Queen of the Sky Frontier - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Azrael leaned back and submerged herself in the hot water to her neck, grateful for the heat as it soaked into her. She lay her head on the edge of the tub and kept her ears alert for any sound of Captain Black. This was his bath, and despite his assurances that he would leave her be, she mistrusted the look in his eye when he said it.

The water was much hotter than any ordinary person could tolerate, and she took some comfort in that. She had few enough signs of her Experimental heritage from her mother, but her tolerance for heat was almost limitless, and even the touch of flame did not burn her, though a large enough flame would cause her pain. It was good to have a shipboard water system that supplied water hot enough to suit her, rather than the tepid swill aboard the liner.

She heard someone move in the outer room, beyond the door which had no lock, and she tensed. She wondered if a splash of scalding water would dissuade Black if he were determined on ravishing her. Azrael had spent years in a private girls' school, and so had little experience dealing with men and their fabled urges.

There was a sharp but polite knock at the door. "We are putting into New Orleans, Miss Dire," Black said through the heavy wood. "Come out when you are dressed and I'll show you the town."

Azrael found herself flushing at holding a conversation - even though a closed door - with a man while she was naked. Worse, he knew she was naked. She forced herself to pause before answering so he would not think her flustered. "Very well, Captain."

She thought she heard him chuckle. "As you like. I'll leave the cabin to you." She heard his footsteps walking away and wondered if he really was leaving. Not that he was unattractive, despite that dishonest cast to his face. But she would be no one's doxy. Her mother would skin her for becoming a lackey to anyone. Azrael knew she had been a disappointment to her mother, perhaps even unwanted entirely, though she had never dared to ask. She would not fail her legacy now.

The water was growing cooler, and she sighed. Time to get out and deal with this mess. Truth be known, she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing here. The telegram had said her mother died and she was to come and settle her estate. She expected a will and a solicitor, not pirates and a cross-country journey among brutes and villains. What was there to do here? What else was there for her? Even if she left, she had no income, no place anymore.

She had a moment of weakness, when her eyes stung, and then she bit down on it and stopped it. She was a Dire. She would not sit and blubber in the bath like a whipped chambermaid. She pressed her fingers over her eyes for a moment, then stood up out of the water. The air felt rigidly cold and she shivered, stepped quickly out.

The towel was clean but rather small, and she used her hands to sluice as much water off herself as she could before using it. Her hair was pinned up to keep it dry, and she considered washing it, then decided it could wait another day. She wondered if Black lay in wait for her outside the bath, and the suspense was almost too much.

She dried off, wrapped the robe around herself, and opened the door. Steam wafted past her in the sudden draft and obscured her vision. She waited, nothing materialized. She chewed her lip, then stepped out into Black's bedchamber.

The walls were draped with the sort of barbaric decorations she'd more than half expected - tattered flags, a few mounted skulls of beasts she did not recognize, and hooks where swords or rifles hung ready to hand. Even the swords looked wrong to her. At her mother's distant insistence, Azrael had spent years learning to fence, yet all these weapons were blade-heavy cleavers that looked far too unwieldy to use.

There was no sign of her clothes, and her eyes narrowed, wondering if Black expected her to cringe here naked, deprived of anything to wear. Then she saw the clothes draped over the chair beside the bed. Breeches and a shirt, a coat beside them and a pair of boots, all too small to be his. They were meant for her.

She sniffed as she looked them over, picked up the breeches and felt them. Cotton of some sort, she supposed they would do. With a weather eye on the door to the outer cabin, she put them on, found them rather tight across the hips but otherwise adequate. She stepped into the boots, then took off the robe and put on the shirt. She could not tuck it in, but had to let it hang loosely, which looked unkempt and awful, but there was nothing to do.

There was no mirror in here, unsurprising. She felt as if she were dressed as a boy and disliked the sensation. There was no brush to be found, nor a comb. A glance showed her bag sitting on the floor beside the table in the outer room. Well, she had a brush in there.

She stepped through the door, glanced left and saw no one, glanced right and stared right into the single eye of Merodach. He was so close she could smell him, that hot-copper reek. He was completely motionless, and she startled back, her heart pounding. She fetched back against the table and turned her head away from the sight of him. He must have been here the entire time, silent. Waiting. It made her stomach knot to think of it.

One of his ears twitched, and he drew in a great breath, let it out in a long growl. His great eye blinked and she stared at the exposed copper around the patch that covered his other one. What was under that? He drew himself up to his full and terrifying height, his head brushing the beams overhead. His rough-spun shirt barely contained his chest, the buttons straining.

"You smell like a graveyard after the rain," he said, his voice like iron dragged over gravel. "So sweet." He slouched back down, his hands touching the floor so he almost went on all fours like an animal. He looked like an animal, he smelled like one.

"Captain set me to look after you," he said, licking his teeth. When she saw them clearly she felt faint. They were like knives. "One little girl, all these men aboard thinking of how tiny and smooth you are." He bared his teeth at her. "Can't leave you unattended. Not a tasty thing like you."

Azrael found her heart was pounding so hard she doubted she could even speak. Merodach moved forward until he loomed over her, and her knees felt weak. He sniffed her again. "You smell a little bit like Dire," he said. "But you smell of steel and flowers, instead of blood." He brought up one huge hand, and Azrael stifled a whimper at the sight of the long claws that tipped his thick fingers. One talon reached out and traced a soft line down her temple, over her cheek to her lips. "So pretty. Not like her, she was a sword blade. You're like a little bird."

Azrael struggled to control her breathing. "Get - get away from me."

