Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (83 page)

“Eddie,” I said,
“are you up for this?”

The brawler puffed
out his chest. “You kidding? I was getting bored just lying around here like a
corpse. Just don’t lose your calm and take off again, all right?”

I frowned. “Yeah,
uh, I’m sorry about that. No more running away.”

“Right,” I heard
Gren whisper to the dirt, mockingly.

I glared at him
but said nothing, as a part of me completely understood the resentment he
must’ve felt, and instead addressed the Priest.

“Captain,” I said,
“how are you stocked for weapons?”

“Just this, I’m
afraid,” he replied, patting his repeating rifle. “You want it?”

“No, you keep it.
I’d just blow my foot off.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

Gren snorted in
annoyance and dropped to a knee. Lifting a pant-cuff, he removed a small pistol
strapped to his ankle and tossed it at me.

“Thanks,” I said,
pocketing it. Gren just snorted again.

“You blokes be
careful, all right?” Hack-Jack smiled, all full of teeth.

“Careful’s
boring,” Eddie teased, cracking his knuckles. The sound felt like concentrated
thunder in my ears.

“Well then, we’re
off,” I said to the group, my eyes thin slits. “Good luck, everyone.”

The two teams
parted. Eddie jogged enthusiastically to the electric carriage and I began to
follow.

“So you’ve
collected a lot of blood, huh?” came a voice from behind.

I turned and faced
Gren, his arms crossed and his face angry as ever.

“Yeah,” I said to
him, matching his bold tone, “I have.”

“Got hurt?”

“Not sure. I don’t
think any of this blood’s mine.”

A short laugh
escaped him, and he shook his head at me. “Only you, Pocket.”

I smiled a little.
“I hope so,” I responded. “I don’t think this world could sustain another.”

“Yeah,” Gren
muttered.

“I’m sorry,” I
then said. I wanted to explain myself, my reasons, but I just didn’t have the
enthusiasm.

“It’s fine…I
guess,” Gren surprised me by saying, “but it was still stupid as hell, all
right?”

“All right, Gren.”

“Stupid, moronic,
completely empty-headed thinking!”

“All right, all
right!”

 “But,” Gren
said, turning his face away again, “I guess if I was after a good woman…I’d be
doing completely stupid things too.”

I nodded.
“Thanks.”

He shrugged.

“You know what?”
he grumbled. “I was planning on kicking you in the shins or something when I
saw you again.”

“Now’s a good
time. I’ve lost my fancy boots.”

“Hmph…don’t really
feel like it now. Mood spoiler.”

It was my turn to
roll my eyes off. “Sorry to rob you of your precious anger, Gren.”

“Shut up, Pocket.”

“Hey!” Eddie
shouted from the electric carriage, almost bouncing behind the steering wheel
like a child. “If you ladies are almost finished, we’re kinda losing time
here!”

We came to our
senses and hurried onward. I hopped into the backseat behind Eddie.

“Oh, wait a
second!” Gren said, doubling back to a pile of supplies. He retrieved his
half-trusty Half-Luck and…something else…

It was a roundish
shape wrapped in a sack. Gren started swinging it in his hand like Jack had
done with…oh.

“Take this,” he
said, tossing the round weight onto my lap. It was heavy.

“Good
bludgeoning,” I muttered to myself, tapping against the rough cloth.

“Tally-ho,
gentlemen!” Eddie shouted.

We carried on
through night’s meager remainder.

We were nearly
back to the cathedral when Eddie noticed a hunched Magnate kneeling on high
behind a chimney. He was pointing something at us.

“A sniper!” Eddie
barked, bucking the carriage about. “Get your heads down!”

“I’ve got ‘im,”
Gren said, already prepping his rifle. The thing whined with electricity as the
Tesla coils heated up.

“Gren, think about
this!” I said, ducking down as much as possible. “The last time I saw you use
that thing—”

“I’m aware!” he
responded, gritting his teeth.

Eddie did his best
to make us a difficult shot, zigzagging on and off of the street, and bouncing
us off of sidewalks. A few attempted kill shots sparked off of our tires and we
slid, but I held onto the careening metal of the car. I glanced up and saw the
dual bulbs screwed into Gren’s rifle light up with a terrible glow, and a
half-moment later, its wielder squeezed the trigger.

Crack!

