Fires of Hell: The Alchemystic

by Maureen L. Mills

  I didn’t blame him overmuch. If I had not, of necessity, been forced to stay, I would have left too. Certainly the next all-too-lengthy minutes, as Lieutenant Whitcomb cleaned and bound my wounds, were distinctly unpleasant. I dashed moisture from my eyes several times—from the harsh whiskey fumes, of course.

  The familiar sway and increased downward pressure as the Mercury took to the skies served as some comfort. So, too, was the knowledge that both the burn and the gunshot should heal cleanly. Whitcomb advised me of this in terse sentences, his face severe and disapproving after I (perhaps) compared his mother unfavorably to a floppy-humped camel. In my defense, I had not realized Whitcomb was so fluent in the language of the Berbers.

  “Stay in bed,” he ordered as he fastened the bandage around my bullet wound—a clean graze, taking skin and a little muscle without damaging anything vital. “I can’t have you getting underfoot when you’re supposed to be healing up as quickly as possible. We need our chief engineer healthy and strong.” He plopped the remains of the Scotch onto the bed beside me. “For the pain. Or I’ve some laudanum, if you’d prefer to sleep the night through.”

  “No, I’m fine.” I wasn’t, not really, but I felt considerably better than earlier, particularly since Whitcomb had ceased irritating my injuries with his poking and dabbing. Whitcomb sniffed as if I were a fool to refuse the drug and left the cabin.

  Thank goodness.

  I tried to take his advice. I used the remnants of my bodice and water from the ewer on the washstand to clean the worst of the grime from my hands and face, and lay back on the narrow bunk. I closed my eyes, grateful for the chance to recover in peace.

  However, the distant crackle of flames and the shouts of men from the airfield rose above the background basso roar of airships fleeing the blaze. My deformed bustle dug into my backside, and I couldn’t lie on my side or stomach to avoid the lumpy thing, not with the burn on my chest and the wound on my arm. Whitcomb had cut me out of my bodice and corset, but I couldn’t undress further with only one hand.

  Too, my brain refused to settle, darting from one question to the next, allowing me not a moment’s surcease. Where was Reuben? Who else knew what I was? Would Her Majesty’s officers be waiting for me when we next set down? How had Josiah known to break down the hangar door right when he had?

  Why would he risk himself to save me?

  I sat up, reached for the whiskey, and swallowed two mouthfuls to bolster my courage.

  The cabin was so tiny, I had no need to stand in order to put the bottle in the top drawer of the secretary beside the head of the bed. I tugged up the front of my chemise to cover most of the bandage over my burn and ran the fingers of my good hand through my hair to settle it.

  Whitcomb had left his coat slung over the back of the single chair. He apparently did not want it back after I had gotten it stained with coal dust and blood. I pulled it onto my good arm and around my shoulders, and ventured from the cabin onto the deck, my tattered skirts dragging on the pine boards without the support of my ruined bustle.

  The deck was deserted. No Reuben, whistling merrily while he coiled the lines or reefed the sails. Whatever crewmen the Mercury carried were busy elsewhere, probably in the engine room and on the command deck. I could not deny the pull of the engine room. Who tended the fires? Watched the gauges? Benjamin, I’d guess, but he’d had no more than a few days’ instruction. Not nearly enough to be trusted with the engines on his own.

  On the other hand, we weren’t exactly winging our way to the far reaches of Tunis, through a raging storm. We had only to keep out of reach of the flames below. Not a difficult task, even for one so inexperienced. Benjamin needed my assistance less than I needed answers; answers that I could obtain from Josiah alone, who surely was on the bridge. Answers that might not be as comforting to me as my engine room.

  I paused for a moment, wavering between the two destinations. In the end, disgust at my own cowardice forced me up the ladder.

  Josiah and Lieutenant Whitcomb, both neatly dressed in alternate uniform coats, looked up from the papers scattered on the navigator’s table as I tapped on the door and entered.

  “I told you to stay in bed!” Whitcomb snapped.

  I began to shrug, stopping suddenly as the motion pulled at the burn. “I can’t sleep, not unless you want to help me out of this blasted skirt and bustle.”

  His scandalized look had the corners of my mouth twitching upward.

  Josiah smiled, too, a barely perceptible softening of the strict line of his mouth. I might have missed it had I not been studying his face so intently. My eyes seemed drawn to his like magnets to iron. “May I speak with you, Captain?”

  “Lieutenant, would you mind fetching us some tea?” Josiah’s gaze never left mine.

  Whitcomb didn’t hesitate. “Of course, sir.” He moved carefully past me, closing the door as he left to allow us such privacy as he could.

  Josiah waited until Whitcomb’s footsteps were swallowed by the background rumble. “What is it, Chief Everley?”

  I had so many questions for the man I hardly knew where to start. “Where is Reuben?”

  Josiah’s mouth tightened. “I don’t know. I have ground crew searching for him, but with the chaos down below, he could be long gone by now.” He frowned. “I never seriously suspected the man of being our saboteur. My father trusted him, and, therefore, so did I.”

