Tales from the Skies Read online

  Tales from the Skies

  By

  Katherine McIntyre

  Copyright © 2019 by Katherine McIntyre

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in

  any manner whatsoever without the

  express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Art by The Illustrated Author

  Edited by Midnight Library Book Services

  Dedication:

  To the wonderful steampunk community.

  Acknowledgements:

  This compilation wouldn’t be possible without all of the wonderful people who reached out and shared their love for Bea and the crew of the Desire.

  One Shot for the Sky

  Chapter One

  Candace polished another pint glass.

  She’d polished at least twenty so far, and the Copper Rose had only been open for an hour, long enough for the regulars to arrive, bringing the scents of the salt sea and rotting fish in their wake. The repetitive actions let her mind wander and let her glaze over the whispered conversations between patrons, ones that listening in on could land her dead in an alley.

  This close to the docks in New Boston, the folks who rambled into the bar were airship pirates, bounty hunter gangs like the Morlocks, and the perpetually drunk. Most of the regulars were the latter, while the others formed the rotating cast of cutthroats who had shot up the bar seven times already in her six months working here.

  Still, none of the danger these ruffians brought to the bar came close to the knife edge she walked at her former job. Her right hand twitched on instinct, and she almost dropped the glass she held. Serving grog to the masses was idyllic compared to those crushing levels of stress.

  “Hey, Red,” O’Leary drawled, leaning over the scuffed-up bar. He pushed his empty glass forward and leered. “I’m a bit thirsty.”

  “You and every other asshole in this bar.” Candace grabbed the glass and went for a refill of the dark and creamy porter they specialized in. “While you’re at it, why don’t you try a more inventive nickname.” She moved with blinding efficiency, because here, her hands were the capable tools they used to be.

  “You’d think Whitmore would hire a barmaid who wasn’t so mouthy,” he grumbled, too sloppy to offer much of a response. “The last lass knew how to respect a bloke.”

  Candace pushed his pint forward, and he wrapped his greasy fingers around the glass. “And how long did she waste around here? Gone in a blink, yeah?” She tucked a few loose auburn strands back into her bun.

  The door swung open, the telltale creak demanding her attention.

  A crew of six piled in, wearing holsters weighted with pistols, sheathed cutlasses strapped to their sides, and the bronze glint of more than a couple of clockwork grenades. Candace didn’t need an introduction to know trouble had walked into this bar.

  At the forefront of this gang stood a man sharper than any scalpel she’d wielded in her previous career. Despite the rugged appearance of the rest of his crew, with his long, fitted obsidian coat, precise top hat, and charmer’s smile, he could be mistaken for a gentleman. At least, if you ignored the brazen holsters at his side. Only brigands prepared to wield their weapons wore them out in the open.

  She stood a little taller and adjusted her russet waist cincher, tugging on one of the many leather straps in the front. Whitmore didn’t make an appearance often enough to offer a sharp word or sharper knife to the brunt of the troublemakers in this bar, so the task landed on her and Joaquin. He’d been hired as a bouncer to keep folks from walking out with all the credits flowing through this joint.

  The leader of the crew strode in her direction with a gunpowder look in his eyes, one lit match away from igniting. Candace brandished a pint glass at the ready. Ale could soothe most of these ruffians, and she’d become adept at taming tempers. Up close, his Mediterranean good looks grew quite apparent. His olive skin glowed against the black fabric of his coat, complemented by a dusting of scruff along an elegant chin, and dark, intelligent eyes. He flashed a grin at her that promised lethal, unadulterated trouble. Her heartbeat pulled a quick one-two step in response.

  “Don’t suppose Whitmore is in?” he asked in a tone too smooth for his own good.

  This wasn’t an idle drop-by. Joaquin pulled away from the conversation he was having with some scowling, soot-stained smuggler, his attention drawn in their direction. Candace kept her focus on the dashing gentleman in front of her while she tapped her left hand on the bar in a one-two-three, her signal for backup.

