Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  The Charon didn’t stand a chance.

  Avoiding the areas of the chest protected by his leather armor, I went straight for punches to the face. He took a tremendous amount of abuse while swinging wild, sweeping jabs. Several precise blows to his nose and mouth left a beard of blood on his face.

  He lunged and I ducked, and he sailed past me like a bull missing a matador. A fraction of a second later, I caught him with a strong check hook. The blow spun his head to the side, slinging a web of blood and spittle from his open mouth. When he hit the ground near his idling skiff, he was already unconscious.

  I straddled his torso, rearing back to hit him, but then I hesitated, my hands shaking. As angry as I was, I’m not one to beat on an unconscious man. I examined the cuts on my knuckles, a mix of his blood and mine. My rage drained out of me like rancid wine from a flask.

  The battle raged on above and around me, but I didn’t care.

  Sawyer called out in agony.

  Abandoning the Charon, I went to comfort the tink in what had to be his final moments. I bent to where he lay on his side in the snow. An ever-growing puddle of blood pooled around him. The once-white coat was dark red from the wound. I forced myself to look away from the end of the spear protruding from his distended gut. If I looked directly at it, I’d be sick.

  His teeth were red with blood. “Detective Ki . . .Kip . . . Kipsey, my legs . . . they’re numb.”

  I moved in closer so he didn’t have to speak as loudly over the clashing around us. “Mr. Sawyer, just relax.”

  I saw the determination in his eyes and knew that he had something left to say.

  “Detective, I’ve made some bad choices . . . very bad . . . but everything I’ve done was to protect my daughter, Marjorie—everything, all of it,” he sputtered, spraying flecks of blood with each agonizing syllable.

  “I understand, Mr. Sawyer.”

  He coughed, and a foamy pink substance bubbled and popped. “But the wrong things I’ve done . . . the things I did in assisting Mr. Montague, you can make it right. It’s not too late. Is it . . . is there an honorable death when one dies trying to correct the wrong they’ve inflicted on the world?” He paused and labored to swallow for a second. “I need you to stop him. You have to stop him, whatever the cost.”

  He thrust the transmitter at me and folded my fingers around the small brass cylinder. It was sticky with blood. “Detective, you have to make it right for me, for the people below. Promise.”

  Before I knew it, I nodded. “I promise.”

  He whimpered before adding, “Then this . . . right now . . . this is an honorable death?”

  “Yes, this is an honorable death.” Though I had no idea how to go about it, I told him, “I’ll stop Montague for you. I won’t let him kill those people with your machines.” It was an impossible promise, but the words flowed out of me before I could stop them.

  “Thank you, Detective . . . Thank you . . . Kip. Take this . . . find my daughter, and tell her . . .” He slipped me a lapel pin no larger than a dime before allowing his hand to fall to the snow. “Tell her I made it right in the end.”

  I ran my thumb across the embossed silver letter L of the pin. “I will.”

  A faint but unmistakable smile formed on his soot-and-blood-stained face. “Thank you,” he said softly. “There’s . . . one more thing . . . Numbers . . . one . . . seven . . .” He coughed. “Two . . . nine . . .” he continued, but his voice trailed off into a feeble mutter. A second later, his body shuddered, taking in a great gasp of air, and I knew that was it for him.

  Including Fitzpatrick, Nelson, and the Charon that Sawyer shot before he left, this was the sixth body I’d looked over since the case began. I prayed that Janae wouldn’t be number seven, but with each passing second, the more likely that became.

  I fought back my aversion to touching the dead. I reached over and gently closed his eyes. “Goodbye, William E. Sawyer. You shall have your honorable death, and may God welcome you, my friend.”

  Thirty-Five

  Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I spun on my knees and faced the skiff idling in the snow a dozen or so yards away. The Charon was conscious again and awkwardly shambling in the direction of the craft. The embers of my wrath reignited.

  I got to my feet. “No!” I yelled. “You don’t just get to leave, not after what you’ve done!”

