Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. (Paws & Claws Book 5) Read online

  Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

  by

  Ralph E. Vaughan

  Published by

  Dog in the Night Books

  2016

  Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. © 2016 Ralph E. Vaughan

  [email protected]

  https://www.facebook.com/RalphEVaughan/

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Advent

  Chapter 1: Dog on a Mission

  Chapter 2: Strange Events in a Quiet Neighborhood

  Chapter 3: Lair of the Beast

  Chapter 4: A Flurry of Phantoms

  Chapter 5: The Darkness Beyond the Purple Cow

  Chapter 6: Lost in Time & Space

  Chapter 7: The Reluctant Witness

  Chapter 8: When Worlds Collide

  Chapter 9: Brave New Old World

  Chapter 10: Countdown to Apocalypse

  Chapter 11: Deadly Claws

  Chapter 12: Tolls the Hour of Doom

  Epilogue: The Road Home

  A Message From the 3DDA

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Note to Readers

  Coming Attractions

  How to Contact the Author

  Also by Ralph E. Vaughan

  About the Author

  Prologue: Advent

  1885

  London

  Earth 2

  The streets of London were etched by lightning such as no dog had ever seen. Thunder-booms rattled windows and shook buildings to their foundations. Dogs who found shelter before the storm now huddled in cellars. They trembled, fighting their natures, trying not to panic, not to submit to terror that would reveal weaknesses to those who would take advantage of them.

  In a narrow Spitalfields’ alley, deep in London’s wretched East End, Snitch, a small breedless dog, hid in the lee of a shattered crate. He shivered as lightning flickered and crackled, as thunder crashed upon him. He had tried to find shelter, but all had rebuffed him; batted by heavy paws, nipped by cruel fangs, he was consigned to the storm by dogs who cared not whether he lived or died.

  Snitch had never been so scared, so miserable. He whimpered, but from long habit smothered his cries, hid them from any listeners, seen or unseen. Other dogs might have prayed to Gelert for mercy, to Anubis for rescue, or to First Dog for strength, but not Snitch the runt, not Snitch the unloved, not Snitch the misbegotten.

  Life had lifted its leg on him, had done so from the first day, when an indifferent Dam thrust him from the litter. He had survived, but no thanks to any dog, or their guiding spirits. Life had tried to murder him, but had failed. Snitch returned hate for hate.

  An unfamiliar sound burst upon his contemplation of a life in ruins, a high-pitched, undulating trill. A moment later, however, a deafening blast roared in his ears. The concussion crushed air from his tiny lungs. The night was seared by a brilliant light.

  Nearly blinded, he saw a bluish lightning bolt writhe out of the black sky, strike the center of the square outside the alley. The ferocity of the storm tapered off, still fierce but definitely past its peak, and though thunder still rumbled ominously, the silence of the night seeped back between the diminishing discharges.

  Sight returned to Snitch, and he forced himself to look into the square. In the retreating flickers of light he saw a pattern on the cobbles not present previously, pale etchings spreading outward like frozen flames. Then he saw them, two figures standing in the midst of the intricate pattern.

  The sight of the dog left him breathless for it was the largest dog anyone had ever seen, more than forty-five inches at the withers. He had short brown fur, uniform and creamy. His head was huge, muzzle long and tapering, ears thin and pointed. Above and below each eye was a dark eye-shaped spot, giving him the appearance of having triple eyes. His neck was long and sinewed, spine arched gracefully. His chest was deep, body thickly muscled, and his long legs could have carried him for miles. His tail was long and did not wag as much as it seemed to writhe, like a whip lazily snapped to and fro; it was bifurcated at the tip, like a serpent’s tongue.

  The dog’s companion was no less strange. It was, Snitch saw, a molly, a female cat, dark gray in color but with silvery lightning streaks fanning back from the center of her face. She wore a small black hat, a white collar and a bowtie the color of old blood. Her eyes glowed like luminescent pools of acid.

  They padded off into the night, leaving a dazed and confused Snitch wondering if he had hallucinated the whole thing. Later, of course, he realized it was all true, for among the dogs of London there now circulated the rumor of a dog like no other on Earth and of his mysterious cat companion—Lord Cerberus and Lilith.

