Hot and Steamy (30 page)

From the rear of the compartment came Corrigan's cry, “They're done for! We lost the main gear that controls the rudder!”

“We'll rise directly in front of that thing if we can't use the rudder,” Zellick warned.

The cannons began to glow with a blue light. The crackling discharge at the tip of one of the barrels warned of a searing bolt that would ignite the
Good Queen Vickie
like a moth fluttering into a gas lamp's flame. The officers fell back at the sight of another cannon powering up.

“Release her and you will be allowed to leave,” the colonel called.

But Somerset looked to the roof and the electric cannon. Outlined by the constant discharge was a man in a wheelchair. No matter what Colonel Sanderson promised, Lord Kendall would use his weapon to destroy the zeppelin.

“He would not dare fire if you are aboard,” Somerset said to Mathilda.

Still calm, she contradicted him. “Charles is a man who treasures his possessions above all else. He will never permit me to leave. Rather, he would see me destroyed first.”

Somerset realized the truth. Lord Kendall would demolish the zeppelin with Mathilda aboard so he could continue his illicit frolicking with the maid unhindered by a wife.

“We can fight.” Somerset was thrown into the woman as the zeppelin lurched. The sound of tearing metal told him that the reduction gear had failed catastrophically. He didn't need Corrigan's verification.

“We can break out the rifles, Skipper,” Zellick said dubiously. He looked from Somerset to Mathilda and back. “If you think it's worth it.”

“It is. I will give my life for hers!”

“You willin' to give the crew's, too?” The pilot stared at him, waiting for an answer.

“Everyone off who wants,” Somerset said. “The lesser weight will allow the
Good Queen Vickie
to lift faster, and we might avoid the weapon. If I have to pilot her, by God, I will!” To gainsay him, the cannon on the mansion roof fired, sending a coruscating blast above the zeppelin. If they had risen straight up, the craft and all aboard would have been killed. And without the proper gear he could not maneuver past the cannon.

“I love you,” Mathilda said softly. “I did not realize it was possible.”

Somerset swept her into his arms and kissed her. She responded, just a little.

Their eyes met. A tiny smile came to her lips.

“I
do
love you. I've never loved Charles, though he told me to. That is why he built Yvette, to remedy this flaw.”

“Built?” Somerset stared at her. “What do you—”

New lighting ripped closer to the zeppelin. Somerset threw open a window and leaned out to assess their danger. If Lord Kendall succeeded in lowering the muzzle elevation any more, he would surely destroy them.

Somerset turned back to Mathilda, only to find her gone. He raced to the entry and looked out onto the dark grounds of the estate, thinking she had darted away to surrender and save him by sacrificing herself. But she was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard a loud exclamation followed by vitriolic cursing from the engine room.

He ran the length of the gondola and flung open the door to see what Corrigan did to the woman.

Mathilda looked at him, a loving smile on her lips. Her fancy ball gown had been ripped open. He surged forward to throttle the engineer, and then saw Corrigan half buried in the gear box at the stern. Mathilda reached down and completed the destruction of her fine dress and exposed bare white flesh. He cried out as her fingers curled into claws and she ripped open her belly.

Gleaming brass gears turned silently on jeweled bearings in her abdomen. Stainless steel wheels spun and copper wires wound about in tight bundles like sinews. Mathilda grasped one unit in her gut and yanked hard. It popped free.

“Here,” she said in a voice lacking control, modulation, the dulcet tones he expected from her sweet lips. She handed the gear assembly to Corrigan, who took it, still swearing a blue streak.

“What do I do?” he asked. He spoke not to Mathilda but Somerset.

Before Somerset could tell him to replace it in the woman's belly, she screeched out, “Save the airship. Save David.” Mathilda turned and tried to lift her hand but it flopped about, uncontrolled. “Charles is expert with gears and automata.”

“You?” Somerset stared, too shocked to say more.

“Yvette replaces me. She responds more like a human.” The screech of metal tearing against metal caused him to clap his hands to his ears. “Use my sacrifice. Save David,” she ordered the engineer.

Corrigan tore apart the geared mechanism and yanked out a steel wheel before discarding the rest of the useless unit. He dived back into the guts of the zeppelin's reduction gear box. In seconds a whir sounded and the airship quivered like a thoroughbred in the starting gate, ready for the race.

“Got maneuvering back,” came Zellick's cry from the prow.

Somerset slid across the floor and caught Mathilda up in his arms. Her eyes were glassy now and her face had gone flaccid. He lifted her into his arms. She was far heavier than he expected, but then she was not human. Yet he thought of her as more human than Lord Kendall ever could be. He carried her forward and gently laid her on his bunk.

“My love, I will see that your . . . your gear is replaced. You will be good as new. Better!” Her blue eyes fixed on him and she nodded.

The zeppelin suddenly veered to the side, sideslipping as the rudder spun them away from Lord Kendall's electric cannon blast. Somerset pressed her down into the bunk as she tried to rise and said, “Stay. You'll be safe here,” then rushed forward to join his pilot.

The zeppelin surged, prow up and the rudder swinging about in perfect response to Zellick's expert handling. The airship soared high above the Kendall estate and away, but Somerset saw their real danger.

Zellick cursed as the cockpit of the zeppelin began glowing a blue-white.

“The cannon. The ray has locked on us!” the pilot cried.

Somerset sprang forward but was pushed aside powerfully. Mathilda had risen from the bunk and interposed herself between him and the energy beam. He grabbed her shoulders to save his beloved, but the metal under her flesh seared his hands. He recoiled, then fell to his knees as Zellick applied still more power to the zeppelin's motors.

