Noir (6 page)

Ei
ght

Eyelet

The woods are incredibly eerie from the air. Their ominous breadth abounds for what seems like a galaxy. Nothing but treetops and belching, gurgling gullies, the festering scars left over from the rage of the last Vapours, all tied up in a foggy, Vapour-laced bow.

The clouds up here are thick as cotton, ranging from light grey to black. More than twice we hear the chatter of teeth filtering up through the trees, but I must admit, they are much less intimidating way up here than riding among them below.

The air up here is very thin but somehow less intoxicating. Strange, I never noticed it before when we were up in the balloon. But then again, I wasn’t exactly coherent. And while we travelled aboard Bertie, Urlick refused to let us take any chances; we wore our masks the whole way—save for the moment I kissed him.

I close my eyes and relive the moment in my mind—the warmth of his lips, the taste of his tongue, edged in vanilla and peppermint tea. I breathe deep, remembering his scent—rosewood and cinnamon, with just a hint of sandalwood soap at his neck.

And to think I once feared him a monster.

Now I don’t know what I’d do without him.

“How close are we?” I shout back over my shoulder to C.L.

He swings around, checking the Continental Positioning System—a sort of human thermomultiplier that Urlick was tinkering with just before we left the first time, a spin-off of his famed Dyechrometer that, instead of checking for feral heartbeats, uses the accumulation of body heat to determine the distance between major metropolises. Using population as an indicator, it is then able to calculate the distance between towns and cities.

C.L. detaches the cone-shaped gun from its holster at the back of the saddle and aims it ahead of us. The galvanometer needle fluctuates, ejecting a beam of white light through the fog. After much fussing and bleeping, the needle comes to rest on a number on the dial. “Seventeen,” C.L. says.

“Seventeen more kilometres?”

“No. Seventeen heartbeats,” C.L. shouts above the wind. “Which means we’s either comin’ up on the edge of the grand metropolis of Gears, or we’s meetin’ up with a large band of criminals.” He swallows.

My heart takes a jerk in my chest at the thought of the latter. I check Clementine’s oxygen-tank gauge. It’s running low. We’re going to have to stop soon to change it. I can’t possibly change it on the fly. But I don’t want to stop where there are criminals. “Is there any way to be sure?”

“No, mum, I’m afraid there’s not.”

My mind wanders over the oxygen supply we have with us. Three full tanks and four half-packs, “minis,” to be used only in dire emergency, as they don’t always perform. We’ll need to conserve at least a tank and a half for the return trip. I was right about the supplies in the cupboard. They were dashedly low.

I wonder about pitching ourselves higher into the clouds—could we risk breathing the air up here without any masks? Then again, the altitude might get us, and we could well find ourselves quite literally falling right out of the sky.

I have no choice, I’ll have to land soon, the border of Gears in sight or not.

I push Clementine on with my heels, feeling my stomach clench at the prospect. The Continental Positioning System clicks wildly, then remains silent for a stretch of time. Criminals—it must have been criminals, elsewise the machine would have kept bleeping as it registered more and more heartbeats. We fly in silence until the needle on Clementine’s oxygen tank falls to zero, sounding a harsh alarm.

I sit back, clutching the reins tight in my hands, a knot forming in my stomach. Sweat slicks my palms.

“What now?” C.L. says.

“I dunno.” I swallow. “She’s got a quarter-pint reserve, maybe, before she’s completely out.”

Clementine gasps for air, her mask sucking in.

The Continental Positioning System groans, then starts bleeping at rapid-fire speed,
thank God
. Its register shows thirty, sixty, eighty-nine, one hundred three, one hundred fifty-seven heartbeats. A town, it’s got to be a town. We must be over Gears. The knot in my stomach gives way. “You’d better shut it off now,” I shout to C.L. “We’re getting too close. Someone’s going to see the light.”

He fastens the gun back into the saddle as I coax Clementine down through the clouds. The air becomes instantly more difficult to process. Our air-mask gauges scream, lights flash. I start to cough until I’m gagging.

