Pixie Sinclaire

The Lelina Horror, Part 17

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PIXIE (VIII)

I’m not even sure how to begin describing the scene that lay before us as the Cartographer opened the door to the room where Adella, Rothery, and several others were being kept. I can say that the smell is what hit me first. The worst thing I’d ever smelled up to that point had been bodies burning in a derailed train car during the war. This was far worse, a lingering smell of decay and filth.

I spotted Adella sitting on the far wall. While she was obviously malnourished, she wasn’t horrifically so. It was more the look in her eyes that frightened me. Gone was the enlightened, inquisitive spark I’d seen in the young journalism student I’d traveled with all those years ago. In its place was a vacant stare, bordering on feral. I scanned the room and saw the same look in the eyes of the others. And judging from the fact that several bodies lay on the floor, I’d say that they were one provocation away from ripping each other apart.

“There she is, Miss Sinclaire,” the Cartrographer said, pointing to Adella. “The woman you came looking for. Or is it? Take a look around. See those bodies laying on the ground? That one there, he was a captive, just like them. And he was killed by them, based on the suspicion that he’d taken a single bite out of someone else’s food ration. This is what happens when people are pushed enough. In the end, we are just base animals.

“Well, almost. Your friend Adella…she never broke. Never lifted a finger. I know because I watched. She won’t admit that, though. She’s taken on the responsibility along with the others, but her hands are rather clean. Metaphorically speaking. Physically, they’re quite filthy.”

I whirled around on him and grabbed him by the neck, forcing him back against the wall. His men hefted their weapons but he stopped them.

“Now, Miss Sinclaire, let us try to remain civil. I’ve brought you here for a reason. I’m planning to let you, and Doctor Trenum, leave along with your companion.”

“And what’s the catch?”

“A choice. You can take a look around, take in what you see, and decide whether anyone in this room is worth saving. If not, just walk away, along with Miss Villanova here. Or, you can let us have Miss Villanova, and take Miss Chatelaine.”

I looked over at Villanova. She was staring at me fit to kill. It was any easy choice. This woman had been dogging me since Docryville, trying to put a bullet through my skull. It was an opportunity to both get rid of her, and save Adella.

“No,” I said.

“No? No what?”

“I don’t accept either set of terms. They’re stacked, you see. Meant to re-enforce whatever twisted world view you’re trying to illustrate here. You don’t think I know what you’re doing, with this little experiment? It’s all very misanthropic, but I’m not biting. I leave them to rot, it shows how quickly our faith in people can crumble. If I trade one person who’s a problem for me for another I’m trying to save, then I’m just an opportunist.”

“And if you resist, then you’re a fool. What will it be?”

I looked at Veronica, then at Arufina. Anything I chose, I was choosing for everyone. There was no debate about that. But then, the three of us had chosen to come here on our own.

Time to face the consequences.

“Foolishness suits me just fine.”

I brought my knee up, driving it into his stomach and knocking the breath out of him. He folded over and I threw his limp body toward his men, who had all idiotically bunched together in the entry way. They fell back, giving me enough time to pop one of the sleeping pills and toss it into the entryway.

“Veronica, back up from there,” I said as the smoke filled the entryway. I pulled my dagger and turned to Arufina. “Easy big girl. I’m just going to cut you free.”

“You are a fool, if you think this changes anything. I still plan to kill you.”

“Then do it after we get out of here. For now, grab a couple of those guns and get ready to fight. Or are you willing to just leave these people behind?”

She looked at the room. “Poor wretches. Why should I give a damn what happens to them?”

“Because you’re the kind of person who would track a world famous spy half way across the world to make her answer for the death of your friend. You want justice for Osyn? Help me get these people out of here.”

My saying the name of the girl I killed struck a chord with her. I could see it in her face, a temporary moment of surprise. I think that letting her know that I hadn’t forgotten Osyn’s name helped temper whatever rage was inside of her.

“Alright then. I’ll help.”

“Pixie, are you sure about this?” Veronica asked. She’d picked up a gun and was holding it on the entrance. From up the stairs I could hear voices.

“I’m trained for subterfuge, and no offense, Ronnie, but I’ve seen you shoot. Arufina is a trained gun-fighter, and we’re about to fight an army of the same. Yeah. We need her.”

“Do you have any more of those annoying things?” Arufina asked as she found the keys to her shackles and unlocked herself. I supposed she meant my sleep bombs.

“Just one.”

“Use it wisely, then,” she said, then proceeded to undo the gun belts of the five unconscious Cartographers. She handed one to Veronica and another to me, then slid the others over her shoulders like bandoliers, and checked each of the four guns. I reloaded my gun, holstered it, and turned to the captives.

They had long since stood up and gathered in the center of the room. In front of them stood Adella.

“Alright, people, listen up,” I said. “We’re going to get you all out of here…”

“But where are we going to go?” one of them asked.

“I don’t know. Back to your homes.”

The man who asked the question started sobbing. I thought about going on with trying to rally them, took one look at the others, and knew it wouldn’t do any good. The only thing to do know was to focus on fighting our way out of there and worry about these people then. I turned my attention to Adella.

“Adella,” I said, and she flinched at the name, then looked up at me. “Adella, do you remember me?”

The Lelina Horror, Part 17

The Lelina Horror, Part 16

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ADELLA (IX)
6th of 11 Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

In recent days, I have found myself going around in circles about where to begin in recalling the events surrounding my capture in the swamps around Lelina. My memory is all too muddled by the stress of our situation and the horrors my compatriots and I were forced to endure. They tell me I was gone only for one year, but that one year seemed like an eternity.

Time is hard to measure when you’re in captivity. When every moment could potentially be your last, time becomes simultaneously priceless and worthless. I’m not sure how to describe it, exactly. Your mind fades between hopefulness and despair. Your worst enemy is your own mind. Eventually you learn to shut it down, and everything becomes a blur.

I had no idea where I was when I came to in what, I’ve been told, was an abandoned hospital in the wilds outside of Point Hammond. All I remember is that Rothery and Meriam were there. In the beginning, that was some sort of, I suppose selfish, comfort. There were others as well, in the beginning. About twenty five or thirty. They’d all been there longer than us, and the realities of their situation had long since set in. From time to time one would be taken away, seemingly at random. Others would be brought. From the whispers of our fellow captives, no one was ever brought back after they’d left. Everyone who entered the room did so for the first time. Everyone who left did so for the last.

For the longest time we were left alone together. Our captors, whoever they were, bothered us not. They did not taunt nor torture us, nor did they provide anything other than food or water. We were kept alive, but in squalor. The stench was unbearable. I never got used to it and even now I can taste the air of that place in the back of my throat.

From time to time I could see shadows behind the frosted glass panes overlooking the room. The shadows would stand there, still as statues until turning away and disappearing. It was almost always just an individual. Every now and again it would be a group. At first I thought I might discern a pattern, and be able to count the passage of time based on when it was a single shadow, or multiple. I soon learned that it was completely random.

I slept 40 times before the ‘scenarios’ began. The ‘scenarios’ were what turned our imprisonment from an atrocious situation to a living hell.

They began secretly giving messages to us. At first the messages would be some innocuous thing, like what day of the week it was. These we shared when they started coming. And it was through this sharing that the various groups within the room started to finally intermingle. I suppose that was the point.

I slept fifteen more times when I began to notice a change, however. People seemed to be keeping secrets, and the number of messages we shared began to dwindle. The messages had changed, but to what, I wondered?

One day I bit into a piece of bread to find a piece of paper stashed inside, along with a nail file.

It read: ‘Someone plans to kill you. They believe you plan to kill someone close to them.’
I stood up and went to the center of the room and I told everyone what I found, placing the nail file on the floor. I said that I had no intentions of hurting anyone, and if anyone had received a similar message, it was likely a manipulation.

