Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (47 page)

Nothing.

I banged on the
quarters of the crew, checked under stairwells and in corners. I ran from one
end of the ship to the other.

Nothing.

I searched the
decks, cast my bloodshot eyes over every visible inch of the oil sea.

Nothing. I
returned to the empty bed and was slapped with the nauseating truth. She was
gone.

Finally I grabbed
the pillow that had held her head. As I pulled it up, a small folded note
floated out from underneath. I felt dizzy.

With a shaky hand,
I picked up the note and read its short message.

“Nothing personal, Pocket.”

And I was sick.

Because I didn't
need to recognize the handwriting to know who had made it to this bed before
me.

“Just watch
yourself, storyteller,” Kitt Sunner had warned me on the steps of the Gaslight
Tea House. “I may get bored one day and take something of yours.”

And one day had
come.

“No...”

“Yes, Alan.”

“He couldn't
have—“

“He did.”

“The...the little
rat. What was he thinking?”

“I wondered that
for a long time.”

“Long? You
mean...”

“Yes, Alan. This
story's nowhere close to ending.”

My knees gave.
Having my soul's essence so quickly punched out of me, my body went weak and
collapsed on the floor like a rag doll.

Doll...

She was gone. Kitt
was gone. The world was gone and it didn't take me with it. What was I left
with then? Nothing?

No...

A spark of light
on metal caught my eye from the floor. The Doll's turnkey.

The
Lucidia's
crew
shuffled around me, talking over each other. I paid no attention to whatever
they said. I was deadened.

Except...

Anger. At that
fallen moment, my face to the dirty floor, anger was my sole motivator, the
only remaining force pushing blood through my dead man's body.

Kitt Sunner, you
coward.

I don't know how
long I’d lain on the floor, but eventually I felt my arms raised by someone. I
was soon up, but not on my feet. My body was being supported by The Red Priest
and Madame B. They were dragging me out of the room and shouting empty words of
encouragement. I didn't let a single one into my ear until B spoke the
following.

“Calm down.
There's no way in Hell that they're off the ship.”

I snapped
momentarily back to life and stared into the girl's face.

“What?” I said.

“Oh, look who's
still alive,” she replied. “We'll find them.”

“Find them?”

“We're surrounded
by oil and water,” the Priest said. “You think Kitt's going to try to swim to
shore with a sleeping girl on his back?”

This logic made
sense, but for some reason it didn't make me feel any better. I still had that
empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, that pounding in my head that kept
saying, “She's gone. They're gone.”

“Where are you
taking me?” I muttered.

“The galley. You
need to eat.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“We don't care,”
Madame B said. “You're eating.”

“But Dolly and
Kitt—”

“Gren and Jack are
searching the ship,” the Priest said. “They'll find them.”

I still wasn't
reassured, but was too weak to complain. The pirates took me to the galley,
which sat slightly on a slant. Miss B dropped me onto a stool and began
rummaging through a cabinet strewn with cobwebs.

“Let's see...” she
said, searching. “What haven't the maggots gotten into yet?”

I dropped my head.

“Sorry,” the
captain said. “We told you we don't normally cook onboard.”

“That's fine,” I
grumbled. “Let's just skip the meal.”

“Nope!” B said,
pulling a dusty box out. “Breakfast is happening, if I have to shove it down
your throat myself.”

“Great,” I
replied, taking her find. A bowl was given to me, and into it I poured the
contents of the box, a pile of hard and salty crackers. I sighed and pushed my
teeth through one.

“Thank you,” I
said sincerely to my hosts. They smiled at me.

“Try to relax,”
Madame B said. “The fox may have made a run for it, but I can assure you,
they're definitely not gone.”

I smiled weakly
and nodded. As I did, Gren and Jack barged into the room in a fevered panic.

“They're gone!”
Gren shouted.

And in my
delirium, I laughed. I actually laughed. Because I felt as if Gren had
delivered some great climax to a joke that had been building up for days upon
days. I closed my eyes and envisioned the
Lucidia,
that half-sunk ship,
as a stage, a spot-lit bit of playacting in the dark. The walls were to me just
flat, painted panels and we were just tragic clowns with painted faces,
rosy-cheeked and dark-eyed.

“What do you mean,
gone?!?
” I heard Madame B growl. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I
pictured her moving center stage, stamping her feet with theatric exaggeration.

“They're...uh...gone,”
Hack-Jack said, eliciting laughter from my invisible audience.

