ROI Story - for Teal: The Windows of His Soul
"The Windows of His Soul"
Cottington dropped the desiccated pixie’s body into the boiler's holding box and turned the stoking mechanism that fed the fire. A decently dried pixie corpse would give a good six good hours of steady heat. One of the pixie’s wings caught in the mechanism and Cottington grabbed a small poker to push it through to the grate, slamming the holding box door as the pixie flared.
“Charles!” he called, “Open the number two and watch the pressure on the Professor’s device.”
“Got it, old man!” Charles Porter’s voice echoed from the rear of the hanger. “I know my business, thank you!”
Damn. Porter took offense so easily that Cottington was in a constant state of contrition. It was getting so that he dreaded his scheduled days at the hanger. Cottington peered through the dimness. Where was the wretched man? There. Just next to the Inducer. "Porter! How's the pressure?"
Narrowing his eyes on Cottington, Porter stood and pulled stiffly on his coat. "No need to watch over me, Mr. Cottington." His voice rang down the distance of the hanger. With a sigh, Cottington lifted his goggles onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger while Porter's graceless boots stomped the length of the hanger. The man was a proletariat of the worse sort.
As he neared Cottington, Porter slid his own goggles up. “I say," he leaned his shoulder against a post, opened his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case, "spend a late night at the tables, Cotty? You look knackered.”
“As a matter of fact, I was reading Miss Fees’ new book until quite late.”
“The Professor, your Miss Fees,” Porter lit his fag, took a deep drag and blew smoke across the room. “Bloody Obes.”
Cottington clenched his jaw. This really was too much. Prickliness was one thing, but outright bigotry was intolerable. “Will you please not use pejoratives in my presence, Mr. Porter?" He sniffed. "And Mr. Gaskell has expressly forbidden smoking in the hanger.”
“Oh, don’t be such a prig.” Porter took another long drag, narrowing his eyes. “Mr. Gaskell,” he said, flicking ash. “I’m surrounded by bloody Obie-lovers.”
“The term is elf, sir, or Oberon, if you must!”
Porter tossed his fag onto the floor and scuffed it out with a toe. “Good night, Mr. Cottington.” His mouth tightened in a nasty smile. “Remember to wipe the shit off your nose before you go out into public.”
Cottington stood with clenched fists, but turned away and studied the boiler gauges until Porter’s footsteps faded into the distance. He took a deep breath through his nose and blew it out past pursed lips. He wouldn’t give Porter the satisfaction of an argument.
Besides, he might be called to drive the carriage or pilot the aircar. He could imagine Gaskell’s, or worse yet, the Professor’s reaction to a brawl in the hanger.
Picking up the tongs, he added two more dried pixies to the bunker, enough to carry through his shift, and after checking the boiler valves and gauges one more time, settled down on the little stool. Porter’s sneering comment hung in the air like a bad odor. Cottington leaned his back against the wall, tipping the stool onto two legs, and rocked back and forth.
There was no use talking to men like Porter; they either hated the elves for their beauty, or hated them because they lacked souls. Cottington snorted. It was like hating a tiger because of its stripes.
Shaking his head, he pulled Miss Fees little book, Beyond the Looking Glass, a fascinating memoir of her childhood in Faery, out of one pocket and his sandwich out of the other, opened the book to the marked spot and bit into his liverwurst and onion on marbled rye.
He was just licking the last bit of mustard off his fingers when the Terminal started chattering, “Gaskell to the hanger; Gaskell to the hanger! Is this blasted thing on? Cottington! Where are you?”
“Sir!” Cottington’s fingers slapped the keys and he picked up the earpiece. “Cottington here.”
“Load the professor’s device into the Trevvy and bring it ‘round. Better be quick; the Professor just got word that we’ve got a subject.”
“Right away, Mr. Gaskell!”
Cottington grabbed his tool satchel, checked the fuel case, and raced across the hanger. He keyed the ignition of the carriage and grabbed the lift.
The Professor’s device squatted in the corner, a confection of copper, burnished wood and ivory. A set of pipes ran down the hanger wall and connected to the back of the device. Cottington twisted the shutoff valves and loosened the connectors. More carefully, he eased the device away from the wall and onto the lift, making sure that the Inducer sat firmly in its cradle next to the holding tank.