  I sighed, weary and disillusioned. “I did as well. I thought he was a friend, but all he wanted was money.”

  “I am sorry, Amelia.” A look of sympathy flitted over his face; there, and then gone. His expression hardened. “I shall find him, never fear.”

  “What will you do then? You can’t turn him over to the police. He might tell them…” He might tell them about me. The unregistered phlog. I was selfish enough to let Reuben go free if it meant my own safety. A humbling revelation.

  But maybe Josiah didn’t mind exposing my secret. Perhaps he was as repulsed by phlogs as most Englishmen. I glanced down, unwilling to see any flash of distaste in his expression.

  “I’ll take care of him,” Josiah said in a grim voice.

  Had he meant his words to sound as, well, as lethal as they had?

  My eyes flew back to Josiah’s. “He didn’t mean to kill Henry.” Why was I still defending the man?

  “He could have killed us all when he sabotaged the ship, and as you say, I cannot turn him over to the police.”

  “What will you do?” He wouldn’t order the man killed, would he? That would make Josiah nearly as bad as Fairlane.

  “I’ll tell him we found some of the poison in his belongings aboard ship, and if he ever speaks of you, I will see him hanged for murder. Your secret will be safe. Well, as safe as it can be when most of the crew also knows it.” He waved a hand at the bandage on my breast. “It appears I was one of the few aboard ship who did not know what you are.”

  “I swear to you, Josiah, I didn’t think anyone but your father knew. He made me promise not to tell anyone, ever.”

  “He was right to do so. He should have tried harder to conceal your secret.”

  “I am responsible for hiding my abilities, not Captain Rollins!”

  I thought my ill-timed outburst might anger Josiah, but he smiled. “I hope someday to earn similar loyalty,” he said.

  His quiet response, combined with his smile—oh, his smile!—set my head whirling with confusion. In self-defense, I hastily changed the subject. “How did you know to come rescue me? And why would you take the risk? You were very clear about how little you regarded me.”

  Josiah looked away, releasing me from his steady grey gaze. I felt strangely bereft.

  “I was coming to apologize, Miss Everley. Amelia.”

  “For which offense in particular? There have been a number.”

  “I suppose I deserve that.” He stepped toward me, stopping a scant arm’s length away. “This afternoon, after you left my mother’s house, I tried to calm her down. I tol
d her you were gone for good, and she didn’t have to worry about any Everley ever again.”

  My chest went tight. Hearing those words brought back the hurt of this afternoon’s confrontation, intensified by the fact that Josiah spoke them.

  I must have paled, for Josiah paused and looked at me with alarm. “Sit down, please, Amelia. I should have remembered at the first.”

  “No, thank you, sir. I’ll be fine in a moment.” Sitting seemed like too much an acknowledgement of weakness. Of course, fainting would be worse, but I doubted it would come to that. The dizziness would soon pass. I hoped. “What did Mrs. Rollins say to that, sir?”

  Josiah sighed and ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a few flakes of ash. “She refused to believe it. She insisted we would be hearing from your lawyer next, suing for support, or a greater share of my inheritance. Or you would come yourself, trying to lure me with your ‘feminine wiles’.”

  I glanced ruefully down at my bedraggled and dirty state. Not an uncommon situation for me, although perhaps with less blood and torn clothing involved.

  Josiah followed my gaze, his eyes darkening. “Yes, well, my mother was not far wrong about your effect on me, even with you so often covered in soot and unconventionally attired.”

  I felt his attention like a hand skating over body. My face warmed. “Josiah—” I began, not sure if I wanted to protest or to beg.

  He cut me off, thank God. “I realized something then.”

  What? When? Oh, yes. He had returned to talking about his mother. “What did you realize, sir?”

  “You have never tried to ‘use your wiles’, as my mother put it, on me. You have always been completely professional.” Josiah’s mouth quirked up on one side, ruefully. “Sometimes too professional. I admit at times I wished you to be more open with your feelings.”

  How fortunate he could not read minds. I distinctly remember harboring some decidedly unprofessional thoughts in regards to Josiah. In fact, I harbored more than a few at this very moment.

  “I explained as much to my mother, and she claimed you were playing a game, enticing me to chase you. I began to understand how unbalanced my mother’s point of view had become. You are many things, Amelia. Outspoken, stubborn, and hot-tempered, but never manipulative. So I told her you would not have to hire a lawyer because I would make sure the terms of the will were generously executed.”

  I gave a low whistle. “I can imagine what she said to that.”

  He sighed and settled one hip on the navigator’s table. “I imagine you can. That is when I realized—”

  “Another realization, sir? Must have been quite the enlightening evening.”

  He smiled wryly and straightened, running a hand over his hair again. The actions reminded me very much of how he’d behaved this afternoon when he had asked me to speak with his mother. The reminder did nothing to settle my nerves.

