His Clockwork Canary

by Beth Ciotta

  The telephone rang and Willie nearly catapulted from the pillow-laden sofa. She had provided Rollins with Simon’s telephone number as well as his address, although she had not mentioned Simon by name.

  “Hello?” Simon said into the mouthpiece—ambiguous as they had discussed. “Miss Goodenough? Yes. Hold on.” Brow raised, he passed the receiver to Willie.

  Holding Simon’s supportive gaze, she willed her hand not to tremble. “Miss Goodenough here.”

  “Thimblethumper calling.”

  “I’m glad. Good news?”

  “There’s a skytown hovering southeast of London. Ask around for specific coordinates. Meet me at nine p.m. in the Vulcan Grogshop aboard the USS Enterprise.”

  “Aye, but—”

  “Don’t be late.”

  • • •

  “Eight oh five,” Phin said as he steered the Flying Cloud toward a pier floating alongside their appointed destination. “Unfashionably early.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Willie said, noting her dual timepieces. “Rollins sounded nervous and he was most adamant about punctuality.”

  “Feeling anxious myself.” Simon squinted through his goggles at the transient skytown and the banner that declared this airborne mecca as The Milky Way. “I’m not crazy about you going into that pub alone.”

  “The USS Enterprise is famous for its international captain and crew,” Willie said as she studied the collection of rigged airships. “Somewhat like the crew of the American courier ship the Maverick.”

  “Captained by the Sky Cowboy,” Phin said as he docked. “Didn’t you interview him once?”

  “I did,” Willie said, hugging herself against the frigid air.

  “Tucker Gentry is a fugitive from justice,” Simon said, cringing at the thought of Willie mixing with a murderer.

  “He’s an innocent man wrongly accused of a hideous crime.”

  “How can you be certain of his virtue?” Phin asked.

  “I traced his memories.”

  “Bloody hell,” Simon mumbled. Gentry had been a former US air marshal. He’d wrangled with heinous outlaws. The man was no stranger to mayhem and bloodshed. Surely his memories mirrored a gruesome battlefield.

  “I merely meant that the USS Enterprise fosters a mixed clientele even more so than other digs in various skytowns. The Vulcan Grogshop is a popular watering hole for Freaks. I’ll be amongst my own kind.”

  “Some of which could be the more dangerous faction of the Freak Fighters,” Simon pointed out.

  “No more dangerous than the rabble-rousing Vics who board these skytowns looking for a hell-raising good time,” Phin said. “Don’t flash that piece I gave you, brainiac, but remember what it’s for.”

  Willie frowned up at Simon. “You’re carrying a gun?”

  “A Disrupter 29,” Phin answered for him. “A peashooter compared to what I’ve got holstered beneath my coat, but it’ll make a point. Give me your wrist,” he said to Willie.

  “I see no need for a stun cuff,” she said.

  “I do,” Simon said.

  “You’re not going into that pub unarmed,” Phin said.

  “Wear the cuff,” Simon said, “or I’m coming in with you.”

  “In which case Rollins might spot you.” Scowling, she offered her left wrist to Phin. “I won’t have the two of you scaring him off.”

  “Rollins has never met me,” Phin said. “I’d just be another face in the crowd.”

  “Phin’s right,” Simon said. “Change of plan. I’ll lurk outside as agreed, but Phin’s going inside.” He raised a hand to cut off Willie’s counter. “Bend to reason, I beg you, or we’re shoving off here and now.”

  She huffed but nodded and Simon breathed easier. “Thank you.”

  Together they disembarked and navigated the swinging gangway that led to the largest of the five dirigibles—Jupiter 2. As usual on any skytown, they were met by a costumed greeter.

  “Peace and love, dudes and dudette. Welcome to the Milky Way.”

  Simon swiped off his goggles and squinted at the long-haired, cannabis-reeking hippie. “Woodstock?”

  “Gadzooks,” Willie said, pushing her sunshades to her forehead. “You’re right. What are you doing here, Bear?”

  “Which is it?” Phin asked. “Woodstock or Bear?”

  “Both,” Simon and Willie chorused.

