Dead Men's Tales (Tales of the Brass Griffin Book 5) (39 page)

In the gloom, he could make out two shapes, one larger than the other. His senses were sharper now, able to pierce the shadows with almost a supernatural clarity. The narrow-faced Fomorian had lost his revolver, but it had been replaced with a long-bladed knife that glinted evilly in the meager, dim twilight.

Angela – who was still in her werewolf form – dodged left, then right, trying in vain to slip around the blade to claw at the owner. However, the Fomorian had the advantage in both height and terrain. The stone floor was slick under Angela’s bare paws, giving her little purchase on the ancient stone; in contrast, the Fomorian’s nailed boots had no such trouble.

The young girl lunged once more, but a miscalculated step put her right into the sailor’s hands. He immediately slammed her against the wall once, then twice, until she clung dizzily to his arm, almost unable to stand.

“Now, there’s a girl,” the sailor said with a sneer. He tightened his grip on her throat, causing Angela to cough. “Ol’ Jasper’s thinkin’ that he owes ya some payback,” his sneer transformed into a devilish smile. “So, what say ya, eh?”

“She respectfully declines!” Tonks snarled loudly.

A long-bladed knife, not dissimilar to the one Jasper held, slammed into the man’s chest with such force, it ripped him away from Angela as if he had been
slapped by a giant! The sailor fell backwards, clutching uselessly at the knife hilt that refused to budge. Several feet away, Tonks broke into a desperate run towards Angela. He skidded to a stop at her side, managing to catch her before she hit the stone floor.

The young werewolf jerked instinctively at being touched. Her claws flailed out, slicing into the pilot’s arm. Ian grimaced but said nothing, simply holding the young girl reassuringly. “Hush now, yer safe. Just hush, I’m with ya. No one can get at ya now.”

Slowly, Angela regained her senses. She blinked, then glanced up at Ian, smiling weakly. Only then did she notice the long lacerations along his arm. “Mr. Wilkerson! Your arm … did I?” The girl began to shake as the long, pent-up pain, anger, frustration and terror overwhelmed her. “No! I’m so sorry! I … I can bandage it ….”

Tonks shook his head, and looked away while she arranged what remained of her blue dress around her legs. “No, don’t. I’d rather you sit there while I hide these two bloody buggers. Get ya breath. We may need it.”

Angela nodded and closed her eyes. “Where are we? I remember the ship, then … nothing.”

Ian crouched next to the dying sailor who quivered once more, then finally lay motionless on the stone. The pilot looked around the junction where the two corridors met. The hallway from which he had entered was near-featureless, save for the greenish mold on the old stones that made up the walls. Here, however, there were easily over a dozen iron-bound oak doors set into the ancient stone like some nightmarish dungeon. Most doors were secured with a massive black iron lock. The closest cell – the one he was convinced had been for him – was not. Ian reached for the latch on that door and slowly pulled it open. 

“I remember the same,” Tonks replied. “Though, I remember a white smoke before I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They used somethin’ to put us asleep. No windows down here, so we’ve no idea for how long. Though from the way I felt when I woke, it was for a good amount of time.”

Slowly, clutching her knees to her chest, she shuddered as if cold. “I think I remember a little room, and a woman with … something. She kept pricking me in my arms! It hurt so much! I just wanted to make it all stop.”

Ian quickly dragged the dead body of the sailor into the cell, then ran down the hallway to recover the first, whom he had knocked senseless moments before. The pilot grimaced as he hefted the larger man over his shoulders and carried him to join his dead companion.

“A woman?” Tonks asked curiously, while he roughly dumped the unconscious Fomorian into the cell. “What do ya remember about her? Was she a doctor of some kind?”

Angela opened her eyes and stared down at the stone next to her. “I … I don’t think so. There was someone else. It sounded like a man and he was telling her what to do, I think.”

Ian quickly searched the dead Fomorian, recovering a vial of Hellgate elixir, his own knife, and a gun belt complete with ammunition. Leaving the cell, he recovered the dead man’s revolver: a Colt Peacemaker 45. Quickly, he shoved the pistol into its holster and buckled the gun belt around his waist.

“Did ya hear a name?” the pilot asked quickly. “See a face, or see any of the room?”

“No, I …” Angela started to say before a pair of angry voices echoed down the hallway, cutting her off.

