Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (67 page)

I’ve since heard
from a source I can’t even recall that one of those three Americans has
disowned his life’s work, and to this day refuses to use a mechanical
typewriter to create even the simplest word. I’d like to sit down with that man
over drinks someday and ask just why. But even if such an interaction could
take place, even if the man sat across a table from me, perhaps giving off a
smile both regretful and wistful while emptying a mug, and even if he had
spoken an answer to me, I doubt I’d be able to hear it over the loud, clacking
tone of this age. This is indeed the time of fast-hinged typewriters,
well-oiled and dutifully able to snare at moment’s notice the epiphany of
affection from a young lover’s head, an epiphany that was dared to be forever
lost by more archaic methods. A boy with a slower hand dragging ink across
paper stands more vulnerable to lose the entirety of his romantic vision before
he can finish his penning.

Yes, modernity is
swift in its assistance. The dreamy gods of old, the figures of love have been
fitted, polished, and enhanced. Eternal Venus now stands poised on the teeth of
a machinist’s cog, the snowy white of her breasts clad, bound, and supported in
the firmest vulcanized rubber.

But I fear such an
existence is not for me.

I fear I am a
half-formed page of dribbles and ink. Flecks of dirt and a spot of
over-dramatic blood. I am a poem half-realized in this world of instant
conclusion and—

“Pocket?”

I sucked in some
air, and the voice spoke again.

“Pocket!” a voice
piped up beside me.

I looked up,
surprised.

“Gren?” I stupidly
asked, as if it could be someone else wearing his skin.

“What the hell are
you doing way out here?!?” he complained. “I’ve looked all over this dirt pile
trying to find you!”

“Look—“

“My feet are
killing me now!”

I clucked my
tongue. “I thought I was providing you with a much-needed break.”

“You
were,
”
Gren fussed, “but as history shows, I’m not allowed to enjoy anything. Ever.”

“What are you
talking about?”

“This!” He
produced a sealed, brown envelope and threw it at me.”A telegram arrived for
you.”

“What?!?” I
exclaimed, gripping the document. “That’s impossible! Who would know where we—”

“Yeah,” Gren
scowled. “My thoughts exactly. You now see my concern.”

I tore open the
envelope and read the message inside.

MEET ME AT THE ADDRESS BELOW. MIDNIGHT.

TELL NO ONE, BRING NO ONE.

YOU NEED MY HELP AND I NEED YOURS.

- LA PETIT RENARD

A cold line of
sweat slid down my brow.

“What’s it say?”
Gren asked, stamping his foot.

I faked a smile
and stuffed the telegram into my coat.

“Just gibberish,”
I lied. “Probably someone trying to scare us.”

“Someone who knows
where we’re hiding out?”

“I wouldn’t think
too much of it. I bet whoever’s behind this sent a line out to every inn,
tavern, and boarding house in England, hoping I’ll reveal myself.”

“Well, I don’t
like it,” Gren declared, darting his head nervously about. “We should probably
get on the move soon. Just to play it safe.”

“Sure, Gren,” I
said, looking at the ground. “But what do you say we wait for morning? Get some
sleep and make a fresh start?”

“I guess that’d be
best,” he responded, hesitation clinging to his voice. “Not that I’m counting
on being relaxed enough to sleep, now that we’re receiving messages.”

I said nothing to
this, so Gren just snorted. “I’m just saying,” he grumbled, “that we could be
in for a long night.”

From within my
coat, the telegram felt like lead against my chest.

“Longest night of
my life,” I said.

“Pocket.”

“What is it,
Alan?”

“I…uh…”

“What?”

“Did you really do
it?”

“Lie to Gren? I
didn’t think I had much of a choice.”

“No, no. I mean,
earlier on.”

“Earlier on,
what?
”

“I mean…you gave
it away. Your faerie juice, just like that?”

“Oh. Yeah, I did.”

“But all that talk
about holding on to whatever you had left…”

“I talk a lot,
Alan. Doesn’t mean it’s all worth listening to.”

The hours before
nightfall passed miserably slow. I tried to hide my anxiousness as I spent the
afternoon and evening mulling about the parlor, watching the clock turn and
dodging Gren’s questions concerning my suddenly missing bottle of green. Night
rolled on and I found myself loafing at the bar, scratching my fingers against
the wood counter. I picked up a matchbook sitting there, flicked it around, put
it in my pocket, and yawned.

