The Dirigible Airship Disaster Page 12

  Tiodora frowned, and pulled an object from her dress pocket. It looked like an eggplant.

  She tossed it onto the ground between us, and held out her arms. “Take my hands and hold on tight.”

  I gulped, and coughed from the dryness still lingering in my throat. I’m sure my expression was worried. Samuel leaned into me, and kissed my temple. I eyed the eggplant, frowning, unease tugging at my heels, compelling me to run away from this place. A serene expression overcame his features, and he nodded. I took her hand. Her fingertips were calloused like a field worker’s. An ungainly, spheroid ring with a lid adorned her middle finger, and the band cut into my flesh. It seemed to buzz with electricity.

  Samuel took mine and Tiodora’s other hand, and she lifted the heel of her boot, stomping onto the eggplant. It exploded with a crack, and purple smoke filled my eyes. I felt like I was an unwitting passenger on a whirly gig, spinning round and round, my vision block by the thick, purple cloud. It smelled like cool, dry ice and sour wine, and it stung my eyes and throat. I coughed into my shoulder, the feel of both their hands grasped tightly around mine, and when I thought I’d die from the disequilibrium, it stopped.

  I fell to the ground, a dirt floor in the center of a shack. An ember burned in a tiny, makeshift hearth in the wall, and the orange glow turned in countless circles in my vision. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth to end the spinning. A gentle touch caressed my shoulders, rubbing my back, and someone poured a glass of water.

  Samuel took me by the arm, leading me to a small, rickety cot against the far wall. I took a seat, and Tiodora handed me an earthen mug. I brought it to my lips as the world ceased its spin, and the cool, soothing spring water was heaven against my parched tongue. I gulped it down, and held it out to her. She refilled it and gave it to Samuel.

  “You’ll be safe here,” she said to me.

  “I want to go home.”

  Samuel finished off the mug, and gave it back to Tiodora. He shook his head. “Tomorrow we’ll go back for a few of your things, and you can at let Mr. Pembroke and Mrs. Ewee know you are well. She almost slapped my face off, you know.” He stood, crossing the dark room to the hearth.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. While I wanted to stay with him, I didn’t want to be in a strange place, with a strange woman, hiding from monsters. Worse yet, the place appeared devoid of indoor plumbing, and I longed for a cool, soothing bath.

  Samuel tossed a small log into the hearth, and stirred around the edges of it with the pointed end of a poker. Ashes flew, rustling in the alcove, and flames flickered and grew, illuminating the tiny space. A cauldron hung from a hook above the hearth, and a table with pitchers and bowls and other indiscernible instruments stood against the wall next to it. There was a rocking chair, and several chests were set against the wall next to the door. I could hear barking frogs, and crickets chirping through the walls.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Tiodora opened one of the chests, rummaging around inside as Samuel set the poker against the wall and came over to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. “McKray’s Swamp,” he said, taking my hand and bringing my knuckles to his lips.

  I vaguely recalled it. A place of dark bedtime stories, told to keep children obedient. My father would often tell it to my sister and I on school nights, our eyes wide and round with the covers pulled up to our chins as he imitated the death roll of the crocodiles— those flesh-eating beasts of lore—with our dolls and toys.

  If we were in McKray’s Swamp, it was like I’d traded one prison for another. My shoulders drooped, and I sagged under the weight of confinement and exhaustion. I leaned against his shoulder and sighed.

  Tiodora laid a long, green dress on the bed. “You can clean up. There is a wash basin on the end of the table. Don’t open the door to anyone but us.” Her eyebrow ticked, and she turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Samuel asked.

  “I need more supplies. Heads of crocodiles and all that.” She smirked at him.

  The jealousy I’d felt earlier came back, constricting my insides. It burned hotter than the fire we’d escaped. I looked away from her to the dress, not really seeing it, and grit my teeth.

  She opened the rickety old door, creaking on its hinge. The first, weak rays of dawn crept into the room along with the deafening sounds of the swamp, and she closed the door and disappeared.

  Samuel and I stared into the fire, and the silence ticked on and discomfort gnawed at me. I cleared my throat and my voice didn’t sound like my own. “Who is she?”

  “Who?” he asked, his forehead crinkling. “Oh, Tiodora,” he said, looking back at the fire. “She used to belong to Callista’s coven.”

