Riveted (24 page)

“No, it doesn’t.” Lucia sighed. “Mr. Dooley?”

“It’s a terrible thing, but we’ve all heard of the weapon that could have killed every bugger in England last year. I’m wondering if these women were infected.”

David sure as hell hoped not. “And some signal killed them—like from the Horde towers?”

“I wouldn’t be knowing that. But aside from the miner’s death, it’s the only instance I’ve ever heard of a man dropping dead all at once, without a mark on him.”

The concern on Lucia’s face deepened. She looked up at David. “I can’t test for infection after they’re dead. Those nanoagents are too small for me to see, even with a microscope. Can you?”

“No.” Eyes made from mechanical flesh could, but he only had lenses. “But we don’t want to know if they’re infected; we want to know if they
aren’t
. If even one woman isn’t, she wouldn’t have
died from a signal or a weapon that destroyed the bugs. You could exclude it as a cause, at least.”

“But, David—I can’t test for
no
infection, either.”

“The women searching the cottages can. Tell them to look for any evidence that the women suffered a winter cold.” David hadn’t been sick even once since he’d been infected. If ever badly injured, he might contract a fever as the bugs worked to heal him, but he was immune to the diseases that threatened many other explorers—or aviators. A man blowing his nose aboard an airship was so common as to be unremarkable. “A handkerchief, for instance.”

Lucia nodded. “I’ll tell them.”

She started down the companionway. David returned to the ship’s side to look for Annika. Dooley and Goltzius joined him.

On his left, Goltzius said, “No matter what caused it, the newssheets will spread the sensational story of beautiful, untouchable virgins taken to Heaven.”

God. That was true enough. Would such a story inspire girls to keep their virginity, or rush to lose it?

“Only in Manhattan City,” Dooley said, and not to be outdone, gave his own spin. “In Johannesland, they’ll say the fissure spirits from Iceland stole their souls.”

“They’ll
all
say it was a Horde plot,” David said.

Dooley nodded. “That’ll be the way of it, though using that as your prediction is akin to cheating. They’re always saying it’s a Horde plot. Is all right with your girl, Kentewess?”

Annika had emerged from another cottage. The weight of sorrow had returned, slumping her shoulders. Despite the bulk of her heavy clothing, she appeared small and fragile. Brittle.

His voice roughened. “I don’t know.”

“It’s awful work. I wouldn’t want to be in her place for anything,” Goltzius said quietly.

David would give anything to take her place, but he could only watch and wait.

Hours passed. Several soiled handkerchiefs found in the cottages showed evidence of winter colds and put paid to suspicions that the women had been infected. His aunt finished her examination—and due to the concentrations of blue-burning gas in her lungs, she believed the woman had died of asphyxiation, but she couldn’t be certain.

The afternoon light had faded by the time Annika and the others returned to the ship. David waited on the deck. The devastation and sorrow had passed. In their place he saw utter exhaustion.

Should he go to her? Annika took the decision out of his hands. She came toward him, dragging off her hat. Her arm fell back to her side as if the motion had been a momentous effort. Even her black curls lay flat, hours under the wool plastering them to her head.

He frowned at her. “You should rest.”

“We have to be ready to fly in thirty minutes, so I have to be in the engine room in five.” She glanced over as Mary Chandler stopped at her side. Puffy red skin surrounded the woman’s eyes. “Go on to your bunk. I’ll take the first watch.”

The older woman patted her shoulder. “You’re a good one, Annika. Don’t you let Elena tell you you’re wrong.”

Sudden tears shone in Annika’s eyes. She nodded and waved the older woman on. “Thank you.”

David waited until she’d gone. “What happened?”

“The rumors about the island are true. Elena thought the women deserved it—and that it was the Horde’s fault. I told her that was all guff, and she said I was naïve and stupid. Then she said the same about the women to Mary later, and Mary laid into her.”

Good for Chandler. She couldn’t have known how much Annika would have needed to hear that.

Perhaps she needed to hear it now. Her tears spilled over. She bent her head, turning away from the deck to hide her face.

“Is there anything I can do?” His chest ached. God, he wanted to hold her. “Anything at all?”

