Chapter 30
THIRTY
The impending storm was nearly upon us now. Thunder charged the air, leaving a sharp, metallic taint on my tongue as the clouds churned overhead. Silver swirled with gray in ominous flashes of heat lightning. The storm covered the city, coming off the sea, cooling the world with a humid breath.
“Look at this,” Max murmured as we looked up at the huge ship. Awe filled my chest. “I’ve never seen a steamship this big.”
Neither had I. It was a marvel of nautical engineering. So many had been lost in the storms trying to reach the Freelands, but this one had lived long enough to share a glimpse of what used to be. Now the steamship remained as hollow and empty as a dry bone.
“It’s massive. Where do we even start?”
He pointed to a gangway that swung over a recessed, empty basin holding up the ship. “I’ll check the hatches and scope out the area. It looks quiet on the deck, but there could be others lurking below. Stay here and keep an eye out. Let me know if you see anyone coming up behind me.”
He slipped me the Glamour die before I could argue, leaving me dockside to play the lookout.
I pressed my back to a wall of equipment to keep anyone from coming up behind me.
Max’s coat snapped in the wind as he crossed the shaking bridge.
He kept his hand on the gun at his hip as he boarded, searching slowly for any guards posted on deck.
The gangway led to the highest deck of the ship, and Max cleared it quickly, disappearing once he ventured down a set of stairs to the deck below. I reached for him through our thoughts, keeping a line of communication open.
“The doors are sealed shut with some kind of coded lock. Dupont has the place locked down. I can’t even use Forge to break them open,” Max spoke down the connection. “We could break a window, but I’m worried the sound will draw attention.”
“Are there any guards down there?” I asked.
“Not that I can see. Wait—” The cord plucked between us, weakening. “Hold on!”
“Max?”
When he didn’t reply, I started toward the gangway. “Max!”
I paused for a heartbeat when I reached the bridge, tentatively grasping the handrails. The metal ramp wavered in the violent gusts, creaking as I tested a step. Then a sound cracked the silence, the echo of a gunshot covered by the groan of thunder.
I cursed under my breath and ran the rest of the distance across the gangway, not daring to look down into the basin. As soon as I made it to the upper deck, I ran to the place I’d last seen Max, peering over the handrail to the deck below.
He had a bleeding enforcer by the neck, the guard’s ear cleaved. Max shoved him toward the side of the ship, pushing him with a single arm and the dual strength of his relics over the edge of the ship. The enforcer only had time for a single sharp cry before thudding against the bottom of the pit.
“Any more?” I called to him. Max looked up to where I leaned over the rail, shaking his head.
“I took out a patrol, but I haven’t seen any others.”
“And no way inside?” I asked.
“Not through any of the obvious entrances.”
My gaze fell to the ship, taking in the expanse of the upper and lower decks. On the outside, the ship was obviously abandoned. Paint peeled from the lifeboats, ropes were knotted and frayed, a mess of scaffolding surrounded the funnels.
“What about up there?” I asked Max. “Do the funnels have any access to the inner part of the ship?”
“They should.” Maxence returned to the upper deck, walking a stride ahead of me toward the first funnel, a black, looming tube that once vented the smoke from the boilers below.
A rusted ladder led up to a wiry framework. “I’ll go first,” Max offered. “Stay a bit behind me, just in case it isn’t stable.”
Thankfully, the lightning held off as we climbed. Each rung groaned beneath our weight, and when the wind picked up, my fingers went white around the handrail.
When we reached the top of the ladder, we climbed farther up the scaffolding, and I got a better glimpse inside the funnel.
Within the vertical vent, beneath a canopy of iron bars, was a ladder leading down into darkness.
There would be a maintenance entrance at the base of the funnel, and we could use it to get inside the ship, bypassing any more of Dupont’s patrols.
“I’ll keep maintaining the lead.” He flashed the Forge die, as if that would be reassuring. “In case it doesn’t hold.”
“Max…” I whispered, touching his arm. He looked in the direction of my stare, caught on the small plume of steam rising from the farthest funnel.
Dupont’s lab. It must be right below us. In the ship’s boiler rooms.
“We need to hurry,” I urged him, tucking the die in my pocket to pull myself over the rim of the funnel.
The descent into the ship was grueling. Every misstep, every groan of metal from our weight, echoed down the vent, possibly announcing our presence. Rain mixed with the soot lining every rung, staining my fingers black and coating my boots with a waxy film.
The dark was consuming. Forced to navigate the ladder by touch alone, pressed into a narrow climbing space by the vents and shafts, the moldy air was thick in my throat. My heart slammed at the thought of falling into that seemingly endless dark.
“Slow down, Nina. Some of the steps have been eroded—”
His warning came too late. My foot slipped on a rusted rung. I scrambled for purchase, and the rung snapped when I put my full weight upon it. My fingers tightened, barely stopping me from falling.
“Nina!”
“I’m fine,” I wheezed.
Thunder boomed through the vent. Even the soft hiss of rain and drips down the metal pipes were helpful in covering his noisy descent. Soon he appeared from the darkness.
“Almost there,” Max spoke directly into my thoughts, not daring a word outside of our private connection now that we were so close to our goal. I knew from sharing his Cursed vision out on the canal that he could see in little to no light at all.
My feet finally reached the end of the ladder, finding a solid surface. The floor was slightly flooded, and cold water seeped into my boots.
I groped at the wall and found a hatch almost hidden under layers of soot. It led to a boiler room, where the uptake shafts and steam lines fed to the stack we’d just crawled through. Four engines stood before us, their furnace doors still open.
Max appeared in the dark with a gas lantern in his hand, lighting it with his relics. He handed it to me to hold. “Dupont is using the engines in the front of the ship, so we’ll head that way. No matter what, we stay together.”