  “Ohhhh . . . woooow . . .” Bear drew out each word as though operating in slow motion. “The skittish fox and the uptight hound. Cooooool.” He pushed his tinted glasses up his nose. “Edinburgh was a drag, so I thumbed a ride down to London. Hooked up a job in this skytown for a spell. What are you doing here?” He looked from Simon and Willie to Phin. “Bored with the fidelity thing and broadening your horizons?” He waggled his brows. “The more the merrier. That’s my motto.”

  Phin coughed.

  Willie dipped her chin.

  “Good God, man,” Simon said. “Could you just point us to the nearest coffeehouse. Preferably one on this ship.”

  “Sure thing, dude. Java Jupiter. One deck down. Fab bean juice. Bitchin’ band.”

  “Right, then,” Phin said with an eye roll. “Off we go.”

  “Which way to the USS Enterprise?” Willie asked.

  “Three digs over, chick-a-doodle.” He gave them the two-finger salute. “Peace out.”

  “Every time I step foot in a bloody skytown,” Phin said as they hastened belowdecks, “I feel as though I’ve ventured into another world.”

  “That’s because you have,” Willie said. “I rather like it.”

  Simon tried not to fixate on all the times Willie had visited skytowns on her own to mix freely with other Freaks. It wasn’t her kind that worried him, although he wasn’t happy about her scheming with Freak Fighters. His deepest concern regarded the reprobates and outlaws that typically sought refuge and recreation amongst these floating pleasure meccas. Outlaws like the Sky Cowboy, to name one. Amelia used to hoard penny dreadfuls exploiting the adventures of that Wild West air marshal before and after his fall from grace. He’d never understood glorifying dubious personages—although that had been a specialty of the Clockwork Canary.

  The smell of coffee grounds, whiskey, and marijuana wafted down the dimly lit corridor, as did the blaring sounds of an electrified band. A style of music perpetuated by the Mods—something called psychedelic or acid rock. As it happened, Simon was a fan. The complex song structures, artful rhythms, and emotional lyrics were preferable to the other Mod genre—folk music. Growing up, Amelia had latched on to that oddly cheerful antiwar tune, “If I Had a Hammer,” and Simon and Jules had thought they’d go mad from their sister’s incessant singing.

  With his hand at the small of her back, Simon guided Willie into Java Jupiter, surprised at how crowded the coffeehouse was for this relatively early hour. The intimate room was packed with men and women alike. Half dressed in traditional Vic clothing, whereas the other half leaned toward moderate to extreme ModVic with a few costumed oddities thrown into the mix. The bitchin’ band was but a trio, although their musical equipment took up a good portion of the raised stage. A small area had been cleared in front of the stage and a few ModVics engaged in free-form dancing, jerking and gyrating in scandalous manners that would shock Her Majesty the Queen into heart palpitations.

  “Have you ever danced like that?” Willie shouted over the musical chaos.

  “I was roaring drunk at the time, but yes.”

  “Was it fun?”

  Simon smiled down at her. “Yes.”

  She smiled back as they wove through the crowd, finally locating an empty table close to the stage.

  Phin swept off his bowler and stuffed a ripped paper serviette into his ears.

  Simon didn’t blame him—the volume of the music was deafening—but he refrained from making a visual spectacle of himself. He offered to help Willie off with her coat, but she politely refused. Nor did she remove her decorative derby. He knew her mind. She was anxious to be off
to the Vulcan Grogshop. He preferred she wait here, with him, until closer to the appointed meeting time with Rollins.

  “Coffee, please,” Willie said when their server appeared.

  “Side of weed?” the young woman asked. “Absinthe? Opium-laced cigarette?

  “Just coffee.”

  “Same here,” Simon said.

  “Make that three,” Phin shouted.

  “You’d enjoy the music more if you accentuated your bean juice with a mind-bending substance.”

  “Enjoying the music just fine,” Simon said. He’d indulged in the past, along with a rather rowdy pack of friends. The effects were not displeasing; they were, however, compromising. A state he could ill afford this night. Or any other, now that he had a wife to look after.

  “Squaresville, but whatever.” Dressed in a gauzy shapeless dress, the doe-eyed girl disappeared into the crowd.

