Gears of a Mad God: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure (3 page)

Sobbing with
frustration and terror, Colleen lunged at the first door she saw.
She tore the door open and ran into a kitchen. For an instant she
was face-to-face with a Chinese man dressed all in white, his hair
in a braid hanging down his back. Colleen flinched away from him,
and he flinched back as well. She gathered her courage and darted
past him as the door behind her flew open and the man in the red
coat came barreling in.

She fled, came to a wall, darted left without
looking, and found herself at a dead end with a row of shelves on
one side and a wall on the other. She turned.

The man had her
cornered. There was a depraved glint in his eyes, and a long silver
knife in his hand.

Colleen looked
around frantically. There was nothing she could use as a weapon,
nowhere she could go. A metallic clang made her look up. She saw
the silver knife drop from the man's fingers. A moment later he
folder up and collapsed onto the floor. She saw the Chinese cook
behind him, a frying pan raised over his head.

She jumped over
the man in the red coat, pushed past the cook, and ran through a
low doorway. She was in a tiny restaurant, half a dozen patrons
looking up from their plates to stare at her.

A strangled cry
came from the kitchen behind her. Every nerve in her body screamed
at her to run, but she turned her head, looking back into the
kitchen.

The big black
man had the cook pressed up against the wall, one huge hand wrapped
around the cook's throat. Colleen's feet seemed to move on their
own, taking her back into the kitchen. The cook had helped her for
no good reason other than because she was in trouble, and outrage
was rapidly overcoming her fear.

The frying pan
lay in the middle of the floor. The man turned his head as she
snatched up the pan, but he didn't have time to react. Colleen used
both hands, spinning her entire body, and put everything she had
into one mighty swing. The pan slammed into the side of the big
man's head, the impact numbed her arms to the elbow, the pan
tumbled to the floor, and the man fell sprawling across the floor
tiles.

For a moment
Colleen and the cook stared into each other's eyes. He was
massaging his throat, but he grinned, and she smiled back. "Thanks
you," she said, then turned and raced through the restaurant, out
the front door, and into the street.

Her pursuers
were on her almost immediately, the woman in the white bonnet
flanked by two more men. Colleen ran, panting for breath, wondering
how much longer she could keep going.

Two men came
around the corner in front of her. Their smiles and the way they
spread out, blocking her path, told her it was two more of her new
enemies. She stopped, scanning the street, and dashed down a
staircase. She pushed open a filthy black door, banged her head on
something, and scurried forward with her head bowed.

She was in a
low, dark room, the air thick with sweet-smelling smoke. An old
Chinese man sat on a stool near the doorway, and he gaped at her as
she went past. A dozen or so people lounged on low sofas, most of
them Chinese, a few white men dressed as sailors mixed in with
them. They were no more than vague shapes in the gloom as Colleen
stumbled through the room.

There was no
back door, but a window at the back let in a little light. Colleen
leaned past a couch to push at the window, which swung open.

She heard loud
cries as her pursuers burst into the room behind her. She didn't
look back, just stepped onto the couch. A soft shape squirmed
beneath her foot, a voice cried out, and she realized she'd planted
her foot in someone's stomach. There was no time to be delicate.
She kicked off, pulling herself up to the window frame and
wriggling through.

She found
herself crawling into an alley, mud and fouler substances squishing
between her fingers. Someone grabbed her foot and she kicked
wildly, then squirmed her way outside as the fingers slid free.

She stood,
looking around, and heard movement behind her. A man was coming
through the window, his head almost touching her shoes, and she
kicked him in the face. He flinched, sliding backward as his hands
came up to protect himself, and she kicked him again. He fell back
into the opium den.

She thought
about staying put, keeping them at bay, but there were too many of
them. The rest would be coming around the block and trapping her.
She turned away from the window and started to run.

