Choose Omnibus (Choose: An Interactive Steampunk Webserial Book 3)

by Taven Moore

  Equally obvious, however, was her effect on his first mate.

  Ever since they’d met Remora, Bones had been . . . different.

  He’d taken risks, shown signs of emotions Hank had thought impossible for the ticker. More than just being a saucebox to Hank, Bones had seemed . . . well, Hank had thought perhaps the changes were good.

  But after Bones’s irresponsible behavior with Bricktop, this was too much. This was not a good change. This was dangerous. Incredibly dangerous, as Bones well knew. Bones wasn’t an ordinary ticker. For him to just . . . wander the streets of Bespin? Suicidal at best.

  Hank had to go after him.

  And after he got back, after they were all safe on the ship, they would talk. Things could not continue this way. Remora had no idea how much danger her well-meaning “illogic” advice to Bones had just put them all in, not once, but twice now.

  They couldn’t afford a third time. Hank hoped like hell they could afford the second.

  “Hank? What’s wrong? Is Bones—”

  “Out,” he said to her. She looked up, startled, and he put a hand to her shoulder and guided her out of the room. “This is not your concern. Go to your auction. Drink. Eat tiny cucumber sandwiches with their crusts missing and drink mimosas with the Bespin elite while you waste a fortune on whatever the hell it is we’re here to pick up.”

  He guided her out of the room and closed the door behind them while she sputtered.

  In the captain’s room, his entire “crew” stood.

  Remora, the slip of a girl who had gotten them into this mess with her crazy Starbirth story.

  Jinn, the exiled warrior who guarded her, and who had led Hank into the mess which had made him need Remora’s money.

  Hackwrench, the Shonfra that Hank was only starting to believe might actually grow to become part of the crew, assuming he truly was done with being a terrorist.

  Mosley, the shonfra who’d gotten mixed up in all this, but who had never complained about it.

  And finally, Snow, the well-mannered white leopard dresl that all of Bespin seemed desperate to find and probably kill.

  Not one companion had been his choice, and now all of them were his responsibility. Unfair. Not fair at all. All he’d wanted was to continue on his way with Bones, seeing sights and doing things that might one day spark some memory in Bones. Hank owed him that, at least.

  “Hank? Please, tell me what is wrong?” Remora looked up at him from her thin, pale face, and he realized he still had his hand on her shoulder, and he was squeezing harder than he’d intended. He dropped his hand as if she had burned him and moved away.

  This wasn’t her fault, but it was all her fault.

  “I’m leaving. I’ll be back when I’ve found Bones,” he said.

  “That’s preposterous! You’re still ill! You shouldn’t even be out of bed!” Remora cried.

  He ignored her. Ignored all of them, with the questions so loud in their eyes that he could almost feel the weight of them pelting his skin.

  Something was wrong. He felt it in his knotted muscles and twisted gut. Bones was not safe. If Inspector Gideon had done anything, if Bones had even the tiniest dent in his chassis, Hank—no, Paladin Gerard would see the man paid in full, Remora’s ally or not.

  Grim-faced, Hank stepped back into the secret room and reached into a darkened corner. His hands found what he sought—the long handle of a weapon he’d never really intended on using. He pulled the item into the light.

  Even in the dim light of the room and covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs, the cogsmithed hammer shone like moonlight off the inside of a sea shell, a rainbow of colors dancing off the pale surface.

  Hoisting the Paladin sect’s most well-known weapon over his shoulder, Hank left the room without a look to the others standing nearby. Mentally he prepared himself to be Gerard. Seeking that cold place in his heart, he prepared himself for what he would do if the worst had already happened.

  Hank took a deep breath. He could not lose him a second time.

  If he did, this time he would make sure those responsible paid.

  21. Confrontation

  “Jinn, you are being unreasonable!” Alone in her room, Remora glared at the closed door that separated her from her bull-headed bodyguard. “While I acknowledge your concern, the rules for the auction prohibit your attendance. You cannot simply follow me and hope that no one notices!”

