Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  “If I wanted to sit beside you on that sofa right now, I couldn’t,” Jesco said, in placid disagreement with the alcohol running through him. “If I wanted to lean against you, I couldn’t. Because I can’t touch that sofa and I can’t touch your shirt, and I can’t put my sheet over the sofa because then you’ll touch it.”

  “How do you work it out with Collier?”

  “He buys brand-new, factory-made sheets, pillowcases, and blankets, and makes the bed with his hands covered before my appointment. If I pay enough, he’ll buy a new suit for the night, and if not, I’ll keep my hands covered until he takes it off. He replaces the bedding each time I go, just in case he imparted something to it the last time we were together. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

  Scoth glared blearily. Getting up, he swayed and wobbled over to the window where he unfastened the curtain. He brought it over to Jesco and held it out. “Touch that and see if you have a thrall. Tammie said they’re new.”

  Jesco touched the fabric, Scoth at the ready to jerk it away. Nothing happened. “It’s clean.”

  “Fine.” Snapping out the curtain, Scoth covered the sofa. He sat down and picked at the buttons of his shirt. Jesco had been watching all of this in confusion and amusement, and the ease from the ale turned to a very keen interest in what Scoth was doing. The shirt came off and was chucked away. Scoth leaned back on the sofa.

  It was an invitation. Jesco got up and Scoth said, “I don’t want to wrap my hands in napkins.”

  Jesco took off his shirt. His blood pumping fast, he went over to the sofa and sat down beside Scoth. “Still not flirting?” Jesco asked.

  “Nothing of the sort. Just two regular fellows sitting side by side on a sofa with their shirts off,” Scoth said. Then they were fairly honking with laughter at how foolish they were being, and how foolish they had been since the day they met. Jesco leaned against Scoth, loving the hard muscles in his arm. Lips pressed to his hair, and when Jesco looked up, Scoth kissed him.

  It was fire between them in that moment. Jesco needed to be careful that he didn’t accidentally brush the wall behind the sofa, or put his hand upon Scoth’s trousers. But it was very difficult to plan out these things when his mind was floating away and his arousal had taken over. Fastened together, they kissed and kissed until he was light-headed. Hands kept running down his chest and shying away from his trousers, Scoth also fighting to remember what he could and could not touch.

  “Maybe you should take these off,” Scoth suggested, and Jesco found that to be a very fine idea indeed. He had hardly started to lower his trousers and drawers when Scoth made an impatient sound and wrapped his hands. Getting down to his knees upon the puddle of curtain there, he jerked them off and hurled them away like they had done him a grievous and personal wrong.

  “Something else nice about you,” Scoth said. Jesco’s erection had sprung free. Bending, Scoth took him in.

  His mouth was hot and wet and soft, and far more intoxicating than the ale. Jesco was licked and sucked and fondled, pumped and sucked some more. Every time that he thought he might explode, Scoth stopped and let him wallow near the precipice in ecstatic agony. Jesco could not hold still and pumped his hips, seeking release. But the detective was taking his time about it, and Jesco had no choice but to let him.

  In time Scoth pulled away, his hand still tight around Jesco’s shaft, and leaned in to kiss him. “Mercy?” Scoth asked against his lips.

  “Mercy,” Jesco pleaded, and Scoth took him in as his fist rode up and down and up and down . . . Jesco shattered into his climax, crying out as his seed pumped into that teasing mouth. A profound relaxation came over him.

  Looking pleased, Scoth settled beside him. There was a telltale bulge in his trousers, which he had loosened but not removed. Seeing the direction of Jesco’s gaze, he slid them down to his ankles. His phallus was thick and hard, and when Jesco put his hand to it, Scoth jerked. The torment that he had inflicted upon Jesco had also been tormenting him.

  Jesco wanted to give him the same relief. Commanding his brain to focus on where all of his body was in space, he concluded that none of him was about to touch anything but the curtain or bare flesh. He slipped down to Scoth’s lap and teased at him until he heard that whisper of mercy. Jesco granted it.

