Fletcher could picture it: Mayhew in his cabin, shoving stolen telumium wires into his body without benefit of anesthetic, taking his anger and pain and transforming it into hate. Hate for him.
They’d reached the base of the hill, and she stopped walking, facing him. She placed one hand on his chest and looked up at him, her expression fierce. A woman who’d battled and would gladly fight again.
“They looked for you, Fletcher,” she said, her voice hard. “I’d wager my soldering iron he fed the navy bad information so they’d search the wrong areas for you.”
He had to admit it made sense. Mayhew wouldn’t want the navy finding him and recovering not just the ship, but everything that had been on it. Including Mayhew’s strongbox, and the means of his transformation.
“The navy wanted their weapon back—me.”
“Damn it, Fletcher.” Her fingers closed around the fabric of his shirt, gripping him tighter. “You’re so much more than that. Not just to the navy, but to me.” Still fierce as a tigress, she held his gaze, while his heart set up a tattoo in his chest. “If he’d hurt you, killed you . . .” Her throat worked and her voice turned to rough, raw silk. “I’d have hunted him down. Made him suffer before pulling that false heart off of him, and sending him to Hell.”
Vicious, bloodthirsty words from a woman who’d seen too much of violence, who lived to build and create, not destroy. Yet she would. Because of him.
He wouldn’t tell her that, even if she’d removed Mayhew’s mechanized heart, the man had been too altered to be killed by a normal human. Hers would’ve been a suicide mission. Either she had no idea, or knew and didn’t care.
He kissed her. Gripped her head gently and took her mouth with his, greedy for the taste of her. Her hand on his shirt tightened even more, digging her nails into his flesh, as she kissed him back. She was flame, and he was fire, and together, they were an inferno.
But the kiss couldn’t last. They broke apart, and silently continued back toward the Persephone, which sat broken and useless on the moor.
“He didn’t kill you, though,” Kali said in that tone that he knew meant she was puzzling something through. “Didn’t hang about to continue your fight. Just ran off . . . as if he had somewhere to be.” She looked up at him. “There was a reason he didn’t try to finish the job. If the navy already thinks you’re dead—”
“Then who’d care if he killed me?” Fletcher concluded. “He became a Man O’ War to kill Man O’ Wars. Nobody would notice my death.”
“But he’d want the navy—the world—to take note of him. The way he always wanted.”
Fletcher’s mind furiously churned. “He’s got a target in mind.”
“A British Man O’ War,” Kali deduced. “The perfect payback to the system that destroyed his dream. How many Man O’ Wars are there in the navy?”
“Fifty,” he answered. “They wanted a hundred, but we’re expensive to make and there aren’t many naval men who meet the requirements. Airships cost a mountain of coin, too. Can’t have one without the other.”
She growled, “There’s got to be a way to narrow down a list of fifty to one possible target.”
They reached the Persephone, and climbed back aboard. Sunlight broke through the haze, casting shifting shadows upon the deck, almost as if the airship was back in the sky, where she belonged.
“Mayhew wants to exact revenge on the navy.” Fletcher stared up at the clouds, squinting from the sun’s glare.
“Then he’d want to assassinate the navy’s top Man O’ War,” Kali concluded.
He knew she had to be exhausted from everything that had happened, but she didn’t sit down on the crate he offered. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the support beam that had once held the main ether tanks. The tanks themselves had rolled aft, and now rested against the rails. “Send them, and everyone else, a message,” she reasoned.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Thinking of the navy, of the other Man O’ Wars, felt like wearing a different uniform. It was tight, awkward. But there was no avoiding it. A man’s life was at risk, possibly many lives.
“Redmond,” he said suddenly. At Kali’s questioning frown, he explained, “Captain Christopher Redmond. He’s the jewel in the navy’s crown.”
She pushed away from the support beam. “I remember him. He went behind enemy lines and destroyed a key munitions plant. It was in all the papers.”
