Steam

by Stacey Rourke

  Chapter 26

  Ireland

  Considering her reputation and career kill stats, most people would have cowered away from Ireland’s rampage. Not Ridley. He spun on her, wearing the face of war. His arms pulled defensively from his sides, his hands balled into tight fists.

  Planting her feet, Ireland stared him down. “You’re not going,” she stated in place of small talk or conversational niceties.

  “Like hell,” Ridley snarled, his slate blue eyes gleaming like a dagger’s edge. The wind tossed his hair into a disarray of tangles. The effect added a rapscallion edge to the once polished pretty boy.

  Seemingly oblivious to the brewing tension behind her, Sister Peyton swiveled from the contraption she squatted in front of. Made from a leather storage trunk, it housed a flickering meter where the handle had once been. Fixed on top sat a giant, antique light bulb, illuminated by coils of copper wire fed through a hole at the top of the truck. The wire traveled on to the large pavilion horn of a phonograph fixed to the opposite side.

  “Ridley, can you hand me that wrench?” Peyton asked, only then noticing the hostile vibe sparking through the air. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were in the middle of …” She trailed off when she realized she couldn’t pinpoint the proper noun to describe the situation. Bracing herself on one hand, she leaned back to retrieve the wrench herself, all the while doing her best to pretend she wasn’t listening.

  “I wouldn’t belittle what’s between you and me by calling it love.” Stepping in close, Ridley’s cold steel eyes trailed over Ireland’s features, searching for an answer to a question he didn’t dare ask. “I’ve fallen in and out of love more times than I can count, with hordes of women I can barely remember the names of. The causes for my affection as plentiful as the women themselves. The swan like curve of a neck. Full lips curling into a mega-watt smile. A lone freckle just behind the knee. Every reason a flimsy one that was easily overlooked when I grew bored—and I always did. That paltry L-word doesn’t suffice what I feel for you … but another does. Loyalty. You are the strongest person I have ever met. You run head long into situations that would make any other sane person scurry for shelter. You handle your soul crushing curse with a grace I truly envy. Yet in spite of that you maintain the tenderness to take my hand and act as my anchor when the seas of death and despair rise around me. These elements have earned my loyalty, one even your stubborn martyr complex can’t shake. So, yes, I am going with you. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do to stop me.”

  “You’re right, there isn’t,” Ireland rasped, her mouth suddenly parched by her hunt for a coherent response to his beautiful sentiment.

  Unfortunately, no such rebuttal existed. Not when, more than anything, she wanted her team right beside her for this. Be that as it may, if they accompanied her—if she was too weak to stand alone—they could be killed. For that she would never forgive herself. She would fall on her own sword to spare herself an eternity of living with that guilt. Out of alternatives, or further negotiation strategies, Ireland clicked her thumb and middle finger together. A slight whir told her the weapon Wells entrusted her with was armed.

  “You have no idea how much that means to me,” she croaked. Locking eyes with him, she watched his anger dissipate at the uncharacteristic exhibit of her soft side. Her hand swept up, curling her fingers to hide the silver plate on her palm. Tenderly, she pressed her fingertips to the rough stubble of his cheek. “Still … I’m not sorry for this.”

  A quick pulse of her index finger pricked his skin and administered a dose from the armed cartridge. Ridley jerked at its sting, his brow puckered. His mouth fell open to voice a protest he could no longer articulate. Knees buckling, his pupils dilated to expansive black voids. Catching him in the cradle of her arms, Ireland eased his head to the ground.

  As the fog descended, she stayed right with him, stroking his hair and easing him into his slumber.

  “I know you’re going to be pissed when you wake up, but you’ll be alive,” Ireland whispered, leaning in to dot a kiss to his forehead. “I know you don’t like that certain L-word, but I have no problem with it. Not in this case. I love you, you pig-headed moron, and I’m doing this to save you from yourself.”

  Gently extracting her arm from beneath his head, Ireland rose to her feet. As she watched, the blanket of sleep snuffed out the fading embers of Ridley’s consciousness. “You and Noah take care of each other until I get back. And, Ridley? I am coming back.”

