Blood Ties
Author: Quincy J. Allen
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Steampunk; Fantasy; Westerns; Science Fiction; Fiction
Description: Librarian's note: alternate cover edition of ASIN B016L3NZVU. Clockwork Gunslingers • Chinese Tongs • An Epic Quest THE BLOOD WAR CHRONICLES When assassins jump half-clockwork gunslinger Jake Lasater, he knows the Chinese Tong wants to finally settle an old score. Unfortunately, Jake has no idea the Tong is just the first milepost on the road toward a destiny he refuses to believe in. With his riding partner Cole McJunkins in tow and his ward Skeeter secretly hidden away, Jake squares off against a deadly clockwork mercenary from his past and a troop of crazed European soldiers who want him de
Publisher: WordFire Press

Table of Contents

- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter One – The Taste of Black Powder
- Chapter Two – Battlefield
- Chapter Three – Sore Loser
- Chapter Four – This Can’t Last
- Chapter Five – Qi’s Telegram

- Chapter Six – Sometimes Settled Ain’t Settled

- Chapter Seven – Consarned Contraptions
- Chapter Eight – Civil Enemies
- Chapter Nine – Cards and Bluffs
- Chapter Ten – Bluffs and Guns
- Chapter Eleven – Just One Lump, Please
- Chapter Twelve – Hard Questions
- Chapter Thirteen – Morse for Breakfast

- Chapter Fourteen – Big Trouble in Little China

- Chapter Fifteen – Tong for Two
- Chapter Sixteen – The Mad Emperor
- Chapter Seventeen – Nitro for the Lady
- Chapter Eighteen – Master Chung

- Chapter Nineteen – Memories of a Ghost Hunter

- Chapter Twenty – Comrades in Arms
- Chapter Twenty-one – Moonlight Ruckus
- Chapter Twenty-two – Rock and a Hard Place

- Chapter Twenty-three – Settled Finally Gets Settled

- Chapter Twenty-four – The Gauntlet
- Chapter Twenty-five – The Enemy of My Enemy
- Chapter Twenty-six – A Deal Deal
- About the Author

Book Description

Clockwork Gunslingers • Chinese Tongs • An Epic Quest

THE BLOOD WAR CHRONICLES

When assassins jump half-clockwork gunslinger Jake Lasater, he knows the Chinese Tong wants to finally settle an old score. Unfortunately, Jake has no idea the Tong is just the first milepost on the road toward a destiny he refuses to believe in.

With his riding partner Cole McJunkins in tow and his ward Skeeter secretly hidden away, Jake squares off against a deadly clockwork mercenary from his past and a troop of crazed European soldiers who want him dead. Add an insane Emperor with knowledge of Jake’s past and a mysterious noblewoman who desperately needs his help—and Jake is faced with a whole mess of trouble, with no end in sight.

Blood Ties launches an epic saga that spans worlds and threatens the human race itself.

Digital Edition – 2015

WordFire Press
wordfirepress.com

ISBN: 978-1-61475-336-0

Copyright © 2015 Quincy J. Allen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Janet McDonald and Kathryn S. Renta

Art Director Kevin J. Anderson

Cover artwork photo by Quincy J. Allen

Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Book Design by RuneWright, LLC
www.RuneWright.com

Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

Published by
WordFire Press, an imprint of
WordFire, Inc.
PO Box 1840
Monument, CO 80132

Dedication

To Kathryn.

The greatest fan a writer could ever hope for.

Acknowledgements

This novel has been both a lifetime and six years in the making, with its roots set squarely in the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as well as the antics of James West in a TV series most of you probably don’t remember. My love of this genre existed long before I ever heard the word “steampunk.” Five years ago, shortly after deciding not to go back to IT and actually pursue the career I always wanted, I ran into a group of steampunkers at MileHiCon. They were promoting a new Internet radio show they were in the process of producing. I wanted writing gigs and we sort of found each other. Such was my introduction to the 21st century notion of steampunk. I’ll tell you, it sure is prettier.

In those first few conversations Jake Lasater became a reality. So, to Kronda and all the corset, spats, and modified Nerf-gun devotees in the Colorado Steampunks, I’d like say thanks. This work (and hopefully the works to follow) owes you all a debt of gratitude.

I’d like to thank Mick, Gary, and Randy over at BDS. Whether they knew it or not, they are patrons of the arts. The gig they let me work for the past couple of years has made completing this novel possible. This work would not exist in the form it is, nor in the time I completed it, without them. Also, a thank you goes out to Ty Christopher, one of the first beta readers.

I’d also like to thank Peter J. Wacks, David Boop, Guy Anthony De Marco, James Sams, and Travis Heermann over at the Handsome Authors Society (no I didn’t name it) for all the time we spent at signings and conventions and chewing the fat about this madness we call writing careers.

I must thank Kathryn Renta for her significant involvement in this particular novel. She read almost every draft. She is ever patient, supportive, and honest, especially in the face of that original first chapter. Gracias, amiga.

A first novel, or in my case a first good novel, takes a lifetime to create. In it lies the hopes and dreams of an individual who, in all likelihood, decided to buck tradition and tell the naysayers to go hell. I often joke about “being waylaid by bandits armed with the phrase ‘So you wanna be a starving artist the rest of your life?’” It’s on my site and in a number of anthologies. The truth is it’s not a joke. I can still hear my father saying it.

So, finally, I’d like to thank you, the reader … the person kind enough to buy, borrow, or steal this novel. Because if you did any one of those three things, it’s a validation that somewhere along the way, at some point, I made the right choice in trying to become an author.

So, THANK YOU.

All I can add is that I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Chapter One – The Taste of Black Powder

“The Jake I knew was born of thunder, blood, and lies. It made him a better man, but at such a terrible price. And the villain who set it all in motion didn’t realize what he’d done until it was far too late.”

~ Lady Corina Dănești

Confederate irregulars—gutsy, pissed off farmers, really—had sniped at the camp for three days. Scouts reported some of the Rebs with repeaters, unusual for hog and cotton farmers. Under such circumstances, Union colonels normally did nothing more than post more guards and wait out the sniping. It was practically policy.

This time, however, as Captain Jake Lasater scraped stubble off his jaw with cold water and a dull straight-razor, Major Wilkes—a pudgy, brown-nosing weasel new to the regiment—stepped into Jake’s tent without even the courtesy of clearing his throat before throwing back the flap.

“Captain Lasater!” Wilkes barked in a nose-pinched, New England accent.

Jake turned his eyes from the mirror hanging on his tent pole, his hands frozen in place with the blade angled across his jaw and a fresh nick leaking crimson down the razor’s edge.

“Colonel Forsythe orders you to take your company along Rabbit Creek and up Jackinaw Ridge to engage Confederate irregulars we believe are encamped there. You are to attack immediately after breakfast!” Without another word, Wilkes disappeared through the tent flap. Not once had the little bastard looked Jake in the eyes.

It was a bullshit order.

Jake knew it. The weasel probably knew it. And Colonel Forsythe sure as hell knew it. Jake knew exactly why the order had been given, which made it that much worse.

Rich-man politics.

Over the years he’d seen far too many good men thrown into meat-grinders for no other reason than the whims of cowardly bastards with too much money, not enough brains, or an axe to grind.

Jake finished shaving, put on his uniform, and strode through camp up to the Colonel’s tent, dead set on convincing Colonel Forsythe to either call off the attack or send more than just Jake’s cavalry company.

Jake threw a salute barely deserving of the term to the guards, brushed the tent flap aside, and stepped in like he owned the place. He stood before Forsythe with his arms crossed and his feet set wide. The tent flap slithered closed with a hissing of worn canvas. Seconds ticked by as Forsythe continued writing the letter in front of him, the quill in his hand skittering across the paper.

Jake’s heavy Missouri drawl carried piss and vinegar as he barked, “Colonel, the next time you want to give me a shit job, at least have the gumption to do it yourself. Don’t send some Podunk, boot-licking major to do it for you.”

The two men, old friends in the extreme, had gone round and round on orders plenty of times. Forsythe was the sort of man who wouldn’t tolerate back talk from anyone under his command. But Jake was practically family. Forsythe and Jake’s father had fought together in the Mexican-American war. Upon their return, Forsythe fed the little scoundrel and even changed Jake’s diapers on more than one occasion. It was, in fact, a much younger Forsythe who had given Jake the nickname “Trouble.”

The Colonel slowly raised his eyes from the tan parchment before him and gave Jake a blank, expectant stare. So began the dance. His Union blue jacket and hat were draped over the chair, but his pressed, white shirt was buttoned to the collar. He slowly laid the white plumed quill down upon the desk and took a pull from the cherry wood pipe angled out the corner of his mouth. As the silence drew out, Forsythe raised an expectant eyebrow. They were both masters of brinksmanship, and they’d done the dance more times than either of them would ever admit.

Jake got the message.

He stood straight and put up a salute considerably better than the one he gave the guards.

“Is something on your mind, Captain?” Forsythe asked in a Missouri drawl identical to Jake’s.

“This whole thing stinks!” Jake blurted. He knew he was pushing his luck, but the salute and the question made it legal. Jake was a good card player and knew that if he pushed just hard enough he could get a straight story out of the Colonel and maybe get the decision he wanted.

Forsythe leaned back in his chair and placed his hands on the desk, deliberately forcing Jake to keep his arm up. The middle finger of the Colonel’s right hand tapped out one second after another.

Forsythe finally returned a slow, mechanical salute, allowing Jake to lower his arm.

Forsythe’s kept his tone level, but Jake couldn’t miss the iron in it. “Why, Captain Lasater, I believe you’d like to discuss the order to take Jackinaw Ridge. Am I correct in my assessment of your intentions?”

“Hell, yes!” Jake nearly shouted. “Everyone in the regiment knows that one of those soldiers killed is the son of that pig-butchering war profiteer Cromwell.”

Forsythe didn’t hesitate. “Why, that’s true, Captain. Mr. Cromwell did lose his son in a recent attack. Mr. Cromwell is also the man supplying both the grain and pork for the entire regiment. It’s commendable that you keep apprised of current affairs. Are you also aware that our supply lines were cut by Confederate assault units three weeks ago?”

“Of course I am,” Jake conceded. “I lost seven of my own men in that attack.”

“I am pleased to know that you take such serious responsibility when it comes to keeping count of the soldiers under your command. What you have obviously failed to realize is this places me in the less-than-envious position of still keeping you and the rest of my regiment fed.” Forsythe set his elbows firmly on the arms of his chair, laced his fingers together, and stared at Jake over the notch they made like they were the sights of a Winchester rifle.

Jake got a bad feeling—he wasn’t going to win this one. Not ready to give up and unable to keep the surly out of his voice, he said, “Isn’t it a little convenient that Cromwell showed up only five hours after the attack, offering to step in and supply the regiment … at a substantial markup, I might add.”

Deep down he suspected Cromwell had a hand in aiding the mechanized units that cut their supply lines. It wouldn’t surprise him if Cromwell had a Rebel heart. Half the regiment believed it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any proof, but Jake would be damned if he didn’t at least hint at the allegation.

“Some would call Cromwell’s situation fortuitous, and with the correspondence he received from his brother-in-law Senator Willey, giving him considerable leeway in his pricing, there’s little I can do to alter the circumstances.” Forsythe paused and took a long pull on his pipe. He blew the smoke out with a huff. “Now, knowing camp gossip as I do, you are probably also aware that Mr. Cromwell discussed the matter of his son with me last night. He requested that we immediately attend to the Confederate irregulars.”

Jake knew in that moment Colonel Forsythe wasn’t going to budge. “But—” he started.

Forsythe cut him off with a raised finger. “What will you be having for breakfast, Captain?”

The question took Jake off-guard. “Bacon and grits, same as yesterday … and the day before that.”

“And where did they come from?” Forsythe asked slowly.

Jake hesitated before answering. “Cromwell.” He felt like a zeppelin going down in flames.

“Precisely.” Forsythe leaned forward and bored into Jake with narrowed eyes. “Captain Lasater, are you the most competent cavalry officer in this regiment?”

They both knew the answer.

“Yes, Colonel.” Jake’s tone held defeat not pride.

“Do I need to ensure that Mr. Cromwell remains content with our supply arrangement? Thus ensuring that you and my regiment continue to eat something for breakfast?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do I have any choice but to send a small force up that hill?” They both knew of Forsythe’s obligation to go through the chain of command before moving more than a single company, which would take days Cromwell clearly hadn’t offered.

“No, sir.”

“Then buck up, Captain.” Forsythe’s tone was hardened steel. He took a long pull on his cherry wood pipe and gave Jake a steely glare. “I’ve read the reports, and Intelligence puts between forty and seventy irregulars up there, and they aren’t even dug in. You can beat a bunch of pig farmers, can’t you?”

“Those reports are three days old … sir. That’s a hell of a long time for that ridge to get turned into a hornet’s nest.”

“And if it did, Captain Lasater, then I mean for you to burn it down. You have your orders. Dis-MISSED!” Forsythe slowly picked up his quill and returned his eyes to the parchment. The dance was over, and all Jake had were broken toes to show for it.

He wanted to argue but he knew he couldn’t go any further, and he wasn’t prepared to get busted down to a private—or worse. He saluted in proper, albeit somewhat exaggerated, military fashion, which Forsythe returned with eyes down and his quill again doing its dance across the parchment.

Jake turned on his heel and marched up to the tent flap.

“Jake?” Forsythe said with a hint of gentleness.

Jake paused before the worn canvas and waited.

“You know I don’t have a choice, right?” Forsythe asked. It wasn’t Colonel Forsythe speaking now. The question came from the man who had changed Jake’s diapers, cleaned oatmeal off his chin, and helped raise the boy into the man that stood before him now.

Jake heard it. Hell, he even felt it. He didn’t like it, but he had to admit it, and it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Yes, sir,” he said quietly. Without another word, Jake pushed through the flap and made his way slowly through the tents, campfires, and men that surrounded the colonel’s tent. He suddenly wished he was back home and that the war had never started. For a fleeting moment he considered jumping on his horse, just heading out and disappearing into a western sunset, leaving the horror—and politicking—of the war behind him. He shook his head, wishing he didn’t take his sense of duty and honor so seriously. If he cut and run he’d never be able to look at his father’s grave without feeling ashamed. And, truth be told, he didn’t want to let Forsythe down. The colonel was as close to a father as Jake had left.

He briefed his company with the bad news, and they all wordlessly ate a breakfast of grits and bacon. Every soldier in the company knew the score, and none of them wanted to talk about it. They also resented each spoonful of Cromwell’s grits, every mouthful of bacon, but hunger is hunger and a man can’t live off pride.

As Jake looked at his men, he realized the whole camp seemed more quiet than usual. The lull was broken only by a murder of crows gathered high above in the full branches of an oak. The crows chattered and chuckled amongst themselves. Their presence filled Jake with an uneasy feeling. He’d learned as a boy that crows were an omen of power and change, and he’d come to trust them. Unfortunately, they never made it clear whether the change was good or bad. The only change Jake could see ahead was probably a lot of good men killed. His guts churned with anger and frustration. He’d left Forsythe’s tent with only the suspicion that he was in for a rough ride, but with the presence of the crows, he no longer had any doubt.

Jake stood, cast a forlorn glance at the murder above him, and nodded to his men. Then, like the soldiers they were, they mounted up and raced along Rabbit Creek as if the devil rode behind them. Jake hoped that a fast pace would keep the rebel emplacement from getting any warning. He cast fleeting glances at the company spread out around him in the forest and wondered how many of them would be dead soon. Politics, he cursed as he spurred his horse to an even faster pace.

The company cleared the trees at the base of Jackinaw only to discover a smokescreen between them and the top of the ridge. So much for hope. He had no doubt that scouts had been able to notify the rebels somehow, and it occurred to him that they probably had one of those new, wireless talkie rigs he’d heard about. If they did, then there was a hell of a lot more than just a bunch of irregulars dug in atop that hill. He didn’t have time to do more than give it a passing thought, so he swallowed his fear. He was under direct orders from his commanding officer, and the Union hanged traitors and cowards alike.

Jake was neither.

He pulled his weathered ball and cap pistol and nodded to the man beside him. Clark, his bugler, caught the motion and pulled a gleaming loop of brass off the horn of his saddle. A clear peal rang out, and as one the entire company pulled their pistols and spurred their horses to a breakneck pace. Jake’s company was a thundering wall of Union blue spread out to his left and right as they raced up the hill.

The acrid smell of smoke filled his nostrils. The world went hazy gray, with swirls arcing around his horse’s head like water around a keel. They were only in the smokescreen for a few seconds, but those blind moments felt like an eternity. A single bullet screamed over his head, probably fired prematurely by a nervous recruit or hapless farmer. He looked quickly left and right, satisfied that each rider he could see through the smoke had nestled in behind his horse’s head. The smoke thinned before him like the parting of a gray curtain.

As Jake looked up the hill, his heart sank. He knew in an instant that his entire company was doomed. The dark muzzles of a half-dozen cannons poked out from a sparse tree line, spread out in a wide fan, and each of them pointed down the hill at Jake and his men. In a clearing behind the cannons stood a gleaming Confederate assault unit, its hull a blazing pillar in the morning sunlight.

At fifteen feet tall, the machine towered over the troops ranged around it. The driver stood safely encased within a heavily armored cylinder that jutted up from a long chassis. Its power plant grumbled in an even more heavily armored compartment that bulged out behind the cockpit. The thing roughly resembled a man, but without a head to speak of, and its three squatty legs were designed to easily traverse uneven terrain and keep the heavy machine upright. Assault units were equipped with two thick, heavily jointed arms that could swing and twist in virtually any direction. Rather than hands, they had wide, vicious claws that Jake had seen cut through boilerplate. A large-bore anti-personnel cannon adorned its left forearm and could fire about twenty pounds of buckshot with each volley. The right arm supported a chain-driven Gatling gun. Jake had seen such assault units wreak havoc with infantry and cavalry alike.

Its arms rose, spreading wide as if to welcome Jake and his company like the God Almighty.

In the few seconds he had, all Jake could do was watch.

With a staggering BOOM! the assault unit opened up on the right flank with a blast from its anti-personnel cannon. Men and horses screamed. With a sharp staccato of repeating gunfire, the Gatling chewed into the left flank. A burst of white-gray smoke blossomed from the muzzles of all six cannons, and a deafening, multi-rifle report washed down the hillside. Jake felt the concussion hit his chest. He heard the whistle of incoming shells and the popping of rifles like kernels on a griddle. He closed his eyes, but he didn’t have long to wait.

The earth erupted around him. His mouth filled with the taste of black powder as his whole world turned upside down.

O O O

Jake couldn’t hear himself screaming.

He knew he was screaming. He felt his chest heaving, felt the rasp in his throat as he cried out in blinding anguish. The bloody, charred stump of his left arm flailed, and little remained of his legs below the thighs other than burned fabric, shreds of flesh, and the white glisten of exposed, shattered bone. Raw, seething horror tore at him, heart and soul. He felt his gorge rising in his throat and spilled what little he’d eaten upon green, dew-covered grass.

The sound of his screaming and heaving never made it past the cacophonous hiss that filled his ears. That one sound filled his world, wrapped itself around him like a soothing balm, and he was grateful for it.

The strange thing about battlefield trauma is that the mind plays tricks on a man. It does its level best to take him out of the moment, distract him from the reality of charred, bloody stumps, shattered bones, and an agony so intense it makes him vomit. That’s how Captain Jake Lasater found himself pondering whether history would care that a pig-butchering war profiteer named Cromwell had ended his life at the battle of Jackinaw Ridge.

Chapter Two – Battlefield

“You have to keep in mind that I wasn’t there for everything. Some of his story came to me in pieces … over breakfast or a cup of coffee … around campfires … sometimes second- or even third-hand. But I remember it all. I owed him that from the first day I met him. We all did.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

A crowd hovered around the table—waiting and watching—wondering if Jake Lasater had finally met his match. Hushed whispers slid back and forth like wind through pines. Beyond the crowd, gamblers, travelers, drunks, and barmaids went about their business. An electric harmony floated over it all as an automaton band sang about somebody’s sweetheart on Saturday night.

For the first time in months, an out-of-towner had given Jake a run for his money.

Three men already lay fallen, worn down and wiped out by the two professionals who now faced each other. Everyone knew only one would walk away victorious. It was a matter of pride at that point. The money didn’t matter.

Not as much as the pride, anyway, Jake thought, glancing around the room. The Colorado Brewery was like a second home to him, all dark walnut and polished brass. The Colorado brought in everything from dregs in dirty overalls to ladies in bright silk.

Jake worked the end of a cigar, smoke dribbling out the corner of his mouth. After six hours, he was tired, his shoulders ached, and his butt hurt. He shifted in his chair to relieve some of the ache and glanced at the impressive pile of bills and coins on the table. He flicked a blob of ash into an already-full ashtray and cocked an eye at Quinn, the burly, half-Asian sitting across from him.

Pale, ghost-white eyes stared back—emotionless—and Jake had never seen anything like them.

Quinn was six feet of corded muscle topped by a jet-black ponytail that rode high upon his crown. His ashen face was as stony-cold as his eyes, giving away nothing. Layers of bronze mail stretched from a thick iron collar around his neck to spiked bracers at his wrists, and similar mail covered his thighs and shins. The bronze gleamed like reptilian scales in sunlight, and he wore heavy, black clothing underneath. He looked more like some sort of dragonkin than a man.

Jake leaned back and fingered the smooth grip of the cavalry officer’s pistol holstered at his right hip—an old habit. For him, poker and gunfights were damn near the same thing … well, except for hot lead flying around. And he was one of the best—at both—and for the same reasons.

He could size up courage and cowardice like normal folks read a penny dreadful. And he usually knew when the man he was up against was full of shit or armed for bear. Usually. It all came down to making the right move at the right time.

Unfortunately, Quinn wasn’t giving up a thing.

Jake lifted the short, black leather topper off his head and ran a gloved hand through dark, wavy curls. Replacing the topper, he scratched beneath the intricate, clockwork ocular covering his left eye. The Rebel cannons had left his eye permanently dilated—among other things—bringing to an end his tour as a Union cavalry officer. Without the ocular bright light blinded him, but he could see in the dark almost as well as a cat with it.

He blew a puff of smoke through the corner of his mouth, and it drifted out over the money. The cloud dissipated quickly on currents dancing through the brewery, stirred by the airy rhythms of electric ceiling fans. Half of Denver was on electric, the places that had money, anyway.

Ignoring the smoke, Quinn’s pale eyes remained cold, his face carved in granite.

Jake leaned back in. “Call,” he finally said in his slow Missouri drawl, dropping a twenty-dollar bill on top of the pile.

More whispers circled the table.

The dealer nodded. “Pot’s right,” he said, laying down the last face-up cards.

Quinn was showing the jack and eight of clubs, ace of diamonds, and king of hearts—garbage to Jake’s eyes. But Quinn had opened the betting heavy and kept it up as the hand evolved. Jake knew Quinn had something worth fighting for, probably two pair—kings and aces—or trips of some kind. He looked down at his own garbage: ace of hearts, five and seven of spades, eight of diamonds. His hole cards were the four and six of spades. The eight of diamonds had given him a straight, and with one more down card coming, he had a fair shot at a flush. It was why he’d called on the last round. Even without the flush, though, a straight beats two pair or even trips every time.

“Fifty,” Quinn said quietly as he threw more bills on top of the pot.

Solid bet, Jake thought. Small enough to keep me interested, but not big enough to drive me out if I’m chasing the straight.

Jake’s face was chiseled of the same stone as Quinn’s, but he was smiling on the inside. This is why I play poker, he thought, a test of wills.

He pulled on his cigar and blew out another cloud. He wanted to savor every moment. He picked up the bottle of Cap’n Plat beer he’d been working and took a swig. Leaning back once again, he placed his gloved left hand on his cards and tapped a finger thoughtfully. It made a dull, solid, thudding sound, not like flesh at all.

“Call,” Jake said, adding a trace of resignation to his voice. Gotta play this just right … he thought. He pushed fifty into the pot.

The dealer laid down their last cards.

Quinn reached out and lifted the corner, his eyes darting to whatever lay beneath.

Jake watched closely, looking for any sort of tell, but his opponent’s face was as immutable as the Chinese statues he’d seen once in a Chicago museum.

This time Quinn waited, letting the drone of the brewery fill the silence.

Jake waited, not even looking at his hole card as he scratched beneath the edge of his ocular again.

“Everything,” Quinn said quietly, pushing in his entire stack.

A gasp washed through the crowd, and for the first time all night, Quinn’s voice carried a hint of emotion—victory. His face was still a blank slate, and he had pushed in what looked to be about two hundred dollars.

Jake raised his eyebrow behind the ocular, certain Quinn’s last card had given him trips, or even a full house, which would crush Jake’s straight. The money on the table represented his whole bankroll. He hadn’t had a decent job in weeks, and his crew was eating him out of hearth and home.

“So that’s how it’s gonna be, is it?” Jake asked around the cigar.

Quinn nodded once, and the trace of a smile crimped the edges of his mouth.

“I guess I better see what I have, shouldn’t I?” Jake glanced at the upturned corner of his last down card. He laid it flat slowly and eyeballed his money—about two-hundred-and-fifty dollars. If he lost, he’d still have fifty to keep his crew fed until another job rolled in … hopefully. Either way, Jake was pot-committed, and both gamblers knew it.

“Call.” Jake sounded defeated, and he let his shoulders slump a little. Another gasp erupted from the crowd as he put in his money and laid his palms flat on either side of his cards.

Quinn’s smile was reptilian as he flipped over his hand, pushing forward the aces of spades and clubs he’d had in the hole from the beginning—three aces. He pushed forward the eight of clubs, and with a flourish he flipped over his last down card—the eight of hearts—a full house.

“Dead man’s hand,” someone in the crowd whispered.

Quinn sneered. “Aces over eights,” He licked his lips as he eyeballed the pot, but he was too much of a professional to rake it in before Jake turned over his hole cards.

Moving like a man headed for the gallows, Jake flipped over his first two hole cards. Everyone saw the straight, and most of the women gasped while a few men cheered. Jake figured the ones cheering were past losers all-too-happy to see him finally getting cleaned out. The cheer made the rest of the brewery go silent. Everyone, even the automaton band, turned their eyes to Jake’s table.

One of the spectators spoke up with a good deal of venom. “Looks like he’s got ya, Lasater.”

Definitely a sore loser, Jake thought. His shoulders drooped and his head hung low. “Well, I guess you’re right,” he finally said. “A dead man’s hand beats a straight every time.” Jake let loose a long, drawn out sigh.

Quinn smiled like a predator moving in for the kill. He reached out his hands and wrapped them around the money.

Jake’s voice was as hard as steel when he locked eyes with Quinn. “But I don’t have a straight.” He squared his shoulders.

Quinn froze, his smile fading back to cold stone.

“What?” the venomous spectator shouted. “You sure as hell do! I’m looking at it!”

Jake leaned in with a grin to beat all. He flipped over his last card—the eight of spades.

“That there is a straight flush,” Jake said. “And last time I checked, a straight flush beats a full house—even a dead man’s hand—every time.”

A cheer rose from the women, and Jake heard a few of the sore losers shout, “Unbelievable!”

Quinn’s fists clenched on the table, his knuckles white. His face remained frozen, but Jake saw fury in the dragon’s eyes.

“You’re a hell of a good card player, Quinn,” Jake said in a friendly tone. “I guess lady luck just wasn’t with you tonight.” He reached out and pulled back what he figured was over fifteen-hundred dollars. It would keep his crew afloat for a while. “Now, if you boys will excuse me, I need to get on home.” Jake pulled a blue bag out of his burgundy vest, kept there for just such occasions, and scooped the money into it. He stood, fluffed the emerald cravat at his throat, and adjusted his gun belt, making certain Quinn saw both pistols holstered there. The bag went back into his vest, leaving a noticeable lump, and he took one last swig from his Cap’n Plat. Tipping his hat, he said, “Y’all have a good night.”

He turned his back on the table and caught his riding partner’s attention. Cole, his mulatto skin deeply shadowed under a weathered, Buffalo Soldier’s hat, was waiting for the gentleman next to him to bet. Cole raised bright blue eyes and spotted Jake, who thumbed towards the door. Cole nodded, motioning that he’d finish the hand and follow.

Chapter Three – Sore Loser

“Trouble finds Jake like flies find corpses. Hangs around the same way, too.”

~ Cole McJunkins

Jake stepped out into a late summer night, the air scented by cut hay, boiling hops, and machine oil. He heard the faint gurgle of Cherry Creek only a block and a half away. As usual, the cobbled length of 12th Avenue lay empty. Anyone up at that hour on a Thursday was either in the Brewery or one of the whorehouses along Larimer Street around the corner. Decent folk—a group Jake did not consider himself a part of—had already chewed their way through a fair bit of a good night’s sleep.

The doors swung closed behind him, changing the buzz of bar patrons and automaton music to a muffled thrum. A row of horses stood hitched outside, their tails swishing quietly as horseflies tried to burrow deep and drink their fill. There were two steam-driven carriages parked nearby, brass fittings and copper pipes gleaming dully in the lamplight.

Jake pulled out his father’s pocket watch and clicked it open. It showed just shy of 11:30, so he figured he and Cole would be home a little after midnight. Clicking the watch closed, he turned towards the stables off to the left. A soft pool of electric lamplight cast the doors in an orange glow. Several more steam carriages sat parked beyond, nearly lost in darkness. Jake headed towards the stables but paused, caught in the harsh landing lights of an incoming zeppelin. Its motors filled the empty street with the sharp drone of reversing propellers, and he looked up at a stocky cargo carrier. As the light moved past him, Jake flicked the stub of his cigar into the street.

He had taken two steps past a gleaming steam carriage when a voice from behind hissed, “Raise your hands and go into the stables.” The point of a blade poked hard into his lower back. Jake hadn’t heard anyone come up behind him, but he knew who it had to be.

“Boy, you sure are a sore loser, Quinn.” Jake’s voice held no fear, simply disappointment. One man with a short sword frightened him about as much as a kid with a broom handle. Jake raised his hands and looked over one shoulder … and then the other.

A knot of fear tightened in his guts.

There was no sign of Quinn. Instead, Jake found himself looking at three strangers in black, their heads topped with black bowlers, their faces covered by strange looking goggles whose opaque lenses glowed faintly green.

The man directly behind him stood close enough for Jake to smell sour breath. The other two flanked behind about five feet. The flankers twitched their right wrists. With metallic clicks, eighteen-inch blades popped out from their sleeves.

Oh shit, Jake thought. He’d seen such weapons before. The pit fighters and generally unsavory sorts who used them called them slashers. Each of the flankers stepped in, pulled one of Jake’s pistols, and tucked it into his black sash. The knot of fear in Jake’s guts turned to pure dread. Three against one was long odds anytime, and now they had his pistols.

“Shut up and move!” the first man whispered in Jake’s ear. He shoved hard into Jake’s back.

Stumbling, Jake banged into the stable door face-first. Recovering quickly, he reached out and slid the door open. He still couldn’t hear the men moving behind him.

They’re pros, whoever they are, he thought.

He stepped into the darkness, his arms raised, and started to reach for the light switch just inside the door. His arm froze in place, hope pushing away the dread. In the dark he might have a chance, albeit a slim one. But slim was better than none anytime, especially against three armed killers.

With his arms still raised, Jake lowered his left hand a bit and twisted the ocular, allowing in all the available light. He passed the massive, tan hindquarters of his mount Lumpy, tensing his body to leap away.

“Don’t even think about it,” the man behind him said with a mild accent familiar to Jake. Jake froze. “We know all about that eye of yours. Now turn around.” Jake did as instructed. The goggles glowed more brightly in the darkness. The man raised his finger and tapped the goggles for emphasis. “We see you fine.”

Jake was just about out of tricks. The man shifted the dagger to his left hand and twisted his free wrist. A slasher popped out with a loud click, and then all three stood facing him, motionless.

Seconds ticked by.

Jake was a patient man, but he wasn’t in the mood to wait around for someone to open him up like a Christmas goose. “So, are you fellas gonna make a move, or are we gonna just stand here and stare at each other?”

“We definitely will not be staring at each other, Mr. Lasater,” Quinn sneered as he stepped into the doorway. Quinn turned the light switch.

The sudden brightness made Jake wince and close his left eye.

“I have something else in mind.” Quinn added as he slid the door closed behind him.

“If this is about the money, Quinn, I’ll just hand it over.” Jake knew when he was beat, and he wasn’t willing to risk his neck over fifteen-hundred dollars when the odds were stacked so high against him.

“The money is not why we are going to kill you.” Quinn smiled like a predator. “Although I will enjoy taking it off your corpse when we are finished cutting you to pieces.” Quinn drew the sword at his waist as he approached. The curved blade gleamed in his hand. “I will consider it a bonus on top of what we have already been paid.” He spun the blade a few times and loosened his neck and shoulders as he stalked down the middle of the stable. The other three spread out behind Lumpy, crouching down into fighting stances that gave Jake a bad case of déjà vu.

Jake didn’t see how he could beat four trained killers when they had blades. It did seem odd that none of them was packing iron, but even without pistols, four-to-one was over his head. He glanced around, looking for a way out. Walls, hay, dirt, a few harnesses—there was nothing he could use to protect himself. His gaze stalled on Lumpy’s hindquarters, and an idea popped into his head.

“Well, at least let me take off my hat,” he said smoothly. “It cost me eighty dollars in Kansas City.”

“It won’t make any difference,” Quinn replied almost sweetly as he lowered into a stance of his own.

Jake lifted his hat off, holding it high above his head. “You boys haven’t spent much time around big farm animals, have you?”

Confused looks flickered across the faces of all four killers.

Jake threw the short, leather top hat as hard as he could straight at Lumpy’s ass. The startled beast bellowed, rattling the walls of the stable and shaking dust from the ceiling. In a flash, Lumpy lifted his back legs and kicked out with all the force more than a ton of pissed off Brahma bull is capable.

One of Lumpy’s hooves caught the closest attacker in the head. The other hoof smashed into the next attacker’s shoulder. Both men flew into Quinn, and all three shot sideways and disappeared into the stall on Jake’s right, crashing into the far wall. Jake figured they were out of the fight for good. The odds were looking a little better now.

The remaining flanker was only startled for a second before coming at Jake with murder in his eyes. He stepped in like a panther and shot a kick into Jake’s mid-section. Air WHOOFED out of Jake’s lungs, and he crashed into a support beam in the middle of the stable. He saw stars but didn’t lose his focus on the man coming at him. The flanker raised his slasher high and brought it down.

A high-pitched whine of clockwork rang out as Jake’s left hand shot up in a motion too fast to follow. The slasher clashed as it hammered, metal on metal, into Jake’s upraised, brass wrist. The blade snapped off with a TWANG of broken steel, the point embedding itself into the support beam beside Jake’s head.

The surprised look on the flanker’s face was all Jake needed. He brought his left hand across like a sledgehammer. A squelching thud of meat and bone ruined the assassin’s features. His head twisted like a top, and he staggered sideways two steps before collapsing in a motionless heap.

A sense of pride replaced the worry that had filled Jake only moments before. He couldn’t keep from smiling. “Well that went better than I expected,” he said aloud.

Movement in the stall to his right turned his smile southward.

Quinn growled from the shadows, “We’re not finished.” His voice was deeper, more primal that it had been. He stepped out into the light, grinning, and Jake’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes went wide.

Quinn wasn’t human.

His ghost-white eyes glowed with an inner light. His predatory smile was full of sharp teeth, incisors considerably longer than the rest. The tops of Quinn’s ears narrowed to points, and his fingernails stretched into vicious white claws.

“Oh shit,” Jake muttered. He’d seen a few unnaturals in his time, things that would scare the sin out of even the hardest cowboy, but this was a new kind of different. He was in real trouble, and he knew it.

Quinn’s smile grew impossibly wide, a jagged rictus promising death. He looked at the body between them, and a quiet snarl slithered past his fangs. His gaze rose slowly, pausing briefly at the glint of bronze beneath the slash in Jake’s sleeve. Then their eyes met, steel on steel.

Jake sighed, resolved but not resigned to what was about to happen. “The eye ain’t the only thing that got messed up in the war,” Jake said grimly.

It was one-on-one again, but the odds were still stacked against him. He thought about hollering for help, but Quinn might bolt, and Jake wanted to end this now. All, or nothing, he thought. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

Quinn’s eyes narrowed, flickering briefly to Jake’s clockwork arm. He shifted his stance and came forward slowly. He was going after Jake’s right side, guessing it was flesh and blood.

Unfortunately for Jake, Quinn guessed right.

Jake’s eyes darted to the glinting, filigreed Peacemaker tucked into the sash of the dead man between them, the runes traced into the metal glowing a faint, ethereal green. If he could get his hands on his pistol, the fight would be over in an instant.

He dove towards his Colt, putting every ounce of strength he had into it. His clockwork legs screamed. He moved like lightning, faster than any normal man.

Quinn saw the motion and became a blur.

As Jake’s hand wrapped around the grip, Quinn appeared before his eyes like some sort of ghostly nightmare and slapped the pistol from Jake’s hand with impossible strength and speed. Jake had never seen anything move that fast, not even the werewolf he’d faced down the previous summer. The pistol went sailing into the shadows at the back of the barn, bounced off the wall, and dropped into the dust. Quinn’s backhand hammered into Jake’s jaw, lifted him up, and sent him sailing back into the support beam. Pain shot through his spine, and his jaw felt like it had been torn out. Dazed, his knees buckled, and he slid partway down the post. He shook his head to clear it. As his eyes refocused, the blur came at him again.

Jake lashed out with a haymaker, the best he could manage in his state, but Quinn shifted easily, avoiding it. The creature took the opening and sent a hard punch into Jake’s stomach. Jake grunted with the impact and swung his left out in a backhand, clockwork gears screaming.

Quinn ducked under it, stepped out, and sent a brutal roundhouse kick into Jake’s left knee. His foot impacted on the hard metal of Jake’s clockwork leg, and the metal joint shifted slightly but didn’t buckle. Quinn’s eyes went wide with pain, his face filling with rage. He changed tactics and slashed again and again with ragged claws in fast arcs that angled in from every direction. Jake shielded himself with his left arm, the only thing fast enough to keep Quinn’s attacks at bay. The stable filled with the sound of bone hacking and scraping on metal. Shreds of Jake’s shirtsleeve fell before the onslaught; the gleaming bronze flashing beneath the fabric as it was torn to pieces.

In mid-swing Quinn’s knee came up into Jake’s midsection, smashing him back against the support beam. Quinn lunged just as Jake’s clockwork left shot out and clamped down onto his attacker’s shoulder like a vice.

Quinn’s collarbone snapped, a hollow, popping sound as the bone gave way. The killer’s face twisted in pain and rage. He grabbed at Jake’s arm, trying to dislodge it. And then he wrapped one claw around Jake’s throat.

His breath caught in his throat and his lungs burned in protest. As the pressure of Quinn’s grip increased, a gleam of metal caught Jake’s eye. The broken slasher blade was still stuck in the post near Jake’s head.

“You’re still holding a dead man’s hand,” Jake rasped with cold determination. He brought his right knee up into Quinn’s mid-section like a piston. The clockwork leg hit like a freight train, and Quinn HUFFED with the impact that lifted him off the ground. Jake held firm as Quinn came back down on wobbly legs. He released Quinn’s ruined shoulder, and in a blur his metal fingers clicked around the embedded blade. He swung wide and jammed six inches of steel into the side of Quinn’s head. The blade ruptured Quinn’s right eye as it passed through flesh and bone.

Quinn’s remaining eye went wide and he howled like a wounded animal, staggering back, black blood poured down his cheek. Jake expected the assassin to drop where he stood. Instead, Quinn stopped and stood straight. His left eye focused on Jake, and a wicked smile split his face. He reached up, grabbed the blade, and wrenched it free, dropping it into the dirt at his feet. In a voice with little humanity left, he said slowly, “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Jake knew when he was outmatched. He didn’t hesitate. He only had one chance. He rolled away from the post, and leapt towards the shadows at the back of the barn.

Quinn snarled and dove after him.

Jake took two long strides and jumped. His aim was true. He sailed the remaining fifteen feet and came down on top of his Peacemaker. He clutched at it just as Quinn dropped on top of him. Jake felt the creature grip his shoulder and screamed as Quinn’s claws dug in. Quinn heaved. Jake found himself flying back towards the middle of the barn. He landed hard and slid through the dirt and hay, coming to a quick stop.

Quinn stalked towards him, preparing for the end game.

Jake pulled the hammer of his Peacemaker back with a loud click and aimed between his boots.

Quinn snorted. “Bullets can’t kill me, you imbecile,” he growled.

Jake wondered. “I ain’t much to take a stranger’s word for anything. I guess I better find out, shouldn’t I?”

The hammer came down. The runes of Jake’s pistol flashed bright emerald, and a single shot rang out. The muzzle flash evaporated the shadows for a split-second.

Jake waited.

Quinn froze in his tracks, his eye slowly dropping to the neat hole in the center of his chest. He raised a clawed finger to the wound, surprised to see wisps of smoke drifting through the black fabric.

The door to the stables slid open and Cole stood in the doorway, his pistol drawn. He took in the scene, and his eyes fixed upon the figure of Quinn frozen at the back of the barn.

“What the hell is going on in here?” he shouted.

Jake remained silent, his eyes riveted to Quinn.

In a voice suddenly human, Quinn gasped, “Im … possi—”

The flesh at Quinn’s neck and wrists turned ash white and then a dark gray, his skin crackling and crumbling like a burning cigar. It spread quickly until all of his exposed flesh was gray. In a puff of ash that filled the air around him, Quinn’s body collapsed. His clothing and armor folded in on itself and crumpled in a heap on the ground.

“Hunh …” Jake said, a bit bewildered. “Never seen it do that before.”

“Jake, you mind telling me what just happened?” Cole asked from the doorway.

Without a word, Jake holstered his pistol and slowly got back to his feet. Massaging his throat, he turned to Cole and took his first full, deep breath since the fight began. He bent over and put his hands on his knees while he tried to recover.

“Jake?” Cole asked, worry now filling his voice. He spotted the row of claw-holes in the shoulder of Jake’s shirt and the blood stains seeping through. “Jake, you okay?”

Jake, still trying to catch his breath, rose and took a few steps towards Cole with an It’s about time look on his face.

“Yeah,” he finally grumbled. “I’m fine. What took you so long?”

Cole’s eyes went wide and his hand darted to his pistol. The weapon flew free, aimed at Jake.

For a fleeting instant Jake thought Cole was going to shoot him cold. He only had time to think What the hell? before a shot rang out. Jake flinched. He looked at Cole with a surprised look on his face.

A body dropped to the dusty ground behind him.

Cole tsked a few times and shook his head. “You forgot one, amigo.” He pointed past Jake. “That’s just plain sloppy. And now that’s three you owe me.”

Jake gave Cole an irritated scowl. He looked behind him at the flanker lying on the ground. The man’s right arm looked shattered from Lumpy’s kick, bent at an unnatural angle just below the shoulder. Jake’s Officer’s Colt was clutched in the man’s good hand, but the bullet hole in his forehead indicated he would never kill again.

“Sloppy?” Jake asked, sounding offended. “I was tired and there were four of them. Besides, that’s only two I owe you. That guy in Pueblo don’t count.”

Cole rolled his eyes and chuckled. They both heard people gathering in the street, and someone was hollering for Marshal Sisty.

“So, you wanna tell me why that guy back there belongs in an ashtray now?”

“I don’t think he was human,” Jake said.

“No shit,” Cole replied dryly. After a long pause he said, “I pieced that together on my own, amigo. But what the hell was he?”

Jake shook his head. “I have no idea.” He pulled his Peacemaker and stared at it. “It made that werewolf back in Sedalia go up in blue flames, and it turned what they told me was a demon into a tornado of red lights and smoke. But … that? Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Great,” Cole sighed, holstering his own pistol.

Jake walked over to the gunshot flanker and grabbed his Officer’s Colt, returning it to his right hip. With a rough yank, he pulled the goggles off the corpse. “Aw, hell.…” he grumbled.

“Who is it?” Cole asked.

“Take a look,” Jake replied as he walked over to what was left of Quinn. Wincing at the pain in his shoulder, he gingerly rummaged through the dead assassin’s clothes, trying to keep his fingers out of the ash. He finally found what he was after and pulled out a billfold.

“You know this guy?” Cole asked, staring down at the flanker at his feet. He’d never seen the man before, but he was obviously Chinese.

Jake opened Quinn’s billfold, extracted the cash inside as well as four ticket stubs. The money disappeared quickly into his pocket. Payment for my shirt, he thought. His shoulders slumped as he read the tickets. “God damn it.” Jake shook his head, and the knot of fear returned, tightening in his guts.

“What the hell is going on?” Cole asked, frustrated as he pulled the goggles off another corpse to discover another Chinese assassin.

Jake held up the ticket stubs. “Central Pacific Line,” he said. “Zeppelin stubs … and they were purchased in San Francisco.”

Cole pieced it together instantly. “Oh, no,” he moaned.

Jake walked back to Lumpy’s stall as if the weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders. He grabbed his hat, dusted it off, and set it on his head. Grabbing Lumpy’s bridle, he backed the massive bull out into the middle of the stable.

As Jake pulled himself up into the saddle, Marshal Sisty stepped into the barn and looked at the bodies lying around. A confused frown spread slowly across her face. Billie Sisty was not what most would call an impressive looking woman. She was a bit shorter than average, thick around the middle, with stocky arms and legs. She kept her hair pulled back tight and usually hidden under a black, short-brimmed hat with a silver band. Rumor had it she used to wrestle steers on the Chisholm Trail. She was more politician than Jake cared for, but Jake respected the hell out of her as a damn fine marshal. She was tough, fair, and knew more than a thing or two about what to do when the shooting started.

“You boys mind telling me what in tarnation happened here?” she asked in an accent that was pure Texas and downright pissed off. She crossed her arms over her belly.

Cole moved past Lumpy’s bulk, dodging under the bull’s massive horns, and led his horse Koto out of its stall. With a smooth motion, he slid up into the saddle.

“Sore losers, Billie,” Jake said tiredly, gently rubbing his wounded shoulder. He didn’t want to get into who his attackers really were. He was tired, grumpy, and the information would be of no use to the marshal. “The four of ’em jumped me on account of this.” Jake pulled out the bag in his vest and dangled it in front of her, the shreds of his shirt falling away from the gleaming, heavily scored brass and dark runes of his clockwork left arm. “It seems they wanted what I won fair and square. You can ask anyone who was in the brewery, if you like.”

“I’ll do that,” Billie said. It wasn’t suspicion. It was her job, and she took it seriously. “I may need to talk to you boys about this at some point, but I trust you enough to take your word for it, Jake.”

“Much obliged, Billie.” Jake tipped his hat. “You know where we live, and we’ll be back in town in the next couple of days. I’m heading home, though. I’m beat to hell, bleeding, and I need some sleep.”

“You want the Doc to look at your shoulder?” Billie asked.

“Naw … I’ll be fine.”

Billie slid the stable doors open all the way and let both Jake and Cole ride out. A crowd stood in front of the Colorado Brewery and there were hushed whispers about murder and thieves.

When they were past the crowd, Cole finally spoke up. “You figure them boys were sent by the Tong, don’t you.”

Jake nodded. “It looks like they finally decided to get even for us killing Hang Ah.” He let out a long sigh. “I need to sleep on this one, amigo. I just hope I’m tired enough to not dream tonight.”

Chapter Four – This Can’t Last

“I’ve been livin’ on borrowed time ever since that Reb cannon took me apart.”

~ Jake Lasater

The dull thump of an explosion woke Jake from the all-too-familiar nightmare. Bits and pieces of war memories visited him nightly, but he’d learned to live with it. The thump, originating from Skeeter’s workshop behind the house, was chased by a high-pitched whistle of steam that faded quickly.

Jake sighed in the darkness and rolled over, his muscles and bandaged shoulder screaming. He pulled the pillow over his head and swore into the mattress, pondering the likelihood that he might be able to get back to sleep. Long odds, he thought. Such detonations weren’t at all uncommon, but he decided to gamble a little and closed his eyes. As he prepared to go back to sleep—hopefully avoiding another nightmare—Cole’s frantic hollering and cursing from the workshop spurred his ass out of bed.

He stood up slowly, his brass heels thudding along the hard wood floor while the clockwork of his arm and legs whined faintly. Throwing a nightshirt over his naked body, he grabbed his ocular off the dresser and, with an easy motion, slipped the leather strap over his head. He twisted a gear on the side of the ocular, closing out the light.

Mid-morning sunlight washed over him as he pulled thick drapes back from the window. There, staring at him from the windowsill, stood a crow with bright yellow eyes. Jake stared at it, and it stared straight back at him. Seconds ticked by like distant hammer falls.

Jake got the message and winked his good eye at it. It nodded its head once and cawed—a quiet, grumbly sound like a farewell to an old friend. Then it leapt off the ledge, spread its wings, and beat a steady rhythm into a spotless blue sky.

In the distance, foothills traced a line half a mile behind the house. The Rocky Mountains stretched away to the south toward Pueblo, broken only by a blossom of black smoke rising from the wide-open double doors of Skeeter’s workshop behind the house. The view—of the mountains, not the workshop—was why Jake had chosen that particular bedroom, but his thoughts drifted to the crow and then beyond.

His memory flickered to the hills of Missouri, tossing up the grizzled, weather-beaten face of Bhuvana, whose name meant Earth. Jake’s parents had protested loudly whenever he stole away on warm summer nights to visit the old Cherokee shaman. But Jake didn’t care, didn’t listen. His older brother Benjamin had just left for the Virginia Military Institute. At ten years old he needed something to fill the vacuum of his brother’s absence. Jake found Bhuvana, and as a result, he learned about life, the Land, and Bhuvana’s People. Indian life appealed to the young boy far more than his father’s brewery business or his mother’s bent knees and Christian prayers.

Bhuvana had taught him about totems—the spirit guides of the People—and listening with a better ear than most whites were willing to lend. One of his first lessons had been about the crow. Crow was the keeper of the sacred laws, a harbinger of both change and power. Jake had learned early on that when he saw crows, there were usually powerful changes headed his way.

He pondered the yellow eyes of the crow and then considered the events of the previous evening. He saw Quinn’s ghost-white eyes looking back at him. He had to wonder where he was headed next. Did he stay home and wait for another attack from the Tong, or should he hop a zeppelin to San Fran and square off with a gang of Chinese assassins?

The thought of facing down the entire Tong, with or without Cole, didn’t appeal to his sense of easy living. That many killers might just be able to get the drop on him. He nodded to the shrinking black wings and stared down to see Cole running towards Skeeter’s workshop with a bucket of water. Another screech of escaping steam erupted from inside the workshop. Jake sighed, wondering what he’d been thinking when he took Skeeter in as his charge.

She was a feisty, headstrong sixteen-year-old prone to swearing, but she knew more than most tinkers four times her age. Skeeter had modified damn near everything in the house. They had hot water on tap, electricity ran the lights and stove, and the windows and closets were all steam driven.

Jake pulled a lever attached to the windowsill. The window slowly slid upward, the small, steam-driven piston hissing quietly. Skeeter had run copper pipes all over the house, and a huge, aether-heated boiler in her workshop provided the pressure. She’d attached valves, fittings, brackets, and pistons to anything that might need moving.

When the window thumped open, Jake leaned out into a warm, August morning. He stared at the open workshop doors for a bit, unable to understand the muffled voices coming from inside. A small puff of white smoke followed the black one rising into the sky. The voices went quiet, and Cole stepped out into the sunlight.

