Off Kilter

by Laura Strickland

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Laura Strickland

  Off Kilter

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilog

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  James switched his gaze to the three people who had just disembarked, two men and a woman, and promptly lost all the breath in his body.

  They made an unlikely enough trio—one of the men willowy and slender, clad in a splendid suit that screamed wealth, the other broad and squat if also well-dressed. James dismissed both of them almost immediately, for the third of the group gathered all his attention and focused it the way a mirror gathers light.

  “That his doxy?” Latham persisted.

  She wore one of the new tailored gowns of some thin fabric that fluttered around her slender body in the breeze off the water. Strawberry-blonde hair clustered round her head in a woven crown of curls, and even from fifty paces away James could see the delicate perfection of her features. She stood between the two men like a doe hedged by wolves, and something about her demeanor bespoke the fact that she longed to flee. Suddenly James wanted to tear the two men apart with his bare hands, rescue her, change her world. He knew he could do it, too; at that moment he could best anyone.

  “Nice piece,” Latham muttered. “Wouldn’t mind the job of guarding that.”

  And just as abruptly, James wanted to tear Latham apart also, a visceral reaction that flowed from the core of his being outward to his fists.

  “Button it,” Tate snapped before James could. “That’s our client, Mr. Sebastian Boyd—one of the wealthiest men you’ll ever meet.”

  And with him, James amended in his head, the most beautiful woman he ever hoped to behold.

  Praise for Laura Strickland

  “The world building is phenomenal.”

  ~Daysie W. at My Book Addiction and More

  ~*~

  “Laura Strickland creates a world that not only draws you in, but she incorporates it…seamlessly. …the kind of book that keeps you awake well into the wee hours, and sighing with satisfaction when you've finished the very last page.”

  ~Nicole McCaffrey, author

  ~*~

  “As I read I became so involved with the story, I found it difficult to put down the book. …Definitely …an author to watch.”

  ~Dandelion at Long & Short Reviews

  Other Books by Laura Strickland

  available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Dead Handsome: A Buffalo Steampunk Adventure

  ~*~

  Devil Black

  His Wicked Highland Ways

  ~*~

  Daughter of Sherwood

  Champion of Sherwood

  Lord of Sherwood

  ~*~

  Christmas Stories:

  Mrs. Claus and the Viking Ship

  The Tenth Suitor

  Off Kilter

  by

  Laura Strickland

  A Buffalo Steampunk Adventure

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Off Kilter

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Laura Strickland

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Diana Carlile

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-0182-2

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0183-9

  A Buffalo Steampunk Adventure

  Published in the United States of America

  Chapter One

  The Niagara Frontier, May, 1882

  “Hey, Ugly! Yeah, you, there—I’m talking to you!” The taunt reached the ears of James Kilter from clear across the busy Buffalo waterfront, and he turned his head involuntarily to search out the source. “Look, lads,” he heard, “it’s the ugliest man in the city, out for a stroll.”

  A crowd of ruffians occupied the far side of the street—none above twenty, all thieves and pickpockets—led by that rogue Charlie Crowter. Crowter, dressed in ragged pants, shabby vest, and with a disreputable cap pushed to the back of his head, stood at the forefront, grinning his enjoyment.

  “What do you think, boys?” Crowter chortled even as James paused, his hands curling into fists. “Should something that hid-ee-yous be let out into daylight where innocent kiddies might see it and take fright?”

  “Hell, no!” shouted one of his dutiful henchmen from the back of the group.

  “Hell, no,” Crowter repeated. “Any hound that ugly should be shut in a dark kennel and beat regular with a big stick.”

  At those words, anger, hot and raw, coursed through James. A man of few illusions—those having been stripped away from him at a young age—he knew what he was: ugly, just as Crowter said, a monster barely fit for human sight. He could handle such insults but not the cruelty. Everyone in this city knew him for his defense of the abused and downtrodden—dogs in particular. And they knew him for his righteous temper as well as his ruined face.

  “Ooh, Charlie, watch out,” quipped another of Crowter’s crew. “He might come across the street.”

  “I ain’t scared of him,” said Crowter with more than a touch of bravado. Over the busy pavement, his gaze met James’ and clashed.

  You should be scared, James thought but didn’t say it aloud. He’d had past run-ins with Crowter while doing his job, working security. Crowter invariably got the worst of it, which was no doubt why his pride spurred him to challenge James now.

  Good thing I’m too busy to go over there and smash his face in, James thought. On his way to meet his boss, Tate Murphy, and pick up their next assignment, he dared not linger. But he felt the impulse—his clenched fists ached with the desire to strike.

