Beauties of the Beast (The Yellow Hoods, #4): Steampunk meets Fairy Tale (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Family Matters

Christina tightened her fists as she approached the roar of arguing voices coming from the former royal court chamber. Despite the years, the room had presence, and was only used for the most important meetings. She hated getting yanked, once again, away from an issue that was nearly solved because there was a bigger problem that required her attention. There was an endless stream of bigger issues, and a flooding river of unhappy people. 

As she stepped into the room, all eyes turned to her. In all the years that she’d been at Kar’m, first as an Abominator seeking refuge, and then working her way through the leadership, she’d never seen things in such a state. It felt like someone was intentionally taking everything apart, but she nor her inner circle could find any evidence of a plot.

Remy was standing on the elevated platform. His face was flushed with frustration and his arms folded defensively. Christina dragged herself up beside him and scanned the crowd. More than two dozen parts of Kar’m were represented. Everyone was fed up.

“Why’s she tapping her pistol?” asked someone. “Is this her new way to keep things under control? Unacceptable!”

Christina glanced down, and stopped the guilty finger from tapping her streaming gun anymore. “Would someone please tell me what this is all about? You’ve been tearing each other apart for weeks now.”

Canny’s voice cut through the rest. “You’ve abandoned us to play mommy with those… those children.” His brother was beside him, nodding in profuse agreement.

“You’re touching your pistol again,” Remy whispered.

Christina scanned around for something she could slam her fist on, but there was nothing. Finally, she erupted, “Stop it! Stop this… this
mob
behavior! You are the most intelligent, inventive people this side of the Eastern Mountains, and look at yourselves. Something clearly has you spooked, and you’re falling apart. You’re tearing
us
apart.” She gazed at the paused faces, many of them glancing at those around them. “The world out there is scary right now, and we need to come together now more than ever before. If everyone takes a bolt from the machine, then no one should be surprised when the whole thing falls apart.” She noticed Canny’s brother whispering to him. “And if
anyone
says I or anyone saw this coming, they are lying. And if you knew, then shame on you for not bringing it up.”

Straightening her brown leather vest, she subconsciously counted her belt pouches and she paced. “We’re used to existing solely for the good of progressive thinking, a refuge from the purge of brilliance, a beacon against the age of dark mindedness that has spread.”

“It’s a nice speech, but the reality is that they are coming for us,” said Canny. “Can everyone else feel it? There’s something wrong.” Many nodded, some looked about nervously.

“That isn’t helpful,” chastised Christina. “You of all people—”

“I, of all people?” replied Canny, “I told you weeks ago when you visited my lab. Since then, things have only gotten worse. The Piemans and the Tub, they used to leave us alone. And now?”

There was a look in Canny’s eye that bothered Christina. She glanced at the faces around him. Something was up, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Christina,” said Angelina stepping into the room, her voice booming and drawing everyone’s attention. “You’re needed upstairs, now.”

“Excuse me?”

Angelina stared at some of the faces in the room, many of them already not fans of hers. “I wouldn’t be here if it was not
critically
important.”

“I can’t. I can’t be pulled once again. We have to—”

“Christina. You have to come up. Trust me,” said Angelina.

“She planned this,” said a voice.

Canny’s brother shook his head. “Typical.”

Christina put her back to the crowd and whispered to Remi, “How about you go?”

He shook his head. “You know she wouldn’t be here asking for you if it wasn’t supremely important.”

“Any ideas what it could be?” asked Christina.

“None. Sorry,” he replied.

As she took her first step off the platform. The look in Canny’s eyes had spread. 

“Christina, I need you to come with me,” insisted Angelina, stepping in and taking Christina by the elbow.

“Remi?” she said, looking back.

“I’ve got it, Christina,” he said emphasizing his size and pulling on his red chin-beard.

“You didn’t have
it
before she walked in, Silskin,” barked a voice from the crowd.

Tee finished the trek up the forested hill and glanced back at Kar’m. There was too much activity going on. People were rushing, some packing up, few saying anything. It reminded her of how Elly’s dog, Chichi, would whimper before a storm rolled in.

“Hello, Tee,” said Alex, looking up as he pulled the camouflage tarps off the two rocket-pack prototypes.

“You know, I’m still surprised no one has found this,” said Elly, putting her backpack down.

Mounira shrugged. “No one’s looking for it, isn’t that how Anciano Klaus hides things?” 

Tee smiled and looked back at her friends. “Yeah, he did.”

“
Does
. We’ll get him back,” said Mounira with complete confidence.

Tee nodded. “Grandpapa says that people are often most blind there.” She returned her gaze to Kar’m. 

Elly looked at Tee’s raised shoulders. Putting a hand on her shoulder, she whispered, “Go and work on your armband. It’s nearly done, anyway. We’re okay here.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes. Now go, we’ll be good. I’ll let you know what happened, if Mounira doesn’t beat me to it,” said Elly.

Glancing at the supportive faces, Tee took her cue and left.

“She is okay, is she not?” asked Alex, his voice extra stiff. 

Elly had hung around him enough to know that he cared, and she liked that. “She’s almost all Tee again, just a couple of things left.”

“Christina still doesn’t know anything about this, does she?” Elly asked the other two.

