CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“John, what the heck are you doing out here?” Chesa appeared from the kitchen. Her eyes shot up when I turned around. “What happened to your face?”
Blood streamed down my cheek. I rolled to my feet, peering out into the fog. There was no sign of the vampire. Chesa grabbed me by the shoulder.
“You’re bleeding all over the place!”
“Vampire. There was a vampire,” I stuttered. “Vampire.”
“Yes, we know, John. We were all there,” Chesa said. “Did you trip and hit your head or something?”
“No, listen, there was a vampire. A real one. It . . .” I pointed outside. “Well, he’s gone now.” I described the encounter as quickly as possible, while the Eccentrics were out of earshot. Chesa furrowed her brow.
“Well, we’re going to need to tell Tesla about this. Maybe the name means something to him,” she said.
“We can’t. Not until we know what’s going on. They can’t know about the vampires.”
Chesa looked over her shoulder uncertainly. Finally, she shook her head. “Fine. But we keep an eye out.”
“Agreed. And thanks for trusting me,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t trust you. At least not very much,” Chesa said.
Just then, Gregory came out of the kitchens. “What are you guys doing out here?” he asked. “John! Your face!”
“Yeah, yeah.” I put one hand to my cheek. It came away bloody. “Just a scratch.”
“Hey, Doc?” Gregory called over his shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got one more patient!”
The Good Doctor shuffled into the room, his fingers still sticky with pancake batter. When he saw me, his glassy eyes lit up.
“Hey, I’m perfectly fine. Just a scratch,” I said, backing away. “Honest. There’s no need—”
The needle he produced from his belt was as thick as a number-two pencil, protruding from a plunger as long and round as my arm. The glass vial bubbled with noxious orange liquid.
“Ah, crap,” I mumbled, as Gregory and Chesa gleefully grabbed my arms and held me down for the healing.
My arm felt like a water balloon that someone had filled with hot, pulsing magma. Every time I tried to move my hand, spears of pain shot through my shoulder and cradled my spine in misery. Every heartbeat was throbbing anguish. I had to pry my gauntlet off to keep my fingers from bursting through the chain link, and my fingernails had turned the most amazing shade of purple. The twin puncture wounds on my wrist had boiled with pus and black bile before sealing closed, leaving a pair of shiny scars.
“Next time, get me a priest,” I said, wiping the remnants of the vampire-pus from my armor with a pancake. “Or a shot of whiskey.”
The Good Doctor chirped dismissively, measuring my arm with his calipers before stowing the syringe in a holster inside his coat. “Aether stabilizing. Take two cocaine tablets and message me tomorrow.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t step in to help, Matt?” I asked. The Saint lounged just outside the kitchen, admiring the gilt ceiling and chewing thoughtfully on a rolled-up pancake. “I would have much preferred the Brilliance.”
“Gotta conserve our energy, man. These amulets are a real slow drip.” He tapped his chest. “Long as The Good Doctor’s methods work, why not use ’em?”
“I have a list of reasons. I’ll start with the syringes. Then the smell. Then the excruciating pain.” I stood up. “Oh, hey. Dizziness! Add that to the list.”
The Good Doctor made a dismissive gesture, then packed up his gladstone bag and retreated to the kitchens to check on Pierre and Adelaide. As soon as he was gone, I pulled the rest of Knight Watch close.
“Listen, keep the vampire thing quiet. Because I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that it wasn’t one of these mechanical scarab things.” I pointed down the street, where the vampire had run. “That was the real thing.”
“If that’s the case, shouldn’t we warn the Eccentrics?” Chesa asked. “If there’s a real vampire running around the Gestalt, they should know.”
“Not without clearance from Esther. And unless one of you has a magic telephone, we’re pretty much on our own.” I glanced over Greg’s shoulder at Tembo, who was just emerging from the kitchens. “Let’s keep this to the five of us for now. Okay?”
“Sounds like a terrible idea,” Bethany said. “I’m in.”
“I do not like the idea of providing succor to the foul spawn of the night, but in this I must agree,” Gregory said. “The lady Esther has spoken. I have given my word to follow her commands, though the very gates of Hell—”
“Right, okay, you’re in. Chesa?” I asked.
“What are we talking about?” Tembo asked, strolling up.
“John saw a third vampire. Maybe a real one,” Chesa said. “He doesn’t want us to tell the Eccentrics.”
“Hm. Well, for now, I agree. Until we know who or what is behind this,” Tembo said, placing one broad hand on my shoulder. “I am with you.”
“Fine,” Chesa tossed her hair over one shoulder. “I’ll keep quiet. But if this gets someone killed . . .”
“If what gets someone killed?” Adelaide stepped out of the kitchens. She was still nursing her right hand, which under The Good Doctor’s care had swollen up like a pincushion.
“We were talking about taking Pierre in for an interview,” I said. “But I think he’s been through enough.”
Adelaide looked from me to the rest of the group, then shrugged.
