Hearts of Smoke and Steam (12 page)

When she was younger, Sarah had spent a great deal of time imagining how she would react when facing a maniacal villain bent on her destruction. In her fantasies, she had always seen herself facing death with a calm dignity that would leave a lasting impression on her enemies, possibly with a clever quip to show how utterly unafraid she was. It would be important that they realize just how futile their actions had been when she somehow managed to miraculously escape. Now that the moment was actually here, the clever words she was sure would come so easily to her were nowhere to be found.

“I can tell you where the heart is,” she said meekly. Had she really given up so easily? What would stop them from killing her once they got what they wanted?

“What was that, my dear?” the old man said, making a grand gesture of putting his hand to his ear. “I'm afwaid I could not hear you begging for your life.”

Murphy stepped forward and roughly grabbed her hands. “You should save yer breath, girlie. That old piece of gristle has got no mercy left in him. And it doesn't matter—if we couldn't take the heart, we were supposed to sink the ship and find it later.”

For a moment Sarah thought he might actually be showing a moment of mercy, himself—until he spun her around and then pulled her arms tightly and painfully behind her back.

“And zis ship is more zen capable of sinking ze little fewwy with
everyone
aboard.”

Sarah wanted to scream at the old man, call him insane and a fool. But she also knew that villains were most likely to respond to accusations and threats with maniacal laughter. And le Voyageur, it seemed to her, would be exactly the kind of man to do that sort of thing.

Instead she kept quiet, biting her lip and trying to figure a way out of her fate. The Irishman was far stronger than she was, and her grease-covered shoes were already sliding across the deck as she tried to resist. Her only hope, it seemed, rested in the hands of Emilio, a man most likely dead.

But her despair was washed away in a wave of nausea when the entire floor shuddered. As the metal decking twisted and buckled, she realized just how delicate the construction of the ship really was. And Sarah wasn't alone—she could see that the old Frenchman had also been unpleasantly surprised. “Fwancis!” he yelled up to the man in the control room, “what iz going on?”

From somewhere below them came the sound of metal grinding against metal.

“Something's wrong with the engines. We're losing pressure.” The burly engineer grabbed the railings that led from the control room to the gondola floor, and slid down them in a single bound. “I'll go take a look.”

“Be careful,” said Murphy. “This one,” he said spitefully, and shook Sarah's arms, “didn't come up here alone, and that guinea may still be crawling around down there somewhere.”

“I'll be careful,” Francis replied with a smile, and held up a brutish-looking wrench.

Reaching the far end of the room, the engineer reached out and pulled up another hatch in the floor. As he lifted it, a pair of hands shot out from the hole and grabbed his ankles, yanking Francis forward and throwing him off balance. He landed on the metal decking hard enough to send out a ringing sound across the gondola, along with an audible “ungh” as the air was forced out from his lungs. It was followed by a strangled cry of pain as the hatch crashed back down onto the engineer's knees.

“Il Volano ci sta!”
Emilio said as he shoved open the hatch and bounded onto the deck. Francis made a feeble grab for him as walked by, but he was too slow, and Emilio danced out of his way, following it up with a kick for good measure.

“There you are,” the Irishman said with a low rumble of satisfaction.

“Let her go,” Emilio replied with a tone of cool seriousness in his voice, his words calm and clear.

“All right, lad.”

The villain gave Sarah a brutal shove that sent her stumbling across the gondola until she crashed painfully into the metal frame of the wall.

Sarah stood up, testing to see if the sensation of her entire chest having caved into her body was genuine, or simply a side-effect of the burning pain that she was feeling.

“C'mon boy!” she heard Murphy saying behind her as she tried to steady herself. “Let's see what yer made of.”

As breath returned to her lungs, Sarah was relieved to discover that she was mostly intact, although she would probably wake up tomorrow to find bruises in numerous unmentionable places—if she survived.

As she turned around, Sarah caught a glimpse of the Bomb Lance firing his weapon at Emilio, the silver barb glinting in the gray light. Emilio's shield was opening even as the projectile travelled across the room towards him.