I crossed my arms
upon the sticky bar top. Bars, bars, taverns, and bars! I was absolutely sick
of them. Tired of hiding in bars, searching in bars, finding fights and
strangeness and mysterious little diaries written by mysterious little women
who can’t stay out of my dreams. I was sick, completely sick of it. But here I
was, on another damn barstool in another damn hole. I put my head down on my
arms.

“Hey,” the
bartender said to me, “you all right, there?”

“Nope.”

“You want
something to—“

“I’m fine.”

“Fair enough.” I
thought he’d taken the hint, but a moment later he threw some more conversation
at me. “You like absinthe, eh?”

“What?”  I
said, lifting my gaze.

“Absinthe,” he
repeated. “You know, the French stuff.”

“No, I
don’t
know,”
I muttered. “Only thing I’ve ever gotten from a Frenchman was a green, glowing
headache.”

“Green, right.
Absinthe.”

He produced an
odd, little glass and took a dark bottle from a shelf.

“Wait,” I said,
tapping a finger against the unusual glass. “Hey, I’ve seen a few of these
before. Somewhere.” Then I remembered the bubble-bottomed glass teacups, as I
had called them, strewn about that dilapidated Electric Bohemia.

“Have you?” the
bartender said. “You don’t seem too sure.”

“I’m not.”

“Heh. Maybe you’ve
been partaking a little too much of the Faerie.”

The hairs on the
back of my neck bristled.

“What did you
say?” I asked, eyes wide.

“The Faerie,” he
said, uncorking the bottle. “This.”

And then, the
man…he…I could hardly believe it. Into the little glass he poured a wet stream
of emerald green. It had a fragrant, bittersweet aroma, and as it filled the
cup, I knew it was unmistakably the same familiar substance I have known.

“Where…” I
breathed, “…where did you get that?”

“Oh, it’s getting
around,” the bartender replied. “Last I’ve heard, it’s really catching on over
here.”

“Over here?”

“Britain. Like I
said, it’s French booze. Potent stuff. Some drunks, they say it makes them see
funny things. Apparitions and the like. Power of the Green Faerie.”

“French booze,” I
sickly repeated. I wanted to vomit. Not out of response of this revelation, but
at my own damnable stupidity. Magic bottle of juice, the old man said. Your
true essence.
My
essence. Some old, leftover booze. This was the great
center of my being, the epitome of my living soul. My purple-fingered magic,
sent awash in the rain.

I dropped my head
down again. French booze. I’d always counted myself a fool, but I had gravely
misjudged to what degree. The world was laughing at its foppish clown now, a
fop not mindlessly sewn to his own fashion and posture but to a nursery poem
without a rhyme scheme. Oh, glorious show, Clown Pocket! You have them rolling
in the aisles!

French booze. I
wanted to vomit.

“You sure you’ve
never had this?” the bartender asked.

“Never known a
drop.”

“Oh. See, I figured
from the spoon…” He reached over and plucked the slotted utensil from my hat.
“Look, I show you how this works,” he said.

With dead eyes, I
watched as he placed the spoon on top of the little glass and dissolved a sugar
cube through it with some water. I was surprised. The emerald hue of the faerie
juice quickly changed to a grand, milky white-green, twisting and swirling like
sea foam in a tempest. I found it momentarily beautiful before I again
remembered.

It was just French
booze. It made no more difference than the perpetual changing of my blue blood
to red. Appearance was all that ever changed.

The bartender
chuckled as I eyed the silly, little glass. He returned my spoon and wiped his
hands on a cloth. “You look like you could use a taste,” he said.

I stared up at
him, blinked, and just nodded. He slid the glass to me and I reached out for
it.

“You do have
money, right?” he asked.

I stopped, frozen,
and then quietly pulled my hand back. I shook my head glumly.

“Ah,” he said, as
my eyes hit the floor. “Pity.”

He took the drink
away. My eyes were still on the floor, watching my shadow stretch into a
foreign shape. How about that, I thought. Even without a cork, I couldn’t even
coax that flavor to my mouth.

I stood up and
chortled. Oh, those fiendish faeries and their cruel flirting game.

“Pity,” I said
jokingly to the bartender. “Damnable pity.”

