Skies of Steel: The Ether Chronicles

by Zoë Archer

  No one would hurt or harass her, not so long as he was around.

  Protecting my investment.

  But as they crossed through the gate and entered the winding, jeweled labyrinth of the city’s streets, he thought back to how distressed she’d seemed at the idea that he and the Bielyi Voron were forever tied to each other. As if she actually cared about him.

  Don’t be a sentimental ass. She’s a mercenary, like you are, except she disguises it behind a fancy vocabulary and a pair of wide green eyes.

  He was grateful, at least, that she didn’t gawk at their surroundings like a guileless innocent—or a keen-eyed academic eagerly researching new subject matter. She kept her gaze level and dispassionate. Yet if ever there was a place that might deserve dumbfounded stares, it was Medinat al-Kadib. Mosaics covered almost every surface, glittering in the spherical gas lamps that hovered above the streets. Small rotor blades atop the lamps kept them aloft. Clockwork scarabs also filled the air, the city’s messenger system, and the metallic whir of their wings droned beneath the constant beat of the doumbek drum and strum of the oud.

  Some people walked down the twisting streets, a few rode donkeys, and there were others who drove steam-powered palanquins. Some of the vehicles were ornately gilded and shaped, their interior compartments curtained with bright silk. Yet other palanquins looked as though they’d been driven across the desert and back and encountered herds of angry camels along the way.

  Steam power, not tetrol, was the fuel of choice here. The East hadn’t made the necessary alliances to secure the American fuel and didn’t have the land and climate to grow their own soya.

  Men sat outside cafés, smoking hookahs that were periodically refilled by wheeled automatons. The mechanical servers also carried trays of tea and plates of honey-soaked pastries. There was laughter and song, and the continuous chatter of voices poured out from screened windows.

  “The city’s different from the last time I was here,” Miss Carlisle said quietly. “It’s become … downtrodden.”

  “Don’t see a lot of suffering here,” he answered, also pitching his voice low.

  “Look closer.” She subtly nodded toward the narrower lanes leading off the main thoroughfares. A woman and her three children wrapped in tattered blankets were crouched beside a brazier, their hollow gazes fixed on the flames. “There never used to be people living on the streets. I see hunger in many faces.”

  As she pointed this out, he did see signs that the once-prosperous city was in decline. More beggars, and buildings in need of repair. Of course she would notice these things, for she was the kind of woman uniquely attuned to the lives of others.

  “A kind of desperation, too, in the merriment.” The laughter seemed forced, the music strained.

  She nodded. “The effects of the war. People here are caught between two major powers, and they’re suffering for it.” Her expression turned even more grim. “Just as my parents were caught up in the conflict, and now they could be killed.”

  What would he do to save the lives of his family? They’d rejected him, and yet, would he travel to the ends of the earth to keep them alive? Would he use any attack or trick to ensure their safety?

  I would. I’d deceive anyone if it meant their survival.

  The thought shook him, that he could possibly understand why Daphne Carlisle had deliberately misled him.

  Whatever her motivations, he had to consider his own benefit and prosperity. Sympathy didn’t pay his crew, or put gold and jewels in his coffers.

  “Telegraph office is ahead on the right,” he said gruffly.

  They entered the office, where a woman sat behind a desk, idly leafing through a frayed book. Telegraphs must not be in high demand in Medinat al-Kadib, for the clerk jumped up in surprise when Mikhail and Miss Carlisle approached the counter. The clerk eyed him guardedly, but he was used to such a response.

  “I need to send a telegram to this address,” Miss Carlisle said in Arabic.

  Fortunately, there were a few members of Mikhail’s crew who hailed from this part of the world, so he knew the language passably well.

  The clerk read the address. “But that’s the telegraph office on the other side of the city. You’d be better off using the scarab couriers.”

  “Not a good practice,” he said, “telling your customers to take their business elsewhere.”

