Dawn's Early Light (31 page)

Eliza took aim in the direction of the sniper. She knew the Pink's gun lacked range, but her blind fire was more for effect. So long as they thought she was armed . . .

The priest fired several shots across the street before hefting Wellington from the other arm. His feet bouncing lightly against the cracks between boards, they scrambled for a narrow gap between buildings as glass and wood shattered and splintered around them.

“Dammit!” Eliza swore. The alleyway was not a complete pass-through but simply an alcove. While out of the line of fire, they were still trapped. She needed . . .

Wellington had not moved. Even the priest was looking him over, confounded.

“That was a Winchester,” she said. “I know that sound intimately. He should have a hole the size of a fist in his chest.”

Eliza had always pictured tearing open Wellington's shirt in the heat of passion. However, that passion's aim was not to check for an entry wound dealt by a Winchester. She grabbed his shirt and pulled it apart . . .

The impact point caught her eye immediately. It was difficult to miss as the flattened bullet gleamed against the pine green suede. Eliza's hand hovered over his torso, but she couldn't see it. Because he was wearing . . .

“Is he wearing . . . ?” the priest began.

Eliza cocked her hand back and slapped Wellington across the face. His eyes flicked open as he rolled to one side and wheezed. It hurt to hear him take in a breath, but the hacking cough and his movement were confirmation that Wellington Books was, indeed, alive.

“You're wearing a
corset
?” Eliza screamed, driving a fist into the garment.
“You're wearing a bullet-proof corset?!”

“What's good for the goose . . .” Wellington growled as he pushed himself deeper into their alcove. “Taking back everything I've said about Axelrod, I promise you, does not pain me as much as that bullet.”

Bullets struck the ground where his feet lingered. He bolted upright, and then took stock of where they were.

He was probably about to state what Eliza already knew, when he noticed. “Good Lord—your neck!”

“Later!” she snapped. Her eyes returned to the priest. “So maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Consider that as we're currently pinned down by Pinkertons. They're working for Edison. He wants us dead.”

“Wait,” the priest said. “Edison wants
you
dead?”

“But, Eliza,” Wellington said, “he's in league with the House of Usher.”

“He is?” the priest asked.

Eliza gave the priest a quick nod before taking aim, driving back two gunmen daring to cross the street.

“I'm beginning to think the relationship with Edison and Usher is a bit . . . complicated,” Eliza grumbled. “How many, Welly?”

“I can only be sure of the sniper at present, but if I were to guess?” Wellington quickly poked his head out from their concealment, and immediately lost his bowler to a bullet. “Judging from the amount of gunfire, ordinance damage, we're looking at five at the very least.”

Eliza gave a nod and returned to the priest, who was looking at them both wide-eyed. “Are you with us?”

“Who are you people?” she asked with a shake of her head.

“We serve at the pleasure of the Queen,” answered Eliza. She glanced at the window above their heads, and turned in the direction of the bloody mess she had left behind in Edison's workshop shambling up the main road. Eliza felled the man with one shot, but was knocked forwards when a bullet slammed into her back. “Bugger me”—she winced as she crawled back to her hiding spot alongside Wellington and the priest—“that stings.”

“Just be glad it didn't hit you in the lacing,” Wellington chided. “The armour there is not quite so reinforced. Roll over.” She felt his fingers against the outside of her dress, stopping where it stung the hardest. “That sniper is going to be a problem.”

She looked at the slug in Wellington's hand. “You were right,” she said to the priest. “A Winchester.” In one hand she held the now-dead Pink's pistol, two bullets remaining. Turning the small pistol handle first to her partner, she shrugged. “Make it count, Welly.”

The priest slapped her own pistol into his hand. “Make
them
count, Wellington.”

Another rain of bullets pushed them farther back into the limited noon shadows; but Wellington remained still, watching the direction of the larger splinters. “Right then.” And he stood and fired the Pink's pistol in the direction of the sniper, the .38 at the storefront barricade of the Pinkertons.

One man's scream could now be heard just across the street.

“Right then. Two down. One wounded, right shoulder. I wanted to make sure I didn't kill him outright.” He looked to the priest who was moving a hand underneath her robes. When it reappeared, her hand held six bullets. “We needed a target. I saw three hostiles over there. The sniper.” A scream came again. “Counting the wounded man, five total.”

