The Ghost Rebellion (2 page)

As their own footsteps pounded against the deck, a soft counterpoint to Lord Featherstone’s, Wellington checked the experimental in his grip. The charge was full, and the strange flare of energy spun madly within the tempered glass. He had no earthly idea what this gun would do, nor even if it would work.

However, since they were running out of ocean liner he knew he was about to conduct his first field test in a moment or two.

The mad lord was now grabbing random tables and unsuspecting passengers and tossing them behind him. Hurling gentlemen, Wellington could not deny, was a very effective distraction. Eliza managed to sprint a few paces ahead, and with one hand she pulled at the waistband of her lovely skirt, one jerk, buttons flew and it billowed and flew away. Eliza was very hard on her fashion, but he had gotten rather good at sewing buttons back on.

Then sliding across the polished wooden deck, she came to an abrupt stop at an overturned table, drew aim with the Mark IV, and fired.

Lord Featherstone lurched forward, and for a moment it looked as though he might tumble to the deck. Instead, he stopped and snorted like a bull considering the amount of force needed to charge.

“
Bugger me!” Eliza ejected the shell and worked the bolt back to a firing position.

“
Have you got a full charge built yet?”

Eliza glanced down and shook her head. “Still working up to that, love. Considering the first shot only winded him, a half-charge might just twirl his moustache a bit.”

Wellington brought up the experimental, its energy pulse out-flashing the sunlight around them. “Then I guess we don’t have many options, now do we?”

“
You can’t be serious?” She sounded both shocked, and a little aroused.

“
If you come up with an alternative strategy in the next five minutes,” he said, continuing forward, “you will know where to find me.”

The closer he got to Lord Featherstone, the more he tightened his grip on the experimental, hoping it would still the tremor in his hands.

It didn’t.

“
Cute little toy you got there,” growled Featherstone. “You and your lot must have some right smart clankertons on the job.”

Actually, they dance the line between genius and lunatic quite deftly.
“We must be prepared for anything we encounter in the field, present company included.”

Featherstone’s chuckle sounded like stone rubbing against stone. He was hoping to maybe calm Featherstone and relax him to a point to where Jekyll’s serum would lose some of its impact. However, one look in the monster’s eyes told him that the Doctor’s hold was complete. Wellington chanced a look around; terrified passengers were huddled against the bow of the ship.

So it was to be a last stand.

Behind him, he could hear the
Sunset’s
defensive crew taking up positions. He was able to identify the bolt actions being worked behind him as Lee-Metford standards. Then by the sound of metal-scraping-metal he knew they had magazines too —probably the newer Emily models, firing .303 calibres with an improved design to accommodate for greater heat and pressure generated by its cartridges.

Busy man, that James Paris Lee. Better he was not here to see his powerful 303s perform no better than slingshots against this behemoth.

“
Pull your crew back, boatswain!” Eliza’s voice was calm, but also deadly serious.
Better listen to her, lads, as she’s got the Mark IV and knows how to use it.
“I’ve got a man in there!”

“
Sir,” called a White Star officer, “step aside. We have the monster cornered.”

“
Along with passengers, you git!” Eliza’s voice went up a notch in volume. “Hold your fire, and get those people clear! My man will handle this!”

“
Oh now, she
is
a little darling, isn’t she? A delicate flower of the South Pacific, from that accent.” The monster’s words dripped with lechery. “I will tear through this lot like they were nothing more than a cheap penny dreadful, but her?” A line of drool dripped from the corner of his mutated lips. “I’ll take my time with that little treasure.”

Wellington felt a prickle under his skin. Splaying his fingers around the butt of the experimental, he kept his aim at Featherstone’s chest.
We need him alive,
he had to remind himself. “Stand down,” he stated evenly.

The passengers huddled behind the monster flinched when Featherstone’s wild, bloodshot eyes fell on them. “I count eleven. Twenty, if you include the crew. You can watch them die first. Then I’ll take me that fine lady friend of yours.”

“
My apologies then, M’lord,” And Wellington pulled the trigger.

Click
.

The energy within the glass chamber still danced merrily, but that was all it did. Wellington would have pulled the trigger a second time, but it was now locked back.

