The Lantern's Ember

by Colleen Houck

  “Four degrees down,” Delia said to her crew.

  Once they reached her preferred cruising depth, she added, “Good. Now level off and half ahead.” Delia’s fingers thrummed the console and her foot tapped anxiously. It felt like a gutful of snakes squirmed in her belly, nipping at her from the inside. Frank had returned hours ago, saying he’d done as she’d requested and affixed the heaviest of chains to the arms, feet, and neck of his former captain.

  Delia knew it was a difficult thing to ask of her first mate. He’d loved Graydon nearly as much as she did. In fact, Frank wouldn’t be the man he was today without his former captain. Graydon had personally paid for Frank’s clockwork heart from his own reserves. The witchlight battery to keep the heart ticking was more than they could both earn in a lifetime. Graydon hadn’t blinked an eye. He hadn’t said where he’d gotten the funds, and she hadn’t asked. Delia had learned that sometimes, where piracy was concerned, it was better not to know such things.

  Captain Delia paced the command deck, unseeing and distracted. Finally, Frank placed a heavy, green-tinged hand on her shoulder. “Go,” he said, his black lips drawing her attention. “I’ve got things under control here. Get some bunk time, or…or do whatever else you need to do. Fulminate. Dragoon. Or, don’t forget, inebriation is always an option.”

  “For him or me?”

  “Either one would probably do the trick.”

  Delia looked up into the kind, strange eyes of her first mate and then felt herself relax. She gave him a grateful nod to go with her slight smile and left the bridge. Heading to her cabin, she entered and splashed water on her face and neck. When that didn’t soothe her, she took out a bottle of blood, her favorite vintage, and drained it. The infusion of energy left her jittery and even more on edge.

  After removing her jacket, boots, and corset, she drew back the blanket on her bunk, intending to sleep, but hesitated, clenching the fabric in her fist. She had to know. Had to understand why Graydon did what he did. Delia pulled her boots back on but left her corset off. Her long shirt billowed around her hips and breeches as she strode purposefully through the ship, headed down the stairs at a fast clip, and stopped outside the thick door to the reactor compartment.

  The metal hinges creaked and she entered the dark space, shutting the heavy door behind her with a bang. Instead of finding a quiet passageway, she felt her ears assaulted with the thrumming of the engines.

  The reactor section was dim, the bulbs overhead barely giving off a glow. Frank was probably trying to preserve their remaining witchlight. Steam licked her arms and face, leaving a sheen of damp as she ducked beneath the hydraulic tubing that flowed to a central unit where it split into sections that rose upward like organ pipes. Each segment powered a different part of the ship.

  “I wondered if you’d come,” a voice called out from the dark.

  Delia followed the sound to the back and found Graydon chained to the main reactor. His clothing hung limp on his body and his dark brown hair was soaked from the steam and hanging down around his shoulders. He’d always been ruggedly handsome and was the only man she’d ever met who made her feel small and feminine. It was surprising to her how much she wanted such a thing.

  It was a sad fact that most men were intimidated by Delia. Not only did she hail from one of the oldest and most respected vampiric families in the Otherworld, but she was also smart, self-assured, and looked men in the eye, considering herself as either an equal or better. Once she did that, the opportunity for romance disappeared. Captain Graydon was the exception to that rule.

  She’d loved him once. Fully, unconditionally, with her whole self. It made no sense. Adding the title of “turncoat” to the man she’d known was like trying to fit a bevel gear to a spur. It just didn’t mesh. Graydon had shared his blood with her, freely and often. If he planned to betray his crew, abandon his ship, she should have tasted it. But he had betrayed them; there was no doubt about that.

  Delia’s duty to her crew and loyalty to the pirate code warred inside her against her need to wrap her arms around her former captain, mentor, and paramour. He was a traitor. The word was bitter on her tongue, as twisted as spilled entrails, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to be less than thrilled that he was alive.

