Authors: Sharon Joss
Steam Dogs (4 page)
South Timber Dock
Mick Purvis squinted through the fog with his one good eye and
cursed the man who had deprived him of the other in a drunken brawl decades
earlier. The curse had little venom or heat behind it; Mick was feeling
expansive and rather well busted after his recent encounter with a strumpet in
the alley behind the Folly House in Cubitt Town.
But now, with curfew looming, it was time to get back to the ship.
He licked his lips, wishing he thought to bring a flask with him. The entrance
to the docks couldn’t be far, but for some reason, he couldn’t seem to find it.
It seemed as if he’d been walking along the outer wall for miles. Panting, he
paused to listen, using his hand to steady himself against the brick wall. Damn
this blasted murk. If he didn’t make it back inside before they locked the
gates at midnight, he’d end up sleeping out in the cold all night.
Sure enough, the sound that had been dogging him paused as well.
His heart skipped a beat. He checked behind him, but there was nothing to see.
Perhaps it was the doxy’s pimp come to relieve him of the rest of his money. He
clutched his last two crowns tightly in his closed fist and quickened his pace.
The sound of footsteps
was getting closer.
Up ahead, he spied the flicker of gaslights marking the entrance
to the dock, and gave a sigh of relief.
I
knew it was here somewhere
. Again he peered into the darkness behind him.
Come to think of it, it sounded less like footsteps than a dog’s toenails
clicking against the pavement.
“Here doggie. There’s a nice boy.” He whistled.
The answer came as a low growl.
Jaysus Mary
, only a really big dog
would have a growl like that!
He knew better than to run, but hoped the guards would be close by
so he wouldn’t have to wait long.
The clicking staccato of the dog’s toenails came closer—the
dog was coming after him.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he sprinted for
the gate.
The growl become a snarl.
He turned, just as it leapt at him. All he could see was a
mouthful of sharp teeth.
Crikey, that’s no dog…
MAY, 1871
Strapped into the passenger seat behind the navigator in the
cockpit of the airship
Il Colibri
,
Simon Atters soothed the trembling terrier in his lap. “Easy, Vectis. We’ll be
landing soon.” The flight across the channel had been rough, but now that they
were over the shores of England, the turbulence had gotten worse. The dog did
not seem one bit soothed by his assurances.
There were four seats in the cockpit. Seated in the pilot’s seat
sat Captain Arvel Paretti, Simon’s oldest and dearest friend. They’d met at
Zollo Brothers Circus in Turin some sixteen years earlier, and Simon had felt
an instant affinity with the red-haired orphan. And when Simon discovered that
Arvel was born a latent as well, he felt as if he was meeting his own brother
for the first time.
“Father was an air mage,” Arvel had told him. “Killed in a duel
before I was born. My mother took in laundry to support us, but she died of
consumption when I was four. No one would take in a mageling, not even the
orphanage. People were afraid I’d inherited my father’s ability. Only Master
Zollo would agree to take me.”
At the circus, Arvel
had been running the balloon rides singlehandedly since the age of twelve. Even
then, more than anything, he’d wanted his own airship. Simon had never met
anyone so sure of what he wanted, or so determined to get it. “I may be a
latent, but I
can
fly,” Arvel told
him. He showed Simon the mechanical propellers he’d added to the balloon’s
basket, proudly explaining he’d designed them to control the drift of the
balloon. “One day, I’m going to build my own airship. One big enough to carry a
lot more than two people, you just wait. We could be partners! I’ll fly us all
over the world, and we’ll have the most amazing adventures.”
And since that first day, Simon felt himself swept up by his
friend’s vision. He could not imagine a more exciting way to live.
Seated beside Arvel, in Simon’s usual seat, sat the French
navigator, Emile Martens, who’d joined them in Brussels. Usually, Simon and
Arvel did their own navigation. But for this trip, Arvel wanted someone more
familiar with the ins and outs of the English coastline and inland waters.
