Mechanical Rose

by Nathalie Gray

  “She is my cousin. My responsibility.”

  “And she is my best friend.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “I am glad you do, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Do you intend to marry her? Protect her?” He put the jacket on to give himself something to do, noticed the smell of cologne. Max wore cologne?

  “No and yes.”

  Leeford planted his hands on his hips. “And why not?”

  “Because I do not want to,” Lily replied from inside the room. “I am quite happy with the present situation.”

  Max’s grin widened for a split second before it disappeared. “The lady has spoken.”

  Caught between the urge to stamp his boot in the man’s face and laughing at his own idiocy—he had set that trap quite well and had stepped right into it—Leeford shoved his fists in his pocket, muttered about checking the dragon then stomped off.

  Outside, drizzle and fog greeted him. The dragon was where he had left it with the prototype still inside the trunk. He locked it back, wiped the rain off the front seat as he waited for the others.

  Eleanor’s subtle tread made him turn to greet her. Again her beauty and grace knocked him back a step. He would never tire of looking at her. Dressed in black from head to toe with that delectable black lace-purple satin corset, even the way she had slung her pack across her shoulders, gave her an air of stylish mystery.

  “Are they coming?”

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder when the pair appeared around a corner. Lily skipped around a puddle in the cobbles. Her dark red dress and brown hair bounced around her petite frame. She was back to Lady Frivolous that morning. He had missed her. Even Max’s sour disposition. These two had been his world for years. Although he would love to make room for his lovely Eleanor if she decided to come visit them once in a while. She could make his house her home and he would be the happiest of men. But he would not push her. The choice would be hers. She knew where to find him—well, would know because as it stood, he might not have a house left. He would give a thousand ecus to see his parents’ faces when the news reached them. Ha!

  The way out of downtown and onto land proved easy in the early morning rush of dragons and land-based vehicles. Wind whipped at them and stung their eyes. Leeford squinted and lamented he had no goggles, but at least, he had the glass windjammer in front of him. Lily and Max, sitting in the back seat, had no such protection. By the corner of his eye, he could see the large man had an arm wrapped over Lily’s shoulders so he would take the brunt of it. How had he not noticed the amorous pair earlier? Had he been so oblivious?

  Beside and above them, passenger-carrying airships—much smaller than Spark’s silvery monster—floated silently by as he maneuvered their dragon around the city, spotted the train station five hundred feet below and to their left. It resembled a collection of shiny black worms. None moved either. At this time of the day? Odd.

  He felt Eleanor tense by his side and followed her gaze. The dragon shuddered when his surprise bled into his handling of their craft. A veritable caterpillar of coaches waited on the road leading to the train station. Their steel and brass hulls gleamed despite the fog. So many of them. Something had happened.

  When he landed at the end of the queue, a young boy running back to his family’s open coach yelled in excitement that there had been “an awful accident, Mum” at the station involving a night train and repairs were underway. It would take “several ages, Mum” according to their little impromptu informant. Other vehicles soon packed right behind Leeford’s, close together, as if their proximity would trigger movement. They were stuck now. No way around, no room to maneuver and back out of the road. Everything took on a sinister air. He felt spied upon, every sound held danger, every glint of passengers’ eyes hid menace. To keep his mind and hands occupied, he retrieved his watch from his trousers pocket and took a quick look before slipping it back in. Five to seven. Right in the middle of rush hour. He looked at the three tight faces and knew he did not suffer from paranoia. Max positively glowered.

  “The Society must have done this. I cannot believe they would cause an accident,” Eleanor muttered, sitting deeper in her seat. “Bastards.”

  Lily leaned her elbows on the backrest between Eleanor and him. “Perhaps it is a genuine accident. Should we go investigate?”

  Eleanor nodded. “I will.”

  “I will come with you,” Max said, already opening the back passenger door and stepping off. He still did not trust Eleanor.

