Clark swerved around the group and drove to the shed. He parked in the back so a stray bullet wouldn’t hit his cycle and darted around to the door in the side. A padlock sealed a chain to the wall and through the handle, leaving the door open a sliver, as though to let air circulate through.
“Amethyst?” He banged his fist against the door, his leather padding his hand.
The bang vibrated through the shed and a softened voice called, “Clark?”
She recognized him, despite the cycles and gunshots. Something within him tightened.
“Get back.” He pulled his pistol from his belt and fired into the padlock. Metal crunched, but when he yanked, it still held. “Brass glass.” If blowing it up didn’t work, he’d have to cut through the tin. It would take a while, but it would work. He held the barrel against the keyhole and fired again. The bullet crushed gears inside with a crack. When he yanked, the latch gave. He tossed the padlock behind him and worked the chain out.
Clark kicked the door, revealing Amethyst huddling against the back wall. A brown dress hung off her left shoulder and puckered around the lacing that trailed from collar to waist. Bare feet protruded from the long hem.
Her nipples showed through the linen.
Something else he recognized well tightened in his pants. Blooming gears, he couldn’t think like that. She was his sister! He started to pull off his leather jacket for her to use as a covering, but scowled. Heat had turned her face and neck as red as ripe apples. Her skin shone with sweat and her unbound hair stuck to her forehead. The thick jacket might cause her to pass out.
“Did you bring the army?” Her dry lips stuck together with each word.
Last thing he’d bring. “No. Where are the others from Cogton?”
“They let them go once we reached the desert. They only wanted me.”
That made things easier. Sort of. “You mean they’re wandering in the desert?”
She tried to lick her lips, but panted, as if her saliva had dried. “We dropped them outside a town. They should’ve made it there safely.”
He held out his hand for her. “We’re getting you home.”
She staggered toward him, her arms behind her back. “Is Father here?”
“Just Jeremiah. I’ll explain.” He grabbed her shoulder and realized someone had bound her wrists. “Hold still.” He pulled out his pocketknife and switched the blade out, then sawed through the ropes. The shouts grew louder outside, followed by thumps against metal. The gang had to be destroying the airships, or at least trying. How much damage did they think they would do against layers of metal?
When the ropes fell to the dirt, he flexed her fingers and grimaced. They appeared stiff, whitened.
“The idiots tied the knots too tight,” she grunted.
Clark snickered. Despite being kidnapped and held captive in an oven, she could call them names. Other girls from her background might be whimpering.
With his arm around her waist, he helped her onto his steamcycle, lifting her skirt around her waist so she could get her legs over each side, and swung ahead of her. “Hold me tight.” He had to ignore the cream-colored skin that covered her calves, her blue painted toenails, her legs waxed of hair to appear as smooth as satin. Where the skirt crumpled, he caught a glimpse of her thighs.
Her arms slid around his waist and she pressed her front against his back. Her breath brushed his neck where the onyx helmet didn’t cover.
“If you want a hug, just ask,” she purred.
Minx. He set his jaw as he revved the engine and steered his steamcycle away from the fighting. She might get hit if he drove through the middle. He would follow the ridge before boarding it.
Jeremiah struck the airship with a hammer he’d found on shelves in the back of the hangar. The tool bounced off, jolting his arm. “Bloody thing!”
One of Clark’s friends stabbed the airship with a screwdriver and swore when that bounced off too. “We need a sledgehammer.”
“See one around here?” Jeremiah scowled. “We’ve got to destroy this thing.” He stalked around the airship, straw crunching beneath his boots. “Stupid, bloody piece of shit.”
The other man threw the screwdriver at the tool shelves. “This ain’t working.”
“We’ll figure out how to drive this thing and crash it.”
“And die.” The man wiped sweat off his forehead. He’d left his helmet hanging from his handlebars. “I’m out. Do whatever you want.”
