The Eversteam Chronicles- Book 1

By Jude Matulich-Hall

Eversteam is an old city full of culture and diversity; for hundreds of years its isolated shores have been a refuge for many. It's about to become the center of a steampunk mystery.

Penelope O'Connell is a private detective whose agency is

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Cat
• Release date: Jan 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781735895635

Book preview

PART I

EVERSTEAM

1

THE DETECTIVE

A dark figure flittered hurriedly across the rainswept street. Black and white patent heels tapped on cobblestones, splashed through puddles, tiptoed through mud, and rushed around a corner of an alleyway. A street lantern illuminated the bleach blonde-haired woman as she paused under an awning to wrap her wolf-furred coat about her. Long, dark lashes squinted in the gloom as she ran a finger down a placard engraved with stamped black words on brass. Her finger stalled on a name and tapped it thrice: O’Connell’s Detective Agency. Red lips pouted. She was a Damsel and she was in Distress! Surely, O’Connell could help her.

She marched up the stairs as though she owned the place and stopped in front of the frosted glass window. She did not even bother to knock before flinging open the door. Spurts of orange light briefly illuminated the room in intervals as the Geissler-tube sign outside the window proclaiming Haberdashery flashed one letter at a time down the side of the building. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the grey between the blazing orange bursts. Her gaze settled on the silhouette of the detective. There was only one small lamp illuminating a piece of scratch parchment atop a large, oak desk; a hand holding a nib pen stalled over an inkwell. It dropped the pen and shifted the lamp, throwing some light on the subject.

As though seizing a cue from a spotlight, the woman turned and rested her back against the doorjamb. She took her time to speak, allowing her feminine powers to be completely understood by the man behind the desk. She rested one hand to her heaving bosom and clutched a kerchief in the other. Her coat slipped purposefully off a shoulder, and she slowly swung her leg out; she smirked. If a long, drawn-out rising saxophone note could accompany that leg, it surely would. She was a cabaret performer, all sequins and tassels; she knew well what she could do to men. A moan escaped her lips, husky and drawled, Oh, detective, I need your help. I do not know where else to go. I’m at my wit’s end. In feline grace, she moved to the desk and slammed her hands down on its surface, leaning in just enough for the detective to receive a full view of her perfectly smooth, porcelain mounds of flesh spilling from the top of her dress.

Detective O’Connell spoke fumbling words, Uh, umm, yeeeeesss, yes, I can help you.

The woman cocked her head in confusion, grabbed the top of the lamp, and shone the light at the detective. It revealed a younger woman, large almond-shaped, amber-colored eyes squinted, and a mousey cocoa-brown, wavy, A-line haircut framed a small tawny face.

Where is the detective? the buxom blonde demanded. The throaty drawl left her voice; a haughty shrillness replaced it.

The young woman displayed a tight-lipped smile as though she had heard that question many times before. "I am the detective. Penelope O’Connell, at your service. She stood, walked around from behind the bureau, and thrust out an open hand. With her other hand, she pointed at the woman’s chest, crinkling up her nose disapprovingly. You will not be needing those." She smiled through clenched teeth, bobbling her head.

The woman took Penelope’s hand and shook it gingerly; with her other hand, she closed the top of her coat. "You are the detective?" She took a deep breath and held it briefly, looking Penelope up and down, unsure of how to proceed. Standing before her was a small wisp of a girl, wearing a shirt with poufy short sleeves and ribbons, black and white striped arm gloves, and her buckled underbust corset wasn't lifting much of anything, and she wore loose dungarees rolled at the ankles, with black and white laced trainers! The woman’s face went blank, haughtiness replaced with red hot embarrassment. She slumped unattractively and stared at her feet. Her hand went limp and slipped out of Penelope’s, doing its best to close the coat around the exposed leg. She looked up despairingly from the floor to Penelope, not expecting to see the look of compassion that greeted her. 

Can I help you? Penelope's asked benignly, her look of disapproval dissolving.

Hesitation filled the air; it seemed the woman would confide in this girl... but then she quickly straightened up, tossed her head proudly, and said, No, no, this won’t do! Her coat flung open as she whirled around, water droplets spraying the detective. "You will not do!" She stomped out of the office, slamming the door shut behind her.

