Revenge and the Wild (4 page)

While Nigel and Costin talked, Westie slipped away with Isabelle and Alistair in tow.

“That was exciting,” Isabelle said, stealing glances at Costin
through the crowd Westie had put between them. When they were on the other side of the docks, Isabelle snuck back to the subject of Westie’s party. “Before Costin arrived, you’d said you would think about the party.”

Westie knew she’d said nothing of the kind but didn’t feel like arguing with Isabelle, so she said, “I’ll think about it,” even though she had no intention of allowing a ball in her honor to happen.

Isabelle clapped her hands. “Wonderful. I bet Costin will be invited. I’m going to go find my parents and tell them all about it. I’ll need a new dress!”

“I can’t wait to see it,” Alistair said, taking Isabelle’s hand as if he might kiss it the way Costin had kissed Westie’s, teasing her like he used to tease Westie when they were still close. Westie felt a pinch in her chest at the sight of it.

Isabelle paled and shook him off her. She stumbled on her words. “I . . . I . . . need to go. I’ll see you soon, Westie,” she said before fleeing.

“Finally,” Alistair grumbled.

Westie just stared at him.

“What?” Alistair asked.

“Aren’t you a chatty thing lately.”

He gave her a curious look that shrank his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I haven’t heard you say but a handful of words to anyone except for Nigel in the last three years, and now you’re suddenly cutting jokes with Isabelle?”

“I talk to all sorts of people.” His eyes brightened. “If I didn’t
know better, I’d say you were jealous.”

Westie felt heat creeping up her neck and looked away from him. “Good thing you know better,” she said.

The thunder of engines in the sky cut their conversation short. The airship blotted out the sun, casting a wide shadow over the land. Westie’s mouth hung open. She’d never seen anything like it. Normally balloons and aeroskiffs were the only things moored at the small docks in Rogue City. She’d seen the blueprints for the airships Nigel had invented, but she’d never imagined them being as grand as this one was. It looked like a flying pirate ship, elaborately decorated in gold-and-red trimming. Six engines breathed black smoke into the air. There were three on each side, controlling spiral propellers, much like the ones on the ornithopter in the da Vinci drawings, only on a much larger scale. Beneath the ship were bags that let out small amounts of air for a lazy descent.

Dockworkers rushed to grab the lines and pull the ship to the ground. When two of those workers were lifted up into the air by a gust, Alistair sprinted to help.

James joined Westie after Alistair was gone. He was the only thing more decorated than the airship. He looked like a poodle among a pack of mutts next to the Rogue City populace.

They faced the airship. James tucked his hands into his pockets and lost the straight posture he used around Nigel.

“I apologize for always staring at you,” he said. Westie looked sideways at him. “It’s just I don’t think most girls could pull off having a machine for an arm. It’s not very feminine”—Westie gave him
a withering glare, but he seemed not to notice—“and yet it suits you so perfectly. I almost feel like you’re more beautiful with it. Either way . . . you’re extraordinary.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see her blush. “But that’s no excuse. It’s rude of me to stare. I am an asshole.”

Westie shut her mouth to keep from smiling. For an aristocrat, James sure had a foul mouth. She liked that about him.

“I won’t argue with you on that one,” she said. Nigel had told her to play nice, and she fully meant to, but James said it first, and wasn’t it polite to agree with a guest? Westie sighed. “I’m sorry for snapping at you during supper last night.” She spit out the apology and screwed up her face as if it were earwax on her tongue.

James’s lips split into a grin. “That’s very touching. Thank you.”

She shrugged.

“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink at the tavern tonight? We can start over.”

She took slow breaths as a familiar craving wakened in the pit of her stomach. It had been two years since Westie had had a drink, but every day was a struggle to keep sober. She’d started drinking when she was fourteen, to numb the pain of the nightmares of her past and Alistair’s rejection. It started with just a shot of whiskey in the morning, and then one more before bed to get to sleep. At some point, without her even realizing, her drinking had turned into a habit.