The harpoon let out a “tang” as it ricocheted off the metal and spun off into the air. Emilio smiled grimly.
“Ora sai la forza del il Volano!”
he shouted out, and held up his shield in front of him.

The grin vanished into a look of concern as he looked down and saw that the device had only opened a quarter of the way.

He gave his arm a flick, and the plate let out a screech as it scraped over the dent before it finally sprang free and the shield locked into place.

Even from a distance, Sarah could tell that the device looked a bit worse for wear now, with the plates no longer fitting together as tightly as they had before.

Emilio tried to regain his triumphant attitude and yelled again, “
Il Volano!
” He lifted up his shield and it began to spin, quickly gaining speed until it was a humming blur.

“No matter what tricks you come up with, that flimsy platter isn't going to save yer guinea arse.” As he spoke, the Bomb Lance fitted another barb into his weapon. “Sooner or later I'm going to skewer you, and then I'm going to laugh while you die.”

As the pain began to clear, Sarah saw that Emilio and Murphy were circling around one another. Murphy had reloaded his gun and was attempting to line up a shot that would eviscerate the Italian, moving his gun up high, and then down low, Emilio trying to both match his moves and keep an eye on the other man. The spinning shield, while clearly ingenious, was also primarily a defensive device. It was only a matter of time.

Emilio's movements were almost comically broad, like a circus clown's. He seemed to be trying to goad the Irishman into taking a shot. There was something about his demeanor that was fundamentally foreign, and Sarah found it rather charming—even in these deadly circumstances.

As the men continued to dance around each other, Sarah saw the old Frenchman sneaking up behind them. He stopped and tilted the cane forward, until his hands were down near the bottom tip. When he lifted the silver globe up above his head, it was clear to Sarah that he was intending to use the metal planet as a bludgeon on Emilio when the opportunity presented itself.

Sarah mustered her strength and began to move quickly in the opposite direction. If she could reach the Bomb Lance quickly enough, she might be able to help—but Emilio was rapidly coming into range. It was odd to think that she was risking her life for a man she had known for such a short time, but there was rarely a story that her father had told of battle that didn't end with a lesson in knowing who your allies were, and Emilio was the only one she had right now.

Seeing her opportunity, Sarah dove to try to cover the remaining ground, her hand outstretched. She only managed to land a tap on the old man, but it was enough to throw him off balance. When his cane came crashing down, it crashed harmlessly against the metal deck.

The Frenchman turned toward Sarah and gave her a narrow stare. “Mr. Muphee was wight. You are a twue nuisance!”

As Sarah got back to her feet, she watched le Voyageur flip the cane over, catching the globe in his hand with a surprising amount of grace. He gave it a twist, and two nasty-looking silver blades sprung out from near the tip, locking into place with a click. “Your fwiend is not ze only one who can make zings spin!”

He twisted the globe again and the blades began to turn, slowly at first, then with increasing speed until they had become a silver blur. “You may soon wish zat you had let us thwow you out of ze balloon.”

Sarah took a step back and waited while the Frenchman poked the whirring gadget at her menacingly, closing the gap between them.

Worse still, she and Murphy were standing almost next to each other, as the Irishman continued circling to try to catch Emilio.

Desperate plans were forming in her head: perhaps she could use her gloves to catch the blades. But she had no idea how powerful they were, and the price of failure would be too terrible to contemplate…

“Then
pardonnez-moi, Monsieur,”
she said, nodding to the Frenchman, “while I try a different option.” Sarah threw herself sideways into the Bomb Lance.

Her already-battered body responded with a shocking wave of pain as she collided with her target. Her attack had less impact than she had hoped, but it caused Murphy to jerk his hand upward as he fired his weapon. The harpoon tore through the gas-bag almost effortlessly, and a blast of warm air streamed down into the gondola from the hole.

The Frenchman let out a loud, wavering whine that landed somewhere between crying and screaming. “Aiiiieeeeaaahh! Don't puncture ze balloon, you fool, or we'll all fall out of ze sky.”

