“It’s as good a theory as any,” agreed his wife.
“And then what?” Madame Lefoux wanted to know.
“Someone figured out what she did. Someone who wanted to expand it.”
Alexia could guess that one. “My father.”
Madame Lefoux picked up the story. “Of course. Alessandro Tarabotti had the contacts. The OBO tried to recruit him after he broke with the Templars. There were a number of people throughout Europe, including my father, who he might have turned to such a cause as this. Can you imagine? The promise of mass supernatural extermination? Start up a worldwide preternatural body-collecting scheme.”
“How macabre.” Alexia did not approve of this stain on the family name. “Why does my father always have to be so difficult? He’s dead after all. Couldn’t he have left it at that?”
“Well, you must have gotten the inclination for trouble from someone,” ruminated her husband.
“Oh, thank you, darling. Very sweet.” Alexia felt the repulsion building up, pressing against her skin. The sun had risen and it was already doing its best to see her dry and suffering. She turned to one of the Egyptians. “Splash, please.”
He made a gesture down at the nearby mummy.
“Oh, yes, I suppose water would damage it.” She moved away from the bodies, and the man doused her thoroughly.
“Lady,” he said, “we are running out of water.”
“Oh, dear. Well, I suppose that means I, at least, had better head back.” She looked pointedly at her husband and the French inventor. “Are you coming? I don’t think there is much more to learn here.” Another thought occurred to her. “Should we stop it?”
Lord Maccon and the inventor looked at her, not quite understanding.
“End the plague, I mean to say. We could try. I’m not certain how. My parasol’s acid worked on the mummy in Scotland, but I’ve nowhere near enough for all these. Water might work, dissolve some of the mummies. It’s the dry air that keeps them preserved. Just think, we might destroy the God-Breaker Plague right here and now.”
Madame Lefoux looked conflicted. “But the loss of all the mummies. The science, I don’t…” She trailed off.
Alexia said, with a tilt to her head, “Do I need to remind you that you are indentured to the Woolsey Hive? You must consider the best interests of your queen.”
The Frenchwoman grimaced.
Lord Maccon interjected. “I think we should wait, Alexia. It is enough to know.”
His wife was suspicious. “Why?”
“The plague has its uses.”
“But to allow it to expand?”
“I didn’t say that was a good idea. It might be a moot point anyway. Your father might not have known about the disruption of water. Will the plague even be able to cross the Mediterranean?”
“But if we can visit this location and discover the truth, so can others.”
The earl was not about to give quarter. “It’s important to have a part of the world that is free of supernaturals.”
“Why is that?” Alexia was even more suspicious. It wasn’t like her husband to argue against destructive behavior. She felt the repulsion building against her skin and decided it was an argument they might continue back at camp, preferably in the Nile. “We can discuss it later. Shall we?”
Madame Lefoux looked reluctant. “I should like to take a few samples, to see what…” She trailed off again, her eye caught by something behind them, up the hill above the temple.
A man was standing there, waving at them madly.
“Laydeeee,” the man called out, “they are coming!”
“Is that Zayed? What is he…? Oh my goodness gracious!” Alexia turned to look in the direction Zayed pointed, and there across the desert, running low and fast, a thing was moving toward them. It was a thing straight out of one of Madame Lefoux’s sketches. In principle it resembled an enormous snail, its eye stalks belching gouts of flame into the air. It couldn’t possibly operate on steam power, for where would one get the water in the desert? It must have multiple wheels, like those on farming equipment, under its shell. It was made of brass and glinted in the sun.
The snail was fast in a way that, given its form, Alexia found rather insulting. Riding atop its head and neck and hanging down the sides of its back were a number of men. They were dressed in white robes and turbans.
Alexia, Conall, and Genevieve stood for a moment, transfixed by the snail sliding across the desert.
“High-pressure, air-compressed sand buggy operating on methane fumes, unless I miss my guess.”
“What was that, Genevieve?”
“A gastropod transport. We’ve hypothesized about them, of course. I didn’t think anyone had actually built one.”
“Well, it looks like someone did.” Alexia shielded her eyes against the glare.
As the contraption neared, spitting up a wake of sand to either side, it slurred between the tentacles of the octopus so as not to disturb the bodies laid out there.
“That’s not good,” said Alexia.
“They know what’s going on here,” said Genevieve.
“Run!” said Conall.
Alexia took off, as ordered, throwing her modesty to the wind. She snapped closed her parasol and clipped it to the chatelaine. Then she picked up her skirts high, showing ankle but not caring for once, and took off up the hill.
“Alexia, wait! Here, take Prudence,” Conall called after her.
Alexia paused and held out her free arm.
“No!” yelled Prudence, but she clung like a limpet to her mother after the transfer, wrapping her chubby arms and legs tight about Alexia’s corseted frame.
Alexia looked into her husband’s face; it was set and determined. “Now, Conall, don’t do anything rash. You’re mortal, remember.”
Lord Maccon looked hard at this wife. “Get our daughter to safety and protect yourself, Alexia. I don’t think…” He paused, clearly searching for the right words. “I’m still mad, but I do love you and I couldna stand it if…” He let the sentence trail off, gave her a blistering kiss as hot and as fierce as the Egyptian sun, and turned, charging toward the oncoming snail.
