Steamed (8 page)

“No,” Hallie repeated, her face set in a shocked, disbelieving expression. “I am dreaming. I will wake up and go to lunch with Luis, and the after- lunch sex will be really fabulous, and then I will call you and tell you about this amazing dream I had. That’s all. It’s a dream.”

“I wish it was that easy,” a woman’s voice said. Hallie turned toward Octavia, standing in the doorway of the ship, the kid behind her. “Mr. Fletcher, would you please escort your sister back to the ship? Our schedule is very tight, and we need to leave immediately if we are to not fall behind.”

“I tried to tell them, Captain,” Al said, scurrying over to her, his hands wringing and gesturing wildly as he pointed to us. “I told them you don’t allow anyone to disembark during refilling stops.”

“Wake up, wake up, wake up,” Hallie said, scrunching her eyes tight and pinching her arms. “It’s not real. Time to get up and get dressed.”

“Hallie—”

“What’s goin’ on here?” The man named Piper with the odd hitch in his walk pushed past Octavia, the teenage kid right behind him. “What’s the thuggees doin’ out here, Captain?”

“Thuggees?” I asked, distracted for a moment.

“They’re escaping!” the kid shouted, fumbling with something in his pocket.

“We’re not doing anything,” I said, turning around to help Hallie back into the airship. She sidestepped me when I tried to take her arm.

“Escapin’, are they?” Piper grimly hobbled toward us. “That they’ll not do.”

“We’re just standing here taking a look around,” I protested. “And since Octavia asked us to return to the ship, that’s what we’re going to do, isn’t it, Hal?”

“I don’t care what you do,” Hallie said, her eyes wild. “I’m getting the hell out of here so I can wake up and have a rendezvous with Luis.”

“Take her!” Al said as he flung himself at me.

A chunk of dirt flew up at Hallie’s feet as I was knocked to the ground.

She stared for a moment at the kid holding the same sort of odd gun that Octavia had pointed at me, then turned and ran screaming down the hill.

“You idiot,” I yelled, rolling over to shake the skinny first officer at the same time Octavia shouted something at the kid with the gun. “Get off of me! She’s in no shape to be running around on her own.”

“Ye’re not goin’ anywhere, ye murdering canker,” Piper yelled as he, too, threw himself on me.

“I haven’t murdered anyone, although I’m sure as hell thinking about it right now,” I snarled, trying not to hurt the old man too much as I shoved him off me. I was a bit less careful with Al, getting a good right hook in that sent him flying backward with a dazed look on his face.

“Mr. Piper! Restrain yourself! Dooley, for the love of God, if you fire that Disruptor one more time, I will remove it from your person!” Octavia stormed down off the ship and helped Piper to his feet. “Mr. Fletcher, are you injured?”

“A visit to the chiropractor might be in order later, but right now I have to get my sister.” I got to my feet and rubbed at a spot on my back where it felt like an anvil had hit me.

“I shall accompany you,” she said, turning to glare at her crew. “You will remain here, all of you. Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye, Captain, but—”

“All of you!” she said firmly, then, picking up her skirts, ran past me down the hill. I didn’t wait to add my two cents; I just took off, my eyes on the rapidly shrinking figure of Hallie as she entered the town proper.

“Please, Mr. Fletcher, I can’t run as fast as you,” Octavia said from behind me a few minutes later.

I slowed up and waited for her, scanning the outer fringes of the town. There was no sign of Hallie at all. “Great. We’ve lost her.”

“She shouldn’t be too hard to find in that ensemble,” Octavia murmured, breathing heavily.

“You should take up jogging,” I told her, turning to scan the opposite direction. “Does wonders for your cardio.”

“I have no idea what that is, but if you are referring to the fact that I can’t breathe, I would remind you that I’m wearing a corset you found so intriguing a short while ago. There—people are staring after something. It is probably your sister garnering undue attention. Thank God the emperor doesn’t have men in this region of France.”

We took off at a fast walk in the direction she pointed. “Sorry. I forgot about the corset.” I couldn’t help but slip a little look over to her chest, where her lacy white top framed the tops of her boobs so nicely. They heaved now as she tried to catch her breath, plump little mounds that had my mouth watering.

“I would appreciate it if you could refrain from ogling my chest in public,” she murmured, pointing to a side street. “There’s nothing extraordinary there, and I’m sure your attention would be better spent watching for signs of Miss Norris.”

“A man would have to be dead six months to not want to ogle your breasts, but I am sorry if I’ve embarrassed you. Over here. She went this way.”

She paused as I stopped in front of a dark alley that seemed to lead into a less bustling area of town. “I highly doubt if she’s gone into the refugees’ quarter. She must be north of us, toward the market.”

I looked again at the alley. In its entrance, a man was bent over, picking up a basket of apples that had been dumped out onto the ground, his glare over his shoulder down the darkened alley very telling.

“You don’t know my sister. Causes are like magnets to her. If there are refugees to champion, she’ll find them.” I plunged into the darkness of the narrow alley, its coolness and stale smell hitting me at the same time. The air itself was close and dank, earthy with an overtone of too many unwashed bodies packed into too small a space. But it was the despair that seemed to hang heavy overhead and seep downward, like rain on crumbled stone ruins.

“Mr. Fletcher, I’m quite sure she’s not—oh, bloody hell!” Octavia muttered a few things to herself, but followed after me. I emerged from the alley to what probably once was a courtyard, but now appeared to be a tent city.

“What the . . .” I stared at the small dwellings crammed together in the courtyard. The smell and sense of despair was even greater here than it was in the dark alley. “What is this?”

“Refugees,” Octavia said, her voice emotionless.

