Gears of a Mad God: A Steampunk Lovecraft Adventure (5 page)

A buzz of
conversation sprang up, and Colleen scurried out of the lobby,
moving deeper into the hotel. The last thing she needed was the
attention of the hotel staff. If they kicked her out of the hotel
it could prove fatal.

She returned to
room 304. Carter gave her a thin smile and touched the brim of his
bowler hat. Smith ignored her. Colleen sat on and empty chair,
tuned out their conversation, and let her mind wander.

She had a
niggling feeling, like an itch she couldn't scratch. She knew the
feeling well. It usually came to her when she was struggling with a
tricky bit of machinery. Some part of her mind had figured out a
solution. She just had to listen to herself to figure out what it
was.

The feeling had
come on her as she left the lobby. She had learned something, then,
in her confrontation with Jimbo. She ran through every word he'd
said. He was looking for someone named Tanathos. She explored that
idea, and decided it was a dead end.

Well, if it
wasn't something she'd heard, perhaps it was something she'd seen.
What did she know about Jimbo, or his accomplice? The feeling, the
mental itch, told her it was something about Jimbo, not the
Englishman.

She ran through
what she knew of him. An inch or two shorter than she was, maybe
five foot seven. Not especially strong for a man. Greasy, unwashed
hair, dark brown in color. Brown eyes, sallow complexion, perhaps
Italian or mixed blood. Fleshy, unpleasant face. Not too meticulous
about shaving or washing.

Colleen
frowned. None of that was useful. Well, what had he been wearing? A
red jacket and dark pants. Cheap canvas shoes. Under the coat? She
struggled to remember. There was a cloth of some sort around his
neck, like a bandana. A fairly distinctive cloth, with burgundy and
white stripes. In fact, now that she thought about it, the collar
of his shirt had the same pattern.

He was much too
slovenly to choose matching clothing. Could it be some sort of
uniform? It was, she realized. She knew it, because she'd seen it
before.

She looked at
the men. Smith was reading Latin phrases from his notebook and
Carter was transcribing them onto hotel stationery.

"Never mind
that," she said, and they looked up. "We have a lead." Carter
quirked an eyebrow, and she continued. "One of the cultists is a
sailor. Maybe a bunch of them are. He's wearing a ship's uniform.
That could be where Jane is. On a ship."

The men stared
at her. Finally Carter said, "Which ship?"

"I don't know.
But we can find out. I saw more uniforms just like it, hanging on a
line in Chinatown. We find the laundry, we'll find the ship. And
then we'll find Jane."

They just
looked at her, and the silence stretched out. Then Carter said,
"Look, Colleen, there's no guarantee that your friend is on a ship.
We don't even know that she's still alive."

"That's not the
point!"

Carter sighed.
"What is the point, then?"

Colleen ground
her teeth, then made herself take a deep breath. "The point is,
it's a chance, and Jane's life is on the line."

Carter was
already shaking his head. "No, it's too risky. We're exposed on the
streets. The cult has us outnumbered, and-" He stopped as Jane
stood. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to
find Jane," she snapped.

"Now, hold on.
Don't do anything hasty. We went to a lot of trouble to keep you
alive, you know. Don't get yourself killed now."

"You want me to
stay alive? Then you'd better come with me."

Carter glared
at her. She glared back. Then she said, "If you won't do it for me,
then do it because it's not what the cult wants. You're supposed to
be fighting the cult, aren't you?"

He stared, his
mouth opening and closing, and Smith laughed. He had a disturbing,
raspy laugh, and it never quite reached his dark, intense eyes.
"She's got you there, Phil. Stay here if you like. I'm going with
her."

Carter turned
his glare on Smith, then said "Hmph!" and took out a pocket watch.
"Fine. We'll go to Chinatown. But we'll go by way of the
waterfront. The ferry is coming in."

Colleen watched
the rest of Carter's team disembark from the ferry and immediately
felt better. There were four of them, three men and a woman, and
they all exuded a tough, competent confidence. There was a brief
flurry of handshaking. Then Carter said, "This is Colleen. We'll do
introductions on the way. We're going to Chinatown."