The snail spat a blast of fire at him. He dodged it easily.
“Conall, you idiot!” Alexia yelled after him.
She ignored his instructions, of course, reaching for her parasol.
Madame Lefoux came up to her, pressing a firm hand to the small of her back, almost pushing her up the hill.
“No, here, take Prudence.” Alexia passed the little girl off once more.
“No, Mama!” remonstrated Prudence.
“I have my pins and my wrist emitters,” said Madame Lefoux, looking like she, too, might disobey orders.
“No, you get her to safety and get Zayed to inflate the balloon. Someone has to see to that dunce of a husband of mine.” Alexia was white with fear. “I think he’s forgotten he could actually die.”
“If you’re certain?”
“Go!”
Madame Lefoux went, Prudence shrieking and struggling under her arm. “No, Mama. No, Foo!” There was no way the toddler could break free. Madame Lefoux might be bony and tall, but she was wiry and strong from years of hoisting machinery.
Lady Maccon unhooked and flipped her parasol about and turned to face the gastropod.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Gastropod Among Us
Whoever they were, they were less interested in guns and hurling fire than in scrapping hand to hand with the big man who stood alone before them. They’d stopped their snail in front of Lord Maccon and were leaping off it to attack him. Alexia’s husband stood, waiting for them, arms akimbo.
I married an idiot, thought his loving wife, and she rushed down the hillside.
The idiot glowered at the gastropod enemy. His hair was a shaggy mess, his face covered in a full beard, his expression ferocious. He looked like a mountain man come to raise hell among the desert folk.
The first of the white-cla
d men charged him.
Conall lashed out. He might be mortal but he still knew how to fight. What Alexia worried about was his remembering he wasn’t nearly so strong nor so durable in his nonsupernatural state.
She came dashing up just as he engaged two more robed men in combat. She drew back her parasol, took aim, and fired a numbing dart at one of the opponents.
At this action, the attackers paused and fell back to regroup behind the snail, nattering at each other excitedly in Arabic.
“Guess they weren’t expecting projectiles,” said Lady Maccon smugly.
“I told you to leave!” The earl was not pleased to see his lady wife.
“Be fair, my love. When have I ever done as ordered?”
He snorted. “Where’s Prudence?”
“With Madame Lefoux, getting the balloon up, I hope.” Alexia braced herself next to him, reaching into one of the secret pockets of her parasol. She pulled out Ethel and handed the small gun to him.
“Just in case.” Even as she said it, they heard the sound of a gunshot, and sand near Conall’s foot spat up sharp pellets at them.
Alexia and her husband both dove forward. They had the advantage of higher ground, but they also had no shelter.
Alexia opened her parasol defensively in front of them, trying to remember if this new one had armor.
Lord Maccon took careful aim and fired the gun.
A loud ping indicated the bullet had hit the metal of the gastropod’s shell harmlessly.
“This is very decidedly not good,” said Alexia.
Conall looked at her, his expression ferocious. “We are stuck on a hill, outmanned and outgunned.”
Another barrage of shots came at them, this time narrowly missing Conall’s head. Alexia and her husband began to squirm backward, up the hill. Alexia’s bustle wiggled back and forth suggestively as she squirmed. Her skirts began to ride up scandalously high, but she had other things to worry about.
Lady Maccon was not happy about the situation. Not happy at all. She was also drying out, the sun beating relentlessly down, and all her water carriers had run off at the first sign of the gastropod. The pressure of the mummies around her was beginning to leak in and distract. Her entire being felt as though it were being pushed. All she could think was that she wasn’t meant to be there. The dead didn’t want her there. And neither did the living, if the white-clad snail men were anything to go by.
Another barrage of bullets came at them. Conall let out a sharp cry as one lucky shot hit the meat of his upper arm.
“See, what did I warn you of?” Alexia was concerned. In Alexia, concern, nine times out of ten, came out of her mouth as annoyance.
“Not now, wife!” Lord Maccon yanked off his cravat, and Alexia wrapped it quickly about his arm while he transferred Ethel to his other, working, hand.
“Should I?” she asked, offering to take the gun back.
“Even with the wrong hand I can still shoot better than you.”
“Oh, thank you very much.” Alexia glanced back up the hill and saw the purple rise of Zayed’s balloon peek up behind it.
“He won’t come get us,” she said. “Not with bullets flying. The balloon would be at risk.”
“Then I suppose we had better get to it.”
Alexia was peeved enough to reply, “Well, yes. Couldn’t you have done that in the first place?”
“I was trying to buy you ladies some time to escape. Precious little good it’s done you.”
“Oh, very gallant. As if I would let you take on a gastropod alone without any kind of weaponry.”
“Must we argue right now?” Another round of gunfire spit the sand up around them.
They continued squirming up the hill and exchanging fire with the snail. Or Conall did; Alexia was out of the numbing darts.
