Hearts of Smoke and Steam

by Andrew P. Mayer

  The woman's head was turned downward, and she clearly trying to avoid the attention of anyone around her. Her desire to hide her face only made her more enticing.

  His curiosity was rewarded when the blonde girl finally turned her head toward him, revealing a mouth fixed in a frown so sad, delicate, and truthful that it made him catch his breath.

  Emilio slowed, and then stopped in his tracks, his arm quickly rising up to cover the distance between himself and his sister, who was still marching forward with his hand in hers.

  There was something about the girl that seemed familiar…But if he'd met her before, he couldn't quite place when, where, or how.

  Clutched against her chest was a battered brown suitcase. She held onto it in a way that made Emilio imagine that it must contain the most important thing in the world.

  He could feel Viola's fingers tearing away from his as he stood and stared, his mouth slightly open. His eyes followed the blonde girl as she opened the far cabin door. She stopped for a moment, looking wistfully at something up above them, and then slipped up the stairs.

  Once again he felt a jab in his side, but this time he didn't jump. “What's the matter with you?” Viola said to him with frustration in her voice. “Are you losing your mind?”

  He turned to his sister and smiled. “I'm fine. Let's not go to the engines,” he said as he pulled on his coat. “I have a better idea! Follow me!”

  They stepped outside, where the chill spring air was a shocking contrast to the humid warmth of the passenger cabin. “Where are we going?”

  Emilio looked around, trying to see what it was that must have interested the girl. When he looked up and out in front of the ship, he saw it. “Ponte di Brooklyn!” he said, pointing up at the massive bridge standing a few hundred yards ahead.

  “Since when do you care about bridges more than engines?” Viola asked with annoyance in her voice.

  “Let's go,” he said, and began to scamper up the metal stairs.

  “Idiot,” Viola muttered in English as she lifted up her dark velvet skirts and followed her brother.

  When they reached the top deck, they found only a few rugged souls who had decided to brave exposure to the chill weather on their journey down the East River—foolhardy tourists, parents with over-curious children, a few old men taking an impromptu constitutional, an artist with sketchbook in hand, and the blonde-haired girl. None of them seemed to be happy with their choice.

  Viola tracked her brother's gaze to the girl. “Now I know what it was that got you up here. It is nice to see you didn't leave your manhood back in Italy, but really, Emilio, she's far too skinny for you.”

  He frowned. “Hush or she'll hear you!”

  “Do you think that little thing speaks Italian?” she said with a laugh. “Girl! Look over here!” she said, raising her voice. “My brother has fallen in love with you!”

  No one bothered to glance their way, and if anything the girl made a concerted effort to ignore them.

  Emilio thought it must have been the bridge that she had come up to look at, but as they passed beneath the steel girders of the unfinished structure, the blonde girl's gaze moved around and faced behind the boat. Whatever she saw there had clearly shocked her. He saw the word no forming soundlessly on her lips, the same in either language. “Impossible,” was what she said out loud.

  When he turned around to see what had caused the girl to react with so much fear, he saw a black object hanging in the sky behind them.

  It was round, with a ribbon of black smoke trailing out of the back of it. “La mongolfiera!” he said loudly, pointing it out for his sister to see, although it was unusual enough that it seemed almost impossible that anyone would miss it.

  It was moving rapidly, heading directly toward them, and after a few seconds Emilio could make out two large propellers sticking out from either side, pushing it in their direction at rapid speed.

  The blonde girl seemed frozen in place, unable to decide what she should do. She had already pushed herself back to the railing, and there was nowhere else for her to go. She looked down at the case and clutched it even more tightly to her chest.

  She stood up and bolted toward them, clearly intent on heading down the stairs. Emilio and Viola were standing directly in her way.

