Steam City Pirates Read Free Page B

platters of bread, fresh from the oven, and a vast array of condiments.  As he reached for one of the lobsters, the inventor envisioned himself sitting at a similar table beneath his undersea city.  He would be named the first mayor of this city, and he would be praised for his generosity and special genius.  The Steam City Pirates played on, and Monturiol dug into the flesh of the buttery lobster with a new-found passion.  When Jane the Grabber looked over at him from across the table, he smiled at her, and she smiled back!
    The new world beneath the City of New York was opening up to him, and Monturiol was ready to accept it.  He hummed to himself as the steam-powered music infused his body with hope.

Chapter 1: Wherein Our Heroes Experience a New Crime, a New Detective, and a New Office

    We were now facing a new enemy. As a result, I knew it would be best to move into a more protected location for my office. Jane the Grabber Haskins, the evil brothel Madame, had disappeared into thin air. We also had a person who could disappear, and he was walking downtown with me. Seth Mergenthaler, the little mazikeen , was our secret weapon. Not only could he become invisible, the eight-year-old could also foretell the future, change into the shapes of other humans and animals, and fly, as he was half-angel and half-human.
    My departed mother back in Kilkenny was a believer in angels. She always told me I had a guardian angel who was assigned by God to watch over me. I never really believed her until I was in combat during the Civil War. I never told this to General Billy Sherman, the man who nominated me for the Congressional Medal of Honor, but when I jumped between the General and that speeding Rebel bullet, I had not made a conscious decision to be brave. Truth be told, I was pushed by this invisible angel. I felt his big hands on my back, and then I became airborne. Everything that happened to me after that moment can be called “divine providence,” I suppose, although it goes against every fiber of my Irish stubbornness to believe such superstition, I am an angel believer also.
    My new job as a detective in New York City must now include this boy as my assistant. I looked down at Seth’s small form. He was wearing a little gray suit coat and white shirt with tie, and his knee pants were moving like tiny pistons as he kept up with my brisk pace. The paradoxical reality of Seth was that one moment he could be this little boy, as he was now, his eyes sparkling and taking in everything around him. The next moment, he could be the voice of an educated adult who could converse with me about any subject known to modern science.
    “The pirates are coming,” Seth said.
    I looked down at the boy, and he looked up at me. We exchanged frowns.
    “Pirates? You mean, you want to play pirates?” I wanted to know if I were addressing the child Seth or the adult Seth.
    We stopped, and I watched the boy’s face take on a mesmerizing, squinted affectation.
    “No, the real pirates. I can see them boarding ships and stealing things.”
    “Where are they? What do they look like?”
    “I can’t say where they are. However, it is out in the water. My future vision is like looking through a spyglass. I can see only one small circle picture at a time. These pirates are not normal. I can see they are dropping out of the sky! The men on the ship are frightened, and they let the pirates take the money and the crates of supplies. The pirates go back up into the sky inside moving boxes attached to a pulley. The boxes carry the pirates and the stolen cargo up into a big balloon that hovers directly above the ship!” Seth’s eyes were transfixed as he stared off into space.
    I had previously worked with Seth and his magical abilities in the Jane the Grabber case. Just when I was at my wit’s end by what was happening at the Sisters’ Row Hotel, Seth showed me how he could take on the physical personification of another child—a