The priest shook her head, reloading her pistol. “Now, just back up a moment. How are you so sure?”

“The House of Usher wants him alive, no exceptions, you're seeing him do this,” scoffed Eliza, now drawing her remaining '81, “and you have to ask?”

“You shot my brother!” came a voice from across the street, just before a new storm of bullets.

The assault appeared to slow, and that's when the priest emerged from her cover, the second .38 in her other hand, responding with a firestorm of her own. Her robes caught the desert breeze, making her a far wider target than she was truthfully. The billowing fabric gave the Pinkertons a target, but that also meant stepping out from their own hiding spots. Her .38 gave good report to the gunfire ripping harmlessly through the robes.

It was the single gunshot—Eliza knew it was the sniper—that sent the priest to the ground.

Wellington grabbed a handful of vestments and pulled while Eliza fired her pistol. On the
click-click-click
of dry fire, she shuffled back to where Wellington was removing the vestments from the priest.

“You'd better not leave that .38 behind,” the priest snapped once the robes were free, her expression quite stern. “You don't know how hard I prayed for a pair of guns like this.”

“We have more pressing matters upon us,” Wellington said, ripping off his cravat. He wadded it over the shoulder wound and pressed. “Lean forward.”

She gave a groan, and Eliza saw what Wellington no doubt suspected. Against the wall, where the priest had propped herself, was a patch of blood. Eliza fished from Wellington's inside pocket his kerchief and pressed it against the exit wound.

“At least the bullet passed through,” Eliza said, gently easing the priest back against the building. “Keep pressure on it.”

“Not my first time seeing a bullet wound on the battlefield,” he said while attempting to help the priest sit up, perhaps find even the slightest comfort for her. “So what do we have?”

“I got on my belt . . .” the priest panted, opening her hand, and groaned, “Aww, fuck!”

Both Eliza and Wellington gave a start.

“It's a perfectly acceptable Anglo-Saxon word,” the priest stated quite factually. “Ruined by the French, if you must know.” She then hefted the gun. “And I said it because we're down to three bullets.”

Eliza patted around herself for any option that could present itself, and her hand fell on the bulbous chamber strapped in by a makeshift holster she had created out of strips of leather. The slipknot parted easily and she held up the odd weapon before them both. “I have this,” she said, referring to the Brouhaha.

“All right, I'll go on and ask,” the priest said, hardly impressed with Axelrod's creation. “That is what exactly?”

“It's—” The weapon's name stuck in her throat. She simply could not call it by name without chuckling. “It's the exciting future of armament.”

Wellington gave his brow a quick wipe, glanced out into the street, and muttered, “We're what I believe Americans would call ‘easy pickings' for that sniper.” He looked around him, licking his lips as his eyes went from the end of the alleyway to the rooftops above them. “We need a distraction of some kind.”

“And then what?” Eliza asked.

He motioned to the exciter in Eliza's grasp. “Give that thing a field test, I suppose.”

“So what's the distraction?” the priest asked.

Eliza shook her head, until a thought came to mind. “Welly,” she began, not entirely certain whether she should feel anxious, dreadful, hopeful, or all of the above. “That method I employed to keep the bomb from exploding . . .”

“Using the Jack Frost to disarm the detonator? Yes, what of it?”

“I didn't say ‘disarm the detonator,' now did I? I said, ‘keep from exploding.' There is a difference.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Eliza?”

“When the ice eventually melts, which it has been doing steadily since we left Edison's workshop, the battery leads should become active again.” She bit her bottom lip. “And the phonograph was still playing when we left it.”

“Which means what, exactly?”

Eliza brought up the exciter. “We might get that distraction after—”

A savage frenzy of fire, glass, and wood erupted several buildings down, the mushroom cloud of smoke casting ominous shadows across the street and storefronts around them. Eliza stepped out of her hiding place, held out her arm in the direction of the sniper, and pulled the trigger of the Brouhaha.

