The Flux Engine

by Dan Willis

  Robi swore, one of the words the old man used but never let her utter.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Crankshaft shrugged. “The shutters are closed and the door’s locked,” he said. “I say we wait for Bill.”

  Robi’s sideways stomach dropped down into her bowels.

  “Hickok’s hurt,” she said. “Broken ribs.”

  “Even hurt, Bill Hickok is more than a match for a bunch of mad leakers,” Crankshaft said. His countenance projected confidence, but he sounded worried. Robi fixed him with a steady look.

  “What if he isn’t?”

  Crankshaft considered this, a range of emotions from anger to fear to determination playing over the cragged, ebony surface of his face.

  “Can you run?” she asked then.

  “Well enough for an old man.”

  Robi pulled a handful of shells from a leather pouch tied to her belt.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said, passing the spare shells to Crankshaft. “Just run for the docks.”

  “What about you?” Crankshaft accepted the shells, pushing them into his pockets.

  “I’m good at not getting caught,” she said.

  She grabbed the bolt holding the door closed. The mad leaker’s arm still protruded through the peep window, thrashing wildly. Crankshaft gave her a nod and she jerked the bolt free. The door slammed open, revealing three twisted horrors that had once been people. Two men and a woman. Their eyes were red and their mouths and teeth were covered in blood. The woman shrieked something that might have been words but came out as incoherent sounds of rage. The one with his arm in the door tried to pull it free, blocking the others, and they bunched up as they tried to rush the door.

  Crankshaft stepped up and fired the shattergun point blank. The crystal fragments tore into the bodies in the doorway, mangling them, and sending all three tumbling down in a bloody pile.

  Robi didn’t hesitate. She stuck her head out the door and scanned the street.

  One down by the burning general store.

  Two more by the bridge.

  “Follow me,” she whispered and charged out into the fire-lit night.

  A wave of heat washed over her, stinging her hands and face. Clouds of cinders swirled in the air, nearly blinding her, and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. A sound, somewhere between a grunt and a cry, split the air from nearby.

  Eyes still full of cinders, Robi reacted, throwing herself forward and rolling to her feet. She felt rather than saw something pass over her, followed by a howl of frustration and the explosion of a shattergun.

  “Come on, girl,” Crankshaft said, pulling her along by the elbow.

  “How are you doing this? I can’t see.”

  “I worked around boilers all my life,” he said. “This ain’t nothin’. I spread this stuff on my toast in the morning.”

  She stumbled along beside him, grateful for the sure steps through the smoke and ash. The shattergun fired three more times before Robi’s eyes began to clear the cinders. The entire town was ablaze, the streets full of smoke, embers, and the skeletal remains of burning buildings. Dark shapes darted from buildings and alleyways, silhouetted by the fire. Robi couldn’t tell if they were townsfolk or the insane leakers, but they didn’t seem any better at seeing through the shower of ash than she did. Which, she decided, was probably good, either way.

  Just as the thought took hold, the figures caught sight of her. As one, they turned and rushed up the burning street. She saw their hunched bodies and arms held open.

  Yep, crazy leakers.

  “Get up there,” Crankshaft said, pushing her toward a building that wasn’t completely in flames. The roof was on fire, but the porch and front façade were intact.

  “We can’t let them surround us.”

  “Shoot,” Robi said, pressing her back to the painted boards of the façade.

  “They don’t run when their friends get shot,” he said. “And I’ve only got four shells left. We need them to bunch up where I can hit more than one.”

  His first shot swept the faster madmen off the porch as they came up the stairs. Robi squeezed her eyes closed as blood and substances she didn’t dare think about spattered her face and upper body.

  The gun fired three more times, sending screaming lunatics back into the street in pieces. As the last of their ammunition vanished in a shower of deadly crystal shards, Crankshaft turned the weapon around and slammed it into the face of the next leaker to mount the stairs.

