Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Melissa Scott

  Eight beats to pick herself up, shaking her head theatrically as if dazed, while he stood with his back to her as though smoking a cigarette. Oh yes. Lust. The music heated like her blood, the steps of the dance not constraining passion, but allowing it. After all, it was only dancing.

  And then she stalked, coming around him, one hand rising as though to slap him. A slap, a block, and down to her knees, eight beats of rising up his body, arms stretched, her entire body following, her face against groin and belly and then chest. Arms around his neck and the long steps to the right, matched steps again, wicked parody of a waltz. But they never did this in Vienna.

  This time he jerked away, turning around fully, and she pulled him back, seeing the naked hunger in his eyes, real, surely real not faked. And the second lift, the one they'd not done before, her legs around his waist, one hand on her back and the other beneath her bottom, skirts hiked up. His hand on the soft flesh between the top of her stockings and the loose silk combinations, fingers curving almost into the cleft. And spin, four beats and then another four, around and around….

  He stumbled backwards, colliding with the edge of the bed at the back of his knees and sat down heavily, and she hung on so she wouldn't fall backwards, landing in his lap, legs around him, her warm center pressed against his belt buckle.

  Laughing.

  "Sorry," he said, sounding a little breathless. "I ran into it. There won't be anything to run into when we do this for real."

  "It's all right," she said. The music kept going. It didn't stop just because they did. It didn't stop just because they were sitting like that, with oh God that pressure exactly where she wanted it, with his arms around her and that expression on his face and….

  She knew exactly the moment he decided to kiss her. It was exactly the same moment that she decided to kiss him.

  Hunger and desire and so, so right, light and dark at once, like fire and the shadow of fire dancing together over the coals. Hard and insistent and every bit as merciless as the characters they played, ripe with everything pent up and unsaid. Her arms were tight around him, one hand tangling in his hair at the back of his neck as though to make certain he'd never escape. His hand on her backside tightened, exploring beneath the edge of the combinations. Just a little closer, just a little tighter….

  And he pulled his head away, jerking back as if it were on the eight beat, eyes wide and too bright. "I can't." He looked away, evading her. "This can't go anywhere."

  Back from the brink, from the white heat. Stasi took a long, shuddering breath, untwined her fingers in his hair to a caress, turning his face to hers. "Does it have to? Can't you just kiss me because you want to?"

  She saw the idea play across him, his eyes searching her face, and she wondered what he saw there. What did she say with the tips of her fingers against his face, with the way she opened her other hand against his shoulder? She saw the assent, saw something else flicker through his gaze, some weird and tender hope.

  "Why not?" she asked, and drew him to her again. "Just kiss me."

  Warm and tender and thorough, meeting as though this were the final moments of the dance, the needle sliding across the record to the center, then picking itself up as it touched paper. It lifted and then replaced itself on the outermost edge, the soft scratch of the diamond tip until the music began again.

  His lips against her closed eyelids, tilting her face up. The feel of his bare shoulder, sliding her hand beneath the soft cloth of the undershirt, the shape of his shoulder blades, the smell of warm flesh. So close. So tight. Heat welling inside, pressed against his waist, sweet pressure against the metal belt buckle that was almost pain. She ducked her head and kissed his shoulder, wanting the taste of him.

  His hand on her neck, the back of his hand, trailing from back to front, and she turned her head into it, his knuckles brushing her lips, and she kissed his fingers. Exploring, tilting her head up to meet mouth to mouth again….

  Someone was knocking on the door. Knocking on the door.

  "Mitch? Hey Mitch, open up!" It was Lewis. Another knock. "It's an emergency."

  He pulled back, sense returning. Sense. Breath. She tried to catch hers as he scooted out from under her, leaving her sitting on the bed, legs akimbo, one stocking unhooked from her garter belt. "Lewis?"

  "Sorry, but it's important," he said from outside the door. "Hey, Mitch?"

  She saw him square his shoulders, unlatch the door. "What's wrong?"

  The door swung open. "There's been another plane crash," Lewis said. "Colonel Sampson's on the phone for you. A passenger plane's gone down en route from Denver to Phoenix. Six people on board besides the crew, including two little kids. Come on. We've got to get out there." His expression changed, suddenly taking in the mussed bed, Mitch in his undershirt, Stasi with one stocking unhooked. He looked like he was trying to decide if apologizing would make it worse.

