3 comments/  4192 views/  4 favorites

Steam Ch. 02

By: axmanjack



Steam | Chapter Two | Departures






Snow drifted in fat flakes from the sky, gathering into soft, cold piles that they marched through in lines. A geomagus led the procession slowly through the hip high drifts, holding his metal gloved hand out before him to feel for fissures beneath the endless field of white. The falling powder built up atop the shoulders and heads of the men and women in the formation, sometimes falling off in thick, soundless chunks and leaving depressions beside the trench they marched through. Sylvia had no idea where they were going, and nobody was going to bother telling her.

She had been trussed up together with six other prisoners, six other sad faced survivors of the Lady Turandot, with a dirty bit of cord some red-cloaked soldier had pulled from the wreckage. It chaffed at her wrists, but they had been bound loosely enough to rub warmth into themselves as they walked the top of the Granger Pass to some unknown destination. 

Nobody spoke. The only sound beside the constant soft rush of the cold wind was the crunches of snow compacting beneath heavy boots. On the occasions when they stopped, Sylvia could hear the steady beat of her pulse in her ears. She latched onto the sound, trying to imagine the steaming heat of her blood, and the constant mechanical pounding of her heart. Humanity had its own clockwork. She tried to remember warmth and failed.

One of the other prisoners, a man, yelped and fell to his knees in the snow, jerking painfully against their tether and forcing the other five to stop. He moaned feebly as one of the guards pulled him back to his feet. Sylvia kept her eyes forward, like the other prisoners. There had been eight of them when the group had left the site of the crash. Trying to help would be pointless. They began to walk again.

Sylvia couldn't see much of the range around her, buried as it was in the snow and fog that poured down from the high peaks around them. The raiding party walked in three lines across the flank of some high ridge. She estimated their number at around 80, perhaps more, though even with their red cloaks they were hard to pick out in all the blinding whiteness. None of them had talked since Foucault had waved her away, passing orders between each other by snapping their fingers and waving their arms and hands about. The last of the prisoners that had spoke was slowly being buried by the falling flakes a mile back, her glass eyes fixed on the dusky mountain sky. Sylvia shuddered.

The woman had broke formation to pick up her friend, the first of the prisoners to fall. His leg had been broken in the crash and fitted with a makeshift splint. She refused to move without him, so the guards had killed them both, dragging their bodies out of the trench so the soldiers behind them wouldn't trip. The woman never took her eyes off her dying friend, lying on his chest as they both bled to death in the snow. The slack went out of the cord wrapped around Sylvia's wrists, nearly dragging her down.

One of the guards brushed by her and pulled the man on the ground to his feet. His lolled forward and then back, his eyes staring madly out of his head at nothing. The man's face was completely colorless. The guard slapped his cheek, a single loud crack that made a few of the other prisoners jump. The guard looked back up the formation and shook his head. Another soldier responded with a quick hand gesture and turned to keep walking. The guard nodded, hoisted the prisoner onto the snow bank beside the trench and then shot him once in the temple, cutting the cord off his wrists and returning to formation.

They pressed on. 

Sylvia tried not to think about the blood running in a heavy, black stream out of the side of the man's head, and the sad, confused look in his eyes as his brain bled to death. She did anyway, and had to force herself not to throw up. 

They pressed on.

Hours passed, and the weak light of the day gave way to the glowing moonlight of the night. The snowfall petered out shortly after nightfall, and she could soon see the jagged outline of the mountains around her. In particular, she could Mount Granger, carving it's twisted, spindling path through the fat ball of the rising moon. One of the prisoners behind her started sobbing. Another one of them tried to console her with quiet shushes. She could hear the soft pat of a gloved hand on a shoulder.

They pressed on.

Something deep, deep inside her was beginning to give out. The pace of the march had made her start sweating hours ago, but she was not sweating anymore. Her tongue stuck to the dry roof of her mouth, and every attempt to swallow became more difficult. Her feet were numb. She forced herself not to cry.

They pressed on.

Their number had dwindled down to four. Sylvia didn't even bother looking back, instead using the distraction to try snagging a mouthful of snow from the side of the trench. The binds on her wrists were too taut to for her to use her hands, so she leaned to the side and tried to bit into the drift with her mouth. The cold of night had frozen the snow into ice. She nearly wept from frustration.

They pressed on.

Sylvia could feel herself dying. There was no more warmth in the world, and there never had been. Heat was lie, like mercy and fresh water. Her knees buckled with every other step and still the silent march across the mountain continued. The moon had crossed the sky, and now she could see the back of Mount Granger in greater detail. 

The mountain rose, tall and impossibly twisted, into the sky, like a bent grey nail. Her tombstone, a tombstone for the world. The sun would rise behind it soon, but she didn't expect to see it. Sylvia would die with the moon in the hills. She thought she could smell fire on the wind.

The procession came to a halt. Her vision swam and she stumbled, and then fell to the side. Her brain didn't even process the pain of having her arms jerked to the side. The others made no move to help her, and she laid there, her face in the ice, and prepared to die.

The guard cut the cord around her wrists and hoisted her onto his back. She felt infinitely heavy, like a great boulder of lead, but he moved her onto his back with hands of granite and steel. She closed her eyes and let the man spirit her off. When he set her down the snow felt hard, flat and warm. I must be going into shock, she thought, wondering if she would feel the bullet hitting her. If should hear the gunshot. If it would hurt.

"Stand Sylvia Messerschmitt, and behold your salvation."

Sylvia opened her eyes to see a massive fire burning in front of her. It cast light and long shadows away from it. She crawled toward the heat, letting her affinity fill her with warmth. The red-cloaked Caanish soldiers stood in wide rings around the flames, their eyes hidden by shadow. The ground beneath her was clean, dry stone, carved with intricate patterns and worn smooth by age. She stood and rubbed the raw skin of her wrists.

"Sylvia Messerschmitt," said the voice. She turned around saw Foucault standing opposite the fire with his arms crossed. An enormous stone staircase, lined with burning braziers, rose behind him. An old, graying man sat in the carved throne at the top of the stairs, flanked on either side by spear bearers. He sat casually in the chair, propping his head on his fist and regarding Sylvia with a casual smirk. 

"We offer you the Embrace of Caan," Foucault said. He held his arms out wide and the soldiers roared in response, slapping their gloved fists against their chests three times. The sound was deafening. Sylvia looked around, confused. Foucault approached her. His face was unknowable. She flinched when he raised his hand and set it on her shoulder. It was heavy, but warm.

"I don't understand," she said. Her eyes met his, and she saw nothing in them.

"You are being given a chance," he said, softer than before, "to survive this ordeal. Cast aside your old life, become a daughter of Caan, and you will live. You will find purpose in our cause. You will march with us, to purge this land of its mad, tyrannical oppressors."

"Join you?" She asked, looking around. She clutched her arms, remembering the cold. "You killed those people on the train, executed prisoners. We... we were on a peaceful transit mission. You people are..."

"Evil?" He asked bluntly. "No, there is no such thing. We are at war. Unforgivable decisions are made every day. As for your train and its occupants..." He paused, searching her eyes for something. "...there is much you don't know. That four of you live now is a miracle, though you may not see it for what it is for some time." She shook her head again, dropping her gaze.

"I'm no traitor..." She said softly, her words trailing off into the wind. Foucault narrowed his gaze and set his left hand on her other shoulder. She felt small in his grasp.

"The Imperium is a heresy," he said. His eyes glinted when the name rolled off his tongue in Caanish. Plazekt. Imperium. "It cannot be betrayed, only destroyed." 

"I...I can't ever go home," she said. Her lip quivered. This was entirely too much.

"No," he replied. "All that you are and have been will die tonight." He lifted her chin with his finger. "But you will become kin, and all that Caan is or ever will be will be yours, just as it is ours. You will find purpose in us, Sylvia. You will find your name." He stepped back from her, placing his arms behind his back. "But first, you must accept our Embrace." She paused.

"Ok," she said, rubbing her arm nervously just above the elbow.

"You accept?"

"Yes," she said, a bit louder. "I... I accept."

"Then strip off the vestiges of your old life," he replied. "Take off your clothes, cast them into the fire and stand before Caan, reborn." She looked around nervously, and then bent down to untie her boots. They were slippery, cold and awkward, and she had to sit down to pry them from her feet. Then came her socks, the heavy canvas uniform shorts and shirt, and, finally, the black thermal singlet. She stood to remove it, pulling at the wet hem of the elastic neckline. The ring of soldiers stood, watching stoically, if they were looking at all. She caught Foucault's eye and he gave her the slightest of nods.

Sylvia pulled the elastic over one shoulder, and then the other, relishing in the feel of the fire wicking the moisture off of her exposed skin. Her thermals had been holding in the cold, not repelling it. Blood rushed to her cheeks as she pushed the black cloth past her breasts, down the taut line of her stomach to her hips. She paused to roll up the cloth, and then rolled it down over her legs, her knees, and then her ankles. She stood naked, her newly thawed hair dripping water down her back.

Slowly, she collected the articles and brought them to the massive central fire. She closed her eyes and let the heat wash over her, and then threw her clothes onto the coals. She pushed a bit of silver hair away from eyes and turned back to Foucault. He motioned toward the stairs with his hand. She walked across the warm stone floor and began her ascent. Around the circle, the soldiers began to beat their chests in rhythm, their metal gloves clanging loudly against the steel of their chest plates.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

What the hell am I doing?

Bang. Bang. Bang.

What are they going to do to me?

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She neared the top of the steps, trying to walk with dignity despite the deep, scarlet blush on her cheeks. The old man in the chair watched her every step, until she was standing before him. They were far away from the massive fire now, and the cold winds of the mountain leaked through the cracked stone columns of the ruins. Behind the man's chair, she could see the outline of Mount Granger curling into the sky. His eyes never dropped below her neckline, which was somehow worse than him gazing lower. She covered herself with her arms.

"Your dignity is safe with us, Sylvia Messerschmitt," the old man said with the faintest hint of a laugh. "...though you'll understand that soon enough I suppose." He gestured to the ruins around them with an upturned palm. "Do you know where you stand?"

"No, sir," she replied, shaking her head slowly. Old age had taken the color out of the old man's hair and eyes, but he had the arrogant, animalistic fearlessness of a younger man. He felt powerful, and very dangerous. Even more so than Foucault. He smiled.

"This," he said, "is my castle. My birthright." He shrugged. "It's not very impressive nowadays, but, from what I've heard, it was quite the feature a few centuries ago." He chuckled at something, but the joke was lost on Sylvia. He narrowed his eyes and smiled fiercely. "Would you like to help me rebuild it?"

"...yes?" She responded. He nodded and stood.

"Then it is done," he said. "Sylvia Messerschmitt, you stand before Caan." The soldiers beat their chests and howled, startling her. "Will you stand beside him?"

"Yes," she said, trying not to look as scared and naked as she was. He took a red cloak from the guard to his left, spread it out and stepped forward, wrapping it around her shoulders. It was warm and heavy, and it smelt like fresh hay. The fabric was much softer than she thought it would be. He pulled the cloak tight around the front of her, covering her body completely, and fixed the clasp shut.

"Sylvia Messerschmitt," he said, turning back and sitting again in the carved throne. "Walk the rest of your life without shame, woman, for you are now a daughter of Caan." The soldiers roared and applauded. Embarrassed, she pulled the cloak tighter around herself. 

Behind Caan, his chair and Mount Granger, the sun began its slow climb into the sky.



"Gets awful quiet quick after this sort of thing, wouldn't you agree?" The woman asked, snapping her fingers to produce a tiny yellow flame. It was almost invisible in the bright noontime light coming in through the bank's dusty windows. She held it to the tip of a freshly rolled cigarette, dragging the smoke in through her pouty brown lips. The man she was talking to, a finely dressed young banker, answered with a terrified nod. 

"It's rude not to answer a lady with your voice when she's talking to you young man," she added, pointing the glowing end of the cigarette toward him. She uncrossed her legs and stopped leaning against the worn down edge of the teller's window. The thick heels of her boots reverberated through the loose wooden floorboards as she walked over to him. He cringed as she got closer. "And son, considering my reputation, I'd think rudeness would be the last inconsideration you'd make at this juncture."

"Yes, yes ma'am," he said, having to wet his lips substantially before speaking. "It is very quiet ma'am, very quiet indeed." She smiled, wrinkling the freckled bridge of her nose, and patted his shoulder.

"There's a good boy," she said. She walked behind him and rested her fingers on his shoulders. She gave a bit of a squeeze and felt him tense up. "Oh now darlin', what's the matter? You afraid of me?" He nodded and swallowed. Fat drops of sweat spread dark across his white linen dress shirt.

