Horizons of Deceit, Book 1 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  “HORIZONS OF DECEIT

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Space: 1889 & Beyond—Horizons of Deceit, Book I

  By Jonathan Cooper

  Copyright 2013 by Jonathan Cooper

  Space: 1889 © & ™ Frank Chadwick 1988, 2014

  Cover Design & Art © Tom Webster and

  Untreed Reads Publishing, 2014

  Space: 1889 & Beyond developed by Andy Frankham-Allen

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Other Titles in the Space: 1889 & Beyond Series

  Journey to the Heart of Luna

  Vandals on Venus

  The Ghosts of Mercury

  A Prince of Mars

  Abattoir in the Aether

  Dark Side of Luna

  Conspiracy of Silence

  Mundus Cerialis

  Leviathans in the Clouds

  A Fistful of Dust

  The Forever Journey

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  “HORIZONS OF DECEIT

  BOOK I”

  By Jonathan Cooper

  Prologue

  The Bomb and the Dead Men

  1.

  THEY WERE THE fingers of an artisan, and they worked quickly—he didn’t know how much time they had. The choking smog that descended, night after night, on the streets of Westminster had bought them a few minutes, but no more. They were out in the open, and even with Potsdam on guard he felt vulnerable. The opalescent sheen of soot and chemical residue would mask them only for so long—if the prying eyes of Scotland Yard’s finest got within a few feet of the monument even the dimmest of their number would quickly realise that something was terribly amiss.

  He clicked the timing mechanism’s ratchet into place. A proud man, he couldn’t help but feel satisfied by the elegance of his design, one built to please his eye as much as it was built for murder. He’d often been mocked due to the time and effort he took in producing his little devices—but let the others use jam jars, scrap brass and broken watch springs. To him, his trade was as much about producing works of art as it was about making engines of death.

  With the timer in place, he began to wind the handwheel like a seamstress at her machine. A constant stream of clicks, inexorably increasing in volume, began to emanate from the clockwork mechanism in the bomb’s elaborate housing. From somewhere behind him Potsdam growled his disapproval—this was too much noise. Klopstock agreed, sweating despite the cold. If Potsdam got riled the clicking would be irrelevant, drowned by noises far louder and fleshier in nature. He looked up from his kneeling position to the eyes of his watchdog, but as usual, the thick round discs of black glass he wore gave absolutely nothing away.

  As he wound the wheel he tensed, sympatico with the spring he was tightening. He looked up at the monument. Erected in 1886 to commemorate the British killed at the Battle of Bous, the plinth held two soldiers standing back-to-back, one British, one German. At their feet lay a French shako, tipped to one side. Klopstock bristled. He found the whole thing insulting, and would’ve spat on the ground had propriety and excellent schooling not curbed the instinct. To be relegated to a hat on the ground—that was as much recognition as this ham-fisted sculptor would give the French, lacking the spine and the imagination to go against instructions from his over-privileged, overfed and autocratic paymasters.

  With the timer fully wound, Klopstock reached to the back of the device to ensure the clamps holding the dynamite were sufficiently tight. There was only one last thing to do—sliding the polished wooden lever inset onto the front of the device would release a catch attached to the timing mechanism, dropping a ball bearing into a cradle that sat beside the fuse. If the bearing hit the metallic sides of the cradle, it would complete a circuit, activating a clockwork arm that pulled a pin from the timer, causing it to run down almost instantly and then, Klopstock thought—and he couldn’t help but allow himself a wry smile at the vulgarity of it all—boom. His mother would not have been proud.

  As he reached for the lever, the sound of boot-steps from behind him made his spine turn to steel and his head whip round. Potsdam stepped forward, one monstrous clodhopper crunching the debris on the cobbles, his dark grey greatcoat almost imperceptible against the night. Klopstock held out a hand to stop him, and Potsdam relented. But only just. Breathing out steadily, Klopstock brought the lever across and heard the almost imperceptible tap! as the ball bearing fell from its housing. Breathing a sigh of relief, he stood up and turned around, suddenly glad for the cool night air and the dimness of a London lit by the hiss of gaslamps.

  And found himself looking at an unmistakable silhouette, roughly six feet in front of him. The domed hat, the cape…there was no mistaking a member of the constabulary. If Klopstock could see him he could surely see Klopstock, but Potsdam was standing slightly further behind. The smaller man brushed the grime from his knees and wordlessly urged his hulking companion to step back into the night, and be ready.

  “Bit late in the day for a constitutional, isn’t it, sir?”

  His nose was pockmarked and ruddied by rum. Under his helmet were bulbous cheeks and a moustache that, despite obvious and continual waxing and trimming, still managed to look unkempt. But his eyes…they were sharp and keen, and despite the ruptured capillaries that betrayed a drinker, tonight was one night when this particular constable had abstained.

  “Not at all, officer, not at all!” beamed Klopstock. “For I am, you see, a member of that curious breed known as the artist. My mind is as restless as paper scraps in the breeze, sir. As active as a tiger by night, sir. As fanciful as these great ships that take us to the stars and back, sir. I am here—” and Klopstock breathed in, puffing out his chest and spreading his arms wide, “—for inspiration.”