I left the file and turned to head back to Rothery and Meriam. I only made it a few steps when I heard rushed footsteps behind me. I turned to see one of the other captives, a woman whose name I cannot remember, rushing toward the file. She picked it up and dashed to the other side of the room, straight toward a man standing against the wall.

There was no hesitation, no warning. She just drove the nail file into the man’s neck and killed him. When the others stood up in outrage, she tried to explain.

‘I have a sick son!’ she said. ‘They said they’d get him medicine if I did it! I’m sorry!’

No one listened. They all turned their back on her. I turned my back on her.

A few sleeps later and one of the men, whose name I do remember, Shelby, began to suggest we organize. If we were going to keep our sanity, he said, we should instill order. Our own order. None of us were a threat to each other, he said. It was us versus the bastards who put us in here.

We listened to him. That was a mistake.

Shelby did instill order, but it was an unfair one. He elected himself as the leader. No, that’s a lie. We all looked to him. He seemed the most capable. But he wasn’t what he seemed.

As we eventually learned, he was one of Them. And two of the four others he appointed as his lieutenants were Them, as well. Eventually they just became a new form of messengers. Only now the messages were coming from people we thought were trustworthy.

It didn’t take long before we were at each others throats, accusing each other of stealing food or plotting against each other. We all began to fight. Shelby would swoop in and break it up sometimes. Other times he seemed resigned to watch. To observe. That was my first clue.

Then they started offering people respite. For those who did what They wanted, they were promised extra meals, or a bath. They promised tiny things, things most of us would take for granted. But they seemed like such huge prizes in the dark.

Then, the Worst Day happened. I’m not sure on the details. It started with an errant accusation, or an insult. It doesn’t matter. Five of us died that day. Meriam was one of them. She’d just gotten caught in the middle.

New people were brought in. This was after Shelby and his two cohorts were revealed to be Them. So these new people, they never stood a chance. Their every move was watched. The slightest misstep either got them beaten or killed. Not by Them. But by Us. They weren’t even sending us messages any more at that point. They didn’t need to. When we started treating the new captives as our own captives, I realized, there was no Them anymore.

I started to think none of this would end. But then it did. Agent Pixie Sinclaire and Professor Veronica Trenum. One day they just entered the room on their own volition, unbound, with several men in blue at their backs and a third, giant woman in shackles with them. They took one look around, and the horror on their faces really drove home what we had done.

How dare they, I thought, looking at the judgement in their eyes. How dare they judge?

And then one of the men in Blue pointed at me, and made Pixie Sinclaire an offer.

The Lelina Horror, Part 16

The Lelina Horror, Part 15

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PIXIE (VII)

“Let’s get moving,” I said, mainly to call Ronnie’s attention away from her surroundings. In all the years I’ve known her, I’d never seen her as shaken up as she was then. This was someone who once ran through four miles of a forest full of cannibals with an injured porter on her shoulder. Another time, she’d been trapped alone in a cave for a month after a shell from a nearby battle caused a cave in, surviving off ground water and grubs before the rest of her expedition dug her out.

“Ronnie,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Right,” she said. “Yes. If Adella is here, she won’t spend another second here due to my own inaction. Let’s find her.”

We exited the room and entered a long corridor that ran the length of the building. The paint peeled from the walls in long strips, and discarded medical debris and other detritus littered the floors. The dense odor of mildew filled the space, forcing me to breathe through my mouth. We pushed forward.

I kept one ear open as we walked, but the only sound to be heard was dead silence and our tiny footsteps crunching against a layer of dirt that covered the floor. I kept my eyes on the ground, looking for other signs of passage. Surely any occupants would have left a trail.

It wasn’t footsteps I found, but an adjacent corridor that had been swept clean, coupled with wall sconces that emitted a small gaslight. Not enough light to draw attention from outside, but just enough to see. We walked the length of the corridor. A second hallway similar to the one we’d started in ran the length of the building’s far side. It showed no signs of passage.

“Hmm,” I said, turning back. “I wonder, is this the hallway we’re looking for? Or is it lit precisely to draw our attention?”

I made the choice to walk back down the lit hallway. There were spaces where doors might have been, but they were bricked over. On a hunch I reached up and pulled one of the sconces as we passed it. Nothing happened, so I tried to turn it. Nothing. I repeated the process with the other sconces, hoping one of them might open a secret passage or some such. Nothing happened. I was stumped.

“Pixie, look.” Ronnie pointed at the ground ten feet in front of us. There was a threadbare rug, completely unremarkable, laying askew on the floor. I walked over to it and pulled it back. There was nothing underneath.

“Well, I’m out of ideas,” Ronnie said.

“There has to be something. A lever, or a trapdoor. Something.”

“Kill your light.”

I stuffed the glow-tube in a pocket while Ronnie went down the hall, cutting off the gaslights. Once they were all off, we were in complete darkness. After a minute of trying to fight off my imagination, my eyes adjusted. There, in the middle of the hall, from underneath one of the bricked over doors, was a thin strip of light.

“Do you think that’s it?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t hurt to check,” Ronnie said. I pulled the glow tube out of my pocket. Ronnie stood in front of the door, smiling warily. It was a short lived smile as her eyes shifted to something behind me.

“Pixie, look out!” she shouted, but I was already throwing myself forward. I felt a rush of air over the top of my head as I rolled forward and turned, my hand reaching for my dagger. There stood the mad woman. She still had her rifle, but was using it as a club.

“Out of bullets?” I asked.

“I don’t need bullets. You sure as hell didn’t.”

“So, you can talk. Mind telling me what this is about?”

My not knowing pissed her off to no end. Normally, someone her size barreling at me like a charging elephant would be cause for alarm, and it certainly was, but rage makes people stupid, and stupid people are predictable. She brought the rifle butt up and down in a wide arc. I sidestepped the blow, dropped low, and put all of my weight behind throwing myself into her broadside. If she’d been standing ready, I’ve no doubt I would have just bounced off of her, but she was off balance and off guard.

The mad woman fell to the right, striking the bricked over door. The bricks didn’t fall away, but I did hear them shift. I waited for her to begin to stand.

“Ronnie, with me!” I said, and pushed forward again. Together, Ronnie and I crashed into the woman and pushed her back through the loosened bricks into a stairwell beyond. The three of us tumbled down the steps, the edge of every one a threat to life and limb. We made it to the bottom in a nice little pile, with me landing on top of the mad woman and Ronnie landing on top of me.

The landing knocked the breath out of me, but Ronnie seemed alright, if a little dazed. She stood first and helped me up. As I stood catching my breath, the mad woman started to stir. I was trying to decide what we should do with her when Ronnie tapped me on the shoulder.

“What is it now—oh.”

Five cartographers stood behind us, guns raised.

“Ah, hell,” I said, raising my hands. I was too damned tired after that fall. And besides, if they took us alive, maybe they’d just take us to wherever Adella and the others were being held.

“Agent Sinclaire?”

The voice didn’t come from the five men in front of us, but from a sixth man farther down the hall.

“That’s me.”

He stepped out from around a corner, holding his hands behind his back, his hair slicked back and a know-it-all smirk on his face. I disliked him immediately.

“Lower your weapons,” he told his people, and they did. “Let Miss Sinclaire and her companion through. As for the Circle assassin, restrain her and bring her with us.”

Circle assassin? I turned to look at the mad woman, still laying on the ground but otherwise fully recovered. She was watching me with a keen eye. And I remembered who she was.

Arufina Villanova, a member of the Scarlet Circle. I’d had a run in with them a few years before. She’d led a group of her compatriots in an attack on an arms dealer I’d been sent to negotiate with. The whole affair had led to the discovery of a Pre-Rift vault, just like the one at Lelina. And just like Lelina, the vault had contained automatons like the Mistwalker described by Veronica.

Over the course of events, I was directly responsible for the death of one of Villanova’s team, a young woman named Osyn, if I correctly recall. I supposed that’s why Villanova had been hunting me, to exact some sort of vengeance.

