Lands Beyond Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by Kin S. Law

  Blair winced as my hand emerged from my pocket, but no heavy black pistol was attached. I had also left the cutlass by the door, where he might plausibly grab it to use against me. Sheepishly, he reached out to take my hand.

  “To a plentiful partnership,” Blair said.

  “To not getting hanged,” I replied, grinning.

  From that moment on, I considered Elric Blair a member of The Huckleberry’s crew. Little did he or I know the adventure would begin as soon as we stepped outside the galley door.

  7

  The Invincible Figure-Four Submission of Rosa Marija

  The small, unremarkable bottle ginger exiting the galley didn’t surprise me so much as Albion’s expression beside him. There were few in the skies I could not read. My captain could evade my piercing gaze, and often did. Today, there was obvious hope glinting out of his eyes. Oh-ho! So my gorgeous finally had a lead. Well, then, his loyal helmswoman, Rosa Marija, would be right there beside him.

  We had spent the better part of the last two years hunting Albion’s adoptive father. I’d joined him long before, and since the news of Samuel’s return, we had done far less pirating than I preferred. Sometimes Albion wore a cold mask instead of a proper face, but the dark cloud hanging over his brow gave him a brooding aspect that I just couldn’t help but like.

  “Hello there, gorgeous. I see you’ve caught yourself a tabby, Alby,” I said, drawing Albion’s and his companion’s attention with a flick of my skirts. I wore several layers of them, an embroidered scene on a green field, over Egyptian cotton and French lace, bound under a brazenly immodest bodice. My wrists were dabbed with jasmine, wafting where I wished. My lashes twinkled with dewdrop rhinestones, and a headscarf matching the skirts held back my lush locks. All the fabric hid my numerous barbs and blades neatly. I was trying.

  I hadn’t seen Albion in a week, and I knew the English girls tended towards a pasty paleness surely irresistible to his Asiatic persuasion. It was my latest theory. No matter how much of my mocha skin I showed him, nothing seemed to shake his monkish attitude toward me. It was the dancer in me to include the other man in my audience, I admit, but my vanity wasn’t for naught. The resulting slack-jawed stare from the ginger was worth it. As usual, Albion’s own stone stare gave no hint of even the slightest appreciation. Prick.

  “Rosa Marija, this is Elric Blair. She is my helmswoman and first mate. Rosa, there was a bit of altercation, but the newspaper man might be able to help us find Captain Sam.”

  “I suppose the Inspector might be of more assistance,” Blair said. “But I have a notion.”

  “A cat and a hound. You have been busy,” I interjected. “When did we start giving the pigs room and board?”

  “I know you’re not keen on it,” Albion said. “But she is no ordinary Inspector. She has ties to the Queen of England, and if what we’re hearing is true, we might need them.”

  For the life of me, it was difficult to fathom how somebody higher up in the British government could do anything but hang us more thoroughly.

  “No. I say we throw her overboard, we’re low enough and close enough to land.” I gave him a pout. Probably a four out of ten pout, not really very serious.

  “Rosa, you know better than to ask that of me,” he chastised. He pointed Blair to one of the narrow quarters nearby, and swept down the hall.

  Blair, the ginger, shrugged. “It was very nice to meet you,” he said, entering the room.

  “Eh. Albion!” I called, following my captain.

  I kept badgering the man, but as usual, his broad back seemed to deflect commentary as he stalked down the passages of the ship. We swept through them, heading toward the bridge. The ’Berry hummed pleasantly, and it was hard not to think of her as my ship. I had spent the week sans Albion with old man Cid Tanner, tuning the ship within an inch of her life. She was ready for anything, even with my apprentice Prissy Jack at the helm.

  “You have to give me something. What is this Inspector like? Old and dried up, I presume, with an axe to grind about some dirigible raiders who burned her house as a girl?” I hazarded a guess.

  “Rosa, you have a habit of spinning tall tales. Was it all the frontier living?” he asked. “It wasn’t a command to stop, by the way. It’s very entertaining.”

  “And you have a bad habit of not involving us in your plans,” I grumbled. It stopped him in his tracks.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I do. I’m working on that, all right? It’s hard for me to…share, with you all.”

