Scarlet Devices (21 page)

The quick look he flashed her was all too sane. He knew exactly what he was saying, and the effect it was likely to have on her. Determined not to give him the satisfaction of being right, Eliza said the opposite of what was on her mind.

“So it's practical as well as brilliant. Why the secrecy, then? It seems as if you'd want people to know about your discovery.”

“Oh, you were doing so well, girl, but you overplayed your hand there. Obviously people can't know. Trade secrets, for one thing. And for another, drug magnates are not known for their open and sharing dispositions. We're all mad as hatters and quite, quite paranoid. Besides, as you pointed out yourself, there are factors of practicality to consider. Who do you think benefits most from the continued lack of viable commercial land and air travel from New York to San Francisco?”

Terrified as she was, Eliza tried to think, focusing on the logic rather than the setting. If people can't travel or ship goods by land or air they must use other means, and the only current means was—“Companies who run cargo and passenger ships along the southern passage.”

“Very
good
!” He tapped her nose with one finger as though she were a child. “Right on the nose!”

“And you also have a financial interest in one or more of those companies.”

“Smarter and smarter, this girl. I do indeed.”

This is far too big for me to handle
. There it was, plain and simple. Eliza knew her limitations, and this was beyond them. She was only twenty-three and other than Vassar this was her first extended trip away from home. She was good with machines and high-toned rhetoric about workers' rights, she enjoyed daring fashions and she probably wanted to marry Matthew Pence. The last thought struck her with painful clarity, now that it was too late. When she was utterly truthful with herself, with no time left for pretenses, one of the few things on her mind was Matthew and how she wanted to spend her life with him. Losing him would be one of her greatest regrets, because he simply mattered more to her than all the things she'd thought so important back in New York.

But it was hardly the time for introspection. While at least one of these thoughts about herself was a surprise and a revelation, none of them suggested she should be able to single-handedly defeat a multinational drug lord who also owned an important shipping concern.

In a way, coming to this realization was a relief. The die was cast, and she simply couldn't do anything about her fate other than face it calmly and bravely, with whatever dignity she could muster.

“One last question, before you kill me?”

“Oh, that won't happen until tomorrow or so. Plenty of time. One more question before I have you bundled away into a cozy cell for the night, let us say.”

“I still don't understand why you would fund a temperance society. They fight against the very business you depend on, and raise the public's awareness about the dangers of opium addiction. Shouldn't that sort of organization be the last thing you'd want to contend with?”

He grinned and clapped his hands together, clearly thrilled with her final topic. “Oh, my dear ladies of perpetual indignation. Nothing amuses me so well as writing the quarterly pamphlet for distribution. I have the pirates airdrop copies over the outlying farms, sometimes. Can you really not guess the benefit to me? How disappointing. It's the simplest thing of all, Miss Hardison.
Free advertising
. If I establish a new opium house in some town with a branch of the Temperance Society in it, I can count on my ladies to broadcast its location to everyone in that town within days, sometimes hours. Nobody is better at sniffing out moral turpitude than a self-righteous biddy. And do you know, they never once consider their very lamentable success rate? Of course the ladies came in handy for opposing the rally, as well. Fringe benefit. And all at minimal cost to me. A few handbills four times a year, and some trumped-up charter documents and cheap brass pins, and I have a ready-made force of thousands of women who will help me to promote pretty much whatever I like. It pays for itself a hundred times over.”

“A fine return for your investment, sir.”

“Yes. And now, Miss Hardison, I must send you along with these gentlemen.” He waved to the guards by the door, and they flanked Eliza instantly. “Tomorrow you will begin the final chapter in this story, and you should know it will be greater than you imagined. You'll be dead by the time it ends, by slow poison most likely, but that shouldn't be too painful and I suspect you'll lose consciousness before the worst parts. You see, I plan to put you in your airship and send you along to San Francisco, per your original plan. Sadly, you won't have quite enough fuel to make it there. And when the investigators find your body in the wreckage, you will appear to have died from the infamous toxic gases these mountains are known to emit. Or so the medical examiner will conclude. Your name will be famous the world over. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the whole episode ended up immortalized in song. And the same fate for poor little Cantlebury, though I think I'll send him back in the direction of Colorado Springs and his lady love. A little romance is always good to punch up the emotional response, don't you think?”

