Night of Fire: The Ether Chronicles

by Nico Rosso

  He leaned down to toss the dynamite in the firing slot. “That wasn’t a lie I told your parents. Meant every word.”

  “I know it.” And she didn’t hate him for it. Somewhere inside, she understood that he’d come back to Thornville because he would know to find her there. “And I know you’re crazier than a spring coyote. Throw the damn dynamite.”

  The fuse was almost at its end. He stretched toward the firing slot. A black line slashed across his shoulder. Then came the crack of the shot from above. He lost his grip on the dynamite and it skipped away behind the coach. Baring his teeth in pain, he recoiled, gripping his arm.

  She reached for him, but he held her off, gritting, “It ain’t bad. It ain’t bad.”

  A loud explosion sent a column of dirt and dust into the air behind them.

  Rallying, he gathered himself. “That’s our cover. Jump.”

  She burned with anger that he’d been hurt, but there was no time to check his injury. While the dust cloud was thinning, she and Tom leapt from the side of the rolling iron coach. The hard earth jarred her legs, and she fell to her hands and knees. Tom slid next to her. They grabbed each other to get upright again. Beneath his torn sleeve, a four-inch line of burned red flesh crossed his shoulder. But it didn’t stop him. The two of them ran to the side of the mining machine.

  The whole structure shook as it ate into the next building. The metal ladder on the side of the machine vibrated so hard, Rosa was almost thrown off. Tom was right behind, pressing against her on the ladder. Together they managed the ten-foot climb to the first hatch on the side. She yanked the latch, and he swung the door open.

  Two shots from the flying Whisperer splintered into the wood next to them.

  Tom growled, “Let’s tear their heart out.”

  The two of them climbed through the hatch and into the massive mining machine.

  Chapter Nine

  LIKE A DINNER party in hell, the engines, cogs, and pistons were deafening. Quartz lights set high on the walls cast eerie yellow light on the inner workings of the mining machine. Huge gears turned, running chains and belts deep into other parts of the device.

  Rosa and Tom stood on the landing of a winding staircase. She couldn’t see into the darkness of the level beneath them, but above them, the machine gnashed and chattered.

  Wincing, Tom checked the injury on his arm. “Sometimes an ether-charged bullet will burn the wound shut. No blood.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not as much as the thought of coming back and finding you married to Parker.” It seemed like another wry jab, but his eyes were dead serious.

  His depth nearly took her breath away. She said, “Then I guess you’re well enough to keep fighting.”

  “Until the end.”

  Before she could answer, a dark shape below snagged her attention. Leading with his gun, a Whisperer charged up the stairs. Her trigger was quick. The soldier took the shot in the chest and tumbled back into the darkness.

  She motioned Tom up on the stairs. “Looks like they’re going to test your resolve.”

  His long legs spanned the steps in easy strides. “Gonna be an awful crowded boneyard.”

  Twisting up, the wooden staircase took them alongside the inner workings of the machine. Metal grinding wheels broke apart the shreds of buildings as they were drawn inward. The debris fell into sifting pans that shook back and forth. There was no gold and silver to be found here, only the remains of the citizens’ hard work.

  “Give me a couple of sticks of TNT.”

  Instead of getting them himself, he only turned so she had access to the satchel. While she retrieved them, he fired his Gatling rifle down the stairs, scattering more Whisperers coming for them. “Ain’t going to be any more stairs left soon.”

  On the other side of the spinning gears and rattling chains, more Whisperers climbed a separate staircase.

  “And no exits.” With the dynamite in her hand, she searched for any option. The only hatch was two flights up, at the top of the fifty-foot machine.

  He urged her up while firing at the Whisperers below. “Don’t know if you care to hear it, but there’s something I gotta say.”

  The Whisperers ducked away from his shots and sent a couple of shotgun blasts up toward them. Wood splintered from a support beam five feet away.

  “Before another word,” she said, “you think you could hit those guys below us?”

  “Can’t yet. It’s part of the plan.”

  “We don’t have a plan.”

