by Devon Monk
“Step away from the glass, mister, or I will blow your hand off.”
Hink, wisely, stepped back. “Evening, gentlemen,” he said smoothly. “Or is it about morning now? We got ourselves turned around, trying to find a hotel. We’ve just come to town. Found an open door and took shelter from the wind.”
The men didn’t move. Worse, they didn’t put their guns away. A man with a long, drawn-out sort of face and cold black eyes said, “What’s your name?”
Thomas took a small step forward and every gun shifted to him. He looked a little startled at that, and Rose thought he also looked a lot like a bumbling greenhorn who had stumbled into a situation he couldn’t quite get the hang of.
That was an act. The same act he’d used on her to make her believe he was just a nice young man showing her through the library, and offering to walk her home, when really he was probably trying to gather information about Captain Hink.
“I’m sorry if we’ve wandered into your, uh”—he craned his head and squinted at the ceiling, then down at the wall across the way—“building. Would you be so kind as to point us toward a hostel?”
“Name,” the man repeated.
“Oh, yes,” Wicks said. “My name is Thomas Wicks. Pleased to make your meet.” He tapped the brim of his hat and hitched a short bow.
“And this is Mr. Hink, and Miss Small, my traveling companions. We’re recently out of Nebraska, and on our way to Minnesota. The snow seems to have set us off course a bit. Is the nearest town Des Moines or Council Bluff? You see, Mr. Hink and I have a gentleman’s bet riding on it.”
“What you and your friend have here is a problem.” The men split their attention so that their weapons were aimed at the three of them equally. “This is Mayor Vosbrough’s town, and this”—he pointed to the floor—“is Mayor Vosbrough’s private property. We are under orders to shoot any man who trespasses on this land.”
“We mean to cause no trouble—,” Captain Hink said.
“Shut up, and get walking.” The man gestured toward a short tunnel that must have a door at the end of it.
At least Rose hoped it had a door. Here, underground, it would be easy to kill them and leave their bodies to rot. No one would know.
She tucked her hands in her coat pockets, and fingered through the bits there, trying to come up with something that might help them out of this mess.
Twine, bolts, a smooth lump of lead, but nothing that could take down six armed men.
Hink threw Rose a look, and she decided the plan was to cooperate with these men. He started down the tunnel, and Rose finally unfroze her feet and started after him.
As she passed near the globes filled with the Strange, the creatures slammed against the glass, slapping it with their hands, shoulders, causing the whole wall to take up a sour chiming, like someone was hitting milk jugs with wooden spoons.
A few of the Strange called out, their voices too faint and hollow to carry words.
Chills stuttered down her arms and spine, and her stomach turned. There was something very wrong about this. Something very wrong about trapping the Strange in those copper batteries.
And there must be something about those devices that allowed her, and the others, to see the Strange.
“I really don’t think there’s a need for guns,” Wicks was saying. “I assure you we mean no harm. This was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. Perhaps if we could speak with Mayor Vosbrough, we could explain our case and apologize properly.”
“You’ll see him,” a man with a scar on his face said. “Walk.”
The tunnel did indeed end in a door, which one of the men had opened, letting the rising dawn breeze in. Rose paced up the sloped floor behind Hink, and then through the door and up a ramp that must be for wagons.
The men turned to face them again in a half circle, guns pointed. Off to the right was the airship landing field. Now that dawn was purpling up the horizon, the buzz of airship fans broke the stillness, and in the distance, she heard a train whistle blow. Steam and smoke and the sharp stink of hot metal drifted through the still-dark morning.
Behind the men were three more warehouses, and off a ways, a building was being erected, a strange bric-a-brac structure made of wood and brass that tipped upward at over a hundred fifty feet high. It wasn’t an airship tether: too wide, with no looks of a landing platform. Maybe a water tower?
The entryway to the lower section of the warehouse was cleverly hidden by a gear and track system that silently closed a wooden floor over the ramp, so it looked for all the world like a place to park a wagon, not a place to hide captured Strange and rail tunnels.
She had no idea how they even captured the Strange to begin with, nor how they trapped them in the glass. Most people couldn’t see the Strange. And that wall had been filled floor to ceiling with globes. There were easily several thousand Strange in those copper batteries. She didn’t even think there were that many Strange in the entire world, much less in a warehouse in Des Moines, Iowa.
Did they ship them in on the train? They shipped the copper batteries. Maybe there had been Strange on the train with them.
Before she could grapple with that nightmare idea, a steam wagon rolled over from one of the warehouses. It was built closer to the ground than most horse-drawn wagons, and the back of it was boxed in by wood sides and roof, leaving room for a driver and passenger up front to work the boiler and steering devices.
“You’re all going to get in this wagon. Now,” the man with the scar said.
Hink gauged the men. Rose knew what he was deciding: to fight or go along with them. And she knew what decision he’d come to. There wasn’t a fight Captain Hink would walk away from. Didn’t matter if he came out the winner or the loser.
“Of course,” Wicks put in cheerily. “We are happy to do as we’re told. Aren’t we, Mr. Hink?” he added.
