Gathering Storms: Of Beasts and Burdens, 03 Apr 1870
Sunday, 03 April 1870
London
Injured though she was the night before, Sarah (Varney's hired companion for the evening) recovers well and is soon released from hospital.
Thackery decides to do something about the whole Seamus Bourne business. The Irish vampire mentioned he'd been turned by a Romanian vampire when he was abroad. Well, then, to protect England from being overrun by Irish (and other undesireable) vampires, we must pursue the Romanian vampire down and kill him or her.
Simple. He stirs himself and Isabelle to get ready.
Meanwhile the Finches are summoned to Selene's lab in Lambeth. They are driven in a government carriage back to the courtyard complex. There are riots cropping up all over London as the Beast folk succumb to the mysterious plague afflicting them. Something must be done as soon as possible, before the violence becomes too widespread to contain. On the ride over the Finches can hear the faint noise of one of the riots occurring nearby. They are ushered in to the Captain of the Guard for the lab compound and he tells them why they are here. The original Floridium soltine dose was good enough to work on Billy the night before. Make more please and cure Selene. As Ariadne is credited with devising the cure, she's put to work in Selene's lab to start making more Floridium serum.
Pieter accompanies Ariadne but is soon drawn off by one of the other scientists working in the adjacent building (#9), Dr. Archibald Tolford. He has a stereoscope that has need of repair. Pieter goes and sees the man is working the same sort of field as Selene. Animals amalgamated into fantastic creatures adorn the walls and sit in cases. They are all dead and preserved by taxidermy. Pieter takes up the stereoscope and after measuring the pupil distance of Tolson, gets to work fixing the broken instrument. Pieter decides some discreet snooping around might be in order. Something about Tolson doesn't sit right with Pieter.
Pieter explains that he and Ariadne are making a magical field detecctor and would like to test Selene's creatures to see if their fields are stronger than unaltered creatures. Tolson makes polite responses and then slips out to let Pieter work undisturbed. As he leaves, he slips two vials of something off one of the lab tables. Pieter spies this in the corner of his eye but does not mention it.
Tolson goes to Selene's lab and asks if he might assist her in making the cure. Ariadne assures him she's fine. He compliments her on her accomplishments. She thanks him and keeps on working. Tolson persists in his offer to assist.
Is she sure that the serum will work?
Yes, it will. Please leave, Ariadne says. She must get back to work.
But is she 100% sure it will work? he persists in asking. Are these her notes? He goes through them without waiting for permission.
Yes, she is 100% sure it will work.
How much longer before she's got enough to cure Selene? he asks.
By late afternoon, she answers, frowning quizzically.
Now this is getting to be too much. Why would he persist in snooping into things? Ariadne tempers her response, saying she would have enough ready by late afternoon. She deliberately does not mention the two completed vials in her garter. Ariadne convinces him politely to leave, saying she can get the serum done faster if she were left alone to work. Tolson puts her notes down and leaves. Once he is out of the lab, Ariadne locks the door so he cannot get back in. If she's to make the serum in all possible haste, she cannot be interrupted every ten minutes. Besides, there's something about Tolson that makes her want to throw something at him.
While this is going on in Lambeth, Varney is trying to enjoy a quiet morning at home. He's interrupted at breakfast by a scratching at the door. It's a loud scratching. Very loud. He opens the door to find a Beast man on his step--their coal man has come with their day's coal. The Beast man twitches and asks after one of the maids. Varney doesn't trust the look of the man, thinking he might go off any moment, and tells him that she's just stepped out to the market. Varney points in a vague direction and encourages the Beast man to try and catch the maid he's obviously sweet on. The Beast man leaves and Varney returns to his breakfast.
Before Thackery and Isabelle can make much headway in their travel plans, they are summoned to the police station in Piccadilly to tell them what he knows of the Beast riots. Can he help them? Thackery tells them what he knows along with his theory that perhaps Romanian vampires and Irish Fenians are behind it all, working to destabilize the Empire so they can take over. After all, why else would street urchins be spraying Beast folk down with nasty stuff that turns them mad?