  “Sure we do.” He spoke as if she’d been in on it all along. “Go for that high hatch.”

  They hurried past a rubberized belt looped around two gears powered by a howling tetrol engine. The machine’s forward motion shook the whole structure. Close to the top, everything swayed like a ship on stormy seas.

  One more set of stairs. Instead of being exposed to the inner workings of the device and the Whisperers on the other side of the open core, Tom and Rosa were protected by a large steel plate. The metal wall served as an anchor for several gears that spun, gnashing metal cogs against each other.

  Tom caught Rosa’s arm and slowed her down while they were still on the stairs, safe behind the metal wall.

  “Hold up,” he said. “This might be the last peace we know on this earth.” He continued, an uncharacteristic depth in his eyes. “Been doing my talking with my guns, but it’s not enough. You deserve the words. So what I got to say, Rosa, is that I’m sorry. For the way I left you. For not staying and fighting for you. Don’t know if you want it, but there it is.”

  She did want it. The words didn’t change the past, but they showed her something about the Tom who was with her now. Like finding an untarnished gold coin buried in the same dirt path she’d walked over a thousand times.

  There was nowhere else to go. The top landing was just a few steps away. The wooden stairs bounced beneath their feet. All down the hollow center of the machine the gears and wheels turned. Whisperers were still on the opposite stairs and more were no doubt coming up this side toward them.

  “It hurt like losing a limb then,” she told Tom as he glanced up at the hatch in the wall at the top landing. “But we’re both different now.”

  He absorbed her words, the emotions in his eyes deepening.

  She continued, “I was trying to be something I wasn’t.” This would be easier to talk about over a bottle of tequila in Francis’s saloon. “For my parents and the rest of the world. But not anymore. And you . . .” Danger bit down on them from all sides, like the teeth of a giant wolf. “You said you weren’t the right man for me when you left. Damn right. But you are now. You’ve been with me every step of the way.”

  Tom double-checked his revolver and wound the rifle’s clockwork. “Never want to leave you again.”

  “I think it had to be this way. We wouldn’t have worked then. But now . . . we fit just right now.”

  He nodded as the understanding sank in. Bullets didn’t seem to matter for a moment. Their bodies could be hurt, but they lived in more than the flesh. She felt a fresh energy as what she already knew about herself was built up by Tom’s strength.

  The machine lurched all around them. More of the town poured into its voracious maw and was being ground to splinters. Tom sprinted up the last set of stairs, back into danger, and undid the latch on the hatch.

  “You don’t owe me any explanation. I’ll take it, but you don’t owe it. Why are you telling me this now?” he asked.

  “Because I’m about to light the fuse.” She pulled a match from her vest. It flared quickly with the acrid smell of sulfur. The fuses on the two sticks of dynamite caught fire and blazed.

  Tom swung the hatch open. Sunlight streaked in, a solid shaft in the dusty air. She lobbed the TNT down the center of the machine and rushed for the exit with Tom.

  “Ladder?” If only they could climb down faster than the fuses burned. She secured the rotary shotgun over her back.

  “Not if the plan
works.” He slung the rifle on his shoulder and crouched at the exit. “Jump.”

  The sunlight was blinding, but she knew the fall would maim if not kill her. With Tom, though, she would leap into the unknown. They jumped together. Then she saw his plan. Hanging in the air outside the hatch was the Whisperer with the ether pack.

  No way the soldier could’ve been expecting them to come busting out of the door. He didn’t even have time to raise his pistol when the two of them slammed into him and latched on. Tom quickly chopped at the man’s wrist with his hand, knocking the gun from his grip. The Whisperer tried to fight them off, but Tom punched him in the ribs, winding him.

  “You see,” Tom said with a wild grin, “if we’d killed all those Whisperers inside, they wouldn’t have told this feller we were just on the other side of the hatch.”

