by A. W. Exley
Cara watched, fascinated, as he returned the pot to its waiting docking bay. “Ingenious,” she murmured, adding milk and sugar to the mug from the small rectangular containers. Fully caffeinated once more, she returned her attention to Nate.
“Loki will find Miguel useful in their search of the taverns.”
Miguel beamed. “I speak a bit of Russian. It will be rusty, but I remember enough for us to ask around about Sergei.”
Cara turned wide, curious eyes on Miguel. “You speak Russian?”
He held up his finger and thumb a smidgen apart. “Only about this much.”
She swung her head back to Nate. “Now will you tell me where you found him?”
“On an airship, unconscious, bound, and stuffed in a crate on its way to a Turkish brothel.” He had a way of delivering the maximum information with the minimum number of words.
She let the pertinent facts settle before staring at Miguel. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” A shadow passed over his face and his smile faltered; the first time she had seen the lad less than cheerful and full of life.
She drew in a deep sigh; Nate seemed to make a habit of rescuing trapped creatures. She moved the conversation along before he dwelled on unpleasant memories and how he ended up in a crate. “And you can speak Russian, why?”
The smile came back. “My mother was an opera singer. Most years we spent a season in St. Petersburg. Until the winter she died.”
“Well, we both seem to have ended up as part of the Lyons family, and since you kind of look like me, I’m going to treat you like a younger brother.” With those words, she cuffed him on the head.
“Hey!” he protested. “What was that for?”
“I’m sure you’ve done something to deserve it.”
Loki interrupted. “Why don’t you go downstairs lad? The crewmen are doing manoeuvres with the weapons slings. You’ll enjoy it.”
The smile shot across Miguel’s face and he turned a questioning look to Nate.
“Off you go,” his master dismissed him.
With a wave to Cara, he bounded from the room to play with the numerous armaments the Hellcat carried below. With Miguel occupied, she turned her mind to other problems.
“I need to send an aethergram,” she announced.
Nate reached under the end of the island and pulled out a stool. It was attached on a steel slider and tucked into the side when not needed. Cara dropped herself onto the thick leather padded top. Standing behind her, Nate opened a smaller drawer on her left, revealing pens and paper.
“Who to?” he enquired.
“Fraser.”
Nate’s body stiffened behind her. Fraser was an inspector with Her Majesty’s Enforcers and barely concealed his loathing and distrust of Nate. They shared a deep history, and she had yet to burrow to the bottom of that story.
“I intend to set him to sniffing around Nolton,” she explained. “He owes me. I may as well use him and see what he can dig up.”
He moved his hands up her arms, resting on her shoulders. “He hates me, remember?” He breathed against her ear.
“Exactly, imagine his glee at investigating these charges. He would love to find something against you.” She teased him to ease the tension pulsing through him at the thought of her tangling with the charming inspector.
“Some wife you are, you seem determined to embrace widowhood.” He brushed a kiss against the base of her neck.
“It wouldn’t be for long.” She reminded him they were joined; he would only predecease her by seconds, hardly enough time to play the merry widow. She tapped her pencil against the paper, trying to compose a short message to encompass the task she wanted Fraser to undertake.
She wrote a sentence, scratched it out, and then started again. The message would be relayed through the main Enforcer’s communications centre, before reaching Fraser. She needed the phrasing to be subtle, but sufficient for him to understand his debt was called up.
Don’t leave me broken hearted. Is it true? Cara.
The aethergram ruled its own small corner of the bridge. The metal casing screwed to the bench, so the expensive machine didn’t go flying, literally, if the craft moved suddenly. A metal basket next to it collected the ticker tape it occasionally spat out. She set the frequency dial to the open channel for Enforcer’s Headquarters. Then she pulled out the skeletal keyboard and typed in her short message before hitting the transmit lever. The machine vibrated as it coded her words and sent them via the unseen medium surrounding them all, the aether.
he maid dropped the last few shards of porcelain into her bucket and wordlessly sank into a deep curtsey before edging backward from the room. Her ample, black wool clad buttocks pushed the door open, so she could squeeze through. Victoria never moved from her rigid pose in front of the window.