The Cartographers picked her up off the ground and placed her in shackles, then wrapped her upper body with a heavy rope.

“Isn’t that a bit excessive?” Ronnie asked.

“No,” said the man. “Wouldn’t you agree, Agent Sinclaire?”

Five minutes ago I would have agreed vehemently, but now that I knew the woman’s identity and an idea of why she wanted me dead, I found it hard to feel much animosity toward her. Don’t get me wrong…I didn’t appreciate her trying to kill me, but I could sympathize with her position. I’m not a monster.

“Come this way, then,” the man said. “I have someone who’s been waiting to see you for a very long time.”

The Lelina Horror, Part 15

The Lelina Horror, Part 14

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PIXIE (VI)
23rd of 9th Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

I spent the next few days in the wilds south of Point Hammond. They provided me with enough of what I needed to treat my wound, and the thick underbrush and gnarled trees offered plenty of places to hide from Cartographer hunting parties.

It wasn’t the hunting parties I was worried about, however. It was the mad woman with the rifle. At that point I still had a notion in the back of my mind that I recognized her, but it still hadn’t dawned on me from where.

In between bouts of hiding and picking berries, I went over what I knew about the circumstances surrounding Professor Martine Babin’s recovery. I knew he’d been found south of the town, in the woods I now found myself hiding and searching in, near a dried out river bed. That had been in the early springs months…from what I knew of the area what I was actually looking for now was a creek.

Over the course of the next few days, I found no trace of either a dry bed or a creek. I did find the over grown remains of an abandoned motor carriage. Inside were the remains of the carriage’s driver, little more than a skeleton wearing the tattered scraps of what looked like a hospital orderly uniform. I examined the vehicle itself, but found no markings. The driver’s side door was off, and the passenger’s side was wedged against a tree and over grown. I had a poke around the area and found the missing door at the foot of another tree fifteen feet away. I flipped it over, leaves and dirt rolling off as I did.

On the other side, in painted letters barely visible beneath a coat of dirt and rust, were the words “Point Hammond Behavioral Studies and Corrections Facilities”. What an ominous sounding name, it was. Was there some sort of asylum out here in the woods around Point Hammond? And if so, what had happened to this fellow?

A chill came over me, as I realized that the woods had gone silent. I looked up from the door and scanned the area around me. It might sound unoriginal, but I truly did have the sense that I was being watched.

A group of birds took flight from behind a thicket nearby, and I heard a harsh whisper.

“Goddamit!” a man’s voice said. Then a woman replied.

“Nice going, Brick. How the hell did you ever make it as a hunter?”

I recognized the woman’s voice.

“Ronnie?” I said. I relaxed my hand, which I now realized was hovering over the gun I’d taken from the Cartographer in the alley.

“Y-yeah…who are you?”

“It’s Pixie Sinclaire.”

Veronica Trenum stood up from behind the thicket. She looked like she hadn’t had a meal in days, but otherwise looked in good health.

“Pixie? Oh, thank the Man. Is there anyone else with you?”

“No. Just me. I’ve been looking for you guys for months. Is Adella with you?”

Silence, and then, “No. None of the others are, except for Brick, here. You know him, as I understand it.”

I frowned. Yeah, I knew him alright. He stood up with his rifle.

“Miss Sinclaire.”

“Mister Mackay. Been a while. I think the last time I saw you was…at the battle of Fargeon LeDois, high tailing it away over a hill.”

“That’s…it more complicated than that.”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. What happened to you all? Where have you been the last year?”

Veronica explained to me about what happened in the swamp, about the automaton that attacked them and scattered their group. Ronnie and Mckay had found their way back to Lelina, where they found the town abandoned. They spent the next several weeks searching for Adella and the others.

Eventually they packed up and left, deciding that the search had gone cold. They’d intended to return to civilization and report what had happened to authorities, but a few run-ins with the Cartographers convinced them instead to stay low.

“But we weren’t hiding,” Ronnie said. “We started investigating them. It took us awhile to get any information…these guys have a tendency to off themselves whenever they’re captured. Eventually we found one too craven to do his duty to the order or whatever nonsense and he spilled the beans.

“He told us the Cartographers are interested in Pre-Rift technology that’s supposedly stashed in old bunkers around the area.

“Like that automaton you told me about.”

“Precisely. Remember our expedition with Rigel to the Blackwood Grove?”

“How could I forget?”

“It was just like that, only…this one showed signs of self-repair, Pixie. It had used the skull of a deer to replace its head, and heartwood to repair an arm. That’s not just following programming. It’s problem solving.”

“What about the bunkers?”

“The site in Lelina was one. There’s another somewhere around here, in Point Hammond. They’re working out of an abandoned hospital not far from here.”

“That must be where this fellow was headed to,” I said, nudging the corpse with my foot.

“What do you know about it?”

“Not much,” Ronnie said. “But enough to know that the place was bad news, even before the Cartographers took it over. We also believe it may be where Adella and the others were taken. We’re headed that way. Join us?”

“Lead the way.”

As we walked, Ronnie filled me in on how they came to believe the hospital in Point Hammond was the ultimate destination for Adella and the others in the expedition. She told me that after the camp had been scattered, Mister Mckay and herself had done a quick search. McKay had followed their trail, and they very nearly caught up. Ronnie claimed that she even saw Adella through the underbrush, but before she could call out several people dressed in blue uniforms popped out of hiding and took Adella prisoner.

McKay had held her back, citing the fact that they were outgunned. After a brief exchange of words, Adella, Rothery, and Meriam surrendered and were led away, heading north.

“The only other settlement nearby was Point Hammond,” Ronnie said. “Seemed as good a place as any to start.”

“So, you’ve known for a whole year where they were being held?”

“Look, Pixie, I see where you’re going with this. Just stop. I already told you we’ve been dogged by these Cartographer people the whole time, and we have no idea how far their influence reaches. I mean, come on. You’ve heard the stories. If they’re true, that influence is pretty far.”

“It just seems unlike you to leave someone in jeopardy for so long,” I said, my eyes focusing on McKay. “And it doesn’t explain why you’re making a move now.”

“There are other elements in play now,” Ronnie said. “Some other group. We’ve seen them in Point Hammond, and a few other settlements we’ve taken to ground in. Women, wearing leather jackets, and heavily armed. At first we saw them by themselves, individually. But then we started noticing them in groups of two or three. Then we started recognizing them. One of them stands out like a sore thumb. Tall, like over six feet, with long black hair. We saw her meeting with two others. Seemed to be giving orders.”

“I’ve seen her, too.”

“In any case, I don’t think they’re working with the Cartographers. In fact I’d say there’s some deep seated animosity between them. That meeting I told you about? It was on a thoroughfare in a town nearby. A couple of Cartographers rode through. They weren’t doing anything, I don’t even think they meant to stop in town. The big one and her cohorts just pulled guns and blew them away.”

“Damn.”

“That’s what I said. That’s not all. The Cartographers seem restless, distracted. We’ve heard them fighting amongst themselves, debating in harsh whispers in dark corners of saloons and hotels. Some sort of internal rift in their code, or philosophy or whatever. The group is starting to show it cracks, to splinter. I don’t know the details, but it seems to me that now might be our chance.”

I quietly mulled over this information as we approached the hospital. It wasn’t much longer before we arrived. McKay called a halt near the edge of a clearing. At its center was a single, four story building with barred windows, its formerly white walls gone green and black with moss and mildew.

“What now?” I asked.

“We wait,” McKay said. “For cover of night. We’ve been watching the place. It doesn’t have any power that we can see, and a group leaves at dusk, with no replacements. They must rely on a skeleton crew.”

“Sounds like they’re pretty confident,” I said.

“Isolation and long stretches of nothing happening can do that,” McKay said. “I’d think you’d know that, of all people.”

