Steele-Faced (Daggers & Steele Book 6)

by Alex P. Berg

  “You didn’t see her when she left,” I said. “She was adamant I stay right there in the room and wait for her to return, which she’d do with Zander in tow. She was determined, Steck. And in her mind, I was in despair. I needed help. She wouldn’t lollygag about knowing that, go frolic in the ship’s gardens or stop at the bar for a few drinks.”

  Steck regarded my face again and nodded. “Very well. Given what just went down in the engine room…well, better safe than sorry.”

  “She’s wearing a light grey and black cocktail dress, Zander,” I said. “I can count on you, right?”

  The dwarf seemed to have mostly followed along despite the gaps in knowledge. “I’ll help look for her. Protect and serve, that’s what I do.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  I headed back into the ship’s interior, walking up the stairs to the promenade deck and working my way toward the aft portions. I stopped a porter and a crewman, asking them about Shay with no luck, before pausing outside the double doors to the mixer lounge. Despite my claims about Shay not stopping for a drink, I went in anyway. A number of people milled about inside, from bartenders to waiters to patrons. Someone might’ve seen something.

  I approached the bar, where a young man in a white shirt and black vest rattled a cocktail shaker above his shoulder.

  “Excuse me. Barkeep? I don’t suppose you saw a young elven lady pass this way. Tall, beautiful, chocolate brown hair. Wearing a black and grey dress?”

  The bartender cracked the shaker and poured the contents into a martini glass. “Ah, yes. Madam Samantha.”

  “Samantha? You know her? And you’re on a first name basis?”

  The bartender smiled as he washed out the shaker. “She gave me her last name but insisted I call her by her first. You must be her husband, Mr. Waters.”

  A mixture of annoyance, relief, and curiosity coursed through me. I forced it all down to the same place I’d shoved my lingering headache. “Perhaps you could start at the beginning. What was she doing here, and where is she now?”

  “I’m not sure I can answer all those questions,” said the bartender as he scooped ice into his shaker. “I first noticed Madam Samantha about twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. She’s hard to miss, as I’m sure you’re aware, sir. She loitered for a few minutes before heading here to the bar and taking a seat at the end.” He pointed out the stool. “I served her a drink. Sangria with a touch of limoncello. We made light conversation, but she wasn’t terribly focused on it. Kept looking over her shoulder, as if she were expecting someone.”

  Or trying to spot someone, I thought. “And then?”

  “She left, perhaps ten minutes ago. Out the front doors.”

  “Alone?” I asked.

  The barkeep nodded.

  “She head left or right?”

  The barkeep pursed his lips, his brow furrowed.

  “Don’t act as if you don’t know,” I said. “I’ve watched her walk away. It’s hard to peel your eyes from her backside, even when she’s not wearing a dress. So I’ll ask again. Left or right?”

  “Ah…right, sir.”

  “Thanks.”

  I headed out and turned right, back in the direction I’d already scoured. Clearly Shay hadn’t been standing around in the main promenade deck hallway, otherwise I’d already found her, which meant…

  I headed into a side corridor and down the stairs, popping open the door to the Prodigious’s exterior. A chill wind cut through my dress shirt, bringing with it a salty spray that cleared the remaining flecks of coal dust from my nostrils. The sun had disappeared from the sky, though the last vestiges of its light trickled over the horizon and painted the sky in deep purples and blues.

  I headed down the deck, looking for Shay, but apparently the cold had forced everyone inside. Far off in the distance, a pair of men in navy and white uniforms coiled rope. I headed toward them, hoping they might’ve seen something to aid my search.

  The wind gusted, and I put my head down against it, all the while thinking about what the bartender had said. Shay had come to the lounge, loitered, and paused at the bar. But why? She’d thought me in distress, so it would’ve taken something serious to make her deviate from her plans. Perhaps she’d been followed and hoped to discover the identity of her tail? It would explain her lingering at the bar, glancing over her shoulder, but spotting a tail in a crowd at a cocktail lounge would be a hard task. Much easier would be to isolate the tail. Like, say, on a largely deserted ship deck…

  I paused, my head still tilted down against the wind and my eyes trained on the polished wood underfoot. A deep scrape marred the otherwise glossy wood, cutting across the boards from the halfway point of the deck all the way to the railing. It ended roughly halfway between a pair of lifeboats that hung over the side, but there was something else there, too. In the joint between two of the railing poles, a scrap of cloth fluttered in the wind—a lacey light grey fragment with a hint of black stitching.

