A Study In Ashes Part 52

As if kissed out of sleep by a lover, her dark magic awakened to taste the deaths. Revulsion rippled through Evelina, but there wasn't time to think. As Roberts wheeled to fire again, she targeted the harpoons, spinning them around. The long iron shafts seemed to wobble in confusion, one of them dropping altogether, but the other two sped back toward the red ships. From somewhere inside the Athena, Evelina heard a cheer, and she couldn't help a grin.

The three remaining red dirigibles scattered. The Dawn Star's next shot clipped the long tail of one, sending it into a spin with the sheer force of the blow. With that much damage, the ship might make a decent landing, but it wouldn't be maneuverable enough to fight. With a roar, the Athena fired again, and a second ship exploded, caught squarely in the center. They were down to one opponent.

The last of the Scarlet King's dirigibles fired, and the Dawn Star was suddenly limned with brightness. Evelina watched, her breath caught in her throat, as the ship was suddenly snared in a web of arcing blue energy-the same as what she had absorbed from the blast that had hit the Athena. She could hear the crackle of it, like the snapping of giant sheets in the wind, or what she'd read about the aurora borealis in the far and frozen north. It resonated inside her, sending that needling energy through her once more.

A hydrogen ship would explode from that dancing blue fire, but one that ran on distilled aether simply burned. Flames began to leak from the portholes of the Dawn Star like a dozen fiery wounds. Tiny specks leaped from the ship, and Evelina fully understood what had happened to Nick the year before.

Outrage coiled, a hissing, violent thing. For a moment, she couldn't see, but then she focused with needle-sharp intensity at the vessel that had fired the shot. The Dawn Star, the ship that had come to their rescue, was a comet of flames hurtling earthward-and now the attacker was turning its broadside to them.

All the magnetic fire Evelina had taken in coalesced into a single upsurge of rage, and she thrust it forward. It ripped from her as if her insides were yanked through her breastbone, skin and skeleton flying apart. She screamed with the pain, but with rage as well. She'd made plenty of shields, but never used magic like a spear. But the dark power knew exactly what to do.

The last of the Scarlet King's ships was there one moment and gone the next, a fine, powdery dust raining down from the empty sky.

THEY WERE ALREADY CALLING IT THE BATTLE OF ST. PAUL'S. Tobias was glad to let the men and women trooping after the caterpillar rejoice in their victory, but their march westward through London felt like a journey into a mire he wasn't sure they'd survive. Tipping those pounding machines had been costly-many had been crushed, and many more had fallen to the Blue Boys.

Plus, it had been a stroke of luck. They couldn't count on all the steam barons' weaponry being vulnerable to a schoolboy imagination any more than he could count on the coal supply for the caterpillar lasting all the way to wherever the Gold King was holding his son. They had been fighting their way west for hours, Moore and the other soldiers were holding the Blue Boys off their tail-but so far the rebels had only made it past the law courts of the Temple, right to the point where the Waterloo Bridge reached the north side of the Thames.

The crowd thickened and bulged, like water hitting a clogged drain. The roar of guns and voices was deafening, almost a touchable wave of pressure against his face. Tobias guided the caterpillar to a stop, unable to go further without stepping on someone. Yelland got to his feet, shaded his eyes, and swore.

"What?" Tobias demanded. Talking was more a matter of lip reading, but they bent close to each other to catch what sound they could. "Why can't we move?"

"It's the Gold King's army fighting the prince's men coming up from the south," said the sharpshooter. "And there's an air battle up there."

Tobias had seen the smoke in the sky, but hadn't had the leisure to wonder what had caused it. Now when he looked, he could see the balloons between the billows of cloud and smoke. From where he was, they looked no bigger than apple seeds, the colors lost to distance and the angle of the sun.

The army in front of them was a more immediate problem. "There are thousands."

"Mercenaries," Yelland spat. "And they're sweeping the population ahead of them. The Blue Boys in particular."

"Doesn't the crowd get in their way?"

"Of course it does, but then they hold all the empty streets. And they know the rebels won't fire on civilians."