  He looked into the girl's eyes, hoping to catch her attention. The girl was clearly terrified, but there was also a determination in her gaze that he couldn't help but admire. His heart skipped a beat, and Emilio knew it wasn't just admiration that her beauty had triggered inside of him. If she was in trouble, surely they could help.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her tone clearly hovering between desperation and frustration. “I need to go downstairs.”

  “You need help, pretty lady?” Like almost every time that he tried speak to someone in English, Emilio found himself regretting the attempt an instant after the words came out of his mouth. He may not have ever been a poet or an orator, but at least when he spoke to someone in Italian they didn't give him a look as if they had just met the world's first talking horse.

  But the blonde woman didn't seem to notice his terrible grammar, or anything about him except that he was in her way. “No, no thank you,” she replied, shifting to one side and then the other, clearly trying to find a path between the siblings that would let her escape down the stairs. But Emilio and Viola had created an impenetrable wall.

  “Are you afraid of the baloney?”

  This time his words did get the look he had expected. “What are you talking about?”

  “Baloney!” Emilio replied, pointing up at the sky for emphasis. They had almost completed their journey past the Brooklyn Bridge now, and even though the black ship was going above the cables, it had also moved appreciably closer to them.

  Viola shook her head. “It's called a balloon, you idiot!” Maybe it had been because she was younger than he was, or because she'd spent more time actually talking to people and not working on machines, but since their arrival, Viola's English had quickly become much better than his. “Now, lady,” his sister said to the girl in a tone shockingly reminiscent of their sainted mother, “maybe me and my horse's ass of a brother can help you with whatever is bothering you.”

  “You can get out of my way!” the girl yelled, and then dove toward them with an outstretched hand. The startled siblings parted, and she stumbled down the stairs.

  “We sorry, miss! Please let's help you!” Emilio shouted after her, but if she understood his words, they didn't slow her down.

  From somewhere in the sky above them there came a chuffing sound, as if a gigantic locomotive had started to move. A second later, the ship rocked as a large metal harpoon sank through the surface of the top deck with a screech of tearing metal. Screams rose up from the people on the deck around them, and after another moment passed, Emilio could hear muffled shouts of terror coming from the passenger compartment below.

  Looking at the lance that had penetrated the ship, Emilio could see a thick cable that ran out from the back of it. It trailed away in an arc that led all the way up to the balloon in the sky above them. The wire lay slack for a moment, and then tightened up with a thrumming sound. The deck jerked underneath his feet, as the ship slowed down from the effort of dragging the balloon behind it.

  He looked up to the ship in the sky. It was continuing to move closer. Clearly there was some sort of mechanical winch on the other end rapidly winding it down toward them.

  Emilio tried to think about what he should do next. His peaceful afternoon ride back to Brooklyn had been turned into an assault, and the beautiful blonde girl who had captivated his attention was at the center of it.

  Emilio had been caught in the middle of a battle before, and experience had taught him that the best way to stay alive when such things occurred was to try to gather enough information to remain one step ahead of whomever— or whatever—was trying to kill you.

  Now that it was coming closer, he could see that the balloon was larger than
he had imagined. The steaming gondola that hung directly underneath the massive gas-bag was easily the size of a small house.

  The balloon dropped altitude, lowering the angle on the wire, and a man climbed out of a hatch, working his way down to the nose of the gondola. When he reached the end, he attached something to the metal wire and jumped.

  “Out of the way sir!” screamed a voice behind him, and a forceful hand shoved him up and away from the stairs, pushing Emilio in one direction, and Viola in another.

  A group of seven men boiled up from the stairway and onto the deck. The leader was a policeman, and four uniformed members of the boat's crew followed. The final two were a pair of burly fellows who simply seemed to have decided to lend their fists to the fight against whatever it was that had attacked the ship.

  The policeman brandished a gun, and the rest of the men were holding different objects clearly intended to be used as clubs. Some of the crewmen were stained with blood, a sign of the carnage that must be occurring below the deck, where the harpoon had pierced the ship.