“Sure.” Jeremiah kicked the airship. He should’ve worn his spurs to scratch the thing. When they returned to Cogton, he’d sic the army on this place. Senator Horan wouldn’t get away with having secret equipment or attacking Amethyst. The Treasure name wouldn’t tarnish.
Clark popped the seat on his cycle to remove the canteen. He shook it before handing it to Amethyst. “It’s warm, but it’ll keep you hydrated.”
She unscrewed the lid and took a long gulp. A trickle of water appeared at the corner of her lips. “When I get home, I’m ordering a glass of lemonade. With ice. Lots of ice.”
“Did they rape you?”
She took another gulp. “That’s not very decent to say. You should be more delicate with your words.”
“I wasn’t raised with manners.” His mother had done the best to teach him the correct way to be a gentleman, but they hadn’t been gifted tutors. The best thing for him had been the library of classics the seamstress in Tangled Wire had kept in her shanty. “Did they hurt you?”
Amethyst wiped her wet lips on her sleeve. “I feel like I should use a handkerchief, but I’m practically naked.” She laughed. “When I first got in the airship, one of the idiots tried to touch my bosom. I bit his nose. They didn’t try that again.” She sipped the water. “Can I finish this?”
“If you need the water, yes. If you don’t, we’ll share it with Jeremiah.”
She screwed on the lid. “I’ll save it.”
Amethyst sat in the dirt beside his cycle, so he crouched beside her. “Do you need anything else?”
“Actually yes.” She rolled to her knees and rested her hands on his shoulders, gazing into his eyes. “So many times, I could’ve grabbed one of their pistols and shot them in the chest. I would’ve, too. I’m not afraid of killing.”
“You should be.” He gripped her wrists, but didn’t push her away. Her skin felt as soft as he’d imagined.
She shook her head, lips parted. “Teach me how to shoot. Jeremiah won’t. My father would forbid it. Zachariah won’t, of course. He has too much honor. Will you? We can go out at night.”
“You want to kill.” He should look away from the gap in the front of her dress, at the shadow between her breasts.
“I want to protect myself.” She sat back on her heels. “Please, Clark?”
His mother had believed everyone should know how to defend against evil. She’d kept a derringer in her garter and a handgun in her top dresser drawer.
Steamcycles approached from the east, billowing dust like a cape. He cupped her chin as he stared into her eyes as clear blue as his. “Yes.”
lark stood beside Amethyst’s chair in the front parlor of the Treasure mansion. She sat against the emerald velvet, the red fading from her face to be replaced by whiteness. Her eyes seemed too bright. Silent, she sipped from a decanter of blackberry wine. Georgette hovered behind, resting her hands upon the back of the chair.
“You don’t need anything else?” Georgette patted Amethyst’s hair. She’d braided and pinned it and exchanged the linen dress for a dressing robe. Clark would’ve preferred she’d put on one of her gowns. The dressing robe hung too open in the front. His gaze kept falling to her collarbone and, once, the shadow between her breasts. They might not care how revealing she kept her attire since she was family, and they didn’t want to lift her skirt, but his stupid mind kept straying.
Garth glared out the window near the settee. Darkness had fallen over the ranch. Light from the gas lamps caused his reflection to glare back.
/> Zachariah sat on the settee with his elbows resting on his knees. “I say when the army arrives, we send them after Senator Horan. This is outlandish. The army will fix it all. He won’t get away.”
“I vote we go back ourselves.” Jeremiah drained a goblet of wine at the liquor cabinet. “Let them know Treasure men aren’t scared.”
“You already proved that,” Garth said. “We will never be able to thank you enough, Clark.”
Clark inclined his head. “Family must protect each other. My mother said that every day.”
“Honorable words you’ve proven thrice now.” Georgette squeezed his shoulder. “You’ve done us so proud.”
Amethyst slid her hand off her lap to clasp Clark’s. Their fingers interlaced and he sensed a tremor in her skin. The ordeal must have finally sunken into her mind. He tightened his grip to let her know she didn’t need to suffer alone.
