by J. K. Coi
Far From Broken
By JK Coi
Soldier. Spymaster. Husband.
Colonel Jasper Carlisle was defined by his work until he met his wife. When the prima ballerina swept into his life with her affection, bright laughter and graceful movements, he knew that she was the reason for his existence, and that their love would be forever.
But their world is shattered when Callie is kidnapped and brutally tortured by the foes Jasper has been hunting. Mechanical parts have replaced her legs, her hand, her eye…and possibly her heart. Though she survived, her anger at Jasper consumes her, while Jasper’s guilt drives him from the woman he loves. He longs for the chance to show her their love can withstand anything…including her new clockwork parts.
As the holiday season approaches, Jasper realizes he must fight not just for his wife’s love and forgiveness…but also her life, as his enemy once again attempts to tear them apart.
27,000 words
Dear Reader,
I recently wrote a letter to Comic Con attendees, for a promotion we’re doing. I’m going to quote from part of that letter here…
I’m a self-professed geek. Sure, I’m a girl who likes to wear fun shoes, shop for makeup and feel pretty, but I’m also the girl who was totally into Doctor Who in grade school (I played the Doctor Who RPG in 6th grade—and fell in love with Tom Baker’s scarf), who re-reads the entire David Eddings’ Belgariad series yearly, who mourned when Captain Tightpants was cancelled, and who sat on an editor panel at a romance conference nearly a decade ago and said, “I want someone to submit some great steampunk and space opera.” And then had to answer the question for both my fellow panelists and the authors in the audience of “What’s steampunk?”
So you see, when we started Carina Press in 2009, I was thrilled to realize that I wasn’t alone…we’re a team of many self-professed geeks. Publishing professionals who love fantasy, love science fiction, and are eager to give authors and readers a cutting-edge publisher who would take a chance on niche genres, new authors and different stories. Maybe being a geek has become trendy, but at Carina, we’re not just interested in trendy: we’re interested in publishing great, compelling, readable stories.
That’s why, when we were discussing our 2011 holiday collections, I just knew I had to do a steampunk collection. Steampunk can be unique, fun, entertaining and smart and I wanted to show readers some of the best of that. Plus, I’ve been asking to publish more of it for almost a decade! Though our other two collections, the contemporary and male/male collections, were by-invitation-only, we did an open call for this collection and the response from authors was…astonishing. I chose the four stories I felt fit best together, but we also signed a number of other stories that were submitted, and which will be released throughout 2012.
I had so much fun editing this collection and I think it’s truly a unique collection of diverse stories. But though they’re all diverse in where they take place (Australia, England, Boston and a New Mexico you won’t recognize) and how the stories unfold, they all have one thing in common: they’re written by talented authors who know how to create a fun, exciting story. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed reading and editing them.
We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
www.carinapress.com
www.twitter.com/carinapress
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Dedication
For Carlo. Always.
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
Chapter One
It was dark when she awoke. So dark, she couldn’t see the mess they had made of her. But pain penetrated the murky fog which had kept consciousness at bay for…who knew how long.
She opened her eyes and could see perfectly even though the room was still dark, but it felt strange, unreal. She was able to make out the edges of the bed on which she lay, the dresser, the chair and the mantel of the fireplace across the room, but saw each of these only in varying shades of gray. The space was small but surprisingly warm, even without a fire burning high and hot in the hearth.
A sheet was pulled to her shoulders and a heavy quilted coverlet had been draped over the lower half of her legs, but for some reason she didn’t think that was the reason why they felt so…weighted.
It didn’t feel like a hospital room, but she instinctively knew that it was. She had the thought that this wasn’t the first time she’d opened her eyes to find herself in this bed, although she couldn’t remember how long she had been here. The reason why eluded her as well.
She turned her head and fought a rush of dizziness. The door was closed, and she thought it was probably locked as well. Only a small amount of light filtered into the room from the square of glass inset in the panel of the door.
Yes, still a hospital, no matter the pretty trappings they had used to try and disguise it.
She could hear sounds of life beyond the door, the voices and footsteps of people moving past her room. She paid it all very little attention, it was her own body she needed to see now.
Lifting her arm felt strange, probably because it was heavier than it should be. Horror and bitterness formed a salty lump in her throat as she held her hand out in front of her face. She took a deep breath before clenching the fingers into a fist. After a long moment, she opened the hand again, spread the fingers. She used her other—real hand—to touch it.
Smooth metal fingers. Hard burnished curves.
Surprisingly warm, but empty and completely alien. She twisted the wrist. Its movements felt ghostly, even though she knew the appendage must be responding to her body’s commands and not its own.
