by Sean Kennedy
“You always had the best lips,” Harding murmured. “I liked them best when they were wrapped ’round my cock.”
“So it wasn’t my sparkling conversation skills?” Ezra asked, his eyes still closed and his stomach churning.
“They were the only times you weren’t rabbiting on,” Harding said, and his lips grazed across Ezra’s.
Ezra decided to give him a taste of what he wanted. He opened his mouth and allowed Harding’s tongue to enter. The taste of the tobacco-flavored muscle, and the knowledge that it was attached to Harding, made him want to break away immediately. He focused once more on Icarus. This was for him, no matter how bad it may have appeared from the outside.
Harding’s tongue was like a snake, and it batted dangerously against his own. There was no passion there, just the thrusting of something out for its own need. From the firm thigh pressed up against his own, Ezra could feel an extra insistent organ reminding him of its existence. Now that was just going too far.
He pulled away, and discreetly wiped off his mouth as Harding grinned to himself. “Remind you of old times?”
Harding pressed his handkerchief to his lips, his face flushed and his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if you still fuck as good as you kiss.”
And I hadn’t even been kissing him, Ezra thought. He really does have low expectations. “I hope you’re not expecting me to show you if I do.”
Harding laughed. “Maybe I’ll plan to seduce you some other time, but I have a dinner party to attend tonight.”
Ezra almost laughed back in his face. He could never read Harding that well—he couldn’t even begin to discern whether the man was serious or just maintaining an elaborate game that only he seemed to care about winning. “That’s the life of a man of great social standing.”
Harding harrumphed to himself. “I suppose now that I’ve gained a kiss, you want that information in return.”
“The thought was crossing my mind.”
“It’s why I haven’t completely lost respect for you, Kneebone, even thought my social status is so elevated above your own now. You’re still scrappy, and out to get whatever you want however you can.”
It sounded more like he was describing a dog than a man, but Ezra let it slide. “That’s me. Scrappy.”
“Anyway. This coming Tuesday. The train to Waulkham Hills is being advertised as carrying more loot than they ever have before. Icarus won’t be able to resist taking it, and possibly giving the government boys even more embarrassment than he’s already given them.”
“You don’t think it’s more likely that he’ll see it for the trap that it is?” Ezra asked. “I only knew him for a short time, but he certainly wasn’t stupid.”
“Maybe not.” There was that cold glint to Harding’s eyes again. “But he knows that it will be a challenge, and if he pulls it off, he’ll be even more of a hero to the poor, undertrodden, shirtless rabble than he already thinks he is.”
Ezra pulled his hands behind his back so that Harding wouldn’t see they had balled themselves into fists. “I hear they’re singing songs about him in the Waulkham Hills.”
Harding snorted. “They’ll be singing his elegy soon.”
Ezra froze. He could feel the blood running out of his face, but luckily, Harding didn’t seem to notice as he tipped his hat and said his goodbyes.
Icarus. That was the only thought going through his mind. He knew Icarus would still try and take the cargo from the train, even though he would be well aware that it was a trap. He was stupid and stubborn like that.
And because Ezra knew that he would do the same exact thing in his place. Neither of the two men had a lick of sense to share between them. Maybe that’s why he thought they could work together.
Icarus would most likely die if he didn’t do something to stop him—but he would need Jazz’s help, and he wasn’t sure how she would likely respond to his plea for assistance after the last set of shenanigans he had dragged her into.
As he turned to step back into the office, a voice cut through his wrist cuff. “Kneebone! What the hell were you doing out there?”
Of course it was Jazz. She must have been watching him on the cams.
“I’ll talk to you about it inside.”
“If I let you in!”
He wouldn’t put it past her, but thought that her indignation would be overridden by her natural desire to know what had happened between him and Harding. And he was proven correct when the doorknob twisted easily underneath his touch and allowed him entrance. Jazz was standing by the window, her arms folded and her face glowering.
“Here I am, feeling sorry for you,” she said with a voice tightened by restrained anger, “thinking that you had had your heart broken, worrying about you… and then I look out there to find you swapping spit with one of the worst men in Shrevesport?”
“Involuntarily,” Ezra said bitterly.
Jazz scoffed at his reasoning. “It didn’t look that involuntary to me!”
“Well, you weren’t there in that moment.” He was about to continue his defense, when she interrupted him once more.
“Have you completely lost your mind? You’ve been pining after Icarus all week, and then you go and… I can’t even say it, it disgusts me so much… you canoodle with that man! I can’t even say his name, because it’s like naming the devil—”
No matter how much he might have agreed with her on that matter, Ezra held up his hands in surrender. “Icarus is in trouble.”
This immediately quieted her. “What kind of trouble?”
Momentarily distracted by what she had said before, he asked, “Canoodle?”
“Don’t try to turn this into a joke, Ezra Kneebone! What are you playing at? What kind of trouble is Icarus in?”
He told her all that Harding had disclosed. The frown on her face, which had been one of fury at the thought of him kissing their nemesis (or at least one of their many nemeses,) now changed to a frown of concern for the certain doom that lay before Icarus should he choose to rob the decoy train.