And how did he find out about all this? The Sergeant in charge is looking as if he's thinking of arresting Thackery on suspicion of involvement.
Thackery tells the man about Lizzie, Isabelle's maid, and her toubles with her husband Billy. The Sergeant tells Thackery to stay close in town while they check out his story. Thackery immediately tells the Sergeant to call on the Finches--no better yet, call on Dr. John MacDonald. He invented the serum that cured Billy. However, see the Finches first.
Varney is interrupted at his breakfast again, this time by his butler announcing that there is a Miss Smitherly at the door asking to see him. Varney remembers her as a former client, a lovely old woman who had a dead cat he'd once contacted from beyond the veil. Please have her shown in to the parlour, thank you.
She tells Varney that her cat Mittens is back and has returned to howl around her house and generally making a nuisance of itself. Somehow the spirit of her cat has taken over a hapless man--or perhaps has turned halfway into a man--and is making such a frightful racket. Would Mr. Varney come and tell Mittens to behave and move on to his rest like a proper dead kitty?
Knowing that this might be another Beast folk incident and it would be better to armed with more than his usual spirtiualist claptrap, Varney gathers a pair of his "spirit knives" (actual blades) and accompanies Miss Smitherly in her carriage to her home. The butler answers the door and Varney sees the man has been injured on the arm. What happened? The kitty bit him, sir.
Oh that can't be true. Mittens would never bite anybody, insists Miss Smitherly.
The butler stifles a withering look and Varney gently ushers the old lady aside, assuring her that he and the butler would take care of Mittens. Could she watch? she asks? The butler dissuades her from watching, as Mittens is most assuredly not the creature yowling outside. Oh, pooh, it is Mittens. She'd recognize that yowl anywhere. No, Ma'am. It would be better if you waited inside.
Oh very well.
The back garden is empty when Varney steps out. It's not silent--the yowling continues and Vareny sees the plantings shift and shiver. With a heavy sense of irony, Varney calls out to the rustling bushes:
"Here, Kitty Kitty Kitty." (All the while making sure he has one of his knives ready)
Kitty jumps out and it's a Beast man. It runs at Varney and Varney sees he will have to fight him. The sight of the half-man/half-cat and the hideous yowling shakes the Spiritualist for a moment and he falls back under the Beast man's advance. Kitty strikes out but misses Varney. Varney shakes off his shock and goes on the offensive, stabbing with his knife.
The butler wisely stays safe on the doorstep of the house, far enough back to avoid the fighting.
Kitty strikes again and misses, saying in an unnaturally deep gutteral voice:
"Kitty want milk."
Varney calls over his shoulder at the butler to get some milk. The butler calls back that is how he got bitten on his arm--giving milk to "Kitty". Bring out the milk, sir, exhorts Varney. The butler brings another bowl out and Varney puts it on the grass and steps back. The beast man grabs the bowl, drains it down his gullet, and throws the bowl at Varney's head.
Varney ducks, the bowl misses, and Varney throws his knife into the beast man's gut. Kitty goes down, cursingand yowling. Varney hears Miss Smitherly crying out at the window behind him. Varney calls out in his most commanding voice and orders the foul spirit possessing the beast man to begone. Mittens, you must release this poor soul and move on. Move on.
It's all a very good act. Kitty, however, doesn't cooperate but claws up from the ground and attacks Varney again. Again he misses, falling flat on his face due to his injury, and Varney sinks his other knife into the beast man. Begone, foul spirit! Begone! Kitty struggles up and leaves by the garden gate. Varney sighs. He's out two very expensive knives and now he will have to replace them.
Drat that cat.
He returns to the house and the grateful Miss Smitherly pays him handsomely for his good deed. Certainly enough to replace two very expensive knives.
Released from the police station, Thackery suggests he and Isabelle go to his club for luncheon and gambling. Isabelle was his good luck the last time they gambled there and Thackery needs to win more money if they're going to travel to Romania after the head vampire. Luck isn't with Isabelle or Thackery this time around and they lose, much to the club's delight. They're encouraged to linger and lose some more with free drinks offered to them.
