Burning Up (34 page)

The captain’s dark eyes met hers, and she read his amusement. “She would need more than a clock, Barker—and she’s too clever to risk flying an autogyro anywhere a breeze might turn her over.”

It was true. She’d have better luck trying to swim. But she was pleased Barker thought she might have built one and tried to escape.

Sipping her coffee, she turned and let her gaze skim the front of the ship. Though not as chaotic as when they’d weighed anchor the previous day, she counted over thirty men on the decks and up in the rigging, all busy. Beyond them, the sun gleamed over the sea’s undulating surface. Ivy had to turn away. Though she’d adjusted to the rocking of the ship beneath her feet, watching the dip and rise of the bow against the horizon tossed her stomach about.

She looked up, unsurprised to find Mad Machen’s gaze on her. “Where are we sailing to, Captain?” She supposed a fifteen-day journey from Norway might take them to . . .
Oh, blue heavens.
Dread speared like icicles through her chest. “London?”

“No. The Welsh coast.”

Oh.
Breathing became easier.

His voice low and rough, he said, “But if it
was
London, you’d have nothing to fear. Not with me.”

Ivy stared at him. How did she respond to that? She didn’t even know how to classify
her
response to his declaration. Her cheeks had heated again, and her belly tightened and seemed to pitch with the ship. But she wasn’t queasy. Just . . . something else.

And of course she knew that the Horde hadn’t returned to Britain in the past two years. She still didn’t want to return, ever. London held nothing for her but suffocating memories she’d rather let go.

Mad Machen moved to the stairs, held out his hand. “Come up here.”

Ivy searched for a reason to refuse, but aside from her reluctance to be so near to him, she couldn’t find one. But she did not take his hand. She climbed the stairs and pushed her empty mug into his outstretched palm. Though uncertain of his reaction, the small defiance felt good.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said.

The corners of his mouth deepened. Without a word, he turned and handed the cup off to a chuckling Barker.

Ivy bit her lip to repress her own smile, looking away from him. Though the quarterdeck was all but empty of crew, a hive of activity centered on the high poop deck at the stern of the ship. As she watched, two men cast a wide net over the side. Other men stood around barrels, holding machetes and shovels. The scent of fish was strong.

“They’re replenishing the chum,” Mad Machen said. “Distracting Meg yesterday cleaned out our supply.”

Barrels of it, apparently. “And if she hadn’t given up? Do you use your meat stores?”

“No. The crew draws straws, and we toss the loser over the side.”

She glanced sharply around and saw his grin. She fought not to laugh, and nodded toward
Vesuvius
’s bow. “Why not use the rail cannon? Is the steam engine too unstable?”

If so, perhaps she could fix it. But Mad Machen was shaking his head.

“I haven’t had one blow up yet. It’s the vibrations. As soon as the engine starts up, Meg will ram us trying to get to it, and the engine noise would draw in others. So the cannon might kill her, but we’d be sitting in the center of a feeding frenzy around a bleeding shark.” He gestured to the poop deck, at the white-haired man overseeing the fishing crew. “My engine master, Mr. Leveque.”

“I see,” Ivy said, and she did. The engine master’s duty was making certain the engine would fire if the captain needed it . . . and to make certain he never needed to fire it.

And she saw that the responsibility for both ultimately lay on Mad Machen’s shoulders.

The breeze picked up, cold and brisk. Pulling the edges of her coat together, she moved to the side of the ship to look over at the nets. She heard Mad Machen follow, and the snap of metal as he unbuckled his coat.

Heavy wool swept around her shoulders. Ivy stiffened before letting herself sink into the warmth of his big coat. Spite wouldn’t keep her from shivering, and if Mad Machen’s gesture meant he’d feel the bite of the morning air, all the better.

But he didn’t look cold. The sun warmed his face, narrowing his eyes against the glare. The wind created by the ship’s speed caught his collar, billowing through his shirt, and he stood solid as if the icy breath didn’t touch him.

Her gaze fell to his throat, and the rough scar exposed by the wind. She’d heard several different stories about how he’d gotten it—and the “mad” in front of his name—but they varied wildly. Only one element remained the same: while serving as ship’s surgeon, he’d crossed Rhys Trahaearn.

“Did the Iron Duke truly hang you aboard the
Terror
?”

