Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (21 page)

Unable to
intervene without raising attention, we had no choice but to hang back and
watch the spectacle unfold.

Up on the stage,
Dolly began tapping her shoes together as Doctor P made another pass around the
stage.

Blending in...

“Now friends, now
neighbors, now colleagues,” he shouted. “Now acquaintances, companions,
onlookers, spectators, conscientious viewers, welcome faces, trained ears,
discerning minds, now!”

“Now what?” said a
man in the front.

“Now, my people,
my friends, my neighbors—“

“Aren't you going
to show us something?” said another.

“Some...
thing?!?
Good people, welcome faces, discerning minds, I have shown you items,
valuables, wonders, devices, but would you think me so base as to show you a
simple
thing?
What I have now is nothing less than a mechanized wonder!”

He took two
dramatic steps to the edge of the stage.

“Tell me now!” he
bellowed, commanding the crowd into a hush. His next words were quiet and
poised. “Who among you enjoys pastry?”

There seemed to be
a moment of confusion. Hands were cautiously raised throughout the audience.

“And so do I,
friends,” said Doctor P. “So do I.”

The Doll had her
hand up as well. Doctor P gestured to her and she put it down.

Doctor P proceeded
to bring out a little clam-shaped hunk of metal and wire, which he claimed was
a portable, electric, pie maker, guaranteed to produce sweet dishes faster than
the speed of sound.

“Just throw some
flour inside,” he instructed. “Maybe a fruit here and there.”

He started
applauding himself in attempt to get the audience involved. When they just
stood there slackjawed, he put the device down and put his hands on the Doll's
shoulder. “My sister, Bea, ladies and gentlemen.”

She waved to the
crowd.

“My dear sister,
would you be so kind as to inform these good people, these clever, dashing
onlookers, as to the nature of your culinary deficiency.”

Culinary
deficiency?

The Doll took her
cue, nodded, stood, and clasped her hands.

“I have been
medically diagnosed by my brothers, the very good doctors Marin, with the
disease of pierosis.”

“And please,”
Doctor P said, choking back what he wanted to look like tears, “my poor, tragic
sister, tell them the symptoms of your disease, which we of a medical
background call pierosis.”

She placed an open
palm to her head, as if she might swoon.

“I am unable to
handle pie!”

The crowd gasped.
I shook my head and snickered.

“They have got to
be kidding,” Gren whispered to me.

“Pie!” Dolly
announced. “My most favorite treat.”

“Her most favorite
treat!” Doctor P shouted, mashing a fist into a palm. “Yes, it is horrible!
Fortune mocks her! And yet...and yet, Sister, I have brought you here with a
question. Is there any pie, any at all in existence, that your most-delicate
constitution could possibly handle?”

The Doll shook her
head with exaggeration. “It would have to be a pie of great making,” she said,
“else I fear that I would die.”

“Death by pie?”
Kitt whispered to me. “Isn't that a bit much?”

Doctor P shut his
eyes and clasped his hands. He wore the deep, sober face of a parishioner in
prayer. He carefully retrieved the metal device and opened its hinges. From
inside he pulled out a messy piece of pie that more appeared to have been
crammed into the device than to have been baked inside.

“My only sister,”
he said, the blue pie innards dripping through this fingers, “sample this
dessert.”

Carefully, the
Doll took the sloppy dish and chewed a bit. Her face lit up.

“It is
perfection!” she announced. A wave of cheers, laughter, and applause broke out
from the crowd. Dolly licked her fingers and started bowing like an actress,
her grand performance a success.

“And now!” Doctor
P said, holding the portable, electric pie maker above his head. “Who will be
the first to own this piece of tomorrow, this machine of—“

A round of
gunshots fired off in the distance, followed by gruff hooting and jeering.
Doctor P stopped his speech and set down the device.

It was silent for
only a moment. Another round of firing and shouting commenced.

“Ladies and
gentleman, please excuse me,” Doctor P quickly said. He darted off of the stage
and into the caravan, leaving the Doll alone onstage.

The gunshots got
louder, or rather, closer. Doctor D grabbed us and pulled us into the middle of
the crowd.

“Get down!” he
whispered, pushing us to our knees between clusters of the audience.

“What is it?” Kitt
asked, crawling around.

“A very serious
problem.”

“So what's new?” I
hissed.

The shouting got
louder.

“Oh, no. No, no,
wait,” Gren said, recognizing the rough male voices that accompanied the shots.
“Marin, tell me that isn't who I think that is.”

“Keep down!”
Doctor D said.

