Immortal Devices (Steampunk Scarlett Novel #2)

by Kailin Gow

  Scarlett had her own problems right then, though. Tavian shoved her back, and almost struggled to his feet. Scarlett managed to kick his legs from under him, but Tavian scrambled back up, looking at her furiously. Scarlett reacted in the only way that seemed safe, lashing out with a punch with her whole weight behind it. By luck as much as skill, she caught Tavian sweetly on the jaw, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stepping past him to help Cruces with Caesar. Between them, they were able to drag the man over to the mast, and then tie him to it with lengths of rope taken from the boat. Caesar fought to get free, but quickly, Scarlett was able to take control of the tiller, steering them away from the rocks while Cruces secured Tavian the same way they had Caesar.

  “How were you not affected?” Scarlett asked once they were safe. “I thought a siren’s song drove all men mad with desire.”

  “I am powerful enough to ignore such a creature,” Cruces said. “The more interesting question is how you were able to ignore it, Scarlett.”

  “I am not a man,” Scarlett pointed out.

  “I had noticed,” Cruces replied with a smile, “but that is unlikely to be it. Sirens can affect all mortals. They make them feel that their greatest desire lays their way. It is men you hear about simply because most sailors are men. Yet you were safe.”

  “Perhaps it is my love for Rothschild,” Scarlett suggested. “I love him so much that no magical trickery could make me desire anything else.”

  Cruces shook his head. “Perhaps, though I doubt it. For now, it is enough that we are safe.”

  He nodded past Scarlett, to where the siren had been singing. She had stopped now, and stood on the rocks with her hands on her hips. With a gesture of annoyance, the immortal leaped from them out into the sea and disappeared from view.

  “It seems we are no longer interesting to her,” Scarlett said.

  “Or perhaps she simply does not dare follow us into the cave. Now, let us free the other two and bring Tavian around. That was some punch.”

  “It was what I had to do,” Scarlett replied.

  “Yes. Sometimes, we must all do things we do not like.”

  Scarlett was going to ask Cruces what he meant by that, but by then, the vampire was busy freeing the others. Neither man seemed angry at what had needed to be done to them, and their boat quickly resumed its passage towards the mouth of the great cave that dominated the coast of the island. Was Rothschild really in there? Scarlett hoped so.

  Chapter 14

  Closer to the cave, Scarlett could see the marble statues around it. They were sunk into niches in the rock, so that the contrast between the white of the marble and the black of the basalt was striking. Now that she was seeing them in life and not through a vision, Scarlett could make out their details as the small boat they occupied, bobbed closer.

  Those details were not pleasant. The statues were not the ones to be found back in town or in Cruces’ home. Those were grand, painted statues of men and women, gods and other immortals, who were invariably as beautiful as the sculptor’s art could make them. These were different. They were well sculpted, but they were not beautiful, because the things they showed could never be anything other than terrifying. There were great beasts and monsters seemingly composed of several animals put together, things out of legend and things out of nightmare.

  Scarlett mentally checked them off one by one as she identified them, picking out the griffon, the hippogriff, the manticore. There were a few that she could not identify though, stranger things that had no names in the legends Scarlett studied. Above them all, at the apex of the cave opening, sat a statue that was long and sinuous in design. It depicted a serpent, coiling around what appeared to be a boat in the same style as the one they were currently travelling in. It was enough to make Scarlett shudder.

  Mere statues were not going to stop her from getting to Rothschild though, assuming that he was indeed in the cave somewhere. Scarlett was going to find him, and then the nagging sense of loss that felt like a black hole within her would be gone. It was simply a question of getting to him.

  With Caesar as its pilot once again, the boat picked its way between the banks of rocks at the cavern’s entrance, until they were almost directly under the statues. The sail was down now, with Tavian and Cruces taking the oars instead to move the boat along. They moved another stroke along, past the entrance.

