by Beth Cato
Minutes later, they were outside. The sylphs fluttered down to fly a few quick happy loops around Ingrid. She shook her head, smiling, and made a note to take the sylphs on more outings that didn’t involve perilous situations.
More stars shone through the tattered sheet of gray clouds. They walked in silence for a while, each lost in thought. Distant autocars rumbled, as did a railcar along unseen tracks. Somewhere close by, a cat yowled, seconds later followed by a man yelling for it to shut up.
“We still need more money,” Cy finally said. “We need to make prototype braces and the orichalcum still needs to be processed.”
“The urgent work on the Bug is about done,” said Fenris. “I can start on the braces tomorrow. Damn, but I wish we had our old shop in San Francisco and all that beautiful equipment.” His face went wistful.
“If Excalibur continues along at its present rate, it’ll take how long to reach Southern California? A week?” she asked.
Cy nodded. “Thereabouts. Then it’ll idle for a time to load people ’n goods for the trip overseas.”
“We keep talking about stopping the flying citadel,” Ingrid said softly, “but what does that mean at this point?”
“I’ve been pondering that a lot,” Cy said at last. “We need to disable it. We need to disable the Unified Pacific. We need Maggie.”
“Are you suggesting that we kidnap your sister?” she asked.
“Excalibur is her project,” muttered Fenris. “She’s probably on board to make sure this initial flight goes well.”
“Yes. The fox would make sure Maggie had a berth. The UP might try to fight against having a woman on board, but . . . well.” She shrugged. Blum was tough to beat. “How can we get to your sister? Do we wait until the craft comes to Los Angeles?”
“Maybe, though that means contending with thousands more people aboard or in its vicinity.” Cy frowned. “She’s not one to gambol around town. She can stay in her laboratory forever, so long as she has decent food and facilities. You saw how I was when I started designing your braces. She’s like that most all the time.”
That was a frightening thought.
“Good ol’ T.R. could get us aboard, maybe,” said Fenris.
“God willing, we’ll get word from his contact here, and then we can bring up other subjects, if we dare,” said Cy, weariness seeping into his voice.
“What about—” Ingrid tripped. She caught herself on her staff. Cy helped her straighten. It was only when she looked down that she realized the elastic rig on her right foot dangled loose. The fastener at the toe of her shoe had ripped free. “Damn it.”
“This clearly isn’t going to work.” Cy shook his head in disgust. “We’ve got to get those braces made. Are you well, Ingrid?”
“I’m fine. We’re almost to the rail stop.” She tucked the elastic into the top of her boot and focused as she walked forward, her toes still dragging at times.
How were Cy and Fenris going to make effective braces in a matter of days? What if Roosevelt’s people offered no reply, leaving them bereft of funds to process the ori? What if—heaven help them—Cy and Fenris somehow reacted to their injections? What else could go wrong?
Ingrid stared at the sky with the sudden need to wish on a star, but full cloud cover had returned. There was not a sparkle to be found.
Chapter 13
Friday, May 18, 1906
“This whole situation stinks like a steaming pile of wyvern dung.” Fenris scowled, his fingers tapping on the rudder wheel of the Palmetto Bug. “I think the trap could only be more obvious if it featured a large, neon-lit sign saying ‘trap’ in flashing letters, perhaps with a marching band present to make everything more festive.”
“Roosevelt’s contacts haven’t failed us yet.” Ingrid sat in her customary seat at the back of the control cabin.
Her skirt was indecently hitched above her knees as she tugged at her stockings. Thin tin plates were fastened together by modified garters within the shaft of her left boot. Cy had dubbed it her alpha brace, and she was already eager to move on to a beta brace.
“There’s always a first time,” said Fenris. He kept his gaze focused forward.
Ingrid hated that she made Fenris uncomfortable, but by God, she itched inside her boots as her stocking kept bunching up. She felt as twitchy as a toddler ordered to sit still in layers of Easter lace.
“If this contact wanted to spring a trap on us, they could readily do so in Los Angeles,” said Cy. “They could guess our general vicinity.”