From his leather-upholstered seat behind Emile, Simon strained
forward, hoping to catch sight of his first glimpse of England in more than two
decades. But in spite of the waist-to-ceiling windows, which rimmed the
eight-sided cabin, there was absolutely nothing to see. Thick fog encircled the
airship.
“What if we hit something?” In spite of the lack of visibility,
Simon was not particularly worried—he loved flying. It was a passion he
and Arvel both shared, and this trip from Italy was the culmination of their
seventeen-year partnership and shared vision. .
Arvel grinned and tapped the altimeter dial. “Nothing to worry
about. We’ve got three hundred meters of nothing but air between us and the
Thames.” His enthusiasm was contagious. Arvel was absolutely fearless, and driven
to augment his natural air affinity and instinctive love of flight by any
mechanical means possibl
e.
In spite of his friend’s outward calm, Simon knew Arvel didn’t
care much for this kind of weather, either. “Assuming we
are
over the river. How much longer until we can see where we’re
going?”
“We’re coming up on London,
Monsieur
,”
answered Emile. “It always looks like this.”
“Besides, we couldn’t
afford to waste another whole day.” Arvel dragged a moustache comb through his lush
and long red moustache. “Emile here knows England so well, he can get us where
we’re going even in this soup.”
The Frenchman shrugged. A slight curve around his lips betrayed
his pleasure at the compliment. “I admit it. I am a magnificent navigator,
oui
?”
Behind him, Simon rolled his eyes and adjusted the wool scarf
around his neck. The cabin was unheated, and the spring warmth of Capri or even
sunny Brussels seemed a distant memory after their trip across the channel. The
damp chill and lack of visibility were an ominous welcome to the land of his
birth; dredging up memories he’d been happy to forget.
After his father’s murder, Simon had fled to Brussels, but his
aunt had moved, or perhaps she'd died; no one he asked recognized her name. The
city was nothing like he remembered.
Afraid and alone, and still devastated by his father’s murder, he
had a miserable time of it. Every night, he dreamed of his father, and his
guilt and anguish returned anew. Within a few short weeks, his money was
gone--even Sir Hillary’s gold watch. Juggling on street corners for pennies
wasn’t nearly enough to pay for room and board.
“We are approaching the airfield, captain.”
Arvel flipped several switches, and the soft thrum of the
auxiliary motors filled the frigid cabin. His hands moved deftly, pulling back
on the thruster levers and diverted power to the forward propellers. The
forward momentum of the ship slowed, and then halted as the
Il Colibri
hovered like its hummingbird
namesake within the veil of fog. Arvel shifted the engine into neutral, in
preparation for their descent.
The fog had gradually grown darker as they neared London. Without
the dim cabin lights provided by the onboard lead batteries, it would have been
difficult to read the numerous dials on the console.
In Simon’s lap, Vectis whined.
Simon curled his fingers protectively around the small brown dog’s
chest, offering him what comfort he could. The dog shivered beneath his hands
and Simon shook off his own misgivings. Twenty years was a long time to be estranged
from his homeland.
Long enough
.
Arvel ran his comb once more through his prodigious red moustache.
“
Sei pronto?
Are you ready?”
Simon grinned. “Always. Let’s go.”
Arvel adjusted the controls on the console, and the hovering ship
began to sink deeper into the fog.
Without warning, a loud bang accompanied by a savage jolt rocked
the cabin. Vectis yelped and squirmed loose. The lights in the cabin blinked
out. Simon tightened his grip on the arms of his seat, his knuckles white with
tension. “What was that—lightning?”
The main engine coughed and sputtered. Arvel unleashed a string of
Italian profanity, and flipped the switches that controlled the hand-wound
mechanicals. The auxiliary propellers would give them less than two minutes of
airtime.
“No. Something hit the
undercarriage,” answered Arvel. “Probably another ship. I need to restart the
main engine. Your assistance, please, Simon. A bit of light?
Rapidamente, per favore.
