Lewis rolled over. Alma's eyes were open, a small and secret smile on her face as she looked at him. "Good morning," she said.
"Good morning." That smile still. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that maybe next year at this time will be the first time ever that Santa Claus visits this house," she said.
"Oh golly," Lewis said, and squeezed her tight, still almost flat against him, just a little pooch that looked like she was gaining weight. "Oh golly." An actual person, a real child, their child who would live in this house….
Alma's stomach rumbled. "I'm starving," she said.
"I can make you breakfast," Lewis said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Whatever you want. Eggs. Pancakes. Ham." He put on his clothes as quickly as possible. "Toast. Jam."
Alma just put on her old velvet bathrobe, the one Gil had given her a decade ago that she loved so much. "We'll see," she said, and leaned against him for a minute before she opened the door.
The bathroom door opened at the same time and Jerry came out looking scrubbed and shaved, wearing his tweed jacket with the patches on the elbows. "I smell something good," he said.
"Al needs breakfast," Lewis said. "I'm going to make breakfast."
Al had stopped, putting her hands to Jerry's lapels. "Merry Christmas, Jerry."
"Merry Christmas, dear." He put his arms around her, pulling her into a warm embrace. "It's good to be home."
"It's good to have you home," she said. "You know that's what we always meant. That wherever you went, you'd always have a home to come home to. And I still mean that."
"I know," he said, and gave her another hug. "I'll always come home, Al. No matter where I go."
"And this will always be your home," she said. "No matter where you go."
"Yes," Lewis said, and held out his hand for Jerry, who shook it firmly. "We're family."
"All of us," Al said, casting a glance southward at her belly. "Us, and little Unnamed."
"So have you decided what you're naming him?" Jerry asked as he started down the stairs carefully, the others following slowly.
"Not Lewis," said Lewis.
"Not after my father," Alma said. "His name was Cuthbert."
"What was your father's name, Lewis?" Jerry asked as he reached the bottom.
"Isidore," Lewis said. "Not much better."
"The Gift of Isis? That's not bad."
"You know, it might be a girl," Alma said as they went down the hall. "That is equally likely." She pushed open the kitchen door and they all stopped dead.
The wonderful smell came from a big plate of cinnamon rolls which were cooling on the table half frosted, apparently by Mitch, who seemed to be wearing frosting on his nose. Or at least temporarily seemed to be wearing frosting on his nose, as Stasi seemed to be trying to lick it off while he fended her off with a butter knife covered in frosting. Mitch was in his pajama bottoms and a sleeveless undershirt, and so was Stasi -- Mitch's undershirt and pajama bottoms, as they had a fly, which was just….
Lewis boggled.
Jerry gaped.
Alma busted out laughing. "Good morning," she said brightly.
"We thought we'd make cinnamon rolls," Stasi said.
"She thought we'd make cinnamon rolls," Mitch said sheepishly, butter knife in hand.
"I like cinnamon rolls," Al said, coming in and sitting down at the table. "I don't suppose you made coffee too?"
"We were hungry," Stasi said with a transparent glance at Mitch, who didn't look nearly embarrassed enough.
"I made coffee," he said. "Want some, Al?"
"That's why I asked if you made it," Alma said.
"I'll get you coffee," Lewis said quickly. Mitch might not be embarrassed, but he certainly was.
Jerry put his head to the side with the air of someone considering a difficult problem. "What," he asked Stasi, "are you wearing?"
"Pajamas," she said cheerfully. "I thought it was better than the alternative."
Mitch turned about as red as the combinations Stasi had certainly been wearing last night. Lewis had gotten a good look at those combinations at the Legion Dance, along with half the town.
Alma helped herself to a cinnamon bun. "These are good."
"Thank you." Stasi beamed. "I had an able assistant. He's very good at beating batter."
Lewis gulped. "I could make eggs," he said. "They're nutritious."
Mitch retrieved his own coffee cup, wiping the frosting off the end of his nose with the dish towel. "Hey Al, are you doing anything on Tuesday?"