  “I have misjudged you, Miss Everley. Not merely once, which might be forgiven, under the circumstances, but over and over again. I allowed my resentment of your relationship with my father, and my mother’s own bitterness, to sway my opinion of you. That is why I searched you out tonight, to apologize, and to beg you to come back. I did not hope for your immediate forgiveness, but perhaps, over time, I could earn it by showing you I respected you as an engineer and as a… a person.”

  I could tell he almost said, “as a woman”, but he managed to stop himself in time. I gave him credit for the effort.

  “Benjamin saw you go to the Falcon’s Flight offices, and from there to their hangar. I intended to interrupt whatever negotiations had begun. I know you well enough to be sure you would negotiate any contract. But then, you screamed.” His face went bleak. He reached out as if he needed to touch me in order to assure himself I was here and safe.

  “And you broke in and rescued me,” I finished. I took his hand, squeezed, and would have let go, but his grip firmed, denying me escape from the suddenly intimate contact.

  He gave a dry laugh. “I attempted to, anyway. I think it is safe to say we rescued each other, in the end.”

  I returned his smile. “Yes, I guess we did.”

  “We make a good team.” He sobered. “Can you forgive me, Amelia? Grow to trust me, as you trusted my father? I don’t deserve it, and I don’t expect it right away, but sometime in the future, maybe?” His smoke-grey eyes, like his father’s and yet all his own, too, searched mine.

  “You did not ask Whitcomb for his trust in this manner, I wager,” I said, mostly to give me time to think, for his words shook me badly.

  “Neither did I betray his trust so completely.”

  If I had possessed a romantic soul, I would have whispered “yes, I forgive you”, quietly, so only Josiah could hear. He would have pulled me into his arms, declared his undying devotion, and kissed me until my head spun—a very small distance to go, particularly if he accidentally crushed my injured arm or breast.

  Perhaps I had a measure of romance in me, for part of me wished this was how the conversation could end. Discounting the part where my wounds got crushed.

  It couldn’t, however.

  I had trusted Josiah’s father implicitly. Unquestioningly. With the faith of a child.

  I was a child no longer. I had seen the cracks in the pedestal upon which I had placed Captain Rollins. I had managed to salvage my respect for the man, but I was not about to trust so easily again, especially not one who had hurt me so deeply.

  Josiah’s face grew more anxious as the silence between us stretched on. I had agreed to come back and work for this man. But could I forgive him?

  He was young, as young as I. Maybe a bit younger, now that I thought about the probable sequence of events surrounding our births. Had Maman become enceinte before Captain Rollins married, or after?

  In any case, we were of a very similar age. Yes, he had made mistakes. So had I. He possessed the insight to see through his mother’s machinations—at least, with my help. He meant well and tried to do his best, and what more could one ask of a person?

  I shifted my grip and gave his hand a firm shake. “I’m willing to give it a try if you are, Captain.” I would have shrugged, had my wounds permitted the action. “I shall have to trust you, in any case. You already know all my secrets.”

  “Not all. Of that I am certain. With you around, I have a feeling my life will be an unending parade of surprises.”

  “I’m not that difficult! I’m an engineer, and quite logical!”

  “Indeed.” He raised an eyebrow, and I wondered which of my less-than-entirely-logical escapades he was remembering. Sneaking from the ship in Paris, against orders? Badgering the poor eatery owner in Constantinople?

  I felt my cheeks heat. “I’ll admit these last few weeks have been problematic.”

  “We have both had a trying month.” He fell silent, his eyes searching my face. I felt when they stopped on my mouth, felt the tingle in my lips, traveling right down my spine. My breath hitched.

  Maybe this would end in romance, after all.

  Josiah dragged his gaze back up to meet mine. “Logical, you say?” His voice sounded husky. He cleared his throat, dropping my hand. “I hope not too logical, for logic dictates you recover at home for at least two weeks before attempting to return to work, but I have a commission to deliver a pouch to Venice in three days. Are you up to it, Chief?”

  My heart glowed. He understood. Not only that, but he trusted me. Trusted me to know my abilities, trusted me to fly his ship. This was better than mere romantic drivel. Or, perhaps, this mutual trust was the very basis of true romance.

  Something to think of later when I had time. Now, I had a job to do.

  I straightened, flexing my arm to test the limits of my injuries. Not so very bad. With Benjamin’s help, I should be able to manage.

  “Yes, of course, Captain Rollins. When do we sail?”

  ABOUT MAUREEN L. MILLS

  Maureen Mills lives in Draper, Utah, and is the happily married mother of fiv
e grown children, all of whom are proud geeks, like their mom and dad. When she’s not playing with her imaginary friends, she enjoys knitting, reading, and sewing cosplay outfits for her kids, who look a lot better in them than she does. Along with her husband, she is in the process of creating a steampunk truck camper from scratch. She also enjoys teaching beginning fiction writing for the local school district’s continuing education program.

  Find Maureen Online:

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