As usual, no one was listening to him.
Quesnel had out his dart emitter and was firing at the pishtacos below. They were too far away to hit, regardless of whether or not the darts were effective.
“Oh, stop wasting darts,” said Percy to him. “You aren’t doing any good. Might as well use a gun. At least that has the off chance of slowing them down a bit.”
Quesnel glared at him. “Do you have a gun?”
Virgil appeared at Percy’s side, as if by magic, and handed him his pistol. “Sir?”
“Oh, Virgil, how did you know?”
“Such a thoughtful young man,” said Primrose warmly.
Virgil blushed. “I fetched it when I got Miss Tunstell her parasol.”
“Very perceptive of you, Virgil.” Percy took the pistol and checked it for rounds.
“Percy!” yelled Quesnel, gesturing for the gun.
Percy snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, man. I’m a much better shot.”
Quesnel sputtered. “Give it to me!”
Percy avoided him and made his way to the other side of Primrose. She had fired all her darts, to little effect. She now had her parasol swung about and was holding it by the finial, dialling in for lapis solaris acid emission.
She’d have to wait, however, until Rodrigo and Tasherit were back aboard - acid was an indiscriminate weapon and would damage everything in its path.
“Primrose, please!” begged Quesnel, clearly in distress as he was resorting to the first name of a female. Percy supposed he should be more sympathetic to the man, but Rue was fine. Still climbing.
“Primrose, please make your brother give me the gun.”
Primrose did not look up from fiddling with her parasol. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Lefoux,” she said, sounding exactly like Percy. “He’s a much better shot.”
“I forget you’re twins until something like this happens.” Quesnel slumped. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Primrose glared at him, then quickly returned to looking down at the scene below. “Prepare for floatoff, you dolt. Look, over there? Rue’s fine. Rue is always fine.”
Rue had, indeed, attained the main deck. She was also still a pishtaco. The decklings seemed to find this hilarious. Rue grumbled at them to stop laughing and man their crossbows.
As Percy watched, Anitra climbed over the railing as well, and sank down to her knees, shaking slightly.
Percy turned back to the fight. Tasherit and Rodrigo were holding their own. Better than Percy would have predicted. Had that been five British vampires against a preternatural and a werewolf, he wouldn’t have given his two crewmates more than five minutes.
But these pishtacos didn’t know what to do about their opponents.
The werecat was fast, not as fast as a vampire but stronger, and her claws were very sharp. Understanding why Rodrigo had brought a bread knife, she was concentrating on taking out throats. A cat’s attempt at decapitation.
But Percy’s attention was drawn to Rodrigo. The Italian was fascinating to watch fight. Near to ambidextrous, he’d reach out with his free hand to touch his opponent, seeking bare skin and a solid grip. And then, as the pishtaco lost his immortal pallor at preternatural touch, Rodrigo would strike with his knife. A new pishtaco would attack, so Rodrigo would have to let go the first and repeat the procedure. He wasn’t killing them, but he was slowing them down. Each pishtaco would have to pause to heal a near mortal blow and then return, slowly, to vampire state.
Pishtacos took longer to shift back from preternatural touch than British vampires did. The flickering between mortal and immortal merely added to the surreal melee surrounding Rodrigo.
Percy was making mental notes on all the various differences between pishtacos and vampires, even as he also noted the preternatural’s fighting technique. The style was designed entirely around taking advantage of preternatural touch. No wonder Templar-trained soulless were so feared. Rodrigo may be a mortal, with only a mortal’s speed and strength, but his very skin was a weapon against his opponents.
Percy was almost distracted enough not to shoot. Then he remembered he was one-upping Quesnel and took careful aim at the recovering pishtacos as each withdrew to heal from either Rodrigo’s bread knife or Tasherit’s claws.
The drones had pulled away. Interesting that the pishtacos did not consider them expendable.
As they fought, Tasherit and Rodrigo were backing towards the dirigible. Eventually, Rodrigo’s head bumped the hull.
