Captain Albion Clemens and The Future that Never Was: A Steampunk Novel! (Lands Beyond Book 1) Page 2

  A dim moon lit just enough of the road, and a gentle sloshing came from the water nearby.

  Though Blair hastened us out of the bar, I now took the lead with long strides, trying my best to look like I knew where I was going.

  Our barmaid stayed behind, intelligently leaning between window and door should either emit a defeated inebriate. She waved a cheerful goodbye as she disappeared behind us; now it was only the two of us old dogs, as my Imperial Cantonese brethren would put it.

  “Well now, I suggest you get on with the nature of the help you would like, Mister Blair,” I said casually as we passed the sturdy brick and plaster of Portsmouth’s dockside dwellings.

  “I would have thought it obvious,” he answered, “You are an air pirate. Ergo, you possess a ship. I should like passage on said ship, anywhere out of Portsmouth. All the dock’s men were told not to let me through.”

  “Why would Clive and Staples pay them off to keep a writer from leaving town? I thought you were working for them.”

  “Ah, I should have been clearer. The local constabulary has me pegged for this very reason. The Lewis brothers have tainted me with their brand of devilry, I’m afraid.”

  We turned now, into a darker alley.

  “And have you committed any crime?” I asked, not really expecting a reliable answer.

  “I witnessed a murder, and was seen in the brothers’ company. For the locals, it is enough,” Blair said without malice.

  Fog was now blanketing the street, but I knew where the mooring towers would have been, looming over the town like abyssal giants risen from the sea.

  Dim stars glowed through the fog, the only trace of gaslight marking a low line of quiet seaside buildings.

  Of course, the Lewis brothers were waiting for us just around the corner, perfectly at home perched atop some coal pallets.

  The shorter, bulldog one, Clives, was shuffling his feet, while the taller Doberman Staples was rolling a crucifix-emblazoned cane between his fingers. As soon as we emerged out of the fog, the brothers closed the trap on either side of us, effectively pinning us in with a matching pair of knives.

  “Thought you could get away from us, huh, old chum? No stomach for butcher’s work?” Staples leered.

  “Maybe he knew all along, steered us a fat mark,” Clives chimed in.

  “I’ll take the tall one,” I whispered to Blair, even as the cutthroats circled us. “If you can get Clives.”

  “With what? I left my derringer in the pub,” Blair whispered back, clearly panicked. He would have made a terrible cutthroat. We had no time for planning, anyway. The Lewis brothers rushed at us.

  Mist flew by, cold and sharp. Sensations of an elm grip firmly weighted my palm, the hammer cocking with practiced speed. A solid kick announced the trigger going, but the snap was lost in an instant, muffled against the mist. Gunsmoke washed out the sweet flavor of apple still clinging to my lips, a scent further diluted by a memory of clear skies, drawling accents, and fragrant wafts of cigar leaf. When was the last time I had fired Victoria and thought of Captain Samuel?

  With a sound like a rotted, downed log, Staples crumpled at my feet, but I was no longer looking.

  My feet whirled around, knowing the other brother was assaulting Elric.

  I shouldn’t have bothered. A metallic thud sounded in the misty street, and suddenly Clives had joined his brother, a massive welt rising atop his grizzled head.

  “My, you boys are up to no good,” our blonde barmaid remarked, a heavy tea kettle in her right hand. Blair lay crumpled a most undignified pile, attempting to untangle himself from Clives.

  “How did you…” Not sure if Blair or I were responsible for the gaping.

  “The same way they did- through the back door,” the maid answered. After the initial rush, she turned to look at the prone figures sprawled on the cobbles. Was that shock, or disgust? “Shite, I do believe we’ve committed murder.”

  “They’ll live. Staples might lose a couple feet of intestine,” I answered. “But it’s probably safer to leave right away.”

  “Agreed,” my newfound companion said. Crikey, what had I done to deserve them? A violently assertive barmaid and a useless writer, both of who knew my identity, now looked to me for guidance. It would probably be best for them to hide out in my ship, never mind what the morrow would bring.

  Swiftly, the three of us dashed along the streets of Portsmouth, grand old manors and redbrick dwellings giving way to the trace italien of Southsea Castle.

