“What are you doin’?” C.L. shouts.
I whirl around to face him, fashioning a sheath out of the wedding tulle on my hip.
“Get Urlick. And the others,” I say, stuffing the tulle full of weapons. “It’s Flossie. She’s back.”
Chapter Seventeen
Urlick
A FRAZZLED-LOOKING LIVINEA appears in the archway of the Great Hall. Iris swings in beside her, their white knuckles clinging to the woodwork.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” My gaze dashes between the two of them.
“It’s Eyelet,” Livinea struggles to catch her breath. “She’s gone!”
“Gone? Gone where?” She’s hasn’t up and left me, before we’ve even got started?
“After Flossie!” C.L. rasps, appearing beside them, dressed in top hat and tails.
“She’s what?” I drop the flowers I’ve been tying to the backs of chair, and launch into a run.
“She’s threatening to kill ‘er!” Livinea hollers after me as I sweep past them.
“Who’s threatening? Flossie?” I yell, without slowing.
“No, Eyelet! She’s heavily armed.”
“For the love of—” I charge through the foyer and out through the open front doors, pausing only to scoop up some weaponry. I stuff a poison-tipped bayonet up under one arm, snag up a coal-fired ratchet gun, then double back for the net-cannon.
Masheck appears at the base of the staircase, dressed in a snappy Baxter Frock and matching trousers, Arlington vest, and jackboots.
“Catch!” I shout his way, tossing him the ratchet gun.
“What? Why?” He catches it, looking stymied. “Where are we going?”
“To go kick some ghoul arse.”
“But I thought you were—” He looks back to the doors of the Great Hall.
“I was. But there’s been a change of plans.” I cock the cannon-pistol. “Seems Eyelet’s gone after Flossie.”
“She’s what?” Masheck’s eyes bulge from his head. He bursts from the stairs and we run through the doors, followed closely behind by Livinea and Iris armed with pepperbox steamrifles, and a boomerang guillotine. None of which are going to make a blast bit of difference on ghouls I’m afraid, but it’s the only defense we have.
We bolt through the misty courtyard, checking and loading our weapons as we go. I secure a poison bayonet on my hip, though I’ve no idea how effective poison is going to be on the already-dead.
“Where’s C.L.?” I slide to a stop by the hedges. “What’s happened to him? I thought he was behind us.”
“Right ‘ere, sir.” C.L. appears through the mist, brandishing a triple-barrelled SteamVolley on his hip. He’s still dressed in his tails, though he’s disposed of the top hat.
“Where’s the fire engine?” I say to Masheck.
“Out back. Why?”
“Know any better way to kick ghoul arse?”
“No. I don’t, sir.” Masheck smiles. Livinea laughs.
“How fast do you think you can fire up that engine?”
“Already done, sir.” Masheck darts away into the mist, jackboots in full swing.
“Iris, Livinea, you stay here just in case Eyelet circles back and needs protection.” God knows Iris is good with a gun. “C.L., let’s go get my foolish bride before those ghouls do, shall we?” I tip my head and push off with my feet, racing through the misty courtyard and through the gates and out into open ground, C.L. galloping close behind.
“Not exactly the wedding day I had in mind,” I whisper, pulling behind the cover of a hedge, C.L. dropping in beside me. “Then again, is anything what it appears to be when Eyelet’s around?” I shift my back to the hedge and ready my gun out in front of me, side-stepping along while scanning the horizon.
C.L. moves in the opposite direction. “I don’t see ‘er? Do you, sir?” The fear in his voice clearly apparent.
“No, nothing.” I squint, barely able to make out his features, the fog between us is so thick. “This doesn’t make sense.” I twist my head and look the other way. “They couldn’t have got very far.” Worry invades my chest. If Flossie’s got to Eyelet first, we’ll never find them in this fog. “Perhaps she’s turned back?” I look behind us. “But we would have passed them, wouldn’t we?”
“You’d think so.” C.L. steps on a branch, and the crack makes us both jump.
I settle back into my skin. In the distance, I hear the roar of an engine start, then sputter out. “Come on!” I burst from the hedge and onto the flats. “Time’s a wasting. We’ve got to locate them. Now!”
