Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures by Alex Acks

Author:Alex Acks [Acks, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9981082-8-5
Publisher: Queen of Swords Press

After a fruitless search, she made her way back up to the first freight car. The sky had grown quite dark in the meantime, though she hunkered down to wait for another hour for safety’s sake.

The first two passenger cars were plainly for the household members and guards, retained against a general attack. She froze once to sleepy murmurs as she opened a door, but after just a little stirring of the curtain across the berth, the sound subsided.

There was a guard in the third car, standing at something approximating attention.

He opened his mouth to shout; she sprinted down the short length of the hallway, feet silent on the rich carpeting, and drove her fist into his throat. That stopped any sound and he toppled. She snatched the lapels of his coat before he could crash to the floor and dragged him to the lavatory. There she dosed him with a bit of chloroform, just to be certain he wouldn’t wake at an inconvenient moment. “Thank you for marking the room I want, by the way.” She gave his face a light pat.

Opening the unlocked door a crack allowed a fascinating array of horrible snores into the hall. Marta listened for a few moments to find their rhythm, and then let herself into the room. The snoring gentleman was no doubt Lord Pike, a man with coal-black hair and a mustache that made him sneer even in sleep. Marta freshened her handkerchief with more chloroform and dangled it near his face.

An array of drinks glasses, their insides thinly coated with the remnants of sticky liqueurs, covered the top of the safe. Marta rested her ear against the front of the safe, eyes half closed as she felt her way through the lock.

The safe contained an array of rather overdone jewelry and a wooden box filled with the treated calcite lenses, each wrapped in a scrap of silk. She stowed that in her satchel, and then as an afterthought added a pearl necklace, the nicest piece of the bunch. A little nod toward money would make Simms happy, since he was always concerned about such practical things.

Behind her, the door opened.

Marta spun, drawing her pistol. Down the blacked-out barrel, she found herself looking at a teenaged girl. The girl did not look wholly Asian, but there was a fineness to her features that Marta found familiar; an instant later she caught sight of the necklace she wore, a pendant of jade and gold shaped like a tiger.

She quirked one eyebrow at the girl, who had covered her mouth with white-gloved hands as if holding in a scream. “You’re Mistress Xing’s daughter?”

Hands still covering her mouth, the girl nodded, eyes flicking toward Lord Pike.

“He shan’t wake up for a few minutes.” Marta lowered the pistol. The girl was fully dressed despite the late hour, a small satchel in a heap at her feet. “You’ve been in contact with your mother, I take it?”

The girl nodded again.

“And what horrid thing is your father

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