Alphas and Airships

by Melanie Karsak

  “They are curious. The man’s tattoos… The symbols are old. Celtic. Possibly druidic.”

  “But I thought the druids were hanging around Stonehenge.”

  “They aren’t always hanging around Stonehenge. Have you ever been there? There’s nothing there but the stones, some mounds, and a big, windy field. I haven’t seen those symbols before except on standing stones.”

  I pulled off my eyepatch and looked at the old woman. There was a shimmer around her shape, a swirl of silver light. And around the old man, a shine of green and gold. Druids. Well, that was a new one for me.

  I turned and looked at Harper.

  She stared at me, her eyes on my mangled face. She swallowed a gasp.

  “Yeah, bloody awful, isn’t it?” I said, touching the still-tender skin.

  “I didn’t know… Your eye. It’s a mooneye.”

  I nodded. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  Harper gave me a sympathetic smile. “Can you see at all?”

  “Silhouettes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged then pulled my eyepatch back on. “It’s all right. He went after my grand-mère. Couldn’t let that happen. I got the better of him in the end. Bloody werewolf.”

  To my surprise, the man and woman chuckled, but neither said anything to me. Working deftly, they guided the ship across the dark blue waves and into port at the northernmost Orcadian island.

  Once the ship was tied up, Harper debarked, and I went to the couple. “Thank you,” I said, handing them payment.

  The woman gently pushed my hand back. “Go chase the devils out of my country, Clemeny Louvel.”

  “I… How did you…”

  She chuckled. “Blood knows blood. Be safe.”

  I looked from her to the old man. He touched his fingertips to his forehead.

  “Thank you,” I told them.

  The woman nodded.

  Once I debarked, the pair unlashed the ship then set sail once more, guiding the vessel back out to sea.

  I headed down the dock and joined Harper. What did she mean, blood knows blood? What kind of blood? Was she talking about the druids? What did I have to do with the druids?

  Frowning, I joined Harper who waited for me at the end of the pier.

  “Okay, now what?” she asked.

  “Well, first, how big is North Ronaldsay?”

  “Oh, a couple miles around, I suppose.”

  “Population?”

  “Less than one hundred, maybe?”

  I nodded. “Won’t take long then.”

  “Long to do what?”

  “To find out if there is anything weird happening here.”

  “Aside from the mysterious ship Boudicca?” Harper asked, looking back out to sea.

  “Yeah, aside from that.”

  “All right. Let’s go chat with the locals,” Harper said then shifted her journeyman’s satchel, adjusting her belt so her pistol was readily at hand.

  I grinned at her. Maybe she was going to work out after all.

  It didn’t take long to “talk to the locals.” Just about everyone we met had a story to tell about the strange lights and noises in the caves on the far side of the island, stories of missing livestock, and the appearance of some rough looking men in the village. The crew of the airship Fenrir, it seemed, was doing an abysmal job of keeping a low profile.

  After getting some directions, Harper and I set out to investigate. We headed across the wind-swept landscape to the western side of the island where a series of coves and caves dotted the seashore. Following the cliff, we soon spotted a cove where a single airship docking station had been built. There, the airship Fenrir sat tethered.

  Harper and I approached the site carefully. We stayed on the cliffside above the port. It seemed that the crew was using the caves as a makeshift base from which they were launching their attacks.

  “We need to stay downwind,” I told Harper, lifting a few blades of grass and dropping them in the air. “They have good noses.”

  “Oh. Wonderful.”

  “Hey, you wanted to try out this beat.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What do you think so far?”

  Harper chuckled. “Well, no one’s tried to kill me yet, which is a good sign.

  “The day is still young.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not the daytime I’m worried about.”

  “Smart.”

  We stayed low as we approached. Lying on our bellies in the grass, we surveyed the scene. Harper pulled out her spyglass while I used my magnification lens.

  “It’s quiet,” Harper said. “Just a few people milling about the cave.”

