Beyond the Rails 3: Slayer of Darkness

Chapter 23

Hippo Point Monday morning

          Jinx awoke suddenly, angry at herself for falling asleep in such dire circumstances. Reinhard’s drugs, she realized. Hopefully, they were out of her system by now. A glance at the basement windows told her it was still dark, though she had no idea for how much longer, but she knew she had to get out of here.
          She slid out of the narrow space she had concealed herself in, dropping to the pile of boxes, and thence to the floor. The first thing she noticed was that the cell door was open and the two guards were gone, as was Mutala. The alarm had been raised and there must have been much in the way of shouting and clanging during the process, and she had slept right through it.
          What the hell did he give me?
          They must not have searched the basement, as no one would imagine that having escaped, she would then remain down here. How long ago had they discovered her missing? She had no idea, no way to even guess. If it was minutes, there would be an intensive, organized search underway at the top of the stairs; hours ago, and they may have given up, thinking she must have escaped the grounds by now. Either way, the sun would be rising at some point, cutting her chances of escaping the grounds to a fraction of what they were in the dark. She had to make a move.
          Whoever had come down to release the guards had turned the electric lights on over the cells. Following the heavy wire back to its origin, she located the switch on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. She switched them off, plunging the basement into darkness, and held her breath, listening. There was no apparent reaction to the lighting change from upstairs, and drawing Mutala’s pistol, she slowly and carefully started up the stairs. Despite stepping on the outer edges of the board steps and shifting her weight smoothly from step to step, there were a couple of creaks, each sounding to her sensitized ears like the shriek of a banshee.
          Her eyes came level with the floor, and she looked into a large, dimly-lit room. It appeared to be vacant; perhaps the search had moved further out. She took another step, then another. With her head a yard above the threshold, and the way to freedom in sight, a man appeared in a doorway on the opposite side of the room.
          “M’wanamke!” he shouted, ducking back behind the door frame. “Yeye ni hapa!”
          Jinx hadn't been in-country long enough to learn two words of Swahili, but she knew trouble when she heard it. When his arm came around the opening holding a pistol, she beat a hasty retreat down the stairs. He fired anyway, knowing his shot would bring many more men on the run. Jinx turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs into the same side hall from which she had ambushed Mutala, drew her knife with her left hand, and prepared to sell her life dearly. Voices could be heard talking in excited tones up in the room above, and she shortly realized that there was no pursuit coming.
          And why would there be? They had seen her handiwork when they took out Mutala and the guards. They wouldn’t come down those stairs until every man-jack on Reinhard’s payroll was assembled, and with her interrogation already completed, they would be shooting to kill when they did. Figuring she had a few minutes, she kicked the door of Reinhard’s interrogation room until the latch gave way, slipping inside to search for something from which she could improvise another weapon. She didn’t try to delude herself. Things looked as bad as they ever had, but she was armed and alert, and she had no intention of going out quietly.

