Off Kilter

by Laura Strickland

  He turned his head to look behind; his stomach clenched and his heart twisted on a desperate surge of hope. A second airship tailed them. Not nearly so big as Boyd’s craft, and not yet within hailing distance, it had a small gondola and an envelope of dark blue.

  Who chased them? He nudged Catherine who stood beside him and said, “Look.”

  Boyd, too, followed their gazes and scowled. “The good police tail us, Miss Delaney, but don’t get too hopeful. I can outrun them any time I choose. And they won’t close soon enough to stop this dog fight.”

  James squared his shoulders and hardened his resolve. Could he trust Boyd to keep his word and free Catherine? Only a fool would think so. But the sight of the police airship lifted his spirits. He just had to stall long enough for rescue to arrive. It didn’t matter so much what happened to him meanwhile.

  Could he pull it off, though? With his body battered and his strength waning, he couldn’t be sure. But he’d use everything that remained in him, for Catherine’s sake.

  She loved him. He closed his eyes, savoring the truth of it. He could ask no more.

  When he opened his eyes again, he felt new resolve. He gazed around and looked for his opponent; all he saw in the immediate vicinity was steel in various states of damage. Had he really done all that? The condition of his hands argued so.

  He fixed Boyd with a hard stare. “Where is he, this champion brawler?”

  Boyd called out past the circle of metal, “Where’s the pirate?”

  Pirate, was it? That lent little edification; most members of the human crew wore that costume. Many of them now hung from the cables and lines, trying to get a view above the wall of steamies. At Boyd’s bellow, one of them detached himself and swung down over the heads of the mechanicals to land on his feet inside the ring.

  James lifted his brows. An impressive move, and one that boded ill for him. He measured the fellow swiftly, and his heart sank: at well over six feet and strapping, the man at least matched James in size. He had a kerchief bound over his hair and another tied up from his neck, half obscuring his face.

  What the hell? The fellow looked like an assassin—likely he was one, too, yet another weapon Boyd kept on reserve in his arsenal. Typical of the man to make a bargain only when he was sure he’d win.

  “Here are the rules,” Boyd stated clearly over the throb of the engines. “There are no rules, no holds barred, and no such thing as a low blow. My man,” he clapped the shoulder of James’ opponent, “you do what you must to kill him, understand? And you’ll have first turn with the little lady—after me, of course—as well as the two thousand dollars.”

  James’ opponent grunted. He had bright green eyes, about all James could see of him, and the blank stare of a natural killer.

  How best to take out such a man? James had no weapons but his fists, and those sorely battered.

  As if to emphasize that thought, his opponent set his shoulders and raised his hands, balled tight.

  Boyd stepped out of the ring and seized hold of Catherine’s arm. James didn’t like that much but had no chance to protest. His opponent suddenly came at him, swinging fists like hammers.

  James ducked and sidestepped, calling on tired muscle and sinew, ignoring everything but the danger at hand. He knew he had to overcome his opponent quickly before he burned away what little of his strength remained. But the man appeared to possess an abundance of brute strength and had experience as a brawler, so Boyd said. James only brawled when he couldn’t avoid it, caught by Crowter and his crew or set upon by the occasional abusive drunk. And this felt nothing like being off kilter, when he had no rational control of his actions.

  He leaped and got in a fierce uppercut to the fellow’s jaw. His right hand screamed in agony, but the man barely bobbed with the force of the blow. His jaw felt like iron.

  With a roar, the man came at James, arms reaching out like those of a bear, more a wrestling move than anything else. Shocked, James absorbed the impact and struggled to get an arm free to land a blow. His opponent had massive strength, like that of an automaton.

  Christ, how would he ever prevail against such a foe? How spare Catherine the ordeal Boyd planned for her before the police ship closed in?

  Face to face, virtually nose to nose, he and his opponent growled at one another, straining in a dance for domination. Glaring straight into James’ eyes, the man tightened his hold until it became unbearable.

  And winked at him.

  James faltered, staring in disbelief. Against all likelihood, the man released him, gave him a slight shove and set him on his heels. As if the kerchief he wore over his mouth distracted him, he tore it off and cast it aside.

