Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  . . . and he would . . .

  There could not be rucaline at this party. There could not. She had condemned rucaline after involving herself in it, left parties if it turned up in someone’s hand, made up a frightening and utterly false tale of a strange man high on rucaline who slugged her in the street and swiped out for her purse. For years she had built up a reputation as a person who wouldn’t have anything to do with rucaline or those who did it. She was careful not to pound the drum too hard or too frequently, but they knew, everyone acquainted with her knew that she was frightened of it. None would ever think that she’d been deep in the business all along.

  Her mind was spinning in fruitless, agitating circles. She’d invited the newly married Lord and Lady Eddpra and they loved a party, the wilder the party the happier the two of them were, but not rucaline, never rucaline, Ivan had lost his girlfriend in university to a bolus dose and Nysta loathed Yvod. He had promised her a wedding and enjoyed her body but the ring never came . . . of course it hadn’t come, Yvod would say anything to get a woman in bed . . . Nysta was vicious in her spite to those who wronged her and if she saw him high on rucaline tonight . . . a chance at long last for her to lash out at him, to hurt him as badly as he had hurt her . . . all it would take was an anonymous message that could never be traced back to her but would turn the eye of the law to Yvod . . .

  And then to Grance.

  The unaddressed packages were on the table. She thought to pack up the delivery and her brother back into his carriage and send him to the nearest brothel for the night. But she couldn’t trust him with the rucaline! If she hid it in the house and he stayed for the party, his high would wear off and he’d bother her for more, catching her to whisper about it every five minutes, dogging her and getting mad when she refused, and then he’d upend the house to find it! Involve a trusted friend or two in the search! She could not control him and he never listened to reason because he was just so stupid.

  She had to stop panicking. First, she would get rid of her brother. Stalking over to the couch, she went through his shirt pockets and slapped him when he dully tried to push her away. She claimed the packet of rucaline from his vest and threw it on the table before she moved on to his trouser pockets. It occurred to her that she could flush it all away, or grind it up and pour the powder down the sink, but this was so much money and everyone was waiting for the rucaline! No, she wasn’t going to destroy it. She wanted the money, needed the money that this delivery would bring. What she would do with it, well, she would figure that out once Yvod was out of her hair.

  He had taken it. She should have anticipated that he couldn’t resist it forever. If there was ale nearby he had to drink it; a woman and he had to charm her. Now he’d gotten into rucaline and he wouldn’t be able to stop. He’d want more and more and more and soon everyone would see what he was doing and damn! She didn’t want this blasted for her!

  It wouldn’t be. Once they were in the islands over the summer, she’d supply him with a heavy dose when they went out sailing. Drive him out of his mind and push him over the side to drown in the late afternoon. If she did it in the rough waters off Rogo Peak . . . yes, that would be the best place. People went under there every year, even the strong and sober. She would sail back to shore, sob and demand a search and fall into hysterics when they couldn’t start at once since it was now evening.

  If his body was recovered in the following days, no one was going to suspect rucaline. They would believe what she said: Yvod drank too much and fell over the side, and she’d never seen him come up. All of the authorities knew what Yvod was like. Even in a lenient island culture, he went too far. They tangled with him every summer. In retrospect, this demise of his would seem inevitable.

  Grance’s problem would be solved. When she determined that no more rucaline was on him, she heaved him up and said, “I’m sending you to Baker’s Dozen.” That would keep him occupied for the rest of the night, stuffing his mouth with doughnuts and stuffing his manhood into prostitutes. There were loads of brothels in Melekei, but Baker’s Dozen was a deliberate choice on her part. It was the seediest of the establishments. Even if they suspected he was on rucaline, they were likely using it, dealing it, or at the very least turning a blind eye to it.

  “But the party . . .” Yvod said dreamily. “I like your party.”

  “Papa is coming to the party this time. Do you want to see Papa?”

  That was the right thing to say. No, Yvod did not want to see Papa! Not after Grandfather had cut off Yvod’s allowance for his behavior, and Grance’s with it though she had done nothing wrong. Papa had given them a little since then but not too much. He wouldn’t go against what Grandfather wanted. Grandfather had the final word on everything, and he could not be cajoled, persuaded, or threatened to change his mind once he’d made it up. Yvod had been punishing them both with frequent absences from family events. His tantrum was upsetting no one. He overestimated his importance greatly.

  She got Yvod to his feet and walked him to the front door. Down the stairs to his carriage, and she settled him inside. It was a mess from his travels, newspapers and clothes and food strewn everywhere, and it smelled of perfume. A woman had been within here recently, and fresh anger overcame Grance. Had that woman seen the rucaline? Was she going to talk?

  Everything was going to explode if Grance did not get a handle on this. She went to the autohorse, feeling a flicker of annoyance at its silly color, and searched through the destination cards. She found the one for Baker’s Dozen, installed it, and closed the flap.

  The carriage rocked. Her brother had fallen to the messy floor inside. His head poked out the open door and he said, “Want to come along with me? They got men there, too! I’ll bring them back here to party!”