A whistle emitted from the exciter's vent, its sound quickly growing from a shrill cry into a wild scream over a matter a seconds. The wild scream became a wild roar, and then something launched from the exciter's muzzle. It was a transparent sphere that roiled and rolled towards the sniper's rooftop. When the distortion reached her intended target, the sphere cut like a fine blade into the wooden building, peeling its timbers back like the skin of some exotic fruit. Eliza could see the shooter swept into the sphere, spinning like a child's top and then cast aside in the distance.

She looked down at the indicator dial to read the Brouhaha's current setting:

TYPHOON

Eliza jumped at the sound of gunfire, but this time coming from her side of the street. Two more Pinks fell as “Wild Bill” Wheatley strode up alongside her and held out his Peacemakers at the remaining two.

“There's been enough killin' for one day, boys, doncha think?” he called out to them. Neither man dropped their guns. Bill gave a rough laugh and said, “Look, either it's my Peacemakers or Lizzie's little gadget here. Your choice.”

The remaining Pinks glanced at one another and then dropped their guns, raising their hands above their heads.

“And how are things at the Red Rock Theatre, Lizzie?” Bill asked her. “Got all those entrances and exits sorted?”

“Wellington and I got a little sidetracked,” she returned, lowering the Brouhaha.

“This is what you call ‘sidetracked' in Jolly Ol' England, huh?” He gave a laugh as the two men stepped out and then got to their knees, placing their hands on top of their heads. “The minute I heard the gunfight, I knew you were jus' having a good ol' time without me.” He looked over Eliza to see Wellington emerge out of hiding with the priest draped over his shoulder. “Care to explain why you got yourself a wounded—
lady
—of the cloth there?”

“I think,” Eliza said, “we're all in need of a drink.”

T
he priest winced as she sat in the bar of the Royal Hotel, the high-back chair hardly allowing her to prop up her arm as the doctor had ordered. Wellington looked around for another cushion; and on relieving one from a nearby chez lounge, he added it underneath her arm. Her face twisted in pain, but settling into the chair once more she closed her eyes, took in a breath, and colour returned to her face.

Her eyes betrayed a lack of sleep, though. Wellington, glancing around at the rest of them, wondered if any of them had got real rest since Detroit. His own night had been frustrating. He had slept quite soundly, even though it had been in bed. With Eliza Braun. Hardly in the manner he had pictured, though.

The priority of Flagstaff had been dousing the fire at Edison's Illuminating Company. True to his word, Edison had created a bomb that not only turned his workshop into a gigantic torch, but also began a dangerous chain reaction with the surrounding buildings. Many had been lost in the conflagration. What the inventor had underestimated was the tenacity of those men and women living in the Arizona Territories. The fire would not claim Flagstaff once the townspeople rallied and began working to stop it from spreading. The sun had begun to set when the last of it had been extinguished.

Wellington remembered returning to the suite, Eliza gently guiding him to the bed, and wrapping his arms around her as they fell asleep on top of the blankets, still in their day clothes. It was a strange combination of sweat, dust, smoke, gunpowder, and perfume that tickled his nose; and it was the last thing he remembered before falling asleep. He had awakened three times before the morning's dawn, but never left her side.
That,
he thought,
would be most improper.

The next morning, he and Eliza repeated their morning routine as per usual, saying very little to one another. They descended down the staircase to meet Bill, Felicity, Nikola, and the priest, whom they found over a light breakfast to be Van Sommerset of Virginia.

Wellington had already sent for a specific case from his luggage, but there was another matter needing his attention. He sat down next to Van. “Thank you.”

“Shouldn't I be the one thanking you?” Van chuckled, with a slight wince. “I'm the one you dragged off the street.”

“You at least wanted me alive,” he reminded her.

“Edison wants us dead,” Eliza pointed out.

Wellington nodded. “So I am thankful for the House of Usher's tenacity, for once.”

“Not only are they tenacious, but they know when to make the most of an opportunity,” Bill said. “I heard some folks talkin'. Seems that while the town was fightin' the fire, there was a break-in at that fancy telescope.”

“They got the optics,” Felicity said.

“Speaking of Usher,” Eliza began, looking down at Van, “exactly how were you able to keep a track on us?”

Van gave a little snort. “I would love to say it's because I'm part Indian, but I've got a soft spot for gadgets.” With her good hand, she pulled up what appeared to be a square pocket watch. Flipping up its cover, Wellington and Eliza looked not at a clock face but a map of Flagstaff. It was something similar to the Ministry's ETS.