She had no answer for him. Fortunately, he didn't seem to expect one.

M
ATTHEW HAD THROWN
up at some point. He knew that, sadly, because of the taste.

“I didn't eat a thing, I'm not that stupid,” he insisted, to no one in particular.

Cantlebury answered him. “Shut up, Pence, you're raving again. If you talk about the lemon biscuits again I'll have to beat you fully unconscious.”

“You'll have to do what?”

“What? Wait, are you awake?”

Apparently he wasn't, because a period of dull darkness followed, and then he woke again to the sound of Cantlebury muttering something about his wife and Lavinia Speck.

“Should've insisted, you know? Meggie wouldn't even have to know. I'm not sure she's even aware we're married as it is. And I know Lavinia's family would get used to the idea in time. I'm charming, right? I could charm them into accepting me.”

“You're a silver-tongued devil,” Matthew confirmed in a hoarse, parched rattle.

“Ye gods, your breath is foul, Pence. Here, have some water. It seems to be merely water. A shame. I wouldn't have turned down a spot of opium right now.”

Matthew drank, limiting himself to small sips until he was certain his stomach would accept the offering.

“What time is it?”

“No idea. One of those henchmen nicked my pocket watch when he relieved me of my pistol. It's nearly dark, though. Why the bloody hell did you eat the lemon biscuit, Matthew? You must have known it would be drugged.”

“I
didn't
,” Matthew insisted. “Didn't I tell you already? Look, you see?” He pulled his shirt askew to reveal one shoulder, where a puncture wound was clearly visible.

“They shot you up?”

“I felt a sting when we got out of the lorry, but I thought it was just a spike of that hemp rope poking into me. I suppose I was lucky they didn't hit a vein. It went into the muscle so it took longer to kick in. I lasted all the way up to Orm's office before I keeled over.”

“And you never even got to try the lemon biscuits.”

“A tragedy. From what little I recall they looked quite promising. So what have you learned during your stay in this delightful place? Anything useful?”

Cantlebury rolled his eyes. “Yes, my vast network of spies has informed me that this is one of many similar cells in a large building that smells rank beyond belief. It seems to be a dormitory for those poor bastards in rags, as well as their keepers. They tried to feed me some of the slop they give those drugged chaps, but as I didn't actually
want
to become one of those chaps despite my earlier jesting, I dumped it down the privy. Which, as you can no doubt tell by following your nose, is that hole in the corner.”

“Have you tried the window?”

“Sadly, the bunk is bolted to the wall, and they didn't see fit to provide me with a ladder.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Let me.” He slid from the bottom bunk where he'd slept off his unwanted opium dose, and tried to stand. Unsuccessfully. “In a bit. I'll try it in a bit.”

“Take your time, I'm not going anywhere.” Cantlebury had liberated a rough, grimy-looking blanket from the bunk and folded it into a pad. He sat on it against the wall farthest from the privy, arms resting on his knees.

On his third try, Matthew managed to stand and make his way to the window wall, reaching as high as he could and feeling his way along the bottom for a latch. Then he climbed to the top bunk and studied the window from that vantage, discovering that the latch was quite simple but located on the outside of the window, presumably to keep the occupants from doing exactly what he was attempting to do.

“I don't suppose you have a hairpin or anything like that?”

“Fresh out,” Cantlebury replied.

“If I had something long and thin I could pop the latch and boost you out, then climb out after you.”

“That's a wonderful plan. Except for the part where it requires something long and thin, which we don't have.”

The door rattled and two guards entered. One of them held a syringe, and the other was very, very large.

