Wonder - Deep Blue (eBook)

James Devo (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
390 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-911124-01-6 (ISBN)

Infos

In some Worlds, Society depends on Technology to expand its horizons. In the Victorian world of the Wonder, Magic is the leading light. It powers an Empire through an Industrial Revolution towards boundless possibilities, including the invasion and colonisation of any neighbours who may have reserves of Magic themselves.
In the follow-up to Blood Red, heroes and villains are forced together to defend their world against a smoke belching threat believed extinct for centuries. Despite the use of ancient magic and unlikely allies, a far-flung colony is forced to its knees as betrayal and treachery spread like a virus on both sides of an old war.

Textauszug

Chapter 12

The Spirit of Bester

The Hodgkinson International Line

The Gramarye Region
Grand Quillia

June 1856

Nothing says civilised like a long hot bath. It’s not about the cleansing of the body. That can be done with a cloth and a river, perhaps a little soap. Having a long hot bath is about opportunity. It is about being in control of your life, having the money to afford decent plumbing and the time to stay still for as long as you want. To ruminate or vegetate. Bliss.

Laurel closed her eyes and lowered herself further in the bath, feeling the bubbles tickle her face before she submerged her whole head. As her ears filled with water, she found herself counting the times she had heard the pop of raw Wonder in the last thirty-six hours. Raising her head again, she heard the murmur of strangers and the door of the adjoining cabin open. She felt a pang of jealousy. Their neighbours must live like this all the time. They had no idea how lucky they were, how special this was. Even the word “decadent” sounded better than normal people’s language.

She looked around the bathroom, taking in the graceful carved marble shapes of the double sinks, the colouring of the tiny tiles, the plush cotton towels hanging from the warmed oak racks. Her mind flickered back to the moving mosaics beneath the Cathedral of Tales and she considered what opulence the wealthy of Pearly must have had to hand. But then she thought of their gruesome deaths at the grinders and sticky fire of the preying mantis beasts.

Despite the steam in the room and the warmth of the water, she felt a chill.

She considered calling for someone to come in, soap her back, warm her loins and soothe her soul. Pinkerton perhaps, or the boy. Just a little fun to relax the muscles and stretch the bones. Give in to a little selfishness. Then she saw the figure of Mandell, of what he had been in the cellar of the lodge and what he had become, how close they had been, how they had become one for that brief moment of bliss and now he wanted to kill them all, separate them from each other, from life itself.

She had accepted the legacy of the lodge because it connected her to a family. It meant she belonged somewhere. The fact that Brennan and Alf (poor Alf) came with it only made it more attractive. Brennan had looked after her like a doting uncle while Alf had been a little brother. She had found what she needed, something to take her away from the lunacy her life had become, the love life of the battlefield nurse. There was no commitment, no future, as much romance or physicality as she fancied, and as the nurse, she still had some control, something she really only pretended to have when she was a dancer, when she had relied on her body, kidding herself that the men’s lust meant she could pick and choose.

And now she was here, in a borrowed bath surrounded by fugitives having been told by dead Elf that her family were killers. Even the lodge was destroyed. And it was up to her, as Laurel Bristow, Luscious Legs Laurel and Sister Bristow to help these people save the world. She was not clear what she was saving the world from, but save it she would. After all, she had been an orphan, still was really, and the world was all she had.

That and this nice warm borrowed bathtub full of bubbles.

Pinkerton could feel the herbs and Wonder from the medicine Hilt had procured working through his system. The bullet hole was clean, thanks to Laurel, the medicine had both stemmed the flow of blood and alleviated the throbbing pain, so the only discomfort he now felt was from the soft king-size bed and silk linen.

The old boxer preferred a hard bed, if not the floor; sheets were unimportant and the best pillow was his trusty blat gun. He liked the chill of the night air tempered by the embers of a dying fire, and ideally the loving warmth of another body, ideally a dog but a large cat or overweight woman would do.

He also felt uncomfortable because a gentleman should never hog the bed when there was a lady in need. And the professor was an older gent, as was Brennan, who had also suffered a terrible loss.

But they had insisted, and as he had been weakened by his wound he had been unable to argue.

He wished Mandell had been there to talk it through. He wouldn’t have let the others treat his partner like an invalid, whether it was true or not. Evan would have insisted the lady take the bed and then he probably would have taken her in it.

But Mandell was the one who had put a hole in him, tried to kill him, wanted to kill them all.

