"The Mississippi Mystery" - Part Four

 

Part Four

            “The Archivist?” Craig pondered the name Rania identified with the goblin creature in the cage. He knew he had heard it somewhere recently. And then, it hit him, “He’s the one who tried to have your body stolen!”

            “I just wanted the brain,” the Archivist snickered sinisterly.

            Rania did her best to restrain her rage. “A lot of good it did you,” she mocked. “Got yourself locked up in this cage…” She gripped one of the bars, loudly rattling it. “…ready to be auctioned off to the likes of P.T. Barnum or some other showman with a fixation for ‘freaks’ like you.”

            “I’ll admit – this isn’t my proudest of moments,” the Archivist said with a humbled breath. “But I am grateful that I will be saved by Aznavorian the Tinkerer and Craig of the Creek.”

            Craig took a step back in fear. He knows who I am.

            Rania furiously slammed her fist against the Archivist’s cage, rattling it even louder. “Six of my lives! Six! That’s how many you’ve tormented for your own sadistic pleasure! Give me one good reason I should free you from a much-deserved fate!”

            The Archivist took a deep, calming breath. “Because of the wars to come.”

            “What wars?” Rania cringed.

            “The war for the multiverse and the war of the machines,” the Archivist clarified. “Past, present, and future will all converge.”

            This warning haunted Rania.

            Before she could ask any further on it, a gunshot rang outside the room. Alarmed, she instructed Craig while gesturing to the Archivist, “Keep an eye on him.” She could see how apprehensive Craig was. “It’s O.K. He’s locked up tight in there. Didn’t you see how I kept slammin’ the cage?”

            Craig recalled the gesture, believing she did it because she was angry.

            Sure enough, the cage was unescapable.

            With boosted confidence, Craig accepted his task. “I got this.”

            “I know you do,” Rania said, leaving her young companion with a quick kiss on his forehead before she moved out of the cargo hold and investigated the gunshot.

            Craig began his watch over the imprisoned Archivist.

            The sinister alien didn’t make it so easy for him, staring back at the child with a grin so atrocious that it sent chills down Craig’s spine.

            A mere moment before the gunshot rang out across the Jefferson, Tyler wandered along one side of the steamboat, looking out towards the blackness that surrounded it. It was so late in the evening, he could barely make out the trees bordering the Mississippi; at most, he could see the ripples across the river, the light from the lanterns reflecting off the pitch-black water.

            Soothing as it all was, Tyler felt defeated.

            He hit a dead end with the search for Fred’s parents.

            At least, he thought he did…before Leeka’s vortex manipulator began to beep in his hand. It started to lead him straight towards the bow when…BLAM! He stopped in his tracks when he heard the gunshot – coming from the same direction he was already heading towards. Once he got there, he saw a black woman in rags thudding to the deck, right in front of someone in a black raincoat with a gun in their hand.

            The gun was pointed right at the black woman, who lied dead on the floor.

            “HEY!” Tyler yelled to the gunman, who reacted to his voice and ran away.

            Tyler would have pursued, if he had not been so concerned for the woman who had been killed. He rushed to her body just as Rania, Leeka, and Kincaid arrived at the scene. “What the devil’s going on here?!” Kincaid barked. He noticed the murdered woman on the floor and dismissively uttered, “Oh…is that all?”

            Tyler fired him a furious glare. “What?!”

            “I imagined it was something far more serious,” said Kincaid, speaking as if he were talking about a crushed insect. “One dead negro is hardly a cause for concern. I doubt it would barely harm the Jefferson’s reputation.”

            “Show some respect, you pompous jerk!” The disgusted Tyler roared. “A woman is dead!”

            “A negro is dead,” Kincaid unsympathetically corrected.

            Tyler charged for Kincaid, having reached his breaking point with the heartless slaveowner. He would’ve gotten his hands on Kincaid’s neck had it not been for Clemens, who arrived with Grant. “That’s enough, Mr. LeBeau!” He held Tyler back. “What has happened here?” Seeing there had been a murder on a steamboat that he was personally responsible for, Clemens was visibly upset. “Grant, check every cabin and question both passenger and crew.”

            “Yes, sir,” Grant acknowledged and departed from the crime scene with haste.

            “Mr. Clemens,” Kincaid irritably voiced. “Is that all really necessary?”

            “A woman is dead, Mr. Kincaid,” Clemens repeated Tyler’s earlier sentiment in the same air of compassion.

            “Mr. Clemens,” Rania addressed, speaking with her southern-accented ‘Clementine’ voice. “If you would be so kind as to allow myself and Remy to assist in the investigation, sir.”

            “I don’t see how a writer can be much of assistance, Miss Walker,” Clemens said.

            “Oh, Mr. Clemens,” Rania smirked warmly. “You’ll find that writers can do many capable things outside their imagination.”

