Waistcoats & Weaponry

by Gail Carriger

  A good thing, too, for Monique had taken a swing at him with a wicked-looking dagger. Her arm swooshed right over his head.

  The driver with the huge mustache, who happened to be near Sophronia, was concentrating on the controls and only half noticed the intruders. It helped that the noise was deafening so close to the engine—the hiss of steam and roar from the firebox combined with clanging cables and pistons.

  Monique hadn’t noticed Sophronia yet. Her attention was on Soap.

  Sophronia wasn’t really a killer. She’d never particularly enjoyed the assassination part of her lessons, but she couldn’t have the driver messing things up, either. So she simply tapped the man on the arm. “Pardon me, sir?”

  “Ho, there, lad, what are you doing…?”

  “I do apologize, but we require the use of your train.”

  “You what?”

  Sophronia grinned at him, very cheeky, in the meantime sliding around to his other side so he was near the open door and she was not.

  He was very confused.

  Meanwhile, behind them, Monique and Soap grappled, Monique hurling some very unladylike profanity at the sootie—what had she been learning among vampires?—and telling him he had no right, and to keep his dirty, nasty guttersnipe hands off her!

  A small young man tended the stoker’s box, the train’s equivalent of a sootie. Hard to tell if he was a hireling or a minion, but he turned to face the fray, attracted by the noise. He seemed befuddled into inaction, but he was armed with a large shovel. No time to think on him further; Sophronia spun in against the driver, bumping him.

  “What?”

  “Oh, my god, what’s that!” she screamed, pointing out the open cab door. There was real fear in her face, as if she were seeing a poltergeist.

  The driver turned to look.

  Sophronia shoved him with all her might. It shouldn’t have worked—she was too slight and he was too large—except that Sophronia nipped one foot out and behind his leg, tripping him up. The SOS maneuver—startle, obstruct, and shove—was a classic tactic in which Captain Niall had trained them well.

  Sophronia had never made it work before. When one was practicing, one’s opponent always knew the startle was coming. But the driver reacted perfectly, and as a result tumbled out of the train.

  She stuck her head out after. He seemed to have fallen harmlessly to one side. The train was moving just quickly enough that even a fit human couldn’t catch up.

  She yelled up to Sidheag. “Room for you now. Waiting for an invitation?”

  Sidheag dropped down and swung in easily, no finesse but no wasted effort, either.

  The girls turned to face the stoker.

  He looked from one to the other.

  Sophronia looked mean and scruffy and had just shoved his boss from a moving train.

  Sidheag was awfully tall and imposing.

  The stoker put down his shovel and put both his empty hands out in a pleading manner. “They hired me, young masters. I’m only along for the pay and the ride.”

  “Sidheag, if you would deal with this?” asked Sophronia.

  Sidheag looked the young man up and down. “Delighted.”

  She said, in her most commanding Lady Kingair voice, “You know, friend, I’ve always been terribly interested in the running of trains. If you wouldn’t mind continuing to shovel? I’m sure we can match your pay. In the meantime, if you could please tell me everything you know about everything, that would be topping.” And, because Sidheag knew well how to recruit a willing participant, she added, “Would you like a bit of kidney pie? We happen to have brought a few on board with us.”

  Sophronia went to help Soap with Monique.

  It was an awkward scrap of a fight. Soap was very conscious of his position in society, or lack thereof, and he was never one to strike a lady regardless of station. Therefore, he was trying to apprehend Monique without actually touching her anywhere indelicate or injuring her in any way. Monique was not correspondingly delicate. She had several more years of training than Sophronia and wasn’t half bad, even if she had left Mademoiselle Geraldine’s in disgrace. She was giving Soap a very challenging time of it, and she was armed.

  Soap was mainly dodging out of her way and blocking her from doing anything drastic. She spat curses at him, lashing out with her knife. Soap hadn’t drawn the letter opener to combat it.