Featherstone took another step closer. The man was bloody huge. “Guess your toymaker isn’t as skilled as you thou—”

Wellington felt the tingle in the handle first, and that instinctively brought his arms back to their full length. The experimental’s concussive blow was not loud, but low. A deep, resonant bass that echoed through his body.

Then he was knocked backward and into the reinforcements from White Star Line.

Though there had been no flash, there was a definite disruptive field; a concentrated electricity that distorted into something resembling fairy lights. He saw all this in a matter of seconds before knocking down the
Sunset
sailors like nine pins. His slide across the deck was only halted by a bulkhead.

Slowly, Wellington rocked up to a sitting position, and that was when he observed Lord Featherstone still in the air. He seemed to hang in the æther for a moment before plummeting like a stone. He hit the water hard, but then there was as second, more muffled impact. The passengers for all their terror were peering over the side, and then came the screams. One or two took time out from doing that to throw up on the deck.

“
Welly!” Eliza called, worming her way through the crush of sailors that were still getting to their feet. “Welly!”

“
I’m alive,” Wellington groaned. He looked at the pistol in his hand. There were muscles he didn’t know existed that ached, and he had been on the
shooting
end. “What on earth do Axelrod and Blackwell call this?”

“
I believe Blackwell called it the Mule’s Kick.”

“
Aptly named,” he said, craning his neck. “Featherstone alive?”

“
Not bloody likely,” Eliza said, with a tilt of her head. “I saw the ship’s bow mow him down, then he disappeared under the keel. I doubt Jekyll’s serum gave him gills, even if by some miracle the ship didn’t cut him in two.”

“
Dashitall,” Wellington said. “We needed him alive.”

Eliza let the Mark IV rest on her shoulder. “Guess we’ll have to go through Lord Featherstone’s suite. I believe his was Number Twelve.”

“
Will you need a key?”

She jerked her head towards her rifle and grinned. “I always travel with some way of getting in.”

“
Well then, let us not stand on ceremony.” Wellington motioned back towards the rest of the ship. The gesture hurt. He suspected everything would hurt for quite some time.

“
Oh, and I’m sorry you did not make it to dessert, darling,” Eliza said, putting a hand around his elbow. “I know how much you love crème brûlée. Maybe we can get the chef to make you some more.”

“
I fear, my sweet Eliza, that the time for brûlée has well and truly passed.”

Interlude

In Which a House Falls Under New Management

Mr Jeremy Elliott tapped his fingernails on the long, mahogany table in front of him. Time was money, and it had been far too a long an airship journey from Manchester to Toronto to be kept waiting like this. A swift glance to each side of him confirmed to the Englishman he was not the only one with this thought: all of the men seated in the boardroom looked uncomfortable or completely outraged at being kept waiting. They shot each other covert looks over their starched collars and perfectly knotted ties.

The hotel being so unfamiliar had put them all on edge to begin with, but discovering the hotel staffed as it was only elevated the tension. Usually they met on airships, or on a House of Usher submersible. Their current surroundings were almost banal in comparison. A lone grandfather clock in the hotel’s boardroom ticked on interminably. Jeremy did not know how much longer the eight of them could possibly stay seated, and in silence. The Lord of the Manor had never before taken such liberties with the board’s time. No one mentioned it, but the chair India’s Mr Cobra would have occupied was eerily empty. Jeremy was curious about how he’d managed to deny the Lord’s summons. Unless he was dead.

Mr Badger shifted in his seat, stroking his moustache, and spoke with his broad French accent. “How much longer must we wait? We all have business to attend to, I’m sure.” He pursed his lips and then sneered to underscore his displeasure.

Always one to break the ice, Mr Badger.

Jeremy—Mr Fox to those around him—was not surprised in Badger’s sign of weakness. Silence made Badger nervous. It was a vulnerability many of the board members took advantage of in open debates. They might all be part of the House, but that didn’t mean any of them liked each other. It was hardly out of the ordinary to have board members attempt to eliminate others. Strictly business, of course.

