17. Emporia Aflame
As evening approached the clouds had thickened, and worst of all to the west a towering wall of cumulus had built in, horizon to horizon. With the coming of night even from this distance I could see lightning. The air was moist and pregnant...ready to burst.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked with a glance upward, brushing the hair from her eyes. Unconsciously she patted Freddy's hand. She'd obviously never been through a storm on the Kansas.
"Thunderheads. Big ones. I'd venture within an hour or two the weather's gonna get fierce here. We'd best be indoors."
"And what are the prospects of getting indoors?" At her side the kid was looking down, a look I knew. She'd tried to talk to him, tried to get him to come out of his shell, but I knew how it was. He'd come out on his own time, and not until. And he'd never be the same. Would she?
"At this rate...slim."
Her unengaged hand rose to her brow, scanning the encroaching storm and building billows about us. "I have an idea." With Freddy in tow she approached the conductor. "Pardon me, Sir...I have a matter of importance to bring up."
The man turned weary eyes to her. "Ma'am, I appreciate that you're a lady with a child, but as you can see, we have more than our fill of the same. You'll have to wait."
Elizabeth shook her head and took the man by his elbow, "But you don't understand..." She pleaded, leaning in to whisper. "This is Frederick Fink, the son of Jeremiah Fink."
"Mister Fink is dead." The conductor said, and in his delivery, I discerned both worry and oddly relief. "Or so the wireless maintains. As, I am afraid, are his wife and..." Looking to the child, recognition seemed to cross his face.
"Mister...?"
"Cromwell." The man supplied, now gob smacked at the similarly wide-eyed urchin in Elizabeth's care.
"Mister Cromwell. This poor boy is the orphan of, and heir to, Mr. Fink. My...husband...and I...who are...uh...friends of the family, well we've been charged with delivering him to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Fink of East Market Street. Please, we've not made the first boat and I promise you that Mr. Fink's brother will front a substantial cash award for the safe delivery of his Nephew. Could you not see it in your graces to...to find us a spot?"
"Mister Fink's only son, here?" He whispered below his breath and knelt. "Are you Frederick Fink, boy?" With those distant eyes the kid nodded and produced a golden stopwatch, inside its lid a photograph of his deceased father...himself holding a stopwatch. "By God, you are him." With serious bent upon his face, the man turned and shouted to the nearest deckhand, even as he prepared to cast a hawser to the mooring zepp. "Vincent...special passage! We got Fink's son here and his guardians!"
"That's Mister Fink's boy!?" The deckhand cried. By now everyone was looking upon us, some in shock and others in envy. I was looking at them with my gun in hand. "Praise be to the Prophet, it is!
#
As the refugee sloop angled between the Liftwork's landing and Emporia's Prosperity Station, the wind began to shift. The storm was getting closer and although air travel was faster than rail or, Heaven forbid, Columbia's suicidal sky rails, time dragged. We would be cutting it close. Elizabeth was leaning back against the outer promenade's beige-painted walls with the boy in her arms, wind whipping through her blood encrusted hair. She hadn't noticed me watching, and for that I was content. How could someone do what they'd done to her, I thought? Monsters. And now she'd killed. I closed my eyes and sighed.
About us upon the packed railings people were nervous. Rumors abounded of the ravenous, murdering mob of anarchists that had taken both Fink's dirty jewel and Shantytown. By the looks of the burning city ahead and islands amid the clouds, they were on the offensive everywhere in Columbia but Finkton. Eavesdropping upon a man and woman, I heard talk of the wholesale slaughter of Founder families, as well as a battle for the Aerodrome the day before. In my wake I heard pilots, crew and civilians had been mercilessly executed. I tried not to think of it anymore.
Looking back toward smoking Finkton, the monstrosity I'd spied in the nighttime darkness was still overhead, weathervaned to the south as the big blow approached. Nearly as big as Fink's factories themselves, its shadow blotted the sun and cast a chill upon our approach. Across its blood red tailfins, I could clearly make out the Socialist State's red star and tethered, ant-sized hands repairing damage. Down the rails distraught refugees called for their loved ones.
'Red Menace,' I heard. 'Bolsheviks.' 'Bavarians.' Whatever threat they were, they'd not descended upon us like the Vox. No...other than my supposed 'ally's singular visit to Daisy, they'd remained clear of entanglements here. Like Edmonton had said...their interest in Columbia was narrow. The Liftworks.
And the girl.
"What are they doing?" Elizabeth asked wearily, following my inspection of the dirigible.
"Edmonton wanted the Lutece tubes and probably the secret to make them. Back with Fitzroy it sounded like he found what he was looking for." I remembered the paper in my pocket.
"How...how can that help them?"
"This is going to sound crazy, but I think something's going on in Europe...Eastern Europe and right now with the schism in Germany. Something dangerous."
"Eisner? The Bolsheviks?"
"You know about politics?"
