Mechanical Angel Read online

  Mechanical Angel

  A Steampunk Tale

  Sara Shanning

  Copyright © 2020 by Sara Shanning

  Cover by Psycat Digital Ink & Motion

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Please be advised lots of authors enjoy sharing their work, so contacting them for book signings, readings, podcasts, YouTube, or for an event is an exciting occurance. I, personally, would consider any travel events in my actual home state and any speaking engagements.

  But really I am just putting this here because I have a weird tradition of adding things to my copyright pages, which is probably a faux pas. However, I’ve never claimed to be normal.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sara Shanning

  Chapter 1

  Death Comes For Us All

  She tried to be no different than any other on the street. Just another person trying to remain invisible while she sought out what was needed to survive another day.

  Her biggest problem, of course, was her gender. She was a woman. One with alabaster skin, green eyes and red hair. Three things that made it especially difficult to blend in and hide.

  Black clothing helped. From head to toe, it had pretty much become the universal color, not only in what they wore, but what encompassed their surroundings as well, at least in her part of the world. Alel missed red.

  The red of a rose at its first bloom. The red of a sunset. The red women had once worn on their lips.

  Her memories of the color were what came to her as she lay on the dark stone, watching the dirty black water of the streets turn red with her blood.

  She had been too late to catch the single, thick strand of her hair that had escaped her hood as she walked, a sudden gust of wind loosening it to be what brought her end. A simple occurrence once; loose hair, but no longer in her world could such a simple thing be allowed. Nor the predicament she now found herself in. At the mercy of men.

  The world had become superstitious, drawn in by fears of anything perceived as Relic. She had suffered for it already in the short life she’d had, but had done her best to live as fully as the fragile walls of her life allowed.

  She had been safe, for a time. Until her mother had died. Then, she had run out of supplies and knew no one who could help her. Hungry, she had taken to the streets of Piellan. Her mother had tried to make her understand before she had been gone forever. Had told her she must blend in, cover herself completely in black, keep her head down, and look at no one.

  So Alel had learned to see without being seen. Learned to fade away into the dingy, crumbling destitution of the town’s black stone pathways like everyone else. Learned to drown out the noises of men.

  They had fallen so far. Become mostly inhuman in their crude manner and arrogant demands, even when they had nothing. Women were nothing more than slaves, until they were cast aside to become beggars on the streets, or worse.

  Her mother had spoken often of good men, hidden among the masses. Men who dared to challenge the practices and behaviors so common now. Her mother had been pure, but not graced with the features of Relic women. Her father had also been pure, she’d been told, but she had never met him. Regaled as she had grown up with what society would call fairy tales, she had heard the stories of his kindness. Her mother had claimed love as well.

  Alel had tried, of course, to humor her mother. Blood meant something, although she had never quite determined what. For her, comfort had been in the familiar, the stories, the simple act of not being completely alone in a world that had become dangerous and unforgiving.

  One that had become hers after she had lost her mother.

  One she hated.

  The first time she had left the Black Streets where those not welcomed on the streets of White spent their lives, she had known it was not a good idea. Her need to escape the monotony of the black haze that hovered over everything had become too strong to deny any longer.

  Black buildings, black stone, black clothing, black water, and the heavy black wickedness clinging to the residents swallowed up by the hopelessness of their lives.

  Without her mother’s stories, she had yearned for only a moment of light. One glimpse, she had told herself. So she had gone. Hidden in the shadows and watched the light swirl over colors she had thought gone forever.

  Men in vivid blue vests, women in purple dresses flounced with ruffles at their knees, and sharp and pristine top hats, not like the muddled, dirty dregs of what was left gracing the heads on the Black Streets.

  The birds had been what had brought her back to see it all again. The Relic birds were all gone, but the mechanical wings and metal, plumed feathers of the beings that flitted about the White Streets singing a melodic song had given her back a feeling of hope.

  Those walking the streets below the birds had paid them no mind. The people had continued going about their days in unhurried strolls, conversing with each other and the vendors hawking wares from carts with gauges as wheels, the symbols on them meaningful only to their owners and customers.

  A bird had come to her. Beautiful, clean, and a shade of yellow that had made her think of the sun her mother had spoken of in her stories. On her streets, the sun shared its light, but one could never see it. Perched on an intricate railing that twisted and turned and stretched along the town as far as she could see, the bird had sung to her.

