Honestly, her father probably had no idea she was angry at him. Or why.
She walked out onto the deck where Plucky was looking at the automated rigging. “Right trig bit of inventing, yeah?”
“He’s very good at getting things to work the way he wants,” Kallista said.
Something moved beneath Plucky’s jacket, and she shifted quickly, turning her body so her front was shielded from view.
“What do you have there?” Kallista asked, coming around for a better look.
“Ain’t got nothing.” Plucky walked toward the stern of the ship. A hiss came from inside her jacket, and she jerked.
Kallista hurried after her. “What’s in your jacket?”
“Nuffin, I tell ya.” A muffled cry came from under the leather, and Plucky stopped. Refusing to meet Kallista’s gaze, she unzipped her coat and pulled out a white-and-brown ball of fur. The ball shifted in her grip, and a pair of blue eyes blinked at Kallista.
“What is that?” Kallista demanded.
Plucky gave a quick nod. “A tibby—a cat. Only a bit of a thing.” She held the creature toward her, and Kallista took a step back. The last thing she wanted to do was touch an animal that could be dangerous.
“Where did you get it?”
“Found her curled up under a bush outside the building. She looked practically starved. Didn’t have no mum or sisters to care for her, so I give her a bit to eat.” She rubbed the top of the fur-ball’s head, and it gave a small mew before rumbling like a tiny steam engine.
Kallista flapped her hands. “I can’t believe you wasted food on a wild animal. And what made you think it was a good idea to bring it with you tonight? We’re trying to be quiet, and you’ve got a mewling, growling, hissing—”
“Couldn’t leave it back in that cold, empty building, could I?” Plucky tucked the rumbling ball inside her jacket and stepped back as though afraid Kallista would try to take it from her. “She’s got no family. Like me.”
Kallista could only imagine what the others would say if they discovered Plucky had an animal onboard. Getting in and out of the city was going to be hard enough under the best conditions. If her father knew, he would undoubtedly land the ship and make Plucky get rid of it.
Maybe it was the thought of her father that made the decision. It certainly wasn’t common sense. “Okay. You can keep her with you. But don’t let it interfere with the mission.”
Plucky grinned. “I can pick a lock with one hand tied behind me back. With two even. Once cracked a door holding the picks in me teeth.”
Kallista didn’t know if that was true or not, but she wouldn’t put anything past the girl. “Try not to let anyone else see.”
Plucky patted the front of her jacket. “Plummy.”
The flight into the city went much more smoothly than Kallista had expected. Using the wind to push the airship’s fins and rudders, they were able to glide silently over the bay and above the brightly lit buildings. The black paint made them all but invisible, and as it turned out, her father had another trick up his sleeve. When the skies above them cleared, Leo flicked a switch, and tiny pins of light appeared at random spots on the sides of the envelope, making it look like stars shining in the darkness.
A dragon glided past them no more five hundred yards away without a single glance in their direction.
Trenton joined her at the railing. “I’ve been wondering. Why don’t all the dragons live here? It seems like a much better place for them than being in the wild. I mean, here they don’t have to hunt; the people feed them and take care of them.”
Kallista shrugged. “Maybe some of them like it better in the wild.”
“Maybe.” Trenton ran a hand along the smooth wood of the rail. “Have you ever considered . . .” He pressed his lips together as if afraid to speak the words he was thinking.
“Giving up?” Kallista asked.
“No.” Trenton blew out a pent-up breath, his shoulders sagging. “Not if there’s still a chance of defeating the dragons. But what if we bring these people back and discover there is no weakness?”
“Then we come up with another plan. Try a new direction.”
“What if there are no more plans?” He spread his arms as though reaching out to the city. “All these dragons. This city. It’s too much. It was one thing to hunt dragons one or two at a time—to have this vague idea that one day we’d find the source of the dragons and find a way to stop them. Only now that I see what’s here, can the six of us—seven, with your father—even dream of defeating a city full of dragons?”
Kallista didn’t have an answer. She’d never played a game she couldn’t win, never found a puzzle she couldn’t solve or a machine she couldn’t fix. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a first, but she wasn’t there yet. “My father hasn’t given up yet. Neither have I.”
“Yeah.” Trenton shifted from one foot to the other. “Maybe I’m overthinking things. Being the leader makes me nervous. I’m afraid I’ll mess things up.”
Kallista patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. If you mess things up badly enough, we’ll dump you. I don’t think Simoni would do much worse than you.”
Trenton snorted a laugh. “Thanks for the confidence.”
Clyde hurried to join them, his footsteps echoing loudly on the deck.
“Could you make any more noise?” Kallista asked. “I’m not sure all the dragons in the city heard you yet.”
“Sorry,” he puffed. “Your dad sent me to get everyone. He says we’re about to land.”
Kallista looked down to see they were nearly to the factory. The building’s bright lights and puffing smokestacks made it easy to spot. The three of them rounded up the others and joined her father in the captain’s cabin.
