Lily Marin - three short steampunk stories Read Free Page B

gentle
male voice said.
    "How wonderful, sir, but I'm not yet ready
for you," Lily said through the door. "I will be with you in a few
minutes. Where will I find you?"
    "We'll be waiting for you in front of the
stage, Miss Marin," the leader of the band said.
    -=-=-
    Lily enjoyed singing in the dance hall. As
she saw all the people revolving over the floor in front of her, it
made her feel good to be there, to be part of their joy, and the
musical band was fantastic. The difference with what she did in the
evenings was enormous, so Lily had made it a point to get as much
from these singing sessions as she could.
    At one point she caught Selma's eye, who
stood next to a young man. Selma was waving at Lily and tried to
direct her attention to the young man, but Lily ignored these
attempts and left the stage after finishing her last song before
the break. She needed a drink of water. Behind the stage, almost as
usual, there was a table with a glass , a caraffe and a chair. Lily
sat down and sipped from the glass.
    A sudden upheaval in the hall made her walk
back in to see what was going on. After a while, as people were all
talking at once, Lily managed to learn that there had been another
attack by the man that Selma had told her about. And again there
were mentions of the person being able to fly, 'like an angel'.
    "The police are taking it serious now,"
someone said, "they'll have him in cuffs in no time."
    Several others disagreed, as the police
probably was no match for a flying person. "I want to see them go
after him with a dirigible."
    Lily silently agreed. Her flying pack had
helped her get away from the police more than once.
    The peaceful and jolly atmosphere had left
the dance hall as this news came in. Lily sang the rest of her
songs, but the dance floor remained frighteningly empty as most
people were talking about this latest attack. As she was taking off
her make-up, Jonathan asked to speak with her. He handed her an
envelope with her earnings.
    "I am truly sorry that the afternoon went
like this, Lily. Someone should learn to keep news like that
outside our doors. I do thank you for your singing and I would
gladly call on you again, next time."
    Lily said that she was looking forward to his
call. Soon after that, she was on her way home. This time she
walked, as she was curious about what rumoured in the street about
this strange flying person.
    The rumour mill was churning, as she found
out soon, but the amount of rumours was enormous, and not many of
them agreed with each other. The only thing she was fairly sure of
was that both attacks had been in the same part of town, if one
could consider an area of five square miles a part.
    That evening Lily dressed up and the Masked
Woman went out. Her special boots with the extendable legs quickly
took her to the area where the last attack had been, and from there
she went patroling until deep in the night and she was certain that
nothing would happen. Not there.
    The next day was a quiet one, and she used
that to look after her equipment. The glass that covered one of the
small gauges on her flight backpack had cracked, so she took that
to master Wilfred Bond, who was one of the few people who knew
about it, and who took care of it for her. He mounted a new glass
for her, and now the backpack was perfect again.
    That evening Lily was outside again. She had
selected an area that might be the logical next place after
pinpointing the previous two spots on a map. It was a big gamble,
she knew, but if this flying person really existed, he had to be
stopped. Lily was very much against the killing of innocent
people.
    As the Masked Woman she went through the
streets, waiting and watching, but nothing happened. Not there. The
newspaper that the neighbour brought her the next morning (she and
he shared the costs of the paper) told her that this time there had
been an official sighting of the flying person. According to the
article it was most definitely a man, and he had