Chapter 4—Casablanca
Location: Grand Hotel, Casablanca
Time: August 27, 1878
"All right, all right," Alan complained. "It's my fault. This time at least, it may be."
They had just gotten a bird back from Londinium. Tom was indeed at liberty, because the cab company released him. And his sister and mother were in real danger of being thrown out of their apartment. They were relieved that Tom was still alive, but they had no money at all.
Respect for his betters aside, Tom was about ready to paste Alan van Helsing a good one. All very well to stand on principle and refuse to be gouged, but it was Tom's mum and sis who would be paying for it. Then he saw Sir William. The toff was making a calm down gesture, but he was doing it with his left hand hidden from van Helsing. Tom, with effort, followed the advice. Sir William said yesterday that the best way to handle Alan van Helsing was to give him time and let him talk himself into things. If you tried to push him, he just got stubborn.
"My principles are right," Alan insisted for the third time since the letter arrived, but more calmly this time. Then he continued. "But they are my principles, and Tom's mother and sister should not be made to pay their cost. I will instruct Karl to provide housing for them." He stopped his pacing. "Would your family members be interested in employment? If I am going to be providing room and board anyway, might as well add a wage, and in exchange get some workers."
Tom considered. "Ma is a fair cook," he started, but both Sir William and van Helsing were shaking their heads.
"Alan's chef is a genius, but Joseph is also a prima donna. He allows no one in his kitchen, not even Alan."
"For now," Alan said, "I'll have Karl put them on as general service maids. It will be light work because we have adequate staff already. What about that farm of your's, William, old chap?"
Sir William turned to Tom. "How would your family like to move to the country?"
"We've lived in Londinium my whole life. And me ma's, from what I'm told. I'm not sure they would know what to do on a farm. Ma and Missy are both good with a needle and thread."
"This is going to take some working out," Alan van Helsing said, then looked at Tom. "Meanwhile those clothes you're wearing simply won't do. William, be a good chap and take Tom down to a clothier and get him a proper kit." Then, with a look at William, he added, "Very well, put it on the hotel account and I'll cover it. But do go away, both of you. I have to think. I have to think about Tom's family and about Lady Jane Alexander."
Tom followed Sir William out of the suite still worried.
"It will be fine, Tom."
"If you say so, Sir William, but will it be fine, in time? We rent by the week and the rent's due day after tomorrow."
"Plenty of time, Tom. Plenty of time."
✽✽✽
Once they were gone Alan sat down and started the process of loading his pipe while he thought. He had one of the new Singer sewing machines. They were interesting devices that used magic to move a curved needle through a curving pattern. Another part of the device held the cloth to be worked in just the right position so that each stitch would be just the right distance from the last. They could produce almost five hundred stitches in a minute. All of which meant that Tom's family wouldn't be employed as seamstresses, no matter how skilled. Still that wasn't a matter of much concern. If they weren't absolute dolts, they could be put to work loading some of the magical items that the household used. Including the sewing machine, which needed to be loaded before each use.
No, the real issue was Jane Alexander and William's contention that Jane might still be Jane rather than the animated corpse that Alan had known she was. Jane and all the other vampires that he had staked in a career of vampire hunting that had now lasted almost a decade and had started when he had been forced to stake his own sister. But mostly Jane, because Jane Alexander was one of the few vampires that had ever escaped.
Location: Paris, Near the Seine
Time: August 27, 1878
Jane crept out of the sewer and looked at the night sky. It was, she guessed, a little after three in the morning. She was healthier now, but not entirely healthy. She had stomach cramps. That was the reason for this excursion. She needed food. Specifically yogurt. The digestive biota that Alice knew about, but Lady Jane hadn't. She needed to restore her internal biota to restore her ability to process food and gain the nutrient value from it. The moon was bright and the waters of the Seine were black, but Jane saw the glow of the fish swimming in the river. She realized that what she was seeing wasn't infrared. Fish were cold-blooded. What she was seeing was different. What she was seeing was life, or at least akin to life.
She made her way up river on the left bank of the river, flitting from shadow to shadow. going in a frozen instant from complete immobility to movement to fast for the eye to follow. She was still in rags, but she had torn them into strips and wrapped them around her legs and arms. She needed the protection from the cold because the cold didn't bother her. The hurt from the cold was one of many things she didn't notice unless she consciously thought about it. She had to remind herself to breathe, even to cause her heart to beat.