Private Investigator Penelope Shruti Vetiver O’Connell sagged back into one of the plush, forest green velveteen chairs in front of the desk. An exacerbated sound issued through her lips as she wiped the droplets of water from her face. Another case had slipped right through her fingers! She leaned forward and drummed impatiently on the desk, the rain tapping against the window seemingly to accompany her. She picked up the nib pen and dipped it into the inkwell to finish the task that had been interrupted. She scratched the word FOUND across the sepia photo of a dog. What was this, a dog detection agency? She peeked over her shoulder at the frosted window across the room that bore the words No Case Too Small. Well, sorry, Baba, there were cases too small, like missing dogs and stolen highwheelers. She slapped her hand down on the picture and shoved it along with some papers into the waste bin.

When that woman had entered the office, Penelope was sure there was a bigger case headed her way. She had recognized the Look. It was the look of something Lost. The O’Connells had a knack for finding lost things. They had been finding lost things since the dawn of the spærk. Insofar as Penelope saw, the woman had no idea what to do with herself in that situation, and Penelope had felt a pang of pity. Pity, however, was not going to pay the bills.

She sighed a big shoulder-shrugging sigh. From relief, or was it disappointment? She was relieved to not have to deal with such an awful woman, butatthesametime, she needed the work. She puffed up her cheeks and let out a long, slow breath through pursed lips. She smoothed back a loose brown curl and tucked it behind her ear, but it promptly slipped right back where it had been. She felt so strongly that there was something, somewhere, lost; something Big, something Important, waiting to be found. She pulled her knees up to her chest and played with the cuffs of her pants. Resting her cheek on one knee, she began to hum a soft, small tune. Soon her humming faded as the sound of the rain gently lulled her to sleep.

~ॐ~

Deep beneath the Earth, soveryfar below the city of Eversteam, the Object thrummed and spun and pulsed like an unbounded beating heart… waiting to be Found.

~ॐ~

Atop the Haberdashery, outside of Penelope’s office window, a dark-winged ominous thing hid in the shadows. Silent and unblinking, blood-red eyes stared at the sleeping detective through the rain-splattered window. It had been there for hours diligently watching. Day after day, it would find its perch and wait, for it was patient and knew not boredom. Sometimes, however, it would doze, but its senses were sharp, and the slightest shift in the girl’s actions would wake it. It followed her as she came and went, always remaining out of sight, always quick to hide if her gaze happened its way.

The night had settled in; it was an appropriate time to fly without being spotted.

If the girl had looked out the window, she would have seen a large clockwork raven alight from the roof across the way. Wings creaked when they spread wide to take flight; as it turned its head, there was a whir. Its beak—silver, clawed feet of copper, brass for feathers, and gold eyelids half-cast over ruby eyes. It took earnest effort to get going, for its cogs and gears were made of iron and steel; they worked and churned to lift it higher.

The rain pummeled down but seemed not to touch the bird as it streaked through the night. It rose higher, navigating over the Three Rivers. The Lewistonclark: a tributary of crystal clean blue waters flowed lazily, excellent for swimming and fishing on hot days. A stone bridge gracefully arched over it, wide enough to allow a footpath and a carriage with two horses shoulder to shoulder. The Yungs River: burnt orange hue from its clay bottom, so thick it seemed to ooze more than flow. An unmanned raft attached to a long rope stretched from bank to bank served to get one across these phlegmatic waters. It did not take much might; the water was so thick the raft seemed to glide over the top of its surface as though it were an oil slick. The Lewistonclark and the Yungs poured into the bay to meet the mammoth Kolumbya: swift and wide, flowing East to West, aqua green with veins of purple algae. A paddle ferry traversed its waters twice per day.

Beneath the surface of the waters creeping along the depths, crabtanks roamed, and deep-sea scavengers scurried while submarines prepared to swim out to sea. Murky brown and writhing, unseen depths and dangers of its own, the mouth emptied between the mighty mountains, distant and deep purple, snow-capped yet littered with green, surrounding the city, protecting it from the Raging Autumn Sea.

Wanting to see the stars, the metal raven broke through the thick, grey clouds above into the dark heavens to behold a world of sparkling serenity. Stars showed brightly in every color, for in its raven eye, they were not all just white lights that twinkled and winked. The ocean of clouds roiled below, reflecting the moon’s light, causing deep shadows in the crevices. The bird cackled. A raven’s laugh in a raven’s throat, grating and rough. Humans thought it was the light of the sun reflecting off the moon that created moonlight. What they did not know was that the moon did have its own light; it was indeed Moon’s light. Silly humans!

