The vampire slayings. That’s what the head said, too, the mad old steamer.
‘Lower your wicked gun,’ wheezed the commodore. ‘I wouldn’t insult my gravestone by having it recorded that my life ended at the hands of a two-penny ruffian like Dick Tull.’
You think? Dick pulled back the hammer on the clockwork of firing lock as if he was going to shoot, and then pushed the safety forward. Many would say that would be a fitting end to your life.
As Dick lowered his gun, a loud bell started filling the kitchen with its clamour. ‘You got another houseguest inside here Blacky, sending down to the kitchen for their soup?’
‘Perimeter alarm,’ said the commodore. ‘Someone’s jumped my wall and is coming through the woods.’
There was a series of thumps throughout the house, the kitchen floor shaking as a heavy metal blast door dropped out of a slot within the wall, sealing off the inner courtyard. They’re locked out, or we’re locked in, depending on your point of view.
‘It’s the board, Mister Tull.’ Sadly looked panicked. ‘They’ve come for us.’
‘Surely it could be a fox, good captain,’ said Daunt. ‘A false alarm?’
Another thump, louder, the distant rain of falling rubble following it.
‘Wouldn’t be heavy enough to set off my minefield,’ said the commodore.
‘Bloody hell.’ Sadly looked at the tiny pistol in his hand, as if he was realising this was all he had to stop the dustmen. ‘Mines.’
‘This isn’t my first ride at this carnival, lad,’ said the commodore, opening the door to his pantry and fiddling with something hidden under the shelves inside. ‘I’ve grown mortal tired of receiving the wrong sort of visitor at Tock House. Boxiron, lend me the weight of your shoulder plates here.’
Boxiron and the old u-boat man pushed at the shelves and they swung to one side, revealing a concealed room on the other side, iron railings surrounding a well-like opening in the middle of the floor — spiral stairs leading downwards from the pantry.
A hidden strong room. ‘Where’s your treasure, then?’
‘Is the preservation of your miserable life not booty enough for you, Dick Tull?’ The commodore waved them inside the room, lighting its gas lamps with a spark switch while the steamman and his consulting detective friend carried in the murmuring girl. Once inside, Dick helped the commodore push shut the concealed door. No wonder it was so heavy. Five inches of reinforced metal on the other side of the shelves, riding large rollers across the flagstones.
Sadly was sweating. ‘This isn’t right. We’re as tight as rats in a pipe here. Just like when the dustmen came for me in my cellar.’
‘Tight as the sweet decks of a boat,’ said the commodore. ‘Down the stairs and let’s see if we can’t make a little mischief for them.’
There was another room below, larger, windowless and with a series of doors leading off that that might’ve belonged on a submersible, solid riveted iron with wheel locks to open them. Racks had been built into the walls between the doors, canned food, barrels of water, guns, charges and equipment piled from floor to ceiling. Dick ran his finger along one of the shelves. Not much dust. Less than a couple of years old down here.
‘You are well appointed for a siege,’ said Daunt.
‘Life gives you what you expect,’ said the commodore, lifting a dustsheet off a bank of equipment. ‘And well glad I am for my preparations, too, we’ll give them a few licks before we go down.’
‘That’s the spirit, good captain,’ said Daunt. ‘There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes.’
With the commodore pulling and tugging at the control panel that stood revealed, a screen came to life showing the exterior of Tock House and the tower’s grounds. There were figures moving about in front of the tree line, but the colours of the monitor seemed all wrong, the whole scene coloured in a green tinge, while the lights thrown by the house shone like flares.
‘This equipment was constructed by the people of the metal,’ said Boxiron, helping Daunt lay down the girl’s body.
‘So it was,’ agreed the commodore. ‘A little project for my friend Coppertracks. Something more practical than his usual fancies and forays into high science.’ He fiddled with a lever and the speaker a voicebox mounted above the screen crackled into life.
‘-want the sceptre. We know you have it. You have five minutes to surrender it and then we’ll burn you out of there.’
I recognize that voice. Dick lent forward to look at the figure standing in front of the house. Bugger the lot of them. It was him. ‘That’s Walsingham, one of the State Protection Board’s section heads.’
‘Oh, law,’ Sadly squeaked. ‘We’re dead down here, says I.’
‘That’s not the name he was using earlier today,’ said Boxiron.
Dick turned to look at the steamman.
‘That man is the leader of the gang that set the ambush for Charlotte softbody. His fighters called him Captain Twist.’
Dick swore under his breath. ‘You’re sure?’
Boxiron tapped his hearing manifolds. ‘Perfectly. I was using my voicebox to reflect a low-frequency carrier wave off the shop window he and his soldiers were hiding in. It is an old steamman artifice to eavesdrop at short range.’ Boxiron indicated one of the other figures on the screen. ‘And that’s the fighter he left in charge of the ambush after he departed. His name is Cloake. He is lucky to be alive after facing my fury.’
Dick looked closer, noting the stocky short-arsed figure standing by Walsingham’s side. ‘Sweet Circle.’ Corporal Cloake.
‘They’re your people…?’ said the commodore.
Dick nodded.
‘Captain Twist is a pseudonym,’ said Daunt. ‘A royalist figure of legend who led Parliament on a merry dance centuries ago.’
‘I know that, lad,’ said the commodore. ‘And more recently than that, too. Didn’t I wear the proud title once in my youth?’
On the screen another figure emerged from the tree line, his voice carrying over to Tock House.
‘King Jude’s sceptre is not just another bauble for you to pawn, commodore. You will hand it over, by order of the Star Chamber!’
‘Carl Redlin,’ spat Dick.
The miserable royalist bastard who started all of this. If only I hadn’t been on duty that night, waiting for Redlin to turn up at Lord Chant’s mansion. None of this would have happened, or at least it would have happened to some other poor sod of an officer. How fine would that be?
‘I told you Mister Tull,’ moaned Sadly. ‘Foxes and hens dancing together. Royalists and the board, both working hand in glove. It doesn’t make any sense to me.’
The commodore angrily pulled a speaking pipe out of the console, his voice carrying over the garden from behind the intruders, silhouetted figures jumping as his voice boomed from hidden speakers inside the wood. ‘I know you well enough, Carl Redlin. A lickspittle of a skipper who wouldn’t raise a periscope without first sending for sealed orders from the Star Chamber. Has the blood of the cause run so thin that you’re letting a dirty secret policeman wander around calling himself Captain Twist? Did you murder poor young Rufus, or did you let your new board friends do it for the sport?’
Redlin looked furious. ‘I’ll take no lessons from you, you cowardly turncoat bastard. We will have the sceptre from you now!’
‘Found a backbone, have you Carl Redlin? Now that your pockets have been stuffed full of gill-neck gold? Here’s your answer and it’s good for you, my wicked sister, the gill-necks and your State Protection Board bully- boys, all.’ He threw a switch and there was a cackle of rifle fire from the top of Tock House, the figures on the screen diving for cover among the trees.
‘Won’t hit a blessed one of them,’ sighed the commodore. ‘The guns in the rifle slits need Coppertracks’ drones to man them. We’re firing blind, but it will keep their thick heads down until they realize we’re not upstairs.’
Daunt held up the sceptre, regarding it with a mixture of dismay and reverence. ‘So this is the real article then, after all. King Jude’s sceptre. I fear my deductions about the nature of Damson Shades’ true vocation are proved correct. I take no pleasure in it.’
