He almost stopped her from pulling down the veil that hid her eyes and soft mouth—a mouth he’d kissed and tasted many times. He didn’t stop her from leaving. Lenore didn’t belong here with the dead and their keeper.
The undertaker and sextons lingered at the cemetery gates, hesitant to venture any closer but unwilling to leave an open grave uncovered. Nathaniel melted back into the concealing fog, a phantom among other phantoms. Another half hour passed before the second party returned to the grave. Unlike their work on Arthur Kenward’s grave, they carelessly shoveled dirt onto this casket until a loose mound formed. All three looked over their shoulders every other minute until Nathaniel thought they resembled confused pigeons. They would never see him unless he chose to reveal himself a second time, and it amused him to watch their antics.
He was not so amused when they tossed the last shovel of dirt onto the mound, packed their supplies and left Highgate. Neither bricked nor warded with the simplest protection spell, the grave was ripe picking for the body snatchers. Either the family didn’t care enough for their deceased to pay for the additional protections, or the undertaker had pocketed the extra coins for his personal use.
“I shall have visitors tonight,” Nathaniel whispered to himself. “Regrettably, there is no tea.”
Afternoon faded to twilight and then to evening in Highgate, casting crypts and headstones into the silhouettes of a macabre cityscape. London glowed from the contained fire of gas lamps, and Nathaniel watched the HMA Pollux sail the path of her nightly run. She was once his home, her crew his family. Now both were as far out of his reach as the star for which she was named.
Tonight the airship hovered low over the cemetery, her propellers humming a mechanical dirge as steam and aether pumped from her engines. He’d wondered if she might make an appearance tonight to bid farewell to the man who had made her the most formidable dirigible in the fleet.
A cascade of white flowers spilled from the open windows of the control and wing gondolas. They floated to earth, a snow drift of petals and stems settling on Kenward’s grave and the neighboring headstones. A series of flashes from a beacon light—two, two, two and two—and the ship sailed on, rising higher to ride the celestial currents.
Nathaniel beckoned with two fingers, and flower petals near his feet rose from the ground, spiraling into an ivory ribbon that twined around his arm before settling in his palm in a mound of fragrant slips. He held them to his nose and breathed. Rose and lilac, lily and violet. These were from Lenore’s garden. Only the Kenward women grew such lush flowers in the heart of winter.
The screech of metal from the oldest part of the cemetery shattered the quiet. Nathaniel didn’t move, his eyes closed as he savored the heady perfume of white roses and listened to the spectral voices of warning that rose around him.
“They are here. They are here.”
The wrenching iron sound was as familiar to him as birdsong--rails bent to create a gap in the fence enclosing the graveyard. His visitors had finally made their appearance.
Resurrectionists usually traveled in packs of no less than four, and tonight there were a half dozen. The Guardian followed them as they fanned out among the headstones, scuttling over markers, kicking aside carefully laid bouquets and charms. Considering the noise they made and the haphazard destruction they left behind, Nathaniel wondered why they bothered to stay hidden behind crypts and trees.
Emboldened by the lack of guards or a confrontational caretaker, the men’s voices rose from furtive whispers to casual conversation. One pointed to the spot where Lenore’s father rested and the unprotected grave nearby.
“’ere, lads. We got a naked one and one in stays. Easy enough work tonight with two on the dirt and four on the bricks.”
Another chimed in. “The doctor’ll be ‘appy. Two blokes should keep him busy for a fortnight or so.”
“May I suggest a good book instead?”
Nathaniel smirked at the startled shouts and curses that followed his remark. Moonlight glinted on steel, and he neatly dodged the thrown dagger that whistled past his ear and struck the oak behind him with a hard thunk.
“You missed.” He casually circled their little group as they tightened into a defensive cluster.
They’d dressed for an evening of thieving, tool belts slung across their hips, picks on their backs. One man bared yellow, broken teeth at Nathaniel and raised his arm. He clutched one of the new mercurial disrupters for sale on the black market. He aimed it at Nathaniel’s heart, and his cracked grin promised murder.
“We’ll make it three blokes then, mate. I’ll bet Doc Tepes would pay ‘andsomely for a bonekeeper seein’ as ‘ow you’re muckin’ up ‘is business these days.”