  Mitch nodded. "Coming." He turned and grabbed his shirt off the radio, looking around for heavy coat and gloves and hat and scarf.

  Lewis beat a hasty retreat, pulling the door shut behind him, surely to avoid letting out the heat.

  "Your gloves are on the wash stand," Stasi said. "And please try not to freeze." She sat up, stretching the elastic down to fasten the garter on the inside of her thigh.

  "Stasi." She looked up and he was standing in the middle of the room holding his hat and old leather jacket. "I…"

  "Go on," she said. "It's an emergency."

  Somewhere out in the night a plane was down with two pilots and four adult passengers, with two little kids who no doubt expected to spend Christmas in Phoenix. Maybe they were still alive, in the mountains, in the winter, in the dark. Whatever there was to say would keep. Surely.

  "Ok," he said, and shrugged his jacket on and followed Lewis.

  "Be safe," she said to empty air.

  Lewis was sure his face was still scarlet even after the drive to the field. It wasn't as though he had a choice, it was genuinely an emergency, but he couldn't think of much worse than being interrupted at just that point, cabaret music sultry in the background, the heat in the room almost palpable. Stasi with her garter unhooked, stocking sagging over creamy thigh…. He dragged his mind away from that image, suspecting he was blushing again.

  "The weather's looking awkward," Mitch said. He was bundled in his heaviest gear, the jacket still open over flannel shirt and sweater. "Flurries now, but Salt Lake says there's a storm on its way. Maybe two of them. High winds on the ground and at altitude, plus snow. It'll be here before daybreak."

  "Great." Lewis looked at the Frontiersman, and then at Alma as she ducked out of the office. "Where are we with the electrical system? Did you find the problem?"

  She shook her head. "I'm not satisfied. There shouldn't be anything wrong, but this time half the fuses popped when I tried to start her up. I replaced them, and it started fine, but…."

  Lewis grimaced. No, he didn't really want to take chances, not in the mountains with bad weather moving in.

  "I think we should take the Terrier," Mitch said. "She's going to be more stable in these winds anyway, and three engines are better than one."

  Alma nodded. "I agree. I'll keep working on the Dude while you're gone. There's got to be some dumb short somewhere that I just haven't found."

  "The Reserves will pay for the fuel," Mitch said, and Alma nodded again.

  "I won't pretend that doesn't help. Go ahead and get her ready, I'll get the kits aboard. Linc's made coffee, too."

  They worked their way methodically through the preflight checklists, both of them knowing better than to rush. Any mistakes now would be paid for in the air, and that would only make a bad situation worse. Six adults and two kids, and the best you could hope for was that they'd managed to make some kind of landing. Please God it wouldn't be like the mail plane….

  The hangar's small door banged open, and Stasi rushed in with the basket they used for the passengers' meals, long wool coat buttoned tight over u
ngainly galoshes. She disappeared into the office, and a moment later Al came out, carrying the basket. Lewis clambered back to take it at the cabin door, certain he was blushing again, and Alma handed it in.

  "Sandwiches and cake and another thermos of coffee," she said.

  "Thanks."

  "I'll tell her," Alma said, with a grin, and then sobered. "Be careful. If the weather closes in — you can't do anything if the ceiling drops too low."

  "I know," Lewis said, "And so does Mitch. Don't worry, we'll be careful."

  "I know." Alma looked over her shoulder, then reached up to snatch a kiss. "Just — be safe."

  "We will," Lewis said, but she'd already turned away. He watched her go, wondering if she knew something he didn't — she didn't see things, not the way he did, but that wasn't the sort of thing he wondered about, not now, not watching the way she walked, the way her body moved when she turned away from him. If she was, she had a right to be more worried than usual, and he still had no choice but to do his duty. The work put before them, Mitch called it, and there was a solid rightness to the words.

  They took off into a freshening wind, Lewis in the co-pilot's seat with the maps and Sampson's instructions written out in Alma's careful hand, the basket of supplies strapped to the bulkhead just outside the cockpit door. The emergency kit in the cabin was strapped down, too, and as they bounced through the unstable air, Lewis was glad they'd taken the precaution. The ceiling was decent here, a few thousand feet between ground and clouds, enough to give them a look at the ground, though to the west he could see the first signs of the incoming storm, a darker line on the horizon.