  Again, the dark cloud hovered over his brow. He had a million things behind the emotionless mask. As few as there were whom I could not read at a glance, the people who even came close to understanding Albion were all on this ship. We didn’t ask what he was planning, because we always came out all right. But this was different.

  “Let’s start small,” I said. “What will you do with the Inspector?”

  “I agreed not to harm her,” he began, grateful for a place to start. “Vanessa Hargreaves will likely be more flexible with her information after a few days in the brig. For now, let’s go investigate her claims. I never trusted a pretty blonde who was proficient undercover.”

  We had scoured the skies for information already, but if Albion had a lead from this Inspector, I was willing to comb every way station and seedy dive this side of the Atlantic, all over again. It took a moment for me to register the descriptor, and Albion’s implications.

  “Wait, what?” I yelled. “A pretty Inspector? A blonde, pretty female Inspector?”

  I fair flew down the hall, and while my captain expected it, he could not dodge my expertly applied figure-four hold. As he gasped in pain, I applied the thumbscrews.

  “Ack! Give! Give!”

  “Now you tell me the who and the why of it. You had better have been honorable with this Hargreaves, or so help me, I will break your arm. You know I can put it back together!”

  “I was, I was!”

  “Bull!” Still, it was hard not to give in to the temptation. Albion had never called me ‘pretty,’ before. I loosed my hold on him, as he was about to faint.

  “We’re sailing for the Hook,” Albion gasped.

  He gave me a look like a book in another language. If he felt anything, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t ever tell with Alby, as much as I wanted him to feel for me what I felt for him. Just like that, the moment was gone.

  Instead, he muttered, “I just hope they won’t remember they banned me.”

  8

  Rosa Decides to Bite Down on a Straight Hook

  Somewhere floating near the Isle of Man is a motley collection of junked junks, busted barges, and other bric-a-brac loosely roped together. If an airship mistakes this floating spider’s web as a plethora of garbage, its crew would curse themselves and nine generations of their kin. This particular flying structure is the world-famous Straight Hook, the tavern of taverns, favorite watering hole of air pirates across Europe. As we came upon it, the evening light slanted through its varicolored balloons and elevated decks. It looked like a present glittering in the light of a fire. Ah. Christmas for winos.

  After I wrangled the exact circumstances of the Inspector’s arrival from Alby and sniffed him for remnants of perfume, he had shared the details of his conversation with me. We decided the best place to start were the rumor-infested catwalks of the Hook. If anyone had news of the Leviathan in recent days, the airmen of the Hook would. Ostensibly, we came to look into the truth of Inspector Hargreaves’ tall tales of an airship legend come to life. Really, we tended to find ourselves at the Straight Hook whenever we had a couple of coins to rub together.

  On a scale of sad birthday clown to mid-air orgy, the place could only be described as epic. Her tiers of bustling bars, private rooms, and cloistered cat-petting lounges were not only havens of inebriation, but also clusters of the best rumor and hearsay this side of Istanbul. Patrons still recalled fondly the legendary Millbeard, he of the windmill in his beard, may your arguments ever be inv
alid, and the night he fell off the edge of a whiskey lounge, landing four decks down in a gin palace full of naked wenches.

  So where had the Hook come from? Who had lashed the first balloon to the first keg of ale? Not one of us knew. Occasionally one could see a glimpse of the real masterminds, with helium in their blood. They left signs scrawled on impromptu signage and pinned to cork boards. The Incognito, the true power of the place. Their signs slunk under and around everything, simultaneously a comfort and a caution to those in the know. They were legion, inescapable. The skulls, question marks, and masks were a reminder of the nameless power in this place, and the unspoken credo passed from pirate to pirate in hushed whispers and grudging alliances. Yet even they were only residents, denizens of a place that seemed to exist in utter defiance of all outside authority. The Straight Hook was a place truly neutral, since not a single person knew whom to blame for it.

