The Transference Engine (29 page)

Chapter Thirty

F
OUR DAYS BEFORE THE coronation. London was crowded beyond reason with people from the provinces come to see their beautiful young queen, full of promise and hope, officially assume her responsibilities. Not a single room to let in the entire city and beyond. I fielded three requests from potential boarders before noon.

Customers old and new filled my café from opening to long past closing without a lull. Emma baked fresh batches of everything three times during the day. By half seven in the evening we were reduced to serving hunks of hard cheese with bread and butter. Gratefully I latched the door and put the closed sign in the window. Still three people knocked tentatively to see if I'd reopen for them. I had to turn my back and breathe deeply. I don't think we had even a hard husk of day-old bread or a rind of cheese left, and there were no coffee beans to grind or tea leaves to steep.

In four days, all of the gaiety and hope for the future could end if Ruthven and his helpers pulled off their assassination.

Time to find Kit Doyle and take him with me to seek out Ruthven's lair. I'd given up the notion of a headquarters close to London. With that big, black, hot air balloon with wide and nimble ailerons, he could fly the distance from Devonshire in only an hour or two.

Jimmy had taken his balloon elsewhere. He didn't mind spying on my enemies. Engaging them, as we had in Nottinghamshire, was something else entirely. I was on my own.

So, dressed in near rags and hunched over the bulletproof corset—as much as I could with layers of cross warped spider silk and fine meshed electrum wire laced tight around me—with a stout stick to support (and defend) me, I made my way toward the docks Kit Doyle was wont to frequent. I rattled my tin cup—properly primed with a farthing and a ha'penny. A large party of tipsy celebrants dropped a few more coins into the cup. I made a show of biting two of the coins to make sure they hadn't passed on counterfeit. Seemingly satisfied, I moved on.

Kit Doyle remained elusive.

Anywhere I might expect a ring of pickpockets I found them. But not Kit.

I moved deeper into the slums. Victims of the kidnappers had come from this district. Some of them. Then Ruthven had lifted his sights to girls from better neighborhoods, girls with more to lose and a higher degree of anger.

A clump of dirty teens lingered in a recessed doorway. I counted noses. None of them were mine. But two of them had been Kit's companions upon occasion. I approached them with shuffling steps, leaning more heavily against my stick.

“Good hunting to you,” I murmured as I passed them.

They sneered as they inspected the contents of my cup. I'd pocketed all but the original coins—no sense in tempting thieves.

“Seen Kit Doyle?” I asked, straightening my back a little. Oh, how I longed to stretch and shed the artificial hump. Instead, I clutched at the muscles above my waist, easing the cramp a bit, but enhancing my appearance of helplessness.

“Why's y' asking?” A spindly boy of about thirteen stepped away from his companions, brandishing his belligerence.

“Need his help,” I replied. “Seen him?”

“Not since yesterday,” a smaller boy squeaked. He hung back, pressing his spine against the building stones as if he could melt and merge with his own shadow.

The rest of the pack clamped their mouths shut.

“Where?” I asked, hoping against hope that one among them would speak up.

More silence as one of the bigger boys rammed his elbow into the gut of the one who'd dared speak.

I stumbled away, making sure my stick pounded loudly against the cobbles; signaling to them that I was not prey.

A broader avenue beckoned me. Tonight was the kind of night that bold denizens of the slums risked the light among laughing crowds of the unwary. Kit should be out there, moving from shadow to shadow cast by the gas lamps on every street corner.

A carriage rumbled past me, tilting dangerously as the mechanical horses careened around a corner. I dismissed it as unimportant. The driver was probably as drunk as the occupants, and artificial beasts had not the sense of real ones to slow down or shift their footing.

Then the bobbing black feathers of the horse's headstall caught my attention. Funereal headstalls on steam-powered mechanical horses.

Expensive.

They didn't belong in this part of town.

I hurried my steps a bit to follow. The whistling blow of steam through the tight confines of nostril tunnels didn't sound right. Just as I rounded the corner, the left-hand door of the closed carriage opened a crack and a limp form spilled out.