“Redmond’s always been a valuable asset,” Fletcher murmured. “But after the destruction of the plant, he became matchless. Victory after victory against the enemy.” He didn’t add that Redmond’s success was partly due to the presence of the captain’s wife, Louisa, aboard his airship. It was a rare arrangement, but the former Miss Shaw was one of the navy’s finest intelligence agents, and a crucial reason why Redmond knew exactly where to be and when. Of course, it was Redmond’s skill as a captain that ensured his victories, but between him and his wife, they were nigh unstoppable.
Few outside of the highest levels in the navy knew about Louisa Redmond’s contributions. Intelligence agents had to have their identities and work protected at all times. Mayhew wouldn’t know anything about her.
“If Mayhew kills Captain Redmond,” Kali said, “Her Majesty’s Aerial Navy not only loses its best man, but loses face, as well.”
“And Mayhew’s reputation is set up. Everything he wants.” Fletcher curled his hands into fists. “Wish I’d killed that lunatic bastard.” He replayed his fight with the lieutenant in his mind, trying to figure out where he’d missed an opportunity, but nothing revealed itself.
Kali was suddenly standing before him, her gaze bright with urgency. “Captain Redmond has to be warned about Mayhew. The navy must know, too.”
“Aye.” But as he said it, he realized that if he did alert the navy, he’d no longer be dead. A possibility that had come to him that morning, when Mayhew had first arrived, yet it struck him anew. His haven was being torn away. He’d be forced back into a role he no longer wanted to play. But was that role truly what defined him?
Kali’s gentled voice pierced his thoughts. “I can build a boat. Using wood from the Persephone. And building an engine wouldn’t take more than a few hours. If I work all day and night, I could set out for South Uist tomorrow morning. By myself.”
He stared at her. Here was her gift, her offering. No one ever needed to know about him. Mayhew certainly wouldn’t tell anyone that Fletcher still lived. And Kali would keep his confidence. He could go on as he had these past months—dead.
And alone.
He’d lose her to the world. To duty and responsibility. To the pain and suffering and wonder that was life beyond Eilean Comhachag.
His lips were dry, his voice cracked, as he asked, “What would you tell them?”
“That I’d come to this island and found a crashed airship. No survivors. Then Mayhew showed up, got his strongbox, and all the rest. I witnessed it all without being seen, and heard him swear vengeance on the navy.”
“They’d never believe a tale like that.”
She shrugged, though there was nothing careless about the movement. “It’s all I can do.”
He turned away, dragging his hands through his hair. Paced the length of the deck and back.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You don’t—”
“I do. I’m the one who’s got to tell them about Mayhew. Otherwise, they’d shrug off your claims as the ravings of a woman scarred by her experience at Liverpool.”
If his bluntness offended her, she made no sign. She only looked at him with those impossibly dark, beautiful eyes of hers, those eyes that saw too much, that revealed a mind of fathomless complexity.
“You won’t be dead any longer,” she said quietly.
“I haven’t been,” he answered. “You resurrected me, disinterred me from the grave I’d dug.” He stepped closer, and she held her ground, so hardly any distance separated them. Hi
s voice rough, he continued, “Your breath became my breath. The beat of your heart pumps blood through my veins.”
He could see her pulse now, fast and hard in the delicate skin of her throat. Bringing his hand up, he cupped the side of her face. “Any thoughts that I can exist without you died today on that cliff.”
“I have to go,” she whispered.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
She swallowed hard. “Are you ready?”
“Aye.” He realized as he said it that it was true. “I’ve been thinking. About what you’ve said to me. That a Man O’ War brings safety, not just death.”
“You’ve saved so many lives,” she murmured. “Including mine.”
“It’s time to face the world again. And if I’ve got you beside me”—he brushed back a strand of her hair—“I’m ready for anything.”