  With the ’Berry docked, we found the splintery platforms full to bursting with other vessels—not only pirates, but freighters and other rabble. We recognized the pirates’ ships. Some we knew from saucy knocking about, others for their barely disguised weapons. There were the usual suspects, of course. The old commonwealth lines were well dug, with Tony Finnigan holding down the west side whiskey joints and Maude ‘Momma’ Wilkes fielding gin palaces dawn side. Gypsy caravans bobbed far overhead, roped conveniently to an upper quadrant where hunters of romance could find game. I could relate.

  Everywhere sprouted the usual oddment of characters: purveyors of all kinds, conspiracy nutters, feline fanatics. The unsavory lot generally stuck to the deep parts of the Hook, where the slaver ships, the politicos, and the abattoirs clung by thin strands of hemp netting and tolerance.

  At our favorite pub somewhere in the periphery of the Hook, we soon discovered the reason for such an impromptu gathering. It was a bubbling cauldron of rumor over what had happened at Westminster. The fact those few blocks of John Bull were gone was undeniable truth. Whodunit and for what dastardly purpose, everyone seemed to have a theory. It completely eclipsed the news of the recent plundering of the Chandler Polaris, a diamond the size of an apricot. Normally such a theft was huge news at the Hook. We also learned the Eiffel Tower had gone, this time straight past the torched remains of the French dirigible defense.

  Some claimed it was the new American birds, ironclad despite the weight, flying in the night to settle with the English a centuries-old grudge. One man linked it to the Ottoman push west. He claimed the theft was an effort to distract the English aerial armada so “those stinking Turks can again fill our wine valleys with borscht. Mon Dieu!” As usual, it was impossible to separate truth from fiction at the Hook.

  Somewhere in the sea of bumping beer bellies and voluptuous whores, Albion picked out a friend, Alice Hanson of the Havana Hansons, a pirate family usually based in the Caribbean. Clutching a tot of scotch in one hand and a pint of Irish black in the other, I leaned over a couple of dandy darlings passed out on the floor and gave her a peck on her espresso cheeks.

  “Lez find somewhere quiet!” Alice shouted, taking our drinks with us.

  We fit right in, just another merry band linked at the elbows so we didn’t topple drunkenly over the edges of the narrow catwalks. The Hook is a twenty-four hour, nonstop bar crawl, blessed by high-altitude winds across a sapphire sea, and such things as falling inebriates were commonplace.

  Hanson, myself, Albion, and Blair strolling along under starlight peeping like sprites between the boards, it wasn’t long before we found an absinthe abbey with a very quiet clientele. Etched glass and chrome marked deeply the enchanted garden, and everywhere danced cherubs and unicorns, pleasant nonsense with as little to do with wormwood-addled nightmares as possible. Nobody likes harsh noises or sudden movements when visiting the green fairy. The gentle ambiance was tinted with the lilt of “Greensleeves” on a gramophone, perfect for a discreet conversation.

  “Last I heard,” Alby said to Alice as he set up slotted spoons with a deft hand, “you were taking sugar shipments down by Trinidad. Felt like something a bit more starchy?”

  “I ’ave no beef with ze Celts,” Alice Hanson said, her island accent thick with a unique blend of French and something more exotic.

  Her robust African physique retained the high cheekbones and Nordic nose of her surname, but her skin was midnight-dark, rich with swirling tattoos like spirit in a dizzying hard coffee. Not to mention that she was a joy to speak with, though I envied the way her long dreads held the odd barb or spare ammunition. Ample cleavage can only hold so much.

  “How’s tricks?” I asked, more to stop the journalist Blair from jumping the woman. He seemed about to burst out in song looking at Alice’s chin. Jealous much, Rosa? I peeked at Albion. When would he look at me like that?

  “Non, non, no pirating today, only moving fine island rum, made from sugar grown by our hands,” Alice protested. “Ze Hook, they have bought nearly half my stock. A la mode, to buy from small, ‘free’ trade dealers like me, but I saved a chest of your favorite coconut. At the right price, of course.”

  “Congratulations are in order,” Albion said, proffering her a milky bulb of liquor. “To the downfall of the oppressors.”

  “A votre santé!” Alice cried.

  “Hear, hear!” the rest of us agreed, and downed our drinks. There was a moment while everyone savored the licorice punch in the gonads.

