The Lazarus Engine – Chapter 8
The List
The membership roll of the Order of the Second Breath was hidden in a locked safe behind a painting of a dying saint. Thorne had known about it for years. He had never opened it. Until now.
The safe was located in the back room of a condemned pub near the docks—a meeting place the Order had used in its early years. Gray had picked the lock with a hairpin. Thorne had spun the dial by memory: 11-11-47. The time Vane had declared “the hour of the second breath.”
The safe door swung open.
Inside: a leather-bound ledger, a brass key, and a single human molar wrapped in silk.
Thorne pulled out the ledger. Its pages were filled with names, dates, and handwritten notes. Forty-three members, as Crowne had said. But some of the names had been crossed out in red ink.
“The dead ones,” Gray said.
Thorne ran his finger down the list. “Sir Humphrey Wells – crossed out. Dr. Percival Hale – crossed out. Ezekiel Crowne – still alive. Victor March – crossed out ten years ago.” He paused. “Charlotte March – not crossed out. But not listed as a member. She was never officially initiated.”
“Then why is she killing?”
“Revenge. Or love. Or madness.” Thorne turned the page. “Here. Three names are marked with a different symbol. A clock face.”
Gray leaned closer. “Who are they?”
“Lady Isolde Vane. Dr. Aris Thorne. And a man named Silas Blackwood.”
“Blackwood?”
“The Order’s financier. He disappeared after Vane’s death. No one has seen him in five years.”
Thorne closed the ledger. “Charlotte is working through the list. She’s already killed Wells and Hale. She’s tried to kill me. Isolde Vane is her protector—or her prisoner. That leaves Blackwood.”
“Find Blackwood, find Charlotte?”
“Find Blackwood, find the final engine. He funded March’s research. He would have kept copies of everything. Blueprints. Prototypes. Maybe even the original heart.”
Gray picked up the brass key from the safe. “What does this open?”
Thorne examined it. The key was old, ornately carved, with a snake’s head at the bow.
“Vane’s private mausoleum,” he said. “In the cemetery behind the manor. Isolde mentioned it once. She said it contained ‘the things that cannot be buried.'”
“Then that’s where we go next.”
Thorne shook his head. “Not yet. First, we find Blackwood. He’s our only link to Charlotte’s location.”
He pulled a worn address book from the safe—Blackwood’s personal contacts, handwritten in tiny script.
“Mayfair,” Thorne said. “He owned a townhouse on Curzon Street. If he’s still alive, that’s where he’ll be. If he’s dead—”
“Then we’re out of leads.”
“Then we break into the mausoleum.”
They left the condemned pub and stepped into the fog. The gas lamps were flickering. The hour was late.
As they walked toward Mayfair, Thorne felt the ticking engine in his coat pocket. It had grown faster. Louder.
Charlotte was close. He could feel her in the rhythm of the gears.
Curzon Street was silent at midnight. The townhouses were dark, their wealthy occupants asleep behind iron railings and bolted doors. Number 17 was no exception.
But the front door was unlocked.
Thorne drew his revolver. Gray raised her truncheon.
They stepped inside.
The foyer smelled of dust and old paper. No signs of struggle. No blood. No engines. But on the staircase, someone had left a single brass gear, still warm.
“She’s been here,” Gray whispered.
“Recently.”
They climbed the stairs. The bedrooms were empty. The study was ransacked—drawers pulled out, books scattered, a portrait of a woman slashed to ribbons.
And on the desk, a note:
“Dr. Thorne – You’re looking for the wrong ghost. Silas Blackwood died five years ago. I buried him myself. In Vane’s mausoleum. Come find us. – C.”
Thorne folded the note.
“The mausoleum,” he said. “She wants us there.”
“It’s a trap.”
“All traps can be sprung.” He looked at Gray. “Are you ready?”
She tightened her grip on the truncheon. “I’ve been ready since the locked carriage.”
They walked out of the townhouse, into the fog, toward the cemetery where the dead were buried.
And where one of them was waiting to wake up.n on the table. “Let’s see who’s really dead—and who’s merely waiting to be wound.”