  The glow of the castle’s lighthouse beam came through as a giant column of dimly lit mist over our heads. From above, the false moon would be one of three bounding the edge of the city from the wild ocean. Their light served to guide our way now, glinting off the rails set into the stone street. At the docks further north, these rails came together in a spider’s web of tracks, delivering the bounty of the British Empire throughout the homeland from the holds of hundreds of dirigibles.

  “I say, aren’t we headed away from the mooring towers?” Blair called.

  “You said it yourself, the dock’s men are all alerted to your presence. Besides, there’s a damned Naval base that way.”

  We headed down South Parade, making for the pier. In the darkness, the restaurant and shops looked quiet and sad. We made our way along the promenade, suddenly amongst the nickelodeons, deserted fairy floss stands and midget-dirigible rides of the funfair.

  “Having a go at us, Marauder? These tiny boats won’t even hold one of me,” our barmaid said, tapping at one of the children’s seats bolted to a guide rail.

  “They certainly won’t,” I commented, failing to resist the urge to leer at her ample assets.

  “Cad!” she answered with the uncanny observation of her gender. It is a language I have never mastered.

  “Never mind those. Come, come,” I gestured.

  Past the charming carousel full of gilt horses and carriages, and the calliope with its silent, sentinel pipes, I led my little band toward the small Ferris’ Wheel, perched at the very edge of the pier.

  Part of me regretted giving up such a good hiding place, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  At the very bottom of the Wheel, there was an iron ring set in the floor. Lifting this up resulted in two very satisfying gasps of surprise, for underneath was a platform leading to a dirigible’s gondola.

  “Who would have thought the big, bad Scourge of Shanghai would own such a tiny pirate ship?” Elric Blair remarked. “I suppose you’ll have to cling to the mast after yielding the cabin to the lady.”

  “Pirates don’t have to follow etiquette,” I answered, sedately stoking up the modest boiler. With a pop and a sparkle, the embers came to life.

  “And the balloon? Ah, there we are,” Blair continued. “Disguised as a child’s flying elephant, how quaint.”

  “How absolutely adorable. To think, the Bandit of Budapest dropping out of the sky under a giant pink elephant,” our maid remarked.

  As a matter of fact, I had a standing deal with the funfair owner, a rather pleasant Mrs. Bakersfield. The appearance of Jumbo the Pink Elephant had become something of a local mystery, attracting more than its share of curious fair goers. I am sure more than a few disobedient children staying up that night in the South of England would have a new chapter to add to Jumbo’s legend- the sight of him floating up in the clouds, towing what appeared to be a sailing boat under him, ought to bring a neat conclusion to his story.

  I am sorry to say, Jumbo would probably not be making an appearance much longer, owing to her new guests.

  In but a few moments, we were on our merry way, all of Portsmouth spread under us. Southsea Castle and Portsea Island reclined beneath us; we could see as far as Portsdown Hill over the fog.

  “This is a load off my mind, Captain Shaw,” Blair said gratefully. “I will be most glad when this ginger hair grows out and I am free of this guise completely.”

  “You are most welcome, Mister Blair. Now then,”
I said casually. “If all is in order, I believe I should like for you to tell me what you are doing on my ship, my dear Inspector.”

  Turning, I was not surprised to find myself face-to-face with the level, steady barrel of a .22 Tranter pistol, held in the hands of the beautiful blonde barmaid.

  2: London

  Inspector Vanessa Hargreaves looked out over the gaping hole in the sky where Big Ben used to tick away over the streets of Westminster. Grey and coal silhouettes filled in the spaces where his calm white face and widow’s peak used to be. It was very nearly enough to distract her from the gaping crater directly beneath. Nearly, except for the cries of people being freed from the rubble and the whistle of steam engines under loads of heavy debris.

  “By Queen and Country, what in the blazes happened?” Hargreaves voiced aloud, not daring to actually ask the busy rescue workers all about. It was tempting to leap in and help, but the Inspector was quintessentially British; she had a role to play, and diving in the rubble was not it.

  “Quite outdoes anything Guy Fawkes might have plotted, no?” an annoyingly familiar, disturbingly high-pitched male voice tore across the crater. Vanessa turned, sighing massively into her ample bosom. She suddenly needed a strong cup of tea, preferably the Irish stuff, thick enough to hold a couple fingers of whiskey in.

