by Adam Millard
Why is she hissing like that?
“Are you all right?” Cornelia asked, making her way slowly toward the injured woman. “You’re hurt. Do you need medical assistance? I believe there is a doctor on board.”
The woman moved toward Abigale, spitting like a cat protecting its young. There was something wrong with her eyes as if all pigment had been sucked out and replaced with windows. Abigale feared that, if she looked into them, she might lose her soul. Instead, she focused on the tip of the woman’s nose and took a few steps back, dodging the table where she had recently sat.
“Ma’am, would you like me to call for assistance?” Cornelia was doing everything she could to elicit a response from the injured woman, but it was getting her nowhere.
“Is she in shock?” Abigale asked. That would explain the vacant glare of her eyes, the listless appearance of her face, and the fact that she seemed devoid of spatial awareness.
The woman bounced off another table, and then a chair. Abigale had had enough. She reached beneath her coat and wrapped her hand around Big Daddy’s grip. As much as she didn’t want to shoot anyone else for as long as she might live, she came to realise she might have no choice. Some people seemed intent on getting themselves blasted.
The woman lunged for Abigale, her mouth falling wide open to reveal a row of jagged teeth against an otherworldly blackness. She hissed again, and strings of tarry drool slipped from her lips, but she didn’t seem to notice. All she cared about was getting to Abigale so she could tear her apart with claws that seemed to be growing by the second.
Abigale parried the lunge, and the woman spun around. There was no way for her to free Big Daddy, not at such close quarters, and so she did the next best thing. She threw an arm around the woman’s neck and pulled down hard.
Cornelia was running around somewhere behind them, screaming for help, calling for a doctor, but Abigale knew she had to incapacitate the frenzied woman and fast.
They both went to ground, and Abigale lost position. The woman scrambled out from under her and leapt onto her haunches, still hissing and snarling as if she’d contracted rabies. Her eyes… terrible, dead eyes. Abigale couldn’t help but look directly into them, and she saw nothing there that was remotely human.
“What are you?” she whispered, pushing herself onto her knees.
The woman glowered at her, drew her lips back over drool-blackened teeth, and then she was in the air, flying toward Abigale like something from a bad nightmare. Abigale barely had time to flick an elbow out, but she managed it, and it caught the woman on the left cheek. Her head snapped aside as if Abigale had broken her neck, and momentum carried her over the top, where she slammed into the wall of the ship.
Standing, Abigale took a deep breath. She was exhausted, and yet the woman, or rather the thing in a woman’s skin, leapt up as if she had all the energy in the world.
“Calm down,” Abigale reasoned, but she knew it was no use. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. She could see it in its eyes, and the wound on its chest was deep enough, and in just the right place, to kill a person. No, it was something else. Something terrible.
Something impossible.
“Is she insane?” Cornelia screeched from the edge of the room.
“I don’t think so,” Abigale said. “I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”
The woman grinned, all black teeth and icky drool. Abigale knew there was only one way to put the thing down. If it worked. Octavius said it might work against magic, but that wasn’t the hundred percent she needed right then.
She reached into her coat, forgetting that Cornelia was present for the time being, and pulled out Big Daddy. Cornelia made a sound in her throat that was almost inhuman.
Never seen a gun before, Corny?
The madwoman’s expression didn’t falter, and it was as if Big Daddy’s sudden appearance meant nothing to her. She rushed forward with precarious strides that were odd to look at. Abigale expected the thing to topple before it even reached her, but she wasn’t taking any chances, though.
She pulled the trigger, just once, but the thing kept coming, implacable. As it thumped into Abigale, she managed to shift the gun down between them, firing again and again. Thwump, thwump… Abigale was forced backwards, where she clattered against a table, and there was an almighty screech like nails on a chalkboard as the table scraped the wooden floor beneath. She refused to go down though and held the snarling, snapping woman’s head away from hers with a solid elbow wedged into the woman’s throat.
