Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire Read online

  She started walking towards their transportation – a Grumman UF-2G seaplane, bobbing gently on the choppy waves of the bay as it clung to its mooring on one of the long timber docks.

  Ex-coastguard and apparently ex-military, given its faded stars and stripes insignia on the fuselage. It had been ‘“liberated” for the night by Charlie from where it was usually locked up in his dad’s Bronx marina. Not the sleekest or fastest bird in the sky, but Sam couldn’t help but fall in love a little bit with its homely, no-nonsense design. A great way to get about New York City if you had some cash to part with and were in a hurry. Which tonight it turned out she was.

  Charlie jogged to keep up. “Hey, whatever, Miss Moxley. I didn’t mean nothing by it. It’s like I always say, the customer’s got reasons and nobody needs to know ‘bout them but them. By my reckoning you’ve still got a few dollars left to burn tonight. You wanna take in a Broadway show? Or how about a flick? My sister said that new all-singing, all-dancing one with that fella Gene Kelly is pretty gangbusters. Although, she’d probably go watch him do anything, she’s that mad in love with him.” He looked up at her earnestly. “Seriously, I can take you any place you like. So where do you wanna go?”

  Sam glanced to where the sprawl of city lights in Lower Manhattan twinkled and danced in the distance.

  “Back, kid. By my reckoning, about ten thousand years.”

  His face was the picture of confusion, but she didn’t have time to elaborate further. Because at that moment a shadowy break cut through the illuminations reflected in the bay.

  A boat. Full of armed figures. Heading straight for them.

  “And it seems I’m not the only one,” she added, grabbing Charlie’s arm. “Come on, best foot forward!”

  They heard the yelling over the hum of the boat’s engine before the gunfire started. Then a hail of bullets pinged off the granite walls and the ground around them. And even though she knew the men were too late and too far behind to be precise – no matter how many times in the past she’d tried to instil in them a sense of instinct – there was every chance their angry, scattergun approach could still take one or both of them down. A bullet in the shoulder. In the leg. A lucky ricochet.

  That would end her rescue attempt real quick.

  “Go! Go!” she yelled above the din, and thrust the young pilot towards the seaplane. She quickly untied the mooring and jumped in after him, slamming the door behind her.

  “Who the hell are those guys?”

  Charlie flinched as bullets started pinging off the metal shell and he attempted to strap himself into the pilot’s seat. For a second, Sam considered letting him. But he was fumbling his belt, she could hear the shortness of breath in his words and despite the terror that had suddenly started to roil in the pit of her stomach, she knew there was no way he was going to get them out of this.

  She grabbed his shoulder and yanked him out of his seat before he could buckle up.

  “They’re old friends,” she said, ignoring his yelp of protest and collapsing into his place. She felt the thrum beneath her fingers, reaching deep into her bones as she started the engine.

  Her hands fumbled over the controls, almost as awkward as Charlie had been, all sweaty and trembling. Was this the first time since the war? Since the crash that had put her on this path? She suddenly felt like she was once again in the ATA pool of trainee pilots in Hamble Airfield, back on the green, green grass of England. Just a rookie recruit, all fresh-eyed and eager to do her part for the war effort… before being confronted with the flying bus that was the twin-seater Magister and wondering if she was about to get herself killed.

  More bullets bounced across the cockpit.

  Life was a ridiculous circle, she decided.

  “You’re a pilot?” Charlie cried as she pushed them away from the dock.

  “I am.”

  “But… but you’re a woman!”

  She gave him a death stare.

  “I just mean, on the way over you were all fidgety and nervous and stuff, Miss Moxley. I thought you’d hired me by mistake, seeing as you seemed more scared of flying than anybody I ever knew. Figured the jacket was just for show, maybe the latest fashion on 5th Avenue or whatever?”

  A glance out of the window and she saw the group of men gaining fast. Six or seven of them, all in suits. More bursts of light flashed from the muzzles of their guns.

  Only a matter of time before they hit something useful.

  “Miss?”

  Her fingers gripped the throttle and lurched them forward.

  “It’s Captain Moxley, Charlie,” she snapped, swallowing her fear as best she could. “And I don’t mind flying, it’s the crashing that upsets me.” She fixed him with a look. “Now strap the hell in. We’re leaving.”

  The small cargo ship bobbed uneasily as it made its way through the bay. The grandeur of New York City to its right. The Statue of Liberty lit up with gunfire to its left.

  Standing quietly on the deck, a shadowy figure watched events unfold.

  Agent Taylor’s fedora dipped ever so slightly in resignation, as the seaplane they were trying to apprehend finally bounced off the waters and clung desperately to the sky. Away from the bullets. Into the safety of the night.

  She’s made this far harder than it needs to be, he thought with some irritation. As usual.

  He raised his hand and beckoned the two hulking, fiercely unnatural figures nearby.

  They stomped forward, each with a pair of guns in their clawed hands, while enormous leathery wings unfolded in readiness like bats preparing for their evening meal. As they reached him, their misted chrome and glass helmets inclined his way, revealing the spiderwebs of hoses connected to tanks at their backs – a potent mix of gases that kept them alive in this realm’s atmosphere.