Pumping the lift with one hand and steadying the device with the other, Cottington maneuvered the delicate machine into the carriage. It sat neatly between its brackets like a resting praying mantis.
Gaskell and the Professor were waiting at the front stoop when he drove around, and leapt forward before Cottington could get the door. “No need.” Gaskell waved his hand as he and the Professor piled into the back of the auto. “Head to Finsbury!”
“Go!” The Professor leaned forward and tapped a single finger on Cottington’s shoulder. “With speed, Man.”
“Sir!” Cottington stepped on the accelerator and the steam carriage flew down the cobbled street, bouncing on its springs. Looking in the rear view mirror, he met the elf’s eyes; green as a summer leaf and shining with excitement.
He parked the carriage at the servant’s entrance. The Professor hopped out and lowered the carriage gate before Cottington could alight. Lips pressed tight, the elf lifted the Inducer from its cradle and slid his hand into the grip. Cottington buckled the forearm straps onto the Professor while Gaskell slid his arms into the holding tank’s straps, lifting it and settling it onto his back with a grunt. They slid their goggles on, but let them hang loose about their necks.
A maid flew out the back door. “Hurry! Oh, hurry! He won’t last much longer!” She hastened them through the kitchen, where a blood spattered boy sat weeping, and up a narrow servant’s stair. The door which she led them to was closed, and she paused there, eyes large in the hall’s dimness.
The Professor brushed past her.
The room was thick with the smell of blood. A single gas lamp burned at the bedside. A woman, dark ringlets piled on her head, sat there, clutching the hand of the person in the bed. She looked up as they entered the room, face wan. “Oh. It’s you.”
A man stepped from the corner of the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “Mrs. Bennett, I beg you reconsider.”
“I have made my decision, Dr. Carlyle.” Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but clear. “Professor Vaughn offers some small comfort, and I will take it.”
“But this … this …” The doctor threw his towel away. “If it is not heresy, it is quackery. Would you keep your husband’s soul from God?”
“Not all of it, Doctor,” the Professor interjected. “Only a small piece, to give comfort.”
Cottington sidled along the wall, giving the men space to confer.
The doctor, eyes narrowed, turned to the Professor and bared his teeth. “Soulless imp! What do you know of love or of comfort? How many souls have you sucked up with that infernal device? What say the loved ones who hold a snipped off piece of soul? Does it bring them comfort?” He whirled to Mrs. Bennett. “How say you, I cut off a toe, or perhaps an ear, an’ you hang that around your neck? At least the stench of that will be only on the material plane! How worse must be the smell of a rotting slice of soul?”
Mrs. Bennett stood, her face white and pinched. “Enough.” Hand shaking, she pointed to the door. “You will leave us now, sir.”
The doctor nodded tightly. Drawing himself up, he eyed the Professor, Gaskell and finally Cottington. Coat and bag in hand, he hesitated, took a breath but let it stream out. “Mrs. Bennett,” he said with a stiff bow. The Professor stepped away, and the doctor stalked out of the room.
In the silence, the man on the bed gave a rattling breath and expired.
They stood for a moment, frozen. With a hiss, the Professor rushed forward, arm raised. The Inducer clicked and whirred, a tiny mechanism of wire, pulleys and cogs moving on his forearm like a disturbed hive of insects.
“Edward!” Mrs. Bennett wailed and threw herself over her husband’s still form. The Professor motioned impatiently and Cottington stepped forward, urging the prostrate woman away.
She stood and swayed against him. Carefully, he led her to a chair and helped her sit. “Turn away, now,” he murmured. “The light will be very bright.”
Releasing her, he quickly pulled his goggles up and turned toward the bed. The tip of the Inducer had begun to glow and light curled out, fantastical, in slow spirals and sinuous strands. The Professor flipped up a tiny door on the device. “Cottington! We need more power!”
Cottington dashed to his bag and grabbed up the fuel case. Hands trembling with excitement, he fumbled with the tweezers, finally lifting up a single, translucent pixie wing. He moved carefully to the Professor’s side and laid the wing in the receiving chamber. The Professor grunted softly and flipped the door shut.
Light burst forth from the Inducer, curling through the air and around the dead man in winding loops. A shape took form, defined by the light in which it was held.
“I have you.” The Professor’s voice flowed out with the light, warm and thick. “Away, come away,” he spoke to the form. “All will be well.”