I ignored his jab. What had happened at the battle of Fargeon LeDois had been the result of a number of people proving craven, not of complacency.

The day stretched on, and we took turns napping. I was in the middle of mine when Ronnie shook me awake to find the world much darker than when I drifted off.

“It’s time.”

I wiped the sleep from my eyes and sat up, joining them at the tree line. McKay was studying the front of the hospital intently.

“Come on, come on!” he was muttering.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“They’ve usually left by now,” Ronnie said.

“Your hijinks the other day probably put them on alert,” McKay said. “Damn it.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” Ronnie said. “We still go in tonight. We’ll just have to deal with five more people.”

I looked back at them. “Five people? That’s it?”

McKay shot me a look that could melt a glacier. “Five people that we know of, who leave every night. I don’t know how many stay. Could be five is all they have guarding the joint. Could be there’s a hundred more. Either way, I was hoping for any advantage.”

“Well, if it’s only five, we can take them,” I said. “If it’s one hundred, we’re screwed either way. Let’s go.”

“Right,” Ronnie said, and we stepped forward out of the trees. McKay balked.

“Hold on a sec,” He said. “Let’s think this thro-“

A gunshot drowned out his voice. Ronnie and I both threw ourselves to the ground. I drew my pistol and aimed it at the hospital. Another shot rang out, but I saw no muzzle flash from anywhere in the building.

“Behind us!” McKay said, turning with his rifle. Another shot, and the bark of the tree next to him exploded. McKay cursed and threw himself down into the underbrush.

“Go on, then!” he shouted. “I’ll try to keep whoever this is occupied.”

Ronnie and I stood up and started running. We didn’t head toward the front door, however. We saw no sign of life from the hospital, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Luckily, there was a window on the west side of the building where the bars were hanging by a single rusty fastener.

Behind us, the woods erupted with the pops of rifle fire. Our attacker would fire, and McKay would answer.

The ground directly in front of me sent up a spray of dirt and grass. The shooter in the woods wasn’t even bothering to engage with McKay. The shooter was taking aim at me.

“Shit!” I yelled, realizing who the shooter must be. “We need to get to cover now!”

I started weaving wildly from side to side. We were almost at the building. Blood rushed through my ears and my lungs burned. Almost there…

I didn’t slow down as we reached the side of the hospital and ran at full speed into the wall. The loose window bars hung one foot above my head. I jumped up and grabbed them, wrenching them from the wall.

The gun fire had stopped, for the moment. Either our attacker was reloading or taking up a new position. Either way, we needed to take advantage.

“Ronnie, up on my shoulders,” I said, kneeling. She stepped up and I stood.

“Um, I don’t have anything to break the window!”

I handed the revolver up to her. “Use this. The butt, not a bullet.”

“Thanks, but I know how not to waste resources,” she said.

“Just break the damn window!”

I heard glass break. Then a gunshot from the tree behind us. The bullet hit the wall two feet from my head.

“Ronnie!”

As I said her name, her weight lifted from my shoulders.

“Give me your hand,” she said. I looked up to see her hanging from the window, holding her hand out. I jumped up and grabbed it, scrambling up the wall as she pulled. A bullet struck the wall where my leg had just been as I went up and over, into the relative safety of the hospital.

“Well, that was thrilling,” Ronnie said.

“Eh, just a typical Tuesday.”

“Still humble as ever, I see.”

I stood up, keeping a wide berth of the window, and brushed myself off while looking around. The room was pitch black.

“I can’t see a damn thing, and I don’t have a torch,” Ronnie said. I reached into a pouch on my belt and pulled out two glass tubes. They contained liquids that when mixed cast out a sickly green light. I mixed them and shook the solution, and it slowly got brighter.

“Fancy,” Ronnie said.

“Thanks. I’m thinking of filing a patent…”

I trailed off as I took in the room. Rust eaten, over-turned beds littered the space. The walls and floors were covered in blood and other things. In some cases, the blood had been used as ink to write rambling diatribes. In the far corners were large metal cages hooked up to what looked like electrical generators.

“Adella,” I heard Ronnie whisper. “If you’re here, I’m so, so sorry.”

The Lelina Horror, Part 14

The Lelina Horror, Part 13

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PIXIE (V)

20th of 9th Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

Another day, another bullet in the shoulder.

It wasn’t long after escaping from the mad woman beneath the pier in Docryville that I found myself in Point Hammond, following up on a lead for another job involving grave robbers in a town called Dundry. It was also where Professor Babin of the Lelina expedition had been found a few months before, thus and the last point of contact for the missing. The lead on the artifacts proved to be a setup by the Cartographers, which I imagined would be the case before hand.

It wasn’t that they got the drop on me. I fully expected the whole meeting to be a set up. I just didn’t expect them to send SO MANY. I suppose I should be flattered.

In any case I met the man who claimed to have more information on why these grave robbers had been targeting specific native-newlander burial sites in the local feed-store. He turned out to be a Cartographer, just as I suspected might happen. That’s when Bianca showed up and started running her mouth, as was to be expected.

What I didn’t expect was the veritable army of Blues who came crashing into the room, all of them with pistols drawn, and all of them pointed straight at me. As I assessed the situation, I considered a sleeping pill might be a solution to throw them off their mark and provide me with an out. That plan was a no-go, however. They were all wearing filtration masks, no doubt at Bianca’s urging.

Time to change tactics.

While I majored in spy-craft, so to speak, I minored in alchemy. I wouldn’t exactly call myself an adept, but I had a good teacher. In addition to giving me the base knowledge needed to create something like my little sleeping bombs, Rigel Rinkenbach taught me a few other formulas, too. I’ve refined a system over the years, taking the most versatile ingredients available to me to create a wide array of agents with an even wider array of effects. Some could induce sleep, some were hallucinogenic. More than a few would increase libido, and even more could explode. There was a new one I wanted to try, and now, standing in the middle of a room with about twenty heaters pointed in my face, I felt it might be a good time for a test.

“Well, then,” I said, putting my hands up. “Alright, Bianca. I can’t really argue with these numbers. You’ve got me.”

I put my hands behind my head. Concealed in a leather brace on my left arm was a tube containing two liquids that, when mixed together, created a highly corrosive gas, undetectable by sight or smell. I discovered the effect quite by accident while trying to create a flameless light source a couple years back. It didn’t affect flesh or wood, but it played hell with anything made of iron or steel.

I reached into the brace and broke the tube. The liquid ran down my arm. It burned a little bit, but the substances by themselves were harmless. Now all I had to do was wait.

“You’re damn right, I got you!” Bianca said. “The great Pixie Sinclaire. More than two hundred successful covert missions behind Crowndon lines, and even more that no one knows about. You’ve put up a hell of a chase but it didn’t matter in the end, did it? I got you!”

“Geez, Bianca,” I said. “Act like you’ve done this before.”

“Enough,” said the man I’d come to meet. “She’s trying to piss you off, Bianca. Stop falling for it. And you, Miss Sinclaire, please. The odds are clearly against you. We don’t want to hurt you. Our Prime simply wants to discuss some things. Something big is about to happen…”

“Um,” I heard someone on the second story landing say. “Sir?”

“Something that will change the course of our society…”

“Sir?”

“For the Man’s sake, what is it?”

“I think there’s something wrong with my gun.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, well, the, uh…the hammer just fell off.”

I heard a thump from the other side of the landing. I looked over and saw a man with a puzzled look on his face who held nothing but a pistol grip. The entire top half of the gun had fallen off.

Holy crap! It was actually working!

One of the men behind Bianca fell over, holding his knee and screaming.

“What’s wrong with you, now?” Bianca asked.

“There’s a rod in my leg,” he said through clenched teeth. “Got it during the war. Something’s wrong with it.”

Bianca looked at me.

“It’s her! She’s done something!” Bianca raised her gun at me and tried to pull the trigger, but the trigger crumbled under the pressure. With a frustrated howl, she threw the gun at me. I shielded my face with my arms and the gun hit. It exploded into a powder and the wooden grips fell to the floor. Still hurt, though.

