Heart of Steel (6 page)

The woman's color deepened. “I have a weapon. But I don't sleep with it.”

“I do.” Yasmeen kept so many weapons in her bed that her friend Scarsdale had once called it an orgy.

“And I am grateful that you were so well prepared. I'll admit that I despaired when I thought you only had a blade.”

“I never
only
have a blade—but the only weapon I bring to a conversation is a knife. A gun means the talking is over.”

“Oh. Oh! I must make Lady Lynx say that.” Without a break in her stride, Zenobia tore off her right glove with her teeth before digging out a paper and pencil from her pocket. She scribbled the line as she walked.

Inspiration was to be taken so directly? Yasmeen slowed to accommodate the other woman's preoccupation, wondering if she'd often done the same when walking with Archimedes . . . who was charming and fun, much like the character Zenobia had created. Yasmeen had assumed it also reflected the sister, but Zenobia seemed far more sober and practical than her brother had been.

“How much of Archimedes came from Wolfram, and how much was you?”

Zenobia tucked her notes away. “All Wolfram. It was easy, though, because I know him well. Lady Lynx will likely have more of me in her.”

Because she didn't know Yasmeen as well. Fair enough. “And so she'll be French? Prussian?”

“Oh, no. English again, probably, just as I made Archimedes.”

She'd already decided? “Then why the interrogation about my background?”

“My own curiosity, as I said—and to build a better character. But the English bit, it's the audience, you understand. The New World is fascinated with the Horde occupation and those who've lived under their heel, and the English like to see themselves as heroes—and I sell more copies all around.”

Which meant more money for Yasmeen, too. The mention of heroes worried her, however. She'd carefully cultivated her reputation to protect her lady and her crew; she wouldn't see it destroyed with a stroke of a pen. “They won't know she is me, will they?”

“No. They'll assume it is based on that lady detective, the one every newssheet from London has been writing about. She was your passenger once, I believe?”

Ah, Mina Wentworth. Yes, the detective had spent some time on
Lady Corsair
. Yasmeen liked her, even though the woman had been idiot enough to go soft for a man—especially a man like the Iron Duke. He captained a ship well, and was one of the few people Yasmeen would trust at the helm of her lady, but in pursuit of the detective he was as dense and as possessive as any man who ever lived.

Yasmeen nodded. “She'll do.”

“Perhaps I will give Lady Lynx a background connected to the Horde rebellion—I could use some of Wolfram's old letters to establish that, and the stories would be of her current adventures.” She paused, as if considering that, before continuing. “Yes, that will work very well. Were you ever part of the rebellion, Captain?”

More crumbs? This trail would lead Zenobia all the way to Constantinople—what little remained of it after the Horde had crushed the rebellion there.

“I've never been a part of it,” she said truthfully. “But I've had business dealings with the rebels. I'll share the details with you in my letters.”

“Thank you. If there is anything that you think she
shouldn't
be, Captain Corsair, I would appreciate you telling me now. I can't promise that you'll like what I write, but I prefer not to be . . . inaccurate.”

Or to offend her, Yasmeen guessed. She appreciated that. “Don't let her be an idiot, always threatening someone with a gun. Only let her draw it if she intends to use it.”

Zenobia blushed again. “Unlike Archimedes Fox?”

In her stories. “Yes. You
have
to assume that someone will try to kill you while you're deciding whether or not to shoot them. So by the time the gun comes out, that decision should have been made.”

“I see.” Her notes were in her hand again, but Zenobia didn't add to them. “Is that what Wolfram did—wave his gun around?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes closed. “Idiot.”

So Yasmeen had often said, but his sister should know the rest of it. “Stupid, yes. But also exhausted. He returned a week late, and Venice wouldn't have given him time to rest or eat.” A month spent in the ruined city with too many zombies and too few hiding places. “When he climbed up to the airship, he ordered my crew to set a heading for the Ivory Market. I refused and told him to sleep it off before making demands. That's when he drew his gun and—”

She broke off. Zenobia was shaking her head, a look of disbelief on her face. “You
waited
for him?”

