Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers) (8 page)

He had spoken too optimistically, Philadelphia realized four
days later, when she had yet to create a shock that did more than give him a
little zing. He reported that the hairs on his arm had risen, but she had
observed his head of thick black hair. Not even the small hairs at the back of
his neck had risen.

“You could create more effect with a kiss,” he observed
during one experiment.

She fumbled the wires she was toying with. “Really, Mr.
Gravenor.”

“Come, we are past formality after all this time. We’ve been
beasts in a cage for what, two weeks now?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, knowing this was all her fault.
If he hadn’t tried to rescue her, if they hadn’t lost the time to escape the
BAE, he wouldn’t be here.

“Something else would have gone wrong,” he said, as if
reading her thoughts. “After all, I made the decisions that led me here,
whether you became involved or not.”

“I do not know how to create the effect,” she told him. “The
BAE reportedly cause shocks through the air somehow. Your brass hand is working
perfectly, but I can’t reproduce it.”

“You need more data.”

“I need more data,” she agreed.

He stepped forward, and tucked a strand of blond hair behind
her ear with his brass hand.

She flinched.

“No, don’t. I’ve become quite precise with my movements.”

She stilled, allowing him to stroke her cheek with his
slender brass fingers. She could hear the whirring of the motor and pulleys
inside. Standing entranced by the proximity they shared, an unusual closeness
as they had been careful to give each other space during their ordeal, she
didn’t move until she heard boots on the stairs, the loud clatter of the twins
and a lighter boot as well. Mindful of the edges of the filed brass fingernails
of the hand, she stepped back and turned.

Captain Red Kite swept into the room, her scarlet frock coat
billowing around her tall but stocky body, her brothers in step behind her.

“I will hear your progress,” she announced.

“Open the door,” Brecon suggested.

Philadelphia admired his bravery. He still insisted on being
considered an honest free trader, member of the crew, not a criminal tarred by
association with a Hardcastle. She wished he’d never seen her that day. But no,
for the first time, her heart rebelled at that notion. She wasn’t sorry. Not
anymore. His handsome face had lost six months of pain lines and disappointment
when she had first strapped the brass hand to his stump. She had given him his
manhood back, in his eyes, at least. From her point of view, the man she’d
first seen had been every bit as virile as the man with the automac hand who
stood a little in front of her, guarding her.

The captain attempted to stare her champion down, but after
a tense two minutes, she rolled her eyes and gestured to the twins. One opened
the door. Two grabbed Brecon’s arm and tugged him to the captain.

“Can you open it, grasp with it?” she asked, voice taut with
avarice.

Brecon demonstrated. “The lady is a genius. Remember she
didn’t design the original hand, merely the invention that inspired it.”

The captain didn’t bother to glance up. “And has she learned
its secrets? Has she been able to electrocute you?”

“The light isn’t flashing red,” Two observed. “I want to see
you get shocked.”

“Let’s have a demonstration,” the captain suggested.

Brecon flushed with anger. Philadelphia put a hand on his
arm and felt the muscles bunch, though he had the self control not to make a
fist with his human hand.

“I cannot reproduce the airborne electrocution component,” she
said. “Not so far. It was not part of my work. Have you ever seen a Blockader brass
hand? We do not know if it even looks like mine. I’ve only seen them from a
distance.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. Her face became a mask which
Philadelphia could not read. “You need an example?”

“My work was mostly mechanical and electrical in nature. It
was based on actual contact. Whatever causes the electrocution with the brass hand
is done through the air.”

“The air?”

“Yes. My understanding from stories Mr. Gravenor has heard
is that the hand starts to flash if the enslaved crew member is too far from
the airship. I would assume the shock reaches the battery in the hand through
the air somehow.”

“Is that possible?”

“I suspect they are using the newly discovered aetherial
component of air.”

“Aetherial?”

“Yes, or aether. I read a paper on it once. It is assumed
that aether particles can be charged somehow, but I’ve never worked in that
field. The BAE must have someone on staff who has, or they’ve stolen more
technology from somewhere.”