“We?” Hink drawled.
“Yes,” Rose said quickly. “We are.” She walked off to the back of the wagon, a smile set on her face in hopes it hid the fear clogging up her throat.
Please don’t start a fight, she thought desperately. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and so far outside of any civilized part of town, they could be shot and kicked down that shaft, which would put a short end to all their adventuring days.
She had a lot of the world left to see, and watching Hink get killed over whether or not he should get in a wagon was one sight she intended to avoid.
He finally turned and walked after her, his boots crunching through the layer of tamped snow. Wicks was ahead, between the two men who stood at the back of the wagon. He nodded to the men and stepped up into it.
Rose climbed into the wagon next. It was dark, windowless, stank of old beer, sweat, and leather. The floor was wood, and there were benches along two walls. Wicks sat on one side and Rose settled across from him.
The wagon springs dipped as Hink climbed up the step. His wide bulk blocked out what little light there was coming in from the open doors. He ducked low and swung onto Rose’s bench, nearest the door.
The doors slammed shut behind them, punctuated by the slide and clank of a bar being thrown across to keep them locked.
“We could have taken them,” Hink said quietly. But there was no chance anyone would hear him. The steam boiler kicked up, starting the wagon to squeaking and rocking over the uneven ground. He could probably yell and not be heard by anyone outside the vehicle.
“No,” Mr. Wicks said. “We couldn’t. You may be a fast draw, Marshal, but we were outgunned in close quarters. And besides, this suits our needs all the better.”
“What needs?” Rose asked.
“There has been information coming out of these parts that the Vosbrough family is gearing up to make a move against the United States government. We don’t know how, and we don’t know when…”
“. . .or where, or who, exactly,” Captain Hink added, “or even why. So basically, we know squat. And squat ain’t nearly enough to die for.”
“I shut down Alabaster Saint’s operation,” Hink said.
“I read the report. Nasty business. Torture.” Here he went silent, and Hink just returned his look with his single, remaining eye.
“Yes,” Hink said, “it was.”
“Don’t you see?” Wicks said, leaning forward a bit and using his hands as he spoke. “This is a perfect chance for a face-to-face meeting with the mayor, Vosbrough.”
“Because he’ll think favorably of us trespassing in his warehouse. A warehouse that contained more than a thousand trapped Strange?”
“What?” Wicks asked.
“Did you look at those glass-and-copper globes?” Hink asked.
“Well, it was dark.”
“They were filled with Strange. Each and every one of them.”
Wicks didn’t say anything for a moment. Outside the wagon, the sounds of the working city grew louder and quieter as they made their way through streets. The yells of a news hawker and of a fishmonger, the hammering of a smithy, the clanging chains of horses and wagons, and the puff and bells of steam matics all navigated in such a tight space made Rose wish there was a window in the wagon. Des Moines would have been the largest city she’d ever seen. If she could have seen it.
“Why?” Wicks finally said. “Why capture the Strange? And how, for that matter?”
“Maybe you can ask the mayor,” Hink said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to just spill it all out for you.”
“Batteries,” Rose said. “That’s what the man on the train told us it was. Somehow the Strange and the glim in those globes make batteries.”
“Power storage for glim?” Wicks shook his head. “I don’t understand that at all.”
“Think of it as a watch that doesn’t need winding because glim sees to the powering of it,” Rose said.
“Watches?”
“No. I don’t know what the batteries are powering, exactly.” Here she glanced at Hink.
They had an idea: the battery fit in the puppet man they had pieced together. If the Strange could be somehow used to power that creature. To work as a heart or drive a spring…
Rose wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. She’d seen what Strange did when they took over dead bodies. They killed, devoured, tortured. And if they had puppet bodies, would they do the same?
Why would anyone want to use the Strange as a power? Or maybe the use of the Strange drained them and killed them.
“What have you heard about the Vosbroughs raising forces?” Captain Hink asked.
It looked like he’d given up on believing Wicks was lying about being on the same side of the law. Either that or he was doing what he always did: gathering information on the glim trade, the Strange, and other unlawful things.
“Not much,” Wicks admitted. “We know Alabaster was raising men and dealing in glim trade he transported by air. One of the main drop points was Cedar Falls, just west of here and easy rail to Des Moines. If those copper globes were filled with glim, it likely came from the western mountains to Alabaster, then by airship to train, and train to here.”
“Are all the Vosbroughs set up in this town?” Hink asked.
“No. Killian is here. His brother is in Chicago and sister is in New York.”
Hink nodded. That was something he seemed to already know. Rose wondered why he didn’t tell Wicks about the puppet, the possible homunculus, but maybe he was smart not to do so. Wicks had fooled her before; she wasn’t feeling favorable to trusting him again so quickly.
“Any news on what the Vosbrough siblings are doing, specifically?” Hink pressed.
Wicks shook his head. “Nothing the papers wouldn’t print.”
The wagon jerked and came to a full stop. Moments later, the bar was lifted from the doors, and when the door was opened, the full light of dawn freshened up the darkness. Rose held her hand over her eyes to block the worst of the glare.
