The Silver Skull (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “Later,” she wheezed. “I need to go in now.” She moved to the connecting door and set down her reticule. She did not wish to sacrifice a single minute. After the task was complete, there would be more than enough time to celebrate her success with a hot bath. “I’m fine, Steam Clara. Set to idle.”

  But her steam maid’s various gears did not cease spinning, did not fall silent. Instead, her skirts billowed with steam and a warning bell began to ring. Of all times for a malfunction! She had to silence the steambot. Olivia tore through the steam maid’s uniform and pried open the metal access door. She snapped the bell clapper free and yanked out the broken cipher cartridge.

  Steam Clara sagged.

  Mother would insist upon a replacement now, but the cipher cartridge held Steam Clara’s programming cards, the essence of her personality. Olivia cracked open the cartridge and stuffed the cards inside her bodice. She’d think about how to fix this later, but somehow she would save her friend.

  Ignoring the damp seeping through petticoats and combinations, she reached into her bodice and extracted two of her lock picks. Bending low, she set to work. A moment later, the lock popped open.

  Olivia pulled Watson from her reticule, twitching his activation spine. He uncurled and leapt onto four silver feet. His green eyes blinked at her, awaiting instruction. “Prepare and assess.”

  A number of spines retracted and a multitude of oddly formed wire antennae extended to take their place.

  With Watson ready, Olivia gingerly tested the handle. The door swung open without resistance. There was no sudden buzz of electricity. No lights flashed. No whistles or sirens of any kind screamed.

  She cracked the door open further, allowing him to waddle into position. First his jointed nose extended, sampling the chemical environment. Then he advanced into the room beyond the door, antennae quivering. Olivia waited, listening. There, a faint whistle signaling that all was clear.

  Strange. She’d expected some kind of heightened security measure. Perhaps she’d grown far too accustomed to men—and women—not being at all what they seemed. Lord Rathsburn seemed a kind and honorable man, his conversation bluntly straightforward, his devotion to medical science unwavering. Unfortunately, Mr. Black seemed to possess a different perspective, and he was usually right.

  She followed Watson, stepping into Lord Rathsburn’s parlor. Gilded furniture, potted palms, a large mirror… all the expected items. She searched, but could find no personal possessions. Nor were there any in his dressing room or the valet’s room. Not even an idling steam valet. The enormous suite appeared unoccupied.

  Upon Watson’s whistle, Olivia stepped into the man’s bedchamber. At last, signs of habitation. A shaving kit and towel. A greatcoat flung across a chair. A large pile of typewritten pages on his bedside table.

  Her eyes narrowed, focusing upon the papers. Quickly, she flipped through the pages. It appeared to be the draft of an instruction manual for a medical device requiring Babbage cards. Curious, but exploring the many facets of Lord Rathsburn’s interests was not her goal. She needed to find his luggage.

  She yanked open the drawers of his dresser. Every last one was empty. She bent over, ignoring the corset boning that pinched in numerous locations. Nor was there anything beneath his bed. She huffed in frustration. Where was his valise? That silver case?

  Turning, her eyes came to rest upon a narrow door built into the wall’s paneling. The escape hatch.

  ‘Travel light’ was one of Mr. Black’s mottos, and if Mr. Black suspected Lord Rathsburn, duplicity was to be expected. Could it be he did not intend to remain aboard the airship? That Italy was not his true destination?

  Olivia wrenched open the heavy door. Beneath the eerie glow of red emergency lights gleamed the iron catwalk leading to the dull gray metal hull of an escape dirigible. With Watson at her heels, she closed the door behind them and walked across the cold steel, approaching the entry hatch, certain she would find his possessions inside.

  She did. There, in a corner, Lord Rathsburn’s valise and the silver case. A smile curved her lips upward. Success.

  Kneeling was an awkward procedure given the weight and volume of her skirts, especially considering the tightness with which her corset was laced and the heaviness of her bouillabaisse-soaked skirts. As always, she managed.