“Instead, we’re told to go to Bakersfield to get our allowance.” Fenris spoke the place-name as if it were an inner ring of hell.
Ingrid let her skirt fall into place again and focused on the view. Sporadic dark green oak trees freckled the gently rounded golden hills. “Tell me, what’s so wrong with Bakersfield? It’s something of a boomtown, isn’t it?”
“Oil has brought in a lot of people, true. Bakersfield’s not unlike the Los Angeles area. A lot of real estate, a lot of promise with oil and agriculture, but also a lot of nothing,” said Cy.
“Which makes it perfect for a trap,” said Fenris. “We’re being told to go to a specific dock, to a specific farmhouse nearby. We could vanish as if we’re covered by the sylphs. Poof.”
“If Roosevelt’s contacts are compromised, we’re in a heap of trouble anyway,” Cy said softly.
“Never mind if Roosevelt himself changes his mind.” If Roosevelt knew that Mr. Sakaguchi had agreed to help the Chinese fill kermanite, if he knew that Ingrid plotted against Excalibur for the sake of the Chinese . . .
Not that Roosevelt wanted Ingrid in the custody of Ambassador Blum, though. No. He would likely have her killed instead. Regretfully. With mercy. That thought didn’t bother Ingrid as much as it should. But then, she had asked Cy to kill her back in Seattle, when Blum had them snared; he hadn’t been able to pull the trigger.
“We’ll play this smart,” Cy said, a statement that made Fenris snort out a laugh. “Fenris, you’ll stay with the Bug and be ready to lift off. The two of us will head to the farmhouse, with the sylphs as company. Ingrid’ll send the critters back to let you know if you should power down and join us, or be ready for us to come a-running.”
“Hopefully, the sylphs won’t try to actually pilot the Bug like they did in Hilo,” Fenris groused.
“I’ll go check the engine status.” Cy stood and edged past Ingrid. “If all goes well, we’ll be back in Dominguez tonight, and with money to get that orichalcum cut to measure this next week.”
She and Fenris sat in silence for a few minutes. Beyond the hills, she spied the flat horizon of the southern San Joaquin Valley. Bakersfield wasn’t far now.
“‘If all goes well,’ he says. How often do things ‘go well’ for us?” Fenris asked.
Ingrid slipped her fingers into her pocket and dissolved a thumbnail-sized chunk of kermanite between her fingertips. Energy flowed through her in a delicious swirl, the amount low enough that Cy shouldn’t be able to detect a fever if he touched her skin.
“Not often,” she said, her fists clenched on her lap.
Multitudes of oil derricks adorned the fields and hills, and at a distance, their structure and height were similar to those of mooring masts. It took a while for them to find their necessary dock, and then the Palmetto Bug had to wait at a hover for a man to hurry in from the nearby fields. “Hurry” was a relative term, as he moved slow as molasses. When he was close Ingrid realized he was sluggish because he wore a prosthetic leg—a poorly done one, by its lack of flexibility and his heavy limp. Her impatience was replaced by a flare of shame at her unkind thoughts.
The man started to moor them, and was quickly joined by a younger fellow who looked to be a son. Soon enough, the hatch dropped, and Cy engaged in his usual pleasant banter as he disembarked.
Fenris and Ingrid stared out the glass. “See? Bakersfield. Isn’t it exciting?”
“Actually, that’s my very concern—that this will be e
xciting.” She stood. For all the brace’s irritations, it did support her leg. It also made her feel as if her calf was a sausage crammed into a small casing.
“Ingrid.” The sober way Fenris said her name made her turn. “Here.” He held out a gun to her.
“I—where did you get that?”
“Remember our drunken guests aboard ship a while back?”
She recalled all too well the men who had commandeered the Palmetto Bug while Lee and Fenris hid in a water tank in the engine room. The thieves soon discovered the supply of fine whiskey aboard and drank themselves into a stupor, allowing Lee and Fenris to regain control of the ship. Apparently, this had also granted Fenris the opportunity to acquire a weapon.
