Shannon Delany - Thunderstruck

Far better he encourage his boy into something that brought no questions and no debate than something that raised eyebrows and made people look at him more closely. Because the more fiercely you examined someone, the more likely you were to find fault with them.

He opened the door, shouted greetings to the old woman sitting in the corner, humming as she rocked in her wooden chair, and heaved himself up the stairs to the attic.

At the top of the staircase he raised his hands over his head and pulled on a knotted rope hanging overhead. The ceiling opened, a ladder sliding out to nearly scrape the floor by his feet and, holding the sides as he went, he climbed his way home.

Rain slid down the eyebrow windows set at both ends of the attic and, by flickering candlelight, he saw his boy seated on the floor, playing.

He crept up behind him on tiptoe, heart swelling in his chest at being home, his son in view. No one but a parent understood such a sensation.

He clapped his hands down on the child’s shoulders and the boy nearly jumped free of his skin, gasping, “Father!” His round cheeks flushed, he stood, turning to face his father and wrap his arms around him in a hug.

George squeezed him so hard he lifted him off the floor and Todd kicked out his feet, laughing. Set back down, Todd immediately began to lead his father away from where he’d been focused so intently on something.

“Whoa, whoa,” George said. “First show me what you were playing with that had you so enthralled.”

“It was nothing, Father,” Todd insisted, slipping his hand into his father’s and turning them toward the door in the attic’s floor.

“No,” George said. “It must be something grand.” He pulled free of the child’s grasp, picking him up and carrying him back to investigate.

Seeing the contraption there, George froze.

On the floor in fluttering light, stood a small and delicately wrought automaton in the shape of a cat. From its quivering wire whiskers to the tip of its long, jointed tail, it was all feline and fire. Beside it sat a small bag with tiny bits of crushed coal. A coal-powered steam cat.

George focused on breathing, trying to ignore the fact his son, a Weather Witch yet to be discovered, was playing with the very sort of thing George was hired to destroy.

A thing George had not given him.

He pushed breath in and out of his lungs, trying to fight a rising tide of panic. Just below his skin, a shudder raced, making the hair on his thick arms stand up.

Someone set up his son.

Someone had set him up.

And someone would be at their door by morning at the latest to make their discovery known.

In his arms Todd merely said, “Imagine if these were available for Christmas, Father. No child would ever regret being given coal by Old Saint Nick, would they?”

George stayed silent, stunned.

Perhaps no child would regret the gift of coal, but their parents most certainly would have regrets when they were discovered. And with men like George on the job they were sure to be found out.

Setting the boy down, George gave him his best smile and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you, boy.” He ruffled Todd’s hair until it stood straight up. “We’re taking up residence elsewhere tonight.”

“Moving?”

“Yes, my lad. Surprise!”

*** Philadelphia

The rain slowed—it did this, falling in patterns that, if one was observant, could be anticipated.

Huddled in shadow under a dripping roof’s edge, John heard them before he saw them: a strange crying song rose out of the water and drifted across the edge of the land.

Cynda sat up straight, her eyes fixed on the water.

Footsteps sounded and John saw light glint off a gun barrel.

The song grew louder, slower, and sadder as the Merrow were singing a funeral dirge.

The water created a continuous blur—an ongoing sheet of moisture. John squinted against its onslaught, watching as something rose out of the water—something as liquid as the sea, as colorful as an oil slick and as beautiful as …

He swallowed.

They were beautiful.

Shimmering and cloaked in rainbows, three sirens rose from the water, their faces transcending human—unearthly—angelic—an array of fleshy spines fanning out from the tops of their heads, crowning them. Their song shifted and changed as they neared the water’s edge and the words —

—weaving, undulating words—

—the water streamed into his eyes and threatened to plug his ears and John thought for a moment he understood what they sang.

Wide are the waves that keep me from you

Far will my spirit now travel

Without fear, without strain,

Devoid of horror and pain

Now will I move ever on, on, on …

He shook his head, clearing the water from his ears, and their words returned to a weaving and weird otherworldly chorus.

Their heads part headdress and part nearly human hair, they swayed their way to land, long hands with webbed fingers reaching and pulling them up.

Onto land.

John jumped back, seeing how those waterbound angels flopped onto land, long coiling tails twisting behind them, mouths filled with rows of sharp teeth as they sang. Windows were shuttered and the light faded further in the already dim alley.

John remembered he was just an old man.

With bad knees.

Something slithered past his feet.

Cynda screamed.

The gun flashed, firing.

Another scream tore through the air and John counted three loud splashes.

A man snapped, “Do your duty!” and Cynda gave a startled scream. Then came the wet slap of footsteps and finally even they were swallowed by the rain.

Unnerved and exhausted, John slid down the wall, sitting in the cold and damp, joints aching.

*** Aboard the Artemesia

“I think I shall call that my nightly lullaby to the liner. What think you, my love,” the Wandering Wallace asked Miyakitsu as she helped him tug off his boots of buffalo hide and contrasting stitching. The coin-silver buttons winked at him. They were the boots of a performer—not the boots of a revolution’s leader.

Miyakitsu smiled at him, setting the boots down by the trunk that traveled everywhere with them.

He studied her, a man obsessed. Every line of her body and glimpse of her soul colored his world. But tonight there was something different about her.

She always moved with a fluid and animal grace—with good reason—but when she turned back to face him he wondered if her nose wasn’t the slightest bit more pointed.

She reached out to take his rhinoceros head mask. Were her fingernails longer—a touch more like claws? He helped her tug the mask and accompanying hood free.

For a moment she stood there, cradling the head in her hands, staring at his face. Staring at his multitude of scars. He shouldn’t have lived. He’d been told that many times. But he had been a child when he’d been set on fire along with his illegal contraption—along with his home and his family—he was too young to know he was supposed to die.

He had known pain.

But he discovered tenderness and healed under the determined hands of a young violinist in the Night Market. She took him in and nursed him, raised him as her own. In the Night Market he might be an oddity, but there oddities thrived. He learned magick against her will. And one day, years later when he thought himself wise enough and man enough, he left her.

She probably blamed magick for his disappearance.

He shook his head. He loved her like a mother and he left her with not even a note to explain.

But no one ever explained his parents’ leaving him either. They were murdered, and why? Because they bought him a toy that was steam-powered.