Something had changed, though. The woman, the thing, was less animated as if it was tiring. Its snarls became less frantic, and the strength seemed to be draining from it, and Abigale could push it back without exerting herself too much.
Cornelia appeared over the wild woman’s shoulder, standing far enough away to make a quick exit should she need to.
Abigale said, “Move out of the way.”
Cornelia nodded though she looked as nervous as hell.
The thing was all but still, and Abigale forced it back. It slumped into an untidy pile, hissing and gasping for air that would do it no good, whatsoever.
Abigale realised Cornelia was staring at the weapon in her hand with acute dread. “It’s okay,” Abigale said. “It’s not lethal. Tranquilisers, that’s all.” Yes, that’s all. Tranquilisers. Perfectly normal. Stop looking at me like that…
The thing on the deck uncontrollably shuddered, as if in the throes of some immense seizure, and then fell wholly still. Black goo seeped from the corners of its hellish chops and trickled slowly down its cheeks until a small pool had formed on the wood beneath its head.
Cornelia looked up at Abigale. “Just tranquilisers, huh?”
Abigale shrugged. She was about to explain herself in some fashion when the door flew open so hard it came off its hinges. Abigale and Cornelia snapped their heads across, both knowing that, if it were the peelers, they were in big trouble. They were, after all, standing over a presumably dead body and the gun in Abigale’s hand was still steaming.
However, it wasn’t the peelers.
It was something much worse.
“Cornelia, run!” Abigale screamed, pushing the girl toward the back of the room. Surely, there was a way through the kitchen area, somewhere for the girl to hide from the huge man filling the door. Some sort of huge dog, followed at his heels, looking resplendent in brass armour. Abigale had never seen the man before, yet she knew he was trouble—big trouble.
Cornelia grabbed Abigale by the hand and pulled her across the room. “This way,” she said. “There’s a way out through here.”
That was good enough for Abigale, and she followed Cornelia across the restaurant deck as quickly as she could. She was all at once aware of a guttural growling just behind them, along with the clanking of steel upon steel. The giant had let his beast of its leash, and it was hurtling after them, loping just behind, hungry and feral.
Abigale didn’t turn; hearing the thing and knowing it was there was terrifying enough.
Cornelia lurched for a door, dodging an arrangement of chairs with all the elegance of an inebriated hippo. Abigale fared better, managing to evade the skidding chairs completely. As a pair, they all but fell through the door, and Abigale wasted no time in slamming it shut behind them.
Something heavy and hard impacted the door almost immediately, and Cornelia screamed, slapping a hand to her quivering lips. A was to about, and Abigale slid the large bolt affixed halfway up the door across, not expecting it to hold forever.
“We need to get out of here,” Abigale said. “You said there was a way out?” She turned to find a kitchen area. A man wearing the whites of a chef, cleaver in hand and a whole lobster sitting before him, stared back at her. To say he looked a little perturbed was like saying Jack the Ripper had a small problem with dollymops.
The door shook in its frame as the beast threw itself against it again and again. Cornelia took a few steps back, and Abigale realised she was s
till wielding Big Daddy.
“Chto proiskhodit?” the man with the blade said, and then quickly added in broken English, “What is going on?”
Abigale took a few steps forwards, and the door rattled behind her. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t going to stop until it had breached the door. “Cornelia?” she said. “A way out?”
“Yes,” Cornelia said, suddenly alert. She turned to face the bewildered chef, who looked as if he really wanted to find somewhere to stick that cleaver of his. “Sergei, we need to get out of here. Something is after us, after her,” she amended, “and I don’t think it’s going to stop until it has her.”
“What do you mean, something is—”
Sergei didn’t get to finish his sentence. There was a sudden roar, and then a blade came through the door, its spinning chain tearing through the wood as if it was butter. Splinters flew through the air, singed or still aflame.
Abigale rolled forwards, away from the roaring blade, and scrambled to her feet.