”
Simon released his grip on the shoulder straps and allowed the
greenfire to flare up from his fingertips. A soft green glow illuminated the
cabin.
The Frenchman’s eyes widened and he crossed himself, “
Mon dieu
! What is that?”
Arvel leaned over to speak into the tube, which led to the engine
room above them. “Wake up, Gregorio. Where’s my engine?.”
Gregorio’s tinny voice echoed in the cabin. “A moment, captain.”
The floor canted sharply to starboard. Simon kept his eyes glued to
the altimeter, which had started to fall alarmingly. “Three hundred meters,
Arvel.”
Arvel’s hands moved across the console like a concert pianist’s,
flipping switches, twisting dials, and yanking on gear shafts. “We were hit
from below, Gregorio. Why is the engine acting up?” In spite of the chill in
the cabin, Arvel was sweating now. “Send Bruno down.”
The altimeter continued to drop. “Two hundred meters,” Simon
cautioned. The fog, although still thick, had thinned somewhat.
Above their heads, Simon heard the sound of running feet and
Gregorio’s deep voice cursing in Italian. A panel in the ceiling slipped to the
side and Bruno, the linesman, slid down the ladder into the cabin from above.
“You’ve got magickal powers,
Monsieur,
use them!” Emile’s eyes were huge. He gripped his St. Christopher medallion
tightly between his fingers and held it to his lips like a prayer. He looked as
if he might faint.
Simon’s heart skipped a guilty beat. As a child, his father always
cautioned him against using his greenfire in public. Not that it mattered any
more. His dreams of becoming a fire mage had died twenty years ago. “Sorry, you’re
speaking to the wrong bloke. I’m only a latent.” Bitterness welled up inside
him.
And that's all I'll ever be.
He
nodded his head toward Arvel. “He’s the real magician.”
Arvel snorted. “Have a little faith in your captain, sir! Nothing
can match the power of technology!” His eyes never left the dropping altimeter
needle. “Gregorio!”
The auxiliary propellers began to lose momentum and Simon rushed
to wind the mechanisms, wrenching each handle round and round with a practiced
motion.
The engineer’s voice sounded through the speaker. “
Un attimo, per favore.
” The engine
coughed again.
One after another, Simon continued to wind the eight manual
propellers as swiftly as they began to slow. “If you know any prayers to the
gods of steam, Emile, now is a good time to say them.”
MILLWALL DOCKS, ISLE OF DOGS
Outside the walls of the South Dock, a bell clanged, signaling the
closure of the docks for the night. A lone man, dressed in black, stepped from
the deepest shadows into the outer edge of dimness illuminating the west
entrance. He waded between the two huge hyena-like carnivores tearing at the
remains of a corpse. They pawed at the sailor’s shredded clothes with their
long claws, better to get to the flesh inside.
With minimal effort, the man cuffed them back from the shredded
remains. “Gud laddies—that’s enough now.”
They stepped back willingly, licking their bloody lips, their eyes
staring at him expectantly. Either one of them could have torn his head off,
yet both were so attuned to him, he could control them with just a thought. Their
dark coats helped them blend into the shadows, while their muscular legs,
longer in front than in the rear, forced them to carry their heads low, like vultures
over prey. The master had done something different when he created these
two—they were completely attuned to him, and in their own savage way, as
gentle and adoring as lap dogs. A fine gift.
He picked up the largest piece of the remains and hauled it over
his shoulder, then carried it away from the dim light of the gates toward the
enclosed carriage he’d left waiting in the shadows. The horses shifted
restlessly, but they were used to the smell of blood. He dropped the remains
onto a tarp of waxed canvas spread across the floor of the carriage and wiped
his bloody hands on a rag before climbing up into the seat and clicking to the
horses.
The horses moved off at a smooth pace, eager for their stable. The
man gave a whistle, and the dog-things turned from the scraps of their bloody
meal to gambol playfully behind the coach.
When they reached the street, they turned south, following
Manchester Road into the foggy gloom of the night.