The scene repeated itself as the others in the room pulled their triggers, only to have their weapons fall apart. Well, except for one guy, who’d been hiding out in the back of the room.

His weapon actually fired, and the bullet struck the wall behind me. Deciding that the odds had been sufficiently evened out, I turned tail and ran…right into a street lined with Blues and their fully functional revolvers.

“Shit.”

They opened fire from the side streets and the roof tops, mud and horse crap and a whole slew of other nastiness spraying up around me. I turned west and started running. I’d cased the town earlier, and knew of an alley that led out of town and into the woods.

I’d nearly made it when a bullet hit my shoulder. I stumbled forward, cursing. Just when my last set of bullet holes had healed up, too.

I ducked into the nearest alley, across the street from the local saloon. One of the Blues was inside the alley, taking a leak against the wall. He went for his gun. I lunged forward and grabbed his arm. The weapon went off next to my ear, and for the next few moments it was like the whole world was ringing bells in my head. I wrenched his arm and threw him out of the alley. He landed in the muck at the feet of about four of his comrades. I aimed and fired, taking a couple of them in the leg. The others scattered and I took cover behind a barrel.
I peeked out and saw a woman standing on a balcony on the second story of the saloon, watching the whole affair. Above her, on the roof, was another woman. Not an employee. She was tall, even crouched on one knee, wearing a duster. Long black hair blew out behind her. She held a rifle.

The mad woman from beneath the pier.

Her again! Had she been the one to shoot me? No…the saloon had been in front of me, and the shot that hit me came from behind. And judging from the rifle she held, a shot from that likely would have left my arm hanging by a thread.

More than that, she didn’t appear focused on me. She had her rifle sighted down the street, and was firing at the Cartographers. Perhaps she didn’t know I was there?

She whipped the rifle toward me and took a shot. I pulled back behind the barrel, just in time. The bullet struck a chicken in a cage behind me. It exploded in a puff of feathers and blood. That might have been my head.

“Up on the roof!” I heard someone yell. Shots rang out and I peeked out. I saw the woman from the balcony run inside, wood and windows splintering and shattering around her. The woman on the roof ducked down.

With both parties trying to kill me occupied, I turned my attention to the back of the alley. There was a fence blocking this one, but it didn’t look very sturdy. I ran toward it and barreled into it with my un-wounded shoulder…and bounced right off, landing on the wounded one.

Pain racked my body and my head spun, but I got back up and drove out with my foot. One of the boards snapped in the middle. I repeated the process a few more times until I finally had a hole large enough to escape through. I squeezed through, leaving the pops of gunfire behind me, and entered the woods.

***

The events of this story were originally told in Blackwood Gazette #190.

Sorry for the inordinate amount of cross-links to old Gazette entries. I’m not entirely sure how the Pixie Sinclaire side of this story is shaping out…it’s really more of a spy-adventure than a horror story, and I’m not sure how it meshes with the Adella side. The idea was to have Adella visit a place, and then follow up with Pixie following in her footsteps a year later, but it hasn’t quite panned out like that. Perhaps upon revision I’ll separate the two, tell the Adella half first and then the Pixie Sinclaire half.

Anyone who has read this far…what do you think?

***

BONUS: A while back I posted a picture of my friend Kasey Walton (Kwaltonvx.com) in costume as Rigel Rinkenbach. He’s worked on it a bit more, adding a wig and and a frilly shirt (the i-phone is not a part of the ensemble…unless Rigel invented the smart phone? Hmmm…):

RigelLIVESSeeing this gives me great hope that my ultimate dream of making a Blackwood Empire web series will come to fruition!

The Lelina Horror, Part 13

The Lelina Horror, Part 9

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PIXIE (IV)

When I came to, I found myself tied to a chair underneath a dock along the Miskaton River. A precarious position to be sure, but it was a rickety thing and at least they hadn’t tied me to one of the supports holding up the pier. Their mistake.

They stood about ten yards away, whispering harshly at one another. The sun hung low over the trees on the other side of the river, casting a reddish yellow hue over everything. A boat was moored nearby, creaking as it rocked on the gentle waves of the river. It had a small Blackwood motor strapped to its aft. Might make a good escape.

“She’s awake,” the Monteddorian said, in Monteddorian. Bianca brushed past him and stalked toward me, brandishing her six shooter. She seemed much less jittery and much healthier since the last time I’d seen her. Judging from the new meat on her bones, I’d say she’d kicked her habit.

“Agent Sinclaire,” she said, crouching in front of me. “That’s right, we know who you are. You leave quite a trail, for a spy.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“You aren’t very good at it, are you?”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m still alive. And I get results.”

“Yeah, I suppose there’s some truth to that. Could also be luck. Too bad that’s about to run out, too.”

“I’ve been told that before, too.”

Bianca had been pretty calm up to this point, but I saw that old rage flare up in her eyes when I said that.

“So, tell me,” I said. “What is it the Cartographers want?”

Bianca looked back at her compatriot. He shrugged.

“Yeah. That’s right. I know who you are, as well. Now that we all know each other, let’s hash this out.”

I didn’t see any reason not to tell them. Hell, they probably already knew. And a little conversation might just have bought me some time to get loose.

“There’s nothing to hash out,” Bianca said. “You’re going to Lelina. We can’t have that. And since you’re the kind of person who, once they’ve made their mind up about something, can’t be dissuaded, well, we’re just going to have to kill you.”

She thumbed the hammer back on her revolver and put it to my forehead.

“So why even bother with this?” I asked, fighting against my restraints. I think I did a fairly decent job keeping cool, even though I was sort of freaking out on the inside.

“That? That was Hector’s idea.” She threw her head back to indicate the Monteddorian. “He’s a big softy. Doesn’t think killing you is necessary. And he’s right. It isn’t. I just want to.”

The entire time Bianca was talking, I’d been worming around in my restraints. One of the legs on the chair seemed fairly loose, but when I strained against it to kick out, it didn’t break. Bianca noticed, and started laughing. It really was quite embarrassing.

While she was laughing, a gun shot rang out, but it wasn’t from Bianca’s weapon. Behind her, I heard Hector cry out and fall, clutching his arm.

“Bianca!” He yelled. “Take cover!”

Another shot took the pistol out of Bianca’s hand. I kicked again. This time, the right leg of the chair broke. I drove my foot forward, right into Bianca’s knee. I heard a pop and she went down, howling in pain.

A third shot hit the rear right leg of my chair. So, this wasn’t some valiant rescue. Whoever was shooting was trying to wipe us all out.

The chair fell to the right, and I landed on my side in the wet sand. I looked up, trying to find the source of the shots. I saw only a blur as the shooter moved between posts, the shadow of a person almost tall enough to have to duck under the pier. The figure was wearing a duster.

More gunshots rang out, much more closely. Hector was back up and firing, moving toward Bianca. He picked her up and put her on his shoulders.

“Time to go, girl,” he said, holstering one gun and pulling another. The mystery shooter peeked out and Hector fired. His shot splintered the post by the shooter’s head, driving the shooter back.

“Wait!” Bianca said. “Kill the ginger!”

“No, Bianca,” Hector said. I was grateful for that.

“Please?”

Hector ignored her and carried her out from under the pier and up over the river bank, firing, as he went. While he kept the mystery shooter engaged, I fought against the chair. Not exactly my most glorious battle, but a fierce one nonetheless. I proved victorious just as Hector made it to safety. That left the mysterious stranger to focus on me.

Bullets began throwing up wet sand around me. I rolled away, grabbing Bianca’s revolver as I did. Judging by the mystery shooter’s rate of fire, he or she was using a revolver as well, or maybe a repeating rifle. Was it another Cartographer? Or an extremely wealthy bounty hunter?

