Fire & Frost (29 page)

Her gaze touched his hand. “This was before you removed the shackle?”

“Yes.”

And that hadn’t been as great a sacrifice as he’d imagined. At the time, he’d been too overwhelmed by grief to grasp the horror of what he was doing. But it hadn’t been an enormous loss. He got along well without it—and the steel replacement was a part of him now.

If the price of his freedom had been one hand, then it had been well worth the cost.

“There was a girl at the sanctuary when I arrived. About two years of age. She looked just like you.” Copper skin, curling dark hair, wide brown eyes. Beautiful. “And your father called her Mary.”

Realization hit her swiftly. “Dear God. Another duplicate?”

Caius nodded. He didn’t know whether Willem Jannsen had replicated Elizabeth or her mother—but most likely Elizabeth, using some bit of her that she’d left behind. “He must have created her shortly after you left, in the event you never came back.”

“So you took her?”

“Yes.” And he would never regret it. But if Elizabeth believed he had any other reason than to help a young girl, it would destroy him.

“Of course,” she said, as if she would have made exactly the same decision. Her response eased the bands of tension around his chest. She reached for her coat and slipped it on. “Where is she now?”

“With my mother and sister.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And where are
they
?”

He had to laugh. His evasion had been automatic, and the same sort she’d used so often while running: giving an answer without really answering at all. “Krakentown.”

A smugglers’ town in Australia—where he’d been close to capturing her once, without even realizing it.

Surprise arched her brows. “You knew I was there?”

“Not until after you left.”

“I heard you were looking for me. So I ran again.”

He’d offered a fortune of her father’s money to the residents there, hoping that one of them would have information about her. Not one had told him anything. A month after leaving, he’d found an aviator from the airship Elizabeth had boarded when she’d abandoned the town, and Caius had bribed the man to tell him where she’d gone. But if she’d stayed in Krakentown, he’d never have caught her. He’d have lost the trail and spent years trying to pick it up again.

So when he’d run with his mother, sister, and daughter, he’d known exactly where to go—to the town where no one would reveal that his family was there, even if offered a bag of gold.

“And the girl, the other Mary—she is just above four years of age now?”

Caius nodded, unable to prevent his smile as he pictured his daughter—unable to prevent the ache of missing her. “She calls herself Rainbow.”

“
Rainbow?
”

“You chose which name you wanted everyone to use,” he said. “I wanted her to do the same. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have left that decision up to a two-year-old girl.”

Elizabeth’s laugh rang out. “Perhaps not. But at that age I would have called myself ‘Colicky Scream,’ so you should consider yourself fortunate.”

“I do.” More fortunate than he’d ever imagined. “And I don’t know if there is something of you in her, or if this is something that many young girls do, but she is already trying to bring home every animal she encounters. I expect to find a small menagerie when I return—and she’s probably giving them the run of the house.”

Her smile turned wistful. “That was one thing my father did right. He always gave them room to be what they are.”

At the sanctuary. But giving the animals room hadn’t been the only thing he’d done right. “It was important work.”

“Yes.” Sighing, she glanced up at him with haunted eyes. “I don’t want to run anymore.”

“You won’t have to. You’ll be free as soon as we’re away from here.” Maybe she would want to be with him—and with Rainbow. Caius would ask her. But she’d hadn’t even been ready to admit her love. He’d give her more time before he asked for forever. “We’ll search the outpost, see if there’s anything we can use to return to the coast.”

Where they might hail a passing airship or boat.

She nodded. “What do you think happened to the people here?”

He didn’t know. “Maybe overrun by zombies. But there have also been rumors that a Horde rebellion is moving across Europe toward the empire, and that the people are abandoning the outposts to join it.”

And Caius didn’t know which he should hope for. If the outpost had been abandoned, the rebels had probably taken with them any machine in good repair that could be used for travel. If the outpost had been overrun, the machines would still be there—but more zombies would probably be roaming within those walls.

Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “So it will be one bad situation or another.”

“Yes.”

“If we were still on
Kingfisher
, our situation would be worse,” she said matter-of-factly, and stuffed her dress into her satchel. “So I will hope that the rebels abandoned this place, because it means that fewer people died. And if we must, we will create our own machine from whatever they’ve left behind.”

Such determination. Heart full, Caius crossed the chamber and caught her up, then kissed her while she was still laughing in surprise.

He didn’t care which situation they found themselves in. All that mattered was standing by Elizabeth’s side through whatever danger they faced, and that she was alive.

And that she loved him.

OIL FROM THE LAMPS lubricated the latch and hinges on the entrance hatch, transforming the screech from the previous day into a thin squeak. Elizabeth looked out through the hatch, blinking. After the darkness inside the war machine, the light from outside was blinding. Clouds still filled the sky. Only a few scant flakes drifted down—which meant they were no better or worse off than they’d been during the storm. They could see more easily across the distance, but zombies could see them more easily, too.

For a long minute, she stood with Caius at the war machine’s entrance, waiting. Opening the hatch apparently hadn’t drawn any attention. No moans or growls. No zombies in sight, aside from a single rotting foot sticking out of the snow beneath them—one that Caius had killed while she’d been scrambling up the ladder.

Caius dropped to the ground first. Machete at the ready, he glanced beneath the war machine toward the outpost. A second later, he gestured her down.

They raced across the snow to the outpost doors. While she watched for zombies behind them, he studied the courtyard beyond the open doors. A frown darkened his face. Between sweeps of the area, she glanced at his profile. What was he seeing?

But the outpost must not have been overrun. He took her hand and they slipped through the doors, staying close to the wall.

