Aether Rising

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Somewhere over the Eastern Newly Re-united States, 10 March 1871

Patrick stood at the counter by the window and watched the world pass beneath him. Or, rather, he caught sight of the land through breaks in the clouds and tried to determine his location.

For what? I can’t alert anyone to rescue me.

At one point he thought he saw a flash of gold, the glint of sun on a brass device, but he couldn’t find it again. It would make sense, though, for the Clockwork Guild to be following them. He didn’t believe for one second what Davidson had told them, that Cobb and the Guild had come to some sort of amicable agreement. More likely, they pretended to, but neither side trusted the other, and the guild had one talent—spying.

And here he was trapped in the air and headed to Boston, where he’d be kept in a cage of some sort and made to work on something that would enhance peoples’ emotions, but that he didn’t understand well enough to put safeguards into, while waiting for some sort of release from a man he hardly trusted.

A different shape caught Patrick’s attention, a bird of some sort. It was too small to belong this high up in the air. He tested the windows and found that one would open, although not far enough for him to squeeze through. He left it slightly ajar, and the strange object came at the airship arrow-straight. When it got close enough, Patrick saw it wasn’t a bird, but rather some sort of brass device shaped into a metal dragon-type creature. Its wings, each about the length and breadth of his two hands side-by-side with fingers outspread, flapped with mechanical rhythm, and its multifaceted green eyes glittered.

The airship’s engines changed pitch, and Patrick held on so he wouldn’t be thrown to the floor when it accelerated. Cold air whistled through the open window, but Patrick didn’t shut it. He couldn’t stop watching the creature, which pursued them with relentless determination. The hiss-pop of steam rifles going off above him made him press himself to the back of the room, and the creature shuddered as though hit. It opened its mouth and let forth a small plume of sparks. That was enough of a message—the gunfire stopped lest it decide to latch on to the hydrogen balloon. The wyrm reached Patrick’s open window, detached its wings, and fell through the crack, now a clockwork worm that telescoped into itself around a wax message cylinder. After closing the window, Patrick picked it up and stuck it in his pocket just before his door was flung open.

“Did you see it?” This was the thug Patrick had named Monkeyface because the man had ridiculously protruding ears behind long side whiskers.

“See what?”

“The dragon.” Monkeyface moved his arms with similar undulating motions to the ones the flying clockwork displayed.

Patrick enjoyed how ridiculous the man looked before answering, “Yes, I saw it.”

“Did you see what happened to it?”

Patrick practiced talking around the truth rather than lying. “It looked like you shot its wings off, and it fell.”

Monkeyface sagged, his grin revealing he must not like his teeth much considering how many were missing. “Oh, that’s good news. You never know what sorts of creatures you’ll encounter over the mountains. Spies’re everywhere.”

“I don’t doubt it. Now if you’re done panicking over strange clockworks, please tell Mister Cobb I’m ready for my tea.”

Now the thug scowled. “You won’t be telling Mister Cobb what to do. It doesn’t even work for his own daughter, and little girls is s’posed to be able to wrap their papas around their littlest finger.”

“Then please tell him I accept his invitation to join him and the lovely Miss Cobb.” Patrick straightened his shirtsleeves and tried to walk past the guard, but Monkeyface elbowed him in the solar plexus. Patrick fell to his knees with a wheezing breath.

“Nice try, Red. You’ll get your tea when he says you can get your tea.”

Patrick coughed, and the door slammed behind the guard. Patrick wanted to know what the creature left him, what message was on the cylinder, but he would have to wait for a more secure place than the laboratory. And rig up something to listen to it with. He remembered Marie’s stories of Parnaby or his men spying on their airship guests. He hoped no one had seen his delivery. He suspected that everyone was watching for the creature and lost sight of it when it approached the airship.

Iris peered through the telescope up at the Blooming Senator, but the same clouds that kept them from being detected obscured her view.

