by Geonn Cannon
“We shouldn’t have time to get settled,” Dorothy said. “In two hours, the Kestrel will once again be on her way. I’d like to have a larger section of the journal translated by that time. We’ll find a quiet place in the terminal where we can split up the pages.”
“You don’t mean to take the book apart,” Trafalgar said.
Dorothy said, “Needs must, Miss Trafalgar. We’ll do it as carefully as possible, but I agree that we must... preserve the... content.” She furrowed her brow as they approached the terminal. When she spoke again her voice was quieter and more distant. “The Watershed Society, and Mr. Solomon in particular, has been at this for decades. We have no idea how much valuable information lies in these pages. But time is... of the essence.”
Beatrice had tensed as soon as Dorothy’s tone changed. “What is it?”
“Those men by the door. Brown leather jackets. The two tourists who passed us...” She scanned the tarmac and saw another brown jacket. “Oh, crumbs.”
Trafalgar said, “You say that often. What does it mean?”
“In this instance, it means something small and insignificant has been overlooked, and now it may lead to a larger problem. The guards outside the Quintel house wore brown leather jackets. Like this, but shorter.” She flicked the mantle of Trafalgar’s coat. “I thought it might constitute some sort of uniform. Now I believe that has been confirmed. I never considered that they’re a large enough organization to have satellite agencies in other countries. They must have called ahead to tell them we were coming. I count six.”
Beatrice gestured slightly with her head. “Seven. The fellow with the newspaper.”
Trafalgar rolled her wrist and the emei piercers slipped into her palm. She refrained from extending them, however, choosing instead to look at Dorothy for guidance.
“How should we proceed?”
“If we cause a spectacle we risk being subdued by security. We’ll continue on as if we haven’t noticed them, but the moment we have an opening, we take it.”
Beatrice kept her arms down, but she fanned out her fingers. Dorothy saw a dim spark pass in the space between her fingertips and knew she was gathering energy from the static electricity in the air. If she built up a big enough charge she could provide a distraction for them to get away.
“We can still salvage this, despite the Society having us surrounded. They’ll be privy to the next step in the plan. If we can--”
“Insurrectionists!”
The bellow echoed across the tarmac just as they reached the door. Dorothy turned and saw one of the leatherjackets running toward them. His fellow Society members were also taking flight with weapons drawn. They were close enough that they were reach Dorothy and Trafalgar before security did. Dorothy looked at Beatrice and nodded, even though there was no chance she’d built up enough of a charge to do much damage. Beatrice turned and brought her right hand up, cupped her wrist with her left hand, and squeezed her hand into a fist. The blue electric charge built up around her hand like ball lightning as she waited for all the Society men to get close enough that they would all be affected.
Three men came at them from the side. Leola grabbed one and disarmed him by a swift cutting blow to his forearm. He dropped his weapon and she slammed him against the wall. Dorothy drew her baton and dropped into a crouch, swinging at the knees of the closest Society member. He went down hard and Dorothy disarmed him easily. The doors of the airdock had opened to reveal more leatherjackets coming at them from behind. Trafalgar swept her piercers at their chests to hold them back.
“Trix!” Dorothy said.
Beads of sweat appeared on Beatrice’s forehead as she fought to gather as much energy as possible before unleashing it. When she determined the men were all close enough, she flashed her fingers outward and released the energy in a blinding flash. Trafalgar and Leola were knocked to one side, only staying upright because Dorothy grabbed their coats to keep them from toppling. Beatrice stumbled, lightheaded from the display, and Dorothy took her hand.
“Quickly! While they’re stunned!”
They retreated into the building, through the crowd of stunned fliers who had been preparing to depart. Airdock security were similarly confused as to how they should proceed. Behind them one of the leatherjackets called out the ‘insurrectionists’ cry again, and this time even civilians tried to stop their forward progress. Dorothy and Leola both had to tear away from the grips of well-meaning Samaritans. As far as the eyewitnesses were concerned, Beatrice had just set off an incendiary on the tarmac. If they were captured they would be imprisoned and most likely put on trial as terrorists. They just had to escape the general vicinity and Araminta would pick them up at the nearest airdock in the morning.