"Only what I've read." She managed a sad smile, unconsciously wiping her hand upon the wretched hem of her dress. It was an in joke between us now. Elizabeth was only what she read. "Somehow a subscription to The Atlantic and Telegraph began arriving on the dumbwaiters two years ago. Occasionally even a copy of the New York Times. Perhaps my father wished me to start learning of things of the outside. Or maybe...maybe one of my wardens wasn't as myopic as I assumed. Anyway, from what I know of it, Europe's old Imperial states are in conflict with the Bolshevik revolutions in Russia and Bavaria. And its spreading."
"War is coming...and not this fratricide here. A real war. And Columbia is the only place in the world that these cells are manufactured. Nations are desperate to get their hands on them."
"Columbia?"
"Yes." I whispered. "Columbia. With the revolt here I'll bet that big red turd won't be the last airship to come calling. And the leaders of the world don't even know about you...yet." She closed her eyes and turned away. I stifled a yawn. "I'm tired too. Maybe this will work out." The boy remained snug in her arms. "You'd best not get too fond of him, Elizabeth."
"I've never had anything of my own." She brushed the boy's sandy locks as he gazed vacantly over the approaching skyline.
"And you still don't. He's Fink's kid. We're I a betting man, and you know I am, I'd reckon he's as rotten as the old man or worse. Be careful what you wish for."
"He didn't seem..."
"Spoiled? He just saw his parents murdered, Elizabeth. Even the most brazen bully would be pissing in his knickers after that."
"People can change, Booker. A seed doesn't always fall at the tree's roots." She whispered, closing her eyes. Water escaped her lid in a single drop. "I...I have to believe that. Look at you."
I tightened the grip upon my repeater as her tear struck the boy's cap. "What about me? I've gunned down half of the population of Columbia. I've stolen its Lamb. All to repay money I gambled away. I'm just like my father."
"Then somehow he must have been a good man, because you saved me." Elizabeth said simply. Her knuckles wiped away tears, but she seemed in that instant to beam at me. "As awful as this has been, for the last three days I've been free. And I...I've met you." She closed her eyes turned away, leaving me wondering exactly how I was supposed to respond to that. She was no more mine than Fink was hers.
As the air station approached her eyes returned...fingertips found my hand. Forcing myself to look outward, I watched the city's ramparts pass below us and the shadow of an ominous gray shelf cloud a few miles distant, its arc a backdrop to the Bank of the Prophet and Emporial Traders. "Back at the beach...I wish I'd danced with you, Elizabeth."
With the boy still nestled she placed her head upon my chest. "It's never too late, Mr. DeWitt."
#
To the consternation of our other passengers the Eagle soared over Prosperity Station and on to Emporia's Grand Central Depot. Below amid the wrecked streets I could see one of Comstock's statues, its face blown off and shattered amid the circle of surrounding brick buildings.
"Damn your eyes, man, where are we going!" A man in black top hat demanded, approaching the Conductor to grasp him forcefully by the arm.
Briefly the Conductor glanced to me and Elizabeth. "Good Sir..." He said, "Prosperity Station is boarding zepps just as we. It's not...not safe..." I could tell a lie when I heard it, particularly in this case...and the people at Prosperity below I could see were clearly disembarking.
"You fool!"
"Sir." The Conductor said sternly. "If you wish to disembark at Prosperity Station, I can summon our security men. They shall assure you a timely arrival...though your arrival shall be vertical and stop, how should I say it...shall be prompt."
The man blanched and backed down, adjusted his disheveled bowtie before returning in a huff to his family. His wife was far from amused. By now the wall of black was too close, obscuring the westering sun and casting Emporia, Finkton and the rest of smoldering Columbia into chill shade. A cold breeze caught my skin, worse for Elizabeth, clad only in the wreckage of her blouse and skirt. I removed my vest and draped it about her. "That gold domed building amid the four clarion towers ahead...that must be Central Depot."
She looked to my generosity and wrapped it about the boy. "Yes, I think it must be. I read about Emporia's landmarks until I was blue in the face...but this is the first I've seen it other than a photograph."
Gauging the progress of the storm versus our impending arrival, I answered without looking. "And what did that get you?"
"Only that the Grand Central was part of the original Columbian Exposition. My book said the city's grown immensely since then, and many of the buildings were split off to form the focal points of new islands, but the Depot remained here. It's a Skyline and transit center now, but before the Aerodrome was established it received all airships."
As we came alongside the mooring gantry, hands began uncoiling rope, men on the slip catching and tying their lengths off as the others tossed them over. Soon gangplanks were dropped, not the solid, secure glass tunnels that had protected us so securely the other day or even the gangway back in New York, but flimsy metal planks with the merest ratchet up railing. The prospect of a fatal mistake in the whipping breeze was evident.
Contrary to the Conductor's earlier demands, in the hasty press to board people no identification had been solicited. Neither in it asked for here. As we departed, however, the Conductor caught up with us. "Good, Sir! Young Master Fink..."
Having not quite escaped across the planking, the three of us turned in unison with a measure of dread, the prospect of a five-hundred-foot drop to the pavement immediate. "He's not in a good way. How might I help you?"
"Please, if you would, my name is Donald Cromwell." The blue coated man said. "Please...put in a good work for us with Mr. Fink's brother. We've gone out of our way to deliver you, and with the storm blowing in...it might have turned out poorly. I've messaged ahead and an automobile should be waiting for you outside."