“Sure, whatever. I’m just anxious to get back to the Silverhawk, and a shower.” She strolled past us. “They’re these clever things, Rast. Like rain, only inside, and warm. Oh, and someone needs to bag up the scarabs. Tesla will want to see those.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right on that, ma’am,” I grumped. “One bag of dead vampire beetle parts, coming right up.”
“You really missed your calling, John. You’d have killed it in retail,” Chesa said.
Tesla stared at the sack in my hand with baffled distaste. Oil and blood dripped through the burlap to pool on the intricate pattern of the parquet floor. The team of Pinkertons who had escorted us into the Silverhawk stood in a loose circle behind us, ready to pounce with janitorial supplies and a bucket of lye. We were on the flight deck, a place I’d never seen before. It looked like a cross between the bridge of a submarine and a gentleman’s drawing room. Wooden floors, brass railings, and cushy chairs contrasted with pipe-encrusted low ceilings, beeping display cabinets, and an array of controls that boggled the mind. Three bubble-like windows gave a commanding view of the outside, with a fourth window built into the floor and crossed by catwalks. The three command chairs, where we stood, were centered on a parquet wooden floor that wouldn’t have been out of place in the finest dance halls in the country. Fortunately, we were still on the ground, or I would have been dealing with significant vertigo issues.
“And what am I supposed to do with this?” Tesla asked delicately.
“I don’t know, I figured you’d want to see the body. Isn’t that how this works? We kill the monsters, you do science stuff to their corpses.” I shrugged. “I did the sword stuff. You’re the science guy. Science it.”
“It’s a wonder you lot ever accomplish anything meaningful.” Tesla pressed his knuckles into his brow. “Let’s go back a step. Who is this, that you have chopped up and brought to me in a burlap sack?”
“Oh, it’s not actually the body. He was way too big for this,” I said, lifting the sack. The burlap swung back and forth pendulously, spattering drops of black ichor around the control room. The mob of Pinkertons ebbed and flowed, eager to clean but reluctant to get close to me. “But both he and the other baker had one of these on their backs. Seemed important.”
“So you slaughtered a couple of bakers—”
“Just one of them. And he wasn’t just a baker,” I said.
“Someone or something had turned him into a vampire, boss,” Addie called over my shoulder. “Or at least a simulacrum of a vampire. Put up a hell of a fight, too.”
“He wasn’t too tough,” Bethany said with a sniff. “Dropped like a stone once I showed up. Probably scared.”
“Well, the rest of us were struggling while you lounged in the rafters,” Gregory said.
“Yeah, you’re welcome for that,” Bethany said.
“Welcome? You’re welcome?” Gregory asked with a gulp. His face turned four shades of bright red, none of them cheerful. “What exactly are we welcome for?”
“The rescue? Sheesh, you save some people and they can’t even show a little appreciation. Maybe next time I’ll just—”
“Okay, enough. Let’s at least pretend we’re professional heroes,” I said sternly. “The point is that both Pierre and his assistant appeared to be vampires, they both had these devices on their backs, and once we took them off, they both changed back.”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t figure that out until we’d already killed the kid,” Addie said. “Or maybe the machine had already killed him, and was just keeping him undead.”
The Good Doctor chittered sadly, then slowly fed a croissant into his mouth flap. Pierre wouldn’t let us leave until he had provided a basket of warm bread, most of which had already disappeared into the Doc’s mask.
“Well that sounds very serious. A device, you say? So we’re looking for some kind of engineer, or a toy maker,” Tesla mused. “That doesn’t do much to narrow down the list of suspects. Well, let’s get a look at these things.” Tesla gestured to the back of the room. “Put it over there, on the workbench. I’ll take a look at it.”
I did as asked, dumping the bag’s contents out onto the metal workbench in the corner. The latent bilious substance from the glass vials on the scarabs, along with the sticky remnants of blood from the various tubes, hooks, and talons that had burrowed through the dead baker’s body put out quite a stench. Tesla produced a pair of articulated telescoping goggles from a cupboard, strapped them on, then set about examining the shattered remnants of the scarab.
“There’s something very strange about this,” he said, laying the parts out and then slowly fitting them back together. “It follows none of the paradigms I’m familiar with. The psycho-diesel chicanery of House Ford could be involved, but it lacks the hallmark crude lines. No, it’s much too elegant of a machine for that fumbler.”
“Someday you’re going to have to get over that,” Addie said quietly.
“Hank has had every opportunity to apologize. So.” Tesla rotated the main body of the scarab. “There are familiar aspects to this device, but overall, it is a mystery. And you say both vampires were wearing one?”
“Pierre’s was smaller.” Addie poked through the parts and recovered the tiny scarab. It wasn’t much bigger than her hand. “And he seemed more in control. Didn’t attack us, beyond some frightened slapping. He lacked the boy’s strength and speed.”
“Different scarabs for different purposes? Or perhaps they harvest something from the host as they grow. Very curious,” Tesla said. His goggles buzzed and whirred. A pair of tiny arms produced progressively more powerful lenses as he bent to examine the device. “And the Egyptian symbolism is not lost on me. Not uncommon in the Gestalt.”