We race unprotected over the road and toward the swamp, before the cloud cover drapes over us again, creating a visual shield. We need to be careful; we could tread right over the edge of the ravine that drafts the far backside of the Academy.
“There!” C.L. shouts on the run, startling me all to heck. I wasn’t expecting his voice to be that close. Blast these bloomin’ clouds. They bugger my perception all to hell.
“Look!” The trolling brume between us shifts. The tip of his gun is revealed, aimed at a small, glowing halo of ghoulish green. It bobs up and down in the muck at the bottom of the hill. I was right—the steep cliff of the ravine lies just beyond the bog. “Is that—?” I squint. “Bloody hell! It has to be!” I make a mad dash for it. C.L. sprints close behind, the pair of us breathing hard. Coiling mist circles in, wreathing our heads and blurring our vision, but I know what I saw in that glimpse. Eyelet—distinctly Eyelet, struggling with something in the muck.
“Oh, no you don’t!” a voice shouts.
“Flossie!” C.L. gasps.
Before I can pose a strategy, C.L.’s off and running again. I leap into action myself. Together, we gazelle down the marshy sodden slope. The incline is so steep I’m soon out of control, nearly freefalling forward over the tops of my shoes. I slide to a sloppy stop at the bottom where C.L. slams into the back of me. “Oh, good God.” I clutch my chest.
“Sorry, sir—”
“No. Look.”
Through the patchwork mist, it’s Eyelet standing knee- deep in muck in her wedding dress, swinging a sword through the air above her head, Flossie bearing down on her from above. She slices, and Flossie ducks.
“Bejiggers,” C.L. swears, staring up.
“Bejiggers, is right.” I breathe. The sky over Eyelet’s head swims with apparitions. Two, three, maybe five. “Good God, what is she thinking!”
“Perhaps there wasn’t time for thinking?” C.L. shouts.
In the distance, I sense the faint whir of an engine. My heart picks up in my chest. Thank God.
Eyelet grunts and swings. Flossie dodges again.
“We need to keep them at bay long enough for Masheck to arrive,” I say, just as three swooping wraiths descend, snarling and circling Eyelet, baring their fangs.
C.L. takes a breath as if to shout, but I clap a hand to his mouth. “No, don’t! If we break her concentration now, she’s sure as dead.”
“But, sir—”
“C.L., you have to listen to me.”
The apparitions bear down on Eyelet, their jaws snapping at her face.
“We can’t just stand ‘ere and do nothin’.” C.L. looks to me.
“And we won’t,” I say, drawing the net-cannon from my hip.
I take aim and shoot. A mechanical cannonball blasts from the snout into the air and bursts open mid-flight into a spreading cargo net. The blowback knocks me to my arse and sends me skidding backward through the muck. Miniature whirlybirds clasped to the corners of the net activate, stretching the net in all four directions, successfully enveloping two of the five ghouls, pinning them to the ground. Two flee, while the other lingers.
“You all right, sir?” C.L. shouts, drawing the attention of the last uncaptured ghoul. The fang fiend whirls mid-air and swoops toward me.
C.L. quick-draws his gun and pumps the monster full of steambullets. They sail straight through it and pop out the other side. I duck and cover, spiralling away a
s they puncture the ground around me.
“Sorry, sir!” C.L. shouts.
The ghoul turns and soars after me. I aim the net-cannon and fire—but this time the cargo net sticks. I yank the disabled ammo from the gun and risk shooting again. A clean cannonball takes flight, exploding in the face of the ghoul, dragging it to the earth at whip speed—netting Eyelet along with it.
She turns to me and screams.
My stomach sours. My mind is crashing. “Eyelet!” I stumble to my feet, thundering over the unstable terrain toward her. “Eyelet!”
The claws on the whirlybirds initiate, staking the cargo net to the ground, nicking Eyelet’s shoulder in the process. She yelps and claps a hand to the wound, and falls in the middle of the bog, her leg caught up in the ropes. The clutching, cloying, claspture net refuses to let go of her.
