Dead Men's Tales (Tales of the Brass Griffin Book 5) (37 page)

"I think it's cause they know I would claw them!" the girl replied venomously. "All of them! Until they set everything right!”

Tonks chuckled, "Ya chance is comin', just hold out for it. As for me, I'm pretty sure I know why they took me. At least, I do since being questioned.”

An unexpected, cold chill ran down Angela's spine when she looked over at the shadowy figure of her friend. She hesitated, her eyes searching the darkness. In the gloom, she could see the shape of Tonks; and something seemed off, but she could not tell what. Given the dust and tears that blurred her vision, she rubbed at her eyes with the back of her furred hand. "What do you mean?”

"They started the moment they pulled me from that infirmary aboard the
Intrepid
. All the beatings, all the questions. Ya see, Angela, it's not about who I am. It's more about who I was a few years back. One of them Fomorians knows me from then when I worked for the Special Irish Branch of Scotland Yard – though I hear they’re callin’ it the Special Branch now. At that time, we chased killers, anarchists and other very bad people. We were also helping protect people, too.”

Angela's widened with imagined horrors of what Ian had gone through. "What did they want to know?" she asked in a dry whisper. “The Fomorians, I mean.”

“They were wantin’ ta know about the Special Branch,” Tonks explained. “How many were part of it, did they have any near Inverness, or Edinburgh… especially Edinburgh.” Tonks shook his head, and chuckled softly. His chuckle rattled heavily in his chest, then turned into a groan of pain. Slowly, Tonks recovered. “As if I’d know anything such as that after bein’ away for over a year,” he continued. “Though I’d say they were too interested in St. Giles’ Cathedral for my own likin'. From past dealings with anarchists, it means nothin' good.”

“Where is St. Giles’ Cathedral?” Angela asked curiously.

“Edinburgh,” the pilot replied. “It’s the main cathedral for the Church of Scotland.”

"Do you think they would do something to St. Giles' Cathedral?" Angela asked.

"I do," Tonks replied. "It's why I'm chained here in the state I'm in. I suspect they mean to do harm to the Cathedral and all in it. How this goes with your mother, and all that's been going on, I can't say yet.”

Angela squinted as her eyes cleared, and the shadows retreated before her canine enhanced vision. Before she could see Tonks very well, the pilot faced away from her, as he suspected she could now see him. The young girl sighed, "Mr. Tonks ... whatever they did, I just know the doctor can help.”

The pilot chuckled dryly, "Not so sure this time, girl." Slowly, he turned back around to face Angela.

The werewolf jumped in surprise, a gasp catching in her throat. "Oh, Mr. Tonks ..."

Ian's face was battered, marred by bruises and cuts where he had been savagely beaten. His face was sallow, with dark bags beneath his eyes. "They beat me soundly, no two ways about that, while they questioned me. An old friend – who’s now fallen in with the Fomorians – is the one who said I’d know plenty about the Special Branch and where they operated. He’s even the one that suggested usin’ the elixir on me.”

Angela shuddered, but kept her comments to herself. She remembered the effects of the elixir all too clearly.

The pilot looked off into the darkness, reliving the memories, "Quick as a wink, they forced that hellish drought down my gullet. That was when I went through hell." He paused, staring off into space, lost in his thoughts. "I'm cravin' that damnable poison now … I won’t take it though. I mustn’t. I know the more I drink, the harder it’ll latch onto me.”

Angela looked away, tears welling in her eyes as she remembered Dr. Llwellyn's words: the elixir was eventually fatal. The young werewolf cleared her throat, "I don’t crave it and I took it. The doctor kept giving me a medicine before I tried it. Maybe ... maybe the doctor still can help .…“

Suddenly, Tonks lifted a hand. "Wait … I heard somethin'. Hush a moment."

Turning her head, the young werewolf rotated her ears one way, then another, searching for what Ian heard. After a few seconds she, too, heard it: a conversation above them.

"How does she sail, Herr Moore?" Peter Bauer asked in a conversational tone.

At the sound of Peter Bauer’s voice, Angela clenched her fists, barely suppressing a low growl. Tonks waved a hand for her to keep still. 

“Settle down,” the pilot admonished her, “now just who’s that?”

The young werewolf glared in the direction of the voice. “His name is Peter Bauer. He … he was one of the ones who attacked the
Fair Winds
. He took my mother!”