  Delia didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, fists clenched, lost in looking at him, but it felt too long. She longed to kiss the square line of his jaw, to touch her fingertip to the cleft in his chin, to run her palms over the corded muscles in his arms and shoulders. That he had been gazing at her as well, unspeaking, was something she couldn’t acknowledge.

  “Who are you working with?” Delia finally asked, when what she really wanted to know was why. Why had he turned against his own crew? Against her?

  Graydon worked his jaw, making the heavy chains rattle. He turned his head, dropping his gaze at last, refusing to speak. Delia stepped closer and traced the emblem on his collar. It was the same one all the men who’d boarded her ship wore, the sign of the Lord of the Otherworld—the token of the establishment they were working so hard against.

  “We lost Harry,” she said softly. “Vic too. Rufus is alive, but he lost a leg.”

  She’d taken on new crewmen since Graydon had disappeared. Some retired. Some moved on to other ships. But Frank had stayed, along with a dozen or so others.

  He turned back to look at her again, his eyes regretful. “I’m sorry, Del. They were worthy men. Maybe it will help to know they died for a good reason.”

  “A good reason?” she echoed. “A good reason? Are you trying to tell me, Graydon, that this”—she took hold of his collar and ripped it away, thrusting the emblem in his face—“organization you serve had a good reason for killing my men? We didn’t provoke you. We were carrying no cargo. How do you justify destroying my ship?”

  “But you were carrying cargo, Del. The most precious cargo in the Otherworld.”

  Delia’s mouth snapped shut and she took a step back, her arms straight at her sides, unwilling to give him any sign that she knew what he was referring to.

  Graydon tilted his head and then sighed. “We know about the witch, Del. We were supposed to retrieve her. Once we had her, we would have let you go.”

  “And who is ‘we’?”

  The werewolf’s mouth tightened in a thin line.

  “Fine,” Delia said tiredly. “It makes no difference. I can see plain as day that the emblem is the Lord of the Otherworld’s. We scotched your plan and you failed in your task. As soon as I can put you off my ship, I will.”

  “You won’t kill me, then? Have you gone soft, my darlin’ vampire girl?”

  Delia chose not to answer, especially when she saw the smile playing about his lips. “Just answer one question,” Delia said. “How did you survive the fall?”

  Flexing his hands, he jostled the heavy chains attached to his wrists. There was no escape for him, and he knew it. “I’ll answer yours if you answer one of mine,” he said. Delia gave no sign that she would accept his offer, but he’d answer anyway. “My…benefactor provided me with some highly advanced technology. It’s called a manta device. I was to use it to gain access to the other skyship.

  “When I slipped over the side, I clicked my boots and activated jets in the heels, along with a thin pair of flexible wings that look a bit like those of a manta ray, which were hidden inside my cloak. The metal extensions are etched with witchlight nets. I flew across the expanse, caught hold of a cable, and dragged myself into the other skyship.” He hesitated for a moment, and then added, “I’m sorry that you had to mourn my death.”

  “It’s more than your death I mourn now,” Delia said, her eyes flinty. “What’s your question?”

  “What is it you think I have that belongs to you?”

  Delia’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t the question she’d been expecting. She glanced down at his fingers, remembering how they’d brushed through her hair, massag
ed the nape of her neck, and stroked her face. To her dismay, she felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she answered, “The ring I gave you. The one you said you’d never take off. I can see that that promise was as easily breakable to you as your commitment to your crew, since it’s no longer on your finger.”

  “You’re right. It’s not,” Graydon admitted. “Come here, darlin’.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Look closer at my neck where you tore my shirt away.”

  Staying where she was, Delia glanced down at his neck. She spied a flash of gold.

  Ignoring the throb of his pulse at the base and the little white scars her teeth had left behind, she pulled out a chain. Standing that close to him was almost dizzying. She was so aware of his scent, the warmth of his body, the racing of her heartbeat, and the thrum of her fury that at first she didn’t know what she was looking at.

