Mettle & Bone

by M J Moores

  Once buttoned in place sporting two voluminous pant legs, Elenore stood on a square wooden platform and gripped the rope extending out to four flimsy rail corners like a pyramid. She waved Louisa over. Miss. Wicker swallowed her nerves and stepped onto the platform. Elenore disengaged a clamp above her head, and they jolted into the air.

  Louisa’s stomach ended up in her boots and her knuckles whitened from clutching the rope. The platform swayed as it climbed higher and higher above the tents toward the docking station suspended above. Louisa’s chest ached and burned with a lack of oxygen. She gasped for air, gulping it in before holding her breath again.

  Only rope and wood kept the girls airborne, and a winch jolted and jerked them farther up into the wide-open sky.

  Louisa watched the crowd below part for the bobbies running toward Rathburn’s tent, led by Mr. Green. A warmth spread through her from her core—Bennett has everything in hand down there. It’s up to us up here.

  The winch halted.

  The platform swayed.

  Louisa’s stomach jumped from her toes to her throat.

  “Come on, this way.” Elenore climbed a wooden ladder at arm’s reach from the lift and disappeared onto the walkway above.

  Louisa’s fingers refused to open. Do it already. Go! She forced first one clawed hand over to the rung and then the other, willing herself not to look down. Her stomach lurched.

  Elenore’s face appeared, framed in the access port. She smiled and nodded, anchoring Louisa’s sensibilities. Her limbs thawed and she scrambled up to the skywalk—a floating sidewalk connecting a network of avenues to racer lifts and floating mechanical sheds. However, as only the planks of the skywalk were solid, Louisa’s innards were not impressed by the netting strung between the air buoys and the footpath marking the sides of the elevated walkway. She managed to climb over the edge of the moored gondola, landed on her back, and looked up at the quarter-sized dirigible floating above. The ropes holding it in place groaned and creaked.

  “Do you need help, Lou?” Elenore stood above Louisa, looking down, eyebrows raised in question.

  “No, no. I’ve got it.” She rolled onto her knees and stood. Her stomach didn’t slosh or drop or jump. Louisa inhaled and exhaled deeply, grounding herself.

  Elenore shoved a short stool on casters across the space. Louisa stopped it with the flat of her foot and mirrored Elenore as she sat.

  “All right, are you ready?” she asked.

  Louisa nodded.

  Elenore went through every operational procedure with Louisa twice before one of the judges arrived to verify the tech. After a thorough inspection, the portly gentleman with thick mutton chop sideburns faced them.

  “Everything is in order, but where is the pilot?” he asked.

  Elenore curtsied. “That would be me, sir. Miss. Wicker is my assistant.”

  His bushy brows furrowed. “Impossible. Mr. Reginald Rathburn—”

  “—is ill. I am his backup pilot, Miss. Elenore Rathburn, his sister.”

  “Ill you say?”

  “I do.”

  “Well”—he blustered and flipped through several pages on his clipboard—“this is unprecedented. I’ll need to verify—”

  Triple horns blasted, calling for the racers to ready for the first heat: the obstacle course. Louisa glanced over her shoulder, surprised to see a series of floating marker flags on crates set above and around the park.

  The judge muttered something, waved his arms, and hopped back over the side of the gondola.

  Louisa and Elenore looked at each other. Elenore shrugged her shoulders.

  “I saw him write your name down,” Louisa verified.

  “Then let’s do this. For Reggie.” Elenore slammed her palm onto a brass button and dropped onto her stool. Louisa followed as flaps from the side of the vessel rose and fell to enclose them.

  She gasped.

  “What? You didn’t think we’d be racing with the top down, did you? This isn’t going to be a tempered tour. We need to reduce our wind resistance and keep as low a profile as possible to cut through the air.” Elenore radiated confidence.

  “What do I do?” Louisa asked.

  “Exactly what I tell you.”

  Together, the women maneuvered the Mini to the starting block. Louisa marveled at the speed and grace of the craft, but only for a moment. The fly-wheels, rudder, and flaps she was in charge of demanded her full attention.

  The triple horn trilled again, and a voice blasted over the loudspeakers.

