The Dead Gentleman (12 page)

Merlin gave a warning whistle and I heard the snapping of ropes. Miles had broken free, and as he stood up he raised his arms in the air and growled again. At any other time I might have laughed at the image of a little kid in a nightshirt and drooping nightcap beating his chest like some zoo gorilla. But I’d felt just how strong the little munchkin was, and there was no time for laughter—Miles was making a run for it.

Jumping forward, I swung the staff at Miles’s behind. As soon as the pole connected, I felt an electrical jolt of feedback run up my arm as Miles reeled back, his body stiff. The boy staggered and blinked, dazed, but he didn’t fall. And my shiny new staff had stopped sparking.

“Stand back,” said Scott, appearing at my side. He was holding a pair of glass flasks that were joined at the nozzles so that they looked like a miniature barbell. He gave the nozzle a snap, and as the seal broke, the two clear liquids began to mix and take on a bright yellow glow.

He shook the strange contraption to speed up the process and,
with an underhanded windup, threw the entire thing at Miles. As it shattered, the glowing yellow stuff splashed all over the boy. Miles began to shake and shimmer in the yellow light, dissolving like a rock thrown at a reflection in a pool.

Miles was gone and in his place was a large, bucktoothed and hairy man with pointy ears. The overly large nightshirt now fit him like the tiniest of undershirts and his heavy belly spilled out beneath it.

“Hello, Lob,” said Scott.

The hairy man squinted at the Captain and gave a forced, awkward grin. “Why, Cap’n Scott!” he exclaimed. “And yer wee bird! Didn’t recognize you! So blasted dim in here and all. Me fire’s burned down something awful and me peepers ain’t what they should be in the dark.”

The Captain looked unconvinced. “Tommy, crank up your Tesla Stick, will you?”

I looked at the Captain. “The Tesla—what … oh, the pole!”

I hurriedly turned the crank.

“Now, now, let’s not us be hasty!” said Lob. “One tickle with that there stick is quite enough, thank you. Me butt cheek’s numb as ’tis.”

“Where’s Miles Macintosh, Lob?” asked Scott.

“I ain’t hurt him, Cap’n! I swear.”

“Tommy? Tesla Stick, if you’d be so kind.”

“Wait! Wait!” shouted Lob as I took what I hoped was a menacing step forward. The Tesla Stick actually felt pretty useless in my hand; its charge obviously gone, the pole barely buzzed, and I doubted that a tap from it would tickle, much less shock. But Lob apparently didn’t know that. “He’s there, in the cupboard,” said the big oaf.

The Captain walked over to a large chest of drawers and, after testing a few, very gently opened the bottom one. Curled up inside was the real Miles Macintosh, snoozing away.

“How long were you planning on leaving him in there?” asked the Captain.

“Look,” said Lob. “We were going to come to an agreement, him and me, just as soon as I got a chance. I just didn’t want to wake the little angel.”

“You know what I think?” asked the Captain. “I think you snuck in here and ensorcelled the boy—that’s no ordinary sleep he’s in. Then you glamoured yourself to look like him. You were getting ready to throw him into the fire when you heard us coming down the hall.”

“Throw him in the fire?” I said. “Why, you murdering thug!” I waved the Tesla Stick at Lob’s face, wishing I had enough charge to fry the monster. I think you’ll understand when I say that I’ve got a thing against folks who hurt kids.

Lob whined. Surprisingly, Scott put his hand on the staff and made me lower the weapon.

“Tommy, Lob’s a sneak but he’s no murderer. Look closer at the fire. Concentrate, and see past the Veil.”

Reluctantly, I did as I was told and stared at the fire. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for and, at first, all I saw was a pile of hot coals and glowing charcoal. But after a minute the image shimmered like a mirage, and, an instant later, the fire became a round wooden door. The wood glowed red like the coals but it gave off no heat.

“Well, I’ll be,” I said.