  She did not seem to care either way as she leaned over, planted a quick kiss on Leeford’s mouth then followed Max. She turned once to wave. The difference in heights between the bearded man and her was almost laughable.

  “She loves you,” Lily commented with a grin. “And you love her back.”

  “I hope she does. And yes, I love her. Very much.” He held her hand in his, kissed her knuckles then returned his to the altitude lever, nervously twisting it to keep the engine rumbling at idle. If things turned ugly, they had no time to waste trying to start the machine again. Not that there was any room to go anywhere. But he had to do something with his hands. A glass of whisky would be wonderful right now. An entire bottle even better.

  By the corner of his eyes, he saw Lily looking skyward directly overhead. “What is that?”

  He cut a quick glance up. His heart sank.

  “Divine Graces.”

  * * * * *

  The woman looked at Eleanor a split second too long.

  Reaching out to Max’s wrist, she squeezed it. “They are here.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere. Are you armed?”

  Max snorted in derision.

  “I will take that as a ‘no’.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We go back. We must warn Leeford. But do not run.”

  They had almost reached the train station by the time she had spotted the woman and she could see, through the onlookers and members of the press gathered at the wrought iron fence, that a train had indeed plowed into the buffer stops marking the end of the tracks. Constables patrolled the site, some inside the perimeter, armed with notepads and all sorts of measuring equipment, and others outside, armed with batons and pistols. Several police dragons crowded the landing area, their gold and red hulls a sharp contrast to regular citizens’ dark or silvery vehicles.

  How could the Society have done this? Had there been casualties? A week ago she would not have believed Mr. Clarence would have ordered such reckless and immoral act—she had been part of missions where violence would have made for much quicker success yet had been ordered to use it as very last resort only. But today? She would put nothing past the Society.

  “The woman in a blue dress is one,” Eleanor said through her teeth, walking fast. Her palms grew dry and hot, as they did during such situations. Nerves left her. She knew what to do. “That constable too, the one by the fence. Those two coach drivers with top hats as well.” A covered coach gleamed like black ink behind the line of police dragons. She could recognize a Society mark there too.

  Leeford would get away. She would make sure of it. She cared nothing about consequences. She slipped a surreptitious hand behind her waist, retrieved the slim pistol from the sheath sewn into the corset. The thing was barely larger than a skipping stone and just as smooth. But it could kill. Had many times.

  “Hurry but do not run, Max,” she breathed when the woman in the blue dress began to walk in their direction. In her limited field of vision—she wished she had Max’s height—every agent she had described to her companion was converging toward them.

  She felt him tense, saw him ball fists the size of honey melons. If her colleagues wanted to apprehend him without causing a scene, they were in for a surprise. She would not go down easily either.

  “I will draw them to me. Use your size to warn Leeford. Jump on coaches’ rooftops, anything, but do not let them take him.”

  He nodded as he put his bear paw of a hand on
a man’s shoulder so he could circumvent him. The crowd had thickened with curious onlookers or bored passengers. She cut through the mass of bodies.

  A flash of blue to her left triggered it all. So it would come to this, agents against agents.

  “Now.”

  To his credit, Max did not seem to hesitate one second. Without a word, he put his shoulder forward and ran. People were like pins on either side of him. He had knocked several back against their vehicles by the time Eleanor took up a run, leaped on the closest dragon’s front—to the occupants’ consternation—then leveled her pistol skyward and took a single shot. The sound was like a small thunderclap. As one, people began to scream and push to get out of the way. Chaos ensued. Perfect cover.

  From the left, a flash of blue dress forewarned her by a split second. She pistol-whipped the woman just as she jumped onto Eleanor’s perch. With a whirl of blue satin and black lace, the woman spun once then fell back down to land in a heap on the cobbled road. Another shot rang in the air. Not for her though. She pivoted just in time to spot the fake constable taking aim well above her head and firing. So the Society wanted her alive. Their mistake.