As the bird lilted through the night, an opaqueness began to creep into it; an almostfog appeared all around. Unlike the clouds, though, the raven would not fly above this because the almostfog was everywhere at once. The stars’ light began to blur. The bird’s creaking wings grew quiet, the turning of its head became smooth. The red gems of its eyes became ebony, its silver beak became midnight, brass becoming sleek feathers as dark as pitch. The raven felt itself grow lighter as the gold, copper, and iron became tissue, sinew, and bone. The ticking of cogs became the beat of its heart, and heavy oil changed into rushing blood. He altered his direction abruptly and glided freely, drawing a large circle in the sky, then a figure eight, then zig-zagged, enjoying the freedom of his flesh body. He dove down through the clouds, and as he broke through them, he descried a world just as transformed as he.

At a distance, this world looks similar, but as one gets closer, the colors seem not quite right, as though someone has attempted to copy the world but has not enough crayons to mimic the depths and layers of color. The almostfog is everywhere, so it is as though one is looking at everything through a faint film. Like looking through film, everything seems clear if the film stays flat and does not move, but the moment there is a turn of the head or a shift of the light, the film wrinkles, and everything gets a slight warble to it. The edges blur as though it is a mirage or a reflection in a pond. It seems to be dusk or dawn allthetime here, the light never brightening or darkening, a perpetual Greyness. Sounds are dull as if a thick snow has just fallen, and the world has entered that hollow hibernation of muteness that settles into one’s ears and silences one's tongue to a whisper. The nosound that tinges the air in mortuaries and libraries, when the lights have gone out, and all the people have gone home. The air has a feeling, not of a school hallway in the summertime, not a church on a Wednesday, nor a doctor’s office at midnight. It is not the feeling of an empty chair or an abandoned house or a clear street, because it is not a place where people are and then are not. It has a feeling of without.

This is unReality.

unReality isn’t not real, it isn’t pretend, it is not ersatz. unReality is a place that exists between the Real and the Not Real. If exists is what It actually does. It is not cited on any map or written about in any atlases. It is located somewhere on the back of Beyond.

The raven flitted through unreal streets and dodged around unreal buildings, scouring the unreal avenues. He caught sight of his Maker reposed against an unreal tree sitting upon the unreal ground, with unreal leaves of not-quite-orange and not-quite-yellow lying scattered that had fallen from the effects of an unreal autumn. The man stood and stretched. The bird took its perch upon his shoulder.

Did you see her, Nevermore? The man scritched under the bird’s chin; it cooed in a pleased manner, ruffling its plumes.

Yes, I saw girl, Nevermore croaked from his raven throat, wriggling his feathers and bobbing his head.

She cannot be allowed to find the spærk, Nevermore. It would be most… unfortunate for her if she did. I would have to deal with her myself if you cannot, and you know what that would mean. The man spoke gruffly. Though he was grizzled, he stood up straight and strong. The skin of his face showed years of hardship; the keen, bright eyes were astute and dangerous.

The bird bowed his head in obedience. I find menial case, keep her busy, then we go about business unhindered, Sir.

The old man smiled, broad and dark, a gold tooth glinted. Good, be sure of it!

2

THE PYRO & THE SERGEANT

On this particularly damp autumn eve, all was still except an accomptant bent over financial records rubbing his worried forehead. Further on, a grocer nodded off to sleep in a storeroom after stocking shelves, a bottle near her boot. Machines lay quiet and covered, awaiting the next day’s work, toys lay unfinished upon workbenches, pendulums paused, boats and ships rose and fell with the calm night waters.

A lone carriage rested at a curb, the driver napped in his seat as some lovers embraced for a final kiss goodnight. The horse, restless, snorted and stamped its foot. Further on in the red-light district, a sailor, intoxicated with love and liquor, staggered out of a brothel into the street. He was barely missed by a double-decker lorry clacking along its wooden rails, only a few stragglers onboard. A bobby patrolling the district swung her truncheon in time with the tune she was whistling. A few blocks over, a man stumbled into an opiate den, unknowingly into the arms of a crimp to find the next morning shanghaied on a ship bound for the Indies. Blocks away, a lonely beggar in an alley, the third one in just under a month, was knocked over the head with a Rather Large Zucchini.

The skirl of a train sounded through the night, muffled and forlorn, whining along its tracks. As if in answer, the majestic clock tower in the epicenter tolled. Although most areas were quiet, a gentle, almost inaudible hum sounded through the streets. At all times, thrumming buzzed beneath the ground, and the city pulsed with energy.

