A Clockwork Christmas

by JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail; Jenny Schwartz

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “You’re being absurd enough for the pair of us. Enough, Coddington,” she demanded when he opened his mouth to bedevil her some more. “You have no say in this so don’t waste my time, I have none to spare. Besides, don’t you want to get the egg back?”

  “Of course I do, it’s all I have left of Beth.”

  She barely corralled a wince and wondered how mere words could cut so deeply. “Well, then. I don’t understand your misgivings.”

  “Silly me, I just seem to think flying in like a birdie borders on madness, that’s all.”

  “With great risk comes great reward.”

  “And if you don’t think this caper through, you’ll have one foot on a banana peel, the other in a grave. See? I can talk in clichés too.”

  “You’re being a pest, Coddington.” Her irritable sigh huffed out on a cloud of vapor. “That egg never should have left your family’s possession to begin with.”

  He shot her a swift glance, his eyes almost colorless in the pale morning light. “You should take more care in minding your words, Peabody. That almost sounded like a guilty conscience.”

  She bit down on a curse when she realized he was right. “Dear me, your brain seems to be suffering from some debilitating form of frostbite. Why would I ever have a guilty conscience?”

  “Oh right, I forgot—you’re still clinging to your tattered veil of innocence. Why feel guilty about something you had nothing to do with?”

  “Not at all.” With a stubborn lift of her chin she stopped to face him, determined to convince them both she meant every word. “A conscience is something no good thief can afford. And I’m not just a good thief, Coddington. I’m outstanding.”

  “So outstanding you really think you won’t get yourself killed with this scheme of yours?”

  “Now who’s not minding their words? One of the first things you made plain to me when we met was your over-arching desire to bring about my death one way or another. Oh, damn and blast,” she said suddenly, looking past his shoulder. “Those brainless fumblers are back.”

  “What fumblers? And your language, Peabody—”

  But Cornelia was already stalking past him, her gaze focused dead ahead at the knot of caroling children. Their sweet voices created a magical illusion of yuletide innocence even as they casually went about wolf-packing a pair of smiling, dim-witted marks about to lose their very last cent.

  “I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carol play, and wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, goodwill toward —”

  “Children,” Cornelia announced, her clarion voice cutting through their song with the clean precision of a scalpel just as Roderick joined her. “Auntie Cornelia is quite cross with you lot. Your chores aren’t yet complete and you haven’t my permission to be outside playing. The little darlings do love this time of year,” she added with a sweet smile to the startled pigeons, who were clearly oblivious they were now surrounded by a sea of well-trained sticky fingers. “They really have lovely voices, but it’s best they be sent on their way now.”

  “We almost had them,” the teenage boy snarled the moment their would-be victims strolled off. One side of his thin face was a mass of bruises and his sharp eyes were dark with pain as he turned stiffly to glare at her. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

  “I know exactly what I just did.” She nodded down the pathway. “You see that? In your condition do you really think you could have outrun that sort of trouble, boyo?”

  As one, the knot of children turned with a hopeless lack of finesse to stare at a policeman patrolling the well-used paths cutting through the park.

  “No need to thank me,” Cornelia went on when their dumbstruck silence gave her all the answer she needed. “Now. How bad off are you?”

  The boy shot her a sullen look. “I’m fine.”

  “Ribs, if I’m not mistaken. They’re the worst bit, aren’t they? Especially when the blighter who broke them has the gall to send you right back out to work once they’ve all but crippled you.” With a casual glance at the Blue Bottle heading further down the path, she slid a simple silver ring off her finger and dug for some coins. “Who’s the basher, then? Father? Mother? Someone else?”

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “I’m making it my business because you were stupid enough to come back here.” With another flickering glance at the cop, she palmed the small score into the boy’s frozen hand. “You’re old enough and smart enough to make it on your own. Why don’t you light out?”

  The boy’s glance at his siblings’ stricken faces was answer enough.

  “Ah.” Her frustrated sigh sent another vaporous cloud into the chilly morning. “Of course. What about your education? Can you read?”

  A dull flush beneath the bruising turned the boy’s face an odd shade of puce. “Some.”

  She clicked her tongue impatiently. “You’re the oldest, and the leader. You owe it to your siblings to learn as much as you can so that in turn, you can teach them. There’s no way they’ll be able to get out unless you lead the way.”

  “I can’t very well drop everything and go to school like a normal cosseted brat, now can I?” The boy’s eyes all but screamed his desperation, and for just a moment she thought he might burst into tears. But of course, crying was one of those things that got left behind early on in their dark world. “I have to work all the time, and if I don’t have something to show for it at the end of the day…” He made a hopeless gesture toward his abused face. “There’s just no way out.”

  “If someone were to teach you all you needed to know to get a good job, would you be interested?” Roderick asked suddenly, startling Cornelia enough to make her glance his way. To her surprise, she found his gaze burning with determination and razor-sharp interest, looking for all the world like he was ready to start class then and there. He was serious, she realized, while her heart paused at the unflinching generosity that had to be fueling his resolve. These children were denizens of her world, yet he didn’t seem to judge or loathe them for it. On the contrary, his first instinct was to reach out with a compassion that seemed as natural to him as breathing.

