The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives by James P. Blaylock & J. K. Potter

Author:James P. Blaylock & J. K. Potter [Blaylock, James P. & Potter, J. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781596061705
Google: H85KJwAACAAJ
Goodreads: 2473860
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2008-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

***

The partly shaded lantern threw an amazingly bright shaft of light across the floor of the cupboard. Hasbro and Kraken had carried it up the passage from the street, finding themselves, finally, beyond the wall of Narbondo’s laboratory. The lantern did nothing, however, to generally illuminate the close quarters, and Kraken, bending across to whisper into his companion’s ear, smashed his nose against Hasbro’s shoulder in the process. “Ugh’ whispered Kraken, putting a hand to his face.

“Ssshh!” said Hasbro, who made an effort to peer through a wire-thin crack that ran along the edge of the moving panel. Lamplight shone from beyond, and every now and then someone—the hunchback surely—passed across in front of the crack.

“Shall we clip it open and throttle him, then?” whispered Kraken.

“Patience, sir.”

“He’s a bad’n, is the doctor. Not a man o’ science, mind you. A different sort. A devil. I’m agoing to pummel him,” whispered Kraken, jolting around for a moment, perhaps practicing his pummeling. Hasbro peered through the crack, undisturbed. “Science don’t slice up dead men,” insisted Kraken in a stage whisper of increasing vehemence. “Science don’t…” he began, but a noise on the stairs behind interrupted him.

“Sh!” whispered Hasbro, jiggling the covered lamp so that the cloth fell and nipped off the light altogether. The two held their breath. A tramp, scrape, tramp sounded on the stairs. Someone, something approached, ascended toward them. Hasbro squeezed Kraken’s shoulder twice, as if signaling that action was imminent. “As silent as possible,” he murmured into Kraken’s ear.

“Aye,” breathed Kraken.

A sputtering light appeared, preceding low giggling and a muffled cough. The light flickered across the landing at the top of the narrow stairs. Both men half expected the appearance on the landing of a ghoul, of one of the walking dead who would shuffle round to face them up the dark corridor. With a last scrape and thud, a knee and a foot appeared; then a head bent into view—the grinning, open-mouthed head of Willis Pule, lit by the unnaturally white light of a sputtering fuse that curled up out of the bowels of an infernal device. He turned and crept toward them, the circle of light cast by the fuse approaching along the floor.

Hasbro crouched there, waiting, ready to spring the moment they were revealed. Kraken shook beside him, his teeth rattling audibly. Pule stopped, canted his head, squinting through the gloom, suspicious.

“Lord!” howled Kraken. “He’ll blow us to finders!” And with that he launched himself at the horrified Pule, who made as if to heave the bomb full into Kraken’s face. The two went down in a heap of arms and legs, both shouting, Kraken rolling astride Pule and flailing away at him with both fists. The bomb bounced on the wooden floorboards, Hasbro scooping it up and pinching at the fuse, which, despite his efforts, sputtered continually to life.

“This won’t do,” he said aloud, and he pitched the bomb along the corridor. It bounced, rolled, caromed off the wall and down the stairs, bump, bump, humping along.

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