He pressed the forward button, and what he read next made him gape. On the front page of a newspaper dating 1888, the headline read:
THE FALL OF metal metropolis!
Metal Metropolis was built after the First Machine War, when a treaty between humans and Living Automatons was signed. The city was located between Great Britain and Norway. There wasn’t a lot of information about the place itself, only that during the Second Machine War, the city was sacked when a massive explosion erupted within it—the Core Engine.
He moved on to the next story with a daguerreotype of two ships sitting in a heap on the ground, one on top of the other as if both had been dropped out of the sky. During the First Machine War, a small team of British soldiers, led by a Private Luka Greenwood, had helped stop the fighting by disabling a fleet of airships before they could reach London, where an attack had been taking place.
“Bloody hell,” Pierce muttered softly. “Glad I’ll be missing all that shite.”
He spied someone out of the corner of his eye. Pierce caught sight of a young woman walking by. She stopped at the end of a bookshelf.
She stood around five-six with short hair the color of cherries. She had large, dark, doe-like eyes and a small curvy nose with a perfect point at the end. Her lips were utterly beautiful and completely naked of any lipstick, exposing their natural color against her white porcelain skin. She wore a simple violet coat, beige stockings, and hard-heeled shoes. Her hands drew his attention the most. Long, slender fingers delicately touched the spine of each book on the shelf as she passed. She examined every title, clearly searching for a particular book. Her graceful mannerisms were hypnotic and difficult to look away from. She must have sensed his gaze on her, for she glanced over to him. He debated returning to his projected microfilm. Instead, he offered her a smile.
The lass’s cheeks flushed red, and she quickly ducked into the aisle of tall bookshelves. Pierce couldn’t decide on what to make of it. Did he scare her off? He wasn’t used to courting. His sort of lifestyle had never allowed for it. The few relationships he’d had were very brief and had ended abruptly.
Even so, it didn’t stop him from getting up and approaching her. Pierce rounded the shelf and spotted her. A nervous sweat broke out over him and his heart banged hard against his ribcage, irritating his wounded ribs. As he made his way past the books she had been eyeing, he noted that each tome was about France—mainly about how to speak French. An idea came to him.
When she noticed him, he stopped and bowed to her. “Bonne soirée, mon cher.”
He raised his head to see if he had achieved in impressing her. She stared at him with dark eyes as if he was the barrel of a gun pointing at her. Every tiny bit of confidence he’d held dissolved.
In French, she asked, “Are you a French?”
He said in English, “You mean are you French, love. Êtes-vous française?”
“Oh,” the young woman uttered. “You’re from Britain?”
“Aye, but I speak fluent French.”
“You do? I must have sounded foolish.”
“Foolish? Not in the least, darling. It takes practice, is all. Are you aiming to visit France?”
“I want to live there someday,” she admitted, tucking a cherry-red lock behind her ear.
Christ, she was over-the-top adorable. Pierce was the shy sort, and the fact that he had even approached her astounded him to no end. He expected he would start babbling at any moment.
He gently grasped one of her gorgeous hands. It was freezing to the touch.
“I’m Isaac Chaplin,” he said, kissing her hand.
At least he hadn’t forgotten his false name.
“Chaplin? Are you related to the actor Charlie Chaplin?”
It took him a tick to remember the Gold Rush movie poster he had gotten part of his alias off.
“No, it’s only a coincidence.”
An uncomfortable silence crept over them like an unwanted guest. He expected her to give him her name, but, instead, she casually pulled her hand away.
Maybe it was all for the best. After all, what could he possibly offer her? And just how long was he supposed to stay in this era before the Trickster came for him? This pretty young lass seemed like the good-hearted sort—and possibly prone to being hurt easily. Pierce wished he’d thought more about this before he’d acted. Maybe his actions were due to the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman since Sees Beyond almost a year ago. He felt like a true arse.
“Erm,” he said, ready to take his leave. “I can see I’m interfering. I’ll be off, eh?”
“Wait,” she called before he left. “Is bowing customary in France?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Eh? Oh, that. No, not in the least. When you do go, don’t be disappointed if gents aren’t bowing to you.”
She laughed a bit and eyed the floor, blushing again. “I’m Lucy Neil.”
He grinned.
“’Ello, Miss Lucy Neil.” Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Would you care to step out tonight with me for some dinner? We can go to the cinema afterward, eh?”
In truth, Pierce was itching to see another film.
She stared at him with a dash of nervousness in her uncertain expression.
“I’ll teach you some French,” he threw in.
Lucy turned her head down when she laughed, her hair falling from behind her ear and over her face.
He waited a beat for her to answer, and when she didn’t, he said, “Soooo, is that a yes laugh or a get lost one?”
She raised her chin to him. “All right. Where do you want to meet?”
He chewed his bottom lip. He had no earthly idea of where to meet in this foreign city.
“S’pose I can take the trolley and come by your place.”
“No!” she answered in an unexpectedly loud tone. Catching herself, Lucy cringed. “Sorry.”
For some reason, she didn’t want him knowing where she lived.
“Oi, that’s all right. Er, I’ve just arrived, though. I’m not too familiar with the area, yet. Is there a place you want to meet up at?”
