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CHAPTER FOUR


The interior of the airship looked like a cross between a clock with all the parts on the outside, and the set of a Victorian-era murder mystery, complete with suspicious characters lurking in the shadows. Bloodred carpet lined the corridors, with wood paneling on the walls and stained-glass wall sconces every few yards. But these ornate surroundings were interrupted by steel bulkheads, rows of brass pipes that burrowed through the dark wood paneling, and the steady thrum of engines underfoot. Crew members in pinstripe suits scurried through the halls, all of them wearing top hats and goggles. Curiously, they all had bushy mustaches as well. Even the women.

“It can be a bit cramped, especially when we’re all on duty, but I think it’s homey enough. Certainly more comfortable than Eiffel’s ridiculous meditation chamber.” Tesla gestured down one passageway as he led us to a set of wrought iron spiral stairs. “Control room is that way, crew quarters downstairs. But the real gem is up here.”

“I still say you should establish something more secure,” Esther muttered as we wound our way up the stairs. “What happens if this thing goes down?”

“Counterpoint, Ms. MacRae: What happens if one of your sword-toothed nasties finds its way into your hole in the ground? I imagine a dracolich could do a lot of damage in the halls of Mundane Actual. If we’re attacked, we can just fly away. You, on the other hand, must stand and fight.”

“That would never happen,” Esther said. I bit my tongue, because that’s precisely what had happened when my friend Eric tricked his way into Mundane Actual and nearly destroyed our base of operations. “Besides, you can’t run forever. You have to fight sometime.”

“We’re more than capable,” the gunslinger said. She trailed behind us, one hand eternally resting on the handle of her complicated revolver. “Anything that finds its way aboard the Silverhawk would have a hard time getting back off alive.”

“Lady speaks truth,” her companion said quietly. His voice was surprisingly gentle, though it carried a whistling mechanical quality that was slightly unnerving. “We’re more than capable.”

“Here we are!” Tesla said as we reached the top of the stairs. The stairs led to a circular observation deck on the top of the airship, encased in a dome of iron latticework and glass. The deck itself looked like a formal drawing room, with leather chairs and low tables lined with felt. The air smelled like cigar smoke and spilled brandy. “It’s more impressive in flight, of course, but you can use your imagination. Adelaide spends a lot of time up here, brooding and writing poetry. Don’t you, my dear?”

The gun-toting countess sniffed dismissively. “Poetry. It’s what he calls my requisition forms.”

“So you have a name!” I said with a smile. “Adelaide, you said?”

“Yes. Not really a countess, obviously, any more than you’re a member of the peerage, Sir John. It’s part of the illusion.” Tesla sat in one of the room’s expansive chairs, folding his lanky legs. “We’re all pretending to be someone else.”

“What about you?” Chesa asked. “Are you the real Nikola Tesla?”

“Ah, so we have a historian. It was much easier when no one knew . . .” Tesla waved his lanky fingers. “The man you know as Nikola Tesla is long dead. I am the eighth manifestation of the true saint of electricity. Locked in endless conflict with Edison’s vile spawn, doomed to a life of obscure genius. It’s all quite epic.”

“Eighth manifestation? Like a reincarnation?” I asked.

“Close enough. Turns out, being at the forefront of electrical innovation offers plenty of opportunities to die. In fact, by the time Tesla was famous, he was already on his third manifestation.”

“Huh. And the rest of you?” I gestured around the room. “The ghosts of famous people?”

“Just common folks, with uncommon imaginations, and the will to make their dreams reality.” Tesla nodded to the stairs as the plague doctor scuttled into view. “You’ve already met The Good Doctor. He can be a touch unsettling. But mostly harmless, and quite a hand in battle. I think some formal introductions are in order. Cassius?”

The enormous black man with the literal brass knuckles emerged from the staircase. Now that I had a better look, I could see that pistons and valves ran the length of his forearms just below the skin, sprouting into exhaust pipes at the elbow and wrist. Similar machinery was also evident in his neck and along his jaw. A bulge between his shoulders huffed quietly, expelling a cloud of steam that hung around his shoulders like a cloak. When he flexed his fingers, puffs of steam wreathed his hands.