  “I know that. I meant, how do you know her?”

  “She found me in Bonaventure that night you left with Henderson.”

  My insides tightened even more. So, this must be his way of getting even with me, then. I let go of his hand and stood, grabbing the dress and holding it up. I hated the idea of wearing her clothes.

  “Is this hers?” I asked, before setting it back down.

  Samuel shrugged. “Haven’t the faintest.” He sniffed, and stood from the bed and stretched. “I best head to St. Vincent’s.”

  My eyebrows rose. “Hm, yes, you may want to get your leg checked.” I rolled my eyes. And your head. How convenient he’d deign to leave shortly after her.

  He frowned. “My leg? No, my leg is fine. I have someone I must attend.” His face darkened, and the corners of his mouth pulled downward in a weary, sad expression.

  I gulped, feeling like a cruel idiot, although my fears were hardly dissuaded. I crossed my arms and stared into the fire. “Oh. I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  The urge to collapse overcame me. I could feel him looking at me, confused and concerned. I wasn’t sure what else to say, or how to react. Millions of questions buzzed in my mind like a swarm of mosquitoes, and my lack of clarity tried to bat them away, squashing them to delay until I wasn’t so tired.

  He pulled up the bed covers. “You need rest.”

  “I know. But I can’t relax until I’m somewhat clean.” I nodded at the pitcher on the table.

  “You’d be surprised.” He put his arm around me, pulling me into his chest. I couldn’t resist the gesture and melted into him. I wanted him to be mine, and the thought of sharing him with her ate at me, stinging my eyes. I gulped to keep from crying out of exhaustion and confusion. He picked me up and laid me on the bed, and I curled onto my side as he knelt on the floor next to me, running his fingers through my hair

  “I’ll be back in a few hours. Stay here and sleep.” He kissed my temple, and my eyes closed.

  Before I even heard the door open and close with his departure, I was already in a deep, wonderful sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Talcott Henderson

  I had his head, the head of the mad king, nestled in the crook of my arm, and I wore the flesh of some poor drunkard like a cloak. It was hot and restrictive. Blood-soaked, subcutaneous tissue dribbled down into my eyes, and I licked it from my chin. It was a small buzz of sustenance that kept me on my feet as I followed Elyse like a baying, lonely hound, my maker’s head beneath my arm, his body dragging along behind me from the chain I grasped.

  The chain was sticky with our blood, and my fingers slipped. A fire burned within my right supraorbital, the eye hanging from its socket by my slippery optic nerve, bouncing along my cheek as I stumbled through the darkness, reaching the heart of McKray’s Swamp. As I stopped at the muddy banks where the cattails stood like armed soldiers, blocking my sight of the shack that housed my love, I tripped on the sopping tips of my entrails.

  They’d burst from my gut at the end Lucius’ horns. He’d gored me in the main hall of the witch’s house. The blow had dislodged a candelabra, and it ignited a set of curtains.

  Bile spewed from my mouth, jerking me this way and that like a ragdoll. Ebony vomit pooled on the ground, singeing and bur
ning the reeds. They smoked from the poison that sloshed throughout my battered vessel. The crocodiles would find our butchered trio a delectable feast.

  I heaved there in the growing dawn, and panic eclipsed me. I could smell her, feel her slumbering not far beyond the cattail line. Wiping my mouth with the tattered wrist of the drunkard’s flesh-coat, I parted the cattails with my foot, stomping down their bases to get a clear line of sight. Inhaling, I closed my eyes; she was alone. I grinned, and tightened my arm around Lucius’ head.

  A thin curl of smoke drifted from the shack’s chimney, and I looked down at my maker’s still, headless body, then back at the shack, several yards away. Crocodile eyes glowed crimson overtop the water’s surface, reflecting the growing dawn and fading moonlight. I needed speed to reach her and avert their gnashing jaws.

  I took off the skin suit, shedding it like a coat, and although the waning night was warm, my bare skin shivered, pickling with gooseflesh. Every puckering pore ached, and my vision swam. I was weak, falling apart, nude and wounded by one of the most powerful of the vampires. His blood was a poison, dripping into my wounds, slowing my coal-black heart. If I didn’t get to her before the daylight broke, and drink from her, I would meet the true death.