Lucy mulled it over. “How about Jerry’s Diner on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village? Can you find it?”
“I’ll manage. What time?”
“I don’t live too far from the diner. Do you want to phone me up when you’re there? Ask Jerry, the owner, or the waitress, Ashley, to use the phone.”
Pierce hoped he could quickly figure out how to operate a telephone.
“Marvelous,” he beamed with exuberance. “Then it’s a date.” He gently took her cold hand in both of his. She needed some gloves. “À bientôt,mademoiselle.”
“Oui,” Lucy answered.
Apparently, she understood French better than she spoke it.
“Chaplin!” Frank unexpectedly called from the other end of the aisle. “There you are. C’mon, we’z need to go.”
Pierce huffed. Lucy looked at Frank from over Pierce’s shoulder. “Who’s he?”
“He’s my ride. I will phone you tonight, eh?”
Pierce quickly turned and approached Frank. He wanted to get going before Frank uttered something embarrassing.
“You’re s’posed to be lookin’ for books, not broads.”
Dammit.
Pierce cocked his head with an annoyed expression.
“What?” Frank demanded.
The cocker was grinning.
“You’re a tad early, chum,” Pierce grunted, passing him by.
“Finished up my errands,” Frank explained, glancing at Lucy. “Who’s the dame?”
Pierce grabbed his coat from where it hung on the back of a chair and gathered the boxes of microfilm before noticing Frank staring down the aisle at Lucy.
“Oi,” he said, rushing over. “Stop gawking.”
Someone at another table shushed him.
“You bloody well stow it,” Pierce returned hotly.
Pierce checked the aisle and saw poor Lucy hurrying down the other way and v
anishing. He gritted his teeth at Frank.
“Nice, Chaplin,” the big lummox praised him. “She looks like a real doll. Little skittish, though.”
“You scared her off with that ugly face of yours.”
He put his cap on and marched away.
“What’s with the sour mug?” Frank asked, following him.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
After returning the microfilm to the front desk, the two headed out. Pierce opened the exit door and the frigid winter air waffled over him. He stopped and buttoned his coat before going down the stairs. Frank offered him a cigarette. Pierce was peeved enough to accept it.
“Whatever happened to the loot I lifted from that bloke, Leon?”
“Dunno,” Frank admitted, lighting the cigarette for him with the brass lighter. “Kier took the billfold, remember?”
“Brody?” Pierce grunted. “Bugger.”
“Why d’ya ask? Did youze get a date in der or somethin’?”
Pierce inhaled the smoke but it didn’t burn his throat as bad. “Aye, but I don’t have a penny to my name.”
Christ. He was buggered. He couldn’t very well have Lucy pay for everything.
Surprisingly, Frank said as they left down the steps, “Needs some scratch, huh? I’z dos owes youze for not killing me last night. I’ll loan youze a few dollars.”
“Eh?” Pierce said, following him. “You’d do that? Cheers, mate.”
Frank reached his car, parked at the curb, and unlocked Pierce’s side.
“Ain’t nothin’. Call us square, yeah?”
Pierce would hardly call sparing the man’s life for a few coins square. He flicked the cigarette away and got in.
“You’re a peach, mate. Can you drive us around, too?”
Frank lit his own cigarette and cranked up the engine. “Boss needs me tonight. You can borrow my ride, though.”
Pierce cringed as they pulled out onto the street.
“Erm, I . . . I don’t know how to, er, operate . . . how to . . .”
“Youze dunno hows to drive?” Frank blurted out.
When Frank saw that Pierce was telling the truth, he burst into loud laughter, hurting Pierce’s ears. A honk from a passing vehicle erupted when their car crossed into the other’s path.
“Christ!” Pierce shrieked in a panic.
Frank swerved back onto the proper side of the road, narrowly missing the oncoming automobile. The cocker then went into a coughing fit. His face flushed bright red and tears pooled in his eyes as he worked to calm himself. Undoubtedly, the cigarette had played some role in it.
“You . . . youze really dunno hows to drive? Didn’t dey at least teach youze in the Army or somethin’?”
Shite, he’d never thought about that.
“I was too embarrassed to admit it, and I was never required to drive. My partner who smuggled the supplies with me did all the driving.”
He hoped the lie would be enough.
“Guess youze be takin’ de bus or trolley ’round, then.”
“Grand. What does Kelly need you for?”
“Work stuff. That’s all youze needs to know, little smuggler.”
“Stop calling me little.”
Seven
Just Find Him
Mara waited in the darkest part of the Lost Forest. These days, it was the only place she felt safe.
Some years ago, Mara had uncovered a dangerous secret. Entirely by chance, she had been giving nightmares to an albino man named Volker Jäger, whom she had gleefully taunted for years. She had known the German since he was Vlad III in a previous existence, which gave her a lot of creativity to work with when manifesting night terrors for him. While inside the albino’s head, Mara learned about a young Englishman named Pierce, the man Volker was hunting. Mara had found the boy alluring and wanted him until she discovered the youth was part of a witch’s plan to bring forth a djinn and that her own descendant was involved.
