Choose Omnibus (Choose: An Interactive Steampunk Webserial Book 3)

by Taven Moore

  The thought of Captain McCoy caused her to frown. Bones had disappeared and Hank had gone after them.

  Could they be in trouble?

  Bones had gone because of her. His note had said so.

  Surely, the Seraph must have had something to do with all of this, and even if the others were not in danger, Snow almost certainly was.

  Behind her, she heard the auctioneer continue. “800? Surely one of you gents love a lady enough to adorn her in this elegant piece of history. Imagine, if you would, the gem resting upon your lady’s forehead, the delicate silver band around her—ah, thank you, sir! Do I hear 850?”

  The footman held out a gloved hand, clearly expecting her to take it and leave, immediately. She noticed for the first time that not only was his clothing of highest quality, it sat upon a well-muscled frame. The implied threat did not go unnoticed.

  She gestured quickly to the dresl, giving the hand signal for “Wait,” followed by “Please.”

  The tiger’s ears flicked forward in surprise before he nodded slightly and stepped back.

  Remora turned her head to the side and murmured to Montgomery, “Hackwrench, I must leave you here.”

  Hackwrench screeched, but she held up a hand. “I’ll hear none of it. I must get that tiara, Montgomery. My quest depends upon it. Can I count on you to procure it before it leaves and take it to the ship without being detected?”

  Hackwrench chittered slightly under his breath, a shonfra mutter.

  “Please.” She took one of her gloved hands in the other and squeezed. “I’m afraid the others are in danger and I must rescue them.”

  Reluctantly, Hackwrench nodded. Remora took him from her shoulder and placed him on the chair next to her, along with her opera glass. As she leaned down, ensuring that her lips could not be read by the footman, she whispered. “That is no ordinary spyglass.”

  Hackwrench’s ears swiveled and his prehensile tail curled around the item protectively.

  Finally, she stood and held out her hand to the dresl. “I would be delighted to attend,” she said aloud, and allowed herself to be escorted away from a still-gaping Pansy, a wingless Hackwrench, and the first and only piece of her puzzle that she knew how to find.

  25. Hackwrench’s Choice

  Remora left, escorted by the dresl who smelled of lavender and gun oil.

  Hackwrench watched them leave, despite a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that Remora was going to be in a great deal of danger before the night was out.

  Still, he had promised, and a Swamper was only as good as his word.

  The fact that his commanding officer had lied to him and sent him on a suicide mission in no way tarnished his own feelings of duty to the cause.

  Nothing was more important to him than seeing the shonfra liberated. The Swampers may have abandoned him, but he had not abandoned their dream. A society of educated shonfra armed with their own cogsmithed translation devices could challenge even the Seraph for their freedom.

  The first step to creating that society was to obtain a Queen . . . and humans were devious beasts. They learned early on to capture a hive’s Queen. With her under their control, the rest of the hive was helpless. She was the heart and soul of all her children. Brothers to the end, none would do anything that might bring her harm.

  The few princesses born were snatched from their mother’s grasp before their eyes had even opened, taken to be but dumb brood mares for ignorant children, all their monarchy bled away in cages, their choice of consort denied them.

  How could shonfra like this Petra, raised to beg for food and pose prettily on the end of a leash, possibly hope to liberate the entire shonfra species?

  Remora had promised him a Queen at the end of six months, and he would serve her ship to the utmost of his abilities until such time as he could begin building their future.

  Not that he would be the Queen’s consort, of course. The very idea was ludicrous—a Queen, mated to a wingless shonfra. No, that youthful dream had died in the same explosion that withered his wings. A Queen mated for life to a single male and together, they would build a hive. A crippled consort would mean a crippled hive.

  A teacher, that’s what he’d be. Hackwrench would take the young Queen under his tutelage. Teach her to speak and read and reason. When she was old enough, he would take her to the Swampers, where she would have her choice of strong warriors for her consort.

  That was his plan, and he would see it through to the very end.