Past humble farmhouses on humble farms, and extravagant mansions upon extravagant estates, in the Eastern outskirts, a fine mist, not yet turned to droplets of rain, filled the air, settling on brick and stone. Steal train tracks rusted at a snail’s pace. A thin fog established itself over trees, on fields, and an old decrepit, abandoned warehouse looming darker than the night itself.

In its shadow, a hulking figure stood, methodically puffing on a large cigar. Sausage fingers curled around one end, bringing it up to long, thin lips spread grimly across the broad, scruffy jowled face. Half-cast eyes of piercing crystal blue rose above a hawk nose puckered with pockmarks. In the center of this massive face were grand, bristling, perfectly manicured handlebar mustaches. Meditatively he sucked in three quick draws. The end burned auburn, accenting sharp features and gleaming eyes. He dropped his hand, and three perfect rings of smoke issued out of his mouth. At equal intervals, the meditation commenced—puff, puff, puff, blowing out a ring, a second, and a third—againandagain until the cigar was burnt down halfway. 

A large shadow soundlessly crawled over him from above. He quickly slipped back into the darker gloam of the building. Dim light glinted off the shiny sides of the zeppelin as it wheezed its way overhead, a beam of yellow scanning the grounds. The man squinted to make out the emblem on the side of the airship: Eversteam Interpol. A low, short growl issued from his throat; he despised politsiya. As the ship continued its patrol, slothfully slipping out of sight, the man hummed an uppity little ditty under his breath. He breathed a deep, heavy sigh and smiled proudly to himself. This was going to be the grandest one yet!

He propped the smoking stogie between pearly teeth; the ditty grew louder, his eyes widened and flashed. He began to sing around the cigar; gruff, throaty, happy sounds. His larynx bobbed up and down; he began to sway, the song got louder. He hopped, skipped, twirled, and pirouetted through the doors of the warehouse. His arms flew open wide, majestic broad chest heaving beneath a simple, ribbed, white A-frame shirt; the song became laughter, deep and guttural. He grabbed up the cask of fuel from inside the doors and flung open its spout.

He shimmied circles and sloshed the pungent liquid here and there. Each splash accented with his voice. Three times this dance and song had been enacted during the night. This round was more ecstatic, more elaborate than the ones before. Like a rhinoceros, he danced, graceful and powerful, whipping up the dust from the floor to swirl around his feet.

When the dust had muddied, and his steps became splashes in puddles of petrol, and the last drop was flung from the metal mouth, he paused and bowed with grandiosity to his audience of dust mites and woodworms. All was quiet except for the drips falling from the walls. He inhaled deeply, the fumes stinging his nostrils. He swayed, head swimming, eyes glazed, and giggled. The cigar was now nothing more than a smoldering stub, but it was enough. He sauntered to the doors, puffed ferociously until the end crepitated, pinched it between two fingers, and flung it over his shoulder.

It took a few moments…

He did not move…

He held his breath…

A minute longer, and he could hear it.

He started to breathe again. Every muscle rippled beneath his skin in anticipation. The small sounds grew bigger; the band began to play. Flames went crack, snap; the band became an orchestra. Crackle, pop, pop—becoming a symphony. Snap, crackle, crack—becoming a mighty opera—Whoosh!

He grinned as the heat licked his back, charring the hairs of his neck. He did not turn around, not yet. He was shaking all over, waiting for The Moment. Beginning to walk away, every cell in his body quivered excitedly. Just a few meters more, his brow was sweating, his teeth gritting into a mad grin. The Moment had arrived! He turned slowly and beheld the majestic ballet of flames dancing before his eyes. Never before had he created such beauty; oh, Mighty Inferno of Life and Destruction! He threw back his head and whooped in delight, howled and hopped up and down, clapping his hands like a giant child.

A gnawing thought in the back of his mind told him to get further away, but he wanted to feel the heat on his face. He was closer than he had ever been before. Even his eyebrows were being singed. It was glorious! The thought persisted, and he soon had to give in, self-preservation being much more powerful than passion. He started backing away, but his foot snagged on something. Glancing down, he saw that his bootlace had come undone and he was stepping on it. He bent to retie it and espied a delicate dandelion lying smashed where he had stood. Picking it up gently as though it were something so precious, he frowned, ears picking up the slightest warning.