He frowned and
scratched his neck like he was trying to find the right words of comfort. I
waved his attempts away with my right hand.

“For the best,
anyway,” I said to him as I moved for the door. “I have an appointment to
keep.”

He wished me well
as I left, my left hand pocketed and gingerly patting the loaded pistol I had
found earlier that day. It had been sitting by its lonesome in a cigar box
marked “IN CASE OF INTRUDERS” in the back of the parlor’s office.

Damnable pity, I
thought to myself once more as I walked out the front door for the very last
time. But at least a gun weighs less than a bottle. 

Night.

The address typed
upon the bottom of the telegram sat patiently beyond a long stretch of nothing
far past the air docks. It had to have been sometime well after twelve when I
at last arrived, but I doubted that the one who had sent for me would care.

The place was a
junkyard, with aerial and industrial scrap the size of boulders filling the
landscape. In the distance there sat a giant, overturned black tire, the type
one sees attached to the underside of steamships.

Sitting
crosslegged on that tire was a lone creature. He did not run when I approached
him.

“Hey Kitt,” I
said, quietly and without inflection.

“Hey,” the
cutpurse said, looking down at where I stood. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure.”

He climbed off of
the tire and addressed me face-to-face. “It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah.”

“You came alone?”

“Do you see anyone
else with me?”

“I figured Gren
might—“

“I don’t want to
involve him in this,” I said bluntly.

Even in the low
light, I could see Kitt frown.

“You look like you
want to punch me,” he said.

“Do I?” I dryly
asked.

“Are you going to
punch me?”

I shrugged. “It
won’t solve anything.”

“I’m glad you see
it that—oof!”

I had planted my
fist into Kitt’s stomach. Hard.

“Didn’t solve
anything,” I explained, “but I still wanted to do it.”

He winced and
exhaled. “I guess I deserved that.”

“No, you
deserve
a bullet in the back!” I snapped, losing my calm. “So you’re lucky I’m
nearly as big of a coward as you!”

“
Coward?!?
Whoa,
wait a minute!
Remember, I cut you free in that mill!”

“And why did you,
Kitt? So you could get the turnkey away from me?!? So you could run off again
and leave me empty-handed?!?”

“All right. Just
let me explain myse—”

“Where’s the
Doll?!?”

He looked away
from my eyes and into the dirt. “I don’t know,” he said.

Enraged, I grabbed
the thief by his leather jacket and slammed him against an old pile of engine
parts.

“If you’re fooling
around, you’ve picked the wrong man to test.”

“I swear, Pocket!
She’s gone!”

I leaned it close
and spoke with absolute certainty. “Then you are a corpse.”

Kitt struggled
against the hold, popped an elbow to my chin, and drove his wrench at me. I
dodged, but as my head swung back around, he released the tool’s hidden blade
and put it to my throat. I froze, hands still sunk like claws into his skin.

“Pocket!” Kitt
gasped, catching his breath. “I need your help! Listen to me!”

“Why should I? Why
should I believe a word you roll off of that lying tongue?”

“Because if you
don’t, we’ll be in more trouble than you know!”

“Fine by me!
What’s a little more heat when you’re squatting in the center of Hell?”

“You don’t want
this. It’s—”

“What I don’t
want,
thief,
is anything to do with you!
Ever
again! You hear
me?”

“I’m trying to
help you!”

“If you really
wanted to help me, you’d push that blade an inch further until you saw a little
color.”

Kitt stopped for a
moment and just looked me over.

“You…you don’t
mean that.”

I shook my head in
contempt. “I don’t know what I mean anymore.”

To my surprise,
Kitt retracted his knifepoint, pushed me off of him, and took a few steps away.

“Pocket,” he said
gently, “if you don’t help me now, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

I tasted the
night’s air. It was sour as death. “I’ll risk it,” I said between rotten
breaths.

 “Would you
risk Dolly?”

I began to grind
my teeth at him. “What’s left to risk? You told me that you don’t even know
where she is!”

“That’s right,”
Kitt said, “but I know where she’s running to.”

“Running to?!?” I
nearly gasped. “You…you mean she’s awake again?”

“Of course! Why do
you think I came back for the turnkey?”

I suppressed a
pang of jealousy at the thought of another set of hands turning the platinum
key into the soft hole that was carved into her. It was a stronger pang than I
had expected.