  The strange dog moved from the realm of rumor when he came to the great rookery in Whitechapel. Through his herald Lilith he claimed his right as alpha. He was met by Blade, the Mastiff who had long led the criminal pack, who had never before lost a fight. Blade stood against Lord Cerberus…and fell.

  Whitechapel was only the first of the Great Packs to fall to the new dog. Eventually, alphas of packs large and small swore fealty to Lord Cerberus. Those who failed to submit joined Blade and the others who thought they could prevail against the usurper.

  In time, Lord Cerberus and his expanding criminal packs in the East End came to the attention of the Dogs of S.T.E.A.M. They fought him, sometimes winning, sometimes retreating. A balance was reached, but it was a precarious one, certain to fail.

  Snitch watched all this with interest, armed with secret knowledge held by no other. He wormed his way in, serving Lord Cerberus at the lowest level, then waited for the tipping point he knew would inevitably come.

  Chapter 1: Dog on a Mission

  1887

  London

  Earth 2

  Mordred paused as he padded along the Victoria Embankment, listening to London’s night-sounds. The city was gripped by a thick yellowish fog that swirled and eddied. It restricted vision to a few feet, turning gaslamps into nebulous glows. Mordred, however, was no sight-hound, so its effect was extremely frustrating.

  The fog also muted sounds, made even the closest noise seem as if it came from a great distance. He heard the gurgle and swish of the River Thames, the melancholy midnight chimes of Big Ben tolling across the metropolis, a nightwind whispering through chartered streets. But subtle sounds escaped him. For a moment he thought he heard paws padding to silence as he stopped, but it might be, he conceded, nothing more than an echo.

  He lifted his muzzle and sniffed at the cool misty air, trying his best to differentiate between all the myriad and confusing scent-molecules. He smelled sulfur and soot in the fog, the dank tang of the great river and rotting vegetation on its banks, and the pungent odor of gas seeping from loose joints under the earth and unburned from the sputtering lamps themselves. He smelled all those things, but they only served to mask fainter scents that might warn him of a lurking danger, which could have been detected by a lesser breed, one that lived by its nose.

  Mordred, black with brushes of tan on his muzzle, was mostly Mastiff, maybe. His clan had always bred itself to strength and aggression, selecting large and savage Dams and Sires, regardless of breed. The result was a dog who lived not by his eyes, his nose, or even his brain, but by the sharpness of his teeth, the power of his massive jaws. Through the centuries, the milk of canine kindness had been burned away by cruelty and ferocity, creating a heart shrouded in darkness and a mind steeped in malevolence, just the right dog to serve Lord Cerberus whole-heartedly.

  The brute heard nothing to announce the proximity of danger, for the paw-sounds that might have been an echo did not return, and he smelled nothing that made his hackles stand on end in cau
tion. Nevertheless he remained still. Slowly he swiveled his colossal head, gimlet eyes scanning the roiling curtain of fog.

  Mordred was an unimaginative dog, his dull mind not suffering the false alarms created by the fears of lesser breeds when faced with the unknown. Thus, his persistent uneasiness, despite the lack of tangible signs, confused him. The mist might harbor a menace, but he had no way to discern the reality of his suspicion.

  He lowered his head, opened his jaws slightly, and placed his precious burden on the cobbled ground. If a fight was in the offing, he did not want to be disadvantaged in any way. But he was careful to keep the softly glowing tube close to him, where he could hold it safe at all costs, for it was, quite literally, more valuable to Lord Cerberus than was his own miserable life.

  To Mordred, the thing was just another useless artifact from the Companions’ world, neither good as food nor of use in destroying one’s enemies. In form, it was a glass tube capped on each end by filigreed bronze workings and filled with a luminous green mist. It contained, or so he had been told, death, hence another reason for taking care with its transportation.

  If the tube somehow broke in transit, Mordred hoped he would die from its effects. No matter how painful the death, it would pale compared to what Lord Cerberus would do. Mordred was the scion of thousands of generations of killers and ravagers, but he knew he stood no chance, none at all, against his master.