Murphy turned his attention to Sarah. “You'll pay for that.” As he swept his arm out at her, she balled up her fist and punched at his jaw with the greasy glove. It knocked him back a bit, and left a black mark on his face, but the jolt it sent up her arm seemed to be more shocking than anything she'd done to him.

Clearly she'd been lucky with her previous attack, and Sarah wondered if her father would have given her more training and fewer platitudes if she'd been born a boy. Thinking about Nathaniel, she realized the answer was most likely yes.

She could hear Emilio and the Frenchman conversing in the background, but she was far too focused on her new adversary to pay attention to what they were saying.

Murphy smiled at her. “You seem to be losing yer touch…”

For her second blow, Sarah came up from underneath and landed her fist directly beneath his jaw. Murphy's head seemed to vibrate from the blow. “Tha thaaaa…” he said, followed by a slurred mash of sounds that could barely count as words.

His eyelids fluttered, and a moment later he was toppling towards her like a felled tree. Before she could move out of his way, the unconscious Irishman had landed on top of her, his weight knocking her down and slamming her to the ground.

A
s his hands clutched at the empty air, Emilio kicked outward, adding a little more energy to his momentum. He felt his foot catch against the bar, and his body jolted to a stop, his boot feeling dangerously loose as it clung to the metal.

As he hung there, dangling by a single limb, he could feel the adrenaline coursing through him. It had been a long time since Emilio had tried anything so ridiculous, but his father had trained him from the moment he could walk, and he had spent years more using his skills as an aerialist to earn his living. His fear of heights had always been his greatest motivation, and it was not the first time that the skills he despised the most had saved his life.

He muttered a small curse at himself in Italian for being foolish enough to get into this position in the first place. What had made him think he would ever want to be a Paragon? Hadn't he had enough of heroes and villains?

Staring down into the vast emptiness beneath him, Emilio felt fear vibrating in the tips of his fingers. They tingled for just a moment, and then terror seemed to evaporate completely.

“Il Acrobato sei ancora idiota
,” he muttered to himself. He had been glad to feel the fear again. It meant that sense was finally returning to his head. Using the strength of his legs, he locked his other foot into the ladder, swung himself back up to the rung, then began to climb upward.

Where the ladder ended, there were a series of depressions that ran down the side of the ship. The steep curve of the hull meant that travelling across them would leave him hanging over empty space. He reached inside a hole to find a small bar inside of each one, and a matching foothold below. They had clearly been designed to allow someone to move easily about the exterior of the ship, although perhaps not at such great altitude.

Grabbing a hold, he began to work his way slowly down the gondola, holding on tight as he shuffled from one set of holds to the next.

Halfway down the ship there was a metal plate that sat beneath an access door. Finding his footing, he lifted the handle. The door swung open with a reassuring metallic squeal and a blast of warm air that stank of smoke and oil. There was a loud, rhythmic thumping that came from inside.

Reaching in he found another crossbar, and Emilio pulled himself up and into the ship.

What he saw as his eyes adjusted to the darkness made him smile. In front of him were the long pistons of the aircraft's engines, noisily chugging back and forth from the power of a large boiler hidden somewhere nearby.

Emilio let his eyes follow their endless circles until he was almost dizzy. The pistons were quite unlike the usual iron bars that he was used to. These shafts were long and spiderlike, bolted together from a patchwork of brass, shining steel, and iron.

They were, in a word, ridiculous. But even more ridiculous was the fact that the machinery hadn't torn itself to pieces. What he saw in the spindly and elegant machines was the design of a madman, but a work of genius nonetheless.

He actually felt a twinge of regret when he realized that in order to save Sarah it would be necessary to damage these gorgeous moving sculptures. But this was the machine of the enemy, and he (and hopefully she), were now high above the earth, riding on the same ship that housed the evil men who had caused the massacre down on the ferry. If they were going to have any chance of stopping them, then disabling this machine would be the best place to start.

It took Emilio a few moments to follow the gears and get some idea of how the whole engine had been put together. As he traced the design, he laughed again at the ridiculous fragility of its construction. His eyes landed on a gearbox that had been strapped to the wall. A series of cogs rotated behind a small sheet of glass.