“Lob is a Lubber Fiend. A wanderer,” said Scott. “They use fireplaces as portals. If you look them up in the
Encyclopedia
Imagika
, you’ll find that they have a fondness for cow’s milk and are notorious for thieving saucers from kittens.”

At the mention of milk Lob’s eyes lit up and he smacked his lips. “You don’t have a nice, cold pitcher on you, perhaps? Me throat’s awfully parched.”

Scott turned back to Lob, ignoring his question. “Normally that’s the extent of their mischief, which is why I must beg the question—why were you swapping yourself for Miles Macintosh? Perhaps you were planning on leaving him in Faerie? To become a changeling child or …”

Lob let out a terrible cry, like a babe being punished by a parent. “I wasn’t wanting to hurt him! But I need a place to hide. Cap’n, I swear! The dead are up and walking!”

Scott’s eyes narrowed and he stood for a moment, tugging at his mustache. He gave Merlin a look and the bird cocked its head back at him. Something passed between the two of them, but I had no earthly idea what anyone was talking about. As usual.

It all sounded like a bunch of stuff to me. But then I remembered the smiling corpse. I remembered the smell of rot on his breath. “What’s he mean, the dead are walking?” I asked. “Dead means dead, don’t it?”

“It does in our world, Tommy,” said the Captain. “But there are things from other places.… Tell us what you’ve seen, Lob.”

Lob swallowed and wiped his nose with a big, meaty palm. “It ain’t what I seen but what I
heard
. The Lubber Fiends are talking, and there are some that has seen things—things moving in the shadows that by rights should be at peace and asleep beneath the earth. Them that can are packing their bags and heading for safer pastures. Why, I heard whole worlds that Lubbers have stopped visiting, small worlds on the outskirts, you know. Places
that even you Explorers ain’t yet seen. Those places have gotten dark. Dark as a closet, if you get my meaning.”

At the mention of the closet, I realized for the first time that Miles Macintosh’s bedroom had no closet. A giant dresser and the chest of drawers, but no closet.

Lob looked around as if someone might overhear what he had to say next. “I ain’t the only one. You’ll see. More of us are getting spooked, and everyone knows that this here’s the safest place to be. They say he’s building an army, you see. But everyone knows the Gentleman has no sway here. The dead know their place, here on Earth. Like the boy said, dead stay dead.”

Scott mumbled something under his breath and then plopped down on the edge of the bed. He seemed for all the world to have forgotten us, and for a time he just sat there chewing on his mustache. In the short period we’d been together, I’d noticed that there seemed to be two Captain Scotts: one was sharp and decisive, and the other seemed nearly as doddering as one of the bridge folk. One could trade places with the other in an instant.

“You, Lob,” Scott said distractedly. “Get a move on. Be on your way.”

“What?” I said. “We’re not just letting him go, are we? He may not have been ready to kill that kid, but he was still getting ready to swipe him! That’s like, child endangerment, or something, at least.”

“We’re Explorers, not policemen!” snapped the Captain. “Miles is safe now. That’s enough.”

Lob scraped and bowed his way toward the hearth, all the while blubbering a string of apologies and promises. With a grunt he squeezed his fat body through the odd little door and
disappeared. Soon the fire was back to being just a fire. Somehow the room seemed darker than before. Colder, even.

“What was all that?” I asked. “All that stuff about the dead walking sounded pretty bad.”

The Captain looked at me with unfocused eyes. It was like he was genuinely surprised to find me there, to find that he wasn’t alone. A moment later he smiled a tired, tired smile.

“The dead don’t walk here, Tommy. Not yet.”

The Captain stood, hoisted up his pants and took a deep breath. Just like that, and the fogginess was gone. The old Captain had returned, his eyes bright and mischievous. He held out his hand and Merlin landed, lightly, on his glove.

“We’ve work to do, it seems,” he said. “But first, I need to check on a few things and you need a pair of proper clothes—ones a little less soaked in seawater, I’d say. Come then, back to the
Nautilus!
We have official business at the Academy of Explorers!”

“Name, please,” said a phlegmy-sounding voice on the other side of the door.

