Magnificent Devices

by Shelley Adina

  “Tessie? Can you hear me?”

  Claire touched her wrist, then her neck.

  No pulse.

  Her face crumpled, and the tears that had been so close trickled down her cheek. “Oh, Tessie. If it hadn’t been for me, you would have been safe in Santa Fe with your children.” Gently, she closed the open eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  The partition in her own compartment had popped off its moorings and now lay askew and crushed. There was her valise, lying on the window.

  Or rather, on the dirt under it, for the window lay in pieces everywhere. She picked it up. She had not unpacked it, since if one planned to escape, one had to be ready to snatch it up and do so at a moment’s notice.

  This was not quite the escape she’d had in mind.

  She must find out whether any others had lived.

  Once again sliding through the sideways door, she set the valise on the ground and approached the other cars. There had been no one in the library, nor the dining room, either. James and Fremont had been in the lounge, and she assumed that aside from Tessie, the other staff had been forward taking their meal.

  The lounge car, being immediately behind the tender, had not fared so well as the caboose. Half of it was utterly gone, as was the tender. In fact, the explosion had torn the locomotive to pieces, leaving only the great smokestack and half the cowcatcher in recognizable form, lying on the other side of the track at some distance from the mangled body.

  She walked forward, skirting pieces of flung mahogany, now reduced to kindling, in which brass and copper glinted. What could possibly have caused such a disaster?

  Clearly it had been centered in the tender. The great furnace full of the carbonated coal would have—

  The carbonated coal.

  Her mind could not grasp it, but there was the evidence that something very dreadful, very unforeseen, had caused the carbonated coal to explode in the steam engine. She staggered back, unwilling to look on destruction of such magnitude any longer.

  The lounge car. Could any have survived?

  In the wind, hundreds of Texican bills—dollars, they were called—blew in whirlwinds with the dust, sifting and blowing out of what was left of the end wall of the lounge car. Mr. Fremont, it appeared, had had a safe there. And then she received the dreadful answer to her question, which would repeat itself in her nightmares for many years to come.

  She did not know how long it was, but some time later she came to herself, on her hands and knees in the dirt fifty feet from the destruction, retching up the rest of the contents of her stomach.

  The pain finally drove her to her feet. Wiping her mouth on her torn and filthy sleeve, she staggered to the caboose, her mind reeling at the possibility that of all the people on Stanford Fremont’s train, she might be the only survivor.

  She had been furthest from the destruction, flung through an open door when the brakeman had thrown the switch to slow the train, and thrown out again when the caboose had been wrenched off its couplings.

  Pure chance. And luck. And perhaps the grace of God.

  The hot wind whistled across the saltpan, pressing her blouse against her back and doing absolutely nothing to cool her burning skin.

  Claire walked back to her valise, removing her blouse as she went. The St. Ives pearls still lay under her chemise, the raja’s emerald on her finger—and that only because her fingers were still a little swollen from her ordeal in the velogig. She put on a fresh waist. Then she wrapped the torn blouse over her head like a fieldwoman’s scarf, winding the sleeves about her throat.

  As protection from the furnace of the sun, it wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  Feeling hollow, as though her soul had been torn away and twisted like the iron of the train, she forced herself to consider her prospects.

  The sun was on its way down, lengthening the shadows of the tumbled train cars like beseeching fingers across the white waste of salt.

  The last town she could remember seeing had been some miles before the bear, and that had been on the downhill side of the mountains.

  She had no idea where the next town might be. It could be San Francisco, for all she knew, with any number of miles of the Kingdom of Spain to get through before that.

  She had no food and no water, for the dining car had been crushed between the library and the exploding lounge.

  She did not even have the means to bury the dead, for the saltpan was hard and unyielding, and with her broken rib, she could not dig even if there had been anything but broken spars to use as a shovel.

  Tessie. James.

