Beauties of the Beast (The Yellow Hoods, #4): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale

by Adam Dreece

  “Tea?” asked Alfrida.

  “I don’t expect Master Watt to be staying that long,” said Simon sharply.

  “I do,” retorted Franklin with the same sharpness. Simon was shorter than he’d expected, but his eyes seem to be reading everything.

  “Careful boy. The grey suits you, I hear it’s quite the rage at the moment. Though I have to say, it looks a bit big on you, and given the weather, it must be a tad hot, is it not? If you were trying to impress me, you’ve failed, but it properly impressed the guards.”

  Franklin tried hiding his shaking hands behind his back.

  “Now, the more intriguing question for me,” continued Simon, “is how did you end up with enough money for all of that?” he said, gesturing to the boy’s outfit. “I know your father well enough, and I know Klaus doesn’t have such wealth, so where could you have acquired money?”

  “I… I have my ways. Which was why LeLoup was bringing me to meet you,” said Franklin, trying to keep his voice firm and confident.

  Simon started walking in a slow circle around Franklin. “Oh, really? Now, why would Andre LeLoup do that? Given that he’s dead, it makes your story a bit less plausible.”

  Franklin pointed at the door. “He’s not dead. Just ask Ruffo and Stefano, they were his henchmen. He’d be here, but… he abandoned us to hunt Tee again.”

  “Who’s Tee?” asked Simon.

  “Tee Baker,” replied Franklin.

  Simon shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “She’s the granddaughter of Nikolas Klaus,” said Franklin nervously.

  “Oh, Nikolas Klaus? What do you know of that long-dead inventor?” asked Simon, his words like poisoned velvet. There weren’t many who knew that Nikolas hadn’t died long ago. Marcus had covered up his death so that he could live a seemingly free life, something Simon hadn’t ever understood but figured there was a reason for. Marcus wasn’t the altruistic type.

  Franklin squirmed and rubbed his hands together. “I met Klaus. Bald, salt and pepper beard. You have him on a painting in the corridor, along with a young you and someone else. I was briefly in Klaus’ lab before it burned down.”

  Simon laughed. “Are we making up more stories, then? Well, I have a magic pony that breathes fire and is running for parliament in Freland,” he replied, his sarcasm absolutely biting.

  Franklin felt a lump grow in his throat. Simon had a way of seeping into one’s bones. His movements and tone, his words and expressions, made Franklin feel like he was prey being stalked. “No, it’s true! Look, I know where the steam engine plans are. Do you want them or not?” he asked, gesturing wildly.

  Simon stopped circling and studied the boy. He rubbed his forehead, wondering about everything that had been said. “Why would I want the steam engine plans when I have your father?”

  Franklin glanced around nervously. “Because… because I know my father, he wouldn’t help you,” he stammered. “You need the plans, that’s why you came after them in the first place.”

  “I did? I don’t remember visiting Inglea. Are you sure it wasn’t someone else?” Simon moved his head from side to side, wondering a bit more how to allow this scene to play itself out. “Klaus, LeLoup, the steam engine plans. You have an ever-growing list of make-believe.”

  Taking a slow breath, Franklin gave Simon a steely glare that caught the man off guard. “When I was in Klaus’ lab, I saw a mechanical arm prototype. I saw a rocket cart of his fly through the sky, and I’ve ridden on a King’s-Horse with Christina Creangle. What more proof do you want?”

  “Wait,” said Simon, putting his hand up. The ring of truth was too loud for him to ignore. “Let’s go back to the steam engine plans. What do you want for them, your father’s release?”

  Franklin stared at the ground, confused by why the very thought hadn’t occurred to him. “I… I figured you wouldn’t do that,” he replied.

  “And I’m going to guess you’re really after something more interesting, aren’t you? I’d be willing to allow a visit. But what is it you truly want?”

  “I want money,” said Franklin, looking up. “I have two guys who have kept me alive that I promised money to.”

  Simon gestured to Franklin’s clothes. “It seems that you already have a way to make money. Why do you need some from me? I can give you some for the plans, but that’s not really it. What do you want?”

  A smile crept out of Franklin. “I want to change the world.”