  I gripped the railing and cast my eyes over the side. The fading light made the surface of the ocean appear as one churning dark mass, with only the tips of the waves glimmering in the glancing rays. I squinted, doing my best to counteract the night’s oncoming wishes.

  And then I saw it. A shimmer. It could’ve been sea foam, or algae.

  Or it could’ve been a grey dress.

  I turned to the seamen and shouted at the top of my lungs. “HO! MAN OVERBOARD!”

  With my hands trembling, I planted my foot against the top of the railing, heaved, and launched myself into the abyss.

  30

  Frigid darkness exploded around me, stabbing me with icy needles and nearly knocking the breath from my already battered lungs. I kicked out and pushed my arms through the water, once, twice, thrice until I broke the surface. I gasped and flicked my head to shake the salty water from my eyes, casting about for direction. The Prodigious, like a floating mountain, was impossible not to see, but where was Shay?

  Think, Daggers, think. I’d spotted the glimmer to my right, toward the ship’s aft. With the ship at my back, I shifted my gaze, but it wasn’t until I rode the height of a swell that I saw it. A goodly ways away, floating upon the roiling ocean surface. A length of dark fabric.

  Above me I heard shouts and cries for help. They registered in some far off corner of my mind as I lashed out toward the floating form, forcing my muscles to work. The cold had already worked its way deep into my tissue, setting my teeth to chattering, and it was only a matter of time before it reached my bones.

  Despite its omnipresence around me, sucking me of my warmth, the icy water meant nothing. The shouts and cries meant nothing. My headache, the blow to my ribs, the coal dust in my lungs, all of it meant nothing.

  Action meant everything.

  I churned my arms and kicked my legs, fighting the ebb and flow of the waves along with the cold and my own emotions. Arm out. Twist. Pull. Breathe. Kick. Repeat. Salt water forced its way between my lips only to be spat back out. My heart pounded and my muscles burned.

  I reached another crest and saw her in the trough. Shay, on her back with her arms out, the dress floating lifelessly to her sides and her skin pale.

  I reached her in a couple wild strokes. “Shay! SHAY!”

  She didn’t respond. I pulled her to me as best I could with trembling hands. Her skin felt cold to the touch, but surely that didn’t mean anything. My own fingers were little more than meat popsicles.

  “Shay!” I shook her, but still she didn’t respond. Somewhere in the background I heard a whir and a slap of the waves and more cries.

  I glanced at Shay’s face, ghostly in the dim light. Her eyes had closed, and her lips had faded from a warm pink to more of a champagne.

  I tore my eyes away. She was on her back. She could breath. She’d be fine. She had to be. She had to.

  Another cry sounded, closer this time. I turned my gaze toward the ship, where one of the lifeboats had been lower
ed into the water. The two sailors from the end of the ship manned it, one at the oars and the other perched at the prow.

  I waved and shouted, then hooked an elbow under Shay’s armpit and cast out in their direction. My muscles burned despite the glacial water, a fiery frigid mixture possible only in the deepest depths of hell.

  Splash. Splash. Splash. Over and over I plunged my free arm into the water, kicking with every ounce of my might as I tried to make headway against the tide. The darkness deepened, but it must’ve been in my eyes only, as I couldn’t have been swimming for so long, could I?

  An oar materialized in front of me, and then a hand.

  The water slapped off the side of the boat and back into my face. “Shay!” I shouted as I spat it back out. “Take Shay!”

  The hands grasped her and pulled her up, then came back for me. The boat dipped and tilted, and I flopped into her belly with all the grace of a dying fish.