"Yes ma'am, I am," he said. The leather bands tying his wrists to the back of the chair squeaked as he tried to adjust his position in the chair. "I am very, very afraid right now." She chuckled and walked back around in front of him, trailing her finger along his neck, just above his collar. She sat on his lap, resting her hands on his shoulders.

"Now why is that, little dandy?" She asked, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth. She exhaled through her nose, filling the space between their chests with smoke. The cloud lingered. "Why would you be afraid of little ol' me?" She slid a finger up his neck, and directed his eyes to hers when it reached his chin. Her cigarette cherry hung precariously close to his skin. Soft, blue eyes, she thought, her own chips of jade set squarely on them. Soft, blue eyes for soft, blue city boys. 

"Could it be that you know who I am?" She asked, cocking her head to the side enough to skew the wide brim of her hat a bit left. He nodded. She returned the cigarette to her smiling teeth. "Well?"

"You're miss," he said, swallowing, "miss Brass Buckle Betty, ma'am." Betty grinned harder, biting into the back of the cigarette and squeezing his shoulders. "And those outside, with... with the men who... used to work here are your Dirty Leg Gang."

"Ah ah ah," Betty said, waggling the cigarette in front of his face. "The Dusty Leg Gang." She clutched a handful of his silver hair in her hand. She stood and pulled back gently, leaning over him so closely he could feel the heat of her face against his. 

"There's a difference," her dusky voice whispered. Their lips nearly brushed. He blinked and swallowed again.  She let go of him and stepped away, picking up a crumpled sheet of paper off the teller's desk. The teller herself, an adorable little blonde thing that cried big old crocodile tears when she was scared, had been trussed up and led outside with the others when Betty and hers and come through the door. The paper unfolded with a crackle.

"Do you know the difference, dandy boy?" Betty asked, her eyes fixed on the paper.

"No ma'am," he said, "I'm afraid I don't."

"City boys," she scoffed. "Out in the colonies, 'dirty leg' is slang for a beggar, and 'dusty leg'..." She paused, running down the list on the paper with her finger. She found what she was looking for and folded the paper to mark her spot. "Dusty legs are riders, horsemen as it were. But..." She turned back to him and cocked a hip to the side, resting her hand on it and rolling her eyes. "It's also slang for prostitutes, on account of their proclivity to, ahem, ride for living." A short shrug. 

"When me and mine got invested in our current trade," she continued, "the powers that be deigned to name our new company after our old profession." Betty slapped the dandy on his shoulder. "Course some of my party were a bit miffed." She pursed her lips and nodded, blowing out another cloud of smoke. The heady scent of the burning tobacco filled the room. "But, I say, let 'em make their little jokes. Long as me and mine are taken care of, what does it matter?" She squatted down in front of him and chuckled. 

"Maybe when I retire I'll be bank man like yourself," she said, "and they'll call my outfit the Old Bandit Trust. Haha! That's truth in advertising if I've ever seen it." She slapped his knee for him, and he just smiled and nodded. 

"Now down to business," she said, sitting sideways on his lap and throwing her cigarette arm around his neck. She held the piece of paper up to his face, pointing out a name in the tiny, printed list on the page. "See that, right there?"

"Yes ma'am," he said.

"That's your name, isn't it?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And what does... this say right here, is that your title?" She pulled her cigarette to her mouth, purposefully pushing his face into her breast to do so. He tensed up and she chuckled. Scared, soft blue eyes glanced up at hers and then back to the page. He swallowed and nodded. She crossed her legs and used her boot heel to scratch at her calf through the high wall of her boot.

"Executive branch manager, ma'am," he responded. 

"Executive branch manager," she echoed, nodding as though she was impressed. "That sounds very important." She turned his face toward hers and tucked down her chin to get a closer look in his eyes. He didn't resist. "How does a cute, young thing like yourself get such an important position..." Betty took another quick look at the ledger. "...Jeffery?"

"My... my uncle is a lawyer for the firm," he replied slowly. His eyes stayed focused on hers. 

"Oh," she said, "then you must be very, very important." Their faces were close enough to share the shadow from the brim of her hat. 


Steam Ch. 02



"I...suppose so ma'am," he said quietly. She moved closer, licking her lips. The fingers of her left hand curled lightly against his collarbone, trailing down his chest. His eyes closed, and he lifted his chin to close the distance. Leather squeaked around his wrists. The binds prevented him from getting closer.

"Well then," she said, backing away from his face and grinning. "You might be able to help me." Betty turned to sit on him like he was an actual chair, setting her feet just outside of his. "You see... Oh, hold on, gotta stretch." She placed her hands on his knees and arched her back, popping it while pushing her butt hard against his lap.

"Oh dear," he whispered, leaning his head back. His hips pushed up against her reflexively. She grinned, even though he couldn't see, and took a drag of the nearly dead cigarette and through it away into the corner of the room.

"You see," she continued, "it says on this list, which I came into possession of through very strange means, that there are only three people who know the combination to that very large metal door in the back there." She pointed at the names as she ran down the list. "A miss Beverly Tanner, president of your fine company, mister Buck Buckley, your boorishly named district manager, and one mister Jeffery Speakeasy." Betty slapped the page. "Well that's you isn't it?" He gulped.

"Yes ma'am," Jeffery said. 

"Hmm," she said, rocking her hips slowly back and forth on top of him. He groaned, and she could feel how hard he was even through the cloth between them. Betty turned and knelt in front of him, rested her elbow his thighs and met his eyes. He was breathing heavily, mouth slightly open. "Well, dandy boy, it seems we may have just created a state of mutual beneficence." She pushed her hand down his thigh, and let her thumb ride up the shaft of his cock when she got to it.

"My lord," he gasped, shaking his head. "Ma'am, please, I'm not... in possession of the... oh dear god," he said as she pushed the full weigh of her palm against him, wrapping her fingers around him through his silk trousers. "No matter... oh my...I can't tell you." Deft fingers quickly unhinged his belt, slid it loose and let it fall to the floor. A wicked grin slid across her teeth. 

"Oh, you want me to stop dandy boy?" Betty asked, ripping her hand down and sending the buttons of his fly scattering across the floor. He said nothing. "I didn't think so." Betty backed off him and stood, unbuttoning her embroidered leather vest and setting it on the back of one of the unused chairs her posse had pushed to side earlier, and then unhooked her pistol belt and hung it from the same chair. Slowly, she unbuttoned the top three buttons of her shirt and rolled up the sleeves. Jeffery's eyes rested on the exposed tops of her breast, achingly rolling from freckle to freckle.

"I'm going to let you in on a little fact, dandy boy," she said, green eyes half lidded and locked on his. Every step she took toward him thudded in his heart. The thin silk of her rumpled shirt did little to hide the size and outline of her breasts. They sashayed as she walked, her nipples tracing little circles back and forth against the fabric. She sat on him, straddled him, and pushed back his forehead to force his eyes up to hers. "Nobody can keep a secret from Brass Buckle Betty."

Buttons popped and clattered across the floor as she ripped open the front of his dress shirt, rolling on the floorboards and getting lost in the gaps. She pulled out a silver tube of lipstick from her back pocket, and twisted it in front of him so that he could see the color. Fresh, deep brown, just like the smattering of freckles at the top of her chest. Soft blue eyes enviously traced the line of her lip as the lipstick colored it. Betty smacked her lips and grinned.

"Do you want to know why?" She asked, using the lipstick to draw a pentagon on the front of his chest. With a few quick gestures, she added glyphs and a circle to the inside of the pentagon. His face was a mask of confusion. Betty winked. "Cause I'm magic baby." She pressed her hand on the sigil on his chest and kissed him. He moaned and kissed her back, their tongues meeting just past his lips.

Betty's hands snaked down his flanks, grabbed hold of the side of his trousers and pulled down, freeing his cock. Her fingers encircled him and he gasped and pushed his mouth against her harder. She broke the kiss and leaned back, sneering arrogantly. His dick was rock in her hand. She began pumping up and down slowly and he arched his back in return.

"Now what were you saying about that combination, dandy boy?"

"That. I. Can't..." His body shuddered as she picked up pace. She clucked her tongue at him.

"You... can't?" She asked, slowing down to rub the tip of his cock with her thumb in long, slow circles. Leather bindings screeched as his stomach flexed in response. Such a slender little man, thought Betty, this dandy boy. "Well I don't think that's true." Fingers squeezed and stroked. Jeffrey hissed and bit his lip. "Should I stop?"

"No," he groaned, "please, god no."

"Then you need to do something for me," she said.

"I can't ma'am." His breaths came quick and ragged. His ass flexed and his head rolled back, eyes focused on nothing. "Please. Understand."

"Oh, you don't have to darling," Betty said, leaning in. Her lips brushed his ear. Hot breath grazed his cheek, cooling the beads of sweat along his jawline. She whispered: "I just want you to say that you would give anything to cum right now." Her tongue flicked at his ear lobe. "Say it, and mean it."

"Anything," he whispered, then louder: "Anything. Oh fucking god anything."

"Deal," she whispered, wrenching his mouth to hers by his hair. He moaned into her mouth as she finished him off, his come speckling his pants and the back of her wrist. 

"Oh, dear lord," he gasped as she broke the kiss. She let him rest his head on her shoulder as she finished the last few breathless strokes, pushing what was left out of him with her thumb. "Why did you... finish... when you knew I couldn't tell you what you needed to know?" Betty chuckled.

"Oh darling," she said, wiping herself clean with his shirt, "you just did." He met her eyes, confused. "108, right 236, left 614." His face fell.

"No. No, I didn't say," he protested, shaking his head in disbelief. 

"You didn't have to darling," Betty said, slapping him squarely on his chest. "That there's a trade spell."

"Oh no," he said, leaning back to get a better look at his chest. Tears began welling up in his eyes. "Oh god what've I done. Oh shit."

"Sold the farm," Betty laughed, "least by the looks of it." Her attention moved to the back of the room. "Ya'll get that?"

"Yes ma'am," said Lucy Smalls from her position beside the door. Betty's second in command leaned her head out the door. "Buckle's done, get in here with the trolleys."

"Who is that?" Jeffrey asked, trying to twist his head around to see behind him. Fear had slit his throat, his face was bloodless. "Was...was there someone in here while we..."

"Hm?" Betty dropped a tobacco pouch and some rolling papers on the teller's window. "Was there somebody in here while I jerked you off?" She nodded nonchalantly. "Oh yeah. Well, for most of the time toward the end at least, not that that was very long by any stretch." Betty shrugged and rolled a cigarette with a quick, one-handed motion. Jeffery shook his head in slow disbelief, his eyes wide and staring. She popped the cigarette into her mouth.

"Fastest hands in the west," Betty added with a chuckle, fake shooting Jeffery in the chest with a finger gun. She jerked a thumb at the pouch of tobacco. "Want one? I'm always a fan of smoking afterwards." Her gaze dropped the flaccid remnants of his once-proud boner. "Er, um, regardless of whether or not afterwards constitutes a whole hell of a lot." Lucy sniggered from the door, raising a dark skinned hand to cover her mouth. Jeffery's blood found its way back into his face.

"You... you play as though this is some sort of... of fucking game woman?" He hissed rather than asked. "You... you have slain me! I am a dead man!"

"Your bosses are actually going to kill you over getting robbed?" Betty asked, snapping her fingers to light her cigarette. She held the spell a second too long and it burned her. She cursed under her breath and rubbed her thumb on her chaps.

"Worse! They will fucking fire me!" Betty took a drag off her cigarette and blew the smoke up into the rafters. The clatter of trolleys across the cobblestones outside began to echo through the building.

"You know," she said, "Lucy back there, well she killed about a dozen of your employees today. Far as I see it, you got off a might bit luckier than you're giving yourself credit for." He stamped his foot against the ground.

"Fuck you," he squawked, "you fucking two bit hand jobber. Go fuck yourself, you whore, what do you think of that?" 

"Hmm," said Betty, nodding her head and raising an eyebrow. "I think I'll actually let my associate field that one. Ms. Smalls?" Lucy stomped up to Jeffrey from her position by the door, stood in front of him and leaned in. Lucy Smalls was a heavily built, dark skinned woman from the Ruined Isles. Lucy Smalls had once thrown a jane out of a three-story window for trying to short her after a trick. Lucy Smalls was not to be trifled with. She backhanded Jeffrey cold, slapping some sense into his head and some blood out of his face. She jabbed a finger into his face.

"No doing speaking like that to a fine lady like Buckle, yeah?" She asked. He shook his head. "Pretty little boys like you should keep their language soft like their hands, less they lose their tongues for not knowing how to use them. We have each other, little dandy?" He nodded and focused on his lap. Betty shook her head and motioned for Lucy to follow her outside. Lucy nodded, handing a slip of paper with the safe's combination to one of their company on the way out. She grabbed the boy's arm.