  Lord Cerberus was not a dog who suffered mistakes or the fools who made them. The last dog who had tested their master’s patience was Mick, the giant Irish Wolfhound who thought his size, strength and speed would allow him to do to Lord Cerberus what his breed did to vicious wolves. In an instant Mick was helpless on the ground, his neck imprisoned by inescapable jaws; Lord Cerberus could have ended it in yet another instant, but he chose to take an hour to break the great hound’s neck.

  It was instructive.

  Mordred had never felt fear, not of any dog or other animal, not of any Companion. But all that changed the day he entered Lord Cerberus’ personal service. He felt fear now, but not of anything that might be lurking in the fog. If he somehow allowed those curs from S.T.E.A.M. to track him back to the master’s lair, Mick’s fate would seem fortunate in comparison.

  Mordred could not see, smell or hear any foes unseen in the fog. Lacking the keen senses of discernment possessed by the lesser breeds despised by his kind, he did the only thing he could do: he growled at the night and the fog and the unknown.

  Knowing he could delay his mission no longer, he carefully, tenderly scooped up the tube that had cost a Companion’s life. A last look about, listening, smelling, observing, then he was off.

  Just a lot of nothing, Mordred thought. Ain’t nobody out in this here fog but me. I’ll be glad when I give this bloody gizmo to Lord Cerberus and be done with it, be back to normal stuff like biting and fighting. Time disruptor! Who the blazes even uses words like that? He gulped as he thought of the deadly cat who had said those words to him. Well, ain’t none of my business, is it?

  Mordred resumed his journey through the foggy night, but at a faster pace and with a heightened sense of awareness.

  As he was swallowed by the mist, two dissimilar figures emerged from the deep shadows of a shop’s doorway.

  “I thought he sussed us sure, luv,” Chauncey whispered softly. The English Bulldog was white and tan, well suited to this London fog, and solidly muscled, sturdy as a brick doghouse.

  “No chance of trailing after him now,” Penelope sighed. The black-and-tan Lakeland Terrier was less than half the Bulldog’s weight, but she almost towered over her squat, round-shouldered companion, seeming even taller because of the mini-top hat she wore. “Mordred is a dumb beast, but now his hackles are up. He’ll be extra careful returning to wherever that monster has set up his lair. If we keep him in sight, he’ll surely spot us, and neither of us would stand a chance with him.”

  “What I would not give now for a scent-hound’s sniffer,” the Bulldog grumbled. “Then I’d show that mutt what’s what.”

  Penelope sniffed tentatively at the air, then the ground. “I doubt even a Bloodhound would have much luck in this muck.”

  “Well, he’s heading for Blackfriars Bridge, so it has to be on the other side of the river,” Chauncey pointed out. “We know at least that much about Lord Cerberus’ new lair.”

  “It’s hardly enough!” the Lakeland Terrier snapped. “It could be in The Borough or Rotherhithe, Bermondsey or…”

  He caught her heightened caution. He lifted his paw and pulled brass goggles over his eyes. The lenses rotated, gears softly whirred and clicked. The obscuring mist lightened and objects within the fog took on greater definition. He slowly scanned the area.

  “Anything, Chauncey?” Penelope asked.

  The Bulldog pushed the goggles up out of the way, blinked his eyes to recover from the strain put on them by the device, then shook his head. “Not a glimmer.”

  “I felt as if we were being observed,” Penelope said.

  “Not as far as I could tell, luv,” Chauncey replied. He sniffed at the air, but the industrial scents and the reek up from the river all but overpowered all smells. “Nothing.”

  “I could have sworn…” She let her words trail away as she swiveled her long rectangular head to and fro, searching the night for some justification of the feeling that had enveloped her.

  “Well, you may be right, luv, but there’s no way to see or sniff through the city’s muck, even with these goggles of dubious worth, so there you are,” Chauncey said with a note of resignation. “If dogs survive this age of steam and steel with any of our Creator-given senses intact, it will be a bloody miracle.”

