The Steam-Powered Sniper in the City of Broken Bridges (The Raven Ladies Book 2)
“When you’re truly free, you’re bound to get a little weird.”
~Dr. Gatling
Other Sapphic Pixie Tales From Cassandra Duffy:
The Last Best Tip
Astral Liaisons: Lesbians in Space!
Demons of Paradise
Demons of Paradise 2
An Undead Grift for Christmas
The Vampires of Vigil’s Sorrow
The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head
The
Steam-Powered Sniper
In the City of Broken Bridges
By Cassandra Duffy
Day Moon Press
2012
Day Moon Press
Sapphic Pixie Tales
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any matter whatsoever without written permission, except in the cases of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are meant to be fictitious. Any similarity between any persons living, dead, or undead is completely coincidental. The events are fictional. The version of San Francisco, Carson City, and any other location are fictionalized renditions.
ISBN-13: 978-1477509371
ISBN-10: 1477509372
©2012 Cassandra Duffy
1st Print Edition
Cover Design by Katiie Kissglosse
Edited by Nichole Mauer
For Nikki,
The Steam-powered Sniper of My Heart!
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Out of Time in Tombstone.
Chapter 2: Into the Dragon’s Desert.
Chapter 3: Into the Wounded West.
Chapter 4: Meeting the Owl.
Chapter 5: Slaying the Gator.
Chapter 6: Hanged.
Chapter 7: Mutants of a Forgotten City.
Chapter 8: A Spirit Guide to a Bridge of Fool’s Gold.
Chapter 9: The Girl in the Jar.
Chapter 10: Friends Nearby.
Chapter 11: Sights Unseen Not to be Believed.
Chapter 12: Wonders Never Cease.
Chapter 13: What Lies Beneath.
Chapter 14: A Question of Perception.
Chapter 15: Unlikely Harbinger.
Chapter 16: With Just the Right Eyes.
Chapter 17: Mapping the Radioactive Tides.
Chapter 18: Commissions of Fire and Disappointment.
Chapter 19: Beyond the Wall in Good Company.
Chapter 20: Found Beyond the Vale.
Chapter 21: Options Being What They Are…
Chapter 22: Help Comes in all Forms.
Chapter 23: Guerilla Warfare.
Chapter 24: A Night Interrupted.
Chapter 25: Trudging Toward Glory or Something Like It.
Chapter 26: Cats Should be so Lucky.
Chapter 27: Lights Going Out in a Dim World.
Chapter 28: Hardened Lines.
Chapter 29: Even Gods Can Die.
Chapter 30: Deals and Drawings.
Chapter 31: Called Bluffs.
Chapter 32: The Broken Machines of War.
Chapter 33: Rebirth After Death.
Chapter 34: Metal Birds of Mercy and Prey.
Chapter 35: Epilogue.
Chapter 1:
Out of Time in Tombstone.
The heat of the Arizona summer wasn’t abating with the coming fall, pressing hard on the outside of the courthouse turned Lazy Raven headquarters. Claudia slipped from the bed she’d been sharing with Veronica to open a window. The sun was setting. The desert was finally giving up its scorching hold on the day to replace it with a chilly grasp on the night. She stood nude in the open window for a moment, smelling the dry air coming off the fields of marijuana and opium the Ravens were growing. It was a thick, organic scent of earth and plants, with a strange perfume to it as so many of the plants were blooming.
Claudia glanced back to the bed where Veronica was snoozing amid the puffy pillows, downy comforter, and satin sheets. This was a relationship of convenience, Claudia kept telling herself. She didn’t really know Veronica all that well, but she knew Veronica was close to Fiona, as close as any two people could be, and that would likely be as close to Fiona as Claudia would ever get. Similarly, Claudia knew Veronica was interested in her simply because she was dimensionally close to the petite Asian pilot that had so captured Fiona’s heart. Veronica, who was typically the pure image of feminine glory, was extremely masculine in her sense of attraction—she was attracted to Claudia because Claudia’s body looked enough like Gieo’s.