Hippo Point 2:20 AM

          Reinhard paced behind the huge desk in his study, a map of the grounds unrolled and held flat by several items, one of which was a large pistol. He had sat up alertly at the sound of the shot, then stood. He was nervous, and he had good reason to be. The damned woman had gotten the better of three men sent to kill her with no weapons beyond the leg of a cot and a misshapen stick, and now she was loose in his house with Mutala’s gun. Why, she might come through the door at any moment!
          He returned to the desk and hefted the pistol’s comforting weight.
          No, she wouldn’t stay around here. She was probably in town by now, giving the local constabulary an earful.
          When one of his guards, a man whose name he hadn’t yet learned, stormed through the door, he nearly got shot, Reinhard reining in his trigger finger in the nick of time.
          “Effendi!” the man shouted, holding up both hands, “we have found the woman! She is trapped in the basement.”
          “What? Are you certain?”
          “Oh yes, effendi! Yusuf shot at her, and she ran back down the stairs. The men are gathering. We are about to go in and get her.”
          “Christ, no, man, don’t do that! She’ll kill half of you before you get near her. That woman is the devil!”
          A sly look came over Reinhard’s face, his eyes moving from corner to corner as they tracked errant thoughts.
          “The devil,” he said more calmly. “What do you do with devils?”
          “What can you do?”
          “You perform an exorcism.” His sly expression was turning to one of triumph. “Come, uh, what is your name, anyway?”
          “Wasim.”
          “Well, you just come with me, Wasim. You can help me prepare for the exorcism.”
          Taking a ring of keys from his desk drawer, he led the messenger across the hall and unlocked a door. They entered the room, a place of control panels, cables, transformers, and the ozone smell of vast harnessed power.
          “Help me with this,” Reinhard said, switching on a light and opening a series of louvered doors against the far wall.
          Inside the anteroom thus revealed stood an iron golem, a skeleton of articulated girders in the form of a giant man. The knees hinged backward, and the arms were of exaggerated length, but the shape was still easily recognizable. The left forearm was a large-caliber rifle, the right a glassine rod ending in two bare electrodes. The torso, an iron cylinder, stood hinged open revealing a padded leather seat, and controls entering the compartment from both sides. Moving to a step-stool in front of the abomination, Reinhard climbed in and seated himself. Flipping a row of switches to his left caused small interior lights to glow and a deep almost subliminal hum to emanate from the depths of the machine.
          “Close the panel, Wasim,” Reinhard directed. When the man hesitated, he snapped, “Quickly, man! It won’t harm you if I don’t direct it to.”
          Wasim stepped toward it and swung the iron chest closed, enclosing Reinhard’s body completely in heavy armor.
          “There’s a latch on the right side,” he said. “Make sure it’s fastened.”
          Wasim climbed the steps, found it, and locked it. Inside the beast, Reinhard manipulated a control, and with a whine, a bullet-shaped helmet rotated up from the back and lowered itself over his head. There was an opening in front of his left eye for normal vision, and an array of lenses stood ready to slide over his right, enhancing his vision in ways not imagined.
          “Move the steps, please, Wasim, and stand back.”
          The man was only too happy to follow that particular order, and hastened to comply. A whirring began deep within the monstrous creation, and deepened as gears engaged and the modern magic of electricity drove hydraulic pumps. Brass and copper pistons around the joints began to expand and contract, and the creature that Reinhard had become took three lumbering steps forward.
          “There is a cable in the back,” Reinhard said, his voice loud and metallic. “Give it a half-turn to the left and remove it. Be careful not to touch the wire. It will fry you like so much bacon.”
          Wasim complied, loath as he was to touch the thing, and soon had the cable out.
          “Excellent,” Reinhard said. “Now let us teach this devil-woman the meaning of power.”
          The machine headed out the door and started down the hall at its lumbering, swaying, yet inexorable pace, Wasim dancing along in its wake, eager for the reckoning to come. As they rounded the corner toward the main staircase, a man coming toward them stopped in his tracks, eyes widening to take up half his face.
          “Allah, protect us!” he gasped.
          “It is Master Reinhard’s machine,” Wasim explained, coming around to stand between them. “Is it not wonderful?”
          “Wonderful?” the man asked, aghast.
          “You have something to report?” the thing asked in a metallic parody of Reinhard’s voice.
          “Is it truly you, Master?”
          “It is. What news do you bring?”
          “Oh, yes! An airship is approaching the house with its lights out. It may pass us by, but it is at very low altitude, and running dark.”
          “You are sure of this?”
          “Completely sure, my lord.”
          “Very well. Return to Yusuf. Tell him to keep the woman trapped in the basement. Do not under any circumstances go in after her, but do not let her escape. Then bring half the men he has there to the roof. I may have some work for you. Wasim, you come with me.”
          “To the roof, effendi?”
          “Yes. Those damned meddling fools. I warned them. Now they’ll learn who they're trifling with!”

