A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (21 page)

“Jean and Paisley.” Lily’s hand landed on Ana’s arm. “They’re down
there.”

Evelyn broke into a run, only to be yanked back by Neco.

“No one’s going anywhere,” he said. “The ship is powered on a system
of compressed steam pushed through twenty miles of steel piping built into the
shell.”

“Wh-what are you saying?”

“The Red Hawk’s designed for speed and agility. We’ve never taken a
hit before.” He collected the ladder and started untangling the rope. “There’s
a seventy percent probability the hull is a steam bath by now and an eighty
point five percent probability the entire ship will blow its top like a
geyser.”

Lily slapped a hand over her mouth. “We have to do something.”

“I’ll go after them,” Ana said, moving swiftly across the deck.

“Ana, wait.”

Ana threw a placid look over her shoulder. “A little steam will not
melt me, Miss Lily.”

“Is that true?” Lily asked Neco.

“A little steam can do no harm to us.” He twisted a fist into one end
of the ladder and cast it over the side.

Evelyn looked from him to the dangling ladder. The drop between the
last rung and the ground wasn’t reassuring. “We’ll never survive that jump.”

“We’re abandoning ship?” demanded Lily. “What of Greyston and the
others?”

“We’re only preparing to abandon ship,” he stated calmly. “There’s a
good chance Grey will get us out of this.”

The celludrone was all about precise percentages and now he decided to
be vague? Evelyn didn’t trust it one bit. “Seventy? Eighty point five? What
probability percentage, exactly, do you mean by
good
?”

Neco hesitated before responding, as if his mechanical computations
could simulate the equivalent of human emotion associated with breaking bad
news. “So far, Grey has proven a hundred percent successful in surviving.”

So, not emotion, just taking his time to compute odds that didn’t
quite dull the fear hammering her pulse. “Yes, but has he ever had a lightning
bolt attach itself to his ship before?”

“Not that I’m aware of, m’lady.”

Chapter Fourteen

G
reyston
jerked one lever after the other, but no matter which way he manipulated the
sails, no matter that the throttle was engaged and locked on maximum output and
the engine laboured in forward thrust, they weren’t going anywhere. Jamie stood
at the Piping Control Unit, following the ruptures signalled on the active map
and shutting down valves to redirect the steam.

“The demon witch has us trapped like a fly in her web,” Greyston
muttered. His jaw clamped hard enough to shatter and it felt as if the rest of
him already had. He’d heard the screams from the boarding cabin, a rapid series
of agonising shrieks, and then nothing. And he hadn’t been able to do a thing.
He’d already seen the incinerated husk the whole damn ship would be reduced to,
ashes showered to the wind, if he didn’t free them from the white fire.

“We’ve lost twenty-five percent power, but the damage is contained.”
Jamie said. “For now.”

“There’s no yield in any direction. She’s stuck to the bloody air.”
Running on seventy-five percent power should still give them more thrust than
the average air ship. Greyston cursed beneath his breath. “That bolt isn’t just
fire, we’re caught in a force field of sorts.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Greyston took a deep breath. Closed his eyes for a moment. Cleared his
head. His eyes snapped open. “Shut off the entire Starboard side,” he barked.
“Now!”

“That’ll cripple the ship.”

Or save it.

“Only for a couple of seconds. The pressurised steam is accelerating
throughout the shell in a circular circuit,” he explained quickly. “I think
we’re creating a magnetic force that might damned well be feeding the energy
bolt.” He flipped the lever position on the throttle gear to set the sails for
a bearing of twelve degrees to the north. “Stand ready to re-open the valves as
soon as we’ve broken loose.”

Greyston was attuned to every creak, hum and hiss in the Red Hawk. He
heard the pressurised power drop bit by bit as each valve turned off. He
tensed, every nerve rigid with anticipation, dread, if he was wrong…the ship
catapulted forward in a lurch that pressed him back into his seat and swiped
Jamie from his feet. “We’re free.”

Jamie pushed up from the floor and started twisting furiously at the
valves.

