Page 4 of Company of Thieves
“Jack!” Octavia protested.
“He is the bane of our existence, so I reserve the right to call him foul names. If I could just get him in a small, soundproofed room for about five minutes ... just him, me, and a pair of electric nipple
clamps—”
Octavia took a martyred breath.
“Akbar? Who ... oh, the Moghul guy?” I thought about what I knew of the prince. I had a vague memory of Jack telling me how he’d fought him after we had just arrived in this alternate reality, but beyond that, and the fact that he was supposedly some hotshot warlord, I knew nothing. “Do you know where he is?”
“You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Jack said, shaking his head.
“What is she thinking?” Octavia asked, clearly confused.
“Sure, I can. If you guys won’t teach me, then I’ll just have to go to an expert.” I gave Jack a long, level look, expecting that he would capitulate and order the crew to teach me their weaponry skills. Seeing as how the Moghuls had such a bad reputation, I knew Jack would rather give in than have me carry through my threat to go to the enemy. “Then, when I’ve learned what I need to know to be a warrior, I’ll come back and protect you guys.”
“Oh, lord,” Octavia said, and, shaking her head, excused herself, pausing at the door to raise her eyebrows at Jack.
“Now look what you’ve gone and done,” he said after she closed the door behind her. “You made us miss our midmorning quickie, and Octavia will be frustrated until our early-afternoon quickie time.
Hal—” He took my arms in his hands. “I know you feel out of place here, but I promise you that you’ll find your feet. You just have to give it time.”
I hesitated for a few seconds. “Is it that you don’t think I have the heart for fighting?”
His eyes were warm with affection. “I know better than anyone just how strong you are, Hallie. You are a warrior in every sense of the word ... except one.”
I made a face. “We’re back to experience again. Well, I’m trying to fix that. I want to be a fighter. I hate being told to go sit in my cabin whenever you guys steal stuff, or fight off those Black Hand people when they try to take our ill-gotten gains.”
“We just want you to be safe,” he started to say.
I punched him lightly in the chest. “Exactly! And that’s why teaching me to fight is such a good idea. Then not only will I be a kick-booty steampunk chick, but you won’t have to worry about protecting me anymore.”
“I will always worry about protecting you,” he said with a quick hug, rubbing my back just like he used to do when I was little and scared by one of the horror movies he watched. “I want you to feel useful. I know how important that is to you. But this is not the way. We’ll find something—you just have to be patient.”
“I’m tired of being patient,” I told him when he collected a couple of maps from the desk. “Where ... uh ... do you happen to know where Prince Akbar is?”
He rolled his eyes, and was about to leave when he stopped himself. “I do know, as a matter of fact. Or at least, I know the latest intelligence that was given to us at Annaba, and no, I’m not going to tell you.”
My gaze slid past him for a second to where his journal lay.
“You rat fink!” I yelled, storming my way to the door, praying he wouldn’t see through my sham anger. Luckily, he was a man, and thus no match for a woman. He simply followed me out and paused when I flung open the door to my cabin.
“Hal, even if Tavy and I thought it was wise for you to pick up training from someone so ruthless and violent, the brute Akbar would likely hold you for a ransom should you show up to demand he train you. That or make you part of his harem.”
“Bah,” I said dismissively, wishing he’d just leave. “If he’s a man, he can be manipulated.”
“I would be worried if I knew you weren’t just expressing your discontent in the only way you know how,” Jack said, giving me a quick grin before heading off.
“Shows how much you know me,” I muttered, and after a couple of minutes to make sure he’d gone after Octavia, I slipped back into their cabin and read the notes he’d made from the stop at Annaba. Unfortunately, there was no concrete mention of just where Akbar was rumored to be other than a vague “southern part of Tunisia” hint.
Ten minutes later I sat on the edge of my bunk and took a good, long look at Jack’s statement that when I found Akbar, he might not be willing to teach me, and decided that I had a way around that. “The only thing standing in my way,” I said to myself when I pulled out a small chest and rifled through my sparse belongings until I found a silk envelope, “is fear. And really, the only things I’m afraid of are horses and asphyxiation, and how likely is it that I’ll encounter either of those on Prince Akbar’s airship?”
It wasn’t until an hour later that I managed to track down the one person who had the information I needed.
“The captain won’t like it if I was to pass along privileged information,” Mr. Mowen said, tapping on the side of one of the boilers and listening to the echo to judge how full it was.
“I’m her sister-in-law,” I reminded him. “I would never do anything that would harm either Jack or Octavia, or, for that matter, anyone on this ship.”
“Well,” he said, hesitating at a couple of gauges. He frowned at one, and gave it a quarter turn. “I suppose that is the truth. We’re scheduled to drop supplies at three locations in Tunisia.”