"Let our blood know," she said to him, "we only have eyes for metal and jewels. Send the magi in first, have them sniff out the ambuscades before we pack. We have each other?" He nodded and smiled.

"Ay, mom, to have and to hold," he responded with a snigger. Lucy chuckled and smacked him on the back of the head. He pushed the rumbling trolley inside. Lucy followed Betty out into the sun, across the twisted main street cobbles to the water pump in the town square. The flat, rusted flange of the handle was cold against her hand. Betty lipped her cigarette and began pumping to no avail. After a few fruitless seconds, she backed up away from it, plucking out her cigarette and looking up at the colorless sky. Her short fingernails scratched at her palm.

"'Deserts of your own creation'", she mumbled to herself. Silence lay over the town around them, leaving only the steady rush of the desert wind down Main Street and the clattering of the trolleys in the bank. Heatherton was a small, quiet frontier town in the middle north of the Imperium. The houses were shabby, pine board boxes, like coffins you could live in. Betty hated it here, because it reminded her of home.

"You've got something on your mind Buckle?" Lucy asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. Betty reached up and patted her fingers, shaking her head. 

"Yes... no, you know how it is," she shrugged. "Hey, can you get this thing going? I gotta... wash my hand off."

"Yeah mom, we have each other," Lucy replied, kneeling down by the spigot. She pulled the lever down to an open position and placed her hand on the feed pipe. Water flooded out a second later, splattering dark brown dots into the dirt around them. Betty washed herself quickly.

"Thanks," Betty said, drying her hands off on her pants. 

"Yeah," Lucy replied, standing and brushing the dust off her knees. A black bird cried somewhere off in the distance.

"Look," Betty said, taking a last drag off the cigarette and dropping it into the wet dirt. "I'm feeling like it's about time to call it a quits heading this thing."

"Yeah?" Lucy asked, fixing the brim of her hat. A tiny set of eyes, some small child, peered over the edge of a windowsill in nearby house. Lucy fixed the kid with a glare and the kid flopped back down out of sight. "Feeling your age then?"

"Hey," Betty said, slapping Lucy on the arm.

"Not wasting time on the lie mom, you been at this for what, a decade? Never been caught, but you been shot, stabbed and brained good a few times, albeit to no effect. That's a lot of luck to go walking around wasting if you never take time to enjoy it." Lucy shrugged. "I was you? I'd have walked years ago, took what I could and headed back down to the islands."

"Damn Smalls," Betty chuckled, "one might come to thinking you didn't want 'em around."

"Psh," Lucy scoffed, "you go, I go. The deal's the deal's the deal, we have each other?"

"Yeah, Smalls, we have each other."

"Oi, boss!" One of bandits yelled from the door of the bank. He sprinted wildly across the street to Betty. "Boss." He said breathlessly, holding up a freshly printed shipping schedule. "Our blood spied this going through the vault. It's a right stunning find."

"Show your hand," said Lucy, demanding an answer in her frustratingly southern dialect. Betty still had trouble, at times, with the winding nonsense the southerners spoke, even after a decade of getting into mischief alongside one.

"Ay, see this then," the boy started. Betty remembered his name was Primo. She had always had trouble putting names to faces, even in her own crew, but especially when it was a new guy. Lucy had drug Primo along after a rough job in the north had made him persona non grata with his old pimp, primarily because Lucy had taken the man's hand off at the wrist. The boy pointed at a mark on the schedule.

"There's cargo here and here that never made it up this way, cause it got rerouted down in Bailey," Primo said. "But, there is nowhere to reroute it to, cause no trains will be leaving that can carry a load this heavy, except this one." He pointed to a name, the Bella Faccia. 

"Show your hand boy," said Lucy, "what's the game?"

"This paper has shipping information for all these boxcars, but this one is leaving at full weight without everything accounted for. See here? Paper says there's all these empty cars but that the train's at max weight. It don't click, we have each other?"

"Hmph, yeah boy, good on ya,'" said Lucy, slapping the kid on the back. "Get back with your blood, fill them trolleys so we can get to going."

"Ay mom, we have you," he said, running back into the bank.

"Hey Primo," Betty called after him. He turned. "Get that dandy cleaned up and set him with the others, no point leaving the poor bastard trussed up like that." Primo nodded and ran off.

"You got any thoughts for this train, or is the Brass Buckle still feeling too old for law breaking?" Lucy asked. Betty chuckled and kicked the dirt.

"Yeah Smalls," she said, "I got thoughts for this train. A few actually."

"Care to share them?" Lucy asked.

"Maybe," Betty said, "when they're finished cooking up there. Genius is rarely half baked." She kicked a clod of dry dirt into the wet spot beneath the spigot, and then turned to head back into the bank. "Why don't we see if we get away with this job before we start planning the next one, right?"

"Right mom, I have you," Lucy said. 

They headed back to the bank, walking on their shadows.

Pram laid her face against the warm brass flank of the Bella's power plant. She listened through to the hollow space between the pipes and wires, to the off-count ticks and clicks of the metal shifting as it cooled. The engineering team had just checked her over for the last time before departure, and, soon enough, they'd be together again.

She made a gloved fist and struck the hull's reflective surface. It rang with a deep, hollow base note that reverberated gently in her chest.

"Hey!" A voice down the line yelled. Pram turned to see Kenneth, the chief engineer, eyeing her from beneath a set of bushy black eyebrows. The man's entire head was a mess of thick black hair. "I just had the old girl polished. Just cause you drive this baby don't mean you can go greasin' 'er up with your nasty, unwashed hands Beazley." Pram smiled wickedly and dragged a squeaking finger down the side of the Bella.

"But my baby likes getting dirty boss," she replied, slapping the engine barrel underhanded and turning to it. "Don't you baby?" He belly laughed.

"Something wrong with you Beazley," he said, slapping a black-streaked hand across the front of his overalls. "Gotta say I'm a fan, but there is definitely something wrong." He rapped his knuckles against the hull. Pong. "Good thing I'll be rid of you once we hit Coalton, eh?" She shrugged.

"Dunno yet boss," she said, "Cartwright said Compton's ready to throw me a fairly big stack to stay on till Brut."

"Oh yeah?" He asked, raising a heavy eyebrow. "How much?"

"The envelope had weight to it," she replied, "let's just leave it at that."

"Nice," he said, "wish I could renegotiate from time-to-time. But my place is here, with my beloved Bella." He patted the hull. "So you gonna take the offer?" 

"Maybe," Pram said, adding: "Probably. Not like I have much else going on at the moment, and I'd hate to have to just ride somebody else's train back to Crosus for the next job." Kenneth grunted.

"Fair 'nuff," he said, "but how's about we get to work before we lose ourselves in daydreams of grandeur."

"I don't even know what that means boss," Pram replied. Kenneth had grown up in the colonies before moving out east for schooling. The decades had grayed his hair, but he had never lost his colonial penchant for saying indecipherable bullshit. 

They walked to the far side of the hull, where a two-step ladder led up to the front of the engine compartment. Kenneth pulled out a gold colored key and popped open the access hatch, gesturing for Pram to go first. She fake curtsied and he shook his head at her before following her inside.

The power plant was the two-car-long heart of the Bella Faccia. It sat just behind the conductor's car. Masses of curled silver, gold and black piping twisted and coiled around the inside of the car, all terminating in and emanating from the cylindrical central chamber. It was a cramped, squatting walk for anybody taller than Pram.  Everywhere else but here she felt like a visitor. Here? Here she was home.

"Hello?" Called a voice from the backside of the central chamber. It was Pico, Kenneth's assistant engineer. "This car is off-limits to none essential personnel during the inspection period." Pram could make out the shifting light of an electric torch casting skinny shadows through the pipework. 

"Come off it, Pico," said Kenneth, his voice booming in the small compartment. "There's a lock on the door, who'd be coming in here what wasn't allowed? And who told you to get started early?" Pico's eyes popped up from the shadows.

"We're behind schedule boss," he said. He shrugged his skinny shoulders. "Mr. Cartwright wants the Bella up and ready to go by the time the last crew of civilians finishes boarding." 

"I swear I can feel that man's chin whiskers on my prostate he's so far up my ass," Kenneth muttered. "Alright then Pico, finish whatever you're doing and get back up here. Beazley's gotta turn this girl over and get those batteries charged, or our fancy ladies in the passenger cabins are going to start complaining that they can't see down their noses at the wait staff." 

"A-alright boss," he said, ducking down and hitting a pipe with his chin in his haste. Ping. "...motherfucker."

"I swear I hate not being able to pick and choose my assistants," Kenneth said. Pico, who was bout four years too young for the job he currently held, had been forced on Kenneth by somebody high up the chain of command. Kenneth blamed his misfortunes on nepotism. Pram, admittedly, didn't like the guy either.  He was...slimy.




Steam Ch. 02



Pram patted Kenneth on the shoulder and walked over to the cylinder, popping the round hatch at the end of it open. It was pitch dark inside, as expected, though she could still make out glints of light reflecting off the gold runes inlaid into the sides of the chamber. Pico's head popped out from beneath the chamber, between her legs. 

"Holy shit," she exclaimed, resisting the urge to punch him in the face.

"What?" He asked, pushing himself out from beneath the chamber as she stepped aside.

"A little warning next time, maybe?" She asked. "And can I get that torch?"

"Torch?" He asked, standing up and brushing off the front of his overalls.

"Yeah," she said, "the torch. I need to inspect the sigil for damage before ignition and I obviously can't use low point-value spells, right? Can I borrow the torch?"

"This?" Pico asked, pointing to the silver cylinder in his hand. "This is not a torch, this is a flashlight."

"What? No, seriously? It's a torch, an electric torch. Flashlight doesn't even make sense."

"It makes sense inside the Imperium," he said, "where you live." 

"No," said Pram, taking the torch from him. "It doesn't, and where we're both from it's called an electric torch. Because it's a torch, that's electric. A flashlight would turn on, like, once and then go off. Because that's what flash means."

"You islanders all the same," Pico yawned.

"What? You're from the ruined isles too!" She exclaimed, running the light from the torch up and down the front of him. He glared at her.

"Yes, I suppose I am," he said, turning around and pulling a clipboard from behind his back. "Don't you have work to do?"

Pram briefly thought about how wonderful it would be to pull a boulder out of otherspace and drop it on his head. She had a high-enough conduit grade to do it to, but just drawing out the spell could potentially take years. Pram wished she were a low conduit grade sometimes, so she could set people's hair on fire when she was mad, just like anybody else. Pico could probably set her hair on fire if he wanted to.

She sighed. Having a massively high conduit grade was such a bullshit gift.

Pram shone the light inside the central chamber, craning her head to look around a bit before sitting on the lip off the opening and letting herself slide inside of it. 

The interior of the chamber was a seventeen-point polyhedron with seventeen individual faces, laid out as a sideways obelisk. Intricate golden runes were inlaid into the wrought iron walls of the chamber. Various shapes, geometric and calligraphic, formed what, as a whole, was called the sigil, the esoteric name of the spell. 

Pram ran her hand down the polished surface of the panels, only half-reading each rune as her fingers passed them. Speed. Pressure. Power. Old words. Dead words with little meaning outside of magic craft. Much of what she knew she learned during her years at the college in Crosus, not that it mattered much. Complex, high point-level spells were researched and published over lifetimes of work by professionals in their fields. 

This momentum spell was written by Hartwell Mary-Compton, who died a hundred some-odd years ago. Hartwell's intention had been to create a spell capable of teleporting rock out of mineshafts, but had instead created a spell that could power clockwork devices. The Imperium named a bridge after her, and she died very rich.

Pram was just the conduit through which the spell's purpose was enacted, a sort of metaphysical tube that connected supernatural energy sources to the sigils they powered. Her massive conduit size meant she could control huge amounts of power, but had little control over the "direction" they moved, whereas small conduit users like Bennett could easily cast spells, but very weak ones comparatively. 

It was essentially the difference between a riverbed and a garden hose. Subtle versus overt. Pressure and flow made magic work. Water that would fill the hose would fail to fill the riverbed, and even a fraction of the riverbed's capacity would shatter the hose. People who tried to cast outside their gauge often died, and almost always lost their affinity. They became Enfeebled.

Pram finished her inspection and got out of the chamber, taking a clipboard off the wall and checking ticks down the line. Kenneth and Pico had already finished and left, leaving her alone in the power plant. It was required, people lacking her affinity and conduit gauge would be incinerated if they stayed in the compartment during the ignition sequence. She pulled a conical, black speakerphone off the wall and pulled down on the talk lever beneath it.

