I THE LONG VERSION
Saturday 23rd February 1923
Wind Walkers
After midnight. The early hours of Saturday. We struggled back across the roof to the second fourgon. The frigid wind, laden heavily with smoke, buffeted at our backs, threatening to sweep us from the speeding train, making every step treacherous. Father Mika clung precariously to his finger hold, being pounded against the side of the carriage by the fierce wind. No-one could hear his cries for help over the noise of the rushing air and the thunder of the runaway engine blasting our ears. It was by miracle alone that Pierre spotted him.
Fourgon number two, please
Pierre assisted Mika back to the Calais Coach while the rest of us climbed down the side of the second fourgon to reach the unsecured sliding door, the padlock having been previously removed. Percy climbed down first and applied all his strength to forcing the door open. Holding on desperately with one hand against the power of the chilled, blasting wind. Cartwright, Letty then Ludwig followed. With the door opened, the sound of the whipping wind inevitably attracted the attention of the fourgon guards.
Bye, Letty
Guns were drawn in readiness for more violence, Letty cowered, her ballistophobia overcoming her senses (yes, we forgot this little detail when someone played Letty last time and had her happily engaging in a shoot-out). Percy was prepared to kill—a terrible necessity in pursuit of the greater good. What has become of our morality? A challenge is issued in the Keeper’s terrible French accent. ‘Show yourselves!’ The guards’ yelling came from somewhere further along the fourgon. Letty exits the carriage the same way we came in.
‘Letty, come back!’ shouts Ludwig.
‘Where’s she going?’ someone asks out loud.
.38 shoot-out
Percy pokes his head around the partition wall of the baggage compartment and peers down the corridor. His action is mirrored by an armed guard at the other end of the carriage. A .38 shoot-out ensues. The wooden partition splinters close to Percy’s head as a bullet tears through it. The exchange of fire soon results in the guard being taken clean off his feet by a bullet to the chest. A second guard drags his, possibly mortally wounded, companion into the cover of the end luggage compartment. Percy, Ludwig and Cartwright take advantage of the moment to advance quickly along the corridor—dipping in and out of cover as they do.
Hello, Letty
Letty, having moved along the side of the carriage in a feat of superhuman determination, headlong into the blasting, frigid wind, reaches the sliding door at the front of the fourgon. The armed guards are inside. She can hear them. Shouting and shooting. The door is padlocked. She hasn’t got her picks. She retrieves a bobby pin from her hair and deftly picks the lock.
Come inside, out of the cold
Letty pulls the door aside. Within the compartment a semi-conscious guard, half-sitting and half-lying, is slumped against the bulkhead, his shirt heavily stained with blood. A .38 held loosely in his hand. The other guard is peering around the partition wall, aiming his revolver down the corridor. The sudden sound of rushing air fills the compartment as the fourgon door slides open. The guard’s concentration becomes divided. Letty, clambering into the compartment, launches herself behind a pile of crates for cover. Outside, above the clamour of the wind and the clatter of wheels on rails, the demonic fluting of the engine whistle (thanks Mel for the poetic description) can be heard outside. Despite it being driverless, the monstrous engine has a life-force of its own.
Banshee
Letty pulls a scalpel from her handbag and grips it tightly. She acts impulsively—ready to use the implement on the guard. The guard points his revolver at her. Letty wails like a banshee. The others, hearing Letty’s scream, throw caution to the wind and dash the final yards to the guards’’ compartment.
Fight
The guard feels the bite of cold steel in his shoulder. Cartwright has come behind him, revolver in one hand, flaying knife in the other. The guard’s gun went off in the shock of receiving the wound. Thankfully the bullet went astray. His semi-conscious companion, despite bleeding profusely from his chest wound, tried to rouse himself. Letty dived on him. The pair rolled on the compartment floor. Badly wounded guard verses the 1916 British Army womens’ heavy weight all-in wrestling champion. It was no contest. A crunching right hook ended the guard’s resistance. The guard with Cartwright’s flaying knife in his shoulder turned to fire again but Percy shot him dead.
