“Yesterday a passenger airship came in from London, the same one that brings the mail. There was a letter for me.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a vellum envelope, sliding out its contents. He handed it over to Gideon and said, “You’ll see it’s signed by Mr. Gascoyne-Cecil.”
It did indeed bear the signature of the Prime Minister, countersigned by Governor Lyle. Gideon scanned the rest of the letter and looked up. Bent had been right when he smelled trouble. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Governor.”
“I have been in contact with London for some time regarding the situation with the Californian Meiji. The attack in the garden by the ninja that you yourself foiled was the last straw. I immediately contacted Whitehall, and they responded by return mail. Mr. Smith, the assassination attempt is being regarded as an act of war. I have been given carte blanche to take any action I see fit to protect British interests in America.”
Gideon looked at the letter again. “But this says—”
Lyle smiled again, but not with much humor. He nodded and said, “Yes, Mr. Smith. I believe further attacks on New York and other British enclaves are imminent, and only what we might call a preemptive strike can safely defend our people. Mr. Smith, I am requisitioning you and your dragon, and we’re going to Nyu Edo.”
“No,” said Gideon. “Absolutely not. Maria isn’t some kind of … of war machine.”
Lyle frowned. “Then what is she, Mr. Smith?”
She’s the woman I love, Gideon wanted to say, no, to scream. He wanted to tell the world, to sing it from the rooftops. She was the woman he loved, and he’d moved heaven and hell to get her back. She was not Mr. Walsingham’s war machine.
And he realized, so suddenly it dried out his mouth and made his head swim, that he was wrong. Was it the desire for a happy ending that had moved Walsingham to dispatch Gideon across the world to rescue Maria? Or was it merely that she and the brass dragon were invaluable assets, that a world-changing engine of destruction and its pilot simply could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands?
Walsingham cared not a fig for Maria, only what was in her head. And he cared nothing for Gideon, did not believe in Gideon, not really. It had taken the distance Gideon had put between himself and London for him to see that now.
Gideon was just another soldier in the endless war fought to ensure Britannia ruled the waves. A highly decorated, much-publicized soldier, true, but just another resource. Mr. Gascoyne-Cecil might have signed that requisition order, but it would be Walsingham behind it, moving the pieces across the chessboard toward an endgame only he could see.
No, Gideon was not even a soldier. He was a machine, just as much as Maria—or at least a cog in Walsingham’s unknowable, infernal device.
And the love a fisherman held for a clockwork girl amounted to nothing in all of that.
Lyle coughed. “Nyu Edo, Mr. Smith. We must strike now at the heart of the enemy. At Britain’s enemy.”
Gideon looked at Lyle, suddenly exhausted. “We’re going nowhere, Governor. Not until we’ve buried our dead.”
25
ACTS OF WAR
This was not, considered Gideon Smith, what he thought a life of adventure would be like.
As he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he suddenly felt a longing for the life he had left behind. If he could turn back the clock, would he? If he could just go back to that night when the sea mist rolled in over Sandsend and stop his father Arthur from creeping out to take the Cold Drake fishing, only to die at the claws of the terrible Children of Heqet. Then he would never have met Bram Stoker, never have sought out Captain Lucian Trigger. Adventure would always simply be something he read about in the pages of World Marvels & Wonders and longed for from afar.
But he couldn’t turn back time. It had all happened, and Gideon was—by royal appointment—the Hero of the Empire. The tales of Captain Trigger had been exposed as so many fancies and outright lies, and adventuring was not the pure, noble, tidy thing the penny dreadfuls claimed it to be.
He was standing up to his neck in the hole he had singlehandedly dug in the dry dust, seven feet long. He tossed the spade out and climbed up over the lip, accepting Bent’s outstretched hand. The cavalrymen had wanted to help dig the grave, but Gideon had said no.
Louis Cockayne had died for him. Burying him was the very least he could do.
Rowena gave Gideon a canteen of water and he took a long draft as four of the soldiers laid Cockayne’s body, wrapped in a Union Flag, into the hole. Captain Humbert raised an eyebrow at Gideon, who nodded, and they began to fill in the grave until there was just the slightest mound of earth displaced by the corpse of Louis Cockayne.