  Something fell into the water behind them with a splash, causing Scarlett to glance back to try to identify it. Judging from where it fell, it must have come from the row of statues above. There was not time to think about that for long though, because beneath them, in the water, something rumbled.

  “What’s that?” Scarlett asked.

  “I do not know,” Caesar admitted. “Perhaps…”

  The creature burst from the water in a shower of spray, its long, winding body still as thick around as Scarlett was tall. It was a serpent, though one with a head more like that of a lizard than a snake, and with rows of powerful teeth in its jaws rather than just a snake’s fangs. A crest of leathery skin surrounded its head, and its scales gleamed an iridescent silvery-blue as more and more of it shot up towards the ceiling.

  Then it plunged down.

  “Row!” Scarlett yelled, and both Cruces and Tavian hauled on the oars they held. It was barely enough. The plunging head of the serpent missed their boat by mere inches, sending a buffeting swell of spray over the side of the boat.

  “It will try to catch us coming up too,” Cruces warned, continuing to row hard. “Get ready to…”

  The serpent struck them this time. It was only a glancing blow, and Scarlett was glad of that, because those great jaws would easily have been enough to tear their boat apart had they fastened around it. Even so, it was enough to send her staggering, so that Cruces had to grab her wrist to keep her from falling into the water. The serpent plunged down again, missing them once more, though Tavian was able to lash out as it dropped, striking its head with the oar he held.

  Perhaps that was what prompted the creature to change tactics. Instead of making another of those breaching and plunging attacks, it rose to the surface slowly, its body forming a series of sinuous curves that mirrored the paths of the waves. Its tail flicked up and then down, striking the water and adding to those waves, so that a swell of sea water threatened to engulf the boat.

  “We have to turn!” Caesar called out, hauling on the tiller. Scarlett rushed over to help him as best she could, and together, they managed to turn the boat into the wave, so that it would not be swamped. Even so, Cruces and Tavian had to fight to stop the craft from being carried back into one of the walls of the cavern, while the water foamed over the side to drench them all.

  The serpent sent two more waves like that, each as big as the last. Each time, Scarlett and Caesar had to use all the strength they had to keep the boat aligned so that it would not capsize. Each time, Cruces and Tavian strained to keep them away from the rocks in the face of the tremendous force of the water.

  The serpent dove again then, and for several seconds, Scarlett lost sight of it. She knew it was down in the water somewhere, but she did not know what it had planned. In preparation for the moment when it might attack again, she drew the dagger her parents had given her. Cruces and Tavian seemed to have similar ideas of defending the boat, because they held their oars like quarterstaffs, ready to strike out at the monster should it come close.

  It surfaced again, close to the boat. Surrounding the boat, in fact, with the powerful coils of its body forming a ring of scales and muscle around it. Slowly, that ring tightened, and Scarlett guessed what it intended. It meant to crush the boat, and then pick them off one by one once the four of them hit the water.

  Scarlett wasn’t going to let that happen. She lashed out with her knife the moment the sea serpent was close enough, cutting a wound down its flank that made the beast roar in pain and anger. Cruces struck it with his oar, his vampire strength great enough
to snap it. Tavian also struck out, his blows thudding home even though the snake’s scaly skin probably prevented most of the damage from getting through to it.

  None of that seemed to make any difference though. The blows were powerful, and Scarlett made the creature shriek each time she slashed at it, but they did not stop it from tightening its noose-like embrace around the boat. The serpent wrapped itself tightly around the small vessel, and squeezed despite their best efforts to prevent it. The boat creaked with the strain.

  Creaked, and then split. With a scream of tortured wood, the boat started to break apart. Scarlett clung to the side as the deck bucked, slashing at the monster around the boat with her dagger while both Cruces and Tavian continued to attack it with their oars. Cruces actually leaped onto the thing’s back, using his broken oar like a spear, yet still it made no difference. The serpent squeezed, and the boat buckled, its timbers splintering as the beast crushed them.

