Riveted (23 page)

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kentewess, but you can’t. Dr. Kentewess?”
Though Vashon’s voice softened slightly, there was no give in it. “You will join us, too.”

But she hadn’t been off of the airship in years. Eyes widening, Annika looked to the doctor. Her face pale as milk beneath her mink hat, Lucia nodded and stepped forward. David opened his mouth; his aunt quelled him with a glance. His jaw clenched, but he nodded.

“Mr. James, you have the deck,” Vashon told the first mate. “No man steps foot on this island. Cover us from above.”

They followed her onto the cargo lift where Lucia stood, trembling as the clacking chains broke the unnatural silence. The woman’s anxiety increased as they descended, her breath coming in quick bursts. Annika took her hand, held her gaze. She couldn’t promise that Lucia would be all right.

Only this. “If you need me, I’ll be here for you.”

Lucia nodded, her fingers tightening on Annika’s.

They stepped off the platform into knee-deep snow. Vashon waded to the buried form in the street. There was no need to say what needed to be done. Annika let go of Lucia’s hand and began scooping away snow, with Elena working on the other side. Light and powdery, it brushed away easily until they hit a crystalized layer below, and the brushing became scraping. Slowly, the snow revealed a pair of unlaced boots, legs frozen a pale blue, a white linen nightgown.

“Damn it.” Vashon’s breath huffed out. “Uncover all of her.”

They did, working over her head first, carefully brushing her face clear. Her dark hair had been loosely braided, and her expression was peaceful—as if she’d passed in her sleep instead of lying in a street.

Lucia examined her, and as the seconds passed, her breathing slowed and her hands steadied. By the time she looked up, frowning, her earlier anxiety had all but gone. “I don’t see any injuries.”

“How long has she been here?”

“Frozen as she is, Captain, it’s impossible to be certain. I don’t think it has been long.”

“It’s only two or three days’ worth of snow,” Annika said. “The first layer of powder fell last night, but the rest warmed in the sun during the day before freezing again, and below her it’s packed hard from use. It was probably the prior evening, or the evening before that, depending on how much time passed between the two snowfalls.”

“And she was in bed, or preparing for bed.” Vashon nodded and looked to the nearby cottage. “She left the door open and came out to see…what?”

Annika couldn’t imagine. She shook her head, saw Elena do the same. Sorrow lined her friend’s face as she gazed down at the woman.

“Should we cover her, Captain?”

Vashon gave Elena a pistol. “You and Fridasdottor go into the cottage, find a blanket.”

Annika hoped they wouldn’t need a lot of them. Snow had spilled through the open door, sloping down across the floorboards and over the edge of a rag rug. The cottage only boasted one room, and it was small, tidy. Annika dragged a colorful quilt from the bed, trudged back out to the snow. Above, crew and passengers lined
Phatéon
’s side, looking down. Annika saw David’s worried expression before a splash of crimson caught her eye. Maria Madalena Neves stood with her nurse, her beautiful features cast into sharp lines of despair.

Annika couldn’t bear to look up again. If this had been a place for her and her lover to go and live without fear…it wasn’t anymore.

Elena reached the captain, shook her head. “No one else was inside, ma’am.”

“All right. The doctor and I will check the next cottage. You two take that one.”

Annika plowed through the snow with Elena. This cottage was larger, with a separate sleeping chamber. In the hearth room, a cat lay curled up in front of stove. Annika bent to slide her fingers through its fur. “Frozen stiff.”

“And killed in its sleep,” Elena said, covering her mouth. “It got the better of a
cat
. What could do this?”

Annika shook her head, battling her own terror. Whatever had done this, could it still be here?

They found two women in the bedchamber. Elena pulled the blanket away. They lay back to back in nightgowns as if asleep. Swallowing past the ache in her throat, Annika examined their necks and faces.

No blood, no bruising. “Do you see any injuries?”