Alcohol had made everything seem more fun, and it disrupted her thoughts of Alistair, so she drank a lot. One night, after she and Isabelle had gone to a barn dance and Westie had woken the next morning nearly drowned after passing out in a pig’s wallowing hole,
Nigel made a deal with her. If she continued her school lessons and promised never to take another drink, he would provide her with the weapons and training she needed to hunt the killers of her family, something she’d been begging him to do for some time. She’d made that deal with him and fully intended to keep it.

“I don’t drink,” she said.

Westie watched as Alistair took the rope and was lifted into the air with the other men.

“Looks like your friend could use some help,” James said.

Westie laughed, but the sound was lost in engine noise. She ran—as much as one could run beneath the weight of all that fabric—and stood below them. Reaching up with her machine, she took hold of the knot at the end of the rope, pulling the men to safety.

The airship sank toward the earth and bounced to a stop. She cringed at the wail of the engines shutting down. Nigel was a genius, she knew, but she’d never imagined him capable of inventing something so immense.

Westie joined her family to watch the people on the airship emerge from their cabins onto the deck.

“There he is,” Nigel said warily as the mayor climbed down the companionway and descended the gangplank.

Westie had never seen the mayor before. Though he was in charge of all the territories in the Sacramento Valley, he rarely, if ever, came to town. He was soft pink and nearly bald, pushing fifty if not already there. He wore a green paisley suit, rattlesnake-skin boots, and a bolo tie adorned with turquoise even though it was an Indian stone,
and, according to Nigel, he’d fought diligently to keep the natives out of the city.

The mayor talked around a cigar clamped between his teeth. “Nigel, my good man.” He patted Nigel on the shoulder with a pudgy hand. He had a hearty laugh. Pearls of sweat hung from his upper lip. “These must be your automatons I’ve heard so much about.”

Westie’s hackles rose. She doubted the insult was intended, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to shove her machine up the fat man’s—

“Alistair Butler, at your service.” Alistair stepped forward, offering his hand. Though Nigel had never officially adopted him, Alistair used his surname.

The mayor gave it a quick tug.

“How do you do?” Westie extended her copper hand for the mayor to kiss or shake, it didn’t matter which—either way she meant it to be an introduction he wouldn’t forget. Nigel had warned her to behave around the investors, but he hadn’t said anything about the mayor.

Nigel stepped in before she could make contact. He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a painful squeeze. Wincing, she smiled at the mayor.

“And this beauty is Miss Westie,” Nigel said.

“A beauty indeed.” The mayor was full of smiles until his gaze wavered on her copper arm. “Indeed,” he said again with less enthusiasm.

“How was your flight, Mayor?” Nigel asked.

The mayor patted his ample belly, where the buttons of his shirt stretched holes into the fabric, showing the sweaty hair matted beneath. “Just fine, thank you, but please call me Ben. There’s no point in using formalities when we’re in wild country surrounded by creatures and Indians, wouldn’t you say?”

He glared at Bena, who stood beside Nigel looking unimpressed by the mayor, the airship, and the people getting off it.

“Where are the investors?” Westie asked. It was a hundred and hell out, and it felt like swampland beneath her skirts.

“They should be coming.” The mayor looked toward the ship. “Yes, there they are.”

Westie followed his line of sight toward the passengers on the ship. It was as if someone had reached into her chest and pulled out her lungs. Suddenly the air around her disappeared, stolen by the couple walking down the gangplank.

The woman stepping off the ship was a wraith from the past clad in flashy red traveling skirts, expensive city fashions with matching hat and gloves. Her dark hair fell in waves over one shoulder and bounced with each step. Her attire hid the fact that she had a plain face with pockets beneath her eyes and irises like two brown scabs. She was short and thin, and the severity of her features gave her a raptor-like quality.

