Hunted [The Flash Gold Chronicles] (11 page)

“With all that gear?” Irritating that
he
did not sound out of breath. “You’d sink like a gold
bar.”

Before she could think of a retort, the trees
and undergrowth ended, and she stumbled onto a granite bank, damp
with spray. In the center of the river, white rapids frothed and
churned, but Kali’s gaze went to a shallow niche filled with calm,
dark water—and a brown-clad figure standing in a metal boat. No,
not a boat. The lower half of the flying machine, the half they had
not found in the wreckage. The furnace and boiler appeared
undamaged, and puffs of gray wafted from a narrow smokestack. Some
sort of screw-style propeller kept the
flying-machine-turned-land-vehicle-turned-boat from drifting out
into the rapids.

Kali slowed down, not sure what to do next.
Stop and talk? God knew she was curious about this woman. Or turn
right and run downriver, taking her chances navigating the
treacherous slabs of rock framing the waterway?

Cedar had no trouble deciding what to do: he
fired his rifle.

The transparent barrier still protected the
piloting area, but since the woman was standing, her torso rose
above it. The bullet slammed into her chest. Or it should have. It
clacked, as if hitting rock, and ricocheted off without the figure
reacting. Actually she did react. She tilted her head and gave
Cedar a look that managed to convey, even with goggles covering her
eyes, pity for such a simple creature whose only solution to
problems was gunfire.

He seemed to get that message too for he
growled like a bear roused early from hibernation.

Click-whirs
grew audible over the roar
of the rapids. The flying constructs drew closer, forming a tight
semicircle at Kali and Cedar’s backs. One buzzed a couple of feet
from her ear.

“What do you think of my cicadas?” the figure
called. The head wrapping did not cover the speaker’s lips, so the
voice came out clearly. It definitely belonged to a woman, an older
woman, Kali guessed. “Incase you’re thinking of fleeing, I should
inform you that you’ve experienced only Setting One of their
firepower. There are three settings.”

“Who
are
you?” Kali asked. Maybe the
question should have been, “
What
are you?”

Though the voice and the swell of a bosom
beneath the brown wrapping made femininity clear, Kali struggled to
believe this was a mere woman. Cedar had shot her the day
before—they had
seen
blood—but no sling cradled the arm, nor
did the figure appear wounded now.

“Who do you think I am?” the woman asked, a
smile in her voice.

Kali glanced at Cedar, but his face was
masked, and he said nothing.

“A witch who studied engineering?” Kali said
to the woman. “Or an engineer who studied witching.”

“Witching.” The woman chuckled.

“Oh, good,” Kali muttered. “I amuse her.”

“Your first guess is most accurate.” She
smirked. “Huzzah.”

“And what do you want with me?” Kali asked.
“It
is
me, right? I couldn’t help but notice your little
butterflies had a fixation for my bottom.”

“I’m here to kill you.”

Cedar took a step forward, his knuckles white
where he gripped his rifle. “If you try, I’ll kill you first.”

“Not likely, dear,” the woman said. “You
don’t seem too bright.”

“Why?” Though Kali did not think Cedar would
be rash enough to charge the woman, she put a hand on his arm
anyway. The hard knotted muscles beneath the sleeve testified to
the tension in his body. “Why kill me? Most people just want to
kidnap me. Which is a might inconvenient, too, but preferable to
death.”

She eyed the woman’s vessel as she spoke,
mulling over a way to sink it or push it out into the rapids. If
they could manage that, the river might sweep their foe miles
downstream before the woman could pull herself to shore. That would
give her and Cedar time to escape. But if the “cicadas” truly had a
setting three times as powerful as the one she had already felt,
she might be filled with holes before she could reach the shallows
and the boat.

The woman’s gaze fixed on the drill. Kali had
turned it off, but the flake of flash gold continued to glow, as it
would for all eternity unless someone destroyed it. Maybe it was
visible from the boat.

“The secret of flash gold must die,” the
woman said.

Ah, yes, visible from the boat indeed.

“Most people
want
the secret,” Kali
said, “which I don’t have, by the way, so there’s no need to kill
me. As far as I know, nobody living has the secret.”