  Hidden in the depths of her well-stocked muff, Cornelia’s hands balled into fists. It was strange, how beautiful he was in that moment. Though she knew gentleness and compassion would never be shown to her—she didn’t deserve it—seeing it in Roderick’s jeweled eyes moved her so deeply it was hard to catch her breath. When he glanced at her, a bloom of warmth filled her chest, and with it came a sweetness that wrapped around her until it chased away the chill of the wintry morning. It was as if his gaze had somehow reached out to embrace her soul as something precious and valued and worthy.

  Even though she knew it wasn’t.

  “I don’t get it.” The boy’s hard voice broke through her tangled thoughts. “Why would anyone want to help us?”

  “I’m a teacher. Knowledge wasn’t meant to be hoarded for just the few who can afford it; it was meant to be shared with everyone. I can teach you all you need to know to earn an honest wage and never live hand-to-mouth again. But only if you’re willing to let me.”

  The boy’s thin face was riddled with equal amounts suspicion and pathetic hope before he looked to Cornelia. “Is he legit?”

  “As much as any professor of engineering can be. Opportunities like this don’t come knocking every day,” she added when the boy still hesitated. “Usually people like us are locked into this existence from cradle to grave, aren’t we? We’re told to take what we want, and that if the pigeons we steal from have the loot in the first place they’re rich enough to replace it. But deep down we know we hurt people in order to survive. Don’t we, boyo?”

  His eyes remained downcast, mouth tight. He was the picture of shame mingled with the determination to survive, and it was so painfully familiar to Cornelia it made her throat clench.

  “When I was your age I snagged a ring from
a plump pigeon who looked like she could afford a dozen of them, and more,” she went on when he didn’t answer. “But the moment she realized her ring was gone she began to wail as though she’d been stabbed. Turns out it was her grandmother’s wedding ring, an heirloom that meant the world to her. I turned right around, told her I’d found it lying in the street, and handed it back. As I watched her collapse in tears of relief, it became clear to me—what I had been raised to do was wrong. Even when my dear mother strung me up, horse-whipped me and dumped my carcass in an alley to die, I was sure I had been right to give that ring back. But even after I was left alone in the world I found myself stuck in that life. I had no other education to fall back on in order to survive. But I can promise you, boyo, if someone had come along with the opportunity you’re being offered now, I would have jumped at the chance to get out. The question is, are you smart enough to do the same?”

  In silence he searched her eyes, as though seeing for the first time he might not be completely alone in his miserable lot in life.

  “We’ve got other business to conduct today,” she said, her tone brusque, and in a kind of desperate ferocity to escape her own demons she made a move back down the park’s walkway. “I’ve better things to do than freeze while you dither about making up your mind. Let’s be on our way, Coddington.”

  “Wait!” The boy leapt forward as if he worked on a spring. “Please, I want to learn! I need to help my brothers and sisters. I can’t… I mean, we can’t go on this way.”

  The knot in Cornelia’s throat cinched tighter. She had no doubt he’d been right the first time. The boy was at the end of his rope.

  Roderick was pulling a fancy embossed calling card out of an inner pocket. “Can you read this? It has my name and address on it.”

  The boy’s lips moved as he sounded out the words. “I know where this is, it’s just a couple miles from here, in Cambridge.”

  “I’ll be expecting you the day after Christmas,” Roderick nodded in a way that told Cornelia he was well pleased. “Six a.m, on the dot.”

  The boy goggled. “Why so early?”

  “The earlier we start, the more studying we can get in before your, erm, workday begins. I don’t want you to endure another beating because of me.”

  “It wouldn’t be because of you. It’d be because our father’s a lazy drunk who never had an honest job in his life.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Cornelia watched Roderick try not to wince. “I’ll expect you, then. What’s your name, by the way?”

  The boy seemed stunned anyone would care enough to ask. “Josiah. Josiah Stark.”

  “Excellent. I’m Professor Coddington. I look forward to being your teacher, Mr. Stark.”

  “I thought he would sink into a drop-dead faint when you called him Mr. Stark,” Cornelia commented when they at last went their separate ways, with the children looking more than a bit thunderstruck. “You’ll be lucky he doesn’t rob you blind, Coddington. Right from the womb he’s been taught to take what he needs in order to survive.”

  “Like you?”

  “I haven’t been a street thief for years.” Pride tilted her chin up a notch while the unease over Roderick’s query made her pull deeper into her protective shell. “We’re nothing alike.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I saw your scars, Cornelia.”

  He may as well have given her a sucker punch to the solar plexus. The pain of it whipped her around and had her baring her teeth like a cornered animal. “You’d best not presume to know anything about me, because you don’t. And that’s the way I want it.” She was almost sure of it.

  “What about what I want?”

  “We have a business transaction of sorts, if you’ll recall. Once it’s done we go our separate ways without so much as a backward glance, so there’s no need to…to share trivial tidbits of who we are with each other. And don’t you forget I’m nothing more than Peabody to you,” she added, all the while wondering why pushing him away spawned a terrible ache in her chest. To keep her distance from him was safer, surely. “No familiarity, remember?”