Klaxons began to sound, their jangling bells making Dorothy’s head ring as she struggled to think. She had been pursued by the polizia before, during a retrieval at the Vatican that had gone pear-shaped. She knew a few bolt-holes they could use until the coast was clear. One thing in their favor was the early hour; the security was operating with a skeleton crew, and there were few civilians to get in their way as they fled.
“I should have seen this coming,” Dorothy growled as they ran.
Beside her, Trafalgar said, “You could not have anticipated this.”
“I should have. We had a good head start. We could have detoured and landed outside of town, instead of flying directly into their bloody hands.”
Something hit her in the shoulder hard enough to throw her forward. Her foot slipped out from beneath her and she went tumbling, hitting the tile of the terminal hard enough to rattle her bones. Whatever the Society member had thrown at her had pierced her jacket and clothing and penetrated the skin of her shoulder. Her heart had been protected by the hard shield of her scapula, but the numbness from the wound was fast spreading through her left side. Trafalgar and the others skidded to a stop, but Dorothy pulled the bag from her shoulder and shoved it across the floor. It bumped Beatrice’s boot and she scooped it up.
“They mustn’t get the journal. Run!”
Beatrice looked as conflicted as she ever had, but she looped the bag’s strap over her head and started running again. Leola followed her, but Trafalgar hurried to Dorothy’s side and grabbed her arm.
“They hit me with a Sandman,” Dorothy snapped. Her words were quick and slurred. “My arms and legs aren’t working and in thirty seconds I will be unconscious. Go while you still can.”
“I will not leave you.”
A second Sandman hit Trafalgar in the side. She dropped to one knee and grabbed at the small oval device, grimacing as she pulled its spike from her side. Blood poured from the wound, her efforts to toss it aside hindered by the drug already in her system. Dorothy slumped to the floor seconds before Trafalgar went down as well. The boots of the leatherjackets entered her blurry vision like shiny black trees, their feet stomping against the tile as they surrounded their prisoners.
Dorothy managed to lift her hand in one final and futile attempt to reach her weapon. She was already unconscious by the time the leatherjacket secured her still-raised hand in a metal shackle.
Chapter Fourteen
Olive oil, sea breezes, salty air. Comfortably warm, like a favorite sweater. Dorothy felt as if she was waking from a dream, or as if the dream was wrapping itself slowly around her. As the ship around her came into clearer focus everything else faded away. She knew she had been thinking about something important just a few seconds earlier but it was fading into her subconscious with every lazy sway of the deck under her feet. Her grandmother had just died and, as per her wishes, Dorothy was set to take over. That meant traveling the world, seeing those far-flung civilizations that seemed like something out of H.G. Wells’ stories.
Before she got to work, her grandmother urged her to take a “fun” journey. No exploring, no mysteries to unearth, just a pleasure trip to spread her wings. She’d chosen the Mediterranean, the cradle of life. Her plan was to bounce from one port to the n
ext and explore culture through food. She was eager to reach Greece, uncertain about what awaited her in Egypt or Istanbul. At the moment she was having a hard time with even the food she was sure about. The ship’s dinner menu had settled poorly, and she found herself on the deck bent over the railing to release some of the meal back into the sea.
“Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound good at all.”
Dorothy saw the handkerchief first, and she took it to dab at her lips as she looked at the new arrival. The woman smiled kindly and introduced herself as Charlotte Blake. She was a widow, a former actress, and currently a globetrotter. Dorothy felt young and childish in Charlotte’s presence, the elegant woman with her dark hair streaked with gray at the temples. Charlotte quickly put her to ease, however, asking questions about her family and her life as they strolled along the deck.