“So this might be someone on your side of things, trying to . . . what? Recreate vampires from scratch?” I asked.
“There is a history of vampire affinity in the Gestalt. Lost souls drawn to macabre and melodramatic,” Tesla said.
“So . . . goths?” Bethany asked.
“Goths who have discovered brown,” Tesla said. “And electricity. But more precisely, this device does not seem to function on the principle of hematological transmutation.”
We stared at him blankly.
“Blood transfer. I’m not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that vampires of your . . . uh . . . milieu consume blood from living victims and transform it into life energy. Or death energy, depending on your views on the polydynamic nature of good and evil as it relates to—”
“Wait, this thing doesn’t suck blood?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure it sucked at least a little blood out of Addie.”
“A by-product of the transference process,” Nik said. “Resulting from the method of procurement. The, uh . . . the holes it pokes through your skin. Might be a legacy feature, but I suspect it’s more a matter of evoking the original format.”
“So what is it sucking?” I asked, more than a little uncomfortable about having the baker’s teeth in my veins. Not that I was particularly comfortable with the idea in the first place. “Please don’t say souls.”
“Certainly not souls. Souls are a foolish superstition concocted by religious fanatics to explain away the afterlife,” Nik said dismissively. “However, it could be siphoning off the ectoplasmic life identity of its victims, resulting in mimeographic eradication.”
“So . . . souls,” Chesa said.
“I suppose, for purposes of this discussion, we can agree on that nomenclature,” Tesla said with a patient sigh. “Perhaps there is residue.”
He reached into the device and unscrewed one of the glass vials mounted in the scarab’s wings. He sniffed at the unsealed opening, then wrinkled his nose. “Well, whatever it is, it smells like rotten grapefruit and gasoline, strained through a sweaty stocking.”
“Sounds like Malort,” I said.
“What kind of monster deals with the undead here in the Gestalt?” Gregory asked. “The Unreal has plenty of options: necromancers, liches, other vampires . . .”
“We have necromancers of a sort,” Addie said. “Though they fashion themselves as mediums and spiritualists. Liches aren’t a steampunk thing, as far as I know. And as we’ve previously discussed, all the vampires are supposed to be dead.”
“Supposed to be,” Chesa said quietly.
“Perhaps there’s something inherent in the vampiric archetype that makes the soul transfer work better. Or perhaps they’re trying to send some kind of message.” Nik set the tank down, drumming his fingers on its green surface. “Our pogrom of the undead was never very popular in the Gestalt. If we’re the target, they might be trying to hold us accountable for our past actions.
“I will need to spend more time with these. Perhaps we were wrong to involve Knight Watch. These are clearly Gestalt contraptions, though how they are replicating the Unreal is still a mystery.” Tesla stood and pushed the goggles up onto his expansive forehead. “Either way, it’s a good thing that you got them off the street.”
“Two of them,” Addie said. “The third got past Sir John before we could subdue him.”
“Third?” Tesla’s eyebrows shot up. “There was a third undead baker?”
All eyes turned to me. I really wished I had kept that secret from the rest of the team, at least until I’d had a chance to talk it over with Esther. If that final vampire was part of the cabal Knight Watch had hidden, it wouldn’t do to add them to the mix.
Reluctantly, I explained what I had seen, downplaying the archetypical appearance of the vampire. Tesla rubbed his face and looked thoughtful.
“Well, that certainly complicates matters. If there is a vampire loose in the Gestalt, we must make haste to ensure its corruption does not spread. I assume it had one of these devices on its back?” he asked.
“It all happened too quickly. I didn’t notice,” I said with a shrug.
“That’s John. All bravado, no perception,” Chesa said.
“Then we must assume it was behind the attack. A true vampire, or a member of the Gestalt trying to invoke the beast.” Tesla tapped thoughtfully on the scarab’s glass back. “If it was merely someone acting the part, they wouldn’t be able to transfer the infection in the traditional manner, which might explain these devices.”
“We don’t know it wasn’t one of your steampunks, fallen victim to a scarab. The baker had the glowing eyes and pale skin as well,” I said, trying to deflect attention away from the possible existence of real vampires. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“But I do know someone we could ask,” Addie said. “The vampires certainly had some enemies.”
Nik looked up, interested. “Oh, yes . . . yes they did. Do you think she would talk to us?” he asked.
“That depends. Are you ready to apologize?” Addie asked.
Tesla made a face, his fingers still drumming loudly on the glass vial. Addie snorted. “Perhaps best if I stay here,” he said. “But she always liked you.”
“Who are we talking about?” I asked. “Some kind of vampire hunter?”
“An old friend,” Tesla said, ignoring Addie’s laughter. “Evelyn Lumiere. No one in the Gestalt knows more about the undead than she does. And no one hates them more. If someone is experimenting with the bloodsucker’s powers, she’ll know how to counter it.”
“So what’s the problem? Why didn’t we start there?” Chesa asked.
“Nik still owes her an apology,” Addie said. “And a new arm.”