Chapter 6:

A Brush with Death

Summer, 1880

Near late afternoon, on a warm and wet June day, the master of Prime Manor sat at his ornate desk with a pale tome open before him. In one hand he held a glass with which to closely examine the text, in the other hand he held a candle, though the room was lit already. The rain battered at the windows and added to an overall atmosphere of gloom that pervaded the chamber, as though something darker and heavier than the natural air sought to impose itself over the world.

"Scientiae absconditi: ut per visiblem invisibilibus," the man read aloud. A chill ran through him and his blood seemed to thicken in his veins as he discerned faint scratches below the lettering, written in what any observer might have taken for a deep brown ink. Optimus was nothing so ignorant or gently oblivious as that happy public, and knew all too well that what he held before him was only a fraction of the knowledge that his enemy had gathered, for Megatron still held the first and fourth volumes of the Codex Quæ Occidis.

Now in that paneled office, the sole chamber of the manor that he set aside as his and his alone save perhaps his personal wing, his imagination grew restless, haunted by the spectre of Lord Kaon. At times he saw the severe figure bent over the first volume and reading forth instructions for a device that would leave a victim's blood to boil in acidic agony. At other moments he saw before his mind's eye members of the wicked lord's house following one of the many maps within the volumes, one that led them to a pair of red shoes capable of making the wearer dance themselves to death.

And the worst of all visions that whispered into his waking dreams was the faint but persistent idea that some shadowy figure stood behind each of Lord Megatron's endeavors, some dread thing that moved through the city in the silence of midnight, to whom death was but a plaything. Where these thoughts came from, he could not say for certain, but many nights over the last two years had seen him start to wakefulness in something approaching terror: Lord Prime was utterly convinced that something was coming, something that perhaps even Megatron was unaware of, and its arrival would shift the delicate balance between the Houses.

A faint knock at the oak doors startled Optimus from his reverie, and in a moment's guarded haste, he dripped wax across the pages of the second volume of the Codex Quæ Occidis and pressed the book closed, sealing another chapter shut.

"Enter," he called, taking care to hide his nerves beneath a tone of gentle authority.

With a gentle squeal of protest, the heavy door swung open a fraction, revealing a thin young man in the darkness of the larger hall. At once, Lord Prime's features seemed to soften, and he beckoned to the lad to come into the office.

"Young Mr. Darby. What can I do for you?" All very formal and polite, but it was well known within the House that the widow's son had found a kind of kindred spirit in Lord Prime, and went to him for advice as often as he did to his own mother. For his own part, the nobleman seemed to regard the young man in much the same way that he viewed the younger members of his House, as the children he seemed fated not to have.

Jack had long since overcome the childish fright that had kept him from speaking more than a few words to his benefactor, though he had never outgrown the overwhelming respect he had for the man. Humbly, he informed Lord Prime that the Bull's Horn Band had returned from Hamelin, and would soon leave the train station. Had they found young Mo Li? Oh yes, she'd slipped along just as bold as you please, and had somehow managed to steal the Ratcatcher's Flute while the lads fought Kaon men. Hadn't he better fetch the coach to bring them back? Oh no, he'd left them money to hire a cab.

The younger man's eyes were inexorably drawn to the pale leather cover of the Codex Quæ Occidis, and shivered despite himself. "I don't believe you've ever had that out on the writing desk before, sir," he remarked.

Lord Prime stood and cast a cloth over the offending volume. "I have not," he agreed, "It is a foul thing to behold, no less so on a day like today."

The candles continued to burn, heedless of the gathering storm outside the manor, and placidly spread their glow in cheerful defiance even as the distant rumble of thunder heralded worse to come. The patterns of light and shadow flickered across the faces of the pair, and Optimus asked whether the boy had any other business to discuss, or whether he'd simply wished to speak with Lord Prime for the sake of company. With a smile of boyish guilt, Jack admitted that he had rather stay in the upper floor of the manor than go back to the sitting rooms at present, for Doctor Rach was in a foul mood.

"He's quite certain, you know, that there must be something unnatural about this weather," said he as both exited the study at a sedate pace. "Over and again he tells us all that it's quite against the almanac's predictions, and as no-one can actually find an almanac less than three years old in the house, we've no way of confirming or curtailing his complaints!"