  He turned his bloody face toward me. “No more . . . no more,” he begged through two plump, busted lips. His hobbling sped up.

  So much for Charon honor.

  I raced to the skiff, reaching it only a second or so after him. Even before he was securely aboard, he yanked the control stick back, and the skiff lifted a foot or so off the ground.

  I dove at him. We both landed on the rising skiff, and he kicked at me. The pain in my bruised ribs made me see spots long enough for him to make it to a standing position.

  A series of wild swerves made me think the skiff controls were damaged until I realized it was intentional. The weary Charon stared forward, concentrating on the flight, but stomped at me with each dive and steep climb. Sliding and rolling on a narrow plank meant for one didn’t leave much room, and he connected with the fingers of my left hand.

  When I cried out in agony, he banked the skiff hard right, sending me over the metal lip of the vessel. I managed to snatch his foot with my good hand just in time. My body dangled over the edge, but I weaved my fingers in the crisscrossed lace and jerked his leg toward me.

  If I went, he was going too.

  He lost his balance and fell on his backside, still clutching the right-side handle of the steering column. As he yanked it down, the engine responded to the unintentional command and accelerated. The craft’s propellers screamed a high-pitched whine.

  The sudden jolt combined with the biting wind beating against us forced my head down. I looked through my kicking feet at the scene far below, shocked that we’d climbed so high above the combat in a short amount of time. The engine howled, and the headwind battered against the fabric of the craft’s floating hydrogen bladder.

  Then the engine sputtered and stalled.

  There was an odd sensation of being as weightless as a cloud for a second or two. Gravity quickly found us and jerked us back toward the Earth so suddenly that all would’ve been lost if not for the hydrogen bulb suspending the craft from above. Instead, the vessel swooped like a pendulum.

  I frantically wrapped the arm of my hurt hand in the rigging cords in anticipation of the sway in the other direction. I heard the sound of fabric tearing and swallowed hard in realization that the skiff was separating from what held it in the sky.

  The Charon was no longer interested in me now that he was devoted to waging war with time and gravity. He kicked at the side of the steering column while twisting dials on the dashboard. If the engine failed to engage before the skiff completely separated from the hydrogen bladder, there’d be no hope of wrangling the craft down.

  The skiff abruptly swung in the other direction, catching the Charon by surprise. I tried to catch him with my good hand as he slid past me, but everything happened too quickly. He screamed all the way down until he disappeared into the flames.

  “Well, that’s not good,” I mumbled, bracing myself for the change in the direction of the sway. Understand, I didn’t mourn the Charon—he got what he deserved—but his knowledge of how to operate the skiff went with him.

  The chink of metal grommets hitting the deck of the skiff sounded like someone tossing coins in the street. I knew the skiff didn’t have much longer.

  As far as I could tell, there was only one option available to me.

  Untangling my arm, I began climbing upward to the skiff’s hydrogen bulb. When I got as high as I could go, I fashioned a crude harness from the lines that had already torn free from the skiff and braced myself for the worst.

  The craft swung to the left and right another time or two before ripping and snapping loose from the remaining suspens
ion cords. I heard the crash of the skiff in the burning rubble beneath me.

  I looked up at the membrane of what remained of the hydrogen bladder. There was a large tear in the fabric through which the gas was leaking.

  The rope lines that had fastened this section to the skiff dangled free, twisting in the air like bullwhips. I swung out to grab one in hopes of pulling the fabric it connected to down. The gash in the membrane had to be covered.

  The cord was too far out of reach, and the momentum of my effort shifted the hydrogen bladder in the worst way, causing it to sink at a faster rate.

  It wasn’t exactly a freefall, but more like a rapid glide downward. I was uncontrollably sailing backward fast enough for the wind to buffet my ears. I studied the shriveling canopy above my head and wondered how foolish it was to expect to survive this.