  My veins burned, and every beat of my heart felt like a stab to my lungs, tearing at my vital organs. I looked down at my hands as I brought the neck of the skin suit to my lips. My fingers were black, and shriveled like a corpse’s. My pulse quickened in panic, paining me further, as I tore into the flesh, devouring it like Goya’s Saturn, the cannibal god.

  The flesh shell of the unfortunate man reeked of death. His curly, filthy mop emitted the smell of dried blood and terror. The pain lessened, and a strength renewed itself deep in my spirit, stirring like the woods in springtime. I tore off one more bite, and held in my mouth, sucking on it like toffee. It was cold, tangy and salty. The taste of my victim was marinated in a savory stew of regret, liquor, and ghastly panic.

  He’d been sluggish with drink, gripping the neck of a nearly empty bottle of gin. His eyes had been half-closed as he leaned against a split rail fence outside the field surrounding the witch’s formidable house.

  As I pursued my bride, I’d heard those sorceresses whispering like diseased old biddies in that flying contraption of theirs, something about a daylight shield, something about disintegration, and I’d landed as the brilliant idea formed in my head to don another’s skin, thus keeping the spell at bay. At first, I’d turned to head back into town, to the waterfront area, when I noticed the old hobo. The scent of him, soaked in gin, burdened by a life of regret had filled my nostrils. I’d done him a favor. While perhaps his life had been wasted, he’d gone out a hero—my hero—shielding me from the daylight enchantment while I broke down the witch’s oaken doors with a clawed, enraged fist.

  Their screams, the look of surprise and disgust on their faces had been a delectable draught, and Lucius; the stupid, slack-jawed twist of his mouth when he first regarded me there in the main hall, dripping in the blood of another, clothed in their skin. Why, I believe even he was impressed with my ingenious brutality.

  The splash of a crocodile’s tail upon the surface of the still, fetid swamp jarred me back to the present. I needed to be fed, nourished back to health. The minutes ticked on, drawing out what little strength I still had. Winding the chain tight around my hand, I lessened the slack, and gripped Lucius’ head by his mangy hair.

  I reared, growling, as my horns protruded, and a pair of demon wings burst forth from my shoulder blades. Swallowing hard, I steadied myself and ran, leaping above the water, my wings beating furiously as I soared only a mere foot above the crocodile heads. The heavy body at the end of the chain tore at me, straining my weary, wounded muscles. I feared I would not make it.

  The crocodile jaws thrashed, missing Lucius’s dangling feet by a blessed hair. With the exertion of the leap, my pain returned ten-fold, and I bite down hard on the toffee flesh, chewing and swallowing, hoping that last bite would get me to the dock. It was rubbery and desiccated, the flavor long gone.

  I threw the body and head onto the dock, and fell at the edge of the planks with my back end in the brackish water, screaming for her as I scrambled to get up. My fangs chattered from the cold water, and I heard the crocodile splashing behind me. What if I never saw her again? The thought of never tasting her, cradling her to me as she shook with ecstasy wounded my thrashing spirit.

  A searing, terrible pain struck me below the knee into the sensitive flesh of my lower leg, and I feared fainting. I clawed at the dock, and the boards splintered in my grip as the crocodile tried to enter a death throe with me in its massive jaws. Fear overtook me, coursing the poison throughout my blood ever quicker, and my body ignited from the inside out. I howled, kicking at the beast with the heel of my good foot, and blessed heaven and angel’s wings, the door of the shack opened, and she appeared—red-eyed, wild-haired, gorgeous and best of all, carrying a poker.

  I reached for her, croaking a plea as the water splashed behind me and the pain darkened and tunneled my vision. She ran to me; my darling ran to me brandishing the poker like a warrior queen. She stabbed the beast in the eye. I caught the scent of her, like pure lemon custard, flaky and sweet, and tinged with acrid smoke.

  The crocodile’s jaws released. My queen fell onto the dock, gasping, crying, looking from me to the body to the severed head with wild-eyes. I wanted to scream and laugh and fuck her right there on those chintzy old planks, the crocodiles and my maker witnessing the seizure of our reunion.