“Impossible!” the
Red Priest shouted, playing to the back rows.

Gren moved from
his position on the set to the pirates and spread his arms wide.

“Your shuttle,” he
said to the Priest, “it's missing too.”

“What?!? How?!?”

“We don't know.”

“The landing bay
was completely submerged in the crash.”

“I know.”

“Even if they
could get inside, they couldn't navigate it...could they?”

“Apparently.”

“But how would
they get the ramp open and—”

“Would you stop
saying
they?
” I snapped, knocking the pieces of the stage apart like a
child. My eyes opened and I could see the others looking upon me with
confusion.

“Uh...” Gren
started. I didn't give him the chance to get further.

“The Doll is
sleeping,” I said, holding up the turnkey in my clenched fist. I paused for a
moment and glared at it, having not remembered clutching it as I was dragged to
the galley by my hosts. But back to the point.

“Without this, she
can’t lift a finger,” I said, “and this is a
kidnapping.
So if you're
going to speculate on what's happened, speculate on Kitt. Because Dolly's not a
consenting party to this, all right? What are you smiling about, Spader?”

“Nothing,” Gren
said, quickly changing his face.

“Pocket,” B said
softly, “we haven't been awake for long, and this has already been a rough
morning. Why don't you stop and have a little breakfast before you start
dealing with this?”

I looked down at
the bowl of old crackers.

“Fine,” I said.
“Leave me.”

“What?”

“I want to be
alone.”

“Nothing doin—“

“Go!” I yelled at
the others. Madame B lowered her brows in anger and crossed her arms.

“Fine,” she said
coolly. “Let's give Pocket his precious peace. When you're done throwing a
tantrum, we'll be upstairs.”

I huffed through
my nostrils in response. They said nothing else and silently marched out of the
galley. B slammed the door hard behind her.

And I was alone
with my meal.

I took a cracker
in my hand and squeezed it into crumbs.

Relax.

How dare they
expect me to stay calm and chew on old foodstuffs like nothing's happened?

I bit into another
cracker, mashed my teeth, and swallowed the flavorless pulp.

Ug.

Too frustrated to
sit still, I began searching the pantry for honey or jam or anything,
anything,
to put a little flavor on my tongue.

“Relax...” I
muttered, looking through cupboards and cabinets. “It's gunna take a lot more
than this to make me...ah.”

That's when I
found the bottle of sherry.

Cooking sherry.

But more
importantly,
sherry.

Without a second
thought, I palmed the dirty bottle, downed three mouthfuls, and promptly
gagged, not so much from the intensity of the drink, but from my own impatience
in consuming it.

“Not terrible,” I
announced between fits of coughing.

I fought my way
through a few more drinks then resigned myself to the bowl of crackers.

It wasn't long
before the room around me acquired a fuzzy haze and the pounding in my head
went silent.

I took a deep
breath and gripped the sides of the bowl. I was dizzy, and closing my eyes, I
let the world again take the form of a painted stage. I rose for a soliloquy
and addressed my unseen audience.

“Meal...” I
slurred. “The Doll was gonna make a meal.”

Comically, I
stumbled across the scene and began pulling open doors and drawers.

“She was gonna
save this mess! She was gonna take these crusts and crumbs in her pretty hands
and build them up into something. Something warm. Filling. But look at me now.
Starving and abandoned. All appetite and no satisfaction. Just chewing on
remnants. Tasting the broken pieces of myself.”

I turned to the
audience and postured.

“Well, not literally!”

Laughter.
Applause. Fanfare.

“Maybe I can do
it,” I mumbled in my stupor. “Maybe I...I can put together
somethin'...somethin' solid.”

I knocked my way
through the pantry, blindly grabbing at anything resembling food. Raving mad, I
threw my ingredients together on a found plate, desperately trying to play the
role of chef.

Of creator.

“Come on, Doll,” I
pleaded, digging my nails into half-loaves as hard as stones, “show me how to
do it. How to make somethin' outta this mess.”

I fell back into
my seat, my creation of mustard, coffee grinds, and broken crackers on a hard,
split roll before me.

I put my teeth to
the bread, couldn't bite through it, and pushed it away.

“Lousy,” I
declared.

I dropped my head
onto my folded arms and let the stage lights dim. In my mind I let form the
picture of Dolly as I had seen her the previous night, windswept and shy. I
replayed the joining of our hands, the quiet kiss, and her soft fade into sleep
beneath the heavy blankets.

