Of Adventure and Antiquity: The Anise Buttersby Series Book 2

By Caitlin McColl

A Collection of 5 Steampunk tales, volume 2. Newspaper reporter Anise Buttersby is on assignment, undercover. Little does she know how dangerous investigative journalism can get! After a run in with a notorious air pirate, she finds herself regaled with tales of a strange criminal underworld, is stranded in the desert, learns of mechanical monsters and discovers a strange world from another time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caitlin McColl
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301200719

Caitlin McColl

Since childhood, Caitlin has written mainy fantasy - with dragons, wizards and other fantastical monsters. But now she writes Steampunk, stories that makes our world just a little bit more interesting, with the ability to mask the humdrum days we all have - those cold, grey, rainy, depressing days. The days you accidentally sleep in, lock yourself out of the house, battle morning rush hour and realize your still wearing your slippers. Caitlin lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada with her husband and her dog.Amazon: www.amazon.com/author/caitlinmccollInstagram: instagram.com/caitlinmccollauthorSeptember 2020-Published The Clockwork Universe and The Stained Glass Heart, follow ups to Under A Starlit Sky. Also re-did covers for books.-Published All That Remains - a free short story collection from 2017-Republished The Diary of Dr Jekyll that was published by a Seattle based publisher that is no more2015-Released a free ebook compilation of stories from her short story blog, Under A Starlit Sky, collectively called The Dark And Shadowy Places.Hope you enjoy!

Book preview

Of Adventure & Antiquity

The Anise Buttersby series Book 2

By Caitlin McColl

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Caitlin McColl

All rights reserved.

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Story One ~ A Girl Meets A Pirate

Story Two ~ A Girl Learns of Werewolves

Story Three ~ A Girl Discovers a Secret

Story Four ~ A Girl + Magicians = Trouble

Story Five ~ A Girl Stuck in Time

About the Author

~ * ~

1

A Girl Meets A Pirate

Anise held her breath as she squinted up at the crooked sign that hung above the door. The Green Fairy the sign proclaimed. A cloud of acrid smoke floated out the door as Anise pushed it open. She coughed and entered, hoping inside was going to be better than out. It took a moment of waving her hand through the smoke to bring the room into view. Outside was a narrow, crowded alley. Inside, she found herself in the middle of a crowded absinthe café. At least there’s not piles of filth and garbage pushed against the walls and in the nooks and crannies, she thought as she scanned the room.

Clusters of people stood around small circular tables chatting loudly, all tightly gripping luminescent green drinks. Others sat languidly in large, overstuffed armchairs upholstered in vivid colours and nauseating patterns, holding the same glow-in-the-dark drinks. A long, narrow bar ran down the middle of the café, dividing the space in two nearly identical halves. Behind the bar stood a man loading a silver tray neatly with more triangular glasses. Balanced on top of each was a small slatted piece of metal on which sat a small sugar cube. The man lifted the tray deftly with one hand and, picking up a large square bottle of absinthe, moved gracefully from behind the bar and began a tour of the room.

Anise noticed the strange smooth, almost gliding movement of the barman. Not a single glass on the tray wobbled. The man spotted her standing bewildered in the foyer of the café and made a bee-line for her.

Hello, dearest. Care for a drop? It’s the purest that you will find in all of town. The man spoke flawlessly, without any discernible accent, and flashed a mouth of unnaturally perfect white teeth. Anise stared at him. She scrutinized his face, and tried to listen closely to his voice, to see if she could hear the telltale whir of gears that the man would have instead of a real voice box, but the drone of patrons was too loud. She looked into his eyes and saw immediately the other tell-tale sign that he was an automaton, and not flesh and blood. His irises were copper.

Anise wasn’t surprised. She knew most people, and the term was used loosely, in the service industry were automated. ‘Stand-ins’ they were sometimes, derogatorily, called. She looked over her shoulder as furtively as she could. Being an undercover reporter, it seemed, would be harder than she first thought. She nervously adjusted the bag she had slung across her body and subconsciously patted the small energy gun hidden inside.

Oh no, thank you sir, she replied. I’m just here to…meet someone.

