by J. K. Coi
He pushed hard, and the door shifted inward just enough for one person to squeeze through. But not Jasper. Even twisted sideways, he wouldn’t make it. “Hello?” he called.
Nobody was surprised when there was no answer. The three of them shared matching looks of pained apprehension.
After peering through the opening into the cockpit, Jasper turned back to her with a frown. “It’s too dark to see anything in there, but we definitely don’t have a pilot anymore.”
Stepping forward, Callie motioned him aside. “Let me slip through. I’ll get in and open the door from the other side.”
He paused.
“Jasper,” she warned.
“All right.” He stepped aside. “But be careful.”
She didn’t deign to respond, even though the urge to tell him she was more than capable of entering a dark room by herself was strong enough to make her bite her tongue. She put her hands against the wood panel and twisted her body sideways as she shuffled carefully through the opening. As she pushed against the door, it shifted a little wider and she was able to step all the way inside.
It didn’t matter that the small room was almost completely dark, her artificial eye allowed her to see everything plainly, albeit in shades of shadow. Someone had pulled thick black coverings over the window in front of the captain’s chair. The pilot himself was not in his seat. It wasn’t until Callie turned and looked behind her to find what had blocked the door that she saw why…and realized what she’d heard earlier.
Her gasp must have been loud even with her hand pressed tight over her mouth. Jasper was shoving at the door from the other side. “What is it? Callie, get back out here right now.”
The pilot was collapsed facedown on the floor right by the door. It had been his body blocking the way. “Sir!” she cried out, hoping he wasn’t actually…dead. “Sir, are you all right?”
She knelt before him and reached for his hand, but her heart plummeted. He wasn’t breathing, and his skin was already so cold. Clearing her throat, she called, “Jasper, stop pushing against the door. I’m going to get it open. Just give me a moment to move the pilot’s body out of the way.”
Chapter Five
The three minutes Jasper was forced to wait on the other side of that door were three of the longest minutes of his life. He stood like a stone, every muscle clenched as he strained to keep himself in check. The last thing Callie needed was for him to make this more difficult for her.
He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he heard everything. Her harsh intake of breath—that must have been when she saw the body. Her whispered prayer for forgiveness, as if she were the one who’d done the poor man in. The shuffle of her feet as she took a few steps around him to get into position, and finally the slide of his body being pushed or pulled away from the door.
As soon as he was certain it was clear, he carefully shoved the door again. This time it swung wide. He rushed to her side. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, but her hand shook slightly as she brushed a lock of hair from her face. There was a dark splotch on the sleeve of her jacket that hadn’t been there before. He reached for her, but she shook her head and jerked her hand away. “Jasper, I’m fine. I’m not the one who was stabbed and left to die in here.”
That was when he saw the blood staining the knees of her trousers. She followed his gaze down and grimaced. “I knelt in it without realizing, but that doesn’t matter.” She turned back to the body. She’d moved the dead pilot into the captain’s chair. His hands had been placed neatly in his lap, but the hilt of a short-bladed knife stuck out of his chest.
Patrick remained in the doorway, looking pale and stricken. “We should have insisted on checking on him earlier.”
“And if we had, we might be dead as well,” Jasper said.
“But why?” Callie finally looked away from the pilot, her face shadowed, haunted.
“I don’t know, but at the moment it isn’t our concern.” He sighed at his own callousness when Callie flinched. “Patrick, help me move the body into the hold of the ship so I can man the controls.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’ve been ordered to get ourselves to Manchester with the utmost haste, have we not?”
“Are you saying you can fly this thing?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” He didn’t tell her the one and only time he’d flown an airship was in a training mission almost ten years ago.
Moving behind the chair, he grabbed the body by the shoulders as Patrick crouched and lifted his booted feet. Suddenly, the younger man paused. “What is that over there?”
Callie bent over as well. “It looks like an old mantel clock. But what’s it doing under there?”
Jasper’s breath caught. Heart hammering, he ran around the pilot’s chair to her side and got down on one knee. An old clock was indeed tucked beneath the pilot’s steering panel. Three wires jutted from the back and disappeared into a hat box, of all things, which had been set beside it. That had to be where the explosive was.
The minute hand was ticking steadily. Backward.
“Good Lord, Jasper. Is that what I think it is?” Her voice broke.
He lunged for the clock, but she stopped him. “No. Oh God, wait.”
“Callie, we have to get it out of here.”
“If you pull on it, you’ll disconnect the wires going into the box. Isn’t there a possibility doing so could cause it to explode immediately, instead of when the timepiece finishes counting down?”
He wasn’t sure. He knew nothing about bombs. He’d hoped disconnecting the timer would simply stop the process altogether, but Callie could be right. He couldn’t take the chance.
“We have to get out of here!” According to the timepiece, they had less than three minutes to escape the airship before the bomb went off and turned it into a fiery deathtrap hurtling to the ground.
“Callie, Patrick. Go! Open the hatch and throw out the rope ladder. You get down that thing as fast as you can.” He stood and pushed her ahead of him back toward the door.
“But Jasper, we’ve drifted too high and there’s not enough time!”
