I pushed off the malformed leg, using the strength that had already formed in it to shoot myself up like a bullet. The claws on my left hand were barely able to snag onto the cable, but it was enough. I scrabbled up after the feckless git, getting just as tangled in the jungle of heavy steel cables as he was.
Quinn yelled incoherently as Wardenclyffe rose up with us hanging below it, kicking down with his heavy work boots in my face. Bloody bone caved in where my nose had started to form a muzzle, and I bit at his foot. He gave a scream of pain when I got my teeth around his heel and clamped down.
“Lay off, you dodgy fool!” Quinn shouted. “We need to climb to the top before it’s too late!”
I bit down harder and tried to pull him off.
The coruscating lightning hit the cables, and we jerked around like marionettes with tangled strings as the city’s squall tubes fried us alive.
The smell of my own flesh cooking filled my nostrils as the darkness took me.
A gust of wind bumped my silver flask against my skin, sending shivers of pain like razors shooting through my body and forcing me awake. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but looking down, I felt dizzy as I saw the ground a half-mile below. There was a deep haze around my thoughts as they tried to form and a primal fear and rage that sputtered like a buried inferno. My clothes were in tatters, and the flask hung precariously from the ripped vest I normally wore.
My mouth was fastened around the burnt boot of the badly charred corpse above me. Memories started to come back as I stared into the blackened skull that used to be Quinn’s face, caught in his death scream as we’d been electrocuted.
His beard had been mostly burnt off, and the cables still steamed where they had melted into his skin. The lightning had not been kind to either of us, and my own hide was cracked and bleeding. There was no pain, barely any feeling at all. Probably not a good thing, but I couldn’t complain. I’d lived.
The cables swung to the side as someone yanked on them. I caught the flask before it could tumble away, gritting my teeth as I shoved it into a pocket.
“They’re tangled on something!” a woman’s voice screamed out from above.
“Damn it, Katharine, if we can’t reverse the polarity here, it won’t work anywhere else either!” A man’s voice responded, although both of the folks sounded muffled.
I spit out Quinn’s boot and tried to speak. It took a couple of tries, and I coughed up a lot of blood, but finally I was able to get it out.
“Omega Johnson? Katie?” I asked, my throat burning.
“Who’s down there?” she called out in response.
A goggled bald head slowly peeked out from the city deck above. Tellurians were too similar to tell one from the other most of the time, but I was sure it was Katharine Johnson looking at me.
“You! Infected! Robert, we have a lycanthrope twisted up in the cables!” she called out in a panic.
Another goggled head appeared beside hers and stared at me for a moment before sighing heavily.
“Cut it free. We can’t risk it, even to ward off Menlo.”
“We can’t,” Katharine said, shaking her head. “If we don’t do our job, then everyone on board dies. We cannot fail Nikola, not after he made sure that we were taken in.”
“Then what are we supposed to do, woman?” the man asked, exasperated. “Ask the half-turned down there to cooperate?”
“Maybe,” I croaked, my throat burning. Deep inside, I felt the wolf stirring. It would rise again soon and complete its terrible work. “Doesn’t hurt to ask. What are you two going on about, anyway?”
“There,” Katharine said, pointing off in the distance. “Can you see it?”
I squinted at where she indicated. An odd black cloud formed a jagged blotch in the overcast sky. Lightning flashed around it like a shroud. A pit of fear festered in my belly when I recognized what it was.
A second salvation city.
And it was headed straight toward Wardenclyffe.
“Menlo Station,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “That glory-hound Edison launched his second-rate copy at the same time as Wardenclyffe. The fool wanted to beat Nikola to the punch and claim the design as his own, rather than as copied from the plans that he had his agents steal. When he saw Wardenclyffe rising, it forced his hand.”
“But why is the git heading for us?”
“Because he does not understand the concepts he replicated,” the other Tellurian, Robert, said with scorn. “Only now is Edison coming to the realization that two salvation cities with differing frequencies will attract each other like magnets with opposite polarities.”
“Or so we’ve been told,” Katharine put in, her tone a chiding one. “We . . . we do not actually comprehend the science involved either. Only our friendship with Nikola allowed our entry into the ranks of the Society of Truth. My husband and I are pretenders to this garb and life.”
“Katharine!”
“It’s true, Robert!” she said. “We have no more right to be saved than that poor wretch there. What right have we to live when others are left behind to become such savage abominations?”
“Trust me, Katie, I deserve my fate,” I said, cutting off her husband before he could rise to what sounded like an old argument between them. “The mutt is sniffing around in my head again, looking for a way in. But for now, I am still the man I once was. How can I help?”
She shook her head. “You’re not going to like it. We cannot allow you on board. It’s too much of a danger to the city. But we need to connect those cables you’re hanging from. Doing so will alter the polarity of the city enough to repel Menlo Station, rather than attracting it. Even were you not hanging by the cables we need, that horrid corpse above you is likely too heavy for us to lift. Can you . . . well, to be blunt, can you shake the body loose and then . . . let go?”
The grin that cracked my blistered face was as ghastly as the corpse. “Of course. Be my pleasure, lass.”