“We've got a tracker on us?” Eliza asked.

“Your rings.” Van looked to each of them. “Usher apparently had a man tinker with your rings while on your trip over here.”

Wellington's eyes went to Eliza's. She too had reached the same deduction. “That bloke on
Apollo's Chariot
. That's why he had no valuables in his haul,” she said.

Wellington motioned to Eliza's Ministry ring. “Looks like I have a new project to complete before I can return to the car, yes?”

“Actually, Welly,” she said, removing the Ministry ring from his finger, “I can take care of them.” She took her own ring off and placed them together on the floor. Her heel came down on them once, then twice. Eliza narrowed her eyes on them and then struck their remains once more. “There,” she said with a quick gasp. “Fixed.”

A tall, black case landed with a dull thud in front of Wellington. “Your luggage, sir,” the young porter huffed.

“Excellent, thank you,” Wellington said, sliding it at an angle for he, Van, and Tesla to see what he would be presenting. “I suggest you all come around here.”

He pulled a footrest closer to him and flipped back the latches on the black case. From its top section, he pulled out what would have appeared to passersby to be a large book completely constructed of gears, mechanics, and glass, and not paper and leathers as books usually were. Wellington turned the odd contraption one way, then the other, feeling a bit embarrassed that he could not find the valve straightaway. When he finally found the round, blue handle, he gave it three twists, then disengaged a tiny latch. This unlocking parted the device's “covers,” instantly changing the mechanical book's appearance to a large central hub of machinery attached by a hinge to a small screen. Sliding out from the front of the hub was a keypad of letters, numbers, and symbols. Wellington then stretched out from the array two coiled cables that hung from the back of the monitor.

“Now let me think,” he muttered as he began pulling out the smooth, black bricks that were housed deeper inside the case. “Memory Block Gamma should be it.”

The plugs at the end of the coiled cables fit neatly within Gamma's sockets. He then checked the hub's tiny pressure gauge, flipped two switches, and with a puff of steam, the screen flickered to life with a soft amber glow, one word coming into focus for the group.

COMMAND?

Wellington cracked his knuckles and typed.

DISPLAY MAP OF UNITED STATES.

Gears and cogs turned while small puffs and hisses of steam sounded angrily as they waited.

REGION? TYPE “A” FOR “ALL.”

His fingertips danced across the letters in reply.

SOUTHWEST REGION AND WESTERN COASTLINE.

“What's that about?” Eliza asked.

Wellington spoke as he typed. “It was Edison's message to us. Remember what he said?”

“Not particularly, as someone had charged me to disarm a rather nasty incendiary device.”

“He said that we all have our gates to pass through. If ours was to be the Pearly Gates, then what exactly could his gate be?”

Eliza gave a slight gasp. “San Francisco. That's why you mentioned San Francisco. Edison's heading there?” she asked, turning her eyes to the screen.

Wellington held up a single finger and then added to the screen a new command.

OVERLAY RAILROAD NETWORK.

A few clicks and whistles later. “And there you are,” he said, motioning to the lines appearing almost as cracks in the screen's glass. “As you can see, there is a direct line from Flagstaff to Sausalito, where a ferry picks up passengers and takes you off to San Francisco. That's where his endgame will take place.”

“It has to be,” Tesla replied. “There must be lighthouses in the vicinity, yes?”

“Oh, there are, partner,” Bill interjected. “Lighthouses and fog signals aplenty. Can't spit without hitting one.”

“Do you have that information in here?” asked Eliza.

Wellington tapped a quick command into the engine and several small dots now appeared on the screen.

Bill gave a slight whistle. “This ain't looking easy, folks.”

“How are we going to narrow down which one is Edison's?” Felicity asked.

“Wellington,” Eliza said, staring at the dots decorating the West Coast, “can your analytical engine narrow down the signals to those within a thirty mile radius?”

“I believe I can.”

With a few punches of keys, the image winked away from view and then vertical lines of light gradually rendered with each pass a map of northern California, the bay city at its centre with smaller dots representing remaining signals. Wellington pulled at his bottom lip with his top teeth during this sequence and then glanced at the array of finger-sized boilers to the left of the monitor. Already, two of them were empty while Tank Three was almost at half-full.