  Alel heard it again now as she watched her blood settle in the cracks of the black stones. She knew it was not real. A manifestation of her mind to handle the pain as the men brutally assaulted her in their frenzy to claim something pure as their own.

  Their fingernails were black, their dirty, stringy hair black where it hung lank over their shoulders, their eyes black too, the light stolen from the depths as surely as it had been taken from their lives.

  As the bird sang, she thought of her mother. Where did one go when they died? Would her mother be there? The father she had never known? Would there finally be an end to her pain and suffering? Whatever waited for her, she wished to not be alone. To have someone who cared again, even if it was only in the possessive way of one who had nothing else to hold onto.

  The bird alighted near her face on the Black Street, its wheeled feet rolling in her blood. Real after all. She thought it was the same yellow bird who had come to her before. It looked at her with its mechanical eyes as though it could really see.

  If it could, she knew it would watch her die.

  Chapter 2

  The Voice of a Maker

  “Wake now, Alel.”

  The voice preceded a soft whirring; a cli
ck, click near her ear. She thought she heard birdsong again, but not one; many.

  Her lashes were heavy and she thought wet, as she blinked them open. A man stood over her. Her last encounter with those such as he spurred fear and adrenaline into her veins. She struggled.

  She was on a table, straps at her forearms, her wrists, her waist, and at her ankles. She was partially covered, enough that she was not exposed, but also enough for her to see the smooth, scrolling swirls of metal that had become a part of her. A section of her leg, her waist, her arm, and what more, she could not see.

  “Be still, Alel. You are safe now.”

  She could not escape the bindings and gave up. The voice was calm and lacked any threat, but he could not possibly be speaking truth, as she could see what had been done by his hand.

  “What have you done to me?”

  “I have saved you. Given you life.” He studied her, his hair too long and falling over an eye and past his ears. It was gray as he was older, his skin lined, but more from trial than age she suspected, as he was not advanced in years. His right eye was clearly glass, and a half-circle of the same materials he had used on her body wound around one corner of it, nearest his temple. She could see a band extending from it into his hairline and over his ear.

  “I died,” she murmured, following the metal band down his face with her eyes, down along the side of his neck and lower where it disappeared beneath the fabric of his shirt. He lacked the traditional cravat most men wore and he hadn’t bothered to secure his top two buttons, she noticed.

  “The Black Street monsters were not kind to you. Their... lack of respect for someone so pure was appalling.” He bent at the waist slightly, taking a strand of her hair in his hand and running his fingers down the long length. “So incredibly mesmerizing. I have not seen a shade of red this color since I was just a boy.” He let the hair fall and straightened.

  “I could not in good conscience do nothing,” he continued. “There are very few Relic women left.” His eyes were different shades. The real one the shade of fresh water, the fake an odd mix of green and yellow. Not green like hers. She wondered that he had been allowed to choose the color at all. It was difficult to read what lurked in his one eye.

  “You have great worth, my dear. I will see those men pay for not recognizing something so precious and caring for it accordingly.” He moved to her feet, producing a key from a ring at his side. She watched him insert it into the side of an ankle strap and heard again the whirring, followed by a click, click, before it separated.

  Alel was unsure how to feel about the things he was saying. Relics were hunted, not celebrated, and their worth was only in the payment made when one was given over to the hands of those seeking them. Her mother had told her Relic women were highly sought because they were different than the other women upon the streets.

  Trophies to be displayed on a man’s arm and exploited for whatever other pleasures a man wished. Alel wanted none of that.

  “You will be safe with me, my dear. I am well-feared, and no one would dare harm one of my creations. My guardians shall see to that.” Her ankles freed, he paused at her side and lifted a hand, his index finger parallel to the ground. He clicked his tongue twice and an ivory bird with golden cogs and gauges alighted on his finger.

  He smiled at her, and she thought it was not kind or encouraging, but rather a veiled threat. “My guardians see all.” He stepped closer so he could look down upon her. “They will watch over you. In return, you shall watch over them, and my other... well, you will see soon enough.”

  A slight motion of his finger sent the bird off into the air. Alel watched it fly to a small rail that wound around a thin shelf running along the entire span of the room. Settled on the shelf were all manner of mechanical productions. Many more birds, as well as owls, bugs, cats and other unrecognizable small metal beings.

  He followed her eye, a fond smile curving his lips. “Hmm. Failed attempts,” he explained. “The bird is by far the most convenient to manipulate and is the one I have perfected, and my favorite, as I’m sure you will conclude.”