Her relief was palpable, but it was also short-lived.
Quinn’s charred body was caught in the cables, and the ones that had melted into his flesh refused to part company with him. I was pretty well spent as well, and my weak attempts at jostling him free weren’t even sufficient enough to dislodge my arse either. I could feel my vitality returning though. The problem was that something else was coming with it.
The beast.
By the time I had the strength to shake Quinn and myself loose, I’d have no interest in anything other than the ten thousand innocent souls huddling on Wardenclyffe. A transformed werewolf was an insanely hungry thing, and it wouldn’t take the abomination long to free itself from the tangle and climb onto the city proper.
I took out the silver flask and unscrewed it, relishing the pain of its touch. It focused me, kept me as me a bit longer. There wasn’t much whiskey left, but even the taste of it was enough to bring back the memories of good times, of kith and kin, and all the good things no poet had ever been able to properly pin down about being human.
In the end, it was an easy decision to make.
I let the silver flask go, watching for a moment as it tumbled out of sight toward the ground far, far below.
“Katie! What do I need to do?” I shouted up.
“Say again?”
“The cables! I can’t shake Quinn loose. I can’t even free myself, at least not until I don’t have a mind left. I’ll do what needs to be done.”
Katharine and Robert looked at each other, realizing what I was saying.
“I hope you know, you’ll die from this,” he called down. “In your transformative state, you might live through the fall if you get loose now. But if you connect the wires, more voltage than you can possibly imagine will flash through the cables and your body. It’ll make the lightning that struck you during takeoff seem like a gentle caress. It will burn you to ash, beyond any hope of resurrection.”
I smiled up with the jagged teeth of the beast.
“All the better. S
aves me the trouble of finding a Reaper with decent rates.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. The process is actually rather simple. The pair of cables you need have their ends down there, right next to your feet. Just place the two ends together, and it will feed a charge back to the squall tubes. We are the last team who has not accomplished its task, and this is the last repair that needs to be done. So the results should be . . . instantaneous.”
The wounds across my body had begun to heal, skin and muscle weaving itself back together as fur spread rapidly over the mended area.
There was no time to waste. I hauled on the cables, dragging them sparking up to me. The wolf in my mind yelped and shrank back for a moment but then surged forward. The Devil had realized what I was doing and was fighting back.
Words from the pair above were incomprehensible, and blood tinged the edges of my vision as hunger tried to claim me.
The only hope I still held was that somehow, some way, this might atone for the sins of my past. Either way, my time had come.
“Heaven or Hell, here I come!” I roared, slamming the two cable ends together.
Lightning flashed, and I escaped the beast in the only way I had left.
*This story written in UK English*
Chapter One
Simone LeBeau clutched the loaf of bread to her chest and ran. The seller, a man with a barrel of a chest and a voice deep enough to shake the earth, shouted after her. She ignored his demands that she stop. Days had passed since food had passed her lips. If people knew the truth about where’d come from, they would think her foolish. She’d left a life of luxury, but she would rather die than return there.
There was no doubt in her mind that her father would beat her until she bled. Percy LeBeau was a clever man, who landed his punches on limbs hidden by clothes. Her mother turned a blind eye to the punishment her husband dealt out. Percy was the head of the household, and his rule was absolute.
Simone refused to bow to the whims of a man. She spent her days in trousers, and the mere thought of wearing a corset made her shiver in disgust. Her parents refused to see that the world was changing. In London, girls were being taken into the Guilds. They were being trained as scientists, engineers and philosophers. Years behind the rest of the world, New Orleans kept to the old ways. Unfortunately, the old ways consisted of afternoon chats where tea was drunk and cakes nibbled on.
The day she fled, she had taken a small bundle of clothes and liberated a black hooded tunic from one of the workers who tended her parent's garden. Thanks to her small frame, she knew that, if she kept her face hidden, she might be mistaken for a boy. A boy was left alone. A girl could only wish to be that lucky.
The sound of footsteps pounded against the pavement, chasing after her. She didn't even risk a glance over her shoulder. The busy marketplace wasn’t the ideal place for a quick getaway. Falling face first would be the quickest way to get caught. Then the men would descend on her like locust.
Simone feigned to her left, but at the last moment, pulled to the right. The men cursed behind her. The loaf was still warm in her hand. Her mouth watered at the thought of tearing into it. She pulled deep on her reserves and swerved around a dockworker, who smelled of fish and old smoke. The voices were still behind her, more laboured, but unmistakable.
The textile factory came into view. Simone darted around the corner and down the alleyway. Stairs led up, and she took them two at a time. Workers on break gasped in surprise at her abrupt entrance but didn't try to stop her as she wove around them. The men thought that they had her, but Simone knew better. She stashed the loaf down her top and jumped at the wall.
The impact sent shards of pain up her arms, but she ignored it. She pulled herself up and finally risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The wind pulled at her hood, but she reached up to hold it in place. There was no telling who might recognise her. She’d already seen the posters around town, announcing the reward for her ‘safe’ return home.
