Authors: Sharon Joss
Steam Dogs (5 page)
The fog had begun to lift by the time Roman approached Millwall
Pier on the west side of the Island. Spring had been slow to release her grip
this year, but already this morning, he’d seen a female fox and her cub
trotting east across West Ferry Road, heading toward the airship hangars.
“Inspecta!”
Roman turned at the sound of a child’s voice coming from the
direction of Glengall Road. A boy of about ten years, wearing baggy corduroy
pants held up with a knotted length of twine and a filthy shirt came running
up. His face and hands and bare feet were filthy with the caked black mud from
the riverbanks.
Mudlark.
“It’s PC Stackpoole. Says he wants ye to come. ‘E’s got sommat to
show ye at the South Dock.”
“What is it?”
“Better see for yourself, he says. Gae me a penny to come find
ye.” The lad held up a coin to show he was telling the truth. “Said you gi’ me
one too.”
Roman patted his pockets and dug up a copper. He rarely carried
more than a few pennies for the children who acted as messengers between the
officers. Two pennies was a good day for a boy like that. “Where is he, then?”
The boy snatched the coin and it disappeared into his pockets.
“Outside the West Gate. Can’t miss it.” He made a disgusted face and took off
running; north to the food markets in Millwall, no doubt.
A short, brisk walk later, Roman found Stackpoole waiting for him,
standing over what appeared to be a puddle of blood on the pavement.
Dark circles ringed the constable’s eyes this morning, but his
voice was firm. Only a few weeks on the job, and already he spoke with the calm
quiet certainty of a more experienced officer. After a bumpy start, the
constable had impressed Roman with his powers of observation. Stackpoole had
good instincts and an eye like a crow for a bit of shiny tinsel—he
noticed
everything
. And he asked the
right questions.
“Thought you should see this, Inspector. Especially after that
funny business with the
Valkyrie
last
month.”
Roman squatted beside the carnage; not just a pool of blood, but
splatter and scraps of tissue spread across and soaked into the packed dirt in
an area some two meters wide. Flies buzzed noisily around the perimeter, and in
clouds above the gobby bits. The smell caught in his throat, and instinctively,
he took a step back. Shreds of blood-soaked clothing that might have been a
seaman’s jacket lay beside the carnage, while scrapes in the dirt might have
been left by the claws of some animal.
“Who found this?”
“One of the wharfies on his way to work this morning. I was close
enough to hear his shout, and came running. I made sure nowt touched a thing.”
Smart .
“Did you see anything?”
“No sir.”
Roman touched his fingers to the blood. Fresh enough. Cold, but
drying at the edges. Hard to tell how long it had been there. He sniffed his
fingers. The coppery scent caught at the back of his throat. Something else,
too. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he hastened to wipe
the mess off his fingers into the dirt. The blood left a revolting taint of
fading magick on his fingers. He remembered the scrap of tainted fabric from
the
Valkyrie
and suppressed a shiver.
Even after all this time, it was too much of coincidence to dismiss.
“Hear anything?”
“Ah, well. I can’t say, really. Sometimes I hear funny things out
here, but nowt I could say for sure, Inspector.”
Roman gave him a sharp glance.
Still
worried about ghosts
. “Must’ve happened after midnight. Probably a sailor
too late to make the curfew.”
“What could do sommat like that?” Stackpoole nodded at the claw
marks scratched in the pavement. “You think its dogs?”
The question was already one he’d been asking himself.
What else could it be?
“I don’t know.” A
trail of bloody droplets and pawprints led away from the scene. Roman followed
them around the corner to a cabbie stand at Allred Street. The droplets stopped
beside a row of hitching posts, some 30 meters from the wall.
“You think the victim took a cab, then?”
Roman shook his head.
There
were gobbets of intestine back there. No way a man would be walking under his
own power after losing his intestines and that much blood.
“Too soon to
say, Constable.”
The sound of an engine came from overhead. Both men looked up as a
long, cigar-shaped airship emerged from the fog and began to descent toward the
air field.
“Is that the sound you heard? Airships coming in to land at the
field? These walls do funny things with echoes, sometimes.”
Stackpoole was firm. “It was voices, sir.”
Roman walked back to the bloody puddle with Stackpoole right beside
him. “If they fly low enough, sometimes you can hear the crew talking. And this
week, we’ve got more than the usual flock comings and goings. The Queen’s
Invitational. An air circus, I think they’re calling it. Crews flying in from
over from the Continent.”
Stackpoole shook his head. “It wasn’t airships I heard.”
“Hmm. Likely a robbery, but I won’t know until
I complete the investigation. Keep a sharp eye out, and leave the speculation
and the spooks out of your report when you write it up.”
Stackpoole’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
In spite of the fellow’s youth and superstitions, he had good
instincts. And he wasn’t the sort to let a kind word go to his head, either.
“Good thinking to send for me, Constable. I see the making of a detective in
you.”
The lad straightened right up. “Yes sir, Inspector.”
Aboard The Airship,
Il
Colibri
From the engine compartment overhead, the sounds of the coughing
motor smoothed out. The ship stabilized and leapt forward. Arvel breathed a
sigh of relief. The floor leveled out and the lights in the cabin flickered to
life. The sound of loose metal clanged dissonantly beneath the pilot house.
Whatever hit them had damaged either the gondola, the landing gear, or both.
“All is well here, Captain.” Gergorio’s voice echoed from the
speaking tube.
In the co-pilot’s seat, the navigator sobbed into his handkerchief.