She had vented her temper on the gold rimmed tea set, a Christmas present from some foreign dignitary or other. The little cups made a satisfying crack against the wall as she hurled them at the world map, painted over one entire side of her office. Tiny shards of porcelain had rained down on the carpet, scattering hints of pink and yellow amongst the darker fibres of the rug.
Her secretary watched the wanton destruction for several long seconds, then called for a maid to clean up the mess and removed the surviving projectiles. It was highly unusual for the queen to give vent to a tantrum, but these were highly unusual circumstances. She would not be thwarted. No one should have the audacity to stand against her, not even her darkly handsome favourite privateer.
Victoria stood at the window, the fingers of her right hand buried deep in the plush red velvet drape. Her digits curled and released in a constant cycle like a kitten padding for comfort. She watched the troops parading back and forth far below. They wove endless patterns in the cobbled forecourt of Buckingham Palace, the repetitive movement soothing to her frazzled mind. Slow moving metal monsters held a steady beat while lighter foot soldiers played a melody amongst them. When a soldier contained inside an exoskeleton failed to lift his massive metal feet in a timely fashion, a spark shot along the ground, making the regular soldier behind jump.
Our troops. Our soldiers. Our army who will conquer the Earth, and bring all people under one rule―our rule.
Outside of London young men gathered, streaming from cities, towns, and countryside, answering her call. They swelled the numbers of the army into the hundreds of thousands. For weeks now as each youth reported, he received a uniform and a rifle and then was dispatched to another site for further training. Her sergeants made quick assessments of their abilities and sent them to infantry, navy, or for the cream amongst them, her beloved Aeronautical Corps.
Her plan took form and coalesced before her eyes; soon it would be tangible in her hands. Her thoughts turned from the soldiers down below to the events of the previous night at the Tower.
Nathaniel Trent, Viscount Lyons. Our spy. Our traitor.
Nolton uncovered Lyons’ treachery that he planned to gift the animal to Tsar Alexander. The queen stood perfectly still, her back rigid as rage seethed through her limbs. Molten anger pulsed through her instead of mere blood. She closed her eyes; red flowed behind her lids. The last dragon in existence and he dared escape our Tower with our beast!
She needed the dragon; taken from the Forbidden City at her behest. Emperor Xianfeng had recently died, leaving behind his six-year old son as his heir. The Imperial Crown lay ripe for the plucking from a child’s hands while his advisors scrambled to forge new allegiances. Her sources in China said the child was unaware that his father had stolen the egg from Russia. She could gain valuable territory if she dangled the lure of a pet dragon that the little boy could chain in his garden.
Victoria longed to see the beast tethered over the Tower, symbol of her dominance over the world. She planned for the dragon to be the key to claiming part of China, but if she could not turn that lock, she had other tactics. Her soldiers would simply force the door wide open.
> English feet will trample their borders.
The doors to her office opened and a polite cough sounded behind her.
“The Constable ma’am,” Sir Charles Grey, her secretary, announced the visitor.
She turned, fixing Sir John Fix Burgoyne, Constable of the Tower, with a cold look.
“Well?” He had failed in his duty, the first constable to lose a prisoner for nearly one hundred and fifty years, the last escapee, Lord Nithsdale in 1716.
“Viscount Lyons is still missing, your majesty.” Sir John tried to hold his position, but failed miserably under the hot glare of his enraged sovereign.
“How did he escape?” She glided to the middle of the large office and stood in front of twinned desks, belonging to the queen and Albert. The deep blue taffeta of her gown rustled as it slid over the petticoats and crinoline cage, making a reptilian slither. For a small woman she radiated power and strength. She claimed her throne at just eighteen, and had fought in a man’s world every day since. No one entering her presence would believe her easily swayed.
He shifted from one foot to another. “We have ascertained the airship was a ruse as were the men who attacked the west wall.”
