A Hunt By Moonlight (Werewolves and Gaslight Book 1) (32 page)

“We have a lead on where the killer might have Miss Chatham,” Jones said. “Miss Foster is loaning me the horseless carriage, but I could use someone at my back. And if Miss Chatham isn’t there, I’ll need your special search abilities. Will you come?”

Richard gave a sharp affirmative bark. Whatever was going on with Winchell would have to wait. It would take way too long to communicate in this form.

When they reached the garage, it occurred to him to wonder if Jones had ever driven a horseless carriage before. Catherine’s last-minute instructions to the detective as she stoked the boiler and waited for the steam to rise did not inspire his confidence. He flattened his ears and whined an inquiry.
 

“It’ll be fine.” Catherine assured both of them. “I gave him a quick lesson. It’s either this, or my red team.”

Richard hopped into the car.
 

Jones glanced over at him. “I really don’t want to meet those horses, do I?”

“Oh, with a good hand on the reins, they’re fine.”

Richard huffed his opinion; Catherine pretended not to notice.

The horseless started off in a series of jerks. Richard nearly jumped out, but Jones seemed to get the thing under control, though Richard caught the scent of fear and did not think it was from Jones’ reaction to the potential for an encounter with the killer. No, that he read in the darker under-notes, the closest any human scent would come to that of a wolf in full blood-lust.

Perhaps George had been right; ’wolves and humans were not so different in their reactions. He remembered what he had sensed in the warehouse. Richard would testify to Jones’ self-defense even if the killer were unconscious and Jones slit his throat from behind. Or he’d happily dig the grave to hide the body.

They drove over the Waterloo Bridge and into Lambeth, where gaudily-dressed women, seeing wealth in the horseless carriage, called out in voices meant to promise merriment and lustful games, though Richard smelled only hunger and desperation on the wind. They drove past wharfs that stunk of fish and the waste of breweries. Even if Richard hadn’t preferred brandy and wine to begin with, that stench was enough to put him off ale forever. They drove past empty factories and warehouses, the graveyards of commerce moved southwards over the river, the hulking skeletons of industrial dreams.

Jones brought the horseless to a stop in front of one such building, its windows broken out, the huge clock painted on its front faded, a specter of someone’s grand scheme. The air carried damp concrete, the memory of machine oil, and the lives and deaths of vermin. And above all that, the faint traces of animal blood and the stronger, fresher scents of human blood and fear.

Hackles rising, he let out a low growl, just loud enough for Jones to hear.

“This is the place, then,” Jones said.

He set the hand break, but left the boiler heating, steam gently streaming as if from the nose of some great, sleeping dragon.

They approached slowly, cautiously. Richard crept out a little ahead. Jones might be the professional, but a ’wolf was stronger, faster, and keener of all senses.
 

Just inside the door he hesitated mid-stride, pressing his weight against Jones to halt him as well. His lips drew back from his fangs. The killer’s scent was strong, fresh, but there was another scent as well. ’Wolf, and yet not-’wolf. He swiveled his ears, listening hard. Two other heartbeats echoed distantly in the building, both quickened in anticipation or in fear. No other creature save scurrying rats. He took another step forward.

A low growl like the grinding of gears came out of the shadows. He felt it through his body as much as heard it. The thing came at him out of the darkness. He froze, paralyzed by the confusion of his senses that insisted that the ’wolf leaping for him was not a ’wolf. Froze just a moment, but it was a moment too long.
 

Twenty-five

Royston saw the black-furred shape seize wolf-Bandon by the neck—the muscled top of his neck. Fortunately, Bandon’s head was too low for the stranger to close his jaws on Bandon’s throat. Royston brought his billy-club down on the stranger’s skull.

The shock of hitting into solid metal numbed his arm. The automaton!

Fortunately, the impact was enough to jar the creature’s gears for a moment, causing its jaws to loosen. Writhing free, Bandon twisted, locked his teeth on the stranger’s throat and tore. He came away with a mouthful of skin and fur and stuffing, exposing the metal and wired spine beneath.

