Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded Part 23

"I'm just getting into the swing of it," Cerys replied. Then she gave him a sympathetic look. "Max, I've seen my share of unbelievable things in this blasted city. Take my advice: don't think about it too hard. It'll hurt less that way."

Wilde slowly unrolled one of the broadsheets and tried to relax. "It's that easy, is it?"

"Drinking helps."

"Mmm."

Wilde was doubtful about his ability to put such an experience out of his mind, so he turned to the best source of distraction he could think of. The pointless arguments and self-important tirades of the t.i.t-tat broadsheets began to soothe his shaken nerves, and soon Wilde was on his way to easing the strain of his recent discovery. Then he turned to a second printed page. His eye caught a name that was new, but unmistakably familiar.

"Ahh!" he cried, leaping from his chair.

Cerys looked up from her paperwork again, flicking her pocket fire on and off in nervous habit. "What?"

Wilde thrust the broadsheet toward Cerys and pointed at a small section of print located just beneath the main articles. It read very clearly: "Though circ.u.mstance demands brevity, let me say simply that Mr. Jervais Mutton is, as ever, a dunce hardly worthy of consideration. Anyone doubting this fact should turn to his latest comment regarding the need for a citizen militia to protect us against the danger of unwed mothers. Additionally, while the police provide a useful service to society, their violation of the homes of private citizens does not do their reputations credit. Discuss. Yours sincerely, Mr. Herring Tuesday."

"It's him!" Wilde cried. "It has to be him! He can't have written this more than an hour after I found him...it...him. . . . It's still out there!" Wilde tried desperately to convey to his superior the gravity of the situation. The result was less than profound. "Tentacles, Chief!"

Cerys was very familiar with the look on Wilde's face. She had seen it on her own reflection in the mirror more times than she could count. It was the look of someone who had witnessed the unthinkable and was trying desperately to make sense of it.

"That's it, Max, early night for you. Go tell Marguerite you're taking her to the cinema."

"But-" Wilde protested, pointing to the broadsheet.

"Out!" Cerys glanced at her chronometer, then rummaged around for an amus.e.m.e.nts circular on her desk. "If you two can catch an omnibus in the next ten minutes, you'll be at the Palace in time for the newsreel and cartoon. And look at that...tonight they've got another adventure of Minnie the Mouser. Won't that be fun?"

"Chief-" Wilde tried again.

Cerys glanced at her chronometer again. "Nine minutes."

Wilde sighed. "OK, Chief, OK."

"There's a good fellow." Cerys pushed the young man toward the door. "Go have fun. Oh, and Max..."

"Yes, Chief?"

Cerys gave Wilde's shoulders a purposeful squeeze. "If you get her into trouble, I'll kill you."

"Oh, come on, Chief, it's me!"

"That's the idea."

When Wilde had gone, Cerys returned to her desk. She stared for a long while at the mountains of paperwork, her eyes slowly and consistently drifting back to the stack of broadsheets Wilde had left. Then, with a sudden rush of purpose-or perhaps procrastination-she s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pen and began to compose a letter. She addressed it to the printing house responsible for the comment by "Mr. Tuesday" and then began writing, in the most grandiose language she could imagine. "To Messrs. Monday and Tuesday, with a.s.sorted foodstuffs. Dear sirs, our humblest apologies for intrusions, etc. Necessities of the work, etc. In future, please refrain from frightening respectable policemen in pursuit of their duty, etc. Humbly, etc., the lady on the Broad Street omnibus, Mrs."

Chuckling to herself, Cerys set the note aside, intending to dispatch it when she left for the night. There was no telling whether it would ever been seen by Salad Monday, but at least the thought of it amused her.

A nagging thought tugged at the fringes of her imagination, and for a moment Cerys found herself contemplating the implications of what Wilde might have seen.

Tentacles.

Clearing her throat to dismiss such thoughts, Cerys lit another lavender cigarette and spent a few moments staring into the flame of her pocket fire. Then, with a familiar sigh, she turned back to the mountain of paperwork on her desk. She was tempted to set fire to the whole lot, and she smiled wistfully at the thought. She was still smiling, with visions of bureaucratic conflagrations in her head, as she turned to the next case file in her unending pile of a.s.signments.

The Persecution Machine.

Tanith Lee.

Tanith Lee was born in 1947 in London, England. She has written nearly 100 novels and collections and almost 300 short stories, plus radio plays and TV scripts for the BBC. She has received several awards, including the August Derleth Award and World Fantasy Award. In 2009 she was made a Grand Master of Horror. Norilana Books has just published a collection of her horror stories, Sounds and Furies, and is presently reprinting her entire Flat Earth opus, Birthgrave and Storm Lord sagas, with new books in each series to follow. Two volumes of her short stories are also out from Wildside Press. She lives on the southeast coast of England with her husband, writer/artist John Kaiine. For more information visit her website at www.tanithlee.com.

1: UNCLE.

MY FATHER GALLOPED into the library with a look of terror.

"Your uncle is coming!"

"My-uncle? Who do you mean?"

"Constant."

"But I thought-"

"No," said my father, running to the window and glaring out nervously. "He isn't dead. Only mad."

"I see."

"Of course you don't." My father spared a look of distaste for me. As his son, I had had certain duties never properly explained, one of which had been to become a perfect replica of himself in the city of business. Instead I had metamorphosed into a fashionable writer, and it was not in him to forgive me. "Well," he said now, "since you're so clever, I'll leave you to entertain him. Try telling him who you are."