“Do you think he got it?” she asked her husband, Edward. He stood beside her and looked through binoculars.

“I think so. The wings have just dropped, so it attached to something on the airship.”

Iris screwed her one eye into an unladylike squint, but it didn’t clarify the image through the lens or help her see the falling canvas wings of the modified clockwork worm, now wyrm. With a sigh, she lowered the device and blinked to clear the afterimages. She was more accustomed to and comfortable with peering into underground places, not the open, sunny sky.

“If he wasn’t the one, we’re all in trouble.” She leaned into Edward, who now sported a rakish tan. He put an arm around her and pulled her close.

The desert had been good for him. The sun and wind cleared the gloom that had fogged his brain in Paris before they had realized the aether gas could affect emotions. He had confided in her the depth of his melancholia and just how close he’d gotten to—well, she wasn’t going to think about that.

They were back in the States—the reunited states, thanks to Patrick O’Connell and Chadwick Radcliffe—and about to rescue their friend from the clutches of Parnaby Cobb.

Sometimes it was difficult to focus on the present when her mind was used to pondering the past and the ancient danger that still lingered.

The ship descended into the mountains and slipped further under the heavy gray clouds. When it landed, Edward opened the door of the observation deck and lowered the ladder, stairs being too heavy for a smaller vehicle such as the Skycatcher. Iris followed him, not able to resist caressing the soft material of the left air chamber on the way down and grateful once again that the Ottomans had no problem with women wearing trousers, at least not when they crewed ships. Getting up and down would have been difficult if not impossible in her skirts.

Marie and Johann met them at the bottom. The Skycatcher’s nets had been retracted, but Iris was still careful not to step on any strings that might have escaped.

“Did it work?” Johann asked. Mist clung to his blond hair, and dark curls escaped from Marie’s braid. They each held up a wing. “They caught these in the nets.”

“I think so,” Edward said. “Now we just have to reach Boston on time.”

“I hope it got to him,” Marie showed Iris the wing she held. A bullet had pierced the canvas. Iris pressed the ribs, but no images or impressions came through. Her talent had grown stronger, but she still needed someone to have had real contact with an object for her to glean emotions and images from it.

“The wings wouldn’t have detached unless the wyrm managed to latch on to something,” Edward reminded them. “We tested it, remember?”

Iris nodded and rested a hand on his arm. “Waiting is always the hardest part.”

Edward checked his pocket watch. “That reminds me. It’s almost time for tea.”

Johann rolled his eyes. “Please tell me that after all we’ve been through—”

Edward grinned, and Iris laughed. “He’s just teasing.” Then her stomach rumbled. “But I have to agree with him this time.”

They entered the lower gondola, and the rumble of the engines made the entire thing shake as the ship took off. Once it achieved the air, the Skycatcher’s feel smoothed out.

Louisa looked up from her magazine and the article titled, “What to Do When You Meet an Old Beau” when she heard the shots. Of all the rooms in the airship, she preferred the smaller, more informal dining room, which was interior and therefore allowed her to convince herself she wasn’t in a moving vehicle. In fact, she likely wouldn’t have heard the pops from the steam rifles had she been truly engrossed in what she was reading, but her mind kept wandering to a certain captive Irishman and a party long ago. Regular etiquette advice didn’t seem to apply as well to him.

She closed her eyes and tried to feel if the airship was losing altitude—which would indicate they had been fired upon and hit—and the thought of plunging through the clouds to the jagged peaks of the mountains below made her stomach quiver. No, the airship seemed to remain steady, and her curiosity piqued. Sometimes the men took shots at birds flying nearby, but they should be higher than any natural creature could fly.

So that leaves unnatural creatures or attackers. And there would be more shouting and firing if we were under attack.

A conference room sat behind a wall that could be retracted to open up the space for dinner parties too large for the dining room. She rose and moved toward the door, her ears alert for any signs of further conflict. There were legends of large flying creatures over the mountains, and if one approached the airship, she wanted to see it.