  Tears welled in her eyes. She had hated him, yes. She would willingly have gone the rest of her life without seeing him ever again. But to die like this? His body left unclaimed and unmourned, merely unidentified bits and pieces that the vultures even now circling lower and lower would soon discover?

  She gave a single sob. She could not even identify enough in the carnage to conceal it from the birds and predators.

  She could do nothing.

  With what they’re paying me to attend you I can send my kids, Kate and Jeremy, to the city school for a year.

  She did not want to go back to the remains of the lounge car. She did not want to look at what lay there. But she owed Tessie a debt, and if she survived, she had only one way to repay it.

  When she was finished her sad task, shuddering, she picked up her valise and made her way back to the caboose. Here lay the culprit, the root of all this destruction, smashed and flung out of the broken car. The heavy iron and glass of the chamber was twisted and broken now, the power cell—

  The power cell!

  It had nearly cost Andrew his life. It had certainly cost James his. But would it take hers, too—or would it mean a new life somewhere if she were able to find her way to civilization before she collapsed?

  The cowling was bent, but if she lifted this panel, no, pushed it—tore it off—there. The power cell lay within its housing, its fine brass windings unharmed. The glass globe within was smashed to pieces, but that could be replaced. It was the gears and works that were important.

  Working quickly, she released all the cables and hoses that still survived, and pulled the cell from its damaged prison. Dr. Craig had told her this was her inheritance. It was heavy, that was true. But it was also hers, to do with as she would.

  She dropped it into the valise, too, fastened it closed, and bent to hook its two leather handles over her shoulders.

  Her broken rib stabbed, and she gasped in pain.

  Slowly, she straightened.

  The gleaming ribbon of undamaged track stretched out into the distance, giving her a direction, at least.

  Claire set her teeth, hefted the valise on her back, and took in the wreck one last time. It was foolish to hope that something would move. And sure enough, nothing did … except the wind, moaning through the wreckage, humming against the broken metal like a dirge.

  She set her face toward the east and gasped in fright.

  Something did move.

  Like a cloud, but not a cloud.

  An airship.

  A ship with a double fuselage, its gondola hanging between them in the shape of a Y. She had only seen one ship designed like that in all the time she had been in this country.

  Her heart lifted, a sob catching in her throat.

  Claire began to run.

  Epilogue

  TO: TEXICAN TERRITORIAL BANK, SANTA FE

  FROM: ROYAL RENO BANK, RENO, ROYAL KINGDOM OF SPAIN AND THE CALIFORNIAS

  TRANSFERRED HEREWITH IS SUM OF FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS PAYABLE TO MASTER JEREMY AND MISS KATE SHORT, SAND STREET, SANTA FE STOP CONDOLENCES ON LOSS OF YOUR MOTHER STOP SHE WAS A GOOD WOMAN STOP

  END

  Don’t miss book four in the Magnificent Devices series …

  A Lady of Resources will be released in spring 2013!

  www.shelleyadina.com

  Begin the adventure with an excerpt from Lady of Devices, Book One of
the Magnificent Devices series!

  Lady of Devices, a steampunk adventure novel

  Copyright ©2011 by Shelley Adina Bates. All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1889

  To say the explosion rocked the laboratory at St. Cecelia’s Academy for Young Ladies might have overstated the case, but she was still never going to hear the end of it.

  Claire Trevelyan closed her eyes as a gobbet of reddish-brown foam dripped off the ceiling and landed squarely on the crown of her head. It dribbled past her ears and onto the pristine sailor collar of her middy blouse, and thence, gravity having its inevitable effect, down the blue seersucker of her uniform’s skirt to the floor.

  Shrieking, the other students in the senior Chemistry of the Home class had already flung themselves toward the back of the room and away from the benches directly under the mess. “Ladies!” Professor Grünwald shouted, raising his arms as if to calm the stormy waters, “there is no cause for alarm. Collect yourselves, please.” His gimlet eyes behind their gleaming spectacles pinned Claire in place like a butterfly on a board. “Miss Trevelyan. Did I not, just moments ago, tell you not to add the contents of that dish to your flask?”