Westie couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, her thoughts spinning in violent circles between past and present. Beside her, someone was talking. Whether to her or to someone else, she didn’t know, for she couldn’t think beyond the sight before her. Next to the woman stood a man, a head taller than those around him, stout of chest, with arms as thick as smokestacks and a pocked face. He too was finely dressed, wearing a high-collared shirt, tan sack coat, and breeches. He wasn’t
ugly, but he also wasn’t someone anyone would think twice about after he’d walked away. The couple stood within a group, all vying to get off the ship first.

Westie’s throat tightened. She’d imagined catching the cannibals who’d killed her family a million times, but never like this, never caught off her guard.

The sight of them conjured a fear so powerful it threatened to shake her world apart. Her head felt loose, like it would float away if it weren’t for her spine. She tried squeezing her eyes closed again, pressing her hands against her lids to block out any light. When she opened them, she was sure the couple would be gone, and in their place would be nice people who looked nothing like the cannibals from her past.

That wasn’t the case.

Confusion held her tongue. The people she remembered from the cabin in the woods were vile, dirty things, not society folks. It had to be a mistake.

Alistair was beside her. He said, “Didn’t you hear me?”

She didn’t dare take her eyes off the man and woman. “What?”

“I said you don’t look well.” He worried over her like a persistent mother, wiping her brow with his pocket square.

“It’s the heat,” she said, swatting his hands away.

“I’m getting you something to drink.”

After he left, Westie continued to study the couple. A young man joined them, squinting against the sun, rodent-like, with his eyes, nose, and tiny mouth all pushed into the center of his face. His hair was the color of wet sand, worn long and pulled into a tail. He
peeled off his gloves one finger at a time.

She dug her nails into her palm until it bled, wondering if he could be their son. There had been four people taking shelter in the hunting cabin when her folks had stumbled upon it: a man, his wife, and two children. Westie didn’t remember the boy as much as she did the mother and father, but his age, the color of his hair, it all fit.

The similarities were remarkable, but there had been a daughter too. Where was she? She would’ve been nine by now, nearly the same age as Westie had been when she’d escaped the cabin. It was possible the girl had died. The wagon trail was no place for children.

Alistair came back with a cup of lemonade and handed it to Westie. She dropped it back in one shot but was still thirsty after, only her appetite required something stronger, with proof. Her mouth had gone as dry as the hot clay beneath her feet.

The rest of Westie’s resolve shattered as she watched the mayor and James join the family on the dock.

“Those folks are the investors?” she said.

Nigel gave her an inquisitive look. “Yes, those are the Fairfields.”

The cup shattered beneath the grip of her machine.

“Is something wrong?” Nigel said. “Are you ill?”

Westie hesitated, the words stuck in her throat. Her voice was thick with fear when she finally spoke. “I think those folks are the ones who killed my family.”

The admission felt dangerous. It had just been a notion before. Saying the words made it real.

Nigel stared at her without expression. When Bena reached for
the knife tucked into her belt, he stopped her.

“There won’t be any need for that,” he said. “I’m sure Westie is mistaken.”

Westie looked back at the Fairfields, their attire, their smiles as they conversed with the mayor and James. She wondered if her desire to find the family of cannibals had been so strong that her judgment was impaired. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d gotten it wrong.

A young girl of nine or ten years slipped through the forest of legs crowding her path. She held a rainbow-colored lollipop in one hand and a doll in the other. She reached up, taking hold of the woman’s hand.

Westie swayed in the breeze. Alistair gripped her arm to keep her up.

“It’s them.” Her throat felt as though she were talking through shards of glass. “I need to alert the sheriff.”

Her eyes darted around like bugs trapped in mason jars, looking for him.

“Like hell you will,” Nigel said, gripping her flesh arm.

She gazed up at him, eyes charred by the screaming sun. “It’s them, Nigel. I know this woman’s face like I know my own.” Westie caught a glimpse of a tan Stetson over Nigel’s shoulder. “There he is,” she said when the sheriff came into view.

Her hand trembled, stomach coiled with nerves. She shook off Nigel’s grip and made her way toward the sheriff. Nigel lunged at her and Alistair followed. Their first attempt to take Westie down before
she reached him didn’t go well. Alistair received a copper blow to the chest that knocked the air out of him. Nigel’s strength was no match, and he soon found the seat of his trousers dusted with red clay when she pushed him down.

