Blackbird: A Warrior of the No-When Read online

  Gently, she pushed me back against the velvet covered seat, and ran her hands and then her lips over me, lingering here and there in a dozen places that were just sensual enough to excite me, but not complete my desire; the underside of my breasts, all along my thighs, and my neck. Then she took my breast into her mouth, and dallied there with her tongue, biting me softly. I moaned, and pushed myself against her, but still she held me back, and moved downwards, kissing my belly.

  My breath was quite out of control as her head moved further, and then I felt her breath on the curls between my legs and shuddered in anticipation.

  Oh how I wanted her! My hands greedily sought out her hair, and I caressed her with my fingers, imploring her to go further, and give me what I needed. Then I felt her tongue as it found my pleasure spot, hot and wet, and I writhed, gripping her fiercely and begging for more. But she lingered there, and I nearly went mad with want.

  Finally, she showed me mercy, and sent her tongue deep within my folds, exploring every secret part of me. I bucked against her as she tasted me and my eyes shut tight with total ecstasy as I became lost in her loving, intimate kiss. Then, in a great hot savage wave, my dearest wish came blindingly true, and a pleasure so deep and intense that I feared my heart would surely burst, flooded through me.

  And as it did, I cried out her name for the poetry it was. “Elizabeth! My light! My love!”

  ***

  Compared to Seattle, Tacoma was a rude little place. Where our fair metropolis was rightly called the Emerald of the West, Tacoma was a mere garnet. It was barely a fifth the size and more of a frontier settlement than any true city. I had long been of the opinion that this was due to its proximity to the wilds of Oregon and the uncivilized influence that that rough territory tended to exert upon its neighbors.

  The streets of Tacoma were not covered with modern bricking as one might have expected, but either cobbled, or wholly bare to the elements, and only a few (mostly in the so-called ‘down-town’ district) boasted raised sidewalks to spare pedestrians the ordeal of walking through all the muck. Fortunately, there were coaches for hire at the train station, and we took advantage of this amenity immediately.

  Finding our way to the Jew, a man by the name of Abraham Weismann, proved to be rather easy; he operated a pawn shop in the colored part of town, and as he was one of only a few religionists in the area, and not colored himself, everyone knew of him, including our coachman. The driver took us there straightaway, making certain to remain immediately outside, and I for one was grateful for this gesture. Given the dubious nature of the neighborhood, and how our last adventure had concluded, knowing that he was there was a great comfort. I resolved to tip him generously when our business there was concluded.

  The Jew’s shop was a dark little place, crammed with all manner of bric-a-brac, ranging from housewares to musical instruments and even watches and bits of cheap jewelry. A large sign on the wall above the counter advised patrons that all sales were final, and that any consignment items which were not retrieved by their owner at the end of thirty days would become forfeit.

  Mr. Weisman himself was behind the counter, and even had I not known anything about him, I would have taken note of his unique appearance right away. He was wholly unlike other men of a similar age; he wore his grey beard long and untrimmed, and while his hair was short, he sported an incongruous pair of long curls. In addition, a strange little cap sat on the back of his head, which I recalled was the ritual accoutrement appropriate to his faith. Hearing us enter, he raised his spectacles and regarded us.

  “You must be the young ladies that Professor Merriweather wrote me about,” he said. His accent was as odd as the rest of him. I detected a trace of German in it, but also something else that I could not quite place, and I wondered if he had emigrated to our province from some other part of the world, or if it too had something to do with his being a religionist.

  “Indeed we are,” Elizabeth answered. “Do you have the items that we were sent for?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “But first, let me give us some privacy.”

  He rose, went around the counter to the front door, and turned the sign so that it indicated that the business was closed. Then he smiled and gestured for us to follow him.

  We were taken into a storage area at the back of the shop. A rather curious candelabra with 12 small candles was burning there, set on a second-hand table, and above it, hanging on the wall, was another oddity. It was a human hand, rendered in silver wire with a stylized glass eye embedded in the palm.

  For some reason, the fact that the fingers were pointed upwards and splayed wide struck me as wrong (although I had no idea what the correct arrangement was supposed to be). Seeing the puzzled expression on my face, Weisman chuckled.

  “I don’t usually light the menorah in my shop,” he said, nodding towards the candelabra, “but when I have travelers--or those who are about to become travelers such as yourselves, I make an exception and light their way.”

  I found these words inexplicably disquieting, but I made no reply as he proceeded to rummage about his shelves. Presently, he produced a small wooden box and handed it over to us.

  “This is what the Professor sent you for,” he explained. We took it from him and Elizabeth stuffed it into her handbag.

  “Do we owe you some form of payment, sir?” I inquired.

  Weisman shook his head. “No. The Professor has paid me in full, and since it will begin your journey, I could not think of asking for anything more.”

  Again, his answer bothered me for some reason that I could not quite articulate, and I promptly dismissed it as nothing more than jittery nerves. “Thank you then,” I replied instead. By this point, we had returned to the front of the store, and he was showing us out.