  “Our almighty leader isn’t often around,” Candace drawled, keeping her cool. Ruffians in a bar didn’t compare to an operating room in the slightest. “You’d be best off asking around town. Might have better luck there.”

  The gentleman leaned forward, closing in on her space, but Candace didn’t bat an eye. “See, if I had that sort of time, I wouldn’t be approaching his establishment. Your boss has a package in his possession that he doesn’t own, one belonging to the crew of the Fireswamp. We’d kindly appreciate getting our bounty back.”

  Candace shrugged, aware of his proximity and the incendiary tension weighting the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Joaquin inching forward, his bushy brows furrowed and his hand on his pistol.

  “What my boss does on his off hours isn’t my concern,” she responded. “Like I said, he isn’t around here much, and if you want to shake him down, you’re better off paying him a home visit.”

  She needed to stall for more time. Joaquin crossed the space towards them, the hulk of a guy barely making a sound.

  “What I can do,” she continued, lifting the glass in her hand, “is get you a pint of ale.”

  The gentleman’s grin widened, and his gaze never left her.

  Even as he whipped his pistol out and aimed it straight at her chest.

  Candace’s eyes darted to Joaquin. Before the bouncer lifted his pistol, one of the Fireswamp crewmates pointed their gun straight at his skull and cocked it.

  She sucked in a deep breath, the hollow pinch of fear one she’d felt before. However, she’d been tempered and honed under enough pressure to make most faint. Too many lives had relied on her fast, decisive action for her to drop into hysterics at the slightest threat.

  “What. Do. You. Want?” she responded, keeping her tone even.

  Some of the patrons were paying attention as hands slipped to pistols and knives, while the others buried their gazes in their half-empty pints in the timeworn protocol for staying out of loaded situations.

  “You,” the gentleman called over to Joaquin. “You’re going to tell your boss if he wants his barmaid back, he’ll deliver the bronze owl to us by sunset tonight. Tell him Morgan Blackwind doesn’t forget a slight.”

  Candace’s stomach squeezed tight. Kidnapped was not how she planned on ending her shift. Then again, her life had careened like a torched airship ever since the incident last year. Even as her heart quickened at the cold shiver of steel pressed to her temple, bitterness had corroded everything, even this fear.

  Goal number one? Don’t get killed.

  Joaquin opened his mouth as if to argue. Candace shot him a look. Feeding the fire while a pistol was pointed at her head wouldn’t help either of them.

  His brows furrowed in confusion, but he didn’t protest. “Fine. I’ll pass along the message.”

  Even though he’d gone the sensible route like she’d signaled, his out-loud resignation stabbed right through her cast-iron heart. Whitmore didn’t give a damn about her. He wouldn’t be ar
riving to any dock with a bronze owl in order to rescue her. And Joaquin cared as much as he was paid to, which wasn’t much. Coworker relationships, even ones forged through years, dissipated at the slightest sign of trouble. She’d discovered that the hard way.

  “Step out from the bar and come with me, lass,” Morgan Blackwind commanded, his pistol still pressed against her skull.

  Candace sucked in a deep breath. Despite the way her heart raced and her stomach churned, her hands didn’t tremble. She kept a placid mask in place as she took each step slowly. The pistol followed her the whole way to the swinging door.

  The entire bar paid attention, watching like gents at the theater as a droplet of sweat crawled down her nape. As this pirate pointed a gun at her and not a single one of them lifted their own.

  No one tried.

  The Copper Rose had always been filled with cutthroat bastards who’d sell out their own mothers. She accepted the fact when she first slid behind the bar and started dispensing ale. However, as she made this tense, silent walk across the bar with all those eyes on her and all those men who’d slumped over the bar, chatting with her day in and day out who didn’t so much as shrug in response to her abduction, she knew.

  Her heart thudded so loud it drowned out any other noise, from Blackwind and his crew’s shouts of warning to the clank of pints as they were smacked onto the table. Focus. Breathe. One step. Another.

