Terra Mechanica: A Steampunk Anthology (49 page)

“Sorry we ain’t got better ‘commadations for ye, mate.” The man scratched his full red mutton chops as he waited for his partner to finish. “Give us a holler if this food ain’t enough for ye and I’ll see what else I can scrounge up. Blokes like us gotta keep up our strength.”

Marcus finally found his voice.

“What I want is to be released from here. Whatever you want from me, I can assure you, I have nothing.”

The woman stood, seemingly satisfied with her inspection.

“You listen to Gordon. Save your strength.” Without another word, she turned, and the pair left the room.

For several days, their routine continued. He received a ration of meat and water three times a day, a peculiar inspection by Chin, as he learned her name to be, and hours of solitude. Marcus plotted dozens of ways to escape, but could find none that did not end in a confrontation with the larger of his guardians. He tried to explain that he was only a resident physician in training and that he had little money. His captors had no interest, however, and kept about their routine. During his confinement, he never saw the mysterious Otto, though he thought he once heard a German accent in the hall.

Cold and alone, thoughts of Emily continually passed through his mind. Her almond face and the smile that once empowered him to move mountains would come to him against his volition. Sometimes, when overwhelmed by memories of her, he would remove her ring from his pocket, where it had been overlooked by his captors. He had kept the ring within reach ever since that terrible night in the park. Its delicate shine brought back memories of her joyful tears and tender embrace the day he proposed.

But, the images inevitably darkened as her rosy cheeks paled and the sickness overtook her, a sickness for which there was no cure. During her days of suffering he had cursed science, cursed medicine, and cursed himself for being unable to heal her. Then, more woeful visions would rise. Memories of her recovery and hope, followed by confusion and grief, would torment him.

One evening, just after the red sunset surrendered behind the dark city skyline, the rattle of the lock and creak of his prison door woke Marcus from his restless pondering. A silhouetted figure thanked someone beyond the entrance as it accepted a chair. Squinting in the light of the oil lamp, he watched the small man carefully position the chair across from him. Otto settled himself into his seat and set the lamp on the floor.

Marcus rose to a seated position while Otto removed his bowler hat and ran a hand across his bald scalp.

“Dr. Wells, why were you on the train from Edinburgh to London three months ago?” Solemn and clearly fatigued, Otto looked more at the floor than at Marcus.

“Please, sir, I have done nothing wrong. Why are you keeping me here?” Marcus begged.

“I told you, it is for your own protection,” Otto replied, unmoved by his pleas. “And it also happens that you are the only link I can find to the series of murders that started in your hospital at the time of your return to London.”

“It is not me, I swear it. I am a physician. I am not the Ripper.”

“Yes, of course,” Otto snapped. “You’ve not progressed nearly far enough for that. Now, answer my question, Dr. Wells. Why were you on that train?”

“Progressed? What are you talking about?” Marcus’ pulse increased. But the strange man merely continued in his impatient glare and waited for an answer to his question.

“I . . . I was returning from visiting family,” Marcus muttered. He refused to give the details of that mournful journey, least of all to the man responsible for his bondage.

“And you traveled alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see anything unusual on that train?”

“No.” Anger began to boil in Marcus at his inhospitable treatment.

He set his jaw and looked away, as a heavy sigh escaped his interrogator. A scuffing on the floor surprised Marcus when a chair was set down by his side.

“I will leave this with you. I am aware that this situation is less than ideal, but we are working under extreme circumstances.”

The strange man paused in his trite apology, and the shadows in the room raced about as he lifted the lamp off the floor. Marcus squinted in the glaring light as Otto’s face came so near that Marcus could feel his breath on his cheek.

Otto spoke absently while inspecting him, just as Chin had done many times before. “Pray that we find this beast quickly, that we may move you to more suitable holdings.” He paused in his examination. “Curses, we may not have time for—”

A solid uppercut nearly knocked Otto off his feet as three semesters of boxing at university proved their worth. Jumping to his feet, Marcus rushed in to follow up with a blow to the temple. He put all of his strength into the thrust. But instead of the solid impact of knuckle against skull, his fist met the fleshy palm and firm grip of Otto’s hand. Still, the smaller man slid back along the floor from the force of the punch. Marcus’ own strength surprised him, yet Otto, somehow, held both his footing and his viselike grip on Marcus’ fist.

“Very little time indeed . . .” Otto gritted through clenched teeth.

Sharp pains from Marcus’ fist drew his attention away from Otto’s intense glare. He recoiled at the sight of the talons that drew blood from his fist as they extended from the strange man’s fingers.

“Save your strength, good doctor,” Otto growled as he released his grip and turned to the door. “You are going to need it.”

A short while later, Marcus heard the creak of the door again. This time, it was Chin and Gordon who entered, bringing with them two more chairs, a table, and rations for the three of them. Chin approached the corner, where he sat nursing his wounds. Seemingly unconcerned by his attack against Otto, she took his hand and inspected his injuries.

“He must like you,” she commented, before moving on to inspect his face and neck again.

“Otto is right. It will come soon,” she reported flatly over her shoulder when satisfied.

Gordon sighed and sat down at the table where his partner joined him. “I bloody hate this part.”

They seemed to think something was happening to him. Recalling the terrible claws of Otto, Marcus shuddered and pushed the nightmarish fantasy from his thoughts. What had he done for his life to be cursed like this? He felt the cool wall against his cheek as he turned to stare blankly at the damp corner and the bits of dust and dirt that had been given up on long ago. His captors waited for something. He racked his mind in search of some answer.