"Boss, this is Pram," she said through the receiver.

"Yeah Pram, this's me," Kenneth replied, his voice shot through with gravely static. "You ready to go?"

"Yes sir," she said, "estimate five minutes to ignition."

"Roger," he replied, "all inspections are a go out here. Pass through your clipboard and start her up."

"Roger," she said, hanging up the receiver and letting the lever go. She passed the clipboard through a slender metal slot by the door and slid a thin metal shutter down over it. Kenneth pounded the hull to let her know he received it, and she pounded back that she heard.

Pram stripped off all of her clothing besides the black thermals and stowed them away. Thermal underwear was more for modesty's sake than for comfort, they weren't very warm, but they also wouldn't get incinerated in the chamber like everything else she had been wearing. On more than one occasion her clothing locker had malfunctioned and been ripped open during transit, leaving her with nothing to wear until one of the engineers fetched her a new uniform from her baggage. 

The torch went in with the clothing as well. The engine compartment was pitch black without the artificial light, but she found her way well enough by feel and memory. The Bella had been her home for two years now, and every step across the cold steel was as familiar as a midnight trip to the bathroom. Her finger found its way to the face of her watch, feeling the steadfast ticks through the glass. It would survive the fire, it always did. 

She lay down inside the drive chamber, not bothering to close the door behind her. Activating the spell would do that on its own anyway. Her eyes closed, despite the darkness, and soon the compartment began hum.

White fire trickled down from the tip of the sideways obelisk, following the latticework path of embossed gold. The steel door clanged shut as though it was being pulled closed by a magnet. She floated up above the floor of the obelisk as it began to rotate around her, the same white fire on the runes dripping out of her mouth, nose and eyes. Temperatures outside the compartment rose dramatically, until, with a soundless whump, the oxygen inside the engine room ignited and was gone.

Pram's skin, blood and muscle melted away, disappearing into the light until only a skeleton was left, and then not even that remained. She felt nothing but transcendental bliss, a purely euphoric absence of thought. Pram was light itself, filling the chamber and leaking out into the cabin, into the electrical systems, the clockwork, the miles of pipework. Into the Bella herself. Water evaporated, became steam, and the Bella roared to life.

Nash found that he rather enjoyed working on the railway. One of his superiors, a slop-faced lady named June, had instructed him to do a secondary sweep of the back compartments for any hiccups in the electrical systems. Commonplace work for a commonplace man, he thought, noting nothing out of the ordinary on the hundredth car in his 295 car (that's strange I counted a clean 300 outside, haha) inspection. He whistled as he went about his work, checking the inside and outside light fixtures as he moved down the train.

"I don't know why," June had said, "but Cartwright personally wants you to check the electrical all the way to the back. Is there some big issue with electrical right now? Why do we need a standard maintenance guy onboard anyway?" Nash had just smiled with Bennett's face, apologized for "bullshit bureaucracy", and walked off down the train. Of course he knew the answers to all of those questions, though he wasn't entirely sure Bennett would have, though offing his next target would give him all the information he needed. But that was a ways away, for now, he could just wander the surprisingly wide cars of the Bella and enjoy the simplicity of living as the proletariat do.

Many of the cars he passed through near the front of the Bella were passenger cars, most of which hadn't been loaded yet. First class, big rooms and sleepers, were on the opposite side of the kitchen and the store rooms from the lower class cabins, which had mostly just seats and few awfully uncomfortable looking sleepers. There were bars and storerooms on either side of the kitchen as well, to further buffer the highbloods from their prole cousins down the aisle. 

Past the passenger cars were the modified, windowless cattle cars that the soldiery used for transportation. Long, pitted wood benches ran down the line for all ten of the troop cars. The first eight had loaded and were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with sleeping infantrymen. The last two were to remain empty until Coalton according to the manifest. Nash caught a bit of graffiti carved into the face of one of the wooden boards.

MARY CONTRARY IN DULLES DANE MILLS SUCS DICK FOR PNNIES / INQUIRE AT THE DRWND BOAR

And then below.

DONT DO IT THAT CNTS FULL OF RAZOR BLADES

Nash found himself surrounded by strapped up bindles of heavy steel track line, bound for the frontier where Compton E&L was still laying rail to push further east. Many of the following cars carried a similar payload, boxes of rail ties, spikes, and new excavation and construction equipment for laying rail.

We have to be heading toward Granger Pass, he thought, noting the contents and doubling back when he forgot to check a light fixture. More and more cars brought him to more and more cars full of nothing. 

Passenger luggage, crew luggage, food and medical shipments to the front, three cars full of nothing but three-point sigil weaponry and two mail cars full of tamped down crates, burlaps mail sacks and brown paper packages tied up with string. All ending, of course, with the five nonexistent cars he had found on no other manifest than the one Bennett had been given. Cars that had shiny new Imperium padlocks. Padlocks only he had the key to.

He knew what was in the cars now, which was one of his mission objectives despite his superiors being correct in their hunches about the contents. Correct of course, except for the recent addition of a former Compton E&L employee. Once he had figured out the identity of the last of his four targets, things would begin to get very interesting. The first three were easy to find, but his last target was a professional, like him. This was going to be so much fun, though it was a shame that he would have to kill the cute little Steam Trainer girl.

Nash shrugged and pursed his lips, despite nobody being around to see the gesture. Work was work, and you had to take the good with the bad. 

Speak of the devil, he thought, as the electric lights above him flickered to full power above him. The Steam Trainer had ignited the Bella's engine, which meant it was essentially time to take off. A sudden burst of power kicked through the drive train a kilometer up the line, jerking the train forward and nearly taking Nash off his feet. He stumbled and caught himself against large crate simply marked: BLACK STUFF.

"Folks, this Perry Cartwright, your conductor." Cartwright's voice came out loud over the tinny intercom speakers. "Sorry for that little bit of a jolt, just some pre-departure hiccups. As a note, the Bella Faccia will be departing Old Bailey Hub momentarily, so please find your seats and place for your belongings. Thank you, and thanks for riding Compton E&L."

Nash righted himself and continued his inspection of the train, humming aloud to himself car after car. It was an old song, one that he couldn't quite place, but that he knew he'd remember the name of as soon as he forgot the tune. Oh well, he thought, it's always best to look on the bright side of things. Something was off. He sniffed the air. Hairs rose on the back of his neck. 

Sulfur.

Chills ran up the back of his spine and he found that his good mood had quite suddenly vanished. His searched the car around him, quickly scanning the labels of the crates. Boots, bandages and BLACK STUFF, but nothing that would smell so strongly of sulfur. His eyes darted to both sides of the cabin, wondering which door would be his best bet. Which door would be the one to lead him back to the safety of crowds. He looked back to the rear of the car on instinct and saw it in the window of the car, looking right at him.

Nash turned and ran, focusing the little magic he could on powering the sigils tattooed onto his legs. Doors burst out of his way as he ran through car after car, some slapping the side of the car so hard they rang like a gunshot in the following cabin. It had climbed onto the roof. He could hear it keeping time with his pace above, clomping the hard soles of its feet down step after step. 

Ten cars down in nearly twenty seconds. Nash's lungs burned from the effort, and he could feel the wavering blur of magic burnout encroaching over his eyes. Blinding him. Choking him. 

There was no way he could outrun the thing, and no way he could make it back to the relative safety of being near people who might fight on his behalf. It was final stand time. Ozone stink and white heat crackled from the sigil on his palm as he turned to face the door, readying himself for whatever came through. Sweat burned his eyes. He blinked it away. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing but the stale air of the luggage car and the soft clatter of the train picking up speed as it headed out of the station. Nothing but the grey glow of dust motes as they passed through the sunlight streaming through the window in front of him. Nothing but the acrid stink of the shimmering white blade of heat coming out of his palm. Nothing but him, alone and wearing another man's face, in a dark, lonely luggage car near the back of a doomed train. Nothing at all.

Nash sucked in air through his nostrils and extinguished the blade in his hand. He regained his posture and then his composure, taking a few more deep breaths and trying to wave away the ozone-scented tendrils of smoke from his hand. 

Okay, he thought, I definitely saw that. But, I am definitely not dead or being tortured so that is an obvious plus. A very, very obvious plus. He nodded to himself. Yeah, I'll be just fine. The door slammed shut behind him and he nearly pissed himself. Nash's head whipped around just in time to see Kittredge's beaming face walking toward him.

"Oh...hey," he said, trying not pant.

"Hey...man, what's up?" Kittredge asked, a worried look on his face.

"Nothing, you know, just... uh," he gulped, "finishing up my inspection of the rear cars."

"Why are you sweating?" Kittredge asked, cocking up the world's most infuriating eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm, uh, trying to get back up to the kitchen before the cooks start putting on the roast for the first class passenger's dinner," he said, dragging through the dredges of the mission file for something, anything to get him out of this jam. A fat bead of sweat fell off his face, scattering dust when it landed on the floor. "I'm starving, but the cooks won't make nonessential staff food after they've started cooking for the highbloods." 

"Highbloods?" Kittredge chuckled, "you sound like a Crossian dignitary." 

"Oh yeah? Ha. Ha." 

"So what're you doing in here?"

"Oh, uh." Think Nash, think. Hide in plain sight. Show the ace to hide the pair. Got it. "You smell that ozone in here? Like air burning?" Kittredge sniffed the air and nodded.

"Yeah, kinda."

"Yeah, uh, well you see this light right here?" Nash asked, pointing to one of the fully functional lights hanging over the luggage racks. He climbed the rack and ripped the wire out of the side of it, shutting the light off, and then reinserted the wire, which turned the light back on. "This wire's loose. I noticed in flickering and I tried to get it to stick back in, but..." He shrugged, playing with the wire until a fat spark popped and made the air stink of ozone. "You see."

"Ohh," Kittredge said, "that's pretty crazy. You qualified to repair that sort of thing?"

"Uh, no," Nash replied, jumping down off the rack. "But I figured I might save somebody some time if I could get it back in." He pointed at the clipboard in his left hand. A wet spot had formed around his fingers. "Cartwright told June to send me down here and check out the electrical systems after takeoff, I guess he expected some degree of malfunction, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said Kittredge, turning around to leave. "Either way, let's get out of here so you can get your sandwich, and I can catch up on the sleep I've been missing out on." Nash breathed a sigh of relief, he'd done it.

"So, uh, Kittredge," he asked, "what're you doing back here?"

"Oh," he said, stopping momentarily and raising his eyes to the ceiling. "I thought I saw something out of place, but I guess, maybe, that I was wrong. Either way, it's no big deal." He slapped Nash on the back. "Let's get out of here man, luggage cars give me the creeps."

"Yeah, me too," Nash said, thinking of a gaunt, pale face wreathed by a stringy black mess of hair. And the eyes, he thought.

Black eyes.

Staring right at me.

Sylvia curled up into the great expanse of the red cloak Caan had draped over her. The fire her and the other survivors had been led to crackled softly before her, warming the stones beneath her feet. Only the cold wind at their backs gave her any discomfort, howling as it did up the side of the jagged cliffs behind them. Soldiers cawed and sung beside their own fires throughout the camp, reveling as though the sun had never rose behind the twisted fang of Mount Granger. She wanted to sleep. She would not.

All four survivors sat around her. They had all taken the oath, cast their belongings into the flame to stand before Caan. Each of them was given the same red cloak to hide their bodies from the cold. She wished her hair would dry soon. It hung in wet clumps around her face, bothering her neck and shoulders. Baths had been drawn for them by pyromancers, who melted snow into great old graven bowls in the ruined castle. In silence, they had bathed together, until the bored looking guard had gestured for them to dress and leave.

Now they sat quietly around the fire, gnawing occasionally at the hard chunk of bread they'd been given for breakfast. Only four, from a train staffed by hundreds. There were no tears left for dead bodies in the snow. She tore off a mouthful of bread and chewed slowly, gazing into the fire and at nothing at all. Boots scraped across the ground behind her, and Sylvia turned to see Foucault looming over their circle. He held his hand down to her.

"Come with me," he said. She obeyed. His hand was large, perhaps twice the size of hers, but he lifted her gently. It was like being lifted by a tree, pliant. Unstoppable. She pulled the cloak tightly around herself as she stood, saving herself any more embarrassing nudity.

Foucault was light on his feet for a man of his size. Heavy footfalls belied a lithe sense of poise, and Sylvia could tell by the brisk pace he kept that the man was extremely fast. Unlike many of the lower ranking soldiers, who carried guns, swords and staves, the colonel remained unarmed, save a five point rend sigil engraved into the back of his gauntlet. A sharp bit of rock bit into the bottom of Sylvia's foot, and she gasped and fell forward.




