Waistcoats & Weaponry (21 page)

“We’ll have to try something else. Invisible spiders?”

Dimity said, “Sidheag’s better at those than me.” She angled her back toward the duke and flywaymen so they couldn’t see, and gestured to Sidheag. She pressed her wrists together and waggled her fingers in a fair imitation of a spider.

Sidheag gave her a funny look.

Sophronia followed up by giving Sidheag the code for creating a distraction, pressing the first two fingers of both hands together in a quick, birdlike movement.

Comprehension dawned. Sidheag gave an almost imperceptible nod and then began to gyrate about like a madwoman, waving her hands around her face.

“Bees,” she yelled, “I hate bees!”

Dimity watched this for a moment before squeaking herself, adding to the distraction. “Oooo, eeek! Get them off!”

Sophronia unstrapped her hurlie, remembering what Soap had said about its being her version of a
charge
. She fed it to Bumbersnoot—her wrist felt naked without it. The little mechanimal obligingly swallowed it into his storage compartment, where it clanked against the crystalline valve already nestled there. If he had possessed the capacity to belch, he would have. As it was, he looked vaguely too full for comfort, whistling steam out his undercarriage in a stuttering way.

Sophronia set him down, pointing him in the direction of the train.

She whispered, “High speed, Bumbersnoot, forward, march.
Go on, find Soap. Go to the train.” She waggled her free arm in a pinwheel, disguising her ducking down as an effort to avoid the mythical bees.

One could never be certain, with Bumbersnoot, which instructions he actually understood. Or chose to follow. Sophronia had, after all, rather stolen him. He hadn’t exactly come with a protocol proclamation pamphlet. However, something she said must have clicked into his operation wheels, for he began skittering down the track on his stubby little legs in a rapid and direct approach to the locomotive. How he might get Soap’s attention from the cab was a mystery, but his small metal form was stealthy enough to be ignored by the enemy. Either that or because he was a mechanimal, he was deemed nonthreatening.

Sophronia began her own fit in earnest, waving off bees. The three girls used the distraction to back—or, more correctly, gyrate—away from the duke, Felix, and the two confused flywaymen.

And then, delightful music to the ear, Sophronia heard the dulcet sounds of a locomotive cranking to life.

T
he duke noticed that there was a train heading slowly but inexorably in their direction. “What’s going on, boys?” he shouted over the resulting hubbub.

Sophronia said, “Sorry, Felix, but you’re in safe hands now. I figure you don’t want to stay with us, at this point.”

“Mr. Temminnick, what are you about?” Felix’s voice was deeply suspicious. He leaned up on one elbow to see her. The three girls had managed to wiggle impressively far.

Sophronia thought he looked heart-wrenchingly vulnerable.

Then he turned to the duke. “Father?”

Sophronia immediately regretted any sympathetic feelings.

The train moved relentlessly toward them, picking up speed.

Felix lay across the tracks.

Sophronia said, “Sir? You might want to move your son.” She paused, significantly. “And your dirigible.”

“You wouldn’t!” the duke protested. “Stop this immediately!
How on earth did you get a message to your driver? You’ve been here the whole time. What is going on?” He turned to glare at Felix. “Son, order this little friend of yours to stop. What’s he doing taking charge like this, anyway? You rank him!”

Sophronia, still backing away, made a deep—almost courtly—bow.

Felix said, “Never doubt Mr. Temminnick’s word on the matter of immediate actions. Father, if you would be so kind, I think I ought to move off the rails now?”

The train kept on coming.

The duke said a rude word and bent to part lift, part drag his son up the berm on the side of the tracks.

Sophronia, Dimity, and Sidheag moved to the other side, staying as close as safety might allow.

Shaggy shot his gun at the oncoming locomotive in a futile effort at stopping it. Then he and his companion raced for the airship.

The locomotive charged forward. The girls spaced themselves and braced to leap.

The engine was in front of them, and then the cab.

Dimity went first, grabbing the jamb of the open doorway on the driver’s side and swinging herself in behind Soap.

Sidheag swung in right after. Sophronia barely made it, stumbling on her dismount. Falling forward, she crashed against Soap. She barked her chin on his shoulder, causing them both pain, but quickly tried to extract herself. Soap, having reflexively embraced her with one arm, refused to let go, as though reassuring himself that she was safely back with him. He wasn’t even looking at her, his other arm and his attention
focused on the work of crashing a train. Sophronia allowed the embrace; she was relieved, too. She even enjoyed that for the briefest of moments she could examine his adorable, familiar face, absorb his warm, firm presence, without fear of romantic repercussions.

