by C. S. Poe
Mustache looked down at me and then said, “Oh. Mr. Hamilton, was it?”
“Agent Hamilton, yes. Magic and Steam,” I answered in clipped, concise sentences. “What did Mr.—Gunner—want?”
Mustache hesitated. He had droopy eyes. Droopy jowls. Like an old dog who’d been worked hard his whole life.
And he didn’t want to turn Gunner in. Not for nothing.
These people are mad.
“I’m quite aware of his presence in town,” I clarified. “But I’m here for Tinkerer, you understand? Mr. Gunner is not my concern.”
For now.
This put Mustache at ease, at least enough to say, “He was looking to purchase some ammunition, sir. That’s all.”
“For his Waterbury?”
“I sold him a caliber that’ll fit a Waterbury, sir. Ain’t no aether in it, and that’s the truth. Just regular bullets.”
“But he inquired after a local caster? Someone to infuse the ammunition with aether?”
Mustache’s jowls shuddered as he blew out a breath. “No casters in Shallow Grave. Present company excluded, sir.”
“But he did ask,” I pressed. Because of course Gunner would have. If one was going to own a Waterbury, one expected to use the correct ammunition.
“This here’s a mining town,” Mustache answered after a beat. “Nothing fancy. Hardworking families. But we don’t welcome Tinkerer. We don’t want to be another Baltimore.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I answered.
“Aye, sir. But it’s why he’s here too. Gunner. And for as long as you’re under our roof, I do hope you’ll respect his decision to stick his neck out for a bunch of simple folks.”
I took a step back from the counter, thanked him, and headed up the creaking staircase. I stopped outside my own door, fished free a skeleton key, and then hesitated. “Christ Almighty….” I stuffed the key back into my pocket, turned on one heel, and marched to the last door. I knocked loudly and waited.
“Come in, Hamilton,” Gunner said, his voice still deep and smoky, if a bit muffled.
I turned the knob, gave the door a nudge, let it fall open, and stood to the right of the threshold. The room was awash in light from a gas lamp on the bureau, the window opened to dissipate the noxious smell, and there was Gunner, sitting in the middle of the mattress where it dipped. A toolkit was unrolled at his side, a box of ammunition leaning against his thigh, and he again wore goggles as he carefully tapped a hole into a bullet with the sharp point of some unfamiliar instrument.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked.
“Who else would it be?” he responded rather absently, not looking up from his work.
I took a step inside, shut the door, and said, “That pretty blonde.”
“Alice.”
“What?”
Gunner set the tool down, picked up a leather satchel no larger than his hand, and dipped his fingers inside. He sprinkled what looked like glittering sand from some faraway ocean beach into the hole he’d drilled. “Her name is Alice.”
“It could have been Alice knocking.”
“It wouldn’t be Alice.” Gunner stood, walked to the bureau, and leaned over the lamp to better examine the bullet.
I pressed my back against the door. “Why not?”
Gunner tugged his goggles down around his neck. If he was frustrated, that was the only indication.
“She’s smitten,” I continued.
“So are you.” Gunner said that without bothering to look up. He walked back to the bed, sat, and loaded the bullet into his Waterbury. He cocked the hammer and pointed the pistol at the wall to his right, but there was no prickle in the air to suggest it had been altered with magic.
Instead, the energy causing the hairs on my arms to stand straight up had come from the simple honesty of Gunner’s comment. Nothing more. “I—I am not—” My protest was cut short when Gunner turned his head and stared at me.
His face was still. Emotionless. But those eyes.
“Don’t choke on your tongue, Hamilton. Men with our inclinations tend to recognize each other. No, don’t panic. It’s not one particular aspect about you. I just know. It’s a survival skill, isn’t it?” Gunner removed the bullet from his Waterbury. He didn’t seem concerned about, well, anything.
Except the bullet.
How in God’s name could he be so blasé about this?
“May I ask you a question?”
“You’ll do as you please,” Gunner said.
“How did you know I was from New York and not Boston?”