I had no plans on leaving his side, especially in the moaning dark of a deserted steam engine.
“A ship like this should have multiple engine rooms, each connected by a door that could seal the chamber watertight,” Max explained. “The stairs nearby lead to the lower decks, far below any of the passenger floors. We’ll check the boiler room in use to see if it can lead us to the lab.”
“How do you know so much about ocean liners? You act like you’ve been here before.”
He peered over his shoulder briefly. “You think your fisherman worked us both in silence? Hell, all he talked about was steam engines, and I had nothing better to do than listen. When he’d finished explaining how his own boat worked, he started on every other kind of vessel that exists.”
A smile pulled at my cheeks at the thought of old Maurice. While I held the light, he took out his gun and walked a few feet ahead, using his heightened senses to navigate the dark before us.
The opening to the next boiler room was small, only about as tall as me, quiet, and dark from what we could see through the entryway.
Max had to duck to move through. On the other side was a similar room.
Boilers in the center, stairs leading to a service deck around the furnaces, darkness cloaking the reach of the ceiling, while rusted iron mingled with the smell of damp.
Just as we were about to move through the room, a light glowed behind the boilers. Jade light—the strange radiance of essence.
Enforcers.
Max blew out the lantern in my hand as soon as he noticed, but it was too late. The guards were already rounding the last furnace, guns ready and raised.
Max shoved me back, and I tripped over the high threshold of the door. “Go up!” he shouted while reaching for the side of the frame.
“Wait!” I scrambled to my feet, just to see him pull a manual lever from the other side. The watertight door fell from the top of the frame like a guillotine, cutting swiftly enough to break a limb had he not shoved me out of the way.
“Max!” I slammed on the door, sealed in darkness.
Bullets sprayed the other side, and I fell to the floor in case they ripped through the solid metal door.
Max said nothing. I had no idea if they’d hit him, if he was bleeding out right in front of me, separated by inches of iron.
Did he have time to return fire? To defend himself?
Had he wasted those seconds shielding me?
“Maxence,” I whispered once more, my fingers passed over the dents in the door made by their bullets.
“Go, Nina. I’ll keep them busy. Find your mother!”
I felt for the lantern I’d dropped in the pitch-dark, nicking my finger on its shattered bulb orb.
The oil had spilled, leaving me in the dark.
I blinked to let my eyes adjust to the blackness, drawing on what I could remember at first glance of the place.
My hands felt blindly for where I believed the stairwell to be, searching for the first step.
Cold metal brushed my fingertips, and I gripped the handrail firmly.
The grating protested as I hurried around the boilers, searching for another way out.
I tripped once, finding the stairs and starting a shaky climb.
I was sweating under my coat from the heavy dampness in the chamber, forced to slip out of the thick layer and drape it over a ledge before climbing the last set of steps to an inset door.
The faintest light led the way out of this room through a glazed window in the door.
Shoving it open, my heart stammered against my ribs as I stumbled onto a deck.
Still deep inside the ship, the light that summoned me came from the weak glow of the sconces on the wall.
The ship had some life, thanks to one working boiler.
The tiled floor was tilted at a slight angle like the rest of the ship, slick with mud and mold, making it a challenge to run toward the bow.
I didn’t know where to go, frantically searching each crew door for a sign of Dupont.
A sign dangled just above an archway leading farther down the deck.
Directions and arrows, room numbers printed on the side of various stations.
Upper decks, promenades, a dining cafe, first- and second-class decks…
A hospital.
“Of course,” I whispered to myself. A ship of this size crossing the sea would require a hospital, which would have everything Dupont would require. Beds, medicine, instruments—he wouldn’t have had to transport very much to build his lab.
I followed the arrows up the stairwell, avoiding the grime slicking the handrails.
My thighs burned by the time I reached the middle deck, forced to take a moment to catch my breath. With the relic in one hand, my opposite was free for the gun in my waistband. I was ready to use it if Dupont put up a fight.
I slipped into the hall, looking for any glow from an enforcer. There was no one patrolling the level from what I could see, nor could I sense from siphoning the Glamour die. Had he sent all his guards downstairs already?
Another sign dangled from a white ceiling, pointing the way to the hospital. My boots trod quietly across hardwood floors. They were already sullied with muddy footprints from someone passing through here recently.
Double doors blocked the rest of the hall. The windows were glazed and alive with a golden glow. I hesitated before entering, unsure whether to walk in ready to use the die or my gun.
The Glamour die rolled between my fingers as I considered my options.
Don’t change who you are for these bastards.
Beyond a pair of swinging doors, there was an empty foyer.
Papers were scattered across the floor, soaked from wet boots.
The walls were covered in mold like the rest of the ship, while the gas lamps fought to stay alive.
Whatever power he was running to the hospital was minimal, operating on a single engine.
Another pair of white doors led into the actual infirmary beyond. The smell inside was thick and acrid, suffocatingly sour. Embalming fluid. I knew it well from the surgery.
There were no bodies to be seen, though.
Circular windows were visible over a row of empty beds that were cramped together against the left wall, exposing the worsening storm outside.
Rain hit the glass, and the sound of it filled the room.
Pipes ran overhead, congesting the ceiling, while much of the floor was a mess of paper and empty syringes.
A table was set up in the center with a Scribe, the same device Commissioner Cassien had used to record my interrogation.
A dozen tapes were collected in an open suitcase beside it.
It looked like Dupont had been recording himself and saving his logs.
The tapes were each labeled with a number and an Archetype.
One for every patient. One for each body I’d given him.
A black curtain ran on a curved track on the ceiling, concealing the area beyond.
The only noise coming from that direction was a deep hum and the tick of some kind of machine. I pinched the fabric of the curtain and slowly pulled it aside.
This… this was his project?
I clamped a hand over my mouth to hold back a scream.