It can’t be.It can’t be. Horror battled with hope inside her
Everyone knew the renegade scientist-doctor who called himself Harvel had created seven Guardians—men brought back from the brink of death by unnatural experiments, made inhuman and forever changed.
The Guardian of Highgate had fascinated her from the first moment she met him. And he looked nothing at all like her lost Nathaniel.
He tipped his imaginary hat just like Nathaniel. He’d called her Lenore when he thought her unconscious or too far away from him to hear.
He told her he once served aboard an airship.
He recited Tennyson right before he kissed her and brought her numb spirit back to life.
Anyone could chalk those things up to coincidences or her seeing and hearing what she wanted to hear, a woman still grieving for her lost lover. She might have even agreed except for one thing.
“Do I know you?”
She’d asked the question by her father’s grave, confused why such a thing might fall from her lips when logic dictated that acquaintance with a Guardian was an event none would forget. Lenore’s soul had instantly recognized what her eyes had not.
Oh God, Nathaniel. He’d come back to her—resurrected by methods she could only imagine and that made her shudder. Now he courted death again, housed in a gun turret under an airship’s belly, taking aim at the abominations that had ripped him away from her.
A hard bang sounded over the thunder of artillery fire, and the ship jolted sideways. Lenore fell against one of the metal medicine cabinets. She righted herself and searched for the doctor. The impact to the ship had knocked him to the floor. He clambered to his knees before gaining his feet with the help of his white-faced assistant.
“What was that?” the other man asked in a quavering voice.
The doctor, equally pale, straightened his coat and adjusted his skewed spectacles on his nose. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.” He gestured to the cabinet behind Lenore. “And there’s nothing we three can do about it. Kenward,” he ordered,” see to the contents in there and make sure nothing is broken or spilled.”
“Yes, sir.” She caught the key he tossed her and unlocked the cabinet doors, hoping all the bottles and vials of medicines and chloroform were intact.
Before she could begin her inspection, the sick bay door banged open and a crewman rushed in—a junior mechanic judging by his close-fitting cap, goggles and boilersuit. His gaze locked on the doctor. “Where’s Kenward?” he asked in a breathless voice, as if he’d run the length of the ship.
“Here,” she said.
He motioned frantically for her to join him and was halfway out the door already when he told her “Mr. Jupiter needs your assistance in the forecastle. We have engine trouble.”
Lenore gawked at him for a moment before glancing at the doctor who waved her out. She raced to keep up with the crewman as they flew down the gangway, up a ladder to the deck above the gasbag deck and across the hull to where an exterior shaft connecting hull to gondola allowed the mechanics access to both places during shift changes. Bless Nettie for insisting her female crew members dress like pit lasses—trousers under skirts tucked at the waist—otherwise she’d never been able to keep up.
The mechanic stopped her before the shaft’s entrance. From her place at the top, she had a good view of the gondola. Part of its housing was torn off, exposing some of the engine to the elements. She wondered if they’d been hit by either friendly fire or a horrific’s strike.
The wind blasted an icy howl up the shaft, nearly drowning the mechanic’s shout. “Do you have a cap?” He tapped his head, encased in the tight-fitting cap everyone entering an engine gondola wore. She shook her head, and he stripped his off to hand it to her. “You’ll need it,” he bellowed. “That braid of yours will get you killed down there.”
Thanks to her father, Lenore understood engine design, even if she’d never been allowed to work on a physical one. Jewelry, hair, ties; anything hanging loose in an engine gondola was dangerous. Getting hair caught guaranteed a fatal scalping.
She tucked her braid into the cap and buckled the strap under her chin. He steadied her as she got her footing on the shaft ladder and descended toward the gondola. The wind that had blown into the shaft now gusted hot and smelled of burning metal.
Artillery fire and wind howl were nothing compared to the mechanical roar of the engine in the gondola’s tight, enclosed space. Mr. Jupiter, theTerebellum’s master mechanic motioned her to where the engine’s crankshaft spun in fast rotation. The acrid metal smell was especially prevalent here.
With the noise and her cap covering her head, his shouts directly into her ear were the thinnest whispers, and she had to strain to hear.
“You know this engine’s design from your father.”
She nodded and yelled her reply. “Yes, but I have no hands-on experience.” She couldn’t imagine why the master mechanic had summoned her for help when he had a junior mechanic waiting at the top of the shaft.
He enlightened her posthaste. “One of the other ships took damage from a horrific. Sent out a shrapnel blast that tore off some of this gondola. A metal splinter lodged in a gear in the speed reduction unit and froze it up.”
Lenore inhaled sharply. These mechanics were lucky to be alive and not sliced to bloody remains. It was one small thing to be grateful for in the face of impending disaster.
She glanced around the engine toward the propeller exposed by the rip in the gondola’s side. The massive blades spun much faster than they should have. Without the propeller speed reduction unit working, the powerplant’s rotations per minute would rise to critical failure levels. What damage a horrific didn’t manage to inflict on a ship, her engine’s torsional vibration would.
“Why is the engine still running? You’ll lose the prop if it keeps going or break the crankshaft.” Her voice was a thin echo felt more than heard. She wondered if Mr. Jupiter could read lips.