  Then her vision focused. Hanging on the chain was her ring. The one she’d given to him when he carved their initials on the dead oak tree on her family estate. He’d told her that he’d give up piracy and find work as a cooper, a baker, or a clockmaker if she would agree to marry him. The air had been warm and sticky, and insects were chirruping a drowsy, drunken song.

  She’d kissed him sweetly. Refusing him was like trying to hold off a hurricane with a broken parasol, but refuse him she did. She’d told him she wasn’t ready to abandon a pirate’s life and become a baker’s wife, though the thought of his bronze arms covered with flour, his hand sunken into a mound of soft dough, gave her a certain amount of pleasure.

  When she saw his crestfallen expression, she pulled off her family ring and gave it to him as a token, promising that she would marry him that very day if they could stay on the ship together, or, if he insisted on domesticating her, he could wait until the sky no longer had the same pull.

  He took the ring, kissed it and then her, pulling her tightly against him. When he drew back, he seemed melancholy, but he slid the ring onto his finger and said huskily, “We’ll wait a while, then.” Graydon placed his hands on her cheeks, cupping her face. “I just want you to know, Delia, that no matter what happens, regardless of where the wind blows us, or what future chases us down and corners us, I’ll be cherishing every moment we have together.”

  Now, seeing her ring, the symbol of their love, hanging there on the chain, all those emotions came back and flooded through her. Her eyes darted to his, and in them she saw those lost, lingering promises, but there was something else there too, something he guarded, something that, even now, stood as a wall between them.

  She was about to yank the chain from his neck when she spied an object hidden just behind the ring. Frowning, she pushed the ring to the side and then gasped. Tucked away behind her family heirloom, a hole drilled through it, was her broken fang.

  Finney woke when he heard a pinging sound, then reached blindly for his glasses. His hand brushed a nearby table and found his delicate pair of lenticular lenses instead of his regular spectacles. “Bother,” he said. “Where are they?”

  Something jostled the bed next to him, and he froze. Winking light flickered across his face, and he tried to make out who was shining a light in his face and why they might be in his bedroom.

  “Hello?” he said fearfully.

  Something touched his hand, and a cold shiver shot from his toes all the way to the tips of his ears. Then another thought occurred to him.

  “Ember?” he whispered, and sighed, thinking of the girl he was hopelessly head over heels for. Her confidence and friendship made him feel less awkward, and her delight at his inventions gave him a sense of pride.

  He shifted and felt something pinch his elbow. “Ah, there they are.” He pushed his spectacles up his nose, and the light near him finally came into focus. It was the blinking pumpkin. Suddenly, everything came back. All the incredible mixed with all the terrifying. “Nice to see you, old chap,” Finney said, patting the globe. Glancing around and finding himself alone, he called out, “Ember? Are you here?”

  There was a muffled groan coming from the open doorway. He leapt out of bed and then staggered.

  Maybe his clumsiness was due to his head injury. Regardless, chivalry demanded that he check on his one and only friend and confidante, and, if he was extremely lucky and blessed indeed, the girl who’d someday agree to be his wife.

  Stumbling to the door, he paused, trying to quell the storm raging in his belly. It wouldn’t do to show up with the intention of saving the damsel in distress only to soil her shoes with the contents of his stomach. “Ember?” he murmured quietly, and heard her soft sigh.

  A hand touched his shoulder and he spun around too quickly, losing his balance. “She’s still resting.”

  Finney peered up into the face of the lantern and noted with jealousy how put-together he looked. He was already dressed and his white-blond hair was slicked back. It didn’t take a genius to see that the lantern had feelings for Ember and that they were a bit more than brotherly or that of a well-wisher and guardian. It made Finney want to despise him, but he didn’t. He liked the man. Maybe it had something to do with the pumpkin, but Finney trusted him, admired him even.