Yasmeen had. Blissed on opium and wondering why the hell she was still floating over a rotten city. But she'd known. She'd read through each damn story of his, each impossible escape, and she'd known he'd make it out of Venice, too. So she'd waited. And when he'd finally returned to her ship, she'd had to toss him back—believing he might still make it.

But after he'd tried to take her ship, she wouldn't wait for him again.

“I waited,” she finally answered. “He still owed me half of his fee.”

Zenobia studied her expression before slowly nodding. “I see.”

Yasmeen didn't know what the woman thought she saw—and didn't care, either. She was more interested in the reason Archimedes had been late. “He couldn't have known I'd wait,” she said. “And the sketch wouldn't have been worth anything to him if he died there.”

Zenobia's chin tilted up at an unmistakable angle, a combination of defiance and pride—as if she felt the need to defend her brother. “Perhaps he was late for the same reason you stayed: money.”

Yes, Yasmeen believed that. If she had followed Archimedes' orders and flown directly to the Ivory Market, he could have quickly sold the sketch. Which suggested that he'd risked his life because if he'd left Venice without the sketch, he'd have been dead anyway.

He'd owed someone, and whoever it was intended to collect. Few debts would need a da Vinci sketch to cover them, though. Even small salvaged items like those Archimedes usually collected sold high at auction. Of the baubles in Zenobia's parlor, the miniature alone would purchase a luxury steamcoach.

“Does he really owe so much?”

“Yes.”

“So you changed your names and went into hiding.” Not that Archimedes Fox had done a good job of hiding, traipsing all over the world as he did.

“Yes.” Zenobia's sigh seemed to hang in the air. They'd almost reached the Rose & Thorn before she spoke again. “Is there anything else? For Lady Lynx,” she added, when Yasmeen raised a brow.

“Yes.” The walk here had reminded her of one rule that she'd been fortunate to have learned before Archimedes Fox had boarded her airship. “Don't let her go soft for a man.”

Zenobia stopped, looking dismayed. “A romance adds excitement.”

“With a man who tries to take over everything? Who wants to be master of her ship, or wants the crew to acknowledge that she's his little woman?” Yasmeen sneered. God, but she imagined it all too easily. “What man can tolerate
his
woman holding a position superior to him?”

Zenobia apparently couldn't name one. She grimaced and pulled out her notes. “Not even a mysterious man in the background? More interest from the readers means more money.”

Yasmeen wasn't always for sale, and in this matter, the promise of extra royalties couldn't sway her. “Don't let her go soft. Give her a heart of steel.”

“A heart of steel,” Zenobia repeated, scribbling. She looked up. “But . . . why?”

Why?
Shaking her head, Yasmeen signaled for the rope ladder, which would take her back to her lady. Zenobia had begun that morning tied up and gagged, then had a gun shoved against her throat and her body used as a shield—and yet she had to ask
Why?

The answer was obvious. “Because there's no other way to survive.”

 

 

Yasmeen flew into Port Fallow from the east, high enough
that the Horde's combines were visible in the distance. After their war machines had driven the European population away and the zombies had infected those remaining, the Horde had used the Continent as their breadbasket. They'd dug mines and stripped the forests. Machines performed most of the work—and what the machines couldn't do was done by Horde workers living in enormous walled outposts scattered across Europe. Soldiers within those compounds protected the laborers from zombies and crushed any New Worlder's attempt to reclaim the land.

But thirty years before, Port Fallow had been established as a small hideaway for pirates and smugglers on the ruins of Amsterdam, and had boomed into a small city when the Horde hadn't bothered to crush it. Either they hadn't considered the city a threat or they hadn't been able to afford the effort. Yasmeen suspected it was the latter.