“How astute of you, given even a blind man could deduce he did not escape with either faction.” She smoothed the front of her gown and picked an invisible speck from the fabric and flicked it from her fingertips.
“Quite, ma’am.” He fidgeted with his gloves. He served years in the army, and looked like he would rather face a screaming hoard of Zulus, not an angry queen. “We believe he left the Tower via the Thames by some boat small enough to escape the notice of the river patrols.”
Her eyes narrowed, becoming piercing icicles of frozen frustration. “We start to think he might simply have walked out the front gate, such is the incompetence of your security.”
Sir John swallowed. His Adam’s apple bounced up and down against his crisp white cravat. “I assure you, ma’am, I will get to the bottom of this.”
Victoria gave a snort. She doubted it somehow. Nathaniel was as slippery as an eel and had outfoxed the Silver Fox. “He is a traitor and has stolen something belonging to us. We want him caught and returned to the Tower.”
Sir John nodded his head. “The Hellcat was spotted hovering at Gravesend. We believe it picked up Lyons.”
“Where is he headed?”
“We can only speculate, ma’am. The airship was seen heading in the direction of Europe, possibly Russia, if the accusations are correct. His wife has also disappeared, with her husband, presumably. We will know for certain once the Hellcat docks; we have sources in all the ports. He will not escape us for long.”
The queen placed a hand on the back of Albert’s chair, missing her consort’s much loved presence. “You have failed us, Sir John. You have allowed a traitor to walk from the Tower.”
“Your majesty―” The words died in his throat as the queen’s eyes widened; her gaze cold enough to freeze the Thames.
“You would dare offer some pitiful excuse for your failure to us?” Her fingers curled into the padding of the chair, a hand turned into a claw, ready to rip into an exposed throat.
He clenched his fingers around his gloves, trying to squeeze an answer from the soft kid leather. “No, ma’am,” he said, after a prolonged pause.
“Do not return until you have positive news Sir John, and do not make us regret your appointment as Constable.” She waved her hand at him dismissively, and turned away, no longer wishing to have the reek of failure in her presence. A soft click told her Sir John had left, closing the door behind him, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
She crossed to the other wall, the entire space taken up with a topographical painting of the globe. Latitude and longitude markings delineated the surface, breaking up ocean and earth. Old fashioned square rigged boats and modern airships hovered over the expansive ocean. Dragons soared over the deepest regions of China, Russia, and South America. Victoria ran her hand over her many lands and colonies, picked out in the palest red.
“Onward, onward, we must push onward,” she chanted to herself as a hand touched India and then Canada. A finger traced the slip of New Zealand, the southern-most jewel in her crown. A palm covered Australia. Her fingers feathered over parts of Africa.
She raised a hand to caress the heavy Egyptian necklace resting on her shoulders. She stroked the scarab of her left shoulder, the gold and lapis lazuli body the size of a field mouse. She murmured to it as she regarded the map, holding a conversation with the piece of jewellery.
“Yes, yes, we must keep moving outward. We understand,” she answered the scarab’s unspoken questions.
She laid two hands on China. “The Empire must grow, all must bow before us. We will have you.” She danced along the painting, peals of laughter echoing around the chamber as she touched every continent as she passed. “All of you.”
In Whitehall Place, Inspector Hamish Fraser sunk into his chair at Enforcer’s Headquarters. He spent more hours in his small office than he ever did in his drab flat. Crime fighting was a jealous mistress, leaving no time for anything else in his life. Not that he had anything else in his life, apart from stolen moments of pleasure and much needed release with women who never demanded a place in his chaotic existence. They sought only a few coins in exchange for whispered endearments.
Files littered his desk, mated and grew, producing more files and papers that scuttled across the once polished surface. Dented and bashed filing cabinets lined one wall, looking like they went a few rounds in a boxing ring. A massive blackboard covered the opposite wall. Fraser preferred to work visually, drawing diagrams, flow charts, and arrows to bring together disjointed ideas when solving a riddle.