With the flat of his spade, Gideon drove a makeshift cross he had fashioned himself from two pieces of blasted wood from the stockade at the head of the mound, then laid down the shovel. He took out Cockayne’s wallet from the back pocket of his ripped and dirty trousers. Inside was a faded photograph of a family group: stern-faced father, plump mother, three boys of varying heights. Cockayne smiled out from behind the shining eyes of the middle boy, aged just eight or nine. The thought of him as a child stabbed Gideon hard in his chest, brought prickling tears to his eyes. There was also a scrawled note in the wallet bearing the name of a farm in Connecticut.
“I’ll have this sent back to his parents,” said Gideon absently. “I’ll write them a letter.”
“What will you say?” asked Rowena.
“That Louis Cockayne died a hero.” All heroes died, sooner or later. He wondered when it would be his turn.
“Someone should say something,” said Bent.
Gideon blinked. They were all looking at him: Bent and Rowena, Governor Lyle, Jeb Hart, Captain Humbert and his soldiers.
“Me? I don’t…”
“I think you should,” said Maria softly. “He thought so much of you, you know.”
Gideon smiled wryly. Yes, maybe he did, he thought. And all this time I thought he hated me, considered me nothing but a country boy with ideas above my station. He looked down at the photograph again, at the small boy who grew up to be Louis Cockayne.
We all start off as small boys with big ideas, he thought. Yes, I owe this to Louis Cockayne.
While he gathered his thoughts, one of the cavalrymen began to play a low, sonorous note on his bugle, and the assembled company took off their hats and cast their eyes down at the grave. As the “Last Post” faded, Gideon looked up at the wild blue sky that Louis Cockayne would never see again.
“I don’t know if I believe in good and evil,” said Gideon quietly. “My mother did; she was a churchgoer. My dad was a more … pragmatic man. He used to tell me that people weren’t good or evil in themselves, but they sometimes did good things and evil things.”
He paused, collecting his memories. “The first time I met Louis Cockayne, he was bringing a cargo of slaves back from Africa to Steamtown. He threatened to have my friends and me killed. Then he stole Maria from under my nose.
“The first words he spoke to me were when he asked me what I was doing, a boy from nowhere, walking with such great people. I thought him a pirate, a villain. But Louis was right. I was in the company of greatness. And he was among their number.” Gideon smiled sadly again. “I just didn’t know it at the time, and I don’t think he did, either.”
Gideon watched a tear roll down Rowena’s face and fall to the parched earth at her feet. “He thought it was funny, all this Hero of the Empire business. He’d have called it a crock of shit or some such. Louis Cockayne looked after number one. But what he didn’t realize…” Gideon felt something well inside of him, a great sob he had to strangle back. Maria put a hand on his shoulder, and he took hold of it fiercely. “What he didn’t realize was that you only have to do good things once for it to cancel out all the bad. And Louis Cockayne did good when it counted most. He came back and he was a hero, and he was my friend. And that’s all.”
There was a long silence, broken eve
ntually by the shuffling feet of Lyle. Now more than ever Gideon needed Cockayne’s guidance. But Louis was gone for good, and Gideon couldn’t rely on him any longer. He had to make the big, tough decisions himself. Gideon looked up and across the grave at Lyle. “Okay, Governor,” he said wearily. “If it’s really what must be done, let’s go to war.”
* * *
As the others moved away, Rowena stayed a moment, squatting down and running her fingers through the mound of dust.
“You were a bastard, Louis,” she whispered. “A bastard and a rogue.”
A breeze ruffled Rowena’s hair. She smiled, imagining it to be the final, departing essence of Cockayne. Couldn’t shuffle off this mortal coil, huh, Louis? Not until you’ve heard me say it?