This wasn’t a source of consternation or oddity with Claudia the way it was with some of the Ravens. Claudia knew a little of Veronica’s past, knew she’d never had a feminine influence, and knew exactly what that could do to a girl’s sexual development as her own experiences mirrored it. Claudia was raised by a strong man of compelling charisma and had lost her mother young. She’d taken to her father’s proclivities as a son would and had so approached the world with a tiny ribbon of feminine grace in an otherwise hardened form.
She and Veronica were alike in two other significant ways as well when it came to romance and love. They both compartmentalized sex from feelings when it served their purposes and they both tended toward myopic obsessions once they found an object of desire. Claudia believed both of these traits made her an excellent sniper, but seemed to complicate her love life in some truly bizarre ways. This was the case with Veronica and Danny before her. Both the sultry White Queen and the bearded young hunter were in love with Fiona, which Claudia admitted had created most of her attraction for them.
Danny had been a sweet boy growing into a remarkable man until that worthless asshole Rawlins shot him down. Claudia had never shut the door on men, although she had long since come to the conclusion that she preferred women. Danny was a special case though. Somehow the difficulties of the new world order hadn’t destroyed the human parts within him and he remained sweet and almost gentlemanly as though he were always meant to be a cowboy and waited only for the world to give him the opportunity. Again though, it was a relationship of convenience as they were in love with the same woman who noticed them both only in a maternal or platonic way. Still, part of Claudia grieved that the world had lost Danny even though he wasn’t what she wanted for anything more than a passing fling. Given the chance, he might have charmed another woman at some point, one who would need him and appreciate him in ways she hadn’t.
Claudia returned to the bed when the sun had fully set and darkness filled the room. Veronica was still asleep, although she’d rolled onto her back, letting the sheet fall away from her chest. A shaft of light from the lanterns outside snaked through the window, across the bed, and illuminated Veronica’s left breast with the distinctive knife scar. She really did have glorious breasts, Claudia thought. She liked Veronica well enough as a person. She was interesting, strong, surprisingly caring at times, and as smart of a person as Claudia had ever met, but her real interest in Veronica was carnal—once they had consummated their coalition of castoffs, her body physically ached for Veronica’s whenever they were close to one another.
Claudia crept across the bed as not to wake Veronica, keeping to one side to avoid blocking out the shaft of light for as long as she could. Once she’d snuck up on the still, sleeping form of the Raven Queen, Claudia bowed her head and took a long, taunting lick up the curve of Veronica’s exposed breast, following the line of the jagged scar. She waited a moment on hands and knees to see if Veronica would wake up. When she didn’t, Claudia
took a few more licks along the soft curve of Veronica’s breast, tasting on her skin the lingering sweat from the heat of the day and their earlier lovemaking excursion. Veronica might not have awoken from the attention, but her body certainly did. Claudia took the hardening of Veronica’s nipple as an invitation and flicked her tongue across its tip.
She glanced up to Veronica’s face to find her eyes still closed but a smile painted across her lips. “You were awake the whole time, yes?” Claudia asked. Her accent was French Canadian, although she could tone it down or thicken it as needed. Coming from Quebec, she was bilingual and able to speak both languages as a native speaker. She knew what effect the accent had on people, Veronica in particular, and used it to good advantage.
“Yes, but I wanted to see how far you would take your molestation of a sleeping woman,” Veronica replied, finally opening her eyes. Her eyes were a lovely hazel with a twinkle of permanent mischief that Claudia suspected mirrored her own. When she smiled as she did in that moment, Claudia believed Veronica was quite possibly one of the most beautiful women she’d ever met.
“I had no concrete plans, although my time spent on your breast was certainly only meant as a beginning,” Claudia cooed, returning her mouth to Veronica’s breast to suck the pert little nipple into her mouth.