Whoever it was, they weren’t going after Hector and Bianca, which meant I was the ultimate target. That wasn’t good.

I took cover behind a post and blind fired a couple of shots. That left me with four, assuming Bianca had kept her weapon loaded. I looked over at the motor boat. Now that I was closer to it I could see that it wasn’t in the best of shape, but it was still my best bet.

I peeked around my post. The mysterious shooter was moving forward and looked to be reloading. I could also tell from the way the shooter was walking that it was a woman, at least six feet tall with long, black hair. She looked familiar.

I took the time her reloading afforded me to move to the next post. She finished her reload, aimed, and fired. Her speed was frightening, almost inhuman. I felt a bullet wiz past my ear, and the only reason it didn’t take my head off was because I slipped at the last second.

I was in some serious trouble.

I made it behind cover and looked once again at the boat. I didn’t think it was going to do me any good. The woman was close enough and fast enough that I’d be dead before I got the motor started, assuming the motor even worked. I had to stand and fight.

I raised the gun and thumbed the hammer back, then turned to face the post I was hiding behind. I didn’t know where she was and I was afraid to sneak a peek.

“Um, pardon me?” I said, maybe thinking I could get her to talk. Villains loved to talk, as Bianca had just displayed. “But would you mind telling me just who the hell you are?”

She answered me with a bullet that went straight through a rotting spot in the post above my head.

“Alright then,” said, more to myself than to her. “Someone who wants me dead and…that’s about it.”

I faked right, poking out just far enough to draw her fire. Two bullets struck the post. One of them grazed my shoulder as I pulled back, but I barely felt it as I came around the left side. I had to search to find her…she already had me.

Her bullet hit me in the left thigh. I cried out and fired wildly as I fell. One of my three bullets hit her in the upper left arm.

Each of us had one bullet left. Seeing that she was already recovering, and knowing that she was faster, I didn’t try to aim and fire. I just started moving, rolling to the right to try and get behind the nearest post. Sand and salt water burned like fire in the wounds in my leg and shoulder. I heard the cough of her revolver and felt pain bite deep in my side, right between my lower ribs.

I stopped rolling and raised the gun. She wasn’t reloading.
Why wasn’t she reloading?

She lifted her off hand and a small pistol shot out of her sleeve into her palm. That so wasn’t fair.

I aimed for her chest and fired. The bullet struck, knocking her back. The tiny pistol went off with a ridiculous little pop. The bullet hit the water right next to my head with a ridiculous little plop. That ridiculous little pop and plop was nearly the last thing I heard.

I sat up, my ribs and my leg screaming at me as I did. They weren’t fatal wounds, and what scared me most was the thought that they had been intentionally non-fatal. The woman had been playing with me, like a cat with a mouse.

I didn’t bother checking whether she was alive or dead; I didn’t go anywhere near her, for fear that she had some other trick up her sleeve. Instead, I just popped one of my little sleeping pills and threw it next to her. As it went off and the brown smoke engulfed the body, she didn’t move or thrash. Perhaps she was dead; perhaps she was just really committed to the idea of baiting me toward her. I can’t say I cared. I needed to get the hell away from her as soon as possible.

I backed slowly away and got in the boat. The motor started on the first try, but there was no doubt in my mind that had I tried it while under fire it would have coughed and sputtered and put up a fight.

I guided the boat out onto the water and headed south, not once looking back. I’d had my share of Docryville.

The Lelina Horror, Part 9

The Lelina Horror, Part 8

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PIXIE (III)
24th of Seven Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

After leaving the relatively civilized environs of New Crowndon, I traveled south on an errand for the Governor. Normally I wouldn’t associate with such political nonsense, especially for a person and place that I have no allegiance to, but I was paid a lot of money and the details had me curious. Also, a Society operative in the area heard that I had been approached, relayed the information back to my Society handler and orders came down to help out. Orders are orders.

It didn’t take very long to infiltrate the movement planning the governor’s demise and dismantle them from within; these backwoods colonial types were easy to fool, and even worse, desperate. So desperate that they didn’t even blink at the Nor Eastern twinge in my voice when I spoke as long as I maintained enthusiastic support for their bloodlust.

With my job completed, the assassination conspiracy completely dismantled and fresh coin in my pocket, I set off for the southern frontier to pick up the Lelina expedition’s trail.

My hopes were low; it had been nearly a year since Adella and her cohorts had come through, and my destination, Docryville, was a place in a constant state of transience. People never stayed there for long, and memories tended to be short in such a place.

The journey to Docryville was long, humid, and all around miserable. I’ve stayed in my share of mud-holes over the course of my short life: my father never set down roots, and would constantly drag me from place to place, looting ruins. The papers labelled him a grave-robber after he was caught, and while there was certainly a bit of truth to that it stemmed mainly from a need to take care of me, and he wasn’t completely without academic curiosity.

After his arrest I became a ward of the state. That didn’t sit well with me, so I ran. Spent much of my young teens running the streets, sleeping in abandoned buildings or on top of the occasional roof. As soon as I could, I joined the Nor Eastern military. Women in combat roles in Nor Easter are not so unusual, but I was given the role of courier. During a run I proved useful in sabotaging the equipment of a Crowndon war party that was sent to intercept us, and that earned me a new title as an agent provocateur. This meant more mud on my clothes, and more blood on my hands. Some of it– much of it– was innocent blood, I’m sorry to say.

The point is, I’m not entirely unaccustomed to harsh conditions. So believe me when I say the journey through the southern frontier was distinctly unpleasant. They have mosquitoes here that are half the size of my fist when engorged on blood, and about fifty different diseases we have no name for in the Triumvirate. Lucky me, the worst thing I came down with was dysentery (and believe me when I say I’m fully aware of how ridiculous that statement might seem.)

Mostly recovered but still a bit dehydrated, I arrived in Docryville. My first order of business was a hotel, bath, and clean water. Perhaps some whiskey. While I went about my errands I kept an ear open. Most of the colonial citizens were concerned with the recent trouble with the indigenous territories. Most of the indigenous citizens were concerned with keeping their heads down, likely afraid the merest hint of unrest could lead to a mob.

None of this was my concern, however, so I eventually filtered it out, as well as talk of autumn festivals, upcoming marriages, hog breeding and other inanities. Note to self: frontier general stores are not a good source of intelligence, in any sense of the word.
I didn’t want to go poking around the local sheriff’s office. Doing so tends to rile up the locals and make them curious about me, but it was beginning to look like I didn’t have a choice. I decided to bite the bullet and head that way, but not before I got that whiskey. I think I deserved that much.

I headed into one of the port towns many saloons. It was a fairly roaring place, even at three in the afternoon. A man plinked at a piano while a couple danced and a nice crowd had gathered around a dice table. I started to make my way to the bar when I noticed a picture hanging on the wall next to the dice dealer.

“Excuse me, sir?” I said, approaching him. He stopped what he was saying and gave me a perturbed look.

“I’m sorry, Miss. You’ll have to wait your turn.”

“I just have a quick question about that picture.” I pointed to it. It was a hastily taken photograph of what appeared to be Veronica Trenum and Mathias McKay, or so I assumed, seeing as he looked vaguely familiar and just as shady as the man I once met. They each had huge smiles on their faces and two armloads of chips.

“Who, them?”

“Yeah.”

“Troublemakers, the both of them.”

“How so?”

“See all them chips?”

“Yeah.”

“Every single one of them came out of my pay. I’m still paying that shit off.”

“Anything else you can tell me about them?”

“Not really. Heard they were involved in a spot of trouble down the river, after they left here.”

He turned his head and spit. The wad of milky brown spit landed on the shoe of a man standing next to him, but the man didn’t seem to notice.

“What sort of trouble?”

“Don’t you read the papers, lady?”

“Not really. Never have the time.”

The dealer shook his head. The other players were starting to look at me now with the same annoyance.