They filled the
convertible with luggage, left it at the docks, and took a pair of
taxi cabs through Victoria. Colleen found herself sandwiched
between two of the new arrivals, a stern-faced woman in her
fifties, and a broad-shouldered young man with a black mustache and
a lantern jaw.

Carter sat
beside the driver and twisted around in his seat to make
introductions. "Colleen Garman, this is Margaret Nelson and Richard
Dalglish."

The woman
smiled and said, "You must call me Maggie." She had a distinct
southern drawl.

"And I'm Rick,"
the man said. "We've already heard about you."

"Maggie is a
professor of antiquities, now retired from active teaching so she
can work with us," Carter said. "Rick is part of the Canadian team.
He's been seconded from your Dominion Police."

"It's the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police now, actually," Rick said. "Pleased to meet
you, ma'am."

"Call me
Colleen."

"A few things
have changed since our last telegram," Carter interjected. "The
opposition has kidnapped a woman who may have vital information.
We're looking for clues to her whereabouts." He nodded to Colleen
and she described Jimbo's uniform, and the laundry she'd seen in
Chinatown.

"I'm not sure
exactly where I saw it," she admitted. "I was pretty distracted at
the time."

Carter chuckled
at the understatement.

"But it's
fairly distinctive, and it's somewhere in Chinatown, so it
shouldn't be hard to spot. How big can Chinatown be?"

"Second-largest
Chinatown in North America," Rick said cheerfully. "Only San
Francisco has a bigger one."

"Show-off,"
Maggie said with a smile.

Chinatown was
less terrifying on this visit. Even with night falling everything
seemed less strange, less foreboding. In part it was because she
had seen it before, but the biggest reason was that she was back
with friends, and with a purpose.

They divided
into two groups, agreeing to stay fairly close together. Colleen
walked with Carter and Smith, while the new arrivals worked their
way up a parallel street. She was torn between a desire to rush and
a terror of going too fast and missing something. She racked her
brain, trying to remember landmarks from her first visit, but it
was all a kaleidoscope of fragmented images. Was the kitchen before
the opium den, or after? Did she see the laundry hanging in a
street, or an alley?

She needn't
have worried. Before they reached the end of the block, Rick and
another man, David Parker of the Bureau of Investigation, came
jogging around the corner. "We found it," Rick said.

Maggie and the
last team member, a fat, older man named Garson, were standing in
front of a clapboard building with a sign that said "Londry."
Maggie gestured at a gap between buildings. "Is that what you
saw?"

Colleen looked
where she pointed. Laundry hung in three tiers on closely-spaced
lines. The middle tier was full of dark trousers, neckerchiefs, and
white shirts. The shirt collars and neckerchiefs all bore a
distinctive pattern of white-and-burgundy stripes. Colleen
nodded.

"The
proprietor," Maggie drawled, "tells me these belong to the
SS
Arcadia
. They aren't picking up their laundry until tomorrow
afternoon, so they're in port for at least that long." She turned
to Carter. "What now, boss?"

"Let's go take
a look," he said.

They walked to
the waterfront. It was full dark, and they kept to the shadows,
circling wide around the streetlights as they slunk down the
aptly-named Wharf Street. Smith was in the lead, and everyone froze
when he raised his arm.

The
Arcadia
was a vast shape looming in the darkness. She had a
single chimney stack, so she was steam-powered, but Colleen could
make out several masts as well. She was rigged for sailing,
then.

She was moored
at a wharf. The seven of them stood in the shadow of a warehouse
and looked the ship over. No one was in sight, but lights burned on
deck, and light gleamed from a few portholes. Colleen eyed the
ship, trying to guess her size. Three hundred feet long? Four
hundred? Maybe forty feet wide? It was a lot of ship to hide one
woman in.

"What's the
plan, boss?"

Colleen wasn't
sure who asked the whispered question, but it was Carter who
answered.

"We watch. We
have no idea what we're dealing with, or how many there are. So we
set up surveillance, keep track of who comes and goes. Tomorrow
we'll find out how long she's in port, and set up some kind of
schedule."