  This was a very different feeling from the one he had concerning the male vampire. Finney had a distinct lack of good feelings regarding that man. Though he’d only seen him once or twice, Finney thought the creature was too slick. Too self-assured. Too much of a dandy. The captain wasn’t bad, even though she was a vampire too, so Finney determined he wasn’t biased against vampires in general, just that one specifically. The one that kidnapped his…his Ember.

  He lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes. So much had happened in such a short time, and all of it too quickly. Even a person with a gifted mind like Finney was having difficulty keeping up.

  “Where are we?” Finney asked Jack.

  “Deep under the sea.”

  “A submersible?” Finney gaped. “I’ve only heard fanciful stories of such things.”

  “Shhh. Let Ember sleep some more.”

  Jack closed the door, leaving it just a crack open so he could hear Ember if she needed him. While Finney washed up, Jack told him, to the best of his knowledge, what was going on.

  “So,” Finney said, “this vampire, Deverell, has designs of a sort on Ember, either in a romantic way or for his own personal gain, and he’s taking us where?”

  “That’s just it. All I know is we’re headed to see some sort of inventor. Delia assures me Dev’s intention is to hide Ember, but it’s obvious to me that there are things happening in the Otherworld that I’m not privy to, and I’m suspicious that there’s more to it. My plan was to get the two of you out of here and back in your world as soon as possible. Your role is to help Ember understand that this is necessary.”

  Finney, who’d just washed his face, paused with his towel pressed against it. “And we absolutely must return, I suppose,” he said.

  Jack’s brow furrowed. “Don’t you wish to return?”

  “Oh, I do. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that—” He sighed. “There’s so much I want to learn and study. So many questions. Do you realize that based on what I’ve seen so far, I have added over one hundred new ideas to my notebook? Heaven knows what I’d come up with if I had time.”

  Jack nodded. “I understand the pull. Your mind was already gifted, but spending so much time around Ember, well, it does things to broaden the reaches of your mind and further your curiosity.”

  Finney dropped the towel. “Yes. You mentioned that before. I wonder how it is that Ember is the spark that lights my imagination. Is there a physical or, perhaps, chemical exchange that acts as a trigger toward invention?”

  “There is. I’m not sure how it works exactly.” Jack tilted his head and asked, “Have you ever heard the term ‘vanishing twin’?”

  Finney shook his head.

  “It’s the reason th
e witches left the Otherworld in the first place, supposedly. Before, there was balance. Our worlds progressed at close to the same rate, but now the Otherworld has pulled far ahead. Think of our two realms like twins residing in a mother’s womb. If one grows too powerful or something happens to cause damage to the other, then, on occasion, the weaker is absorbed into the stronger and the mother gives birth only to the healthy child. But if the feebler babe is rejected by the womb or miscarried, there is a risk that the other baby, no matter how strong and well nourished, might be lost as well.”

  “And you think this is happening to our two worlds?”

  “It’s why I exist. My job is to guard the cord that connects the two worlds. By identifying the witches, the source of the power, who contain the energy to feed both worlds, lanterns can help maintain the balance. The problem is, I don’t know what happens to the witches once they are found. I’d assumed they were relocated to other more vital areas, and that those who went rogue were shifting power as they willed, causing chaos in their wake; but now I’m not so certain.”

  Finney eyed the lantern. “You care for her, don’t you?”

  Jack didn’t need to know who Finney was referring to. “I do.”

  “And you’re risking your job to save her, to bring her back?”

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  The lantern didn’t answer. His pumpkin floated over and hovered between them, turning to one and then the other as if encouraging full disclosure. Jack refused to cooperate and poked the hovering orb with his finger. It bobbed away and then came right back as if it was attached to him by a springy cord. In a way it was, he supposed.

  Seeing Jack’s feelings flash across his face, Finney’s heart tightened. He knew he was a better choice for Ember than the vampire, but was he better than Jack? Trying to swallow the lump in his throat and speak bravely, though his heart felt crushed, Finney said, “Then you should tell her how you feel.”