Alexia closed the parasol so she could see where she was aiming. She reached for the first nodule on the handle and twisted it, activating the magnetic disruption emitter. Some of the gastropod must have been comprised of iron components, for the engine seized up, much to the bewilderment of the shouting driver.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Alexia and Conall jumped to their feet and dashed up the hill toward the balloon, the earl pushing his wife before him.
They almost reached the top. The balloon was higher now, and Alexia could make out the long rope ladder dangling down and trailing toward them in the sand. She ran to it, faster than she had ever thought possible. The repulsion pressure was bearing down on her hard, there being far more mummies at the top of the hill. She could feel the blackness closing in—too many dead preternaturals pressing against her skull.
I can’t faint again. Now is not a good time, even if I were the fainting type, she remonstrated with herself.
Conall paused, turned, and fired. The snail was in motion again, the disruption worn off, but some of the men had given up waiting for it and had taken off after them on foot up the hill. When Conall paused to shoot, so did they.
Alexia heard her husband cry out and he jerked backward against her. The bottom fell out of her world as she turned frantically, half supporting his massive weight, desperately looking to this new injury. A bloom of red appeared over his ribs, staining the shirt. He wasn’t wearing a waistcoat.
“Conall Maccon,” she cried, shaking off the blackness, “I forbid you to die.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, woman. I’m perfectly fine,” he replied, dropping Ethel to clutch at his side, gasping and terribly pale under the beard.
Alexia bent to scoop up her gun.
“Leave it. We’re out of ammunition anyway.”
“But!”
Conall began climbing up the hill, bent almost double against the pain.
Alexia turned to follow, only to find herself seized about the waist by one of the white-clad enemy. She screamed in rage and swung her parasol up and back hard, hitting the man squarely atop the head.
He let go of her.
She was out of numbing darts but there was more than that in her accessory’s arsenal. She twisted the nodule closest to the shade, hoping she had the correct direction for the correct liquid. Either the acid for vampires or the silver nitrite for werewolves would work on humans, but the acid was nastier. She couldn’t remember which was which, so she simply hoped.
Alexia met the man’s eyes over the top of the parasol and felt a brief flash of recognition. She had seen him before, on the train to Woolsey back in England.
“What?” she said, pausing in her action. Then remembering her husband’s wounds, she let loose the spray.
The man, as shocked as she, leaped backward out of harm’s way, tripped on his long robe, and tumbled down the hill before regaining his feet. Instead of continuing his pursuit, he whirled about, running back toward the gastropod waving his arms wildly in the air.
Alexia couldn’t understand a word he said except one. He kept repeating something that sounded Italian, not Arabic: “Panattone.”
The peace brought about by this startling reversal didn’t last long for, despite his gesticulations, the other white-clad men continued to fire. One or two ran past their erstwhile companion and continued after her.
Conall, who had reached the ladder and was holding on to it, had turned back at Alexia’s yell. He was looking even whiter, and there was a good deal more blood running down his side than Alexia had ever seen spilling out of anyone.
Her world was closing in. It was like being inside a black tunnel, the repulsion pressing against the corners of her eyes. Pushing herself, slogging that last short distance to her husband took herculean effort. But then she was there, and Conall was pressing the rope into her hands.
“Go on!” he yelled, pushing up on her bustle as though he might hoist her into the air. He was nowhere near strong enough for that in his current state.
Alexia stuffed the cloth of her parasol into her mouth, holding it with her teeth, and began to climb. She paused halfway up to glance back, making certain her husband was fol
lowing her.
He was, but he did not look well. His grip must be very weak, particularly with that injured arm.
The moment they latched on to the ladder, Zayed, blessed man, gave the balloon some heat, and it floated up.
Below them they could hear more guns firing. Alexia felt one whiz past her ear and heard a thunk as it lodged itself in the wicker of the basket.
Madame Lefoux and Prudence’s heads poked over the edge. They both looked terrified. There was nothing they could do to help.
“Genevieve, take Prudence to cover!” Conall yelled.
The heads disappeared for a moment and then only the inventor’s reappeared.
Madame Lefoux had one of her deadly little wrist darts out and was aiming it down. Startled, Alexia thought she was pointing it at her or Conall. In that moment, she wondered, yet again, if she had misjudged the Frenchwoman’s loyalty.
Genevieve fired. The dart hurtled past Alexia’s ear. There came a cry, and it hit the man Alexia hadn’t even realized was there. A man in white robes dangling off the very bottom of the ladder let go and fell, screaming.
The balloon lifted again, and Alexia felt a lightening of that horrible sensation of repulsion, the black tunnel receding from around her vision. She wished the balloon would go faster, but they were at the mercy of the sky now.
Finally, after what felt like an age, bullets whizzing by all the while, Alexia attained the basket lip and tumbled in. She spat out her parasol and instantly turned to see to her husband.
Conall was still some ways behind her, slowed by his wounds. Below him she could see the gastropod, tracking them across the sands, still close enough to be a danger. Alexia went for her parasol, prepared to use the grapple attachment.
The firing continued but the balloon was out of range.
Then, one of the enemy pulled out a different kind of gun, a huge fat rifle that looked like it was designed for large game. He fired. Whether he was aiming to bring down the balloon or not, he hit Lord Conall Maccon.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 148