“We need more details,” she said firmly.
Ezra nodded. “But how do we get them without Harding and his lackeys getting suspicious?”
Jazz grinned. “Leave that to me. Or at least, to a dear friend of us both.”
LADY BART laid the map upon the large table in the center of her library. The clock struck midday as she did so, and she became distracted. “Should I call for luncheon, or can it wait?”
“Wait,” Ezra and Jazz said together.
Frowning at the lack of adherence to her usual decorum, Lady Bart gave a delicate sigh and a slight shrug of the shoulders. Ezra watched as she obviously decided to go in for a penny, in for a pound, and stripped her long gloves off her hands and laid them beside the map she had just unrolled.
“The train they’re luring in Icarus with is scheduled for Tuesday,” she said, pressing a button on the leg of the table. With a gentle hiss of steam, the table cranked into life, and a muted light shone against the underside of the map. In the air before them, the reproduced map of the Waulkham Hills began to materialize. Bart produced a pointer, and highlighted the train line. “The final destination, is of course, Waulkham Hills. But they want to limit the amount of points from which Icarus can plot to steal from them.”
Ezra nodded. “If they load the cargo at a point closer to Waulkham Hills, it will give them a narrower time and distance which they have to watch and have men ready to take him.”
“Indeed.”
Jazz scowled. “Then he’s crazy. It’s so obvious that it’s a trap, and he’ll just go blundering in anyway.”
“It’s pride. The Daedalus family excels at it,” Bart said without any hint of disapproval.
It was the code of blue-blood families, Ezra thought. What was, just was. “He wants to win,” he said aloud. “It will enhance his reputation.”
“Plus get back at Daddy even more,” Jazz snorted.
“That may be a factor.” Bart nodded. “
But I doubt his father is even aware that his son Tobias is the famed Icarus. It isn’t as if there has been a clear picture of him released to the public.”
“That wouldn’t matter to Icarus,” Ezra said. “As long as he still feels like he’s giving his father the bird.”
Bart turned her attention back to the map. “They’re loading the cargo at Broadmeadow Pines. There isn’t even a station there, but that is where they’ll stop the train. There’s a small cargo hold close to the tracks.”
“That might be the best place for Icarus to strike. Fewer crowds, and the advantage of surprise.”
“This is crazy!” Jazz protested once more.
Ezra fixed upon her with eyes of steel. “I’m quite capable of doing this alone, Jazz. I got us involved in this whole Icarus mess and already put you and the Lady Bart through enough. I can go from here.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it!” Jazz snapped. “I’m just remarking that it’s crazy. And it is.”
He couldn’t disagree with her; he knew it was insane as much as she did. “This is big. We could be accused of treason if we’re caught, for aiding and abetting an enemy of the government.”
Jazz slammed her hand upon the button on the table leg, and the map disappeared from the air. “Then we just won’t get caught.”
MONDAY night found them readying for take-off, and Lady Bart once again came down to say her goodbyes.
“I do wish you would let me come,” she said unhappily. “I even bought a new pair of breeches for the occasion, and Jazz does like it so when I wear breeches.”
Ezra privately agreed. He always wondered why it was considered unseemly for a woman to wear pants when they ultimately ended up enhancing their natural assets. Even he admired how well Jazz’s legs looked in her trousers, and had he been so inclined, he would have been drawn to the way the material clung to the curve of her buttocks as she strode across the cockpit to her chair.
Lady Bart looked around the small area with envy. “I did like traveling in this great iron bird.”
“That wasn’t the last time you’ll be on The Lilliput,” Jazz promised her.
Bart smiled. “Good.”
“Always pleased to have you on board,” Ezra said. “Just not this time.”
He was surprised when she leaned in to him and gave him a kiss. “You’re such a charmer, Ezra Kneebone.” She then shared a far more intimate kiss with Jazz and sashayed out of the cockpit and down the gangplank.
“I don’t think she really meant that,” Jazz grumped as she began flipping switches and checking their readings.
“Lady Bart is an excellent judge of character,” Ezra said.
Jazz rolled her eyes.
“After all,” Ezra continued, “she chose you.”
Jazz smiled and then ducked her head to try and hide it. “Dropping ropes,” she commanded in a tone that was all business and showed no delight at what had just been said.
The Lilliput began to ascend through the roof of their office and into the skies above. Once more, their bounty was the winged man. But this time they were trying to protect him, not capture him—although Ezra wondered if he may just have to resort to the latter in order to achieve the former.
“I WISH I could help you, Mr. Kneebone,” Ruth said. “But the honest truth is that I haven’t seen my brother since he left, the same day I met you.”
Ezra tried to read her face for any sign that she might be lying to him, but he knew that she wouldn’t. She had wanted him to take Icarus back to Shrevesport from the very beginning; he believed that if Icarus was there now, or if she knew where he was, she would be pulling him out of hiding and demanding that he go with Ezra right now and not miss the opportunity again. “Do you know if he has any other hiding places?”