The fingers in the Inducer beckoned and the light-bound figure was pulled gently toward the Professor. Gaskell stepped up with the tank funnel and sucked both light and nebulous form into the holding tank.
The room blinked into darkness and there was no sound but Mrs. Bennett’s gentle sobbing.
Cottington raised his goggles and blinked. The Professor’s arm hung at his side, the inducer hanging down dark and cold. Cottington walked over to the bed and slid shut the dead man’s eyes.
“I say,” Gaskell muttered, “that went well. Not a hitch, eh?”
“Gaskell,” the Professor cautioned, his eyes flicking to Mrs. Bennett.
“Oh, yes. Quite.” Gaskell had the grace to look abashed. He turned so that the holding tank faced the Professor. “Let us continue, then.”
“Indeed.” The elf’s voice was dry. He flipped open the holding tank and peered inside. Cottington could see the crystal pulsing with faint, pearlescent light. The Professor lifted it gently, holding it in his fingertips. It was small, no bigger than a farthing, and edged with gold wire. “Mrs. Bennett? If you will hold out your hand?”
“Oh,” the woman wiped a hand over her face and looked up uncertainly, “is that … is that my Edward?” She held out both her hands. “Will I … can he feel me?”
The Professor laid the crystal gently in Mrs. Bennett’s cupped palm and curled her fingers over it. “Perhaps.” He tipped his head to the side, considering her. “I suggest that you string the crystal on a chain and wear it close to your heart.”
“Yes.” She settled back into her chair, her head against the cushioned back and brought her closed fist to her breast. “I have you, Edward,” she whispered. “Forever.”
The same maid led them back through the house, dark now, and quiet. Cottington slipped his fingers into his watch pocket, pulled out his timepiece and was shocked to find that little over an hour had elapsed since Gaskell’s call over the Terminal.
The Professor didn’t wait, but lowered the gate of the auto and began to loosen the straps on his forearm. Cottington jumped forward to assist. Shaking his arm free, the Professor examined the delicate instrument and set it back into its place with a twist and a click. Gaskell shrugged the holding tank into Cottington’s waiting hands, and the Professor took that, too, strapping it in its place next to the device.
Cottington held the auto's door open for the Professor and Mr. Gaskell, and the boiler still hot, accelerated down the alley and onto the street.
“That did go smashing well,” Gaskell said, rubbing his palms together. “And Bennett was a wealthy man. Nice looking widow,” he mused. “Perhaps I shall call on her, after a proper period of time has passed, of course.”
“I’m sure you’ll make a lovely threesome,” the Professor said. Cottington spared a glance at the mirror to the men in the back seat and met the Professor’s eyes. The elf’s lips twisted and he gave Cottington a wink. Cottington felt heat rise to his cheeks and set his eyes back on the roadway.
“Hrmp, yes, well,” Gaskell said, shifting his weight in the seat. “Surely she will release him after her mourning period. She’s not the type who would wear widow’s weeds long.” Cottington kept his gaze firmly on the road, but he could feel the Professor’s eyes on him, including him in the conversation. They did that, the elvin folk, pushed against human society and propriety, and the Professor more than most.
Their street was quiet in the dusk of early night, gas lamps illuminating the immaculate stoops. Cottington parked the car and hurried around, opening Gaskell’s door with a cheery grin. Gaskell blinked, as if noticing him for the first time. “Well done, Cottington. You performed most satisfactorily this evening. Take the car ‘round and relieve Porter.”
“Yes, sir.” Cottington said. Gaskell must have called Porter back to mind the boilers while they were out. Lovely. He’d hoped not to see the man before Monday. Releasing the break, Cottington accelerated down the street and through the alley to the hangar, stopping to swing open the door and back the auto into its place.
Porter had the hand lift ready and the two men unloaded the device without a word to each other. Cottington fished a wrench out of his satchel and began to reconnect the device to the steam pipes.
“My God, is this thing still loaded?” Porter was at the holding tank, his face peering into the door.
Cottington spun around. “What are you doing? Get your hand out of there! Are you insane?”
Porter narrowed his eyes. “Shut it, you bloody bounder. Doesn’t it bother you that a man’s soul is trapped in this … this … hell?”
Another voice answered from across the room, “Surely more limbo than hell, Mr. Porter.” The Professor walked slowly toward them, his eyes glowing like a cat’s in the dimness.