  She cracked open Lord Rathsburn’s valise, and the spicy scent of cloves met her nose. Inside were several clean shirts, a change of collar and cuffs, a cravat and waistcoat, and a single additional suit. A bare minimum of clothing.

  Olivia pried free a discreet amount of the lining before tugging open her drawstring reticule and pulling forth the tube of adhesive and the first acousticotransmitter. She flipped the tiny lever to activate the device. Then, applying a drop of adhesive to its side, she secured the transmitter beneath the lining before gluing the lining itself back into place.

  Closing the valise, she turned to the silver case. It was locked. Securely. She studied the lock. This was the kind of challenge she’d expected. A firkin cincture bolt. Far more stopping power than your average luggage case ought to require. The simple picks in her corset were not up to the task. But she had a tool that was.

  “If you please, Watson, my special lock pick.”

  Several rows of Watson’s spines retracted and a series of metal bands folded to stack one upon the other until an opening—large enough for a woman’s hand—appeared in his lower back. Olivia reached in and extracted the cloth bundle that held Captain Jack’s Tension Torque.

  Such a handy device. The average lock could be opened with ease, but when someone had something truly valuable, only a fool trusted such a lock. Lord Rathsburn was no fool. This was a special lock that required a special key.

  Or a special lock pick.

  She inserted the hollow copper coil of the device into the key hole and depressed the plunger on the attached syringe, extruding a thick gel of alkylsorcin. She counted off the three seconds, then fiddled with the thumb wheel until a faint click sounded. With a twist of the wrist, Captain Jack’s Tension Torque slid the bolt free.

  Really, if Lord Rathsburn was going to survive selling secret British technology, he needed to invest in non-British security upgrades.

  Olivia stowed the lock pick back inside Watson. “Close.” His back snapped shut.

  As she lifted the case’s surprisingly thick and heavy metallic lid, a kind of cold fog pooled before pouring outward over the edges of the case. Her eyes grew wide as she looked upon a rack of vials filled with strange liquids. The contents swirled beneath the red glow of the emergency lights. There were a number of packets containing unlabeled powders and a medical device she hoped never to personally encounter as a patient.

  Her hand shook as she lifted it gingerly from its padded housing, examining the contraption with horrified fascination. A number of fine silver springs were attached to a curved and jointed brass frame pierced with holes. Fixed to the end of each spring was a tiny gauge designed to indicate pressure of the long, steel needles that the thick, iron screw bar drove downward through the many piercings and, quite likely, into the patient.

  The room spun as her stomach turned inside out. Swallowing hard, she returned the device to the case and took several slow, deep breaths. This—this—was why she avoided biotechnology espionage. The medical devices involved were inevitably sharp and glinting. This particular contraption looked as if it had been extracted from the jaws of a mechanical monster.

  Yes, it was a personal failing, but one she didn’t seem likely to overcome.

  Olivia activated another transmitter and stuffed it deep beneath the padded lining of the case. She slammed the case shut and, blowing on the alkylsorcin to hasten its evaporation, reset the lock. She shoved herself back onto her feet.

  That was all he’d carried aboard, but she had to be certain she’d located all of Lord Rathsburn’s belongings.

  She turned about, third transmitter in hand, scanning the cabin. Nothing but eight chairs bol
ted to the floor, security straps and a panel with levers, dials and a steering stick.

  Perhaps something was stowed in the engine room? Gathering her skirts, Olivia stepped through a narrow doorway. A coal hopper, an engine and exhaust pipes running to an overhead vent. But no additional luggage.

  There was, however, a storage compartment. She pulled it open and found a tall, narrow closet holding a number of strange leather straps with buckles, eight wool blankets, a flask of water, a rope and a flare. Rather meager emergency provisions.

  Reflecting that the escape dirigible itself would need to be tracked, she activated and affixed the third transmitter to the inside edge of the storage compartment’s doorway. No one would see it unless they climbed inside.

  Climbed inside.

