Seeker

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  “Thanks,” he said.

  From this position, they looked out across most of Traveler’s sloping roof toward the bow. Behind them were the four rear engines, and beyond the engines, the upper hull fell away steeply, then ended altogether.

  Another firework burst near the ship’s nose. They ducked, covering their heads with their arms as large clumps of blue sparks fell down around them like hail. Quin was momentarily blinded, and hoped the flash was blinding to Traveler’s security cameras as well.

  “Get the torch!” Shinobu yelled against the wind, beating the burning sparks off them.

  She unclipped the bulky plasma torch apparatus from his lower back, then handed it to him. Shinobu crawled forward, dragging it behind him.

  When he’d gone ten yards, he called to her, “I found a hatch!”

  Quin crawled toward him as he sparked the torch’s blue flame to life, leaned over the hull, and began to cut.

  Large raindrops were now splattering onto the ship, pelting her face and sizzling into steam as they came in contact with the flame. When she reached Shinobu, he was halfway done cutting a thick channel around the hatch.

  He’d placed another piton, and still on her knees, Quin grabbed hold of it to steady herself, unbuckled her harness, and dropped it to the hull. She fastened her whipsword properly at her side, then located the knives she’d hidden around her body.

  She unfurled Shinobu’s cloak, which had been rolled and tucked at her back, pulled it about herself, and checked its pockets. After drawing the athame and lightning rod out, she fixed them on her waistband, then made sure her other items were securely hidden inside the cloak. The athame could not get her to a moving target such as this ship, but it would work perfectly well to get them off it—if only she could keep it in her possession.

  She took one long strap off the harness, looped it around her shoulder, made it tight, and then clipped several metal canisters to it.

  “Done!” Shinobu announced.

  He had torched a path all the way around the hatch. It was raining harder now, which meant that the fireworks—while still blinding—were having a more difficult time lighting the two of them on fire. The rain was also quickly cooling the glowing cut made by the torch. In a few moments the metal had gotten cold enough for them to stick their gloved fingers down into the groove. The door was heavy and did not give easily, but with many curses from Shinobu and a great deal of effort from both of them, they managed to pry it upward and push it aside.

  Beneath was a ladder down into the ship. Emergency lights were flashing, and Quin could hear panicked voices within.

  Her heart began to race anew, with a mixture of fear and excitement. I can do this. I can do this. She fit her gas mask over her face.

  “I’m ready!” she said.

  Shinobu took hold of her shoulders, made her look at him. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes!” Adrenaline was coursing into her bloodstream.

  Shinobu nodded, and Quin lay down along the hull, pulling herself toward the opening. Shinobu grabbed hold of the strap around her torso and lowered her, headfirst, through the ragged hole.

  She found herself looking down a wide corridor. There were men at the far end, running back and forth between two control rooms as the fireworks continued to go off around the ship.

  Still hanging upside down, she unclipped one of the canisters from the strap around her shoulder. After twisting its release handle, she tossed it down the hallway toward the control room. The canister spun through the air, then bounced along the floor toward the bow of the ship, clouds of gas spiraling out of it as it went.

  CHAPTER 58

  JOHN

  The corridors were filling with gas—thick, smoky curls of it drifting through the air. Holding his breath, John left the clean, sealed atmosphere of the upper control room and moved quickly down a gas-filled hallway, pushing his way past several men who were coughing and falling to their knees. He couldn’t stop to help them now, or he too would be overcome.

  He was trying to stay calm, keep his heart rate down, so he could make it to the end of the long upper corridor without taking a breath. He had to run the last twenty yards, his chest burning, but he reached his apartment, pushed inside, and quickly shut the door behind him.

  Breathing deeply of the fresher air within, he began opening cupboards until he located the apartment’s emergency kit. He emptied it onto the floor, dug through the supplies, and pulled on his gas mask. Then he retrieved the disruptor from his safe and secured its straps around his body.

  As he headed back toward the door, he passed a mirror and he paused. His reflection was frightening—the mask blurred his features, and the disruptor looked like a medieval torture device strapped across his chest.

  It should be frightening. Its purpose is to instill fear, he reminded himself. I have her mother. I have the disruptor. No matter what she’s planning, I can scare her into listening, convince her. She won’t be hurt.

  When he’d taken Fiona, he’d expected Quin to arrive in London to try to negotiate with him for her release. Since her athame couldn’t get her on board Traveler, he’d felt confident that he and his men would see her coming a long way off—this was the advantage of living on the airship. But clearly he’d been wrong. Half of his men were down on the streets of London, looking for Quin. But she had something else in mind.

  Through one of his apartment windows, he watched fireworks burst against the ship’s starboard side. Every few seconds the explosions of light outside overloaded all of their exterior cameras. He felt a moment of doubt and wondered: Is it only Quin who’s coming? What if the Dreads were also after him? They had meddled with his family before, but now he had nothing of theirs—no athame, no book, and he was not even a Seeker. No, he had planned to lure Quin to London, and here she was, coming to get her mother.