  The pair of coach drivers in top hats converged on her, one to the left, the other from the right. Pistol in hand, she jumped dragons, once, twice, thrice, toward the back. A great shadow fell over them all. She looked up and almost missed her fourth jump.

  Spark’s airship. Barely three hundred feet above their heads. A hail of shots followed. Not from behind, but from above.

  Several vehicles farther back, she saw Max about to reach Leeford’s dragon just as the airship’s giant nacelle split down the middle. For a moment, nothing happened. Then several lines fell from the darkness. They wiggled like convulsing snakes before dark forms slid down each. Pistol fire erupted from all sides. Both men in top hats turned from her to start firing at Spark’s goons. She did too. They all wanted the same thing if for different reasons. She kept leaping from dragon to dragon since it proved easier to navigate than trying to cut the screaming, churning crowd. And it afforded her a perfect view of everything.

  It all happened in such slowness. Such slowness.

  Max reached Leeford just as he tried to maneuver the dragon out from between the closest vehicles. A quartet of Spark’s men landed on either side of the vehicle and swarmed it. Pistol shots were heard.

  Eleanor screamed. She had no idea what.

  As if time had slowed, she saw Leeford’s inert form being slung to one of the goons and both began to leave the ground, being reeled back up to the nacelle. Max, using nothing more than his fists, dispatched the first two men he encountered.

  Eleanor took aim and fired at the back of a third who was pulling something out of his jacket as he dove for Max’s unprotected flank. She put another shot into his closest enemy before she aimed up at the man slung to Leeford but was afraid of missing her aim so jumped onto the last dragon before theirs. From this close, she felt more confident with her aim. Eleanor shot three more times, downed three more of Spark’s men. But before she could dispatch another, Max leaped up to try to catch Leeford’s feet, missed by no more than an inch. He landed on one of the attackers, who turned the pistol against the bearded man. A shot, muffled, was heard. Max shuddered. When they fell pell-mell into the backseat, to Lily’s shrieks of horror, Max lay very still.

  Around them, the lines the men had used to come down were jettisoned and landed on the ground.

  She tried jumping as well but was much too short. They had reeled the pair up by fifteen feet, twenty feet. Much too high. She could not fire. She could no longer climb. Could do nothing.

  “Leeford! Leeford!”

  Like a monstrous maw, the nacelle closed with a metallic sound over her view of Leeford while the steam engines roared to renewed life. In a slow, inexorable escape, the airship turned and angled upward, away from the carnage on the ground.

  Tears blinded her as she turned the pistol to the last of Spark’s men, who had engaged the two Society agents in the top hats, and fired in the leg of each. She wanted them alive for interrogation. They would tell her where Spark was taking Leeford. They would tell or may good fortune help them.

  “You!” she yelled at the closest. But before she could ask him anything, one of the agents in the top hat put a bullet in each of the man’s chest, ending their pitiful cries. And annihilating her chances to learn anything from them.

  After the bullets had been fired, silence rang dull in her ears. Except for a small sound that tore at her heart. Lily’s sobs.

  Her colleagues had ruined everything. Spark had been able to capture Leeford because of the Society’s interference. They could have had a chance. It had been stolen from them, and now Spark had Leeford. Eleanor shuddered at the images crowding her brain before a crimson veil descended on her reality, blocked out light, cast her in an abyss of burning red fog.

  Rage bubbled over. She whirled around, pistol aimed high.

  “Eleanor!” a man called from a distance. “Wait!”

  Mr. Clarence stood behind her, a trio of agents surrounding him. Each had at least one pistol pointed at her. The woman in the blue dress had two. By the corner of her eye, she spotted both men in the top hats running around Leeford’s dragon and popping the lock with the butt of one’s pistol. “It is here!” he called.

  “The prototype was there all along?” Mr. Clarence said, approaching. He gestured for his agents to lower their weapons. Eleanor did not. “Why did Spark not take it? Could he have not known it was there?”

