Steamscape (13 page)

Those levers were left unchecked. The masked man on the platform was aiming his rifle. Saturni’s eyes were just now starting to widen.

Adri grabbed Solindra by the neck and threw them both to the floor. Solindra immediately started to roll over, her hand pawing at her sancta. She stared up through the window at the dual spinning blades. There was steam driving that engine. If she could just get the cipher medallion close enough…

Adri placed a hand on her shoulder, and Solindra felt her chest constrict. Cold fire danced along her skin. Before all feeling numbed, she felt the prickling of the hammer shape of Adri’s sancta through her corset.

“No,” the steam princess whispered. She pulled back her hand and the freezing weight from Solindra’s shoulder stopped pulsing.

The rifleman fired at Saturni’s chest.

But not before Saturni’s assistant began firing with his own pistol. In the same instant, they exchanged a volley of gunfire.

Saturni recoiled in his seat and stared at the red smear across the leather from where the bullet had clipped his ear. The blood trickled into the hole in the back of the chair.

The assistant stepped forward and landed another shot in the chest of the assassin. The stunned rifleman staggered back and collapsed off the helicopter platform, plunging out of sight. The machine tipped up and soared into the sky now that it had lost the counterweight.

Solindra finally remembered to breathe. She pushed herself up to her knees and hands and stared at the floor. It seemed solid enough.

“Get those girls out of here!” was the only thing she heard. She thought it was Saturni’s voice, but she was far from certain.

“Come along.” Adri pulled Solindra up by the shoulders and brushed off her dress as they slipped outside the room.

Solindra was still shaking as they walked through the vaulted halls of Steampower’s headquarters. Adri just walked with a slight frown on her face, as if she had drunk sour milk.

Suddenly, a tall, handsome man around Jing’s age, wearing the black uniform of a courier, winked at Solindra when he stepped into her path. She flinched and grabbed at her sancta, but Adri stepped directly in front of her.

Judging by his calmness, she figured that he couldn’t possibly know what had just happened. She was still trying to slow her breathing.

He handed a thick envelope to Adri. “To you personally, my lady.” With another wink, he was gone.

Neither Solindra nor Adri watched him leave. The vessel tried to read around the other woman’s arm, but she couldn’t get a view.

The steam princess immediately rolled the letter up. Then she smiled. “I think it’s time to fly away from this gilded cage.”

“We don’t even know where Flame is.” Theo groaned and kicked another rock down the road. He inhaled more dust as he breathed. It was so thick that it created a low-hanging haze on the horizon, and the humidity made it stick to his skin. A town was visible in the distance, or at least the mirage of a town against the desert scrublands. They’d left the trees a few days behind by the river.

“Be glad of that,” Drina replied. “It’s not him that we’re worried about.”

“Cylinder’s got to be fine. He took her alive” Jing looked straight ahead as he limped down the road. “I hate to imagine what might’ve happened if she’d been with us when we encountered Smith.”

“You know he’s circling us like an eagle again,” the assassin said. “He has to be.”

“Doesn’t matter. We still find Cyl.”

“We could just shoot him,” Theo offered.

“Better be sure of that shot, boy.” Jing didn’t look down at him either. “More than just aim. The man’s a born crypter.”

“Not a
born
crypter,” Drina whispered. The wind picked up around them, stealing their breath for conversation and bringing even more dust into their eyes and ears.

As they drew closer, the shadows of the town’s buildings became more solid. They didn’t look burnt out either.

Jing clumped down his metal foot. “This all brings us back to Flame, who is our only lead.”

“No.” Theo bunched his fists. “Because the next time we see him, he’s going to have his candle snuffed out.”

“You’d better be sure of that shot too, son,” Jing said.

Drina lifted an eyebrow. “And you might want to, maybe, I don’t know,
be armed
first?”

Theo growled, but couldn’t stop the flush from lighting up his face.

“Or, knowing Flame, maybe calling him names will make him explode. Or you might discover your final heat tolerance. And he’s got Cyl.” She scowled. “I can’t even guess that vituperative jackass’s motive. Could be money. Could be Flame being Flame.”

Jing nodded. “Remember when he used to try to grab the rising sun at sunrise like a kid chasing a rainbow? The ultimate fireball, he called it.”

“And we don’t know where he is.”

