AEGIS Tales 2, page 7
part #8 of Airship Daedalus Series
A single lamp illuminated the center of the room where Daniel sat, tied to a chair, flanked by two men, whose suits seemed ill-equipped to contain their bulging muscles. To the left, mixing a drink at a small table, was a lean, bespectacled man, who glanced vaguely toward them as they entered.
“Take a seat, Mr. Bernett,” he said, nodding at an empty chair opposite Daniel.
Lili hesitated only a moment before shoving Clyde roughly into the chair. Picking up a length of cord which lay on the ground, she contrived restraining Clyde’s hands behind his back in such a way that the knots would give when the time was right.
“Daniel,” Clyde whispered. “Are you all right?”
Daniel looked up, still obviously groggy from whatever had been used to knock him out, but his eyes shot open at the sight of Clyde, who he’d believed to be dead.
“Clyde? You’re…you’re alive?” Daniel gasped.
“Sure, I am, buddy. You can’t be rid of me that easy.”
“I hate to interrupt,” the bespectacled man said in a thick German accent. “But we have business to discuss.”
“We aren’t saying a word to you, Ziegler!” Clyde spat.
“Hmmm… yes, well, fortunately, your stubbornness won’t be a thorn in my side any longer, since my men found your friend without your help, anyway. No, you, Mr. Bernett, will have a new role of motivator for your friend to be… cooperative.”
Daniel swallowed nervously, as Ziegler leaned toward him with his last words. Straightening up to adjust his spectacles, Ziegler casually sipped his drink, turning back to the table which Lili now noticed held a neat row of sharp implements.
Lili stood up next to Clyde, her head bowed behind her cap brim as she shifted out of the light’s reach, pistol drawn and waiting to make her move.
“What shall we start with…?” Ziegler said in a singsong voice, running his fingers across the implements of torture.
Clyde looked reassuringly at Daniel, his eyes glancing repeatedly toward Lili the moment their captors weren’t looking. At first Daniel only raised an eyebrow at him, until the hand of Clyde’s guard caught his attention; specifically, her long red nails. His eyes trailed up to the towering thug’s soft face, and Lili gave him a sly wink, mouthing the words, “get ready.”
In the next moment, Clyde charged, tossing aside his loose ropes and tackling the thug at Daniel’s right. The second goon reached for his weapon, but Lili stepped in, clonking him over the head with the butt of her pistol and sending him crashing to the ground. With a little assistance from the threat of Lili’s pistol, Clyde soon confiscated the other thug’s gun, and both leveled their firearms at Ziegler and his goon.
“Go on,” Clyde hissed, shooing them toward the back of the room as Lili loosened Daniel’s bonds. “Hands up and face down on the ground. And don’t even think about calling for help.”
“You’re not going to get away,” said Ziegler. “You shoot that gun, and all my men will be down on you in seconds.”
“And if I don’t, you’ll send them after us the second there’s no gun to your head.”
Ziegler smiled up from the ground. “Like I said…you’re trapped.”
“Guess I’ll have to find a third option.”
With that, Clyde cracked his gun across the two men’s temples, sending them slumping limply to the floor. Helping Daniel out of his restraints, they raced to the door. Peering carefully out, Lili saw no one within view, but could make out voices in the entry hall below.
“Sounds like they’re really giving those guys a beating upstairs,” said one voice.
“I’ll say. I think a chair got knocked over,” said another
“Hall is all clear,” Lili whispered. “But there are at least two men downstairs.”
“There’s a back staircase,” said Clyde. “They made me use it once, when some salesman came to the door.”
Daniel and Lili nodded.
“Lead the way.”
Slipping silently out into the hall, they crept behind Clyde toward the back spiral staircase but, as they neared, a looming shadow began ascending the stairs. Pulling back, they ducked inside an unoccupied room, hearts pounding as the man reached the top.
Through the tiny crack in the door, Lili waited as the man proceeded down the hall, mercifully oblivious to their presence as he turned a corner out of view, and they could at last slip unnoticed down the stairs.
