man,” he commanded.