She didn’t know how long they would leave her alone and she needed to see the rest. She awkwardly shoved the bed sheet aside and looked at her legs. Bile burned up her throat along with a fractured moan, but she forced it back down.
They were monstrous. She stretched out her arm, but then drew it back and dug her fist into her churning belly. She couldn’t imagine standing and moving on the unnatural combination of iron posts, balls and gears they’d fitted her with. Oh God. She would never dance again.
Finally, she lifted her good hand to her face, but stopped short of poking her fingers into the new mechanical eye that helped her see so well in the dark.
The door opened. The man who entered was dressed in shadows, a dark jacket over dark trousers, with only a little of the light from outside to show his face—scruffy with an over-long beard. He stepped closer to the bed, and she instinctively pulled away, deeper into the pillow.
“Ah, I’m glad to see that you’re awake again,” he said. “I hope we won’t have any more trouble from you.”
“Who…who are you?” Her voice came out as a raspy croak that was hard on her throat.
“You don’t remember? Well, then I’m Dr. Helmholtz, of course.” The gaze he drew over her body was impersonal, assessing, clinical.
Yes, she had some recollection…some memory of him. This was the man who had refused her desperate pleas to let her die. She recalled his voice, his confident assurances that he would fix her, make her better. If this was better…
She started to remember other things too, things she would have chosen to
keep forgetting if given the chance. “Why have you—?”
The doctor approached the bed and she noticed the long-needled syringe in one hand.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want any more drugs.” It must be the drugs fogging up her brain, making her confused.
“Not drugs, not exactly.”
She fought, surprised by her own strength. He yelled over his shoulder for help and three male orderlies rushed in. They held her down like an animal as the doctor straightened. He depressed the needle’s trigger until a fine line of liquid splashed out of it. She looked over his shoulder and noticed a fourth man had entered the room. He remained in the shadows just inside the doorway and watched.
“Don’t strain yourself now, madam,” the doctor said, the effort to hold her down coming through in his husky voice. “We wouldn’t want the War Office’s expensive new commodity to be damaged before they’ve gotten their money’s worth out of it.”
What did that mean? What was this hospital? Why had they done this to her?
The needle penetrated her neck and she let out a deep groan. She peered closer at the man in the shadows. She thought she should know him too, but the drugs were quick and it was soon hard to focus.
Until he stepped forward. He pushed the doctor out of the way and loomed over the side of her bed. She gasped at the sight of the scar bisecting his face and the black patch over his left eye.
He took her chin in his hand and turned her head from side to side. She almost expected him to pull her bottom lip out and check her teeth. She jerked back, but her body was growing weaker, too weak to wield her heavy, iron limbs against him. Too weak to think or protest the fog rushing back up to claim her.
No. Please, no.
Jasper.
Where was Jasper?
Chapter Two
The snow fell hard and fast, a wall of fluffy white obscuring the world through the frosty window until Jasper could almost believe there was no world at all beyond the train. That the steam pushed it along on rails into nothingness, taking him nowhere.
He snorted and shook his head. Ridiculous. He was definitely going somewhere.
After four months, he was finally going to retrieve his wife.
A sharp rap on the cabin door saved him from an examination of the uncomfortable, heavy sensation in his chest. He looked up through the thick square of glass inset into the door, and waved Murphy inside. The door slid open on a heavy rush of processed air.
“Colonel, we’ll be in Manchester within the hour. I’ve already wired the clinic to expect us before evening’s end and Mrs. Campbell has responded with confirmation that she will arrange for a carriage to pick us up.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be needing anything more before we stop, then?”
“No, I don’t think so.” The only thing he needed was at the end of this long overdue journey.
“I’ll see to the luggage, and as soon as this iron death trap pulls to a stop we’ll be ready to roll.” Jasper resisted a smile at his lieutenant’s expense. Murphy had made his discomfort with their choice of transportation more than plain, but had refused to stay behind.
With a short bow, the man left him alone again and Jasper turned back to the window. His hand went to the inside pocket of his vest and closed around the pocket watch, but he didn’t remove it to check the time. There was no need. The train had started to slow already in anticipation of moving into the station. He felt the gentle drag pulling him deeper into the plush velvet seat.
Soon now. Soon he would be with Callie again.
It would be the first time he’d see her since leaving the clinic four months ago. He’d been ordered back into the field to hunt down the men responsible for her attack. It was believed that the same group was also behind the torture and death of a number of other British intelligence officers, including Colonel Wyndham—a friend of Jasper’s.
