Chapter 2—In the Air and Underground
Location: Cheapside, Londinium
Time: August 25, 1878
Keeping his left hand on the steering lever, Tom Blackwell pulled on the brake lever with his right and pushed on the gear pedal, bringing the steam coach to a stop. He reached over and twisted the stop valve to the right to stop the steam. His cab was black and rusted, with a steam engine in the back. Tom called it Betsy, and it was owned by the company he worked for.
Even before Betsy was fully stopped at the entrance to the dirigible docks at Cheapside, the toff leapt out the door and ran for the stairs. The toff had his left hand on his top hat and his right was carrying a long leather case of the sort that held big guns.
Tom shouted, "Ho there, Gov'ner! The fare!"
The toff half-turned and shouted, "Bring my luggage," then turned back and kept running.
Cursing under his breath, Tom turned around, reached to the roof of the cab, and unstrapped the bag. There was just the one and it wasn't all that big. Bag in hand, Tom leapt down and chased after the toff.
✽✽✽
Sir William Deforest leapt from the hansom cab as it pulled up at the dirigible port in Cheapside. The cab had a large steam engine in the back. It puffed out coal smoke from one exhaust pipe and steam from the other. It was painted black and had hard rubber tires on wooden spoked wheels. It had springs, but not shock absorbers, so the ride over the cobblestone streets had not been pleasant.
The cabbie, in a coachman hat and worn waistcoat, yelled, "Ho there, Gov'ner! The fare!"
"Bring my luggage," Sir William shouted over his shoulder. There wasn't much, just his bag. He had the pulse gun in its dumbdumb leather case in his right hand. His left was holding his top hat on his head. The truth was that the exorbitant price he paid for the pulse gun left him a bit short of the ready, and he was going to have to get a loan from Alan von Helsing to pay the cabbie.
The dirigible dock was three flights up a girder work of rusty iron pilings and cast iron stairs, leading to a wooden ramp that entered the large gondola at the base of the magical balloon. It had to use magic to magnify the lifting force of the heated hydrogen or the balloon would be ridiculously large. As it was, it was almost twice the size of the gondola, and the gondola was made as light as possible out of bamboo and pressed paper panels. The pressed paper panels might look like hardwood, but they weighed less than balsa wood and made up one large magical item suitable for crafting the ramp spell into.
Sir William was on the second level landing and the cabby was behind him when he suddenly got the memories of Bill Goldman. The knowledge was just there. A whole other life, longer than his own, with hopes and dreams, failures and successes, attitudes and beliefs. The game, too—Bill Goldman's memories of the game and the two previous games where Bill had played Sir William. One was with Evan Von, and the one before that was with Evan and Alice Blake, who played Lady Jane Alexander, a young woman of a good family who had been bitten by a vampire. And in remembering, he suddenly knew that Jane had not succumbed, at least not in the way that he and Alan von Helsing thought she had. She had been turned, but when they killed the vampire that turned her, she was freed from his thrall. From what they said in the game, she had the curse under at least some control.
He stumbled. It wasn't anything in Bill Goldman's real life that had thrown him for a loop. It was Lady Jane Alexander. She was out there somewhere. Not exactly alive, perhaps, but still herself. Until that moment Sir William knew with religious certainty that the "undead" were in truth dead, their corpses occupied and controlled by demonic forces.
The cabbie was puffing up the stairs behind him, and Sir William realized that he still had to deal with the immediate problem of the cab fare. He rushed up the last staircase to the dirigible docks and ran across the gangplank, hotly pursued by the cabbie.
He saw Alan and waved. "Alan, old chum would you pay this fellow? I had to get the pulse gun and I'm a bit short."
Alan gave him a disgusted look and reached under his coat for his billfold. Then he patted his chest where the billfold should have resided, in the left breast pocket of his gold lamé waistcoat. Van Helsing had his problems, but a lack of funds wasn't one of them. "It's gone!" For a moment Alan van Helsing looked around like he might spot the thief, then he pulled himself up short. "Oh, blast and beelzebub. I left it in my case in the stateroom."