Two generations ago, a plague had decimated the Horde population, including those living in the walled compounds. A rebellion within the Horde had been gaining in popularity for years, and after the plague, had increased in strength from one end of the empire to the other. Now, the Horde was simply holding on to what they still had, not reclaiming what they'd lost—whether that loss was a small piece of land like Port Fallow or the entire British isle. No doubt that in the coming years, more pieces would fight their way out from under Horde control.

Just as well. A five-hundred-year reign was long enough for any empire. Yasmeen would be glad to see them gone. But then, she'd be glad to see a lot of people gone—and currently, Franz Kessler was at the top of her list.

It wouldn't be difficult to find him. Port Fallow contained three distinct sections between the harbor and the city wall, arranged in increasing semicircles and divided by old Amsterdam's canals: the docks and warehouses between the harbor and the first canal, with the necessary taverns, inns, and bawdyrooms; the large residences between the first and second canals, where the established “families” of Port Fallow made their homes; and beyond the second and third canals, the small flats and shacks where everyone else lived. Kessler's home lay in the second, wealthy ring of residences, and he sometimes ventured into the first ring—but he'd never run toward the shacks, and only an idiot would try to climb the wall. Few zombies stumbled up to Fladstrand, but not so here. The plains beyond the town teemed with the ravenous creatures, and gunmen continually monitored the city's high walls. Kessler couldn't run that way. The harbor offered the only possibility for escape, but Yasmeen wasn't concerned. Though dozens of boats and airships were anchored at Port Fallow, not a single one could outrun
Lady Corsair
.

And of those ships, only one made her glad to see it:
Vesuvius
. Mad Machen's blackwood pirate ship had been anchored apart from the others, floating in the harbor near the south dock. Yasmeen ordered
Lady Corsair
to be tethered nearby. She leaned over the airship's railing, hoping to see Mad Machen on his decks. A giant of a man, he was always easy to spot—but he wasn't in sight. She caught the attention of his quartermaster, instead, which suited her just as well. Yasmeen liked Obadiah Barker almost as much as she liked his captain.

With a few signals, she arranged to meet with him and descended into the madness of Port Fallow's busy dockside. Men loaded lorries that waited with idling engines and rattling frames. Small carts puttered by, the drivers ceaselessly honking a warning to move out of their way, and rickshaws weaved between the foot traffic. A messenger on an autogyro landed lightly beside a stack of crates, huffing from the exertion of spinning the rotor pedals. Travelers waiting for their boarding calls huddled together around their baggage, while sailors and urchins watched them for a drop in their guard and an opportunity to snatch a purse or a trunk. Food peddlers rolled squeaky wagons, shouting their prices and wares.

Yasmeen lit a cigarillo to combat the ever-present stink of fish and oil, and waited for Barker to row in from
Vesuvius
. His launch cut through the yellow scum that foamed on the water and clung to the dock posts.

Disgusting, but at least the scum kept the megalodons away. In many harbors in the North Sea, a sailor couldn't risk manning such a small boat—barely more than a mouthful to the giant sharks.

His black hair contained beneath a woolen cap, Barker tied off the launch and leapt onto the dock, approaching her with a wide grin. “Captain Corsair! Just the woman I'd hoped to see. You owe me a drink.”

Possibly. Yasmeen made so many bets with him, she couldn't keep track. “Why?”

“You said that if I ever lost a finger, I'd cry like a baby. But I didn't. I cried like a
man
.”

Yasmeen frowned and glanced at his hands. Obligingly, he pulled off his left glove, revealing a shining, mechanical pinky finger. The brown skin around the prosthetic had a reddish hue to it. Still healing.

She met his eyes again. “How?”

“Slavers, two days out. I caught a bullet.” He paused, and his quick smile appeared. “Literally.”

“And the slavers?”

“Dead.”

Of course they were. Mad Machen wouldn't have returned to port otherwise. He'd have chased them down.

She looked at the prosthetic again. Embedded in his flesh, the shape of it was all but indistinguishable from a real pinky, the knuckle joints smooth—and, as Barker demonstrated by wiggling his fingers—perfectly functional. Incredible work.