“I told ya those two would make a mess of it!” a woman’s voice shrieked angrily. “I’ve been tellin’ ya I want better assistants and better equipment if ya want this done! I can’t produce miracles with nothin’!”

Quickly, Ian scooped up Angela and spirited her into the cell where he had placed
the two Fomorian sailors. Carefully, he set her on a nearby cot, motioning for her to be silent, then spun around to pull the cell door nearly closed as quietly as he could.

A moment after Ian had reduced the open doorway to a narrow sliver, a man and a woman appeared in the corridor, walking from the direction which Ian had originally arrived. The woman was dressed in a plain brown skirt and cream cotton blouse. Over both she wore a long tan coat covered with smears of blood and soot. Beside her, the man was dressed in a clean cotton shirt, vest, brushed peacoat and dark colored trousers. His newly polished boots rang against the stone, echoing the anger in his posture.

The pilot squinted against the gloom, straining to catch a glimpse of their faces. Finally, he could make out their features. The woman he did not recognize, however the man was all too familiar. It was Peter Bauer!

Bauer’s face was a mask of anger and frustration. The man’s eyes searched the darkness with a rage edged in mild paranoia while he walked down the corridor. He stopped abruptly when he saw the bloodstains on the stone floor. Kneeling, Bauer swore angrily under his breath. He glared at the woman, who stopped next to him.

“It was you, Frau O’Flynn, who found those two idioten in Liverpool,” he snapped harshly. “If they have killed the mädchen through their stupidity before we can finish examining her, I will skin them alive! I must have progress, Frau Doctor. Not more excuses from that feeble fool, Dr. Hardy, and certainly no more delays!”

The woman, barely as tall as the irate man’s neck, angrily brushed a loose strand of fire-red hair from her face. Her hands were bandaged in places, as were her arms. “As if ya own people are any better!” she retorted harshly. “Yer lot couldn’t even hold down a little girl while I took some o’ her blood … ‘Cap’n’!” A smug look crawled across her face while Bauer’s glare turned dangerously hard. “Oh, but we’re still smartin’ over what happened on the station, eh? All cause that Captain Hunter figured out ya bungled everythin’ by overlookin’ the original formula and sellin’ it off! Got the better of ya, did he? Just like dear ol’ da RiBeld … ”

In a blur of motion, Bauer jumped to his feet, grabbing the woman by the throat. Slamming her struggling form
 
against the wall, he leaned in close, breath hot, features shaking with rage.

“Mein father has nothing to do with this!” Bauer hissed at her. “It is not Archibald RiBeld that will bring the Order of Fomorian to its rightful glory … it will be by mein hand! Mein Fomorians!”
 

She met his gaze evenly, her own anger tinged with a hint of fear. “So dead certain on provin’ yer worth somethin’ to yer da?” she sneered. “If ya would take a moment and just pay attention …”

Bauer scowled deeper, then smiled coldly as he interrupted her. “Frau Selina Hereford O’Flynn, you forget yourself, ja?” he replied, his voice dripping with acid. “The Order saw fit to preserve you when your sister Mary let her murderous surgical ‘experiments’ run away with her in Edinburgh so few months ago. She will be hanged for her stupidity at being so careless. There will be room on her gallows for one more, if they learn of you. I will even hold the rope, ja? After all, I still have that feeble worm, Dr. Hardy.” Bauer tilted his head slightly, as if he was observing a bug trapped under a jar. “What are your thoughts … Doctor?”

Dr. O’Flynn swallowed slowly, hampered by Bauer’s hand around her throat. She stared into his dull, emotionless, chilling eyes, then blinked. “I’ll have somethin’ for ya later,” she replied, her voice reserved and colored with a touch of nerves. “I’ve enough of the girl’s wolf-blood to know somethin’.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Bauer released his grip, freeing the red-haired woman. She rubbed her throat, stepping away warily while
glaring daggers at him.

“Wunderbar,” Bauer replied coolly. “In the meantime, I will track down those two idioten, kill them, then drag the mädchen back so that you and Dr. Hardy may finish with her.”

“I’m still needin’ assistants,” Dr. O’Flynn replied with a clipped tone.

“And you will have them,” Bauer replied, glancing down at the pool of blood. “Only I will select them. Expect them within the next two hours. Now, go. I have work to do.”