And in that
moment, I found my resolve, and the stage lights flashed back on.

If Kitt could get
off of a sunken ship, then so could I.

I lifted my head
and tried to shake away my dizzy inebriation. Propelled by my decision, I sat
tall and finished the remaining crackers. When the bowl was empty, my created
stage was gone, replaced once more with the steamship in its actuality.

I cleaned up the
mess I had created and marched straight away to the Red Priest's cabin.

It was due time
for me to come ashore.

“Wait, wait now,
Pocket.”

“What is it?”

“I may be getting
ahead of myself...”

“Probably are,
Alan.”

“...but what was
your plan in chasing the thief without a lead? Just wander aimlessly across
Britain?”

“Eh, well, in my
moment of passion, I hadn't really thought that out.”

“I see. Maybe you
shouldn't mix your 'passions' with cooking sherry then.”

“Maybe...”

I stood there in
the Priest's cabin, arms folded, feet planted, and eyes staring down the
bewildered gazes of the
Lucidia's
crew.

“You're
what?
”
Quill asked.

“Leaving,” I
repeated.

“Leaving...” B said,
her voice icy.

“From the ship,
yes.”

“Is that so?”

“That's what I
said.”

“Sorry,” the
captain said. “You can't.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I
replied. “Oil sea. I don't care anymore. I'll find a way. Hell, I'll swim if I
have to.”

“No, Pocket,” the
Red Priest clarified, alarmingly serious. “I mean, you
can't.
”

I blinked in
confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You're not
allowed.”

“Allowed?!? The
hell do you mean,
allowed?
”

“Because of our
arrangement.”

“What
arrangement?”

“You know.”

“Do I?”

B rolled her eyes.
“Does a good job of playing dense, doesn't he?”

“Uh...” Hack-Jack
said, scratching at his hair like an alley dog, “I dunno, B. I don't think he's
messing around.”

“I'm not,” I said
sternly. “
What
arrangement?”

The pirates
exchanged looks and shrugs with each other.

“The arrangement,”
the Priest said once again. “The reason you're on this ship!”

Something was
wrong here and I hadn't quite put together what yet.

“The reason,” I
said cautiously. “Refresh me.”

“You know, the
deal. For the employment of you and your partner.”

“My partner...by
which you mean...”

The Priest
squeezed his eyes and tugged his beard.

“Gren, of course.”

I squeezed my eyes
thinner and began to grind my teeth. Spader. Greatly self-restrained, I spoke.

“Would you all
kindly excuse me for a moment?”

My hands soon
found their way to a pillow, which found its way to Gren's slobbering face.

“Hey!” he shouted,
waking from his nap to a surprise suffocation. “What the hell?!?”

He kicked and
thrashed on his cot in the janitor's closet, the same room, I realized, that I
had been put into after passing out during the crash. I pulled the pillow away
and began violently striking him over the crown with it.

“What the hell are
you doing?!?” he yelled, grabbing the weapon of my assault and kicking me away.
“Stop it, you ass!”

“Why?” I demanded,
balling my fists.

“Why
what?!?
”
he asked back. “What's the damn problem?!?”

“The problem is
our 'arrangement,'
partner.
”

“Ohhhh...I see. So
the Priest told you 'bout that.”

“I could kill
you.”

“First of all, no,
you couldn't. And second, calm down!”

“So, what is it?
What did you enlist me to do?”

“He didn't tell
you? You said—”

“I didn't wait for
an explanation.”

“Then how do you
know it’s something so damn awful?!?”

“Because I don't
trust you!”

Gren drew back,
visibly insulted.

“Oh, that's real
nice, Pocket. Really stinkin' nice. We've only been in this together, what, how
long?”

“About two weeks,”
I said, bringing up a sharp pain through my chest.

I forced myself to
regain composure and fixed my eyes back on Gren.

“Besides,” I
continued, “I've been in it with Kitt even longer, and look where that trust
got me.”

I dropped my back
against the wall and slid down to the floor.

“Pocket,” Gren
said, “it's rotten luck, yeah. But I didn't really have a choice. And this goes
back before I met you at all. I wasn't thinking. The Priest needed some help
and I needed the pay. But he needed two men, so I stretched the truth a little.
Told him I had a partner. Figured I could dig one up somewhere, but no one I
found wanted to get mixed up with pirates.”