Cogs in Time 2 (The Steamworks Series)

by SJ Davis

  Bringing my hand up to rest over the old wound, I whispered my thanks to the brave souls who had freed our city from the Time Clock’s curse. Had they not risked their lives, my time would have ended before I saw my twelfth year. I noticed the driver do the same with his hand, and I smiled. We were all connected, those who had survived those dreadful years.

  The depot came into view then, just on the outskirts of town. The airships hovered in place and lazily drifted skyward, glinting in the early morning light. Dwarfed by the magnificence of the ships, the building gleamed below—glass and steel. To anxious to continue to sit idly, I handed the driver my fair, and exited the carriage before it came to a complete stop.

  *****

  I had seen plenty of magic, despite my young age, but nothing compared to the inside of the depot. Each time I visited, I found myself awed by the whoosh of the automatic doors, the constant bustle of people, the baggage carousel driven by a steam powered conveyer, and the plumbing systems that conveyed hot water right to the faucets.

  However, I loathed the ticket booths. The waxen skinned mortechs, with their silk hair and bulbous painted eyes, frightened me. Each time the thick, spiky lashes blinked, or the hands moved on the strangely jointed wrist, I could see a world controlled by mechanical monsters with bodies formed of real, human flesh and filled with wires and gears.

  “One round trip ticket to the Sky Merchants, please.” I averted my eyes as I spoke, unable to face the mortech female.

  The click and grind of gears added a strange mechanical whine to the voice as it responded, “One round trip ticket to the Sky Merchants. That will be five dollars, please.”

  I threw my money into the small opening beneath the window, snatched up my ticket, and turned away as quickly as possible. Scrunching through the throngs of people, I made my way to the loading zone and boarded the ship. Though I flew on a coach ticket, I could have afforded one of the other classes. However, since I spent the short flight on deck admiring the beauty of the clouds, I didn’t deem it necessary to waste the funds.

  With the symbol of the phoenix flying on the sails high above me, I stood against the railing and watched as the city faded into an unrecognizable blur beneath the thick clouds. The sun shined and the day was warm, but I felt a chill run up my spine as I thought over what I needed from the market. The memory of Lucifer’s voice quickly stole away any pleasure I would have derived from the flight, and I slunk away from the edge to wait for the ship to moor.

  The Sky Market never changed. The carts lined up in narrow rows, the decorated shop windows, and pedestrian crowds looked the same year after year. Though the fashions shifted and the new technology came in throngs, the same faces called out from their booths, tempting patrons to come view what the offered up for sale. I felt at home among the gypsies and migrants, the outcast in society. No matter how much I rubbed elbows with the elite, or filled my coffers with their money, I was still one of the lower classes.

  I wound my way through the streets, the hood of my cloak up over my dark hair, so that I might move unnoticed. I turned off the main street, into an alley full of shadows and debris. My hand slipping inside my cloak and wrapping around the handle of the knife I kept hidden at my waist, I entered the darker side of the Sky Market.

  Like everything in Wren City, the Sky Market had two sides. The one the highborn citizens flocked to, and the one people like I traveled. Though the two areas were only separated by a few blocks, the differences were distinct and severe. The buildings were shabbier, and there were no hawkers selling their wares from carts. Men and women in filthy rags leaned against the buildings, their eyes hazed with hunger, drugs, and pain.

  At the end of the long street, I ducked into the open door of a dusty windowed shop. My eyes scanned the interior, and I knew I had come to the correct place. Dolls of all shapes and sizes sat in the corners and hung from tiny hooks, their cold little expressions watching me as I wove my way through the collection of strange things.

  “Marquisette,” I called out the name into the shadowy interior as I searched for a gas lamp or candle that could be lit. Had the windows not been layered with a thick film of dirty, the sunlight may have been able to chase away the gloom, but as it was, the storefront was nearly dark.

  “Who call?” a haggard voice, full of venom screamed outward from the back of the store.

  “Marquisette, it is I, Odessa Olivia Simmons.”