She was too
late. A pair of men loomed in the mouth of the alley, and she knew
that the others would have the far end of the alley blocked in
moments. Then a hand closed on her wrist and a man's voice said,
"Now, Miss, if you fight you'll just-"

She twisted in
his grasp, turning. A man's face was inches from her own, and she
drove her fist into his nose. He fell back with a cry, letting go
of her arm, but the strangers were all around her now.

She punched, a
man grunted, and then a fist slammed into the side of her head and
she fell to her hands and knees. She got a foot under her and threw
herself forward, diving against the legs that surrounded her, and
people tumbled as she went rolling out of the circle.

Some rubbish
was heaped against the far side of the alley, and she sprang to it,
coming to her feet with a chunk of timber in her hands. It was
pine, four feet long and thicker than a baseball bat, and she
raised the makeshift weapon over her shoulder as she turned to face
her attackers.

There were five
of them, the woman in the white bonnet and four men. One man was
bleeding from both nostrils, and all of them looked angry. They
spread out, surrounding her, and she edged back until her heels
bumped the wall behind her. For a moment she was filled with
terror. She was hopelessly outnumbered, and what did she know about
fighting?

Then she
tightened her grip on the chunk of timber. She knew a thing or two
about tools, after all. She had used hammers and pry bars to break
free rusted gears. This was a similar problem. Moving joints, much
softer than the brass and steel she usually worked with. She just
needed to separate some joints, lift some bones from their sockets.
And she had the right tool for the job. She bared her lips in a
snarl and said, "Come on, then. What are you waiting for? Is five
of you not enough?"

They pressed
in, and she stepped forward, giving herself more room to move. She
deliberately turned to her right, showing the back of her head to
the man on her left, and she heard the gravel in the alley crunch
under his feet as he moved into range, thinking to blindside her.
She swung as she turned, and his arm came up to protect his head.
She kept right on swinging, and the timber hit his arm. There was a
dry snap as his arm broke, and he screamed. Colleen spun and swung
at a hand that was reaching for her. She connected with the hand,
and a man flinched back.

"To hell with
this," the woman said. "We're not getting her alive. Finish
her."

Knives came
sliding out from pockets and under coats. Colleen advanced,
swinging desperately, and they fell back, circling around, trying
to get behind her. She retreated, keeping the wall at her back, and
they pressed closer.

Then headlights
filled the gloom of the alley. Colleen turned, felt a brief surge
of hope, then despair as she recognized the thin-faced man in the
dark coat leaning out the window of a dark blue convertible. His
companion from the hotel, the round-faced man with the bowler hat
and mustache, was driving.

The car came
barrelling down the alley and a shot rang out. She saw a muzzle
flash, realized the man in the dark coat was shooting. He fired
again and a sallow-faced man dropped his knife and stumbled
back.

Her attackers
scattered. One man was too slow, and the fender of the car hit him,
sending him bouncing against the wall of a building. The car
screeched to a halt in front of Colleen, and the man with the dark
coat snapped, "Come with us, or stay here and die!"

Colleen dropped
her timber, leaped onto the running board, and hung onto the top of
the door with both hands. The car gave a mighty roar and sped down
the alley, leaving her attackers behind.

"My name is Dirk Smith. We almost met in Toronto. I'm
sorry I frightened you. I just wanted to speak to you, but you kept
running away."

"How do you
do," Colleen said, blushing a bit. To be fair, Smith and his
intense eyes were still a bit frightening, even sitting calmly
across a table from her in room 304 of the Empress Hotel.

"I'm Phillip
Carter," said the man in the bowler hat. He smiled under his brown
mustache. "You led us quite a chase. I'm glad you're safe."

"What's this
all about?" Colleen asked. "I don't understand what's
happening."

"I'm afraid
you've ended up in the middle of a very large, dark conspiracy,"
Carter said. "You're caught in a spider web that has strands
reaching all over the world. Maybe even beyond."

Colleen stared
at him, and he cleared his throat. "Never mind that," he said.
"Were you close to your uncle?"

"Not really. I
hadn't seen him in a couple of years when he died."