  For as much ale as he had had, Scoth was able to set up an intricate system of bedding that allowed them to sleep in the bed together. Jesco only touched his sheets, and Scoth was wrapped up in a blanket atop them that folded over him. His bundled arm over Jesco, they fell asleep entwined.

  Chapter Ten

  Patrolmen from the precinct were sent to the hilly road outside Somentra to look for evidence, but reported back that the scene of the attack had been swept clean. All that remained was the overturned carriage in the rocky riverbed. No one had checked into the local hospitals for medical care, even though one had taken a projectile to the arm and another had had his mount step on him. Since they had all worn hoods, neither Scoth nor Jesco could describe them. And with nothing left at the scene, Jesco could not use his seer abilities to gain an identity.

  The location had been out of the way, so no one had seen the attack happen. The only witness was hardly that: an old man who heard the crash of the carriage from his cabin. Peering out his window later at the sound of thundering hooves, he saw at a great distance a pack of riders going past. They were much too far away for him to provide a description, and night was falling.

  Scoth received multiple confirmations that Torrus Kodolli had been exactly where he said he was at the time of Hasten Jibb’s murder. Deep in the southwest to survey a new site, attending social events almost nightly, the fastest train could not have carried him north to kill Jibb, dump his body, and flee back to Fyllyn. Discreet inquiries also answered the whereabouts of the lawyer. He had been in court on the day of the murder, in a city far west of Somentra, and stayed there overnight.

  All of Jibb’s work orders were brought to the house, Scoth and Tammie bent over them one evening while Jesco made dinner. Tammie was working on the Iron jobs and Scoth the Brass, searching for any connection to Torrus Kodolli. It was a massive amount of paperwork to sort through, and dismaying when one considered that the connection hadn’t necessarily been written down. Jibb could have encountered the man while delivering for someone else.

  They finished at the same time, Scoth swiping Golden Circle from the pile and Tammie taking Silver. Setting down a bowl of soup beside each of them, Jesco took the third chair to eat his own. “Who ever knew that there was a town in Ainscote called Beans?” Tammie said.

  “I knew that,” Scoth said.

  “A normal person, not an officer charged with knowing every place. Jesco, did you know that? Do you even know where it is?”

  “I do,” Scoth said.

  “No and no,” Jesco said. “What Silver job did Jibb do in Beans?”

  “It’s got the initials V. F. S. beside it, meaning it’s related to Ragano & Wemill’s contract for Varden Farming Supply.” She rifled through paperwork about the company. “Ah, it’s Varden’s experimental fields. That’s what’s in Beans. What a stupid name for a town! Makes you wonder how it got stuck with that. He picked up several wagons’ worth of farm equipment from their main office in Chussup and ferried it over there.”

  “And what’s he doing over in Golden Circle?” Jesco asked.

  Scoth turned a page and said tiredly, “Riding himself sore for the holidays delivering gifts to very rich people. Then it snowed and there’s a notation that he switched to horses.”

  “Yours looks so sad-like in the precinct’s stables,” Tammie said. “All ripped up on the side, twitching its bottom like it still has a tail. I give it a pat every time I go out there.”

  “It’s not a real horse,” Scoth reminded her.

  “I know that! But one day these mechanical creations might get so complex that they do become real, ever think of that? And if that happens, I want them to remember me kindly when they take over the
world.” She swallowed a spoonful of soup and went back to the Silver jobs. “I’m getting blisters just reading about all this cycling he did. East of Chussup, west of Chussup, Cantercaster, Melekei, Cantercaster, Melekei, Amon Hollow, Melekei, Demon’s Mountain . . . Bearded Valley, that’s another stupid one . . . Melekei again, back to Cantercaster, all about Chussup, here to Melekei, there to a bunch of churches shuffling their angel relics around. Oh, I remember when one of those came to my hometown. Everybody lined up to gawk and revel at the toenails of Archangel Stillwater and there I was in the lot of them, ten years old and wondering if I should save mine in case I ever became an angel someday. Why are you waving that pen at me, Scoth?”

  “Circle the Melekei jobs,” Scoth said.

  “Would’ve been nice if you’d told me a few pages back.”

  “Would’ve if you’d corked it long enough for me to get a word in edgewise.”