  With the extra weight she and Tom added, the three of them quickly sank toward the ground. The buoyancy of the ether pack cushioned the descent, making it a hell of a lot better than falling straight down. But the fight wasn’t over. The Whisperer continued to struggle, and someone was back in the driver’s seat of the iron coach. The barrels of the Gatling gun looked like the black eyes of a tarantula as they swung around toward them.

  “Gotta let go.” Tom nodded toward the ground, then punched the Whisperer again in the gut.

  They were still twelve feet off the ground. And the dynamite hadn’t gone off yet. Maybe the machine destroyed the fuse before the spark had reached the explosive.

  “Now,” he urged her. “Right behind you.”

  Gravity tugged harder on her after she released her grip on the Whisperer. The hard earth was a jolt, and she rolled with the impact. Looking up, she saw Tom still struggling with the Whisperer. Damn it all, if she’d stayed up there she could have fought the man with him.

  After throwing an angry-looking elbow into the soldier’s head, Tom pulled back slightly and unholstered his pistol. Instead of aiming at the man, he put the barrel against one of the ether tanks. The shot pierced the metal. Tom let go and fell away as ether screamed out of the tank. The Whisperer streaked through the air, flailing his arms for control.

  Tom hit the ground and stumbled forward until he caught his balance. He and Rosa watched the Whisperer slam into the side of the giant mining machine. Then the TNT exploded.

  A concussive thump radiated across the ground. The Crandall device bucked and shuddered. A five-foot-round hole was blown out of the wood near the bottom. Flames licked across the wood. Broken gears screeched. Shattered metal clanged. The engines hissed, then rattled like a consumptive giving up their last breath. More fires blazed. With a loud pop, an engine blew. A gash opened up in the side of the machine and it started to buckle.

  “There she goes!” Tom shouted excitedly. He ran to Rosa, and the two of them rushed through the street toward the canning building.

  Behind them the machine’s fuel and motors erupted. The blast separated her from Tom, knocking them both to the dirt. A huge grinding wheel tore out of the device and spun across the street. If she’d been standing, it would’ve cut her in half. Instead, the wheel whizzed above her and knocked a corner off the canning building, then lodged itself in a thick tree.

  A few feet away, Tom recovered his hat from the ground. “Won’t need to shave for a month.”

  More explosions wracked the halted mining machine. Wood splinters rained all over town. The saw blade clanged to a stop halfway into the telegraph office. Smoke rose from the ruined device, carrying the smell of burnt fuel and spring bonfires. The mining machine was dead.

  A triumphant laugh bubbled up through her. She sprang to her feet, taking in the carcass of the Crandall device. “I told you not to come to Thornville,” she said to the ruined machine.

  Tom whooped behind her. Turning to him, her elation soared. It seemed like nothing could keep her from his arms. And from there, who knew?

  But she didn’t have a chance to find out. Instead, the iron coach came bouncing down the road behind her. A Whisperer leaned out of the open side door and hooked his arm around her waist. She was yanked from her feet. Her shotgun was torn from its sling and clattered in the dirt. Within an instant, she was carried away. As Tom streaked out of her vision, she saw three Whisperers rushing through the street toward him. Oh, God, there was nothing she could do to help him.

  She jabbed backward into the Whisperer with her elbows. He hissed in pain when she contacted his ribs. With his grip loosened, she turned to face him and punched as hard as she could in the side of his neck.

  The Whisperer’s mask fell off as he stumbled backward into the bouncing coach. He tried to drag her with him. She pried at his clawing fingers. Her heart raced, thinking about Tom being outgunned.

  “I’ve had enough of you bastards.” Bracing her hands on the door frame, she kicked the man in the chest, sending him hard into the side of the mounted Gatling gun, then to the metal floor.

  Her boots slipped on the edge of the coach as she tried to regain her footing. The ground was a rush of rocks and dirt below her. Trees blurred past. The coach sped down the road out of town, tetrol engine whining. Jumping would kill her.

  From the look on the soldier’s face and the muttered German curses, he wanted to kill her, too. Drawing her pistol was awkward as she teetered in the doorway. Her gun was halfway out when the man launched himself at her. She pulled the trigger but it was too late. The shot hit the ground as the man drove his shoulder into her chest.