  She didn’t go over to slap him. She didn’t scream. Her blood was running cold at how he’d so blithely interrupted her means of income. She had married fast when she was cut off to get some security back. But it wasn’t enough. This was, and she would preserve it through any methods necessary.

  Yvod was still babbling about the prosties he could bring. If Grance was angry when she sent him away, the risk was too great that he would come back to aggravate her further. That was how Yvod worked, unless he was too drunk to remember who he was currently agitating. She had to play this a different way. Going to the open door, she assisted him back into the seat. Sweetly, she said, “You have a good time. I heard they’ve got several new women since the last visit you had there.”

  “But you could come. Forget the party!”

  “I’ll come tomorrow night. We’ll rock the walls.”

  Now he was staring at her earrings in entrancement. The rucaline was fixating him upon something else other than arguing with her. “Go on, Yvod. I will see you soon.” She closed the door. He smiled vaguely at her through the window.

  The autohorse didn’t move. Of course it didn’t move! She’d switched the destination cards but hadn’t inputted Yvod’s identification number. Opening the door again, she asked him what it was. He stared at her blankly.

  He would just have to sit in there until he roused a little more and remembered it. She wasn’t going to drag him back into the house. Going to the garden, her mind worked on what to do with the rucaline.

  Minute after minute passed with Yvod failing to stir. A Ragano & Wemill courier turned down the lane and hope rose within her. She’d throw money at him and get all of it out of her house. Frantically, she waved. The caterers would be arriving within an hour to deliver and she had on some of the jewelry but still not the dress she wanted to wear . . . her hair had to be done and the ale glasses brought down from the top shelf . . .

  Jesco watched the exchange of packages and money from the other angle. After Hasten Jibb rode away . . . all of the statues chasing after him in his merry boy’s mind . . . Grance went to the carriage and opened the door. Slightly more cognizant, Yvod gave her the number. She programmed it into the autohorse and was relieved when it began
to move. Pulling past the house, it circled at the stables and backtracked to the lane. Her idiot brother was borne away.

  She’d gotten rid of him. She’d gotten rid of the rucaline. All was well.

  Jesco nudged through the next hours. There was nothing in them but preparing for the party and the start of the party itself. Figuring the problems were solved, Grance had put Yvod’s visit and the courier out of her mind. The sky darkened as the party progressed from outdoors to indoors, guests getting towels to dry off and threatening to march next door and teach that old man with the hose a lesson or two. But the ale was flowing freely and music was playing, so the neighbor was forgotten. Someone had brought two escorts in tight gowns, and they danced together lasciviously. Papa drank as he watched them. The blonde cupped the redhead’s buttocks as they ground against one another. Her fingers slipped down to the hem of the dress and she flashed her dance partner’s bare buttocks to their attentive audience. Papa laughed at the naughty peek he’d gotten and called to Grance for something stronger to drink. She got it for him. The doctor had told him to cut back to save his liver, but tonight was for enjoyment, not good sense.

  . . . she was having such a good time . . . she threw parties, true parties where inhibitions were checked at the door. If her guests wanted to fight, they fought; if they wanted to have sex, they found a room; if they wanted to eat to the point of vomiting and eat some more, there was a feast in the kitchen and dining room with which to glut. People were playing cards and swilling drinks and kissing wherever she looked as she wandered through the house. One couple had gone farther than that, almost naked on a couch in the parlor with half a dozen voyeurs cheering them on. They were friends of friends and she didn’t remember their names, but she’d find out and invite them again. They weren’t shy about putting on a show.

  She left the man bending down to the woman’s lap to kiss the dark hair between her thighs, everyone hooting and hollering, and passed to the front of the house. Bryna staggered around the corner of the entryway, giggling and drunk, and fell on Grance. Laughing, Grance caught her. Bryna swayed in her arms and said, “There’s someone at the door.”

  . . . sweet love of the angels, it was the courier . . .

  Bryna had staggered on down the hall, and for the moment, nobody was in the entryway but Grance. She stared in blind fury at the man there holding one of the packages . . . he had brought it back, he had brought the rucaline back and she had a house full of people . . . Stepping outside and closing the door swiftly, she said, “What are you doing here?”

  “It broke when I fell off my bicycle,” the man said. “I know what these are. I know what these are and I won’t deliver them. I’m sorry.”

  The package in his hand was busted open, the rucaline visible inside. She felt dizzy at how badly this day was going. Pinched between his knuckles was the cash that she had given him. He opened up his satchel to show her the rest of the packages. “I don’t want anything to do with this. Drugs are dangerous. I came to give these back to you.” Something crashed from within the house, a lamp or a mirror shattering.

  She didn’t believe for a minute that the package had opened by accident. He’d gotten curious and gone nosing. “Name your price,” she said flatly.

  He looked at her in bewilderment. She was dealing with someone even less intelligent than Yvod. “A hundred per package?” she asked, switching to a coy smile to charm him. “Two hundred?” Perhaps he wanted a regular cut, to be the courier for every delivery. He wanted more money. It was always about money. “Three hundred? Your own courier company? Or would you like something else?” Her smile grew even coyer. She’d sleep with him if that was what it took, give him the time of his life and wrap him around her little finger so he’d do anything for her. Sex didn’t mean a thing to her and he was handsome enough.

