K. Weiland - Storming

He clamped his bad arm against his stomach and extended the other one, herding her and Walter toward the door. “I’m going to find Zlo. Then I’m going to find his knife. And then I’m going to stick his knife right in his black heart.”

“But ship, it is crashing. We have to exit.”

“Also part of the plan.”

They hustled down the corridors, following Jael’s directions. She kept them mostly to the back routes, clear of the traffic. And there was plenty of traffic.

Every juncture they passed was crowded with men, running and shouting. Heavy boots clomped against the canted floor. Lights flickered through the doorways and cast mutating shadows across the floors. In the distance, a klaxon blared.

A faint breeze blew through the hallways, carrying a whiff of smoke. A fire under a gas bag. Just what they all needed.

“They are evacuating,” Jael whispered. “With elevators.”

Hitch looked down to where he was supporting her in the crook of his good arm. “They’re not even going to try to fix the engines?”

She lifted a shoulder. “We have damaged maybe more than we thought. Or they are too afraid of fire.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Whether it was a good something or a bad something remained to be seen. He firmed his mouth. At least if they all had to die in a fireball, they’d take the infernal ship with them.

Walter trotted along at his side. He peered up at him. “Are we… evacuating?”

“You bet your buttons, kiddo.”

They passed the observation balcony where he and Jael had gotten trapped earlier. At the end of the corridor, he raised the bar from the entrance to the cargo bay, then eased open the door. The room lay in darkness. The big doors to the storm had been closed, and without the propellers thunking away in the engine room beyond, the only sounds filtering in were the muffled shouts of Zlo’s crew.

“All right, c’mon,” he said.

He hauled Jael through the door and halfway across the room, all the way to the Jenny—which Zlo, fortunately, hadn’t had the foresight to chuck overboard. In fact, somebody had cleared the boxes away from it enough to turn it around, and then they’d tied it down so it hadn’t gotten tossed around when the dirigible swerved. Looked like they thought they’d found themselves a prize.

He pushed Jael on ahead. “Go on to the engines. I’ll meet you there.”

She knit her brows, but staggered on anyway.

He turned to Walter and knelt to eye level. “Everybody’s got a part in this plan, you hear me?”

Walter nodded, tight-lipped.

“I need you to keep Taos here while Jael and I take care of a few things. If Jael comes back and tells you to, I want you to help her start up the plane, like I showed you the other day, okay? You remember where all the switches are?”

Walter frowned, but he nodded again.

“Of course you do.” Hitch’s heart bumped up into his throat. He opened his mouth to say more, but there was way yonder too much. He helped Walter into the rear cockpit. Then he directed Taos into the front.

If something went wrong and he couldn’t get back to them before the fire spread too far, Jael would never get the doors open by herself. So he took five precious seconds to heave them open, one-handed. Rain-flecked wind swirled in.

When he turned back, Walter was watching him. The boy had his face all scrunched up and his head cocked to the side, like he used to do when he was trying to ask a question.

Hitch headed for the engine room and reached to touch Walter’s head as he passed.

“Wait.” Walter swiveled in the cockpit. “Aren’t you going to come back?”

Hitch stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You just wait there. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then he started walking.

This time, the only way to come back was to leave.

Jael had already made it into the engine room. She huddled over the dawsedometer and its steady hum, clicking away at the buttons.

Hitch hustled toward her, looking around as he came. Wonder of wonders, nobody else was here. If she was right about the evacuation, they could be flying an empty ship now, for all they knew.

The ceiling creaked. Footsteps? Or the wind?

She looked up at him, mouth tight. “_Yakor_—my pendant—it is gone. Zlo must have taken it.”

“But you don’t need it to shut it off, right?”

“No.” Still, a muscle in her jaw twitched. She’d fought a long time to keep that thing from Zlo. Had to rankle a little to know he’d gotten it in the end, even if maybe it didn’t matter anymore.

“How long will it take to shut down?” he asked.

“It is all the way on this time. It takes ten minuti , maybe more.”

“As soon as you get that thing off, you hurry on back to Walter. I’ll join you as soon as I can. Then we’re all going home.” He headed on past her, toward the spiraling metal stairs that would lead him to the upper levels. If Zlo was still up there, they’d do this the hard and final way. If not, at least maybe he could give a shot to figuring out how to maneuver Schturming for a survivable landing.

“Hitch.”

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back.

She leaned one trembling hand against the dawsedometer . This close to the machine had to be murder for her. In the lamp-lit darkness, her pupils looked huge, her eyes almost all black.

She shook her head. “Hitch, I do not think this is good plan. We should go, all of us now. Let Zlo crash.”

“And if he doesn’t crash? Or if he crashes this thing on top of a house with a family and kids in it?” He dug down deep and found his cockiest grin. It felt a little false, even to him. “It’s going to be okay.” He stared at her. “Jael…”

Now or never.

He walked back to her. “I just want you to know…”

She tilted her head all the way back to look up at him.

“I just want you to know I could never have done this without you—any of it.” He touched the back of his hand to her face. “You’re the most incredibly brave person I’ve ever met.”

The corner of her mouth crooked up. “That was my thought for you.”

He let his hand slide down off her chin. “Stay alive, okay?”

Her breath shuddered. “You too, Hitch Hitchcock.”

He turned away.

He ran up the stairs, three at a time, then all the way down the empty corridor to the bow and up another flight of spiral stairs.

The wheelhouse lay in a flickering half-darkness, lit only by lanterns secured near the ceiling. He stopped five steps from the top, with his head still below the railing. He peered around the corner.

Big paned windows lined both walls, looking out onto more observation balconies. The room tapered to a point, where another window, half again as tall as the others, revealed the night ahead of them. The sky looked maybe a hair less black than the last time he’d seen it, but lightning glimmered, building up inside the clouds, no doubt on the remaining juice of the powering-down dawsedometer . They’d been up here for hours. Surely, the time had to be getting along about sunrise.

Beneath the front window, the ship’s wheel spun drunkenly. No one manned the helm.

Maybe Zlo really had abandoned ship. The man was no fool. But if he left now, it would mean he’d given up on his dreams. Schturming was the only life Zlo knew, and the dawsedometer was the best resource he’d ever have. If he let the ship crash, he’d lose both in one fell swoop. And judging from that gleam he’d had in his eye, he wanted both a little too much to let go.

Hitch climbed another couple of steps and looked over the railing.

Behind the spinning wheel, a small shadow moved. Golden eyes gleamed. Feathers ruffled.