  “Ah, there it is,” said Simon, pointing. “And as for those two men, I’ll have them killed. I have no need for them.”

  “No,” said Franklin startled.

  Simon laughed. “You’re in no position to negotiate.”

  “They’re with me,” he said, surprised at himself. “They’re my friends. You have lots of men, if they cause trouble you can have them killed.”

  Simon folded his arms. “How badly do you want to change the world?”

  “More than anything.”

  Taking a moment to reconsider what he was about to say, Simon figured it was worth the risk. “How about a little test? If you’ve really been to Klaus’ lab, then you should have no problem deciphering some plans I have of his. You have one day to tell me how it works.”

  “And if I can’t?” asked Franklin, shifting from foot to foot nervously.

  “Then I’ll get the plans out of you, then have you buried,” said Simon with a twisted smile. “And I’ll allow your friends to live, either way.”

  Franklin swallowed hard. “Okay, deal.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dragon and Fox

  Two and a half year-old Richy ran as fast as he could, in and out of the bushes and small trees of their yard, his older sister hot on his trail.

  “I’m going to get you!” yelled eight-year-old Amami happily. She had a leafy stick of bamboo between her legs, a floppy black cloth tied around her neck, and a toy sword in her rope belt. “You’ll never get away, Dragon! I will catch you!”

  Richy squealed. “No, Fox! No, you not!”

  As he tore past his father, the grey haired man smiled. He’d been gardening for hours, and couldn’t get enough of it. His memories of life in Inglea had faded to the point of feeling like stories that had been told to him, rather than ones he’d lived. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Amami and tucked his head down. Amami let go of the bamboo stick, planted her hands on his back, flipped over him, landed, and continued, never having broken her rhythm. He bent down to pick up his hat and her stick. “Where do you get that from, Amy?” he wondered.

  His wife, Tsuruko, shook her head. She didn’t approve of letting Amami do such things. She found them disrespectful, but she knew there was no coming between a father and daughter.

  “Careful Amy!” he yelled, earning a nod from his wife.

  “You too, Riichi. Right, Everett?” added Tsuruko.

  “Yes, you too, Richy,” he replied with a smile. He’d never managed to get the hang of pronouncing Richy’s name properly, but Tsuruko didn’t seem to mind his Ingleash version.

  “Sorry, Daddy! But I’m chasing a sneaky dragon! Come here! The Fox is going to get you!” Amami yelled in a mix of languages. As Richy slid under a bench, Amami sprang over it, landing with her sword in hand and catching her brother by surprise.

  Tsuruko smiled. She didn’t show it often, but she was proud of her daughter. She was fearless. “She must get that from you, Ev,” she said.

  After Everett Waxman had been disowned by his family, he’d headed as far east as he could. At the feet of the great Eastern Mountains, he’d learned the languages of the dispersed communities and made a living trading goods from village to village. It was a simple life, devoid of the politics and noise that had surrounded him in Inglea.

  Standing on a rocky hill one late afternoon, staring at the towering Eastern Mountains, he’d watched a dot in the distance approach and become something indescribable. As it shot past him leaving a black smoke trail in the sky, he knew
he had to follow it. Abandoning his cart, he took off on his horse. There, in a crashed contraption unlike anything he’d ever seen, he found a woman at death’s door. After nursing Tsuruko back to health, they’d built a home on the very spot.

  “Ev?” asked Tsuruko, shaking her head. She knew that look in his eyes. It was one of the many things she loved about him, how the past stayed so alive inside him.

  “Hmm? Sorry, my dear. Did you say something?” he replied.

  She smiled at him in response.

  He gazed up at the sun to get a sense of the time. “How about I go in and make lunch?” He planted his trowel and dusted off his hands. “I’ll check on the water pumps later.”

  Tsuruko stretched her back and watched the kids dodge expertly around the vegetables, rain barrels and wheelbarrows. She took a moment to fix her long black hair back into a proper pony-tail. “I’ll check them now. I am concerned about the underground river water level. The spring has been too dry.”

  “You’re always worried about something, Tsu,” said her husband.

  “There is always something about which we can despair,” she replied.

