Steampunk Jack

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, after James was done with teaching his classes, he and Anne immediately headed to the cobblers shop to look over her mother’s book. James pulled it out of the safe, which he had placed it just in case Elbert became over curious and set it on the table. Opening the book, the professor stared, his eyes narrowed, at the strange writing. “Anne what is this language? I can’t read anything?”

“It’s a runic cipher.” Anne said looking over his shoulder at the page. “It’s a protection against the uninitiated getting their hands on the secrets of the book. My mother taught me to read and write this cipher at the same time she taught me French and English.

“Well, aren’t we educated?” James muttered. He’d always had to struggle along with French, and his accent was atrocious.

“Shush.” Anne laughed as she looked down, a pen forming in her hand. “Ahh, here it is. I am sure you have heard of Dousing. I mean Emily was trying to douse for ghosts, but I mean in the traditional sense?”

“Yes, Dousers believe using certain wood or metal rods they can find water, gold, or any number of other things. My father’s field manager swore by the local one.”

“That’s right. Another version of dousing uses a pendulum. You attune an object, usually a pendant or pendulum, to what you want to find, and you dangle it from a single chain or string. The object will then always slightly lean towards what you are trying to find.”

“Like a compass always pointing north!”

“Exactly! Actually, I believe my mother mentioned a pendulum of magnetite would do the very thing, no ritual required. Now the difficulty with pendulums is the more specific you need them to be, the more difficult they are to create. Finding water is easy, finding a fish is harder, finding the fish that ate your wedding ring harder still.”

“That makes sense.” James conceded. “It’s much like experimentation. It’s easy to create one for a broad theory, but the narrower your target result, the more difficult it is to create the experiment.”

Anne nibbled on the pen, “Now what to use to tune and empower the spell?” she muttered, only half paying attention to James. “Hematite for spilled blood, or maybe garnet…” She began jotting notes down on a loose piece of paper.

“Anne!”

“What? Alchemy, and charm craft is as much an art as a science, it takes time!”

“No look,” James pointed at the paper, Anne blinked as she saw her own neat handwriting literally glowing across the paper.

“Oh my…” Anne said, “I wonder if Emily would be able to see this without the glasses.”

“I don’t know, but the next time she comes over we can find out. Even if it is invisible to the naked eye, or at least a normal person’s naked eye, she can use the spirit glass lenses! You would be able to communicate with her!”

Anne grinned happily. “Not that you aren’t a pleasant conversationalist, James, but that is good news!”

The two spent the next several hours pouring over the tome, and James began to suspect the book was far larger than its apparent size suggested. Occasionally he would stop turning the pages to transcribe Anne’s spectral handwriting in a more mundane ink in one of his Omni-present spare notebooks. He didn’t know how long her notes would last and wanted to be sure to have a permanent copy.

As he was transcribing and looking over the design for the ritual an idea popped into the professor’s head. “Anne? Instead of a traditional pendulum, which is going to be bloody hard to use in the streets of London, can we attach the spell to something else, say a compass’s arrow?”

Anne looked up at him with a thoughtful look. “Maybe. It would depend on the compass.”

James walked to a small wardrobe he used to store discarded items to recycle and began looking in boxes of metal springs and cogs. “Ahh here it is!” He brought the device over, a simple brass case with a glass front and a magnetic needle that no longer pointed north. “It broke some months ago, though the devil knows why.”

He held it out so Anne could look it over. “Well, there are no decorations, that’s good, and its brass so it’s a neutral metal as far as my magic is concerned. I can work with this.” Anne grinned. “I’m going to need some help with preparation, and we are going to need to cleanse the compass first, but we can definitely use this. All I need is lightning kissed oak, four quartz pillars, an onyx cabochon, and the knife tip you purchased from the blighter.” Her sour expression made it clear what she thought of the criminal constable.

James fully understood and agreed with her sentiment, since he had her heart hidden in his cellar. He shivered just thinking about the gruesome thing. “Um…I am assuming you have all that at your shop?”

“Assuming Elbert didn’t throw my oak out yes.”

“What are we going to need to ‘cleanse’ the compass?”

“Moonlight and frankincense.” Anne stated. James noticed she was so happy she almost looked like she was dancing in place. “We are going to do it James we are going to stop the monster that killed me.” She half sang.

“Yes, we are.” He looked at his watch. “I hate to be a kill joy but considering we can’t get right to work on the compass, I feel I must ask. Do you want to go to your funeral?” James ran his hand through his hair. “That sounded quite awkward didn’t it.”

“A bit.” Anne stilled and looked around the workroom. She sighed. “I guess I should go…I mean, considering the…affair is in my name and all that. It would be rather rude not to go, and we have to go out anyway…to get the materials for the compass from my shop.” Anne shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “What took them so long, in burying me I mean?” She didn’t know why, but the fact that she hadn’t been properly buried bothered her.

“I think they were keeping your body for autopsy, and it took a while.” James observed, before he softened his voice. “We don’t have to go. It is not as though anyone would notice your absence.” James said gently as he marked their page in the book and closed it, he did not want to cause her pain.

“No, I should go. If nothing, I should say goodbye to the people who come to show their respects, it’s….only polite...” She managed not to whimper, her voice only slightly tremulous, but James could see spectral tears sliding down her ghostly cheeks.