Porter stood, his hand resting lightly on the tank. “And when are you planning to release him, Professor?” His hand caressed the side of the tank and then moved toward the inner workings. “You know, for all that I’ve seen and heard of this procedure, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen you let a soul free. And yet the holding tank is always emptied.”
The Professor stopped. “Porter, what are you thinking? You cannot simply let a soul out from the device as if you were releasing steam from a boiler.” He raised his hand in caution. “There is a time and a place.”
Porter’s hand shifted to the release mechanism and Cottington felt the hair rise on his neck. “Porter, you don’t understand,” Cottington said, backing away. “Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? Like you, Cottington?” Porter’s face darkened with emotion. “I may not be reasonable, but at least I am not," his lip lifted in disgust, "enchanted.” His hand caressing the holding tank, Porter turned from Cottington to the Professor. “The preservation of the soul! I thought ..." He blinked, eyes dark and damp. "How beautiful! How wondrous!" A dank breeze flowed down the hanger and ruffled his hair, blowing a dark wisp across his pale cheek. Porter raked his hair back and flicked tears away with the flat of his hand. "But that's not it, is it Professor?”
"Come away," the Professor suggested, fingers coaxing. "Let's go have a drink and discuss this."
Cottington sidled forward but stopped as Porter's hand jerked toward the release valve. "I saw it myself, Porter. A dying man, his loving wife, together now. Forever."
"Cottington, you idiot." Porter's voice was soft. "Our souls belong to the Infinite." His breath leaked out in a sigh as his hand slid down the device. "Bloody, bloody Obes."
“No!” The Professor lurched forward.
A soundless pressure boomed across the hanger, compressing Cottington’s eardrums in a noiseless thunder that blew out the hanger lights. Porter staggered under the onslaught but stood transfixed by the light that swirled out from the tank.
Gold, white, swirling green and blue so bright that it burned, blasted forth, seizing Porter from every direction. Cottington fumbled for the goggles at his neck. His eyes burned and streamed, and he blinked frantically, squinting against the glare.
In the darkness of the hanger, Porter stood pinned by the light, arms and head flung back, mouth open in a horrible grimace. The light played along his skin, flicked from his fingertips, and shot out of his mouth as he screamed.
“Cottington! The Inducer!” The Professor crouched down, arm raised to shield his face.
Lurching forward, Cottington twisted the Inducer free and dove toward the Professor, holding the mechanism up like an offering to God. The Professor snatched it and slammed his hand into the base, fingers scrabbling forward for the controls.
The flare of the Inducer was dim against the conflagration that was Porter. The Professor stretched his hand out, fingers twisting, pulling, demanding; the tight skeins of light unfurled from Porter like vines reaching out to the sun, flowing through the air and twinning around the Inducer, running up the Professor's arm and down again to his fingertips.
Free of the light, Porter fell to the floor, lifeless.
The Professor was now the one who burned like a sun. Trills of light raced up and down his form, lifted his hair and danced on his eyeballs. Opening his mouth, the elf breathed out a great gust, bending at the waist and wheezing so that every bit of air was pushed from his lungs. Cottington’s own lungs ached in sympathy.
Then, lips shut in a tight line, the Professor sucked a deep breath in through his nose. The light was pulled in, in, and in, the last of it swirling funnel-like around the Professor’s nostrils. Shouting out like thunder, the elf released the breath. He shuddered and fell to the ground with a meaty thud.
Cottington lay on the floor of the hanger, ears ringing and eyes tearing. Numbly, he pushed up his goggles, letting them fall to the floor, and crawled unsteadily to Porter.
“He’s very dead.”
The words were light, almost a child’s whisper. Cottington turned his head creakily to the sound. “I don’t understand.” His voice sounded dull in his ears. “Bennett’s soul, it went,” he stopped, his tongue dry in his mouth, and stared at the Professor, lying on the ground an arm’s width away.
The elf’s skin shone luminous in the darkness. Cottington sucked in a breath. So beautiful.
“Bennett and Porter. Their souls.” Cottington swallowed and tried again. “Where are they?”
Light swirled in the Professor’s eyes, green and gold. He took a deep breath and blew it out, an exhausted but satisfied sound, and smiled at Cottington.