  Somehow, being pulled from the water only made the chill worse. The breeze blew and I began to shiver uncontrollably, unable even to move to Shay’s side to help her. Luckily, the sailors were more than capable. One had already begun chest compressions.

  Pump. Pump. Pump. He leaned over and blew into her mouth.

  Nothing happened.

  Pump. Pump. Pump. He leaned over and blew again. I shivered.

  Nothing happened.

  Pump. Pump. Pump. Breathe. Pump. Pump. Pump. Breathe.

  My heart slowed. I held my breath.

  Shay coughed and sputtered. Her eyelids fluttered, and a spasm wracked her body. She turned her head and vomited seawater into the bottom of the boat.

  I took up religion.

  31

  “She’s alive!” cried the sailor.

  The other had already taken up position at the oars and begun to row us back toward the ship. I could barely lift my head due to the shivering, but in my peripheral vision, I spotted lights and warm bodies and motion on the deck of the Prodigious. People shouted. Ropes and life preservers splashed and plunked as they met the water’s surface.

  I ignored it all. I couldn’t tear my eyes from Shay a second time.

  She tilted her head, blinking slowly. Her skin might’ve paled, but her azure eyes remained as fierce as ever.

  “Jake?” Her voice was raspy and soft, but it didn’t shake like my own. That was a good thing, right?

  “I’m here, Shay,” I said through chattering teeth. “You’re going to be okay.”

  The next few minutes passed by in a blur. The Prodigious’s sheer cliff face loomed large. The sailors’ hands moved quickly, attaching ropes to pulleys and yanking on them with superhuman strength. Bright lights burst into life as our boat cleared the ship’s lip, like a sunrise breaking free of the horizon. Hands grasped me and pulled me free, then helped me back up when my own legs wouldn’t hold me. Warm blankets draped my shoulders. People milled about, most of them dressed in the navy and white of the deckhands but others in the uniforms of stewards and officers as well. Steck was there, as was Zander, shouting orders in a voice loud, strong, and firm.

  I searched for Shay and found her nearby, draped in warm blankets like myself and held vertical by a pair of sailors. Zander shouted more orders. The helping hands around me sprang into motion, herding me into the ship’s interior and up the stairs. I stumbled. Sailors picked me up. Shay was carried.

  I tried to formulate thoughts, but my brain moved sluggishly. My only concern was for Shay. Was she too cold to walk? How long had she been in the water?

  Suddenly we’d arrived at our quarters. Sailors whisked me into my room and began stripping the clothes from my body. My sense of modesty protested weakly, but I was too cold to give it a proper voice. Shirt, pants, and undergarments were all discarded, and a new blanket, deliciously warm to the touch, was draped around me in recompense. I heard more shouts and footfalls from the living room, as well as a loud hiss and pop. The sailors dragged me into the common room, depositing me onto the thick fur rug in front of the fireplace. A blaze crackled there merrily, one I swear hadn’t been alive moments ago, but then again, perhaps it hadn’t. One of the stewards jabbed it with a poker, puffing on it and feeding logs into the flames.

  A sailor produced a teapot and situated it over the fire. I heard a voice. Zander’s. Someone slammed the front door. Then Shay appeared. A heavy blanket hugged her body like a sausage casing, and a second, smaller blanket had been wrapped around her hair as if it were a turban. Zander stood at one of her shoulders, and at the other stood a woman in a waitress outfit. They led Shay to the fire—she walked slowly, in a hitching manner and on the verge of falling, but walk she did—and helped her down onto the rug next to me.

  Zander knelt at the side of the fireplace, making sure not to get between us and the flames. “Steck! Get more warm blankets. You. Waitress. Get me some mugs. And some honey if you can find it. Miss Steele? Can you talk? How are you feeling?”

  Shay’s teeth now chattered fiercely. “I… What…?”

  “It’s alright,” said Zander. “You’re suffering from moderate to severe hypothermia. One of the symptoms is confusion. It’ll pass as you heat up, but we need to get warm fluids in you as soon as possible. You’re lucky Mr. Daggers saw you. Based on the probable water temperature and your condition, I don’t think you would’ve lasted another five minutes.”