Theo felt his entire body lock up. “Yes, we do.” He gulped, finding himself unable to even bring his arm up to point.

Flame waved at them from the road in front of the town. Smoke and fires were starting to rise up from behind him, towering high over the buildings. He spread out his arms and smiled like a miracle-performing saint as he walked out of the growing furnace behind him.

Then he grinned like a toddler, his sabers and pistols all rattling together as he started to jog toward them. “Mm, nothing like the scent of chaos. I’m sorry I stole your spy and set your boat on fire. Let’s go get some coffee!”

Theo still couldn’t move. This was the second time he’d met the murderer, and he couldn’t move!

“Spy? What spy? Oh.” Jing lumbered in between the bricoleur and Flame.

“So you went into contract work too?” He held his empty palms up to both Drina and Jing. “Guarding a Codic spy though, that’s a bit beneath us, don’t you think?”

Drina just forced a smile.

Flame checked over his shoulder to see the entire town. “Too bad it was already abandoned before I got here.” He smacked himself in the forehead. “Coffee, right! Um, the next town then? My bad.”

Theo was vibrating as if in a very personal earthquake, unable to make his muscles respond to his mental commands.

Flame leaned over toward Theo like a melodramatic actor. He shaded his eyes. “What’s he for?”

“Training him up,” Jing answered.

“What?” Flame barked a laugh. “You trying to put players back on the team? The Hex is over, man.”

Theo ripped off his gloves and raised his scarred hands. He tore at his shirt to show the mess that was his chest. “You did this to me!”

There was no reaction. No furrowed brow of thought, no perplexity or recognition. Flame eventually shrugged. “Eh, you survived. I don’t see what you’re complaining about.” He patted Theo’s head and grinned. “What do you fellas think about this war, huh?” He rubbed his hands. “Best fun I’ve had in years! No more sneaking around at night!”

“You did this to me!” Theo screamed again.

“What?” Flame blinked. “Sounds like
someone’s
a little obsessed if you ask me.” He whistled and pointed at his head, circling his finger in the universal sign language for crazy. “Hey, I figured you’d be moving away from the river–”

“You did this!” Theo shoved Jing aside with all the strength of rage. He marched forward. “You burned me. You murdered my whole caravan. You killed my family!”

Flame leaned away from the spittle. He inserted his pinky finger into his ear and wiggled it. “So? I murdered my whole family too. And you know what? It got me a job.” He licked his extracted earwax.

Theo sputtered between rage and confusion. He stood motionlessly, trembling out of both emotions.

“Can I kill him?” Flame looked at the mechanic. “You can find another apprentice.”

“No,” Jing said.

“Fine.” Flame shrugged. He rubbed his palms together again. “Where’s ol’ Silvermark? I want to know what happened to him after he went crazy and stole some dyin’ bitch’s baby.”

“Dead,” Jing said.

Flame spun around like a dancer and dipped his face next to Drina’s. He winked. “Finally did it, huh?”

The Death Spinner shook her head. “He died of influenza.”

The pyromaniac laughed. “I don’t believe it. Not unless you figured out how to poison somebody with the flu.”

“You killed everyone I knew!” Theo screamed.

Flame’s eyes flickered back over the young man. “Are we still talking about this?”

“Y-You! You devil!”

Drina pulled down Jing’s arm and whispered, “He’s gotten crazier through the years.”

Jing shrugged. “Or maybe we’ve gone sane.” He cleared his throat and picked Theo up in one hand by the back of his neck. “Down, boy.”

“What?” Theo kicked at the air uselessly.

The Hex members ignored him while Jing set the bricoleur back down, but kept a squeeze on his shoulder. Drina pointed at Flame. “Why are you here?”

Flame batted his eyes. “The folks over in Redjakel want me dead, so I thought I’d switch sides for a while. By the way, do you know that their idea of fire control is to shut their river-gates and flood the city? No joke! Town on fire and all gates closed to make a flood. This is fun at its finest!”

An empty, wide-eyed silence saturated the air around them. Only the sounds of the winds fanning the flames could be heard.

“Did you do that?” Drina finally asked.

“No.” Flame still grinned. “It’s too big, so then I remembered I saw my old friends and thought that they would want some fun too.”

“Only us? What about the others?” Jing murmured.

