Lily Marin - three short steampunk stories. Book 2.

"Have you gone out with him yet?" Selma was far too eager for Lily's taste.

  "No. And that is not on my mind by far, Selma. We talked, only because he wanted to take me home-"

  "Billy is such a cavalier," Selma swooned, her face radiating as if she was talking about the love of her life. She also ignored every word Lily had said. "He would make a perfect match for you, Lily Marin, just remember my words when you stand in front of the altar to be married to him."

  Lily's friend poured more tea. "So, what did you two talk about?"

  "Nothing special." Lily's hope that this would make Selma stop prying was in vain, for at the end of Lily's visit with Selma, Selma seemed to know more about it all than Lily did, at least that was how it felt to the singer.

  Lily found herself back in the street, with her umbrella in one hand, and a bag with some of Selma's menacing home-made cake dangling from the other. Rain was doing all it could to soak people and things. And of course, there was no carriages available to her to ride home in, as people already occupied them for the same reason.

  With a sigh Lily started walking.

  -=-=-

  "You are crazy, woman." The still unmasked woman was preparing herself to go out again. There were, as usual, bad specimens of the human kind to capture. No downpour would stop those, so it should not stop Lily, but remembering the work she'd had cleaning the hem of her dress, as she had been liberally splashed with gutter water that afternoon, made second thoughts creep up.

  The ray-gun responded with its familiar buzz as she switched it on. After mere seconds the sound died away, together with the slight tremble in the grip and she slipped it in the holster. After adding her dagger and the whip to her belt and putting on her coat, she wondered if she should take her flight-pack. Being undecided, she slipped it on her back. It was not that heavy after all, and could come in handy.

  Lily put on her mask and flipped one of the night-view glasses in front of an eye. She then took the hat with the wide rim, so most of the rain would be deflected. Well prepared she slipped out the back door, went through the tiny garden and disappeared into the dark alley.

  -=-=-

  As the Masked Woman patrolled the streets, she made sure to avoid the places where the police usually were to be found. The stupid (there was no better word for it) mishap at the archaeological museum, where she had been spotted and since then considered to be the unstoppable burglar, still haunted her. That was something she would have to deal with, and rather sooner than later. The problem there was that this particular burglar had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth, which made handling the matter rather cumbersome.

  Lily paced along the puddles in a street of a shady neighbourhood from where often hold-ups and homicides were reported. The weather was so bad that all her scouting and checking was in vain. Even the thugs of the city seemed to possess more sense than she had: they stayed in this night.

  "Very smart, woman," Lily muttered to herself as she wiped her goggles dry once more. "You really know when to go out."

  She rounded a corner where a strong wind was playing its tricks. One of these tricks was to surprise unsuspecting wanderers with a frontal attack of wetness.

  The Masked Woman briefly thought of what was waiting for her at home. Her book, a novel about the discovery of strange, far-away lands and amazing cultures, and a welcoming cup of hot tea. Then she heard a scream. The book and the tea would have to wait.

  Lily stopped walking and amplified her hearing, hoping that the person would scream again. That way she would have a better sense of where to go, and it was a sign that the person was still alive. She did not have to wait long.

  The rushing sound of the rain did not conceal a second scream, and this time Lily was prepared for it. She started running towards the alley where the sound came from. As she went, a third scream erupted from someone's tortured throat. This time the sound ended abruptly, urging Lily forward even faster.

  She reached the dark passageway and dove into it. Instead of stopping and turning, she just slammed herself into the wall, regained her balance and grabbed her ray-gun. Slamming into the wall, she had found, was a much more effective way to brake. It also added to the surprise factor towards the person she was going after.

  The light-enhancing glass in her mask revealed a group of three people standing over not one, but two shapes lying on the wet cobblestones.

  The ray-gun whined its high pitch as Lily switched it to full power. "Hold your hands right there and no one gets hurt unnecessarily," she informed the three.

  One of the men drew a knife. The air crackled as the ray-gun discharged.