The captain regarded her for a moment, then the nostrils at
the end of her short pug nose flared. “Expect an original brass hand tomorrow,
then.”

Philadelphia inclined her head.

“One,” said the captain, as she strode away. “Bring our friends
a good mutton stew tonight for dinner. And a second cot.”

When the woman was gone Philadelphia permitted herself a
smile. Success! But Brecon wore a worried frown.

“Where,” he asked, “are they going to get a brass hand? If
they had one already they’d have given it to you.”

~*~

CHAPTER FIVE

Brecon woke to the sound of a groan somewhere outside the
cage.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

That voice he recognized. One. Brecon blinked and wiped the
sleep from his eyes. He heard the key inserting into the lock and the cage
opening.

“The captain said to treat you better now, so I didn’t want
to kick you awake and risk her wrath.”

Brecon started to stretch, then thought better of exposing
vulnerable bits to One’s boots. He curled into a half-moon and found the floor
with his stocking-covered feet. His first night of sleep on the cot had him
more rested than he’d been since he’d landed in the cage.

He heard a groan again and this time was able to focus on
the noise. Blast it.

In front of him lay the body of a man, his brass hand
obvious as it blocked his face. Also obvious was the wound on his arm. Then he
rolled onto his back and Brecon saw he had been gut shot, the kind of wound
that was fatal, though it might take hours for him to die.

He gritted his teeth against the smell of lacerated bowel.
“Where did you get him?”

One shrugged. “We had ourselves a little raid in Cardiff
last night.”

“Killing a BAE officer is one thing, but this man is an
enslaved crewman.”

“You needed a Brass Hand.” One’s shoulders crept up defensively.
“We took the oldest one.”

Brecon could see silver strands in the man’s hair, but that
didn’t mean much, considering the hard life he must have led. “Is there
anything to be done?”

“He’s done for,” One said. “Does she need to see it before
the bloke dies?”

Brecon heard a rustle of skirts then Philadelphia appeared
at his side, in front of the bars. She pressed a filthy handkerchief to her
face and blinked hard.

“I do not know what I need to see,” she said. “Nothing
happened to the hand as you took him off the airship?”

“It blinked red as we took him, but we moved fast and sped
off as soon as we had him aboard. The blinking stopped once we were under way.”

“The light is certainly related to the distance from some
power source,” she said.

Her voice was calm, in what Brecon privately called her
scientist mode. How could she act so with a dying man in front of her?

“Isn’t there anything to be done?” he asked. “Could we give
him some water, laudanum?”

One lifted the man with his boot. The crewman flopped onto
his back bonelessly when he removed his boot. “No need to trouble yourself. He
is dead now.”

Brecon heard a little gagging sound from Philadelphia and
slid his gaze to the side. Now he saw the faint trembling in the lady’s limbs,
knew she was fighting hard for control. No, she wasn’t so indifferent after
all.

Escape
. The word came seriously for the first time in
days. They had to get out of here. The captain had never been so ruthless about
human life before. She had turned some kind of corner in her head, gone too
far.

“Do you want me to detach the hand?” One asked.

Brecon saw scientific curiosity fight against revulsion of
the smell of the body. But the fevered light slowly left her eyes.

“Can you bring the Brass Hand up close to the cage, please, and
unstrap the hand slowly so I can see how it attaches?”

One nodded and bent to his task. Philadelphia muttered something
unintelligible as he sliced up the sleeve covering the top of the brass hand
and detached the thing.

Brecon didn’t see much difference between the dead man’s hand
and his, though this version did have a strap around the elbow joint. That may
have been because the man’s amputation was higher than his was. He wondered if
the man had lost his hand in some other way than a Blockader amputation given
the placement, but he’d never know.

One thrust the hand at Brecon. He let it fall rather than
touch it.

“Do you need the body?” One asked gruffly.

Philadelphia sighed. “I need to know if he has any mechanical
contraptions on his person.”