"I understand..." offered my bandaged hand as I stepped us off the planking to the solid metal deck. "Thank you, Mr. Cromwell. I shall endeavor to ensure you're remembered."
"Sir, I don't believe I caught you and your wife's name?"
I smiled and shook his hand. "I'm...Archibald. Archibald Montgomery. This is my wife, uh...Evelyn." I turned and as a trio we walked away.
We joined the nervous crowd waiting for a lift, one of a bank of glass contraptions decorated by iron grillwork that took us to the open floor below. As we descended the tower swayed. Outside and below I could see red banners affixed to the buildings, whipping madly in the increasing bluster. The similarity to the terminal I'd departed from in Manhattan struck me, although the details were off.
When we emerged into the main concourse a demolished marble of Comstock met us, torso sundered by what could only have been explosive force. As if carried by the plume of fire that had gutted the place, his beard arced upward toward the threatening sky. Columbian troops were present to usher us along beneath the Depot's skylights, moving us hastily through the rubble. The wind was whistling through the blasted windows. Here and there I could see dud rockets lying about, along with unexploded artillery shells. Hundreds of dead Vox dotted the rubble, while at a sign before Comstock's broken Ozymandias a handful of Founders were strewn prominently over the rubble piles...all scalped.
On a makeshift wooden billboard names jumped out, finger painted in blood: Marlowe, Vandervald, Clark, Flambeau, Fink...Saltonstall. Above them these words were scrawled: "Tell us, Prophet, Do you see us coming?" Comstock's name was present, but his top knot missing...Fink's was not.
Though she shielded the boy from the sight, Elizabeth stood beside me, eyes dry as mine. "How could people do this?"
I shook my head, remembering the man I'd dined with on the First Lady. Memory of a frigid day in the Dakotas threatened. "Once people get their blood up, it ain't easy to settle it down again."
"This is on our hands, isn't it?"
"No. This isn't our fault. It's theirs. You don't import half a million people and treat them like slaves and expect to keep an orderly society. People won't stay down forever. This I know."
"You can't believe that we're innocent in all this..." She retorted. "I wanted to be free, you wanted..." She closed her eyes. "Please."
"Please, what?" I asked, feeling again the hardness in my heart. I knew why it was there, of course, for if I ever truly let go, my sins would burn me to ashes.
"Please, help us make this right." She anguished. "Help me make it right."
Hefting my gun in hand, I nodded to a trooper eyeing us and set us on our way. "There is no making this right..." I muttered. "Only surviving. What's done is done. Let's get the boy home and get out of here."
#
Under escort by a skittish squad of Columbian troopers, we headed out in single file. Despite my misgivings Columbia's finest didn't seem to pay us much heed. I suspect that battered as we were, we were unrecognizable...either that or they were worried for more immediate threats. In any case, we exited the Depot's foyer and expansive steps to a demolished city.
Beneath the storm swept skies red banners hung from the EMPORIA TOWERS billboard, it's "Exclusive Shopping" and "Luxury Living" blurbs obscured by the snapping rags. Corpses and the wreckage of cars littered the streets. Passing a burnt-out restaurant named "The Salty Oyster," we discovered a black Packard 1912 limo and other automobiles waiting alongside a trolley with the placard "DOWNTOWN" upon its fore. At the limousine a tall, dapper man in black tuxedo held a sign for 'Master Frederick Fink.'
"What's your gut tell you about this, Elizabeth?" I whispered.
"That I feel ill. How could I not with all of this?" Realizing she'd missed my intent, she glanced about. "Is...is there something wrong?"
I cocked my head, unable to shake the unease that had suddenly come upon me. "This is too easy. Drop the kid off with Jeeves up there and we're done."
"That's what we want, isn't it? Why is your stomach upset?"
"It's not."
Stepping between her and the man, I shielded them from his gaze and steered them towards the waiting trolley. As they mounted its steps Elizabeth began to speak. "Booker..." I mouthed to her to be quiet. Together we sat in a far bench seat, the boy in her lap. My head was on a swivel and the hair standing on the back of my neck.
Within moments the driver stood to look backward at us. He was a heavyset fellow whose white hair and short beard might have suggested Christmas were not a revolution underway. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please...a moment of your attention. I realize that you have all come in from Finkton and I am sorry for your loss, but you must see that Emporia has not been spared the ravages of these beastly days. A fight here is still underway. As we proceed to the Downtown and Market Relief Center, please know that you will see...unseemly sights. Remain quiet and aware for any threats and by no means leave the carriage, for your safety and ours. Thank you. We shall be on our way shortly." The trolley's bell rang and we were off.
As street corners slipped by guarded by Militia and a handful of wary Columbian Regulars, I regarded her with a mix of curiosity and confusion. "So, uh, Elizabeth. Why are you so keen on lock picking?"
"If you lock someone in a cage, they develop an interest in such things." She answered. "I won't be locked up again." She placed pinky-challenged hand upon my own bandaged appendage.
"You won't. I promise you."