  “As I recall, we made the deal to not feign familiarity. We’re one hell of a long way past feigning anything of the sort.” To her amazement he circled his arms around her before she could make a getaway.

  In an instant every instinct Cornelia had to protect herself kicked up a fuss, especially from a man she both wanted and yearned to keep at a safe distance. But even as she struggled to pull away he held onto her, nothing more, his arms like steel bands at her back to lock her against his chest. Frantic confusion tangled her thoughts while his big body’s warmth seeped into her like some kind of potent, mood-altering magic that sapped the fight right out of her. Muscle by muscle the trapped-animal tension in her relaxed, and as it did she couldn’t help but notice the breathless beauty there was in the way they fit together. How was it possible being held by this man could feel so right? It was mind-boggling, this unknown sensation. It was more than warmth, more than support. It was absolute belonging, a stinging sweetness so pure she almost smothered beneath the fear she’d become addicted to it. Her heart pounded as though she’d pulled a runner from a squad of coppers, yet all he was doing was cradling her as though she meant something to him. As though she were someone…important.

  Maybe her brain was the one suffering frostbite.

  “What…” Her voice was muffled in the front of his coat, and it took an astonishing amount of strength to keep from rubbing her cheek against the beat of his heart. “What are you doing, Coddington? This isn’t part of our deal, either.”

  “To hell with the deal.” He smoothed a hand up her back to her nape. Her bones threatened to liquefy when he kneaded the wire-tight muscles there, and with a whimper she melted against him until she had to hold onto his waist to keep from puddling in a shivery, helpless pool at his feet. “All the rules changed the moment you broke into my house.”

  She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open as her head drooped to rest against his chest. “Isn’t that the truth.”

  “You might be the expert when it comes to pulling off the perfect heist, but you’re not the one in charge here. As of now, we’re doing things my way.”

  “Wait.” Despite her insides turning to jelly with his oh-so delicious massage, his statement kicked off a tremor of trepidation. “Whatever do you mean, Coddington?”

  “I mean if you’re determined to fly into Irish Paddy’s stronghold, I can’t stop you.”

  “Of course you can’t.”

  “But I’m going with you.” He dropped a hard kiss on her mouth when she lifted her head to protest. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was just as he suspected all along. Cornelia was a diabolical genius.

  With a groan, Roderick stretched his back, which had been bent over a workbench for more hours than he cared to count. He dragged the welding goggles up to his grimy forehead, set aside the torch and wiped his grease-stained hands on the blacksmith’s apron he wore when tinkering. Her genius was one thing he had recognized in his little thief; her brain had been one of the things he had both admired and been leery of from the moment he had tracked her down.

  Did she know how completely that set her apart from every other woman he’d known? Roderick wondered, rolling his head and listening to his neck pop. Cornelia was nothing like those shrinking-violet types he could find in just about any parlor in the city. That particular breed of woman never stayed up on the latest news, knew nothing of science or the exciting, always changing events in technology, and didn’t give a damn about the social iniquities existing in every corner of the world.

  That kind of woman bored him into unconsciousness.

  Cornelia Peabody though, was different. An original, no doubt about it. Even if he hadn’t known she was one of Boston’s best—and therefore undetected—sneak thieves, he would have suspected there was something unusual
about her from the collection of books she kept hidden in her inner sanctum. When he had painstakingly colored the celluloids of her office, he’d noted the countless, well-worn books she possessed; it had been unavoidable, since he’d had to go over their colorful spines in order to reproduce the feel of the room. At the time he had never given more than a passing thought to her collection of books on airships and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and even a couple rare documents on da Vinci’s more outlandish inventions regarding airships and propulsion. Not once did it occur to him that his thief had built her very own miniaturized version of an airship.

  If Cornelia ever decided to use her powers to commit true evil, the world was a doomed place.

  The problem, of course, was the airship’s size. Built just for one, it was hardly more than a hot air balloon with a semi-enclosed gondola. That was fine, but her ingeniously designed air compressor—a contraption that could super-heat pressurized air to then be blown noiselessly outward and without a visible burst of flame from its two sets of twin nacelles—was too weak. Good enough for one passenger on a short trip, but nowhere near what they needed for a trip involving two passengers.

  Or at least, it hadn’t been.

  Roderick closed the aluminum housing of first the hot-air nacelles, then the navigational nacelles, adjusted the temperature regulator for indoor use, and cleared the workbench of the remnants of the mechanical surgery he’d just completed. It had taken all of yesterday to talk Cornelia into giving him her ship’s compressor, but he’d finally bugged her into submission. While she had gone off to “mine information” he had brought her ingenious creation home and gone to work, hardly taking more than an hour or two to eat or sleep. Now, with the clock reminding him it was in the wee hours of Christmas Eve-Eve, he was fairly certain he had given the compressor all the muscle it needed to fly them both into the heart of Cornelia’s plan. Thanks to the perpetual-motion battery prototype he had grafted onto it in place of the much heavier and less efficient fossil-fuel burning engine Cornelia had used, he suspected the compressor could now take them around the world without a hitch.