  She stared at the nearly empty compartment.

  She should leave. Slip back to her room and compose a coded message reporting her task complete and warning Mr. Black that Lord Rathsburn’s travel plans did not include Rome. That from all signs, his departure from the airship was imminent, and—given the airship’s current location and the distance it could travel with the amassed coal—he would likely land in Germany. Another agent would then assume responsibility for discovering Lord Rathsburn’s ultimate destination.

  That last thought kept her feet rooted to the floor. Olivia didn’t want to meekly hand off this assignment. Once he left the airship, the acousticotransmitters would quickly move out of range and, inside Germany’s borders, the Queen’s agents might never locate him. Those tubes and powders and that horrid contraption would fall into the hands of the enemy.

  She could hide inside this compartment. Pretend to be an infatuated female desperate to find herself a titled husband by any means necessary. It fit with the public persona she’d spent years developing. Lord Rathsburn happened to be a very eligible, handsome and titled gentleman with whom she’d begun a social—and public—flirtation.

  A parson’s mousetrap sprung in the most unusual manner. She could easily cry off upon her ‘rescue’. No one would expect her to marry a traitor.

  Did she dare?

  She was trained for this and fluent in German. But she was merely a social liaison, not technically allowed to work outside of sanctioned social events. Her heart pounded. Mother would be furious, yet what kind of role model did she present, trapped within society’s expectations? Perhaps she would do better to imitate Mr. Black’s example. He broke rules with astonishing regularity and his career trajectory moved ever upward. The possibilities for advancement among the Queen’s agents beckoned. Here was her chance to prove she had real value in the field. Behind enemy lines.

  She would attach herself to Lord Rathsburn, force him to take her under his protection. The role would be no hardship. Besides, if she were ‘ruined’, Mother and Father might finally relent and allow her to move directly into field training without marrying. Mr. Black would champion her, wouldn’t he? Perhaps not. He had been rather emphatic about not making Lord Rathsburn her own personal target.

  The only other choice available to her was to marry the Italian. To become the third wife to an elderly man who had once worked against the British government. To what end? Merely to alter her name and divest herself of her virginity?

  She jumped at a faint hiss, at the sound that accompanied the opening of the escape dirigible’s door. Lord Rathsburn! She’d drastically underestimated his resistance to accepted social expectations, and therefore the time available to her.

  It was now or never.

  “Curl,” she commanded Watson in a whispered voice. The hedgehog’s spikes retracted as his head and feet tucked themselves inside the metal sphere of his body. Olivia scooped him up, holding him against her chest as she climbed inside the storage compartment and stuffed the volume of her damp skirts about her legs.

  She reached out and caught the edge of the hatch door with her finger, easing it shut. There was a faint snick, and all was dark.

  Not a moment too soon.

  She listened as heavy footsteps paced outside the storage space. Her heart pounded against the corset’s steel boning that dug into her chest as cold seeped into her stocking covered feet. Despite the dark, she closed her eyes. Don’t open the door. Don’t open the door. Don’t…

  Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes like hours. Her stomach rumbled reminding her that in feigning social trauma, she’d eaten not a single bite at the banquet. At last the engine room door slammed. There was a moment of silence, and then the engine roared to life.

  A thrill shot through her limbs. It was done. After years of hard work and self-sacrifice, adventure awaited.

  For better or for worse, where Lord Rathsburn went, she went.

  Chapter Eight

  IAN TOSSED HIS greatcoat across a passenger seat and settled into the pilot’s chair. He flipped a series of switches and turned a row of knobs. Behind him, the escape dirigible’s engine roared to life.

  A fancy vessel, this. Fully automated, it needed no one to crank the engine and no one to shovel coal, time being a critical element when using an escape dirigible for its intended purpose.

  His chair swiveled as he turned to his left, pushing a button to release additional hydrogen into the balloon’s air cells. This would allow the dirigible to rise swiftly past the observation decks and out of sight above the great airship’s own balloon. There would only be a thirty second window in which he risked discovery.