She looped her hands around his neck. But instead of kissing him, she pulled him down so his forehead touched hers. Her eyes remained open, too, their gazes holding. He felt himself falling, falling, from a height greater than anything he’d known aboard an airship. But there was nothing frightening about this fall. There would be no crash, no slam into the unyielding earth. It would go on forever, all rushing air and dizziness, and he welcomed it.
She must have known. Seen inside his mind. Because she murmured, “Together, we’re going to fly.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
He discovered that she wasn’t just speaking metaphorically. Kali was intent on making the Persephone fly again. She reasoned it would take as much time to get the airship skyworthy as it would for her to build a seafaring vessel—and it’d move faster, too.
“And Mayhew’s got to get himself an airship, too,” she reasoned. “Unlikely that he’s got one lined up already.”
“They’re not exactly easy or cheap to come by,” Fletcher agreed. Any airships that weren’t part of a country’s aerial navy belonged to Man O’ Wars who had gone rogue, their ships stolen from the nations they once served. Even Captain Mikhail Denisov, the rogue turned protector of those caught in war-torn regions, had taken his ship from the Russian Imperial Aerial Navy.
“We’ll have enough time to get our downed lady up in the sky,” Kali said eagerly, hauling her tools from her makeshift workshop to the turbines.
As they gathered everything to begin repairs, the thought of being back amongst the clouds made it feel as though he were the one filled with ether, not the tanks he helped Kali remount onto their supports. Anticipation and unease mixed within him, like a scientist’s experiment combining emotions instead of chemicals. He assisted Kali throughout the day and into the night—lifting and carrying metal and wood and bundles of heavy pipes, handing her tools while getting an education as to what those tools were and what they did—and as he did, he kept peering out portholes at the sky above the horizon, or looking up if they were topside.
He studied the sky, watching the clouds and how the wind moved them. Once, he’d read the sky as often as some men read their newspapers—maybe more. He’d be a captain again soon. A true captain, back in the sky, in command of a ship. He’d need his sky literacy once again.
It had been his home for so long. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sensations, the freedom, until the prospect dangled before him.
It wouldn’t be easy, returning to combat. But he had to. This was his purpose. To defend his country. If he’d helped in some way to save Kali’s life, and the people of Liverpool, then perhaps being a Man O’ War had more uses than for destruction. From the sky, he could protect the land and the people.
There was only one reason why he could even consider flying again: Kali. He wouldn’t have believed the Persephone could be capable of flight, yet Kali never doubted herself or her ability. She worked without slowing, stopping just long enough to eat the food he forced on her. And she directed him with complete confidence when she gave him a hammer and nails, telling him to patch up the lower decks that hadn’t been crushed.
He wanted her to stay behind, where it was safe. But an airship couldn’t run with just one crewman. He could fly it, yes, but if anything went wrong with the ship, he’d need an engineer. And, damn it, he knew of only one engineer.
When she thought he wasn’t looking, shadows of wariness flickered across her face. This would be her return to the world, too. Sooner than she’d planned, that much he knew. But whatever fear hounded her, she didn’t allow it to stop her work. Or her determination.
Four scampered from chamber to chamber, both afraid of and intrigued by all the activity. Eventually, the rat became acclimated to the pounding of nails and hiss of the welding torch, and perched on Fletcher’s shoulder as he labored on filling spare tanks with ether. The main tanks loaded quickly—as if the ship were a starving creature finally given sustenance.
He stroked the rat’s furry head as another tank topped up. As the ship awakened, it fed from him more, drawing on his energy. But it gave back to him, too. The currents of power moving through the Persephone resonated in his own body. He felt like a lit fuse.
Never more so than when they could work no longer, and he and Kali retired to bed. It was there that he showed her, in ways words couldn’t, what she’d come to mean to him. That he couldn’t understand how he’d managed any kind of existence without her. That the feel of her skin was his oxygen. And her breathless words of encouragement and cries of pleasure gave him more strength than any telumium implanted in his body.
