Fires of Hell: The Alchemystic

by Maureen L. Mills

  But the muzzle flash from Fairlane’s pistol? Now, that might be close enough. I might be able to protect myself from the flash-over, if I hadn’t already been exhausted from resisting Fairlane’s bloody branding rod, but I had no idea how or if I could protect Josiah.

  Fairlane, of course, could go to blazes. Literally.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go, Rollins. Amelia. No matter which side you come out on, I’ll see you,” Fairlane called. “Come out, Amelia. I won’t hurt you.”

  “You shot at me!” I yelled back.

  “A mere instinctual reaction. I do beg your pardon. I assure you I shall not do it again.”

  “Fairlane! If I come out, do you promise to let Miss Everley go?” Josiah’s voice was grim.

  Fairlane answered immediately, in a smooth, civilized tone at odds with his pistol-waving insanity. “Of course. I have no quarrel with the girl.”

  “Go on, Amelia. Get out of the hangar and get help.”

  Which is probably what I should have done when Reuben had given me the chance. I can only blame my addled wits upon shock and light-headedness.

  I was no longer light-headed, and could clearly see the problems with Josiah’s request. “Are you as insane as Fairlane? He has no intention of letting either of us go free. You, he wants dead. Me, he wants… Well, he wants.”

  “As a phlog or as a prostitute?”

  My head snapped back as if I’d been slapped.

  He flushed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Everley.”

  I ignored his apology, and tried to ignore the hurt his words caused. Neither mattered, as we were unlikely to come out of this alive. “Both, I gather. In any case, I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself for me.” I turned to peek around the edge of the tank. Cold specks of a fine dust sifted down my neck. Iron filings. Falling in a little heap at my feet. Right by the spreading puddle of acid. I heard the bubbling, popping hiss that accompanied the creation of volatile hydrogen. “The filings tank is leaking,” I told Josiah. “We have to get out of here before some spark sets off the stray gases.”

  “Such as the spark from Fairlane’s weapon. Yes, I know.”

  I had to get Josiah out of here. “Fairlane! Edmund Rollins is dead. You’ve had your revenge. Let Josiah go, and I’ll willingly turn myself over to you.”

  Josiah gasped. “No, Amelia! You can’t…”

  “He won’t kill me. The same can’t be said of you.”

  Fairlane laughed at our squabbling. “He can’t stomach being saved by someone like you, Amelia, can he? He’s not worth your loyalty. I promise not to underestimate you. Come on out and see.”

  A hiss rose up as the acid reached the iron filings scattered over the ground. We were out of time. “Stay behind me,” I told Josiah. “Fairlane won’t shoot me. He needs me alive.”

  I didn’t wait for Josiah to go all over noble on me again, but stepped over the steaming puddle and out into the open, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender. Josiah did not come with me, drat the man. He was going to ruin my plan, what little there was of it. “Here I am, Fairlane. You win. Let Josiah go.”

  The barrel of Fairlane’s pistol looked wide as a tunnel, and just as black. The arc lights behind him cast his face in deep shadow. He said nothing.

  My left arm shook with the strain of holding it up against the burning pain in my chest. I drew it down, closer to my body.

  And Fairlane shot me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I felt a thick, meaty thwack upon my left arm, as if I’d been hit with a club. The thunder of the shot rang in my ears, and my knees gave out, dumping me once again upon the filthy, packed earth of the hangar floor. Lightning bolts of agony swept out from my arm and my chest, and a sooty red haze washed over my vision.

  “Amelia!” Josiah shouted.

  I blinked at the space behind the pair of tanks where I’d left the man not five seconds ago, but he had vanished. Good. He should have run for the door if he did not wish to hide behind my skirts. But why could I still hear him?

  My left arm throbbed once more, then went numb. I kept my gaze firmly averted, afraid that if I saw the mess the bullet had made, pain would return. I rolled my head to the other side, searching for Fairlane and Josiah.

  Fairlane stood over me, holding his damned pistol on Josiah, hovering ten feet away from Fairlane. Josiah must have run around the opposite end of the tanks in a failed attempt to come upon Fairlane from behind.

  “You shot her, Fairlane!” Josiah edged a step nearer. “I thought you wanted her alive.”