  “We are not having this conversation.” Jinn’s voice carried, as stoic and unmovable as the door between them.

  “Of course we aren’t!” she burst out. “And why should we? You seem disinclined to any sort of conversation at all.”

  Infuriating silence met her outburst.

  “So that’s it, then?” she asked. Her corset lay on the bed, laces askew. Her wings—her secret, her shame—stretched out to their fullest, a reaction she could not control. “You have nothing to say? No retort at all?”

  “I shall protect you with my life, Lady.” She couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine it well enough: red eyes alight with that quiet fervor they’d shown ever since the Swan.

  “Enough. You shall find it difficult enough to protect me if I relieve you of your services, Jinn.”

  Immediately, he responded. “Lady Remora, you cannot—”

  “I can and I shall, if we do not have out with this, Jinn.” She frowned at the door, even though he couldn’t see her.

  “Lady Remora, you need my services.”

  She sighed, wings drooping. “I do need your services, Jinn. Were it not for you, I do not know where I should be at this moment.”

  “Then it is settled.”

  “No, I’m afraid not, Jinn.”

  “ . . . Pardon?”

  “We have to talk about this, Jinn.” A black feather tumbled forward across her corset, tossed by the tiny tempest of her wing movements. She picked it up. “We have to talk about why it changed the way you look at me, and what that means for you. What it means for us. What it changes, and what things absolutely must stay the same.”

  “Lady, if you are worried that I will tell anyone your secret, you must know that I would never—”

  “You aren’t listening, Jinn! This isn’t a matter of trust. When you say that you would die for me, that you would keep the secret, I believe you because you are Jinn. I believe you because you have done so much for your brother, and for Snow, and for me.” She swallowed, eyeing the downy black feather in the palm of her hand. “When you look at me now, there is a shadow in your eyes, and I must know the shape of it. When you look at me, what do you see?”

  “Lady Remora, this is a waste of time and an unnecessary use of emotional energy. You trust me, I shall guard you. Why does the rest matter?”

  Her fist clenched, crushing the feather. What should she tell him? How could she tell him? Would he even listen, or had she only been imagining that they might have been developing a friendship before he’d found out? Wishful thinking on her part, that leaving her safe, cold home might have been an adventure from one of her storybooks?

  She touched the healing scratches across her cheek. No, this was no daring adventure, and she was no bold heroine. She was just a girl, and he was just a man.

  A wave of tiredness washed over her, starting at her back and wrapping around her like a cold, dusty blanket.

  This whole plan was folly. Insanity. What had she been thinking? She should spend her last days at home, not dashing about in a ramshackle airship

  “Remora? Are you well?”

  The alarm in Jinn’s voice cut through her malaise and she startled, feathers shivering audibly. Her wings ached once, sharply. She leaped up and whirled upon the bed as though it had bitten her.

  There, behind the impression of her seat, lay two mounds of glossy feathers. All black on one side and a mixture of black and red on the other.

  “Remora!” Jinn sounded as if he might well barge through the door.

  Remora cleared her throat, dislodging a lu
mp as big as her heart. “I’m fine, Jinn. Fine.”

  “What happened? I could feel your life force . . . fading.”

  Remora moved to her lavatory and snatched up her trash bin. “It was nothing, Jinn. Please put it out of your mind.” She scooped the feathers from the bedspread and into the bin. She’d have to find a way to set fire to them later, so that they could not be used against her.

  All the while, her heart hammered against her ribcage like a trapped bird. She could search out the book and find the page, but there was no need. She remembered the symptoms perfectly. The Care And Treatment of the Half-Seraph, page two hundred and thirty-seven. “Phase One of the Descent is characterized by increasingly severe flashes of intense lethargy and depression, accompanied by a molting of the feathers.”

  She should have been prepared for this, but she’d thought for certain she would have a few more months before her symptoms would begin appearing. She took a deep breath.

  This was not a good sign at all. She had very little time remaining as it was, but by the time she reached Phase Three, she would be nearly useless.

  “Remora, I am neither idiot nor child. That was very much not ‘nothing’. What just happened?”

