Blood Ties (5 page)

He finally turned back to Jake, one last argument coming to mind. “Qi may not have even sent that message.” It was a weak accusation, and they both knew it. “How do you know this ain’t all one big trap?”

Jake paused, taking another long sip of coffee as Cole looked on expectantly. “Well, as for it being from Qi, she ended the telegram by calling me
bao bei
. It means ‘darling’ in Mandarin, and it’s what she called me when we were … well … you know. If this came from the Tong, they never would have known to call me that.” He set his coffee cup down and ran his right hand along his brass forearm. With deft fingers he worked a catch set into the metal, opening a small, hinged cover-plate. He extracted a rough-looking cigar from within a small compartment, placed the cheroot in his mouth, and then extracted a match. Striking it with his thumbnail, he eyed Cole as he lit the cigar. “As to this being a trap … well ….” he said, puffing the cigar to life. He exhaled up into the air, the cloud looking very much like a smaller version of the smoke that had come out of Skeeter’s workshop. “I guess I don’t.”

Jake’s eyes followed the smoke rising into the air as he contemplated the day his luck would finally run out, wondering if it was right around the corner.

Chapter Six – Sometimes Settled Ain’t Settled

“Jake wasn’t much for law and order … not in any civilized sense. He would frequently go out of his way to take matters into his own hands rather than wait on the law. But he was also the most honorable man I’ve ever known.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

“I’m just sayin’,” Cole leaned his chair against the kitchen wall, a worried look on his face, “she’s not gonna like it.” He held out his cup for Jake to fill again.

“Not gonna like what?” Skeeter asked as she opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. She eyed Jake suspiciously. Her brown work boots thumped as she approached him, her fists set squarely on her hips. To Jake she sounded more like a hanging judge than a skinny, freckled, sixteen-year-old.

She had on the dirty coveralls she usually wore, and her tan, collarless shirt was covered with soot. An eight-panel grimwig perched on the back of her head, swollen with the long, curled up braid of blond hair she usually kept tucked inside. Most people mistook her for a boy when they saw her, a notion she did little to correct. Skeeter had a brick—not a chip—on her shoulder when it came to how men treated women. And rightly so in Jake’s opinion. It was one of the reasons he had so much respect for her.

She pushed gold-framed glasses up off the tip of her nose. There weren’t lenses in the wire frames—her eyesight was better than perfect by Jake’s reckoning—but attached on either side was a series of small swing-arms with different lenses.

Jake looked down at the young girl. On top of being a genius, the kid had miles and miles of heart. She never let anything get her down, and when she got a head of steam there was just no stopping her. Inventing aside, Jake saw a fair amount of himself in the girl. She didn’t give one good go-to-hell about what people thought, especially the harsh reality of what most men considered a woman’s place, let alone a child’s. Jake fully intended to make sure that nobody got in her way. He took a deep breath, because right then and there
he
was the one in her way.

She held a gauntlet that looked like it would come up to her elbow. She’d been working on it for a couple weeks. She called it a stun glove. The bulk of it was dark brown leather, but it had a skeleton of brass and a web of copper wiring around the outside that ended in pronged caps at the tip of each finger that almost looked like claws. A pair of glass cylinders wrapped in copper bands that glowed blue was attached to the forearm. Copper wires plugged into damn near everything.

Jake recognized the cylinders as aether power-cells of Skeeter’s own design—she really was that smart—although she’d gotten the original design from Baron Gustav Jürgen Von Klattersnap. He was a mad scientist who had been her mentor for a few years before Jake rescued her and ran the crazy son-of-a-bitch out of Evergreen. The glove was her latest inspiration, and she’d told him only yesterday that it would drop a bull in its tracks.

Cole’s right,
he thought,
she’s not gonna like this.

A feeling of dread filled him as he paced through the upcoming conversation in his head. He had to hope she didn’t get riled up enough to hit him with the damn glove.

He hesitated just long enough for Skeeter to start tapping her foot like a perturbed mother. Jake tried to build up the gumption to say what he had to, but all he could think of was,
I can face down a barn full of killers and even go toe-to-toe with a werewolf. Why the hell does this kid scare the shit outta me?

“Well? What am I not gonna like, Jake?” she repeated. She set the glove on the kitchen counter, and Jake breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to the open kitchen window, figuring it would be easier to have the conversation if he wasn’t looking into those big, baby-doe eyes of hers. They were her not-so-secret weapon, going gray when she got riled or teary-green when she wanted to yank on his heartstrings.

“Cole and I are going to San Francisco on a job,” he said quietly.

“San Francisco!” she practically squealed. Both Jake and Cole winced at how loud she was. “I ain’t never been to San Francisco! When do we leave?”