“Everything okay, Cole?” Jake asked, a mildly worried tone edging in as he rubbed the sleep out of his good eye. Cole’s bright blue eyes fixed on Jake, and his mulatto skin went a little pale. He quickly closed the doors behind him.

“Oh! Hey, Jake.” Cole tried to sound casual but failed miserably. His Free Territories accent came through loud and clear, a cross between the twang of Texas and smooth drawl of Colorado. There was also a hint of his time spent as a Buffalo Soldier riding both with and against the Apache, but there was no missing his nervousness. Cole’s glance darted back towards the closed doors then returned to Jake. This time he looked as innocent as a preacher on Sunday. “Everything’s fine. Why do you ask?”

Jake cocked his head to the left and let his gaze follow the two clouds of smoke rising into the sky. He watched them drift for a few seconds as they dissipated on a light breeze. He tapped the brass fingers of his left hand patiently on the windowsill.

Skeeter’s up to something again, Jake thought. And this time Cole’s in on it. Eyeing Cole he said, “Oh … no reason in particular, I s’pose.” He added a suspicious smile, wondering what they might be keeping from him. He’d just have to wait and see how this one played out. “Is there any coffee?” There was little point in forcing things before he got a cup of coffee down his neck.

Cole pulled off his hat and ran a hand through long, dark hair, looking a bit embarrassed. “Naw … I didn’t make any yet. Been … preoccupied.”

Jake nodded his head, certain now that something was up. They both knew damn well Cole needed coffee in the morning almost as much as Jake did. “You sure everything’s okay?” he asked again, smiling like he’d just beaten a full house with a straight flush.

“Sure, Jake. Couldn’t be better.” Cole looked around the yard and scratched the back of his head. To Jake it looked like Cole was searching for gopher holes in a cobblestone street. Cole looked up and said, “Go on down and make us some. I’ll be in shortly.”

“All right,” Jake agreed as slow as honey. He’d have more energy to press the matter once the coffee kicked in.

One of the advantages of being a natural-born card player is that patience came to Jake like swimming does to a fish. Jake closed the window, pulled the covers over the bed, and walked to the door, his heels thudding across the floor of Horace Tabor’s house.

Jake was sort of on retainer for Tabor—long story—and the house came with the deal. Horace had given him a few houses to choose from, of course, but Jake liked the location. Ten miles southwest of Denver, it was both close and far enough away from what had rapidly turned into a bustling city—by Rocky Mountain standards anyway.

Wearing only a long nightshirt, morning sunlight reflected off his clockwork legs and the exposed hand of his clockwork left arm. The polished brass glinted like flame around the room. The hacks and scratches from Quinn’s attack were already gone thanks to the magic imbued into his artificial limbs. He briefly considered getting dressed but was still groggy enough to be more interested in a cup of coffee than propriety. Besides, no one came out to visit them, and it was unlikely Marshal Sisty would show up over the Quinn affair. That was an open and shut case of self-defense. He decided to go downstairs as he was.

Tousling his hair to get rid of a bad case of bed-head, he opened the door and thudded down the stairs, running his hand over the controls for the steam-powered lift as he went down. Another of Skeeter’s creations, the lift could carry three full-grown men between floors, but Jake wasn’t lazy enough to use the damned thing unless he had to move something heavy … or if he was drunk.

Once in the kitchen, he grabbed the tin coffee pot off the counter, poured what was left of last night’s brew down the sink, and set it under the spigot of what he considered one of Skeeter’s greatest inventions. She called it the steamolator.

The contraption had a small copper line running into one side from Skeeter’s boiler. It was a simple device, from what little Jake understood of the thing. It had a cylinder with a hand crank, a brass hopper with a swinging lid, and a spigot. To him it looked like an assortment of junk bolted and welded together, but it was a stairway to heaven. He twisted a lever, swung the cover open, and grabbed the copper mesh bowl from inside. The dark, gritty contents went out the window, and the bowl went back inside.

Jake didn’t really care how the thing worked. All he knew was that it did what he needed it to. Two handfuls of dark beans went into the hopper. Closing the cover, he cranked the handle for about a minute, then turned a knob on the side. A fierce hiss of steam put a smile on his face. Coffee dripped and then poured out of the spigot, causing Jake to inhale deeply.

When the pot was full, he turned off the steam and waited for the last few drops. Grabbing the pot and two cups, he turned on his heel and made his way out to the wide, covered front porch. He plopped down into one of the rocking chairs, set an empty cup on the deck, and filled his own.

The pot went beside the cup on the porch, and he leaned back, rocking slowly as he contemplated the fight with Quinn. He really didn’t want to go to San Francisco and face down the Tong. But he also didn’t want to spend the rest of his life waiting for a blade to show up between his shoulder blades. He’d played the waiting game a few times before, having concluded in the aftermath of each occurrence that it’s a pain in the ass—in one case, quite literally.

The front door opened with a bang. A painter’s easel and a large blank canvas frame passed by with a pair of sturdy legs pumping underneath.

“Hey, Sam,” Jake offered. “Off to do some more painting?”

“Hmmm?” a man’s voice replied as he stepped off the porch. He turned and faced Jake. Sam Morse was a short, thin man with unkempt gray hair and a scraggly beard that stuck out in every direction. A battered, paint-stained grimwig—what some folks called a newsboy cap—covered his head, and he wore a tan wool suit with a white paisley vest underneath. His weathered boots, looking as if they’d walked thousands of miles, were sturdy but well broken in. Sam had shown up at the house two days prior with a letter from Horace Tabor himself, asking that Jake put Sam up in one of the rooms and give him the run of the place … even help him if he could.

“Oh, yes,” Sam said. “I thought I might do my best to capture those cottonwoods down by the creek south of here. What did you call it?”

“Deer Creek,” Jake offered. “I made some coffee. You want some?”

Sam shook his head. “No, thank you very kindly, Mr. Lasater. I’m looking forward to exploiting today’s opportunity to the utmost in this magnificent morning sunshine.”

“Fair enough,” Jake replied, glancing at the morning sky. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“And what might your query be, sir?” the little painter asked, adjusting his grip on the canvas.

“What made you decide to take up painting? Seems out of character for a man with your … background.”

“I felt compelled to discover what I had … inflicted … upon the natural beauty of this great land of ours.”

“Come again?” Jake took a sip from his coffee, a puzzled look crimping his face.

“Well, as you are no doubt aware, Morse code made possible an exploitation of the West in ways I couldn’t possibly have foreseen.”

Jake nodded. “Yeah, I reckon it did. Folks can talk from New York all the way to San Fran. Businesses are growing as a result of that little wonder. Made a hell of a difference in the war too, till them talkies came along and replaced it.”

“Well, I had only a vague notion—at a mostly unconscious level, mind you—of what would happen to the Americas, even the world, when I presented Morse code to Congress, and I didn’t pick that first message at random.”

“‘What hath God wrought?’” Jake quoted.

“Precisely,” Sam replied, nodding his head. “This land was still mostly untouched, untainted, if you will excuse the rather presumptuous value-judgment. At least in part because of my code, this land is rapidly being changed into something else, something … worse based upon my relatively meager observations.”

“I see what you mean,” Jake said, nodding.

“Well, I intend to record as much of it as I am able—for posterity, of course—before it has been consumed by greed and what many consider progress.”

“I think I understand.” Jake grinned knowingly. He wasn’t fond of big cities, and even Denver was getting more metropolitan than he could swallow. “Well, good luck.” He raised his coffee cup in salute to the small inventor-turned-painter. “I think you’ve got a great eye,” he added, referring to the two paintings he’d seen Sam arrive with.

Sam smiled. “You honor me, sir. I appreciate your kindness.” He nodded, and without another word walked around the edge of the house, marching off toward Deer Creek.

Jake sipped at his coffee, looked up again at a clear blue sky dotted with puffy clouds, thinking that all was right with the world. Then he remembered Quinn … and the crow.

“Better enjoy this while I still can,” he said aloud to himself, sighing as the chair creaked pleasantly beneath him.

“Enjoy what?” Cole asked as he stepped around the corner of the house.

“A perfect morning full of nothing but peace and quiet,” Jake sighed, still gazing into the sky. He eyed Cole, adding, “Except for the odd explosion or two.” His eyebrow went up to punctuate the statement.

Cole laughed a bit nervously. “Is that coffee I smell?” he asked. Cole’s dark brown hair flowed out from under his hat, and his mulatto skin looked almost golden in the morning light. He wore a light blue button-down shirt, jeans, and his weathered tan boots.

“Sure seems that way,” Jake replied, taking another sip as he contemplated the explosion. Damn, he thought, I’m just too tired to pry this one out of him. Jake closed his eyes and let the morning soak in.

Cole stepped up onto the porch, grabbed the empty cup, and poured himself some coffee. Setting the pot back down, he stood up straight, stretched his back, and stared out across the grassy plains that rolled away from the house in all directions. The view was broken only by an occasional patch of sage or yucca. He watched Morse stroll toward Deer Creek for a bit and then turned his gaze northeast. A trail led away from the house, making a curving line through the prairie and winding its way toward Denver.

Cole’s eyes froze and narrowed, gazing intently at something in the distance. He held his gaze there for a short while, sipping from his coffee slowly. “You expecting anyone?” he asked, sitting down into the rocking chair next to Jake.

“Nope,” Jake replied slowly as he opened his eyes. Cole nodded in the direction of the trail. Something floated in the distance, well above the prairie, a small white dot heading straight for them. “You got that hide-away?” Jake asked calmly.

Cole patted his right forearm, saying, “You know I sleep with this thing.”

“Palm it,” Jake said, his eye narrowing at the approaching object. Cole switched the coffee cup to his left and extended his right arm with a jerk-twist of his hand. With a spring-click, a small over-and-under pistol popped into his waiting fingers. He laid his hand on his thigh, hiding it out of sight.

“Think it’s trouble?” Cole asked, taking another sip of coffee.

“Normally I’d say no, but after last night.…” Jake let his voice trail off before adding, “And you know how I hate surprises. Mornings like this just beg for ’em.” He turned his good eye to Cole and leered slightly. “I did see a crow on my windowsill when I got up.” Jake gave his partner a knowing look.

“Uh-oh,” Cole replied suspiciously. He’d spent enough time around Jake to know that crows usually meant trouble. “So does that mean you want to head to San Fran and hit ’em head on? Or are you planning to lay low here and stay business as usual?”

“Cole, that is the only question really worth asking this fine morning, explosions not excepted.” Jake took another sip of coffee, a thoughtful look on his face. “I’ll let you know if I figure something out.”

Chapter Five – Qi’s Telegram

“Ain’t nothin’ more valuable than friends. Not gold. Not land. Not horses. You do for them like they’re your very own soul.”

~ Jake Lasater

“So, uhh …” Jake said slowly, “since I ain’t figured out the big question, you wanna tell me what that ruckus this morning was all about?”

Cole’s eyes went looking for gopher holes again, and he had the same innocent look on his face. After a few seconds, he gave up on the missing varmints and let his eyes drift up to Jake’s good one. His face broke into a smile, and he chuckled. “Not particularly, amigo.”

“Come on, god damn it. What the hell was going on?”

“I can’t tell you, Jake. It’s a surprise.” Cole laughed harder, knowing Jake was not a big fan of surprises.

“Son of a …” Jake started, but that only got Cole laughing more. Jake clenched his left fist, the bright metal glinting in the sunlight. “I swear, I oughta pop you one with the left.” He shook it at Cole for emphasis.

Between laughs Cole managed to get out, “Why Jake, now that’s just not friendly. That’d be like hitting me with a sledgehammer. You wouldn’t do that, would you? Not to poor old Cole? After all the times I’ve saved your life?” The chair creaked with Cole’s laughter, and he stomped his foot on the porch trying to stop.

Jake’s face turned to a grimace, and all he could do was simmer as Cole’s laughter eased into nothing more than the occasional chuckle.

“I’m sorry, Jake. I really can’t tell ya.” Cole fixed him with a genuinely apologetic stare. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one, all right?”

Jake continued to sulk, but he gave Cole a brief nod and then, with a long sip of coffee, stared out into the sky toward the approaching object.

The two men sat there calmly, rocking and waiting for it to get close enough to identify. As it approached, they heard a soft, chattering staccato of steam and machinery.

“I’ll be damned,” Cole muttered. “Ain’t seen one like that before … and certainly not that small.”

The aircraft came toward them at the speed of a trotting horse. They couldn’t see how long the dirigible was, but it was at least eight feet in diameter and covered in red, white, and blue fabric. Suspended underneath sat a small person astride what had been a bicycle at some point—frame, seat, wheels, and all. It still had the wheels, but neither Jake nor Cole could fathom the purpose of all the pipes and gadgets bolted to the frame and sticking out in every direction. Behind the bicycle frame, suspended on struts that came out of the zeppelin’s envelope, were two large, chain-driven rotors obviously powered by whatever made the chattering sounds coming from within the thing.

The handlebars had been replaced with a small shipman’s wheel that the rider adjusted now and then, turning the wheel gently to compensate for gusts of breeze as he angled it forward. As the craft descended, they saw a small trail of white puffs dotting a line behind the envelope.

After a few minutes they realized that a teenage boy operated the contraption, and he was clearly coming in for a landing. He worked a couple of levers set into the bicycle frame, and the chattering cut off. As his wheels touched the ground, he pulled another lever that caused the wheels to lock up. With a skidding sound, the mini-zeppelin came to a slow stop. The rider hit a button set into the center of the shipman’s wheel and there was a loud hiss-clank as two arms set on either side of the back wheel slammed down. They hammered sharp spikes deep into the dirt, anchoring the small craft.

The boy dismounted, pulled brass goggles up off his face, and set them atop a well-worn grimwig he had on backwards. He gave the seat a firm shake to make sure the zeppelin was stable and strode up to the porch. He wore a simple tan vest and knee-length, black wool pants. Tan spats covered his shins, leaving the tips of his worn leather shoes exposed.

“Either one of you Jake Lasater?” the boy asked with an Irish accent, his young voice cracking on the last word. He looked embarrassed and cleared his throat. He stared at Jake’s exposed golden feet and left hand, the rune-carved plates of brass glinting in the sun. The boy seemed unable to take his eyes off the clockwork limbs.

“I’m Jake Lasater.” Jake eyed the kid and nodded, noting he wasn’t armed. He’d had a fifteen-year-old come at him once in St. Louis, so he didn’t take chances with anyone who had the use of their limbs. “Who’s asking?”

“My name’s Mickey O’Malley. I just started workin’ down at the telegraph office for Mister Whitaker. We got a telegram for you late last night.”

Jake reached out his left hand. The boy’s eyes never left the metallic fingers.

“From who?” Jake asked.

The boy’s face scrunched up in concentration. “Key somethin’ or other.”

Jake looked surprised and a little worried. “Qi Lau Xing?” he asked, remembering in exquisite detail several days and nights spent with the woman in San Francisco. He realized that if the Tong was after him, they might have involved her somehow.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Mickey reached into his vest and pulled out a folded piece of yellow paper, deftly handing over the telegram. “It says URGENT,” the boy added. Jake’s fingers closed around the paper, and there was a faint clicking sound as the digits came together. The boy released his grip and pulled his hand back quickly.

Jake had seen it before. There were plenty of folk, even in big cities, who felt uncomfortable around what many referred to as machiners. It wasn’t as bad as how some folks referred to blacks, but they meant it the same way … to put a man down. There were even some churches that claimed clockwork limbs, any enhancement for that matter, were ungodly—the work of the Devil. Jake had been run out of Topeka, Kansas once by a crazed mob from the Eastborough Congregational Church. They’d come after him with torches and a noose, screaming “God hates machiners!” A few had even thrown rocks as he high-tailed it out of town.

Jake turned to Cole. “Could you go get two dollars off my dresser? Seems old man Whitaker has hisself a new assistant … and a fancy new zeppelin.”

“You got it,” Cole replied quietly as he stood. Putting his coffee cup carefully on the rocker, he slipped the hide-away up his sleeve and compressed it back into the spring-loaded holster. The boy gulped nervously when he realized there’d been a gun in the mix. Cole smiled and winked once at the lad before disappearing through the front door.

“So what’s she want?” Jake asked, figuring the boy had been in the telegraph office when it came in or had at least read it. Teenage boys were the same all over.

“She’s got a job for you.”

“A job?” Jake asked quietly, wondering what on Earth Qi would need him for … not that he would really mind an opportunity to see her again. Something didn’t feel right, though. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Jake received a telegram from Qi the day after Tong assassins tried to take his head off. Maybe she was in trouble. Maybe she was in on it. There just wasn’t any way to know for sure.

“Yessir. Something about needing your help with a package … for the Tong, whatever that is?”

“What?” Jake asked, incredulous. That made no sense at all. She could simply ship packages on the Central Pacific Line. But a package for the Tong? It just didn’t figure. They’d exchanged a few letters after his hasty exit from San Fran. She knew the story, so there was no way she could think everything was peaches and cream between him and the Tong.

“That’s what it says.…” The boy’s voice trailed off, and he got a look of curiosity on his face. “Hey mister, what’s a Tong?”

Jake chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Hmm … well, I s’pose the only explanation you’d understand is that the Tong is a group of fellas who tried to kill me … a couple of times, now … on account of a disagreement between who owned a bag of money … me or them.”

“Jeez, mister. Guess you ain’t goin’ to San Fran then, are ya?”

Jake looked at the sky above, squinting at the bright sunshine and realizing the crow had indeed been prophetic. In that moment he made his decision. His statement about the peace and quiet not lasting was dead on. “Well, son, lemme tell ya … when a lady like Qi Lau Xing sends you an urgent telegram asking for help, you pretty much get off your tail and lend a hand. You’ll understand better when your suspenders are a little further from the ground.”

The door opened behind Jake. “Understand what?” Cole asked, holding out two shiny, Carson City dollars.

Jake held up the telegram. “We’re going to San Fran.” The horrified look on Cole’s face was payback plenty for both the explosion that woke Jake up and the secret Cole was keeping. Judging by Cole’s open mouth, Jake figured he could have pushed his partner over with a feather.

“San Fran?” Cole finally asked in a You’re out of your damn mind tone in his voice.

“Afraid so,” Jake confirmed. He knew what Cole was thinking, and there was a conversation coming. Maybe a loud one.

Cole dropped the coins into Jake’s outstretched metal hand, and they clicked into the cupped palm. He pursed his lips, a stern look on his face. “Pardon me for sayin’, but seems to me the last time we was in San Francisco, you damn near got killed … and them Tong boys had paid me to help out.”

“That’s true enough,” Jake admitted thoughtfully.

“And it was only me coming to your rescue that kept you from ending up a Chinese shish-a-kabob.”

“Yep,” Jake confirmed with a grin.

“After last night, I figured San Francisco would be the last place in the world you’d want to go. What in hell would get you to go back there?”

“Qi,” Jake said simply.

“That tinker woman you mentioned?” Cole asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s the one.” Jake turned to Mickey. “You can head on back, kid.” Jake held out his brass hand, and Mickey hesitantly held out his flesh one, still nervous about the artificial limb. Jake overturned his hand, and the two coins dropped into Mickey’s palm.

“Thanks, Mister,” Mickey said, quickly depositing the coins into an inner vest pocket. Without another word he trotted back to the small zeppelin, pulled the spikes out of the dirt, and let them click back into piston-like housings behind the seat. The small dirigible drifted slightly on the breeze. The boy quickly leapt up onto the saddle, flipped several switches on the shipman’s wheel, and cranked a lever above him that jutted out of the envelope.

With a groan of metal gears and a high-pitched burst of steam, the chattering motor inside started up. The boy pushed a lever and the propellers whirred to life, pushing the whole thing forward on the wheels. He pulled back on the shipman’s wheel and turned it sharply to the right. With a lurch the thing lifted off the ground and rapidly turned back the way he had come, gaining altitude quickly. As the broadside faced Jake and Cole, they could see that the upper section was nearly thirty feet long with cross-mounted tail fins for steering. The boy waved and then sailed off towards Denver.

“I think you made him nervous,” Jake chided. He wanted to diffuse Cole’s obvious discomfort about going to San Fran.

“Me?” Cole sounded hurt. “It was that damn arm and those legs of yours.” His voice was harsh. “Proper folk ain’t accustomed to treatin’ with a half-man, half-machine gunslinger like you.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “As I recall, you were the only one with a gun.” They eyed each other with scowls on their faces for a few seconds, but it didn’t last. Smiles split their faces and they chuckled. In unison they sat back down, took sips of their coffee, and started rocking in their chairs again. Neither was ready to head into the discussion of San Fran. Jake opened the telegram and read it. He looked thoughtful for a moment.

“So?” Cole asked, sounding impatient.

“Well, it’s just like the kid said. Qi has a job for me.”

“A job.” Cole said it like it was the most unlikely thing in the world. “What sort of job would get you to go back to that den of assassins the day after they sent someone to kill you?”

“Well, according to this it’s an escort job.” Jake tried to make it sound like it was all perfectly natural, but he knew how ridiculous it sounded after leaving three dead bodies and a pile of ash growing cold in a Denver stable the night before. Cole shook his head, not believing a word of it. Jake continued, “She just needs someone to ride shotgun on a package and get it out of town safely.” He hesitated, dreading the last detail of the request. He looked Cole square in the eye and prepared for an explosion. “She says the Tong has the package, and I suppose they’re using her as a go-between.”

“The Tong?” Cole’s shout scared a flock of quail roosting beneath a nearby sagebrush. He stared at Jake, appalled. “Jake, they’re the ones who just tried to kill you! And for the second time. Have you lost your damn mind?”

“I know, Cole. Believe me, I know. It sounds crazy. But it’s Qi doing the asking.”

“Jake,” Cole eyed his riding partner like he didn’t know him, “I’ve known a lot of women, and aside from my mamma, there aren’t many I’d ride square into a trap to help out, not to just escort a package, anyway. And just escort it out of town? Are their legs broken? This whole thing stinks.”

Jake nodded. He knew exactly where Cole was coming from. “She and I have an understanding, Cole. You know?” Jake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It’s like we were cut from the same cloth. We both have our work … our duties. I never told you, but she and I talked about a future … together. You know what we came up with?”

“What?” Cole’s tone was still incredulous.

“It would never work out. We’re both on … hell, I guess you’d have to call ’em crusades. And we both gave up on the notion of settling down ’cause there’s just no room for it … for either of us. But that doesn’t change whatever it is we have. Not one bit. She’s a friend, Cole. If I turned my back on Qi, it would be like turning my back on everything I believe in.”

Cole was quiet for a bit. He stared out at the prairie as his thoughts tumbled around the notion of facing down a group of Chinese assassins who would know they were coming. He understood his riding partner pretty well and knew that Jake was fearless when it came to getting the job done. It had gotten them into bad fixes more than once, but Cole knew with absolute certainty that Jake would never give up once he committed to something. And between the two of them, they’d learned there was little they couldn’t handle.

He finally turned back to Jake, one last argument coming to mind. “Qi may not have even sent that message.” It was a weak accusation, and they both knew it. “How do you know this ain’t all one big trap?”

Jake paused, taking another long sip of coffee as Cole looked on expectantly. “Well, as for it being from Qi, she ended the telegram by calling me bao bei. It means ‘darling’ in Mandarin, and it’s what she called me when we were … well … you know. If this came from the Tong, they never would have known to call me that.” He set his coffee cup down and ran his right hand along his brass forearm. With deft fingers he worked a catch set into the metal, opening a small, hinged cover-plate. He extracted a rough-looking cigar from within a small compartment, placed the cheroot in his mouth, and then extracted a match. Striking it with his thumbnail, he eyed Cole as he lit the cigar. “As to this being a trap … well ….” he said, puffing the cigar to life. He exhaled up into the air, the cloud looking very much like a smaller version of the smoke that had come out of Skeeter’s workshop. “I guess I don’t.”

Jake’s eyes followed the smoke rising into the air as he contemplated the day his luck would finally run out, wondering if it was right around the corner.

Chapter Six – Sometimes Settled Ain’t Settled

“Jake wasn’t much for law and order … not in any civilized sense. He would frequently go out of his way to take matters into his own hands rather than wait on the law. But he was also the most honorable man I’ve ever known.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

“I’m just sayin’,” Cole leaned his chair against the kitchen wall, a worried look on his face, “she’s not gonna like it.” He held out his cup for Jake to fill again.

“Not gonna like what?” Skeeter asked as she opened the back door and walked into the kitchen. She eyed Jake suspiciously. Her brown work boots thumped as she approached him, her fists set squarely on her hips. To Jake she sounded more like a hanging judge than a skinny, freckled, sixteen-year-old.

She had on the dirty coveralls she usually wore, and her tan, collarless shirt was covered with soot. An eight-panel grimwig perched on the back of her head, swollen with the long, curled up braid of blond hair she usually kept tucked inside. Most people mistook her for a boy when they saw her, a notion she did little to correct. Skeeter had a brick—not a chip—on her shoulder when it came to how men treated women. And rightly so in Jake’s opinion. It was one of the reasons he had so much respect for her.

She pushed gold-framed glasses up off the tip of her nose. There weren’t lenses in the wire frames—her eyesight was better than perfect by Jake’s reckoning—but attached on either side was a series of small swing-arms with different lenses.

Jake looked down at the young girl. On top of being a genius, the kid had miles and miles of heart. She never let anything get her down, and when she got a head of steam there was just no stopping her. Inventing aside, Jake saw a fair amount of himself in the girl. She didn’t give one good go-to-hell about what people thought, especially the harsh reality of what most men considered a woman’s place, let alone a child’s. Jake fully intended to make sure that nobody got in her way. He took a deep breath, because right then and there he was the one in her way.

She held a gauntlet that looked like it would come up to her elbow. She’d been working on it for a couple weeks. She called it a stun glove. The bulk of it was dark brown leather, but it had a skeleton of brass and a web of copper wiring around the outside that ended in pronged caps at the tip of each finger that almost looked like claws. A pair of glass cylinders wrapped in copper bands that glowed blue was attached to the forearm. Copper wires plugged into damn near everything.

Jake recognized the cylinders as aether power-cells of Skeeter’s own design—she really was that smart—although she’d gotten the original design from Baron Gustav Jürgen Von Klattersnap. He was a mad scientist who had been her mentor for a few years before Jake rescued her and ran the crazy son-of-a-bitch out of Evergreen. The glove was her latest inspiration, and she’d told him only yesterday that it would drop a bull in its tracks.

Cole’s right, he thought, she’s not gonna like this.

A feeling of dread filled him as he paced through the upcoming conversation in his head. He had to hope she didn’t get riled up enough to hit him with the damn glove.

He hesitated just long enough for Skeeter to start tapping her foot like a perturbed mother. Jake tried to build up the gumption to say what he had to, but all he could think of was, I can face down a barn full of killers and even go toe-to-toe with a werewolf. Why the hell does this kid scare the shit outta me?

“Well? What am I not gonna like, Jake?” she repeated. She set the glove on the kitchen counter, and Jake breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to the open kitchen window, figuring it would be easier to have the conversation if he wasn’t looking into those big, baby-doe eyes of hers. They were her not-so-secret weapon, going gray when she got riled or teary-green when she wanted to yank on his heartstrings.

“Cole and I are going to San Francisco on a job,” he said quietly.

“San Francisco!” she practically squealed. Both Jake and Cole winced at how loud she was. “I ain’t never been to San Francisco! When do we leave?”

Jake paused and took a deep breath.

“We don’t, Skeeter,” he finally said and took a sip of coffee. He found himself looking for the same gophers Cole had vainly sought earlier. He tried to sound caring and gentle and genuinely sorry for saying it, but he knew damn well it wouldn’t help. “Cole and I are going alone. It’s a job—a really dangerous one—and I’m not taking you with us this time.”

“What?” she shouted. Safely behind her back, Cole winced again, but Jake couldn’t afford to show her any more weakness. Skeeter was a lot like a wolf … a really smart one. If she smelled fear, she only got more ornery.

“Skeeter, you’ve got your customers to worry about.” Jake wracked his brain for reasons to make her stay. “What about that steam-powered milling machine for the baker?”

Skeeter’s back stiffened, and she crossed her arms. “Done last week,” she spat.

“Oh.” Strike one, he thought. “What about that electric churn for Mrs. Pots over at the dairy?”

“Where the hell have you been, Jake?” She glared at his back. “Mrs. Pots picked that up three days ago.”

“Oh,” he said even more mutely. Strike two.

“The Willaker’s cool—”

“Done, Jake,” she cut in, raising an eyebrow.

Strike three.

Jake hated being out of options. He would just have to take the moral high ground. It didn’t sit well with him, though. It brushed up way too close to hypocrisy for his comfort.

“I ain’t got no jobs coming due, Jake.” Skeeter yanked off her grimwig and threw it onto the floor. “Ya gotta let me go, damn it!” Her long blond braid unfurled and snaked down her back. “I ain’t never seen San Francisco!” Her eyes had gone from green to gray. Filled with frustration, they bored into Jake’s back as he stared out the kitchen window. “Hell, I ain’t even seen the damn ocean,” she added, dejected.

“What’d I tell you about that mouth of yours, Skeeter?” Jake asked calmly. She could be feisty, to be sure, but Jake had pretty much taken on the job of surrogate father, and there were a few subjects he wouldn’t budge on. Her propensity for swearing was one of them.

“Sorry, sir,” she mumbled, only slightly mollified. She bent over and picked up her grimwig, placing it back on her head without curling up the braid. “I just—”

Jake finally turned to face her. Her apologetic tone was the opening he needed. “I know, Skeeter … and I’m sorry. I just can’t take a sixteen-year-old girl into Chinatown, especially not when there could be a whole mess of Chinese assassins waiting for us … no matter how smart you are,” he added gently.

“But you know I can take care of myself!” she snapped, her tone almost desperate. “Hell, it was me that helped you put Moondog Cullins out of everyone’s misery. You and Cole woulda’ been shit outta luck without me.”

“Language!” Jake’s reprimand had an edge to it this time.

“Sorry, sir,” Skeeter said again, sounding almost like she meant it.

“She’s got you there, Jake,” Cole finally chimed in, his chair squeaking as he leaned forward. “We never would have captured Ratface without her, and without him Moondog wouldn’t have come to town.”

Jake turned and gave Cole an annoyed scowl. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I am, Jake. I’m just sayin’ that she’s right. You can’t dismiss her like that. Hell, she’s smarter than the two of us put together.”

Jake raised an eyebrow that said, Don’t help me if you ain’t gonna help me.

“Well,” Cole said apologetically, “you know what I mean.” His voice trailed off, and he bit his lips together to keep them from flapping.

Jake looked down at Skeeter, noting the genuinely disappointed look on her face. She looked up at him with those baby-doe eyes, green once again and on the brink of tears. She even threw in a sniffle for good measure. He hated when she did that. He’d caved in to the routine far too often. He squatted down and put his hands on her shoulders, looking at her softly with his good eye.

“I ain’t saying you’re not smart, Skeeter, and you did bail us outta that fiasco with Moondog. That’s not what this is about. Look, Chinatown just ain’t a place for kids, especially not girls. One look at that braid of yours and the slavers would have you strung out on opium and whoring before you could say ‘excuse me.’” Jake looked deep into Skeeter’s eyes, trying his best to make his point without getting frustrated. “And then I’d have to track them down, and there’d be all the shooting and the killing … followed by a high-tail-it out of San Fran with a bunch of assassins and slavers on our backs. We’re supposed to be going to help someone out, and I can’t do that if we’re running for our lives. The organization that wants to hire us tried to kill me last time I was there.” Jake deliberately left out the fight with Quinn. Skeeter would jump on that the same way Cole had, and he didn’t want to have that discussion again. “This is gonna be tricky enough without having to protect you.”

“But—” she started.

“No buts on this one.… Please,” Jake implored. “I can’t take you with me … okay?” He gave her shoulders a squeeze for emphasis. “I promise I’ll take you after the job is done and things settle down. We’ll all go to San Fran and stay in a real fancy hotel … by the ocean. I promise.”

Skeeter’s face softened a bit, but Jake was too good a card player not to know there wasn’t much give in the girl. She was probably just biding her time. She turned her nose up at him.

“I’m going to my workshop,” she said flatly and grabbed the stun-glove. “I’ll see you two when you get back,” she added, turning on her heel. She marched out stiffly but didn’t slam the back door—she knew better than that. But she didn’t close it gently either.

“She’s gonna be pissed at you for a while, Jake,” Cole said, pointing out the obvious.

Jake sighed, got to his feet, and sat down in the chair across from Cole. “I know. At least it’s settled, though. I sure as hell didn’t know what I was getting into when I decided to take her in.”

Cole chuckled. “I warned ya. But she is a hell of a kid, and with no place else for her to go, you did the right thing.” Cole gave him an appraising eye. “You’re a good man, Jake, no matter what them other people say.” Cole took a sip of his coffee and looked towards the back door. “So when you want to head out?”

“As soon as I can get dressed. The sooner we’re out of the house, the less likely it is she’ll corner me with a better argument. Besides, with Qi in the middle of this I’d like to get there straightaway.” Jake eyed Cole. “You sure you want to come along? You don’t have to, you know. This could turn into a real shit storm.”

“I know Jake, but if it is a trap, who the hell is gonna bail your ass out if it isn’t me?”

Jake thought about it a moment and grinned. “Good point,” he admitted. He took a sip of his coffee and leaned back, looking at his partner.

Riding partners like Cole came once in a lifetime. “Thanks, Cole,” he added more seriously, warm friendship filling his voice.

Cole only nodded, the unspoken friendship between them beyond simple words.

They finished their coffee in silence and heard a muffled explosion from Skeeter’s workshop. Jake sighed, shook his head, and stood up. “Can you go saddle Koto and Lumpy while I get dressed?”

“Sure, Jake. I’ll have ’em ready in no time. You want me to bring the Thumper?”

“Probably a good idea,” Jake agreed. “I hope it doesn’t, but this whole thing could turn into a fiasco faster than a frog jumping off a hotplate.” Jake headed upstairs while Cole went out to the barn to saddle their mounts.

Jake clumped to his room and closed the door behind him. He pulled a lever and waited as the closet opened with a quiet hiss of steam. He pulled off his nightshirt and dropped it on the floor. The filigreed surfaces of his artificial limbs caught his eye. It had been four years, and he still wasn’t used to how they looked, although they felt perfectly natural.

Curls and strange patterns decorated every surface. Set within the patterns were sigils and runes their creator had imbued with magic. That magic allowed Jake’s limbs to be more than just brass clockwork and plating. He traced some of the patterns on his arm with his right index finger, feeling the warmth of the metal underneath. So complete was the magic within that his metal arm could even feel his finger tracing the patterns, as if it were living flesh. He said a quiet thank you to old Tinker Farris and another to Maggie Mae Swanson, and even one to old Forsythe who had made it all possible.

Like many Tinkers, Farris had hired on a capable witch, Maggie Mae, to enhance his inventions. Jake’s arm and legs were a combination of the best clockwork available with top-notch witchcraft. Both Farris and Maggie Mae were as good as they came. It made the limbs smooth, quiet, and strong, so real looking that most people didn’t even know he had them when he walked around in regular clothes … and gloves.

Jake stepped up to a small dresser at the back of the closet and pulled out three small cigars from a large tin can. He worked the catch on his forearm and opened the compartment. He slid the cigars in and grabbed several matches. They went in next, and he closed the cover.

He put on tan riding pants, brown boots, and leather spats, followed by a high-collared white shirt, green paisley cravat, and burgundy paisley vest. Opening a small wooden box atop the dresser, he pulled out his father’s leather and brass pocket watch.

Jake’s gun belt, with scrollwork and curls embossed into the heavy leather, came off a hook on the back of the closet door, and he strapped on his pistols. He pulled several boxes of shells from another drawer and filled the leather pouches on the back of his gun belt with .45 rounds, half of them longer than the others.

With a quick and easy pull, the modified cavalry officer’s revolver came free of the right holster. It had a dull nickel finish, and he spun it like the gunslinger he was, quickly checking the load. The pistol had been a gift from Colonel Forsythe, presented as Jake lay in the army medical tent where they’d taken his limbs. It used longer .45 rounds than a standard Colt, and Jake had them made special whenever he was in a big city. He tilted it sideways and read the inscription Forsythe had engraved into a brass plate set into the mahogany grip.

Apologies never make up for blood. ~ Forsythe 1864

Jake frowned at the words, tracing his finger over them and remembering when Forsythe laid it on his chest. He felt the all-too familiar swirl of anger and remorse over Forsythe, the two feelings fighting with each other for control of his heart, despite the years that had passed. The pistol had seen its fair share of use, and although it was bigger and heavier than the Colts most men in his line of work used, he simply couldn’t bear to part with it. Besides, with its longer barrel and hotter rounds, it had better range, was accurate as hell, and hit like a locomotive. With a single backspin, the Officer’s Colt slipped almost silently back into its holster.

In a motion faster than a normal man could follow, his left darted to the bronze-finished, heavily filigreed Peacekeeper at his left hip. The glinting metal blurred as it came free, and the etched bronze highlights shone subtly in the weak light. The Peacekeeper, one of a kind, had been custom-made by Tinker Farris, although Tinker had sold the design to Colt, which later released the Peacemaker model 1871 based on the pistol in Jake’s hand.

Jake’s finger traced the patterns and the sigils etched into the pistol. Maggie Mae had done it up just like his limbs. There were times, like last night, when he saw pale green flashes of light tracing through the runes, but whenever he looked again they were gone. Maggie Mae had imbued it with all sorts of magic that still surprised him from time to time. She had told him once that even she didn’t know everything it could do. She’d said she used a variant of a Loki spell that she’d picked up during her travels through Europe.

Jake had no idea what that meant, but to date, he’d never had cause to complain. The thing had saved his life more times than he could count. And it was particularly useful against unnaturals, like demons and werewolves, and whatever the hell Quinn was before the Peacekeeper turned him to ash. Jake checked the load and slid it silently back into its holster.

Slipping a thick fold of bills into his pocket, he stepped out of the closet, hit the lever, and let it close. He pulled his old, battered Army officer’s cloak from off of the coat rack, draped it over his arm and placed his short leather top hat over his head, taking a moment in the mirror to make sure the turquoise stones set in the hat band lined up just right. He did, after all, have his reputation to think about. Black leather gloves slipped easily over his hands. He grabbed his saddlebags off the bedpost and draped them over his shoulder. He made it downstairs and out the back door in a flash.

Skeeter’s workshop doors were closed, but Jake could hear her inside hammering frantically on something metal. The hammering stopped as he approached the barn. He heard a high-pitched, metallic whine and then the chattering of a machine first spinning slowly and then increasing in speed to a whirring sound. It wasn’t that much different from the sound the telegraph boy’s zeppelin motor had made, and Jake wondered what the hell Skeeter was working on this time.

The barn doors opened and Cole came out leading Koto, an Appaloosa he’d been riding since he’d fought Apache raiders in the Free Territories before and after the Civil War. The paint had been a gift from a Comanche warrior. Cole had saved the warrior from a band of outlaws that had taken to robbing banks and killing everything in their path. As Jake understood it, the outlaws were about to butcher the bound Comanche warrior when Cole came up on them, and while there was no love lost between Cole and the Comanche raiders, he couldn’t see his way clear of sitting by and watching the man get cut to pieces.

“Is Lumpy saddled?” Jake asked as Cole slid up onto Koto.

“Sure is,” Cole replied and winced as he rubbed his shoulder. “But he ain’t in a good mood about it. The son-of-a-bitch shoved me into the wall when I wasn’t looking.”

“Aww, shit.” Jake shook his head and breathed a deep sigh. Lumpy was big enough to carry Jake’s weight without a problem, but the critter could be as moody as the spinster that ran the Temperance League in Denver.

Cole smiled as Jake stepped into the barn, thinking his partner looked like a man heading for the gallows.

“Lumpy, don’t you give me no trouble, you hear?” Jake called into the dark barn. He opened the lid of a large, wooden box near the door, reached inside and pulled out a handful of sweet feed kept there for when Lumpy was grumpy.

Hearing a hand in the box, Lumpy put his massive head over the stall door and flared his nostrils, sniffing at the mix of oats, barley, corn, and molasses that Jake held out as he approached. Jake undid the latch and let the door swing open. Lumpy’s tan head drifted out of the stall, followed by his massive shoulders, and Jake had to step aside to avoid the wide horns. Jake was convinced Lumpy had Longhorn in his lineage, but the man who sold him the bull had sworn up and down that Lumpy was pure Brahma. Jake put his hand up to Lumpy’s muzzle and let the huge bull lick up every last morsel. “There you go, boy. We gonna be friends today?” Jake asked suspiciously.

Lumpy turned a big brown eye to Jake and locked gazes with him, as if to say, We’ll see about that. Jake got the message and, grabbing the bridle, led Lumpy over to the box. He reached inside and pulled out another handful of sweet feed. Lumpy sucked it up as quickly as the first.

“How ’bout now?” Jake asked a bit sternly, with a Don’t press your luck tone of voice.

Lumpy gave him a satisfied shake of the bridle and stepped forward, putting the stirrup directly in front of Jake.

“Good boy,” Jake said and slipped his foot into the stirrup. “I guess we got ourselves a deal.” He pulled himself up into the brutally wide saddle, patted Lumpy’s neck, and eased him out of the barn. With slow, plodding thumps, the massive Brahma stepped out into the sunlight.

“You sure do have a way with that fella,” Cole said, smiling.

“I s’pose,” Jake offered slowly. “You just gotta know how to bribe him is all.” He spurred Lumpy into a fast walk, wincing slightly at every bounce. Cole fell in beside him. “Besides, most of the mean musta’ come out when he put you into the wall.” Jake winked. “Much obliged.” Jake tipped his hat to Cole in gratitude for his partner’s sacrifice.

“I’d say ‘anytime,’ but I’d be lyin’.”

“Don’t blame ya one bit,” Jake replied.

“So, Jake …” Cole asked slowly.

“Yeah?”

“Ummm … you know the Tong is probably gonna try and stick sharp things in us the second they see us, right?”

Jake nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Look on the bright side,” he said way too easily. “At least we’ll know who’s trying to kill us this time.”

Cole wanted to argue—tried real hard in his head—but he came up short, which made him feel even worse.

Chapter Seven – Consarned Contraptions

“I was always grateful for the clockwork that gave me my life back, but I can sure as hell see why normal folks hated machiners.”

~ Jake Lasater

Midday sun beat down on Jake and Cole as they rode along the trail leading into Denver. Jake shifted his butt in the large saddle strapped behind Lumpy’s hump, wishing the Good Lord had invented larger horses. Lumpy was not at all well suited to riding, but Jake didn’t like putting his clockwork weight on a horse. It made him feel guilty. Besides, having a Brahma around came in handy from time to time … like when you had to drag a twelve-foot-tall monster up a mountain valley for instance … but that’s another story.

“So, what’s the plan with Qi?” Cole asked. He eyed Jake from behind his tinted brass goggles and pushed his hat a bit further back on his head.

“Well, she’s a tinker there in Chinatown … you may recall a shop right down the street from Hang Ah’s where you and I met.” Jake shifted again in the saddle, relieving some of the pressure on his sore butt.

“Qi’s Emporium of Wondrous Power?” Cole asked, impressed and surprised all at once.

“That’s the one,” Jake confirmed. “That’s hers, and it’s where we’re headed.”

“You know, I actually met her … played cards with her at Hang Ah’s, in fact.”

“Chinatown ain’t that big,” Jake said with a smile.

“She took me for a hundred and fifty dollars playing five-card one night. Hell of a player.…” Cole slid Jake a suspicious sidelong glance. “And drop-dead gorgeous as I recall.” Cole had loaded the observation with an accusation of impropriety and hit Jake with both barrels.

“That she is,” Jake agreed with a tone that implied Guilty as charged.

“There wasn’t a man in Hang Ah’s who didn’t want to walk out the door with her on his arm.…” Cole’s voice trailed off, and he looked at Jake from the corner of his eye. “So … uhh … how well do you know her?” he asked with as much innuendo as he could muster.

Jake grinned like the Cheshire Cat and chuckled slyly. After a mischievous pause he said, “A gentleman doesn’t kiss, or anything else for that matter, and tell.” He winked at Cole. “I will say we did more than play cards.”

“Oh, you dog!” Cole almost shouted. “And since when are you a gentleman?”

“I can be,” Jake wanted to defend his honor, but that would be even more hypocritical than taking the moral high ground with Skeeter. “You’ve just never seen me at my best.”

“I suppose not. All I’ve ever seen is the dreg I’m lookin’ at now.”

“Dreg?” Jake cried, sounding injured. “I’ll have you know I’ve courted some of the finest ladies ever to grace God’s green Earth … on both sides of the Mississippi!”

“Yeah, right,” Cole replied dryly.

Jake’s gaze drifted away from Cole and focused on something in the distance. “What the hell is that?” He nodded in that direction.

Cole turned and stared north, easily picking up a small dust cloud moving quickly across the plain. “Rider?” A faint, high-pitched chattering drifted across the plains, but it was barely audible.

Jake put his hand over his eye to try and cut down some of the glare. “If it is, he’s moving like death is on his tail. And the cloud don’t seem right.”

“Looks like he’s headed for Denver, though,” Cole added.

“Try the scope on the Thumper. Maybe you can get a better look,” Jake suggested.

Cole quickly pulled the Thumper out of the sheath on his saddle. The Thumper was an aether-powered rifle given to Jake as a birthday gift from Maggie Mae Swanson. It had a cherry wood stock and glowing red lights dotting the top behind the firing chamber. The chamber was made mostly of brass, and the weapon had a narrow, copper barrel with steel rings set every few inches. The barrel got wider in a gentle curve as it stretched away from the main body, making it look almost like an old blunderbuss. Its creator had etched MKII Thumper on the main housing. It had a big brass dial on the side above the stock with four settings: STUN, CROWD CONTROL, THUMP, and HAMMER. A long scope ran along the top of the rifle, fashioned in a different style from the rest of the weapon, designed and mounted there by Skeeter’s careful hand.

Cole put the scope to his eye and peered at the distant figure just as it dropped below a hill. “Couldn’t get a look at him. He’s in the river bottom now.”

“Damn,” Jake said quietly. “Something wasn’t right about that.”

“How do you mean?”

“The dust …” Jake’s face turned thoughtful. “You know how the dust goes up in puffs when a horse is galloping?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, think about it … it wasn’t doing that … it was steady … like a constant cloud.”

“I see what you mean,” Cole replied, nodding his head.

Jake shook his head. “Eh … doesn’t matter. He’s gone. Ain’t none of our business anyway.”

Cole shrugged, slid the Thumper back in its sheath, and went quiet. After a few minutes they crested a small ripple in the plain. The great expanse of the South Platte River valley and the rise of plains beyond came into view, stretching out into the rolling prairies that butted up against the Rocky Mountains.

“It looks like a zepp is coming in,” Cole said, pointing northeastward. Jake’s eyes followed in that direction, and they both could see the elongated shape of a red zeppelin. It was low enough to be headed for the terminal built around the Colorado Brewery.

Thirty minutes later Jake and Cole guided their mounts up onto Grand Avenue, the east-west thoroughfare running through Denver. The center of Denver had more than a dozen buildings over five stories, and its skyline drooped down and out as the homes surrounding Denver spread in a wide swath bordering the Platte River and Cherry Creek.

A bright red steam-carriage swerved around the corner from Speer to Grand with a hissing lurch, its wheels squealing across the cobbled street. Two horses pulling a wagon headed the other way spooked and reared. The driver was barely able to keep them under control.

The steam-carriage, copper pipes wrapping the front end like candy, swerved back and forth erratically towards Cole and Jake. Both men recognized Moritz Sigi, owner of the Colorado Brewery, behind the wheel.

The fool was drunk and driving again. As the steam-carriage swerved, a cloud of steam enveloped a group of finely dressed, sign-toting ladies from the local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance League, and they barely had enough time to avoid the inebriated brewer.

The drunken sod even had the gall to wave gleefully at them as he passed by, tipping his black top hat like he was saying hello on his way to a Sunday service. Adjusting their feathered, flowery hats and dislodged bustles, the ladies scowled and turned their noses away from the clattering, hissing contraption. The women clucked like angry chickens, pointing at the man as proof of their righteous cause.

Koto shied away from the oncoming vehicle as it trundled along and belched white steam into the air behind it. Sigi had to swerve at the last second to avoid hitting the more massive and totally uncaring Lumpy. Jake sat immobile as the steam-carriage went by, his eyes boring into the rheumy orbs behind Moritz’s copper-rimmed goggles.

“SON-OF-A-BITCH!” Jake shouted, loud enough to be heard by the ladies of the Temperance League. That prompted a few more scowls and gasps. Jake abruptly turned in his saddle. His clockwork left darted down and out faster than a rattlesnake.

His Peacekeeper glinted in the sunlight as it barked angrily at the back wheels of Moritz’s carriage. Jake worked the hammer and trigger in a blur of thumb and finger. Slugs tore first through the left and then the right rear wheels of the carriage, and the impact caved in the spoke rims enough to start the back end of the steam-carriage to bouncing and shimmying up Grand like the ass-end of a frightened fish.

Sigi slammed on the brakes and came to a grinding halt fifty yards down-range from Jake’s still smoking Peacekeeper. The engine of the contraption shrieked, sputtered, and died. Every person within earshot looked at Jake with an open mouth.

Moritz leapt out of the carriage and turned on Jake with furious, red-rimmed eyes. His spotless white suit and tan, leather long coat stood out starkly against the red backdrop of the car, and his crimson cravat, dangling down the outside of his green paisley vest, was the only thing out of place.

“Lashater!” Moritz screamed, “Are you outta yer damn mind?” His right hand hovered close to the pearl-handled, forty-five caliber showpiece at his hip, which he called a pistol but everyone else considered nothing more than trimmings on a fat goose dinner. “You could have killed me!” His hand inched closer to the gun.

“Moritz,” Lasater growled, “you better think long and hard about the trouble your right hand is fixin’ to get your ass into!”

Moritz, startled, looked down at his right hand as if it belonged to someone else. He shot it straight out, attempting to put the errant appendage as far away from the pearl handle as his skinny arm would allow. “I’m tellin’ the sheriff what you dun to my carriage, dammit!”

“You go right ahead, Mister Sigi. And when the sheriff brings me in for questioning, I’ll be sure to tell him the name of every person on this street that you could have killed with that contraption of yours.” Jake pulled the hammer back on his Peacemaker. “If I’da wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have bothered shooting them wheels. Hell, I probably just kept you from killin’ yourself, and this is the thanks I get for doin’ it?” Jake was silent for a few seconds, his good eye boring into Moritz. He slowly lowered the hammer down. With a double backspin he put the pistol back in its holster. “Go on home, Moritz. Dry yer sorry ass out before someone really gets hurt, and I won’t tell your wife what you’ve been doing on Friday nights with that blond barmaid you’ve been doing it with.”

Moritz’s eyes went wide, and without another word he turned and stumbled his way up Grand, weaving toward his home and, as everyone in Denver knew, a particularly shrewish wife with a straight razor for a tongue.

Everyone along the street started clapping, and Jake took a bow from the saddle, tipping his leather top hat in thanks. He spurred Lumpy and got the beast lumbering down the street toward the ladies of the WCTL. He tipped his hat to the Temperance League as they beamed at him in all their finery.

Deliberately loud enough for every one of them to hear, Jake said, “Come on, Cole, let’s go get a beer.”

The beaming stopped, and the ladies’ faces looked as if someone had just farted during Grace at suppertime. Jake’s face was stony as he looked every woman in the eye, and the fit-to-be-tied WCTL President glared at him with righteous murder in her eyes.

After Jake and Cole turned down Speer and were out of earshot, Cole whispered, “You just couldn’t help taking that parting shot at the ladies, could you?”