  After the first drink the early parts of the evening became a blur. I clearly recall Albion’s well-sculpted buttocks as they hurtled past, on his way to the eleven pubs of the Hook’s well-trod crawl. It wasn’t the first time someone had done it in the altogether, but it was the first time someone had done it with such pizzazz, hurtling from pint to pint like a man possessed. While Albion was carrying on, Blair managed to enjoy a lovely evening with Alice Hanson. I caught a glimpse of them disappearing into Hanson’s ship, his arm thrown possessively under her brigandine, her chocolate hand reached down to cover his slim back.

  When we rendezvoused in the morning, Blair was still floating on a cocoa-butter cloud of rapturous bliss. He almost stumbled into me, though it was partially my fault. I was busy counting a fat stack of winnings, having spent the evening in one of the many card parlors beating freighter captains at poker.

  As they say, “Only the willing fall on a Straight Hook.”

  “Had fun last night, did we?” I asked Blair flat-out, there in front of the many hangover relief cafés camped near the various docking platforms.

  I was also enjoying the headache special, not because I had one, but because it was a scrumptious confection of English bacon and barbecue sauce. The Channel swung out beneath us at dizzying heights through a clear sky. Quite a few inebriates doubled up over it, baptizing it with their stomach contents.

  “My Lord, the woman is a horror,” Blair said dreamily. “She has the most commanding presence I have ever encountered. This mark, here on my cheek? Strapless heel, I kid you not.”

  “Really? So far up? I mean…Ack, no, no more!” I begged for mercy. “Your business is your own.”

  At this point, Albion also arrived, fully clothed except for his usual stoic expression. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him still annoyed. If I wasn’t getting a piece of that, at least no other filly was. Even with his goggles down, I could see it had been a sleepless night, and one he wasn’t keen to talk about. Elric chose the moment to snap out of his reverie, perhaps reminded of our mission by Albion’s presence.

  “Speaking of business,” said Blair, “Alice actually had some vital information for us. It seems she met with Captain Samuel not too long ago, in, of all places, the port of Lancaster. He seemed to be planning some kind of heist.”

  I whirled around, shocked. To think—actual information, and we hadn’t lifted a finger! Well, Blair had, much more than a finger…There was value in Albion’s new acquisition after all. The vote was still out for his pretty little Inspector.

  “Let’s not get too stuck in right n
ow,” Albion offered hoarsely. It sounded like there was a lot to come up, but had been scraped out not two minutes ago. “I need some of Auntie’s tea…back to The ’Berry, everyone.”

  We trooped out onto the docks, textbook examples of what the Hook had on offer: sickeningly smashed, amorous exhaustion, and avarice, in turn. So absorbed were we in our immediate diversions, we almost didn’t notice the obvious.

  Where The Huckleberry ought have been, a tiny longboat now docked, held aloft by a ridiculous patchwork balloon. A note was taped to it, which Albion snapped up instantly.

  “My amorous captain,” Albion read from under his raised goggles.

  “That would be you, gorgeous,” I remarked, drawing a satisfyingly venomous glare from Alby.

  “Despite my efforts, you refuse to acknowledge my feelings of intense admiration and overflowing love for your person. Normally, a girl in my position would draw back out of some foolish modesty, or perhaps shower you with presents, to better appeal to your attentions. I have chosen differently. To show you how serious I am in my love, I have stolen your precious vessel, The Huckleberry, with the conviction you will go to all lengths to recover it. I will see you soon, my delicious captain. Love, Kitty Desperado. PS: I did adore your…cute…dimpled…buttocks.”

  The letter fluttered to the ground, followed not long after by the bottom half of Albion’s jaw.

  “What in blazes did you do?” Elric asked, perhaps emboldened by his evening’s triumph. I picked up the letter, shaking off the aura of shame still on it.

  “It’s no big deal; Prissy Jack and the others are aboard. We’ll have this Kitty whats-her-face locked in the brig and The ’Berry back here in no…time…” I started, only to finish staring at the happy procession coming toward us. It was Auntie, Cockney Alex, Cid Tanner, and even Prissy Jack the cabin boy, towing a wagonload of lumpy parcels.