  Fingers like iron wrapped around her wrist. She and the soldier both slid precariously in the doorway. He continued growling in German as she tried to bring the gun around toward him.

  She growled back. “Goddamn you. We beat you. Why don’t you just die?”

  It was time to end this fight. She stomped the heel of her boot into the top of his foot. He grunted, wincing, and slammed her hand against the metal side of the coach. Pain shot up her arm like red lightning. The pistol sprang from her grip and got caught up in the spinning rear wheel of the coach. She was jerked to the side as the gun was ripped from the lanyard.

  Being off balance, she was the perfect target for the soldier. He shoved her body, trying to make her follow her pistol into the whirling iron wheel. She braced herself with one hand against the door frame. The other hand gripped the edge of the roof.

  “I told you to die.” Coiling her body, she brought her knee up hard into his jaw. The soldier’s head snapped back, and he fell away into the coach.

  Wind tugged at her. Nearby branches nearly whipped her off the side. She fought the bumpy ride and pulled herself up to the roof of the speeding iron coach. Behind her, Thornville shrank. The destroyed mining machine sent a column of smoke into the air, but it didn’t feel like much of a victory anymore.

  “Where the hell are you, Tom? You’d better be all right.” He couldn’t hear her hissed whisper, but maybe it would ride the wind toward town.

  It felt like a giant bird of prey was swooping down on her. She turned toward the front of the coach just in time to see a thick tree branch quickly approaching. A hard dive took her to the roof and the branch swept over her.

  Dry leaves clung to her hair and she brushed them out as she collected herself into a low crouch. The driver still hadn’t noticed her. He wasn’t one of the armored Whisperers, but he did wear an ether pistol on his hip. Her only chance was to get to him before he turned around. As soon as this fight was over, she promised herself, she would buy a nice two-shot derringer for her boot.

  No time for hesitating. Every second took her further away from Tom and the fix he was in. She made one step toward the driver when the soldier from inside the coach hauled himself up on the roof with her. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and sneered.

  The driver finally turned and saw Rosa. His body stiffened with shock. He drew his pistol. One hand on the gun, the other on the steering lever, the driver split his attention between the path ahead and the fight she was about to get into w
ith the very angry-looking soldier.

  “SON OF A bitch,” Tom growled. Rosa was gone. Snatched away like a rabbit in the teeth of a mountain lion. A fast, iron-clad lion with metal-studded wheels. He’d never catch her on foot.

  The Sky Charger should still be just on the other side of the canning building. He turned to run and bit down on another curse. Three Whisperers converged on him. There was no time to unsling his rifle.

  “You ain’t getting between me and Rosa.” It didn’t matter if they could hear him or understand his language. His revolver would tell the real story.

  One Whisperer stopped running and twitched his gun toward Tom. The Rattler slid easily from its holster. He was faster than the Hapsburg soldier. From the hip, Tom pulled the secondary trigger and fired a shotgun shell.

  The Whisperer fell. The remaining two didn’t seem too eager to join him. They fanned out, hands poised over their ether pistols. Tom’s pulse raced. How far was Rosa by now? How many men were in that coach? How many men was he going to have to kill to get to her?

  These two Hapsburgs stood too far apart. He could get one, but the other would fire before he could swing his pistol around.

  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait for you two to decide which of you dies first.”

  He fired at the man on his left and dove forward, rolling onto the ground. The bullet creased the Whisperer’s side. The man staggered, pawing at his gun but not able to pull it. But the other soldier did draw. His shot pierced where Tom had stood.

  Tom came out of his roll firing. He shot a bullet and a shotgun blast into the second Whisperer. The soldier wasn’t even on the ground when Tom turned on the other Hapsburg and emptied his last shotgun barrel into him.

  Gunsmoke swirled around Tom as he sprinted toward the canning building. Behind it, Rosa’s parents stood tensely with Whisperer shotguns in their hands.