Tasherit roared at him.
The Italian turned and leapt to grab the rope ladder, swinging himself easily up. He had a manic grin on his handsome face. He boasted a few injuries here and there, and he looked as if breathing pained him. Blow to the ribs perhaps? But otherwise he seemed quite pleased with life.
Percy shot the pishtaco that tried to climb after him. The bullet struck the creature midchest and propelled him away from the airship, but the immortal recovered quickly. If anything, bullets seemed less effective on pishtacos than on other immortals. Another point of interest for my prospective treatise on the subject.
Bork was ready with the Gatling. Once Tasherit was out of the way, Rue would give the order, and he would see if a full spray of bullets was any more effective.
Next to Percy, Primrose started whimpering. Tasherit was the only one left fighting, and she was up against five at once. Also, she wasn’t made to climb a rope ladder, not in lioness form.
Rue’s voice called out, “Primrose, ready with that acid.”
“She’s too close,” yelled Prim back, voice shaky and pained. “She’ll catch part of the spray.”
“Better a little burned than a lot dead. Wait for my mark.” Rue kept a cool head in battle - her fathers’ training, both of them.
Percy said, trying to soothe his sister with factual information, “It’s not as bad on werewolves as it is on vampires. Not that parasol’s variant. Even if she gets a few drops, it will hurt but not kill or maim her. At least, I don’t think it will kill her. Werecat physiography isn’t as well understood.”
“Thank you, Percy, that’s very comforting.”
Well, no need for sarcasm, I was trying to be nice.
Tasherit let out one final screaming hiss and then turned and leapt up against the ship, claws out to catch purchase. Lions weren’t really climbing cats, but she did her best, hauling herself up.
Then, with a remarkable display of bunched muscles and supernatural strength, she jumped and twisted, changing form midair, to land as a naked woman, hands sure and tight about the rope ladder.
Percy turned to his sister. “Good luck with your acid.” Then he dove for navigation, reaching for the speaking tube even before he was fully inside the pit.
He shouted into it, “Now! Now! Now!”
Without waiting for an answer, Percy reached forward from his sprawled position and pressed the puffer.
He heard Rue yell for the decklings to cut the anchor ropes.
The Spotted Custard jerked once and then rose majestically upwards. The puffer let out its customary aggressive flatulent noise, but to Percy’s ear it sounded especially fierce this evening.
He engaged the propeller for good measure. Anything to get them out of there.
They were moving away at last.
Primrose shifted slightly, leaned out as far as she could over the railing, holding her parasol firmly.
She tore her eyes away from Tasherit’s naked form. The werecat was scrambling up the rope ladder, slow but steady. She was bleeding in places but it didn’t look too bad.
The pishtacos were leaping after them. After her. They clung to the hull with weird spiderlike supernatural strength, digging their silver claws into the soft wood.
Primrose firmed her resolve, braced herself against the railing, and twisted the emissions dial on her parasol, hoping the wind was in her favour, hoping like hell that she missed Tasherit with the spray. Knowing in her heart that this was gravitationally
impossible.
Acid rained down from the parasol’s ribs.
At first the pishtacos below continued leaping up at the ship, climbing after Tasherit. They did not react to the wetness raining down on them.
Then the acid began to burn. The pishtacos started screaming, a horrible wounded howl noise. Clawing at their own eyes and faces in agony, they fell back.
Primrose felt sick to her stomach that she had done such a thing to another creature. She turned the dial and stopped spraying.
Tasherit was up and over the railing, collapsed and panting but safe. The decklings rushed to pull up the ladder. Percy puffed them up again, the Custard tooted rudely, and they were high enough now to see the whole of the hacienda set out below them. The angry whiteness of the pishtacos still gathered in the yard, but they either could not jump high enough to reach the Spotted Custard or they were not willing to risk acid again.
Primrose rushed to Tasherit’s side. She dropped next to her gracelessly, parasol still clutched backwards and open in one hand.