His blood pumping almost as fast as his beautiful ship, Greyston
brought his hand from the sail levers to the rudder wheel, which operated the
turbulence steam rotators situated beneath and along the sides of the hull for
greater steering precision.

As the ship cut a graceful upward arc through the dusky horizon,
Greyston shifted slightly to take in the scene they were fleeing. The pilot
cabin was built into the nose of the capsule with a wide angle of reinforced
glass that gave them a two hundred and forty-five degree view outside.

A spread of fire bolts was shooting after them, but they were sailing
too fast and the tail of sparks couldn’t quite reach. Lady Ostrich was too
slow, taken by surprise at their burst for freedom.

What had once been Forleough Castle was now a hill of salt.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

His only regret was the stables. He didn’t fool
himself that the horses’ deaths had been painless, but he prayed it had been
instant.

“Hold this bearing until we hit the North Sea and then bring us down
along the shoreline,” he told Jamie, swivelling his seat away from the
controls. “Our destination is still Cragloden.”

Neco was coming down the stairs as Greyston passed through the landing
they referred to as the Pilot Grid.

“Everyone here is fine,” Neco called to him.

He caught a glimpse of Lily’s vibrant red riding skirts as she
descended on his man’s heels and, reassured, he pushed through the
inter-leading door.

The mechanical yap, yap of the infuriating puppy echoed off the silent
metal walls, the first indication that this chamber had taken most of the
damage. The second was the mangled pipes visible through a massive internal
crack. The entire ship casing, inside and out, was fashioned on the new German
technology of lightweight aluminium alloy, anodised to coat the surface with a
crust that was diamond hard. Nothing should have been able to pierce the shell.

Slumped beneath the crack, Ana looked as if she’d taken as bad a hit
as his ship.

All this, Greyston took in with the natural sweep of his gaze from
left to right as he entered the boarding chamber, but he hadn’t seen the worst
yet.

Paisley knelt on the floor, her face haggard and tears streaming down
pale cheeks.

Ian, the only greybeard on his crew and the closest thing they had to
a doctor, looked up from where he was bent over a body lying prostrate on the
ground. “Live piping erupted from the wall,” Ian informed him, his voice
sombre.

The man rocked back on his haunches, his hands raised helplessly above
Jean. He’d placed a pillow beneath her head and pulled a blanket over her,
leaving her throat and face uncovered. Blistered, raw skin covered three
quarters of her face, transparent thin patches melted onto the bone along the
ridge of her cheek and into the hollow of one eye socket. “She must have been
right on top of the pipes when the steam blasted.”

Evelyn rushed to Paisley’s side, wrapping an arm around the distraught
girl.

“Tied pipes. To each. Other.” Ana’s staccato phrases didn’t bode well.
“The steam. Stopped. Suddenly.”

“We turned off the valves,” Greyston said dully. Also too late. “Neco,
check on Ana, see if there’s anything to be done.”

Yap, yap, yap.

He rubbed at his temple, at the throb that had started there, and
glanced around for William. The lad was hovering near the door, his forehead
grooved into a deep frown. “William, do something about that infernal yapping.”

Lily came up to him, her worried gaze going from Ana to Jean. “Is
she…?”

He looked away, didn’t want her to read the absolute loss of faith and
hope in his eyes.

“Her pulse is weak, but there,” Ian answered. “I’ve injected poppy opiate
straight into her blood to induce a painless sleep.”

Ian grimaced at him, shaking his head.

“It h-h-happened so quickly,” Paisley said, teeth chattering.
“Sh-she’s going to be alright, isn’t s-she?”

“Of course she will,” Evelyn said softly, rubbing a hand over the
girl’s shoulder. “She has to be.”

“We’ll set course for Edinburgh at once,” Greyston decided, however
futile it may be. “The hospital there is fitted with advanced facilities and
has access to outstanding surgeons.” He backed away, slow steps until he could
swing around into the relative privacy of the Pilot Grid.

He put one hand to the wall, bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut
to close the world out. The memories were all there, original woven into the
altered time span from his recent time-run, and all those before and after.

Evelyn on her tip toes at the top of the stairway.

Him storming into the kitchen, demanding the truth from Jean about
his mother’s activities.