He moved to examine it more closely. The tiny machine was a regulator of some kind, and he gave himself a second to commit the general design to memory—some of the concepts might actually be useful in his own work. The fragile mechanism would, he decided, also be the perfect place to commit an act of sabotage.

Lacking any tools, he pulled off his shoe and gave an exploratory tap at the glass with his heel. The first smack did nothing. He knocked it a few more times, hitting it harder and harder with each strike until the heel finally left a crack in the glass.

The gears seemed unaffected by his attack, and he smacked at it again. The glass splintered further, and this time one of the gears was thrown off its track, dropping down into the jaws of its neighbor. Everything froze for a moment, and then another gear spun sideways, becoming snarled in the teeth of the two cogs next to it.

The machinery ground to a halt, the gears bulging on their springs and pressing hard against the glass. It took Emilio an instant for his survival instinct to overcome his fascination, and he ducked out of the way just as the window exploded outward.

Shards of metal and glass flew past where he had been standing a moment before. One of the cogs careened off a nearby wall and smacked him in the back of his head. “Ow!” he said loudly, and reached up to rub the wound. Finding the offending piece of metal still entangled in his hair, he pulled it out and threw it to the floor.

As he stood, a deep shudder went through the ship, sending his feet sliding out from under him on the greasy floor. His bottom landed hard against the back of his shield.

If they hadn't known he was here before, they would certainly be aware that someone was here now…

Whatever damage the destruction of the regulator had done to the engines hadn't been fatal, and the patchwork pistons continued to turn, although they were moving at a much slower rate than they had been before.

With the engine noise diminished, Emilio could hear footsteps and concerned voices from the deck up above.

Looking around the cramped compartment, he saw a hatch in the ceiling. As he clambered up the metal machinery to reach it, he could hear a heavy gait moving quickly toward his location. Someone was coming to find out what happened to the engines…

Emilio crouched down beneath the hatch just as the wheel above him began to turn. He wasn't sure what he was going to do until the hatch began to open and he saw two ankles, clearly male, standing invitingly in front of him. His days on the trapeze made it almost instinctual—he reached out, grabbed them, and gave them a yank.

There was more resistance than he had expected, but he had managed to pull hard enough to send his target crashing to the ground. An instant later, the hatch slammed back down on Emilio's back, but his own shout of pain was drowned out by the heavy grunt that came from the man he had toppled as the metal cover slammed into his shins.

Gathering his wits, Emilio pulled his shield off of his belt and gave it a quick once-over before slipping his hand through the strap.

It didn't look good. The prototype had been built as an exercise in showing off the kind of weapons he
might
be capable of creating, but it hadn't been intended for battle. “Hold together,” he whispered to it. It was the same tone that his father had used to when trying to convince his terrified son to give a particularly dangerous trick one more try.

The fact that he'd chosen to construct the shield in the first place had come from his boyhood fascination with the legendary warriors of Roman myth, and a quote from Dennis Darby that he had once read where the inventor had stated that technology was always at its best when it was fashioned into a tool to protect mankind, not destroy it. He hadn't bothered to mention that it was always the best for the poor fool wielding it…

Taking a deep breath, Emilio shoved open the hatch, pushing the man's legs out of his way as he launched himself onto the deck.
“Il Volano ci sta!”

The downed man made a feeble swipe at him as he passed by. Realizing just how big his fallen enemy was made Emilio feel better about having ambushed him. He gave the fellow a kick to the ribs to make sure that he would stay down for a while longer.

Before he even had a chance to take in more than a quick glimpse of the ship's main cabin, he heard the Irishman's voice. “There you are!” The man was holding Sarah's arms out behind her, and she was clearly in pain.

He could feel the anger rising up in him, but he didn't want to do anything rash. “Let her go.”

“All right, lad.” He shoved her hard, and Sarah careened into the wall.

Emilio considered running to her side, but the Irishman would have none of it. “C'mon, boy! Let's see what yer made of.”