  I scrunched up my right eye so I could look out the left. Everything was shadowy, but I was able to see the glow of the preternatural all around the airship. Opening my eye, I looked once more.

  “There. On the ship. That’s the captain, Zayde Skollson,” I said.

  “That blond brute?”

  “Alpha in the aether.”

  “But alpha of how many? One ship or more? You suppose he’s a lone wolf? We should contact Oslo,” Harper suggested.

  “Good idea. He may be a known operator.”

  “Could be he’s trying to reclaim a dead tradition, strike out on his own. He may very well be alone,” Harper said.

  “I certainly hope so,” I replied, suddenly dreading the thought of werewolves dropping out of the skies from all directions, an image which was both horrifying and funny all at once.

  “I count twelve wolves,” Harper said.

  “Let’s assume thirteen.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, thirteen is unlucky, and in this job, we’re always unlucky. And when don’t you get a baker’s dozen?”

  Harper chuckled. “All right. Now what, partner?”

  “Surveillance. Then we head back to Edinburgh and get Shadow Watch involved.”

  “The Boudicca left.”

  “There was an airship port in the village.”

  “You did see that airship, right? It was older than both of us together. And it only had one old prop.”

  “Hey, the Stargazer was a one-prop.”

  “Yeah, but it was also a racing ship.”

  Harper and I settled in behind the patch of rocks and kept our eyes on the Fenrir. The crew was busy unloading crates and barrels into the cave. Afterward, I saw the balloonman roll a pallet of fuel onto the ship. Then the gunners started loading boxes of ammo onto the ship.

  “They must be heading back out,” I whispered.

  Harper nodded.

  Through the still air, we heard the loud cawing of ravens. A swirl of black emerged from the cave.

  “Hell’s bells,” I swore. “Forgot about the bloody birds.”

  “Why does it always have to be ravens? Why can’t it ever be a flock of songbirds or something nice? Like a flock of butterflies?”

  “Butterflies don’t flock. A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.”

  “Wait, how do you—”

  “Quinn. And only princesses can conjure up a kaleidoscope of butterflies. Don’t you read fairy tales?”

  Harper laughed.

  Frowning, I watched as the crew boarded the ship. Six stayed on the Fenrir, six stayed behind at the camp. I assumed the seventh was wherever would be the least convenient when the time came.

  Six wasn’t many. Harper and I could take the ground crew out.

  But there were two problems with that plan. One, Harper wasn’t Quinn. She was smart and capable, but she was still a junior agent with no field experience. And second, I didn’t want the captain to know I’d discovered his whereabouts just yet.

  “Um, you see that, right?” Harper whispered as she began to move back.

  I followed her gaze. The Fenrir had lifted out of port and was turning in our direction, the unkindness of ravens not far behind.

  I looked behind us. There w
as little more than a vast, empty field. We were painfully exposed.

  I sighed. “Complications. Always complications.”

  “What do we do? Those birds are going to spot us.”

  I scanned the field. There, in the distance, was a ring of standing stones. The Dís’s words, “the old ones will always shelter,” came back to me. I had assumed she’d meant people, old races, old preternaturals. But there was little older in the realm than the rings—except maybe Eideard. And, at least in some legends, the stones were said to have once been people.

  “There. The standing stones,” I said, pointing to a ring of menhir.

  Staying low, Harper and I raced toward the stones. I snatched off my cape and stuffed it into my bag. Harper did the same.

  The ring of stones was complete with a tomb at the center. The tomb consisted of three side stones and a massive capstone.

  “There,” I told Harper. “In the tomb.”

  The palms of my hands prickled, the bottoms of my feet itched, and my skin rose in goosebumps, but there was nowhere else to go. The minute Harper and I entered the ring of stones, I felt like my skin was on fire with energy. I ignored the sensation and raced toward the center tomb. Crouching low, Harper and I crawled inside, hiding under the shelter of the cap. It would be impossible to see us from above. As long as they didn’t smell us, and those damned birds didn’t investigate too carefully, this was going to work.

