Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1) (37 page)

“Eh, I don't know.
Sailors, this day and age. They're all for the panache.”

“Mmmm...seems to
me that where you find the most, eh,
panache,
Pocket—“

“Not important.
We're getting away from the story.”

“That naval ship.
It wasn't after the Doll, was it?”

“Well, the thing
is—“

“It was after the
Lucidia,
wasn’t it?”

“Look, if you'll
be patient—“

“Because that crew
that picked you up, they're just a bunch of—“

“Alan! Please!
Allow me to speak!”

The captain stood
tall between Kitt and myself. The breeze blew through his red beard. That's
right. Red beard. How idiotic could I be? The peculiar, kindly man who had
escorted us here, the odd gent flying the shuttle like a madman onto a
steamship during midflight. This was
his
ship.

And upon his head
there sat a tall, seafaring hat. Wrapped around his crown on flaps and buckles
was a round, magnified glass that hung over his brow like an eye patch.

And the hat
featured that mark.

That odd emblem.

The one that Miss
B and Mister Jack and Miss Quill all wore.

In that moment, I
could finally absorb the entirety of the design. There was the black silhouette
of a human head, detailed only with a pair of white circles resembling eye
sockets, sitting above a pair of bent, open-mouthed wrenches. Altogether, the
whole emblem looked quite similar to a...a...sigh...

A skull and
crossbones.

“What exactly
do
you have time to do?” I demanded to know.

The captain of the
Lucidia,
the notorious Red Priest, grinned and produced a gleaming,
scoped sniper rifle that stood as tall as he.

“Fight,” he said
to me.

Casually, he tossed
the rifle over his shoulder and strolled out into the fray. Kitt and I looked
at each other.

“Oh,” Kitt said to
me. “So
we're
the pirates.”

The color of fire
lit up the clouds.

“Hey! Al-Alan! The
hell are you—hey! Stop it! I mean it, hands off me! What are you thinking? Let
me go. I'm seri—oof! What did you do that for?”

“Goodnight,
Pocket.”

“This isn't funny!
Let me back inside! Hey! I know you can hear me! Open this door! Come on, it's
freezing out here! Alan! I see you in there! Hey, hey! Look at me!”

“Stop knocking on
the glass.”

“What?”

“I said—oh, for
God's sake. There. Stop knocking on the glass.”

“Then let me
inside!”

“No, thank you. Go
home. And hurry. You're letting the snow in this window.”

“Damn it, Alan.
What's gotten into you?”

“What's gotten
into
me?!?
Me, Pocket? What about you? Do you know how much trouble you
can get into for associating yourself with...you know...those...”

“Pirates?”

“Shhh! You'll get
thrown in the stocks just for naming names like you were.”

“I've spent the
last few hours revealing my standing as a marked enemy to the Crown, and this,
this
is what gets me thrown out of the pub?!?”

“All of that
wanted man talk only incriminates yourself. Bringing up piracy puts me in
suspicion as an accomplice.”

“I fail to see the
difference.”

“It's just...bad
business. I don't like talking piracy. Rough subject ‘round these parts.”

“There's no out
else around at this miserable hour on this miserable night except the stinkin'
two of us! Stop making excuses!”

“All right! It's
just...I know I said that I wasn't believing this little tale of yours,
but...it's all starting to get a little too real. Look, I've got wanted
posters! Artist’s drawings!”

“Alan…”

“They post them up
in all of the taverns. Here, I've got them. Look! 'The Red Priest and Madame B:
Gaslight Pirates. Larceny in the British skies. High treason. Of great
interest. Large sum for any who can bring them to God and justice, preferably
deceased.' Look of those drawings!”

“That looks
ridiculously unlike them. Except for the beard.”

“The death ship
Lucidia,
it says. Knew I recognized that name! It's just too much!”

“Alan, relax
yourself.”

“I can't.
I'm...I'm getting worried. There, I said it. Ridicule me. I don't care. I'm
getting my ears far too close to things I don't want to know about. So just
take your stories and your danger and your shadowy companions and just go home,
all right?”

“I thought you
wanted a taste of adventure, Alan.”

“Well, I've had
too much of a taste.”

“They're decent
people. I ended up owing them a lot.”