Had the beast been flesh and blood, the bite would have killed it. But it came at Bandon, snarling, seeking his throat. Bandon dodged and brought his own teeth to bear, but could not gain purchase on the steel-reinforced bone of his rival’s muzzle. The stranger’s skin tore away beneath his bite, a wound more horrible for the lack of blood. The thing twisted and snapped, gouging a red line down Bandon’s shoulder.

The blood woke Royston from his frozen shock.
Do something, or Bandon’s dead.
His thoughts seemed slow, distant.
 

He brought his club down on the thing’s back hock, was rewarded when the thing staggered as the joint gave. He raised his club for another blow.

The thing whipped around, away from Bandon, lunging for Royston’s thigh. Bandon threw himself into the thing, deflecting the bite so the teeth merely grazed him. Heat burned across his leg, blood blooming in the trail.
 

Bandon and the stranger rolled across the floor, snarling and snapping, moving too fast for Royston to get in another blow for fear of hitting Bandon. But the shattered hock slowed the automaton down, for all that it couldn’t feel pain. Bandon pinned it once, but it wrenched free. Bandon leaped atop it, brought it down, held it still just a second, just long enough.

Royston brought his club down with all his strength on the spine just behind its shoulders, gambling that whatever made the thing go used the same conduit as the nerves that had made it run when it was alive. The gamble paid off; the creature’s back half went still.

The automaton turned awkwardly toward him, jaws snapping with single-minded determination. But Bandon had gotten the idea. While the thing focused on Royston, he slipped in behind and seized the back of its neck in his jaws. He shook it back and forth until the spine gave just behind the skull with a loud crack.

The whole of the body went still, though the glassy eyes still stared and the jaws snapped the air fruitlessly. Was the thing capable of suffering? Royston didn’t know, but he brought the club down on its skull again and again until its eyes closed and its jaws went still.

He had time to look at it more closely. Black wolf, white patch on its chest.
 

“It’s the same one I saw at Winchell’s manor,” he said to Bandon. “Not that I had much doubt. There can’t be too many of those abominations about. Or at least I hope not.” Winchell must be the killer. He hadn’t ever suspected Willie, not really. Why, then, the relief that washed over him?

Looking at the sad mass of bits of metal and stuffing and hide, he hoped again that it had been a natural wolf in life. That would be horrible enough. He looked at the living werewolf beside him, remembered the dead woman in Winchell’s laboratory. Far easier and cheaper for Winchell to kidnap a homeless local than pay for someone to breed natural wolves from imported stock. He felt queasy, and it wasn’t just the excitement of the fight leaving his body.

“Are you all right?” he asked Bandon.
 

In the darkness the red of blood blended too well with the black fur, but where moonlight shone on his coat Royston could see the gleam of wetness.

Bandon gave his shoulder a few desultory licks and got to his feet. Limping just a little, he approached Royston, pointing with his muzzle at the wound on Royston’s leg, careful not to touch.

Careful not to touch, because the saliva of a werewolf in an open wound would change the victim. If the thing had not been a natural wolf in life, could the automaton still infect him?

He couldn’t deal with that right now. The automaton guard told him they were on the right track. Miss Chatham might still be alive. They might have a chance to save her from ending up like Molly and all those other unfortunate girls, or ending up like that mindless mechanical thing they’d just destroyed.

Bandon gave a soft, inquiring whine.
 

“I’ve lived through worse,” Royston told him. “If you can go on, let’s do what we came for. Do you sense anything?”

Bandon sniffed the air, raising his head high and then low. Then his ears pricked forward, and he trotted off.

“Carefully,” Royston warned him. “Given Winchell’s love of mechanics, I wouldn’t be surprised if the place is booby-trapped.”

The wolf slowed his pace, the only indication that he’d heard him. Missing his revolver that was still tucked safely away in a box on the top shelf of his wardrobe, Royston followed, wincing at the sound every time he bumped into a piece of abandoned machinery or crunched a bit of broken glass under his boots. The latter made him worry about Bandon’s unprotected paws.
 