  “How do they fly?” she asked.

  He inserted the key into a wrist strap, placing a hand above on her arm. “Alel, my dear, I will release you, but you understand you are different now? Your life has changed. You are changed.” It was a warning but also a gentle message he wished for her to heed.

  She was not sure how to answer, so she said nothing. When the last of her restraints had been freed, he helped her to sit up. She clutched at the covering, wondering if he had touched her, or done more.

  The key was placed back on the ring at his side and he went to a long rack against one wall. “I took the liberty of being sure you were well supplied with suitable clothing. I will leave you to dress and get used to... movement.” He made his way to the door. “Be careful, my dear. You will move as freely as you did before soon enough, but you will have to adjust.”

  He left her. Alel slid to the edge of the table. She could see a mirror mounted on the wall to the side of the rack. She wondered that she was not in pain and thought she should have asked how long it had been since he had brought her to his lair.

  There were many things she wanted to ask. Her life no longer made sense. If she had interpreted the man correctly, she was his prisoner. Guarded by winged machines controlled by his hand. What had he meant by she would watch over them, and other... what? She looked over the silent machines perched on the shelf. There were so many of them. Perhaps over one hundred. Did he have larger creations as well? Were there others like her?

  She needed to see if she was fashioned in the same way as the ‘failures’ staring sightlessly down at her. She settled her feet on the floor, stared at the sections of her right leg no longer smooth skin. Instead, bands of metal wrapped around her leg in various places, some thick and some thin, each of the six parts attached by a series of flat cogs and gears of beautiful design leading to a small keyhole; those placed symmetrically along her outer leg.

  Curious, Alel pushed at the edge of a band. It did not move, nor separate from her skin. The seam was barely a blip in texture beneath her finger as she traced it over where skin met metal.

  She held the table as she stood, understanding his words of caution when she realized the mass of her legs felt different than each other. Unnatural. Shifting her weight to her left leg, she bent her right knee, lifted her leg out in front of her, and placed it back down. Tentatively, she took a step, grasping the edge of the bed just in case.

  With a significant limp, she was slowly able to walk to the rack while clutching the covering around her and holding it in the front. At the mirror, she saw more metal on her right arm. Not bands like he had used on her leg, but an area completely covered with a metal plate intricately patterned with small, colorful wheels over a pretty maze of swirls.

  There were more plates. One on her back by her shoulder blade, a small one on her neck, and a thin swirl with tiny gauges snaking over her left cheek and onto her temple. The blend of silver and gold made her green eyes more startling. Her hair was loose and not tied back to better hide it, and it was tousled, making her look wild and untamed.

  Alel reached for clothing to cover what she could of the machinations that now seemed to be a part of her. She had heard of the practice, but had thought it more tale than reality. Rumors. After all, how could one possibly be part human, part machine?

  What purpose did the panels and bands have? As horrified as she was by what the man had done, Alel needed to understand exactly how her days would be ordered, not only by the changes made to her body, but by his expectations of her.

  And in order to find out, she needed to find him and speak to him again.

  Chapter 3

  Sir Jax

  His home was unlike anything she had ever seen. It glimmered with metals in all shades and styles. The walls were lined with mismatched shelving holding gears, more metal, and other various things she would guess made up the creatures a
nd contraptions also cluttering the shelves throughout the house.

  The furniture was plush and expensive looking, and colorful. Alel wanted to run her hands over the smooth fabrics, follow the lines of the carved woods, and examine the many odd items upon the walls and shelving units.

  Even the windows were graceful and appealing. High and arched, or small circles, or multi-paned squares and rectangles, they were scattered over the walls in a haphazard mix that allowed light to spill into the rooms. Unlike the houses on the Black Streets, where barely a small square was carved out of the stone in any of the homes. Meant to protect the inhabitants, it had become yet another way to hide away and be invisible.

  Alel was drawn to the beams of light spilling onto the rich rugs spread over the floors. Outside the windows, the White Streets flashed from a far for moments through full, luxurious branches of trees heavy with health and life, vines that crawled over walls made of stone or bricks or wood, and patches of water swelling inside circles of grass, flowers or white sand. Alel had never seen anything as beautiful as the landscape of the White Street side of Piellan.

  She found the man in the kitchen. This room too was spattered with wonders. Cabinets, each with different doors of stunning design, texture and shape. Smooth white ore counters muddled with mechanical things that all seemed to be linked to the same copper tubing running along one wall into a large canister of what looked like steam.