Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(29)
“You can’t fool me,” the man said. “I would’ve known if I had ever been kidnapped.”
“You weren’t . . .” I faltered. “You’re not hiding out from a cadre of villains?”
Jackaby had stepped around the man and was now looking at the assorted items in his campsite.
“I live here now. I work here. Don’t touch anything!” Finstern yelped as Jackaby knelt down beside a curious contraption in the center of the clearing.
Finstern’s machine sat atop a sort of folding wooden platform. By the light of the dim lantern, it looked like the collapsible booths that street vendors sometimes used with three wooden legs all set with hinges for quick travel. There was a row of copper cylinders to one side, all capped with brass fittings and strung with coiled wires. The wires ran to an apparatus composed of thick pipes and slim copper tubes, all carefully fitted and joined in a fixture of wood and brass until something not unlike an enormous sidelong microscope took shape. The contraption had myriad revolving lenses and knobs of every size for making meticulous adjustments, and symbols I did not recognized were etched into the metal casings.
From crates stacked in the clearing just beyond it came several piteous mewls and squeaks. I stepped closer.
“What is it?” Jackaby asked, circling the machine with his nose practically inside the works.
“It is my invention,” answered Finstern. “My life’s work.”
“You’re using a modified Daniell cell for your condensers,” Jackaby observed.
“That’s right,” Finstern confirmed, watching Jackaby closely.
“It’s effective but rudimentary. I don’t understand. There’s no way you produced that burst of energy with a generator like this.”
“Additional input is not necessary to initiate the process. The battery of capacitors function only to prime the transference. They are the engine’s spark, Detective, not its fuel.” The strange little man was breathing heavily. At least he did not seem inclined to throw any more tools.
I crossed over to peek into the crates. Tiny furry whiskers and glistening eyes peered out at me. There were squirrels in the first box. Rats in another. A pair of tawny cat’s paws clawed helplessly at a thin gap in the slats of the bottom container. We might have found Hammett’s feline companion after all, I realized, although what Finstern was doing with all of these animals was more than I wanted to guess. The smell was horrible.
“So, what is the fuel?” Jackaby asked.
Finstern was now fidgeting excitedly. “With the right focus and proper channeling, transvigoration provides its own momentum.” He chuckled with the giddy joy of his own work. A queasy feeling crept through me. Something about that man turned my stomach. The cat in the crate beside me mewled piteously.
“What does transvigoration do, exactly?” Jackaby asked.
I caught sight of a row of open containers back behind the rest. Stepping forward gingerly, I peered inside and immediately reeled at the horrid sight. I was going to be sick. The boxes were heaped with piles of lifeless chipmunks, rabbits, and mice. A big black hound dog, too large for any of the boxes, lay sprawled beside them. He wasn’t breathing.
“Let me show you,” Finstern said darkly. I heard a whir and a click and spun around to find myself staring directly down the bulging central lens of the inventor’s apparatus. For a moment my vision swam and the forest darkened—and then just as suddenly the shadows all fled and the whole world went white.
Chapter Sixteen
I sat slumped against the base of an old tree as feeling gradually returned to my extremities. My lips still felt numb and a taste like iron lingered on my tongue. Jackaby was pulling open the last of the crates and releasing the frightened animals into the wild. An orange tabby bounded across the clearing, pausing to look back just once before vanishing into the underbrush. I hoped Hammett would be pleased to have her back. When Jackaby had finished, there remained a grim collection of beasts who would not be returning to their homes. I sat up stiffly.
Owen Finstern lay motionless on the earth across the clearing. I rubbed my temples with both hands and breathed in slowly. “Is he dead?” I asked.
“He’s unconscious, but still alive,” Jackaby answered. It was coming back to me. The whole experience had taken only a matter of seconds. With the flick of a switch, the apparatus had hummed to life. I had felt a jolt in my chest like the snap of static electricity, and then all at once it was as though a dam had burst and a massive current was rushing through me—not at me, but through me. And then it just stopped. The machine crackled. The light blinked out. It was over, and Finstern was on his back in the moss.
Jackaby stepped over to him, surveying the inventor. “He’s human—at least, he appears to be—but I think there’s something more. It’s deep. Dormant. Latent potential at the core of him. I didn’t even see it at first.”
“He’s a creep.” I pushed off the ground and tried to shake off the tingling sensation rippling through my skin.
“You should sit down, Miss Rook. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I’m fine, Mr. Jackaby, really. I’m just glad his awful machine went wrong.”
“I’m not sure that it did.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I could see energy flowing out of you and into Mr. Finstern. The transference of energies—transvigoration—that’s the purpose of this device. I don’t think it went wrong, I think it functioned perfectly. You really shouldn’t be standing.”