“Eh. Playboy Parrot’s supposedly working somewhere inside Codic, and Slayer is sailing with some foreign trading company on the other side of the world – provided he ain’t dead yet.” Flame shrugged again. “But I think the three, no, four of us could do it. I’ve got this balloon hidden on the library’s rooftop, so we’ll have a superb view. I’ll even bring some half-pennies we can throw at people.”

Theo broke free and charged. Jing caught him up in two arms, but the enraged young man carried him a few feet down the road. “Did you throw half-pennies at my mother too? Did you throw half-pennies at my brothers?”

The bricoleur wrenched against Jing, but the mechanic’s grip was steel.

“I like him.” Flame smiled. “He’s got an inner fire.” He tilted his head to the side. “Look at it burnin’ in his pretty eyes. So pretty.”

Theo dug his heels into the ground, suddenly reeling away from the insanity. Jing let go.

Flame ducked forward in the moment of movement and danced back before.

“What– How did you–?” Theo could see his few remaining phosphorus capsules in between Flame’s fingers. “Hey!” He grabbed at his pockets.

Flame suddenly twisted apart one of the capsules and threw the sparking, fiery powder into the air. “You’re trying to replace me! He’s supposed to be the new Flame, ain’t he? You’re building a new Hex!”

Both of the other Hex members started to laugh, all the while never diverting their eyes from him.

“Please!” Drina chuckled. “Not unless Silvermark ordered it. Oh, and he can’t.”

“And I don’t
want
to go back to playing for both Steampower and Codic, especially now.” Jing managed a grin.

“Both sides?” Theo rasped. But his mouth was already drying out. “All of you used to play both sides? Like what they forced us to do?”

Flame waved a hand in front of Theo’s face. “Poor bastard is just stuck in the past.” He whipped his fiery grin back to the other two. “So, Redjakel then?”

Drina crossed her arms. “We want our spy back first. Then we’ll talk about Redjakel and Theo’s anger troubles. But our spy first.”

Theo inhaled to scream again, but his throat trapped his words. That vicious voice in the shadows of his mind massaged his shoulders and breathed in his ear in Merlina’s sultry voice, attack him now. He’s there and not expecting it. You owe the girl nothing.

Theo planted his feet and looked beyond Flame into the burning town behind him. “Solindra first.” He closed his eyes and tried not to hear the raging thunder inside his own head. His survivalist voice seethed against his denial. He felt the heat flare out across his skin.

Drina stepped between Theo and Flame. She poked the short pyromaniac in the chest. “
And
if you don’t stick to the plan this time, I’ll tell Theo here your real name.”

Flame stamped his feet and marched around in a circle. “Fine! But maybe I’ll just throw you out of the balloon too! And that is
never
my name. I’m Flame, alright?” He stopped so suddenly that it looked as if he’d walked into a wall. He pulled back his hair and flashed a smile. “Coffee?” He leaned toward Theo and said in a stage whisper, “Whatever else she says, just remember that she can stick needles in between your vertebrae so that you’re paralyzed and you’d never even feel it.”

“Flame!” The assassin snapped her fingers. “Cylinder first. Then Theo gets to work out his scars on you. Blood debt, you know the rules.”

He sagged. “Aww… But those rules aren’t civilized. We do live in the Steamscape, you know.” Flame looked at Drina with puppy eyes. “I get to fight back, right?”

“Not against a blood debt.”

“Let him.” Theo tugged his gloves back on his hands. “It won’t matter.”

Flame cupped his cheeks in his palms. “Such fiery eyes.”

Jing half-smiled. “Then how many unpaid blood debts do you owe, Drina?”

She cocked a grin. “None. No one’s alive to claim them.”

Theo made himself look into Flame’s all-too-cheerful face. “We need to get Solindra back. And soon too, so that my ghosts can pay you back. So where the hell is she?”

Flame’s face twisted as if he was going to sneeze. “I don’t know about where she is
now
. Adri’s not so cuddly like me.” He threw open his arms for a hug, causing his pistols, rapiers and homemade incendiary devices to jangle together on his bandoliers.

“Adri?” Jing repeated. “Steam Princess Adri? What could she possibly want with Cyl?”

Drina rolled her eyes. “What could any powerful person want with a true crypter?”