When they reached Dorothy’s cabin, she thanked Charlotte for making sure she got there safely. “I don’t know what I’m doing out here. Grandma Eula spent a lot of time getting me ready for this, but I always thought she would be there to hold my hand. To show me what to do. Now I’m on my own and it doesn’t seem right. I don’t know if I’m going to be good enough.”
Charlotte said, “One reason I’m taking time away from the stage is to figure out who I am outside of my characters. I wanted to stop reciting from scripts and say my own words for a change. I was terrified when I set out, but I knew one thing for sure. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity just because I was scared.”
She had touched Dorothy’s hand. Dorothy stared at Charlotte’s fingers for a very long moment, doing a mental run-up before she jumped off the cliff. Twenty years old and she had never been kissed. Two decades of her life without a lover simply because the only ones who intrigued her were forbidden. From the moment she was old enough to want companionship she had cursed her inability to find boys who lit her up the way other girls did. Now, on a boat in the darkness with an exotic stranger, the solution seemed so ridiculously easy.
“Can I kiss you?” Dorothy was surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth, even in a hurried whisper.
Charlotte seemed surprised by the question. Before she could answer, Dorothy realized she had just thrown up. She didn’t want her first kiss to be sullied by that, so she put her fingers over her lips and took a step back.
“No. I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. “Goodness. I have no idea what’s come over me. Lightheaded, or maybe still just out of sorts.”
“Dorothy,” Charlotte said, “let’s go into your room to talk some more.”
Dorothy stared at her. Finally she nodded, and she almost immediately poured herself a drink and rinsed her mouth out. She dampened a brush and applied tooth powder, scrubbing furiously before spitting the frothy mixture out into a basin. She touched her wrist to her lips as she joined Charlotte in the main room once more, and they sat next to each other as casually as old acquaintances. Charlotte brushed a stray hair behind Dorothy’s ear and smiled at her.
“Are you certain you want to do this?”
Dorothy swallowed, her mouth tasting clean and slightly numb. “For the past two weeks, I haven’t been certain of anything. I know I’ll be kicking myself the whole way home if I don’t.” She touched Charlotte’s chin. “I really would like to kiss you, Miss Blake.”
“I’ve never done this before, you know,” Charlotte whispered as she leaned in. “Never with another woman.”
“I’ve never done this at all.”
Charlotte smiled. “Then perhaps we will both learn something tonight.”
Dorothy wet her lips just before Charlotte kissed them, and she rested her hands on the older woman’s hips as she leaned in. Her fears and confusion evaporated until the only thought crowding the edges of her mind was a low, insistent “Yessss.” She moved her hands to the small of Charlotte’s back and scooted closer on the divan, moaning when she thought Charlotte was trying to push her away. A moment later she realized she was being pushed down onto the cushions. Dorothy opened her eyes and looked at Charlotte, then let her eyelids drift closed to allow whatever was going to happen without overthinking it.
She pressed her thighs together as the weight lifted from her, as her hands drifted to the sturdy arms of a chair. The familiar scents of her first lover - the sea, olive oil, jasmine shampoo - faded to be replaced with the harsh chemical scents of an airship. Dorothy was aroused even after she realized she had been unconscious, fighting the tingle of desire brewing in her lower body as she struggled to organize her thoughts.
She was no longer lying back on a divan, she was strapped to a chair. Her head ached, her stomach twisted with nausea, and her shoulder throbbed from where the Sandman had stabbed her. She knew there were at least three other people in the room; she could hear them moving quietly about the space and breathing. The ship creaked and groaned, and she knew they were in the air. Her mouth was dry. She pushed her tongue between her lips and tried to work up some moisture as she opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. There was a light shining down on her, the rest of the room cloaked in darkness, but she could see silhouettes in the shadows.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.”
She kept her head steady and moved her eyes toward the voice. The room seemed to swim and she grunted helplessly as a tall man stepped into the light. He was gorgeous, a face of hard lines carved from stone to create a titanic jaw, dimpled at the chin, and sparkling green eyes that were partially magnified by his eyeglasses. His blonde hair was parted in the middle and long enough to frame his face on either side, luxurious without being feminine. He smiled and clasped his hands behind his back.