“Stop her!” Nigel cried out to Bena, but Bena had seen the aftermath of what the cannibals had done to Westie’s family and made no move to help in the effort.

Westie cussed as the hem of her skirt caught on a broken hitching post. Struggling to get free without stripping down to her bloomers, she failed to notice Costin at her side until he tackled her.

She flailed her arms for something to grab hold of. It was no use. Her head hit the dirt with a blunt sound. The pain it caused wasn’t as dull. It rippled through her like a rock being dropped into a sleeping pond. Costin straddled her waist while Nigel pinned her metal arm to disable her strength. A tendon in her shoulder was the key to her machine, a shutoff switch. The arm was useless when enough pressure was applied. Nigel knew exactly where to push, and there was no doubt in Westie’s mind that he’d planned it exactly that way when attaching the machine to her arm. If it hadn’t been for that vulnerability, there would’ve been nothing to stop her strength.

A choking veil of red dirt rose around them as the pair worked to contain her. She fought like a feral cat. Tears filled her eyes. She let out a howl that caused the women who’d gathered around to step back, and their children to take shelter behind their skirts.

“What’s happening to her?” she heard Costin ask.

“She’s having a seizure,” Nigel said to Costin and the crowd, “a long-standing medical condition. Please stand back and give the poor girl some air.”

Costin started to stand. Nigel stopped him. “No, not you. I need help keeping her down.” Costin hesitated. Eventually his weight settled on her again.

He looked down at her. His face was hidden by his veil, but she saw his throat move when he swallowed. “Do you need my blood to heal her?” he said.

The onlookers gasped. It was an astonishing thing to ask. The consumption of vampire blood by humans and creatures alike was illegal. It certainly had its healing qualities, but it could give a powerful deadly creature even more strength. It could give humans an unnaturally long life span, or it could give them a horrible death and even turn them into the Undying, if someone were to consume too much. It was poison, after all. Only a vampire knew the right dosage, and vampires couldn’t be trusted.

Nigel whipped his head to face Costin and answered with an enthusiastic “
No!
”

He leaned into Westie’s ear so only she could hear his words. “Stop this at once,” he demanded.

Slobber frothed from her lips. “They’ll pay for what they did,” she said through gritted teeth.

“I’m not releasing you until you calm down.”

Clay stuck to her cheeks, turning tears to mud. “But it’s them,” she said, hating how meek she sounded.

Nigel’s expression battled between anger and sorrow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know? Where’s your proof?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t have any.”

Nigel pinched her face between his fingers and forced her to look at the woman in red and the family walking toward them. “Look at them,” he said. Westie blinked the dust from her eyes. “Those are people of society with a fortune in their pockets. Money means power. Do you honestly think anyone will believe they are cannibals? And do you think the sheriff will just take your word for it like he did the last time?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I assure you he will not. If you go off spouting accusations and the Fairfields catch wind of it, they will get spooked and leave.”

No, that wasn’t at all what she wanted. She hadn’t thought of it that way. If the sheriff didn’t believe her, the Fairfields would be gone, and by the looks of it they had enough money to take themselves far out of her reach.

“You need to forget about this, at least until we can get home and discuss it rationally,” Nigel said. He let go of her face. “Now, pull yourself together.”

She wanted to curl into a ball and hide from everyone watching her. “I don’t think I can.”

“You must try.” He glanced to his side. “And be quick about it.”

The faces of the mayor and the woman in red appeared above her like air balloons hiding the sun.

“Is everything all right?” the mayor asked with less concern than curiosity.

Costin climbed off Westie and helped her to stand. Her dress was filthy and the hem was ripped. She dusted the clay off the best she could and smoothed her unruly hair. Alistair stood several feet away covered in dirt, steam blasting from his mechanical mask as he struggled to catch his breath. She was glad to see she hadn’t hurt him too badly.