Macabre laughter followed the body.

One look and I knew I could not help the ragged victim. Kit Doyle's dead eyes seemed to stare at me accusingly.

I could do nothing for him, except to pay the local parish for a decent burial with a marker instead of the anonymous Potters Field. Tomorrow. In my heart I murmured nearly forgotten ritual prayers for the dead, hoping fervently that he had not suffered too much pain.

Guessing at his murderers, I knew such hope was useless. Kit was gone, and I'd never have the chance to tame him nor help him make a better life.

I gulped back a sob and leaped to cling to the back bumper of the carriage. With the footman's handhold barely within my grasp, it lurched forward. With a long blast of steam and prancing metal hooves it gained speed as it swayed around another corner.

A few awkward scrambles and I gained a better purchase, crouched on the back bumper. But I lost my stick and my tin cup in the process. Then I risked a peek into the interior through the small, round, rear window.

Adam Blackwell, Lord Ruthven, lit a cigar from the flame of a small oil lamp. Beside him, Sir Andrew Fitzandrew drank long and deep from a silver flask.

I didn't need to look further to know that the Right Reverend Morten Rigby drove the steam horses.

Knowing that these men—I wouldn't grace them with the title of gentlemen—would take me where I needed to go to thwart their plans, helped me cling to the boxy carriage. The wheels rumbled and bounced so hard on the cobbles that I could hear nothing else; could concentrate on nothing else.

After a time that felt like a month, we broke free of city streets onto dirt roads. The noise abated enough I could listen when the men deigned to talk. They didn't speak much or often. When I peeked through the window again, the oil lamp had burned too low for me to see anything but dim profiles, one on either side of the carriage, both looking straight ahead, or out the window, a good six inches between their shoulders.

We'd passed beyond the city lamps. An occasional light glowed through the window of a dwelling set back from the road. The carriage lanterns on either side of the driver's feet illuminated the road a short distance ahead. The driver would have to keep a sharp eye and firm hand on the mechanical horses. These beasts might move faster than ordinary animals, but they had no sense of their own. They didn't know road from ditch or open field. They ran straight ahead unless directed elsewhere.

“Is this enough?” Drew asked his companion. His low voice startled me out of a semi-doze.

“It has to be. We are nearly out of time,” Ruthven replied.

“Who knows how much soul energy was in the Eye of Kali before Lord Byron stole it. He and Stamata added quite a bit more. Surely we've reached the one hundred deaths your instructions demand.” Drew sounded weary. Or was that disgusted? No. Just tired. He didn't seem to have the energy behind his words for disgust.

“I can feel the way the crystal vibrates. We have enough. All we need is one clear shot, possibly two, not highly taxing to Kali's strength.”

“What about the souls you have locked up in Leyden jars? Surely you have more than enough of those to recharge the crystal.” Now Drew sounded agitated. My anger toward him abated a tiny bit. I wanted to believe his parting remark to me that not all was as it seemed. I truly did. But he'd betrayed my trust in being with Ruthven, in laughing as he dumped dead Kit Doyle in a filthy back alley. I couldn't give it back lightly.

His shadowed profile, as he turned his head to stare out the window jolted another memory. A highwayman wearing a broad-brimmed hat, sitting astride his horse with an easy seat, pointing a pistol at my heart as he demanded I turn over Miss Ada to him.

My lungs felt as if I'd pulled my laces tighter and tighter again. I nearly lost my grip on the carriage. He'd whispered hoarsely then, disguising his voice so I didn't recognize him when we met again in London at Ada's coming out.

Had he turned adventurer because of boredom? Or had he been building his fortune to live beyond the generous allowance provided by his father?

I wanted to cry.

But I couldn't. For Kit and Violet and Toby I had to follow through with this and bring down Sir Andrew Fitzandrew along with his friend Adam Blackwell, Lord Ruthven.

