The Vorrh

fluttered in obedience, albeit far too quickly. He bent closer to see that all the polished surfaces were clean and free from dust.
    As he touched the gears again, he felt oil on his fingertips. He looked closer: there was wear on the head strap. Somebody had used it, not once, but a number of times. Who would have done such a thing? And what for? His mind raced. Apart from Gull and his men, the only other with keys had been the black woman. He shivered. Did she still come here, addicted to the effects of machine? He looked edgily around the rooms again, fondling his pocket where the revolver nestled. Nothing moved.
    He came back to the table and walked to its other side. Something lumped under the thin, stained carpet beneath his feet, something akin to a long, slender pipe. He knelt and pulled the shabby rug away. A black, tarred electric cable ran along the floorboards and across the room, its end snaking up the inside of the table leg and under its countertop. He peered under the table, crouching to see what was hidden below: here was the greatest find. Two incandescent lamps, held beneath the table by sturdy clips. He pulled one out and examined it. It was Edison’s work: one of his handmade, electrically powered lamps – new, unique and incredibly expensive. But where had it come from? And what would this extravagance give his machine?
    He stood up and stared at the machine, the wire and bulb still in his hands. He imagined her in it, serene and seemingly unaffected, and tried to push the images of her transformation out of his mind. He looked at the wire, which split to join each of the two bulbs, a metal ring on each brass stem, holding the lamp in place. He searched below the counter with his fingers and quickly found the two holes drilled into the tabletop. The surface of the table near the holes was burnt, its varnish scarred from the continual heat of the lamps. He traced the cable back to an empty cupboard. By his calculations, the batteries would have been stored here: somebody had been using his device in the dead of night. That would be the only reason for such expense – to operate it and transform another while all else slept. He shuddered at the idea. His machine of daylight, which had proved sinister enough in the sun’s presence, had taken on an ominous, unnatural function in his absence. He wished he could talk to the almighty surgeon about this, but Gull was unwell. All his attempts at contact over the last months had been met with sturdy denial. He was in retreat.
    On his way home through the slow snow, he reflected that perhaps the locked room was best left that way, with nobody except the sick doctor knowing of his involvement here. If the machine had been used for some untoward purpose, then it was nothing to do with him. He was innocent of any of the effects that it might have produced. Yes, better left that way. He would have it out with Gull when he was recovered.
    His trusty instinct was sharp in the cold, and it told him that yet again he only had a few days left in this city of crime and intrigue. He would lay low and let the snow keep all muffled until he was on the ship again. There, between his worlds, he could decide whether to take the matter further or drop the brass key like a bullet into the starless, churning water.
    * * *

    On the night of their return from Ishmael’s reunion with Ghertrude, they made a strange mating. Ishmael made love to assert himself, while Cyrena’s endeavours sought a reassuring balm: neither was achieved. The hybrid resonance that followed them into their sleep disturbed the house for days. They were only fortunate that the bow was already gone; she would not have fed well on the atmosphere they had created.
    Ishmael did not notice that Tsungali and the bow had gone. So absorbed was he in finding his place in his new life that he temporarily forgot his old one; he could hold no reflection on anything other than Cyrena. He longed for her to see his truth, not because he was deformed and rare, but, conversely, because of his growing normality and commonness. He hungered for her to mirror him in the depth of the love she so strongly professed. He watched her continually, when he thought she was unaware, to see if there were cracks or blemishes in the perfection of her surface. He wanted her to prove his existence in hers; all else had been empty, and the attempts of those who marked his passage had always failed: even Nebsuel’s ministrations now