“Cassius Jones,” he said quietly. “I stay between the boss here and danger.”

“Then you and I have a lot in common,” I said.

Cassius snorted. “This crew don’t look that dangerous. I could take ’em.”

“No doubt you could, if the fight were fair. Then again, you’re not really a fair fighter, are you?” Tesla asked. He placed a hand on Cassius’s arm, pulling him back. “There’s no need for that. We’re all friends here.”

“They don’t smell like friends. They smell like street urchins.” The speaker followed Cassius up the stairs. He was a smartly dressed man, his clothes almost like a uniform, with too many buttons and a dramatically open vest under a bandolier of shotgun shells. He wore a leather airman’s cap, complete with complicated goggles and silk scarf. “They’re leaving a funk on the carpet. I’m going to have to fumigate.”

“That would be the Naglfr,” I said. “Our ship. It’s . . . uh . . . made of toenails.”

“How horrendous!” the man said. “But it flies, you say? I wonder how. Is there some kind of airfoil in the sails? What’s the torsion rating of the human toenail? A fascinating thought. I’d love to take a ride on it sometime.”

“Be fair, Captain. We’re not all blessed with the cutting-edge science of the nineteenth century.” Tesla gestured to the man. “This is Captain Honorius Skyhook. The Silverhawk is his bird. He’s very protective of her. Will Ida be joining us?”

“She’s fighting with a disruption in the condensers. Probably something to do with these vagrants.” Skyhook loped across the room, poured a glass of whiskey, then set the glass aside and took the cut-glass bottle to a chair and sat down. “I’m sure she’ll be along eventually.”

“Ida keeps this bird running,” Tesla explained. “Not so good with people, though. If you see a pile of brown hair and engine grease watching you from the ducts, try to not panic too much.”

“So you’re basically Victorian Knight Watch, huh?” I asked as I settled onto a crushed velvet divan. My armor dimpled the fabric and set the legs groaning. “What’s that make you? Steam Patrol? Clock Watch? Seems like that’d get kind of confusing.”

The top hat crowd visibly shuddered. Tesla took a moment to calm himself, picking a piece of lint off his lapel before addressing me in a terse, even voice.

“Sir, we are not some kind of joke organization, with a gimmicky name that looks good on a badge. We take our role in the preservation of reality very seriously. It is an honorable tradition stretching back—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But you have a name, right?” Tesla glared at me. “Right?”

“For purposes of the founding charter, we are the Eccentric Society of Curious Adventurers, Extravagant Explorers, and Philosophers of Scientific Renown.”

“Now that’s a mouthful,” I said, leaning back. “I think we’re just going to call you the Eccentrics.”

Nikola Tesla stared at me, blinking like a man who has just been asked to eat a bug in the service of his country. After a moment’s stunned silence, he began to burble.

“That is . . . it’s preposterous! It’s inappropriate! We are men and women of science! Of adventure! You cannot merely shorten our illustrious Society to something as . . . as . . .”

“I like it,” Adelaide said simply. “It has panache.”

“Hmm,” Cassius rumbled, which I took as approval. Tesla continued opening and closing his mouth at a rapid pace. Skyhook smiled into his drink.

“We . . . we have a charter!” Tesla exclaimed. “A long history of service! A pedigree!”

“You have an awkward name, and a problem with branding,” I said. “Listen, I’m sure this is very traumatic. You can hold a vote or something. Have you invented voting yet?” I tapped my chest. “We’re still working our way through the divine right of kings and militant Catholicism. Makes it a lot easier to pick what we’re having for dinner.”

“I vote aye!” Captain Skyhook raised his hand. Cassius nodded, joined by Addie and the others. Only Tesla remained unmoved.

“So it’s settled,” I said. “The Eccentrics. I’m sure Esther can whip you up a badge and a company song in no time. You must have some instruments around here somewhere. A Victrola or something like that. Right?”

“Let’s spare them the company song,” Chesa muttered. “I’m still recovering from the psychic damage.”