  Sophronia reached into her pocket and pulled out the bladed fan. Time to test its paces.

  “Soap, if I may?”

  Soap glanced over at her in relief. “Oh, would you?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Only then did Monique realize who had taken over her train. She saw right through Sophronia’s boy’s garb to the oval face and green eyes that had given her so much trouble at school. “Of course, it would be you, wouldn’t it? Always messing everything up, aren’t you, Sophronia?”

  “That’s my sole purpose in life, Monique, to inconvenience you.”

  The two girls circled each other warily. It was close quarters in the cab of a locomotive, particularly with three fellows. Sophronia was confident that Soap and Sidheag would, between them, get the train in hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Soap take the driver’s station.

  Monique nipped in and slashed. A real kitchen knife, too, no pretense at some more upstairs-friendly implement. Although it did have a nice ivory handle.

  Sophronia whipped out her fan and shook off the leather guard.

  “Had that lesson, have you?” sneered Monique.

  Sophronia concentrated on the shift of Monique’s shoulders under her traveling gown, hints as to where she might move to strike next.

  “I never liked the fan. Too flashy,” said the blonde, nipping in again.

  In Sophronia’s experience, nothing was too flashy for Monique, so this must mean that Monique wasn’t any good with the fan. Sophronia had been practicing as much as she could since the first instance. This new one felt inexplicably natural in her hands.

  She spun it in against Monique, a fancy wiggle and shift.

  The girl’s beautiful blue eyes widened in horror. She backed up a bit.

  “Careful with that thing, Sophronia, you could hurt somebody!”

  “I thought that was the idea,” replied Sophronia, twirling the fan expertly around her wrist in a blur.

  “No, peewit, that’s my task!”

  Sophronia whipped the fan in, cutting away at Monique’s sleeve and nearly chopping the blonde’s hand off at the wrist where she held the knife.

  Both girls gasped: Monique at the narrow escape, Sophronia at the very idea that she had almost cut off someone’s hand. Shocking.

  Odd, thought Sophronia, that if Monique were a stranger, I’d have a much easier time hurting her. But because she’s a person I know, even though I don’t like her, I struggle to be ruthless. Do all intelligencers have similar scruples?

  They circled each other, a little more hesitant now.

  I could really hurt her. I’m better than she is. It was a frightening kind of power. Sophronia would have thought to find it thrilling. After all, this was why they trained so hard. But it was merely scary.

  Monique nipped in again, unguarded, aiming for Sophronia’s chest—her knife sharp and focused. Sophronia might be a better fighter, but she wasn’t as bloodthirsty.

  Sophronia ducked out of the way and slashed at Monique’s shoulder, cutting through the tightly stretched material there, above the older girl’s corset, leaving a wide gash. Sophronia had thought Monique would now be accustomed to pain, offering up her neck to vampires on a regular basis. Perhaps vampire bites didn’t hurt, because Monique dropped her blade and began to wail loudly.

  Soap and Sidheag turned, surprised.

  Sophronia kicked the knife off the train.

  Sidheag gave Monique a dirty look and went back to chatting with the sootie. She was shoveling under his supervision while he consumed kidney pie with evident joy. Apparently, that was just the thing to a
lter loyalties. It probably helped that Sidheag was genuinely interested in locomotives. Strange, for until recently Sophronia would have said Sidheag cared for nothing but Scotland and werewolves, with the possible addition of small dogs and cigars. Not that she’d seen Sidheag with either; dogs and cigars were not encouraged at finishing school. But one could easily imagine Sidheag with dogs and cigars.

  Sophronia returned her attention to the unpleasant Monique. She snapped her bladed fan closed in disgust. “I had no idea you were so weak!” I once thought this girl so very dangerous.

  Monique was petulant, clutching her shoulder. “It stings something awful!”

  Sophronia rolled her eyes. “Well, there you go, stay away from bladed fans. Oh, for goodness’ sake, shush! Here, let me bandage that up.”