“For what possibly
could you be indebted to those snakes?!?”

“Trust me. The
Doll had to—“

“No, no. That's
enough. I'm done here. If you want to stick your head in my window and freeze
yourself away for the rest of the night, you’re welcome to do so, but I'd like
to think you have more sense than that.”

“I see.
Mmm...well...can't be helped.”

“Eh? What are you
doing out there?”

“Sitting.”

“You're just going
to plant yourself out there in the ice?”

“I suppose so.”

“Come on. This is
childish. Go home.”

“Can't be helped.”

“Can't
be...sigh...all right, look. About your tab. We're even. You've talked enough
for one night to pay off a few months of drinks.”

“Mmm...have I?”

“Sure. So come on.
Get out of here. Go get yourself some sleep. I don't need to come back tomorrow
to a dead poet on the step.”

“I don't know. A
cold coat of ice might give me a nice shine.”

“A pretty death is
still death.”

“Heh. So you have
been listening. That's good, Alan. Maybe then, at the end of it all, it'll have
been worth it.”

“Ug...so dramatic...”

“Sorry. It happens
a lot.”

“Sigh...”

“You've been doing
that quite a bit.”

“It happens a
lot.”

“Heh. A joke. Good
one.”

“Pocket…”

“A bit obvious,
but I like it.”

“Pocket, listen to
me. Will.”

“Do you know why
no one uses my first name, Alan? Because it's far too common.”

“Jesus…what's
happened to you?”

“I fell in love
with the end of the world.”

“And?”

“The world started
to end.”

“You and your damn
lines.”

“Yeah. Hmph, maybe
you're right about all of this cold. Ahhh...there. Stretch the legs.”

“You're leaving?”

“Guess so. I'll
see you around, barkeep.”

“Pirates.”

“What?”

“They were
returning fire, right? The captain's finally on the bridge?”

“Heh. Yeah, he
was.”

“Well, go on. What
are you waiting for?”

“You're serious?”

“Just don't track
any snow in here.”

“I'll try my
best.”

Madame B and Jack
were trying to collect cannonballs as The Red Priest made his way to them. The
Red Priest, a pseudonym taught to me later by the sky pirates. They all had
one. Madame B. Quill. Hack-Jack, as I found out the boiler engineer went by.
They were like something out of some marvelous children's storybook.

“I see we are
getting a bit of the boom-boom,” the Red Priest casually said to his
second-in-command.

“I'm glad you
noticed,” B said back to him. “The tall one bring you out here?”

“Yes. He's all
worked up about it.”

B laughed and lit
the fuse on the cannon Jack had just loaded. “Well, as long as you're around,
how about a little assistance?”

“That's what this
is for,” the Priest said, patting the oversized rifle.

The lit cannon
fired and knocked a few unfortunate soldiers into bits.

“That's a little
gruesome,” Kitt said to Jack.

“Well, we we're
aimin' for the ship,” the pirate engineer smirked. “But sometimes we miss. Just
defendin' ourselves, you know. Sometimes you got to spill a little blood. Nasty
luck. Besides, if we shot the ship straight down, they'd all die anyway, right?
This is just a sort of...quicker release. Humane.”

“I guess.”

Quill jogged by
and frowned.

“Yeck,” she said,
pouting. “I hate to see it, myself. Ideally, we'd like to just pop enough holes
in their ship that they'd get the idea and run off. Doesn't seem to be the case
this time.”

“No, it doesn't,”
Kitt said.

Meanwhile, the Red
Priest had taken a position on the front railing of the deck and had pointed
the long barrel of his rifle over the side toward the attacking vessel. He
whistled as he extended a slender, conical scope.

“Take all day,”
the lady B quipped to him.

“Hold on, hold
on.” He twisted some sort of dial on the scope and began to smile with what
looked like childlike anticipation. “In just a moment.”

The naval ship
pulled back and straightened their point for another attempted ram into the
Lucidia.

“There we are,”
the Priest said, aiming his weapon. “There we are.”

Our opponents cut
through the clouds towards us, and it stuck me as fascinating that these larger
vessels, albeit limited in speed and maneuverability by their size and weight,
could still achieve a velocity that was far from sluggish. Their bow became
closer and closer within my scope of vision.