Mr Bear was, however, not as circumspect as Jeremy. The big Russian leaned back in his chair, making it creak alarmingly. “This is Holmes. Ever since Lord of Manor saved his hide from noose in America, things have been like this. Difficult. Inconvenient. What can be so urgent to call a board meeting like this?”

The predatory aliases were an affectation. Most of the men in this room had ferreted out the names and histories of the others—Jeremy certainly had. Yet like many things in the House, it was all done in the shadows.

“
Perhaps this is pertaining to House finances,” grumbled Mr Lion, a tall, bald man seated at his right. His tanned skin would be outrageous in London society. “My coffers have been nearly drained dry, and seeing as how our diamond market has been supporting operations of late,” he said, casting his eyes around him while slowly tapping on the fine mahogany table where they all sat, “I would like to open discussions on where exactly our finances are going.”

Brazen. Blunt. These traits, along with being the board’s oldest surviving member, made Mr Lion the most formidable man in the room.

That did not mean he was immune to opposition. “You are not the only one with fiscal concerns,” spoke Mr Dingo, the representative of their Australian operations. “Our own silver and opal markets are finding it hard to keep up the growing demand from the Lord’s office. Do not dare regard your problem as a unique one.”

Jeremy leaned forward and took a cigarette out of the silver box in front of him. Through his initial puff of smoke, he observed Mr Lion lean over and whisper to Mr Dingo. If those two were setting aside old rivalries, the end result could not be good.

Bear gave a slight sniff. “Perhaps we should open discussions concerning this ‘grand asset’ from your part of the world,” he suggested to Jeremy. “Seems to eclipse all else.”

All the board members shared a look, to which Jeremy released a derisive snort in reply. They all believed the archivist to be nothing more than a key to the secrets of the Ministry, and that was what he wanted them to think. Only the Lord of the Manor and Jeremy knew of Project Achilles; an astounding creation of breeding, training, and scientific manipulation. The template for Tomorrow’s Soldier.
Their
soldier.

Unexpectedly, Wellington Thornhill Books had not turned out to be nearly as compliant as advertised; and that non-compliance was demanding from the House a high price. Project Achilles cost them one of their finer agents, Evelyn Primrose, after Arthur Books, in an apparent fit of rage, or spite, or perhaps a touch of both, eliminated her following the project’s departure. Then, after finally obtaining their prize, came the loss of their Antarctic outpost. Finally, there was the recent catastrophe that was Operation Poseidon, proving that Books would continue to be a menace to the very organisation that had commissioned his creation.

Mr Tiger glanced his way, and he knew what the Chinaman was thinking. Jeremy’s obsession with Wellington Books and its toll on the House was his fault. The Ministry, this “Maestro” nonsense, and the assassin’s defection—all being laid at his feet. As if Mr Wolf, in control of the Americas, was completely immune, even though Operation Poseidon had been his responsibility.

Mr Badger couldn’t quite keep the smile off his lips, shooting Jeremy an arched eyebrow through the smoke. The Frenchman had nothing to be smug about—Books had been in France when the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences enacted Phantom Protocol. Another opportunity to capture their elusive prize. Lost.

“
I hardly think we are here to discuss the Ministry,” Mr Scorpion said softly, his fingers steepled in front of him. “Being summoned all the way to...” He looked around, his scowl deepening, “Toronto.”

“
Perhaps not as rich in history as your beloved Egypt, but believe me,” a smooth voice appeared among them as quickly as a hawk stooping might, “this city is quite a treasure trove of delights, I assure you.”

It was not the Lord’s voice, though he stood next to the speaker. A chill crept up Jeremy’s spine, not on seeing the elder statesman of the House of Usher, but on locking eyes with Dr Henry Howard Holmes.

Jeremy tried to keep his face in an unreadable mask as he looked at the interloper, but he caught from his fellow board members the faintest of straightening in their seats. He preferred not to meet the gaze of Holmes. It had been a trip to Chicago in 1892 when Holmes captured the Lord’s attention. What developed quickly between them was a relationship of opportunity, primarily for Holmes. The American might stand at the side of the Lord of the Manor, but he had not earned the right to be there.