The men paused on the steps, shock from her climb on their faces. They were hired thugs. When had the bread-seller hired them? Simone preferred to travel around and not to steal from the same place. Doing that only brought unwanted attention. Had the bread-seller been the victim of another thief?
A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth, and she gave them a mock salute before she turned and started to run again. The heels of her boots were worn—a soft leather that didn't make much sound as she skirted across the top of the building. The men probably thought that she was trapped, but Simone knew her way around the city. She knew it so well that, like a map, it unfurled in her head.
She ran at full pelt and as her feet touched the edge, she jumped. The wind tore at her hood, but she ignored it as she pulled her legs up and travelled with the speed of a bullet. She twisted in the air, outstretched her legs to carry her movement and rolled as she hit the top of the building. If anyone had been watching her, they would have said it happened in an instance. For Simone, it felt like a lifetime, and in that moment, she was truly free.
And she craved it.
She got back to her feet and made sure that she hadn't lost the loaf. A sigh of relief left her as she realised that she hadn't. The men stood on the opposite building, but Simone didn't wait to see what their next move would be. She knew where she needed to be, and it wasn't there.
Derelict buildings were plentiful in the quarter. The places abandoned or deemed unsafe due to poor building or storms. That knowledge didn’t stop others from calling them home. The residents of the quarter generally didn’t make a fuss. All they wanted was a roof over their heads and shelter from the rain. The elite, a group that Simone used to be a part of, didn’t care. The peelers regularly made trips with their heavy sticks and half-heartened threats, but the homeless and hopeless left with little fuss and returned later. A few months down the line, the cycle began again.
Simone called the attic of the old clock shop home. She'd deliberately chosen a place where the stairs were in a state of disrepair. Only the foolish would try to climb them. She had learnt where the strongest steps were and rarely went downstairs. No. Simone preferred the outside.
She’d spent many years cooped up like a bird in a cage. Now that she had the chance to spread her wings whenever she wanted, she took it. Many left the old clock alone, unwilling to risk the death trap. In truth, it wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared. Shards of broken glass wedged into the window frame might have resembled the mouths of hungry monsters, but Simone used planks of wood to fix the inside. Her entrance, the skylight, was hidden, and she was able-bodied enough to sneak in and out that way. The wind still howled through it, but Simone didn’t notice it anymore.
The late afternoon sun dipped below the horizon and bathed the old, battered buildings in a warm orange glow. The streets were practically deserted. The sellers of the quarter had packed up early. In a few hours, the streets would become alive again. The quarter became a different place when the Creole opened up their stalls to sell gumbo and the like. Some nights, Simone would sit outside and watch the world go by.
She turned her back and climbed the ladder. She opened the skylight and used the ladder on the other side to get down to the floor. Her abode was simple. In times gone by, the owner of the shop had used the attic to keep his assistant. It had a cot against the far wall, and a small dresser next to that played host to her clothes. Simone used to have more clothes than she knew what to do with. She didn’t miss them.
A creak from downstairs made her catch her breath. Someone had broken in. She strained her ears. Voices. She carefully reached to her back and retrieved the blade she kept hidden there. The heavy hilt was a comfortable weight in her hand. She’d taken it from her parents’ house, and while she was loathed to use it, she would. If she had to.
She slowly descended the stairs, her every step careful and quiet. The voices became clearer. Not one intruder but two. That swung the odds out of her favour.
“How long do we need to stay her
e?”
A girl, her voice was light, young.
“Until they stop searching for us.” The male's voice sounded young, tired. “It's only a few more days until the ship leaves, and we'll be on it. I promise. We should rest.”
Simone didn't raise her sword, instead her grip tighten. She let her footsteps fall a little heavier. A warning. The couple went silent.
“I don't remember inviting anyone to be guests.” With her voice kept low, she hoped that they might mistake her as being older than she was. She stopped at the foot of the stairs. The couple had lit some of her hard sought after candles as well. “Or for them to use my things.”
Chapter Two
They were young, closer to her age than she’d originally thought. The girl's dress was expensive, royal blue, a colour that many of the poorer folks couldn't afford and didn't want. Her face and golden blonde hair were clean, and there were masks on the table. The boy wore the clothes of a stable boy. The boots reached his knees, and the dark brown jumper bore holes. His dark skin was a stark contrast against his companion’s. What trouble had they brought to her door?
The boy stepped protectively in front of the girl. His eyes didn’t stray from Simone's sword. “We don't want any trouble. We just need somewhere to stay for a couple of days, and then we'll be gone.”
The plea fell on deaf ears. She didn’t need whatever trouble they brought. There were laws that forbid the pair from even being friends. “Stay somewhere else.”
A look crossed the boy's face, one that Simone couldn't decipher in the dark room. As he opened his mouth, the girl stepped around him. She certainly looked the picture of poise and elegance. A Lady. One used to giving orders and for them being obeyed. Her companion protested, but she raised her hand, and the gesture stopped him. The young girl turned her attention to Simone. There were different forms of intimidation, maybe she thought that her class would hold some sway. It wouldn’t.
Cogs in Time Volume Three (The Steamworks Series Book 3) Page 20