"I see," Lord Optimus straightened his neck-tie and nodded, and for a moment the temptation was strong within him to dismiss it all as the workings of a mind overtaxed with worry. But the good doctor was only very seldom mistaken, and to disregard his complaints on the basis provided would surely prove to be a mistake, perhaps a grave one. "Well then, my boy, perhaps we had better ask Isaiah what the almanac's predictions were meant to be, eh?" He pasted on an unconcerned smile and took the stairs two at a time, as though he were a lad.

"Tell me, Jack, what do you think of it all?" the nobleman asked quite abruptly, when they'd reached the landing. "What are your thoughts on the Codex Quæ Occidis?"

The young man was caught off guard by the question, and thought a moment before answering. "My lord, I have not seen the pages of the book as you have, and I can only guess at their content by the uncanny incidents we have so often found ourselves in. I cannot explain it, but I think that I should be more frightened of the man who wrote the four volumes of the Codex Quæ Occidis than of any device within its chapters. It must take a heart full of the most dreadful hatred of man to produce so many ways to remove them from the mortal coil."

As he spoke, his voice grew faint and his eyes took to shifting back and forth, as though he feared that someone might listen in. As with the Foiches, the Shackletons, as with Mo Li, young Mr. Darby had been forced to grow up perhaps a little sooner than he might have otherwise, for the House of Kaon very soon identified them as the allies of Lord Prime. Jack had established himself as a man of an even temperament: carefully calm in agitating situations and determined once provoked to action, though of no considerable strength. (By a degree of opposite factors, Mo Li had so grown out of the fear of her parents finding her that she approached all danger as but a temporary hurdle, and one to be leveled rather than circumnavigated, for hers was a temperament that knew no fear. )

Lord Prime set a hand on the boy's shoulder, meaning to comfort him, but he could not deny the gloom that settled on his own shoulders, for it was the very fear that had begun to plague his dreams. "Indeed, Jack," he said in a hushed tone, "I can scarcely believe that a human could write such an abomination, even knowing the corruption that lurks in the hearts of all men. But let's not speak any more about it at present." He had, as he told young Darby, an errand in mind that he could not attend to himself.

Though the pouring rain and its accompanying storm did give him pause in assigning the task, Optimus thought it best to get the younger lads out of the manor for a time. Hagen had been put very out of countenance to discover that Mo Li had slipped along to Hamelin after he had already been told he could not go, and by proxy little Raphael was peevish as well. It wasn't a mission, nor even a task of any great importance, but in allowing Hagen, Raph, and Jack to go alone, Optimus hoped it would assuage the younger two.

"I wonder if you and the other lads might make a trip to Dr. Rach's flat and bring back his black bag? He's left it behind again, and I have a suspicion growing upon my mind that we shall have need of it before long."

Jack was only too eager to agree, for any chance to attempt to repay Lord Prime for his kindness to the Darby family was quickly seized and acted upon. Likewise, Raphael was quite ecstatic to have the chance to leave the manor, rain notwithstanding, and Hagen was nearly down the front steps before they caught him long enough to explain the errand. With buoyant spirits undampened by the storm, the three set out for Dr. Rach's apartment, part of a dilapidated house very much within the poorer parts of London.

There were others abroad that evening whose spirits were also determined, though as black as pitch. It was seldom indeed that Lord Megatron left his dwelling-place for reasons unrelated to the pressures of society or the testing of a weapon of the Codex. It stood to reason, then, that if he was out and about on that foul and stormy afternoon, there must have been devilry afoot.

This was certainly the case, as Megatron's many tinkerers and inventors of ingenious devices - whether willing supporters of his cause or otherwise - had at last succeeded after many months in the construction of one of the devices in the fourth volume: a gauntlet capable of harnessing the power of lightning and electricity, and then using it as a weapon. It was a crude affair, little more than a padded falconer's glove wrapped 'round with copper and gears. The glove puttered and hummed most alarmingly as it sat upon his wrist, and Lord Kaon gave it a black look from beneath heavy brows. Too many endeavors that might have otherwise immortalized him in the scientific community, or granted him a devastating advantage over the House of Prime, had either gone haywire or been stopped cold by Prime and his ilk.