The ghoul caught in the net with her hisses, mouth wide open, narrowing in for the kill—
“Don’t!” Flossie commands from her post in the sky, her voice a dropping guillotine.
The chattering spirits relent.
Flossie narrows her gaze on Eyelet, fangs glistening, tentacles raised. “Let me.” She swoops.
Eyelet gasps and struggles to get free, but her hands are no match for the claspture net’s talons. “Please, please, please…”
“No,” I holler, and hurl myself at the bog, my legs and arms pumping faster, faster. “No, no, no…” I stampede into the bog, but it’s no good; the bog is too thick, the bottom clay-like.
I’ll never reach her in time.
Numb with fear, I dig in, but it’s no use. I’m sinking in the thickening muck. Dear God, please, let me get to her…
The air fills with Eyelet’s screams. My breath stops. My legs refuse to move.
Out of nowhere, C.L. punts out in front me, leaping through the clay as if it were nothing—and in a moment of madness—tackles Flossie. They roll end over end. Flossie screeches and claws at his face, but C.L. clings to her, ducking and weaving his head to avoid her fangs. They tumble, screaming, over the side of the ravine.
“C.L.!” Eyelet shouts.
Another band of apparitions swoop in, darkening the skies above Eyelet’s head, revenge in their white glowing eyes. Their voices are deafening.
“No!” I shout, clawing through the muck. Eyelet hasn’t time to retreat.
One of the ghouls lands in front of me. My arms paddle-wheel backward as it bares its teeth, it’s exhalation coating my face in a thin veil of rancid-smelling, bubbly grey foam. I swab the foam from my nose and eyes, coughing.
“Urlick!” Eyelet shouts, slashing at the ghoul. She sticks her other arm through the net, and lofts her extra weapon in my direction. “Catch!”
I reach up and pluck it from the air. A soldering-bayonet with autherium gas. I swing and slice through the ghoul’s body. The ghoul crumbles in half and flutters to dust, but then, to my amazement, it just as quickly reforms, laughing and baying at me.
I jab and thrust, disintegrating it over and over again with every wield of my sword, but each time it reforms again. There’s no killing it.
“Deploy the autherium!” Eyelet shouts. “Burn the bugger!” Her voice lights up the fog.
I glance down at the hilt, see the trigger, and press it. Blood-red gas fills the air.
The apparition squeals, and shields its face as the plume of autherium sets to work, burrowing holes through its head. It shrieks and writhes and flops motionless to the ground.
I struggle toward Eyelet, at last close enough to draw the dagger from my boot and toss it her way. She catches the knife, slicing herself free, the claspture tearing a hole in her dress as she escapes from it.
“Are you all right?” She falls to her knees beside me. “You weren’t bitten were you?”
“No,” I say, drawing her close. “And you?”
“No, thank God.”
“Look at me.” I take Eyelet by the chin and pull her face toward me, and stare stern into her eyes. “Don’t you ever, ever, go off fighting ghouls again without me. Do you understand?”
“Are you giving me an order before I’ve even become your wife?”
“Not an order. Just a very strong suggestion.”
The sound of an engine drowns out our thoughts.
“Damn thing wouldn’t start,” Masheck shouts, rushing over to us. “Everyone all right?” His gaze falls to the gash on Eyelet’s shoulders.
“Don’t look so worried, it was from a talon, not the Infirmed.” She wipes the blood from her shoulder. “It’s C.L. we need to be worried about.” She stares off over the ravine, at the spot where C.L. and Flossie tumbled in, and her voice chokes off.
I stand, staring through the soup-like mist. No sign of anything anywhere.
“What’s happened?” Masheck frowns.
Eyelet and I share a strained look. “C.L., he…” Eyelet starts.
Something sputters, then grunts. We freeze, and stare.
Another growl then a grunt. I leap to my feet.
Masheck strikes out for the engine hose, preparing to shoot.
I stare into the mist and take aim with my gun.
“Wait!” Eyelet shouts, lurching forward.
Through the trolling mist, a figure struggles to haul itself up onto the edge of the ravine.
“C.L.!” I shout.
Eyelet hikes up her wedding skirt round the far end of the bog to meet up with him.
