A Dawn Most Wicked (Something Strange and Deadly 0.5)(3)

I laughed, but before I could summon a worthy response, her eyes widened. “Why are you half dressed?”

“Are you just now noticin’?” A blush warmed my face, and I tugged my shirt collar closed. “I’ve got to put on my coveralls and clean the boilers.”

“But didn’t you just clean the entire engine room? Where’s Murry? Or Schultz?”

“Schultz is seein’ his family today, and Murry’s old and half blind.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t make it all right to shirk.”

“It ain’t shirkin’, Cass.” I swatted the air. “I’m the striker. It’s my job to keep everything clean and running smooth.”

“You may be the apprentice, but you do the same work as the full engineers.” She pushed out her chin. “In my book that means the full engineers should help you from time to time too. I’m only the cub pilot, but Father still shares the work with me fifty-fifty. We have to since we’re only a skeleton crew these days.” She planted her hand on her hip. “Should I say something to Father?”

“No.” I shook my head quickly. The last thing I wanted was for Captain Cochran to lose his temper. Especially at Murry. The rumor was that all the burn scars around Murry’s eyes—and the reason the Chief Engineer could barely see anymore—was because Cochran had shoved the man’s face in a boiler furnace.

I didn’t know if that was true, but it wouldn’t have surprised me. The captain had a temper, and as a rule, I avoided that temper at all costs.

“All right,” Cass said slowly. “I won’t say anything. . . . But don’t let Murry overwork you. This team”—she motioned between us—“won’t work if one half is broken.” She twirled around to leave, a whoop already bursting from her lips. “We’re going to race, Danny Sheridan, and we’re going to win!”

I watched her go, hair falling from her bun, and prayed she was right. Because if we didn’t, then the Sadie Queen and all her crew really were doomed.

Once I’d donned my coveralls and snagged a chain from the blacksmith’s office beside the engine room, I stalked out to the Sadie Queen’s Main Deck. My mind was still on Cass. On the hug. On the way her hips had felt beneath my fingers . . .

I swallowed and cleared my throat. Cassidy Cochran was my best friend—no matter how much I might’ve wished otherwise. She was the captain’s daughter; I was a lowly engineer’s striker. Trying to make more of that would only ruin the friendship we had. One day I might be a full engineer—no more scrubbing boilers or following Murry’s orders—but that day was a long ways off.

I stepped into the midmorning sun and took in the Sadie Queen. Everything about her catered to the lap of luxury—from the filigreed, whitewashed balustrades and elegant windows to the lush, costly interiors. Four floors of opulence: the Main Deck, with the engine room and space for cargo; the Passenger Deck above it, with the enormous saloon and sixty-one (now empty) passenger cabins; the Hurricane Deck, with a nice area for viewing the river and fifty more, empty cabins; and finally the Texas Deck, with the crew’s staterooms. It was no wonder we normally needed hundreds of crew—from waiters to footmen to cooks—to serve all those hundreds of passengers.

Of course, that was normally, and we hadn’t been “normally” since the ghosts had arrived back in April.

Towering over it all were two cherry-red smokestacks and the jack staff—a pole at the ship’s front with a navy flag and the words “Lang Company” in curly red script. Below the flag were the two pairs of golden racing horns we’d won . . . back before the ghosts had taken over. Back when we’d still had passengers.

I sighed and swung my gaze toward Natchez. The city stared down at me from atop a green hill. The muddy wharf at the foot of the hill crawled with burly roustabouts, their job to unload cargo from the few steamers that had already arrived. They were also bringing new cargo down to the Sadie Queen. Tobacco and cotton weren’t nearly as lucrative as luxury passengers, but they kept the steamer afloat.

And they didn’t mind the ghosts.

I strode to the ship’s front, where the boilers stood. They were outside so air could whip through the attached furnaces and keep the fires stoked. These eight long tanks served as the intestines of the ship. If they got clogged with mud, they didn’t work. It was one of the striker’s jobs to clean the boilers because, as a rule, we were younger and smaller than the engineers. While I was certainly thinner than Murry or Second Engineer Schultz, I was a full head taller. In fact, I had to fold my body near in half to get into the tank, and if there was one way I didn’t want to die, it was trapped inside a boiler.

Two months ago, in the middle of the night, I had thought I might die such a death. We’d stopped between Baton Rouge and Devil’s Isle because the boilers had taken on too much mud in the night. Captain Cochran had dragged me from my bunk with only a dim lantern to see by and a harsh order to get the boilers cleaned.

So I’d stuffed my body inside . . . and that was when I felt the cold. It had brushed over my neck. The hair on my arms had shot up. Then blue had flashed at the top of my eyes, and I’d paused mid-scrape to glance up.

To stare straight into the charred eyes of a dead woman.

“Blood,” she hissed. “Blood everywhere.”