Despite the
warning, I peeked to check on the Doll. Her expression had changed to worry and
she tapped her feet in place, unsure of what to do. Suddenly Doctor P
reappeared, pushing a very large steamer trunk.

“The floor,
Sister!” he commanded, nervous.

“Eh?” the Doll
said, dropping to her knees.

“Sorry about
this.” He gave the opened trunk a swift kick and it fell, hole down on top of
the Doll, covering her. She squeaked.

Doctor D's hand
found my shoulder and yanked me back to the dirt. “I told you to stay down!”

“What's
happening?”

A rather nasty set
of voices called out from the back of the crowd. Huddled between the masses, 
we couldn't make out faces.

“Oi, Marin!” a
phlegm-throated voice shouted. “Whatcha got in the magic box?”

“My laundry!”
Doctor P shouted back.

Half of the crowd
quietly laughed, the others tugged at their spouses and whispered.

“Mary, is this
part of the show?” the man above me quietly asked.

Some began to
cling to each other's arms.

“Laundry, eh?” the
rough voice from the back mocked. “Not very magical. That all you've got in
there?”

“Why?” Doctor P
shouted. “You boys have an interest in my socks?”

“Couldn't say. How
'bouts we take a look around at 'em?”

Doctor D started
crawling through the crowd toward the caravan. “Now!” he said. “Follow! Hurry!”

We moved as fast
we could manage through the crowd. When we got near the stage stairs, our guide
slid down and started crawling underneath the wagon. It was a tight squeeze,
but we all got under, moving to the other side.

With a grunt, I
popped my head out the other side. Doctor D had already gotten loose and was
standing behind the back of the caravan. He offered his hand and helped drag me
out. Once free, I took off my hat and dusted off my pants as he helped pull
Gren out.

“Damn it!” Gren
said, once free.

“Who are those
idiots?” I asked, flicking some grime off of my bottle.

“Motorists.”

“Motorists?”

Doctor D opened a
back door into the caravan and whistled. “Inside!” he said.

“Don't have to
tell us twice,” Gren said. We hurried inside. It was a rather cozy cabin filled
with mismatched pillows.

“Stay put here,”
Doctor D said.

He left us and
started scurrying outside. We heard him move around the side and hop onstage.
The Marin brothers spoke loud enough for us to hear.

“Ah!” Doctor P
said. “Brother, what timing! These men are interested in our launderings!”

I exhaled and put
a pillow over my face.

“I am too sober
for this,” I muttered.

“Me too,” Gren
said.

“I'm going to hate
myself for asking, but what did you mean by 'motorists?'”

“You really don't
know? I was sure that...” He stopped. I waited for him to continue. When he
didn't, I tossed the pillow aside.

“Why'd you stop?”

“Pocket...”

“What?”

“Where's the fox
boy?”

A squeaky hinge
turned somewhere outside of the cabin, followed by shrieks from the crowd.

“Look!” a gruff
voice from the back said, firing into the sky. “It's one of them!”

“Uh...hello,” came
a voice that was unmistakably Kitt's.

“Shoot the
bastard!”

Without thinking,
I jumped outside and looked around the corner. Kitt was sticking up out of a
trap door that led under the caravan. Seems he got lost in the crawl. The crowd
shouted and took off in every direction. A group of unwashed men started
running up from the back. Many swung chains, thick bars, even wrenches, while
others hurried to load their rifles.

“Hurry!” one
yelled. “Shoot him!”

The Marins quickly
grabbed the trunk and spun it over, keeping the Doll inside. The lid slapped
shut as they got a tight handle on each side.

“Heavy...” Doctor
P said.

“Hurry!” Doctor D
said.

Kitt disappeared
back down his foxhole as the Marins got the steamer inside the wagon. Gren ran
up behind me and dragged me back towards the cabin.

“Come on!” he
said. “You want to get shot?”

We tumbled back
into the wagon. Gren leaned over, slammed the door, and then locked it.

An inner door on
the opposite side of the cabin swung open and Doctor P came barreling in.
“Gentlemen!” he said. “Excellent to see you again!”

“You've never met
me before,” Gren pointed out. The point was ignored.

“I take it you're
comfortable?” Doctor P said. “There’s peppermint tea in the next chamber.”

“No, thanks,” I
said. “Look, we’re—“

“You’re right. Too
bumpy for tea.”

“Bumpy?”

“Right!” Doctor P
sat down next to Gren and braced his arms against the walls for support. “Oh,
and I’d steady yourselves.”

A burst of power I
have never felt exploded from the back of the caravan and we launched like a shot
violently forward. My head whipped back against the wall and rammed into a few
scattered pillows.