Garth coughed before turning to the crowd. “When the army arrives to ask what they must do, I vote we tell them nothing. We pretend it was a joke in town that we misunderstood.”
“That’s lying,” Zachariah sputtered. “You can’t tell falsehoods to the army!”
Clark winced. Did Zachariah really think the troops were so golden?
“To get the upper hand over Horan, we will pretend nothing happened. No one got ransom money. No one was hurt and you boys tell me Horan’s men were killed at the hangars. When he arrives to view the site, he’ll find his followers dead and his captives gone. He won’t know how. She’ll be home acting as if nothing occurred. It’ll peeve him to no end.”
The plan did ensure the misfits from the desert would remain hidden. If they stayed out of the light, it meant Clark could too. “I agree.”
Jeremiah snorted. “I’ll go with that. Let Horan wonder how we did it all.”
As Clark nodded at him, a picture above Jeremiah’s head snared his attention. The small portrait, framed by engraved wood, depicted a young Garth with a man, similar in age and looks. They both wore suits, but the other man held a silver-headed cane shaped like an eagle.
It was the spirit he’d observed in town, the one who’d known what the airships were called. Ice seemed to form over Clark’s skin.
“We have to tell the army,” Zachariah whined. “They’ll know what to do.”
“Obey your father,” Georgette snapped. At least she too had grown tired of his government worshipping.
Clark crouched to whisper to Amethyst. “Who is that fellow in the painting by Jeremiah?”
She licked the rim of her glass to catch a red droplet. “Father and an old friend of his. I don’t recall his name. They did business together. Oh, Eric something-or-other. Why?”
“Feeling better?” Clark asked to change the subject. His ghost told me the name of the airship sounded insane.
Without moving her head, she rolled her eyes to study him. “I will after tonight.”
That special place tightened again. Too bad she didn’t mean what else that statement could entail.
Brass glass, he couldn’t think like that about his sister.
She winked. That didn’t help at all.
“Father.” Amethyst set the decanter on the table in front of her seat. “I wish to go for a walk. I feel very nervous and I know that would calm me. Clark, will you accompany me?”
“It might not be safe,” Jeremiah started.
“If Clark is with her, it will be fine,” Garth interrupted. “It will ruin our farce if she never ventures outside.”
Clark lifted her from the chair and rested her hand in the crook of his arm. “Around the gardens, then?” They would have to go farther than that to avoid discovery.
“We’ll see where it takes us. Let me change and I’ll be right down.”
When she joined him on the front porch, she’d put on a blue dress with sleeves that hung off the shoulders and a black corseted vest embroidered with silver leaves. He held out his arm again, even though the ranch hands had retired to their bunks and the others had stayed in the parlor.
“You’ve got it?” she whispered.
“What?” She couldn’t mean the bulge in his pants. It hadn’t lessened since she’d licked the wine glass.
Amethyst rolled her eyes. “A pistol. Rifle. Handgun. Whatever.”
“Of course, I always keep rifles under my shirt.” He tugged her down the stairs into the lawn. They’d walk down the road until they were far enough away. “I’ve got my pistols on my belt always. We’ll work with the one that has the silencer.”
“It’s silent?”
“Yeah. It’s a special device you can attach to the barrel.”
“The ranch must have some of those too.”
“Shh.” He let his breath brush her ear. “They’re illegal.”
“Oh.” She pursed her lips, but her eyes glowed.
As they rounded an apple tree, the spirit from town shimmered into existence. Eric. Clark stumbled. Why would the spirit return to him? They stayed where they died unless they had a mission, like his mother, when she wanted to comfort him.
“Did you trip?” Amethyst asked.
“A loose stone.” He frowned at Eric’s blackened eyes. Some spirits did attach to an object they’d owned, but Clark didn’t have anything new. Amethyst might have something if Eric had been friends with her father.
Clark glanced back at the house. Lights glowed in a few of the windows, but most of the ranch remained dark. “Here should be good. We can aim at that pear tree.”
“Won’t it hurt the tree?”