"Actually, yes," Alma said. "It's going to be pretty busy. I've got Joey Patterson moving cargo for the Salt Lake flight on Wednesday, and I've also got to put Dr. Tesla and all of his crates on the train to Chicago."
"Do you think we could switch the schedule and have Lewis take Salt Lake this week?" Mitch asked. "Lewis, I could trade with you and do Amarillo on Friday."
"If you want," Lewis said. "I can do Salt Lake and you can do Amarillo, sure."
"Why aren't you flying Dr. Tesla back to New York?" Stasi asked. "Rather than sending him on the train?"
Alma laughed. "A transcontinental cargo run full of nothing but Dr. Tesla and his death ray on an IOU? I'm not that crazy. He'll actually pay up for a two thousand mile air charter when hell freezes over! No, he can take the train. It's a perfectly nice train all the way to New York!" She took a big bite of cinnamon roll and chewed thoughtfully. "Tuesday's going to be a mess. I've got all the December billing to do, and there's everything that piled up while I was in New York. It's going to be busy. Why do you ask?"
Mitch looked like he was trying not to grin and failing miserably at it. "If you've got a few minutes, you could drop by the courthouse and be a witness. For a wedding."
"Whose wedding?" Lewis blurted a second before he got it. He looked at Stasi. "You're getting married?"
"When did that happen?" Jerry asked.
"Presumably while you were playing chess with Dr. Tesla," Alma said, getting up and giving her a hug, adding something low in her ear that sounded like it included the words 'aircraft maintenance.'
Stasi laughed, her head against Alma's shoulder, dark hair against bright. "Anything goes, darling."
The Colorado Springs Evening Telegraph
Announcements
To Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Segura of 1104 Cheyenne Highway, a daughter, Isadora Mary, on June 21, 1933 at 9:51 in the evening at St. Francis Hospital. Mother and daughter are both healthy.
AVAILABLE NOW!
WIND RAKER – Book IV of The Order of the Air
It’s the summer of 1935, and Gilchrist Aviation’s owner Alma Gilchrist Segura has brokered a deal that will take herself and fellow pilots Lewis Segura and Mitchell Sorley to Honolulu to test a new seaplane. It pays well enough to take their families along for a working vacation – including the children of the company’s part time handyman, whose father has abandoned them. Better still, archeologist Jerry Ballard is already there supervising a dig investigating whether Hawaii was actually discovered by the Chinese. It’s a crackpot idea, but it’s his only chance to prove that he can still handle field work after losing his leg at the end of the Great War, and he’s determined to restart his career.
However, not all is as it seems. The dig is funded by anonymous sources who seem to have far too much influence on its management, including the hiring of German archaeologist Willi Radke, and who seem to know exactly what they want to find. The seaplane's testing is plagued by mysterious mechanical problems – and rumors of a curse spread through the hangar. Can you murder someone by magic? And who would want to kill a middle aged Army officer who belongs to an allied lodge? Alma, Jerry, Mitch, Lewis and Stasi are determined to defend themselves, but the power arrayed against them is greater than they imagined. It will take everything they have – as flyers, scholars, and magicians – to survive this deadly paradise.
For Amy Griswold, who gives us all Stasi’s best lines.
Prologue
&
nbsp; Honolulu
April 1935
Lily sat on the edge of her bed, the shutters closed tight against the gaudy tropical sunset, and reached determinedly for bottle and glass. She poured herself two fingers of neat rum, downed it at a gulp, and poured again. Perhaps it was ill-advised — no, certainly it was a bad idea, but she hadn’t had a better one for years. She closed her eyes, the maudlin tears prickling the corners of her eyes. She’d done her best, done everything she was supposed to, everything she could do, and despite it all, the job was falling apart. She’d hoped to outrun her reputation, the whisper that said she was a jinx, a Jonah, but three thousand miles wasn’t far enough. Nothing ever would be.