  Looking up at them, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if using these… specialist tools… might be overkill, but his concern didn’t last long.

  Overkill was the only thing that had ever worked with Samantha Moxley.

  “We can’t allow the Captain to beat us to the prize tonight,” he said loudly, once again feeling a deep sense of regret about setting foot on that beach in Normandy all those years ago. He pointed to the speeding light in the night sky. “Bring her down.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sky Fight

  Sam’s fingers gripped the cold, shuddering metal of the yoke as they pulled away from the water – and the gunfire.

  The plane bucked and fought, but she’d danced with worse partners in her life. That Spanish prince in Nantes for one, during a particularly traumatic undercover mission the year after the war ended.

  And, of course, more recently there had been Taylor.

  Is he down there now, orchestrating events from a safe distance?

  As usual.

  She watched the fine water spray streak across the cockpit window as they pushed through the skies above the bay. The idea that he was behind this made her shiver, but not as much as the terrifying thought of what his men would do to her sister if she didn’t beat them to her. If there was one thing about Agent Jack Taylor that could be relied upon, it was that he always kept himself out of harm’s way. Yet he had no qualms about instructing others to get their hands bloody – he had ordered her to enough times over the last few years, that was for damn sure.

  A crack, like localised lightning, sounded just outside the window. A familiar noise, muffled by the engines, but loud enough to make both occupants jump and Sam’s heart sink.

  A bullet.

  It shouldn’t have been possible. They were too high, too far from the men they’d left behind. Yet it was what it was.

  Sam immediately tensed in her seat, her eyes scanning the dark night outside, watching for whatever she could feel approaching. But it was Charlie who saw it first. The tight angles of his jawline immediately slackened as he stared out of his window in horror.

  “Oh God.”

  She twisted around, but couldn’t see past him.
“What?”

  “That’s… that’s not possible!”

  Another gunshot, another crack against the plane. Then a whistling sound as air rushed out through a brand new hole in the fuselage behind them. Sam wrestled with the aircraft as it shuddered violently.

  “Be more specific, please,” she urged.

  The young pilot’s gaze slowly returned to the neon-lit cityscape before them. His face was as bone white as the moon rising above Lower Manhattan.

  “I think we’re in trouble, Miss Moxley.”

  Her knuckles tightened on the yoke as she glanced sideways.

  “I told you, it’s Cap–”

  Then she saw the giant-winged figure behind him, careering through the sky towards the plane.

  “Holy Christ,” she gasped, yanking back hard on the stick, as whatever it was – a man? A dragon? – raised his guns and fired again.

  The bullets screamed past as the plane groaned and fought against her reckless flying.

  To her relief, it did what it was told. Just enough to get them out of trouble in that instant. Yet the flash of wings that suddenly shot past on the other side of the plane told her that she probably wasn’t going to be able to keep this up. Not if there were two of those things out there.

  She spun the plane left and right, as the creatures weaved around her, wings beating and folding, skimming the currents with ease. Cats toying with a cornered mouse.

  Whatever they were, and whatever nightmare Agent Taylor might have recruited them from, didn’t matter right now. The immediate problem was they were able to manoeuvre far more skilfully than this heavy bird. Even with her at the controls – and she’d been known to make broken Spitfires dance.

  The Nine had truly outdone themselves this time. She’d been party to some of their tricks in the past, of course. The horrors that roamed the corridors beneath the city streets where they’d worked in secret over the years. The dimension disk that had sent that stooge at Liberty Island into godknowswhere. (Whether it actually was another dimension, she still wasn’t sure. Some of her old colleagues had thought it might be. Regardless, wherever it sent people, they arrived back on Earth in a completely different location, and were almost always catatonic.)

  But armed dragon…men? Well, they certainly weren’t the strangest shit she’d witnessed in her time. Not by far. But right now they were enough to cause a small level of concern.

  She turned to the boy shrinking into his jacket beside her. His fingers whitening from clutching his seat, trying to hold onto some kind of sanity. Part of her wanted to do the same. But she’d seen and done enough to be able to roll with the ridiculous now.

  The dragonmen circled again, before one pulled away and fired. This time she felt rather than heard it. A shudder as bullets ripped into them again, somewhere at the back.

  Somewhere important.

  She pulled back on the stick but nothing happened. The city buildings directly ahead stayed at exactly the same height they had been in her eyeline. Growing closer with every second.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered.

  For a moment she threw the stick back and forth, as though her sheer force of will would somehow fix whatever had been done to the elevators. But they didn’t respond. The plane stayed level, unwilling to move up or down. Heading straight towards the Manhattan skyline.

  Charlie twisted his head towards her. “You’re going to climb above those buildings, right?”

  “We lost the elevators, I’m afraid. Can’t go up or down.”

  “Go around then!”

  Sam opened her mouth, then closed it again. She licked her dry, cracked lips – tasting blood from the earlier fight. And considered the thought that just popped into her head.

  Oh, what the hell. I need to get to the museum anyway.

  “Don’t worry, Charlie. I’m going to get you out of this mess, I promise.” She shoved the throttle forward and the plane leapt towards the urban labyrinth.