  The rock trio segued into a ballad, a beautifully haunting piece, and the bodies on the dance floor doubled.

  “I say,” Phin shouted over the drone of the bass guitar and the screeching organ. “That young chit looks exactly like Amelia.”

  Simon looked to where Phin pointed. Short in stature, her normally coiled blond curls cascading down her back, a corseted tail-vest worn over trousers . . . By God, it was Amelia. In the middle of the dance floor canoodling with some man. Simon’s temper flared as the cheeky bloke smoothed a hand down her back, his palm resting a scant inch from her backside.

  “Bloody hell!” Enraged, Simon catapulted out of his chair and, in the blur of a second, separated the pair, slamming his fist into the lecher’s hard jaw.

  The stranger plowed into a slew of hippie impersonators and landed on his arse.

  Amelia screamed.

  The music faltered.

  And Simon was instantly surrounded by several men pointing nasty-looking weapons in his personal direction. Drawing his peashooter in retaliation seemed absurd. Hopefully Phin had his back.

  “Simon?” Amelia gawked at him, her eyes wide in shock and sparking with, of all things, indignity. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You know this scalawag, Flygirl?” This from the stranger rising from the floor and working his offended jaw.

  “My brother,” she huffed, cheeks blazing. “Simon Darcy.”

  “In that case,” the man said, his American accent grating, “holster your weapons, boys.”

  “Who the devil is this man?” Simon asked his sister.

  “My husband.”

  Simon’s blood boiled. “Since when? I don’t even know this bloke. For Christ’s sake, Amelia!”

  “Don’t be swearin’ at Mrs. Gentry.” This from a broad-shouldered, ill-tempered-looking man with a cigar clamped between his teeth. A man who’d yet to lower his enormous gun.

  “Gentry?” Simon’s stomach knotted as he took a second look at the man he’d coldcocked. The American accent. The Western boots and the cowboy hat. “Oh, hell, no, Amelia.”

  “I warned you, fancy pants,” cigar-man said.

  Out of nowhere Willie moved in, rainbow eyes swirling with fury. “Step off, you overbearing sod.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Willie clipped him with her stun cuff and the big man wilted like a rain-deprived flower.

  Amelia squealed, outraged. “What the . . . who the devil are you?”

  Willie squared her shoulders. “Your brother’s wife.”

  Simon appreciated Willie’s staunch proclamation, although her penchant to save him in risky circumstances battered his male pride.

  Amelia whirled and nailed Simon with a look of astonishment.

  Gentry studied Willie, then rubbed his jaw whilst peering down at his odious cohort. “Zapped by a Freak. Axel’s gonna be fit to be tied when he rouses.”

  “In that case,” Phin said, calmly stepping in, “perhaps we should sort this out in private.”

  Amelia whirled again. “Phin?”

  Gentry’s eyes narrowed. “Phineas Bourdain?”

  Phin raised one brow. “You know of me?”

  Gentry responded by knocking Phin off his feet with a wicked roundhouse.

  “Bloody hell,” Simon said to his sister. “You told your husband Phin stole a kiss?”

  She gave an innocent shrug. “He wasn’t my husband at the time.”

  CHAPTER 34

  After much hullabaloo, the proprietor of Java Jupiter had shown the vexatious rabble-rousers, as he called them, to a private salon at the rear of the small coffeehouse. Though Willie longed to sort through this family mess, she was immensely concerned with the time. According to her time cuff it was half past eight. Shouldn’t she be making her way to the USS Enterprise?

  Tucker Gentry’s crew—StarMan, Eli Boone, and Birdman Chang—had remained in the main room trying to rouse their boneheaded mate, the ship’s engineer, Axel O’Donnell. Phin had been shut out of this meeting as well and was currently nursing his bruised jaw and pride with a shot of whiskey.

  Seated across from Amelia in an upholstered booth, Willie tried to focus on her sister-in-law’s (good God, she had never thought to have a sister) animated rambling regarding her exploits over the last two weeks. Against her brothers’ wishes she had joined the Triple R Tourney, taking off on something called a kitecycle and nearly crashing into the Maverick midair. She’d lassoed the Sky Cowboy into her search for a legendary invention, their adventure had taken them to France, then on to Italy and then, following an international incident, back to England—their penance doled out by none other than Queen Victoria.