  “Yes Arturo, you insistent hack. What do you have for me?” Hargreaves said to the shocking vermillion horror approaching. Her hooded cloak and ashen dress clashed with this young man’s perfectly coiffed hair, bouncing over the broken foundations and dribbling pipes.

  “That is no way to speak to a fellow detective,” accused Arturo C. Adler, amateur investigator. One could always count on his rainbow-speckled do popping up whenever there was an incident in London ton.

  One could also count on his knowing every detail of the case in an alarmingly short time.

  “I am a detective. You are a nosy busybody with far too much time on your hands,” Hargreaves assaulted the dapper fellow. If it were not for the ridiculous magnifying glass, he could have been mistaken for a cheese-headed toff.

  “Our pillow talk never ceases to amuse,” Adler jeered amiably. “Let us to the matter at hand. This case is certainly more interesting than some truncheon-bearing troll.”

  “Will you stop putting my face in that plate of treacle? I thanked you properly for your help in the Blackfriar Bludgeoner case.”

  “But not with what I was promised. I did so want to meet the Queen,” finished Adler with a theatrical longing. Hargreaves wanted to strike him.

  Not only was Hargreaves an Inspector of Scotland Yard, she was also the secret confidant of Queen Victoria III, Matriarch of the British Commonwealth, Empress of India, Bastion of the Lands Beyond, titles, etc. If Adler ever got to the Queen through Hargreaves, he might very well end up ruling the country. Thankfully, the fellow seemed satisfied with the odd tease of a tea date.

  “What have we here?” Hargreaves diverted instead, pointedly ignoring offenses taken. She knew Adler could never resist a mystery, or a chance to be inappropriately witty. Proper genius never could.

  “At least they didn’t take the Tower,” Adler began, swallowing hook, line and sinker, “Think how the ravens would have fared. Instead, the entirety of Westminster seems to have up and vanished, inconveniencing a much inferior species of congress.”

  “A couple blocks square does not an entirety make,” Hargreaves griped on the technicality. Although, she must admit, most of it was gone, including the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey.

  Interrupted skyline loomed like an open wound overhead, bleeding odd dribbles of wet mist. Who could have done this? More importantly, with what instrument? Buildings did not simply disappear overnight in a flash of thunder, certainly not some of the most well guarded buildings in all of Britain. Someone would pay for injuring her beloved England in so ghastly a manner.

  Whatever else Arturo could be faulted with, his craft of detection was indeed top notch. Also, he always smelled a little like honey. At the moment, he was bent into a spectacular spray of velvet and lace, at the rim of the crater. Even the way he recovered evidence was flamboyant, scattering dirt and soot with a magician’s flourish- downwind of his clothes, of course.

  “What do you see?” Arturo asked, bemused and businesslike.

  “I see fired brick and soot dust; a hot shovel, perhaps?” Hargreaves was no dullard; she knew very well no engine in existence could produce such an effect. She had learned very long ago to play to Arturo’s intellectual vanity.

  “It is not only soot, but blackened glass- a very precise line of it.”

  “No shovel could have done this,” said Hargreaves. She saw how the line of glass was very particular, occurring only in a perimeter round the outermost edges of the crater.

  “It takes a very high heat indeed to melt the wet clay and sand of the Thames into pottery and glass. Steam is not capable; an arc of plasma, perhaps? Or of ether?” Arturo remarked as he paced the rim.

  “No explosive, certainly. There is no shrapnel, nor enough debris to constitute the whole.”

  Odd- if one wished to destroy a symbol of Britain such as Westminster, a well-placed bomb might have done the job more spectacularly, eliminating it from psyche as well as address.

  Hargreaves could see a pair of other Inspectors round the other side of the crater, scattered amongst the Army and Navy men. It would not do for them to see her putting her fork in their pudding, so to speak. Her status as one of few female Inspectors in the Service was insult enough to some, but the worst to happen would be the discovery of Hargreaves as the catspaw of Victoria III. She would become useless to the Queen.