“Okay, yes, something is after you,” Sergei concurred, staring down at the insignificant cleaver in his white-knuckled grasp. He turned and led the way across the kitchen as Abigale and Cornelia quickly followed. It wouldn’t take long for the chainsword to cut through the door, and it was not the time to stop and deliberate.
The rumble of the sword carving through the door behind them was more than enough incentive to pick up the pace, and Sergei led them down a set of wooden steps at the end of the kitchen.
“Please tell me you have the key,” Cornelia said, more than a hint of panic in her voice.
“Konechno, ya yego,” Sergei said, fumbling around in his pockets. “I keep it on me at all times for…things like this.”
The sarcasm was not lost on Abigale.
“Ah, here it is,” he said, retrieving a small, bronze key from his breast pocket. He slipped it into the lock and turned.
Cornelia pushed the door open. She was terrified, and though the chainsword continued to roar behind them, the quicker they were on the other side of the door, the better.
Sunlight poured in, drenching the previously dark stairwell with golden light. Abigale hadn’t been anticipating it, and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. Cornelia and Sergei were already outside, and Abigale could just about make out their shapes as they set to work on something that was not as easily discernible.
Abigale stepped out into the light, and as she did, Sergei lunged for the door, closing it behind her. He locked it on the third attempt and went back to help Cornelia prepare.
“Is that a life-ship?” Abigale asked. She knew exactly what it was. She’d seen six others just like it strapped to the side of Poseidon’s Gale before boarding. The one before her, though, was slightly different. It was rudimentary, without the embellishments of the passenger life-ships. Whoever had built Poseidon’s Gale had decided not to waste needless time and energy on something that would ultimately remain unseen.
“The workers are meant to use this one,” Cornelia said, unhooking a rope from the side of the small vessel. “There are two more for the rest of the crew, one halfway down the skyship and another at the rear. It’s so we’re guaranteed safe exit should tragedy strike.”
Makes sense, Abigale thought. Tragedy had certainly struck, and it was all her fault, apparently.
“Who is after you?” Sergei asked, climbing aboard the life-ship. He turned a giant wheel, and the thing hissed. Smoke and steam plumed up into the air forming man-made clouds that were nowhere near as attractive as Mother Nature’s.
Abigale shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. She had an inkling that it was something to do with her, and the fact that she’d been hired by The Guild to retrieve some very important items, but that was all she knew.
Cornelia stopped what she was doing for a moment and turned to face Abigale. She glanced at the pistol, then back up to Abigale’s face. “So you carry that thing with you everywhere you go?” she said.
Ah, touché, O wise one.
“I’m a girl travelling alone to shores unknown,” Abigale said. She hadn’t meant it to rhyme, and it made her sound stupid, but it was too late to take it back. “Doesn’t it make sense to arm oneself?”
Cornelia looked thoughtful for a moment, and then returned to whatever it was she had been doing before being beset by doubt.
“Okay, everyone on board,” Sergei said, taking a seat in the cockpit, which was basically a steering wheel and a series of gauges that all looked identical.
How it was meant to accommodate seven people, Abigale didn’t know. There was barely room to swing a cat.
As she climbed over the side of the life-ship, it rocked gently. Abigale tried not to glance down through the small gap between the large and small vessels, but it was hard not to. The ground was down there somewhere, below all that thick cloud, and it would certainly come sharp if she should suddenly fall. She pushed the thought away and pulled her trailing leg onto the life-ship.
Cornelia untied one final rope from the side of Poseidon’s Gale before climbing aboard. “This is not how I imagined my day would—”
She was interrupted by the raucous growl of their pursuer’s sword as it pierced the door to their right. The smell of charred wood drifted across to the life-ship, and tiny splinters flew outwards, the sunlight illuminating them, making them look more magical than they probably were.
“Now would be a good time to leave,” Cornelia said, not taking her eyes off the buzzing blade as it cut through the door.
Sergei said something in Russian, made the sign of the cross, and pulled a lever down at his side.