“Take it easy, Emile. We’re not going to fall out of the sky,” Arvel
informed him. “Did I not tell you that the
Il
Colibri
is the greatest airship in the world? My clever design distributes
the ship’s loft by means of dozens of gas-filled glass bladders enclosed within
a steel cage. More than half would need to rupture before the ship began to
yield to the pull of gravity. She is nearly impossible to bring down! You are
as safe as a babe cradled in his mother’s arms.” He tapped his forehead. “You
may be a magnificent navigator, but I am a genius and a brilliant pilot
besides.”
But whoever the coward was who had hit their ship, Arvel silently
vowed to find the captain responsible and make him pay. He and Simon had risked
everything to complete the construction of the
Il Colibri
in time for this airshow. This trip across Europe and
the English Channel was only her second flight of any distance. If the airship was
not fully functional—well, failure would be disastrous to both of them.
“Simon, if you and
Bruno would do the honors. I need to know if we can land or if we have to walk
her down.”
Both men grinned as they donned their flight spectacles and
buckled them firmly in place, then slid open the doors on either side of the
ship and slipped the toggle in place to hold them. A chill wind buffeted the
cabin.
As one, Simon and Bruno reached for the coiled and knotted rope
line affixed to a sturdy iron bracket above each doorway. With a whoop of
pleasure, both men swung through the open doors and disappeared into the fog
below.
Unlike other airship captains, who recruited their crews from the
military, Arvel and Simon had agreed early on that at least part of their crew
would be other circus performers. Acrobats had no fear of moving around the
outside of the ship during flight, and when repairs or adjustments needed to be
made, the linesmen did their job with both confidence and great joy.
The clang of metal on metal from below continued to reverberate
through the cabin. Arvel winced and said a silent prayer to the wind God,
Aeloas, that the gondola had escaped damage. He’d designed he
Il Colibri
with a unique, retractable
undercarriage, which, combined with the pinpoint hovering capability of the
airship, allowed up to four passengers at a time to embark or disembark without
landing the ship. No other ship in the world had such capabilities.
A moment later, Simon pulled himself back up into the cabin, his
expression grim. Arvel braced himself for the worst.
“The gondola has been
wrenched off its seat. Two of the iron brackets which hold it in place are
missing, and a third has been sheared off. The starboard landing gear has been
torn away completely.” Simon rubbed his fingers together in the sign, which
meant the repairs would be expensive.
“We’ll have to walk her down, Captain.” Bruno shouted as he
slammed the cabin doors shut.
Arvel pressed his lips together, biting back the oath. More than
anything, he wanted the
Il Colibri
to
make a good showing here. If the British Queen were to become their patron, his
and Simon’s dreams of an airship fleet would become a reality. But if the Queen
wasn’t impressed—well, that was why Simon had insisted on the contingency
plan. His old friend would make certain that the Queen would provide the funds
they needed. One way or another. But Simon’s way might be far too risky.
“Our destination is directly ahead of us, gentlemen.” Emile
announced, if still a bit nervously. “We are coming up on the Isle of Dogs. The
airship hangars are in the middle of the island, just below the Millwall dock.
Do you see it, Captain?”
At an altitude of seventy meters, they’d descended below the
clouds. Visibility had improved, although a thick haze of coalsmoke gave the
scene a murky twilight. The two domed-shaped hangars in the middle of the open
pastureland made for an easy target. “
Grazie,
Signore
. I see them.”
Arvel hailed the engine room through the speaking tube. “We’re
walking her down,” he said, in Italian. “Nuncio and Rudy, come down and give
Simon and Bruno a hand.” Although the ship was capable of pinpoint precision
landings, for a walk-in landing, it was easier to have a linesman on four sides
of the ship, to ensure the best anchorage for tie-down.
Arvel cut the forward thrusters and diverted the power to the
directional propellers. “Attend to propeller eight, Simon, if you please?”
“Aye Captain.” Simon wound the clockwork mechanism that provided
auxiliary power to the number eight starboard propeller. Almost immediately,
the ship responded and the horizontal plane evened out.
They were less than twenty meters from the landing field. A fellow
with two yellow flags caught Arvel’s attention and he engaged the elevator
thrusters, rotating the ship to face into the prevailing wind direction.
Simon and the linesmen slid open the doors again and dropped out of
the cabin. From his vantage point, Arvel watched Bruno reach the ground first
and flash a thumbs up signal, indicating the port side linesmen were down. A
moment later, a flash of green in the starboard mirror indicated that Simon and
Rudy were down as well.
He pulled back the power to the minimum level and allowed the
ship’s natural buoyancy to settle into neutral. Slowly, the ship began to drift
forward under the pull of the lines as the crew walked them to one of the
hangars. As much as he itched to join the men down below and see the damage for
himself, Arvel would not set foot on English soil until his ship was anchored
properly in the hangar.
As the grounds crew walked the ship toward its assigned place,
Arvel made a mental note to inspect the other airships for signs of damage.
Whoever hit them would have to pay for repairs. The hangar was large enough for
six ships, but one entire side of the garage was taken up by a large
cigar-shaped craft with German markings. Opposite, were two much smaller ships
flying French flags. As they passed the first, the
Reine du Ciel
, Emile waved to one of the crewman.
“Friend of yours?”
“My brother,” answered Emile. “Now that my contract with you is
complete, I will collect my fee and return to France with them after the fete.”
Odd that Emile’s brother was on the crew of the French ship. He’d
said nothing of it before they left, and now seemed rather too eager to leave.
A sudden thought caught his attention. Had Emile agreed to
navigate their ship across the channel with the intention of spying on their
design? Or worse, had the collision not been an accident, after all?