  The clerk blushed and stammered. “Of course, sayyid.” After Daphne Carlisle wrote out her message, the clerk hurried off to tap it into her telegraph machine.

  “It makes sense that I’d send a telegram rather than a courier,” Miss Carlisle said as the clerk worked. “The scarab would go directly to al-Rahim’s emissary, making it easier to track his whereabouts.”

  “But if he has someone posted at the other telegraph office,” Mikhail noted, “they’d get the message and take it to the emissary, without revealing where he’d be found.”

  She exhaled through her nose. “This subterfuge makes me uneasy.” Catching his eye, she said pointedly, “All of this duplicity.”

  It wasn’t an apology, and he didn’t mistake it for one.

  Silently, they waited for the clerk to finish sending the telegraph.

  “It may take some time before we receive a response,” the clerk explained when she was done. “Hours, or days.”

  But no sooner had she spoken than the telegraph receiver beeped to life. The clerk transcribed the message as it came through, and handed it to Miss Carlisle.

  “We’re to meet at the Café Ifrit in an hour.”

  “Oh, that is not a good place, sayidati,” the clerk exclaimed. “Bad people go to the Café Ifrit. Dangerous men.”

  “She’ll be safe,” Mikhail said.

  The clerk looked him up and down. “So she will, insha’Allah.”

  “Not God’s will,” Mikhail answered, “but mine.”

  FULL NIGHT HAD descended by the time Daphne and Denisov left the telegraph office. Between the hovering gas lamps and a few strands of garish electric lights, the streets held an unnatural brightness. Not all the streets, though, for the alleys and side paths were shadowed and punctuated by furtive movement—human or other animal.

  The desperation in the merriment that Denisov had noted earlier had increased, too. Harsher notes in the laughter, more discordant tones in the music. As if the city itself realized that it balanced precariously over a chasm, with the British and Italian allies on one side, the Hapsburgs and Russians on the other, both willing to shove the local populace to their doom if it would serve the greater cause.

  She stayed close beside him as they navigated the streets. He’d thrown barbs at her at the telegraph office, barbs she deserved yet they still stung. For all her deception with him, she liked to consider herself an honest person.

  She hadn’t time to consider moral conundrums. Every step she took beside Denisov brought her that much closer to freeing her parents. Yet those steps were like treading on dynamite. Danger lay in all directions. Including the man striding next to her. But he’d said that he would protect his investment, and his investment was her.

  Walking beside him was like strolling beside a massive shark, with all the smaller fishes giving him ample space. His size, his appearance, the air of power just on the verge of slipping its tether—no one wanted to cross Denisov. It wasn’t merely that he was a Man O’ War, but that he had a means of moving, lethal and direct, with a sinister grace, that both drew everyone’s attention and caused them to shrink away.

  She wondered why the men who looked at her would suddenly blanch and hurry off, until she saw the threatening glares Denisov sent their way. His crystalline eyes seemed to glow with warning. One word, one touch, and I’ll tear you into shreds.

  Ever since the Mechanical Transformation that had happened fifty years earlier, providing the leveling ground of technology, women had finally gained more equality. They were no longer limited to roles as wives, seamstresses, and shopgirls, but could take their place in the world a
s the equal of men. Men gradually—sometimes reluctantly—realized that the female gender possessed the same faculties, the same intelligence and fortitude as men. There were female politicians, scientists, ship captains. Professors, such as herself.

  For all that egalitarianism, she was damned grateful to have a massive Man O’ War providing protection as she wove her way through the streets of Medinat al-Kadib.

  A commotion up ahead made her slow in her steps. Distinctly English music and voices poured out an open door, and European men in British uniforms loitered around the door, shouting rowdily at the passersby.

  “That’s a British officers’ club,” she murmured to Denisov. “Unofficial, of course. No one nation has claim over the city.”

  “British officers making asses of themselves,” he muttered back.

