Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (44 page)

He called it his “baby,” which she thought an affront to nature and God. Still, Stanford Rubicon was a good employer, better than any she had worked for before. She had kept house—well, laboratory—for him these past three years—even while he was lost on that remote island—and he had always paid her well, on time, and never troubled her like some of the other girls said their masters did, especially in drink. She wasn't sure that Professor Rubicon had any interest in ladies at all; his work was everything to him, and he often jovially said that if science wasn't quite his wife, then it was certainly his mistress. She blushed whenever he spoke that way, and he always roared with laughter. Still, life with the Professor of Adventure was never boring. He always had some tale to tell of his expeditions to the far-flung corners of the world, some knickknack or trophy to show off. He had a home, of course, somewhere in Holborn, but he spent most of his time either at the Empirical Geographic Club on Threadneedle Street, where he was currently holding court, no doubt still regaling his companions with tales of being shipwrecked in the lost land of monsters, or his discoveries here, in his laboratory in the warren of streets just off Bishopsgate. Very often she would come in during the morning to find him snoring gently in a chair in his study, or slumped over a scattered pile of stones or ancient tiles in his laboratory, the thing in the cage mewling like a cat, waiting to be fed the chunks of raw meat she was obliged to bring in every day for its breakfast. The monster ate well, better than most within a square mile of the laboratory.

Taking a deep breath, Emily pulled open the doors and picked up her basket of polish and dusters. The laboratory would only need a cursory wipe-down, and then she could be off, away from the beady eyes of the beast until Monday morning, the pay Professor Rubicon had left for her in the kitchen safely tucked into her apron pocket. She poked her head around the door, took one look at the laboratory, and screamed.

*   *   *

The laboratory had been wrecked, benches overturned, books and glass phials scattered across the pale carpet. The gas lamps burned dully in their sconces, illuminating a vivid burgundy stain across the floor. Emily's first, mad thought was that someone had spilled a decanter of wine, but then she saw the door to the cage that dominated the room swinging open on its hinges.

The cage was empty. The beast was not inside.

Emily backed up against the door, casting fearful glances around the room. The monster—she corrected herself, as Professor Rubicon did every time she used that word—the tyrannosaur was not in the laboratory. It was as tall as a man now, and there was nowhere it could be hiding. And the doors to the laboratory had been closed. Unless the beast really was as intelligent as she had feared, and it had let itself out of the room and then closed the door … but no. One of the three windows that looked on to the dark alley running alongside the building was open, the curtains billowing inward, snow dancing through the gap. Two three-toed footprints, as big as dinner plates, led from the bloodstain toward the window.

Someone had been in here, an intruder. They had released the beast and … what? Been killed by it? But there was no corpse, unless the thing had eaten it whole. Safe to say that the intruder was someone who had not been as badly injured as the blood suggested, then, or perhaps there had been a second intruder who had helped their stricken colleague out through the window.

Emily ran over and peered into the alley. It was one story up, low enough for a man—and a dinosaur?—to leap down. The snow below was disturbed, as though a fight had taken place, and there was more blood. Emily paled. The tyrannosaur was loose in London.

Emily ran to the study and began to search for a telephone directory or a notebook that might hold the number for Professor Rubicon's club. She could find nothing. Should she alert the constabulary? She bit her lip. She should tell the professor first. It couldn't be helped; she was going to have to walk. She took one more look out of the window before closing it. Who was to say the beast wasn't lurking out there, nearby, waiting to bite her head off?

But it couldn't be helped. She had to tell Professor Rubicon that his dinosaur had escaped.

Emily hurried through the snow, past the tavern that spilled out warmth and men on to the track churned to slush and mud by the horse carriages and steam-cabs. She pulled her shawl tight around her, to ward off the biting wind, the falling snow, and the catcalls from the drunkards.

“Over here, love. Penny to see your titties.”

Emily kept her face down and almost ran past, but a thick hand grabbed her shoulder, a whiskery face breathing beer and a rotten stench at her. “Two pennies for a fuck, eh, love? I'll be quick.”

“I'm not that sort of girl,” she muttered, shaking him off. The others laughed as the man staggered back and said, “Every woman is that sort of girl, for the right price.”

“You should give her one anyway, Harry,” cajoled one of his friends.

“Think I will.”

Emily uttered a small scream and began actually to run, casting a glance over her shoulder as the man staggered after her, fumbling with his trousers. She ran blindly, turning a corner and getting a dozen yards into pitch-blackness before she realized she had fled into an alley piled high with stinking refuse that rustled with rats, or worse.

She paused to look back. He had not followed her. But should she continue into the darkness, or retrace her steps to where he might be waiting? As she bit her lip, undecided, there came a noise beside her, something bigger than a rat. She jumped and turned to see a dark figure, something glinting in its hand. There was the faintest glow from a window high in the wall behind her, and the figure stepped into the slight pool of light. It was a man, clothed head to toe in black. He wore some kind of mask that covered the top half of his head, leaving his mouth and nose, and a neat mustache the only things visible save for eyeholes in his cowl.

The man was weeping.

He said something in a language she didn't understand.

“You've lost what?” she asked. “Lost yon toe? What do you—?”

At first she imagined a snowflake had kissed her forehead below her hairline, until a curtain of blood crept down to obscure her vision, and she saw the stranger's right hand whip to his side, the blade he held flashing in the dull light. With a sick, thudding heart, she knew.

Jack the Ripper.

It was the last thought she had.

 

ALSO BY DAVID BARNETT

Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

David Barnett is an award-winning journalist, currently multimedia content manager of the
Telegraph & Argus,
cultural reviewer for
The Guardian
and the
Independent on Sunday,
and he has done features for
The Independent
and
Wired.
He is the author of
Angelglass
(described by
The Guardian
as “stunning”),
Hinterland,
and
pop
CULT! His website can be found at
davidbarnett.wordpress.com
.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

GIDEON SMITH AND THE BRASS DRAGON

Copyright © 2014 by David Barnett

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Nekro

Maps by Jennifer Hanover

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

 

Barnett, David.

Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon / David Barnett. — First edition.

       p.  cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates Book”

ISBN 978-0-7653-3425-1 (trade paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4668-0909-3 (e-book)

  1.  Alternative histories (Fiction)   2.  Fantasy fiction.   I.  Title.

PR6102.A7689G47 2014

823'.92—dc23

2014017604

e-ISBN 9781466809093

First Edition: September 2014