“No.” Elena dragged the blanket back up, carefully covered their heads. Her voice was thin with fear. “Annika.”

“I know.” She was scared, too. Heart pounding, she studied the room. A writing desk sat beneath a window. “There’s a diary.”

Elena picked it up, flipped through the pages. “It’s in Spanish. The last date was three days ago—and there’s an entry every day. So it must have happened that night. Should we take this?”

“Yes. Is there any mention of what happened?”

“I’ll look.” She read as she walked, only glancing up as they came out into the sun. “Do we keep checking each house?”

Annika didn’t want to, afraid that they’d only find more of the same—but knew they would, in the hope that they might find someone alive. Across the street, Vashon and Lucia emerged from their cottage. Judging by the tight set of their features, they hadn’t seen anything different than she and Elena had.

They met in the middle of the street. “We have a diary,” Elena said. “There’s no mention of what caused it yet, but I’ll keep reading to see if there’s anything odd in the weeks before. Two more women were inside.”

“We found one more in bed.” Vashon closed her eyes, rubbed her forehead. “All right. Dr. Kentewess, return to the ship and send down every female crew member. We’ll bring one of the bodies to sick bay. Try to figure out what killed them. The rest of us will search every cottage, every building.”

“Shouldn’t we bury them, ma’am?” Elena asked.

“We can’t. The ground is frozen.”

Which was why the women of Hannasvik only buried their beads. “We could build a pyre.”

“These are Christian women, Fridasdottor.” Vashon’s voice had a razor’s edge.

“Yes, ma’am.” Though leaving them to rot didn’t seem right, no matter what they were.

The captain must have agreed with that, at least. “Anyone we find out in the snow, we’ll take into one of the cottages. The cold will keep them until we can notify the Church. Once we’ve finished, we’ll fly on to Vik. There’s a priest there, if I remember. So let’s get started. Pickart, you and Fridasdottor search the cottages in this row.”

They started off with Elena’s nose in the diary. Halfway there, she shut it with a gasp.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Elena said. But her face colored, and Annika didn’t think the blush came from the cold and the effort of walking through the snow. “I’m not sure they were all Christian women, though.”

“Neither am I,” Annika said wryly.

Though maybe she was, a little. Sunday services included versions of stories that Annika had heard many times, passed down from Hanna. How many did Annika have to hear before she was one or the other?

“The captain knows you didn’t mean anything by it.” Elena
kicked away the snow piled against the cottage door, pushed it open. “You’re different, Annika, but you’re not unnatural.”

This
was unnatural. Another woman sat frozen in her bed, this one older, her hair white, the tight curls cut as short as Annika’s. Her shoulders propped by pillows, she’d been knitting a hat when she’d died. Her chin rested against her chest, as if she’d fallen asleep as she’d worked.

Annika’s vision blurred as she pulled the blanket up. How many women lived on this island? She didn’t know how to bear doing this over and over again.

Elena was managing better. Eyes clear, she said, “Let’s go on.”

They searched five more cottages, found more women, all in bed and sleeping—some single, some together. Elena abruptly stopped in the sixth doorway.

“Go on back. Not these.”

What was different? Frowning, Annika pushed past her. Oh. Her heart constricted. They hadn’t been sleeping. Unclothed, they lay in each other’s arms. “I didn’t know you were so modest, Elena.”

“Annika, don’t.” Elena’s frustrated sigh followed her inside, and her silence held until Annika covered them. “You waste your pity. They brought this on themselves.”

Annika stilled, certain she hadn’t heard that correctly. “What?”

“Don’t you see? All of these women are like this—committing unnatural acts that led to an unnatural death.”

Disbelieving, Annika stared at her. Elena was the kindest person she knew. To hear her speak so cruelly was shocking. “You don’t believe that.”

“Oh, you’re so innocent. Soft-hearted. Come on.”

Elena took her hand. Feeling brittle inside, as if that touch might break her, Annika yanked it away.