The de facto spokesman’s bravado lent the others courage. They snickered and two more brandished sidearms. Nathaniel braced his weight on his cane and shrugged.
“Shoot then, and let’s have an end to this. I grow bored.” He closed his eyes for a moment and shifted, feeling his armor come alive and slither across his skin. As with the time before this, and the dozen more before that, yelps of horror and the predictable lock and whine of a disrupter just before it fired met the action.
He knew what they saw—a white haired, pale-eyed demon clad in armor that writhed and hissed and snapped fanged jaws in a Medusa dance around his body.
A miasma of green light filled his vision before a blunt force smashed into his chest. Nathaniel stumbled, the breath rushing out of him in a hard gasp. He righted himself with the aid of his cane. Mercurial rays that would have killed a normal man ricocheted against his rib cage and darted through his altered veins in a shower of razor-edged splinters. The living armor pulsed with verdant luminescence, shifting back to rigid angles and points that set him aglow like an ethereal gasolier.
“For God’s sake, shoot it again!”
More blasts, more green light. Nathaniel shuddered from the agonizing shock of the blows but remained standing. All his focus centered on containing the energy suffusing his body, shifting and shaping it until it emerged from his chest in a rotating sphere of fire. The orb hovered between him and the resurrectionists, tiny bolts of lightning arcing along its surface.
“Dust thou art.” Nathaniel blew gently and the sphere exploded, blasting outward in a blinding surge.
It enveloped the men in radiant flame. Their screams cut through the night breeze, dampened to whimpers by the rays’ effects. Fabric and flesh melted away from bone that darkened to coal and finally disintegrated altogether until what were once six men became nothing more than the scrapings from a dirty fireplace.
Nathaniel ran the tip of his cane through one of the ash heaps, pushing aside the melted scraps of destroyed disrupters. “And unto dust shalt thou return,” he whispered.
The sepulchral chorus chanted in his ears once more. “They are gone. They are gone.”
“Yes, and good riddance.” He suffered no guilt for dispatching the vile creatures that desecrated the dead and turned them over to men who would make them lurching horrors. He wiped the cane on the dew covered grass. And people called him monster.
He left the ashes where they’d fallen. Wind and rain would wash them away until they became part of cemetery earth and the gardeners would dispose of their melted tools. He paused at Kenward’s grave. “Be at peace, friend.” He scooped up another handful of petals. Frail slips drifted between his fingers as he carried them through the graveyard to the caretaker’s cottage.
There would be no more thieves tonight. They were a territorial lot and staked their claims on certain burial grounds on certain nights. Once others discovered this band no longer offered a challenge, a new group would take their place to do the nefarious Dr. Tepes’s work. Nathaniel snorted derisively at the pompous pseudonym.
A carafe of wine awaited him at the house, left by the wife of the rector who attended the adjacent chapel. No amount of wine or ale would ever dull his senses again, but he found some lost measure of humanity in the simple
act of enjoying a libation.
The cottage had once been a homey place, despite its location. Now it reflected the cemetery’s hushed solemnity. Nearly empty of furniture, the rooms lay in darkness, broken only by bars of moonlight filtered through panes of cloudy glass. Dust drifted across Nathaniel’s feet and rose in a murky cloud when he sat at a rickety table in what was once the parlor and poured wine into a pewter chalice.
Cool on his lips, the wine was sweet and tasted of summer—or what he remembered of summer. An image spun before his eyes, of a brown-eyed girl with an easy smile and long dark hair that glinted red in the sun.
“Lenore.” White rose petals danced across the table, and the name echoed in the void.
CHAPTER THREE
“Would you think poorly of me if I confessed to the temptation to drown my mother in her koi pond?” Lenore eyed her hostess over the rim of her pint glass and wiggled her eyebrows.
Nettie Widderschynnes, captain of the Pollux, grinned and raised her glass in a toast. Lamplight winked off the bits of beads, shell and ribbon entwined in her blonde braids. She’d greeted Lenore’s sudden arrival on the ship with a spine-cracking embrace and the offer to share a pint in her quarters. “I’d think you were your father’s daughter. I’m surprised he didn’t do it years ago.”