  “On your marks.”

  Louisa glanced over her shoulder and locked gazes with Elenore.

  “Get set.”

  Elenore grinned, her eyes alight with an inner fire. Louisa looked out of a set of portals, nerves electrified, heart ready to burst.

  “Go!”

  #

  Louisa’s heart thrilled even as her guts churned. The winds over the Thames buffeted the gondola. She grabbed the small brass wheel, not just to keep from rolling in the wake, but to counter the gale with more thrust from the port.

  “That’s it! You’re a natural, Lou!” Elenore cried as she adjusted a setting on Collingworth’s engine and they jolted forward, nosing past the heavier modified diesel belching black smoke in its wake. If they didn’t get this machine into top gear, the Judge would win and no amount of re-matches would erase today’s outcome.

  “What else can we do?” Louisa called over the roar of the engine and the winds. Sweat beaded her forehead. After coming fifth in the obstacle course and third in the flag capture, the judges launched everyone into the final race with only minutes to refuel between challenges.

  “Nothing! We’re just too heavy. This is supposed to be a one-pilot race.”

  Louisa abandoned her post, pushed the castered stool toward the chest on the starboard side, and opened the hutch—tools. She slid over to the port side chest—an anchor. Louisa looked out the closest porthole. The women sailed directly over the water.

  “Elly! I have an idea.”

  “What?” She had her back to Louisa, adjusting the flaps and monitoring their course.

  “Reggie won’t like it, but it just might give us the edge we need. Trust me.”

  Louisa hauled his large metal tool kit to the center of the gondola and lugged the iron anchor over too. With a shove, she unlatched the escape hatch. The river’s choppy water glistened.

  Louisa shoved out the tool chest. It crashed into the waves. She heaved out the anchor, sans rope. It disappeared into the churning waters. Louisa slammed the hatch shut and held onto the leather pull as the Mini blasted forward. The multicolored flags floating astride Big Ben beaconed them even as the diesel fell behind. A volley of voiceless curses flew from Gunnings’ man’s mouth when her porthole passed his.

  She laughed a great, full blast of joy as Elenore whooped and jigged in place.

  “First place!” Elenore cried.

  Chemistry Lesson

  T he low, sultry tones of the piano clashed with Louisa’s reminiscences while she waited just outside the saloon door at the bottom of the stairs. Reliving her time as co-pilot elevated her pulse and electrified her body. She stared across the crowded tavern at Joe, who poured liquor in a never-ending stream. A lot of the songs that night echoed Louisa’s elevated mood, but the one playing now punched her in the gut. The heartache of the words tightened around her chest, reminding her of why she clung to the shadows by the door.

  She hadn’t worked up the courage to cross the floor and apologize, but Joe’s bi-colored gaze had caught hers early on and bored into her soul. Much had been said between them in that moment, but not enough.

  The line at the bar dwindled, compelling her to step forward … to finally set things right between them. A groan of hinges from the top of the stairwell halted her mid-step. Moonlight spilled across her boots. The figure at the top hesitated, then descended.

  Louisa rolled her shoulders forward, encouraging her extra-wild locks to hide her face. She scrunch
ed her nose to remind herself the mask sat in its proper place. The supple black leather became a second skin, and she often forgot she wore it. She turned and filled the entrance to the bar with her body. Morrison Tweed did not meet her gaze but walked past to the room at the end of the hall. Louisa’s blood boiled, heat flaring across her skin.

  She followed him, her boot heels punctuating each measured step. Her chest welled with the mass of unspoken curses impatient to fly from her lips.

  He kept his back to her, setting down a notebook and pencil on the travel table before shrugging off his coat and tossing it on the cot.

  Louisa shut the door without turning away. The firm click emphasized her impatience. She’d avoided this moment all week, always finding someone in need as she made her way across town. But tonight, the revelry cascaded from the afternoon’s races into the streets, keeping everyone in high spirits. She’d managed to walk the entire way here without mishap. Louisa also walked the entire way replaying their pledge to one another, along with those striking words from Monday’s article: he cautions civilians against harboring anyone claiming to be Shadow Phoenix.

