Other Aether by Greg Schauer

Author:Greg Schauer [McPhail, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: eSpec Books, Paper Phoenix Press, steampunk, gaslight, alternate history, steampowered fiction, fiction set in Victorian times, airships, goggles, technological revolution, techonological era, tinker, machinations, mechanical fiction, clockwork, spiritualist, artificer, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Cynthia Radthorne, Beth Cato, Greg Schauer, James Chambers, Jeff Young, Christine Norris, Aaron Rosenberg, Ef Deal, David Lee Summers, Hildy Silverman
Publisher: eSpec Books
Published: 2024-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Justice Runs Like Clockwork

Christine Norris

“Where you goin’! Ya can’t go out dressed like that, the Wardrobe Mistress will have yer hide! Priscilla!”

Priscilla ignored Ann’s warning as she ran out the stage door, her hat askew and her coat flapping behind her. Once she reached the sidewalk, she pulled her coat around her to hide her ridiculous outfit.

But there was no help for it, she was running late.

She paused for just a moment to consult the small, gold timepiece pinned to her coat. It was nearly midnight but that meant little in the Quarter. While the Butcher’s Market, including Priscilla’s favorite beignet stand, was shuttered and dark, the theaters had just closed, and the taverns were still open. If anyone worried about the battle raging downriver at Forts St. Philip and Jackson, it wasn’t evident by the mood of the city. Music and lights spilled onto the street at intervals. Plenty of folks walked the sidewalks. Languages blended together here—English, Spanish, French, Creole, German, Irish, all overlaid by African dialects too numerous to count, spoken by the free Africans that remained in the city.

Just another night in New Orleans.

Priscilla pulled her coat around her, though the night was almost too warm for it. The outfit was designed to attract attention, but attention wasn’t what she needed right now. The red corset was laced tightly, while the hem of her striped satin skirt swung dangerously high above her ankles. She had managed to exchange her feathered headdress for a black pork pie hat, and dancing slippers for practical boots, before she bolted out of the stage door.

Priscilla wore a face of friendly openness but was acutely aware of her surroundings. The men that passed her, on their way home or to the next party. A man in a Confederate gray officer’s uniform, his hat askew, passed Priscilla on the arm of a paid companion. The woman bobbed her head at Priscilla, and she returned in kind. Just two working, solitary women making their way in the world. The woman brushed by Priscilla, and no one, certainly not the officer, noticed the bit of paper passed from the companion to the chorus girl and slipped into the latter’s pocket.

“What do we have here? A little girl out after curfew?”

Priscilla paid no mind to the drunken soldier leaning against the building on the corner. She made to cross the street but was stopped by a hand gripping her wrist.

“Are you lost, sweetheart? Stay and have a drink with me.”

Priscilla let out an exasperated sigh. “No, thank you.”

The man leaned in, his breath rank on her cheek. “Wasn’t a request.” The man pulled her toward him, and before he took his next breath, she had driven the palm of her free hand up into his nose. The man pulled back, screaming and holding his damaged and bleeding face. “You bith!” he shouted, his words coming out muddied by the injury. “You’ll pay for that.”

In a blink, Priscilla had her Aether gun free from her thigh holster and pointed at the man.

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