She pressed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, feeling the spots where her pince-nez had pinched. She wasn’t supposed to wear one, and as far as she knew, no one had seen her slipping it on and off again to read the menus, or the small print in the manual: one more thing to lay at his door, if she thought about it.
Because that was exactly what he had promised her, for daring to leave him. You will never have luck again, he had said, his fingers digging sharply into the flesh of her arm just above her elbow. She could feel his touch there still, ten years later, an echo of an ache like a bruise that never healed. You dared to cross me — you who are nothing, less than nothing, except what I made you. I gave you your career, I opened up the doors of power, and I can close them again. She shuddered even in the warm unmoving air, feeling the chill of a San Francisco summer fog closing over her.
Look, he had said, his voice low and clear and steady, freezing her to the bone. Look at me. Hear me and despair. I abjure you, unworthy disciple. You have strayed and failed and you shall be punished. You will have no luck, no good fortune, until the end of your days. That is the curse I lay on you.
She hadn’t laughed it off, she’d never been that brave, but she had thought she could bear it, that his power was finite, and eventually he would turn it to someone else. After six months, she had gone back to her old lodge, the one she’d left for him, and begged for help. They had considered, consulted, agreed to perform a protective ceremony. She had consented, participated with all her heart and soul, and — nothing. No power of theirs could breach the chill that enclosed her. They had quarreled over it, and the lodge had split, the first time she had seen what her true curse was. Not only was she lost, but she destroyed others.
And it wasn’t just the magic. That she could have lived without. But she had survived two crashes when her co-pilots died, and the whispers followed her along the west coast: not reliable, not safe, not competent. She had put her head down and tried to fight through, but disaster after disaster had washed over her, beating her down until there was no resistance left. This had been her last chance, and it was gone.
She took a deep breath, stiffening her spine. He was her master, yes, but surely — she could at least ward herself from him, at least for a night. She took another breath, and then another, seeking the rhythm that had once come as easily as dancing, searching for her center, the power that was her own. Yes, there… she felt it, a spark of warmth, steadied herself as though she stood in a whirlwind. She knew the forms, they were at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t seem to find the words. Write them down, she told herself, and reached for the hotel stationary and the neatly sharpened pencil. Write it out, you know how this goes; write it out and then you can find just a little peace.
The pencil snapped in her hand, gouging a hole in the heavy paper. She stared at it, disbelieving, then slowly bowed her head. The tears overflowed at last, burning her cheeks. There was no escape, not ever, and anyone who came too close to her was doomed.
Chapter One
Colorado Springs
May 1935
"Get the end. Careful," Lewis said, trying to maneuver the wooden case through the Terrier's hatch.
"I've got it," Alma said. She crouched just inside the plane, trying to lift the box in without dragging it across the floor. Sweat ran down her forehead for all that Lewis had most of the weight. This thing must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.
"Al…" Mitch was trying to get around the box, but Lewis was entirely blocking the door.
'"I've got it," she snapped, pulling forward another few inches. The last thing she needed was Mitch trying to lift this thing. He’d taken shrapnel in the groin and belly during the war, a shell exploding under his plane, and the doctors had warned he’d always have to be careful lifting heavy weights.
Lewis frowned, holding the other end. "Ready?"
"Ready."
He pushed, moving it forward and sliding it in, onto the felt pad that protected the Terrier's skin.
"There," Alma said, shoving it onto the centerline ready to tie down. "We've got it."
"Let me balance it," Mitch said, climbing in. "Come on, Al."
She nodded, getting to her feet. He wasn't going to rupture something that way. She shoved damp hair back out of her face.
"We needed Joey for this," Lewis said.
Joey Patterson usually helped load cargo, but he hadn't showed up for work in three days.
"Yes, well," Alma said. "It's time to hire someone else. I'm sick to death of his benders and his excuses. If he can't show up for work even half the time, he's out."
"He's got a lot on his mind." Mitch was bent over the case, securing the straps to the floor. "And he's got three kids. Give him a break, Al."