Wellington looked up from the back of the display to his partner. “Why thirty miles?”

“Don't you remember Edison's test back in the Carolinas? The target buoy Bill and I saw was roughly twenty-five miles offshore.”

He nodded. “So we are working with a range of thirty miles in either direction, and the further he is away from San Francisco, the better of a lead he will have from the mayhem.” He tapped in another command and the list of signals on the display whittled down to two:

POINT REYES, CA, USA

MONTARA, CA, USA

“Well now, ain't that something? Cute little contraption there, Johnny Shakespeare.” Bill guffawed. “Time to saddle up, head to San Francisco, and shut down Edison's anarchist agenda.”

Wellington and Eliza blinked, then looked over to Felicity.

“I think he's been sneaking peeks at some of my political science volumes,” Felicity quipped.

Tesla cleared his throat, and everyone turned to him. “It might help you to know that this isn't an anarchist's agenda we're disrupting. Edison would never intentionally ally himself with the House of Usher unless he had something to gain from it. To Edison, Usher is a resource. An end to a means.”

“Excuse me,” the priest spoke suddenly.

Wellington had forgotten that Van was sitting there, in the midst of this. She looked wide-eyed and perhaps a touch overwhelmed, but her eyes went to each and every one of them for a moment. “From what I gather, you all serve at the behest of the United States or British government, so maybe you can tell me, why would anyone do something so terrible?”

A very valid question,
Wellington realised. “The House of Usher, from our previous interactions with them, has but one desire. They are bent on plunging the world into—”

“Chaos and disorder, yeah, I know that,” Van interrupted. “I have worked with them on two other occasions, so I understand them to an extent. It's Edison himself that has me pondering. You all are smart people, especially you,” Van said, motioning to Tesla, “but no one here has asked or answered a simple question: why is he wanting to destroy San Francisco?”

They all looked at one another. They still didn't know the “why” behind this grand plot of Edison's.

“How long have you all been working on this case again?” Van asked.

“Hold on a second,” Bill said, reaching for his pockets. His right hand landed on a folded-up paper and he unfurled it. He let out a hearty laugh and slapped the newspaper. “I've been reading up this morning on what's been going on out west.”

Everyone looked at him blankly.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” he said, turning the
San Francisco Chronicle
to face everyone:

CLANKERTONS COLLIDE
San Francisco to Host Scientific Exposition

“Seems there's a clankerton convention in San Francisco and it's a pretty big shindig from what I've been readin'.”

Felicity's hand flew to her mouth. “The leading minds of innovation, all in one place!”

“He's intending to wipe out potential threats. Then he'll offer this device to the highest bidder.” Eliza looked at the image on Wellington's screen. “It's not mad at all. It's simply business.”

“That's okay.” Bill shrugged. “We got him dead to rights. Just send out a wireless, and we'll have him—”

“No, we won't,” Felicity insisted. “Bill, this is Thomas Edison.”

“I think I see Miss Lovelace's reasoning,” Tesla chimed in. “Edison will have considered a number of variables that could affect this experiment. One of those variables, I would speculate, is discovery. He will have a plan for just that contingency.”

For a moment, no one moved. Wellington felt as if there needed to be a rallying cry of some sort that would get everyone moving; but they all just sat there. Edison was on a train. Had been since last night. Even if they were to stock Wellington's motorcar with enough water to keep its boilers at full, their speed, while faster than a stagecoach, would never close the gap between them and Edison.

“You all have to get there.”

All heads turned to Van, their unexpected ally in all this.

“Look, Padre—” Bill began.

“If Edison is going to destroy San Francisco, you all need to get out there.” She held up a finger at Bill, who looked ready to say something. “There are always options.”

Bill's mouth shut. Wellington looked at Van, mulling over her words. He looked at his engine, the amber-coloured map of California beginning to fade in front of him.

“Fort Huachuca,” Bill said suddenly. “If I can get to a wireless, we can get in the air in an hour, two at the most.” He did not seem, however, comforted in any of this good news. “But if I recall, Huachuca is more like a supply base now. The only airships they may be able to spare won't be battleship class. Maybe cargo transports, but they're the fast kinds designed to ship equipment coast-to-coast.”