Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) (14 page)

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The last time Kali had
been imprisoned on an airship, her captors had been thoughtful
enough to deposit her in the boiler room with access to a
workstation full of tools. Alas, she was not so lucky this time.
They stuffed her into a dark closet with nothing but a mop bucket,
a mop, and a broom. How odd that gangsters would keep tools for
tidying their airship. She imagined such people preferring grime
and sloth to cleaning duties. But she supposed Cudgel himself had
been well manicured. Maybe he’d insisted on tidiness. Or maybe this
had been a military airship before the gangsters had purchased
it—or stolen it. Or blackmailed people for it.

All that mattered now was
that the door was sturdy and so was the lock. She had already
tested both, as her sore shoulder attested. Her captors had patted
her down and taken what few tools she’d had, so her shoulder had
been all she’d had to use. When the men had searched her, they had
also found Amelia’s journal and taken it. Kali wished she had
thought to copy it before bringing it up here. There just hadn’t
been time. None of the men had probed into her smallclothes and
found the paper Kali had taken from Amelia, but she wasn’t sure how
much of a victory that was. As soon as Amelia recovered, she would
demand to see Kali and have her searched again for her missing
note. The gangsters might very well shoot her too. She’d caused
trouble, and she couldn’t imagine why they would flinch from
casting her over the side or simply sinking a bullet into her
skull.

“Foolish, Kali. Foolish.”
Why hadn’t she waited for Cedar? Yes, it might have been too late
to stop Amelia if she had, but what had she gained by that
ill-thought-out attack? Nothing.

Kali touched her
clothing, feeling the outline of the paper. Too bad there wasn’t a
lantern in the broom closet so she could read what she had fought
so hard to steal.

Voices sounded outside of
the door. Had the gangsters come for her already? Or was it Amelia?
She had only been in the closet for a few minutes. She’d thought
she would have longer to come up with a means of escape or at least
some clever story she might use to get out of unpleasantries.

“...have fun with her
first?” one man said, his voice growing distinct as he came closer
to the closet.

Kali grimaced at the idea
of being one of these thug’s fun, but she grimaced even more when
the second man spoke.

“Nah, Sawtooth said to
shoot her. She’s nobody important, and she wrecked up the ship real
bad.”

Nobody important? That
statement, and the talk of shooting, made Kali long for the days
when people had wanted to wrench the secrets of flash gold from
her. Was it possible she could talk to these men now and promise
them such secrets? Did they know anything about it? Maybe Sawtooth
or whoever was in charge had already seen the notes in the journal
and thought he had enough information to figure out its
secrets.

“It wouldn’t take long.
Been a while since we got to call on some girls. Don’t see why we
got to blow up this town without pulling out the women first. Who
threatens women? Sawtooth ain’t right in the head. Cudgel was piles
smarter.”

“You see this one? She
ain’t worth visiting in any sense of the word. All man-clothes and
plainness.”

Even though insults to
her looks were the last thing Kali should have been worrying about,
she couldn’t keep from scowling. She wasn’t plain, damn it. She
just didn’t see the point of wearing face paint and impractical
clothing.
Cedar
appreciated her just like she was. She
wished she hadn’t run off and left him below. She also wished she’d
kissed him a few more times and teased him less about courting.

A hand tried the
doorknob. Kali patted around, searching for some chemicals or
detergents she might fling as weapons. But she had already searched
and not found any such things. She grabbed the broom handle and
stepped on the bottom portion, breaking it off. What was that
weapon Robin Hood’s friar friend had used in the old stories? A
quarterstaff?

A key turned in the lock.
Kali waited, wishing there was room in the closet for her to bring
the broomstick up so she could smack it down on the first head that
appeared.

A boom sounded. A cannon
firing?

Whoever had been opening
the door paused. Someone shouted an order in the distance. Kali
thought she made out the word “attack” in the midst of it.

