Read Online Skyjackers: Episode 1: A Proper Nuisance (Skyjackers: Season One) by J.C. Staudt - Free Book Online

stamping
restlessly.
    “There were twelve of these blasted creatures in that stable,”
Caine continued. “How many did you get?”
    Poleax stiffened. “We captured four, sir.”
    Caine shot the horses a glance. “Yet I see only two.”
    “Yes, well… two jumped overboard while we were aflight. These
other two spent the remainder of the trip bucking and screaming and laying
doodies all over my deck.”
    “I beg your pardon… did you say two horses jumped
overboard?”
    “That’s right. One of them just leapt for it. The other
followed a few minutes later. Can’t see very well in the dark, I imagine.”
    “And after the first one leapt to its death, did it
not occur to you that perhaps you ought to have restrained the others?”
    “With all due respect, Ben… I don’t know horses from whores.”
    “No you don’t. I can vouch for that. And I dare say you’re
too ham-fisted to manage a consort with either.”
    Poleax cleared his throat and steeled himself. “Whilst I do
apologize for my ill-preparedness, I must remind you that my inclusion in this
venture was not by choice.”
    “Yes, well I shan’t make that mistake again. Wait a minute.
Not by choice? Who said it was anything else? Junior told me—” Caine twisted
his head around to look at his son, like a snake adjusting to a new target.
“Junior. So that’s the way we’re playing it…”
    Junior shook his head. “No. Father, it isn’t.”
    Caine smiled, a thing pleasant and insidious all at once.
“Say, there, son. How would you like to bring your crew on a hunting trip with
your old Dad?”

Chapter 7
    Alexander Atwell’s apple-red sedan charged down the
rain-soaked road, sliding and fishtailing and squirting mud through the tires.
Jonathan leaned into it, gripping the wheel and driving the machine forward
with every ounce of concentration he could muster. Behind him, the woman
moaned. He came to a straight section of road and stomped on the gas.
    At last the hospital was in sight, a three-story brick
structure with keystone windows. Jonathan was almost there when a slick tearing
sound shook the whole motorcar. The ground shot up in front of him like a
mountain giving birth. He slammed on the brakes, sending the vehicle into a
skid toward the sheer earthen wall in its path.
    The car slowed enough that by the time it bumped the
still-rising wall of earth and came to a stop, the impact did little damage.
Clods of mud and dirt pattered down on the vehicle’s roof and hood. Jonathan
punched the gas. The wheels spun mud for a few seconds, then caught traction
and sent him hurtling into the sodden fields beside the road.
    With a deep rumble, the moving chunk of land lifted off the
ground and floated up into the sky, leaving a crater with a footprint five
times the size of the Maelstrom . On the far side of the crater, Jonathan
was relieved to find the hospital still intact. He glanced back to make sure
the woman was still breathing, then breathed a sigh of his own as he maneuvered
the motorcar around the gaping hole in the landscape and came to a stop at the
hospital’s front entrance.
    He exited the car screaming for help. Shortly, a couple of
men in white uniforms came outside to bring the woman in. They rushed her to
the examination room, where a doctor confirmed she’d sustained a concussion,
two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a pair of fractures in her hip and left
leg. Jonathan almost left her in the hospital’s care, but somehow he couldn’t
bring himself to leave. When the medical staff had stabilized the woman, one of
the doctors pulled Jonathan out into the hallway.
    “Where did you find the girl?” the doctor asked, adjusting
his spectacles.
    “She was… by the side of the road. Just lying there.” That
was Jonathan’s first lie.
    “I see. It’s a good thing you got her here when you did.
She’s in awful shape.”
    “Will she be okay?”
    “She has a ways to go yet, but I think she’s going to be
fine. It’s clear she