"You know that's an oath you cannot keep." She whispered, looking at the bevy of deployed troopers. "Promise me that if it comes to it, you will not let him take me back." Gently she raised my hand and placed it about her throat. I'd not realized how terribly fragile it was...how fragile she was.
"It won't come to that. Alright? We dump the kid and we're out."
With a sigh Elizabeth's countenance fell. She turned away. As our trolley clattered along an ironically named Harmony Lane, to either side brownstone frontages were randomly burnt out, fire teams on station with water wagons and skyline delivered tanks to squelch the smolder remains. It seemed appropriate then that it had begun to rain.
"This is almost as bad as Finkton." I'd continued to hold her hand and stroked her finger. She looked at it.
"You still feel it, don't you?"
"Sometimes." Holding up her thimble digit in the diminished light. "Sometimes I almost feel like I'm touching something, or a stinging sensation." Her tangle of brown shifted about her loosened blue bow. "How..."
"I saw you in your apartments. The ones you hate so much." Still holding her hand, I continued. "Back there...what you asked me to do..."
"Let's...let's not discuss it."
"What did they do to you?"
Her eyes turned up from the boy…then to her hand…a hand she turned front and back. A hand that trembled. Though she didn't cry, I knew she wanted to. "If they take me back, that's death, Mr. DeWitt, or something so like it I cannot tell the difference."
#
The trolley came to a halt beneath the Bank of the Prophet. I looked at her and we waited patiently as the others left the car, waited until Freddy looked up and asked if we were staying on. She'd been thinking about her again, even though Fitzroy had died hours ago. Had she ever stopped? Elizabeth wiped her eyes and looked to her ward. "We're getting off now, Freddy. We just wanted to make sure the coast was clear."
"Coast was clear?" He asked.
"No one watching for us."
"My father always had men watching us." He answered without thought. Digesting the comment, I offered my hand to Elizabeth once more. "Ready?" She forced a smile and together we rose, venturing out into the gale.
By the time we set foot on the City Center's ruined circle it was coming down in heavy sheets. Lightning cracked nearby, striking one of the towers five hundred feet above and sending the boy snugging for Elizabeth's leg. Picking up our pace with that of the deluge, we sheltered under the red and white awning of Columbia Creamery Shoppe, its entrance grated and doors closed. A sign hanging from the doors said, 'Closed for Business.' Gaining my bearings as the rain came laterally, I saw a tower on the skyline not far away that looked familiar. "This way."
Despite all it had once been, Harmony Lane now catered to blacked carts and automotives amid a strafe of drenched and melting papers in street. To its sides the glass frontages were broken, lampposts bent over. Hanging from window and flagpole sheets streamed crimson into the streets and cobbled gutters.
"I keep thinking about that daydream you had...New York on fire." Elizabeth yelled as we cowered from the spray. "There's something about it!"
"Forget about it." I said, surprised.
"But Comstock...his prophecy. Me."
Forced to pass beneath a gap in the awnings, I pulled my vest from the boy's shoulders to shield them from the sudden sluice of rain. Thunder rolled through the man-made canyons. The handful of automobiles daring to wend the wreckage scurried for their destinations and shelter.
"He's a crazy old man with delusions of godhood, Elizabeth. I don't know why I even mentioned it to you. Roosevelt would blast Columbia from the sky if it even so much as approached the East Coast." Although I could barely see my tower through the downpour, the streets were beginning to look familiar...the Market ahead with Hudson's and Wilson Brothers down one way and Comstock Center down the other.
"That's my Uncle's." The boy said, pointing with an outstretched hand towards a four-story red brick masonry at the turn of the street. "Do you think he's all right?"
"I hope so." I said, looking to Elizabeth. With the storm battering the streets I knew that we needed shelter soon. "We're going to put you with some friends who'll take you there. It's too dangerous for us."
"Why?" He moaned, and I could hear in that singular word his craving for someplace safe...someone safe.
"Because if we take you to your Uncle directly, we're liable to end up dead."
#
I approached the Montgomery's house on the oblique, having Elizabeth remain with the child in the protective enclosure of a trolley stop. Furtively I swept along rain swept buildings to their door and summoned the courage to knock.
"We're not taking visitors today!" I heard a woman's voice say after a tense moment, accompanied by a hectic commotion. Spiders of water splashed my pant legs from the gutters. "I'm sorry, but you must leave!"
"I'm just returning your Skyhook." I yelled, rain streaming down the side of my face. After a moment I heard the door unlatch and crack open. Evelyn Montgomery's green eyes looked back at me, pallor white as a sheet. Behind her the woman's husband Archibald appeared with a shotgun, similarly bleak and unshaven. By their haggard appearance, I decided that we might have slept better than they had.
"You're back." Archibald said, nervously searching the rain behind me.
"I hope you don't mind, but we're in perilous need of assistance. I lied about the Skyhook."
Warily the pair looked to one another. Evelyn's pretty face was now framed by fallen hair, the bun I'd seen her in the previous day similarly fallen and nearly undone. Her eyes had seen more of Columbia in these last hours than she'd cared. "Come in." She finally said. Looking back across my shoulder, I nodded for Elizabeth to follow. As the two dashed across the drowned street, I stepped inside, securing the door for their arrival.
