Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (62 page)

“Stay away,” I
commanded her, standing and fumbling with my coat. “Just don’t touch me.”

“Please, sir! I
didn’t—”

“Don’t touch me!”
I yelled, awash in my intoxication.

“Please! I don’t
understand!”

She reached out to
embrace me, and I got out of there, breaking out of the room at full speed as
her haunting cries called after me.

I ran.

Hard.

An absolute terror
I would’ve seemed as I threw myself out of the brothel, were there anyone around
to witness me, the woozy hysteric lost in the dead of night, running a footrace
against his madness. And his madness was winning.

A few streets
passed beneath my feet and I refused to slow down, even after the brothel
became just another shadow at my back. Before long, my eyelids grew impossibly
heavy.

“Just a little
more,” I told myself. “Don’t fall asleep yet.”

I stumbled at last
back to my place of refuge, and stopped for a breath of cold air beneath the
dark sky.

Finally, I
thought, the long night was ending. Even the stony mattress waiting inside my
rented room seemed like bliss at that moment. With a long yawn, I dragged my
feet towards the shelter.

I guess you could
blame what happened next on the absence of the Moon. The abundant darkness of
the night meant that my eyes never saw the shadows of the feet that were
approaching me. Hell, my ears didn’t even pick up on the soft shuffling of
footsteps.

My throat,
however, did feel it when a thick arm caught me around the neck and threw me
backward to the ground.

The first thought
that came to me as my spine slapped against the street was not, oddly enough, a
curiosity as to who had just grabbed me. Rather, I was struck with the
observation that this unscheduled trip to the grit and dirt of London’s ground
didn’t sting nearly as much as it should have.

Oh, and speaking
of being struck.

“Think you’re
pretty smart, don’t ya?” my assailant jeered, thumping his boot repeatedly
against my stomach. I groaned, but again, the pain I felt from his blows was
considerably muted, which I attributed to the laudanum flowing through me.

That said, it
still hurt, and my foggy stupor hadn’t exactly left me coherent enough to
successfully defend myself.

“Yeah, that’s
right!” the man barked as he tore me nearly to shreds. “You lie there and you
bleed!”

I rolled sickly
onto my back and sucked air between my clenched teeth. “Who the hell are you?”
I managed to say.

“Who the hell do
you
think
I am?”

“I don’t—oof!” I
cried out as I felt another kick. My mind spun like a carousel that should be
taken out of commission. All I had wanted was to sleep.

“Over here!” the
assailant called to someone in the distance. “I got ‘im.”

A few more bodies
appeared from the shadows, one of them being held by the others at knifepoint.

Yeah?” the man
gripping the knife joked. “We got one too!”

The one who had
beaten me stood me up, produced a blade of his own, and put it to my throat.

“You really think
we were just gunna let you run away?” he laughed, grabbing my hair with his
free hand.

I set my eyes on
the mob and saw that the other captured man, spotted with fresh bruises, was
Gren. Similar marks on those who held him in submission told me that my friend
had given them a decent fight. Gren coughed and gave me the expected sour look.

“Thanks for showing
up,” he muttered weakly to me.

I just dumbly
shrugged and stared at our captors. Their smiles were ghoulish and their eyes,
even in the darkness, sparked with barbaric glee. A few of their faces seemed
familiar.

Oh, I thought,
making the connection.

Oh, God, no.

“So where is it?”
one of them demanded to know. The “it” they were referring to, I was sure, had
to be the Doll. I assumed this because the first time I had met these mongrels,
they had addressed her as such, nothing more than a machine in their
possession.

This, of course,
enraged me to no conceivable end.

The Motorists.
Those repulsive, Godforsaken Motorists.

“So where is it?”
one asked me. In response, I spit in his face. The decision was a victory in
principle, but as a lesson in common sense, well, not so much.

I once again met
the ground, face to the dirt, and laughter ensued. Panic and anger consumed me,
and when they momentarily took their eyes off of me, I reached into my coat for
the gun I was concealing.

And found nothing.

Dazed, I worked my
mind until it produced an image of the weapon I had earlier pointed to the
chest of a false-haired whore.

The same weapon
I’d left behind in her chamber.

Oh, I thought.

Oh, God, no.

I endured a few
more beatings at the Motorists’ greasy hands and muddy feet, and then I was
lifted and shoved over to Gren. Our hands were bound behind us and our heads
were covered with tied-off potato sacks.

