The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [138]
“That might work,” Cal said slowly. Dean shook his head.
“Dangerous. Just like I said before.”
“It will work.” I pressed my forehead against the glass and watched the mountains turn to hills and the hills turn to frozen fields. “It has to.”
The Secret of the Steam
LOVECRAFT APPEARED OUT of the dark and mist-wrapped day like the skeleton of a great beast, resting on the riverside, phantom breath rising from the foundry chimneys.
Though it had been little more than a week since I’d left, seeing the familiar spires and rooftops was like returning after a journey of immeasurable distance and time.
As we bumped through the streets, I saw lamps flicker to life and steam vent from far below into the cold, ghost dragons dancing on the wind. The Engine was power, and its great heart turned day and night, creating the steam that powered the aether generators, the jitney lines and everything else in the city.
From our class visits to the Engine, I knew that it was guarded, by Proctors no less. Unless a worker possessed of identification came to the gates, visitors would be turned away at best or shot at worst. The Engine was buried hundreds of feet below the streets, and the vent tunnels to the surface were welded shut and patrolled regularly.
All of this I’d learned in Civil Engineering. No one tampered with the Engine. It was the heart of the city.
And I was going to rip it out.
The jitney ground into the depot on lower Miskatonic Avenue, stabling itself next to a dozen similar steel-and-steam bodies. The driver didn’t spring the doors, though, and I peered out the window. Dean joined me, hand on my shoulder. “Something’s wrong,” he murmured.
“Sorry, folks.” The driver’s slimy voice oozed out of the phono above my head. “Official security alert. We gotta stay put for an inspection before I can let you off.”
Groans and complaints sounded, but after grumbling, the passengers settled and went back to their magazines and newspapers. A girl a few seats ahead of me took out a compact and started to fix her lipstick. How in the frozen hell could she be so calm?
Because she wasn’t a fugitive, I realized. She was normal. I had never wanted to be normal so badly.
“Inspection?” Cal cracked his knuckles one after the other, a tic he didn’t seem to notice. “That’s bad news, Aoife. These aren’t podunk Proctor recruits like they’ve got in Arkham.”
The bus door hissed open and Dean growled, “Cool it. They’re here.”
From the outside, I caught the wail of Klaxons and the scent of acrid smoke from grinding gears. That wasn’t normal, unless there was a riot. My stomach knotted. A riot was all we needed.
Two Proctors in black tunics and black caps stepped onto the jitney, their gold wings gleaming on their breasts like shields.
“Everyone keep your seat,” the Proctor in the lead shouted. “Keep quiet, and produce your identification when asked.”
“Is it heretics?” the girl with the compact said. “Are they in the city? Are we safe?”
“What did I just tell you?” the Proctor snarled. He stomped down the center aisle, jackboots shaking the entire jitney, and held out a hand. “Identification.”
The Proctor was tall and thin, the sleeves of his tunic flapping, much like the ravens his agency employed. His nose even hooked, beaklike, below small pinched eyes.
Muttering, the girl fished through her purse. “Don’t have to treat a person surly just because some crazies lit a few jitneys on fire.” She had a drawl, and enough brunette curls to give a reel starlet a run for her money. I imagined she’d been going to New Amsterdam to give Broadway a try and somehow ended up in the grim iron claws of Lovecraft.
“This isn’t a joke!” the Proctor barked. “Give me your papers!”
It wasn’t normal, even for a Proctor, to behave so. Something was wrong in Lovecraft.
Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes as she rummaged frantically through her ditty bag for her identification.
“There’s a lot of them out there,” Dean said, nudging me to look out the bubble window. The Proctors were arrayed