Louis Cockayne was a bastard and a rogue. But he’d made good. Whether Rowena fully agreed with Gideon that Louis’s final blaze of glory absolved him of all his other sins, she didn’t quite know. All she knew for sure was that Louis Cockayne was one of the few men she really could call a friend. And, yes, more than that. She remembered the night in the Yellow Rose, as her ’stat had been called then, in the Alexandrian night that felt so long ago now, when she had only just met Gideon Smith. Yes, she’d lain with Cockayne; had before, too. Things were different for the ’stat pilots, they didn’t follow the rules of polite society. You took your thrills where and when you could, because you never knew when your number would be up.
And now Louis Cockayne was gone. Another picture to stick up in the Union Hall chapel, another candle to light. Charles Collier, Louis Cockayne.
My soul is in the sky.
Rowena looked at where Gideon and Bent were talking in low tones. Why did all the men in her life have to leave? Please let it not be Gideon next. I hope to fuck you taught him enough, Louis, she thought.
The warm breeze caressed her again. Say it, it seemed to whisper.
She sighed and smiled sadly. “You were a bastard and a rogue, Louis Cockayne,” she said. “But … I didn’t hate you.”
* * *
“We don’t have to do what Lyle says,” murmured Bent. “We can just tell him to eff off, you know. We were sent to bring back Maria and the dragon. We’ve done that.”
Gideon looked over at Lyle, standing back a respectful distance with Jeb Hart and Captain Humbert. “He has a letter from the Prime Minister,” he said flatly. “We have fresh orders. We’re going to California.”
Lyle, holding his stovepipe hat in his hands, took Gideon’s glance as a signal to approach. “I thought, perhaps, Hart and I could travel in the airship. You will be accompanying, uh, Miss Maria in the dragon?”
Gideon looked at Rowena as she walked over from the fresh grave to join them. “You have no jurisdiction over Miss Fanshawe, Governor. She was employed to bring us to New York. She has already completed the task she was paid for.”
“Done more than she was paid for, by all accounts,” said Hart. “Heard you busted up Steamtown real good, Miss Fanshawe.”
Rowena raised an eyebrow at him. “There was a reason for that. Governor Lyle, did you know someone in New York is selling your people into slavery?”
Lyle blinked at her. “Slavery? How so, Miss Fanshawe?”
She took out the manifest from her shirt pocket and handed it to him. “I took a job at North Beach. Secret cargo to Steamtown, in payment for a hold full of coal I was to bring back. Payment was fifty-four men, women, and children press-ganged from your streets, Governor.”
Lyle rubbed his chin as he studied the sheet of paper. “This … this is shocking. These people were all from New York?”
“Kidnapped off the streets in some cases, tricked into bondage in others.”
“But why?”
“For coal, Governor. Someone thought that fifty-four lives were fair payment for a ’stat full of coal to keep the fires burning in Manhattan.”
“You’ll look into this?” said Gideon. “Or do we need to come back to New York to sort it out ourselves?”
Lyle folded the paper and put it into his coat pocket. “No, Mr. Smith, there’s no need for that. Of course I’ll look into it. This … horror must be investigated. I’ll get on to it.”
“At once?” asked Gideon.
“After we have dealt with the threat from the Meiji,” said Lyle levelly. “The sooner we sort this out, the quicker I can get back to New York. As I said, perhaps the dirigible…?”
“And as I said, Governor—” began Gideon, but Rowena put a hand on his arm.
“It’s all right, Gideon,” she said. “I want to see this out.” She glanced at the sun. “If we have a following wind it will take us seven hours to reach Nyu Edo, and that’s with the Skylady III flat out. If we want to get there before nightfall, then we should leave now. Otherwise in the morning.”
“Nightfall would be perfect.” Lyle smiled. “Element of surprise and all that.”
Gideon frowned at him. “I take no pleasure in this, Governor. Had you not the backing of the British government I would not be allowing this attack on the Japanese.”
“They started it,” said Lyle, sounding to Gideon like a petulant child. “You were there yourself, Smith, when those ninjas attacked.”
“Yes,” said Gideon, scrutinizing Lyle. “So I was.”
“And you remember I said the Japs were working on a weapon? Who’s to say what they’re planning with that. They could be getting ready to destroy New York even as we speak.”
“What evidence do you have for this weapon, Lyle?” asked Bent. “And what sort of weapon could destroy a whole effing city?”