  Remora smiled sadly at the door. “I am afraid, dear Jinn, that until the shadow in your eyes is my business, what just happened shall remain none of yours.”

  Whatever Jinn might have said next was lost in a flurry of sounds from the other side of the door. Montgomery’s inflectionless translator spoke. “Mosley, we can only one of us speak at a time, and you must speak more slowly.”

  “Taken! Ambushed! [Expletive Deleted!] Cat woman, big gun boy, both! Tried for Mosley, yes they did, but Mosley is too swift for them!”

  Remora rushed to the door before remembering that she was half-undressed, and displaying her wings besides. “Snow and Percival? They’ve been taken? By whom?” This was impossible. Percy had collected both Snow and Mosley while Hank still slept. Her uncle had promised them safe passage to Ardel, as they’d wished.

  “Eyepatch and Notchcat, they took Snowcat. She fight like devil. Gun boy, he fight like two devils.” Remora’s heart froze. No, not them.

  “Jinn, you must go after them.”

  “Remora, I cannot leave you—”

  “You can and you will. Immediately. You cannot come with me in any case, and you must go now, before the trail gets cold. Mosley can show you where it happened.”

  “Go,” this from Montgomery. “I will join Remora at her event. They will think me a helpless pet, but I can keep her safe.”

  “Go!” shouted Remora. A rushing sound, and somehow she knew he had gone.

  Remora stood for a moment, taking deep breaths. She had to believe that Jinn could save them. There was nothing she could do now to help. She would only get in the way, and if she had any hope of getting that crystal, she had to make that auction.

  The others would be fine without her.

  “Thank you, Montgomery, for your offer to join me, but I could not ask you to pose as a mere pet, not after—”

  “No arguments, Remora. I am coming. If you go alone, there’s no telling what sort of trouble you’ll find. Wear the translator watch from Hank. I will meet you abovedecks.”

  She wanted to argue . . . but at the same time, she felt relieved to have company.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  A shonfra harrumph was her only answer, but she could tell that he was pleased.

  She looked back at her bed and scowled at the drab gown she’d laid out to wear.

  Of course, if she were going to have the vibrantly hued Hackwrench on her shoulders for the event, she would have to wear something a little more . . . colorful.

  22. Hank’s Choice

  Hank followed the quivering manservant into Inspector Gideon’s solarium with a fury he did not bother to conceal.

  They broached the gilded doors.

  The manservant said, “Inspector? This man says he knows the lady you’ve been expecting.”

  Gideon had time to fold down his newspaper and begin, “Ah, yes, Captain McCoy. I was hoping you might—” before Hank charged across the room and grabbed him by the cravat, slamming him against the nearby bookcases. Several leather-bound tomes tumbled to the ground and a decorative vase shattered. Hank’s other hand clenched around the hilt of the Paladin’s hammer with enough force to whiten his knuckles and etch the weapon’s design into his palm.

  “Where?” Hank growled.

  “Shards and stardust, man, what’s come over you? Have you gone mad?” Gideon gawped at him, his wire-framed spectacles dangling from one ear and face gone ashen.

  “Don’t make me ask again. Where is he?”

  “Who, who? Where is who?” Gideon looked genuinely confused and terrified. Hank’s fury died back, just a little. He’d been so certain Gideon was rotten. Still was certain of it, in point of fact. As long as it didn’t touch on Bones, though, it was none of his business.

  “My first mate. You sent a note for Remora and he came in her place. Where is he?”

  Gideon blinked. “Wh—oh, you can’t possibly . . . you mean the ticker? That’s preposterous, he’s only a machine—”

  Hank dropped the man’s shirt long enough to draw back and punch him, once, directly across the cheek. A shock of pink, then red, then rapidly purpling bruise flushed across Gideon’s face.

  “What did you . . . what did you just—”

  “I blacked your eye. Next time you run at the mouth, I’ll break your nose. After that, things will get interesting. I don’t aim to ask you again. Where. Is. He?”