Ruth began gathering the washing off the line. She had ushered her husband and children into the house after making perfunctory introductions between them and Ezra. They hadn’t seemed that surprised that Ezra was here for Icarus, although from what Ruth had said as they made their way to the back of the house for more privacy, they had no idea that the man they knew as Tobias was the same man renowned all over the county for his crimes against their civic leaders. “I’m sure he has more, but I only know about that cave he took you to. Plus our barn, of course. But he hasn’t been camping out there, I know this much.”
“If he attacks this train, they may just kill him rather than let him escape.” He hated to be so rough on her, but it had to be said.
Ruth closed her eyes and swayed for a moment, so much so that Ezra was about to spring forward and catch her. But once again he had underestimated her—she was made of stronger stuff than that. She swallowed heavily, opened her eyes again and stared up at him. “You don’t think I already know that, Mr. Kneebone?” She threw the washing she had collected into the cane basket by the side of the house and strode back to him, lifting the arm of her left sleeve as she did so. There was a nasty yellowing bruise that promised it had been far worse looking when it was caused over a week ago. “I tried locking him in the cellar. For his own good. He fought against me like a wild animal, and it only stopped when he accidentally threw me against the wall.”
Ezra let out the breath he wasn’t even aware he had been holding. “Ruth….”
“He didn’t mean it. I was the one who was attacking him, but ever since he was eleven, he could get a handle on me, despite me being older and taller. Why do you think he created wings to fly with, Mr. Kneebone?” She took a deep breath, and for the first time Ezra saw tears forming in her eyes, even though they were held back by monstrous will. “Because ever since he was a child, he wanted to escape and be free. Of our father, our society, and finally, even me.”
“Not you,” Ezra replied, grabbing her hand. “Never you. But like you said, he wants nothing holding him down.”
She covered his hand with her other one. “Thank you, Mr. Kneebone. Check out the cave. That’s all I know.” She turned her back on him, picked up the basket, and made her way back around the house.
Ezra activated his cuff. “Jazz?”
Her voice crackled back over the airwaves. “Yes?”
“Bring the ship back. There’s nothing here.”
“I DON’T want to alert him to our presence,” Ezra said, keying coordinates into his console that then appeared on Jazz’s. “Set me down here. If he’s in the cave, he shouldn’t hear us from that distance. You can just wait there for me.”
“What are we going to do if he’s not there?” Jazz asked.
Ezra sighed. “I don’t know—maybe head back into Waulkham Hills and do some reconnaissance.”
“That’s a two-buck word you’re using there, Kneebone,” Jazz teased.
“And I’m running out of cash.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Be careful out there.”
“I’ll yell if I need you.”
“You probably will.” Jazz reached across and pushed the button that allowed the door to clang open.
Ezra stood and pulled on his duster. His hand strayed to his holster, just to make sure he had his gun. You never could tell what lay ahead. He didn’t think Icarus’s reaction to him would be a dangerous one, but knowing him, he would probably already be upset at the scuffle he had had with his sister, and it could cause him to lash out at a friendly target such as Ezra.
Or it could be that Icarus might not be there, but other varmints looking for him would be.
Now that the sun was going down, the temperature was rapidly dropping. Ezra shivered slightly as the door to the Lilliput rolled down behind him. His wrist cuff squawked.
“Good luck, Kneebone.”
“Thanks. I’m going quiet for now.”
He signed off and brought up the fragmented info that had recorded when his cuff was malfunctioning after the bailout from the ship that had captured him and Icarus. Hopefully it would help him pinpoint the location of the cave if he couldn’t find it by recognizable land marks.
As the sun
disappeared, the cast from the moon was enough to illuminate the desertscape, which Ezra was thankful for. He had walked for about an hour when his cuff began beeping. He was near the cave, and an outcropping looked familiar.
He dropped to his knees and scrabbled toward it. The small, musty opening reminded him of the claustrophobia he had felt before. This had to be it. He grimaced and reached into his pocket for the lumistick he was carrying. There was no way he would be crawling through here in the dark. He snapped the center of the barrel, and there was the acrid nose-hair burning smell of the phosphorous igniting. Cheered by the warm glow that now radiated from the torch, Ezra put it between his teeth and recommenced crawling further into the tunnel. His leg began to ache, even though the bullet wound had begun healing. It was probably still too early to be exercising it in such a fashion.
The tunnel gradually began to widen, and soon he could walk once more rather than crawl. He stuck the lumistick into his pocket; he didn’t want to surprise Icarus and maybe give him a bead upon which to aim and strike down what he would undoubtedly suppose to be a bounty hunter coming for him. Likewise, Ezra didn’t want to call out his name and announce his presence, just in case it wasn’t Icarus out there in the cavern. That would be the quickest way to the gallows for aiding and abetting if it were government agents in there waiting.
The lumistick gave off a faint glow in his pocket, as if he had trapped a firefly within the material. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, but he soon realized that he was reaching the cavern and it was the filtered moonlight through it that he was seeing.
But the cavern was empty. Ezra could still make out the cot in the corner and the pile of miscellaneous items that served as a supply closet. His heart sank, and he was furiously trying to figure out what his next move would be when he felt cold metal press against his temple.