“Alright. Let me just lock the book up and change into something more respectful, then we will head down to St. Elizabeth’s.”

Anne nodded without looking at him, and he hesitated only a moment before climbing the stairs.

A few minutes, and one change into dark mourning clothes later, saw Anne huddled against his back as James rode along on the clockwork bicycle. It was as if she was seeking his warmth, and though it chilled him to the spine, he didn’t show it. If she needed warmth, he reckoned he had plenty to spare.

“We’re almost there.” He said, pulling the motorized vehicle up to the low fence which surrounded the gravesite surrounding St. Elizabeth’s. He sensed her nod, more than saw it, and slid off the bike after feeling the chill of her presence leave his back. He wrapped a locked chain around the fence, having already had an earlier prototype stolen he found himself a might more careful since, and he followed her into the cemetery.

There weren’t a large number of onlookers gathered around the closed, simple but finely crafted casket. A handful of weeping women holding their husbands, and a few women who looked bleary eyed in the daylight but whose tears were sincere. Elbert stood with the priest and nodded to James when he saw him. A few people, scanning the crowd, were obviously there less for the ceremony than to observe the gathered crowd.

One of them, Inspector Donald Jones, approached James shortly after seeing him. “Well professor. I’d like to say I was surprised to see you here, but I’m not.” The man surprised James by holding out his hand.

“Oh lovely. I can’t escape annoying people at my own funeral.” Anne muttered, causing James to smile slightly. Hesitantly, he accepted the man's hand and shook with a grip whose strength carefully matched the coppers own. “Why would you say that?”

“Because… you surprised me.” The inspector admitted, gesturing for James to follow him. The Metropolitan Police Inspector led him to an area close to the grave site, but away from people. “I had expected you to go to the newspapers after I threw you out on your arse, but you didn’t. That spoke of character, rather you’re a nutter or not.”

Anne, drifting along next to James, muttered “I didn’t even think of the papers. That would have been a good second step.”

“You’ll understand if I hesitate to say thank you, I trust?” James asked, ignoring the lovely, but frustratingly myopic, ghost woman beside him.

The detective shrugged. “Can’t say as I blame you. That being said, the Whitechapel incident has brought out every flavor of nutter. You fall safely into the ‘well meaning’ category and I have come to the conclusion that you honestly think you know something. To be fair, I did actually research past and… tragically… following sightings and your description doesn’t match any of them on file.”

James frowned, but could acknowledge to himself that there was no way the Inspector could know that there was possibly more than one Jack on the loose. “While I do not accept your claim that I am insane, I can at least appreciate you looking in on it.”

“We aren’t ignoring any leads, and at least you’re a well-meaning fellow.” The inspector commented with a shrug. “Out of curiosity, where were you last night, about nine o’clock last night.”

James froze for a second, panic that the man was investigating the events at the warehouse. It only took a moment for him to realize that nine was two hours or more before those events. “Actually… I was at home.”

“Is there anyone who can collaborate that?”

James nodded. “Elbert Campbell, Anne’s cousin, as a matter of fact. He and I were drinking a bit of scotch.”

“I’ll check on that, you know.”

“Obviously but why… There was another murder!” James exclaimed, producing a gasp from Anne next to him.

Grudgingly the Metropolitan Police Inspector nodded. “Indeed. The body wasn’t found till this morning, so it hasn’t appeared in the headlines yet, or you’d have known already. While I was fairly certain you would prove innocent, I had to ask… and speaking of alibi’s…”

Elbert, who had been approaching with a somber smile, paused as the inspector turned his gaze upon him. “Whatever it was, I swear I didn’t do it.”

James could only rub his forehead as the police detective blinked, then frowned down at the shorter Elbert. “Not a comment designed to make me comfortable, Mr. Campbell. Where were you at, say, nine-thirty last evening?”

“Last eve… well…” Elbert, glanced at James and the professor was certain the roguish man was wondering the same thing that he had a few moments before. He apparently realized the time discrepancy as well. “Actually, sir, I was with the Professor here. We was drinking scotch at his shop, a family bottle didn’t you say, gov?”

“Yes, actually, a recent acquisition of my fathers, and one of the few I actually found it in myself to care about.” James admitted with a slight chuckle.

Anne, who hadn’t relaxed at the questioning of her James, frowned as the copper’s expression grew hard once more. “Careful James. He’s suspicious again.”

“Do you have the time?” The copper asked. “It should be about time to begin the ceremony.”

Both Elbert and James’s hands went to their waistcoats, retrieving their pocket watches. James’s, Anne noted, was a fairly complex looking device that displayed phases of the moon, day of the month, and seemed to have a spare, unmoving hand while Elbert’s was a simple wood and brass affair.

“Three till Five.” James said, beating Elbert who was cursing about his pocket watch being slow again, and adjusting the time by comparing it with James’s.

“Thank you.” The once again relaxed seeming inspector commented, before walking off with a nod to both men.

“Odd.” Elbert muttered. “Well, it’s time, just the same. Come over and stand closer. Anne would have wanted you there, even if you claim to have not been… that… close.”

“Oh Lord. He’s convinced you were my lover, isn’t he.”

James shrugged, and just followed Elbert to the grave side. “Why didn’t he just look at his own watch?” James muttered.