He reached out a hand for the correspondence stacked in his in-tray as he took a slurp from his ever-present mug of tea. He scowled at the liquid, never the right temperature, being either too hot or stone cold. Today the tea was too hot. He placed it on the corner of his desk with the least file coverage. He made a mental note to venture another experimental taste in a few more minutes, and not an hour as he tended to do.
Emptying the tray, he weeded out the reports from the uniformed Enforcers; statements, interviews, and summaries pertaining to his active cases. A slim piece of aethergram ticker tape fell out of the pile and floated near his outstretched fingers. He picked it up, and frowned as he read the message: Don’t leave me broken hearted. Is it true? Cara.
He only knew one woman with that name. Cara Devon should have been the last victim of Weaver Clayton, who killed four women by shoving brass keys in their hearts. The madman had a different plan for Cara, one interrupted as he attempted to remove her heart and replace it with a mechanised gem. Fraser made a tactical error on that case; he thought Nathaniel Trent, Viscount Lyons, was the killer. Correction, he knew Lyons was a killer, just not that particular one.
Is it true? Last week Lyons had been arrested and imprisoned for treason. England buzzed with speculation about the rumoured charges, and what line the infamous lord finally crossed to bring down their queen’s wrath. Fraser shouted the rounds at his favourite watering hole, the night of the viscount’s capture. This morning he woke to a new uproar dominating London gossip: Lyons escaped the previous night. People enjoyed the light show as the airships swooped over the Tower, and ammunition fire lit up the sky. During the melee, Lyons slipped from the grasp of over a thousand soldiers. Of the two guards outside his cell, neither could talk of what happened or how he escaped. One guard struggled for life with a knife wound, the other still unconscious from a blow to the head.
Treason came under military jurisdiction, but Fraser still held tight ties with his fellow soldiers. He chuckled. He was only too eager to offer his assistance. He would willingly pry into the charges, and the accuser, and he would do his upmost to lend his weight to the case. A frown marred his brow; a niggling thought raised its head. What if the charges were false? A slim possibility, but he would see what eviden
ce he could unearth first.
Another piece of gossip raged among the ton, that Cara Devon was Lyons’ viscountess, and had held the title for over three years. How had they missed the secret marriage of the most scandalous bachelor in England?
Fraser planned to leave Cara, now Lady Lyons, not only broken hearted, but widowed. If he could prove Lyons guilty as charged, he would finally see the bastard swing.
own in the airship cargo hold, hidden from the view of the busy crewmen, Cara knelt on the floor and succumbed to a girlie indulgence. She lifted the lid of her shiny, new, and enormous, steamer trunk and revealed the contents to her eyes only. She had packed a selection of her new gowns and skirts. Thin sheets of tissue paper protected the expensive clothing and added to the allure as she pulled back the concealing veil and reached out a hand to stroke the fabrics nestled inside the chest. Her clothing options ran from sensuous chiffons that clung to her form to wools so soft they must have been shorn from silk-wearing sheep. She opted for the green form-hugging military jacket and its matching skirt. She gave a heavy sigh, and closed the lid on her pretties. Draping the required garments over her arm, she headed back up the tiny spiral staircase to the cramped room she shared with Nate.
Her wayward husband played ladies maid, pulling Cara’s corset laces tight while complaining how much he preferred to remove her garments. He didn’t manage to keep his hands to himself, unable to resist caressing her skin under the pretext of helping. By the time the last tiny pearl button was done up, Cara’s body thrummed with more than the vibration of the airship engines. She kicked herself for the self-imposed celibacy; this was supposed to be her honeymoon. Her clothing should never have made it out of the trunk, or the dress should be adorning the floor in a soft green puddle.
As she secured her hat with several pins, she cast an appreciative eye over Nate as he finished dressing. He pulled on a deep green waistcoat to complement her dress. His roving hands had not just affected her; he had spoiled the flat appearance of his pale buckskin pants. The bulge of his erection made her swipe her tongue over her lips, and she almost demanded he assist in removing her clothing.