  He checked the seal on his gas mask and walked back out into the corridor. Traveler was descending further into chaos. Men were passed out now, sprawled across walkways. He knelt by two of them and felt for their pulses. Their heartbeats were strong—the gas was effective but not poisonous.

  She’s not a killer, he thought. And neither am I. Together we would make good choices. We would spare the people who should be spared.

  He came to a group of three men who were still conscious, crawling toward a stairwell in search of fresh air.

  “There are masks on the second floor, end of the corridor,” he told them, helping them up. “Go. Find weapons—but don’t shoot unless you hear me order it!”

  The men staggered off down the stairs.

  John slid his hand down the side of the disruptor, bringing it to life. Its unsettling electric whine cut through the noise around him, helping him concentrate. He was carrying a sort of fireworks of his own now. If he could terrify her into listening, he could put an end to this madness without a fight.

  CHAPTER 59

  SHINOBU

  Shinobu clung to the aft end of the ship, his tether holding him in place as the wind and rain tried to pry him loose. His job was to throw Traveler into darkness, then join Quin inside.

  He had torched his way through the outer layer of one of the ship’s engines. Just below Traveler’s exterior skin was a tangle of valves and wires and tubes feeding into the engine itself and snaking off toward the body of the ship. The one thing he’d forgotten was a flashlight, and it was difficult to see into the well around the engine—except for the moments right after a firework went off, when it was so bright, he became half blind.

  Online he’d found suggested electrical schematics for the famous airship Traveler, but he now realized, when confronted with the actual ship, that those drawings were completely worthless. He would have to rely on his own knowledge of wiring, which was based almost entirely on cutting up old machinery while underwater.

  Squinting, he found a network of electrical wires and traced these until he located a bundle as thick as a man’s arm. He reached in with the plasma torch a
nd delicately sliced through the lot of them. Except there was nothing delicate about the torch. It wasn’t just the wires he’d severed. He’d cut through everything underneath them as well—nearly a foot of cables, valves, and other mechanical items that looked fairly important.

  Immediately the engine beneath him began to make a stuttering sound, and through the windows off to his left, he saw the lights go off inside the ship. Then the entire vessel lurched, and an alarm began to sound, so loud he could hear it quite clearly out in the wind and the rain.

  He waited, clicking the torch off as he checked his weapons in preparation for entering the ship. But the alarm died out a short while later, the lights came back on, and he felt the ship’s engines right themselves. There were undoubtedly backup systems, and backups for the backup systems.

  He looked around for other items to cut.

  CHAPTER 60

  MAUD

  The Young Dread needed to breathe, of course. Yet she could go a long time without breathing when it was necessary. She and the others made their way through the smoky hallways of the great airship, following the noise of people not yet unconscious from the gas. The Young, like the other Dreads, had thrown her mind into her lungs and heart, and she was forcing her body to keep moving, her blood to keep circulating, without any further oxygen intake from her lungs.

  She could not do this forever, but ten minutes was possible. She had held her breath that long once, underwater, with the Middle Dread holding her down.

  Without warning, the ship lurched to the left, throwing them off balance, and all of the lights went out. A high wail began, so loud she wondered if her ears would survive it. They continued walking, disregarding the noise.

  A moment later, the ship steadied, and different lights came on. These were dimmer, leaving the corridors in partial shadow. The wailing stopped.

  Briac Kincaid was not keeping up. He’d held his breath as long as possible and now was gasping air through his cloak, which was wrapped tightly around his face. This did not completely filter out the gas. Coughing, he fell to his knees next to the Young Dread, then pitched forward onto the floor.

  The Old Dread stared silently at the Young as if to say, Briac has collapsed. What would you like to do about that?

  Before she could form an answer, the Middle ran up the corridor ahead of them. He returned moments later with a clear mask, which he must have taken off another man’s head. After slipping this over Briac’s face, the Middle pulled him to his feet, and Briac gulped in clean air. Eventually his coughing died out and they continued to walk.

  Those two keep each other’s secrets, she thought, yet again, as she pressed forward. And they keep each other alive. She knew what she would confront in her future, but had put off facing it. When her master went back There, to stretch himself out again for hundreds of years, she would be left alone with the Middle and with Briac. She’d now attacked the Middle openly and expressed her desire to kill him. There was no reason to suppose either he or Briac would allow her to live.

  CHAPTER 61

  SHINOBU

  Shinobu had made several more incisions to Traveler’s wiring, which the ship had absorbed without complaint. He had expected to be inside helping Quin already, and he was now cutting more aggressively as he searched for the electrical lines that would shut off the internal power while still leaving the vessel aloft.

  A thick twist of insulated electrical cables ran around the engine casing. He’d been avoiding it for fear of damaging the engine, but now, tilting the torch nozzle sideways to minimize its impact, he aimed it at the cables.

  “Please don’t hurt the engine, please don’t hurt the engine …” he said aloud, the wind carrying away his words.

  The torch made a long, deep gash, easily severing the electrical lines and instantly breaching the engine. For one moment he glimpsed the blue flame of the torch sinking deeply into the ship’s whirling propulsion apparatus; then furnace-like air was gushing out around him, creating clouds of boiling steam in the rain.