Tobias understood. Until the prince's armies arrived with everything the rogue makers had devised, the rebels had fewer fancy weapons than the barons. The steam barons' war machines could fire over a sea of civilians, but the rebels risked shooting innocents. The rebel army's hands were tied.

"Listen," said Tobias, his voice cracking with the strain to be heard. "I made a lot of the Gold King's weapons. I can disable them, but I didn't have time to make the devices that can do it."

Yelland shot him a look. "And?"

"My friend was finishing them this morning. He's going to carry them to the prince's army." Tobias looked at the sea of humanity surrounding them. Even if Bucky could fight through the crowd of rebel supporters, he would have to cross enemy lines first. That was going to be more dangerous than they'd a.s.sumed. "It would be very useful if we could get a few of those devices for ourselves."

"Are you talking about Mr. Penner?"

"Yes."

"He needs an escort," Yelland said flatly.

"He thought he could slip by unnoticed if he went alone. And he's good with a gun."

"He needs an escort," Yelland repeated.

Tobias gave the man a long look. "The plan was that if he could make it down Threadneedle to Mansion House, he could use the underground tunnels of the District Railway. The trains won't be running in all this"-Tobias waved a hand at the chaos around them-"but it's a lot faster even if he runs all the way."

Tobias would have gone that way himself, if he'd been a well man, but he didn't have the strength to run or the ability to shoot anymore. The poison had taken too much. He was far more useful as a decoy.

"b.l.o.o.d.y dangerous if he gets trapped down there. The steam barons will post guards." Yelland looked at the position of the sun. "I'm guessing it's not too late. We should send men down to watch for him. There's an entrance at the Temple."

"Do it," Tobias said. He wasn't technically in charge of the soldiers, but the fact that he led the procession gave him authority.

Yelland reached down to grab someone's collar and issue orders while Tobias squinted at the ma.s.s of armed men ahead. The air stank of panic, blood, and the smoky, minty stench of aether weapons. His skin itched with sweat and he thought briefly how much he wanted something to drink, but the thought faded the moment he grasped what he was looking at.

The Gold King's army was ahead, the Blue King behind and to the north, where Covent Garden sounded like a war zone. The Thames was to their south. They were boxed in.

And Jeremy was somewhere ahead, on the other side of the Yellowbacks. He'd had no idea Keating's army was so vast. He'd made pieces of it, but never seen it all at once. With a sinking sensation, he recognized the fruits of his own genius trundling toward them. There were the wheeled domes of steel and bra.s.s, equipped with gunports on top, the k.n.o.bs of the aether devices looking like shiny hats. He would have been proud if the b.l.o.o.d.y things weren't opening fire.

Men were grabbing objects from everywhere-chairs, crates, broken carriages, and dead bodies-and piling the ma.s.s across the road. The barricade offered some protection and would slow down anything with wheels. A handful of Moore's soldiers crouched behind the makeshift wall and braced their rifles in a ready position.

Someone waved a Union Jack. "Down with the Steam Council!"

Tobias took up the cry, raising his fist in the air, then ducked when a bullet whizzed by. Yelland returned the compliment, and the bullets stopped.

The domed devices were every bit as dangerous as Tobias had made them. They were manned from inside, combining the best of human intelligence with mechanical durability. Even more worrisome were the small clockwork explosives that could scurry about like mice. He'd been particularly pleased with the cleverness of the concept, but now he saw a swarm flowing toward the Blue Boys. It was war, and the Blue King was his enemy, but how many lives would be lost, Tobias wondered, because he'd had a clever idea one afternoon?

The only mercy was that the rebels weren't the primary target of either army; Blue and Gold were most intent on killing one another. Bombs struck, fountaining flesh and masonry into the air. The merciless noise intensified and Tobias's body tightened until every muscle ached. Primal instinct begged to flee, but he was trapped and all they could do was fight to the end.

He aimed one of the mounted aether guns that formed the caterpillar's antennae and searched for a target. A bra.s.s-plated dome came into sight. It seemed wrong to destroy one of his own creations, but he fired anyhow, aiming for the spot where he knew the aether distiller hid behind the metal plates. He was rewarded with a bright, hideous flash as the thing went in a glory of fire. Someone screamed, "Vive la revolution!" as if suddenly they were in Robespierre's France.