Steam Ch. 03



Hey, this is the third chapter of a multipart story. It's pretty long, so if you're into short form stories this may not be for you. 

I update sporadically. 

Look for the next chapter sometime in the next few months!

*****

Weightless clouds of cold mist float with all the tinkling brilliance of ice cracked by midmorning sunbeams. Impossible birds flutter in the deep periphery, scalding whiteness clear with every nervous wing beat. Their chirps are the deep bass thrum of rubber hammers on steel-plate bulkheads, filtering cold through the gravegrass at the pond's edge and eddying the water. Light flicks in warm fractals off the pond and carves away warmly at the shadows marring Pram's face. Nothing smells like motor oil. Everything tastes like rain.

Her unshod feet press down the angel-hair flowers, their thin, wavering petals sitting still on the air. They would beg had they throats to scream but she passes unperturbed, walking further and further till she meets her reflection at the water's edge. Wind whispered words lick at the corners of her ears but find no purchase. The heat dream around her glows with the oil slick brilliance of a dying coal lantern. Mt. Granger corkscrew-curls its way into the sky at the far edge of the pond.

Windswept quandaries of the unseen voice far beyond the pale edge of Dementia beg for palaver and she ignores them with quiet, maternal patience. Fingernails at her back, dragging gently down supple flesh sans any foul ideation. Fever cracked and crumbling from the ship rot, they find no purchase and fall away into the reedy stillness of the dreamscape.

At the edge of the pond, she finds a single, fat flower, one score and nine petals finding equal footing in gold about the circumference. Pram plucks the flower and it twirls with ballerina grace in her fingers. It grows heavy on the third turn and flattens and thickens until all the green and gold fall away, leaving only the thick, burnished copper of a gear. It slides from her palm, fitting flush into the loamy earth beside her feet. It turns.

The dream shatters, twisting out of focus as some godless machine roars to life beneath her feet. Dirt explodes upward as the clockwork floor roars to life, greedily crunching away at the forest floor. The pond bubbles into steam and puckers as it's sucked away into the depths of the machine. Fire bursts from the floor and all is consumed. It burns away her thin, cotton dress, leaving her naked. The flames invigorate her.

Where once the forest stood now rises around her a clockwork cathedral. Garish red light glows from the furnace mouths set into the walls. Gears and clockwork and pistons fire and screech and whirr around her in obscene cadence. Sulfur stink fills her nose, bites at the end of her tongue. Glyphs of dried blood wind their ways up her arms and legs. A throne waits before her. She steps forward.

"For some," speaks the crone, the windswept voice no longer bound to silence by the rules of Dementia. "This world is a nursery, a playground to leave before conquering the world." The crone hovers alongside Pram, her toe tips brushing along the hot, flat steel floor. The path they follow is coal black and inlaid with gold sigil work. Along either side, rails buried flush with the floor. "Be the babe, or the bottle."

Black smoke coughs out from vents beside the path. Specters, half-seen, wander aimlessly through the choking fog. Some draw close, close enough for Pram to see.

A black-haired man carries a silver-haired baby swaddled in the smoldering remnants of a red cloak. A tarnished blue covers one of his eyes, the other eye stares grimly forward.

A hooded man drags Bennett's corpse along the ground by a noose. Bennett's eyes are white, his mouth, toothless. The noose is woven from ivy, and the hand holding the rope is tattooed in blood. Pram catches the figure's attention, and he shrugs and moves away into the smoke.

A face, gaunt and pale as death rests above the smoke. It watches them pass, saying nothing. Pram can feel the crone shuddering.

The path ends before a massive throne of carved rock. Stars shine down through the roof, bathing the occupant in starlight. A demon sits before her, staring beyond her into the darkness. He is glorious. Massive. Pram's body aches at the sight of his cock, resting like a tired snake on the seat between his thighs, clad in the same polished copper scales as the rest of his skin.

"Wake the beast, magus," the crone whispers. "It is your duty."

Pram ascends the gilded stairs and stands before him. Even asleep, his body radiates heat like a furnace. She runs a hand down his abs, over the deep ridges of his leg muscles. Her mouth waters and she kneels, pulling his cock to her face. He stiffens in her hand, his erection brushing her cheek as he hardens fully. 

Pram twists her face, running her jawbone along the shaft until her lips meet it. She parts her mouth slightly, kissing its flank. The demon shudders. It draws in a long, sucking breath. She moves up his cock, kissing and sucking her way to the tip. Her tongue snakes out from her lips and she licks up the other side of it, stopping at the tip to swirl her tongue in long, slow strokes around the head. One of his hands clenches, unclenches. His wicked, talon-like fingernails scratch channels into the armrest.

She takes his dick into her mouth as far as she can go, her soft brown lips pressing against the shaft with every long, slow suck to the top. He is hot and thick in her mouth, a bar of sun-heated steel in the back of her throat. She moves her hands to his thighs, massaging them and then grabbing on to his hips to keep her rhythm. The demon's buttocks clench, pushing his erection harder into her mouth. 

His hand finds its way off the armrest and onto her back. Heavy and smooth, it moves down to her butt and squeezes hard at her ass cheek. Pram moans with his cock in her mouth, arching her back to give him better access to her bottom. His finger, twice the width of a normal man's, finds her pussy and pushes against it. She gasps, stopping for a moment to breathe with a muffled "mph" around his dick. His fingernail, not sharp enough to hurt her, slides inside of her easily, the rest of his finger following.

Pram pulls her mouth away from his cock, it's too much. She wraps her arms around his lower torso and squeezes, pulling her breasts up the length of his member and letting him finger her deeper. He obliges, pushing his finger the rest of the way in and curling it to push against her special spot. Pram moans and pushes up on her tiptoes in response. She can feel him chuckling through his chest. 

His other hand curls around her chin and turns her face up to his. The demon is insanely handsome, with the carved face of some ancient general and the full lips of a sneering playboy. He picks her up easily and pulls her mouth to his. They kiss deeply, his long tongue slipping into her mouth. She knows what's coming as he shifts down in his seat and her body screams for it. In a second, her pussy is resting just over the tip of his cock.

The demon presses against her without pushing in, teasing her. Her ass rests cheek-by-cheek in his wide, strong hands. Her hands grip his arms just above his elbows. She begs with her eyes. He obliges.

His cock, terrible and hot, fills her to bursting as he slowly, slowly slides her down on top of it. Pram's head falls forward and she gasps. The runes of dried blood on her skin crackle and burn with white fire. Sparks build and fall away from the sigil work, bouncing over the demon's chest and thighs. He slams her down the rest of the way onto his cock and she leans back and screams in ecstasy.

Pram's legs go numb but move in time regardless with the demon's arms as he pulls her body up and down. Her skin glows with white fire. His hand massages her left breast hard. It hurts in the best way possible and she covers his hand with her own, placing her free hand on his shoulder to steady her. She closes her eyes and loses herself to the rhythm. She feels his hand wrap around her neck. His thumb presses against her throat. She gasps. He growls.

The demon spins her around on his lap, entwining his fingers in her hair and pulling with his elbow buried in her back. She gasps and opens her eyes. White fire pours from her face like water, scorching the ground and filling the air with wisps of smoke. It crawls along the path, burning along the runes, up the walls and on to the mad geometry of the ceiling. Pram sees the Flower of Life bloom in radiant circles above her as she comes all over the demon's cock, her thighs buckling under the pressure of the orgasm. 

He stands, feet splayed apart and, holding her by her stomach and throat, begins fucking her harder. Air-starved tears run down Pram's face as his grip tightens, but she doesn't want him to stop. One last, hard pump comes and she feels his cock flex against the walls of her pussy, and then the molten steel pouring of his seed inside of her. He doesn't stop fucking her and she comes again, the white fire of the runes spreading to her entire body in a single brilliant explosion.

In the sudden burst of light, she can see the floor of the chamber is littered with the rotting dead. His cock goes slack inside her and falls out. She feels hot, viscous fluid running down the inside of her thigh. He drops her to the floor and she falls through it and into the darkness beyond Dementia. A voice in the black. Then nothing.

Pram coughed and sat up too fast, smacking her forehead against the ceiling of the drive chamber. It rang with a loud bong that resonated into her own skull.

"Ahh, fuck," she said, laying back and rubbing her forehead with her palm. Soft grey light from the runes' afterglow lit the inside of the drive chamber just enough to see. Pram scooted down and booted open the hatch with her feet, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. Brilliant yellow light pierced the shadowy interior of the chamber. She must have finished the overcharge early.

Pram climbed out of the chamber and stretched, trying to shake off the bizarre remnants of the caster's dream. Dreams and visions were common during long, demanding casting sessions, but it had been a long time since she had had one so bizarre and out of her control. Her face flushed with guilt at how good she had felt and her hand found its way between her legs. She bit her lip and sighed. She shook her head to clear it. 

What in the fuck am I doing? She asked herself. 

Pram decided to bury the memory by getting to work, pulling a reel of hose from a compartment on the wall and spraying down the compartment. Blow off from Steam Training heat filled the compartment with ash, and it was her job to spray it down after each session in the tank. A few minutes later, the job was done and she was halfway finished forgetting the bizarre dream. Her stomach growled.

"May as well get something to eat," she said to herself, rubbing her stomach. Pram popped the hatch on her storage locker and dressed. The feel of her watch against her wrist wasn't as calming as usual. She frowned and got ready to leave the compartment. 

Something about the ticking, she thought.

"...and a bedroll," said the supply worker, dropping the heavy, wet-feeling mat onto the makeshift table in front of Sylvia. She pawed over top the gear, trying to look as though she had any idea what she was looking at. The dented silver mess kit, hanging off a ring on the side of the pack was the only bit she honestly recognized, though bedroll seemed self-explanatory. 

She had never camped as a child, she thought, running her palm over the moldy stitching of her new sleeping gear. The moment of pride she had felt telling Foucault she would rather be a janitor than turn her arms against her people had begun to fade as her life became steadily more awful. She cursed her pride, and then thought better of it, puffing out her chest and slinging the load over her shoulder.

"You need to sign for this," said the supply officer. He set a steel clipboard on the desk in front of her. Sylvia had to lean awkwardly to the side to scrawl her name on the correct line. 

"Thanks, new blood," he said, pulling back the board and double-checking it. "You can go."

Sylvia smiled and turned to file into the ranks of red cloaks beginning the day's march out of the castle. That was her rank now, new blood. Inductee. Low man on the totem pole. She hadn't exactly been royalty on the Turandot, but being a Steam Trainer could hardly be considered roughing it. 

One of the other inductees, some other girl, had been called up after she turned down Foucault. Sylvia had caught a glimpse of her, essentially glowing in her new clothing, sitting on her own horse in the front third of the formation. Prestige and rank carried the privilege of walking toward the front of the formation, where the ground hadn't yet been torn up by the ambling horde.

Sylvia's foot hit a rock embedded in the thick mud. Her ankle twisted over it and she fell, hip first into the cold mud. Her face hit with a smack. She could feel it creeping into her mouth, taste the grit of the little bits of sand and rock. Soldiers chuckled around her and kept walking. Maybe, she thought, she could just lay there forever until she passed away from starvation and embarrassment. 

Somebody pulled her roughly to her feet and palmed the mud on the right side of her face off of her eye. Through the muddy gauze of tears in her eye, she could see it was one of the other survivors, a sandy-haired man. He pulled hard on the straps of her pack, tightening it against her shoulders until it hurt, then turned her around completely. 

Her torso jerked back and forth as he rearranged and tightened and torqued up on whatever miscellaneous fasteners he could find. She stared out into the snow-capped horizon, mortified, trying to blink her eyelashes free.

"There," he said, turning her back around to face him. Bluish eyes... northern? 

"Thanks," she muttered.

"Yeah," he replied curtly. "Keep your pack high and tight on your back, and walk through the mushy stuff with your legs apart a bit. Stay balanced, yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, but he was already off. She looked around. Only the empty, broken castle was left behind her. A fat mound of snow sat atop the fire pit. The very back of the formation, she thought. 

The walking was easy enough, save for the slippery bits. The army followed a long, sloping spiral down the side of the mountain. Through the buildup of mud and ice, Sylvia could sometimes see the flat grid work of heavy stone cobbles, the same color and cut as the ruined castle. A road, more ancient than she could imagine, carved from the side of the mountain. Without it, they would have surely had to climb.

The icy road wound its muddy way through the mountains, dipping down the side of one and curling round the waist of another. It was an intricate, stony ribbon twinning effortlessly through the pass. Going uphill would be harder, Sylvia though, but not by too much. The grade was almost nonexistent, though getting through the thick ice without a pyromagus would be nearly impossible. 