Nothing moved. The large courtyard they’d entered was shadowed by rows of tall wooden granaries that spoke to the site’s purpose. A wind turbine’s sails turned lazily. To the right, heaps of snow topped round stone buildings. More granaries stood beyond them. Still and quiet, an air of abandonment hung over the entire area.

Yet the workers must not have left very long ago. Not more than a year. The rest of Europe was a ruin, but not here. None of the roofs had collapsed. Elizabeth detected faint creaking from the wind turbine, but it wasn’t the rusted squeal of neglect.

She glanced away from the turbine and saw that Caius’s focus had narrowed on the center of the courtyard, where several lumps disturbed the even blanket of snow. He tugged her forward, his gaze sweeping the ground.

Because there were footprints, she realized. Nothing distinct, just depressions. But they must have been made while the snow had still been falling.

Her fingers tightened on his, her heart pounding. Zombies, then. They’d known there might be some about.

He stopped in front of the first lump and prodded it with his boot. Elizabeth stifled a cry as snow fell away from a zombie’s ruined face.

Were they lying in wait under the snow?

But…no. Another prod of his boot, and the zombie’s head rolled to the side. Decapitated. Frozen blood formed black ice in the snow.

Killed during the storm.

Eyes wide, she glanced up at Caius. She’d seen him hunt before; she’d seen him hunt
her
. The same predatory focus hardened his eyes now as his gaze swept the footprints leading in and out of the courtyard.

“They came from that direction,” he said softly, gesturing around behind the stone buildings. “Then they retreated inside them. Two men, at least one of them injured when they fought the zombies. Accompanied by a dog.”

Her heart jumped. “A hound?”

“Maybe. The snow erased too much detail for me to be certain, but it’s probable that they came from the wreck.” His grim gaze met hers. “The stride length of one of the men matches Matthias’s stride.”

Caius would know; he’d tracked the other hunter hundreds of times while apprenticed to him.

But Matthias and the other man hadn’t entered through the outpost doors, or Caius would have seen their tracks there, too. They’d flown here on a glider, maybe, though the distance between the wreck and the outpost made that difficult to believe. More likely they’d arrived in the two-seater balloon Elizabeth had seen while she and Caius had been gliding away from
Kingfisher
—though she couldn’t see that small balloon now. Maybe behind the stone buildings.

“Elizabeth,” he said softly, dragging her attention back to him. “I think the second man is your father.”

Chest tight, she nodded. “Let us find out, then.”

Her hand in his, he followed the tracks to the entrance of the second stone building, a red double door that opened on a center seam. The left door stood a few inches ajar. A slice of daylight fell across floorboards trampled with tracks of snow. Caius hesitated and glanced back at her, eyes dark with concern.

She knew what he would ask and headed him off. “I’ll go in with you.”

Standing to the side of the entrance, he pushed the door open wide. A soft growl—but that wasn’t a zombie. A hound.

The single room was large and open, the roof supported by wooden posts. Light spilled in through the door, but after the brightness from outside, her eyes had to adjust to the dimness and shadows. More evidence of abandonment here. A basket lay on the floor near the entrance. Near the center of the room, a small table with curving legs had fallen on its side. A broken pot. A woven mat. As if the people who’d lived here had forgotten the items when they’d left—or had decided they weren’t worth the effort of taking.

Pulling her close to his side, Caius stared into the shadows at the back of the room. Elizabeth followed his gaze.

Her heart constricted. Against the far wall, her father sat on a pallet of cloth, his arm around a lean gray hound and a machete across his lap. Though it was freezing, he’d taken off his coat.

The hound growled again and she heard her father’s soothing murmur, saw him rub the dog’s ears. Saw the glint of tears on his cheeks, his joyous smile.

The bloodied bite mark on his neck.

Her heart seemed to drop out of her chest in a rush. “Papa?”

“You can come close.” A hitch broke his voice. “I’m not done yet.”

But almost. Eyes glassy with fever, his skin tight and hot. She fell to her knees beside him, her throat burning with tears.

“Mary,” he said and took her hand.

“Oh, Papa.”

“Is this Matthias?” A few feet away, Caius stood over a prone figure covered by a cloth.

Her father gave a weary nod. “Bitten, too. He ended it not an hour ago. Then I had to finish him.”

Killed himself, then her father had to make certain Matthias wouldn’t return as one of the zombies. Her breath shuddering, Elizabeth made herself ask, “How long do you have?”

“Not very. I’ve been trying to make myself destroy
her
first.” He stroked the hound’s back. “She won’t leave my side. I left the door open, but I fear she won’t run after my end has come—and that’s an irony I’d rather not die with. I spent my life trying to save animals from these creatures, and in my death I would become one and tear her apart. Will you take her with you, instead?”

“Of course.” She lifted her hand to the hound, and at a word from her father, the growling stopped and she received a wet lick across her fingers. “What’s her name?”

“Artemis. A finer hunter you’ll never see.” His breath came in shallow gasps. “Matthias and I came here, hoping to find help. But it was dark when we landed, and the two-seater’s engine brought the creatures.”

“What of Amelia?” Caius asked, and Elizabeth heard the roughness in his voice. He’d have fought—maybe killed—both hunters while protecting her. But they’d been his mentors, once. He’d hunted beside them.

“She was at the bow of the
Mary Elizabeth
with Apollo when we flew into the propellers.” Her father met her gaze again; his words thickened and trembled. “We tried to take the two-seater to
Kingfisher
to find you, Mary. I was coming for you when the cruiser fell. I watched… I saw—” His voice broke. “I thought you fell, too.”

She squeezed his hand. “No. We made it safely away.”