Lyle glanced at Hart, who had walked up with Captain Humbert to flank the Governor. “You know Jeb here does a bit of … reconnaissance work for me.”
“Spying,” said Bent.
Lyle shrugged. “If you like. He was raised in what used to be San Francisco; he knows the place well. Sometimes he goes back to visit the old homestead. Last time, he brought back news. The Japs are up to something, something big.”
Gideon waited a moment. “What?”
Lyle pulled a pained face. “I can’t say as I can really tell you, Mr. Smith. Classified information, and all that.”
Gideon met Bent’s eyes, then Rowena’s. He sighed. “We have no choice. All right, Governor. Rowena will take you to Nyu Edo.” He turned to Maria. “Can we fly this distance?”
She smiled. “I flew from London to America, Gideon.”
Rowena said, “The dragon far outran the Skylady III when we were in Egypt. I’m not sure how that thing works, Maria, but I can’t keep pace with you. Can you slow down enough to run alongside us?”
She nodded. Gideon said, “Then it’s time. Let’s get this done, and then we can all go home.”
* * *
Gideon made himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped cockpit as Maria’s hands played over the artifacts and the eldritch engines that powered Apep began to hum into life. He said, “You have everything you need for the journey?”
“All apart from one thing,” she said, turning around in the seat. She reached out and grasped the front of Gideon’s shirt, pulling him toward her, not for the first time surprising him with the strength in her metal joints. “This.”
She placed her lips against his, warm lips that thrummed with life. Perhaps not a life that most people would consider conventional, but life nonetheless. And was there something else in her kiss? Love? Gideon felt it, too, felt invisible fingers probing his mind, grasping on to the sensations that threatened to flood him, to overwhelm him.
No. No, he would not turn back the clock, not for all the money in the Bank of England. Not even, he realized, to see Arthur Smith for one more moment. Life was what it was, and for good or ill there was no second chance. He kissed her back.
Maria gently pushed him away, planting a final, tender kiss on his lips, and turned back to the instrument panel, straightening her skirts. “When this is over, Gideon, I shall expect you to take me shopping for some new clothes. I simply canno
t be seen in London in these rags.”
“When this is over, Maria, I’ll take you anywhere.”
Then the huge metal wings of Apep began to flap and the dragon rose majestically into the blue sky as the Skylady III, freed from its moorings, bobbed up alongside them. Gideon peered through the broken porthole at Bent, waving from the observation deck, flanked by Chantico and Inez. He was giving the dragon a thumbs-up.
Gideon returned the gesture, then the airship and the dragon began to rise together, turning north and west, as the soldiers and captured Steamtowners below looked up, shielding their eyes against the sun and the magnificence of their passing.
* * *
There was a storeroom at the back of Serizawa’s laboratory where no one but he ever went. He’d laid down some tatami matting and hung some floating world prints on the walls. He’d also secreted a few of Michi’s toys in his duffel bag at home and brought them to work—including her headless doll, Kashira, which she had wailed about losing. No matter; they were reunited now. The storeroom was quite homey, he thought.
Akiko, of course, had other ideas. “You are crazy, Haruki. How long are we expected to stay here?”
“Just until the danger has passed.”
She folded her arms while Michi sat down on one of the mats. “I’m sleeping here, Mummy.”
“What about school?” hissed Akiko. “Her friends? We are supposed to just abandon our life?”
“Not abandon. Just put on hold.” He took hold of her shoulders. “It might only be a few days. And I will be working right in the laboratory.”
She shrugged him off. “I wish you would tell me what this supposed danger is, Haruki.”
The images of the slaughter on the island passed through Serizawa’s mind, and he pushed them away. “I am working on a solution. But Nyu Edo is in terrible peril,” he whispered. He turned to Michi and squatted down. “You will like living here? Just for a … a holiday?”
“It will be fun!” she said.
“And you can be quiet when Daddy tells you to? Daddy’s boss, Mr. Morioka, he can be fierce!”
Serizawa thrust out his bottom jaw and frowned, making a growling noise. Michi laughed delightedly. “Your boss is a monster?”
Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon Page 26