“Don’t worry,” he said, brushing a hand though his hair, across his face and sensuously down his torso. “I’ve got them.” He patted a languid fingertip on his belly. “I’ve got them both.”
end
Cottington dropped the desiccated pixie’s body into the boiler's holding box and turned the stoking mechanism that fed the fire. A decently dried pixie corpse would give a good six good hours of steady heat. One of the pixie’s wings caught in the mechanism and Cottington grabbed a small poker to push it through to the grate, slamming the holding box door as the pixie flared.
“Charles!” he called, “Open the number two and watch the pressure on the Professor’s device.”
“Got it, old man!” Charles Porter’s voice echoed from the rear of the hanger. “I know my business, thank you!”
Damn. Porter took offense so easily that Cottington was in a constant state of contrition. It was getting so that he dreaded his scheduled days at the hanger. Cottington peered through the dimness. Where was the wretched man? There. Just next to the Inducer. "Porter! How's the pressure?"
Narrowing his eyes on Cottington, Porter stood and pulled stiffly on his coat. "No need to watch over me, Mr. Cottington." His voice rang down the distance of the hanger. With a sigh, Cottington lifted his goggles onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger while Porter's graceless boots stomped the length of the hanger. The man was a proletariat of the worse sort.
As he neared Cottington, Porter slid his own goggles up. “I say," he leaned his shoulder against a post, opened his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case, "spend a late night at the tables, Cotty? You look knackered.”
“As a matter of fact, I was reading Miss Fees’ new book until quite late.”
“The Professor, your Miss Fees,” Porter lit his fag, took a deep drag and blew smoke across the room. “Bloody Obes.”
Cottington clenched his jaw. This really was too much. Prickliness was one thing, but outright bigotry was intolerable. “Will you please not use pejoratives in my presence, Mr. Porter?" He sniffed. "And Mr. Gaskell has expressly forbidden smoking in the hanger.”
“Oh, don’t be such a prig.” Porter took another long drag, narrowing his eyes. “Mr. Gaskell,” he said, flicking ash. “I’m surrounded by bloody Obie-lovers.”
“The term is elf, sir, or Oberon, if you must!”
Porter tossed his fag onto the floor and scuffed it out with a toe. “Good night, Mr. Cottington.” His mouth tightened in a nasty smile. “Remember to wipe the shit off your nose before you go out into public.”
Cottington stood with clenched fists, but turned away and studied the boiler gauges until Porter’s footsteps faded into the distance. He took a deep breath through his nose and blew it out past pursed lips. He wouldn’t give Porter the satisfaction of an argument.
Besides, he might be called to drive the carriage or pilot the aircar. He could imagine Gaskell’s, or worse yet, the Professor’s reaction to a brawl in the hanger.
Picking up the tongs, he added two more dried pixies to the bunker, enough to carry through his shift, and after checking the boiler valves and gauges one more time, settled down on the little stool. Porter’s sneering comment hung in the air like a bad odor. Cottington leaned his back against the wall, tipping the stool onto two legs, and rocked back and forth.
There was no use talking to men like Porter; they either hated the elves for their beauty, or hated them because they lacked souls. Cottington snorted. It was like hating a tiger because of its stripes.
Shaking his head, he pulled Miss Fees little book, Beyond the Looking Glass, a fascinating memoir of her childhood in Faery, out of one pocket and his sandwich out of the other, opened the book to the marked spot and bit into his liverwurst and onion on marbled rye.
He was just licking the last bit of mustard off his fingers when the Terminal started chattering, “Gaskell to the hanger; Gaskell to the hanger! Is this blasted thing on? Cottington! Where are you?”
“Sir!” Cottington’s fingers slapped the keys and he picked up the earpiece. “Cottington here.”
“Load the professor’s device into the Trevvy and bring it ‘round. Better be quick; the Professor just got word that we’ve got a subject.”
“Right away, Mr. Gaskell!”
Cottington grabbed his tool satchel, checked the fuel case, and raced across the hanger. He keyed the ignition of the carriage and grabbed the lift.
The Professor’s device squatted in the corner, a confection of copper, burnished wood and ivory. A set of pipes ran down the hanger wall and connected to the back of the device. Cottington twisted the shutoff valves and loosened the connectors. More carefully, he eased the device away from the wall and onto the lift, making sure that the Inducer sat firmly in its cradle next to the holding tank.
Pumping the lift with one hand and steadying the device with the other, Cottington maneuvered the delicate machine into the carriage. It sat neatly between its brackets like a resting praying mantis.