  “Kilt his own mother, did that mad dog,” Crowter continued to goad. “Why do you think they call him ‘Kilt-her’?”

  “She should have kilt him when he came out of
her, ugly as he is,” another of his cronies opined.

  But he hadn’t been born like this, James thought angrily, the damn fools. And that wasn’t how the story went. Not that he needed to waste any breath or explanations on this bunch of louts.

  As Tate always said, he might need that breath someday.

  Yet people on the street, sensing a confrontation or maybe hoping for one, had begun to stare; workers going about their business, steamcab drivers, servants hurrying on errands.

  Much as James might like to provide them a diversion, he dismissed Charlie Crowter with a glare, squared his shoulders, and tucked his head well down before resuming his walk.

  “Curdled any milk lately?” drifted after him as he ate up the sidewalk with his long stride. Crowter should know better than to tangle with him. James might be ugly, but he made two of that little runt in both height and muscle.

  Later, he promised both himself and Crowter silently. When I’m not bound on business.

  The harbor came in sight then, sparkling in the afternoon sunlight like a carpet of jewels. The scents of the waterfront assailed James’ nostrils at the same moment: river water, tar, and steam. James expanded his chest in a deep breath. Other smells lay beneath those predominant, mainly piss and garbage. But James, born in this city, loved every bit of it.

  Something in him responded to the color and bustle of the scene before his eyes. Men unloaded cargo from two ships; boys carried out tasks or lingered hoping to lift what they could. Horse-drawn drays and steam wagons competed for space, ready to pick up orders. Clatter and the clamor of voices filled the air in at least five languages.

  James’ quick eyes searched the scene seeking Tate and miraculously located him standing with other members of the crew as well as a Buffalo police officer.

  Tate saw him at almost the same moment and lifted an arm. “Here, lad.”

  Hands still crammed in his pockets, James made his way to the small knot of men. When he got close enough he recognized the copper as Brendan Fagan, a friend of Tate Murphy’s. Fagan headed Buffalo’s hybrid unit—half man and half machine—even though Fagan was all human. James spotted none of the hybrids nearby, and he relaxed slightly; the darned things made his skin crawl.

  Fagan glanced at him and gave a nod but kept talking to Tate. Two big micks, James thought, though he didn’t say it aloud. In this city birds of a feather really did flock together, which resulted in a lot of interesting neighborhoods: Irish, German, Hungarian, some English, and a community of former slaves who’d moved north after the war two decades ago. Both Tate and Brendan Fagan had been born in Ireland, and it showed: Fagan’s brown hair caught a gleam of red in the sun; his broad, strapping frame nearly matched that of James’ employer. Tate—short for Tater, or Tattie in Irish—had a head of flaming red curls and enough freckles to mark him well as a man of the old sod.

  James exchanged looks with his fellow employees, all of whom he knew well. Bucky LaPlatte, who hailed from French Canada, Stan Illiov, and Phil Latham stood stolidly like men who knew how to take care of themselves.

  James joined their ranks silently while Brendan Fagan took his leave.

  “We’re on it, but keep your eyes peeled, lad,” he told Tate. “The problem seems to be worsening.”

  “Will do,” Tate told him and turned to his men as the Irish copper walked off. “Hear that, lads? The bastards struck again.”

  “Where?” asked Stan emotionlessly. The Russian rarely betrayed his feelings, his voice colored only by his thick accent.

  “Three girls went missing from that dance last night at the grand hotel. Nobody saw a thing.”

  James grimaced. Since the beginning of spring, young women had been disappearing without a trace, mostly lasses employed in the houses of the wealthy. James didn’t even want to think about what might have happened to them.

  “Just the same as the others,” Bucky observed. The hulking man from Montreal had been a crewman on the St. Lawrence before an injury made him throw in his lot with Tate.

  To be sure, James thought now, Tate had a habit of employing the maimed and disenfranchised.

  Tate nodded grimly. Each of the missing girls, according to their friends, had been there one moment and gone the next, as if whisked away by magic. “Whoever’s after doing this, he’s fecking efficient. And that brings me to our assignment. Big man wants his bit o’ fluff guarded while he’s in our lovely city.”

  “Round the clock?” Phil asked.

  “No, only when he’s not with her.”

  “And that takes four of us?” Latham persisted.

  “We’ll see, shall we? Ah, will you look at that.” Tate’s ever-present brogue deepened with enthusiasm. “Have you ever seen a ship so grand?”

  An airship approached across Lake Erie, heading for the landing strip at the foot of Perry Street. James caught his breath in wonder. Airships made a common enough sight in the city; the wealthy owned and flaunted them. Their use had currently come under scrutiny for suspicion of shifting illegal cargo, and rumor had it the military was developing its own fleet.