“Go! Go! Go!” He turned to the controls but the lieutenant had not only murdered the pilot but sabotaged their ride as well. The panel was cracked, as if something had been smashed against it repeatedly. He flicked switches. Half of them didn’t work, and he couldn’t remember what operated what until a small indicator blinked red. It meant gas was venting from the balloon. Hopefully, that would increase the speed of their descent.
He leaned forward to reach another switch in the panel overhead and then gripped the control wheel, pushing and angling it down until he could feel the nose of the airship going into a gentle dive.
Patrick was out of the cockpit already, but Callie stubbornly lingered. “Go, Callie. Hurry.”
“Not without you!”
The seconds ticked by. He had to get her out. With a harsh breath, he shook his head. “Then help me with the pilot. We have to brace something against this control arm so the ship continues to dive. Hopefully we’ll make it close enough to the ground that we can jump before the bomb goes off.”
Callie blanched, but she nodded and lifted one of the man’s arms over her shoulder. Together, they wedged the body against the control arm before making a run for the door.
Patrick was opening the hatch and Jasper pushed Callie toward it. The airship had strayed farther from the landing site since the lieutenant parachuted out. It had also risen quite high into the air and, despite its slow downward trajectory, floated at least a few yards above the treetops.
Jasper helped Patrick unravel the ladder and they tossed it out, but it obviously no longer touched the ground—not that they had a choice but to climb down anyway. He clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Go on,” he ordered. “And hurry!”
Once Patrick had taken the first three rungs of the ladder, Jasper turned back to Callie. “It’s your turn. You can’t wa
it for him to get all the way to the end of the rope. You have to follow him now.”
“I know.” The terror in her eyes was all too visible, and she clenched both fists. He held a breath, but he knew even before she swallowed and nodded that she wasn’t going to let him down. “Jasper, I—”
He put two fingers over her mouth. “Not until we’re safely down on the ground, my love.” His hands on her shoulders, he pressed gently. “Now go. Please go.”
He held her hand and helped her out of the airship onto the ladder, faking calm and silently urging her to hurry. Vocalizing his urgency wouldn’t help. The last thing he wanted was for either of them to lose their footing and fall.
The seconds raced by faster and faster. The clock was ticking right inside his head. As soon as Callie was free of the opening, Jasper swung down to the ladder as well, but he feared it was too late. There couldn’t be much more time lef—
The sudden crack echoed in his ears, turning a bright day into immediate chaos. The force of the explosion sent the instantly flaming airship hurtling across the sky, along with the ladder all three of them were clinging to.
He’d been expecting it and held on easily. A glance down and he was relieved to see Callie did as well. Patrick swung by one hand, but he quickly reclaimed his grip.
“Both of you have to jump!”
They would be fine. They had to be fine. Their mechanical enhancements would allow them to handle the impact of the fall, even at such a height.
He held his breath as Patrick let go first. The younger man had already been at the bottom of the ladder, but there was still a long way to go. He fell hard and fast, landing on his feet but then losing balance and tumbling head over heels across a wide strip of open field.
Above him another explosion rent the air, and debris flew in every direction. Callie ducked her head and her foot slipped. She screamed and looked up at him with panic.
She was going to freeze.
“Let go!” he yelled. “Don’t think about it, just do it!” She had to do it, and he needed to see her land safely, even though the sight of his wife hurtling through the sky—
She glanced down once more, then back up. Her gaze never wavered from his when she uncurled her fingers, as if they’d frozen around the wooden rung.
She let go.
Good God, she was dropping so fast. His innards jumped into his throat as she shouted and her arms flailed. She disappeared into a stand of trees and out of sight. He swore and twisted around as the airship passed over the spot but he couldn’t find her. He had no idea where she’d landed or how she’d landed…or if she was all right.
The craft picked up speed in its fiery descent to the ground. A shout broke from him as his legs bounced off the top branches of the trees. He was forced to turn his attention back to getting onto the ground in one piece.
Clinging tightly to the rope, he knew he had to let go but there seemed to be no safe place to land. The craft had gone beyond open fields and was careening over a forest of pointy-tipped evergreens, poking up at him like furry stalagmites in a limestone cave.
Another explosion rocked the airship. The fire must have gotten to the gas in the balloon. Suddenly, even though the rope was still in his hands, it was no longer attached to anything, and he tumbled through the air.
He fumbled to right himself and land on his feet, but the ground was coming up too fast. Leaves and branches slapped at his face and arms. It was the most startling feeling to know that his life was completely out of his hands.
He couldn’t see. His shoulder hit another tree, and while it hurt like hell, it also slowed him down.
He reached out and grabbed a branch that stretched out like a lifeline. The bark cut his palms. His grip slipped and he started tumbling again, bouncing off tree limbs on his way to the inevitable hard ground. This time he was close enough to the ground that when he landed, at least it didn’t kill him.
When he opened his eyes and looked up, his harsh cough turned to a muttered curse. Flinching, he rolled over, ducking his head into his arms as a shower of burning debris rained down.
