Fire & Frost (20 page)

AS SHE ENTERED HER PRIVATE CABIN, Elizabeth’s heart was still pounding from the wobbling autogyro ride she’d taken from the airfield’s entrance directly to
Kingfisher
’s main deck. She could have boarded the airship via the cargo platform, as passengers typically did, but walking to the docking station would have led the hounds directly there. Eventually her father would track down the autogyro pilot and learn which airship Elizabeth had taken, but after the pilot had flown her to the skyrunner, she’d paid him to take a message to her boardinghouse matron. So that would give Elizabeth an extra hour, at least. Probably more. No other passenger vessels were leaving for the Ivory Market for several days, and even if her father hired an airship, that crew would need time to secure the provisions and coal needed for the long journey.

By the time he reached the Market, she would have already left again. The hounds might track her to another docking station, but it wouldn’t matter. Unlike Brighton, the flights in and out of the Ivory Market weren’t registered. She would board another airship and there would be no trace left of her to follow. Not even an eyewitness.

Opening her satchel, Elizabeth made certain her trousers and coat were still folded inside. She wouldn’t alter her appearance yet. That had to wait until she reached the Market, or this crew would be able to give her father a description of a young man to follow. Let her father continue asking about a young woman, instead.

Kingfisher
’s engine suddenly thrummed, starting a vibration through the boards under her feet. Through the hull, she heard the faint rattle of chains as the cargo platform was raised against the deck, followed by shouts from the crew to release the tether anchoring the skyrunner to the station.

Preparing to depart—and she was still free. By the skin of her teeth.

Even now, her father might be entering the airship field. Elizabeth wanted to go up on deck, to watch the hounds lose her trail at the autogyro stand, but giving in to the urge could be a mistake. If Elizabeth could see her father then
he
could see
her
, and all of her running would have been for nothing. Better to wait in her cabin until they had flown at least a mile south.

The tread of boots sounded from the passageway. Already anxious, Elizabeth tensed as the steps paused at her door—then moved on. A moment later, she heard another cabin door opening and closing.

One of the other passengers, then. When she’d asked, the captain had told her there were four men aboard, aside from the crew. Not many, but the fare was expensive and the route dangerous. Most airships followed the Atlantic coastline around Europe to avoid flying over Horde territory. The higher price reflected both the risk the aviators took and the speed with which they’d arrive at the Ivory Market.

It was a risk Elizabeth was willing to take, as well—and speed that she was willing to pay for.

After a few minutes, she glanced out the porthole. Only water below. They’d already left Brighton.

She went up on deck to watch England vanish into the distance.

WITHIN AN HOUR almost everything had vanished into a thick swirl of white. Standing near the front of the skyrunner and looking back along the airship’s side, Elizabeth could barely make out the shape of the balloon at the stern, as if the envelope simply faded away into the heavy fall of snow. Nothing on the ground was visible, but she’d flown this route before and knew what lay below. Hundreds of years ago, the French occupied these lands. But that was before the Horde’s armies and war machines had rolled in from the east. Before the zombie infection had swept across the continent. Before most of Europe had fled to Scandinavia and the New World.

Now there were only the ruins of cities and villages overgrown by the surrounding vegetation. There were only forests and fields harvested by the Horde.

And zombies.

The ravenous creatures roamed unchecked over most of Europe and Africa. Only a few walled cities and outposts stood on each continent. Elizabeth thought the risk of flying this route wasn’t that it took them over Horde territory—she’d hidden in several villages at the edges of the empire when Caius had been chasing her, and had felt as safe there as she had anywhere in the New World or around the North Sea. The real danger came from the slim chance that the airship would be forced to ground, its defenses overwhelmed by the dead, and the passengers’ flesh torn apart and consumed while they were still alive—or worse, suffering a bite that would turn them into one of the creatures.

Animals didn’t become zombies, though. They were just eaten.

Her cheeks stinging from the cold and wind, Elizabeth looked east. There was nothing to see but falling snow. But her father’s family had originally hailed from that direction. Nobles from the lowlands of Holland, they’d migrated to Johannesland in the northern American continent, near the great freshwater lakes. With the permission of the local native trade federation—an arrangement strengthened by several marriages over the years—her father’s ancestors had developed large tracts of land as a sanctuary for many of the animals brought from Europe and Africa.

But not all of the species survived. Of those that had, their populations—small to begin with—had declined over the decades, so that few breeding animals had remained by the time her grandfather inherited the sanctuary.

When her father had been a young man, he’d traveled around the world searching for a solution. He’d sent hunters to find specimens to reinvigorate the breeding stock—and to save the animals from certain extinction if they remained in zombie-infested lands. And he’d appealed to Horde smugglers, who exported stolen technology out of the empire to fund their rebellions.

The machine they’d found had surpassed even her father’s hopes. Created by order of a Great Khan after he’d failed to produce a son or daughter, the device had been designed to replicate him so that the issue of his flesh could be implanted in the womb of his favorite wife. Elizabeth didn’t know if the Khan had succeeded in his plan, but it didn’t surprise her that the Horde had invented such an incredible machine. They’d created other marvels, both wondrous and terrifying. The zombies’ infection was not a natural sickness, but caused by tiny mechanical bugs in the creatures’ bodies. In the occupied territories, similar bugs had allowed the Horde to graft prosthetics and tools to the bodies of laborers. Her father’s hunters were infected with the same bugs, which made them faster and stronger than uninfected men and women—and allowed them to heal more quickly.