  My hope was that I’d not land in any of the areas engulfed in flames. I’m not a tink, but even I knew that hydrogen and fire were a bad mix. I twisted and looked at the melee below me in the snow. The battle appeared over. The ground was littered with the bodies of scrapes and Charon, but only the surviving scrapes were up and moving about—not a single skiff buzzed in the air.

  Maybe I wasn’t falling too fast. Maybe I wouldn’t break my legs.

  I freed myself from the entanglements of my makeshift harness and prepared to drop into the snow.

  But at the last moment, the ever-shrinking fabric bubble above me caught a crosswind coming over the side of the compound and yanked me upward another thirty feet or so. As the material flapped in the updraft like the wing of an enormous bird, I tightened my grip on the ropes, even using the swollen fingers of my left hand.

  Like a tug-of-war between two invisible giants, I was caught between competing air currents. Before I could react, the wind shifted, sending me toward the edge of the platform.

  I needed to let go now, before I went over the edge. No matter that I was far too high. Damn the broken legs.

  But I couldn’t make myself do it.

  I missed my chance—there was no snow beneath me now, just the vast emptiness between me and the ocean hundreds of feet below.

  Suddenly, I came to an abrupt and painful stop.

  I dangled at the edge of the platform. It took a moment for me to put together what had occurred. Through providence, dumb luck, or maybe even the ghost of W. E. Sawyer, the deflated fabric had snagged on something on the railing above and behind me.

  The frigid air climbing off the sea nipped at my cheeks and running nose. Gusts curling along the side of the compound shook me in my nest. I remained motionless and strained to listen for any tearing sounds of the material—the fabric that held my life.

  I was building up the nerve to try to twist around to climb the ropes that suspended me when I heard it—a low thumping sound.

  Something was approaching.

  I stopped breathing to listen. The sound grew stronger. The rhythmic pounding was undeniably Montague’s walking suit running in the direction of the railing above me.

  Let go and fall to a watery death? Or give Montague the satisfaction of crushing me as he’d done to Berkeley and then tossing me over the edge? Neither prospect was appealing, but the first option avoided the violent snapping of bones before the fall.

  I could tell that he was almost to me by the way the ropes holding me swayed in time to the thuds.

  Then it stopped.

  I couldn’t bring myself to drop and end my life.

  A discharge burst of steam from his suit hissed far above my head, and I felt a tug on the line.

  This was it. My fingers clutched the ropes so tightly, my hands were cramping. Still out of sight, he reeled me up the side of the rail a few feet at a time. My stomach twisted and spasmed violently.

  Just as I reached the top, the metal hand of a walking suit clamped down on my shoulder and spun me around.

  Thirty-Six

  I was too stunned to speak. I’d expected the wrinkled and bloodied face of Montague, but instead, I was looking into the brilliant blue eyes of Janae Nelson.

  “Kip, are you all right?” she asked, dangling me at her eye level like a young child would examine a newborn kitten. “Kip?”

  Still in shock, I exhaled and nodded quickly.

  “What’s wrong? Let go of the ropes.” Her face contorted in confusion as she twisted me in the air. She shook me slightly. “Come on, Kip. Open your hands for me and drop the rope so we can untangle you from that mess.”

  Embarrassment came over me as I attempted to will my fingers open. Janae helped me down, and I worked at untethering myself from the line around my waist. “I thought . . . you were . . .” I bit my lip and shook my head slowly as I searched for words. “What happened to you?”

  “The thought ring came off, and I couldn’t reach it,” she answered. “As I lay there in the snow looking up at the sky, I remembered something. Mr. Sawyer said that there was a manual override to the suit. The wearer uses their own muscles against sensor pods in the suit to move the limbs. I doubt that Mr. Montague remembered that, since, with his paralyzed legs, it’s a function he’d never use. It took a bit for me to reroute the suit commands, but I got the hang of it now. I saw you sailing by, and here I am.”

  “So, what happened?” I asked. “He just left you there?”