  The soldiers in question all had faces reddened with drink and belligerence as they spilled out into the street. Amusing themselves, they yelled epithets and slurs at the people walking by. One lieutenant shoved the shoulder of a local man, causing him to stumble back into the arms of other citizens.

  Crowds gathered, both British and Arabian, facing each other in the street. More insults were hurled, and the knife edge of potential violence cut through the heavy air. It was clear by the jaded expressions on the locals’ faces that this wasn’t the first time they had been harassed by foreign soldiers, but they were certainly ready to meet aggression with aggression.

  “This place’ll be better off once Britain gets her hands on it,” a major boasted, swaggering in front of the collected citizens. “Replace all this foreign nonsense with proper culture.”

  “Proper culture?” a young local retorted, stepping close. “When it was our culture that gave you infidels mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine?”

  “All improved by British minds,” the major sneered.

  “And if we hadn’t given you ferengi coffee, you’d all still be drunk.” The young man sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. “Never mind, you’re still drunk.”

  Both sides of the crowd stirred restively, tension climbing higher.

  “We need to leave,” she whispered to Denisov. “Now.” In moments, the street would explode into a chaotic melee.

  Instead, Denisov strode right into the middle of the gathered mob. The British major and the local man stepped back as Denisov placed himself between them. He towered over both men, and stared at them as if gazing at the antics of strutting roosters.

  Though the British soldier turned chalky, he tried to cover it with bravado. “Siding with these dark-skinned idolaters?”

  “We don’t need any outsider’s help,” the local man declared.

  “Taking sides is for those too weak to stand on their own,” Denisov answered. He pulled aside the edge of his waistcoat, revealing his telumium implant. “Going to assume you know what this means.”

  Mutters of shock and amazement greeted this revelation. The words Man O’ War were repeated over and over, in both English and Arabic.

  The major paled even further. He gazed at Denisov’s hair, his long gray naval coat now sleeveless and adorned with chains and gears, and it looked as though the pieces slowly began fitting together in the inebriated man’s mind.

  “A rogue,” he gulped.

  “So you haven’t drunk your wits away completely,” Denisov said, affable. “Damned freeing, being rogue. Allows me all kinds of moral flexibility. Let’s say I take on every man here and lay them all out, broken and bleeding. I’ll have no superiors to report to. No local officials I’ll have to offer excuses.” He spread his massive hands. “I can do whatever I like, whenever I like. To whomever I like. And I can’t be stopped.”

  “There are many of us,” the young local man said, “yet only one of you.”

  “Except for her,” the British soldier added, leering at Daphne.

  Just as she was about to assert loudly and angrily that she was a British citizen, and expected to be treated with respect by her own countrymen, Denisov’s low growl stopped her reprimand.

  “You so much as look at her, and you’ll be chewing on your own testicles.”

  Immediately, every man present pretended that Daphne had turned invisible, and their gazes studiously avoided her.

  “It’s true,” Denisov continued, “that there’s only one of me, and many more of you. Yet allow me to offer you a brief illustration.” He strode to a metal railing that demarcated a café’s terrace, then pulled the railing up with a quick tug. Gasps rose up from the crowd when, with just a simple movement, he twisted the railing into a thick beam, then bent it into an arc. He tossed the bowed metal onto the ground, where it landed with a loud clang.

  No one spoke. Even Daphne didn’t dare to breathe. She’d known, intellectually, that Man O’ Wars were extraordinarily strong. This was her first true demonstration of that strength, and it left her astounded. All this time, he’d been carrying that strength within him. It was terrifying. Thrilling. In a very primal way, she reminded herself.

  “It’s my esteemed opinion,” Denisov continued pleasantly, as if he hadn’t just twisted thick metal with his bare hands, “that the whole lot of you should either get inside”—he directed this comment to the British officers—“or get the hell home,” he said to the locals.

  Almost at once, the street cleared. The British officers filed meekly back into their club, and the citizens dispersed, sifting away like so much sand. Calm descended, the kind of calm enforced by the possibility of violence. Daphne’s pulse continued to race in the aftermath.