A fundamental traditionalist, Jane Kenward had loathed Nettie at first sight and considered her a low-class, immoral strumpet who dirtied their doorstep each time she appeared at Kenward’s workshop to do business. Nettie returned her contempt in equal measure.
A formidable woman of unknown age and even more obscure birth, Nettie Widderschynnes had risen from the gutters of the Abyss to become one of the airship fleet’s most experienced captains. She ran her ship with a strict hand and carried a reputation as a fearless captain and even more ruthless business woman. She had no patience for traditionalists like Jane and told her so in no uncertain terms, forever earning the other woman’s enmity.
Lenore adored Nettie for all the reasons Jane abhorred her. Encouraged, albeit on the sly, by her father, she had pretended to be Captain Widderschynnes when she was a child, guiding the Pollux on her many runs, capturing cargo and enemy dirigibles for the king. She’d dreamed of joining Nettie’s crew, but her mother’s stringent disapproval and the progression of her father’s illness had insured it remained a dream. Until now.
She put her glass down and folded her hands in her lap, once more silently rehearsing what she planned to say. A golden tide of ale rocked in the glass as the airship gently yawed at its mooring mast.
Nettie eyed her, one eyebrow lifted. “Now this should be good. Every time you do that, I know you’re about to spin some scheme. Spit it out, girl.”
Lenore took a deep breath and spilled her words in a torrent before she lost courage. “Papa was a great inventor but no banker. There’s debt—a lot of it. The creditors will seize his workshop and everything in it to pay what is owed.” She took a quick sip of beer before continuing.
“He left some funds so that Mama may live comfortably but not enough to support us both.” Arthur Kenward had expected his only child to be married by now, and if Lenore was honest with herself, she once assumed the same thing. “I want to join the crew. Your crew. I’ll take any spot—messman, rigger, mechanic, ground crew even—whatever is open. Papa taught me soldering and welding. I can read blueprints and am familiar with propulsion and the concepts of thrust vectoring. I haven’t much experience for telegraph or navigation, but I can learn. What do you think? Would you take me on, Captain?”
She inhaled after her long spiel and stared at Nettie, willing the woman to say yes. Unfortunately for Lenore, Captain Widderschynnes’ distinction as an intrepid adventurer didn’t include an impulsive nature.
The terraced lines at the corners of the captain’s blue eyes deepened, and she set her glass on a nearby table. She braced her elbows on her knees and scrutinized Lenore as thoroughly as the Guardian had done two months earlier at Highgate.
“Your father,” she said in a far more formal accent than Lenore had ever heard before, “bless his departed soul, would have my guts for garters if I had you flutterin’ in the wind from a mooring mast or runnin’ about stringing yaw guys to cables and pulley blocks.”
Lenore’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest. “I don’t have to be a rigger.” She loosened the death grip she held on her own fingers. “I can work in the mess or the laundry. There’s no danger in sweeping and washing dishes. Or I can post to the main engine room. I know machinery. I assisted Papa with several of the improvements installed on this ship, including the incendiary shield.”
Nettie graced her with a disgusted look. “Don’t play stupid, Lenore. The Pollux is bristlin’ with cannon, machine guns and bombs, as well as other nastiness you’re best not knowing about. You know any post on an airship, especially a runner, is risky. If Nathaniel’s death didn’t teach you that lesson, nothing will.”
Five years, and the grief was as crushing as the day she received word of Nathaniel’s death. Lenore closed her eyes for a moment, forcing the sorrow back to the shadowed parts of her soul. It was enough she mourn for her father. She knew the pain of that loss would lessen with time; she’d shoulder the pain of the other until she died.
She opened her eyes to find Nettie’s expression had gentled to one of sympathy. “It’s not my way to be cruel, Lenore. I think you just need remindin’ this isn’t a game or some great adventure. There’s danger and costs in this business. Nathaniel paid the ‘ighest price, and you paid with ‘im.” She frowned. “Your papa was my one of my best mates. I’d be no friend to ‘im if I put ‘is girl at risk. You’re better off hiring out as a governess or lady’s companion.”