Fight over
Two fourgon guards. One dead. One dying. A necessary evil. It was another necessary evil to interrogate the dying guard before the poor bastard bled out. Cartwright roughed him up. The guard cried and wet himself. The guard knew nothing about statues or scrolls. He didn’t know what half the shit in the crates and boxes of the fourgon was.
No joy
Ludwig did what he could to tend to the guard’s wound. He stemmed the bleeding. The others tied him up. A thorough search of the fourgon found nothing. The simulacrum wasn’t here. It wasn’t found in any of the fourgon cars. So, what next?
A Memory of Crows
They wracked their brains. Ludwig suddenly recalls the strange incident at Beograd Station. 'Do you recall the massed murder of crows that attacked the train at Belgrade?
They launched themselves, suicidally at the carriage. Breaking their own bodies against the coach side and the glass of the windows. Something stirred them to madness.’
‘You’re suggesting something drove them to attack the train?’
‘Not the train… the carriage. They attacked only one coach. Our coach… the Calais Coach.’
‘We’ve searched the coach already. The Simulacrum cannot be there.’
‘But Makryat might. There’s only one way to find out.’
Come out, come out, wherever you are!
1.30 AM. Ludwig, Cartwright, Letty, Percy and Banks stood in Ludwig’s compartment staring at the lump of Danton Szorbic’s sleeping form. He was wrapped up beneath a blanket in his berth.
‘I’ll do it.’ Letty volunteered. She cast the Spell of Detransference and almost passed out from the magical backlash of her efforts.
They held their collective breath and stared. Szorbic continued to snore. Nothing happened.
‘Not him?’
‘Not him.’
They crept into Percy’s compartment next, trying not to disturb the burly Egyptian Rama Ho-Tet. Surely a fez-wearing man with a middle-eastern complexion cannot be Makryat? Cartwright cast the spell. Cartwright went weak and dizzy. As for Ho-Tet—nothing.
Who next? We’re pretty certain Elena Constanza is truthful about being a British spy. The Count and Countess, unless in it together, cannot be cultists. And if Makryat was impersonating one, the other would surely know the difference. Kurt Groenig was a possibly but we decided to test Sir Robert Harrow next, George Banks’ compartment fellow.
Guess who?
Banks led the way into his compartment. Harrow wasn’t there. Maybe he was enjoying a nightcap in the salon car? That’s where Pierre and Mika were. We took the opportunity to search the compartment again. Letty noticed how the bedside cabinet was sitting slightly proud from the partition wall. Percy pulled it forward and they tested the floor beneath. A loose piece of flooring panel dislodged and in a niche beneath it they found a book. A tome in fact, written in a flowing ancient Arabic script. No-one could read it. Percy had just enough of the language to translate the prominent words on the inside page—‘The Skinless One.’
‘It must be Harrow!’
They turned to Banks to show him what they’d found in his compartment. Banks wasn’t there.’
‘George?’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘—you don’t think… ?’
‘No. Surely not... We’d know if that wasn’t the real George’
‘—and he’s got the gaudy ring.’
They all looked at their cheap Turkish bizarre rings. The shite only tourists buy. The rings that they wore so they’d all know that they were who they said they were.
‘Come to think of it. I don’t remember George wearing his.’
...and the tome is hidden in his compartment...
There was the sound of a kerfuffle from the direction of the salon car.
‘Quick. Let’s go.’
Who are you, really?
In the salon car, Mika was downing the latest of several stiff drinks. Pierre was shouting at Banks. Banks was shouting at Sir Robert Harrow.
Harrow and Banks turn to face the arrivals. Percy wasted no time. He looked at Banks. He looked at Harrow. He cast the Spell of Detransference, catching both Banks and Harrow in its wake.
And…. ….. ……
Queue Scott’s narrative:
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