Clockworks and Corsets

by Tonia Brown

  Rose had learned long ago to trust Click’s natural instinct for trouble. Aside from the fabulous sex, it was one of the main reasons she kept him around. She forced a high, tittering laugh before she asked, “Who is it?”

  “I’m not sure.” He unsheathed his dagger, holding it low. “Keep walking. Don’t let on that we see them.”

  She kept her pace with Click while freeing her gun. As casually as she could manage, she held it across her shoulder. She heard the murmur of the rest of the crew behind her, then the soft snick of blades unsheathing. Jax already bore a blade, having commandeered Magpie’s saber for her own, leaving the lookout with only a dagger and a long face.

  “How far are we from the ship, Atom?” she asked.

  “About a half a mile, Captain,” Atom said. “We should arrive at the beach head any moment.”

  Without warning, Jax came to a halt. The blonde tilted her head to the left, then the right, as if listening for something only she could hear. She turned back to the crew, saw the drawn weapons, and nodded. Click lifted his hand to hold out four fingers. Jax smiled a wicked grin while she shook her head. She lifted both hands, raising eight fingers. Rose grimaced. Eight enemies lurked in the inky blackness, and the crew was still a half a mile from the ship.

  “Huddle up,” Rose commanded. The crew gathered in a tight formation, each facing outward, each brandishing a weapon of some type. Except Atom. When Rose suggested that he might want to bring a weapon, that the wilds of the jungle at night were nothing to be gentle with, he balked.

  “Weapons are the last bastion of the savage,” he had explained.

  Rose wondered how he felt about weapons now.

  “I thought this island was deserted,” Jayne said, aiming her homespun shrapnel gun into the trees.

  “Atom?” Rose asked.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “A little help here?”

  “Oh. It must be the natives.”

  “Natives? You didn’t say anything about natives.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “We didn’t see signs of anyone on our way in,” Gabriella whispered.

  “Because they didn’t want us too,” Click said.

  “Keep tight,” Jax said. “They’re on all sides now.”

  “Cap?” Magpie asked. “What do you want us to do?”

  Rose searched her mind for the best course of action. Could they outrun eight enemies in the dark of the jungle? Probably not. She knew her girls would rather die trying get back to the Widow as opposed to being taken captive. Just when she was about to give the order to make a break for it, the vines before her parted and a tall man stepped out.

  Rose thought she was used to the idea of a wild island native, having shared a bed with one for so long now. Click had her spoiled with his obsession of modern technology and his yen for western ways. The stranger emerging from the darkness of the jungle was the genuine article. A real island native. He made Click look like a New England schoolboy by comparison.

  The man stood at least seven feet tall. He had a series of winding tattoos all over his naked torso, arms and legs, similar to Click’s only more numerous. Even his face was a myriad of designs, with blocky swirls layered across his chin and cheeks. A series of thin white tubes laddered down each ear, piercing the cartilage. Each ended in a large hollow piece that stretched his lobes to an unbelievable degree. A similar white tube rested in the man’s nose, just above his upper lip. The man leaned against a long, sharp spear. Rose’s eye wandered down for the briefest moment. When she saw his unclothed loins, she snapped her eyes back to his wild grin.

  The man grinned in silence at the crew for a moment, then grunted something in his native tongue. Seven similar spear-wielding natives emerged from the underbrush, surrounding the crew. The men stared at the intruders, but made no moves against them.

  “Click?” Rose whispered.

  Click said something to the tallest native, who cocked his head and listened, never losing his grin. When Click was done, the native said a few things in return. Click shook his head and furrowed his brow.

  “No good, my captain,” he said. “Their dialect is too far from mine. It seems almost familiar, but then it slips away. I’m very sorry.”

  “Great.” Rose turned back to the grinning native and smiled. Between her teeth she whispered, “Jax? Any ideas?”

  “Yes,” Jax said. “I have idea there is more than what we see.”

  “How many now?” Rose asked.

  “I lost count after fifteen,” Jax admitted.

