Read Steam & Sorcery for Free Online

Like Merrick, Tommy dropped his voice as he dealt out a hand of poker. “Girls are right glad to be home. Our thanks, Sir Merrick.”
    “You’re welcome.” Merrick studied his cards and absently discarded all but the pair of threes. “Tommy, have you ever heard of a group called the Order of the Round Table?”
    “Like in the old stories, King Arthur and that lot? I’ve ’eard some.”
    “Something like that.” Merrick was breaking one of the major rules of the Order, but it had to be done. “I’m talking about real life, though, not a children’s story. Perhaps your father may have mentioned…”
    “Never met the man.” Tommy took a drink of his own porter. He tossed one card from his hand and dealt three to Merrick, one to himself. “Mum claimed he was a toff, that’s all I know.”
    “And is your mum still alive?” Merrick glanced at his new cards and slid three pennies into the pot.
    “Nah, she died years back.” Tommy matched Merrick’s bet before sliding another tuppence forward.
    Merrick called the bet, nodding. “Did your mother teach you to hunt vampyres?” While everyone knew about the undead, of course, most people tried to pretend they didn’t, just like ladies in genteel society pretended to be unaware of poverty or prostitution. It was simply considered polite to maintain the social fiction that such unnatural creatures didn’t exist, particularly since the blood-suckers tended to prey on the weak and the solitary. They hunted mostly in the narrow streets and alleyways frequented by the lower classes. The wealthy, who traveled armed and in groups, were generally safe from the relatively rare undead.
    “Nah. Picked it up here and there.” The boy shrugged and flipped over his hand. His straight, five through nine of spades, beat Merrick’s triple threes. Merrick tossed his cards down and nodded, acknowledging his loss. He’d almost missed the sleight of hand that had given the boy that last card. Almost, but not quite. He wasn’t ready to call Tommy on that just yet, however.
    “Bet you’re a natural at it,” he said as Tommy shuffled and dealt the next hand. “What about the others? How’d you come to work with them?”
    Tommy shrugged again. “What’s it to you?” He dealt out the cards, again cheating on the deal, as his own cards all came from the bottom of the deck.
    “I owe you—all of you.” Merrick picked up his cards. “And I think you have a special sort of talent for hunting certain creatures. I’d like to see you develop that gift.”
    Tommy cocked his head to the side. For a brief moment, his face was that of a typical youth, offered a tempting prize he was just a little too cautious to reach for. His hands went still, the cards in front of him lying untouched. “You offering me a job, guv?”
    Merrick tipped his chin. “Of a sort. More of an…apprenticeship, I suppose you’d call it.”
    Tommy leaned in closer. “This have anything to do with that magick you did?”
    “It does. Spells are part of the training of any Knight of the Order.”
    “You’re talking about some kind of vampyre-hunting club?” Tommy was trying to stay stone-faced, but Merrick could see the excitement glinting in his bright blue eyes.
    “More of a secret regiment.” Merrick laid down his cards and leaned forward as well. “We call it the Order. It really does go back to the original Knights who worked for Arthur, believe it or not. Magick has been around a long, long time. These days, we get paid by the government for hunting not just vampyres, but other things…feral werewolves, rogue wizards, sometimes even human criminals no one else has been able to catch.”
    “Paid?” Tommy sat up a little straighter.
    Merrick nodded. “Paid well, once the training is done.” Most of the founding families of the Order held some sort of title, but even those Knights without a family fortune like Merrick usually ended up well-off landowners by the time their service was done—or