  Resolve strengthened, Hackwrench pushed aside his reverie. That was the future. Now, today, he needed to get that tiara. He was still certain Remora’s plan was mad, but he would see it through, as promised. A job. That’s what this was. Half the time, it seemed Remora needed a caretaker even more than she needed a cogsmith and pilot, but that was her misfortune. Montgomery Hackwrench was no nursemaid to humans.

  Though . . . Remora had just defended his species to this Pansy person. And there were times when she was almost endearing. During cogsmithing, for example. He’d never seen anyone get so excited about alchemy. Her eyes seemed almost to turn bright gold when she found the solution to a particularly sticky problem.

  Pansy let out a long, shuddering breath, reminding him of where he was. Hackwrench turned his attention to the human. Leaving the opera glass in the seat, he leaped to the chair next to her and waved to get her attention.

  She blinked at him, as if waking from a dream. “That was a summons from the Seraph! Dame Vakaena, judging by the livery. What is going on?”

  “None of your business,” he scolded her. “I need you to take me downstairs, now. I have to get behind those doors immediately.”

  Hackwrench waited while the watch translated with painful slowness. Bad enough these grounders spoke so cursed slowly, they couldn’t even begin formulating their replies until long after he’d finished speaking. Conversations were so frustrating!

  Pansy’s lips pursed, obviously not used to taking orders from a shonfra.

  His tail thrashed, slapping a cloud of dust from his cushion. “I do not have time for this. Either you will help me or I will go alone. If you want to go on pretending we’re nothing but colorful pets, I do wish you would decide immediately. I am a person, and every moment you delay because you think it demeaning to take an order from someone who happens to be a shonfra is a moment I could be spending on something other than wasting my time.”

  Again, the watch translated at glacial speeds. Hackwrench clicked his teeth in frustration while he waited, every moment grating past.

  And then, of course, she had to think about her reply.

  In the silence while her slow, human brain tried to put enough words in a row to make a sentence, the announcer’s voice rang overhead. “SOLD! The item is sold to the Duke of Northington, and an elegant gift for your equally elegant wife this shall be.”

  The gavel banged, and Hackwrench knew he had to act.

  “Never mind. I’ll do it myself. Can’t believe I wasted my time asking a human for help,” he muttered, then hopped back to Remora’s vacated chair.

  He’d already secured the opera glass with his tail and hopped to the gilded edge of the bidder’s box overlooking the main auction hall (he could leap from there to one of the ample garlands of bunting, then follow the fabric down to the floor and end up almost at the very door he needed to somehow enter) when the translator finished.

  “Wait!” Pansy cried. “Wait, I am sorry, this is all very new to me. Let me help. Please.”

  Hackwrench paused and looked back, uncertain. Could he trust her?

  Pansy stood, straightening her back and clearing her throat. “I can get you back there, Montgomery. You have my word.”

  “Hackwrench,” he corrected her. “Only my friends can call me Montgomery.”

  While the watch translated, Petra looked up, a grape-shaped bulge in his cheek. “Her word is bond,” the other shonfra offered. “Always truth.”

  “We needn’t be friends, but plea
se believe I wish to be your ally, Hackwrench.” Pansy held out a hand to him.

  When he still didn’t move, she smiled. “Unless, of course, you’re so jaded you cannot accept help when it is offered.”

  That stung a bit. He wasn’t afraid, just cautious. Still, she had a point. He leaped forward, into her outstretched hands. She placed him on her right shoulder, his tail and its held opera glass trailing down her back. A smug little smile grew on her face, as if she’d won a victory.

  That smugness grated on him and he clenched his fists together. “Lady, I know ten different ways to kill you from here. Double-cross me and you won’t live to regret it. I am not a cute pet.”

  Her smile faded and she paled.

  Immediately, he regretted having spoken so harshly. She had agreed to help him, after all. He didn’t need to frighten her just because he didn’t like her getting too familiar. It wasn’t her fault that he hated it when humans picked him up. It made him feel powerless. The burned stumps where his wings should be itched with the need to fly under his own power.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just . . . I am unaccustomed to trusting strange humans.”