  “Yes, sir.” She could barely hear herself over the squawking of her classmates.

  “Then why did you do it?”

  The truth would only net her another grim punishment, but there was no other answer. “To see what would happen, sir.”

  “Indeed. I seem to remember you gave Doctor Prescott the same reply after the unfortunate incident with the Tesla coil.” His jaw firmed under its layer of fat. He addressed the back of the room, where the others huddled against the cabinets in which he kept ingredients and equipment. “Ladies, please. Adding peppermint to an infusion of dandelion and burdock will do you no harm. You may adjourn to the powder rooms to rearrange your toilettes if you must.”

  Several of the girls stampeded from the room, leaving behind Lady Julia Wellesley, Lady Catherine Montrose, and Miss Gloria Meriwether-Astor, who watched her humiliation with as much wide-eyed delight as if it were the latest flicker at the theater. Claire straightened her spine. She should be used to this. Fortitude was the key.

  Another gob of foam landed on her shoulder. Behind her, Lady Catherine stifled a giggle.

  “And are you satisfied with your newfound knowledge?” Professor Grünwald was not finished with her yet.

  “Yes, sir,” Claire said with complete truth.

  “I am delighted to hear it. In future, when I tell you not to do something, I would like the courtesy of obedience. You are here to learn the chemistry of the home, not to engage in silly parlor tricks.”

  “But sir, it would be helpful if you had told us why the compounds should not be mixed.”

  In the ensuing moment of silence, she heard an indrawn breath of anticipation from the gallery.

  “I am sorry to have incommoded you in your quest for information.” His sarcasm dripped as unpleasantly as the substance now forming a sticky mass on her clothes. “By tomorrow morning, you will provide me with one hundred lines stating the following: ‘I will obey instruction and curb my unladylike curiosity.’ Repeat that, please.”

  Claire did so in a monotone as faithful as any wax recording.

  “Thank you, Miss Trevelyan. You will now go and inform the cleaning staff that their assistance is required here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you will stay for the remainder of the period and help them.”

  Claire clamped her molars down on the urge to further defend herself. “Yes, sir.”

  “Ladies, class is dismissed. Thank you for your patience.”

  Patience? He was thanking them? Claire kept her face calm above the storm in her heart as she turned toward the door, the heel of her boot slipping several inches in the foam. Lady Catherine giggled again—Claire suspected she couldn’t help herself, being the nervous sort—and the other girls followed her out, careful to keep their clean skirts from touching hers.

  “Nicely done, Trevelyan,” Lady Julia Wellesley whispered. “We have a half period free thanks to you.”

  “I must say, that brown substance suits you.” Lady Catherine’s overbite became more prominent as she smiled. “It’s the exact color of your hair.”

  “Next time, perhaps you’ll be less inclined to show off your superior intellectual powers,” Gloria Meriwether-Astor added, her flat vowels emphasizing a colonial drawl.

  Claire tried to keep silent, but this was just too much. She turned to glare at the new heiress from the American Territories, who had fit in with the other girls from the moment of her arrival like an imperious hand in a kid glove. “I don’t show off at all. I—”

  “Oh, please,” Lady Julia waved her fingers. “Spare us the false humility. But tell me, how on earth do you expect to attract a husband looking like that?”

  “She’s trying to impress old Grünwald.” Lady Catherine giggled. “He’s single.”

  He was also forty if he was a day, overweight, and his receding hairline perspired when he was under pressure, which was nearly all the time. Besides which, marrying anyone below the rank of baron was out of the question, never mind a man forced to earn his living by teaching the next generation of society’s glittering lights.