  “Go with God,” he said. And as he uttered this, he held up his right hand and spread his thumb and fingers wide, mimicking the silver hand in the storeroom.

  The gesture had a profound and mysterious effect upon me. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a thrill of unreasoning, animalistic terror coursed through me like lightening. It was as if some unknown part of me recognized it, and its meaning, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible from this strange man and his dark little shop. Even so, I managed to stammer out a polite farewell and then hastily made my exit with Elizabeth.

  Looking back, I now know why I was so afraid, and what Mr. Weisman actually was, but for the sake of my narrative, I will refrain from divulging the details. My readers will learn the truth of it soon enough.

  ***

  Despite my unnerving experience, by the time Elizabeth and I returned to Seattle we were both in high spirits. We had managed to triumph at last and now the success of our project seemed to be assured. And the very moment that we were at the King’s Street Station, we hired a hansom to take us to the Professor’s residence.

  We found our mentor taking his ease in the library, sitting in his favorite chair with his pipe in his mouth and his cast propped up on an ottoman, deeply engrossed in a copy of “The Works of Julius Caesar: The Gallic Wars” by Messrs. McDevitte and Bohn. As the housekeeper showed us in, he set the volume aside and attempted to rise, but I stopped him.

  “Please dear man, remain where you are,” I urged.

  “Did you get them?” he asked, settling himself.

  I nodded, and Elizabeth produced the box and opened it with a flourish.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, leaning in close to inspect our treasure. “These are perfect. Brilliantly done ladies, brilliantly done.”

  “When can we start the assembly?” Elizabeth inquired, as eager as I to press forwards.

  Some of the cheer drained from his features. “Not as soon as I would like, I’m afraid. We are still waiting on my brass-man to fabricate the de-cohering hammer and the other components.’

  “He sent word ‘round today that he will have everything done, but that it will take him another week at least, possibly
two. It seems that the Bookmen have been paying far too much attention to his shop of late to risk working any faster. He must fashion our parts in secret, and at odd times in order to escape their notice.”

  We were crestfallen by this, and he noticed it immediately.

  “Oh, there, there, my darlings,” Merriweather said soothingly, “do not be so disappointed. My fellow is a good man, and he will get the job done soon enough. Better that it be done right than to rush it and get caught. Besides which, you two have other things to worry about in the meantime, don’t you? The matches?”

  To be honest, I had been so caught up in our adventures and my desire to see the Bookmen toppled, that I had put the monoplane matches in the back of my mind, as had Elizabeth.

  “Yes, the matches,” I agreed. “There is that.”

  “Concentrate your efforts upon winning,” he advised, “and be patient. Better to present a solid front that is above suspicion than to deviate from what is expected of us.”

  Had it been any other summer before this one, this would have been a simple task; before this project, neither Elizabeth nor I had had any other passions save for one another, and the matches. Now, cast in the light of a greater cause, that contest suddenly seemed rather trivial. Just the same, we had no other choice but to accede to his logic--and wait.

  ***

  Were it not for monoplaning, Bellevue would have been just another lowly farming village, filled with quaint rustics. And in fact it still was. Aside from agriculture, the only thing that it could boast of were the matches themselves, and the rather appalling legacy of having once been the center of a small rebellion against the Bookmen that even we Free Radicals found difficult to embrace.

  A local lunatic by the name of William Henry “Bill” Gates III had once attempted to build a device that would have emulated human thought and reason, potentially surpassing it in terms of speed and complexity. While his idea of a computational machine was quite noble in and of itself (and something that other scientists before and since have aspired to achieve themselves) it was his motives that set his effort apart--and earned him the contempt of all true Free Radicals. Unfortunately, in addition to his genius, Mr. Gates was also a megalomaniac, and his vision was that his machine would not only outdo its human users, but enslave them to it, and ultimately, to him.

  His fiendish plan proved to be his undoing however. Other technologists, alarmed by his despotic aspirations, broke their customary silence, and passed the word to informants employed by the Bookmen. In short order, Gates was arrested and executed. As for his machine and the plans for it, they were destroyed along with the half-completed prototype.

  It was a rare instance where the Free Radicals and the Bookmen saw eye to eye, and it did not occur again. And it also served as a warning about the dangers inherent in our researches; this was that science must always serve mankind, lest mankind become its prisoner.

  But to return to a more pleasant subject, the monoplane matches were the centerpiece of the community, given its broad untenanted areas, and the special field that had been set up to play host to the event. Formerly a farmstead, the local rustics called it Boeing’s Field after the family that had once owned it, although the official title it bore was Queen Mary’s Royal Aerodrome.

  Here, the Bookmen allowed the use of technologies that would have otherwise been forbidden in order to facilitate the occasion, and of these, the steam driven aeroplanes were the most modern conveyances in the Empire. Naturally, the entire affair was closely guarded, but despite this, the Aerodrome still served as the clandestine source of much of the contraband that made its way into our city.

  Families such as mine maintained their own private hangars there and had crews on permanent retainer. Above and beyond the personal, private bond that Elizabeth and I shared, the Brookes and the Steeles had always been close, and as a result, we had shared a large hanger for many years. She and I visited it as often as our calendars allowed, and it was emblazoned with our paired coats of arms on its great doors, declaring our partnership to the world.