  The deck shifted again beneath Scarlett’s feet, and this time she could not hold on. She grabbed for the nearest railing, but it gave way in her hand.

  “Scarlett!” Tavian yelled, but it made no difference.

  Scarlett hit the water in a breathless rush, plunging beneath it before she could do anything to stop it. The water closed around her, and it was all she could do to keep her grip on the dagger. As she plunged down, Scarlett saw that the water here was not deep. The cave provided a natural floor, so that the bottom of it was only fifteen feet below her.

  Scarlett came up, gasping for air, and saw that the others were in as much danger as she was. Cruces was still on the serpent’s back, but Tavian was in the water too now, clinging to a piece of the broken boat, while Caesar was doing much the same. They called over for Scarlett to join them, but before she could do so, the serpent swung its head towards her and plunged forward.

  Scarlett took a breath and dove without thinking about it, and the serpent went past her at a tremendous rate. Cruces was still on it, his spear sticking out of the thing’s back near its skull. The vampire hauled on it like he was using it for a rudder, and perhaps it worked, because at least the creature missed Scarlett. Scarlett turned in the water, not gracefully, thanks to her skirts, and made for the surface again. As she did so, however, something on the floor of the cave caught her eye, a flash of white against the basalt floor.

  It was only as she surfaced again that Scarlett realized what it had to be. The statue from above the cave. In a flash of inspiration, not even knowing if it would work, she knew what she had to do. Ignoring the shouts of the others to join them, Scarlett filled her lungs with air and dove down.

  It was hard getting deep enough. The water seemed to fight her every movement, and her clothing was definitely not made with diving in mind. Yet she knew that she had to be the one to do this. Perhaps the sea serpent sensed that too, because it came at her again. Once again though, Cruces was able to pull on the spear he had embedded in it and force the creature away from Scarlett.

  Scarlett forced herself further down, until she made it to the floor of the cavern. The statue was there, gleaming white in the empty water while Scarlett’s lungs fought for air. No, not gleaming, glowing. It was the statue that resembled the sea serpent. That was all Scarlett needed. She lifted the knife she held, and with as much force as she could muster through the resistance of the water, she thrust it into the statue.

  The sea serpent gave a shriek that Scarlett could hear even under the water. It twisted, turning towards her, its great mouth open. Then a moment later, it was gone, vanished as though it had never been there. The statue under Scarlett’s blade, meanwhile, started to crumble into nothing.

  Scarlett had more pressing problems. Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, and she started to make for the surface, but the weight of her dress made progress even slower going up than it had been reaching the bottom. Scarlett simply did not know if she was going to be able to make it to the brightness of the surface before her lungs overrode her senses and she drowned.

  A strong hand clamped onto her forearm, hauling her up out of the water and over the remains of the boat’s mast. Scarlett clung to it for dear life while she took in what air she could and gave Tavian a grateful smile.

  “Well done,” Cruces said, surfacing beside them.

  “Well done?” Caesar, also clinging to the mast, looked aghast. “That was my cousin’s boat.”

  “Yes, well, at least you’re here to complain about it,” the vampire said. “Now I strongly suggest we paddle. There has to be a drier section to this cave somewhere.”

  Chapter 15

  The swim to the shore took them several minutes, clinging to the mast all the while and hoping that there were no more sea creatures there that might wish to eat them. Eventually though, they reached a sloping section of rock that led up out of the water the way a beach would on another island. Scarlett finally felt firm ground beneath her feet as she staggered out of the water. She took a moment to replace her dagger in its thigh sheath, then she, Cruces, Tavian and Caesar sat there for another minute or two trying to dry out, though in the depths of the cave, away from the sun, it wasn’t easy to do.

  “My cousin isn’t going to be happy about his boat,” Caesar said.

  “I’ll buy him a new one,” Cruces replied.

  That didn’t seem to be enough for the stallholder. “Well then, how are we going to get back?”