  “Language, Chauncey,” she chided playfully. “Language.”

  “Sorry, luv.” The Bulldog had been an agent of S.T.E.A.M. for five years, but this was the first time he had been partnered with a female. Raised in the dangerous, rough-and-tumble world of bull-baiting, banned for more than three centuries but still practiced in some parts of the Empire, gentility did not come to him naturally.

  “What do you think that device was?” Penelope asked.

  “No idea,” Chauncey admitted. “But if he was bound for Lord Cerberus with it, as he surely was, then it can’t be good.”

  “We had better get back to headquarters and report,” Penelope suggested. “Before Quigley sends Spyro looking for us.”

  “That Bull Terrier is a blood…a blasted nuisance,” Chauncey muttered. “A regular mother hen.”

  “He’s sweet.”

  “Wouldn’t let Spyro hear you say that about him, if I were you, luv,” the Bulldog advised. “But you are right about us getting back. It does not take that long to carry documents to Scotland Yard.”

  “But when we saw…”

  “Oh, we did the right thing all right, following Mordred like we did,” Chauncey affirmed. “Every little bit of information we glean is another nail in Lord Cerberus’ coffin.”

  “I hope so,” she said with sudden heat. “I fervently hope so!”

  “Don’t you worry none, luv,” Chauncey said gently. “One day we’ll run him to ground, and he’ll be brown bread then, believe you me. He’ll pay for…” Chauncey’s tongue stumbled. It was well known what Lord Cerberus had done to Penelope’s Sire, but it was bad form to speak of it. “He’ll pay for his crimes…all of them.”

  Penelope nodded vaguely.

  “Well, as you said, we had better get back and make our report to Quigley,” Chauncey said. “He’ll be interested that Mordred was about on some errand, was carrying an instrument of some kind, but he won’t like it that we lost him.”

  Penelope sighed. Quigley would not like it at all, but he would neither scold nor reprimand. He was not that kind of an alpha, not the sort to use gimmicks, not a poser in any way. Besides, he would understand that his dismay at losing Mordred was nothing to what they themselves felt. No discipline could ever equal their own self-reproach. Quigley was an alpha who cho
se to lead, not dominate. That was one of the things she liked about working with S.T.E.A.M., that and the opportunity to bring that cur Lord Cerberus to justice, not the justice of Companions, but canine justice.

  The night’s stillness was broken suddenly by the sound of an airship passing overhead, high above the swirling fog cocooning the city, the droning of its many propellers, the rhythmic thumping and hissing of its steam engines. The Air Ministry craft vanished toward the east, probably crossing the Channel to spy on fortifications.

  “All right, luv,” Chauncey said when silence returned. “What’s lost is lost, so let’s get back and let the pack know we need to concentrate our efforts south of the River.”

  The two dogs turned and headed back the way they had come after first chancing to sight Mordred near Westminster.

  After they vanished back into the roiling mist, a small shadow lifted itself from a pile of rubbish at the entrance to a narrow alley. It rose tremulously, paused, then stepped forward, surveying the street with bulging eyes that gleamed like drops of oil. When it was sure of its solitude, the shadow shed the trash and dirt that had provided such excellent camouflage.

  Snitch grinned, showing teeth white as bleached bones, widely spaced, very long and narrow, and wickedly sharp. They looked less like teeth than they did spines from a deadly form of cactus. He was mostly white, with irregular streaks of brown and black. As to Snitch’s breed, that was a subject sure to elicit cruel japes and gibes from other dogs. There were so many breeds in his family tree, none distinguished itself from any other, hence none claimed him and all spurned him. The only thing anyone could say about Snitch’s indiscriminate ancestors was that they had all been fast runts, which was also the best anyone could say about Snitch.

  Too bad those two S.T.E.A.M. mutts didn’t keep after Mordred, the small dog thought. I wouldn’t let them follow him to the lair, no, not that! But, oh! Oh! It would have been glorious, telling Lord Cerberus about how they almost did, how they would have if not for me! Mordred would surely have been put down for that! And Lord Cerberus would have been so grateful. Glorious!