  “I hurt him—not his walking suit, but actually hurt him,” she said. “I cut him with the spear on the side of the neck. He was bleeding pretty badly. In fact, I think he ran back inside to tend to it. He was covered in blood—a lot of blood. He was saying crazy things. He thanked me for helping initiate his transformation. It was like he was delirious or something, maybe because of the blood loss.”

  “No, that’s just how he is normally,” I said.

  “It was weird. He said that I was the catalyst for him to begin something he called the Elijah protocol a few years ahead of schedule.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I have no idea, but the way he smiled as he looked over me lying there in the snow when he said it . . . it made my skin crawl. He said that I’d be the first to witness his new form.”

  There had to be more to it than that. I asked her, “Are you sure he didn’t say ‘new uniform,’ like maybe he has another walking suit, another uniform?”

  “‘Uniform’ instead of ‘form’?” Her brow furrowed with intensity. “It’s possible. I thought he was going to crush me right then and there, so he might have said something like that. I really don’t know, but I’m sure of the Elijah bit.”

  “You never heard of this Elijah thing in all your tink dealings? And he didn’t say anything else?”

  “No, but again, he’d lost a lot of blood. He may have been hallucinating or something. One thing that he said that was lucid was how killing me wasn’t enough. He first wanted me to know that the three of us—me, you, and Mr. Sawyer—had failed the people of the city.”

  “That sounds like his style,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  The surviving scrapes checked dead Charon far ahead of us.

  As if reading my thoughts, Janae said, “This place is a mess. Where did all of these people come from, anyway?”

  “Sawyer got them. They’re from the Under. He was the one operating Montague’s private airship before Charon brought it down.”

  “Mr. Sawyer came back? Where is he?” Her eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them. “He can still stop the mechanicals!”

  There was hope on her face. I didn’t enjoy taking that from her. “No, Janae. He’s dead. A Charon ran him through with a spear rod. I’m sorry.”

  She looked horrified. “No . . . it can’t be.”

  As if to prove my claim, I withdrew the bloodied brass transmitter he’d given me from my pocket. “I’m so sorry, Janae, but it’s true. Mr. Sawyer gave me this. Do you think that you can—”

  She pointed the massive index finger of the suit. “How long . . .” She bit her lip before continuing. “How long has that been blinking?”


  Her question caught me off guard. “How long has what—” I saw her meaning. The device in my palm flickered with patterns of light.

  “No,” I said, dazed by this new development. “It wasn’t blinking a few minutes ago, I promise. It wasn’t.”

  “Kip, when did it start?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had it in my pocket.”

  I studied the determination on her face. The snow fell harder now, and the wind was picking up.

  “Mr. Montague didn’t bleed out,” she said, trying to stay calm. “He’s up there right now, and he’s launched the mechanicals. That’s why it’s flashing!”

  She paced, her large metal feet pounding and scraping the ground with every step. “How long did Sawyer say it’d take them to get down the platform stilts? How long do we have?”

  “I can’t . . . I can’t remember,” I said, trying to recall the conversation on the bassel ride up.

  “I’ve got to stop him,” she said, and she turned.

  “Janae!” I yelled, feeling the rawness in my throat. “Wait!”

  She turned the massive suit back in my direction. She shook her head slowly. “Kip, there’s no time. I’ve got to go now before it’s too late.”

  “Just hear me out,” I pleaded. “We want the same thing.” I moved to her as I ran my fingers through my damp hair. “We have to be smart about this. We already know his armor is better equipped than yours. He’s proven that your suit can’t beat his with force.”

  “But Mr. Montague doesn’t know that I can move again,” she protested. “He thinks I’m trapped lying in the snow. This gives me the element of surprise. He won’t be expecting me to burst in on him.”

  “True.” I shook my head. “But the transmission tower—Sawyer said it was a secured area. You’d make so much noise breaking through whatever’s there that Montague would surely be waiting on the other side to kill you. And who knows, he might even be waiting for you with his Elijah thing, whatever that is, when you finally made it through to him. No, we have to be smart. This is our final chance to stop him.”