Dr. John MacDonald is at the club and engages Thackery in conversation. Smarting at his gaming losses, Thackery cannot resist being snide to MacDonald when the scientist askes if that business with Selene has been fixed. Thackery says he does not know and goes on to make some cutting remarks about petty sciences, implying that MacDonald isn't as learned or accomplished as he claims. For his part, MacDonald pooh-poohs philsophy and literature and religion--those fields more up Thackery's alley--stating that the Laws of Evolution and the natural order of science has done away with any need for God or religion. Science is the new Natural Order and this matter of the Beast men currrently plaguing London is proof positive that Humans are at the top of the evolutionary ladder. In a rare show of empathy for the less fortunate, Thackery drops his habitual acerbic tongue and argues that the induced devolution is not proof of Homo sapiens' superiority. Rather it is proof that Evil is afoot and men are its henchmen. One such Evil person is even now in Romania plotting England's downfall and this is but the first sortie in a war.
Oh, Thackery waxes poetic and persuasive with his argument but it falls on deaf ears. MacDonald dismisses Thackery with a handwave. Isabelle cannot resist adding her viewpoint, supporting Thackery's position. MacDonald is patronisingly dismissive her as well, sympathizing how it must be a curse aa a woman to be of a lower weaker status and thus cannot possibly understand the business of men.
"There is nothing cursed about being a woman except for the way men treat us," she retorts right back.
Meanwhile, back at Selene's lab Ariadne is deep in her work but hears a key scraping in the lock on the door. Suspicious, she takes the two vials of completed serum and slips them securely into her stocking garter under her skirts. The door opens to reveal Tolson ... and the gun he has trained on Ariadne. It's all her fault, he says. It was his work that Selene stole, just waltzed in and took over the program of making the animals. The stupid hag didn't even get it right, what with all her nonsense about life strands and such. But did the powers that be send her packing as the fraud she is? No. They gave her his lab instead. His lab. The insult of it all!
Ariadne fetches up against the lab table, feeling surreptitiously behind her for something to throw at the man so she can escape. However she keeps him talking, buying time for someone to notice something is wrong and perhaps so she can learn more.
And learn more she does. Tolson is on a roll now, fairly ranting and revealing everything. He was the one who devised the serum that is changing the Beast men into the animals they really are. He is only doing the natural thing, allowing them to express and manifest their true natures.
The lightbulb goes on in Ariadne's head before the man actually says it: he was the one who infected Selene with the agent that affected her. He was the one responsible for her transformation. And now, Tolson says, advancing on Ariadne, another damned woman is going to undo everything and ruin it for him again. Well that is not going to happen. You, my dear, are going on a carriage ride with me. Poor thing, your friend's affliction drove you to such grief that you're going to throw yourself off Westminster Bridge.
Suiting action to word, Tolson clocks Ariadne on the head with the butt of his pistol. She staggers back along the table, stunned but still managing to stay on her feet. Despite her personal danger, all she can think of at that moment is that Tolson was the one who took the brilliant scientist Ariadne admired, and ruined her. Horrified and outraged, Ariadne screams and throws a heavy Ehrlenmeyer flask at Tolson's head. It misses and shatters on the floor with a loud crash. How dare he! she screams. She throws another flask at him and it misses. Tolson raises his gun and threatens to shoot her if she doesn't come with him.
Knowing she cannot outrun a bullet, Ariadne acquiesces. Tolson warns her that he will tolerate no funny business. Put on your cloak like a good woman and get in the carriage he's hired. She does as she's told.
Meanwhile, Pieter is a couple of doors away in building #9, going through Tolson's lab. He sees a scrap of paper amongst the man's notes with a formula scrawled on it that is like Selene's. He puts two and two together and turns for the door. He hears the carriage's wheels growling outside on the courtyard cobbles and rushes out to see it leaving with Tolson and his wife inside. There are not guards in the courtyard--odd. And yet the guard at the gate is about to wave them through.