“You all right?” C.L. grabs me. I’ve fallen sideways in the saddle under the force of the cough.

“I’m fine,” I say, coughing hard again.

But I’m not fine. Far from it, actually. I haven’t been since Urlick and I crawled down into the ravine at the back of the forest, on our way to the Core. For some reason my lungs react to everything now: changes in atmosphere, pressure, air quality, everything . . .

Or at least I hope that’s all it is.

I clear my throat hard again, force down the urge to cough, for C.L.’s sake—and my own sanity—my heartbeats faster than the ones coming in on the register, as treetops come into view. Chimneys, rooftops, smokestacks flutter past. I swing out wide, avoiding Gears altogether, flying instead back over the lightly forested range just before her city limits, where the freak-show caravan is likely to have bedded down for the night. The plan is to commandeer the train and ride it into Brethren, creating a big-enough and long-enough diversion to give me time to break into the old stone jug and save Urlick.

According to C.L., the freakmaster travels the main road into Gears, so his train draws enough attention to lure potential customers out of their homes. He’d never arrive in the streets at night, always at break of day, when the most people will be out and about. They held one afternoon show for the people of Gears, then moved on to the higher-paying customers of Brethren, passing through the checkpoint and setting up in Brethren’s town square for an evening performance.

“Do you see any sign of them?” I ask C.L., reining Clementine back, her mask wheezing, low on air. I bring her around low enough to see the earth, but far enough up in the air to still be camouflaged by cloud cover. “Any sign of the train at all?”

C.L. squints. “No, mum,” he huffs, sounding worried. “I was sure they’d be here by now.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, taking another swing over the city’s edge. “I’m sure they’ll show.” I ask Clementine for another turn. She gallantly obeys, winging off over the edge of the forest so we can check deeper into the woods. Her mask blows a gasket.

“We’ve got no choice!” I shout. “We’re going down!”

“There!” C.L. spots something through a seam in the clouds. He jumps in his seat, nearly falling out of it, pointing. “Over there! The campfire. Set us down over there!”

I squint, spotting what he’s excited about through the dashes of the cloud cover, but I’m not sure we can make it. “Over there, girl.” I point, leaning out and peeling open the end of Clementine’s mask. “Can you make it there?”

At the edge of the woods, next to the clearing, about three hundred metres away, sit the colourful cars of the freak train wound in a linked semicircle, like an illuminated rainbow, around the skirt of a glowing campfire.

Clementine sees it and pushes toward it, losing altitude, her breath coming out in frothy gasps. She snorts as we swoop down through the waning darkness. Morning is nearly upon us. We’ve flown all night. We land with a clattering thud about twenty metres from the scene.

Snores filter up into the sky from between cage bars. Next to the fire, the top-hat-wearing, full-girthed ringmaster sleeps. He has no idea what’s about to happen. None of them do.

Neither do I, really.

C.L. slips down from the saddle into the mud with a clank. My boots make a soft thunk as well. Clementine snorts, and C.L. clamps a hand down over her muzzle, like she’s the only one making noise.

“So what now?” I whisper, tucking in behind the cover of trees, leaving Clementine to root for grass.

C.L. follows, digging a length of rope and a hood out of her saddlebag before abandoning her.

“We attack ’im from behind,” he whispers softly. “That way, when ’e’s found ’ooded and bound and roped to a tree, ’e won’t be able to report who did it to ’im.”

“So that’s the plan, then, we’re going tie him up?”

“Unless you ’ave another.” C.L. frowns.

“No. No, tying him up will be fine, I guess.” I turn and bite my fingers.

“What’s the matter?” C.L. whispers.

“It’s just that . . .” I turn. “What if he’s
not
found? What if we leave him here and he gets eaten by the criminals?”

“’Ow is that a problem?”

“Where you’re coming from I suppose it’s not, but for me.” I twist my fingers. “I don’t know whether I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Are yuh suggestin’ we bring ’im with us?”

“Would that be possible?”

“No!” he snaps. He charges away across the open ground toward the train cars, hood and rope tossed over his shoulder.