And saw the row of men outside the wagon, all armed, all wearing green and gold with armbands embroidered with the initials VB. A personal guard? Or maybe just the town police? She didn’t know.
“This way.” It was the same dark-eyed man from the warehouse.
Hink sighed, as if tired of the whole thing, slapped his thighs, and then stepped out of the wagon, being sure to stretch up to his full six-and-a-half feet.
The men in the line below gripped their guns a little tighter. Hink could be an intimidating presence when he wanted to be.
“Fine city you got here,” Hink said. “Real nice welcome a fellow gets, plus a free ride to town.” He stepped down to the ground and held his hand out. Rose took his hand and walked down the steps. She tried to smile, but couldn’t hide her worry.
That was a lot of firepower pointing at them. She heard Wicks climbing out of the wagon, but her eyes were suddenly too full of the sights to pay him much attention.
They were standing on a lovely street with brick buildings that reached high enough to scratch the underbelly of heaven. Windows lined the buildings in neat rows, trimmed with scrolling edges and woodwork. And all the way down the street, she could see people in winter coats and bright scarves hurrying here and there. Some stopped to stare at them curiously. Women in fine wool and furs, men in sharp hats, and lots of working folk too, in heavy boots and practical headwear to ward off the cold.
At the farthest end of the street, hovering over the building like a child’s kite, was a plump little airship. It was tied by cable to the street, and its open-deck gondola showed cargo being lowered by rope and pulley—bags of grain and barrels of oil or maybe wine—to the building below it.
It was a loud, busy, exciting place, and even though she should fear for her very life, she couldn’t tamp the thrill out in her heart. This was such a grand sight; something she’d never seen before, never known before. The giddy rush of it warmed her like a fire against the winter.
A city. She, Rose Small, was standing in a city.
“Rose,” Hink said softly.
She looked away from the wonders and to him. He spared her a slight raise of eyebrow and smile. He knew how much this meant to her. He knew how much she loved seeing the world. And would willingly spend her whole life seeking out and unwrapping new bits of it to savor.
“This way,” he said.
That’s when she noticed Wicks and four or so men were already walking into the building they had stopped in front of. Hink started off toward it, and she went with him.
“What did I miss?” she whispered as the men closed in behind them.
“Just that we’re to meet the mayor.”
“Oh,” she said. And the wonder and excitement went cold under that notion.
She stepped through the door and into a carpeted room with walls painted cream and blue, broken up a bit by oil portraits framed in gold. The ceiling was made entirely of copper, and buffed to an ember shine.
It appeared to be a large meeting room or a place where official business might be conducted. A slab of wood the color of rubies filled the center of the room, with ornate chairs set around it. A small desk rested in the corner of the room, and from that desk, a twist of copper cables the size of her arm attached to the wall near a window. A telegraph station was set up on the desktop and a box with other levers and curious switches stood nearby.
But for all the grand nature of the room, it was the man who sat at a kingly desk at the far center who caught her eye.
“Well, well. What do we have here, Sheriff?” he asked in a friendly tone.
The man was of medium height, blond hair caught in a curl beneath his ears, and nose broken and healed at least once. He smiled from behind his desk, and leaned forward a bit in his chair, propping his elbows across a spread of paperwork. One of his hands was bandaged and it appeared his other was rathe
r badly bruised.
Looked like he’d recently been in a fistfight, even though he was dressed in a fine brown pinstripe suit with fur trim at the lapels that probably cost more than all the belongings Rose could call her own.
“Mayor Vosbrough, we found these people in the warehouse by the ship fields.”
“Really? Where exactly?”
“Underground.”
The mayor’s friendly smile tightened along with his eyes.
“Who are you, friends, and why were you on my private property?” he asked.
“Sir, Mayor, sir,” Wicks said, walking forward and offering his hand to shake. One of the sheriff’s men stood in front of him, blocking his approach.
“I am Thomas Wicks,” he said, dropping his hand and giving a nervous smile. “Very pleased—no, honored—to be in your presence.” He bowed.
“I like your manners, Mr. Wicks,” the mayor said. “Thomas, was it? But I don’t stand on such formalities here. Come on up closer. We’re all friends.”
The gunman moved aside and Wicks pulled off his hat and held it in front of him. “I do hope we haven’t offended you in any way,” he said. “We just came into town, and got turned around by the weather while looking for lodgings.”
“It has been cold out, terribly so,” Vosbrough agreed. “And I suspect you only dashed into the warehouse to duck the wind. Is that the story you’re going to tell me, Mr. Wicks?”
Vosbrough was still talking like they were the best of friends, but there was a hard glitter to his eyes.
“Well, it’s…it’s the truth,” Wicks said, doing a damn fine impression of a man who was flustered and confused and nervous.
Rose might hate that he had fooled her with his acting, but right now she sincerely hoped he could do the same to Vosbrough.
“And you, sir? What’s your name?”
“Captain Hink, of the airship Tin Swift.”
The mayor paused. “I’ve heard of the Swift. Rumor is she’s fast.”
“There isn’t a ship faster that burns the sky.”
“What are you doing in my fine city, Captain?”