“So she’s awake,”
I said, mostly to myself.

“Is she ever,”
Kitt grumbled.

I couldn’t help
but make a sad smile at the implication of those words.

“She beat the pulp
out of you, didn’t she?”

I saw Kitt
shudder. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “But yes, she was less than
pleased. Started screaming and ran away. Twice. The first time she took off, I
eventually caught her. The second, well…here we are.”

I turned my back
around and looked at the shadows of all the rusty debris that surrounded me
like some strange, new Stonehenge. I pulled a thin rod of bent metal, about the
size of the turnkey, and spun it slowly in my hand. So she was at last up, at
last out of her dreams. I thought about her face and ran the tip of the metal
through the dirt. Out of her dreams.

But would she be
out of mine?

I glanced at the
dark ground and realized that I had, without thinking, scribbled a lumpy heart
into the earth. Hardly original tattooing.

“Fine,” I coarsely
stated. “Start explaining. Now.”

And Kitt, without
excuse or apology, confessed the events that had led to this grim, little
reunion. So let’s rewind the clocks momentarily back to the
Lucidia,
and
begin on that sleepy morning when Dolly lay peacefully asleep in her chamber.

The morning I was
meant to wake her.

“I was angry,”
Kitt admitted. “Frustrated. Fed up. After watching the Doll get nearly split in
half, after seeing all of those bits pour out of her, I lost it.”

“I know,” I cut
in, icily. “If memory serves, I believe you told me to ‘grow a pair.’”

“That’s right,”
Kitt continued. “What you don’t know, Pocket, is that when night came, I was
there.”

“Beg pardon?”

“In the shadows. I
was eavesdropping on you two. You know, when you were on the deck.”

My face flushed at
the thought of Kitt’s peering eyes in the dark as I held and embraced the Doll
by that stretch of oily water.

“I see,” was all I
said.

“When I heard what
she confessed, I mean, that she was going to, um, fall asleep, you know, I sort
of fell into a panic and saw it as an opportunity.”

“An
opportunity?
”
I echoed, all poison and vinegar and formaldehyde. “To do
what?
Steal
her away, without her consent, and fly her off to God knows where?”

“I thought I would
be protecting her by, I don’t know, taking a stand and moving her away from all
of that danger. It’s was a stupid thought, I know.”

“Stupid?!?
Stupid,
Kitt?!? No, no! Running off with my bottle and casting it through a window,
that
was stupid! Breaking into a watch shop in the dead of night,
stealing electric carriages,
those
were acts of stupidity! Taking the
Doll off of that ship was something far beyond, something so unspeakable that I
don’t think there’s even been a word created for it! I mean, for Christ’s sake,
Kitt!”

“I get it.”

“How did you even
manage to get her away? She was dead weight,
mechanical
,
dead
weight, sitting floors above the docking bay!”

“Trust me,” Kitt
breathed. “I know. I had to carry, well, carry and drag her.”

“Not to mention
the fact that the Priest’s shuttle was completely submerged!”

“Oh, I’m aware of
that too. Had to take a nasty little swim to get to it, and even then a lot of
sludge leaked into the cabin. Tried my best to clean it out, by the way. But
that swim was awful. I pushed and kicked and tried not to gag and eventually
inched it up the slope just enough to get the shuttle’s roof hatch above the
surface. Oh, and as if
getting
to the shuttle wasn’t difficult enough, then
I had to put Dolly inside and get through an inky-black voyage, literally
driving blind—”

“You...flew that
machine…
through
the oil?!? Underwater?!?”

“Didn’t really
have another choice, Pocket. And the landing ramp had cracked open in the
crash, so I could just barely guide us through.”

“Good God! It’s
not a submarine! You could’ve filled quick with seawater or gotten crushed
under the pressure!”

“It was a bit
stressful, I know, but—”

“Not pressure as
in
stress,
you moronic sap!” I shouted. “Pressure as in the
weight
of
an ocean
crushing
down upon you! You could’ve ended up dead!” A
murderous bit of blood popped into the corner of my eye. “The Doll could’ve
ended up—”

“Well, we didn’t!”
Kitt said. “We survived
just
fine! All according to plan!”