The moment Yelland understood the device's weakness, he began aiming at its cousins. Unfortunately, ordinary bullets couldn't penetrate the sh.e.l.l. Even worse, the devices began firing back in double time.

It took him a moment to realize that the rebels weren't the target. Tobias swung the gun around, using its sight to get a better view of the battlefield. He nearly staggered back when he was suddenly confronted with the hideous, sweat-slicked visage of King Coal himself. Tobias raised his head to see where the Blue King was and made an inarticulate moan of dismay.

So far they had only seen half the Blue army. The other half was rolling across the Waterloo Bridge, the weight making the old pilings shake. They were huge monsters of steel-every one a gigantic engine trapped in a spherical metal cage as tall as a house. Each cage rolled forward like a ball, the engine inside suspended upright as its latticework superstructure crawled ahead. Twin channels had been left free of the crisscrossing steel bars of the globe, accommodating huge magnetic aether cannons jutting from the core of the engine. Tobias counted. There had to be two dozen of the things surrounded by ranks of armed Blue Boys. At the front of the column, the foremost of the rolling spheres was occupied by the Blue King, who peered out from the thing's c.o.c.kpit like a malevolent frog. Directly beside him marched Moriarty in steel and leather armor.

The sight rendered Tobias dizzy with disbelief-if he'd been trapped before, now he was all but pinned in place. And they were coming straight at his left flank.

What else could go wrong?

EVELINA WAS HUDDLED under Nick's arm, but the joy and relief of their reunion had been short-lived. Striker was hunched over the aether distillers, as close to tears as Evelina had ever seen the man. "All three of them are blasted to pieces, and we're down to fumes in the engines. Athena can hold the ship together for a bit, but we're going to sink without more aether."

"How long?" Nick asked in a leaden voice.

"Not long."

Evelina blinked unsteadily. She had just come inside from the roost, and the interior of the ship was murky, robbed of the green underwater glow of the distillers. But she could see well enough to grasp the damage to the Athena. Part of the rigid honeycomb inside the balloon had been torn, allowing about a third of the gas to escape. In addition, the tall gla.s.s distillers had cracked and would need to be replaced.

"Our best chance is to boil up some of this stuff." Striker kicked a sack at his feet.

"What is it?" Evelina asked.

"It's a powdered form of aether."

Evelina slipped from Nick's grasp and bent over the bag. She picked up a few grains that had escaped onto the floor, rolling them between her thumb and forefinger. She gaped, realizing that it was precisely the same stuff she'd used in her chemistry experiments at school. "I wouldn't suggest boiling it," she said in a small voice, realizing that she'd never actually completed the a.s.signments without flames or explosion. "I could help you if you like."

"The instructions are on the bag," Striker grumbled, leaning against the walls to cradle his head. "I can't remember the formula right now."

He'd taken a bad blow when the ship had been hit. He was still on his feet, but Evelina suspected he'd been struck harder than he was letting on. Combined with the fact that he couldn't read, he wasn't the best candidate for mixing up a highly combustible stew.

"How much do we need?" Nick asked.

"A few barrels should do it," Striker said. "Enough to fill the pumps a few times over."

A few barrels? Professor Bickerton's face filled Evelina's mind, and she suddenly began to giggle. She put a hand over her mouth to silence it. Nick and Striker wouldn't understand.

I wanted the freedom to conduct experiments on my own. Who knew all I had to do was blow up an air fleet to get it?

"All right," she said more calmly, hoping she remembered everything she'd learned at Camelin. "The first thing we'll need is the exact proportion of water and alcohol."

"What kind of alcohol?" Nick asked. "A lot of the stores were destroyed in the blast."

Evelina began to dread where this was going. "What do you have?"

Striker grinned. "We've got the scrumpy. I'd say that was getting pretty close to pure."

"STOP!" POPPY COMMANDED, PULLING HARD ON ALICE'S arm.

The red-haired woman obeyed, quickly jerking around. "What is it?"