“Did I get you?”
Tasherit turned her face towards her. A few red speckles marred one cheek and one side of her back and leg.
“Oh no.” Primrose put a hand to her mouth. She tried to recall what salves she had on hand for burns and if they would work on immortals. Tasherit had cuts, too, from pishtaco claws and teeth. She held one foot funny and wasn’t standing up. “You’re injured.”
Tasherit only tugged Prim in and kissed her softly. “I heal, remember? It’ll all be gone come morning.”
Prim settled down to sit on the deck next to her. She curled her legs under and, greatly daring, she pulled Tasherit’s willing head to lie in her lap. She started petting the long dark tangled locks. Tasherit’s hair was thicker and coarser than her own.
“Everyone returned safely?” Tasherit asked, nuzzling into Prim’s skirts and closing her eyes in pleasure.
“They have.” Primrose looked around.
Rodrigo and Anitra stood close; the Drifter girl had her head on his shoulder.
Rue had returned to her normal plump self. She looked none the worse for having recently been an emaciated blonde.
Quesnel appeared above deck and rushed to Rue. Rue, who was no romantic, batted him off with annoyance. The Frenchman demanded a kiss and then, apparently satisfied that she was unhurt, returned below.
Rue went over to Percy, who was busy floating them further up out of harm’s way.
“Suggested course, Captain?” Primrose heard her brother ask.
“Hold the retreat, Mr Tunstell.” Rue’s tone brooked no argument.
“We’re staying here?” Percy’s voice was incredulous.
“Percy, what was it you said to me about being chubby?”
Percy’s voice didn’t sound at all shamefaced. “I’ve been led to believe that that’s not something I ought to bring up to your face, not even in the interest of science.”
“They went after me for a reason, and not only because I appeared to be in charge.”
“I would concur, Captain.” Percy was being judicious. Percy! Judicious. Of course, he’d picked the most inopportune time to develop circumspection.
Right now, circumspection only served to make him all the more frustrating.
“And you know what that reason is, don’t you, Percy?”
“I have a hypothesis,” Percy said, carefully. Only Percy could turn tactful when it was least required of him.
“Which you chose not to share with the rest of us!” Oh dear, Rue was not happy. Not happy at all.
Percy defended himself. “It’s unsubstantiated. And you and Prim kept getting mad at me whenever I tried to explain anything. Now that you’ve been one of them” - Percy’s voice turned covetous - “will you tell me if it’s true?”
Primrose glared at him through narrowed eyes. “What’s your hypothesis, Percy?”
Percy looked nervous. “You’re not going to get mad again, are you?”
Rue grunted at him.
Percy said, because he couldn’t help himself. He loved explaining things so much. “It’s because of where we are. And how scared the locals are of pishtacos. And how the latter have clearly been hunted to near extinction.”
“What is because of this?” asked Tasherit, not opening her eyes. Primrose kept running her fingers through the werecat’s hair, disinclined to stop. She watched Tash’s face closely, hoping to see the burn marks heal before her very eyes.
Percy pressed on. “Well, I figured, what’s most valued for survival in high altitude and low temperature? No offence but, well, fat. So I thought, you know, they’d be after that, not blood.”
Primrose goggled at her brother. “You’re saying pishtacos are fat-sucking vampires?”
Rue nodded. “Absolutely. When I was one of them, the urge to feed was not blood related, it was definitely fat I craved. Don’t worry, I can resist the craving. It’s not the same for metanaturals.”
Percy glowed with success. “There, you see? Rue, may I quote you in my paper on the subject? This is another one for the Royal Society. Fat-sucking vampires! Everyone will be most interested.”
Primrose said, “So they went after you, Rue, because…”
Rue nodded. “I looked the most delicious.”
Percy was scribbling notes but then seemed to remember his responsibilities. “So what now, Captain? Back to Cusco?”
“No. We’re going back down. We aren’t done with them yet.”