  “We can’t fly into the city,” he yelled. “Are you crazy?”

  “Possibly,” she admitted. “Hold onto your hat.”

  The Grumman UF-2G skimmed the tip of Battery Park and shot between the tall buildings.

  The dragonmen dropped back momentarily. She didn’t think it was owing to fear. Whatever these creatures were, it was unlikely they would be scared off by the neon lights of New York City, but she’d long ago found that the surprise of doing something unexpected had always caused others to hesitate. Buying you enough time to figure out how to get out of almost any ridiculous situation.

  And this was one of the most ridiculous she’d faced in a while.

  Over City Hall they flew. Then up Broadway. Tall stone buildings streaked past on either side. Flashes of incredulous faces pressed up against windows, watching the strange chase pass by.

  Too soon came the thump of wings against her window, as one of the beasts pulled up and spun away again. Shit. They hadn’t been put off for long. And she still had no idea how to get out of this alive.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Charlie muttered beside her. Then, as more gunfire erupted from behind them, driving up the side towards the cockpit, added, “I can’t believe they’re doing this. What even are they? And what the hell did you do to piss them off?”

  Sam shook her head as she suddenly tilted them a full ninety degrees to avoid a large American flag fluttering proudly outside the NYU campus.

  “Long and painful story,” she said, levelling them out again as the boy fell back into his seat with a gasp. “You’ll be unhappy to discover there’s a whole world of horrors out there that most people don’t know about. And these appear to be some of the creatures who deal with them. Dangerous creatures for a dangerous job.” She glanced over. “I know because I used to work with them.”

  “It sure looks like you left on bad terms, ma’am.”

  She let out a laugh, loud but humourless. “Don’t ever do a deal with the government, Charlie. You’ll be paying for it for years.”

  THWUNK.

  Her eyes widened and she glanced over her shoulder.

  That was heavier than a bullet impact.

  She flinched as the rear door buckled, before a chunk of it came off completely and flew away into the night. A clawed hand swept in through the hole and pulled at the metal, fighting the air pressure to wrench it open inch by inch.

  They were coming for her.

  “Take over!” she yelled, leaping up and stumbling over the seat as she pushed the kid towards the stick, while keeping her eyes on the door at the back as it was finally torn off its hinges, allowing one of the dragonmen to squeeze himself in.

  “Wha– what the hell am I supposed to do?” Charlie yelled in her wake.

  “Keeping us alive would be great,” she called back.

  Framed in the doorway against the moonlit night, the dragonman’s bulky figure seemed almost human. If you looked past the faceless helmet and the fact he was trying to fold his wings in behind him.

  Sam leapt forward, meeting the creature with strength and fury. Still stuck in the doorway, buffeted by the winds outside, his gun barely had time to lift towards her. She kicked it flying out of his hand, then swept what she figured was his foot with hers. Off-balance, she grabbed his helmet and rammed his head against the doorframe with a sickening crash.

  Noxious gases began to seep out of the glass, searing her eyes and throat. But the beast himself didn’t go down. Claws slashed across her shoulder and shoved her away.

  “It’s ov-er, Cap-tain,” his low, inhuman voice rasped in staccato fashion. It was, she realised, surprisingly loud against the screaming rush of wind filling the plane. An inbuilt speaker system, perhaps? Just another one of The Nine’s little party tricks, designed to intimidate and terrify. As if the bloody claws and dragon wings weren’t enough. He gestured towards the cockpit. “Land the pl-ane now or–”

  She took a swing. Hard, into the face mask again, cracking it further. Her knuckles exploded in
agony, but it jolted him back for a moment.

  Not today, you winged shit.

  He slugged her back across the jaw and she fell against the opposite wall hard. Breath lost for a second, she couldn’t move as he approached.

  She snarled with what energy she had left. At him? At herself? She didn’t know. Her sister would have found it amusing, if she were here.

  Behind the dragonman, buildings whipped past in flashes of grey and neon, until finally they disappeared as his lumbering figure filled her vision.

  A great big target.

  Her foot shot out and caught him in the groin. There was a satisfyingly pained exhalation through the speaker as he doubled over, before she followed up to kick the back of his knee and dropped him half to the floor.

  All those years of working for them. Working with them. And they still don’t understand who I am.

  She leapt up and grabbed his reptile-like shoulders. Kneed him in the stomach then followed up with an elbow.

  There was a loud fizzing as the speaker gave up the ghost. More gases poured out. He tried to stand, but only succeeded in staggering back towards the door, coughing and wheezing.

  She stalked towards him, balling her fist.

  These lackeys they’d sent to do their dirty work probably didn’t even have a clue. She had seen things… done things… that would make most men vomit into their precious fedoras.

  CRACK. A punch to his throat. Not hard enough to crush his windpipe – if he even had one – but a nice little distraction.

  It’s over when I say it’s over.

  She reached for the tubes connecting his failing helmet to his tanks and yanked them out. Each came free in an eruption of whatever hellish gases he needed to stay alive.

  “Give Taylor my regards,” she said, and kicked him out of the plane door.