Reaching the bottom, a sound of alarm exploded behind them. “They’ve escaped!” A booming voice echoed through the house. “They took out Ziegler and escaped!”
Clyde raced for a window and threw it open, allowing the trio to scramble outside just as another distant voice echoed behind them.
“Get the dogs and search the grounds! They must be found!”
Racing across the side lawn, they hoped to cover as much ground as possible before their pursuers could mobilize, but Lili halted, spotting the car on the front driveway.
“Lili, come on!” Daniel and Clyde called to her as they reached a cluster of trees.
Steadying her pistol, Lili squeezed off two, well-placed shots, bursting two tires of the Chrysler Imperial before racing for the trees.
“Brilliant! Now they’ll know exactly where we are,” Clyde grumbled.
“You’ll thank me later.”
Rushing through the woods, shots sounded to their left, as bullets snapped amid the trees around them.
“Told you!” Clyde bellowed, ducking behind a tree to return fire on the patrolmen.
With Clyde covering their escape, Daniel and Lili sprinted toward the fence. Lili dropped behind a tree stump, cracking off several more shots toward the thugs to provide cover for Clyde’s escape, and Daniel as he vaulted over the fence.
“Clyde, hurry!” Lili cried, shooting off her last rounds as he reached her.
Bullets shattered near them as they clambered over the fence and spotted Lili’s Torpedo Roadster only a short way off. Sprinting for the vehicle, Lili’s long legs took her a stride or two ahead of Clyde and Daniel, and she leaped into the driver’s seat, revving the engine to life before they crowded into the seat beside her.
Peeling out down the road, Lili smiled, not only enjoying the speed but the knowledge that their pursuers would have rather a difficult time tailing them, with two flat tires. All view of the mansion and its sprawling grounds at last vanished behind them, and the three friends breathed in the air, relieved, yet still in disbelief at their lucky escape.
They weren’t sure how long or how far they drove before at last coming to a stop on the side of the road to assess their next course of action. But as the two men stood by the parked car, poring over the map, Lili could hold in her years of emotions no longer. Stepping forward, she clenched her fist before stretching her fingers and landing a firm slap across both men’s cheeks. Clyde and Daniel held their faces, staring at her in complete shock.
“What was that for?” the men said in unison.
“For keeping me in the dark! Next time, tell me you’ve got magic, dissolving fanatics after you before you go and get yourselves killed!”
Clyde and Daniel started to protest, but Lili struck them both silent as a new emotion took hold, and she grabbed Daniel by the face to plant a long-overdue kiss.
As the long-lost sweethearts embraced, Clyde rubbed his red cheek and muttered, “Oh sure, he abandoned you for years, while I just spent weeks being pummeled, biting my tongue to keep him alive, but he gets a kiss and I just get a slap. That’s fair.”
Walks with Bones
by Martin Shannon
Suzy ran a wet rag over the counter for what had to be the millionth time. Her consistent polishing had pulled out the occasional coffee stains, but it couldn’t touch the anxiety. It did nothing for that feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that said if you don't make enough in tips then your grandfather doesn't get his pills.
It felt like that feeling would never go away.
Suzy shuddered to think about him with the pills, but worried even more about him without them.
Coffee dripped into a nearby pot, the tarry black liquid and pies sitting behind glass just about the only things this lousy diner was known for.
That, and being too close to the charter.
Suzy didn't talk about the charter, not because customers didn't want to, but because she wasn't keen on them picking up on her accent.
It would not do to hear the Blackfoot in her words.
She hadn't given Mr. Miller a fake name for nothing. It was hard enough to get work, but next to impossible if they thought you were a native.
"I'm telling you, they got magic out there, Suzy.” That was Gerry, a trucker, one of the few long haulers that lingered here on his trips across the state. He was a frail man, his old body propped up by spit and coffee in equal measure. Long fingers clutched the sides of his mug as if the bones beneath them wanted nothing more than to drink the heady elixir.