  Louisa jammed her lace-covered fists on her hips, stance wide, shoulders back, and chin held high. Still, Tweed didn’t turn around, just hunched over his notes, futzing. Her face flushed, and she gritted her teeth so hard her molars hurt.

  “Bloody hell, Morrison. Turn around and face me like a man.” Her voice shredded through the space between them.

  He stiffened, standing tall; the muscles beneath his shirt shifted across his back as if chasing an itch. Tweed turned and crossed his arms.

  “What’s got you in a snit?” His brows drew together. The dim light of the wall sconce flickered, sending the scar tissue down the left side of his face into deep contrast with the honey hue of his skin.

  A ripple of fury coursed from the back of Louisa’s legs and up her spine.

  “Excuse me? You had the gall to blacken my name in that damnable article.” She stepped forward closing the distance between them. “Listing me among the suspects when you know for a fact I had nothing to do with Bug and Scythe’s scheme. I was there to stop a crime, not commit one.”

  She stepped right up to the man, her entire body vibrating with the need to thrash him.

  “If not for me, Collingworth’s engine wouldn’t have debuted in the race and the Judge would’ve been able to push through Gunnings’s diesel instead. We’re supposed to be partners. You’re supposed to have my back, and yet at the first sign of trouble, you throw me to the wolves.” An ache coursed through her, shouting at her to pound her fist into his chest—force him to step back and admit his deceit. Only sheer will kept her from striking him. She was not the bad guy, the liar, the manipulator—

  He leaned forward, eyes ablaze, dark blond curls quivering with pent-up rage while barely a feather-width separated their noses. His hot breath ignited the fire under her skin as she sought to decimate him with her stare.

  “That damnable article is the only thing keeping the public on your side.”

  “Codswallop. You called me out. I make one mistake in an attempt to stop a criminal, and suddenly I’m the bad guy?”

  “Would you stop being selfish for two seconds?”

  His words slapped her silent.

  “If I didn’t write what the police wanted, they would’ve forced someone else to weave a truly nasty piece about your utter incompetence and how untrained civilians should not play dress-up.”

  A quaking wrath pinned Louisa’s arms straight, fists itching to strike. She growled.

  “How dare you sully my name just to save face.”

  Morrie shifted and nearly every last microscopic space between them disappeared. The only part of him actually touching her was the heat radiating off his body, crashing into the electricity snapping off her own.

  “Have you no sense?” He lowered his already deep voice. It freight-trained through her chest and rattled her bones. He didn’t yell, and yet her every nerve sizzled as if he had.

  “Did you not bother to read between the lines? Are you capable of seeing beyond the towed line to where I confronted the constabulary about the MO being different? That the person they assumed was Shadow Phoenix didn’t actually look like her, nor did the weapon used react the same way as her earlier devices. Those implications are what told the public that no one could verify one hundred percent it was actually you out there. I pulled every string I had access to in order to refute what the police insisted I report, and yet I knew without a doubt it was you out there and not some copycat. I put my job and my integrity on the line playing devil’s advocate just to save your arse. And what thanks do I get? You abandon your training, ostracize Joe, avoid me like the plague, and then turn up demanding I don’t know what, making assumptions about my integrity and claiming I’ve broken a deal I have no intention of destroying.”

  Louisa’s body flared on alert. Her thoughts reeled, reviewing in her mind’s eye what he’d written, and seeing the truth of it for the first time.

  They breathed heavily, as if each word spoken compounded a direct hit. His nearness sparked a chain reaction, vibrating her like a tuning fork. Something else stirred in place of the anger and frustration.

  White spots danced before Louisa’s eyes and her chest heaved within its confines. She forced herself to breathe, to take in what her lungs craved, but her legs turned to mush, and she collapsed onto the cot, folding her body in half, hyperventilating into her shins.

  Morrie turned away and pounded the wall—hands and forehead—leaning against the rough surface, breathing hard.

  The air ignited with invisible flash powder, making each breath, each thought, a struggle. He was trying to protect me …

  “Damnit, Phoenix. This is so much bigger than either of us,” he rasped

  Louisa sat up, taking in a huge gulp of air. She sat on her hands to keep from shaking. The rage and anger drained away.