Gunner picked up the leather satchel and examined the contents a second time. “Your shoes.”
I looked down.
“Richmond Bros. on Broadway,” he continued. “They don’t ship. You have to purchase in-house.”
“So?”
Gunner glanced up and let out a breath. There was a suggestion of annoyance to it—in that way breathing could have a tone. “You don’t strike me as a man who travels to New York to simply buy a pair of nice shoes. Ergo, you already live there.” He stood, dropped the bag on the mattress, moved around the far side of the bed, and bent to rummage through something out of view on the floor.
I stepped forward and collected the bag of sand. I tested its weight in one palm, reached in to touch the contents, and as Gunner stood while putting a stick of Black Jack in his mouth, asked, “Are you trying to force magic?”
Gunner studied me from across the bed, his jaw working the gum.
“Because this is snake oil.” I secured the drawstring and tossed the bag to him.
He caught it one-handed. “Worth a try, at least.”
“What were you told that was? Aether-infused gunpowder? I suspect it’s crushed geode.”
He made a noncommittal sound.
“A registered caster could have told you that.”
“I believe one just did.” Gunner walked around the foot of the bed and stood before me.
I made an aggravated sound in the back of my throat and quickly yanked my suit coat off. I hung it on the doorknob before unbuttoning my shirt cuffs and setting them on the bureau.
“Don’t let my presence keep you from getting comfortable,” Gunner stated, crossing his arms over his chest.
I rolled my sleeves back. “You need aether bullets.”
“I desire aether bullets,” he corrected, standing completely still but watching my every move.
“They’ll even the playing field, won’t they? Against Ferguson?”
“Possibly.”
“Then I’ll infuse them.” I finished with my sleeves and pointed a warning finger at Gunner. “But I want you to account for every shot. And any ammunition left unused after Ferguson has been apprehended must be returned to me.”
Gunner’s eyes did that minute narrowing again. He agreed to no such mandate as he sat on the mattress—the middle, to be specific—then patted the empty spot beside him. “Take a seat, Hamilton.”
I sat, hyperaware of what little space there was between us. In fact, I was so close that I could smell soap on Gunner’s skin—he must have cleaned up while I was at dinner—and the fresh licorice on his breath. I chose to focus on the faint stink produced by the gas lamp in the corner.
Gunner passed me the box of bullets.
I set it on my lap and asked, “May I borrow your goggles?”
“Your kept man didn’t think to pack you a pair?” Gunner pulled his own over his head and handed them to me.
I swiped the offering and said woodenly, “I’m unattached.” I put them on and added, “I dropped my pair earlier—during the shootout.”
“I see.”
Holding the box in my left palm, my right hand settled over the loose bullets inside, I performed a reverse-casting of aether.
It wasn’t exactly easy.
Or legal, but that was neither here nor there at this point.
Aether was a bit like drawing on all of the elements in magic at once. It was a spell cast and ut
ilized with magic still in its raw form. Absolute undiluted power—both healing and devastating. Aether was the lifeforce circling the planet. As a spell, it had no inherent weakness against other elements, which made it exceptionally useful in perilous situations against other casters, but it was also one of the most complex spells and obtainable only by experts. That was why aether-laced bullets were illegal and expensive—someone strong had to make them. Someone who’d either avoided the Caster Regulation Act altogether, or someone who’d gone rogue. Either way, it was generally bad news.
Reverse engineering aether was also different than simply using the magic for a spell. As far as our community was aware, aether was the only magic that could be manipulated in this unique way, which was also the only reason Gunner’s Waterbury didn’t have the capability of shooting something like lightning or fire bullets too. Instead of drawing on all of the different elements and letting loose a whirlwind of damage upon an opponent, I cast the spell on myself. Because I acted as a conduit when performing, and due to the healing force inherent in aether, no harm was caused to my person, and instead I felt full with a tingling, restless adrenaline.