Jake paused and took a deep breath.

“
We
don’t, Skeeter,” he finally said and took a sip of coffee. He found himself looking for the same gophers Cole had vainly sought earlier. He tried to sound caring and gentle and genuinely sorry for saying it, but he knew damn well it wouldn’t help. “Cole and I are going alone. It’s a job—a really dangerous one—and I’m not taking you with us this time.”

“
What
?” she shouted. Safely behind her back, Cole winced again, but Jake couldn’t afford to show her any more weakness. Skeeter was a lot like a wolf …
a really smart one
. If she smelled fear, she only got more ornery.

“Skeeter, you’ve got your customers to worry about.” Jake wracked his brain for reasons to make her stay. “What about that steam-powered milling machine for the baker?”

Skeeter’s back stiffened, and she crossed her arms. “Done last week,” she spat.

“Oh.”
Strike one,
he thought. “What about that electric churn for Mrs. Pots over at the dairy?”

“Where the hell have you been, Jake?” She glared at his back. “Mrs. Pots picked that up three days ago.”

“Oh,” he said even more mutely.
Strike two.

“The Willaker’s cool—”

“Done, Jake,” she cut in, raising an eyebrow.

Strike three.

Jake hated being out of options. He would just have to take the moral high ground. It didn’t sit well with him, though. It brushed up way too close to hypocrisy for his comfort.

“I ain’t got no jobs coming due, Jake.” Skeeter yanked off her grimwig and threw it onto the floor. “Ya gotta let me go, damn it!” Her long blond braid unfurled and snaked down her back. “I ain’t never seen San Francisco!” Her eyes had gone from green to gray. Filled with frustration, they bored into Jake’s back as he stared out the kitchen window. “Hell, I ain’t even seen the damn ocean,” she added, dejected.

“What’d I tell you about that mouth of yours, Skeeter?” Jake asked calmly. She could be feisty, to be sure, but Jake had pretty much taken on the job of surrogate father, and there were a few subjects he wouldn’t budge on. Her propensity for swearing was one of them.

“Sorry, sir,” she mumbled, only slightly mollified. She bent over and picked up her grimwig, placing it back on her head without curling up the braid. “I just—”

Jake finally turned to face her. Her apologetic tone was the opening he needed. “I know, Skeeter … and I’m sorry. I just can’t take a sixteen-year-old girl into Chinatown, especially not when there could be a whole mess of Chinese assassins waiting for us … no matter how smart you are,” he added gently.

“But you know I can take care of myself!” she snapped, her tone almost desperate. “Hell, it was me that helped you put Moondog Cullins out of everyone’s misery. You and Cole woulda’ been shit outta luck without me.”

“Language!” Jake’s reprimand had an edge to it this time.

“Sorry, sir,” Skeeter said again, sounding almost like she meant it.

“She’s got you there, Jake,” Cole finally chimed in, his chair squeaking as he leaned forward. “We never would have captured Ratface without her, and without him Moondog wouldn’t have come to town.”

Jake turned and gave Cole an annoyed scowl. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I am, Jake. I’m just sayin’ that she’s right. You can’t dismiss her like that. Hell, she’s smarter than the two of us put together.”

Jake raised an eyebrow that said,
Don’t help me if you ain’t gonna help me.

“Well,” Cole said apologetically, “you know what I mean.” His voice trailed off, and he bit his lips together to keep them from flapping.

Jake looked down at Skeeter, noting the genuinely disappointed look on her face. She looked up at him with those baby-doe eyes, green once again and on the brink of tears. She even threw in a sniffle for good measure. He hated when she did that. He’d caved in to the routine far too often. He squatted down and put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her softly with his good eye.

“I ain’t saying you’re not smart, Skeeter, and you
did
bail us outta that fiasco with Moondog. That’s not what this is about. Look, Chinatown just ain’t a place for kids, especially not
girls
. One look at that braid of yours and the slavers would have you strung out on opium and whoring before you could say ‘
excuse me
.’” Jake looked deep into Skeeter’s eyes, trying his best to make his point without getting frustrated. “And then I’d have to track them down, and there’d be all the shooting and the killing … followed by a high-tail-it out of San Fran with a bunch of assassins
and
slavers on our backs. We’re supposed to be going to help someone out, and I can’t do that if we’re running for our lives. The organization that wants to hire us tried to kill me last time I was there.” Jake deliberately left out the fight with Quinn. Skeeter would jump on that the same way Cole had, and he didn’t want to have that discussion again. “This is gonna be tricky enough without having to protect you.”

“But—” she started.

