Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (17 page)

The money was dwindling alarmingly, he noted as he paid the cab driver and the vehicle steamed off. They stood in front of the portico, a sour-faced doorman glancing at them and then away. “Well,” Gideon said. “I suppose we just go in and ask for Captain Trigger.”

Norman Wright could, in Aloysius Bent’s considered opinion, go fuck himself. There were plenty of papers out there where Bent’s experience and talent would be appreciated. Nurtured, even. Bent leaned back in his wooden chair and breathed out hard. He’d had a good couple of gins over at the Punch. Five, maybe. He could just have a little afternoon nap now. But he was too angry. Wright was willing to let himself be walked all over because Bent had gotten a little too close to the truth with his Annie Crook investigation. What kind of editor did that? What about freedom of speech? The inalienable right of the British press to shine a light on the dark doings of authority?

Still, no need to be hasty. He could bide his time. And time was one thing Aloysius Bent had plenty of. No point rocking the boat just yet, not when he had bills to pay and that tab at the Unicorn to settle. And Big Henry would want the money from that rummy game at Wapping back in June. He’d better just keep his head down, find something else to write about. He picked up the copy of the
Whitby Gazette,
the provincial rag he’d taken from the news desk. He shook his head as he read it. Son of a wool man found with his throat ripped out. And they said London was a violent place. This abandoned Russian schooner interested him as well. Witnesses said they’d seen a big black hound running from the hold. He turned back to the murder piece. Throat ripped out as though by a wild animal, it said. He shook his head again. Just how stupid were they out in the sticks? Black hound escapes from beached Russian ship, tourist has throat ripped out. And no one was making connections? He could work with this. The Wolf of Whitby. That had a nice ring to it. Feeling the familiar tickle at the back of his fat neck that signaled a germinating idea, Bent decided to reward himself with one last gin, perhaps over at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

Bingley looked up as Bent stood and grabbed his coat. “Off again, Mr. Bent?”

Bent belched. “Going to find a new story, as per Mr. Wright’s explicit instructions,” he said, then paused thoughtfully. “Lend us two shillings, will you, Bingley old chap?”

Bent was descending the staircase when he became aware of a minor commotion at the reception desk. There was a tall chap with curly dark hair, much too healthy looking to be a native Londoner, haranguing one of the harpies at the desk. Behind him was a slim young woman, quite pretty from what Bent could see of her beneath her bonnet. He sauntered over.

“All right, Doris? Want me to call Jug Ears?”

The receptionist looked at Bent with exasperation. “Mr. Bent, I have been trying for the last ten minutes, with little success, to impress upon this young man that Captain Lucian Trigger does not receive visitors at the offices of
World Marvels & Wonders
. Can you assist me?”

Bent laughed, spraying spittle over the mahogany desk. “Trigger? You’ve come to see Trigger?”

The young man turned to him, fire in his eyes. “Sir, I have traveled a great distance to engage Captain Trigger’s aid with an emergency situation.”

Bent looked at him with interest. Not a London accent. Northern. “What’s your name, lad? Where do you come from?”

“My name is Gideon Smith,” said the boy. “And I have traveled from a small village near Whitby, sir.”

“Whitby, you say,” mused Bent. “I confess, the only time I’d heard that name before was in relation to the Prospect of Whitby, a public house with which I am acquainted.” He paused. “Or was, until the landlord barred me at Christmas.” He shook his head. “No matter. Fact is, Mr. Smith, I’m hearing the name
Whitby
quite a lot at the moment. You don’t know about abandoned ships, do you? And wolves attacking innocent folk in the streets?”

“If it’s wolves you want, or rather black dogs, you’d be better off speaking to a gentleman by the name of Bram Stoker,” said Gideon. “But of abandoned ships . . . that is the very reason I am here.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “There is evil abroad on the coast, sir. My father has been taken by . . . a thing beyond your ken.”

Bent couldn’t resist rubbing his hands together. “Well, I think I might be able to help you there, son. My ken has very distant borders indeed.”

The young man shook his head. “I must see Captain Trigger at once. I simply must.”

Bent smiled broadly. “Tell you what, Mr. Smith. I’ll take you to see Captain Lucian Trigger, and you can tell me all about what’s been going on in Whitby. What do you say?”

The boy glanced uncertainly at the young woman, then shrugged and turned back to Bent. “I suppose so, if that’s the only way for me to get to Captain Trigger.”

Bent placed his big hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “Absolutely fucking top notch.” He coughed into his fist. “Um, pardon my French.”

11
Captain Trigger, at Last

Stoker thought he was inhabiting one of his dreams, which had become increasingly more bizarre and vivid of late, when he awoke with a pounding head beside the naked form of Elizabeth Bathory. They had made it back to the abbey, somehow, back to Bathory’s cell. Around Stoker’s palm was wrapped a leather thong with a piece of shining black stone hanging from it. He shoved it into his pocket, touched his head and felt the dried blood just below his scalp, and winced. Bathory was crumpled near her long box of earth, the lid shoved off. She was naked and bleeding, but at least she had shed that awful bat-form. He crawled toward her, fearing the worst, and laid a cautious hand on her pale shoulder.

“Elizabeth?” he whispered, then with more urgency, “Elizabeth?”

She moved and moaned, turning her head with great effort and opening her eyes. “Bram? We survived?”

“We did,” he said. He cast around for the trunk containing her clothing and found a long, deep red cloak, which he wrapped around her nakedness. “But your wounds . . . you need a doctor.”

She shook her head. “I need blood. You must help me. I must feed. Help me find someone.”

Stoker shuffled backward, shocked. “Elizabeth, no, I cannot abet you in murder.”