As she moved upriver, Jane thought of Bill Goldman and Evan Von and for the first time she wanted to kill. She had killed before, under Roderic's control, but had been horrified by it. She'd never wanted to kill anyone, not until now. She knew it wasn't fair, but the way Bill and Evan had played, and overplayed, their noble self-sacrifice as they planned her murder made her furious.
She kept moving and she wondered. Would Sir William have Bill Goldman's memories? Would Alan have Evan's? She didn't know what happened, but she had the memories of the life and the game. Alice Blake was a nurse, and worked with the elderly. She knew about biota and she had read the game books, so she knew that Jane was still alive. The difference was that now Jane felt alive. Alive, but at a distance. She kept going up the Seine until she reached the outskirts of Paris, where the houses started to turn into small farms.
The road changed from cobblestones to dirt and was hemmed in by trees and stone fences. The moon painted the world in black and white, but her feel for life added color that wasn't color. Off the road to the left there was a small barn. She could see vaguely the life within it. Two cows and a draft horse, as well as a mother cat and some kittens. There were mice too, but they were staying carefully hidden. She sniffed the air and smelled among the other scents, milk, butter, and she thought yogurt. Before she was turned, Jane could not have told the scent of yogurt from the scent of milk or butter.
Without thinking, she leapt the stone wall that marked the dividing line between country road and farm. Her leap was accomplished half by strength, half by magic, but when she landed, she twisted her foot. She stopped and felt the ankle. It was a bad sprain, probably not a break. But it wouldn't have happened if her—call them vampire instincts—didn't take over in the moment of going over the stone fence. It was only three feet high. She had not needed to jump it.
Carefully, she started moving. She was aware of the pain but didn't feel it. There was none of the vagueness that might come with drugs, just a wall between body and self. She paid careful attention to the ankle as she walked to the barn and noted that it was being further damaged by walking on it.
The cows in the barn started lowing. Ignoring her ankle, Jane moved with vampiric speed into the barn. She had to quiet the cows and the draft horse before they alerted the family. The instinctive response of animals to a vampire or a were was gibbering terror, increasing as the magical creature got closer. It could be countered, but only with one animal at a time. She pulled open the barn door and in her haste she ripped the top leather hinge loose, then ran to the first cow.
She grabbed its head and forced its eyes to meet hers by main force and, using her will, forced it to calm. Then it was on to the next. Then the horse. The cat was hissing at her. She looked at it and it jumped aside, avoiding eye contact. She had to get that damned cat calmed down. A scratch or clawing would wake the other animals from their trance and she would be back at the beginning.
Jane stopped, arrested by a memory from Alice Blake. Suddenly she felt she was in a Marx Brothers movie, or maybe a Three Stooges, but one of the old black and white movies that you saw on late night TV. She was Curly and the cat was Moe. She sat down on the straw and laughed. It was, she realized, the first time she had laughed since Roderick bit her neck.
She was still laughing when she heard a footstep. She looked over at the torn loose barn door to see a boy of about ten. He was holding a pitchfork but not like he was sure what he should do with it. The handle was old wood and the iron head had three tines. It was a foot taller than the lad holding it.
She smiled at the boy, not trying to hypnotize him, just the sort of smile she would have given him before she ever met Roderick. He had curly black hair and a wool cap with a short bill that was too big for him. His pants were patched, but it was done with care. He wore no shoes and his feet were dirty.
In her mind's eye, she could see him sneaking out of the house to face down the trouble in the barn. Scared, but old enough to be embarrassed by his fear. Out here on his own to prove to himself that he was brave. She must be a horrible disappointment to him. After all, she was only five foot five and didn't look like a vampire. She stopped laughing as she looked at him, but was still smiling.
"You tore off our barn door," he accused.
"Yes. I'm sorry about that," Jane admitted. "I was in a hurry to calm the animals."
He looked at her, then at the barn door. It was opened half way and the leather hinge on the lower part of the door was still attached, but the upper one was ripped out, with the nails that used to attach the leather strip to the door pulled loose. "How did you pull it loose? Papa put that hinge on himself. I watched, and it was only a couple of months ago. It's a good hinge and well attached," he insisted belligerently, as though she were going to accuse his father of shoddy workmanship.
She looked. "Yes, it was a good hinge. And I am sorry. I'm stronger than I look."
"Why did . . ." He stopped and went back to basics. "What are you doing on our farm?" He took a firmer grip on the pitchfork.