But the bugs weren’t all the Horde had created. There were the monstrous kraken and megalodons in the seas. The boilerworms and the floating jellyfish. Towers which could broadcast a radio signal and control an entire population.

Few people knew of her father’s machine. In the New World, any Horde technology was automatically suspect. But his success had been noticed by scientific societies and other conservationists. Soon he was not just replicating specimens from the sanctuary in Johannesland, but from other sanctuaries throughout the Americas. His hunters brought in more animals and he delivered their replicated issue to other naturalists struggling to renew failing populations.

He’d met her mother in that way. A naturalist from Manhattan City, she’d brought a chimpanzee to his sanctuary. Within a week, her mother had married him.

Ten years later, she’d died giving birth to Elizabeth.

A lantern flared to life near Elizabeth’s post, radiating faint heat across her cheek. Startled, she glanced up. The day had grown dim—though white flakes still filled the air, night was falling. Each breath streamed from her mouth in a frozen ribbon, slipping away into the wind.

Suddenly cold, she made her way down the ladder to the second deck. She removed her coat and hat, grateful for the copper pipes that circulated hot water from the boiler room and throughout the airship, warming the cabins to a comfortable temperature. In her quarters, she lit her lamp and tried to fluff some life into her flattened curls. She would be expected at the captain’s table before too long, where her conversation would consist of lies about who she was and why she was headed to the Ivory Market. That would be easy enough; she’d done it many times before. She always had different names and stories at the ready.

Blast it all, though—she’d grown weary of telling them. Just once, Elizabeth wanted to be herself.

But she never had been…except for the one week she’d spent on an airship with Caius. He hadn’t expected her to be anyone else and she hadn’t pretended to be. For the first time, she’d just been Elizabeth.

She would have preferred an opportunity to be herself while she
wasn’t
tied to a bed, however.

A knock sounded at the door. Most likely the porter coming to announce dinner.

“I’ll be there shortly,” she called. “Thank you!”

Another knock. More insistent this time.

For heaven’s sake. Did they think she needed an escort to find the captain’s cabin? She wasn’t likely to become lost on the way; it was on the same deck as her own quarters.

Frowning with irritation, Elizabeth opened the door and encountered a wide chest. She glanced up.

It was as if she’d conjured him from her wish to be herself. A tall man with broad shoulders stood in the narrow passageway. Dark hair. A face that had been a beautiful, sullen boy’s—now harder, leaner, with shadows carving sharp angles from his cheekbones and jaw.

Caius.

Her heart plummeted.

She slammed the door and hit his booted foot, wedged against the frame. He pushed into the cabin. She turned to run and his left arm snagged around her waist. Kicking the door shut, he clapped his gloved hand over her mouth before she could shout for help.

“Don’t be afraid, Elizabeth.” His big body crowded her back against the bulkhead and she tasted the warm leather of his glove on her tongue. “I’m not here to—
Bludging hell!
”

Yanking his thumb from between her clamped teeth, Caius shook his hand as if to fling away the pain. He stared down at her, his eyebrows drawn and his expression dark. All at once, his lips quirked into a smile and laughter glimmered in the blue of his eyes.

Elizabeth hauled in a breath to scream.

Caius’s head swooped down. His mouth captured hers.

And suddenly, she had no breath at all.

CAIUS HADN’T INTENDED to kiss her.

But she was so warm.
Alive.
And her lips were stiff beneath his.

He drew back before she recovered from her surprise and bit him again. She stared up at him, brown eyes wide in an expression frozen by astonishment.

“Forgive me, Elizabeth,” he said, though he wasn’t at all sorry. Caius had wanted—needed—to do that for years. But now wasn’t the time, and he sure as hell didn’t have the right. “You don’t need to run. I’m not here to take you to your father.”

As he spoke, Caius watched her anger burn away the shock. Her features tightened.

She didn’t believe him. He didn’t blame her.

And she was alive.

He didn’t have the right but couldn’t help himself. Catching her face between his palms, he kissed her again. Her body went rigid. God, he had to stop this. Her hands clenched on his biceps and he braced himself for another bite. Incredibly, she rose onto her toes, softening against him. Caius couldn’t halt his disbelieving groan when her lips parted beneath his.

Elizabeth. Here, alive. In his arms.

And she was returning his kiss.

Heart thundering, he angled his head and delved deeper. Her chest hitched as he penetrated her mouth and tasted her, sweet and hot. A shudder ran through her slender frame. Her fingers slid into the hair at the back of his head and fisted, as if to hold him closer.

Or to hold him in place.

Sharp pain sliced through his lip. Caius jerked his head back, tasting blood.

Christ, he deserved that. He had to get this need under control. This wasn’t what he was here to do.

Not to kiss her, not to touch her. Just to make sure she was safe.

She glared up at him, her lips reddened and a flush darkening her cheeks. Her palms flattened against his chest and shoved.