He smiled. If you need anything at all, Miss, don’t hesitate, he said before giving a bow and floating away to another part of the room with his tray and bottle of absinthe ready to top up when the call was given. She had been so distracted by the realness of the mechanical man that her thank you followed long after he was on the other side of the room. The technology certainly is getting better, she thought as she watched the man move deftly between groups of people huddled close together, all seeming to sip their drinks at the exact same moment. They moved eerily, almost like ghosts. That was the one thing that gave them away on the street-their fluidity. They stood out like a sore thumb, even in the most congested of streets, or alleys, Anise thought with a shudder at the rank avenue she had just escaped from.

She shuffled slowly deeper into the room, thankful for the haze of cigar smoke that hung like a low fog in the air. She felt slightly less conspicuous now, even though she knew that none of the customers in the café would have given her a second, or even first, glance. Except maybe at her outfit. She was glad she was wearing her favourite boots and comfortable pair of trousers. She saw a smattering of women gathered uncomfortably at tables, their skirts and bustles taking up most of the space. She noticed the men that shared the tables every so often give a dirty look at a woman’s dress that was pushing him to the outskirts. The ladies that sat in the armchairs surrounding a cheerily roaring fire overflowed like colourful meringues, their dresses billowing out around them. This is why I like dressing like a man, Anise Buttersby thought with a smug little smile tugging at her lips. They have the right idea. No need to take up half the sidewalk, or most of the dining area just with clothes! She glanced down at her clothes again and hoped that she looked the part. Does an anti-royalist have a certain look? She glanced at herself in a mirror that hung above the fireplace mantel. Did she have a steely, jaded look in her eyes, she wondered at her looking-glass self. She knew that those who were against the Emperor of the United American Empire were a different sort of people. She was one herself, after all, but had never needed to flaunt that fact so boldly. She made sure that not one piece of her clothes were the dark plum colour of the Empire, and the Emperor’s house.

There was a loud shout from a darkened corner of the room, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Anise automatically reached inside her satchel and her fingers brushed the smooth, rounded body of the energy gun and turned at the noise. The automaton was pressed against the wall, held against his will by a large man with wild, glassy eyes. The man gestured frantically at a large machine with various tubes and wheels and cogs that let out small, almost round puffs of steam at regular intervals. ‘How do you get this darned contraption to work!’ the man yelled, his face an inch away from the server. ‘All’s I’m trying to do is pour myself a simple glass of wine and this dratted thing isn’t working! Is it running out of steam? Tell me man!"

My dear, said the barman, without a quaver in his voice, you simply have to turn this lever round thrice, and then pull this bit here,’ he said demonstrating, and pulling out a metal tab, and then press this button right, he said as he pressed a large brass button on the very front a centre, here".

The drunken man stared at the machine through bleary eyes that seemed to bulge from his head, and reached for a glass of absinthe that sat on the table next to him.

I think, dear sir, that you have had quite enough to dri– began the automaton, reaching to take the bright green drink away, when suddenly things went from bad to worse.

The drunkard smashed his glass against the table, leaving him holding only a large, jagged shard, and he jabbed it at the waiter, slicing through his pristine plum coloured waistcoat and brilliant white shirt underneath, tearing through the material like so much tissue paper. The man’s skin underneath opened up just as easily, but without a single drop of blood oozing from the wound. The pale flesh parted, exposing a skeleton of burnished copper and brass. Within the metal cage that was its chest sat a clockwork heart that shone like polished gold.

Anise, drawn by the commotion without realizing it, found herself standing with other patrons in a semi-circle that had formed of curious on-lookers. She could see the heart within its cage of ribs was ticking along like the innards of a giant, complex watch.

The servant stared down at himself, dumbly for a moment before gathering the flaps of his skin back across and pulling together the torn pieces of material. He looked more embarrassed than anything, Anise thought with wonder. The man shoved his attacker away from him and with a terse, but still polite, excuse me, sir, left the man standing bewildered and confused at what had unfolded quicker than anyone had thought possible.

Anise watched the automaton disappear through a curtained door at the back of the room, and made a move to follow him, when she stopped. She had almost forgot the reason she was here. She was here on a job. She shouldn’t let herself get distracted by something as mundane as an automaton, even if she had never seen inside one before.