  Legs trembling, Ireland turned away and stared out at where the marsh swelled into the Roanoke harbor.

  What awaited her beyond that?

  Death?

  Perhaps.

  Fate had flipped the coin on that, and its final rotation was moments from landing.

  Catching first her axe, then her sword, Ireland secured both weapons at her hips. Eyes gleaming like polished amber peered out from the shadows of her hood.

  “What if he wakes up before I get back?” she asked, jerking her chin in the direction of Ridley’s slumped form. “He’ll follow me in a full snit.”

  Yanking his handkerchief from his breast pocket, Wells slid off his spectacles. Working the cloth with his thumb, he cleaned one lens then the other. “Science will prevent that for you. Once the capacitors are charged and active, they will allow only one entry and one return. Make sure all those that you round up know that. Once they start through they have to move in a steady stream, a hiccup in the flow of bodies moving through and the portal will close.”

  Edging up beside her, Noah’s arm brushed hers. “Don’t be a hero about that,” he grumbled, his voice a gruff growl. “Tell anyone you find to wait for you. Make up something about the portal only working if you lead them through it.”

  Wells nodded to Peyton. With practiced synchronization they both clicked the capacitor nearest them to life. The light bulbs flickered before blazing bright. A steady hum, much like flexing metal, seeped from the phonograph horn. Before them, the marsh was ripped in half by a wall of shimmering opalescence. It grew and swelled, casting diamond shapes through the ebbing and flowing gel-like substance. Within it, the curtain to another world opened. One that time and circumstance had not been kind to. Every inch of it painted with a palette of dismal gray.

  Filling her lungs, Ireland spun to welcome her totem who galloped in with a chorus of thundering hoofbeats. Regan skidded to a stop in front of her, sending clumps of grass and muck flying. Nostrils flaring, each breath he heaved created white puffs of steam that haloed his magnificent head. His pit bull sidekick leapt from his back and wove between his hooves, her tail wagging hard enough to shake her entire rump.

  Ireland toyed with the idea of insisting Reg’s new canine companion stay behind. Ultimately that seemed the crueler fate. All the tawny-colored pup had was Regen. He saved her and became her family—her pack. She may deny herself such attachments on this voyage, but she couldn’t do that to them.

  Dropping down one knee, Ireland forced a stern mask. “Now when we get there, I’m going to need scary warrior dog. Not happy, rub my belly dog. Can you do that?”

  Tail whipping side to side, the pooch greeted her with a face full of sloppy kisses.

  “Very good,” Ireland chuckled. Gently pushing the dog down, she rose to her feet. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

  Tapping the meter on the trunk closest to Ireland, Wells scowled at the reading. “During my time in Roanoke, Weena and I settled into the apartment over the market. You could look for her there first.”

  Rip’s floating head materialized over Wells’ shoulder. “Tell him I’m going with you, and I will set out and find her the moment we cross over. I can dissipate and locate her in a matter of seconds. Also, you may wish to inform him that when he knelt down earlier he dipped the end of his neck tie in mud. Actually, on second thought, leave that last part out. That’s not a very awe inspiring message from the beyond, is it?”

  Instinctively, Ireland’s mind whirred in search of an e
xcuse for why Rip couldn’t come … and came up empty-handed. He had already faced off with the Grim Reaper and here he was. Truth be told, there was no one better to watch her back.

  Before she could respond, Malachi stepped beside her, a twig snapping under his boot. Pulling himself up to full height, his usual stoicism was replaced by unforgiving steel. “I know where to find Weena. I will get her out myself.”

  Pivoting on his heel, Wells pulled back in confusion. “How could you possibly know where to find her?”

  Adjusting the brim of his bowler cap, Malachi tipped it down to shade his eyes. “I know where she is … because she’s my mother. Which makes you …” He trailed off, allowing Wells the opportunity to fit that final puzzle piece in himself.

  “Your father.” Wells sucked in a sharp intake of breath, wincing at the emotional sucker punch.

  Granting him nothing more than a nod of confirmation, Malachi dropped his hands to his sides and strode straight into the churning portal without looking back.

  Rip’s eyes locked with Ireland’s, panic widening them to goose eggs. “One entrance, one exit! Go!”