  Sunlight poured outside the entrance with blinding rays, and several of the crew stepped ahead to lead the way while Blackwind continued his measured pace beside her. Those heavy leather boots echoed again and again. Candace swallowed, hard, her throat dry. They stepped out onto the streets of New Boston, billows of dust from the beaten dirt roads drifting with the seaside breezes.

  “Look, we’ve got you surrounded, so be sensible,” Blackwind murmured beside her as he lowered his pistol. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

  Candace arched a brow, ignoring the fear that zapped her strength. “With the way you were aiming that thing at my head, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  He flashed a broad smile, the same dangerous one he’d entered with. “Little did I know the powder keg we’d be toting away.”

  “Now that you’ve realized I’m explosive merchandise, how about letting me go?” The words flew from her lips before she could help herself. With that cold steel removed from her skin, feeling returned to her fingers and toes.

  They cut a quick pace down Dead Man’s Alley, a narrow, uneven path to the dock where rot lingered in the air.

  “Can’t do, sweetheart,” Blackwind responded. “Right now, we haven’t the slightest where Whitmore’s disappeared to, and you’re the only hope we have for drawing him out.”

  Best tactic right now was to follow along. While he spoke in a casual, disarming manner, he’d also been brazen enough to walk into the bar and whisk her away at gunpoint. However, he didn’t seem to be binging on bloodlust like the Morlocks who wandered into the Copper Rose. Otherwise, he’d be keeping her at gunpoint or knifepoint the whole way, and his motley crew would’ve blown Joaquin’s brains out.

  “If I’m your only hope, then I’m afraid you can kiss your bronze owl goodbye,” she responded, her tone dry. Even though her heart sped a million miles a minute, she’d made a living off of keeping calm under pressure.

  “Remind me why we kidnapped her again?” a lanky woman drawled, her hair pulled into a tight bun and a pistol strapped on either side of her hip in leather holsters. She had a mouth made for smirking and a wild glint to her eyes, like her captain, identifiable as trouble.

  “Because we had nothing beforehand, and he wasn’t in the bar.” Blackwind tugged the brim of his top hat forward.

  “He wasn’t around back either,” a burly guy with curly ginger locks grumbled from behind them. “We rifled through his office. The guy has an obsession with model airships—they’re all around the place, but no cigar on the drop merchandise he stole.”

  Blackwind shot him a warning glance. Apparently this conversation wasn’t meant for her ears. “Why don’t you tell her the laundry list of bounties we’ve racked up on our heads, too, Niles.”

  Niles frowned but stopped jawing off. Their crew of five slowed to an amble as they reached the docks, those weathered planks creaking under their tread. The salt breeze mingled with the scent of rust from the abandoned autocarts that collected here from so many who’d rushed off in an airship instead.

  Candace had gone up in the skies once—when she was little. Her pulse had pounded like she was falling in love, and the ozone breezes filled her with wonder she’d never been able to capture again. After that, she spent years and years in the stale, mint-green halls of her schools, and then sequestered herself in even staler hospitals until the sky remained as distant as before.

  Then a year ago, after all her work to become a surgeon and the time she’d put into the field, her career crashed and burned. One mistake involving the wrong person led to slumming away in the Copper Rose, and now? Getting kidnapped.

  The salt air drenched her with possibilities, and the gears of her mind clicked forward again. If they weren’t interested in leaving her dead in an alley, just retrieving their item from her now-former boss, perhaps she could swing this situation in her favor. At least, in the escaping-with-her-life direction. After all, she owed Whitmore nothing, especially not loyalty.

  Blackwind kept close to her, enough that she caught sight of the knotted scars lining his hands, the nick on his lip. She could tell from the way he stood the man was made of coiled muscle.

  Ahead, several of the crew came to a halt in front of the lineup of airships. Blackwind’s gaze fixed on one, and the tenderness in his eyes told Candace everything she needed to know.