“Do you have your own version of Mundane Actual? Not the place, obviously, but the team?” I jerked my thumb downstairs. “Tactical boys and girls tasked with protecting you from the mundane world?”

“The Pinkertons. You saw a few of them when you boarded,” Skyhook said. “They serve as crew, as well as forming landing parties to patrol the Mundane for signs of trouble. They run interference for us with the more everyday elements, the kinds of things it’s easy to lose track of while you’re fighting giant mechanical spiders and the like. Tax collectors and that sort of thing.”

“Ah, yes. Taxes. The scourge that corrupts all timelines,” Gregory said.

“I’m beginning to regret inviting you aboard,” Tesla said, squirming uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s only a matter of time before you start upsetting the Gestalt.”

“And what’s the Gestalt?” I asked. “Sounds like something to do with indigestion.”

“The spirit of the age.” Tesla stood up, strolled to the bar that lined the back of the room and poured himself an extremely small glass of brandy. “You would call it the Unreal, or the Mythic. Knight Watch deals with the mythical past, the remnants of the stories our ancestors told, and the legends that lie at the foundation of the mundane world. The Eccentric Society is responsible for the future that was imagined, but never came to pass.”

“So, like, science fiction?” I asked.

“The Gernsback Continuum is beyond our grasp. Think Verne, or Shelley. Steam-powered computers, luxurious submarines, airships that run on aether and a firm upper lip. There has been a great resurgence of our Gestalt in the popular imagination lately.”

“Oh . . . steampunks.” I nodded. “Yeah, okay, this is all starting to make sense now.”

“We came to realize the need for a second team shortly after the war,” Esther said. “Certain anomalies were occurring that we couldn’t detect, not even with the Actuator. Cleo was the first member of the group that eventually became the Eccentrics. We thought she was a spider goddess. Turns out—”

“She was an archeology student who somehow captured the soul of an Egyptian god in a mechanical hairpin,” Tesla continued. “Could have gone either way with her. I think she chose the Gestalt because we’ve invented indoor plumbing and hygiene.”

“Are we going to have to sit through another lecture on soap?” I asked.

Tesla ignored me, pressing on. “We found Reverend Dynamo after his church nativity scene drained the power from half of Yonkers, and transformed the other half into clockwork angels. Took the better part of a week getting them back to their boring, suburban forms. Josiah felt terrible, but turned out to be a master of transmutation. Pity what happened to him.” He paused for a long moment, frowning into his tiny brandy. “After that, the team filled out pretty handily. Which is fortunate, because the threats to the Gestalt just kept mounting. And there was nothing Esther and her sword-swingers could do about most of them.”

“We handled those goblins well enough,” Gregory said. “If that was the kind of thing you deal with, I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“A goblin with a derringer is nothing,” Adelaide said. “I’d like to see how you pretty boys stand up to a sixty-foot-tall clockwork automaton with piston jaws and a rotary cannon.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I bubbled. “Aw, that’s—”

“Not the point, John,” Chesa snapped. “These geniuses think mecha-gorillas are dangerous. Sweetcheeks, we’ve faced off against gods—big, hairy, shirtless gods!”

“There’s no need to be explicit,” I said. “Their shirtlessness was hardly relevant.”

“The interference between timelines can be unmanageable,” Esther said “Dragons are one thing. Dragons who have figured out how to operate machine guns are another matter entirely.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Tesla said, gesturing at Cassius. “How do you think our friend feels when his inner workings start turning into sawdust and cotton?”

I was familiar with this problem, going back to before I joined Knight Watch. Technology seemed to break around me, from cars to televisions, but when my cell phone magically transformed into a deck of Tarot cards, I knew things were getting out of hand.

“Does that happen?” I asked. “All this technology can just . . . poof? Fall apart?”

“It’s happening right now, you ruddy bastard,” Honorius said cheerfully. “Main drive is slowly turning into some kind of pipe organ. Only a matter of time before it comes apart completely. Absolute disaster!” His tone did not match his words. I suspected the brandy.

“Should we . . . go?” Chesa asked. Her brows pinched together in concern.

