Kady Cross - The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy

Jack took the other side, carefully aiming his Aether pistol at the automaton that looked like a rubbish bin with limbs about to jump onto the back of the carriage. Thankfully his aim was true—it was difficult to maintain a steady hand in a vehicle picking up speed on a rough stretch of dock.

Bloody hell. This was going to cause a bit of a ruckus. So much for discretion.

“Get us out of here, Philippe!” Jack yelled, firing at another rapidly moving piece of metal—this one a strange dog/human hybrid with glowing red eyes. It was the sort of thing nightmares were made of. His first shot sheared off its right front leg at the joint, but it continued to run on three. He fired again, and it fell to the street, sparks flying.

Toby had taken out several, as well. They continued shooting, until all that was left were their human pursuers. They were in a carriage, as well, and quickly gaining on them. One of them hung out the passenger side, a rifle raised to his shoulder.

Jack fired and missed as his carriage hit a rut. The man fired back, the shot imbedding itself in the carriage exterior just above Jack’s head. These bounders were playing a deadly game, shooting to kill. Jack pulled the trigger—his gun failed.

He should have asked for three thousand. If he lived through this, he was going back to Abernathy’s house and stealing the silver again. All of it.

Another shot hit just in front of him, sending splinters flying into his face. He raised his arm to protect his eyes and pounded his pistol on the door frame. Maybe a little violence would induce the bloody thing to work properly.

Over the top of the carriage, he saw the flash of Toby’s rifle—the pellet struck the front of the vehicle behind them and flared. The pursuing carriage sputtered to a stop in the middle of the street. Toby cheered in victory and raised his first two fingers in a rude salute to the swearing men trying to get their vehicle working again.

“I’ve got to ‘ave one of those, mate,” Jack enthused as they both dropped back into their seats. “Good going, Philippe!”

“ Très bon , mes frères! Très bon ” came the reply on a wave of maniacal laughter.

Jack and Toby chuckled, as well—a release of nervous energy. That had been close. They’d had closer, Jack especially. Once, he’d stared down the barrel of a pistol just inches from his face while trying to pull his trousers on. Luckily for him, the wife of the man holding said pistol chose that moment to throw a pillow at her husband, and Jack took the opportunity to jump out the window. He’d landed in a rosebush, and despite being scratched senseless by the thorns, he’d run to his carriage barefoot, laughing like the idiot he was to have been diddling with a magistrate’s wife in the first place. Obviously the man hadn’t thought his wife’s honor to be worth hunting Jack down, but just to be safe he’d never returned to Exeter.

His smile at the memory faded as the carriage sped on toward St. Pancras and he brushed slivers of wood from the front of his coat. He hadn’t anticipated tonight’s attack, but he’d felt it in the warehouse. He’d known something was wrong and he hadn’t gotten him and his men out of there fast enough to heed the warning bells clanging in his head. That was badly done of him. Philippe and Toby knew there could be consequences to working with him, but if one of them had been killed tonight...

Well, Abernathy would owe him more than money. As it was, the viscount owed him an explanation, or at least an apology.

What the hell was in that crate?

It wasn’t easy getting the crate into St. Pancras. Fortunately, the train stop wasn’t terribly busy, and Jack and his friends had disguised themselves as laborers to make their activities less interesting to anyone who might see them.

The tricky part was going to be getting the crate to the correct spot, as it required them dropping onto the tracks and down a bit, unless Toby could get them into the maintenance rooms.

As luck would have it, the train pulled out of the station just as they arrived on the platform, so for the time being they had the place all to themselves.

“Don’t dawdle,” Jack said to Toby as his lanky friend crouched in front of a service door, lock-picking tools in hand.

At one time it had been easy to pick a lock—they were practically all the same, and a master key was as good as gold. Then people starting taking their home security more seriously—a ring of body snatchers who weren’t too picky about whether or not their victims were already dead when they set upon them would do that—and locks became more intricate. Now there were punch cards and clockwork mazes, secret codes and what have you.

Fortunately, the one on this door was a simple clockwork piece. Jack could have picked it himself, but the benefit of being the one running the show meant not getting the knees of your trousers dirty.

There was a noise beside him—a muffled sliding sound. Frowning, Jack turned his head. Had it come from inside the crate? He listened again, but all he heard was the gentle clicks of Toby’s tools, and Philippe singing a French song under his breath.

“We’re in,” Toby crowed as he pushed the door open.

Jack clapped him on the back. “Well done, mate. Let’s go.” He could hear footsteps approaching, some of which did not sound human but more like the clang of metal on stone. Had their pursuers caught up to them?

Philippe pushed the trolley over the threshold with Toby holding the door. Jack followed, catching the door before it closed all the way. Through a slit no wider than his index finger, he watched as two men and an automaton appeared on the platform. He didn’t recognize them, but they certainly looked like men on a mission.

“Where do you think they went?” one asked.

The shorter one glanced toward the track. “Probably caught the train.”

“And leave that remarkable carriage? I wouldn’t.”

“Well, they’re not here. I don’t see them on the track—they wouldn’t have gotten far. They’re limited to the public areas. They must have taken the train.”

Jack stifled a chuckle. These two weren’t dressed well enough to be aristocracy, but they were gently bred all the same. Upper class, perhaps. They were the sort who naturally assumed everyone played by the same set of rules as they.

“Well, they’ll be coming back for that carriage, so I say we watch that. We can always follow them. We have to get that crate. If it falls into the wrong hands...”

The smaller man nodded. “I know, my friend. I know. Come, let’s find a porter or station worker—someone might have seen them.”

He’d heard enough. Jack carefully closed the door and turned to his companions. “Philippe, you have to get up top and move the carriage immediately. Hide it out of the way.” It was what they should have done to begin with, but there was no time for recriminations now. They had wrongly assumed their pursuers were no longer a threat, or if they were, that they wouldn’t think to look behind the station buildings for their vehicle.

“ D’accord. When and where shall we meet?”

“Thirty minutes, outside that hotel a few blocks down—the one where you met Mariska.”

At the mention of his fiancée’s name, Philippe smiled dreamily. “She picked my pocket. A good choice. I will meet you there.”

The Frenchman made his escape through another door, one that led into the maintained areas of the station. Jack and Toby followed him in, but when Philippe veered right, his companions kept going straight.

“Who do you reckon those blokes were?” Toby asked as they steered the crate down a corridor just barely wide enough for it.