Leo looked through the front ports of the airship and began angling the craft downward. “I could lower you to the building through the hatch, but I think it’ll be safer if we land in the shadows on the roof and have you go over the side. I’ll stay with the ship in case we need to make a quick departure. How long do you think you’ll be?”
“Not long,” Trenton said. “If things go well, we can arrange a longer meeting somewhere safer.”
Kallista wet her lips. She’d been considering something, but she wasn’t sure how the others would take it. “I think just the girls should go.” Before anyone could interrupt, she hurried on. “I noticed most of the workers in this factory are women, which doesn’t mean much by itself, but since it’s a woman we’re trying to talk to . . . I think we’d have a better chance of gaining her confidence if Plucky, Simoni, and I contact her first.”
“Who’s going to protect you if you get attacked?” Angus asked.
Kallista rolled her eyes, Simoni put her hands on her hips, and Plucky flicked her wrist, displaying a gleaming blade in her hand.
“Think we can protect ourselves if any ruffians tries to put the pinch on us,” Plucky said.
Simoni eyed the wicked-looking knife. “Where did you get that?”
Plucky flexed her fingers, and the blade disappeared. “Lady gots to take care of herself, now don’t she? Keeps a couple of shivs on me at all times. Never knows when something, or someone, might needs cutting.”
Trenton nodded. “All right. But be careful. We know there are guards outside the building, but there could be more inside, too. If you get in trouble, shout and we’ll come for you.”
The deck thumped softly beneath their feet, and Kallista’s father released a silver lever to his right. “We’re here.”
As Kallista slipped over the side of the airship, she had a strong sense that she wouldn’t be back. The feeling was so powerful she nearly turned to look at the others watching silently from the deck. But that felt too much like inviting bad luck. Instead, she watched her footing and hurried to the door that was set into a steeply angled structure at the center of
the building.
The surface of the roof was covered with pea gravel that crunched with each step the three of them took.
Plucky’s brace creaked as she knelt before the door and studied the lock. “Gots the keys?” she asked, holding out one hand.
Kallista placed the lock picks in her palm, and Plucky slipped them into the slot. Her fingers manipulated the picks with the same confidence Kallista felt handling a wrench or adjusting a piston. As she worked, she whispered something under her breath. It took Kallista a moment to realize she was singing.
“If old Mr. Grim should come tonight,” Plucky sang, “duck me head and take the bite. Sell me teeth and keep the gain, but never sells me watch and chain.”
It didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“Do you want me to do it?” Kallista asked.
“Tich,” Plucky snapped. With the tip of her tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth, she lifted the pick in her left hand, and there was an audible snap.
Kallista was afraid one of the picks had broken, but when Plucky stood up with a grin and turned the knob, the door swung open.
“It was a bubble. An infant with his mouth full of pap could’a done it.”
As she handed the picks to Kallista, a soft mew came from inside her jacket. Plucky gave Simoni a worried look. But Simoni only reached into her pocket and handed her a sliver of meat. “The poor thing’s probably hungry.”
“You knew?” Kallista asked.
“Please.” Simoni flipped her hair. “She’s spent every spare minute creeping around that old building, holding out scraps of food and calling. What did you think she was doing?”
Kallista raised her chin. “I thought it wasn’t any of my business.” She wasn’t about to admit she hadn’t been paying attention. “Are we going in or are we going to stand around all day jabbering?”
With no light inside the door, all they could see were the first two steps going down, which didn’t look as though they had been used much, if at all. Many of the structures in the city were obviously new, but from the looks of it, this one might have been around since the original dragon attacks.
Plucky pressed her back against one of the walls and eased down sideways, one splintered wooden step at a time. “Sticks close to the side to avoid squeaks, yeah, yeah.”
Following her example, Simoni and Kallista stayed on the side of the stairs. There was a door at the first landing of the staircase, but Kallista led them past that, remembering that the top floor of the building was empty. They continued down until they reached the first floor.
Kallista gripped the doorknob. She wondered if it might be locked, but it turned easily in her hand.
“Hold up,” Plucky whispered. She spit on the hinges, rubbing the moisture in with her fingers before carefully easing the door open.
As soon as she did, the smell of cooking fish drifted through the opening, along with the sound of women’s voices.
“Must be a kitchen,” Simoni whispered.
“It’s making my mouth water,” Kallista said.
Careful to make as little noise as possible, the three of them edged around the corner, leaving the door open in case they needed to make a quick escape. They stood at the end of a dark hallway. Buckets, mops, and other cleaning supplies stacked on a shelf along one wall gave off a faint scent of ammonia.
Outside the hall, a group of women stood beside a large vat, shoveling steaming piles of cooked fish onto silver trays. Another group of women placed the trays on a conveyer belt where they were whisked into the dark mouth of a machine that made a constant chunk-chunk-chunk sound.
From the greasy stains on their aprons and gloves, Kallista could tell they’d been working for a while.
“I wish we’d thought to wear clothes that matched theirs,” Simoni said.
Plucky put a hand to her forehead. “Never thought’a donning no disguise.”