  “You know that scene in the movies where the cool guy throws a grenade, and then stalks off as it blows up behind him?” Snatching Regen’s reins, Ireland forced her foot into the stirrup and kicked her leg over his back. “What he just did was the emotional equivalent of that.”

  Giving the stallion an urgent nudge, she cued him to meet Malachi’s wide strides. The pit bull dashed to keep up, Rip floating alongside. At the edge of the portal, she paused. The hair on her arms rose, coaxed up by the electricity licking at her skin. Glancing over her shoulder, her hood fell back. Her topaz eyes, bright with unshed tears, wrote the sonnets of farewell time had not allowed her.

  Pawing at the ground, Regen inched forward a step and the portal enveloped them.

  Chapter 27

  Preen

  The street which the coven popped into the middle of could’ve been Salem. It had the same plank board homes, sparse store fronts, and cobble stone streets. The main difference rested to the east of them, where fishing vessels bobbed in the surf off a small pier.

  The moment earth solidified beneath their feet, the coven withdrew from Preen. Alexandrian and Freeya huddled together, Margot protectively pulling Tituba behind her. Despite their fear of the darkness that claimed their sister, Preen appeared perfectly at ease.

  “We’re here! We did it!” she tittered, an easy smile beaming across her face. “Although I’m not entirely sure where or when here is.”

  “We made it to Roanoke,” Tituba explained, her gut hissing with a fatal warning. “While their time is the same as ours, it will not stay that way for long. We have formed a bubble of sorts around the town. Soon the residents will learn that none can enter and none can leave. Time will move differently, though how much so I cannot say. For the foreseeable future we are all … trapped here.”

  That declaration resonated through the coven with the finality of a coffin lid slamming shut on the lives they had known.

  “You make it sound so dire!” Preen chortled, oddly lighthearted for someone that had just simultaneously suffered a gut-wrenching betrayal and had her child ripped away from her. “We have our freedom! Come! Let us explore!”

  Her scorching touch encircled Freeya’s wrist, charring and blistering the flesh. Still, Freeya did not fight it. Beseeching her sisters with pleading eyes, she let Preen drag her along with a girlish giggle. Swallowing down their own anxiety, the coven fell into step behind them. Her body taut with tension, Alexandrian prepared to launch herself between Freeya and Preen if any harm came to her love.

  Roanoke surrounded them as they ventured farther in. Giggling children darted across the street. An old couple, seated in rocking chairs, held hands and swayed on their front porch. A father held up his infant son, peppering his rosy cheek with kisses, while the mother gazed upon the pair lovingly. The coven jerked and flinched at each new scene of merriment as one would react to canon fire, unsure of which strike would obliterate the structure of their fleeting peace.

  Preen stopped short. Titling her head, cascading waves of chestnut hair fell over her shoulder, her face a lovely mask of serenity. “That’s odd. I didn’t even notice them.”

  Margot hung back, seeing a warning others could not.

  Blinded from this context clue by her own desire to prove the darkness had not claimed one of her own, Tituba cautiously pressed on, “And their happiness, it doesn’t upset you?”

  Her gaze scouring the landscape, Preen’s voice dropped to a wistful murmur. “I see them all—every jovial, smiling face—and I feel nothing ...” Her head turned to her earth sisters, one blink morphing her irises from warm cognac to a deep blood red. “Except hungry.”

  Chapter 28

  Ireland

  Dry dust puffed around Ireland’s boots, the portal having spat them all out into a world of harsh silence. No birds sang. No children played. No crickets chirped. The result was the spine-tingling serenade of death. The space reeked of a sorrow and despair their animal cohorts seemed to have an adverse reaction to. Regen pawed at the ground, his mighty head flipping. The pit bull paced the edge of the portal whimpering her discontent.

  “Shh, shh,” Ireland soothed, laying a gentle palm to the stallion’s muzzle. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”

  “We don’t have much time,” Malachi muttered, his jaw clenched tight. Without waiting to see if the others followed, he started for the town that swelled on the horizon.

  “Ireland?” a cold, clammy hand seized her arm, spinning her around.