I scoffed.
“Plan?!? What
plan?!?
” He didn’t respond, so I carried on. “No, please!
Enlighten me! Apart from stealing a girl and flying beneath the North Sea, what
else did this magnificent plan of yours entail?”

“It’s not
important anymore. I abandoned it.”

“Yeah, you’re good
at that.”

“But I
had
thought something out, I swear! And it would’ve kept her safe. I just changed
my mind, is all. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Oh, come now!” I
laughed, cackling mad. Sanity was in short supply that night. “Come now, fox!
I’ve had quite enough of your acrobatic tongue. I want to know. What brilliant
strategy could you have possibly created?”

“Not important.”

“Not important
because it never existed! Look around us! The whole bloody world’s crawling
around with their big noses, trying to sniff out the Watchmaker’s Doll! The
only conceivable way you could’ve kept her from being hunted would be to…”

I stopped and I
stared. I stared hard at Kitt as I finally got the idea. He just hunched his
shoulders and kept looking away. The words solidified in my throat, and I
became, in that moment, a mute.

“Go on,” Kitt
finally whispered. “Say it.”

The sounds
absolutely slithered from my mouth. “You were going to give her to the King.”

“Yes,” Kitt said.
“I was.”

My heart fell out
of my flesh and tumbled down into some lost hole in Creation that I couldn’t
feel, which was unfortunate, because I would’ve loved in that moment to have
had strength enough to strike at Kitt again.

“Why?” I simply
asked.

“I wanted her
safe,” he replied. “I figured, better seized than torn to pieces, right?”

“Better?” I
growled. “You thought she’d be
better
in those hands?!? Kitt, the first
time we met those Motorists they tried to take her apart right in the street!
You think the men who hired them would do any better?!?”

“I don’t know.
Maybe, maybe not. I would’ve risked my own capture too.”

“Sure. You’re
practically a saint.”

“I was…just
tired…of the chase.”

“We were all tired
of it,” I said, “But not all of us were willing to sacrifice Dolly for our own
survival. Go to Hell, Sunner.”

“I changed my
mind, didn’t I?” he protested. “Changed my mind and brought her back to life!”

“And then she ran
away. If you ask me, she had good reason.”

“Look, are you
going to help me or not?” Kitt asked. “I don’t want to waste any more time here
arguing!”

I thought it over.
Of course, I wanted more than anything to find the Doll, to clutch her and feel
the soft of her skin. But that didn’t mean I trusted Kitt’s story or
intentions. For all I knew, he could’ve been trying to feed me one more con.

“Why do you need
me?” I questioned.

“I figured you’d
have better luck coaxing her back than I would. Dolly and I weren’t exactly on
friendly terms when she left.”

“Then why do I
need you?”

“Because I can
take you where you’ll need to be. Where you’ll have the best chance of catching
her.”

I put down the
bent rod, that makeshift turnkey I was still holding, and saw that it had left
a ruddy, bloodlike stain of rust across my palms. Eh, I thought. It made a poor
replacement anyhow.

“Answer one last
thing, Kitt,” I said, “to my face.”

“All right,” he
said, moving to match my eyes.

“Why did you
change your mind about turning in the Doll?”

He crossed his
arms. “Because I read it too, Pocket.”

I blinked. “I
don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do. You
found it and took it from the bar.”

“You’re…you’re
talking about the diary.”

“That’s right.
When I took the Doll off of the
Lucidia
she was dressed in a borrowed
gown, remember? So after I got her folded up into the shuttle I went back for
her clothing. Found those papers tucked into a hidden pocket in the back of her
apron. If they’d be sitting an inch higher, they’d have been made into confetti
by that hook that pierced her.”

“So you read
them?” I accused.

“Not at first! In
fact, I hardly wanted to touch them once I saw the title on the front page!”

“Because you
realized you couldn’t sell them for anything?”

“Because they were
Dolly’s personal thoughts! I’m not inhuman!”

“But you
did
read
them!” I spat.

“So did you!”

I didn’t have an
argument for that.

“Yes,” Kitt continued,
“curiosity eventually got the better of me and I peeked. But I’m glad I did.
The way her father fought to hide her from the Crown, it got to me. Sincerely,
it did. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to hand her over.”

The Doll’s father.
I tried to imagine how urgent and fearful the old man’s eyes must’ve looked as
he buried his daughter away.