  And James knew him. He blinked in stupid disbelief even as he remembered Fagan saying, “We have one of our men on the airship…”

  Man, he’d said. Not automaton. Yet facing James, fists raised and with something that, were it not entirely impossible, looked like glee in his face, stood Patrick Kelly.

  An automaton, after all.

  A new surge of hope—far more real this time—rose in his heart, lifted him, and lent new strength. He wanted to call out to Catherine who stood with her face white, agonized, but could not.

  Instead, he raised a brow at Kelly, who promptly rushed him again. They grappled together, landing blows that did little real damage, and Kelly spoke in James’ ear. “He doesn’t know what I am, friend. None of them does. Let’s make this look good.”

  Friend? Breath bellowed from James’ lungs as Kelly landed a punch to his chest. He could make it look good, but they couldn’t spar forever. What then?

  With a blow to the jaw, Kelly knocked James to the deck and fell on him. Under the guise of pummeling him, he growled, “Be ready to follow my lead. My fellow officers are back there. We’ll get you out of this.”

  “Both of us?” Did Kelly understand James cared little about himself as compared to Catherine? Could an automaton comprehend love?

  Obviously he comprehended friendship…

  James grunted, rolled over, and pummeled Kelly in turn. Even though he pulled the punches, his hands protested.

  “Here now.” In a dirty move, Kelly elbowed James in the gut, effectively breaking his hold, and surged to his feet, bringing James up with him.

  “Bastard!” the automaton hollered in glee. “Die, bastard!”

  He aimed a blow at James’ throat that barely skittered off his windpipe, doing little damage. Catherine screamed, letting James know the brawl must look authentic. Kelly seized him with iron hands and threw him toward Boyd and Catherine, who stood in the ring of steamies. Kelly followed with fists swinging.

  At the same moment, Kelly said, “Now.”

  Now? Now, what? James felt himself fly backwards into Boyd and through the ring of steamies toward the rail, crashing past Catherine and the operative steam unit on one side of her.

  He found himself suddenly intensely grateful to have Kelly on his side. The automaton’s enormous strength argued James never could have bested him.

  But now he came barreling, wild-eyed, looking very much as if bent on mayhem. Had a cog slipped in his mechanical mind? Did he remember the plan?

  Catherine screamed again and laid hold of James with both hands. She stepped in front of him as if to block Kelly’s rush, a terrier facing a mastiff, and James felt her love enwrap him.

  Whatever came next, he knew himself upheld by her feelings for him, made whole and complete.

  Invincible.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Trembling badly, Cat stood with her head high, heart pounding like a piston, in the face of the onrushing brawler. She could feel Jamie struggling for breath behind her, as if he breathed for her and she for him. Jamie Kilter was part of her, perhaps the better part.

  But he now stood with his back hard against the rail of the open deck, and she feared what could happen if his opponent got those hands, like great weapons, on him. She’d stolen one horrified look, as she was flung aside, at w
hat now lay beneath the belly of the airship. A rushing avalanche of water foamed, surged, and plunged down an impossible distance to a deep, green-gray pool. They hovered directly over the mighty falls of the Niagara, and the airship began to come about as if to face the ship that pursued them. Buffeted by the mist and turbulence off the water, did Boyd mean to stop here and fight?

  Just like Cat, Boyd and his guards had been flung aside like ninepins by Jamie’s velocity. The howling brute that was James’ opponent barreled in like a steam train…and at the last instant veered aside to seize Boyd in those large, merciless hands.

  For an instant time froze, letting Cat observe the scene. The shock on Boyd’s face told the whole story. He had not seen this coming, had not expected to be the target of his tame cur. Her heart struggled to rise on hope that wouldn’t quite come. How could this be? Why would Boyd’s champion turn against him?

  James moved Cat aside with gentle, bloodied hands. “Get down.”

  “But—”

  “Get down, Catherine, love. They’re still armed.”

  By they he meant all the steam units that now stood by, seeming to await orders. The order came as Boyd, breaking his paralysis, barked out, “Shoot, you fools! Shoot them!”

