Steampunk Jack

Chapter Sixteen

James smiled down at Anne. She’d fallen back asleep… assuming you would call whatever it was a ghost did as sleep, which he did… shortly after he had awakened. She’d still been a bit transparent, and he observed that his waking up had probably just pulled her back to consciousness as well.

The day before had been extremely emotional for her, however, and James wasn’t surprised by how tired she was. He drifted out of the bedroom, grabbing a change of clothes on the way out, and drifted down into his shop to work on the second spirit monocle, and to renew his research on ghosts. It had occurred to him that ghosts, in the stories he could find that didn’t automatically qualify as hoaxes, could do a few more things than Anne herself.

It was less than an hour later when a loud banging interrupted his work, coming from the door of his workshop and flat. “Yes, I’m coming!” James called out as he stood and wiped his hands clean. He strode across the room’s floor, and opened the door only to have it jerked out of his hands.

He yelped in surprise and found himself being pushed back by the forceful entrance of Richard Swain. “Where is it?” The older man hissed, his hands gripping James’s lapel and pulling him close.

“Where is what?” James demanded. He brought one arm down, across the larger man’s arms, to break his grip. He took a defensive step back, not wanting to push into a combat with a man who outweighed him by easily a stone. “And what right do you think you have to charge into my home, sir!”

“The same right that dirty scoundrel of a nephew has the right to sell what is properly mine to you!” Anne’s father growled out. He stepped forward, causing James to take another cautions step back. “I want the deed, and all the goods you stole from me and I want them now.”

“I stole nothing from you, Mr. Swain, as I’m sure you know.” James growled in return. “I purchased the contents of Anne’s store, sight unseen for the most part, from the rightful heir of her properties. The deed was filed yesterday with the London Land office, so the shop and all within it are mine. If there is something specific you desire, I might be willing to give it to you, but you will stand down now!”

“Bloody land office! Bastards told me to come and see about purchasing the land from you… when it should rightfully be mine! I’ll take what I want, boy, not pay!” The man yelled, throwing a right hook straight for James’s head. The slow punch missed as James ducked, but he didn’t see the uppercut that followed, which sent him tumbling into his drafting table, sending papers flying into the air as he fell to the floor.

The angered father stomped forwards, delivering a savage kick to James’s stomach, bending him around the leg and virtually throwing the smaller man a yard away. James, in pain but not unable to think, continued to roll and took the drafting desk in it’s legs, forcing it to tumble over him, and causing Swain to stagger back as the oaken surface slammed down at his feet like an axe.

James, taking the small moment of respite the table had bought him, pulled himself to his feet and stumbled back into his tool racks. His hand fell on a long metal pry bar, which he swung up towards his attacker’s ribs.

Richard Swain jumped back, out of the way of the clumsy swing, only to step back in and catch the long rod of iron. For a few moments the two men struggled over it, dancing clumsily about in their struggles, before James realized the other man was pulling with all his weight, which is when he released the thing. The bigger man, finding himself off balance, tumbled into the inventor’s pile of empty notebooks with a crash of the table collapsing beneath him, the pry bar flying from his hands and shattering a few of the first glass items James had ever made, and considered a success. He burst from the avalanche of leather and paper with a roar.

Then he froze.

James stood, a military saber held in his hand and pointed directly at the angry older gentleman, with an enraged glower of his own. “You sir, will do me the service of calming yourself immediately.” He instructed.

“So, my daughter was rutting like a mare with a man who has spine. I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her.” He sneered. “I’m very nearly impressed.”

“You will not speak ill of Anne in my presence again, sir, or I fear I will lose what limited grasp of my anger I have left.” James stated with ice in his tone. “I suggest, right now, you tell me what it is that is so desperately important that you come bursting into my home and destroy my property.”

“I want the book, boy.”

“What book?” James demanded, stepping closer and pressing the tip against the bigger man’s chest. “I suggest you resist the urge to be vague.”

Warily the man eyed the saber, noting its blade was well honed. “The book she inherited from her mother, which has runes instead of godly letters.” He growled out, reluctantly.

“There was no such book among her goods.” James lied.

“You lie! Anne would have protected that tome with her life!” The man yelled. “You must have it.”

“Perhaps her killer stole it?” James suggested. “You’re so certain it’s here, and not at the shop, I’m sure you must have already tossed the place. Tell me, how much disarray did you leave my property in?”

“No less a mess then you, or my dead slag of a daughter, deserve.” The man sidled to the side, stepping back away from James, towards the door. “You truly didn’t find it?”

“I did not.”

“Then Elbert must have. When I find that little weasel…”

“He’ll know you’re coming, for I will have informed him.” James assured the raging Swain. “I have known him only a little while, but I suspect Elbert, backed into a corner with a violent man, is less likely to be restrained then myself. I suggest you pray he doesn’t own a firearm.”

“I’ll worry about myself, boy. You just hope my whore daughter didn’t give you syphilis.” The man turned and in an instant was gone, the shop door swinging open in his wake.

James sighed, then frowning rushed up the stairs, locking the door in passing, to seek out Anne. He found her asleep and apparently undisturbed by what happened. “Apparently the old phrase ‘Sleeping like the dead’ has a foundation in reality.” He observed wryly.

“Sleep well, angel. I don’t think he shall return.” For some reason he felt a certainty, and chill, in his words and didn’t know why.

He went back downstairs and glanced out the back door. Spotting a waif who frequented the area he called the boy over. “Lad, do you know where The Ten Bells pub is?” He asked.

“I do sir. On Commercial Street it is, sir.”

“Good lad.” He dug out several pence and flashed the copper at the boy. “Come here, I need you to deliver a message there for me. It’s for a man named Elbert Campbell and I’ll need you to wait for him.”

“They don’t let but customers loiter sir.” The waif noted, eyes following the hand with the coppers. James almost chuckled at the painfully obvious attempt to con him. He also accepted that it would work, since Elbert had admitted to preferring that pub to others during their conversations, attending it “near nightly” for supper.

“I’ll make sure you have the coin to prevent being run off.” James assured him. Quickly he scrawled a note warning the other man of his uncle’s recent rampage and attempts to find him and handed it over to the boy with a small handful of pennies. “Go, and don’t fail to deliver that letter!”

“I won’t gov! You’ll never use another boy to carry a note for you!” The boy declared as he ran off.

James, sighing and realizing that was all he could do, for now, shut the door and locked it up. Then he returned to work, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that what happened had a greater significance then he understood.