  “She’ll live.” Fairlane leveled the weapon at Josiah’s breast. “She’ll simply be a little less trouble for a few days, until I can instill in her a properly respectful and obedient demeanor.”

  “I wish you luck in that endeavor,” Josiah muttered. He shifted nearer.

  Fairlane’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  No! He was going to shoot Josiah, and he wouldn’t be aiming for a non-lethal target. I reached for Fairlane’s leg to disrupt the shot.

  I lay on my right side, leaving only my injured left arm free.

  As soon as I moved, the feeling in my arm came back with a vengeance. The sharp, tearing pain snatched my breath and sapped my will, growing worse and blending with the pain in my breast until it seemed to swamp the world.

  I made a keening, mewling sound, no longer caring to appear brave. Fairlane’s eyes flicked down to me, but his attention immediately returned to Josiah.

  My attention went there, too. Josiah’s gaze locked on mine. Strange. I could see his expression, even with the light behind him. His face shone cold with anger and determination. What had I done now? Besides get shot, which really wasn’t my fault.

  Fairlane shifted, pinning my sleeve under his heel. “I was going to let you live, you know, Rollins. For a while. Until I had destroyed everything you valued in your life. When you killed yourself because of my success my father would have been truly avenged. But I’m afraid this will have to do. I cannot let you go free now.”

  “Just do it, Fairlane. Quit gloating. Shoot me and be done with it, the quicker to tend to Amelia’s wounds.”

  Stupid! Someone outside the hangar may have heard the shots, and summoned help. Josiah needed to stall, not to goad Fairlane into action.

  Fairlane lifted the pistol from Josiah’s heart to his head. “If you insist, Rollins,” he said.

  I couldn’t wait for outside help. I had to do something now, or Josiah was dead.

  I focused on Fairlane’s hand and bent all my will upon thoughts of flame.

  The wound on my chest burned, and I used that feeling, thrusting it into my intentions. I wanted Fairlane to feel the same pain he had inflicted on me.

  A flush of heat poured through my veins and rushed out from somewhere in the middle of my torso, arrowing straight toward Fairlane’s outthrust arm—and the powder his weapon contained. Eager, angry energy, bursting out of me like steam from a boiler.

  Easy. It was so easy.

  Fairlane’s pistol exploded in his hand, and he screamed.

  He stumbled back, clutching at his eyes with smoking hands and flaming cuffs. His heel caught on my hip. He tumbled over backwards, flailing, and landed inches from the little sizzling heap of iron filings.

  Flaming cuffs. Hydrogen—invisible, but swirling around us nonetheless.

  “Amelia!” Josiah leaped for me, grabbing at my ankle to drag me to safety. Too slow.

  I slammed my eyes shut and thought of blizzards. Snow. Icebergs. All whirling in a ring around Josiah and me.

  Whump!

  The wave of heat hit my primitive attempt at a shield like a raging demon; a wall of roiling flames like the doorway to Hell. I gasped, choked, felt my grasp on all thoughts of cool and damp fail…

  And then it was gone.

  I lifted my head and blinked away the sweat stinging my eyes. Had Josiah escaped the blast without harm?

  Fairlane had not. He writhed, a raw and seeping creature, unrecog
nizable from the man he’d been moments before. His golden hair was reduced to a blackened dust, punctuating the sluffing skin of his scalp and face. His nose was gone, and his eyes…

  I swallowed and wished I could look away.

  The stink of charred flesh rose above the smell of smoke and flame. His clothing smoldered as he dragged himself away from the burning wooden tanks, howling a cry that sounded barely human. If I hadn’t blown up his pistol, I would have shot the man out of sheer pity.

  “Amelia!” Josiah grabbed me around the waist and hauled me to my feet. “Can you stand?”

  Black spots danced in front of my eyes as the rough movement jarred all my torn and wounded parts, and I felt cold. So cold.

  I staggered and sucked in a harsh breath, fighting off the dizziness. “We have to save him…” Or put him out of his misery. “We can’t leave him to burn!”

  Josiah seized me by my uninjured arm and ran for the door, dragging me with him. “We’ll be lucky to save ourselves before the airship’s gasbag goes.”