  Hargreaves began to stride, casually, in the opposite direction. Here, a steady cascade of the Thames was still falling into the vast crater, and the footing was difficult even for her sturdy, familiar boots. Her dress had been cut in a very cunning manner, simultaneously at the height of English modesty while affording her a remarkable range of motion. Besides the convenient hood covering the red gold of her hair, there were several hidden pockets, and a gun holster for her .22 Tranter. It’s weight, and the tiny derringer in her boot, were old friends.

  “Note how the edges are cut precisely round key portions of the foundation,” said Arturo.

  “It appears our villain desired to keep these landmarks whole, and even aesthetically complete,”

  “I remember Richard Lionheart being right there,” Hargreaves observed as she picked her way round, looking for all the world like a passerby trailing a violently exploding box of lace.

  “Such a thing would have been impossible for conventional tools,” Adler remarked.

  “If we are to presume such a ludicrous thing as the theft of architecture, the deed could only have been done from above. We live in an age of wonders, certainly, but to do such a thing is the realm of the gods, titans, giants. A burning finger, perhaps.”

  “Maybe not so high as that,” mused Hargreaves. Her leonine profile angled upward, towards the bloated, floating shapes circling a perimeter of the area. “An airship might have done it.”

  “I grant you the bird’s eye view, but one so powerful must also be quite vast. It would not have escaped notice.”

  Hargreaves sighted along the perimeter. The airships stood out as black specks against the chalk sky. Some of them were curious gentry, others hired by periodicals and gonzo to take photograms from on high. The few legitimate authority were proper Royal Navy ships, dark with armor plate. Amongst the darting minnows trawled two vast, angled whales- the pride of the Commonwealth, each one a drifting cathedral easily several times the breadth of the Abbey. Resplendent with lion and unicorn decorations, the Knights of the Round were always impressive, eclipsing other Balaenopteron-class easily with their liveried majesty.

  Hargreaves could not imagine even such a ship carrying off a piece of London for its own. Besides, only seven Knights existed, most of them tasked with defending the far reaches of the Empire. All seven t
ogether could have done it, perhaps, but as Hargreaves had only the previous evening dined with Captain Leeds of the Gwain, she doubted such a coup d’etat possible. The Leeds’ chef produced a wonderfully timed beef Wellington, unfit for the lips of anarchists.

  “I have a few good leads,” Adler mentioned finally, offhandedly, as if Hargreaves would not have pounced upon his neck and torn the information from his throat otherwise. The infuriating man! Hargreaves did not fall for the ploy, choosing to wait him out; in a moment, she was rewarded with clues freely given. “Witnesses saw a ship flying Moroccan colors; impossible, of course, with the embargo still in effect. Likely a pirate vessel. Others along the Thames report men with, quote, ‘picture house’ accents in the area. Several of them mentioned the terrible cold this year.”

  “Puts them in Oxford. Thank you Arturo, I’ll likely not get any better.”

  “I exist to serve,” sang Adler. His facetious expression soon faded into a gathering crowd. There were plenty of characters coming round, and Arturo C. Adler was a master of disguise.

  A fogged-over Oxford sunset found Inspector Hargreaves before the grounds of one of innumerable, stately buildings of the historic city.

  This one in particular was fairly nondescript, one of the many dreaming spires in a late Gothic style, and as proudly inhospitable to steam carriages as any of its brothers. It would have camouflaged itself into the beauty of Oxford, had it not been missing the entirety of its southern face. Blue tarpaulin covered up this blasphemy against architecture, and the damp danced with char and rotted mulch.

  “It might be overzealous of me, but it appears Arturo’s clue is paying dividends,” Hargreaves murmured in the sleepy, narrow street. She recognized the coppery smell of melted glass- it was the same as Westminster. Beneath the tarpaulin, a cursory examination revealed similar burn marks. Hargreaves ruminated. Time to avail herself of the local fauna; what would the birdies be whispering?

  The closest pub she could find was a classy professors’ haunt packed with leather-bound volumes in brandy-scented walls. No catcalls here, but the concealed leering of twenty tweed-suited pairs of eyes followed her into the embrace of a Chesterfield chair. She had not come in full undercover; her combination of full-figured corset beneath a navy travel dress revealed only a suggestion of ankle. Nevertheless, the golden bun dribbling tresses over her statuesque neck was sufficient to bedazzle the inhabitants; her curving bottom had scarcely begun to warm the excellent leather before her first drink arrived.