She nodded.
It was best not to argue with the old man, not when he got going. He'd had a few run-ins with some local teens a couple years ago. They were good kids, for the most part, but they couldn’t pass up the chance to give him a scare he’d never forgotten.
"I saw it, you know. I saw those coyote bones get right up and walk around.”
There aren’t any coyotes around here.
Suzy nodded again, gently, like those silly glass birds that pretend to drink the colored water. That’s what she was, a bird that drank whatever they told her. She took down their praise and their hate in equal measure. She did all of that to keep the job.
She’d do near anything to keep the job.
Suzy tossed the rag in a bin under the counter, then turned her attention to the furthest booth. The old guy seated there was her only other customer tonight, and since she’d dropped off his coffee, he’d barely moved to touch it.
Leathery skin and long dark hair, he was old blood, one of the early ones. Decorum would have dictated more respect, but it also would have taken the young woman out of her disguise.
She wasn't speaking her native language, never around Gerry.
She left the coffee-clutching trucker to his quiet rantings and slipped out from behind the counter, those stupid heels clicking on the hard floor. Mr. Miller insisted that all the girls wear heels, along with the same polka dot aprons and pencil skirts. None of it felt remotely practical, but Suzy had the impression it wasn't so much for practicality as it was for making the patrons happy—the male patrons.
They were pretty much the only ones that made it this far down the highway after dark.
Suzy grabbed the pot as she clicked past, aiming to refill his mug before asking him for the tenth time if there was anything else he wanted.
Coffee in hand, the raven-haired waitress leaned over the table, aiming for his mug. "Can I get you anything, or just the coffee?”
Dressed in an ill-fitting suit and not much for conversation, he placed a hand over the mug before she could add to its rapidly cooling contents. "Your name.”
She tapped a finger on her name tag, the same one Mr. Miller insisted they wear. "Suzy, says so right on my—”
"No. Your real name.”
Suzy hazarded a glance at Gerry, but the long hauler was too busy telling the creamer all about his last run-in with Blackfoot teens to be paying any attention to the two of them.
"We don't talk about those things here.”
"Why not?” Dark eyes like the cold coffee in his cup stared back at her.
"Because I've got a sick grandfather and need this job. This job pays money, and money means pills.”
He frowned and dug into his coat pocket, turning the contents over in his fingers. "You don't need their medicine. It has no heart.”
Suzy did her best to not dump the rest of the pot in the man’s lap right then and there. She'd had enough of that from her grandfather, she didn't need it from yet another old man who thought he knew something.
The white man's medicine might be cold and sterile, but it worked against the white man's stupid diseases, or at least most of the time. She'd tried all the old cures. They hadn't worked. They'd only made him worse. She had no stomach for rehashing it again.
"The pills work.”
Suzy was content to leave it at that, turning away coffee in hand and secretly hoping he'd see himself out.
Hot fingers on her wrist stopped all that dead in its tracks.
"You need real medicine. Not those sterile droppings from some metal machine. Your ancestors understood that. You need—”
She'd had it. She'd had all she could take from men telling her what was right and what was wrong. Suzy slammed the metal pot down and pulled her hand free. "I'll tell you what I need. I need a break. I don’t need stories about my ancestors. I don’t need myths about a world that looks nothing like this one. Spirits and the Camp of the Ghosts, I don’t need them. You know what I do need? I do need one night where I get to sleep more than a couple of hours before I have to get him up to take his pills.” She pulled on the edges of Mr. Miller's stupid apron. "I need a job that doesn't dress me up like a doll and make me parade around in clown shoes. I need a lot of things, what I don't need is some old man sitting in my diner dangling a bag of tobacco and turkey bones and telling me it will help my grandfather.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but Suzy was on a roll, and as her late grandmother would have said, you never stop a thunderbird when she's bringing the lightning.