“Nope,” Jake said quietly, and they both chuckled.

“You’re goin’ straight to Hell. You know that right?” Cole said almost gleefully.

“If I believed in the place, I would be.”

As they approached the Colorado Brewery, they spotted a group of people picking small crates up off the dusty street and loading them into a wagon at the corner of Market and Speer. Cole drifted towards the brewery, ready to take Jake up on his offer of a libation. Jake, however, headed straight for the wagon, so Cole fell in with him.

“What happened here?” Jake asked a plump, dirty fellow who appeared to be the wagon owner.

The man pulled dark goggles off his face, letting them dangle around his neck, and removed his bowler. Producing a threadbare and clearly well used handkerchief from inside his coveralls, he wiped an expansive forehead. The man’s sweat had run a ring round his heavy goggles and left white streaks down his cheeks through the dust that coated the rest of his face.

He shook his head as he looked up at Jake. “Some jackass on one of them consarned contraptions come tearing down the street. Had to yank back on my team, and this shipment of ladies’ finery ended up all over the damn place.”

“Moritz Sigi?” Cole asked.

“Nawww … ’Tweren’t that drunk son-of-a-bitch.” The man pointed to where another group of people further down Larimer talked excitedly. “This guy, little fella, come hauling down Speer, turned up Larimer, and disappeared a few blocks down.”

“Contraption?” Jake asked, his eyebrow rising and a sneaking suspicion growing in his guts.

“Hell yes, a contraption,” the man sputtered. “Three wheels, some sort of saddle in between … more like a bicycle than a carriage. And the damn thing whined like metal screeching on metal.” He put his bowler back on and slid the soggy rag back into his pocket. “Ain’t never seen ’nuthin like it.”

“The rider we saw?” Cole offered quietly.

Jake nodded. “Well, sorry for your trouble, Mister.”

“I’ll tell ya, I’ve about had my fill of all these consarned contraptions. Gimme a good old-fashioned horse any day.” The wagon owner got a curious look on his face, finally noticing the great mass of Lumpy beneath Jake. He smiled up at Jake in an almost condescending manner. “Well, as long as it’s got four legs, it can’t be all bad, now can it?” He chuckled, but in a friendly manner.

“I suppose you’re right.” Jake tipped his hat and got Lumpy moving again. “Come on, Cole. Let’s go get that beer and then see about some zepp tickets to San Fran.”

“You’re buying, right?” Cole asked, grinning.

Jake sighed. “Yeah, I’m buying.”

As they turned their mounts towards the brewery, Jake looked up at the massive trans-con zeppelin docked at the tower above. Like any of the long range, commercial dirigibles of the Central Pacific Line, it was nearly a thousand feet long. It had a bright crimson envelope and the gold CPL insignia emblazoned on the sides and nose. A much smaller zeppelin was docking at the shorter tower that rose above the south side of the brewery. The smaller zepp was all white, and from Jake’s angle it looked like some sort of bird had been painted in black near its tail.

Sigi may be a drunk, but he’s a hell of a businessman, he thought.

The air terminal was the tallest structure in Denver, with an eight-story main tower and a smaller one that reached only five stories. The building itself was four blocks long and able to handle any commercial zeppelin built to date. Zeppelins would run up alongside one of the towers and great claws would then extend from the tower or the zeppelin’s gondola to hold it in position. A central platform within the terminal allowed passengers to disembark and make their way to ground level via a grand spiral staircase that Moritz Sigi had spent a fortune decorating.

The staircase had deep crimson carpet all the way down, and artwork from around the world decorated its walls. There were chandeliers that glowed with bright, electric light powered by Sigi’s own steam-driven generators housed in the deep basement of the building. An army of handlers offloaded cargo into large elevators that took goods down to street level and waiting wagons.

When Sigi had heard about Central Pacific looking for a location for their terminal, he shrewdly purchased the lots adjacent to his brewery and agreed to build the terminal specifically for the Central Pacific Line. He offered it up to the CPL for a fraction of its actual cost. Every crewman and passenger who came through Denver in a zeppelin would have to go through the Colorado Brewery to get to the city. And Sigi was free to charge non-CPL airships heavy docking fees. He also employed the crews that loaded and unloaded zeppelins, and all airships paid for that service.

Jake and Cole hitched their mounts in front of the brewery and grabbed their saddlebags. Cole hefted the Thumper and they walked inside. Music washed over them as they stepped into the cool interior. Off to the left, well away from the bar, stood Sigi’s automaton band, which had been a real draw from the first day Sigi had either bought or rented it … or them. Jake wasn’t quite sure which.

There were three automatons—shiny, clockwork-driven machines fashioned in the shapes of men. They wore bright clothing in a contemporary style. The gold one played drums in the back. The silver one played a guitar, and the bronze one had some sort of small piano keyboard that he held in his hands. He would occasionally blow into a tube that connected to the keyboard and played it like a weird, electric piano. They all sang, their mouths opening and closing stiffly, but the music sounded wonderful to Jake’s ears, and the harmonies, mechanical though they were, came out sweet and clear. Without skipping a beat, all three mechanical heads turned towards Jake, and their faces appeared to smile stiffly at him.

“Them fellers, if you can call ’em that, have voices sweet as honey,” Jake observed. Cole nodded in agreement. As they headed for the bar, the automaton with the keyboard kept his eyes fixated on Jake.

“Musta cost Sigi a fortune,” Cole added.

The Colorado Brewery was, without a doubt, the largest and finest saloon Jake had ever set foot in. Its extravagant interior was done wall-to-wall in dark stained oak. Great copper vats lined up behind the bar, with pipes going in every direction. Sigi might be a drunken sod most of the time, but he had a grand vision when it came to the business of drinking. Truth be told, Jake thought he made some of the best beer on either side of the Mississippi, none of it as good as Cap’n Plat, though.

“Two Cap’n Plats, Clara,” Jake said to one of the buxom barmaids behind the long, brass-finished bar.

“Coming right up, Jake,” she said and gave him a more than friendly wink.

Cole shook his head. “I still can’t believe you and your old man are the ones who came up with Cap’n Plat.”

Jake shrugged. “Dad was a hell of a beer maker, and I’ve liked the dark stuff since I was a kid. Coming up with Cap’n Plat was one of my favorite summers with him.” Jake chuckled sadly. “He was an awful businessman, though.”

Jake and Cole moved to a table near the door, and Jake proceeded to empty the spent cartridges from his Colt, replacing them with fresh ones. He started to put the spent one into one of the pouches on his gun belt and then caught sight of Marshal Sisty in the doorway. The marshal stepped into the brewery, scanned the interior, and locked eyes with Jake, giving him a concerned nod. Jake slid the Colt back into its holster and deliberately left a single, spent cartridge sitting on the table.

Folks drifted down in twos and threes from the zeppelins above, many of them craning their necks as they gawked at the artwork lining the grand staircase. Some of them walked straight out of the brewery, but many sashayed up to the bar or sat down at tables. Clara wove her way through them and set two dark brown bottles on the table before Jake and Cole, giving Jake another sultry wink before returning to the bar. As Sisty approached, Jake ran his finger over the character on the beer label, reminiscing how he’d come up with the idea of a cross between a pirate and a platypus for the brew.

A stern frown crossed Sisty’s round face as she strolled over to Jake’s table. She straightened her black vest and took her bowler off, holding it in her hands in front of her.

“Jake,” she nodded. “Cole,” she added, giving him a friendly smile.

“Marshal,” Cole said cordially, but he tried not to look at Sisty. He knew what was coming.

Jake tipped his hat. “Morning, Billie.”

“How’s Lumpy?” Sisty asked, motioning to the beast hitched outside. “He in a good mood?” Lumpy had caused a bit of a ruckus a few weeks prior, pulling out a couple of hitching posts the last time Jake was in town.

“Lumpy?” Jake knew Billie was beating around the bush just to be polite. “He’s fine. Calm as a baby at naptime.” He smiled.

Billie had kept her job as marshal because she knew how to make a person feel comfortable before getting down to business. She’d done it with the mayor and every local business owner in Denver. It wasn’t Jake’s style, preferring a more direct approach, but he respected people who could speak softly and still know how to work a leg iron when the situation required it. And Billie Sisty sure as hell did.

“How’s your ass?” Sisty’s smile broadened and her eyes sparkled mischievously. She knew full well that Lumpy was not the gentlest ride on the prairie.

“Well, Billie, let’s just say it’s not as good as Lumpy.” Jake sighed and motioned to the beers on the table. “Can I interest you in a libation?”

“That wouldn’t be prudent, Jake.” Sisty’s voice went serious.

“So, what can we do for ya?” Jake sounded as innocent as can be. “Is this about them fellas last night?”

“That? No. Everyone in the bar saw that big fella follow you out, and the three men with him clearly had nothing but bad intentions. Self-defense. Case closed.”

“Then what’s on yer mind?”

“I think you know I’m here on official business.”

“I suspected as much. In that case, have a seat,” Jake offered kindly. Sisty eased herself into a chair and set her hat on the table. She sighed, sounding as if she had something to say but didn’t really want to say it. “No need to hold back with me, Billie. You know that.”

“Well, not to put to put too fine a point on it,” she said, pointing at the spent cartridge, “but that spent shell is what’s on my mind. You know folks aren’t supposed to go shooting within city limits any time they please … excepting in cases of self-defense, of course. Last night is a no-brainer, but what you pulled up on Grand Avenue this morning is not as cut-and-dry. I’m pretty sure we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Do you know what happened?” Jake asked a bit more seriously.

“Let’s just say that I talked to enough people to know that you did the wrong thing for the right reason … or is it the right thing for the wrong reason. Officially I have to tell you that if your guns go off within city limits again without someone fixing to kill you right then and there, I’ll be obligated to put you in the pokey till a judge sorts things out.”

“I think I understand, Billie.”

Sisty lowered her voice. “Off the record, I’m damn glad you did what you did. You ever want a job around here, I might be able to see my way clear of having me another deputy.”

Jake and Cole both laughed, and Sisty joined in.

“You know damn well that I ain’t cut out for law enforcement,” Jake managed between laughs, “and I swore off takin’ orders when they cut that uniform off what was left of me.”

“I know, Jake … but the offer still stands, if you ever change your mind.”

Jake put an edge in his voice. “Billie, one of these days Moritz Sigi is gonna crash that contraption of his right into something … or someone. If we’re lucky, he’ll only kill himself.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sisty rubbed her forehead worriedly. “I’ve talked to the mayor about it, and he says hands off. Sigi is a bigwig around here and you know it. I won’t be able to touch him till he does just that. And then, maybe.”

“Rich man politics,” Jake mumbled, shaking his head. “Like I said, I ain’t cut out for law enforcement. Somebody needs to shoot the bastard … just do it legal, is all.”

“All I’m sayin’ is …” Sisty’s voice trailed off as she froze, mouth open as she stared at the staircase. Her eyes went wide. “Jesus Palomino,” she finally said. “Would you look at that gruesome son-of-a-bitch?”

Jake and Cole turned towards the staircase, and Jake’s face went pale as he recognized the part-man mostly-machine dressed in black walking gracefully down the grand stairs of the terminal. The last time Jake had seen the mercenary was during the war, and they weren’t on the same side.

The man scanned the Grand Staircase as he descended. He had intricate oculars set into a brass faceplate that covered the upper half of his face. The oculars resembled short, stocky telescopes, narrow end out. The faceplate they attached to was bolted directly into his cheeks and forehead. A black shroud covered the rest of his skull, and the cloth seemed to encase something larger than just his head, as if he had on a close-fitting helmet under the taught fabric. An intricate, brass breathing mask covered the lower half of his face. It had several dials running down the side and stocky mesh cylinders protruded on either side of his jaw. It also had clasps along the neckline that secured it in place.

“Oh shit,” Jake muttered, and his voice had something Cole had never heard before … dread. “It’s Ghiss.”

Chapter Eight – Civil Enemies

“Ghiss was a son of a bitch, there’s no doubt about it. But, then again, so was Jake.”

~ Cole McJunkins

“You know that guy?” Cole asked, his eyes locked on the black-clad figure standing at the bar. Ghiss waved stiffly at Clara and waited for her to finish up with another customer. Nearly every pair of eyes in the brewery had locked on the man in black, a man clearly accustomed to ignoring stares. Jake and Cole took heavy swigs of their beers, and Jake did his best to keep his back to the thing standing at the bar.

As Cole watched, Ghiss turned his head, and the oculars lingered briefly on the Silver Star pinned to Sisty’s vest. Cole swore that the oculars rotated all by themselves as Ghiss focused on the glinting symbol of law and order.

Not an inch of skin showed on what Cole had to believe was a man, but the cloth of his sleeves and pants looked like they were draped over a skeleton. The man’s torso, however, was bulky and angular. Ghiss stood taller than Jake, and he wore a mortician’s top hat rising higher than a normal topper, exaggerating the effect. The hat had a narrow black scarf tied around it that draped down the middle of his back nearly to his waist. He wore two pistols, one on his left hip and one across his belly for a cross-draw, but the weapons definitely weren’t Colts or any other kind of revolver Cole had seen. The grips were brass wrapped in black cloth and their design reminded Cole of the Thumper.

“Cole,” Jake started quietly, keeping his back to Ghiss, “back in the war, did you ever hear of Colonel Ghiss?”

Cole thought about it for a minute. “Not that I recall. It’s a strange name, though. I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I had.”

“How about the Night Stalker?” Jake’s tone was deadly serious, and Cole’s eyes went wide, nodding slowly.

“Yeah … him I heard of.”

“What the hell’s a Night Stalker?” Sisty asked, bewildered.

Jake got tight-lipped, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

“He was a …” Cole’s voice went sour, as if he was talking about smallpox, “mercenary … for the Confederacy. Did a lot of nighttime, behind-the-lines work … all on his own, they say. And he was very good at it. Blowing munitions, assassinating officers, gathering information … he did it all.”

Sisty eyed Jake thoughtfully. “You act like you know him.”

Jake took another pull from his beer and set the bottle down slowly. He spoke almost in a whisper. “I do. Personally. You could say we have the same tailor.”

“Tinker Farris?” Cole asked.

Jake nodded. “Yep, before Farris hired on Maggie Mae to chant up the gear he made. What you’re looking at behind me is basically a Mark One version of me, but all mechanical—none of Maggie’s magic—he got damn near the whole works replaced, though. Arms, legs, and more. Plus he’s armored over his torso and head. He’s as tough and dangerous as they come.”

“He looks like a skeleton,” Sisty said, “at least his arms and legs do.”

Cole nodded in agreement.

“Look, Billie, if Ghiss stays in town, it can’t be for any good. You gotta promise me you won’t try and take him alone if there’s trouble. Those limbs of his are lighter than mine … and both of his hands draw faster than my left. You understand what I’m saying? Both hands. Be real careful with him.”

“Faster than you?” Cole asked, incredulous. “But I thought you said you came after him.”

“Yeah, I did. My arm and legs can take a real beating … even repair themselves up to a point on account of Maggie’s magic. Ghiss’ works are mostly hard, light metal casing and clockwork, though. He was built for function rather than form. There was never any attempt to make him look natural. He was designed to kill … efficiently. That means he’s faster, but not nearly as durable as I am. And if he really gets messed up, he’s got to go back to Farris for repairs … or find someone in Farris’ class to do the work. I’m also stronger than he is, but in a gunfight strength don’t amount to a pile of dusty fly crap.”

“True enough,” Cole agreed.

Sisty got a worried look on her face. “Boys, I gotta go. I want to get someone following that nightmare while he’s in town.” She turned to Jake with a worried look. “No offense, Jake, but sometimes I wish they’d never come up with them artificial limbs and all. They sure do make things tough for a poor, old marshal like me.”

Jake nodded. “None taken, Billie.” He raised his left hand and flexed the fingers, the clockwork gears whining quietly. “There are times when I would agree with you.”

The truth was, there weren’t many people who had the money for clockwork limbs, and there was still a lot of resentment by normal folks against the men and women who did. Machiners were considered both dangerous and at least a little bit less than human. “Just make sure your man knows what he’s doing,” Jake warned. “Ghiss is a pro. He’ll spot most tails a mile away, and he ain’t got much conscience when it comes to his work.”

“Look.” Cole nodded towards Ghiss who was making his way along the bar, following Clara. “Seems as if he’s going someplace. If you don’t want to be seen, Jake, now’s our chance.”

Jake gave a sidelong glance, peering through his ocular at the retreating figure of the mercenary. “Hey, Billie, can you have someone get Koto and Lumpy aboard the zeppelin for us? They’ll just need sweet-feed to get Lumpy moving. I was gonna do it, but I’d rather get on before that bastard spots us. You know I’m good for it.” Jake put a silver dollar on the table.

“I’ll take care of it,” Sisty said.

“Much obliged. Come on, Cole. Let’s go.” They stood and shook hands.

“Thanks for the warning, Jake,” Sisty offered. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too, Billie,” Jake replied seriously.

Sisty grabbed her hat and headed for the doors as Jake and Cole walked briskly towards the grand staircase. They rushed up the stairs, disregarding the fine art around them and wove their way between the paisley vests and bright, blossomy dresses that adorned folks moving down to the brewery. They made it to the top without a hitch and Jake purchased an aft cabin on the zeppelin docked above them.

As Jake and Cole stepped away from the ticket booth, Jake spotted a tall, curvaceous woman exit the grand staircase and walk towards them. She wore an elaborate maroon dress, huge bustle, burgundy top hat, and opaque veil. Long, dark curls draped down her back and over her shoulders. She turned to peer up at a framed map that hung on the wall.

Jake paused for a moment, watching her as she ran her finger along a contour on the map.

“What is it?” Cole asked.

Jake shook his head, turned back to Cole, and walked towards the stairs leading to the airship. “Nothing. Just seems like I know her from someplace. Can’t seem to place it.”

“Who?”

Jake pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “The tall brunette in the maroon dress back there.”

“But she was wearing a veil. How could you tell?”

“I don’t know … just a feeling, I guess.” Jake shrugged.

“Well, you do get around,” Cole pointed out mischievously.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Jake shook his head again to dislodge the strange feeling and then led them up the last, much smaller spiral staircase that opened onto the passenger platform.

“Hey, Jake, it’s the Jezebel,” Cole said, pointing at the gold lettering painted on the side of the gondola.

“No kidding?” Jake turned his good eye to the golden letters. “I guess it makes sense. There can’t be too many trans-con zepps that get into San Fran from Denver. Hopefully no one will try to kill us this time.”

“Yeah … the last time didn’t work out so well, now did it?”

“Sure it did … we’re breathing and them Tong fellas ain’t.” Jake grinned and winked his eye.

“Good point,” Cole conceded.

Two sturdy-looking stewards towered on either side of the entrance to the Jezebel, and a small, frail-looking old man stood inside, holding out his hand.

“Tickets, please,” the old-timer said with a faint, gravel-filled voice. Jake handed them over. The old man inspected them closely and punched holes in them with a small punch he pulled from his pocket. “Welcome aboard the Jezebel.”

They stepped aboard the gondola and found the interior exactly as it had been months earlier on their way back from San Fran. Everything was smooth, dark walnut, and the window frames, handles, and accents were brightly polished brass. Electric lights made the interior of the gondola warm, bright, and welcoming—as plush and inviting as any Chicago hotel.

They wove their way through passengers from many walks of life. It was mostly affluent businessmen in their white spats, paisley vests, black top hats, and sheer frocks or plaid suits. Many of the gentlemen were accompanied by elegant ladies, most of them with corset-sculpted figures and blossom-bright dresses covered in lace and satin. Few heads went without a hat of some kind, and several of the women sported petit top hats decorated with enough plumage to rival any peacock. A handful of children milled and scampered about, darting between the legs of their affluent parents.

There were also a few merchants settling into their seats, with bowlers, wool frocks, and briefcases of every kind. Jake spotted a few cowboys in the mix, only a few of them dingy-looking, and several who, like Jake, had the distinct look of professional gunslingers and gamblers.

Jake also saw what appeared to be a tinker with a lovely lady upon his arm. He was short, frumpy, and had a bandoleer across his chest with every tool Jake could think of stuck in it. Bandoleer aside, he looked plain as oatmeal. The lady, on the other hand, wore an eye patch with a bright ruby gem set in the middle that seemed to glow and sparkle with a strange, inner light. She had on a simple, black dress. The intricate, gold-looped belt about her waist, however, was far from simple. It had a wide assortment of dangling pouches, and set into belt loops, several vials full of colorful liquids glinted in the soft lighting. She also had a necklace decorated with crystals, bones, and feathers. Jake knew a witch when he saw one.

Jake and Cole made their way along the central passageway of the Jezebel and finally reached the end of the aft passenger compartment. The compartment was elegant by any standard. A deep, rich, burgundy carpet swallowed their feet and dark walnut covered every wall. All the fittings were polished brass—the garment hooks, railings, window frames, light fixtures … everything.

Both men slung their saddlebags just inside the door, on hooks made for that purpose, and Cole stowed the Thumper in an overhead compartment. Jake pulled out the sleeper bed set into the wall, stretched out on it, and pushed his hat over his eyes. Cole followed suit on the other side but had the forethought to take his boots off.

“What in hell would the Night Stalker be doing in Denver?” Cole asked.

“Damned if I know.” Jake pushed his hat up. “I didn’t know he travelled past the Mississippi, but it has been a few years since the war. He’s the kind of guy to find work whenever he needs it, I suppose … or wants it.” Jake propped his hat back over his eyes and leaned back. “I’ll tell you, Cole, if I had any sense at all, that guy would scare the shit outta me.”

“But you don’t have any sense, Jake. Everyone knows that,” Cole chuckled.

“True enough. I still hope I never have to face him down. Those arms of his are like greased lightning, and those pistols …”

“Yeah, what the hell were those? They looked kinda like the Thumper.”

“Good eye,” Jake said. “They’re a lot like the Thumper, but they’re sure as hell not built to stun.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they work on the same basic principles, but what comes out of them will leave a hole in you like a three-pound shell.”

“Oh,” Cole replied quietly and with a fair amount of discomfort.

“Yeah.… Oh,” Jake mimicked.

They lay there quietly for a while, listening to people milling about and the clattering thumps of crates and livestock being loaded into the cargo hold below.

“Think they’ll have any trouble with Lumpy?” Cole asked.

“I was just thinking about that. If Sisty got him some sweet-feed, then he should be fine … if not … well … I just hope nobody gets hurt. It’d be a hell of a bill.”

Cole chuckled. “I ain’t chipping in for the repairs, amigo.”

“Awww … he’ll be fine. He’s a good boy once you get to know him.” Jake rolled over and tried to block out more of the light.

“If you say so. So when we set to leave?” Cole asked from under his brim.

“Seven tonight. We should reach Carson City, Nevada, sometime tomorrow. We depart again the following morning, and the flight should put in San Fran the next afternoon, if the winds cooperate, anyway.”

“We gonna stay in here?”

“Aw, hell no. When I wake up I plan on getting myself into a card game or three … see if I can’t shear some of those fancy-looking sheep we passed.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“That it is,” Jake said slowly. Minutes later they were both snoring quietly.

Chapter Nine – Cards and Bluffs

“Jake was the best card player I’ve ever seen, and he lived his life like he played poker. I think that’s what gave him the edge over anyone he came up against. For Jake, everything came down to knowing what his opponent was going to do next. And Jake usually seemed to know.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

“Full house. Sevens over threes.” The sound of the Jezebel’s propellers made a steady, quiet drone in the background. Jake stuck his cigar in his mouth, turned over his cards, and smiled at the finely dressed foreigner across the table from him. The foreigner wore a shimmering, emerald frock over a lacy, ruffled white shirt with a high collar. A silver pin sporting an etched raven insignia anchored his red cravat. Like the man, the bird had a distinctly European feel to it. A red baldric crossed the man’s chest down towards his right hip.

Germany, Jake thought, or someplace deeper into the heart of Central Europe, but not quite Russia. Around the poker tables at the Colorado Brewery, he’d sheared enough foreigners coming through to have at least some sense of what went on across the Atlantic.

The gentleman scowled, sniffed, and politely nodded his head. The monocle over his right eye gleamed as his head moved, and Jake could just make out his own reflection in it as the man looked at him. The four up-cards in front of the foreigner were a pair of jacks, a queen, and a five without a matching suit.

“The hand appears to be yours, sir,” he said in an accent Jake couldn’t place. He did not turn over his hole card. “Your luck seems to be quite … remarkable.”

Jake knew the man had a third jack in the hole. He’d watched the foreigner closely for two hours and had him pegged early on. The man never bluffed, and he wouldn’t have stayed in that long or kept putting money on the table if he didn’t have at least trips. The cards face up in front of the foreigner wouldn’t make anything else worth betting on.

“Not sure I’d call it all luck,” Jake replied easily, “but thank you kindly.” Jake reached out and pulled back the pile of bills and coins from the middle of the table. Their dealer flipped over the house hand in front of him—all garbage—and collected the cards from around the table.

“What is that, three in a row you’ve won, mister?” a drunken cowboy on the foreigner’s left muttered. His voice was surly, bordering on accusatory.

“Technically only two,” Jake said easily. “The hand before last saw everybody fold except me. Ain’t my fault if nobody wants to call a bluff.”

“A bluff! Why you son-of-a—!” the cowboy shouted.

“Temper, temper, amigo,” Jake soothed. “This is just a friendly card game.” Jake’s eye drifted down to the cowboy’s remaining stack of bills—what had started as about six hundred sat at under two hundred now. “Well, mostly friendly.”

“I believe I’ll retire for the evening,” the foreigner said and stood up stiffly. He gathered the still-healthy pile of currency in front of him and slipped it into his vest pocket. He took off his monocle and dropped it into a breast pocket.

“Bit of friendly advice, mister,” Jake offered, “I wouldn’t wear that eyepiece when playin’ cards if I were you.” The man’s eyebrows rose slightly, and then he narrowed his eyes at Jake. There was a trace of quite un-gentlemanly anger in the look.

“Hmph!” The foreigner straightened his black, paisley vest and adjusted the silver-hilted saber attached to the baldric. His eyes never left Jake. “I’ll bear that in mind in the future.” He nodded briskly to Jake and then the rest of the men at the table. “Good night, gentlemen.”

The man turned on his heel in what Jake estimated to be proper military fashion, although not American military, and practically marched out of the salon through the doors. Jake watched two tall, muscular men with close-cropped hair and expensive suits try to casually follow the foreigner out. Their version of casual looked a lot like Lumpy’s, in that it was loud and obvious and not casual in any way whatsoever. One of them had a black satchel over his shoulder, and Jake heard their strides match up with the foreigner’s shortly after they turned the corner.

As the dealer noisily shuffled the cards, Cole leaned over and whispered so no one else could hear him. “Could you really see his cards in the monocle?”

“Hmm-mmm,” Jake replied, shaking his head. “But he don’t know that. If we play again, he won’t wear the monocle and think his luck’s change. I had him pegged early. That boy ain’t no card player. Chess player, maybe, but not poker.”

Cole chuckled. “You’re just too sneaky.” The dealer looked at Cole expectantly. Cole nodded to the dealer and threw in a dollar for the ante.

In the mirror over the bar Jake eyed the tall woman he’d seen when they first got on the Jezebel. There was something odd about her, about the way she’d been sitting. She got up from her table in the corner, the veil still hiding her features. She’d come in shortly after the foreigner and taken a table behind Jake. Aside from placing her order for tea and scones, she had not spoken to anyone the entire evening. She’d barely even moved beyond taking sips with a pinky extended. Jake knew because he kept checking in the mirror. She turned her head away from the poker table as she walked by, and Jake’s feeling that he knew her from somewhere increased considerably. For just a second, he thought he heard a faint metallic clicking as she walked by. He tried to think of any women he’d ever met with clockwork legs and came up with nothing.

“Your bet, sir,” the dealer prompted.

“Jake?” Cole added as Jake’s eyes followed the woman out the salon door.

“Hmmm? Oh yeah. Sorry,” Jake mumbled, bringing his attention back to the game. He threw in his ante, and the rest of the table followed. “That foreigner is up to something,” he said quietly to Cole.

“What makes you say that? The guys that followed him out?” As the hole cards were dealt out, everyone kept their hands away except the drunken cowboy who turned up the corner of his.

Eying the cowboy with disgust for such bad table manners, Jake replied, “Well, partly. Did you hear their footsteps as they turned the corner?”

“No, why?” Cole asked, giving a similar grimace to the cowboy.

“They’re military, and they sure as hell ain’t ours.”

“How could you tell they’re military? Maybe they’re just snappy dressers … with short hair.”

The first up-cards made their way around the table, and everyone looked at what they had except Jake who looked at what everyone else had and the reactions that showed up on a couple of faces.

“Them fellas couldn’t help falling into stride … and their haircuts? They’re more automaton on the inside than Colonel Ghiss will ever be on the outside. Pure discipline. And I reckon Mr. Monocle isn’t the type to take vacations, which means they’re not only military, they’re travelling with a purpose.”

Jake finally looked at his cards, an ace-jack. From right beside him a mechanical voice with a thick southern drawl broke his concentration. “Well light my fires, if it isn’t Jake Lasater. I thought I recognized you in the saloon back in Denver.” The voice turned sweet and a little hurt. “Are you avoiding me? And here I thought we were friends.”

“Oh, shit,” Jake said under his breath. He froze for a second, put on his friendliest smile and turned toward the Night Stalker.

Chapter Ten – Bluffs and Guns

“I wanted to put a bullet through one of those fancy eyepieces of his from the moment I first laid eyes on the Night Stalker.”

~ Cole McJunkins

“Well, Colonel Ghiss!” Jake said with a great deal more affability than he felt. “What a surprise. I wouldn’t dream of avoiding you. Didn’t see you at the Brewery is all.” Ghiss was in the same dark clothing and top hat as before. In fact, Jake had never seen the man without his rather ominous garb. Jake eyed him closely, noting a number of dents and scratches in the dark brass goggles and respirator, some of them appearing to be fairly fresh. Jake could barely make out his reflection in the dark lenses of the oculars as he stubbed out what little of his cigar remained.

Ghiss’ voice, despite the mechanical overtones, came through sweet as honey. “It’s Mister Ghiss, not Colonel. The war is over, Mister Lasater. Perhaps you’ve heard?” The mercenary stepped around the table and stood behind the chair emptied by the foreigner. Everyone at the table heard the whine-click of his clockwork legs, and the cowboy got a disgusted look on his face, eyeing Ghiss like he was a dead steer bloated by the sun.

“Yes, I do recall reading something about that,” Jake replied dryly. “If I got it right, the Confederacy surrendered, isn’t that right, Cole?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” Cole said with a more than satisfied grin. “Something about that cuss General Lee handing over his sword.” With a king showing, Cole threw five dollars into the pot.

Ghiss tilted his head to the side, and it reminded Jake of something … a long lost memory. “Winners … losers … the war was more about economics than any sort of social or humanitarian agenda.” Jake and Cole could see that the goggles were focused on Cole’s mulatto skin, not on Jake, and the subtle insult was not lost on either of them.

Never taking his eyes off of Ghiss, Jake turned his ace facedown and pushed his cards into the middle of the table. There was no way he could focus on a poker hand with the Night Stalker standing across the table from him.

“There are some who would disagree with you, Colonel,” Cole said with more than a hint of venom. Bets went around the table, with everyone else matching Cole’s five dollars.

Jake leaned over. “Don’t take the bait,” he whispered quietly.

The dealer spoke up. “Would you care to join the game, sir?” He nodded towards the empty chair between them as another round of cards went out.

The cowboy glared at the dealer and downed a shot of whisky, motioning to the bartender for another. “God damn machiners,” he muttered loud enough for the whole table to hear.

“Why, I’d be delighted,” Ghiss said as smoothly as his mechanical voice would allow. Paying no attention to the rheumy-eyed cowboy, he pulled the chair out and slowly sat down.

Cole, with an ace-king now showing, said, “Five,” and tossed in the bet. The three remaining betters called him.

With a deliberately dramatic flourish of his mechanical hand, Ghiss reached into the inner pocket of his long coat and pulled out a thick stack of bills. As the dealer sent around the next up-cards, Ghiss separated his money into two stacks and put them on the table in front of him.

“Lord knows the war was lucrative enough for me,” Ghiss added, and Jake could actually hear the mercenary smiling underneath the respirator. “I believe it wasn’t as much of a boon to you, was it Mister Lasater?”

With a sneer aimed at Ghiss’ comment, Cole looked down at a queen over his ace-king and threw in again. “Ten.” He tossed in his money and turned to Jake to see his reaction to the mercenary’s jab.

Jake smiled and chuckled at Ghiss as the others called his partner’s bet. “Oh, I reckon I came out of it better off than when I went in … and I still have my soul intact.”

Cole’s single burst of laughter was punctuation enough for Jake’s retort.

“Well met, Mister Lasater.” Ghiss nodded his head and leaned back in his chair as another round of cards went around the table. “I don’t believe we’ve ever had the privilege of playing cards with each other, now have we?”

Cole came up with another king and bet. “Twenty,” he said quietly.

“That’s right,” Jake agreed. “We’ve never actually gone up against each other,” Jake referred quite deliberately to the fact that he and Ghiss had never faced each other down, and he had no doubt Ghiss didn’t miss it.

“Thirty,” the drunk cowboy said a bit too boldly.

Jake didn’t miss the forced bravado and took a moment to quickly eye the cards around the table. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ghiss’ head move, indicating the mercenary was doing the same thing. Two of the four men still playing were chasing straights, and he was certain the cowboy had nothing better than two pair. If Cole bumps, Jake thought, he has trips and the hand.

“Fifty,” Cole said quietly as he dropped the bills on top of the pile.

The two men downstream from Cole folded quickly, and the cowboy glared at Cole like he was the devil himself.

“You’re bluffin’.”

Ghiss turned to the cowboy slowly, and the voice that came out of the mask was almost friendly as he said, “I wouldn’t call that, if I were you, sir.”

“I ain’t askin’ you, ya god damned machiner. Mind your own stinkin’ business.”

Ghiss shrugged. “As you like,” he said sweetly, and Jake could hear the smile again.

“Eighty!” the cowboy said it like it was a curse. He grabbed most of what he had left in front of him and slammed it down in the middle of the table. Jake shook his head, worried about what might come next.

“Let’s make this easy, friend,” Cole said slowly. He pushed in the considerable stack of coins and paper in front of him. “To call you gotta put it all in. But you may want to take something home tonight.”

“Now I know you’re bluffing!” The cowboy growled and pushed in what little he had left. Jake saw where things were headed, and it wasn’t good. He slid his left hand to the edge of the table and leaned back a bit in case he had to yank his Peacekeeper. “You’re called, mister,” the cowboy added.

Cole sighed and turned over his hole card. It was a king. The cowboy turned pale first, knowing he was beat, and just as Jake suspected, his face went from pale white to crimson in that slow transition far too many drunken cowboys get right before the shooting starts. Jake could see the alcohol coaxing liquid backbone into the cowboy.

“God damn machiner!” The cowboy turned on Ghiss, his eyes narrowing down to slits. “You baited me into callin’!”

“I beg your pardon?” Ghiss replied as innocently as he could. “I did nothing of the sort. You did that all by your lonesome, sir. In fact, I recall being the one who tried to talk you out of such obvious folly. Two pair will never beat three of a kind … no matter how much cheap whisky is involved.”

Jake could hear Ghiss baiting the cowboy the same way he had tried to bait Cole. Jake saw the cowboy’s hand drifting back from the table towards his hip. Ghiss was a statue, but Jake knew the mercenary saw it as well.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mister,” Jake said quietly and pulled a cigar out of his shirt pocket. His voice was almost pleading. “You ain’t got no idea what you’re up against.” He’d seen it once before. Gunslingers with clockwork limbs didn’t have much to fear from flesh and blood, and many of them liked to goad regular folk into drawing on them.

Without turning from Ghiss, the cowboy growled, “I ain’t asking you, mister. Mind your own god damn business.”

Jake struck the match on his thumbnail and lit the cigar as Cole and the two other men at the table slid back. The people in the salon were also stepping out of the way as the bartender whispered frantically into a heavy brass horn attached to a copper-jacketed cable that disappeared beneath the bar.

Jake saw the cowboy’s fingers stiffen and then dart towards his gun. Ghiss and Jake moved at the same time, clockwork gears screaming. Ghiss’ right hand pulled one of the strange looking pistols from its holster across his waist as Jake’s Peacekeeper sailed free. Ghiss’ left hand had darted out, pinning the cowboy’s hand against the butt of his revolver, but Jake noticed that his own gun was pointing at the cowboy before Ghiss’ left hand landed. The barrel of Ghiss’ pistol, however, was pressed up against the cowboy’s throat in the blink of an eye.

The salon was as quiet as an empty graveyard except for a large, open-air clock over the bar, the steady ticking accentuating the silence.

“Please, sir,” Ghiss soothed, “I suggest you desist and retire for the evening before something … unfortunate takes place. These are civilized people with civilized ways. Gunplay here would be simply uncouth. Wouldn’t you agree, Mister Lasater?” Ghiss’ oculars never left the cowboy’s wide eyes.

“Can’t argue with that,” Jake said coldly and pulled the hammer back on his Colt, the business end pointed at the cowboy’s chest.

“God damn machiners….” The cowboy cursed again through clenched teeth, the whites of his eyes showing. “Y’all are nuthin’ but a bunch of ungodly freaks.” He raised his hands slowly and visibly relaxed his muscles.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?” a deep voice boomed from the doorway.

There was the distinct click-clack of a lever action rifle being chambered. Neither Ghiss nor Jake turned their heads, but out of the corner of his eye Jake spotted a burly, black steward holding a Winchester. The rifle looked like a toy in his massive hands. He appeared to have been born without a neck. His massive shoulders ran up at a sharp angle along chorded muscle, ending at a shaved head that gleamed in the light. His arms were as thick as Jake’s legs, and an untidy beard gave him a distinct resident-head-buster look that Jake had seen in upscale saloons across the west.

Two smaller and only slightly less imposing men flanked him, one Caucasian and one Indian, their hands resting quite comfortably on the butts of older Navy revolvers.

“Simply a misunderstanding,” Ghiss said with that smile in his voice.

The steward spoke with a lean accent that hailed from somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis. “Misunderstanding, hunh?” the steward said, striding into the room like a bull and leveling the Winchester in the direction of the poker table. “How about everybody who’s holding iron just go right ahead and put it away. I’d rather not have to let this long arm do my talking for me.”

“Certainly, sir,” Ghiss said and smoothly slid his pistol back into the holster at his side. The steward’s eyes darted to Jake’s Colt. Jake slowly lowered the hammer down, and with a double backspin, set it firmly back into the holster.

Keeping the rifle pointed like it was set in stone, the steward turned half an eye to the bartender and asked, “So, was this all just a misunderstanding, Bobby?”

“Well,” the bartender said slowly. “I supposed you could call it that. The one with his hands up started it all. And looks like them two fellers got it pretty much under control.”

“So, what do you want us to do here, Bobby?” the steward asked, giving a stern eye to every man at the table.

“I s’pose if you just escort that one there back to his room and let him sleep off all that whisky, everything should be fine,” Bobby said, looking considerably more calm than he had seconds before. “Least ways until we get to Carson City. After that, them boys may just sort it out for themselves down on the street.”

The steward sighed and set a stern look on the cowboy. “C’mon, mister. Let’s get you back to your room.”

“But—” the cowboy blurted, looking with pleading eyes at the steward.

The steward never made a sound. Narrowing his eyes was all it took to shut the miscreant up.

The cowboy stood slowly, his hands still raised. “God damn machiners….” he spat with a glare aimed at everyone at the table. He turned and staggered past the steward.

“Boys,” the steward called over his shoulder. The two behind him stepped in stride with the cowboy and followed him out of the salon. The steward let the barrel of the Winchester drift towards the floor and lowered the hammer carefully with one hand. He focused again on the men at the table. “Now, I’m inclined to take Bobby’s word for it that the other fella started the ruckus. But for everyone’s sake, I’m gonna have to ask you to keep them hog-legs tethered for the rest of the flight, if you don’t mind.”

“I think the game is just about over,” Jake said quietly. “How ’bout you, Cole? You done?”

“I reckon I’ve had about as much fun as I can take for one evening.” He stepped up to the table, took off his hat, and scooped his winnings into it. “Besides, I gotta get my beauty sleep,” he added and walked towards the door of the salon.

“If you say so,” the steward said with a raised eyebrow.

Jake collected his own money, slipping it into his vest, then stood up and tipped his hat to Ghiss. “Perhaps we’ll go up against one another some other time.”

“I believe the opportunity may yet present itself, Mister Lasater.” Ghiss nodded his head, lamplight glinting off his respirator and oculars. “Perhaps sooner than either of us expects.”

Jake paused for a moment, giving Ghiss a curious look. Ghiss was a statue, staring at Jake without even the comfort of looking like he was breathing. Jake wondered what the mercenary meant. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. He took a puff of his cigar, shifted it to the other side of his mouth, and followed Cole into the main passageway.

When the passageway doors closed behind them, Cole turned his head and said, “You weren’t kidding about him being fast.” He kept walking down the passageway towards the rear section of the gondola.

“Nope. In a straight fight he’d cut me in two. But there was something you probably didn’t pick up.”

“What?”

“His left.” Jake’s eyes narrowed as he pulled hard on his cigar and remembered the sequence.

“What about it?”

“My left beat his. He got his right pistol out, across his chest and at that guy’s throat in the time my Peacekeeper was just pointing over the table. But his left … He didn’t plant that hand on the cowboy’s gun till after mine was up.”

“You could tell all that?”

“Comes with the arm,” Jake said easily. “Maggie did a hell of a job on me.”

“I’ll be damned.…” Cole added.

“Yeah, well … the cowboy was right about one thing,” Jake added with a touch of weary resolve.

“What’s that?”

“Us machiners … we are freaks … and it never goes away, you know what I mean?”

Cole’s tone was soft, somewhat understanding. “Yeah, Jake, I do. Remember?” Cole pinched his check, highlighting his mulatto skin. “Regular folks just don’t have much use for anything that’s different.”

“Good point, amigo.” Jake nodded.

They made their way through the rest of the gondola in silence. Cole unlocked and opened the door, and they stepped inside. After counting out their winnings, they discovered that they’d both cleared almost six hundred dollars. They slipped the money into their saddlebags and walked to their bunks. Gun belts went over hooks near their pillows, and then they sat down. Four boots slid off and hit the floor with dull thuds.

“Not a bad night,” Cole said cheerily.

“What, you mean aside from running into Ghiss and the gunplay?” Jake tried to force disappointment into his voice.

“C’mon,” Cole chided. “I know damn well you love that stuff. Who do you think you’re talking too?”

Jake chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you got me pegged.”

“Ghiss is a son of a bitch, though.”

“You got that right.” Jake stood up and pulled off his hat, setting it on a shelf above the bunk. He draped his vest on a hook near the door. “You ready for the light?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” Cole leaned back and pushed his hat over his eyes.

Jake flipped the switch, and the room went dark. His metal heels thudded across the thick carpet as he approached the window. A sliver of a moon highlighted the faint edges of dark, sparse, shadowy clouds that drifted by. Jake watched them slip through the night, each cloud just another mass of fainter darkness in an ocean of it.

He found himself wondering about Skeeter and what trouble she might be getting into back home. A part of him regretted having to leave her behind. She really had gotten Jake and Cole out of a few fixes over the past six months, but the thought of Skeeter ending up in a slaver’s whorehouse terrified him.

The zeppelin hit an open stretch of sky and something caught Jake’s eye. Somewhat lower and far off in the distance, he swore he saw a faint flashing light the color of blood. Jake reached up and turned a dial, rotating the outer lens of his ocular as he watched the pulses continue. With the ocular fully open, the flashes were as bright as a torch at the bottom of a well.

“Hey,” Jake said. “Take a look at this.”

“Take a look at what?” Cole replied, lifting his hat.

“If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t need you to look, now would I?”

Cole sighed but sat up in his bunk. “I guess you got a point.” Jake pointed out the window, and Cole looked in the general direction. “So what am I looking at?”

There was another brief series if irregular flashes.

“There!” Jake adjusted where he pointed. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“That red flashing … way off in the distance.”

It stopped.

“I didn’t see anything,” Cole said, confused.

Jake peered intently into the darkness, and then the flashing started up again.

“There it is again,” he said, pointing in exactly the same spot. “You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Sorry, Jake,” Cole apologized, sounding worried that his partner might be crazy.

The flashing continued, a chain of irregular staccato pulses.

“Wait a minute,” Jake said as another sequence of long pulses started. He covered first his good eye and then the ocular. “Well I’ll be damned.”

“What?” Cole asked, perplexed.

“My ocular. It lets me see the light … filters it somehow.” As he continued to watch, it occurred to him that the flashes were dots and dashes, but it wasn’t Morse code, or if it was, it wasn’t in English. He’d learned Morse in the army, and although he’d picked up some of the letters flashing by, none of them matched up to any words he knew. Some of the characters seemed to be off as well. “Hey, you got some paper and something to write with?”

“I think I have one of those fancy, new fountain pens in my saddle bag. Picked it up a few weeks ago back in Denver. Ain’t got no paper, though.” Cole got out of his bunk and headed over to his saddle bags.

“What about all that money?” Jake asked.

“You want me to write something on my money?”

“Just get the pen, would you?” Jake said urgently. “And hurry.”

“All right,” Cole sighed again as he went to his saddlebags and dug through them. He came back with the pen and pulled out one of the bills he’d won. Putting the bill up against the window, he waited for Jake.

“Write this down.”

“Write what down?”

“I’m getting to that.…” Jake mumbled, a hint of impatience in his voice as he waited for another series of flashes. “Dot-dot-dash, dash-dash-dot, dash-dot-dot.…” This went on for a few more seconds then stopped. A few seconds later the gondola passed through a thick cloud, and Jake saw a series of light pulses reflected against the cloud, coming from below and forward of their cabin. He rattled off the dots and dashes for Cole before they stopped abruptly. Once they were clear of the cloud, Jake focused on the same position in the distance and waited. It wasn’t long before the flashing started again, exactly in the spot Jake was looking. “Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dot-dash-dot-dash.…” He continued on for a few more seconds and then the flashing stopped.

He waited a few more minutes, his left eye straining against the darkness to see if there was any more flashing, but after a while he realized that whatever communication had been going on was over.

“Is that it?” Cole asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jake said, pulling his ocular off and rubbing his left eye.

“So … ummm … Jake.”

“Yeah?”

“You wanna tell me why the hell I just wrote Morse code all over a brand new twenty-dollar bill?”

Jake turned to Cole, his permanently dilated left eye seeing Cole perfectly in the darkness. “There’s a zeppelin out there, and someone on that zeppelin is talking to someone on this one … down in the cargo hold.” Jake slipped his ocular back over his head and strapped on his Colts. “C’mon.” He grinned like a fox finding the coop unlocked. “Let’s go check it out.”

Cole gave Jake a dirty look, stared at his bunk, and sighed, shaking his head. “You like getting into trouble way too much.”

Jake grinned in the darkness.

Chapter Eleven – Just One Lump, Please

“People thought Jake was fearless, but he wasn’t. He got scared like any man. He just figured he was already dead, so he didn’t pay it no nevermind.”

~ Cole McJunkins

“You know the doors to the cargo hold are gonna be locked, right?” Cole asked as they walked quietly down the narrow spiral staircase in the forward section of the Jezebel’s gondola.

“And you know about my pinky finger,” Jake chided, referring to the lock-pick that Tinker Farris had thoughtfully included with the clockwork arm.

“What if there are guards?” Cole sounded despondent.

“Look, I got the doors figured … I’ll cross any other bridges when I come to them.”

“You better.” Cole’s tone was sour.

“You get so grumpy when someone gets you out of bed in the middle of the night.” Jake smiled and patted Cole on the shoulder as they made it to the bottom step.

“You’re damn right I’m grumpy.” Cole pushed his hat back on his head and gave Jake an evil eye. “Them red flashes ain’t got nuthin’ to do with us.”

“You don’t know they don’t.”

“You don’t know they do,” Cole retorted.

“You know what the problem is?” Jake asked. “The problem is trouble follows you around like a dog behind a meat wagon, and you don’t like it.” Jake managed to keep from laughing, but it tested his control to the limits.

Cole turned his head slowly, stunned by disbelief. His eyes said more than his mouth ever could in the presence of bullshit stacked that high.

Jake tried to meet Cole’s look while keeping a straight face, and he even lasted for a few seconds, but he finally chuckled, unable to maintain the hypocrisy. “Okay, okay … so it follows me around like stink on shit.”

“That’s better,” Cole agreed, nodding his head.

The staircase opened up onto a small room with three doors leading to the sides and towards the back of the gondola. Jake stepped up to the forward door, bent down, and tried the knob. Finding it locked, he twisted a latch on the tip of his left pinky finger, and a small lock pick popped out. He worked the lock for about thirty seconds and finally got the knob to turn. With another twist of his pinky, the pick disappeared into the appendage. Still bent over, he opened the door slowly, peeking around the doorknob into the room beyond.

“Do you see anything?” Cole whispered.

“Yep,” Jake said in a normal tone of voice.

“What do you see?” Cole’s whisper was barely audible.

Jake sounded like he was talking about the weather. “A couple of those stewards … big ones … with pistols. And they’re looking right at me.” He stood up straight and opened the door. “Howdy fellas,” he said, sounding like they were old friends, and stepped into the room.

Cole followed him in and watched both stewards’ hands slide up easily to rest on the butts of their holstered pistols. The room was ten by twenty, and behind the stewards stood a big pair of oak doors with a heavy padlock securing them.

“Can we help you fellers out?” the bigger one asked suspiciously. He narrowed his eyes and stepped up to Jake as the other steward moved off to the side to keep a bead on Cole. Jake realized these guys were not run-of-the-mill stewards … they knew their job. He could get the drop on them if he needed to, but there was no reason in the world for things to go that route. He was there to help.

Cole looked at Jake expectantly, knowing full well that they’d just stepped onto the bridge Jake hadn’t given a thought to. He couldn’t wait to see how Jake handled the complication.

“Well,” Jake began, calm as you please, “I was looking out my window and thought I saw some flashing lights coming from out of the cargo hold. We both have our mounts in there and were worried.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” the second man asked, his eyes flickering to Jake briefly.

“Well, I did.… Just now. I told you.” Jake tried to sound as innocent as a child, but Cole had to admit it was pretty thin.

“A light?” the smaller one asked, and it sounded like he hailed from England or thereabouts.

“How’d you see a light coming from above,” the larger one asked.

“Saw the flashing reflected in a cloud we passed through,” Jake offered casually.

“We ain’t heard nuthin’,” the big one said.

“Well, maybe they’re being real quiet,” Cole offered.

“Maybe.” The big one flicked his eyes to Cole and back to Jake.

“How long you boys been here?” Jake asked.

“None of your business,” the big one said tersely.

“Fair enough,” Jake admitted. He got a thoughtful look on his face. “But if you’ve been here a while, then they’ve been in there a while, too …” Jake scratched up under his hat, “which don’t make no sense.”

Cole stepped forward and raised his hands, an imploring look on his face. “Look, fellas, there was something going on in the cargo hold. We ain’t makin’ this up. Don’t ya think you oughta at least check it out?”

The little guy looked to the big one expectantly.

The big one nodded. “Stay here and cover ’em,” he ordered. “That all right with you two?” he asked, turning to Jake and Cole.

“Just fine with us, as long as someone goes lookin’,” Jake offered.