  “Well,” replied the policeman, raising an eyebrow. “I doubt you’ll find it here, sir.” He stepped closer to Klopstock, who smiled at him beatifically. “Have you been drinking at all, sir?”

  “Not a drop, constable. Not a drop.”

  “And your place of residence?”

  “No fixed abode, officer. I am but a dandelion seed on Melpomene’s wind.”

  “Melpomene, eh? I see. If you could just step over here, sir? Into the light. I wouldn’t mind asking you a couple more questions.”

  “Of course, constable! Of course! Although if you’ll excuse my impertinence, I must beg you to not delay me too long.” The policemen stopped and eyed Klopstock wearily.

  “Inspiration suddenly striking, i
s it, sir?”

  “Not at all. It’s more a matter of patience, you see.”

  “When it’s police business, sir, you’ll be as patient as I need you to be.”

  Klopstock made a noise at the back of his throat, something caught between a tut and a snort of laughter.

  “Ah, well, that’s it, isn’t it? The thing is, it’s not my impatience that you need worry about…”

  A figure, fully a head taller than policeman—helmet and all—appeared from the smog. A massive hulking rectangle of a man, dressed in a docker’s greatcoat, scarf and an almost comically undersized bowler hat. He seemed to be made almost entirely of black, the only specks of brightness on his person the dim reflections of gaslight in the welding goggles strapped to his face. The policeman whirled round, but too late! Without even time to yell or dash away, the policeman’s neck was gripped and he was lifted, eyes bulging, a full foot-and-a-half from the floor. And yet he did not feel the flesh of man tightening around his throat—there was nothing but cold bars of metal pressing the very life from him.

  He began to kick out, booting the monster in the chest and groin, but to no avail. On the contrary, this only seemed to enrage the beast, and he lifted the policeman higher still. For a moment that lasted forever in the unfortunate constable’s mind, and yet was no more than a brief moment in the life of the world, he was held up high and granted one last look at the stars above London, dimmed by a chemical smog. And then with brutality the body was brought down and the skull was smashed on the gritty, sewer-soaked cobblestones of Horseguard’s Parade.

  Like a dog with a rag doll, Potsdam straightened his arm and offered the corpse to his companion for inspection.

  “Ergh, I don’t want to see that,” said Klopstock. “Throw it in the river.”

  Chapter One

  The Errant Guest

  1.

  EVERY GIRL HAS nerves upon her wedding day, but before the day was out the nerves of Annabelle Somerset would be decidedly more fraught than that of the average bride. She was making her way through the streets of Greenwich, and to her left the Thames bustled with sludge and merchant ships. The air had cleared since last night, she noticed, and the day might almost have threatened some of that elusive English sunshine later in the afternoon. This cheered her, and she allowed herself a moment of joyous, schoolgirl glee that she was heading to the church in which she would be wed, Our Layde, Star of the Sea.

  Oh, she knew all that old bosh about the bride arriving last. But Annabelle Somerset was a modern woman—the natural upshot of her life of adventure on other planets, in the piston-oil black between worlds, and the battle scars that lingered in her body and her mind. This was her day, and hers alone, and she demanded distraction. She had waited seven long hard months for it, and so she resolved to rise before any other lady had even had their bodice pressed and head to the church to see how the day was beginning.

  Perhaps from a hidden nook in the transept, just to be discreet.

  And so, having arrived, she ensconced herself thus before the first sparrow had sung. Soon, she heard gentle murmurs begin and the heavy clank of the huge door’s cast-iron catch lifted up and down, hard heels treading softly over stone floors in reverence for the silence. Annabelle suddenly realised she had not thought this through. The nook had seemed perfect at first but as the guests and friends began to enter she felt she’d had to shuffle back piecemeal to avoid being seen, and had now shuffled back so far she couldn’t see a blasted thing. What’s more, more and more people were arriving every moment.

  She shrank back as much as she could and tried to think. What to do? Just go out there, yell ta-daaa! and get the whole sorry shambles over and done with? Maybe there was a way yet that she could sneak herself out. But she found herself bundling up more and biting her lip when she heard the crisp, loud smack of men’s fine leather shoes striding straight towards where she was hiding.

  Bugger, she thought, and tried to think of a line she could use to brazen her way out of this. She took a deep breath and held her head high, the footsteps two metres, a metre away….

  Around the corner from the nave came Nathaniel Stone, and when he saw Annabelle standing there with her jaw thrust impudently out he stopped in his tracks and stared.

  “Annabelle,” he whispered.

  “Now before you defend all this stuffed-shirt British wedding nonsense, which you will, and perhaps that may do me some good, I’d just like to make a few things clear. To whit… Nathaniel, why are you staring?”