  Rose groaned behind her smile. The tallest native, still grinning at her in return, motioned to his brethren and said a few words. He then looked back to Rose, made a wretched face that twisted his tattoos into hideous proportions while he pushed his tongue between his lips at her until it hung from his mouth like piece of dead beef.

  She stared at his awful face, wondering what the gesture could possibly mean. A sharp pain bit at Rose’s neck and she raised her hand to the spot, but before she could question the nature of the nip, her eyelids grew heavy, her legs buckled beneath her, and her world went black.

  * * * *

  Gabriella eyed Atom. He peered between the wooden bars of the cage at the flickering firelight and the shadows of the natives beyond. Pounding drums filled the jungle air. The wild call of their captors rose in the night. Looking back at the still form of the captain spread across Click’s lap, Gabriella fought her lurching stomach for control of its contents. She wanted to be strong, to believe they could get out of this. Yet for the first time since she’d joined the crew of the Merry Widow, Gabriella was truly afraid for her life.

  Turning back to Atom, she tapped his shoulder. He didn’t respond. Gabriella peered at him, seeing that his attention was focused on the scene beyond their cage. She was fascinated as she stared at him. While he watched the natives in their vulgar celebration dance, his copper eyes followed the action at surprising speed. Occasionally his lips moved as if to speak, but he never said a word.

  “Still not talking?” Magpie asked, sitting down beside Gabriella.

  Gabriella shook her head.

  “What did he say before he went like this?”

  “He said he would get us out of this after he learned what it was all about. Then he just...I don’t know, shut down. Oh, and he said to trust him.” He had added something more affectionate at the end, but that wasn’t any of Magpie’s business.

  “Trust him, huh?” Jayne asked from her post at the far end of the cage. “To what? Go mad on us?”

  “Jayne,” Magpie said. “That’s enough.”

  “What?” Jayne asked. “It’s not my fault her little boyfriend has lost his mind.”

  Gabriella gasped. “He’s nothing of the sort.”

  “Sure,” Jayne said. “It’s a real shame you two won’t have time to get better acquainted since he let us walk right into a trap.”

  “Jayne!” Magpie shouted. “I said that’s enough.”

  A loud moan sounded between them.

  “She’s awake,” Click said.

  “Finally,” Jayne said. “Someone with some sense.”

  The captain groaned again before she sat up. Looking around the cage, she rubbed her eyes, as if unsure of what she was seeing. She got to her feet and teetered for a moment before she fell into Click’s arms.

  “Please sit, my captain,” he said, lowering her to the ground. “You still need rest.”

  The captain rubbed her neck. “Exits?”

  “Not going to be simple,” Magpie said. “The cage is tied to a whole bunch of weights with vines several inches thick. It’d take some pretty sharp blades to cut us out of this. Even if we could, there’s a whole island of natives to deal with.”

  “What...hap...” the captain tried to say.

  “Near as we can figure,” Magpie said, “they hit us with some kind of drugged dart. We were out for about an hour. You’ve been down for nearly three.”

  The captain narro
wed her eyes at Magpie.

  “We think they hit you with more than one dart,” Click said.

  The captain raised an eyebrow.

  “They must have seen you two as threats,” Magpie said. She tipped her head to the opposite corner.

  The captain swung her head around to Jax, who was still snoring in the far corner of the cage. “Her I understand. But why would they see me as more of a threat than anyone else?”

  “It’s the hair,” Atom said.

  Everyone turned to him. Gabriella was surprised to find him seated with his back to the cage, watching the rest of the crew curiously.

  “The red hair.” He motioned to Jayne, then Jax. “The blond and the white hair they have seen before on past visitors. But they have never seen that shade of red before. They think she’s a demon of some kind.”

  Click sniggered under his hand. The captain cut him a harsh look.

  “Atom?” Gabriella asked. She could hardly believe he was back from his self-induced trance, not to mention the fact that he was talking out of his mind.