  “Did you know he tried to stop Collingworth again?” Morrie cleared his throat. “That he—” Morried turned to face her.

  “—poisoned Rathburn trying to eliminate two competitors with one strike? Yes. I was at the races this afternoon.”

  “So, that was your voice I heard.”

  Louisa didn’t know what to say. Anything might give her away. Instead, she compelled herself to stand and look him in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have rushed to judgment.” First she’d been wrong about Ryn and now Morrie. Confidence soured in her stomach. She took a deep, steadying breath. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, this isn’t the only apology I need to make.” She walked out of the room, into the tavern, still shaking and more confused than ever setting her gaze on the man behind the bar.

  Herding Rain

  T he next morning, electricity hummed through the air as the Mini’s gondola-roof peeled back, revealing dark clouds heavy with dispersal spheres. Louisa closed the external flaps, stood, and raised her face into the wind. Rathburn’s sister laughed.

  “I can’t believe it!” Elenore guided the Mini over to the airfield’s temporary platform, supplanted from the make-shift skywalk at the Battersea races.

  “I told you it worked,” Louisa chided, helping Elenore moor the airship and tie it to the rail.

  “Yes, but seeing is believing. That’s Reggie’s motto.” She stood on the flimsy square board that pretended to be a lift and clung to the winch rope. Elenore smiled, shook her head, and gripped it with one hand, releasing the catch. Louisa’s stomach lurched with the initial jostle as the mechanism slowed gravity’s natural rate of decent.

  The sky grew dark, full, and moist. Louisa closed her eyes as they descended; the pop of a camera flash snapped them open as Morrie pulled his head out from under the cape of a mounted device. He paid Louisa no other heed and went about dismantling the new tech as the first cool raindrops pattered onto her sleeves.

  A cheer rose from the small crowd of supporters, there by invite only. This time, Stirling
stood silently at the back of the crowd with his apprentice, black umbrella raised. A bubble of joy overrode Louisa’s nerves, and the fact that the ground was now only meters away did wonders for her sensibilities.

  Not two steps from the lift, Bennett scooped Louisa up under the arms and spun her around amidst large, glorious drops of rain. Her stomach flip-flopped and her skin tingled. But her chest tightened when he set her down and turned to grasp both of Elenore’s hands, his face alight with more than just pride.

  “Well”—Morrie stepped beside Louisa, jolting her back to her senses—“it looks like Mr. Bennett is quite pleased with today’s turn of events.” Familiar heat radiated off his body even in the cooling rain. She blushed.

  Keeping her voice low and light she said, “The biggest measure of success will be how long it lasts.”

  Thunder punctuated her words, and everyone ran for the small hangar or their vehicles. Morrie turned back to his supplies, juggling the heavy camera case and the brolly covering it.

  Louisa compelled herself to turn away as Bennett linked arms with Elenore, much as he’d done with Louisa that first encounter after the fire. They practically skipped through the rain toward cover. She relieved Morrie of his burden and hoisted the umbrella over him and his equipment. Stray strands of hair tickled the sides of Louisa’s face as they curled and frizzed in the moist air.

  “Which way are you headed?” she asked, maintaining her assumed tone, as polite and refined as she could sound.

  “Thank you. Just over that way. The black Steamie with the capped driver.”

  Louisa scanned the area. Every Landau and Steamie seemed spoken for. Her guts twisted as she checked her pocket watch with her free hand.

  She sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Morrie opened a back hatch and lifted the camera case inside. Louisa shook her head and scanned the parked vehicles again.

  The boot clicked shut. His hand brushed hers as he reclaimed the brolly. She startled and jolted slightly, removing her hand from the grip. His nearness made her giddy and nauseated all at once. She knew this man as well as anyone might, and yet she couldn’t betray that familiarity … especially after what had happened last night. She second-guessed every move, every word, when she wasn’t Shadow Phoenix. It was hard to balance her two very different lives. But she had to face the reality that her list of apologies remained incomplete and time was running out.