“I must feed, Bram,” she said hollowly. “Or I may die.”

Stoker scrabbled around for his bag, thanking his stars he had kept hold of it during their impossible flight from the caves. He said, “After watching you take that man in the stews, I vowed I would do all I could to stop you killing like that again.”

Bathory, leaning on her box, smiled weakly. “So we are back to this, then. Is it to be a stake through my heart, Bram, then an axe to chop off my head? Now you have seen me for what I am, must I finally die?”

He returned to her with his bag, which still contained his garlic, crucifix, holy water, and stakes. But he left them and withdrew the bottle he had bought from the pharmacist earlier, now filled to the brim with dark, thick liquid. He rolled up his sleeve and showed her a bandage over the inside of his forearm.

“I took the liberty of drawing off a quantity of my own blood.” He held it uncertainly to her. “Will it be enough?”

Stoker unstoppered the bottle and placed it to her lips. She enclosed his hands in her own and drank deeply, closing her eyes and shivering as the first gush of blood hit her tongue. They sat for a moment once she had drained it, hands clasped together around the bottle, and she smiled. Her hair had regained its former luster, and her skin shone with internal iridescence. Before Stoker’s amazed eyes, the wounds on her exposed flesh began to close and knit, even the scars fading to nothingness within seconds. Bathory smiled at him.

“Bram. I thank you. You have saved my life.”

“And I shall do it again, Countess,” said Stoker. “If you can promise me you will not take innocent lives, then you can have all the blood I can spare.”

Bathory frowned. “Innocence is a point of argument, Bram. But, yes, for now I agree to your pact. With one exception.”

“One exception?”

“The Children of Heqet,” said Bathory. “I can feel them in my mind, discern their intent. I can follow them.”

“And I will follow you,” said Stoker.

“Then take this,” said Bathory, digging in her trunk and handing him a glistening bangle of gold and gems. “Get the best price you can for it in Whitby, and book us passage on a dirigible, as soon as possible.”

“A dirigible, Countess?”

She looked into the middle distance, riding whatever secret currents flowed in the blood of the mummified demons. “London,” she said at last. “We are going to London.”

Gideon and Maria followed Bent back on to Fleet Street. “Now,” the fat journalist said, running his grubby fingers through the snot dripping from his enormous nose. “Trigger lives over on Grosvenor Square. Very exclusive little address. Part of the Mayfair set. I’d suggest a steam-cab, but . . .” He patted his pockets. “Mr. Smith, are you, shall we say,
well resourced
?”

“We have a few pounds left,” said Gideon, just as one of the overhead steam trains clattered by over a stone viaduct. “I’d quite like to try one of those, things, though.”

Bent frowned. “Ah, the old stilt-trains. Why, last year, there was a flower girl standing right under the tracks near Westminster when one of the boilers cracked on an engine passing overhead. Took the skin right off her, by all accounts. Steamcab?”

Bent hailed a cab and they crushed into the back of it together. Bent laid his hands on his knees. “So. We should all get acquainted. My name is Aloysius Bent, and I am a journalist with the
Illustrated London Argus
.”

“Not with
World Marvels & Wonders
?” Gideon frowned. “Then how do you know Captain Trigger?”

“We’re all published by the same company,” said Bent. He tapped a pudgy, tobacco-stained forefinger against his nose. “I know all sorts of things about Captain Lucian Trigger, young man. But tell me about yourself.”

Gideon shrugged. “Gideon Smith, of Sandsend. There’s not much to tell, other than that. Not until you’ve taken me to see Captain Trigger, at any rate.”

Bent cackled. “Nearly had you there, didn’t I? Never mind. And your young lady friend?”

“This is Maria.”

“She’s a Whitby girl, is she?”

Gideon shook his head. “She is on her own errand in London.”

Bent pursed his lips. “And what errand might that be?”

Gideon thought he had better let Maria answer for herself. She glanced at him, then up at Bent. “I have strange dreams of London, though I do not believe I have ever been here before, at least not physically.” She frowned and screwed up her face. “Dreams of . . . of Cleveland Street, I think. And a vast market, where I worked.”

Bent tugged at his chin. “Tottenham Court Road.” He looked thoughtfully at her. “Cleveland Street is just off it. Interesting.”

As the steam-cab took them west, Gideon said, “You said you knew things about Captain Trigger. What kinds of things?”

Bent grinned. “That kind of depends on what you expect to find when we get to Grosvenor Square.” He looked around, then whispered conspiratorially, “He’s an invert, you know.”

“Invert?” asked Gideon.

“You know,” said Bent, grotesquely shoving his hips forward and back in a rhythmic movement. “A bum-jockey. An arse- bandit. He cruises, as they say, the Bourneville Boulevard.”

Gideon looked blankly at Bent and Maria murmured, “I think Mr. Bent is trying to tell us Captain Trigger is a gentleman who enjoys the company of other men. In bed. A sodomite, Mr. Smith. A molly.” She looked abruptly surprised, and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. I wonder how I know that?”

Gideon flushed and looked angrily at Bent. “Sir, that is the Hero of the Empire you slur!”

Bent shrugged. “That’s as may be, but that’s what he is, Mr. Smith. What Oscar Wilde calls
earnest
. Trigger was drummed out of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in ’eightyone for buggering, as Miss Maria would have it, a molly, from the junior ranks. Quite a scandal, it was.” A cloud passed his face. “Or would have been. They hushed it up, on account of Trigger being, as you say, the Hero of the Empire and all.”

The steam-cab lurched into a square of airy brick townhouses arranged around a pretty park enclosed by black railings. “We’re here,” said Bent. “Pay the driver, Mr. Smith, and let’s go and find Trigger. And prepare yourself for a disappointment.”