“Yes.” She looked up with a watery smile. “Pretend that I’m brave.”

“I don’t have to pretend.”

A quick laugh escaped her. She wiped her cheeks. “You’re good at this.”

He’d persuade her. “You’re brave to trust me.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He lowered his head toward hers. “I could use what you’ve told me of my mother’s people—and your own history. I could trade my silence for Hannasvik’s location.”

Her smile returned again. “That doesn’t require trust. I’d never reveal it.”

“Never?” He might not have helped, but at least he’d distracted her. “Is that secret worth dying for?”

“Yes.”

“You say it so quickly.”

“So you don’t trust that it’s true? But it’s an easy answer. It must be the easiest way to die: protecting someone you love. Your mother did.”

“Yes.” Without hesitation.

A long breath shuddered from her. Her smile faded. “For some
one
, it’s easy. For some
thing
, though…I think it’s harder to die for something you believe in. To stand up and to say that something else is
wrong
. I said it to my friend, but would I shout it aboard this ship? I don’t know. I’d be too afraid of what would happen to me, because so many think as she does. I hate myself for this.”

“When you’re surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn’t a sin.”

“Refusing to challenge that stupidity and letting it continue might end up hurting someone you love, later. I’d die to protect them, but not to tell people that I’ve kissed a woman, too?”

Alarmed, David shook his head. Though he agreed with her in
principle, he’d be the first to knock her off the pulpit if she intended to shout it from the deck. If she intended to risk herself, to stand for her people, he’d be there with her—but there had to be better ways of going about it.

“And would your mother want you to die for someone else’s stupidity?”

“No. But I don’t know that what she wants would matter, because she’d risk herself for me, too.” Her expression slowly deflated on a sigh. She looked exhausted and miserable again. “Excuse me. I’m going to hide in the engine room and cry.”

She returned to the deck earlier than he anticipated. The
sun still shone in the southwestern sky, casting golden light across the water. Behind her aviator goggles, her eyes were red.

“The chief sent me up to eat until the engine needs stoking again. I can’t take a bite.”

After the day she’d had on Heimaey, he wasn’t surprised. “You’re brave to defy his orders.”

“Oh, you
are
good at that.” She laughed a little, shaking her head. “I’ll be stupid if I’m caught. But I realized that it’s less than an hour’s flight to Vik.”

And she’d wanted to spend that time with him. Pleasure swelled in his chest—and was joined by tearing pain.

They had less than an hour.

Her gaze met his. “And I wanted to tell you how much I admire you.”

Sudden dread weighed heavy in his gut. He’d heard that before. If she admired him for losing his legs, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. “Why?”

“Because you intervened at the port gate in Navarra. No matter your reason, you risked yourself to help me. I’d just passed a line of
people waiting for food. I thought,
I could give them the few coins I have
. But I didn’t dare. I could have probably done it without being seen, but I didn’t take that risk.”

So this still ate at her. “A few coins isn’t worth dying for, Annika,” he said. “They wouldn’t buy more food than the Church gave them. And if you
had
been caught, the people you tried to help would have been arrested, too.”

“Perhaps.” Her forehead creased as she considered it. “I’m not even certain if it would be about helping a person, or just making a statement of how stupid it is that I wasn’t allowed to help them.”

“So you’re a troublemaker at heart? Ah, well—I suppose I am, too. I want to walk through the gates simply because I’m not supposed to. The restrictions against the infected are idiotic.” The result of fear cultivated over centuries. Eventually, they’d all pull their heads out of their asses. “If you broke every stupid rule in the New World simply because it was stupid, you’d never have time for anything else.”

“I should choose one or two that matter, then.” Though she wore a faint smile, her gaze remained serious. “If I had been caught, died for it—perhaps someone would realize how stupid it is to die for a few coins. If enough people recognized it, they could make a change. But I didn’t risk anything. And when I was stopped by the port officer, I thought,
Who would come help me?
I wouldn’t even risk giving money to the hungry. You risked it, though. You came to help me.”

She gave him far too much credit. “Because I heard your voice.”

“Would you have helped me anyway?”