He grinned. “So that’s what you’ve heard?”

“Yes.”

But she had her doubts—not that Trahaearn had been ruthless enough to hang him, but that he’d let Mad Machen live afterward.

“You’ve heard the wrong story, then. He didn’t hang me
on
the ship. He hung me over the side, low enough that my feet dragged through the water.”

Ivy gaped. She’d have thought he was joking, just as he had about the crew drawing straws, but the evidence circled his neck.

“Like bait?” When he nodded, she gasped, “Why?”

His grin faded, and he studied her face. Moving closer, he turned with his back to the sea and his elbows on the rail, watching the men. His voice lowered. “This doesn’t go further than you and me. Alright?”

Her eyes widened. He’d done something so terrible? “Yes.”

“Twelve years ago, we were on a run from Australia to the Ivory Market when we hit rough weather. What should have been a six-week trip had already stretched into three months, and we’d only just rounded the Cape of Good Hope and begun sailing up the west coast of Africa.”

All Horde territory. And just as they had in Europe, the Horde had polluted the unoccupied territories with diseased nanoagents that took over the victim’s will without use of a controlling tower. Mindless, the diseased humans only hungered and hunted.

“The crew had been living on reduced rations of salt pork and hard tack for almost two months,” Mad Machen continued. “Those with bugs were getting along. The rest of us weren’t.”

“You weren’t infected then?” The nanoagents couldn’t prevent scurvy, but they’d delay the symptoms much longer.

He shook his head. “We had two weeks of sailing before we reached the Market. I informed the captain that we had to replenish our stores or a portion of the crew wasn’t going to make it. And as the health of the crew was my priority, I’d studied the maps. I’d found a river delta a day’s journey north. The river forked around an island—and the zombies don’t usually cross water. So I asked him to drop anchor long enough to forage.”

“He didn’t agree?”

“It meant veering toward the shore. The waters along that shelf are kraken territory.”

Ivy’s heart thumped. The handlers at the crèche had used tales of the giant cephalopods to keep them in line as children. She’d been scared of kraken long before she learned they deserved the terror their name evoked, their long tentacles pulling apart ships or picking men from the decks and dragging them under.

“So he decided between losing a few men or losing them all,” she realized.

“And furious that the island meant he had to make the choice. Not that Trahaearn gave any indication of it. I didn’t realize then how ruddy pissed off I’d made him by pointing out that option—not until I had my own ship.” Mad Machen paused, a frown creasing his brow. He met her eyes again. “Resigning yourself to losing men is easier than making the decisions that will kill them.”

Uncomfortable, Ivy looked out to sea. She didn’t want to think those decisions were difficult for Mad Machen. It didn’t fit with the image she felt strangely desperate to hold on to.

“So he hanged you?”

“Not for that.” A wry smile touched his lips. “The next morning, when he gave the helmsman the bearing that would take us to the Ivory Market, I told the crew to belay that order.”

Ivy covered her mouth, staring at him. “You
are
mad.”

His deep laugh creased his lean cheeks and wrinkled the corners of his eyes. He shook his head. “ ‘Mad’ was accepting the bargain he laid out for me: he’d hang me over the side, and sail toward the island as long as I was alive. Otherwise, he’d shoot me where I stood.”

“Why is that crazy? You were dead either way.”

“Quick would have been easier.” His gaze fell to her hands. “I think you know.”

Yes.
Even knowing what good would come of it, there had been times during her surgery she’d wished for death just to end the pain. He’d seen that with Barker.

And Ivy hadn’t had a Mad Machen to carry her home afterward.

He turned toward the sea again, so close that only an inch separated their arms, braced on the rail. When the ship rolled, her hip bumped lightly against his thigh.

Ivy couldn’t catch her breath.

“So that’s the story,” he said. “Trahaearn avoided the kraken and sailed us to the island, the men foraged for fresh food, and I woke up a week after they hauled me back onboard, miraculously still in one piece.”

Lucky to wake up at all. “And lesson learned: don’t question the captain.”

He shook his head. “My men question me often enough, but not in front of the crew. That, I won’t allow. Tolerating one man who undermines my authority puts the entire ship at risk.”

Her fingers tightened on the wooden gunwale. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pushed that coffee mug into his hand.