  “Argh! Your homeland has such depressing philosophers to quote. It’s bad enough to read them, but hearing them is worse,” he said, half-joking.

  “If you think that, then you still don’t understand them,” she said, a mock look of disapproval on her face. “How did I go from reaching for the sky, to being happy on the ground with you?”

  “Because, I come from a long line of windbags. So I give you the sky and the ground, together,” he said, giving her a kiss. “Careful Amy!” He shook his head. “Our children will be the end of me, I swear it.”

  Tsuruko laughed and tapped his chest. “Lunch?”

  “Lunch,” he replied.

  As Tsuruko opened the cellar doors and walked inside, she smiled at the old water pumps. What they didn’t salvage from her flying ship to make the pumps, they’d used in the house or as decorations in the yard. She checked the gauges and dials.

  Everett jumped as Tsuruko tapped his arm, his deep blue eyes focusing. “You scared me. Weren’t you checking the pumps?”

  “I did. I called to you as I approached, but you didn’t hear me,” she said, concerned. Maybe his increasing tendency to daydream was more than just loving life. “Did the mountains steal your soul again?”

  He chuckled. “No. But you know, they aren’t alive. They can’t do that”

  “That’s not what my ancestors say,” she said hugging him.

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “No, I am joking,” she replied. “How is my… sarcasm?”

  “It’s getting there,” he said giving her a kiss.

  “I worry about you sometimes.”

  “I’m just… I don’t know. I haven’t heard from my brother in a while. I hope he finds happiness one day, figures out how to get away from the affairs of the Tub and Fare and the royals, and just have a life he can appreciate. You know? Just be who he is, enjoy the dirt, enjoy being alive.”

  “You worry about things you cannot change.”

  Suddenly, both kids screamed. Tsuruko and Everett bolted to the other side of their one story home.

  At the edge of their land, where the grass turned back to dusty, hard soil, stood a man in his sixties. He had a full head of grey hair, a white shirt with frilly sleeves and beige pants. Despite the heat, over top he had a beige jacket that went halfway down to his calves. His presence and intensity gave them pause. Behind him were three men with camels, all dressed for desert riding, and clearly local.

  Tsuruko put her trembling arms around her whimpering children and pulled them back to the front door. They’d fended off raiders before, but this felt entirely different. “We have nothing. Go away.”

  “My name is Marcus Pieman,” said the man in a passable local accent.

  “Pieman?” whispered Everett, worried. He’d heard the name before from his father before, long ago.

  Marcus continued, “I didn’t mean to scare the children. I have come seeking the truth to a local legend. It is said that once, years ago, there was a streak in the sky. It was said to be a metal bird from over the Eastern Mountains, and that it died in a ball of flame. But no signs of it seem to exist, and everyone points in different directions as to where it might have crashed. My search has led me here.”

  Everett glanced at the camel-riders, all were armed with pistols. “Never heard of it,” he said sternly. “Please leave. This is our property.”

  Taking a step forward, Marcus said, “This flying thing, I’ve heard it called the Hotaru. I’m told that means firefly. While others might think your little green oasis here in the desert is luck or from hard work, I am more than just an inventor, I am a leader of our kind. I know innovation when I see it, and there is no doubt in my mind that all of this,” he gestured at the thriving oasis, “is tied to the Hotaru. I have been to Olsmos in the north, and to the border of Endera in the south. There is nothing like this home of yours. So, please, do not insult me. I need to know what you know, and to have what remains of it.”

  “Leave,” insisted Everett, pulling out a flintlock rifle hidden in the front door frame. He aimed it at Marcus.

  Marcus rubbed between his eyes, thinking. “Everett, right? Everett Waxman. Son of Alan Waxman, former leader of the Tub. I met your father on a couple of occasions. Interesting man. Flat head, bulbous nose, gregarious.”

  Everett shrugged. “So, you’ve met him, am I to be impressed? All the more reason for you to leave us alone. Do you see a flying ship around here? No, so go.” He shook the rifle. “Leave!” Concern spread across his face as he saw the camel-men standing there, pistols still in hand but not pointed at him. How dangerous was this man?

