Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles)

by Silverwood, Cari

  “You…” The deadness in his voice was as riveting as the toss of earth on a coffin lid. “…will suffice.”

  With a faint whine and whir of clockwork, faster than she could register or react to, the doctor blurred into motion. Something thudded into the side of her head. Pain splintered through her. Darkness conquered, and she fell, spiraling into the black.

  Filing cabinets lined the walls. On a table in the middle, two heavy books awaited him. He knew his name in letters, if not the titles of the books. A folded piece of paper lay atop with Sten penciled neatly on it.

  Too easy. Now he only needed someone he fucking trusted to read them for him.

  A small, square window drew him to the outer wall, where a frigid breeze tussled with the papers tacked to a nearby notice board. Wrought-iron vertical bars curved down over the window. For a long time he stared out through those gray claws of metal at the night and saw nothing except her body in the darkness, and heard only the regular lub-dub of her heart when he’d nestled his head upon her breast.

  From far away, along the road they'd traveled, came the distant noise of a revving engine.

  “Shite.” Wasn’t working. He couldn’t forget her. Never would. But he’d thought she’d come around to thinking the same of him. “Fool. I’m a fool.”

  The engine sound grew. The screech of metal and brakes, though a long way off, made him stand taller as he strained to hear.

  “Sten!” Kaysana screamed.

  What the hell? “Coming! I’m coming!” He spun and sprinted toward the stairs, took them so fast he barely touched ground. He burst out the door onto the rooftop.

  With the fire low, his night vision was good. By the bedrolls, the doctor faced off against Kaysana—his eyes were pinpoint fires, entryways to hell. He kicked at Kaysana, vicious and fast. She dropped, and he caught her, slung her over his shoulder.

  “Nooo!” Feet pounding as he ran, he groped at his left side where his sword should be. Not there. The raised man, slick as a fleeing rat, sprinted away, carrying Kaysana like the corpse of a slain animal.

  Had to catch them! Had to! By the time Sten reached where they’d fought, where Emily struggled to her feet, the doctor had gained the parapet. Then he jumped over the side and vanished from view.

  Sten slammed into the low stone wall, where they’d gone over, clawing at the outer rock wall to stop himself following them headfirst.

  A light thundered and poured toward him at roof level, dipped. Above it, silver zipped around in a circle. The distinct stench of burning boosted coal washed over him.

  Someone steered a gyrocopter in for a lunatic landing, its searchlight swiveling through the trees as the craft wove closer, dropping fast. Four stories below were two figures in the gardens—one carried atop the other.

  As the gyro hit the ground and bounced, Dr. F. loaded Kaysana, then scrambled in after her.

  The craft rose and hovered before him. A dim figure inside swung a tube his way. The twin orange flares in its eye sockets marked a raised man. Sten frowned, heard half-familiar pings and clicks. The sound of a Gatling gun beginning to turn.

  “Emily! Duck!”

  Sten threw himself down. His arms scraped and slid. Soil puffed up his nose. A barrage of bullets roared over his head, churning up dirt, marching across the opposite parapet in a smoking parade of pulverized stone. A low black silhouette marked where Emily lay. On the far rooftop, the airship hissed and crumpled as bullets hit the envelope. The cacophony ceased.

  On his knees, he peeked above the edge in time to see the gyro swerve into the night and zoom away, taking Kaysana with it. His ribs protesting with little spikes of agony, he climbed all the way to his feet.

  Where he gripped the stone, the rough edge of the parapet carved tracts of skin from his hands. She was gone. Cold traced his bones, crackled into his heart. Then numbness settled. Determination arrived.

  He had a job to do. Rescue his woman. Save the world. All in a day’s fucking work.

  Damnohdamn oh fuckin’ damn.

  When he turned, he found Cadrach limping up behind him, shaking his head now and then. The clockwork snake, Clavis, slithered across the wolf’s path, then curled up on the bedding. Sten squatted. “You all right, boy? Let me check you.”

  He patted Cadrach all over. Relief flooded him—nothing seemed seriously wrong, just bruises, and touching something that was alive and real and not going to kill him…he so needed that.