  “He knew!” Lily cried from the backseat. She rose, shaking from head to toe, her dark red dress glistening in the front. A scarlet patina covered her hands. “I told them! Take the machine! It is in the trunk! But leave Leeford alone! They would not listen…he tried! He fought them off, tried to help me when they came for me instead—they struck him from behind.” Her voice had gone from yells to whimpers. She raked her hands through her hair, streaked her face with blood. “It was not the machine they wanted.”

  “Spark was after Leeford all along,” Eleanor murmured. In the silence, her words cut like ice shards. Cold and sharp.

  To his credit, Mr. Clarence did not appear victorious as he walked around the dragon, leaned over the contents of the trunk then closed it gently. Sadness made him look old and tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Eleanor.”

  She aimed at him, knowing at least four pistols were aimed at her. “I should kill you for this. To make myself feel better even for a second.”

  “The prototype is safe. It would change nothing,” he replied. “Think about it. We have secured the only working prototype.”

  “But Spark now has the inventor behind it. He has Leeford!” She yelled the last word.

  “Spark has not the time to properly convince Mr. Gunn to build another. An unsavory journey, but a satisfying outcome.”

  “For you. And what do you mean, no time?” She did not like the sound of this nor the look of resignation in her old mentor’s eyes.

  “For us all.”

  “You did not answer my question,” she growled. “What are you planning to do? Tell me.”

  A deep crease marred Mr. Clarence’s smooth dark brow. He acquiesced with a small nod. “Since we have lost control over the creator, then the research itself must stop.”

  A cold fist gripped her innards and squeezed. She did not dare ask how they would achieve this.

  “Do not do this,” Eleanor warned in a low voice.

  “I see no other option, Eleanor. Do you?”

  Lily sank back in the seat, cradling Max’s head on her lap. She had lapsed into her world again. Eleanor could not blame her. She wished she had an escape too, a place warm and dark where she could hide her head and never come back out again. Perhaps the best use of the bullets in her pistol would be in her skull. But then again…

  Leeford needed her now more than ever.

  “Give me a day. You know where Spark is going,” Eleanor said, slippin
g the pistol in her corset. Everyone visibly relaxed. “And you will tell me.”

  “A day?” Mr. Clarence shook his head. “I cannot risk Spark forcing Mr. Gunn to draw him a schematics or explain the mechanisms. Pain is a powerful motivator, you should know this. Eleanor, do you not see? We must stop it now. At all costs.” He gestured for the agents to seize the dragon. The woman in the blue dress reached out to help Lily off but had to literally pry her hands off Max first. It broke Eleanor’s heart anew. They had both lost their beloved in a matter of seconds.

  “He is gone, child,” Mr. Clarence whispered. “Come, we will take you back to your family and arrange for your friend’s sending off. We can do this much.”

  While he helped the shaking young woman off the dragon, other agents dumped Spark’s man off it but draped Max’s body with a blanket from the trunk. They worked with precision and efficiency. She hated them for it.

  Eleanor wanted to hug Lily but she walked by as though she did not know her, lost in an inner world, a better world, that dreamy smile gone. She wondered if her “cousin’s” smile was gone forever.

  Tears rolled down Eleanor’s cheeks when she looked up. Fog and low-hanging clouds had swallowed the airship, and although she could not possibly see it, she still tried all she could to catch a glimpse, as fleeting as it would be, to see where Spark was taking Leeford. At least a direction! Anything!

  For a split second, she wondered if it would not have been better for Leeford to have died quickly instead of being captured alive. Especially by Aloysius Spark. Her throat closed. A great weight pressed on her chest. She could stop Mr. Clarence but would not be able to do a thing to stop the rest of the Society from launching the attack on Spark’s hideaway. Wherever it was.

  Mr. Clarence waved everyone away. Most of the crowd had been cordoned off by the constables. The Society had done what it did best—control the situation. There would be no inquiry, no mention of it in the press except perhaps for a small column about how a disgruntled commuter had fired on fellow passengers or some fabrication to that effect. It all left a bad taste in her mouth.