She spotted the red flashing light out of the corner of her eye and her heart leapt into her throat. Claudia knew as well as anyone what the silent warning light meant. She had discussed with Veronica why this time might be different than the repulsion of marauders she’d participated in back in Vegas. Veronica knew Claudia wanted to leave the Ravens to seek out her father, and she’d said her opportunity to do so would be coming soon.
Claudia and Veronica dressed quickly in the slowly flashing red light set above the doorway. Claudia kept chancing glances to Veronica as she equipped herself for battle. She thought there might be something she should say in such a moment, but she couldn’t imagine what it might be. She dressed and equipped herself as thoroughly as she was able, knowing it might be her last chance to do so. Finally, she grabbed her rifle from beside the closet, slinging the strap over her shoulder.
“Do you remember where the pilot’s motorcycle is?” Veronica asked.
“But of course,” Claudia replied with levity she didn’t really feel.
“Then I suppose this is goodbye.” Veronica turned from her weapon rack, armed to repel the raid she’d suspected was coming for some time. Claudia was waiting to embrace her, but stopped short when Veronica held out her hand.
“I could stay…”
“You can’t save Tombstone and you can’t save me,” Veronica said. “If we lose, you’ll die, and if we win, you’ll be as stuck as you are now. Take the chance since it might be your last.”
Claudia didn’t take no for an answer on her second attempt. She grasped Veronica by the back of her neck, pulling her down until their lips met in a fiery embrace. She didn’t love Veronica, probably never could, but she cared for her more deeply than she’d admitted to herself. Veronica smiled down to her when their lips parted; her mouth was adorably flushed from the intensity of the kiss as it often was. She left the room through the door while Claudia slipped out the window she’d left open.
Claudia skulked along the ledge outside the window, leapt easily the two feet across to the lamppost nearest the corner, and slid down to the ground. She wasn’t just an excellent scout and sniper, she also had almost a decade’s worth of gymnastics training that made her amply able to move through urban landscapes as easily as open terrain. If she wasn’t also built like a gymnast, she always thought she might have made a good soldier.
She crept through the empty city streets, trying her best to move away from the sounds of engines and gunfire, which were quickly spreading through the darkened desert night. When she reached the oldest section of Tombstone where the replica of the Old West street had been built, she scaled one of the flat roofed buildings via the fire escape ladder along the back wall, and began making her way from rooftop to rooftop.
She stopped short at the final street before she would make a left, slide down from her perch, and escape into the night aboard the pilot’s hidden motorcycle. The marauders would be Zeke’s men, most likely from Juarez; these were things Veronica knew although she hadn’t known when the attack would come or how intense it would be. She’d shared the information among the Ravens, but not with Fiona.
Claudia turned back, tracing a very specific sound through the city. The quad gun was being fired, the one the pilot had salvaged from one of her dirigibles; Claudia had seen it the night they were to defend the high school turned stables against the cultist army. It was Slark technology and Claudia knew the sound all too well. It stopped before she could reach it under the sudden thickening of armed men on decrepit old 4x4s racing through the streets, seeking out easy Raven targets. She raced across the rooftops, her boots finding sure-footing easily among the flat topped buildings.
The giant truck with the gun pod that the bartender and mentally challenged cook once owned was destroyed in the middle of the road with several dead Ravens surrounding it. Claudia lifted her rifle to her shoulder and scanned the bodies with her scope. She recognized Stephanie and what she guessed was the gargantuan cook, but she didn’t spot Fiona among the dead. Her focus was snapped from the scope when she heard the telltale roar of Fiona’s Colt Anaconda. She chased the sound along the tops of the buildings, quickly becoming winded from the exertion of tracking and backtracking so quickly.
She spotted the redhead gunfighter with her smoking pistol pointed at group of men all but one of which had been felled by her. Claudia shouldered her rifle to see who the lone survivor was under Fiona’s gun. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The old Texas Ranger Cork stood ready to either finish off or be finished off by Fiona. The question of whether or not Fiona had a cartridge left for Cork was answered when the man began lifting his sub machinegun. Claudia held her breath to steady her aim. The crosshairs landed firmly on his left temple. She gave the trigger a loving squeeze and a firm grip to limit recoil. The rifle jerked in a familiar way and the front of Cork’s head came apart in a red cloud.