He had not gotten far enough away from the inferno before it reached its climax—a large container of extra petrol and dynamite placed in the middle of the warehouse. He had made it especially for this occasion and planned to watch the finale from several more meters away. But that little flower betrayed him and he never did get to see his masterpiece. One second he was looking at the fuzzy yellow head crumpled in the palm of his hand; the next, he was standing amidst heat and flames in a long line leading down to fiery red gates.

~ॐ~

A long lump lay covered, only large feet sticking out from under heavy, elaborate, flowery quilting. His grandmother had made the quilt for him with her own two arthritic hands. The telephone chimed; a moan emitted from beneath the covering. The telephone chimed again. An arm shot out like the long pale tongue of a giant, grabbed the clock from the nightstand, and was sucked back into the jaws of the mighty cotton beast. Chimes filled the air again. The clock was spat out to land perforce on a pile of clothes; the two metal bells upon its head tinkled. The hands read quarter past the 19th hour. The tongue shot out once more and grabbed the receiver, sucking it cord and all between its cotton teeth. The threaded beast growled an angry, low-timbered Hullo!?... Yes, operator, this is he... Yes, I will take the call. Thank you, operator... Hullo?... Can’t you call someone else? I just got off a few hours a—Yes, this is he! It’s my number, innit? Who the hell is this?... Oh yeah, eh, sorry, guv. I’ll be there in a tick. The skin of the beast was thrown off and within its belly lay the very tired copper, Sergeant Heathrow Julius Jennings. He had been following up a dead-end for forty-eight hours straight, trying to establish the whereabouts of the elusive pyromaniac who was roaming the streets of Eversteam. Now there was finally a breakthrough; they had found him. No details until he got there though, that is what his guv’nor said.

He dragged his tall, slender frame to the loo to splash water on his face and brush his teeth. When he turned the tap, only a hissing sound greeted him, followed by a whine that shook the faucet and sent a clanging down through the pipes. He tried the shower with the same result. Bugger! He shuffled to the kitchen to receive once more... nothing. He stuck the dry toothbrush in his mouth and proceeded through his ablutions with the pitcher of water he kept in the cooler.

Feeling rather frigid but refreshed and awake, he hurried to the pile of clothes, replaced the clock on its table, and draped himself back into the dark blue uniform of which he had just a few hours ago taken himself out. Grabbing his knapsack and hooking it over his shoulder, he bounded to the front door. Pausing briefly in front of the mirror above the little table in the foyer, he scanned his stubbled chin and bleary grey-green bloodshot eyes. He ran his fingers through the pale blonde, short, messy hair upon his hazy head. Grabbing his peaked hat and long trench coat from the coat tree, he quickly and quietly opened the door, shutting and locking it. As he passed the Super’s door, he slipped a neatly folded piece of paper beneath it with scribbled words reading: Something wrong with water in 3B. Fix it! And as an afterthought, Please with a smiley face.

He bounded down the stairs and out the front door. Skidding to a halt in front of his Pearson & Cox motorcar, he snatched the handle from his satchel and quickly wound the crank. He slid himself into the seat, slipped the key into the ignition, turned it, and listened to the sound of gears puzzle-piecing themselves together. The yellow spærk in its glass on the dash sputtered and wobbled to life. Steam rose from the exhaust pipe, and the engine began to hum.

He lay his head back on the rest and closed his eyes. Finally, after all this time, they had found his pyro. His pyro, for he was the one that had traced and linked dozens of fires to the man named Arseny Vladimir Bortsovich. He was the only one that had cross-referenced and searched hundreds and hundreds of similar cases dating back decades. He had sorted through finding the ones that had been caused by Bortsovich. Eighty-plus cases over forty-plus years. The man had been burning down buildings since before the sergeant was born! And Heathrow had found the pieces from all over the world and put them together within his little cubicle.

He clasped the pentacle hanging around his neck between his thumb and forefinger and Ommmed deep in his chest. He made a sign for warding off the Evil Eye. Then with hands together in front of his heart, he bowed his head and sent a prayer to the gods. He always believed in covering all ground.

His mother had taken him to mass every Easter and Christmas, his father had given him a Bar Mitzvah, and they had celebrated Solstice and Equinox every year. On his mother’s side, his grandmother was Taoist, and his grandfather was Baha’i. His aunt was a Pagan Shaman, and her wife was a Christian Scientist. On his father's side, his grandmother was Jewish, and his grandfather was Zen Buddhist. His aunt was an Egyptologist, and one uncle was a Philosopher, while his other uncle was a Mythologist thespian. Regardless of their belief systems or sexual tendencies, his family always received each other with open arms, and they had magnificent soirees every year for their family reunions.