"We've discussed this previously. I'm not clever, only a genius. As for Uncle Constant, if he's calling here, presumably he wishes to see you. After all, does he even know of my existence? I'm sure I didn't know of his."

"It was kept from you. I expect he will have learned. Twenty years since I saw him. Horrible."

"Is he deformed?" I inquired with pleasant antic.i.p.ation.

"No. Only his mind. Stall the wretch. Get him to leave if possible."

I shrugged. "Does Mother share your aversion?"

"Your mother will faint," said my father, "if he so much as touches the panels of her parlour door." My mother tended to faint continually when confronted by annoyance. She had already fainted once at my arrival. My father had had the grace only to offer to throw me out. A recent short novel of mine, dealing with forbidden love, very, I may say, tastefully, had caused their latest dislike of me. I, meanwhile, came to visit them from a sense of responsibility, since they were always in want of money.

But what was the motive for mad Constant's arrival?

The doorbell rang below. My father shrieked and rushed from the room.

When Steppings appeared presently in the library door, I accordingly asked him to show the visitor up.

A moment later, my Uncle Constant was revealed to me.

He was a man of about fifty-eight or sixty, corpulent but pale, with a mane of grey hair and disordered clothes. He seemed out of breath, as if he had been running, and he darted a wild look about the room.

"Are we alone?" he demanded.

"I believe so."

"Who are you?"

"Your nephew, Charles."

"Who? Oh, never mind it. Only let me sit down. I'm exhausted. They've pursued me all day. Not a second's peace." He fell noisily into a large chair.

Steppings reappeared, mostly from nosiness, but I sent him off to bring some of my father's Madeira. I had no qualms in this, since I had supplied the wine myself.

"Well, Uncle. How may I help you?"

"Help? Impossible. No one can help. I ask only a minute's respite." His breathing quieted a little and he blew his nose into a gigantic handkerchief. "It's no use my explaining. Only I understand what I suffer."

"This may be said of each of us."

"I see you're a philosopher, sir. Did you say we are related? My G.o.d, I've run into my brother's house, haven't I?"

"Didn't you know?"

"I will run in anywhere I am able when they are after me."

"Who? Do you mean the police?"

My Uncle Constant was racked with melodramatic laughter.

Steppings came in with the wine and a tray of biscuits.

Constant struck the tray and the biscuits flew in all directions. Steppings did not flinch, merely put on the expression-of a surprised chicken-which has seen such good service over the years. I rescued the Madeira and poured two gla.s.ses, waving the chicken away as I did so.

"Drink this."

"Is it poison?"

"I don't think so."

"Nothing short of poison is any use to me. I pant to be released from my suffering. But suicide is a sin." He reminded me of my father. Uncle Constant drank the Madeira at a gulp, and I refilled his gla.s.s. "They're after me, worse than ever. Their weapons-if only you knew."

He, as my father had done, bustled to the window. He stared out, I a.s.sumed, at the peaceful street.

"Not yet," he muttered. "But soon."

"And you have no matters to consult my father upon?" I asked.

"Who? Who is your father?"

"Your brother."

"I have no brother," said Uncle Constant. "I am cast out into the wilderness." Then his face contorted. It grew red, then blue. "I hear it!" he cried. And flinging the goblet on the ground, or rather the carpet, he sprang away and was gone. I heard his cascade down the stairs and the crash of the street door.

I stood by the window and presently saw him emerge and scuttle fatly down the street. He disappeared from view.

2: UNCLE'S STORY Although I questioned my father and mother about my Uncle Constant, neither told me anything. My father ranted and my mother fainted. Steppings looked like a chicken, and when I tried to enlist his help, only importuned me to persuade my parents to use a new sort of cheese in the mouse-traps. I told him that I disapproved of mouse-traps. Steppings confided that he himself ate the cheese. It was a harmless perversion, during which he sometimes emitted small squeaks.

I was touched by his trust, but it did not help me to discover my uncle.

However, a month later, endless searching led me to a tall gaunt house in the south of the capital. Here a gentleman bearing my uncle's name resided. The instant I beheld the house, I knew it must be he.

Large bars were on all the windows, and a sort of portcullis was let down outside the door.

On my ringing the door bell, through the portcullis, no one came.

It was a sunny day, and I sat down across the street on a low wall to watch and wait.

Presently a maid came out of the house with the low wall.

She attempted some ineffectual dusting of the privet hedge, and then bent to my ear.

"He's a madman, that one. You after him for a debt?"

"Not at all. I am a long lost lover of his, come to call on him."

"You're one of them preeverts," said the maid, and ran in.

Half an hour later, two somberly clad women, with the figures but not the charm of pigeons, came down the street, mounted my uncle's steps, and banged on the portcullis.

I could tell at a glance they were religious persons, and that a lack of response would not put them off. It did not. Getting no reply, they banged the louder. And the larger lady began to cry: "Open the doors of your hearts, O ye lost children of the Lord. Hear the word of the Master!"

I expected a window to be raised and some missile inserted through the bars and thrown.

Instead, to my surprise and delight, sounds of vast unlockings eventually echoed over the street, the portcullis lifted, and my uncle appeared in the doorway.

He wore a yellow dressing-gown and a look of fear and loathing.

"Be off," he yelled at the two ladies, "I know your tricks. Where is it? Is it near? I won't be decoyed."

"Repent," said the large lady. "Here is a tract-"

But Uncle Constant swept the article from her gloved hand.

"Away!" howled Uncle, and thrust her down the steps.

The lady fell upon the other one and both toppled to the ground. There was the hideous noise of bursting corsets.