  I cast a glance over my shoulder at the amber curve of the airship’s gasbag, towering above us, filling the entire upper level of the hangar. The blaze stained the silk a hellish orange.

  Though my view jostled up and down from my unsteady pace and the black spots refused to leave, the flames licking up the outer wall of the hangar behind the tanks were still visible. The beams supporting the upper walkway were alight, as well. The fires seemed to enjoy the devilish admixture of hydrogen in the hangar’s atmosphere. They leapt hungrily, almost rabidly, toward the curve of the airship’s gleaming airbags, filled with almost pure gas.

  I had no hope of stopping the approaching blast.

  The door to the hangar flew open before we reached it.

  “Anyone in here?” Thomas, one of Wormwood Field’s ground crewmen, shouted through the door.

  “Out of our way, man!” Josiah shoved past him into a night teeming with ground crew and lanterns. Clanging alarms rang in the distance, signaling the arrival of the pumper truck. “Get everyone back! The ship is likely to ignite at any moment!”

  I managed to shake several tangled locks of hair over my breast to hide the telltale burn.

  Thomas paled, and waved men away. “Anyone else in there, Cap’n?” He hurried to keep up with Josiah and me as Josiah continued to pull me farther from the hangar.

  I expected Josiah to speak up immediately. Fairlane was still alive. Yes, he had tried to kill Josiah. He had intended to enslave me. He’d burned me and shot me. But to leave him there in the hangar to burn to death… I now had first-hand knowledge of how painful a death it would be.

  Could Josiah do it? Josiah Rollins, with his oh-so-proper views of right and wrong? With his utter distaste for all I was and all I stood for?

  The moment spun out longer than it should have. I took a breath to tell Thomas about Fairlane, but Josiah’s hand tightened about my arm. I looked over at his composed face, at his erect chin.

  He spoke clearly. “No, Thomas. Whoever started the fire must have left by another exit. I saw no one else.”

  “But…” I gasped out.

  Josiah shot me a fierce look, and I shut my mouth.

  The pumper truck towed by two enormous dray horses raced past us, bells ringing and men shouting and hanging off the sides. Thomas turned to watch it pass.

  Josiah leaned down and whispered urgently in my ear. “If this business comes to light, Fairlane will hang, but he could easily take you down with him. He’ll still be dead, but you’ll be a slave. I will not take the risk.”

  An enormous WHUMP drowned out every other sound, even the pumper truck’s clatter. I fell forward, propelled by what felt like the world’s largest feather mattress tied to the front of a locomotive.

  For a minute, all I could do was gasp. I mean, really, hadn’t I hurt enough before this? My arm and breast felt as if I’d, well, fallen upon a fresh burn and a gunshot wound.

  I believe I whimpered.

  Flaming boards rained down around me, lighting the sky with hazardous fireworks. Men on every side picked themselves off the ground and began stomping out the little fires the scattered debris ignited in the weeds.

  Thomas pushed himself upright. “Get your ship out of here, Cap’n, afore it goes up, too,” he said, and pelted off toward the pumper truck. “Hose down the rest o’ them buildings! This’n here’s a dead loss!”

  I struggled to sit up without jarring my injuries further. I felt as if I had spent most of the evening lying in the dirt. Fairlane’s hangar—what was left of it—was fully engulfed in flames. The roof had fallen in, along with most of the front and one side. The skeletal frame of Fairlane’s airship showed black against the blaze. Ash settled like snow across the scrubby vegetation of the field and over all the people milling about, trying to control the blaze before the entire airfield and all the ships moored there caught fire.

  Lieutenant Whitcomb pushed through the gathering crowd and stalked to us, with Benjamin dogging his heels. I drew my torn bodice together with my good hand, twisting to present my uninjured arm to the odious man. I had no need of his false sympathy.

  Whitcomb’s eyes barely skimmed me. He held out a hand and hauled Josiah to his feet. “Are you all right, Captain?” Whitcomb asked, his tone as respectful as it had been with Josiah’s father.

  “I’m fine, Whitcomb, but Miss Everley is not. We must get her aboard the Mercury as soon as possible. You can treat her, can’t you?”

  “Why, what’s the problem?”

  “She’s been shot.”