  Harper’s eyes were wide as she peered out the entrance to the tomb. She stared off into the distance, waiting for the airship to appear over the cliff ledge.

  I inhaled deeply and tried to shake off the feeling of magic all around me.

  We really, really needed to get out of there. It was cramped, dark, and if the raised earth beneath my feet was any indication, we were standing on the bones of someone who had once been really important. Inside a druid’s tomb was no place for a living person. There was too much magic here.

  A warm, soft breeze blew from the back of the tomb. It ruffled my hair. Along with it, I smelled the sweetest scent. Apple blossoms?

  “Clemeny.”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  Oh, hell’s bells.

  “There,” Harper whispered.

  The Fenrir rose above the cliff and disappeared into the sky, the bloody birds following along behind it.

  Harper and I held our breaths as we waited for the airship to pass overhead.

  “Clemeny.”

  I got the distinct, creepy, and wholly unexpected feeling that there was someone standing right behind me.

  Harper turned her face so she could look out of the small crack in the stones overhead, watching as the airship and the birds disappeared. “They’re going up,” she whispered. “Headed south.”

  “Clemeny.”

  Once more, I smelled apple blossoms. There was a softness to the air, like being in a park just after a spring rainstorm. The wind was warm and sweet.

  “Okay, it’s clear. They’re in the clouds, and the birds are gone,” Harper said then began creeping back out. “Oi, my back. Cramped in there. Clem, you coming?”

  “I… Yeah.” Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

  Moving carefully, I shifted out from the under the rocks, decidedly not looking back, not even when someone lifted a long strand of my hair and stroked it gently as I moved away.

  Chapter 14: The Menapii

  Harper and I returned to the tiny village on North Ronaldsay where we convinced a very grouchy airship pilot—after promising a lot of coin—to give us a lift back to Thurso. The rickety old airship, which seemed like it was sewn together more by the sheer will of the captain than anything made of wood and metal, arrived in port with an exhausted huff of fishy smelling smoke from the burner basket.

  Now we just needed to find a ride back to Edinburgh.

  “Look,” Harper said, pointing to a well-dressed airship captain talking to the Thurso stationmaster. “Belgian flag. Let’s see if he’s headed home.”

  Our red capes whipping around us, we headed down the ramp to the captain and the stationmaster. The captain paused midsentence and gave us both a short bow.

  “Ladies,” the stationmaster said in surprise. “Surprised to see you here. I thought your ride left yesterday.”

  I frowned at him, annoyed that he’d taken notice of the Jacobite’s—and mine and Harper’s—comings and goings. But it was to be expected. In London, it was a lot easier to blend in. Here, Harper and I were like poppies in a field covered with snow. “Yes, well, needed to pop back by. Forgot my reticule.”

  The stationmaster snorted.

  The Belgian captain smiled. Not a bad smile either, equipped with dimples on both cheeks.

  I returned the expression, but then the captain’s eyes drifted to Harper. And stayed there.

  Oh, sure, gawk at the girl with two working eyes. Of course.

  “I was wondering, if you don’t mind me asking, where you are headed, sir? We need a lift to Edinburgh,” Harper told the captain.

  “You’re in luck. I’m headed to Bruges by way of Edinburgh then London. My crew heard talk of pirating over Scotland, so we thought we’d stop for a chat, see what anyone knew. I was just planning to lift anchor.”

  “Pirating. Bah. Just rumors,” the grizzled old stationmaster told the captain.

  “Rumors? That’s understating it a bit, isn’t it?” I asked the man who rolled his eyes at me.

  “There are reports of pirating, sir. It’s true. You should stay off the trade routes,” Harper told the captain, which earned her an annoyed glare from the stationmaster.

  “What?” she protested indignantly. “The Viking ship is watching the trade lanes.”