Kali subtly poked through the innards of the
broken cicada, looking for a clue that might let her nullify them
all. If they were decommissioned somehow, charging the boat might
be a less foolish proposition. Her fingers tingled as she touched
some of the fine gears. Magic?

Cedar watched her hands through hooded
eyes.

“You know how it’s made even if you lack the
power to imbue it,” the woman said. “You’ve studied your father’s
notes, I’m sure.”

“Notes?” Kali said. “Was he supposed to leave
notes? He must have forgotten. He was busy dying.”

“Ezekiel kept excellent notes. I know. I was
his research partner for more than ten years.”

Kali blinked. “You knew my father?” She had
never met anyone outside of Moose Hollow who did. Old Ezekiel had
done a good job of falling off the map when he came north. If
Sebastian had not blabbed to the wrong people, all these
troublemakers would never have known of her existence.

“Yes, did he never speak of me? Amelia?”

“No.”

“That figures,” the woman said, voice like
ice. She—Amelia—picked up something. A small bronze box. Some sort
of controller for the cicadas? Had she grown tired of chatting?

“My father didn’t speak to me about
anything,” Kali said, trying to buy more time. She went back to
prodding the wreckage of the broken cicada. “If you were lovers or
something, he might still have cared. I just wasn’t...a confidant
of his. He barely acknowledged me.”

“Because you lack power, I imagine. If the
arrogant coot hadn’t been obsessed over looks,
we
might
have...”

She did not finish, but Kali could guess.
They might have had a child. So, this was some spurned woman her
father had not chosen for a lover. Maybe Amelia wanted Kali dead
for more reasons than flash gold.

“Sorry, he didn’t love you,” Kali said. “But
it’s not my fault. Killing me won’t—”

“It will ensure no more flash gold is ever
made,” Amelia snarled. “It’s bad enough that it exists at all, but
now that gangsters know about it, they’ll not stop until they
capture you and wring its recipe from your brain. They’ll find
someone who can imbue it, and the world will suddenly have power
enough that countries can destroy each other without ever fielding
an army.”

Kali’s probing in the broken cicada revealed
a small cracked compass. “Don’t you think flash gold has power for
good? To be used as an energy source? It’s more efficient than
burning coal or wood and—”

“Don’t lecture me, child. I know what it is.
I helped invent it. And then I watched as the first experiment
burned half of a town and killed dozens of people.
I
was
caught in that fire.”

For the first time, Amelia lifted a hand to
her face and pushed up her goggles. She used her left hand. Maybe
that bullet in her right shoulder had hurt after all.

Next she removed the wrapping, letting it
fall about her neck like a scarf. Short graying blonde hair framed
a narrow face with a pointed chin. She might have been pretty once,
but shiny scar tissue ran up and down the right side of her face,
contorting her features.

“I have that lodestone with me,” Cedar
whispered, and Kali realized he had been watching her finger the
compass. “Wrapped up in the bottom of my pack.”

Kali caught on immediately. If the cicadas
used the compasses for navigation, a lodestone, with its magnetic
properties, might be enough to throw them off by a hair. A hair
might be all they needed. “Get it,” she whispered back. “Hook it on
the lead one’s wings.”

She tossed the broken machine aside, and took
a couple of steps toward Amelia, placing herself to block the
woman’s view of Cedar. “I’m sorry you were injured, but look.” Kali
held out the drill with both hands. “Flash gold is a brilliant
invention. It needn’t be used as a weapon. I’ve used it for tools
and plan to use it for transportation. I’m sure there are a million
ways it could make people’s lives better.”

“It would only take one unscrupulous person
to use it to destroy the world,” Amelia said. “It’s too dangerous
to keep around.”

“We just have to make sure it doesn’t fall
into an unscrupulous person’s hands. If we worked together we could
do that. You have no idea how much I’d like to learn from you. I’ve
never had a teacher.” Kali was buying time, yes, but the ache of
sincerity in her voice surprised her.

It must have surprised Amelia too for she
frowned thoughtfully at Kali. Might she consider it?

“It’s true I’ve no magical gifts,” Kali went
on, “so I couldn’t make the alchemical potions or whatever you used
to heal yourself and deflect that bullet...” She raised her
eyebrows. She was guessing since she had little knowledge of
witchery, but Amelia nodded slightly. “I’m told I’m a fair tinkerer
though.” Kali juggled the drill so she could remove her packsack.
“I love to make things. I can show you some of my handmade
tools.”