  The waitress returned with mugs and a small jar as the teapot began to whistle. Zander fished it out with a pair of tongs and filled the mugs. He held one out to me.

  “No tea bag?” I asked.

  “Shut up and drink it,” said Zander. “You can hold onto the mug yourself, correct?”

  I snaked an arm out from under the blanket and found that my hand no longer shook. “Yeah.”

  “Miss Steele. Let me help you.” Zander held the mug up to Shay’s lips, forcing her to take sip after sip.

  I took a drink of my own, and though the mug held nothing but water, the warmth flowed through my esophagus and into my belly as if it were a stiff shot of alcohol. I took another gulp and another, feeling my body temperature return to some semblance of normal.

  Steck returned with more blankets. Zander accepted them, then waved him, the waitress, and the remaining sailor off. They exited, and I heard the corridor door shut.

  Zander brought the mug back down, now empty. “Better, Miss Steele?”

  Shay’s teeth still chattered, but not so fiercely. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Good,” said Zander. “Another then.”

  He refilled the mug, this time adding a dollop of honey from the jar, and again helped Shay drink it. It could’ve been a trick played on my eyes by the flickering light of the fire, but by the end of the second cup, it seemed as if her lips had brightened and a touch of color had returned to her cheeks.

  Zander began to refill the mug with honey and water. Shay wiggled an arm out from under her blanket and pressed her hand against Zander’s forearm. “It’s alright. I think I can manage it from here.”

  Zander eyed her hand and pressed his palm against her forehead. “Well, your shivering has largely subsided. That’s good. Body temperature seems to be on the upswing. How are you feeling overall? Memory clearing up? How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Four,” said Shay. “And yes. I’m feeling better. Much more so.”

  “Good. Let me get that towel off your head. We need your hair to dry.”

  Zander stood and removed the towel in question, spreading Shay’s wet locks across the back of her blanket.

  Shay peered at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Um…thank you, Zander. I appreciate your help. Honestly. Daggers and I both do. But I think we can manage it from here.”

  “Please.” Zander rolled his eyes.

  “I’m serious,” said Shay. “I won’t lie, I’m still cold, but I can think straight. I can tense and release my muscles. All I need now is time.”

  Zander straightened and eyed the both of u
s, concern still etched in his face. “Hmm…well, normally I’d keep someone in your condition under observation for a couple hours, but given what I know about you, you’re both fairly capable. I can understand the desire for privacy, but you’re not out of the woods yet. I suggest you keep drinking warm, sweetened beverages for the next hour. Try to get a little food in your system if you’re up to it, but keep it simple. I’d suggest bread or toast. Maybe a cookie, as it contains sugar. And no alcohol. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t help combat hypothermia, and it could hit you like a ton of bricks thanks to dehydration.

  “Also, once you’re feeling better, physical exertion will help you recover faster. You can start with simple exercises now. Flexing your fingers, moving your wrists, neck, that sort of thing. You said you can tense your muscles. Good. Do that. Give it a while before progressing to walking and calisthenics. And you!” Zander jabbed a finger in my direction. “You’re in much better shape than she is, so keep an eye on her. Anything happens—and I mean anything—you come running. In fact, scratch that. I’ll leave a man posted in the hallway outside in case of emergency. Get him if you need him.”

  I nodded. “You have my word.”

  Zander snorted. “Alright. Take care of yourselves then. And for the love of the gods, don’t go diving overboard again! You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  Zander walked off. The door banged shut behind him, and all was quiet except for the spark and pop of the logs in the fire.

  I set my mug down and eyed Shay. “How are you doing? Honestly. You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me. You know I’m here for you.”

  She met my eyes with her piercing azure pools. “I wasn’t leading Zander on. I feel much better. Truly.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “But before we go on, let me add my own voice to Zander’s. Please don’t ever do that again.”

  “Fall into an ice cold ocean? I’ll try my best.”

  “Try to die on me,” I said, dropping my eyes to the floor. “When I saw that scrape on the deck and the scrap of cloth stuck in the railing, and when I dove in and spotted your dress and you floating in the water, I… Well, I…”