  “Little Miss Odessa? Is it really you?” A door opened and a dark faced woman peered out, the smell of magic and spiced soup filling the air.

  “Yes, ma’am. It is really I,” I tried not to smile at the lady’s astonishment, but it had been many long months since I had seen my former teacher in the dark arts.

  “You come here, ducky. Let me take a look at you,” she exclaimed as she bustled out of the backroom. Her round body wobbling and pressing against the seams of her too tight bodice, she dug around for small lamp.

  I moved forward as she struck the match, the warm glow of the lantern’s wick instantly lighting her face. The deep lines, dark circles, and shallow cheeks made the starved and hungered look of her sharp cheek bones and hollow eyes that more prominent.

  “Oh, Marquisette! What has happened to you?” I cried out, reaching my hands forward to take her by the shoulders.

  With much more quickness than I had thought she could muster, Mariquisette pulled away. “No, don’t touch me. I’m tainted Odessa. I’ve worked the dark tricks too often, touched the other side too much. I’m dying a fool’s death.”

  “What can I do? How can I help you?” My hands fluttered in the air, wanting to hug my old friend and teacher. “Why did you do this?”

  “There is nothing that can be done. I am dying. I did this for money. The evil that drives us all. When the Time Clock fell, the government housing collapsed and the food programs dried up. There were no funds to help people like me, people who have no skill and no place in their world. You are one of the few lucky ones, Odessa. The rich love you; they treat you like a beloved pet. For the rest of us, times have been hard. I did things…things that I shouldn’t have done.”

  “I…” my words would not come. Tears trickled down my cheeks, and I struggled not to sob. My mission seemed to loom in front of me, the very thing I had come to her for could condemn me to share her fate. Still I had no choice, I could not save myself.

  “Hush, girl. Save your tears. I have sewn my own seeds of fate, but I also know of yours. Lucifer will keep his word, you just keep yours.” The old woman turned, popped open a cupboard in a haze of dust, and retrieved the very thing I needed.

  “How? How did you know?”

  “What a silly question to ask the one who taught you all that you know,” she said as she held out my prize. “Take it and go, Odessa. Forget about me. What we put out in this world always comes back.”

  As soon as my trembling fingers touched the yellowed and dusty bone, Marquisette spun on her heel and disappeared, a heart wrenching cry echoing in the overbearing heat of the shop. I cried out her name, but she was gone in a slam of the door and a cloud of dust. I was left standing, mouth agape and face stained with tears, holding a human skull.

  June 3, 1867

  The Home of Odessa Olivia Simmonds, Wren City

  The journey home came and went in a blur, and I had never before been so relieved to sit at my little table and sip my tea with my dear Margaret. My limbs ached and my heart felt as if it were a ten pound weight in my chest as I watched her worried little hands wring together in her traditional manner. For her sake, I sipped the tea and nibbled at the little sandwiches.

  The skull sat between us, the two gaping eye sockets staring out into the room and the permanent grin spread across its face. Beside it, the black box gleamed, a harmless trinket still. The combination of the two was really a strange sight upon the lace cloth that Margaret had laid out earlier in the day.

  “Only one final thing to do, before the lady arrives to claim her rightful fate
,” I sighed, wishing I could believe that the woman deserved the things I planned to do.

  “Have faith, Odessa.” Margaret squeezed my hand and cleared away the tea service, loading it onto the silver cart she always used. Once the table was cleared, she scurried out the door, tossing one last look of concern back at me.

  I won’t lie; my hands shook and trembled as I took down the ingredients from my shelves, and set the little black cauldron on the metal rings that would burn with gas fire once it was switched on. Using my pestle and mortar I crushed the dried nightshade and monkshood until they were fine powders, with careful precision I measured out the batrachos with tiny metal spoons so it did not touch my skin, and I squeezed the sap from the devil’s trumpet with a gentle touch. In my mind, I kept seeing Marquisette’s haunting eyes, and I feared for my life.