Since the door had
already been unlocked, Kali tried the knob. It had already been
turned—someone was holding it but not opening the door. She didn’t
know why the man had paused, but she kicked at the door as hard as
she could. It flew back a foot, then smacked into someone. Kali
squirmed out through the opening foot, hearing the person stumble
backward. She drove the broken tip of the broomstick into the first
target she spotted—a man’s vest. He jumped back, and she ended up
catching him in the crotch instead of the stomach. Her weapon
lacked the admirable heft of an axe or sledgehammer, but the man
gasped and doubled over as he grabbed his block-and-tackle with one
hand and reached for the makeshift quarterstaff with the other.

Kali didn’t give him time
to grip it. She drew back just enough to give herself space to jerk
it upward. She caught the tip of his chin. As his head flew back,
she jabbed him again and again, trying to drive him backward so she
couldn’t easily be shoved into the closet again. She also knew that
a second man was back there, and she hoped she might get them
tangled up and in each other’s way before he figured out how to
help.

A thud sounded, something
striking the back of her foe’s head. The man dropped like a sack of
potatoes.

Confused, Kali crouched,
her broomstick in both hands, ready to attack again.

Cedar stood in the middle
of the passageway, arching his eyebrows at her. He wore two rifles
strapped behind his back, a weapons belt heavy with revolvers
around his waist, and he carried a cutlass in one hand and a
hatchet in the other. His hair was plastered to his head, and he
was wetter than a cat that had fallen in the bathwater.

“You came.” Kali wasn’t
surprised—hadn’t he come to rescue her from her impetuousness
before?—but the flood of appreciation that washed over her
surprised her, or at least the intensity of it. She dropped her
broomstick and flung her arms around him, glancing down the
passageway just long enough to make sure enemies weren’t storming
in their direction before planting a kiss firmly on his lips.

Cedar blinked a few times
before managing to awkwardly return the hug—he still held the sword
and hatchet, so that made it a might hard. He also returned the
kiss, making pleased noises, though he was the first one to break
it.

“I appreciate that, Kali,
especially since you haven’t always been so demonstrative when I’ve
stormed onto airships looking for you, but we’re not safe here.” He
rested his forehead against hers before pulling away fully, then
gave her another quick kiss and lowered his arms.

“I know, and I reckon
that’s a mistake.” She reached down for the broomstick since she
lacked a better weapon, realizing that Cedar had taken care of the
second man before she had ever rushed out of the closet.

“Us not being safe?”
Cedar asked as more cannons fired from somewhere nearby and the
airship shuddered beneath their feet.

“Me not being more
demonstrative. Cedar, I’m reasonably sure I love you. I’m not real
good at expressing such feelings—you might have noticed that—but
they’re there.”

This time he blinked even
more times before finding his tongue. “I love you, too, Kali.”

“Enough to share your
weapons with me?”

“I don’t know. You were
poking that fellow rather effectively with that—is that a
broomstick?”

“I was thinking of it as
a quarterstaff and myself like Friar Tuck.”

“I don’t think Friar Tuck
ever jabbed a man in his bear cubs.”

“Well, he was English.
They’re proper, aren’t they? We can’t afford that kind of attitude
up here in the North.”

“No,” Cedar said, pulling
one of the rifles off his shoulder. “This is loaded. Don’t forget
you’ll have to chamber it manually.”

Kali nodded. If her
modified Winchester was still buried in the cave, she hadn’t been
able to find it. More likely one of those scavengers had pulled it
out and been delighted with the discovery.

“I’ll just club more
fellows in the bear cubs with it if I can’t remember how the pump
works.” She winked at him.

“Sometimes you’re a scary
woman, Kali.”

“Guess that makes me
lucky to have such a fine man as yourself loving me.”

He squinted suspiciously
at her.

“What?” she asked.

“I was waiting for you to
turn that into a joke. Seemed like some teasing had to follow such
a statement.”

“I’m trying to be more
demonstratively appreciative.”

“Oh. Guess I’m not used
to that.”

“There’s probably
something in the courting book about women keeping men on their
toes, so they don’t get too settled and start having
assumptions.”

“Seems likely.” More
cannons fired, and Cedar tilted his head toward the hatch at the
end of the passageway. “Shall we see if we can slip overboard while
the gangsters are distracted by attacking the city?”