  It was harder to see the ground from the Terrier than it was from the Frontiersman even in daylight, but the snowpack helped, reflecting the starlight and showing up any break in the ground. He spotted what looked like a break in the trees off the right wing, poked Mitch's shoulder and pointed, but when the big plane banked over it, it resolved to a rocky slope too steep to hold the snow. Mitch brought the Terrier back on course, and they droned west, the Terrier rocking in the headwind.

  They'd been in the air for a bit over an hour, clawing for room between the lowering cloud base and the tops of the mountains, when they finally broke out into better air. The ceiling lifted, clouds behind them and ahead of them, but with enough space to breathe, and Lewis loosened his seatbelt to fetch the thermos of coffee. Mitch took a cup, nodding his thanks.

  "I think I'm going to start the cross leg now," he called, over the engines' noise. "I know it's early, but if we go the full distance, we'll be back in the soup."

  "Makes sense," Lewis shouted back, and took a drink of his own coffee. It was sweet and pale, made to Mitch's taste, not his, and that made him think again about what he'd seen. He glanced sideways, Mitch's face unreadable, lit only by the faint glow of the instrument panel. "You know, I — I'm sorry I interrupted."

  Mitch's expression didn't change, but Lewis thought he saw a faint hint of color on the other man's cheeks. "It was an emergency."

  "Still."

  "It's ok."

  And that was about as far as Lewis was prepared to go, and he was glad to turn his attention back to the windows. "There's the highway."

  That was the landmark for their northern sweep, and Mitch adjusted the Terrier's course so that they were flying parallel to the thin line. The wind was picking up; on the new heading it was a crosswind, lifting and dropping the Terrier unpredictably, and Lewis jammed the thermos tightly into the holder beside his seat. The clouds were definitely moving in, the ceiling dropping, and Mitch shook his head.

  "Radio Denver, will you? Let them know I'm cutting my sweep short on the north side and heading east."

  If they didn't, the clouds would overtake them, Lewis knew, block their view of the ground and force them to try to get above the storm before they turned for home. A night landing through clouds, in worsening weather — that was pretty much asking for trouble. If the weather hadn't been screwy, Sampson would surely have waited until morning to start the search, rather than risk more crashes. No, turning back was the smart thing to do — the only thing to do — but he couldn't help hesitating. Somewhere out there eight people were down — two children. It went against the grain to turn short. But if they crashed, too, that wouldn't help anyone. He picked up the microphone, tuned the radio to the Denver frequency, and relayed the message.

  For a change, the air was relatively free of static, some freak effect of the on-coming snow. "Roger that, Gilchrist. Salt Lake is reporting snow, so if you need to set down, go ahead."

  "Will do," Lewis answered. "We're still ahead of it, looks like. I think we can make it back to you before it sets in." He paused. "Any word?"

  "Nothing yet, Gilchrist. Denver out."

  Lewis replaced the microphone with a sigh. Beneath the Terrier's wings, the snow stretched unbroken, white and gleaming against the dark. A flurry of snow swirled across the windscreen, and was whipped away by the wind. Somewhere out there…. Not dead. He didn't believe they were dead, though he couldn't have said where that certainty came from. Maybe it was just that thinking they were alive made it more urgent — but no.

  He glanced over at Mitch. "Is there an occult way to find the plane? Like dowsing or something?"

  Mitch shook his head ruefully. "If there were, Al could have done it before we took off. We'd need a material correspondence — something linked to the plane, like when we dowsed for the demon that had been bound in Lake Nemi using the tablet that bound it. There was a link between the tablet and the demon. To dowse for the plane we'd need something like that. Which we don't have."

  Lewis nodded. Ok, there was no way to find it using Al's talent. Of course they'd already thought of that. But he wasn't Al. That wasn't his gift. This was part of what Stasi had been trying to teach him — to trust himself, to accept the message even if you weren't sure it wasn't just more static, the ego or the id or whatever trying to horn in.