  She took the pen and turned back the pages to circle the Melekei jobs. “Wait!” Jesco exclaimed. There was something that he could do after all. He wouldn’t go into thrall from a printed map. Opening it up, he said, “Read me the addresses of those Melekei jobs. Maybe some of them fall on the way he took home his last day. A client could have stopped him for a job on the side.”

  Scoth added in the Melekei jobs that Jibb had done for Golden Circle. Unfortunately, there were a lot at both courier levels, and there had been one or two when he was down in Brass as well. His most likely route had taken him past dozens of current and former places of delivery. None of them were to anyone with the last name Kodolli or Burne, or to Agrea or any of the companies related to it.

  “Think we’re barking up the wrong tree?” Tammie said when she came to the last page of Silver.

  “I think the answer lies somewhere in Melekei,” Scoth said, noticing at long last that he had soup. He nudged Jesco’s knee with his own under the table to show his gratitude.

  “Shame if Naphates truly isn’t involved at all since it lost her the position,” Tammie commented.

  Jesco looked at her sharply. “What?” Scoth was surprised as well, his spoon wavering in the air and broth leaking over the side.

  “I figured you knew. Didn’t you look at the evening edition of the paper?” Tammie asked. “There was a copy left in the carriage I took home. I just left it there, seeing as I didn’t put it there in the first place and it didn’t seem right to sneak it out. But there was a little piece under Parliament News that they voted someone else to liaison. There were three vying for it: Naphates that the miners liked, Udusa that the mine owners liked, and Parkandeer that no one likes and now he’s liaison.”

  “Maybe Parkandeer is responsible for all of this to bump Kyrad Naphates out of the running,” Jesco said.

  “For the love of angels,” Scoth swore, swallowing hard on what soup remained upon his spoon. “Killing a random courier and leaving a timepiece there by the body on purpose in the hopes a seer would trace it to her so the paper could release a spurious article to ruin her chances of getting it? For a liaison position that Gordano said isn’t going to mean all that much?”

  They groaned at the difficulties of this case and returned to the papers, Jesco getting up now and then to refill their soup bowls until the entire pot was drained. It was nearing midnight when Scoth rattled through the pages he had copied in the Hall of Records about the Kodolli family. “Here’s the closest I can place any of them to Melekei. Twenty years ago, there was a blind item that the wealthy son of one of the richest mine owners in the country was having an affair with a socialite in Bearded Valley. It was rumored to be Morgan Kodolli.”

  “The socialite did it,” Tammie said in exhaustion. “In Beans and with farm equipment. But that’s nice. Wasn’t he married and with children by then?”

  “He was,” Scoth said. “Two young children, a son named Yvod, and a daughter named Grancie. But it didn’t stop him from attending plays and parties several times a week. Lonely for the wife; I can see why she has little to do with him now.”

  “Jibb delivered to an Yvod Shurtan in Melekei, but he runs a sweet shop, so I don’t think it’s the same fellow unless he changed his name.”

  “Yvod Kodolli is a feckless playboy,” Scoth said, rattling the pages again so they knew his information was coming from rags, “who travels about causing scandal. Mostly up and down the western seaboard, but occasionally he ventures inland to wreak havoc in dancehalls, saloons, and brothels. He does like to pick a fight. I’ve got seven mentions of his activities over the last five years. It’s said he’s had to pay off some people to keep from getting sued.”

  “What about Grancie?” Jesco said.

  “She leads a much quieter life. There was only one item about her that I’ve found so far. She married a fellow named Dircus Dolgang, whose family a few generations back and over to the side started up a carriage empire. He’s not a direct descendent, well-off but never to inherit . . . what’s wrong?”

  Jesco had gone for the Silver papers. Remembering that he shouldn’t risk reading them, he pushed everything over to Tammie and said, “There was a Dolgang in Melekei, wasn’t there?”

  “Probably nothing,” Scoth said.

  Tammie flipped through the papers and stopped at the second to last one. “Here it is. This was from right before Jibb got his promotion to Golden Circle. He delivered a spanking-new autohorse, black and with one white sock, to 64 Ambria Lane, Melekei, care of D. Dolgange. Oh! And it was signed for by one G. Dolgange.” She pushed it over to Scoth.