All of what she could see was a jagged vista of mountaintops, stretching out into the grey mists of the horizon. Sunlight reflected in diffused golds and reds from the snowcaps, leaving the gray rocks beneath painted in blue and shadow. The army of Caan was a red snake, sliding its way down the mountain path.

Sylvia pushed forward to catch up with the blond-haired survivor. They had been walking for hours, and talking could keep her mind off the growing numbness in the pads of her feet.

"Hey," she said, surprised at how out of breath she sounded.

"Yeah," he replied, not turning to look at her. 

"So, uh, where do you think we're going?" She asked. She forced herself not to sound winded while asking the question, which only made things worse. The word "going" nearly made her hack up a lung. If he noticed, he didn't show.

"East," he replied. "Far as I can tell."

"Why?"

"War, I suppose," he said. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his wrist, and then curled his thumb back under the strap of his pack. Sylvia did the same, and was disheartened to see her forearm caked with brown.

"With the Imperium?" Sylvia asked. She looked at the line of red stretching ahead down the path. Hundreds, thousands maybe, but the Imperium's volunteer forces alone numbered in the millions. "They don't have anywhere near enough people."

"Maybe," he said, "maybe not. None of this makes sense. We shouldn't even be alive, much less walking behind this formation wearing the enemy's colors." He shook his head, flicking a bead of sweat off his bangs. Sylvia couldn't argue. The whole situation was insane.

"Is this..." She started. "Is this all some sort of trick or something?" She glanced at him. "Are we going to die?" He paused for a long time. Without his voice, the only sound was the roaring echoes of thousands of feet falling in time.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, we're probably going to die."

Sylvia stopped talking to him and looked at the footprint filled ground passing by quickly beneath her. 

The formation stopped abruptly in front of her, a single word being passed quickly down the ranks. Somewhere in the far distance, something like an eagle screamed into the wind. The word, Caanish, just a few syllables she couldn't make out. The screech got louder. Dragon?

"Get down!" The blond haired man yelled, grabbing her by her pack straps and throwing her to the ground. Sylvia barely had time to see the entire line of red ducking down and as close to the mountainside as possible. The screaming grew louder, became soundless. It felt as though all the air in the world was being shredded apart. 

"What's happening?" She tried to scream, but the air was sucked from her lungs. The noise became physical; it pushed them down into the mud. She turned to look at the sky and saw it, just a black flicker against the clouds. A dark blur gone as soon as it came. The noise hit its crescendo in a single, massive crack Sylvia felt throughout her spine. Then the noise was gone, replaced by some deep rumbling.

"What was that?" Sylvia asked, feeling panic rising up in her. A new round of shaking was beginning, somehow more forceful and yet much quieter than whatever had just passed.

"GET DOWN!" He screamed back at her, grabbing a handful of her top and pulling her in closer to the mountain just in time for her to see a boulder the size of a train car falling toward her out of sky. She screamed and crossed her arms in front of her face, waiting for the pain to come.

Instead, a sound not unlike an old, massive bell rang the length of the path. Nothing hit her. Nothing at all. She opened her eyes and looked through the space between her arms to see a few large rocks sitting three meters in the air above her. Just resting there, as though some invisible platter was holding them there. A physical barrier.

"Holy fucking shit," said the blond beside her. "Oh no fucking shit. What the hell?"

"Uh," Sylvia said, swallowing despite her dry mouth. "It's a barrier spell. Like an invisible wall."

"Uh, oh," he said. Another rock, nearly as large as the last, came out of nowhere and smashed itself to pieces in front of their faces. They screamed in unison. "Mother fucker, shit. That is impossible to get used to."

"Yeah," she said, shakily returning to her feet. Soldiers stood and brushed themselves off down the line, most of them just as shook up as Sylvia. "That was, what, a dragon or something? Like... a real dragon?"

"Uh, yeah," the blond said, getting to his feet as well. "That's about the closest I've ever gotten to a living one. They're the reason you don't travel in mountains like these during the day." He beat some of the dust off his cloak. "They're fiercely territorial, and they shoot around like that to cause rockslides to kill whatever's in their area." He swirled his finger around in the air. "Then they go and eat whatever's sticking out from between the rocks."




Steam Ch. 03



Sylvia shuddered.

"That's wonderful," she said. 

"Yeah," he replied. "You get used to that in the north. 'Fair weather makes foul play for walks in the mountains.'" She cocked an eyebrow. "Dragons won't go flying in bad weather, they move too fast." She nodded. "How did that shield stop those big rocks? I've never seen a caster stop something bigger than cannon shot."

"I don't know," Sylvia replied. A low murmur had risen up at the front of the formation. "I couldn't stop that rock on my own, and even trying to cast a spell in the neighborhood of being strong enough could take hours, days even." She shook her head. "The only thing I can think of is hundreds of mid-level casters casting in tandem, but the energy and concentration that would take is unbelievable."

"Well...shit," he replied, sticking out his hand. Sylvia took it. "Malcolm."

"Sylvia," she replied, shaking his hand.

"Brothers!" Called a voice, magically amplified, from the front of the formation. Caan himself. "The dragons themselves challenge our resolve. ARE WE IMPRESSED?"

"No!" Came the resounding call down the line, echoing strangely off the inside of the barrier.

"Shall we falter? Shall we fail?"

"No!"

"Then onward, my noble sons! The lady of the east spreads her legs for thee!"

The soldiers beat their chests furiously, and Malcolm shot Sylvia a worried look. The call came down the line, and they began marching again.

"So," Sylvia said, after a time, "who were you before all this."

"Just another soldier," he said. "A nobody in need of a paycheck. There's no work in the northern colonies now outside of mining and farming. I wanted to see the world I guess." He gestured to the mountains. "This same range continues all the way up into my homeland. I may as well have never left. And you?"

"Steam Trainer," she said, "with Compton E&L. I... grew up in the capital, and my parents paid for me to go to a very nice college out there. I wanted to major in spell craft, but my grades weren't very good. I have a very high natural tolerance for magic though, so I became a Steam Trainer." She sighed. "And here I am."

"Well," he said, "at least you're getting paid better than me." They both laughed.

"Yeah, I guess there's an upside," she said.

They rounded a final curve and the path opened onto a massive valley, covered in green grass despite the weather. Sylvia could make out speckles of snow gathering atop a massive invisible bubble arching hundreds of meters into the sky. Then they saw it, an almost limitless sea of crimson.

"Behold my children, my brothers and all our new blood," Caan said, his voice once again amplified. A hundred thousand soldiers at least, stood ready in long, well-organized rectangles, awaiting the arrival of their leader. Caan drew his sword and held it in the air above his head. 

"Behold," he screamed, facing his legion, "the Army of Caan."

Their answering roar shook the mountains hard enough to spite a dragon.

Lucy finished rolling a cigarette, lit it, and passed it to Buckle. She brought it up and took a drag, enjoying the brief moment of relief when the buzz hit her. Lucy rolled another for herself. They didn't talk. Only the occasional quiet splash of one of their boots in the alleyway puddles and the bobbing cherries in front of their lips gave away their position. 

Coalton was quiet on the outskirts. Most people out here couldn't afford the power companies' prices. The poor went to bed early, or they left for brighter streets. Either way, they always minded their own business. 

Buckle had seen her own face on a wanted poster a mile out of town. Younger, softer, but unmistakably her in the photo. She ran a gloved finger down her cheek and wondered which bit of leather was softer. The picture had been taken by some clerk in the capital years ago, when young skin was all she needed to hide the meanness in her. Now it crinkled up the skin around her eyes, ran in lines away from the corner of her mouth. She cracked her jaw without dropping the smoke.

"Lantern," Lucy said, moving closer to the building to their left. The Coalton alleyways were cramped and twisted, like the spaces in a broken mouth. Even longtime residents could get lost here at night, but not Lucy. She always new where she stood, where she was going. Buckle respected that about her. 

Some porter, his face half covered in shadow, popped around the corner a block ahead. Buckle tipped her hat forward and hunched her shoulders, following in line behind Lucy. The man held his lantern up to see who he was passing.

"Put those eyes to bed, son," Lucy hissed. "Lest I find them a new home."

The man snorted and continued on, but not before switching the lantern to a different hand. Buckle peaked back at him, watching the ball of light bounce and bob until it was gone into some other alley.

"Lot of 'em out tonight, eh Buckle?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah, Luce," she replied, peaking at the building tops above her. "How much further you reckon?" 

Coalton was plugged with pollution. The sky was black. The building tops were grey. No stars. No color. Just a couple red cherries swaying through the dark.

"Not much," Lucy said. "Gettin' loud yeah?"

"Yeah."

Low, reedy catcalls from some lonesome oboe player had begun to echo into the alleyway. Buckle could see the red glow of kerosene lanterns against the sky. 

"Maybe, Buckle," Lucy started. "Maybe this idea's not quite got wings on it, you get me?"

"Aw Luce," she replied, her eyes still on the glowing red in the clouds. "You don't think my baby chick's gonna fly?"

"I've no love for Fries," Lucy replied, flicking her cigarette into a puddle. "Got love for you could make me see different, maybe, but this whole town feels sick right now."

"You just don't like pimps," Buckle said, chuckling. "Or madams or whatever. Don't sweat it Luce, me and Fries go way back." Lucy laughed.

"Oh, so this mug definitely got sommit planned for us then, yeah?" 

"Yeah," Buckle said, "I'd reckon so."

Buckle had sent word to Fries through the usual backchannels before setting off for Coalton, letting him know something would be in it for both of them if he could help her with a thing she was planning. Fries hadn't wasted any time responding.

"How great am I?" Lucy asked as they emerged from the alleyway onto a wide, dark cobblestone street. Fries whorehouse loomed across the street. Like a fat, red sore, it emanated its own heat into the winter night. Every window on the street was shuttered to the massive eyesore. Even the poor had a sense of dignity.

"Least the hangar rails are well polished, yeah?" Lucy said, pointing at gleaming brass bars hanging in couplet over the street. Coalton's public transportation system. The only stops in these outer wards were at places like these. Places that didn't exist in the inner ward. Places you didn't want to have to walk to, or back from.

"Yeah," Buckle said. The dull roar of drunken voices and brushes on a snare drum had joined the oboe. The song was long, slow and sickly. A hangover in elegy. "Hey, Luce, roll me another one of them, will you? I'm no good at it." Lucy chuckled and rolled the cigarette as they walked.

"Last chance boss," Lucy said, handing over the home roll. Buckle took it, grinned around the smoke and lit it.

"Keep saying that and someday you'll mean it," she said, blowing smoke up at the rails. "Let's say hi to an old friend."

They entered through a set of swinging double doors, pushing past a sleepy-eyed bouncer. The place had its own special sort of aroma. Sickly sweet incense, dry and smoky, mixing with the cloying stink of sweat, sex and spilt alcohol drying into the rug. Below all that, faint, but strong enough to stay with you, eggs that had gone over. 

"Lovely friends you keep Buckle," Lucy said, stepping over a pair of legs jutting out from beneath a coat rack.

Fries' place was a big, cobbled-together network of other, older buildings attached in a slapdash manner by aftermarket corridors. Everything was built at a slant. Seeing further than ten or so meters was impossible in the hallways. Red electric lights did little to illuminate the hallways. The few people they passed shambled by like ghosts, faces to the floor, covered in shadow.

The band, wherever they were, could be heard all throughout the building. The thick, tacky red carpet softened the noise from the instruments and suffocated their footsteps. Occasionally, some thump in a distant room threatened to break the silence, or a muffled chorus of voices. All the while, the oboe, the snare and a trumpet reigned supreme.

"I don't think we're going to look back on this moment as your crowning achievement Buckle," Lucy said, craning her head around to look behind them. "Place here has my hairs upended."

"On end," Buckle corrected.

"'On end' means something different in the broken sea," Lucy said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Lucy said. "On your butt like, have it? You'd be having me say I've a hairy ass." Buckle laughed.

"Well I'll be keeping that under advisement," Buckle replied. The hallway twisted sharply up ahead of them, and they found themselves walking into a relatively large barroom. The music was louder here, but the band was still nowhere in sight. A few patrons sat here and there, quietly chatting over beers and petting thighs beneath tables. The same red light from the hallways lit up the interior of the bar, except for the tables lining the far walls, which were bathed in hideous blue. The entire room was a perfect circle.

They approached the bar.

The bartender, a slim man in a dark suit, raised an eyebrow when they approached. He poured a single drink for a man at the bar, set it down and turned to them.

"Drink, fuck or smoke ladies," he said, resting his hands on the bar and leaning toward them. "What'll it be?" 