“It was about a year ago, I reckon,” said the dealer with a less than subtle grumble. “A couple days after Von Grimm came through. They all got back on their boat, headed south. The boat exploded. A problem with the boiler.”

“That weren’t it, Yancy,” said the man with the loogie on his shoe. He looked up at me. “They was attacked, I heard.”

“Attacked? By whom?”

“Don’t know. Just know they were carrying six shooters and wearing Blue uniforms. My cousin’s best friends veterinarian’s dog walker was on the boat, you see. Saw the whole thing.”

Men in blue uniforms with six shooters…just like the couple that attacked Professor Oates.

“These blues, has anyone seen anyone like them around since?”

“Oh, sure,” said Yancy. “Been a lot of them around the last six months or so. Hell, two of them are standing right behind you.”

Well, damn.

I turned around and managed a glimpse of the Monteddorian and Bianca, as well as the glint of a gun butt coming at my face. My vision flashed white, then faded to black.

The Lelina Horror, Part 8

The Lelina Horror, Part 4

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PIXIE (II)
24th of 5th Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

“Sorry about the headache,” I said, when Professor Oates started to come to. “I had to act fast, and my little sleeping pills don’t differentiate between friend and foe.”

“W-who are you?” He looked around, and tried to move. “And why am I tied up?”

“Oh, yes. I feel I must apologize for that as well. I wasn’t sure how you’d react, seeing as how I just gassed you, so to keep you from running I restrained you.”

Listening to myself speak just then I realized how wrongheaded that was.

“What do you want?”

“Well, to be honest it isn’t very different from what these two wanted.” I opened the door on a nearby broom closet to reveal Bianca and the Monteddorian stashed inside, all trussed up and still sleeping. “Information on Lelina, to be precise. Information on Adella Chatelaine and Veronica Trenum’s whereabouts, to be even more precise.”

The professor squinted at me, and recognition sparked in his eyes.

“You’re that Nor Eastern agent. Pixie Sinclaire.”

“That is I. How did you know that?”

“I saw you in the paper. You caused quite a ruckus at Miss Chatelaine’s memorial.”

“That made the papers, huh?”

“Don’t be coy, Miss Sinclaire. Everything you do makes the papers. Seems rather unbecoming, for a spy to be as high profile as you are.”

“Former spy,” I corrected, somewhat incorrectly. Truth of the matter was my status as an agent for the Nor Eastern Subterfuge Society was on-again, off-again, not unlike an unhealthy relationship. An area I had much experience in those days.

“You seemed to be adamant that Miss Chatelaine was alive,” the professor said. “Do you really think that?”

“I hope so. Especially if Veronica is with her. I figure you can attest to that, yourself.”

The Professor smiled. It was a sad smile, nostalgic. He wanted to believe it. I’m just not sure he did, and that worried me.

“What is your stake in all of this?” he asked.

“Adella is a dear friend, and Veronica a dear rival. Both are important, I feel. And, if I’m being completely honest, the tug of mystery and promise of renown should I find them appeals to me as well. Those are a distant third and far more distant fourth, I assure you. It isn’t lost on me that lives are at stake.”

“Alright, then. I’ll tell you what I know. Untie me.”

I pulled the dagger I keep in a sheath at my back and stepped forward to cut his ropes. I made it through the first one when I heard a thump from within the closet.

“Do you think you can untie your other hand?” I asked. The professor said that he could, and I excused myself.

I walked over to the closet, priming another of my sleeping bombs as I went. I stepped up to the closet door, and cracked it open. Bianca’s wild eyes peered at me from within. Even half lidded from the sleeping compound, those eyes made me feel like mouse that’s just realized it’s looking at a snake.

“Yyyooouu bi—“ I didn’t let her finish as I chucked the bomb inside and shut the door. I heard coughing and then silence. I turned back to the doctor. His mouth was agape.

“Those aren’t dangerous, are they?”

“I’d imagine they could be. Haven’t had the opportunity to test long term effects, nor do I really want to. Now, professor, let us start.”

He told me about the expedition, and who went with them. I was familiar with Mister Mackay, and his presence was a cause for concern. The Professor also told me where Adella and Veronica had gone next: a southern river port called Docryville, where they are said to have caused a bit of a scene.

“Thank you, Professor.” I turned to leave, then remembered the two hooligans stashed in the closet. They’d been interested in Lelina, as well. I figured it might be important to ask about. “One other thing…who were those two?”

“Them? They’re no one. Just a couple of leg breakers sent to collect a debt.”

“Leg breakers, you say? Dressed in matching uniforms and bearing six-shooters? My Man, you must have pissed off someone very wealthy indeed.”

“You might say that.”

“Come now, professor. I thought we were in agreement? I heard your conversation with them while I was creeping around in the hall. Who are they, really?”

The Professor, if he wasn’t frightened before, seemed to be so now. His eyes darted around the room, and his mouth worked silently, as though unable to find words.

“They…they’re Cartrographers. I think.”

“Cartographers? Map makers?”

“Not really. Ephemeral Cartographers, they’re called.”

I drew back, unsure whether to laugh or be irritated.

“The Ephemeral Cartographers? The super-secret society that supposedly pulls the strings of world events from the shadows, charting and controlling the flow of resources and guiding the development of civilization? They’re a myth.”

“If only that were so. In case you hadn’t noticed, you just gassed two of them and stuck them in a closet—“

“Where, if they’re as secretive as you say, they should be quite comfortable.”

“Except they’re working out in the open, now. This isn’t the first time I’ve had a run in with them, nor am I the only one. They’re not hiding, anymore. Something has chased them from the shadows. And that frightens me beyond belief.”

The Lelina Horror, Part 4

The Lelina Horror, Part 3

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PIXIE (I)

24th of 5th Month, 281st Year of the Triumvirate

My search for the missing reporter Adella Chatelaine has thus far proven to be…less than smooth.

I won’t go into detail about having to make my way through Crowndon. They view me as some sort of bogeyman there, so it goes without saying that most of that particular leg of this journey was spent sleeping in out of the way flea-bag hotels and ducking into alleys at the first sign of, well, anyone.

However, by the time I arrived on Waystation Echo I thought I might be in the clear. A large oversight on my part, I must admit, given the majority of people on Echo hail from and are loyal to Crowndon. Within half an hour I was set upon not only by Crowndon soldiers, but bounty hunters looking for a quick pay day. I’d hoped to get passage on a nice passenger ship, spend the week long journey to New Crowndon sleeping on a velvet pillow and stuffing my face with strawberries for a long overdue change of pace. Instead I found myself stowed away in the hold of a cattle barge, stuffed into a tiny nook to avoid the hooves of my new bovine companions.

So it was that I arrived in the colonies smelling like hay and manure, with a crick in my neck that felt as though someone had stuffed a metal rod down along my spine. It all led to me having a nasty disposition, a disposition exacerbated by the fact that I’d now arrived in yet another territory controlled by Crowndon. Luckily for me, the people of the colonies think of themselves as something unique, if not entirely separate, from their Empire of origin.

Still, I didn’t know that when I stepped off the ship to find a group of New Crowndon officials waiting for me. They offered me a job of utmost importance. I’ve taken it, seeing as how I need the money after leaving most of my things on Waystation Echo…but that is an entirely different story.

This story is about finding Adella.

Once I’d taken on his job offer, Governor Ancroft was most amenable to help me with my task, pointing me in the direction of certain inns and other places where Adella and her expedition had been spotted. The first place I went to? New Crowndon University, to speak with the imminent Professor Barnaby Joplin Oates.

The University was rather sparsely populated when I arrived, with most of its students enjoying a week off for a local holiday celebrating the anniversary of some founding of a thing or some battle or other. These colonials are always finding ways to shirk work.

Understandable I suppose, since they never seem to stop working otherwise.

Thus it was that I had some difficulty locating the University’s Archaeological Department, having no one to guide me. And with no one to guide me, I had no one to announce me. Which probably played a large role in how I came to stumble into my next precarious position.