  The watch translated and a little color returned to her face. “Yes, well, get used to it. When you’ve got Pansy Pennyworth-Price as an ally, you’ve got her for life.”

  “Petra, time to—” Pansy paused, then collected herself. “I need to go. Would you please come with me? We can have a long talk later, you and I, but for now we need to pretend that everything is normal.”

  “Yesokay,” said the shonfra as his dragonfly wings blurred into motion, lifting him to Pansy’s left shoulder. Petra chattered to himself, a string of happy, nonsense syllables that the translator didn’t bother to convert.

  Hackwrench ignored the agonizing twinge of envy that always hit him when other shonfra flew around him. Nothing, not his personal craft nor a full cogsmithed airship, ever really compared to really flying.

  Nothing.

  As Pansy turned to leave, Hackwrench put a hand to her cheek, stilling her. “You’ll want to turn that translator off in public,” he suggested. “It’s illegal to even possess one. If Petra says anything and it translates in front of the wrong people, you’ll be in danger.”

  Pansy nodded and twisted the face of the watch. Hackwrench clenched his first and second fists. He hated being among humans without a working translator. It was as crippled as he could possibly be, with neither wits nor wings to defend himself.

  The item up for bid just after the tiara was still in heated dispute when they arrived at their destination door. A heavy guard stepped in front of it, hand up to warn them away and a dour frown upon his face.

  “Not even winning bidders allowed back here, Miss. You’ll need to wait outside, like everyone else.”

  Pansy smiled winningly at him, flashing a booklet of papers at the man. “Oh, you are such a darling, and so very smart and dashing in your uniform, but I’m with the press, dearie. Do toddle aside, now, before I inform your superior that you inhibited a direct investigation into the veracity of claims against the authenticity of some of the items up for auction. Delay me, and if the item in question is sold under false pretenses it’ll be more than just that shiny badge of yours on the chopping block, lad.”

  The man gaped at her, so she lifted a delicate gloved hand to push him aside, still smiling at him as if he’d paid her a delightful compliment, no sign of the venom from her voice.

  The man allowed himself to be moved, and Pansy did not hesitate before opening the door and entering the room beyond.

  Three more guards spotted her and immediately headed in their direction. “Best leave now,” Pansy whispered. “Next up, it’ll be an interrogation in their captain’s office, and it’ll take more than a bit of smoke up his backside to get him to stop talking. Off you go!”

  Hackwrench patted her on the cheek once in thanks before turning round and sliding down her back, bouncing off her bustle, and landing softly on the carpeted floor behind her.

  Heavy stage curtains lined the walls. In a thrice, he’d scampered behind the nearest fold of curtain and all but disappeared from view. Only someone looking for him would spot the shake of the curtain, and what guard sought an enemy at ankle-height? In his experience, not a single one.

  A quick scan of the room showed him a uniformed footmen carrying the tiara, still nestled on its velvet pillow, out of the room.

  He scampered after it, spyglass still held in his tail, and managed to dart through the door behind him without being seen. This room did not have the curtains lining the wall, but it didn’t need them. This was the behind the behind the scenes of the auction house. Stacks of boxes, and shelving units, battered and scuffed and half-broken, littered the walls and floor. There were hiding places aplenty here.

  The footman handed the tiara to a warehouse worker in dirty coveralls. “This one’s to go to the Duke of Northington. Special delivery. Wants it in her hands immediately so she can wear it to some bigwig do up in one of the inner rings.”

  The warehouse worker laughed, picking up the tiara and eyeing it. “Reckon this thing’s worth more than I’ll ever make working here.”

  The footman shook his head. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. Why do you think you got the position so quickly, anyway? Guy before you tried to make off with a single spoon out of a whole set. Got caught before he’d even clocked out. They put his head up on a pike to serve as a lesson for the rest of us, case we had thoughts on getting sticky fingers.”

  The big man shook his head. “All that for a bit of sparkle. Don’t make sense, not if you ask me.”