He said, letting her go gently, still without looking away from the various levers, dials, and gauges, “Welcome back. Did I interpret Bumbersnoot’s message correctly, Sophronia, or do I owe our fine friends here an apology?”

“No apology necessary.” Sophronia rubbed her chin.

“So you say, but you’re not about to hit their dirigible with a ruddy great train.” Soap donned a slightly maniacal grin.

Sophronia stuck her head out, took a look, and shared his glee.

Dimity ran to the other side of the cab to look out, around Monique. “Lord Mersey is clear!”

“More’s the pity,” muttered Soap.

“Now, now,” Sophronia reprimanded, “he was unexpectedly connected, as it turned out. His father was on board that airship. Caused some useful confusion.”

Dimity said, “There they go! Bye-bye, gentlemen.” She waved cheerfully at Felix and his father as they flashed by.

The dirigible was directly in front of them now and struggling to lift off in time to avoid being hit.

It wasn’t going to make it; it was too slow. The train had gotten up speed faster than Sophronia thought possible. Clearly, she would have to learn more about trains.

“Brace yourselves!” yelled Soap. He didn’t bother to brake.

Sidheag said, voice wobbly, worried about the train, “Soap, you could slow down a little!” Her little pal, Dusty, was happily
stoking the boiler up into the red; he didn’t even register what they were up to.

The train wasn’t going all
that
fast—a horse at full trot might have kept pace—but it still relentlessly plowed into the dirigible. Sophronia held the doorway behind Soap, leaning out just enough to watch the carnage. She was reminded of the time, what seemed like an age ago, when she had tumbled out of a dumbwaiter and landed in a trifle.

The dirigible was designed to float easily and with minimal effort, not to withstand a train-sized battering ram. The gondola was only made of thin wood, and splintered around the locomotive much as the custard and strawberries had once done over Mrs. Barnaclegoose’s favorite bonnet.

They thrust easily through the one-room interior of the dirigible, leaving bits of propeller, small steam engine parts, and wood scraps scattered behind. The train didn’t even try to derail.

The balloon section, suddenly free of a deal of weight, bobbed upward, swaying wildly from side to side.

Dimity gasped. “Would you look at that?”

Like some strange form of fruit from a floating trifle, the heart of the flywaymen’s dirigible spilled forth vast numbers of crystalline valve frequensors. Hundreds of them scattered everywhere. They must have been all set up, below the airship deck, in hundreds of little cradles, all linked to one big aetherographic transmitter. It explained everything, including why the airship could only boast a skeletal crew—the weight alone!

The frequensors, which were like faceted milky glass, sparkled, rolling everywhere. Some fractured into thousands of pieces, some were smashed under the wheels of the train as it
completed its destructive charge and emerged unscathed, leaving carnage in its wake.
Again
, thought Sophronia,
not unlike me and that trifle.

The dirigible’s balloon, along with the top portion of what remained of the gondola, bobbed higher. Sophronia and Dimity stuck their heads out their respective doors; Dimity, pushing Monique carelessly aside as if she were a curtain, craned to look behind. Monique was still screaming, but that might be due to the indignity of being treated like drapery.

Dimity yelled, “The duke has left Lord Mersey and is trying to collect prototypes—sorry—frequensors. Oh, dear, it’s as if he’s lost his marbles.”

Sophronia said, “I wager the pickled duke is none too pleased and is going to demand an explanation from his son.”

Sidheag looked at her, face somber. “Will Felix rat us out?”

“I begged him not to.” It was the best answer Sophronia could give, because she didn’t know. Would her Piston beau reveal who they were and where they came from?

Soap said, monotone, concentrating on the track in front of them, though it was clear now and not worthy of such focus, “Don’t have much faith in your sweetheart, there, do you?”

Sophronia said, “I’ve no illusions as to my consequence. If forced to choose between me and family, I don’t know if he has the backbone to go up against the duke. I hadn’t the right to ask that of him. Why should he do that for me? We’ve no formal engagement. I tried to encourage change, but in the end a man can’t be blamed for his nature.”

Soap still did not turn. “Perhaps someday you will apply that same sentiment to me,” he murmured.

Sophronia was startled by the idea.

The train let out a puff of smoke and Soap tooted the horn merrily. They picked up more speed on a slight decline.

Sophronia added, “Then again, he may surprise me.”

Into the resulting comparative silence Monique said, “Well, that was an interesting maneuver.”

Sophronia replied, “They were responsible for the mechanicals’ malfunctioning. Each one of those prototypes responded to a crystalline valve installed in a nearby household mechanical. That’s why so many were serviced recently.”