It started, as always, with the echoes of voices made murky and looming by distance and the marble floors of a long corridor. I followed the sound, thinking I might ask for direction.

However, as always, proximity offered clarity, and I came to realize that the voices were rather threatening.

It’s never easy, is it?

I softened my steps and approached the only door in the corridor with a lamp on. The door had a name stenciled on it: Professor Oates. It seemed I had found my man, and my man was currently engaged with some rather unsavory sounding callers.

“Look, old man,” a gruff voice said. His accent betrayed him as hailing from Salasan, in Monteddor. “This is what we want, in plain and simple terms: testimony saying that the site in Lelina is of no great importance, at least in comparison to the dangers of the region.”

“B-but, that just isn’t true!” Another voice said, I’m assuming the professor. “My academic integrity denies…”

“Your ‘academic integrity’?” A third voice, female, with hints of Nor Easter weaved with the local accent. A traveler, then. “Your ‘academic integrity’ has already led two teams to their deaths, professor, and I’m sure more than a few members of those teams were people you claimed to care about. Do you really want to send more people, more of your students, to die?”

“You seem awfully sure of their fate,” the Professor said. “I’m thinking these dangers you people speak of are yourselves.”

“That’s partially true,” said the Monteddorian. “We are a danger. But hardly the worst thing in that swamp. Look, old man, we’re trying to help you, whether you believe it or not. But we can’t do that with a bunch of eggheads running around the swamps getting snatched. So, call off your expedition, release a statement saying that the University of New Crowndon has discovered insufficient evidence to warrant continued interest in light of the danger. Simple.”

“If only that were so,” the Professor said. “The expedition has already left. They have a week’s head start.”

This was followed by a pause, and then things started to get ugly.

“You decrepit old FOOL!” the Nor Easterner shouted, and I heard something that sounded an awful lot like a fist hitting someone in the face, followed by pained moaning.

“Bianca, stand down,” said the Monteddorian.

“I will not! Don’t you get it? Every person this idiot sends is more blood on our hands. It makes our mission harder, and it increases the threat of exposure. We’re already going to have to kill the old codger. Why don’t you let me get a few good whacks in first, to work out my frustration?”

Well, I’d heard enough of that. It was high time to make my grand entrance. I reached into a pouch on my belt and pulled out a small device of my own making (though, I must admit that I had some help with the timing mechanism from a certain somebody whose name rhymes with Rigel Rinkenbach, as much as it pains me to say it) and opened the door.

“Professor Oates?” I said in my best naïve student voice and peeked my head in the door. All three of them craned their heads to look at me. I took in the scene as quickly as I could. The professor, sitting behind a desk with a ribbon of crimson red running down the side of his face; the Nor Eastern woman, ‘Bianca’, standing beside him; and the Monteddorian sitting on the front of the professor’s desk. Both of the Professor’s guests wore dark blue, high necked uniforms and gun belts.

“Oh! Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t know you had guests.”

The guests looked at each other. I used the split second of confusion to trigger the device and rolled it along the floor toward the desk. This curious action bought me another second of confusion.

“What hell…?” Bianca said, and the device opened and released a compound of Tinnigan’s Weave and Fiorgorite…guaranteed to cure insomnia in an elephant. I pulled back out of the door and held it closed. Fits of coughing came from inside, then panicked gunshots. Two bullets ripped through the wall to my left.

One of them made it to the door and started trying to pull it open. I braced against the threshold, holding it shut with my weight. Judging from the cursing coming from the other side of the door, it was Bianca. Lucky for me, because the Monteddorian had been twice my size. Still, she put up quite the fight. It surprised me a bit that she was even still awake.

She got smart in the end and shot through the door’s window. Luckily, I had already lowered my center of gravity to keep the door shut and the bullets went over my head. With the window broken, I no longer had need to hold the door closed, so I let go and rolled away.

Bianca lunged out through the broken window, coughing. She hit the floor, looked at me, and raised her weapon, a silver revolver. She fixed me with eyes like a mad dog’s. I thought I was done for.

Finally, she passed out. I crept forward slowly, anticipating a trap. She was out cold. I kicked the revolver away and turned her over on her back. How had she been able to withstand the sleeping formula?

Her eyes were sunken and purple. I examined them closely and found evidence of injection. An addict, then. Probably hopped up on some sort of stimulant. I tied her up first, as securely as I could, with double knots.

I moved into the office, holding my breath, and retrieved the Professor. He’d have a headache when he woke up but he’d live, assuming I got him somewhere safe and we didn’t run into anymore of his friends. I set him down outside in the hall and then took care of the Monteddorian. Once that was taken care of I took a moment to catch my breath, looking at the three unconscious bodies at my feet.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Well, Pixie, you really are off to a good start this time, aren’t you?

The Lelina Horror, Part 3

Blackwood Gazette #200- Adella Chatelaine, 13 Others Found Alive In Wilderness Around Point Hammond

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By Maurice Merchant, Editor in Chief

8/10- It is with a great sense of both personal and professional relief that I am able to announce the nearly year-long search for a member of the Gazette family has come to an end. Adella Chatelaine, who traveled to the colony of Lelina along with the famed archaeologist Veronica Trenum and several other acclaimed New Crowndon academics to study a recently discovered ruin in the swamp has been found, alive and relatively well, after mysteriously disappearing last year.

Details of the events leading up to her rescue are scarce at the moment, but we have been told that Miss Chatelaine, along with several others, were found trapped within the decaying remains of a large building in the woods 60 miles south of Point Hammond. Not much is known about the abandoned structure, or how Miss Chatelaine and the others came to be there.

We have no word on what happened to the rest of Miss Chatelaine’s team, though none of them were found. Miss Chatelaine herself is said to be, understandably, shaken by the experience, and local law enforcement has restricted the amount of information released to the public until a proper investigation can be made.

Pixie Sinclaire, however, is less beholden to such things.

“I’m still trying to parse out everything I saw,” Miss Sinclaire wrote in a brief statement to me. “Still trying to process it…much of it defies any attempt at rationalization, as if the thoughts themselves are alive and fighting my efforts to interpret the events in a natural, earthly way. It may just be the exhaustion, the low that comes after a rush of adrenaline and the chilliness of the horrors I saw muddling my mind, interfering with my ability to think. Perhaps, with time, I will be able to explain things better. It could also be that I have no right to attempt to explain what I saw; the best source for answers will be those, Adella among them, who lived in that nightmare for who knows how long.

“I would advise not pressing the matter on them, however, until they are ready to speak. If you truly consider Adella your friend, do not force her to relive any events that may have transpired until she is ready and willing to divulge that information herself. In fact, perhaps in just this one case, some questions are best left unanswered.

“We should simply take solace in the fact that our mutual friend, and those others found with her, have…survived (I balk at using the word ‘alive’ and hate myself for it, but I fear it may be the wrong word to use). Our only desire now should be helping them find peace.”

***

CLIFFHANGER!!!

Today marks my first feeble attempt at introducing some horror elements into the Gazette, and the larger Blackwood Empire story line, just in time for the Halloween season. It’s also going to be the last Gazette this year. With any luck, however, the answers that Pixie suggests are best kept hidden may start coming next week. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at a good old Gothic style or Lovecraftian horror story, an itch that’s only gotten worse since I’m now waist deep watching that show Penny Dreadful, so that’s what I’ll be working on the next few weeks.

The idea I’m going with is that Adella didn’t stop writing after her last fateful missive to the Gazette…she kept on, but that writing never got sent. The narrative will consist of her lost articles, leap-frogging with journals kept by Pixie Sinclaire in her search for the missing expedition. Hopefully I’ll be pleased enough with the early results to post them.

Blackwood Gazette #200- Adella Chatelaine, 13 Others Found Alive In Wilderness Around Point Hammond