  Sinking to my knees in front of my makeshift altar, I drew out a small blade—the spine-u-lator would not draw enough blood for what I meant to do. I will not tell you how I called upon Lucifer, I will not name the forty-one names that passed my lips, and I will not give away those secrets in which he had whispered into my ear the night I had called upon the spirits to locate Mr. Copperbelt’s mistress. Only suffice to say, my skin was parted, the blood was captured within a chalice, and the offering drew the morning star into my boudoir.

  He appeared as a gentleman with dark hair, blazing blue eyes, and a strong chin. His lips, when they brushed my cheek in greeting, felt as if they were consumed in fire. His large hands touched the bare skin of my arms, and I could smell the smoldering flesh as he lovingly stared into my face.

  “Master,” I proclaimed as I attempted to bow in respect. “I have done as you asked. All is prepared.” I spoke the words with fear and reverence, casting my eyes downward to avoid his stare.

  He turned and took in the items on the table, nodded in approval, and rolled up the sleeves of his coat. As if he had mixed this particular creation many times before, he went to work. I stood idly by, my eyes riveted to his quick movements, and in awed that I truly had been given the opportunity to watch Lucifer work a dark trick.

  Pouring a vial of thick black liquid into the cauldron, he explained, “The blood of a thousand souls.” Without hesitating, he swept the ground nightshade and monkshood into the pot, and followed it by the batrachos. Picking up the devil’s trumpet, he chuckled to himself and emptied the contents into the rest.

  At some point, in my exhaustion, I slumped down into the chair, eyes still mesmerized on what unfolded before me. The sweet poisonous smell rose up in steam tendrils from the pot, and I realized I had dozed off or lost track at some point, because I could not remember him lighting the burner. Yet, the potion sat bubbling, and the burner had gone cold.

  “To extract a soul against one’s will, there are things that must be precise.” He withdrew a crystal bottle from within his jacket, and placed it on the table. His left hand palmed the skull, turning it over to where the top formed a bowl, and his right hand picked up the cauldron. “In life, a person takes in the world through their eyes. In death, one must give back.” With the skill of a steady hand, he began pouring the dark liquid from the cauldron into the skull, where it ran out of the eye socket, and into the bottle.

  I remember a space where I stared into the flicker of the lanterns on the side of the bottle, but the rest of the room seemed a blur. When next, I could focus the poison sat before me, containing ten times more than I needed to fill the vial meant to be placed in the box. Beside the glimmering and dark liquid, lay the quill and the paper that he’d told me to use.

  When my mind cleared, I jerked upward, searching the room. Lucifer had left me, but my mission was simple enough. I had only to wait for the widow to arrive, and then I would act. I still could not fathom what he wanted with that single soul, or what could possibly make one woman so important. It didn’t matter, not to me. I had to worry about my own.

  *****

  To wearied and worried to fight the voices of my ancestors, I chose to dream rather than to face their accusing tones and madness. I even chose to ignore Magnus, because I could not save him if I did anything different than I was. Unfortunately, my sleep did not go undisturbed.

  I knew, without seeing, that I was in the body of Jeanne Copperbelt. I could hear her thoughts echoing on top of my own and I looked out at the world in a double vision—her perception and mine. The strange sensation of being inside someone else’s skin made me woozy with vertigo as I tried hard to pay attention to my surroundings.

  I could only assume from the rambling of her thoughts that the house we were in was hers, and that there was something very amiss. She stormed wildly from room to room, tearing apart desks and throwing books from the shelves. She dug through old hat boxes filled with memories, and flung the contents of crates and boxes to the floor. Madness flirted across the surface of every thought as she screamed in frustration and cursed under her breath.

  Snatching up a picture of her late husband beaming down from atop a fine thoroughbred horse, she screamed, “Where is it you, bastard!” In a shattering of glass, she threw the picture at the wall and ran out into the street.

  The buggy was already hitched and waiting, and Jeanne took up the reins and whip as if she were quite accustom being the master of such a contraption. Driving the horses with no mercy, she careened through the cobblestone streets, the dim spots of illumination from the gas lamps glistening in the gutters.