  Some bloated monstrosities took up space in the sea, while others had the sleek form of fighting vessels, but the crew stopped in front of one smaller than the others, a scouting airship. Her hull shone from beautiful tan wood that soaked up the afternoon sun, and with the overhead balloon deflated, the metal framework rested in the docking slats overhead. Propellers stood out on either side, and a railing surrounded the deck, all in bright, friendly colors that reminded her of the ship she’d once taken flight in. Not the forbidding beast she expected from a crew of cutthroat pirates.

  “This beauty belong to you?” she asked, crossing her arms as she scanned over the airship.

  “Welcome to the Fireswamp,” Blackwind said, gesturing towards the vessel before them with a broad sweep of his arm. A flimsy rope ladder dropped down, and already the crew scrambled up. “More’s the pity you’re not boarding on better circumstances.”

  “I believe that was your choice,” Candace responded, feeling bold. “I, for one, never asked to be used as leverage for whatever item you’re seeking from my boss. Poor taste, on your part.”

  “I’m a knave,” he responded, tipping his top hat in the direction of the ladder. “After you, sweetheart.”

  She shook her head, bemused by a kidnapper who swapped words with her like he’d asked her out to tea. Given his lack of aggression ever since his pistol retreated to his holster, reasoning with her kidnappers seemed to be her best avenue.

  Candace latched onto each rung of the rope ladder to heave herself up. This close to the ship, its light oak scent and the gentle splash of the cerulean waves as they lapped against the base were all intoxicating. She hoisted herself up and over, minding to her mahogany skirts as she settled onto the deck. Blackwind hopped on board with a fluid, familiar ease.

  “Now that we’re away from those prying ears you’re so worried about, why don’t we have a chat,” Candace proposed, running on boldness alone at this point. Something about the feel of the deck beneath her feet and the salt air inspired her to madness.

  Blackwind arched a brow. “On board my ship for mere seconds and already you’re barking out orders?”

  “Careful, Captain,” the lanky woman called. “You’ve got competition.”

 
He placed a careful arm around Candace’s shoulders, keeping proper distance as he guided her over towards the railing. “You deserve to be heard, considering I stole you away from your workplace.”

  “At gunpoint,” she reminded him.

  “At gunpoint,” he repeated, a slow smile rolling to his lips, one that reached his umber eyes. “I have to admit, I never expected this brand of fearlessness from a barmaid.”

  “I’ll admit in turn, I’m new to this barmaid business. I never caught the wretched fearfulness memo.” Truth be told, the fear had leeched from her after watching her entire life spiral out of her control. It granted her a brashness she might not have had five years ago. “You do know Whitmore isn’t going to show tonight, right?”

  Blackwind tapped the side of his elegant nose, staring out at the docks ahead of them from where they stood at the rail. “I had the feeling. Impulse sometimes gets the best of me, and most of what we pulled there was theater so we could rifle through your boss’s back room. If he doesn’t show at sunset, you’re free to go on your merry way. I’ve got no interest in harming innocents.”

  Candace blinked in surprise. While she’d hoped to debate him into this objective, she hadn’t expected him to hand over victory so easily. “You’re an odd sort of pirate.”

  “And you’re an odd sort of barmaid, so quite the pair we make.” His quickness with the quip and his liquid-silk delivery was disarming, and her shoulders relaxed. The man percolated with frustration, but he didn’t direct any of the hostility at her.

  “Do you mind me asking what Whitmore’s involved in?” She threw the question out there on a whim. Once he let her go tonight, she wouldn’t be returning to work at the Copper Rose.

  “We took on a smuggling job. The bronze owl isn’t worth much more than a couple credits, but it’s got a message inside it we were paid to deliver.” Blackwind leaned forward against the railing, pressing his palms down as he stared out, those eyes lost and distant. “Whitmore intercepted us two nights ago. He’s involved in Morlock business, and that’s who our employer wants to keep this information from.”