The small one pulled his pistol out to cover Jake and Cole while the big one turned, pulled a large key ring from the back of his belt, and unlocked the door. He slowly pushed it open and stepped into darkness. A moment later they heard a click, and light filled the cargo bay. The smell of a barn wafted out to them, but there was the smell of very fresh air blowing through as well, and it was cold, as if something was open to the sky outside.

“You smell that?” Jake asked the steward pointing the gun.

“Smells like cows and horses and shite,” the small man muttered, his accent heavily laden with the green hills of Ireland.

“There’s some fresh air in there, too, like someone left the barn door open. Kinda reckless at five thousand feet, don’t ya think?” Jake put more sour than sweet in his voice.

“Yeah, I suppose.” The steward got an uncomfortable look on his face, and his eyes drifted to the door behind him.

“What’s your name?” Jake asked, trying to be friendly and ease the white knuckles the man had wrapped around a French-made revolver.

“Matthew. Matthew O’Malley. Outta Dublin.”

“Listen, Matthew.…” Jake got a thoughtful look on his face. “Hey, wait a minute. Do you know a Mickey O’Malley in Denver?”

“Aye! That’s one of me boys. Cora’s youngest.”

“So you’re based out of Denver?” Cole asked.

“No. I’m from Boston. Cora lives in Denver.”

Jake pushed his hat up towards the back of his head. “You live in Boston, but your wife lives in Denver?”

“One of them does,” O’Malley said easily.

“One of what?” Jake looked perplexed.

“One of me wives, o’ course.” O’Malley had a devilish grin on his face.

“How many wives do you have?” Cole managed around a gaping mouth.

“At last count, I had six wives, thirteen sons, and fourteen daughters, each one of them another part of me master plan.”

Jake and Cole looked at each other, their eyes filled with disbelief.

“And what master plan is that?” Jake asked.

“To someday have an Irishman rule the world. I’m putting the odds in me family’s favor.”

Jake thought about it and couldn’t find any flaws with the logic. Make enough O’Malleys and you could take over the world.

The faint sound of breaking glass, like someone dropping a Christmas tree ornament, floated out of the cargo hold, and then silence.

“Bear, you all right back there?” O’Malley said over his shoulder. “Talk to me, brother.”

The continued silence made everyone shift nervously.

“Listen, O’Malley, I think you’re getting the sense that something may not be all cream and peaches back there, and I’d have to agree with you if you said so. My partner here and me, this ain’t our first rodeo, and we’re on your side. Honest. We’d be happy to go in there and check things out or back your play if you wanna go first … however you wanna do it.”

Matthew’s eyes shifted slowly between Jake and Cole, narrowing as he sized them up. Jake could read the conflict and watched it settle slowly into uneasy trust. Jake knew what the steward was going to say before he drew a breath to speak.

“I’m gonna trust you, Mister. You go on ahead and I’ll be right behind ya. Any funny business and I won’t have any choice but to shoot you in the back. Understand?”

“Fair enough,” Jake agreed. “Just remember to point that thing someplace else if anybody starts shooting at us. Deal?”

O’Malley nodded and motioned with the revolver for Jake and Cole to move inside. “You can go ahead and pull them pistols if you like. I ain’t one to send a man into the lion’s den unarmed.”

“Much obliged,” Jake said and, stepping past Matthew, pulled the Officer’s Colt out in his right hand.

Stacks of crates, trunks, and suitcases towered to the left and right, fifteen feet high and secured with cargo netting. It made a tight corridor twenty feet long and wide enough for a skinny bridesmaid and her father if they were walking up the aisle in a chapel. Jake could see an open area beyond and the livestock stalls another forty feet past that. Now that he was in the hold, he could hear the open air rushing through wide-open doors. The steady hum of propellers filled the air. Jake paused and listened for a few seconds, but all he heard was the wind. He looked up to his left and right, noting the gap between the tops of the luggage and the ceiling was too narrow for a man to do much more than lay down in.

Jake pressed his back to the left side of the corridor and slid up towards the opening, straining his senses to pick up anything. The air in the hold grew even colder as he moved. He heard the steward shuffling behind Cole, but Indian-fighter that he was, Cole remained as quiet as a panther. As Jake neared the end of the aisle, he could see that one of the cargo hold doors had been slid aside, with nothing beyond but open sky and the occasional outline of a cloud.

Clamped to the floor in the open doorway, Jake spotted two curved, metal brackets set about thirty inches apart. Several coils of stout rope were anchored to steel braces that held in the luggage. He scanned forward toward where the animal stalls were and didn’t see anyone, so he crept up to the edge of the luggage and darted a glance around the corner, the Colt tracking wherever he looked. Along the far-left side of the hold stood a high stack of larger crates that looked like produce, clothing and other goods, and he could see a tall gap near the far side close to where the livestock was kept.

Bear stood about five feet to his left, up against the luggage, immobile as a statue. His back was turned to Jake, and his hand appeared to be frozen halfway towards the pistol at his hip. Jake looked close, and it looked like he was still breathing.

“Bear!” Jake whispered, but the man didn’t move a muscle. Jake slid back half a pace and glanced over his shoulder. “Cole, Matthew, I want y’all to stay here and stay low. Bear is just around the corner … standin’ there. He looks like he’s breathing, but he ain’t moving otherwise.”

“You got it, Jake,” Cole said and pulled the hammer back on his pistol.

“Matthew, how deep does the cargo go off to the left there?”

“About another forty feet … we’re standing near the port side of the ship.”

“Was that stuff packed tight, or is there room to walk around back there?”

“Damned if I know. Could go either way, knowing those cargo-handlers.”

“Great,” Jake grumbled. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Here we go.” Jake slid forward, keeping his back against the luggage and his eyes scanning every nook and cranny in the hold that could possibly hold a threat. As he passed behind Bear, he put his foot down and heard the distinct crunch of breaking glass. His gaze darted down, and he spotted shards of broken glass around Bear’s feet. It looked like a small glass cylinder had been dropped there. There were also a few traces of a grayish liquid on the floorboards. Jake took another look at Bear, and realization struck. “Cole,” he whispered over his right shoulder.

Cole peeked around the corner and stared at Jake.

Jake deliberately sucked in a long, drawn-out breath and made it obvious he was holding it, and then nodded. Cole got the message and did the same thing. About the time Cole’s cheeks puffed out, a glass vial about three inches long shattered between Jake’s feet. A second one shattered directly in front of Cole as Jake spotted a shadow moving up behind some crates.

He heard the wood creaking to his left before he saw anything, but it was enough to get him to turn his head. His gun naturally tracked towards the movement when Cole shouted, “Jake, lookout!”

Jake saw a stack of three-by-three foot crates in the corner coming down right on top of him. His left arm came up in a flash as he braced with his legs. The stack came down fast and hard, and Jake’s raised arm slammed into one of the crates. His metal forearm cracked two of the boards on impact, exposing dense rolls of canvas inside. The rest of the stack fell around his feet, bouncing up against his legs with dull thuds. As the crate teetered on his arm and fell towards the floor, he heaved hard, pushing it back in the direction it had come from.

The soldier who pushed the crates over raised a stubby-looking rifle strapped over his shoulder. The weapon’s barrel was a thick cylinder about the diameter of a beer bottle, and the hole in the end looked to be on par with Jake’s .45. Behind the barrel was a cross-mounted ammo cylinder. The soldier aimed it at Jake when he realized one of the crates was coming back towards him. Jake had just enough time to notice that the soldier was one of the crop-haired goose-steppers that followed the foreigner out of the salon.

He had to grin at the surprised look on the soldier’s face when the eighty-pound crate crashed back into his mid-section, pinning him to another stack of crates behind him and sending the strange gun clattering down to the floor.

Jake stopped grinning when the other goose-stepper from the salon came around a corner with one of the strange guns swinging toward him. The second soldier pulled the trigger before it had centered on Jake. The thing screamed with the sound of an electric motor and barked a staccato chain of gunshots, flame burped out of the end and heavy rounds chewed great chunks of wood and leather from the wall of luggage in front of Jake. The holes drew a dotted line toward him.

Jake dove away from the opening between the crates and out of the line of fire. His legs pushed off hard and fast, carrying him eight feet in a tumble that had him rolling, up, and running in an instant. A chorus of panicked animal sounds erupted from the livestock area as the strange machine gun roared behind Jake and then cut off. Another opening in the crates loomed to his left, and Jake, assuming there would be someone back there, blindly fanned the hammer of his Colt, spraying one round after another into the gap as he raced by. He leapt again, aiming for the hallway that ran down between the animal stalls, desperately trying to make it there before anyone behind him could put a bullet in his back.

He heard the distinct report of Cole’s pistol sound off twice, followed closely by the harsh electric whine and chatter of the strange repeater. As Jake made it into the wide corridor between the stalls, a second whine-chatter of a repeater sounded off from behind and to his left. The rounds sent chunks and splinters of wood spraying in the area where Jake had just been. The animals raised another cacophony of neighs, bleats, bellows, and other mixed barnyard sounds. One of them pricked up Jake’s ear.

His Officer’s Colt now empty, Jake yanked his Peacekeeper and fired behind him. Several animals spoke up again, and he heard the one he wanted. Jake saw Cole moving backwards toward the entrance to the cargo hold as he tumbled to his left and came up in front of a stall door somewhat wider than the others.

“Cole! Get help!” Jake shouted as he lifted a heavy steel bar that secured the stall before him. He yanked on the handle, slid inside, and slammed the thick, oaken door as loudly as he could. A massive animal shuffled in the hay, and Jake turned slowly, stepping to the side as carefully as possible.

“Hi, Lumpy. Did ya’ miss me?” Jake moved up along Lumpy’s massive body and patted him on the top of his head. Lumpy twisted his head, forcing Jake to duck under the horns as the bull sniffed, recognizing Jake’s scent immediately. “I need you do to me a favor, boy,” Jake whispered, “and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”

The foreigner called from outside the stall in his strange accent. “Do you feel safer in there, Mister Lasater?” The man sounded perfectly confident. Jake heard a steady set of boots slowly approaching the door.

“Well, now that you mention it, I do feel a little safer,” Jake replied easily. “It’s actually pretty cozy in here.”

“You don’t think that door will stop my chaingun, do you Mister Lasater? These rounds are quite special. They can even pass through metal. I wonder if your pistols would be as effective.”

“I was sorta hoping the door might be enough,” Jake admitted slowly. “Any chance you might come on in here? I’ll introduce you to my Peacekeeper. I may even have a bullet in here with your name on it. I never did catch your name, by the way.”

“What does it matter?” The boots came closer, and Jake moved his way slowly along Lumpy’s body.

“I like to know who I’m killing before I do it. I’m funny that way,” Jake remarked. “Call it etiquette.”

“I have heard you are a man of honor, and I can certainly appreciate the sentiment.” The man laughed. “Why else do you think I was at that poker game?” Jake’s ears perked up at that one. “However, I doubt you’ll be doing any killing today.” There was a thoughtful pause, and then the foreigner continued. “Very well. I have a little more time, and you’ve appealed to my sense of honor. You have the pleasure of meeting Colonel Radu Szilágyi.” Jake heard a metallic click, like the receiver of a shotgun being opened. Then he heard another, like the clip of a Gatling gun clicking into place. “It’s quite ironic, Mister Lasater, but I was not planning on killing you for several more days. You’ve altered time, and you do not even know it.”

“Altered time?” Jake took off his hat and scratched his head, a confused look on his face. “What the hell are you talking about? Do I know you? I don’t recall shooting anybody with an accent like yours, so it seems you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage.” The boots stepped quietly in front of the door, and Jake could see the man’s shadow along the crack at the bottom.

“Allow me to introduce you to my little friend.”

“Actually,” Jake said, raising his hat high, “I thought I might introduce you to one of my big friends. Say hello to the man, Lumpy!” Jake slapped his hat down on Lumpy’s rump as hard as he could.

The electric whine of the chaingun started up, but the only thing louder than Lumpy’s yowl of terror was the sound his back hooves made when they hammered into the door. The door slammed open and crashed into the Colonel, silencing the chaingun and sending him flying like he’d been shot out of a cannon. The door swung all the way against the next door stall and then came back, hitting the doorframe and swinging out slightly.

“Colonel!” shouted a man’s voice from the open area of the cargo hold. He had the same accent as Szilágyi. “Ralin! Ajuta-l ducem la scara! Te voi acoperi!” Heavy boots stomped quickly across the cargo hold floor.

“Sunt bine,” Jake heard the groggy Colonel say tersely. “Să plecăm de aici. Am realizat ceea ce am venit sa facem!”

A burst of chaingun fire chewed into the stable door at a shallow angle, and the force pushed it closed. Lumpy groaned and shifted around in the stall, shoving Jake against the wall.

“Easy, boy,” Jake cooed, hoping Lumpy wouldn’t start bucking. If Lumpy went loco in the stall, they’d have to mop Jake up and pour what was left of him into a bucket.

Another burst hammered into the door, sending splinters inward. The angle was still too shallow to let any bullets get near Jake. Lumpy shifted again and Jake stepped around the bull’s rear end and put his back to the wall closest to the foreigners. Kicking the door open, he stuck the barrel of his Peacekeeper through one of the holes. He fired off three rounds in a wide fan, then pulled his arm back as the electric whine fired and another hailstorm riddled the door. Jake reloaded his pistols as quickly as he could. Seconds ticked away as he wondered what the foreigners were doing.

“Jake, you okay?” Cole’s voice rang out from the far side of the cargo hold. Jake hoped Cole had come back with help—lots of it. “That’s two I owe you,” he soothed as he patted Lumpy’s side. He slipped the last cartridge into his Peacekeeper, kicked the door open and dove out of the stall, crossing the eight feet, tumbling, and coming up against the far wall with both pistols pointing into the main area of the cargo hold. A Winchester barked once, and Jake heard the round hit the wall far down along the livestock area.

“Hold it!” Cole barked from the doorway they’d first come in through. “That’s Jake!”

Jake nodded to Cole who had six men behind him, including the big steward from the salon. They were all armed. Jake rushed forward to the edge of the livestock hallway and peeked toward the open cargo hold doorway. The clamps attached there released and disappeared from view. Jake knocked off his hat, closed his left eye and dialed the lens of his ocular, letting in the light.

He charged across the cargo hold as Cole and the rest of the men rushed past the luggage. Tossing his Peacekeeper to Cole and freeing up his left arm, he dropped down onto his hip and slid across the floor toward one of the ropes coiled by the luggage. His boots slammed into the luggage. He gripped the end of the rope tightly with his left hand and pushed off the luggage as hard as he could, angling his body straight out the cargo bay door.

“Jake!” Cole screamed as his partner disappeared over the edge and into the freezing midnight darkness of open air.

Chapter Twelve – Hard Questions

“When it’s my time, the good Lord, or whatever is up there, is welcome to take me.”

~ Jake Lasater

Wind whistled past Jake’s ears as he fell. He could just make out the pitch black shape of a smaller zeppelin forty feet below, and drifting away. He closed his right eye and opened his left. The night opened up to him and he spotted a man sticking out the top of the zeppelin, reeling in a long, metal ladder.

The man looked down through the hatch, as if someone called him, and then he looked up and saw Jake. As he let go of the ladder, someone shoved him aside from below. Jake saw the barrel of a chaingun point out from the hatch. Jake’s Colt and the chaingun went off at the same time. The flashes from both weapons filled the night, casting the surface of the zeppelin in flickering orange light.

A hailstorm of bullets lanced towards Jake, but he kept firing. His third shot found its way home in the chest of the man who had been coiling the ladder, and he dropped down on top of the one with the chaingun. Both disappeared into its dark interior.

Jake let loose one last round into the hatch and then prepared for the inevitable jerk, hoping only that the rope and the hand Tinker Farris had fashioned would hold tight enough to keep him from plummeting to his death. He tightened his grip on the Colt and clenched his teeth.

The rope tightened, snapped taut, and swung his body around with a tearing pain that shot through his shoulder and back. If he’d been falling straight down, Jake was certain he never could have held on, either that or his arm would have been torn out of its socket. His arc out of the hold carried him out far enough to lessen the force of his fall, and he swung back under the looming shadow-on-shadow of the Jezebel above. The frozen air bit at his face, and he prayed the men above would be able to hoist him back in quickly. As the arc carried him back, he saw Cole leaning over the edge, along with several other men, their eyes popping out at the sight of Jake still dangling below them.

Cole stared at Jake and shook his head, his face full of disbelief and awe. The faces of the men behind him were equally stunned, and they all kept staring as Jake swung beneath the gondola.

“Help me back up, god damn it!” Jake shouted at the top of his lungs. He turned his head to see the black zeppelin turning sharply and accelerating away into the darkness. Even with his eye, he found it difficult to see it against the backdrop of the night sky.

All of the men in the cargo hold moved as one, disappearing for a few beats of Jake’s pounding heart. And then a few more beats.… And a few more.… “What the hell are y’all doing up there? Having a conference?” he shouted.

Suddenly Jake lifted up a few feet and dropped back down. Then back up a few more feet, holding there for a few seconds and back down again. He tried to imagine what they could possibly be doing and then remembered that he weighed over three hundred pounds. Jake was suddenly terrified that they wouldn’t be able to lift him back up.

He rose ten feet and then stopped once again. “Will you quit screwing around?” he screamed into the night.

Cole stuck his head out of the cargo hold once again and looked at Jake, grinning like an idiot. He raised his right hand, gave the OK sign, and then disappeared. The rope slid from the left hand side of the cargo hold to the right and Jake rose almost as fast as he had fallen. The hold door loomed, and Cole peeked out once again, checking on Jake’s progress. When Jake was a few feet from the lip of the hold, Cole turned his head back over his shoulder.

“Okay, hold it right there!” he hollered.

Jake’s progress slowed and then stopped. His left hand, gripped like a vice around the rope, was right at the edge. Jake heaved with his left arm, pulling himself up and over the lip enough for Cole and the big steward to grab his right arm and yank him onto the safety of the cargo hold floor.

Jake lay on the floor, panting and cold. He turned his head and looked where the rope led. It tracked down into the stable area and beyond into the next cargo bay. He could see a loop of it tied around Lumpy’s horns.

“Cole,” Jake managed to get out between breaths.

“Yeah, Jake?”

“I think I love Lumpy.”

Cole thought about it for a minute. “I can see how you might. Check your leg, Jake … and your boot.”

“What?” Jake asked and looked down at his legs. A rip in his right pant-leg exposed the intricately pattered brass metal of his thigh, sigils and characters gleaming across the surface. A gouge about three inches long interrupted the complex patterns. There was also a hole in the top of his boot, and he could see the glint of metal inside. “Aw, damn it! These were brand new boots!”

“You okay, Jake?” Cole asked, wondering if his partner was insane.

“Yeah,” Jake almost whined. He slapped his leg once and rubbed the toe of his right boot over the hole in his left. “The metal will repair itself after a while,” he said to Cole and then started fretting over his boots again. “Man, would you look at that?”

The big steward stepped into Jake’s field of vision and stared down at him, looking upside down to Jake, holding the same Winchester he had in the salon.

“I hate to break this up, but you boys wanna’ tell me just what in tarnation happened in here and why one of my men is dead?” Anger filled his voice, but it didn’t sound like it was aimed at Jake … not yet at least.

Jake turned the lens on his ocular, shutting out the light to his left eye, and got to his feet. He faced the big steward, with a pained look on his face. “Bear?” he asked sympathetically, feeling ashamed about whining over the hole in his boot.

The steward nodded slowly. Jake looked over in the corner and saw that the first chaingun burst that had been aimed at him caught Bear in the chest. Bear went down exactly where he had been standing, and it looked like he’d simply fallen backwards, stiff as a board. He still held his arm out to his side, halfway to his pistol.

Jake noted that while the big steward’s Winchester wasn’t pointed at him, it wasn’t necessarily pointed away from him either. Jake certainly couldn’t blame the man for being cautious, considering what had just happened. Jake heard another one of the stewards closing the cargo bay door and turned to see the man securing it with a large, heavy-gauge latch.

Cole handed Jake his Peacekeeper, and Jake slipped it home.

“My name’s Jake Lasater, this here’s Cole McJunkins, and frankly, we ain’t got no idea what’s going on.” Jake held out his hand.

The big steward took it in an iron grip, his massive paw of a hand making Jake’s disappear. “Tyler Jones,” the big man replied, the edge still in his voice.

“New Mexico, right?” Cole spoke up, recognizing the mild accent. Tyler nodded, turning his big bright eyes to Cole. “Santa Fe?” Cole asked.

Tyler shook his head. “White Rock,” he said, the anger in his voice smoothing out just a bit, “but that’s a stone’s throw from Santa Fe.”

“Roswell,” Cole said and held out his hand. Tyler got a curious look on his face and then smiled, his shoulders easing noticeably.

“So what the hell happened in here?” Tyler asked. “Who were those guys?”

Jake started his story with seeing the flashes outside the zeppelin and wanting to check it out. He mentioned Szilágyi but deliberately left out what the Colonel had said about killing him later. He finished with getting pulled back on board.

Tyler spoke up. “And you don’t have any idea who those foreigners were or where they were from?”

“Not a clue, and that Colonel, he sure as hell knew me. The first time I ever saw him was tonight at the poker game.”

“The poker game?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah. He left shortly before the ruckus with that cowboy.”

The Steward’s eyes narrowed. “O’Malley!” He shouted as he turned and faced the small Irishman.

“Yeah?” he replied, stepping up with a lightweight salute.

“Did you see any of these men?”

“I got a brief look at one of them, the one that pushed them crates on top of Mister Lasater, here. But we high-tailed it out to get help when he told us to.”

“I want you to go talk to Bobby and Mister Grimes, the ticket taker. See if they remember seeing these.…” he paused and turned to Jake. “How many did you see?”

“There were three of them at the poker game. I can’t say for sure if there was more of them in here. Oh, and that foreigner with the sash and the saber, Colonel Szilágyi, I suspect he doesn’t take that thing off. Make sure you mention it.”

Tyler turned back to O’Malley. “See if they remember seeing these three guys, and find out where they got on.

“But what if Bobby and Grimes are asleep?” O’Malley asked.

Tyler shot O’Malley an Are you dumb? look. “You think anyone is asleep on this crate after all the shooting that just happened in here? Now get going!”

“Yessir,” O’Malley replied and turned.

“Wait a minute,” Tyler blurted at O’Malley’s back. O’Malley stopped and turned around. “How the hell did they get by you?”

“Sir?” O’Malley cocked his head to one side, not understanding the question.

“Well, think about it. You and Bear were on duty from eight o’clock till now. Them foreigners were at the poker game at just shy of midnight and sending these signals sometime after. They had to have gotten past you.” It was a bewildered accusation.

O’Malley got a confused look on his face. “I don’t know. I see what you’re saying, but we were at our post until Mister Lasater and his friend showed up. I don’t see how they could have.”

“I think I can answer that,” Jake said confidently.

Every head in the cargo hold turned as Jake strode over to Bear’s body. He reached down and picked up the bottom portion of a shattered glass vial. There was still a droplet of gray liquid in the bottom. Holding at arm’s length, he walked back to Tyler, who took it from him carefully.

“What the hell’s this?” Tyler asked and moved what was left of the vial up to his nose.

“No! Wait!” Jake shouted just as Tyler sniffed at the vial.

Tyler’s eyes blinked several times, and then his eyes rolled back into his head. He stood there motionless, breathing slowly.

“Aw, shit,” Jake mumbled.

“What happened,” asked one of the stewards.

Jake reached into his vest pocket and pulled out his father’s pocket watch. He opened it and noted the time. He handed the vial to Cole who held it at arm’s length.

“Don’t worry, if I’m right about this, he’s just fine, but it’ll be a bit.” Jake stepped away from Tyler and walked over to where his hat had landed. He picked it up and placed it back on his head. Lumpy had turned around and bumped Jake’s arm. Jake looked the big bull in the eyes and patted his head fondly. “That’s two I owe you, Lumpy.” Jake pulled the rope off Lumpy’s horns and dropped it on the floor. “Get back in your stall, boy.” Lumpy looked at him, blinking his big brown eyes. “Go on, now, get in there.” Lumpy snorted once, bumped Jake again and clomped into the stall. Jake closed the door behind him and walked back to where Tyler still stood, frozen in the same position. He looked at his watch again and then stood there waiting.

More time passed and then Tyler blinked his eyes a few times. “Hey! Where’d it go?” he asked, looking at his empty hand and then at the floor.

“Two minutes thirty-five seconds,” Jake said.

There were mutters and a few “god damns” from the men standing around Tyler.

“What?” Tyler asked bewildered.

“That’s how long you were out. Two and a half minutes.” Jake pointed to the vial in Cole’s hand and then tipped his hat. “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

“Any of what, and where’d your hat come from?”

A few men chuckled, but Jake had a sober look on his face.

“This stuff, whatever it is, is one hell of a cocktail. I ain’t never heard of anything like it. Paralyzes and knocks out all in one fell swoop. Somehow them foreigners hit Bear and O’Malley with this stuff while they were on guard.”

“But we would have seen them open the door, just like when we spotted Mr. Lasater,” O’Malley protested.

“Maybe they sprayed it under the door or something,” Cole offered.

“Probably,” Jake concurred. “One of them had a satchel when he left the bar. Lord knows what was inside. These guys are well-equipped, whoever they are.”

“You ain’t kidding,” Tyler agreed. “Those guns they had—”

“Szilágyi called ’em chainguns.…” Jake injected.

“Those chainguns are the devil’s own peashooter. You’re lucky to be alive, Jake.”

“I sure would like to know who the hell they were,” Jake said.

“You and me both,” Tyler added. “O’Malley, you go on and talk to Bobby and Grimes. Find out what they know. And tell the engineer to check the envelopes for holes. That last burst from the guy on the zeppelin may have hit something important.”

“On my way,” O’Malley replied as he turned and walked out.

Tyler turned to his men. “I gotta report all this to the captain. Kelsey, Biggs, heft Bear on outta here and put him in the freezer.” O’Malley headed out of the cargo hold while two of the larger men stepped over to Bear’s body. “We gotta take him back home, and I’ll have to let his wife and kids know what happened, damn it.”

“Jake, Cole, why don’t you boys head back to your cabin. I reckon you’re fair tuckered out after tonight. It’s possible the captain will want to talk to you before we land in Carson City, but maybe not. I’ll give him the whole story.”

“Thanks, Tyler,” Cole replied.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jake added. “I’m bushed … and I think my heart has finally slowed down.”

“If either of you thinks of anything that might be helpful, let me know, would ya?” Jones asked.

“Actually,” Jake spoke up, “there is one more thing.”

“The code!” Cole said, reaching into his pocket.

“I managed to get some of what they were saying to each other, but I don’t know what it says,” Jake added.

“How do you mean?” Tyler asked. Cole held out the bill and showed it to Tyler. “Looks like Morse.”

“Well, if it is,” Jake said, “the letters don’t make any sense. I’ll see if I can put it all together and get it for you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Tyler said, tipping the brim of his hat. “Goodnight, boys. We’ll clean up in here.”

Jake and Cole walked towards the door.

“And Jake—” Tyler started.

“Yeah?” Jake said turning.

“The only reason I’m trusting that you aren’t a part of all this is that stunt you pulled diving out the door like you did. You’re one crazy son-of-a-bitch, you know that.”

Jake smiled and shrugged.

“You don’t know the half of it, Tyler,” Cole added.

Jake tipped his hat. He and Cole walked out silently and made their way up the stairs. When they opened the door, they passed between two stewards guarding the entrance to the cargo hold. They stepped into a narrow hallway lined with crew quarter doors and some access panels. They walked through the door to the aft passenger area where most of the people were awake in the open seating area. A few milled about here and there, chattering quietly about what might have happened below.

At the far end of the passageway, Jake spotted Ghiss talking to the tall woman in the maroon dress and veil. Ghiss was rolling down his left sleeve, the gleaming brass of his skeletal forearm exposed. The woman nodded her head and then turned the veil towards Jake. She said something to Ghiss and walked quickly through the far door into the dining room.

Ghiss turned and walked toward Jake and Cole as casually as is possible for a half-machine mercenary.

“Well bless my stars. Mister Lasater, what brings you out at this ungodly hour?” Ghiss’ voice was molasses-sweet as he stepped up to Jake and held out his hand. “Don’t tell me you were involved with that frightful exchange of gunplay downstairs.”

“Ghiss,” Jake said quietly, nodding as he threw on his best I-don’t-have-a-thing-in-my-hand poker smile. “We heard the gunfire same as you.”

“Of course you did.” Ghiss turned to Cole and held out his hand. “I’m sorry, sir. Please forgive me my manners. I neglected to properly introduce myself at the poker game before that cretin got so carried away.” Jake saw Cole hesitate for just a moment and then shake firmly. For a moment Jake worried that Ghiss might overdo the grip, but only for a moment. Ghiss was a mercenary and a coldblooded killer if the job called for it, but he was still a southern gentleman, and Jake had never heard of the man being deliberately rude.

“Cole McJunkins, Colonel … err … Mister Ghiss.” There was an edge in Cole’s voice, but he was covering his loathing for Ghiss fairly well.

“You comported yourself quite well back in the salon, sir. I wanted you to know I respect your restraint. I suspect you may be as much a gentleman as Mister Lasater here.”

Cole got a slightly confused look on his face, not prepared for what seemed to be a sincere compliment. “Well, thank you, Mister Ghiss.”

“So who was your friend?” Jake interrupted.

“I beg your pardon?” Ghiss replied.

“The lady in the maroon dress.”

“Ahh, yes. Actually, I just met the … woman. Charming creature. Quite bright, in fact, with a distinctly youthful exuberance. She expressed an interest in my prosthetics and I was more than happy to oblige her. A most clever young woman.”

“So who is she?” Jake asked. “I’d swear I know her from someplace.”

Ghiss chuckled, and the metallic coldness of it sent a shiver up Cole’s spine. “In our lines of work we meet so many people, Mister Lasater. One never knows when familiar faces might make an appearance. Why just look at me showing up here and us having our own little reunion.”

“I agree, but that doesn’t really answer my question, does it?”

“I believe I’ve answered it as much as I care to, Mister Lasater,” Ghiss soothed, and the smile was back in his voice. “After all, what’s another familiar face, or veil in this case, after such a long line of faces?” Jake could tell Ghiss was holding something back but didn’t know how to press him on it without being obvious. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, it seems that the entertainment is done for the evening. I believe I will retire. I am positively exhausted. You two should probably do the same after all the excitement you’ve had to endure. I’m sure you must be simply dead on your feet.” The laughter that came from Ghiss’ respirator made Cole shiver again. It definitely wasn’t friendly laughter, but he didn’t know what to make of it. He just hoped Ghiss was not being prophetic.

“Now that you mention it,” Jake said, “I do feel plenty tuckered out.”

“Goodnight, gentlemen,” Ghiss nodded, tipped his hat with a flourish and headed back towards the door to the dining room.

“Jake!” a voice called from behind them. Jake and Cole turned and spotted Tyler walking towards them. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“What’s up?” Cole said, happy to see a friendly face.

“I thought you should know that near as we can tell, none of them boys boarded the Jezebel in Denver or any other of our stops.”

“No shit?” Jake asked, but made it sound like a statement, because he already knew the answer.

“No shit,” Tyler concurred.

“Which pretty much can only mean one thing. That outer cargo door was locked from the inside when we left Denver, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t miss much,” Tyler said, raising an impressed eyebrow.

“So, someone on board opened the door from the inside,” Cole concluded.

“Sure looks that way,” Jake said, a concerned look on his face.

“Ghiss?” Cole asked.

“What the hell’s a Ghiss?” Tyler asked, confused.

“Well, he’s sort of both a ‘what’ and a ‘who’,” Jake said. “Mind you, there’s no proof, but he’s the right sort of man in the right place when sneaky shit is going on.”

“What’s he look like?”

“This boy’s hard to miss,” Cole spoke up, “and you already met him.”

“That fella all in black from the poker game,” Jake added.

“Aw shit,” Tyler said, knowing from even the brief encounter that Ghiss was a dangerous man.

“You don’t miss much,” Jake said, smiling. “He’d be a handful if he decided to cause a fuss, but like I said, there ain’t no proof. Leastways, not yet.”

“I’ll have some of my boys ask around, check with the passengers, see if they saw him doing anything suspicious. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Jake said, “and there may be one other person to look into.”

“Who’s that?” Tyler asked.

“Don’t know her name, but I know she got on board in Denver. Tall woman in a maroon dress … worn a veil both times I seen her. And she was in the salon just before the ruckus with the cowboy.”

“I’ll look into that, too,” Tyler said.

“She may have nothing to do with it, but we did see her talking to Ghiss when we came up from the cargo hold.” Cole added.

“Yep.” Jake scratched the back of his head again. “Damn, I wish I knew what the hell was going on?” he added and punctuated it with a yawn.

“You and me both,” Tyler agreed. “Get some sleep boys. I gotta go make my report to the captain.”

“Goodnight, Tyler,” Cole said.

“See ya in the morning,” he replied.

Tyler walked back through the door to the crew’s quarters while Cole and Jake headed back to their own cabin.

When the door closed behind them, Cole asked, “So, do you really think Ghiss is in on this whole thing.”

Jake closed his eyes and sighed, dreading the answer he knew he couldn’t avoid. He threw his hat on the peg over his bunk and looked at Cole with a touch of worry in his eyes.

“Cole, I’d bet my life on it, which means me and old Ghiss are probably gonna have our little showdown one of these days, sooner rather than later.”

Chapter Thirteen – Morse for Breakfast

“Some say, ‘Sleep when you’re dead.’ I say, sleep when you can. You never know when you’ll get another chance.”

~ Cole McJunkins

Jake put down Cole’s fountain pen and poured himself another cup of coffee. He had to admit, the fancy writing implement was pretty slick. Mid-afternoon sunlight filled the far half of the dining compartment, and both Jake and Cole were relaxing over a hearty meal. They’d slept most of the day, gotten up, and gone straight to the dining car for chow. Jake actually felt rested, because his dreams of the war and what followed managed to stay away for a change. He chalked it up to being exhausted after a night of mayhem.

The dining room was mostly empty, with only a few other passengers having afternoon tea. Every one of them stuck their pinky fingers out as they sipped. Jake and Cole, seeing as they’d just gotten up, grabbed heavy breakfasts off of the small, steam-powered trolley that chugged its way slowly around the dining car on a track suspended from the ceiling. From the kitchen it would enter through a small hole in the wall, travel along one side of the car, rise on angled tracks over the doorway, drop back down, and return again to the kitchen. The little train gave off small puffs of steam and a soft hiss-clack as it made its way around the dining room. It trailed a dozen large trays laden with various meals, drinks and, Jake’s favorite—full pots of coffee.

He grabbed a fresh pot off the trolley and stared down at what he’d written, a perplexed look on his face. He scooped up another spoonful of Spanish grits and eggs, topped off his coffee cup, and chewed thoughtfully. He read over the translation several times, trying to see something in it that made even the slightest bit of sense.

“So?” Cole asked hopefully, “What’s it say?”

“Damned if I know,” Jake shook his head and gave up on the notion of piecing it together. He pushed the paper around in front of Cole. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

“I doubt it, but lemme see.” He pulled the page over and set it next to his plate with what remained of his hash, bacon, and eggs. “Um, Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have my twenty back?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jake smiled as he reached into his vest and pulled out a fresh twenty-dollar bill. “Here, I’m gonna hang on to the one you gave me, if that’s okay.”

“Don’t make me no never mind,” Cole said and slipped the twenty into his vest. Taking another bite of bacon, he read over what Jake had written.

ZEPPLIN: A*i terminat misiunea?

RADU: Nimic nu este

ZEPPLIN: Suntem pe drum. Preg*ti*i-va pentru sosirea nostr*

“What do the stars mean?” Cole asked.

“It means that there wasn’t a letter in Morse that matched up, but everything else did.” Jake took a long sip of coffee then leaned back and rubbed his good eye.

“Sure as hell ain’t English.”

“Nope,” Jake said, looking out the window at the Nevada desert that stretched out beneath them.

“Not Spanish neither.”

“Nope.”

Cole scooped up some hash, sent it mouthward and chewed thoughtfully. “Well, that one fella, Szilágyi, he was definitely European, and this does look like some sort of language.”

“Yeah, but which? There’s a lot of countries in Europe,” Jake pointed out unnecessarily.

“I know. Hell, there’s no way we could figure this out … and we’re assuming that this is actually in a language as it stands. Maybe it’s code,” Cole muttered, exasperated.

“That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, I’ll go ahead and make a copy for Tyler, and maybe we’ll have a chance to ask someone in San Fran. Ain’t gonna waste my time in Carson City, there’s nothing much more than miners, bankers, and whores in that burg.”

“Never been there,” Cole said, taking a sip of apple juice.

“You wanna get off and look around during our layover?”

“Naw … I’ll take your word for it. I’ve seen my fair share of miners and whores, and I ain’t all that interested in bankers.”

Jake chuckled. “Me neither.”

“How’s your leg and foot, by the way?”

“Pretty much all healed up, if healed is the right word.” Jake shook his head. He’d never gotten used to the metal of his arm and legs reforming when they were damaged.

“That is the damnedest thing.”

“Yeah. Maggie Mae really did me up right. There’s just a divot left in my foot, and the thigh looks brand new. Almost makes me feel sorry for Ghiss.”

Cole gave Jake a disapproving frown.

“I said almost, didn’t I?” Jake added.

“Did you feel it when the bullets hit?”

“Usually I feel most of the stuff when it happens, just like if they were flesh and blood.” Jake ran a finger into the tear in his pants and the perfectly mended surface beneath. His finger picked out the engravings as he ran it over the otherwise smooth surface.

“But does it hurt?” Cole asked, genuinely curious.

Jake took a sip of coffee and thought about it for a second. “Naw. More of a tingle, almost a sting, like when a really big horsefly latches on to your skin, right before it starts digging. I do feel hot and cold, though, just not as much as I used to,” Jake added.

“How much hot and cold can you take?”

“Don’t know. Can’t say they could ever get too cold. Slogged through a blizzard without pants once, and my legs have been on fire before … that was a while back.”

Cole snorted and almost shot apple juice out of his nose. “On fire?”

“Yeah. This was back in ’69. Guy by the name of Balleau got out of hand in a bar one night … what did they call him?” Jake rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Oh yeah, Wobblin’ Willie Balleau.”

Cole nodded. “I heard of him … drunk gunfighter, mean as a snake, I hear.”

“He was. It started out as a regular bar fight … in Oklahoma somewhere … don’t rightly remember what town. Anyway, I ended up on top of the bar, don’t ask me why, then one of his buddies cracks me in the knees with a whisky bottle. The thing shatters and soaks my pants with whisky … pretty good stuff … not watered down. It didn’t hurt, but it pissed me off.”

“I bet,” Cole agreed, smiling.

“Yeah, well, this guy comes at me with the broken bottle. I managed to grab his wrist with my right. Then I hit him … with the left … really hard.”

“You hit him with the left?” Cole asked with disbelief. He’d seen Jake’s metal left hand punch through thick boards.

“Yeah. I’ll tell ya, that boy’s head spun around like a top. I’m pretty sure he was dead before he hit the floor.”

Cole chuckled and pushed the translation back to Jake so he could make a copy of it. “So what happened next?”

“Well, ol’ Wobblin’ Willie sees his friend go down in a heap, neck sorta bent the wrong way, and that’s when he pulled his pistol and fired. Lucky for me somebody bumped him as he drew, ’cause his aim was low. The bullet hit my leg and sparked enough to light the whisky on fire.”

“Holy shit!” Cole blurted.

“Yeah, I gotta admit, I pretty much panicked. Someone tackled Balleau, so I jumped off the bar, dove out the window, and leapt into a horse trough full of water … lucky for me.”

“And it didn’t hurt?”

“Nope … just tingled and itched all over … kinda like skin feels after a sunburn.”

“So what happened to Balleau?” Cole asked.

“Well, as I jumped out the window, Judge Mathers stormed into the bar … he was hell on wheels, that one. As I stood there soaking and making sure my block and tackle wasn’t scorched, someone clobbered ol’ Mathers with a chair. He come sailing out the front door and landed in the street, dazed and as wobbly as a new calf. Balleau follows him out and raises his gun. Mathers reached for his, but he was a mile too late.”

“But I thought Mathers was the one who killed Balleau,” Cole said, eyeing Jake suspiciously.

“Aw, hell no. Mathers woulda bought it right there. Balleau raised his gun, but my Peacekeeper got there first.” Jake patted the filigreed pistol on his left hip.

“Lemme get this straight,” Cole said, a trace of disbelief in his voice, “you killed Wobblin’ Willie Balleau.”

“Sure as I’m standing here,” Jake affirmed seriously. “Mathers didn’t have his gun up and aimed till after Balleau was already laid out.”

“Really? How’s that possible?” Cole asked. “I read it in the papers.”

“I’m tellin’ ya, Cole, this is how it happened. Everyone comes rushing out of the bar and sees Mathers on the ground with his gun up. They just assume he did the shooting. They raised him up on their shoulders, everybody shouting and cheering on account of Balleau being such a bastard and all, and before Mathers can really say anything, he looks at me, his eyes asking me what to do.”

“Well, what’d you do?”

“I shook my head at him and put my finger over my lips. I figured Balleau had enough friends that they’d come looking for me, and I didn’t want that kind of trouble unless there was money in it. Then I went back to my room and put on some pants. The others were burned pretty bad.”

“Unbelievable!” Cole said.

“If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’,” Jake added. He took a big mouthful of Spanish grits and turned to the paper in front of him. He had just started scribbling again when Cole spotted Tyler entering the dining room. The big man pulled a thick pair of brass goggles with dark glass inserts off his face and let them dangle around the thick trunk of his neck. He was dressed in cold-weather clothes made of dark brown leather with a tawny lamb’s wool lining. A sheen of perspiration shone on his head as he removed a leather grimwig he’d been wearing backwards.

“Everything okay, Tyler?” Cole asked.

“Seems that way. O’Malley and some other men inspected the cargo hold and didn’t find anything out of place. I just made an inspection of the outside of the gondola to make sure them foreigners didn’t do anything to the outside.”

“Good thinking,” Jake mumbled around his grits. “Did that chaingun do any damage to the envelopes?”

“Yeah, actually, it did. Ruptured some of the ballast lines and pierced a few of the smaller envelopes.”

“How bad is it?”

“Well, the engineers have it patched up good enough for now, but Captain Wordsworth is waving off our layover in Carson City and we’re pushing straight through to San Fran so we can get her shipshape. We’ll arrive early in the wee hours of the morning.”

“Won’t some of the passengers be upset?”

“No one was getting on or off. It was just a cargo run … textiles and such. We can drop that off on the way back in a few days. Them miners and whores can do without new dresses for a little while longer.” All three men chuckled. Tyler looked down at the paper in front of Jake. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked, looking expectantly at the note under Jake’s pen.

Jake transcribed two more words and then handed over the copy. “Sure is. Don’t make no sense, though.”

Tyler took the paper and read over the messages. “And you’re sure this is what it says?” He asked, scratching the back of his head.

“Well, I’m sure that’s what the Morse code letters are, but I can’t say for sure that it was originally done in Morse. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I’ll get this to the captain. I did talk to both Ghiss and the little lady.

“Ghiss said he was in his cabin the whole time, and there’s no one on board who says otherwise. The lady, her name’s Penelope Kremlin, didn’t talk too much, but she said the same thing … she was in her cabin all night. They both went out when the ruckus started.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Tyler nodded. “We’re not much better off than when we started, but I agree with you. That Ghiss feller gives me the creeps. If Ghiss ain’t involved, then I’m General Lee.”

Cole and Jake both laughed.

“Clearly you are not a fine southern gentleman like the good General,” Cole added in his best southern drawl.

“No, sir,” Tyler said, bowing, “I am not.”

“Did you learn anything at all about the woman?” Jake asked, desperate to learn anything he could about her.

“No, although I got the sense that she’s not quite a lady.”

“What do you mean? She a workin’ girl or something?” Cole asked.

“No, no, nothin’ like that.” Tyler thought about it for a few seconds, trying to put it into words. “Well, she seemed awfully young, I suppose, but real sure of herself.”

“Did she take off the veil?”

“Nope. But she’s in one of the biggest cabins on board, and she was still wearing that maroon dress,” Tyler added, sounding as if he thought it was important.

“What do you mean?” Cole said.

“I think I see …” Jake chimed in. “A fine lady with the money to get one of the nicer cabins would have come with a wardrobe. And it sounds like this little lady seems to have just one dress.”

“Exactly,” Tyler agreed.

“Jake, what is it with you and that lady?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said and drank some more coffee. “I can’t figure it. Ain’t never heard of a Penelope Kremlin, and you’d think I’d remember a name like that.”

“Why don’t you just go introduce yourself?” Cole asked. He nudged Tyler’s shoulder. “Jake claims to be a real lady’s man,” he added.

“Is that so,” Tyler said, raising an eyebrow and grinning.”

“Aww … knock it off, Cole,” Jake said, almost blushing. “It ain’t like that.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cole said, laughing harder.

“Y’all can kiss my ass,” Jake mumbled, which only sent the men into more fits of laughter.

“Look,” Tyler finally said after getting hold of himself, “I gotta get going, but thanks for the translation, Jake. I know the captain will appreciate it, and he did want me to thank you both for your help last night.”

“Our pleasure, Tyler.” Jake said and held out his hand. “Tell him ‘anytime’,” They shook, and then Tyler shook Cole’s hand before walking back the way he’d come.

“So, basically, we’re no better off now than when we hauled you back up into the cargo hold, right?”

“It does appear that way. Although, look on the bright side, we’ll be in San Fran before the sun comes up.”

“I guess that’s something. So, how do we kill the next twelve hours?”

“The same way we killed the first eight … a nap and then a poker game.”

“Fair enough. I just hope it don’t end with gunplay again.”

“Can’t argue with that. Besides, what are the odds that we’ll run into trouble again?”

“With you, Jake,” Cole said slowly, “I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

“I sure as hell wish I could argue with you.”

“So do I.”

Jake and Cole finished up their breakfast and headed back to their cabin where they both settled into their bunks.

“Jake?” Cole asked from underneath the hat keeping out the sunlight.

“Yeah, Cole?” Jake peered from under his own hat.

“I been thinking.”

“’Bout what? San Fran?” Jake asked slowly.

“Yeah, about how the moment we land there’s a good chance the Tong is gonna be all over us.” he offered casually.

“I must admit, the thought did cross my mind,” Jake replied a bit worriedly.

“You thinkin’ we maybe oughta just hole up here, skip the poker game, and get as much sleep as we can before we get there?”

“Yeah. It may be our last chance for a while if this goes the way I suspect it’s gonna.”

“Hard to argue with ya,” Cole agreed.

“Do you really want to? Argue, I mean.”

“I guess I gotta lay even odds this is a trap, so, no, I don’t think I do,” Jake said, smiling.

“Good. I was hopin’ you’d see it my way.”

“I usually do, amigo. I usually do.”

Chapter Fourteen – Big Trouble in Little China

“Skeeter has brains and guts to spare. Hell, sometimes it felt like we were working for her.”

~ Jake Lasater

Lumpy shifted underneath Jake as the big bull stepped off the loading platform beneath the Jezebel. Electric lights bathed the entire platform in an angry, orange light, and Jake had to carefully weave Lumpy through the throng of passengers and dockworkers that scurried about. Cole led Koto down off the platform and slid up into his own saddle. The air was chilly and damp with ocean air. Jake had on his faded Union officer’s cloak and Cole wore his tan long coat. A trickle of people drifted into a cantina that opened out onto the passenger and cargo area. Open-air windows and accordion doors revealed a bright, smoky interior, and Jake’s ear picked up a familiar song. He gazed into the cantina, and in a far corner he saw a group of three automatons playing the same song as the band he’d seen in the Colorado Brewery.

“Hey, Cole. Look.” Jake nodded towards the trio.

Cole spotted them and did a double-take. “Are they the same ones as in Denver?”

Jake peered closely and realized that the music was the same, identical as near as he could tell, but the faces and clothes of the machines were different. It looked as if all three of them were looking straight at him. “Definitely not the same machines, but they’re playing the same song.”

“Yeah,” Cole agreed. “Whoever makes them things must be making a fortune.”

“You got that right.” Jake heeled over and spurred Lumpy in the general direction of Chinatown. The sun wouldn’t be up for a few more hours, but they both knew their way to the small city-within-a-city. Electric lights would illuminate every corner along the way, right up to the edge of the Chinese quarter.

A large, steam-driven cargo carrier stomped across their path, its four thick, metal legs clanking on the cobblestones. Made of dull, brass boilerplate, it looked like a cross between a horse and a man, with four legs, a torso, and two arms. Jake and Cole had to rear up slightly, and Koto shivered nervously as the ten-foot-tall machine passed by. The man sitting in the cockpit atop the thing waved at them apologetically. He hit a lever, and with a whining of pistons the two arms rose a few more feet, lifting a stack of large crates above the folks on the street. The machine headed for the loading platform as people cleared out of the way.

Cole looked up and gazed at the landing platform above them. “They sure did a nice job with the new tower,” he said as they headed off down the street.”

“It’s pretty enough,” Jake replied and lit a cigar. “Let’s just hope they don’t have any more earthquakes.”

“Or fires,” Cole added.”

“Hell, what are the odds of San Fran getting hit again with something like that rumbler in ’68?”

“Pretty slim, I reckon.”

They rode along in silence for a while, enjoying the wispy chill that frequently accompanies the San Francisco darkness. They drifted through one section of fog after another, like spirits travelling between a daisy chain of worlds that were slightly out of focus. Roughly halfway to Chinatown the fog began to lighten up, giving Cole the gumption to ask the obvious question.

“You got a plan?” he asked as they turned a corner.

“Not a very elaborate one,” Jake admitted around his cigar. “We’ll just head on over to Qi’s Emporium and knock on the door.”

Cole turned his head slowly and stared at his partner for long seconds. “That’s some plan.”

Jake kept his head pointing straight ahead. “Took me all night to come up with it.” He punctuated the statement with a grin.

“You’re some tactical genius, no matter what those other people say.”

Jake chuckled, which didn’t make Cole feel any better. “Just keep an eye out for them red pajamas,” he said more seriously. The red silk was the calling card of the Tong, and virtually all of their soldiers wore it. With the exception of Hang Ah—the man Cole had helped Jake kill—every member of the Tong had worn a bright red, silk shirt and slacks that really set them apart from the normal gray, blue, or black garments many of the laborers in Chinatown wore.

“Count on it,” Cole replied.

They continued on in silence, and the iron-shod hoofs of Lumpy and Koto clacked methodically across the cobblestone streets. Once they were clear of the landing platform, the streets seemed nearly empty. They saw one San Fran Marshal who eyed them as they rode by, but the man said nothing as both Jake and Cole tipped their hats.

There were a few groups of very well dressed drunks weaving slowly along the sidewalks, as well, and they eyed Jake and Cole suspiciously, but only briefly.

Things would get busier once they got closer to Chinatown, the one part of the city that never slept. As they neared it they started seeing more people. Virtually every head bore the wide, pointed hats native to their homeland. Most of the men carried mining implements of some kind, shovels, picks, pry bars, but none of them were armed. All were Chinese, as Chinatown was very much a mining settlement. They were the back-breaking laborers who frequently worked themselves to death so that mine owners could smoke cigars and eat seafood with more forks than Jake would ever know what to do with.

The Asian population was generally scorned by the residents of San Francisco, but tolerated, so long as they kept working. That circumstance had always left a bad taste in Jake’s mouth. It was also the reason he’d stayed in Chinatown during his three visits rather than in a regular hotel or saloon. He’d seen enough “superior” whites during his time in the Midwest and South to last three lifetimes. Finding the same damn thing on the West Coast only reinforced his preference for avoiding “civilized folk.”