“Wait,
are
they
attacking the city? I admit I was too worried about myself to
wonder, but are you sure that American airship didn’t come back?
They could be firing at it.”

“I was just on deck a
minute ago. No other airships. And I heard them say they were going
to drop explosives on the city unless the mayor agreed to hand over
the gold in all of the bank vaults in Dawson.” Cedar shook his
head. “I can tell Cudgel isn’t in charge anymore. His plans were
always more diabolic and sophisticated. This is blunt, and there’ll
be retaliation.”

“Maybe these people don’t
care. Maybe they plan to split whatever gold they can get and run.”
Kali rubbed her face. Dropping explosives on the city? That could
kill hundreds of people. “Do you think there’s anything we can do
from here?”

Cedar’s eyebrows rose. “I
thought you just wanted to get the flash gold and get out of
here.”

Kali reached for the spot
where the folded paper still rested, then realized he might wonder
why she was touching her nether regions and dropped her hand. “I
care about getting it, but you were right earlier. It would be
selfish not to help the city if we can.”

“I was right?” His eyes
widened. “You’re saying I was right and that you appreciate me?
What did they do to you in that closet?”

“Nothing.” She swatted
him. She wouldn’t admit it was more her realization of how
obsessively foolish she had been that had made her see her
shortcomings.

“Well,” he said, the word
punctuated with another round of cannon fire, “we can try to get to
the engine room. I can watch your back while you see if you can
disable the ship.”

“There are two other
ships, aren’t there? If I crash this one, the others would still be
a threat.”

“Well, isn’t solving a
third of the problem better than doing nothing? We don’t have to
fight the whole war for those Mounties, do we?”

“You tell me. Have they
got any way to retaliate from down there?”

A loud crunch sounded as
something blasted into the ship, and a scream of pain came from the
deck above.

“Ah, it’s possible
they’ve found a way,” Cedar said. “And if it’s an effective way, we
might have less time than before to do something and get off. Maybe
we won’t even need to do something.”

A distant boom echoed
from the river below. No, from the
town
below. If the
gangsters were dropping explosives, then people could be dying
right now.

“We need to do
something,” Kali said firmly.

Cedar nodded. “Engine
room?”

“Navigation.”

He raised his eyebrows
again, but he did not object. “Follow me,” he said and headed for
the hatch.

Cedar had an inkling of what Kali meant to do,
and he wasn’t sure it was wise while they were passengers on the
airship, but he led the way to the upper deck, fully intending to
fight a way through to the navigation cabin if that was what she
wanted. When it came to destroying machines, she was more of an
expert than he, not that he hadn’t been moderately pleased with
himself for effectively smashing that mechanical spider to
pieces.

Smoke clouded the deck.
Cedar did not know if it was drifting up from the city fifty feet
below, or if the airship had been damaged, but its presence was
useful since it provided camouflage. The rain had stopped, and the
air smelled of wet wood and gunpowder. With the storm taking a
break, he could clearly hear shouts and guns firing on the nearby
airships. He could also hear cries of panic coming from below as
more explosions sounded in the city. Cedar hoped the Mounties had
more weapons like whatever had crunched into the ship a moment
ago.

“Navigation is this way,”
he said over his shoulder, not certain how much of the ship Kali
had explored before being caught.

“Best hurry to it. Look.”
She pointed through the smoke and toward a distant shape in the
night sky off to the south side of the city.

At first, Cedar thought
it was a particularly low cloud, but a few lights were visible
through the dreary dark air. “That’s the American ship, I
think.”

“Yes, and if they start
firing at these ships, we’ll be in as much trouble as the
crew.”

“Good point.”

Cedar stayed close to
cover as much as possible as he headed for the navigation cabin
near the bow. As far as he knew, nobody had seen him come aboard,
and the gangsters should believe Kali was still locked up, so he
hoped they would be looking outward for trouble rather than inward.
Still, everyone on deck was armed, and there had to be close to
fifty people manning the guns and shouting orders. It would take
luck to make it across the ship without being noticed.