  The first blast raked the deck almost at Jamie’s feet. He leaped aside and the beam seared the steel between him and Cat. She felt the breath of superheated air before the steam dissipated in the mist.

  If either of them took a blast here, she knew it would mean death, with no time to reach the home of the kindly Mrs. McMahon.

  “Down!” James barked again, and shoved her flat against the rail before he went wading back into the confrontation. His former opponent now had Boyd by the throat, one large hand nearly encircling Boyd’s neck. But the remaining steam units, to say nothing of the human crewmembers, had their orders. As a single man they readied their weapons.

  Cat rose to her hands and knees from where she’d fallen. She saw Jamie’s opponent swing Boyd around, one forearm across his throat, and heard him bellow, “Put your weapons aside or he dies!”

  The breath gusted from her lungs, and she struggled to her feet, swaying against the rail. An ugly sneer twisted Boyd’s features; despite his position he didn’t look like a man defeated.

  “Kill her!” he croaked. “First man to slaughter her earns a fortune.”

  Cat went rigid where she stood, pinned against the rail. Jamie spun, his face a mask of blood that obscured his expression. But she felt his love, knew his spirit leaped for hers an instant before his body followed.

  From whence came the blast? Cat never knew, but it struck the deck directly in front of her and seared her toes. She leaped onto the rail, half stunned by the heat and acting on pure instinct. She saw the agony in Jamie’s eyes a split second before yet another blast hit him, took him in the shoulder, and spun him half around. His body struck hers, her hands caught at him, and they tumbled over the rail together.

  For an instant Cat knew only the sensation of free falling, weightless, as her stomach tumbled inside her. Then came a bone-jarring impact as momentum abruptly halted. She cried out and tightened her grip on Jamie, the only thing keeping her from plunging into the rushing waters below.

  But what kept him from falling? She looked up through her own locks of hair to see his face just above hers, rigid with tension. Up, up and up she looked—better than down—and saw that he’d caught a dangling line in both his bloody hands.

  She tried to draw a breath and failed. Those hands—they appeared to be little more than torn pulp; she didn’t see how he could use them to hold both their weight, not for long. Even as she peered upward the cable slid through them a scant inch, slick with blood.

  “Hang on,” he gasped. “Don’t you dare let go of me. Do you hear?”

  She heard, but already her own fingers cramped with pain. What was happening up on deck? She heard shouting, and another weapon discharged. Before that fracas ended they would surely both fall.

  “Jamie,” she breathed.

  “Hang on.” He groaned and his right arm—that which had been struck by the blast—began to quiver. Having taken that blast to the chest, she knew the pain that gripped him. Would he be able to hold them by only one ruined, bloodied hand?

  And what chance of rescue? She turned her eyes to search for the police vessel and got a sweeping view of what stretched beneath them instead. Her stomach fell to her feet.

  Boyd’s airship had swooped as it swung about and they now hung low over the rushing water, just above the lip of the falls. Mist and thunderous reverberation both rose to engulf them, a maelstrom of sensation. The motion of the falling water seemed to draw Cat irresistibly, and she thought about letting herself tumble with it.

  Precisely as if he could read her mind, Jamie grunted, “No! Hang on to me. Don’t you let go, Catherine, hear?”

  “I hear you.” She closed her eyes against the terrible seductive lure of what lay below and clung to him like a monkey, using both hands and legs. She had given him her heart. Could she do anything but give him all her trust?

  But his whole body now shook with strain. Abruptly they dropped another inch and a sob broke from his throat.

  If she had to die, at least it would be with him.

  She heard a loud drone and realized the police ship had come alongside Boyd’s vessel. Someone aboard shouted at them, but Cat couldn’t distinguish the words above the roar of the falls.

  She opened her eyes and stole a look. The police vessel struggled to maneuver closer; she could see people leaning over its rail, engulfed in spray.

  Jamie and she slipped again, and she turned her gaze up to see the very end of the cable clutched in Jamie’s fist.

  From above there came a cannon blast. Superheated air streamed above Cat’s head; Boyd’s crew, she realized, fired on the police vessel. Boyd’s airship rocked as the police returned fire; someone bellowed from the police ship: a warning.