Jake kept an eye out for anyone in red silk pajamas and hoped that he wouldn’t see any. If word had gotten round about what happened the last time Jake was in San Fran, then his eyepiece would be a pretty good giveaway as to who he was. Jake would be shocked if word hadn’t gotten round. He saw a few men in black silk pajamas but didn’t think much about it.

The crossover into Chinatown proper wasn’t hard to miss. The electric streetlights abruptly changed to oil lamps that glowed much more dimly than their modern counterparts. The cobblestones turned to dirt, and the facades of the buildings went from elaborate, Victorian designs done in a variety of bright colors to unpainted or gray boards covering simple homes and storefronts. The buildings were much closer together as well.

Jake and Cole slowed their pace to weave through throngs of Chinese miners coming and going. Jake had learned early on that the immigrants worked in three shifts throughout the day, and there was always an army of them moving to and from the mines just outside the city.

As Jake and Cole approached the last corner before Qi’s Emporium, they heard a chattering rumble and the throng of miners was somewhat thinner. They both halted their mounts in front of a dark alley that stretched away to their left. A large mining rig stepped around the corner, and this time Koto whinnied and reared up. Cole had to fight to keep his mount from bolting. Koto could handle guns. Even screaming Apache Indians weren’t a problem. But giant, clattering machines that hissed and stomped was another matter altogether.

Lumpy, on the other hand, ignored it.

The machine stood over twelve feet tall. It had a hull of polished brass and steel, a tough shell that glinted in the weak light of the streetlamps. Jake recognized the mining rig as one of Qi’s designs. He still thought the things looked like Chinese gods of war. The heavily riveted plates housed a powerful, steam-driven engine that drove four, articulated legs. The angular limbs hiss-stomped as they moved, and the machine’s massive, four-toed feet thumped into the earth, causing vibrations both men felt as much as heard. The machine’s joints clanged in a strange rhythm as it turned away from them and headed off toward the mines.

The thing had two partially retracted arms attached at the shoulders, its elbows bent around massively hinged joints. Brass hydraulic pistons powered the limbs, and at the end of each arm was a great, clam-shaped scoop that could hold at least two cubic yards each. A small, Chinese man had folded himself up into the cockpit set into the digger’s belly, enclosed in a reinforced cage. The copilot sat perched in a similar cage on top of the thing; his job was to operate the great arms.

Jake was truly impressed with what Qi could come up with, even on a bad day. When he had been in San Francisco last, she was the only tinker in Chinatown, and it was unlikely that had changed. She had also been the only woman treated as an equal by the men there.

“Easy, Koto,” Cole murmured as he patted the horse’s neck. “Ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of.”

“Not sure I’d agree with that,” Jake muttered. “One of those things could pull a building down if it wanted to, and squash ya flat if you weren’t looking.”

“Mining rigs are not what you should worry about, Mister Lasater,” a tense voice with a thick Chinese accent called from the alley. Two lever-action rifles being chambered punctuated the warning.

“Oh shit,” Jake mumbled and lifted his hands. Cole followed suit and they both looked to their left to see four men step out of the alley. All of them wore black pajamas, and the miners who had been thin before had suddenly disappeared, all of them heading quickly away from the scene.

“I thought you said the Tong wore red,” Cole accused quietly.

“I thought they did.” Jake was defensive.

“Seems you thought wrong, amigo.”

“Sure looks that way,” Jake admitted sourly.

“Get down,” one of the men ordered. “My men will shoot if you reach for your weapons.”

“Look,” Jake said smoothly, “seems like there might be some sort of misunderstanding.”

“No misunderstanding. You come with us. Now, please.”

“At least they’re polite,” Cole said wearily.

“Yeah, right before they kill you,” Jake pointed out.

“I coulda done without that,” Cole replied.

“Now please,” the man repeated tersely.

“All right, all right,” Jake said and swung down off Lumpy. “Look, if this is about Hang Ah, he came after me.”

“You, too,” the man ordered, glaring at Cole.

“Cole, come on down,” Jake said, keeping his hands in the air. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a tall figure in a dark dress step out from the shadows up along the street from the direction they’d come from. The figure was up against the wall of a building, and she tipped over a large suitcase on the ground at her feet. The men in black had their backs to her. “Cole, hold up,” Jake said quickly, and Cole froze in his position. “Listen, friend, Cole ain’t got nothing to do with all this. It’s me you want, and I’ll come along quietly.”

“This has everything to do with both of you,” the man said. “Now get off the horse!” he shouted.

Jake watched the woman open the suitcase, reach in, and pull out something about the size of a large apple. She fiddled with it and then raised her arm as if she was going to throw it.

“DOWN GUYS!” a familiar voice shouted. Jake was on his way to the ground in an instant and Cole dove over Koto’s back as the four men turned towards the shout. She threw the thing and dodged back into the shadows. A rifle shot echoed in the streets, the spark of a ricochet flashed against the wall near her, and then there was a dull, thudding explosion amidst the Chinese gunmen. Jake felt the blast that sent all four men flying. Koto reared. Two men bounced off the walls of the alley and two went flying into the street to land near Jake. Lumpy, of course, never moved.

The gunmen never had a chance.

Jake rolled on his back in a flash and yanked his pistols. His Colt and Peacekeeper barked at the four, stunned assailants at the same time Cole’s own pistol hammered a staccato report from below Koto’s neck. The gunfight, if you could call it that, was over in seconds. All four men in black lay motionless where they’d landed, one of them had his hand outstretched for the rifle that had fallen just out of reach.

“What the hell was that?” Cole shouted, looking up the street.

Irritation filled Jake’s words to overflowing, as he replied, “Didn’t you recognize the voice?”

Cole stood silent for a few seconds as Jake watched the small figure in the dress step once again out of the shadows, buckle the case and start walking towards them. The large case rolled behind her on small wheels underneath. Cole stepped around a shivering Koto, his pistol pointing toward the approaching woman. Jake holstered one pistol and reloaded the other.

“You know her?” Cole asked, still confused.

“Think, amigo,” Jake said. “Think of the voice. It can only be one person … and I think you can hang that up,” he added, nodding to Cole’s pistol.

Cole gave Jake a hesitant look.

“Trust me,” Jake added confidently, although the look on his face was stern and very not happy.

As the weak streetlight shone on the tall figure, Cole saw that it was the veiled woman in the maroon dress.

“What the hell?” Cole said.

Jake holstered one pistol, pulled the other, and loaded it just as the woman stepped up and stared quietly at both of them.

“I seem to recall telling you pretty clearly that you weren’t coming to San Francisco,” Jake said, sounding like an angry father.

“I just saved your ass, Jake,” the tall woman said defensively.

“Language!”

“Skeeter?” Cole said, bewildered as he finally recognized the voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Skeeter lifted the veil from her face and stared up at Cole, a determined look on her face.

“Saving your a—” she started and then glanced sheepishly at Jake’s scowling face. “Butts,” she amended.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Jake growled at Skeeter. “Cole, mount up and grab Lumpy’s reins.”

“We’re still going in?” Cole blurted, his eyes going wide? “Qi set us up.”

“I thought that, too, when them boys first showed up. But think about it. If she wanted to lay a trap, why do it out here in public. Why not wait till we’re inside where they can get the drop on us when our guard is down?” Jake sighed. “I still gotta give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Cole considered it for a bit. “I guess I see your point. But if they kill us, I’m gonna be really pissed at you.”

Jake smiled. “Let’s get moving. There may be more of them, and we have to get to Qi’s before any marshals arrive … or more of them boys in black.”

“You think the marshals will come? We are well into Chinatown.”

“Hard to say. Wanna stick around and find out?” Jake asked, his eyes never leaving Skeeter. Cole remained silent. Both of them knew the answer to that one. “Can you ride with those damn stilts on?” he asked, glaring at her.

“Yessir,” she said, her eyes darting to the ground.

“Then mount up,” Jake ordered.

As Cole mounted Koto, Jake grabbed Skeeter under the arms firmly and set her atop the big bull, making sure to let her get the extension strapped to her leg over the saddle. He then grabbed her suitcase and hooked the handle over his saddle horn. “Cole, get us to Qi’s and keep your eyes peeled. I got our backs.”

Jake slid the last round into his pistol and then dilated the iris on his mostly-open ocular. In the soft lamplight he couldn’t open it all the way, but it was open enough to see well into the dark alleys along the street. He pulled the other pistol from its holster, turned his back to Lumpy’s rump, and they moved down the street.

Cole and Jake’s necks were swivels as they scanned every alley, window, and doorway, ready to start shooting. Cole led them around the last corner and spotted Qi’s Emporium of Wondrous Power halfway up the street. It was on the right, and while the street was moderately populated with miners wearing their wide, straw hats, there wasn’t a black or red pajama in sight.

Cole led them straight up to the massive, rolling doors of Qi’s Emporium and turned his back to Jake. “What now, amigo?”

“Okay, switch. Watch our backs and hand Skeeter the Thumper.” Cole did as instructed, turning into the street as Jake backed up to the door. Jake holstered the Peacekeeper and pounded three times on the door with his left. The metal fist made a harsh booming noise with each impact. They waited tense seconds, hearing only silence from within. Jake pounded again, and after a few more seconds they all heard the sound of something metal sliding back along the inside of the door. An electric motor fired up and the door rose with a muffled rattle of metal on metal wheels. Jake squatted down slightly as the door rose and was relieved to see the diminutive figure of Qi standing inside, her hand on a panel.

She was as beautiful as Jake remembered, her long, ebony hair braided and draped down in front of her in a queue that reached to her slender waist. He had expected her to be wearing one of her silk nightgowns, but she was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and wore knee-high black leather boots. She had a weathered, leather utility belt strapped around her waist with gadgets and leather pouches running all the way round. Intricate work-goggles dangled around her neck.

“It’s good to see you, Qi,” Jake said as he holstered his pistols.

Her green eyes lit up at the sight of him, warming him inside and out, and she motioned for them all to come in. “Get in, quickly. We heard the shooting.”

“Bring ’em in, Cole,” Jake said over his shoulder.

The interior of the Emporium was dark, but Jake could easily make out the huge collection of mining rigs, gadgets, and other mechanical whatnots that filled the first level on benches, shelves, and floor. A corridor of open space split the middle of the shop, wide enough for one of her mining rigs to walk through, so Cole had no difficulty leading Koto and Lumpy inside. Walkways lined the left and right sides of the second level, and Jake knew that there were several doors along the sides above that led to several workshops and Qi’s apartments.

Qi hit a button on the panel and the door rolled down again. Only when it touched the floor and the motor went silent did Jake finally relax. He stared at Qi, remembering the nights they’d spent together. He’d had to leave town in a hurry on account of his ‘misunderstanding’ with the Tong.

“It’s good to see you, Jake,” Qi purred. She stepped up to him, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him down to her, kissing him passionately. Jake gave as good as he got, his body tingling with the sensation of her lips pressed against his. He barely heard the creak of boards from the upper level.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Cole said loudly. “Seriously?” Jake heard more soft shuffling from above as Qi released him and stepped back. “Jake, I think you oughta take a look at this,” Cole added, dread in his voice.

Jake turned to see Cole staring up at the second level. Skeeter also stared up at the second level, fear in her eyes. Jake’s eyes followed, and a sick feeling clutched at his insides. There were six Chinese men on each side staring down at him. Every one of the men above wore red silk pajamas.

“Oh, shit,” Jake muttered. “Didn’t we just leave this party?”

Chapter Fifteen – Tong for Two

“The old man had seen more death than most, and it weighed on him like chains on a slave. I guess that’s why I liked him so much.”

~ Jake Lasater

Jake turned worried eyes to the woman in his arms, his eyes framed by an apprehensive look of betrayal.

“It is okay, Jake,” she said quietly. “They’re friends of mine.”

“That’s great, Qi, but last time I checked, they weren’t friends of mine. I seem to recall the point of Hang Ah’s dagger damn near stuck between my eyes. I’m feeling a little set up here.”

A soft, elderly man’s voice came smoothly from the back of the workshop, only a trace of a Chinese accent shaping the words. “There is no need to be concerned, Mister Lasater.” Jake turned and saw a small figure walking out from behind one of the mining rigs.

The man was the same height as Qi, but where she was young and beautiful, he was old and scarred, carrying himself like he’d seen tenfold as much conflict as Jake. He wore gold silk pajamas, and the shirt had black dragons embroidered on both sides of the silver buttons. His head was bald, but he had long, gray streaks of hair that made three lines from his mustache and chin all the way to the middle of his chest. The right half of his face was covered in a beautifully etched gold mask that followed the contours of his face. The surface of it reflected the light like reptilian scales, and it had flanges and a fierce eyebrow that looked distinctly reptilian. The eye within glowed emerald green with an internal light of its own. Jake saw that his right hand wasn’t a hand at all. Made of the same golden metal, the well-articulated fingers ended in sharp claws. “I am Chung Lau Xing.”

Qi stepped up beside Jake and placed her hand on his good arm. “Jake, this is my grandfather … the master of the Tong here in San Fran.”

“Your … grandfather?” Jake asked incredulously. Jake suddenly felt very uncomfortable about the kiss he’d just given Qi … well, that she’d given him, which he would be quick to point out if the subject came up.

The old man reached out his golden hand, its claws pointing at Jake’s midsection. Jake hesitated for a moment and then took the gleaming prosthetic in a firm handshake. The metal was cold, the handshake firm, but it was a natural motion, as smooth as Jake’s own left hand would be.

“Mister … Xing?” Jake asked. He knew that the Chinese placed their surnames first, opposite of the way Westerners did. “Don’t y’all normally run your names the other way round?”

“That is correct, Mister Lasater. But in an attempt to blend more effectively in this country, I decided to adopt at least some of your customs.” The man smiled in a genuinely friendly fashion and released Jake’s hand. “I hope my men did not startle you and your friends too much.”

Jake hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth,” he looked up at the men above, “I’m still not sure what to make of it. I figured Qi was going to be here on her own, and I sure didn’t know she was involved with the Tong.”

The old man laughed lightly. “I can appreciate your trepidation. Certainly your first experience with my organization was less than civil. On behalf of the Tong, I would like to offer my apologies for the situation brought about by Mister Hang’s bad judgment. I was away at the time.”

“Well, I guess I appreciate that. And if ya mean it, then apology accepted.”

“Shen—the man you killed in the arena—deserved what you gave him. I do not tolerate behavior such as his in my organization. We are a community of businessmen, not murderous thieves. He dishonored the Tong when he and his men attacked you and stole your possessions. Your response was appropriate. I would even say restrained in your treatment of Mister Hang. When Hang compounded that dishonor by trying to kill you, he also got what he deserved. I know why he did it, but that does not negate the transgression.”

“Why’d he do it? I actually liked Hang, right up until he stuck that knife in my face.”

“Shen was his nephew,” Chung said sadly, “and his nephew was, how do you Americans say it … a rotten apple.”

“I guess I understand,” Jake said slowly.

Chung raised his golden hand and waved at the men above. With an almost silent shuffle they disappeared through the doors above. Chung then said something in Chinese over his shoulder, and a small Chinese boy came out of the shadows.

“Come, Mister Lasater. Bring your friends. We have business to discuss. My great-grandson will see to your mounts. We have a stable behind the shop.”

“Fair enough,” Jake said. He looked past Chung to the approaching boy, also dressed in gold pajamas identical to Chung’s. He addressed the boy gently. “The bull may be a bit stubborn. His name’s Lumpy. If you’ve got some sweet feed, use that. If you give him some, he’ll do pretty much whatever you want, and you’ll have a friend for life.”

The boy nodded silently. He took the reins from Cole and grabbed Lumpy’s bridle while Skeeter dismounted. Cole grabbed the Thumper, slid it back into the sheath on Koto’s saddle, and stepped up next to Jake.

“Mister Xing, I’d like to introduce my riding partner Cole McJunkins,” Jake said as Cole and Chung shook hands. “And this is my … daughter … Skeeter.” Skeeter looked up at Jake briefly with a strange expression on her face. “She’s kinda in the dog house right now on account of she’s not supposed to be in San Francisco.”

Skeeter’s eyes returned to the gold metal of Chung’s face and arm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Xing.” She reached out her hand and shook Chung’s claw slowly, leaning in and looking at the smooth joints of his fingers closely. “That’s amazing work, sir. Who did it? And is it all gears or has it got magic to move it?”

“Skeeter, that can wait,” Jake said firmly, a little embarrassed.

“No, Mister Lasater, it’s quite all right,” Chung said lightly and turned back to Skeeter. He held out the appendage for Skeeter to inspect more closely. “My daughter Qi made this for me, Miss Lasater, and this,” he motioned to the half-mask on his face, “after an injury I suffered.”

Skeeter looked embarrassed for a moment. “It’s just Skeeter,” she said. “That’s what everyone else calls me.”

“As you wish, Skeeter,” the man said smiling. “And the work is purely mechanical. My granddaughter is studying witchcraft but does not yet have the knowledge to bestow it upon the inanimate to such a degree.” Chung cast a stern eye upon Skeeter. “In the dog house, eh? Going places where you shouldn’t?” Skeeter looked even more embarrassed. The stern eye turned to a friendly one. “My granddaughter was headstrong, too. She was more than a handful.”

“Grandfather!” Qi blurted.

Chung laughed brightly and winked at Qi. “Come, please. Let us go upstairs and talk. We summoned you here for a job we require, and it is best that we move quickly. Time is of the essence.”

The small boy led Koto and Lumpy down the corridor of the main floor while everyone else moved to a set of spiral stairs at the front of the shop. They made their way up two flights that opened onto a narrow hallway with doors leading onto the living apartments of Qi’s building. They entered the first door and stepped into a dark room.

Qi muttered something in a language Jake didn’t recognize, and there was a flash as hundreds of candles surround the room ignited simultaneously.

Jake turned an impressed eye to Qi. “Looks like you learned a few new tricks.”

“The Lady has been teaching me,” Qi responded a bit evasively.

“The Lady?” Jake asked.

“We will speak of her shortly,” Chung interrupted, “But first let us make ourselves comfortable.”

They stepped into a large lounge with a long, black lacquer dining table in the middle and soft-looking sofas done in embroidered gold and crimson around the perimeter. Everything had been done in what Jake assumed was classic Chinese style, not that he’d really know the difference.

“Please sit,” Chung said and then followed it with a loud command in Chinese towards a door at the back. Everyone settled in their chairs just as an elderly woman came in. She held a tray with a teapot and five small cups on it, each painted with a different-colored dragon. She silently placed a cup in front of each person and poured out a pale, greenish tea that steamed in the cool air of the room. “Green tea from my homeland,” Chung added. Everyone took a sip as Jake cast an eye at his host.

“There’s something I gotta know, Mister Xing.”

“Please, call me Chung.” He finished his tea with a long pull.

“Chung,” Jake said, nodding his head, “If you’re not after me for killing Hang Ah, then who were the boys in black who jumped us around the corner. They were wearing black, so I’m assuming they were friends of his.”

“Your assumption is correct, Mister Lasater,” Chung said, pouring himself another cup of tea.

“Call me Jake.”

“And you can call me Cole,” Cole added, raising his teacup.

Chung nodded and lifted his teacup, staring at the dragon on it for a few seconds. “Hang Ah’s brother Ming did not agree with my decision that the matter was settled between you and the Hangs. I had sent a telegram directing them explicitly to leave you alone.” The old man ran the wrinkled fingers of his left hand over the glittering surface of the gold mask. “We had a … disagreement … that required my daughter’s rather dramatic additions to my body.”

“I’m sorry, Chung,” Jake said, feeling at least partially responsible for the man’s prosthetics. “I know what it’s like to lose a pound of flesh and get stuck with ten pounds of gears.”

Chung looked at Jake with appraising eyes, and it was clear that his respect for the gunslinger went up a few notches. “I can see why my granddaughter feels for you as she does, but my situation is not at all your fault.” Chung looked to his granddaughter and then back to Jake. “Ming is … an ambitious man, and he does not agree with my differentiation between what I consider to be legitimate business and the reckless murder and theft that seems to be his primary appetite. Shen was his son. He has sworn to see you dead, Jake.” The statement held no apology, merely observation.

“Well, what the hell is taking him so long?” Jake asked and then took a sip of tea. “I been in Denver pretty much this whole time.”

Chung nodded. “Ming had returned from China shortly after your disagreement with Hang Ah. When he learned of the death of his brother and son, we had our own disagreement. He has spent these last months building up his own organization. He has recruited many of my countrymen with promises of wealth and glory. He has even managed to steal away some of my own men, but only a handful. Where I garner loyalty in my men, Ming caters to greed and, once captured, keeps his men through fear of retribution.”

“He sounds like a real charmer,” Cole added.

“We all choose our own path in this life, Cole,” Chung said quietly, “and Ming has chosen his.”

“I take it you boys are at war?” Jake asked.

“Not formally. I am reticent to initiate an open war in the streets of Chinatown. I do not want the city government involved in this dispute.…” Chung took another sip of tea and then smiled and Jake. “Or to have them take too close a look at my business dealings.”

Jake and Cole chuckled. “I think I understand,” Jake replied. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know too much about them, either.”

Chung nodded. “But we did not come here to talk about Chinese politics.”

“Politics?” Cole asked, thinking the term was a bit light for a pending war between rival gangs.

With a smile Chung continued. “As you know, we have a job for you.”

“Escort a package, right?” Jake prompted.

“This is no ordinary package,” Qi offered. “It’s not something you can carry.”

“How do you mean?” Cole asked.

“It’s rather large … and heavy,” Chung said, looking very serious.

“What’s in it?”

“I am afraid I cannot tell you of its contents,” Chung said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I have made a promise to the owner of the package—the lady whom Qi mentioned earlier. I am honor-bound to keep that promise.”

“Well,” Jake said, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “That’s a little tricky, but it ain’t unheard of. And it ain’t a show-stopper, leastwise not yet.” He looked at Chung seriously. “Is it dangerous?” he asked.

Chung hesitated and then spoke naturally. “How do you mean?” Jake was too good a poker player to miss the pause, and the question of Chung’s hesitation tickled the back of his mind.

“It’s not nitro or dynamite or anything like that is it? Something that could blow up and get me and my crew killed?”

“I assure you it is nothing like that. The contents of the package are not explosive in any way. They are not even illegal,” Chung added, reassuring Jake and Cole with a comforting smile.

“What’s the job pay?” Jake asked.

“Two thousand now and three thousand upon safe delivery,” Chung said calmly. Jake raised his teacup to his lips in an effort to keep from giving away his avarice. Cole and Skeeter’s eyes showed white. “The first payment will be in U.S. dollars and the rest of it in gold,” Chung concluded.

Jake’s resolve broke as he almost spit his tea across the table, causing Cole and Skeeter, sitting across from him, to flinch.

“Hmmmm,” Jake almost purred as he licked his lips, eyeing the old man.

“I’d say you have a deal, Chung,” Cole said, chuckling.

Jake grinned at Cole. His partner knew him well. “There would have to be a couple of conditions,” Jake added, setting his teacup down.

“I would have been surprised if there weren’t,” Chung said smoothly.

“If the owner of this package is around, I’d like to meet him.”

“Her,” Qi corrected. “The Lady.”

“Oh, yeah, her,” Jake corrected himself.

“I am certain she will agree to that, as she had already required that she meet whomever we hired to transport her … property.”

“Fair enough,” Jake agreed. “I’d also like to get an idea of who might come at us between here and Denver.”

“Well, it is possible that Ming and his men may come after you, but not because of the package,” Chung said quietly. “Beyond that, you would have to ask Lady Dănești yourself.”

“Lady Dănești?” Cole asked.

Chung nodded his head.

“When will we be meeting her?” Jake asked. “Is she here now?”

“I’m afraid she will not be available until this evening. We have a dinner planned for you all, and the Lady will arrive during or sometime after. You may ask your questions then. I’m sure she will have many for you as well.”

“Can you tell me anything about her?” Jake finished off his tea and poured more, wishing it was coffee. “The name sounds a bit foreign, and not many American folks start their names with lady,” Jake added smiling. He was thinking about the Morse message in his pocket. And Szilágyi.

“Indeed. She is not from this country. In fact, she’s only just arrived. My organization helped in her passage from Asia to San Francisco.”

“Her name don’t sound Chinese,” Cole pointed out.

“Correct,” Chung replied quietly. “She has been in my country for … a number of years … and only recently decided to come to the U.S. and settle in the West. Hence our request.”

“Where’s she from originally?” Skeeter asked.

“I’m afraid you would have to ask her that. Lady Dănești is very cautious about whom she trusts. She has had a difficult life.”

“Well, we won’t pry, so long as I’m comfortable with who I’m working for. Money ain’t everything,” Jake added. “If it turns out you need a ‘no-questions-asked’ sorta deal, I can certainly recommend a guy for you. He’s even in town.”

“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Qi chimed in. “Do you have any plans for today, Jake? You’re welcome to stay here until you’ve arranged passage back to Colorado.”

“Well,” Jake said. “I’d kinda like to split the difference, if that’s okay.”

“Split the difference?” Chung asked.

“Considering that Ming’s boys are likely to be gunning for me, I sure as hell don’t want Skeeter to get caught in a crossfire. There’s a fair chance things will get complicated. Knowing who Qi’s grandfather is now, I suspect that this building is one of the safest in town. Besides, Skeeter is still in the doghouse.”

“But Jake!” Skeeter exclaimed. “I’m already here and all! Can’t I see some sights?” Jake turned a stern eye at Skeeter and held it there, giving her his best gunfighter stare-down. She did her best to hold it for a few seconds, but she knew she was in Dutch. She finally cast her eyes down. “Yessir,” she mumbled.

“Besides,” Jake said, his voice going a bit soft, “I suspect there’s plenty around here that you can stick your nose into if Miss Qi is willing.” Jake looked at Qi, pleading in his eyes. He desperately wanted something to occupy Skeeter’s attention until they could get on a transport back to Denver. There was just too much heat for him to be confident he could keep his ward safe.

Skeeter’s face brightened, and she beamed at Qi. “Please, Miss Qi? Please. I won’t break anything, I swear. I’m good with gadgets!”

“That’s true enough,” Cole added. “The girl’s got a gift. I suspect you two have a lot in common.”

“I’d be honored to spend the day with you, Skeeter. And call me Qi.” She looked at Jake, smiling, and he silently mouthed the words “Thank you,” so Skeeter couldn’t see it. “There is one more thing, Chung.”

“What is it?” the old man asked.

“Do you know anyone who’s good with codes … and languages?”

Chung’s head cocked to the side, looking at Jake keenly. “Well, I’m familiar with a number of both in my own language. One could not do my sort of business without such knowledge. Why do you ask?”

Jake pulled the translation from his vest pocket and slid it across the table to Chung. The paper had both the original dots and dashes as well as what Jake thought was the correct translation. “I think it’s in Morse, but I ain’t certain. If it is, that’s as much as I could translate.”

Chung looked at it for a few seconds and then closed his eyes for half a minute. Jake got a sense that the old man had memorized the whole thing in a glance. “It does appear to be Morse, and your translation is accurate. The stars indicate characters not in standard Morse, correct?”

“Near as I can figure,” Jake said honestly.

“The order of the characters appears to be properly sequenced as well.”

“How do you mean?” Cole asked.

“Language has a flow to it,” Chung said slowly, “a feel that looks and sounds natural, no matter what language you’re working with. Some codes shift characters off a few to the left or right in their normal sequence, making a direct translation come out as gibberish. This does not appear to be gibberish, just foreign. Unfortunately, I do not know the language, although it looks European, and it is neither German nor French.”

“’Tain’t Spanish neither,” Cole added. “At least we know what it’s not.”

“The Lady might be able to help, but I believe I know a man who is fairly well-versed in such things.”

“I’d be much obliged if you could point me in the right direction. Hell, even the wrong direction would feel like I got a chance,” Jake added, laughing.

Chung chuckled and slid the paper back to Jake. “Well, the man I’m speaking of is easy enough to find, if you can manage to make it into the places he frequents. However, I can’t make any guarantees that he will be able to help. Nor can I make any guarantees as to his sanity.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up but Chung’s.

“Grandfather, you don’t mean …” Qi said, disbelief filling her voice.

Chung nodded slowly. “The man you should speak with, Jake, is His Imperial Majesty Norton, Emperor of America and the Protector of Mexico.”

Jake and Cole stared at Chung as if he’d just turned into an armadillo before their very eyes.

“Jake,” Skeeter said slowly, “I thought we had a President.”

“The last time I checked, we did. Ulysses S. Grant,” Jake said to Skeeter, bewildered. He turned to the old man at the head of the table, starting to wonder at Chung’s sanity. “Chung, we ain’t got no Emperor,” he added slowly.

Chung smiled broadly. “I believe,” he said as he picked up his tea and stared at the dragon painted upon the delicate teacup, “that would be a matter of opinion, one Emperor Norton does not share.” He took another long sip of his tea and then grinned at the confused faces sitting around the table.

“How do you know he’ll help us?” Cole asked.

“The Emperor owes me several favors,” Chung said confidently. “Oh,” he added casually, “it is important that you indulge his madness, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. And if he asks you to perform any tasks, please do as he says.”

Chapter Sixteen – The Mad Emperor

“There’s all kinds of crazy, and ol’ Emperor Norton was probably all of ’em.”

~ Cole McJunkins

“It sure was nice of Chung to front us these clothes,” Cole said as he straightened the lapels of a perfect-fitting jacket and dusted off the long, dark tails that draped down to his knees. He and Jake clattered along the cobbled streets of San Francisco in an enclosed carriage Chung had arranged for them in hopes that Ming’s men wouldn’t spot them. Cole ran a hand over the smooth material of his sleeve. The coat was a deep gray with matching pants. He wore a bright blue paisley vest and navy bow tie. A dark gray top hat finished the ensemble. “These are the nicest duds I ever wore,” Cole added. “I can’t believe how fast them ladies sized and sewed ’em up for us. Qi’s electric sewing machines are pretty slick, too. Think Chung’ll let us keep the suits?”

“That’s the impression I got,” Jake said, and stopped to adjust the crimson, paisley cravat at his throat. He had opted for a black suit that he had to admit looked pretty good on him. He’d decided to give up his leather top hat for a silky-looking, tall topper that matched the suit, but he still wore his ocular. He’d also opted to take a stylish gentleman’s cane with a wolf’s head handle that Chung had shown him contained a wicked little surprise dagger. “Two hours for two suits made from scratch,” Jake said, impressed. “Hell, I may just pay them ladies to make me a whole slew of these vests. A color for every day of the week.” Jake’s hand slid down to his hip and found only fabric. “I sure do miss my rig, though,” he added, lamenting his missing holster.

Jake and Cole had begrudgingly given up their holsters, but each kept one of their pistols tucked in the back of his waistband. Where Chung said they were headed, something as uncouth as holstered pistols simply wasn’t considered polite. Cole continued to peek through the curtain of the back window to see if anyone was following them, and was pretty certain they’d made it out unseen.

The carriage finally stopped and both men got out. They found the street blocked by several low, stone pillars that kept anything larger than a horse from passing. The building they wanted was a large white stone structure set halfway up a steep hill that overlooked the San Francisco Bay. Gulls drifted on the breeze and the bright, mid-morning sunshine allowed them a view far out to sea. They could see several clippers cutting their way into and out of the bay, and there were a handful of zeppelins drifting over the water. Jake spotted a trio of bright white zepps of an unusual design hanging over the air terminal where the Jezebel had docked. Each had a large black bird emblazoned near the tail. At first he thought they might belong to Szilágyi, but the foreigner’s zepp had been black, not white. Dismissing it, Jake turned and headed towards the consulate.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t take Skeeter along,” Cole said quietly.

“Don’t you start,” Jake growled. “I’m still pissed at her.”

“I know Jake, and you have every right to be. I ain’t sayin’ what she did was right, but she did save our asses … again.”

“Language!” Jake blurted. He glared at Cole and then laughed. “She does have a whole lotta gumption, don’t she?”

“That she does,” Cole agreed, smiling.

“I just couldn’t stand to see her get hurt, Cole.”

“I know, Jake. She’s grown on me, too.”

“Well, can’t worry about it none now. She’s here and we gotta deal with it. Thank God Qi was willing to keep an eye on her. That shop of Qi’s should keep Skeeter preoccupied from now till whenever, I suspect.”

“I reckon. Guess we should head on in,” Cole added.

“Yep. You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m gonna be.”

Jake set his top hat on straight and walked deliberately up to the front gate. There were two men in what Jake and Cole both knew was a variant of the Mexican Army dress uniform. The jackets were navy blue, decorated with gold epaulets and bright red chest pieces trimmed in gold braid. Their pants were bright white, and blue sashes split down across their chests diagonally. The tall hats they wore reminded Jake of those he’d seen some navy men wear, long from front to back with the sides folded up like a clam and a bright white feather running down the middle. They each had silver sabers and held long rifles with long bayonets affixed. They stood at attention with the butts of the rifles on the ground before them. They stood like statues as Jake and Cole passed between them and headed up the long steps to the entrance of the Mexican Consulate.

The large, double-doors were already open and familiar music drifted out from the embassy. Jake and Cole looked at each other as they recognized the sounds of an automaton trio.

“It can’t be,” Cole said, shaking his head and smiling. “Here?”

The song was different, but there was no mistaking the source. Mixed in with the automaton harmonies floated an assortment of conversations in low voices. One conversation—dotted by occasional laughter—stood out from the rest, and a singular voice could clearly be heard over all.

Jake and Cole stepped into a lavish foyer. The floor was shining, white and gray marble inlaid with gold flecks, and the walls were adorned with a wide assortment of fine portraits and landscapes. Broad steps rose to the left and right, meeting in the middle over a hallway that stretched away toward the back of the building.

They turned to their right, following the music and voices into a large dining room. A thirty-foot mahogany table split the room, with enough space on either side to put an identical table crosswise. Meats, fruits, breads, and pastries of all kinds, piled high, made a sumptuous feast that Cole was clearly anxious to dig into.

To the left, in the far corner of the room, stood another automaton trio, moving stiffly but still making the same beautiful music. Again, their faces were different, and each of them wore pristine white pants and shirts as well as bright blue vests made of shimmering silk. Five groups of people were scattered around the left-hand side of the room. Based on the direction their backs were pointed, Jake could tell they were trying to ignore a sixth, larger group off to the right in front of a big, bay window. Nearly a dozen people in elegant dresses and sheer frocks stood clustered around a short gentleman standing on a chair, his right hand raised in a fist.

“That has got to be the Emperor,” Cole said quietly, nodding towards the gentleman on the chair. At first Jake thought the man had on a Union Army General’s uniform, but as he approached he realized that it was only an approximation that had been loosely based upon the Union standard.

“… friends, We are here to tell you that Our loyal servants, the American people, are a proud people and a strong people and a brave people … and they will stand by Mexico against any incursion, even from the tyranny of George Cromwell, that wretched, pig-butchering villain of a Texas President.…”

Jake liked Emperor Norton already. It seemed they shared a sincere loathing for Cromwell. “Yep,” Jake whispered. “That’s him.”

Emperor Norton had on a modified Union Infantry cap, but with a much shorter brim and higher crown, and the strap that went around was made of white leather. Gold goggles perched on top of the brim. They stuck out several inches with copper cylinders and gold end caps. The end-caps had three lenses arrayed round the center, one pair black, one red, and one clear. The pants he wore tapered at mid-thigh, with large flares of the fabric to the left and right, and the man wore white, leather spats that covered from his knees to the tips of his black boots. His blue coat had tails that made it to the backs of his knees, and he wore it buttoned up nearly to his collar. A yellow cravat blossomed at his throat, and the man had obviously gone to great trouble to fluff it out so it appeared to be almost spilling out onto his chest. Wide gold epaulets covered his shoulders, with the right one having a thick gold braid that passed under his arm.

The Emperor shouted at the people around him like a fire-and-brimstone preacher. And his audience appeared to be smiling, some of the ladies clearly giggling behind colored lace fans. None of them seemed to be moved by the Emperor’s oratory, but this clearly did not dissuade him from speaking with a fierce passion. “If Cromwell has the audacity to gather troops along the Mexican border, We shall raise the American Imperial Army and call upon those Indian tribes in the Free Territories with whom We have made alliances. We will wipe President Cromwell from his presidential palace like wind blows away the leaves of autumn!”

“Imperial Army?” Cole murmured. “That boy is crazier than a shithouse rat.”

As they approached, Jake got a better look at the strange white, leather bracers that adorned the Emperor’s wrists. The one raised in the air appeared to be a weapon of some sort, with two short, stocky, brass barrels that ended in copper prongs. The barrels stuck out of a blocky brass housing with several dials. Copper tubing and wires plugged into a smaller brass housing near his elbow. Mounted in between was a brass cylinder lined by small gaps that contained a slowly-spinning core that glowed faintly. The housing had three, blinking, red lights that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Jake couldn’t get a good look at the other bracer, but it looked even more complex than the first. Jake and Cole stopped at the outer edge of the circle surrounding Emperor Norton. As Jake stared, the man’s eyes turned and locked on Jake’s good eye. The Emperor paused for a moment, a fleeting instant of stillness that most of the audience didn’t seem to pick up, but Jake did. In that instant the Emperor winked, a flicker of eyelash that could easily have been a twitch or a brushing of dust from the air.

Jake saw it for what it was.

“My friends,” Norton continued “it will be Our greatest pleasure to serve and protect the Mexican people as if they were Our own. And with that, We must excuse Ourself. We have important matters of the Empire to discuss with two of Our greatest captains.” Emperor Norton raised an open hand to Jake and Cole, and every face of the group turned to face them.

Jake and Cole froze, surprised looks on their faces and their cheeks going crimson. They slowly looked at each other, bewildered, and then turned their heads to the Emperor who had stepped off the chair and approached them with open arms.

“Lasater! McJunkins!” Emperor Norton shouted. “O Captains, my Captains! Was your mission successful?” The entire room went quiet for a moment. Obviously accustomed to his outbursts, the quiet chatter started up again as if nothing had happened. The group surrounding Norton broke apart into smaller groups, and both Jake and Cole could hear hushed whispers that included the Emperor’s name and a fair amount of giggling from the ladies.

“Umm.…” Jake began slowly, confused and a bit uncomfortable. Something in Norton’s eyes gave Jake pause.

Spreading his hands wide at the people around the room, the Emperor soothed, “It’s all right, gentlemen, these people are trusted allies.”

“Yes … Your Highness …” Cole spoke up a bit awkwardly, “… we were successful,” he added, bowing to the Emperor.

“Excellent! Perhaps we should retire to Ambassador Rodrigo’s office to discuss the details.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Jake offered, intent on playing along, “I think that would be best. The details of our … er … mission are best not shared in polite company.”

“Of course, gentlemen, of course!” Norton stepped up between Jake and Cole, turned them around, and, with his arms around their shoulders, eased them back out the way they had come. They walked across the foyer just as a tall, thin man with stark Spanish features approached carrying a tray covered with petits fours. “Miguel,” the Emperor said urgently, separating himself from Jake and Cole. He stepped up to the server, grasped him lightly by the arm, and leaned in, whispering quietly, but loud enough for Jake and Cole to hear. “Are those packages ready for delivery?” As mad as the Emperor seemed, Jake heard none of that madness in the question. And for a few fleeting seconds, there was none of it in the Emperor’s eyes.

“Sí, Emperador!” Miguel hissed.

“Excellent. Please bring them to the Ambassador’s office when you have a moment.”

“Sí, Emperador. It will only be a few minutes,” Miguel added, nodding once, his accent thick with the influences of Spain, not Mexico. The Emperor released Miguel’s arm who then stepped away, nodding at both Jake and Cole, but not before he gave a wink and a slight grin, acting as if he merely entertained the ravings of a harmless but lunatic mind.

“Come, gentlemen,” Norton said, taking Jake and Cole by the arm and leading them across the foyer into a large room that appeared to be a ballroom of some kind. “Miguel will be along shortly with what I require.” Turning to the right, Emperor Norton led them through a wide set of double-doors that opened onto a lavish office. Plush, cherry wood furniture with burgundy cushions and matching carpet gave the room a warm feeling. Bookshelves lined the walls, and two couches framed several chairs in front of an immense desk.

Emperor Norton sat behind the desk and stared at Jake and Cole. Jake saw the madness as plain as day. “Forgive the deception, gentlemen, but it is important that my audience not suspect that either of you are part of my entourage.”

Jake finally got a look at the components attached to the Emperor’s left greave. It had a small, rectangular box with red and green lights along one edge and a small toggle switch. The front face had a silver mesh, and Jake had no idea what it might be for. He wasn’t convinced the thing was more than a madman’s showpiece. There were gaps in the housing that exposed a subtle, green glow, reminding Jake of the Thumper’s aether power cells and many of the gizmos Skeeter came up with.

“Entourage?” Cole said slowly, looking around the office.

“Easy, Cole,” Jake said quietly under his breath. He smiled at the Emperor. “I take it you got the message from Master Xing.”

“Yes,” the Emperor nodded. “Ambassador Xing’s message arrived earlier this morning.”

“Ambassador.…” Jake confirmed slowly. “Right,” he added, feeling like he walked on eggs with the man sitting comfortably before him. Jake had met a number of crazy people in his time, and Emperor Norton sure sounded crazy, but the more Jake watched the man, the more he got the sense that perhaps Norton wasn’t entirely what he appeared to be, as if some role were being acted out.

“May I see the coded message?” the Emperor asked, holding out his hand.

Jake pulled out the folded piece of paper and handed it over. He stepped back, watching the Emperor closely. The Emperor ran the paper over his cheek, feeling the texture. He made a disappointed sound and then sniffed at it, inhaling deeply. His eyes narrowed as he pondered the scent.

To Jake and Cole’s astonishment, the Emperor bit off a tiny corner and chewed it thoughtfully, as if he were sampling some delicacy, even making appraising sounds as he chewed. Cole and Jake glanced at each other with uncomfortable looks on their faces.

“Grits …” the Emperor finally said slowly. His eyes darted back and forth, clearly trying to figure something out. “Spanish grits … and bacon.” He turned his gaze to Jake. “When did you transcribe this?” he asked urgently, almost accusing Jake of some crime.

“Uhhh … yesterday afternoon,” Jake offered uneasily, baffled at how the strange little man knew what he’d eaten and flipping back to the thought that Emperor Norton was completely insane. If it’s an act, it’s a damn good one, he thought.

“Grits and bacon? In the afternoon?” Emperor Norton almost glared at Jake. “Are you insane?” Both Jake and Cole wanted to ask the Emperor that very same question, but they held their tongues. “I do hereby decree that you are only to eat such fare between the hours of midnight and eleven-thirty a.m. Do I make myself clear, Captain Lasater?”

Jake paused for a moment, taken aback. His eyes shifted a bit nervously, but only for a moment as he remembered Chung’s remark about indulging Norton. “Yes, Your Highness. I understand.”

“Good. We will not speak of this again. Now …” the Emperor said, staring finally at message. “Mmm-hmmm …” he said slowly, indicating he’d discovered something. He grabbed a large white quill from a stand on the corner of the desk and dipped the tip into an inkwell. With Jake looking intently, Emperor Norton wrote characters over the stars Jake had written. When he finished, he turned the paper around on the desk and slid it over to Jake.

ZEPPLIN: Aţi terminat misiunea?

RADU: Nimic nu este

ZEPPLIN: Suntem pe drum. Pregătiţi-vă pentru sosirea noastră.

“I assume you are only familiar with the American characters in Morse, Captain Lasater?”

“That’s right. Didn’t have much need for anything else, not where I was, anyway.”

The Emperor nodded. “Not at all uncommon,” he soothed.

“Do you know what it says?” Cole asked.

The Emperor smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up like fireworks, and he nodded enthusiastically for a few seconds, causing Jake and Cole to nod along and start smiling. Then the Emperor said just as brightly, “Not a clue.”

Someone let the air out of Jake and Cole’s smiles, and they stood there staring at the Emperor, who hadn’t stopped nodding.

“Can you at least tell us what language it’s in?”

“No,” the Emperor said, his head going up and down like a piston. “It’s not Italian or Greek … nor Yiddish either.”

“Well, at least we know more about what it ain’t, and we do appreciate you filling in the blanks for us,” Jake said.

“It was my pleasure. Now, Captain Lasater, Captain Cole,” the Emperor said, his head going still and his eyes focusing much more seriously. “I have a mission for you.”

“A … mission?” Cole asked nervously.

“Correct,” the Emperor said, smiling brightly. “It’s a simple matter. I need you to take several packages and make sure they end up at the right place at the right time.”

“That doesn’t sound so tough,” Cole said easily as the doors to the office opened.

“Ah, Miguel, do you have them ready?”

“Sí, Emperador, just as you requested.” Miguel walked into the office holding a large doctor’s bag. He nodded to Jake and Cole, giving them the same indulging smile he had before, and then set the bag on the desk in front of the Emperor.

He opened the case and extracted three identical devices that he gently placed on the desk. Each appeared to have two copper cylinders an inch in diameter attached to a housing that contained a rectangular control box of some kind and a small cylindrical power cell similar to the one on the Emperor’s left wrist, only smaller. A short, stiff piece of wire stuck out the end of the housing, ending in a sort of curly-queue pigtail.

“You’ll want to be careful with these,” the Emperor began. “They each contain about a cup of … well … its closest cousin would be nitroglycerin. Although this is much more stable.” The Emperor sounded as if he referred to a cup of sugar.

“Nitro?” Jake asked, shocked. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Miguel smile at him and shake his head, indicating that it wasn’t anything dangerous at all.

The Emperor looked up, and Miguel’s face went stony. “As I said, it’s similar to nitro glycerin, but not prone to going off when jostled.” The Emperor tossed one of the devices into the air and caught it. Neither he nor Miguel appeared nervous, so Jake figured Miguel was right, that the things had water or something else harmless in them.

Norton inspected a dial on the front of the device, set it on the desk, and opened one of the desk drawers. He pulled out a small control panel with a long wire sticking out of the top that ended in a curly-queue identical to the ones on the devices. It had a small cover plate in the middle that appeared to hinge open.

“So where do you need them delivered?” Jake asked, picking one up and inspecting it.

“That’s the easy part,” the Emperor assured Jake easily. “You’ll will simply hand the bag off to a cargo handler at the air terminal.” Twisting a dial on the front of the control panel, he slipped it into the bag.

“And what does this guy look like?” Cole asked.

“She is hard to miss,” the Emperor corrected, showing an amused smile. “Are either of you familiar with the term Valkyrie?”

“I suppose I am,” Jake said, recollecting an opera he’d seen in Chicago once. Valkyries were supposed to be large, muscular Viking women with wings. “I’m assuming she won’t have wings.”

The Emperor chuckled. “No, Captain, although wings would probably look appropriate on this particular example of womanhood.” The Emperor smiled and began placing the devices back in the bag. “Helga is a head taller than you, considerably broader in the shoulders, and could probably wrestle a Brahma bull to the ground if she needed to.” He winked at Jake with a smirk on his face.

“Interesting choice of livestock,” Jake said pointedly, and he narrowed his eyes at the Emperor slightly, trying to read the man’s face. Had the madman chosen a Brahma bull at random, or was he suggesting he knew even more about Jake? The Emperor kept smiling.

“When you see her, you’ll understand. You need simply hand her the package and,” the Emperor picked up an envelope from the corner of the desk, “give her this.” He handed it to Jake and placed his hands on the desk. “Then simply walk away. I’ll have Miguel get this to one of my agents.” He patted the small control on his desk and smiled like a child.

“Consider it done, Your Highness,” Jake said, closing the bag and taking it off the desk. Something caught his eye. Beneath the bag lay a not-so-tidy pile of tan, dog-eared folders. One of them, at the bottom of the stack and canted to expose the upper corner, had Jake’s name on it: Jake E. Lasater. The folder appeared to be almost an inch thick.

“You’ve got a file with my name on it,” Jake said, concern creeping into his voice.

“What?” Cole blurted, and his eyes darted to the desk.

Norton’s eyes went from crazy to serious in a heartbeat. He smiled, a subtle thing that barely upturned the corners of his mouth. “I do indeed,” he said easily.

“Can I read it?” Jake asked.

“Well, technically you’re not supposed to see what’s in there. It’s classified.” Norton got a sly look on his face and tapped his chin thoughtfully with a gauntleted hand. “But it is your file.” He leaned forward and carefully slid Jake’s folder out from the bottom of the stack. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He opened it so that Jake couldn’t see any of the pages. “What’s your lucky number?”

“Pardon me?”

“What’s your lucky number?” Norton repeated. “Everybody has one. Everybody who’s anybody, that is.”

Jake couldn’t imagine why a madman would have a file on anyone, let alone someone like him. But, he was damn curious to know what the hell the folder contained. There was something damn peculiar about Norton, and it wasn’t madness. If Jake had more time, he’d do whatever it took to get his hands on the whole file and figure out who or what Norton really was. But he had the job for Qi, Skeeter in town, and half of the Tong ready to blow his brains out. Jake needed a breadcrumb for when he came back to San Francisco.

“Five,” he replied. That number had been his since childhood.

Without taking his eyes off Jake, Norton thumbed through to the fifth page and pulled it out. He slowly closed the folder, opened a lower desk drawer, and placed the folder inside. “You realize that I’m breaking several protocols by giving you this.” He carefully folded the yellowed sheet of parchment in thirds and held it out. “You’re welcome to take it with you. These—” he motioned to the stack of folders, “—are all copies. I need to review a number of them.”

Jake reached for it, but Norton pulled it back slightly.

“You have to promise that you’ll keep this in the strictest confidence,” Norton said.

“I swear,” Jake said quietly. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“Very well, then.” Norton handed it over, and Jake slipped it into his vest.

“You’re not going to read it here?” Norton asked, surprised.

“I figure me and Cole best be on our way. What with our mission and all.”

“Of course,” Norton said.

He stared at Norton for a few seconds, trying to get a feel for the man. “Will there be anything else?”

“No, Captain. That will be all.”

The madness disappeared … at least for a few moments, but Jake couldn’t get a read on the Emperor. “Well, thank you again for helping with the translation. At least we have the whole thing.”

Norton nodded. “I suspect you may run into someone who recognizes the language before your travels are over.” Then he got a strange look on his face and began sniffing. His nose drifted to the surface of the desk. He sniffed left and right, like a bloodhound trying to pick up a scent. He slowly ran his tongue along the fine wood, causing Jake and Cole’s mouths to drop open.

“Good day, Emperor,” Cole added finally, doing his best not to start laughing.

“Mmm-hmmm,” the Emperor added, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture as he licked the mahogany with enthusiasm. Jake had never seen anything like the man. His behavior was clearly insane, but his eyes … they sometimes told a different story. And the folders?

Miguel opened the door with a flourish for Jake and Cole, and they stepped through, Miguel on their heels. The Spaniard closed the door silently behind them.

Jake stopped in his tracks and turned. “Miguel,” he shot, sizing up the tall figure before him.

“Sí, Capitán?”

“I ain’t no captain, and that boy seems a might outta place in the Mexican Embassy. He’s stark-raving, you know?” Jake wasn’t convinced that Norton was, but he wanted to see the Spaniard’s reaction.

Miguel smiled knowingly, but Jake couldn’t figure whether the Spaniard smiled about knowing of the Emperor’s madness or knowing something else. “Emperador Norton is an oddity that the Ambassador and his guests find most amusing.”

Jake didn’t miss that Miguel didn’t answer the question. “So, these gizmos we got here, they’re just window dressing, right?”