The conference room door opened for her with a squeak, and she was relieved to see the room was empty. The sky shone light blue without any variation in color from clouds, and she could almost convince herself it was merely glowing wallpaper or a screen, like on a stage. A glance to her left told her the door to Parnaby Cobb’s office was cracked open, so she moved slowly so as not to alert him to her presence with the rustling of her skirts.

She reached the windows and deliberately kept her gaze straight ahead or up so she wouldn’t look at the ground. Alas, there was nothing at eye level or above, so she squinted her eyes and peeked downward.

In spite of the sun hitting the windows, the glass radiated cold. Its bite gave her something to focus on other than the sensation of her stomach falling to her feet and beyond when she saw the clouds and the patches of dark brown and green that showed in the gaps. She chewed the inside of her cheek to forestall her stomach’s progress toward nausea and forced herself to look for anything unusual.

“Louisa?”

Cobb’s voice made her spin around too fast to face him, and her stomach lurched. She covered her mouth with her hand and chewed on both cheeks. She drew in deep breaths through her nose while focusing on a knot on the conference table.

“What are you doing in here? You know you can’t handle the view,” he said. “And it could be dangerous.”

“Why?” Her voice sounded like a squeak because she dared not open her mouth too far.

“Because a strange clockwork creature was sighted.”

“The Guild?” She allowed him to steer her out of the room and into the dining room, where she sank into her chair. She closed the magazine with a snap.

“I’m not sure.” He didn’t meet her eyes, and she wondered if he and the odd organization had fallen out. He had brought her along to their most recent meeting that she knew of, and the man, who wore a mask, hadn’t been able to say three words. At least not three honest ones. Relations between Cobb and the Clockwork Guild had been strained since.

Or worse—had he seen what she was reading?

“What was it?” Although her stomach settled, she couldn’t help the little ladylike burps that escaped with every other breath, so she kept her questions short.

“Some sort of flying dragon creature, but not large.” He held out his hands. “About so big.”

“Spying?”

“Or delivering something. Morlock is talking to O’Connell now to see if he received anything. Perhaps I should let you question him.”

The thought of the lab with all its windows extinguished the flare of excitement at seeing O’Connell again. Was Cobb toying with her? He’d told his men to keep her and Patrick apart.

“I need a few minutes for my stomach to settle.”

Cobb patted her on the shoulder, but she noticed the corners of his mouth draw tight with disgust under his whiskers. She hated these moments that made her look like a weak female, but she couldn’t help it. Motion sickness and fear of heights had followed her since she was a child.

“I wasn’t serious. Do you need your laudanum?” he asked.

Louisa shook her head, which made it spin more. Why had she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her?

“Yes, I believe I do. I have some in my chamber. I’m going to lie down.”

Morlock appeared at the top of the stairs. “He says we shot the wings off it, Sir.”

“And you believed him?”

Morlock shrugged. Louisa drew back from his smell—body odor and sickly sweet pipe tobacco—and chewed her cheek again.

“We’ll watch him, don’t worry, Sir.”

“Good. Can you accompany Miss Cobb to her room? She’s not feeling well.”

“I can make it on my own, Father,” Louisa said and kept her voice even with every ounce of her will.

He knows how that man’s smell turns my stomach. Does he want me to vomit in his airship?

“Very well,” Cobb said. “Back to your post, Morlock. Let me know if you need a physician, Louisa.”

“I should be fine.” Unless your doctor can cure me of these irritating sensitivities I inherited from Mother.

She clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t shake and waited for the two men to leave the room. Her tea had cooled, but it calmed her stomach better lukewarm than it would have hot. After sufficient time had passed for Morlock’s smell to depart from the passage, she rose and made her shaky way two levels down to the hallway with the bedrooms. Lying on her bed brought her some relief, but footsteps above her kept her from sleeping.

The Irishman paced in his prison.