“Now lad,” the one with the needle said to Matthew. “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this Bob's way. This here's Bob.”

“I gathered as much.”

Matthew sighed and slid down from the bunk. It was shaping up to be an unpleasant night. He wasn't sure whether to be glad he would sleep through most of it.

 • • • 

I
T WAS SO
simple, Eliza was concerned it was a trap. Any child with a pocket knife could have sprung that window, which was why she waited a solid hour before even attempting it.

When she finally got up the nerve, leaning over to the window from the top bunk in a feat of acrobatics, the latch slid smoothly to one side with a simple nudge of her knife blade. She let it fall back into place, stowed the knife back in her boot, and returned to the bunk to consider her options.

From what she'd seen on her limited tour through the building, men and women were thrown in together indiscriminately, eight or ten to a room. They appeared to rotate workers on staggered shifts every few hours, though she had no idea whether that continued through the night. All the rooms appeared to be full; workers exited, and more entered to fill it.

Eliza's cell, with its two bunks, was down a side hallway that sported mostly open doors and an odor that was generally less appalling. Some of the rooms held what appeared to be personal belongings. Guards' rooms, it seemed. Hers was definitely a cell, with its floor privy and no bed linens other than scratchy, flea-ridden blankets. Perhaps the guards simply liked to keep the troublemakers close, or perhaps this was the only available space, but the reason didn't matter. If Matthew and Cantlebury had also been lodged in one of these it should be easy enough to find them. The trick would be avoiding the guards—and if the men were drugged or incapacitated, perhaps they wouldn't warrant two guards outside their door as Eliza had.

Around sunset, a bowl of gruel and a glass of water were offered to her through a slot in the door. She took both and placed them carefully on the floor, wishing the gruel were edible. She'd managed to suppress her hunger and thirst until she actually had food and drink in front of her, but now she wasn't sure how long she'd be able to resist. The water, perhaps? It looked clean and clear, and she smelled nothing suspicious. Deciding the risk was worth it, she took a drop on her finger and tasted it. Nothing. No sweet, cloying taste of laudanum or the bitterness of other opiate tinctures, just . . . water. For a moment she considered Orm's threat of a slow poison, but the timing of that had sounded important to him. Surely he wouldn't hang that on whether or not she chanced a drink of water. She risked a sip, waited a few minutes for ill effects, then took another mouthful when she was fairly sure it was untainted. It was the best thing she had ever tasted.

Night had fallen while she worried over how and when she was to be poisoned. She could go now, when the path under the window was clear but her movements would stand out against the wall, or she could wait until a crowd of drugged workers were shuffling by, but risk being spotted by one of their guards.

Now
. Because if it wasn't now, she would lose her nerve. After a final sip of water, Eliza climbed the bunk, slipped the latch again with her knife, and propped the window up with the fingers of one hand while she stowed the blade and made her move. It was neither easy nor graceful, but from the bunk she managed to work her head and shoulders through the small opening, and then scramble her way out once she saw the coast was clear. Aside from one moment when she feared she would lose her grip and land on her head, the whole thing went surprisingly well. She even managed to keep the window from slamming shut, lest the sound alert her door guards to the activity inside the room.

Knife again in hand, Eliza crouched low to the wall, skirting the building and peering around the corner to the front door. It was unguarded. A lost-looking worker shambled by carrying a yoke with two full water buckets, and she waited for him to pass out of sight beyond the next building before she peeked into the window next to the door. No guards on the inside either. Apparently Orm relied heavily on his perimeter defenses. The front door was latched from the outside, but it was a simple sliding latch, not a lock. Clearly the opium-addicted workers were not considered an escape risk. The generally lax security boded well for her prospect of finding Matthew and Cantlebury unguarded.

Eliza took a final glance around to make sure she hadn't been seen, then slipped the latch and simply walked into the front door. She recognized the way from her first trip, and it was an easy enough matter to find the corridor her cell had been in. She would start her search close to there, but not too close; she wanted to save the issue with the door guards until she had no other choice.