Pieter runs after the carriage, slight man though he is, and tries to grab the horses traces. The carriage has too large a head-start and Pieter is not able to run fast enough. Despite the fact that Tolson has her by the arm and a gun in her ribs, Ariadne screams for Pieter and tries to jump out of the carriage. She fails.
Pieter likewise fails to get the guard to stop the carriage. The man on duty is too accustomed to not questioning the higher classes their business, no matter what a lower class tradesman like Pieter says. He can't leave his post, either. He has orders to stay right here.
But they're getting away with my wife!!! Pieter asks the guard to ring the claxxon and takes off down the road, shouting and chasing the carriage on foot.
It's late afternoon in London and the streets are crowded and busy. It has two effects on the events.
One, the streets are crowded with vehicles and the carriage with Tolson and Ariadne cannot speed away. It is moving at a relative crawl like all the others on the thoroughfare. It is still faster than Pieter can run but he slowly gains some distance on it.
Two, the streets are crowded with vehicles and their passengers ... and one of the carriages happens to have Thackery and Isabelle and Varney aboard. Thackery and Isabelle had left the club to fetch Varney so as to plan the next move against the Romanian vampire. They were all on their way to pick up the Finches in Lambeth and had just drawn into sight of the lab courtyard's gate when they spied Pieter hollering and taking off on foot. They've got my wife! he yells. Stop that cab!
What the devil?
They hail Pieter and offer him a ride. He accepts and gets in. Thackery urges his driver to go faster but they are stuck in the traffic just as everyone else is. Thinking that a single horse and rider would fare better in the traffic, Isabelle suggests they free the carriage horse from its traces. She will ride it and help save Ariadne. Thackery turns to Varney.
"Mr Varney. Would you assist her in stealing a horse?" he orders and then turns to Isabelle. "Go to an expert, dear."
Varney hauls out and successfully gets the horse free of its traces and Isabelle mounts it as Thackery urges her on.
Pieter looks askance at Thackery's approval.
"Are you sure you're properly raising that young woman?" he asks Thackery.
"She said she brought the guns and the knives," is Thackery's reply.
And it's true. Isabelle is packing firepower and steel.
In Tolson's carriage, Ariadne plays the ruffled hen. Under cover of her fussing she unfastens her cloak and gets ready to throw it over his head so she can escape. Which she does at first opportunity. She flings her cloak off over Tolson and jumps out of the carriage. She lands on the pavement and is clipped by a passing carriage wheel. She runs as fast as she can back toward the lab, screaming bloody blue murder at the top of her lungs.
Help! Police! Murder! Fire! Masher! Help!
Tolson throws off the cloak and chases after her.
"Stop or I'll shoot," he shouts at Ariadne's back.
"Shoot and be damned, sir!" she yells forward and runs faster. No matter what, she would not be driven like a sheep to her death.
Tolson shoots and the bullet tugs at her skirts but the bullet misses flesh. Ariadne screams and keeps running. Tolson fires again, and again he misses and curses. Ariadne keeps running and screaming. Pieter jumps out of Thackery's carriage and runs for his wife. Isabelle rides even closer to Ariadne but is having trouble seating her horse. She's not dressed properly for it and the horse is bare of proper saddle and reins. She pauses to gather herself to avoid falling off.
Ariadne trips on the uneven cobbles and falls. Tolson catches her up and shoves the gun into her side. Now behave, he growls. At this range he cannot possibly miss.
Pieter runs past Isabelle, drawing closer to his wife and Tolson despite the traffic. Heads are starting to turn. People are starting to look, but none offer their assistance.
Thackery offers Varney a ride and a game of cards in his carriage. After all, it's not like they have any hope of catching up with the others. The traffic is too heavy to allow them quick passage. A penny a point whist, then? Varney agrees and Thackery deals the cards.
Ariadne stabs at Tolson with her hat pin. He shoots her in the right arm and drags her off as she wilts in shock.
Pieter, his eyes wild, runs after them.
Varney loses his hand and checks on Pieter's progress. Hm. Goes back to the card game.
Ariadne is a limp weight in Tolson's grip, slowing his escape, and Pieter catches up with him at last. The slight watchmaker barrels into Tolson, leading with his fist.