Emilio nodded, and the Irishman returned the gesture. It was only the instant before he fired it that he noticed that the Bomb Lance was holding a weapon.

Emilio brought the shield up as quickly as he could, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the shaft bounce off the steel plates.

Emilio narrowed his eyes.
“Ora sai la forza del il Volano!”
As he looked down, his eyes widened again with surprise—his shield had opened only a quarter of the way. The mechanism had jammed against the panel that had been dented in the last attack. He'd been very lucky that the lance had been deflected at all.

He shook his arm at the wrist, and the device finished opening. “
Il Volano!
” he repeated, hoping the bravado would cover his fear.

Emilio had avoided activating the shield's other ability before now, but he needed some kind of advantage against the Irishman, even if it was only a mental one.

As he pressed the second control with his thumb, he knew there was a very real chance that if his shield was too badly damaged, it would tear itself to pieces.

He once again thanked God as the device quickly began to spin. After only a few seconds, it had reached full speed. He could feel it wobble slightly as it turned, but for the most part it seemed to be working well.

“No matter what tricks you come up with, that flimsy platter isn't going to save yer guinea arse,” the Irishman said as he reloaded his weapon. “Sooner or later I'm going to skewer you, and then I'm going to laugh while you die.”

Emilio considered charging the Bomb Lance before he could finish his taunt, using the spinning shield to strike his opponent. But if it came to it, he wasn't sure that the weapon could take down the Irishman.

Instead, he weaved around his opponent, using the skills he had been taught by his father to try and keep his enemy on guard. If nothing else, it certainly seemed to confuse him.

But their stalemate wouldn't last long. If the villain fired again and missed, Emilio would have to try to take him down, no matter how horrible the outcome might be.

To make matters worse, he could hear that Sarah and the old madman were fighting somewhere nearby. She sounded as if she needed his help, but the moment he glanced away would be the moment that the Irishman would strike. It wouldn't take much to find a gap with a shield that he now realized was far smaller than it should have been. The ancient Romans had constructed theirs larger, and he should have as well.

From out of nowhere, something whizzed by his head and slammed onto the ground only inches away. His glanced over and saw it was the silver globe of the Frenchman's cane.

The Irishman had been distracted more thoroughly, and Emilio lunged toward him, forcing him back.

“Mr. Muphee was wight,” said the Frenchman's voice from somewhere disturbingly nearby. “You are a twue nuisance!”

Somewhere on his forehead Emilio could feel a rogue bead of sweat forming and he shook it off. He had a hard time imagining what would be worse: dying from being momentarily blinded by sweat or being forced to tell everyone in the afterlife that it was a single drop of perspiration that had killed him.

“Your fwiend is not ze only one who can make zings spin!” he heard the Frenchman say.

The words reminded Emilio of another problem: the shield's rotation was powered by a small spring that would quickly unwind.

“You may soon wish zat you had let us thwow you out of ze balloon.” The Frenchman said to Sarah, and let out a short, nasty laugh to punctuate his words.

“Then
pardonnez-moi, Monsieur
,” she replied, “while I try a different option.” And then Sarah appeared in front of Emilio, flying through the air, and crashing straight into the Bomb Lance. The Irishman didn't fall, but instead managed to fire his weapon straight up into the gas-bag above them.

The old Frenchman let out a terrible screech. “Aiiiieeeeaaahh! Don't puncture ze balloon you fool, or we'll all fall out of ze sky.”

Emilio's attention was instantly focused on the ridiculous spinning cane in the mad Frenchman's hands as he moved it toward Sarah, intent upon attacking her with it while she faced off against the Irishman.

“Look here! Look here!” Emilio shouted. There was no doubt that his shield would at least make an effective counter to the cane.

“Oh, is zat
your
device?” The Frenchman seemed disappointed.

“My wheel,” he said, lifting it slightly, “is better than your stick.”

“Look awound you boy,” he said, raising up his hand. “I build so much more zen just toys.” Emilio realized that he and Sarah had both traded one weapon-wielding opponent for another. At least this one might have slower reflexes.