Angel of Brass

Angel of Brass

Elaine Corvidae

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Elaine Corvidae

Cover art copyright 2012 Elaine Corvidae

Edited by Alexandra Gilly

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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To the time travelers, mad scientists, and
airship pirates: steam punks all.

Chapter 1

The airship wasn’t going to make it.

Strange noises had started coming from the
engine an hour ago, and the ship began to lose altitude shortly
thereafter. Jin didn’t know if the engine was the problem, or if
the silk balloon had sprung a leak, or if he had simply made some
elementary mistake. The latter seemed likely, given that he’d never
tried to fly one of the cursed things before. It was about all he
could do to set the course and point the bow in the right
direction.

He swore and tugged on a few of the ropes
ineffectually, then snatched up the telescope and went to the rail
for the third time in an hour. The wind tore at his shoulder-length
hair and made his eyes water when he pushed up his goggles to peer
through the scope. Moonlight silvered the rolling green hills below
and turned the road that he’d been following into a gray dust
river. It also silhouetted the airship, which was unfortunately
convenient for the persons looking for him.

The road stretched empty below. He’d lost
track of the steam car around the same time the engine had started
to go. It was too much to hope that the smiling men had given up
and gone back to Dr. Malachi, though.

The airship skimmed low over the hills.
Beyond, the land fell away suddenly, into a valley that ran down to
the sea. In the distance, waves sparkled under the moon; nearer at
hand gleamed the lights of Chartown. The gaslights glittered like a
net flung across the river valley, crowding both banks all the way
to the docks. On the far side of the valley, Brasstown was lit up
even brighter, not just the streets, but also the windows blazing
despite the late hour.

The airship started descending in earnest
now, and Jin wondered if there remained any safe way to land. The
moonlight was bright enough to send the airship’s shadow rippling
over the landscape below, caressing the shanties clinging to the
edges of Chartown, then racing up and down walls of crumbling
brick. Jin sucked in his breath at the sight of telpherage wires,
but the airship still had enough height to clear them.
Unfortunately, they were far from the only obstacles, and as the
ship continued to sink, the various spires of the sainthouses
started to look a lot more frightening than their builders had
probably intended. Smokestacks of factories seemed to clutch at the
gondola, and the mountainous form of a Xatlian temple slid past,
close enough that he could see the carvings of feathered serpents
and snarling jaguars that festooned it.

He caught a glimpse of brighter light from
below; instinct alone hurled him back from the rail and to the
deck. The blast hit the bag, putting a neat hole through it,
accompanied by the stench of scorched cloth.

They’re shooting at me!

It shocked him—he’d assumed that he was too
valuable an experiment to risk, and that the smiling men planned to
drag him back to Dr. Malachi. Perhaps the shot had been aimed at
the bag to bring him down, but it was cursed careless if so.

Swearing furiously, he ran to the bow and
looked down. Rooftops skimmed by below; if he could reach them, he
might be able to lose his pursuers amidst the wilderness of tiles
and chimneys. Unlike him, the smiling men hadn’t been built for
climbing, which would give him the advantage.

If only I could have brought my rig!

Jin leapt lightly to the railing and balanced
a moment. There was no time to remove his gloves and boots, not
with the ship going down so fast. Taking a deep breath, he prayed
to whatever saint might be listening and jumped.

He didn’t even see the skylight until his
feet crashed through it.

* * *

Molly wiped the sweat off her brow, leaving
behind a streak of grease, and shoved her spectacles farther up her
nose. The clock on the wall told her that it was well past
midnight, and she silently cursed the recalcitrant tractor in front
of her. She’d spent the last several hours up to her elbows in its
inner workings and was no closer to fixing it than when she’d
started. The engine practically belonged in a museum, but would old
man Barrow pay for a refit? Oh no, that was out of the question,
and never mind that he was lucky the boiler hadn’t exploded and
taken him with it.

Master Singh had left the shop hours ago,
suggesting that she do the same. Now, Molly was beginning to wish
she had taken his advice. She had class tomorrow, and Professor
Whitehart didn’t approve of students napping during Applied
Thermodynamics.

The sound of shattering glass, followed by a
thud, startled her into smacking her head into the iron
undercarriage. Cursing and rubbing at the bump, she scooted back
out from under the tractor and looked around, half expecting to see
a gang of goggleboys swarming through the windows.

One of the skylights near the back of the
cavernous shop was now a ruin of twisted metal and dagger-sharp
glass. A cloud of dust rose from beneath the gaping hole, but she
couldn’t see what had fallen. The lighting was dim, and that part
of the shop was packed with the remains of various projects that
Master Singh had started, then abandoned before completion. Their
hulking forms, shrouded in oilskin tarps, took on an eerie quality
late at night.

Wiping her grease-stained hands on her
coveralls, she took a cautious step toward the dissipating dust
cloud. Whatever had fallen through had been heavier than a cat or a
bird, although she couldn’t imagine what else it might have been,
unless Naga Rindi was experimenting with pneumatics again and had
launched something—hopefully not herself—by accident.

“Hello?” Molly called tentatively.

A low moan came from just behind a rusted-out
boiler.

Saints’ blood, someone
had
fallen
through. Mindful that it could be a goggleboy who’d taken it into
his head to break into the shop via the roof, Molly snatched up a
heavy wrench from the worktable as she passed. “Hello?” she called
again. “Are you all right?”