  Grasping fingers pulled abruptly at Robi’s shirt. One of the crazed leakers had come up from the side. Without thinking, Robi twisted, breaking the hold and dropping to a crouch. Her foot lashed out, making contact with the leaker’s bandage-wrapped knee and bending it at an odd angle with an audible crack.

  The leaker, a scrawny, middle aged man with a pox-scarred face, screamed and fell. Even as he writhed in pain, he reached out for her, his fingers grasping just short of Robi’s leg. She kicked him in his blood-spattered face. Undeterred, he grabbed her ankle with a hand like a vise and began pulling her toward his teeth.

  “Crankshaft,” she screamed. She threw the old mechanic a desperate glance that saw him struggling to fend off two leakers.

  The leakers were winning.

  Three shots rang out and the leaker’s pull on her leg suddenly slackened. Robi scrambled away, slapping at the hand that still clung to her leg. It had been severed neatly at the wrist.

  “Bill, help Crankshaft!” she cried.

  Six more shots rang out from the smoke, each hitting the leakers trying to devour Crankshaft. The shots weren’t the loud booms she expected from Hickok’s gun but they struck true. Two went through the chest and one through the head of each leaker. They slumped to the ground, gurgling out the last of their lives with hatred and malice still burning in their red eyes.

  She wanted to run, to embrace the enforcer and bless him for his timely arrival, but something stopped her. The gun she’d heard wasn’t the big forty-four Bill Hickok carried; the shots sounded like a much smaller caliber, and whoever it was had fired nine shots in quick succession. Hickok was fast, but even he couldn’t reload that quickly.

  A dark silhouette emerged from the smoke, someone Robi had never seen. He wore a loose shirt and black pants over a pair of riding boots and he gave the impression of a man who had dressed quickly. A red sash was tied around his waist and a pearl-handled gun was thrust into it. He had a second gun in his hand, reloading it with the practiced ease of a professional gunman.

  As his face came into view, Robi gasped. Blood seeped from his cheeks and forehead, giving his face a red sheen.

  “You’re a leaker,” she gasped. Crankshaft held the shattergun by the barrel, ready to swing the stock like a club.

  “Fear not, young lady,” he said in a drawling voice. “You and your friend have nothing to dread from me. I do not share the madness of my unfortunate brethren.”

  “Who are you and what happened here?” Crankshaft asked, lowering the shattergun a little.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Holliday.”

  “Doc?” Crankshaft said, peering through the smoke and darkness.

  Robi had heard of Doc Holliday. He was a notorious gambler and gunfighter. He was also a leaker.

  “As to what happened,” he looked around and shrugged. “You’d have to ask Professor Solomon about that. He called the leakers to his clinic earlier today, gave them all some new cure he’d been working on. A few hours later, everyone he’d cured turned into a ghoul.”

  “What’s a ghoul?” Crankshaft asked.

  “They’re mythological,” Robi answered. “People who get strength from eating corpses.”

  Crankshaft made a face and Holliday smiled.

  “Very good, young lady,” he said with a mock bow. “You haven’t been neglecting your studies.”

  “I thought she said ghouls were mythological,” Crankshaft said.

  “Well, these leakers don’t exactly wait for
a body to become a corpse before they start eating,” Holliday said. “It’s the closest thing I could think of.” He shrugged again, spinning the cylinder of his gun and tucking it into his sash. “Helps to give things names. It keeps them from getting scary.”

  Robi laughed. A high-pitched, warbling, nervous laugh. Knowing that the mad leakers were ghouls didn’t make them less scary in her mind.

  “What about you?” she asked, finally standing up from where she’d crouched. “Didn’t you take the cure?”

  “I was otherwise engaged at the time and I felt disinclined to change my schedule just for Solomon’s benefit.” Holliday laughed. “If his cure worked today, it would work just as well tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t trust him,” Robi guessed.

  Holliday opened his mouth to respond but something spooked him. With a speed Robi could barely accept as real, he drew both his guns and backed up toward the porch.