  “Yes, my angel?” he asked in a soft voice.

  Gabriella’s stomach fluttered at the sweet nickname.

  “How do you know all of this?” Magpie asked.

  “I’m afraid I owe you all an apology,” he answered.

  Jayne stood over him, jabbing her finger into his chest while she shouted, “You’re damned right you do, You knew about those savages! Yet you let us walk around the jungle like nothing was wrong. This is all your fault.”

  Atom stared at Jayne for a moment as if unsure what she meant. “Oh, you think I had a hand in this? Please believe I assumed that you either knew about the natives or they didn’t care about you because you made it all the way to the lab without being bothered by them.”

  “You say that like it’s uncommon,” the captain whispered.

  “It is. Usually they attack anyone who lands on the beach. Sometimes they toy with visitors by letting them roam, but the natives end up slaughtering anyone within an hour of landing.”

  Click whistled low.

  “Yes,” Atom said. “As it turns out, I was wrong. They have been trailing you since you first set foot on the beach. I’m sorry for the miscalculation.”

  “Miscalculation?” Jayne asked with a huff. “You’d think with your own private peepshow spying on us all the way from the Widow, you’d have seen a bunch of spear wielding maniacs hot on our trail.”

  Atom lowered his gaze. “I should have, but I was...distracted. I don’t get visitors very often.” He returned his look to Gabriella, adding, “And never such beautiful ones.”

  “So,” Magpie said, “if getting us all strung up by a bunch of barbarians ain’t what you were planning on apologizing for, what is?”

  “I lied,” Atom said.

  Gabriella started. A lie. He had known her for just a few hours and already he’d lied to her? “You lied?” she asked.

  “Twice,” he said.

  “About?” the captain encouraged him.

  “I didn’t hear you outside the lab,” he explained.

  Jayne gasped in awe. “You read lips.”

  “Lip reading?” Click asked.

  “He can make out what you’re saying by the shape of your words when they leave your mouth,” Magpie said.

  Jayne snapped her mouth closed, robbed of the chance to explain. Gabriella enjoyed the rare sight.

  “My cousin is deaf,” Magpie explained. “It took him years to learn how, and even then, he ain’t much good at it.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” the captain said, her voice gaining some strength.

  “It’s an uncommon skill true,” Atom said. “But I have always seemed able to do so. In fact, I have been watching our native friends out there, and I’m sorry to say that I know what they intend to do with us.”

  “Lip reading,” the captain said. “Who knew that was even possible... Hey, wait! You understand them?”

  Atom nodded.

  “Then why didn’t you say so when we were still free?” the captain asked.

  “Because you didn’t ask.”

  The captain groaned and fell back into Click’s arms. “He’s going to be the death of me.”

  Click chuckled. He gathered the captain close to him with such affection that it made Gabriella’s heart swell to bursting.

  “I may very well be,” Atom admitted. “Because they have no intention of releasing us. In fact, there was mention of having us for a midnight snack.”

  “Great,” the captain said. “Just how I want to leave this world. In the belly of that grinning maniac.”

  “You said you lied twice,” Gabriella said.

  Atom turned to her and sighed. “I’m so sorry, my angel. I never wanted to deceive you, but I didn’t know what you would think of me otherwise.” He pushed a stray hair from her face. “I’m still afraid you will hate me.”

  She trembled under his touch. “I could never hate you.” She clutched his hand in her own, staring into his angelic eyes. They shared a brief smile.

  “Just come out with it,” Jayne said.

  Atom frowned, his gaze never leaving Gabriella. “I’m armed.”

  The women all heaved a sigh. Gabriella furrowed her brow. She didn’t understand what all the concern on his face was about.

  “Geesh,” Magpie said. “The way you were carrying on, I thought it was going to be something bigger.”

  Atom turned to Magpie with a solemn look. “You don’t understand. I am armed. Even now.”

  “They left you with a weapon?” the captain asked, quicker than the others.

  “Yes,” Atom said.