"I needed some food," Jane said. She knew that she could hypnotize the boy, but she didn't want to. Suddenly Jane remembered. Her gown, the one she was buried in, and which she was still wearing the rags of, was beaded with pearls. The lace was tatters now, and she had used it to tie the rags of her dress into something like trousers. Now she untied one of the ties and searched it for one of the beaded pearls. "This is a pearl. It's not a very big one, nor is it of very good quality, but it's worth a couple of livres." She looked at the door again, and went looking for a second pearl. "For the door," she said, holding out the two pearls, "and some yogurt."
Cautiously, the boy approached, still holding the pitchfork. She handed over the pearls. He retreated back to the barn door, and indicated a clay pot covered in cheesecloth. "The yogurt is there. You'll need a bowl. I'll get you one." He then turned and ran off before she could say anything.
The pitchfork was left lying by the barn door, and the cat was still hissing at her, but seemed satisfied to just hiss since she wasn't making any threatening moves toward its kittens.
Jane got up and went to the pot that held the yogurt. It would be much tastier with a bit of honey, she thought, but beggars can't be choosers. Also, the boy was right. She didn't want to just dip her hand into the yogurt. All of Alice Blake's training screamed "no" in her mind, and the idea wasn't appealing to Jane either. She heard a commotion from the house and was tempted to run. Very tempted. The boy was a boy. His parents would be much more suspicious and might do something that would force her to act. Force her to be a vampire.
But it was too late. They were already coming. She went to the barn door and picked up the pitchfork and laid it against the wall of the barn, not in immediate reach of the door. Then she went back to the pile of hay and sat down so as to appear as unthreatening as she could.
The man who came into the barn, looking up at the torn leather strap, was an older version of the boy. Not a tall man, but not overly short, he had an unshaven look and the same curly black hair as his son. But his eyes were tired, beaten down by life in a way that his son's weren't yet. She had seen men like him every day of her life and never given them more than a moment's notice. He looked at her and his right hand, which had been held in a fist opened to reveal the two small pearls. "Where'd you get these?" He looked at the rags she was wearing. What had, months before, been a beautiful gown. "Where'd you get that gown? It's silk, it is," his tone accusing her of theft.
"I was buried in it," Jane said. It just slipped out. Jane might be a vampire who had sucked the blood of rats as well as people, but she wasn't a thief. It was insulting. But having said that much, she was unable to get control of her mouth. "I'm a vampire, you cretin."
He looked at her, then at the door, and started backing away.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jane snapped. "If I had wanted to suck your blood, I would have. All I want is some yogurt, and I paid for that."
"Vampires don't eat," the man said, but he stopped backing away.
"It's hard to explain."
He looked at her again. He looked at the door, then he looked at his son who was staring wide-eyed. "Go inside and fetch that bowl you were after before. And a spoon, as well."
Once the boy left, he stepped into the barn and looked around, then headed for the pitchfork. "Try," he said.
Jane blinked.
"Try to explain."
"I need the yogurt to get my guts working again. Then I'll be able to eat proper food."
He nodded. "What about blood sucking?"
There was a practicality to the man that would have shocked Jane, but it was not unfamiliar to her. French peasants were the most practical people in the world. She ended up explaining that the curse left her a heartbeat away from death, something that Jane hadn't understood but Alice had read in The Vampire Compendium IV. She didn't explain about Alice. She didn't understand that part herself.
Jacques, the farmer, arranged to have yogurt, milk, and bread for her for the next several nights, in exchange for five more of the pearls and fixing his barn door.
✽✽✽
Two hours later, Jane, wearing work gloves, stood on a ladder and used a block of wood to push a nail into the door frame.
Jacques was pragmatic but curious. "Why not just use your hand?"
"The magic adds strength but doesn't protect my body from injury." She showed him the block of wood with the dent in it where the nail head had compressed the wood. "Shoving the nail into the wood would hurt my hand." She wasn't using a hammer because she still didn't have that much control over her vampiric strength and she didn't want to put the hammer through the barn wall. Jane was now well fed on yogurt, her stomach still unhappily adjusting to its new circumstances, but ignored. She stood with her good foot on the ladder, consciously avoiding further injury to her twisted ankle. Restoring her body and getting it into balance with the magic was going to take some time.