  “We will go back through my world,” Scarlett replied, “then jump back to Athens. We would have come here that way if we had known enough about this place to make the trip.”

  Caesar considered that. “I wish you had known. That way, I wouldn’t have ended up fighting sea monsters and nearly being drowned by sirens. I’m sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen to my cousin.”

  “Will you shut up about your cousin?” Cruces demanded. “I’ve already said I’ll pay for his boat. Right now, we need to get on with finding Rothschild.”

  Rothschild. For a moment, in her happiness at surviving the sea serpent, Scarlett had forgotten why they had come there at all. Now, her heart sang with the thought of being so close to the vampire. She had to go to him. She stood quickly, heading for the gap in the rocks. There was a torch there, along with a tinder box that was obviously far too modern for a place like this.

  “Wait for the rest of us, Scarlett,” Tavian warned. “Don’t get too far ahead.”

  Scarlett nodded as she worked to light the torch, lifting it as it flickered into life. Then, as soon as she was certain that it was not about to go out, she ran deeper into the cave. Rothschild was here somewhere, and Scarlett had no doubt that the others intended him harm, regardless of what they had said about only wanting to help her. As though being in love was some kind of curse to be overcome.

  At the same time, they were her friends, and Scarlett did not want them hurt. For all that she loved him, Scarlett knew that Rothschild was not likely to be gentle with either Cruces or Tavian. No, it was far better to leave them all behind now. They would be able to get home once they realized that they would not be able to find Scarlett, Scarlett would be able to warn Rothschild that they were coming, and the two of them would be able to be together in the way that they should be. It was all so simple.

  At least, it would be if she could find the vampire. The tunnels through the basalt branched and then branched again, forming something akin to a maze. By touching the mark on her neck, Scarlett thought that she could feel the presence of Rothschild somewhere away over to her right, but that was just a general direction. It told her nothing about how to get through the tunnels that lay between the two of them.

  Still, Scarlett did her best, using the light of her torch to guide her way and working from a mixture of guesswork and that nagging sense of where Rothschild was every time she came to a turning. She hurried, knowing that the vampire could not be far away now and wanting to be near him as soon as she could be.

  Scarlett stopped sharply, as much on instinct as anything. She did it ju
st in time, as the floor gave way in front of her, falling away to leave a pit so deep that Scarlett could not see the bottom of it even with the torch. Carefully, wary of the slickness of the stone, Scarlett edged her way around to the other side of the pit. She was sure that this was the right way. After all, there would not be traps on dead end routes, would there? Or if there were, they would not be so simply avoided.

  Despite the dangers, Scarlett continued on. She was not going to let the threat posed by such things stop her from getting to Rothschild, while even if the vampire had guards protecting him, Scarlett was confident that she could either sneak past them without being detected or convince them that, since she bore Rothschild’s mark, they should take her to him. Scarlett would do whatever she needed to in order to see him.

  She paused as ahead she spotted a pair of statues facing one another. No, not statues, carvings, cut into the rock of the tunnels. They appeared to be giant stone faces, staring out at one another with open mouths that made them look like they were bellowing in the middle of an argument. That at least proved that the tunnels were not entirely natural. Someone, or something, had cut them into the rock of this island. Had Rothschild played some part in it, or had he simply taken advantage of a place constructed by others?

  Scarlett approached the statues carefully. Their appearance after so many tunnels of blank rock was too much of a coincidence to ignore. She edged closer, examining them. This close, there was a faint feeling of heat that came from them. On impulse, Scarlett took off one of her still damp shoes and tossed it into the space between the two carved heads.

  Flames roared out, waist high, from the mouths of the carvings, shooting out to incinerate her shoe. Another experiment, and the other shoe, confirmed that the flames formed a narrow bar of fire as they shot out. They would have struck Scarlett in the torso had she stepped between the heads, probably killing her instantly.