  “Annabelle,” he said, shaken from his stupor and beaming widely. “You look radiant.” Perhaps not for the first time that day, but certainly not the last, Annabelle Somerset felt herself blushing, and the pink tinge to her cheeks seemed all the softer and more delicate when compared to the pristine whiteness of her dress. A wide belt in light brown leather was wound around her waist, held by a large gold double buckle with a watch chain looped from one end. She had worried about her prosthetic leg and the problems it may cause—she had tried numerous dresses at the dressmakers and ended up tearing some of the wretched things. So the front of her skirt had been adjusted accordingly, and a suitably demure slit came up the front (tripped with fine lace just to be on the safe side). One shoulder was bare, the other covered with a delicate ruffled fabric that caught the light. Her hair was in ringlets and adorned with pearls.

  “I’d be happy just to stand here for the rest of the day, dear Annabelle, and admire the beauty that I’ve seen you become.” Nathaniel grinned. “But I believe you’ve got a wedding to attend.”

  “Yes, Nathaniel, but the problem is I’m already there.”

  “Hmm,” he muttered. “So you are. Two ticks.”

  Nathaniel popped his head back towards the nave and scanned the pews, taking in the faces. He noticed Captain Folkard at the back. He was standing with his hands clasped behind him, upright and resplendent in his full naval regalia; despite his insistence that now their mineral collecting mission was over he wished to resign his commission, the Admiralty had persuaded him otherwise. He was still one of their finest captains, and they had need of him. There was a man next to him, shorter than Folkard but wiry, secretive, and Nathaniel noticed he was dressed more for a funeral than a wedding. Head to toe in black, of all things. He was whispering in Folkard’s ear, and when Folkard looked like he might glance Nathaniel’s way, Nathaniel bobbed his head back and returned to Miss Somerset.

  “Folkard’s arrived,” he said. “He’s brought his cloak and daggers. Arnaud’s there, and I heard Commander Bedford is to arrive any minute… All his family’s here, I recognise his father from the squint. Hang on.” Nathaniel stopped, struck by a thought he feared to voice. “If you’re here, where’s your uncle? Where’s Cyrus?”

  Annabelle sighed. It seemed that seven months ago her uncle’s mind had settled once again, but after her most recent stop-over at Earth, some two months back, Uncle Cyrus’ increasingly erratic behaviour had resurfaced; a deep and debilitating worry, but now, after being back on Earth for a couple of weeks, it had hardened into a sort of anger. Her parents dead, who else but her only living relative was to give her away? She had feared this and tried to forget it, but the inevitability of the disappointment had caught up with her at last.

  “Oh, Nathaniel,” she breathed, the inflection of it filled with the potential of tears. She held out her hands and he let her come to his shoulder, the soft, velvet safety of a life-long friend. Her mind bobbed to the past, forgotten things, tragedies on the great American plains… She thought of Venus, Luna, of Mars and the Phobos, how she had lost her leg to a gunshot. And all the time, Nathaniel, who had dragged her over extra-terrestrial deserts and guarded her surely through nightmarish times, had been there.

  “Wait a moment,” she snapped, bolting up, and there was no trace of tears in her voice now. “You can do it!”

  “What? Well… Really?”

  “Of course! Why, now that I come to think of it, I wouldn’t want anyone else!”
>
  “But… Your uncle, he may just be delayed, and on a day like today, where might haste and imprudence lead us?”

  “I do not wish to hear my uncle mentioned again today, and I’d be forever grateful if that sentiment could be communicated to the rest of the guests. The shadow of his madness will not linger on my wedding day.” She looked into Nathaniel’s face and placed her palm upon his cheek. “A brighter and more constant light must lead me down the aisle.”

  Nathaniel frowned.

  “The only problem being, Miss Somerset—and I realise that that may be the last occasion I ever get to address you as that—is that you are already down it.”

  “Well,” grinned Annabelle, “I’ve never been one for convention.”

  The hubbub in the nave seemed to subside momentarily and the clank of the door sounded finally. There were hushed congratulations and a decorous smattering of applause, and soon the hubbub had returned, this time infused with a current of anticipation. Nathaniel bobbed his head out again and there, inevitably, was the groom. Annabelle peered discretely from behind Nathaniel. George, dressed in the sharp-lined livery of a career naval man. He was shaking hands warmly with Folkard, the two sharing a moment to reminisce. George looked coy.

  “Excellent,” hissed Nathaniel. “That’s bought us some time.”

  With all of the attention directed to the groom at the front of the church, Nathaniel tiptoed across to the organist. Annabelle, distracted by the absurdity of it all, idly wondered if the poor fellow had to put up with these sorts of shenanigans often. Nathaniel reached his destination mostly unseen, and had a quick word in the man’s ear.

  Moments later he was back with Annabelle.

  “He says he’ll do it.”

  “Really? However did you manage that?”

  Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “I know my way around the men of the cloth.”

  And so, with the organist duly instructed and the guests beginning to settle, George Bedford slowly and solemnly made his way towards the altar. Nathaniel, no doubt estimating his speed, the distance…mentally computed the perfect time to go, which was, in fact, right now, nodded across at the organist while taking Annabelle’s arm, and started walking.