I race past her, reach down and help haul him up. “How did you—?” I gaze over the side of the cliff. “What’s happened? Where’s Flossie?”
“I’m afraid she got away, sir.” C.L. heaves in a deep breath. “But not before I tagged her with this!” He breaks into an impish grin, yanking a strange-looking device out from behind his back—a three pronged, crank-powered cattle prod of sorts with prongs as sharp as Neptune’s trident.
Chapter Eighteen
Eyelet
THE HEM OF MY DRESS is drenched in swamp water. It sags and twists about my legs. I reach down to wring it out, shaking some more mud off my gown. It was heavy enough to begin with let alone now that it’s caked in mud. Clumps of muck fall from the sweeps of tulle that drape the mud-stained skirt. I pick more out from between the dress’ satin folds.
My veil, ripped and torn in more places than one, has all but had it. I pluck it from my headdress and toss it away. It catches the wind and lifts, fluttering off like a tattered tulle ribbon.
So much for sophistication.
A tiny part of me saddens at the thought of it all being wrecked. Everything was so grand.
“So how does it work?” Urlick asks, yanking me back to reality. He and C.L. are still discussing the trident. The prod C.L. tagged Flossie with. Urlick gestures to the invention, a tiny tinge of jealousy in his voice.
“It’s electromagnetic. An archival tracking device,” C.L. explains. “Meaning, it runs on the principals of light energy.”
“And how does it do that?” I ask, shaking out my shoe.
“The prod picks up on ambient light levels that pulse from an embedded tag, like this one ‘ere.” C.L. pulls a spare one from his pocket. “The exact replica to the one I stuck on Flossie. When activated, the tag keeps a periodical punch record of its activity inside ‘ere.” He points to a metal box hanging off the side of the prod.
“Clever. Very clever.” I squint to see. “But then how do you use the data to track your suspect?”
“Right through this little viewfinder ‘ere.” C.L. shows me. I peer through the square of glass positioned at the base of the prod. A light blinks on and off. “The faster that light blinks, the closer the suspect is.”
“Really?” I look up. “That’s brilliant.”
Urlick sets his teeth.
“The signals come in the form of blips and beeps which are used to determine location of the wearer. In this case, Flossie, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Though she doesn’t know it.” C.L. smiles smugly. He leans in close to me
and winks. “She won’t be getting away from yuh this time, mum.” He pats the device. “‘Ol Gertrude ‘ere’ll see to it.”
“Gertrude?” I raise a curious eyebrow, and slip in the mud. Urlick catches me with a quick hand, hoisting me back up before I fall.
“That’s right. Ain’t no way Flossie’ll be able to ‘ide now. Not with Gertrude ‘ere trackin’ ‘er every move. See this solid light ‘ere.” He points out a little round circle on the end of the pronged iron rod. “It’ll become a blinkin’ bloom when she’s in the vicinity. And when it’s really flashing wildly, you’ll know she’s right round the corner.” C.L. beams with delight.
“Well, this ought to make locating her out in those woods a good bit easier.” I take the prod from him and toss it up and down in my hand.
“Easy as trappin’ a fire bug,” C.L. says.
“Is it that easy to trap a fire bug?” Urlick scowls.
I swat him.
“What?”
“You’re just jealous, Urlick Babbit.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes. That C.L. thought of something you’ve haven’t.”
“I am not.”
“You are too.”
He straightens his waistcoat, a telltale sign.
“Anyway,” C.L. intervenes, “the closer you get to the tagged subject, the harder it will be for the subject to move. It’s all part of the devices’ built-in magnetic pull.”
“Wait, what?” Urlick takes the device from me and studies it. “You mean to say, this device will actually bring her to us?”
“Drag ‘er right there. Or you to ‘er.” He scratches his head. “I can’t rightly remember which.”
“My, my,” I say, leaning in over Urlick’s shoulder. “hasn’t he just thought of everything?” I grin Urlick’s way.
“I just can’t wait to see her face when she’s captured,” C.L. says.
Urlick scowls. “Neither can I.” He turns to C.L., tight-lipped, his voice curter than it should be. “So, why didn’t you think of this before now?”
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