Excerpt: A Lady of Many Parts

From the Collected chronicals of Lady Babette Wintergreen Winbourne – Ghost Hunter

Of the happenings of June 24 – June 30, 1907

Package for courier:
The Dowager House of the Duke of Greensward
To the Dowager Duchess Tadema Giselle Greensward
Warning: Do not, repeat do not use balloon or dirigible for delivery

Dearest Grande Mere,

I pray that this reaches you in secret and in haste. I need your assistance more than ever! I have to report that I have failed in my duties in the most dire of circumstances. And as you know, if I fail, then all hell may break lose, most literally.

I have kept this journal, so that you and those who assist you closely will fully understand the desperate straights I have sunk to. And how greatly I desired and need some sort of assistance.

I will relate all to you as it happened, so the full horror of what occurred will be revealed to you.

I arrived at the small hamlet in plenty of time using my new carriage. I found it very convenient to drive myself from inside the rig. I also appreciate dispensing with a carriage driver and a real horse. I made my journey to the hamlet of Fittledean three times as fast as it would have with an older fashioned carriage.

When I had locked the levers for the breaks and the power to the horse, strained my travel crumpled appearance to alighted from the carriage. As soon as I swung open the door to let myself down the steps, I felt the crawling sensation of a very powerful and angry ghostly spirit. My hair instantly escaped its braid and began to fly about my head as if in a whirl wind. I knew that was the worst of signs.

I adjusted my goggles, levering the corrective lenses out of the way so that I could use my natural sight to scan my surrounds for this chilling specter. I used my height from the top step to more easily scan the village.

At once I discovered that what lay before me was deserted. Not a person, animal or bird moved or called out to me. If I had not already been alerted that peril was before me, the wholesale destruction would have forced me back into my vehicle if I had been any normal traveler.

Grande mere, I shudder to describe it all to you. What had once been a tidy and prosperous little village was now, if you might excuse the expression, a ghost town. It looked as if someone had let off one of the new explosives without regard to human life. Glass from every empty window glittered on the ground like piles of new snow. No shutters hung straight – the few still attached to their building dangled like tassels. Without my corrective lenses, I had to assume the scattered bits of wood were what remained of the rest.

Thatching from roofs looked as if giant hands had pulled it hair from a child’s head in a tantrum. Not an intact roof remained. The ground was thick with the evidence of violence. Drifts of thatching with boards breaking through like fangs were surrounded by stones scattered like bird seed across the carriage road.

I stood at the clean outline of this destruction, as if at the edge of a pond. I stood on a placid shore at the edge of an ocean of chaos.

I have seen many horrors as you well know. I have not been frightened by much in the last years since living with you my dear Grande Mere. Terror ran through my body as if my skin was hooked up to the new acid batteries McDougal has in his laboratory.

It takes far longer to write this to you than it did for me to assess the situation. I leapt back into the carriage swiftly.

There, I opened my bag of armaments. I knew that protecting myself was more important than my tools at that point. I felt that stepping off the edge of that shore would mean violence to my person. I stripped out of traveling hat and jacket. I left my bustle, just adding weapons to their holsters in the skirt.

The new celluloid armor made suiting up simple. Your suggestion that I drill myself to arm myself at speed were a necessity at that moment.

I swear to you from this moment on, I will never complain about any discomfort while wearing armor again. It saved my life that day and is the only reason I can remain in this cursed place.

Do I need to mention that during my swift actions, there had still been no sound or any other sign of life from outside the carriage?

My own spirits, whom I had sent out to discover what they might, had not returned. And though I was now weighted down by all of my weapons, my armor and the bag of my tools, I felt naked without my ghostly companions.

It took all of my resolve to descend from of the carriage, where minutes before I had stepped with confidence.

Please inform Anderson that all of my tools, both magical and mechanical must have some coating or covering so that they will not become slippery when my hands are wet with fear.

My back to the vehicle, I shut my eyes. I knew that it was imperative that I calm. I knew that to discover if any lived, I must collect my power and use every sense my instructors worked so patiently to instill in me.

I took as deep breaths as my armored corset would allow me, and I listened. I am thankful that Evans forced me to take his mechanical horse with me for testing. It stood in absolute silence, where a real beast would have been wild now, kicking and screaming, forcing me attention away from my work.

Finding my center was difficult when I was so full of fear for the people and animals of Fittledean but at last my breathing was slow and deep.

I reached out that sense that makes me who I am and then I began the call.

“Spirits, come to me. All who hear my call, come to me.” Grande mere, I swear I did not have time to set up any shields for the humans. Besides, I wished to know if any yet lived.

I could an awful pulling away, instead of any coming forward to my call.

Without opening my eyes, I reached down into the larges pocket, and pulled out that new megaphone and placed it to my mouth.

My voice shattered the stillness. “All spirits, all souls within my call, come to me. All spirits, all souls, hear this call. Come to me.”

It was the bravest act of my life up to that point. Standing with my eyes tight shut, to concentrate all of the power of my voice out into that sea of frozen violence, I called and called. Grande mere, I am not certain I have ever used that much power without boundaries. The results still chill my skin.

I opened my eyes wide, and through the smoked uncorrected lenses of my goggles, I perceived a sea of souls.

Green and blue glowed fitfully in the slender naiads and dryads who had answered my call. They huddled on the ground at my feet. It was as if I had transformed into their very trees and ponds. I stepped forward so that they lay behind me. It was the best protection I could give at that time.

A dark muddy red revealed the few humans left. Two were crawling painfully towards me, with obvious wounds seeping blood. I saw the rest flickering beneath the ground. I suddenly had the information that the remaining inhabitants of the village were in a deep cellar beneath what had been the Inn.

I had to ignore the injured and the dying. I had to continue to pull at their souls, so that I did not lose my connection to the rest.

You can not know the utter relief to me was the return of all my companion spirits. Madame, they stood before me in an absolute maelstrom. I have never seen them act in that way. My terror tried to rise, but I had not time for that.

Because just beyond my guardians, stood a monster. And it was just stalking past the line of destruction. It had no expression I could read - just a huge beak. Its mirror eyes glowed. Giant knife claws cut into the road between us.

I turned myself so that the megaphone was directed solely at the construct. Never did my voice falter, though my heart did so.

“Creature, come to me. Hear my voice, spirit of the dead. Come to me.” With my free hand, I reached to my belt, and withdrew the blessed bell from its pocket.

With no circle, no book, no preparations, I began to ring. I swung the bell with all I was worth.

“Spirit, hear my voice. Spirit hear the bell. With my voice I command you. With this bell, I banish you. With my power, I banish you. See the light. Go to the light. I command you.”

The metal griffin flexed its wings, and I knew – knew that for the first time since I came into my full powers, I would fail.

Yes Grande mere. I failed. You know how difficult, how terrible an event it truly is.