“Those very angry young women must fuel the kinetic galvatron. The souls stored in the crystal will focus the death ray.” Ruthven sounded smug. “I'd feel safer with a few more young women. The Gypsy girl, though, shows promise of more anger energy than five of the others. She shall incite those gone dormant and lead them in a bolt of electric power.” He chuckled.

His laughter masked the sound of my gasp. Reva. Jimmy's missing sister.

Ruthven had lured the girl away from the protection of her family, probably with the promise to teach her to read, the one thing her father and brothers had denied her in a culture that honored their women by protecting them from outsiders—controlled them to the point of suffocation of intellect.

“Archbishop Howley doesn't stand a chance of surviving,” Drew said flatly.

The carriage jolted and tilted slightly. A wheel had gone through a pothole, hard and fast. I wondered if the driver reacted to the conversation inside. He slowed, for whatever reason.

“Rigby, are we there yet?” Ruthven called, leaning out the window.

“Nearly, sir,” came the muffled reply.

Firming my grip on the footman's handle, I leaned out as well. Ahead, lights glittered and a hot fire glowed eerily red. I heard the chug of an idling steam engine and smelled the acrid stench of burning coal.

Rigby slowed the steam horses to a walk, then turned the carriage so that the doors faced the engine—a tidy little beast with a coal car, a passenger lounge, and a baggage car. The shed that served as a station looked dark and abandoned.

Rigby turned the carriage over to a silent groom in dark livery, then clambered aboard the engine. As I watched, he twisted and shifted his shoulder, hiding his good right hand and extending the prosthetic. His sinister left hand remained dexterous and strong.

Drew and Ruthven ignored him while they boarded the lounge. The moment the door closed behind them, I scooted from my hiding place onto the landing behind the baggage car. I had to cling tightly to the iron railing when the engine jerked us forward into the dark night, without even a glimmer of moonlight peeking through the clouds to light our way.

Chapter Thirty-One

T
HIS LATE IN JUNE, we had very few hours of darkness. The little engine chugged through the night taking us farther and farther away from the lights of London. I began to wonder if Ruthven had allowed himself enough time to perform his last hideous ritual, assemble his equipment, and fly the black balloon back to the city on schedule for the coronation.

I also began to shiver. My ragged clothing was just that, ragged. A cold moist wind off the south coast cut through threadbare cotton like a knife left in the icehouse. It found every rend and split seam, worming its way inward until it touched my skin.

I pondered the warm glow of the firebox next to the engine. Even Rigby with his extra hand would be hard put to keep the fire burning hot enough to maintain this speed and drive. Who assisted him? I couldn't imagine either Sir Andrew or Lord Ruthven getting their hands dirty shoveling coal, or even throwing firewood. I dared not climb to the roof and thus make my way to the front, even for the reviving heat.

When my teeth began to chatter, I pressed myself against the door to the baggage car out of the wind on the platform. Much to my surprise, the latch jiggled invitingly. A little extra pressure and it swung inward. I paused, listening before crossing the threshold. If anyone waited inside, I could not hear voices, breathing, or shuffling over the sounds of the steam engine or clicking rail noise.

The train lurched as it took a curve too fast. I stumbled backward, into the car and bounced from one crate to another that caught me across the middle. Air whooshed out of me as explosively as the steam whistle. I ricocheted in another direction and landed on my behind. The next crate slid toward the wall with me following.

Someone cursed inside the lounge, a low grumble of words just barely discernible over the click of metal wheels on the rails. Then the rattle of one door opening that also released a bar of light across the platforms and around the adjoining door. The light crossed my boot toes.

I scrunched my body as small as I could manage, knees to chin, arms wrapped around them, head down. The back of my thighs ached from the unnatural stretch. My heart beat faster, sounding as loud as the chug of the engine.

The inside door rattled and screeched as it slid inward, bringing with it more light and the sound of approaching footsteps.

All the while, the car rocked back and forth, as if still recovering from the too rapid curve.

My stomach rebelled.

But I held on, wrapping shadows around me as if they were a thick blanket on a cold night.