Clearing the dirt from her throat, she said, “I have these spells. An affliction from a sickly childhood.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” the red huntress told her.

Her voice, Westie noticed, was the same as she remembered. Kind, like when the woman had welcomed her family to sup with them. She remembered, too, how quickly that voice had turned to shrieks as Westie ran through the cabin trying to escape.

When the woman touched her, the stump of Westie’s arm began to throb beneath her machine, and her skin prickled as though it were trying to shrivel away from her.

The mayor sighed. “If we’re done with this, I’d like to introduce my guests.”

A pig. That’s what the mayor reminded her of, with his sun-tender skin and the curly wisps of hair on his head. So why hadn’t the cannibals turned him into bacon already?
Unless he’s one of them
, she thought.

“Nigel, my good man, I’d like you to meet Mrs. Lavina Fairfield,” the mayor said.

Lavina Fairfield. Was that her real name? They had never mentioned their names in the cabin. Westie needed something definitive. Something that made her certain, that she could put in Nigel’s face and say
I told you so
.

“This here is Hubbard, the head of the Fairfield clan and a fine cook, I might add.” Westie put a fist in front of her mouth, silently belched acidic fumes, and hoped she wouldn’t vomit. “This strapping young lad is their son, Cain.” Cain’s rat eyes studied Westie’s mechanical arm, his mouth puckered in disgust. “Of course you already met their nephew, James Lovett Junior.”

And then there was James. Westie was unsure where he played into the whole picture. He hadn’t been with the family at the cabin. His presence stirred more doubt within her, a feeling she wasn’t too fond of.

“And here is the youngest of the clan,” the mayor said.

The little girl lifted her face. She wore a pink ruffled dress, with her flaxen ringlets sticking out of her bonnet. When she smiled, Westie felt unease wrap around her like a smothering embrace.

“This little spitfire is Miss Olivia, but folks call her Olive.”

All the names swirled around in Westie’s head like too much whiskey. She would never remember them all. She could hardly remember seconds after they were announced.

Olive looked at her mother, who was staring curiously at Westie. The little girl frowned and strangled her doll. It was handmade, similar to the dolls Westie’s mother used to make her, and had a pink dress with a crisscross pattern all over it. The girl twisted its head until it popped off.

“Oh no, Olive, look what you’ve done,” her mother scolded. “How many times must I sew this head back on?”

“Don’t worry about that ragged old thing. We’ll get you a proper doll. I hear the general store here has a collection of lovely dolls made of porcelain with eyes that blink,” the mayor said.

Olive threw the toy to the ground. “I don’t want a proper doll. I want you to fix this one!”

The girl’s voice grated at Westie’s ears. It was all too much to handle. She needed to escape. She turned to Alistair, who had already recovered.

“Fetch my horse, Alley. I’m not feeling so good.”

Only when Alistair returned with her gelding and his mare did her stomach settle. Just as she was about to mount her horse, she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. When she turned, she came face-to-face with Lavina Fairfield.

Westie took a deep breath and tried to keep the fear raging inside her from showing on her face.

White powder settled into the crow’s-feet around Lavina’s eyes and the frown lines of her mouth. The powder was meant to make her look young and fresh but had the opposite effect. The scent of rose water coming off her skin reminded Westie of old people.

“I hope this isn’t terribly intrusive, but may I ask how you lost your arm?” Lavina said.

Westie hadn’t expected such a blunt question. It was rude of Lavina to ask. It would’ve been even ruder for Westie not to answer. Everyone around them watched, waiting for the answer.

“It was a steamboat accident,” Nigel answered for her. The
tendon in Westie’s jaw relaxed. Nigel stood behind Bena, holding her shoulders. Whether it was for comfort or to hold her back, Westie wasn’t sure. “A sad story, really. You see, during my travels back East years ago, I was on a barge heading down the Mississippi when my crew and I came upon a sinking vessel. Westie was drowning, her arm caught in the spinning paddle. I couldn’t save her family, who’d also been aboard, so I took the child into my charge.”