"Aye, well enough. The wind's at our back and the gas bags are tight. I'd say we'll make Inverness in two hours. We'll nip on over to Culloden Moor just after, then we touch down." the voice called Moore
 
replied. “Oh, and good on ya for the new rank … ‘Captain’,” the man’s smirk was obvious in his tone.

“Danke, Herr Moore,” Peter Bauer replied evenly, “The
Revenge
will sail much more smoothly without that
waste of a man at her helm. Has any word come from Dr. Hardy?”

“Just to bring the girl straight on,” Moore replied. “He’s needin’ a sample of her blood and the actual formula. He’s still thinkin’ that the secret o’ werewolves not sufferin’ the cravin’ is in their blood.”

"My blood?" Angela hissed in a panic to Tonks.

"Hush," Ian replied quietly.

“And his other project?” Bauer inquired.

“Word now is that he’s figured the mix right. He’s been makin’ a gas out of his batch of Hellgate formula like clockwork,” Moore explained. “Calls it ‘Mustard Gas’, he does, supposedly cause of the smell. He’s been testing it on some of them prisoners we caught recently.”

Bauer muttered angrily under his breath. “Dummkopf! We need them to finish the airships and the bunkers! We have to be ready by the end of November or we lose the only chance until next year!” Still muttering, Bauer stormed off across the deck, demanding an opti-telegraphic while Moore followed at the captain’s heels.

While the two men walked away, Tonks hunched forward in thought, “End of November and St. Giles’ Cathedral. That rings more’n a single bell.” Suddenly, the pilot grunted as realization struck him. “Cor, I’m bleedin’ stupid. That’s St. Andrew’s Day when the Queen selects new members to be knighted into that Order of the Thistle," he explained.

"The Queen?" Angela asked wide-eyed. "Her Majesty?" 

"Aye, the very one," Ian said with a small nod. "St. Giles' Cathedral is where the Order has its sanctuary. The new members of the Order are selected on the thirtieth of November, but are sworn in during the followin’ year by the Queen. It's a big do, good bit of Parliament is there. If they put a bomb there, depending on when they set it off ...” His words trailed off to an uncomfortable silence. He glanced over at Angela with a shocked expression, his pale, bruised face looking suddenly like a death mask, “I think the Fomorians are after the Crown!”

B
lack, acrid smoke boiled up into the cold, snow-swept sky from the wreck of the
HMS Intrepid
where she lay collapsed against the charred, black wood of the dock. Amid the wreckage, small groups of figures bundled in wool pea coats, gloves and caps slowly crawled through the debris like scavengers over a corpse. Every few minutes, one of the searchers would call out to the others, giving a signal that either a survivor, or another deceased victim, had been found.

On the boardwalk opposite the
Intrepid
, one of the ramshackle, metal-shod warehouses had been hastily converted to one part hospice, and another part morgue. A quickly erected barrier separated the two, sparing the living any sight of the dead, and granting the dead a moment of respectful silence. Doors to the boardwalk opened and closed on regular intervals. Each time they opened, yet more wounded were led - or at times carried - to where surviving doctors from the
Intrepid
, along with medical assistance from other ships, worked feverishly.

Captain Anthony Hunter sat on the edge of a worn wooden cot, slowly moving his right arm and wincing while his sore shoulder throbbed angrily. His leather long coat was darker, tinged with burn marks from the recent explosion. Anthony's white shirt was stained with dirt and dried sweat, his brown trousers frayed at the seams from the abuse.

With a heavy sigh, Hunter ran his hands over his dark hair, massaged his neck, then rubbed his eyes as if he could soothe away the weight of fatigue that hung from him like an anchor. Footsteps approached from the open row beside the cots. Hunter glanced up, recognizing the distinctive gait.

"Blurred vision?" Dr. Llwellyn asked, walking up beside the cot. The doctor was still dressed in his gray waistcoat - now covered in soot and dappled with a dried spray of blood - and wrapped in a weathered, gray wool long coat. He combed his fingers through his tousled brown hair in an attempt to straighten it.

Hunter nodded. "Blurred mind. How is the recovery pushing along?"

Thorias folded his arms over his chest. "Arduous ... painful." He looked up as the door to the warehouse opened, and two men carried in another wounded sailor. "And sobering.”