"Can you do that? Can you fix all those things? I don't think you can.” She pointed at the small leather bag that had miraculously appeared in his fingers. "Unless that has gold nuggets in it, it's entirely and completely useless to me. Now, what can I get you?”
The last sentence came out with a practiced charm she wanted to yank back, skin, and hang on the drying line, but what was done was done and all she could do was force a pretend smile.
He said nothing.
Bright headlights flooded the diner glass as three cars rolled up out front.
We're going to need more coffee.
Again, Suzy turned back to the counter, but this time the old man pulled her back harder. She was just about ready to swing that coffee pot into his head and tell Mr. Miller he'd tried to get a hand under her skirt but didn’t quite get there.
He shoved that leather bundle into her free hand, pushing her fingers closed around the soft deer skin.
"I told you. I don't want your—”
"Keep it safe and leave. Leave now.”
Shapes moved outside the diner, tall shapes, men with dark suits and wide hats. She couldn't make out much more than that, but whoever these guys were, they didn't look like they were here for the coffee or the pie.
"What are you talking about?”
He slipped a second hand out, wrapping it around the metal pot's handle. "Leave the pot.”
"Uh… right.” Suzy backed away slowly, retreating to the safety of the counter and Gerry's mutterings.
"Just like that.” The delivery driver squeezed a wadded-up napkin in his sausage fingers. "He rubbed it right up against the bones and 'boom' just like that they were up and moving around. And that's not all, Suzy, they had eyes. Bright eyes, red like furnace coals.”
"That's nice, Gerry.”
The door swung open and men poured in. It felt like that time Mr. Miller had accidentally cut the bottom of the coffee bean bag. That had been a mess, and Suzy had the feeling this was about to be a lot worse. Two at a time, they flooded the diner, swarming around the old man's booth, and doing nothing to hide their less-than-cordial intentions.
One of the larger ones slipped into the seat opposite the old man. "You know what we want. Give it to us, and we'll make this quick.”
"Yes. Yes.” He held up the pot. "You want coffee, right?”
A pistol emerged from the large man's jacket. "Don't waste my time, old man. Give it to me now, or I'll pull this trigger and use it on you.”
Suzy froze, stuck behind the counter and not sure what to do.
Gerry didn't appear to suffer from such indecision. He slipped off the stool and put an arm around the closest man's shoulder. "I'm with you. These people are nothing but prob—”
Boom!
Gerry never finished his sentence, a bullet from the tall man's gun taking his life and his words in a single breath. Smoke drifted from the barrel, rolling gently over the big man's pale skin. "Give it to me now, or the girl gets the next bullet.”
Suzy squeezed the medicine bag in her fingers. "I have it. I have what you want. Don't shoot him. Don't shoot me. I'll give it to you, I promise.”
The tall man trained his weapon back on the old man. "See? I knew this could be easy.”
Suzy held up the bag, waving it like a white flag. "It's right here.”
"Excellent.”
The old man gave her a look. It was the same sort of look her grandfather used each time she put the apron on and the fake name tag.
Disappointment.
It was also the last look he ever gave anyone.
Boom!
"Give it to me.”
The tall man used his still-smoking pistol to coax Suzy to the table.
She’d seen her share of guns, but never like this. They say trauma changes a person, fight or flight. Suzy wanted both, and in equal measure. She wanted to punch that man in his angled jaw, and she also wanted to run for the parking lot, not stopping until her feet gave out.
Turns out her feet gave out a lot quicker than she expected.
Half-way across the floor, she slipped in the blood, coming down hard on what had been Gerry. Suzy used a hand to stop herself, but it happened to be the same one that held the bag.
Leather mixed with blood and something inside those soft folds cracked against the middle-aged man's ribs.
I'm sorry, Gerry.
Suzy was sorry for a lot of things. For not running, for ignoring the crazy man under her arm, and for having woken up this morning.
Strong hands grabbed her and dragged her off the still prone body of the former trucker.
"Bring her to me.”
"Hey! Get your hands off me.” Suzy tried to pull her arms free, but to no avail.