WHAM!
Tolson staggers and turns his gun on Pieter.
"You are a rogue and a blackguard who has poisoned the city for the last time!" Pieter roars and grabbing Tolson by both shoulders, slams into him with a "Glasgow Kiss". In short, Pieter head butts the man. Tolson is stunned and his gun goes off, but the shot goes wild, sparking off the cobblestones.
Isabelle rides up on her horse with her gun at the ready. Thackery is still some carriage lengths away but taunts Tolson cuttingly from the running board of his carriage. Tolson's gaze steadies on the approaching Thackery and he aims for the Don. Varney is ready with his knives and throws one of them into Tolson's shoulder. It sinks in sweet and true. Tolson refigures his odds and retreats, dragging Ariadne with him as hostage.
And he vents his rage all the while, how all his plans were foiled by people who refused to know their place.
Thackery steps off the running board and approaches, taunting Tolson to fight him like a man.
Varney throws his knife for Tolson's gunhand and misses.
Ariadne tries a cathouse grab to her captor's groin and misses. She's still wounded and dazed.
Pieter throws a hard punch and it hits Tolson square. The man goes down on the pavement, wounded. Pieter doesn't stop there. He kicks Tolson visciously in the head. Repeatedly. Varney pulls him off.
"He's down, man," Varney says. "He's down."
"He was going to kill Ariadne," Pieter says, blowing hard with murder in his eye.
"He's down, man. See to your wife."
Police whistles finally tweet in the distance. In minutes a bobby shows up.
"What's all this, then?"
Thackery offers his assistance as his carriage rolls up. The police man eyes him and Isabelle--doing a good imitation of a lady hiwayman with her gun--and asks who is responsible for her. Thackery is named in loco parentis by the party and while everyone sorts things out, Pieter tends to Ariadne. Ariadne quietly tells him everything Tolson told her.
"Do you have the serum and the formula?" he whispers to her as he picks her up.
Ariadne silently pats her thigh and taps her temple, then at her husband's request, passes him the vials. Everyone present averts their gaze as she draws her skirt up. She is taken to a hospital after that, as is Tolson, and Thackery goes with the police to explain everything. His statement and that of the others are taken in the hospital.
Pieter leaves Ariadne in the hospital's care and slips away to the labs with the vials. He arrives to find the place lit up like a Christmas tree and stirred up like a kicked hornet's nest. Pieter demands to speak with the Captain of the Guards. The Captain arrives and Pieter tells him to lock down Tolson's lab. He tells the Captain everything he knows. Tolson is responsible for Selene's condition. Tolson is responsible for the Beast riots. Tolson is responsible for shooting Pieter's wife, Ariadne, and Ariadne knows the cure.
The Captain orders the lab locked down. Pieter administers the cure to Selene to prove it can work. The scientist is gently removed from the Mitchelson Resonator and tied down for safety, then the cure is administered by hypodermic straight into a vein. Selene is awake when this happens and struggles and snarls and snaps at anyone who draws near. By degrees the cure effects its change and in twenty minutes, Selene is lucid and her cat fur starts growing in before everyone's eyes. She demands to be let up so she can check her dragon Maude.
Not wanting anything to go amiss with the dragon, everyone lets the woman go to her dragon.
At the hospital, Ariadne is Healed with Healer Magic and she is allowed to leave. Thackery offers her a ride wherever she needs to go. She asks him to drive her back to the Lambeth labs. Thackery's carriage is stopped at the gate.
The guard asks brusquely, "Who are you?"
Isabelle whispers to Thackery, "Tell him you're with the government."
"I am a Don of Oxford," Thackery says to the guard. "You dare question me?!"
"It's a secret lab," Isabelle points out wryly. "That's not so secret."
Ariadne is recognized through the window and they are allowed through. Maude and Selene are in the courtyard and the carriage horse understandably spooks. Everyone bails out as the driver struggles to get the horse under control. Thackery sends the driver on and he's stopped at the gate. The guards take the driver aside and unhitches the horse. Both are led in opposite directions for debriefing.