“Ah!” Doctor P
said as we throttled forward at unimaginable speeds. “I knew the pillows were a
wise choice! My brother was worried they’d come off rather gaudy.”

“What the hell is
going on?!?” Gren shouted.

“Gas!” Doctor P
shouted. “Wonderful, fantastic gas! A fuel of tomorrow propelling us on our
marvelous way!”

“Garbage!” Gren
yelled. “I’ve seen gas engines before! They don’t act like this!”

“Well, they don’t
have my brother to command them!”

“What do you mean,
command?!?
”

“He’s a grand
engineer! I have never seen a man stimulate or ignite the gas the way he does!”

“Ignite?!?” Gren
shouted. “You lunatics are
igniting
gas?!?”

Another explosive
burst shot out from the back of the wagon, gluing me to my seat. The outside
world blurred into smeary colors outside my window. Faerie juice danced and
jumped about in my seemingly indestructible bottle.

“Family secret!”
Doctor P said. “Sure, we get by with the typical hug-and-chug of conventional
gas-propulsion, gets us through the day. But where’s the zip? I say, gents,
that you are lucky travelers! It's a fine art to properly ignite gas without
losing a face or the back half of your vessel! I cannot remember the last time
we had both opportunity and excuse to use such technique!”

“You’re going to
kill us all, you maniac!” Gren shouted.

“What was your
name, sir?”

“Gren Spader! And
I want…no,
demand,
to live!”

“He’s an excitable
one, isn’t he?”

“Appears so,” I
uttered, clutching…well…I don’t even remember what I was clutching. The ride
was that frantic. “Doctor,” I then said, “is the girl all right?”

“Should be fine.
Plenty of air holes in the trunk. And we didn’t lock the latch.”

“What about Kitt?”
Gren asked.

“I believe he’s
topside, helping my brother pilot this wagon.”

“Oh, good!” Gren
snarled. “And I was worried!”

We took a hard
turn and my body was tossed against the outside door. The ankles of my
companions were thrust skyward. Gren offered some muffled profanities to his
seat. The doctor adjusted himself and saw me leaning on the door.

“Better watch out.
That latch gets rather loose.”

To prove he wasn’t
lying, the door flung upon and I went hurtling backward out of the cabin. At
the last possible moment I caught the door with one hand and wedged my feet to
keep myself from smashing against the ground. Cold air whipped over me as I
hung outside, bent backward, speeding down the way. I tried to raise my head
and open my eyes. Smears of reflective blue-grey-brown. We were riding
alongside a riverbank.

“What are you
waiting for?!?” I shouted. I felt Gren and Doctor P grab my ankles.

“Give me your
hand!” Gren shouted back.

“I can’t! Not bent
out like this!”

“Pocket?” I heard
Kitt say. I bent my head up. He was sitting on top of the roof, peering down at
me.

“Hi Kitt.”

“Are you all
right?”

“No. I’m about to
die.”

“Oh. Hold on
then.”

“To
what?
”

It was hard to
see, but I half-watched as Kitt took his wrench and popped out the knife blade.
He began sawing through the ropes of something large and pink that was tied to
the top of the wagon.

“Here!” Kitt said,
cutting the final rope. “Try and catch this!”

“Kitt, wait!”

But he didn’t.
Instead, he toppled the giant thing over the side and right on top of me. It
was soft, like…ah!

“Hey, that’s one
of my collector’s mattresses!” Doctor P said.

Twisting my side,
I flipped it underneath me and kicked off from the door frame. My ankles slid
through their fingers and I fell from the caravan onto the ground, the soft
cushioning of the mattress keeping me from mashing my bones into paste upon
impact. I hit the riverbank fast and began to slide on the mattress down the
slope. Just before falling into the water, I came to a slow halt. I lay there,
clutching the mattress, watching the caravan disappear on its maddening drive.
The stage, I noticed, had not been detached before we had made our escape and
pieces of it, broken and splintered, were still sticking to the vehicle. A
snaking line of smoke, I also noticed, was coming from the back of the speeding
wagon. This was, as the Marins would tell you, a by-product of their
experimentation with propulsion. Or, as I will simply put it, the back of their
wagon had caught fire, most likely because Doctor D was taking volatile gas and
putting a match to it. Still, you have to admire how one such as a Marin
manages to continuously not die despite their gloriously self-destructive
tendencies. The smoke snaked up and dissipated into the smoggy sky. Kitt stood
upright on the wagon as it faded into the distance, shouting something to me
that I could not hear. It was soon gone.