  Whitcomb’s eyes returned to me, sharper this time. “Of course, Captain. Benjamin, go build up the fires. I imagine Captain Rollins wishes to leave as soon as possible.” He lifted an inquiring brow at Josiah.

  Josiah gave a curt nod, and as Benjamin scurried away, he took out his handkerchief and crouched to bind up the bullet wound in my arm.

  I flinched and cried out as he pulled it tight.

  Whitcomb studied me as I sat in the dust, my dress in tatters, my hair tumbled around my shoulders, covered in soot and ash, and bleeding from various injuries. “Amelia Everley, you have never appeared more the guttersnipe than at this very moment. Why, I have seen many a chimneysweep looking both cleaner and more respectable.”

  I blinked up at Whitcomb’s immaculate uniform, and then over at Josiah. At this point, Josiah looked nearly as disreputable as I did, I imagined. His face and uniform were smeared with coal dust, mostly from me, I was afraid. In fact, I spied upon his shirtfront a distinct handprint that looked about my size. His waistcoat was missing several buttons, and his uniform was rumpled and torn.

  And he was unbearably handsome for all of that.

  He stood and carefully, gently, helped me to my feet.

  Whitcomb’s eyes dropped to the burn on my chest, and he winced.

  I held my breath, waiting for the scorn he would heap on me when Whitcomb realized what such a mark implied.

  Instead, he shrugged out of his pristine uniform jacket and wrapped it briskly around my grubby, soot-stained shoulders, covering both my exposed chemise and my telling burn.

  As if my injuries were not enough of a shock, I could have fainted from astonishment alone. Whitcomb risking his perfectly pressed uniform coat with me? The guttersnipe?

  “There is a clean handkerchief in the breast pocket to cover your burn. I have some salve aboard the Mercury that should help it heal in no time,” he said in low tones. “I am assuming you are back on the payroll?”

  Whitcomb was not a fool. He had medical training. He could recognize a testing brand when he saw one, and he must have noticed the lack of blackened flesh around the edges—a sure giveaway of my abilities. And yet he showed not a hint of surprise.

  He already knew I was a phlog.

  How disconcerting to find so many people knew my secret, and I had not even realized. More disconcerting to realize I did not mind trusting Whitcomb with such dangerous knowledge. An ass he might be, but an
honorable one.

  “She is.” Josiah looked down at me, uncertainty creeping into his gaze. “That is, if Miss Everley agrees.”

  “It depends,” I said, shoving down the shout of “Yes!” that wanted to break free. I shifted, trying to ease the stabbing, twin pains. Now that the immediate danger was over, my breast felt as if the branding iron continued to burn its way through my flesh and my arm burned almost as badly. I needed to lie down very soon, or I’d fall down.

  Still, I had certain demands from which I could not back away. “On what terms will I return? Are you able to stomach me as your chief engineer? I will not stand for being called ‘Miss Everley’ forever.”

  I must have swayed, for Josiah scooped me up in his arms and strode rapidly toward the rising bulk of the Mercury, dodging men rushing to and fro with buckets and damp blankets. “Someday I hope to change that name radically and finally,” he muttered. Then, louder, he said, “But for now, Chief Everley it will be.”

  Chief engineer of the Winged Mercury. I would have my ship back. And more, I’d have Josiah back, as a friend, at least. What had he meant, exactly, when he’d said he hoped to change my name radically and forever? It sounded like—

  But I hurt too much to think of that now. And, strangely enough, I felt utterly euphoric. Fairlane was dead. He had to be. No one lacking the talent to work fire could have survived the explosion. My secret was safe, and Captain Rollins and Henry were avenged.

  And Josiah did not hate me.

  Did I want my job back? Did I want my life back?

  “Then, yes, sir,” I replied. “I accept.”

  And in spite of the throbbing in my arm and the burning on my breast, I beamed with the joy of that moment.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  My joy lasted until Josiah strode onto the deserted deck of the Mercury, deposited me on the bunk in the chief engineer’s cabin, and Lieutenant Whitcomb sloshed near to half a bottle of Scotch whiskey onto my pair of wounds. The resultant shouts and curses drove Josiah from the room. He mentioned something about getting the ship in the air, away from the danger of fire from the blazing hangar, but his pale face and widened eyes gave him away. I could recognize a man escaping a disagreeable situation when I saw one.