Gaskell and the Professor were waiting at the front stoop when he drove around, and leapt forward before Cottington could get the door. “No need.” Gaskell waved his hand as he and the Professor piled into the back of the auto. “Head to Finsbury!”
“Go!” The Professor leaned forward and tapped a single finger on Cottington’s shoulder. “With speed, Man.”
“Sir!” Cottington stepped on the accelerator and the steam carriage flew down the cobbled street, bouncing on its springs. Looking in the rear view mirror, he met the elf’s eyes; green as a summer leaf and shining with excitement.
He parked the carriage at the servant’s entrance. The Professor hopped out and lowered the carriage gate before Cottington could alight. Lips pressed tight, the elf lifted the Inducer from its cradle and slid his hand into the grip. Cottington buckled the forearm straps onto the Professor while Gaskell slid his arms into the holding tank’s straps, lifting it and settling it onto his back with a grunt. They slid their goggles on, but let them hang loose about their necks.
A maid flew out the back door. “Hurry! Oh, hurry! He won’t last much longer!” She hastened them through the kitchen, where a blood spattered boy sat weeping, and up a narrow servant’s stair. The door which she led them to was closed, and she paused there, eyes large in the hall’s dimness.
The Professor brushed past her.
The room was thick with the smell of blood. A single gas lamp burned at the bedside. A woman, dark ringlets piled on her head, sat there, clutching the hand of the person in the bed. She looked up as they entered the room, face wan. “Oh. It’s you.”
A man stepped from the corner of the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “Mrs. Bennett, I beg you reconsider.”
“I have made my decision, Dr. Carlyle.” Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but clear. “Professor Vaughn offers some small comfort, and I will take it.”
“But this … this …” The doctor threw his towel away. “If it is not heresy, it is quackery. Would you keep your husband’s soul from God?”
“Not all of it, Doctor,” the Professor interjected. “Only a small piece, to give comfort.”
Cottington sidled along the wall, giving the men space to confer.
The doctor, eyes narrowed, turned to the Professor and bared his teeth. “Soulless imp! What do you know of love or of comfort? How many souls have you sucked up with that infernal device? What say the loved ones who hold a snipped off piece of soul? Does it bring them comfort?” He whirled to Mrs. Bennett. “How say you, I cut off a toe, or perhaps an ear, an’ you hang that around your neck? At least the stench of that will be only on the material plane! How worse must be the smell of a rotting slice of soul?”
Mrs. Bennett stood, her face white and pinched. “Enough.” Hand shaking, she pointed to the door. “You will leave us now, sir.”
The doctor nodded tightly. Drawing himself up, he eyed the Professor, Gaskell and finally Cottington. Coat and bag in hand, he hesitated, took a breath but let it stream out. “Mrs. Bennett,” he said with a stiff bow. The Professor stepped away, and the doctor stalked out of the room.
In the silence, the man on the bed gave a rattling breath and expired.
They stood for a moment, frozen. With a hiss, the Professor rushed forward, arm raised. The Inducer clicked and whirred, a tiny mechanism of wire, pulleys and cogs moving on his forearm like a disturbed hive of insects.
“Edward!” Mrs. Bennett wailed and threw herself over her husband’s still form. The Professor motioned impatiently and Cottington stepped forward, urging the prostrate woman away.
She stood and swayed against him. Carefully, he led her to a chair and helped her sit. “Turn away, now,” he murmured. “The light will be very bright.”
Releasing her, he quickly pulled his goggles up and turned toward the bed. The tip of the Inducer had begun to glow and light curled out, fantastical, in slow spirals and sinuous strands. The Professor flipped up a tiny door on the device. “Cottington! We need more power!”
Cottington dashed to his bag and grabbed up the fuel case. Hands trembling with excitement, he fumbled with the tweezers, finally lifting up a single, translucent pixie wing. He moved carefully to the Professor’s side and laid the wing in the receiving chamber. The Professor grunted softly and flipped the door shut.
Light burst forth from the Inducer, curling through the air and around the dead man in winding loops. A shape took form, defined by the light in which it was held.
“I have you.” The Professor’s voice flowed out with the light, warm and thick. “Away, come away,” he spoke to the form. “All will be well.”