  It wasn’t precisely the same spelling, but they stared at one another around the table. And it still didn’t mean anything, yet Jesco couldn’t help a flicker of hope from taking root in his heart. He looked at the map. Beginning at the street where the old woman who’d received the whirly-gigs lived, he followed Jibb’s most likely path. It led him straight past the address on Ambria Lane.

  Jesco let out a shout and shoved the map to Scoth and Tammie, who crowded around to see where he was pointing. Then they were all talking at once. Was the rag in error or was Dircus Dolgang not the same person as the D. Dolgange in the Ragano & Wemill paperwork? What did the G stand for and if it was Grancie, was she related to the Kodolli family? And what, under the moon and stars and sky, could she have had against Hasten Jibb? It wasn’t like he could have been sexually involved with her or the man she had married. She wasn’t in any way involved in Agrea, to Scoth’s knowledge, so what was her connection to Kyrad Naphates, if any? How had the timepiece ended up in that alley and why?

  They could do no more without rest, despite their jubilation at finding even the barest thread between Kodolli and Melekei. But then Jesco got in bed and felt a hand slide onto his thigh, and it was much later than that when he finally went to sleep.

  His cut was healing well when he looked in the mirror the next morning. For such a small place, it had an enormous bathroom and a counter with two sinks. Scoth was standing over the other one and flattening his hair, which was as unruly as he had claimed when it was left to its own devices. “Why are you getting ready too?” Scoth asked as Jesco washed his face with a cloth. “It’s just Melekei’s Hall of Records today.”

  “I will stare at the wall if that’s all I can do, but I won’t be left behind,” Jesco said. This case was wringing him dry and he wanted to see it brought to a resolution. “All I’ll end up doing is staring at the walls here.”

  Scoth concentrated on his hair and didn’t put up a fight about it, and Jesco got dressed. The three of them shared a carriage to the station. Tammie went in to start her day and Scoth headed for the precinct’s stables to see if there was an unused police carriage and autohorse. Following him in, Jesco stopped at the stall to look in at Horse. It came forward to have a nose rub. Jesco complied and Scoth yelled back, “I programmed it to do that!”

  With the Shy Sprinkler’s case gone quiet, there were several unspoken for carriages and autohorses. Scoth selected an unlabeled carriage used for undercover work, the windows shield
ed in curtains rather than one-way glass, and a shabby old autohorse model. It stood there like a statue as he reset the destination cards. Another carriage came in while they were there, someone yelling his head off incoherently inside, and two patrolmen exited with a drunken and cuffed man destined to cool his heels in the tank. One nodded to Scoth and said, “Got ourselves a statute four-sixteen here.”

  “Nothing good comes of a four-sixteen,” Scoth said, and the patrolmen hauled the yelling man away.

  “What’s a statute four-sixteen?” Jesco asked when they were on the road.

  “It’s a police code, not official,” Scoth replied.

  “That doesn’t explain what it means.”

  A grin tugged at the corner of the detective’s lips. “Got to be an officer of the law to know a four-sixteen.”

  “Sure, Larrie, I’ll sign up now.”

  Scoth traded his amusement for affront, and then he touched the tip of his shoe to Jesco’s. “Fair’s fair.”

  The Hall of Records in Melekei had once been a church. Flying buttresses with white pinnacles led up to the nave roof, and when they walked inside the vast building, their footsteps upon the tiles echoed. “I hate these things,” Scoth mumbled, an autolibrarian spinning in place to come their way. At a passing glance, an autohorse could be mistaken for a real one. The same was not true for an autolibrarian. The mouths did not move with the same dexterity as a human’s, their skin was too glossy, and they had wheels instead of legs to reduce the sound they made. To hide this, they were all female so that the wheels could be hidden under long skirts.

  This one had a pink-cheeked, youthful face beneath a gray wig, and one of her wheels was squeaking. She stopped before them and opened her mouth after a delay. A recording welcomed them to the Hall of Records and asked what they needed. Scoth told her and then they followed to the stairs going down to the basement. The steps were narrow, halved for a ramp that the autolibrarians could travel upon.