“No… but she suspects something. I was almost forced to tell her,” answered Mounira.

“Just lie to her,” said Alex, frowning. The girls looked at him. “What?”

“You haven’t known Mounira long,” said Elly.

“I can’t lie to Christina.” Mounira gazed at Tee as she walked down the hill. “It’s like lying to my mother.”

“Why?” asked Alex. “You have no relation to her.”

“Let’s just focus on getting this working,” said Elly, flexing her leadership muscles.

Mounira pulled out her notebook and a pencil. “What test is this?”

“Propellant,” said Elly.

“Wing changes,” insisted Alex.

“Wings on one of the prototypes, and then propellant,” offered Mounira.

“We never have enough time, it’s going to get us into trouble,” said Elly, shaking her head.

“You worry too much,” said Alex with a wink.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Red Hooded Plans

Ron-Paul Silskin sat quietly, brooding. He’d hoped that Caterina would dash, not confirm, the rumors that Simon St. Malo was under investigation for treason. “The Fare’s High Council isn’t going to be pleased with this, not at
all.
He has supporters,” he said, reaching for a pear from the ornate bowl that sat between him and Caterina.

They were sitting in a large gazebo high up above the royal gardens. Caterina often sat there when she needed to think. She enjoyed the panoramic floral beauty. It also kept everyone at such a distance as to keep civil conversations private.

“I’m less concerned with the council,” replied Caterina, taking a bite out of a pear. “I’m not saying he did anything criminal, however as Regent I need to send a message that
no one
is above the law. I was well within my right to order him beheaded. Instead, he’s just being kept in the guest house. One thing is clear to me, he’s been up to something.”

Silskin eyed her suspiciously. The sudden silence of the council and Simon being under lock and key made him nervous. He decided it best to press her on another front all together, at least to buy himself some time to think. “What about DeBoeuf? Weren’t you supposed to double-cross her after freeing her as payment?”

Caterina dumped the core of her pear on a plate with a clang. She glared at Silskin. “Whose responsibility was it to ensure that all of the inventors were taken alive from Pieman’s palace? And whose responsibility was it to also ensure that the morning after DeBoeuf was free, she was to be retaken?”

Silskin thought of the bungled affair, and how they’d lost nearly half of the inventors. He put his hands up. “I’m just saying I don’t understand why we even had to let DeBoeuf out of her room.”

Rolling her eyes, Caterina repeated herself as she had many times before, “Because that woman has many sympathizers. Had she not been allowed to be free long enough to make contact with the fringe parts of her spy network, they would have known we double-crossed her. Now, if she’d been recaptured the next day, there were any number of ways we could have handled it. But instead
you
lost her. A fact I have
not
shared with the council.”

“And I’m grateful,” replied Silskin, uncomfortably. He squinted as the late afternoon sun peeked under the gazebo’s roof. “All this has to do with your plan to execute Marcus, doesn't it?”

“Ah, there’s the Ron-Paul who earned his place at my side,” said Caterina, taking an apple from the bowl. “Once we have an agreement from the dignitaries of the four regions to strip Marcus of his Head of Country title, we can behead him. It should be easy, what with the things he’s done over the years, plus
his
recent airship attacks.” She stared intensely at the sweating Silskin. “Is there any question that those attacks of ours were attributed to the Piemans?”

“Not that I’ve heard, your highness,” replied Silskin. “But what of Kar’m? Won’t this be another Bodear?”

“The world knew there was a village in Bodear, so there were people to mourn it. Kar’m is a place of ruins, nothing is there as far as the world is concerned. This is purely for us. We will show our enemies we know their secrets, and that nothing is sacred.”

Silskin glanced at the gardens and attendants. He was even more certain than before that Caterina’s spies were watching his every move. He needed to talk with the council to make sure they were okay with her plans. She was venturing through a room full of powder keg kingdoms with a torch.

“Destiny is about taking,” said Caterina, taking a bite of her apple. She wondered what would have happened if her father had married off her eldest sister instead of her, as he was supposed to. The very thought of the man curdled her blood.

“Oh, you’re home,” said a surprised seventeen-year-old Caterina to her father. She’d been surprised to see his study door open and had peeked inside.

Gaston Maurice turned from the window, and stared at his daughter. “Come in, Caterina. We need to have a conversation.” He forced a fleeting smile.

She hesitated. He’d been strange lately. Even the way he’d ask her to come in seemed laced in something worrisome. For most of the past year, he’d been away more than he’d been home, leaving her to the torturous mercies of her two older sisters. Even when he’d been home, she’d been eclipsed from his attention by their constant wants. He was always tired and annoyed by the time she got to him.

She crept into the tomb-like office and pulled her well-worn shawl around her tightly. The wall-candles flickered. She followed her father’s gaze to the frost lined window, and at the moon in the clear winter sky. The fireplace was dormant, the wood having run out earlier in the day. Like many things, while they had the means to buy more, her father had no interest in doing so. 

He gestured absent-mindedly to the threadbare, low-backed chair opposite him.

Caterina shuffled her bare feet and placed herself gingerly in the uncomfortable seat. She loathed being in that room. Nothing good had ever happened there. Sitting in that chair years before, she’d been told of her little brother’s drowning death, and before that, their mother’s death from fever.