The fingers in the Inducer beckoned and the light-bound figure was pulled gently toward the Professor. Gaskell stepped up with the tank funnel and sucked both light and nebulous form into the holding tank.
The room blinked into darkness and there was no sound but Mrs. Bennett’s gentle sobbing.
Cottington raised his goggles and blinked. The Professor’s arm hung at his side, the inducer hanging down dark and cold. Cottington walked over to the bed and slid shut the dead man’s eyes.
“I say,” Gaskell muttered, “that went well. Not a hitch, eh?”
“Gaskell,” the Professor cautioned, his eyes flicking to Mrs. Bennett.
“Oh, yes. Quite.” Gaskell had the grace to look abashed. He turned so that the holding tank faced the Professor. “Let us continue, then.”
“Indeed.” The elf’s voice was dry. He flipped open the holding tank and peered inside. Cottington could see the crystal pulsing with faint, pearlescent light. The Professor lifted it gently, holding it in his fingertips. It was small, no bigger than a farthing, and edged with gold wire. “Mrs. Bennett? If you will hold out your hand?”
“Oh,” the woman wiped a hand over her face and looked up uncertainly, “is that … is that my Edward?” She held out both her hands. “Will I … can he feel me?”
The Professor laid the crystal gently in Mrs. Bennett’s cupped palm and curled her fingers over it. “Perhaps.” He tipped his head to the side, considering her. “I suggest that you string the crystal on a chain and wear it close to your heart.”
“Yes.” She settled back into her chair, her head against the cushioned back and brought her closed fist to her breast. “I have you, Edward,” she whispered. “Forever.”
The same maid led them back through the house, dark now, and quiet. Cottington slipped his fingers into his watch pocket, pulled out his timepiece and was shocked to find that little over an hour had elapsed since Gaskell’s call over the Terminal.
The Professor didn’t wait, but lowered the gate of the auto and began to loosen the straps on his forearm. Cottington jumped forward to assist. Shaking his arm free, the Professor examined the delicate instrument and set it back into its place with a twist and a click. Gaskell shrugged the holding tank into Cottington’s waiting hands, and the Professor took that, too, strapping it in its place next to the device.
Cottington held the auto's door open for the Professor and Mr. Gaskell, and the boiler still hot, accelerated down the alley and onto the street.
“That did go smashing well,” Gaskell said, rubbing his palms together. “And Bennett was a wealthy man. Nice looking widow,” he mused. “Perhaps I shall call on her, after a proper period of time has passed, of course.”
“I’m sure you’ll make a lovely threesome,” the Professor said. Cottington spared a glance at the mirror to the men in the back seat and met the Professor’s eyes. The elf’s lips twisted and he gave Cottington a wink. Cottington felt heat rise to his cheeks and set his eyes back on the roadway.
“Hrmp, yes, well,” Gaskell said, shifting his weight in the seat. “Surely she will release him after her mourning period. She’s not the type who would wear widow’s weeds long.” Cottington kept his gaze firmly on the road, but he could feel the Professor’s eyes on him, including him in the conversation. They did that, the elvin folk, pushed against human society and propriety, and the Professor more than most.
Their street was quiet in the dusk of early night, gas lamps illuminating the immaculate stoops. Cottington parked the car and hurried around, opening Gaskell’s door with a cheery grin. Gaskell blinked, as if noticing him for the first time. “Well done, Cottington. You performed most satisfactorily this evening. Take the car ‘round and relieve Porter.”
“Yes, sir.” Cottington said. Gaskell must have called Porter back to mind the boilers while they were out. Lovely. He’d hoped not to see the man before Monday. Releasing the break, Cottington accelerated down the street and through the alley to the hangar, stopping to swing open the door and back the auto into its place.
Porter had the hand lift ready and the two men unloaded the device without a word to each other. Cottington fished a wrench out of his satchel and began to reconnect the device to the steam pipes.
“My God, is this thing still loaded?” Porter was at the holding tank, his face peering into the door.
Cottington spun around. “What are you doing? Get your hand out of there! Are you insane?”
Porter narrowed his eyes. “Shut it, you bloody bounder. Doesn’t it bother you that a man’s soul is trapped in this … this … hell?”
Another voice answered from across the room, “Surely more limbo than hell, Mr. Porter.” The Professor walked slowly toward them, his eyes glowing like a cat’s in the dimness.