Now it was the cabbie who was looking around for a copper.
Alan van Helsing sniffed without disturbing the red crystal monocle that covered his right eye and said, "Very well. Follow me, my good man. We will go to our cabin and I will provide you with payment." He turned and marched off with his Prussian military background clear in every step. Without looking back, he added, "And bring the bags."
Sir William Deforest followed along with the cabbie, wondering where Lady Jane was. And what had happened to her after she had escaped on the night they killed Roderic.
✽✽✽
Tom Blackwell followed the kraut and the fop to the cabin, recalculating his tip. Unfortunately, recalculating it down. German nobles were notoriously stingy. The only good thing was that he was getting a look at the Angola. Tom had a fondness for airships. If his family had had the money he would have gone to Cambridge, to the school of applied magics. He looked over at the pressed paper panels colored in an imitation of oak and he wished he could see under the outer coating to the magical symbol structure beneath. But the hoity-toits didn't like seeing the mechanics of magic, so everything was covered in veneers of wood or painted to look like normal walls. They turned a corner and went three doors down a corridor to a stateroom. It was a good size room, larger than you would see on a seagoing ship, if a little smaller than in a hotel.
He looked at the window. There was no glass in the window, which Tom knew was a matter of weight, not cost. It did have shutters hinged at the top. They were raised at the moment, but could be closed if it got chilly. There was a small desk and two bunks in the room and in one corner a set of bags including one with a cross, a Star of David, and words in what Joe thought must be Islamic writing. He'd seen that sort of case in the music hall skits. It was a vampire hunter's case.
The kraut went to the stack of cases and shifted the vampire hunter's case out of the way, then started going through the others. Tom waited. Tom had been stiffed by more toffs than working men. The kraut went through the second bag muttering all the while.
"I'll catch you up as soon as I can get to a branch of the bank," the toff assured the kraut.
Tom crossed his arms and spread his feet, making it clear he was prepared to wait right here until he got paid or they were ice skating in Hades. The kraut turned his head and the red monocle stared at Tom. Then he snorted and went back to the vampire hunter bag.
Just then there was a lurch, and it was only Tom's wide stance that kept him from stumbling. The toff did stumble, though he caught himself quickly enough, throwing out a hand to grab one of the handholds that were attached to the walls of the room. The other hand held the long gun in its leather case. The kraut went arse over teakettle and the bags went everywhere. The vampire bag came open and a billfold came flying out, along with crosses, stakes, bottles, and other paraphernalia.
Tom looked out the window; London was moving.
The toff looked out the window too, and then he looked over at Tom, then back at the kraut. "No hurry now, Alan. In fact, probably no need. It looks like our good cabbie here will be joining us at least for the first leg of our trip." He looked back to Tom. "There is a branch of the Bank of England in Casablanca. I'll be able to get funds there."
Tom barely heard the man because he was too busy watching his whole life float away beneath him. "I have to get off," Tom said, even though he knew it was too late. The magic that allowed a balloon as small as they used to lift as much weight as it did was not a single spell, but a complex of them, and they all had to interact just right. The first spell simply magnified the lifting power of the balloon. But the second spell acted as a ramp, redirecting the force acting on the gondola from straight down to forward and down. In combination with the magnified power of the balloon, that spell let the balloon move forward through the air and even angle upwards a bit. Once started, the ramp spell had to be allowed to run its course or be dispelled. In either case, it had to be recrafted and recast at great expense. The price to turn around and go back to the dirigible docks now was the same as the cost of the trip to Casablanca. Not the same as passage on the dirigible. The same as hiring the whole dirigible for the trip to Casablanca.
"But I have a family," Tom complained, "and I'm responsible for the cab. I have to tell the company where it is, and even so they're liable to let me go. My mom and my sister need the money."
"We'll hire a bird," Sir William assured him condescendingly. "Once we've assured the company that you were not at fault, I'm sure there will be no problem."