Pinkerton had spoken to the professor about it and he understood that the thing that had attacked them was no longer his partner in crime, but it was still hard to take, harder even than accepting that he was dead.

Pinkerton had met Sir Evan Mandell, son of Prince Edmundsen of the Bullen Protectorate and brother of Lord Ethering of the Great Quillia Parliament, due to a recurring problem in the man’s life; women.

Pinkerton had received a lot of attention after he had won the Langtry Common fight, eventually accepting one Francis Settler as his manager, trainer and promoter. Pinkerton had decided on Settler after investigating both the man and his reputation, discovering that he was an avowed family man and that all his surviving prize fighters were very rich and rather famous. Settler did indeed look after Pinkerton very well, arranging excellent bouts, some of which tested Pinkerton’s skills, most of which attracted attention and all of which Pinkerton won.

The night that Mandell entered the boxer’s life taught Pinkerton a few new things about Settler, and reinforced others.

Pinkerton was fighting an individual named Frederick Banks, known as Footlocker Freddie due to his fighting style, which was to plant his feet firmly in the centre of the ring and stay there. The bout was in the large back room of a public house called the Archer and Apple, located on the High Moors of Grand Quillia, and for the first time, Settler asked Pinkerton to fix the fight. He didn’t ask him to lose it, that would be at most unethical, and at the very least ungentlemanly. No, Settler was having some cash flow issues. He had cash, Pinkerton was not to worry about that, he just had no flow, so Settler needed a favour. He knew that his man was going to win, he was a natural after all, a joy to watch, not some lead head like Footlocker Freddie who won his bouts by virtue of being able to absorb blows. Put simply, it would really help Settler if Pinkerton would not win the fight until a specific time. Settler would put the money he did have on the precise minute that Pinkerton would send Freddie to the ground. Then Settler could collect big time.

Settler wouldn’t normally ask but it was his daughter Iris’ birthday and he wanted to really treat her after the fight, show her off and prove to her what a big success he was.

His manager had done Pinkerton a lot of favours and improved his boxing no end. He had also added to the victor of Langtry Common’s fame, so although it was not strictly gentlemanly, Pinkerton agreed to knock out Footlocker Freddie at a specified time. Settler was thrilled, promising to introduce the boxer to Iris, the apple of his eye, after the fight and would check the odds before laying his bet after the fight had begun. He would give Pinkerton a signal one minute before he should deliver the ultimate blow, so nobody could accuse them of setting it up beforehand, and he could get the longest odds as nobody expected Footlocker to last too long. The signal would be one finger raised in the air.

And so when the night of the footlocker fight came around, Pinkerton discovered Settler was not above a little fiddling, but that he was definitely a family man, as he doted over his daughter.

The fight began and once Pinkerton had probed Footlocker’s defences, he reckoned he could knock out the less-than-animated fighter whenever he wished, so he took his time, pulling his punches as he skipped around Freddie, avoiding almost everything thrown at him, while he kept a close but surreptitious eye on Settler, seated in the front row.

After the first five minutes there was still no signal from his manager, so Pinkerton started to worry. He understood that he was the favourite to win by a wide margin and therefore the longer Footlocker stayed standing, the better Settler’s winnings. However, this was affecting Pinkerton’s reputation, and Footlocker already looked ready to fall without the help of Pinkerton. But Settler wasn’t moving. There was no sign of any sign at all. In fact, Settler didn’t even seem to be interested in the fight at all. He glared across the ring into the seats beyond. Pinkerton let Footlocker land one on him and stumbled onto the ropes, scanning the crowd. He noticed a young lady who bore a definite resemblance to Settler, who Pinkerton surmised was his manager’s beloved daughter. Pinkerton did a lap of the ring around Footlocker, let the man connect with his chin once more and took another look at the Settler girl.

She was blushing, fluttering her lashes and generally cavorting in a way no father would appreciate, with a dashing ne’er-do-well who seemed to be doing very well for himself, judging by his manner and effect on all the women around him, not just Iris Settler.

Pinkerton’s manager glared at the man, his face slowly turning purple as he saw red, and Pinkerton realised the last thing on Settler’s mind was the fight, no matter how...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.4.2017
• Reihe/Serie: The Wonder
• Reihe/Serie: The Wonder
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Pratchett • Ringworld
• ISBN-10: 1-911124-01-3 / 1911124013
• ISBN-13: 978-1-911124-01-6 / 9781911124016