  “We lost time,” Denisov said, turning to her. “Let’s go.”

  She quickened her steps to once again walk beside him. As they snaked through the streets, stunned and wary faces stared back at them from shops and behind screened windows. Word had already spread of Denisov’s presence, and the threats he could easily make good on.

  “Why?”

  At her question, he glanced at her, frowning. “Why what?”

  “Step in the middle of that scenario. There was no reason for you to get involved.”

  He offered a negligent shrug. “They were blocking the street. We would’ve lost time finding another route to the meeting point.”

  She placed a hand on his forearm. The contact of skin to skin blazed through her, but she wouldn’t pull back and reveal just how much touching him affected her.

  “Finding another way would’ve taken only a minute,” she countered.

  His gaze remained fastened to where her hand rested on his arm. Instead of disgust or antipathy in his expression, however, she saw desire. Fast, and quickly banked, but there all the same.

  Finally, he exhaled, looking away. “Let’s say a fight breaks out between the locals and the British officers. Men hurt or killed. Bad as it is in the city now, after that it’d get a hell of a lot worse. Life would get damned tough for the locals. The officers could keep food from getting into the city. They’d shut down businesses. Conduct raids. Rogue Man O’ Wars, though, we don’t have any political affiliations. I step in, and it can’t be chalked up to any particular side.” He watched as a barefoot girl led her young sister quickly down the street, until they disappeared into an alley. “Everyone comes out clean. What?” he demanded, when he caught Daphne gazing intently at him.

  She said, “What you just did back there seems awfully inconsistent for a man who claims to only be concerned about profit. Is it possible? The mercenary actually cares about others, even if there’s no profit in it?”

  He scowled. “You don’t know a damned thing about me.”

  “So you’ve noted,” she conceded, “and I agree. But what I am learning is fascinating.” Including the fact that he didn’t like to be reminded of his sense of humanity or justice. He seemed determined to show himself in the very worst light.

  Mikhail Mikhailovich Denisov had to be the most enthralling man she’d ever met, and she had encountered a good many people in her studies. He was more than a binary of good or bad, far more comp
lex than he was willing to allow. And that captivated her, as much as she was drawn to him by their shared attraction.

  “I don’t want your intrigue,” he said, pulling his arm away. “Just your diamonds.” He moved on, and she had to follow.

  The threat surrounding her had never been greater. She tried to put aside thoughts of Denisov’s complicated nature and the even more complicated bond between them, yet whatever peril she faced, she faced with and from him.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  SHADOW-SHROUDED, FULL OF professional thieves and killers for hire, places like the Café Ifrit existed all over the world—and Mikhail had been to most of them. Hell, he was on a first-name basis with half the scum who frequented those places. They knew him for the cold-blooded mercenary he was, and they also knew that only a fool would ever give him trouble. Being a Man O’ War made him an aberration, but it also granted him deserved respect. He never feared for his safety when walking into yet another seedy watering hole.

  Yet setting foot inside the Café Ifrit with Daphne Carlisle by his side, he was hamstrung in a way he hadn’t ever felt. She had no telumium implants. She couldn’t hear a blade being drawn from its scabbard halfway across a crowded room. She couldn’t see a cold-eyed assassin hiding deep within the darkness. Miss Carlisle was simply a woman. For all her claimed experience out in the field, she wasn’t battle-tested. Could she handle herself if things got rough? Could he protect her if she were in danger?

  He’d met her in a place just like this one, and she’d handled herself fine. Hell, when she’d set foot in that tavern in Palermo, she’d done so with every intention of deceiving him. And he’d had no idea. In that grimy Sicilian watering hole, she’d seemed like just a prim scholar, but her starched appearance had hidden a very different woman—one who tricked an expert at deception. It was almost admirable, that skill, if he hadn’t been on the receiving end of it.

  No wide-eyed innocent, this Miss Carlisle. She’d find a way to survive.