"I've given him a break," Alma said. "And a break and a break and a break. He hasn't shown up for work in three days. He hasn't called in sick. There's a limit to what we can put up with."
"He's a vet," Mitch said, winching the strap tight.
"So's half the town, and they get to work." Alma leaned out the hatch. Lewis was carefully not offering an opinion. He was very aware that Gilchrist Aviation belonged to Alma and Mitch. He might be the boss's husband, but he wasn't an owner, and whether they let Joey Patterson go or not wasn't his decision.
She looked up as Stasi came clattering across the concrete floor of the hangar on her Cuban heels, Dora on her shoulder wearing a very bizarre paper hat. "Alma, you need to come to the phone," she said. "Floyd Odlum from Consolidated is calling you from LA!"
Lewis straightened up like a hound who's just heard a familiar car coming down the street.
Dora let out a shriek and reached for Alma, but she ducked it. "Floyd Odlum?" He was the owner of Consolidated Aircraft, one of the biggest manufacturers in the country, and a part owner of RKO Pictures, a millionaire a dozen times over, an aircraft magnate to the limit. He'd never called Gilchrist Aviation before.
Stasi nodded, red lipstick unsmeared and hair in finger waves despite Dora's depredations. "I told him you were out in the hangar checking on a plane and that I'd get you immediately."
"What the hell?" Mitch wondered, leaning out the hatch.
"I'll go see." Alma hurried back toward the office, Stasi following with Dora. At not quite two, Dora was much too young for school, and so she came to work every day, to her own little messy corner of the office off the hangar. There was always one of the four adults around to chase her or at least keep her out of things she shouldn't be in, like aviation fuel. Today she seemed to have been making paper hats, which didn't get the billing done, but at least Stasi was answering the phone.
Alma took a deep breath before she picked up the earpiece and the phone. "Mr. Odlum? This is Alma Segura."
His voice was a little high pitched, not what you'd expect. "Out checking on your own planes? I like a hands-on approach."
"So do I," Alma said. She didn't mention that with only three people working on the planes full time, she couldn't exactly sit in a corner office if she wanted to. Unlike Odlum, she didn't have hundreds of employees.
"I'm calling you with a business proposition," Odlum said. "I've been talking with Henry Kershaw over at Republic, and he said he'd hired Gilchrist Aviation to do some work for him in the past and he'd been very, very pleased with the
results."
"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Odlum," Alma said.
"Call me Floyd. Henry had nothing but nice things to say, and I think you're exactly the type of outfit I need for this job."
"What type is that?" Alma asked. "And please — call me Alma."
"Nimble. Independent. Henry said you had top quality pilots, decorated aces who had done some test flights for him. I'd like to contract with you for two or three guys for a couple of months to do some particular tests for me. And of course I'd pay top dollar — eight hundred dollars each per month, or two hundred bucks a week for the part months."
"That's very generous," Alma said. And it was. That was serious money. Mitch and Lewis had done some test flights for Henry for less than that. But a couple of months? "What's the test?"
"I'm sure you've heard about Consolidated's Catalina Flying Boat," Odlum said. "We've got a contract with the Navy to deliver a double-engine seaplane with flexible functions, as a cargo plane, a light bomber, whatever they need — anywhere there's no runway but ocean. The Catalina is in final trials now, and we're very pleased with it." Odlum sounded appropriately smug. "But as you may surmise, the design has commercial applications as well. We've got a nose in from Qantas — you know, those Aussie guys. They're interested in the Catalina as a passenger and cargo airplane for the South Pacific. Since it's a flying boat and doesn't require a runway to land, it would allow for service to islands where there is no runway and no money to build one. That's very interesting to them. And there are a bunch of little guys, small companies and single aviators who provide a lot of the service out there — they want a reliable plane that can land on the water and that isn't fussy about conditions. We think the Catalina could be their plane. We think it's ideal for inter-island service, passenger and cargo both."
"That sounds very promising," Alma said. "As you know, we principally run the Kershaw Terrier, and it's the same kind of flexible utility plane."
Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 106