Thursday, 8 November, 1888
Arundel Hotel
Someone was stamping on her skirts, calling out her name. Cynda curled up tighter, the sorrow so strong she thought it might crush her.
“Jacynda?” a voice called near an ear, followed by a deep, racking cough.
“Theo?”
She found herself on the floor of the hotel room, in his arms, his smoky face inches from hers. His scalp wound had opened up again, bright blood trickling against blackened skin. He looked as destroyed as she felt.
They embraced, hard. When they broke apart, he studied her anxiously.
“Are you injured?” he rasped.
Cynda responded by trying to cough out a lung. She felt something cold against her neck. Dinky Doc. Her breathing eased.
“You, too,” she advised.
He reset the device and then treated himself. A few breaths later his wheezing diminished.
“We have to stop this,” she said, trying to rise.
Theo caught her arm, helping her up. “I’ll let Klein know what’s happening,” he said. “You get some rest. We’ll figure out what to do.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he put a single soot-covered finger on her lips. “Please, just do what I ask.”
She didn’t protest as he led her to the bedroom. When he offered her a wet cloth, she cautiously washed her face, wincing at the petite burns. He was doing the same in the basin, stripped down to his trousers, braces hanging free. As he cleaned himself, she kept removing smoky clothes until she reached a final petticoat and her onsie. Then she leaned back in the chair, eyes still stinging. They kept opening and closing of their own free will.
There was at least four or five miles between Whitechapel and Trafalgar Square. In one week, it’d turned to ruin. Her mind began to shut down, overwhelmed at the enormity of what they faced. “I have to stay awake,” she murmured.
“You won’t be able to. I gave you something to help you sleep. Just don’t fight it.”
“You what?” she asked groggily.
“Never mind.” With Theo’s urging, she crawled into the bed. He jammed her interface under the pillow.
“Theo…”
“We’ll stop this, I promise.”
She felt a lingering kiss on her forehead.
“Don’t go anywhere without me,” she murmured. “It’s too dangerous.”
Then there was oblivion.
~??~??~??~
“I refuse to accept this. Until those explosives are found, you are still with Scotland Yard, do you understand?” Chief Inspector Fisher insisted, his back to Keats. They were alone in his office and though the initial reunion had been poignant, his superior’s attitude had changed the moment the sergeant had handed in his resignation.
“The men don’t want me here,” Keats replied, expecting this argument. That was plain enough. Only a few had come up to him and shook his hand, signaling their pleasure at his acquittal. The rest had pointedly kept their distance, as if his misfortune might somehow be communicable.
“Their attitudes will change,” Fisher replied. “Give it time.”
Keats shook his head. “Theirs might. Mine will not, at least in the short term. It’s all wrong now. In truth, I have little faith in what we do anymore.”
His superior turned toward him. “I must admit I feel the same, but we have a duty to perform. Until those explosives are secured, this city is at risk.”
“Sir, I—”
“I need your expertise, Keats. Do this for me, if not for the Yard.”
Keats looked away, thinking it through. There was more here than just the explosives. Fisher would be vindicated if they brought this case to a successful conclusion. He acquiesced. “As you wish, sir.”
The chief inspector openly sighed in relief. “You believe Flaherty’s claim he has no knowledge of where the explosives are hidden?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Blast,” Fisher muttered. “Who do you think has them now?”
That was the question Keats and Alastair had argued most of the previous night. All indications pointed toward the Transitives. Now he had no choice but to stoke Fisher’s suspicions regarding his kind.
“Sir, I think it’s best we discuss that outside of this building.”
Fisher eyed him. “I see.” He stuck Keats’ resignation letter into a drawer, then collected his hat and coat. “Let’s take a stroll along the Thames.”
~??~??~??~
Friday, 9 November, 1888
St. Paul’s Cathedral
Theo’s second visit to Lord Mayor’s Day was less fiery than his first. He arrived at half past nine in the morning, dressed in his best clothes and promptly bribed himself into the choicest vantage point in London: the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He’d hoped to be alone, but that wasn’t the case. There were a few others up there, including a family. The eldest daughter kept shooting him coy glances when she thought he wasn’t looking.