  The men charged into action. The two civilians immediately began trying to free the ship while the crewmen began directing the women and children down the stairs to safety.

  Emilio looked up at the man who was rapidly descending towards them from the balloon. Whatever device he had attached to the wire, it clearly had some kind of brake built into it, and it was letting off an impressive shower of sparks as he slid down toward the boat.

  Emilio pointed and shouted. “He's coming to us!”

  The policeman looked upward at his yell. He pointed his revolver up at the figure, and there were five quick cracks as the bullets fired. If any of them hit their intended target, they didn't do any visible damage to him.

  The policeman brought down the gun and began to reload it. “Let him come,” he said with a well-practiced voice of authority, “we'll deal with him when he land—” An instant later, he collapsed to the deck, a thick silver rod sticking out of his neck.

  “Emilio, watch out!” Viola grabbed her brother's hand and pulled him backwards. Losing his balance, he dropped his bag and stumbled down the steep stairs, barely managing to grab the rail before crashing to the lower deck. Viola, who had always been far stronger than she looked, grabbed him around the waist and tried to stop his fall.

  Emilio found himself slammed backwards into an iron support beam by the weight of his sister. It crushed the air out of his lungs, and as he gasped for breath he felt a moment of pure terror, his heart feeling like it would explode out of his chest.

  From up above them there was a series of whistling noises and a rhythmic “thunk, thunk, thunk” across the surface of the deck. It was followed by the screams of men in pain.

  As Emilio's lungs attempted to rediscover their ability to breathe, the scent of gunpowder reached his nostrils. For a moment he contemplated flinging himself and his sister over the side of the boat, plunging into the cold, black waters of the East River to free himself from his terror. But he had to know what had happened to the girl…

  It took a few seconds before he could once again draw in a decent lungful of air. As the ability to breathe returned, the terror began to pass, although he could still feel his hands shaking from the surge of adrenaline that had just passed through him.

  “C'mon, Emilio!” Viola grabbed his arm and tried to pull him further down the stairs. “We need to go!”

  Without a word, he tugged his arm free and marched back up. When he reached eye-level with the deck, he could immediately tell that things had gone very poorly for the seven would-be heroes.

  Scattered across the deck were small steel rods that stuck up like shining porcupine quills. Most of them had landed without striking anything more than pitch or wood, but that left plenty to pierce human flesh, and they had done their work with grisly efficiency. Every man who had remained on the deck was dead or dying.

  Before he could stop himself, Emilio scanned around to see if any of the women and children had been killed, but the innocents seemed to have escaped without harm. He felt blessed—if he had witnessed that kind of tragedy, he might not have been able to go on.

  Standing over the bodies of his victims was the grizzled figure who had travelled down the wire. He was dressed in a worn tweed greatcoat, with a battered old kepi cap pulled down tight on his head.

  The most striking thing about him was the machinery he wore: both his arms were encased in metal tubes. The one on his right ended in a menacing steel barb.

  The frame on his left covered the entire limb down to the hand. It ended in a circle of metal that contained a series of holes that appeared to have fired the metal quills. Strapped to his back was a complicated device that provided the power for the machinery. Emilio found himself admiring its design.

  Even though he had always been interested in the Paragons, Emilio had never seen one of New York's legendary villains in the flesh before. In the last few years there had been fairly few actual attacks—until Darby's death. And this particular villain was clearly Bomb Lance, the very man who had killed the Paragons' leader…

  “Not so fast, lad.” The Irish accent was thick, but he clearly had a far better command of English than Emilio ever would. When Emilio looked up, he saw that the villain's gleaming harpoon was aimed straight at him.

  Emilio waved a hand at him and took a step back. “I sorry. I no problem.” For once he was grateful for his poor speech. Perhaps sounding like an idiot would gain him some sympathy.

  “No problem, eh?” the man said, waving the harpoon at him. “Then what's in the bag?”