Elizabeth helped the child enter before taking my hand. Closing the doors behind us, I searched the boulevard for onlookers and thankfully found none...none, at least, who were willing to brave the lightning riven monsoon. "Thank you." I said as the lock clicked. "I'm glad to see you're both well."
"As well as can be expected." Archibald answered with cautious attention, inspecting his three new guests. Thunder boomed outside. Drenched not only in water but blood and worse, we must have looked a fright. "I must say, we're surprised to see you again, what after the Monument's destruction and the insurrection...we were certain you'd perished. Where is your accomplice?"
"He's...otherwise occupied. I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm out of options." Realizing that I still had my weapon in hand, I set it upon a nearby table. "I'd like to introduce you to my friends. The boy's name is Freddy..." Holding close to Elizabeth, the lad didn't answer. Instead, his eyes evinced only a glimmer of life. "And may I introduce, Elizabeth, uh...Comstock."
Evelyn looked at her husband and brushed that disheveled hair aside. "Elizabeth...Comstock?" She repeated, only slowly drawing her connection with the woman. "The...daughter of the Prophet?" For a moment the room was filled only with distant thunder and the sound of rain upon their windows.
"My father's no Prophet." Elizabeth replied, quite disaffected by the thought. "Not of God, at least."
"By all that is righteous and holy, then you are the Lamb?" Archibald practically exclaimed. Of all the people I'd encountered in Columbia, these two were the least likely to misplace their faith, yet the expressions upon their face were of a man and woman in the presence of the divine. Belief, I realized, had deep fangs.
"I'm nothing of the sort." Elizabeth said with a dismissive wave of hand. Eyes closed, she shook her head as if the very concept was poison. The blood, I noticed, had washed off. "And I'm no savior. My Father, if you can even call him that, he is a liar and a murderer. He and his filth are responsible everything that's transpired her in Columbia so please, do not place me upon such an undeserved pedestal."
"But you succeeded?" Archibald said with a glance toward me, still in awe despite Elizabeth's protestation. She is who you say?!"
"Yes, but we're still here. We need to get out of Columbia...presently that's not accomplished easily. We've been through a lot."
"As have we." He stated. "And I believe after the last day everyone needs to get out of Columbia, but why come to us?"
"This boy, really." I answered as the child looked up. "You might have seen him down the way in better times...he's Jeremiah Fink's son."
"Jeremiah Fink's son? Evelyn questioned. "Frederick Fink? Why, I thought I recognized him! His brother Albert lives just down the row!"
"Which is why we've come to you. Fink...Jeremiah Fink...the man is dead..." I sighed. "Slain by Daisy Fitzroy as was his wife. The boy's orphaned. Before we left, we...Elizabeth and I...we felt need to ensure he was safe with family. Seeing we're in demand by just about everyone here in the fair smoking city, we thought it best that someone else take him to Fink's brother. Someone we trusted." I looked at them. "That list is pretty short."
Evelyn had taken her husband's hand, hopelessly in awe of the drenched girl at my side. Archie wasn't much better, but at least he could speak. "Please. Come sit with us at least until the storm passes. Would you like something to eat?" With the both of us having not done so in a day and the boy perhaps the same, I was all too happy to assent.
"That would be kind of you." Elizabeth added.
Down a maroon carpeted hallway Montgomery's wife led our dripping selves, past walls hung with paintings and into their parlor...a chamber I'd not seen when last I'd visited. Between two white bookcases a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hung amid red drapery, the man delivering a speech in a hall, many men behind him, an American flag hanging overhead. Fetching blankets for each of us, Evelyn offered us plush seats and we accepted, the boy taking a spot beside Elizabeth on a longer couch.
"President Lincoln?" Elizabeth said, brushing her wet snake of hair back.
"Yes." Evelyn responded, walking to a small table to produce a tray of hot tea. Returning to our sitting, she drew a cup for each of us. "He is our inspiration."
I couldn't help but remember the Order of the Raven's own take on the man. "Rather dangerous having such a shrine here in Columbia, don't you think?" Though I spoke, their attentions were not upon me.
"Is this at Gettysburg?" Elizabeth asked, eyes upon the work, turning toward our hosts with life I'd not seen since her evince since her dispatch of Fitzroy.
"No, the Emancipation Proclamation before Congress, my Dear." Evelyn answered. "Delivered nearly a year earlier. It is widely seen as being the death knell to slavery in the United States."
"But not Columbia." She followed quietly.
The Montgomerys looked to one another. "This...this is perhaps not the time to discuss politics..." Archie responded. "But no, not in Columbia. Perhaps by the letter of the law slavery has no purchase here, but amongst the Irish there is a great deal of indentured servitude. It is also well known..." He said, looking at Fink's boy. "That certain captains of industry here in the city have arrangements which have resulted in what can only be described as bondage of negroes and Indians and Chinamen."
"Slavery." Evelyn asserted assiduously before taking a draught of tea. As she sipped an explosion echoed from down the street, along with the sound of repeating gunfire amid the tempest. The combat was far enough away to be less than threatening, but near enough to dissuade contemplation of ventures into the oncoming darkness. Both Archie and I looked reflexively to our weapons. "You would do you well to wait out the storm here this evening. I was preparing a small supper for myself and Archibald, but I'll make more. Upstairs we can offer you room and a bath. Perhaps a change of clothes. It seems the three of you have need of it."