“The infamous Lady Boone. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Orville Weeks. My brother Dan and I have been fans of yours for a very long time.”
“I assume it was your fan mail that nearly killed me two days ago.”
He smiled. “Yes, that was us. However you must understand that what we did was a necessary evil. We did not wish to kill you, but we knew that if you were alive and got wind of our plan, you would do everything in your power to stop it. Your death was...”
“A convenience,” Dorothy said.
“Perhaps, to put it bluntly.”
“You tried to murder me. I’m fine with blunt.”
He sighed. “Very well.”
“It was a stupid plan. Your ham-handed attempt to kill me only alerted me to what you were doing. You might as well have sent a gilded invitation.”
“Perhaps so. But the fact remains that you are here now, and that is in fact a reason to celebrate. I believe your presence here will benefit us greatly in the days ahead. Our society is on the precipice of a very important discovery. With your help, we could usher this world into a new age.”
“The age of Felix Quintel.”
Orville smiled. “Ah, yes. The future King of England. It’s high time for a revolution, don’t you think? Think about it. We have a new world at our fingertips. Magic is at our fingertips. We glide through the air in these remarkable dirigibles. We race through our streets in motorized carriages. Humanity is poised to take a great leap forward and we deserve a leader who is prepared for the troubles such an age can bring. Quintel will take England as his rightful stronghold, and then he shall advance. Europe, Asia, America, Africa. The Quintellian Age will be a great leap forward in the evolution of our species. We will be a world united under a single god.”
“Fallen angel, more accurately,” Dorothy said.
“Devils and demons.” He sighed and shook his head. “Sunday school does its indoctrination well, doesn’t it? God is good, Devil is evil. So simplistic and childish. God did not cast Lucifer into the pit as a ruler. Why would he? Why would he give his enemy an entire realm to punish mortals who were only guilty of the same sin the Light-Bringer had committed? God and the Devil are partners running the longest confidence game ever devised. Benevolence versus malevolence. God has his army of angels and the Devil rules his demon soldier
s. I’m simply reassigning one of Hell’s generals to clean up here in the mortal realm a little.”
Dorothy shook her head. “You’re delusional.”
Orville ignored her. “With the stone you and Miss Trafalgar will help us find, we will call forth one of the most powerful entities that ever walked this planet. Before gods, before Heaven and Hell, before anything like recorded history, there was Him. His story was only shared orally for millennia by people too afraid to write it down. But eventually word got to us, and we built our society around his eventual awakening. His time is now.”
“You know nothing about the creature you’re trying to summon. If you succeed, it will crush you and your followers like ants.”
“Perhaps some will die. But those who have earned our god’s respect and gratitude will be rewarded. We have gone to great lengths to awaken him. We have spilled blood in pursuit of this quest. Enoch Solomon gave his life in an attempt to preserve the sacred stone. We thought all hope was lost when that blasted girl spit out the stone, but now... don’t you see? That was all part of our master’s plan. Her actions changed her, and now all these years later we have her in our grasp again. She will guide him into this world. We will provide for it a host, and that host will become Felix Quintel. That host will rule this world, and the Watershed Society shall stand at his side like the trusted lieutenants we are. You could stand up there with us, Lady Boone. You could be an acolyte of the strongest leader this world has ever known.”
“What would possibly persuade me to help you?”
“We expected you would need some convincing. That’s why we took your hands.”
Dorothy furrowed her brow and looked down. Both of her arms ended at the wrist with bloody stumps, the pain only just registering as Dorothy saw the wounds. Her chest clenched so she couldn’t cry out, but her lips twisted in horror and disbelief. Her forearms were bound tightly to the chair with rope, and her muscles tensed as she tried desperately to break free. The wounds were jagged, hideous, and she knew even if her hands had been salvaged they would never be reattached without scarring, and she doubted they would ever work the same way again.