  It was apparent that he preferred men from how he didn’t react to her flirtatious smile. He tried to give her the busted package. When she didn’t take it, he said, “I’ll put them on the porch for you. Good night.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t there any amount of money-”

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  He placed the broken package on the banister and reached into his satchel for another one. Voices boomed in the entryway. Stepping to the courier as he put down a second package by the first, Grance said in panic, “All right. But, please, will you put them in the stables for me? I would appreciate it very much.”

  Jesco did not want to watch, but he had to. A little of Collier’s star burned within his inner eye, and part of his mind trained itself upon the shifting beams as Hasten Jibb returned the packages to his satchel. He went down the stairs to the garden, and Grance went back inside the house. She cut quickly through to the kitchen and dropped a casual reference to the couple having sex in the parlor. The two people eating shrimp snorted with laughter and went to see.

  Grance’s hand . . . Jesco’s hand . . . went out to the spare knife in the side drawer. She slipped outside and headed for the stables, the blade hidden up her sleeve. Letting herself in, she closed the door for privacy. No one had parked in here, or could when the Eddpras had left their carriage in front of it.

  The courier was looking for a place to put the packages down when there was no table or counter to hold them. She motioned to the corner, where he bent to stack them up neatly. When he was done, he turned and offered the cash. “And here’s your money.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking it, and stabbed him.

  She did it twice, deeply and viciously with her mind as blank as the sky. She was just handling the problem. He cried out but no one heard. Everyone was in the house, the windows and doors closed. When he fell, she waited for him to still and let the blade drip on his shirt. Then she wiped it off on his trousers and checked herself over for blood spatter.

  There was none. Now for the rucaline. She gathered up the packages and slipped out the back of the stables. In the gardener’s shed? Not safe. In a flowerpot? That could be smashed and the contents discovered. Snagging a spade from the shed, she covered her hand in a rag and hastily dug shallow holes in the soft earth beneath three of the bushes along the fence. There she buried the rucaline. Afterwards, she rid herself of the spade and rinsed off her hands with the hose.

  Now for the body. She didn’t know what to do with that. Burying packages was one thing; a body was quite another. And the clothes . . . she had to do something about his clothes and satchel or else a seer could . . . She stripped him and hid everything in the shrubbery behind the stables.

  Getting her father from the house, Grance brought him to the stables to see the naked body. She’d gone out for air, heard an odd sound from the backyard and headed over to identify the cause . . . sob, sob, clutch Papa’s arm . . . this crazy, naked man had appeared out of nowhere, came at her with that knife . . . no, she had never seen him in her life, Papa, he was a mental case and she’d managed to turn the knife back on him as they struggled . . . Papa, was she going to go to prison? . . . No, baby, no . . . Papa, we can’t have the police here tonight. We can’t! I thought I saw Ailie with rucaline in there! I wasn’t sure; he was hiding it from everyone. Papa, what do we do? If the police search my house and find Ailie with any of that . . .

  Papa had never been hard to play. She had seen through him since childhood. He liked to be the hero but those chances were few for a man who lived under the thumb of his father. Torrus Kodolli filled the room with his presence, dominated conversations and demanded everyone be his reflection or else he decimated them. Papa bridled beneath his outward compliance. That was why he fought so often with Yvod, who also filled the room and could not bear a pair of eyes to look elsewhere. Grance went to Papa with messes for him to fix and he leaped to the occasion, loving an opportunity to step from the shadows of both his father and son.

  He could not resist a chance to be in charge, to call the shots, to be the big man. As she had calculated, he did exactly that. She hurried to fulfill his commands
to go out to the road and make sure that no one had blocked in his carriage, and to find a spare rug, blanket, or tarp.

  His carriage was at the curb and free to move. The party was still carrying on within the house but it would not be long . . . no, they did not have much time . . . She went inside and was thankful that everyone was still engaged in carousing. Taking her oversize throw from the back of the sofa, she sneaked back to the stables.

  They wrapped up the body and blade together, Papa whispering that she was never, ever to invite Ailie to a party again. Grance shook her head fervently. Never, Papa, never. Then they cleaned up the blood with the gardener’s rags and carried the body out to the carriage. Darkness had fallen and no one was around but a wandering horse, which was grazing upon a neighbor’s lawn. No sooner had they shoved the body inside than the front door opened and two of her friends spilled out. “Grance, there you are! Grance, you’ve got to see what they’re doing now!”

  Papa smiled tightly and hugged her. He hissed in her ear, “Go in there and pretend everything is fine. I’ll take care of this.”

  . . . thank you, Papa . . .

  . . . oh no, he has to go, my father is so sorry to be leaving, he wants to stay and have a good time, but he’s overtired . . . yes, the doctor thinks that he will be fine if he just takes it easy . . . he got his jollies from those trollops dancing and is that couple still going at it in the parlor . . . it’s three couples now? . . .

  . . . laughter . . .