Jane didn't have that many pearls, so she was going to have to make a living somehow. Unfortunately, she was poorly equipped to make a living. She could do embroidery, load household magical items with the spells that operated them, make pleasant and witty conversation at dinner. However, there was little need of embroidery on a peasant farm. Loading the spell into a magical item required that you actually have the magical item, and even the most basic of magical items were beyond the means of a small farmer with twenty acres four miles outside Paris. And she was pretty sure that a discussion of the Londinium fashions and who was sleeping with who among the gentry would bore these people to tears. Alice Blake had a lifetime of experience in healthcare and Jane's vampiric sight was potentially a great aid in that work but, really, who was going to trust a vampire nurse?
Jane hopped down the ladder, using a careful combination of physical and magical movement. When she was first turned and for all the time Roderick controlled her, she had barely moved her body at all. After she escaped to Paris, she moved her body constantly, but almost entirely by magic, dragging it along like a weight. It was only since she gained Alice Blake's memories and the healing that came with them that she started trying to integrate the magic with the physical.
Maybe she could get some money from William and Alan, assuming they got the memories of Bill and Evan. It was the least those two clowns owed her. It occurred to her that if Alan did get Evan's memories, it had probably been quite a shock. That thought made her smile.
Location: Rick's American Tavern, Casablanca
Time: August 28, 1878
Sir William tossed the dice down the table. This was Rick's, and yet it wasn't. The women were in gowns of this century, not the next one. No world war was looming over them. France was governed by the Third Republic, and a variety of European interests had set up shop under the auspices of the French government
William looked over at the door. He might as well, he had just crapped out. And in walked Captain Louis Renault of the French polizzi. He was even wearing the same hat. William's memories filled in that blank. It was a standard hat of the French gendarmerie, had been for years. He was heading to the roulette wheel, and a memory from Bill Goldman surfaced. A man handing Renault his winnings from the roulette table just as he announced that he was shocked to find gambling in Rick's casino.
William shook himself and decided that perhaps he had had enough of Casablanca nightlife for now. He also decided that should the universe ever arrange it so that he got to meet Leroy, he was going to strangle the game master on general principles. Tom was standing by the door in his new clothing. Bowler hat, and a sack coat, with sturdy trousers, looking uncomfortable.
William was halfway to the exit when he suddenly had a thought. Captain Renault in the movie had gotten his payoffs from Rick's crooked roulette wheel. What if someone else bet the same way? It might not work . . . but it might. It was better odds than a roulette wheel normally offered, even an honest one. He turned and followed the police captain to the roulette wheel, pulling his billfold from his coat pocket as he went. If it didn't work, Alan would be irritated, but Alan irritated was something Sir William Deforest had long since learned to live with. Besides, William liked to gamble.
Renault walked up to the table and waited until most of the people had placed their bets, then put a one livre chip on 29 black. Almost William copied the bet exactly, but prudence got the better of him. Instead, he placed a louie on the third 12. The wheel spun and Captain Renault was looking at William with less than full approval. Sir William looked back and his mouth twitched in a half smile in spite of himself. After all, if they were going to use a crooked wheel there was no reason at all that William shouldn't take advantage of it. The wheel stopped and sure enough it was 29 black. And that was in the third twelve, so while Captain Renault picked up his winnings, William picked up his. His bet paid only two to one, but it was two louies, not livres. He had just received more than the captain's bribe.
He turned and walked away, not noticing the little man in the corner.
✽✽✽
Tom Blackwell was looking at him strangely as they left the casino section of Rick's. Bill Goldman had never been much of a gambler, never had a poker face. And while William gambled quite a bit, it was betting or the horse or playing craps, not something like whist, where you had to hide your expression. He didn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. He was an Anglish gentleman, after all. He could deal with adversity and keep his upper lip quite as stiff as needed. But he was no old stone face in the face of good news.
They stopped for a little while in the club part of the tavern, where there were tables and a young woman singing love songs, supported by a spanish guitar. There was a piano, but no one playing it tonight. They listened to a couple of songs, then headed back to the hotel. It was only five blocks away, so they walked. They had just turned into a dark cross street when Tom shouted.
William turned in time to see the knife and his practice took over. His left hand went down sharply and deflected the arm of the man holding the knife, but the little man had some skill and went with the blow, so didn't lose the knife. He pulled back and started in again, but Tom grabbed his shoulder, trying to pull him off William. The little man, not much more than a shadow, twisted with Tom's pull and tried to knife Tom.