He smiled, revealing a mouthful of immaculate teeth, save for two on the bottom left that looked as though they had been smashed with a chisel. A clean-cropped toothbrush moustache sat atop his upper lip. His eyebrows looked drawn on. His hand would be slick with slime if she touched it, Buckle thought.

"Neither," Buckle said.

"Oh my," he replied, "employment then." Lucy chuckled. 

His smile widened, showing the broken teeth continued much further back into his mouth. The thought of a piece of his fractured teeth cracking off when he chewed entered Buckle's mind and she gagged a bit at the thought of it. Crunch.

"Not quite, honey," Buckle said, trying to keep some politeness in her voice. "We're here to speak to Madame Fries."

The bartender's face seemed frozen in smile for a moment. Buckle thought she could see the corner of his lip twitching somewhat. He drummed his fingers on the countertop, then stood. The smile vanished.

"Are you expected?" He asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"Then wait here," he said, turning and walking through a door behind the bar.

"Strange creature," Lucy said when he had gone. 

"Tell me about it," Buckle said, turning and leaning against the bar. The cigarette had almost gone out. She looked around for an ashtray or an empty bottle, but found nothing.

"What gods have you angered to make such lovely friends, Buckle?" Lucy asked, turning and mirroring her stance. Lucy's head swiveled, scanning the bar. There wasn't much to see.

"Just about half of them, I suppose," Buckle said. She plucked the cigarette out of her mouth and scratched her chin in the same motion. "Which is... what, a hundred and...65 million?" Buckle took the cigarette and snubbed it out on the palm of her glove, then set the dead smoke on the bar and clapped the ash off her hands.

"Whichever god is punishing me with Fries is a real cocksucker," she continued. "I met him, oh, fifteen or so years ago I think? Maybe more, I dunno. We were in the same crew at the time, knocking off casino bank cars coming out of Dulles Dane. Small time stuff, you know? He fucked off out here 'bout a decade or so ago and started up this lovely place, I guess. Only whore shop in town, far as I know. Guess he killed the rest."

"Lovely," Lucy said.

"Agreed," Buckle said.

"Ladies," said the bartender. They both turned to look at him. "Madame will take you in his chambers. Please, follow me."

"You sure, partner?" Buckle asked. "Wouldn't want this lot getting out of hand, would you?" She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the mostly empty room. He smiled without using his eyes and gestured to the door he had just walked through.

"Please," he said. "Madame is a very busy man. Haste is a necessity." Lucy shrugged and followed Buckle as she passed through the open section of the bar and into the doorway where the bartender's shadow had disappeared. The door opened immediately onto a crooked staircase of alternating red and black stairs. The colors hurt Buckle's head. 

"Right this way," said the bartender from the top of the stairs, his voice almost being drowned out by the music. It had become almost unbearably loud in the stairwell.

Buckle and Lucy made their ways up the steps, turning right at the top into a hallway identical to the one at the entrance to the building. It was lined with polished black doors, some of which hung open onto empty bedrooms. Buckle caught the eyes of a tired looking prostitute. She was sitting on the edge of a rumpled bedspread in an oversized button-up shirt, smoking a cigarette and massaging her thigh. Like a fucking mirror, Buckle thought unexpectedly. 

They followed the bartender till the hallway split into a Y-shaped fork. A door was set into the angle of the split. The geometry was off-putting to say the least. The bartender opened the door and gestured for the women to go inside.

"Please," he said, "after you."

"Thanks, partner," Buckle said, walking through the door and into Madame Fries office.

The room was bizarrely common in comparison to the rest of the manse. Normal, yellowish electric light filled the white-carpeted room. The office was relatively large, about half the size of the bar downstairs, and shaped like a pentagon. An uncluttered oak desk sat at the far end of the room, in front of a wall made completely of glass. The massive window looked out over the Coalton lights, which only glowed in the distance, in the uptown district. 

"Have a seat ladies," the bartender said, gesturing to the chairs in front of the desk. "Madame will be with you momentarily." They obliged him.

"Lucy," Buckle said in a half-whisper. "I'm full-on promising I'll take you somewhere nice on our next date." Lucy snorted.

"Be holding you to that one, Buckle," Lucy said, reaching over and squeezing Buckle's thigh just above the knee. "We'll be having beefsteaks and wine after this then, yeah?"

"Yeah," Buckle said.

A door to the left of the desk opened and Madame Fries stepped into the room.

"Brass Buckle Betty," he said, opening his arms and walking forward to greet her. She stood to return the hug. "It has been far, far too long."

A sundress, covered in pastel wildflowers, hung over his massive frame. The man stood at least a couple heads taller than Lucy did. His body was carved, nearly perfect and tan. Ropy muscles propelled him across the floor, and even the heavy carpet couldn't absorb the thumps of his footfalls. He had been completely bald, even when Buckle had first met him, and he was now wearing a luxurious blonde wig.

He wrapped her in his arms, going so far as to pull her off the ground a bit, then slapped her on the back. She coughed a bit.

"Sorry about that, Betty," he said, standing with his hands on his hips. Buckle could see he wasn't wearing anything underneath the dress from up close. "It is just so good to see you. Have a seat and let's get started."

Buckle's head swam. Sitting down was definitely a good idea, she thought, hurrying to sit down without looking as if she was going to fall. The dizzy spell faded once she was down in the seat. Lucy flashed her a concerned expression, but Buckle shook it off. Fries beamed at them from across the table.

"Well," he started, "how long has it been Betty? I'd say ten, what do you think?"

"What do I think?" Betty asked. "Uh, I think you're right, I guess. And, um, I think you can help us...out...with something we've got planned."

"Buckle..." Lucy started. Buckle shook her head and held up a hand. Something was definitely off.

"I think you may be right," Fries said, leaning sideways in his chair and crossing his legs. "I definitely could help you, but I most definitely will not."

"Shit," Lucy said, standing up and arming the spell on her glove. Fries raised his palm toward her without taking his eyes off Buckle. Lucy's arms fell slack to her sides. He pointed down and she fell back into her seat. 

"I know, I know," he said, smiling. "You girls must have a bunch of questions right now, and I'll do my best to explain them." The music was a steady thrum throughout the building, throughout the room, and throughout Buckle's head. She couldn't move either. The fucker had them dead to rights.

"You see," he continued. "We're friends Betty. Great friends. But I have made so many new friends in the last few decades and, ha-ha, they really, really want me to kill you. Do you know why?" Buckle's head shook involuntarily. "Because you are just way too good at your job!" He stood and spread his arms out to the side.

"You see Betty," he said. "That last job you did, that one really got some folks' notice. Some not to friendly folks that I just happen to love to death." He smacked a hand down on the table. "You see, I'm not very good at magic and spells and stuff, and you have just got to be good at those things to keep up with today's demanding economy. My new friends helped me with that a few years ago and...well let's just say I owe them more than a few favors." 

He put his fingers into his mouth and whistled. The door to the right of the desk opened, and a naked young woman walked into the room. He clicked his tongue at her like a dog and she hurried over to him, the dirty leather collar on her neck bouncing as she walked. 

She was a pretty, pale-skinned easterner, purple-eyed and silver haired. Fries slid a single finger under her collar and pulled her gently to him, then licked up one side of her face. The girl flinched a bit, but otherwise remained expressionless. He whispered in the girl's ear, and she laid down across the desk before him, her rump in the air. He caressed her ass with a single, rough hand. The girl's eyes just stared off into the middle distance.

"This is Tanya," Fries said, slapping the girl hard on the ass. She bit her lip. Buckle could feel the hatred emanating from Lucy. "She is from a very well-to-do family who lives near the capital, and all her life all she's ever wanted to do was become a writer." Fries stood and pulled his dress up, revealing a massive erection. He guided his cock into the girl, pushing in slowly.

"But Tanya trusted the wrong people," he continued, "and they took her off a train in the middle of the night, didn't they, sweet thing?" He began fucking her slowly. The girl reached forward and curled her fingers around the edge of the desk. "Now Tanya's one of my pretty little girls, isn't she?" Fries grabbed the girl's collar and twisted it, making her gasp for breath. He pulled her violently back, till her face was almost next to his. "Aren't you?"

"Yes Madame," she said, trying to pull down the collar and catch her breath. Fries smiled at Buckle and pushed the girl's face down into the desk. Tanya's body shook with every thrust. She moaned. The desk tipped forward a bit. Buckle ground her teeth and tried to move.

"Now, you see Betty," Fries said, breathing heavily. Tanya pushed herself back against him, her face a doped-out, expressionless blank. "You made the same mistake as Tanya. You wanted—ah, ha—to be a legendary outlaw, but now you're going to be one of my special girls too." 




Steam Ch. 03



Fries stepped back from Tanya, his glistening cock holding up the folds of the dress, and walked around the desk. The girl collapsed on the desk, panting and staring at nothing.

"Well, ok," he said, smiling and shrugging like a child. "You won't be my special girl, Buckle. This delectable piece of chocolate..." He ran a finger down the side of Lucy's face. "She'll be my pretty little lady, oh yes. Yeah, I'm going to have so much fun with you, but you, Buckle, oh you, my friends have so many plans for." He knelt down beside Lucy. "You wanna hear them?"

Fries leaned in and whispered something in Lucy's ear. Buckle watched her expression twist on her face. Her eyes, terrified, caught Buckle's, and she shook her head. 

"No, not to Buckle you—" 

Fries snapped his fingers and her words got caught in her mouth. He put his hands on Lucy's knees and leaned in until their faces were nearly touching.

"Yes," he said. "And there's nothing you can do about it." He smiled, then stood and walked toward Buckle. His dick swayed about with every step. "I promised them I'd stop you, that I'd deliver you up unmolested for what they have planned. You know, they didn't really mind the bank, they have more money than you could ever dream of, but that shipment on the train." He clicked his tongue at her. "Must absolutely get to its destination."

Fries squatted down and pulled her head to the side by her hair. He pushed his nose in close to her neck. He licked her skin, bit it. She swallowed. The only thought in her head was how satisfying it would be to tear his carotid artery out of his neck with her teeth.

"Oh Betty," he said, smiling. "You should have gotten out of this game so long ago, but here you are." He stood up and brought his dick to her face. "I said unmolested, but I don't think they'll mind as long as I don't leave any marks." He turned to Tanya. "Go to sleep darling, I'll wake you later." Back to Buckle.

"Now," he said, running his hand through her hair and fixing the bit he had mussed. "You're going to suck my dick, and I want you to really pretend as though you enjoy it." Lucy screamed at him, but he just turned his head a bit to the side and shushed her. "I'll get to work on you shortly, but for now I'd like to get reacquainted with an old friend."

He lifted her chin. She couldn't resist. 

"Open up," he said. She complied. "Good girl." The same hazy dizziness from before washed over her. The band was really going to work on their instruments. "Now begin."

She closed her lips around the tip of his cock, kissing it gently, then moved her tongue forward. She licked up the center of his shaft, tasting Tanya on him even now. Her eyes lidded. She brought the rest of him into her mouth, struggling to get his unyielding girth further down, inside of her. Her hand rose to his hips, involuntarily, pulling him in and out of her mouth. She moaned, despite herself.

"Good girl, Betty," he said. "Harder now." 

Her neck flushed with heat. She sucked him off in long, slow strokes. His cock flexed in her mouth. She pulled back for air, stroking his dick with one hand and suckling at his balls between breaths. The floor of the building heaved beneath them. The band grew quiet.

"What the..." He said. The building shook again. The cobwebs in her head began to fade, and Buckle could hear people screaming in some different room. She realized Fries' cock was in her mouth and pushed back in disgust, knocking him back and off balance.

"Buckle, down!" Lucy said, standing and activating the spell on her glove. Buckle moved without thinking, rolling back and over the chair and covering her head with her hands.

"Wait," Fries said, holding his hands up in front of himself, trying to back around the desk. His dick was rapidly deflating.

Lucy shot off her rend spell, obliterating the top half of his body and spraying the wall and ceiling with blood, viscera and a good portion of the desk. The bit of his legs and lower torso left hit the floor with a splat and began convulsing. Chewed up entrails slid out onto the floor. Buckle barely got to her knees before throwing up.

"You have gone and fucked with the wrong mother fucker boy," Lucy said, recharging the spell and firing it into his remains. Red light spilled up and out of the hole Lucy's rending tore into the floor. Lucy walked over to the hole and fired another shot down into it, accomplishing nothing.

"Oh my god," said the bartender, who had just returned to the room with a shotgun. "Madame Fries? Oh sweet, merciful god what have you whores done to Madame?" He brought the gun to bear on Buckle and fired, missing low and hitting Buckle anyway with reflected shot and bits of splintered wood. She fell back on her butt, drew her gun and fired at him through her knees as he chambered the next round. Three shots missed, but the third blew a hole through his shoulder. He cried out and dropped the gun.