Again that knowing smile. “They are certainly not anything for you to be worried about, Señor. Now if you will excuse me, I must attend to the Ambassador’s guests. Vaya con Dios.” Miguel bowed and stepped past Jake and Cole, heading off towards the dining room.

“Thanks for nothing,” he muttered under his breath.

“So, are we gonna deliver these toys?” Cole asked dubiously. Norton’s insanity gave him pause enough, but the folder had him really worried.

“A deal’s a deal, and you heard what Chung said,” Jake offered as he walked towards the front doors. “Although I ain’t entirely convinced these things are toys.”

“What makes you say that?” Cole blurted. “Norton is the craziest son-of-a-bitch I ever saw,” he added, meaning it. “And that folder on you is a whole ’nother kettle of fish. He’s probably messing with you. Chung musta given him our names or something. That page he gave you is probably a laundry list.”

“Crazy?” Jake asked, his eyes narrowing as he thought about everything he’d seen and heard. “I ain’t so sure.” He patted his vest pocket. “And this, well, I’ll read it once we get back to Chung’s. It probably is nonsense, like you say, but if it ain’t, I suspect I’ll be coming back to San Fran as soon as we get Skeeter home. I ain’t gonna worry about it right now, though.”

Chapter Seventeen – Nitro for the Lady

“There was always a lot going on around us that we didn’t figure out till days, weeks, or even months, later.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

As they headed out the front door, Jake spotted one of the three white zeppelins making its way towards the landing platform at the air terminal. He could also make out the massive shape of the Jezebel, now grounded down by the docks, presumably being repaired.

Jake and Cole made a leisurely circuit through the city, simply enjoying the sunshine, before finally reaching the air terminal. Jake thought about reading the page tucked away in his pocket, but he wanted to be alone and somewhere safe before he looked at it. The landing tower loomed above, and a number of cargo handlers milled about the area, but only a few of them appeared to be loading anything into the cargo elevator that led up to the white zeppelin above, one of those Jake had seen from the Embassy. From this angle the tail design looked familiar to him. He’d seen plenty of airships in his time, with countless variants, but all had the same basic shapes. He simply couldn’t place it.

Having put their gun-belts back on—for safety’s sake, of course—they wandered through high stacks of crates, their eyes peeled for anything or anyone that might resemble a Valkyrie. They did their best to avoid a half dozen clomping, hissing lifter machines and navigate through the throng of people coming and going.

They rounded a tall stack of crates and almost ran into the back of a massive figure as she screamed at a small, dark haired man in a mechanic’s coveralls. The poor worker’s knees were practically shaking as he stared up. Both Jake and Cole’s gaze followed up and up … and up.

She spoke with a Swedish accent: “… and if you don’t get off your ass and get those crates down from the warehouse this god damn second, I’ll mush that tiny melon of yours into a puddle! Now get the hell out of my sight!” She pointed towards several warehouses on the other side of the open cargo loading area.

Cole stood there opened mouthed. The giant stood well over a foot taller than Jake, with impressive curves that made her womanhood abundantly clear. She wore a heavy, dark gray shirt with short sleeves. Bronze bracers covered her forearms, the left one covered with strange characters and three large, red gems set into the metal along the forearm. The right one had a long rectangular casing, and Jake realized the casing held a slasher of a particularly heavy design and exceedingly fine craftsmanship.

A long, thick ponytail of corn silk hair dangled down her back almost to her waist. Dark brown pants disappeared into heavy, knee-high tan work boots covered with buckles along the outside. A wide, black leather belt secured her waistline, pulled taught over shapely hips, and a series of pouches ran most of the way round. She had a heavy, German pistol strapped to her left hip, and a giant Bowie knife hooked on her right.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said and darted off towards the warehouse like there were hounds on his trail.

“Excuse me,” Jake said cautiously. “Would you be Helga?”

She turned slowly and planted her feet in a wide stance, her massive fists set firmly on her ample hips. Despite her stature, she had delicate features and her high cheekbones were tinted rose. She wore no makeup at all but Jake and Cole were stunned by her beauty … in a bigger-than-life sort of way.

Norton had been right. She was a giant, with broad shoulders and thick arms, one of them tattooed with crossed hammers and characters Jake didn’t recognize. She had a stupendous bosom, and Jake couldn’t help but think that a small enough actor could probably do Shakespeare from that balcony and look good doing it. He also realized it would probably be suicide to make mention of it.

“Ya, I’m Helga.” She sized up Jake and Cole, took in their weapons, and then settled her hand easily onto the grip of the heavy pistol. “Who the hell’s asking?” Neither Jake nor Cole flinched under her fierce gaze, but the woman was as imposing as Norton promised. Cole hadn’t stopped gaping. Clearly not a woman to be trifled with, Jake pictured a trail of broken hearts—and bodies—in her wake.

“Well, you don’t know us, but … umm … Emperor Norton sent us.” Jake suddenly worried that she wouldn’t know Norton or wouldn’t be interested in taking the satchel.

“What does that crazy little bastard want this time?” she asked, her beautiful face twisting into a scowl. Jake thought even that looked good on her.

He looked at the satchel in his hand and wondered what—or who—the hell the contents were for.

“He wanted us to give you this satchel,” he said, handing it over. “And this,” he added. He reached into his vest pocket and gave her the envelope.

Helga gave out a great, exasperated sigh and snatched the proffered bag and envelope out of Jake’s hands.

“Fine!” she growled. The fire in her eyes made it clear she wasn’t entirely pleased at doing Norton’s bidding. Jake had to wonder once again about Norton’s game. Crazy? Yes. But there was a hell of a lot more to the man than there appeared … including his missions. “Anything else?” Her fiery gaze shifted between Jake and Cole a few times.

Cole kept staring, but Jake spoke up almost apologetically. “No, ma’am,” he said quietly. “We’ll just be on our way. A pleasure meeting you,” Jake added and tipped his hat. He looked over at Cole who hadn’t taken his eyes off the giant woman. “Say goodbye, Cole.”

“Unh-hunh.… G’bye.” Cole didn’t move, so Jake gently grabbed his shoulder, and as he looked up at Helga again, he caught her face softening a bit as she looked down at Cole. With her face partially turned, Jake couldn’t be certain, but he swore he caught her winking at his partner. He eased Cole back around the crates, and they headed back towards Chung’s.

“Jake?” Cole said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“That was the most intimidating woman I ever laid eyes on.” Cole blew out a long breath, and Jake realized he’d been holding it. “And the sexiest,” Cole added slowly.

Jake could only shake his head and grin. He’d never pegged Cole for having that sort of appetite, but he had to admit, there was something both frightening and alluring about the woman.

“So, uhh … you wanna go back and talk to her?” Jake laid even odds that Cole would do just that.

Cole thought about it for a few seconds, and Jake saw the battle raging between intimidated and aroused.

“I don’t think so,” Cole said finally, “I think I’d feel awfully fragile in her arms.… You know? Like a ragdoll.”

“Yeah.” Jake considered the notion of Helga picking Cole up and wrapping her massive arms around him in a hug that would probably crush his spine. “I can see that,” They both laughed.

Chapter Eighteen – Master Chung

“We met all sorts of people in our line of work … good and bad alike. Chung, though … he was something else. I count myself lucky for just knowing him.”

~ Jake Lasater

The sun threatened to sink behind the Pacific, and rosy-gold light poured through the cracks and windows of the stable behind Qi’s Emporium. Jake and Cole diligently brushed down their mounts, once again in the comfort of their normal clothes.

“I swear, I ain’t never seen a woman like that before,” Cole said as he ran a brush over Koto’s neck.

“You got that right. And ol’ Norton back there called it. Helga could give Lumpy here a run for his money in any pullin’ contest.” Jake held a handful of sweet feet under Lumpy’s massive head as the bull chewed noisily.

“Maybe you should introduce them,” Cole added, chuckling.

“Introduce who?” Chung asked, surprising them both as he silently entered the stable. Jake’s hand made it halfway to his Peacekeeper before realizing who it was.

“You sure are light on your feet, Chung,” Jake said, smiling.

“I did not mean to startle you.” The old man smiled apologetically and gave a sincere bow.

“I suspect you say that a lot,” Cole added.

“Perhaps,” he said almost coyly. “Did your meeting with Emperor Norton go well?”

“I suppose. We know more than we did before we got there, but not by much. And we got a few more unanswered questions in the bargain. He filled in the missing letters, and we were right. It’s a language from Europe somewhere.”

“But he could not translate,” Chung said flatly.

“Nope.”

“Well,” Chung sighed, “a step forward is always motion.”

“True enough,” Jake concurred. “Can I ask you a question, Chung?” He let Lumpy take the last handful of sweet feed and stepped out of the stall.

“Of course.”

Jake stared closely at Chung’s face to see what he could read in the old man’s answer, expecting it to be evasive and probably no answer at all. “Do you think Norton is crazy?”

Chung locked eyes with Jake, and the trace of a smile flickered across his lips. “Yes.”

Jake waited for some sort of qualification, but the silence drew out. He shook his head and concern crossed his features. “Now that worries me,” he finally said.

“What?” Cole asked. “Everybody thinks he’s crazy, Jake. That boy back there called us Captains Lasater and McJunkins, of all things, and figures we’re some sort of secret agents.”

“That ain’t what I mean, Cole.” Jake looked at Chung, still trying to read the man, but all he got was a silent stare decorated with a wry, mysterious grin. “That’s the first one-word answer I’ve gotten from Chung, and he knows it.”

Chung looked at Cole with a knowing glint in his eyes. “So, you introduced yourselves to the Emperor, did you?” The emphasis on the word didn’t get by Jake’s ear.

“No,” Cole replied. “He recognized us straight away and called us both by name. I figured you told him who we were in that message you sent, right up until—”

“I only wrote that two men would be coming, one with a distinct accoutrement over his eye and the other of a darker skin color. That and they would need his assistance. I leave names out of such communications to prevent people like Ming—and others—from being aware of details they do not need.”

“But … I don’t get it?” Cole said, scratching the back of his neck, trying to figure it out. “He knew our names. And what about that folder?”

“Exactly, Cole,” Jake said a bit ominously. “How much does he really know?” Jake turned to the old man. “Any ideas, Chung?”

“I am sure anything I might offer would be speculation at best … nothing I could prove. And I am not one to speculate about such things.” Chung clearly wasn’t going to elaborate, and Jake had little doubt the old man had a hell of a lot more story to tell. “But that is not why I am here,” Chung continued, smoothly changing the subject. “We’ll be serving dinner shortly, and Lady Dănești should be joining us soon thereafter.”

“She’s not having dinner with us?” Cole asked.

“No. The Lady prefers to dine alone. In time you will probably find she has many … quirks, but such are the whims of nobility. I will see you upstairs, gentlemen. I have something I must attend to.” Chung turned and walked out of the stable as silently as he’d come in.

“Cole,” Jake said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“You ever get the feeling you don’t know even half of what the hell’s going on?”

“Most of the time, amigo.” Cole slapped Jake on the back and walked past him out of the barn. “I first noticed it about the same time I started riding with you.” As he stepped through the doors, he spoke over his shoulder loud enough for Jake to hear, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“Me either,” Jake mumbled. He turned to the tail end of the Brahma. “You have any idea what’s going on?” Lumpy shook his bridle, but both ends of the bull stayed silent. A light breeze drifted through the boards of the barn, whispering to Jake, but that wasn’t much of an answer either. Realizing he’d addressed the ass end of a bull, he began to wonder if Norton’s insanity might be catching. He shook his head and walked out of the stable, headed for the meeting room and supper.

Jake reached the top floor and stood before the door of the lounge. A dozen different, appetizing smells greeted him. Each of them made his mouth water. He opened the door to a simple table setting in the middle, just as it had been the night before. However, a long table with an amazing assortment of different foods ran along the far wall, and the only thing he recognized was rice.

Qi and Skeeter had already filled their own plates and were busy chatting at the far corner of the table. Jake heard Skeeter mention Von Klattersnap, the mad scientist who had been her mentor before Jake ran the villain off and took the girl in.

Cole put what looked like dumplings and chicken feet on his plate while Chung talked beside him quietly. The old woman who had served them tea that morning poked her head through the door at the back of the room and, spotting Jake, came out. She gave him a wide smile as she approached.

“I get you drink?” she asked in heavily accented English, bowing at the waist.

“I don’t suppose y’all would happen to have any sarsaparilla?” Jake asked.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, nodding her head with understanding. “Yes, we have.” She bowed again. “I get for you.”

“Thank you.…” Jake paused. “I didn’t get your name.”

The elderly woman smiled and blushed slightly. “My name Da-Xia.”

“Thank you, Da-Xia. I’m much obliged.”

She smiled, bowed again, and left the room with quick, short steps. As Jake turned back to the table, he spotted Chung smiling at him. Jake didn’t know what had the old man smiling, but he smiled back and sat down at the table, figuring he’d get to the food after he’d washed the taste of stable out of his throat.

Chung put together a heaping plate as he kept talking to Cole. Jake spent the next few minutes pondering the day he’d had … about the Emperor and Miguel and even Helga. Everything he’d seen and heard made convincing evidence that the little man everyone called Emperor Norton was, as Cole put it, “crazier than a shithouse rat.” But Jake couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a lot more to the little crackpot than just ravings and pointless gadgets. He still hadn’t read the file, but he would before he turned in for the night.

Da-Xia finally came through the door and stepped up to Jake, who stood as she approached. She set a dark brown bottle on the table before him and bowed again. “Sarsparira,” she said. Beads of water covered the bottle, and Jake realized it was ice cold.

“Sheh-sheh-ni,” Jake offered a bit awkwardly with an accent far worse than her English. The phrase was one of the few Qi had taught him during their brief time together. It meant “thank you.”Jake wanted to do his best to honor the woman and show her he truly appreciated her efforts. She giggled and covered her mouth. She bowed again and walked back the way she had come. Once again, Jake caught Chung smiling at him, and the old man excused himself from Cole and walked over to where Jake sat. Chung set the plate down in front of Jake and took a seat next to him.

Surprised that the plate was for him, Jake bowed his head. “Thank you, Chung. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It is my pleasure, Jake. I grow increasingly convinced that my granddaughter is right about you. You have a warm, decent heart.”

“Hell, Chung, you barely know me.” Jake felt himself blushing a little, not accustomed to compliments. “But thank you kindly.”

“I believe I do know you. You treat everyone as equals, are slow to judge, and seem to have a peaceful disposition.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say peaceful,” Jake said and sighed. “I’ve killed more people than I care to think about.”

“Yet it bothers you. And I suspect that each and every one of them either had it coming or left you no choice.”

“Well,” Jake said slowly, “there’s probably some gray area in there, I suppose. I’m pretty damn far from being a saint. If my mamma was right, I am surely going to hell.”

“There are all kinds of men, and I’ve met my fair share in this life.” Chung stared off into space for a moment, and Jake knew the look. He’d worn it plenty of times as he considered every fight he’d had, every man and the one woman he’d killed. “You concern yourself with others and you have a sense of honor that most men lack. Why is that?”

“The war, I suppose,” Jake said a bit wearily. “Hell, if that war taught me one thing—and it taught me a lot more than that—it taught me that life is hard enough for those of us livin’ it without us making it harder for each other.” Jake stared off into a similar pool of memory, remembering dead faces … and pain. “I reckon when I come across folks interested in making life hard for others, it just …” His voice trailed off.

“What?” Chung asked.

“Begs for a reckoning,” Jake added with steel in his voice.

“I think I understand,” Chung replied.

“You know, when they had me laid out in that Army tent, and that doctor had just hacked off what little remained of my arm and legs … well, me and God had a little talk.” Jake took a pull from the sarsaparilla and let its chill ease down his throat, washing away the stable just as he’d hoped. He set the bottle back down next to the plate and looked deep into the old man’s eyes. “Me and God came to an understanding. He gave me my legs and hand back, and I made a promise to do what’s right, no matter what it cost me, and no matter what the orders.”

“It’s amazing what pain like that can do to a person, isn’t it,” Chung said, looking at the golden, clawed hand that rested on the table in front of him.

“Yessir. It surely is.”

Da-Xia walked back into the room with a small bowl and set it in front of Chung. Jake recognized it as egg drop soup, something else Qi had shared with him.

Chung spotted Jake’s questioning glance and smiled like a little boy. “Egg drop reminds me of a time and place very far from here … and people long gone. Besides, at my age, I don’t require much.”

As Chung gleefully worked on his soup, Jake got to thinking about what his next move would be. If he took the job of escorting the Lady’s package, he’d have to worry about whatever Ming could throw at him. And they wouldn’t have asked Jake to just escort a package to the shipyards unless they knew someone else was gunning for it. Assuming he made it out of Chinatown, the best and fastest option would be any transport other than the Jezebel headed back to Denver. Tyler had said they hadn’t found anything, but Szilágyi had been on the Jezebel for a reason. That made going back on the zeppelin a less-than-appealing notion. The thought of humping it across Nevada and Utah made his guts ache, and crossing the Free Territories was a frying pan-to-fire option. The Free Territories were in the middle of an open war with the Republic of Texas—and Cromwell. An hellacious amount of territory lay between San Fran and Denver, and most of it had less-than-friendly folks. “Chung, can you do me a favor?”

“If it is within my power,” he replied. “What do you need?”

“Can you have someone find out what transports are leaving San Fran for Denver, or at least some place in Colorado? Anything in the next two days would be best.”

“I’ll see to it,” the old man said and went back to his soup, smiling to himself like a happy child.

Everyone finally settled down at the table, Jake and Chung next to each other while Cole sat with Qi and Skeeter. Cole’s eyes were riveted on the conversation as the two tinkers talked their trade. Cole had always been fascinated by the work Skeeter did. It’s why he spent as much time as he did helping her.

Jake and Chung talked about the past, about friends come and gone, of the hard decisions they’d made and the regrets they suffered in the aftermath. And over the course of dinner, they built a friendship that truly surprised Jake. Chung had to be three times Jake’s age, but they’d chewed a lot of the same dirt over the years.

When everyone finished—Skeeter and Cole returning to the banquet table three times each—Da-Xia came in and cleared the plates. They all shared more small talk as she brought out tea and two plates of petits fours that Chung admitted were a favorite. Everyone delighted at the variety, some filled with fruit and some with creams of every color and flavor. Each one contained a delicate surprise, and by the time they were done, few of the small, brightly iced cakes were left. As Jake poured himself his fifth cup of tea, someone knocked on the door. Chung and Qi stood immediately. Jake, Cole, and Skeeter followed suit just as the door opened.

Jake got lost in the magnificent woman that walked in.

She was petit and slim, with an angular face that seemed just the healthy side of gaunt. She wore an emerald dress of shimmering silk that caught the light of the room and glistened like morning dew on leaves. The sleeves went slightly past her wrists, and the collar came up to beneath her chin in a narrow wrap of ribbon and lace. Black lace flared out at wrist and throat, looking like blossoms sprouting around the woman’s delicate face and hands. A black corset worn over the dress shaped an impossibly narrow waistline and exquisite hourglass figure. A full bustle with a short train of emerald and lace flowed out behind her. She wore darkened, oval spectacles with a copper frame. They fit close to her eyes, with brass flanges that hugged her eyebrows and cheeks. A green top hat perched askew and tilted slightly forward on her head accentuated the outfit, the dainty chapeau decorated with black lace tied in a wide bow that draped behind her.

She had bone white hair, done in long, tight curls that looked like ropes pulled tight into a knot at the back of her head. As white as a dove’s wing, Jake thought. Something inside him sparked at the sight of her. He’d never seen a woman so beautiful, and for several seconds the only thing he heard was his own pounding heart.

Chapter Nineteen – Memories of a Ghost Hunter

“Jake isn’t the only one with a strange past.”

~ Cole McJunkins

The Lady Dănești stepped straight up to Jake and gave a slight nod of her head, holding out her hand. Chung stepped forward as Jake took her hand, raised it to his lips, and gently kissed her knuckles. Her cool, pale skin smelled of lilies. He could see the faint cornflower blue outline of veins on the back of her hand, and the sight of it thrilled him.

“Lady Corina Dănești,” Chung said formally, “allow me to present to you Mister Jake Lasater. Jake, this is the Lady Dănești.”

“It is truly an honor,” Jake said, releasing her hand. She nodded to him again, and he caught himself watching her hand drift gracefully down to her side. Jake heard a rustle behind him and had to force himself to turn away. Skeeter came around the table, but Cole stood where he was, his eyes locked on the Lady. He had a strange look on his face, as if his eyes weren’t focused on her, but on something beyond.

“And this is Skeeter,” Chung added as the slim girl approached. “Skeeter, this is Lady Dănești.”

“Milady,” Skeeter said and curtsied more formally than Jake would have thought possible for the young rabble-rouser. The Lady again nodded her head.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Skeeter.”

Jake saw Skeeter turn a sidelong glance to Qi who nodded with a smile on her face. Qi’s eyes turned to Jake’s knowingly, and he would swear she could see his heart pounding. Her eyes teased him, but he couldn’t fathom why. He looked away and stared once again at Cole who seemed to be riveted to the floor.

“And the gentleman at the far end of the table,” Chung said, motioning towards Cole, “is Cole McJunkins, Jake’s partner in mayhem.”

“Lady Dănești,” Cole said cautiously, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He gave a polite nod of his head. It wasn’t apparent enough to be obvious, but Jake picked up unease in his partner’s posture and wondered why. The Lady watched Cole for a few more seconds and then the others. She gave a strange little smile. When she nodded her head, she added a slight bow to Cole. Jake sent a questioning look Cole’s way, but his partner either didn’t notice or didn’t feel like giving him any sign of what troubled him. With everything going on around him, Jake felt like a blind man in a shooting gallery.

“It’s a sincere pleasure to meet all of you,” she said with a distinct accent, “but if you will excuse me, I have something of import I must discuss with Master Lau Xing.” She held out her arm and Chung took it gently.

Jake thought about her accent … it reminded him of Szilágyi, but it didn’t sound quite right. He wanted to hear her speak more, but it looked like he’d have to wait.

“Of course, Lady Dănești. We can go to my office.”

“That would be acceptable,” she replied and nodded to everyone in the room one at a time. She nodded at Jake last, and he thought he saw her delicate, white eyebrow rise slightly behind the spectacles. Chung led the Lady out the way she had come.

The room grew quiet for long seconds as Jake stared openly at the closed door.

“Jake,” Cole’s voice broke Jake out of his stupor. “You got a minute?”

Jake shook his head, struggling to clear the image of Lady Dănești from his thoughts. “Yeah, sure, Cole,” he replied, turning. Cole moved towards the back of the room with an uncomfortable look on his face. Skeeter looked at Jake and then at Qi, her innocent eyes not picking up any of the cross-play going back and forth. Skeeter sat down where she’d been, and as Jake stepped past, Qi looked at him with smiling eyes that seemed to know a great deal more than he did.

Jake stepped up to Cole, and they both turned their backs on Qi and Skeeter, lowering their voices to whispers.

“What the hell was that all about?” Cole asked.

“What’cha mean?” Jake asked, confused.

“I ain’t never seen you go gaga over a woman like that before.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t go gaga.” It was the only lie Jake ever told to Cole.

“Oh, pu-lease,” Cole said, “You shoulda seen yourself.”

“Well,” Jake conceded, “she is one hell of a fine lookin’ lady.”

“Jake,” Cole said seriously, “remember what I said about Helga being the most intimidating woman ever?”

“Yeah.”

“I lied.” He swallowed and licked his lips nervously. “Lady Dănești has that Valkyrie beat by miles and miles.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jake blurted loud enough for Qi and Skeeter to turn their heads. Jake lowered his voice. “You just met the woman, and she sure as hell didn’t look like no Valkyrie.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Cole turned his eyes away, looking for a way to explain his reaction in a way that Jake would understand. “Did I ever tell you about my grandmother? The one in Louisiana?”

“No, I don’t recall that you did.”

“Her name was Alidia, but everyone called her Tante Lid. Back around the turn of the century she had a reputation as a … a … hell, there wasn’t even a word for it … she was just Tante Lid. Everyone knew what she was. She used to walk around the surrounding parishes … wherever her spirit led her.” He hesitated. “She exorcised demons and hunted ghosts.” Cole looked into Jake’s eyes to see if his partner believed him. Jake’s face was placid, not doubting. “I only have a few recollections of meeting her, but I’ll tell you, she left an impression.”

“How do you mean?” Jake asked, wondering where this was headed.

“The last time I saw her, my mamma took me. By then Tante Lid was known for leagues and leagues, but as a healer not a hunter in those days. Time had taken its toll on her. I’d never been to her home before. I was sick, you know? Real sick. I’d had a fever for two weeks and was coughing up blood for a few days. Folks looked at me the way you and I look at a man who’s gut-shot and ain’t gonna make it. You now?” Jake nodded, thinking of the men he’d seen die. “Mamma put me up on a neighbor’s plow horse, and I remember us walking for … hell, it seemed like forever … through this weird forest smack dab in the middle of bayou country. The cypress had opened up, replaced by this stretch of tall, straight trees I’d never seen before. They made up a canopy of sorts. They were spaced evenly—I’d have to say precisely—as if they’d been planted like that at the beginning of time. The ground under ’em was clear—which is weird if you’ve ever been to Louisiana—and the sun came down all shimmery and dusky, like we were under water or something. Well, Tante Lid’s little white house finally came into view, and it was  …” Cole turned his eyes to Jake, “it was like the whole place glowed there in the middle of that dancing shadow … and it felt like a piece of heaven had dropped out of the sky and landed right there.”

Jake was intrigued but didn’t see a point. “What’s this got to do with the Lady?”

“I’m gettin’ to that,” Cole assured him. “As we come within earshot of the house, I start to hear chanting … or praying … whatever you wanna call it. My mamma pulls me down off the horse and carries me up the steps. I couldn’t even walk by this time. The door opens and there’s this tall fella standing there all in white. His skin was as black as my mamma’s, his hair as white as his clothes. I remember wrinkles that looked like they were a hundred years old. He looks down at my mamma and then stares directly at me, smiling like we’re old friends. ‘We’ve been expecting you,’ he says, and my mamma nods as if that’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Cole locked eyes with his partner. “Jake, I’m tellin’ ya. There was no way he could have known we were coming. No way. So, my mamma carries me through the door, and every wall, nook and cranny is covered with red candles, the light making the place as bright as the sun. In the middle of the room is a table covered with a white cloth, and there’s seven people standing around it, all of ’em in white and holding hands. On the far side is Tante Lid. She looks older than the man at the door, but she’s got this strength … from deep inside. Even I can see it.

“All of a sudden that strength of hers, well I feel it flow into me. My head clears a little, and I don’t feel like I’m gonna die. Tante Lid smiles at me and my mamma and then nods to the table in front of her. My mamma lays me down, pulls my legs straight, and crosses my hands across my chest. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she says and kisses my forehead. My mamma steps away, outside the circle, and Tante Lid places her hand over my eyes. I hear her whispering something in a language I don’t know, and the praying or whatever starts up from the folks around me.”

Cole’s words trailed off, as if he were there once again reliving those events.

“And?” Jake asked.

“Well, I woke up the following day. Them folks were still standing over me and still chanting. When I opened my eyes, Tante Lid held up her hand and they all went silent. I took a deep breath, the healthiest I’ve ever been, and I ain’t been sick since, Jake. Not once.”

“That’s a hell of a story, Cole, it truly is,” Jake said, sounding confused. “But what’s it got to do with Lady Dănești?”

“Well, never being sick ain’t the only thing I got up off that table with. Ever since that day I’ve been able to sense things … unnatural things … not necessarily bad, or even good for that matter … just unnatural … like I have some sort of connection to … beyond. I can sense when ghosts are about, or when something terrible happened in a particular place. Tante Lid gave me something, a little piece of whatever she had. You know what I’m saying?”

“I think so, Cole.”

“Well, that’s how I know, without a doubt, that there’s something very unnatural about the Lady Corina Dănești.” Cole clasped Jake’s arm, almost frantically. “Be careful,” he added.

At first Jake didn’t know what to say. He trusted his partner, had entrusted his life to Cole on a number of occasions. It was a hell of a story, and he had no choice but to take Cole at his word. He put his hand on Cole’s shoulder.

“All right, Cole. I will.”

“Jake?” Skeeter called from the table.

Rescued, Jake thought as he stepped over to Skeeter. He didn’t see the concerned look on Cole’s face. “Yeah? What’s up, Skeeter?”

“Qi was telling me about some note. Can I see it?”

Jake looked surprised but reached into his pocket. “Sure.” He handed it over and gave Qi a questioning look. “Here you go, but I don’t see how—”

Skeeter started reading it off. “ZEPPELIN: Have you completed the mission? SIZLAGYI: Nothing is … ZEPPELIN: We’re on our way. Prepare for our arrival.” She looked up at Jake with that gleam in her eyes when people underestimated her. “It’s Moldavian … or Wallachian. They’re pretty much the same thing, and I never could tell them apart. They speak this in places throughout the Carpathian mountains.” She said it like she would say cowboys ride horses.

Everyone’s mouth dropped open, and Jake blinked his eyes.

“How the hell do you know that?” Jake blurted.

“Von Klattersnap taught me,” she replied, easy as you please.

“I thought you said he was German,” Jake injected. It came out almost as an accusation. Sometimes he couldn’t keep up with Skeeter’s surprises.

“He is,” she retorted. “He had me read up on Moldavian, though … said I’d need it later.”

“For what?” Cole spoke up.

“He didn’t say … just something big. He was funny that way.” Skeeter clearly didn’t get the connection, brushing it off as coincidence. Jake found it rather disturbing, although he was grateful Skeeter didn’t share his cynicism.

“What? You mean aside from being a mad scientist and all?” Cole asked.

“Yeah.” Skeeter laughed and rolled her eyes. “I mean aside from that. Most of the time he wasn’t such a bad guy.”

Jake shot her a critical look. “Skeeter, he damn near enslaved Evergreen, and he did enslave that friend of yours.”

“I did say most of the time, didn’t I?” she replied with an easy smile. “He was smart, too. Always made me feel like a normal kid, and he let me do mostly what I wanted.”

“If you say so,” Cole mumbled.

“Well, at least we know what it says … but it doesn’t say much, does it? I wish I’d been able to catch more of it.”

“Seems to me that he’s talking about doing something to the Jezebel,” Cole offered.

“Yeah, I figured the same thing, but Tyler and his men didn’t find anything, and they searched from stem to stern. Damn it! I wish I knew what the hell Szilágyi wanted.”

Cole rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “It’s got to be related to the Lady’s package. It’s the only thing that makes sense.… But how could he be four steps ahead of us like that? We didn’t know we were coming to San Fran until two days ago, and we hadn’t even taken the job. He couldn’t possibly know how we’re going to get it back to Denver. I say we avoid the Jezebel like it’s a crate full of scorpions.”

“Hard to argue with you on that one, amigo. The Jezebel is out.” Jake was pleased Cole had come to the same conclusion. “I’m sure there’ll be other transports heading out of here in the next few of days. Even if they’re not going to Denver, they gotta be going somewhere.”

Qi stood and kissed Skeeter’s cheek. “I don’t believe the Lady or my grandfather will be coming back this evening.” She yawned, delicately covering her mouth, and then stretched her arms over her head. “I think I’ll turn in. Skeeter, you know where your room is. Cole, yours is just along the hallway from there.” She stepped by Jake and ran her hand gently over his. He didn’t miss the touch or the lack of any mention of a room of his own. “Goodnight, everyone.” She stepped to the door and then turned. “Oh, and Skeeter …”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I want you to go over those words I taught you today. Don’t focus on them, just memorize them exactly how I taught you.”

“I will.” Skeeter beamed. “I promise!”

“Good girl!” Qi sent an expectant look in Jake’s direction and then closed the door.

Skeeter stood and headed for the door. “C’mon, Cole, I’ll show you to your room.”

“Thanks, Skeeter.” They both walked past Jake, and Cole gave him a wink.

“Good night, Jake,” Skeeter said as she opened the door.

“Yeah, good night, Jake.” Cole did his best to say it exactly the way Skeeter did. All Jake could do was sigh.

Chapter Twenty – Comrades in Arms

“There’s a part of me, deep down inside, that always regretted not being able to settle down with Jake, but he had his destiny.”

~ Qi Lau Xing

Jake knocked lightly on the door and heard a rustling of bedclothes, as if someone were hastily getting into bed.

“Come in, Jake.” Qi’s voice was inviting and warm.

Something made him hesitate. He’d spent months yearning to pass, once again, through that very door, and now a tickling of uncertainty played at the back of his mind. Uncertainty was a foreign idea to Jake. Shaking his head, he twisted the knob and stepped in. A row of blue candles set before the mirror of Qi’s black lacquer dresser made an arc of light, casting warm ripples throughout the room. Jake remembered the last time he’d been in Qi’s bedroom, and it stirred him now just as it had then. The whisper of a white dove’s wing fluttered through his thoughts, prompting a subtle twinge of guilt. Pushing back the image of Lady Dănești, Jake closed the door behind him and stepped in.

“I’ve missed you, Jake.” Qi held a red satin comforter up to her chin, and her face looked as warm and inviting as her voice sounded. “Do you remember what we talked about that last night?” she asked as she gave him a smile that stirred his heart in ways only she could. “Right here in this bed?” Clad in white satin pajamas, she patted the comforter next to her.

“I do. I remember it all.” He stepped up to the bed and took his hat off, throwing it on the same chair it had landed on the last time. “Do you think anything has changed?” he asked, slowly contemplating the curves of her cheek, neck, and shoulder. A part of him wanted her, but something else made him push such thoughts aside, and it was more than just the thought of the Lady.

“No,” she said simply. “You and I are eternal, Jake. Just as we are. Perhaps more than either of us realizes.”

“Now you sound like your grandfather.” The smile he gave her was warm, one of friendship and trust.

She laughed lightly, and the sound of it warmed Jake’s heart.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Qi folded back the covers on his side of the bed, and the satin beneath glowed a pale blue in the candlelight, as inviting as the first time he laid eyes upon it. “You flatter and honor me,” she added, bowing her head as her finger traced patterns in the satin.

“Just speaking plainly, Qi,” Jake replied. “You know me.”

“Yes, I do.” She looked at him expectantly, a quirky little smile playing about her lips as she eyed the gulf of satin between them.

Still conflicted, and not a little uncertain, Jake pulled off his gun belt and hooked it on the bedpost. He sat on the edge of the bed, maintaining the gulf between them. He looked into Qi’s eyes and couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her mind. He certainly hadn’t hesitated the last time he found himself in her bedroom.

“She’s really quite remarkable, isn’t she?” Qi asked with a knowing smile.

“Who?” Jake asked. He tried to sound ignorant, but it sounded hollow even to him.

Qi’s light laughter filled the room, as delicate as crystal and as warm as chimes. “You know who I mean.” She clearly enjoyed his discomfort, and they both knew it. “The Lady Dănești.” Jake’s cheeks flushed, causing Qi to smile even more. “Cole was right, you know. You did go … how did he say it? Go gaga?”

“Damn!” Jake muttered. “Not you too.”

“Yes,” she said, her face glowing and laughter shining in her eyes, “me, too.”

Jake turned serious, his voice going low. Besides, he needed to get out of the corner she’d backed him into. “Can I trust her, Qi? I still don’t know a damn thing about this package. And with Skeeter with me, I have to be extra careful.”

Qi’s smile faded, but not the warmth. She stared deeply into his eyes. “She has many secrets, even from my grandfather, but she has a right to them, Jake. She’s earned them.” She reached out and took his real hand in hers. It felt warm and comforting and everything Jake remembered about her. “I can’t tell you her story. I’m honor bound. But yes, you can trust her.”

Jake thought about it. A certainty filled her voice that Jake simply could not ignore. “All right. I believe you.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. She released his hand and ran her own tenderly over his beard, holding it gently on his face.

“But those are thoughts for tomorrow,” she said, and a warmth lit her eyes. “Tonight is about something else, bao bei. For you have difficult times ahead, and your destiny awaits.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Destiny?” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Ain’t no such thing.”

“I know you won’t believe it now, but in time you will understand.” She gripped his hand tightly. “The signs are there. Everything I’ve seen and heard and read tells me that you will become the eye of a great storm, and if you fail, we shall all perish.”

“Qi, what the hell are you talking about?”

She stared into his eyes. “A war is coming. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you have a right to know.” She took a deep breath. “Since I met you, I knew there was something different about you … that you were meant for a greater purpose.”

“Aw, hell, Qi, I’m just a dime-a-dozen cowboy who knows how to play cards.”

“No, you’re not, Jake. Even my grandfather can see it. And the Lady knew about you before she arrived.”

“Knew about me? What are you talking about?”

“God, I wish I could tell you more!” She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around him. “Just hold me, Jake,” she whispered in his ear. “Forget what I’ve told you and just hold me tonight like there’s no tomorrow.”

Jake felt tears soaking into his shirt, so he did as she asked, at least mostly. He put what she’d said out of his mind and wrapped his arms around her. He held her and realized that she’d brought him to her room for a very different purpose that what he’d originally thought. Oddly enough, he felt very comfortable with that. Qi was something special. They had a connection that nothing could break, but it wasn’t about anything physical. It was deeper, like they were old friends who had known each other a thousand years.

“I’ll hold you as long as you let me.” He said.

She rolled onto her side and he curled up behind her, his arms wrapped protectively around her. She finally fell asleep just as the candles burned out, so Jake got undressed, got back into bed, and fell asleep with thoughts of destiny and war pulling at his thoughts.

Chapter Twenty-one – Moonlight Ruckus

“They never did let me live down that night … what with running around like that and all.”

~ Jake Lasater

A shaft of moonlight in his face woke Jake out of a dreamless sleep. He rolled over onto his side and stared at Qi’s hair as it flowed across the pillow between them. He didn’t know what to think about her notions of destiny and war. It sounded ridiculous to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was get involved in another conflict.

The faint sound of warning bells in some distant part of the city washed over the night. He assumed the fire brigade had been called to their duties. San Francisco took fires very seriously since the last one wiped out a big piece of the city, including the original air terminal.

The moonlight streaming in through the window above the headboard made Qi’s hair look like an obsidian river cascading over gentle falls, and it made Jake smile. They were kindred spirits, and they both cherished the friendship they shared. They’d first been drawn to each other like moths to each other’s flame. She was something special, to be sure, but they both knew deep down that they could never be together.

Jake counted himself lucky to have found Cole and Skeeter—they were like a family now—the way it was for Qi and her grandfather. Jake rolled on his back and stared up at the moon, placing his hands lightly on his chest. What Cole had said about Lady Dănești troubled him. Cole had been right about one thing, though, Jake’s reaction to the Lady just walking through the door like that was out of character. And with that thought Jake realized whatever he’d felt was real, as real as what he felt for Qi, just a very different sort of emotion. Jake’s thoughts turned to the mysterious noble woman. He already felt committed to the job, and, despite Qi’s assurances, it made him uncomfortable.

A creak from above broke Jake’s train of thought. He froze. Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing, pretending to be asleep. Then he shifted his head into a shadow cast by the window frame and opened his left eye just a crack. It was enough to allow him to see in the darkness. He waited for the sound, but all he only heard Qi’s breathing. Something told him to wait a little longer, and his patience paid off. At the upper corner of the window he spotted a shadow, a black movement on a black sky, and he realized that someone looked down on both of them. He’d hooked his gun belt over the bedpost above him, but he waited. The shadow slid back, and Jake rolled over slowly, snuggling up behind Qi as he put an arm around her.

He felt her wake up, and she put her arm over his, hugging tight.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered as quietly as he could. “There’s someone outside the window, hanging from the roof.”

He felt her tense, and she nodded once. “Roll over,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear. “When I say ‘go’, get your pistols and watch my back.” Jake did as instructed and heard Qi whispering something in a language he didn’t understand. He suddenly felt his skin tingle, and as a subtle green flash illuminated the room. “GO!” she hissed, and he heard her slam something on her nightstand. She rolled out of bed in a flash, and Jake rolled away a split-second later.

Claxons wailed all over the building and he heard a release of steam followed by the sound of steel rolling slowly. He spotted a metal grate sliding across the window from inside the wall. On the other side of the room Qi’s entire body glowed with a shimmering green outline. She had opened a panel in the wall and reached for one of the Chinese weapons held within.

Jake’s hand darted toward the Officer’s Colt just as a figure swung into view outside. With barely enough room between the wall and the sliding grate, a shadowy figure crashed through the window. Broken glass flew everywhere as the intruder’s foot lashed out, smashing into Jake’s chest and sending him crashing into the wall. The Officer’s Colt flew out of his hand and bounced off the bedroom door. Jake heard the electric whine of a chaingun spinning up and saw the figure in black aiming the weapon at Qi as she turned to face the intruder.

“No!” Jake screamed and lunged just as the barrel of the chaingun lit up and a barrage of bullets rained down into Qi’s naked form. He watched in horror as the burst hammered her body back against the wall. Jake stepped onto the bed and grabbed the barrel of the chaingun with his flesh hand, lifting it towards the ceiling. The glow around Qi disappeared as a line of fire dotted its way up the wall and through the roof. Jake clenched his metal fist just as the man in black turned his face towards him. Jake poured all of his anguish at Qi’s loss into the punch he hammered into the man’s face. The intruder’s head snapped to the side with a wet, sickly crunch as Jake’s fist sank up to the wrist in what had been a shrouded face. Jake stood there panting as the assassin’s body—legs and arms quivering—slumped off the bed and dropped onto the floor in a heap. He heard a body drop onto the roof above and then slide over the edge to slam into the ground three stories below.

Jake heard another chaingun spin up, this time from the rooftop. He leapt as a hailstorm of bullets tore through the roof and ripped the bed to shreds. Hitting the floor on his back, he realized he still held the first assailant’s chaingun. In a flash he changed his grip, placed the butt of the gun on the floor, and aimed toward where he figured the man on the roof stood. He pulled the trigger, heard the motor spin up, and watched the ceiling explode into a cloud of woodchips and splinters. A scream from above split the night then cut off as a body hit the roof and tumbled off the edge. Jake released the trigger and marveled at the destruction he’d caused. He heard gunfire, both pistols and chainguns firing on the second and third floors. A battle raged below, punctuated by occasional screams.

Moonlight flickered through the holes in the ceiling, and Jake saw a figure moving slowly and silently across the roof. Jake aimed and pulled the trigger again. The chaingun spun up, and the figure above leapt, but Jake’s reflexes were perfect. He followed the trajectory and watched as another cloud of debris burst from the ceiling. Someone yelped and then a body thumped onto the roof. He heard it slide a few feet and then stop.

Not sensing any more movement, Jake stood and dashed across the room. He kept the barrel pointed at the ceiling as he moved. He felt something wet drip onto his face and ran a hand over his cheek. Looking at his palm, the man’s blood looked black in the darkness. Jake ignored it and crouched over the motionless form of Qi, fearing the worst. He could only see through the darkness with his left eye, but he saw that she wasn’t shot.

Impossible! he thought.

Not a single bullet had pierced her skin. A deep bruise had formed across her chest, and she breathed shallowly, but she was alive. He yanked the bullet-riddled comforter off the bed and covered her with it. He could only hope that she wasn’t hurt too badly. More gunfire thundered from outside the bedroom as well as the clash of metal on metal as men screamed in rage and agony.

Jake leapt over the bed and strapped his gun belt around his naked hips. Clutching the chaingun in the same way Szilágyi’s men had, he stepped up next to the bedroom door and opened it a crack with is left hand, making sure to close his left eye. Before he could peek through the crack, a black foot kicked the door open.

A sword flashed down onto Jake’s metal wrist. Sparks flew, but Jake only felt a tingle as he stepped into the doorway. His finger pulled the trigger on the chaingun. Its motor spun up but it was the heaving kick Jake planted in the sword wielder’s chest which sent the man crashing through the wall beyond. Two more men in black stood outside. They watched their comrade sail past them and disappear into the water closet beyond.

The chaingun roared at them, filling the hallway with orange light and the rapid staccato of bullets that tore through both assassins. They dropped where they stood and Jake released the trigger. The chaingun’s motor whined to a stop, and he realized that water sprayed from a ruptured pipe inside the water closet. His metal feet splashed through water pouring under the door as he thudded across the low carpet lining the hall.

From somewhere below, the ground floor by the sound of it, he heard the Thumper bark once, some screams, and then another shot from the energy rifle. Cole was in the thick of it somewhere below. Jake slung the chaingun over his back, yanked both Colts, and pulled the hammers back with a comforting double click. The door at the end of the hallway was Chung’s, and Jake could see that it too had been kicked open. A body lay in the doorway. Fearing the worst, Jake dashed down the hall, his feet hammering across the floor. “Chung!” he hissed from just outside. “You in there?”

“Come in, Jake,” he heard the old man say calmly. “It’s all right.”

Jake peeked around the corner into complete darkness, for Chung slept in a room without windows. Jake opened his left eye and spotted Chung in a corner pulling on his golden shirt. The old man was all corded muscle and sinew, without an ounce of fat on him, and scars covered his body. Chung had already pulled on his gold pants and had a belt around his waist that held several pouches, small leather sheathes for throwing stars and what appeared to be two, collapsed hand-fans made of dark metal.

Jake spotted two more corpses on the floor and one on the bed. The one on the bed had a chaingun, and his throat had been completely torn out. When Jake glanced at the one at Chung’s feet, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. The dead man’s head tipped all the way back nearly touching his shoulder blades. Then he realized that the man’s neck had been severed almost all the way through. The one on the bed had a curved Chinese sword sticking through the middle of his chest.

Apparently, Chung moves pretty well for an old man, Jake thought.

Chung settled the shirt over his shoulders and glanced at Jake, standing silhouetted in the doorway. He pressed a control panel on his nightstand and the claxons sounding from all over the building stopped. Jake couldn’t believe how calm the man was.

Chung’s eyes drifted down Jake’s body and then up again, a smirk growing on his face. Chung could barely contain his laughter.

Jake looked down at his naked manhood and then lifted his eyes to Chung. “I was in a hurry,” he said awkwardly. “Chung, Qi’s been hurt. She’s breathing but I don’t know how bad it is.”

Chung’s face went serious in a flash. “Da-Xia!” he shouted.

A hidden door to Jake’s left opened and the small woman stepped out. She wore black silk pajamas similar to what the assassins wore and her long, white hair wrapped around her neck in a tight braid. The hilt of a straight, lightweight, Chinese sword peeked up above her shoulder and she held a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun as comfortably as she’d held a teapot earlier that evening. Chung said something to Da-Xia in Chinese.

She nodded once and darted out of the room past Jake. He realized that her posture, her movements, weren’t those of some frail old woman. She was a warrior.

“Come, Jake. Da-Xia will see to Qi and keep her safe. We must see what’s going on in the rest of the building.”

Jake nodded.

The fighting had gotten much quieter below, and there were only a few, isolated fights still taking place on the lower level. Jake and Chung dashed out of the room. Chung yanked the curved sword out of the body on the bed as he went by. A slick coating of blood covered Chung’s golden hand. They turned a corner carefully and looked down the long hallway. At the far end was the dining room. Cole’s door stood open and a black-clad body lay in the doorway. The back of his head had been blown out. Jake and Chung made their way to the closed door next to Cole’s.

“Skeeter!” Jake shouted. “You okay?” He took a quick peek into Cole’s room but didn’t see his partner. The Thumper had sounded from downstairs, so Cole had had to be taking care of business on the main level.

“I’m in here!” Skeeter shouted from inside her room. Jake grabbed the doorknob and twisted but it didn’t budge.

“I’ll have you out in a sec,” Jake said, preparing to kick it in.

“No! Don’t! I’ve got it rigged!”

Jake stopped mid-kick and waited. He heard soft footfalls and then some scratching on the other side of the door just as two men in red pajamas came running up the stairs at the end of the hall. Jake’s pistols were trained on them as their heads came around the corner.

“Wait, Jake,” Chung blurted. “They are mine.”

Jake turned back and listened to Skeeter fiddling with whatever she’d rigged on the inside of the door. The two in red stepped up to Chung quickly, and they exchanged a few rapid words in Chinese.

“Jake?” Chung said slowly.

“Yeah, Chung?”

“Look down,” Chung said, a smile shaping.

Jake did and realized Skeeter was about to get an eyeful. He quickly holstered his officer’s revolver and twisted the gun belt around to cover his more unseemly bits.

A key turned in the lock, and the door opened slowly. The girl’s eyes went wide as she saw Jake in his birthday suit.

“Jake!” she shouted, sounding appalled as she slammed the door closed. “What the hell?” she added from behind the door.

“I was in a hurry, damn it!” Jake muttered through the door. “Look, Skeeter, you got them stun bombs, right?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then come on out here!” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway, holding a stun grenade in each hand. She did her best not to stare at Jake’s mid-section. She held out the stun bombs, but Jake shook his head. “Hang on to those. If someone comes at you, use ’em, you hear me?” She nodded, still doing her best not to stare. Jake turned to Chung. “Can you have these boys take Skeeter to Qi and keep them all safe?”

“Done.” Chung spoke again in Chinese and the two men in red nodded curtly. One got in front of Skeeter and one behind, and they ushered her down the hall and out of sight beyond the corner. “Let us go see what else is amiss in my home,” Chung added.

They dashed down the hallway and made their way down the spiral staircase. There were three bodies in black and two in red at the bottom of the stairs, each showing wounds from edged weapons. Only one of them breathed, shallowly, and he wore black. Chung thrust his blade through the middle of the man’s chest. A wide-eyed gurgle came from the man and then he lay still.

“You boys are in a bad spot!” Cole shouted from below. At first Jake thought Cole was yelling at him and Chung, but then his partner followed the observation with wicked laughter. Jake smiled. Cole had someone pinned down. He’d heard that laughter before. Sometimes Cole enjoyed a good gunfight almost as much as Jake did.

As Jake made it to the second floor landing, he saw Cole leaning over the railing with the Thumper in his hands. Cole was bare chested and barefoot, but at least he’d been able to get his pants on.

The Thumper went off, sounding like a strike of lightning. A bright flash of energy blasted from the end of the weapon and splashed into the back of the building at the feet of one of Qi’s diggers. Jake watched three black-clad men shoot out from behind the digger like they had rockets up their asses, and the digger slowly tipped over and crashed onto its side. Holding the butt of the Thumper on the ground with one hand, Cole drew his pistol and let off three slow, well-aimed shots. The prone men, only stunned by the Thumper, were now corpses.

“Was that level three, Cole?” Jake said, smiling.

“Sorry, Jake, but them boys pissed me off,” Cole hollered from the railing. He grinned like a madman.

“No need to apologize to me. But you may have to explain a thing or two to Qi.”

“Is she okay?” Cole asked, his face turning serious.

“She was breathing when I left her, but she got hurt pretty bad. Da-Xia, Skeeter, and couple of Chung’s men are with her now. Was that the last of them?” Jake nodded to the three corpses below.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Cole said. He leaned the Thumper up against the railing and reloaded his pistol. His eyes kept darting to Jake—and Jake’s gun belt—as a wider and wider grin crept over his face. He was polite enough not to say anything, but Jake knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I was in a hurry,” Jake offered slowly as he adjusted his gun belt to make sure that everything in need of covering stayed that way.

“We should see to Lady Dănești,” Chung said. He made his way back to the spiral staircase and headed down silently. Cole leaned over the railing and covered them from above as Jake hopped over the railing and landed with a massive, metallic thud on the wooden planks below.

Chung made it to the lower floor quickly where they found one of Chung’s men attending to a gaping slash across another man’s chest. There were four black-clad bodies and three red lying on the floor, their swords lying scattered about. Chung said something in Chinese and the uninjured man nodded his head. The injured one did too, and Jake and Chung held their positions while Cole came downstairs.