He lifted his head again when the shower of splintered, flaming wood stopped, shrugging a long, hot plank from his shoulders before it could sear his skin.
Collapsing onto his back, he lay still and catalogued the aches and pains. The hand he pressed to his temple came back bloody. But that wasn’t the end of it. Something had jammed him in the back during his fall, his arms were covered in long scrapes, and his ankle throbbed, a dull pain. He didn’t think it was broken. Other than that, he surmised that there wasn’t anything wrong with him that couldn’t be fixed with a bandage…or fifteen.
He felt dizzy and weak as he got to his feet slowly, hands on his knees like an old man who’d lost his cane. He stifled a groan at the twinge that pulled in his lower back. His body was definitely telling him to wait a while longer before moving, that he was too old to be falling out of burning airships and bouncing back like a twenty-year-old who might very well have done something like that for the fun of it. But he couldn’t take it slow. He had to find—
“Jasper!”
Straightening, he spun around to see Callie and Patrick racing toward him. Thank God they’d both made it to the ground in one piece. Their scraped and dirty faces brought tears to his eyes. Shaking with relief, his knees collapsed and he went back down, dropping his head into his trembling hands.
Callie barreled into him, sliding to the ground beside him, arms going around his neck and squeezing him tightly. “You’re all right,” she whispered into his shoulder. “Good Lord, Jasper. You could have…” She pulled back and looked into his face. “How the devil did you find yourself stuck in the middle of yet another uncontrollable fire?”
“Hmm. Just lucky, I suppose. But perhaps you’ve taken a liking to dangling dangerously from the end of ropes?” He cupped her dear face in his hands and his smile faltered. She had a long cut under her chin, and another just below her eye.
“What should we do?” Patrick had lost a boot. He had a wide tear in his trousers and a scrape on his cheek and chin. His forearm bore a red, dirty rash that looked as if he’d been dragged behind a speeding postal coach for several feet.
“I suppose we should walk back to the landing strip. Perhaps the carriage driver returned when he saw the explosion.” He grimaced as he imagined walking such a distance when his muscles were already starting to spasm and lock. “Either way, it seems the journey to Manchester is going to take longer than we anticipated.”
* * *
It was a little over an hour by the time they arrived at the same spot of open meadow where they’d boarded the airship. To Callie’s dismay, they found the poor driver lying unconscious in the grass by the side of the dirt road, but there was no sign of the carriage.
Jasper pressed his fingers to the man’s neck beneath his jaw. “He’s alive. But he has a decent-sized bump on his head and won’t be taking anyone anywhere for a few days—if he even had a carriage to drive.”
The driver started to moan and Callie held his hand as he slowly regained consciousness. Finally, he blinked and opened his eyes.
“My lord,” he mumbled, looking up at him. “So sorry. Was surprised. Didn’t expect—”
“It’s all right, Benjamin. Let’s just make sure you haven’t been seriously injured.” After checking him over, they helped the man to his feet. Patrick supported his weight by holding an arm over his shoulder, and they once again started to walk as a group.
“Did you recognize your assailant?”
He shook his head. “It happened so fast. I waited a while before leaving, wantin’ to pat down both the horses because Silver looked like he were goin’ to throw a shoe on me. When I started back for the manor, a man suddenly stepped out in front of the carriage and I had to haul back on the reins.” Benjamin rubbed his temple. “It were the lieutenant. The same one who was here waitin’ for you when we arrived. I didn’t remember seeing him disembark the airship. Be
fore I knew what were happening, he’d come around, clubbed me in the head, and left me here while he stole the carriage.”
“Who is that horrible man?” she asked. Jasper didn’t answer, his forehead tense with lines of frustration and anger.
They didn’t walk far this time before the sound of carriage wheels rumbled toward them. Callie wasn’t extraordinarily surprised when the door swung open and she saw who had come to “rescue” them.
General Black.
“Get in.” He frowned at the lot of them as if their misfortune at being blown out of the sky had sorely inconvenienced him.
The short ride back to the manor was a silent one. Jasper glared out the window. Both the carriage driver and Patrick looked weary.
When they arrived, Jasper sent Benjamin inside with Patrick to have Mrs. Jenkins take a look at the bump on his head before turning to the general with a dark scowl.
“Just what the hell kind of ‘facial reconstruction’ did Dunsmoor have? That was him on that ship, wasn’t it? I’ve known the man for fifteen years, but I stood less than five paces away from him this morning and wouldn’t have recognized him if my life depended on it.”
“That lunatic was Captain Dunsmoor?” Callie looked between her husband and the general, feeling as if she’d missed some important piece of information. The man who was on that airship with them had looked much too young to be a seasoned officer. “How do you know it was him?”
“It fits. Dunsmoor is an explosives specialist. If anyone could have rigged something like that bomb on the airship, it’s him. And he called me ‘CC’—short for Colonel Carlisle. It didn’t register at the time, but only the soldiers I served with have ever called me that.”
She remembered that. She also remembered the assessing look the man had leveled on her, the way he’d smiled at Jasper rather smugly. In hindsight, it might have been the kind of smile one wore when he knew something everyone else did not.