Hippo Point 2:40 AM

          Kestrel came in low over the water, lights out, ropes trailing, Smith, Monroe, and Bakari gathered beside the pilot house, weapons ready. Darweshi, having been shown the operation of the fowler, stood ready behind the small cannon at the bow.
          “There’s a cable running across the roof, Patty,” Monroe cautioned. “Don’t snag it!”
          “I see it,” she said tensely, raising the bow just slightly. “It probably leads in from a generator somewhere. We can try to put that out of commission if you’d like.”
          “Don’t worry about that. We can use the light. Just stand off and support us. There could be a hundred men in there for all we know.”
          “Aye, Captain.”
          Kestrel's airscrews went into full reverse as she came over the edge of the roof. Patience swung her to the left and drifted to a momentary halt just short of the cable as the men went over the side on the ropes. They hit the flat roof in a crouch, and were challenged by two surprised guards. Smith’s Peacemaker and his rifle, wielded by Monroe, cut them down before they could bring their weapons into play. They spotted the shed-size building that they knew must shelter the top of the stairs from the weather as Kestrel powered away in a wide circle, adding altitude as she went.
          “There are the stairs,” Monroe shouted to his companions. “Don’t lose sight of our purpose. We’re here to find Jinx. Search the house, and kill anyone who tries to stop you!”

Hippo Point 2:45 AM

          As they started toward the stair shelter, a whirring and clanking began to manifest itself from over the far side of the house.
          “What the hell?” Smith had time to ask before a bullet-shaped cone rose like an evil moon above the edge of the roof, followed by the shoulders and arms of Reinhard's infernal machine.
          Monroe and Smith fired three shots between them, each followed instantly by the spaaang of soft-nosed bullets glancing off hardened iron armor.
          The thing rose to roof level and stepped onto the surface, a nine-foot monster shaped like a man. The torso turned slightly to align with Monroe, the left arm came up, and as he dived aside, it fired a heavy slug that tore through the masonry of the roof’s low wall on its path to the harbor below. Smith and Bakari opened a brisk fire, their shots having no more effect than the first three.
          “Hold your fire!” Monroe shouted. “You’re just wasting ammunition. Patty will get him.”
          “Worthless swine!” the thing said in an amplified, metallic voice. “This is my thanks for letting you live? Very well, die the death of all two-faced scum!”
          The right arm came to the level, aiming roughly at Smith, who was in the center of their formation. Monroe could also see the dark form of the Kestrel coming up behind the thing like an avenging juggernaut, Darweshi crouched behind the fowler.
          “Watch out, David!” Monroe shouted as Darweshi fired.
          The light was poor and situated in Darweshi’s eyes, and the young Maasai woman was hardly a trained gunner. She missed, but her shot dug into the roof beside the thing’s foot. Monroe watched expectantly as the thing tilted toward that side. The gun’s projectile must have hit a structural beam, Monroe surmised, and now the monster’s weight was going to collapse the roof around it. But then the thing shifted its weight onto its left foot, brought its right foot back, and steadied itself on the undamaged section with no more difficulty than a man on foot.
          The right arm raised again, this time above the horizontal, and twin shafts of jagged blue lightning shot from it, instantly enveloping Kestrel’s gondola. The ship slewed around to the right as the blue fire crackled up the shrouds. The airscrews stopped suddenly as fires began to ignite and build around the traces where the shrouds were affixed to the bag. The ship lost altitude quickly as the fires ate through the fabric and gouts of hydrogen flames began to erupt. The gondola was slammed to the ground and dragged by the rapidly deflating gas bag into the shallow waters off the point. The fire never really got started as the hydrogen burned itself out in the space of a few seconds, and the empty bag fell into the water, extinguishing the fires on the fabric. Monroe stood in shock, staring at the darkness where his ship and two women had been seconds before.
          “Captain!” Smith shouted, as the metal monster fired its rifle again, fortunately at one of the others, as Monroe would have been an unmissable target.
          Monroe turned and emptied his rifle at the thing, the clangs of harmless ricochets mocking him.
          “Bring the men, Wasim,” the thing said as Monroe reloaded. “We will finish this.”
          At Reinhard’s command, a man they hadn’t noticed jumped up from cover and ran for the stairway the iron monster had used to gain the roof. Smith’s first shot hit his thigh, pitching him onto his face. Bakari’s hit him low in the side, and Smith’s second round struck his temple, turning his brain to mush.
          The creature’s torso turned to look, then turned back to them.
          “Poor Wasim. I only just met him. As you can see, Captain, I don’t really need any men to deal with you worms. You will find your death on this roof, and my revenge will be complete.”
          Revenge? Monroe thought as the left arm came up and fired in Bakari’s direction.