  She did so, Monique fussing the whole time.

  “Toss her or keep her?” she asked Sidheag and Soap.

  “Toss,” said Sidheag, without looking up from the boiler.

  “I agree,” said the kidney-pie-filled stoker. “That one is rotten to the core.”

  “Keep,” said Soap. “She might have vital information.”

  “She’s just like us, educated to resist.” Sidheag really did not like Monique.

  “Still,” said Soap.

  Sophronia was tempted to tip the annoying female off the train, but there was no knowing how useful she might be as a bargaining chip, if nothing else. She narrowed her eyes at Monique. “Which would you prefer?”

  Monique shrugged, but her eyes slid to the door.

  That settled it; Monique was staying.

  They’d had lessons from Lady Linette in how to escape bonds, so Sophronia tied Monique’s hands above her head and then looped them up and over a protrusion on the outside of the doorway. Monique had to stand on tiptoe, occasionally swinging out the door and back again in a most precarious manner. That would keep her distracted from slipping her restraints.

  After that, it was a matter of ignoring the girl’s whining and learning how to run a train.

  Soap applied all his prowess as a sootie to monitoring gauges, throttle controls, and the brake lever. The stoker proved most helpful and most taken with Sidheag. Sophronia wondered if he saw through their disguises, or if he was merely the type of young man who preferred the company of other men. Whatever the case, he and Sidheag had formulated a relationship, even though nothing was left of the kidney pie. He was knowledgeable about trains in a way only a young man raised on the railways could be.

  They chugged along happily, stoking the boiler up to a nice clipping speed, one that made Monique squirmy and discontented, swaying back and forth. Sophronia left her to dangle for a good hour, to contemplate her choices in life. They all ignored her pleas and attempts at bargaining.

  Finally, they had to stop at a switch. Their young stoker friend explained the niceties of signaling. They waited politely at the switch for a local train to toot past them.

  There was a moment of terror, wondering if the train would stop to find out who they were and why they were running on a normally vacant track. But the other train sped by, showing no interest whatsoever and no inclination to stop. It was mostly second class and clearly had its own problems to worry about.

  If anyone saw Monique, a well-dressed woman of quality, dangling from the doorway, they apparently assumed everyone had difficulties in life and moved on.

  Sophronia hopped out to handle the switch under the guidance of the stoker.

  They were back on their way, hoping no other trains were due across that stretch of track. Had the vampires filed this journey with the appropriate offices? There was only one person to ask. Sophronia approached Monique as they clattered back up to speed.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Sophronia, cut me down, do? My arms have come over all numb.”

  “Riddle me this, Monique,” Sophronia responded. “How dark are your masters keeping this journey? Did they file it with the controllers, or do we risk our lives on every new stretch of track?”

  Monique would have shrugged if her shoulders hadn’t already been up by her ears. “That’s why they have signals, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a very lax attitude when hauling valuable equipment on an important covert mission.”

  Monique looked away out the window, past Soap and into the gray countryside. “Little do you know.”

  “So why don’t you tell me? What are you really up to? Why are you intent on sabotaging mechanicals? Is it only to discredit the Picklemen, or is there something else going on? You realize society would crumble without mechanicals?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve been living without their use for almost a year. I assure you, human staff are perfectly serviceable. Perhaps not quite so strong, but better able to follow complex instructions.”

  They were getting off point. “Why ‘Rule, Britannia!’?”

  Monique looked genuinely confused. “What are you on about?”

  Monique had either gotten better at playing dumb or she didn’t know that “Rule, Britannia!” was the song malfunctioning mechanicals sang. It hadn’t been named in the papers. Perhaps Monique was just executing commands without knowing the end result? But that idea didn’t sit right; something was off here.

  “How are you doing it with only one crystalline valve?” Sophronia persisted. “I thought the technology meant you would need one for each mechanical.”

  Monique looked confused again and shook her head. “I assure you, Mr. Smollet is perfectly capable of undertaking the necessary, with the system provided.”