Mad Machen must have read the sudden worry on her face. “You’re not part of my crew, Ivy. When you challenge me, they understand you’re challenging the man, not the captain—and that you aren’t trying to take my command.”

Relief eased through her. “I don’t want your command.”

“Or the man?” Stark emotion lined his face for an instant, stealing her automatic response. He didn’t give her time to recover. “What
do
you want, Ivy?”

Clean air. A view of the stars. Work for her mind and her hands. “To build what I’ve come to build, and to return home.”

He looked out to the sea. After a second, he nodded. “Then let’s get you started.”

S
he followed Mad Machen down a ladder into the dimly lit lower deck. He walked with his shoulders bent, ducking beneath low beams with an ease that spoke of long familiarity. He led her forward through cabins lined with cannons, past sailors who snapped to attention, around stanchions, past the galley were a tall, rawboned woman argued with slick-haired man over a bushel of potatoes, both of them gesturing wildly, paring knives in hand.

A narrow passageway terminated at a locked door. Producing the key from the pocket of the coat she still wore, Mad Machen opened it and showed her into a triangular cabin at the very front of the ship. Well-lit and stocked with tools, Ivy immediately saw that it served as a smithy. She started forward, but paused when she caught sight of the glass tank along the bulkhead near the door. Waist-high, reinforced at the edges with iron, the aquarium was filled with water, a few silver fish . . . and a small squid. It darted around the tank, eight arms forming a cone, tentacles trailing.

She turned to him, brows raised. “Supper?”

“No. The Blacksmith said you’d need it.” He glanced around the room, frowning. “If I’d known it was
you
, I’d have put it in my cabin.”

Because his was more comfortable or to keep her near his bed? Ivy didn’t ask. “This suits me,” she said, and it did. “What do I have to do?”

“Repair a submersible.”

She laughed, looking around the cabin. Though not as cramped as some of the men’s quarters, she certainly couldn’t fit a submersible here—let alone fit it through the door. “In here?”

He smiled faintly. “No. It’s in Wales, already constructed—and as-is, it’s a complete loss. I need you to discover where my blacksmiths went wrong.”

He strode past her to a chest constructed of steel. Ivy recognized that design—it was the Blacksmith’s. Like her bank in Fool’s Cove, it expanded and reconfigured when given the right combination. This one unfolded into a solid worktable. Long rolls of paper that had been hidden inside now lay on the surface.

Curious, Ivy smoothed out the paper, and stared at the first sketch. Not just a submersible—it was shaped like a kraken, with mechanical arms and maneuverable tentacles. This
had
to be a joke. “Someone built this?”

“Yes.”

She tilted her head, struggling with her disbelief. It could be done, she supposed. A small, one-man craft that—

Her gaze skimmed over the dimensions. She choked. “This is longer than your ship!”

“Only the tentacles.”

With a body as big as his cabin. “It can’t be done. This is of metal, not . . . not”—she wiggled her fingers at the squid—“what
they
have. The weight of the tentacles alone would destabilize the entire structure. There’s no counterweight.”

“And you know that just from looking at the plans. My people had to build it first.” Mad Machen studied her face, his gaze dark and unwavering. “Fix it, Ivy. You’ll have mechanical flesh to work with. Yasmeen is traveling to London now to collect it from the Blacksmith.”

She frowned at the plans, then at the aquarium. Using mechanical flesh
could
offset some of the weight, but the locomotion couldn’t function like a squid’s. The material simply wasn’t that fluid. “It can’t be done.”

“It has to be.”

“Why?” She couldn’t imagine any use a kraken might have. “What do you plan to do? Frighten sailors? Tear apart ships?”

“Yes.”

His implacable expression and the conviction in his voice stopped her. That
was
what he planned to do. Her chest tight, she looked down at the plans. “I won’t build a monster for you.”

His face darkened. He moved in suddenly, solid behind her, pushing her hips against the table. Her fingers clenched, crumpling paper. Trembling with shock and anger, she waited, but he only stood behind her, chest heaving. She felt his ragged breath against her ear, then her neck. Her stomach tightened as calloused fingers slid her hair aside. Warm lips caressed her nape.
Oh, blue.
A shudder wracked her bones, and she didn’t know if it was anger or fear . . . or something else.