He’d thought about detouring for his revolver on the way here, but his flat was surely being watched, either by the Yard or by an angry mob out for vengeance.
 

The ’wolf started up the stairs to the second level. He paused half-way up, ears pricked hard forward—then lunged upward, leaping up the stairs in a few long jumps before Royston could finish calling out, “No, slowly!”

As soon as Bandon crossed the top of the stairs, a loud clunk echoed through the building followed by a low whir-grind of machinery starting up. The whole top floor filled with light and the horrible amplified sound of a ticking clock.

Royston dashed up the remaining stairs—no point to stealth now—and then froze at what he saw. Chained to the wall, high up near the ceiling of the cavernous warehouse were two gagged figures. A narrow ledge along the wall that might have once supported some sort of machinery gave them both barely enough purchase that if they balanced very carefully they could keep their full weight from the chains. He recognized both of them.

Miss Chatham, hair unbound and clad only in a dirty white under-dress, and Willie Godwin. Between them a huge clock counted out seconds, not minutes.
 

Willie couldn’t be the killer, then. The relief struck him like a blow.
 

Suspended from the ceiling were two metal knights on horses. Crude, angular, these were no artist’s sculptures, but looked like the work of a demented child that someone had trusted with metalworking tools. Still, they were recognizable for what they were, and each carried a lance, long and needle-sharp. The metal arms that suspended each figure reached up into a long, straight metal track, and steam poured from the horses’ nostrils as they glided forward with the whispery hiss of well-oiled machinery. They moved slowly, inexorably, lance tips pointed at the midsections of the two prisoners. Death would be slow, excruciating, and inevitable.
 

There was a single ladder against the wall. Royston had time to save one only. Damn Winchell, that sadistic bastard!

Miss Chatham was shrieking in terror behind her gag. Willie looked at him silently. Royston could not read his expression, but hoped it was permission, understanding.

Duty dictated his actions. Willie, his oldest and best friend, had been a constable, even if he was no longer. Miss Chatham was a lady and a civilian. But in saving her, he would condemn his best friend to death. Time slowed as he rushed to the ladder, positioned it and started climbing. Willie would understand, Willie would have to understand. Royston would trade places with him if he could.

Another betrayal of the friendship that he’d wronged by doubting, because, yes, he had doubted Willie’s innocence, deep down in the dark places where he seldom looked.

Would Godwin on some level blame him for the death of the son that he, despite all, still loved?

The clock ticked steadily, and the knights continued their horrible slow-motion charge. He reached the top of the ladder and he had no room to think about anything but freeing the hysterical, struggling Miss Chatham and steadying her on the ladder without falling himself. The ladder rocked ominously.
 

“Steady, for the love of God!” he shouted. “I’ve got you, don’t fight me.”

She stilled, and he started down the ladder as quickly as he dared with his unbalanced burden. The lance-like shaft continued on its inexorable course. If he wasn’t quick enough, it would kill them both together. The Commissioner would be properly horrified that his daughter’s name was linked in death to a most unsuitably bred ex-constable. He got her to safety a hair ahead of the shaft’s approach. It drilled itself deep into the wall. The shaft poised at Willie. . .

Stopped. A foot away from him.

From where he stood, safe on the ground, Royston stared, a cold fist closing in his gut.
 

Willie wriggled, slipped out of his bonds, and started to remove his gag. Miss Chatham was pulling her own gag from her mouth.
 

“It’s him, it’s him!” she gasped and clung to him, sobbing.
 

 
Royston stared up at Willie, feeling as if he had been turned to stone. Willie climbed out on the lance, stretched out full along it, and pulled a lever. With a whirr of gears the knight slowly bowed and lowered his lance to the floor, and Willie slid carefully down the weapon until he stood before Royston, safe and sound. Almost as if the mechanism had been designed for that purpose.