  Not that these particular glittering lights wanted to be taught anything but how to embroider a handkerchief or pour a cup of tea. Though if there were a class devoted to the art of landing a titled husband, she had no doubt every one of them would sign up for it and never miss a moment. Of course, Lady Julia could probably teach such a class. Rumor had it that as soon as she descended the platform on graduation day next week, Lord Robert Mount-Batting would go down upon one knee on the lawn and propose. Claire rather doubted that rumor had its facts in order. Lady Julia would never miss her presentation at court in two weeks, nor any of the balls and parties to be held in her honor afterward. If there were to be lawns involved, it would probably be the one at Ascot, or the one at Wellesley House, sometime before the shooting season began in August.

  Julia, Catherine, and Claire herself were to be presented to Her Majesty during the same Drawing Room. Claire’s imagination shuddered and refused to venture there. Who knew what fresh humiliation those girls could dream up in that most august company?

  Finally ridding herself of the maddening crowd, Claire went to Administration and sent a tube containing Professor Grünwald’s request down to the offices of the staff. No point in cleaning herself up or changing her clothes if she was to be doomed to pushing a mop for the next thirty minutes. This benighted school hadn’t the wit to obtain the services of a mother’s helper to take care of the worst of the mess. Armed with a ladder, mops, and buckets, it took her and the two chars the rest of the period to clean the sticky foam off the ceiling, benches, chairs, and floor of the laboratory.

  Thank goodness the professor had retired to his office. She was able to laugh at the chars’ comments on his marital prospects with impunity.

  Read more of Lady of Devices by downloading your copy at Amazon.com.

  www.shelleyadina.com

  Continue the adventure with an excerpt from Her Own Devices, Book Two of the Magnificent Devices series!

  Her Own Devices

  Copyright ©2011 by Shelley Adina Bates. All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  London, August 1889

  They were too small to be airships, and too ephemeral to be bombs. Glowing with a gentle orange light, each the size of a lantern, they floated up into the night sky powered by a single candle and the most delicate of tiny engines.

  One didn’t, after all, simply release such dangerous things without a means of directing where they were to go.

  “They’re so pretty,” Maggie breathed.

  “Sh!” Her twin sister Lizzie, both of them having no surname that anyone knew, nudged her with urgency. “T’Lady said to be quiet.”

  “You be quiet! Since when d’you listen to
the Lady at the best o’ times?”

  “Mopsies!” Lady Claire Trevelyan, sister of a viscount, formerly a resident of Belgravia and now a resident of a hideout in Vauxhall gained at the price of a brigand’s life, glared at both girls. They’d been on many a night lookout. What were they thinking, to risk giving away their position by whispering?

  Though Claire had to admit that the beauty of the balloons’ dreamy flight hid the fact that she, Jake, and Tigg had constructed them out of a rag picker’s findings: a silk chemise, a ragged nightgown so fine she could draw it through her grandmother’s emerald ring, a pair of bloomers that a very broad lady had thrown away because of a tear she was too wealthy to mend.

  Add to this a little device Claire had been working on that would act as a steering and propulsion mechanism, and you had a set of silent intruders that could go where she and her accomplices could not.

  Hunching their shoulders at the reproof, the girls settled behind the tumbledown remains of a churchyard wall to watch the half-dozen balloons sail away with their cargo over the width of a street and up over a two-story stone wall as impregnable as a medieval keep.

  The spider takes hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces. Well, tonight she was the spider and the inhabitants of “The Cudgel” Bonaventure’s fortress were about to learn a lesson in manners. One did not jump the associates of the Lady in the street and relieve them of the rewards of their night’s work in the gambling parlors without reprisal. The candles that caused the balloons to rise would not set his fortress on fire, but the chemical suspended in a single vial from each certainly would.

  An owl hooted, rather more cheerfully than one might expect. “They’re over the wall,” Snouts McTavish translated. “We can move in when you give the word, Lady.”

  “I think it will be safe to wait for Mr. Bonaventure in the street. Jake, do you have the gaseous capsaicin devices should he prove foolish?”