  James had to admit a fascination with them. On his day off he often came down here to watch the landings. He had never seen one of this size or brilliance. Half the length of a city block, it boasted an envelope of bright blue, and the gondola caught the sun in a blaze of gold.

  “What the hell?” Latham barked. The ornery Englishman abhorred ostentation. So, ordinarily, did James. Yet now he narrowed his eyes in admiration.

  “That’ll be our client,” Tate said. “Come on, lads. Let’s see what the man wants with us.”

  The landing strip lay some three blocks over, and they went at a jog, breaking sweat in the warm sun. By the time they got there the party had begun to disembark from the gondola—and what a party it was.

  The servants came first, a virtual bevy of them, all hurrying importantly. James rocked on his heels and watched them roll out a carpet—an actual frigging red carpet—from the door of the gondola across the bricks on the street. The gondola continued to spew a crowd of people, sycophants no doubt, and James became distracted by the airship itself. Tate had promised to buy him a ride someday from a man who booked excursions out over the lake, but for now he could only imagine the pleasure. He wondered what it would be like to own such a glorious toy and acknowledged he’d never know. He couldn’t even conceive of the required riches.

  “That him?” Latham asked.

  “Aye.”

  James switched his gaze to the three people who had just disembarked, two men and a woman, and promptly lost all the breath in his body.

  They made an unlikely enough trio—one of the men willowy and slender, clad in a splendid suit that screamed wealth, the other broad and squat if also well-dressed. James dismissed both of them almost immediately, for the third of the group gathered all his attention and focused it the way a mirror gathers light.

  “That his doxy?” Latham persisted.

  She wore one of the new tailored gowns of some thin fabric that fluttered around her slender body in the breeze off the water. Strawberry-blonde hair clustered round her head in a woven crown of curls, and even from fifty paces away James could see the delicate perfection of her features. She stood between the two men like a doe hedged by wolves, and something about her demeanor bespoke the fact that she longed to flee. Suddenly James wanted to tear the two men apart with his bare hands, rescue her, change her world. He knew he could do it, too; at that moment he could best anyone.

  “Nice piece,” Latham muttered. “Wouldn’t mind the job of guarding that.”

  And just as abruptly, James wanted to tear Latham apart also, a visceral reaction that flowed from the core of his being outward to his fists.

  “Button it,” Tate snapped before James could. “That’s our client, Mr. Sebastian Boyd—one of the wealthiest men you’ll ever meet.”

  And with him, James amended in his head, the most beautiful woman he ever hoped to behold.

  Chapter Two />
  Catherine Delaney fought down her nausea and gazed around the place where she stood, a seething morass of movement and confusion. Noise and humanity surrounded her in equal measures, all poised at the edge of the glittering water. Workers and steamcabs fought for space, and the sun beat down mercilessly. Suddenly she found it hard to breathe.

  Coming in on the airship from Canada, she had refused to look down. Flying—a thing she’d never done, before her life came apart—made her ill, the swaying of the gondola, the hiss and pop of the steam engines, and the presence of the man at her side.

  He sickened her most of all.

  Sebastian Boyd. Should the devil become incarnate and walk the earth, he would do it in the form of this man, deceptively handsome and intrinsically, relentlessly evil, with a genius for harm.

  She struggled to draw a breath of the pungent air and fought to command herself. She could not weaken, could not begin screaming now, for once she began she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “I am supposed to meet a man,” Boyd said in his nasal whine, “and he had better be here. I sent word ahead.”

  “Yes, Boss,” said Carter. That was what Carter usually said. That toad of a man, a bootlicker of the first water, seemed to exist only to please Boyd: a brown nose on bandy legs.

  “Security,” Boyd elucidated. “I can’t possibly watch my new possession twenty-four hours a day, can I?”

  “No, Boss.”

  Possession, Catherine thought, and bile rose to the back of her throat. The urge to strike out at the man at her side, to batter him and flee, to wend her way through the teeming area that bordered the airstrip and toss herself into the water, became nearly overwhelming.

  How far might she get? Five steps or ten before Boyd’s hateful hands recaptured her? She hated it when he touched her. Almost anything would be better. Almost.

  “Mr. Boyd?”

  A group of men approached out of the confusion, and the first of them, the tallest, spoke Boyd’s name. A huge strapping fellow, he wore a workman’s suit, and his orange head lay bare to the afternoon sun. Broad features marked a face so plain it looked oddly attractive. He might be a pugilist, and not above thirty.

  “Ah, Murphy?” Boyd said in satisfaction. “Good.”