  I crawled onto the dock, taking the hem of her robe in my hands, weeping at it with joy and pain. I stained it red, black and blue, a patriotic hue, and she smelled like slap-dash bravery. She cowered, whimpering and frozen in place. I looked up at her. She screamed, covering her eyes. I’m sure I appeared horrifying.

  “Please,” I whispered, caressing her foot, rubbing my thumb over the sensitive flesh below her ankle bone. The crocodile’s bite had my leg swelling, on fire and turning purple with bruises and dripping with my poisoned, black blood. The sound of her racing heart was delicious, and I needed her, or I’d die right there an insatiably happy, grateful creature, and I wasn’t ready to die yet.

  I lifted the hem of her robe to her knee, licking that smooth button near her ankle with a bifurcated tongue. Her heart skipped a beat and she shivered as my fangs pierced her.

  She was tender and smooth as cool, rolled butter. Her blood, rich and red and full of life, flooded me, pushing out the poison as I drank heartily. Her pulse quickened even more, a dazzling symphony, and she tasted like pure, feminine beauty and the most skillful surgeon’s knife. My eye mended, the nerve shortening, sucking the orb back into its socket with a soft ‘pop.’ The swelling in my leg lessened, and it shrunk, soothed to relaxation, the bite wounds closing. Elyse began to go limp, falling back upon the dock, her chest heaving and heart rate reaching a swelling crescendo before it began to slow and weaken.

  A burning sensation overcame my mid-section as my entrails stitched themselves back together, coiling back into my body. I regarded her with worry, feeling her weaken further. If I neared to killing her, I’d have to change her then, and although I longed for such a thing, something, perhaps a splintered remnant of my spirit, compelled me not render her undead just yet.

  My flesh mended with a snap and I released her, licking my lips, scrambling to get close to her. Her face was pale and waxy. Sweat encased her upper lip, and her pulse threaded like a weak, tremoring band. I ran my talons through my hair, ashamed. It was a horrible, foreign feeling, worrying for a mere mortal, for once unsure of what to do. I looked over at the dead king’s head.

  His mouth was curled into a scream, and his eyes were opened wide. I laughed. It was an excellent look for him. Forever silent, forever terrified.

  I looked back at my darling, dancing on death’s edge, the brackish water lapping at the posts and the bullfrogs tuning to a funeral dirge. I picked her up. She was li
ght and limp as unspun cotton, and I crossed the creaking boards of the dock and into the empty shack.

  I was angry she was alone. Why should she be alone? How incredibly, infuriatingly foolish for him to leave her alone. I bit my lip, staining my tongue blue with my own blood, and placed her onto the bed. I would tear him to ribbons for leaving her unguarded. I would pop his eye from his perfectly formed, smooth socket, and devour it, slurping up his optical nerve like hearty pasta.

  A sharp, stabbing pain throbbed in my bottom lip, and I realized I’d sliced it open with my fangs, my mind overcome with rage. Licking the wound, savoring the taste of my own invigorated blood, I ran back out to the dock and gripped the chain around my maker’s body, dragging it into the shack, and kicked the head over the threshold. I laughed again as it rolled across the floor, specks of dirt sticking to his hair. Heaving the body over my shoulder, I carried it into the small room, and placed it into a rocking chair, folding his arms into a serene pose, palms up in his lap. I set the head there, but turned it toward his stomach to lessen the fright when she finally came to.

  The scent of half-death and sandalwood, and something spicy like masala lingered in the walls—The Quartermaine and some female companion. Figures he’d keep a sweetheart, the miserable, coffin-dodging playboy. Why, I’d never so much as look at another after her. No one else existed, I thought as I gazed at her still form.

  I wanted to cleanse and purify her again. My member stirred in impudent desire.

  Shutting the door of the shack, I went to a rough-hewn, knotted table, looking for rags, and found some folded at its end. A pitcher half-full of cool water sat next to the towels, and I wet a thin, frayed cloth, and brought it to her. She twitched as I moped her forehead, her lips pursing, but she remained reposed.

  Several chests lined the walls, and I flipped the lid of one, revealing a pile of women’s clothing. On to the next. Inside were the rakish Quartermaine’s. I chuckled, giddy with inner heat from drinking my fill. I wondered what kind of delightful expression would cross his face if he saw me wearing a pair of his trousers?