Ingrid arched an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t Cy have claimed this on the paperwork when we landed in Hawaii? I saw his sheet, and he only mentioned his pistol and the rods.”
Nor had this gun been found when the ship had repeatedly been inspected. Well, well. Fenris had built hidey-holes into the Bug that even Cy was unaware of.
He shrugged away her question. “The gun is already loaded. Perhaps a mundane weapon will suffice in an emergency.”
His tone was flippant, but his gaze held particular gravity. She nodded as she shifted all of her kermanite to her left dress pocket, leaving the right pocket for the gun. She’d need to check the gun’s chambers when she had a moment alone.
Fenris had given her a pistol in case she needed to kill herself.
This was a gesture of love from him, really. “Thank you,” she said, voice thick. “I hope I don’t have to use it.”
“Ingrid?” Cy poked his head through the hatch. “You ready?”
“Yes.” She extended her awareness to the sylphs. They zoomed down from the bunk.
go? go? They swirled around her, a gray tornado.
“What has you so excited?” she muttered.
“They’re Sierran sylphs, right?” Cy threw some canteens and food into his pack.
“Yes?”
“If they’re from the southern Sierras, we’re not too far from their old home. Maybe that’s why they’re stirred up.”
“Oh.” As soon as he said that, she felt silly for not realizing their proximity to the mountains—and then she began to worry. The sylphs had saved their lives more than once, and the invisibility they offered might be essential in their plans to confront Maggie.
She should ask the sylphs if they wanted to leave, for the business transaction to be declared done. It was the right thing to do. Instead, she motioned them to follow and tried to ignore a pang of guilt.
By the time she reached the bottom of the mast, her stocking and brace were a bunched-up mess again, but there was nothing to be done for it. The farmers lurked about fifty feet away, watching them.
“The brace is being a bother, isn’t it?” Cy asked. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at him in exasperation as they walked on. “Cy. You’re inventing this device under tremendous pressure. I’m grateful to be able to walk around at all. I’m thinking I should try several different stockings to find a type that works best. Or perhaps the braces could be lined by cotton, and I wear no stockings at all. I assume you wouldn’t mind if we experiment a bit?”
“Mind? I will never complain of your apparel—or lack thereof—beneath your skirts.”
“My, my. You’re being more blunt about such subjects now,” she teased.
As she expected, he blushed at her words. “You have obviously corrupted my innocence.”
“Obviously.” She paused. “I hope I get the chance to corrupt you more soon.”
“As do I.” His glance at her was shy yet warm with affection.
Light as their banter was, Ingrid could not forget where they were or the potential dangers they faced. The dock was small, consisting of a mere three masts accompanied by a shed and an outhouse. A lone, shaggy tree could supply shade for a solitary person, if the tree was feeling generous. A dirt road led east, toward the golden humps of hills. Derricks stood everywhere like a strange industrial forest.
“There’s nowhere for people to hide close by,” she said. It was a beautiful late spring day, the sun a tick away from its zenith. Sparse, feathery clouds contrasted with a deep blue sky dappled with distant fast-moving airships.
“That we can see. Be alert with all your senses.”
That took her aback. “You act as though we’ll be ambushed by ninja garbed in sylph-wing gi.”
“The fox has those resources.”
“You’re right. She does.” She motioned Cy to stop, and on a whim, extended her awareness. The wide countryside let her magic flow unimpeded by the clutter of humanity. She sensed no fantastic presences in the immediate vicinity, so she let her magic drift higher, like dandelion puffs cast to the wind.
ingrid carmichael her magic tastes like hot rocks
she’s not here
Fear drenched her with icy cold. “No. No. Those things—they can’t be here!”
“What do you—”
She focused to find the voice. The entity floated on high. Blum’s tainted magic drenched the being with the stench of wild animal musk melded with the underlying sweetness of rotting garbage.
And as she noticed the thing, it noticed her.
The muttering being began a slow, deliberate turn in her direction.
ingrid carmichael her magic tastes like hot rocks
she’s . . . here?
if ingrid carmichael is found she must be coiled up and flown straight to the mistress
ingrid carmichael her magic tastes like hot rocks . . .