  Marcus glanced down at the grassy border at his feet. “There are several ways in which I could get what I’m looking for. Few of them have happy endings. Tsuruko, is it? I hope I am pronouncing your name correctly.”

  She stared at him, and after a moment of hesitation, gave him a confirming nod.

  “Good,” he replied. “I see the worry in your motherly eyes. Hotaru means something to you. Please, spare everyone grief and tell me what you know. I’m starting to lose my patience.”

  Tsuruko shot a glance to her husband as the wheels turned in her mind. “It does not exist anymore. There is no Hotaru. It’s pieces, it became part of all this,” she said, pointing at the garden. “I have nothing to share with you. It is gone, long ago.”

  Marcus scratched the back of his neck and put his spectacles on. “That’s disappointing. You will show me every piece, then.”

  “We will do no such thing,” said Everett, fuming. “We want nothing to do with your Tubs and Fares and nonsense.”

  Staring at Everett to the point of making him take a half step back, Marcus stepped on to the grass. “‘A man can no more run from his destiny as he can dig his way out of a hole.’ Luther Siler, Ingleash philosopher. You studied him, didn’t you?” He put his hands in the pockets of his pant. On the surface, Marcus seemed harmless, save for the intensity that emanated from him. Bowing his head, he sighed. “What I’m doing, I’m doing for the good of our kind. Every genius, inventor, scientist, everyone called an Abominator because they dare to pursue knowledge, to knock on the door of the impossible. You might have run away from the world, Everett, but I… I am changing it, and the Hotaru is key.”

  “Leave,” insisted Everett, raising his rifle.

  Marcus pulled out his pocket-watch and stared at it pensively. “I don’t have time for this. Enough with trying to be pleasant. Understand that this will be the last time you’ll see me. You’ll be dealing with representatives of mine from here on out.”

  Tsuruko stepped forward. “It was destroyed, long ago. I crashed out of the sky.”

  “Did you invent it?” he asked.

  She stared at Everett, who was shaking his head. “Yes.”

  “And you piloted it over the Eastern Mountain
s on your own?” he pressed.

  “No. I went through most of it. The Hotaru, it graces the wind, it moves well.”

  “Tsu, you shouldn’t—” said Everett, but she waved him off.

  “Impressive.” Marcus stared at the ground in thought. “You will build me one.”

  Everett fired at Marcus’ chest, knocking him clean off his feet. The bullet bounced off the armor below his shirt and skipped off of his eye.

  Before Marcus could signal them to stop, one of the camel-men shot Everett in the shoulder, dropping him to the ground. Standing back up, his hand over his bleeding eye, Marcus glared at Tsuruko. “That will cost you dearly. There will be no opportunity for rebellion,” he said. He turned to the camel-men. “Take the boy.”

  “No!” screamed Tsuruko. Two of the camel-men took aim at Amami and Everett, while the third scooped up Richy.

  “You’ll get your son back after you’ve built me a working Hotaru,” said Marcus, taking a cloth from a saddle bag and putting it over his eye.

  Tsuruko dropped to her knees, her hands clasped. “No! Please no! I cannot! I cannot build you a working one!”

  “Do I need to kill your son, here, in front of you, to motivate you enough?” asked Marcus, his white shirt and beige pants wet with blood.

  “I cannot make the engine! I never made it. It was the part that was completely destroyed when I crashed. I know not how to make it, just how it made everything work. I built the body, not the heart.”

  Marcus waved away the camel-men. “Fine. Everything else you need, you will have. You have one year, after which, I make no promises about your boy.”

  “Riichi!” screamed Amami as he was bound and gagged.

  Since the Lady in Red ordered Richy to be taken away, he had lost track of time. There were scratches from his clawing hands made in the jail cell’s wall before he'd given up on escaping. Rich had been there at least a few weeks.

  He’d been trying to fall asleep in the hot, humid cell, but the rowdy guards down the hall were keeping him wide awake. The other three cells in the jail were empty, each equipped with the same straw mattress, stone walls and small windows at the back for air and light. Richy wondered if someone had made one jail design and copied it everywhere, because it looked exactly like the one in Minette.