  “Jamie,” she gasped.

  He didn’t reply; his body, rigid beneath hers, told the story of his agony and determination.

  The airship rocked again. Jamie gasped out what sounded like a curse—or a prayer—and said, “Forgive me, Catherine. I can’t—”

  “Friend! Here, take my hand!”

  The voice came from above their heads. Almost afraid to move, Cat craned up and saw Jamie’s former opponent leaning over the rail, reaching down.

  “Kelly,” Jamie said, “pull her up!”

  “Grab my hand. I’ll haul both of you up.”

  A blast seared the air just above Kelly’s head; he ignored it.

  “Can’t.” Jamie bit the word hard. “We’ll fall.”

  Kelly leaned down further, his hips on the top rail. Cat, her cheek pressed to Jamie’s chest, had a sudden conviction he would go over and take both of them with him. The battle still raged above and beside them. The airship careened in the currents kicked up by the wild water below, and Kelly lunged.

  It took Cat an instant to see he’d seized Jamie’s wrist.

  “I’ve got you, lad! Give me your other hand.”

  “Can’t. Shoulder’s blasted.”

  “Never mind, I’ll pull you up.”

  He couldn’t possibly, Cat thought—no one could haul so much weight by one hand. But she saw him close his other fist on Jamie’s forearm and pull with deceptive ease.

  They began to rise slowly, inexorably, swinging like fish on a line. The bottom rail came even with the top of Jamie’s head. A blast struck nearby, and Kelly wavered for an instant, their progress arrested.

  “Kelly!” Jamie shouted. “Are you hit?”

  The top of Kelly’s head smoked, but his eyes remained open and he stayed upright. Cat’s breath stilled in her throat as he set his feet against the bottom rail and began hauling them upward again. How could he endure a direct hit? How could anyone?

  Jamie grunted again as Cat came level with the rail. “Grab hold!” he bade her. “Do it!”

  Did
he, too, fear Kelly would suddenly collapse? Cat unwound one hand from Jamie’s shirt and wrapped her fingers around the iron rail, now slick with wetness from the mist. With a gasp of agony, Jamie forced his damaged shoulder to move and followed suit.

  “Over the rail with you, man,” Kelly shouted.

  “Over the rail,” Jamie grated in Cat’s ear.

  Now that she could see the wholesale battle on the deck of the airship, she wondered if it would be any safer than dangling over the rushing waters. But Kelly grabbed her by the shoulder, his grip painful as iron pincers, and lifted her over the top rail. She landed on the deck and immediately ducked a blast that kissed the air over her head and bounced over the railing.

  Jamie! But he came over the rail, bloody, grimacing with pain, yet all in one piece.

  He collapsed and drew Cat’s body beneath his in an attempt to protect her from the blasts that arced about the deck and issued from the police vessel as well.

  Where was Boyd? Cat peeked out from beneath Jamie’s torn sleeve in an effort to locate him but couldn’t. Too much mist and steam filled the air.

  “Stand and desist!” Someone on the police vessel had a bullhorn. “Stop firing!”

  The battle continued. Cat, her head tucked beneath Jamie’s chest, couldn’t believe the envelope of either ship had not yet been struck.

  “Throw down your weapons, or we’ll shoot you out of the sky!”

  Cat shut her eyes on a rush of terror. Surely Kelly hadn’t hauled them up just so they could all crash onto the rocks and streaming water below…

  Above her, Jamie lifted his head. Cat caught a glimpse of the police airship close alongside Boyd’s and then one of Boyd himself—still alive, damn it, perhaps twenty paces away and still shouting orders.

  “Turncoat!” he shouted at Kelly. “You’ll pay for that. Shoot him. Shoot him!”

  Kelly, who stood guard over Cat and Jamie where they huddled against the rail, did not reply; he didn’t move either, but stood like a man in a trance with his arms dangling at his sides. The back of his head still smoked and, straining to look up, Cat saw an incredible sight where his hair and flesh had been burned away: not the bone of a human skull but steel plating.