  The footman laughed and pulled a small chest from the nearby wall, depositing the pillow in it. “Don’t have to make sense. It’s rich folk. They ain’t even living the same reality as us.”

  “Truth,” said the warehouse worker as he dropped the tiara in the box, closed the lid, and snapped shut the lock on the outside, finger sliding across the tumblers to randomize the code.

  He set the little chest down on a stack of boxes and waved the footman away. “I’ll deliver it. AFTER I eat my lunch.”

  Footman shook his head as he left the room. “Your funeral, buddy.”

  Hackwrench watched all of this with ill-concealed delight. Really? A single guard eating a tuna sandwich and a single lock on a box? He’d have this thing done in time to welcome the rest of the crew back on board to a hot dinner.

  Through a speaker horn in the corner of the room, the announcer’s voice rang out. “And the gorgeous set of Ardelan blown-glass ornaments is sold to the dapper man in the gray suit for the modest sum of five hundred doubloons. That’s quite the steal, sir, well done indeed.”

  Hackwrench twisted the lens of the spyglass off. Remora had said it wasn’t what it seemed, but what was it?

  The entire contraption fell apart as soon as the lens was removed and he found that it had been built from a set of delicate cogsmithing tools, a few sheets of scrap metal, a heavy, round crystal lens, and a vibranium knife, of all things!

  Remora had said she would go nowhere unarmed after what had happened aboard the Swan, but Hackwrench hadn’t realized just how seriously she had taken that vow.

  He’d hefted the crystal in his tail (one sharp tap against the human’s temple should have him out of commission long enough for Hackwrench to finish) when the announcer’s voice filled the room once again.

  What he said froze Hackwrench to the very core of his being.

  “For lot number seventy-nine, we have a special treat! This is the final item up for bid today, folks, and the reason a lot of you are here, I’d wager. The wait is over! An unbonded female shonfra—very rare—of impeccable pedigree! A fine addition to any existing stable, or a sound investment for anyone looking to take up breeding! This is a rare opportunity, gentlemen! Not only is she beautiful (just look at that pelt! Have you ever seen such a pristine pink coat? Such well-defined white mottling on her sides?) but even better, she’s from the priva
te stock held by the Marquis of the Armaethean Skycity himself! She would make a gorgeous foundation queen for any stable, so we’re going to start the bidding at two thousand doubloons.”

  For a moment, Hackwrench could not even think.

  A Queen. Here. Now.

  He could wait for the auction to finish. She would be brought back here. He could rescue her. Escape together. Begin his dream now, today, this instant, instead of six months down an uncertain path.

  His heart raced and his tail clenched, the crystal biting into his skin.

  But . . . Remora had asked him to get this tiara. He had the time span of a single tuna sandwich to retrieve it before it was gone, out of his hands. He couldn’t get it without knocking out the warehouse worker, and he couldn’t rescue the Queen if they raised the alarm.

  What was he going to do?

  26. Jinn’s Choice

  Jinn slipped into the shadows behind a marble statue just as the guard rounded the corner. He counted each metallic clip, clip of the guard’s boots. Two clips and the guard would be just in front of the statue. Then he would pause and scan the walkways below, his vantage point giving him a clear view of the entire western courtyard.

  Well, not the entire courtyard. If it had been the entire courtyard, it would have been impossible for Jinn to time the man’s route so that he could hide behind that vase, those two topiaries, and finally dangling from the decorative scrollwork just below the guard’s own feet while the wind whistled around him like an ignored watchdog.

  Had it been a Shinra’ere guard, he would never have managed it. Fortunately, sneaking past this yawning guard was less challenging than fooling a second-year agoge student.

  Granted, getting to the Inner Ring in the first place had been quite the feat, so perhaps the guards simply assumed no one would make it past the outer security.

  All for the best, really. The fewer people doing a good job of guard duty, the fewer people Jinn needed to incapacitate, and thus the fewer people who might wake at an inconvenient time and shout the alarm. He could have just killed the guards, but he could imagine Remora’s reaction to that particular plan of action. Easier by far simply to avoid it altogether.