Centuries ago, the goddess, Huld, requested that Mara give nightmares to King Vanlandi Sveigðisson in order to scare him to death. She was to do this upon the request of the man’s wife. Mara had fancied the king and so had had her way with him while giving him terrible nightmares. In the end, she’d found herself pregnant with a girl, whom Mara abandoned on the shores of Germany. The descendant of her daughter was now the mother of a child that Pierce had sired.
Fortunate for Mara, Huld’s protection over her was strong enough that Freya could not kill her, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t get rid of her in other ways. When Mara first found out about Freya’s plan, the witch turned her into a statue and hid her inside a home with so many artifacts that the owner never even noticed her there. Then, one day, the boy, Pierce, freed her when he smashed the statue, breaking her prison.
Mara could not allow the djinn to be reborn, especially when she would gain nothing from it.
Thus, in the deep belly of the Lost Forest, Mara waited. Large, tightly knitted trees loomed high as mountains overhead, blocking out the light of the sun. Only at the top, where the sun’s rays could reach them, did the trees’ wide leaves grow. There they radiated with bright greens, showing off their skeletons as the sunlight burned through them. Pieces of the blue sky shone through, sending shafts of faded golden light down and sprinkling dots over the forest floor. The ground itself was completely covered in layer upon layer of leaves, accumulated over the centuries, and many more mushy heaps were lying underneath.
Mara sat on an old tree stump, her back against the fallen end of the tree. The smell of rotten wood permeated the air from the large fallen tree lying behind her. Insects flew across the blades of sunlight. Nothing else living was visible except for the chirping birds perched all around. The frayed broken half of the tree scratched roughly against her back. She ignored it and fiddled with her twig-thick hair.
Like all her kind, Mara’s appearance was unique. She had ashy white skin, black slanted eyes, and coarse hair that stuck up like gnarled sticks.
She had come to the meeting place early, mainly because she had nowhere to go. Since her escape from her prison, Mara had lived in fear that the witch would find her again. The dread kept sleep to a minimum, along with her appetite, which had resulted in a great loss of weight. Soon, she would waste away to nothing. She hadn’t been able to ride her fire horse across the sky or to give anyone any nightmares. That hurt her more. The ability to manifest lurid things, using people’s inner fears, was a creative use of her time. The taste of their fright intoxicated her far more than any wine ever crafted could. Just thinking about it made her giddy.
The frivolous moment passed when a voice said, “You must be Mara.”
Mara tilted her chin up to the slender woman looking down at her from the edge of the fallen tree.
“And you must be Kayden.”
“I am.” The elf leaped off the tree and into the thick layers of leaves. She sloshed through them until she found an unseen object—perhaps a boulder or another tree stump—and climbed onto it.
“Word has it you are looking for me,” stated the elf woman.
Kayden had many weapons on her. Her quiver was packed full of arrows, and there was a bow resting across her torso. A knife was tucked under her belt.
She was a magnificent looking creature with olive skin and a well-toned form sculpted from years of living so freely. She stood tall with sharp-tipped ears sticking out of her black hair with its green highlights. She wore black and brown leather clothing that hugged her body. She also wore a patchwork of cloth around her waist.
Kayden was of the Wild Elves clan. Good fighters and hunters.
“I’ve been searching for the one who can benefit me, yes,” Mara replied.
“Benefit you?” Kayden asked with a dash of annoyance.
“It is not as selfish as you think,” Mara quickly retorted. “What I need from you affects everything.”
The wild elf arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean—mare?”
Mara stood and began to
explain. “You have listened to ‘The Story of the Priest.’ I know you have. It’s how I was able to reach you. You are of the few who is aware of the tale. Who remembers it.”
“Indeed. Elves have a talent for storing information in our minds. That is why the Teller of Forgotten Tales no longer allows elf people under his tarpaulin, for its power does not steal away our memories. What does ‘The ‘Story of the Priest’ have to do with this?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mara argued. “Someone has learned about the story and, therefore, knows about the rules that must be followed in order to bring back the djinn!”
Kayden crossed her arms. “What rules? All I’ve heard of the story was that some powerful beings called djinn came here, threatening to seize the world from all the deities until a priest deceived them and turned them into slaves.”
“And this priest was granted one of these enslaved djinns and commanded it to destroy all its kind and then itself. The djinn did so,” Mara concluded.
“And that is where the story stops.”
Mara was confused. She thought for certain that if the elf had heard of the tale, she’d have remembered the laws. Perhaps the ancient storyteller had never told the entire story, after all. Regardless, Huld had revealed the “Story of the Priest” tale to Mara, and Mara would take the word of a goddess over a yarn spinner, any day.
“There is more to the story, Kayden. Much more,” she told her in earnest.
“Oh?” The elf uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “Is that so, mare?”
“It is. After all the djinn were destroyed, their powerful energies were scattered throughout this world and eventually, those energies found new homes in other living beings. The humans who were blessed with these energies became enchantresses and enchanters. Mares such as myself, elves, nymphs, and even some gods and goddesses, which enabled them to bend the rules.”
“And you know this . . . how?” the testy elf asked.
Boom Time Page 7