  Finding herself staring into a face the gray pallor of death, a gasp escaped Ireland’s cobalt lips.

  Turning his free hand over in front of his haunted, ashen eyes, Rip studied the scrapes and cuts of his flesh that cracked and oozed with brown sludge. “What am I?”

  Malachi glanced back, yet his gaze never settled; always moving, always watchful. “We almost exhausted our cattle supply and the succubus was running short on witches. She cast a spell that allows nothing to die here,” holding up his arm, Malachi pushed his sleeve back to reveal an angry looking scar running across his wrist, “even if they want to.”

  “Just when you think that guy’s back story can’t get any sadder,” Ireland muttered under her breath. Climbing astride Regen, she offered Rip a hand up and did her best not to cringe at the touch of his rotting flesh.

  The pit bull pup yipped her protest of their departure, but refused to budge from the lifeline of escape offered by the portal. Fear that she would bolt back through and leave them all trapped nagged at the back of Ireland’s mind. Suddenly, insisting the pup stay behind with the others seemed like far more critical point. Unable to change that now, Ireland nudged Regen on.

  Once, when Ireland was twelve, her parents took her on a trip to Arizona where they visited Tombstone, the site of the shoot-out at the OK Corral. If the preservation society there decided to forego maintenance and allow time and the elements to do their very worst, the result would be this pseudo Roanoke. Building and homes rotted to skeletal structures. Brown, knee-high grass blanketed the ground in a woven quilt of dead blades. In a pen of broken and mangled boards stood a team of pigs that were little more than corpses, rutting listlessly through the long dried muck. Flies swarmed them, feasting on any exposed cavities were their decomposing flesh hung open. Fenced in beside them were lumbering hunks of bovine flesh that had once been cows. Their fur had fallen out in clumps, their teeth worn to blackened gums. Still they bowed their heads and dutifully chomped the overgrown grass, bits of it mixing with spit and bubbling over their lips as they gummed at it.

  “Animatronic Pet Cemetery.” Ireland forced down the bile rising up the back of her throat. “This is all the proof I need that Stephen King should never open a theme park.”

  “Uh … Ireland?” Rip’s rancid breath assaulted the side of her face, adding further to her desire to heave. “Surely you’v
e noticed we’re being watched?”

  Tearing her gaze from the horrific petting zoo, Ireland scoped out every window, eyed every door. If there was a hole in the walls of any sort, vacant eyes peered back at them from it. Not with alarm, but pity for yet another lost soul.

  “I know the job you feel you need to do here, and I respect it. Even so,” Rip pivoted his upper body, as if his stiffening spine denied him further movement, “this place is far worse than we anticipated. My limbs are lead, and I worry I can be of no real use to you. This upsets me more than you can possibly know.”

  Ireland’s weapons vibrated from each hip, on alert with her growing unease. “I watched you die. Trust me, I’m very familiar with that feeling. But I am picking up on the same vibe from this place. Let’s do a quick sweep, grab who we can, and get the hell out of here.”

  The town’s heavy hush was suddenly shattered by the loud bang of splintering wood, Malachi’s boot having connected with the bolted door of two-story home that looked far from structurally sound. Shrapnel and dust settled to the ground around him as he grabbed the door frame and leaned inside.

  “Du-ude!” Ireland hissed through her teeth. “A little stealth, please? Some of us are still angling to get out of here alive!”

  Malachi peered back at her, his face an unreadable mask. “They all knew the second we arrived.” Swiveling back, his hollered declaration reverberated off the walls, “Those longing for freedom, follow the Hessian! Listen closely to her every command or be cut down as a hindrance!”

  Ireland’s lip curled into a downward C. “No subtle disclaimer there. It’s safe to say I won’t be making any new friends on this little jaunt.”

  Movement could be detected within the shell of a home: shuffling, scuffling, dragging steps. Malachi stepped back to allow passages of the rail thin bodies that lumbered out as if each movement pained them. The cluster of men and women, their cheeks hollow and eyes sunken cavities of despair, emerged dressed in modest, tattered clothes of yesteryear. Their hesitant gazes continuously flicked back to Malachi, seeking reassurance they should trust this newcomer.