Monique said, “Took you long enough to figure out.”

“It’s going to take them a while to re-valve all mechanicals.”

“But when they do…” Monique added, darkly, “Can’t you see the disaster in front of you? Or are you still blind? Let me down, I can help.”

“Why the vampire involvement? Why you? Why your hive?” demanded Dimity.

“You are
complete imbeciles
, all of you! What do you think has been happening all this time? Since I first tried to repurpose the prototype valve almost eighteen months ago. When you two plebeians stopped me with a cheese pie. You think this has all been a lark? You think the Picklemen are interested in anyone’s welfare besides their own?”

Sophronia frowned.
What has welfare to do with it?
She wanted to step in, but it was much smarter to let Monique run her mouth. If allowed to vent poisoned steam, she might reveal everything.

Sidheag, on the other hand, was red faced and aggravated.

Sophronia caught her friend’s yellow-eyed gaze and shook her head sharply.

Sidheag glared at her, expressing ire.

Sophronia mouthed, “Let her talk.”

Sidheag sighed.

Monique continued her diatribe. Dangling from a train doorway apparently stretched the tongue as well as the shoulders. “You think this prototype was designed to speed up floating? Oh, no, that was simply a decoy use. You think it’s for point-to-point communication? Take over from the telegraph? That’s only one application. No, the Picklemen have been intending
this
all along. Put one of their little toys inside each and every mechanical in England, and you know what the Picklemen have?”

Sophronia said, without inflection, “A standing army located in every household, able to take direct commands from them at a whim.”

Monique nodded. “A power currently limited only by the need to service every single mechanical in the realm. And transmission distance. They are moving fast to solve the first problem, and they have scientists trying to improve upon the second. There are some who think if they could only get close to the aetherosphere, they could transmit to most of the country. But all they need is London. London is what matters.”

Sophronia, being a country girl, took mild offense at that but understood Monique’s point. London was, after all, the seat of power. In addition, almost every good London family, progressive or conservative, employed mechanicals. Only the vampires and the werewolves abstained.

If she hadn’t seen all those crystalline valves with her own eyes, she would have thought Monique’s talk vampire
propaganda. It all seemed so far-fetched. She couldn’t deny the fact that the very idea that Monique had been in the right all along rubbed her the wrong way.

Sophronia turned away, uncomfortable. Bumbersnoot was sitting smugly by Soap’s feet. He’d emitted the prototype and the hurlie. Sophronia retrieved both, stuffing them into pockets.

Dimity said to Monique, “And why haven’t the vampires brought this to the attention of the government?”

“The potentate knows. And the dewan, of course. But what can the Shadow Council do against such a maneuver? Parliament has a daylight hold on operations, and too many MPs are affiliated with Picklemen. Cultivator-rank peons are everywhere. If we made any overt move against them, they would simply deny everything. Intent to commit a crime is not a crime. Besides which, we don’t know exactly what they propose to do with the power. Any public outcry would be greeted with grave suspicion as vampire hysteria.
Those supernaturals see plots everywhere, they always do
. Secrecy was our only option, and now you’ve botched that up, too. What a plague you are, Sophronia!”

Sophronia said, “You started it.”

Monique rolled her eyes. “You are a child.”

Sophronia asked, “What’s our school’s position been in all this?”

“Is that your loyalty? Are you going to fight for a finishing school, Sophronia, for the rest of your career? It’s not a very wealthy patron.”

“I have other options.” After the Pickleman revelation,
Sophronia was looking favorably, once more, on Lord Akeldama. At least she knew he wasn’t a Pickleman!

Monique scoffed. “You are going to have to choose sides. We all do, in the end.”

Sophronia cocked her head. “Are you trying to recruit me?”

“Cut me down and I’ll consider putting in a good word with Countess Nadasdy.”

“Thank you for the thought, but I have a better vampire offer.” Sophronia was, however, in a quandary. What was she going to do now? Even if she told Lord Akeldama, would he put a stop to the Picklemen? The other vampires were doing a piss-poor job of it. Lord Akeldama didn’t seem the type to involve himself directly, which left… well… her.

Monique, having spoken her piece, corked up.

Sidheag and Dimity joined Sophronia in a huddle close to Soap, so they could discuss without being overheard.

“Options?” said Sophronia.

Sidheag said, “You know my wishes.”

“You can’t flog Monique, it’s not done at your age,” said Dimity, presuming as to Sidheag’s feelings.

Sidheag said, “No. Well, yes. A switch tickle would do her some good. But what I meant is that I want to continue on to Scotland. My pack needs me; that is the reason we started this whole thing.”