The boy came to his feet, just as she reached
the edge of the storage area. Molly found herself staring into a
pair of eyes so dark it was impossible to tell where the iris left
off and the pupil began. He looked to be around her own age of
seventeen, and had the coppery-brown skin, high cheekbones, and
hawk nose of a Xatlian. Dozens of brightly-colored parrot feathers
hung amidst his shoulder-length hair, making splashes of brilliance
amidst the shiny black. A pair of brass-rimmed pilot’s goggles
perched on his forehead, and he wore heavy black gloves, a plain
waistcoat over a cotton shirt, and brown trousers.

Not a goggleboy, then, but possibly a thief
of a different stripe. “What were you doing on the roof?” she
asked, hefting the wrench to be sure he saw it.

He touched a gloved hand to his head, as if
feeling for a lump. “I...my airship went down. I had to jump
out.”

Molly wondered if his fall had dazed him. “An
airship? In the city limits?”

“Yes.”

“Saints’ blood, are you a complete
idiot?”

He gaped at her. “Wh-what?”

“I asked if you’re an idiot, but I’ll take
that for a yes. Aircraft aren’t allowed in the city for a
reason
. There are wires and cables all over the place.
You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”

He took a step back and held up his hands, as
if to ward her off. “Yes, I figured that out on my own, thanks.
Now, I’ll just be on my way—”

“Oh, no.” Molly brandished the wrench at him.
“It’s night, so at least there aren’t many people on the streets,
but even a small airship crash might have hurt someone. Or damaged
a building. You’re not going anywhere, except to the police
station, and you’d best hope no one got their head bashed in by
falling bricks.”

He paled. “Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt
anyone. But I’m
not
staying here, so just get out of my way,
or—”

He fell abruptly silent, his gaze darting
toward the broad doors at the front of the shop. A moment later,
Molly heard the sound of voices, muffled through the heavy
wood.

“Must’ve come down here,” a man said. “I saw
him drop.”

Something about the voice was
strangely...
off
, enough so that she felt her skin crawl at
the sound. She glanced at the boy in front of her and saw him
swallow convulsively.

“Hide me,” he said.

She blinked at the sheer effrontery of it.
“That fall must have knocked out whatever brains you had left.”

“Hide me! Please,” he added hastily. “I
crashed because they were shooting at me, all right? They put a
hole in the balloon, and I jumped out before the ship hit the
ground.”

Although common sense told her that hiding
him would only lead to trouble, the expression of raw desperation
on his face made her hesitate.

“Please,” he said again. “They’ll kill me if
they find me.”

She wavered for an instant longer, but
another murmur from outside decided her. She didn’t know what was
going on, but gut instinct told her that the owner of that voice
wasn’t up to anything good. With an angry huff, she flipped up the
edge of a nearby tarp. “I must be out of my mind. Fine. Get under
that. I’ll get rid of them. But so help me, if I find out that
anyone was hurt by your stupid stunt, I’ll drag you down to the
police station myself.”

He ducked under the tarp, wedging his slender
body against the exposed guts of a half-built automaton. Shaking
her head, Molly let the tarp fall and turned away.

Just in time; as she headed back toward the
tractor, the shop’s front door swung open. Five men strode inside,
identically dressed in black coats, black trousers, and shining
black boots. All of them carried heavy-looking guns.

Not police, then, but someone’s private
security force.
Someone’s well-funded private security
force
, Molly corrected, with an uneasy glance at the guns.

What have I gotten myself into?

“Who are you?” she demanded, wincing when her
voice shook. Hopefully they would mistake it for anger instead of
fear. “Are you looking for the bastard who fell through the
roof?”

They stopped immediately, seeming surprised
at her offer of information, and the leader took a step closer to
her. He wore goggles, his eyes hidden behind opaque red lenses, and
she wondered how he could see out of them.

“Yes,” he said. Without the muffling of the
door between them, she realized that his voice had a mechanical
quality. Although the words were spoken without inflection, they
retained a menacing tone that sent a shiver up her back. “Is he
here?”

Molly let out a loud snort. “Are you joking?
When I saw he wasn’t hurt, I chased him out the back door myself.”
She pointed to the entrance to the alleyway, half-hidden at the
rear of the shop. “My master is going to blame
me
for the
hole in the skylight, just you wait and see.”

The men exchanged glances, and most of them
scurried immediately for the door she’d indicated. The leader
lingered however, watching her with unseen eyes.

“This boy is a dangerous fugitive,” he said.
“He’s stolen something very valuable. If you know anything about
his whereabouts, you’d be wise to tell us.”

Forcing herself to meet the blank gaze of the
goggles, she said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do that.” He paused, then smiled at her. His
teeth were metal and sharp as a shark’s. “I suggest you go home
now. It isn’t safe for a girl to be alone this late at night.”

She swallowed against the sudden dryness in
her throat, but managed to nod in agreement. Apparently satisfied,
he turned on his heel, heading in the direction of the alley.

Once she was sure the men were gone, Molly
sagged tiredly against the tractor. “Saints. Those are some nasty
customers. What did you do to get on their bad side?”

There was no response. Puzzled, Molly
straightened and made her way to the tarp that the boy lurked
under. “They’re gone. It’s safe to come out.”

No answer. Worried now, she grabbed the edge
of the oilskin and flipped it up, revealing rusted cogs and bent
flywheels. Of the boy, there was no sign.