After performing the spell several more times, I was so overstimulated that my hands began to glow an almost blinding white. Aether seeped from my fingertips like droplets of wine following the contours of its glass—down the bowl, along the stem, soaking into the tablecloth under the base. The excess had to go somewhere. And in this case, the magic, still unrefined and pulsating from contact with both the atmosphere and myself, leeched into the box of bullets. The light around my hands began to fade, then diminished entirely. I was left with juxtaposing sensations of physical exhaustion and an aroused mind. My stomach gave a sick lurch, but I managed to keep the beef stew down as I handed Gunner the ammunition.
“Clever trick,” he said, accepting it.
“It’s not a trick.”
“No. I suppose it isn’t.”
I gave Gunner back his goggles and rose to my feet, and then the room took a sudden dip. I felt myself sway, watched the scrubbed floorboards come up to greet me, and heard the mattress give and the bullets ping as they fell. Then Gunner’s arms were fastened around my waist, hauling me back into a standing position.
“Hamilton?” He loosened his grip, but my left knee buckled and he grabbed for me again. “All right… come, no, sit down. I’ll fetch some brandy from the kitchen.”
“I don’t need brandy. Let go.”
“Don’t fight me. You nearly kissed the floor.” Gunner forced me to sit on the edge of the mattress once more before crouching in front of me. He kept one hand wrapped firmly around my bicep. “What happened?”
“Aether infusion is illegal for a reason,” I said. What was left of my stamina was going toward simply keeping my eyes open. It was such an odd sensation. I felt so spent that death wouldn’t be a deep enough sleep, and yet my brain was trying to convince me I was quite capable of running nonstop all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
“What do you need?” Gunner asked.
“For you to stop manhandling me.”
“I’m serious, Hamilton.”
“So am I.”
Gunner let go of my arm, swore quietly, and planted his hand in the middle of my chest when I fell forward. “Do you require a doctor?”
“No. It’ll pass.”
“Did you know this would happen?”
I dragged my gaze to meet Gunner’s stoic expression. The room warped and distorted around him, like viewing the colored globes of streetlamps through a rain-streaked window. Or a photographer’s attempt to catch lightning bugs on sheets of silver-plated copper. I laughed, but it sounded distant and unfamiliar. “It’s something, isn’t it? I’m a special agent.”
“You are.”
“And you’re Gunner the Deadly.”
He made a sound of acknowledgment.
“And right now, I’m completely at your mercy.”
Gunner stood and leaned over me. He was gentle—hands stained with a history of blood and death, and the man was gentle—easing me onto my back. He patted my waistcoat, found my skeleton key, then left without a word.
I needed to focus on the magic in the room, the lodge, the town, the country. Allow its tendrils to carry me further and further until I was so twined with the elements that I couldn’t tell where they began and I ended. Righting my enchanted footing, so to speak, would knock me out of this distortion. But every few seconds, I realized I was simply staring at the open planks of the ceiling. Counting the knots in the wood. So many of them.
The mattress made a sudden protest and lurched underneath me. For one terrifying moment, I imagined a hole opening and I was plummeting, slowly, into the nothingness, never to be seen again. Never to be lost to someone. Missed by someone.
Gunner’s face appeared over me. It was his knee on the mattress and weight causing the dip that registered as a living nightmare. He got his arms underneath and hoisted me up in one fluid motion. He carried me out of his room and down the hall, and slipped into the open doorway of my own accommodations.
Floating.
Sinking.
Grasping for those arms again.
“No,” I protested as sleep dragged me into familiar darkness.
My last memory of that night was a callused hand touching my face and a husky whisper near my ear. “Good night, Special Agent Hamilton.”
III
October 11, 1881
This was not my bed.
Not my home on the fourth floor of the bachelor hotel, The Buchanan.
Even the crisp bite in the air was not that of my city.
I had awoken suddenly. My gut lurched and my head pounded as if I’d spent the night with a bottle of cheap whiskey. Pour, shoot, slam the tumbler. Pour, shoot, slam the tumbler. Over and over until the intoxicating beat embedded itself in my brain. I sat up, gripped my temples, then took a brief look at my surroundings.