  “Put your guns away, Doc,” Hickok’s voice came through the smoke. “It’s just me.”

  A few moments later Wild Bill Hickok strode out of the smoke. He still had on his ripped shirt but had his left arm tied in a makeshift sling. His pistol was in its holster and he held his short sword loosely in his right hand. As Robi watched, blood dripped from its tip into the dirt.

  “What happened to you?” Doc Holliday asked in an amused voice.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Hickok said. “Now unless you want to stand under this burning building, I suggest we head down to the docks.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Crankshaft said, stepping off the porch.

  Robi followed, but Doc hesitated.

  “You coming?” Hickok asked. Holliday shook his head.

  “I have some things here I’d rather not leave behind,” he said. “The ghouls don’t seem to mind me, probably because I’m a leaker. I’ll be all right.”

  Hickok thought about that for a moment, then shrugged.

  “You still on good terms with Virgil?” he asked.

  “I was never on good terms with Virgil,” Doc said with a chuckle. “But I know where he is. Took a town marshal job after he got shot up in that incident in Tombstone.”

  “Tell him to get out here quick as he can and take charge of this mess,” Hickok said. “Solomon was doing some bad things here, things that shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  “You sure you want Virgil? He’s an Alliance man.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Hickok said. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Take care of yourself,” Holliday said, raising his hand in a sign of salute, then he turned back into the smoke and vanished.

  “All right,” Hickok said. “I’ve cleared the way to the dock; stay together and keep your eyes peeled.”

  Robi started off at a jog, keeping pace with Hickok. Dozens of bodies littered the street. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Hickok’s ammo belt was empty and the bodies on the ground all had sword wounds.

  No wonder it took him so long to reach us.

  “Bill?” she asked, something tickling at her memory. “The ghouls … I mean the crazy leakers, they were bleeding from the eyes.”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything. Robi took a deep breath and gave voice to her fears.

  “What if whatever Solomon gave them is the same thing he gave John? I mean it’s not really a disease, so what if the Paragon Elixir can’t stop it?”

  “Shaft,” Hickok said, turning to the lanky black man. “You got any more ammo for that shattergun?”

  When Crankshaft shook his head, Hickok gripped his short sword tightly, holding it at the ready.

  “When we get to the Rose,” he said. “I go on alone. Neither of you come on board till I give the word, understand?”

  Robi understood.

  Chapter 26

  The Rendezvous

  John dreamed of his mother. He remembered her auburn hair and the way she smelled of rose petals, the softness of her hands and the warmth of her smile. It was as if the Paragon Elixir sharpened his memories, giving him fleeting images and impressions that had lain buried in his subconscious for years.

  He saw her hands as she held his face. The mouth moved in the shape of I love you. Then she was gone. It had been the last time he’d ever seen her.

  Pain hit him like a speeding steam cart, carrying the memories away and sweeping him back to reality.

  His face was pressed to the deck of the galley and every part of his body hurt. He was soaked with what he hoped was sweat and his gut felt like someone was twisting a blunt knife in it.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, John forced his eyes open. Even the light hurt, stabbing his eyes as he squinted to see. He clutched his stomach as the world swam slowly into focus.

  “How do you feel?”

  It was Hickok’s voice but it seemed to come from far away.

  John forced his eyes to move until he saw the enforcer sitting in one of the chairs. He had pulled it away from the table and sat there with his short sword lying across his lap.

  How did he feel? Like he’d been stuffed in a barrel of rocks and rolled down a hill.

  He cursed Hickok but that was all he could manage.

  Whatever Hickok was expecting, that seemed to take him by surprise and he laughed. John hadn’t realized that the big man had been sitting erect and taut, as if ready to spring. As he laughed, he relaxed, slumping down into the chair.

  “So you don’t want to take a bite out of me?”

  John wasn’t sure what that meant, but he shook his head. At the moment what he wanted most was to just die and be done, and he said so.