A shabby man hurrying in the opposite direction b.u.mped against her, but Alice ignored him. The street was crowded with rushing people-most of them moving east while they forged west. Poppy dropped to one knee and began tying her bootlace, which had been flapping loose for the last hundred yards.

They had walked for ages because even the steam trams had stopped now, and Covent Garden was a lot farther than she had a.s.sumed. As Poppy knelt, somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear Lady Bancroft nagging her for soiling her skirts, but she was beyond caring. Poppy's shoulders screamed with knots of tension, and her feet ached and pinched in the silly, ladylike boots her mother insisted she wear. The next time she went on a rescue mission, she would utterly refuse to wear heels.

There had best not be a next time. The air hummed with expectation, and none of it good. The farther west they went, the more gunfire they could hear. Some of it popped like dry logs on the fire, but there were a few bangs that sounded big and close. Poppy and Alice had wavered between scurrying down hidden alleys and melting into whatever crowds they could find on the main streets. It was impossible to guess which was safer. If Poppy hadn't been so certain that Alice's logic was sound and that surely they could find and rescue Jeremy, she would have turned tail and bolted home.

"Hurry," Alice begged.

"It'll be faster if I don't trip and break my nose," Poppy grumbled as she knelt on the hard cobbles, but she didn't blame Alice for complaining. Nerves were making her fingers clumsy, and she flinched as a pair of steam cycles rattled by, their metal wheels loud on the street. Somewhere a woman was sobbing, the sound making Poppy's stomach muscles jump. She was already feeling queasy from the stink of ash and explosives thick in the air.

A shadow blotted out the thin sunlight. The gray of the sky was growing thicker, and for a moment she a.s.sumed it was just more cloud, but then animal instinct made her look up. Her mouth fell open, a sound of surprise escaping her. It was a small, zephyr-cla.s.s airship, but it was an intense blue that made it look like a gap in the moody clouds. Poppy's fingers finished the knot, powered only by the force of habit. The rest of her was mesmerized by the sight. "That's got to be one of King Coal's ships."

"What's it doing ..." Alice trailed off, her voice fading before she could even make it a question. There was only one reason the Blue King would be flying a ship so low over Gold territory that it could almost touch the rooftops-it was there to do damage. Her face, already wan, grew paler.

"How did it get past the Yellowbacks?" Poppy rose and gripped Alice's arm again, needing her close.

How did another steam baron get this deep into the Gold King's territory? She'd always a.s.sumed Keating was much stronger than any of the others, but perhaps that wasn't true. Jeremy is Keating's grandson. If the Blue Boys find him first, something horrible will happen. Her scalp crawled with apprehension as she watched the airship move ahead until it hovered over the heart of the neighborhood.

A trapdoor in the belly of the blue ship's gondola opened. Black shapes dropped out of it, some large and long, some small and round. They curled and spun as they fell, reminding Poppy of nothing so much as thin slices of carrot, or those long beans Cook served with slivered almonds. Other bystanders saw it, too, and the noise level in the street went up another notch. She braced, expecting to hear a violent explosion, but no sound came, and the zephyr slowly rose back into the sky.

"What were those?" Alice wondered aloud, wavering as if not sure whether to run forward or back.

"I don't know, but if the Blue King's army is this close, I don't think we have much time."

Alice's mouth set. "Then let's go!"

They ran forward, hand in hand. The odd thing about being frightened for so long was that eventually the fear gelled, like custard left out too long. Once that happened, Poppy could step over it-and she had to. They'd come too far not to push on.

Alice pulled her to the left and they darted down one of the narrow, winding streets that made up much of Covent Garden. Poppy glimpsed the front of the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane where she had been to see a play not two weeks past, but now Yellowbacks were ranged in front of it, weapons drawn. At the sight of them, Alice veered down another street. They might have been her father's troops rather than the Blue Boys, but clearly Alice wasn't taking any chances.

No sooner had they turned the corner than there was a belching cough of sound several streets away. That was followed by a whooshing, ripping noise that made Poppy look up. A blaze of light speared through the air, and she realized it was flame clinging to the metal of a giant arrow. She'd seen these in the air battle over London-it was a hot harpoon. Her gaze skipped forward, skimming past the forest of chimneys to see the zephyr desperately banking to get out of its path. It was not quite directly overhead, but she had to crane her neck to see it. She skidded to a stop, transfixed. The street around her faded as she stared in appalled antic.i.p.ation.