Anthony glanced around the room, noticing for the first time the sounds of wet coughing, moans, and cries of pain. Sailors, station crew, even unlucky passengers of nearby ships were in the room. What stood out the most was the horrific blisters and sores that seemed to cover many of the patients' exposed skin.

Hunter solemnly looked across the orderly rows of burn victims. Many faces he did not recognize. Some were so heavily bandaged, he could not tell who they might be. However, there were other faces he did know. He saw the young sailors from the
Intrepid
he had spoken to on deck, each of them laying bandaged in a cot, shivering in pain and covered in those horrible blisters. Near the sailors lay a  dock worker the captain remembered, covered along one side of his body with swelled boils. In the adjacent cot lay John Clark, shaking from a wet cough and wincing in pain as the bandages rubbed raw against his swollen skin.

“John!” Hunter exclaimed, starting forward.

Dr. Llwellyn caught the captain by the shoulder in a firm grip. “No, Anthony, let him rest. He nearly died making sure his son would survive.”

“What in heaven’s name happened?” he asked incredulously, gesturing to the sailors and dock worker. “Those are not normal burns from explosives … what happened?”

“The Fomorians happened,” Dr. Llwellyn replied, following Captain Hunter’s gaze. “This … all of this … is their handiwork. From what anyone can determine, there were at least five explosives aboard, and two canisters of a caustic gas in the boiler room. We’ve only partially isolated it.” The doctor paused, giving the captain a worried look. “Its base composition is startlingly similar to the Hellgate elixir. However, instead of making a victim addicted, and swelling their strength and size to that of an enraged ape … it tries to burn one alive, chemically speaking. I’ve found some means of cleaning it, removing the effects, but the process isn’t speedy.”

"However, not everyone has been afflicted. Why were some of us spared … this?” Captain Hunter asked in a hushed tone, his mind reeling with the implications of what the doctor had said.

“The explosion near the boilers was hot enough to spray treated water among the gas,” Thorias explained. “It caused a secondary reaction that may or may have not have been intended. Those caught in it were horribly affected within minutes, but the steam and water spray kept the gas localized. If it hadn’t … I do honestly believe most of the station would be dying right now.”

“Heaven defend us,” Anthony said in a low voice.

“From this?” the doctor replied. “Quite so. We’ll need all the assistance we can manage.”

The captain placed his hands on the edge of the cot and stood with a grimace. "Bloody hell, I'll feel that in the coming morning. Has anyone located Angela or Tonks? Or Bauer and his bloody butchers? The ones not burnt to death in the explosions, that is.”

Dr. Llwellyn sighed as he tore his view away from the newly arrived injured sailor, giving a nod to the two medics from the
Intrepid
as they rushed forward to take care of the wounded man.

"One of Captain Wilhelm's men - a 'Noel St. Claire' - stumbled upon a group of them carrying Angela and Ian aboard the
Revenge
," the doctor explained. “He tried for a shot, but missed. Once they were aboard, he didn’t dare try and follow alone.”

Hunter frowned, "The
Revenge
? Impossible! Wilhelm and his crew would have caught them the very moment they set foot on deck, especially had they been carrying Mr. Tonks and Angela.”

Thorias pointed to the broad, ill-tempered figure of Captain Klaus Wilhelm. The captain's face was black and blue, which seemed to match his mood. He sat on a cot, being fussed over by a harried-looking medic. "If he had been aboard, I'd rightfully agree," Dr. Llwellyn explained. "As I understand it, the Fomorians had been prepared for trouble aboard the
Revenge
. Once we left, they waited until everything had died down and took the ship by force. They overwhelmed Wilhelm with sheer numbers. Once they had him, they beat him soundly, then tossed him onto the Boardwalk in hopes he would freeze before anyone found him.”

"What of Mr. Pryce?" Hunter asked, looking back at Wilhelm.

"He's hale and whole," the doctor replied. "He was still running about the station when the attack took place. Right now, he has a good set of stout lads with him, checking to see whether or not
 
Captain Wilhelm’s vessel has been set to explode.”

Anthony nodded. "Sensible to do, given what’s happened."

Klaus noticed the pair watching him. Growling irritably, the wide captain shoved himself to his feet. Through bloody holes in his shirt, bandages could be seen crisscrossing his chest. The captain nudged the medic aside.

"Captain, I must protest!" the young medic exclaimed.