  “Gone! Gone, dear sprockets, he’s gone, you madman. I had no idea anyone would care, and it got the Seraph off my back to turn in anyone at all from your crew, even if it was just a—”

  Hank felt a hot wave of fury crash over him. He lifted the hammer in both hands and slammed it into the bookshelf just off Gideon’s left shoulder. The head of the hammer broke through the shelves and bit into the stone wall past it. An avalanche of books cascaded to the ground amid a cloud of rock dust.

  Gideon’s eyes widened, his face paling behind the purpling bruise. “I . . . ah, that is, even if it wasn’t someone they specifically asked for. He’s gone, Mr. McCoy. Taken to the Seraph Ring by the inner guard themselves. You won’t get him back from there.”

  Hank stepped back, taking a deep breath. The Seraph Ring. Bones would never have gone without a fight. Something must be wrong. He had to get to the Seraph Ring as quickly as possible. He didn’t know how he’d find Bones, but he would.

  He turned to leave, and Gideon gasped.

  “You truly have gone mad. You can’t mean to barge in there after him? You must realize, this is exactly what they want!”

  Hank paused and Gideon seized the opportunity. “Listen, I sent that invitation to speak with her ladyship. The Seraph believe I work for them, and that I sent the invitation in order that I might deliver her into their hands, but I actually sent it to warn her—to warn all of you, in fact—that you must leave Bespin with all haste. The Seraph are seeking you on matters of security high enough that not even my spies within their circle know why.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Hank growled.

  “Well, then you must make time!” Gideon said, straightening despite his darkening cheek. “I believe your young lady’s task to be of the utmost importance, and I will stop at nothing to bring down the Seraph. If they want you, I will do all in my power to keep you from them. Look!”

  Gideon pushed past Hank and lifted the lid of a sweets-box upon the table. He pressed against a spot on the inside of the box and a hidden drawer popped out from the side of the table.

  From within, Gideon withdrew a slim envelope, gilded in what looked to be actual gold leaf.

  “Here, read this,” Gideon commanded.

  Hank brushed it aside. “Can’t read,” he said.

  Gideon blinked at him, momentarily thrown off balance. “Right. Of course.”
<
br />   Hank lifted his eyebrow, and Gideon cleared his throat. “You needn’t be able to. It is an ‘invitation’ to the Seraph’s innermost rooms tonight, for dinner. It is addressed to the crew of the Miraj, and contains a thinly-veiled threat that you shall all be taken into custody, your ship impounded, and your identities erased should you fail to appear.”

  “The problem,” Gideon continued, “is that they will do all of these things regardless of whether you appear or not. They simply wish to give you the opportunity to spare them the trouble of hunting you down. You, your crew, your ship—you’re marked now, and no respectable berth in all the world will grant you safe harbor.”

  Hank snorted. “Theatrics.”

  “No.” Gideon’s face showed a deadly seriousness. “Not even embellishment. The Seraph are immortal, Captain McCoy. They will never stop hunting you. I have seen them dig a century-old grave once, that they might burn the bones of one of the human generals who led the charge against them during the war. They killed the man’s family and salted the earth of the small plot of land he had hidden on.”

  Hank paused. “That doesn’t make sense. Humans fought on the same side as the Seraph.”

  Gideon gave a frustrated growl. “The history you know was taught by the winners of the war—the Seraph and their human traitors. Where do you think the name ‘Price’ came from? Any man can be bought for a price.”

  The gentleman shook his head. “I do not have time for a history lesson, Captain, and neither do you. I need you to get your crew together and leave this skycity. Tonight. Earlier. Now, if possible. I can offer you a window when the guards will not be watching as closely, which might buy you an extra half an hour’s head start before you’re followed, but you must leave before the Seraph catch wind that you’re on to them, or else not even I can save you.”

  Hank paused. Everyone was in danger. His ship, Remora, Jinn, Hackwrench . . . hells, even Mosley and Snow, who hadn’t bargained on any of this mess.

  An image of Bones rose up in his memory and a lump formed in Hank’s throat.