“No buts on this one.…
Please
,” Jake implored. “I
can’t
take you with me … okay?” He gave her shoulders a squeeze for emphasis. “I promise I’ll take you after the job is done and things settle down. We’ll all go to San Fran and stay in a real fancy hotel … by the ocean. I promise.”

Skeeter’s face softened a bit, but Jake was too good a card player not to know there wasn’t much give in the girl. She was probably just biding her time. She turned her nose up at him.

“I’m going to my workshop,” she said flatly and grabbed the stun-glove. “I’ll see you two when you get back,” she added, turning on her heel. She marched out stiffly but didn’t slam the back door—she knew better than that. But she didn’t close it gently either.

“She’s gonna be pissed at you for a while, Jake,” Cole said, pointing out the obvious.

Jake sighed, got to his feet, and sat down in the chair across from Cole. “I know. At least it’s settled, though. I sure as hell didn’t know what I was getting into when I decided to take her in.”

Cole chuckled. “I warned ya. But she is a hell of a kid, and with no place else for her to go, you did the right thing.” Cole gave him an appraising eye. “You’re a good man, Jake, no matter what them other people say.” Cole took a sip of his coffee and looked towards the back door. “So when you want to head out?”

“As soon as I can get dressed. The sooner we’re out of the house, the less likely it is she’ll corner me with a better argument. Besides, with Qi in the middle of this I’d like to get there straightaway.” Jake eyed Cole. “You sure you want to come along? You don’t have to, you know. This could turn into a real shit storm.”

“I know Jake, but if it is a trap, who the hell is gonna bail your ass out if it isn’t me?”

Jake thought about it a moment and grinned. “Good point,” he admitted. He took a sip of his coffee and leaned back, looking at his partner.

Riding partners like Cole came once in a lifetime. “Thanks, Cole,” he added more seriously, warm friendship filling his voice.

Cole only nodded, the unspoken friendship between them beyond simple words.

They finished their coffee in silence and heard a muffled explosion from Skeeter’s workshop. Jake sighed, shook his head, and stood up. “Can you go saddle Koto and Lumpy while I get dressed?”

“Sure, Jake. I’ll have ’em ready in no time. You want me to bring the Thumper?”

“Probably a good idea,” Jake agreed. “I hope it doesn’t, but this whole thing could turn into a fiasco faster than a frog jumping off a hotplate.” Jake headed upstairs while Cole went out to the barn to saddle their mounts.

Jake clumped to his room and closed the door behind him. He pulled a lever and waited as the closet opened with a quiet hiss of steam. He pulled off his nightshirt and dropped it on the floor. The filigreed surfaces of his artificial limbs caught his eye. It had been four years, and he still wasn’t used to how they looked, although they felt perfectly natural.

Curls and strange patterns decorated every surface. Set within the patterns were sigils and runes their creator had imbued with magic. That magic allowed Jake’s limbs to be more than just brass clockwork and plating. He traced some of the patterns on his arm with his right index finger, feeling the warmth of the metal underneath. So complete was the magic within that his metal arm could even feel his finger tracing the patterns, as if it were living flesh. He said a quiet
thank you
to old Tinker Farris and another to Maggie Mae Swanson, and even one to old Forsythe who had made it all possible.

Like many Tinkers, Farris had hired on a capable witch, Maggie Mae, to enhance his inventions. Jake’s arm and legs were a combination of the best clockwork available with top-notch witchcraft. Both Farris and Maggie Mae were as good as they came. It made the limbs smooth, quiet, and strong, so real looking that most people didn’t even know he had them when he walked around in regular clothes … and gloves.

Jake stepped up to a small dresser at the back of the closet and pulled out three small cigars from a large tin can. He worked the catch on his forearm and opened the compartment. He slid the cigars in and grabbed several matches. They went in next, and he closed the cover.

He put on tan riding pants, brown boots, and leather spats, followed by a high-collared white shirt, green paisley cravat, and burgundy paisley vest. Opening a small wooden box atop the dresser, he pulled out his father’s leather and brass pocket watch.

Jake’s gun belt, with scrollwork and curls embossed into the heavy leather, came off a hook on the back of the closet door, and he strapped on his pistols. He pulled several boxes of shells from another drawer and filled the leather pouches on the back of his gun belt with .45 rounds, half of them longer than the others.

With a quick and easy pull, the modified cavalry officer’s revolver came free of the right holster. It had a dull nickel finish, and he spun it like the gunslinger he was, quickly checking the load. The pistol had been a gift from Colonel Forsythe, presented as Jake lay in the army medical tent where they’d taken his limbs. It used longer .45 rounds than a standard Colt, and Jake had them made special whenever he was in a big city. He tilted it sideways and read the inscription Forsythe had engraved into a brass plate set into the mahogany grip.