Porter stood, his hand resting lightly on the tank. “And when are you planning to release him, Professor?” His hand caressed the side of the tank and then moved toward the inner workings. “You know, for all that I’ve seen and heard of this procedure, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen you let a soul free. And yet the holding tank is always emptied.”
The Professor stopped. “Porter, what are you thinking? You cannot simply let a soul out from the device as if you were releasing steam from a boiler.” He raised his hand in caution. “There is a time and a place.”
Porter’s hand shifted to the release mechanism and Cottington felt the hair rise on his neck. “Porter, you don’t understand,” Cottington said, backing away. “Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable? Like you, Cottington?” Porter’s face darkened with emotion. “I may not be reasonable, but at least I am not," his lip lifted in disgust, "enchanted.” His hand caressing the holding tank, Porter turned from Cottington to the Professor. “The preservation of the soul! I thought ..." He blinked, eyes dark and damp. "How beautiful! How wondrous!" A dank breeze flowed down the hanger and ruffled his hair, blowing a dark wisp across his pale cheek. Porter raked his hair back and flicked tears away with the flat of his hand. "But that's not it, is it Professor?”
"Come away," the Professor suggested, fingers coaxing. "Let's go have a drink and discuss this."
Cottington sidled forward but stopped as Porter's hand jerked toward the release valve. "I saw it myself, Porter. A dying man, his loving wife, together now. Forever."
"Cottington, you idiot." Porter's voice was soft. "Our souls belong to the Infinite." His breath leaked out in a sigh as his hand slid down the device. "Bloody, bloody Obes."
“No!” The Professor lurched forward.
A soundless pressure boomed across the hanger, compressing Cottington’s eardrums in a noiseless thunder that blew out the hanger lights. Porter staggered under the onslaught but stood transfixed by the light that swirled out from the tank.
Gold, white, swirling green and blue so bright that it burned, blasted forth, seizing Porter from every direction. Cottington fumbled for the goggles at his neck. His eyes burned and streamed, and he blinked frantically, squinting against the glare.
In the darkness of the hanger, Porter stood pinned by the light, arms and head flung back, mouth open in a horrible grimace. The light played along his skin, flicked from his fingertips, and shot out of his mouth as he screamed.
“Cottington! The Inducer!” The Professor crouched down, arm raised to shield his face.
Lurching forward, Cottington twisted the Inducer free and dove toward the Professor, holding the mechanism up like an offering to God. The Professor snatched it and slammed his hand into the base, fingers scrabbling forward for the controls.
The flare of the Inducer was dim against the conflagration that was Porter. The Professor stretched his hand out, fingers twisting, pulling, demanding; the tight skeins of light unfurled from Porter like vines reaching out to the sun, flowing through the air and twinning around the Inducer, running up the Professor's arm and down again to his fingertips.
Free of the light, Porter fell to the floor, lifeless.
The Professor was now the one who burned like a sun. Trills of light raced up and down his form, lifted his hair and danced on his eyeballs. Opening his mouth, the elf breathed out a great gust, bending at the waist and wheezing so that every bit of air was pushed from his lungs. Cottington’s own lungs ached in sympathy.
Then, lips shut in a tight line, the Professor sucked a deep breath in through his nose. The light was pulled in, in, and in, the last of it swirling funnel-like around the Professor’s nostrils. Shouting out like thunder, the elf released the breath. He shuddered and fell to the ground with a meaty thud.
Cottington lay on the floor of the hanger, ears ringing and eyes tearing. Numbly, he pushed up his goggles, letting them fall to the floor, and crawled unsteadily to Porter.
“He’s very dead.”
The words were light, almost a child’s whisper. Cottington turned his head creakily to the sound. “I don’t understand.” His voice sounded dull in his ears. “Bennett’s soul, it went,” he stopped, his tongue dry in his mouth, and stared at the Professor, lying on the ground an arm’s width away.
The elf’s skin shone luminous in the darkness. Cottington sucked in a breath. So beautiful.
“Bennett and Porter. Their souls.” Cottington swallowed and tried again. “Where are they?”
Light swirled in the Professor’s eyes, green and gold. He took a deep breath and blew it out, an exhausted but satisfied sound, and smiled at Cottington.
“Don’t worry,” he said, brushing a hand though his hair, across his face and sensuously down his torso. “I’ve got them.” He patted a languid fingertip on his belly. “I’ve got them both.”
end