He kept a lantern burning as they made love. He could see well enough in the dark, but he wanted her to be witness to what they gave each other, how their entwined bodies—scarred, marked—were beautiful and exactly right.
“Will this all change?” she asked, as they lay, sweat slick and tangled. Her head rested upon his chest, and her fingers traced all over his body—implants, flesh, tattoos—as if committing him to memory. “When we go back, will it all go away?”
He pulled her even closer, needing the press of her body to his. “I don’t know,” he said, though it killed him to say so. Beyond the possibility of flight, the future was unseen, hidden behind banks of dark thunderheads. Would he be called upon to return to duty? Would he ever see Kali again?
And Mayhew lurked out in the shadows, a madman with a thirst for Man O’ War blood. It was certain the lieutenant would kill civilians in his quest for vengeance. Could he be stopped?
So much unknown. Like one of those old maps with monsters drawn in the areas where the cartographer’s knowledge failed. Monsters did lurk, but whether they could be defeated, that wasn’t certain.
“We’ll find our course as we go,” Fletcher said, stroking his hand down her arm.
She lifted her head to gaze at him. “You don’t strike me as the sort of man who travels without a clear direction.”
“I wasn’t . . . once.”
“Something’s changed.”
He allowed himself a smile, and despite everything—all the uncertainty, all the looming danger—the smile felt real. “When a ferryman brought a wary, clever woman to this heap of rock, everything changed.”
In the morning, Kali immersed herself in running a litany of tests on the Persephone. Easier to focus on all the technical elements that needed attention than to think of what lay ahead. As she checked the airship’s turbines, their roar drowned out the voices of doubt crowding inside her mind. Yes, Eilean Comhachag was never meant to be her permanent home, but she felt like a bird shoved from the nest before she was certain she could fly.
She wanted more time to put to rest memories of that day in Liverpool. More time to build strength—any kind of strength. More time alone with Fletcher.
She’d get none of this. They would have to leave the island. Today.
The turbines worked just as they should, and she moved on to the ether tanks to ensure that they had no cracks and could be called upon to vent as necessary. Venting ether, Fletcher told her, enabled the airship to move at heightened speeds. Bu
t it only lasted a brief while, and meant that the ship would drop precipitously. Yet it made for an effective tool in battle when one needed swiftness.
Surely, though, they wouldn’t need to vent the tanks. Not for their brief trip to the nearest telegraph station to alert the navy, and then flying the ship to the dockyards in Greenwich for greater repairs. And then . . . she didn’t know what then. Neither did Fletcher. A vast unknown. For herself, for him. For them.
They’d want him back on duty. A Man O’ War couldn’t be away from his ship for long, and he was too valuable in the ongoing war.
If they saw each other at all when they returned, it could only be for brief periods of time. Which would be worse? Having him for only a handful of days after months apart, or not having him at all? Both options would hurt—they hurt now, just thinking of them.
She glanced over to where he was finishing hammering the bow of the ship into a semblance of order. It had splintered apart in the crash, and needed to be as aerodynamic as possible for the upcoming flight.
Her eyes weren’t on the repairs, but on Fletcher. He’d shed his coat, and worked in his shirtsleeves, muscles straining against the thin fabric, his braces framing the wide architecture of his back. She knew him well enough to know that he had to hold himself back and not use the full measure of his strength when working on fixing the ship, otherwise one hit of the hammer would cause the entire bow of the ship to break off.
And yet this was the same man who’d made love to her last night with such tenderness and reverence, she’d nearly wept. Her body heated as she remembered that last night hadn’t been only soft caresses and whispered endearments. No, he’d shown her the full measure of his desire, the wildness he tried so hard to contain. And it had been . . . The erotic poems of her homeland could never equal what she and Fletcher had shared last night. She’d felt like the incarnation of Rati, the goddess of passion.
There’d been more than lust and desire last night. In his touch, in hers. An aching yearning for something that might never be. Back in the world, they might spend months, years apart. If he returned at all.
Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] Page 20