“I
was
impressed by your vehicle,”
Amelia admitted. “Nobody taught you, you say?”

“I’ve had to learn it all on my own.” Kali
took another step. If Cedar gave her a chance, she would have to
sprint forward and act before Amelia had time to think up
something. “This drill isn’t fancy since I only had a couple of
minutes to make it, but it shows you the potential flash gold has
for useful things.”

Amelia’s face hardened. Mentioning the gold
again had been a mistake.

“No,” Amelia said. “It’s too dangerous. And,
because you know its secrets and criminals know of you,
you’re
too dangerous.”

A clunk sounded behind her. Cedar tossing the
lodestone at one of the flying creatures?

Before she could turn around to check, metal
clashed. He was attacking the cicadas. That was her cue.

Kali sprinted toward the water, gripping the
drill in both hands.

Amelia sneered and pushed a lever on her
control box.

With the river roaring in her ears, Kali
could not hear the
click-whirs
of the machines, but she knew
Cedar could not take them all down at once. They would be pursuing.
Pursuing and shooting.

Balls hammered the granite bank, bouncing off
like hail. None struck Kali, but she sprinted faster anyway.

Three strides from the shallows, she touched
the flash gold flake with her thumb to turn on the drill. Cedar
surprised her by running past her. He leaped into the air, clearly
hoping to jump over the shield on the boat and land on Amelia. She
saw him coming, though, and hurled something. A small black ball
expanded into a net, entrapping him in a heartbeat.

Kali splashed into the shallows, high-kneeing
it to the back of the boat.

Though the net entangled Cedar, his momentum
took him into the pilot’s seat. He crashed down on top of Amelia,
who shrieked in anger.

Kali reached her destination, the furnace and
boiler at the back of the boat, but frigid water reached to her
chest, and a strong current tugged at her body. She spread her
legs, trying to brace herself on the slick bottom. She would need
leverage if she meant to succeed at her task. Something akin to a
cat fight was taking place in the pilot’s seat, with both people
tangled in the net.

“Cedar!” Kali called. “Get out of there!”

Stones shifted and moved beneath her feet,
and the current threatened to suck her into the rapids, but she
found a big rock to brace her boot against.

Amelia screamed in pain.

A splash sounded—Cedar obeying her order.
Good.

Kali closed her eyes, tucked her chin, and
pressed the drill to the side of the boiler. As soon as she felt
the tip pierce the metal casing, she dove down, hoping the water
would provide her some protection from the—

Boom!

Even though she knew what to expect, she had
no way to defend against the raw power of the boiler failure. The
water did little to soften the blast wave, and it hurled her into
the stony river bottom. Her back slammed against the rocks. Her
breath escaped in a burst of bubbles.

For a dazed moment, she could do nothing. The
current swept her off the rocks, and she forced her stunned limbs
to work. She kicked and stroked, hoping she was angling toward the
surface, but the powerful water defied her efforts. It swept her
out of the shallows and into the rapids where she picked up
speed.

She clawed her way to the top only to be
battered against a sharp rock. She managed a gasp of air, but the
torrent forced her underwater again. More rocks barred her way, and
she bounced between them until her hand caught on something.

Rope?

If so, it was narrow, but she wasn’t going to
complain. She twined her fingers around it and lunged for another
piece with the other hand. Not rope, a net.

As soon as she gripped it with both hands,
she felt herself being hauled out of the current. Her head broke
the water. Rivulets streamed into her eyes, but she dared not let
go to wipe them, so she merely trusted it was Cedar.

The current lessened, and her knee bumped
against the bottom. Shallow water. She heaved a sigh of relief.

Strong hands gripped her by the armpits and
pulled her out of the water. Before she could so much as wipe her
eyes, she found herself crushed into a soggy hug. She did not relax
into the embrace immediately; she craned her neck, searching for
Amelia and the vessel. Kali had been swept a good hundred meters
downriver, and she could barely see the bank where she’d started,
but she squinted and spotted a couple of cicadas, flying around,
lost. One crashed into a tree and went down. Others were already
smashed into the ground. Kali did not see Amelia or the boat.