“God help me, I’m luring it in.” Coiled up? What did that even mean? Panic scattered her thoughts, and then she felt the strength of Cy’s broad hand on her arm. She wasn’t alone. She had slipped past Blum’s traps before. She could do it again.
“Kermanite. I need empty kermanite.” She opened her eyes wide and shoved a hand into her left pocket. The mingled stones would have flummoxed her in the past when she relied on vision alone to tell them apart. Now she could feel the ambient heat in the filled kermanite and mentally sorted them to one side.
“Is it a fox figurine, like in the train station?”
“I don’t know what it looks like, only that’s it’s airborne and it’s coming straight at me from that way.”
She gazed upward, motioning her staff in that direction as she drew the vacant crystals to her open palm. For a few seconds, she spied nothing but blue sky, and then she saw an odd ripple. It moved like a broad, iridescent ribbon, sinuous and long.
“What is that?” asked Cy, his voice thick.
“Damned if I let it get close enough to make an acquaintance.” She pushed power into the kermanite. Heat drained from her body and filled about a quarter of the rocks.
The creature drifted closer, Blum’s magic looming like a toxic cloud. The sylphs hunkered low and rendered themselves invisible.
hide you? they asked.
She should have thought of the sylphs seconds before, when she still had power. Now, to rely on them to hide, she would need to draw in energy again—or try to endure the pain of the sylphs’ touch—or spend her own mana to shield her skin.
“Should you push out more power?” Cy asked.
“I have nothing more to vent!” The thought of Blum, of capture, of being coiled up and flown somewhere by that thing, had her near hysterical. What more could she do?
“Can it be scenting your magic on the kermanite?”
“No! I don’t think so! If it did, it should go straight to the Bug because of the engine crystal there.” At that, Cy paled. “Or also any of hundreds of other places that host crystals that I filled.”
ingrid carmichael her magic tastes like hot rocks
she’s not here
The being resumed its original mantra as it slowly but surely turned away, arcing back to its original elevation. The foulness dissipated. Ingrid remained, quaking in place.
That had been close. So terrifyin
g close.
“It’s going?” Cy asked.
“Yes.” She croaked out the word.
“Now’s a good time to ask again, what was that? It didn’t have wings like a dragon.”
“I can’t match it with any fantastics I’ve ever heard of. Maybe it’s a construct?”
Cy adjusted the brim of his hat as he continued to gaze upward. “Good God. This is what other pilots have been spying up and down the state. How could she make something like that?”
“She could take her pick of cultures that practice magic that’ll create semi-alive . . . things that do a person’s bidding. We’d have to get unpleasantly close to identify any glyphs or words of life. The fox must have this thing, or more than one, flying all over the state in search of me.” She felt ill at the very thought. “It wanted . . . to coil itself around me and fly me wherever she is.”
Cy released a heavy breath. “The way it’s flying, I reckon it’s trying to catch you in the Bug while you’re carrying energy. If that creature met us dead-on, flying as fast as that, we might have had no warning at all.”
“Yes.” What would it have done to the airship? How many times had that entity or its brethren flown over Dominguez Field, with her none the wiser?
Ingrid started walking again. She had to move before she cowered and sobbed.
“Today was the first time I’ve carried power since we ventured to the gorgon’s basement, but I think . . . I think we’re okay. It can’t sniff me out now.” She had to believe that, even as she remained wary for the creature’s return.
Cy looked at her and then the sky. “Well, can’t say I’m eager to fly out of here right away, knowing that thing’s up there somewhere. Better to walk and see what awaits us at the farmhouse.”
They plodded past a homestead, and after about a quarter mile, they spied their goal. Tall palm trees flanked a long drive to a small home painted in robin’s-egg blue. A matching tower stood behind it, the surrounding lot filled with gnarled trees with wide-spreading branches.
“Lots of space here for a ground-lander airship,” Cy muttered. He glanced upward at regular intervals.