Now William reached in, grabbed the knife hand, and pulled. There was really no choice, not if he wanted to end it quickly. William pulled the little man's knife hand into the little man's gut and moved it back and forth. Hot blood and intestines spilled from the wound. That, at least, was not at all like the movie. The little man screamed and fell. He rolled over on his back and said in a breathy little voice, "I just wanted . . ." and died. It was the voice that clinched it.
Sir William had just killed Peter Lorre.
✽✽✽
Ugarte was dead in an alley, and William, with Bill's memories, figured the transit papers were safe. He leaned against the alley wall, breathing hard. "Tom," he panted, "go fetch that police captain, if you would. I'll wait here.
✽✽✽
The police office didn't look like the set from Casablanca. It had much more of a late-nineteenth-century feel. Stone, but almost dungeony. Not that they ever got to the dungeon part. They were taken to Captain Renault's office, and their papers were checked. A runner was sent to the hotel to confirm that they were indeed who they said they were.
And that was odd. From Bill Goldman's memories, the cities of the late-nineteenth century should have had telegraphs and been close to telephones. But they didn't. There were several messenger services, one using homing pigeons, another using professional dreamers who, for a fee, would have their dreams invaded by one another to send messages across long distances instantly, but only at certain hours of the day or night. There was knowledge of electricity, but how it differed from the magical force that powered spells and magical items wasn't well understood. The notion of transmitting it by wire either hadn't been thought of yet, or at least hadn't reached the general public. There might be some magical Johnnies at Oxford and Cambridge working on it, perhaps even at that new place in Boston. But if there was a Thomas Alva Edison in this world, Sir William had never heard of him. Nor had he heard of a telegraph.
With his thoughts on this, William remembered his studies of the American Civil War and the Franco-German war of more recent vintage. Both had involved the extensive use of scrying, but neither had used telegraphs. They had used gunpowder, but often ignited it through use of small single-use magical items. Items that were called oddly enough blasting caps.
While these thoughts had been running through William's mind, Captain Renault was apparently doing an excellent job as an investigator. It didn't seem that corruption and incompetence necessarily went hand in hand.
"I do not know whether to thank you or imprison you, Monsieur. How did you know that I would win my bet?"
The question was sudden, out of the blue, and William was still thinking about the little thief. "I didn't. It was just a guess." William hadn't meant to say that last part. It came out because of the suddenness of the question.
"What did you base your guess on, Monsieur—" Renault looked down at his notes. "—William Deforest? Sir William? A member of the Anglish gentry?"
"Yes, Sir William Deforest. I'm a gentleman adventurer."
Captain Renault rolled his eyes and William felt his cheeks heat.
"And what brings you to Casablanca, Sir William?"
"Just passing through, Captain, on our way to southern Africa and the temple of Symbaoe."
Renault nodded sagely. "And why are you still here? The Angola left yesterday, and it will be a week before the next airship arrives."
"Well, It was all my fault I'm afraid, Captain. Tom here got caught on the Angola because I was a bit short of cash, and, well, that caused more problems and while we were straightening them out, the Angola left without us."
The interview continued and Captain Renault got quite a bit out of both William and Tom, switching back and forth and occasionally switching subjects. Willian did manage to avoid mentioning that he remembered the captain and the crooked roulette wheel from the movie, but in the process he apparently left the captain with the impression that he was a clairvoyant of some sort. Which got him banned from Rick's and every other casino in Casablanca for the remainder of his stay.
"And, Sir William," Captain Renault ended with a half-smile of his own, "when the next airship leaves, whatever the complications, be on it." And there was no smile left at all by the time the captain finished saying that.
✽✽✽
"William, really," Alan said. "This is the hinterlands. When will you learn to behave? You've gotten us thrown out of several places since I've known you, but Casablanca?"
"Apparently they don't approve of any one but the police killing off their thieves. At least, that was the impression I got from Captain Renault. Also, the only reason I'm not in the gaol is that I'm Anglish gentry, and he doesn't want the political headache in detaining me."
Tom snorted. He was sitting at a table, going over William's new pulse gun with a magnifying glass and cleaning fluids. "If it had been me shoving the knife in, I'd be in the hole, that's sure and certain."
Alan looked over at Tom. "Well, both of you, stay out of trouble. We have six more days until we can catch the next airship. And if either of you gets arrested again, I'll not be paying your bail."