  “Here?” he said, “Is nothing. Ahhhhh…” he held onto the end of the word as long as he could, trying to use the time to not only come up with a suitable excuse, but to put it into words that the Irishman would understand. “Is my family.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Is Pica-tures.” He sent up a little prayer that his sister wasn't in earshot. If she heard the nonsense he was spouting, surviving might not be worthwhile after all.

  “Why don't you show me yer ‘pica-tures.'”

  “Isa okay then, yes? I go.” As Emilio took another step back, the man's left arm rose up and fired a single metal quill. It landed in the ground a foot in front of Emilio's feet.

  “Not okay, wop. You stay.” The sound that rose up out of the Irishman was the rasp that served him as laughter. Emilio noticed that black smoke was leaking out from the hole that had fired the metal rod. “Now let's see.”

  Emilio dropped the bag to the deck. It let out a metallic clunk. The look on the other man's face turned more serious. “That don't sound like pica-tures to me.”

  He knelt down, wondering how long he'd be able to keep playing the fool before the Irishman decided to simply shoot him and get it over with. “No. Is okay! Is box! I show you!” He pulled the handles apart and reached inside.

  “I'm looking for a girl,” the Irishman continued. “Blondie with pale skin.” The man took a deep breath and spat. “Did you see her?”

  “A blondie? I no understand.” But it wasn't hard to conclude that the girl the villain was looking for was the same one who had caught his attention earlier. If she knew that this man was coming for her, it was clear why she had fled with such determination—it would have been obvious that Emilio's abilities as a protector were sorely limited against such a man.

  “A blondie,” he said, pointing up at his hair.

  Emilio's hand groped down into the canvas bag. His fear was so pure now that it felt like time itself had stopped—this would be his only chance.

  It wasn't much of a plan, and even then there were a million tiny things that could go wrong. But as his hand found the cool brass grip at the bottom of the bag, Emilio breathed a sigh of relief. Finally something had gone right today.

  “Hell, I'm all out of patience,” the Irishman said. He raised his left arm, clearly preparing to fire.

  Emilio pulled his trigger finger tight, releasing the mechanism. T
here was a rough popping of cloth as the bag shredded, destroyed from within by the razor-sharp plates that were spinning open inside it.

  That sound was immediately followed by the loud “tunk” of metal against metal as the rod that had been fired directly at Emilio's chest instead impacted with steel. The force of the attack was still enough to knock him off his feet and throw him backwards. He landed rudely on a puddle of something wet and sticky.

  “Now, that's something new,” the Irishman said, moving closer. “And pretty, too.”

  Emilio held the shield up in front of him, peering over its edge. The device was constructed from a series of fan-shaped plates that spiraled around a center spindle and then locked together to form a solid metal barrier. The surface of each one was etched with ornate floral patterns that caught the light and made the polished steel glimmer and shine. The device had been crafted with as much artistry as Emilio could put into it—inspired by the creations of Sir Dennis Darby, he had intended it to be as much a piece of art as it was a weapon. But its aesthetic perfection had already been ruined by a large dent from the steel rod. It would now be unable to close with the same elegance that had managed to open it a few seconds before.

  The Bomb Lance fired again without warning. The rod whistled past Emilio's head, then careened off the railing before it spun off into the river.

  Emilio's best option was retreat, and he used his feet to shove himself backwards toward the stairs. Then there was a shocking jolt of pain in his leg: the Irishman had stuck the barb of his long harpoon directly into his calf. Emilio refused to let out a scream.

  “Now I've got yer attention,” he said, pulling the point out from his flesh. “Tell me about the blonde girl.”

  “I no know the blondie.”

  “If that's true, it's going to get very bad for ya very quickly.” He raised his harpoon and pointed it directly at Emilio's chest. “Now I'll ask ya one more time, and if ya tell me no again, I'm going to stick this lance someplace that yer not gonna like. So, if ya know where the girl is, and I think ya do, ya should tell me.”