I thought of yet another night trapped in Columbia, waiting for Comstock or the Vox to get lucky. "I'm afraid not. "We just came here to hand off the boy."
"And where will you go?" Archie said. Evelyn's husband had narrow gray eyes and a Romanesque nose. In disapproval a haughty air hovered about him. "The storm rages outside...surely you realize no flight shall be had to anywhere before morning at the earliest...even if the Aerodrome were to reopen. If you depart in this mess, you'll not only be beset by exposure but given over to Comstock's troops. Stay with us."
I sighed, glancing toward Elizabeth. The man had a solid argument. "Very well. We appreciate the hospitality."
Evelyn's eyes had hardly varied from Elizabeth. "I...I shall fetch dinner. I shan't be long." In deference she backed away, exchanging a glance with her husband before stepping out to the kitchen.
"Elizabeth..." Montgomery said to himself, tasting the name upon his tongue. She'd weighed their adulation, for it could be called nothing short, and it made her uncomfortable. "We had...never heard your name before. To us you have only been..."
"The Lamb. Yes...I know. As I've told you, you'd do well to dispel any notions that I am Heaven sent. I assure you I am not."
Montgomery had been leaning forward with intense interest. Having been admonished, he sat back into his high-backed chair. "Miss Elizabeth...I understand and sympathize with your sentiment, but you must know that great mystery surrounds you here in the city, much myth and some truth but of which who can tell? Only you. Evelyn and I, we have lived our adult lives in Columbia only to see our dreams undone. You are perhaps the only one left to us."
As he spoke Evelyn returned to the Dining Room opposite us and began placing the table with shaky hands. "I shall bring the bread on momentarily, though I am afraid the roast will take a bit more time. I do hope there is enough. I'd only planned for two."
"Whatever you have to offer shall be more than enough, Mrs. Montgomery." Elizabeth answered with a strained smile. Evelyn Montgomery grinned, took a step back and hurried out.
"My wife...pardon her, if you will. We seldom have such company." Looking upon us, Montgomery rose. "It might be awhile before she is ready. If you shall allow me to show you to the upper quarters, I'll fetch that change of clothing and indulge you in a bath. You look as though you warrant them."
Despite the blanket and warmth of an ebbing gas fire I was still shivering. This made the prospect welcome. "If you don't mind, we'd like to remain together."
He puzzled, looking to the girl. "In the same...chamber? I could offer you adjoining rooms."
"That will do." I conceded.
#
An hour later the boy lay asleep beneath the covers of a fine bed on the Montgomery's second floor. Having freshly bathed, Elizabeth stood in Evelyn's robe at the window looking outside. I buttoned my shirt.
"They seem kind people." She said, hand upon the glass pane. Beyond it the sky was dark and wind howling. Though the rain had passed, the wind rattled and lightning still flashed in the distance. "Do you truly trust them?"
"As much as I trust anyone here. All I can really say is that they helped me get to you." Walking toward the chair, I brought a stack of clothing and pair of boots to her. "The lady left these for you. She hoped they might fit."
Unenthusiastically she held the dress up. "How do you do it?" She finally asked, voice betraying the slightest tremble. "How do you...wash away the things that you've done?"
"You don't." I answered with the close of my eyes, wishing to God that I could. For all I'd done in my life, for all of my sins and transgressions, I'd never found solace in anything or anyone. At least not for long. "You just learn to live with it." The answer didn't seem to satisfy her. "I'll step out while you change. See you downstairs with the boy?"
"I think he'll sleep. I wish I could."
"You will." I promised, drawing close to her. The rain was pattering the window and her eyes turned upward to me.
"Considering the circumstance, you look very nice, Mr. DeWitt."
I tightened my neckerchief and glanced to my reflection in the glass panes. "It will do. Will you be long?"
She shook her head. "No. I might as well get on with this disaster."
I smirked. "We'll survive."
#
When I arrived in the Dining Room below Evelyn and Archibald were waiting. At my appearance the lady seemed to approve. "Elizabeth was still dressing. She said she'll be down shortly." In contrast to the meager setting before, the table was now laid out elegantly with five place settings. At the center steamed a golden-brown roast upon a platter, small but already sliced, complimented by side dishes of mashed potatoes, corn, greens, cornbread and a mound of butter. The smell was sumptuous, or, perhaps, I was simply famished. "This looks amazing."
Changed into a long-sleeved blue gown with hands clasped before her, Evelyn beamed. "Thank you."
I walked to the table and Archibald offered me a chair with the sweep of his hand. I drew it out, the utter insanity of the last few days a stark contrast to this. "Mr. DeWitt, I hope you don't mind me asking, but seeing as the radio has been blaring for two days straight of your menace to our citizenry, how is it that you've, err, managed to survive?" He offered me a cigar, which I deferred.