“All right, all right”—I scramble after him, taking in breath—“what do you want me to do?”

He spins. “Keep an eye out while I ’og-tie the bastard,” he says between his teeth. “No offense.”

“None taken.” I bolt forward, catching up to him again. “Then what?”

“Then—”

His sentence is cut short by the cock of a gun, the barrel pressed to the nape of his neck.

“Then I’ll shoot you both and leave you for criminal brekkie,” the ringmaster says. “Just as you’d planned for me.”

I swallow and turn my head slowly. The ringmaster’s eyes fall hard on me from over the top of the gun. They are small and cold and slitted. Filled with such meanness, their presence stings my soul. Thick-hooded brows shroud them. His forehead carries several scars. Telltale signs he’s not immune to being accosted.

“Well, well, look what we ’ave ’ere.” His gaze tugs through the holes in my chain-mail chemise. I look down and up, embarrassed. I pinch my collar shut, hot with the feeling of being violated.

He twirls one end of his glossy waxed moustache to a point matching the other, and winks at me. A swell of sickness rises in me. “’Oo’s the girl?” he says through fat, chafed, and freckled lips.

“None of your business,” C.L. snaps, gun still at his neck.

“Oh, come now. She cain’t be with the likes of you,” the ringmaster laughs. “So, hows about you tellin’ me who you protecting ’ere? What’s a little wanker like you doing with a slippery little sod like this?”

“Don’t call her that!” C.L.’s head spins.

I stumble back, feeling faint, weak in the knees. What did he just call me?

“Whatchu gonna do about it,
’it
me?” The ringmaster pokes C.L. in the armpits with the end of his gun. “Wif these little stubs.” He laughs and spins him around, shoving him toward the freak train. “Go on, get over there with the others, where you belong.”

“No!” I shout, stepping in between them.

“
Oh
, she
can
speak.” The ringmaster lowers his voice. “And she’s a feisty one, too.” He sashays toward me, wobbly smile pitching over his two remaining good teeth. Last night’s dinner takes a turn in my stomach. “I like that.”

The sleazy timbre of his voice crawls up my spine.

“Leave ’er alone!” C.L. shouts.

With a quick turn of his hips, he throws a leg into the air, clipping the ringmaster in the side of the chin with his heel. The ringmaster’s jaw rocks to one side. The freaks in the train jump to their feet and cheer, wagons rocking left and right as they whoop and yelp and moan. I can’t tell if they’re for or against us. Their gruesome, moonlit faces press out between the bars.

“Look out!” C.L. shouts at me as the ringmaster’s gun flies from his hand. It tumbles slowly through the air and hits the ground with a thump, dislodging a bullet I narrowly escape before it bounces erratically off Clementine’s gear and buries itself in a tree trunk behind me. The speed of the bullet has clipped the curl that hangs next to my cheek. I stare as the freshly sheared tuft flutters to rest on the ground at my feet.

The ringmaster’s head whips up, his eyes aglow with revenge. He lunges, snatching C.L. by the throat, lifting him slightly off the ground.

C.L. chokes and kicks. The ringmaster tightens his grip. “You dare to challenge
me
!” His eyes flash. “I should
whip
you for running off the way you did!” C.L. gags as the ringmaster locks on his windpipe. “In fact, I should kill you now I ’ave the chance!”

“Don’t!” I hit him. “Let him go! Let him
go
!” I jump on his back.

C.L. fights, trying to reach the ground with his toes, wriggling and gurgling, the skin on his face turning blue. I pound the ringmaster’s head from behind.

“Get
off me
!” He grabs for my knee and flings me aside.

I hit the ground hard and scramble to my feet, his hold still tight on C.L. Spying the gun on the ground, I stoop to get it, but the ringmaster kicks it away.

“Do you really think I’m that stupid?” he says in a low, scratchy voice, still strangling C.L. His gaze sweeps over my body. He ogles every slope and valley on the way down and up. “But perhaps I should reconsider.” He hesitates, leering at C.L. and then back at me. “After all, you did bring me a lovely gift. It’d be rude of me not to open it.”