  "My finger is faster than your knife," the Masked Woman told the man, who stood cursing, holding his hand. Blood seeped from it, and there was at least one finger missing. "And now you are going to lie down with your nose in the dirt and your hands on your back."

  The three people did not need more encouragement and obeyed. Lily grabbed a few bits of rope she always carried with her and tied the men up. With their hands tied to their ankles they would not go far.

  Then she checked the silent shapes on the ground. The two people, a man and a woman, were dead. Both were stabbed. Lily groaned as she noticed how young these two were, they could not be over twenty-four. She got up, suppressed the urge to kick each of the three men in the ribs and then walked out of the alley.

  Somehow she had to alert a policeman. That presented a bit of a problem, as not many of that particular species ventured into this neighbourhood. It was a sensible health-precaution, the Masked Woman understood that, but one that was rather annoying at times. Lily kicked the heels of her boots together, waited for the extended legs to stabilise and paced off towards where she hoped she could find a stray police officer.

  She located a policeman quickly. The man stood with his back to her,. Lily held his head so he would not be able to see her, and told him about the three men and the two dead people in the alley. Before walking off with long strides, Lily also told him that she was not the burglar from the Archaeology museum. For what that was worth.

  -=-=-

  "Ladies, ladies! Please! This is awful!" Lily pressed her hands against her ears in an exaggerated way, to show everyone how bad the last part of the song had been. Lily had taken over Agatha Henley's role as conductor of the choir, and with amazing results.

  "Annette, you have to stop trying to sing soprano, would you, dear? We went over this, you are not a soprano. And Corynthia, don't be shy when you do your little solo." Lily did not understand why the young woman tried to squeak her part in the song, as usually she was loud enough.

  "Perhaps we should take a short break and rest our voices a bit," Agatha Henley, officially the leader of the ladies choir, suggested.

  "I agree, and we brought something nice to eat," someone behind Lily said, who turned as if she had been stung.

  "Selma! You surprised me." Selma's sudden appearance made Lily nervous. Too often Billy was with her.

  "Not us," Isabella Jenkins giggled, "we saw them come in."

  "Them?" Lily wondered, looking at Isabella and then back at Selma who apparently was alone. Were her nerves warranted?

  "Billy is here also, he will be back shortly," Selma beamed, "he is fetching the basket."

  A scared feeling flared through Lily for a moment. Billy. The young man who had been in her house. Who had to have seen her ray-gun. "Oh, how nice," she managed, without showing her proper feelings about that.

  "I knew you'd appreciate that," Selma smiled as she stood with the table where the tea was steeping.

  Billy came in, carrying not only a basket but also a parcel that looked like a box. It was wrapped in dark brown cloth.

  Most ladies of the choir seemed to know him, as he was welcomed to join the group for tea and home-made scones. Lily wondered which home they came from. Selma was a very nice person but not one who would ever be famous for her culinary abilities.

  Despite her attempts not to, Lily found hersel
f sitting next to Billy. She wondered how that had happened. A mean streak of thoughts made her accuse Selma of witchcraft for a moment, but of course she did not voice that. That would not be becoming. Instead she engaged in the chatting as well as she could. At least that had become easier since Lily had joined the ladies' choir.

  Going out on a limb, she turned to Billy and asked him what was in the package he had so carefully placed out of harm's way.

  "It is something I have to deliver," he said. His face lit up when Lily addressed him. "It is something for Dr. Cal-" His jaws snapped shut. "For a customer of my uncle's. It is a special delivery."

  "You are making us curious now, young William," said Agatha Henley, looking at him over the rim of her tiny spectacles. Lily always suspected that the elderly woman mostly wore them for show, not for purpose.

  "I am truly sorry, Mrs. Henley, but I can't tell what is in the box, because I don't know." Billy glanced at the antique clock in its mahogany casing that hung from the wall. "I have to deliver it in about an hour."

  After tea and more singing, with Selma and Billy as their audience, the rehearsal of the choir was