            At that inspirational note, Clemens permitted, “Fine. You may assist.”

            Rania curtsied. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Clemens.”

            As soon as Clemens and Kincaid left, Leeka spoke up, “Hey, what am I? Chopped liver? Why am I the one to be out of the loop?”

            “Because it’s for a good reason,” Rania told her, returning to her regular voice. “Carlson Kincaid’s been keeping a Promethean caged up in the cargo hold.”

            Leeka’s crystal blue eyes flared up with surprise. “No joshin’!”

            “Yeah, and it’s not just any Promethean – it’s the Archivist,” Rania added.

            “The freak that tried to have your body stolen?” Tyler recalled. “He’s here?!”

            “He must be the one who Kincaid plans on auctioning off,” Leeka deduced. “But why? I mean, Prometheans are crafty critters. They wouldn’t just allow themselves to be captured by a white trash simpleton like Kincaid.”

            “That’s what I’m hoping you’ll find out,” Rania said.

            Understanding her assignment, Leeka saluted and went right to work.

            Alone with the murder victim, Tyler gave Rania some news that would’ve been good a few minutes ago: “Captain Leeka’s vortex thingamajig picked up on a matching DNA signature…it belonged to this woman.”

            “Oh, no,” Rania lamented, looking on Fred’s dead mother, her hearts shattered. “That poor lil’ fella really is an orphan now.”

            “Don’t lose hope,” Tyler encouraged. “The dad’s still out there…somewhere.”

            Rania appreciated his optimism; it was what she loved most about him. “Thanks, Ty.”

            The following morning, as the murder investigation pressed on, Leeka spent her time in the cargo hold, accompanied by Craig, interrogating the Archivist. She specifically questioned him on the specifics of his abduction. She teased, “You Prometheans are craftier than that. You’re the smartest species in the multiverse, and all that jazz!”

            Craig saw how the Archivist seemed noticeably irritable. “You have been talking for eight hours straight,” he growled. “I find you to be incredibly annoying!”

            “Good!” Leeka snapped back, relishing in his exasperation.

            “I demand to speak with the Tinkerer,” the Archivist requested.

            “She’s busy,” Leeka denied. “Now, I’m gonna ask again – and I’m gonna keep on askin’ – why did you allow yourself to be caught by a tiny-brained bigot like Carlson Kincaid?”

            “I refuse to disclose any information to the likes of you!” The Archivist refused.

            “The likes of me, eh?” Leeka retorted. “I’ll eventually figure you out, you lil’ goblin! You got your gross behind abducted in the deep south of 1860 because you knew it’d cause a ripple big enough for the Spartans to notice. And who excels in taking care of big ripples? The Tinkerer of Gallifrey!”

            Craig studied the Archivist’s body movements; he saw him squirming uncomfortably in the cage.

            Either the Archivist really hated it in there or Leeka had figured his plan out.

            “If I’m right,” she continued, “then your master plan could’ve backfired if you got caught by the Tinkerer’s kid, the Gladiator of Gallifrey, instead.”

            “I fear neither parent nor child,” the Archivist said. “They are all important players in the events to come…even you, little human.”

            That last address was aimed specifically towards Craig, spooking him.

            Seeing the Archivist toy with Craig, Leeka was angered. “Now you’re annoying me,” she roared, concealing the Archivist and his cage with a blue velvet curtain. She went to the shaken Craig, comforting him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t let him get in your head, hon.”

            “But what’s he talking about?” Craig asked. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

            “It’s just all Promethean mind games, sugah,” Leeka dismissed. “Something the Prometheans excel at.”

            Being paired with the beautiful captain, Craig seized the opportunity to address something with her. “Hey, yesterday, you acted as if we met before…but I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

            “Yeah,” Leeka huffed in sadness. “The same thing happened for me when I first met you – from my perspective. Your lil’ face looked so heartbroken, and I felt so sorry for you. Time can be a cruel joke, sugah…especially when you can bend it.”

            “Oh, please spare me your sappiness, Captain!” The Archivist criticized from behind the curtain.

            Leeka responded by kicking the heel of her boot against the steel bars of his cell, whilst saying, “SHUT UP, GOLLUM!!!”

            Sometime later, Kincaid received a visit in his cabin from an incredibly nervous Mr. Casey. “They’re onto me!” the Jefferson’s Second Mate cried. “They’re onto me for what I did! I know it!”

            “Calm down, you fool, before someone hears you!” Kincaid remarked in a low, restrained voice. “You have nothing to be afraid of, as long as you hid the evidence.”

            “That’s the problem,” Casey sniveled. “I didn’t have time!”

            “WHAT?!” an infuriated Kincaid thundered, backhanding Casey across the face. “Stupid fool! If that negro woman’s death comes back on me, I’ll take your sorry hide down with me! I don’t need such intrusions to come ahead of the most important night of my life!”