  Once he cleared the Oglethorpe airliner, he needed to avoid detection for at least nine hours. By that point in time, he would be beyond the reach of any official French interference.

  Ian hadn’t planned on leaving the Oglethorpe for another six hours, preferring to minimize his time in the escape dirigible, but there’d been an odd light in the duchess’ eyes. One that set his nerves on edge. Something was afoot.

  Dread fell into his stomach, then surged upward to choke him. Had the duchess lured him from his rooms?

  With haste, he’d returned to his suite and found… nothing. Nothing but an odd scent that hung in the air, one he couldn’t quite place. Nothing but a bone-deep knowledge that someone had been in his room, knowledge that threw a wrench in his carefully arranged strategy. Simple surveillance was one thing, but to actively invade his space? That spoke of intent to thwart his plans.

  He’d hastened to the escape dirigible, relieved to find his travel cases where he’d placed them, their contents undisturbed.

  Black might unofficially endorse his efforts to track down Warrick, but that didn’t mean the great duke himself was in agreement. The Duke of Avesbury might wish to see Ian stopped, and he had no intention of being forcibly returned to Britain and labeled a traitor. Not that the duchess was capable of stopping him, but on the chance there was another agent aboard planning to do just that, he’d decided to depart immediately.

  His jaw clenched. He could not risk Elizabeth’s health, her life. She was not safe in the hands of those hypertrophically-muscled, metalloid-reinforced German soldiers. All it took was a trip, a minor fall, and his sister would be bedridden for months. Active abuse at the hands of her captors would cause her permanent disability.

  Ian reached forward and pulled the release cord. Above him, gears began to grind. Pulleys and cables and bearings moved. A torsion spring unwound, hoisting upward the large iron door built into the Oglethorpe’s hull.

  The vast night sky stretched before him. Buckling his seat’s restraining bands, he made a final systems check. Normally, autopilot would be engaged, but his requirements of this flight were anything but standard procedure.

  With a twist of a knob, he increased the torque of the engine and released the braking mechanism.

  The dirigible shot forth from its launching tracks, slamming him backward into his seat. The moment the vessel was clear of the airship’s hull, the additional hydrogen did exactly as planned, quickly lifting him above the Oglethorpe’s strolling decks. In seconds, he cleared the airship’s enormous balloon and nothing but dark sky
and winking stars lay above him.

  Free.

  Upward momentum slowed and the dirigible began to make swift progress forward. He checked and readjusted navigation settings, then settled back in his chair and took a deep breath. For now, there was nothing to do but stare out the forward window and wait.

  Waiting. Not something he did well.

  He’d slept little these past few days. He needed rest, and past missions had taught him to grab precious sleep whenever he could. Ian unbuckled his restraints, swiveled in his chair to prop his feet upon the adjacent chair, and fell instantly asleep.

  ~~~

  A loud bang woke him.

  Ian sat up straight, dropping boots to the floor to stare at the engine room door.

  Bang.

  He turned to study the instrument panel. All dials and pressure gauges indicated the dirigible was operating within normal limits. A glance at his pocket watch informed him that several hours of the journey had passed. He looked up and out into a driving snowstorm. Perhaps flying debris had struck the dirigible?

  Bang.

  Soon, he would reach the German border. Of all times for something to go amiss…

  Bang.

  He swore. What was wrong? A bearing about to seize? A rod about to break? A piston requiring more lubrication? Or a backfiring spark plug? Ian shook his head. What good would it do him to diagnose the engine when there was no hope that he could repair it mid-flight? There were no tools on board. He’d checked.

  More bangs sounded from the engine room, this time in rapid succession and without any kind of perceivable rhythm. And—he angled his head—an intermittent high pitched whine accompanied the noise. A decidedly unmechanical sound, the tone and tenor of which exactly matched that of a hysterical female.

  There was only one female with whom he’d recently tangled. Lady Olivia.