  Lewis closed his eyes. All right, they were alive, he'd go with that, alive somewhere in the mountains. There had to be a way to play his hunch, to see what wanted to be seen. They wanted to be found. They were praying for someone to find them. Luck and the good angels had been with them, opening a break in the trees just big enough to let them slide to a stop unharmed, though the machine would never fly again. A clearing, not level but nearly so, beneath a steeper slope where in the summer wildflowers straggled from the heaps of spoil. He could picture it in his mind, feel the plane shaking, controls vibrating as the pilot fought to keep it level, seeing the clearing providentially opening out beneath them, trying to ignore the screams of fear from the passenger compartment behind as the ground came rushing up….

  Lewis jerked, opening his eyes. For a moment the vision had seemed so real it was impossible to believe that the Terrier was still flying the search pattern, that nothing was wrong.

  "Are you ok?" Mitch asked, sparing him a glance. "Lewis?"

  "Yeah." Lewis shook his head, trying to clear it. "They found a clearing. They might have made it."

  "Ok." Mitch didn't argue.

  He had to figure out how to do this. Somehow. If he had something to focus on, the way Stasi showed him to use the symbols of the cards, a symbolic representation of some kind. A thought struck him. Lewis reached for the map, folding it back again, not on their search line, but someone else's, back south and a hair west. He held the picture in his mind. A snow covered slope, a few buildings at the top of the canyon, a valley free of trees… The map was just another picture, just another way of drawing the place he saw in his mind's eye. There had been no sound of engines in his vision. The engines were out, a dead stick landing on a long valley…. There. His breath caught, seeing the symbols. That spot, there, where the ground flattened, right at the base of the Silver Bullet Mine.

  "Mitch. I know where they are."

  "What?"

  The note in Mitch's voice jerked Lewis out of his near trance and he blinked, looking around in momentary
confusion. He must have been concentrating for some time. The snow had gotten heavier, the clouds lower; the altimeter said that Mitch had dropped another hundred-fifty feet since the last time Lewis had checked the instruments. It was a good thing they were going east, riding what was now a tailwind, but the storm was overtaking them.

  "I know where they are," Lewis said again. "They're back by the Silver Bullet."

  "You're sure?"

  Pretty sure. Lewis swallowed the words. Pretty sure wasn't enough to risk their lives on. "Yeah. I'm sure."

  "Damn it." The Terrier bucked beneath them, punctuating Mitch's words. "We can't make it. Not tonight. I'm putting us down at Denver."

  But — Lewis made himself nod. This was Mitch's plane, Mitch's call, and anyway he was right. It was going to be hard enough to make Denver safely.

  The ceiling had dropped to three hundred feet by the time they got to Denver, and the snow was getting heavier, though at least the wind had steadied to a brisk tailwind. The beacon cut through the whirling white, and the field was lit by old-fashioned kerosene pots as well as the modern lights. They'd been plowing, low heaps to either side of the main strip, and Lewis could see the taillights of a plow moving along the tarmac as he reached for the radio again.

  "Denver Tower, this is Gilchrist Aviation requesting permission to land."

  "Roger, Gilchrist, we see you." The tower's answer was reassuringly prompt. "We're just plowing the runway, come around again."

  "Roger that," Lewis answered, and glanced at Mitch.

  "I heard."

  He brought the Terrier around in a wide circle, but in spite of his efforts they bounced wildly as the crosswind hit. Lewis clung to the side of his seat, glad they'd finished the coffee before it was flung all over them, and the radio crackled again.

  "Gilchrist, this is Denver Tower. You're cleared to land."

  "Thank God," Mitch said, under his breath, and Lewis spoke into the microphone.

  "Roger, Denver Tower. We're coming in."

  It was easier to hold the plane level with the wind behind it, but Lewis had no illusion that this would be an easy landing. Threads of snow were already sweeping down the tarmac ahead of them, accumulating against any irregularity of ground. They'd get one pass before the plows needed to come out again. Mitch brought them down carefully, airspeed a little high to keep solid control, teeth bared as he fought the wheel. Too fast, Lewis thought, bracing himself, but Mitch kept coming, touched down on two wheels at the very end of the runway, shedding speed until he could lower the tail and coast to a normal speed. The snow was even thicker as they slowed, and the flagman was bundled in a surplus flight suit, looking like an eskimo with his fur-lined hood. He led them down the taxi-way — not so well-plowed as the runway, the Terrier lurching and bumping over the little drifts — to the smaller hangar where the Reserve planes were usually kept, and as he closed the door behind them, Mitch switched off the engines.