Tom was sure there'd be no problem too. Not for the toffs and not for the company. The company would pick up the cab, hire another driver, and Tom would be out of work, with his mom taking in laundry and Missy probably forced into . . . well, the only job open to a young girl with no prospects. But none of that would be a problem for these toffs.
The kraut was looking at him with that red-monocled stare again. "No, Sir William. Everything will not be all right, not for this fellow. It is quite clear that you being short of the ready has put him into an irrecoverable situation."
"What? Say Alan . . ." The toff, Sir William, trailed off, then started again in a different tone. "The economy stinks, doesn't it? Jobs are hard to come by and there are a dozen applicants for every position. They'll fire you?"
Tom blinked "Fire me?"
"Oh, sorry. Terminate your employment."
Now the red monocle focused on Sir William, and the kraut spoke again. "What caused you to use such an expression? It's common in the Americas, is it not? And your aura is different, now that I look at it. It doesn't appear to be a possession. It's well integrated, not one aura overlaid on another, but different."
The kraut moved toward his bag, and after a startled glance Sir William started to grin. "Alan, feel free to try the cross and holy water on me. But not the stake, if you don't mind. And I would remind you that I came sprinting along the boarding ramp on a sunny day."
"But something is different."
"Yes, it is, and I will explain it all. But first let's see what we can do to settle this fellow's problems, shall we?" He turned back to Tom, still holding the long gun, then finally noticed it. He turned to one of the bunks and, with the dirigible moving smoothly, proceeded to put the gun away, talking all the while. "I'm Sir William Deforest and that's Alan van Helsing. He's Dutch, by the by, not German, but he went to school in Heidelberg and did a stint as an officer in the kaiser's forces during that dust-up with the Frenchies a few years back. I'm Cambridge, by way of Sandhurst, myself. Not well suited for military discipline, so I ended up a gentleman adventurer, don't you know."
"Don't expect the fact that I am Dutch to help with the tip," Alan van Helsing said.
"It's true. Alan's tight as a Scottish purse string, even if he is obscenely wealthy." Sir William looked at van Helsing. "You're going to need to buy a needle big enough to let through a whole herd of camels if you expect to get into heaven, old boy." Sir William turned back to Tom. "Family money, you see."
"That's how rich people stay rich," van Helsing said. "We don't give it away." Then he heaved a sigh. "However, in this case, we may be morally obligated to make an exception." He sent a pointed look at Sir William. "Both of us. Since we are the cause of this fellow's troubles, we have an obligation to see him made whole." Then, with his red monocle winking in the light of the setting sun, and with a finger pointed at Tom, he added, "Within reason, my man, within reason."
Tom wondered what the kraut—no, Dutchman—would consider reasonable. But that thought was interrupted by Sir William, who went to the desk and sat down, then waved Tom to a seat on one of the bunks. "Tell us about yourself, man. Start with your name and tell it all."
Gingerly, Tom sat on the made bunk. The quilt was fancy and his trousers none too clean. Cleaners were expensive and Tom made almost enough to keep a roof over his head and a bit of food in the cupboard, not enough to pay a laundry. "My name is Thomas Blackwell. I'm twenty-four. I live in a flat on Baker Street with me mum and sister. And I drive the cab." Tom wasn't good at this. He never knew how much to say, what was needed information and what was bragging. He had gotten a scholarship to Cambridge, even though he hadn't been able to go. His da had gotten sick about then, and he'd had to go to work. He'd studied on his own, and he could do a little of the rote magic and knew about mechanicals. He sometimes managed to borrow a book, though he didn't have the money to get a library membership. And he was good with his hands, which was how he'd gotten the job as a cabbie. He had fixed a pipe on a boiler. The company didn't like to pay two people if they could find one that could do both jobs. But how much of that to say? Tom didn't know.
But over the next few hours, Sir William and Alan got it all out of him.
A bell rang.
"That will be dinner," Alan van Helsing said. "Come along, Thomas. We might as well get your ticket now, so you can eat. You coming, William?"