  “Viking ship,” the stationmaster said with a laugh. “Now, that’s a good one.”

  I eyed the stationmaster. His dismissive attitude and reckless disregard for Harper’s warning did not escape my attention.

  “What does she know? She’s a civilian. The wind is better if you take the shipping route south,” the stationmaster assured the captain.

  When Harper meant to protest again, I set my hand on her arm and shook my head.

  “Ladies, you are welcome to join us,” the captain told Harper and me—well, mostly just Harper—then turned back to the stationmaster. “Thank you for your advice, sir,” the captain told him then we all turned and went to the airship which, I noted, was named The Menapii.

  Behind us, the stationmaster grumbled then went back to his post.

  Once we were aboard, I motioned to Harper and found a spot out of the way but not far from the wheelstand. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the flask Captain Martin had given me. I gave it a shake. More than half left. Surprisingly, the brew worked much better than the candied ginger.

  The crew untied the ship, and it lifted out of port. Once the captain had the ship aloft, Harper and I joined him.

  “Stay off the shipping routes. The stationmaster lied,” I told the captain. “The airship pirate is hunting along the trade routes.”

  “Vikings,” Harper corrected.

  “Sorry, airship Vikings,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” the captain asked.

  “Yes. The stationmaster is on the take.”

  “How do you know?” Harper asked me.

  My hands tingled. I went to the starboard side of the ship. Pulling out my pistol, I eyed the mist around us then lifted my gun.

  “Clemeny?” Harper asked.

  There.

  I took aim then pulled the trigger. There was a strangled squawk then a puff of black feathers drifted by.

  “Clem… Did you just shoot a bird?” Harper asked.

  “That I did.”

  “Excellent shot too,” the captain said. “You must be a hunter.”

  I laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

  “And why are we shooting crows?” the captain asked.

  “Not crows. Ravens. And that one was tracking you.”

  �
�Tracking me?”

  I looked at Harper who nodded, understanding washing over her face. “Trained birds, Captain,” Harper explained. “Agent Louvel was right. The stationmaster must have sent it to follow you. Clever.”

  I nodded. “The bad ones always are.”

  Harper pulled out her map. “Captain, you should take this route,” she said, pointing to her map.

  “Agent Louvel?” the captain said, eyeing me more closely this time.

  “Yes. And Agent Harper.”

  The captain nodded slowly. “Well, Agents, I think I got very lucky today. We’re pleased to have you aboard The Menapii.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “The Menapii. That’s an unusual name. What does it mean?” Harper asked.

  “It is the name of our ancient Belgic tribe. We were all Celts once, were we not? And there is nothing Celts love to do more than fight Vikings. But today, let’s evade, shall we?” he said then called to his balloonman in Belgian.

  The balloon filled with hot air, lifting the ship higher. The captain studied Harper’s map once more, reset his instruments, and then banked the ship starboard.

  Leaving them, I went to the prow of the ship where I could get some air while I waited for Mrs. Martin’s brew to start working in my stomach. Holding on to a rope, I stared out at the sky, letting the wind caress my cheek.

  I closed my eyes, remembering that soft voice that had called my name. The voice had been sweet and feminine, the air perfumed with apple blossoms. What had I heard? The otherworld? The land of the Seelie? The Golden Troupe was said to use the standing stones and mounds to pass from our world into theirs. And worse, so did the Unseelie, though they had not been seen in the realm since Victoria took the throne. But I didn’t know much about them. The fey had nothing to do with my beat. And as far as I knew, the Seelie were almost never in the realm.

  Then what or who had called to me?

  And how had they known my name?

  Chapter 15: The Calvary

  The airship Menapii arrived in port at Edinburgh in the early evening. Rather than returning to the inn, Harper and I headed directly to Shadow Watch. This time, we went to the front entrance. Expecting to be taken downstairs, we were surprised when we were asked to wait. A messenger went below. Immediately thereafter, Agent Walsh appeared.