The ship couldn't fly fast enough. From where they stood, the impact of the harpoon was noiseless. What came next was not. Even she knew that zephyrs were not aether ships, but used cheaper hydrogen instead. That meant it was doomed.

The flame from the harpoon hit the gas in seconds. A wave of pressure thrust both women backward, knocking Alice from her feet. The explosion seemed to peel the scalp from Poppy's head, more feeling than sound. It vibrated in her bones with a sudden clap that made her heart jump. Light flashed white-hot, leaving a burning image on the back of her eyelids.

Reflex made Poppy shield her face-a lucky thing. A chunk of the old chimney above tumbled free, smashing apart as it bounced off the roof and fell. Shards of masonry flew up, stinging her arms. As Poppy brushed them away, she saw burning timbers tumbling from the air, which had turned a sooty black. She wondered how long it would be before those planks of flaming wood started a blaze. She wondered how many had died. Her stomach gave a dangerous lurch.

"Poppy!"

She looked down, realizing that she had been standing there gawping for who knew how long. Dazed, she noticed Alice was still on the ground, a cut bleeding into one eye. Fresh panic sent her scrambling to Alice's side. "Are you all right?"

Alice awkwardly found her feet and fished for her handkerchief. She pressed the cloth to her head. "A piece of brick hit me. It's nothing. We have to go."

Poppy grabbed her arm when she stumbled. "Not so fast."

Alice braced one hand against the wall, her eyes wide with shock. Ash was falling from the sky like filthy snow, leaving s.m.u.ts on their clothes. "Which way did we come from?"

Poppy pointed back past the debris from the smashed chimney. "Are you sure you're well?"

"I won't be well until I have Jeremy again." Alice bit her lip, crushing the handkerchief in her fingers. Her voice was distant but bitter all the same. "The place we want is called the Beryl Lane Manor. It's right behind Bow Street. Once I walked by it every day, looking for my father's carriage. I was such a little fool that I wondered why he would go to such a place."

Poppy bit her lip, unsure what to say. But any words she might have found were buried beneath the roar of a cannon, and then the answering rattle of gunshots.

"Come on." Alice lurched toward the sound, catching Poppy in her forward momentum.

Every instinct told Poppy she'd been a fool to insist they come here. They should have gone home after Soho rather than waltzing into the battle zone, but a moment later she saw the sign for Beryl. It's only a minute more. And she knew there was no way Alice was going to leave without trying to find her son.

Beryl Lane was barely wide enough for three people to walk abreast, the old cobbles undulating like waves frozen into stone. They were about to turn down the narrow s.p.a.ce when the sound of running feet made them draw back. Black-coated Yellowbacks came tearing in their direction. Poppy and Alice squashed themselves against the bricks. Poppy felt the rush of air against her face as they pa.s.sed, the hem of their coats brushing hers. The men paid them no heed, but galloped ahead to where the lane emptied into a square. Then the leaders fell to their knees, raising their weapons, while the men in back aimed over their heads. Something was coming this way.

Alice ran, heading in the direction from where the Yellowbacks had come. Poppy trailed after, casting anxious glances over her shoulder. They didn't go far. The old house sat in a bend of the street, jutting like a peninsula into the cobbles. From the look of it, there had never been a manor involved, though it showed signs of once housing a tavern. One look around told Poppy that no carriages-let alone the Gold King's-waited nearby. Alice was already mounting the steps to go inside when a heavy woman-the kind who had lived hard but not necessarily well-came rushing out with a carpetbag stuffed with clothes.

"Out of my way, love!" said the woman, pushing Alice aside.

Poppy got squarely in her path. "A moment of your time, love." She s.n.a.t.c.hed the carpetbag out of the woman's hand. The woman cried out, but Poppy already had both hands in the bag. That was enough to tell her what she wanted to know.

"What are you doing?" the woman snarled.

"I'm looking for a baby."

The owner of the bag looked startled and then incredulous. "Well, I don't have one!"