The bedside table had several items neatly laid out, perfectly aligned, as if their display mattered somehow. My PDD, which I’d tossed there the evening prior, before sitting down to dinner, had been straightened. Beside it were my shirt cuffs, pocket watch, key, and bowler. My suit and waistcoat were neatly folded on the foot of the bed. I leaned over the edge of the mattress. My shoes were tucked carefully out of the way.
My cheeks grew warm when a recollection roused itself. A whisper. A man’s hand. That’s right. I had been with Gunner the Deadly last night. I had, against my better judgment and the law itself, infused his ammunition with dangerous magic so as to give us the upper hand against Milo Ferguson.
The spell had thrown me for a spin afterward. And then… what? What had happened? I ended up here, in my quarters of this mediocre lodge that was probably as swanky as they came for a Wild West mining town. Had Gunner brought me to bed? Seen to my personal effects?
In God’s name, why?
Why would he bother?
Why would he care?
Knuckles rasped the door, quick and quiet.
I pushed the blankets aside, got out of bed, and padded to the door in my stocking feet. When I opened it, there stood Gunner. He was dressed for the day—in all black, of course—with the Waterbury slung low on his hip. He leaned against the threshold, his face as impassive as ever.
“Good morning,” Gunner stated.
“Oh. Yes. Good morning.”
“How’re you feeling?”
My face warmed again, hot enough to cook a can of beans on. “Fine.”
He nodded a fraction. “Get dressed.”
Something in those blue eyes alerted me, shook off the rest of my grogginess with a suddenness akin to having been dunked in a tub of ice water. “Has something happened?”
“Tinkerer was seen early this morning, stalking the perimeter of a silver mine called Big Mouth—about five miles outside of town.”
I spared a quick glance over my shoulder. The sun hadn’t even broken the horizon yet—the light still a soft and silk
y blue-gray. “Early this morning?” I repeated, looking at Gunner again.
He removed the pocket watch from his waistcoat and studied the face curiously. “Miners leave at about three.”
“Christ.”
“They sent a scrap of a boy back to report to me.” He tucked the timepiece away.
“On horseback?”
“He ran.” Gunner shifted and pushed himself off the doorframe. “We’ll be on horseback, though. Meet me downstairs.”
“Five minutes.” I shut the door, undressed, and fetched my carpet bag. It’d been delivered by Bartholomew Industries, the airship company, after I’d checked into Bassett Lodge and sent them notice. I removed fresh undergarments, shirt, and stockings, laid them on the bed beside the rest of my suit, then carried a leather satchel of toiletries to the pitcher and basin in the far corner of the room.
I poured water and dragged my fingertips along the ceramic bowl until steam danced across the water’s surface, which was as much to test my magic connection as it was a desire to wash with hot water. The chill in the October air caused my bare skin to pebble with painful gooseflesh. With my nipples erect and balls drawn up, I didn’t waste any more time in producing a bar of soap and clean washcloth. Afterward, I briefly examined my face in a small hand mirror. I could do with a shave, but there simply wasn’t time.
I dressed, buttoned my collar and cuffs, tied my tie, and saw to a bit of Macassar oil in my hair and Crown Fougère on my person. Top notes of lavender and geranium, base notes of cedarwood and patchouli. A crisp, earthy scent that cost a pretty penny, but the gentleman at the boutique said it was sophisticated and suited me. He was merely trying to sell an expensive, London-based fragrance, of course, but the compliment had done something for my constantly battered ego. I’d been faithfully wearing it for a year now.
After slipping on my coat and grabbing my bowler, I headed downstairs. Gunner stood at a window near the front door, staring at the dim street through lace curtains while sipping what smelled like too-strongly-brewed coffee. He glanced sideways at me, then nearly did a double take.
“What?” I asked.
Gunner took a few steps and set the cup down on a nearby table. Then he walked to the door, saying under his breath, “Crown.”