His inventors' generous patron would likely grow impatient soon, though Megatron had yet to see him raise his voice above a drawing-room whisper. It was certainly more prudent to test the device before claiming success, as Mme Clamat was wont to do. A well-built, solid man of forty and nine, Megatron of Kaon was hardly one to be disturbed by the weather, be it rain or fog. He eschewed umbrellas or hats and strode bareheaded beneath the downpour behind Bajāna along the dark and winding streets.

"What your purpose could be in leading me so far from the house, I hardly know, Bajāna," said the man in a growling sort of voice, "Unless you intend to divert suspicion from Kaon should the gauntlet prove to be in working order."

"Divert suspicion," the uncanny mimic agreed. The rain soaked into the blue robes that swathed him head to foot, and the material hung like dark drapes, blending into the shadows. He halted at the edge of an alley and, sticking the toes of his boots and his fingers into cracks between the stones, began to climb up the walls of a house as though he had been a spider in the most alarming fashion. From his vantage point, he perched gargoyle-like with his hawk upon his shoulders, and gestured twice with his left arm, by which he meant to signal his master that the intended test subject was two streets over.

The cruel men marched onward through the downpour, in the direction of two old houses that had been broken up into individual flats that could be rented very cheaply. At that very moment, three lads of sixteen, fourteen, and twelve stood upon the doorstep of one of the two houses, entreating the landlady for entrance.

The woman who collected the rent in the block of flats where Dr. Rach lived had an evil look about her, as of someone who delighted in gossip and malicious news. She glanced down her long nose at the trio on her front step and would not hear of them entering, for of the three, two were Irish. The general noisesome clatter of the city at large was somewhat muffled by the falling rain, and as Hagen had appointed himself spokesman-in-general for the lads from House Prime, what sound the city retained was soon drowned out altogether.

"See here, you wicked creature," the boy said in rather shocking language, "Just you stand aside and let us fetch the doctor's bag, like. It's lashing out here, and you'd leave a wee thing like this lad-" and here he threw an arm around Raphael's shoulders, who had the decency to look weak and sickly- "out where he may catch cold?"

The woman said she hardly cared what happened to the boy so long as they got off of her front porch, and she threatened to call the police if they did not leave. "I daresay you won't!" Hagen argued, "For if you don't let us inside this instant, I'll call for Inspector Fowler of Scotland Yard, and tell him your establishment failed an inspection!"

This was hardly an idle threat, for Hagen Shackleton had so often been a nuisance to the police that they had all become rather fond of him, and would likely readily agree to most favors he asked of them. As it happened, the landlady had been avoiding inspections for her dimly-lit and poorly-kept flats, and could not afford the possibility of a surprise inspection. Grudgingly, and with very bad grace, she stepped back and allowed that only one of the three boys should come inside to fetch Rach's medical kit from his flat. As Jack had actually been to the doctor's flat a few times before, he was sent up to retrieve the bag while the other two boys waited beneath the eaves.

Narrative taken up by Inspector William Fowler

I arrived at Prime Manor in the midst of a thunderous downpour, alongside the Bull's Horn Band, which had just returned from Hamelin, unless I was mistaken. We greeted each other cordially at the door, and were soon drying our coats before a fire in the parlor.

"My dear Inspector! What can have brought you to the manor in such terrible weather?" asked Widow Darby - a very charming lady who lives with her son in the manor; I am given to understand that she is a cousin of Lord Prime's - "Surely you cannot have heard of the Band's success in Hamelin already?"

She was not quite as interested in my answer, perhaps, as she was in drying off the unkempt young lady who had trailed in with the Irishmen. I recognized the girl to be Lord Prime's ward, Mo Li, who lived with the secretary. How she had managed to slip along with the Bull's Horn Band to fight the Ratcatcher was a tale that staggered belief, but as it was not the first time she had done such things, no one was particularly out of countenance.

Winston bustled about, giving all and sundry hot mugs of tea, despite the overall humidity of the outdoors, and scolding that we should all catch our deaths of cold. My news was rather urgent, however, and so it was decided that tea would have to wait until after I had spoken to the master of the house. I was ushered into his study, where he sat frowning down upon the flute that young Mo Li had stolen from the Ratcatcher. He had stopped up all the holes with wax, and now seemed to be considering how best to be rid of the pernicious thing.