“Follow me,” Chung said and headed towards the back of the shop. With the digger toppled over, they could now see that a hidden panel stood open in the wall behind where the machine had been standing. As they approached, they heard soft, almost silent footfalls coming up a set of stairs that disappeared into the darkness beyond the opening. Jake’s and Cole’s pistols as well as the point of Chung’s sword came up in unison. They waited as the footsteps grew closer, and then a lithe, pale figure filled the doorway.

Aside from the dark glasses, Lady Dănești stood naked before them, most of her pale skin covered in blood. She held a narrow silver sword with a basket hilt in her left hand and a wide, curved obsidian dagger in her right. Both blades gleamed in the light, and she appeared to be uninjured, but it was hard to tell with all the blood.

The three men stood there open-mouthed at the perfect feminine shape that stood calmly before them.

“I was in a hurry,” she said and smiled, her gaze running up and down Jake’s naked body.

Jake felt like she was eating him alive with her gaze, and all he could think about was how happy he was that he’d turned his gun belt.

Chapter Twenty-two – Rock and a Hard Place

“Jake was a lot like Lumpy when you cornered him. He just dug his heels in and plowed through whatever got in his way.”

~ Cole McJunkins

“Are you all right, Lady Dănești?” Chung asked as he lowered his blade and bowed. He had quickly recovered his composure, but Jake and Cole’s mouths were still agape as they holstered their weapons. Neither of them could take their eyes off her.

It didn’t seem to bother Lady Dănești in the least. She smiled and turned her head slowly to Chung, having lingered more than entirely necessary on Jake. “Perfectly. There are seven more enemy bodies down below as well as three of your own. I’m sorry for your loss, Chung. I fear this attack is a result of my presence.”

“We are here to serve,” Chung said formally. “As long as you are all right, my men do what they must. We are all pledged to your safety.”

“Will the authorities come?” the Lady asked. “The sound of gunfire must have travelled for some distance outside the building.”

“Probably not,” Jake spoke up. “I heard alarm bells somewhere out in the city about the same time the ruckus started. I’m figurin’ it ain’t no coincidence. The San Fran Marshals probably have their hands full, and from what I understand, they’re generally disinclined to make their way into Chinatown. As long as the place ain’t burnin’ down, I suspect we won’t see hide nor hair of ’em.” Jake turned to Chung. “Whatever Qi did with them alarms and windows on this place, I suspect we’re pretty well sealed in, right?”

Chung nodded gently. “Essentially, but the walls are still wood, albeit reinforced. Steel plate and chain cover all windows and doors.”

“I did do a fair amount of damage to the roof, so someone could chew their way through that with one of these if they wanted.” Jake swung the chaingun around and lifted the strap over his head. “Cole, take a look at this,” he added, tossing the weapon over to his partner. “And scrounge up the rest. I know there’s at least one more upstairs.” Cole caught it and looked over the design, clearly excited to have one in his hands. “Chung, I expect you got some folks you want to be talking to about damage control.”

Chung nodded.

“You need some help getting those boys out of your basement?” Cole asked.

“Perhaps it would be best if Chung’s men attended to the cleanup,” Lady Dănești suggested smoothly, but Jake thought she’d offered that a bit quickly. “We are in a bit of a state.”

“The Lady could use a bath—and perhaps a dress or something—to make herself a little less conspicuous,” Jake agreed. He did his best to not to run his eyes over her once more, “and I need some god damn pants. It’s drafty as a barn in here.” He ignored Cole chuckling beside him, and Chung was clearly amused. The lady simply smiled. It occurred to Jake that he’d never met a lady who could look comfortable—even demure—standing there naked as a jaybird, covered in the blood of men she’d just killed. It seems, he thought, Cole’s instincts were dead on.

One of Chung’s men came jogging down the spiral staircase and hurried up to the old man. He whispered for a while into Chung’s ear, and Chung got a look of relief on his face. Chung replied curtly in Chinese, and the man went jogging off again.

“Qi is in and out of consciousness, but Da-Xia says my granddaughter should recover. She is bruised badly and has several broken ribs, but as a result of Lady Dănești’s teachings, the attack was not fatal. Skeeter is with them, and they are all in a secure room upstairs.” Chung turned to the Lady and bowed deeply. “You have my gratitude,” he said formally. “My granddaughter would not have survived were it not for your tutelage.”

“So that’s what that glow was,” Jake said. “You have my gratitude as well, milady,” he said, bowing while doing his best not to look at her directly.

“She’s an excellent student,” the Lady said with sincere praise in her voice. “She’s picked up the discipline much faster than most, although she has a long way to go.”

Jake strode over to one of the black-clad bodies by the stairs and, being careful to squat and not bend over, ripped the man’s hood off. He half-expected to see one of Szilágyi’s men, but the lifeless eyes that stared up at him were Asian, and the face they were set in belonged to a young man, almost a boy. Jake thought about the weapons he’d seen scattered across the floors or clutched in the hands of dead assassins. They were all Asian design, but the chaingun was the same as what Szilágyi’s men had carried. “Chung?” Jake called back over his shoulder. The old man walked up and looked down at the body at Jake’s feet. “You know this boy?”

“Pinyin Gao,” Chung said a little sadly. “I helped him get to America. I knew his grandmother very well.” The old man shook his head. “He was ambitious, and I have no doubt that the words of Hang Ming were irresistible to him. Now I must write his family.”

“So he definitely worked for Ming?” Jake asked.

Chung nodded.

“You seem surprised to see him,” Lady Dănești said as she stepped closer. Jake naturally turned his head as she approached, but the sight of her pale skin and the blood made him turn towards the man at his feet.

“Well, I just figured that these guys would be European … on account of that gun Cole’s holding. Either of you ever seen a shooter like that before?” Jake asked.

Chung and the Lady both shook their heads.

“And I hope I never do again,” Chung said worriedly. “If Ming has access to such weapons, I fear for the safety of the entire city, not just my organization.”

“Let’s all get cleaned up and settled,” Jake said. “We gotta talk. Thirty minutes?”

Everyone nodded. The Lady disappeared downstairs while Jake and Cole headed to their rooms. They heard Chung call out in Chinese, followed by the quiet footfalls of several men running to him.

They made their way up the staircase, and Cole turned off into his room. Jake continued around the corner towards Qi’s room, stopping at the water closet. Someone had shut off the spraying water, but the carpet was soaked in a wide swath around the door. He stepped in and could see where his burst from the chaingun dotted a line through the walls and hit the pipe coming down out of the ceiling for the shower. The water had drained out of the large, pedestal tub, which also had several holes in it.

He looked into the mirror and realized he looked like hell. There were dark circles under his eyes and quite a bit of blood spattered on his face and shoulder. He also had dots of crimson-brown across his chest. He grabbed a towel hanging next to the sink and found it completely soaked. He wiped his face, gasping at the cold, and did his best to wipe the blood off his shoulder and chest.

Jake stepped across the hall into Qi’s room and pressed the switch just inside the door. He spotted an arm dangling through a gap in the roof. He reached instinctively for his gun but realized the arm was connected to a corpse, not a threat. Covered in blood, the dangling appendage still dripped crimson onto Qi’s ruined bed. Jake went to the pile of clothes he’d left on the floor. He took off his gun belt and got dressed. It felt good to have his ocular back on and be able to open his left eye. He settled his Colts back around his waist, tied off the leg straps and stepped out of the room. He suddenly felt like himself again. He knew he’d never live down running around the Emporium bareback.

As he thought about the jokes he’d have to endure, something made him pause in the doorway and turn. He took a good long look at the bare hand that dangled from the ceiling. The back had a thick covering of blond hair, not black. He stepped up onto the bed and looked closely at the hand. A ring with a distinct design decorated the pinky finger. In a flash Jake remembered the symbol, identical to the raven insignia he’d seen on the pin worn by Radu during the poker game. And then it clicked. The insignia matched what he’d seen on the tails of the white zeppelins floating over San Fran terminal the previous afternoon. Clearly Szilágyi, or at least his men, were not only in town but were working with Ming. Jake couldn’t figure how or why they might have ever gotten together.

Jake slipped the ring off the dead man’s finger and tucked it into his pocket. Something bothered him about the attack. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but his guts told him it should have gone different. Shaking the feeling, he stepped into the hallway, made his way down the hall, and turned around the corner. Cole stepped out of his room, the Thumper in his hands and a chaingun slung over his shoulder. He nodded to Jake as he stepped in stride, and they made their way to the lounge.

They filled the room, and Jake realized everyone was armed for bear. Chung had changed to a one-piece black and red leather suit of armor with golden metal flanges coming up on either side of the collar. Dragons were embossed into the front with metal plates sequestered in several key areas within the leather. Chung now had two of the same curved blades strapped to his back, the red tassels framing his half-golden face. Qi wore an identical leather suit, and Jake saw a viciously curved long-knife upon each hip. The tasseled hilt of a thin, flexible Chinese sword peeked over her shoulder as well.

Still wearing dark glasses, Lady Dănești was clothed again, allowing Jake to breathe a private sigh of relief. Instead of the flowing green dress, however, she wore intricately shaped leather armor with flanges and spikes. Scales had been etched into the leather, highlighted in gold that danced in the light. A leather helm with long emerald plumes hung on the back of the chair. The face of it, distinctly reptilian, had a wide, webbed flange flaring out on both sides that ended in short, metal spikes like the frill of a dragon.

Skeeter had on a white shirt, brown wool pants, and tan leather spats that ran up to her knees. She wore the brown grimwig, the brim pointing down her back, and she had on the long tan leather duster Jake had bought her. The day he gave it to her, she’d modified it with a multitude of inside pockets and loops so she could carry what, Jake had to admit, was a remarkably useful armory. Her travelling goggles were perched on her head, and the long, brass oculars were set with green-tinted lenses.

Da-Xia looked exactly as Jake had seen her last, with the shotgun resting on the table in front of her. Chung’s men were scattered around the room, some of them bandaged, all of them armed.

“You okay, Qi?” Jake asked.

She nodded her head. “The Lady fixed me up in a flash.” She winked her eye at Jake.

“Mister Lasater,” Lady Dănești said as she stood up and nodded. Jake saw that the silver sword and the obsidian dagger were at her hips. “I realize that we have not had time to discuss our arrangement, and I’m sure you have questions, but it seems as if the decision has been made for us. Would you agree?”

Jake paid close attention to her accent as she spoke. “I pretty much came to the same conclusion … no matter how you cut it, seems we both gotta get the hell outta Dodge.” Without a doubt her accent was similar to Szilágyi’s, but they didn’t come from the same place.

“Dodge?” she asked, confused. “This is San Francisco,”

“It’s an expression, milady,” Jake said with a smile. “It means we need to get out of town quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

“Seems to me we had to get outta Dodge quick, fast, and in a hurry the last time we were in San Fran,” Cole muttered.

“Maybe it’ll be different next time,” Jake looked at his ward and gave her a stern I told you so look. “Right, Skeeter?”

Skeeter cast her eyes down. She knew what Jake was saying. “Yeah, Jake. I get it.”

Jake held his eyes on the young girl for a few seconds. Genuine contrition filled her voice. For the first time she seemed to actually understand the position she’d put him in and felt bad about it. He nodded to himself, proud of how much the girl—young woman, he corrected himself—continued to impress him. She was willful and stubborn, but she had sense enough to know when she messed up, and was apparently mature enough to admit it. A sense of pride welled up in Jake as he smiled at Skeeter. He caught Qi looking at him and he gave her a wink.

“So, what are we gonna do about Ming?” Cole asked. “Head on over there and start a ruckus?”

“I’m afraid that an outright war in the middle of Chinatown would cause more problems than it would solve.” Chung’s voice remained quiet, but Jake heard the anger there. “I have little doubt the San Francisco authorities would get involved under those circumstances, and my arrangements with … certain government officials … would not be of any use to us. I think it best that we avoid their involvement at nearly any cost. I agree that Ming must be eliminated—”

“I hate to rain on that particular parade,” Jake said firmly, “but we ain’t just up against Ming.” Jake lit up a cigar.

Every pair of eyes turned to Jake.

“Them weapons could have come from anywhere,” Cole said. “Maybe there’s somebody selling ’em to every Tom, Dick, and Ming that comes along.”

“If it was just the weapons, I’d be inclined to agree with you, but there’s more to it than that.”

“What do you mean?” Chung asked.

“There’s a body above Qi’s bedroom and it wasn’t made in China, although it’s definitely an import.” Jake looked at Chung. “Think you could have a couple of your boys scoot on up there and bring him down?”

Chung turned to the same man who had run up to him when they were downstairs and barked out an order in Chinese. The man bowed, nodded to two of Chung’s soldiers, and the three ran out double-time.

“If he was on the roof, how’d you know he wasn’t Chinese?” Cole asked.

“Because his hand …” Jake said, holding up his right hand, “had blond hair on it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring. Tossing it to Cole he added, “And it had that on the pinky-finger.”

Cole caught the ring and examined it closely. “I don’t get it,” Cole said. Jake saw Lady Dănești looking at the ring from across the table. “What’s this got to do with anything?”

“The night of the ruckus on the Jezebel,” Jake replied, “Szilágyi had a pin with the same insignia on it.”

“No shit?” Cole said.

“No shit,” Jake confirmed, and then he spotted Lady Dănești’s head tilt ever-so-slightly to the side, as if she were pondering something. “It’s also the same insignia on three white zeppelins that came into San Fran the same time as the Jezebel.” He looked at Lady Dănești. “Is there something you’re not telling me, milady?” Jake asked. “I’m starting to get more than uncomfortable about not knowing what’s going on around here.” There was a subtle warning in Jake’s voice that would be hard for anyone to miss, and Jake knew with certainty that Lady Dănești was a lot more than just anyone.

The Lady looked at Jake with calm resolve. “There are many things I’m not telling you, Mister Lasater.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of apology in her voice. Jake had seen that kind of face before, across many poker tables. It meant there was no bluff—no bullshit. “There are details about my life, and even some of these circumstances we’re faced with, that I’m not prepared to discuss. We all have our secrets, yes?” It wasn’t really a question, but Jake nodded. “Some of mine could compromise not only my own safety but the safety of thousands, perhaps millions.” Jake raised an eyebrow at that one, wondering what he might be getting himself into as Qi’s warning of destiny and war echoed in his mind. “However,” she continued smoothly, “I give you my word that I will not keep any information from you that could unnecessarily jeopardize your own safety or that of anyone else. The risks you will face are right in front of you, if I understand all of this correctly. Ming is clearly after you, and this man Szilágyi is, in all likelihood, the one after my … package. They appear to be working together at this juncture. I would assume that Szilágyi has concluded that the enemy of his enemy is his friend, if you understand my meaning.” Jake nodded. He’d come to a similar conclusion. “How the two came into each other’s company is unknown to me and is, ultimately, irrelevant. I would surmise that my lengthy stay in China is what drew Szilágyi and Ming together. You know the odds. The job is essentially the same now as the day you received Qi’s telegram. Would you agree?”

Jake thought about it for a few seconds, weighing the facts. “That I would,” he agreed, nodding. He sized her up, trying to see past the glasses into what lay behind. There was a hell of a lot more to the Lady than just rich, white folk looking to get her possibles from one place to another. But he could usually tell when someone was lying to him, and she wasn’t. Jake knew there were quite a few things not being said, but he couldn’t see a downside to the deal. It was like any other high-paying, high-risk job he’d ever taken. On one hand he had a crazed Colonel from another country with military zeppelins and chainguns plus a pissed off gang leader, both of whom wanted his blood. On the other hand he had five thousand dollars. Add to that Qi’s promise that he could trust Lady Dănești, and it made for some fairly simple math.

He nodded his head. “I think we see eye-to-eye, Lady Dănești, and I suspect we can do business here. I got two more questions, and then I imagine we can get on with getting the hell outta here.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Go on,” she said with a slim smile.

“Do you recognize the insignia on that there ring?”

“It’s not an insignia, exactly.” She held out her hand and Cole handed it to her. “They’re called heraldic beasts and are very common amongst the nations of Europe. She peered at it closely. And no, I don’t recognize it … specifically. Birds are frequently used, along with bears, wolves, stags, and even dragons. Their shapes invariably change over decades and centuries, even from one noble generation to another. It could represent a family, a title, or even a military organization. It does seem somewhat familiar to me, but I have been away from that part of the world for a very long time.”

“What about this?” Jake asked as he pulled the translation out of his pocket. “I got a sneaking suspicion that you’ll be able to read this little snippet.” He pushed it across the table, face up for the Lady to read.

She stared down it at and nodded. “Yes, I can. It is Wallachian, a close relative of my native tongue. The first line is a question.” She spoke the line in a flowing accent that seemed very natural to her. “‘Aţi terminat misiunea?’ means ‘Have you completed the mission?’ The next line, ‘Nimic nu este’ means ‘Nothing has,’ and the final line, ‘Suntem pe drum. Pregătiţi-vă pentru sosirea noastră’ means ‘We’re on our way. Prepare for our arrival.’” She looked at Jake. “How did you come by this?”

“I intercepted some of a conversation in Morse code while we were aboard the Jezebel. It was between a Colonel Szilágyi, I’m assuming a Wallachian, and a black zeppelin. The whole thing turned into one hell of a gunfight, and they got away.”

Lady Dănești raised her eyebrow. “That’s a remarkable story.”

“You shoulda been there,” Cole added.

“What’s the mission they were talking about in the message?” the Lady asked.

“I wish to hell I knew. I’d hoped you could tell me.” Jake shook his head. “I also think it’s odd that Von Klattersnap taught Skeeter Wallachian. It could be a coincidence … but I generally don’t buy on coincidences.” Jake got a worried look on his face.

“Klattersnap?” the Lady asked, looking even more confused.

“Long story,” Jake said, “unless you recognize the name.” He looked expectantly at the Lady, but she shook her head. He wasn’t prepared to go into the details around Skeeter and Klattersnap. He did think the connection between Klattersnap and the Wallachians was too much to be a coincidence, but he didn’t have anything to go on. “There’s a connection there, I’d bet my hat on it. I just can’t figure what it is. As to the mission they were talking about, your guess is as good as mine. It could be anything at all … from meeting me to intelligence gathering to planting bombs. That’s been bothering me this whole time. They were obviously there for a reason. I mean, they went to a lot of trouble to get on board. It could be that Szilágyi just wanted to meet me … he said as much and told me he’d originally planned on killing me later.”

“Why would he want to kill you, specifically?” the Lady asked, obviously concerned. Something in her face made Jake think she’d made some sort of connection but wasn’t saying anything about it. “And why would they plant bombs?” she added.

Jake only shrugged. “The crew of the Jezebel searched the ship from stem to stern and didn’t find anything. I don’t know.” He shook his head and turned to their host. “Chung, were you able to find out what zepps are heading out in the next day or two?”

The Lady spoke up. “I’d arranged for passage on the Jezebel to take you straight through to Denver, although now I’m not certain it’s a good idea.”

“The Jezebel?” Cole asked. “The last time I saw her she was still on the ground getting repaired.”

“And there she is still,” the Lady replied. “You would board her while she is still on the ground. I felt that Ming’s organization would be less inclined to attack you once you were safely aboard.”

“Agreed,” Chung spoke up. “Ming is willing to risk much here in Chinatown, but he is still unwilling to suffer any serious attention by the San Francisco officials. Attacking the Jezebel is not something I believe he is prepared to do.”

“We figure the damn thing is probably a death trap … even in the air,” Jake said.

Jake and the Cole nodded together.

Then something occurred to Jake, and he looked at the Lady. “Hey, wait a minute. You said ‘you.’”

“What?” Cole asked, perplexed.

“She said ‘You would board her,’ not ‘We would board her.’ You’re not coming with us?” he asked.

Lady Dănești smiled, a smile that he couldn’t read worth a damn. “Let’s just say that your only responsibility will be to get my property to Denver.”

“Fair enough, but the question still remains, how do we get out of here if we don’t take the Jezebel? Chung? Did you find anything out?”

Worry filled Chung’s face. “Yes, and you are not going to like it.”

“No surprise there,” Jake and Cole said simultaneously.

“The Gato out of Oregon,” Chung began, ticking off one on his finger, “a cargo hauler, was due in last night and still hasn’t arrived. There are rumors air pirates out of the Sierra Nevadas attacked her. She would have left tonight. Kipper’s Dream,” he ticked off another, “a small transport, was grounded in Carson City with engine trouble. She won’t arrive here for two or three days. The Lady Jane,” another tick, “a small transport out of Los Angeles, disappeared in a storm north of the city. That leaves only the Jezebel.” The room got very quiet, and everyone thought the same thing.

“So, either we hump it across the desert by wagon or get back on the Jezebel,” Jake said, disgusted by his lack of options. “I feel like a steer getting herded into a slaughterhouse.”

“This just keeps getting better,” Cole said quietly, and Jake nodded at him, agreeing fully with the sentiment.

“Couldn’t we just hole up here?” Skeeter asked. “Wait for another airship?”

“Only if we want to have another night like this one,” Jake said, “and I don’t want to put Chung or Qi in that position. If I’m right, Ming got help from Szilágyi who may or may not be working with or for Von Klattersnap. I have no doubt that Chung can handle Ming on his own, but Szilágyi or whomever he’s working for has a master plan. We’re getting herded, and I don’t see much choice.” Jake sighed and closed his eyes, trying to figure a way out of the trap.

“Mister Lasater,” the Lady said softly. Jake opened his eyes and found her searching his face. “You don’t need to take this job. You and your friends can move along. It’s me they’re after. I can find another way. I’ve done it before.”

Jake smiled at her and a warm feeling tingled its way through his body.

“Aw, hell,” Cole said, shaking his head. A wry grin spread across his face. He looked at the Lady, and Jake could tell that although Cole remained uncomfortable with her, his impression of her had gone up a few notches. “Now ya done it.”

“Well, Cole’s right,” Jake said, rubbing the back of his neck. Lady Dănești’s face drooped a little, clearly thinking that Jake intended to pass on the job. “You just sealed the deal. We’re in.” Her face brightened, and it made Jake’s heart beat faster. “If there’s one thing I can’t let slide, it’s someone willing to keep others out of trouble, even if it means a heap of trouble for themselves.”

“So, we’re going?” Skeeter asked.

“The Jezebel it is,” Jake said. “Straight into the trap. But we gotta get on board first, and I reckon Ming ain’t gonna make that easy.” He let out a long breath. That feeling of there being something odd about the attack nagged him. He considered what lay before them … of being herded … toward the Jezebel … leaving the following day. Then it all clicked together. “There’s something else I gotta tell you,” he said, a worried look on his face.

“Jesus, Jake,” Cole blurted. “Ain’t things bad enough?”

Jake turned to Chung. “How many men does Ming have?”

Chung got a perplexed look on his face. “Probably a hundred-and-fifty or more. It’s hard to say.”

“And how many bodies did we take out of here tonight? How many of Ming’s men.”

“Twenty-two,” Chung said. And then he looked as if he understood what Jake was aiming at. Chung had seen plenty of battle, and something didn’t add up.

“That one I took the mask off, he was just a kid. What about the others, Chung? Did they look like veterans, or children that got dropped into a meat grinder?”

Chung thought about it for a second and then got a disgusted look on his face. He nodded. “They were all young men.”

“What are you getting at, Jake?” Skeeter asked.

“That tonight’s little fracas wasn’t meant to kill any of us. Not on purpose, anyway.”

Chung nodded his head again.

“Is Ming that smart, Chung?” Jake asked.

Without hesitation, Chung shook his head. “No. He is not.”

“Then someone else got Ming to send those kids to their death for the sole purpose of keeping us up all night.”

“What?” Skeeter asked.

“What Jake is saying,” Cole interjected, realizing the tactics being used against them, “is that someone, probably Szilágyi, had no problem wasting the lives of over twenty boys so we’d be strung out and tired when we headed for the Jezebel.”

“Exactly,” Jake added.

“What a bastard,” Cole added.

“It’s not like we ain’t seen it before, Cole,” Jake said wearily.

“That don’t make it right.”

“What kind of man would do something like that?” Skeeter asked.

“A smart one,” Cole said.

“With no conscience,” Chung added.

“At least we know what kind of man we’re up against,” Jake said. He realized they were in for one hell of a rough ride.

“Well, we did say this was probably a trap before we left Denver,” Cole added.

“True enough, amigo. But just once I’d like to be right about something good, not something that might get us all killed.”

“Yeah,” Cole added dryly. “Me, too.”

“Let’s saddle up, everyone,” Jake said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “We’re going to town.”

Chapter Twenty-three – Settled Finally Gets Settled

“Jake taught me a lot of things, but most of all he taught me about death.”

~ Captain Jane Wilson

“It’s how big?” Jake asked incredulously as he stepped into the cellar.

Jake and Lady Dănești had gone through the hidden door at the back of Qi’s shop and made their way down steep stairs. The dead bodies left over from the attack were gone. Most of the blood at the bottom of the stairs had been hastily cleaned up, but Jake could still see splatters and streaks of it on the walls and ceiling. He gave the Lady an appraising look.

She must be hell on wheels with those blades of hers, he thought.

Warm light from electric lamps filled the main area of the cellar, revealing several workbenches. A door occupied the middle of three walls, and at the back of the cellar stood a large, recessed room with a lift that could rise up through steel doors above and exit into the alley behind Qi’s Emporium. Jake stared at what they expected him to escort to the Jezebel and shook his head. “Y’all said it was a package.”

“It is a package.” the Lady said somewhat stiffly. “It is simply a very large one. Would it help if I put a big red bow on it?”

Jake took a deep breath and ran his hand over his goatee. “Ma’am,” he started, doing his best not to sound perturbed, “I know you’re from Europe and all, but ’round these parts a box big enough to fill a wagon is a mite bigger than a package.” He leaned over and looked into the back of the uncovered wagon filling the middle of Qi’s cellar. Crafted like fine furniture and made of a lightly stained cherry or mahogany, it measured four feet wide, three feet tall, and seven feet long, leaving little space in the back of the wagon. It had a metal, inlaid frame about two inches wide that ran all the way around the top, with gold mesh showing through a number of triangular openings. Delicately carved dragons covered the entire surface, metal and wood alike. “That’s a box … albeit a very nice one.”

“Does this change our arrangement, Mister Lasater?” she asked slowly.

Jake scratched behind his left ear, causing his hat to bounce slightly. “No. When it comes right down to it, it don’t much matter whether it’s a foot on a side or … well … that. We and it are all going aboard the Jezebel, assuming Ming and or Szilágyi don’t manage to finish us off between here and there. After that we just gotta hope the Jezebel is more than a match for Szilágyi’s zepps. Central Pacific is used to dealing with pirates, and their ships are pretty well armed.”

“Do you think he would actually attack the Jezebel in mid-flight?” she asked a bit doubtfully.

“From what I’ve seen, Szilágyi strikes me as a man who would do whatever he thinks is necessary to get a job done. And he ain’t one to bluff. I know that much about him for certain.”

“How do you know that?”

“Playin’ cards with the man,” he said a bit nonchalantly. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, the card game and when he tried to kill me.”

She still looked doubtful.

“I’m a really good card player,” Jake assured her. “You get a sense for a fellow after stuff like that.”

“I’m sure you do,” she said dryly.

“So what’s inside?” Jake asked pointedly.

She didn’t hesitate. “Some of my belongings and a fair amount of wealth … enough to set me up and sustain me once I arrive at the keep.”

“The keep?”

“I arranged for a secluded and very hidden keep to be built inside a mountain.”

“Really? Sounds cozy.” Jake looked at the Lady, trying to push aside the tingling feelings that danced along his body when he was around her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said gently.

“What’s that?” she replied and stepped up closer to him. He could smell her perfume, and it nearly broke his train of thought.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? It could get dangerous on your own, even for you and them fancy blades.” Even he heard the hope in his voice, and it surprised him.

She hesitated for a moment before smiling. “Don’t worry, Jake. I have every confidence that I’ll make it to Denver. I’ll be in good hands.” She took another step toward him and he could feel his heart start to beat faster.

“When will you be leaving?” Jake stared into the dark glasses and wondered what her eyes looked like. He had the urge to reach out, touch her pale skin, and take her into his arms. It took everything he had to restrain himself.

“It’s hard to say,” she said gently and, as if she were reading his mind, reached out her hand, running a finger over the back of his metal hand. Jake knew an invitation when he saw one, and this was one door he didn’t plan on leaving closed. He let his urges take over. He grasped her hand in his metal one and gently brushed the fingers of his other hand along her delicate, cool cheek. She leaned into it, lifting her chin towards him as he leaned over, pressing her body up against his. Her dark glasses reflected his own gaze back at him, and as their lips touched and parted, Jake felt a flame spark to life inside his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around her body, making the leather she wore creak.

This is crazy! he thought, as the fire burned. I don’t know a thing about her.

Their passion flowed like a hot current sparking between their bodies. Kissing fiercely, they breathed heavily into each other. Lady Dănești moaned slightly as they pressed their bodies together. Their shared hunger took Jake by surprise, and they remained like that for long seconds. He felt a stirring deep inside him that he’d not felt since before the war. He finally pulled away, still holding her in his arms.

“Who are you?” he asked, marveling at what she stirred within him. She stared up, her lips slightly parted and her face canted to the right.

“I told you who I was,” she said demurely.

“You gave me a name … but that ain’t who you are. Why do I feel like I do around you?” Someplace at the back of his mind he heard Cole warning him about her.

“Would it help if I told you it was destiny?” The word shocked him, and he heard Qi’s voice insisting he had a destiny. The Lady laughed, a lilting sound that reminded Jake of innocence, and then she held him more tightly. “Right here, right now,” she offered, “does it matter?” Her hand slid up behind his neck, and she pulled him down to her again. This kiss burned even hotter than the first, and Jake got lost in it. Time stopped, his heart pounded in his chest, the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Someone cleared his throat once. Then again. The second time Jake realized that he and the Lady were not alone. Still wrapped in each other’s arms, he raised his head and saw Cole looking at them from the bottom of the stairs. Cole had on his best poker face.

“Hey, Cole,” Jake said as he and Lady Dănești released their embrace. Jake tried to look innocent, but he knew the impossibility of it under any circumstances. Jake couldn’t look innocent if his life depended on it.

“Qi sent me down to get the wagon in place so we can get it into the alley and hooked up to Lumpy.” Cole cocked his head to the side. “I can come back,” he added, and Jake heard a trace of concern in Cole’s voice.

Lady Dănești smiled almost mischievously and stepped away. She turned to Cole. “Not at all,” she said. “I have some things I must discuss with Chung before you leave, and its best that you leave as quickly as possible.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Cole said. Jake didn’t miss the double meaning.

The Lady nodded to Cole and then turned back to Jake. “Goodbye, Jake,” she said and kissed him one last time. The ache that sprang up in his heart stung more than it should have. She stepped past him and disappeared up the stairs. Cole walked up to the back of the wagon and stared at the large crate. “That’s some package,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, the Lady and I were just talking about that.”

“Near as I could tell, you weren’t doing any talking at all.”

“You don’t approve.”

Cole let the statement hang in the air for a few seconds as he eyed Jake. “Ain’t for me to approve or disapprove, Jake. You know that. You’re a grown man, and I ain’t your papa. Just be careful with that woman. There’s something real different about her.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Jake said, smiling as he remembered kissing her. After a few moments, his smile faded and he eyed Cole. A question floated up, but he wasn’t sure if he should ask it.

Cole was too good a card player to miss something like that. “What’s on your mind, Jake?”

Jake took a deep breath. “Well … there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now.” He scratched the back of his neck, searching for an easy way to ask it.

“Just spit it out,” Cole said.

“I’ve been wondering why you’ve stuck it out all these months, riding with me, facing down all manner of roughneck and monster and whatnot. We’ve been shot at, beat up … hell, you nearly got killed on account of this trouble—trouble that ain’t got much to do with you when it comes right down to it. I consider you my best friend, and I know the money’s good … but you coulda—hell, shoulda—skipped out months ago just to keep your hide in one piece. Any sane person would have cut out on me long before now.”

Cole smiled and shook his head. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

“Well, I reckon there’s two reasons. The first one’s easy to explain. When we’ve helped decent folks or gunned down bad ones, did you ever give one thought to what color they were or where they came from?”

“Hell, no. It’s just the difference of how you treat with the good and bad in people.”

“Exactly, and that’s answer enough to your question. Men like you are hard to come by these days, Jake. Seems everyone wants to look down on other folks for one reason or another. And you don’t look down on anyone except men who make life difficult for innocent people.”

“I guess I see what you’re sayin’.” Jake hadn’t really thought about it that way. “You said there were two reasons. What’s the other?”

“Well, that’s a bit more complicated.” Cole stared into Jake’s eyes. “You and I, we’ve spilled a fair amount of blood. And we’ve bled some of it, too. I trust you like I do family, Jake. You and I, we’re connected. I’d die to save you, and I know without a doubt that you’d do the same for me. It’s blood ties that keep us together.” He clapped Jake on the shoulder.

Jake nodded, and a warm feeling of kinship, one he hadn’t felt since he was a boy, filled him to overflowing. “I guess you’re right,” he said.

Cole turned and stepped up to the wagon. “C’mon, amigo, let’s get this thing outta here.”

“You got it. You just grab the harness and steer, okay?” Jake said, nodding towards the front. “I’ll do the pushing.” Cole did as instructed as Jake got behind the wagon. “Ready?” He asked.

“Go ahead.”

Jake placed his metal hand on the back of the wagon and pushed, putting his clockwork arm and legs into it. The wagon moved easily, but Jake could feel the weight of the Lady’s box. He couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a fair amount of gold inside. He moved the wagon into place, and Cole stepped up to a small control panel set on top of a brass pole attached to the floor. He hit one of two buttons, and they both heard the sound of steam pressure and the rolling of giant gears. The platform rose slowly, and the steel doors above lifted aside, exposing the darkness of night above. The smell of the ocean filled the air once again, and Jake saw that thick fog filled the streets of San Francisco.

A large, rolling metal door stood behind those, and Jake assumed that Qi could get her diggers out both the front and back. As the platform clanged into place, they both saw Chung’s grandson come around the corner with Lumpy in tow.

“You go back inside,” the boy said. “Get your things. I harness him in.”

“You sure you’ll be all right out here alone,” Cole asked.

The boy smiled. “Not alone.” He looked to the left and right. Six figures dressed head to toe in black rather than red, each with Chung’s dragon embroidered on the front, stepped out of the fog. Neither Jake nor Cole had heard them make a sound.

“Fair enough,” Cole admitted, nodding to the men who quickly disappeared back into the fog. The boy smiled again and moved Lumpy around into the harness.

Jake and Cole moved to the back door of Qi’s Emporium and stepped inside, making their way down a wide hallway and out into the main shop. They spotted Skeeter and Qi working on a digger. The large scoops on each arm had been replaced with smaller, metal cylinders about four feet long and nearly a foot in diameter. The cylinders encased chain-driven Gatling guns, and their ends almost touched the floor. Skeeter and Qi were bolting a thick metal cover onto the lower cockpit. The heavy plate, made of a dark metal that looked almost black, dangled from a chain attached to a railing system along the ceiling. A similar plate already covered the upper cockpit. There appeared to be a small, rectangular lens at the top of the plate set into a metal box. Jake surmised it would allow the driver to see from inside the cockpit without being exposed to gunfire.

“Y’all need a hand?” Jake asked. Skeeter and Qi turned, both of them wearing the complex goggles tinkers were known for, and shook their heads.

“Go on up and get your gear,” Qi suggested. “We’ll be done with this in a few minutes.”

Jake nodded, and both men headed upstairs to collect their belongings. They were both back downstairs in minutes. Jake had taken the Thumper from Cole, and Cole now had one of the chainguns slung under his arm. They’d managed to find two more of Szilágyi’s weapons, leaving those with Qi and Chung, but Cole transferred the remaining ammunition into the one he carried. The things held seventy-five rounds of rifle ammunition.

They also now understood why the guns had the heavy shoulder straps. Cole, with Skeeter’s help, had figured out that the big cylinders around the gun barrels were actually water tanks and the electric motors attached to the stock did two things: they operated an internal mechanism that cycled rounds out of the ammo drum as well as powering a small water pump that circulated water through the cylinders around the barrels, keeping them cool. Skeeter had been very impressed with the design but clucked about how she could make it better.

Jake and Cole cleared the stairs just as the ladies, smiling and laughing together, stepped down from the digger. The digger now looked more like one of the assault units Jake had seen in the war than it did mining equipment. The ones in the war had been much bigger and far more clunky than Qi’s design, but the principle was the same.

“You boys all set?” Qi asked as she pulled off her goggles and blew a strand of hair out of her face. Skeeter’s smile disappeared when she saw Jake, and she turned her eyes to the ground. She obviously still felt guilty about the position she’d put him in.

“We’re good to go,” Jake said. “Skeeter, you got your gear?”

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly, still not looking at him. She stepped behind one of the benches and reappeared, rolling her suitcase. Her long coat was draped over it, and Jake could tell from the lumps inside that she’d already loaded it up with her gadgets.

“Qi, Cole, think you two could move that machine out back while Skeeter and I have a little talk?” Jake said quietly. Skeeter got a worried look in her eyes. Jake had deliberately avoided being around the girl to let her stew about stowing away on the Jezebel, and it was time to finally have a come-to-Jesus meeting.

“Sure, Jake,” Cole said and glanced at Skeeter. Qi looked Skeeter’s way as well, and when Skeeter looked at Qi, Jake saw the woman give Skeeter an encouraging nod.

“Qi, can we use your office?”

“Go ahead,” she said and turned towards the machine. Cole stepped up with her and helped her climb into the cockpit.

“Hey, Cole,” Jake called, “can you see if there’s a way to set up a little pillbox in the back of that wagon about yay-big?” Jake asked, casting a quick glance at Skeeter.

Cole gave Jake a knowing nod. “You got it.”

Turning to the machine, Cole watched Qi clamber over the armored cockpit plating that leaned out on thick pistons and disappear behind it.

Jake motioned towards the office door and waited for Skeeter to step up to it. She opened it and moved inside, hitting a switch on the wall as she went in. Qi’s office was cluttered with papers and pipe and gears and a few dozen gizmos, doodads, and whatchamahoozits that Jake couldn’t begin to recognize. A large desk occupied the middle of the room and faced out on a large bay window still covered by a metal, rolling door. They heard the digger’s engine cough to life, grumbling and rumbling.

“Have a seat,” Jake said sternly. “You and I are gonna have a little talk, young lady.”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly as she sat in the chair and swiveled around to face him.

They heard a heavy metal clanking outside as the machine turned and headed out the other side of the shop through a large door that led to Qi’s warehouse.

Jake leaned back against an overflowing bookcase, resting his hand on his pistol grips. “Before I say anything, I want you to promise me you won’t say a word until I say I’m finished. Can you do that?” For an instant she gave him a look that bordered on defiant. They both knew it was as hard for Skeeter to keep her mouth shut as it was for Lumpy to walk quietly. Jake turned up the stern in his voice and said, “Promise.”

Skeeter took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I promise,” she said seriously. Jake checked her fingers to make sure they weren’t crossed.

“You shouldn’t have stowed away on the Jezebel,” Jake began. He saw her take a quick breath to blurt something out, and he waited patiently. She slowly regained control and settled back in her chair. He nodded, keeping his face stern but smiling inside. “I told you not to come, and now I gotta worry about keeping you safe, along with Qi and Cole and the Lady’s property … and we have a whole mess of people out there who are ready to burn each and every one of us down the moment we peek our heads up. You understand that now, right?”

She nodded, remembering not to say anything.

Jake took his hat off and settled it on a stack of papers next to him. “Skeeter, the reason you shouldn’t have come was because I asked you not to.” He hesitated and then stared into her eyes. “But the fact of the matter is that I probably shouldn’t have told you to stay behind.” Her mouth dropped open, and she looked at him, dumbfounded. “Hearing old Chung talk about Qi got me to thinking about you. You were on your own long before you ever met me, and you’ve got more brains, guile, and guts than most men I run into. And the truth is you’re old enough to be on your own, hell, even get married if you wanted.” At the mention of marriage she gave him a disgusted look. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that from now on, I ain’t gonna be telling you what you can and can’t do when it comes to stuff like this.” Her face brightened. He eyed her with a dangerous look. “But there’s a price.”

Her smile disappeared in a flash, and she was wary, maybe even a little afraid. “Price?” she asked.

“That’s right,” Jake nodded. “In all the times you’ve seen me and Cole work together when the heat was on, have you ever seen either one of us not do something the other ordered? And I mean ever.”

She thought about it, and Jake knew for certain that she remembered everything she saw. Skeeter’s memory was perfect, if not better. “No, sir,” she replied, a sort of awareness growing in her eyes.

“Why do you think that is?”

Without a moment’s pause she said, “’Cause you got each other’s backs.”

“That’s right,” Jake said somberly, nodding his head. “Cole and me know that no matter what, when we say duck, the other is gonna do so without asking why.”

“I think I understand,” she said slowly.

“It’s the third rule of this business, and you can’t get it wrong, Skeeter.” Jake put his hat back on and looked deep into her eyes. “There ain’t no second chances, no I’m sorry’s, no I didn’t mean to’s. You mess this up, even once, and somebody gets dead. You’ve seen me and Cole tear into some pretty unsavory sorts, and so far we’ve come out on top. But it might not always work out that way. In this line of work good people get killed … like Chung’s men … and it happens more often than I care to think about. The next time it could be you or me or Cole or someone like Qi or Chung. I’m pretty sure you don’t want that, do ya?”

“No, sir,” she replied quietly.

“You’ll see,” he continued, “when you’re standing over a dead body of someone you care about and they have a hole in ’em because you didn’t do what you were supposed to, that’s a world of hurt you don’t want because it never goes away. I’ve been there. It kills a little part of you inside that you can never get back.”

“I promise, Jake. I’ll do exactly what you say, when you say to do it. So help me God.” Jake could tell she meant it, and he’d never seen her as serious before. “What about the first two rules?” she asked, solemnly.

“We’ll get there, kiddo,” he replied. He realized that he’d just taken on an even greater responsibility, and it occurred to him that the lessons ahead for the young woman were likely to be hard ones. He felt his eyes welling up, his pride for her swelling—but it was combined with fear. He stood away from the bookcase and held out his arms. “All right, now gimme a hug so we can get on with this fiasco.” She leapt out of the chair and crashed into him, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her back, shaking his head to wipe away the tears that had formed.

“Thank you, Jake!” she whispered. “I won’t let you down.”

“All right, all right,” he said, disengaging from her. “I know you won’t. Now get on out there, and let’s get loaded up.” Jake pulled out his pocket watch as she walked out into the shop. It was 4:30 a.m., and the sun would be up soon, burning off the fog.

All they had to do was make it through the worst parts of San Francisco, including the warehouse district. And do it without getting killed, Jake thought.

After that it would be easy, he told himself.

Chapter Twenty-four – The Gauntlet

“When it was just me, I never worried about getting killed. It was always the people around me that I worried about.”

~ Jake Lasater

Fog swirled around them, and the grumbling chatter of Qi’s digger filled the dark morning air. Jake inspected the pillbox Cole and Qi had hastily set up in the back of the wagon, wedged in between the sidewall and the Lady’s box. Near the front of the wagon, four thick plates of the same dark metal that covered the cockpits of Qi’s machine had been clamped into place, forming a small box big enough for Skeeter to crouch in with her suitcase.

Jake cast a glance over to Cole. “You got our down payment?” he asked.

Cole nodded and patted one of his saddlebags. “Right here. The Lady paid us before she disappeared.”

Jake nodded and looked down at Skeeter. He lifted her up into the back of the wagon and handed up her suitcase. “Remember what I said, Skeeter. When I say jump, you jump. And duck means duck.”

“You got it, Jake,” she said, smiling, and she gave him a salute that made him proud. He gave her a wink. “Now get settled in there. Keep down, and be ready to toss some of them poppers when I say so.” She nodded, hefted her suitcase over the rear plate, and crouched down.

Jake turned and found Qi standing there. She stared up into his eyes and looked like she needed a kiss, so he obliged.

She pulled back slightly and looked at him with a faint smile. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she whispered into his ear. “You don’t need my permission.”

“What?” Jake said, doing his best to pretend he didn’t understand.

“Lady Dănești. You don’t need my permission.” Jake felt his cheeks warm, and Qi pinched one of them, her eyes laughing at him. “You’re a good man, Jake Lasater. And maybe it’s time you let go of that sadness you’ve been holding on to.”

“What?” he asked, this time completely bewildered.

She kissed him warmly, the passion they normally shared replaced with loving tenderness, and hugged him tight. She let out a little laugh, and then walked around the wagon to Lumpy. Jake looked around the wagon and saw her mumbling something quietly as her hand rested on the bull’s neck. Seconds later a soft flash of green light enshrouded Lumpy with the same green glow Qi had when the assassins had nailed her with the chaingun.

“Insurance,” she said to Jake with a wink and walked over to the modified digger.

“That’s a handy little trick,” Jake observed. “Can you do us all up like that?”

“No, I can’t manage another one for a few hours at best,” she replied sadly, “but I do have a few other tricks up my sleeve.”

“The Lady taught you quite a bit.” he said.

“More than I could hope for. She opened a whole new world for me,” she said simply as she turned away.

“Be sure to thank her for me,” Jake added, wondering what else Qi might have learned. Then his thoughts turned to what they were about to do. “So where’s your grandfather?” he called after Qi as she stepped up to the digger. “Is he coming along?”

She looked up through the fog at the rooftops barely visible above them. “He’s up there somewhere, doing what he does best, along with many of his soldiers.”

“We couldn’t ask for a better escort,” Jake observed.

Qi leapt up on her digger’s leg and disappeared behind the metal cockpit. There was a hiss as the pistons shut her inside, and then a second hiss as her copilot above closed himself in. Jake moved around the wagon, stepped up onto the driver’s seat, and grabbed the reins.

He turned his head to Cole, already mounted up on Koto. “You ready, amigo?” he asked as he twisted the iris of his ocular to let in as much light as possible.

Cole took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then let it out slowly. He reseated his pistol. “Let’s get rolling,” he said, and hefted the chaingun up in both hands.

“Qi,” Jake shouted at the machine, “you take point, then Cole, and we’ll take up the rear.” Jake looked up at the rooftops. “Chung, if you can hear me, give us a few flankers.”

“He can hear,” Qi’s mechanically amplified voice came from the rig.

Jake nodded and motioned towards the gate that opened on the alley behind Qi’s workshop. “Ladies first,” he said, motioning with his hand. Chung’s grandson hit a button on a control panel by the gate, and with the sound of gears turning, the whole fence slid to the side. The massive power plant inside the machine revved up. With loud, clanging stomps in the earth, Qi guided the machine out through the gate. As she turned into the alley, the arms rose and tracked left and right slowly. Jake pitied anyone who got in front of the Gatlings mounted on each arm. Cole fell in behind, a grim, determined look on his face.

“Skeeter?” Jake said. He snapped the reins against Lumpy’s back to get the bull moving, and they started off with a lurch, falling in stride behind Cole.

“Yeah?” she replied, popping her head up a bit to look at Jake.

“Lumpy is twelve o’clock and the ass-end of this rig is six o’clock. If I call out time and distance, I want you to heave one of them poppers as close to on-target as you can.” Jake looked back at the girl scrunched into the pillbox. “Can you do that?”

A wicked grin spread across her face. “Piece of cake, Jake,” she said with a menacing resolve that surprised him. Jake set the Thumper between his legs and gripped it firmly. Qi turned left out of the alley and headed down the street toward the warehouse district. Jake knew there would be a few twists and turns, but they would be heading generally southeast through the fog. He figured there wouldn’t be much action until they were well out of the residential district—less chance of Ming’s men drawing the attention of San Fran Marshals.

Jake clung to a slim hope that the pasting they’d given Ming’s men the night before had given the man pause, but considering the determination Jake had encountered when he’d had to kill Ming’s brother, he knew there’d be shooting before they even got close to the Jezebel.

It occurred to him suddenly that the streets were empty, as if all of Chinatown knew what was about to happen. Through a brief gap in the fog, Jake’s left eye picked up a flicker of motion on one of the rooftops. A small figure in black leapt out of a shadow from behind a chimney stack, and another figure in black who had been crouched behind the façade of the building rose up to meet him. Jake reached for his pistol and saw Cole tracking with the chaingun, but it ended as soon as it started. Jake saw several flashes reflected by what had to be Chung’s metal fans. The victim’s body silently slid off the roof and thumped into the dirt in the alley between two buildings, lost in the mist.

“Chung got his first kill,” Jake hissed at Cole’s back. Cole didn’t turn his head, but he nodded to indicate he’d heard. Chung disappeared again into the shadows and Jake saw a few more follow in his footsteps. As they traveled through the cobbled streets of San Francisco, they occasionally heard the clash of metal or an abbreviated yell as another man was cut down in the shadowy fog. Jake could only hope Chung’s soldiers were doing the cutting.

They travelled another fifteen blocks and turned onto Fremont before the buildings changed from houses and storefronts to warehouses.

When they crossed into the warehouse district proper, Qi turned right, crossed between two high, windowless rows of warehouses, and turned left onto 2nd Street. The gaps between the buildings were wide enough now to prevent someone from jumping from one roof to the next, which meant that Chung and his men either were on the ground or had given up. Jake hoped for the former, but he didn’t see a single figure in black moving between the buildings as he rolled by.

Lumpy seemed to have gotten the idea of following Cole, so Jake loosened his grip on the reins and picked up the Thumper, cradling it in his arms, left handed. He’d spent a great deal of time practicing to shoot a rifle left-handed to take advantage of his night-vision. As he peeked through the scope, he traced a line along rooftops and down alleys to see if he could spot anyone. A gentle breeze pushed the mists around like mud in a pond, thickening the fog in some places, breaking it up in others.

The smell of the ocean grew stronger as it cleared out between several warehouses. Spotty gaps in the fog let Jake see the dark surface of San Francisco Bay, and he heard waves swishing on the rocky shoreline. Qi turned right down King Street, and Jake could now make out the faint, red envelope of the Jezebel illuminated by ground lights a thousand yards past a channel that started only a few blocks away. Qi seemed to be headed for one of the small bridges that spanned the channel, and Jake realized it would be a perfect bottleneck. There were stacks of crates and assorted dock equipment scattered around the area, with plenty of places to hide. That’s where I’d put it, Jake thought to himself. He had to hope that Qi and Chung had talked about the route to the Jezebel.

“Cole,” Jake said and pointed at the spot in front of the bridge. Cole turned and then cast his gaze where Jake pointed. “Do you see it?” Another break in the fog allowed Cole to zero in on the spot.

Cole turned back and nodded. “I surely do.”

“Think you can play hide and seek along that left flank?” Jake asked, nodding towards the beach.

A big grin spread across Cole’s face. “I surely do,” he repeated with a wicked grin. He eased Koto out of the line and pulled back slightly on the reins. When he was even with the wagon, he handed the reins to Jake and hopped up onto the driver’s seat. With two quick motions he slid his boots off. He pulled the sling of the chaingun around so that the weapon rested between his shoulders and then pulled out the Bowie knife he kept in a sheath at the back of his gun belt. He dropped his hat on the seat next to Jake and pulled off his shirt, setting it on top of the hat. With a quick jerk he pulled a leather strap from inside his belt. He wrapped it around the bulk of his long, wavy black hair, making a ponytail at the back of his neck and then tied it off.

“Watch yourself, amigo,” Jake said.

“You, too.” Without another word Cole leapt over Koto, landing on the far side, and took off running between two warehouses as silently as any of Chung’s men. Jake tied off Koto’s reins to the buckboard and checked both pistols again, running the cylinder of each along his arm to make sure they were fully loaded.