  He sighed. “’S okay, boy, we’ll get her back. You and me—”

  “And me too.” A dark, glistening line trailed across Emily’s forehead. She hobbled over and stood before him, swaying. The fur clothing made her look older, bigger. Inside though, he knew she’d be hurting.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m okay. Just makes me more determined to finish this.” She put a hand on his head, patted him like he had the wolf, then let her arm fall to her side. “She saved me, you know. I heard her taunting him. We’ll get your lady…my captain back. We’ll do it. You, me, and wolfie.”

  He nodded, assessing the pint-size dynamo. Never let a woman see your weaknesses. He could do this.

  “So, Sten, where do we start?”

  Cadrach sat on his haunches, and he let his hands slide down the soft fur of the wolf’s head. The urge to crush something, squeeze hard until something, anything, was flat and very, very dead, leaked away.

  “From the direction the gyro took, it’s heading for Perihelion.” He straightened. “How can we follow, when the airship’s like a piñata at a target range?”

  “Yeah.” Emily turned to look. “Man, she’s not good.”

  He wriggled his toes in his boots, feeling his toenails scrape on leather while he stared at the airship. Much of the balloon had collapsed. “That's the only way we can get to Perihelion, and the doctor has removed something from the controls. The engine won't start without that missing piece, and the envelope is shot to hell and back.”

  How were they to rise above the mountain without an airship? He needed to figure this out damn fast, or it wouldn't be just half the world that’d die, but Kaysana too. And he wasn’t sure which was worth more. Nah. In a pinch, the world would lose out.

  “Well, let's have a closer look at the Emshalley. I can fix most any damn fucking thing.”

  What if I can't fix this, though? He brushed away the thought. I can. I will. ’Cause I have to.

  “Hope so,” she murmured.

  The dismayed look on Emily’s face made him pull her close. “Here, girl, you need a hug as much as I do.”

  She snuggled in and put her arms around him. “Thanks, Sten.”

  God, I pray she’s okay.

  These zombies didn’t toy with their victims. They ate them, killed, raped them, or tortured them and, from what he’d seen, sometimes all at once. The warmth of Emily’s body only reminded him of how Kaysana felt against him. A patch of blood on the roof glistened in the moonlight. Hers. Jeez. The wolf pendant lay near the puddle.

  The engine noise from earlier started up again, coming closer. The many screeches and clangs of metal made it sound as if someone was tormenting a machine.

  “We better see who that is. They need a driving lesson.” He sucked in his cheek. “Run and grab that sniper rifle of yours, Emily. Just to be on the safe side.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The racket in the room nearly deafened Kaysana, and the throbbing pain in her head didn't help. Icy air swirled around her. Someone rolled her over, tugged her hands behind her back, wrapped something around them. By the time she figured it out, she was bound firm enough to make her hands tingle with pins and needles. Her legs were tucked under her, and the bone-jarring vibrations through the metal floor stirred the fur of her boots against her fingers.

  Kaysana managed to open her eyes. Light fluttered around the room.

  Where is this? The sound gave her the answer. Gyrocopter. The shaking and shuddering underneath her, the metal floor—they were going somewh
ere.

  Her sight focused. A man with fire in his eyes stood over her. Goatee. Gray hair. The doctor’s face swam into focus.

  “Doctor?” Her tongue seemed to have died and been wedged back into her mouth all swollen and dry.

  “You are awake? Good.” His voice sawed deep through the words. He smiled. “You’re needed alive and feeling.”

  He thudded to one knee before Kaysana and pulled her head up by a handful of her hair.

  “You'll be a tasty one.” The fire in his eyes blazed brighter.

  Fuck… She tried to squeeze back into the floor. Not good. How could she escape this? Sten would try to save her. The man would leap into a pool of burning lava to save me…and I know it. Knew it back there, even. In the clarity of danger, she saw him as what he was…a forceful yet good man who more than liked her. I screwed up. Could’ve at least told him how much I…what? Loved him? She didn’t know, still, didn’t know.