“I’ve already given you my name. I’m Captain Jonathan Scott!”

“The name of your companion, I meant. Know full well who you are.”

Captain Scott sighed as he pulled his cap down farther over his eyes to protect himself from the onslaught of rain. As he did so he sent a shelf of collected rainwater spilling down his front.

Looking at my own soaked trousers—pools had formed in the cuffs—I wondered if I’d ever be dry again. I envied Merlin, safe and snug and dry back at the
Nautilus
. The Captain had insisted that he stay there as we made the trip from Miles’s bedroom in Southampton to the Academy of Explorers in London. For this
leg of our journey we’d relied on the train (a bit of a letdown after traveling along the ocean floor, I can tell you), and we’d just managed to dry off when we arrived at our destination in the middle of a proper English downpour.

When the Captain announced we’d be visiting this Academy, I hadn’t figured that meant waiting outside a no-nothing brownstone flat in the London rain. There wasn’t even a sign overhead. I’d begun to wonder if Scott had the wrong address as he shouted my name into the tiny peephole for what seemed like the hundredth time. Whoever manned the door delighted in being uncooperative. Either that or he was entirely deaf.

Finally we heard the sound of a deadbolt being slid back and, with a bit of muffled cursing from the other side, the door opened. As we stepped inside and out of the rain we had to walk around a bent, stoop-shouldered old man carrying a heavy ring of keys. The man’s eyes were no better than his hearing, and he continued talking to us long after we’d passed him by.

The inside was as unimpressive as the outside, but at least it was dry. The downstairs was made up of a few dusty old sitting rooms occupied by a few dusty old men. Most stared off into space as they sipped whiskey from glass tumblers. A few looked up suspiciously at us as we passed by, but if they recognized Scott they didn’t bother to say hello.

The Captain led us up a tall, narrow staircase and into a larger, book-lined chamber on the second floor. Entering this room was an immediate relief, as there was a nice, comfy fire roaring in the fireplace, a soft bearskin rug and no old men anywhere. I made for the fire at once and started wringing out my wet clothes.

“So who’s that bunch of geezers, huh?” I asked. “Don’t tell me they’re Explorers, too.”

“In name only, Tommy,” answered Scott. “They spend their time bragging about old glories and soaking their regrets in drink. The Veil weighs down on us all. Some bear the weight better than others.”

As he spoke the Captain examined a bookshelf near the window, unaware or unconcerned about the dripping mess he was making on the floor.

“Got to tell you,” I said, sticking my butt as close to the fire as I dared. “This here Academy is not quite what I’d expected, to tell you the truth.”

“This isn’t the Academy,” the Captain said with a chuckle. “This is only a chapterhouse. One of many.”

“Well then, where is it? If it’s not in London, then why are we here?”

“Chapterhouses mark the entrances to the Academy, and it doesn’t technically matter which one we use. However, there are a few where I am”—the Captain coughed into his hand—“no longer welcome. Here, at least, I am still tolerated.”

The Captain pulled a plain clothbound book off the shelf. “Ah, here we go.

“Now, Tommy,” he began. “The Explorers long ago discerned the need for utmost discretion in our endeavors. We want to go about our work without worrying about the petty politics of nations. And therefore we wanted to avoid placing our Academy within the boundaries of any single country. As you have seen, our science is a good deal more advanced—knowledge gleaned from our explorations, of course—and we are in possession of an assortment of technologies that could be destructive if given over to the wrong hands. Take the
Nautilus
, for instance. What would naval warfare look like with that ship on one side or the
other? Therefore, these chapterhouses serve as … secret embassies, if you will, for an Academy that is entirely independent and
off-world.
”

I made a face. My behind was beginning to burn and I was bored.

“I tell you all this,” said the Captain, “to impress upon you the significance of my allowing you to see the Academy and the importance of this visit!”

I shifted my position at the fire to get a better angle at my most soaked parts. “Look, no offense, but after what I’ve already seen these last few weeks, it’s going to take an awful lot to impress me.”