Tin Swift(115)

Captain Hink was somewhere down there. Mae knew that for sure. Cedar didn’t doubt her instinct. He just didn’t know how they were going to extract a man from a well-guarded and well-armed hold.

“Three ships,” Molly Gregor pointed out before they glided the last turn around the ridgetop. They’d have to fire engines to set into place, and when they did, everything needed to happen fast if they were going to have any chance to get out of this alive.

“All tied down,” she continued. “Double boilers. Won’t be able to stoke them and get them up into the sky faster than the Swift can run.”

“We hit the hangar first,” Cedar said. “Take out the ships. That should keep them busy. We’ll go in under the chaos, quiet if we can. Shouldn’t take long to check each of the structures for the captain.”

“Teams of two,” Seldom said.

Cedar nodded. “Molly and Miss Dupuis, Seldom and Guffin, and I’ll go in alone.”

“I don’t think that’s wise,” Miss Dupuis said. “You should have cover. Molly and I will go with you.”

“We need to cover as much ground as quickly as we can,” Cedar said. “Three teams.”

“I go where you go,” a familiar voice said.

Cedar spun and looked at the shadows of the ship by the crates.

Wil, his brother, stood as a man, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders covering him to his knees. His hair was wild and brushing past his shoulders, and he was in need of a shave, but he smiled. “But I’ll need pants first.”

For a wild moment, Cedar wondered if Mae had somehow broken his curse. But then he remembered the new moon was tomorrow. The curse made it so Cedar changed to wolf form for the three nights around the full moon. Wil, however, changed to man form for three nights around the new moon.

Cedar had hoped they would have made it to the coven by now. He had lost track of the moon over the last few days.

“Wil,” Cedar said, crossing the ship to him.

“Holy blazes,” Guffin said. “Where the hell’d you come from?”

“Wil is my brother,” Cedar said. “The wolf. His curse lifts around the new moon.” He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and Wil smiled.

“It’s good to see you,” Wil said.

“And you,” Cedar said. Then, to Guffin, “He’ll be walking on two legs until dawn.”

“I’d rather walk with pants on,” he said. “And a gun, if we’re going on down there to save the captain.”

Wil and Cedar had spoken while on the road, Cedar staying up the nights so he could spend every moment asking Wil about the years they’d been apart. Those talks had been rushed and far too few. But Wil had told him that even in wolf form, with the instinct of the beast full upon him, he could understand plain English and more or less think like a man.

Guffin wasn’t moving. No one was moving.

“Outfit him,” Seldom said to Guffin. “We need all the guns we can get.”

Guffin shook his head and muttered his way back to his trunk, where he dug out a spare pair of breeches, shirt, and boots.

“Here.” He handed the clothes to Cedar. “I understand he’s your brother, Mr. Hunt, but I ain’t willing to get all that close to him.”

Cedar took the clothes and handed them to Wil. They didn’t have time for niceties or further explanations.

“Unarmed, naked, and a man, I’m a threat,” Wil said as he moved off to one side to shuck into the clothes. “Yet when I was clawed and fanged, you didn’t complain that I watched you while you slept. What kind of people you traveling with, brother?”

“Good people,” Cedar said, missing this, missing Wil’s sly humor and wit.

Guffin opened his mouth, closed it, then just shook his head again and set himself to rechecking the weapons he’d already checked a dozen times.

“There’s a lot of strangework down there,” Wil said.

Cedar nodded. “I know.”

“But all we’re there for is pulling out the captain, right?” Wil shoved his feet into the boots, then bent and tied them tight.

“That’s right.” Cedar knew what Wil was really asking. If he would be able to keep his head, keep his reason about him when he was dropping down into a hive of strangeworked men.

“Rose doesn’t have time for us to clean the place out,” Cedar said. “And Mae…” He looked over at her. She was standing by the cannon, one hand resting on the metal barrel, oblivious to what was happening in the ship around her.

“I won’t lose her just so I can kill a few strangeworks.”

Wil nodded. “Then let’s get this done.”