How innocent, that she would worry about the plant. He ruffled her hair, as he’d once done to Mable, but Amethyst’s hair felt far silkier. A curl had come free of her bun and it slid over his thumb. Coughing, he stepped back. “The tree will be fine as long as we don’t chop it up.”
“What do we do first?”
He removed the pistol and handled it to her, showing her how to hold it without resting her finger on the trigger. “I haven’t loaded it yet, so don’t worry. First we’ll practice the proper stance.”
“Great.” She leaned against his body. “You smell nice. Like hot earth.”
Blooming gears. Did she have to say that?
Eric shimmered in front of them, as though Amethyst had been the one to shoot the hole in his chest.
“Don’t fret over liking her,” the spirit said. “She isn’t your sister.”
Clark coughed again. Spirits repeated the same thing: he killed me; she stole my money; I need you to find my daughter. They kept whatever pressing thought they’d died with, and repeated that until Clark walked away.
Eric spoke too coherently, as though he still knew his thoughts. What a strange mantra, too.
“Keep your legs hip-width apart,” Clark explained to Amethyst. With her present, he couldn’t confront the ghost, and this one might be able to carry on a conversation. Brass glass. “There will be some recoil when you shoot. With a stance like this, you’ll keep your balance better.”
She rocked her bottom into his hips. “Like this?”
“You don’t have the same parents,” Eric said as Clark jumped back.
“P-perfect,” he stuttered.
Could Eric be right? Perhaps Garth had fooled around with a third woman and she’d begotten Amethyst. The family might only pretend Georgette was her mother. But that would make Garth her father still as well. Perhaps Georgette had met another man.
“Garth Treasure isn’t your father.” Eric hovered closer. “I am.”
Clark slammed his bedroom door and Eric shimmered into existence beside the bed.
“What do you mean?” Clark snapped. “Garth Treasure admitted to my parentage.”
“To protect me.” The ghost’s unblinking black eyes made Clark shudder. “We were friends since childhood. That was my picture you showed him from your mother. He knew you had to be mine. We could’ve been twins to those who didn’t know us well.”
Clark sank onto the floor, his back against the door, and rub
bed his mouth. He couldn’t be listening to a spirit. “Garth Treasure—”
“Would protect any child of mine. This is how he’s doing it. He gave you his name, his money. He’ll never tell you.”
“You screwed my mother?” Clark ground his teeth.
“I loved her.”
“You left her—us.” His mother, weeping at night because she had to be alone. She yearned for an honest man. After he’d grown old enough to sleep in the attic of the saloon with Mable, he’d wondered if his mother had tried speaking to his father.
“Garth and I started our business adventures together. We bought up mines and land, and we supported the railroad. He owned Tangled Wire, but I went with him and met your mother. Judy amazed me. I promised her I’d get her away, and if she ever needed help, she could rely on Garth Treasure.”
Clark clenched his fists. “You both slept with her?” Garth hadn’t denied knowing her, and the saloon owner sometimes forced his Tarnished Silvers to take two men, or more, at once. His father—or fathers—should’ve had more decency than that.
“Only me. I couldn’t go back for her, never knew about you. Senator Horan shot me the next month.”
Horan again. The spirit could be preying on the recent troubles. “Why would he want you dead?”
“I was an inventor more than an investor. Eric Clark Grisham the Third.”
Grisham, Clark’s middle name. Clark’s mother must’ve named him after his father. She had known he wasn’t Garth Treasure, but with Eric dead, she would’ve relied on Garth…who hadn’t helped her.
“Why didn’t Treasure help her?”
“She must’ve been embarrassed, figured he’d think she was trying to trick him.”
Maybe the spirit didn’t lie and he was his true father. An inventor. “Horan wanted something you made?”
“Lots of things, like the Markays. I regret them all now. He wants to use them for warfare. I was stupid. I wanted money and I loved to make things. I didn’t think about what they could be used for.”
Treasure, Darkly (Treasure Chronicles Book 1) Page 9