Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

“An umbrella for the guv’nor?” she said, and flashed her pointed fangs. “An umbrella for the rain?”

Mr. Jelliby laughed. It wasn’t the merry, carefree laugh he was used to performing, but it was the best he could do right then. “Rain? Madam, it’s bright as bells out here.”

“Aye, guv’nor, but it won’t be forever. The clouds are comin’ in. Down from the North. Be here by evening. A blackbird told me not one hour ago.”

Mr. Jelliby paused, regarding the faery woman curiously. Then he tossed her a farthing and plunged into the crowds, a spring in his step.

A blackbird had told her. A bird. Birds knew all sorts of things, it seemed. And what would Mr. Lickerish’s bird know-the little clockwork one that had flown from the window of the empty clerk’s office? What sort of message had been in the glinting capsule on its leg? And to whom was it so swiftly headed? It might not lead him directly to Melusine, but to someone she knew? An associate perhaps? It was a trail at least, something to follow.

He had to catch the bird. Once he had the bird, he hoped it would lead him to Melusine. And once he had bravely rescued her and all that, he supposed he ought to find a way to stop Mr. Lickerish. That part sounded less appealing. In fact, it sounded a little bit dangerous. The faery politician was not some violent street murderer skulking in London’s alleys on fog-bound nights. One couldn’t simply send the constable around to cart him off. He was Lord Chancellor to the Queen. He was wealthy and powerful, and if he wanted to he could grind Mr. Jelliby under his thumb like a louse. The Law would be no help to Mr. Jelliby. Not against a Sidhe.

But enough of that. Enough moping and wondering. He had a bird to catch. Only, he had no idea how to catch it. He sat down at a coffeehouse on the corner where the Strand runs into Trafalgar Square and wondered some more.

He could shoot the thing out of the sky, he supposed. An old hunting rifle hung above the mantel in his study. But the gun was a beast of a thing, and even if he somehow managed to smuggle it into the Westminster area, all London would hear it when it went off. Then there was the brace of Spanish pistols in the hall cabinet. And that little gun he had gotten for his fifteenth birthday. Its handle was mother-of-pearl and there were real rubies and opals all down its barrel and encrusting the trigger. He didn’t know if it actually worked. Things so pretty seldom did.

A waiter in antiquated knee breeches and frock coat arrived at Mr. Jelliby’s table, and he ordered one of those new tropical drinks that were said to be “sweet as sugar, cold as ice, bright as flowers, and twice as nice.” London could be stiflingly hot in summer when the ash clouds closed like a lid overhead and not so much as a breeze stirred from the river. Even here, where the arteries of the city were wider than most, and the houses stood tall and straight on either side, the air was practically solid, rank with the smell of onions and chimneys and unwashed skin. The starched collar of Mr. Jelliby’s shirt was already damp with sweat.

By the time the drink arrived it was no longer very cold. It looked like a cup of green paint, thick and syrupy and so sweet it set his teeth on edge. He took two sips and pushed it away, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. What was he thinking? A gun ? The bird would be shattered in midair. He had to knock it out of the sky and catch it with as little damage as possible. Not blow it to smithereens. Perhaps he should first see where the bird flew. He knew that clockwork things of that sort could only travel to and from a single point. Their whole being was constructed for one route, their wings the proper length, their cogs and insides the proper size for one stretch, and one stretch only. The newer ones, he knew, had tiny battery faeries to propel them. They were equipped with a sort of mechanical map that assured they did not run into church steeples or trestle bridges. The bird still had to be sent off from the correct place, from the correct height, and in the correct direction. Then it would simply fly until its spring wound down. That must be why Mr. Lickerish had launched it from the clerk’s office high up in Westminster. Any lower and the bird would probably have crashed through someone’s attic window.

A group of raggedy children came running up among the tables, all shouting and begging at once, trying to get some pennies before the waiters drove them off. One came up to Mr. Jelliby, hand outstretched, so dirty a little garden could have grown from it. Mr. Jelliby offered the urchin the green-paint drink, but the child just made a face and ran on.

He turned his attention back to the task at hand. All he had to do was find the bird’s trajectory across London’s rooftops. Then he could simply choose a point along its path and wait for it to arrive. He pictured himself balancing on a chimney somewhere, swinging wildly about with a butterfly net. It was not a nice thought. He hoped no one would be there to see it.

Leaning down from his chair, he poured the sluggish green concoction into the gutter. Then he set off for home, drifting through the city streets at an aimless pace, eyes to the cobbles, hat pulled down low over his face. Crimson lips, unmoving in a white face. Plum-colored skirts. The little top hat, casting a shadow over her eyes. He was so deep in thought that he was already stepping up to the front door of his house on Belgrave Square before he realized it had begun to rain and he was soaked to the skin.

The next morning, after a good breakfast of sausage and buttered toast, Mr. Jelliby pedaled himself to Westminster on his bicycle and got off on the bridge in a place that gave him a view of the river-facing windows of the new palace. He leaned the bicycle up against a lamppost and crossed his arms on the railing, watching the rows of windows carefully. They barely ever opened. When they did, Mr. Jelliby would crane his neck and squint very determinedly, but the only things that came out of them were hot, flustered faces and once a gentleman’s tailcoat. It fell into the river and was fished out by a boatman who put it on sopping wet.

The flower sellers next to Mr. Jelliby began shaking their heads at him. A police officer shot him ever more suspicious looks each time he stalked by. After six hours, Mr. Jelliby could take it no longer and cycled home, tired and humiliated, just as the flame faeries were beginning to flare in the streetlamps.

It took six days of this. Six days of watching the windows of Westminster like a madman before one finally opened, high up near the roof, and a little bead of clockwork and brass flittered out across the river.

The moment Mr. Jelliby saw it he set off running. He left his bicycle, he left his hat, he left the flower sellers hooting and twirling their fingers next to their ears, and he tore away across the bridge.

Just as before, the bird was flying straight toward the forest of garrets and chimney pots on London’s east bank. Mr. Jelliby careened into the traffic on Lambeth Road, ignoring the blaring horns and angry shouts. A steam carriage whizzed past inches from his nose, but he barely flinched. He mustn’t lose sight of the bird. Not now.

Fortunately for him it was not a real sparrow. Its metal wings made it heavy and slow no matter how frantically they flapped, and it didn’t swoop after worms and insects lodged in the stonework the way regular flesh-and-feathers birds did. Mr. Jelliby could very nearly keep pace with it when he ran his fastest.

Unfortunately, his fastest was not overly impressive. He hadn’t run properly since a fox hunt several years ago at Lord Peskinborough’s country estate; Mr. Jelliby had disagreed with his horse over which direction to take, and the horse had left him to go whichever direction he pleased.