Sky Pirates (8 page)

“Take whatever you want. Just please could you get my companion to a doctor? She needs help,” Elle pleaded.

The pirate laughed. “Then she shouldn’t ’ave been shooting at us in the first place. The Cap’n did warn you there’d be trouble if you did that.”

“Please,” Elle said again. “She’s going to die if you don’t help us.”

The pirate strode over to them and cast an eye over Dr. Bell. He scratched his beard and sucked air through his teeth as he regarded the wound. “That bullet’s gone straight into the gut,” he said after a few moments. “There ain’t a doctor alive that can cure a shot like that. She’ll be a goner in a few hours, for sure. But I’ve orders to take you alive so you’d best wait here quietly until the Captain calls for you.”

“If you’ve orders to take us alive, then you should get us to your sick bay. If she goes, I do too,” Elle said.

The pirate ignored her. Instead, he strode over to the cockpit. “My, but it’s hot in here. Must be from the shooting. He shrugged off the black canvas coat he was wearing and flung himself into the pilot seat. Then he put his great hobnail boots up onto the flight console and stretched out. “Ah, that’s a nice chair. I think I might take it for myself.” Then he grabbed the communications tube and barked a few orders into it.

“Pity you ripped the balloon on this one. She’s a pretty little freighter. But I reckon she’d fetch a nice price, ripped canvas or not.” His face broke open in a dirty grin. “A bit like her little pilot. What d’ya say?” He guffawed at his joke.

Elle just glared at him with cold anger. There was much she wanted to say to this vile man, but she had to stay calm for Gertrude’s sake.

She watched with naked hatred as the pirates carried the crates up through the hatch and into the hull of the
Inanna
.

Elle’s back ached from sitting in such an awkward position and her hands were numb, but she held on to Dr. Bell, willing her own life force into her and hoping for a miracle. From time to time, she felt the strange trickle of energy slip between them. It was, after all, the function of an Oracle to channel the energies of the worlds, but she had no knowledge of the healing skills of the Shadow Realm. Gertrude was growing quieter and paler by the minute, and Elle could see that what she was doing was not enough. There was so little aether up here that there was not much more she could do.

The pirate with the yellow teeth eventually strode up to them. “That one still alive?” he inquired.

“Please. You must help her,” Elle murmured. “Look, I’m a good pilot. I can navigate. Let me work in return for her treatment.”

The pirate laughed heartily at her offer, but he did
stand back and survey them for a moment. Elle could almost see the cogs and gears turning inside his meaty head. “That’s a mighty fine offer, but who says we don’t already have a good navvy on board?”

“I’ll do anything … anything you want if you just get her to a doctor,” Elle said.

The pirate scratched the back of his greasy neck. “Well, as I said before, I have strict orders to bring you aboard alive.”

“And what if we resist?”

“Well, then I have orders to shoot you. Not kill you, mind. Just maim you a little. Seems our Captain wants a word with you.” He shrugged. “You should count yourself lucky that we only have orders to put the two of you into a life-raft balloon and set adrift out there if you refuse.” He wiped his huge hand on his none-too-clean shirt, leaving a brownish streak of what may have been blood or engine grease across it. “Millions of square miles of nothing but sand and sun,” he said sniffing.

“If I come without protest, will you ask your doctor to help my friend?”

The pirate shrugged. “Can’t promise anything, but if we bring her on board, Doc said he’d look.”

Elle closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Very well then, I accept,” she said. She could play at being a willing prisoner if it meant there was a chance of getting Dr. Bell some help. They could find a way to escape later.

The pirate grinned through his thick beard and the skin around his eyes crinkled with pleasure. “Well then, Osbert Heller’s the name. First mate and bosun of the
Inanna
.

“Eleanor Chance,” Elle said.

“Well, welcome aboard the
Inanna
, Eleanor Chance,” he said in a tone that was anything but welcoming.

He turned and whistled. “Elias! Finn! Get a stretcher
and take the old lady to the infirmary. See if Doc can do something for her. Cap’n wants to see the other one. Chop-chop.”

With that, Heller gripped Elle with his enormous hands and dragged her to her feet. She barely had an opportunity to ensure that Dr. Bell’s head did not hit the floor before she was hoisted along and shoved up the ladder that led out of the hatch. Outside, boarding scaffolding had been lashed to the fuselage leading up to an open cargo hatch in the hull.