Surveillance?
Tomorrow? Colleen thought of Jimbo, his feverish eyes, his knife,
and knew there was no time to spare. She thought about arguing with
Carter, decided it would be pointless, and shrugged.

So be it.

"Hang on,
Jane," she murmured. "I'm coming." And she stepped out of the
shadows.

Carter's voice
was an urgent hiss. "Colleen! What are you doing?"

She turned to
him, her heart thumping in her chest, almost hoping he could
persuade her to stay back. But her voice was level as she said,
"You do all the surveillance you want. I'm going after Jane." And
she turned her back on the group, ignored Carter's sputtering
voice, and set off down the wharf.

She reached the
ship, moving to the edge of the wharf where the ship cast a long
stripe of shadow. The hull was close enough to touch, a pitted
surface of chipped white paint and flaking rust. There was no
gangplank, and the side of the ship rose above her like a wall.
Colleen kept walking, hoping to find a way up.

In the middle
of the ship the hull was lower, and Colleen stood looking up. The
top of the hull here was even with her head. She had no idea what
lay beyond it. She shrugged and crouched, preparing to jump.

A rustle of
feet made her turn her head. Carter, Smith, Rick, and David Parker
were marching up the wharf. She raised an eyebrow when they reached
her, and Carter shrugged.

Smith waved
Colleen back, then sprang nimbly, clinging to the top of the hull.
He lifted himself up until he could peer over the top, then pulled
himself up and over.

Colleen went
next. Smith was crouched below the gunwale, a pistol in his hand.
Colleen dropped into a crouch beside him, and the others quickly
joined them.

They were in
the shadow of the forecastle. Electric lights on the masts burned
down, painting the deck in alternating stripes of light and shadow.
The deck was an orderly clutter of ropes and davits, lifeboats and
pipework. For a long moment nobody moved. When Colleen realized
they were waiting for her, she rose and darted to the
forecastle.

She found a
door, unlocked, and slipped through. There was a corridor ahead,
and a ladder leading down. She took the ladder, guessing that Jane
would be hidden deep in the ship, away from prying eyes. They
arrived at a lower deck, she had a quick glimpse of another
corridor, dimly lit, and she took another ladder deeper into the
ship. She could hear the rustle of footsteps as the team followed
her, and the hum of machinery in the bowels of the ship.

The ladder
ended and she stepped into a corridor. It was an oppressively big
ship, and her heart sank as the immensity of it sank in. However,
there was nothing to do but keep on.

The corridor
was too narrow for two people to walk side by side, but Smith was
close behind her, pistol in hand. The others were not far behind,
and she saw more handguns. She headed down the corridor, glancing
at the closed hatches that they passed. She was betting that Jane
would be guarded, that there would be people and noise wherever she
was.

The corridor
ended at a hatch, a door with rounded corners and a circular handle
in the middle. Colleen glanced at Smith. He nodded, hefting his
pistol, and she gave the door a push. It opened a crack, and she
pushed it farther until she could peer out.

She saw another
corridor, but more plush than the one she was in. The floor was
carpeted, the light fixtures were fancy rather than strictly
functional, and the walls were perforated by doors rather than
hatches. She guessed she was seeing the passenger section of the
ship. A man in a crisp white uniform crossed her field of vision,
not glancing her way, and she eased the hatch shut.

The others
looked at her and she shook her head. She was guessing that the
entire ship wasn't crewed by cultists. The man she'd seen had
lacked the depraved, half-mad look of the cultists she'd seen so
far. And the passenger section just felt wrong as a hiding place.
If Colleen was right, Jane wouldn't be in the passenger section.
She'd be tucked away in a boiler room or a corner of the hull,
somewhere only a small part of the crew might go.

They retraced
their steps, took a perpendicular corridor, froze at the sound of
echoing footsteps, then resumed moving as the footsteps faded.

A left turn had
them moving toward the stern. The corridor ended at an open hatch,
and Smith peered in, then stepped through. Colleen followed, and
smiled. They were in the boiler room. She felt immediately at home.
It was one vast room, as wide as the ship, but crowded by vast
steel shapes. She could see two boilers, with only a narrow space
between them. Pipes ran in every direction, and valves and gauges
sprouted everywhere.