I winced, sure
that we’d all be sent up in flames by the damn thing. Instead, the sniper flew
backward from his post, more glorious red shooting up into the sky.

“Fireworks,” Eddie
giggled.

I stared at Gren
in complete astonishment. He looked back at me and smiled at his smoking toy.

“What did I tell
ya?” he smugly asked.

I exhaled and
lifted my head slowly up. The wind slapped my face. “Nice shot,” I said.

We slowly slid to
a halt. Eddie swore and punched the wheel.

“What’s wrong?”
Gren asked.

“Bastard hit a
wheel,” Eddie said, getting out to look. “It’s pretty ripped up.”

“Can we drive on
it?”

“You think I
would’ve stopped if we could?”

“Damn it!” Gren
said, dropping his head on the dashboard with a thud. “That sniper was bound to
have friends nearby.”

“You mean like
those
?”
I sickly spoke.

Eddie and Gren
looked forward to find what I had already seen: a standing line of five of His
Majesty’s best, armed to the teeth, the fingernails, to the hairs that grew
from the back of their thick, calloused necks. Their guns seemed natural
extensions of their gloved hands.

And their hands
were aiming at us.

“Oh, good,” Gren
muttered.

They started
walking toward us. Eddie threw up his hands in surrender, slowly moved to my
side, and whispered, “Close your eyes.”

“Why?” I asked.
“Just do it. Don’t make a sound or move an inch. Before they see your face.”

There wasn’t time
to argue, so I did as told, slumping over in the backseat like a dead…ah.

I began to see
where Eddie was going with this.

I heard one of the
men walk forward from the line. He must’ve been standing pretty close.

“Weapons,” he
commanded. “If you have them, throw them down.”

“Sure thing,”
Eddie said. “You don’t have to yell, my friend.”

“Now!”

I heard the clank
of metal on brick.

“Your names!” the
approaching man commanded.

Eddie chuckled.
“They’re whatever you want them to be, sweetheart.”

I heard a sharp
crack. Eddie spat and resumed giggling.

“That supposed to
hurt, cupcake? I’ve had bad shaves that stung worse than that.”

“Ignore him, sir,”
another voice spoke from a distance. “This is clearly Gearhead and Spader.”

One of them
snorted.

“Gearhead,” the
lead gunman spoke. “Such a ridiculous pseudonym.”

“Thanks,” Eddie
replied.

“And…Spader? Yes,
of course, you must be, covered in all of that tin. How about that for
criminals, men? One with a fake name, the other with a fake skin.”

“Bugger off,” Gren
spat.

“Foul,” the
Magnate declared. “To be expected.”

There was another
sharp crack. Gren groaned.

“Now,” the
interrogating Magnate continued, “the two of you must know of the charges on
your heads, yes? So I am going to be very clear and very direct about this.
Where is the seized property?”

“The seized what?”
Eddie asked.

“The machine.”

“No idea,” Gren
said.

“Never heard of
any seized machine,” Eddie casually replied. “How ‘bout you, Gren?”

“Nope.”

I heard the
Magnate sigh. “Let me put it another way.”

The line of rifles
simultaneously cocked.

“We’re telling you
the truth, damn it!” Gren growled.

“Are you?” the
Magnate mocked. “And I suppose you can’t tell me where I can find Will Pocket
either?”

“Well—“

“You want Pocket?”
Eddie cut in. “Sure, we can give you Pocket. But I don’t think you’re gunna
want him, unless you enjoy a good smell of rot.”

“What?” the
soldier responded.

“That’s right.
He’s dead. Your mate on the roof already saw to that.”

“Liar.”

“If you don’t
believe me, check for yourself. The body’s still warm.”

There was a very
uncomfortable silence, and I heard the heavy dragging of boot steps come
closer. I willed myself to stay as limp and still as I could manage. I could
hear the man’s air blow out of his nostrils.

“Messy,” the
Magnate whispered to himself before again addressing Eddie and Gren. “When did
this happen?”

“Just
now,” Gren said. “You must’ve heard the gunfire.”

“You
two seem awfully unaffected by his passing.”

“So?”

“Hmph,”
the Magnate again snorted. “No love amongst the damned, eh?”

I waited for
something else to happen. There was an ugly quiet that just wouldn’t remove
itself from the scene. I guessed that the soldier was considering his next
move. I heard him walk away from me.