Elle also noted, with some dismay, that more large iron hooks and tether ropes were holding the
Water Lily
in place now. There would be no escaping from here without a fight. And it was a fight she was not so sure she would win on her own.

“Up the ladder then,” Heller said as he shoved her toward it. “And no funny tricks or your friend won’t see the doctor.”

Elle gritted her teeth and started climbing the ladder. This was not an easy task, considering the fact that her hands were bound. She slipped once or twice on the rungs. Each time she stumbled, Heller gripped her painfully and hoisted her up before him. “Come on, girlie. I thought you were a pilot,” he growled. “Steady on now.”

When Elle’s head reached the top of the ladder, she was unceremoniously seized by the collar and dragged inside.

The first thing that hit her was a blast of warm air, slick and damp with the smell of metal and engine grease. She stumbled along the narrow gangway that led from the cargo hatch. She was on board the
Inanna
.

Inside, the ship was enormous, with walkways and doors stretching off to all sides. Everything was painted in the same drab shade of anticorrosive paint that prevented the ship from rusting. This was indeed a warship,
she thought as she looked around. It was solid, impenetrable and a million times different from the pretty wood paneling and hand-painted windowpanes of the
Water Lily
.

Elle felt a strange sense of claustrophobia envelop her. All her senses felt dull—as if she had her head inside a metal bucket. Iron, she thought. This ship is made of iron.

Even with her navigational skills, Elle was soon lost as she was manhandled down yet another narrow corridor by Heller. He kept one of his large hands clamped securely around her elbow, forcing her to walk in front of him, their footfalls clunking along the metal walkway.

As they walked, Elle stared sideways at Heller’s hip. Peeking out from underneath the leather waistcoat was her Colt, tucked away into his belt. It sat there, its pearl butt jiggling just out of reach.

She resolved that retrieving it would be the first thing she did. A bullet between this hideous man’s eyes would quite possibly be the second. She was secretly relieved that no one had bothered to check her for other weapons. Her stiletto sat tucked securely in a front pocket of her corset. It would take more than a cursory search to find it. She would sort out her escape later. For now, saving Gertrude was all that mattered.

They came to a closed door and stopped. Heller reached over to turn the round metal wheel that operated the opening mechanism. As he moved, Elle caught the distinct smell of engine grease, unwashed body and stale tobacco. Elle closed her eyes and tried to block out the awfulness of him brushing past her.

The door swung open with a clang.

“Permission to enter the ready room with the prisoner, Captain,” Heller said.

“Permission granted, Mr. Heller,” a man said from inside.

Without further ceremony, Heller shoved Elle through the door. She stumbled but he was still holding on to her so she ended up being half dragged until he dropped her into a heap on the floor.

“Miss Chance. Or is it Lady Greychester? It’s nice to see you again,” the Captain said.

Elle looked up and felt all the blood drain from her face. “You!” was all she managed to stammer. Before her was none other than Captain Logan Dashwood.

He gave her a lazy smile. “The one and only,” he said.

Suddenly furious, Elle found her feet and yanked her elbow out of Heller’s grasp. “How dare you steal the
Water Lily
!” she shouted at him. “Dr. Bell is likely to die because of you!”

Dashwood sat back in his chair. “My dear Mrs. Marsh, if I recall correctly, you stole the
Iron Phoenix
off me in Amsterdam. You had no compunction about leaving me stranded with my crew at that point. We could have died too, you know.”

“There was no shooting. No one got hurt!” she said. “I won that fair and square,”

“Oh no you didn’t. You never let on that you were gifted by the Shadow. Took me for all I had, if I recall rightly.”

“You were the one who was cheating.” Elle lurched at him, the intention to kill upon her, but Heller had grabbed hold of her and dragged her back.

“Easy now. That’s no way to address a captain, now is it?” he said.

“Let go of me, you hairy gorilla.” Elle spat.

Dashwood sat back in his seat, enjoying the spectacle. “It’s all right, Heller. Let her be.”

Heller set Elle back onto her feet. She straightened her coat and glared at him.