He chuckled like rocks in a crusher. "Don't like me much, eh? My face not pretty enough for you?" He leaned in closer and peered at her with his one eye, so large her palm would barely have covered it. "Captain said you went to a school for girls. Guess that means you're not used to a proper man." His hand trailed down, grasped at her hip and squeezed. "Don't know what we're good for." He leaned closer yet and breathed in her ear, hot and close. "Oh little bird, what I could do to you."

Azrael's heart pounded in her chest so hard she felt she could not even breathe, and she suddenly could not bear the closeness of this beast any longer. She took her hands off the table and made to shove him back in desperation. Then she blinked, or seemed to, and Merodach lay on the floor amidst the shattered remnants of the chair.

She shook her head, feeling it pound as if it would burst, feeling her arms tremble and an ache down her back and in the pit of her stomach. She felt dizzy and almost fell. Put her hands on the table to steady herself and found the hardwood edge cracked as if from a great blow. What in God's name had happened?

Merodach rolled over and pushed himself up, shook his shaggy head and sent wood splinters scattering. "Ooof," he said, licking his teeth. "You've got a bit of fight to you after all." He grunted and slung a piece of broken chair aside, stood up and shook himself. He bared his teeth in what might have been a smile but was no less terrifying for that.

It was more than Azrael could stand, and she ran. The door slammed open when she hit it and she was on deck almost faster than she could believe. It was night, and the sky was clear as glass showing an arch of ten thousand stars and a moon like a tarnished silver coin that bathed everything in pale light. She ran for the rail and saw light spread out all around them, the streets and buildings of New Orleans.

They were tethered at a gantry high off the ground, ropes making them fast to the heavy platform. The air was cold but not freezing, and she could smell the wet, marshy smell of sea and swampland. She could see the shape of the harborfront in the radiating lines of lit streets, and she realized she could dimly hear music seeping up from the city below.

Merodach slammed through the door behind her, growling, and she heard a few voices here and there on deck as men wondered what the fuss was. The starlight was almost bright as day, so she had no hope the monster would not see her. Indeed he turned to face her at once and came forward, leaning on his hands as he moved, like an ape.

"Easy there pretty," he crooned, his voice like hooks over flesh. "Easy now, Merodach isn't going to hurt you pretty." She heard his talons scrape on the wood of the deck and backed up to the rail, the wood hard against her back. There was a light at the bow of the ship, and it began to move as someone unhooked it and came aft.

Merodach sidled closer, and the starlight reflected in his eye and glimmered like copper, and that was all she could endure. Terrified, she turned and caught the rail, pulled herself up and over. Over the side there was nothing visible but blackness, as the gantry's shadow cut out all the light from the sky. She turned to look along the rail, to try and see a rope or anything she might climb, but she heard Merodach coming fast, claws ripping a the deck and other voices coming from all over the ship.

The beast struck the rail and Azrael flinched back so violently that she slipped and fell into blackness. She had only a moment to feel her belly lift and terror sink into the back of her neck and clench her jaw, and then she struck something that while not hard, was not exactly soft either. All the air went out of her and she rolled over, fell a few more feet and landed on wood.

She grunted, hearing yelling from above. She rolled on her back and looked up, saw she had not fallen so far after all. This was a deck of the gantry, with bales of something stacked up and covered over with canvas to keep off the rain. Azrael gagged back sourness in her throat and staggered to her feet. What was she doing? Where did she have that she could go? But the thought of returning to Black and his leering and that beast's lustful insinuations made her rebel. No, this was all a mistake, she would not go back unless they dragged her in chains.

They might even do so, unless she moved. Halfway to panicked, she heard running feet above, saw lanterns coming to life in the dark places. She ran, not even sure where she was headed, but she stumbled along in the dark until she found a stair that spiraled up from where she stood as well as down. It already vibrated with footfalls and she leaped onto it, ran down as fast as she could move, one hand bunched at her hip to hold up the skirts that were not there.

Her pursuers gained on her, carrying lights and knowing what they were about. She heard them getting closer, saw the shadows sliding on the stairway as they rounded the corners above her just a heartbeat after she did. They were going to catch her.

She saw, in the flash of their light, that the whole gantry was held up with a lattice of wooden beams and iron bracings like a kind of zigzag web. Desperate, she swung over the edge of the stair and climbed into the rust-crusted maze. The spaces between the bars were too small for a grown man to pass, but she found it easy to slip between them. She just had time to squirm behind a heavier beam and hold herself motionless before a pack of pirates rushed down the stair where she'd stood only a moment before.

Carefully, she began to climb down through the maze of beams and spars, rust and grime getting all over her hands. She didn't know how high she was, or how far she had to climb, or how far she could. Her arms and back already ached, and her head hurt horribly, throbbing like it would burst.

When her feet touched solid ground she staggered, almost fell. She looked around and it was dark, too dark to see. She heard yelling and running, but it seemed off to her left. Careful, she picked her way through the spars until she emerged and could stand upright. Close to the ground, it was warmer and more humid, with heavier smells. She distinctly heard Merodach's voice raised among the noises of pursuit, and wondered of he could smell her, could follow her by it. She would not bet against that.

She emerged into starlight and froze, looking around, but she saw almost nothing but narrow back ways cluttered with castoff cargo and a few rats hurrying to get away from her. She seemed to have emerged on the far side of the gantry from where the stairs debauched, and she heard her pursuers moving away in the other direction.

Now she shivered, suddenly feeling horribly alone and exposed. She was in a city she did not know, in a country she remembered only dimly. The only people who even knew who she was were a band of cutthroats and monsters.

She looked down the narrow alleyway, piles of junk and skittering rats along the length of it until it vanished into utter darkness, and she ran. She ran from everything she knew, to whatever she might find.

Continued in Chapter 7