After all, this is a secret lab and Maude is the biggest secret in it.
Ariadne joins them, gives Maude an affectionate little wave, and stops just short of Selene. Is she all right? Ariadne asks. Yes, answers Selene. They tell me you found the cure? Yes, Ariadne admits. Thank you, Selene says and gingerly hugs Ariadne. The hug squeezes Ariadne's newly healed arm and she grits her teeth against the pain. She's overjoyed, really, that Selene is back to her old self and hugs the woman enthusiastically in return. Selene isn't accustomed to such display and shudders as only a cat can. She stifles a reflexive embarrasment-lick at her fur and glowers at everyone in the courtyard, daring them to reveal they'd witnessed it.
Nobody says anything and everyone goes to Selene's lab. Thackery and Isabelle are given an abbreviated tour and Selene shows them one of her kitty-bunnies. Isabelle is immediately enchanted by it, much to Thackery's feigned disgust. It appears the kitty-bunnies are quite popular with the fairer sex. Selene shows Thackery one of her kitty-hawks next, an animal with a little more dangerous potential. Thackery affects his usual abrasive manner and Selene looks at him sharply.
Do you normally use words of more than three syllables? she asks narrowly.
Yes, vouches Isabelle from the corner, the kitty-bunny purring in her lap.
After several rapid fire questions and their equally rapid answers, Selene nods at Thackery.
Would Thackery be as imperious and annoying and verbose tomorrow? Selene continues.
Indubitably, he affirms.
Come tomorrow to tea, Selene says. Now get out.
Everyone leaves for Tolson's lab. Selene detains Ariadne, enlisting her help to putting her lab to rights again.
Thackery hits Tolson's bookshelves first and spies a rare foreign book. He knows there are only eight copies existing and here is one of them. A quick peek at the pages confirms it's in a foreign language and he slips it in his pocket.
Colonel Fleming walks in, tall and commanding in his Eldren stature and resplendant in his fiery red sideburns. What's all this then?
Introductions are made. Explanations are given yet again. The Colonel strokes his sideburns (quite fulsome they are, nearly muttonchops) and listens to everything carefully. Tolson was behind it all, sir. He was the one responsible for poisoning the Beast folk on the docks and elsewhere. He was the one who changed Selene.
Thackery tells the Colonel of his suspicions about the Romanian vampire and the connection with Seamus Bourne and the Irish. That turns the Colonel's attention full on Thackery. Sensing he's on to something, Thackery offers to disinterr Bourne's body from where the party had buried it on the Kent estate. The Colonel accepts.
The Colonel is also very interested in Pieter's invention of the Mitchelson Resonator. A man with his talents and a woman like his wife would be very useful to the Crown. In fact, everyone in this room would be useful. The Colonel declares Thackery, Varney, Pieter, and Ariadne as Retainers to the Crown.
He orders Thackery to translate a foreign document in his possession. He inquires about the Michelson Resonator and would be interested in any inventions Pieter makes in the future. The Colonel turns to Varney. Varney hands him his card. The Colonel notes the spelling of the name.
You wouldn't happen to have a sister, would you? the Colonel asks him. You remind me of a certain young woman.
No, no sister, Varney shrugs. Why?
Well, all right then. You're still on retainer. England will call on you when she needs you.
With that, the Colonel leaves.
Well! The party blinks a bit at the abruptness of it all. It looks like their fortunes have risen in the world. Retainers to the Queen! There being nothing left to do, the party breaks up to go home.
Thackery finds Billy Butcher on his doorstep when he gets home. Billy holds a great deal of Thackery's gambling debts and Thackery starts wheedling for more time to pay. Billy cuts him short and demands his help. Poppy's come down with that nasty affliction the Beast folk have been coming down with.
Not to be outdone, Thackery agrees to help Billy in exchange for loan forgiveness.
How much?
One thousand pounds and a cure for Poppy.
Deal.
Billy arranges to meet Thackery at 9 a.m. tomorrow. They've got a cure to make and a certain opium den in Limehouse to visit.
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