  “Cheer up,” Hickok said, putting his sword away. “The worst is over.”

  The knife in John’s gut twisted again and fire shot up his spine and into his brain.

  O O O

  He must have passed out because the next thing he knew he was in his bunk. The regular thrum of the airship engines vibrated through his mattress and a gentle stream of sunlight came through the small porthole above his bed.

  Sitting up was a struggle, but he wasn’t in any pain. With effort he dressed himself and headed unsteadily out into the hall and toward the galley.

  The iris window was open when he arrived, filling the room with soft light. Robi, Crankshaft, and Hickok sat at the table eating something that looked like stew and smelled wonderful. John wasn’t sure if the aroma was due to superior cooking or to the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he ate, but his stomach didn’t care and growled loudly enough to announce him.

  Robi jumped up and threw her arms around him in a tremendous hug that nearly knocked him over and left the smell of sandalwood perfume lingering after. Crankshaft poured him a bowl of the stew while Hickok helped him into a chair. They all asked how he felt at once, and he gave the only answer he could, “Hungry.”

  While he ate, they took turns filling him in. He nearly choked when Robi described the ghouls and their escape from Piston Falls. His dropped compass continued to move, so he must have lost it on Professor Solomon’s airship. Now Sylvia was using its twin to follow Solomon.

  “What happens when we catch him?” John asked between mouthfuls.

  “We put a shot across his bow.” Hickok chuckled.

  “What if he’s reached his destination and dumped his cargo?”

  “We follow the cargo,” Robi said. “If he’s delivered it or sold it, I should be able to find out where it went. There’s usually a few of my father’s old contacts in any decent sized town.”

  Crankshaft put another bowl of stew in front of John just as he finished the first.

  “Eat up,” he said. “You need to get your strength back.”

  John started in with vigor but then realized something. “I thought that Paragon Elixir was supposed to make me stronger,” he said.

  “Give it time,” Hickok said.

  John had to trust that Hickok knew what he was talking about. As if sensing his doubt, Hickok pulled up his shirt to rev
eal bandages wrapped around his torso.

  “Three broken ribs,” he said, moving his left arm up gingerly. “Another couple of days and they’ll be good as new.”

  “Not if you keep waving your arm around like a chicken trying to fly,” Crankshaft reprimanded.

  Hickok responded but John wasn’t listening anymore. He’d been disoriented when he woke up and then he’d been focusing on his food. Now that he’d had a chance to gather his thoughts, he realized that something was missing. An airship the size of the Desert Rose would need a big lift engine to stay afloat. John had always heard the crystals of the lifter as a background hum, even in his tiny cabin. Now, as he sat, ears straining to hear, there was nothing.

  The sound of the crystal harmony that kept the airship up was gone.

  A cold chill ran down his spine. He’d known the Paragon Elixir would change him, but how could it change something so fundamental to who he was?

  He took a breath to calm himself, forcing his raging emotions into check.

  Maybe it’s like my muscles, weak now, but it will come back in a few days. Maybe.

  What if it doesn’t? How will I find my mother’s crystal then? How will I find my mother?

  Images from his dreams rose up in his mind’s eye and he ground his teeth in angry frustration. The thought of waiting a few days to find out if his gift was gone forever made him angry. If it was like his muscles, just weak, then if he held a crystal, he ought to be able to hear it.

  He stood up suddenly, resolved to go straight to the engine room and touch one of the lifter engine crystals.

  At that precise moment a bell rang throughout the ship. The effect on Crankshaft and Wild Bill was immediate. They each jumped to their feet, the engineer heading for his engine room and Hickok heading for the gun locker.

  “What’s that?” Robi asked, rising as well.

  “Sylvia’s found our missing professor,” Hickok said, tossing John his gun belt.

  “He’s on the ground in Sharpsburg,” Sylvia’s voice explained. “It’s just inside New Virginia.”

  “Can we come in without him seeing us?” Hickok asked.