“God, Annika, you belong on Hymen Island more than they do. Do you understand what these women were doing?”

“I understand perfectly.”

“I doubt it. You have no idea what it’s like to grow up knowing that the Horde might land on your shores at any moment.”

No. She’d been afraid people like Elena might. “What does the Horde have to do with it?”

“You know what they did to the people they controlled, those frenzies? Those bugs in their blood drove them to pure lust—not caring whether the person they were with was a woman or a man. It’s horrifying.”

Annika knew all about the frenzies. Some of the Englishwomen had lived through them, had passed the stories down. They’d described a terrifying loss of control, forced to rut with anyone nearby whether they wanted that person or not.

These women had been making love. “You’d compare being raped to this?”

That
was horrifying.

“Thanks to the Horde and their frenzies, the infected in England don’t know what family is. They never married, never raised their own children, never learned the natural order of life. These women aren’t controlled by bugs, but they’re still giving in to that urge. Something is wrong in them, Annika, and what you see isn’t love. It’s just lust. And if it continues unchecked, the New World will be the same as any Horde territory.” She glanced over at the bed. “That’s probably why they are all sent here—so they can’t corrupt the rest of us.”

“No.” Annika wanted to slap her. “They’re brought here for protection from people who think like you.”

“Damn it. Can’t you see—” Elena broke off with a long-suffering sigh. “You have a good heart, Annika, but you’re too sensitive. You’ll understand, one day. Come on.”

Annika already understood. Elena thought they were all sick. Only this morning, she’d been terrified that David would have this very response. Now, she was glad to have taken a risk.

This wasn’t the friend she’d expected to lose today.

It was impossible to remain still. David paced the deck
, frustration and worry dogging every step. On the street below, Lucia directed three aviators carrying a blanket-wrapped form onto the cargo lift. He couldn’t help his aunt. He couldn’t help Annika. He could only watch her go from house to house, her expression when she emerged telling him that she’d found more death inside.

He stopped pacing, clenched his hands on the gunwale when Annika came out of the next cottage. Something had changed. Instead of the sorrow that had seemed to weigh on her shoulders and the unsettled fear that kept her gaze darting around, as if she expected a threat to jump out from beneath the snow, now her posture was stiff, her expression devastated. The second mate walked ahead, a faint scowl darkening her face.

An argument?

Look up, Annika.
He wanted to see her face better, to offer whatever support he could. Her eyes remained downcast. She disappeared into the next cottage.

Christ.

The cargo lift clanked into place. The other men gathered at the gangway, their heads bare, their faces reflecting his own frustration. David joined them, removing his hat as the aviators carried the dead woman past. Lucia followed, her mouth set and eyes dark with worry. She caught his gaze, paused.

“What happened to them?”

“We don’t know.” She tugged at the fingers of her gloves, gestured for him to walk with her. “Most of them were sleeping—even the animals. I couldn’t find a mark on them. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Not outside a cave.”

Lucia’s gaze sharpened. “You refer to the miner’s death?”

“Yes.” Concentrations of toxic gas suffocated the men. When
the bodies were found, the miners appeared as if they’d fallen asleep.

“At least one woman was out in the open. Do you know of anything else that is similar?”

An entire town dead? “I’ve heard of one village smothered when gas erupted from a volcanic lake. But the people were burned, had lesions on their skin.” He looked out at the cliffs, the small cone on the west side of Heimaey, the nearby islands. “This is an active region. This island might be, too. Perhaps a chamber of gas lay below the water, and a tremor broke it open.” David had to admit he was grasping. “I don’t know.”

And he wasn’t the best man to ask. He waved Dooley and Goltzius over, told them what Lucia had found.

She looked to Goltzius. “Could it be a plant? Something they’ve eaten?”

“Not at this scale. And the animals were affected, too—so it would have to be something everyone ate, yet there are no visible signs.” The Dutchman shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely.”