  “Let’s have it then,” Jayne said. “We might be able to get out of this yet.”

  Atom turned back to Gabriella. He laid a single trembling hand on her face. Her heart rose to her throat when he drew close to her ear and whispered, “Please promise that you will be honest with me. No pretense. I want the truth about how you feel after I show you this.”

  Gabriella smiled, yet had no idea why. She had never been more confused in her life. “I promise.”

  Atom let her go. He hung his head as he got to his feet. After undoing the buttons of his jacket, he slipped it off, leaving him in his vest and long-sleeved shirt. He held up his hand, the perpetually gloved one. “I want to make it clear that this was the doctor’s idea. Not mine.”

  With that, he slid the glove from his hand.

  Chapter 8

  Mechanical Ministrations

  In which we join our antagonist as she takes in an unusual show.

  Ruby rushed along the quiet hall of the Red House’s lower chambers in a hurry to make her meeting. She slipped past a line of closed doors, behind which a multitude of sins were taking place all while making her a very wealthy woman. Lifting her dress by the handfuls, Ruby picked up the pace to a light trot. It wasn’t out of respect for the individual that she rushed. She was never shy about making a man wait. No. Ruby was in a hurry because she was excited.

  Today she entertained Mr. Black.

  By the time Ruby reached the last door, she was quite out of breath. Pausing to gather herself, she smoothed out the lace of her dress and ran her hands over her hair to make sure nothing was out of place. She had learned long ago that it was the little things that bound a man’s service to you. Ironically, perfection was something that Mr. Black admired, so perfect she had to be. Assured that all was well, Ruby pushed the door open and found Mr. Black seated, as usual, waiting patiently for her to join him.

  Once, not long ago, Mr. Black was the talk of the town. He stood tall and muscular, with a dashing smile and bedroom eyes that had helped him loosen many a corset, including Ruby’s. While the man was a devil in the bedroom, he was pure hell in the business world. A shrewd mind and easy morals helped him to become one of the most powerful men in the country. He was wealthy, handsome, and more while in his prime.

  The man that waited for Ruby was a mere ghost of his
former glory. Ruby supposed a near death experience could do that to a man. Well, that and a spinal cord injury that had robbed him of nearly everything below the waist. After his accident, Mr. Black had found his life forever altered. Rejected by his peers, spurned by friends and lost in a cloud of self doubt, a man like him seemed useless to the rest of the world, but Ruby recognized his potential. Where others saw weakness, she saw opportunity. Others saw a scarred and ugly man bound to a wheelchair, waiting for his time to die. Ruby saw a powder keg of anger, anxious for a spark to light it.

  Of course, Mr. Black was just a moniker chosen by the man himself. Ruby knew better than to even imagine his real name, lest she slip and call him so. Such a transgression could be the undoing of her carefully woven plans. Her strategy pivoted on the usefulness of Mr. Black, on his knowledge and proclivity. Not to mention his identity. Like a guarded hand of cards, Ruby held his name close to her, waiting for the right time to use it.

  Sliding the door closed behind her, she paused for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the low light of the room, although she could have navigated the place in the pitch dark, she knew it so well. The single chair parked beside Mr. Black, the glass partition that separated this room from the one beyond, the brass tube that ran between the rooms, the thin braided rope that hung in one corner, all were installed by her design. Normally it served as a theater for one, for exclusive private shows.

  Ruby took the empty seat, saying, “Mr. Black.”

  Mr. Black didn’t look at her. “Ruby.”

  “Any news?”

  “My men say her crew reached the island a few hours ago.”

  “And the weapon?” Ruby cursed herself for seeming so eager, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The idea of possessing such a powerful thing made her as giddy as a schoolgirl, and as wet as freshly fucked whore.

  “I won’t know anything until their ship gets in the air again. If all goes well, they should be back within a few days.”

  “With the weapon.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Do you think they’ll run into any trouble?”

  “How should I know?” Mr. Black frowned and tapped his chair while adding, “I’m here. Remember?”