  Sophronia couldn’t help feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes. If anything, Monique seemed as frustrated with Sophronia as Sophronia was with her. Monique would enjoy avoiding questions and being difficult, if she knew what Sophronia wanted. Clearly, she didn’t.

  Monique returned to griping. “Really, Sophronia, I knew you were thick, but how can you be on their side? Don’t you realize how dependent we have become on mechanicals? How lazy and slothful.”

  “For certain, Monique. I can certainly see you washing your own laundry. Making your own tea. Dusting your own china.”

  Monique almost growled. “No, you idiot, not that! Who controls the mechanicals? Who controls the government? We have allowed them too much power. We have allowed them too much control.”

  “Funny, there are many who say exactly that about vampires. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

  Monique actually squealed in annoyance. “And you have the wrong perspective. Let me down, you idiot, you’re going too fast. They are going to spot you.”

  “Who is?”

  Monique’s gaze fixed on the side forward window near Soap. “Too late,” she said. “Too late.”

  Sophronia, although she knew it could be a trick, turned to see what Monique was staring at.

  Out of the clouds, a little to the front of them, floated that same dirigible. Now it was much closer. It was sinking down, and it was heading toward them.

  “Outrun them,” advised Monique. “Get away now, Sophronia. Shovel coal as if your life depends upon it, because your life just may.”

  “Really, Monique, you can’t frighten me. Who are they, anyway?”

  “Flywaymen, of course. Who were you expecting, the British Navy? Get away now! They aren’t going to take this lightly, and they are going to think it’s coming from you, because I won’t admit to anything.”

  Sophronia only said, “I think they’ll see reason, if I explain myself properly.”

  Monique let out a genuine bark of laughter. “My dear, even you are not that persuasive. You do know what we have been doing, don’t you?”

  “Messing with mechanicals.”

  Monique shook her head. “Silly child.”

  Sophronia turned away, suddenly worried. “Soap, give her more power.”

  Soap was already shaking his head. “Another switch, we can’t risk it. We’re getting in closer to Birmingham and there’s likely to be more trains sharing the tr
acks, even on rural lines.”

  They had to stop at the signal.

  The dirigible moved inexorably down toward them. It floated out of sight around the front of the locomotive, so that when they started back up again they had no idea exactly where it had gone.

  Soap stuck his head out the door to see, swinging wide so most of his body was arched out, holding on to the jamb with a free hand.

  It had Sophronia’s heart in her throat, but she knew better than to call him back or express concern. Soap would never question her abilities; it wasn’t for her to question his. In this they understood each other completely.

  “Nothing,” he said, returning to his station as driver.

  Sophronia shoved Monique aside and did the same out the other door, swinging out not quite so much.

  Monique tried to shove Sophronia with her foot but was hampered by skirts.

  Sophronia whacked her smartly with the backside of her closed fan in retribution.

  The tracks began to curve enough for Sophronia to catch sight of…

  “Soap, brakes!” she yelled. “Those fools landed on the line!”

  FELIX VERSUS THE FLYWAYMEN

  Soap yanked on the brake lever. The locomotive screamed in protest. Sidheag’s eyes went wide in sympathy for the poor train. She and her little friend stopped stoking and began scraping the coals out into the grate in an effort to cool the boilers.

  The engine stuck out so far in front of the cab that they had no idea how much leeway they had before they crashed. They could do nothing more than slow the train as soon as possible. Sophronia was certain the wheels were sparking against the brakes.

  The train squealed to a stop well before the dirigible. The abruptness of the halt almost threw Sophronia out the cab door. She scrabbled for purchase and hoped Dimity and Felix were adequately braced. She must rely on Dimity to act the capable intelligencer, and Felix not to let his ego get in the way of sensible precautions. She had no idea it would be so challenging to depend on the abilities of others.

  No time to check on her friends; the dirigible was settling with the clear intention of disgorging occupants.