  “Dammit!” Shinobu yelled, ducking sideways to avoid the scorching blast. His goggles saved his eyes, but he could feel fiery streaks of pain across his cheeks where the steam had burned him.

  The engine was making an awful noise, and now the ship bucked violently and Shinobu was thrown free of his tiny perch. He fell, then was yanked to a stop, dangling from his rope and piton as the immense bulk of Traveler appeared to tilt toward him. His vision was suddenly filled with the streets of London moving dizzyingly far below.

  New pain shot up his leg, and he realized the torch nozzle was bouncing around by his ankle, burning through his samurai leggings, through his clothing, through the layer of armored heat-resistant underclothes, and right through his skin. He screamed and kicked at the nozzle, then tried to grab it, but he and the torch were swinging wildly through the air.

  The ship caught itself, the other engines screaming as they worked to keep it stable. He kicked frantically at the flaming torch again and again, and finally it went out.

  He hung at the end of his rope for a moment in relief, then scrambled to get hold of the ship. His ancestor’s armor, though half burned from the fireworks earlier, was still so tight that he couldn’t extend his arms fully. He dug his fingers into the charred sections of silk braiding, ripped the armor off, and tossed it toward the streets below, mentally apologizing to his mother.

  Grabbing desperately for handholds, he managed to pull himself back up onto the hull. But before the relief of being on firm footing could sink in, another engine blew out with a deafening boom, and the ship swung nose-first toward the ground.

  Shinobu was thrown up over the aft engines and found himself flying above the upper hull of the ship, far past the original hatch he had cut through, in the direction of its nose. His rope caught him, violently, and he slammed into the glass covering the bow. A moment later, the engines fired and arrested the ship’s fall, as he struggled to fill his lungs with air after the impact.

  His face was pressed up against the glass when he started to breathe again. It was dark inside, but something was moving. Rainbow-colored sparks were dancing around in the darkness. Suddenly the sparks were directly in front of him, whirling along the other side of the glass, inches from his face. Someone inside was firing a disruptor. And very likely, it was being fired at Quin.

  The glass was slick from the rain, and Shinobu’s feet skated around as he maneuvered the plasma torch in front of him. His ankle and cheeks were burning, his ribs were aching, but he hardly noticed these things as he sparked the nozzle back to life.

  CHAPTER 62

  QUIN

  The corridor was smoky and dark from her own gas canisters as Quin made her way toward the enormous room up ahead. Her mask had also fogged on the inside, further obscuring her vision. Through her feet she felt erratic vibrations from the engines, and a deafening alarm was going off all around her.

  Ahead of her, on the right-hand wall, loomed a large open doorway from the corridor into the great room. She could see figures inside that huge space, four of them beneath the glass canopy at the bow. There were two guards in gas masks, and near them was a figure slumped in a chair. Quin caught a glimpse of red hair—Fiona. Her mother was only yards away.

  John was there as well, also in a mask and with a disruptor strapped to his chest, which gave him the look of something out of a nightmare. Would he really use a disruptor on her or her mother? Quin thought of that night on the estate, and a spasm of fear shot through her. Yes, he might, she thought. He is desperate.

  No one in the great room had yet seen Quin, who stood outside in the corridor, her back pressed against the wall. She glanced down the hallway behind her. Where was Shinobu? What was happening to the engines?

  The alarm stopped, but the vibration coming through the floor was now more jarring. Then a deep, unsettling tremor shook the entire vessel, and suddenly Traveler fell aft.

  Quin was thrown to the floor as the lights went out again. Fo
r a moment, the ship teetered back into a level position, then was rocked by an explosion from one of the engines. Traveler began to dive, its nose tilting toward the London streets below.

  She was sent rolling down the corridor, past the open doorway to the great room. She caught a glimpse of falling chairs, books, tables, all sliding toward the bow of the ship, with the four human figures flailing among them. A flash of light, then a swarm of multicolored sparks twisted through the air. John’s disruptor had gone off.

  Quin grabbed the edge of the doorway, heaving her body up the tilting hall, and crawled into the great room. With relief, she saw the disruptor sparks gyrating and dispersing along the glass canopy above—if the sparks were loose on the ceiling, no one had been hit. Not yet.

  There was another roar from the engines as the ship caught itself, arresting the downward dive into a slow drift.

  A figure was struggling up the slanted floor. Quin saw the red hair again. It was her mother, conscious, though she was without a gas mask and was coughing violently. Quin slid toward her as Fiona crept to the wall, arms and legs shaking, and hit her fist against something. There was a hum all around the room as vents opened up. Cold, wet air streamed in, quickly dispersing the gas.

  Quin took a last deep breath of filtered air, then pulled off her foggy mask to see into the darker, lower corner of the room. John and his two men were tangled among the piles of furniture against the bow wall, but they were digging themselves free. The dancing light of the disruptor sparks was still moving on the glass ceiling. Except these sparks were all one color—in fact, they were the color of Shinobu’s plasma torch.

  Fiona was still on her hands and knees, breathing in the fresh air now. Quin was breathing it too. She grabbed hold of her mother, and together they slipped through an avalanche of books and crawled toward the door.