  On the day of the season’s first great game, these doors were wide open, and our monoplanes had been brought out and parked side to side so that the general public could come and inspect them. Elizabeth and I had also dressed ourselves in our flying gear and stood by, posing for commemorative photographs and greeting well-wishers. Our team, “Mercer’s Maidens” had become something of a local sensation, having won the games for several years in a row, and everyone was rather eager to see if we would manage to secure the cup for ourselves yet again.

  I for one felt that we had a very good chance; thanks to Professor Merriweather’s expert advice, my craft, dubbed “The Light of Alexandria” in Hypatia’s honor, and Elizabeth’s “Blackbird” had both received upgrades and modifications that would vastly improve their aerial performance. Our opposition, the “Alki Aces” possessed no machines that were their equal, nor pilots that could match our skill.

  I knew better than to take our victory for granted however. Fortunes could turn on a wingtip, and the game itself would tell.

  As always, the stands were crowded with spectators, mostly from the middle and lower classes (not the least of which were the humble residents of Bellevue and its surrounding environs). The more well-heeled patrons watched the proceedings from private balloons decked out with their team’s colors, or from towers especially constructed for their usage. My father, who did not care for the balloons, occupied a place of honor near the judges on their tower, while his balloon played host to our relations, including and especially, my Aunt Veronica.

  I feel that it is important to take a moment and attempt to explain her, and beg the reader to forgive this brief diversion. But you see, she and my father were wholly unlike one another. While he, dear man that he was, tended towards a conservative approach to life, she was something of an adventurer and an independent spirit.

  She had never married, and lived in her own mansion in the Queen Anne district with only her household servants and her companion and personal secretary, Miss Haverhill. Father had often criticized her for her unconventional lifestyle, and her stubbornness, for they disagreed on nearly every subject and especially where it concerned the issue of matrimony.

  While Father insisted that the only proper station in life for a woman was as a wife and homemaker, Aunt Veronica had irreverently referred to the institution not as a ‘bond’ but the ‘bondage of matrimony’. Once, she had even gone so far as to suggest that women should not only be excused from the expectation of marriage, but that they be allowed to serve in public office, even as representatives in the Colonial Parliament! A staunch adherent of the anti-Suffragette writer, T. Flinging-Monkey, my father had nearly choked to death on his brandy.

  Really, he was no match for her, and I think that this was another reason why he did not avail himself of the balloon. The two were better off kept well apart from one another and they both knew it. I loved them equally, but privately, I must confess that I had always cheered my Aunt on.

  But enough of my family, and back to the game. The judges had sounded the starting horn, and Elizabeth and I hastily boarded our aeroplanes. Our teammates did likewise, and everyone’s air crews helped them to get their machines started. Then another blast came from the horn, which was our signal to taxi to the runway and form up in a line next to our opposition.

  This was always a critical part of the match, when our team leader, Ms. Suzanne Wallingford, gave us our final instructions through the use of special hand-signs that only we understood. Of course, we already had a general plan, but there were always last minute adjustments that needed to be made to bring it all together. Seeing her message, each of us signaled back our understanding with the universal thumbs-up, and we were ready to go.

  Then one of the judges fired off a flare, and we were off, gaining speed and rising from the runway. For anyone not acquainted with the experience, I cannot adequately describe the sheer thrill of flying, but I shall ce
rtainly endeavor to do so.

  There is nothing that can compare to being in command of a monoplane. It is far more than simply leaving the earth’s bonds behind and soaring into the sky in a machine.

  It is also the wild song of the wind as it passes over the wings, caressing them with abandon, and the musical vibration of every control wire and wooden strut as they respond to that intimate touch. It is the power of the engine itself, animating the control stick with its delicious vibrations, filling the hand and travelling up the thighs into the very center of one’s being.

  Piloting the Light of Alexandria was akin to my most passionate moments with Elizabeth. And to have her up there with me, daring the force of gravity to bring us both down, was just as primal a thing as if I were holding her in my arms.

  When we flew together like this, she and I were like a pair of Prometheans, bearing the stolen fires of heaven itself within our engines, and using it to propel us over the unforgiving earth at a speed greater than any bird might have ever dreamt. We were free, and unfettered by anything save our desires. That, and the requirements of the match itself.

  Since we were to the left of the other team, we were required to peel off in that direction as soon as we were airborne. After that, we each followed our partners and came back around towards the playing field. The game was now on.

  For those who are unfamiliar with the sport, there are several objectives. The first is to seize up a banner which has been hoisted atop a tall pole. This is managed through the use of special hooks, mounted in the tail sections of our steam-planes, and perhaps the easiest part of the entire endeavor.

  The second is to fly with the banner until it has passed through a pair of goal posts, which awards the team points. However, the opposition is seldom willing to placidly allow this and will attempt to intercept it with their own hooks. If they manage to snag it, and it falls to the ground (which it often does) the point goes to no one.