"Never miss a meal if I can help it." Sir William patted his stomach over his waistcoat. It was leaf green satin. His coat was forest green and his trousers nut-brown, worn with shined black boots. But without seeming to notice, Sir William put an arm over Tom's patched and worn, coal-smoke covered, gray jacket.
They followed Alan out of the stateroom and down the corridor.
✽✽✽
The steward took one look at Tom and moved to intercept them. He was a youngish man with blond hair, wearing a pale blue double-breasted tailcoat with dark blue chevrons on each arm. His pants were black and too tight for a man's comfort. They were too tight for Tom's comfort just seeing them.
"Ah," Sir William said, "just the fellow. Tom here stowed away, through no fault of his own. I'm afraid it was all my doing. He's going to need a ticket at least to Casablanca."
The steward sniffed at Tom, then brought his heels together and gave Sir William a sharp little bow. "Of course, sir. We can find him a bunk in the servant's cabins. There is the matter of the fare."
"Oh, I think we can do better than the servant's cabin . . ." Sir William started turning to van Helsing.
Tom saw van Helsing's expression and said, "The servant's cabin will be fine, Sir William. I'm more concerned with getting word back to Mr. Smithers at the cab company, and I'm worried about my ma and sis."
Sir William opened his mouth, but van Helsing beat him to the punch. "Good enough. I will pay Blackwell's fare and see to the hiring of a messenger bird. You can pay me back when we get to Casablanca." Reminding Sir William that, for now at least, it was van Helsing who would be paying for anything they did. The air ship carried messenger birds that would fly back to their homes in Londinium, carrying notes that were shrunken down, but the cost of sending a bird was high. Tom knew that much, but he didn't know just how high.
✽✽✽
Tom found himself in the more congenial quarters of the servants. There were eight bunks in the room and six of them were taken. Tom had his choice of the top bunk on the left or the top bunk on the right, and was told to stay in it rather than taking up valuable floor space. The food was bangers and mash, brown bread, and cabbage. The drink was small beer, and the talk was of the various lords and toffs who were taking the trip to Casablanca and why. Why mostly amounted to some sort of business they had and a few were making connections to make a tour around the southern Mediterranean to visit places like Alexandria, the pyramids, and the ruins of Carthage.
✽✽✽
In the lounge, Alan was finally getting to question William about the strangeness of his aura. "And don't tell me it's a problem with the glass, Willy. It was you that charged the thing this morning." The lounge was shaded by the dirigible's balloon, but out the windows the land passed under them like a perfectly rendered map. They had passed over southern Angland now, and were over the Isle of Éire. It was a beautiful place at this height. All the trouble and revolution were impossible to see. The table was covered in a white linen cloth and stewards brought fine foods to the passengers on wheeled carts. William was having pheasant and Alan was having saddle of lamb.
"Yes, and I won't, Alan. But do try not to get too upset when I explain. As I was running up the stair, I suddenly got the memories and experience of a fellow named Bill Goldman."
"A Jew?" Alan asked, then looked around, embarrassed.
William was caught for a moment. "Not a practicing one, certainly. I, that is Bill, was never all that interested in family history, but from his memories I would say his great-grandfather was a converted Jew. Bill was raised as a Baptist. One of the odd Christian sects that sprang up in the colonies—well, the States, I should say—in the last century." William stopped and his expression darkened.
"What's wrong?"
"Bill Goldman was married for twenty years. He had a seventeen-year-old daughter and a fourteen-year-old son. I remember them, Alan. I remember them as though I were Bill Goldman and I will never see any of them again. It's as though I just lost my family and I can think of nothing to do about it. Even could I get to that other world with that other history, what business would I have doing so? If there is a Sandra Goldman, there is a Bill Goldman lying next to her in their bed.
"You can be sure of this, Alan. This, whatever it is, was not Bill Goldman's doing. He didn't have the least ability in that way. And he wouldn't have wanted to, not at the cost of his wife and children."
"Comfort yourself in the knowledge that if they were real, they are still real. Even if you can't see them, they are not dead."