Along the way she peeked into some of the communal rooms, where the workers slept off their dosed gruel while waiting to be called for their next shift. Orm had said it was like a dream to them, but she could only imagine it was a nightmare. As a child she'd been given laudanum once for a stomach ailment, and it robbed her of all sense of time, turning the days and nights into an endless indistinguishable wheel. Two days, she'd been dosed with the stuff. It had seemed like an eternity. Was that what all these poor people were suffering now, an eternity of hell on earth for their sin of falling prey to opium addiction?

“I don't believe in sin,” Eliza whispered to one anonymous group as she watched them sleep through the little square window. “I'll send help for you.”

Then she continued down the hall to find Matthew and Cantlebury.

She came close to being spotted once, when she passed a door to one of the guard's rooms just as the occupant was crossing the floor. She flattened herself to the wall and waited, heart pounding, as his footsteps neared.

He was only closing the door. Almost sick with relief, Eliza went on, her knees shaking so hard they threatened to buckle under her.

Her cell had been near the end of the corridor. She snuck past the opening without being spotted, and started her search with the next hallway. No guards stood outside doorways, and her spirits sank as she started peeking into doors and checking locks. But in the end, she found them. Matthew and Cantlebury were all the way at the end of the hall, in the very last cell on the first side she checked. As with the other locks, this one was pathetically simple, though it did ostensibly require a key. Eliza used a hairpin to let herself in, and another to keep it from latching shut behind her.

“Hello,” she greeted Mr. Cantlebury cheerfully.

After a moment in which he stared at her with wonder, he composed himself again. “About time, Miss Hardison. I was beginning to think you'd never arrive. Now help me with Matthew and tell me which way we're carrying him.”

Matthew was sitting up, eyes half-open, a dreamy smile on his face. She'd never seen him completely drunk, but she suspected this was similar to the look. He was more pleasant and amiable than she would have thought, and the smile held some secret knowledge in it. When he saw Eliza he grinned wider and whispered, “I'm the large predator.”

“I take it he's still drugged?” She worried for his health, but not too much. He looked quite happy, at least, and she envied that state not a little.

“Drugged again. It's beginning to wear off now, though. Whatever they're giving him seems to act more like laudanum than opium. Doesn't last very long, and he comes and goes while it's active. I was foolish enough to take a few spoonfuls of gruel, but I'm over the symptoms now. I've been faking it ever since when they come in to shoot him up. Obviously they don't think I'm much of a threat. Whatever they're giving him seems stronger than what the poor slaves are getting. He doesn't seem to mind it much.”

“It may be some specialty of the house. Apparently Lord Orm grows his own varieties. I think I've used up all the luck I care to on the corridors. Your cell window is on the outer wall, yes?”

“I believe so.”

“Lemon biscuit,” Matthew muttered.

Eliza pondered her choices. “Did you happen to see if anyone picked up our airships, or did they leave them be-hind?”

“I didn't see anyone take mine. I don't think the basket would have fit in the lorry, anyway. Matthew says his was smashed, or at least I think that's what he's been babbling about.”

“It was, but it should still be functional. His balloon will need patching, and so will his boiler. And he'll need water for that. My ship's intact, I just bundled it and hid it under his. So if we could sneak back up the valley to find them, now while it's still dark, perhaps we can make some quick patches, just enough to get us out of here. I'm not sure of the way, but working together, perhaps we can find it.”

“I can find it,” Cantlebury assured her. “I always know which direction I'm heading. Also, I wasn't tied up nearly as well as the two of you were, and I was able to look out the back window of the lorry a few times when they drove from my ship to yours. If my poor wreck is still there, we'd certainly have plenty of silk for patches. Although if the holes are small enough, I also have some pre-cut patches and this wonderful fibrous goo that Lavinia came up with. Faster than sewing.”