The ride back from Cragloden, refusing to agree with Lily’s
conclusion that Lady Ostrich must be one of Kelan’s demons but admitting she
made a damned persuasive argument anyway.

The scalded, blistered skin covering Jean’s face. Raw patches
melting off bone.

The taste of Evelyn’s mouth as his tongue delved inside.

The glow that lit a passion in Lily’s eyes when she finally threw
off the gird of conventionality and leaned into the exhilarating experience of
galloping astride. The sensation of his heart leaping as he’d glanced at her
over his shoulder and couldn’t seem to look away again.

Greyston focussed on a single memory.

Today was not the day he’d had to leave a man, woman, or celludrone
behind. He’d outwitted the demon—suddenly he was more inclined toward Lily’ way
of thinking—once more and this would be the last time he ran. Kelan had
indicated Cragloden was a haven, a place where Lily would be safe, while that
bastard McAllister taught him everything there was to know about these demons
and how to defeat them.

He’d returned to Forleough looking for the truth behind his father’s
hate and his brother’s death. But now it was no longer just about resolving the
past, it was about claiming back his future.

He’d never had much, and that had been taken from him, but it
stopped with the Red Hawk.

His crew had become his family.

This ship had been his home for the last four years, more so than
the fortress he’d built on Es Vedra.

He was done with running and he didn’t mean the occasional hop back
in time. Standing here, on the Red Hawk’s deck, nothing seemed impossible.
Determination, hope and the possibility of triumph over the world at large
chased through his blood.

He looked up from Ana’s progress at the rope ladder and his gaze
landed on Evelyn.

He’d spent the first half of the afternoon with Lily saturating his
mind. On the outside, she was prim and proper and took fright at the drop of a
pin, but inside she carried a strength that took his breath away, a strength
she didn’t seem to be aware of. She was loyal and stubbornly committed. Once
she’d cast her lot with him, she gave her all, absorbing the surreal reality
he’d led her to without drowning in the detail. She trusted him, she believed
him, she believed
in
him.

He, on the other hand, was all brass courage, muscle and bold
recklessness, and he knew exactly how badly he was flawed on the inside. They
were complete opposites, and perhaps that was the root of this attraction that
clawed its way through faster than he could erect barriers.

He’d spent the latter half of the afternoon regressing to his worst
childhood fears. Aragon had been on his way to Es Vedra when the storm had
capsized the ship, taking his life and that of his wife. And when Kelan had
started talking about demons, he’d known the coincidence was too blatant to
bury.

His da had been right all along. He was the vermin that had somehow
destroyed his entire family.

And then he’d opened his bedroom door at Forleough and there Evelyn
had stood, damp and half dressed. He’d grabbed at the chance for a moment’s
oblivion from the insanity inside his head. She had the beauty of an angel, the
nature of a sprite and the mouth of a sinner. They were a perfect match.

A grin tugged at his jaw as he recalled just how vehemently she’d
disagreed with that assessment.

The subtle vibrations beneath his feet changed as the ship switched
gear from the oscillatory rotators to the auxiliary oars. “Once her nose is
turned in the right direction, we’ll pump her engines to full throttle and
shoot straight down the river,” he said to Evelyn. “We’ll reach the headland in
less than ten minutes.”

As always, the memory was right there, an intact, tangible presence
until he reached for it. And then the same thing happened as when he tried to
breach the thirty-minute boundary to step further back into the past. The
picture dissolved, dribbling through his fingers, ice turned to water upon
contact and just as impossible to catch hold of.

He tried another memory, and another, skipping forward until up to a
few minutes ago. Retracing hours, and then days, into the past.

Nothing worked and, he knew, nothing would for at least another twelve
hours. Each time-run created some sort of epicentre of disruption that expanded
in a circular wave for a twelve hour radius, preventing him from stepping back.

Greyston’s eyes snapped open.

He slammed his palm against the wall, cursing the pointless laws that
appeared to govern the nature of running back through time. Jean had never not
been there for him, for Aragon, with her advice and scolding and pampering and
the affection he hadn’t wanted, hadn’t needed, and now gone.