Qi turned town 3rd Street and headed for the bridge. A wide gap between two small buildings and several rows of cargo crates arrayed beyond created a path that led straight up to the bridge.

“Skeeter,” Jake called over his back, “scoot to the back of that pillbox and get ready with them poppers. I’ll be coming back there directly.”

“Jake! Behind you!” Skeeter shouted.

Jake heard the flutter of fabric behind and to his left, and it was only the speed of his clockwork left that saved him. The filigreed Peacekeeper was already out of its holster and pointed at a man sailing down from the roof of the warehouse when Jake’s eye picked him out of the darkness. The pistol barked once, and the slug caught the man in the face, killing him instantly and spinning his body backwards. The sword that had been coming down towards Jake’s head fell from dead hands, rotated slightly, and stuck point first in the boards between Jake’s feet.

Jake rolled backward over the seat and came up with his knees planted on the Lady’s box just in time to see a group of men in black with rifles step out from a line of cargo crates near the canal. The arms of Qi’s digger shifted, and the twin gun pods on each arm tracked directly towards them. A staccato rhythm of gunfire, slower than the chainguns, erupted from the digger and poured into the assassins. They scattered like cockroaches when the lights came on.

Jake turned toward the back of the wagon and saw two groups of men in black step around from behind the warehouses, one on each side of the street.

“Skeeter! Four-thirty, thirty feet,” he yelled and fired off several rounds as he dropped down into the pillbox. Skeeter tossed one of her poppers as two men dropped in their tracks, hit by Jake’s volley. A barrage of gunfire came in at the wagon from both sides, but the shots either whistled overhead or ricocheted off of the Lady’s box and the steel plates of the pillbox. Skeeter’s popper went off right on target. The group of four men flew like ragdolls in a hurricane. Jake fired several more rounds into the group on the right, and two more went down. The last one fired his pistol and the bullet glanced off Jake’s left arm, sending up sparks as it ricocheted into the night. Jake took aim and put a round through the man’s throat, sending him to the ground in a heap.

That’s when Jake heard two power plants start up, one far ahead of Qi’s position and the other from behind the warehouse on his left. The power plants were much louder than Qi’s and sounded rougher, similar to the ones he’d encountered during the war, but something sounded different about them.

With a clank of metal feet, a mechanized assault unit stomped around the corner of the building. Jake gulped. He knew what they were capable of, and an image of the one standing atop Jackinaw Ridge flicked through his thoughts.

Fifteen feet of gleaming armor stared down at the gunfight unfolding before it. Its design was clearly based on the old Confederate model, but it appeared to be larger and more heavily armored. It also had a distinct head that swiveled and took in everything going on. The ends of its arms were more complex than the standard Confederate units he remembered. They had hydraulic-driven claws on the end and large gun pods mounted on the lower forearm.

“Oh shit,” Jake said as the assault unit turned toward the wagon, its arms rising into position. Jake could only hope that these machines were no more maneuverable than the Confederate models because it would give Qi’s digger at least some advantage. Jake grabbed Skeeter by the collar and yanked her out of the pillbox, causing her to squeal. Dragging her along, he dove behind the driver’s seat of the wagon and placed his body between her and the machine.

A massive, dual-explosion ripped through the night as antipersonnel rounds cooked off from both arms of the enemy unit. The impact rattled Jake’s teeth. Splinters flew everywhere, and the rear-left side of the wagon dropped down, the wheel blown to pieces.

Koto screamed sharply as only horses can and then the sound cut off. Lumpy jumped forward a few steps with the impact of the blast, but the buckshot had only bounced off the green glow around him. He stopped dragging the ass-end of the wagon after a few yards, the weight clearly more than he wanted to pull.

Thank God, Jake thought, grateful that the enemy unit didn’t have a Gatling gun. A steady stream of fire from one of those would either pin down or make short work of anyone out in the open. Jake looked up at the wall of the warehouse behind them and saw the entire wall filled with buckshot holes except for a precise outline of the wagon.… And Koto. A gut-wrenching reality hit Jake, but he pushed thoughts of Cole’s horse out of his mind.

A similar explosion of anti-personnel rounds came from somewhere ahead of Qi’s digger, followed by the fierce clatter of ricochets as men screamed.

Qi’s guns barked, opening up against something metallic, more men screamed. Jake looked down at the Thumper lying beneath him where he’d knocked it over. The four crimson lights glowing on the stock gave him an idea. He remembered Cole shooting at the men behind Qi’s digger the night before. He remembered Qi’s digger tipping over. That had only been setting three.

Wispy, white smoke poured over the back of the wagon, and Jake saw Jackinaw Ridge again in his mind’s eye. I ain’t gonna buy it again to one of these things, he thought grimly. He grabbed the Thumper, turned the dial from STUN past CROWD CONTROL and THUMP to its highest setting—HAMMER. The HAMMER was only for very special occasions, and Jake couldn’t think of a better time. It would drain the weapon’s power charge completely, and it would take hours for the rifle to recharge, but he had to hope it would do the trick.

He popped up to see a wall of white smoke filling the space between him and the assault unit. He couldn’t see the machine, and it couldn’t see him, but he knew exactly where it stood by the grumble of its power plant.

“Say goodnight, asshole!” Jake shouted just as twin Gatling guns fired blindly through the smoke around him. The terrible realization hit him: this model came equipped with both anti-personnel and Gatlings. A round nicked his arm, twisting him slightly, but the soldier in Jake took over. He braced himself, aimed the Thumper, and pulled the trigger. A sharp crackle of electricity made his hands tingle, and then the BOOM of a lightning strike filled the street as a bright, blue-white pulse blasted out of the Thumper and disappeared through the smoke. The recoil sent Jake flying backward into the wall of the warehouse behind him, and then he heard something massive and metal crash into a building before tumbling to the ground. Through the fog he heard its power plant sputter and go silent.

Jake smiled with the knowledge that the pilot of the deadly machine never knew what hit him.

Qi’s guns and those of the other assault unit were firing at each other, filling the night with a horrendous racket of gunfire and ricochets. Jake stood up and looked over Lumpy to see several figures in black sneaking up towards Qi’s digger. One of them had a lit stick of dynamite in his hand. From that angle, Jake knew Qi couldn’t see them.

“Skeeter! One o’clock, forty feet!” Skeeter propped up on her knees, reached into her jacket and pulled out another popper. She pressed a button on the bottom and hurled it at the men approaching the digger. The popper went off with a loud BOOM, and all three men went flying. Jake leapt up onto the driver’s seat, yanked his pistols, and killed all three of them before they could get off the ground.

He spotted another figure in black pajamas dashing between some crates beyond Qi’s position. A snap shot from the Peacekeeper sent the man sprawling.

Qi’s guns went silent, and a second later so did those of the assault unit. Jake figured they were both out of ammunition. In a flash the Confederate machine charged Qi’s digger. She shuffled her machine to the side, but the assault unit reached out with a claw and clamped down on her right gun pod. Hydraulics squealed and crushing metal screamed as the two heavy machines turned once in each other’s grip and fell to the ground in a clanging heap. Jake watched as Qi’s digger tried to pull away, but the second claw clamped down on her other gun pod and squeezed.

“Get back in the pillbox!” Jake hollered at Skeeter. “And give me a couple of them poppers!”

Skeeter dove into the pillbox, noticing two, neat holes from the Gatling gun in the outer plate. She handed up two poppers and crouched back down. Jake took a moment to look over the scene. The wagon had been savaged, Qi’s machine was pinned beneath the assault unit, and twelve men stepped out from behind a row of crates lined up past the next building. All of them carried pistols except for two. Szilágyi stood in the middle of the group, and one of his troopers stood to his immediate left. The trooper held a chaingun.

“Well done, Mister Lasater,” Szilágyi shouted as he clapped. His accent was definitely different than Lady Dănești’s. “A most valiant effort, to be certain. Much better than I expected of you, but it’s time for this farce to end before the little girl gets hurt. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Jake licked his lips and looked at the popper in his right hand.

“I wouldn’t advise that, Mister Lasater. You’d be dead before it went off, and who would protect your little friend?”

“Jake!” Skeeter shouted, but it was too late this time.

Something crashed into Jake’s shoulder from above and to his left. One of the poppers flew out of his hand as he and his attacker clattered metallically across the pavement. They both came up at the same time, but Ghiss’ skeletal arm brought up one of his strange pistols and leveled it in Jake’s face.

“Why Mister Lasater,” Ghiss said smoothly, “imagine meeting you in a place like this.” Jake glared at Ghiss, and the thought of going out in a blaze of glory danced behind his eyes. “What a terrible thought,” the mercenary said, seeing clearly what Jake was thinking, “and pointless. Now drop that remarkable little device and come along quietly. I promise that the girl will be safe.”

“Your word?” Jake asked, knowing that Ghiss, whatever else he might be, still held to a code of honor.

“I give you my word, Mister Lasater. She will come to no harm in my care.”

Jake let the popper clatter to the ground.

“Jake, no!” Skeeter shouted. “You can’t just give up!”

Jake snapped his head towards Skeeter. “This is the way it’s gotta be, you hear me? This is one of those times when I’m telling you what to do. Understand?”

Skeeter’s shoulders slouched, and then she nodded. Jake saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

Ghiss turned slightly to face Szilágyi. “It seems that our business arrangement is still in place, Colonel. I have Mister Lasater in my custody, and I’m prepared to turn him over to you upon payment in full.”

Szilágyi laughed, a wicked and heartless sound, and Jake got a sneaking suspicion that things were about to get noisy again.

“Do you really believe I would feel honor-bound to keep my word with a mercenary?” Szilágyi shouted and laughed again. “Shoot them both,” he said to the man on his left. The chaingun and ten pistols rose with Szilágyi’s laughter.

“Oh, shit,” Ghiss said in that metallic voice as the trooper leveled the chaingun at them. Jake suspected it might be the first time Ghiss had ever cursed.

Chapter Twenty-five – The Enemy of My Enemy

“The key to success in my line of work is thinking five steps ahead of my prey.”

~ Ghiss

The trooper’s chaingun spun up, but Jake picked up the whine of a second chaingun somewhere closer to the bridge. From behind a stack of crates at the water’s edge, Cole stepped into view, chaingun in hand.

“Jake!” Cole screamed.

Jake was already diving away from Ghiss as he watched the chaos unfold. Most of Szilágyi’s men had heard the second chaingun and, like amateurs, were turning to see what it was without bringing their guns around. Szilágyi had obviously heard the sound of the second chaingun, because he dove to the side. He seemed to be considerably better at math than his own man with the chaingun, or maybe the man didn’t hear Cole’s weapon over his own. He merely stood there like a Greek statue with a mean grin splitting his face.

A flash of gunfire erupted from the man’s weapon, and although Ghiss was already moving, Jake saw sparks fly from those skeletal limbs as several rounds hit home. That’s when Cole’s burst took Szilágyi’s man in the back and turned the poor bastard’s chest into a crimson blossom. The chaingun flew from his arms as he went down. Cole swept left and right with the chaingun, chewing up the pistol-wielding assassins. Several managed to turn their pistols and get shots off, but they missed Cole.

Cole, however, didn’t miss them, and they dropped in heaps with chunks torn out of their bodies.

That’s when Jake spotted shadows moving towards them from further up along the channel near the second bridge.

“Cole!” Jake shouted. “On your left!” Jake heard a clank from his right and turned to see the nearest assault unit cutting into the upper cockpit of Qi’s digger. A horrible scream filled the night. Blood poured out and ran down the top of the digger. Then the claw lifted and pressed into the plate covering of Qi’s cockpit.

Jake heard Cole’s chaingun cook off again in short bursts, followed by an occasional scream from the men approaching. Jake’s eyes were riveted on the digger.

The hydraulics of the massive claw screamed as they bit slowly through the black cockpit cover. “Qi!” Jake shouted. He yanked his pistols and unloaded them at the Confederate unit, the rounds sparking harmlessly off the cylindrical hull. Both pistols clicked empty. “Qi!” he screamed again and charged forward just as the digger’s arms pressed up against the assault unit.

“Jake, stay back,” Qi yelled through the machine’s speakers. The cockpit opened as she pushed. She peeked out the top to avoid getting cut in half. Jake saw her close her eyes, raise her hand, and begin making short, swift motions with her fingers, and he could see her muttering something.

The free claw rose up, ready to crash down up her. Her eyes shot open and her hand stretched forth. She pointed at the machine leaning over her and yelled a single, incomprehensible word. A ball of flame shot forth from her finger and grew impossibly large in the short distance it took to travel from her hand to the assault unit.

Both machines were caught in the ensuing explosion, blowing Jake back with the force of the blast. From his back he watched the assault unit rise up into the air, rotate slowly away from the digger, up and over, to crash heavily on its back. Jake could see a melted, slag-edged hole about a foot in diameter in the cylindrical cockpit.

“Qi!” he screamed.

Jake knew the smell of charred flesh, and it filled the air. Miraculously, Qi was still alive and seemed to be unharmed. He tore his gaze away from the ravaged assault unit to focus on four men in black running between several stacks of crates toward the digger with upraised swords. One of them was well ahead of the others and angling straight for Qi.

“God damn it,” Jake muttered, realizing that he was out of options.

A popper sailed in from behind him and detonated at the feet of the man headed for Qi. He flew through the air, landing in a heap between Jake and the digger. His neck canted at a most unnatural angle, and his sword slid right up to Jake’s feet. Jake saw another popper fly over his head, but the men racing towards him saw it and avoided the explosion. Jake picked up the sword and stared at the three men headed in his direction.

“You may find this a little more useful,” a metallic, southern drawl said from behind Jake. The voice sounded strained and weak. Jake turned just as one of Ghiss’ pistols flew through the air towards him. Jake caught it in his clockwork hand and looked down at the mercenary.

Ghiss lay on his side, propped up on a damaged arm. The other, the one he’d used to throw the weapon at Jake, was awkwardly reaching for his second pistol. “I suggest we prepare to defend ourselves, Mister Lasater,” Ghiss added and fired off a shot at one of the approaching assassins. The bright green flash of light, sounding like chirp of static electricity, clipped the assassin’s hip and sent him into a tumbling dodge, but the assassin came up again at a dead run.

Jake fired once, twice, and again, dropping the three men in their tracks, only twenty feet away. And then they both saw about twenty more men sneaking towards them, moving from cover to cover. Every one of them held a blade of some kind, and several also held pistols.

Jake turned to Ghiss. “How many shots do these have?”

“Not enough,” Ghiss replied calmly as he shook his head.

Three men ran silently past Jake, each of them dressed in black with faint golden dragons embroidered on their backs. Another four men ran past, and then four more. Jake looked to his left to see a dozen or more rushing across the path to the bridge. The sound of men fighting grew in volume, carried over the stacks of crates.

“It appears that the cavalry has arrived,” Ghiss said.

Jake turned and saw Ghiss weakly lay down on his back just as a bright orange flare shot up into the air from well past where the bulk of the fighting was going on. Jake heard the sound of airship engines revving up, above and behind him. He turned toward the sound and saw the black gondola of Szilágyi’s airship cutting through the fog like an upside down shark fin. A metallic ladder dropped out of the bottom of the gondola, reaching nearly seventy feet, the last few feet of it dragging across the street along a corridor between the crates.

Jake saw Szilágyi step out into the open a hundred and fifty feet away and grab the ladder as it went by. Jake fired Ghiss’ weapon and watched the blast of energy fizzle out a hundred feet distant. Szilágyi gripped the ladder as it rose swiftly into the air, and he had the gall to salute Jake as he disappeared into the mist above.

“I take it these things don’t have much range,” Jake said angrily, turning to Ghiss.

“I generally don’t need them to,” Ghiss replied without much apology in his voice as he lay back in the dirt. “But don’t worry, Mister Lasater. I’m certain the two of you will have ample opportunity to shoot at each other in the near future.” Ghiss sighed and then lowered his gun into the dirt.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Jake said, his voice full of impotent rage.

“I’d bet my life on it,” Ghiss reassured him tiredly. “But perhaps we should concern ourselves with getting off the street before the local authorities come by with paddy wagons to herd up the survivors.”

“You need not worry about the authorities,” Chung said, stepping out of the shadows.

“The whole city must have heard this,” Jake chimed in.

“I have no doubt, but in addition to the two fires Ming’s men set, the authorities are preoccupied with an aborted bank robbery and an explosion at a one of Ming’s warehouses on the other side of the city.” Chung put on a subtle, little smile and stepped between Jake and Ghiss, heading toward his granddaughter as she climbed out of the downed digger. Jake worried that she might be injured, but she looked to be in one piece as she stepped down onto the street.

With a clenched jaw, Jake leveled the blaster at Ghiss’ head. “How about you just push that pistol my way,” he said slowly. Jake’s eyes darted to the rooftop from where Ghiss had leapt and then back at the man. The question of why Jake was still alive crept into his thoughts. Ghiss could have simply shot him. But he hadn’t. Unfortunately, Jake didn’t have time to ask.

“I wondered when you’d get around to that, Mister Lasater,” Ghiss said, tightening the grip on his pistol but holding his arm against the ground. “It would appear that I am at your mercy. But before you make any decisions as to my disposition, I believe it would be best for us to have a rather lengthy dialogue.”

“That’s the plan, Ghiss. Don’t you worry. I ain’t gonna shoot you here. And I ain’t gonna leave you behind for the marshals, either. You’re coming along with us, and as long as you behave yourself, I won’t put a bullet through that half-face of yours. We understand one another?”

Ghiss didn’t even hesitate. “I believe I find your terms acceptable, sir,” he said, still sounding tired but with a bit of brightness in his voice. He released his grip on the pistol and pushed it toward Jake. “I will be on my best behavior, a consummate southern gentleman.”

The sounds of fighting coming from beyond the stacks of crates had mostly died down, and small groups of Chung’s men were making their way back to the area around the wagon. Chung came back to where Jake stood while Qi climbed back into the digger. Jake watched her disappear into the lower cockpit. With a hiss of hydraulic pistons, the sheared, upper cockpit opened, allowing more blood to pour down the side of the chassis.

Chung yelled something, and two of his soldiers ran to the upper cockpit. They peered inside, and Jake watched as they shook their heads. They exchanged a few brief words and did a fast roshambo. The winner, with paper over rock, reached into the cockpit and grabbed the hands of the man inside. He dragged the upper half of a very small Chinese man out of the cockpit. The torso fell to the ground with a splat, and then the loser reached into the cockpit, a grimace on his face. He came out with the even more grisly lower half, grasped by the man’s waistband.

As the legs fell to the ground, the winner shouted to one of the other soldiers. The two of them dragged both halves away. The remaining man hesitated, seemed to mutter something, and then slid into the upper cockpit. Jake heard a muffled shout from him and then Qi hit the ignition of the digger’s power plant. A high-pitched squeal filled the street, and then the plant turned over, but it didn’t sound nearly as smooth as it had before the assault unit hammered it.

The digger sat up, and with a swing of one leg managed to roll it over on its belly. The arms swung out to the side, folded at the elbows and then pivoted into the machine’s sides. With screaming hydraulics, they pressed down into the earth, lifting the upper portion of the digger a few inches off the ground. The power plant revved up as the arms pressed into the earth, straightening out. The machine looked like it was doing a push-up when the waist bent and the legs slowly walked forward in short, jerky steps. When the feet were nearly between the arms, the waist straightened out, and the digger rose to an upright position.

Standing there, the thing looked like hell. Both cockpits were cut open, there were scratches and gouges in the surface. The entire front of the machine had been scorched. Jake couldn’t believe the thing could still function after the pounding it had taken. He had to admit that Qi was one hell of a tinker.

She’d probably give Tinker Farris a run for his money, Jake thought to himself.

The digger moved forward, and Jake stepped out of the way. He had a pretty good idea of what Qi had in mind.

“Oh, God,” Cole’s sorrowful voice lifted from the other side of the wagon, and it hit Jake hard. “Look what them bastards done to Koto,” he added, his voice thick.

“I’m sorry, Cole,” Jake said. He glanced at Skeeter, and she had a strange, sickened look on her face. I guess she just learned lesson three, Jake thought.

“What are you sorry for,” Cole said, turning sharply.

“I guess it’s sorta my fault,” Jake said.

“How you figure that?” Cole asked with an edge in his voice. “The only ones at fault are them fellas … the ones who attacked us, and whoever hooked them up with that Confederate hardware,” Cole added, sending a hateful look in Ghiss’ direction. Cole looked Jake square in the eyes. “Ain’t no way it was your fault, Jake. I knew the risks when we left Denver.” Cole’s face went stony. “I’ll just have to take it out of them foreigners when we cross paths again, and believe me, I will.”

Jake nodded and clapped his partner on the shoulder. Then he turned and inspected the wagon. The rear wheel had been completely destroyed, and what remained of the axle rested on the ground. He looked up at the sheared, lower cockpit of the digger. “Think you can lift this tail end of this wagon off the ground?” he asked Qi. He could just barely make out her figure through the gash in the cockpit cover.

“I believe so,” she shouted from within.

“Cole, get your possibles off of Koto,” Jake said very gently, “and throw them in the wagon.” Cole only nodded and stepped over to Koto. Jake heard Cole loosening the straps to Koto’s saddle.

The digger stepped up beside the wagon as Jake stepped around to the back. As the Lady’s package came into view, he did a double-take. The side of the wagon had been torn to shreds in most places where the anti-personnel rounds hit. The Lady’s box, however, remained completely unmarked. There wasn’t a scratch on it. Jake ran a finger over the smooth, carved surface, looking closely to see if it had taken any damage at all.

“I need to get behind it, Jake,” Qi’s said. He nodded again and stepped out of the way. The digger moved to the back and Qi’s copilot slowly ran one of the mostly-crushed gun pods under the wagon near the corner. The appendage grated across the wood, and then the back axle lifted off the ground. The gun pod bumped up against the rear axle and Lumpy leaned into the harness as the wagon rolled forwards a short distance.

“Ghiss, can you get up there on your own?” Jake asked. Ghiss still lay flat on his back.

“I am afraid I’m not certain,” the mercenary said and moved slowly into a sitting position. His left arm made a horrible grating noise, and his right leg didn’t sound much better.

Ghiss slowly got to his feet, and no one lent a hand. There were a number of scowls aimed at the mercenary as well as some questioning glances directed at Jake. Many were wondering why Jake hadn’t simply shot the mercenary where he lay.

As Ghiss stood, he made some swinging and rotating motions with all four limbs. The same arm and leg were clearly giving him trouble, but they were at least mobile. He hobbled slowly to the back of the wagon and clambered up into the back, settling on the bed just outside the pillbox. Jake looked across the wagon and saw Cole throw his saddle and bags over the edge to land with a thud on top of the Lady’s crate. Then Cole mounted up in the driver’s seat of the wagon. Jake tossed him both of Ghiss’ pistols and reloaded his own.

“All right, let’s move on out of here.” He turned to Chung. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to escort us the rest of the way?”

“Of course, Jake,” Chung nodded his head. “We’ve come this far together, and I do not believe that Ming was amongst the men we killed. My soldiers would have notified me at once. He may still be out there waiting for us.”

“Great,” Jake grumbled, wishing the Jezebel had already taken off with them on board. “I’m much obliged, Chung … and thanks by the way … for everything. We would have been dead meat if it weren’t for you and Qi.” He turned to the digger, hollering. “I owe you one!”

He moved around the wagon and grabbed Lumpy’s harness. With a glance back at Koto’s bloody form lying on the ground, another pang of guilt hit Jake. He spurred Lumpy and they moved forward. Qi masterfully kept pace with Lumpy’s progress, and the whole group, including about fifteen of Chung’s men, made their way slowly across the bridge and over the wide field that led to where the Jezebel sat.

Fog still swirled around, but it had started to loosen up, and the ground lights illuminated the great envelope of the airship. As the group of them approached, they spotted nearly a dozen men crouching behind cargo containers and crates surrounding the base of the gondola. Every one of them had a rifle pointed at Jake and the others.

Tyler Jones stepped out from behind some barrels, rifle in hand, and walked in their direction. Chung and Jake moved forward ahead of everyone to greet the man.

“So, y’all made it, did you?” Tyler asked a bit worriedly. He looked over the digger and the people around it.

“It surely appears that way,” Jake replied.

“But not without a price,” Chung added.

“When we got your message,” Tyler replied, “we didn’t know quite what to make of it, Chung. And when we heard the shooting start over there, well, I don’t mind telling you that we feared the worse. If y’all survived that, I’d hate to see the other guys.”

“Tyler, is your captain around?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I need to talk to him. He’s got a right to know the score before he lets us on board.” Jake sighed. He was laying short odds that the captain of the Jezebel would turn them away once he got the whole story, but Jake felt obligated to give it to him anyway.

“If you say so, Jake. Come on.” Tyler turned and headed towards the open cargo door. “O’Malley!” he shouted into the darkness.

“Yeah?” a voice floated up from behind some crates. Matthew O’Malley stepped out into view.

“I want you to get everything aboard that’s going aboard, but make damn sure you leave room for that busted up rig back there.”

“You got it.”

“And make sure you keep those men watching out for any trouble.”

O’Malley nodded as Jake and Tyler walked past him and up into the cargo hold. Tyler stopped just inside the door and pressed a button on a small panel, speaking into the thing with a loud voice. “Carson, can you send the captain down to the cargo bay?” He released the button. Jake looked around the hold and saw that all the damage had been repaired. The only difference being crates and barrels now occupied the area where luggage had been before.

“The captain is already on his way down to the hold, Tyler,” a thin-sounding voice came from the small box. “He saw them folks showing up and wanted to talk to either Chung or that Lasater fella.”

Tyler pressed the button and said, “Thanks, Carson. Seems Jake here and the captain had the same notion.” He released the button and turned to Jake. “He should be down directly.”

Jake nodded and they heard the door past the luggage open. “Mr. Tyler!” a man with a thick, English accent called out.

“Here, Captain,” Tyler said and stepped forward into the hold as the captain came into view.

“Ah, excellent!” the captain said as he stepped into view. Jake had to blink twice. The captain of the Jezebel stood nearly seven feet of skinny Englishman, with a long, narrow, horse-like face and gray muttonchops puffed out on the sides. His limbs were as thin as saplings and seemed to almost flop around as the man moved. The captain wore a crisp, black uniform with gold epaulets, and a braid of gold hooked under his left arm. The worn grip of a muzzle-load pistol stuck out above his right hip set up for a cross-draw, and it had clearly seen plenty of use. The basket-hilted saber on his left looked even more worn, and the long red tassel at the end of the pommel was ratty in parts, as if the weapon were quite old.

“Jake Lasater, I presume?” the captain said as he held out a bony hand with impossibly long fingers. “I’m Captain Horacio Butler Wordsworth, at your service, sir.” The captain looked Jake up and down with fiercely calculating eyes, not suspicious, but Jake had no doubt every word he said would be picked apart by the captain of the Jezebel.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain,” Jake shook the man’s hand and tipped his hat.

“Quite a hullabaloo you had out there, what?”

“Yes, sir,” Jake said with a sigh. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Wordsworth raised an eyebrow. “What might you be of a mind to discuss, young man?” the captain asked with a knowing smile. “Hmmmm?”

“Well, I don’t know what Chung said when he booked our passage, but I suspect it was downright cryptic.”

“An excellent supposition, Mister Lasater. My friend Chung does have a penchant for leaving out details, doesn’t he?” The tall man chuckled.

“That he does,” Jake agreed. He liked the captain already. “The truth is that the hullabaloo we just wrapped up probably won’t be the last. In fact, I’m certain of it.” He hesitated, scratching the back of his head nervously as his eyes wandered around the cargo hold.

“Spit it out, young man. No need to dally with me.”

“Well, the men we just finished tangling with out there were working for the same man who dusted up your cargo hold on the way out from Denver the other day. He’s dead set on getting his hands on what we’re hauling … in that wagon out there,” Jake nodded to the broken wagon that Qi and Cole had moved closer to the hold. “He’s got at least one black zepp, as you know, but if the weapons on his ship are as feisty as the ones his boys carry, you’d be in for a heap o’ trouble when he comes callin’. I figured you needed to know that before you let us get aboard the Jezebel.”

The captain put steel in his voice as he spoke. “Is this the same man responsible for the death of one of my crewmen?” Jake got the impression Captain Horacio Butler Wordsworth was not a man to be trifled with.

“Yessir, Captain,” Jake said slowly, afraid he was about to get kicked off.

“Young man, I take my responsibilities very seriously, for this ship, but more so for the men who serve under me. This Colonel Szilágyi murdered a man under my command. I will see that he meets justice, or I and my entire crew will die in the attempt.”

“This is likely to turn into one hell of a shooting fight, Captain,” Jake offered.

“The Jezebel is not without her defenses,” Wordsworth said defiantly, “and you and your people proved adequate in thwarting Szilágyi’s plans the first time. I served in Her Majesty’s Air Force and fought Mongol pirates in the skies over Xi’an. You have brought to me precisely the bait I require to bring this colonel to my doorstep. And then we shall see what’s what.”

“I reckon I never really looked at it that way, Captain, but we’re still obliged to ya.”

“It is I who is obliged to you, young man. I was not entirely honest with you before. My friendship with Chung goes back to, well, before you were born. He gave me quite a few details about what has been going on these past two days. Your honesty here has raised your stock quite a bit, and it was already in good standing. In my eyes you are not simply some uncouth, gun-slinging cowboy getting into trouble wherever you go, like so many other Americans I’ve met. You are a gentleman of character and principles, one I believe I can trust. And I will be pleased to do so henceforth.” The captain held out his hand once again, and they shook firmly. “I have already made arrangements so that our passengers will be picked up by the next Central Pacific transport to arrive, which should be in two days. I convinced my superiors that the Jezebel might not be safe for passengers.” He winked with a sly grin on his face. “Now, say your goodbyes and get your people on board. We leave within the hour.”

“Thank you Captain, but you’re taking an awful risk with the Jezebel. We don’t even know what Szilágyi did the first time he was here, and I have no doubt that black zeppelin of his is armed for bear.”

“Fear not, Mister Lasater. As I said, we shall mete out justice or perish in the attempt!” A wolfish grin crossed Captain Wordsworth’s face. “And the Jezebel, after all, is insured by Lloyd’s of London.” The captain winked once again.

Jake merely chuckled and shook his head.

Chapter Twenty-six – A Deal Deal

“You can make a deal with the Devil and trust he’ll keep his end of the bargain. But any deal you make better be worth your immortal soul.”

~ Jake Lasater

Jake stared down at Chung and Qi as early morning sunlight traced along faint wisps of what little fog remained. “Are you two going to be all right with Ming still gunning for you?” he asked. The rotors of the Jezebel were spinning slowly, and the hum of her engines forced Jake to raise his voice. Captain Wordsworth’s crew had loaded the last of the cargo quickly and efficiently. There were still a few of his ground crew running around making last-minute checks on ship and cargo, but they kept a respectful distance from Jake, Chung, and Qi.

“We certainly will,” Chung said, smiling. “But that circumstance would have been the same regardless of whether you were here or not.”

“This actually worked out better than we could have hoped,” Qi added. She took Jake’s hand and then hugged him tightly. He returned the embrace, breathing deeply of her hair and again remembering both the tender and frightening moments they’d spent together. He cared for her deeply, and a part of him wondered what being with her would have been like. But thoughts of Lady Dănești loomed in his thoughts, and he couldn’t shake Qi’s words about destiny and an imminent war.

“How do you mean?” Jake asked, leaning back and looking into her eyes.

“Well, we have those two machines I get to take apart and turn into even better models. They’re old, but some of what’s inside them is good work.” Qi released Jake and stepped up next to her grandfather.

Chung added, “And this morning’s events forced Ming to commit a large portion of his men, and they were mostly wiped out. He’ll be starting nearly from scratch, and I will be speaking with certain parties in- and outside the San Francisco government to ensure that he has … difficulties.” Chung’s smile bordered on vicious, and it gave Jake chills. The man was as dangerous as they came.

“You pretty much got this town in your pocket, don’t you, Chung?”

The old man remained silent, but an almost impish delight danced behind his eye, and Jake would swear the glowing green eye set in the golden mask got brighter.

“Remind me not to ever get on your bad side,” Jake added, holding out his hand as the ground crew around them released the heavy ropes securing the Jezebel.

“Indeed,” Chung agreed. “Now you should be on your way. They’re about to take off.” Chung held out his hand, and Jake shook it warmly. He hoped he would see the old man again.

“You two be careful,” Jake said. He stepped into the cargo hold and turned back towards them. “And I’ll think about what you said last night, Qi.”

She smiled and nodded at him.

“I suspect you’re in considerably more danger than either of us,” Chung said.

“And you better come back soon. I’ll wire you and let you know when it’s safe,” Qi added. “You, Cole, and Skeeter deserve to see all of San Francisco.”

“We will,” Jake agreed. “I already promised Skeeter a real trip.” He tipped his hat at them both, and they raised their hands as one of the Jezebel’s crew closed the cargo door. Jake made his way up the spiral staircase leading out of the cargo hold when he felt the Jezebel lift off. He walked through the empty passenger area and noticed that four belt-fed Gatling gun emplacements had been set up along the windows, two on each side. There were sandbags set up around the guns to protect the gunners.

The Jezebel banked hard. Jake looked out the window and realized that what little he could see of the rising sun was to his left rather than straight ahead. A squall line of dark clouds filled the distance as the Jezebel tacked south rather than heading into the storm.

Making a mental note to ask about it, he ambled into the dining compartment and found some of the Jezebel’s crew whispering quietly amongst themselves. Cole sat in a far corner eyeing Ghiss with a dark scowl. Skeeter sat hunched over Ghiss’ arm and appeared to be working on the damaged appendage. Tyler stood behind Ghiss, looking down at Skeeter as she worked, clearly fascinated by what he saw.

Ghiss had been laid out on one of the tables. His coat, shirt, and pants had been draped over one of the chairs, and Jake got his first good look at what the man really looked like—or what was left of him.

The biggest patch of skin Jake could see was around the neckline. What he saw made him feel a sudden, strange pang of compassion for the mercenary. Ghiss had only mottled scar tissue, as if his flesh were made of pink and white wax dripped layer upon layer over the bumpy surface of an abused mannequin. A man only got scars like that from fire—open, sustained fire. Jake had seen enough burns and heard enough screams in the war to know that Ghiss had endured the trial of flame at some point, and survived. Jake knew damn well pain like that changed a person.

Ghiss was heartless, a cold-blooded killer who did what he did for money, but when it came right down to it, Jake had to admit that he and the mercenary weren’t all that different. Granted, Jake drew a line at certain things, and he was convinced Ghiss didn’t have too many boundaries, but seeing the man as he was, he understood the mercenary a little better. Not enough to forgive him, but at least understand.

Ghiss’ slender limbs, shining with a dull, brass finish, had cylindrical joints attaching double-tube constructs. A black breastplate covered with dents and scrapes encased his torso. He still wore the lower half of his mask, but the goggles had been unbolted from his face. His eyelids were gone, and the scarred skin around his eyes and cheeks were a mottled white and pink, like the rest of him.

Skeeter had on her glasses, the magnifying lenses swung out in front of the oculars, and she prodded and poked his damaged left arm with one of her instruments. She reached into a tool kit lying on the table beside Ghiss and pulled out a small wrench. Sliding it through a bullet hole in the limb, she made an adjustment and the set the wrench down.

“I think I can get this working again, but patching up the outer casing probably won’t be possible, at least not here. I doubt they have the parts or equipment onboard that I’d need.”

“Anything you can do to get me up and moving will be most appreciated, young lady,” Ghiss said as he spotted Jake walking towards them.

Jake remained silent as he stepped up, and his eyes lingered on Ghiss’ scars. That feeling of pity welled up in him again. Ghiss looked at Jake, their eyes locking for a few brief seconds. The mercenary’s cheeks rose slightly, making Jake think Ghiss wore a smile.

“Perhaps now you understand a little, Mister Lasater,” Ghiss said, the metal twang in his voice carrying a subtle resignation of fate that was hard for Jake to miss. Ghiss chuckled slightly, and Jake nodded just enough to let Ghiss know that he did. Jake had encountered plenty of people who scorned him when they saw the gleaming metal of his arm and legs. Clockwork replacements for flesh and blood were useful, even better than the originals in many cases, but they set men like Jake and Ghiss apart from normal folks. Mistrust and outright hatred were common enough circumstances he and Ghiss faced regularly.

“Don’t worry, Ghiss. Skeeter here is almost as good as Farris, better in some ways if you ask me.” Skeeter looked up and smiled, her cheeks going a bit rosy with embarrassment at the compliment. “Do what you can, Skeeter. Old Ghiss still has to pay us back for me not shooting him in San Fran.”

Ghiss laughed and tilted his head to the side. Jake got that feeling again, as if he’d seen a head tilt in exactly that way at some point in his life. “You know I pay my debts, Mister Lasater. A gentleman always does.”

“Pretty far from a gentleman if you ask me,” Cole said, and the bitterness in his voice told Jake his partner wanted a reason, any reason, to shoot the mercenary. Jake couldn’t blame him, but he needed Ghiss.

“What can you tell me about Szilágyi?” Jake asked, “And that zepp of his.”

“I’ve never been aboard his zeppelin, and I doubt I could tell you much more about the man than you already know.”

“Try me,” Jake said, “but hit the highlights. There’s a fight heading our way, and that piece of shit Szilágyi is at the helm.”

“He’s more ruthless than I am,” Ghiss stated, “and you know what that means.” Jake nodded. It meant that Szilágyi would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and he wouldn’t care what got in his way. “Women and children are fair game in his book,” Ghiss added. He locked eyes with Jake once again, and Jake got the warning. A man like Szilágyi would use Lady Dănești and even Skeeter as nothing more than pawns, even shields if he got his hands on them.

“Ghiss, do you know what Szilágyi wants with the Lady’s crate?” Jake asked, his voice going stony.

“I couldn’t say for certain, Mister Lasater, but they’re not just after what’s in the reliquary—although I use that term loosely. Szilágyi is keenly interested in taking possession of the woman herself, and for reasons that a man of your upbringing would find uncomfortable, perhaps even unbelievable.”

“What the hell is a reliquary?” Cole injected, his distaste for Ghiss readily apparent.

“Let’s just say that they are used to carry objects of religious or mystical importance, Mister McJunkins, and leave it at that for the time being.”

“Sounds like you know a hell of a lot more than we do,” Cole replied.

“It would be difficult to argue with you on that point, sir,” Ghiss said, and nobody missed the haughtiness in the metallic voice.

“So, why don’t you enlighten us?” Jake suggested with an iron edge in his voice.

“I’m afraid I’m honor-bound to withhold much of the specifics regarding the Lady and her belongings,” Ghiss said easily. Jake saw Cole reach for his pistol, and the anger on his partner’s face was obvious. Jake locked eyes with Cole and shook his head slightly. Cole glared at Ghiss, but he left the Colt where it was. “You know I’m a man of honor, Mister Lasater. I’ve given my word not to discuss certain aspects of this contract, and therefore I will not, under any circumstances.” Ghiss turned his eyes briefly to Cole and then the Colt as he spoke, returning his gaze back to Jake.

Jake rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work out a kink that had taken up residence there, borne of frustration. “Qi knows what’s going on. Chung does, too. Hell, even Norton seems to know what’s going on. And now you?” Jake groaned aiming a surly look at Ghiss. “Are we the only ones who don’t have a clue?”

Ghiss nodded. “I believe that would be an accurate assessment of the circumstances, Mister Lasater.”

“All y’all can kiss my ass,” Jake grumbled. Tyler was obviously doing his best not to laugh, but Ghiss made no such effort. The metallic laughter that came from the man was downright disturbing.

“Mister Lasater,” Ghiss said between chuckles, “sometimes you just slay me.”

“I surely would like to,” Jake muttered.

“I don’t believe you truly mean that,” Ghiss said flatly.

“You can bet I do, Ghiss,” Cole spoke up, not hiding the venom.

“At this point I’d have to flip a coin,” Jake said. “But there’s something I can’t figure.” He narrowed his good eye at Ghiss.

“Only one?” Ghiss asked with a hint of sarcasm.

Jake ignored the quip and continued on. “If your deal was with Szilágyi and he broke the agreement, then why keep quiet?”

“Well, I did have an agreement with those gentlemen, and they did not hold up their end of the bargain once my services had been duly rendered. That makes the agreement null and void, and I do owe them a certain amount of recompense for their betrayal. Recompense I intend to pay with interest. But it is not Szilágyi to whom I gave my word, therefore my agreement is still binding.”

“So who was it?” Jake asked.

Ghiss cocked his head to the left and remained silent, clearly not interested in offering anything more on the subject.

Jake sighed and shook his head. Knowing Ghiss wouldn’t say more about his deal. “So, where does that leave us?”

“You know me Mister Lasater … or at least know me enough. I’m not a villain, per se. This is business. I intend to settle my accounts with Szilágyi and his little group, with or without you. It seems to me you could use all the help at your disposal.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Jake asked. “We’re talking about a deal here, right Ghiss?” he asked. He’d stopped himself from shooting Ghiss in the hope that they could work out a deal. “A business arrangement to nail Szilágyi. No tricks. No bullshit. We don’t kill you here and now, and you work with us to bury that son-of-a-bitch. After that we drop you off at the next stop. Right?”

“Again, Mister Lasater, I find your terms acceptable.”

Jake held out his hand and Ghiss shook it firmly.

“Then you’ve got a deal, Ghiss. Until Szilágyi is a corpse, you work for me.” Ghiss nodded once.

Jake turned to Tyler. “You got a minute?” he asked the big man, nodding toward the door that led to the forward passenger compartments.

“Sure, Jake.” Tyler turned and walked towards the door.

Jake looked at Cole and flicked his eyes toward the door. Cole caught the hint and stood, but his eyes didn’t leave Ghiss until he stepped through the door ahead of Jake.

“Hey, Jake?” Skeeter called out.

“What’s up, Skeeter?” Jake replied as he stopped and turned back to her.

“When I’m done here, would it be okay if I went down and checked the hold? There’s something that’s been bothering me.”

“Go right ahead,” he said and smiled. Jake had learned to trust when something bothered her. She bragged about being smarter than most people, and though it could come across as arrogant and irritating, Jake knew that on her worst day she could figure out stuff Jake and Cole wouldn’t come close to on their best days. “Let me know if you find anything, and if you can’t find me right away, find Tyler here or the captain.”

“You got it!” she called back.

“Head for our cabin, Tyler,” Jake said, turning once again towards the door. “Last one on the left,” Jake offered. He wanted the conversation to be as private as possible.

Tyler led them through the passageway and stepped past the door, allowing Jake to unlock it and step inside. Tyler and Cole followed him in as he stepped up to the windows. Cole closed the door behind them, locking it.

“What’s up, Jake?”

“We’re not heading east.”

“Oh, yeah, that. You know that rain and fog we had last night?”

“Yeah,” Jake admitted.

“Well, that was the southern edge of a big system coming out of Oregon heading over the Rockies. We got reports from the telegraph stations all the way through to Salt Lake saying it was a real gully-washer. The captain doesn’t want to take us through it, so he’s heading south toward Albuquerque to gain ground without getting hammered. We’ll go north from there up through Raton pass.”

“Couldn’t we lose them in the storm?” Cole asked.

“Possibly, but storms like that can play havoc with a zepp, forcing us up and down without warning, even crash us into the Sierras or drop us into the middle of the desert. And heavy cloud cover would give Szilágyi a lot of opportunities to sneak up on us.”

“I get ya,” Jake said. “This way we have a better chance of at least seeing him coming.”

“That’s the theory, although that black zepp of his will be damn hard to see at night. I figure if he’s gonna hit us, it’ll be when it’s dark.”

“I think I can help out there,” Jake offered. He tapped his ocular. “With this I should be able to pick him out better than most. You got a place at the back of this rig with a good view?”

“We do, but I’ll go one better,” Tyler said, smiling. “There’s an observation bubble up top with a three-hundred-sixty degree view. It even has a quad-Gatling mounted in it. We call her El Diablo, and the whole turret rotates.” Tyler’s grin went wicked. “It’s not one of them chainguns, but El Diablo shoots like a shit-storm on fire. You’ve fired a Gatling before, haven’t you?”

“Oh, a few times over the years.” Jake’s tone clearly indicated he was more than comfortable with the weapon.

“El Diablo’s all yours, if you want her,” Tyler offered.

“I like the sound of that,” Jake clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Cole, you wanna take the aft quarter with the Thumper?”

“Sure, Jake,” Cole agreed, but Jake noticed Cole wasn’t smiling. There was definitely something bothering him, and Jake had a good idea what it was.

“I’ll go tell the captain the plan. I’m sure he’ll be happy to know you’re up top.”

“Thanks, Tyler. And thank the captain again for me. No matter what he says about justice, I owe him one.”

“You got it.” Tyler stepped past Cole and unlocked the door. “I’ll come get you both around eight o’clock or so. That’s when our shifts change. You boys okay to stay up all night?”

“Won’t be a problem,” Cole answered. “Just another all-night poker game … but with more shooting.”

Tyler gave a snort, nodding his head as he closed the door behind him.

Jake sat down on his bunk and took his hat off, giving Cole a wary look. “What’s on your mind?”

Cole remained silent for a few seconds, and Jake could feel the anger pouring off his partner.

“You know I’d never question your play, Jake, not in front of everyone. But why the hell haven’t we blown Ghiss’ head off?”

“I figured that was it,” Jake admitted quietly. He sighed, took the ocular off his head, and leaned back, rubbing his eyes and then the bridge of his nose where the ocular had left a dent. “Because right now I own his sorry ass,” he said with both fatigue and ice in his voice.

“Own his—?” Cole blurted in disbelief. “Jake, I’d trust a rattlesnake before I’d trust that son-of-a-bitch! You can’t believe a thing he says, for Christ’s sake!”

“Actually, I can,” Jake replied, trying his best to keep Cole calm. This was mostly about Koto, and Jake knew his partner was hurting bad over the loss. The other half was obviously who Ghiss had fought for during the war and what sort of man he was, but Cole didn’t know the whole truth.

“And how the hell is that, Jake?” Cole asked angrily.

“You ever met a gentleman?” Jake asked, looking out through the window at the dark clouds filling the distance. “I mean a real, blue-blood southern gentleman.”

“No, can’t say that I have … not without shooting at him, anyway.” Cole admitted, but the anger remained in his voice.

“How can I put this to you?” Jake turned and looked at Cole, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. Cole returned Jake’s thoughtful gaze with impatience. “Look,” Jake said, thinking of a good example. “Would you ever shoot a woman in the back?”

“Course not!” Cole blurted, offended by even the suggestion.

“Why not?”

Cole looked frustrated, unable to come up with a reason. “You just don’t,” he exclaimed finally, turning his back on Jake.

“You’re right. You just don’t. For a man that comes from where Ghiss did, it’s the same for breaking his word. He could no more break his word than you or I could shoot a woman in the back. He simply wouldn’t do it. It would tarnish his honor, and the honor of his family, if he still has such a thing.”

“How do you know all this?” Cole asked. The anger had faded a little, but he still wasn’t convinced.

“I told you a while back that Ghiss visited Tinker Farris while I healed up after I got this, right?” Jake held out his clockwork arm.

“Yeah,” Cole said.

“Well, there’s a whole lot more to that story. It was right after Tinker Farris had fixed me up. Farris and I had a conversation about Ghiss pretty much like this one the day after Ghiss showed up to get his leg repaired … only I sat where you are now.” Jake tried not to think about those days, but Cole needed to have faith in the mercenary, at least for a little while. “The war still raged, and at the time I feared Ghiss would turn on us, well, on me, for being with the Union. I planned to shoot him in the back the first chance I got when I found out he was the Night Stalker. Farris stopped me, on account of being neutral during the war. He didn’t want to get involved, and he said that he and Ghiss had an arrangement … that he’d trusted Ghiss with his life and had every confidence Ghiss wouldn’t turn on him.

“So what happened?”

“You know Bloody Bill Anderson, right?”

“Hell, yes,” Cole agreed, his eyes going wide. “Anderson slaughtered hundreds of people. Scalped folks, cut arms off, even heads … burned churches with people still inside, killed anyone that wasn’t with the Confederacy. That bastard was plum loco.”

“That he was,” Jake agreed. “Well, one day, when I’m still bed-ridden, Anderson comes barging into Farris’ house on his way to Boonville.”

“Boonville? That’s where Price ordered Anderson to blow that bridge up north, right?”

“Yep. And that’s where Anderson finally bought it at the hands of the Missouri Militia. Well, Anderson comes in and is ready to shoot Tinker Farris and Maggie-Mae where they stand for not siding with the Rebs. He’s got about forty men outside when Ghiss steps in from the other room and stands between ’em.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. Ghiss tells Anderson that he best go on about his business, that if he hurts Tinker Farris or Maggie-Mae, Ghiss will hunt down and kill Anderson’s family. All of them. Anderson says he’s ready to kill Ghiss too, that the forty men outside would tear the place apart. Old Ghiss, cool as a cucumber, says that Anderson’s men might get him, but they might not. And if they don’t, Ghiss would make every last member of the Anderson clan wish they’d died in their mamma’s bellies. He then asks Bloody Bill if he’s ready to gamble with the whole Anderson clan. Anderson goes real quiet, and then him and his men ride off, simple as you please.”

“So you think you owe him?” Cole asked cautiously.

“No,” Jake said curtly. “I don’t owe that bastard a thing. He would have thrown me to Anderson’s dogs himself if there was money in it. He risked his life to protect Farris from Confederate soldiers simply because he’d given his word. He gave me his word back there, and I have no doubt he’d die to keep it. Fair enough?” Jake asked, searching Cole’s face for a glimmer of understanding.

Cole pondered that in silence for a long time, mulling over everything he’d heard. “All right, Jake. I trust you.”

“There’s one more thing,” Jake added.

“What’s that?”

“When this deal is over, if Ghiss and I ever end up on opposite sides of the equation, you blow his brains out if you get the chance. Deal?”

Cole grinned wickedly. “Deal.”

Jake sighed and looked at the window as they tracked along the edge of the storm. He was delighted they’d made it out of San Fran with the Lady’s box—reliquary, he corrected himself. Under normal circumstances, he’d chalk up the job as done. A quiet zeppelin ride back to Denver and he could get paid. But Szilágyi was still out there and in all likelihood gunning for him to take possession of the Lady and her property.

He looked at Cole.

“Now all we gotta do is get home, and I reckon that bastard crazy European colonel intends to make the trip as troublesome as he possibly can.” Jake sighed, a long drawn out resignation of more people shooting at him. “Let’s get some shut-eye, amigo. I can’t wait to wake up and check out El Diablo,” Jake’s sudden grin was as wicked at Cole’s. “A quad-Gatling sounds like a whole lot of fun, and it just might put a kink in Szilágyi’s style.”

The end of:

Blood Ties

Book 1 of the Blood War Chronicles

Be sure to read:

Blood Curse

Book 2 of the Blood War Chronicles

About the Author

Quincy J. Allen, a cross-genre author, has been published in multiple anthologies, magazines, and one omnibus. His first novel Chemical Burn was a finalist in the RMFW Colorado Gold Contest. He made his first pro-sale in 2014 with the story “Jimmy Krinklepot and the White Rebs of Hayberry,” included in WordFire’s A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories. He’s written for the Internet show RadioSteam, and his first short story collection Out Through the Attic, came out in 2014 from 7DS Books.

He works as a Warehouse and Booth Manager by day, does book design and eBook conversions by night, and lives in a cozy house in Colorado that he considers his very own sanctuary—think Bat Cave, but with fewer flying mammals and more sunlight.