Captain Albion Clemens and The Future that Never Was: A Steampunk Novel! (Lands Beyond Book 1) Read Free

fled for high ground, the pushers for low, and everyone else started dodging. Wisely, Blair, Blondie and I slunk down below the table, our flagons held perfectly level, apple-flavored breath pooling in the tight, safe space.
    “Wasn’t that an American insult?” our maid asked, between liberal sips from my flagon.
    “Not for anyone living south of Virginia?” I supplied.
    “Please, Master Pirate, we should be making for the door!” Blair cried.
    “In a moment. Wait for it… now!”
    Coarse wood swung shut behind us, casting us suddenly into a dense, brackish fog. Wet cobbles threatened to overturn our raggedy trio onto the road, but it was still better than the crossfire going on inside the Jilted Merman.
    A dim moon lit just enough of the road, and a gentle sloshing came from the water nearby.
    Though Blair hastened us out of the bar, I now took the lead with long strides, trying my best to look like I knew where I was going.
    Our barmaid stayed behind, intelligently leaning between window and door should either emit a defeated inebriate. She waved a cheerful goodbye as she disappeared behind us; now it was only the two of us old dogs, as my Imperial Cantonese brethren would put it.
    “Well now, I suggest you get on with the nature of the help you would like, Mister Blair,” I said casually as we passed the sturdy brick and plaster of Portsmouth’s dockside dwellings.
    “I would have thought it obvious,” he answered, “You are an air pirate. Ergo, you possess a ship. I should like passage on said ship, anywhere out of Portsmouth. All the dock’s men were told not to let me through.”
    “Why would Clive and Staples pay them off to keep a writer from leaving town? I thought you were working for them.”
    “ Ah, I should have been clearer. The local constabulary has me pegged for this very reason. The Lewis brothers have tainted me with their brand of devilry, I’m afraid.”
    We turned now, into a darker alley.
    “And have you committed any crime?” I asked, not really expecting a reliable answer.
    “I witnessed a murder, and was seen in the brothers’ company. For the locals, it is enough,” Blair said without malice.
    Fog was now blanketing the street, but I knew where the mooring towers would have been, looming over the town like abyssal giants risen from the sea.
    Dim stars glowed through the fog, the only trace of gaslight marking a low line of quiet seaside buildings.
    Of course, the Lewis brothers were waiting for us just around the corner, perfectly at home perched atop some coal pallets.
    The shorter, bulldog one, Clives, was shuffling his feet, while the taller Doberman Staples was rolling a crucifix-emblazoned cane between his fingers. As soon as we emerged out of the fog, the brothers closed the trap on either side of us, effectively pinning us in with a matching pair of knives.
    “Thought you could get away from us, huh, old chum? No stomach for butcher’s work?” Staples leered.
    “Maybe he knew all along, steered us a fat mark,” Clives chimed in.
    “I’ll take the tall one,” I whispered to Blair, even as the cutthroats circled us. “If you can get Clives.”
              “With what? I left my derringer in the pub,” Blair whispered back, clearly panicked. He would have made a terrible cutthroat. We had no time for planning, anyway. The Lewis brothers rushed at us.
    Mist flew by, cold and sharp. Sensations of an elm grip firmly weighted my palm, the hammer cocking with practiced speed. A solid kick announced the trigger going, but the snap was lost in an instant, muffled against the mist. Gunsmoke washed out the sweet flavor of apple still clinging to my lips, a scent further diluted by a memory of clear skies, drawling accents, and fragrant wafts of cigar leaf. When was the last time I had fired Victoria and thought of Captain Samuel?
    With a sound like a rotted, downed log, Staples crumpled at my feet, but I was no longer looking.
    My feet whirled around,