“Mister Pocket,”
the Priest said with noted amusement, “come over here for a moment.”

“Uh...sure.” I
cautiously went to the man's side. “What is it?”

“I want to show
you something,” he said, keeping his eye trained on the scope.

“All right.”

“Wait...almost...yes.
They're close enough now. Look. You see that man standing dead center?”

“The one at the
wheel? Yes.”

“Watch his right
hand.”

“What's so
important about—“

“Just watch.”

So I did. They
were still a bit away from us, but I could squint and make out the man at the
wheel, steering his ship towards ours. Then, after a moment, he lifted his
right hand and gripped the wheel at the two o'clock position. The Priest showed
his teeth.

And then he pulled
the trigger.

Crack! I nearly
leapt out of my skin.

“You could give me
a little warning!” I shouted.

“Wait,” he said
with joy. “Look.”

One shot. That's
all it had taken. The unlucky man at the wheel had just been given a very
severe and messy haircut. His right hand was still on the controls and as the
dead man dropped his weight, the wheel spun quickly.

And as the wheel
went, so went the ship.

The crew shouted
out in a panic as the vessel veered and shook, twisting itself into a hard
right turn. The Priest giggled.

“What did that
accomplish?” I cried out. “They're still barreling towards us! Only now they're
doing it sideways!”

“Exactly,” the
red-bearded captain said. “Here, step back a little. Give them some crashing
room.”

“
Crashing
room?!?”

“Yes. Oh, and can
you hold this for me? Thank you. And you may want to brace yourself.”

I was left
speechless with the man's long-nosed rifle in my shaking arms. He left my
company and took up with Hack-Jack and Madame B. The naval ship slid through
sky, getting dangerously close.

Kitt and Dolly
approached me.

“Are we all
right?” the Doll asked.

“Not very,” I
said.

“Well, what should
we do?” Kitt asked.

“He said to brace
ourselves.”

“For what?”

“Oh...I don't
know. I'd wager for
that.
”

And then the ships
collided. The three of us were thrown backward as the deck quaked. I’m not sure
where the weapon in my hands ended up, but I remember as I fell that the sky
pirates somehow managed to keep their footing. Gren stumbled over to us and
dusted off his trousers.

“Yeah, you all are
going to want to find something solid to hide behind. Don't want a catch a few
stray bullets during the show.”

“Show?” Kitt
asked.

A large cluster of
soldiers on the deck of the opposing ship, all lying either nose or belly up,
hurried to reclaim their jostled weaponry and scuttle into formation. We didn’t
wait for them to get there. As bullets clattered against the trappings of the
Lucidia
like deadly, horizontal rain, we squeezed ourselves behind barrels and ship
posts for protection. Dolly was huddled next to me behind one of the more sturdy-looking
barrels, while Kitt, Gren, and Jack hid to our left. I couldn’t see the others.

“I’m scared,”
Dolly whispered.

“Me too,” I
whispered back. “Seems to be the predominant reaction at the moment. Watch your
head.”

Another round of
that nasty rain pelted the barrel, and we slid down closer to the floor. The
Doll was clinging to my arm.

After a moment,
the gunfire ceased, and a voice from the naval ship called out to us.

“Surviving crewmen
and passengers of the criminal ship
Lucidia
!” the voice spoke. “Come
forward in surrender and prepare to be boarded!”

No one moved.
Then, I heard a series of boot-plops against wood that told me the men had most
likely just embarked onto the
Lucidia.
Dolly squeezed my arm tighter.

“I repeat,” the
opposing shout rang, “step forward and surrender! Any refusal to do so shall
result in your execution!”

The Doll looked at
me with large eyes.

“I don’t know,” I
whispered, answering her unasked question. “I think we should probably comply.”

I was about to
lift myself when I heard the Red Priest speak.

“All right,” I
heard him say. “There’s no need for all of that.”

I wanted to peek
at the scene, but was too afraid to move an inch from my place of hiding. What
I did notice, however, was Jack making mocking faces behind his cover. I stared
at him, confused. He saw me, gave a grin, then silently pried open a hinged,
wooden door directly behind him on the floor. Comically, he put a finger to his
lips, mouthed a “hush” or something to that effect, and then slipped away down
the open hole. I found the action less than comforting.