A Curious Beginning

“Do you think he prayed?”


“He did. He was a righteous man, whatever that means. But I don’t believe we won because God was on our side or because our men prayed more or cared more. We won because we had bigger guns.”

“So might was right,” I observed.

“That’s how it often is in the world,” he reminded me. “But sometimes right wins simply because justice demands it.”

“You sound terribly certain.”

“So should you,” he admonished. “A captain can never show fear. It’s bad for morale.”

I gave a sharp laugh. “And I am the captain of this little endeavor? Are you content to be led into battle by me?”

“You’re as fine a man as any I knew in the navy,” he assured me. “And if I did not give you command, you would only take it.”

“True,” I admitted. I toyed with Huxley’s ears. “Thank you. I feel better now.”

He gave me a long look. “Good.” He bent to retrieve his hammer.

“Stoker?”

“Yes, Veronica?”

“What do you think the odds are that we will survive this meeting?” The lump from my throat was gone, and my voice no longer trembled.

He considered this a moment. “One in five,” he pronounced.

My heart plunged to my feet. “And still you are willing to bet on us?”

His smile was dazzling. “Any man who bets against us is a fool.”

? ? ?

My invitations had specified nine o’clock in the evening at Stoker’s warehouse. The time and place had been chosen with care. I had selected an evening appointment to allow the gentlemen sufficient time to receive the invitation and prepare. I had decided upon Stoker’s workshop because it was the nearest we could come to a higher-ground advantage. We knew they were coming, and forewarned was forearmed, I pointed out to Stoker. He grumbled extensively about sitting ducks, but he had secured the back windows; the little yard behind was surrounded by a high, stout wall that admitted no entrance, and the sole front door was heavily barricaded. There was no way they could gain entry without our knowing they were coming.

The early evening, predictably, crawled and then raced and then slowed again. Time played tricks upon us so that one moment we were lamenting the length of the day, and the next we were hurrying to finish our preparations.

“Little wonder it seems long,” he pointed out. “It is almost Midsummer Day.”

I did not reply. I was busy admiring our handiwork. Together we had cleared a large space in the center of the workshop. We had extinguished the lamps, and shadows gathered in the far corners of the place. From the gloom sharp teeth gleamed and eyes glimmered—hints of the mounts we had pushed to the perimeter of the room. The shelves we could not shift easily were left in place, but the great jars of floating specimens lent an unearthly note, like something straight out of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece. One could easily imagine the touch of a galvanic wire bringing all of them suddenly, horribly to life.

Now the cauldron was centered in the middle of the workshop, drawing the eye and demanding attention.

“We needn’t do this, you know,” he informed me at one point. “There is a perfectly serviceable stove.”

“You are forgetting the power of theater,” I said. “I want to create an effect they will always remember.”

“Perhaps you are your mother’s child after all,” he replied. But Stoker himself was not averse to a little theatricality, I noted. He had divested himself of coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth when we returned to his workshop and he made no effort to resume them again. Instead, he rolled his sleeves to the elbow, baring the asklepian tattoo upon his forearm. He had put on his eye patch as well; that might have been from fatigue—although it did occur to me he enjoyed the air of menace it conferred upon his appearance.

Once the cauldron was in place, we kindled a fire within it, burning stacks upon stacks of the old newspapers and broken shelves until the flames rose red and hot into the darkening air of the warehouse. We flung open the windows overlooking the Thames, long windows that stretched from near the floor, barely above the level of the water, to twelve feet or more overhead. Stoker had climbed like a monkey to open the skylights, and the smoke from the fire streamed out.

“‘Yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,’” I quoted.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t feel particularly auspicious to quote Job,” Stoker said with a repressive look. He turned to me just as the clock struck nine. “It is time.”