She wanted to call out to Fiona, to promise cover or tell her where she was going, but there was no time and Fiona wouldn’t be interested in any of it anyway. Claudia waved when she thought Fiona traced back the rifle fire to its source. Fiona didn’t wave back. She couldn’t be sure if Fiona even really saw her.
The swift moving flames, which Claudia had only caught a glimpse of at the end of the street, was in full chase when she slung her rifle back over her shoulder. She ran along the rooftops, outdistancing the fire that was sweeping easily through the dusty desert town.
The lamppost at the end of the row, the one that didn’t work anymore but for some reason still had a few pairs of shoes dangling from it, was her goal. The strange steam-powered motorcycle was hidden beneath it behind a half of a propane tank and long dead shrubbery. Still out of range, with one more roof to run across, she heard a decidedly female scream, a spray of gunfire, and then a jarring explosion. The shoes dangling from the lamppost, danced on the ends of their laces when the explosion rippled through the chaotic night. Claudia didn’t need to be told what had happened. She’d heard it in Phoenix, Barstow, Las Vegas, and in countless other minor skirmishes when something went sideways for the Ravens.
She slid to a stop at the edge of the last roof, a few feet separating her and the lamppost. At the base of the building, too close to the motorcycle’s hiding place for it to be coincidence, was a tangle of obliterated human remains. Claudia leapt out to the lamppost, wrapped around it, and did a half turn to face the building again as she deftly slid to the ground. She hopped free and drew her Walther PPK to cover the bodies and the entrance to the alleyway as she slowly crept toward the scene of a trump card having been played.
She might have known the Raven, but there wasn’t enough left to identify her. Claudia suspected even dental recor
ds couldn’t have sorted out who she was after the grenade had done its work. By the look of the other remains in the area, the girl took at least three men with her.
“Make them pay a precious price, little bird,” Claudia whispered the mantra required whenever anyone found a Raven had played their last card. She holstered her sidearm and turned her back on the scene of unspeakable carnage. She couldn’t think of what might have been if she’d run faster, if she hadn’t stopped to wave to Fiona, if she hadn’t stopped to save Fiona…she’d nearly driven herself mad with what-ifs her first few times in combat and she wasn’t about to go back down that road simply because it had been almost a year since she’d last seen the after effects of a trump card.
The propane tank half came away easily revealing the bike still in place. Claudia got in behind the handlebars and pushed the monstrosity free of its hiding hole. She’d ridden motorcycles before, but she imagined her experience on the 500cc dirt bikes used by scouts around Las Vegas would count about as much in riding the bastard child of a Slark engine and an Indian cruising bike as knowing how to ride a horse would qualify someone to ride an elephant. Still, her options were to try the motorcycle or get walking, and with those as her choices, the motorcycle seemed significantly less intimidating. She slid her night vision goggles from her pack and settled them into place over her eyes, bathing the world in the strange green glow. Dying in a motorcycle accident was better than a trump card and so she hopped into the saddle of the steam-powered monstrosity.
She roared out into the night at incredible speed, heading north because that was the only direction she knew to go.
Chapter 2:
Into the Dragon’s Desert.
Claudia found the pilot’s remarkable motorcycle did most of the driving. It needed tending, management on temperature and fluid levels, but it largely knew how to keep to the roads all on its own. Once she figured this out, she pushed it to go fast, as fast as it wanted for optimal fuel and water consumption which was just shy of 90 MPH. She’d skirted the eastern edge of the ruins of Phoenix, knowing Ravens had outposts on the western edge; in the event of a Slark invasion, they could fallback through the ruins of the city and make a fight of it even if they were massively outnumbered. By the time the sky was graying with the coming day, and coincidentally when the bike began to languish too hot under constant use, Claudia believed she’d passed into Utah.