What he would not give to be with Emily now, to see the shine in her sea-blue eyes. He had been so full of hope once, hopeful in their union, hopeful in her recovery. He still remembered every word of her last letter.

My dearest Marcus,

I want you to know that I am fine. In fact, I am more than fine. Despite your scientific doubts, the fresh Scottish air is working wonders on me. I have not coughed in days and my strength is returning faster than the nurse can keep up.

I feel I must tell you, before it becomes a lie of omission, that there has been one small incident. I hope you will not be too alarmed. One evening, before my improvement, I had such a coughing spell that I simply had to get out of doors into the cool night air. I know you would have disapproved, but I was in such a terrible way, I could do nothing else to soothe my lungs.

It must have been a mad animal that came upon me. I was attacked and bitten, but not badly. The doctor checked and treated me thoroughly, and I have suffered no ill effects.

I have waited to tell you because I did not want to interrupt your work. I know how important it is that you do well in your residency. I know you will want to come here immediately and see to me, but please know that I am well. It was weeks ago, and I have since not only healed from the small wounds, but am thankfully recovering from the sickness as well.

I only tell you now because I know you will rush here to check on me. That is just as well, because I want to come home. The Doctor says he will clear me to return in another week. By the time you arrive, I will be free to be home with you, never to be parted again.

Please hurry, my love,

Emily

The rise of murmuring voices interrupted Marcus’ despair.

“You played that before!” Chin accused. Turning his head ever so slightly, he found Chin glaring at her companion over a table of playing cards.

“Wha’? Now, sweetie, that ain’t no way to be talkin’ amongst mates.”

“You are a liar and a cheat!”

“If ye don’ like the way the cards is played, ye’ll jest have to find someone else to play with.” Gordon attempted to feign offence as he reached to take a card. A sharp object struck first, forcefully pinning the card to the table.

Marcus sat up. What he had first assumed to be a dagger turned out to be far more surprising. It was a claw-like blade—or perhaps a blade-like claw—nearly twelve inches in length. He followed its crescent shape up to its hinged joint. His eyes widened as he realized that the joint connected it to a slender limb, which in turn, connected to Chin by another joint near her wrist.

“What are you people?” he found himself saying aloud.

Chin’s clawed extension retracted slowly, then lay against her forearm and slid into a fold of skin, making it almost imperceptible. An unexpected softness came over her as she bit her lip and avoided his stare.

“We ain’t people no more,” replied Gordon solemnly over his shoulder. Chin motioned to her partner and their game resumed without further hostilities.

Overwhelmed with shock and fear, Marcus sat as still as stone for what felt like an hour. Were they all monsters? Gordon and Chin did not seem intent on hurting him. Aside from detaining and ignoring him, they treated him well enough, supplying generous portions of food and drink. If they planned to murder him, surely they would have done so by now.

Could he be turning into one of them? Though his mind refused to believe it, he could not ignore the signs in his own body—his surprising manifestations of strength, and his rapid healing—and neither could he ignore ominous remarks by his captors.

Otto had been interested in the London murders. What could he, or that train ride from Edinburgh, have to do with the murderer? Marcus recalled little of that long journey, the last leg of his trip home without Emily.

Arriving in the tiny Scottish village of just north of Sterling, Marcus had gone straight to the small sanatorium where Emily recuperated. His joyous expectation of bringing her home in good health was quickly overturned when he found nothing but black ash where the home had once stood.

Empty looks of fear and suspicion met the panic in his eyes when he burst into the local pub. No one was willing to tell him what had happened. Every face looked away at the mention of the sanatorium, and his pleas got him no answers that night. Over the following days, he pieced together that the villagers themselves had burned the building. They had burned it to the ground to rid themselves of some horror that had happened there.

A week before, while Marcus was still traveling, the home had gone strangely silent. When no one from the house came to the market that week, the villagers called on the recovery home to check on the residents and staff. What they found, they would not say in detail, but it was clear that everyone in the recovery home was dead.

Marcus called on the authorities, but got little help. The law was thin so far out in the country, and had little interest in following a case with no leads. Eventually, Marcus also surrendered. Emily’s ring brought him to it. When he found it some days later among the building’s remains, he buried all hope of seeing Emily alive again.

He did not remember much of the carriage ride down to Edinburgh the next day, nor much of the train to London, either. The only interaction he had was with a peculiar Scotsman.

Marcus was sitting alone, staring out the window as the solemn moors raced by to the rhythm of the clacking rails. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. The broad-shouldered Scotsman walked by him twice, each time eyeing his doctor’s bag, before sitting down in the booth with him.

Despite his fairly good size, the man seemed awkward and nervous. The Scot wiped his brow with a pale hand before speaking.

“Yer a doct’er, right?”

Marcus remembered stirring only slightly from his stupor and nodding.

“An’ yer headed to London, right?”

Again, he nodded in time with the chattering cabin.

“They have good doct’ers ther’?”

His interest somewhat piqued, Marcus noticed the profuse sweat that accumulated on the man’s brow.

“I suppose they do,” he obliged.

“An . . . an wha’ kind of medicine is it that you do?” The man wiped his face again.

“General medicine. I am a resident, still in training.”

“Ah.” The stranger looked down at his hands as the padded leather seat bounced beneath him.

“What kind of doctor are you looking for?” Marcus started to welcome the distraction.

“I . . . I dunno, exactly. I’m just a simple fisherman from Dundee. I sometimes wake up . . . ” His countenance paled, and his voice came as a whisper when he continued. “It’s a dream I wake up from . . . a real terrible thing, it is. An’ I can’ make it stop.”