One sniffed. “I’ll look.”

She picked up the hand from where it rested on the ground
and brushed off a piece of straw. Brecon saw none of the light of scientific
excitement in her eyes, only sadness that this man had died, and fear. He
gripped her shoulder with his hands, tried to communicate solidarity with his gaze.

She stared back at him, cradling the brass hand as if it
were a babe. What was she trying to communicate to him? Trust, maybe. That was
what he read in her eyes. She trusted him to get her out of this horrible
place.

One dropped a dirty dagger to the floor. “That is the only
bit of metal I found,” he reported.

“Is it an ordinary knife? It could be disguised,” Brecon
suggested.

One snorted. “Like I’d hand you a weapon.” He flipped it
over with his boot. “Looks like any other to me.”

“Take it,” Philadelphia said. “And please, take him before
he spoils.”

“You don’t want to reanimate him?” Two poked at the dead
man’s ribs. “Keep him as a servant?”

Philadelphia’s face went green. She thrust the hand at Brecon
and ran to the back of the cell, resting her head against cool stone.

“Why taunt her?” he demanded. “She’s done nothing to you.”

One pressed his lips together. “The Blockaders took our
little brother, Gravenor. He tried to escape, of course. So he got a brass hand.
It killed him when he tried to escape again. He must have been one of the
first, didn’t know what it was capable of doing to him. We only found out
because one of the men heard an officer boasting about how many had died during
a mutiny. Just drinking in a pub in Cardiff, boasting about dead men, his own
countrymen.”

“How did they know for sure it was your brother?”

“He had a tattoo, and a lazy eye.” One rubbed his nose. “Men
kept asking him for details for just that purpose, in case they could figure
out who got killed.”

“I am sorry for the death. But it isn’t Miss Hardcastle’s
fault. She didn’t apply her inventions to the purpose they have been used for
by the Blockaders.”

“But she invented them just the same. She’ll never be a Red
Kite. You wonder why the captain is so hard on her, well now you know. If you
sympathize with her too much, you’ll ruin your chances too, Gravenor. That lady
will be the death of you, just like she was for my brother.” One turned and
grabbed one of the dead man’s legs and started tugging.

Two came down the stairway and helped, taking the corpse’s
shoulders. They dragged the body to the wall. Brecon saw a flash of light as
they opened a recessed door he hadn’t noticed before, as the room faded into
murkiness at that point. They rolled the body out. A fat trail of blood pointed
to the door, as if to illuminate the path there.

When he looked away, he saw Philadelphia still turned to the
wall, face in her hands, her shoulders trembling. Moving until he was almost
touching her, he leaned toward her ear. “We are done here. I am taking you away
from this place.”

She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. “I understand why they
hate me now. It’s the same reason I hate myself.”

He inclined his forehead until it just barely grazed her hair.
“A scientist can’t be blamed for how their research is utilized. Humans need to
understand. It is in our nature, and only the most special of us can think like
you do. You aren’t to blame for any of this.”

“I’m to blame for you being here.” She tilted her head to
his. They were only a couple of inches apart. The trust and worry in her eyes
seemed unbearably dear.

“Are you to blame for this?” he asked, his voice rough. “Can
you control this?” He bent his head and took her lips with his, then sucked her
lower lip between his teeth when he found it strangely sweet.

She gasped but didn’t attempt to break free from his
possession. He didn’t deepen the kiss, but smoothed it, softened it. Her mouth
relaxed against his. Slowly, he released her, soothing the teeth marks with
tiny kisses. Then, he took her lips again. Her fluid mouth was wide and he
hadn’t thought they’d fit together so perfectly, but oh, they did. He forgot
where they were, what had just happened, and tasted the hot, damp
porridge-flavored contours of Miss Philadelphia Hardcastle’s mouth, until
searing pain slammed into his foot.

He jumped back with a curse and stared at the brass hand on
the dirt. She had dropped it on him! He was flattered she had forgotten herself
so completely.

Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m so sorry! I forgot.”