  Time to save myself. She sniffed back the tears. The knife in her boot beckoned.

  Some movement drew her eyes downward, to the doctor’s legs. His torn trousers were painted in the dappled light of the moon and man-made sources. With the gleam of dark liquid to guide her, Kaysana suddenly translated the colors as blood and fractured bone. His upper legs were shattered, and yet he stood on them. His lower legs were gleaming rods and coils, pumping hydraulics and cogs. Electricity blazed in sputtering violet across stripped wires.

  He struck her across the face, sending her head jolting away, only to be ripped to a stop by the hold on her hair. “I shall have some fun with you.” He leaned in, eyes flaring brighter as he closed in on her face. Jagged teeth showed, bared by the snarl of lip. “I smell blood.”

  She drifted into unconsciousness. And in and out. Time flickered past in a susurration of silence and the thwop thwop of gyro blades.

  She blinked. The world firmed. How long was I out?

  Snow and icy air swept in through the open side door. They were high in the mountains.

  My legs still aren’t tied.

  The doctor grinned at her—fractured teeth, blue-black gums, no lips. Chin spotted with old gore. He’s eaten his own lips. Something lurched in her stomach.

  “I see you. Time to play.”

  He curved her head to one side and buried his face in her hair. The sweep and dart of his tongue in the wound sent agony peeling through her. He sucked hard, his tongue rasping on her raw flesh and her hair. Kaysana shrieked and wriggled, thrashing about. But he pinned her with a knee on her belly.

  “Stay, little meal.” The doctor chuckled and resumed sucking and slurping like a baby at his mother’s breast. She bucked. His teeth slid like tiny chisels across her scalp to fasten on her ear, tight.

  His teeth ground in harder, deeper. Knife, get the knife. She bent her legs under her, struggling to reach the knife, heaving his body upward. A shriek burst from her. She heard and felt the click of flesh and cartilage severing. Scalding pain exploded down the side of the face. Wet blood slicked her face. The doctor swallowed.

  Her hand met the hilt of the knife.

  She forced logic into her brain despite the zombie growling at her ear. Shoved away fear, indecision, and the muzziness from the head wound and cataloged what she saw. Open door. One other raised man at the controls. The night whipping past outside. One chance. Only one.

  Twisting sideways, she freed her legs from beneath, then heaved up to jackknife her body. Both feet were at his armpits. Now! She kicked, straightening full-length, and sent the doctor sailing straight out through the door into the night.

  Fast now. Fast fast fast. She concentrated, ignoring what she couldn’t change—the guttural cry of the pilot, the craft suddenly diving.

  Bend legs under again and feel for the sheath in my boot. Whip out the knife. Don’t cut myself. Insert between body and wrist rope and pray. Rip it through. Yes!

  Her wrists free, she flipped upright, catching the back of the pilot’s seat to steady herself as the gyro lurched in flight. Ignore the dead copilot still strapped in, with his brain cavity exposed and the blood frozen on the seat. Ignore the staring, smoldering eyes of the pilot and the drool at his mouth…the flesh torn from his cheekbone, dangling and whipping across his face like a swing.

  Anchor one hand in the zombie’s hair, grab it tight, and thrust the slim blade into his ear. Feel bone crunch but ignore again. Not in far enough.

  Hammer at the base of the hilt as he gropes for you with his clawed hand. Watch the knife slide, with thump after thump, another…agonizing…three inches into his head.

  Grab the hilt again and twist and twist and twist.

  The squelch of his brain being pulverized and his screeches embedded into her memory like splinters in her heart. But she only stopped when the gyro threatened to dive full speed into the ground.

  Kicking out the newly defunct and still trembling zombie pilot wasn’t an option. Heart thundering in her ears, she plonked herself onto his lap and set about frantically trying to regain control.

  The speed of the dive lessened. The arc flattened.

  “Come on, come on!” Teeth gritted, she leaned back into the seat, into the dead zombie, using all her strength, with her grip on the semicircular steering wheel surely denting the leather and wood beneath.

  Steam screaming out the side stacks, crimson sparks flying, blades spinning like a dervish on drugs, the gyro shuddered, slowed, and pancaked into the deep snow with a loud crumph.