I was grabbed,
pushed along, and then thrown down somewhere dark on top of something somewhat
soft, almost like…cushioning? The squealing voices of the Motorists warbled off
and my surroundings grew quickly quiet.

It was oddly
peaceful.

As I laid there
motionless, I felt my fatigue at last overcome me. I was finally falling
asleep. In my last moments before drifting off, I could only ask questions.

What great sin had
I committed to end up like this? Was this my punishment for not spending the
night in the brothel or for seeking it out in the first place?

And how badly
exactly had I been beaten? I couldn’t observe my wounds from under the potato
sack, and being under the drug’s potent influence, I could feel very little.
Had they broken my legs, I couldn’t help but wonder. Would I ever walk again?

Ultimately, I put
these thoughts aside and closed my eyes, unsure even if I would live to open
them again. For the moment though, I was just glad to at least have the chance
to rest.

And when at last I
finally slept, I had no dream at all, only the same, familiar loneliness spread
out on another plane.

For those readers
now gravely concerned for your narrator’s wellbeing, let me put your fears
aside.

I did not die that
night.

“That’s silly,
Pocket.”

“Hmmm?”

“You obviously
didn’t die.”

“Yeah, I know. I—“

“Because you’re
telling the story.”

“Right. I was—“

“Just doesn’t make
much sense.”

“I was making a
joke.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh…wasn’t a very
good one.”

“Apparently.”

“Well, there’s
room for improvement in all of our—“

“Can I move on?”

“Just a little
helpful criticism, Pocket.”

“Moving on.”

Hours passed as I
slept. When I finally awoke, my neck was stiff. The world was dark and smelt
strongly of potatoes.

“Was that another
joke?”

“No!”

“Because it’s
getting hard to tell.”

“It’s a sincere
line, Alan! I’ve been beaten and tied, for God’s sake!”

“Just my opinion.
No need to lash out.”

Slowly I regained
my memory of the night before, or however long had come and gone since I had
closed my eyes. I was sober now and in terrible pain. My muscles pulsed beneath
my battered skin, and a dull burn stretched from beneath my ribcage to my hips.
I pushed my wrists against the ropes that held them, but the struggle got me
nowhere.

I realized that I
was also moving, or rather, whatever I was lying on was moving. It seemed that
the soft piece of something that I was left upon was attached to a set of
wheels.

And that meant I
was being taken somewhere.

I tried again to
work my hands out of the binds. All I achieved was a fresh rope-burn to add to
my list of pains. I grunted at the stinging tenderness and swore loudly.

“I guess that
means you’re up,” a voice beside me uttered. I nearly jumped at the sound.

“Gren?!?” I nearly
gasped.

“What?” he
grumbled.

“You’re ali—“

“Yeah, I know. We
keep doing this. I walk away for five seconds, and it’s all excitement and
reunion and ‘Gren, I can’t believe you’re not dead.’ Joy, joy.”

I was silent for a
moment. “Glad to see you’re fine,” I flatly said.

“
Fine?!?
Oh,
sure. I’m great. Spent a night getting a public flogging by a gang of maniacs,
but sure, apart from that, I’m living the good life!”

“Where are you?” I
asked. “I can’t see anything.”

“That’s because we
have potato sacks on our heads.”

I jerked my head
and felt the burlap that covered my face. It made my nose itch.

“Right…well…I
guess that explains the smell. It’s making me a little hungry, to tell you the
truth.”

“Being hungry is
making
me
hungry,” Gren complained.

Looking back, it
seems strange that in the midst of this nightmare, all we could do was make
petty arguments. But I think that’s how men like me and Gren keep in one piece.
The moment we acknowledge the terrible, we fall apart. It’s not so much a
denial as it is a selective focus. Besides, at the moment, hunger was the more
direct issue.

I took a deep,
potato-scented breath and sighed. “Hey,” I said, changing the subject, “why do
my feet feel cold?”

“They took your
boots. Said something about ‘good scrap.’ Shouldn’t you remember all of this?”

“Probably,” I
murmured before speaking up. “So, in summation, I’m lying in my socks with my
head in a sack. Perfect.”

We didn’t talk for
awhile, the both of us too miserable to make conversation.

“Gren?” I
eventually said.

“Yeah?”

“What happened
last night?”