When Sergeant Jennings arrived at the scene, his guv'nor caught him up to speed. There was nothing left of the building except for smoking rubble and debris scattered in all directions. It had been abandoned, so luckily no one was hurt… no one innocent, that is. A body was found almost a football field’s length away from the wreckage. As they walked the distance, the sergeant endured a griping his boss gave him for arriving so late to a scene, utterly skimming over the countless unpaid hours Heathrow had spent on the case: sleepless nights, endless files, and lack of Social Life. He gripped his jaw and pushed his tongue into the back of his teeth to prevent the profane words he wanted to spit out at the Inspector.

Inspector Oswald Boaring was not a tall man, but he took to wearing lifts in his loafers. He was well-built aside from the belly that had seen far too many ales and biscuits. His hair had become thin up top, and he grew it long enough so that when swept back, it covered the circle of baldness in a desperate sort of way. He donned a short mustache above plump pink lips that resembled a sickly caterpillar. The pugnacious inspector could be charming when he wanted to be and had plenty of friends, but he never let his subordinates forget where they stood.

As the slander foamed out of his mouth, Jennings thought to himself, he will get his, and I will be the one to give it to him. When I become Inspector, I will not bite my tongue! As soon as they were within earshot of everyone else, Boaring became a smiling, shiny-faced cherub that laughed in his big belly and gave praise to some of those around him. So many knew what he was like but went along with it anyway. Better to go along than be in the line of fire; that was the sergeant’s duty as the Inspector’s underling.

They pressed through the growing throng of onlookers gathering around the periphery and ducked under the yellow rope, entering the little white tent that menacingly pronounced to the world: Something terrible and revolting beyond your imagination is in here. The smell of charred remains hit them like a train, burning their nostrils and scorching their eyes. The sergeant wrapped an elbow around his face to try and breathe; a constable handed him a mask. Jennings nodded thanks and placed the thin cotton material over his nose and mouth, and squatted down, uncovering the face of the body. He squeezed his eyes shut in shock and almost wretched but swallowed it down quickly. He opened one eye and slowly opened the other to gaze into the unblinking stare. 

His pyro lay dead before him. 

The hair around the ears had been burned away, the ends of the mustaches shriveled, the eyes were glazed and vacant but still held an insane gleam, and that big mouth still smiled profoundly. Sergeant Jennings carefully searched through burnt pockets, hands moving tactfully and respectfully. His ears picked up parts of a murmured conversation Boaring was having with the other coppers. He heard the incongruous words Crispy and Fried and chose to ignore them. He was absorbed in his task, not wanting to overlook any detail about the dead man. However, there wasn’t much to gather; nothing in the pockets except a trench lighter, a couple of scorched cigars, and a charred photograph. One of Bortsovich's boots was missing.

Something did not feel right. Jennings could not put his finger on it but was bothered by the fact that the pyro was dead. He had always thought that he would find Bortsovich alive and well, basking on some beach somewhere sipping one of those gaudy drinks that had a little pink paper umbrella. Or perhaps in a dank, dark basement with maps and blueprints, surrounded by empty liquor bottles filled with piss, planning the subsequent big fire. But dead did not make sense. Not this way. Perhaps a train wreck or a disease, but not like this. Not cooked to a cinder by his own fire!

Lack of sleep and overworked, with no proper sustenance, Heathrow could feel himself getting lightheaded; the stench filled his nose even through the mask. His eyes burned and welled with wet. He tried to blink it away, but instead, it dripped down his cheeks. He attempted to wipe it away with the back of his hand but noticed that his hand was shaking. His mouth had gone dry. He needed to get out of there; he wanted to breathe fresh air! He rose quickly but then observed the pyro's large hand clasped into a tight fist and began to reach for it but was distracted by a guffaw from behind him. Inspector Boaring was chortling loudly at his own grotesque and disrespectful jokes. Heathrow could not take another moment and bolted out of the tent, tearing the mask from his face. The misty air quickly turned to droplets of cool; thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain hit his face, and he let it wash over him as he stood in reverence to his abolished foe.

~ॐ~

A loud crack of thunder startled Penelope awake. It was dark outside and was still raining. She dropped her