I was startled by her callousness, but one look at her face told me she was struggling to keep her voice neutral. A deep sadness filled her eyes, her face reflecting the suffering shown by the people crouching over a small fire, a ratty cook pot hanging from a makeshift spit.

“Refugees from what?” I asked.

“War. You were quite correct—there is Miss Norris.”

A flash of blue told me she was right. Octavia wove her way through the clusters of people to the far side of the courtyard, where Hallie perched on a partially crumbled stone bench that sat beneath a half-dead olive tree. The people clustered here were strangely silent; only a few snuffles and coughs were punctuated with the occasional groan of pain. Men, women, and children all alike were clothed in what amounted to rags, an ever-present miasma of hopelessness combining with dirt, lack of hygiene, and probably lack of edible food to make them indistinguishable from one another. Lank, stringy hair hung down over faces that would haunt me at night.

Some of the refugees had missing limbs, or bore dirty bandages. Others just sat in boneless heaps, leaning against rickety wooden shelters curtained with torn, colorless blankets. As we passed by them, one or two reached out dirty hands toward Octavia. She stopped at each one for a moment, speaking too softly for me to hear, but at last we arrived at Hallie.

“Hal? You OK?”

She sat hunched on the bench, her hands around her knees, rocking slightly, her eyes glazed as if she couldn’t process what was happening to her. Carefully, in case the bench was going to crumble away entirely, I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. “It’s OK, Hallie. Octavia and I are here.”

“It’s real,” she said to her knees, her eyes unfocused. “Those people are real. I touched one of them, Jack.” She held up her hand. Her fingers were stained with drying blood.

“We had better get her out of here,” Octavia said in a low voice, casting a glance over her shoulder. A few of the refugees had risen and were watching us with numb indifference. “Can you walk, Miss Norris?”

“Is there nothing that can be done for them?” I asked, nodding toward the people as I pulled Hallie to her feet.

“Where there is war, there will always be victims,” was all she said, taking Hallie’s other arm.

“I was actually asking if there wasn’t something that could be done for these people, rather than a discourse on philosophy,” I said somewhat acidly.

She glanced at me as we piloted a silent Hallie through the gathered people. “Why do you care?”

I frowned. Octavia didn’t seem like the sort of woman who would be so unfeeling about those less fortunate. She was so intriguing, so attractive and sexy, I forgot for a moment that sometimes the inner package didn’t match the outer. And what a damned shame that was. She was just about perfect in every other way. “Hallie and I were raised to help others when possible. I realize my money probably isn’t going to be good here, but I have a few bucks on me if you thought it would help them. Or I could give one of them my watch—it’s nothing fancy, but it’s worth a couple of hundred.”

Octavia stopped at the alleyway, shooting me a look full of disbelief. “You’d give them your possessions?”

I shrugged, mentally striking her off my interest list. Just looking at her might make me want to lick every inch of that lovely freckly skin, but I’d been around enough shallow, self-centered women to know there was no way we’d mesh. “If it would help them, yes. I prefer working with folks who need a helping hand rather than doling out charity, but you said you had to be on your way, so that’s the best I can do.”

A little blush came to her cheeks as she touched my hand, apparently forgetting about Hallie for a few seconds. “That’s very kind of you, but not necessary. I left some provisions for them at the way station. They will be brought down later, at night, when the townspeople won’t be able to confiscate them.”

It was my turn to stare at her. “You left provisions?”

“Yes. It’s against the rules of the Corps, naturally, but I, too, was raised to believe it is my duty to help those less fortunate. My father always laid by extra provisions to be distributed at the way station stops, and I have continued his tradition.”

She moved to the top of my mental Women I Want list again, with a couple of bullets and big arrows pointing to her name. “Has anyone told you that you’re just about perfect, Octavia?”

Her eyebrows rose slightly. “What a very odd question. I am in no way perfect, I assure you, Mr. Fletcher. Especially when I am in danger of being so delayed that my schedule is irreparably harmed.”

“I think we’re going to get along well.” I smiled and took Hallie’s unresisting arm again, gently tugging her down the alleyway. “Really,
really
well.”

She looked disconcerted at that thought.

 

“
W
ell, that brandy did the job. It shook her out of the stupor she was in, and she’s taking everything better than I thought she would.”

I straightened up from where I had been leaning against the wall outside my cabin. “Indeed. I—”

A woman’s scream interrupted me.

We both turned to look at the door. The scream was one of fury, and died off into a loudly shouted stream of profanity that made my eyebrows rise.

Jack’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Or not.” He winced at a particularly profane reference coming from the cabin. “I think she’s finally accepted that this isn’t all a dream. She’s . . . upset,” he added, as if that explanation needed to be made.

“It’s understandable. I find myself having somewhat the same sort of difficulty believing your tale. You realize, of course, that you are asking us to believe something quite outrageous.”

The door to the cabin was jerked open, and the passive, glassy-eyed woman whom we had brought back to the
Tesla
a short while before now stood staring out at us, her hair as wild as her eyes, her breath somewhat ragged as if she’d been under an extreme exertion.

“Quite outrageous!” she yelled, the strained note in her voice giving proof that she was perilously close to hysteria.
“Quite outrageous?”

“Hallie, calm down, or the steward will be forced to sedate you.”

“Go ahead,” she said, marching out of the room, glaring at her brother. Her clothes, the lovely silk tunic and trousers, were dirty and wrinkled from the visit to the refugee quarters. “Sedate me! Knock me out! Maybe that way I’ll get out of this nightmare and back in the real world!”

“I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced. This is my sister, Hallelujah Norris, better known as Hallie,” Jack said, giving me a wry smile. “She doesn’t normally swear like a sailor.”