“I’m not sure.
They just…they just
found
us. One second I’m sleeping, the next I’m
being dragged out of the room by those bastards. I tried to fight them off, but
it was hopeless. Couldn’t even make it to the Half-Luck in time. They just
broke in and trashed the whole, damn place.”

“Christ…”

“Oh, and they
weren’t happy when they found out that Dolly wasn’t with us. Kept asking me
what we’ve done with her. Weren’t happy with the answers I gave them, either.
If you could see my face, you’d know that.”

“Gren, that’s
horrible.”

“Yeah, I know. I
was there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Eh, well…at least
we’re still breathing. For now, anyway. While we’re on the subject, you wanna
tell me where the hell you vanished off to last night?!?”

“I went for a
walk,” I responded. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, you have
incredible timing, you know that?”

I exhaled. “I
guess so.”

We closed our
mouths again and returned to quietly feeling sorry for ourselves. The next time
we spoke, it was Gren to break the silence.

“Can I ask you
something, Pocket?” he said, surprisingly serious.

“Uh…I guess so.
What?”

“Well, I mean, not
to get personal or anything, but if we’re going to die soon, anyway—“

“Jesus, Gren!”

“Fine, fine!
Sorry! But I was just wondering…um…what were you going to do if you found
Kitt?”

I thought about it
for a minute. “I don’t know.”

“Were you going to
kill him?”

I paused. “I don’t
know. Maybe.”

“Really?” I didn’t
answer, so Gren pushed on. “I thought the two of you were pretty good friends.”

“So did I.”

He didn’t take the
subject any further. Still, I felt that he owed me an answer in return.

“Can I ask
you
something?”
I said.

“Sure.”

“Who’s Kari?”

He paused for way
more than a minute, but at last gave me the truth.

“My daughter.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

And I left it at
that. The voyage continued on its way, as two, tired men kept company with
their own self-pity.

“Gren?” I asked.

“What?”

“Was I asleep for
awhile?”

“A pretty long
time.”

“That didn’t upset
you, did it?”

“Why would it?”

“Well, because I
could’ve, you know, seemed dead.”

“Oh,” Gren said.
“No, corpses usually don’t snore as much as you.”

I frowned beneath
my burlap veil and shut my eyes once more.

“Just perfect.”

The day rolled on
and at last we stopped moving. A few sets of hands clawed at me and Gren. We
were lifted and led blind into some sort of shelter.

“Don’t try to
run,” one of the Motorists commanded.

“Where would we
go, genius?” Gren retaliated. I heard a soft thudding sound followed by my
friend moaning in pain.

Not off to a grand
start.

I was then tied to
something cold and wooden. I didn’t speak a word to my captors, waiting instead
for them to make the next move. I had to play things right, I knew, if I was to
have any chance at getting out alive, and Gren was already setting the wrong
tempo.

Not that I was
blaming him.

Hell, I was on the
verge of joining in. But I fought myself down. I kept my temper in check and my
mouth shut.

I heard someone
approach, and at last, the potato sack was ripped from my head. I cringed and
blinked as bright light flooded my vision.

“Where the hell
did you take us?” I heard Gren ask as my eyes watered over.

“Not important,”
someone said.

The first things I
noticed when my sight worked itself out were stones. They were stacked high
into a sturdy wall that curved around the scene. I was being held in some sort
of circular room. Daylight spilt in between the cracks of the stone wall,
confirming my suspicion that the night had indeed passed. As I said, the room
was bright, though not from the risen sun. A rigged line of lanterns, ten or
twenty, maybe, had been strewn about. The cold wood I was tied against was a
post that supported the ceiling above me. I caught notice of a small staircase
in the distance that spiraled up the curved wall to the space above the
ceiling. Was I in some sort of basement?

There was also a
very faint, but very constant, sound of grinding.

Most important of
all, I saw that directly across from me in this makeshift prison there stood a
small pair of tables, and upon them sat all of my and Gren’s belongings. They
were each neatly positioned and spaced out, like pieces of evidence to be
presented in court. All seemed accounted for, from my ridiculous bottle of
faerie juice to Gren’s equally ridiculous Tesla scattergun.

And then there was
the turnkey.

Were I still able
to feel any corner of my stomach, it would have turned at that moment.

The Motorists were
lounging about the room. Their eyes and teeth were all set upon me like
sharp-headed spears poised to run me through. Controlling my temper was
suddenly more of a great chore.