  “And that is how we came to be wed,” Amelia said matter-of-factly.

  “By royal decree.” Simon drummed his fingers on the table, his expression somewhere between astounded and explosive.

  “She would have married me regardless, Darcy. Eventually,” Gentry said. “We’re very much in love.”

  “Astonishing, but true,” Amelia said with a smitten smile. She leaned into her husband and the handsome crack aviator wrapped his arm about her in a possessive manner that warmed Willie’s heart.

  Simon, on the other hand, looked as if he wanted to strangle the both of them. Bad enough his little sister had married a notorious rake and purported outlaw, but they’d embarked on a spectacular adventure that dazzled and shocked far more than anything Simon and Willie had experienced in their venture thus far. At least in Willie’s eyes. It was just the kind of story that would rivet the readers of the Informer, and indeed, Willie was considering asking the Gentrys’ permission to weave their adventure into her chronicled serial. Although she’d probably opt to temper the portion about the Maverick’s physician, a Freak named Doc Blue, who’d betrayed them in support of his brother, a volatile Freak Fighter. As if the Freaks needed more bad press.

  She glanced at her time cuff, deeming the serial a subject best approached later. She shifted in her seat, eyed the door.

  “Are we keeping you from something?” Amelia asked, brow raised.

  “As it happens, I have an appointment.”

  Simon consulted his own watch. “Willie’s right. We should go.”

  Amelia gawked. “Surely you jest! I explained my circumstances and now you think to leave me dangling regarding yours? You claim to be married, yet how can this be, Simon? Marriage between Vics and Freaks is forbidden!”

  “Yes, well, sometimes one is inclined to thwart the law,” he said, looking directly at Gentry.

  “I told you,” Amelia said. “Tucker is innocent. Queen Victoria believes him.”

  “As do I,” Willie said as she slid from her seat.

  “You seem familiar to me, Mrs. Darcy,” Gentry said as he, too, stood. “Have we met before?”

  “Please call me Willie. And, aye, we have met. I interviewed you once.” Her cheeks burned with the past deception. Her male guise, her probing of the cowboy’s memories without his permission. “You knew me as the Clockwork Canary.”

  Gentry merely angled his head as though absorbing and reconciling the
Freak woman he saw before him with the so-called Vic male who’d written a story about him months before.

  Amelia, however, took a menacing step forward, fists balled at her side. “The Clockwork Canary? Lead journalist for the Informer? The insensitive sensationalist who maligned my father?”

  “I can explain.”

  Amelia launched forward like a human cannonball.

  Willie swore she felt the brush of the woman’s knuckles as her fist swung past her nose. The only reason the blow didn’t land was that Gentry had caught her by the waist and hauled her back in the nick of time.

  “Easy, Flygirl.”

  “Dammit, Amelia.” Finessing Willie behind him, Simon dragged his hands through his already disheveled hair. “I can explain. We can explain all of this. But not now. Willie has an appointment with a man who’s going to relay the location of the clockwork propulsion engine.”

  Still holding tight to his wife, Gentry tipped back his hat. “The time-traveling engine from the Briscoe Bus? It was destroyed—”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Willie said. “That was a ruse concocted by a renegade trio of Peace Rebels. One of them being my mother. As Simon said, we can explain, but . . .” She glanced at her time cuff.

  Simon checked the safety mechanism on his derringer.

  Amelia palmed her forehead. “What in the devil are you doing with a Disrupter 29?”

  “Making a point if need be,” Simon said.

  “But that’s an advanced weapon and you’ve never even used a slingshot!”

  “Aim. Fire. Think I can handle it.”

  “Why do you need a gun?” Gentry asked as Simon pocketed the pistol.

  “Because twelve days ago the people we’re dealing with didn’t think twice about o’blasterating my wife. Willie was severely wounded trying to protect me,” Simon said specifically to his sister. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone harm her again.”

  Amelia blinked at Willie with shock and perhaps a smidgen of gratitude.

  “I promise, we’ll explain at length later,” Willie said, pushing out of the salon and into the crush of the rollicking coffeehouse.