“The point is that our timelines don’t mix well,” Esther cut in. “Dragons and clockwork knights create a lot of instability in the mundane world. As long as they stay in their own lanes, it’s a lot easier for us to manage. Our magic works better, their magic works better . . . everyone is happy. After the Society of Eccentrics was established and Nik was given command, we had to separate to keep each timeline intact. Too much intermingling and the results can be quite dangerous.” She glared at Tesla from across the room. “Which brings us to the question of why you’re looking for us in the first place.”

“Cassius and The Good Doctor were on a mission when they ran into some trouble,” Tesla said. “I’ll let them tell the tale.”

Seeing as how The Good Doctor didn’t seem like the talkative type, we all turned to Cassius.

“So what happened? You were mucking through the vents of some steampunk monstrosity when you were attacked?”

“Patisserie,” Cassius answered.

“You . . . ate too many éclairs?” Esther raised her eyebrows. “That hardly seems possible.”

“No, it was the patisserie itself. My favorite. The Doc and I always go there whenever we can.” Cassius rubbed one giant thumb across his nose, a little embarrassed. “They make the most decadent mille-feuille I’ve ever tasted. The place closed in the eighties, but”—he gestured to the other Eccentrics—“we still have access to it.”

“Because of the Gestalt. So it’s not a real place,” I said.

“It’s as real as your castle, or monastery, or wherever it is you call home,” Cassius snarled at me. “Just because they don’t serve everything with a side of scurvy and genocide doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

“Whoa, whoa, there’s no need to get nasty,” Esther said, standing and stepping between us. “Let’s just stick to the story. So this bakery, it’s part of the Eccentrics’ Gestalt?”

“Yeah, I suppose. Anyway. Doc and I, we headed down there as soon as we landed. Except it was gone.”

“Precious madeleines,” The Good Doctor whispered. “No more.”

“Gone? Like, the door was missing? The whole bakery?” I asked.

“The patisserie was still there. It just wasn’t the same. Older, and the pastries were . . . awful.” Cassius glanced in my direction with open contempt. “They were serving pancakes. As though they were . . . dessert!”

“Downright medieval,” Esther said thoughtfully.

“Right. So we left, except we were no longer in the Gestalt. The street had turned to mud, and there was a heavy fog.” His eyes lost focus, and I thought I saw a shudder go through his shoulders. “That’s all I remember. When I came to, I was back in the Silverhawk.”

“Fog. Some kind of gas attack?” Esther asked. “What was that guy’s name? Dr. Pestilence?”

“Pestilence is cooling his heels in an Anachronism Containment Unit, off the coast of the Isle of Mann. Besides, if it was a gas attack, The Good Doctor would have been immune.” The masked healer chittered loudly, drawing a nod from Tesla. “It was something supernatural. A spell, he says.”

“There are such things in the Unreal.” Tembo leaned back on the couch, steepling his fingers together. “Mists that cling to the mind, to befuddle the victim. Swamp hags are especially fond of that sort of trick. Neither of you woke with the taste of mud in your mouth?” Cassius and The Good Doctor shook their heads. “Hms. Still, could have been something similar.”

“He nearly died,” Tesla said. “Which takes some doing, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“What got him? Surely not some kind of bread golem?” I asked.

“That’s where it gets complicated,” Tesla said. “You’re not going to like this, Esther.”

“I don’t like anything about this,” she answered. “Stop stalling and get to the details.”

The Good Doctor shrugged, then nodded to Cassuis. The big man grimaced, but he unbuttoned his shirt and revealed a scar on his neck. Two puncture wounds.

“Oh, hey, vampire! That’s exciting,” I said. “I haven’t dealt with a vampire before.”

“That’s because there aren’t any more vampires,” Tesla said. “They were too dangerous, too predatory. That was one of the first things we did, Knight Watch and the Eccentric Society, working together. We tracked them, found them, hunted them down . . .”

“And killed every last vampire in the world,” Esther said. She was visibly shaken. “Okay, we’re in. Whatever you need from us, you’ve got it.”


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