He turned his attention to the view. It was breathtaking, though wet. Still, the rain didn’t seem to dampen the festive mood on the streets. People were milling about, setting up in their favored locations to watch the Lord Mayor’s Show. He remembered seeing it as a child, fascinated by the golden coach that carried the Lord Mayor to the Royal Courts, and the wicker figures of the two giants, Gog and Magog, the guardians of the City of London.
In any other circumstance, he would have felt on top of the world. He was experiencing life as it really was in the late nineteenth century. Now he understood why Harter lived for this sort of adventure. It had been so many years since he’d felt this alive. What was technology compared to this?
Theo peered down at the street. He knew what was about to happen, but if he tried warning people, who would believe him? He could go to the government, but that risked exposing the Transitives or getting him locked up as a loony.
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” he muttered.
Now I sound like Jacynda.
Hours passed. Just as he was about to head down the stairs, the first explosion lit up the sky. It was to the northeast of the church, near Bethnal Green.
Below him, people on the street grew uneasy, talking amongst themselves. He made note of the time on his interface: half past eleven, just about when the Lord Mayor reached the Royal Courts of Justice. Precisely five minutes later, another detonation.
The family hurried down the stairs, along with the other onlookers. At street level, people began to disperse, moving toward their homes. Theo took a deep breath and waited. Two blasts were not enough to create the destruction he’d witnessed.
With clockwork precision, ten more explosives followed at exactly five minutes apart, spreading in a line from north to south, the final one near Limehouse.
Theo frowned. That didn’t explain the Rotherhithe fires. Gritting his teeth, he waited. Ten minutes after the last blast in the East End, they began again on the south side of the river. There were seven of them and they were exactly twenty minutes apart.
After making the requisite trip to empty his bladder, it’d taken him two transfers to zero in on the location of the first explosion. The trips took their toll, rewarding him with a buzzing head and a churning stomach. Still, he was where he needed to be. Jacynda could not handle this sort of travel now. Though her Endorphin Rebound was in remission, it could easily return. They couldn’t chance that.
He was the best choice for this—the freshest of the Rovers.
A Rover? Not really. He didn’t have what it took to do this day to day. What he did possess was an analytical mind, and that might tip the balance.
Once he’d found the location of the first explosion, he cautiously moved into a dismal rear yard behind an equally dismal tenement. Mud puddles dotted the ground. The yard was a jumble of abandoned items, all of it useless. Victorians wasted little. From recycled dog muck to ashes from the fireplace, they found a use for everything. If anything was left out where it could be stolen, it was truly junk.
Something caught his notice—a half-sized barrel jammed up against the gas pipe, partially covered with a ratty tarp. It would have been easy to miss it in the scattered debris. Theo knelt and gently pulled back the covering. Something was scrawled in red paint on the side of the barrel.
“R12:7.” He frowned. Twelve explosions in the East End, seven in the Docklands. What did the “R” stand for?
Three sticks of dynamite were attached to the back of the cask, one with a detonation cord. There didn’t appear to be any other mechanism to trigger the explosion, which meant the bomber would have to go from barrel to barrel to start the process.
“Too crude,” he said, frowning. Yet the detonations had been precisely five minutes apart. How did they accomplish that?
Now what? If he moved the device, someone would know he’d been here.
Theo returned the tarp to its original position and stepped back. A moment later he was on the move, in search of the next site.
~??~??~??~
Thursday, 8 November, 1888
Arundel Hotel
Six p.m. on the dot. Cynda snapped her interface shut with more force than necessary, swearing under her breath. She’d been put to sleep about eleven in the morning and now it was seven hours later. No Theo.
“You’re a dead man, I swear it,” she groused.
“You can’t murder your boss,” Mr. Spider advised, scooping up a scone morsel from a plate on the writing desk.
“Why not? He drugged me.”
“He knew you needed rest.”
“Okay, so I’m rested. Where is he?”
“Playing Rover. Why don’t you just admit it? You’re worried.”
“Hell yes, I’m worried. Do you have any idea of what will happen if he gets hurt while I’m supposed to be watching him?”
The arachnid gave her a stern look. “It’s more than the paperwork and you know it.”
She opened her mouth to toast the little nuisance, and then groaned. “Yeah, I know. I’ve grown rather fond of him.” More fond than was probably sensible. “He might be smart, but he’s not a Rover. He doesn’t have our instincts. Those only come with experience.”
“Neither did you in the beginning.” The creature scoured the plate in search of crumbs. “Are there any more scones?”