“So, boys,” one of
the Motorists said, stepping forward from the others, “how ‘bout we have a
little sit down and talk?”

“Sure,” said Gren,
who was bound to another support post beside me. “Hard to sit with the ropes,
though. You go ahead and untie us, give me back my gun, and we’ll make a day of
it.”

The Motorist
responded with an elbow to Gren’s chin. My friend grimaced and spat a little
blood.

“You’re in no spot
to be an ass, Spader,” the man pointed out, his grey eyes matching the tone of
threat in his words, “so shut your mouth.”

It would be easy
for me to characterize the men who held us in confinement as monsters, some
grotesque mob of slack-jawed hulks with more muscle than mind doing the work
for some larger, unseen villain. In truth, they were more or less the opposite.
A little brawnier than me and Gren, sure, but apart from that and a spotty coat
of engine grease upon their collective skin, they seemed altogether typical.
And that is what really appalled me. You see, monsters make easy villains. They
need no real justification for their actions, no reason to be evil. They just
are.
The Motorists weren’t monsters. They were just opportunists, a pack of
cheats selling themselves out to the heaviest purse. And now they were in the
King’s pocket. Why? Because they could work a wrench and not ask any questions.

“Scruples and
those guys just don’t get along,” Gren had once told me in the aftermath of our
first encounter with the Motorists. And of course, he was right. This lot would
cannibalize an innocent woman in broad daylight for the right price. I knew
this because I had seen them try.

But despite all of
this, I still made one desperate attempt to appeal to the humanity of the man
before me, hoping that locked up somewhere inside of my captor was something I
could reason with.

“Listen,” I calmly
said to the Motorist, “I know what you’re doing isn’t personal, and I can
understand why you’d want to keep faithful to the monarchy. We’re all children
of Britain here. But if I could just explain to you—“

“Can you pay
more?”

“Than the
King?
Of course not!”

“Then shut your
mouth.”

So much for
humanity.

The Motorist began
pacing, tugging at his threadbare suspenders and scratching at his beard. As he
did, I felt a great hotness rising inside of me. Anger. My attempts at
controlling myself were wearing thin. I could feel the dog-eared corners of my
mind begin to stick together. I was breaking down, like a candlewick dissolving
into its flame. I grew increasingly afraid of myself as that wick curled and
blackened within me.

“You okay,
Pocket?” Gren whispered. I looked at him, and saw at last what he had endured
the night before. His eyes were blued and swollen. Dried blood caked over
wounds upon his cheeks and upper lip. The fire in me grew hotter. I clenched my
hands into fists. They shook in their bindings behind my back. Gren’s eyes
widened as I stared at him, as if he was looking at a stranger wearing my skin.

“Now then,” the
pacing Motorist spoke, “where shall we begin?”

Neither of us
spoke. The other Motorists giggled. I think they were glad we had decided to
make the interrogation difficult. I remember one of them clutching a bit of
chain and stroking it like it was some woman’s flowing locks.

The bearded man in
the suspenders, however, surprised me by not sharing his cohorts’ gleeful
bloodlust. He scowled at the men and clucked his tongue.

“Why don’t you
louts go upstairs for awhile?” he grumbled.

“Why the hell
should we?” one barked. “We want good seats for the show.”

They bickered for
a bit, but the bearded Motorist eventually won out. The others skulked their
way up the staircase, shooting me and Gren devious looks and murmuring to
themselves.

“There,” the
remaining captor said once the three of us were alone, “now I can think
straight.”

He took a deep
breath, crossed his arms, and sat down on the edge of one of the tables that
held our belongings. He glanced at my coat, which had been taken and folded
into a square on the table. The Motorist fished a purple cigarette from my coat
pocket and took out a lighter.

“Mind if I swipe
one of these, gents?” he laughed. I gnashed my teeth. I know the ridiculous
offerings of a mindless Frenchman should not have meant a thing to me, but as
the man put the cigarette to his lips, I felt greatly insulted. Before he lit
the thing, though, the Motorist grimaced.

“Ug!” he said,
spitting the cigarette to the floor. “Damn thing tastes like garbage!”

I watched as he
grinded his heel onto it, leaving my gift as little more than a pathetic,
purple lump.

The next thing he
did was look over his shoulder and pick up my bottle of faerie juice.

“Heh,” he said,
swirling the bottle’s contents in his hand. “So whose is this?”