“All right,” the
man said. “Kill them.”

My eyes cracked
just barely open, betraying my tableau. A line of death readied their aim.

“Whoa! Wait!” Gren
exclaimed. “We told you! We don't know where she is!”

The commanding
Magnate quickly stiffened. “Hold your fire!” he directed.

The line,
surprised by this unexpected turn, hesitated a moment before lowering their
guns. The man who gave the order moved within spitting distance of Gren, which
is something I'd never recommend.

“What was that,
Spader?” he questioned.

Gren stood his
ground. “I said—if you'll pull the wax out of your ears—that we don't know
where she is.”

And then the Magnate
pulled across his face the thinnest, most mechanical little smile I've ever
noticed. It was so diabolical that a man feigning death could spot it from
behind a pair of slit eyelids. And even more unsettling was the little chortle
that followed.

“Something funny?”
Gren challenged.

“You say you have
no knowledge of the stolen property,” the Magnate spoke. “Then how do you know
it looks like a 'she?'”

Neither Gren nor
Eddie said anything to this, which only spread the fire.

“I see,” the
Magnate said. “Sergeant.”

Another stepped
forward from the ranks. “Sir?” he responded.

“Bring me what we
found tonight.”

“Yes, sir!” the
subordinate said, hurrying away.

The commander
paced a slow circle around Eddie and Gren, slowly studying them.

“Are you both
quite certain that you wouldn’t like to tell me anything else?”

This time it was
Eddie who snorted. A less than affectionate homage. “Sweetheart, you can ask
the question as many times as you want,” he said. “You’re gunna hear the same
thing, but keep on asking.”

I could hear the
sergeant returning, and at the sound, the commander crossed his arms.

“Oh, I’m done
asking, boy,” he said.

The sergeant broke
forward through the line of gunmen, ushering two people, a woman and a child,
both blindfolded and gagged.

No…

God, no.

Eddie turned three
shades of fire and nearly rushed the sergeant, but the commander caught him
under the chin with his barrel.

I didn’t have to
get a good look at the prisoners to know they were Alexia and Iago.

The sergeant
roughly removed their binds, and I quickly shut my eyes again to prevent them
from blowing my act.

Or maybe I was
just scared.

“You let them go!”
Eddie screamed. “And you do it now!”

I heard the scrape
of metal and heels. I heard Alexia cry and beg and whimper. I heard Iago try to
comfort her. I heard Eddie scream and Gren curse them all to a thousand
eternities of vividly-detailed tortures. I continued to lie there and do
nothing.

That was to be
my
torture.

“Please,” Alexia
pleaded, “don’t do this.”

“You now have a
decision to make,” the Magnate said to Gren and Eddie, “and I suggest you make
it carefully.”
“Kill us!” Eddie bellowed. “Go ahead and shoot us dead! Do what you want, just
let them go!”

“You heard him!”
Gren exclaimed.

“Those aren’t the
options,” the man replied. “If you want them to walk away from this, you need
to tell me where I can find the machine, and you need to tell me now.”

“Don’t tell them
anything!” Alexia shouted.

“I’m warning you,”
Eddie boiled. “If you don’t take your bleedin’ hands off of them right now, I
am going to shove those goddamned rifles down your goddamned throats!”

“This is your last
opportunity,” the commander said.

“Go to Hell!” Gren
screamed.

“I believe the
adage, Mister Spader, goes ‘women and children, first.’”

“These…” Iago
sadly said, “…these are the bad guys…We aren’t supposed to lose to the bad
guys…”

“Please be quiet
now, Iago,” Alexia said, her voice shaky and weak. “Everything’s going to be
fine.”

“You shouldn’t lie
to children,” the Magnate coldly said.

“Go and die!” Gren
screamed.

“'Fine’ is a
matter of opinion, anyway. I was served a meat pie last evening. I considered
it a pleasant meal, but to the cow—“

“You’re a dead
man!” Eddie shouted. “A corpse where you stand!”

“Oh, I think you
forget which side of the gun you’re on, bloke. If you’re so keen on death, keep
flapping your lips and I’ll put you in a pile with your friend Pocket.”

Alexia shrieked,
and I assumed that this was when she first noticed my bloody body slumped
inside of the carriage.

“Mister Pocket!”
the tea lady screamed.