There was a mechanical sounding clunk as the life-ship detached from Poseidon’s Gale, and the balloon above gently hissed as it filled with an amalgamation of hydrogen and helium. Abigale was surprised she could hear anything over the chainsword tearing through the door to their right.
They dropped away from Poseidon’s Gale, shifting gently to the left. There was clear space between the two vessels, which should have been reassuring. Yet, for some reason, it wasn’t.
Being on the skyship was one thing, but being on its smaller, far less sturdy spawn was unsettling to say the least. She wasn’t stable, and as Sergei put more sky between them and Poseidon’s Gale, the life-ship banked so sharply that Abigale grabbed onto the side for dear life, lest she be spilled out.
“Everyone okay?” Sergei said.
They were gaining altitude again, which could, Abigale thought, only be a good thing. If they were going up, then it was impossible for them to be going down at the same time. Simple physics.
Abigale holstered Big Daddy but continued to grasp onto the side of the life-ship with white-knuckled intensity. “I guess,” she said. “Have you ever piloted one of these before?”
At the helm, Sergei shook his head. “How hard can it be? This one,” he gestured to a lever, “works the right paddle, that one works the left paddle, and this big circular thing steers, I think…”
Not very comforting, but it did sound remarkably simple.
They rose up alongside Poseidon’s Gale, and the escape door they had just, well, escaped through. Their pursuer stood on the ledge, glowering up at them. The armoured beast stood at his side, growling and howling as the life-ship continued to drift away from the skyship.
Who are you? Abigale thought. Just then, a second man appeared behind the herculean one, and she recognised him almost immediately. It was the peeler from the museum, the one that had expected her to give herself up on the strength of a pair of handcuffs.
“I don’t believe it,” Abigale said. She hadn’t realised she was speaking aloud until Cornelia replied.
“Believe what?”
Abigale turned to face the girl, a simple server girl who was just a stone’s throw away from being arrested or murdered, thanks to her. “The guy who’s after me,” she said. “He’s got a copper with him.”
“That was a bit heavy-handed for the police,
wasn’t it?”
Cornelia was right, which meant it wasn’t the police she needed to worry about. The peeler was in on it, whatever it was.
“And why would the police be after you, Octavia?” Cornelia added, her expression once again riddled with suspicion.
“I have no idea,” Abigale lied. Telling the truth was out of the question. Sergei would probably throw her over the side, or return to Poseidon’s Gale for the “police” to do their thing. No, she needed time to think. Whoever the big fellow was, he was no wizard. A wizard would be able to throw some magic at them. If he wanted her dead, he would conjure up some chthonian fireball and take them out. If he wasn’t a wizard, she wasn’t sure what the hell was he, or what had been with the crazy lady back in the restaurant.
“How long can we last like this?” Cornelia asked. “I mean, up here, away from the Gale?”
Sergei pulled the life-ship to the left, keeping a steady distance between themselves and the skyship. He shrugged. “I’d say a couple of hours. These things aren’t meant to drift for long periods of time. More of a ‘straight down’ kind of life-ship.”
Abigale sucked in a mouthful of smoky air and began to cough. So much for first-class.
They slipped gently between the clouds, much steadier once Sergei had had time to practise, and Abigale couldn’t help but think about that moment back in her beautiful cabin, where she’d tempted fate.
Well, girl, here you go. Here’s the trouble you expected. Enjoy.
15
Clem O’Connell was the most irksome character Alcorn had ever come across in all his years upon the Earth. Just assisting the irritating little half-wit for two hours had made Alcorn reconsider his life completely. It was all he could do not to take the man by the scruff of the neck and slap him around the face until all that dirt fell off him. Sure, his heart was in the right place, but that just made him easier to kill.
“How much longer?” Alcorn said, pacing nervously alongside The Mad Knave. He checked his pocket watch. It was already almost three in the afternoon. A couple of hours, O’Connell had said, and yet, there they still were, feet very much planted upon the ground.
