To celebrate the start of an all-new series, I'm going to share a small portion from Chapter One today, the 14th, and 21st. If you're new to steampunk, which is an alt-historical timeline that celebrates steam-powered machinery and Victorian aesthetics, this is your chance to get a free taste!
Magic & Steam features action, adventure, a few explosions, plenty of the historical oddities C.S. Poe is known for, and of course—a healthy dose of romance along the way.
BLURB:
1881—Special Agent Gillian Hamilton is a magic caster with the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam. He’s sent to Shallow Grave, Arizona, to arrest a madman engineer known as Tinkerer, who’s responsible for blowing up half of Baltimore. Gillian has handled some of the worst criminals in the Bureau’s history, so this assignment shouldn’t be a problem. But even he’s taken aback by a run-in with the country’s most infamous outlaw, Gunner the Deadly.
Gunner is also stalking Shallow Grave in search of Tinkerer, who will stop at nothing to take control of the town’s silver mines. Neither Gillian nor Gunner are willing to let Tinkerer hurt more innocent people, so they agree to a very temporary partnership.
If facing illegal magic, Gatling gun contraptions, and a wild engineer in America’s frontier wasn’t enough trouble for a city boy, Gillian must also come to terms with the reality that he’s rather fond of his partner. But even if they live through this adventure, Gillian fears there’s no chance for love between a special agent and outlaw.
EXCERPT:
I
October 10, 1881
The trch, trch, trch of Gatling gun rotating cylinders had been my only warning before the gunfire began. Bullets pierced the sun-bleached façade of the gambling hall behind me, and splintered wood rained down like an unexpected desert shower. I held on to my bowler, dove behind a nearby wagon, and scrambled up against the wheel. By way of defense, it offered little, but I desperately needed half a second to gather my bearings. I’d just entered Shallow Grave, Arizona, hadn’t even flashed my badge yet, and already I was being shot at.
I yanked my traveling goggles over my head and accidentally dropped them as another round of shooting began. Windows shattered, a woman’s scream echoed from a few storefronts to my right, and the scorched red earth around me billowed up in miniature dust storms where bullets became embedded in the packed clay.
I lifted the headband and over-ear receivers of my Personal Discussion Device from my neck and fitted them into place. I raised the handheld transducer, punched in a code on the brass buttons that would connect me to my director back in New York City, and waited for Loren Moore’s smooth tenor voice to answer.
But nothing happened.
I tried again.
Not even static.
“Send Gillian out West,” I said in a self-mocking tone. I attempted contact a final time, but it was in vain. “Milo Ferguson won’t stand a chance against him. Of course not. But the utter lack of basic amenities and technology?” More gunfire, and I winced before sliding down farther and trying to make myself as small a target as possible. “Gillian will love it.” I wrenched the band down to rest around my neck, then rolled onto my belly to peer under the wagon.
There was a sudden crackle in the atmosphere—the snap of aether magic being activated. The sensation raised gooseflesh on my arms, and I recognized the spell for what it was.
Manufactured.
Illegal.
Not magic invoked by a caster like me, but by a physical weapon and someone with the wealth in which to afford its use.
And then three near-simultaneous shots fractured the air like seven years bad luck. No doubt, that had come from a triple-barrel Waterbury pistol. But it didn’t line up with the intelligence the Bureau had on Milo Ferguson. Yes, he was wanted for his improper use of steam energy to power unregistered innovations, as well as his amassing of aether ammunition, but he hadn’t once owned a Waterbury pistol or Jordan rifle, the only two weapons capable of firing magic-laden bullets.
Ferguson was an engineer. And mad though he might be, he was gifted at any sort of construction that had a lethal edge to it. His inventions were what had recently taken out half of Baltimore. His self-designed, magic-compatible monstrosities of brass and copper and iron were why I had been directed by the Bureau and the President of the United States to haul ass to Arizona territory.
So the shots in retaliation to the Gatling gun hadn’t come from Ferguson. They’d come from yet another individual hellbent on breaking the law. And me with only one pair of handcuffs and no idea where the town jail was located….
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