"You might just toss it into the fire," I offered as I entered the room. He rose and shook my hand heartily, expressing his apologies for not contacting me sooner. "I'm afraid I did not come about the Hamelin case," I admitted, and was forced to get straight to the heart of the matter.

I told Lord Prime that, on that very morning, one of my detectives had found a man near the Kaon estate, dead. He had been one of the scientific community who had disappeared several weeks prior to the incident, and for all my efforts I had been unable to locate him. He had severe burns upon his face and seemed as though he had been struck by lightning, despite the rain only beginning after his body was found. Clutched in the cold hand of the unfortunate victim was a scrap of paper that said only, "So it begins".

"Lightning, did you say?" Lord Optimus looked interested. "Do you have the paper now?" When I handed the little torn piece to him, he seemed to recognize the writing. At once, a change came over him, and the blood seemed to drain from his face.

"Inspector, gather the doctor and follow me!" he cried out, and darted out the door past me and down the stairs like a madman, shouting, "I did not think! Hurry my friend, before it is too late!"

I did not learn what he meant until we had taken a cab to the doctor's place of residence, and came upon a terrible sight. The robed assassin known as Bajāna had got Hagen Shackleton by the collar, and had a knife poised to gut him. The masked man had never forgiven the lads for trapping his beloved hawk, years ago. The Darby lad had Bajāna by the wrist and was barely keeping the blade from Hagen's ribs. Even as we exited the cab and hurried towards them, the young Foiche boy did something rather rash.

We were not close enough to hear what it was that he said to the taller figure beside the assassin, but as I approached I heard the loathsome voice of Lord Kaon snarl, "In my childhood, such impertinence was met with a caning. I should think that in today's hardened generation, something more drastic is required."

He raised his fist, on which sat a curious device of metal and wires, and a bolt of something like lightning shot out and struck the boy in the midsection, knocking him backwards and onto the street.

Narrative continued by members of the House of Prime

There was a roar of outrage, and forever afterward, no one was quite certain who had uttered it. Bajāna did not move from his spot, so unaffected by the vicious attack that he merely turned his attention back to his attempt to kill the Shackleton boy. Doctor Rach hurried to the fallen child's side as Lord Prime sprinted past him like an avenging angel, sword drawn in one hand and pistol in the other.

"By heaven, Megatron, if that boy dies I'll see you hang for it!" he cried, and swung out with his rapier.

The lord of Kaon drew a blade of his own and back and forth they traded a hail of blows so that sparks leapt from the steel only to be extinguished by the dark and grimy rain. In the midst of the thunderstorm they battled, and in a fit of rage, Optimus struck Megatron with a blow that split his arm from shoulder to elbow. The older man roared more after the fashion of a wounded bear than a human being, and Bajāna dropped Darby and Shackleton in an instant to attend to him.

By this time, the police had hastened to the place, having been alerted by the shouting and the sound of Inspector Fowler's whistle. Lord Kaon and his assassin had vanished into the storm in the blink of an eye, leaving only the aggrieved party as witnesses to what had taken place. With a cut above his eye and his coat in a state of disrepair, Lord Prime put away sword and pistol and hurried to kneel beside the very youngest Foiche.

"How does he fare, Samuel?" he asked in grave tones. On the stones, Raphael lay still, barely breathing at all.

"I've got his heart beating again, but we've got to get him inside," the doctor answered grimly, "He was lucky. Very lucky, in fact, for the electricity missed his heart and seems to have gone just beneath the lungs. He's been burned, badly in fact, but once he's in my flat I've a better chance of treating him."

The doctor stood and stepped back as Lord Prime lifted the boy and pushed past the landlady at the door, who had watched the entire affair in silence. As the rest of the party followed in somber silence, Jack halted beside her with a dark look wholly unusual to his demeanor.

"You could have prevented this," the young man said in a low voice, "You let those men attack that boy. You let it happen."