  The bumping and rocking of the buggy jostled my already blurry vision, causing me to feel sick as I tried to chase her thoughts. They came in clips of vivid color and bleak darkness, scenes of her husband with another woman on his arm. Ugly screaming matches between him and Jeanne played out in shredded bits laced with hate.

  At last she pulled the horse to a stop and leaped out, nearly falling as her expensive shoes slid on the stone street. I tried to look around, to discern where we might be, but Jeanne’s focus lie only on the contents of the small storage space on the back of the buggy. I watched in horror, suddenly understanding all that was about to happen, as her small hands grasped the handles of two oil lamps.

  She let them bang nosily against her legs as she ran toward the house on the corner across the street. A shadow moved in the window, dancing in the candlelight within, but I couldn’t tell its sex or size through the blur of Jeanne’s tears and the haze that separated her mind from mine. When at last she stopped to catch her breath, I could finally see our destination clearly. Neither large or expensive, but neatly kept just the same, I had no doubt that it was the home of Mr. Copperbelt’s mistress.

  “Curse you, Satan. You swore it. You swore he’d be mine! All those sacrifices. Even my dearest Chamile and Jason. I gave to you what you asked. He isn’t mine. Damn you! He has always been hers!”

  Trapped in her thoughts, unable to form my own, I gave in to the onslaught of her memories. I saw her, a young girl, madly in love. She’d struck a deal with the devil for his love, twelve for one. She’d sacrificed her childhood friends, strangers, and even her younger sister to have the subject of her deepest desires. Murderer… she poisoned them all.

  When I finally escaped the horrid visions of what she had done to twelve innocent souls, my eyes caught the sight of the first lantern as she smashed its base against the side of the house. “Don’t, don’t!” I pleaded, but it was too late. I knew the things I was seeing had already come to pass, but still, I begged her anyway.

  The strike of the match and the bright flare of light sent me reeling backward, down a tunnel of darkness and heat. I could feel thousands of hands reaching out to touch my body, grabbing at me as if they wanted to tear me apart. I was falling into the very pits of hell, not as Jeanne, but as myself.

  I found myself in a room, an old woman sat by the bed of a woman barely older than myself. Tears trekked down her soft and wrinkled cheeks as she turned to me and said, “Poison. She should have died. Life would have been kinder if she had. Instead, she has lain in this bed for many years,
unable to speak, her body slowly dying. And I wonder if she knows. I pray she does not feel pain, but she is trapped inside her mind, and cannot speak. There were twelve people poisoned that summer, but none survived, only her.”

  The woman faded away, and I understood that she’d never been there. She was a spirit, not one of mine, but a guardian for the young woman who lay hooked to machines that grinded and whined as they kept her alive. The constant chug of the little steam engines that ran the ventilator and pumped the liquid into her veins from long tubes became deafening as I stared at the face of one of Jeanne’s victims.

  Suddenly, she screamed without making a sound. Her voice shattering the inside of my skull as the pain she felt every waking minute shot through my body, crippling me. I fell backward, and then once again, I descended into the dark tunnel. My cries of terror rising to meet hers, could not deafen the sound of Lucifer’s voice.

  “She promised twelve, but only gave eleven. Hers will fill its place.”

  June 4, 1867

  The Home of Odessa Olivia Simmonds, Wren City

  When I awakened, the sun had set, and Margaret was fidgeting outside my door. I had slept the night and day away.

  “Odessa, the lady will be arriving soon. I have already prepared the parlor. Is there anything you need?”

  I stretched as I climbed from the bed, my body stiff from lying for so long. “No, Margaret, I think I have everything I need.”

  She skirted into the room, eyes locked onto the contents of the table. “I heard your screams.”

  “Nightmares, my friend. Actually, visions. This woman, she is not a good soul. I have seen her deeds with my own two eyes, and it has taken my quilt away.”

  Margaret sat a cup of tea on the stand beside my bed, unwilling to go near the tools and product of the dark magic that had been worked in the room the night before. “As always, I have no doubts on your judgment, Odessa. I will go and light the fire while you dress.”