Somerset cried out as he saw the flesh burn from Mathilda, leaving behind a metal skeleton that welded itself to the deck. Then the ray extinguished her form entirely in a smoldering ruin; incongruously, her head remained intact. Somerset grabbed it and held it. Her lips moved, although her eyes stayed closed. Then he dropped the head as the superheated metal burned his palms past human endurance. It bounced once and tumbled out the still-open cockpit door, tumbling a thousand feet to the ground.

He did not think he was deluding himself when he heard clearly Mathilda's last words: “I love you, David.”

“We're above the estate and out of range. Where to, Skipper?” Zellick asked.

He took a deep breath and said, “Steer the
Darling Matty
across the Channel. We have worn out our welcome in England.” He looked at the estate far below. Dozens of rays swept the sky seeking to destroy him. Revenge would be his. One day. One day he would make Charles Kendall pay for killing Mathilda. But not today.

“Glad to leave it behind,” Zellick said. “That's a cold, wet, inhospitable land.”

David Somerset spread out a chart and began plotting a course to Italy. There were always treasure maps to be found in the Vatican catacombs, and he was anxious to leave Charles Kendall and his unholy contraptions far behind, even if he could never forget the man's greatest creation.

A
lva Edison woke and gazed in confusion at her surroundings. Gone was the familiar
clink-clink tick-tick
of the cogs and wheels moving in the kinetic clock at her bedside. In its place, the small bedside clock hummed.

Gone was the comforting drape of the lace canopy above her. Her heart pounded as she stared at the maroon spread draped over the bed. She slid from beneath the cover and stopped, frozen, at the cool touch on her arm.

“Another dream?”

Her heart slowed as recognition poured in. She let out a deep breath, relaxing as her husband, Doctor Pierre LaBonet, caressed her arm and pulled her close. “Yes, yes. For just a second, I thought . . . Never mind. It all seemed so real.”

“Maybe we have to change your prescription, dear Alva.”

For a moment her mind floundered. She tried to grasp what he'd said.
Per—
?
Oh, he meant a script.
She sighed again. Would this confusion never end?

“No, no. I'll be fine. It was just a dream.”

“All right, but we'll keep an eye on it. Now how about we forget that for awhile?”

She welcomed his embrace and the forgetfulness his love offered, if only for a while.

Alva stood at the bedroom vanity later, marveling at her reflection as she did every time she combed her hair or applied a hint of color to her eyes and lips, an action that still felt a tad scandalous. Everyone knew that only certain women painted their faces. Well, at least that was what she thought in relation to her “other life,” the one she only remembered now in bits and pieces.

She sighed. So many things had changed. A vibrant, healthy woman in her prime looked back from the mirror, a far cry from the ailing, prematurely old woman she had once been. She glanced at her hands, the knots and crippling gone, and flexed her fingers without pain. Amazing.

Even though her dear brother, Thomas, explained over and over what had happened six months before, she still had trouble believing him. She knew some things seemed, well, odd and different, and some things she simply could not remember after that nasty fall. Her arthritis had improved almost overnight from the new medications. And the rest? She didn't want to be mean, but she couldn't help but laugh when he'd brought up the subject again yesterday when they met for tea.

“Alva, I know you were pretty battered from the fall, but you still don't recall how we climbed aboard Mr. Wells's kinetic flying time machine and ended up here?” he'd asked. “You don't remember us making the adjustments so it worked properly?”

“Thomas, I think you've been hiding away far too long in that basement working on your projects! You need to get out more. A flying machine? Yes, I'm a whiz at math, but since when do I tinker with machines? How quaint!”

She shook her head at his crestfallen look. Her dear brother had to be tired from all the late hours he spent with his experiments. She worried about him, especially since he kept coming up with different takes on things that had already been invented. That steam-powered washer, for instance, and the oddly shaped light bulb. Why reinvent the wheel? She vowed to ask Pierre if he knew any charming young nurses they could invite over for dinner to meet her brother. They needed to find someone Thomas could spend time with instead of his being holed away constantly in that workshop.

The ring of the doorbell interrupted her musing. Finished with her primping, Alva rushed downstairs, wondering if Pierre had come home early. He'd been so thoughtful lately. She opened the door and gasped at sight of her brother, his hair mussed, his face and coat covered with soot and dirt.

“Thomas, what happened?”

He pushed his way in, his face worried. “Alva, we have a problem.”

“We?”

“I need your help. Something's wrong with the machine. I've tried everything I can think of to fix the failed timing mechanism. I need you to help me make the adjustments.”

“Machine? What machine?” She looked at him, perplexed. “Thomas, maybe you should talk to Pierre. Perhaps those chemicals you're breathing in that workshop of yours are making you ill.”

He muttered a curse under his breath. “Look, I know how happy you and Pierre have been these past six months. That's why I've left you alone and let you enjoy your home as newlyweds. But I have no choice this time. I need your help.”

“Dear brother, I'll help you anyway I can, even if I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. I know my memory hasn't been good, but you're really worrying me with this outlandish talk about flying machines and such. You have to watch what you say; someone might take it the wrong way.”

“Just come with me. Please? I'll explain on the way.”

She took in his disheveled appearance and hesitated but a moment. His eyes pleaded with her. Wetting a finger, she smoothed her brother's hair, rubbed the dirt from his face, and fixed his coat before grabbing her hat. “All right, I'll go with you.”

 

The two-block walk to the towering brick building her brother called home would've been a treat if Thomas weren't so agitated. The last of the summer pansies smiled from pots in front of the other brick buildings. The streets sparkled after the morning clean-up. Even the sight of the two-seater, black steam-engine cars sitting at the curb that once seemed such a novelty made her smile.

She nodded in greeting and poked Thomas to tip his hat at the businessman striding by on a stately black Tennessee Walking horse. “Thomas, smile.” He tipped his hat and fell back into his private funk.