Neither had Kallista, and it was obvious she should have. As she and Trenton had noticed the night before, all of the workers wore gray pants and either gray or white shirts that buttoned up the front. She, Plucky, and Simoni were going to stand out immediately.
There wasn’t anything they could do about it now. Grabbing a broom from the shelf, she walked forward briskly. Plucky and Simoni did the same.
As soon as the three of them stepped into the room, the conversation stopped.
A woman with a shovelful of fish stared at them. “Are you new here?” She looked them up and down, glancing toward the hallway. She didn’t appear alarmed, just surprised.
“Um, yes. New,” Kallista said, wishing she’d given more thought to a cover story. In her mind they’d simply found the woman Plucky knew, told her they were planning a rescue, and gotten her out of there. Another reminder that maybe she was as bad with people as her father was.
A tall woman with wiry gray hair and a face that looked like it had been pressed with a hot iron until it was nothing but planes and sharp angles walked over from the other side of the room. “Where did you come from, and what are you wearing?”
Simoni stepped forward, all smiles. “We’ve just arrived, so we don’t have our uniforms yet,” she said in a voice that was even more sugar-sweet than normal. “It’s all a little confusing.”
The woman glanced toward the hallway behind them with a frown. “Who is your supervisor?”
“We was told to ask for Talysa Sainz,” Plucky said, holding up a bucket as if that explained everything.
A small woman with rosy cheeks hurried over from the conveyor belt and bobbed her head at the sharp-faced women. “She’s one of the new ones from Seattle. I think she’s in packaging. I’ll go get her, Lenora.”
Several of the other women in the room moved closer to see what was going on, but at the mention of a name they knew, most returned to what they’d been doing. But Lenora, who was either the leader or just very nosy, wasn’t going away. “When did you get in? I haven’t heard anything about the dragons bringing anyone new. And I would have.”
Kallista forced herself not to look toward the door that was their escape. “A few hours ago. We were brought in by a blue and a red.”
Simoni reached out and touched Lenora’s hair. “This is such a beautiful shade of silver. It looks like my mother’s.”
Sure that Lenora would realize what Simoni was up to, Kallista was amazed when the woman’s hard face softened. “Thank you, dear. But I am sure I am far older than your mother. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”
“Oh, you are not!” Simoni gushed. She squinted her eyes, studying the woman from one side and then the other. “I don’t see a single wrinkle.”
“Stop it,” Lenora said and actually giggled. “Possibly a very young grandmother.” She put a hand on Simoni’s head. “You might not believe this, but when I was a girl, my hair was almost the exact color as yours.”
Kallista glanced toward Plucky, who gave her a knowing grin. True, you could catch more flies with honey, but this was pouring the honey on pretty thick. She couldn’t be that charming if she practiced for a hundred years.
“Here she is!” The woman with the rosy cheeks rushed into the room, leading a second woman Kallista assumed must be Talysa.
“Plucky!” Talysa’s brown eyes flashed, and her reddish-brown hair flew back from her shoulders as she ran across the room and threw her arms around Plucky. “When did you get here?”
For the first time all night, Kallista allowed herself to relax. A part of her had been afraid Plucky had been wrong or that if the woman did exist she wouldn’t remember Plucky. Clearly that was not the case.
She squeezed Plucky’s shoulders. “You’ve gained some weight. You look good. After you left with Cochrane and the rest of the Whipjacks, I was afraid . . .” She pursed her lips. “I’m glad you’re all right.” She turned to Simoni and Kallista. “Who are your friends?�
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“I’m Sarah, and this is Heather,” Kallista said, not sure why she was lying, but looking around at the women watching her, she felt uncomfortable providing their real names.
Talysa’s eyes flickered between the three of them, taking in their mismatched clothes. “How did you get here?”
“Can we talk privately?” Kallista asked. She nodded toward the hallway, but Talysa must not have taken the hint because she led them farther down the room.
Everyone on the floor watched as Talysa led them to an area of the warehouse where the machinery wasn’t so noisy. She sat on a wooden chair and nodded at them to do the same. “Is everything all right? I can’t tell you how happy I am that the dragons finally found you.”
Kallista felt the hairs along the backs of her arms tingle. The tone of this conversation felt wrong.
Plucky eyed the rest of the women in the room before saying in a hushed voice, “We didn’t exactly come in with dragons, yeah, yeah? Sort of pussyfooted around them, if you get my meaning.”
Talysa frowned. “You’re saying the dragons didn’t rescue you? But they know you’re here, of course.”
Rescue? Kallista looked around the room. There were too many eyes watching them, expressions ranging from concern to suspicion. What if Talysa couldn’t speak freely here? She leaned close, whispering low and quick. “We know the dragons captured you from Seattle. We’ve come to help you escape. You don’t have to say a word. Just nod your head, and we’ll get you out of the building and away from the city.”
Talysa’s frown disappeared, replaced with an uncertain smile. “Why would we want to escape? We aren’t the dragons’ prisoners.” Her voice began to rise. “We serve the most powerful creatures on earth. Gladly.”
“Please,” Kallista said. “Not so loud. We’re here to help you, but—”
Embers of Destruction Page 10