"I'm good at skulking about. The streets were crawling with Constabulary, and with the uprising now the Militia and Regulars are everywhere. Not to mention the damned Vox. If I'd not had the girl with me, I'd likely be dead."
"How is that so?" He asked.
"She's...not exactly a fighter but she has a way of, uh, helping in tight spots one wouldn't expect a girl to be able to."
With a glance toward my guns and gear upon the Sitting Room table, Archie attended a silver tray of bottled libations. "Evelyn and I noticed you seem to be a might handier with the artillery than she. I can see it in you...you're a soldier, aren't you?" As he spoke, he poured a round glass with caramel liquid. "Brandy?"
"Thank you." I accepted. I swirled it in the snifter. "I was."
"Was?" He questioned, drawing his own.
"I spent a decade and a half in the Army. More than I cared to, I admit, but a man has to make a living."
"Where did you serve?"
"Served? Many places. Most dusty. Some bloody."
"Yet you survived?"
"If you can call it that, yes, I did." I took a drink...a stiff one. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you know about the Vox Populi? Cornelius Slate, in particular."
"Slate?" Archie questioned. "Only that there was a great stink over him and his Loyalists over these last few months. Quite an uproar in fact. Slate was a highly placed figure in the Founder Establishment, the Commander of Comstock's Regular forces and greatly esteemed by his men...well, at least until the Prophet unveiled his statue in the Hall of Heroes."
"The Hall of Heroes? That place at the Arsenal?" I asked, remembering the insult I too had miffed over.
"Yes. I must say that Evelyn and I do not run in such circles, but I heard claim that the good Colonel took issue with the Prophet's assertion that he had commanded our forces during the Indian Wars and at Peking. Were you at Peking, perchance?"
"No. But I was at Wounded Knee. And Manila, for what that matters. I can assure you he weren't at neither. You know, I'd half imagined that with your sympathies we'd find Slate or Fitzroy here."
"I assure you that our relationship with the Vox is purely one of convenience. We abhor their manifesto, which, as you can see, has now inspired untold bloodshed."
"So, who is leading them?"
"Daisy Fitzroy." Archie said, looking over the rim of his glass. "One of Comstock's former servants."
"Fitzroy is dead."
The comment stopped him mid-drink. "Is she?"
I sipped mine. "She is."
He'd looked to continue his sentence but stopped before he could speak. Following his breathless gaze, I turned to find Elizabeth standing at the base of the stair, hair up and dressed in Montgomery wife's hand me down. About her shoulders she wore a jacket that matched the skirt's blue, though only a blue ribbed white corset adorned her torso. Above a very bare décolletage, her neck still bore the lace I'd bought her, the diving bird pendant upon it. By her expression it was obvious she'd heard every word. Both of us rose.
"Enchanting." Montgomery observed.
Evelyn returned now, eyes beholding the newest joiner. The exposed corset seemed to give her strain. "The blouse. Oh, dear God, please forgive me, I forgot the blouse."
"It's all right." Elizabeth said, putting on her best face after an obvious moment of disjuncture . Forward she stepped in subdued manner. "I…thought this very French when I put it on."
I took a stiff drink from my glass. "That's...not a bad thing. She likes France."
"You look...unbelievably lovely, my dear." Archie observed, long enough for Evelyn to deliver him a wicked elbow.
"Thank you." Elizabeth answered without life.
"You say Fitzroy is...is dead?" He continued.
"Yes, unfortunately." I confirmed, prying my eyes away from the girl. "Slain as she went to kill the Fink boy. By my hand." At my lie Elizabeth regarded me sharply, her disbelief at my assumption of her sin immediate. The return of my eyes stilled her. "There was nothing that could be done. She was determined to kill not only the boy's parents but the child too. I wouldn't cotton it."
Evelyn stood behind her chair as Archie gestured us to join them. "Then...the Vox are now led by Slate?"
Having risen with Elizabeth's entrance, I approached her side. "Or Cade. Or no one."
"The warship that was hanging over Finkton. That's not theirs, is it?" Archie asked.
I shook my head, trying not to stare at Elizabeth. Even in her tortured state, she could make the worst fashion faux pas appear as high couture. "No. It's Edmonton's."
"Your friend Edmonton's?" The Montgomerys said in shock.
With her eyes upon mine, I took Elizabeth's hand and drew the chair for her. "He's not my friend. And he sure as hell isn't Columbia's."
#
"Bavarians..." Archie spat sometime later. Having regaled the Montgomerys with the tale of our last days, both he and his wife were spellbound. "At least this Cade had the decency to resist." Evelyn's cuisine was as sublime as it had looked, remarkable considering the circumstance. As we dined, I began to realize that Elizabeth was taking her cues on etiquette from me...a huge mistake. She'd never before dined with others and was predictably wary of the prospect. The prayer at the start had particularly been interesting.
"Why can't they leave well enough alone?" Evelyn asked from her finished plate. "They have their own country...why usurp ours?"
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" I asked. "To throw off Comstock's yoke?"
"Not in this manner!" Evelyn retorted, passing the sliced roast my way. "Killing helps no one. Now there shall never be peace."
"Maybe there never was." I took another slice of meat. "Men were kept down by force. That's not peace."