  The blizzard howled, gently covering the burrow made by the crash with a soft blanket of white. Metal clicked and quieted as it cooled into subzero. Way back, miles back, the fallen raised man clawed his way free of snow. Its master knew of its plight. It trudged off, slow and sure, and flawlessly correct in its navigation.

  Leaning over the front parapet, Sten peered down the long road. No headlights, just a distant movement and that approaching engine sound. He raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder, settled his cheek, and sighted through the scope. A blurred vehicle came into view. Clicking the scope out to its farthest range, kneeling, and resting the stock on the stone helped.

  “Damn. I see orange eyes in the cabin. It’s an überzomb driving a big truck. He seems to have sorted the driving, and I figure he’s heading for us.” Did they have the brains to ram the gate? They could fly gyros. The closer they were to Perihelion, the smarter the zombies seemed.

  “There’s four rounds in there,” Emily whispered. “Can you get him?”

  “I’ll try.” The finely wrought gold tendrils on the stock curled smooth under his skin, and he anchored his fingers onto them, drew in a breath, and held it. Squeezed and squeezed again and again.

  The gun rocked back into him. Bullets cracked the air.

  The truck was still coming. Sten grunted. “Missed. The roads so damn bumpy… I’ll wait until he’s a bit closer. I’m a close quarters man.”

  “Sir?” Emily tapped his arm. “May I? Rifles and me like each other.”

  “Yeah?” Debating didn’t seem right. He handed her the rifle, watched as she swiftly knelt beside him, reloaded, and nestled herself around the long weapon like it was a part of her.

  She wound out a screw on the sight, slotted down an extra lens. Moonlight flowed serpentlike along all the little prettiness on the stock and barrel. Blue and black, contrasting with Emily’s tousled blonde hair. Concentration solidified her into a sculpture of flesh and metal.

  The single crack when she fired made him turn to look down the road. A spine of spiraling blue-orange sped forth and vanished into the black. Silence gripped the night as he strained to see.

  Flame blossomed, swerved to the side, and fell in a long, silent curve down into the darkness of the ravine. A rumble and rolling boom signaled the end of the vehicle when it hit the bottom.

  “Damnation, girl! How’d you learn to shoot like that?” He whacked Emily on the back as she rose.

  “Ow!” She rolled her shoulder, stepped away from him. “Hope there’s no more of t
hem coming. Anyways, Sten. My daddy always taught us girls to be ready for anything, including war. I can shoot better than I can knit. Though not as good as I can catalog a book. Here.” She thrust the weapon back to him. “That was a napalm round too.”

  “Oh?” He did a sweep of the landscape through the scope. Nothing moved on the road or the slopes of the hill. He thought he knew why they’d suddenly appeared. His fault. I let my libido tell me what to do. Fuck. He tucked away his guilt for another day.

  “That was a big bang for one round. You hit the zomb? Or the truck?”

  “The zombie.”

  “Those überzombs burn darn well. Let’s go check the ship.”

  The envelope of the Emshalley had half the air cells deflated…irreparably so. It’d need a week in a repair dock. Next to where his knee rested, holes showed where bullets had passed through the air cell. Sten fingered the tattered cloth.

  “I can cut away the ripped cells, Emily, and we’ll have maybe half the buoyancy.” Sten looked up at the remaining envelope of the airship as it moved in the night breeze. “The less weight, the better.”

  “You tell me what to toss, and I’ll do it.” She clapped her hands together.

  He climbed to his feet and wiped his hands on his trousers. Dawn was hours away.

  “Sure. But there’s other stuff needs doing. When I say, I want you to go to the File Room and bring up whatever you can find about Perihelion. We need a map to get us the quickest way through these mountains, at as low an altitude as possible. And a map of the base itself.”

  “If it’s there, I’ll find it. We can do this!” She grinned at him.

  “Where’d you get all this enthusiasm, woman? Your daddy?”

  “Well.” Emily pulled a face. “Maybe. I just know things don’t get done unless you do.”