He had intended to defy those orders, needing to stay with Callie at the clinic. But when she’d finally awakened and her screams had only subsided when he was no longer in the room, it was decided his presence would hamper her physical progress, and the doctor had suggested he give her time to adjust. Callie’s health was, of course, far more important than his wishes, and so he’d gone.
Yes, he’d gone, but insisted on being sent a weekly wire with the details of each and every one of her operations, the drugs she’d taken and every facet of her difficult rehabilitation. The procedures undertaken for her recovery had been extreme, depending upon radical notions and the availability of sophisticated equipment.
He knew she’d refused to walk for a long time, still rarely spoke, and that she continued to experience terrible nightmares, although the doctor postulated that she didn’t remember much if anything of the actual attack. That the trauma of it had proven too much for her conscious mind, forcing her to lock it all away. He said he’d seen it in patients often enough. Since Jasper himself had witnessed what horrible trauma could do to even experienced, deadly soldiers, he almost approved of his hardheaded Callie pushing the bad memories out of her head rather than letting them consume her and take her sanity.
The only thing he didn’t know was how she would react when he arrived. If they could get past this. If they would ever be happy again.
His hand clenched into a fist in his lap as he remembered the sound of her laughter. He somehow doubted he’d hear that sound again soon, but he would do whatever it took to make it happen. For her, he’d try anything, give anything. Risk anything.
Just as she had risked all for him.
What should have been a short carriage ride to the clinic took longer because of the unexpected strength of the snowstorm. If not for the motorized ski carriage made available to them by Mrs. Campbell, Jasper and Murphy would have been stranded overnight…and Jasper could not have borne another moment away from Callie after coming so far to claim her.
They drove through the working class districts of Manchester, skirting the slums of Old Town where the airships flew in slow circles overhead, their bright spotlights constantly moving over the surface of the streets. They were equipped with far-seeing night-vision telescopes that patrolled the area in the evening and at night when it was too dangerous to send officers into the neighborhood.
Here, the city was teeming with life, all of it dirty and hungry, working ceaselessly for a pittance. In Old Town lay a never-ending maze of narrow cobblestone streets. The rundown tenements of Long Millgate and Todd Street boasted worse than deplorable conditions. The houses had been packed together in haphazard confusion, so close that two people could not have walked down the alleys side-by-side. Twenty to thirty thousand people lived packed together in that filth and decay.
Looking out the small carriage window, Jasper noticed there was less snow on the streets here. It couldn’t pass through the thick layer of black smoke that hung like a ceiling above the rooftops, rooftops that stretched like spikes into the sky as chimneys belched more smoke for the masses to breathe into their lungs.
Finally, they arrived at the clinic and waited patiently at the foot of the long drive until the wrought iron gates swung open remotely to let them pass. As the ski carriage continued forward, the main building rose before them. It towered over every other, a black sentinel whose oddly shaped turrets somehow tricked the eye into thinking that it was made of more than just bricks and mortar. The ramparts surrounding the property both kept the rabble out and its residents in. The forbidding façade never failed to intimidate, and Jasper was always surprised by how much it differed in atmosphere from the inside of the private hospital.
The carriage pulled to a stop and Jasper practically leapt out of it and strode quickly up the steps. The large twin bronze doors had been decorated for Christmas with holly vines and other greenery. When they creaked open he was met by a dour-faced footman. Murphy went off with the bags while Jasper was shown into the velvet drawing room—as far from a hospital setting as was likely to get.
&nbs
p; A rich oak Yule log crackled in the hearth, its scent reminding Jasper of Christmases past. God, how he wanted to be home with Callie in time for the holidays.
The clinic’s grande dame, Mrs. Bernice Campbell, stood with a flourish of her wide silk skirts and approached him. “Good evening, Colonel. And best of the holiday season to you. Had a bit of a trip, I take it?”
Jasper lifted her hand, feeling the strength in her iron fingers beneath the black leather of her glove. He leaned low to drop a polite kiss to her knuckles before they each took a seat.
He felt restless and impatient to see Callie, barely restraining the urge to tap his foot. The last thing he wanted was to take tea and indulge in banal conversation, but he understood the importance of appearances. “A minor delay, but we made it all in one piece.”
Mrs. Campbell smiled and reached for the teapot on the low table between them. “Such an inconvenience, this weather. Is it not? When will the brilliant minds of our time put their genius to good use building a contraption that can give me sunshine instead of rain, and sweet breezes instead of snow?”
“I rather think that we shall never have such an ability, Mrs. Campbell. Which is perhaps for the best. Already, our species trifles with and manipulates too many things which nature never contemplated.” His gaze strayed to the door. Suddenly, he was not so eager to make his way to the stairwell that would take him up to the patients’ rooms.