“Yes. But it wasn’t the risk you imagine. I knew the port officer’s attention would shift to me, and that he’d feel threatened by either my hand or the infection.”

“He could have clubbed you.”

“I heal quickly.”

“But you can be hurt just as easily as I can, and I’d fear a club
even if I was infected. Stop arguing, David. You risked your life to save me.” Her eyes narrowed behind the goggle lenses. “Would you have killed me to fulfill your promise?”

“
What?
No.” He’d die to protect her.

“I’m glad.” For the first time since arriving at Heimaey, real humor lit her face. “You’d be a bad friend if you did.”

“Yes. But I’d be a good son.”

Her laugh lifted through him. He loved her mouth, her teeth, the flush of cold on her cheeks.

A bell rang on the quarterdeck. Annika glanced over her shoulder, then south, out over the sea. “We’re hailing a ship.”

A wooden ship, wide at the bottom and narrowing as it rose to the main deck, with a high stern. Under full sail, her white canvas bowed in the wind.

“A fluyt, I think,” Annika said, squinting against the sun. “A cargo ship—usually Norwegian or Dutch.”

“They’re flying Norwegian colors.”

She nodded and looked toward the quarterdeck, where Vashon issued orders. “We’ll hail them and ask their captain if they’ve heard of anything similar to Heimaey. Since they’re sailing around the rim, they might be headed there—or to Smoke Cove.”

“So we can warn them, spread the news.”

“Yes.”

Phatéon
slowly banked south—taking them farther away from Iceland’s shore. “This will delay our arrival in Vik.”

“Yes.” She held his gaze for a long second. Then her smile faded, and she looked west. Heimaey rose in the distance. “Do you think the women were killed because of what they did?”

“An act of God?”

“No. Someone else.”

“Someone who hated them enough to kill them all?”

“Or feared them.”

It would probably be a combination. He hesitated, but there
was no delicate way to say it. “If someone hated them
that
much, I don’t think he’d kill them so painlessly.”

“‘He?’”

“Or she.” Though David couldn’t imagine that.

Annika nodded. “I’ve seen that before—a crowd cheering as two men were hanged.”

Jesus Christ. She’d seen that? David never had, but he’d heard of the mob executions. “Yes.”

“So you believe it was a natural death?”

He nodded. “Probably a toxic gas that formed naturally.”

“Like the fissure eruptions? The gases poisoned some—and others were smothered by ash.”

“Yes. That’s not what happened here, but it could be similar.”

She seemed to take comfort in that. He wished to hell that it was appropriate to do more. Hold her, perhaps—or touch her hand.

In all this time, he hadn’t touched her. Not her skin, not her clothes. He wanted to, before leaving
Phatéon
. He would hold the memory close until he saw her again.

Her mittened fingers rested lightly on the rail. He could slide his gloved right hand against her left—or cover it with his. Maybe she wouldn’t pull away.

His heart raced as he screwed up his courage. Damn it, he should just kiss her. She’d admired him for taking a risk. But he’d never feared the port officer’s reaction—and he’d never longed for anything as much as this.

He’d wait until she closed her eyes.

They widened, instead, at the same time a commotion on the deck alerted him. Aviators shouted to each other, while Vashon trained her spyglass to the south.

David looked out toward the ship. “What happened?”

“The fluyt ran up a flag,” Annika told him. “They’re asking for help.”

A puff of smoke appeared at the fluyt’s side. Another. Behind the ship, two geysers of water erupted.

Annika’s mouth dropped. “Did they fire their cannons?”

“Yes,” David said, watching.

Men scrambled on the decks. The cannons blasted again. What were they shooting at? He searched the rolling waves behind the ship. No other vessels…just an enormous shadow on the water.

He glanced up. Aside from
Phatéon
, the skies were clear of airships. Not a shadow, then. Something under the water. Something huge—four times the length of the cargo ship.

Impossible.

David shook his head, looked again. His estimate had to be wrong, or his perception of the depth and distance was. The shadow followed directly behind the ship’s tail. “How long is a fluyt?”

“Sixty feet or so. What are you seeing? What are they firing at?”

A megalodon? But he’d never heard of those giant sharks approaching this size. Only krakens, yet they were all south of the equator.