There was some intensity about his eyes that deeply unnerved the landlady, and she shut herself away in her rooms and did not emerge until they had all left. Jack hurried up the stairs to find the men gathered around a bed, where Raphael lay. The electricity had burned through his shirt and left deep red marks reminiscent of ice fractals in shape, and Dr. Rach was applying an ointment to them while Hagen stood beside his friend's head with a damp cloth. Lord Prime paced the room like a caged tiger as Rach worked feverishly to save the lad's life.

"I shouldn't have sent them out," Optimus stopped to remark to the inspector, "I ought to have kept them indoors regardless until everyone was home. All the same, I thank you for warning me in advance that the men of Kaon were about. If you had not, I do not think we would have reached Raphael in time." Then he withdrew and continued to pace until he caught sight of Jack at the door.

"Mr. Darby," he motioned the lad to join them, "What happened? Can you tell the inspector anything of the weapon Lord Megatron used, or his intentions in interacting with you?"

There was still anger visible on Jack's face as he tried to describe the gauntlet Megatron carried, then he murmured, almost as an afterthought, "He seemed surprised to see the lads, when I rejoined them, and he cast an odd look at Bajāna. I think that the former must have been looking for a target to test the machine, and the latter must have marked Raph and Hagen for death." Even as he uttered the words, Jack's hands clenched into fists and his eyes bore the same anger as every other man in the room.

At the mention of the assassin, the patient moaned, as though coming out of a nightmare. When hastily asked by the doctor how he fared, he remarked only that his chest pained him and that he was thirsty. Scarcely holding back tears, Hagen took hold of his hand and declared that Raph now had battle scars that would make even Mo Li jealous.

"That is, you understand, provided my brother doesn't shut me away for the rest of my life following this...incident," Raphael croaked, but he managed a weak smile at Dr. Rach and his best friend.

Across the room, Jack stood beside Lord Prime and Inspector Fowler, each wearing identical frowns, arms crossed in contemplation.

"This entire affair seems out of character for Lord Kaon," Fowler complained, "He was seen by enough witnesses for me to put out a warrant for his arrest after this assault. What possible motive could the man have had for doing this himself? Surely he knew he would not be able to hide his involvement!"

"Perhaps," Jack suggested, "He meant to kill the three of us long before you arrived. It is true that Hagen and Mo Li and Raph and I did cause him quite a bit of difficulty this last winter. It may be that he realized the advantage of our youth and size and meant to stop a problem before it became worse."

During this exchange, Lord Prime was curiously silent. There were dark premonitions circling his thoughts that he could not share with the others, especially not the younger members of his House. There could be only one reason for Lord Megatron to test a weapon for himself: it was meant for another, someone that somehow even Megatron feared. He had seen the frenzy with which he defended himself, how zealous he was in protecting the gauntlet, and the flicker of what was almost fear in those cold eyes. Optimus had seen him that way only once before, when he was a lad and Megatron had come to visit his father, pursued by some enigmatic figure from his distant past.

Ignorant of the conversations around him, Lord Prime stared out the tiny window into the unnatural storm, his jaw clenched so tightly that all his face was white. "Who are you afraid of, Megatron?" he wondered.

Bajāna bound up the wound on Lord Kaon's arm, in secret rage and indignation that he was unable to prevent it. The nobleman sat in the darkness of one of the many safehouses he had in the city, and across from them stood a slim and aristocratic figure, of a menacing cut.

"I see that you have injured yourself, my poor friend! You must take greater care," the voice said with a gentleness that was somehow slick with hypocrisy. A hand as white as bone, without a speck of color about it, reached down towards the larger man's bleeding arm. Adder-like, Megatron's other hand shot forward and caught hold of the man's wrist in a grip like a vise.

"The gauntlet was promised to you, but only the gauntlet. You'll not have anything else of mine."

The shadowy figure drew back, as though wounded, and smiled, what little light there was reflecting off of sharp white teeth. "Do not forget, Megatron of Kaon, to whom you owe your advances in power. I am sure you did not mean to be insulting, but I do recommend greater care in the future, for I become...irritable when addressed discourteously."

He bowed once, then melted back into the shadows with a grace that not even Bajāna could hope to attain. Lord Megatron looked upon the spot he had just occupied with a disquieted spirit, and kicked the pale tome he had been reading beneath his chair.

"We shall see who must take greater care, Count Polidori. We shall see."