“But they attacked us!” said Primrose, “And I don’t have any more acid.”
Rue shook her head. “We handled this ill. I handled this ill. We went straight into their territory without invitation. It was unpardonably rude. I should have thought of that. It’s as though Dama taught me nothing. They’re still vampires, or enough like vampires that I should have realised a direct approach would be seen as a threat to their hive. I’m an idiot. I want to try again.”
“Why?” Primrose could feel her skin prick with horror at the very idea.
“You know what they told me, before, you know, the whole attack?” Rue asked, not expecting an answer.
Anitra and Rodrigo came over to join the conversation.
Anitra said, looking sad, “The pishtaco said that they are the very last of their kind.”
Primrose now understood Rue’s reluctance to simply leave the pishtacos to their own devices. Rue was the only one of her kind. And she was the daughter of a vampire. Of course she would be sympathetic to the pishtacos’ plight.
“And they’re trapped in a country that hates them.” Rue said, looking sad herself.
Primrose considered the matter. True, the pishtacos had attacked them, but if it was all a matter of mistaken communication or breach of etiquette…?
“You want to save them, Rue, don’t you?” Her friend had a good heart under all her madcap scheming.
Rue nodded.
Primrose smiled at an idea. “They would do very well with the matrons of London high society. Imagine setting them up in Bath? Ladies could go take the cure, then go in for a quick fat-sucking treatment. It would be all the rage inside a season.”
Rue laughed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible to relocate them back to England. Certainly not by air, not even if we arranged for a swarm.”
“Is that what you want to do, arrange a swarm? Move them somewhere where they’ll be appreciated?”
Rue nodded. “It’s only the beginning of an idea. I’ll need Percy to research where and how.”
Percy’s eyes gleamed. Primrose knew Rue had just made his day.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Etiquette of Proper Introductions
Percy retreated to his library. He wasn’t accustomed to thinking about ground-based transport but if they had a swarm to relocate, it had to be done by train. Did trains even exist in this part of the world?
He had his work cut out for him and, knowing their gl
orious captain, very little time in which to conduct it.
Primrose, Anitra, Tasherit, and Rue discussed the proper etiquette for a second approach to the pishtacos over tea.
After no little back-and-forthing, Primrose advocated strongly in favour of good old-fashioned traditional visit of introduction.
“Send around my calling card.” She set her teacup down firmly, indicating her resolve.
“What?” Tasherit didn’t like that idea.
“It has to be me,” insisted Prim. “They never noticed me during the tussle. Thus I carry no ill favour for having maimed someone important. Also, I’m the best officer aboard ship at social interactions, you know I am.”
“You are good at soothing troubled waters, or should I say troubled butter in the case of pishtacos?” Rue thought she was so droll.
Anitra laughed obligingly.
“I don’t like this idea,” objected Tasherit, glaring possessively at Primrose.
Primrose ignored her but freshened the pot and continued. “If they allow me to call, we could include a present for the hive queen as a show of goodwill. Percy can accompany me as escort, or Quesnel if you prefer. Someone else who wasn’t in the battle. Someone unthreatening.” She stirred in the fresh leaf gently.
Anitra was on board with the scheme. “Professor Tunstell speaks more Spanish than Mr Lefoux. He’s a better option.”
“He’s also less threatening,” added Rue. “Not that Quesnel is particularly fearsome with those adorable dimples of his.”
“Percy is also my brother,” Primrose added.
Rue frowned. “How is that useful?”
“We are the children of a vampire queen, remember? We can play this all off as a kind of long-lost familial reunion.” Prim topped up her cup and added a dollop of pineapple juice in lieu of milk.
Rue blanched. “Only if Aunt Ivy never hears of it.”
“How would she?” Primrose was warming to her topic. “Drop my calling card now, as soon as possible. That way they can accept tonight, on their terms. If we leave it too late, they are faced with the choice of having to wait until tomorrow night, which puts them asleep and vulnerable with us still lurking nearby. They won’t like that.”
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