The man retreated. I didn't need to hear his voice or see his face. He had the stance and posture and breadth of shoulders of Sir Andrew. Ruthven could never aspire to that magnificent body. My Drew. No, not my Drew, never again my Drew. I had to lose any sense of intimacy with him.

And never would I share that body again. Drew had chosen to side with the most heinous of villains imaginable.

The light disappeared as the door closed. I heard a rumble that might have been voices, but I couldn't be certain.

A better hiding place seemed my next move. Fighting back panic and grief, I resolved to finish this adventure. The little bit of light had revealed two rows of wooden crates, now partially scrambled, with an aisle down the middle of the car. Some of those crates had shifted, but they hadn't crashed into each other or the walls of the car. I could navigate if I moved slowly and felt with toes and hands before taking each step.

Carefully I inched my way upward, using the crate behind me for leverage and balance. Another tilt and surge of speed sent me sprawling across the aisle. Sharp pain stabbed my left elbow, turning it numb. I nursed the hurt with pressure while I bit my lower lip to keep from crying out.

The train slowed and the whistle screeched. By my jumbled sense of time and a glimmer of light around the edges of the doors, forward and aft, I guessed that our destination neared as early dawn approached, roughly half four in the morning.

Frantically I searched for a place to hide. The back corner behind a jumble of tools and tarps looked promising. Moving cautiously with arms stretched for balance—and the better to grab something should I topple again—I took one step, two, then three and . . .

Stumbled over an imperfection in the floor. My toes didn't recognize the shape or purpose. I crouched and then dropped onto my knees that still stung from the last abrupt collision with the floor.

The train slowed even more, smoothing out the ride. I didn't have long.

My fingers found the shape of the imperfection. Cold, smooth, metal caressed my fingertips. I traced out the shape of a handle. Then I found the crack outlining a trapdoor. I grasped the brass and heaved upward. It didn't budge. Locked.

But if a door, or escape hatch could be locked, then it could be unlocked. No keyhole presented itself to my examination. But I found a longer, wider crack than the trap. I barely had room to reach my fingers in, but once past the initial blockage, the space opened up enough that I could feel underneath. This time I lifted a short lever, and the trap swung downward to reveal some kind of platform. Not much room for me to hide. I swung my legs into the opening and dropped down.

The dawn grew brighter, red light beneath the retreating clouds, promising a sunny day with a warm breeze.

I had enough light to examine my new hiding place. Metal cross bar, a folded support post. And the platform was nearly as wide as the train car. With wheels!

The floor of the baggage car reverberated with heavy footsteps. I pushed the trapdoor back into place, feeling it click shut. Something else whirred and my “jitter” dropped down to the rails as the train rushed over the top of us.

I held my breath and counted to one hundred.

As much as I had traveled around Europe on trains and by carriage pulled by steam horses, I had never encountered a jitter I had to propel myself. I'd seen railway crews pump the handles up and down—usually one fore and the other aft—to propel them from one bit of maintenance to another. This one was folded in on itself and the wheels tucked flat over the top of the platform.

Not operational. I searched for a lever or something that might open a box with tools.

I needn't have worried. After a full minute, an unwinding spring whirred. Slowly the wheels stretched out and down, coming to rest upon the rails themselves. Sensible. It had to remain flat and within the rail bed until the mother train passed. Once settled on the rails, the crossbar and support column unfolded. Only one crossbar, so this must be intended for a single operator.

And I was the single operator. Someone had kept the jitter well oiled and maintained. The bar pumped easily after the initial attempts to persuade the vehicle to move out of its sleeping state. Up down, up down. I fell into the rhythm despite protesting arm and shoulder muscles. Soon my lower back and thighs began protesting the unaccustomed movement.

I'd been awake most of the night and worked a long day in the café before that. But I had to see this through. No one else was available to thwart Ruthven's plans. He might only be interested in exacting revenge against the archbishop for some perceived slight. I had to look further and know that if Howley died before the conclusion of the coronation, then Victoria would not legitimately be queen. Distant relatives and older nobility of the realm could easily step in and demand she step down. The Duchess of Kent and her lover could demand a regency. Chaos would ensue. Possibly civil war. Probably the end of Britain as we knew it.

