Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

think it has been long.”
    “It’s only two or three days’ worth of snow,” Annika said. “The first layer of powder fell last night, but the rest warmed in the sun during the day before freezing again, and below her it’s packed hard from use. It was probably the prior evening, or the evening before that, depending on how much time passed between the two snowfalls.”
    “And she was in bed, or preparing for bed.” Vashon nodded and looked to the nearby cottage. “She left the door open and came out to see…what?”
    Annika couldn’t imagine. She shook her head, saw Elena do the same. Sorrow lined her friend’s face as she gazed down at the woman.
    “Should we cover her, Captain?”
    Vashon gave Elena a pistol. “You and Fridasdottor go into the cottage, find a blanket.”
    Annika hoped they wouldn’t need a lot of them. Snow had spilled through the open door, sloping down across the floorboards and over the edge of a rag rug. The cottage only boasted one room, and it was small, tidy. Annika dragged a colorful quilt from the bed, trudged back out to the snow. Above, crew and passengers lined Phatéon ’s side, looking down. Annika saw David’s worried expression before a splash of crimson caught her eye. Maria Madalena Neves stood with her nurse, her beautiful features cast into sharp lines of despair.
    Annika couldn’t bear to look up again. If this had been a place for her and her lover to go and live without fear…it wasn’t anymore.
    Elena reached the captain, shook her head. “No one else was inside, ma’am.”
    “All right. The doctor and I will check the next cottage. You two take that one.”
    Annika plowed through the snow with Elena. This cottage was larger, with a separate sleeping chamber. In the hearth room, a cat lay curled up in front of stove. Annika bent to slide her fingers through its fur. “Frozen stiff.”
    “And killed in its sleep,” Elena said, covering her mouth. “It got the better of a cat . What could do this?”
    Annika shook her head, battling her own terror. Whatever had done this, could it still be here?
    They found two women in the bedchamber. Elena pulled the blanket away. They lay back to back in nightgowns as if asleep. Swallowing past the ache in her throat, Annika examined their necks and faces.
    No blood, no bruising. “Do you see any injuries?”
    “No.” Elena dragged the blanket back up, carefully covered their heads. Her voice was thin with fear. “Annika.”
    “I know.” She was scared, too. Heart pounding, she studied the room. A writing desk sat beneath a window. “There’s a diary.”
    Elena picked it up, flipped through the pages. “It’s in Spanish. The last date was three days ago—and there’s an entry every day. So it must have happened that night. Should we take this?”
    “Yes. Is there any mention of what happened?”
    “I’ll look.” She read as she walked, only glancing up as they came out into the sun. “Do we keep checking each house?”
    Annika didn’t want to, afraid that they’d only find more of the same—but knew they would, in the hope that they might find someone alive. Across the street, Vashon and Lucia emerged from their cottage. Judging by the tight set of their features, they hadn’t seen anything different than she and Elena had.
    They met in the middle of the street. “We have a diary,” Elena said. “There’s no mention of what caused it yet, but I’ll keep reading to see if there’s anything odd in the weeks before. Two more women were inside.”
    “We found one more in bed.” Vashon closed her eyes, rubbed her forehead. “All right. Dr. Kentewess, return to the ship and send down every female crew member. We’ll bring one of the bodies to sick bay. Try to figure out what killed them. The rest of us will search every cottage, every building.”
    “Shouldn’t we bury them, ma’am?” Elena asked.
    “We can’t. The ground is frozen.”
    Which was why the women of Hannasvik only buried their beads. “We could build a pyre.”
    “These are Christian women, Fridasdottor.” Vashon’s voice had a razor’s edge.
    “Yes, ma’am.” Though leaving them to rot didn’t seem right, no matter what they were.
    The captain must have agreed with that, at least. “Anyone we find out in the snow, we’ll take into one of the cottages. The cold will keep them until we can notify the Church. Once we’ve finished, we’ll fly on to Vik. There’s a priest there, if I remember. So let’s get