Jane Kenward and Nettie Widderschynnes agreed for once in their lives, much to Lenore’s dismay. Jane had suggested—insisted—on the same thing. A position as governess or companion was Lenore’s best course. Respectable, safe, soul-withering. Lenore blanched at the idea of years stretched out before her, trapped in households where she was isolated from everyone except spoiled, difficult children or bitter widows whose idea of a companion was synonymous with whipping boy. Her father might disapprove, but he wasn’t here to tell her no.
“Nettie, I know the risks, but I’ve wanted this all my life—before I met Nathaniel, before Papa’s death. You saw me when I was a child, how I’d pretend to be you.” Lenore didn’t miss the faint blush warming the older woman’s cheeks and pressed her advantage. “Other women serve under you on the Pollux. Will you not consider it?”
Nettie took a long swallow of her beer and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Brilliant with his inventions, your papa. Not much of a sailor or crewman. Got airsick each time he went on a night run with us, but he loved it all the same. Said you would too had you been old enough to accompany him.” She scowled at Lenore. “I’m not sayin’ aye, but I’m not sayin’ nay either. I want to think about it.”
Lenore’s shoulders sagged, and she slumped in her chair with relief. “Thank you, Nettie. For what it’s worth, you might well save me from a slow death of needlepoint, alphabets, and smelling salts.”
“And put you in harm’s way with a quick death from a stray bullet.” Nettie pointed an accusing finger. “Don’t play the savior card with me, missy. If I say no, you keep your dignity, accept my decision and walk out of here without argument. Understood?”
Lenore saluted. “Aye, Captain.” She didn’t dare smile.
“We sail in three days’ time for the Redan, providing escort for the Andromeda. It’s a month out and a month back. You’ll have your answer then. No sooner.”
The Redan. Lenore’s heartbeat stuttered. She’d been raised on tales about the defensive perimeter. Bordering the length of Atlantic coastline from Hammerfest in Norway to the Strait of Gibraltar, the buffer protected the continent from the horrifics that sometimes erupted out of the dimensional fissure. Many airships, along with their crews, had been lost fighting at the Redan.
Nettie had almost lost the Pollux, and Nathaniel had died there. If she joined the crew, it was a guarantee she’d see it first-hand.
“You’ll be careful, won’t you, Nettie?”
Nettie shot her a reproachful look. “Not much choice. We’re playing nanny to a cargo lifter loaded with flyers and munitions.” She gestured to Lenore’s untouched glass. “You might not want to let that get too flat. It turns bitter.”
Accustomed to the captain’s pragmatic view of her job, Lenore didn’t expound on her concern over this latest mission. She rose from her chair. “No more for me. I’m off to visit Papa, then home. I need my wits sharp to face Mama’s tirade. She won’t soon forgive me for sneaking away.” She didn’t hide her distaste. “I missed Aunt Adelaide’s weekly one o’clock visit, along with her atrocious piano playing.”
Nettie’s chuckle was less than sympathetic. “Better you than me, ducks. I’ll take a good battle at the Redan over that nonsense any day.” She stood with Lenore. “You’ll give my best to your papa when you visit, yeah?”
Lenore gathered her shawl and reticule. “Always.” She paused, remembering the funeral and the Guardian who vowed to protect her father’s grave. “Did I tell you I met the Guardian of Highgate?”
The other woman’s eyes widened. “Did you now? And how did you manage that? They’re not known for socializin’ with the living.”
“He revealed himself once the sextons bricked Papa’s grave. I approached him…”
Nettie’s bark of laughter interrupted her. “You’ve a backbone tough as those corset steels you wear, girl. Guardians scare the lights out of most people.”
Lenore’s cheeks heated at the compliment. “He had a fearsome aspect. Tall, dressed in black armor—and the strangest eyes, as if he looked back on eternity.”
“You make him sound like a right ‘andsome bloke.”
She shrugged. “He was, in an odd way. Very gentlemanly as well. He promised none would disturb the grave, and he’s kept that promise. The bricks are as they were laid.” She didn’t mention the sense of recognition that struck her at their first meeting. Even now, weeks later, his image burned darkly in her mind’s eye, along with the unwavering certainty she knew him. “I haven’t seen him since then, and I go to the cemetery weekly.”