As she'd spoken, Evelyn had continued to fret over Elizabeth's exposed bosom. "I...I'm so sorry about the blouse. I thought I'd included it but...well, I'm sorry. The dress was part of your mother's collection, you know."
"My mother's collection?" Elizabeth asked, looking up from a bite of potato. "I wasn't aware that my mother was such an inspiration."
"Oh, goodness, yes, bless her soul." Evelyn asserted. "She was everyone's heart when I was a girl. That was one of her favorites, and therefore of my own mother's...though in a less, er, revealing manner. Mind you, it's just a reproduction."
"Thank you nonetheless." Elizabeth answered, tugging the corset slightly higher. "I never knew my mother, you know. She died when I was young." Both of them hung on Elizabeth's words like holy pronouncement, and I suppose to them they were. Recalling my words with the couple on miracles and infidelity when we first met, I found it difficult to understand this veneration.
"And your father?" Archibald asked, what answer he was searching for I had no idea.
With a glance my way Elizabeth answered. "I never saw him. Never met him. When I was younger, I had tutors, so many people who attended to me. They were rather harsh and uncaring, though. They taught me to read and how to speak and dance, but as I got older their visits became fewer. I guess they were afraid of me. Eventually I was left to my own devices. I never understood why."
"They left you...left you alone there? In the tower?"
Holding a bite of roast, Elizabeth gazed at the tines of the fork protruding through, glinting sharply in the candlelight.
"And if they find us, they'll take her there again or worse." I continued. "Do...you have a way we might get out of Columbia should the Aerodrome not reopen?"
Montgomery teased chin between thumb and forefinger. "There are only two ways into and out of the city, and only one reliable. That is by airship...by which we secret our friends from the city into freedom. I would say that should the Aerodrome not reopen, perhaps one of Comstock's vessels or a commandeered Vox lighter would be your best way. There is always the possibility of a boat out of Battleship Bay, but that's problematic in its own right. You'd have to brave the North Atlantic, and as this passing storm has demonstrated that is not a cheery prospect."
"Commandeering an airship...a tough nut." I said, thinking to my debacle with Songbird.
"If you had help, perhaps not." Archie replied. "This Cade fellow you spoke of. Or Colonel Slate...they are with the Vox and have influence."
"I don't know how much. In fact, I don't know where the Vox end now and the Bolsheviks begin. Last I saw, Slate was in a wheelchair gasping for breath."
For a moment Montgomery seemed troubled. He glanced to both of us. "There is something you should know then, both of you. An Irishman I have acquaintance to had informed me that Comstock's man Preston Downs was in league with them."
"Downs." I said, remembering the name vaguely from Slate's harangue at the Good Time Club.
"Downs is...perhaps I should say was, Comstock's personal hound." Montgomery leaned forward. "At least until recently. For some reason that eludes my peers they had a terrific falling out. He hunted many an escaped bondage here in the city, and was notorious for his killing of opponents on a whim. He was, perhaps, our greatest fear. If he has turned coat, he would not do so for a paltry position nor a shallow reason. And if he holds any sway over the Vox, he likely does so with a vendetta..." He said, looking at Elizabeth. "One that might play out upon her person."
"Why me?" Elizabeth asked, dragged out of her silence.
"Because he cannot get at the Old Man. He can, however, get at what the Old Man loves...or at least values. That is, you. Were he seeking vengeance, this Cade you place your hopes upon might be hard pressed to lend aid."
"The way I look at it, we don't have much of a choice, do we? We're on Emporia and plum out of allies. Cade's it."
"Then it is settled. After we return the boy tomorrow, it seems we'll need to find you a way back to Finkton."
#
"You were awfully quiet down there." I said later as I turned down the bed upstairs. The night had not started auspiciously, and it ended less so, with Elizabeth quiet, distant and me ill at ease. With the lot of us exhausted, Archie had agreed to keep a watch in the parlor while his wife and guests slept. As Elizabeth had figured, the boy was fast asleep.
"Killing someone has a tendency to…to do that to oneself." She whispered. Sitting upon the covers next to the sleeping child, she resisted a yawn. "I can only imagine how he feels. He's barely said a word."
I looked at the pair, then out the window towards the smatter of lights that adorned Emporia's darkened rag of skyline. "He'll survive. You're not responsible for Daisy, Elizabeth. You only did what you had to do.
"But she's dead." She suddenly heaved. "And…and I killed her."
"And the kid's alive. He's still breathing because of you. How many people had Daisy killed? How many more would she have?" I sat her down beside me and her eyes, blue as the sky itself, turned up to mine and filled with tears. "I...I'm sorry it happened." For a moment we sat upon the edge of the bed next to one another. I wiped her cheek and she snuffed. "I'm sorry so many things have happened."
"Tell me about Wounded Knee." She whispered. "Why you don't want to talk about it."
"It's best you don't know any more than I already told you." I finally said, thrown back to somewhere I did not want go.
"Booker...please. I have to know. I have to know that I'm...I'm not alone in this."
This, I assumed, meant blood upon her hands. Thinking about what she'd said, I realized that was exactly what I had been all these years...alone. With blood on my hands.