Devon Monk - Tin Swift

“He’s got a reason, Captain, and we let him look before we fly out of here.”

“I don’t care if he has an entire encyclopedia full of reasons,” he said. “Who do you think is the captain of this ship?”

“You are, Captain,” she said. “But I ain’t running your boilers if you don’t turn her around and give the man a chance. And you won’t make it over the next hill if the fuel ain’t parceled out right.”

“Oh, for the love of glim,” he said. “Give me one damn reason why you’ve taken such a shine to him.”

“That’s a Gregor ring.”

Captain Hink looked a little closer at the ring. Seemed to have a bear and the mark of flames behind it etched into the gold. It was indeed Molly’s family marking, and looked an awful lot like the ring she wore on her thumb.

One thing about the Gregors. They were a people true to their word, all the way to the last period carved on a gravestone. If someone was wearing their seal, they’d take them in like kith and kin.

It annoyed him to no end.

“Don’t much care if it’s the ring of the president himself,” Hink muttered, rubbing his fingers through his hair, sticking it up before giving it a swipe to smooth most of it down.

He glanced at Molly, who crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin out at him.

No arguing with her when she was digging her heels. He growled and turned, striding toward the navigation center, as the ship yawed in the wind.

“Mr. Guffin, Mr. Ansell,” he said. “Turn us due west.”

“Aye, Captain,” both men said.

Seldom just gave him a knowing smile that said Hink had gotten himself whupped by a woman. Again.

“I’ll circle over town and give you one chance to spot this brother of yours,” Hink said to his passenger. “Because Molly Gregor there has taken a like to you and is vouching for your worth. But that’s all I’m going to give you, Mr. Hunt. Stand up here by the windows where you’ll have a view. If you can spot a wolf at this height in the dead of night, you’ve a head full of eyes far better than mine.”

Molly nodded, satisfied. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Hunt. Don’t mind the captain, he just has a stick stuck up his rudder tonight.”

Hink opened his mouth to protest, but she had already strolled off toward the women. The fair-haired petite woman stood next to the amber-haired younger woman who was lying in the hammock. The fair-haired woman was pressing a compress over what looked to be a shoulder wound.

Mr. Hunt strode up to the windows. He got his air legs surprisingly quickly and by the time he reached the window knew how to compensate for the motion of the ship. He’d likely spent some time on a riverboat, or at sea.

That was interesting.

“Molly,” Hink said, “how about you seeing to those boilers?”

She glanced away from the woman in the hammock, and the blonde nodded her permission. Well, wasn’t that a kettle of fish?

“Aye, Captain.” That was all Molly said with her mouth. But with her eyes she was telling him to mind his manners and treat their unexpected guests properly.

They didn’t have time for guests, was how he saw it. They had time for hunting down the Saint’s plans. That crewman he’d liberated from the Black Sledge had said something about a holder.

There were stories of a weapon called the “Holder.” Hadn’t been proved that it existed, but the president was interested in finding out who, or what, it might be. And Hink was just as interested if General Saint was connected to it.

If Cedar Hunt hurried up not finding his brother, they might be able to lash and land in some hidey-hole before dawn. Maybe check out the surrounding area for men willing to offer a little information on the Saint.

Mr. Hunt leaned up close to the window and slid his goggles down over his eyes, adjusting the lens. Captain Hink hadn’t seen that particular sort of lens setup and wondered if it helped him see through the darkness.

Captain Hink glanced out the open door and watched as the town of Vicinity rocked and pitched below, passing by like lumps of stone along a riverbed. They were high enough above the roofs, everything seemed to be a miniature of itself.

That sailor they’d plucked off the Black Sledge had babbled all through the night.

Course, could be true that old General Alabaster Saint was on the prowl out these ways. If the Black Sledge had fallen under his employ, didn’t take much to think there might be other ships, other captains, willing to lend their wings to the general. Especially if he put a stranglehold on how glim was caught and sold. And trading towns near the ranges, such as Vicinity, stood as ideal locations for the Saint’s business.

“See anything, Mr. Hunt?” Hink asked as he took out his knife and got to work digging a sliver out of the side of his thumb.

“No.”

Hink leaned a bit out the door to gaze at the land. They were outside of town now, just over the western rise of ridge covered in scrub and trees. Close enough to the trees that Hink could reach out and pull off a branch if Guffin were any worse of a pilot.

Nothing moved in these woods. Well, nothing natural. There was the occasional glimpse of the Strange fading from ghostly form to mist to night wind.

Hink shivered despite himself. He had a keen dislike of the things that walked this world in inhuman clothing.

Most men didn’t believe in bogeys and ghouls. But he’d spent a lot of the worst days of his life in darkened forests and bloody fields where the dying were going about it loudly and slowly.

He’d seen the things that came to watch. Sometimes with ragged teeth, ragged bone, ragged smiles. Things that found the suffering of mankind as attractive as an opera house play.

Below, a creek ran just north of town, a cold slate ribbon snaking through the night. He didn’t see the Strange anymore. Nor did he see a wolf. Looked like Mr. Hunt was on a cold trail.

“Strange things out this night,” Hink said under his breath as he went back to picking at his thumb with the knife.

Cedar Hunt grunted as if he had heard his words. Which was near impossible over the Swift ’s fans and boiler.

“Turn around,” Cedar said. “Take us back over the jail, back where the fight’s going on.”

Guffin and Lum glanced at Hink, waiting his orders.

“Those townfolk wouldn’t want a wolf among them,” he said.

“Exactly. But that’s where he would be,” Cedar Hunt said. “Turn us back east straight over the jail.”

Captain Hink nodded at Guffin. “Let’s get this done and on with,” he said. “East, Mr. Guffin.”

The ship rolled a bit and felt as if she hovered there in one place as one set of fans pushed harder than the other, spinning her about tight.

“Bring her low, Mr. Ansell. Wouldn’t want our guest here to accuse us of leaving an unturned stone.”

The prow of the ship tilted down. Cedar Hunt grabbed ahold of the overhead bar to keep his footing, but didn’t once look away from the window.

The woman in the hammock let out a soft moan.

Captain Hink frowned, and walked his way uphill toward the women. “My apologies,” he said to Mae. “I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m—”

“Captain Hink,” the woman said. “Yes. Molly told me. I’m Mae Lindson, and this is Rose Small. Could you hold this binding down, Captain? The knot’s come loose.”

Hink lent Mae a hand.

The woman in the hammock had her eyes closed. But even so, she looked like a beauty who slept in those old fairy tales he’d been told as a child. Her skin was too pale, her breathing too shallow. Still, the curve of her cheek, the arch of her lips, put a soft thud in his chest in a way only the sight of glim had managed before.