She was here to look for someone. No. She shook her head, causing hair to come loose underneath her hat. She tucked it up discreetly. She was here to meet someone. A man, in fact, and one with a very specific description. She was told by one of the newspapers sources, a homeless man who lived in the alley where the absinthe café was situated, that the man she was looking for was a patron here. And she had to remember to stay in character, too.

She removed a slip of paper from a pocket in the front of her bag, and unfolded it. It had been telegraphed to her hotel room that morning from her boss. Her assignment. It was short, but to the point. Airship pirate, it read. Escaped from prison. Recognized by scar across eyebrow. Anti-royalist. Befriend. Get story.

She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace once more and wondered if she looked overtly like a hater of the Emperor and his Coalition-the organization against technology. She had heard air pirates-and women in particular-that were a bit….

Anise paused, trying to think of a polite way even to think of it. Vulgar? No. Uncouth. Or as her school teacher used to say, potty mouth.

Anise definitely had a mouth on her. She wasn’t one to not speak her mind. But did she really have a potty mouth? She could almost taste the soap in her mouth at the thought, getting flashbacks of the childhood punishment.

And then she had no more time to worry about how to act, because her time had suddenly come.

The door opened and after what had just happened, all eyes turned towards the figure that stood in the doorway, awaiting the next drama that might be about to unfold.

The man that stood there was entirely unassuming. He was a good half a foot shorter than Anise-but of course she was wearing her boots that had a slight heel, and had short, greying hair. His eyebrows were like large caterpillars, at home above stormy blue eyes.

Anise was disappointed to see that the man had no large earring, like one would expect a pirate-of air or sea-to have.

The man walked in with a bowed head, almost afraid to look people in the eye and slunk into a free armchair in a corner closest to the door. To make a quick escape! Anise thought. He took off his fitted leather jacket, throwing it over an arm of his chair, and sunk down into it, as if he was willing himself to disappear within the chair itself.

Anise stood, feeling exposed once more and wondered how to approach her…target? Prey? Interviewee?

She saw a tray of absinthe glasses sitting unattended on the bar and swooped in to grab one, along with one of the large, square bottles. She tried to move with confidence towards the man slumped in the chair, but she could see the metal sieve that was balancing the sugar cube on top was shaking violently. She willed her hand to stop shaking just as she arrived in front of the man.

He looked up at her slowly, and gave her a cautious smile.

Would you like a drink, sir? she asked. She could hear the slight quaver in her voice.

I’ve not seen you here before, love, he said, looking at her as if trying to determine if she was real or machine.

She looked down at the glass in her hand, unsure of what to say. I’m new, was all that came out.

Well I can see that! the pirate laughed. That glass you’re holding is shaking like a leaf in a gale!

Anise felt her face redden and gripped the glass tighter.

Let me take that from you love, before neither of us are able to enjoy it and it ends up on the floor!

She looked down at the man, and noticed the large silvery scar that cut his left eyebrow in two so it looked like the caterpillars were breeding.

He smiled and she noticed that one of his teeth were silver. He looks like a kindly man. Then she reminded herself that the man in front of her was a felon, and not only that an escapee from prison!

The man plucked the glass from her hand. Anise stood there, prop-less and wondering what to do next. And she realized with horror the only thing she could do. The one thing she hated to be, and do-play the poor woman card. But she was still obviously a woman, despite her clothing that might allude to the opposite. And she put a hand to her head and mumbled under her breath before collapsing into the neighbouring armchair.

The former prisoner leaned across to her, suddenly concerned. Are you okay, Miss? You don’t look well.

Well that would answer his question about whether I’m an automaton or not, she thought. They didn’t get sick. She felt that she didn’t look well and the man commented as such. You look frightfully pale, love, he said, putting a reassuring hand on her arm. She tried not to flinch at the touch.

Yes, I don’t feel quite myself, she admitted. There was an incident just before you arrived where the stand– she stopped herself. "Where the barman accidentally got attacked and cut, and now he’s gone off to get himself repaired.

Ah, yes, the man nodded understanding. "Williams I think is his name. There isn’t a week that doesn’t go by where he doesn’t get himself damaged