With a last look of hatred, O’Flynn turned the corner and stalked off down the hallway, deeper into the complex. Through the small gap in the cell door, Ian watched Bauer carefully examine the bloodstains, then the stone floor itself. Slowly, the man’s
eyes wandered to the cell door with a suspicious look. The Fomorian stood slowly. Behind the door, Ian quietly drew the revolver; it was empty. He slid it back into its holster and reached for his
knife.

“Cap’n!” A voice shouted from the far end of the hallway.

Bauer tensed, barely suppressing a scream of rage. He turned, “Ja! What is it that is so important, that you interrupt mein thoughts?”

“Ya said come get ya when the canisters are set to be filled before they’re shipped off to St. Giles,” the voice replied.

Captain Bauer rubbed his eyes wearily, then turned sharply on his heel. Quickly, he stormed back the way he had come. “Fine!” he snapped angrily. ”Get five men and locate Herr Jasper Milligan and Herr William Muskgrave. Kill them and take whatever they have to Doctors Hardy and O’Flynn.”

“Aye, Cap’n!” was the reply.

While Bauer stalked away, Ian slowly let out a breath, then glanced over his shoulder at a visibly frightened Angela. The pilot slipped the knife back into his belt.

“We’re in a kettle of fish, if I’ve ever seen one,” he whispered. “We need to get a message out to Cap’n Hunter and the others. They need to know all this.”

Angela gave Ian a distraught look. “How?”

“By bein’ a little more clever than our hosts,” Ian replied. “We need to kidnap one of our kidnappers. Maybe two!”

W
ater dripped methodically from the dank stones overhead. The droplets fell singularly, finally splashing in the brackish pools of water scattered along the floor of the hallway. The unearthly blue glow of gas-voltaic lanterns flickered in the dark tunnel, like trapped will-o'-the-wisps railing against their tarnished steel and glass cages. The lanterns were hung from black iron sconces high off the stone floor, near the ten foot ceilings where they would not be accidentally dislodged.

Tonks crouched at the bottom of a set of stone stairs, revolver in hand. The stairs, as ancient and cracked as the rest of the surrounding structure, extended from the pilot’s poorly lit view in the tunnel to a similar hallway above. Tonks listened for any telltale sign that would herald a guard – or anyone else for that matter – who was about to stumble into his view. Since none appeared, he turned his attention to the stairs themselves.

In the mildew among the smudged footsteps, the pilot recognized the marks left from a woman’s sturdy leather boots. They would have been unremarkable save for two items; one, there was an unusual worn spot on the right sole, as if the wearer had stepped in a small puddle of caustic chemicals. Two, he knew the boots belonged to Dr. Selina Hereford O’Flynn, the woman he was trying to follow.

At first, trailing her had been simply a matter of staying just far enough back
 
that she would not hear the echo of a second set of footsteps on the stonework. Unfortunately, Tonks had managed to lose her at a junction where two hallways crossed one another, forming a plus-shaped intersection.

He dislodged his attention from idle memories, focusing on the footprints in front of him. Based on the marks in the grime, the pilot deduced that the doctor was not far ahead of them. He craned his neck a moment, glancing up the stairs once more to make sure they were empty before looking over his shoulder at his furry companion.

“Stairs look clear of anyone out strollin’ by, and I think those are her bootprints. So, she ought to be not far ahead, I think,” Ian whispered in an effort to keep his voice from echoing in the near-oppressive quiet. “Yer sense of smell’s likely better than mine. Think it’s her?”

Angela nodded her furry head with the typical enthusiasm of any ten year old girl, trying with all her fiber to be helpful. Padding forward on her canine feet, she instinctively adjusted the rags of her dress from a long-ingrained sense of modesty. With a resigned sigh as her ruined dress failed to fully cooperate, she crouched low at the bottom of the stairs. Closing her eyes, she took an experimental sniff of the air.

“It’s smelly. Like chemicals,” the young werewolf replied softly. She glanced over at Ian and shrugged, “I guess it’s
her.”

The pilot nodded, then quickly advanced up the stairs, every muscle tense for any unexpected –  and unwelcome – appearance of a guard who might stumble across them. Angela hurried along a few steps behind Tonks.

“Why do we need her at all?” the girl groused irritably. “It’s not as if she’ll help us.”

"I don't expect her to help us," Ian explained while he peered cautiously down the silent hallway. "As a matter of fact, I'm expectin' her to be no end of trouble. What I also expect, though, is Peter Bauer, RiBeld, or whatever he's callin' himself, to keep his distance cause he’s needin’ her to make something for him. That might be enough to keep him at bay.”