He shrugged and ambled up to the doorway where he
leaned against the door, crossed his arms, and regarded Elle with hard eyes, slightly narrowed.

At well over six foot and with a chest as broad as an oak, this was not a man she wished to tangle with, she realized.

“Not only did you steal my beautiful ship, you then crashed her into the ground near Battersea,” Dashwood said, drawing her attention back to him.

“I was not flying her and you know it,” Elle said.

Dashwood was right though. He and Ducky Richardson—one of her oldest friends—had come to lend their assistance at the Battersea spark monastery in London during her attempt to rescue Marsh from the lair of the Lady in White. The rigging of the
Iron Phoenix
had become entangled with another ship, with disastrous consequences. Both had crashed into the ground, causing untold damage.

“Does Ducky even know you’re a—a pirate?” Elle said.

“Oh yes. In fact he’s been on a few raids with me,” Dashwood said smoothly. “I think he quite enjoys the excitement of it all.”

“And what about Dr. Bell? What did she ever do to you to deserve this?”

Dashwood’s face colored for a second. “Look, I am sorry about your friend. My men had orders to take you alive and unhurt. You shouldn’t have opened fire on us. Accidents happen.”

“And you think that justifies your actions?” Elle said, horrified at his glib attempt at shifting the blame.

He sat forward, his eyes suddenly intensely blue. “You gave the lady a shotgun instead of surrendering like you should have.
You
are the one with blood on your hands, Mrs. Marsh. Not me.”

Elle stared at him in disbelief. There was no point in
arguing with him. “Can I see her, please?” she said, changing tactics.

Dashwood nodded. “Heller, take her to the infirmary. My surgeon is doing all he can, but she’s in a bad way. You may go and say goodbye.” He stepped closer to Elle and regarded her with a look of concern. “Perhaps you should ask the doc to look you over too. That is quite a bruise you have on your chin.” He ran his finger gently over the place where the rope had caught her earlier.

Elle flinched and turned away. “I am perfectly well, thank you very much. I do not need your sympathy, especially since none of this would have happened had it not been for you. Mark my words, this is not over Captain Dashwood.”

Dashwood started laughing. “Oh, you are quite right. You and I have many things to discuss in the coming days.”

The infirmary was painted a sickly shade of light green. Patches of rust bloomed up and down the metalwork. In one of the bunks, tucked away behind a canvas curtain on the far end of the infirmary, Elle found Dr. Bell.

“Gertrude,” she whispered. “Just stay still, I am working on a way to get us out of here.”

Elle glanced around. The doctor was a solid-looking man with slightly bowed legs. He was almost completely bald, save for one long wisp of hair, which appeared to be held in place by the rubber headband that also held a surgical light over his eye. He was busy bandaging the arm of one of the crewmen. His white frock was splattered and stained with red. It had taken almost all of Dashwood’s crew to capture them, yet Elle took no satisfaction from the fact that the infirmary seemed to be full of wounded men. So much bloodshed over nothing.

Gertrude’s lips were very pale. A bright red stain bloomed through the bandages wrapped around her
stomach. “Eleanor, we have only known one another for a few days, but I feel like we have been friends for a long time.” Dr. Bell coughed and winced with pain.

“Save your strength,” Elle said.

Dr. Bell smiled at her. “It’s all right my dear. I just wish someone had told me that dying was so painful. Doctor gave me some laudanum and I am quite giddy with it, but it still hurts.”

“Gertrude, please don’t say things like that. You are going to survive this.” Elle held the older woman’s hand in hers.

Dr. Bell gripped her fingers. “Before we run out of time, there is something very important I need to tell you.”

“I’m listening.” Elle leaned forward to catch the words.

“You must listen to what I have to say. Remember the legend of Angkor.” Dr. Bell drew a deep breath and winced.

“The hidden city?” Elle said.

“The
apsara
.” Dr. Bell struggled to sit up a little and gripped Elle’s lapel even tighter. “I know she would deem you worthy. The
apsara
will be able to tell you how you will find your husband. I am absolutely sure of it. Promise me you will go and seek her counsel. Offer her something that is sacred to you and ask her.”

Elle started shaking with fear and distress. “I promise. Gertrude, please rest now. You must not get so excited. All this will start the bleeding again,” Elle murmured.