"I understand
his house has been burglarized," Carter said. "Do you know if
anything was missing?"

"Hold on," said
Colleen. "I'm not letting you pump me for information and leave me
in the dark. Who are you? Who were those people chasing me?"

For a moment
the two men just looked at her. Then Carter said, "It might be best
for you if you just answered our questions and returned to Toronto.
Believe me, you don't want to get involved."

Colleen's
fingers went to the sleeve of her dress. Somewhere in Chinatown a
knife had sliced through the fabric, missing her skin by a hair's
breadth. She hadn't even known when it happened. "I'm already
involved," she said. "People are trying to kill me. My uncle is
dead, and I want to know why."

Carter rubbed
the bridge of his nose. "When was the last time you heard from your
uncle?"

Colleen crossed
her arms and glared at him. "Forget it. You're getting nothing from
me until I get some answers."

The silence
stretched out, and then Smith chuckled. "I think she's got us,
Phil."

Carter looked
at him. "We can't just tell her-"

"She already
knows too much," Smith said, "and she's got the attention of the
cult. I think she has a right to know the rest."

The two men
locked eyes, and finally Carter sighed, nodded, and turned back to
Colleen. "The people who attacked you are part of a cult," he said.
"It seems to have a worldwide membership, although we don't know
how they communicate or organize themselves. Their goals- well,
let's just say they have some unconventional religious
beliefs."

Colleen
frowned. "But what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, you're
involved because of your uncle. He seems to have learned something.
I think the cult wants whatever it is he uncovered, and they're
hoping he said something to you, sent you something in the mail,
perhaps left you a message."

"But he didn't
send me anything!" Coleen wailed.

Carter nodded.
"I was afraid of that."

"What did Uncle
Rod find out? What does any of this have to do with him?"

Carter steepled
his fingers. "This is a very old cult. They've been around, in one
form or another, for centuries, perhaps longer. They believe some
very curious things. They believe in ancient, malevolent gods that
supposedly once ruled the Earth. According to their mythology,
these gods were banished or locked away. They want to free these
dark deities from their confinement, bring them back so they can
rule the Earth again."

Colleen rubbed
the goosebumps that had popped up on her arms. Carter
continued.

"They are
searching constantly for lost artifacts of some kind that will let
them open a doorway to free their gods. Your uncle was a collector
of antiquities, yes?"

Colleen
nodded.

"We believe he
found something, one of these ancient artifacts, or perhaps a
document of some kind with a clue. The cult wants whatever he
found."

There was a
long moment of silence while Colleen absorbed this. Then she rubbed
a hand on her forehead. "It all seems so, I don't know, crazy."

"Craziness,
unfortunately, is a recurring theme with the cult," Carter said.
"Every cultist we've ever captured has been at least half mad. And,
whatever is at the heart of their twisted religion, it seems to be
something that the human mind can barely withstand. Your uncle
wasn't the first person to encounter this mythology and go
mad."

Colleen stared
at him.

"There are
stories from the fourteenth century," he said, "about a book that
would drive mad anyone who read it. The book was finally burned and
the ashes scattered. There have been other stories. I think your
uncle found something like that. Something that was more than the
human psyche can bear. The cult knew he was beyond reach then.
That's why they killed him."

"Killed him?"
Colleen looked at Carter sharply. "I thought he committed
suicide."

"There are many
ways to kill a man, Miss Garman. In your uncle's case, smuggling a
razor into his cell was enough. He did the rest."

She stared at
him, aghast. "Are you sure?"

Carter
shrugged. "No. But a madman wouldn't be issued a razor. He had to
get it somehow."

Colleen closed
her eyes, willing away the images that filled her mind.

"Can we talk
about your uncle now?" Carter asked, his voice gentle.

Colleen opened
her eyes. "Not quite. You haven't told me who you are yet."

Carter sighed.
"I was hoping to avoid that. Miss Garman, I'm going to have to ask
you to give your word that you'll keep the information I'm about to
give you completely confidential."