I pumped harder.

The train had been slowing when I escaped. Presumably, we neared our destination.

Up down. Up down. I ignored my aches and pains and kept going. For once I appreciated the confines of my corset. The tightly woven layers of silk and wire mesh supported my aching muscles. If a bullet or blade should manage to penetrate, the compression would also reduce bleeding and swelling. Mostly I'd bruise badly at the point of impact as the cross-warp layers absorbed and dissipated the energy of the projectile. Covering me from mid-breast to below the hip, it protected all my internal organs.

How would it perform if Ruthven unleashed his weapon of searing light?

I didn't like the name he'd given the weapon, kinetic galvatron. It sounded doubly ominous.

I pumped the jitter harder. Someone had to stop him.

The sun came up in a glorious riot of pinks and oranges. Dew sparkled on every blade of grass and branch of gorse. Tiny flowers in yellow, pink, blue, and multiple shades in between winked at me. Wild roses tangling with themselves on the berm released their heady perfume, inviting bees and such to share their nectar.

I kept pumping. Nothing mattered but the constant up and down motion.

My vision began to narrow as it did when a trance enticed me inward. I let the otherworldly images flow through me. This might be important. Knowing some symbolic piece of the near future could save my life, and that of England.

A slender figure in white, crowned in gold and diamonds marched solemnly around and around the circle that my inner eye perceived. She lifted her chin with pride, nodding and smiling to those who greeted her. Muffled bells sang a joyous litany of celebration. A smile spread through me. I was on the right course to ensure the successful crowning of our queen.

Other figures, dark and angry, skipped asymmetrically out of synchronization and out of harmony with the proud queen. Slowly they made inroads on the queen's path, forcing her to walk in ever narrowing circles. They pulled light away from her, snuffing the aurora of her magnificent crown.

Then, with a snap, my vision cleared and returned me to the jitter and the monotonous pumping action.

The rail line curved inland and disappeared into the dark maw of a looming hill that rose high and plunged low down a cliff to the waves that lapped a narrow beach. A square building sat atop the hill.

I had to hurry.

But I had to proceed with caution. Reluctantly, I slowed my pumping, letting the jitter's momentum carry me forward. As I cleared the arching cave entrance, I pulled up on the brake lever. The jitter slowed noiselessly until it slid to a stop within inches of the back landing of the baggage car I'd abandoned.

The growing daylight outside had veiled my perceptions. I noticed little change in the amount of light from outside to in. Then it hit me. The cave should be dim, even if the four oil lamps I counted had been placed right in front of me instead of against the far wall where the steam engine's nose nearly touched the rock.

The smell of damp earth struck me before realization. The entire cave had been whitewashed, including the rails, ties, and gravel bed. The paint reflected and compounded the little bit of artificial light.

I stepped off the jitter and it immediately began winding its spring, folding in on itself. Once the wheels were in place, a magnet beneath the baggage car drew it inward. With a click and a snap, the cart nestled into its normal place attached to the struts.

A brief touch of the cool cave walls, rough and irregular, told me that much of this opening beneath the mountain was natural. But not all of it. Someone had enlarged the natural hole with tools, smoothing the walls so that the whitewash adhered more evenly.

Some of the white paint rubbed off on my dark rags. The work had been completed recently.

A natural cave beneath an ancient abbey that had become a more modern manor.

I heard no voices or movement within the cave, only the slow tick of the boiler cooling and the steam chambers emptying.

Why whitewash this engine barn if the only exit was back the way the train had entered? I searched for an opening that led elsewhere. Whitewashed wooden stairs, complete with handrail blended into the white on white background. My eyes slid over them twice before I noticed that the sharp angles didn't quite fit into the natural curves.

I crept up the eight steps, cautious of creaking wood that might betray me. The carpentry was new and solid, taking my weight easily. At the landing—long and wide built to maneuver large equipment—an arched opening, without a door, led inward. More whitewash and oil lamps placed at odd intervals.