"Oh, you whore," he said, "you've shot me."

"And worse will be done upon you boy, we have each other?" Lucy yelled, striding across the room and recharging the spell.

"Lucy, no," Buckle said, getting to her feet and pulling a splinter out of her eyebrow. Blood trickled down from the wound, stinging her eye. "I got this one." She kicked away the man's shotgun, knelt down and stuck her finger in the wound. He screamed. She locked eyes with him.

"Don't cry son," she said, "it always hurts a little the first time, but you get used to it after a bit." She twisted her finger in the wound and he opened his mouth to scream noiselessly. "Guess not in your case.

"Now listen here, boy. Your boss just stuck his cock in my mouth and we turned him into red sauce. You sent us up here, knowing that would happen, cause you're an asshole and that shit's just in your nature. Scorpions and frogs and all that nice bullshit." His face was going white. She hoped he didn't go into shock before she finished with him.

"So I'm gonna ask questions and you're gonna answer, and be quick about it, or else you become marinara, we have each other?" He glared and tried to spit in her face, but missed. "Guess not." She fingered his wound until sweat broke out on his face. "Who does your boss work for, and what the fuck is on that train?"

"Fuck you, whore," he said. She twisted again and he screamed again.

"You're one of those not learning shit mother fuckers aren't you?" She asked.

"Our shadow touches all things, whore," he said. "That shadow will swallow you, then you will know to fear gold."

"You are not going to be helpful, huh?" Buckle asked. She pulled her finger away and walked over toward the desk, taking care to avoid the messes she and Lucy had made. "Go ahead Lucy."

"My pleasure," she said, activating the spell and aiming her palm at the bartender.

"Do your worst, who—" Lucy blew away everything above his knees, then kicked his shins into the hole in the floor. The same red light glowed upward. Buckle pulled open the desk drawers and bundled up every bit of paperwork she could find, not even bothering read it. Gunfire had broken out throughout the building now. 

"Buckle," Lucy said, waving away the bit of smoke coming off the rune on her glove. "I believe we've outstayed our welcome."

"Yeah," Buckle said, jamming Fries' files into her shirt. She looked at the bloody remnants of Fries and spit on the ground. "Yeah, let's get the fuck out of here."

Nash pushed his way through yet another crowded terminal, this time keeping Cartwright's fat neck in sight while winding his way through the crowds. He had jumped off the train the moment it stopped, found an out of the way place with a lot of moving feet and set up shop. Cartwright wriggled into view half an hour later. Now Nash was following him. Killing the old man would be a great end to long, prosperous day.

A perky little smile lit up his face, well, not his face per se. Nash was getting sick of the blonde hair he saw in the reflections he passed. It felt alien. Old-hat so to say, but it wasn't real so it wasn't as if he could cut it or dye it for the rest of the trip. 

He ran a hand through the "hair" and felt only his own bald pate, the faint outlines of the tattoo that ran from the middle of his skull to the nape of his neck. The glamour was exhausting. He couldn't wait to be rid of it.

Cartwright stopped up ahead, his beady little eyes darting around overtop his moustache. Nash stopped a severe-looking man in the crowd and asked him the time, putting the man between himself and the conductor. Cartwright continued on, and Nash thanked the man and continued his pursuit.

The Bella's conductor reminded Nash of a cat. One of those fat, orange tabbies ubiquitously gracing the windowsills of spinsters everywhere. Flats with those things living in them always stank. 

How to skin this cat though? Nash sidestepped a couple and doffed his hat. A hot blade up the back? He could hear the fat sizzling, but no, too messy and time was very much an issue in this matter. A simple blood choke? Quick, yes, and effective, but the thought of that disgusting chin hair rubbing his forearm put Nash off the idea.

A blade through the eye then, he decided. Cartwright's path had led both of them down an unfamiliar alleyway. Nash wasn't bothered. Through the eye was quick and clean, but unfortunately nearly painless. A sloppy sort of job, but concessions must be made in such dire circumstances. 

Nash skittered to a stop and backpedaled around the corner he'd just passed, pulling his hat down over his eyes. Cartwright had led them to his office through a roundabout way, and Pram had nearly spotted Nash as he turned the corner. He tipped an ear up and listened to them talk.

"...accept your offer, sir," Pram said. He could barely hear her. 

"Yes, yes, uh... of course," the fat man stuttered. 

Perhaps the knife in the eye route was too gentle, Nash thought. A slow, scalding push into the heart could, potentially, be more satisfying. The notion brightened his mood. 

"But... could we go inside dear? This draft is killing me," Cartwright said. Pram nodded and followed him into the office. 

Nash sighed when they were out of sight, and then turned and walked away down the alley. Both of them were on the list, but trying to hit both at the same time was ill advised to say the least. Too much could go wrong, especially when Cartwright's abilities were completely unaccounted for and he didn't know how well equipped for battle the Steam Trainer was. 

He still had plenty of time to work. The mission didn't need to be completed until the Bella arrived in the Verdant Wastes, and killing the driver and the engine ahead of schedule would make him seem overzealous. 

It had been a long time since Nash had been back to Coalton, but little ever changed in the town. Things got old, things got replaced and then things got old again. The misery machine runs ever strong, his mother had often told him. He liked thinking of the weather-beaten old hag, and made a note to stop in on her when he was next in the capital. 

He made his way to the bustle of the city square, moving to the far left side of the road where inbound foot traffic was permitted. Gilded white cars rumbled and rattled on the brass bars of the overhead tram. The homeless, wearing the mandatory white garb issued by the city, slunk about in the corners between the massive Blackstone buildings. They tried to make eye contact. He ignored them with a smile.

Nash had always loved the middling cities, with their mix of big-city hostility and small-town intolerance. He might have attracted some unwelcome stares if it weren't for the glamour, but nobody cared about northerners and he was just another face in the crowd. Completely invisible, even in plain sight.

Priests of the holy Omnibus danced about a hat half-filled with coppers. Nash had always been taken with the mad cult. He flipped a copper into the hat. A bald priestess danced toward him and bowed with a flourish, her psychedelic rainbow robes fanning out around her. 

Nash would have liked to stay in the city, to watch the sun sink behind the buildings, but his path led deeper into the city. He was headed to old town. The outskirts of the city. Coal at the edge of Coalton. It was a dangerous place on a good night, but Nash wasn't bothered. He'd grown up in worse.

Wide, straight streets grew crooked and ill paved. He could smell the peasants cooking their dinners. Boiled cabbage, pigs' feet and fried rabbit skin. His stomach rumbled, but he shook it off. There would be food at the fixer's house.

A nagged thought worried at the back of his brain. The Steam Trainer, Pram, she didn't have the feel of a target. He tried to imagine killing her, but couldn't. Perhaps his instincts were off, but, then again, maybe the higher ups had made some mistake. It wouldn't have been the first time. 

Eyes in the dark. He could feel them on his neck, peering out from some unseen corner. Nash stood before the door to his fixer's home, one of thousands of dead drops and safe houses his people had secured across the country. The fixer was dead. This was a trap. He went in anyway and shut the door.

His contact, some man he hadn't and never would meet, was staring at him from atop the mantle. His head had been pinned to the wood with what looked to be a long dagger. The man's body was stripped naked, blood and tied to a chair in the center of the room. An amorphous black spot had been burned into his chest. The flag of the Imperium hung in tatters around his shoulders. Impressive work.

Nash walked past the display without a second glance and jumped through the window just gunfire began tearing the room to pieces. He hit some faceless goon in a shower of glass, activating the blade sigils in his hands and scissoring off the man's head. It thudded to the ground and Nash rocketed two stories up to the top of the nearby roof.

Voices and lanterns filled the room he had just left. They couldn't find him. He should be dead. All the usual nonsense. 

Nash counted five heads in the building and sat down on the edge of the roof, waiting for them to figure out one of their number was missing. They took their sweet time. The good news was they were incompetent, but the bad news was they were boring. Freelancers, he thought, if blood members had come to the party he may already be dead. What a shame.

The group rounded the corner and somebody yelled about the body. The man's name was Fred, apparently.

Fought like a Fred, Nash thought. 

He stood and slunk along the roof until he was at the back of the formation, then jumped. He impaled the first target in the neck soundlessly, letting the body slide off the magic blade onto the cobblestones. Normally he wouldn't use the blades for alley work, their glow was too bright for the dark, but the party's lanterns were much brighter. He walked up to the next man and beheaded him effortlessly, letting the body hit the ground and make noise. 

The next man up in the formation turned and got out most of a yell before Nash was on him, blades buried in his chest and then the wall behind him. 

"Holy shit," muttered one of the last two. He was slow on the draw with his rifle. Nash deactivated one of the blades and activated the pressure sigil on his leg, bursting away from the wall fast enough to collapse the dead man's lung. He sliced the man's arm off just above the elbow, and then bounded up the wall and into the dark above the rooftops. 

The man screamed. His friend fired a few halfhearted rounds into the air. Nash crossed his hands behind his back and whistled a bit, but not too loudly he couldn't overhear them squalling and cursing in the alley below. 

"Got my—my fucking arm Sully," screamed the one arm man. Nash could feel wannabe rubberneckers shifting around in the floors below him, but the outskirts weren't a place where people opened their windows at night. He wondered offhand how many people had caught stray rounds in the fracas. 

"Shut up Pete," said Sully, obviously distraught with emotion at his friend's plight. "Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

"Fuck you Sully, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you," Pete muttered. "What the fuck was that? Fries said it'd be easy. That fucker took my fucking arm."

"You don't shut the fuck up, I'm going to put one in your fucking head," Sully said. "On my mother's fucking honor." 

Nash peaked over the side of the roof and saw Sully frantically scanning the rooftops in the wrong direction. He clucked his tongue. Sully heard, turned and fired up at him to no effect. 

"You get him?" Pete asked.

"I dunno, I don't fucking no, aw this is fucking horseshit," Sully said. He grabbed Pete by his remaining arm and pulled him to his feet. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

They ran from the alley and Nash followed them, jumping rooftop to rooftop. Sully heard something on some other rooftop and fired wildly into the closest building. Somebody screamed from inside. Nash frowned. This was taking entirely too long.

"Fuck'r you shooting at?" Pete asked. His face was getting white. The hot blade had cauterized the wound but he was going into shock regardless. Nash bounced down from the roof, cut Pete's head in half at the jawline and bounced back up out of the alley. Pete's body fell to its knees and Sully screamed, dropped his gun and ran. Nash followed.

He popped up and down from the rooftops, always a arm's reach away from Sully, letting him feel the wind on the back of his neck. Sully's breath ran ragged. Nash could smell the urine soaking the man's trousers.

He almost laughed when he saw where Sully had led him. A massive pleasure house glowing at the corner of the tram system's northernmost rail station. Frenetic music, something reedy, squealed out of the building. Sully stumbled his way into the front door. 

The place reeked. Nash sucked the foul odor in and smiled. The dead fixer had thrown a real wrench into his night and his cover was likely blown, but silly little Sully had turned everything right round to his favor. He hopped down from the rooftops without the bouncer seeing and approached. 

"Well met, friend," Nash said, smiling and trying to tip the hat he was no longer wearing. He was instantly filled with a deep sense of loss for the hat.

"State your business," said the bouncer. "Club's closed for the night."

"I'm in the business of women, wine and song, dear boy," Nash replied. "I assure you I'm on the guest list. Here, see my card?" 

The bouncer looked down at Nash's palm and Nash activated his hot blade, sending it through the man's eye and retracting it just as quickly. Nash sidestepped the body as it fell to the floor. He walked inside.

The music was entirely too loud, he thought. It carried some strange, sick magic along with it. The vibrations on his skin made him gag. He picked up his pace to a jog, turning through corridor after cramped corridor until he found a staircase leading down behind a half closed door. 

"Lucky I'm not a cat," he said to himself, heading down the stairs. He could hear fevered panting as he neared the bottom. Silly Sully, ever the stalwart guide. 

"He's on his way," said Sully, "we've gotta get ready."

Best to get in there before they get ready, Nash thought, bursting through the door. 

The basement was a massive oval room, lined walls-to-floor in red velvet. The roof was pitch black. A fractal pattern of silver circles spread out across the floor, emanating from the far wall. Nash hamstringed Sully on the way through the door and shot across the room in a flash. His fist connected with the jaw of his target, some black-haired girl, and he felt the bones shatter beneath his fist. 

Two men behind him trained their guns on him and fired. He activated the shield sigil on his left elbow and shot toward them, deflecting their bullets and ultimately cleaving off their heads. All but one of the people left in the room had fled by the time he was done. A woman, wearing a simple top and black trousers stood brazenly in the center of the room.